Reader

The board of education has a policy in their bylaws to uphold and adhere to the laws in the in the United States and the uh in the state of Connecticut as it relates to public policy and education. You have a policy to follow the law. You have policies about Title 9. You have policies about IDA. You if the comment that we don't have to follow, we don't that we don't have to enforce the law is a circular argument and you don't understand. You either either don't understand your responsibilities or you refuse to implement it. the consistent comments that my engagement is immature. It's because I've asked politely for years and it's been ignored. I am going to force March this board to do what it needs to do to make this a safe environment for kids. Okay. I will tell you a superintendent will not sign a W4 in this district to replace the current one without an inspection of me of their background and me presenting it to them.

So, you know, good luck hiring a superintendent because I'm going to make sure that they're going to come in and that they're going to manage the administrators like they should have been managed for the past 10 years. Thank you. So, we move to the three main points. Uh, so my three main points tonight would um uh be the budget update, the special education strategic plan, and I was thinking the CLS student spotlight. Sure, that sounds reasonable to me. What do you guys think? Sounds good to me. Okay, great. All right, up andcoming events. Yes. CL Friday, April 3rd and Friday at 6 p.m. Sorry, thought I turned on. Okay. Friday, 28th, half day for students. Thursday, April 3rd, and Friday, April 4th at 6 PM is the Cubs variety show with different acts each night. Wednesday, oh, this is at CLS, by the way, for the microphone.

Uh, Wednesday, April 9th at 9:30 a.m. is the PTO meeting. Then, Wednesday, April 30th at 5:30 p.m. is the CLES band concert at BHS in the auditorium. Um, at WMS, Tuesday the 25th and Wednesday the 26th is the 7th grade field trip to the Maritime Aquarium. Friday, March 28th is a half day for students and PLC day for teachers and WHMS um oh and WHMS families at that time will begin hosting the um French exchange students as uh Dr. Bell um said earlier. Friday, April 4th is web unplugged hour. Monday, April 7th at 7 p.m. is the PTO meeting on Zoom. Friday, April 25th is the United Sports Field Trip Unified, sorry, not United, Unified Sports Field Trip to the Hartford Yard Goats baseball game. Um, also on April 25th is the track meet at Massac High School. And on Monday, April 28th, is the track meet at Bethl High School.

And then BHS, uh, I think some of these Melissa spoke to earlier, but this Friday, March 21st, is the spring pep rally, um, to end spirit week. Uh, Wednesday, March 26th is career day. Friday, March 28th is a half day for students and junior prom, but please note that students must attend school that day to be able to attend junior prom that night. Monday, March 31st is the end of the third quarter. And Tuesday, April 1st is the 11th grade SAT. And districtwide spring break is April 14th through 18th. The Penguin Plunge, too, is this weekend. Yes, Melissa spoke to the penguin plunge. I had that I remember having that on my last agenda. So, but thank you. Thanks. All right. So, this ends the public session um of our uh meeting. Thanks everybody for coming out this evening. Um we enjoy seeing you. Um so, Yep.

So, will you will you make the motion, please? Sure. Um, I move that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing attorney client privileged information related to the superintendent search. Second.

Um any discussion on

Welcome to the Joint Senate Committee on Education, Committee on Hawaiian Affairs, and Committee on Housing. Today is Thursday, March 20th, 2025. This is our 1:00 PM agenda, and we are in hearing room 224. This meeting, including the audio and video of remote participants, is being streamed live on YouTube. You will find links to viewing options for all Senate meetings on the live and on demand video page of the legislaturator's website. In the unlikely event that we must abruptly end this hearing due to major technical difficulties, the committees will reconvene to discuss any outstanding business on Friday, March 21, 2025 at 3:00 p.m. in room 229 and a public notice will be posted on the legislaturator's website. I'd like to take this time to remind our testifiers that due to time restrictions on our hearing, we will be limiting testimony to one minute for testifier for approval.

e e e come and will be via telephone only to speak a public comment call 888 78899 and our meeting ID 954 3473 965 this information is available on the published agenda in the Public Notices section of the city's website and broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 19 AT&T channel 99 and online at a2gov.org watch CN uh Aon will you read the land Heritage statement yes I acknowledge that the land the city of Anor occupies as the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the anishinabe including the Odawa oju and bwami and wand peoples I further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the United States on lands obtained generally and uncons ways from indigenous peoples The Taking of this land was formalized by the Treaty of Detroit in 1807 knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding the ongoing consequences of this past can Empower us in our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals thanks Saron would you mind doing the roll call yes uh Vice chair Brown absent for now um council member Cornell here w v an arbor chairperson Curtis here an arbor commissioner Dale she let me know she would not be here this evening uh commissioner Graham here council member Malik here calling from Ann Arbor's second ward commissioner Marson here in an I'm here in an arbor commissioner mki here at my home in an arbor in War I commissioner Mitchell here and an arper looks like commissioner NRI is coming in uh commissioner peterswood let me know You' not be here this evening commissioner Smith here aror and commissioner wng absent and hello commissioner NRI hi apologies for my lateness no problem and here comes Vice chair Brown okay that is a Corum thank you so does anybody want to make changes to the agenda is there a motion to approve the agenda so seconded by okay Rita good um is there all in favor of the approval of the agenda raise your hand say I I unanimous um okay does anybody want to make changes to the minutes from last month's meeting is there a motion to approve last month's meeting minutes and seconded by Steve will be second um all in favor of the approval the minutes raise your hand or say I I I approval it's approved uh next item of business is public comment this is an opportunity for people to speak for up to three minutes please call raise your hand press nine to unmute press star six City staff will select callers who have raised their hand one by one using last three digits of your phone number when speaking please move to a quiet area state your name and address at the beginning of your comments there may be a delay up to 30 seconds before a connection is established eron you mentioned we had one caller uh yes caller uh 464 hello can you hear me yes we can oh good thanks um yeah my name is Linda barer 4213 Street um I was very happy to see the draft resolution supporting inclusion of natural features protection protections into the city's new comprehensive plan the comprehensive plan which as you know is in process of development now and likely to be finalized towards the end of this year will embody land use principles and guide land use decisions for years to come in Ann Arbor I consider it essential at the comprehensive plan include robust protections for natural features protection of natural features has been an Anarbor Community value for as long as I've been here going on 40 years the last and most recent comprehensive plan formerly known as the master plan contains sections speaking eloquently about the importance of preserving green open space Forest remnants Heritage trees and our tree cany in general and maintaining the Integrity of our wetlands and the many Creeks that feed into the hiron river I have not seen is yet much emphasis on natural features Protections in the current discussions and planning surrounded the currently being revised comprehensive Plan and there's no better body than you guys the environmental commission to bring this to the attention of the planners and Commissioners and others who are developing the comprehensive plan so I urge you to recommend such protections to the Planning Commission and Council and planning staff in the strongest possible terms you guys have the credibility to make that recommendation because of your expertise in environmental issues so I encourage you to use your leverage and then I have one specific request for inclusion in your recommendations the draft resolution mentions protection of wetlands water courses but there is no mention specifically of flood planes and with the increased infield development and effort to increase density Citywide protecting the open flood planes that remain under the ownership should be of the highest priority this was the recommendation of our longtime and recently retired highly credentialed flood plane manager Jerry Hancock as you know the city is purchasing vacant Lots in the flood plane to prevent others from you know buying them in building so that they can stay open and they're even buying some Lots in the flood plane with modest homes and demolishing the homes in order to exp expand the areas of UN obstructed flood plane I can't remember which Creek sheds that kind those kind of purchases were happening in but I do know that the city owns significant acreage in many flood planes notably in the Allen Creek flood plane and I en urge the environmental commission to urge the city to adopt the policy of no further construction of any type on the remaining city-owned Parcels located in the flood plane these should remain open Green Space planted with Native species to serve as green infrastr infrastructure flood ples serve a natural purpose which is even more important in our era of increased prec precipitation brought on by rapid climate change reducing the potential impact of floods is a matter of public health and safety as well as environmental responsibility thank you thank you thank you um color 411 uh commissioner Curtis uh members of the commission can you hear me yes yes great thank you um my name is James deore and I am a a longtime resident of the city as well I work with a previous speaker uh Linda bar and uh um working on the S Creek uh uh task force and I concur with opinion regarding uh um uh parcel development along the oun creek uh Greenway um but the main reason why I called you I speak to you as a a former member of both the Parks Commission and as a city planning commissioner and I have what I have to say about this issue is I think this ordinance before you uh change that uh you're working on is long long overdue um i s surprised when a uh previous iteration was delayed in the first place at the request of the sustainability office and the Planning Commission um we really need this element in our uh development of a comprehensive uh uh plan I note that commissioner that that uh uh city council member dish a couple nights ago um mentioned a certain parcel with a large number of trees is saying this the parcel wanted to be developed did anyone ask the trees that are there um we still have a number of steep slopes and natural each areas that need greater protection as Miss MC Brower had noted also the flood plane issue I note that my time planning Parcels are developed without consideration to Greater natural systems around them they're analyzed in isolation by planning department and commission sometimes as I said not taking the greater issue I have to say let's bring natural features protection hand inand with sustainability initiatives we cannot solve the CRI climate crisis while protecting natural systems I'm sorry if I'm a little I'm reading my chicken scratching as I carved it this the last minute but I know that each of you are are well qualified and you have great interest in coming forth a good plan and I look forward to what you produce and I support your efforts thank you for what you do and good evening thank you that is all the raised hands for now okay thank you um so let's move on we don't have any old business so let's move to a new business which is the resolution that was just being talked about Rita do you want to walk us through it and Aon will you share it on the screen yes I'll give a short introduction um the goal of this resolution that's being offered by the biodiversity work group of the environmental commission is to acknowledge biodiversity as essential for the future health of the an arbor Community we know that we're affected by the climate crisis we know that in addition to climate change land use planning will change our immediate surroundings we've pulled together some ideas in this resolution from local planning efforts as well as International thoughts about including biodiversity in urban settings and that seems to be the direction that we're going more urbanization um benefits to humans are inter intertwined with ecological health health we are part of our system um as an arbor changes we strongly believe I think I'm speaking correctly for the biodiversity work group we strongly believe that we must work to implement actions that integrate natural systems that will result in measurable gains in biodiversity that will ultimately be more efficient and effectively effective to address our overall Community Health and Welfare as we're were part of this system so we're proposing support for ongoing processes to be included with City Planning efforts for the comprehensive plan and the a20 plan as well as existing um protections that are involved in the um historic districts in the city so that's my intro and um I guess it would it would help me to know um if the Commissioners have had a chance to review the document and to understand how closely we need to follow it and and track as we discussed tonight is there uh could we have like a show of hands if you at least had a chance to read it one two three okay four okay looks like we might need a little bit of review um so I'll just I'll kind of skim um first we call out the responsibility of the environmental commission itself as a body um so that because we are responsible to advise Council on ways to protect and enhance our air water land and public health um and we want to help set those goals for the city um we know that the natural features plan that exists now um has definitions and we want to retain those for our reference and use as we go forward how we do that in the comprehensive plan is something that we want to make sure that is worked out um and so what we want to acknowledge is that the planning for the comprehensive plan and down to the one that has multiple bullet points Associated um has already acknowledged some aspects of green infrastructure Environmental Protection promoting balance between natural and human systems which I think is really important um and in that um the balance again is reflected not only in the natural features protection but also in reducing carbon emissions they're intertwined so carbon emission reduction is not just about burning fewer fossil fuels but it's also retaining natural features that help us to store carbon excess carbon that's being emitted um and to give us oxygen um we had a um public feedback let me see it yeah just in the review for the comprehensive plan there was an indication again of the need for balance between natural features and biodiversity uh and the develop system uh and calling out preserving natural features and again uh once more in looking at public support for natural features there's a we feel that this is essential so we have quite a lot of sort of our Preamble uh the whereas is that that introduce the features that we feel are really important about um how we live in our ecosystem it's a natural system that can help us it's there to serve purposes so a couple of our callers indicated that for example the flood planes serve a purpose and can help us to to avoid what could be excess flooding in the future if we keep intact ecosystems um we need those ecosystems or life just vanishes essentially and we'll work even harder we'll be impoverished I would say um from a a natural perspective maybe even from a food system perspective um so we're looking again for how we acknowledge and support what natural systems do um they support diversity of species and we want to avoid that decline um I'm just going to go through these multiple whereases there are quite a few um and we'll probably ultimately and we welcome your input today and of um in the next month um for how to um reduce the um how to consolidate these make them more efficient as statements but we want to make a strong statement and the point is that we know that we have some risks um in our climate and we know that we should be able to do better and we're lucky that we have some processes going forward that are looking at the future we just think that we we can do them better when we incorporate the natural systems that we have um so I'm going to buzz through these we want to acknowledge all those natural features down to the last one including the natural Forest fragments landmark in Heritage trees wetlands and water courses and flood planes um we want to now I'd like to move in uh actually I guess I should ask before moving forward um are there any questions comments or suggestions of about the the Preamble what I call the preamble to our actual resolutions where we want to go with dealing with natural features I'd like to hear a few comments from our group uh Steve hi hi everybody I had um a few thoughts about this um I'm we calling the city's proposal for what they call a tree line you know and that you have phase one um which goes between I believe Washington Street and the river and that will and that's which is the most um last I looked it seemed to be the most natural features friendly um of the um of the three legs that were proposed for the tree line and the thing is that um that would provide there's a lot of building going on downtown and so you know 15 minutes in nature can lower your blood pressure and other things so hopefully and I've been thinking about the part um the open space issues as well you know near downtown and West Park seems to be ideally situated for that so um I was wondering if you if the natural features group has thought about having a a corridor like a non-vehicular corridor short Corridor between the tree line and downtown and um West Park um I can say that we haven't talked about that specifically Steve but we have talked about natural features as being integrated with the entire city you know so we have residential areas we have streetscapes we have parks and um we know that the UN as part of our system as well so we're kind of thinking of it as an overall ecosystem as opposed to identified as one discret area um so yes to what you say but I would I would say I'd like it to be even more you know that considerations of biodiversity get included with developments as they move forward so that we have as residents visitors um exposure to Nature wherever we walk not that it has to be all greens space necessarily but um there is uh a benefit to having um components of nature that function near us that we can see and touch and so I wouldn't want to have Parks be exclusive as the features of natural systems that's my op Rita can I add a comment on that please do so maybe just building off of what Steve and you are saying we could look at a a nature Corridor in different ways you know that's a blend of public and private spaces because some private residential yards would count as part of a nature Corridor depending on the trees and the plants they have and that could be something of beneficial from a biodiversity standpoint absolutely that is a really good way to describe it and thanks ah Sarah Gita thank you for this resolution um this is It's just beautifully written and I you know the way that you spoke about this was so eloquent so thank you um I was really interested in the part you talked about metrics to measure biodiversity and that is such a big issue um I was actually just at a conference last year at the end of the year that there was a whole session on U measuring biodiversity and what types of metrics to use and it is it's it's really um there's a lot of policy debate about that right now even on a global scale um so you know I think that that is you know a really important step um if we are going to be able to track the impact of different actions the city's taken um we need to establish good metrics um so I like that you have that in there um I was wondering generally um do you know the timeline for the comprehensive plan like have we seen a draft and do we know um like is is this resolution um adverse to what's in that plan or is this just to kind of throw it out there so the make sure that it's in the plan both um yeah I would say thanks Chris I would agree that it is sort of both we want to make sure that natural features are mentioned and so I we called out points where it has been addressed in at least discussions of the comprehensive plan but we haven't seen a draft yet um and that is anticipated to come in the next couple of months I believe and I saw a calendar of the process recently and this proposal um our our recommendations should be possible to include in it and so we will we are intending to work toward that goal and um your comment on metrics yes and um I can't say that I am a an expert in those kinds of metrics it's clearly something that's quite Broad and we'd have to determine what are the right things and ideally from my perspective this would be something that would incorporate input from multiple departments in the city so that we'd have because I know we have expertise and so we should use what we have and in a way that can be measured right here it's very controversial so some people think you should look at overall like ecosystem Services provided and not worry so much about individual species and some people think you really need to have like look at diversity um and that that's the metric so it's just like this really hot debate um you know it's fun but yeah if you have recommendations please pass them along I can I'll ask I'll ask the experts and let you know where they're leaning great yeah thanks yeah um John mki thank you uh full transparency here I a member of the biodiversity group so I had a hand in uh the drafting of this resolution I just like to make a few comments um I'll speak for myself but I think many on uh the working group uh feel the same way uh to state the obvious I think um we all know but maybe not everybody in the community knows that we not only have a climate crisis we do have a biodiversity CL crisis I mean there's lots and lots of studies more and more all the time coming out showing dramatic in uh declines in um the number of insects uh the the you know the biomass of mammals I mean you can just go on and on down the list there was just recently a study published in nature within the last 10 days or so indicating that butterfly populations have decreased dramatically just in the last 20 years not over the last you know 100 years or something like that so we we have two two crises that we have to to take into consideration um re in that re recognizing both of those um I think most if not all of us also recognize that the city needs more housing and it needs more affordable housing and it needs that housing to be sustainable housing and um as outlined in the a20 plan we also recognize that vehicle miles traveled have to be reduced and uh that the only way Transportation emissions are onethird plus of total emissions and they're the one segment of emissions that are growing so we're we're we we recognize um the context in which we're operating in um if you look at the resolution um it's not prescriptive it's not saying yet you have to measure this or you have to do that um it's not saying we have to do this or that with a tree line Trail or anything else but we're saying that natural features and its ecosystem Services really needs to be considered as a part of the comprehensive plan and our view is up until now there has not been enough recognition of that um in the public comment as well as in comments from um Planning Commission and The Advisory Group that's working on this Etc so what we're trying to do is get this as a part of the discussion and this to be recognized in the comprehensive plan and then uh after that we can become a little bit more defined and prescriptive um lastly I'd like to say um we really uh well two more things we're not trying to prevent development we're trying to steer development to the areas that are going to have the lowest impact we're try want to steer it to vacant parking lot Lots we want to steer it to strip mall areas and things like that and that we're not also saying you can't develop in areas where they're natural features at least this is you know we're not saying this directly in here but I think this is our intent we're not saying to anyone you can't develop in an area where there are natural features or where some may be negatively impacted but what we'd like to see is that those be mitigated and as I said in that pushes people to doing development where it really makes sense and frankly where it's going to be have the highest Transit impact where is you're going to have uh Transit oriented development as opposed to putting it in residential areas so we we're we want everyone to realize what our motives are here um we're not nimes um we're really trying to do the right thing and um let's see I wanted to say one more thing I had some notes here um yeah oh just one other thing um and R it touched on this very briefly but I want to mention that we were some of this discussion was inspired by the fact that we um recognize that the UK has has passed legislation requiring that um larger scale development all larger scale development within the UK has to actually increase biodiversity so we we haven't dug into real detail on this and it's obviously there's metrics involved and things like that but the spirit of that law is that again development is desired and needed change is a good thing um if it's done in the right way and the right way is you do it in such a way that you preserve natural features you you enhance biodiversity and that is what is really behind the thinking and the purpose of elevating this for discussion in this whole dis this whole uh effort to update our comprehensive plan thanks for the opportunity to share those comments thank you John thanks John that was great um and I agree with what you said but I'd like to add something and that is that it's not just VMT miles traveled but also reduction of carbon emissions related to the buildings themselves which currently um a lot of them use fossil fuels and if we can reduce the fossil fuel use in buildings we may even reduce it emissions greater than the um transportation miles um whatever the right way is to say that um any other comments right now so we did the te up okay um and absolutely John you right on I was just going to say that we were not attempting to be prescriptive we want to set this as a framework so that we have a way to look at what we're doing in the future um and that sees our natural world as an ally that we need to work with as kind of like um sorry to anthropomorphize that but anyway that's that's my point is work with nature um and so with that I would like to get into our results oops I see another hand Chris Graham I'll put my hand now until you're done Ma okay all right well okay um I just want to make sure that that we all know that what we're going to be talking about is some suggestions for the comprehensive plan to be developed um and to make sure that we start that as we move forward that what we're talking about is included in this very important a20 plant that that I think um would benefit from having the scope to include natural features um again to be developed um and to have us work together in those uh planning things so um I think I'll stop there just Chris if you want to make your comment because I was just going to go into the resolve steps um more than more like 30 years ago when I first started to work on natural features we didn't call them that then um I wondered what an aru was like before Europeans came here what in other words the question answering the question what is native Europeans came to an arbor in 1824 and prior to that um the exact location that was the original plat of Ann's Arbor a RB o urur was a Grove of very large bur Oaks widely spaced with a 300 species count Prairie growing underneath it it was a spectacular parklike setting but all Native the Indians Who had who Camp there off and on grew food there they did their families there um it was one of the many Indian camps across Southern Michigan they would migrate between them over the years they used fire to burn their prairie didn't hurt the trees but very much enriched the species count in the herbaceous Flora um some of the work we've been doing with nap is trying to restore some of those original ecosystem elements in any case it gives us a Bas map with which to say okay what did we have here what is our natural heritage and by definition those very healthy ecosystems that great stewardship that Indians passed on to us is a is an expression of the optimum cover for our land in an Harbor um we read every meeting in the city last phrase of which says um knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can Empower us we have this statement we don't do anything about doubt it I would submit to you that if we did a great job of including natural features in every step of development across our city parks and private lands and University they're very excited about this too we would be doing something important to recognize the Heritage that 10,000 years of Indian habitation here left us um I personally am very afraid of the current comprehensive plan I think it's undemocratically set up I think it should be set up and managed with the cooperation and full knowledge of each neighborhood I think it should have a very healthy dose of design management rather than doing away with the design review board I know it didn't have much effect because they never gave it any teeth we ought to really enhance it and really work to develop this city in a way that's poetic that's alive that's exciting that's very conservative about our old trees most of you don't know that our original natural features regulations amended parts of the code to try to protect Wetlands Woodlands Landmark trees blood Plaines waterways steep slopes it applies only to those um development projects in an arbor that require a site plan approval process which meant large Parcels of land back in the late 80s people were very upset because we had almost wall toall clear cutting of the large Parcels of land to develop housing mostly um Wetlands were filled all the trees were cut down all the soil was Disturbed the land was made flat and clear and most important in that whole process was the loss of trees so um we established these regulations with 100% support of the council back then 100% support of the Planning Commission and the process has worked extraordinarily well over the years to minimize the code actually said you'll present plans to this city that persuades them you are minimizing the damage to natural features on your property and if you want to take trees you want to take a piece of a wetland you need to mitigate via some sort of fee or replacement of the things you've taken the damage you've caused this has been very successful it ended years of terrible controversies about developments in the city but the key fact most people don't know it never applied to Res existing residential neighborhoods or any project in them anything that never required a site plan process through the Planning Commission and the planning department was not and is not regulated now we are talking about doing away with all of R1 and R2 housing in the city we are talking about allowing things like the George a big apartment building down on Packard to be built in an R1 neighborhood if someone can Assemble two or three lots together I and we're talking about cutting setback distances to about half what they are we're talking about these things happening by right no discussion if it fits the code we're talking about buildings as much as 48 ft tall in an R1 neighborhood um what the net result of that will be without the kind of planning process that really brings great Beauty to our city rather than building Galore is almost no trees left this will not be Tree City so this is what we're afraid of this is why we're doing this resolution here we've seen almost no sign that natural features matter in anymore in an arbor some of the neighborhoods are beginning to wake up they're beginning to talk about a tree ordinance we have one we just don't apply it where we need to right now given what's coming so I um we us should be a biophilic city Washington DC's one San Francisco's one uh Singapore is the world's most famous one they love to say we brought the jungle and its water into our city we didn't take the city and place it on the jungle and that place is really exciting if you like anything green last thing I'll say there was an astronaut yesterday or the day before fan of of those folks coming back from the space station he said the thing that's been most important to me over the last couple years other than getting back into shape which I guess takes a while I really love to sit out of my backyard and see green the plants the birds my Fountain my swimming pool this is the most important thing to me after being up there thank you thanks Chris okay so with that I want to move into um talking about the results um and we try to keep them simple so that we can move forward with the Planning Commission the planning department the other City staff groups that will help to move forward in the direction that we've discussed and that Chris gave a good summary about um so what we want to do is say that the comprehensive plan must incorporate measures to protect conserve restore enhance and manage natural features and recognize that the value of those features to our health as a whole all species um we want the existing natural features protections as they are stated in the current UDC uh to be a baseline um and not to disappear but to be available to be used as we move forward in the future um and we've got a really strong statement in our 1B about having higher mitigation requirements for taking of large old trees um freestanding or or otherwise in a in a native Forest fragment and to protect native soils from destruction compaction and extend natural features to all areas of the city so I acknowledge that there are some areas of controversy in in that particular um resolved qua um we want to have the living and Arbor a20 carbon neutrality plan prioritize natural features sustainability along with other strategies that are being used so that we can enhance that plan because I think that's an area where there is some opportunity for inclusion of natural features um so we want to work together collaboratively to develop some methods to assess and track gain or L of biodiversity so that we have a sense of where we are over time maybe we'll make a change that doesn't show um a direction of of um natural features that we'd like to see and we'd like to understand what could be changed um so there's that um we didn't call out specific City staff in the 2A section because we think that there will be different departments that may be involved um and we want to see more cross Department integration to support natural features um and number three um we know that the city currently has protection of natural features that are in in historic districts um those protections are related to features that were in place historically and at this point um it is required that um um permission be granted to remove say large old trees on a historic district property um we think that that information is not well known or understood across the city um and feel that it would be good to improve communication about that to both residents um maybe Realtors um and contractors so they know the requirements and and really the intent here is to show the value and the reason for um protecting those natural features some of those trees in historic districts may be among those that are remaining after our um European settlement of the area for example um and we the last is that we want to um work with the Department office of sustainability Innovation to develop some M natural features based complimentary actions to work on with that team on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and sustaining our local ecosystems um those could be are definitely too be determined and since we are not intending to be prescriptive we are looking for um input from professionals uh to help us with developing measurements and and um thoughts on how to do this efficiently and effectively in the future so that's my rough review of where we're going with the resolution um okay Brooks yes can we go back to paragraph 1B sure I'd like to suggest that will you reward that section to be more in line with what commissioner mki talked about the UK requirements of the spirit of the UK requirements of increasing biodiversity when we do development um we know that um when Brett Leonard came to the environmental commission last year he stated he thought that the current level of Environmental Protection natural features protection was appropriate for Ann Arbor and he was not going to support any additional requirements on res Residential Properties um we know that city council as a whole is very Pro development and this statement when we start talking about additional higher mitigation requirements can be considered not pro-development and so I think that would make it hard to get through um and I would hate to lose the benefits from the rest of the parts of this resolution because of that one paragraph and and I think we can if we focus on biodiversity I think we can get a lot of the benefits that we want um as commissioner mki said we we need as a city we need more development of housing we need higher density housing but higher density housing doesn't mean Paving an arbor that's not the intent uh development and biodiversity can and should be done together if we work at it together and be creative I think we can get both of them but I don't think 1B the way it's worded would allow that option so I think we need to do something different there thank you the rub comes um about trees Brooks and uh and it comes about trees in in not just R1 or R2 R1 A or B neighborhoods it comes even in R2 neighborhoods in Burns Park um where trees that are 60 70 80 90 years old disappear those lots in order to build at the density they've already upzoned is so significant that they completely clearcut these lots to build not just one duplex but two one behind the other so I we're going to have we need a process that allows us to have these discussions I don't know where they all come out on any given site but um it's not just about it's uh I've been saying for a number of years one of the biggest troubles on Residential Properties in the city without any regulation whatsoever it's the Lo unintended loss of old trees a lot of contractors most of them go on private Residential Properties to do projects they drive on the roots of the trees that the owner of the house expects will be saved they're dead three or four years later especially if they're old Oaks we need some some sort of regulation on Residential Properties and the bone the real bone on those apart from losing open space and Gardens will be the loss of old trees and I I agree with you this is difficult and maybe there's a way to word it better but I don't want us to back away from uh the argument we have to have thanks Chris John mki uh two two points my understanding this is a first reading and um that we will have an opportunity to take into account everybody's input here take it back into the working group and tweak this that's is that correct that's right okay good so um I think what we're hearing between uh Brooks's comments mine um Christopher's and others is that there's these are uh things that we need to work on in terms of Shades of Gray um and it's um something that I obviously I think we we can come to a consensus on certainly within the working group and hopefully within the commission um my second is a request and that is um I saw some I'll call it subtle um nodding and shaking of heads between our two council members and I'm hopeful that they might be willing to share their thoughts on the resolution um where we where they sense either personally or um judging this the overall um thinking of of council and the Planning Commission and those working on this what um they think might resonate and what they think um maybe needs to be reconsidered or re-evaluated so that's a request that I have no further comment thanks uh Steve yeah thanks John um I support your comment but also I want nobody picked up on this on my earlier comment it seemed but I want to emphasize that this is also a quality of life issue for the residents that are living in these highrises you know the ability to to re to to easily access natural areas without getting into their car and driving 10 miles or across town um would be an amenity that I think anybody like not even the astronauts would uh I mean certainly the astronauts returning would agree to but anybody who's lived in a high-rise apartment building like I have I would appreciate having um ready access by foot by walking or biking to a natural area so I think I I would suggest that you add a wees Clause that includes that as a value a proven value by the way um for the health and um for the health of residents living in these um more dense housings uh in denser housing you now um and that's not to detract anything from biodiversity but in support of it um that's all that's all I had to say thanks Steve um aarin I think we're talking in a way that doesn't require view of the resolution unless someone has a need for that could we just go to a the big screen screen of all of us thanks um other comments Sarah yeah I just had um like one random thought after this discussion of Residential Properties and big trees have we looked at like cost and Energy savings of having big trees in the summer since you're not going to be using your AC as much like could that be another argument or consideration I should say I know just throwing it out there I think yes because and and to me that would be a great area to have the office's sustainability assist with developing that kind of an assessment um and might biometric I don't know um but yeah I would think so yeah um Olivia hi thanks for this great discussion everyone I just want to play devil's advocate for a second and ask whether we think you know allowing more high density you know development in the city not that any stances are like anti-development but these higher density residential developments I think in a lot of cases allow people to more affordably move into areas that have greater access to Green Space um could you explain that a little bit more because we're talking about including so maybe I need to understand a little bit better yeah I I agree with the inclusion of it that was just kind of a devil's advocate question um just like more access to the green spaces in this the downtown you know City area the residential areas that you know already have a lot of parks and in Access let me see if I I'm understanding are you saying more green spaces in the downtown never mind it's no please don't back off um I think like the the higher density like in the I think this is one get like more walkable areas higher density residential developments in more like walkable and accessible areas like allows greater access to the green spaces already exist okay thank you um I see an marsan hi uh it has been a great discussion um certainly um I'm in support of um a resolution of this kind and I think uh just wanted to follow on on commissioner Smith's comment I think one of the things about an arbor is that for a city our size we actually have a substantial amount of Park land and um it I think it's it's one of the reasons not the only one certainly but one of the reasons why there's a lot of demand um to live within the city of an arbor is access to that kind of amenity and and therefore in order for an arbor to be affordable um sensor housing kind is is one way in order to achieve that so that more people have access to the great green spaces that we have and uh I certainly believe that we need to do what we can to protect those green spaces and make sure they're there for generations to come thank you thank you John rki I'm I'm hoping to engage a little bit with commissioner Smith to tease out what I think she's getting at um so my daughter and son-in-law live in Seattle and in Seattle you see along major Transit quarters a lot of faceless multistory um multifam development um it's loud it's noisy it's not a very pleasant place to live um and my senses is that um what we also want to provide is for people to have the opportunity to live in a residential neighborhood without um being able to afford rent that's $5,000 a month or a home that is um frankly a million dollars um you know if you're looking at an ior Hills then you're not going to find any place that's over or that's under a million dollars and so I I think that's and maybe commissioner Smith you can comment on that I think that's what you're getting at is we shouldn't be forcing everyone into faceless places that are in horrible neighborhoods yes they may be they may be walkable neighborhoods in many regards but they should also still be pleasant neighborhoods um and I I hope that we're not setting up that dichotomy and I think also what most a lot of developers may find is that frankly it's not particularly economical to go into an aror woods and buy three homes um that are a million dollars to put up a multistory multifam unit because there's a lot of other places in the city where that can be done where you don't have to buy properties and tear them down um so I don't know that these um doomsday scenarios are um really realistic um at the same time I don't think also that the kind of solutions that we're seeing in some some cities where really people are being pushed into areas that really aren't desirable um because they are loud and noisy and they don't have trees right outside their window that's we don't want that either so it's really difficult to thread that needle um I I see that council member Malik has raised his hand but maybe um uh commissioner Smith you can play catchball with me on on that idea and maybe elaborate more or tell me where I'm wrong and what else you were thinking if you may sure yeah I think you and also commissioner Marson kind of more eloquently put what I was trying to say um that you know there there's a very fine line you walk I think of some of the developments on like the city boundaries um my office is at the corner of map Miller and there's all these developments going up that are just like Barren land and you know very loud the highways right there so yeah I think there's a very fine balance to strike between like high density development within the city limits that have great access to all these parks and these green spaces um and you know biking trails and walking trails and you know lots of Nature and bird noises instead of car noises um but also preserving those spaces and not you know developing them away so yeah it's it's very tough balance to strike and I think this resolution is would will bring attention to preserving those spaces um and I think the way it's worded right now you know isn't is not anti-development and you know it still allows for those higher density developments thank you council member Malik hi thanks for the presentation Rita um I do want to underscore something you mentioned about the status of the comprehensive plan right now you are exactly right um it's still being drafted um there I think maybe like a year and a half into Gathering input on the plan but they're still be drafting it and they being the planning commission so the Planning Commission will work on drafting the plan it will still have to pass the Planning Commission after that and then there will still be a 90day public comment period on the plan before city council even considers it so I think the kind of Target is to get it to city council eventually sometime maybe like fall or early winter just for a a general timeline um and then on on the resolution itself my perspective on it broadly um I think the focus on biodiversity is great and worthwhile overall uh being newer to both city council as well as this commission I'm not entirely sure if or how the comprehensive plan kind of takes these aspects into account um it does sound like Mr Leonard from uh City staff planning staff has had a conversation with commission already on this I heard chair Curtis right um so I would I guess kind of defer to him broadly on it at the moment um and then just to kind of touch on the you know I guess kind of environment versus development kind of topic we've been discussing um I'm also on the Green Belt commission and of course everybody here kind of knows the purpose of the green belt to create kind of clean space and open space outside the city um the city has kind of long the city and the county and the whole region kind of has decided that that is a a good um a good thing to pursue for the city overall and the region so but of course one of the trade-offs of doing that means development is kind of confined to the city um and even if you know Ann Arbor didn't grow some things are out of our control such as the university admitting more students and bringing bring bringing new uh folks to the city so um development is needed in the city and I do think there's a a balance to be found in terms of allowing greater dens City within our city boundaries as well as protecting some of our green spaces so I think this is a really good discussion for the environmental commission overall but um I did have one question if anybody would know um do any other cities have kind of aspects like like we're discussing tonight in their plans or I guess maybe not in a comprehensive plan necessarily but um kind of like we're discussing like are any do any things like these already Exist Elsewhere um I know some somebody earlier was mentioning like San Francisco and stuff but um I was just curious if other cities have tried kind of exactly what we're discussing here tonight and if so what the results have been if anybody knows thanks I don't feel I can answer that last question but I do want to make a comment about the green belt and is that is that the um funding does include um funding for some purchase of green type properties within the city of an arbor it's a lesser amount than the whole um but that's something that perhaps could be um used as part of this biodiversity process as we go forward and again I don't have a specific prescription in mind but it's something to to keep in mind because um although we do have a generous amount of parks um if you count the number of parks there are areas of the city that are less well supported by Parkland and so it's worthwhile to think about that in terms of balancing where we go with this I think so onethird of the proceeds of the green belt is allocated for purchases of Parkland within the city that's right that's right and so I believe there's some funds that haven't been used yet um we really should think about that um because now there's no better time than now right um so going up in price in the future um so uh Brooks so just um to answer some of council member Mal questions the currently we have a separate natural features master plan that's sep a separate document than the comprehensive plan the new comprehensive plan is going to incorporate everything that's or incorporate natural features we don't know what's going to be in there we haven't seen anything back out um relative to natural features nor we any of the presentations we've seen coming from the steering committee show say anything about natural features and I think that's that's the uncertainty that's driving a lot of discussion Steve oh responding to uh council member Malik's comment um my information is old but um the City of Minneapolis resolved to um eliminate R1 Zing Citywide almost 10 years ago I don't know any more of the details but I do know that um elimination of R1 zoning they also said that you could not build more than two or three units on any property that had formerly been zoned R1 so there wasn't any allowance for combining lots and building highrises but um um they also impo they also encoded in their ordinances um you know Transportation oriented zoning there were toc's which the city recently did but I as I recall City staff actually proposed that modification to city codes back in 2008 but it took um a long time for U for the political will to develop for that rezoning so um I think it's a good thing to look through and see what other um es cities especially in the Upper Midwest have accomplished over the last 10 years in terms of resoning you know to increase density um because there are ways to balance some Community Values um better than I think what a lot of residents here think is coming thank you for your time thanks Steve I'm for balance um Chris Graham you call me Rita I did your hand up very good job so thank you Steve uh Boulder and Madison both had very different kinds of planning processes to to do this kind of up zoning they're very Democratic they're very open and transparent and they really were based on working with each neighborhood to decide how to design those neighborhoods to be really satisfying to everybody while there is more density I I I get it but I'm just really afraid we're uh dipping the real estate Kool-Aid te here in an Harbor and not doing a balanced set of zoning changes um if I understand I heard planning director say something last night we don't really want to have public hearings for anything that satisfies the code we don't want to even talk about it at the Planning Commission anymore we'll just approve it in my view that's not the way um unless there's a whole lot of homework done on the planning staff that's not the way that you get exciting poetic green um thriving neighborhoods it's a way you ruin them so um I'm afraid forgive me I'm expressing my fear I am not the only one I'm going to meetings where there are many other people bothered about the trend lines of this discussion thank you Steve thank we Mak my hand now thank you um all right I feel like we might be near the end I'd like to invite council member Corell if you would like to add anything since you're here and it's a good opportunity for us to include your thoughts yeah I I'm also uncomfortable with the 1B um I'd like that to be a top of conversation for the work group just to see how um we can acknowledge the fact that we do have a housing crisis and having people commute into the city because they can't afford to live here is an envir contributes to our environmental crisis these two things are are linked and so um I think when we talk about density we do need to find that balance we we do and I guess my other point is I I think council member Malik did a good job of describing the process but I don't want that there to be a public I want to publicly acknowledge that this process for the comprehensive plan has involved a lot of input sessions a lot of opportunities for the community to engage and so um I think City staff has done an excellent job with it and to sort of hear like maybe to hear it suggested that this process wasn't thoughtful wasn't included and wasn't Democratic is is just patently false and so those are two separate thoughts but um I I did want to acknowledge that City staff has really been very thoughtful about Community engagement and made available through various listening sessions um there was a huge session at the library this isn't a press this is not something that has been done in a dark room with no input so just just to make sure that that's clearly stated thank you thank you um John riski thanks I know I've spoken a lot but just one one other thing that I want people to also consider um this is building off the comment of council member Cornell um you know I think we all have heard that uh washingon county is the eth most economically segreg ated County in the country and there's one thing that's not taken into consider consideration in that you know we talk about affordable housing affordable housing is the cost of the housing your mortgage or your rent it's the utilities um it's also your housing is going to drive your transportation costs but the other thing that's never considered when we talk about this um in terms of what we're doing and what we're imposing out others the people the8 80,000 people plus that commute into anabor every day there's an opportunity cost a huge opportunity cost for time lost in transit and so when we force those people to live outside the city of ant Arbor and we don't give them an opportunity to live here we're imposing not only higher Transportation costs but we're imposing the opportunity costs of time lost and Transit and a lot of these people um are already on the edge um they probably have families many of them um they want to have time with their kids and when we put them in the car for 45 minutes or you know in each Direction you know it obviously ranges um there's I'm on the board of um two housing nonprofits and we had students interview um people that come to University of Michigan parking lots and get their hours ahead of time and there are and and we talk to them and there are people that come and try to get a parking place sleep in their car and then walk to work because um they um can't you know they I don't need to get into details I think you get the sense of what I'm saying is that by by not doing the kinds of things that I think need to be done in terms of Housing and providing housing and opportunities for these people um we're also imposing not only economic hardship we're imposing other kinds of hardships on those families and I just want to all of us to think about all that worldwide problem and cities worldwide problem very tough very tough not not in all cities and there are cities that that do this very very well they do a lot of things obviously to solve it but um look at Vienna and look at um affordable and public housing in Vienna and other cities in in Europe but yeah it is I mean every every Big City that's a desireable place to live is a problem because they're expensive yeah thanks John I feel like we've gotten a lot of really good feedback on this and I appreciate everyone's comments um members of the biodiversity group that are here thank you for uh contributing as to the what we've written so far and also to the discussion and um everyone else so um I feel like this might be a good time to transition to our next topic thank you all okay thanks Rita you did a great job um do just a clear question because maybe I should know this but do we need to have a vote as since it's a first reading does anybody know no no okay thank you um next topic is discuss discussion of combination of the environmental of the merger of the environmental and energy commission to create a sustainability commission and Aon I don't know if you have anything you want to start with that to talk about sure yeah um I think I'll let um council member Cornell can introduce the topic thank you Miss Donnelly um so this has been this should not come as a surprise to anyone that these discussion these discussions have been going on for some time about creating uh Joint Commission that could work and concert to with OSI um to advance our at20 goals and for us to be more effective in reaching those goals um I think council member my colleague council member Briggs did a really good job at energy commission um explaining it but the city has changed the city structure has changed um City staff has changed especially with OSI um you know being being um such an influential part of how the city conducts business um that none of that existed when these commissions were created and envisioned and their missions were set and so the idea is really to create um a sustainability commission that would be a merger of the two energy and environment and would um focus on a work plan that would come through OSI um kind of stating these are the four goals that we have where participation from a commission would be really really helpful in advancing and accelerating Network um and so versus kind of OSI doing its thing energy doing its thing environmental doing its thing bringing everybody together to work in concert because it just makes more sense right we're just going to be able to move a lot faster in my opinion um and being able to tap into the unique expertise within each group um and have that collaboration between the groups I think is is definitely great too so um where it stands right now is just kind of having these discussions and getting input on it um but that is the the core idea of it and sort of the impetus for it and council member Malik I don't know if you have anything to add but because you were I know you were part of that discussion from energy so if there's something I I watched most of that meeting to get the gist of it but if there's anything that I'm missing please let please fill in thanks yeah I think you uh hit the nail on the head uh the kind of main thrust behind this would be to kind of realign and refocus if you will and uh we had a really good discussion at energy commission a few weeks ago discussing this and council member Cornell is right you know this is kind of the discussion stage to see if this really does in fact make sense um I know commissioner mki you had some really good comments at energy Commission um in that discussion and um chair Curtis I know you probably have some things to say on it too so I'm happy to pitch it to whomever would like to chime in thanks and I can add a little more about the logistics um to um so I would also add it'll be um a combination of OSI and public services since there is so much overlap with environmental and energy issues in both of those departments and so uh the vision as it stands is um coming up with kind of a staff Le work plan that would focus on three or four high priority items that could come from OSI or from um Public Services um and then we would kind of continue with the current structure we have now where there are work groups that are you know the the technical work would happen in the work groups and then those groups the work groups would come back to thear group um for broader discussion um but the work groups would be the ones to really drill down into the to the issues um so we are uh staff and Council are are working on updating the bylaws um if if discussions go well um we will start updating the bylaws um and we would have kind of that ready uh around May um and then potentially take a break or you know that the the bylaws and the ordinance SL resolution would be ready by May for Council to discuss um and then June would probably be a a kind of recalibration month and then you know potentially the sustainability commission would kick off in July sort of timeline so yes we can open it up to questions and disc disc question thank you so I'll start for the um first meeting is it safe to assume we would know what those high priority topics would be at that point in time or when do you think we would know what those topics are going to be good question I think that would be the goal yes to have those prepared by then and would it makes sense for that first meeting since we're going to have a lot of people who don't know each other to have as an in-person working group meeting and then maybe have staff discuss those so we can figure out where people want to fit into those priority topics I think that could be considered for sure yeah person be good commissioner Marson thanks um I yeah I wanted to State my my support for this um the idea of aligning a sustainability commission that kind of works better with the current city structure City Administration um but I had a couple of recommendations as you're working on the V laws um and this these are based on my um experience with um Parks advisory commission uh where I'm currently the the chair um I think first of all I consider that the staff leaz on to a sustainability commission actually you know be the director of the office of sustainability so have Dr staltz be the primary Point person um my experience in pack that we we work directly with um uh the the the director of um our parks department and uh there are a lot of benefits to that in terms of um having a better sense of um what the needs are within the department um you know that's the person who's going to have the most holistic view of the department and so um they're able to really direct our work um and they're also able to get things done when we need things done so um they've got the connections with the city manager with legal and that sort of thing so with and the city council um and so I think that's that's one recommendation I would have and then the second one is um I think we should consider term limits for for Commissioners I I I know there's many on the uh environmental commission who've been here a long time and I really you guys are great I value the um insights that you have and your history with the city your passion for the environment um but that said I again this is based on my experience with Pac I think um when we have new faces uh new folks um regularly cycling on to the commission that it provides for dynamic um fresh approaches to issues um it encourages more collaboration I feel like between the Commissioners so that um valuable information isn't siloed um helps you know with the the handoff of information as people are rolling off um I think it allows us to share what we've learned from working on these commissions with other organizations that we go to when we're our term is over and frees up time and we go serve on boards at other places um with other nonprofits um or continue work on other commissions within within the city it allows us to kind of share that information um and then I think I think it encourages us to kind of if we've got projects that are important to the city and the sustainability commission you know the office of sustainability agrees with that kind of encourages us to to move those projects along and and tie them up wrap them up um as we're rolling off so yeah those would be my two main recommendations but thank you commissioner Graham yes and I've been here a while sometimes there's some value in deep deep history um one great idea it could be accomplished by combining commissions is that we could finally amend the a20 plan to include biodiversity plan it's the other half of the coin in my view about um climate mitigation um most of our resolution tonight was talking about the reasons for that um I I know we the environmental commission asked how we might amend the a20 plan to include this a couple years ago and we didn't get an answer maybe if we're all together we can get an answer and move on move ahead with it hand commissioner Mitchell thanks um I agree with what Christa said about that thought um and also I just want to ask um if the priorities under consideration will be shared with the two commissions so that we could actually have some input in um moving forward with particular priorities as opposed to just necessarily having them assigned or at least it just would be good to be involved in that discussion yeah I think there's a going to be a lot to work out there I think we're certainly open to feedback um I think we need to kind of land on um the amount of collaboration on the work plan um just to ensure alignment um but yes we are we're certainly open to suggestions um and we need to I guess it's still a question of how like the process of the work plan will work um but yes to be determined um yeah thank you for that feedback commissioner mki yes thank you I'd like to share some comments that I shared at the energy commission meeting and a few new ones um first of all um I'm absolutely positively in favor of a discussion of how we make the energy and environmental Commission s more efficient and more effective um my personal opinion is that they have not been recently so I'm all for that um second um my sense is this is a fate to comple um and I think actions speak louder than words um the energy commission should have 15 members we have not replaced a commissioner since 2023 in the summer um so that's one example of that um there's other examples um and I don't need to go into them but if it is a fate compley then we should figure out how we do make the commissions as efficient and effective as they possibly can be the statement that this is a realignment with City staff I I frankly take exception to that um OSI is responsible for basically climate and energy it's not responsible for solid waste it's not responsible for air quality it's not responsible for water quality it's not responsible for natural features um I I've been around for a while um I'm not like quite like Chris um but I happen to be uh have a role um in the office of the city administrator that's since been eliminated but I helped draft Missy's uh job description I was on the interview team um I was present when she was introduced to council and she was introduced um as with the title that she has but it also included and I can I looked it up earlier this week and I can share it with you she was to have include she had responsibility for solid waste so if we're going to be efficient and effective and if we're going to realign um the commission then let's realign it with with reality and not with statement saying well this is a realignment um so that it better fits with the city structure it doesn't better fit with the city structure certainly not as it is right now so if if if that makes it more efficient and effective then I'm I'm all for it um as far as how the commission would work my understanding is completely different than what has been explained here tonight my understanding is that city council sets policy those are that's given to City administrator and City staff and they execute on that policy they they are provided with the overall um objectives are they're provided with goals like a20 goals or affordable housing goals you can go on down the list and then it's U and and the way that city council is informed on on policy issues from from from the citizenry up from the residents up is that the councils are there to develop proposals and give input to City Council on what needs to be done so that there are the proper uh objectives set the proper metrics and targets that are set as well as how to best achieve those with with with policies and I what I heard earlier is that City staff and city council will get together and tell the commission the new commission these are the things that we think you need to work on I think that has to be a two-way street and if this restructuring is a one-way Street then I think you've really taken away a critical element of and a critical role of boards and commissions boards and commissions need to be the the route to provide input to to city council and I I'll give you a specific example that I was going to mention earlier but I think maybe it fits better here um when I think everybody is aware that um the city is looking at various utility options um this seu is obviously one of them that's now approved the other is this proposal that's been put forth by anabor for Public Power that there should be a municipal City utility that City should condemn dte's assets and buy them out um there was was a phase one study um that was authorized by the city that was brought to uh the energy commission it was debated over three meetings a resolution was passed and city council then uh uh passed a uh uh a budget amendment um to spend $700 for that phase one study um the way the last discussion went over a phase two study for $1.7 million probably the most important budget policy related activity that the the energy commission could have considered that went directly from City staff to city council it went to one meeting City staff didn't say oh this is something that maybe the energy commission should weigh in on and we should be getting public comment in an energy commission meetings that went then a second time to city council and city council voted on it so what what I see is a series of of actions that like I said speak louder than words words so what what I would like to see is if this is indeed as I believe it is a Fed comple then let's really talk about how we make the commissions more effective we take into consideration what Ann said about term limits we talk about the city structure we talk about how do we have effective working groups where people are really dedicated to spending time in working groups and actually have things develop there and then percolate up that has not worked on the energy commission we used to have working groups the working groups don't exist right now and that's partly probably a function of the fact that the number of Commissioners have been uh reduced and the fact that a number of the Commissioners frankly don't have the time to do anything more than come to to commission meetings these are the kinds of things that we really need to Grapple with and we need to be honest with each other about what what we want to accomplish um about this and let me just say one more thing I want all of you all of us to think about of all the city's major environmental and energy related goals what outcomes I'm not talking about actions I'm not talking about efforts I'm not talking about accomplishments I'm talking about outcomes what outcomes have we had that really align with our goals our diversion rate is is virtually the same I think in terms of clean clean water there there are some definitely some great outcomes p and and and a bunch of other things but even if you look at at greenhouse gas reductions we are reducing greenhouse gas reductions at a rate where we will reach net zero this is the average of net greenhouse gas reductions from 2015 to 2023 if you take that same rate by the way we have the rate going back to 2000 um and it's it's a little bit lower so we start are are starting to uh accelerate the activities but we will reach Net Zero in 2070 if we want to reach it in 2030 it needs to be 7.5 times faster if we want to reach it by 2040 it needs to be three times faster so there we have to do things certainly that are more efficient and more effective there's a lot of things going on but there's also a lot of headwinds in from Washington and I think we need to think of all of this in context and think of what are we going to do to really make the commissions more efficient and more effective and serve not just Council and staff but serve the residents of the city of an arbor better so that we achieve outcomes really outcomes for them that's what we're that's what we're here to do thank you so I've got a couple of comments um regarding term limits um since we have we will have working groups you don't have to be commissioner to be on a working group so that's a way for people if they term out if they still want to be involved they can stay in the working groups and still be effective there and then get back on the commission the next time there's an opening so there are opportunities there with term limits to work with working groups um the second is really a question if if assuming no one wants to drop off of either commission when we merge them it's going to be a relatively large number of people on the commission is there a concern about the size of the commission um I think at this point it will be a slightly larger commission um but as somebody was talking about the size of the energy commission is quite low um and I forget it last count what the if we the combined number of Commissioners and I know we have a couple people that will be terming out in the environmental commission um our two youth members um uh will not be returning so I think the total number is I want to say around 18 um so it's not crazy especially because we have the working group structure that can be like where the actual work is getting done in the smaller groups and the um the larger group when we all get together is just kind of a general discussion so I for me personally I'm not concerned with the size um and then at first and then it will kind of as people will kind of naturally drop and I I forget where we landed on the total number at this point um but it's it won't be a huge group to start just due to the kind of smaller size that we're both going into on both the environmental and energy side is the plan to still have the youth youth Commissioners going forward or are they going to be that is the plan yes all right Vice chair Brown yeah thanks um chair Curtis um so I'm just going to take a minute because I have some historical memory I've I've been with the commission I think as long as John msky has but not as long as Chris Graham but um I'm going to speak about solid waste because in 2016 I believe it was City staff um told I was just an audience member when this happened to the in front of the environmental commission but City St told the commission that there was that the solid waste fund which is financed by a special millage um that enjoyed generous support from the uh electorate here in an arbor um City staff was saying that the uh Solid Waste fund was going to go to zero within two or three years um under questioning you know under some questioning you know friendly questioning by the environmental Commissioners City staff was not able to adequately explain why why the solid waste fund was going to disappear now um the commission was a forum for the community um to investigate this matter and um in a way take it off council's table um to see how this to gather facts to gather um information to have a public discussion and try to see where it would come um ultimately after months of uh discussions it was clear that the U City staff could not actually explain why it was going to go to zero I think what was happening in the background is city the city staff decided they did not want to have a murf they did not want to manage a murf so the outcome was that um so the outcome that that principally happened through the commission is that um the city city council decided that okay we'll restart a murf so they set up rfps there were two U organizations that submitted proposals one was mtera a canadian-based company who proposed Trucking you know our our recyclables and uh to uh aerf that did not yet exist in Lansing in East Lansing and that uh it was unclear about what was going to happen with that um their bid was higher than the other bid which was submitted by recycl Arbor recycle an arbor put together a proposal that did not to restart the murf that did not involve any Capital expenditures by the city and now the solid waste fund has $24 million in it so um I I just want to throw this out as an example where the environmental commission performed an excellent Public Service um as it existed because it was able to take um to take the discussion out of city council the community had a chance to uh provide input um and uh the situation was resolved in a matter of sa satisfactory to City staff and to uh Council and to the electorate here in an Harbor so um I just hope that um whatever changes are envisioned that they do not really cut the legs out of this um of out of this um kind of public forum that exists to resolve issues such as this well that's all I I want to say on this topic Steve commissioner NRI hi I just wanted to very quickly express my support of combining um I have expressed that I wanted the environmental commission to focus more on a20 and so I feel like this is a good opportunity to kind of share and collaborate more and understand where the city's going with that um and I also have expressed that I wanted more input from City's staff on what we should be prioritizing and working on and it sounds like you guys heard us and you're going to be doing both of those so thank you my support so I just want to say that um I know John mury and I have had some conversations offline I do I do a lot of volunteering for a lot of different groups around an arbor and one of the things I always think about is is my time being used valuably am I making a difference and after you know almost three years on the environmental commission it was not ranking very high as far as that so I'm really looking forward to the emerged Commission of sustainability to and the new direction we're going with the the working groups the way they're being set up I think I think I'm hoping we have some opportunities to really make a positive change so that's where I stand on it anybody else so our next topic we're probably going to go a little bit over but Steve we want to talk about the discussion on Solid Waste education I don't know if we can make that a quick one and then move on or maybe do more next month what would you like to do yeah um yeah this came out of discussions in the uh circular economy working group so please um Olivia you know Aaron and um and John and Brooks um you know please um add to whatever I I'm just going to put out here and that is um two things first of all um we're we're in the middle or at the beginning it's hard to tell which of a process where Solid Waste Management is regionalizing you know to cap to better capture economies of scale that may exist now uh what that means is that first first of all uh um there was an or organization created called warma WR MMA um to which the city has subscribed um they are U uh this is this is a government institution which is designed to help facilitate regionalization um now the um the second thing is that uh is that of course anybody who's volunteered as I have um you know with um City staff um on booths where you're talking about recycling like what's recyclable and what isn't it's very confusing to people that show up at your booth because they don't they all live in different areas of the county and the rules are different you know and so um and so there's some sort of harmonization that should occur now um the way the business Works um I I was formerly on the board of directors of a recycling company in North Carolina so I have some I have some experience on the other end of that and um so um you know it's the MF it's whoever is managing um the recycling and the composting who really are best aware of what their end markets are what's the marketability of the uh diversion you know of the things we're diverting from the landfill what's the marketability of all the recyclables and the compost and so in a sense um they're the ones who really know best about um about what the rues should be because they're the ones that have to sell the product that they're processing so um so so there needs to be some sort of harmonization but it needs the murfs themselves the contractors who run the murfs have to be a central part of that because they're the intermediaries in in the whole value chain and and so um and so um and so that's highlighted the the need for more um you know more education more funding now I'll just say that um that within the recycling Community you know there's the Michigan recycling Coalition there's the there's various organizations Nationwide that I have participated with from time to time um including MRC and there's a general consensus that basically uh a bottom level of funding for education is basically $10 per household so if you count you know the the 2020 census um an arbor has 26,000 some 26,000 households but when you start adding um you know Apartments as individual households Condominiums it's more it's closer to 50,000 so what that means is that there should be um to really attain any kind of goals on waste reduction and diversion you should be spending about the city should be spending about $500,000 a year now the question is um the way the rfps have been um have been drafted it's not uh it's not clear um what the goals are first of all for the education what are the metrics we're going to use to tell whether an education campaign is successful or not so there need and and so my experience with various organizations reinforces what I'd heard as a young person that it really takes 3 to 5 years to evaluate the success of any plan especially something regarding around changing cultural habits you know uh we we don't want to wait seven generations for everything to get right um but three to five years is a reasonable uh goal to set for yourself and um and but we don't have a real stability s uh stable kind of fund like like the solid waste fund is so one of the things that I was um one of the ideas that several of us are putting are are have been discussing is just that maybe maybe um we should sequ maybe we should ear Mark uh maybe five uh who knows what the amount is but it's it's it's hopefully it could be up to 500,000 just to cover the city um and um maybe we could earmark some of the funds that are within the solid waste fund to provide an annual fund for Education that staff and Council can um Can evaluate um you know the success of various um strategies and um you know and issue rfps and all that but this would provide a stable funding source for education to accommodate you know the regionalization and all the confusion that's going to cause and also provide a stable source of funding for educating the residents of an arbor in U in compost and you know and uh improving the value of the compost and the recyclables so um did I uh miss anything or I don't think so uh so next are report outs from the the work groups um so biodiversity we had a meeting uh March 10th we discussed the merger of the commissions and we discussed the resolution and then Google cut us off after an hour so that was all we talked about um circular economy Steve I don't know if there's anything else you wanted to report on circular economy um let's see um um yeah um yes Sarah Mason was present you know she's um she's one of the staff people that's um that we're talking with um you know that's part of the circular economy group she was mentioning that City staff prefers reusable containers actually because of this confusion about um about whether a plastic container is recyclable or compostable because everybody you know um everybody knows everybody here probably knows that um back in the beginning of 2023 um there was a problem with our composting contractor you know we care Denali because uh these bla approved you know uh containers plastic cups that are made out of like poly you know polylactic acid and other um that are sourced from biological um chemicals um that they are not really compostable uh you know with the operation that they're using so you know there's um the fact is that I've saved him in my garage and I just take him to the university because the university uses a different contractor um that accepts um bla Plastics so you know it's a very complicated area but um Sarah did mention that because it's so complicated and it's probably not going to you know the market isn't going resolve clearly for a number of years than um than the city's actually City staff is currently thinking that um you know that um using that expanding the reusable program in some way may be the best it's beginning to look like that's the best option um and that was about it it's new yeah um have I missed anything Olivia okay uh water quality Sarah hi um yeah we had a water quality meeting on February 21st which I wasn't at the last meeting so I don't think you got an update on that um and then we also had a chloride chloride subgroup meeting on March 3D and we actually have our next water quality work group meeting tomorrow um so we've been busy um the flad subgroup has been very active um shout out to Kelly M from here on River Watershed Council she's been amazing getting us a bunch of data on forde um surface water quality um and we've kind of been able to through her her her data crunching um kind of come up with a a more prioritized plan of focusing on our um Creeks that are impaired for fluoride in the city so that's malitz Creek Swift Creek and Miller's Creek um so we're taking a more targeted view on those and looking um more at what we can do to specifically help those water uh those specific Creeks um I'm tentatively thinking of a field visit um to maybe tag team with hrwc as they go out um to see these Creeks um we've been looking at some technology like chloride strips to get more um uh detailed understandings of where the chloride is coming from um and then we're also looking into Minnesota has some really great um salt programs um called their smart salt program where they actually Ed have education for applicators um and the public um so we're going to look at that and see if it's feasible to implement a similar type of U program here um we're hoping to have a presentation on our work um available for this group group probably I would say in like May or June um so we might have a special presentation um to give you guys some more detailed update um and we're hoping to also meet with public works and talk about all the efforts they've done um to reduce salting um through their work um we're also still kind of working on the4 dioxine ms4 issue so we have a few feelers out on that um so we haven't dropped that yet but I think that's it Steve am I missing anything oh just one thing um and that was with the midon partners with the Heron River wat Council um Mid mid hereon Partners meeting that was held on February 27th um it was noted that scoring is the scoring for rain Gardens is a little whacko like you get a four point credit every or rain Garden no matter how the size gets a four point credit while the entire entire Mary Doyle Park Basin project only get seven points so there was a discussion about the fact that that needs to be Revisited and uh and and actually follow the metrics about storm water retention far better um than it currently is so we're going to discuss that in the in the water quality team okay Sarah was there anything on storm water also on that work group no so we're kind of on pause for that we're focusing right now on chlorides and then I think in the summer we're going to pick up on the storm water stuff so okay like juggling priorities right now sure uh energy commissioner mki yes uh we discussed two topics one of which was already mentioned we discussed the combination of the two commissions into a sustainability uh commission um I don't think you anything further needs to be said about that the other thing that we discuss uh is uh the idea of using zoning to uh Levy a carbon fee on new natural gas uh developments as well as the replacement of mad major uh Natural Gas Appliances in buildings over 20,000 square feet um that effectively was shot down because of legality concerns but I'd like to point out to our two council members that still leaves a major problem in that the a20 plan assumed that starting in 2022 all new buildings in an aror would be um all electric and we also have obviously problem with major uh buildings um in their systems large boiler systems and things like that um those are um in many cases in most cases still being replaced with natural gas and uh residential systems are going to be there for 15 to 20 years and Commercial systems in many cases when you're talking about the commercial boilers they're going to be still emitting um renous gases for up to 50 years so we need to do something and I know that in one case including recently there was at least as I understand it there was a 30% % height bonus that was given um and that that that's that's okay but when we're talking about um New Heights in the comprehensive Plan and there's push back against some of the higher Heights in residential um neighborhoods if it goes up to 48 ft and then you add a 30% bonus for uh all electric construction or maybe for um affordable housing then it's no longer 48 ft so we we have a problem that uh we need to solve and just so that people understand we have approved since the a20 plan was implemented um we've approved over 30 buildings that are natural gas connected I'm not just talking about um for a backup generator and um the emissions of those buildings is going to wipe out um essentially um about 2third of one full year of decarbonization activities for everything else that we're doing and that is that problem that we're going to uh continue to be confronted with particularly in my view in in in the sense that we have a trump Administration that's not going to be doing much um in this way to advance um all electric construction so we we have a dilemma that we somehow need um to figure out how we're going to address and that hopefully will be something that a new sustainability committee um can come up with so we we talked about this resolution it was shot down but basically the topic as an open topic for further considerations um although I don't know exactly what options we have um available to us so uh that's that's all from the energy commission uh Parks commissioner Marson hi thanks we've had two meetings actually since the last time the environmental commission met so um we had a nap a natural area preservation update on uh they they recently did a new strategic plan um mostly reaffirming the the goals that they've had all along um we had an update on the capital asset study that's being conducted um and suffice it to say that Parks has quite a large number of capital assets um most of them aging and uh quite pricey to uh repair and maintain um we uh uh voted to recommend that the that an arbor be designated a bird city of Michigan and then we uh had an update on West Park um and the planning that's going on with that and those are the highlights thanks uh do our council members have anything they want to add I can just say really quick um on the city council agenda on Monday so a few days ago uh we did approve what I believe is the last step to build a new fire station 4 which will be just simply replacing the old fire station 4 um this is at plat and here on parkway but of note for this group it it it will be Net Zero um and we believe this will be the first Net Zero fire station in the state so uh more to come on that as it's built and hopefully you know things like tours and stuff like that will be available once it's complete but that's all I have thanks okay um nothing else from chair uh report out from staff yeah I had an update about the next sustainability uh Forum series is next week at the library on circular economy so check that out uh from 6:00 to 7:30 pm um one other update from OSI in my notes are the Energy rebates available um so it's an expansion of the home energy rebate program um to hopefully make it easier for for residents to get um hooked up with that and then public I have the budget update under public services but it's clearly for the entire city but um so we are our budget process is underway for fiscal year 2627 um Council will have a work session I believe on Monday um and then in April um the city administrator will have his kind of recommended fisal year 2026 budget um and then in May um Council will uh then adopt um the budget on May 19th and that's all the updates for me thanks nice chair Brown you have a question oh yeah um I'm not sure if um I'm sorry Erin I dropped my attention but I I just wanted to mention that there's an a20 sustainability Forum as part of the U you know uh on March 27th at 6:00 p.m.

e e e order the regular building board of appeals meeting for March 20th 2025 call the order uh roll call please board member Paul darling here board member Robert Hart here board member David arnsdorf here board member Hugh Flack Jr here board member Kevin Cox absent staff Mike lemu here Mike Redmond here and Juliet Harvey here we have quum all right thank you thank you so the first item on the agenda is the approval of minutes from the February 20th 2025 meeting does anyone have comments on those minutes or a motion to approve if not I move to approve those in favor second second I I minutes on the February 20 meeting pass I move to approve okay those in favor I should take the vote afterwards we have one item on the agenda for this month's meeting um the applicant is here via Zoom is that correct correct and um this is the process we will follow is we'll introduce the um variance request we'll have a staff report and then we'll give the applicant an opportunity to present their um appeal followed by a followup to the staff report staff report response to that if necessary and then the board can ask the applicant questions about about their variance request so um so the first item we're on the on the agenda is BBA 25009 appeal for 2015 Manchester Road an Arbor Michigan and can we have a staff report please um the property at 2015 Manchester is a group EB building uh permit application was submitted 1216 of 24 um building permit 24- 0622 the work was described as alterations to the interior building including wall demolition new partition walls change to existing mechanical and electrical systems at the plan review it was noted for the 2021 Michigan plumbing code section 403 3.4 exception 2 that toilet rooms in a child Child Care Facility containing two or more water closets shall be permitted to have one water closet without an enclosing compartment the submitted plans show no proposed enclosing compartment in any of the water water closets within the bathroom group the plan was required to be revised to show required water closet enclosures per the 2021 Michigan plumbing code the applicant has indicated in addition to the requested variants to eliminate required toilet compartments there also seeking a variance to eliminate the required grab bars the laboratory within the toilet room and surrounding toilet room walls shall be constructed to a height of 42 in applicant believes the true intent of the code was not has not taken small children's needs into consideration and these variances should be accepted at this location staff recommends that this application be denied as it doesn't meet the standards for approval the code has not been misinterpreted the provisions of the code do apply the proposed condition does not meet the minimum requirements of section 45.3 point4 exception 2 of the 2021 Michigan plumbing code uh section 45.3 point4 exception 2 States water closet compartment each water closet utilized by the public or employee shall occupy a separate compartment with walls or partitions and a door enclosing the fixture to ensure privacy exception to toilet rooms located in a child in child D daycare facilities and containing two or more water closets shall be permitted to have one water closet without an enclosing compartment the pentier states that we propose um half walls with half doors and no doors for preschool in the toilet rooms within the classrooms we specifically are requesting relief from the requirement for full height walls and partition walls and doors within all toilet rooms in this Center we're Al also asking for relief from the requirement of placing the handwash sink within the toilet room a large sink is provided immediately outside of the toilet rooms where children's handwashing can be supervised by a teacher relief is also requested for placement of grab bars around the toilet the bars cannot be reached or used by our very young children um so section uh 12 10.3.1 each water closet utilized by the public employee shall occupy a separate compartment within the walls of partitions and a door enclosing the fixture to ensure privacy uh water closet compartments uh wait exception two toilet rooms located in child daycare facilities and containing two or more water closets shall be permitted to have one water closet without an enclosing compartment um for the uh laboratory request public Laboratories and employe public public toilet rooms the required laboratory shall be located in the same room as the required water closet um then the the exception um the section that addresses the um grab bars at water is uh section 69.4 point2 at water closets primarily for children children's use complying with Section 60411 grab bar shall be installed in a horizontal position 8 18 in minimum and 27 in maximum above the floor measured to the top of the gripping surface vertical grab bar shall be mounted to the bottom of the bar located between 21 in and maximum minimum and 30 in maximum above the floor with the center line of the bar located between 34 in a minimum 36 in maximum from the rear wall um this uh request doesn't meet the requirements for approval um and the code clearly states the requirements for the restrooms the grab bars and the lab okay right thank you so can the applicant just state your name and present your case briefly um yes can you hear me yes okay thank you uh my name is Gretchen Preston and I'm the owner and um operator of Gretchen's House Child Care Centers here in Arbor have been for 42 years um I I have redesigned re renovated many many um buildings for child care use over the my time and what we're asking for here are things that already exist in our other centers and as I have sent you some pictures of other centers in other parts of the country um it's unfortunate that our building codes don't usually um speak to very very young children um it's a frustration that I have and uh my teachers have when they're dealing with these very young children in their um their needs I want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly Mike um so what we're asking for is relief from Full height walls but as I read the code looks like we don't have to have full height they have to be 48 in is that true correct I don't recall a specific height for the walls well I was reading in and you know you're much more well versed in this than I am but it says specifically um 48 in in one of the sections so if that is the height that we need to have we can make that work because teachers can see over that um height wall um that would be fine um I had it a minute ago walls it's page um I think a minimum um a height of not less than 4T 12 10.2.2 I think that just refers to the height where a nonporous surface needs to be used Jason Jo s is what talking yeah a height not less than 4 feet above the floor except for the structural elements materials used in such walls um yeah so this is that that part is just talking about where the nonporous surfaces are required okay um so H basically um when we have little children with us all day these are children four years old and under many of you have experience with very young children um the toilets that we use are 10 in off the floor 10 in so it's not very tall uh they can easily use those toilets themselves which is one of the things that we're trying to help them do obviously is become self-sufficient um and but our te they often need help so we need to have a toilet facility that teachers can easily help these children with and if they can't see into the toilet room it becomes a safety concern for us um also we have um large Troth sinks outside each of our um bathrooms and all of our rooms and we do that on purpose because um another part of our our learning at this age is how to wash your hands and we want to make sure that children do wash their hands and it's much easier for us to help them when it's right outside the bathroom and there's um a larger sink and more room for everyone to work I guess those are the main things that we're asking for um in the preschool room um we don't like to have a door we just like to have an entry into the bathroom because uh children have Freer access to toilets and they often need that quickly at that age in the infant todler rooms we have one toilet and a changing table that has a sink attached to it as you can see um so at this age very few children are actually using the toilet we wish otherwise but that's the nature of uh Toddlers and certainly infants can't even stand at the sink we we hold the children up to the sink that is there uh where we do the diaper changes for them to wash their hands does that um give you a little more insight into how we work with these young children in these toilet rooms any questions from the board so uh I just want to like just to clarify there are three bathrooms in this facility that are for child use only that's correct okay and you have a bathrooms the required bathrooms for adults and other locations oh yes okay and Ada accessible yes okay and the variance that's requested is actually for four things that there be no grab bars in any of the those toilets that there be no toilet compartments where there's more than one toilet that there are no Laboratories within the toilet rooms and that the inclosure walls around the bathroom enclosures be 42 in high and preferably without doors um we do put doors in the infanti rooms because it's a safety issue for those children we don't want them in there uh unless they're being supervised okay because but in thee in the preschool no you're the because the the plans that show I think it's 109 and 113 don't show any doors under the variance requested um well there would be a door in the infant title rooms there would be a door that's an error on our part okay so the proposal then would be in the under the variance required diagrams there would be a door on 113 and also on 108 um yes the um so many numbers to keep yes 113 and 108 that's correct okay and then one more clarifica clarification question so again under the 108 I guess it's 109 I'm sorry it's yeah I'm having a little trouble here too yeah me too 113 113 is a toddler room and would have a door on it yes that's correct 109 is a toddler room and would have a door on it yes that's correct okay so for those two rooms as well you're showing a diaper changing station in there yes that's right but it has a sink it does so it is a special unit that comes with a sink so that sink could suffice as a handwashing station couldn't it and it does oh it does it does yes okay so the the request for not having a laboratory in these B directly inside these bathrooms doesn't apply to those two particular toddler rooms as as long as that sink is is meeting the requirement that um M's department is asking for yes that's right okay and this is just a small detail but there is there any reason why that counter doesn't go all the way to the wall oh it can um that we buy a pre-made um station it it comes from a manufacturer and so that particular wall is just a little bit longer okay to meet the um 5 foot circle can you speak more about the grab bars it seems like the building Department's commentary just like about the grab bars being lower and being vertical bars so um I mean you can have grab bars that comply you not going used right I mean our our children need help in the using the toilet and they don't use the grab bars um I have them in a couple of my spaces and they're never used um I don't know what to say except that they're never used the toilets are so low that the children don't don't need them that may be the case but I I think the Ada requires grab bars in all toilet rooms in all toilet rooms including ages starting as young as three they're at different heights than normal ADA requirements but um I'm pretty sure that those are required even for very small children would they be required for children under the age of three it doesn't mention under the ages of three so by default I would say not but well we do some things that you know we don't use sometimes because it does meet the um requirement of the law um the law isn't perfect so if we cannot put them in the infant rooms that would be fine and then if we need to put them for the preschoolers we can put them there could you whether or not they use them could you what are the so what are the age groups for these these bathrooms because they're just labeled as either preschool or toddler sure children 2 years and 9 months are in the infant and toddler rooms 2 years 9 months and younger so 3 months to 2 years 9 months in those rooms and then in the preschool room um it would be children 2 years 9 months up to age four and the reason I'm using those that age um specification is that the licensing rules change for ratios and uh group size at that age and for the preschool bathroom you need two toilets because of the population count that's right okay the my licensing requirements are one toilet for every 15 children um or two for every um for every 10 one more for every 10 after that it's unfortunate that licensing rules um child care licensing rules don't always agree with um some of the building code which I'm sure you're used to that happening in lots of situations um so for example with the children 2 years 9 months and younger I'm required to have 100% visual supervision at all times so you can see why having full walls anywhere in that room are a problem for me it's it's a real safety hazard so for the building department question uh how do they handle ventilation if the walls aren't full height I think the walls should be full height um according to code so I don't know how it would be addressed if you don't have um a full height wall so if the walls are full height then you would have to have a teacher go into the bathroom and accompany each child that uses the washroom because you need supervision 247 or the whole time absolutely it could be a glass partition some of you see through but you can't you know can't does contain the ventilation we do have um ceiling fans above all um child bathrooms of all those changing stations and the preschool toilet rooms have a vent above them works great Okay so we've not seen a variance like this before so I'm not very familiar with all the requirements and how people get other people get around it as far as is it a staffing issue is it a building code issue you know how is it managed I I guess one of my questions would be what is the intent um of the building code it talks about privacy um quite frequently throughout but for these very young children um privacy is not their issue so I I believe that that's why the code states that if you have two in a room there's one able to not be enclosed I think that the code's written specifically for those situations and it starts that with board child daycare facilities you can see on um some of the pictures that I sent you um What Child Care Centers have traditionally done is they'll put a even and one of them is from one of my own centers um there's a a wall between two toilets sometimes it's a half wall um sometimes it's a full wall so that between the toilets there's there's privacy but the teachers can see any other questions or comments from staff or I mean would it would it be acceptable to put glass above the let's say the 48 in line on the walls to to achieve more of an enclosure a little more privacy but still maintain the visual um connect I'm concerned about U being able to hear as well especially with these children under the age of 2 years 9 months you know we having it's like having a closet in a room that that you know it it's worrisome that's why we don't have large closets in rooms because children you know they're smart and we we don't want a child to get into a space that we can't see um it's it's very worrisome and if we take a teacher away from the group for one child now we have one teacher left with seven children and I'm not allowed to do that I have I have to have the visual and the ability to um supervise with the two teachers in those toddler rooms so is this is this something that could be is this something that could be address addressed through Staffing and not alterations to the building code could you say more about that Mike I'm just saying is it is it possible if there was another P another adult in that room that then it would be reasonable to have somebody watching the students and any um child that might be in the restroom well now we're talking about um labor costs and I you all have heard Ed nauseum the cost of um Early Childhood programs and I guess you know I I understand the reason for most all of the building codes that that we adhere to this particular one if it's for the purpose of privacy it doesn't that is not something that children under the age of four need they have a greater need for safety and our supervision I I I think that's where I'm getting stuck here you know privacy is not an issue with these little ones um the law state so explicitly we have to have 100% uh supervision Sight and Sound at all times does a commentary talk to that at all probably not for children I mean it it not really um other than you know just stating that when the you know just going over why when there's two that having the one without the um enclosure allows for um you know that Assistance or whatever is required in that area other comments questions if the grab bar is an adaa isue are building very free issue I don't know how we would give a variance for that I mean that was beyond our our jurisdiction for that the gra bars are something that don't affect our supervision so you know if we need to put them in we'll put them in if they don't get used then I guess they don't get used um I'm much more concerned about the supervision issues here and it's interesting that other bathrooms that I see and other places and in my own centers um don't have you know full height walls around them so I I guess I'm just confused if something changed in the in the building code um and why the licensing doesn't agree with the the building that happens all the time no they don't coordinate yeah you need to submit a code request change to the IC for certain age groups who else has to go and approve your facility just curious I mean is there an inspection by another organization that then allows you to accept children I think everybody except the president or the mayor come into our facility to give us approval um we have to have State Fire inspectors um we have State Licensing um Consultants that come through there's a health and environmental people that come through let's see who else have I missed we are inspected um thoroughly the environmental health um and people have never said a thing about our the bathrooms that we have that are half walls um at this point so so if these are going to have doors on them what kind of doors are you talking about you be a partial height door or what kind of door are you're talking like a gate it's like a gate yes that's that's right it's a half height it would be the same height as the wall it's a gate that has a latch that um children can't open and believe me we've had to look for those an Iber has nothing but the smartest children the swinger s in or swing out usually they swing out because of the Ada and what is the wall material you're kind of showing is a blue is that like a tile or is that a paneling or what is that material it's nonforest um we've used different sorts of materials and we can use whatever um would be required drywall is what we have in many of them um some um I have um shiplap um or like paneling um on the outside because it's attractive uh the inside is usually um either tile or um drywall you can see in the one um um well actually two of the photos have dry wall in these toilet rooms from actual bathrooms the brown that's a really good question um that's probably a paneling I'm trying to remember that Center's been around a while the plumbing closure requires nonporous same kind of thing so the shift like would be a question there depending on the Finish but it's a laminate or something like that poent could be non pores you're not asking very branch on that so whatever it is will comply with code no I also think that very few child care centers are being built or renovated so that you know it's not something that you come across all the time this is an existing facility being renovated or is this all new what is this all new or renov This was um summerh Hill school and then 20 years ago then it was an office building and now I'm re renovating it back for child use okay so a change in use there on remaining years education to child care's business is that [Music] okay your not changing news if it's business to business or than working on a motion about it's a challenging one it doesn't fit neatly into the template into the template yeah um then maybe two motions one from the taller room and one not t room or they all come out one hope to avoid that oh yeah so that we didn't have to hand in a epic twice poem okay um it would appear that the um the bars would be acceptable you've got doors in the older room but not the younger room and the sinks outside inside with the toddler in the changing room you do have sinks inside which might fly well more discuss I guess you discuss on a board is this true before you finish your motion I mean I can float a motion and see how it if it passes muster um okay uh I mov that in the case of BBA 25-9 the appeal of the building officials decision that the 2015 Manchester Road um is granted only partial relief from section p1210 3.1 40532 of the 2021 Michigan plumbing code and 11092 exception 7 of the 2015 Michigan building code as follows the 2015 Michigan building code in section Acquired and has been correctly interpreted by the building official the 2021 Michigan building code section p1210 3.1 water and 45.3 point2 the requirement for water closet enclosures and a laboratory within the toilet room does apply to the children's area toilet rooms at TW 2015 Manchester Road the motion includes the following clarifications and stipulations the the toilets shall include grab bars as required and advised by the Ada wash sinks shall be inside toilets it is acceptable to combine hand wash sinks with diaper changing sinks as Allowed by the Michigan daycare center regulations it is acceptable to have low enclosure walls to meet 48 in high heights to meet plumbing code Provisions for finishes toilet room doors may be 48 in high but are required and any toilet room with two or more toilets shall have only one unenclosed toilets toilet at other locations privacy partitions may be 48 8 in high and without doors so far of your Provisions require the grab bars as part of granting something else is that the intent or just not the intent the intent is to keep the grab bars in the intent is to keep the sinks inside the toilet room enclosures the intent is to interpret the code that a the enclosure walls can be low so not 42 in 48 in so that they meet the finished requirements and in places where the there more than one toilet um the one that should be completely enclosed is essentially only partially enclosed but still has some form of privacy so we're allow basically we're gring a VAR we allowing 48 in high walls this is the intent of it that's the that's what they're gaining out of the VAR is the height of the partition wall and uh en closure walls and Gates can be yes I read I read the intent of the code that the more important things to make sure that there are clean non-absorbent finishes up to 48 inches not all the way to the ceiling and I mean the ventilation part of it is if they can if they can figure that Performance Based yeah they can figure that out yeah mhm any questions about the Varan narrative WR um is there any clarification needed between the types of restrooms like where they're located so that we're specific to I I just don't if if we write it openly enough I don't want it to apply to the entire building so just for these four rooms for room so so the motion is amended to pertain only to the toilet rooms used by children preschool and toddler or something like four years and younger four years and younger okay no second and you have to written down Bob so we can turn that in the whole rule about the you want to finish writing that down before we vote's uh I probably have to rewrite this we do have a second yeah a second yeah we have a motion in a second so let me I just want to make sure I got this so the provision what's being added is the provisions apply only to the toilet rooms that serve children less than four years of age children under whatever you want to break it out to toddlers to two to two and nine months and then two and 10 months to four no we're not doing anything that's different for those two there's no change there's no difference for them the applicant is out there somewhere is how how old are the kids in your daycare do they go up Beyond age four no no Okay no Okay so the provisions apply only to the toilet rooms that serve children underage for four and under I think so we have four members present the pass is going to need a vote at least three positive votes those in favor say I I those against it none any abstaining motion passes um might I have clarification on one item sure um my print out says page 19 but the preschool uh bathroom the bathroom that has two toilets in it mhm um as shown um from our um architect and designer shows a panel uh between the two toilets is that acceptable is is Ash it's drawn there does that work what page is that page 19 there this one this one it's drawing 19 the one that says as submitted yes that's the one um the the intent of the motion was that the toilet the the the toilet that has the door on it that partition would be 48 in is high and would would not necessar would not need a door okay yeah that was the clarification I wanted to get thank you so as it's shown there can be 48 High just like the walls um outside correct but with the idea that you'd still have a door to the overall enclosure oh yes oh okay we can do that so you you would like to see that in the preschool as well adore all of them in all of them comp okay yeah okay so they submit revised plans for this stuff then Mike is that what you going want to see have a revised permit set yeah it'll need to yeah revisions were requested on the initial plan review so then need to submit them uh with the approval so Mike they just submitted some plans um but that did not have um the 48 inch high walls because before today's meeting um they were not approved so I will ask the architect to submit them as you have um agreed today okay thank you so much okay thank you next item on the agenda is old business any old business to cover you said the previous experiances uh one's not coming back for the uh washer dryer yeah the washer dryer is not coming back and I'm working with the contractor um on the two exits and erress windows from last month's meeting okay any business new business anything can we have a motion to adjourn I move to adjourn second those in favor I IJ that 27

[Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Hey [Applause] [Music] everybody. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Hey, [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] N. Heat. Hey, heat. Hey, heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] do that. It's green light right there. It's on. I call to order the workshop for Bhead City School Board on Thursday, March 20th, 2025 at 5:30 p.m. Call to or roll call. Melinda present. Charlene Dia is here. Fred Rushton here. Barb Zarziki here. Judy Reid here. Well, we are all here. Um, item 1.3 site instructional improvement update. I got a feeling that's why everybody's here. So, good deduction. Just dive into this and see what we get. Okay. So, Madame President and board members, you you will have a presentation from uh the principles at each of our sites um kind of summarizing what they've been doing so far this year.

Wildcats, it's March, which means March Madness. We got our own little version today. We go [Music] madness. We have our learning, living, leading, and likes. Had to think of a fourth L bracket. We got it down to the sweet 16 of some of the best things here at Weo. We're going to find out who reigns supreme. I have a special guest, a [Music] professor, Brian Turnbot, here in studio today to help analyze the brackets, be our co-host. Brian, what do you see here when you look at the learning bracket? What do you think the favorites are? We got the students as the number one seed. Any thoughts or analysis here? Well, I don't think you ever want to sleep on the cafeteria. I watch the students that are always lined up for those Frappuccinos, the Oreo ones in the morning. Pretty powerful stuff. You got to think they got to be an early favorite.

hi my name is Lauren newzing and today I'm participating in the vision [Music] Retreat my name is Brandon fantozi I'm a graduate of West Chicago high school and now an employee I've been here for 23 years as the choir director today's been really enlightening it's been a fun process of looking at data from different perspectives from different administrative groups and just putting those pieces of data together to see where we are as a district areas that we're doing really well areas that we can improve upon and ways that we can look forward to the future and the success that we can bring to at Chicago I'm Jan via I'm a junior here at the school this is the second strategic planning meeting that I've attended we got to look at some data revolving around what's working in our school regarding like tests and like planning ahead for the future and engagement with families and students and it gave me a better understanding of coming to school and learning I'm Molly I'm the director of we go together for kids a community collaboration here in West Chicago and it's definitely been a brain filling day lots of data lots of different perspectives and perceptions as well as just those cold hard facts so it's been a really good mix of all the different things that I think we're going to need to make some really important decisions for d94 and I think one of the things that I'm leaving with is that it feels like there are some really clear things that were definitely doing well that we can highlight and those things that maybe we're not doing as well that we can work on so I'm feeling good that there's been Clarity I'm a senior here and one of the things we're talking about today is the portrait of a graduate where we're going over the basic skills that a graduate should have by the time they leave West Chicago High School hi I'm Joe Zan I'm a social studies teacher here at West Chicago high school I'm really excited to be part of the opportunity I think it gives us a fresh start to have some important conversations about who we are as a community and Educators and what we want for our students hi I'm Gina Raiden with the West Chicago Park District I'm the executive director there I've come here today to help the high school Envision what a graduate looks like coming from District 94 I'm Megan dooing I'm a parent in the community I have a junior and a senior here at Wego I also have the unique perspective of also being an educator in Benjamin District 25 I see the kids that come from Benjamin into Wego being a part of the Strategic plan committee has been an amazing experience for me I've had the opportunity to come to three full day sessions where we were presented with all the data I learned a lot about the school the team the people who put that data together were very prepared and shared a lot of great things that I didn't know and I think we are on the right path and it's fun to be a part of it and it's exciting and I think that we'll continue to see a lot of growth and development and really great things to come out of Wego long after my kids have graduated from here and moved on and I'll still be a member of this community so I want to see Wego be as successful as it can possibly be my name is Benjamin Weslo I'm the library director for the West Chicago Public Library District District I've been participating in the strategic planning Retreats at District 94 it's been a great pleasure to participate and set some Direction [Music]

e e e o'clock we're go ahead and call the meeting to order Kim can we start for a roll call please noran Fred is absent tonight Adam hkin here Andrea Cory here Kelly Moyer is also absent tonight Greg Meyer here Lisa schacher here Tyson search here right if everybody stand with me and recite the Pledge of Allegiance please I pledge allegiance to the of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all perfect thank you so much well welcome visitors I think this is a record crowd for us appreciate everybody taking the time to come out tonight and hope you found a parking place and I know a lot of you don't have chairs so apologize for the standing room only we didn't uh expect this many people so but welcome welcome I'll go right on to our first item which is public comments anybody have anything they would like to say this evening start hello okay if you would just tell us your name please hi everyone um my name is Betsy Mahoney and while I am not a resent Columbia I am a concerned neighboring librarian I am here to discuss the board's recent decision to remove the Ala Bill of Rights from your school media policy upholding the Ala Bill of Rights is one of the most important aspects of a well-written collection development policy there have been many misconceptions about the new Illinois act aimed at eliminating censorship the ACT reinforces professional responsibilities of Library workers to build collections suited to their students curriculums and recreational reading needs as stated in the Ala Bill of Rights Library material should never be removed based on partisan or doctrinal disapproval upholding the Ala Bill of Rights is not an admission of a controversial collection it is a commitment to a measured methodical evaluation of your libraries collection Librarians are constantly evaluating Library collections to make sure that it does reflect a school curriculum and meets the needs of the students a sound collection development policy will include the criteria needed to select items including accuracy interest positive reviews and to quote a sample policy from the ala's website the emotional development ability level and social emotional intellectual development of the students for whom the materials are selected this means that every Library collection is designed for the students taking into account the curriculum and the maturity level um all collection development policies also outline circumstances in which items may be removed from a collection if the item is out of scope with the criteria set forth It's removed with a process we call weeding this is that censorship but a critical part of librarianship and evaluating your collections um sorry um if a book is out of date written at too high or too low of a reading level or just no longer popular those are all reasons for it to be removed while there will always be and this again is not censorship well there will always be disagreements among parents about what is appropriate for their children that's a private family discussion um having a strong collection policy for the school media centers upholding ala Bill of Rights benefits everybody in the district trust your Librarians to create a library collection that speaks to every single student's needs in your District thank you so much for verying [Applause] you state your name for us please uh my name is Carrie Clayton and I am a parent of a fourth grader and a first grader here in the district recently while I was filling out the five essential survey I came across a question that asked do you feel like you have a voice in the planning and decision-making at the school and I struggled to answer because while I know I am respected at the schools that my children attend I do not feel that the school board Tru values parent input unless it comes from their friends or neighbors it seems that many decisions are based on conversations among like-minded individuals rather than through meaningful engagement with a broader Community for example when the topic of the Scholastic Book Fair arose why wasn't a survey sent out to parents when a committee was formed after the October 2024 meeting who was on that committee was it just board members and the assistant superintendent did did it include parents from diverse backgrounds did it represent families from all district buildings were there parents whose children may not fit the Colombia mold were teachers administrators Librarians or literacy professionals consulted did certified Librarians or Community Library represent Representatives weigh in has the district decided how they will help fund classroom books and update the libraries with more recent content no longer having rough L $113,000 raised from the in-person Book Fairs all of our students have a right to see themselves reflected in the books that they read I understand the importance of balancing age appropriate content but severing ties with the American Library Association and eliminating The in-person Book Fairs concerns me deeply I worry that this is the first step towards book bands and that a politically motivated agenda May soon dictate what is available to students particularly books that include diverse racial and lgbtq plus perspectives you may argue that you don't hear concerns from those who disagree with the changes the board has recently enacted but perhaps that's because those voices aren't in your immediate circles and when they do speak up they are dismissed as having a misunderstanding or overly emotional if a parent does not want their child to purchase a book from the fair or check out a specific book from the library they have that right to make that decision for their family they can review book options attend the fair with their child or have a conversation about why they find a certain book inappropriate but what they should not have the right to do is dictate what books are available to every child in this District I urge you to ensure that decisions about Book Fairs Library materials and classroom books are made with broad Community input and with the best interest of all students in mind not just those who happen to have the board and superintendent's ear thank [Applause] you hello hello my name is Alison wolf and I'm proud to be a parent of two children in this school district like other parents I enjoyed the board's warm welcome for my own Young author last month I come tonight disheartened with concerns regarding the recent change to board policy 6230 along with others present tonight I am requesting that you revisit and reinstate the former board policy regarding Library materials particularly the section noting alignment with the ala's Bill of Rights selections not being removed for doctrinal or partisan reasons the entire ala Bill of Rights is nothing but reasonable and I have have not yet heard any compelling justification for its removal from our policy however by defying the Law Public Act 10300 the school board willingly excludes Columbia School libraries from eligibility for State grant money all in the interest of being able to remove texts due to either origin background doctrinal or partisan reasons this law does not prohibit the act of challenging or complaining about a book if our board were to restore the Ala Bill of Rights within the policy and rejoin the ranks of the vast majority of local school districts reconsideration policies would still apply for valid reasons the only limit to selection being on a basis of partisan or doctrinal beliefs given that this is a public school district I struggle to see the logic of removing this section of the previous policy unless you wish to violate these widely accepted rights in order to impose your own beliefs I have heard the response that parents are misinformed the truth is there has been a lack of transparency regarding the composition and work of the committee formed in October to investigate the hypothetical issue of parent concern about book fair selection you have said that you are not interested in Banning books I ask then what would it mean for the board to prohibit a book's placement in the library based solely on the board's discretion why would this be necessary of course I agree that reading materials should be developmentally appropriate providing access to materials at students developmental level and removing books based on diversity or differing perspectives are entirely separate issues which should not be collapsed into the same argument it is concerning that we do not have a certified library or media specialist to conduct this work we all love our children and want similar things for them though it is clear we may choose different methods again this is a public school system in our free Society parents have the right to oversee what their children read but they are not entitled to limit what all other children read or learn thank [Applause] you hi good evening uh my name is Sarah Clark and I have two students here at Park View I was here at last month's meeting where you recognize the young authors winners thank you for doing so my kids were very excited to write their books they look forward to library day uh every week and to say they're pumped for the school book fair is an understatement moments like these Foster a love of reading creativity and learning but recent board decisions threaten to undermine that all children deserve to see themselves reflected in the books that they read by removing the district's adherence to the American Library Association or ala Bill of Rights you have erased the district's commitment to not exclude materials because of origin background partisan or doctrinal disapproval I've heard claims that this is a misunder understanding or that those concerned are misinformed that is not true I have read the board meeting minutes I have watched the YouTube recordings of the meetings I've read the board policy before and the board policy after I've exchanged emails with Dr Grody seeking more background and context and I've spoken with multiple certified local Librarians I've been told that this change was needed to ensure reasonable local decisions that is not true a district can comply with the Ala and still remove a book if it is too mature for a School's grade levels what the Ala does not allow is removing a book simply because it includes a character that may look different like an lgbtq or Muslim character that's the difference between a responsible collection policy and censorship the district needs a certified media Specialist or librarian involved to shape its collection development policy according to B uh board policy 63 230 sorry that doesn't seem to be happening now and it must be corrected I am here tonight to urge you to reverse your decision to remove the Ala Bill of Rights from Schoolboard policy I also urge you to bring back in-person Book Fairs which further Foster students love of reading these changes appear to to have been made based on the objections of a few individuals without considering the needs and rights of the larger School Community they have also resulted in Lost revenue from both state grants and book fair proceeds both of which fund new books for the schools finally I'm asking for transparency whose input did you seek what problem was this meant to solve and if you won't reverse your decision then we need clear communication regarding when and why books are removed from school libraries parents and taxpayers deserve to know whether these decisions align with the principles of education and intellectual Freedom or are just a response to ideological pressure our students deserve access to books that Inspire Challenge and reflect them thank [Applause] you my name is m scaran i have a second grader here at Parkview and then I have an upand cominging kindergartener here for this fall Emily scon um and I am actually reading a letter on behalf of a local District employee so um they worth uh dear members of the school board I am writing to share my thoughts and concerns on the district's recent DEC decision to eliminate Book Fairs in our schools I understand that every decision made has its reasons but I feel strongly that this one may have unintended negative consequences for our students in the community I would like to respectfully ask for you to reconsider Book Fairs are so much more than opport opportunities for students to buy books they are moments of excitement and Discovery for many students the book fair is one of the times they get to choose books that reflect who they are their interest and their experiences it's not just about picking up a new title it's about finding a story that connects with them whether it's through characters who look like them share their struggles or explore worlds they can relate to this representation matters more than we might realize as it helps students see feel seen valued and empowered while not every book and a book fair will fit for every student the variety available means there's something for everyone whether students are looking for stories about friendship Adventure culture or personal growth the books on display reflect the richness of their diverse lives these options are vital because they ensure every student can see themselves in the stories they read whether they're reading about someone from their Community someone with a similar background or just a character who reminds them of their own journey in addition I want to emphasize emphasize the decisions related to education should prioritize the best interests of the students without the flu influence of political ideologies schools should remain a place where students are encouraged to think critically explore new ideas and discover their own passions it's essential that political views do not influence decisions that impact their access to knowledge representation and diverse perspectives decisions that are made for the benefit of our children should be based on their educational growth and well-being not on external political pressures I urge you to reconsider the decision and I think about how Book Fairs help us invest in our children's Futures by supporting them we continue to cultivate a school environment where students can find joy in reading and where teachers and libraries have the resources they need to help students grow thank you for your time and consideration I hope we can keep the tradition of Book Fairs in our schools [Applause] anyone else good evening my name is Amanda Champion um I also have a first grader in the Columbia school districts um and I'm speaking on behalf of my household tonight so my husband wrote this letter up he says my name is Brandon Champion I apologize I could not be there in person due to work but thankfully my wife is kind enough to be my voice tonight I know there are others who wish to speak so I'll get right to the point you claim that removing inperson Scholastic Book Fair is for the children you claim that removing books that some adults don't like is for the children but I must ask how does losing funding and revenue help anyone teachers are notoriously underpaid schools and libraries are notoriously underfunded and you want to take away more let's be honest with each other this isn't to benefit the children this is because a handful of people that their attitudes towards a particular group Rob them of their Good Sense working in health care I have seen people at their best and at their worse I've also seen more than my fair share of the extreme things that young people will do to themselves when they don't feel heard when they don't feel represented and when they feel that just being themselves is wrong I like many if not all of the parents here want nothing more than the best for our kids to feel happy about themselves 100% of the time we want them to be kinder smarter and allaround amazing people before we send them into the world that can't happen if their own schools are teaching them to alienate each [Applause] other anyone else appreciate all the input from all of you guys um normally historically we don't address questions to the board the reason is that as a board we make decisions as individuals we cannot and we cannot come to consensus and address you guys and answer your questions that quickly we have to come to consensus um Dr gainy has worked on this project a lot and I'd like her to share a little bit of where the decision not not to adopt and I and I think correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think we elim I don't think we ruled against this thing I think we just did not adopt it is that correct it was in the policy and we removed it we did it was proposed in the policy and we did not adopt that policy no it was already in the policy and then we amended it and took it out did that come from the library Bill of Rights yes Bill yes okay so well I just want to um start by thanking everybody for for coming tonight um because it it means a lot that you care about the students as do we um in regards to literacy um we I have a passion we have a passion for literacy in with our students um so many of the things that were shared tonight are exactly spot on and spot on with our vision um if communication was not done and so the method that it should have been done um I think we can agree we can make make better in that and move forward um together uh we do not have a certified librarian and and those statements are very accurate in the fact that having a certified librarian would help us have that objective book selection process which we don't have we don't have an objective book selection process we don't have a reconsideration um process for if there is a book in question we don't have committees that can review that book and a decision can be made for the best of the students I I also think it's important to remember that there's a difference between public and school libraries and that's why it's so important to to have a certified School librarian in your District um public libraries don't have the same um goals and Visions as a school because as it was stated several times tonight we want our collections to be um connected and aligned with our curricular goals as as a district it's not about banning or or censoring to to any degree um and and nothing has been removed from the Shelf other than um a a book that was not the right age level was shifted to another Library um we are still doing Scholastic book clubs I understand that you as a group may not feel that that is the same as an inperson book fair and I respect that um but that is kind of where we're at I I'm actually I I know there are many feelings in the room tonight but I'm I'm very excited about where our libraries are going to go I feel like um this has been a time for us to to stop to take a step back take a breath and see how we need to move forward to make things better um for our students and libraries and and the board knows specifically how passionate I am about libraries um you can visit my office I have a ton of books I love book clubs I I love to read and and make myself better I I'm I'm saddened to think that that you you think that there would be any other different Vision but I'm here to tell you that that is not the vision to take books away to censor books it's truly the exact opposite is to take a step back hopefully find us somebody that can help us get our processes aligned so we can do what's best for students um and we need to align to the the new literacy plan that's in the state um all of those things are part of our mindset and vision um and that's what I wanted to share tonight perfect thank you and I'll kind of tail onto that as an as an individual board member and not speaking for the board these are my personal comments um uh when we did the high school project in the renovations we were discussing Library specifically The Architects all wanted to get rid of libraries they said libraries are outdated they don't need anymore it's not part of the future Amanda and I were very adamant that libraries need to be a part of that and we really fought and were successful when we saved the library at the high school so we're going to have a stay there Library I am huge book fan I I think everybody should read them I don't know if I don't think we've I know we have not banned any books I've never voted to ban a book and I doubt if I ever would I think I agree with with a lot of what you guys have said tonight I I love books I want to incorporate them I think kids should have a choice we agree on a whole bunch of stuff where I have a problem and where I have a problem personally adopting this is this is a partisan bill this Library Bill of Rights was a partisan Bill like it or not it received only Democrat votes for and only Republican votes against it's not a bipart it's not a nonpartisan we're a nonpartisan board I don't want politics in the school keep it out I don't care what side of the aisle you're on politics is does not need to be in this school so that's where I have a problem my second problem with the with the Bill of Rights again Library stuff and and books and banning I'm I'm in agreement with all you guys I I wholeheartedly agree with you but it's funny every one of you guys mentioned politics and Parson in your speech tonight and this is a Parson bill and we need to keep politics out of school so um the second part is I like low control I know a lot of you guys are talking about not letting us I don't want to dictate what people read I don't want to again I don't want to ban books but I don't want somebody in Chicago doing it either I want to have local control we are representatives of the community and the community needs to decide what they want in our schools and I think parents have a huge input and I like to keep the parent input and do what we're doing and you're right we probably need more transparency I want diverse opinions if I have a a committee I want all different sides you know I own a few different companies and when I have makeing decisions on my companies I want different input I want to hear both sides of the story and I want to hear different opinions and different viewpoints and I want to learn from each other and that's what we do you know when it comes down to it we have a lot more in common than that divides us and I'd like to focus on that like Amanda said we're on board it's not we're against anybody we're here for the kids and only the kids again politics needs to get out of our way and we need to concentrate on what's in the best interest of our children so that's my soap box so but again appreciate you guys coming out and exess your opinion I know it's it's a a heartfelt and and very important to everybody and education is the most important thing that's why we're here and that's we want to do what's in the best interest of our children so all right anybody else want to say anything or are you guys intending to hire great Point thank you yes yeah um actually we've talked about this from it's been on the the conversation long before all this came up but as the Mana said we Dr gy sorry we need a certified librarian and that is one thing that we're missing and I think I would love to see it um I think Chris's is ADV Dr it's not on the agenda for tonight but it is um in the in the works for next school year yes exactly it is an upcoming it is definitely something we are looking strongly at and and pushing toward yes my recommendation to the board members is that we find a way to do it I I think it's important I think we need it and uh again I'm not speaking for the other board so it's this is me talking but I can I clarify something sure mentioned the Bill of Rights um that's the American Library Association um the national governing board that's completely separate I think from the bill in Illinois that you were referring to they're two very separate things I wanted to this is the Illinois Bill is one I pulled up so okay yes than okay I I'm proberly right you're right I am not a library expert by any means so sure thank you I'm just doing what's in the best interest the ks all right I have a question um this didn't get into a question yes but I just want to I'm the park viw and element and Eagle View um Library um Aid I guess um are you thinking about hiring a certified which I agree with it needs to be um someone here within the school district are you thinking of doing that at every single school or just one in particular to at this point in time we are just really trying to look at Staffing for next year and and so um we're we're digging in as to when was the last librarian we had certified librarian that we've had because we've had AIDS for while um so there's a lot more information that we need okay and so you're not sure what would happen to us currently that work for the school district as the library Aid we would not want to lose anybody any of our current employees okay is is is what I'm saying okay okay thank you me awesome again you know the the Board of Education our job is a 30,000 foot overview we're not in the weeds we're not making the this person goes here this person goes here that's to these fine folks we have we hire great people we give them the authority to make their own decisions and we hold them accountable and so far it's been great we have a fantastic team and these these guys are on top of it this we we are very very lucky to have our administrative team across the board so all right all right board members anybody want to say anything or dokie all right let's get into some business here let's see oh I missed one correspondence that's already been sent around and we had some more comments posted so everybody's got a copy of those so mark that off the schedule here and we'll move into our give a moment for everybody to leave if they would want to if there I mean you don't have to stay you can stay for the whole meeting I don't I'm not trying to he wants to kick you out right now I don't want to kick me out I'm just i' I've been in enough board meetings in my life that that's right but sincerely thank you all for bringing your concerns we do appreciate it I had no idea no public it's a public meeting I'm sorry but all right you're now there's some seats that opened up so uh everybody would be awkwardly wanting to leave at different points it's just easier if you get them out oh that's a great idea thank you all right we'll go into our consent agenda first one Dr walk us through that please you've got your minutes and your financial reports as as usual um we have some Personnel items we've got a resignation JMA Ro rodenberger um is a PA professional she's retiring at the end of the year we wish her well so we have that resignation um we've got employee of of certified staff I know that we've got some some new people going to be new CSD people in the audience Amanda Bandy is going to be our new art teacher I don't think she's here she's a currently a part-time art teacher and she's going to move into the full-time position um August hangle is here I saw him there's Mr hangle he is um an Eagle View student teaching right now and he's going to be coming over to Parkview to be one of our special ed teachers we got Haley storm where's Haley there's Haley she's going to be our CMS special ed teacher because Mrs rep is going to be moving into the English language arts class that we have um that is a shock to Mrs uh Haven right she's didn't get in on the on the on the on the little chain of information did you wow um Hannah Phelps is here she's going to be our new high school social studies teacher she's in the front row uh and then we have Emily Bala uh middle school science teacher and so we're very excited about these hires um it's going to be a great year next year we've got two leaves of ab absences Elizabeth mfy um she is going to give birth and so around 520 she's going to be off if the doctors know what they're talking about uh Trent mafy will also be taking a leave um they are married so um we wish them both well with their child and we've got Patricia Lakin uh who is going to be on leave from the uh March 19 18 to the end of the year so she's currently on leave um there's no extracurricular assignments no non-certified class advancements we do have some vacancies um we are still thinking about the library I said it wasn't posted tonight but we are going to post for a full-time art teacher at the middle school and we'd like to post for a full-time stem teacher at the middle school as well to round out our exploratories for next year and so um with your consent I I recommend the board approve the consent agenda as presented perfect questions comments concerns hearing none any be like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented I'll make the motion thank you Tyson second I'll second thank you Andre roll call please yesy yes yes yes yes I am excited about the stem teacher um that that's really going to I think we got a something on my table that I think might be relevant to that but I'll let you go through the agenda thank you appreciate that all right next one is the enrollment Report with in your packet substantial on that and we'll start off with our building report sure all right um I'm Courtney Miller and I'm the assistant principal at CMS and um um these are some pictures um I'm going to speak about them and then there are pictures that kind of go along with what I'm going to speak about these are just some highlights from second semester at the middle school um we held a fundraiser for um Elsa she's a girl who lives in waterl um one of our neighboring communities and many connections with her family um she is um battling cancer and she has a bucket list that um her family um would like to fulfill for her so we held a fundraiser for her at our last home volleyball game which um perfectly fell as uh a game against waterl so their Community came over we had a fundraiser for her and at that fundraiser we raised $2,189 um to give her family yeah it was it was a really great night so those pictures on the right are from um the fundraiser and that's a picture of Elsa at the top um we also had an incentive for the month of January for students that had um no referrals at all uh they got to visit uh the reptile guy he's along the bottom there he's holding a snake we have some students holding snakes and holding some of reptiles um the students really really loved this uh Miss Dent loved it too I almost put a picture of Miss Dent up there but I didn't I didn't um but uh it was a really fun time um our volleyball girls um ended their season recently the eighth grade had a record of 15 and n and that's our eighth grade team right there they um conference Champs and then the seventh grade team um had a 17 and8 record so they were really fun to watch this year um in the middle at the top that bright light is a picture of um the Monroe County Electric Live Wire demonstration they came a couple weeks ago um and they showed you know the dangers of electricity and how live wires um you know students students need to know when being around electric stuff and they did this for every PE class so every student in the building got to see this demonstration and kind of a smaller group where they couldn't just kind of hide in the bleachers and not pay attention so um if that was that was a really great demonstration and they were very gracious to come do that for us um we're preparing for IR testing coming up April 3rd through 14th um upcoming grade level field trips each grade level has their own field trip coming up so the fifth grade is going to um Monro County Conservation at the Sportsman's Club sixth grade is going to visit Camp wartberg seventh grade is going to visit Botanical Gardens and the e8th grade is going to go to the movie theater to watch The Hunger Games movie which is going along with that book that they're reading in their class right now um we are going to have a couple of our um wonderful teachers and some of our amazing students show you just two highlighted um projects events that have been going on at CMS so I want to start with Amber Haven she's our fifth grade teacher one of our fifth grade teachers and she has brought three student students with her to share about um a recent project that they have been working on in class and um after her then we'll move on to miss dent and she's going to share about um our uh production drama production we had earlier this year so than go ahead okay um I am here to introduce you to the um experts in the smart motor field research project that we're in I'm just going to let you know who they are and a little bit of the background information and then I'll let the engineers talk to you um so Dr gainy Mrs Miller and Mrs M approved this field research project through um marville University in St Louis ultimately it's through Tufts University in Boston funded by the national sence National Science Foundation and um what they are doing is giving us these Smart Motors we are one of 10 schools in the St Louis area the only School in Illinois performing this field research um these motors are in front of you and the girl are going to talk to you about how to program them but what tus University is looking for is this um authentic learning environment to see how machine learning can help make classroom learning more tangible more efficient and more engaging and more meaningful so most of the schools nine actually out of the 10 have stem clubs and um art teachers who are doing stem in their art classrooms conducting this field research with 10 to 15 students at a time Columbia Middle School our fifth grade scientists are um 72 students at a time performing This research so ultimately what tus University is doing is they are looking for um us to build learning Ms and projects that are almost like um a recipe book so that when this is produced for the masses our research and what we've done can just be handed to other classrooms to use and to pick up easily so without further Ado we have um they're going to introduce themselves actually but we have fifth grade engineers and scientists who are going to show you one of their creations with the smart mots I'm memini and I was the programmer for the project I'm Marina Landry and I was the project manager for this project I'm Bley leafer and I was the artist for this project I'm going I stop you right there I do want you to talk louder okay okay great when you're coding the motors first you'll start first you have your box your motor and whatever sensor you're using with the project now for this project we used a we used a slide sensor because it was most beneficial now once you've plugged this in you can turn on your motor with the switch right here and it will turn on and like where's the switch right here on so when you arrive on the main screen you might see some data points in the box so you're going to click one of the buttons on the side until you get an X shown right here once you've done that you click this white button until all the data points are gone once you've deleted the data points then you press the button again on the side until you get a plus then you use the rotary knob on top of the motor to move up and down and whatever sensor you've plugged in to go left and right whenever you've put the cursor wherever you need it you can click the white button on the front of the screen again on to add the data points once you're done adding the data points you click the side button again until you get a play sign and then you press the white button on the front and might move a little bit and then you use whatever sensor you have two so you just you just coded this robot right so you and you deleted old data points with the X you added data points with the plus and then the play button remembers your data points and that motor on the top spins and moves have you ever walked outside and looked at your local tree and you may notice that there's a shadow there and and it varies throughout the time of the day and I'm going to explain how the sun rises in the East the it starts low on the it starts low in the sky the tree blocks the light from the sun creating a longer Shadow for that time of day at 12:00 p.m.

My computer's not open. That's okay. I would like to introduce an outstanding eighth grader at Middle School North, Mr. Cameron Trice, and he's going to lead us in saying the pledge of allegiance.

[Music] morning it's all good to see you is everyone ready for this incredible event this is my favorite day of the year it's going to be great it's great to be here again my name is Lauren Beckham Falcone and I will be mcing this event along with my friend here Andre Williams this is my ninth year moderating moderating the legislative reception and I am thrilled to be co- mcing for the first time with Andre who is a self advocacy liaison with the Massachusetts developmental disabilities Council thank you Lauren good morning everybody how's everyone doing to this fine morning that's really good so my name is Andre William I am a 32-year-old self- Advocate originally from sumerville Massachusetts and this is my first time ever coem seing the legislative reception and I am honored to be here today Welcome to our 47th Annual legislative reception hosted by the Massachusetts developmental disabilities Council and the Ark of Massachusetts current legislator legislators and state agency heads should check in at the legislator table to my left this is my left sometimes I have trouble I do it I just do this uh to so we can acknowledge your presence and we're thrilled to have our 2025 legislator of the Year awardees state senator Robin Kennedy and state representative Shan garulli they're here with us this morning and we're thrilled other legislators and officials who are here to support our community include we're going to do this you want to do it first I'll do representative Amy mang gilo representative Vanna Howard Senator James Eldridge representative Tara Hong representative how do you put tacky Chan representative strong garble representative Christine Barber my representative shout out to her representative Thomas moley Senator Robin Kennedy we have more representative Michelle Badger representative Paul J Donado representative Kathleen latra and there's more Nancy alterio disabled persons protection commission Cindy Howard Center for Hope Foundation Laura Sanford committee public Council services and there's more Sarah Peterson Department of Developmental services and Christopher clasen Department of Developmental Services we have a huge crowd today I want to make sure that everyone can hear so please remain silent during our program yes thank you so to begin our program what Kel kada is here to give the opening remarks Raquel is the chairperson of the mddc she also serves on the boards of several nonprofit organizations Raquel is the founder of the changing the world of people with disabilities foundation and a presenter and producer of its radio and TV program she is also a published author and a former lend Crocker and Newman fellow Raquel is married and has four beautiful children including a young man with cerebral py she understands the difficulties that many parents encounter while seeking resources for their children with disabilities that experience has inspired her to educate and fight for families facing similar issues particularly those in immigrant communities originally from the Dominican Republic she Raquel resides in haval welcome Rael [Applause] thank you so proud of you all right good morning okay let me see who have breakfast this morning good morning yes I'm so blessed and happy to be here today celebrate this wonderful wonderful morning good morning my name is Raquel Kara I'm a proud Latina woman with brown skin and M L back hair today I'm wearing my tan dress with old nav Blue Jacket feeling honored to stand up before you and of course my glasses because I'm getting old welcome ladies and gentlemen distinguished guests and fellow Advocate I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to Senator president Karen spila house speaker ronal Mariano a secret office of all Human Service and under secretary Mary magom legislated and state agency official for joining us of this critical day of advocacy thank you and congratulation to our all 2025 legislative of the Year Senator Robin Kennedy and represented Sean garelli big of Applause for [Applause] him your wory commitment to disability Community is truly appreciated today we honor your leadership and you now join the rank of priority disability legislator Champion many of whom are here today please let's give it a lot and another big of Applause to [Applause] them as a Andre mentioned I'm a proud Advocate mother of four children my son Shan Kara hasi in medical complex two also of my children have ADHD of course I'm the one have ad HD2 our community have come together today also to celebrate developmental disability awareness month but this year there is a dark cloud uncertainty the loom overhead given proposed chance they are being considered in Washington DC and in the course today those possible changes could impact medic a session 4 504 and us State Department of Education those possible changes could roll to the back a hard fight for the right people with disability who has been joined decades so this year team safeguarding a right through advocacy is more meanful than ever advocacy is not just responsibility it is necessary the right of individual with ability like all human must be firstly protected and continually defended whether is a come [Applause] on whether it's a asset to Quality Health Care inclusive education or economy opportunity we must ensure that no one is left behind our community continue to face significant challenge particularly du the system barric to has been made worse by the ongoing Workforce tries the potential closures or special education program and possible cup to Medicaid service will be impact the will of being of Corless individual the this is hard for me because my language Native is Spanish so be with me please this is why we must stand together rise our voice and advocate for policy that Foster inclusive and equal Society with people with disability advocacy must be a strong persistent and unwavering policy maker leaders and Community must work to together to ensure that individual with disability are not only included but actively engaged in shaping the policies that impact their life as a mother or child with disability I witness firsthand the struggle of individual families Indo every day challeng is accessing to education employment and housing and health care but also I witness the power of advocacy is driving changes like are we doing today it is our Collective responsibility to educate long maker is all about our need service how we can dismantle a barrier and create opportunity that allow individual with disability to thrive furthermore as a Latina I recognize those challeng as you can see today are even great for individual from diversity background language VAR La culturally competent resource and economy dispar create created additional Harless our advocacy must be inclusive of all Community ensure that equal is all heart of the fight let us work together to safeguard our right through [Applause] advocacy let us be the voice to educate policy maker and bring about change that is needed let us all inform law maker about policy that prioritize accessibility inclusion and [Applause] equally let us ensure that every day an individual regardless their ability background soci economic EST had the opportunity to live with dignity and live an independent life in our community together we can make lasting impact together together we can Safeguard our right I'm closing and I extend my deeply gratitude to each of you of your commitment and dedication to people with the development and other disability to our disability legislation champion thank you for being here today thank you for you unw verying support and Leadership we can know this alone our work is just beginning and through a continual advocacy and collaboration we can and we will future that that is more inclusive just and equal and is for all thank you so much have a good [Applause] day persistent and unwavering thank you Raquel before we begin the awards presentation we want to recognize more alleged lators and officials who are present can I I'll start yeah all right I'll start okay Rachel cailan from triangle Inc Jason F fogler from lend and Boston Children's Hospital Megan Chapman at fcsn Joshua kamyo from the mass Down syndrome Congress Anna Cook from work Inc Laura Sanford for the Committee for Public Council Services Lisa hwit cpcs Rebecca Davis fcsn Department of Transitional services thank you representative Adrien Ramos representative Rodney Elliott secretary Jones of Labor and Workforce Development and Katie Driscoll of CCI we are here this morning to honor our legislator awardees we'll Begin by recognizing Senator Robin Kennedy Senator Kennedy is a lifelong Worcester resident and serves as the state senator for the first Worcester District she is a dedicated champion of the Care economy we're focusing on strengthening services from Child Care to Elder Care investing in the workforce improving Regional public transportation and add addressing racial and health inequalities in her inaugural year Senator Kennedy was instrumental in advancing key legislative initiatives to enhance the well-being of Massachusetts residents with with disabilities she is the Senate chair of the joint committee on children families and persons with disabilities and she serves on several other key committees that oversee legislation impacting our community Senator Kennedy has championed several significant bills to support people with disabilities including the ACT to create affordable homes for people with disabilities an act to promote an enhanced care worker minimum wage an act regarding families and children in need of assistance and an act relative to consumer health data immediately before joining the Senate Senator Kennedy served as the chief operating officer at the Y the YWCA central Massachusetts we're excited to have Senate President Karen spilka here to present the ward Senator spilka has served as Senate President since 2018 Senate President spila has been a steadfast leader on disability issues since joining the legislature more than 20 years ago she received our legislator of the Year award twice in 2007 and 2013 she is a true champion for the disability Community thank you for being here today to help present this [Applause] award how are you good how are you it's good thank you good to see you too Hi how are you Hi good morning oh come on you guys can do better good morning much better much better I have to say it is really impressive and humbling looking out at all of you here today thank you thank you for coming here today for coming to the State House which is your house thank you for coming to advocate for all people with varying abilities and making sure our Commonwealth is the most inclusive and fair place it can possibly [Applause] be thank you Lauren and Andre for seeing this great job thank you so much it's great to see you and Mora and re Raquel Mary Peter for sharing his story and I do want to offer congratulations to representative Shan garelly for for getting this award as Lauren mentioned on I am very honored I have been uh bestowed this twice and it's something that I am very proud of I could not be prouder to be here to help present this award to such a deserving colleague as Senator Robin Kennedy before I talk about the senator and how great she is I do want to say a few things about the Ark of Massachusetts and the developmental disabilities Council you both organizations and all of you here are leading the way in this state to make us closer to an inclusive and supportive Commonwealth that all of our residents with varying abilities need and they we deserve [Applause] I want to let you know that I am on the front lines the Senate whole Senate is on the front lines and you are all right there with us thank you for that many of you may know this is personal to me I was the legal guardian and caretaker of my sister Susie who had Down syndrome who unfortunately passed away about seven years ago she has made such an impression upon me in my life and continues to ground me on days when it's particularly tough and the legislators either the Reps or the Senators know how tough this can be there are days when I wonder why am I doing this and I think of my sister Suzy and the answer is right there for people like Susie and others across the Commonwealth who need and deserve an inclusive warm welcoming Commonwealth that they can be as productive and self-sufficient as they can possibly be we all benefit from that so I want to thank you for helping to Advocate to make Massachusetts one of the best states in the nation in helping people with varying abilities thank you also on the front line is Senator Robin Kennedy the Senate chair of the committee on children families and persons with disabilities that was the committee I first chaired many years ago it had just been created and I was the first chair so it's a very important committee to me and I have to say I know it's in terrific hair hands with Senator Robin Kennedy as the Senate chair I'm very proud of her her and proud of the committee there is no one I'd rather take up the mantle than Senator Kennedy I am uh give me a minute I am so proud to be here to be able to acknowledge Senate Senator Kennedy I think if you've dealt with her you know you directly know how deeply passionate she is about these issues How Deeply committed she is and wholeheartedly from the bottom of her heart dedicated to making progress for all of the disability Community she is and and this is putting it mildly a fierce advocate for what she believes in she is unwavering in her mission to make this state to make this Commonwealth a better place most importantly she is thoughtful principled and a compassionate colleague who is very invaluable to the Senate's work not only on this committee but on all areas all of the Senate's work her North Star is simply doing the right thing and there is no one there is no one that can take her off course she has brought her leadership to the fights for fair pay for care workers increasing assistance for children and families and protecting our health data Senator Kennedy I am grateful that you are in the Senate and could not be prouder to be able to present to you today today's award congratulations thank you oh okay I think you probably want to get this right here hold that up and I'll see my speech on behalf of the mddc and the Ark of Massachusetts we're delighted to present you with this artwork called uh cing Bird hovering by Ashley Wolf Ashley if you're out there who is an artist at the Gateway Arts in Brook line Ashley is here in the audience Ashley hi you congratulations beautiful thank good job good job you want to pose for a picture all three of you apprciate there you go hold on one more picture no Senator Kennedy congratulations on being Massachusetts legislature of the year awarde and uh I think this is where you speak thank you so much thank you my goodness I am truly truly humbled and and slightly overwhelmed this morning uh certainly i i as as was mentioned previously I come to this work from the Human Service field as a provider like so many of you and moments like this uh still are are pretty pretty overwhelming and Incredibly humbling Madame President I am so incredibly grateful for your partnership uh for your mentorship uh for your leadership in the Senate and as you shared briefly today but I know we've spoken about so many times and she supported me in the efforts that we're trying to do through the committee so many times to make sure that we truly are pushing these issues forward and let's be clear it's not easy work there's a lot that goes before the committee on children families and persons with disabilities a whole lot of stakeholders with a lot of ideas on how things need to be done and so I'm incredibly grateful for your truly kind words and your support Ong the way and for bestowing the Trust on me to carry forward this committee for a second term I'm incredibly grateful for the honor to be able to return as the Senate chair and Mr speaker thank you for sending chair Livingstone back to work with me because uh we're a great partnership and we're looking forward to getting a lot done this year I do want to also acknowledge and say thank you to some of my colleagues in the administration that are here that I work side by side with uh day in and day out to to address these issues I see under Secret Secretary of Health and Human Services Mary McGowan uh Commissioner of DDS Sarah Peterson I see my my friend and colleague the Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development Lauren Jones here there's so much that we need to do that spans across our Administration across government across the Commonwealth and I would be remiss if I didn't also acknowledge Carla Richardson the State House Ada coordinator who I know loves when I when we acknowledge him but he he is truly the the power behind making making sure that everything we do here in our building in your building is truly accessible and I'm really grateful for all he's done to help myself and chair Livingstone make sure that our committee hearings are 100% accessible for every member of our Commonwealth from the birkar to Across the state making sure that everyone has the ability to share their thoughts and to be heard and so I'm incredibly grateful for that and certainly certainly to the Ark of Massachusetts and the massach us developmental disabilities Council thank you for this incredible honor and for your partnership over the past few years and in the partnership going forward I I often say with these recognitions to me it's not about the work that's been done it's about the promise and commitment about the work we're going to do forward so know that every time I look at this beautiful painting I'll be reminded and inspired to continue to do the work supporting our communities of all abilities goes beyond the legislation that we have before us it's about creating an environment where every individual is valued is seen is included and is empowered to thrive quality of life should never be determined by barriers to access or opportunity it is our Collective responsibility to break down those barriers whether they're physical systemic or attitudinal when we invest in inclusive education accessible Transportation affordable housing and meaningful employment opportunities we strengthen our entire Commonwealth by lifting everyone we make our Commonwealth the most competitive in the St in the country people with disabilities our leaders our innovators our artists our Vital contributors and your voices deserve to be at the center of the policy m polic making making a seat at every table possible and let's be clear everyone in this room knows it and I certainly know it if those most impacted are not driving the solutions we will not get it right we will not get it right this award inspires me to keep pushing forward with the support of our providers Advocates organizations that ensure that disabilities are at the Forefront of every conversation during these times of great uncertainty there is great pride in knowing that so many of us will stand next to our most vulnerable communities in solidarity to push the fight for a more Equitable and just Society there is still much work to do but together I believe that we truly can build a Massachusetts where Equity is not just a goal or a buzzword but is our reality and also we're not just going to safeguard our right to advocacy I am counting on each of you to be Champions alongside us to be Advocates alongside us to guide us to lead us and to help make make Massachusetts a better place again thank you to mdcc the ark and everyone here today for your unwavering commitment to inclusion to dignity and to Justice thank you so much congratulations thank you [Music] thank you Senator Kennedy and Senate President spila we are so grateful to both of you for all the work you do on behalf of our community we have more legislators to acknowledge before we move on Andre so we have representative Sally Karens we have Barbara lalion from the disability Law Center Harry Weissman executive director of the Disability Policy Center Josh Cutler from the executive office of Labor and work for Dev moment before we move on does anyone have a black iPhone missing it's on the arc table by the grand stairway if anyone has a black iPhone missing all right and then next we have Senator Ryan Fatman and representative JD Livingston all right so now it is time to repres to present the legislator of the Year award to a good friend of mine representative Shan garly thanks to him and his support to the mddc the ark and best buddies I am standing here today so thank you I am personally excited that he is receiving the recognition that he richly deserves representative garley has been dedicated to supporting individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities since he was first elected to represent the 23rd middle sex District in 2008 he was the lead sponsor of the higher education access legislation also known as the Massachusetts inclus inclusive concurrent concurrent enrollment initiative which passed into law in 2022 [Applause] now this groundbreaking law allows people with Autism and intellectual and developmental disabilities to attend college and have inclusive higher education experiences making the Commonwealth of Massachusetts the first in the nation to do so representative garelly has been successful in passing legislation for health insurance coverage for children and individuals with multiple sclerosis extending AB PA coverage for people with Down syndrome in forming a disability leg commission to study the history of our state institutions he is a lead sponsor on multiple bills that are legislative priorities to both for the mddc and the Ark of Massachusetts rep garelly has been instrumental in budget advocacy and is a tireless voice for individuals who are turning 22 and transitioning into Adult Services representative garble received this award in 2015 and now joins a small number of legislators who have received this honor twice so we are pleased to have house Speaker Ron Mariano here to help present the award after many years in leadership roles in the House of Representatives representative Mariano was elected by his peers as Speaker of the House in 2021 in 2016 representative Mary IO received our legislator of the Year award in recognition of his dedication to and support of the disability Community House speaker Mariano and representative garble please come up to the [Applause] podium stepped on all my lines Ste on on my lines here you go hello he's lucky he's as big as he is because he stepped on all my lines he talked about all the things I was going to talk about and unfortunately there isn't a thing I can do about it he did a far better job introducing sea than I could ever do uh he he is well aware of of Sean's background and his commitment to all the issues that you folks face you know it's great to see this crowd here today it's always a great turnout but it seems to be especially crowded today and it has to be because of the folks that are getting the award I know Shan from the day he walked into the house of represent this has been his issue it's his issue in All Phases what he can do for kids what he can do for adults every month is disability month with Sean Gaby he is committed he's committed to to writing all the little wrongs that create the second class citizenships that you have to endure he has worked in the identify them he brings them up at every opportunity it's his commitment and his force of will that gets us here that gets me involved in issues that I didn't understand I had to ask him to explain that whole concurrent uh name of the ability file I didn't know exactly what it did but I do know whatever it does it helps everyone in this it helps everyone in here today um it's a little disconcerting now I'm hearing I'm hearing voices uh but again you know Sean is SE has this is his second time winning this award I I feel humbled to be even here introducing him he should introduce me uh because I I've never never won anything twice so I'm lucky I won the speakership once more than once yeah well but I am I am so happy to be here and I'm especially thankful to the to the O and and the new director for for honoring Sean because I think you can never honor his commitment enough because it is a daytoday year toye commitment to that transcends the legislative year transcends his legislative business it's how he lives his life I and that's probably the most important thing I can say about him it is how he lives his life he's concerned about people he's concerned about the issues you face wants to be helpful and gets to work and he has a partner now man it was just an accident that we Jay but I appreciate I appreciate the the the uh the comment but but it is it is funny how that works sometimes the Partnerships are just hit it hit it right off and we are very fortunate and one of the other things is that Jay Livingston who is the new chairman and Shawn are close and I'm sure Shawn will have his ear on a few remain in causes that that uh Sean has and is concerned about but again I am thrilled to be here for Shan uh I I think it's very special that he's been recognized twice uh and I guess I'm going to turn it over to him because I could Andre took all my all my Kudos that I was going to give him for all the bills I don't have anything thank you very much thank you so thank you Mr Speaker good morning um first of all Andre thank you so much for that kind warm introduction thank you for your incredible advocacy we met each other starting at Best Buddies I can't think of uh anybody I would rather have introduced me than you and uh I know representative Barber is your is your I know representative Barber is your favorite rep you want to my second favorite person to ever introduce me speaker Ron Mariano I can't think of a speaker who has been a champion for this community you know he's very humble and so I don't know what the higher red bill was he knew what it was he helped get it past it will not have happened without him last [Applause] session last session in the House of Representatives speaker Mariano was the one to lead the effort to make sure the House pass the ABA insurance coverage bill for young people with Down Syndrome critically important we've been waiting we've been waiting 15 years to get it passed and he did it speaker Mariano brought the ban of the RW to the House of Representatives and we passed it and you know when I went to Majority Leader Mariano at the time about the higher red bill I talked to him about it and you know he doesn't talk about his background as an educator but he had many students with autism and down Center him and he told me Sean it was the right thing to do that this bill is the right thing to do but we need we need to make sure the language is right to make sure that students with autism and down syndrome can succeed in every classroom in one of our 29 public higher red campuses and Sean I'm going to help you do it and he kept his word and it took over a decade to get it done but m shett became the first state in the country in law to have the Macy program codified so thank you Mr Speaker for your leadership I am so humbled and grateful congratulations to the Ark of Massachusetts and the mddc on your organizing ability on your Effectiveness when it comes to policy um I couldn't have a better group of friends uh to do this work with with and I'm so grateful to both outstanding organizations Mora I know you were just came in from Chicago you were out at a healthc care conference and so thank you you know she's new to the helm filling the big shoes of Leo sarisan isn't Mara doing a great job give her a round of applause and a a warm a warm congratulations to my friend senator Kennedy on your well-deserved award you have been a champion for this community so thank you for your incredible work Al along with my friend chair Jay Livingstone and the committee on Children and Families we can't wait to see what you get accomplished this session I want to thank uh my staff that are here my colleagues staff across this building Advocates and self Advocates who are here today nothing gets done in this building without the staff and that's the truth and if you've met with your staff you know that and so to all the staff who are here today thank you so very much it's also great to see former recipients our great speaker of the house is a former recipient of this award I know we saw Christine Barber John Law uh Barbara lalian my friend Jim Brett a former recipient of this award is here as well there are many in the room thank you so much you know this is my favorite event of the year it really is it's a great event crowded beyond measure but we gather here at the State House your state house as Community Partners Partners legislators legislative staff Advocates self- Advocates we all come together at a time when this Federal Administration is working on a policy of zero empathy and they're literally working hard to implement harmful and malicious cuts to Medicaid we must be engaged on every level you know we you know we come here to celebrate our wins right with accomplished a lot together every single person in this room but we unite together for the challenges ahead and what does that mean Massachusetts must always put inclusion and opportunity first and that means several different things that means education that means higher education that means employment we care about the interaction between those with autism and police we care about the interaction between those with disabilities and the hospital they choose to get their care we care about the caregiver who has to change their loved one on a concrete floor because there's no changing table and we care about the employee wants to continue this critical work but can't because they just can't simply afford it well this is a room full of Partners and we will continue working together this term I am humbled by this recognition I am humbled by your friendship I am humbled by this outstanding Speaker of the House have a great day hold on hold on hold [Applause] on so on behalf of the Ark and the mddc I am happy to present you you with this batt fish painting by Deborah bski who is an artist with the gateway art Deborah I believe is in the audience can Deborah can you please come to the stage let me get are call so R garelly thank you so much for fighting so hard on so many pressing issues in recognition of everything you have done to support people with Autism and ID we honor you as our Massachusetts legisl later of the year [Applause] congratulations Rob [Applause] garelly congratulations representative and thank you Mr Speaker for joining us here today we are so glad to have the opportunity to honor our legislators of the year and we thank them for their leadership and hard work if brings us hope knowing that you're in our Corner fighting for the supports and services that are so critical for people with developmental disabilities now we want to represent recognize more uh legislative Champions who are here today for 47 years we have celebrated legislators of the year in the state house in the representative and House of Representatives and Senate some of our past honores are here today please notice they are wearing their legislative Champion lapel pins and they were presented with a special challenge coin earlier this morning at this time we ask that you stand up and wave so that we can acknowledge you thank you so [Applause] much thank you so I just want to say thank you all to all of our legislative champions for the work that you have done over the last years and decades to safeguard our rights and improve the quality of life with of PE for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities here in the state of Massachusetts we applaud you and we all appreciate you thank you so much just another quick shout out to representative Jessica janino and representative Kristen castner before we continue with the program Andre and I want to share some information about ourselves and why we are so passionate about being involved with this amazing Community I am lbf of the Bob and lbf and the morning W radio show before waking up at 3:30 in the morning for the past 14 years I was a reporter for the Boston Herald I was also a regular contributor to Boston 25 doing the cable news WGBH I was on TV a lot it's scared me um I'm proud to be but I am very very proud to be an honorary board member at the Massachusetts Down syndrome Congress I'm also a graduate of the Massachusetts families leadership series and a longtime friend to the Arc of Massachusetts mddc I live in Canton with my husband Dave who's over there that handsome fella and my daughter Lucy Lucy has Down syndrome she's also smart funny the greatest dancer and loves sporting the latest Styles though I I sometimes question the matching it's okay though she gets it from her aunt she loves to watch movies she watched Tootsie last night so that's a really good rewatchable highly recommend five stars no notes she is a good and thoughtful friend to everyone she meets she remembers their names and birthdays and if she doesn't she'll just ask you she's a graduate of K high school and is now enrolled at the Capstone program at the cotting school which I love in Lexington and she turns 22 in June Lucy Rose Falcone AWS me with her humor her determination she has opened a whole new world filled with perseverance gratitude and so much joy and a world that includes all of you and that's what I'm so grateful for Andre here's your turn thank you Lauren so for those who don't know me here are some fun facts about me I have worked with the Massachusetts developmental disabilities Council for 12 years thank you in fact this event was the first time that I started at the council I love working with the mddc self- advocacy and training team on trainings that help people with self-esteem employment and legislative advocacy being a part of the council for all these years has been an amazing experience I have also been involved with best buddies for almost 20 years I'm dating myself can't help [Applause] it and I recently won an award for the spirit of inclusion at their evening of opportunity Gala back in November so for those who don't know what best buddies is it is a nonprofit organization that helps people with disabilities find true friendships with people without disabilities helps them find jobs and also be self- advocates in the community now being involved in these awesome organizations has helped me to become a better self- Advocate and share my story with people like all of you here today so thank you thank you as many of you know the Massachusetts developmental disabilities Council also known as the mddc or the council is an independent state agency dedicated to empowering people with developmental disabilities and their families to enjoy full productive lives by promoting self-determination Community inclusion and opportunity the Ark of Massachusetts is a disability advocacy organization dedicated to enhancing the lives of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities including autism and their families each year We Gather in March to observe intellectual and developmental disabilities awareness month this year's legislative reception theme is safeguarding our rights through advocacy as we all know that many of you may be feeling really uneasy right now I know I am there's so much going on in our state in our country and in our world the mddc and the Ark chose this theme for the exactly that reason advocacy can help ease our anxiety and it is critical to protect the services that so many of us here rely on today is a day of empowerment where we can all work together our legislative reception gives us a chance to educate lawmakers and each other about the needs with people with DD and their families so they can enjoy a brighter future it's also an occasion for all of us to celebrate our amazing Community yes that's right so one right that I cherish is my right to live in my community and see my friends now earlier today some of you shared the rights that are important to you these essential rights are on the sign to my right there are so many rights that people would disabilities have fought long and hard for we are all here today to amplify the importance of safeguarding our fundamental rights through advocacy now we extend a warm welcome to everyone here in our audience including those who could not be here in person and are watching our event on YouTube We would also like to express our appreciation to over 50 organizations that are co-sponsoring this legislative reception this year they are listed on the sign here at the front of the room information about many of these organizations can be found on the co-sponsor resource table outside the great hall now we encourage everyone to check out these value Partners now if you are also on social media please share your photos and your experience here today and if you haven't had the chance to take a selfie with your friends colleagues and or legislators be sure to do so after the program ends now we would like to take a moment to thank everyone who made event this event possible the staff at the mddc the ark and the offices of our legislative Champions and the State House events team give them a round of applause cuz all that hard work come on they deserve [Applause] that we also want to give a shout out to State House Ada coordinator Carl Richardson who works hard every day to ensure that people with all types of disabilities can participate in democracy at the state house and we also want to thank Community work services for providing the food and drinks and our cart transcriber and ASL interpreters for our accessible Communications thank you guys so much [Applause] and we also want to thank the house broadcasting and legislative Information Services teams for their assistances in securing a live stream of today's event hello to all who are watching at [Applause] home at this time it is my great pleasure to introduce Mary mun who is the Commonwealth under secretary for Human Services prior to to joining eohhs in 2023 under secr secretary mun provided executive leadership to the massachusett society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children for nine years before joining mspcc Mary held various leadership roles in Massachusetts state government including chief of staff for the eohhs and Deputy Commissioner for the Department of Youth Services we are so grateful you are here today to share Governor Hill's Proclamation and announcing March as intellectual and developmental disabilities awareness [Applause] month I'm this way thank you I'm gonna Tu it here I think there we go um good morning um my name is Mary mcyo I'm the under Secretary of Human Services at HHS and it is my pleasure to be here today thank you for including me and I also want to extend my congratulations to our legislative Champions um and for all the work that you do every single day on behalf of Governor hilly and secretary Kate Walsh I also want to thank all of you for all that you do and the voice that you give to the importance of ensuring that individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities have the opportunity to work to live and to learn in communities across the Commonwealth since assuming this position I've appreciated the willingness of so many people in this room to partner with HHS and to support this work and our ongoing efforts will be even more important in the weeks and the months to come so I have one job to do today and it is to read the proclamation so let me get right to it whereas over 200,000 children and adults in Massachusetts have intellectual and developmental disabilities they reflect the rich racial and cultural diversity in our Commonwealth and whereas all people with intellectual and developmental disabilities can live and work in the community to do this they need the right supports and services they are entitled to these supports with the right supports they can live and com they can live and work in competitive integrated employment with the right supports they can live on their own in the community with the right supports they can learn alongside their peers individualized supports results in full inclusion and whereas people with intellectual developmental disabilities should be able to choose what they want for their lives this is self-determination selfdetermination improves people's lives when you choose for your for themselves it creates more opportunities when people choose for themselves they can thrive in real jobs for real pay when people choose for themselves they get a better education when people learn about decision-making and choice they are more independent when people choose for themselves they can be healthier and whereas many community members Provide support and care to people with intellectual developmental intellectual and developmental disabilities support can come from family members and Friends support can come from professionals and other community members these supports are essential whereas we recognize and value the important work that direct care workers do each day so that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities can live fulfilling lives whereas in Massachusetts we recognize the importance of safeguarding the human and civil rights of everyone in the disability Community we invest in services and supports that allow people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to live full lives we imagine a future where all people with intellectual and developmental disabilities work live and learn in the community whereas in March we celebrate intellectual and developmental disabilities awareness month we recognize the value of inclusion we recognize the importance of supports and services we recognize that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities make the Commonwealth a better and more diverse place to live on behalf of Governor MOA hilly this proclaims March as intellectual and developmental disabilities awareness month thank [Applause] you thank you under secretary mum for joining us today now we are so lucky to live in a state where our leaders value the rights and contributions of people with disabilities now more than ever we truly appreciate having you on our side our next speaker is parent advocate Peter Wyman Peter is the adoptive dad of four men with intellectual and developmental disabilities aged 21 to 35 and he is the guardian of a young man living in a residential placement Peter has worked in the Human Services field for 46 years 35 of which have been been at Seven Hills Foundation as a family support provider Peter describes his life as unconventional and out of the box and enjoys traveling abroad with his family please give a warm welcome to Peter and the Wyman [Applause] family see okay oh no no I have a visual okay wait see I can't see well in case you didn't know I have a a visual uh challenge right now um so I'm going to be reading like a fourth grader and my daughter is going to take over the second page and I need to find it on a lighter note before we get into the meet and potatoes of things I just wanted to announce that Jacob Jacob can you raise your arm yes Jacob is going to be representing Rick and Dick Hoy this year in the Boston Marathon and he's going to be wearing their bib which is the equivalent of an Oscar award for for a dad like me so CJ over here over here I'll get right into it obviously you know that my name is Peter Wyman and I'm here with my children Jared CJ Jacob and my soon to be 18-year-old daughter Ava as long as as well as with my son's personal care provider Jonathan who I could not do this without I wanted you all to meet Miguel and marel as well but this would be sensory overload for them so I need to respect that so they are not here but their story and the story of families like mine needs to be heard I stand before you today as the single father heading into my senior years I'm already in my senior years raising children with complex medical and behavioral needs my family is probably the most diverse family in this venue today each of my sons came into this world fighting for a better life thanks to the sacrifices of their birth parents their stories are filled with unimaginable strength sacrifice and more from a mother fleeing the Cambodian genocide to a young pregnant woman traveling from Ethiopia knowing that she was carrying a child with Down syndrome and could not provide for him to a teenage mom who came here on a boat from Cuba who didn't even know that down syndrome could not be corrected I honor these parents every single day by being the best father I can be unlike many I chose my family's constellation after 13 years working at the Dr Franklin Perkins School I knew the kind of children I was best suited for they were the children that often others did not understand due to extreme behaviors that made folks shy away but that was my forte learning every facet of a person ity building Rapport informing relationships but those kind of relationships take years to develop yet in the Human Service world where Direct Care staff turnover is constant there is rarely enough consistency to build those deep bonds when I started at Perkin School in 1979 at the age of 15 my first paycheck was 365 an hour and I was proud of that I worked 14-hour days and I was paid $5 night to sleep on the floor in case there was a fire I was responsible for a unit of 10 children called the junior boys I stayed with them until I turned 29 years old at which point I adopted My First Son Jared who's over there and I lost my [Music] place I'm sorry to this day I continue to provide family support to several local families families very similar to my own and I have done that for 30 years today nearly 50 years later direct care workers make just 19950 an hour when you do the math that's an increase of 42 cents a year since the time I was 15 years old we say we value our most vulnerable members of society but our pay rates tell a different story families like mine rely on these workers to survive and yet they can't even afford to stay in the field without a livable wage we will continue to see a dangerous shortage of skilled caregivers today I'm here to ask you please take a serious look at why direct care workers are leaving the field and why so few are entering it the reason is obvious many cannot sustain themselves on a current wage these are the people who care for our most vulnerable citizens yet they are paid so little that they forced to work multiple jobs just to get by we need to ensure that direct care workers receive a livable wage so that we can recruit retain and truly value the professionals who make Independence and stability possible for individuals with complex needs like my sons without them families like mine and countless others will face impossible situations this is not just a Workforce issue it's a crisis for families like mine and individuals who rely on essential caregivers so let's act now to fix it hi everyone thank you for having us today um my name is Ava I am Peter's oldest daughter and I'm here to ask you what kind of state do we want to be Massachusetts has been a long leader in services for individuals with disabilities but there are still too many cracks too many unknowns we need need a livable wage for Direct Care staff so we don't lose the very people who keep this system afloat more capacity at DDS to track and respond to the most complex cases in emergency respit care and long-term Housing Solutions that provide stability for individuals with severe needs there should be no more we don't know what the budget holds in 2025 no more there's no placement available no more waiting for a crisis before action is taken my dad started his journey in this field in 1979 as he approaches his later years of his life he'd like to know he wraps up his life on a high note with no strings left untied we have the ability to create that future the question is will we thank you job ni job thank you Peter and family for those powerful words we are grateful for all of your hard work and dedication to the disability Community your advocacy and leading by example to empower individuals and families skip that part yeah skip that part so after the event this event is over we encourage you to visit your legislators and their staff and to share your stories with them you can also post a photo on social media with your legislator here at the State House please tag the Ark of Massachusetts and the mddc so we can share it as well our social media handles are in the program as well the more people who know about the great work your legislators do the better okay our next and final speaker is Mora Sullivan who will give the call to action Mora Sullivan is the chief executive officer of the Ark of Massachusetts she took on this role in November after a decade of leaving leading government Affairs and operation house call MOA has been a dynamic Force within the Ark of mass her advocacy is well known and respected so much here on Beacon Hill she works with the stakeholders across the branches of government and has been instrumental in the passage of crucial legislation MOA has helped significant increases in state budgets for the Department of De developmental Services Mass health and the workforce and we are eternally grateful Morris's focus on Health Equity has led to a passage of legislation and growth of operation house call a training program that equips medical and nursing students across Massachusetts with the skills and mindsets needed to care for individuals with ID and autism Mora exemplify amplifies the voices of those with profound and complex needs and she strives to uplift and Empower self Advocates caregivers and family members to share their stories and impact policy so come on up [Applause] Mora oh boy good morning everyone what a thrill to be here for my 10th year uh delivering the call to ction but to be here as CEO of the Ark of Massachusetts and to be here as the first parent of children with disabilities to lead the Ark in 70 years thank you so much for your support to today's speakers have been extraordinary Peter you and your family embody strength and love and Str structure and freedom and humor and Grace thank you so much for lighting up this room today but now I must ask you to brace while I speak to the current deeply concerning environment these are challenging times for The Ark and our Community Federal cuts and and executive orders will directly impact Us in Massachusetts we need our lawmakers to hear us and stand with us more than ever Medicaid is a Lifeline education Social Security the workforce and Dei these are support programs that are vital for people with Autism and intellectual and developmental disabilities in their families advocacy is essential to safeguarding our rights to these fundamental services so Advocates are you ready to step up all right the ark is ready also thank you to our entire staff who are working incredibly hard and many of whom are here today and I want to specifically thank and recognize my government Affairs team Nora bent Jose Lopez Charlie Fisk and Kevin Chavez I've also been really lucky to learn from an incredible leader Leo sarisan who is here today and he really taught me that in tough times you roll up your sleeves and you use every tool the ark has available to support families thank you Leo for your mentorship where you are in the face of Crisis like Workforce shortages and devastating Federal policies we find strength in leaders like representative garelly and Senator Kennedy how can they and all of you support us now we must focus on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts our services budget and legislation to uplift the workforce restore access to services and address the unmet needs of those with complex conditions so let's turn now to our call to action number one and and this is for the advocates everyone must be an advocate and I know you're tired of hearing me say that um but look around the room and feel this Collective energy this is our power the ark represents over 250,000 people in Massachusetts we need them all but we're also here to represent those who can't be here today those whose voices are not always heard so we need you to activate your passion for for this community respond to and share every action alert even if you think you already did it do it again um build relationships with your lawmakers and their staff and share your stories and then hold those elected officials accountable okay number two this is for the lawmakers thousands here in Massachusetts still remain without Sur Services they're isolated regressing forcing caregivers to leave their jobs investing in human services must be a top priority through the budget and legislation along with our partner advocacy organizations we ask for $100 million for chapter 257 the workforce rate Reserve this funding would maintain last year's momentum and raise the wages to $22.69 an hour uh the people that are caring for our loved ones that are caring for my children deserve more than that but especially in this tough budget year these incremental increases are a crucial step so yeah I'm going to take a short detour here to share some good news about the workforce um as you know the ark is all about legal change but we're also about social change we do this every day with our programs like operation house call Pathways to friendship and we do we were so lucky to actually receive and be awarded a grant from the federal government from Senators Mary and Warren and this grant will allow us to actually put $1.6 million into a Workforce campaign that will be a culture change we're so excited about this um and The Campaign Will basically emphasize the value of this work in this field it's a powerful Statewide marketing campaign and it's called with all your heart so keep an eye out for it because we need every effort as you know turning 22 and Community Day programs are suffering because of this shortage of Staff we need your support for turning 22 in Community Day programs it's unacceptable that 2,500 adults are still waiting for services the Turning 22 Cliff is worse than ever caregivers especially single parents are struggling people with profound autism and complex medical conditions are often left behind with an additional $10 million we can impact this weight list if Workforce shortages prevent funds from being used we must enforce the transferability to family support or Residential Services there are so many other critical areas where the arcs actively engaged self-direction Residential Services education support and more everyone with autism and ID has different needs and it's our job to show up for them in all the spaces where they need support lastly we need to pass our bills our legislative agenda this session focuses on a livable wage for the workforce ensuring Health Equity and promoting inclusivity and opportunity lawmakers you've recently heard from over 1,500 constituents about this agenda co-sponsor these bills strengthening policy in Massachusetts will help us fight back against these Federal cuts and threats we need every Massachusetts lawmaker to stand with us to engage with your leadership often and vigorously working together I believe we can write a different story and prepare for this uncertain future now I have the honor of thanking some people who made today a success a special shout out to the ark and the mddc teams to our artists again including our artist Carmela salvucci who made the beautiful state housee artwork that Graces the cover of our program and to the wonderful Gateway artists that were up earlier too and my deep gratitude to Lauren and Andre you guys were extraordinary today and to our wonderful co-sponsors as well so we encourage you all to meet with your legislators share your stories find the mddc and Ark staff they're out there at the doors to help you find your way um and try to fill out our program survey uh online um and I just want to end by saying I am so honored and proud to be part of this community especially right now let's carry each other through this and thank you for being here now go advocate [Applause] [Music]

hello everyone we are here at the Ashland Senior Center celebrating Gabriel majuan uh Gabe he turns 100 today yeah how are you feeling at 100 Gabe good yeah good and old yeah good and old good old so I noticed that they gave you at some point they gave you an honorary high school diploma just after the war because I didn't go to I didn't graduate right right and they had they gave me the town gave me a high school diploma Y at the uh School up here what's that school what's now the middle school well I I saw the picture of it and the the pr the superintendent at this time was Richard Hoffman yeah that's right okay yeah okay wow so what was that like going back and getting that well it's an hon to have a diploma you know because you know you miss all the prom and all that stuff you know right right right what what has been I mean you've gone through a 100 years of life what has been your favorite thing or what what in your life has given you the most Joy horse your horse okay I love horses uhhuh that's when I bought that horse with the uh bonus money they gave us from the service yep they gave us $200 I think it was and that's when I bought the horse for $20 right and I had them for a couple years and I love to ride horses just love horses and I was when I was growing up only English I knew was from the radio m mhm cuz my folks would talk the a regular the language Daniel you know y so is that Italian or no I mean Armenian okay so only English ad was from the radio listen to the L Ranger okay yeah oh wow so when I went to school that's when I picked up the English but I I didn't know no English at all the town's grown see when I was growing up there was I I think maybe 1,500 people in town yeah and was say three SL win yep and then U one police chief Y and I had a lot of trouble with him and then there was um was hardly any hardly anybody here yeah and and when you came back did you have any interest in getting involved in either the local government or running for a board or yeah I ran for um I ran for planning board once uhhuh and um there was five other guys running too oh wow and the guy that one was the one that owned crossy Grove you ever heard of that I have heard of that it was gone before I came to town but he's the he's the one that won the planning board oh wow and I for me being a young guy I still got 200 and some OD vots that was surpris good for you and you never decided to run for anything else again no no no too busy we had a farm we had thousands of chickens you know oh wow thousands of chickens I didn't realize that oh yeah we we had 5 ,000 brds oh my goodness yeah I wish you the egg price were higher Now 50 cents a dozen right right yeah how things have changed yeah yeah yeah well Gabe it's it's been a pleasure for me getting to know you over these years thank you and happy to see you hit a 100 yeah me [Laughter] too and uh yeah keep celebrating okay we'll celebrate again at 101 yeah okay I don't know if I'll make it then well let's I'll try yeah sounds good well that's our interview with Gabe uh also has been called Mr Ashland um and many other things

thank you Gabe happy [Applause] birthday it's an honor to be able to be here and to celebrate Gabe turning 100 his history here in Ashland has been amazing and that is certainly seen by all of you being here to help celebrate Gabe turn 100 says whereas Gabriel Gabe majuan is being recognized on his remarkable occasion of celebrating his 100th birthday and whereas Gabe has reached the Milestone of 100 years of life signifying a remarkable Journey filled with contributions to our community and Beyond and whereas Gabe grew up in Ashland and attended Ashland Public School as a member of a class having 25 students and whereas Gabe enlisted in the United States Navy at the age of 17 he was stationed in Brooklyn New York before returning to Ashland after World War World War II and where he's not that old now therefore we the select board do hereby Proclaim Thursday March 20th 2025 as Gabriel majuan day we encourage all family friends and residents to join us in recognizing and celebrating his contribution to our community and we wish you Gabe continued good health and good fortune thank you very much you know over my time here um I've gotten to know you have some uh colorful conversations with you um one thing I love about you is you will never ever ever sugar coat things um you always tell me like it is and that is so refreshing in this business let me tell you have something very special for and what that was was something called the Boston Post can now who has heard of the Boston Post cane raise your hands if you knew Tara Ward you definitely knew about it because that's all she could talk about for a few years but the Boston postc was given out by a newspaper about you know in 1909 actually um and it was given to every single City in town that's 351 in Massachusetts um actually I think there were four more at that time it's another story but uh and it was given to every oldest living human in each City in city in town in Massachusetts was to celebrate the oldest living resident and ours had disappeared over the years over the century go figure and until it was found uh by this uh resident given to Cliff who then gave it to terara Ward and that was her crowning achievement as this town but u g I am here to present this to you today as ashlin's oldest living resid and I have a cane for you from the Ashy and this one you can have happy birthday my and then word of your birthday got out and so we have a couple more citations uh but read this one Dave citations are good things it doesn't that's true uh okay he was getting his wallet out though so you yeah I missed my opportunity uh so the Commonwealth of Massachusetts the House of Representatives be it hereby known to all that the Massachusetts House of Representatives offers it sincer congratulations to get in recognition of your 100th birthday the entire membership extends its very best wishes and expresses the hope for Future Good Fortune and continued success in all Endeavors given on this 20th of March 2025 uh signed by myself your State Rep uh and the Speaker of the House congratulations I mentioned word got out the governor and the lieutenant governor all also signed uh their own uh citation celebrating your birthday uh I I'll read a line from it your 100 years are a testament to the power of love and beauty of a well-lived journey the Commonwealth celebrates you on this joyous occasion and wishes you all the best in years to come signed on this 20th day of March 2025 signed by Mory and Kim Driscoll this one at least looks like a birthday card uh this is from uh us Senator Elizabeth Warren uh throughout your life you have displayed strength of character and commitment to your family and Community people like you are what makes Massachusetts so special uh signed by our us Senator Elizabeth Warren and last but not [Applause] least we have one from Senator Ed Marque as well in celebration of a remarkable life on this occasion of your 100th birthday and in recognition of outstanding and invaluable service to your community congratulations and then we have one last one from the Senate President so on behalf of the Senate President we also have a citation I'm not going to read all of it for you but we just want to recognize your 100th birthday and everything you do for our community I never thought I was that well known and Tom anyhow I want to thank everybody for coming and thank you for everything you've done for me thank you very much hello everyone we are here at the Ashland Senior Center celebrating Gabriel majuan uh Gabe he turns 100 today how are you feeling at 100 Gabe good yeah good and old yeah good and old good and old so I noticed that they gave you at some point they gave you an honorary high school diploma just after the war because I didn't go to I didn't graduate right right and I had they gave me the town gave me a high school diploma Y at the uh School up here what's that what's now the middle school well I I saw the picture of it and the the pr the superintendent at this time was Richard Hoffman yeah that's right okay yeah okay wow so what was that like going back and getting that and well it's to have a diploma you know because you know you miss all the prom and all that stuff you know right right right what what has been I mean you've gone through a 100 years of life what has been your favorite thing or what what in your life has given you the most Joy horse horse horse okay I love horses uhhuh that's when I bought that horse with the uh bonus money they gave us from the service yep they gave us $200 I think was and that's when I bought the hor for $2 right and I had them for a couple years and I love to ride horses just love horses and I was when I was growing up only English I knew was from the radio M cuz my folks would talk to a regular the language they know you know y so is that what Italian or no Armenian Armenian okay so English ad was from the radio listen to The Lone Ranger okay yeah oh wow so when I went to school that's when I picked up the English but I I didn't know no English at all the to's grown see when I was growing up there was I I think maybe 1500 people in town yeah and it was tree s wi yep and then uh one police chief yeah and I had a lot of trouble with him and then there was um it was hardly any hardly anybody here yeah and and when you came back did you have any interest in getting involved in either the local government or running for a board or yeah I ran for um I ran for planning board once uhhuh and um there was five other guys running too oh wow and the guy that run was the one that owned crossy Grove you ever heard of that I have heard of that it was gone before I came to town but he's the he's the one that won the planning board oh wow and I for me being a young guy I still got 200 and some OD votes surpr good for you and you never decided to run for anything else again no no no too busy we had a farm we had thousands of chickens you know oh wow thousands of chickens I didn't realize that oh yeah we we had 5,000 bruts oh my goodness yeah I wish should the egg price were higher Now 50 cents a dozen right right yeah how things have changeed yeah yeah yeah well Gabe it's it's been a pleasure for me getting to know you over these years thank you and happy to see you hit a 100 yeah me too yeah and uh yeah keep celebrating okay we'll celebrate again at 101 yeah okay I don't know if I'll make it then well let's I'll try yeah sounds good well that's our interview with Gabe uh also has been called Mr Ashland um and many other things

Oh, here here. Here. Thank you. If you could join us for the pledge of allegiance, please. To the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands. One nation, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Well, hello to our two student representatives who will kick us off with some news we can probably use. Go ahead. Lots of news. All right. Good evening, everyone, and happy first day of spring. I hope I hope you've all been enjoying the warm weather because things are really starting to heat up at CHS this spring. Our peer health educators unified sports basketball tournament last Wednesday was a resounding success for everyone involved. I lost my spot. There we go. Players from each school had a great time with all the activities and Chesher High's volunteers had a blast helping run the event. News 8 even came to cover the action.

Mr. Eckie here. Mr. Grippa here. M here Rosenberg Mr. White. Thank you. Uh let's all stand for the pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. So, I'm excited to uh see what we have for hands-on science instruction at the elementary level. And I will turn it over to Miss Salano. Well, thank you, Miss Herrian. Super excited to showcase our two science teacher coaches who because of approval through the board of education budget last year, we were able to hire both Stephanie Lopez Smith and Stephanie Conungle. We are very excited to have them talk to you tonight about the program that they are running with fourth and fifth grade students across the district. um with your help and with the help of the Cheshire Ed Foundation, they started this year off with robotics instruction with robots for all of our students to use and they have delved into in the second semester aggracience.

For people participating remotely, please remain muted and video disabled until shortly before it is your turn to testify. When I call your name, unmute yourself and your time will begin. After your minute is completed, staff will mute you so that we can move this hearing along in an orderly and efficient manner. Okay. Our only item on this agenda is House Bill 1088HD1 relating to school impact fees which exempts housing developed by the Department of Hawaiian Homelands from school impact fees. [Music] testify superintendent. [Music] Good afternoon, chairs, vice chairs, members of the committee. Ducha, deputy superintendent with the department of education. The department stands on its written testimony provide and provide providing comments on this measure. The department is open to working with the legislature and the department of homes and is open to eliminating the construction cost impact fee for DHL. probably as as well as any other government affordable housing developer.