um and your powerpoint presentation is in your pocket starting with page two i just want to remind you of the budget cycle that it goes um around so even though we're in this year this school year of 21 22 i'm still my brain is still in the past year of 2021 i'm working on closing the books and wrapping up the audit for those uh the expenditures and revenue that came in so we're doing the other actuals and then in december i'll come back with the first interim financial report for this current year of 2122. so just a reminder that questions about this year are not going to be addressed in this report this is about the prior year page three this is an overview of all of the unrestricted and restricted revenues and expenditures that have come in if you'll notice the unrestricted revenue it was 44 million dollars and expenditures was 30 million dollars this does not include uh contributions to uninstructed i mean two restricted funds such as special ed and the restricted maintenance fund [Music] so what i want to do is look at the total fund on the right-hand side because that does take into account the contributions the revenues from the total fund was 58.6 million dollars and expenditures was 53 million dollars the beginning fund balance that we started with on july 1 2020 was 9.6 million dollars we had an increase in fund balance of 4.5 million dollars leaving us with the ending fund balance of 14.4 million dollars i looked back at second interim in 2019 and through 2020 and that was before covet hit and we anticipated that in this year we would have an increase of 564 thousand dollars so we are well above that and a lot of it is just savings from kobe using funds for expenditures that we would normally use our general done for and i'll get to that in a later slide so when we look at ending fund balance we have 37 000 which is unspendable which is our stores and revolving account restricted funds are 2.57 million dollars the 3 reserve is 1.59 million dollars and that leaves us with an unassigned balance of about 10 million dollars looking at the next slide four this just shows us for the past three years uh how we've compared with revenues versus expenditures in 1819 we had a surplus of about a million dollars in 1920 a surplus of 230 000 and then our surplus that i mentioned this year page five are our contributions we contribute 1.6 million dollars to the required restricted maintenance account and our special education drew 6.87 million dollars from our general fund this year i do use unrestricted lottery that comes in and this is just a graph that looks at our unrestricted ending from balance and it shows how it jumped from 1920 to 2021 as a result of the funding that's coming i want to remind you that these funds are considered one-time funds so we as a district are looking at how to expend these funds not only our coverage funds but about these one-time funds that are falling out at the end of the year i created a budget committee and we all met and came up with ideas for needs for the district we asked principals to talk to their parent groups we asked them to talk to their staff meetings we had union representation there i had adult ed representation there family resource therapy name i can't remember representation there uh our maintenance supervisor so we tried to get everybody involved from all of our departments and there was a shared google spreadsheet and everybody can just add ideas of where they thought and then a smaller group then looked at those needs to see which were feasible and we prioritized them green yellow red and took those green ideas and are going to put them into place ideas are an el coordinator is needed because our el population scored lower than our special education population on test scores and so we really need to make sure that the curriculum is meeting their needs the program that we offer their needs we are looking at an educational technician educational technology teacher so we are bringing technology into the classroom and we have teachers who are not really um may not be used to that and so we need to provide support for them so that we go ahead and provide the best curriculum that we can which is often technology-based so our budget committee is looking at looking at these funds and how they confess with these participants so with them being one-time friends and we're talking about bringing on staff how how are we handling that cliff the code relief fund should last us three years so when we bring on staff we know that it's a three-year proposal hopefully through attrition we'll be able to keep these great employees that we're getting or as we build new schools hopefully we can just transition them into those positions yeah i think i would be more more concerned about keeping the positions i mean i'm concerned about keeping the people obviously but also the positions so i mean i'm hoping that we will be able to come up with some sort of funding or adjustments that would allow us to keep things down we obviously need them right so correct we do need that you know and maybe as we grow we'll get more i'll say that funding and be able to the strategy we took is knowing that the funds are one time not just getting rid of it all in one year we try to stagger it out you see a bulk of it when we come back we'll be personnel so we have intervention we have our specialists there they're out as long as we possibly can with also the other ideas is there's already rumors split around there might be another pot which we still will love that we can help to extend some of these it gives us time to also evaluate the success and the um progress or growth we're making with those individuals too so we can kind of analyze what's making the biggest impact for our students and we have a lot of one-time expenditures that we're spending the space funds on for instance a new server the wi-fi is not great in our district so we're looking at adding some whatever makes it work well i think the other was the hvac that's a two million dollar project around hvac and improving the hvac sorry he's telling that he's saying that just for me because it's like a program what about the ajax so looking at enrollment unfortunately it is still going down it's hard to judge right now during the pandemic some people are choosing to do homeschooling or go to some charter schools study based charter schools and so all we can look at were the numbers we have today and i looked on this was as of september 2nd there was our enrollment was one hundred sixty and then i looked today and it was four thousand one hundred twenty two so it is it's still flowing down looking at the next page or ada we are funded on current year or prior year so because current year is going down we are funded on prior year but prior year was 2021 when we did not take attendance so it goes back to being funded on 1920 and so you'll see that we are we're offended on 415.44 ada for 1920 and 2021 and 2012.
the goal is to make sure that we have systems in place to automate it so that we don't it's not a manual process that somebody forgets the first or second and then we're then it turns into a very difficult to manage program so we're going to work really hard going backwards and clean up and i would add to that um i would rather have the program and developed it the way you are than not to have the program so if it's more work we'll do the work if you want to split it um i would just like the opportunity to have this program and attract employees so if that's the will of the board and you'd like to split it and you like to make it six months awesome let's do it and and we'll do what the will of the board is we'll make it work i wonder though um don if you're if it matters that this the 50 50 piece of it it's the actual employee that referred the individual that gets the reward so really the 250 and then kind of enticing them to stay that's not they're not getting any of that money it's more like if i refer you you have to so i have no control over whether you stay or not obviously it'd be me but the big secret with these employee referral programs is that you usually split it with the person i don't know those things hopefully the deal [Music] i don't know i'm more comfortable with doing the 250 at the three months and the other 250 at the six months but i think it puts a little bit of onus on on the you know pre-existing employee too to kind of maybe hold their hand and mentor them hey just checking in how's it going and maybe having that person that's solid with them whether even if they're at a different school i mean they can just cut do that constant touch point with them and hey can i give you any direction you know who to go to for this who to go to for that you know what are your what are your barriers that you're coming across and that way it's not one of their maybe not necessarily a direct peer of theirs or a manager of theirs it could just be a sounding board i don't know i i think it could really bridge some gaps too in the process yeah my biggest thing was the sixth month rather than three so i i'm fine with compromising start showing up i want my 200 right wow that's a good point is there a performance qualifier with this like if they were on some sort of step counseling i don't i don't know what you call it i feel like let's just keep this pretty simple let's just keep it so i was just curious paper trail nightmare um if i am the employee and i've made a referral and i know that referral is wherever and i don't get my 250.
so you come into a caocula match-up what's the key to getting another conference victory and working your way to our conference championship go ahead coach uh well i guess you're gonna get the standard answer but it's uh blocking and tackling better than they do no i you know games like this you're gonna go into a hostile place uh it's gonna be you know it's gonna be noisy like it always is they haven't beat us in um uh ten years eleven match ups so you know it's it's uh they're gonna their kids are gonna be fired up and so with their student section and so you know how can we uh how will our young kids uh handle that that atmosphere you know you gotta be able to keep that even keel and then you know the obvious with turnovers and things of that sort but honestly it's going to be how are we going to respond because their kids are going to be super excited they're going to come out ready to smash us in the mouth and we're going to have to match their intensity and and their aggressiveness if we don't it'd be a long night if we do then uh you know i like our chances and you know that's something like you said all the extracurricular i believe it's their homecoming i heard an ring ceremony and they're getting baseball yeah they're getting their rings so like you said you're gonna be you're gonna be behind the eight ball right off the bat so i have to come out once again quick and score in a hurry so offensively what are we expecting to see or i guess free briggs defense what are we going to be doing offensively well i mean you know we for us with having such a young team we do what we do we can't can't change a whole lot but uh what you're gonna see from their defense is what we always see from them they're gonna you know they're a seven in the box style of team they're designed to stop the run and uh they're gonna send guys all the time and they're gonna be aggressive they're gonna take chances so it opens them up for big plays there's an opportunity there for big plays if you can execute them you have enough time throw football you know we put in a few new formations and little gadgets i think this week that could lend itself to us but there's some big plays but again uh until you you still got to establish the line of scrimmage if you don't do that none of those plays work anyway so i i foresee uh uh i foresee it being a being a tough game but you know we were talking earlier about the stopping teams on fourth down and you don't like second long you know the most important down in the night for our team anyway i don't i think all the coaches think this way uh it's not when you convert on third down or when you stop a team on third down it's really first down first down's the biggest down in the game football in my opinion because if you can be faced with a second three a whole lot different than second ten or second eleven you stop the other team on the decent side of the ball and at second and ten or eleven for them rather than second four you know you've got them where you want because now you don't have a lot of plays in your playbook if you're hoping to get ten eight nine ten yards you know you want three or four yards so that'll be a big part of the game to uh to tomorrow night and their defense that is pretty solid i mean they gave up six in week one versus sparta 21 points first nashville uh then they gave up 40 and 20.
looking at other funds we have 2.4 million dollars in fund 17 our special reserve uh mr lair talked about having a deficit regarding building on the school this is a special reserve that could go towards that if needed it doesn't nearly cover the short haul but it is available for that they have 520 our other post-deployment benefit fund and there's 1.4 million dollars in that fund and then actually in the trust is a half a million dollars and then our in our developer fee fund we have uh 7.1 million dollars he's coming every day so i'm sure we're up to 7.5 million at this point just to note that we don't want to move anything from 20 right unless we're i tried to give a little bit of a snapshot of how we may have saved some of this money this money's falling out so on page 10 the first line our certificated staff salaries extra hour substitutes in 1819 we spent one million dollars in this area 1920 890 000 and then last year 475 000 so about half and just start extra hours and substitute payments and then if you go down to fuel and oil in 1819 we spent 109 000 in 1920 96 000 and then last year just forty thousand dollars so that's how it shows one-time money i have to put back the 108 thousand dollars in this year's budget because we're back in school and the buses are moving again so um so it was a one-time savings that we just got before schools were closed and page 11 we were able to move a lot of expenses from the general fund to the kobe fund team and so here's a list of our major expenses all new duty costs while schools were closed moved to copenhagen out of our general finance 200 000 some nutrition services costs removed 770 000 all of our transportation department costs were moved to and that's 678 thousand dollars to go down the list it totals two and a half million dollars that i was able to take out of the general fund expenditures and move them to the code of relief expenditures again that explains where this this windfall comes from moving on to the last page page 12 our code relief funds our total allocation of proven money was 25 million dollars which is about half of our budget we expended in 2021 6.4 million dollars 21 22 we've committed at time of on august 31st uh 4.3 million dollars we've committed more since then that was for salaries that committed amounts for non-salary so 670 000 dollars the assigned meaning we know we're going what we're going to spend it on was 11 million dollars so our leftover money from poverty funds is about three million dollars listed below what is assigned mr lair uh mentioned the ajax systems at the north country nchs for now that's two million dollars uh continuing summer school continuing the salaries that we have in place increasing our health staff and behavior specialists it was an overview of last year's revenue expenditures the auditors now will look at it and then they will bring back their report on the united um i thought it was a lot of flies over my head so i'm really glad thank you dr lee do you have questions uh no i just also want to express appreciation to ms coronado breaking this down in a way that we can understand on the health staff are those the social workers or are those different from the social workers those are different from the social workers it's in addition to the social workers and so is that nurses or what are those for just to help with the testing that we have to do with our staff so they're not nurses just for claire they're they're health techs so they're they're folks that do some functions so to true our ends we have some lbns we're contracting with but we do have their health tech so we can have one person at each school site and then and then in addition i just want to thank lisa for everything she did closing the books right now is hard enough but with the multitude of new funds and cash coming in it's a daunting task and um you know over the years you can see it's always trying to get towards that labor day mark and uh you can see in the business office the way it was this year so i appreciate everything you did to make that happen because i have to mention they don't just give you one pot of coconuts like nine pots all the different requirements but i just eat check feature so it's fun i'm glad we have the ones this is what scott and i were talking about yesterday so you must wake up at 3 am and go i wonder if i could move that and use common funds for that thing [Music] okay um i think we need a motion do we have a motion to approve the unaudited action oh i'm sorry i'm sorry no worries did you have more questions no i don't know oh okay great and this is anderson seconded we have a full college dr lee hi mrs anderson hi thank you lisa this is paul called the chairman so item e is taxed by zero and moving on to item business item f resolution number five slash 20 21 22 gan limit resolution i believe lisa is standing there it's just a formality in the 70s a lot was passed to make sure government spending didn't get out of hand and a limit is established based on the the 70s number and then they add in inflation and added population growth and come up with a new movement each year and anything over that limit for the state government has to be returned to taxpayers 50 and school's 50 percent and then we also have to have our limit and we can't exceed spending too the limit always stays under inflation in that population growth so we've never actually had to be concerned about it so it is just a formality that we just passed this limits any questions to approve so move second all seconds a future meeting dates regular meeting wednesday october 20 at 6 pm right here and uh suggested agenda um i spoke to mr weir in regards to asking mr jordan who so graciously said yes to adam to the agenda if um for a little update on yeah so mr jordan and i talked one of the things we've been i don't know wrestling with the wrestling with is how do we keep you guys as informed with like progress on elk progress so there's specialized progress with our el students progress so what we're going to do is come up with kind of a pattern to keep you updated we're doing some i ready stuff you know how do we sort of data when we get the results from some of the panorama surveys how can we show so it would be a good placeholder for us to bring forward some of that stuff and if we don't have anything we'll we'll stand up there very and i guarantee you we will be filled with something and then um the other thing i would like is come december if ryan miranda would come and speak to the board about some of his um his department and what's going on i'm sure ryan would love to brag about his department i have an item but it's not for the regular board me and just wanting to get on the books our next board workshop for planning for uh want to do that but we don't want to get into december because i know people get busy with the holidays and october is off the table [Music] trustee pump is out of out so if we could look at november and i have a couple of agenda items suggested agenda items for our next meeting um first a discussion item uh for updates about the vaccination mandates for k-12 students um i'm hoping that we um superintendent blair and the staff can bring us some updates and and if folks have things to say that they'll bring it to their instead of to individual board members um and then action an action item also um to approve our board participation in the um california school board association equity network training um something popped in our inboxes and i reached out to michael hammond from there um it's a year-long network provides support for superintendents and two trustees to really collaborate and build capacity to govern through a lens of equity um it sounds like a great program i i talked to folks who participated in it they said it was great for their government's team um so i would like to bring that as an action item to approve our our participation in that i remember him though yes yes trying to reach all right any other agenda items chairman entertain a motion out of here oh
you know they're going to call and say excuse me but i haven't received my 250. what's the problem and then it gets fixed so i mean the employee's gonna who the referral person is gonna be on top of it too and we have a process that we've talked about um in place or ready to put in place where during the onboarding process they have to identify in the application process and during the onboarding process so they will be asked they have to i have to say ken hicks on my application piece and then as we onboard them in hr my regionals will verify that that's who has referred them and that's how it will go so very structured procedure with that and how they get referred okay go ahead no i was just going to say let's try emotion to see how it floats madam president members of the board if uh mrs brown can read the the proposed language that she captured from your discussion thank you motion to approve an employee referral program for current employees with five hundred dollars in parentheses two hundred at three months two hundred i mean 250 at three months and 250 at six months for recommending employees to the district that are hired and maintain employment for the fiscal year for the fiscal for the 2021-22 fiscal year yeah there you go we got it tracy so moved second all right let's get it done i have a motion by tracy sawyer sinkhole seconded by joe grant i can't even spell my name thank you very much motion passes thank you thank you very much for presenting that to us your creativity yes we appreciate your hard work yes okay moving to item iowa and request for future agenda items okay i will move to adjourn the meeting second second did i miss grant you think okay i'm getting old motion passes meeting is adjourned
so their defense like you said they do give up points but they do have the ability to not let up any points either so uh going to have our work cut out for him with the 11 game win streak like we said on the line the last loss came 13-7 loss in 2010. we were just talking we bid on a hitch and go late in the game and we had the ball at the two-yard line had a personal foul down there at the two we don't score we end up losing the game so these are free bird game it's always one play away from something changing and the outcome changing in the game so defensively coach germain got your work cut out for you typically at run heavy offense 308 yards out of their lead back with 34 carries 160 out of their secondary back but they got a couple guys who have getting 25 23 carries so seems like there's gonna be four guys that could get the ball at any given time yeah they've played you know four games just like we have and uh if you look at the stat sheet the quarterbacks passed the ball about 80 times and the running backs you know carried the ball 40 times they've got several running backs they've got a puff they've got they've got an abundance of kids who who rushed the ball for them it's going to come down to assignment football like it does every week all right i mean we've talked about this before alex and jared if the guys up front do their jobs and linebackers do their jobs in the secondary they've all got jobs to do you know we've got keys that we're going to key in on you know certain formations we're doing certain things but it's the ability to understand when they're in this look we've got to be in this level so we've got to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt that we're going to be in the right spots you know and if they're fast-paced hurry up quick tempo type team which i couldn't really tell on film if they're that way our kids are going to have to make sure we're in the right spot so it boils down to execution no different than on the offensive side it all starts with the guys up front doing their job and then that makes our linebackers and secretary's job a lot easier so what's your favorite coach warner favorite free bird moment out of 21 seasons now is there a pick two yep okay so probably 2003 would be my first one whenever we beat them at their place the first time we'd beat them in a long time with your brother's group uh and your cousin nick that that ranks up there but probably the best moment was the playoff game at home in a game that some would say we probably shouldn't have won but uh you know we pick up a big play get a uh get a fourth and short get him to jump offsides and then come up with a gadget play and ronnie hunsaker runs over a kid in the end zone to win it for us so that was probably my biggest moment coach g what do you got i would say 2008 both of those were right up there but i would say 2008 kind of like when the uh the defense scores three pick six is you know 20 points puts 20 21 points on the board for the uh for the offense and coach is kind of looking at me like i want a chance to play so yeah we had three pick sixes in that game uh that was pr that was pretty impressive in the first half yeah and both both teams were undefeated jared you got a favorite game right now your senior year i never really i never lost so they're all my favorite there you go i remember coach hoyner my senior year he came up to us we knew we were in a dog fight we knew that uh they were just massive across the line i think it's about the second half i looked at you you looked at me and you said i don't know what to do right now i've tried this i've tried that we ended up getting in the end zone um went seven nothing they scored luckily they didn't have a kicker made it seven six and then they had the ball within the 10-yard line late in the game and ben don't break mentality coach germain keeps them from getting in the end zone we win the game seven six and you know a win is a win we don't tackle we didn't keep them by the end no the kids the kids the kids did yeah but no yeah good yeah there's a lot of great memories um playing free burgers let's hope that we can make another good memory tomorrow night we were gonna be live tomorrow night at 6 30 once again we're gonna have a modified broadcast um we're gonna have we'll figure out how we're gonna have it's gonna be a modified broadcast but we will be live with the aces wild pregame show at 6 30 and coach fermin you got a shout out for a new fan we have two weeks ago my daughter works in the hospital here in the area and uh has a kid that our football team signed a helmet for and he's been watching us for the past two weeks so i just want to give a shout out to tony and we're all rooting for you buddy and hopefully everything works out well for you and we we appreciate your support and go eagles there you go well that's going to do it for us this week five coaches corner presented by houlton meats coach horner coach jermaine good luck tomorrow let's bring home another eagles victory and let's get above 500.
welcome to the september 23rd 2021 electronic meeting of the environmental commission this meeting is in accordance with executive orders from the governor to affect social distancing and mitigate the spread of the covered 19 virus we intend to conduct this meeting similarly to an in-person meeting however please be patient if there are technical issues public comment will be via telephone only to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call 877-853-5247 [Music] or toll-free also nine 888-788-0099 and enter meeting id nine eight seven one four nine nine one two three eight this information is also available on the published agenda and the public notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on ctn channel 16 at t channel 99 and online at www.a2gov.org watch ctn so galen would you like to read the land heritage statement sure a land heritage statement i acknowledge that the land the city of ann arbor occupies as the ancestral traditional contemporary lands of the anishinaabe including ottawa ojibway and bodhiwadmi and wind up peoples i further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the united states our lands obtained generally in unconscionable ways from indigenous peoples the taking of this land was formalized by the treaty of detroit in 1807.
okay time is 7 p.m we will call the meeting to order and we'll start with our public hearing and kimberly if you do a roll call please here also like to welcome the visitors here this evening thank you for coming and participating in our meeting that you're here um item three for our agenda is our public hearing for the 2021-2022 school budget all right well this is a tentative budget um that we do every year the budget's conservative worst case scenario um the last few years have been what i call extremely variable you know it's a bit hard to really budget and you've got to just plan for the worst and so historically we've always ended up in a better financial place than what we've budgeted we expect the same this year that said the key points are really on page two lines 22.
our mission statement here at center grove is to develop knowledgeable confident and responsible citizens through inspirational and innovative learning opportunities if you all stand for the pledge of allegiance please i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice let me be clear if there's interruptions we will recess and we'll be doing this all over again so it's up to you and and how you decide to behave it's that simple okay our first order of business is the adoption of the agenda do i hear a motion mr president i move that we move the public comments section of the agenda to under action items thank you mr alexander do i have a second on that i'll say good thank you mr hubbard all those in favor say aye aye mr thank you mr daniels motion passes five zero okay so our next order of business is the consent items do i have a motion on the consent items mr president i move we accept the consent agenda as presented thank you mr alexander thank you mr hubbard yeah there's a reason i'm reverberating i think there were too many okay thank you pam okay i have a first and a second on consent items do i have those in favor say aye aye those opposed thank you mr daniels motion passes five zero we're now moved down to the action items our first one is tentative collective bargaining agreement dr arkanov thank you mr russell uh this evening sorry turn this on thank you mr russell this evening i am going to provide well i'm not but mr taylor's going to provide you with an update on the work that we've been doing with the teachers association for collective bargaining agreement this evening's information is just that information the board will take no action tonight um so with that i'll turn it over to mr taylor thank you before again i'd like to recognize mr david lawson's in the room with us he's a co-president of the united teach association of center grove and miss peggy young's watching at home they were instrumental in reaching this agreement with us so i thank them um this uh this meeting's been properly advertised 72 hours in advance for the purpose of sharing the tentative agreement there will be a second meeting on this agreement on monday for the board to formally approve it there'll be no action this evening and i'll just be sharing a summary of the tentative agreement in whole the board plans to offer and we've reached an agreement to to increase salaries by a total of eight percent five point eight percent of that is basically a cost of living increase across the board increase on the salary schedule another one and a half percent of that goes to row advancements so teachers who were here last year and stayed with center grove would advance up in the scale and then we do column changes for another portion of that percentage teachers who earn a new degree would receive additional compensation and then finally we well we have a salary matrix we added a row to the very top and dropped a row to the very from the very very bottom and all those things combined increase our teacher salary from it was just over forty thousand dollars to forty four one sixty nine for a new teacher and it was about seventy eight thousand dollars for the top of the scale it's now eighty five to eighty nine this is a monumental raise for our organization in our corporation this is uh due to the increase in funding from the funding formula and the biennium budget passed at the state level this past year now there's a lot of news on that back in april and may and i'm pleased to announce the board put that right back into teachers pockets and really did a great job with that it'll be a three and a half percent increase for eca positions in the contract we also are adding and removing a few uh eca positions this is something we do annually some of these come from the teachers some from the corporation and then unfortunately health insurance is a continuing struggle and um just due to some high claims cost we are going to have to do quite quite a significant increase nowhere near the increase that folks will see up above but it's a 12 increase for teachers and a 13 increase for the corporation and the corporation pays a vast larger majority there four or five times the amount so that 13 is much larger not changing the hsa contributions this time but we would like to close the ppo plan effective january 1st 2022.
we are live hello out there in wildwood land our first assembly of the year and we are under one roof miss estes miss ellis the first time so we're hoping that everybody's connection is working and that you can see miss allison and i on the big screen so welcome welcome so nick what does it mean to be a welcoming school that is what we want wildwood to be i would say a welcoming school is a place where as soon as people come through the doors that they can be just the person they are you know love the things that they love feel comfortable talking and sharing with people and that they're accepted and that they thrive here what do you think i fully agree be who you are because you are great to us and we are welcoming to you how you come i love that idea so this assembly we say that we make a promise to our new students those students who are thinking that this is their first year they're not thinking that this is their first year at wildwood they've been with us just these first four weeks of school and as we welcome them you can think about how you felt when you were new everybody was new here once so are you ready miss allison i am i am so excited so let's see these beautiful beautiful students who have come to wildwood the way this assembly works you're in your classrooms and you can put things in the chat okay it says it's hard to hear nick oh no oh no all right i don't know if this can help let me get my headphones okay miss allison i'll do the first one cause i'm so excited this is angie angie's in grade two angelina loves riding her bike helping her mom feed three birds four fish and one cat named prince she's a very big helper and loves to help people her favorite color is purple just like me hi let's see you got your headset now nick okay just i hope this helps out there where i don't know maybe miss being owen can let us know you sound a little muted to me but let's see read this one nick let's test it okay so this is ava in grade two ava loves her pony fox her dog gypsy and her chinchillas she loves doing cartwheels and is also great at drawing ava has had a great show season this summer winning lots of ribbons at horse shows she's also a great big sister wow ava i've never been on a horse okay that's worse it's worse oh boy it was better before all right nick you're muted now how's that everybody it was better now and we keep trying go ahead miss allison you go ahead put lily up grade six lily lily likes playing outside with friends skating and swimming i love swimming too her favorite foods are pizza and spaghetti i love pizza too she loves her family very much and i love them too lily it's so special to be a sixth grader we're gonna pack in seven years into that one year at wildwood thank you for welcoming lily who's next emmanuel emmanuel in grade one emmanuel loves playing basketball and video games his favorite food is also pizza a manual nice as you're seeing these people you can cheer for them in your classrooms if they're in your class and even if they're not even if they're not all right who's next eliza she's in the third grade eliza likes reading climbing riding her bike irish dance and sewing and quilting wow wow fabulous welcome to wildwood eliza we have a whole family coming up here dominic is in grade five he's the oldest brother he loves cars superheroes sports and food wow he wants to be a fireman when he grows up a firefighter thank you dominic for helping out the community and his sister sisters ava she's in third grade and ava loves dancing ballet listening to music and playing with her baby dolls oh when she grows up she wants to be a teacher wow fantastic ava we need more great teachers and last but not least xavier the younger brother he loves dancing telling jokes and making people smile wow get this everybody when he grows up he wants to be a doctor to cure kovid oh i love that welcome welcome everyone so this next slide can you all see it yeah there are words for welcome in every language of course in english it's welcome if you take that and put it together well come i am so i feel so good i feel well that you have come into our school into my house into my home what other words for welcome can you see on this sign or in your classrooms you can raise a hand if you know a word for welcome or it could be hello in another language invite miss katherine to come on too because she has traveled all around the world hi catherine hi friends hello hi everyone out there i know that you have traveled around the world before you came to wildwood and then you had a very special trip to morocco where your husband is from right this summer yes yes i had a wedding in morocco and whose wedding is catherine my wedding and did you feel welcome there i felt very welcome um and i can share i can share two words in arabic that mean welcome one is the the actual transluce translation of welcome is marhaba um you can try saying that yeah and then um another thing that is often said to mean welcome is assalamu alaikum which means peace be unto you and if someone says that to you you can respond with alaikum salaam which means peace back to the person who gave it to you beautiful let's try that you say it to me okay can we repeat what she says it's hard to say sometimes so i'm going to repeat that so what you say is salaam i don't remember salaam we can all learn words for welcome words for hello in different languages did you know at wildwood we speak over 20 different languages so that's something that we can say to each other teachers who are out there if your students have told you a word for welcome you can put it in the chat and we can say it i better i hope to see bienvenidos because i know there are some children out there who know bienvenidos everyone especially this month is national hispanic heritage month that's right no heritage month and we'll be talking about that in a bit all right so let's go on to the next slide of welcoming students who do we have next you go ahead ms allison i will i get to introduce melissa she's i think she has a sibling as well so alyssa's in grade four likes to play with her friends read ride her bike me too she also likes to dance and listen to music oh i love that fabulous melissa and her brother is raphael he likes he also likes to ride his bike play basketball and play with his friends in the park awesome and zev is in second grade and likes playing for hours outdoors anywhere with water and sand building lego ships and making cool robots and vehicles out of recyclables from his invention bin exchanging pokemon cards with friends and reading listening to stories and i'm noticing miss allison that uh mr k's class put two words for welcome i think the first one is a tough one for me to pronounce it might be in finnish that mr k has learned yeah my grandfather was from finland wow and then mahali put in hola hola hello spanish yes thank you mahali all right let's move along after zev wow we have xiaozu and grade one and she likes to play with her pets one dog and two cats a brown border collie looby a black short-haired cat named luna and a white rag doll this is called a ragdoll cat check that out her favorite lumi shown in the picture she also likes to draw pictures read books play the piano try different types of sports or just have fun in the backyard with their friends and we have been learning all about each other's pets during this covent time so yes we have your pets all right next go right farther is serenity in second grade likes painting and drawing and playing roblox and following her favorite youtuber and she's shown here with her kindergarten sister soraya and we will be welcoming the kindergarteners as a group because there are so many of them oh yeah yeah all right next week stars all right we cannot have an assembly without our shining stars and always every month we asked the staff at wildwood who has been a shining star and this month we talked a bit about welcoming and we recognize there are many many many we're all shining stars really but so we every month we just mention a few um with names that have come from our staff you want to do the first one on the bus because welcoming on the bus is super important so on the bus the adults after asked if anyone could speak spanish and help a new fort river student who is a spanish speaker juan hernandez oh in grade five quickly volunteered and spoke to the student helping her know where to go and what to do thank you joanna and also john's a fifth grader you know we really do expect and look to our fifth and sixth graders to be leaders on the bus oh yeah all right next we have mr k nominated carlos as a shining star these are mr k's words he says that carlos has been a model student he's always in the right place he tries everything whether it's a strength or something that challenges him he's been kind and welcoming to his classmate and he's frequently looking for ways to be helpful i love that the next one comes from miss tomasick at second grade recess so if you're in second grade listen up she nominated aija asia jarrett for her kind and friendly helpful behavior during recess asia stopped playing to help a friend who didn't know how to tie their shoes her kind act made it possible for the friend to continue playing and stay safe oh we agree with you that this is a kind action that makes asia a star thank you asia and we'll be talking about recess and introducing some important people who are out at recess every day in a few minutes and then from miss applegate we have a terrific trio and really i have to say miss applegate's whole class has been welcoming our new students in that class but the terrific trio are yaya winnie wynn and urela uriella and they have gone out of their way to welcome the new students in the class bella and angie and they went up and said hi to them and played with them and they've been so friendly to our new students in second grade so thank you to that terrific trio and miss applegate class and to the whole class really nice job miss allison the next list is long it's long and you know it's also a large group of people but they a lot of people been helping miss mastryani oh my gosh these sixth graders they are helping miss mastriani by helping her set up and clean up for lunch because those kindergartners need help sometime and the sixth graders can help they are leaders they are so leaders sama reed onyx derek drew b pia salma youssef melanie amber valeria that's a lot of names so thank you sixth graders um and miss bastriani actually said that more people alison want to help really we will be asking all of the staff at wildwood do you need help with anything because we have fifth and sixth graders who like to help they are the leaders of our community we have other students who like to help as well so just send allison and uh an email and we can find people to do the work that needs to get done around here i love that idea let's go for it thank you so much sixth graders moving right along to our next batch of new students who could they be well it's ellie in grade three likes cream pasta with chicken and ellie likes to run and do jump ropes ellie has one older brother ellie lives in hadley with her family hi ellie hey ellie welcome to wildwood coming up after ellie is sophia also in grade three and what these photos are making me hungry she's eating ice cream in the photo but she likes swimming at the beach gymnastics i don't know what this is but it says playing roblox oh nick you i'm gonna show you it's fun all right so we can have a game of roblox i guess whatever it is all right next who do we have oh igbo in grade four likes playing sports soccer and basketball drawing painting and video games fabulous welcome iguay and dennis dennis is in grade two he loves playing outside art puzzles playing with his brother who used to go to wildwood is now in high school cousins and friends welcome dennis and for this next one we didn't have a chance to get a picture but izzy wants everyone to know that they are really into saying hi and would love you to come up and play with them thank you izzy moving on ah peaceful playgrounds here we go so the peaceful playgrounds we're going to invite a few people on to our who are super important we're gonna add them to our stream so welcoming austin mr b and [Music] and josiah hi everyone hello hello hello so this year we are putting a lot of focus on recess as recess being the time when you know it's super important for welcoming and for our new students but for really for all students so the question that we're going to be asking everybody is what would you hope recess to be for people so we have hired new people right we have josiah now and robin joining austin and mr b is taking a role of like coordinating and teaching games to these fabulous staff members right to develop ideas for recess so welcome to all of you can would you mind just saying a word or two about like a few words about what you would want for recess to be you want to kick it off mr b sure thank you um so i am so happy to be working with these three people to make recess better and we've been talking about it in pe and um i've noticed the excitement um students are really happy uh about a different kind of way to go about recess um and it ties in with our welcome assembly right here um i envision uh we envision recess to be a welcoming um place as well so you know everybody we talk we're talking about this too and pe everybody has different skills some people have been playing soccer since they were two and some people haven't tried it yet and we want recess to be a welcoming place where people can come in and they're unsure of their skills but still play and have fun and the people who are more skilled who've been playing longer they can go about a different way maybe they can pass and help teach um new people to the game and then that way everyone's having fun and more people are learning and loving the sport and we're accomplishing our main goal of being active and also we all want to bring different games to recess we don't want to just have soccer basketball foursquare or actually you students out there know who you are foursquare gets a little different out there um but not just the same old team old we want to add some games that are fun that we do in pe or otherwise um to mix it up and make sure everybody's getting involved who wants to um so i'm very excited to work with this crew and everyone else who's out at recess and um yeah we're looking forward to making it better great all right how about you austin do you love about recess what would you like to have happen uh i agree with mr b i think we should have more games so the kids to get involved you know um yeah i mean um so i can really think about for right now sure so austin i i think we're gonna get some ideas but maybe also the students can come to you and to robin and josiah with ideas that would be awesome okay great all right robin josiah how are you doing new staff members any thoughts about recess what would you want it to be i've been bouncing some ideas with allison um to make recess a little bit better and i have some plans up my sleeve but we haven't kind of figured it out correctly yet um i just want students to have a good time out there and really get along and help each other out and look for each other and there's a lot of new students so you know pulling them into the games that they're already playing and you know just be inviting because the school is inviting beautiful how about you just not that you're robin yeah i just really want the new uh the kids to be encouraged to join in and play games with other kids and for the kids who are more skilled to show the uh maybe less skilled kids uh how they play the game and how it works and a good way to work together and work as a team great well thank you very much you know you're the ones that will be out there there will be other people joining you so i want the students to look out there and see austin josiah robin and they can go you to go to them if there's anything that you need help with um because recess is also about solving problems solving problems peacefully so thanks for your work thank you thank you thank you everyone and we'll see you soon all right all right here we go we go on to the next one person speaking of recess excuse me miss allison okay uh could i get back on stage here catherine i'm so sorry we have a surprise guest we do we do yeah is that okay catherine if you can just put me on there i just want to introduce the surprise guests are we ready okay here we go oh my goodness it's a great day for ducks robert ducky you're the one you make bath time so much okay get the hook come on come on come on let's go play together all right okay all right that was just a brief intro what do you got there all right new students it's a great day for ducks and here's liam in grade one hi liam he likes games toys going on walks hanging with his brother and baby sister he also enjoys playing basketball and loves yay we're here on the last group so many new students to welcome who's next tulsi is in first grade and is a fun-loving first grader she has a pet fish named blueberry she enjoys playing outside in nature riding bikes with her brother and dancing she's learning all about horses and hopes someday to be a veterinarian because she cares about animals of all kinds oh beautiful tulsi and next we have esme esme's interest of drawing reading and fashion oh fabulous esme in grade four welcome to wildwood next is xavier in third grade loves sports and video games he's going to live in the outdoors loves swimming taking bike rides playing football he is kind and very smart he also enjoys spending quiet time with all of his family beautiful babies and ho khan is grade four he likes playing video games sports reading books watching flamingo and pets especially his dog skywalker oh i bet he likes star wars yes could be could be and bella is in second grade loves fairs and festivals and water parks she wants to share her excitement that she's turning seven she's great at trying new things making friends and reading one of her favorite authors is mo williams welcome bella yay that's all our new students that is it and guess what everybody at wildwood we welcome new students throughout the year i know there are two new students who are going to be starting next week yeah and one is going to be visiting today going into grade two in miss jag's class so all year you'll get a chance to practice welcoming and think about you know what it what mattered to you when you were new at wildwood and then do the same pass it forward so thank you everyone the other thing before miss catherine talks is like sometimes we make mistakes at wildwood and this is who we want to be a welcoming school a kind school but mistakes are made by everybody and at wildwood we believe that it's important to fix to repair to restore the relationships that we have so we'll be talking more about that and how we do that and now drum roll please [Music] yes and this one is a little untraditional because oftentimes i just sit here with a guitar and sing but i thought this would be a great opportunity to showcase some of what the students are learning in music class did we want to say hi to claudette i don't know she she's in there she's there wow fabulous i don't know claudette did you want to come on i'm going to make her come on i'm making her come on hi claudette hello um so before we do the song uh we do have a minute or two claudette i know that you're you came to us as our new computer teacher after the year started how has it been for you to be come to a new school like this yeah it's been great it's been great meeting everyone the kids are great um staff is like really awesome it's like it's really a welcoming community i i think i made like one of the best choices ever um and i've been learning so many names so i think i have a total almost like 450.
i call this meaning to order so she's coming right now miss jagensky uh the roll call please here thank you i'll rise for the and to the pledge for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all well uh welcome all to our uh board of education business meeting this evening september 23rd um i guess i'll just uh move on down the agenda you may notice i am not chairman paragini uh he's out uh uh duly celebrating uh with his wife this evening so of course we give a little special dispensation um so uh first up we have our student representatives oh uh dr gad would you please introduce these student representatives i am delighted to introduce our two student representatives so this evening i'd like to welcome and introduce annabelle kalin annabelle is a phenomenal young woman who is driven motivated and compassionate she has taken some of the most rigorous classes that cheshire high school has to offer and has done exceptionally well annabelle is a dedicated member of the cheshire high school community beyond the classroom as well she's been involved in student senate since ninth grade holding vice president and senator positions annabelle has also been a member of the cheshire high school marching band and the body positivity club teachers commend annabelle for her unique insight as she often considers other people's perspectives on how every but what she's learning impacts everyone she has a great sense of community and truly cares for others so welcome annabelle [Applause] you can sit there and next rowan scazzellati rowan is an extremely high achieving student who has taken one of the most rigorous courses of study possible at cheshire high school his teachers are effusive in their praise of his effort and enthusiasm one teacher even commented that it was an honor to be his teacher rowan is also heavily involved in our school in the surrounding community he is a youth soccer referee and has participated in many drama productions at cheshire high school when asked to describe himself rowan said that he is cooperative dedicated generous thoughtful and motivated we could not have said it any better ourselves welcome rowan um welcome annabelle and rowan um so traditionally um you give a little report a little update from the school do you have anything for us this evening okay testing okay here we go um i was saying we are very excited for these roles um and one important thing that has happened in cheshire high school actually just yesterday is we elected our class officers for all of the grades um student government is a very big part of the high school is we're planning so many different events for the school community so it was really awesome to finally see that get to come together this year and i'm like dr gott said i'm a part of student government so i'm very excited to plan a lot of things that we're going to get rolling with this year and ready for a great year rowan yeah there we go all right um like annabelle said we're just so excited to be here and kind of serve as representation for the student body at the high school um there's been a lot of fun stuff that has started up again now that we're starting to be able to move forward we have our pep rally coming tomorrow as long as the weather holds up um so we've been having spirit week all throughout as we've dressed up in fun and unique ways um and so we have our pep rally tomorrow hopefully fingers crossed assuming the weather doesn't get too bad and so we're excited for that we're excited for football and all of the other sports and activities that are now coming back to the high school um now that we're kind of moving forwards [Music] yeah great thank you um board did you would you like to make any comment or okay i just want to say welcome to you guys um and i look forward to hearing from you over the next five yes thank you thank you so much like to just say welcome aboard um your reports always are one of the highlights of our evenings here um to be perfectly honest with you because we get to hear what's actually going on in schools from the students and it makes this what we're doing up here you know more worthwhile for us to hear it you know firsthand from you guys so there's a lot on your play and you're busy busy busy so i appreciate you guys taking the time and doing this for us we appreciate it very much thank you okay um just i just want to say welcome and uh as andrew just said we we always look forward to the student reports every month so no pressure but no but welcome and it'll be great to have you on board for the year go ahead and yeah just welcome and um looking forward to hearing from you at our meetings in the future and you didn't even need those mics you project very well thank you so not to worry and i'd just like to say um uh thank you for serving this year um compared to last year um we actually get to meet you in person i think our representatives last year we didn't get to meet until the very last meeting of the year so it's great that we can all be here in person and you'll be able to report uh hopefully for the entire year in person so it'll be great to have you so welcome thank you thank you and uh i think uh that's it i guess if if anything you're welcome to stay if you have nothing else to report you are dismissed good night everyone [Applause] dr sullivan thank you mr grippo i'd like to invite a special honoree to the podium this evening from highland elementary miss lindsey grant [Applause] cheshire public schools is proud to announce the selection of lindsey grant as the 21 22 cheshire public schools teacher of the year lindsay is an elementary teacher at highland school and is beginning her seventh year in the district she holds a bachelor of arts degree in english a bachelor of science and education honors program and masters of arts in curriculum and instruction from the university of connecticut well at uconn lindsay received the connecticut women's center outstanding senior women academic achievement award as the honoree for the neag school of education her honor thesis was entitled academic self-concept and student preferences for grouping formats and elementary reading instruction lindsay began her teaching career at highland school in 2014 where she taught third grade for six years she moved to the fourth grade this school year and at the district level she's served on the personalized learning task force and the cheshire strategic planning committee and has represented her grade level on the safety and technology committees at the school level in addition lindsey has volunteered as a teacher mentor for groups of students working on projects for the cps steam expo she's also enjoyed working with these students as they developed a magnetic levitation train and composed the classical music piece in the style of a baroque fugue i hope i pronounce that right outside of the cheshire public schools lindsay has taught traditional and therapeutic horseback riding lessons to writers aged 3 plus for the past 10 years in her teacher of the year nomination letter a highland parent wrote this about lindsay if you have a child you know the angst of waiting to learn who their next classroom teacher will be if you're an educator you have an inside perspective of just how much a year would the right teacher can do to change the course of a child's life my daughter has been forever changed by her time in lindsey grant's classroom i've seen lindsay's professionalism and deep knowledge about her students individual strengths and weaknesses her ability to rise to new challenges with grace and positivity and her outstanding teaching expertise administrators colleagues and parents agree that lindsay is a gifted educator and a consummate team player but her students love her because she pushes them to be better students to persevere when things are difficult and to view education as an opportunity we and the cheshire public schools are very proud to name lindsey grant as the 21-22 teacher of the year congratulations lindsay [Applause] now typically we would award lindsay a plaque at this event but not knowing how kovid was going to go and everything we took the opportunity to do to do that at our convocation ceremony last month so lindsay if we just take a quick photo [Applause] congratulations on your great honor um okay um so we'll move to um audience comment um uh so uh rules for for this evening as with every evening um uh each speaker is limited to three minutes and uh i will kindly um remind you if you go over so come on up if you would like to have public comment uh yes right hello good evening good evening i tried to hide in the corner so a couple people wouldn't know i was here my name is liz linahan i'm a cheshire resident uh some of you might know me from being up here in my day job today i am here uh for my full-time and most important job and that's as mom to thank lindsey grant as uh the number one teacher in the world as connor put in his card right now um but as our cheshire schools teacher of the year um normally uh i'm quite the tough broad but i think today is going to bring me to tears a little bit so please forgive me it's rare that you have an opportunity to tell someone publicly how they changed your life your child's life and your entire family's life mrs grant is that teacher we should all be so lucky to have a teacher that changes us and i think many of us have i know i had a teacher who changed my life and i am confident that when my son conor looks back he's going to remember that it was you lindsay that changed his life my son had her uh for third grade and she was there the day the moment literally the second that my son was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder that made difficult made schooling difficult for him and she sat me down during that parent teacher conference as did mr jeffrey and she said it's going to be okay and here's how i know and then she proceeded to give me a list of all the things she was going to start doing for my son tomorrow morning that's the kind of teacher that lindsay is and then she proceeded not only to do all of those but add things every day as my son needed so that he could achieve any goal that he set his mind out to be to do but one of the biggest things that has stuck with me was the fact that she didn't try to fit him into the box of what a student should be she fit the curriculum into what my son could really achieve and i'll never forget she turned my son into a math champion a fantastic writer who loved school even though it was so challenging for him and with his hearing loss she took care of that too and even all those great things that she did for my son she did even more for me as a parent because good teachers great teachers know that working with parents is a collaboration and that we're all in this together and that it takes a village my village has been forever changed because of you and i wanted you to know that my son is doing so well because of the work you put in for him and all your students so we wanted to take a moment to thank you from the bottom of our hearts from our entire family it should be noted that she also taught my daughter and since mr jeffrey is here i'm going to put in a plug that when finnegan uh goes into fourth grade he should really have her too um but you know i'm usually so good with the words and today has been so tough because there's so many great things that i could say about lindsay but i'm just going to boil it down to one thing she's the teacher that has changed my son's life made him a better student a happier kid and she didn't make him feel like an outcast instead she made him feel special and that is the mark of a fantastic teacher so therefore from our family i have these flowers come on up i'm trying so hard not to cry this is from our family um and connor knew that we were getting her flowers he wanted me to pick up um the venus flytrap plant because he said she'll think it's so cool there's that um and this is a card from connor he's watching by the way uh he wanted to come but because of covet and not being vaxxed he didn't um but this is for you and there's a little private note inside so um if you would mr chair if you wouldn't mind me just asking one more time if everybody can give one more round of applause for lindsey [Applause] thank you for those kind words um yeah come on public comment good evening christopher raffi 204 peck lane uh first of all i want to uh thank everybody for a great start to the school year my son jake is now in middle school and he is adjusted really well uh he's going to enjoy it really well he's gonna enjoy it for the next two years and uh he's probably gonna enjoy making uh uh baked goods for his principal i know yeah uh principal jeff loved him so maybe he'll he'll probably still make you something so yeah so he's gonna he's going to be uh doing that for real eventually um i want to thank maura esposito and all the board members that supported her during and after the meeting last time she is part of the reason why my son did not miss any days of school last year um unless he just had to be remote but he never missed a day of school and i don't think he loves going to school anyways so i don't think he's going to miss a day of school this this year you know what was talked about last time was about the mass mandate a lot um and i am i i wish that governor mom would not do a universal mass mandate so i wanted to say that what i would rather have and i told uh tony is that there'd be some kind of metric uh that board of eds could follow like a checklist and if you met that vax rate uh you know community spread that kind of thing i don't know if it's ever gonna happen it's probably too big of a mess and i know we might have this till february but i wish we could do something where you would would have some choice what i don't want is just you know sorry seven people saying i think this is bad this is good but having some data so i wish that could happen so i i hope that can happen soon where you can have that decision um so universal mass mandate i wish it didn't happen but it seems like it is gonna happen um and lastly i was gonna thank tony uh personally uh tonight uh but he's not here but i'm sure he'll hear that but i thank him for listening to my concerns last time after several comments were made by people i'm not going to go through it there's no need to but he listened to me and and we talked for you know through email and on the phone for about a day and he listened to me and i'm sure several members here also listened to those concerns from other people because there were people that were upset and you know i do thank people for saying they weren't sure of what to do next uh i don't think it's a hard decision i don't know what to do next i don't make those decisions where i work but i give my opinion and i want us to all be safe you know i didn't miss a day of school last year either thankfully um so i want to keep that so i thank you for your time thank you mr raffy is there any additional public comment good evening terry terzakis226 mcsville road first want to say thank you to all of you guys for everything you do um you guys been faced with a lot of challenges and we appreciate getting us through everything i wanted an opportunity to comment on the excuse me the school modernization committee's plan in deciding which scenario to put to referendum many residents that i've talked to and my wife has talked to we're kind of shocked to hear that they're favoring the two elementary school plan over the plan that includes the sixth to eighth grade middle school having two children in the system now this is a common discussion among parents and hardly a week goes by that it's not a hot topic on the facebook forum i'm sure you guys are all on it and we i see these posts saying people aren't commenting you're not getting us your opinions i mean read the form um everybody is commenting and it seems very clear that the new sixth to eighth grade middle school is an overwhelmingly desired choice among cheshire residents we've yet to hear anyone to favor the other plan from what i've we've read the reason for the committee wanting to put forth the two elementary school plan is because of the plan costing less money these are not apples to apples comparisons these two plans accomplish very different goals so please let's not go cheap just for the sake of going cheap please let's do it right the first time so it doesn't cost us more money down the road we've seen that happen here in town for other reasons from what i've read in research there are only about 22 other towns and districts in connecticut which still have seven to eight grade middle schools most towns have moved to the six to eight or even five to eight grade model even our neighbors in hampden where a new seven to eight grade middle school was built only around ten years ago or so they're already making plans to add on to their school to move their sixth graders sixth graders today are ready for the middle school environment there are so many opportunities for them in middle school that they will not get in the elementary school setting both academically and through extracurricular activities dodd the dodd building is also likely in probably the worst physical condition of all our schools it's also too small both in the building and the site it sits on there's no room to expand it and we're going to be forced to expand it sometime very soon my daughter was in the dodd band and it was sad to hear each year at the parents concert in the gym that the band director led off her introductions telling us this will be the first time that all the kids played together because there's no space in that building for them all to play together to me that's sad and unacceptable she also mentions in her thank you to the gym teacher who had to forego his classes so that they could have the gym to set up for the concert i just don't feel that that's acceptable starting our school modernization with a new six to eight grade middle school also solves other problems that we have which is the overcrowding in the elementary schools we'll be removing a full grade from each school opening up space for the growing population i would think this in turn would actually lower some costs when we go to renovate those buildings or may negate the need for additions or larger new schools have those cost savings been factored in wouldn't this also allow us to take darcy offline sooner by freeing up space for the kindergartners has have those savings been compared and added in when they compare the two costs side by side all cheshire students will benefit from a new middle school as opposed to only two new neighborhood elementary schools i would think that's going to be an easier sell in passing a referendum if anyone has concerns over sixth graders being with eighth graders in the same building well we have the luxury of designing a brand new building so it can be designed to keep grades separated by wings or by floors similar to what we have now with the two separate floors and sixth graders are much more close closer physically and in maturity levels to eighth graders than they are to kindergartners and first graders i want to thank all of those who have put their time into researching these options and now we want those options then we're begging you to allow excuse me we're begging those of you who are charged with making this important decision to now listen to what the residents want perhaps we should consider a pre-referendum to provide the details of both options to the voters and ask which one they want to see put to the final referendum please let the residents voices be heard and allow us to be part of the decision-making process thank you um is there any uh additional public comment this evening seeing none i will close public comment thank you okay next up is reports of standing committees mrs ham curriculum okay the curriculum committee last met on september 13th we after some juggling we finally got a workable agenda and we'll just move through it we heard from miss milano um marlene solano about the first ever curriculum writing institute that took place in late june approximately 80 teachers took um took advantage of the or participated in the um institute that was led by consultant linda van wagnen um we then moved on to um the um we kind of finagled things and moved one item on and we moved right into then the um basic skills and the ngss assessment data and i'm sorry it wasn't included in the uh agenda for tonight so i did send that late to you all just so you could take a review or have a review of it and i think you all have it um overall the the uh third or eighth graders did very well in relation to the other schools in the uh district regional group uh and they uh we performed or actually ranked third which is wonderful we did discuss at considerable length the performance in the eighth grade um which was slightly off kilter from the others and then um also looked as i said at the ngss assessment data um moved on to a review of an um overnight field trip during spring break that high schoolers will take april 7th through the 13th no need for approval since it's an in-country field trip we reviewed the state assessment calendar and then [Music] finally moved on to new business which was um approving um flexibilities for implementing the ct guidelines for educator evaluation 2017 for the 2021-2012 school year so um we will need to make a um have a uh the board will need to approve that tonight and um then but it was unanimously approved by the committee so um that um ended the meeting it was very timely and expeditious and we're done so um i do well um i'm just gonna see does anyone have do we want to take the motion first or we want to see if there are any questions on the report or um i figured we'd uh go into the motion and have discussion okay so the recommended motion is moved that the cheshire board of education adopt the flexibilities of the fundamental requirements of the connecticut guidelines for the educator evaluate evaluator 2017 for the 2021-2022 school year is there a second yeah and uh is that a hesitant is that a second or has it make a point of order that it looks like that this that we have an educator evaluation and support plan report by ms solano is that part of is that after the motion okay great then i second the motion thank you okay so we could just always pull the motion back if you want if you need to okay all right all right so now we are in discussion um so are there any uh questions on the motion well if possible forgive me i jumped the gun a little bit if we could hear uh the evaluator the um report from ms solano and then that will facilitate the questions okay um then i believe since you made the motion you can retract your motion she's i'm just asking for an explanation oh does it i mean it yeah i think we have um okay then let's do that great thank you marlene well thank you so uh last year there had been some the commissioner had given us some flexibilities to which we adopted this year there was another set of flexibilities that was also put out there for districts to adopt and this is what we spoke about at the curriculum committee meeting and really if i were to give you the bottom line on the process is that rather than formal announced observations that are pre-scheduled going forward we would have more frequent unannounced observations also with feedback and both written and verbal feedback also what was missing last year was an end-of-year summative rating for educators and this year the flexibilities would include an overall rating or an overall summative evaluation so the committee of teachers that looked at educator evaluation met and reviewed these flexibilities they agreed that they would like to proceed and adopt these um according to the state we need to bring that forward which we did through curriculum committee and and then it comes to you to say whether or not you are also in agreement that we should adopt these flexibilities and that is what the motion is about and what we'd be looking for your support on tonight thank you you're welcome any question hey mr white yeah i just want to put this in my own words so what you're looking for is what has happened historically is announced evaluations so the teachers knew you're gonna be coming through the classroom and now it's unannounced is that the gist of it prior to covid um there were different schedules that teachers would be on and some of those included formal observations the rest were informals so this now puts everyone on the same give or take um on eliminating formal observations and making them informal and unannounced okay so i'm just i'm just trying to guess as speculate as to how this works teachers it probably makes them a little bit more nervous when somebody walks in the classroom but it's probably a little bit more of an honest take on it because they didn't you know you want to put your best foot forward and if you know someone your boss is coming to see you you're probably going to be thinking a little bit more about it this is just more keep some on their toes a little bit more but i think in a a good way um for a positive reason so i mean i'm i'm comfortable with this thank you you're welcome any additional comment um i just like to say i'm also comfortable with that um i guess my i guess my question is i guess i kind of missed it was this um negotiated or is this per per state statute or how did this come about that's a great question and actually the commissioner released flexibilities both last year and then again this year so it was at the behest of the state and they're also working on a newer type of teacher evaluation process going forward which we haven't we're not privy to as yet okay so then perhaps next year we'll have something revised that's what they're signaling okay great thank you if i could ask one more question um just to make sure so as i understand the process you then will be applying to the state department of education for the flexib this um this change yes is it just an automatic approval or is there a chance that it will not be approved um highly unlikely that it would not be approved since it was generated itself by the department of education exactly exactly and when would you get that pending our approval tonight when would you i would probably do that tomorrow morning mr white thank you adam so i do agree with this in principle at the same time i just want to i hope that you will be if a teacher flubs because they're nervous just take that into account is that you will be doing that like trying to look at a bigger picture because something like that could happen and it's not necessarily you know an indictment of how a teacher operates and teaches educates throughout the year that's that's my only caution on this i'm just going to show you my face for a second yes and there are frequent observations for exactly that reason we're not going in for a one snapshot in time we're going in and observing talking giving feedback going back in so that this is really um we're going with a growth mindset that we're all going to grow over time and that's why we want more frequent sessions more frequent evaluations thank you yeah no i think it makes a lot of sense and i could see some hesitation on the part of the teachers but i think with the way you're describing it to me it makes sense that it is on balance positive for the long term for you know across the board for all the teachers the teachers were really very supportive of this and like the idea of people coming in frequently okay versus the very formal process okay thank you is there any additional discussion on the motion seeing none i'll call for a vote all in favor it is unanimous of those present thank you all right it's my turn um uh mr maciana was unable to attend this evening so i will uh read his uh preparation um so this is a finance financial report um as reflected in the above summary through august 31st 2021 our approved budget for the 2021-2022 fiscal year is 77 million 1052 dollars and we have expended and encumbered 52 million 566 296 dollars through the first two months of the year while the vast majority of our encumbrances for uh for payroll and transportation have been entered there are additional encumbrances and adjustments that affect several account categories including payroll and outpaced outplace tuition and some grant offset adjustments that will most likely be completed in september at this time there are no major variance concerns to report we expect that there will be lingering uncertainty as to the extent of covet 19 pandemic related expenses especially for student and staff health safety and protective needs such as tent rat rentals intraday cleaning as well as purchase of ppe and disinfecting supplies while these safety related expenses are not expected to negatively negatively impact the operating budget they will reduce the funding that is available for learning loss and academic needs that we intend to allocate to the two available elementary and secondary school emergency relief esser grants that total one million three hundred thirty seven thousand seven hundred six dollars as detailed below um let's see esser grant esther ii grant uh 559 dollars to be used to buy uh 9 20 and the arp esser 898 147 dollars to be used by september 2024.
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 in our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals and that is the land use statement uh thank you again do you want to make the roll call sure please note that we have two new commissioners we have edith juno joining us for the first time as a representative from the energy commission and we have ann morrison joining us as our representative from the parks advisory commission so we'll let them introduce each other after the roll call is finished all righty uh commissioner graham here commissioner needham council member dish present right uh commissioner gibb randall here in ann arbor uh councilmember griswold here ann arbor commissioner kelly ward here chairperson brown president in ann arbor uh john mursky commissioner mursky now he's been substituted by edith jr okay all righty uh vice chairperson mitchell here in ann arbor commissioner vandenbrot here commissioner oriol here in ann arbor commissioner zane here in ann arbor all right we have a quorum all right thank you um so as i mentioned before edith juno is a member of the energy commission who's replaced john morsky as our as our representative here i'm edith do you want to introduce yourselves hi everyone i'm edith i go by edie usually um i've been in ann arbor since 2017 i moved here for graduate school the university of michigan where i started environmental policy and conservation ecology um since then i've worked with the world resources institute and the national wildlife federation and working currently on climate and forest issues so happy to be here and i'm representing the energy commission as well thanks for joining us and uh anne marson is she present no i don't think no she i just got the email today so um so we'll see her next month so um that she was just assigned to us from the parks advisory commission that are at their meeting yesterday so the next item on their agenda is the approval of the agenda however this is the time when we need to elect new officers um the new officers the offices are chair and vice chair i'm stephen brown i'm the current chair and rita mitchell is the current vice chair um do i have a mission for nominations um to chair for the coming year um lisa oh you're muted i would nominate uh stephen brown as chair and rita mitchell as vice chair moving forward can i do it that way um and uh is there a second i guess chris graham is seconding yep um are there anything thank you are there any nominations further nominations um all who would uh agree with the slate uh raise your hand or say aye aye well congratulations and thank you i don't see any uh any no votes hearing none no abstentions either it passes unanimously thank you so much it's an honor to leave this group i promise i'll do the best i can um so now let's move on to the agenda um um is there a motion to uh are there any motions to add or alter the agenda yeah um i would like to include a discussion of endorsing the carbon dividends and pricing at xr2307 as i sent an email to you guys earlier yesterday okay as they're a second to that motion um kathy um all who are in favor say aye or raise your hands right i see um all who are opposed say no um hearing or seeing none are there any abstentions okay then um chris graham is instead abstaining i don't know enough okay so that's fine so um so we shall add that onto the agenda and it seems like the proper point would be um we'll add it to new business we'll add it at the end of new business uh before week before the reports from committees other commission's council and chair all right thank you for bringing up that topic going on so um the agenda is approved with that um addition so um the next item on the agenda is the first public commentary period this is an opportunity for persons to speak up for up to three minutes please call one eighty seven and enter meeting id 987-1499-1238 [Music] that's meeting id number 987 [Music] this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed city staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and be patient there can be a delay of up to 30 seconds before a connection is established um so galen is there anybody on the line there's no one on the line okay we'll wait uh 30 seconds is there anyone on the line as yet no there's no one on the line okay well this ends the first public commentary period um people have an opportunity a second opportunity to offer public commentary um at the end of the meeting so we move on to special presentations the first one is the water department presentation um so this is about um about the consideration of whether to continue uh the options are to continue um getting our intake water from the huron river and our wealth field and rehabilitating the current uh at the current site uh rehabilitating the water works or um getting our raw water from the uh great lakes water authority so um there's a presentation um and so i think uh so let's on the floor i'll give um glenn and and brian steglitz the floor let's see uh they can get the president all right well thank you very much and i'm going to let glenn will load up our slides and share his screen um i appreciate the opportunity uh chairperson brown and thank you for the for adding us at a late moment onto your agenda um we were requested by city council to to share and get some feedback from the environmental commission from the council meeting so i'm glad we were able to work this out so quickly so thank you just can i just get a confirmation that you can hear me okay i can see um yes i can hear you yes okay great so we've shared this presentation um i i think it's been shared with you so i'm not going to go through um the full presentation that we gave council because i understand your time is limited um so we'll have an opportunity to answer questions but i would like to just share a few points and um glenn will advance the slides for me so next slide please glenn so as a little bit of background you know our water treatment plant i think many of you are familiar with was built on 1938 so we're still using what i like to call infrastructure 1.0 um and based on feedback we've received from our regulators about some of the performance of the of the legacy equipment and um processes as well as just the general condition and the maintenance required this has been planned for replacement for for many years and back in 2015 we re evaluated a whole bunch of alternatives before we were making a significant investment in rehabilitating the water treatment plant and that's the report that's been shared and that i'll go through a couple of the points with you tonight the next slide glenn so in 2015 you know before we were going to make a decision to invest you know upwards of 100 million dollars in the water treatment plan it made sense for us to really evaluate what other alternatives were available to us so we looked at you know constructing a new water treatment plant in a new location expanding our well field i'm joining a regional water provider and of course that is the great lakes water authority who's the closest one and probably the only authority that would be able to um to serve a community the size of ann arbor um recognized in 2015 the great lakes water authority was only a year old so they were really still in their infancy at the time and so we took we looked at all of these alternatives and we used the decision analysis tool to evaluate um a lot of the pros and cons associated with these against several criteria and really only two two of the alternatives really fell out as really being feasible then being connecting to a regional water authority and reinvesting in the city's water treatment plan and all of that is incorporated in the 2015 study um and just before we move to the next slide you can see on on the left side of your screen you know two two dashed areas one in red and one in green and the one in green is the original plant that was built in 1938 1949 and that's what we're focused on is replacing that component of the treatment process and not focusing um at this point in time on replacing the the part the portion of the plant that's in the red box next slide glenn so we talked about the two alternatives so the first one rehabilitate the water treatment plant so we'll i'll share a few of the results from that and then the next slide is identifying the connection to the great lake water authority and can you move on to the next side gun and then this identifies what in some of the infrastructure involved in that so you know we're talking about 30 miles close to 30 miles of water main connecting existing points in the great lakes water authority system to ann arbor and this is large diameter through a lot of well-developed area so fair substantial cost in getting that infrastructure in place and it also involves some storage additional storage potential as well as some pumping stations next slide so this is i want to spend a couple of minutes talking about this because this is really where we looked at criteria and compared the two alternatives so you'll see um the evaluation criteria on the left and then we have these green yellow and red squares denoting relative risk associated with the alternatives green being better or lower risk and red being higher risk so if we quickly go down the list you know the risk to source water quality this is something that has been brought up by several since the since the presentation that we gave to council um and questioning you know why is the city's source water considered maybe a higher risk than the great lakes water source water and really you know we're talking both about inland river water supply so the future really holds a lot of unknowns associated with inland rivers um there could be development there could be a lot of impacts that we're just not aware of because we're talking about planning horizons decades into the future but based on what we know right now we do know we have some um you know threats to our our source water in ann arbor one of those being pfas from an upstream manufacturer and right now that there aren't similar types of threats that are known in the detroit river system which is why we conservatively identified um at what based on what we know right now the city's water source as potentially a higher risk but i think that's probably open for interpretation and some have thought that maybe we should that really the risk associated with both of those water sources are the same um the next is risk to treated water quality so why is the city's water system have a lower risk related to treated water quality and that really has to do with changing the disinfectant that would be required if we were going to be joining a regional water authority they the great lakes water authority uses a different final disinfectant than the city does that transition is likely to create substantial water quality challenges just because of the distribution system has been accustomed to seeing the disinfectants we're using so while it is possible to change disinfectants and that there are other communities that have done it there is a learning curve and we will probably have um water quality problems for some amount of time it could be upwards of um a year or more if we were going to transition to a different um different makeup of of drinking water which we would be doing if we were joining the regional water supply um and then the next the next four ability to respond to community value city's carbon footprint schedule impact on cost i think those are all pretty intuitive um obviously if we're maintaining control of the water system we are better able to reflect the values and the decisions that we make um the city's carbon footprint we can you know implement the sustainability zero and sustainability criteria and goals that are established by council um and much more easily if we have the autonomy of controlling the water system ourselves if we join a regional acquired authority we're going to be one of over a hundred member partners so we'll have a voice but it will be you know it'll be one of of a lot um and maybe not have the same influence that we would have in making decisions that we would if we maintain control of the water system and then the last item on the list is impact on annual cost and i'll talk a little bit more about the cost but it's clear to us that connecting to the regional water supply would have a substantially higher cost than if we were just to rehabilitate the city's water treatment plant uh next slide gun so this is the what was estimated and then and escalated into some 20 21 from the 2015 study so we're talking about about 100 million dollars for rehabilitating a water treatment plant compared to over 300 million dollars for all of that infrastructure that we'd have to put in to connect to the great white square next slide when you annualize that and you look at our annual revenue requirements and you know we built that up through these two um bar graphs you have a whole bunch of costs that would the city would incur under both alternatives because even if we were to join a regional water authority we would still be responsible for billing planning managing the distribution system so there's a lot of administrative and operational costs that we would have to maintain under both solutions um however if we were going to be joining the original water authority we wouldn't be needing to do as much water treatment so the reinvestment in the city's water treatment plant wouldn't necessarily wouldn't be necessary um however there may be some minor modifications because it's likely that we would have to do some minimal amount of treatment that's pretty common given the distance we would be from the from the source of the water that we would be receiving so a lot smaller component is the water treatment with the regional water authority solution however when you add in the um the fee structure that the great lakes virus already has which is based on um distance basically capacity to serve so because we're further we're going to pay um like more per unit than someone who is closer because of the cost that the great lakes water authority would have to deliver those services to us at such a distance um so we built in what we think based on other comparable member partners what those costs would be and that's built into the alternative to cost as that purchase water cost is estimated and then the next couple buyers on both sides are associated with debt service and capital costs that we would anticipate being needed to implement the recommendations associated with alternatives and as you build these up you can see the the and the the annual revenue requirements associated with each alternative becomes fair bit different with the alternative one is rehabilitating the city's water treatment plant from being substantially lower than the regional alternative thanks so our recommendations that we made at the meeting on september 13th to council was to proceed with the conceptual design to upgrade the water treatment plant and it is our intention to bring that resolution to council in the coming months the next slide so in addition to doing that there there was at least one council member who identified that they would be interested in us pursuing within a little more detail what the true costs of connecting to the regional water authority where so we intend to at this point in time unless we hear differently from from council we will likely bring that um that option forward in some fashion at a council meeting for their debate and consideration and um if if council decides that they want us to continue to investigate that then we would we would have a cost and a schedule associated with that work we anticipate that that would cost us about 300 000 and probably add a year to two years to the schedule to do the full thorough evaluation there's a fair bit of engineering that's involved in um that would be necessary to be done by both the city and the water authority in order for them to actually provide a proposal to us on what the cost of connection would be um so if that's something that the council wants it would be something that additional work that we would have to encourage council decides that that's not an um something that they would wish to entertain then we can just move we cannot you know waste that time and move right onto the preliminary design for rehabilitating the water treatment plant and i think that is our last slide and at this point i guess i'll open it up for questions or comments thank you okay let's see i see uh john callaway commissioner caldwell has his hand up sure thanks uh appreciate the presentation i was wondering if we could go back to the slide with the red yellow and green circles in your uh analysis great yes so this is really helpful i just had a couple of questions to kind of understand the work that's been done here with the risk to source water quality was there any type of modeling done to kind of model the impact of development over the next 50 or so years i i understand why it's you know you mentioned that generally but i'm wondering what's the the data or the modeling and analysis behind that yeah there hasn't been any formal modeling um this is really based on our understanding of the source water the water to two watersheds um what the land uses are in those watersheds and what the risks are so i would i would i would say that that's much more of a subjective um or evaluation than objectives okay thank you and then uh two other questions um is there maybe i missed it but is there an opportunity cost associate you know a lower opportunity cost associated with joining the authority now that is reflected or maybe not reflected in you know the cost estimates that you're sharing i mean if this would be delayed 20 years is there any way of knowing that it would you know cost twice as much at that point yeah difficult question to answer i mean their their cost model looks at um i think there's a lot of complexity built into how they which is the reason why we're we're um you know informing council that it probably would take a year and several hundred thousand dollars worth of work to get to the point where we can actually get a proposal they look at what legacy capacity that they have um which they have right now whether will they have that in 20 years or not i don't know um so there's a lot of conditions they're doing their own modeling right now they're um they're um you know mothballing water treatment plants they have excess capacity so um very much would like to bring ann arbor on as uh as a member partner because they have the capacity to serve us right now um but so it just would be hard to really know in the future about how that would how that would look i would anticipate i don't think that their their area is growing that substantially that they wouldn't have the capacity to bring us on several decades down the road if that was something that for some reason that the city would be considering um answer your question yes yes and i realized that there's a lot of what if's built into it and then the the last question that i have is how does it work with the authority you know bringing lines across multiple municipalities um is there a risk you know that we might be blocked if one municipality along the proposed route you know doesn't want the the line through their community or does the authority kind of supersede all of that i don't have a tremendous amount of experience in knowing how that would work but i would anticipate a lot of this would be going in most of it would be going in road right of ways and i i would anticipate that um between the communities that we would be able to work those kinds of things out this is i think a pretty common thing that happened so i think we'd be able to get an infrastructure in place to make it happen if that was the direction we were going to go great thank you thanks tom shannon you have your hand up and then kathy yeah a couple of questions um one is um just in terms of the water quality piece um i know that the great lakes water authority draws from lake huron and the detroit river um detroit river is also the source of where you know because of detroit's combined sewer system you know there are lots of times where because of excessive you know like big events uh rain events it just spills their raw sewage spills directly into the river and so i'm just wondering if that in terms of the quality piece that you were looking at that that was considered i don't know if they just basically kind of shocked the system with a lot of chlorine to be able to deal with things like that i just know that since we are lucky enough to have our storm water and our sanitary system disconnected we just don't have that same kind of risk and i'm just wondering if that was considered within the water quality discussion between the two alternatives as well glenn i'm not sure are you able to go to the we have a slide with more detail on each of these um evaluation criteria do you want to go to that one and we can identify what was included so this is the the more detailed comparison and i think this was provided to you these were the things we looked at from a source water quality so um i don't think it looked at sewer backups it looks like but um you know i the our consultant is pretty familiar with the detroit system and i'm not sure that those the the this overflows that you're talking about impact necessarily the water um supply i just don't know the answer to that question and we could we can investigate that more and see i i guess i would anticipate that maybe it doesn't um but all that being said um we we wouldn't have a choice in terms of where we get our water from if if we connect i mean it's how the system is configured and designed because that source is going to prop is going to be the closest to ann arbor we'll primarily be getting water from that particular plant right um the other question i have is did you all look at kind of climate scenarios in terms of the huron river having flows that were too low for the future was that ever part of the discussion because i know most of the arts you know come from barton pond and things like that was that ever part of the um evaluation so we looked at um drought contingency as part of a master plan that we did back in 2000 um so we have you know contingency plans and we did look a little bit at what the um but i mean this this is a renewed issue right i mean climate change has been progressing and it's probably it would probably be something we would need to re-look at and make sense to be part of the scope of the work as we pursue this but it wasn't really captured in this particular analysis i guess my thought on that is um and we we've been seeing you know much more um more violent storms um so uh less frequent so that's definitely the the climate change that we've been experiencing over the last five to ten years has made the river more flashy um we have we haven't had since i think maybe 2003 um like a drought condition where we were concerned about not being able to extract enough water out of the river we have plans to address that if that were the case but i think based on where our projections are it seems like that there would be ample capacity of the river to be able to meet the needs of the community at least in average for sure in average day condition okay great um yeah i i agree with you i've heard that prediction before but it seems like it's more that we're getting sort of crazy big events you know rather than but who knows you know where this is all going to um and then i guess i'm sorry no go ahead i i just wanted to just mention you know also our we do have blended sources so if we were in some type of an extended drought condition um we're fortunate that we have a river supply and a well supply and some of our future plans include augmenting that well supply we haven't had the need to do that but i would anticipate um you know if we did have some upcoming years with more severe drought conditions i would anticipate that we would um maybe move that that up in our capital improvement plan to augment our well supply so we were able to for example provide an average gauge just with groundwater yeah okay and then since you've got this slide up too i'm just wondering about the dioxane issue recording in progress if if you could just kind of summarize where you all fell with that in terms of what this i'm sure you all have been following this closely yes and we're you know we're our farmland closely um the you know from the city's perspective right now our our approach is is to make sure that we have monitoring in place um to intercept the plume you know if it does decide to migrate towards our water supply we have sentinel wells included for next fiscal year in our capital improvement plan and the the intent is that those would be located strategically between the leading edge of the plume and barton pond to be able to contamination um with time for us to make decisions and and intervene um it's my personal belief that whether it's the eagle um or epa or whoever ends up regulating and overseeing this cleanup that they will not allow the contamination to migrate and impact towards the city's water supply that intervention would be implemented before that would happen all that being the case we have been asked to identify how much it would cost if we needed to build treatment for dioxane because it is treatable for sure and we do have some of the tools in our toolbox to do that but it's my belief that we would never get to that point because the regulator would intervene and with additional pump and treating there would be options to create capture zones for the plume to prevent it from reaching barton ponds great okay thanks a lot i appreciate your presentation okay kathy here before and then lisa yes i've seen this presentation before and i really appreciate all the effort that brian and glenn put into preparing it uh council agreed to refer this to the environmental commission and i really appreciate council's action there but i have to remind everyone that democracy is about majority rules minority rights and this exercise is really about one unnamed council member driving this process as a council member i have no idea who that is it's costing considerable staff resources and tax dollars to go through this process dan bicknell and professor crusoe both spoke with their concerns about the great lakes water authority and i'm extremely troubled that whatever this process is is similar to some of our other processes like we spent almost a year arguing about whether a dual process meaning the legal process and the epa process was viable when common sense told us and the epa told us yes it was so again i just want to go on record saying i believe this is an undemocratic path and i'm deeply troubled i appreciate that the environmental commission has the opportunity to weigh in thank you lisa and then chris i just wanted to raise um one more in in response actually to commissioner callaward when you asked about um bringing the water pipes across multiple municipalities a different concern there with the gl uh glw ra i hope i'm art i don't know if i got the acronym right sorry it's been a long day um is is precisely that we would really have to do a lot of piping we would be um we'd be really far from the source and the farther you pipe water the more um uh disinfectant you have to put into it and so our water quality would be well i don't know if it's right to say not as good but from what i understood from the presentation mr steglitz and i'm hoping you'll jump in and make this mush of what i'm saying more clear and clean is that we do much better to have our low treatment plant because the farthest distance that we pipe from our own local water treatment plant is just minuscule to what it would have to be coming from the coming from the great lakes water authority so um um so anyway so please kick that throw that point back in mr steglitz um yes so thank you for raising that i mean clearly distance is is an issue for a lot of reasons energy is one of them but other the other is disinfectant so um you know they'll be disinfecting the water so when it reaches us it would meet you know criteria for delivery but we would likely have to boost disinfectant so there is there will be more disinfectant in the water just because of the journey that the water has to take to get from um you know the authorities plants 50 miles over to the city of ann arbor well chris you have the floor and then rita um i have i share the concern that shannon brought up about a drought i'm wondering i think 85 percent or so of our water comes out of barton pond and 15 from the well field down by the airport could the production of that welfield be expanded in a particular dry period well right now we have the issue is is with conveying the water from the well field to the water treatment plant that is the the limitation so we have some capital improvement plans in the future to augment that which is upsizing water made and adding a pumping station between um the well field and the plant in order to boost capacity so those are two things that are currently planned that would help us double what we can currently get from the well field and then there's some future project projects looking at adding also additional wells so we have a few things there um i would anticipate that we probably wouldn't be moving forward with adding additional well capacity unless we felt like there was something driving that um like you know like climate change that demonstrated that we had um you know drought conditions and that we weren't able to meet the demands of the community um i can also tell you that when we did have some we had a crisis with a major power outage in um 2003 i think many of you who maybe you know remember that but the whole eastern seaboard lost power um in that case the detroit water authority was um they had issues with boil water notices in their systems because they couldn't they didn't have pack up power systems and there were parts of their system that lost water we were able to provide water to our customers through that whole event but we our plant was only rated to provide an average day demand um during that time so we were talking were we going to need to issue water use restrictions and things like that but interestingly enough during a crisis situation even in the heat of a very hot summer people tend to self-regulate so the demands dropped immediately and we didn't have to issue any boil water enough oil water any water use advisories and just because it's sort of naturally people use water in those certain situations just for essential uses and i would anticipate during a drought condition that ann arbor people would probably self-regulate and that we would probably be able to manage it just because people would stop irrigating and only use it for essential services so the lead time for adding wells and the location of those are already determined and they're not long that is the same it would take several years to site and install um we have ideas about some general areas where there that in 2015 we looked at where groundwater existed where we may be able to augment our current well system but um there's a regulatory process that we'd have to go through to add additional wells and i would anticipate it would be several years so i would guess if we got into trouble it'd come faster than that the other concern i have is the resiliency of our piping system i've seen evidence of the gulf stream getting wobbler wobblier and wobblier um all the way back to the 1980s or early 90s one of the impacts of climate change that was being talked about was that if the gulf stream slowed way down or ceased to flow that the northeast u.s and europe would become much colder and that would mean we would have much more serious winters um are we i i see a lot of broken pipes in the winter in ann arbor are we really pressing as hard as we can on the weak links in our system to make them resilient to winter freezes we have a pretty aggressive capital improvement plan associated with our distribution system piping and this is regard regardless of what alternative we make um you know choose with our water supply we're still going to be operating the same distribution system and we will we are continuing to invest um the there's challenges there um some of them are financial but there's also just community tolerance for um tearing up roads and um we call it orange barrel fever in the summer so we have been increasing the rate of water main replacement to closer approximate what we need to in order to stay on top of this need um but you know we're going to continue to have main breaks in the winter that that's not something that's going to be going away in the short term well so i i both for storm water and especially for sanitary sewer and our water system for a hundred years ann arbor has been doing a wonderful job and i i i certainly am not one that suggests we go to detroit except if that's the only alternative if we're in trouble about supply and so i'm i just i think you guys have been doing a wonderful job and i don't mind paying the additional fees um thank you chris rita you have the floor thanks um i want to touch on the um on two items one is cost to consumers comparing the two sources and one of my concerns that that comes to mind with the great lakes water authority is the water shutoffs that we've heard about in detroit and um since we would be um coming the water would be coming to us from a long distance what would be the risk to us for um water shutoffs if if and in with respect to the cost of this service has there been an assessment of the cost to the users um i'm not i'll i'm not sure i understand your question but i'll take a stab at it you can let me know if i'm off track um in terms of water shutoffs um you know that would be if you're talking about shutoffs for things like non-payment um for individual customers we would still have complete control over that because we would still be operating and distributing water to our customers we're just not going to be providing the supply so when you're seeing those kinds of things in detroit that's really not this great next water authority that's probably the municipal detroit dwsd detroit water and sewer who is responsible for delivering water to customers in detroit so it's their policies and their their implementation so we would have complete control control over that um in terms of you know the rates to our customers you know right now um i i know that councils aren't familiar with i'm not sure of the environmental commission with the rate structure we have but this inclining block rate structure um where users who use more money uh use more water pay more per unit we would still have to maintain control of the structure of our water fees to our customers um that wouldn't necessarily have to change um it would be it would remain under the discretion of the city but we want to make sure that the red the sorry go ahead i just wanted to just wouldn't the cost per unit be greater because of the cost of developing this system so for comparing 100 million versus the 300 million it seems like that we would ultimately bear that higher cost as customers yeah absolutely what you know the back to the the chart that we showed on our avenue annual revenue requirements glenn if you want to maybe jump back a couple of slides um you know this this is the cost that it's going to cost the city to operate the system we anticipate if we were making this change now in fiscal year 22 so we're talking about you know maybe 25 30 more um cost revenue that the city is going to need in order to operate the system under a regional water supply alternative so that 30 percent is going to be um covered by our customers our water rates are going to have to cover that difference um how it's distributed amongst amongst all of our customer classes is based on the rate structure we use but if you assume it's distributed equally across the board everyone will be paying that that increase okay thanks um and the other question is a quality one um about um industrial pollutants that might be in it excuse me in addition to the the kinds of things that that you have listed on your one slide with the quality concerns um i understand that at least one of the intakes is in the rouge river area is that correct oh that i'm not sure of okay um there i think there is more industry that has been raised by several people who have commented and some around some of the detroit intakes um so there is you know a fair bit more industry um so you could interpret that as being an additional risk okay and does the water as supplied to if it was to be supplied to us does that what are the treatments that the detroit system uses to extract those kinds of pollutants uh there they have different treatment processes at each of their different treatment plants so they're not all the same um so you know i don't i'm not familiar enough with the the details of their treatment processes um i mean i can tell you that they're i mean the great lakes water authority um is is a very reputable um authority that provides you know great great quality water to their customers so i anticipate that they have um just like we do you know a multi-barrier approach to drinking water quality which means that they have several stages in their treatment process that would address the the water quality that they see in their source waters and the potential risks but if there were specific questions about what treatment processes they have to address certain things that would be something we'd have to plug into okay all right thanks thanks rita brother if you have if any other commissioners have questions please raise your hand you know using the zoom feature otherwise i can't see you if there are no more questions i have a few um first one is people um have asked about floods about uh drought but the flip side of that are floods um well the climate model suggested we'll be getting more intense and uh frequent rainfall so i was wondering about the uh because i assume that the uh the intake would be the water intake would be jeopardized department dam failed um and i was wondering what uh my understanding is that the city is doing a great job of maintaining it and this is really a black swan of that type of event so i'm just wondering um if that's been included in any of the contingency planning we we spend a lot of time and resources to ensure that that damn barton dam is maintained in proper condition and meets all of the safety guidelines that's happened because we generate power there it's regulated by the federal energy regulatory commission um and there are um you know as glenn can attest to because he's he's the person who's mainly responsible for ensuring that we're compliant at our dams um there are many things that we do to ensure that the integrity of the dams are maintained we have you know whole capital project improvement plan in order to continue to maintain those um in terms of flows and being able to handle it the dam is capable of handling a very very large amount of water you know we've been getting a lot of rain now you know four inches and we haven't even scratched the surface on what that dam is capable of passing and we haven't in its life so i don't see the the climate change risk um being an issue for damn to be able to maintain um what flows we could see even with a you know a very very significant storm so that's that's great that's been my impression so um it's good to hear that well i have one more question and that is that um um during this whole discussion i was surprised to not hear any mention of like a reverse osmosis option for water treatment i don't i i guess this wasn't originally considered as part of that but i'm just wondering um what city staff has been doing to evaluate that kind of option yeah we we've discussed we discussed it a little bit during the 2015 study and our intention would be to address this as part of the future and plant improvements that the direction council um likes would you know would ask us to go um to evaluate membrane processes reverse osmosis is one there's other ones as well um the reality is is that the cost um the cost of putting in reverse osmosis for a plant of our size does not i don't know if there are any and there are there are very few of that size um in the country it's just not really a cost-effective solution um there's also issues with the amount of reject water that that process generates um and then what do we do with that there you can have so in order to treat for example um if we have a 50 million gallon capacity plant which we do um and it's going through a reverse osmosis system 25 to 30 percent of that is wasted in the process and has to be handled by a wastewater plant or or discharged into the environment and we don't really have that opportunity in ann arbor we can't we couldn't put that back into the environment and our wastewater plant which is just renovated doesn't have capacity to handle it and it would derate our plant by about 25 to 30 percent so a 50 mgd plant um becomes a 35 to 37 million gallon per day plant which gets very close to some of the highest flows that we've seen over the past 10 to 20 years so if we were going with that technology then the state would be asking us what are you doing to expand the capacity of your plant to be able to address the fact that you're you're achieving over 90 percent of what your potential flows would be so it opens a lot it raises a lot of questions and it creates a lot more challenges and we i think we need to do a better job of explaining and completely evaluating it but i don't anticipate that that would be a solution that would be appropriate for ann arbor okay yeah it just came to my attention that yeah you know brunswick county in north carolina because of the extensive gen x contamination of the cape fear river they've recently installed a reverse osmosis plant that i believe is rated at 35 gallons per per day 35 million gallons per day and on the capital costs for 170 million at least what you can see on their website i was just assuming that they ran the water directly back into the river um it's possible um you know it's basically a concentrated brine so it depends on what what the environment is and when they can whether the the river has the capacity to absorb it i would anticipate that we wouldn't be able to do that with the huron because of the sensitivity of the ecosystem and but you know it would have to be more thoroughly evaluated but it tends to be used as a last resort when there's no other options available and we have the ability to treat our source waters with the current technologies we're using more cost effectively than reverse osmosis okay well thank you very much um so chris graham has his hand up chris here um last question i've watched with um considerable dismay over the last 20 years as the water weeds in barton pond have more or less stopped sailing entirely there which was a big deal for a hundred years and i i think i know that the toledo water supply had the algae that was so toxic actually encrusting their intakes are you watching the developments of algae and weeds in barton pond really closely and and have plans in place to [Music] deal with anything toxic that might erupt out there um yes we you know we're regularly monitoring the water quality um and we we also look at it over time to see how the the watershed is is transitioning um so yeah it's something that's definitely on our radar um we don't have you know a harmful algal bloom issue along the huron at this point in time we do have um you know uh a algal toxin response plan in place so we know what we would do if we were going to run into a situation like that um so but it's not something that we have experienced at this point we don't see that being a current risk in the huron wonderful thank you okay um thank you uh if there are no more questions um i don't see any um so thank you very much glenn and brian uh for presenting to us so um but in about 45 minutes we're going to discuss a resolution that's been post-owned um and uh and it'll be a first reading only i believe so um if you care to hang on and answer any questions it might happen at that point um that might be useful or we could defer that to another another meeting in october probably okay all right well thank you for the opportunity to talk to you this evening um lisa has her hand up lisa nish i'm just wondering i don't i i imagine that mr steglitz might have other things to do so i wonder if we could pose a couple of um i guess there were three resolved clauses at the end that might benefit from feedback from him i wonder if we could just i i don't know if this is allowed in the order of meetings but if we could um pose those questions to him quickly and just ask for his thoughts i mean he's not a chance to deliberate over it but i mean yeah that's uh that's a good idea i mean um yeah deal with resolution now yeah we could deal with it now okay we'll have to move it up in the agenda uh kathy that's where i moved to open the agenda and move the resolution to directly behind this discussion is there a second second second with great gratitude raise your hand okay it looks unanimous so uh let's move it up um i can share my screen and i have the resolution up here so okay so i have it up can everybody see it okay so um i guess we should i should read through the whole thing so whereas the city of ann arbor has scheduled needed upgrades to the municipal water infrastructure and the capital improvement plan projecting uh my understanding is this a 50-year service life is that correct um and whereas four scenarios for city water infrastructure were investigated and reported by black and beach in 2015 and include detailed financials and risk benefit analyses whereas city staff and several consultants under contract have since updated and refined the cost-benefit analyses focusing on two alternatives of the four either rehabilitate the current facility at the same site and continue using the existing water intakes or contract with the great lakes water authority to deliver process drinking water to ann arbor for further processing and distribution whereas risk benefit and capital cost comparisons clearly favor rehabilitation i think is the proper word of the current facility which was about 108 million dollars in 2021 rather than switching to glr uh wa delivered source water which was projected to cost about 355 million dollars and 20 21 whereas the operating cost comparisons are also projected to be um 30 to 30 to 100 percent higher source water switched to jlwa i think that's wrong because i think they're uh estimated to be about equal is my understanding now um is that correct um mr stiglitz or um i would say operating costs comparisons are projected to be higher for the if source water is is switched to the great wakes water authority i i think we have a difficult to identify how much but it will we expect it to be higher yeah i i i got those numbers out of that projected operating cost but there would be 30 potentially 100 higher okay and whereas long-term risks to water quality are not under the control of the city of ann arbor that reside in state and federal regulatory agencies um i believe uh i'm what i'm speaking to here is that uh igla and the state and federal entities are responsible for water quality in the city has very little control of water quality which would be an issue for both both options however i would think that ann arbor might have more through working through the uh here on the river watershed council and other municipalities in the watershed we might have more control over it than we would have if the intake was in the detroit river which is an international boundary as well um one one edit i might make to that is i might add source in front of water quality because we do have control over our finished water quality it's the source water quality where we don't have that's true that's true thank you for that correction yeah um whereas risks to intake water quality are anticipated to be less likely and more manageable for the huron river rather than the detroit river i know that the black veatch analysis some indicated that there was more risk with the huron river but um in terms of catastrophic events i would think that there are prob there are more problems with the detroit river given that the water treatment plant is upstream of the uh of the water intake at uh fighting island and there's also another intake upstream just upstream of uh bell island um you know where i imagine um i imagine there was some i know there was some discussion of this in the black and beach report that if there were a catastrophic spill in sarnia which is a major major petrochemical site in canada um just upstream and then we have the rouge river and the clinton river and we have uh you know the industrial facilities down there at the foot of the louis river so um i'm i'm not sure how strongly to express this uh concern but i think it's uh it seems to me to be more manageable partly because the huron river is a smaller watershed compared to the detroit river and it is um relatively free of industrial uh development and it's not internet international boundary so i'm not sure whether it's uh it's appropriate to keep that or not that we can work on these whereas clauses we could refine these later um are there any uh comments so far raise your hand no i don't see any concerns here rita mitchell racer and rio i did i just want to mention that we received a comment from the ann arbor township supervisor in support of continuing with the source from the huron river and i think that that's significant because you could say that our water processing is not just for the city of ann arbor but also for another township since they source their water from us there are three others three thank you i know there is yeah yeah i believe their board passed a resolution yeah a few days ago so it's not just the supervisor but the board in support of option one yeah and that was sent to us uh prior to this meeting so whereas the ann arbor department of water services has been acknowledged as one of the best in the state of michigan traditionally being proactive and monitoring potential threats threats such as pfas parasitic microorganisms and responding with timely improvements in treatment technologies whereas the superior quality of ann arbor municipal water has been acknowledged over many years staff has nourished a culture of transparency and responsiveness to customer concerns whereas water is a public good and proactive local management of water quality based on routine ongoing scientific testing is a public value benefited public benefit valued by the community it resolved that the environment these are the clauses that were drafted there for them the first one is the environmental commission advises ann arbor city council to proceed with rehabilitation of the water treatment facility at the current site in ann arbor and continue to use here on river water and local groundwater wells as a source of amnerable water so are there let's have a discussion caused by clause so um on if you have a comment please raise your hand yeah i'm just wondering if we could maybe just whip through them for mr steglitz to comment and then we could discuss them in a painstaking way but maybe we just want to let him fee because that that clause seems pretty on controversial council gonna do everything in our discussion is pointed to this but they're the further resolved clauses um i think are things that i would like to hear mr steglitz's and again we could just notice by him later i also don't want to help the raa folks but while we had mr steglitz here i thought it might be interesting to show him the resolved clauses that seem to be asking further action oh that's good um mr steglitz can you see the uh the screen yes i can oh okay that helps so the second result clause is that the environmental commission advises river city council to direct the city administrator to continue to monitor and take actions to improve the health of the huron river through coordination with the michigan department of environment great lakes and energy washtenaw county uh particularly water resources commissioner and the heroin river watershed council and i should add other government entities within the heroin river watershed potentially what would be your comment on that on that clause um i'm struggling with the you know some of the things that really are not part of our you know our responsibilities to some degree are not to improve the health of the huron river um while we support that um you know directing staff to take actions to improve the health of the huron is um is probably not really within our our scope of our capabilities i i don't have an issue with it but i just don't i feel like it doesn't have a lot of meaning no i believe you're correct um um so i think uh before our next meeting i think it would be important to to discuss this issue um one one way i mean the monitoring portion i i don't have an issue with maybe instead of take action is maybe advocate for the um maintaining quality and of the something like that yeah i like where we're advocating on behalf of improving the quality of the of our source waters and who upstream movements do you think has the power to help with that well i mean this is a really great place for the huron river watershed council right because they're this is their thing this is what they do is they they um go across jurisdictions and they can help you know help the advocacy they have the connections with the upstream entities so um in partnership with them and you know we we meet with them and we coordinate regularly so it would be leveraging that relationship to improve the health of the huron okay all righty so i'll read i'll read the modified one that the environmental commission advises ann arbor city council to direct the city administrator to direct staff to continue to monitor and advocate to improve the health of the river through coordination with the eagle of washington county and the river watershed council um is there any chris graham you have your hand up about this class but this one there are a couple i'd like to add and comment later on on other ones okay you don't have a comment right now no advocating for the protection and improving water quality river is great okay all right thank you kathy you have your hand up um yes i don't think we need to direct staff i think that's redundant if we just direct the city administrator uh he will make it happen and he's made comments to that effect at recent council meetings um and then um you mentioned other local governmental entities and i would like to add that phrase in because i we work very closely with scio township ann arbor township and maybe that's it in washington county yeah it's already there thank you okay thanks um any other comments okay i will leave that as it is now and then now the third clause i'll read it resolved that the environmental commission advises ann arbor city council to consider well this is a big congolet uh to instruct staff to post contingency plans for a potential sudden interruption of municipal water services on the city's website i think it would be a good idea to i i looked on the city's website and i could not find any posting uh for that um so that if anybody any resident of the city had a question that there would be a place where they could just see what the current contingency plans were um it's a relatively minor point um but uh kathy you have your hand up and then chris i don't disagree with it but i don't know if it belongs in the resolution as opposed to just a memo or phone call to the city administrator um offering recommendations for improving the website yeah but i'll defer to brian if he thinks it's needed i just i think it's a little too prescriptive um i mean i'm not sure i don't see how this belongs in the conversation about what we're discussing this is sort of a separate issue and i would want to you know understand what the commission and maybe council thinks is missing and is needed i mean we have pretty robust emergency response plans and for in certain cases for very specific reasons we don't make components of them public so there are um you know security components of some of our plans that we for a variety of reasons we would we keep in-house so there may be things that we could post that would maybe meet some of the needs but it wouldn't be my intention to post our contingency plans and make them publicly available well i understand there are some homeland security concerns about that okay well i'm going to delete that clause then um chris you have your hand up well i was going to suggest a little bit alternate thrust of the clause and that's to make sure that we have contingency plans in place that can be promptly put into place for low flow conditions in the river are there any other comments about that suggestion a drought circumstance might happen a whole lot faster than two or three years i support it but i don't think it belongs in this resolution whatever um yeah okay firstly we have we have drought contingency plans in place currently so they don't need to be developed okay okay i'm kathy you still have your hand up um i would recommend deleting the final resolve clause as well i think some of that's already in place and it's not related to the resolution you're right it's a minor it's a minor point it was there as a whether i put it in there as a or as a place saver for a reminder all right so um i think it will delete i'm thinking of deleting these last two resolved clauses um because they really don't fit into the scope of this resolution and uh we would so and these would be just a minor relatively minor request to city staff um chris you have your hand up so again i i i don't know that it belongs here but the city is increasingly inspecting flow valves on irrigation systems about every two years when they know about them including that process ought to be that there should be an operating rain sensor on every irrigation system that's inspected many rain sensors many irrigation systems don't have them and run merrily along when it's been pouring rain maybe it doesn't belong here but uh it would help okay you know that's so that's an excellent idea but um i think that's another excellent idea but i don't think it's within the scope of this considering of this resolution of this resolution which is about the water source yeah let's bring that up at a future meeting okay well somehow i don't know where the regulation comes from to inspect backflow valve so wherever that comes from this could be added this could be another change to the udc i guess okay well i'm going to delete them so the city had i'll just just quickly the city does have a cross-connection control plan and that's all part of it what you what um commissioner graham was just describing so you could inquire about what the city's plan entails and what frequency we're doing some of that i know some of the issue has been um you know we're we are doing what this the state requires but we could be the city could be directed to do more some of the things that were just mentioned and i think that that really becomes a funding issue and whether we have the current resources in place to execute a more robust cross-connection and you know looking at the things that the commissioner just mentioned so it would be i think it's resource limited is really the challenge um but it was something the council directed the city to implement then we would have to um build that into future budget okay all right well let's see um i wasn't planning on a boot on this right now or if i thought we would have a voter go next meeting after after some consideration so uh kathy you have your hand up um two things one is um i support what chris said and i would be willing to work on a resolution if needed i just want to point out that the city had to replace about 40 feet of laptop multi-use path in front of walgreens that was due to over irrigation and a faulty sprinkler head and so it was the path was just washed out so it would save us money in the long run as well and then i'd like to move that we consider this resolution tonight because the sooner the council acts the sooner we can uh minimize the amount of time staff have spent has spent working on this separate path with great lakes water authority that does not seem to have any support from community experts or the surrounding community okay all right um i'm prepared to have a vote um if uh if there are emotions uh if the motions come up um i think uh i i think i should delete should i delete these reference documents and and links at the beginning here this is um unusual i think for for other resolutions that i've seen the city commissions and the council pass as well but i'm happy i think it's important to keep these kind of um information resources in there you can put them at the end steve okay sometime i would move past you to the resolution subject to editing by steve in accordance with the comments made this evening and um let's proceed second second um all who uh can i sorry i'm yeah i'm wondering if i can just make a a quick comment on this the second resolved clause before you i mean if we have an opportunity maybe to think about this a little but i think it would be clearer um when you just scroll down to the second resolve clause the second result was okay yeah so um i think it would be clearer direction for staff if it said contin to continue to monitor monitor and advocate advocate for source water protection to ensure the huron river is remains a suitable source of drinking water for the ann arbor community something like that yeah very good let's see to continue to monitor and advocate for source water quality source water advocate for source water protection to ensure the huron river will can continue to be a what did i say i don't even remember but source water protection to ensure the huron river will can serve as an adequate supply of drinking water for the city of ann arbor um in the future or for the first the next several generations i don't know something like that okay but i think the source water protection piece is sort of important to advocate for source water protection to ensure the health of the human river for future generations or i got it i'll send it to you in the chat i'm sorry i'm tired thank you let's see you can't see this um since i'm showing the screen so let's see lisa your language you want to just read it to me um and i just send it to you by email i noticed chat so i'll just send it to you to save time okay but i don't think i can i'll just no it's okay don't worry about it now okay yeah right we'll we'll we'll worksmith that to make it uh more appropriate okay based on lisa suggestion okay so do i have a motion to vote on um on chris's uh suggestion amendment i think you got a motion in a second and a second all right tom all who say i raise your hands or say i i i hey any objections any no's hearing and seeing mine any abstentions [Music] yeah so um all right so this red this uh resolution passes unanimously um i will write this up and um email it among the email the commissioners uh early tomorrow morning by noon tomorrow and uh if it's appropriate i'll ask alan to forward it to the to the city clerk okay all right so now i'm going to stop sharing my screen and uh we'll move on to the next item on the agenda thank you brian and uh glenn thank you participating in this commission meeting thank you and um so we'll move on to the recycle and orbit presentation so we have two uh we have two separate presentations here so let's see is um we have it loaded uh brian um brian yukena are you still on the on the meeting good evening how's everyone doing i'm fine thank you great great thanks for having me steve and and uh environmental commissioners i wanted to uh just update you on a few things that we talked about at our at the last time i presented at the environmental commission meeting and and uh some pretty exciting things happening in the community that uh i i think are important uh for you to be aware of but uh you know first uh uh brian you can i'm ceo of uh recycle ann arbor and nonprofit mission-based organization um for four brians um at uh rea and i'm the i'm one of them um just uh just briefly um you know you've you you're all reading about the climate crisis and and the related events historic flooding heat waves uh wildfires the things that you were discussing earlier that really do impact a lot of the infrastructure so so um you know right now is is a perfect time and i've never been more an important time uh to act on these climate crisis issues and i think the general public and and uh most people are are aware of the issues and and uh want to act on them on a local level um just some locals you know look a couple local statistics the the the ann arbor area has seen a almost a 42 increase in extreme weather events and you've heard the previous presentation talking about that over the last 60 years that's that's uh that's mind-boggling um but uh building zero-waste systems uh will empower our community to act locally on those climate issues so um these things keep happening to us what can we do on a local level and and so that's what i'd like to talk about is some of the zero waste building blocks that are going to help us act on a local level on on some of these uh global issues um and just to the to the importance of zero waste um you guys have all i think read the the uh 820 carbon neutrality uh report and it it talks about the impact of waste but if you if you look at uh the carbon emissions statistics uh from a zero-waste perspective and from a materials life cycle analysis um it's clear that that that waste contributes 42 of the carbon emissions not the three percent that shows up in in other reports so it's a significant issue and it's something we can all uh work on on a local level it's a that's something we can do so you know forward thinking look forward looking and and and thinking progressive communities like ann arbor um we can really lead in this zero waste movement and and it is a movement this is happening not just in um michigan not just in the the united states but around the world and it's uh it's a significant movement so it's something that we we can do locally and and we as leaders of the more progressive communities in michigan can really have a huge impact um be surprised how how impactful examples are and demonstrations are so um just uh one had three things i wanted to talk about three there many things that uh recycle ann arbor and and uh this city is working on but um three i wanted to mention um talk a little bit more about uh firstly the the eco site um recycle ann arbor just purchased 17 acres and is currently uh we're planning the future for our our future zero waste demonstrations for the site and i'll talk a little bit more about what the eco site is and and some of the opportunities there um we're also uh building the zero waste materials recovery facility i uh uh steve asked me to to definitely mention and update the group on the materials recovery facility things are going well i want to talk a little bit about that but the idea what's a zero waste materials recovery facility versus uh the old materials recovery facility and it's you know it's the they they look similar but the principle is the highest value and best use of the material and that that that's being generated so so highest and best use transparent credible recycling we've gotten away from that in the recycling industry and and i want to talk more about um transparent credible recycling and the impacts that can have and then um we've got this pile of stuff right on on platt street but really looking upstream of that pile and looking downstream of that pile um so downstream where is the stuff going what is it getting made into how recyclable is it and then looking upstream hey what's coming at us sometimes we tend to just stare at the tailpipe and and it's just coming at us so really crawling up that tailpipe or looking at the source of that material and starting to influence the source of that material those are really components that make a zero waste materials recovery facility and then the the last thing i want to talk about is a an organization that's been formed in the last year that uh recycle ann arbor was a founding member of uh amber the alliance of mission-based recyclers that and talk a little bit about some national international policy that's going on that we're part of so uh i think the last 18 months have really shown that supply global supply chains are are easily disrupted and and we rely heavily on single-use packaging i think those two things have become really um we've become really aware of them through through the pandemic and and so rea is is uh connecting that local circular supply chain um by using this eco site um to really incubate and house uh zero waste infrastructure and that's uh you know what does that mean creating that that infrastructure what would that look like so uh refillables um is a is a a good possibility and and definitely ripe in in the ann arbor area reuse you you saw during the pandemic we had to shutter our reuse center but uh reuse it comes in a number of different forms so what does that look like um in the future um and recycling businesses um but all of them um that address waste at the source instead of at the tailpipe so we're really looking at the source of where that stuff comes from influencing that the brands and the manufacturers and then creating demonstrations here in ann arbor that can actually address that that issue and and create a more sustainable future so that's kind of the the idea of the eco site we received a couple of grants two to ten thousand dollar grants to begin the planning of what this site will look like this is the the site on jackson road where the the uh construction demolition strike site the recovery yard currently sits where um construction demolition material gets recycled and and then what can get what can be recycled so it sits on that site there's an additional 17 acres there that we're really excited about creating this uh visionary eco site secondary is the materials recovery facility i spoke last last time we we met about the materials recovery facility of rea invests about seven million dollars in basically taking all that old equipment out of that existing building that sits on uh pratt platt uh the 4150 plat road so we pulled all took all the old equipment out or most of the old equipment out and replaced it with new state-of-the-art materials recovery facility um uh equipment and um we uh if you'll remember we we signed the contract the 10-year contract with the city to reconstruct that facility remanufacture that facility and then um process the city's recyclables and so we signed the contract in november and then we've been doing the the construction the demolition and and recycling we've recycled over 100 tons of of that scrap equipment and uh and replacing it with new state-of-the-art optics orders and new new equipment and we'll actually be starting the what they call wet commissioning which is basically where you start putting material on the line and sorting through that material doing stress tests getting it up to ramping it up to its capacity and which is about 18 to 20 tons per hour is what the facility will operate at and the materials recovery facility as you know it brings the recyclables from all the community from all of ann arbor to the facility and then sorts that material out either by people or by machines or other technologies so um that's scheduled to open november first and begin processing so we as i mentioned we're doing the wet commissioning we start that on october 11th where we fire the equipment up and start operating it starts doing stress tests and those kinds of things and we will be operational as planned by november 1st quite a feat during the pandemic with uh all of the metal shortages and all the the supply chain issues so we feel really we're really excited about that there's a shakeout period um uh up to november but then when we're actually operational they'll be what they call shakeout which is where you operate um for a period of time until you get sort of the kinks worked out so look in the spring around earth day um that might be a good time to think about uh ribbon cuttings kind of that kind of thing so the community can be more involved but um facilities um being built so on schedule uh it's looking good um all indications are that we'll start the first week in in november if you set your recyclables out at the curb they'll get processed locally and you know where they're gonna go and know what they're gonna get made into hi the principles of of the materials recovery facility as i mentioned highest and best use of the material what does that mean first of all what comes in the higher the quality of material that comes in the higher quality of material that goes out a lot of cleanup requires a lot of money and does dirty the other material so i guess from an education standpoint when in doubt please leave it out for at this point until we're you're you're feeling comfortable that it is actually a recyclable item um but uh but the idea is uh is highest and best use is not just how we treat the people who are processing that material not just how we treat that material as we collect it and bring it in not just how we how well we process it and how we think about residue and try to capture as much of what comes in as we can and recycle it but then when we bail it up and we send it to markets what happens what are those markets where does it get sent where does it um what does it get recycled into and how can that be recycled again and again if we make it into a low value mixed plastic product that can't be recycled again we're still on that linear path where that material doesn't get isn't used in a sustainable way so how can we recycle that where it gets recycled again and again because that's the real value of recycling and that's where circularity and and and real sustainability comes from so highest and best use of that material um like i said living wage jobs good benefits uh people can raise their families on those kind of um those kind of jobs um good path to the future but then transparent credible recycling um so you know a lot of people hear and read and there's a lot of articles out there new york times a number of them um that sort of indicate that recycling is broken that hey my community isn't recycling it's going to the landfill well that goes to credibility and transparency um let people see it gets recycled here in our community where does it go we're gonna let you know where it goes and what it gets made into so it's a real process and that that there's uh there are uh there are reasons good reasons for people uh feeling like um recycling isn't as credible as it should be um so so really doing it on a local level um the city's determined they want to do it with a local non-profit recycler like recycle ann arbor and that just lends more credibility and to the to the process and and uh like i mentioned it's a it's it we take it very seriously if we accept an item uh for recycling we're gonna do our best to recycle it we're not gonna greenwash the the uh the recycling's uh and also i think that again the transparency and credibility um is targeted zero-waste education i really think um a lot of you know that education is key um it's not just recycling it's not just about what's recyclable and what's not recyclable but what's the benefit of recycling people i think sometimes just say recycling check done now i'm on to my next sustainability thing i'm going to get a solar panel for my roof or buy an electric car or something like that but really recycle more more people recycle than vote obviously it's a it's something that people do on an everyday basis and they want to know that and the reason that they're recycling is that they they want to know that it's it's being done um sort of right and that the most environmental benefit is being uh brought to it so targeted zero waste education we're not going to tell you something's recyclable if it's not and that may feel a little disingenuous to some people and they may think oh man i can't put as much stuff in my recycling bin but the thing is you know what you put in the bin and you know what we tell you is recyclable is recyclable and we we we know because we've conducted our due diligence and we know it's a credible source where that material is going what's getting made into and then watch dogging the industry everybody knows that uh for everyone's probably seen um people put the chasing arrows the triangle uh recycling emblem on a lot of things that aren't necessarily recyclable and i'll talk a little bit more about that here in a minute but but uh but truth in advertising is important and uh truth in recycling is even more important right now so so really watch dogging the industry and and sort of calling it out as as it's uh as it becomes apparent that uh it's not authentic and then as i mentioned the upstream and the downstream of it looking upstream being able to the the materials recovery facilities it's a little bit like a laboratory um we kind of get it all in you know from the curbside bin um we can feed back to those brand names we can feed back to those manufacturers and say hey your material your pa your fancy packaging that you just generated it doesn't run through our facility and it comes up the works or boy this is very recyclable item thank you very much so being that feedback loop for the manufacturers and the and the brands is a another big part of the of the materials recovery facility so looking upstream and then downstream like i said um highest and best use for the for the material that gets generated then the last thing i want to talk about is the alliance of mission-based recyclers um so the recycling has gone through many iterations and so a lot of you will remember how recycle ann arbor's program got started it was uh a lot of young guys with ponytails hanging off the back of flatbed trucks picking up newspapers and and that type of thing so it came from a place of uh of genuine genuinely wanting to make sure that the material gets recycled and and there were not mostly non-profits that started uh a lot of the recycling infrastructure way back in in the uh actually late 60s early 70s all the way until about the 1980s when the uh the multinationals of the the municipalities had taken it over and the multinationals was were just getting into um recycling and and just sort of saw it as a logistical issue of am i picking up garbage am i picking up recycling and and it was just became this sort of function of logistics so we these these group of of uh uh mission-based recyclers they've seen that whole arc they've seen that whole curve and they've they've been advocating for the same things um through every iteration of of the recycling industry and that's uh to rebuild credible transparent and just recycling systems uh there's a lot of justice issues in uh in waste and incineration and landfills and recycling so it's not just about where you get the best price for material but there are other issues with that too so so the the amber members and just for your information their their four founding members and recycle ann arbor is one of them another one is eureka recycling in in many in minneapolis um eco cycle in boulder colorado the ecology center in berkeley california and then and then recycle ann arbor here and uh we we are bound together and um uh committed to the goals of rebuilding credible transparent recycling strengthening state and national uh policy most all of these organizations have been very involved in policy um they're not just uh recyclers with trucks these people are they understand the entire industry and are very involved in in local state and national um policy issues as is recycle ann arbor and then one of the major goals is actually to reduce plastic consumption and this is where you see a lot of information on on media about doing away with plastics plastics play a role um if if someone if an entity is say saying it's a recyclable item we want to make sure that it's the recycling is available that it's authentically being recycled so we want to improve that plastic recycling infrastructure so we're not all or nothing we're improving recycling infrastructure plastic recycling infrastructure where we can and then reducing that consumption where that material isn't recyclable necessary needed and then raising the standards for recycling operations as i mentioned fair living wage jobs good benefits good working conditions um uh safe you know for collections and processing so that's kind of what uh amber represents um i just wanted to talk a little bit about the policy that uh we're kind of seeing the fruits of the labor of amber and and many other groups um there's a renaissance happening around recycling policy and zero-waste policy uh and has been for the last several years um the fruit of that sort of show both coasts uh maine and and california uh sort of to two coasts but two issues two zero waste issues that are very important um so the first is the state of maine uh past the first extended producer responsibility legislation in the nation and uh just uh so you have a sense um extended producer responsibility is an effort to hold the producer of packaging waste responsible instead of the cities which is the way it works now the city is paying for for uh those recycling services and us through uh you know the citizens through paying their their taxes and that and recycling organizations that's who's been responsible in the past now there's a very uh substantial movement to make those producers uh uh accountable to the products that they're creating i mean they're amazing packaging products that are doing amazing things but we have to look at the tail end of that and how that's impacting us overall and they need to be participating in the handling of that material that they're creating so that's what it is is creating that partnership among brands and and manufacturers with recycling entities and cities and and states to share that responsibility and to cover those costs because those costs need to be borne by someone but the state of maine the first extended producer responsibility legislation in the in the nation it will hold uh packaging manufacturers responsible for the waste they produce so if you if you uh sell a cardboard box in in maine you're responsible to share in the cost and the recycling of that of that product and what that does is drives the manufacturer to account for to think about that in their design so that they are designing for recyclability um so that their their cost can be reduced and so this is really common in other countries in the eu countries and things like that and canada has had producer responsibility for a number of years so this is the first legislation first extended producer responsibility bill we're seeing in the in the us and it's actually an authentic extended producer responsibility legislation that we're really excited about on the other coast california i talked about truth in recycling those triangle chasing arrows with a little number that you can't really see in the middle of it that doesn't denote that it's recyclable it never did it was uh it was very confusing for the general public so um so the state of california is tackling that misleading chasing arrow uh plastic numbering system um it confuses i i can't tell you how many thousand calls we get each year about confusion around that very issue so what you can see is california is a huge economy and um so the packaging that comes into california and therefore the packaging that leaves california is going to have to be rebranded and changed and there has to be more truth whether it's recite whether that product is truly recyclable or not and that's going to impact the rest of the country you've seen that with a number of other things that california has done so this truth in recycling is something that i think everybody is really excited about i think it's going to impact us all so so that's that's some really nice legislation that's happening on both the coast here in michigan just so you know all of these things uh amber is involved in and recycle ann arbor is involved in so so that you know the idea is to for recycling arbor to really connect um citizens and and the community of of uh ann arbor to local national state national and and international policy and we work closely with break free from plastics and a number of other international groups and then another a a number of national groups so that we our voices heard in ann arbor um something that's happening here in michigan um we're in a really good place and i think some people tend to discount the value of our redemption bill we've had a some people call it a bottle bill but it's where you take your carbonated um containers that are empty back to your grocery store that redemption law that's been in place for a number of years over 20 years and and there's only 10 states in the country that have that in place and this chart shows the impact that has when there's a redemption law of bottle bill in place you get 62 percent recycling rate on your uh on your soda pop bottles and and that type of thing in bottle bill states versus 28 percent recycling rate in non-bottle-built states glass bottles 64 for bottle bill 40 for uh for non-bottle built states and then aluminum cans probably the most impressive 77 um [Music] recycling rate versus 46 percent in non-bottle bill states so um really the idea of this new legislation i don't i don't know how good a chance it has of passing i i think with the current legislature it's it may not have a good chance this session um but what it would do is also include so right now the the legislation in the bottle bill only includes carbonated beverages and this would actually open it up to non-carbonated if you can imagine the water bottle issue that everybody talks about the disposable water bottles this bottle bill doesn't currently address that if we went to a non-carbonated um bottle bill to include that you can see how those numbers would greatly increase for uh for uh bottle recycling too so so a number of different uh things happening on a national level on a on a local level and on a state level and just wanted to make you aware of those um i wanted to just sort of sum up by you know talking a little bit just a minute or two about what we can do as the environmental commission is recycling arborist as citizens and and uh this may sound right but uh being a a champion is really important um not just a recycling champion but a zero waste champion what does it mean to be a recycling champion versus a zero waste champion but but it's so impactful to to your neighbors into the community um staying informed super important as this stuff just changes day a day literally day to day so staying informed and engaged really we need local support of these projects so many of these projects that i'm talking about are so they're ready to take off they just need to be resourced in a sustainable way and they will take off there is tremendous energy in our community to to get these some of these issues implemented and and uh and really community community-wide zero-waste uh education and and and programs is where people have the most energy um so yeah they're they're definitely interested in and carbon neutrality this is a way for them to demonstrate this in a very real way so helping us fund those programs helping us support those programs but most importantly and a big gap that we have in ann arbor um over other communities i've worked in is that we need ongoing investment in in zero waste education and infrastructure we we don't currently uh the city hasn't been able to um get a contract in place for k-12 education in the schools so there's really nothing uh formalized there that's happening both of the invitation to bid and the and the rfp for the materials recovery facility and the collections didn't include any resources for education so so that's a that's a gap we have that we need to work on on trying to get in place so i appreciate your time i went i think i went just a little bit long but if there are questions i'm i'm happy to answer them or or email them to you okay thank you brian um lisa dish has her hand up um yeah this is so exciting thank you what is your timeline on the eco site and um on the extended producer responsibility bill um i guess the remarks about the bottle bill being expansion not being likely to pass i can imagine that it would be hard to pass something like that in michigan now with the current legislature but um how many states would we need to get those bills passed before it would just be that all producers just had to do it um throughout the nation because uh other you know their markets would be all messed up um so should we be advocating i don't know in other states in california certainly to to get that moving yeah that's a ah these projects when they happen on a state-by-state level it it really drives the manufacturers and the producers crazy because they have to create different systems in oregon than they do in california than they do in in michigan so it sort of reaches this tipping point i don't know what the number of states is before it reaches that tipping point i can tell you i've been doing this 30 something years now and i've never seen as much momentum for extended producer responsibility we have coca-cola pepsi cola proctor and gamble all of the major bottlers every single one of the major bottlers coming out and saying yep we need extended producer responsibility in some form i have never seen that in my entire career and honestly i never thought i would but they're all seeing the writing on the wall their service delivery method is single-serve packaging and they will do anything they will do anything to keep that in place and so i think it reaches a tipping point i don't know what the number of states is but uh but yeah i think what's really nice about michigan is we already have the redemption in place with an ext so it makes it easier to implement an extended producer responsibility model in michigan and i think there's interest among the manufacturers and bottlers to to to actually get something in place that'll be successful and i think michigan has a really good chance as far as extended producer responsibility as far as expanding the bottle bill i think you're absolutely right i think it's the current legislature i don't think it's the moment the momentum is definitely in favor of expanding the the uh the bottle bill but uh but not in the legislature it's among people and i think we're seeing the the uh the fruits of our labor uh with manufacturers and bottlers saying yep i'm on board we need to extend it so we're looking at a number of where where this legislation is in michigan is there's a number of different options that they're looking at whether we set up depots and because the grocers are getting they're growing tired of having to deal with this stuff they're not recyclers you know every square inch they've got is is valuable to them so how exactly it looks might not be exactly like it currently looks so there's a number of discussions i'll be speaking with tamra uh next week um stay in touch with amcor we stay in touch with the with the big manufacturers and the and the uh big players in the in the issue so we'll we'll see how it moves but it feels like um with a different legislature we can we really have some serious momentum i've i forgot the other question that you asked lisa i'm sorry that's okay you're uh the eco site the timeline right so we purchased the property uh late last year i think december of last year uh we got uh the two grants this state grant and and a county grant to do the planning so that's the gap analysis of the land and the and the projects so we're trying to get clear on what our vision is so that we're really focused on what we implement in the eco site and that that with the thing that takes probably the most time so we're looking at probably the end of next year having that focus and being ready to to start implementing our our first step is to move our headquarters to move recycle ann arbor's headquarters out to the eco site and that'll happen late 22 early 23.
if you go down to line 22 you can see for each of the funds the education the operation maintenance steps service what we're looking at currently in our ed fund it's a deficit of 790 000 i will remind you my first year here we had um projected for a balanced budget this was when i came in at the in july and what we found on that year was that we actually had eight hundred thousand dollars in the black the next year when i did the budget we were 700 000 in the red and we ended up 200 000 in the black so when i say these are variable years and really hard to budget for they're variable years and very hard to budget for so um i'm assuming that we'll be in the same place that we are where we'll be better off um if you go to page three actually i interrupt you real quick sure what would cause that much variance in the budget from being that much in the black to what are we dealing with yeah i haven't had a real good chance to dig in and and look at what it is um it could be some nickel and dime things where you know we didn't go on a lot of trips um and whatnot but you also had more expenditures with the teachers that we had last year remote teachers and stuff like that so um i wish i'd get a better answer to that question but i've been wanting to dig into the budget more as far as looking at what got spent and why it didn't get spent um and i just haven't had the chance if you go to page three line 81 across it gives you our fund balances so even with that 790 deficit we would look to have 6.9 million still in our head fund and so that is in a very strong place colombia has been managed very well fiscally we plan to keep it that way but this is the the yearly budgets questions comments concerns on this so just for perspective the line 22 that's really only what five percent variation i mean that's it's 790 000 but we're talking about 15 million budget right that you're varying on so there's a lot of yeah you know intangibles in there that and that's why it could add up to be the field trips and a lot of other little things um a lot of other little things any other questions comments from the board okay hearing none open up to the public any public comments or questions regarding the budget perfect lively bunch tonight all right with that i would entertain a motion to adjourn from our public budget hearing i'll make promotion thank you lisa i have a motion do i have a second objective okay i'm sorry tyson in your second yeah thank you all right roll call please yes all right that concludes our budget meeting we will now go into our regular school board meeting i'm going to call this meeting to order the time is 704.
it gives everyone one last chance during open enrollment to move into that plan if they choose to and after that fact after that it would be close to all transfers we closed up to new hires back in 2017 so this will actually kind of close at the all movement moving forward finally we had some language you needed to remove from the compliance board and then just a few various language date changes those types of things on monday we do plan to also address a raise for other employee groups but tonight's information is just on the teacher's bargaining agreement thank you and and um also mr daniels and uh mr alexander were part of the negotiating team if you'd like to add anything to that sure thanks rich um i i want to thank i want to thank david and his team as as as always great conversation i think we've come to a great agreement this year biggest raise since i've been doing negotiations um over the last uh was this year number four for five um the other pieces kind of as a procedural thing as dictated by ic code we have to have a hearing tonight we can't formally and we have to have two hearings and we can't formally approve the agreement until after the 26th of september which is why we've scheduled the meeting for monday morning the 27th so we can get that done per per ic code thank you mr daniels anything you wanted to add there uh yeah so i'll try to touch on once god touched on and go a little further it's the first time i've been on the committee and i want to say i was impressed mr taylor with your efforts i appreciate you putting all the materials together for everyone to go through i was impressed by david lawson peggy young and their team everybody working together to get to what i think is a fair deal we've asked the legislature for more money several times they gave it to us this year and i think we're doing the right thing with it i think we're putting them in teachers pockets so i'm pleased we came to a good agreement and i want to you know thank everyone for for the process and since it's my first time on the on the committee i can say it's also the largest raids it's been there since i've been on well said hey hey rob now you got a high bar brother anyone else well thank you everyone i'm sure the teachers are going to appreciate this all your hard work our next order of business yeah as uh mr alexander said there's no action on this this evening that will be at monday's uh meeting our next order of business is the first reading of proposed policy revision dr arkanov thank you mr russell um this evening i'm sharing with you again this is a no action item this is the first reading the board had asked for some clarification on policy 0167.3 which is public participation at board meetings if you look down i not read the entire policy to you you'll see that the clarifications are in green that have been listed there as more clear in the participation of it the whole purpose of the board's requests for public input was for on the action conducted by the board so with that unfortunately people were not clear in understanding would want to speak about any item and the board wanted to make sure that it was is based on action items that the board was going to conduct that day so on the agenda so we hope that the language in this revision is clear can you move down just a little bit more there i think those are the only it was a very very minor change hopefully to clarify that that language so um so again that that's the first reading is there any questions or any additional changes that you need would like to make to the policy this is a board bylaw policy so it's your policy and how you would like it to read any questions rob mr daniels okay thank you again we'll have the second reading of this at the october 21st meeting uh actually we'll do it um right september 27th we'll just do it when we do the other oh monday yeah we'll move it up yep thank you yes okay okay our next action item is to approve school improvement plans dr arkanach thank you mr russell give nora a minute to walk up here as she's coming up this evening i'm recommending that the board approve the school improvement plans as they are presented to you mrs hoover or dr hoover will provide you with some additional information regarding the school improvement plans thank you per indiana code all public schools must annually submit a school improvement plan also per indiana state board of education plans must be submitted to and approved by the governing body prior to submission to the state and the applicable legal standards require that each school submit their full revised three-year plan on a yearly basis and schools must submit these plans no later than october 8th of this year the ns the indiana school improvement plan is part of a process for continual school improvement to be effective the plan should be viewed as a living document evolving as circumstances and data change during the three-year period basically meaning this is they're going off current data and current student needs of students they have right now not just those they had two or three years ago each center grove schools review to consider its assessment data and revise their school plans to reflect their current building needs and the student achievement goal for each building is the basis for their strategies and the professional development that they focus on all year long there's a these are their action plans so the more expanded document shows not only their goals for student achievement but also how they're going to reach those goals and the research behind those evidence-based practices the shorter memo just lists very succinctly each one of their specific goals and not the entire plan the teach the principals work really hard with their leadership teams and teachers to develop these plans and sort over data all summer and i appreciate all the work that goes into this i remember doing this myself and um i i'm really proud of the goals they've set for themselves okay thank you dr hoover anything to add questions when when do we follow up on how the goals are going um well typically the the goals are set by a couple of different things one is nwea but probably the big one they're always looking at ilearn and that is a once a year assessment and so when we get that data that's what will drive their school improvement plan for next year so typically they address in their action plan um how they have done the year before now this is a weird year because our data was we have that year without data but they would address that in their next plan and report out in this form both to you and then of course to the state and reset a new goal based on on the biggest needs or continue that goal because we still have farther to go and just logistically how do schools come up with their goals i mean teams every school has a leadership team that works with them that is made up of administrators counselors typically and and teachers are on each team and so they do this in conjunction with um those those that know the students the best that are right in the building and then our department with teaching learning just helps advise and support and provide a lot of the bigger picture you'll see many of the goals the elementaries are similar we've identified some real needs and so we're working really hard to create a district plan to meet those larger needs that are running across all the buildings because we have the that's our job to find those resources and and bring that that professional development and those structures to everyone okay thank you any other questions thank you dr hoover you're welcome thank you okay this is an action item so we do have to vote on it thank you mrs counts do i have a second i'll segment that thank you mr alexander all those in favor say aye aye aye mr daniels aye motion passes five zero thank you thank you okay our next order of business is to uh approve facility rental guidelines dr arkanov you moved one top seven point four oh sorry how could you forget that how could it i marked the one everyone's let's back up to approve copy your printer contract agreements yeah okay um thank you thank you mr russell uh to see this evening i'm recommending that the board approve the copper copier printer contract agreements and dr gabriel will provide you with some additional information yes thank you uh the board has been provided with a memo with some and copies of the contracts that we were proposing this evening not going to read that to you we just hit a few highlights our existing copier contract expires on september 30th of this year and after a lot of conversations we're proposing that we renew with our existing vendor van osdale and farrar i think some of the reasons for that is that we've been very happy with the service they've they've provided and you know we'd certainly like to avoid the disruption associated with with changing vendors and we're really pleased that this this new contract proposes of course all brand new equipment and will cost us less than our existing contract does some of the improvements involved in this are that the current contract is for 54 months the the proposed new contract is for 48 months we've found over the years that as we get to the end of the life of the contract it gets harder and harder to keep the equipment maintained so we've moved from a five-year contract to a four and a half year contract and now to a four-year contract which is really i think where we'd like to land to avoid those end of life problems where where people are struggling to keep the equipment operating and of course all the equipment that we we're providing is brand new all the technology is four years newer than what they currently have some of the improvements that that are included are a more intuitive operating panel with that operates more like a smartphone and uh more advanced scanning capabilities more the more intelligent scanning engine and we do a lot of scanning on these devices now as we're trying to go more paperless and newer built-in more more security as all these machines are networked and and so that make that provides for uh improved security uh the savings that we're looking at just a briefly about that uh we make three types of payments so leasing payment for the equipment charges based on volume of copies we produce and then payments to vanilla sale ferrara to provide maintenance and copy center staff and services so when we look at each of those things on the lease payment we're going to save about ninety five thousand dollars on the uh volume based copy charges we're gonna save about eighty seven thousand and the payments to van osdale we're going to go up in that case because we're paying largely for their staff and and as you would expect after four years that has to increase so we're going to be paying more by about 56 000 in that area but the total savings over the four-year life of the contract is 126 000 dollars we currently have plans to install this equipment over the fall break and you have copies have been provided of the contracts uh they're very similar to um the contracts we currently have in place almost word for word the same and and we've uh talked with jeff clock and bush about some of the changes and and he has given us a go ahead on that so this evening we're asking the board to approve these two contracts for new copiers okay thank you any questions for dr gabriel this may not be for dr gabriel maybe we need a report from the folks at vann hospital but as we move more on books online have we noticed and more materials online or maybe dr hoover can answer have we noticed our volume decreasing well that's a difficult question to answer the one answer that is well yes but what happened we didn't hold school people were not physically present and so that really throws the long-term picture out of line and we kind of have to the last year yeah it really excuse the picture so are we up this year from last year well yeah because we're everybody's in school so um so i don't know that that's there's an easy answer to that i've been tracking that for the last 10 years or so and occasionally we're down but most years were up as we have more students and more staff we'll just have to see where we land at the end of this school year and on kind of a side note but it goes to the copier they have been wonderful in providing the empty copy boxes for the alternative school and the pantry because it's the right size box for the food to go into so yeah they are partnering beyond the contract any other questions do i have a motion mr president i move that we approve the lease agreement i'm not sure how you pronounce that um landon public finance llc yes for the machines and the management services agreement with van osdol and ferrar for maintenance and copy center services thank you mr alexander do i have a second thank you mrs counts all those in favor say aye aye mr daniels thank you motion passes 5-0 now our next order of business will be to improve facility rental guidelines revision thank you this evening i'm recommending that the board approve the changes to the facility rental guideline and dr gabriel gabriel will provide you with additional information yes this evening we're asking the board to approve uh new facility rental guidelines these were last updated in may of 2018.
i'm like 600 like i'm sure i think i have like 60 more to go today yeah so it's like between here and in cracker farm so it's been it's really i'm really happy to be here fabulous but we're so glad you made the big move from near boston to come all the way out here and it's out it sounds like our students and our staff have been welcoming so that's great yes nice fabulous i look forward to everyone getting to know you and you getting to know all our students well well welcome welcome welcome to wildwood thank you and now we get to sing all together claudette how how good is that nice we'll see you later all right well we're not actually going to sing um this is a dance um and miss mary's third grade class graciously um offered to be my performers for the day so you're going to see a video a video that was taken by rhiann in uh miss mary's class and they're going to introduce the song as well and the dance um we learned this as part of latino heritage month so we've been talking about what it means and how to celebrate that and so uh if you're feeling a little wiggly you can some of some of the students know it already so you can try doing the moves in your chairs don't stand up don't don't go too crazy but you can try doing the moves in the chairs and at least clap along all right so are we ready yes okay here we go what dance are we doing we're doing my show and it's it it came from mexico came from mexico and why was this dance created the cat sugar cake yeah it was farmers cutting sugar cane nice job friends [Music] so [Music] so [Music] okay [Music] um wow fantastic weren't they good i was so i was so impressed that's a great dance that was amazing thank you miss catherine thank you so great to see and as i was watching it i want to say to everybody at wildwood you know these assemblies we want to see things like that like really fabulous things that people are learning students are learning so in future assemblies just send those ideas and we'll be sharing them with all of you so thank you thank you miss catherine thank you alison have a great day everybody is a great day it is a great day for ducks so we'll see if we have indoor recess or if we can get outside if it stops raining and whack around all right thank you everybody bye thanks miss allison have a great rest of your day see ya see you everyone
uh we will continue to monitor and report on our budget and the status of the ester grants as uh use as the 2021 2021-22 school year progresses and that ends his report um i don't think i had too many questions on the actual line item budget for myself um mr grippo if i may yes i know one thing um vin is he and i discussed this earlier in the week um he wanted me to be sure to point out is that the we've worked with the town and we've moved our workers comp coverage from kerma to travelers as of july 1st and the good news is we have very significant savings as a result about a hundred thousand dollars um you know unfortunately with the delta variant there were some overages that we didn't anticipate so the good news is there's you know automatically a bit of an umbrella there to help us so um just wanna he asked me to make that point thank you um i'd ask if there are any questions but i don't think i'd be able to answer them so uh-uh mr white please thank you adam um yeah and so maybe it's for jeff but uh i'm just looking are we are you gonna discuss the medical benefits in a minute i'm sorry if i'm jumping yes sir all right never mind okay um up next is the medical benefits report always the fun one yes um let's see how do i correctly read this um i'll do so we had a medical benefits reserve beginning of on 71 of 890 thousand 312 dollars plus a one-time direct contribution per town council one million five hundred thousand um let's see to date uh we have a contribution of one million uh six hundred forty thousand um interest in received other adjustments i think we discussed at prior meetings um so uh july 2021 we had a claims of uh one million one hundred forty three thousand nine hundred dollars um and unfortunately and as i believe uh per our budget byline we budgeted um geez i forgot off top of my head it was like 800 was it 900 900 000 a month so we're over in july and in august the claim number came in at one million one hundred thirty one thousand nine hundred seventy seven dollars um for another overage for august um so as of right now after uh deductions um we now have a uh total medical benefit reserve of two million one hundred fourteen thousand three hundred thirty five dollars um at the budgeted burn rate of 900 000 a month that's 2.35 months we are currently not in line with that i i stand corrected actually we we were anticipating claims rate of 900 000 a month we budgeted 815 with the infusion of 1.5 um is part of our budgeting process so i guess it's both right our budget amount is 815 but the the anticipated claim rate was 900.
that'll be the first step probably the the actual implementation of the eco site will happen over a number of years um are there other questions um and then chris yeah um i just have a question question on how you in um include diversity equity and inclusion in in recycling because i know like communities who don't speak english or like they probably also earn minimum wages or like low income in the country and i feel like for information important like recycling and composting is really useful to include languages that's other than other english and um i was looking at the recycling enabler website and saw the drop-off station and the other i forgot the authorization the recovery yard probably yes the recovery yacht and then i saw the two um pdf on what can be recycled and what can't be recycled and those have a really good information but i think those information can be easily translated into different languages and post it on the website for people to access because i yeah it's so important and we're just so far i think we only we haven't translated even into one language what the plan right now is to move it over to three languages by the end of next year and then 12 total of 12 languages when we're completely uh finished but it's a it's a an issue of timing and and we're we're doing what we can do but um it's we we need to do some work in that area you're absolutely right and diversity inclusion that's where it starts is a basic understanding and a basic understanding of who your customer is and being able to speak to them and understanding that culture and uh i've been here three years we're doing our best to create fertile ground to uh include to to make sure diversity inclusion are are included but um i i will say we're behind the curve we we need to do some work in that area i see it is it possible that you guys like offer volunteering opportunities for volunteers to like translate the material for you guys yeah we were using a service that does it and they got the messaging off quite a bit so we need to it was so we had to quit doing it but but yeah we could use people you know actual translators that understand what we're trying to do and they aren't like it isn't like a computer generated thing that this actual contextual cultural um [Music] considerations we we could sure use that help yeah and earlier i was making a presentation on recycling composting for my parents because they don't know much about it and i translated all two of the recycling java station and recovery yard pdfs i can definitely send them to you if you want to include them on absolutely yeah and uh i'll i'll uh i'll let erica who's our communications person know that uh that you've done that and that there may be some interest there and she'll reach out to you i i'm assuming your contact information is on the environmental commission website yes okay i don't think my email is on there but if you can send me your email later i can i can do that i can do that i'll get you all in touch okay thanks thank you i'm chris you're on the floor uh brian so what happens to the uh drop off center out on plat and ellsworth and your new plans and your new properties yeah uh so the city wrote a grant um to take a look at moving the drop-off station and they partnered with the county so washington county and the city of ann arbor uh wrote a grant to the state to look at relocating that because you got you guys that have been out there probably know it kind of looks like the tilt and hilton with the with the old building that's out there and it's it's not going to last too much longer so we got to find another site and that is one site that's been kicked around is that jackson road site um we're we're calling it the mega dos this is a drop-off station that could potentially do a lot more than what our current drop-off station is accept new items do more processing um do better education things like that and the jackson roadside or the eco site is one that we're looking at and the city's looking at the city and county are looking at a number of other locations but they're looking at setting up drop-off stations in a number of locations around the county so i think that might be don't quote me on this because i don't know for sure but i think that might be a fruit of uh the authority and the city working together to try to get drop-off stations uh more broadly available but uh but yeah jackson road is is one that we're looking at and uh and then the city i think and county are looking at other sites as well so the same question for the reuse center um that's highly missed it sure is i get more i get so many calls about it all the time and and uh the drop off the the reuse center might not look the same at the at the jackson road site it might have a different reuse component but that's one of our base components that's recycle ann arbor's one of their base components is is reuse reduction reuse and recycling so so we will have another reuse center i don't know exactly what it'll look like it will probably be at the jackson road eco site though i don't know what the timing is for that either because i did i don't have an exact time on that there is now bus service past there isn't there going to chelsea or dexter or something um i'm i'm not sure if there is or not but i know there are many many reuse centers along that we call it the jackson golden mile yeah there's a lot of reuse centers along there and and that's right in that path of the other reuse center so it's not a bad location the nice thing about south industrial was it was really convenient for people without transportation so well yeah and that those are our constituents man those are the people so how can we create opportunities for them to the previous commissioners talking about uh inclusion and diversity yeah well i'm i'm glad we're going to see it back someplace thank you we will and i'm sorry i don't have the timing on what it looks like but we will have a reuse component okay are there any other questions for brian right well thank you brian thank you we look forward to seeing the murph in operation again so let's end the screen sharing here and move on to the next item on the agenda which is unfinished business chapter 40 update um rita and kathy hi um i'll give a brief update and that's just not ready and i but i do want to um acknowledge and thank um input from chris graham chris vandenbrook and shannon gibb randall um to uh kind of give me information that i can use to kind of combine um and i'm hoping to return it to a kind of a simplicity that we will bring to you i hope soon i'll be reaching out to staff um on the city to consult on some whether there are any legal issues um and that's really about it for for the moment um kathy would you like to add something yes one of the reasons it's taking so long is this touches on so many different areas in terms of trying to naturalize safety different types of vegetation and it's going to require i think that before we we offer um the revised ordinance it's going to require uh educational materials that staff would prepare so that people really understand the intent here as well as reducing the enforcement efforts in my neighborhood we still have vegetation invasive species basically six plus feet tall growing over the the curb at school crosswalks and if i report it the city comes out and trims it or has the property owner but then there's no follow through there does it's it seems to be very reactionary and somehow we have to get in front of this and be proactive just like with zero waste it's gonna take a change and mindset and so if anyone has any ideas i'd really appreciate them thank you all right thank you kathy so anything more on that item rita not right now thank you okay thanks thanks for moving this forward it's very important so um new business um next item is a resolution honoring card and roger rail so let's see um can somebody put it up on their screen [Music] i think i don't have it i think i can get it up on my screen nobody else has it has anybody had a chance to look at it and while you're doing that i just like to say that this is very similar to uh the resolution honoring dan bicknell a few months ago and the intent was to honor both dan and roger but we didn't want to do it at the same environmental commission meeting or the same council meeting and uh roger has not had a chance to look at this but as we did with dan i intend to uh send it to roger just to make sure it's technically correct and and give him an opportunity to make minor tweaks right so i got it so i can share it for you okay good dude let me have the host function i think i've got it now all right okay i've got it now chris okay thanks so see this is the resolution um as rita was saying it's it's similar to the one that we uh we passed uh some time ago now for commanding dan bicknell for his work on card um in the dioxin dioxane remediation by the gilman so um so let's see uh should we read this out loud i will do that resolution to acknowledge and command roger rail in the coalition for action on remediation of dioxane abbreviated card for a long-standing public service to monitor and protect residents of ann arbor from exposure to harmful chemicals in ann arbor freshwater sources whereas the environmental commission advises the ann arbor city council on issues relating to environmental policy environmental issues and environmental implications of all city programs and proposals on the air water land and public health and whereas roger rail founded the founding card and has served as the chair since 2006 and whereas roger rail and members of card have held quarterly meetings to educate and organize members of the community about the threat of one-four dioxin in the groundwater and whereas roger rail has collected data analyzed and shared detailed information and encouraged members of the community to learn about the risks to water quality in ann arbor syrah township and ann arbor township whereas roger rail has provided support to members of the community local state and national elected officials via the card organization and the group messiah residents for safe water with respect to addressing 1-4 dioxin cleanup processes and whereas roger rail and members of card have advocated for remediation of the 1-4 dioxane plume by the environmental protection agency and whereas meetings of card have routinely provided a forum for review of data on the 140 dioxane plume tracking trends and communication with staff of both mdeq and and eagle therefore being resolved that the ann arbor environmental commission commends roger rail and members of card for their long service to the community through professional activism and the use of scientific modeling and resolved that the ann arbor environmental commission requests that ann arbor city council provide the coordinating resolution of appreciation and respect to roger rail and members of cart for their service and resolved that the environmental commission recommends that the city of ann arbor send the commendation of roger rail and members of card for decades long service to the leadership of washington county the washington county delegation of the michigan legislature the director of the michigan department of environment great lakes of energy the regional the regional administrator of the united states environmental protection agency region 5 attorney general dana nessel and governor gretchen whitman prepared by commissioner mitchell council member griswold september 15 2021.
and kimberly if you do a roll call please i'd like to again welcome our visitors from three minutes ago so thank you for sticking with us long process um at this time i'd like to uh we started something last month where we began our meetings with the pledge of allegiance and y'all like to join me i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for thank you all right item number three is our public comments and correspondence i think we have somebody like to speak this evening great if you would just thank you exactly what i was going to ask you didn't you thank you um thanks for letting me speak again have you named all of you um i just wanted to i actually emailed part of what i'm going to say to andrea corey and i had our forward to everyone at the report it was the madison sinclair record on september 16 2021 the headline read judge sides with parents and challenge to carlisle school district mass mandate it goes on to say clinton county judge don schaefer granted a temporary restraining order against carlisle school district number one in superintendent anybody over the district's student mass mandate this article is written by ann mayer this bullying is similar to the september 15th order adopted by montgomery county circumstances involving a group of parents who stood tia topless clothes picked number 50 over its mask mandate but shapers only goes further to include all of colossal school districts the schaefer wrote while the children are on school property the defendants are enjoying from requiring any or all of the children who attend within the school district to utilize any type of device including a mask for the purposes of allegedly preventing the spread of an infectious disease unless an order of quarantine has issues against any or all of the children from the local county health department as required by the illinois state board of education the judge's order is effective for 30 days until 9am on october 15th it is not just one or two schools there are 60 schools that were placed on probation because they're fighting back against the mass mandate we need to join the fight not sit on the sidelines and be spectators it's not just red bud it's not just carlisle it's 60.
besides some simple wording changes the only really major change involves new rental guidelines for the pool you can find these on page five which he has up there and our aquatics director brad smith is here he along with myself and and dr long and the high school principal and and athletic director and assistant athletic director have talked about this had extensively with different conversations and tried to pull this together and i think they're quite enthusiastic about about more community rental of that pool there's been a great deal of interest expressed in that and other than that there really aren't any any big changes i do want to mention that the page seven of this document is their actual facility rental request and we're in the process of talking to a vendor to be able to put this online because this is we don't do a lot of these but it is a paper-based system and so we're trying to make this online so that that people can submit it online but more importantly we can be routed through various locations online so this evening we're asking the board to approve these new guidelines thank you dr gabriel any questions for dr gabriel somebody correct me if i'm wrong but we we've either been asked or we've already held a division two um i i believe we've been asked you time out for the natatorium for the dad yeah brad would be nice very happy to talk about that yeah would you like to come up here and talk about that i'm assuming that's part of what probably prompted some of that yes yeah well in the fact that we it's new and it's new right yeah did want to make sure it was open before we rented it that would be helpful good evening um in my short time we've already been asked by the university of indianapolis to host an invitational as well as the d2 national championships some of the guidelines they've asked for an additional three meter diving board right now so to host the national championships that's going to be put on hold um so but they are very excited to uh host they call it the d2 showcase it's six of the top ten division two programs that'll come in here to center grove i've also entertained conversations from the national water polo championships for the age group they're very interested in our facility age group triathlons so beyond just competitive swimming the facility is definitely taken here in local community organizations so could you introduce yourself to the audience i'm brad smith i'm the new aquatics director spent 27 years with any creek and proud to be a trojan now so i don't think we have welcome on board thank you yes thank you welcome any other questions okay do i have a motion mr president i move that we approve the facility guideline revisions as presented thank you mr alexander thank you mr hubbard all those in favor say aye aye mr daniels aye passes 5-0 thank you bro thank you thanks now our next order of business is the 1028 preliminary determination hearing and resolutions middle school projects thank you i'll start us out here this evening the hearing this is a hearing prior to the sale of bonds to the finance to finance the middle school building projects i'll turn it over to mr russell to run the hearing at this time so here we go sir thank you dr arkanov yeah i will now open this public hearing i would like to turn it over to dr gabriel to present the project the financing of the project and actions we are taking this evening dr gabriel thank you and i have a nice presentation with 20 slides but it is basically exactly this presentation that was made at the last board meeting since that time we've had no changes or any any significant issues brought up about this so i'm going to be very brief in skipping through some of these slides and i'd start with number four just very briefly this describes what we're doing at middle school north some safety issues with temperature controls and security cameras and then improving and expanding some classroom space for excuse me for banned orchestra music and of course expanding the cafeteria and providing new furniture the next next slide at middle school central what are we doing and at that facility again adding security cameras some of the classroom renovations that haven't been touched in many years and then adding at this location adding classrooms and an lgi about 12 regular classrooms science rooms and art rooms and i think probably most people have seen the portables out there that will be required until this construction is finished and then new furniture and again expanding the cafeteria and in the kitchen and i moved to slide 12.