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okay i know i said a lot i'm just going to finish up on page 16. on page 16 the third resolution down we are approving cliffside park school district's emergency remote plan for 2020 2023 the governor and the department of education is still requiring all school districts in the state to submit a plan that's been pre-approved by the board by september 30th so um our plan is complete i believe i emailed the board a plan about a week ago when i finalized the plan i just made some updates i will send the board an updated plan but basically it's the same plan as last year and what it is is what happens if we have to go remote what we do as far as computers are concerned instruction is concerned a time schedule is concerned and so on and so forth and it is it does mirror the plan from last year uh and it will be posted to our website uh as soon as the board approves it tonight for parents to view uh just approving um or accepting the results of cusack which we spoke about uh we're aligning uh our curriculum we've done a lot of this already but we're aligning the 2020 new jersey student learning standards to cliffside park school district's k-12 curriculum we've made a lot of and i want to commend mrs calabrese and our supervisors they did a lot of work on curriculum over the summer uh i believe it's all posted up to the website yes so parents can look to the website for all of our updated curriculum and then as mandated by the state uh we're also providing high school graduation data from june of 2022 just briefly a number of students graduated 281 a number of students graduated under the substitute compensatory test process go competency test process ela and math the numbers are there um we did poor portfolio appeals these are for students who probably because of challenges due to language they were not able to pass the new jersey proficiency test so they have the opportunity of doing portfolio assessments or taking alternate tests a number of students receiving high school diplomas as a result of meeting alternative requirements for ieps eight total number of students denied graduation in 12th grade five due to failing classes and not attending summer school so we had approximately a graduating class of 2 86 and 281 students graduated five did not a number of students denied graduation uh because of failure of the park test and so on was zero so i think we did a pretty good job and you're going to see that also our high school graduation rate or percent is also going to show a nice increase this year as soon as we get that data from uh new jersey small and i'm up to finance mr alfano there's a couple items from gino thank you um we met with the board the work session last week went over all our capital projects the roof replacement high school office renovation the masonry they're going again pretty much according to plan i think if we look back eight or nine months ago when we took on all this work and where we are today i think we'd be very happy i think the good news by the time the students come in most of the major work the noisy work the demolition work will all be completed and we'll have you know roofs that no longer leak and we'll have a brand new uh administrative office in the high school we'll have new masonry we'll also prevent uh water infiltration in the schools which will allow us to potentially do some gym lobby renovation and some other cool team cool items out in the courtyard for the high school all our summer projects floors bathrooms you know the kind of the block and tackle work all are completed our orders have been on site the last week and a half for our 21 22 school year they've been here for five site visits this is unusually early they usually don't come in the summer they usually come towards the end of september but they wanted to come early we welcome them as i say about auditors the quicker you can get them in the quicker you can get them out and hopefully by the end of september we'll have an idea of our surplus and any findings uh i will then communicate that to the finance committee and the board and with those uh with the surplus we will then do an assessment in regard to what capital project we'd like to take on next spring and summer 2023 again we'll uh we'll assess the projects we'll meet with the finance committee and the buildings and grounds committee and then we'll bubble that up to the entire board and we'll prioritize based on the dollars we have available we've pretty much closed our 21-22 school year we've opened up our 22-23 school year and we are starting to work on the 23-24 budget and the first order of business of that in regard to the 2324 budget is assessing what we're going to do with our surplus and our capital money in regard to projects for next spring and summer so a lot going on but that's pretty much it mr eugene one thing i did forget to do is i forgot to ask for committee reports so i don't know if mr capano i know you usually speak about buildings and grounds if you wanted to add anything to what mr alfano spoke about thank you uh uh work session last wednesday and a lot of good points came up about the containers over at the high school and i know our building and ground supervisor met with joe rush in the borough and they were able uh wishes to move them to expand the courtyard and then being moved to a designated area of the the high school that is owned by the borough near the skateboard the park park and the only thing that the borough didn't ask is that we could fence it in to spruce it up and i believe that uh we had agreed to that and we'll take it from there but they are being moved in the courtyard now it's expanded where certain programs can be moved outside nice weather yeah so i think the uh the tentative date hopefully maybe october 15th that october 15th maybe the court you ought to be ready i know mr pinto ordered additional tables chairs so when the students are outside and the weather's nice they'll have a bigger area too thank you very much uh like lou indicated a lot of projects went on um based on my 19 years on and off this board happened to say this was probably one of the biggest capital improvement projects the board of education has ever undertaken in one summer major uh projects and uh you know our our facilities are old but they're in tip-top shape and uh we should all be commended on this board and uh from mr romagino to alfano for the great uh work uh budgeting-wise and also the upkeep of our buildings our uh custodians and uh staffs with the principals and teachers and supervisors should be commended because the buildings aren't great and great i'm sorry great position and welcome so that's pretty much it okay uh any questions or comments on the consent agenda before we ask for a motion to accept i'll make a motion to accept is that mr capano may i have a second if i may please second that mr tarabaki thank you okay i'll now take a motion uh mrs abreu um yes except i am staying on page 13.
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that's decrease of 820 that is a lot so i know that we've been talking about how our numbers are decreasing this just kind of gives you a comparison for it it's been a while but my goodness those numbers that's the third in that many years that's that's crazy but we're going to try to do whatever we can to take care of that and hopefully get those numbers going in the right direction all right so some basic assumptions that we use for the budget forecast so this is when we're trying to see what numbers we're going to need to project for the next year so the first one obviously efforts will be made to maintain responsible staffing levels for positions that are supported by the education fund those are our teachers those are our certified staff that are standing in front of our students we need to maintain those those levels the other thing a couple of things we've got utilities we were averaging about an increase about 10 percent i know uh there's other utilities that are increasing more than that that's one thing we've got to keep going we know those rates are going to keep going up everybody's all of our stuff keeps rising keeps rising property casualty insurance increased by at least 10 percent each year uh as of this past monday august 29th our abm remember that's the average daily membership are belly buttons has decreased by 16 students over last last year so the state does count twice a year september and february we're down 16 from last february uh dlgf department of local government finance are the ones that certify that tell us what we can spend and how much we're going to get so we are fortunate in our county currently there's a thing called circuit breaker and it's the money the property tax we don't get we are not impacted that much by it there are other school districts that are really impacted our estimate that the dlgf gave us that we have to cope within our formula for next year is 5 220 of a loss okay so we are very fortunate that we're not impacted that much we have other impacts thankfully it's not greater so now i'm going to go through those five funds that we talked about kind of give you a basic understanding as to where we're at so with each one of these funds what i'm going to do the first line talks about remaining approved expenditures and the second line requested expenditures let me explain what this means so expenditures we think is what we're going to spend this is what we are asking the state if we can be allowed to spend it so we have to uh play the mother mayonnaise with the state we have to say okay we have this much money sitting here in this fund and we're estimating to get this much more can we have approval to spend that money every government under entity has to do this so what we are going to do is the budget actually looks at 18 months so it looks from july to december of this year current year 22 and then we'll look at all of 23 all of those figures as to what's remaining this year and what we're expecting or asking for for next year to be approved to spend is involved in this budgeting process so currently our education fund has remaining of 1873 and then the request for next year of 21 480.
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was that page 13 yes mr capano yes mrs freda yes mr nadrew yes dr pompliano yes mr tarabaki yes mr yanuzi yes so move mr romagina okay i just want to make mention that there are a number of programs going on in september parent visitation evenings things like that so i will send uh some reminders out to the board uh next week after labor day weekend and september 28th is our next um open board meeting okay thank you very much uh motion to close okay thank you mr capano thank you everyone on the board thank you for all your support uh especially with all these capital projects we we appreciate it we know there it's it's a challenge and getting schools open and lots of containers and
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so here's the reason why some of these are still higher we have to ask for our best case scenario it's we don't build it based on what we know we have to spend because if we have opportunities to increase and increase our staffing and increase the things that we can offer these kids obviously yes if we have the financial needs we would love to do it the reason the budget comes into play is we have to have permission to spend that money so if we have only advertising adopted and given approval for our core and we need to increase it then we have to go back to the state as for additional appropriations there's money involved in that process and it's not acceptable we can't just oh we have money sitting in the bank account it's not that simple there's a process there's money involved that we would have to spend to be able to spend our own money so that's why we have some extra built in for the just in case so that's those are the remaining expenditures for this year and then the request for next year uh there is no levy and no rate because remember education fund is the money we get is based on belly buttons those counts so that's why there's zeros for the levy and the rate debt service these numbers are literally the amounts of money that we have to pay for the debts that we currently have so the first line remaining for july through december 2 62 671 that's how much i'm going to be paying out the rest of this year for the debts that we already have for next year the total for next year is 3 billion 903 595.
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again those are what we have already committed to that's what we have to pay is our bids the advertised levy and the rate we're asking for 4.5 million which will give us a little bit over and above what we need and then the rate just kind of calculates out to that so on this we as a rule always ask for a little bit above and beyond what we know we're going to have to get because the dlgf they work with the taxpayer they protect that taxpayer they don't let government units charge more than what they're allowed there's rules around how much you can have in that sort of sun they will bring us back down to the maximum of that path but we always want to make sure and ask on all of the ones we have for levy and rate we want to ask for a little bit of love and let them bring us back because otherwise we may lose out on property tax dollars that can go help fund the things that we need the next fund is our referendum fund so first thing that pops out is you see that our remaining approved expenditures for the last of this year almost matches requested for next year the reason for that i guess not almost matches the reason for that what we currently do with our referendum money when the money comes from the county and we put it in the money that's going to be spent on our payroll we pay straight out of that record and fund we do that normally towards the fall and we have not done that yet that's why we have such a large balance of what's left to be expended out of there we will take care of that this fall we always wait until things kind of get our checks drawn in from the county and we are able to have that money to be able to spend on our payroll and then we have to go into our systems and manually change numbers so where that money comes straight out of that referencing fund that's why we have that up there so we are requesting 2.1 million in expenditures for next year because if you look we have advertised we're going to advertise 12 cent ranked that is what we are asking our taxpayers to support to help fund our schools so when we do that it will bring in approximately 2.1 million on the levy so obviously we are going to request to spend the money that is brought in that is just basic that's pretty much all it is the operations fund this one is controlled by the state as to how much levy we can get levy is literally the money so what the state does every year we have our max levy maximum amount and the state tells us how much we're allowed to ask for to grow it this year the state growth quotient was five percent so what i did i took what our current levy is for 2022.
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grew at five percent and that's where we get the 5 million 553 425 the rate happens to uh calculate out to 0.372 on that on the expenditures we do have a decent amount remaining this is again where we have asked for permission to spend pretty much everything that we can fund within there that way we have emergencies come up where we have the approval respect last one is our rainy day fund like i said this one is just just in case so we have not spent anything out of it this year this is a fund where we have an unexpected expense and we're trying to figure out where we can get those monies from we have it available to us so what we're going to do is not spend anything out of it this year and million um kind of takes us to what we will have available to us for next year there's no level rate that goes in there the only time we have money go into the rainy day fund as if you have uh leftover that we've not used like out of operations we can transfer a small percentage into rainy day okay a few things to consider when we look at our budget remember it is 18 months 18 months that's a very large time span that's a lot of calculations there's a lot of assumptions when we go forward on those the final budget the final budget once again is your appropriations which is your mother may i may i spend this your levy and your rage all of those will be approved by the dlga the assessed value the av it has just been certified by our county i'm hopeful that it remains with what it is but it did grow again so that's going to help us we have some extra little revenues excise financial institution tax commercial vehicle excise tax local property tax and then lit we have some small little taxes that help go into those other funds to help supplement in education revenue we talked about is generated by our aem another numbers of belly buttons from kindergarten through 12th grade only goes to the education fund federal sources we are fortunate enough to have some amazing grants that miss debbie finds for us and helps us out tremendously uh additional state money transfers we just we stay within this is something i want to make sure that everybody understands so yes we have some money in our rating we need to also have an operating balance or our leftover at the end we want to have some cash left let's say in our regular check account um we use almost all of our money and our transmission loads we've got to have money we don't have it this is where we need to keep between 10 and 20 percent of our actual budget in an operating balance that's why we need to make sure and because they're responsible with the school has been but there's no reason why we're asking for this referendum these are uh the different advertised and actual certified rates these are total rates for the school district you can see the trends advertise is always higher than the actual because again we ask for more state brings us down to what we can be now 2022 if you see our actual rate is 0.6499 that's the total of all of our funds property tax on the bottom you'll see the little uh information i have down there knowing that we as a rule advertise and adopt above what our rates will end up being to protect ourselves um i still calculate my best guess and what the rates will be hopefully improved by the dlgf when i went through that um the rates would calculate out to 0.6455 that's our projected tax rate for 2023.
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if you look 0.6455 is less than our current rate of that is lower by 0.0044 this is including support this is including that 12-cent referendum range so if voters pass to support our schools and get 12 cents we still will end up lower than what our current wage is right now that is good this is our advertising there will be a link to our official advertisement that the state gives us it will be on our website it will show our information it's a link to gateway which is a website state uses they can look up our information the county their township anything we can look up any of them all this information will be on our website along with we have two other small papers cpf plan and just replacement plan those are those papers that are required by statute any questions okay we will have that public hearing on october 5th or your and with that discussion items none do you have a motion to approve the public session notes from august 18 2022 second any discussion welcome carol yes amy yes vicky yes i have the recommendation to accept a donation from an anonymous donor to brown county high school theater department in the amount of one do i have thousand mission to accept a donation from an anonymous donor to the high school theater department for a thousand dollars thank you [Music] i'm sure they will appreciate that dan will be very excited and with that carol yes amy yes vicky yes yes yes i have the recommendation to accept a donation from an anonymous donor to brown county high school track and field in the amount of one thousand to accept the dollars for the donation for track and field in the amount of one thousand dollars from a notice anonymous person a second no i don't run if you see anybody we're in trouble but i'm glad that somebody's taking care of that kid is out there and we appreciate that any other discussion carol yes amy yes vicki yes stephanie yes motion carries i have the recommendation to accept a donation from michael and jd lauros to the crc in the amount of three hundred dollars you have a motion to accept the recommendations accept the donation from the lyra's uh plan for the crc in amount of three hundred dollars thank you thank you thank you and we are very grateful to that any other discussion renee errol yes baby yes vicky yes stephanie yes i have the recommendation to approve an out-of-state field trip for the brown county high school spanish department to travel to chicago illinois november 4th and 5th 2022.
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do you have a motion to accept the approve the out-of-state field trip for the spanish department of the high school for chicago trip on november 4th and 5th this year i saw move it's not a second any discussion i love this trip i'm really glad this speech is continuing to do it it's a great opportunity for our kids to go see spanish culture and a big city agreed with that carol yes amy yes vicki and stephanie yes wishing sex i have the recommendation to accept a donation from mike's ministry to the way of the eagle and the development program in the form of a monthly donation ranging from 50 to 120 you have a motion to accept the donation from mike's ministry to delay the ego and development program for a monthly donation varying from 50 to 120 dollars something second any discussion what what is the way the way of the eagle is the student program that salisbury and mr turner um helped charged a couple kiddos with last year for increasing engagement and our extracurricular athletic events like at the football game they hit the table there and everything and they were doing stuff so which is pretty carol yes amy yes vicky yes stephanie yes but she carries yes i have the recommendation to accept a donation from an anonymous donor to the way of the eagle and the amount of two hundred dollars do you have a motion to accept a donation from the anonymous standards in the way of the eagle for [Music] yes i have the recommendation to accept a donation from the brown county community closet to the brown county high school cheer team in the amount of five thousand dollars to help cover costs of new year do you have a motion to accept the donation from the county community chest to the high school cheer team four five thousand dollars i still do and thank you that money i say any discussion um yeah the question is so is it um it's varsity and reserve yeah together yeah yeah awesome okay we're all one team that's great and we are definitely grateful for this yes and i'm sure the kids are too and with that carol yes amy yes thank you yes stephanie yes i have the recommendation to approve the resolution to furnish the transportation director and the maintenance director employed by the school corporation with corporation-owned vehicles to be used for school business purposes do you have a mission to accept the recommendation to approve the resolution for furnishing transportation director and maintenance director of the corporation corporation owned vehicles to use be used for school purposes preston any discussion yes i i would just like i am grateful for the um consideration of approval of this recommendation um it is vital that these two people in these positions are out and can start driving from their homes to be able to check roads when it storms whether it be rain snow ice whatever it be so um it makes a whole lot of sense for them to be able to just start from their house instead of having to drive international to pick up a corporation vehicle i i think it's really important in our transportation position and maintenance possession and we're asking them to do an awful lot of traveling and i'm really grateful they're the ones out there at 4am you know checking the snowy roads that's a really important part of the job and again also with the maintenance you know with eagle park over there and all of our different buildings it's ultimate yeah so i'm in support of it which also lets us know they're going to be safe going out of rotation too so that protects everybody carol yes amy yes vicky yes stephanie yes i have the recommendation to approve the out of state field trip for chris townsend and nine students to attend the international manufacturing and technology show in chicago illinois september 11-13 2022.
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uh do i have a motion to accept the recommendation for the field trip out of state with chris townsend and nine students to the international manufacturing technology show in chicago next month september 11-13 oh but anyway without trouble carol yes amy yes vicki yes yes um for the consent agenda items tonight i would like to be able to approve these separately instead of as a whole so i will start with the separations of brown county school bus driver cassie shipley effective immediately i have a mission to accept the separation of the west county of bus driver cassie cass cassie shipley effective immediately i have the appointment of the van buren elementary school eca positions for the 2022-2023 school year and we can approve this as one full group mandy austin instructional technology coach michael brown science full coach jill julia high ability coach tina robertson spell bowl coach michelle wagers mentor teacher and a netfields mentor teacher do you have a motion to accept the uh the nbr and pca positions for the 22-23 school year as presented i shall move a second any discussion thank you and with that welcome yes amy yes elementary school eca position for the 2022-2023 school year michelle joy and brenda eatley for math goal coaches which will split the statement the motion to accept the helmsburg pca position uh for the macbook coaches uh 22-22 seconds any discussion welcome carol yes amy yes vicki and stephanie yes what's your character hey the brown county middle school eighth grade assistant football coach ned walker group 12 1 278 type in effective august 9th 2022.
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do you have a motion to accept the middle school uh assistant football coach ned wanker with the statement of one 1278 effective august 9 2022 that we consider it what did that mean uh i believe the discussion around this position um has to do with something that they came up on a background check and i would like for the board to be able to have time to consider this before um approving for hire okay there we go um okay and so we have a first and second any other discussion on that all right welcome carol yes amy i'm confused about it you're a motion to take something today why don't we start over again carol yes amy yes thank you yes stephanie yes thank you motion carries the table they um uh this uh yes i am the appointment for brown county middle school after school supervisor anna m keys 14.75 cents per hour effective august 15 2022.
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do you have a motion to accept the uh recommendation for the after school supervising in mp 1475 per hour starting august 15th absolutely 12.25 per hour part time no benefits effective september 1st 2022 this is a new position do you have a motion to accept the highest uh recommendation for the high school part-time costarian katie underwood at 12 25 per hour effective tomorrow with no barefoots any discussion oh call your home yes amy yes glad to see them as our new employees i have the transfer brown county high school assistant softball coach jonathan sanders to brown county high school head softball coach four thousand one hundred thirty four dollar stipend this is a replacement for a lease back double motion to accept the transfer of the assistant software coach to head softball coach jonathan sanders second any discussion i do i'm going to kill this slider not for sure so i wouldn't put that on record i should provide an update okay okay yeah i i want to sincerely uh thank bernard and don ray this evening for their detailed informative presentations um our entire team is working incredibly hard for our students the staff and the entire school community at brown county it really has in the past three and a half weeks been so exciting to see what's ahead for us as a district so thank you this morning 25 of the brown county schools ambassadors came to the high school in this room specifically and spent two and a half hours learning all about our team our vision and mission for the corporation it was heartwarming to see so many community stakeholders come together and take a vested interest in the future of the schools our next meeting will be september 26th and our focus will be the business of educating kids so it will all be about business finance and we don't just have one large pot of money that we can spend however we want we will be able to talk a lot about transportation and what it looks like here in brown county food service and maintenance across the entire district so there's so much more than just a classroom and the school building so it will be a very popular event for us so when did you say that it was september what it is september 26th 26 which is a month it should be a wednesday um last evening we held our first new teacher induction meeting for all 18 new certified classroom teachers um i just want to thank our current our new teachers for such a successful start to the school year i want to publicly thank those who are being a serving as a mentor to all of our new teachers and then to everybody in the district who is absolutely going out of their way to ensure that our new staff feel good and they feel like they're part of the family van buren is holding an ice cream social um that is september 8th at 6 00 pm we are excited to see the van here and families and hope that everybody can make it [Music] um i wanted to be able to let everybody know the brown county schools website it's now featuring a get the facts um web page that is part of us our site that's about the upcoming referendum we do have a tax calculator on there that is live and the community is able to go right to that website and plug in their information to find their exact tax investment um i encourage everyone to go take a look let us know if you have questions comments or concerns that we can look at for you and then finally i just want to congratulate all of our fall athletes um these kids are working really really hard and learning all along the way um i want to thank our coaching staff and everyone involved that is ensuring that our fields our courts our courses are in great shape everybody's having a lot of fun and then our pulpit update um as of the end of the day today august 31st the number of quarantine positive cases across the district is that high school has nine the middle school has two and helmsburg elementary has one all buildings are at less than 0.00 that are reporting symptomatic so again we report those weekly um if you go on to the to our website the daily coded metric she still puts in symptomatic and number of quarantined currently that's daily that she provides an update weekly as well and that's all i have tonight thank you thank you all right thank you how about that do i have a motion to a joke bye
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oh [Music] um so we'll do uh we'll call the meeting order do a roll call um heather could you guide us through the role don't forget to say where you're at um yes and i'm going to record this on zoom it is already being recorded and aired by ctn but i always do this as a backup so here we go recording in progress all right and so roll call let me just pull up my list here we've got stephen not here jennifer allen yes from uh damn right france great sarah here from ann arbor right jeff here from ann arbor camilla you're from philadelphia rita you're annette harper alice here in ann arbor frank um here in uh eastport michigan adam i hear ann arbor council member breaks aaron ann arbor and council member dish is absent all right okay excellent uh with that we'll go ahead and move on to uh approval of the agenda and uh heather had sent out a link to the agenda that was posted on legistar any um any additions or changes frank uh i i would suggest i i uh that we have uh kind of a permanent until we're further along uh item on the you know the rfp there may not be any update but i think would be good to just remind ourselves where we're at and what we need to further accomplish and on our road to getting an rfp out would you like it is it sufficient to have it under the working group updates or are you asking that it be called out separately um i i guess i guess i don't strongly feel that i think if it comes up right you know each meeting under a working group that would be fine okay yeah heather's got it in under the one of the working groups right it's called out specifically so that's all right all right alan yes i i i would like a report on your uh meeting or efforts toward a meeting with uh the dda that was on for a while ago and you were trying to set it up so yeah i can do that yeah yeah i've i've met with uh the dda director twice now for coffee so i'm happy to report out on that i'll do that during member news if that's okay okay any other requests or changes and if none can we get a motion to approve the agenda um all right moved by alan seconded by frank um all in favor say aye all right you opposed all right thank you uh next is approval of minutes from last time those are linked in the agenda take a second if we're feeling good can we get a motion to approve those too i think we can move and then yes if we need to so i'll move the approval of 10 minutes second all right moved by alice seconded by jeff uh all in favor say aye aye all right all right are you opposed all right uh i think the next item is public comment do we have any members of the public health we do uh robert black we should be able to go ahead and speak can you hear me okay heather yeah all right thank you it's lovely to see you all again welcome back those that haven't been here for a little while it's uh i just love this group i have been reviewing the history of things for this group and the work that's been done long before you came into this even back in 1989 when the original library lot task force was going on talking about the future and how that evolved through the 90s and i led a charette in 2006 with some graduate students with danny kahn and others from the school of natural resources environment about this project and then there's some really rich history that showed up in 2010 that you've heard from alan and especially alice here i just want to do a shout out to alice if if you have time please go back and review the material that heather presented links to when you sent out the rfi it's really helpful ms ralph's lovely answers to questions that had been received by city staff back in 2010 are really helpful even today a number of features about the project that would be useful in creating an rfp even one i mentioned i know it's controversial but an elevated element there's something in there about that that could be very helpful in ms ralph's explanation there is extremely important even from experts like christopher alexander a pattern language and if you go back to even one other item that's part of the history that will help you with creating an rfp there's a very simple easily readable piece with pictures called 10 principles for successful squares from deep history around the world the piazzas in all the italian cities and beyond the comparable communities you have done these are the roots of that looking back like item number eight reaching out like an octopus has to do with moving through the little links past the seva and other things that were mentioned in other studies and then the last one on that one is number 10 called diverse funding sources it says a well-managed square is generally beyond the scope of the average city parks or public works department which is why partnerships have been established to operate most of the best squares in the united states you will hear some examples tonight later about a process of how you might begin to engage the private sector my contention for you is that you will raise a factor of 10 or more beyond the the public sector from the private sector and so that process will lead to an understanding of how the government's governance of this site should come about and more like that and then just as a last reminder for your own work tonight in the agenda uh resolution r-20-397 that formed the council of the commons actually lists your task which is the council of the commons is an advisory body to counsel right but it says it will build upon the work of the center of the city task force and provide recommendations for the public spaces on the center of the city block so don't wait for some professional to come along and tell you what they think you should do harvest this great work from the history of this put it into your own filter and then lay this out as a basis for a really useful rfp that will give you the very best results so good luck tonight and i look forward to hearing your uh your discussions thank you very much thank you robert any other members of the public um nobody with their hand raised okay excellent well welcome uh thank you and so we'll get right into our agenda here uh the first item on the agenda is a presentation on the initiating committee business plan and we have caitlin olmstead phillips who is going to be making uh the presentation there's two uh attachments you'll note on the agenda the first is on the business plan presentation and the second is on the business plan financials so i will turn it over to ms olmstead phillips and i asked her to introduce herself and tell us a little bit about what uh she is planning on and i think there are some slides or something for her to present so caitlyn uh floor is yours you are muted as well by the way you go we'll unmute thank you hi everyone thank you so much for having me and uh it's a pleasure to meet you um so uh an introduction is to my involvement in the project i was approached in the early spring as people in the parks environment within our family knew that i was seeking a project in ann arbor and that i would be able to dedicate some time and focus some energies on a project here in ann arbor for the next several years and someone suggested this project to me with my background and experience they suggested that this might be a nice fit and i might be able to add something so i have had the privilege of growing up in the environment with the olmsted family of engineers and architects who have been park developers and builders we're celebrating 200 years this year um so as we move forward and we're managing projects across the country there are many of us that have planning skills uh that we don't use and we pick them up along the way and have learned from what we call some of the best in the business and uh so i grew up in the environment of planning and developing public spaces however i'm not formally trained uh so i started a real estate business when the olmsted family donated our body of work as well as our private holdings to the national park service in 1979 at that point we decided that we were no longer going to produce planners and architects and that what we would do is protect that legacy going forward and so we've done that and continue to do that if anyone wants to follow the work that we've been doing over the past uh i'm gonna call it five years uh that project is called olmstead 200.
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they still use it foreign all right we can go live we're ready go ahead okay good evening welcome audience and students tonight met a new little student tonight so um can I have a call to the order and roll call please Dr Lopez here Mr Lewandowski you're Mr Carlson here Mr Hall here Mr poster move we adopt the agenda as presented second all those in favor can we please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance in a moment of silence of America thank you thank you item D is recognitions we don't have any tonight so we will move to item e board uh Communications does anybody have anything to share open up okay we'll move to remarks from the public first one I have is Mia parch Kendall Olson and Jaden avenetti is it always this quiet in here I'm sorry a little bit okay so good evening everyone my name is Mia parch I'm the student body president at Marana High School before we talk about how the spirit conference went and how amazing it was I'm going to let the other student body officers introduce themselves hi I'm Kendall the student body vice president and I'm Jaden the student body treasurer I'm sorry I'm reading off something for those of you that don't know our school hosted this year's aasc Southern Arizona Spirit conference and not to brag it went pretty awesome we had an additional 850 people in our gym last Thursday August 25th to start off we wanted to thank all the clubs at Marana High School that made this even possible thank you to coach Alyssa at Marana and Miranda cheerleaders thank you to coach Maya and the Miranda dance team thank you Miss Evans and Company dance thank you Mr atteberry and Miranda band Mrs brandrif and the Honor Choir they all performed and shown how great Miranda is thank you to Mrs knickenbrocker and Miranda sewing and fiber and arts Club for helping with our shirts and finally Mr Fisher and Welding Pro Charlotte Montague for making our Awards everyone liked them our maintenance stuff was amazing in moving everything around to help us host all those people and wonderful nurse Miss Cassidy who came over to help a visiting student who would also love to thank our Administration thank you Mr Villanueva for helping us plan this event even before the school year began also thank you Mr goligowski for all of your efforts while you were still our principal and even after moving to District you still helped us perfect the conference by speaking and representing our district foreign for coming this year and hitting the ground running as you moved back to our school and for your beautiful speech and spirit you brought to the conference and thank you Miss Reedy for speaking of speaking during the spirit conference it was amazing to have a former student body president in the house we truly appreciate everyone who made this possible there was one more important name that we didn't mention yet Senora Ewing our student council advisor thank you so much Senor Ewing for making this event possible without you nothing none of this could have happened and thank you to Senor Ewing for always picking us up food while we prepare for Spirit conference we really couldn't have done it without food I mean you I mean you I'm sorry to end off we truly appreciate everyone that made this year Southern Arizona Spirit conference beautiful thank you for your time thank you [Applause] Lux is Megan Brown good evening governing board senior staff audience members my name is Megan I am here as the vice president of the teachers union Miss Reina York couldn't be with us tonight um we wanted to update you on the PBP and that's on the agenda tonight um out of last negotiation cycle members brought forward that we wanted to look at the current PBP plan and so members and PPP leaders met with senior staff over the summer and we revised this plan together we're really excited for you to see it we hope that you adopt it we are most excited that it's honoring the work that teachers already do and not creating further loopholes and and goals to achieve rather than streamlining it together so we're excited about that and we also wanted to invite you to tomorrow night's event at Mountain View High School we're hosting the battle of the boot um 491 literature slam if you will so um Dr Streeter is coming to present at the lecture hall at 4 30 and he's going to explain 491 in depth um answer any questions you may have and then after that we're going to go out into the parking lot and share Palm cards with voters as they come in so it would be awesome to see you and we will provide dinner we the pack will provide dinner I am not cooking and um we'd be really excited to have you so I appreciate you and your support thank you thank you next item is item G superintendent comments yes Madam president governing board members members of our audience uh it's been a great start to the school year uh since our last meeting uh I have had the opportunity to complete all of my fall campus and Department updates that's visiting each uh campus each of our departments provide an update to the district on enrollment which is strong and continues to grow in in musd so it'll provide some budget highlights including some of the additional dollars that we saw in this last state budget session we're hopeful that the state legislature will continue to fund that as promised uh also talk about some of the legislative changes that will be impacting our classrooms give an update to our staff on proposition 491 what that is what those projects would cover gave an update to our staff on our school safety uh both our past work and the work that's taking place over the summer as well as our future plans and then spend a lot of time educating staff on the aggregate expenditure it which will be the number one issue that this district will face and as a reminder for folks the Arizona Constitution establishes the aggregate expenditure limit which limits spending for school districts Statewide and this limit is based on fiscal year 1980 spending levels plus 10 percent there is an adjustment for inflation and enrollment why this is going to be an issue is last year school districts went over the aggregate constitutional limit that was set in 1980 by about 1.2 billion dollars across the state and there's two main reasons that you're you're seeing us go over this limit one is we're starting to see the restoration of budget cuts from prior year so we have more dollars coming into the system and the second item has to do with proposition 301 which is the sales tax initiative previously that Revenue was Exempted from the aggregate expenditure limit but starting in fiscal year 22 when the state legislature reauthorized prop 301 that revenue is no longer Exempted from the aggregate expenditure limit so that now is pushing us over that that piece so we are hopeful that we will get uh some relief from the state legislature uh and and hopefully the state will allow us to spend the funds that have already been provided to the district so I'm sure I'll be keeping everybody updated as we go through the school year on this and the one last thing that I want to give a special shout out to our transportation department and specifically to Patricia cecina who allowed me to join her on her morning bus run back on August 26th we started out in avra Valley uh picked up many of our Roadrunner students and I was able to enjoy the ride into school with some of our best and brightest that we have so thank you to Patricia thank you to transportation and thank you to Roadrunner for allowing me to then spend the morning on the campus and this concludes my report are you the one that drove her into the ditch I do not drive the buses okay thank you next item is H consent agenda can I have a motion can I move the governing board to prove the consent agenda as presented second on the consent agenda I always like to give a shout out to people who donate funds to our school to our kids includes backpacks anything that is in need a Sarco donated twelve hundred dollars blue finch Bakery was a check for a thousand David and Connie Corbett trust check for 700 and Susan Holland a check for 500 so that's always appreciated okay all those in favor aye next item is eye and finished business there is none so we're going to move to item J you business Dr dumler yes thank you president Lopez vice president Lewandowski Dr Streeter board members and members of the audience as Megan mentioned this is the um the discussion and approval hopeful approval of the performance-based pay plan that was substantially revised over the summer through a committee that we formed in the spring with musd and mea leadership um the changes to the plan were informed by recent legislative changes as well as current research and best practices in school and District Improvement and research shows that substantial School Improvement requires a coordinated systemic and Collective effort rather than a series of individual events as you know our previous plan individual grade levels or departments set goals based on their own data but that resulted in many separate individual goals not necessarily all aligned towards the same purpose so this year's plan emphasizes the role of all teachers in musd engaging in professional learning and collaboration aligned with our three District areas of focus School climate and culture professional learning community recalibration and literacy practices in addition to the professional learning component there are also components for classroom level student achievement which is measured through the teacher evaluation system and also for school level student achievement as measured by the school letter grade ars-15977 requires that at least 70 percent of eligible teachers vote to approve the plan the plan was presented to our teachers via a screencastify that Ms York and I worked on together we then sent out the vote to approve or not approve to date 70-3 73 percent of our teachers have voted to approve three percent not to approve and the remaining teachers have not voted after maybe six reminders so it's attached for your review I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have okay I'm over the governing board approved the 2022-2023 performance-based pay plan as presented second is there any questions how about some comments So for anybody who's paid attention for 11 years this has been a p under my mattress and it's good now I mean the new one is good this is what should have been there 11 years ago when I got on the board that we could have you know moved ahead from from there over or from this over 11 years so you know I want to thank the committee thank Dr Streeter for for supporting the the revision to this revision isn't even the right word this thing has been re-engineered okay it Bears no resemblance to to what everybody struggled with for all these years and and um yeah I look forward to uh for many years to come for you know evaluating and approving the the performance-based pay based on the things in this plan so you know thank you to the committee thank you to the administration thanks for the teachers for you know supporting this and voting for it and and recognizing that that you know change needed to be made so this is awesome thank you I have a quick question Who is the PBB um appeals committee so if you look at the way that the appeals committee is established it's on the second to the last page so it's going to depend on where the appeals come from so if you look at it it will be an oversight committee it will consist of one District administrator to School site administrators and three teachers and the reason that it changes is that none of the people on the committee would be from the same school as the teacher who sends in the appeal so if there was a time that an appeals committee had to be formed then we would work with mea leadership to form that committee at that time thank you you're welcome I just want and absolutely what Tom said it's about time since it's been going on for years it is definitely solid so I hope that um we'll see some something at the end so it'll be good thank you you're welcome okay all those in favor aye next item is J2 and okay I would move the governing board removed agenda item discussion approval of superintendents 2022-2023 performance goals from the table aye aye um well that's I move the governing board approve the agreed upon performance goals for the 2022-2023 fiscal year school year second all those in favor aye next item is item K board member request for future agenda items do we have any no next one is future meetings and I don't think I have this on here on our next meeting is oh here it is our next regular meeting is October 6th and November 10th and December 8th we do have our other meetings that we do over at the technology every other week so that one starts earlier that's 5 PM so other than that item M the German second all those in favor all right thank you
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here thank you as we stand for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag it won't be the opening of school's meeting if the entire administration and staff was here today it's always nice seeing your smiling faces thank you for showing up tonight after i'm sure it was a very busy week um we have a few times the agenda is a very short meeting but a very important one uh before well actually yeah we're gonna go right into the opening of school reports so dr solem how do you want to do this get have a song in the audience or yeah it's up to you if you're probably more comfortable here it's pretty long but if you'd prefer to sit out there that's fine too um i'm just gonna go set up thank you right i'll set my all right well good evening uh thank you mr peregini and the board for the opportunity the this afternoon or this evening i guess to present uh our opening of schools report uh some of you who are more intimately familiar with the operations of the board no our chief operating officer mr maciana is not really good about taking vacation time and it was one of my goals this year to have him take more vacation time and you'll see he's not here this evening mission accomplished i'm off to a great start uh he's enjoying some time his uh daughter got married last week uh and so he's taking a little time this week so anyway uh mr maciana's operations team uh you can see the various uh departments there the the various services that they provide and they do a tremendous job appreciate his leadership in that regard and they've had really nine weeks over the summers this is their busy season preparing for the return to school that we experienced on tuesday really exciting day for our students our staff our community but over the summer they were engaged in a lot of work and most of the work that you saw or that occurred this summer is not stuff that's really visible to the greater community a lot of it's stuff like boiler improvements it doolittle and dodd or repointing bricks or masonry repair at the high school to to keep buildings from crumbling it's it's necessary to replace the masonry uh or the uh the i guess the putty between the the bricks uh the roof at dodd had become somewhat porous and there's a new 20-year roof that we were able to replace three large sections of the roof at dodd middle school what you are able to see is stuff like the parking lot at doolittle that was repaved several new parking spaces were added in that process to make it a little bit more comfortable in the parking lot there and re-striped as you can see we also replaced things like the basketball hoops at doolittle this is just a a shot of our painting and waxing that we've done across the district most notably the the replacement uh or an improvement at least of the gym floor at cheshire high school looks a lot more like our west gym floor at cheshire high school very nice surface for our kids to be in our community to be playing on this is the replacement of our scoreboard at cheshire high you may remember last year there was a a really serious windstorm in the late spring that took down the old board there and this is a much larger scoreboard for our community to enjoy at alumni field so with all those things in place we successfully launched on august 30th just a reminder for the board in our community that student meals will be free through state funding we project that to last through november but it will really be reflective of how many students are charged against the amount that we have but we like i said we have breakfast and lunch free through november at this point we updated a lot of technology throughout the district including flat panel smart boards and wi-fi upgrades again the wi-fi upgrade you don't see but it is a significant enhancement that our students and staff community will experience and then you know bus drivers uh have received a lot of attention over the last few years for the lack of drivers that a lot of districts have experienced i want to give kudos to our transportation team and the drivers that we have we're in great shape to start the year and we've had a very smooth start with respect to transportation another element that we're focused on is i know we've talked before about the mandated trainings that our staff have to receive we deliver a lot of that through a system called vector where our staff myself included log on and go through videos we have to answer questions throughout the video pass these different training sessions and these are mandatory uh and they're due by september 30th but we ask staff you know we give them a little time over the summer if they you know if you want to start now we release them in in august and already about 50 percent of our staff have completed all the maintenance mandated training videos and what you see there is only a fraction of them good portion but not all and it changes based on your role one of the new things that we're doing this year is extending our health and wellness resources i know that's a topic that's been uh discussed at past board meetings and how do we support our all of our employees in making healthy choices for them their family and it does support our bottom line with the insurance the cigna provider that we use they provide us a fair amount of money to provide little incentives and gifts to people who participate in these things like walking challenges and mindfulness activities and yoga and other health related activities that they offset gym memberships there a lot of different options for people and we do have a full-time health coach well dedicated to us and the town that we share so this year they unveiled a road nap to wellness challenge that as you can see on the screen has a number of different activities with the hope that you engage in this sampler of activities and find something that resonates with you and that you can continue and adopt bless you as a healthy part of your lifestyle and improve your health and happiness as a result those who complete this can earn gift cards and even a grand prize trip to a spa all again paid for by cigna as part of our insurance plan so other fun stuff that we have this year i have to show this or vin would be beside himself as the champion of our bowling league uh you see here you know bowl like a pirate knight cosmic bowling all these things that we've done now for seven years we've had bowling league through the cheshire public schools and it's a lot of fun we have a lot of participants that kicks off the 14th we also have a pinewood derby our third annual pinewood derby and uh kudos and thank you to tom leewock who facilitates that so staff members buy their own like wood derby set and some of us have their son who's into engineering build on their behalf but i don't want marlene to feel too uncomfortable so i'm just going to move on anyway um so different people you know win that we have a lot of fun it's it's live streamed on a saturday afternoon i think it's in like january february we do that so i'm going to pass it off to the aforementioned miss solano to talk about some of the things we did over the summer with respect to curriculum and instruction really sure i'll actually just speak from here because this will be short so this summer we had a lot going on in curriculum and instruction and one of the things that i think is worth mentioning is that in addition to the curriculum writing institute of which we had 80 teachers participating we also had some additional summer learning opportunities and we provided teachers with choice and the the crux of the learning was about embedding social emotional learning skills into academics and so we had a couple of options for teachers the first was to attend a two-day training by mike anderson who's an author and consultant nationally who use or actually internationally who you see on the right-hand side and that took place two days at dodd middle school for teachers who volunteered to sign up the second option was to take one of mike's online courses where you can select what grade levels and what topics you wanted to learn about and then the third was to do an independent reading or an independent study on one of these three books that mike has written and so we had 40 people attend the two-day workshop 40 attend the summer the online trainings and then 40 do the independent reading so all total we had 200 teachers participate in voluntary summer learning experiences through cheshire public schools so i we thought that was pretty impressive and are very proud of how our teachers are engaged in continuous professional growth and learning the next slide is a couple of photos from our curriculum writing institute you can see that we were at highland school and linda van wagenin who you've heard us speak of before was the consultant who both trained folks in writing curriculum from a backwards design perspective and also in making sure that the performance tasks were rich deep and engaging so there's our cheshire high school math teachers in what they set up as the war room and the faculty room of highland you could see that the soda machine there is covered in data and paper and all the walls were covered in that room they were glad to have that space to use for the week to keep their notes and and make some progress and then these last two are from dodd from the two-day workshop where you've got mike anderson at the front there and um it was not always that people were seated he had them up and around the library doing a lot of interactive and collaborative activities so there you go thank you marlene um so that was our kind of our summer recap and a lot of the work that we had done over the summer to prepare for the opening in schools which uh kicks off each year with our convocation uh this year we kind of did a playoff of stranger things if you've seen the television show and uh i thank you you could see chairman paragini there addressing the audience and we had a guest speaker as well coach darr and all of the speakers throughout the presentation really focused on um you know getting back to why we were here in the first place there was a lot of you know adjustments there were many adjustments that had to be made throughout the pandemic that were atypical and steps backwards if you will sitting kids in rows and unable to do a lot of group work and things that we rely on for students to push each other and engage each other in learning and problem solving and so we were able to make this adjustment and one of the things that i shared with the group was that last early in the summer we had our administrative professional development and it just so happened that the governor was in the neighborhood and happened to stop in on that and um talked about you know other states around america having their their resources you know they have maybe um some states rely on corn as their export or summer coal or um you know technology or you know that everybody's got some sort of different resource and in connecticut education is our resource we provide great education we leave lead at the country and educational outcomes and god bless you and everybody who's in this room whether bless you there be a parent administrative support board member administrator our students we have exceptional outcomes in cheshire and we really lead the way for our country in helping produce our students that are going to be the problem solvers for tomorrow and help lead our country uh forward and so that's really exciting stuff and as such we gave each of our our staff members a t-shirt and a special gift for our board members too who certainly play a critical role in that that process and providing great opportunities for our kids so we're thrilled to announce some award winners in this convocation exercise we do and jody dutchesson from doolittle school is somebody who gives all of her heart and energy to supporting kids and parents and our staff and we were proud to honor her as our para para educator of the year and our teacher of the year was uh chs english teacher don dimeo not only is she the cheshire public schools teacher of the year but she was uh just recognized in the days before our ceremony is a full bright honoree and so um we'll be sharing more information on that with the public next week so it's really quite an incredible honor having worked for with dawn for four years you know every day as principal at cheshire high i can certainly understand why she won that award and very deserving so congratulations to jody and dawn on their their incredible awards so our opening of school usually there's a little bit more runway between day one of school and the opening of schools report as i said school opened on tuesday so we know exactly who's showing up sometimes you're not really sure until that first day at darcy school uh it was it's always a lot of fun to see our youngest learners at darcy buzzing around with the sometimes wonder bewilderment excitement uh all the above and so they um we did see a little bit of an anomaly here in terms of our enrollment so we had projected three classes of 19 at darcy school we ended up of two with only two classes we made an adjustment and shifted the teacher that we had there uh to a school that had higher enrollment need i'll show you that momentarily but that's where darcy shook out chapman it was really thrilling to travel the district and you know see the upbeat students and staff and families that we had there's just so much enthusiasm coming into this year here we had a 20 classroom section scheduled with 366 total students as of tuesday we had 358 students enrolled so uh fairly close to projections there doolittle this is a really cool uh edition that we had it do little uh one of our families runs a business doing these really cool three-dimensional type signs that you can rent for your lawn or whatever and so a lot of folks were taking pictures to the welcome back to do little sign it was really cool um young man on the right in a bow tie looking really sharp for his first day it was very cool uh he called out marlene for being well dressed as well a little disappointed not to get a compliment out of him but say he's a better dress than the superintendent uh been helping one of our new students to do a little to find her way they do a great countdown at doolittle uh if you follow me on instagram there's a reel there where the kids count down happy new year and go into the building yeah uh kristen is now texting amy about submitting that photo they all enter through the basketball court all the students that are walkers and parent drop off so do little this is where we had made the shift from the additional teacher from darcy and our enrollment is actually uh 15 over projected at doolittle school so uh we have pretty robust enrollment there highland uh you may notice there's a brand new sign out in front of highland school so that's been updated and looks really sharp again the sign a lot of fun and engaging activities to welcome our students back to school on tuesday some really cute pictures to share with families we say that you know we take what we do seriously but we don't take ourselves too seriously because school should be a fun place to be and i think you see that in some of the photos here is where we've seen our largest gain over projected enrollment 40 additional students we had to add a section in sixth grade in a section in first grade highlands they are over their projected capacity so we did take a seminar room out of the library and converted that into a first grade classroom so we are feeling it at highland norton school really popular oh there we go i'm sure that'll drive kelly crazy because she goes to no end with the uh the entrance there it's always so much fun streamers and kazoos and it's such a fun environment an exciting way to start your year at norton picture she'll regret 15 years from now but there was such a you know having been superintendent for seven years and uh school administrator for i don't know another 15 before that to this year there was so much genuine enthusiasm and excitement to be back at school it was like nothing i hadn't seen before so it was really cool to experience on that first day here we had a little bit of a enrollment dip as well where we reduced the section in kindergarten and we were slightly under projected here too it died middle school is a little bit of a different animal but still a lot of enthusiasm the projections there over uh where actual is over enrolled again but we're still doing well there pretty obviously very close to the projection like most schools cheshire high kicking off senior year the green shirts are our link crew the leaders kristen pells and a a group of dedicated staff at chs train our students to be a resource for our freshmen and if you have a question if there's something going on find somebody in a green t-shirt and they'll help you and anybody would help you but they have familiar faces because for our orientation the link crew leaders lead the orientation process and get to know some of the freshmen who maybe they may not have met already our cheshire high enrollment again very close to projected so our overall enrollment summary is uh fairly close to projection uh we had projected across the board 4 170 students we have 4 195 students overall and you can see in the far column the the net over or under projection which leads me to our strategic planning initiative this really shouldn't be anything that's new as um we began the process in august of last year but uh the mission statement of the district it continues to be preparing students to be inspired to be lifelong learners and providing service to others like i had talked a little bit about the way that we prepare kids to change the world is is really exciting um thinking today about katie stack morgan a recent chs grad who was designing the mars rover space mission as i was talking to julie barker the science department chair at chs the strategic planning initiatives uh really we started the process of designing strategic goals back in 2000 but the most recent iteration of the 16 goals was identified in 2011 and it was a 10-year plan and we realized in 2016 that most of those initiatives had been fulfilled we reviewed by the cheshire strategic planning initiative committee in 1617 and at that time the board decided to sharpen focus on complex thinking and social emotional learning and we revisited that process through we also had previously reviewed through the personalized learning task force back in 2018-19 school year our performance standards and made these revisions that the board had adopted that year so overall we reviewed that package this year some of the old taking a look at those old 16 initiatives that were identified the personalized learning task force work the um the uh complex thinking and social emotional learning work that we had done and met with stakeholders from around the district you'll recall we uh at the board level discussed this at a retreat last august then i met with every pto group throughout the district uh teachers parents students students at buildings during the year and ultimately the administrators to pardon me guys the goals the focus from the feedback was that we should continue the work we've been doing along social emotional learning but perhaps defining on an annual basis some clear goals so here are some of the strategies that we're using right now this year around our social emotional learning strategies marlene talked about embedding some of that social emotional learning into our instruction so for example um you know it's not uncommon to just tell kids to peer edit or work in a group um and hope they figure it out and there is some of that but some of those uh you know that peer interaction is a skill how to compromise how to do these things is part of a skill and so there might be a mini lesson on that before you say work in your group problem solving skills through physical education class marlene was telling me about a lesson she saw today in pe that really reflected this well where the teacher asked students at the elementary grades about where they experienced conflict give me an example and every elementary administrator will appreciate that the first um suggestion was playing kickball at recess right you know who was he out was he safe was she you know there before the ball all these things and they talked about different strategies to solve problems as part of the physical education activity that they were doing and it was integrated into the class and so you know trying to build in those skills uh to be better problem solvers and and uh self-aware and recognize that i'm getting worked up over this maybe there's a different way to solve the problem are some of the things that we're talking about integrating um so being conscious of teacher language is another thing that you know marlene highlighted from her summer work but that goes on throughout the year in identifying some of the purpose and learning tasks for example using intrinsic motivation over external motivators my friend and former boss don willowness you know would remind me that we're not training barking seals here um and so how do we support kids to be enthusiastic about the work they're doing and of course teen mental health first aid uh that is being integrated for our sophomores at the high school complex thinking again how do we really focus ourselves on supporting kids and teaching them to have complex reasoning inquiry problem solving skills and the exploration of ideas if we can help our students be good at that through the research we reviewed with the the ptos and uh the different stakeholders we know that our kids will be successful i mean we went back and looked at uh some of the mckinsey reports and think tanks that identify working with leaders from around the globe what skills will make people successful in the 2030s when some of our students will be graduating and so the ability to do these things are really pretty critical and how do we help teachers become better at that and we engage in learning walks which we're really looking forward to being able to have our staff re-engage in uh this year to see other people delivering hqi and that's an acronym for high quality instruction and so our our staff have worked on defining what that is and that's in our our packet as well and how do we make sure that there's consistency of integration of those things in our classrooms every day so the dividends of our work that we've been focused on you know social emotional learning and complex thinking and we're really proud of the success our students and staff have had we had the 11th best smarter balanced performance in connecticut for k-12 districts that was just released last this not friday this past friday but the friday prior um a lot of our folks in here all know the language derby that's different district reference group that's districts that are similar in size and community uh complexion to cheshire uh we were second there just behind greenwich uh and we're proud that our um performance for our students that are identified for support services is 12th in connecticut uh we had the third best performance in durgby for students that are identified for support behind fairfield and simsbury and so we're really proud that all of our students achieve at high levels uh in the on the s.a.t we went from 17th in durgby on the s.a.t last year to 12th this past year our niche.com rating you know that's not the greatest indicator but it is a tool that a lot of folks use to access you know how is a school district performing if i want to move here they look at the niche ratings and stuff well we went up about 100 places from last year to 345th in america so it's a nice acknowledgement and then we also i can't tell you who and how many because the information's embargoed until the 14th of september but we had several students identified as national merit scholarship semi-finalists now there are 1.5 million students who take the psat and 15 000 uh or so are identified and invited to apply for pretty nice scholarships and so we have several students at chs who met that criteria which is really phenomenal to have as many students as we did and i'll update you again once that information becomes public i mean certainly we have other really cool stuff that happens in individual accomplishments like um we had a student this week on um oh gosh what's the tv show marin america ninja warrior this morning we had another student who had coaches at his front door at 6 30 in the morning because he's the number one ranked lacrosse player for the junior class in the united states and getting offers from some top-tier colleges this morning so we want to be able to provide well-rounded opportunities for our kids and we're really excited about the success that they do i mentioned the mars rover it's hard to get better than an astronaut kind of thing at least a scientist at that level if not an astronaut so anyway uh student achievement at the high school this is just a visual representation uh table representation of what i just shared with you with darien coming in at the the top spot for their performance but um see cheshire was 26 there with our three through eight achievement um cheshire you know tying with madison for 11th uh greenwich just slightly above uh in ninth place two two districts team tied it ninth there so this is overall achievement i think one thing that's notable when you look at the school districts above us the average per pupil expenditure is about five thousand dollars more than our per pupil expenditure if you multiply that out by our 4200 students it's 21 million dollars in change and i know there's a fairfield county mark up there even if you call it 15 million uh six million dollars on our budget that's there and uh i say that is a badge of pride that um what we're able to do as a community um with the ample resources we have for our community is provide great results and so that's that's pretty impressive um again you know i talked about the success for all learners you can see some of the districts uh here and where they shook out with respect to the special education performance 12th again tied with madison and these you know reflect some of the highest rankings we've ever had so really proud of our our team and the success and it's a commendation to the board and the community uh certainly our students and teachers and administrators for the hard work that they do to to find that level of success so my recommendations with respect to the uh strategic goals that we've identified you know the the performance standards with the social emotional learning and complex thinking a few points that i would want to make there one is uh the you know in the past we had adopted a 10-year plan and i love the justin trudeau quote i know you've heard me say it before but the pace of change isn't will never be is slow again as it is slow again as it is today uh to paraphrase uh it's always uh increasing the rate of change 10 years was too long in 2011.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
okay okay good eating it's uh 5 00 p.m and we'll uh call this Apple Valley Unified School District regular meet to order at 5 pm on September 1st uh with that I'll do a roll call vote I mean I'm just a roll call present uh Dennis Bender here Christopher Nunez here Maria opara Wilson so yeah and Rick Raleigh I'm here uh Maria could you lead us in a pledge please George I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you guys okay moving right along Kylie we have any public comments pertaining to closed session only I have one related to item B6 okay foreign I'm going to go ahead and just read what we're going into closed session for and then I'll I'll have the speak speaker come up so first item will be people ex Personnel expulsion case ar1223 ar223 and revoke exp 22 2122 item two Conference of litigation government code section 54956.9 subsection a current litigation seven cases one nine zero seven one seven two two zero one one one eight three two zero two two nine five six two zero two three three six six two one one one three oh three two two zero eight zero one nine two two zero seven three zero zero government code section 54954.5 subsection C five four nine five six point nine subsection d and E subsection one anticipated litigation three cases 2020 2105 2021 2208 2021 22 13 government code section 54954.5 subsection d anticipated litigation one case Dempsey Jacqueline item three Public Employee discipline dismissal release reassignment transfer leave title certificated and classified employees item four Public Employee appointment regulation retirement reduction title certificated and classified employees item five conference with labor negotiator agency negotiator Dustin Conrad B employee organization Alpha Valley Unified Teachers Association item six conference with labor and negotiator agency negotiator again Dustin Conrad employee organization California School Employees Association item seven conference with labor negotiator agency negotiator trenet Nelson B employee organization unrepresentative unrepresented eight conference real property negotiator government code 549-56.8 negotiation parties Matthew Schulenburg Apple Valley Unified School with that before we called motion to go in a closed session I'll call on I believe is it is it Kim Kim Calvin and this is on item eight I mean B6 I'm sorry um good evening everybody I have two things I'd like to highlight this evening uh first I would like to thank you for the direction you provided for negotiations your direction indicates the level of consideration given to the Recruitment and Retention of classified employees the combination of these decisions and our pending salary study implementation results will have a positive impact as a result of the insurance cap increase there are only eight employees who are currently paying a minimal share of cost for Health and Welfare premiums for their family this is a wonderful result as someone who resents represents a large team with common goals of the district stakeholders of all district stakeholders we believe there would be tremendous benefits from an investment in ongoing student management and safety security training a number of employees have noticed they would be more successful in their roles with this kind of support currently employees in these roles are given descriptive instruction on how to handle student management challenges with ongoing support from the board through annual Investments of this nature we believe there would be a significant reduction in student to student student to teacher and student to employee confrontations I have five grandchildren in our school system and their success and safety is of great importance to me as it is to all parents ultimately the success Safety and Security of all those on our campuses is Paramount to all of us moving forward if you could give this concept due consideration it would be appreciated thank you for your time and please enjoy your holiday weekend thank you Kim appreciate it okay Kylie was that uh no other further cards for closed session no no okay thank you all right with that I'll call for a motion to go into closed session of a motion by Maria a second by Chris all in favor all right any opposed during them that'll be the order so uh we'll be back no later than 7 pm foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you very much thank you very much thank you period thank you very much thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you very much thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you very much thank you very much thank you foreign thank you very much thank you okay if everybody can um we're back from uh closed session I'd like to call this uh meeting to order at 704 pm and with that um we've called a meeting in order with that or like a moment of silence um at this time I'd like to pause a family member David Killian had passed away so with that if we can just have a quick moment of silence please thank you thank you I know that was kind of abrupt I just threw that out there but that was the way the order went on the agenda so before we go on I'll make a few comments about Dale he was at Apple Valley High School for 18 years our family my family and all that we grew up on the Colorado River and um our dads worked for the railroad and in 19 and early 70s he came to Apple Valley High School as our vice principal he's one of the finest Vice principals I ever worked for and he was hired by Tony balsamo a lot of you in here don't know who the balsamo building is named after but Tony was a six foot four 240 pound Italian survived the battle of Okinawa and when he told you to do something and he hired Dale Killian and we always said Tony was The Godfather and Dale was a hitman and that's the way it was he could have played Luca braze in the movie The Godfather what he looked like but anyway Dale believed in having good teachers and a clean campus and good discipline he had three children that graduated from Apple Valley High School his oldest son David went on to become a urologist Debbie is a teacher at Granite Hills High School and he has a boy he never called him his son his boy his dentist who's a teacher at Apple Valley High School and I just like to say that uh it was an honor working with him and he will be missed thank you thank you Dennis for those uh kind words for Dale thank you all right well look we're gonna move right along so this High Desert Premiere Academy ready to go Angelique Daniel you're up [Applause] this is a tradition we do every board meeting we have someone to come and speak on behalf of the schools and welcome Angelique thank you all right good evening board president Royal Raleigh esteemed board members superintendent Nelson and executive cabinet my name is Angelique Daniel from High Desert Premier Academy and it is my pleasure to be here today to present to you some updates and accomplishments of our school before I begin I'd like to introduce our new staff we have honored or we are honored to have six new staff members which include two new counselors Mrs Naylor and Mr Serrano two new teachers Mr M Gonzalez and Miss Boykins and two new classified staff Miss Sam Marcus and Mrs Rodier they all fit very well with the culture of our school to start off September is attendance awareness month hdpa is putting an emphasis on attendance by acknowledging students with increased attendance through the month we've had an increase in enrollment this year and there are many new faces on campus I am proud to announce that our graduation rate has increased by over 55 percent in the past two years not only did we have an increase in enrollment in graduates our high school independent study program has an upsurge which caused us to add an additional teacher there on August 24th we had our back to school night and it was a great success many stakeholders coming out to support our school and we were extremely happy to see Maria Elena our bus driver on Route 22 from Granite Hills there to join us that evening it was a great showing of The District's pillars of dignity Community authenticity and service this shows a huge increase in Parental and Community involvement at High Desert Premier Academy with that being said we'd like to give a big shout out to our new behavioral counselor Mrs Naylor she's doing an amazing job keeping up with our new Wellness Center and she has been running groups and going to classrooms to provide SEL lessons at this time I'd like to acknowledge our new after school activities we have an Esports program for kids who enjoy gaming and after school Arts as well speaking of art every Thursday we have the high desert Riders club come to our school to share art and writing ideas our students are learning new and exciting things in art we started off by learning the seven elements of art then we moved on to design Theory healing with neuro graphic art 3d optical illusion paint pores magazine collages and more more to come High Desert Premier Academy will host an art contest in the NPR the board and trustees will be invited to be judges at this event to give you all the chance to experience the beautiful art our students have created I'd like to close with how excited I am for the rest of the school year just in one month I have noticed significant improvements and changes at our school I am looking forward to seeing what other activities hdpa will be offering this school year thank you for your time [Applause] well he did very good you were the first student speaker for 2022 school year and uh you did you you kicked it off good so up next is Granite Hills and that's Ashley Guzman [Applause] evening board members superintendent Nelson and attendees my name is Ashley Guzman Granite Hills 2022-2023 School year governing council president and representative this first month has been set as a great start in high standards for the remainder of the school year even though students had to adjust with the newly implemented two lunch schedule due to the overload yet overjoy of many new students at the end of last school year we had a group of upperclassmen leaders sign up to be a part of our link crew in order to help the incoming freshmen since we can all hopefully agree that it could be difficult having to adjust to a new environment we later in July had training and soon met up with the freshmen at their orientation where we played games gave them advice had lunch together and even gave them tours of the campus we got great feedback during our back to school night last Wednesday for many parents that link Crews actually helped the Freshman feel good about being on our campus we held back to school night outdoors this year which gave freedom for the parents and teachers to talk about feeling too sorry to talk without feeling as though they are on some sort of time constraint we also received good feedback on that as well as it was nicely attended in an overall relaxed evening similar to how relaxing asb's first event senior Sunrise was many seniors attended in order to watch the sunrise on campus together with all of their friends ASB has also been busy putting together more recent events such as our first beer week of the year with lots of Highly requested spirit days such as the Little Miss Mr MX Trend where they put onto their shirts things that suit them with the phrase put in front for example I would be Little Miss busybody due to all of the events I've been a great part of planning posters I'm making going to work and taking VVC courses the spirit week has been accessed so far and tomorrow we will be holding our first pep rally of the year which is Circus themed we have selected many on-themed games and will even be announcing the theme of the homecoming that the junior class of 2024 has been hard at work on the fall Sports will also get a chance to announce themselves and how great they have been doing speaking of which our football team has won both of the games so far and will have a game tomorrow their first home game will be next Friday on the 9th and we are going to use that as an opportunity to have the link crew hold a tailgate with the freshman class so that they can have a feel of what football games are like and so they didn't know what to expect and will hopefully continue coming to games cheer is one of our largest programs we are very thankful for all of their efforts such as how they show up to all of our events our girls tennis team is off to a good start at three to one and League starts next week so hopefully we'll get to see them win another league title oh volleyball is up to a 500 record and we even beat Apple Valley High which nonetheless competing with our sister's School created a fun and exciting environment our cross-country team starts this season their season this Saturday and we have grown to have up to 35 student athletes to join although water polo won't officially start for another two weeks we are very excited to see how they perform and start competing again we require for our students to maintain a 2.0 average with no F's in order to compete in our Sports and with academic warnings going out this weekend we offer after-school tutoring in the library go to give support and help so we can ensure everyone performs well in the classroom tutoring is done by teachers who offer to stay and other students who volunteer going back to current events we want to emphasize the fact that September is National Suicide Prevention awareness month and we're encouraging all of our students to wear purple or turquoise in order to support those students who do wear either color on the 7th have the opportunity to enter a raffle where they will be announcing the winner next Thursday on the 8th this event is sponsored by our on-campus mental health clinic which has been utilized a lot by our students especially these past two years with on the 7th we will also be holding our club brush during lunches so that students can see what clubs Granite has to offer and students can get more involved with that being said the students have been very hyped up showing lots of susque and even our sports teams are booming with success I want to thank you all for your time this beautiful Thursday evening and always remember maroon and gray lead the way thank you ladies very good Apple Valley Hi Cheyenne Valentine you're up [Applause] [Music] one second good evening members of the board and attendees my name is Cheyenne Valentine and I'm the avhs ASB president this year to start off I would like to discuss some of the events that we've had so far the week before school start consisted of our registration days which is where students are able to pick up their schedule get their Chromebooks and fix any complications necessary before the first day of school uh the next event was our freshman orientation during this students in the class of 2026 and their families are are able to visit the campus for the first time and are introduced to many activities that they can participate in throughout the school year uh the biggest thing at Apple Valley high school or one of the biggest things is getting students involved and making sure that they feel welcomed at freshman orientation we want to this is one of our goals here and they're able to see some of the events that they can be involved in as well as clubs and extra extracurriculars um our next mate or sorry uh after school started our first major event was the back to school night this year we had an amazing turnout which allowed so many of our students to be introduced to how they can be involved during the club rush and they can also connect with their teachers during classroom visits next up I want to talk about our Sports so far our volleyball and football teams have begun their Seasons as well as tennis and we've have found the community support to be amazing next week is our bow week which is one of the biggest Spirit weeks in our school and uh we're gonna have spirit days pep rallies and other activities to raise school spirit in the game the bell game will be next Friday and it's going to be away at Victor Valley High School we hope to have our student section full as well as support from our community which I don't doubt we have so many other after school programs starting up as well such as tutoring enrichment Esports and other various extracurriculars to ensure that students are able to participate in all of these amazing activities that I've mentioned so far avhs has implemented a beat this week program this will call students to get to every single class on time every single day Beyond just being able to participate in these activities there are also being rewards given away to these students with no tardies such as dance tickets ASB cards and other various prizes so to end our school year has been so far or sorry our school year so far has been full of nothing but excitement and support from both our students and Community the Sun Devil pride is evident on and off campus which is exactly what we need we're going to continue to look for new ways to encourage this spirit thank you for your continuous support and I look forward to all the amazing things that avhs and the rest of the district will accomplish this year thank you Cheyenne well we got some good speakers this year so we'll be looking forward to hearing from the rest of you in the next next board meeting so thanks so much for your um for your time all right moving right along reports Union Representatives the California School Employees Association CSEA do we have anybody here to speak okay uh Apple Valley Unified Teachers Association of Buddha Karen you're up she was hoping that they didn't show her up but they did they did okay good evening everyone teaching is not a job it is a lifestyle it permeates your whole life we have some amazing teachers in our district that are beginning to dedicate their lives to this profession and we have those that have that have and continue to dedicate their lives to this profession they dedicate it not only to our students but also in collaborating with and mentoring their colleagues we the Apple Valley teachers do our best to educate and meet our students where they are what I want to focus on tonight is the we we are the we the we should include all of us in here in this room this evening even the students in the room tonight should be part of the we are all Educators we all get to work for or with the students but there is no but in this speech tonight I challenge all of us in this room tonight to be part of the we challenge all of us in this room tonight to accept the others in this room as part of the week lip service will not do it if we really want to make a difference if we really want to build a better community if we really want to inspire others if we really want the respect that is part of a positive working relationship then we have to start by being part of the we without the we it's Us and Them this is abusd we've seen how the US in them plays out I for one want to be part of the we I want to be able to say that we educate that we support one another and that we truly care about the well-being of each other I want to make it clear that I am standing here this evening representing every teacher no matter what year and their career they are my goal here tonight is to focus on the need for a salary that is fair and gracious to every avusd teacher there is some type of economic burden at every level in a teacher's career the teachers entering the profession whether it be their first year or fifth year struggle to make ends meet and are adjusting to their increasing Financial demands we've all been there the teachers in the mid-career are still paying student loans have families that are raising school age as well as college students and have single-family households the more bettering teachers are not only caring for their own children but also for their aging parents as well the abuta negotiation team has seen positive movement in the negotiations to help with these Financial burdens even so there is more work ahead to ensure that all a b USD teachers feel valued and compensated for the years of service they have invested in our students communication and collaboration are essential to avoid continually repeating the same ineffective process over and over we can make this work we have the power to make a b USD an even better place to be I ask that you join me in this together we can make avusd the number one teacher the number one place where all teachers want to be in solidarity Karen [Applause] thank you Karen all right we'll move on to closed session reports of the clerk Dennis Bender will uh report yeah you're all done you need to get out of here but you did do an amazing job see ya see you next month I'll get through this quickly it's like the chapter out Gideon's Bible here we'll get it in closed session the Board of Trustees took action in support of the following recommendation approve the memorandum of understanding with the California school board employees Association regarding a 10 increase in total compensation and the introduction of a supplemental retirement program on a motion by Wilson so seconded by Chris Nunes on the 5-0 vote it was approved in closed session the Board of Trustees took action in support of the following recommendation approved the memorandum of understanding with the California School Employees Association dated August 18th twenty thousand twenty two regarding an increase in hours effective September 1 2022 on a motion by Maria seconded by Wilson so it was voted in 5-0 the board took action on a memorandum of understanding with the California School Employees Association regarding an increase in hours effective Uggs first 2022 on a motion by Wilson so seconded by Maria apara and the vote was 5-0 conference for the labor negotiator on a motion approve the memorandum of understanding with the California School Employees Association regarding an increase in work days for the nutritional service warehouse assistance on a motion by Wilson so second Again by Maria it was approved 5-0 Mr Bender I was going to jump in after you read the ratification from CSEA um on the increase that you um just read a few minutes ago although there was a ratification of the agreement we did negotiate with them on August 30th and we have reached an enhanced tentative agreement which must still go through csea's ratification process if their members ratify the enhanced tentative agreement you will see that at the October board meeting as we have posting requirements of ab1200 but we are um believing that we will be bringing you another settlement agreement with them [Music] got one more readout this will make some of these cops happy to approve the compensation increase that was CSEA that would make the police happy to prove the compensation increase of all unrepresented employees certificated management School registered nurse exempt classified management non-exempt classified supervisory and credentialed employees confidential employees over a two-year period by a total equivalent of 6.5 percent salary increase 16.5 excuse me left out of one the motion was three to two motion was made first of all by Maria seconded by Chris and the boat was 5-0 that's it okay thank you Dennis um since we're speaking of negotiations it's my understanding that the Public Employee Relations Board has ruled that an employer can communicate their proposal directly with all employees after the share after it has shared The Proposal with the Union speaking on behalf of the board as board president um is that correct attorney yeah it is okay yes for transparency we the board would like abusd's lead negotiator Mr Conrad to send all certificated staff members the offer provided to the Huda negotiations team which occurred on Tuesday August 30th to provide detail to the offer and that will go uh go out at the end of meeting tonight and Dustin would you also briefly State the total compensation which has been offered by kbusd to uh not used to turn the mic on uh sorry um yeah twice a year we do currently have a proposal on the table in excess of 16.5 percent over two years the offer does include percentages applied directly to the salary schedule um dollars put toward Health and Welfare to both um you know increase the district contribution well reducing the employee out of pocket and and a third component that takes a calculation to um take a set dollar amount an equal dollar amount and distribute it amongst all uh all bargaining unit members regardless of their experience within the district okay that's the Reader's Digest version of that there's a lot more moving details to the offer um with that that'll go out Tonight Tonight afternoon yeah we can have it out tonight okay would you uh the pleasure of the board again yes sir okay uh item five adoption of the agenda the Boardman approved the agenda as is or add or pull items for consent uh calendar uh with that do I have a motion New Order so now we're going to move on to recognition presentations so if I can join me up front family Center's recognition plaque to honor Velma Hayes and the Velma Legacy and then after that we'll be the presentation on the Apple Valley excuse me the recognized maintenance and operation team members as well great yeah and if the board and cabinet would join me here in the front we'll celebrate these two recognitions by way of introduction I'll just say briefly as the group's making their way up that one of the Departments within ed services um is the um director of equity and access under whom all the family centers are organized they do an amazing job of providing resources to families but that's not a new thing in Apple Valley and we have a a really special recognition tonight for a Community member who really helped get this started in a big way at Granite Hills High School and Beyond and so I'll turn it over to Mariana Torres to share that with and her team thank you um it is our pleasure to be here tonight uh Balu has been a proud sponsor of harvest of giving for over a decade that initial dream sort of started with Miss Hall over at Granite Hills High School and it started with this goal to put together and distribute 100 Thanksgiving meals and other donated resources for our families and our communities here in Apple Valley with the support of Velma and the Hayes family along with other local organizations we are currently gearing up to distribute 300 Thanksgiving meals this year in Apple Valley if you ever had the pleasure of meeting Velma she would um tell you about her humble beginnings if she told you that story she would tell you how she was one of 14 children and she knew firsthand what it was like to be hungry so she made it her mission to make sure that others in our community did not go hungry belba and her family continuously support and have been essential to the growth of harvest of giving along with our food pantry and pretty much all the efforts that we put in the community uh it started at Granite Hills High School and now it's taking place here at the district office because we got really big so we are serving all 14 sites and all of our community today velma's Legacy continues to support that mission in servicing our families and community and she even encouraged uh the family um when when they had her service and and we were able to honor her memory they encouraged to actually make donations to the food pantry in lieu of flowers so that this Legacy would continue so with the combined effort of value and other organizations we are also Distributing about 150 to 200 boxes every Friday and that school is in session so our food pantry runs every week these valuable Partnerships continue to make a difference in the lives of all of our families we Apple Valley Unified School District and the family centers extend our gratitude for this continued support and honestly it's it's an honor to continue um the legacy of of her work the belief in growing those resources demonstrate the two the true value of dignity Community authenticity and serving which is and mirrors exactly what we're here to do velma's Legacy will continue to make a difference in our families and the community while providing hope for a better tomorrow we would like to present the family this plaque in honor of velma's legacy and as a token of our appreciation foreign [Music] thank you so much okay I'll just mention as they're leaving the room that also value has been a wonderful partner as a CTE Affiliated company and they hire a lot of our students and put them right to work out of the welding program so good evening I'm I'm here on uh behalf of the maintenance and operations department and at this time I'd like Jim Hopper to join me up here real quick uh each year Keenan and Associates is the administrator as the administrator of our property and liability jpa do property inspections and they identify areas of concern on our campuses um and there's not that many but those are those areas that they do identify um Jim uh his supervisor Kirk the custodial supervisor Colleen all of our maintenance and operations crew custodial staff work diligently to make sure anything identified during those property inspections is cleared repaired taken care of prior to re-inspection by Keenan and Associates and Keenan and Associates came out and inspected and they found that everything they identified had been taken care of um this really put puts forward the service value of Apple Valley Unified School District Jim and his team serve our students serve our schools tirelessly through that work order system never ending list of work orders but they're out there every day working hard a lot of the times in some pretty brutal heat as of late making sure air conditioning units are working a lot of those um but anyways so Keenan awarded Apple Valley Unified School District Maintenance and operations team the Excellence in safety award so I'd like to present that to Jim who will except on behalf of his team thank you [Applause] thank you no picture picture sorry thank you congratulations congratulations thank you foreign okay well now we're going to move on to the presentation on the Apple Valley Unified School I'm sorry School District police so Dustin you're up and chief Molina yes uh Chief Molina please join me up here um it truly is I I want to just kind of start with an overview it's been quite a a week of working with the department and as you know getting to work with this team I I can tell and great appreciation I've learned more about them I've my respect for them has increased and and the leadership even demonstrated by by Chief and and it's just one that that needs to be recognized and modeled um I re tonight a couple times we've heard our district values reference to of dignity service authenticity and community and uh this department without fail continues to uphold those uh and tonight our presentation uh need to turn this on uh is um referencing that you can see the the department you know has their mission statement uh it goes right alongside the district Mission um I do want to point out that uh when working with them this this week and I'm sorry I'm all over the place here but um they shared a lot about uh who they are and what they've done and how they've attained you know the honor of being a officer in our department they they did a lot of work and on each board member has a packet excuse me um that highlights the bios of all of these officers and when we went through them uh going through their bios it was intense I was amazed and impressed by and chief will get you know deeper into this um the amount of expertise that's out there the fact that you know they they are a post-certified group that have been through the same trainings and in many cases more than than other officers out in our community and and we really toyed with man how do we how do we present this to the board how do we how do we spend you know all this time to try to highlight what they are and what they've done and we really after going through the BIOS that you have you'll notice there's some areas of highlight and as Chief is talking tonight I'm gonna be scrolling through the slides and those are just quotes that I've pulled out that we pulled out to kind of highlight an officer in a statement and these statements scream and I say officer I'm talking about the whole team the dispatchers the you know the Sonia there in the office uh keeping them all uh rained in and trying to work with these guys 24 7 seems like sometimes is quite a task but when we pull those and put those up I encourage the audience to just read look at it and see the evidence once again of dignity authenticity community and service that's out there so officer Molina if you would like to start talking uh what one thing I just said oh my gosh [Music] he used to be officer Molina and he'll get into the history there talk about where he was in what year two for I think it was um but again you're going to see the theme throughout this presentation think relationship look at what these officers are saying they don't know what quotes I pulled from them and put up there but we're excited to share this with you so Chief Cesar Molina take it away first of all I want to start off by thanking everybody to be here here you know even uh it's um it's a pleasure to be I think this is like my first time that I ever talk about the department I know that sometimes in the community will oh interact with parents or or you guys regarding the department but to be up here it's such a good feeling so um I'm so grateful to have been given the opportunity to be here this evening to be able to share some of the information and history of the background of this Police Department that I'm so proud of our department consists of the chief which is myself one police sergeant one police coordinator was uh the police coordinator is going to be and I mentioned school police coordinator that's uh Sonia uh to dispatchers and Senator officers little history on April 3rd 2002 some of you guys were here when you guys adopted that the police department um in 2004 uh there was the first full-time police officer that was hired on which uh that uh that was that was me so yeah and that's where the title comes in so you guys you guys call me officer I'm good with it um throughout the throughout the the years I have worked with two chiefs here at the department both Chiefs I work closely with they all had the mission statement as uh that we have now the motto it was it was still the same even though the words were different um in 2013 I was I was given the blessing to be the third chief of police for the Department throughout their years there has been Leaps and Bounds of growth in this department for instance in 2009 we established a police Explorer program at granny Hills High School um with the encouragement of Matt schulenberg it started out there there we had about 20 explorers that started off you know one of the things was um and we're the only School Police Department that has school Police Explorers throughout the high desert so in 2018 another leap in Bound was uh the apartment became post-certified so you guys are going to hear the word post certified that's uh that stands for peace officer commission as standards and training and that that 90 of the police departments out there are post-certified and that's a prestigious title to have as a police department so I'm very very thankful that uh we're doing that also and uh 2020 we hired the first police Sergeant which uh he's also uh post certified as a supervisor uh Max McNeely has been with the the uh with the Department if you can count all his years he's been here since he was explored I think he was like 14.
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and i will invite you to go look at that work and and see what we've been doing this year it's been the busiest year i think in many decades for us and so our outward goal this year was to raise 200 million dollars to fund olmsted parks as we move forward and we're happy to report uh that we are well well on our way to reaching that goal for this year so uh as i look at this project and i see where we are in the project phase i'm very pleased to present a plan for activation or gentle activation of the space so whenever i come into a project i need to know uh what the plan is in a way so i need to be able to know how i can bring resources how i can match for grants for items that we may be looking for and how the initiating committee as a whole can serve the council of the commons by providing this data that you all may not be able to have time to do uh or to to put together on your own and so what i've done is basically to bring myself up to speed as well as the initiating committee is i've done uh basically what we call an assumptive financial planning worksheet that financial planning worksheet is purely assumptions that are like kind and the worksheets are just to give me a baseline idea of what it's going to really cost actually to navigate and to open up gently the space and how are we going to raise those funds what's our development plan because everything costs money and we do know that it costs money and so how are we going to go out there and create a funding plan and then one of the first questions i also really had was creating a branding strategy for the entire project that we all agree upon and that we can develop and grow together um to gather a following for the project that is universally appreciated and accepted um i i think is also a place to start so as i come into a project and i look at what kind of where the early development phases start it's not very exciting um so i must say as we look through it's a lot of organizational pieces that have to be put together for a project like this so what i'd like to do is take you through the plan if i can very quickly and then i'd love for to have you all review it on your own your feedback and input is very important because all of this is assumptive so now what we really want is the council of the commons to come back and say this is feasible this is something we'd like to explore beginning um this is a plan that we could not agree with and it would need to be changed to fit our vision in this way and we can make those changes and we can work together to figure out how we further this along um and so uh without further ado if it's okay um i would like to share my screen is that okay if i just do a share screen all right so as we go through uh hold on one moment here um sorry hold on one minute here i'm very much not used to presenting uh on zoom so hold on one second um i need to okay um [Music] so okay and then hold on one minute i see my movie makers open so i see the confusion here all right um oops okay let's see share screen um share okay i won't minimize this i'll just go in here open this up perfect yes thank you guys i'm so sorry thank you for your patience here as we go through okay [Music] sorry that's another project right now all right hold on i'll open it and then i'm not sure does it matter if this is full screen um i'm not sure how to make this full screen down here it shouldn't matter okay yeah okay um so as we go through it just just yeah thanks erica i just wanted to let you know right now we're just seeing um the zoom kind of home screen so you may we may be seeing a different screen than you are right now okay great thank you hold on let's see new share and here we are and share all right and let's see if do we have a presentation there yep we see it yeah so then once you're in this if you did wanna i'm i was thinking about full screen in a different way if you wanted to make the document full screen you can if not you know if other people can see it all right then and it's fine the way it is okay great so basically this just kind of goes uh through a little bit about what we hope uh the initiating committee uh acts as a citizen advisory board created to support and develop planning and strategies to assist with the facilitation of the center of the city project uh the initiating committee i in my opinion would work to support the efforts of the council of the commons so this report what we're presenting today is basically um a 10-year plan for activation so this is a 10-year business plan and financial worksheets uh assumptions that go over uh gentle activation through development actually um and and how it would be programmed and what that may look like then there are financial assumptions workbooks all of the figures that have gone into the presentation are included in extensive excel spreadsheets that break all of the financials down uh to a budget that could be a template to start um some financial assumptions for the project i don't know if that's already been done but i have to do them so i understand what things are costing and what fundraising goals could be and things like that so i thought i'd include them for you all um then i'd like to just look at the review and the collaboration of the project just to kind of get us all on the same page so what i would love to do is just uh the initiating committee and the council of the commons we all need to be able to work together with parks and with other organizations and the city to be able to kind of get onto one vision the same vision uh and so i'm looking to see from the council of the commons what that vision means for you all and how we can assist in providing what you need to make the vision uh go further down uh the development track so then also we're going to talk just a little bit today about proximity principle assumptions i was able to pull the proximity principle assumptions from all of the actual uh parcels that surround our space here in ann arbor and so i'm going to provide those figures as well um as we go through um looking at uh tax value increases um that could and be dramatically enhanced um by this project so firstly i'd like to just go into the steps and our idea of what the steps of activation would look like um excuse me one second i'm sorry yeah i think you might want to do a view and full screen because what we see is your thumbnails on the side okay that i think that i just wanted to give you that feedback yes no thank you where does anyone know how i at the top look in view okay oh i see yeah okay yeah i have a okay um huh i have uh my computer this computer that i'm on is very old school and i cannot yeah there's a there's a there's a bar that is a there we go hold on one moment sorry thank you you need to reload it doesn't work okay well now let's see um where does it go full speed to help there's a thing called view and i think that will you see help on the top row of of options yeah to the left of it is help is view yes and i think that will let you do a full screen just normal is that what it is i don't know yeah i don't either um okay just go with it okay um no no that's okay um yeah i'm sorry i don't know how to make this i'm not i'm usually presenting this face to face with hand printed copies and um okay so here we go so what we think we kind of so you guys cannot see this at all but we can oh you can okay um so what we're looking at is a 10-year business plan uh and really figuring that out and getting the council of the commons input on that business plan to say okay what are fundraising goals how much how many funds are needed what is the development cost of of the space uh in total would that you know be divided up over you know a number of phases or a number of years um then we look at an operations plan so how would activating the space what would be the plan for that and generating and creating an operations plan that is going to outline specifically staffing and stewardship annual programming simple you know a simple vibe simplified permitting an insurance process for the space social media strategy to build the following for the space uh beautification plans and and occupancy and booking strategies to make that process easier um right now i i know that there's a lovely representative from the city of ann arbor managing the booking and reservations for the liberty plaza space it was really exciting to see that there were activities happening there this year and so we'd like to figure out how we could collaborate possibly with that individual and bring some service to that role as well and just enhance that role in a way and then we are including financial reports which are important as we come to a project to really understand what the financial picture is um and and in those financial reports is included uh activation inventory assumptions so just assumed cost pretty researched but assume cost for what the actual uh you know elements would cost to activate the space gently how those elements could be added without causing conflict to the environment in any way and respecting the the built environment uh and expecting you know respecting what we have there um so we are sensitive uh in the planning to the fact that we cannot puncture the structure in any way uh for the parking structure and so there are some things that we've researched there to make sure that this plan um is cognizant uh of those building conditions of those space conditions um and then what we'd like to do is just uh kind of have a section as we go forward and be able to consistently um enhance the benefit of promoting inclusivity and collaboration with immediate adjacent partners the city of ann arbor liberty plaza the dda i think we can go a long way to support each other together if we've got one vision as we move ahead we can go a long way in supporting one another and making the space a truly unique and beautiful space and then we look at an activation timeline so really putting an activation timeline together to be able to say okay what are the activities that are needed to make this project work and how can we as an initiating committee assist um and what can we provide uh that could be useful in these early phases so we do understand that there is a way to uh raise money for the rfp and we do understand that there's a weight while that process is is in play and all of these organizational things can be done simultaneously with those activities with all of us together in unison just creating excitement and energy about the project the other thing that we're going to have to do is we're going to have to do some very serious investigating and reporting on operational organization so if we're to activate the space we need to look at other special projects for operational organizational practices that are being used and that we could also use um we are going to have to sit down and figure out if we are fundraising and we are getting commitments for people to donate where how is that money being generated uh and and you know where is it being funneled through um so that would need to be brought up as well as we all move forward to find out you know to find a mechanism that could handle the operations of a fundraising uh of a fundraising opportunity um and then also one thing that we find is that as projects such as this go out to the public for grant application and for funding opportunities uh some of these are very public entities so in some cases the project may be asking for a very large grant from the national urban parks association uh from the national association of urban parks in that case we find that in our experience having very structured and cohesive communication style is very beneficial to the project as the project moves forward and these are things that we find once set into place very early in the process um that these communications and that these this you know what we're going to call evidence of capability um if these communications are uh you know it has to be included as part of a package um that is going to be for funding we do really love to be able to provide very structured communications where um where we're all communicating in a communication style that's formal and then that can be saved and it can be uh used again [Music] so then also the project we would love to help put together the branding strategy for the project um and put together some samples of branding packages that the council could vote on or that we could all vote on um to figure out a cohesive branding strategy that we're all in agreement with and we do have the talent and potential within our team uh we have amy rowe who's just incredible and she's been working to set up organizational tools such as a trello deck and we've got some other folks involved we've got uh matthew altrude uh sitting in on our meetings we're so grateful he's got a wonderful um insight into local branding strategy which is really fun from his experience with the bank of ann arbor and so as we move forward we do think that a branding strategy is very important when we talk with comparing projects and we talk with their social media strategists uh such as bryant park being a very good sample we've got three or four other samples one in st louis missouri these projects typically boast the largest following of any organization in the city when it's complete so the impact of the social media following that a project like this could possess is very great especially in a city as uh social as media connected as ann arbor is um and so there's a tremendous tremendous branding potential in this project to gain followers from every walk um and and both uh visitors and locals alike so coming up with a unified and universal branding strategy is going to be one of the very first things that we would suggest to do in these early stages uh and something that we could all come on board with agree with and support uh going forward so then as we get into phase two uh the other thing that is going to have to sort of be created in the beginning is some sort of volunteer program so when an urban park comes into a city and that city is not very uh well-versed um or might not be prepared to take on the salaries of park and staff management in the beginning and so what happens is we find tremendous success in creating volunteer programs that help us with these early phases of organization so we have a lot of talented professionals that are well-versed in these items of organization and articles of organization that could also assist us in creating a very consistent volunteer program that could be nurtured and enhanced as we move forward um and so i think that there would be a great benefit to um enhancing a volunteer program for the project and something that the council could rely on uh and be a part of creating as well um and and something that could remain and allow for very consistent programming within the space um and so that would mean getting volunteer commitments and training and things like that so we have added uh putting a volunteer program in and then funding development uh so at the very very early stages of any project we know that projects of this nature and this size are going to be ranging depending on their elements included anywhere from 10 million to the upwards of the most expensive i've seen per square foot is 31 million um i don't know that we have to go that high that's very high cost to build but with these projects what we want to know is that we've got a plan to fund the project and so what we're doing is creating a funding development program that's consistent that's approved uh that's acceptable and that has our donors getting both grant funding and funds to the right people in the right place um and so as we look at creating a funding development plan it'll be very very important part of that funding development plan is to create what we call a grant application calendar and so every year what we do is we go through during the winter months and we search grant opportunities and large funding opportunities through organizations and we see what applications will fit our project and then we create a grant application calendar so we know when those applications have to go in and when all the information has to be compiled and it that that grant we fit the criteria i i think that selecting grants is one of the most time-consuming and difficult processes and if we can assist the council of the commons in vetting and uh meeting their requirements to prepare to submit grants i think that would be something that could truly help us all along as well i mean if we have that experience and we have the folks with the depth of knowledge to be able to help with that um in these early stages it's really a nice thing to be able to know that you've got some funding uh just some action for funding happening um and then of course we're all gonna sit down and talk in these early stages about programming and we're going to have to figure out and agree upon a programming plan that we're all very consistently proud of so if we do programming in the space if uh you know we want to kind of look into what does a programming plan look like what are the types of activities we would all want to see in the space do we have an open reservations program where institutions can come and reserve the space of course we want to encourage that and so we'll just have that conversation around programming in the future uh and then an operations plan really sitting down and presenting an operations plan that states this is how we are going to operate the space and these are the roles that we're going to have and these are what those duties are going to entail um and and things like that as we move forward uh for organization and then in phase three we come to really the fun part you know i think it starts getting i think it starts getting really really fun in phase three so once our branding strategy is sort of on the way we know what that is we've got a list of activities uh to do um we're getting closer in phase three to having an operations model be acceptable um we've gone out and we've had a lovely campaign to encourage partnership participation um we've you know by this time by phase three we've pretty much got our partnerships you know kind of solidified we've got a lot of support at this point um we've started a general fundraising campaign by the time we get to phase three and we start then saying okay let's start you know using the money that we've raised to start buying the inventory that we need to be able to start to connect with the public and and be able to start to do some things in the space um so as as we look forward there we will be happy for that day so there's and uh in the financial worksheets there's a full breakdown of just an assumption of what that inventory might be and what it might look like uh so please review that at your leisure and then um as we go through just to see what a timeline looks like what the phases look like um as we go through here whoops sorry we're wanting to just kind of see what that looks like so um as i'm looking at this can you scroll that down a little bit yeah i'm scrolling it down here we go so there you go i figured it out sorry okay so here we go so as we look and we say okay you know we're going to put you know for us for the initiating committee uh this is is basically for the our committee too so we're presenting an activation plan we're gathering feedback you all are working on releasing the rfp which is great that's in there um then make uh input adjustments to the activation plans then we can kind of over the winter time look at determining a unified branding strategy going forward we can also create an organizational platform that we all love and use uh right now we're using the trilo deck uh it's wonderful uh for organizing project organizational tool um and so of course we'd love you know folks to have access to that from the council if they'd love that too uh then we can develop some operational plans and all these things can happen over the winter and then we can start actually creating social media accounts and begin creating content uh for approval uh doesn't need to be released um but you know we would want everyone's approval on that content going forward uh of course um and then we can develop you know develop and facilitate block partner support uh in the spring so uh as we look at that we're looking at having some events on the space that would promote and uh just promote relationship building and give some people some information about what where we are in the process how they can support us how they can volunteer things like that um and then again in that spring and summer kind of developing uh some active fundraising development plans and goals so the organization of a funding plan for a project of this magnitude um takes time uh and so uh to be able to do these kinds of things in 2023 would be wonderful um to have them behind us as we move forward into that 2024 year um and so as we move into 2024 um we are aware that that is kind of a special year um that is that our bicentennial i do believe that's ann arbor's 200.
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five years seems to be more appropriate would be my recommendation the board and administration review indicators data and identify targets annually provided that the board adopts these these strategic goals our next step would be to put forth some annual targets for this year and how we will make strides toward those goals to then you know publicize to make public uh to adopt and to hopefully attain throughout the course of the school year so that would be my recommendation and that wraps up my opening of schools report i appreciate your attention as we and patients as we go through this relatively long powerpoint but hopefully it's even more exciting than budget powerpoint and i appreciate it and i will certainly answer any questions that that anybody has if like sorry go ahead tony i just can't see anybody behind the screen so mike will help follow up in a second uh quickly on the highland enrollment at 8 41.
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you started so uh he has a lot of knowledge and experience and and knows what our motto and mission for the school district is um also and uh 2021 we had a our police dispatch became post certified as well again this could have been done without the knowledge and experience and dedication of Sonia Carrillo so can you raise your hand that way people know okay that's Sony over there uh this that uh that's a that's that project there took a long time to do I mean it's not like fill out a paper and then we become post certified there's a lot of red tape that we have to go through and we have audits that we also go through yearly to make sure that department and Dispatch Center is is running uh as post standards another leap was in just this year uh five new patrol cars as you can see we have one that's driving around there it's a it's a 2000 and 22 Ford Explorer so we're actually um retiring the old ones the old Crown Victoria as you guys probably seen out there um they look like Classics sometimes when we have them all polished up and cleaned up and they're all together it actually looks like a car show so we'll return those and in 2023 we also um are getting another patrol cars to replace the other one so I think every single one of you that gave of us the uh the ability to have new cars it's it's a it's super awesome um also um our police officers received post training three times a year at the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Academy three times a year so in addition they also get school police training uh tailored to to school police to the school resource officer that training also includes active shooter training we even go further and mold our policies and procedures to meet our motto as well so also uh the Apple Valley School police has the same police authorities in the state of California as any other police department CHP Sheriff's Department just like each of those departments have their own mission and responsibilities we have and focus on our mission is keeping the schools and students safe each officer has their own calling in the department when serving students and staff as you know we hire we have several officers a lot of officers like doing certain things they're into certain things one of the things that we do is one of the things that we all have in common is that we're the mama bear and the papa bear police officer when we're out there so when the parents are not there you can guarantee that our officers will take care take care of your kids um so when it involves the Britain our students our officers are dedicated you know like I said some of these officers uh were explorers majority of 90 actually so they had that mission so when it comes to their kids and I'm talking all 14 000 kids that we have on our campuses when we're at we're working out there they're they're taking care of those kids a lot of our officers are certified in special weapons and tactics traffic DUI narcotics Crisis Intervention to name a few so when we go out there you can depend that these officers have really well good experience and they're and they're post certified as well so we don't just title them hey you know if you can ride a bicycle and you're on bike Patrol no one those whenever they're post-certified they have to meet certain criteria to hold that position um our post-certified police dispatchers with uh our uh their 901 experts they receive the emergency calls from the either from the school sites and from public Who Needs school police they are they are the voice behind the scene that guide our officers to keeping our students at school safe we further provide training and mentoring at school sites and on a school buses at school bus stops students and at students and also at students and staff assemblies which also include active shooter training bullying social media training and mentoring students also occur during traffic stops or when the officers are out there at the crosswalk uh either they're on foot in front of a crosswalk or they're just walking around a lot of times they make contact with the kids if they see that they're either going to cross the street without using the crosswalk or whatever maybe or even the kids were driving a riding a bicycle without their helmets so the training and mentoring also occurs like I said on even on traffic stops lots of when we pull over our students a lot of times either they're speeding their other cell phones we give them a quick train right there on the side of the world on the side of the road yeah this also includes juveniles of course and parents in the community or community members we give them a training pamphlet you know we pull them over and that pamphlet covers everything that uh any violations that are in school zones which very beneficial actually the parents and the community actually like those pamphlets instead of getting a citation so it's good another thing that we do is uh Wellness checks the school district we conduct Windows checks on students and staff to ensure their safety and well-being we also work with mental health support teams such as ccrt which is community crisis response team the San Diego County Behavioral Health Department along with school and County psychologists another thing during the the covet when the when the when the kids were at home we had a lot of Wellness checks that we had a we had to respond to and once we get those once we get those um those uh information we get the information we definitely go forth with to the house as if it's in progress a lot of times you know the kids do say you know I want to go back to school I miss school and I just feel like hurting myself because I can't go back to school so behind the scenes that that time that the kids were off they were really hurting some of them um another thing that we do we also um check on the well-being on employees sometimes we'll get a call from a principal saying hey you know what the employees so and so did not make it to work we call them and he or she does not answer can you do a wellness check and normally we do we go through fourth width to the house knock on the door a lot of times majority of the time the the alarm didn't go off and they're just sleeping so which is good uh another thing we do is enter agency support we have a good relationship with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's department and surrounding police agencies we have a good readership and work closely with the local sheriff's department our officers and deputies assist each other out in the community and at our school sites also a great example was last year when we had that Apple Valley High School squatting call all right as you can see there everybody responded there to that to that to the school especially the opportunities we had probation parole fire school police from neighboring agencies and also off-duty police officers so they responded forthwith we had as you guys remember you guys said on the news there was a lot of law enforcement Personnel so it's evident to show that um when it comes to Apple Valley we're really tight knit no matter what it is especially when it's involving our kids they were there we were there so whenever they need help or they need assistance or Aid Chief can you send an officer to help us do this we will do it you know we'll help them another school uh school student program that we that we're really well dedicated on is um as we all know if we're all here because we enjoy working with kids we enjoy mentoring the kids we enjoy uh teaching them like our model says one of the things that um that I'm excited and proud of is um our school Police Department like I said we are the only school police program in the high desert we have had such a huge success with the program ninety percent of our officers employed now as you can see now are Protectors of the schools at a young age they were instilled the motto of the responsibility of protecting our kids they were taught at a very young age what the mission was I would still feel fortunate if we only had one explorer that became a police officer with my department or our department but to know that 90 percent our police officers it's a it's a good success for me it's good I feel real fortunate of course there's have been hundreds of students that were mentored throughout the years and many have moved on with knowledge and mentoring skills they received and I have heard stories that they've joined either the military or another Police Department or a security department or became great citizens or parents so um it's a good program and right now officer bazada he's in charge of it he's been doing it almost like about seven years and he goes out there and does the mentoring so the kids are excited to be there another program that we're involved is that with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's they have the shock program which is another huge success that that program is so great one of the things that our officers do they participate in that that program since uh since the beginning I remember they had it at James Woody Park and it was a good program it's still a good program so our officers volunteer or actually go out there and work for that for that program and they also get excited and they tell me how excited it is when the students graduate they feel just as excited as they do um another thing when a student has not made it home from school okay this first year we had a lot of the the kids that get on the wrong bus or maybe get off the wrong bus stop or maybe just walk home and said it's easier just to walk our officers when we get the call we initially considered a missing a missing student we go out there and we send officers out there to the house to the school to the bus stop and we talked to the parents we also get information um how they walk home from school and we backtrack from the bus stop to the school or from the school to the bus stop many times we work with the majority of times we work with the sheriff's department as well and they also get notified of the missing so they also work with us when it's finding the the students as of as of now knock on wood uh every student we have found and returned safely a lot of times either they get in trouble at school they don't want to go home or like I said they get off the wrong bus stop or they they go to our friend's house and they forget to tell their parents so um we also transport students for instance like at a football games or dances we stay out there to the very last kid goes home very last kid so um and sometimes we even give the kids rights home when the parents either forget to pick them up another thing that we do and you guys probably heard is the threat assessments we do at the schools when we have lockdowns or we have threats towards the school I'll cover the the after hours first when we receive a threat when we're in made of a threat we definitely get a team together of officers we get a game plan of what we're going to do usually these threats are not credible but at the same time it involves either a social media posts or a group post the night consists of knocking on doors injuring involved parties and checking residents for unsecured weapons very rarely very rarely a warrant is needed parents for the most part are Cooperative because we are transparent with the information we receive and we let them see the posts we let them see what we're looking at we'll bring our phone say hey this this is little Johnny or little Jill that posted this picture of bringing a gun to school and a lot of times I'll say well no that wasn't my kid are you sure because there's a picture of your family and back in the background of this this posting or the IP address comes to your house or you're the owner of the phone and you're the subscriber to the account of course after they see that they become very cooperative more often than not the threats are not credible once we determine that the threat is not credible we notify the superintendent and say hey this is not credible um and then the schools open the next day now during school hours uh this this happens every now and then depending on the situation that occurs on or off campus a lockdown is conducted the lockdown is conducted often as a precaution it could be that the local sheriff's department or another law enforcement agency has something in progress such as a foot pursuit a vehicle Pursuit that's heading towards our school or adjacent to our school um our officers will set up a a game plan we usually do a four block surrounding area or a square surrounding area around the school we have another officer on campus to be relaying the information to the admin on campus um often the the when the everything is of course deemed safe we lift the lockdown now uh if the if the threat is on campus if we have a threat on campus the officers revert to their training and experience and enter the campus with forth with with unnecessary gear to neutralize a threat as we've seen in Apple Valley High School yeah not a pretty sight but the thing is we're there for the students we know we want to make sure we we um we're there ready for for anything that may happen another thing we do is the home visits you know these ones are I've been doing these as a matter of fact I did one today um these home visits um are sometimes they they can be heart heart wrenching you know when you go to the houses uh one of some of the attempts we go to the student we go to that we go to the house we speak to the students or parents needing support not all visits are negative the visits may be because the student doesn't want to go to school due to a school or family issue a lot of times lack of Transportation uh family domestic or just a basic need of food and clothing um we had I have a I call it the Walmart story last year uh mom calls me says exactly what Dustin said hey officer Molina uh we have this uh I have this kid my son doesn't want to go to school yeah yeah so I go to the go to the house and of course the house is is a disarray it is uh it looks like a tornado went in there um so I I talked to the kid and the kid is he goes yeah my son doesn't want to go it's like my little son doesn't want to go I go out there and this kid's about six foot you know very tall and uh I asked Mom I go uh why does he want to go to school I don't know I don't know so I talked to the kid I go hey so um so I'm looking up to him so what can I do to make you go to school he goes well sir I don't have a I don't have any clothes if I had to close I would go so I went home you know and uh this was on a Friday Saturday before I hit the swap meet and I like hitting the swap meet on Saturday so I go I told my kids you know what let's go to Walmart and just buy some clothes you know and he goes why dad he goes well you know what they didn't really understand but once we did and they saw the situation um we gave him the closing and he said I'm going to go to school the mom calls me the next the next day on Monday and says you know my son went to school but uh I said uh our motto is the same like the other the model of the district we instill that with our officers one of the things that uh I want to see is as you can see in the as you can see in the relationships we are building officer Jimenez uh if we could go to jimenez's PowerPoint uh she says it best we totally enjoyed it if we could take a moment just to read that um that's pretty much sums it what we do um and it's an honor to to be a police chief here and run the department that's our officers for the Apple Valley school police thank you thank you [Applause] Chief are you comfortable just bringing your team up real quick so that we can maybe see I want to see those dispatchers everybody that's hiding back there they sat back there sweating if you could at least stand so we can give you a round of applause and appreciation so thank you I appreciate that [Applause] foreign thank you Caesar you know as uh as you well aware uh school police or front and center in this country today uh they play a bigger role in society than some police officers that work in cities in different jurisdictions because of what goes on in the schools today and and that and I I have to say I see more school police officers in our community than I do the local sheriff's department so it's it's really good to see that you guys are out there every day out by the schools out on the roadways and I have all the faith in the world that if um need be that you guys would be there in a big emergency in Apple Valley so keep up the good work thank you turn those cars out thank you good job all right presentation on opportunities for district recognition yes um at the last board meeting um the board asked me to provide just information this is a very short presentation I don't have the remote so I'm going to just point and say please um there are several opportunities for school districts to receive and school sites to receive recognition and awards that some we can control some we cannot the first set our California school boards Association golden awards the golden Bill are due annually on June 30th um we do apply pretty often for a Golden Bell within our district we have received them in the past but for about the last 10 years we apply but don't get the recognition and then we go to the school Bill awards at the county level and we see all of the same programs we are doing within our district but that's okay we'll continue to apply we did apply for our family center and um food pantry this past June and did not hear back we believe that um because they start announcing this month we would have heard if we were going to be awarded that but the list is there of all the different areas the golden gavel has no deadline listed on the California school boards Association it is directly about board members governance team and the Hall of Fame they have not updated the website since 2020 I'm not sure if during the pandemic they continued this but it is still sitting there as an option the next Golden award is the golden quill I do anticipate this year we will be nominating a reporter locally who has done a really good job of um doing exactly what this this award is about um recognition of fair insightful and accurate reporting of public schools and so um we'll keep you posted on that as we find out the deadline and we will ask for some letters of support likewise the California school boards Association um or the um Association of California school administrators has several Awards programs and they include State Awards special Awards valuing diversity Partners in education excellence and the Robert E Kelly award administrators of the Year award you will see those towards the springtime every student succeeding program exemplary woman and education award Ray Curry award and The Negotiator of the Year award um those are due January 19th we did receive in the spring one of our administrators Adele McLean was administrator of the year for adult education for region 12 which is our area San Bernardino County so we were excited that she was nominated by The Adult Ed Consortium and received that award and then finally um well there's two more but one is just a very short one the California Department of Education does um have several Awards they have academic achievement awards many of the awards that are listed under the California Department of Ed we don't apply for we get recognized for um for certain achievements that are data driven um student driven there are a couple on here that we can apply for and we did last year and received two of them and the pivotal practices Sycamore Rocks was a an awardee for the epivative practice as was the school district um likewise we have the golden sea um steel state seal for merit um diploma and we've done those for years um principals get the information to us we they get ordered we sign off on that order to the state and then every student that qualifies gets the seal on their diploma and then the list is there and then Community Awards there are no other slides but it's um you'll know them as the best of the desert and we'll see what happens with the Daily Press as it's um slowly diminishing in in some of the the areas but we're hopeful they'll continue the best of the desert because I think it creates great competition across this Valley of getting at least nominated and recognized and so those are the ones that we can move forward with great today thank you well it wouldn't be a school board meeting without a presentation on actual financial report from Matt schulenberg so I you're up thank you give me a second that we'll have public comments so in the audience just hang tight a little bit okay thank you here we go is that your new car no not yet not yet another actuals this is the presentation of the closing of the books from last fiscal year so if you recall that budget cycle for the 2122 school year started way back in January of 2021 over a year and a half ago with the governor's budget proposal of course the May Revision in 20 in May of 2021 and of course the legislature passes on-time budgets because they don't get paid if they don't pass on-time budgets um as we work through the year just to remind the board we have the first interim second interim financials the estimated actuals establishes the Baseline the estimated X was in May of 22 established the Baseline for this year's adopted budget now that we have closed the books even though the numbers are not audited what that what we do now is we update the beginning balance for the current year with the ending balance since we've closed the books so we look at last year we we had almost 204 million dollars in general fund Revenue this really is only of our our fund one operating fund uh our general fund we have many other funds that I'll touch on briefly a little later in the presentation you can see the majority of our funding arises from our local control funding formula that is our revenue from the state of California that mostly flows to us unrestricted however within that lcff we we do also have uh supplemental and concentration grant funding we have our transportation add-on we have the grade span adjustments for class size reduction in TK through three and a great span adjustment in high school for CTE programs our expenditures came to about 188 million and you see the biggest slices of that pie right there are people people we are a people organization and we spend the vast majority of our budget on those people to serve the students uh the community of Apple Valley here's a quick breakdown of the unrestricted restricted and combined accounts within our general fund you'll see last year through the uh super Cola through some one-time funding through some categorical funding we did have a increase to our ending fund balance on both the unrestricted and restricted side the restricted funds again are program specific the unrestricted The Lion's Share of that is our lcff along with some additional funding from the state of California but all in all our unrestricted ending fund balance was a little over 27 million dollars and we have some assignments in there we have our reserve for economic uncertainty we far surpass the required three percent of 5.7 million again this is closing the books and we'll update the starting point for this year on the restricted side we got a lot of programs over over the last couple years in covid the state of California has gone back to a categorical funding mindset um governor governor Jerry Brown really started the local control funding formula to eliminate a lot of those categoricals about Governor Newsom and and his his administration really has um helped us figure out what we're supposed to do by giving us all this restricted money these are ending fund balances in each of these programs that elop is the expanded learning opportunity program that is Governor newsom's one of his biggest priorities in the budget and what that does is it requires us to have after-school programs available for our TK through sixth grade students um 175 days of the school year along with 30 additional days during intercession and then there's educator Effectiveness and you'll see the list there and there's a second page normally I get this all on one but I couldn't do it this year because of all the different programs that that were started recently foreign some of our other funds fund 11 is our adult education fund you see the financials there the revenues over expenditures fund 12 Child Development that's our state preschool program the fund 13 of course is our food services feeding the kids in Apple Valley um that's last year was one of our biggest years in terms of Revenue with some of the extra federal and state reimbursement as we fed kids for free under the seamless summer program fund 14 is deferred maintenance you'll see a transfer in there of about two million dollars what we did is we many years ago we initiated a approximately a six hundred thousand dollar transfer into that deferred maintenance fund because the state rolled that funding into the local control funding formula but we suspended that over several years and we were able to do a catch-up transfer to get that deferred maintenance fund back up to a level to support some of those projects Capital facilities fund 25 those are Developer fees that we collect based on construction both residential and Commercial fun 40 is our Special Reserve for Capital outlay we deposit the proceeds from the Redevelopment Revenue the property tax increment that we receive into that account and this account can only be used for facilities and you see an audit adjustment of 6.8 million in our favor and that isn't money that just showed up that is actually how we have to book the proceeds from our cop issuance a couple years ago we have to book those in fund 40 and it's it's known as cash held outside the County Treasury because that is actually held by a third party administrator as part of that cop and then fund 51 is our bond interest in Redemption that's from measure s back in 2004.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
um and so we would like your help and the help of the council kind of filling in some things that we could do in 2024 that would be in keeping with the bicentennial celebration uh in promoting the space and suggesting others to promote the space and then here we get uh then nextly um what we're gonna do is is move into some financial documents um that we feel passionately about um i i think that as we think about the idea of hosting a public campaign we really need to build value in the project as we file for grant applications and as we ask for large stewardship donations to the project one of the things that those uh grant applications of recipients are going to ask is um how is the city going to benefit from this project and what can you expect in return uh as a city and as a city development organization what can you expect uh in in return um for this and and so here we investigate that with each project that we start and and what we want to know is how is it going to affect the neighboring properties and especially in an urban situation when we look at proximity we look at quality of life we look at the importance of a green space in our ann arbor and and how do you calculate the value for that my initial value is we live and work and breathe and play here and we there's an emotional connection for me that has a little bit more to do with this than numbers however the numbers are here and we need to all look at them so we can develop so as we look at these numbers we're looking at revenue calculations that have been based on comparable project research so the qualifications for this project that we used are projects that are under one and a half acres that are located in urban downtown areas that service approximately between 100 and 500 guests and visitors at its maximum occupancy and also had similar building conditions so these are properties that were already surrounded by large infill and large infrastructure challenges and concerns uh due to the fact that these spaces had uh the infrastructure had already been developed so in each of these cases uh these green spaces were laid on top of heavy duty infrastructure whether that be transportation or whether that be parking structures so uh we will be in future my next project will be to draft a report for all of you that includes much more finite detail about those comparables um and what their experience has been over the last 20 years of of activation and sometimes it we we look at the first 20 years really is what we'd like to see uh initially so then when we look at um the financial forms we need to know that activation revenue from the project itself is calculated at a national average of 26 per year so when we look at growth we look at a standard business model of 26 per year when we look at and then this calculate these calculations also factor in a very conservative booking rate um so what we're giving you today is not the space fully activated in all of its capability you're going to see a graduated level of occupancy as we build into programming the space regularly uh so it is uh an elevated uh budget um that reflects the growth then also the comparable projects project occupancy booking rates have been above 90 percent 10 years post activation so once we look beyond 10 years uh it is it is above 90 with an average of about 97 to 98 with a nice large wait list for the bigger events um so uh the booking does continue to increase and people book over and over so the booking also becomes an easier role as people enjoy the space and book for next time um so then also once the space is established financially what we see is a very modest 18 percent increase in operational expenses per decade for properties that are landlocked and cannot expand so when we're in a site that really can't go any further from a land use perspective once the space is established and once the space is staffed there are very very modern modest modest increases in operational expenses uh same situation for the national park service projects as well uh once those uh once operations are put into play um the only really thing that you have is uh cost of living salary increases for operations um as you go forward um so the cost to continue operations uh is much lower uh than the startup so as we come down and look we say okay how does that what how does that look for our ann arbor what is what is how does the proximity principle affect us so the proximity principle in this particular case with an urban park that is so walkable we take the properties that are in a zone within 3 000 feet of every perimeter of that park space and we pull up all of those tax records and we pull out all of the tax exempt properties and then we note the properties with historical designation as those uh will depreciate uh you know have been depreciated through their designation and will not be developed in the future uh so their future development potential is noted when they're in the historic district uh or have a designation so we pull all of those out we determine basically what the zone is and how far away from the park will people stop benefiting um so here we have a rather large zone because everything is so walkable um and and so what we're looking at in this slide is the actual assumptions so if we look here we have 1043 neighboring parcels with a taxable value in 2022 of 240 000 uh and that actually starts us today okay so we're taking this in 10-year increments to see what this looks like every 10 years the cost to develop the park should be we don't know this figure this is a gross assumption at this point but it could be about 15 million for the first decade uh then we're looking at additional future units proposed i have that figure coming uh from the director of building services is getting me the additional new units being proposed and built right now that are permitted within the zone uh there are several units coming and then also the assumed cost of development let's just call it 15 there and then the operating expense for the park over the 10-year period of time is going to be 3 million basically then we have the gross revenue from the park is going to be 3 million in the first decade uh so it's interesting um that aside from the cost of development the revenue generated should be able to operate the park without a huge deficit uh so here um we show the park in the first 10 years generating a very small tiny bit of money that probably is not a reality um what once these assumptions are made finite uh but then we do see the prof the park in the next decade supporting itself um and and then we see the pro the park in the third decade uh actually generating revenue uh on an annual basis for the city so this is kind of um just the research that i've done for this particular project in looking in ann arbor and what the motivation is um to continue the project moving forward uh it's also nice to make these uh to work a little a bit more frankly to go deeper here and it's very nice to have this as part of a grant application so any uh officiating uh grant supervisor can look at this and really see what the benefit is to the city and want to invest in it for us as well so then we have a quick slide here that just talks about what the first 10 years of funding would look like from an operational perspective uh this does not include the development of the space because we just that right now those figures are too gross but what i wanted to highlight is that um in the first decade we certainly could raise funds to operate the space and i think we could build a volunteer network that would also allow us to manage the space with some guidance one of the major benefits here i think is that we have so many lovely people that have been involved in maintaining the space we've got a lot of activities going on in the space right now that are very positive and as we look um one of the possible solutions as i have researched the project and i also spoken to several people about the concerns of creating a more positive uh and equal environment in liberty plaza is uh one of these um one of these roles would be to hire a superintendent to manage the block uh a block superintendent of sorts um and and that is one of the solutions that i've deeply thought about um is i've looked at the challenge of liberty plaza i do park in the library lane parking structure every day i do go through the park day and night um i i am an often uh often you'll see me trekking through um so uh the space is uh special to me the people in it um have become uh like neighborly right so uh i have never had a negative experience in the park and i know that has not been other's experience however i do believe that just the constant and consistent presence of leadership in the space would go a dear long way uh to having and encouraging everyone to behave themselves while using the space um so uh we always kind of lean toward a superintendent uh a kind-hearted caring superintendent that could keep the peace in the space um and that may be old-fashioned and it may be something that we couldn't consider right away but i would love to consider it as we begin fundraising and and we begin planning uh the activation of the space um to consider some roles that would help the efforts along here and all of those positions and all of those suggestions are located within the financial worksheets that i've included and i want to just thank you very very much for your time and consideration and allowing me to be a part of the project and sharing my findings as i organize myself to see what's possible there um and and to introduce myself to helping on the project so i i just want to say thank you so much to everyone involved with the initiating committee that provided me with a lot of information uh that allowed me to put this together um and thank you um this has given me a very very well-rounded all views points um on the project thus far and and possibly what we could be doing to help one another going forward so thank you again for the time thank you uh ms phillips um why don't we go back to if you could uh maybe stop sharing your screen yeah go back to uh yes perfect see if there are questions at all [Music] no questions for me but thanks for the presentation that's great yeah i have one quick question and i'm sorry if you mentioned this and i just did not hear it who uh you talked a lot about grant um you know reaching out or trying to get grants from other organizations and how that might work what are you like who are you targeting oh there's a list yeah not at all i don't mind at all i put all of our target um fundraisers in the worksheets that i sent over to heather so as you open those worksheets there should be one there that says funding plan and so yeah so as you look at that worksheet these are funders that have participated in funding and assisting with the funding of large projects like this um that are urban that are the same size that are the same type uh and that bring what we call the lungs to the center of the city uh so um you have a lot of support from these local groups some of them local some of them not local uh so some of these are national and federal supporters that the olmsteads bring there is also a large number of local businesses and partners that should be approached um this is just simply what we could bring these folks have been approached we do have permission to reach out to these uh the list of folks that i've presented here um we have had that olmstead conversation of saying this is something we're working on we're passionate about and we need your help and so can you help us identify grants and give us volunteer folk and so that's just kind of our reach out but yeah those are the folks that we would begin to approach along with a large list of locals i think that in the rfi the response to the rfi that robert black submitted he submitted a beautiful list of block partners there and that probably could be combined with that uh and a universal effort be created to go forward uh with the funding it was some funding requests yeah okay thanks i'll take a look at that there so the reason i was asking um i used to work on a parks initiative with the urban land institute and their partnership in the 10-minute walk campaign and i just a lot of grants recently have been really really focused on park four areas which i mean you could i guess argue with like an influx of people but like ann arbor is not really a park poor city and so i did some investigating about a year ago too and just like what are there organizations out there that would fund something like this and i didn't find anything at the time so i was just curious i mean like i think you have a little bit deeper experience with this than i do but i was just curious what you thought might might fund some of these things so i'll take a look at that worksheet yeah take a look at that worksheet and uh it's interesting because what happens is when we talk to these organizations they will connect us with others and and so it's sort of a chain link reaction of positivity so they'll say oh we do want you to reach out to the gates foundation they have they helped us fund a project not last year or we do want you to reach out to this nrc conservation group that's giving grants for providing education in regards to solar and the benefits of solar so it's interesting as we go through these phone calls in this process more and val just more unfolds it's great great thanks so much caitlin sure i think uh camilla has her hand up yeah is it okay if i have a comment and not a question sure sure okay um yeah well thank you thank you for being here caitlyn and volunteering your time and expertise um i'm going to make a bold statement and it's it's not directed at at one person definitely not a you caitlyn but i i just think it it's just a general statement for all that that are listening i think that most people in the room can agree that we operate in a democracy that serves to aid the planning process and the planning process that the city of ann arbor follows is one that values all perspectives equally and i i think that for a long time we've been favoring the initiating committee and its various entities and um i i believe the initiating committee members speak the most at our meetings and take time away from hearing from other people and organizations and it it often feels like the initiating committee is is bypassing certain democratic processes like the rfi and the rfp process and using coded language um sometimes their presentations give simple suggestions on activation to the council and other times um announce actions that they will take with or without the consent or collaboration with the council of the commons and it's it's extremely political so um caitlin you said that you are here to get feedback from us and to scope out the project i just finished my my graduate degree in urban planning and one of the main things that i learned was how to plan with and not for the community and i don't think that the initiating committee represents the entire community in fact it represents a minority of ann arbor residents and i realize that i'm making a provocative statement um but i don't get a lot of air time in this space and i and i want my voice to be heard um it's been it's an hour into our meeting and and i'm frankly tired of hearing the same feel every single meeting thank you for listening any other questions at all for caitlin heather yeah i just had a question about the financials and if i'm understanding it right it sounds like what's being proposed is a is a tif model of revenue um is that the case am i understanding that correctly i'm um i'm going to be very honest with you um when i'm working with national parks projects i'm unsure what that might be so i may be looking to i i'm unsure that it is a specific model or what that would look like i'm very apologetic i do not have a do i do not possess i like camille a degree in urban planning i wish i did um so i may seek some advice as to if i am presenting what would be a tip model and um and how you all would contribute and what your suggestions would be for a financial model or a funding model that would work yeah by took metal i mean tax increment financing so oh getting a baseline and then moving forward from that and the reason i'm asking is because this isn't a tif district already so that additional revenue is already being captured okay um yeah that's something that i would need to know a little bit more information about um at this point i do not have uh the revenue coming in for the project is at this point all self-generated and volunteer and grant driven i do not at all have the expertise i'll be honest enough to calculate or to put together a tax incremented program um that would be something that we would be seeking help from in in regards to you in looking at how these projects are funded from an amateur perspective they would we would be looking or investigating something like um possibly uh a a sales tax or possibly an a small sort of um city tax for those that wanted to participate but it would be an optional community buy-in as well it would be the option it was my understanding that at this point it would not be considered to be uh the best idea from the initiating committee to present um a funding model for the bigger vision frankly um that would be something that we would really rely on parks and the council of the commons and the city to guide us on as well uh ellis yes i'm sorry to see that it appears that camilla is not with us on this screen anymore uh anyway uh but i do appreciate her bold statement i think it's worth um listening to again i think we have uh we i i think we need to be sure we know who we are um uh i even though i am aware of the development of caitlin's extensive dive into data and um planning issues um it's a it's an incredible presentation and i mean that in a good way but um the emphasis on the initiating committee seems to conflict with the um cooperative efforts that we are trying to establish even with the bloc partners and um it is a little it is a lot confusing when uh the pronouns we are used and i don't i don't even think i feel like i'm part of we i don't really know who we are if it's the initiating committee that's being represented it's not clear that that was the intention um and if it is not the initiating committee i don't see how our uh efforts as a as the center of the city commission have uh are reflected in um in the the idea that someone else is going to be doing this and that we will promote what someone else has done i it's just a little confusing and i can see where camilla's point of view comes into play really i needed to say that all right cells any other questions at all for kayla rita hi thanks caitlin um i just want to acknowledge that the um significant amount of work that you did and that um i feel that you were offering that uh this as an opportunity for us to have a model for something to do to follow and that i didn't feel that you were offering it as a rigid approach either i think that it is a way to start some discussion um to get us to ask some questions on particular things so that we can test um out ways to move forward um and i so that that's my particular statement and i would like to um have us discuss it enough to see where it can integrate with with the direction that we need to do to go forward with and i would love to hear camilla's um comments on on um inclusion that that we appear to have missed and that is absolutely not addressing anything that you've said caitlin um which i very much appreciate thanks thanks frank i just uh i want to i guess echo rita's comments and and express my appreciation i've gotten to know caitlin over the last uh several months and uh her store of knowledge personal store and as well as her connections through the the olmstead heritage and the national park service the she represents an enormous resource um and i think uh however it is provided uh i i welcome it and i would encourage her continued pursuit of of the this process of study etc and um i you know i i don't ought to process more uh earlier statements but um you know the initiating committee uh has been active and i don't think uh in any uh you know negative way i mean we're we're all trying to um pursue this uh this idea of a park and commons in downtown ann arbor and uh you know we welcome other groups to get involved either with the initiating committee or on their own and coordinate um and i i have sensed that that there has been a lot of progress the the green team you know etc etc so uh i just don't want to underscore uh my appreciation to caitlin i mean i i can't even imagine having the background to put together this presentation which alludes to a lot more as we as we move along and develop this and i just want uh to express my appreciation and i thank you again caitlin oh thanks it was fun to well it was very fun doing it frank thank you and it's been such a gift and a pleasure to work with all of you um alan has been such a knowledge in uh the history and the cultural uh you know the cultural vision of what we you know kind of all i think all are on the same page with with that and um for me sometimes uh the numbers you know aren't fun but it does give me a starting place um it's like my diving board so it just gives me a place to launch from um and a way to introduce myself to the project and thank you excellent any other uh airline your hands up on yes well thank you katelyn uh you uh you dove into the detail and uh in terms of the initial what you call light activation and that is before there's any significant transformation of the space as to how we connect liberty plaza in the library uh lane surface how we connect with the library where a civic center building and internal uh functions fit that's all sort of in the rfp process that is coming up this is just looking you know from straight out analysis of parks all over the place if this is a viable economic proposition for the city it will have a ramifying benefits here as time goes on and that's what i think is particularly useful just from where we are we can start and have a confidence that this little park area less than an acre and a half can actually be a viable contribution to the city economy as well as to the benefit of the people and so this is a first stage and it references the rfp and the further stages they're actually going to involve a lot more money and how we transform the space more physically but thank you very much for bringing all that knowledge together i hope people will just read all the detail that you put together and the financial sheets and i think it would be useful after people do actually have a chance to read over that in our next meeting there will be or we have a special meeting our next meeting be to evaluate what you've actually put together with this immediate activation and the inventory that is needed we give a consideration to so this can actually have some momentum to it you definitely gave it a kick forward thank you thanks alan i don't see any other hands up so caitlin just wanted to say thank you on behalf of uh the council and appreciate the presentation very detailed and uh we certainly will take a look at the materials uh that that were attached to the agenda uh i have not had a chance to read the report so i'm sure others are in the same boat and we'll take a look thank you thank you very much for having me everybody and good night all right have a nice day all right excellent and uh so our next agenda item is uh a uh member news and updates i'm happy to kick things off by just uh discussing as uh alan asked i did get a chance to meet with uh the new dda director jeff watson a couple of times gotten together for coffee and both were i think very nice constructive i filled him in a little bit about what uh the work that have been going on here and in the working groups uh as well as um some of the questions that came up during the pac presentation um you know it was not an express goal of mine to advance something during these conversations they were just get to know each other um and talk a little bit about uh where i thought the group was going and uh you know some rough timing milestones around an rfp and uh and sort of what we had gotten back is feedback from an rfi process um so i would say that's about it i don't mean to sound vague it was not intended to be uh get to a certain point uh style of conversation it was it was more just intended to talk through where things were at and um so uh that's uh that's my update um as it comes as it pertains to what you were asking about alan i have not met with anybody else from the dda it's just been the director are there other member members who would like to give news or updates further outside of the working groups we'll get into the working groups next always have an update odile and i are still in france we'll be back it seems on the 12th of september the particular update is to invite you all to the international day of peace which is wednesday the 21st of september this is a annual endeavor by the united nations to bring people to the consciousness of world peace and local peace and so we are activating the space for that day and uh i hope people will actually come and participate the the theme of the united nations is end racism build peace there will be a program dealing with uh the situation of racism of the african-american community i've mentioned before that this is also a decade for people of african descent the question of reparations is dealt with all over the country at this time and hopefully there'll be some emotion toward a resolution toward policy in the city of ann arbor on that uh question uh also there will be the discussion of land return as well as land acknowledgement in the relation to the indigenous people the polywatamay people in the three fires confederacy yeah whose exit from here corresponded to the beginning of ann arbor now there'll also be some discussion of public art in the commons murals that are being discussed the design of the place the kind of art people want to see there and that's again something that the members of the council of the commons would have a great interest in i would expect and the bicentennial is also be something that will be discussed this is uh uh one of the functions of the council of the uh the center of the city commons is fostering a culture of peace and non-violence this came out of the center of the city task force and uh emphasized also in the city council uh affirmation of those recommendations so how that is reflected in our bicentennial we'll begin a discussion on the common the many other things i will send you all the uh evolving uh draft of the program and i'd be very happy if people wanted to participate bring your own ideas into the effort if you feel you're not being represented and see that this is a place the center of the city is a place for all of us so i hope all of us will get together and have a good time international day of peace wednesday the 21st of september thanks thanks alan and please feel free to share that that those materials and they can be added yeah okay other member news or updates okay well let's go into the working group updates then and um you know these are standing items on the agenda so um we can what for some of these may have uh very little movement at times and and at other times there might be more so i think the first one up is the comparable communities uh frank or rita i'm a member of that but frank rita do you have any updates um just briefly uh uh we're intrigued by but have not really uh started uh communications with the group out in chelsea they're working on a urban park just south of the main downtown area on uh on main street and uh it looks very interesting and uh in its you know kind of embryonic stages but it seems to have a lot of energy from what i can read on online and in the newspaper so we're going to be connecting with them soon and i have a question about our working group specifically and that is um do we have do we want to set some benchmarks in terms of like how far do we go how many how many comparables are we going to set for ourselves and um you know at some point it's sort of like can we just assess and pick out the best and and move forward so my question is um although i'm very interested in the option of looking at chelsea and how they're proceeding i would like us to use what we have um and move forward so it's in a little expression of impatience so is there any guidance on on our group well maybe what we maybe maybe one of the goals of uh tonight is that um over the next four weeks before our next meeting all of the groups can get together and set forth maybe a plan for the next four months till the end of the calendar year and and including that could be some goals for uh for the limits does that sound like a fair uh fair challenge i guess for each of the groups i like that idea uh alice and then alan i too am part of the comparable communities working group um oh i also know that we are out there in the community challenged not directly but challenged by the public in making progress so you know i think we have made this challenge to the group working groups before i think you meant not all of the groups but each of the groups is that correct um that we don't want to all meet together because that would not be correct correct yeah that's what i meant individually individual groups um um but i i think we should i mean it's good that we're going to try to but we're going to put that on the agenda but we should be giving clear direction as in by this next meeting we want this submitted before the meeting so that it can be validated or challenged or whatever but to show that we are going to make some progress i think all of us are are have been meeting for quite some time but all we we are dominated by and the few events um that are that take place on the the site which aren't really progress they're just a different location for the same things that are happening and yet doesn't move our project forward not to cast aspersions on any type of group or any event it's just that it's it's we're not moving forward and i think the public sees that because they don't see anything so once we have these results from next month what are we going to do we need to know what the plan is from each working group or what is what is suggested by the results of their work we really need to get pretty nitty-gritty and fast because the this will be one more month that we don't have the funds for um the rfp one more month that we don't know how we're gonna get them one more month that that may result in more confusing uh issues about procedure in fact i don't i'm told that now parks is going to write the rfp did we know that are we going to do that i mean yeah alice i i will say uh one we we we did talk about that a little bit the last meeting um none of that has been decided um and i think it's been goal of this group that uh that would be a joint rfp process we did make the request to pack we've not gotten you know we've not really pursued a follow-up since our july end of july meeting with pac either um i will take that action item to pursue uh follow back um and along with erica and stephen um around that item but uh but but i also i do want to put a plug in you know we did meet about a week ago uh or two weeks ago i guess with this group but we had made fundraising progress so i know this group met at the uh at the 17th of uh august which is only a couple weeks ago which group i'm i'm confused with this group the screaming council's account yeah well okay yeah i'm there but but there was no i did not hear any plan i just heard that there would be future talks and then in writing i got the message that parks was going to manage the rfp right and so i'm pretty confused okay oh we'll uh well can you straighten it out now i mean if you seem to have an idea of what's happening i don't have a clear idea because it's not conflicting messages i i know what i said and that's the extent of of what i know all right alex i don't understand my feel my i mean you say one thing another person says another thing then i get a message externally from something else and that's talk about a communications plan we don't have one okay alan right on alice you raised a problem uh back to though the comparable communities what i would like is more digging on how the people who use the facilities in these places have any voice in what is actually being done the commons has the sense of the fundamental principle of the users or the managers self-management and the models we have seen look at the overview that there is something quality like a dda or like a non-profit that grows that looks at a lot of the different parts together you know as a the organization plan but underneath that how are the people who are using it actually involved in the development of program and the management and in the uh setting of priorities and so on so that's what i would like a little more exploration of because that's what we need to be uh amplifying and the work that we are doing in ann arbor so that's it as you look back over your engagements with the places you have looked and looking to chelsea and looking to royal oak which is newly on the agenda of uh comparable places uh the uh role of the consumer as they also the producer is what i'd like more attention to and i do think that that uh columbus indiana where the commons engine company has played a very strong corporate role in encouraging the development of a uh commons like facility would be worth our exploration as we think about you know major investors who would say this is part of what i want my uh image in the town and its future to look like which seem to be quality in some of the other places you have looked at to be a an anchor in the initiative so i hope that you can take a look at what what actually went on in columbus indiana was a common engine company thank you okay thanks alan um so i i think uh before we go into the other uh comparable or other working groups i think i really would like to ask if uh there's a level of comfort around pushing this challenge for them you know and i think maybe uh three to four days uh prior to the next uh uh council of the commons meeting uh is sufficient to have materials uh back in but i'd like us to i'd like to get a level of comfort uh as to if that's a viable um viable point time to submit something around really what the working group's goals are for the next several months what the road map is to those goals and then how they further the next phase of the process you know through a formal planning process i think is is another good question there could be other questions too that folks like to have but i would start with those three um does that sound like something that folks other folks feel is a good idea could you repeat those three what what the goal of the uh by the end of this calendar year of each working group is what the roadmap is to that goal meaning what where what steps do they think that each that each working group will take and then finally how does the goal further the the future plan for a formal transformation of space or formally used i'll shoot your hand up um i know i um but i dropped my mouse and many disasters here um i want to i want to um mention that i know there is a great deal of support in the community for this it is a it was we're here because of the public and um i'm just afraid we're going to lose our support and this is this is worrying especially lately when i hear the enthusiasm from um someone for this whole thing someone who really worked hard that i didn't know worked hard on the ballot initiative i i didn't work that hard on it not frankly um but um that kind of enthusiasm is not what i see developing and not what i see us developing by um showing progress and that's why i say this and i'm very concerned that we're losing track of the um the enthusiasm that we had at the time and uh that we can't afford to lose and when we are confused about who's doing what and why it makes it all the more imperative that working groups which are more flexible and more responsive perhaps and can bring in members of the public who are enthusiastic and might be they'll help us i mean that's i think that's how kaitlyn got here um but that was almost overwhelming and and didn't um i i'm not i i hope that it was it was a source of uh regenerating some enthusiasm i just don't know because i don't have a sense that we know where we're going so if we can meet the challenge that you posed that would be good i agree with frank we need to be clear about what this challenge is and what it means to work so i guess in response to that do you think that through the three questions accurately capture a destination that will help build that momentum or that clarity it's i i think it's a it's perfectly fine and you know three three questions are good that's it because those should cover um a great deal of it's a broad spectrum and it's not just the comparable communities that need to do it but i see that there are other working groups that may have trouble uh moving their progress along and having something to show for it by that time but at least they could show how they want to get there okay frank yeah i just uh kind of in response to alice uh i do actually see uh increased involvement and enthusiasm and caitlyn is is a case in point we're just thrilled to have her energy excitement background and knowledge and there are other people who are coming into this um matt altrude has been mentioned before who actually voted against prop a but now is enthusiastically for the park and commons and understands its potential value um so you know i uh i'm always looking looking for positive signs and over the over the past few months and and and talking to potential donors we've gotten a few new commitments and i think others are other a potential financial support are out there and that will you know over the next short while hopefully we'll get this rfp fully fully funded and move this thing along but uh yeah i have to say i i'm spending more time on this than i ever thought i would at uh at my uh advanced stage but shy of allen's age but you know i i have increasing uh confidence that this this project will move forward thanks frank so i'd like to ask uh that we that we proceed with those three questions um and uh we'll put them in an email here send them out to the group so that you know not not for response but uh for note and we'll ask that each of the working groups maybe three days before the [Music] next council the commons meeting submit everything heather can collect it and then we can discuss each of them at at the meeting and that can be a major part of our agenda uh for the next uh for the next discussion so i'll put together the three questions and an email and that date and then i'll ask uh heather to forward it around and um go from there house can those questions be in the minutes well i think we're in pretty basic minutes but i'm happy to put them in an email and have them sent around so that there's a record of them we can put them into the packet else i'm losing my train of thought because of everything that's going on around me but um i i don't want to sound pessimistic i i just this is as if anybody has looked at what i've done earlier you'll you can see i mean i put a lot into this 12 years ago and um i i don't want to stymie anything but i'm not even sure who the working groups are and what they're doing uh we we still haven't put that information of who is you know if somebody from the public goes oh i'm interested in what what they're doing how can i find out more who do they go to um and and maybe they have something to help with help us with i mean i i just think it seems so isolated and adam i think it's wonderful that you're going to have these conversations i think that there are people in the public who could go to people and say hey i'm you know what i i had this idea about about it because they're they're allowed to go other people are allowed to go and talk if if we had a whole cadre of people talking it up besides us wouldn't that be wonderful it would give them a sense of ownership as well but we don't have a way for those people to get involved because it's very hard to get involved with something um that isn't seen you know it's not out there it's not happening yet and so um i i hope i'm not just being confusing but it is confusing to me because i hear that parks is going to manage the rfp and it costs this much to get the the rp written but it have if parks is doing it where are they getting their money and has this are we getting being treated in a separate way from other parts of the city that get sent out rfps and get funding from uh other opportunities and so forth alice i do want to say you know i know there's a lot of side conversation around this all uh there's not been any decisions on this and uh you know i i was part of the i gave the pac presentation and i have been part of other conversations prior to um and i feel very confident that we'll be able to work something out that that you know the goal should be to continue to raise money towards the funding the rfp work on seeing if we can phase the rfp and i really think that the the pack presentation was warmly received i i know there are a lot of sidebar conversations i don't think it would be news to me if there's any decision being made it would also be news to me that any decision could be made absent people who are doing the majority of the fundraising i don't see how that works very well so i really you know i don't i wouldn't worry about the sidebar conversations unless they're coming from you know um somebody smiled who has authority over that i and i have not i've not heard that from somebody's mouth who has authority that's i think i'm slightly missing misinterpreted but that's okay i i i just i i guess i'm taking the role tonight of speaking for people who haven't been able to speak um who have asked you know where is it going what's happening when are we gonna you know when are we gonna know something so um i apologize if i sound like i'm being pessimistic um but we have been working at this a long time and we don't have much to show for it at this point um and i i hope it's not internal slow walking or something like that but um i don't see many answers to it um we don't vote on anything we don't send anything to council we don't have a hint as to when we will have an rfp and that means we can't tell people when they'll see something when they'll see a change when they'll see progress and i i really i really search for how we can do that and keep on going constructively and with energy because um we are getting some crosstalk um lastly you know i i can think of two meetings before this where we thought one thing was true and then it wasn't and then next time another something else was true and then it wasn't and um and that comes from staff from other people that are familiar with the situation it comes through all the time so um i just had to say say it out loud and uh i hope that we can take these three questions and and make some progress somehow okay erica yeah thanks um i mean i think i think some of the frustration that that folks are voicing is probably fair um in terms of kind of feeling application about things you know wondering how what progress is being made i do think it's useful for the commission to think about when we know what our current bylaws say in terms of being an advisory group to counsel um that's that's useful i think it's also important to think about what the role of commissions are in the city and um to acknowledge that this commission is was set up very differently than other commissions um and i think that there was a good desire in doing so but in in doing so it was a bit of an experiment right and so kind of thinking about whether or not the formation of this committee is producing the results that we desire is perhaps useful in these that in this in this at this point in the process as well um it's a compilation of a number of different non-profit of a few different non-profit organizations um of representatives from city commissions um of community members and um you know alice you mentioned wondering how people can get involved in this initiative we have two nonprofit organizations that exist in town um both of which are represented on this commission but typically within a um my experience within the community is that when people are very passionate about a subject they often get involved in those non-profit organizations and that the city fills a different function in terms sometimes in terms of a commission like this is really about advising kind of next steps about how we how we move something forward now obviously you've been trying to work on developing an rfp city has provided a certain amount of funding and said that the rest needs to be privately matched and um part of it's been privately matched and now we're kind of in this holding period where it's a little unconventional for a city commission to even be talking about fundraising um but we are and that's that's not necessarily um a bad thing but it's it's unconventional in terms of it the process and so um acknowledging that is maybe something that the fundraising committee needs to to work on as we as we get back together in the next um next meeting but i think it might be useful for us as a commission to also think about um you know this about the formation of this group this is and and how other initiatives have moved forward productively in the in the community in the past um you know i know the skate park is something that's a smaller example that often gets cited um and that has largely existed with the private fundraising existing outside of of the city and then a group a non-profit organization approaching so you see it moved forward now obviously that model doesn't work it doesn't translate entirely well to this type of space um which is why we started bringing up ideas like conservancies and looking at best practices in terms of comparable communities and looking at how those formations happen um but you know i think that i guess hopefully my point has been made now um in terms of um you know we're in a bit of an experimental phase um and sometimes it's worth worthwhile to stop and and make sure that the processes and kind of organizational structure that we're using is is getting towards our goals as well erica i appreciate your comments um i do wish that we would stop talking about the skateboard the skate park and skateboard park as an example uh it's it's it serves a very specific community they have very targeted uh programs and we are looking at something entirely different our community is the community and it's very diverse that's one thing i think camilla even touched on this idea too it's we're very it's a very diverse community we do not have a specific targeted group and except it may seem that way um furthermore i still don't have an answer to whether even though this is a unique and unusual not unconventional structure that we're dealing with um i get the sense that we're being held to a sort of a typical um standard i guess um but i don't understand i do not know if this if a private group paying for an rfp is the common way of dealing we're expected to do it the ordinary way through the templates and all this stuff but is everybody else having to pay for their own own community project for an rfp for a community project maybe not but even if they are it's a very unique project as you said it's there's some unconventionality to it and i just don't see the answers the questions and matching the quest answers or vice versa so we don't ever know in even the facts of the the structures we're dealing with even the facts of the revenues that have been associated with this and so on and so forth we just don't have those facts and why we don't i don't know well you know i think to be honest with you unless there are specific updates around the other working groups i think it would actually be in our benefit to just really dive in and push the questions i just sent them to heather and why don't why don't we just plan on doing that for this next uh this next meeting something to report well uh it seemed like it was probably the update on these other questions but i do think that the uh the process of the rfp and what we're looking for is it requires focused attention and and maybe also whether the form of organization that we have is actually uh functional to the task that we have i would point out that in the resolution of the city council that followed some previous resolutions that established the initiating committee as an on-the-ground group to you know work toward carrying out the recommendations of the center of the city task force and to help in the development of the council of the commons that was the main substance of that resolution at the end of which was put on a formal structure of the council of the commons which was actually in tension with the sense that the council of the commons has developed out of the activists and activities actually of the place that is of the commoning activities out of that comes the organizational structure that has liaison with all the city agencies and with advisors and so on that is basically out of the working groups that are working with energy or with child care or with food or within music or with the actual endeavors and we have been made ourselves as though we are some kind of authoritative or advisory body uh but actually where the energy is supposed to come from is the people actually doing stuff but we've been completely blocked in people actually doing stuff aside from a few scheduled activities like the peace day coming up or the earth week last spring yeah because the dda which should have removed the cars immediately and the revenue that came from the car parking should be in in the fun for the development of the commons of the uh various activities there as the city council said uh that has been blocked eda's want to talk about it and it says they won't even talk about it until after the uh rfp is done and they're agreed upon they need a whole new policy uh and similarly the city administrator his first task was to get together the block group so all the potential partners and this would begin to see each other and talk together and in the two and a half years since that was his number one objective on this uh carrying out the recommendation of the task force it has not been done at all and left to our uh little uh working group that sarah a little bit here because i feel like what we're we continue to rehash the past sins of previous pretty previous individuals who've been in this roles and i'm i just for one i'm this is not a productive use of our time at nine o'clock at night and it's gotta be about three o'clock in the morning where you're at like okay so i understand that you're frustrated i am frustrated as well okay okay but but us continuing to rehash the past for people who are not even employed by the city anymore is not going to be a productive use i think this is part of the reason why i continue to emphasize the most important things we can do and be it meaning we we people who care about making this progress go for this this part go forward is to finish raising the funds and get started on a formal planning process by people who actually know how to build a park and i that i agree that this is a little awkward at this point in time to do that but i feel like this is a vehicle that allows us to keep that ability alive and i know from talking with frank that we are making progress on uh doing that and i wish it was faster but we are making progress and that's important and i think that we will get there and i think we will get there sooner than we think um but we gotta we've got to let this go you know i i work with a very diverse coalition of folks who pay my bills every day and i've seen this sins of the past come up a lot and it kills and uh it at some point we've just got to stop so i'm going to stop there because i'm doing the same thing are there other items outside on the working groups that we would like to cover this evening are you saying that the uh the request for proposals element is how we move forward on that is going to be on our agenda for next time around yes because it's part of a working room okay all right why uh why don't in that case i sent the questions to heather we will uh then uh ask to ask heather if you could send them out to everybody and we'll go forward um erica you got your hand up and then we'll go into public comment yeah i sense that you're transitioning to public comment i just wanted to take a moment to thank camilla for um i know she's she's transitioning away from the commission i appreciated her work on on the on the commission here um i think it i appreciate you taking the time to to speak up today camilla and kind of speak a little bit about how you felt you know um the ability for your voice to be heard here or not heard um and i think that's something maybe to reflect upon um camilla's he's been a graduate student here and it's the exact type of energy and experience and background that we kind of hope to draw to this and i'm not sure that her reflection on her experience is necessarily what we would um hope she would have you know maybe we might hope that she would have had a different feeling at the end of this um and that's something for us to reflect upon moving forward in terms of how we engage and allow for for different voices to be heard around this table and being very conscientious of when we're speaking fair point pretty much so thank you camilla for the time he put into it okay that case let's move into public comment heather do we have any members of the public yes we have several with the hands raised um the person with a phone number that ends in 326 you can go ahead and speak oh this is a jeff crockett and i am here i hope you can all hear me i just want to tell you that i am super pumped up about the commons uh for a number of reasons but one of them is the exciting developments on the garden and if uh i would encourage camilla to join me over the garden and just so that i can share with her all the volunteer time and hours that have gone in to create beautiful gardens include a lot of native plants uh to get uh pollinators there and i would be happy to take you on a tour but i am also pumped up because we the the council of the commons have received huge two huge gifts during the past year and one comes from robert black and the other comes from caitlin olmsted phillips these folks have a wealth of experience of activating public places and i would encourage you to include these people in the working group i mean it seems to me like a no-brainer you include caitlyn in the fundraising and development aspect let me give you an example uh i have recently we've wanted to get a mural on the commons and we have mary t fols uh gave us a bid of 10 grand to put a mural on the north wall enter the wall just to the north of the garden so we have received i attended administrator dahonie's session about how to improve the downtown and at that session i heard larry neeson speak a local artist about beautifying the downtown i approached the math to the meeting and said you and i want to do the same thing we want to beautify the downtown and i think it would be wonderful for you to help us beautify the commons with a mural by mary teefels well guess what two days later he came up with five thousand dollars to do this and guess what less than three days later caitlin found a donor a matching donor for five thousand dollars we now have ten thousand dollars that we collect within a week and the reason that happened is because we articulated a clear vision of what we want and that this group articulates a clear vision with the help of the people on this committee and robert back black and caitlin phillips you will develop the vision you will need and take advantage of caitlyn's experience in the dough in getting donations not just locally but statewide and nationally no one else has done that locally here yet and she brings that perspective absolutely get her involved in the fundraising aspect of this project and you're not going to be talking about getting 20 grand to fund an rfp you're going to be talking about getting millions of dollars to fund the whole project so i would encourage you to do that i have never been more optimistic than i am right now and i would encourage erica to connect with uh caitlin because as i recall erica you said you would be willing to get rid of the parking on the commons if we came up with a plan for activating the commons caitlyn is developing that plan please work with caitlin forward to do the programming that's needed so we can remove the parking and do short-term activation that will include providing sheltered seating wi-fi and an event space thank you very much thanks jeff all right next person is robert black thank you heather can you hear me okay all right um it's hard to follow jeff crockett with anything because of his enthusiasm and i must say that he has done more in my opinion to really activate the commons engage the public and bring people to a common vision around the gardens and i absolutely love i was sitting in the backyard of jeff's house with him and his wife just last year their beautiful garden and his enthusiasm and ability to bring people together is really important and i i trust you would consider including him in this process as well um and i want to do a shout out to camilla i think she hit the nail right on the head congratulations to moving through your education and also let's give voice to all people here let's get this outreach going it's what the initiating committee is actually trying to do it's what you're trying to do you have very wonderful allies at m live ann arbor news the idea of a mural or some other thing that can begin to represent this you have music you have art you have food and plants you have education joette ryoma and project grow is happening wild ones with bob gracie very dignified well respected person talk about education in the community you are doing it and i just want to do the thing that i have done in every single meeting there is no other person who has been your loyal supporter than me i have been to every one of your meetings and listen to all of your stuff except for two and i've heard everything you have said and do not despair you are on the right track this is too important to lose faith here um alice is right just get it read her read her and allen's responses in 2010 again and be inspired by this thing put together your documents what adam is telling you and suggesting you do is to write this down work towards a report at the end of this year to counsel and advise them on your vision for this thing because you are the one that's tasked with creating this you see it from your hub point engage the initiate initiating committee as your root of support for this and then reach out to the dda as an ally to you and as alan said get these block partners talking with you in whatever way you can however you can as often as you can keep it transparent in public you will be amazed what shows up like this thing with the grants right now is really powerful and i think what i do a lot with graphics and stuff is uh amy rowe and i made a lovely poster that was shown for this group about the center of the city that was shown at the uh leslie science center which by the way my partner wayne apple yeah and i were the designers of that project which is serving thousands of people in the community to teach about sustainable design but do the outreach do some other things i know that people have talked about using the spark center take a walk get matt altrudea involved more and just do this so that you can start to show people that you are actually making progress last thing i'll say um activate the space gently is one of the words that caitlin said take the time to learn as we go this is not a one and done slam dunk dunk designer park process get this rfp out so you could set the stage for it the groundwork the biodynamics of it the biophilic space and then issue a second part of the ifp to create a phase one build but let the rest of the build unfold with contributions from the rest of the community first martin corporation u of m credit union aadl and the other companies around there that will support this in ways that you can't even imagine yet so don't be too stuck on a conventional idea to create a slam dunk park design done it will evolve as you grow this vision but start with the vision and get a brand as soon as you can so that people can understand this is your center of the city this is our center of the city and we all belong to it and we all have a voice come to peace day and learn about how to make restorations to others too so good luck don't despair and remember margaret reed's comment uh margaret mead never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world in fact it's the only thing that ever has so please keep the faith and just do your work you're doing great thank you thanks robert all right the person with the phone number ending in three four zero uh greetings um i'm luis vasquez president of the first award um i also just wanted to thank uh camilla for her bold statement and i think this council really needs to reflect upon what exactly she said um and also just observed how she voted with her feet and uh dropped off of the conversation uh that's very telling um now i'm one of the 47 of voters who voted against uh proposal a of 2018.
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yup any of the way back to it okay what is the actual physical capacity of highland i it's more than 800 less than 841 i couldn't quote you on an exact number but i i want to say it was like 8 20.
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