I think I have one that still stayed below because of the influx of the additional Federal programs um so that's very common but again we went through the extensive testing there um what that really means is as I said we have certain amount that we have to test we pull the compliance supplements up so we test for eligibility allowable costs those kinds of things nothing to report um we're late again and and not we as as the auditing firm but again the state of New Jersey so now we are in the fifth year of what I'll identify as gasby 75 um Gatsby 75 is read the recording of the post retirement benefits um that each member of the district teaching obviously as they retire they're entitled to health benefits for life the board of education is not responsible to make those payments the state of New Jersey does it on behalf of all the board of educations but yet this new governmental auditing standards well it's not really new because we're in the fifth year Believe It or Not requires us to identify the financial information that that we get from the vision of Pensions state of New Jersey well the audit deadline was supposed to be December 5th it was moved to January 5th um then it got moved to February 5th still waiting for information from the Division of Pensions um that information was finally released in the middle of February and then that then pushed the final deadline back to March 17th and I will say um so those numbers were released were able to release all the audit reports by the statutory deadline but believe it or not a little more than a week ago two weeks ago new numbers came out again and it's you know it's it's sometimes it's just you have to shake your head when you uh you wait months and months and months and months and numbers of release and and now they revised the numbers there was no effect here for the city of Clifton so I'm just putting that out there what's new for this particular year is is underneath the new gas because leases and not the bore everybody but layman's terms we used to have operating leases and capital leases we no longer have that distinction now they're just um you know financing agreements so any of those transactions were recorded and went through the financial statements before I get into the fund equity in your current account which I think is important to talk about just to highlight a little bit about food service so Food Service operational wise you had 1.1 million dollars of profit in this particular year so you're running at a profit there as well uh the summer care and summer enrichment program is relatively inactive for the most part uh one note that we that I want to mention is is that in our footnotes um there's a new footnote at the very end and we talk about all the uh allotments that you are receiving through the coronavis cares are for money and to date the total awards were almost well actually a little bit over 39 million 39.1 million dollars that came through the system and that's relatively over I guess it's a three year two and a half year period sizable amounts of money that that have gone through the system so I'm going to talk about fund balance and for those board members if if you have the report if not I'm just going to talk in general terms anyway and I'm really going to go to page 75 of the audit report but so 75 is really it's a general fund it's a budgetary comparison schedule I know you were just talking about your budget you're in the midst of of trying to finalize that process well this exhibit exhibit C1 is really a culmination of the prior Year's budget it's your budgeted revenues on the operating side and expenses and then we compare it to the results what did you budget versus what the actual revenues and the actual expenditures were and ultimately we come down to either an increase or a decrease in your fund balance your your net resources um last year the district picked up net resources of 1.3 million dollars with a grand total fund balance of 22 million one hundred and twenty nine thousand 398 dollars and that's on the budgetary basis and I'm not going to get into the details unless somebody has a question between budgetary and Nod but this is really the numbers that the Board of Education should focus on it is your total total free balance those balances are derived or broken up into various components and I'll talk about those we have some restricted and we have some unrestricted uh balances and what I will say is that I'm going to start from the bottom I'm going to talk about unassigned fund balance so unassigned fund balance is really your free balance and again because of the um pandemic the state of New Jersey revised the amount that you can retain in free balance or on a signed fund balance if I go back way back you know 20 years ago with six percent it dropped down to four percent um and that's been that way for probably the last 15 years or so um down to two percent I'm sorry two percent and because of the pandemic the state of New Jersey made an adjustment temporary adjustment and allowed all districts to retain four percent and what what are the percentages mean it just simply means you take your expenditures we have some adjustments that happen through that process but generally take your expenditures multiply times that percentage and that's the maximum you can retain in free balance so for the previous 12 15 so years it was two percent the pandemic came along state of New Jersey felt that there was a need to allow the free balances to increase because there was so much uncertainty as to what was going to happen this was obviously way before all the funding mechanisms and um and the aid that was distributed so when you look at your audit report your free balance of unassigned fund balance is nine million 587 211.
One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. How many boxes of cookies did you sell? More importantly, what's your favorite? What's that new one? Did you have one? [Applause] I'm trying to cut down on the number. All right. Next up is the adoption of the agenda. Do I have a motion? I have a second by me. Thank you. Next up. Oh, I'm sorry. I need a All those in favor signify by saying I. I. All those motion passes. Next up, recognition and presentations. I believe Joe's here. So, I'd like to take this moment to thank for the opportunity to present our athletes uh who had great end of seasons. We have a couple state champions and some state runner-ups and some state finalists. Uh we're going to start actually with swimming. So if coach Smith could come up and introduce our diving state champion.
I don't want to be another statistic even worse I don't want to worry about my children not coming home from school yet people do and that is the harsh reality we're all human and we're all equal yet how many lives do we need to lose or how many stories do we need to hear before something changes before this country stops repeating its mistakes here's the last point I'm going to make our mental health has hit a decline as well the CDC says suicide is the second lean cause of death in teenagers and young adults Across the Nation one in five U.S adults will experience a mental health crisis in a year with that number being one in six for our youth that's not good for those who have been not taught how to handle their emotions or they don't want to seek professional hope what do you do they decide to abuse substances or they harm themselves or worse they harm others so in case if you weren't keeping track inflation the cost of living gun violence and mental health are just some of the issues I see we can havoc on this country so what can we do about it we alone can't stop this country's Mental Health crisis it's obsession with guns greed or cutting out the middle class because the way I see it it's become the rich versus the poor we've seen that contacting Representatives and protesting results in little to no change yet that doesn't mean we should stop we must persist in creating the change that we want to see in this country and that starts with you so communicate communication with your family and your neighbors goes a long way check in on how they're doing talk to them have them check in on you because the bottom line is all we really have is each other thank you [Applause] our next speaker comes from lawera high school Ashley celaya [Applause] you open your eyes and smell the fresh winter air oh but let it aside once you remember that you have to go to that Dreadful job according to a society for human resource management at around 100 million full-time employees 51 say they are not engaged at work and tend to do the bare minimum you ask yourself what if I had pursued the career I wanted what if I had embraced change instead of pushing it away where would I be if if if hello my name is Ashley shalaya and many teenagers don't pursue their dreams due to the fear of failure we need to overcome that fear and Chase what we want no matter what anyone says picture this a student happily tells his teacher his vision for himself to become a real estate agent right after high school but gets shut down with the comments somewhere along the lines you have to go to college or you won't be successful Envision the athlete who made a mistake on the fields and the coach tells her that was a terrible shot what were you thinking are these empowering comments or common step of students down you have to go to college or you won't be successful versus that's great you should work hard for your vision instead of that was a terrible shot what were you thinking you replace it with you guys did very well but next time in for the right instead of the left which one would you rather hear there was a study in 2021 of how teachers expectations instilled confidence in grade 10 students called believe in me and I will too from over 100 interviews and 175 classroom observations it was found that a teacher's expectation for students can shape the way students view themselves a teacher who believes in students results in the students believing in themselves so everyone parents Educators coaches who encourage an environment where students can grow and feel empowered sometimes it takes just one person to believe in you for you to keep pursuing your dreams it takes just one person to spark hope in a student's heart if we all come together to create an environment where we can support and encourage each other imagine all the students who would pursue their dreams and would do great things in their life imagine all the students who would believe in themselves and who would fight for a brighter future last but not least for all the students out there pursue the life that was meant for you and do not settle for less ignore those negative comments inside your head but what if this but what if that but what if you'll succeed wake up and say I can do it get a journal and build a habit of writing three positive affirmations every morning as Eleanor Roosevelt said the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams what dreams are you going to chase thank you [Applause] we will now hear from Chloe Frank's representing Cypress High School [Applause] foreign [Applause] I would like to tell you a name Diane one day Diane collapsed at home she then crawled to the phone to call her mother and she was then rushed to the hospital now keep in mind Diane did not know she was pregnant at the time the doctors had to remove tissue from inside her uterus but this didn't solve the problem she then had to go in and back again for an exploratory surgery the result was a tubal pregnancy meaning she had a fertilized egg that had ruptured on the way to the uterus the result was internal bleeding she lost five pints of blood the procedure was termed as an abortion if this were to happen now without abortion rights Tayan would have been left to die Diane Franks is my grandmother and I can't imagine my life without her having Reproductive Rights means having autonomy over your body the fight to the right to our own bodies have been a fight since beginning of time abortion laws across the country varied widely in our nation's history in 1973 the Supreme Court hear the case of Jane Rowe and by a seven to two vote granted us a landmark decision of Roe v Wade the legalized abortions in the U.S but then in September of 2022 Roe v Wade was overturned this is where we were left off today and will we still debate the topic of abortions people think that by adding all these rules that that's going to stop abortions entirely but what it's really creating is a greater amount of unsafe abortions creating an unsafe world for women creating more life-threatening situations for women and creating bad parents from teens who didn't want to have children the World Health Organization states that 23 000 women die each year from unsafe abortions and another source states that banning abortions in the U.S would lead to a 21 increase in pregnancy-related deaths and a 33 percent increase among women of color according to these U.S statistics 74 percent of women feel that having a child would disrupt their education and their profession and the Kaiser Family Foundation states that costs over eighteen thousand dollars on average to have a child and that's including pregnancy delivery and postpartum care denying access to abortion is denying women the right to her own body denying access to abortion is denying women freedom and the supposedly free country there are still 14 states fighting for abortion rights I would like you all to Envision a world where women have full Freedom over their bodies Envision a world where women can pursue any profession without the constraints of stereotypical gender norms so what does this mean for us what can we do I ask you to open your mind heart and soul to this problem I ask you to educate yourselves and fight for what you know is right I ask you to find the planned parenthoods and help them by donating sharing your story and volunteering your time most importantly I ask you to look at the women in your life and walk with them no matter what their Journey may be no one should be denied the right to their own body no one should have to know life without their mother their grandmother their sister or niece thank you [Applause] and now representing Anaheim ilc is Raul Benitez [Applause] yeah I'm driving out of town one of my tire pops I'm in the middle of nowhere and my phone has no signal then I questioned to myself will I be using math in a situation like this my point here is schools don't teach students basic life skills such as simple mechanical education learning to file taxes cooking or something as practical as reading street signs we high school students should be taught topics that will be a part of our everyday lives not only will this help us save money in the long run but we will become more independent skills like this should be added to public school curriculums and be prioritized a couple suggestions I put forward are adding driver EDS classes and home economic classes these classes can add good habits to students such as simple make these classes can these classes can create good habits for students and these classes can help create good good habits for students like being organized clean and productive in addition to this Hands-On and outdoor activities can awaken students brains so students should um so schools should add more in addition to this Hands-On and outdoor activities can awaken students brains so more field trips should be added throughout the school year The Independent Learning Program at Anaheim high does a phenomenal job with this technique by opening up new opportunities and interest for students in conclusion government officials should change their focus on education which is why I believe school should prioritize the basics thank you all and have a great day sorry for the impressive [Applause] Live Theater and now from Kennedy High School Julianne roses [Applause] today the concept of rape culture is disturbingly prevalent especially in a world where young women like me exist according to rain.org the nation's largest anti-sexual violence organization out of 1 000 sexual assaults 975 perpetrators were walk free our federal courts need to begin to take rape and sexual assault seriously and stop excusing rapists of their crime letting them off easy with little to no sentence Unfortunately today sexual assault occurs more than any of us can ever imagine yet we can't be hypocritical and blame the victims for not coming forth with their traumas because there already have been many who have spoken up but time and time again our courts deny them one widely known rape case involves Chanel Miller who in 2015 was raped after Brock Turner took advantage of her while she was intoxicated and unconscious Brock Turner was convicted of quote three felony counts facing up to 14 years in prison yet judge Aaron persky sentenced him to just six months in the county jail that absurds sentence later docked down to just three months all Chanel Miller's trauma deemed an absolute joke by the court the most shocking part about this case is that there were Witnesses Carl Frederick and his friend Peter Johnson who when they saw what was going on they had to pin down Brock Turner until police arrived and as they did an interview with ABC News Carl said that he had to check to make sure Chanel was still alive as she was unconscious the entire time Chanel Miller was failed to be heard even with Witnesses and as hard as it was for her to share her experience to begin with well imagine how much harder it was for her to see the entire story flipped to see Brock Turner deem the victim women and men are both sexualized greatly in today's society but unfortunately our government does nothing but reinforce this we have to speak up against normalized sexual assault and plead for legitimate and fair sentencing for rapists and sex offenders not a three-month sentence so speak up stand up against something that you know is wrong even if you think that you alone cannot make a change because one person at a time that's exactly how we change the world and appearing anything during my speech overwhelmed you or made you feel uncomfortable understand that that was exactly my point according to Central CM Sexual Assault Center only about six percent of reported rapists ever serve a day in jail we have to be aware and stop being ignorant pretending like this isn't happening stand up speak up for something that you know is wrong even if you think that you alone cannot make the change because just like Mariska Hargitay once said domestic violence and sexual assault are difficult things to talk about I acknowledge that so let's talk about them anyway help give a voice to those who are voiceless because for the victims of rape and sexual assault for Chanel Miller this isn't just their reality it's mine and it's yours too thank you [Applause] and now from Katella High School Susanna caseda [Applause] in 2023 it is unlikely that you will find a classroom full of confident students you might find a few you might find Tim saying they feel confident on Monday and only six saying they feel confident on Wednesday confidence is so weird it's a word we throw around so casually it's the thing every young adult wants more of but how exactly are we supposed to address the lack of confidence and low self-esteem of today's teenagers we see how such a problem is already affecting our real world according to the Dutch Ministry of Education students with low self-esteem struggle to make decisions about their education such as choosing a major these students often dropped out of their selected Majors while students with healthy self-esteem levels completed their degrees in the majors they initially chose why is this important for one I hope my surgeon is confident in their career choice but more importantly we see how our self-esteem can affect our long-term goals and the overall outcome of Our Lives low self-esteem creates a lack of self-confidence I asked a group of students at my school what caused these feelings of self-doubt and poor image in them and one word stood out to me the most expectations students explained that feeling and inability to reach certain expectations is what drives their confidence to the ground we create these expectations through comparison through what we wish we could do and what we know we will never achieve comparison is not only the thief of Joy but it also pickpockets our confidence a heartbreaking response from one of the students I interviewed was I want to be the person others see me as because I will never see myself that way if students didn't struggle with these self-esteem issues and didn't have low confidence perhaps we would see more teen involvement in our schools and our communities but instead us teens fall into a spiral of excessive self-criticism and self-loathing we wish we could just please everyone but it does not have to be this way you can all start to build confidence in yourselves right now we must tell ourselves that we are capable of achieving our goals and everyone is truly capable just look at what you have already done how far you've come another part of this positive self-talk well it's super cliche is to reassure yourself as many times as you have to tell yourself I can do it people often link their identities to their thoughts use this to your advantage and of course remember that nobody is looking nobody is watching as teens we can all be a little self-absorbed or very self-absorbed but how often do you actually pay attention to the people around you how often do you forget about them once you're not in their presence perhaps the best advice on confidence that I have received is that a confident person does not need to ask permission because they trust themselves I invite my fellow teens to do this trust yourself to be yourself you might shine brighter than you think thank you [Applause] [Music] representing Anaheim high school please welcome Clarissa Rubio [Applause] you hear footsteps down the corridor you listen to them bump into things knocking stuff down every word you speak is spoken in a slurred tone this is what I and 7.5 million other children in the US face daily when one of their parents come only drunk according to the mental health services Administration millions of families plagued with a constant struggle of having one of their family members develop this ravenous ceaseless Beast known as addiction hello my name is Clarissa Rubio and this is how alcohol addiction impacts families families torn apart Financial struggles life-friendly situations abuse and even death alcohol addiction doesn't only affect alcoholics but their families as well the conflicts arise between spouses the arguing the yelling and in some cases abuse caused by the financial struggles alcohol addiction brings on to them over five thousand dollars each year is wasted on alcohol addiction according to the CDC and being surrounded with all this conflict and violence in their household can cause serious problems to the children many of these children develop depression anxiety and a multitude of academic challenges what's worse is that in some cases the anger and aggression are aimed towards as children instead according to prevent child abuse America 1.2 million children are victim of child abuse due to their caretakers being under the influence of alcohol or any other drug my dad had to grow up with an abusive alcoholic father and he resorts to drinking as a way to nullify the pain bringing the generational curse of alcohol addiction back to our household I experienced constant arguing growing up the fighting the yelling and I stayed silent about the issues I faced at home I stay silent because I thought no one would care because everyone goes through this right but no decision needs to be heard because you cannot stay silent about something that keeps affecting you on your day-to-day basis this is why I'm here today to share my experience with all of you so that no one else has you deal with the burden of alcohol addiction alone resources such as Al-Anon allow people who experience alcohol addiction to share their experience with others who also had the same experiences but what can you do to support these people you and others can help support these people by being there for them showing your support being mindful of what they're of what they're doing so that they don't have to deal with this alone so they can look forward to a future without alcohol holding them back thank you [Applause] [Music] wrapping up our evening tonight our final speaker is from Western High School please welcome Ian debernitz I'm not I'm not starting it but uh forgive me if you kind of see me shaking my hand like this and then I kind of clench my fist in something um I'm sharing a lot of personal stuff about my topic because um I've had a lot of people in my life who were affected by this um my dad had passed away from you know this kind of thing because he didn't take care of it before it's too late and so um I'm stress rambling but this is just kind of helped me get my my nerves down so sorry [Applause] there we go self-care for students like me starts at the simple things three meals a day eight hours of sleep and an abstinence from harmful substances it's ironic to me then that when I speak to many students they actively refuse these core parts to a healthy lifestyle I didn't take care of myself and because of this I suffered my first of three epileptic seizures and was diagnosed epileptic for four years I didn't even know you could become epileptic because of this but you learned something new every day I'm not gonna stand here and tell you to eat your greens get your eight hours and don't do drugs that's something that should be drilled into you by your schools and your mentors but what I am going to tell you is how not to become a statistic on nihl.gov 20 of caffeine consumers rely on it just to function properly on ncbi.gov one in three Americans suffer from severe sleep disorders and from eating disorders alone on anad.gov 26 percent make an attempt on their own life sorry forgive me if we could realize that our health relies on our responsibility imagine what we could accomplish that could be the difference between getting that next promotion or saving your life I refuse to stand here and watch people ruin themselves but who am I just someone who made the changes possible to get where I am today and get off my medication all I can say is if I can do it why can't you [Applause] thank you oh [Applause] I I just can't believe it I just can't believe what I've heard tonight and I'm sure that you think the same thing please let's give a huge round of applause to our amazing speakers while the final scores are being calculated we'd like to turn it over to our judges for just a few moments to let them share some of their thoughts of what they saw here this evening wow I am completely blown away by the quality The Passion of our students I am just so honored to be here and listen to the amazing powerful messages and the voices of our students I'm grateful for our district to provide this platform for them and the teachers who helped every single one of our students do an amazing job the topics range and again I'm just completely floored I could not even come close to doing anything like that so I'm so proud of every single one of our students [Applause] [Music] if you are a School site champion and performed here tonight will you please stand up so we can honor you and give you another round of applause for your amazing work to Echo what Diana has shared I am blown away by each and every one of you you give me hope for our future I could never have done what you have all just done thank you so much for the joy you're bringing back to the world for being brave to share many of you personal stories and I hope you will continue to do this work for the rest of your life to spread the awareness and to be an active citizen in your community thank you to all of you magnificent that's all I can say everything I am blown away as well um and I need to say thank you for sharing your stories and being so professional and profound about doing it I thank you I'm just honored to be here as the scores are still being tabulated I'd like to invite someone from the top and I'm not sure which top man is coming up who would like to say a few words to close us off ah superintendent natsuda thank you [Applause] foreign you know I wish America could hear from our young people like you who represents are 27 000 students you have given them voice you have given them heart you have given them hope and I also want to really thank our teachers in the field who have supported you who have probably practiced with you who have helped build your confidence and I am so proud that we have our board members here too to witness because they're the ones who support or the resources the time all the energy and the logistics to make this happen and I am so proud of auhsd for showing the way forward for America's young people thank you and I Echo our judges that you give all of us hope for this country because you have articulated the challenges ahead but you've done so from the heart and you have demonstrated each of the five C's especially the fifth one compassion congratulations [Applause] the speakers that you heard tonight were site winners at their own schools but there are dozens and dozens of other students who also participated in this program and shared their voices with their communities so tonight I welcome you I encourage you to discuss with your speaker with each other what what speeches resonated with you tonight and what could be your soapbox issue what's important to you and what can you share with the world before we leave I'd like to thank again our teachers our students our student ambassadors for being with us and as our board members come to the stage [Applause] and as I call the names of the top people uh please come up and receive your trophy and please stay up here and once we are all finished I invite all speakers to please come up to the stage for a photograph our Junior High winners in third place Sophia Morello from Brookhurst [Applause] in second place from Orange View [Applause] in first place for junior high the soapbox speech finals Ellie City Muhammad from Dale [Applause] excellent our Junior High winners [Applause] and now we move to the high school in third place Julianne roses from Kennedy [Applause] [Music] in second place Chloe Franks from Cyprus [Applause] and our top height our top winner in the High School Division in first place Mimi alkalash from Magnolia foreign [Applause] but don't forget it could be you spreading the message of what's important to you thank you everyone for being here tonight speakers please do come up for a final photograph and I look forward to seeing you next year thank you so much [Applause]
um so we're roughly one a month is being approved um there we know that the city has been working at various uh through various means to affect uh a natural gas ban or restrictions put it that way um but uh right now there is no um information that I'm aware of in the public domain that indicates what the resolution date of that will be uh we had talked about a joint energy and Planning Commission meeting last fall it was finally scheduled in February that was canceled no new date has been issued and so uh from I think the perspective of most people in the energy commission by the way we had a first reading of this we did not take a vote so uh I I'm maybe being a little bit presumptuous to to say that the energy commission is going to support this um I think it will but I think the concern is that we need to since we have an emergency and since most entities when there is an emergency um do everything they possibly can to implement measures both interim measures and then finally a final final solution uh neither of which we have in place right now that's why we have two Clauses here one asking that basically this city do everything it can to develop some type of ordinance Banning natural cast connections or limiting them to certain um conditions um and then in the meantime because this may not be implemented in in the near term and potentially if there is a solution that's put in place um it could be challenged legally it's asking that the city look at interim measures that could be carrots and sticks based on for example as indicated here uh restructuring of fees um priority processing um using different uh discretion when providing incentives possibly even implementing a moratorium and that would have to be defined but doing something um in the meantime so we don't continue to have roughly one new development a month that undermines the a20 plan yeah that's pretty succinct um so um given that time constraints were under here I'm not sure we'll do a full reading of this at this point um and we're certainly not going to get to a vote but let's have a discussion about it if anybody wants to raise a motion Chris Graham do you want do you want to have a discussion uh do I have a second okay Rita seconds it okay so the floor is open for discussion um who Chris would you like to make a comment do you have a thought uh generally support you have two questions um I have a heat pump have they evolved in the past 12 years so that they were runs significantly below the freezing temperatures here yes how far below air-to-air heat pumps work quite well to about five degree F but that depends on the quality of the envelope obviously so if you have a very leaky and poorly insulated envelope then they have a harder time keeping up if you have a very very good envelope for example a passive house certified envelope um then air-to-air heat pumps work down into roughly the minus 10 to minus 15 F range okay second question guess cooktops immediate methane when they're off so I assume that applies to cook tops that have pilot lights not the cooktops that are modern with good switching mechanisms and that are started by electricity correct or incorrect if I may address that uh there there are leaks in natural gas supply systems throughout the whole system so even if you have a valve or if you have electronic ignition you still have leaks uh I don't know whether I don't think there's any more or less of a leak if you have a pilot burning but clearly you're combusting uh basically 24 hours a day seven days a week Etc so you have more pollutants in the case of a pilot light stove that's I'll let people ask more specific questions if they have them um please use the razor hand feature and zoom otherwise I will not be able to see you out on you you have the floor not a question but just saying that I'm I'm also um without having done as much reading on this as I would like very much in favor I do feel like the the farther we go down this road the harder it's going to be to undo what's what's being built right um and I I like the idea of if we can't have an out ban having there being like it appears to be here sticks carrots and sticks right so where there's at least some sort of incentive and some discouragement um to get the behavior that we that we're going for so I think I think it's important we do as fast as we can yeah um any other any other comments questions um Shannon oh oh Dharma and then Shannon I appreciate the fact that this brings up uh carrots and sticks I think I actually mentioned that in my comments at a previous council meeting um especially carrots and incentives and I guess I'm just thinking too in terms of incentives I think that there's an education Gap um I noticed this when my husband and I you know were talking about heat pumps and we talked to the person that installs our heater and they told us it can't be done heat pumps don't work in this climate etc etc I just think so I think if you're a traditional what I'm trying to the point I'm trying to give is I know that's not accurate I think that there is a big Knowledge and Skills Gap um for most traditional Builders I'm guessing and what can be done and so I'm wondering if there's room also for us to you know create a set of materials or somehow have education be part of it because I think that that might be one of the biggest stumbling blocks of all yeah there's been a discussion for for years about the city having a concierge service where there would be uh you know a central place where City residents could come you know for advice about um you know about what's current the current information about whatever question they may have you know it also um and also have a list of uh contractors that you can contact for for estimates yeah and we're getting that shortly I think that's great for residential but I think it's a different scale when you're a developer working with the whole Contracting crew so can I address that real briefly the the 2030 district is working on that they have regular lunch and learns that's directed at the architect developer or contractor Community one problem is that a lot of development in Ann Arbor is being done by developers outside of Ann Arbor particularly the very large ones and so anything that we might do locally is not necessarily going to um do any kind of education or have a significant impact on an architectural firm in New York working in development with together with a big development firm in Chicago for example on a site here in Ann Arbor but it's it's this is this is definitely an issue and um I can send everything up something around later we had uh a presentation in energy commission meeting uh I think it was in September or October of last year we had a architectural firm and developer present projects that they've done uh in Pennsylvania and in the east coast and um they're doing all electric passive house certified projects at the same cost as code compliant projects and that's not just a sample size of three or five that was a sample of 260 selling developments so I'll send that to this group well thank you John um um normally you still have your hand up oh okay Shannon you have the floor um I just want to fill in folks a little bit on um and I don't know everything but on what's Happening like part of why the the meeting was canceled and things like that in terms of this moving forward I think that um staff has been stymied quite a bit in terms of their investigation with some of this and uh it's not coming as fast as they want to um I am really glad that in here you put this carrot and stick thing done because I I I'm I'm taking this back to Planning Commission with that in mind because I we're we're actively getting getting threatened with lawsuits now we're getting letters um as part of our um part of our uh you know communication package that comes from different home builders associations different people signing on to it different developers it's like it's just the list is getting longer and longer and so it is a real thing and we don't want to also just blow money by you know getting tied up in court with a bunch of this stuff too so you have to be prudent but I I think that it may be time to still keep that that goal in mind but to shift over to the carrot stick to the thing to just so that we can get something done because it just feels like the the larger um you know just banning all natural it just it's it's it's going to be very difficult and it feels like a hostile environment um with in terms of kind of what we're getting from the outside world um and uh so I'm really glad you put this together and I'm taking this back to Planning Commission in terms of in terms of that so I really appreciate you putting that time and energy into developing this thank you for your work on this yep thank you Shannon um Sarah you have your hand up you have the floor thank you um so I wanted to Echo echo of what Shannon said um I have been getting negative feedback from citizens on using the term ban um definitely like carrot and stick there's a lot of Environmental Policy precedent for that working um you know thinking of cap and trade and controlling sulfate that reduced acid rain output um so you know I've definitely like more of a carrot and stick person um and I've seen that work whereas the term ban I think does send red alarms and legally um seems like a little bit harder to pull off um so I would I would Echo that that's all thank you hey thank you uh Rita you have the floor just a question on um the timing issue so at one point there was a thought to have a a Time indicated on when this would be in effect so that it would be sort of ahead of the curve for um current projects that are in the pipeline and I just wonder if that's something that would be helpful in addition to the carrot and stick thing that could possibly be implemented now um like isn't there a point where we would say from this date forward we would have this expectation is there anybody that can answer that I don't know that I'm totally qualified to answer that but I think you you can't say like in anticipation of it has to be code and it's an enormously long and complicated process unfortunately um so it and and and just so you all realize too like any any what they call Planned development which is basically developers asking for kind of more than what is typical and and they're sort of public benefit involved in everything every one of those projects coming through now are all electric because they know that if we have any possibility to push them legally we we are in terms of getting them to perform and we've had quite a few of those but things that are quote by right we don't and we push them and we ask and we plead but we can't do anything about it and so we can't say like oh we think you know within a year it's going to happen I think word has traveled very quickly within the development Community about sort of what people can expect I know staff has been very good at alerting people as early in the process as they have the opportunity to because you know people don't come to them before they you know have any idea what they're doing and one of the things that is really tricky about this is that you know the kinds of projects that John is talking about in terms of um you know comparable costs you know all that sort of thing that's because from the very beginning the architect and designers and team is focused on that as the end goal and you've not added on later in the game right and that's that's why I was thinking sorry no no I know we just can't we can't code wise we just can't do that and I think again word is getting out that's why we're getting all these Olympics essentially from people the word is getting out but I I it's my understanding I'm not a planner but or a lawyer but it's my understanding that that we couldn't just kind of say we know it's going to be coming in a year and a half so get ready or something like that it really has to be vetted in code and that just takes an achingly a long time and it's very frustrating I think for many of us that want to be able to change things and you're talking state code or city code that's part of the issue is that we rely I think it's Michigan building code and not um National Building Code like Jerry was kind of alluding to and so you know right now there had I mean this I think should be one of the lobbying things that we talk about you know later today too is sort of how to deal with because it really has to happen at the state level it's going to be difficult to get that to happen um but it's yeah it it's that's one of the you can't start too early in terms of just getting that voice out there to be able to start to turn the conversation in that direction yeah it was already one of the primary asks of the the city council passed in last December to enable us to do that um so John you have your hand up yeah I just want to remind everybody that the ipcc issued a new report on Monday early reports um did never mentioned I'm stopping fossil fuel and burning and and development and now the last two reports have and they make it very explicit that we have to stop uh putting in assets that uh essentially lead to the burning of fossil fuels and what we're talking about um with all of this are fixed assets these are not it's not a matter of not doing something for a year and having a Year's loss of of emissions these are fixed assets that are going to be in place um in the case of furnaces and things like that 15 to 20 years and in the case of boilers and other things like that so many times these are in place for 50 70 years so um I think I understand and share Sarah's concerns that's why there is a statement in here Banning natural gas connections with extremely limited exceptions but I want everybody to realize why we're asking for this it's because the science tells us that we need to do this and remember the ipcc report is a consensus report of 195 countries so that means countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia and other there's the scientists are agreeing that we need to stop putting fixed Assets in place here here many other questions or comments okay so the question is um we should put this on the agenda for our next meeting as well in April I think given the given the urgency of the situation and the uh and the detergent nature of our political process Let's uh let's put it on the agenda for Let's uh put it on the agenda for a second reading and a vote uh for our next meeting okay does everybody agree with that okay all right thank you so let's move on to the next uh topic which is policy recommendations for 2024.
and that includes the four percent but just bear in mind when we when we go into next year or the year that you're actually in already that that number is going to drop down to the two percent number and two percent means roughly about 3.94 million dollars for you so it just means when we close out the fiscal year next year your free balance is going to drop somewhere around 3 3.9 to 4 million dollars and what that means is that you're going to be able to if you if you didn't divert that already in the budget process when we close out next year the excess number the maximum number because you're going to have that decrease you're going to have the ability then to divert those monies either into excess Surplus or into capital reserve or maintenance Reserve or an emergency Reserve and um so I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the reserves that you have so I'm going to work up the balance sheet a little bit here or at least that statement um so the total was 22 million 129.
It is my uh distinct honor and privilege to introduce to you the 2023 Indiana High School state one meter diving champion, Mia Perski. Um Mia, as we're talking to her around the pool, is the new Center Grove legend as a um she her highlights of her season, she won the Johnson County meet um in route of smashing the Johnson County record, was the sectional champion, the regional champion, and of course the state champion. Uh what makes her uh uniquely special as a freshman she was state runner up. Sophomore she won the state title and now her junior year won backto-back state titles. So um we are glad to have her in the water here at Center Grove and become our newest legend. [Applause] Maybe Joe can get you a swim. And next up we have Coach Swain come up. And as he's walking up, some may or may not know Coach Swain was uh named Indiana Math's coach of the year and his staff was also Indiana Mat staff of the year.
um is every um as um everybody's seen how the city council passed a set of uh policy recommendations last December so we were just we were reviewed that um and um I think most of us have I hope and then we've we asked for questions for supplemental ones that might not have um shown up on that document so uh darma you have your hand up yeah I think that we skipped the pollinator habitat resolution oh my God you're right well I'm getting cross-eyed all right I'm sorry let's do the pollinator um sorry Rita let's get this uh I'll get that up on my screen thank you and thanks Dharma um I I just want to make sure it would be really great for us to go through this I want to first of all thank um my commission colleagues um Anya and Bridget and Dharma even though we haven't been able to make some of our meetings I know you've been a supporter of of us moving forward in a different way from what we did last year um we had a uh nomome project that that took place across the city that was very popular as you heard from one of our callers today and um the in the goal of this is to modify it based on some feedback that we've had from staff and also to make it um uh pollinator supporting resolution that addresses the kind of like the life cycle the seasonal life cycle of pollinators so that we we are talking about um spring activities but also fall where we talk about leaves um so that all of those things are are related uh important for supporting pollinator health and survival this is also presented in the interest of supporting the um the climate crisis because we also know that that pollinators are at risk and because of their importance in biodiver diversity we we do need to support them and so we can do many things here in the city and this resolution asks for that kind of support um that is my my general introduction if any of my colleagues Anya or Bridget would like to add something in particular I'd be happy to have your comments Tanya yeah I was just going to add that um that the intention of writing the resolution as it is is to sort of broaden it out so it's not just looking at sort of no Momo May it's more like year round and it's more than just not mowing it's sort of the bigger picture of sustainable sustainable Land and Landscape um management and written in a way that hopefully it gets approved it just is and doesn't have to be Revisited over and over um based on the season yeah and I should mention in this context that um uh this was ribbed in shorthand so when we're saying that Ann Arbor city council will do something where we really mean that we're going to ask city council to direct the city administrator to do something so um so just uh just in case somebody has a concern about that right now so um let's see we we do have quite a few resolve Clause here resolve Clauses here so um let's see um we could uh we should um I firmly believe that we should have a first reading of all of these and then come back with a better draft the next time um so hopefully we'll have time for this in the next uh um in the next month or two so I think the issue is we're trying to get this passed in time for spring which is already here as I as I'm reading this though I am noticing that this is written like a resolution that's ready for city council instead of uh a resolution that the environmental commission would pass um I wonder if we can make amendments yep we should be able to make amendments right now so yeah sorry I'll just say Steve I do have a version that has been amended um that I can share my on my screen uh okay well I'm going to stop sharing then Steve should we get uh a motion to uh consider and that formality get that out of the way yeah we can do that so do I have a motion to consider this resolution you know for discussion and a vote today John mursky and then Brooks Curtis seconded um all who approved say aye aye aye hands up um any nose I hear none so uh let's let's proceed with the discussion and um um the way I like to do these things is let's go through the resolve Clauses and fix them up and then go back and see if the whereas Clauses support are sufficient to support the resume the results clauses so um let's see let's can we do a global search to replace that uh the environment that uh the resolve that the environmental commission recommends that city council direct the city administrator um I guess this is not an editable copy is it it's a PDF file yes this is in PDF I can open a Word document so that we can make changes if that would be helpful oh yeah that would be very helpful okay let me give me a second hold that up sure yeah well at least doing that I mean we post these as PDF files and register before the meeting but uh but we'll need to include um you know a word file or some other word processing program version to do these edits so I I'm I'm proposing a friendly Amendment so we do that search and replace in the result clauses um is that uh do I have uh that was my motion that is there a second one about okay Shannon um seconds that so it's friendly unless someone objects yep I don't hear any objections [Music] so we'll go ahead progress and amendments to chapter 40 while we're waiting any news any news about that um Lisa do you have any uh do you know anything about those amendments with chapter 40.
we have 9.5 million sitting in your unassigned unbalance your free balance and then we have assigned components designated for subsequent year which is one million two hundred and thirty three thousand simply means when I say designated it's in the current Year's budget so the balance the current year budget you're in 22.23 you've got 1.2 million dollars sitting as a revenue to balance the budget then I'm going to come up to year-end encumbrances of 616 thousand dollars it just means it's a reservation of equity it's for goods or services that were ordered but not yet delivered or performed a prime example is is us so the district hires us and contracts large 50 and Bliss to perform the audit so you reserve you execute a purchase order and you reserve that that amount of the contract but we're not performing to work until after the year end so it's a reservation of equity it's it's a reserved for an encumbrance had all the work been done beforehand it would be an accounts payable it wouldn't be part of your fund balance okay then we have restricted fund balances unemployment Reserve 206 000 kind of unchanged from the year before some money set aside obviously for unemployment liabilities that the districts may have in the future um there's some on there's some uncertainty there as well with the state of New Jersey um districts haven't been billed for the unemployment claims in over two years they just started going through the billing process and I know some of the bills have come out where the state of New Jersey has actually reduced the amount of the bill by half and they're using I believe they're using some of the Opera money that they have at the state level that they haven't yet identified for other purposes so there's 200 000 all sitting in the unemployment Reserve um then I'm going to get into the restricted reserves first is a maintenance Reserve maintenance reserve the balance is 952 relatively unchanged from the year before as it indicates self-explanatory you know the maintenance reserves is for money being retained by the board to maintain the facilities and you can utilize that through budget process you can utilize that through a resolution during the year if there are needs money gets funneled back in it can get funneled in through the budget process and more typically it's funneled through your your resolution that you do in June board of education does a resolution in June and what you do in that resolution is you authorize the business administrator to take any excess funds excess funds meaning going through all the buckets and then we go through the end and we look at and we say okay well what's my maximum undesignated piece so my maximum undesignated piece was 9.5 million we can't exceed that um what do we want to do with those funds and so typically then the option is to divert those funds into an emergency Reserve which you don't have any for emergency needs used to be very difficult to get at it's it's it's gotten easier over the years they've reduced some of that specific items that can be utilized out of that emergency Reserve maintenance Reserve so money can go into maintenance Reserve as I said you did not do that so it's relatively unchanged and then the last component that we have here is capital reserve you might think just like you like almost every other District in the state of New Jersey that seems to be where we're parking most of the the the resources for a future improvements of the district so when I look at capital reserve capital reserve started year out with with eight million dollars and it ended the year with 9.7 so we roughly increased it by 3.5 million but utilized almost 1.9 during the year and that's how you got to your rent balance of 9.7 million but of the 9.7 million again there's a piece designated so three million 441 000 of that 9 million is being utilized for facility improvements in the 22-23 school year so if if nothing changes and we don't have any access going forward meaning if we ended the year in June of 23 you would be sitting with cap reserve of 6.2 unless you contemplated using it in your 2324 budget okay um so the only other thing that I do need to discuss is just the one comment in the report okay so as I said we do an extensive amount of auditing um and we only have one comment and it deals with encumbrances as I explained to you what the encumbrances were goods and services that were authorized by the board so there were a couple contracts that were done at the very end of June I think it was June 23rd was your board meeting last year um for a special Revenue fund for Windows and Doors and then there was another one that was for one of the big projects that are happening through your Capital project fund so when those contracts are awarded at the board level they need to be recorded in that period in the financial statements the monies were available but they just weren't encumbered and reserved so when we did our testing we went through that process and we determined that these contracts were in fact awarded by the board with our fiscal period they weren't recorded we recorded those contracts as reserved for encumbrances so your financial statements have been adjusted for those items and that concludes my report I don't know if anybody has any specific questions Paul good to see you again that's nice seeing you for the Layman for the layperson what would you say is the overall state of the finances of the Clifton Public School District excellent outstanding yeah I mean as I started off by saying you know you you know you know the complexity I know the complexity of the district and what goes through the transactions and dollars and budget size um and to go through this process of spending hundreds and hundreds of hours and only to come up with you know one uh a comment here very unusual really is and it shows that the certainly the the financial team and I mean the whole team because it certainly could never be one person it's never one person in a very small District as well but as the size expands in a complexity expands you you obviously have to rely on more than just a handful of people so uh outstanding thank you thank you thank you do any other Commissioners uh Mr Brunswick thank you Mr President Mr Lurch good evening I I attended this meeting as a spectator last year with the report and I noticed there were some corrective actions that were recommended as well uh during testing for this past fiscal year did you notice any improvements Did You observe any improvements as a result of the corrective actions from the previous Auditor's report yeah yes and as I said before as I was going through my single audit um generalization and comments I did mention the fact that we did have a specific audit comment regarding uh the extraordinary Aid applications and that Grant and that was certainly cleared uh any comment that was in last year's report was cleared we have an obligation to identify last year's comments and recommendations and Report specifically as to whether or not they've been addressed or not and if they're not addressed when you go to the back half of your smaller report AMR report you'll see that there would be an asterisk saying that it's a repeat comment so there are none so the answer short answer to your questions yes economic condition and Outlook new Factor affecting future budgets in New Jersey um Educators health plan which is known as chapter 44.
So congratulations to him as well. Uh I'm here to recognize or present Charlie Loraca. He was the 113 pound IHSA state champion. Um on top of being uh amazing at wrestling, he's amazing in the classroom. 4.73 GPA, uh ranked number four in his class right now, and um I'm sure he's going to hopefully uh bring us another state championship home next year as well. So, Charlie Loraca [Applause] And if real quick any wrestlers that were in the state semi-finals or in the finals, please stand up. How are you doing? Yeah, as you hear your name, come on up to the front and then I assume you guys would like to get Yes, sir. So, Justice Thrasher, come on up. Charlie Loraca, you get to come back up again. Eddie Gus, Hyatt Joerger, Jack Greenwood, Reese Courtney, Silus Stits, Andre Merritt, Noah Clauser, Julian Williams, Wyatt Kasia, [Applause] Kaden McConnell, Nate Johnson, and Tyler Shot.
I I'm kind of the point person now and I've been talking with Sean and Missy but I basically I'm just trying to figure out what the next step is uh we want staff to be able to review it's going to take some time I think to work through and I'm just waiting to hear about next steps so as soon as I have them I will let you know yeah it's frustrating that it was lost to the legal department for a year yeah I probably should have gone through Staff first I think that's the issue yeah Steve sorry could you repeat what we are replacing with oh that the environmental commission um recommends City Council Direct uh direct the city administrator two or encourages you know to encourage yeah that's good all right so there were four of them and uh um we did have slightly different wording down here um in this resolved pause that Ann Arbor city council directs the city administrator to prepare um I assume here we're just adding on the environmental commission recommends that antibody okay while we're waiting can I tell you an interesting fact that I learned at a conference about pollinators which is that um our cities are actually doing better for pollinator habitat than rural areas are because of the incredible amount of pesticide use in farmlands so this is so important to make these kinds of changes happen within our city because they may become refuges so um thanks Shannon so let's see Rita you have your hand up and then John um no my hand is no longer up oh okay so John mursky then John caliber yeah I'm only going to repeat what I thought was a good suggestion that was given during public comment and something about uh maintaining uh seed heads uh and there was some comment about uh X number of days above 50 degrees and I think we might want to indicate something that that be for native plants I don't know that we want to do that for invasives or or other types of non-native plants so maybe that could be added somewhere into a resolve clause or added as a resolve Clause because it may be something specific and unto itself and not really fit with the other ones but I thought that was a good idea can I respond to that and maybe Rita might want to respond to that too but I'm wondering if that I mean I think the plan around this is to set a structure but there's going to be more detailed educational materials throughout the year and I'm wondering if that's better put in there than in this resolution but I guess that's up to you all if I may respond to that uh I think that that might be better and give us more flexibility as as we move forward because our goal is to prepare a communication plan and to work with staff on that so that we do have actually more than one way to provide education I'm hoping to the community um more than what we had available to us last year during the Nomo May period so I'm hoping I mean that's that's a big ask but yeah I think that that's the kind of detail that we would put in the materials so this is just a friendly question or a suggestion so pollinators don't adhere to City boundaries um so is there space in here for something about Regional cooperation or something with the state I know we may address this in the the policy discussion coming up but I'm just wondering about encouraging collaboration Regional collaboration hmm I think that's a great idea um I'm not sure exactly where to move it in well let's see what are the uh what are the what are the government agencies that would do that kind of thing I'm thinking about the Metro Parks County and the county or samcog and the road commission right yeah absolutely so do I have a proposal here do I have a proposal you say with in um in the middle of this this uh big resolved um and I already lost it okay so the pollinators working group of environmental commission with input from City staff and from Regional partners okay yeah right and then we'll seek them out foreign you have your hand up and then Dharma when Chris I just forgot to lower mine okay here's my last input so or any other friendly amendments suggested um I don't hear or see anything Chris you have your hand up Dharma well we have is this going to be first reading do I have some time to work on something before the next meeting yeah of course um or are you wanting this done today Rita it would be really great if we could move it to city council so that we're still in Spring unless uh let me look at Sean you know sort of like how do we get this moved out so that we start our communication process that's really um okay so the important thing could Chris make his suggestions to council members so that we approve it tonight and then it goes to them and then they may modify this anyhow yeah I think that's proven that's good so the subject area is native plantings um many of you know what a black swallowtail is I think they have three only species of native to this area plants that they rely upon to deposit their eggs to make caterpillars and then ultimately replace the pollinator stock if those native plantings aren't around you don't have black swallowtail butterflies and a lot of the pollinator enthusiasm um is related to planning non-native flowers that are gorgeous and draw lots of non-native bees and Pioneers Gather in there our native pollinators Gather in there but they do not lay eggs on those plants and so maybe one part of this could be some sort of manual simple manual that lists are great native pollinators bees and butterflies and these are the native plants that they need to reproduce and meanwhile feed birds [Music] um so I I don't know how to do that succinctly right off my hand but I if there's a way to beef up that one result Clause I'd appreciate it I can work on it so I'm I'm right I'm thinking that the kind of thing the beyond what you're suggesting Chris is in the range of the communication plan absolutely that we would want to have ongoing you know I hope that it change all the time actually and and reference to external um uh important groups that have good information well something like resolve that since native plants are vital to the maintenance of populations of native pollinators they are very important people to plant them and use them yeah that would be more properly in a warehouse Claus Chris I think whereas whereas ah okay let me up there something simple that a lot of people are not catching that it's the native plants that really we need to work at not just flowering Not Just Flowers so are people comfortable with the result Clauses as they're written um I wanna I did add in this uh the environmental commission recommends that in the final result because that was in Rita's um I don't know I uh thank you Sean okay has anybody has everybody had enough time well maybe this is where Chris's resolved goes right um so we've got this the reference to leaves so there could be one that's separate that's specific to the native plants and we if we put in something rough could that then go to city council for well we don't have to be we don't have to spell out all the details I think as long as it covers and it's six it should be succinct but accurate you know there we go so Dharma [Music] I think I'm getting a little bit lost so don't we already say in the result class that we're encouraging Property Owners to increase diverse native plantings it's right there right so so yeah okay I think I would just encourage that we don't try to put that we try to keep this I think like someone else is saying succinct and save the detail for educational promotional materials during the year yeah the starting resolution did have a lot more detail and then we worked with people to shrink it down because we figured we'll put all that information into the communication plan so okay so let's see Chris you have your hand up still and then Shannon sorry oh okay Shannon you have the floor um just briefly I I'm pretty comfortable with where this is one thing I just think that's worth um thinking about is kind of rebranding it um in terms of the Nomo May thing I just feel like um there's so much more we could do different than that and not mowing doesn't really do a whole whole lot to pollinators it's really like Willows and early blooming things that don't really bloom in lawns and so I would it's really catchy and other people are using it so I get that that is part of how you all continue forward I would just like to see you think about another snazzy name that maybe gets at it in a way that is more real and comprehensive because leaving up your dandelions doesn't but owners it really doesn't and that's really what came up in my yard by not mowing for a month so I would I mean to be perfectly honest and I had to mow it three times in order to be able to get it to get in control again and so there's that issue as well so I would really like to rethink that you don't have no no moment written in here which I was glad to see but as you all move forward with your educational stuff I challenge you to be able to come up with a really great slogan that doesn't tie you to something that is not as effective as it could be we are working on it and we are open to ideas great um well let's see so is everybody happy with the resolve Clauses now and um I hear I understand the pollinators work group worked on these whereas Clauses and that they have reduced them um appropriately and um let's just scan through those quickly from the top well let's see do how do we know that the city council recognizes that bees and other pollinators have they made a statement to that effect why don't we just save the environmental commission and yeah that we're set way we're safe yeah okay that sounds good uh second Clause any other comments for the first class about the second I think that's a pretty comprehensive list um okay how about the Third yep that's good uh has the city encouraged integrated Pest management practices we do have a web page shop about it the city does yep that's right um research suggests that bees and other pollinators make use of less intensively maintained lawn spaces I'm not sure what that means by less intensively maintained does that mean like not pesticides mowing it to one inch every week yeah like that was the terminology that was used yeah like no monocultures something like that okay um all right then and then reduced frequency of mowing has been shown to have a direct and indirect benefits to pollinator species including availability of more floral resources less production of emissions from fossil fuel powered equipment reduced noise from powered equipment reduce compaction of soil and Associated improved storm water infiltration uh yeah that seems pretty complete to me the next one is whereas research suggests that pollinators and other invertebrates rely on fallen leaves for covered insulation from the elements during winter months um that's a that's a great consideration as well um any comments so far the only thing with that one is that a big part of native b um egg laying in the winter is actually in the hollow stems of of native plants and so it might be nice to kind of put that in there it's not just the leaves aren't really a lot where the native bees lay their eggs it's more in the hollow stems yeah and so to put that in there also in the case that hey maybe I should leave my native grasses up through the winter um and so maybe there's a way to work that in yeah yeah let's put that that's definitely a major point yep that's excellent thanks Sean okay um everybody happy with that okay um now pollinators and floral resources have a positive relationship in which an increase in pollinator populations and increase the amount of Flora and vice versa now we can get rid of that terminal and all right so um any comments on that one um Lisa would it be accurate to say flora and food I mean human be and I'm not trying to be anthropocentric but people are self-interested oh yeah well that's true yeah food for birds and food for people oh um increase the amount of Flora and foods not committed to it just suggesting it I'd rather you know you all are I'd rather hear from the experts in this I like it but what is a pollinator working groups think anybody well there's okay I think we're good with that uh language thank you Gloria food and uh okay the last whereas Clause the Ann Arbor city council well that would be environmental Commission probably and then yeah yeah the environmental Commission Yeah well yeah thanks I think that seems to cover all the considerations um Lisa you still have your hand up to you okay all right so um um do I have a motion to close discussion seconded by um Bridget all right well let's bring this to a vote um do I have a motion to uh um let's see all who approve of this resolution is written uh please say I or raise your hand bye [Music] any opposed any abstentions okay so this resolution passes unanimously and uh so Sean would you please forward this to city council I will thank you all right thank you Sean thanks everybody so let's see let's move on to the next item on the agenda which is discussion or the policy recommendations for 2024.
I mean is that is that a massive is uh is that a massive amount the uh the exposure there or there's not really a exact number right it's just the regarding economic Outlook in the report are you referring to what I was identifying as gasby 75 and and no this is this is a numeral number two in the report it's towards the beginning of the of the entire package it's regarding the uh economic condition and Outlook uh with of the city um you'd have to enlighten me I think what he's asking is yeah we anticipate chapter 44 being a big problem for us going forward I think that's what that says and and no in fancier terms yeah it you know it can be it depends uh again it depends upon what the contracts are certainly the the chapter 44 dollars that districts receive are significant you know and and an impact there is going to have a direct result um on your ability uh to uh to to provide the services so yes the answer is yes thank you anyone else have any other questions Mr lurch no we thank you very much for your for your time and your expertise and we appreciate our relationship yeah and we appreciate uh being able to serve the city as well so thank you thank you have a good night yes nice seeing you as well thank you Mr Smith yes um like to take a moment to congratulate and thank the entire business office under the direction of our business administrator Mr Mr UC and our assistant ba Ahmed shehada that's an outstanding audit and um thank you just thank you very very much um yeah if I can add to that I am about a year ago or so the uh Mr Russi came to the board and asked for some additional help in his office specifically um uh Chris who handled most of the work on this audit I know most board has never met Chris so maybe next meeting or something we could have him here and let them know how we should be appreciate all the work that he did on this project but uh it's because of the Insight of the business office and this board giving them the tools that they needed to be able to have such a great report so I Echo your uh your sentiments to the business office and great job all right we'll move on uh to our board committee reports and uh policies up first Miss password sure sorry take your time good evening the policy committee met on March 13th the policy committee began at 5 PM in attendance where president Jim Smith commissioner abedrabba commissioner Mark brunsiak administrators that were present was Dr Danny robitussi Mark gingero Lou Ross and myself the committee reviewed policy 7510 use of school facilities a discussion was held regarding regarding regarding requiring security Specialists to be present at many of the events the administration was asked to prepare amendments to the policy addressing such topics as which the group would um as to which group this would apply to responsibility of payment for security staff and the officials are who would determine the need of the security at the event the proposed amendment will be revised will be reviewed at the next committee meeting prior to forwarding the recommendations to the board for consideration the committee then discussed the possibility of having a district therapy dog Administration present the proposal policies from other districts which currently have therapy dogs information was provided to the committee regarding the benefit to students having a district therapy dog the matter of requiring the dog the required training handling and the care of the dog as well as insurance and liability concerns Administration will present a proposed policy to the committee at the next meeting as well as finance committee prior to forwarding to the board for consideration about meeting agenda was a quick meeting at 5 26 pm and Mr Ross wrote the minutes any questions Mrs basford did they decide who's getting a therapy dog I hear there's some fighting over who's there um that's not to I believe that that would fall into a purview administering to schools so the board will not be assigning anyone so that's on you um I um to uh through you Mr President to the superintendent I want to add use of facilities um another component and also I have some information that I want to discuss in the back room about use of facility um during executive session are we having one all right because something came across my uh a lot of people reached out about something and I want to bring it to the detention um and um there could be a possible legal action from it so it's I can't discuss it in public so I'm sorry to that well brief everybody later on uh but thank you any questions on policy it was brief no thank you yeah yours could be the same uh that Mr Paris has to do executive I have a feeling it is the same so we'll discuss an executive uh next we have um Mr Paris would you uh like to read the um the student liaison yes thank you Mr Smith the student liaison committee met on March 16th um we met at the at the high school and we being began at 11 A.M in attendance was Dr robertosie uh president Smith uh Commissioners uh Awad myself and Santiago uh from Administration we had Clifton High School principal uh hamda and vice principal uh Keegan and we also had students three representative students from each grade level uh board president Smith introduced himself and the Commissioners present uh he explained the purpose of the committee explained some of the Capital Improvements and current projects that are taking place in the district and at CHS and Dr robertosie thanked the students for their participation the students introduced themselves and then we went around and asked for some input from them positive aspects of Clifton High School that they identified were lunches and the pomptonian food service the school security that's now in place the guidance counselors dedication of teachers coaches the variety of college options and positive connections with teachers as far as some concerns they brought up they mentioned students that have used other student IDs to purchase food in the cafeterias misconceptions about the high school summer work for honors and AP classes and we had a discussion about the start time of schools which is something that's a bit of a Hot Topic in New Jersey right now um the meeting adjourned at 12 30 pm um and just a personal comment from the meeting um I was very impressed with the students their openness and their insight and maturity it was uh quite they're quite a credit to our high school any questions [Applause] Smith I just have a comment yes I agree with Mr Paris first of all it's just re invigorating meeting with students unfortunately and Central Administration the farther you get away from schools the less time you get to spend with students so it's just great to spend time with students so I Echo your sentiments and one thing we were surprised at when we're talking about the change not that we're going to do it but there's talk of changing the start time of high school I would have presumed that majority of students would want to start later this group was unanimous in the fact that no no we like starting early we get out at a good time we still have the rest of our day to do what we got to do and um then they said you know listen if you start later because there's gonna go to bed later and it's gonna be you know this the same thing but so I think we were all kind of surprised by that we kind of expected the kids would want to sleep late just a little anecdote that I thought was interesting yeah um not that I expected anything different but um teachers should be very proud of these students they spoke so highly of their teachers as they should um but it's nice hearing that from kids who you know we know we have the best teachers we approve them so we know we have the best teachers but coming from kids you know and they were not there to butter us up they were told that they had complete honesty and hearing how much different teachers have meant to them in their lives and along their process it made this board member feel like you're doing something right and um and then ultimately to hear a young lady a senior who had no idea where she was going to go to college she didn't know how she was going to be able to afford it and by the end of the day Dr Robert told me after robitosi told me that she got a full ride to MIT that very same day we got the word so that is a true credit to the teachers um you helped this young lady achieve her goals and uh there's nothing better than that so I I think this is such a great committee we're going to meet again on the fourth um and uh just so just a couple items that I'm just gonna identify a little bit um they very much were appreciative of the new security team that we put into the schools [Applause] the re the relationship that they've made with those uh security people and how much it has benefited and they specifically use the word the mosh pit how it has helped the mosh pit tremendously so um our security crew please know that students appreciate what you're doing and appreciate you being there so we thank you um and like I said positive uh teacher connections um we spent a lot more time on the positive than the negative and I was surprised at that um usually you know you think kids are going to come in I remember one year when we started this one of their major gripes was they weren't getting enough tater tots on their uh on their lunch plate um so I I think we've come a long way with this and we'll continue to do great things in this committee so thank you very much hey president I think Mr Brunswick had questions I'm sorry thank you Miss bassford thank you Mr President I just want to know the kids using the other kids IDs for the food not there's nothing malicious about it was it they just that they were lending out their ID so our understanding is that when they have to go to the restroom is it they have to put their IDs uh in the basket yeah so and there was one particular incident that there was an ID stolen and and it was later used but we it was the exception was not something that was going on a lot and really what happens is when the students bring up their card and they get their launch their picture shows up on the screen so it really shouldn't ever happen like you shouldn't be able to use somebody else's ID so we have some things in place now to prevent that but in this case if a student loses an ID somebody could you know take their ID and and use it but this particular person was an isolated instance that we were discussing thank you all right we'll move on uh we have um food service and transportation commissioner Santiago thank you president Smith so the food and transportation committee met on February 8th in attendance where myself commissioner Paris commissioner Wadd president Smith Dr Robert Tosi Mr gengaro Mr Russi Mr shihara Mr Rosenberg from pomptonian and liznik from Transportation Mrs Nick the meeting started at 6 pm and it ended at 7 pm so we started discussing the Food Service First and since it was my first meeting again they were kind of overviews so the administration introduced themselves to the committee and explained what they do and the purpose of the committee we discuss the equipment upgrades um at uh Woodrow Wilson and Christopher Columbus in school one school 13 and then we discussed the cafeteria fund and so I asked what you know how what you know what is that and so the cafeteria fund are funds that we receive from reimbursements from the Department of Agriculture and the sale of food and the fund pays for the Food Service Company and any Renovations done any of our cafeterias so this money can only be used on cafeteria and related upgrades and Equipment it's not part of our general fund budget uh the transportation section we discussed transportation and again an overview of the people involved in transportation and the purpose of that committee we discussed a number of buses and vans which are 45 buses and vans um the amount of students transported which uh is 2 500 students per day in District are transported to our Clifton buildings just our students if you will and then there's almost 3 500 students total when you include transportation to Charter Schools pcti private schools that's per day we discussed the routes for out of District students and Charter and the cost for those so in the past a single route would cost about forty thousand dollars and now that average route is about 120 000 um and most of these routes uh these costs we're talking about are pcci and other private school routes discussed electric buses so uh the district applied for electric buses through a grant with the state and we're waiting to hear back on potentially getting three electric buses um tonight's meeting we're gonna approve a resolution for that and administration will send the certificate the certified application and when and if it's approved they will let us know if we're selected um we discussed lastly property search for a new Transportation Hub because where our buses are housed um the building is very bad shape the property is in very bad shape we're going to need to look for and have been looking for a new property for that um and um Transportation will forward contact information to Mr shihada and set up any meetings for any properties for for sale or lease but we um it's been an issue and it's something we really need to do in terms of getting a new Transportation up like I said the meeting ended at 707 PM um that's it any questions yes I do president Smith uh I'll start Transportation first so just so the public understands because I said I think I said yeah I did I sometimes can be lost last year um looking for a new property is that going to be in lieu of a replacement of what we currently have or is that going to be another site so we can use both sites one on one side of the city one or the other side of the city I just want the public to really understand that so depending upon what we find which we want to try and keep it in Clifton obviously so that's been very difficult finding a space that's large enough to house all all the buses but my understanding I believe it would be a new site correct yeah well because of the step the condition of that building if we have it if we have a temporary we've been instructed that we're out of space correct okay so we're going to need space for buses new buses coming in Etc we asked the city to help us with that we got a little bit of help um do we still have some buses at the city um but it's still not enough so if there's a temporary site that can house our buses until we find a permanent location that's something the board can consider um but right now it's been stagnant for two years there haven't been any sites that have come our way have either been sold um sold for a lot of money um so the committee is actively looking at every option now getting the electric bosses is that going to be a replacement of old buses or in I mean I know they are but again I want to make sure the public were transparent with the public uh and if so um are we bringing in three and getting rid of three and how do we determine that if we are getting rid of them that is correct the state's initiative to put a hole in the engine of three diesel buses in exchange for a reduced cost for the electric buses okay thank you that's translation now food um this one I'm curious about actually where are we on our um we had a loss a couple years ago in terms of where we were in fun and food um food funds where are we today as an update and how have we um mitigated what place what have we put in place to mitigate losses that makes sense yeah no problem so um just want to State this week cannot not feed children so even if they don't have uh money or whatever the case is we must provide them with the meal correct uh currently last time I looked probably early last early this month around 300 000 in the hole and that that's district-wide mainly coming from the the three largest buildings um at the guidance of Mr Rose she's been sending out weekly email blasts to parents with a balance of 20 or greater uh we have been recouping some of that money in my office and the Welcome Center under Mr doctor have been proactively reaching out to parents trying to recoup some of that money uh the biggest issue here is that we just need our parents to fill out the forms and it can resolve a good portion of that issue Okay so let me ask this question now because I I'm seeing it from my work and aspect of it and just brings up so many questions what do we use pay schools where do we use pay school oh what program hey for it pay for it pay for it so do we hold do we put a threshold on these IDs so if it doesn't get below a certain balance or to alert can we put that in a sense where if it gets below ten dollars we can it'll alert us to start talking to the parents then rather than waiting it's when it's too late I don't I don't know Mr abujabo if there's an alert but we're we're checking it weekly and that's from the report of who has balances that's where Mr Rose gets the information for the messages to go out to the parents okay but I don't think it's set at a certain number right you have to run the report manually I think Samantha if you don't mind uh Mr Rose would you speak it to the Mike I mean to put you on the spots no I apologize thank you the numbers come from whether it's real time that determines what the threshold is what the student's balance is at the direction of the business office we send out once that threshold reaches 20 and we can set that threshold to anything once that threshold once they reach a balance of twenty dollars an automatic email is sent every week until that's paid now we can set that threshold that whatever you decide and we also have internal procedures when it reaches in our policy forget exactly but there's a phone call from the principal at a certain amount in addition to the email it's it's a struggle though I I I I can't you know sugarcoat it it's a struggle part of the issue is that our kids got free lunch for almost two years and we're just used to getting feeling out and our parents were used to not sending kids to school with money and despite our best efforts to get the word out there and to get people to apply for free and reduce lunch it's it's been a struggle I can't can't deny that no and I'm and I'm and I'm seeing it now like I said from another District's end um from a different District's end because they're a cep district and there's no reason why they should be in the negative but they are because the a la cartes so so at the end of the day my biggest question is going to be if it's 300 000 now and we can't recover the funds for them what do we do we cover it how do we stop the bleeding you used to be in the past if you if you heard Mr Lurch say we had a they call it a prophet it's not really a prophet in in pomptonian of 1.1 million dollars in Food Services this year in the past we used to be able to take the money from that profit and wipe out balances and and every board in the state used to do that no longer allowed to do that no longer allowed to do that so we're going to have to find a way to enforce it better in in reality I think the only way you're going to force a parent to pay after a certain amount of time is when their kids are graduating high school and you're and I I you know we would have threaten the withholding of a diploma I don't I don't know if that's something that that we would do but maybe that would get a parent to pay if it's if it's a large enough amount of money you could even put a judgment against against the person but that's getting into some serious matters and I don't think the board is looking to do that and that's why we're trying to catch it when the balance is small but we will have some parents who just won't pay they just won't pay and so I I don't know I don't know what the answer is to be honest with you I have a question um so when they so say say I had a balance of forty dollars and I did qualify for free and reduced lunch would I come into you and you say um you retroactively fill out those forms so the district gets the money from the other entities that pay for that yes if you fill out the form today and you had a 40 40 bound from the remainder of the price school year we cannot wipe the balance of Odell you still owe that forty dollars but from that day the day you fill out the application moving forward your free or reduced or whatever your status may be so when we have a home and school meetings this may go back to the home and school committee that we have it you you host for the district maybe we could have somebody from the Food Service Department come and speak to the fact about because the first day of school when we get all those paid that paperwork and you get all that those things that you have to fill out it's overwhelming you're trying to get this get the kids ready to go back to school get them acclimated so that they have to be in school and and maybe we need to go on a more aggressive campaign about what the forms are who qualifies and about that now that lunch is no longer free and maybe the board can take a more proactive uh stance on talking to our legislative people about bringing that free food back and send the resolution down to them to the state because I know other districts are trying to do that as well yeah and Mrs bassberry remember we did we had done that we had passed the resolution we had sent it but it's really it's a federal thing but the state is getting more involved now I don't know if it's if it's gonna happen but this is an issue in so many places that it may eventually happen maybe a poke again it's something so Oak and if I could uh just to just to cover a conversation about the legislative legislative legislature um we've actually brought it to their attention and they're they're aware um last year when we talked to him about it but I know we got to set up another one struggling again getting legislators on the same page right now for the calendar but it is on the agenda for a follow-up to see where we are so that's something we discussed just going off your your comment uh Mr doctor and Sharon who work in I.T they put the form on Parent Portal so as soon as you open the parent portal to check your child's schedule that form there unfortunately we cannot require a parent to do it so we have to put an option to bypass it so we are proactively trying to get these fit performs maybe maybe you know how you guys put out those notices on Peachtree and you have to sift through a lot of stuff to see the information but maybe every once in a while just throwing that up how to do it like you know it may be a struggle with those they're not computer illiterate and they just need help doing it I think we can come up with some really creative outside the box thinking we're not allowed to use that terminology tonight I'm not used out thinking outside the box tonight okay speaking about something um yes well I have to say that I I agree um with Miss bassford I I think that you know maybe I don't know you know how many maybe you know the little like sort of making phone calls to parents I mean and and that's already been done okay we have called every parent on the list multiple times the Welcome Center and the principles as well there are districts um that uh Dr Roberto's you said they do hold like at the end of the year um they'll hold the report card and then parents are like where's the report card and it's like oh because you owe so and so and it I mean it works I mean we don't get any complaints I mean it you know parents are like oh okay so I owe and then and what is it are you allowed to do that by law well the the thing well I don't know but it's done so you know it's done and it's also done um seniors before they graduate it's anything in arrears anything that you it's a it's a thing that's oh like even books sometimes seniors don't bring in their books and you fill out the form and it's there I mean I you know I fill out forms like that at school school and you know there's a whole list printed in the um you know and students can see if they want like if they're in arrears or something so they can see it it's there it just and then you know they can inquire why or whatever and but again I mean that really gets parents once the report card or their diploma is held until the payment is made and then you know I mean so they they do it you can technically if I'm not mistaken from my experiences that you can hold a report I mean I'm not legal but you can hold a report card just like holding a diploma you just you just can't retain them from moving on to the next grade yes and that no I know this yes because it's as wide as you're speaking before asking yes like where people are asking can you do that yeah if students are in danger failing we still notify guidance counselors and guidance counselors will you know work with the students and make sure that they're and everybody's it's just that it's like that that paper is held until you know but it's not like the student is held up and and then you know they can't move forward or anything no it's not like they're moving forward it's just they don't get that paper I have another a thought um is it staff that you need Dr robitussi to hire someone to be the foods are I I don't know like truthfully I don't think that's the issue okay thank you I don't think it's a matter of uh foods are I like that name though um I don't think that's necessarily the do we have like um repeat offenders from years back do we have like a list of so I'm just I'm just curious if that people are so just you know they just are not mindful of fact is that you know you have to pay for your child's lunch and they they have means they are of means so I I think that maybe we need to stop putting our heads together get a little bit more creative about but maybe we need to be more aggressive in the advertising of it because three hundred thousand dollars that's a couple salaries right there you know we could start a couple new features right and so like we're not allowed unfortunately unfortunately the board is not allowed to get involved in in the the day-to-day but I'm sure we can come up with some really creative we have people that work in other districts what do they do when you go to your round table you can ask some of your colleagues what are they doing and maybe um at the end of the year are you you're not allowed to prohibit them from doing anything in the school but you can hold stuff back I I really would love a legal opinion on that so we don't you know violate anybody's rights for anything that was my first question is legally is that okay we obviously would get a legal answer so I I don't know off the top of my head but I'm happy to look into it well obviously you can't hold the child back in a grade or anything like that but you can hold you can I'll I'll just double check this all right I'm gonna withhold the actual paperwork well I'll go on the record and see I'm not a fan of holding a kid's diploma hostage for any of that so I guess we can come up with other Creative Solutions hopefully but I know when my sons went to school a while back I brought this up actually in a meeting maybe I don't know um but we would put in enough money that would cover enough of whatever they needed and if they wanted an extra Snapple or if their friend didn't have or so we ended up with we left money in the pot I'm sure for four years in other words right they they used less money than we put in for them I didn't get that money back so um and I have two boys so four years apart it's eight years of putting money in I didn't get a credit I needed anything so I'm sure that that went back into the cafeteria fund um but maybe something like that I mean if I was asked as a parent I would have gladly given up that extra money to pay for whoever couldn't pay for their kid so we can look at creative things but I would I would not be a proponent of holding a kid's Hospital nor for books the thing about that is that if that's the case of ear right if we can do that we don't have to even wait for graduation we can do something just as punitive right now that's not waiting for graduation right so anyway that's just my customer uh Mejia please I was going to say I know how hard it is to get a student on the phone you know let alone a parent to you know pick up so I deal with that every day at my job but something we use is Mongoose so it's you just put in their phone number sends automatic texts to parents and students in like five seconds you have over like five dollars yeah okay uh let's move on um Mr brunsiak you have a finance committee thank you president Smith finance committee last convened March 8 505 PM Eastern Standard time I was president Mr commissioner Paris was President commissioner wad was president president Smith was present Mr gigaro was president Mr Ruchi was president Mr shahada was present Mrs kusilevich was president and Mr doctor was present items of discussion were state aid numbers Administration gave us an overview of state aid allotted to the district Clifton was given another increase however it's it does seem as though the district is now fully funded it will not receive another increase until the formula is revamped through legislation and that's something that I I didn't hear tonight yet either from from anybody either so so it's revamped through legislation to let everybody know budget meeting was to be held March 16th at 6 pm to have a full board discussion administrative requests so I'm requesting anybody who's here or anybody who's watching or listening in uh if you could take a look back at the meeting the public meeting that occurred last Thursday with my colleagues audit overview which was provided to us a few weeks ago they explained the audit and its process and once again as Mr lurch stated pre earlier this evening this was a near perfect audit with only one finding and the Auditors were not able to attend the committee but they would be present tonight and indeed Mr Lurch was the meeting convened at 603 PM does anybody have any questions no okay and um um in commissioner Awards absence Mr Paris would you mind doing the facilities committee certainly uh the facilities committee on March 8th uh president or uh Commissioners Awad myself Santiago and Mr Smith administration had was Dr Robert tozi Mr gingaro Mr Uchi Mr shihada Mr Maldonado Mr doctor and Mr marcione we had a guest uh Mr Bill Costello he's a lead project manager uh meeting started at 3 38 ended at 5 PM items of discussions a referendum update was given epic the rep from epic gave an overview of what has been taking place so so far in the referendum and what's taking place throughout the rest of the year CHS bathrooms currently being worked on and classrooms are being prepped for new HVAC equipment meeting with public service to discuss when items will be delivered um just a little more color on that one most of these HVAC improvements require additional power for the schools so Public Service would need to increase some Transformers whatever their whatever device they use to deliver power to the buildings that's apparently a very large backlog right now due to pandemic uh stresses on the supply chain the field house unit is making substantial progress some bathrooms that were in bid 2 are being worked on uh discussion was about warranties specifications say when the unit is installed and working so warranties although we may already have the the equipment ready for installation warranties are not beginning until they're installed and up and running we may have to extend cooling warranties depending on Public Service delivery dates we're following up with Epic on March 15th and an email is sent to board members regarding HVAC warranties so all of you should have received that CHS bathrooms can possibly be finished by December of 2023 barring any manufacturing delays item number two is n27 energy utility bid live bid took place on March 8th the district opted to take this route to save money on utilities this is extremely important due to the amount of utilities that we're projecting to increase when the referendum is complete item number three building and ground updates Administration gave an update of projects taking place throughout the district and administration spoke with the city regarding tree Replacements the city said they will install trees once we buy them uh item number four the rod Grant Administration explained what a rod Grant is and the projects they're looking to utilize the grant for Rod grass do not cover the entire cost of the project only 40 percent if approved I believe a number of those are on the agenda this evening for roofs not mistaken right the Banfield update concerns your pass to the contractor and are being addressed and are to be completed by 331 we have yet to issue full payment um number six soccer field usage the committee discussed the usage of the field by an outside entity that requested use again for this next year new business the committee discussed outside bathroom to be built Administration is going to look at getting quotations this would serve the deuce the soccer field at the high school committee also discussed fee bumps around schools and discussed applying for grants for safer streets any questions yes Mr Brunswick thank you commissioner Paris when we apply for this what's the uh what's the lead time once we apply for on finding out if we get awarded any of these grants for the broadcast monies yeah I would know that these grants typically take a few months because they have to funnel in from all the districts that throughout the state so we would likely find out sometime in the summer thank you yes thank you president Smith so um just ballpark for the referendum related upgrade the projects when is when is like the ballpark uh date that all of those would be completed is that when's that timeline generally speaking originally it would have been within the next two years now it'll be everything except the air conditioning within three years only because of the um the Transformers Publix Eng is about today I heard from our architect 60 weeks out of putting Transformers out so we could put our new HVAC systems in the heat will work but we can't use the HVAC until they're in so and it also depends on the school so three years am I three years total from now okay thank you okay all right let's move on we'll go on to um go on to number 14 unfinished business does anyone have an unfinished business nope okay we'll move on to 15 um expression of condolence um Miss password or would you mind reading that expression of condolence um this is um number 15 on the agenda whereas on March 1st the community noted the sorrow of the passing of Miss Vera shimenti and whereas Ms shementhy had served the Board of Education and children of Clifton faithfully and conscientiously as a highly respected teacher's aide for over 20 years before retiring in 2019.
Say the best for last. And these are our second in the state wrestling team. [Applause] It's always good to recognize the students in the in and the kids for the hard work they put in. And absolutely, it all starts in the off season in the wait room. That's right. All right. Next up this evening is public comments. And we did not have any public comments this evening on the agenda items. Correct. Correct. Okay. Next up, um the consent items. Do I have a motion? Mr. President, I move that we approve the consent items as presented. Thank you, Mr. Daniels. Second. Thank you, Mrs. Counts. We have a motion, a first, and a second. All those in favor of accepting the consent agenda signify by saying I. I. All those opposed. Motion passes 5-0. Thank you. Next up is action. He wants to recognize. Oh, I'm sorry.
so um I can bring those up Sean if that's helpful and these are just um these are just suggestions that came through the working groups um so the floor is open to anything [Music] um but let's go through this systematically so we can try to be efficient um we've all read what the city we've all read what the city um Council passed in December and we've reviewed what the commission has proposed for prior years um so the idea here was that I think most of us support um the city care what the city council submitted in December but we we thought of some other things that we might um there would be important to protect the environment in Ann Arbor here so why don't we start off with natural features um I thought Chris do you want to go through this quickly oh and uh Brooks go ahead Brooks I will uh yeah go ahead uh so Chris I think you're the first one you should go through it because you understand that a lot more than I do so lots of folks understand what biodiversity means um in Practical terms as you look across the city or the state there are hot spots there are places where uh the hand of man has been limited and the ability of native ecosystems and Native species to thrive and survive and be sustained are better than most places in I thought it was 1988 but I guess Public Act 451 of 1994.
now therefore be it resolved but this resolution be forwarded to her bereaved family to serve as an expression of the great Regard in which Ms shamenti was held by the Board of Education the Administration Employees and the pupils of Clifton public schools and be it further resolved that the contents of this resolution be noted in its entirety in the official minutes of the Clifton Board of Education for future generations to peruse dated March 23 2023 signed by Dr robitussi and signed by Michael USI and all the members of the Clinton Board of education's names are noted on as well okay it's a roll call please yes Miss basford yes Mr Brunson yes Mr mejio yes Mr Paris yes Mr Santiago yes vice president Danny yes president Smith yes um you had a motion or a second on that yeah um Dr Danny would you second that motion second all right we'll move on to uh education Administration we have um ea1 through ea10 second by vice president Danny discussion um I would uh like Temple number eight to be discussed in the back room okay number eight is a student matter um for executive session okay so the group minus uh E8 seeing on roll call please Mr Roberto yes Miss Basswood that's what number eight being held Mr Brunswick yes Mr yes Mr Patterson yes with abstention on number six Mr Santiago yes vice president Danny yes president Smith yes motion carries okay next we'll go on to see a Personnel so we have uh P1 through p25 so I moved by Mr abadrabo second by Mr Paris any discussion nope seeing none roll call please Mr Robert yes yes Mr Paris yes abstention myself on number 23.
Yeah. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Um, in our audience here today, you just approved our new principal for Middle School, Jason. Would you please stand [Applause] a minute and just tell us a little bit about yourself real quickly? Yeah, definitely. So, um, very excited to join the Center Grove community and families. Um, I've lived here for six years. I have four children that attend Center Grove schools. I have a senior, a sophomore, a fifth grader, and a third grader. So, um, very excited to, like I said, serve the community. I've, um, heard nothing but great things about the families and, uh, staff of Middle School Central. So, I can't wait to get started. Thank you. All right. Next up is action items. The first action item is accept bids for the demolition of the PRC. Dr. Arinoff. Thank you, Mr. Alexander. Uh, this evening I'm recommending that the board accept the bids to de demolition of the PRC and Dr.
asked the Department of Natural Resources to look at its entire landlord Holdings and identify those places in the name of um doing the best we can on a Statewide basis of protecting our our highly diverse native hot spots the department several years later got down the road quite a ways in fact I have the shape files of all the places they found and a senator from the up found out about this and amended the law and replaced it with something that has to do with deer management and I mean things like reporting numbers and whatnot it nothing to whatsoever to do with biodiversity and for the first time since then we have a legislature and a governor that and even a local Senator who's might who who is and they might be interested in Reviving that effort it would help us because a lot of the requirements of the statute were reporting and educating and trying to get people to understand um what these great natural areas are all about we have them here they're the natural is on our parks where where we have a range of of a hierarchy of of levels of diversity of native species um we could ask if the legislature would look into this again and try to restore the ACT um the second and I guess it hooks into our own climate efforts here um if we were to include work on biodiversity in in the city of Ann Arbor would hook into the conversations we were just having terms of educating people about Native species and all the life that depends upon native plants particularly um and uh it what Senator Cass person did was just a shame heads rolled into DNR he made them roll and I'm talking about the chiefs of divisions who were working on this he forbid the DNR from using the word biodiversity in any document and for any purpose or doing anything with regard to it as well as amending the law and essentially killing it um sushink was we had seen I had a conversation about it and she's interested so might see what happens the second suggestion I made and this comes from uh so many folks that I know who are Latino and and uh of various nationalities and uh you all may or may not know that the state of Michigan prohibits non-citizens or non -visa holders from getting a driver license that means a lot of people working in building and landscape and housekeeping and medical services on medical services are driving to work without a license I I can't imagine anything more ridiculous and again because our long-standing legislature has changed politically perhaps we can fix this problem one would require proof of residency in Michigan to get a driver's license clearly our local police are very nice as I understand it to these folks when they're stopped for some reason um I don't think they are down south but they shouldn't have to be out there driving in order to hold a job without a driver's license um lastly I speaking of biodiversity nothing could be more damaging to the existing biodiversity of the city of Ann Arbor than too many deer we really need to get back to this management of deer um okay thanks Chris um so these are all considerations for further discussion that uh at a future meeting so um um for solid waste um I think so John I think John mursky proposed this amendment to prevent organic waste disposal in landfills no no John I think I think these all John Calvert I think these came from me um so um I think it's important to encourage the state to restrict the sale of all packaging that includes intentionally added pfas chemicals because these contaminations um are are alarming they may soon prevent the recycling of plastics and toxic free composts for example Most states the many states in New England now uh have have stopped the land application of biosolids and composts that are contaminated with pfas uh which is an especially bad problem up there because of the how many paper mills there are in Northern New England so um the EPA has moved on drinking water regulations stricter drinking water regulations um this month and So within the next year or two we'll probably move on to Wastewater and biosolids and compost so I think it's important and and bills bills to do this have been passed in other states and they have been drafted by uh Jeff Irwin is one of the sponsors of these bills that were submitted over the last four years in the state legislature but they went nowhere and this is another opportunity where now that we have a change in leadership we may get at least a hearing we might at least get a public hearing and a committee in the state legislature on these and and maybe move some legislation forward that might protect the city's budget and the public health um and it's the same consideration with amending part 115 because organic waste disposal and landfills only creates masking it's better disposed of and now and as a as a compost within a compost um because um this is the point is that if there is too much pfos in VAR solids and compost they will end up in hazardous wastelandfills not even irregular landfills so the cost of the city's budget will could become quite High um so in terms of water quality um let's see Sarah and I contributed something to this so Sarah do you want to go over the water quality yeah um so I think um reinstating Eagles rulemaking authority to part four of the water quality standards would be helpful to the city um so a lot of things have kind of been set in stone since the rule making Authority was um declined no longer able to change and update to View's best available science um and a lot of our water quality standard derivation um so like one example is for pfos compounds we have you know single criteria for each dfos um whereas you know the state could look at viewing them as a class so it allowed it would allow like more um flexibility and how different regulations are applied which could be useful for water treatment plants things like that um so I think this is a really important thing for the city to get behind um and then the second one on here is to ban the use of perk in dry cleaning so some of you might be familiar with the arm and cleaner site in downtown Ann Arbor there was a perk release back in the 80s and the company continued to use perk for many years um and it was unclear we weren't able to determine whether the plumes were combined or not so there was still an ongoing relief um so perk is uh very toxic it causes indoor air Vapor concerns to human health and long term it's a carcinogen um so getting this out of the dry cleaning business protects you know the workers at the dry cleaning business you know people who get their clothes dry cleaned don't have the chemical on their body there's so many benefits to doing this um I think it would be silly for the city to not support um so those are my two and if you guys have questions let me know yep um thank you uh uh Rita or somebody from the pollinators group wants to talk about these any volunteers hi I'll try can you hear me yeah okay um but I welcome China in from any of the others and I apologize for my losses of contact um so the pollinator group put these together um to talk about focusing on at the state level on mandating integrated Pest Management the goal is to reduce use of pesticides overall second line Banning sale of seeds specifically treated with neonatinoid pesticides that's one of the reasons that farm fields are so toxic to pollinators uh and to prioritize the use and maintenance of native plants we set in Highway rights of way they could be in many public spaces in particular and encourage private use of of native plants as well so it's it's like reduced pesticides improved habitat is the main goal of these and I welcome comments from um Bridget Anyan Dharma thanks hey thanks everybody I think it's um I think it would be useful if we could direct um because this document is for the city's higher lobbyists so if we could direct these to specific bills um I think it would be it would help facilitate their engagement that's that's just a opinion of mine um so um and and I have more information about prayer and many of these other things as well if anybody's interested so uh so let's see so um I'm thinking about how to proceed with this I think given the hour and everything I think uh um I think let's uh table this until the next meeting so let's all think about it for a month or two and then um and then have some specific more specific proposals to submit and uh and uh prepare a resolution Bridget a quick question uh commissioner call Awards sent some really useful um laws in other states that that might pertain to some of these pollinator suggestions we had is that helpful to include that in something like this are you think saying Michigan um when you say direct the lobbyist to um I think well um well my understanding is that this document is really the city hires lobbyists both I assume that the federal and the state level but most of the comments I've ever seen are directed to the state legislature yeah sorry I make questions confusing I guess I mean State Legislature two examples of good policy in other states that would meet these suggestions [Music] but I think we can add some more detail to make it more to facilitate um better yeah yeah I think it would help just to make it a really specific ask it's always good to have a more specific and ask as you can have and also you know point to um I recommend people to look at um uh there's a website called safer States which uh tracks bills bills that are on different topics that are submitted in different uh and in state legislators on different topics so I'd like you you want to go to that website and you can say well what laws on pfos have been passed and so they have a map and then you can click on each state and see what they are and so you can find plenty of um you know model laws in other states um for these for these uh for these issues you know we're not exactly the leaders and the best in this category so Chris you have your hand up and then darma yeah a couple questions about the two Solid Waste items I I was on the impression for quite some time it's been [Music] uh not kosher to take wood and brush and landscape materials into the landfills [Music] so what you're talking about here is food waste yeah yeah it's not yeah I have to refine that myself you know I'll work on that myself that's one of the things I need to work on and then I'm don't we want to go further than just packaging for pfas chemicals don't we really want to get a lot more serious about not producing them and using them period well yeah I mean the state of Maine has already done that as part of an extended producer responsibility law an epr law and the state of Maine has done that and that's something we should shoot for but this is something that might be more possible so you're right I think it's probably better to be more ambitious and then reduce the scope of it later my thoughts thank you yeah thanks um let's see uh let's see Dharma you you had your hand up yeah preemptively taking it down so I didn't forget um I appreciate the suggestion for specificity because I think it is helpful I mean the thing I think to remember is that this is going to go to the policy committee that we have and it will help them understand it better if we can connect it to things and to that point just a little Googling you can often find things that speak to like I just started looking at pollinators you know there are bills that get introduced all of the time that you know didn't pass in some cycle but they exist um and I've noticed that with examples of things that we have in our current adopted uh Statewide policy plan is that there have been things that have pushed been introduced before that they would like to bring back to pass so for example I just found the Michigan house bill 48.95 that specifically is about pesticides and pollinators um so I would just suggest there probably is a single source for all of these house bills that have been introduced but um it might be worth pointing to one of those if it speaks to what's wanted and how much supportive information would with the council policy committee appreciate receiving that's a good question but I would say at least like being able to reference a house bill like for example you have a water quality support HB 4083 to you know that's what I mean kind of like what you were saying I'm just saying that like in a lot of cases they're actually have been things that have been introduced they just haven't been passed before so yeah that makes it easy I think because you know what can happen is then you can you can see who is a co-sponsor of that bill and then you can and then the uh the city's lobbyists can go and talk to that person who had previously co-sponsored the bill or sponsored it yeah okay well let's all keep that in mind and then uh refine these and then bring them to and then have the working groups bring us to the to the next uh to to the to the earliest future commission meeting where we can fit in the schedule okay because Dharma when would the uh the policy doc policy committee is already finished what they're going to do for this year is that correct or yeah for but but it's coming up now because as I like the cycle is not usually December and January we did that because again the change in the legislature we Revisited so it's once a year normally I think Sean we had talked about this before what the cycle is of when we need to get it to them and I don't remember what it was uh I believe it might have been March 31st okay so as soon as possible so we should do okay well all right so we're running out of March so okay so uh why don't all the working group leaders try to get to try to get this spiffed up and uh let's just um send it to the council policy committee as information yeah not as a resolution or because we have to we have to actually pass a resolution and get counsel to to consider it and then usually and then Council assigns it to the policy committee so it's a it can be a Securities process I think actually what happens with these and again maybe uh council member Tish or Sean couldn't correct me if I'm wrong but I think what happens is that the Committees uh vote on a set of policies to push forward it gets included in the council packages when you do that I don't think Council really takes an action it goes directly to this policy making committee they kind of work in refine and then they bring something back to council that's all of it awesome that's good news that's good news so let's all try to get the information through the council policy committee through Dharma yeah bye no I think you gotta we have to pass something is that right Sean we have to I believe that it gets attached as a memo uh to the meeting minutes from a meeting which in this case would be this meeting so I think that requires a formal action of this body to do that okay well I don't feel like it's ready so um so um what should we do y'all any suggestions work on it tomorrow Steve yeah that's all we can do is work on it some more um and so I mean just as an aside here I am working with a group that's uh working on the polluter accountability Act to try to get a polluter accountability act it used to be called polluter pays but we've already decided to call it polluter accountability and the fact is that the um you know that the uh the legislature does have a more friendly structure uh you know leadership now but the the maturity is very very slim so nothing's going to happen without any without bipartisan support and so and um and most of the activity in the legislature is doing so far is not related to the environment they're going to try to they're I think we have time because I'm just saying that the legislature probably won't take up a lot of these things um seriously until next year until 2024.
Mrs Santiago yes vice president Danny yes president Smith yes motion carries okay next uh we'll move on to board member comments um starting with this week you're right I always skip one sorry Skip One skip a lot no it's one section finance and Facilities D okay so we have F1 through f25 motion motion by Mr abadrabo second by Mr Paris Mr Smith I would like a separate roll call on the number seven the adoption of the budget please okay separate role on the adoption of the budget and one other question um can uh through you to the superintendent could you explain what the alternative method of compliances on the bathrooms for preschool is there a mechanism that we use or uh I'm just curious refer to Janina whenever we don't have bathrooms inside of the actual preschool or kindergarten classroom we need to apply for a waiver for what's called line of sight or for using paraprofessionals to escort them to the bathrooms so whenever there's a special needs classroom that's opened or there are changes to where we're doing in where we're locating these rooms we need to apply for such a waiver and I have one other question uh could someone from Administration just tell us what the use of facility process is how somebody goes about it and who determines the price that's set on a facility usage yes Dr robitosi Miss bessford we have a board policy on use of school facilities that policy requires um anyone wishing to utilize our facilities to file a written request um in our policy there's certain things that are weighted in in in accordance of who would get priority first being anything dealing with our students with a priority over any function but generally it has to be a request in writing uh that person will have to fill out an application for a permit they will have to show that they have liability insurance that permit then goes before the board of education for uh approval and um they they can utilize the facility thank you um that I just wanted that because the the item that I want to bring in executive session I wanted everybody from the board to hear that from the superintendent because I have some questions about something that came to my attention thank you okay any other discussion seeing none roll call please Mr Robot uh yes we have standing on 25 claims list Ford uh yes Mr Brunswick yes Mr Mejia yes Mr Paris yes Miss Santiago yes vice president Danny yes president Smith yes motion carries okay next we'll move on to uh I asked for supper vote yep number seven um adoption of the preliminary budget I have a motion in a second motion motion by Mr Robert second by Mr Paris any further discussion yes yes I have a question thank you Mr Robin um how many teachers if we went could roughly if I don't know if I'm putting you on the spot and I apologize if I do two four six that were we were presented on the specialty how many teachers would be admitted if we get we we went for those numbers in the budget how many I'm just talking teaching stuff we do have that information available Mrs bassford Mr Mr Shad I just needs a second sorry I should have gave you ahead of time but um public comment made me think about it that's why I want to know there's no problem your time it's best for you just want instructional staff just instructional staff because the the teachers brought up a question about putting more teachers in the classroom and I think that may determine what we do here with the pulmonary budget you want us to take your five minute break no no I'm sorry because it's all over the place sorry it's good it's it's only because we don't have it broken down in that way that's the only reason it's best I don't know what you consider some of these things all right we'll come back to number seven um we'll move on to uh commissioner comments well if if can I ask some oh you have a question also I want to clear some things up while Mr shot uh Dr arvatozi this is for three percent correct yes sir okay I'm gonna ask a couple of questions for you if you don't mind just so the public understands this could be changed at any time so if we go three percent now we can change it to four percent five percent one percent two percent two percent fifteen million percents uh up to May 4th yes sir that's correct so and this is just for us preliminary to get this down to the uh county superintendent so this way we're not penalized for holding this up that's correct we need a board resolution that authorizes us to submit this to the county superintendent okay and in no way shape or form let's say did go to zero percent and throw a number out there my biggest thing is layoffs that's not happening whatsoever that's absolutely correct with the 22 million dollars we got no layoffs okay thanks thankfully correct okay so let me so I I'm meeting on our scenarios out there this way correct no budgetary layoffs correct however correct just go ahead if we did hire any additional staff the potential is they would be laid off at the end of next year depending on what the budget looks at okay so we were at zero I don't think we'd be hiring additional staff so let's not put that in the air because let's get the juju out of there um the other thing I have is you gave us a sheet of two three and four percents correct yes now at three percent let's say I come to you and I say you know what Dr urbitozi there's a there's a line here of a title I really don't think we can you know the pairs are a little more important can we put off for that and put focus on Paris for example is that doable yes after after we send the prelim preliminar 100 so when I'm when I'm trying to get at all this is still at its very preliminary draft and and we still have till May 4th to finagle what we're gonna do how we're gonna do it and how we're gonna make sure our teachers our Paras and our district succeeds that's correct thank you I also have something another concern um I I don't know if anybody listened to the council meeting during the work session but there was a comment made about the council is now going to charge us for water for the sewer eighteen thousand dollars starting next year they're also going to be charging the county buildings as well for their fair share of the of the sewer bill that's not in our budget now so I just want to um hopefully I think that was mentioned right before you guys went into your Municipal Alliance meeting but I want to bring that Community Alliance because uh I think it was what we need to discuss that as well because that's something that we've never budgeted for nor we have we never paid for as a sewer on our end so I just want you guys to know that I heard that I don't know if anybody was paying attention Mr s yeah there's been numerous people have brought that um we attempted to bring it to uh Municipal Alliance however the other side refused to speak about anything concerning the budget um you know we don't have to get into it now but you know if they're deciding to charge our school district for numerous things there are numerous things we could turn around and charge them for as well so um so I don't think we're at that place yet but uh we did attempt to try and discuss it in Municipal Alliance and they wanted no part of it so thank you for letting us know yep Mr um shahada you have an answer on that other part yeah sorry for the delay uh so miss bass for the for the two percent it would be 18 new positions this would also this does not include the nine powers that we would make full time to give them the benefits for the three percent it is 21 new staff members and that does not include the 15 pairs that will be full-time getting benefits and for the four percent it is 29 new staff members with 18 not included in that 29.
Long will provide you with some additional information. Thank you. Um, tonight with us from AECOM Hunt is Chad Peters. Um, Chad helped descope all of the bids that we opened on February 21st of 2023. We opened five bids to demolish the PRC. Tonight, we're recommending the board accept the bids from the Lefairy Group Corporation in the amount of $234,000.
so that's all that's that's all um that's all I have to say on that so um all right well thank you everybody this is a good exercise and let's let's keep at it all right so the next item on the agenda is reports from committees other commissions Council and chair you have anything from Solid Waste uh just a couple of quick updates we've got a meeting of the larger uh zero waste group coming up later this week and then next month we've got uh the students the from U of M will be presenting on April 13th as part of their class project and then we're also working for them to present their work to City staff uh later in April to OSI and Public Works great John um are you um are you are you going to circulate that report how how would the Commissioners be able to see that report yeah we can certainly do that it'll be added to the U of M library um collection so it'll all be digital so I can just share that link once it's ready yeah that'll be great um so then is that it for solid waste yes okay so then water quality I don't have anything to report right now um pollinators nope I think you heard a big uh update from us uh that we've been working on the uh the pollinator resolution you saw tonight and we will be continuing on our educational materials okay great now natural features um we asked up to the channels how the members of the environmental commission will participate in the master plan consolidation process with regard to natural features master plan haven't heard back yet I assume will be included in there'll be meetings and whatnot going on forward and from that we'll see what the natural features committee does quickly on that uh the natural features group is invested literally hundreds of hours in various drafters uh ordinances and and I'd like to get clarity on what where these are going and it's awfully late tonight but maybe we can set aside some time in our next meeting to really we give Clarity to to the commission and to the natural features working group uh on what what's are these going to be round filed or black hole or are they going in somewhere and where how are they gonna what's the process going to be that these um are somehow addressed it to me it's not clear that we've been yeah I'll leave it at that well no thanks John yeah we're it's not clear I mean these have been worked on for years I mean there's been hundreds and maybe thousands of uh of man hours or you know I have to working hours put in uh to these over the last five to ten years and so uh um City staff just to let everybody know City staff decided that they weren't going to really look at those they were just going to fold them into the comprehensive plan so but we have no idea how that's going to happen because as far as I know they still haven't officially selected you know a consultant to work on the comprehensive plan Lisa they they have they have selected a consultant okay um and as you know there are rules set by the Michigan planning enabling Association [Music] or whatever it is there are um and there are rules about uh what sort of public engagement goes into a comprehensive uh goes into revising on an element of the comprehensive plan so whatever um the natural features group puts forward needs to go through that practice of of public engagement um that's just kind of the way revising a comprehensive plan goes so [Music] um I'm sure that you'll hear from uh from staff um in terms of how you can be engaged in this process as well and um you know I'm sure that you know the work will be taken seriously but it but we but a commission's work can't substitute for the work that needs to be done through the comprehensive planning process [Music] so okay it's a mix right in my tulip uh the request was to be at the table in the comprehensive planning process not as a general public but as environmental commissioners one of whom was instrumental in writing the original natural features master plan 20 years ago it's not in the Wheelhouse of planners and maybe not in the Wheelhouse of the consultant they hire to know what to do about natural features um where we there are a lot of plans and consultants and things that happen in the city of Ann Arbor frankly that get done then they go to the public and there's not much motion after things go to the public um I you know uh as a long time participant in this area it really matters what happens to the natural features master plan if it is to be as you say the guideposts for what we do about natural features going forward we need to be at the table in the discussions of making that master plan not Theta comply afterward and we are we are part of it we are a part of the city government system we are although we don't have official responsibilities or any Authority but we are a part of of the city's government and we also our bylaws specify that we can hold public hearings on various topics outside of our regular meetings so uh I just want to remind everybody of that fact so um it would be good to um it would be good to hear what's going on I mean so far you know we've we've communicated with Mr dehoney our concerns but we have not heard anything back yet so um I think it would be it would be very it would be good to know um when we might hear something back you know you know I'm not I don't feel comfortable pressing him right now he's in the middle of a three-quarter of a million dollar brush cleanup effort maybe in schedule um and we're entering into the budget you know budget negotiations oh I understand no no I understand I think we we all we all need to be patient but um I know you've been really patient and I know this is very I I understand the frustration or perhaps I don't understand it because I can't possibly appreciate what it feels like to invest it as much invest as much as you have so I mean when next I meet with him which I'm not sure when it's going to be because I can't make my regular meeting um I can ask him if you know if he can share any thoughts or if he were you know who who's going to respond to you all yeah yeah just a little general reminder is all you know and the thing is see that um you have to understand that a lot of these feelings come from what happened with those chapter 40.
being moved to full time I apologize for putting you on the spot it's just that I wanted the public to hear what we're going to be voting on tonight thank you okay any other questions okay roll call on number seven please Mr Robot yes Miss basford um yes and I wish we would have another meeting and more people would come out to speak about this because the more we hear the more we know the more we can do Mr rusiak yes Mr Mejia yes Mr Paris yes Mrs Santiago yes vice president Danny yes president Smith yes motion carries all right we'll move now into uh board member comments uh we'll start today with uh commissioner Mejia thank you president Smith so good evening to everybody who's in with us today in attendance online virtual first I'd like to say good luck to all the spring sports that are happening this you know upcoming spring I know the lacrosse team just had a great day today um huge accomplishment for the Montreal team they're going to be competing in the Princeton moot Court um back in high school I was on the Mantra team went all the way to counties won counties that went to States so big congratulations I'm not sure if Mr van hey missing gazadres are still involved with this but huge congratulations for them um during one of the public discussions I remember um hearing this 30 students per classroom and that's what really hit me imagine having 30 kids for six periods at least six periods let's say that's over 180 students with different unique personalities each in their own way that's a lot and I'm not that's a lot imagine him having to deal with 180 different students a day now times that by the minimum it seems to be 120 thanks 180 days all right all right that takes a toll on a psychological effects that a teacher has to go through day to day you know it requires a lot of things and that's just the minimum I know how important this is because when I was in high school I had those numbers I think they were higher maybe I had 40 kids in the class and you know that affected me a lot I ended up going to University where I had a small teacher it's a student ratio and I excelled excelled so it goes to show how a smaller teacher to student ratio really impacts a student's ability to learn um with that said I vividly remember my sophomore year 2016.