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following that announcement carmel clay school board of trustees began the process to appoint a new board member to fill the remainder of the term for the district 2 vacancy which is until december 31st of 2022 and as required by statute the board does need to fill this position within 30 days of the effective date of the vacancy with that in mind cc has posted the application for the district 2 school board vacancy to the district website on august the 27th and district 2 residents were invited to to submit an application if they were interested and that was open through midnight this september 12th of 2021 on monday september 20th the school board met an executive session to review the applications and select four applicants to move forward to the public comment portion the public interview portion please forgive me of the application process last evening monday october 4th the school board held a special session to interview these final four candidates tonight the board anticipates on appointing a district 2 board member we will finish the appointment process on tuesday october the 12th at a school board workshop and at that point we will swear in the new board member carmel clay school board wants to thank our caramel community for their engagement and willingness to serve the students staff and families of carmel we received several applications and we were impressed with the all the number of qualified candidates that had applied selecting the final four candidates for the public interview process was a very difficult decision with so many highly qualified candidates if you were not able to watch last evening it is available for you to watch each of the candidates did a phenomenal job sharing their background and their interest and their skill set with us this is what makes this evening a very difficult evening because we have to decide of those four who will best fit and be able to serve our caramel community at this time those who we interviewed last evening were jennifer nelson williams jonathan shapiro nikki mcnally and vakata tatikanda so that is our background and we are going to continue to have discussion so does anybody want to begin with their thoughts of last evening mr kirschner thank you laila first i'd like to thank pam niles again for her service to our district and community from the classroom to the boardroom pam impacted thousands of students and families making carmel clay schools and carmel a better place as i was working on my thoughts for this evening i remembered that when pam had something that needed to be said that she would write out those remarks and share those thoughts with the board especially the few times where she was in the minority for the most part during our service together we all agreed as a board the few times in the six and a half years that we did not agree on a particular issue we always had civil discussion knew that what we were doing was what we thought was best for the students and families of carmel schools and moved forward as one second i'd like to thank dr bearsford and the rest of the administrative team for all that you have done for our district over the last 18 months we have been in uncharted waters and you have guided our ship through some difficult times always putting students at the center of every decision i am proud of how our district navigated the challenges of covid and is dealing with the current political climate we always have and always will put students first third teachers food service maintenance and bus drivers thank you for all you do as well you are the point of contact with our students each and every day you do your jobs because you love what you do we as a district community and the board are thankful for each one of you while we're able to increase compensation for the next two years you still are not financially compensated enough for what we ask you to do which is to prepare the next generation for a world that does not yet exist fourth to our community we may not all agree on every issue but hopefully we all can agree that carmel clay schools are one of our community's greatest assets and responsibilities please know that the board is always interested in public comment and working collaboratively collaboratively with our community to make ccs the best that it can be for our students families employees and taxpayers we as the board miss having the public in this public meeting room with us we look forward to the day that students parents and community members will be at our meetings in person and not just seeing us on a screen but we also have a responsibility to our students families and employees and taxpayers to keep the district working for our community fifth thank you to all the applicants that applied to fill the current vacancy on our board we as a board were impressed with the number of applicants the great skills that they could bring and the willingness to serve their community on this board it was not easy to narrow the field down to the four finalists and sixth thank you to our four finalists for applying and answering our questions yesterday the decision that we are making this evening is not an easy one as i have thought about what the four of you have in common it is that all of you value service to your community it is in your dna you value public schools and your past service to ccs in our community is what made you stand out in our decision to make you a finalist that was clear in your applications and your answers yesterday for the three of you that are not appointed tonight please stay involved in ccs and share your experience with our schools i like to share that my son reminded me when i ran a second time for this board after losing the first election that i said i enjoyed meeting a lot of great people but that i would never run again and then two years later i ran again we never know what the future will bring but for me two years after i ran and lost it turned out to be the right time it was the second time that afforded me the honor and the privilege to be elected and serve this district when we started the process of filling the vacancy after pam's retirement we had no idea who would apply or how many great candidates we would have but i said to my fellow board members that we will probably know most of the best candidates i personally did not expect and was surprised that i already knew three of the four finalists before meeting them last evening the decision this evening is not who mike kirschner would vote for at the ballot box based upon my personal beliefs the tough decision that this board needs to make this evening is who would be the best school board member at this time the four finalists all have skills that would make them great board members and i encourage all of you that if you are not selected tonight that does not mean that your community does not need you to serve you all have a lot to offer ccs and please continue to stay involved in our district venkata i had the privilege of meeting you when you ran against pam almost three years ago i enjoyed meeting you then and thank you for all that you do for our community your community includes ccs but is bigger than carmel indiana and the indian community i am impressed by your desire and dedication to help others around the world nikki we as a district really owe you and need to thank you for everything that you have done for our district from volunteering in the classroom to making sure that we have the funding to make our schools as safe as possible you truly live two of our ccs guiding principles a safe non-threatening learning environment is essential and students academic social emotional and physical needs must be addressed jonathan you are the one finalist that i had not met before last evening but we have had one degree of separation since you moved to indiana i too married a hoosier and moved to indiana my wife and i like you and like many other families moved to carmel fred's schools you have dedicated your life to working with youth and your experiences would make you a great board member jennifer our past had not crossed in the past but it was our past had crossed in the past but it was not until we volunteered together at porch fest your application and your answers last night that i was able to learn about you in more detail i had the privilege of knowing your father and like all the other finalists i know community service is in your dna as i said about when i was elected to the board the timing was right i think the timing is right for you to serve your community as a member of this board mike that sounds like a motion are you ready to make a motion yes leila i am happy to make a motion that we appoint jennifer nelson williams to fill the open carmel clay school board position for district 2.

our teachers are aware our counselors are we have real challenges here in danver but we need real solutions because for the last years things have been stagnant and the only way to change that is a new vision new energy and people who really have a stake in this parents residents neighbors thank you everybody [Applause] yes thank you first i'd like to thank the pto citywide pto for hosting tonight uh thank you to all the candidates that are here tonight to speak directly to the constituents so they hear exactly what we have to say i also would like to thank the audience all of you here tonight that came to listen to what we do have to say so you know where we're coming from on issues especially of education and education is one of the most crucial issues that we face in this city obviously uh i'm going to take a little time to introduce myself again dean espegido i'm the candidate for mayor here in danbury she was born and raised here in danbury and like mr alex i went to this school as well and i was a little bit before his time but i was here as well i attended all danbury schools right from south street school in kindergarten to danbury high school as i said and graduated actually my daughter went to south street school as well and i was the president of the pto actually there back in 89 98 97 98 my son attended saint joe's for preschool i went on to be elected to the common council or the city council as they call it now in 1998 or yet 98 or 89 i'm sorry and then i was appointed to city clerk in 2003 that was a true honor that i was selected by the party that i represented at the time 30 second time clerk i went from there to seal our weights united for the city i went from there to this mayor's staff with mayor balcom and i became mayor bowen's chief of staff for the last six years and now i have the honor of being chief of staff from mayor cabo and i think that we have to focus right now in this time as we sit here today we need some experience that's going to help move this city forward especially with education especially with everyday operations experiences [Applause] we'll have one minute to introduce themselves and i think we'll go from left to right let me just move down the line hi my name is here um the jamboree area i have three children all three born raised in danbury and all right so while they were in school so thank you [Applause] good evening thank you my name is joe dasilva i'm currently a member of the danbury board of education i ran two years ago because education as mr alex just said it is key we all agree with that in this room but first i want to thank every member of the on this diocese everyone is running for office it takes a lot to put yourself out there to run and everybody here should be commended for doing that because education is important everybody here believes that there's some difference in philosophy as to how that is done education is important and i'm a proud product of the gambling public school i went to king street school i went to rogers park and i graduated from denver high school after attending this very building i was in between councilman alves and candidate esposito um i had a great education my children are receiving a great education i believe we have to work hard to make sure all kids get the same access to the same great education that i got and that we all just really have thank you [Applause] my name is [Music] um as i can make an important contribution to my hometown based on my background knowledge and experience i was born and raised here in january my dad graduated from gamer's eyes in 1959 and was a world war ii living veteran my mother immigrated here from rutland after world war ii i attended local schools and i graduated from dealership in 1970 i received a ba and ma industry from western connecticut state university my husband andy milga and i have been married for 45 years we raised our two children in november we both graduated from the united states academy that was going to serve your country in iraq i retired after 20 years from western connecticut state university as the administrative assistant emeritus to the provost and academic vice president in my position i worked with faculty staff and students as well as the csu system office in hartford some of my work consisted of infinitely good policies [Applause] right i don't think you'll have any trouble hearing my big mouth but um so ralph measure festa a long time danbury resident two children through the jamberry school system uh sun that graduated daughter and our current senior here at manbra high school served on the board event for a total of six years former chairperson former chairperson sites and facilities committee a former city-wide pto president great organization thank you guys um former great plane pto president there's any great players here um great great school and just um basically come out of retirement to uh you know run again for the border then because um [Music] these days things are a little different and they need a unique um you know perspective and i think i offer that [Applause] i um a current board member my husband carl and i have lived in danbury for over 20 years i have two children in the danbury public schools one in middle school and one here at the high school as long as my kids have been in the school system i've been heavily involved as a volunteer a pto officer junior achievement facilitator kindergarten interventionist and a board member for the past four years before deciding to run for the board i attended board meetings for several years became a graduate of the current leadership training institute and an advocate for fair education funding as i became aware of the state's broken ecs formula during my time on the board i have served as vice chair secretary and chair of the policy committee over the past four years i have been grown in knowledge experience and passion for this work and i hope that i will be able to continue to serve my community thank you so much [Applause] again better um i've lived here for 24 years i have been teaching for over 20 years i used to teach attending high school and broadband middle school i start english in both schools i am a master of education i have three children who graduated from denver high school that they attended while i was here i have three published books i have a grandson who's now in pembroke school so i have a very vested interest in what happens communication in danbury and um i've served on several boards of directors one international one and uh that's pretty much i'm a from mothers and [Applause] grandmothers that have worked so hard to put this evening together i appreciate everyone coming out this evening my name is okay i'm first generation human american that has been proudly working in the diverse city of january for 20 years married to michael and a full-time working mother of three beautiful children 23 15 and 11 the reason i decided to run is because i think our children should continue i want our parents to feel confident that danbury schools are continuing to provide the best education and opportunities for their children while working with incredibly talented teachers i will listen to concerns of our kids and parents and make sure we hear all their perspectives but make decisions that put our resources in the right places just want to say good evening quickly because i guess i have to talk a little best from dr perlman and i'm very happy to be here to share the discussion and our future with our schools and students for over 50 years as an educator teaching in danbury working at the state department with professional development administrator at new ridge primary for 25 years i've had the privilege to serve with very wonderful students families and staff because they work for the benefit of all many have experienced schools of distinction ribbon awards and alike i've seen them accomplish marvelous things in spite of finding concerns by now our city continues to grow we must continue to seek other ways to be sure state officials realize this growth and what it means for our students 15 seconds i've been involved in all aspects of school development he came to grade 12 and have lived and worked within many cultures and beliefs there's so many things i would like to say but i know we're stuck with time frame and as my staff would say dr c you better be quiet um i do want to say i'll plan to work with the city and state of virginia to develop a plan for improvement and funding for educational systems as we face a growing population please help me let me do this and help you it's time thank you [Applause] so we are going to move on now to a couple of questions i just also wanted to mention if anyone needs interpreters we have portuguese and spanish in the back with headsets so please just go to the back and somebody will help you moving on our first question is for the two mayoral candidates mr esposito will answer first and the question is and we've had many questions regarding this topic in many different forms but it comes down to there's multiple questions and comments regarding increased enrollment in danbury so besides being much discussed and already in progress career academy and ellsworth annex what do you propose to do to address the needs of our ever-increasing enrollment in our district now thank you i i think we've been taking initiatives now we've been moving forward with our current administration which i've been part of uh with the freshman academy we have ellsworth avenue as you mentioned we have granville avenue that we've developed and younger kids you've got the career academy moving forward which is a middle school high school i think when i read this note it says now in capital letters how do we provide that now well in my opinion now is the time to move forward on a public charter school charter school is it gives us the ability to move forward now if we would get our state legislators to approve this so we can move forward and get the monies that we deserve we've got a donor that's there to help subsidize this we have the state that's going to fund it so their impact on our taxpayers is minimal so if you want to get this move forward now a public charter school is the way to go [Applause] well thank you for that question but more importantly thank you for the way that question was ended with the word now because dandry's overcrowding isn't a new problem it's a now problem and i see it firsthand every morning when my children get on that school bus on their way to school that bus drives by an elementary school before it gets to theirs and those two schools aren't even the two closest schools to our house and that's just one example of some of the challenges of our problem another one is that the city of danbury right now is currently leasing space for kindergarten kindergartners and brookfield we don't have space for them here we are in dire need now tonight you're going to hear a lot about how the state needs to do more but the truth is the city you're also going to hear a lot of bug passing and having somebody else figure out these challenges but that's not what our teachers and students families deserve but you know what we don't see when they say that they're doing some fixing now we don't see results that matter results that make a difference we don't need like i said earlier more families leading to neighboring communities like brookfield they invest 60 percent of their budget towards education we need leadership that's committed to not making excuses and blame in others and addressing the challenge now the state just increased our pilot funding by the tune of two and a half million i'll make a commitment to put all that money into education as it was allocated for that's now we make a commitment to increase the city's portion of the education budget now that's what we're going to do now not past the fall and the question is what are your goals regarding education here in danbury and how do you plan on accomplishing that well we need to address three major things the conditions of our schools the students are packed we see these pictures every year staffing at all levels especially right now there's examples of guidance counselors in our city with 375 children to one counselor the american school council associate counselor association recommends that these children have a ratio of 250 to one think about what we're going through these days the mental health issues and these counselors are overworked the other thing we need to do is address how the city allocates our budget a decade ago 55 of the city's budget was allocated to the border fed for the last five years since 2016 it's only been 51 and in fact the education funding over the last five since 2016 hasn't increased a single percentage point that's a huge divester in our children now let's talk about what we've been doing what we've been doing is we stopped and we've been listening we aren't where we are because the other side hasn't been listed 30 seconds i see a lot of familiar faces here you're familiar because we've rallied together we've organized together we've demanded action together but those demands have fallen on death's ears their priorities have not been with our children with our families with our teachers with our administrators i hear you that's why we have a plan it's been out for weeks a real plan now to pass the buck and it starts with adequate funding allocating our precious resources accordingly and increasing the percentage that we give to our schools that's how we get it done thank you i want to reiterate the fact that overcrowding is not a problem here in danvers the overcrowding issue came up in fact when my youngest child was in second third grade and he's now in college and back then there was no long-term plan initiated by the city to help us get out of this so what we need is a long-term plan that helps us dig the whole take us out of this whole of overcrowding that we've gotten ourselves into and we need somebody in the city that's actually going to implement this plan but also we have to discuss the lack of funding that's been given to our school system as a whole and what that's done when we were on the pto we had to fundraise for a new school sign and new stage curtains because there was no money for the city to replace them for us and that's unacceptable we had to fundraise for smart boards because there was no money to give them to our classrooms that's unacceptable so we as a board as a city as parents need to push this for our children and need to put them first so we need to make sure that our students are in classrooms that are adequately suited for learning and we also have to make sure that every child in the city has equitable access to the state-of-the-art resources that they need to build that foundation of learning so when we as parents see our children graduate danbury high school they are leaving with the best high quality education that we can give them thank you thank you two years ago when i ran for the board of education i had two goals in mind the first was to address overcrowding because as you've heard this evening that's not a new problem it's been a problem for years the other was to address the gross lack of funding on the part of the city of danville very proud of the fact that the board of education over the last few years has moved and then acted and addressed the issue of overcrowding the granville pre-k academy that freed up seven classrooms and schools the ellsworth avenue annex the coming career academy those are concrete examples that we've done to address overcrowding tomorrow evening as a member of the sites and facilities community member of the sites and facilities committee there will be a meeting where we will discuss future growth and how to deal with middle school overcrowding that was our goal for two years it still continues to be our goal to be clear the solution and i will work with everything in my power to avoid a charter school in this town the only thing public about a charter school is the public money that funds it a charter school is managed by a board of directors [Music] a public money should not go to a private corporation the charter school does not answer to the members of this board of education they do not answer the mayor of danbury it is not the solution for dead hello i think there's a lot of money out there and i would like to work towards getting more funding from grants for the schools the bottom line for all our problems is [Applause] all right so i think we could all agree we've never been involved in the school district i don't like using when i was on the door but when i was on the board and then you know no agree there's not just one issue that is that stand there um danbury is such a diverse and unique school system there's you know a lot of different issues that come up so the way i would accomplish some of the goals of moving the district forward and addressing the issues i was always a big fan of visiting the schools talking to the teachers and really the people who see what really goes on in the school so i used to visit the schools you know twice three times a year every school and it was great because you get some information from the administration you know that's two or three filters through there and it gets yeah once it gets down to you everything is great so i was a big proponent of going in 30 seconds and seeing the people on the ground teachers deal with stuff every day and each school has a unique issue so when you go there you go and you understand and try to get a feel for what you're dealing with so that's how what i bring back to the boardroom and how i try to make decisions so i would continue to do that because the teachers are you know all all unique situations in school teachers are working hard and they really know what the school needs you know when you sit up in a board in a board room and you don't go out and visit people and see people and understand what people need you know it's very difficult so that's what i like to do and i like to hear from the people that are actually going through the problems [Applause] first and foremost my goal as a board member is to place children at the forefront of every decision i will continually strive for ways and opportunity that will allow them to succeed there are several district initiatives that began during my time on the board that i hope to be able to continue and see through to completion and free election at the start of my term i asked about our district vision and mission busted that off which happened to coincide with an opportunity to develop the portrait of a graduate several years two grants many focus groups and one new superintendent later our district is headed in an exciting new direction having served on the city gps task force i would like to see through the completion of our ongoing building project as well as on the educational side and implementation of the career pathways of the new career academy the board is currently in the midst of auditing our entire policy manual while this isn't the most exciting or glorious work right though 30 seconds i do enjoy it and it's critical and would like to see that through and last but definitely not least communication is always a high priority for me as a parent i know and recognize the importance of communication so as a board member i will always look for ways to strengthen that communication thank you as a teacher and a parent of uh students um i think i have a perspective from both sides of the aisle and so to speak one of my primary goals is to fund our students and teachers based fully on what the boe approves one of my primary goals is to ensure our students are considered our number one resource and stop being put on the back burner by cutting proposed budgets another of my primary goals is to alleviate the tremendous toll our underfunded budget and ever increasing student population has hung on the shoulders of our teachers and staff with the expectation year after year that they should be able to accomplish growth and achievement with less and less money with less and less resources overcrowded classrooms pleased to the leadership that fall on deaf ears and to ensure our leadership going forward endorses and trust the thoroughly researched budget proposal and then fund it 100 30 seconds my primary goal is to once and for all help find equity in the funding of our schools the sixth largest school district in connecticut with the absolute lowest funding let me repeat that the sixth largest school district with the lowest funding doing these things will ensure being able to attract and hire teachers counselors and increase the quality of educational resources for our children and i want to work to keep charter schools out of here because and if they're going to put 1600 students in a charter school by [Music] i'm on the other side of the coin i believe the charter school would immediately um satisfy some of the needs that we have on overcrowding it is going to be fully paid no increase to the taxpayer it will be in downtown granberry um growing as a part of our new community the hispanic latin community they have new programs the lead program that would work i would hope together with the parents and the teacher together and our students to shape the future of our education here in danby and prepare for it not just keep finding areas to put children we are going to address that issue now then we need to actually start constructing and it would not impact the current public school funding it is not private it is [Applause] [Music] thank you for beaming up scotty i i you know i'm listening to all of it but you know after being in the school district over [Music] and 50 still talking about overcrowdedness my school itself was overcrowding when i walked in and it was still on the problem we have to do something and as she just said this is a freebie why would you look this look at this like it's you know something terrible it's an awesome thing to have you have nothing to worry about you get the money you get the teachers and if you're already employed in another school you certainly can move to this charter school your did your certification work so it's not a deal about anything other than these we have to give our students the opportunity and our families they've got to have the space they've got to have the area to explore new curriculum as well so uh i will be working with the city and the state of bishops to see it's come to a reality i really believe it's something finally that can be so you can answer question two and then you will also get question three okay thank you well obviously questions two has hit some nerves uh we're sitting back and talking about an opportunity for the city of denver to move forward and instantly get space that we need quality education that they provide and bring the city to a point where we have a breathing space to up to move forward and look into other options as we know there's an opportunity out there for us we're not going to be able to build a new school within a few weeks we know that we are looking into new opportunities with renting space or buying pre-existing building buildings and renovating them but you know my friend down at the other end of the table keeps saying they did not do this and they did not do that but my friend is a sitting councilman as we speak right now and i haven't heard him step up and make an offer or an option when he votes no on our proposals what is the option he hasn't made that clear so the option for us for me right now is to move forward work closely with our new uh superintendent we're closely with the new director of finance on the education side and they have a more than one new staffer over there in finance we have a great stafford finance director on the city side and we're going to continue to work closely together to move this thing forward time to provide the best services we can to the city of denver and especially the ones that mean the most are the children thank you [Applause] the next question the danbury public school district as we have been discussing here has been underfunded for many years at both the state and city level given the current state constraints how do you propose to bridge the gap in funding and give the district the tools necessary to succeed including more teachers more staff and more programs how will you ensure that danbury can provide all of our students with a competitive high quality education miss mr escazo your friend oh thank you this is sorry this is for the mayors only thank you again there's an opportunity here to fulfill those obligations that we're looking for in this question more teachers more staff more programs they'll be out they'll be offered with the charter school gives us the opportunity to move forward very quickly and provide the space that we need you know i get concerned about some of the comments here tonight about underfunding or cutting budgets just to make it clear the fact is that we've never cut the education budget ever every single year it's been increased those are documented numbers you can ask for the the number that you're asking for is yeah sir by law you can't cut the budget if you get you have to be at least the same number as last year the fact is we never cut the budget on the education side we have a surplus this year of almost two million dollars so we're doing something right here in danbury we're gonna continue to do it right no matter what the the facts are that people bring out in a negative way i'm a dan marion i want to move dan murray forward and danbury is where we have to be we have to unify and provide a quality education for these kids not sit out there and argue about that so let's start working together and build a coalition here for the city and the students and the kids that live here because that's the future we all know that thank you [Applause] thank you this isn't much about the city of gabriel this is about the state meeting anymore but before we really get into it i think a quick finance lesson we haven't gone up a percentage we increased the dollar but the value of the dollar today isn't the same as the value of the dollar 20 years ago or five years ago ten years ago that's finance there's inflation involved when we talk about inflation we haven't even kept up with inflation and if it wasn't for graded funding every year as far as schools would sort with funding sources we can't rely on year in year out we wouldn't even need contractual agreements that's no way to run a business there's certainly no way to run a city so what we have to do is stop kicking the can down the road stop passing the boat because that's the reality this isn't new every year we hear this and how we how we go from that is we need a leader who's going to implement the most efficient and effective solutions that don't sacrifice quality along the way that don't take from the public schools what am i going to do like i said before we are committing to increasing funding the two and a half million dollars that the state increased that's supposed to be allocated for education from the city saying they're going to allocate all of it i am committing to that we're going to increase the funding because it's our responsibility to do so and as a city councilman for the last two years i've done more than the city government does in 10 years that's why these people know me because they've seen me advocate for that thank you we are moving on to the audience questions now um a lot which are similar topics obviously and this next question or the first audience question is for the two mayoral candidates and councilman house you'll be going first since you were last and here is the question for the past 18 years the board of ed requested education budget has not been fully funded by city hall this has led to a 54 million dollar shortfall in the education budget which has hurt our kids and community tremendously and led to a severely overcrowded school and reduced services and the question is will you support the budget requested by the superintendent and approved by the board of ed thank you for whoever submitted that question i look forward when we win to working closely with the new superintendent on whatever the most responsible budget is for our schools because again the passion in this room is because our schools aren't being funded fairly so the city has to step up and do its part so we have to find responsible ways to do that and that's increasing the allocation it's increasing it's guaranteeing money that comes from the state and again like i said this isn't about the state not doing it not but of course i'm going to ask this thing to do more i'd be crazy not to and i'm gonna use my relationships with my friends in the harvard legislature our state senator and all our state reps instead of bashing that movement delivery every year working with them to get even more that's what we're gonna do so yes of course we're gonna we're gonna be okay with any responsible budget well i have to say i agree with that we're going to work together for any responsible budget like we do every single year you know we we spent this year alone 146.4 million dollar investment in education that's more than half of what it costs to run the whole city i'm telling you there is no one on that diocese besides my colleague friend that voted against there were a couple others but the reality is the money is being spent where it needs to be spent we can't put a burden on the city's taxpayers we're just coming through a pandemic we've been trying to do everything possible to keep that burden off their back and thank god for the quality teachers that we do have on the front line doing the actual work they're out here each and every day educating those kids because those are the people that really matter not the ones behind the scenes not the ones sitting in back trying to dictate what's happening those teachers are the ones that are doing the real work and i praise them so that the teachers are doing the job the city's providing the money that we need to get the quality education and we got seven schools of distinction and where do they come from did they come by accident no they come from hard work and investment into this community thank you the next question is for the board of event candidates and just a reminder you are not required to answer these audience questions if you would like to answer you may raise your hand and we'll just go in orderly fashion um and here is the question it is on cooperation with the local teachers association teachers have often had a seat at the table while not necessarily feeling that our voices were heard will you pledge to include the local teachers union discussions and final decisions surrounding all matters related to the local school district its schools and its funding you may start uh i think it was jane roberto having been a teacher myself for many many years and understanding their perspective of things and having been a parent i would fully support something like that and i think they deserve to be heard i think they deserve to be included they're the ones uh actually that mr esposito just said they're on the front lines they really are and um and they know what they need and they know better than anyone what they need [Applause] is no i totally agree your teachers really need to be part of the whole operation actually like you said they are at the forefront all the time and after working with them for 50 years [Music] there's a lot that they have to give and they can get um you know i'm not talking about all their pockets we talked about on their minds and their hard work so yes teachers should get involved and i'm sure they will do especially with new school sites are coming on board [Applause] i just wanted to bring to light that we do have representative um that keep your representative at every board meeting every regular board meeting um so there's a place for them there's also a place you know for the administrators union uh to come give us an update um we do appreciate when they come and tell us what's going on in schools they also have a seat at the table you know on various projects our reopening committees [Music] we have the portrait of graduate was you know largely largely run by the teachers um i've worked with them on uh t-deck and t-val committees um as well as hiring panels [Music] as accessible as possible um you know like ralph he would you know walk to school um [Music] you know i i did the same and i appreciate when teachers reach out to me first time so thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you um of course teachers the same thing um frankly all of our stakeholders should have a stage behavior that includes teachers it includes parents includes administrators it includes residents of denver who don't have kids in our school we need everybody involved we need everybody behind education needing everybody to support education that said it doesn't mean you put giving teachers a seat at the table is only important if we're actually going to support them it's one thing they say that they're number one or they're in the front lines it's another thing to support them it's another thing to attend their forum it's another thing to fill out their questionnaire it's another thing to say the state doesn't fundament schools well enough and we have two and a half million dollars of pilot funds only one candidate is committed to dedicating an education teachers need a seat at the table and they need our support when they're there [Applause] i think we're good okay the next question is for the team of mayoral kenneth um councilman alex movie first history indoor air quality will you make it a priority within your first term to ensure that schools in the city have updated or newly installed hvac systems including air conditioning to provide healthier air and standard temperatures for learning and teaching throughout the year yes or no thank you well yes everybody wants clean air so we can absolutely begin the work i think we have to talk about feasibility i think those are major projects that nobody would say that it's not going to finish in the year but reasonably we have to commit to doing it as fast as possible and that is my commitment yes i definitely would agree with quality air systems you know our grandville avenue school that was just developed uh has one of the top quality air systems that you could possibly get and the landlord there provided that system at the time when it was just coming out so our goal is and we are in process of looking into uh building the the air systems to make them more qualified our quality air system so uh if you're asking yes or asking me if the air systems should be better yes they should so thank you [Applause] thank you the next question is for all of the board event candidates what experience do you have in advocating for the needs of large groups of children and the second part is how do you see your role as a board member approval only or active purchases please raise your hand the last part is how do you see your role as a board of ed member approval only or an active participant what experience do you have personally in advocating for the needs of large groups of children and then are you approval only or active participant well i i've been on the board of education for the last two years i'd like to think that as a board member we've been advocating for the 12 000 give or take students that are enrolled in the danvers school so i think i come to this with that experience i think it is an active participation role i think the existing board has all been active i don't think anybody's been passive it's not approval only we ask questions we send emails we listen to constituents it is an active and engaged process so i think that's that's where my experience comes from comes from as a board member but it is definitely an active role it's not something that's passive is not a rubber stamp thank you [Applause] so when i was on the board so yeah so experience advocating i served in many different roles on the board as chairperson especially as your chairperson any board member here will tell you you see behind the curtain you really see what goes on in each each aspect of those school districts so um people who serve with me or people who know me it's definitely not approval um i'm probably rachel will smile at this but she has a mascot so you can't see it um i was probably one of the loudest board members uh maybe joe's up there but i was one of loudest board members and would really make things uncomfortable for the administration and hold us accountable and just not take you know someone's word for it you know it's just so it's not just like joseph the rubber stamp it's that and i feel most of the board members that i've served with and the new ones now we're committed to really getting down to the issue and making sure it works right the right thing to do so that's my unique experience is being in different roles on the board with organizations like gtl and stuff like that very unique uh perspective i think it's a great part of the experience and um [Music] [Applause] it should be active and involved and knowledgeable [Applause] um i'm very proud to say that i was actively involved in um the first bond that was improved back in 2012 when the overcrowding started we had a group of parents and i and we became very vocal in advocating for the first expansion and bringing to life a lot of the problems with the overcrowding that were starting to bubble up back in 2010 2010 2011 and uh finally we got the expansion to be the school of the edition and westside middle school um so i'm definitely familiar with that with being an advocate for the kids and really however by the time construction was completed we were fully private again it didn't really solve any of the issues long term um but i would not be up here if i was planning to take a rubber stamp approach to being here with one egg so i will definitely be actively involved thank you [Applause] yeah definitely active um almost every year since i came across glti and the penn state school finance project i've gone to hartford have advocated on behalf of our kids danbury wasn't always last for people i remember just this happened within years and this was a direct result of total abandonment of ucs formula by the state legislator legislature for years all districts remained flat while most of the districts saw a declining enrollment so naturally their poor people went up and our our ranking just kept going down by the goal like the first and the per pupil amount is not an accurate reflection of all that the city spends on the school it does not include capital expenditures building expansions and property renovations like the clear academy the brand new tracking field right outside is beautiful if you haven't seen it yet uh science labs elworth avenue expansion dhs freshman academy the west side middle school elevators i thought at um i fought for our elevators to be replaced um in front of the council just you know a year or two ago for the staff bond meanwhile our eps formula is a disgrace we would not be last if the state would probably fund education once and for all we had an opportunity to be fully funded immediately through a very strong bill this past legislative session our state senator was one of the very few no against this bill and now we have to wait until 2028 to receive our fair share of education funding from the state school finance is a state level issue so why haven't our state delegation brought more money back to danbury they should be fighting for a budget that puts students first and creates immediate and long-term change to address all of the needs of our students [Music] [Applause] thank you [Music] there's a lot of talk about uh defunding i just wanted to point out that um last year 651 was the budget it was increased this year 9.82 um i believe there was a little bit of a higher request but this the city did find 9.82 gave the teachers a raise which obviously they deserve um and the state owned funds about three thousand six hundred dollars or so for danbot every other school everyone [Music] that is a significant difference that has to do with the state it does not have to do with us the state is funding only we have to pick up the difference every other city in town here is getting so there's a really big problem with this ecs calculation it doesn't take into construction all the work that's been done transportation there's so many factors that do not get included in that 169 to 169 number as we all know the population here is growing our students are there is more every day and other cities that are nearby our towns bears are going down that means they get more money for students because you by law are not allowed to give a penny less than the year prior so every year dan barry for the last 18 years has contributed and giving an additional amount to whatever the state has provided lastly again our students are on the top city of the congratulations [Applause] thank you [Applause] next question is for the mayors and i believe it is mr esposito's turn to go first it seems that there is constantly a new apartment building or condo complex being built in danbury the economic benefits of which also come with hardships with regards to continued school enrollment growth what responsibility do you think the city bears for facilitating this that's a very good question as you know we have some serious growth here right now in danbury amber is the shining star of the state we do things right here in danbury we keep the taxes low and regardless of what some people think we provide excellent education to the students i met a lady the other days 35 years in the realtors business and she said that one of the greatest selling points that she has is that danbury's educational system is so good people want to come here so that's it i guess there's some people that don't think that again but the reality is that it has to be with managed growth managed growth is something that we always focus on and uh that's what we'll do for the future of danbury and it's your next marijuana i'm sure the managed growth will be positive [Applause] i have two articles in front of me let's read a quote from one of them we're saturated with condominiums and multi-family housing in the city our traffic is a mess our high school is one of the largest in the state that's one the next one esposito wants this city to control growth more particularly new condominiums which he says put more pressure on the schools and increase traffic this was 2005 being esposito i like that dean esposito because he was fighting for our schools but since he's been working for the city and his new bosses that has changed all of a sudden but the pressures in his schools have not changed so what we have to do is manage responsible growth and that welcome 2005 venezuela to work with us so we can do this responsibly it wasn't working then again we can't stress these aren't new challenges to vanguard there are the challenges in 2005.

i will begin with item 4.1 which is our flags blue and we have jimmy jimmy ann from powell jimmy are you here with us yes i am all right take it away okay um so my name is jimmy ann terrazas i'm a sixth grader at powell um and i will be leading you in the flag salute so if you could please stand put your right hand over your heart ready begin 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 by liberty and justice for all thank you moving on to item 4.2 uh roll call board member rodriguez pena president board member bo here board member cruz gonzalez here and i board member greer am here and board member arianes is abstinent for the night moving on to item 4.3 approval of the agenda uh is there a motion to approve make a motion to approve second moved by board member rodriguez pena and second by board member cruz gonzalez let's go ahead and vote and the vote passes for yes to one abstinent moving on to item 5.1 excuse me 5.0 report action of closed session matters and 5.1 resolution uh 21-2206 to approve the reduction or discontinuance of classified management services for the 2021-2022 school year is there a motion to approve i make a motion to approve second move by board member cruz gonzalez seconded by board member rodriguez pena any discussion then let's go ahead and vote and the item passes four yes so one abstinent moving on to item 6.0 items from the floor public comment on agenda or non-agenda items this is an opportunity for the public to address the board of education on agenda or non-agenda items individual speakers may be allowed up to three minutes to address the board of education on any agenda or non-agenda items when the public wishes to address the board of education on an agenda item they may fill out a blue card send at the podium or raise their hand while in zoom attendance the board of education will take blue card requests first followed in order by speakers at the podium then those in the zoom attendance and again i just said this but i will reiterate that uh three we have a three minute limit and so i uh if you are going over i will stop you at three minutes um it doesn't look like we have anyone here that has a blue card do we have anyone online uh yes first we have amber fish you may mute your mic hello i just wanted to um come out here and say thank you to the board to mr ortega mr ankio um for getting our hajj dual immersion teachers the aid that we requested i know that some of us parents were very vocal about the changes that were made with our dual immersion program this year and we we asked for a lot of help for our teachers and it was really nice to see this week that our teachers were given an aid to help the students um and to help them so it shows us or it shows me that you are holding up to your end of our of the bargain of adding support for our teachers and your dedication to this program so thank you for listening to us and thank you for following through that's it thank you amber uh next person we have is samira mejia good evening honorable board president uh council members men and women of the community my name is samira mejia and i'm the general manager at the san gabriel valley region of think together a statewide organization that provides expanded learning supports and after school programs in over 400 school sites from preschool through high school and here in azusa we're proud to serve our elementary middle school and high school programs throughout our partnership with this is the unified i think together's mission is to partner with schools to change the odds for kids we all know that back to school this year has meant more to students than ever before as we continue to rise together from an unprecedented year we're seeing students come back to our after school programs eager to learn reconnect with friends and seeing their seeing students back with their friends and teachers so in addition to think together's commitment to our students after-school programs are of great value to the azusa community and our economy according to research done by the national after-school alliance there are over six hundred thousand kids in california who are left unsupervised after school on october 28th being together sites across california will be holding their annual open house event called lights on after school our students are super excited to show off their hard work creativity and innovation from think together's expanded learning programs students have been very busy these past couple months and are eager to share this with their parents and community leaders i would like to formally invite you all to attend our lights on after school on october 28th at powell elementary from 4 to 5 30.

this meeting is being held electronically to protect public health and safety due to the coven 19 virus and to comply with orders issued by the governor the michigan department of health and human services and or the washington county health department we intend to conduct this meeting similarly to an in-person meeting but please be patient as there are occasionally technical issues that persist even 19 months into this to speak during public comment opportunities you'll be able to speak through the webinar link or by phone depending on your method of access and the devices that you have available to you both the telephone number and the web link are available on the public agenda which is in the public notices section of the city website for phone access tonight you can please dial 877-853-5247 and then enter the meeting id which is 977-6634-1226 this information is also available on the published agenda it's on the broadcast of this meeting on ctn channel 16 at t channel 99 and it's online at a2gov.org watch ctn where you would select the government channel mr leonard can we please have a roll call of course commissioner mills here in ann arbor commissioner gibb randall here in ann arbor commissioner sovay commissioner abrams here from ann arbor commissioner hammerschmidt here in ann arbor commissioner dish here in ann arbor commissioner lee commissioner clark uh faintly but i did did you say from ann arbor and commissioner white here in ann arbor we have a quorum of um with seven members uh it will does just a reminder to petitioners and the planning commission it takes six affirmative votes to affirmatively advance petition very good thank you um item three is approval of the agenda may i have a motion to approve the agenda moved by commissioner weich seconded by commissioner abrams and i see mr leonard's hand because we don't have minutes right that's correct i would ask that you remove that my apologies that'll be forwarded on the next agenda okay so that would be striking agenda item four any other changes or discussion of the agenda um all those in favor of the motion with that amendment please raise a hand or say yes that is all the hands so um it it carries item five now is the reports from city administration city council the planning manager planning commission officers and committees and any written communications um council member dish do you have a report for us tonight i don't think that there was anything that happened last night that would interest you although you might be pleased to hear that we had a first reading on energy benchmarking um which though not our primary responsibility here on planning is clearly something that we care about i'm happy to be corrected by mr leonard mr leonard you're up you can either fill in the blanks or add anything of your own i would never correct only augment um a couple of quick notes uh you might notice like in an absence of our agenda previously the planning commission had postponed 336 south ashley a site plan this was a designated consumption facility that was proposing in addition they have withdrawn that petition and therefore it has vanished from this evening's agenda correspondingly i would um i shared with the commission and it has also been attached in additional communications for public review i have shared a report as i promised of recent variants applications uh regard specifically regarding electric vehicle parking if you have any additional questions on that please don't hesitate to follow up with me but i try to put together what i thought would be the helpful details for your information thank you commissioner mills for helping me to make sure i was doing so and then finally uh in our working session next week is anticipated for a pre-pud petition meeting for 1855 to 1875 north maple this is a proposed residential development being conceptualized for the southwest corner of maple north maple and m14 so again that'll be a pre-petition session for that and that's what i have very good are there any other commissioner officers or committee liaisons that have anything to report i wanted to note that the orc did meet last week um we discussed tc1 rezoning and kind of the communication plan um for uh the um those folks that are kind of within the footprint and then within a thousand feet and just so you know i unless the plan has changed um during our work session in november the plan is to have that as a public meeting um and invite folks who have questions that way we can all hear it um kind of what the questions and comments are associated with it won't be the public hearing we'll still have a formal public hearing at a meeting where we um where we um vote but this will be an opportunity for those folks kind of in that area or any others so if you're interested it might it is the it's the meeting in november the november work session okay so the second tuesday in november um we discussed kind of the plan for that and the communications associated with that um and also potential changes that could happen in parallel the kind of height um discussion um and the distance for uh in associated with um the tc one district when we were talking about the the highest you know um that's currently a thousand foot setback so there was some discussion of that and i'm expecting that that will kind of continue on and then we also discussed some mr leonard brought some good maps and data associated with non-conformities in r2a districts um and so hopefully we'll see some of some relatively simple text changes um to that going forward is that a fair assault okay um anybody else okey dokey on tonight number six which is audience participation this is the next on our agenda is an opportunity for public comment it's an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about an issue that's not listed as a public hearing on this agenda so tonight we have dedicated public hearings on site plan review thresholds and um for the 38 3874 research park drive proposal if you wish to address the planning commission on any other matters now is an appropriate time for that to speak um please press star 9 if you're listening if you're listening by phone or if you've joined us through the web link you can use the raised hand feature that's at the bottom of the screen if you're watching us right now and would like to dial in the phone number is 877 8535 and our meeting id is 977-6634-1226 mr leonard will call on those who've raised their hand and again if you've dialed in you press star 9 if you're here watching us through zoom use the raise hand feature um he'll call on you by the last three digits of your telephone number or your name whatever depending on how you joined and when um once you've unmuted please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we can hear you more clearly please also state your name and address at the beginning of your comments caller with the phone number ending with 955.

first flush is required is that ten thousand greater other measures are required um matt and i did some research this after this afternoon um four recent four unit developments all fell within the five thousand to ten thousand square foot of impervious surface threshold which means that this option a would not result in any change to the requirements although it would be happening in in a different way instead of requiring first flush under the 5 000 square feet of impervious surface it would simply require five thousand square it would simply require first flush through the worksheet that would be the same for a three and four unit if it were um fifteen thousand square feet or twenty thousand square feet which seems unlikely or on the flip side if it was less than 5 000 square feet in that circumstance a three and four unit would be having to add storm water infrastructure that is not currently required under our framework today the option a further makes it clear that it's no longer site plan that is triggering compliance with these standards it is any development activity or construction activity or impact to natural features so it also separates the natural the site plan review threshold from the determination of which stormwater standards apply rather it is again would solely be distributed attributed by the type of development that's been proposed so that is option a and as i said i believe option a is consistent with a desire to make things to frankly not change our stormwater regulations or make them easier option b is a proposed option that has come out of conversations with our public services team one of the um and i think um to be clear some of this is just once we started delving into this it warranted that conversation and looking what those standards are option b proposes a different approach whereas it would largely keep the same structure very similar to option a it would eliminate site plan as the sole determiner and add permitting or site plan as the trigger for storm water having to be met a couple changes there however though is that it would take what is currently a category of development which is greater than one and two family but less than five thousand square feet it would now require that first flush to be occur for those developments where right now no storm water is required for those developments so in those circumstances it's going to be potentially adding a little bit of infrastructure requirement i would say incremental the more the larger change being proposed is to actually then eliminate the subsequent structure so at this point you would only have two categories of project when you're when you're regulating by impervious surface 5000 and less is first flush 5 000 and more would be everything that is it would require first flush bank full and detention for up to a 1 storm event whereas now that is only required for those developments that have 15 000 square feet or more that would also have some benefits potentially not a guarantee but potentially with our community rating system at the city we are one of a few committees in the communities in the state and i'm not going to [Music] speculate at the numbers because i'll get it wrong but we are in the upper echelon of communities in the state of michigan where our our flood insurance rating is um beneficial to our property owners where we get a they get a higher discount than many other communities in the state of michigan and the country for that matter because of a variety of stormwater regulations and measures that we take advancing and requiring more for these types of developments have the potential to improve that i acknowledge and this is a little bit of the conversation we had through the floodplain overlay discussion i think that would be a perfectly valid policy discussion i don't feel like that's what the resolution from city council is directing the planning commission to look at as far as small and moderate scale develop and so i really value i think it's appropriate for us to be looking at that standard if we're going to be looking at it at all i'm happy you know to bring any other expertise to that point or questions that you have but i think that there's a bit of a i just think it's a bit of a policy direction that i would value the planning commission's perspective on i think the planning commission absolutely values progressive stormwater management and to do option b would be to be pushing the envelope in that regard i don't i think in fact it's going to have some offsetting implications to development and that you might be transferring obligations of process costs for stormwater management costs which is also a different benefit for our community as well option a is a little bit closer to and not exactly but it's closer to just keeping everything the same um in the context of eliminating the site plan threshold adding three and four unit and then everything stays the same for impervious surface five thousand and less is nothing five to ten flush etc etc etc i think that's a little bit more consistent with that city council resolution that was driving this analysis and i value the planning commission's feedback in what your senses of the direction you'd like to explore in that regard and then the last piece of that is because we are starting to talk about changes to that section of the ordinance that is one of the reasons that i would like to recommend postponing because i think it's important that we actually notice thus far public notice has been strictly focused on the site plan thresholds this interrelationship between these two sections is i think important for us to get right i think it's important for us to share with the public that we're looking at both of those sections if we are going to make adjustments in that regard so with that maybe i'll just give one second to matt to see if there's anything i missed particularly with the updated uh table from [Music] the version that was originally published there was the one little addition about we're going to cover regarding the site the sustainability options thank you so much yeah i sort of gloss over that um also totally unrelated similarly unrelated to what city the city council resolution is is i've added a provision for your consideration about electrified and solar renewable energy projects and it is what i think is a fairly simple perhaps elegant way to incent uh projects that are fully electrified with no natural gas connection and with 60 of their rooftop covered with solar renewable energy or an equivalent if it's better on site somewhere in those cases any project that would normally require planning commission review would change to uh planning manager review and then a last piece that i just wanted to highlight that has been in the draft previously but i just want to make sure it's been called out i am also from the council resolution direction of keeping thing trying to simplify the process you'll note that after the table there are standards and process determinations about how those different levels approve site plans planning manager does not require a public hearing it's an administrative process i have replicated that language in the planning commission set stanza as well that would the result as drafted would be that planning commission site plans are an administrative process also not through a public hearing process city council those petitions are still going to be petitions that are associated with a legislative action and so i wanted to highlight that you've seen it in the language before i don't know that we've spent much time discussing it i think it is faithful to easing the process for projects but it might be going a little farther because it's going to potentially apply to projects beyond small and modest projects so i just wanted to make sure that that has been highlighted as well and thanks for the note on the electrification as well so with that um happy to answer any questions of the commission after or before the program all right we'll have the public hearing and then we'll open this up for discussion um this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed site plan ordinance amendments if you wish to address the planning commission on this item please press star 9 if you've dialed in or use the raised hand feature if you've joined us through zoom for phone access again the phone number tonight is 877-853-5247 and our meeting id is 977-6634-1226 city staff will select callers that have raised their hand calling on you by the last three digits of your telephone number or your name if you join through zoom and um you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak please move to a quiet area and mute any background sounds so that we can hear you clearly please do state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and i see a hand up uh mr darren mckinnon you can unmute yourself and address the planning commission hi good evening my name is daryn mckinnon with first martin i was a member i guess i still am a member of the advisory work group that was put together as part of this process and i appreciate you giving me a chance to speak quickly tonight i will say that i'm mostly happy with all the proposed changes uh that are we've been working through this for quite a long time now the single biggest item from a cost standpoint that i see as an obstacle to most projects is the stormwater it's it's significant in cost and it if you think back to where this kind of director from council came from in my opinion was we've got these buildings that perhaps modest improvements can be made but they're not being made because some of the regulations make them you know cost prohibitive storm water is at the top of the list of the things that make projects small modest projects cost prohibitive so i'm a little concerned especially with the option b which actually makes it harder and therefore more expensive so i would i understand mr leonard saying uh postponed and i understand how this conversation with city staff probably went where it got to that but that's clearly the opposite of the goal of this on option a i guess it's a step in the right direction for certain projects but i would say if there's a way to ever so slightly i realize there's a strong desire to not open it up too much allow for projects beyond three and four family residential to have whatever would be deemed tolerable for um first flush retention only and nothing beyond that i realize there's you know very difficult to where you draw that line but i think that there's an opportunity there to allow some projects that are commercial in nature to move forward which would then provide an ability to do some increase in storm water because if you've got these old buildings there's no storm water detention right now so you go from nothing to something which i think is a benefit to the community and if it's only first flush it could actually be accomplished at a low cost if you get beyond that these are the standards that brent was mentioning they become extremely expensive and just very quickly the project is shelved so thank you everything else looks great appreciate all your work on this thank you caller with the phone number ending with caller with the phone numbering with one three four you have three minutes to adjust the planning commission um thank you mr leonard and chair mills this is ken garber 28 haverhill court i apologize i haven't been following the many discussions on this topic i just looked today at this for the first time so i'm coming in completely cold with three questions the first is about um the last entry in table five 29-1 which mr leonard just told you about his new change for electrified developments with 60 rooftop solar putting them in category m or planning manager approval if i heard them right these projects will not go through planning commission review now we of course want to incentivize building solar and electrification many of you have heard me talk ad nauseum about this topic but what about large and complex projects i think of valhalla glen and lockwood senior living major developments with hundreds of units both fully electrified granted neither had enough solar to qualify for this new category and both originally came in with gas heating so they would have gone through commission review regardless but if they had started out all electric with 60 rooftop solar under this ordinance change uh it sounds like they would have been exempt from commission review and approval i liked both these projects but they benefited from going through planning commission and the neighbors deserve to be heard at the public hearings as we see more large electrified and solarized projects they shouldn't be able to skirt commission review maybe i'm miss reading this but um i i'm happy to be set straight if so but i think i heard mr leonard um correctly also not all building electrification is good electrification for example electric resistance heating whether in the form of baseboard heaters wall heaters or electric radiant heat is very inefficient same for the p-tech units you see in hotel rooms these are basically individual air conditioners that can heat the room when you reverse the flow we don't want to encourage these forms of building electrification also electric reheat systems may be the single most inefficient hvac system type around so not all electrification is good so i question this change to begin with but if you do end up keeping it at least by at least specified geothermal heat pump air source heat pump or vrf system my second question is about section b approval procedures uh under planning commission approval if i'm reading this right there's a change that eliminates the public hearing requirement when planning commission reviews a site plan if so this is a bad idea too uh finally i am right if i am i right that these amendments eliminate city council review of site plans where the petitioner does not request the rezoning and that the planning commission vote would be final for these site plans if so i'm conflicted about that but i'm out of time so thank you thank you very much if anyone else wishes to provide a public comment uh a comment during this opportunity you can press star 9 on your phone or you can use the raised hand feature in zoom all right seeing none i'll close the public hearing and read the motion the ann arbor city planning commission postpones further discussion and consideration of pro of the proposed site plan amendments until the november 2nd 2021 planning commission meeting moved by commissioner hammerschmidt seconded by commissioner dish we're in discussion and i assume that it's fine to not just discuss postponing it but anything else that has come up mr leonard um that's my intention yeah okay great anybody want to kick off conversation or questions go ahead commissioner randall um could we start with the questions that mr wilbur just addressed so that we can make sure those are kind of clarified and out of the way it's it's my understanding that the two developments that he brought up valhalla and lockwood both required rezonings and with those rezonings therefore would not fall in this category am i correct about that that yes that's correct so those two petitions because they required legislative action they would still need to go through the process um i think his other questions were accurate reviews as i mentioned the text on the planning commission process is proposed to change it to be more focused and administrative it would still be you as a body but it would not be a public hearing and generally yes i think it's an accurate read what this proposes is absent legislative corresponding legislative action site plans would be approved by the commission i would also though add i think this is correct that it doesn't exempt them from staff review which is still extremely robust so am i right about that yeah it's you know just as a reminder whether whether staff the planning commission or the city council are approving a site plan all are bound by the same ordinance criteria for to determination whether or not that is approved so it is absolutely the same criteria so in other words you may qualify for this you still go through a robust staff review you're just getting approved by you or by you know somebody the planning manager or whatever rather than having the public hearing and going through planning commission correct i mean i guess i i would i just want to make that distinction for um for the caller because um you know i know going through planning commission i think this is an interesting incentivization but and going through planning commission is is no small thing too but the staff review is is a lot of the lion's share of the work of going through the system in my own experience of it that's what kind of can happen over and over and over and over again um and doesn't mean that you're not table the planning commission or denied or you know whatever it is too but um i just want to make it really clear that everybody has to have staff review no matter what the project so it all still has somebody going through it with the fine-tooth comb so i think that's that's correct really important to to point out um that it's not like it's a free-for-all in it you don't get any review so um um so in terms of the stormwater so um so if like there's a project i worked on where you know somebody wanted to add um you know 250 square feet of something to their building but it was a it was a it was a public building actually not not owned by the city but a public building so would they still be required to do storm water because they're not just three and four bedroom like a a residential unit like how does that work yeah so um it's a good question none of the changes that we are proposing here would change so the city relies upon the washington county water resources commission's stormwater rules and design standards right inherent in that is a mechanism that is apropos to your example where if you are doing a modest addition to a site while the site might determine what you have to do from an impervious surface perspective if it is less than 50 disturbance of that area you don't have to extend those standards across the entire site and so what we're talking about here would not change that so what that would mean in that circumstance is that a two i think you said 250 square foot addition that would be calculated into a that would go into the calculation of what standard is going to apply currently is it one or two family if it's not then we go to the five thousand ten thousand fifteen thousand thresholds based on the addition of that and the balance of impervious of impervious space on the site that's going to determine the category but then the standards are going to apply to only that portion that you are disturbing if it's a small amount of the site the flip side of that is if you are disturbing greater than 50 of that site and it's determined that you have to provide everything you will be expected to meet that standard for the entirety of the site okay so it's not just the kind of three to four bedroom thing it's it's just a little bit more complicated than that yeah and that's and we're not yeah you're not changing the big picture with that yeah yeah and the the regulations are still the same we don't impact those we're still pointing to them at the county right it's just when when we want to invoke them okay okay um um it's really hard for me answering stormwater questions coming [Laughter] you're doing great though geez you probably you've probably gotten over to speed on all kinds of things in the last couple of months so um it's a little strange to me that you can have an impervious area under 5000 square feet and not do any storm water yet we still if you build a shed that's 250 feet and you're in a single family residence you're doing so yeah i would i i agree i think that's a weird that's a weird sort of um exception in our code and that's with anything not just the downtown that's any so we have other standards for the in the downtown where we provide different because of the land um limitations yeah yeah right yes the short is it applies anywhere so if you are if you are building a 4 800 square foot duplex a duplex with 4 800 square feet of improved surface you are going to provide first flush if you're building a convenience store that has 4 800 square feet of impervious surface you are exempt from storm [Music] okay it's it's just tricky because it's that feels like a big gaping hole to me um but i also understand the intent of not trying to to to keep this streamline it's it's a hole in in our code um i would also just say that i get it that storm water is expensive i i totally understand that the first flush rain garden approach is not that expensive it's just not compared to the other stuff that like did they having to do you know bankful and hundred year and uh and having it needing a standpipe with you know metered like it's just a whole different deal so um it takes up space but it's just not that crazy expensive either to do that if we're allowed to do that kind of fill it up and when it gets filled up then it spills out into some safe place essentially so i guess that's part of maybe what we consider too if it's more than that and we have to follow all the county standards then it's a whole different ballgame so i guess i just kind of want to put that out there so these are just my initial thoughts right now so i'd just be curious to hear what other people have to say too and when i also want to follow commissioner gibb randall go ahead commissioner dish i am confused so um we learned the distinction between detention and retention last time and the new the the paper with the new uh requirements on it uses all the language of detention is that simply conflating detention and retention or does it really mean detention which is to say you keep it for a while and you gradually release it um i'm gonna pull up the code i think our code references detention so matt's gonna actually pull up the code yeah well in the memo that you've written says detention but um so what we talked about last time in the meeting was that three to four family development be required to do retention with rain with rain gardens um to the first flush standard yeah i think the first flush is the most important aspect of that versus retention detention terminology i know they are different but i think the important item is that it's designed to accommodate the volume of the first flush okay can i come in here just for a second because i might be able to explain this so because you say if it's less than five thousand square feet of imperfect would add first flush requirements which is essentially what you're saying commissioner dish it's first flush retention requirements but once they go up then you start getting into the more robust system with the standpipe and the restricted outlet and that's where a lot of the cost comes in so that's the the detention requirements are a lot more expensive than the retention requirements and they're just not using in my understanding of this you're not using the word retention with um the first flush system that's my understanding right that would be correct so it is retention exactly as commissioner randall just referenced retention for the small for the five the first flush um it says retention infiltration which would ideally be the goal between those and then as well as with between the 10 000 to 15 000 again a retention infiltration but as we get larger that's a much larger volume to retain so there is that d tension that's referenced above for the uh one percent or the hundred year storm is referenced as a detention system i don't think that retention of the first question yep exactly it says retention of infiltration of first flush detention of bank full and hundred year storm events and i i would i would just suggest i think if the question is great and i i don't i think part of this is making sure we're giving you the information and an understanding i want to be clear though i don't i unless you want to go down that road i am not proposing that we change sort of the building blocks of different ways to address stormwater on sites we have we have these defined in the county and the question is which of our sites do we want to link to which one of those tools and so i i think it's important to understand those distinctions but i just want to be clear i'm not proposing changes from the county standards of when it's retention or when it is detention relying on them for that expertise i think for our question here i i really do think it's more about as you go from nothing of course to first flush to bank full to one percent storm event you're you're talking about volumes of water meeting the design standards of those for our question is right now we make those connections in a certain way which by changing some of our site on thresholds it necessitates us reconsidering some of those i think from just a usability of the udc so i just want to be clear i don't i'm not proposing that we change first flush from retention to detention or anything my apologies if i'm using the terminology wrong but i the volume calculation and again linking those approaches is more important than us i don't think it's appropriate for us to try to sit here and design what the appropriate system is i'm not asking for that i think i think the memo is a bit difficult to follow honestly okay um because it references uh it references the for it it references existing in the um option a it references existing requirements which i had to look back in my previous notes to figure out what they were although you say them below and option b anyway it's just it's really it's extremely hard to follow but um i so so i get it so first when you're talking about first flush you really just mean infiltration retention that's great and that's the worksheet option that we talked about and um [Music] and most multi-family projects already have first flush for five to ten and we're adding it for zero to five which seems smart so um [Music] but so i i think that i'm so what i would like to know is how consequential so we're adding something at a range that um we're adding something for commercial and multi-family from zero to five thousand or just multi-family so that's that's the question okay and that's kind of the question is that this this analysis has daylighted i mean i don't want to say it's daylight it's staff has always been aware of this there is a segment of development now that doesn't require any stormwater we are so on top of that because we because we want to change potentially what types of development require which site plans and the way our stormwater is triggered by that we have to figure out the right place the right way to fix those connections and so option a maintains a gap for anything over one and one to four family resident so it pulls three and four into one and two so we're now treating one to four the same as we've traditionally treated one to two it maintains the gap for other projects that have five thousand square feet or less and it maintains the increasing structure as you get larger four four units again just based on four project examples that we looked at about over the last six years it would have no impact to those because previously they would have fallen under the flush 5000 to 10 000 now they'd fall under the first flush under that one through family so that that is that is option a option b is instead of taking three to four families into that one and two it's take anything that's five thousand square feet or of impervious surface into that category so one and two family residentials and anything else that has five less than five 000 square feet of impervious surface all becomes first flush so that's taking a category of development into that category it's not i don't i i can't tell you right now off the bat how many that is i don't think it's a lot of development activity that is less than 5000 square feet but it would be taking potentially a bigger a cat it's filling that category but then option b goes further than to eliminate the sort of incremental structure and so maybe the question is maybe an approach is and maybe i'm hearing this from the commission is sort of a hybrid that you actually would like that less than 5000 addressed but maybe not so far as to bring everything all of the storm water mechanisms into every project above it so sort of keep the hybrid but plug the hole at a first flush level maybe that's what i'm hearing maybe what option a and option b seem really difficult to compare to me because of but but i don't know how consequential it is in option a to eliminate detention of bank full for 10 to 15 and eliminate thankful and detention of one percent storm event for multi-family over 15 square feet i don't know how many developments fall into that so on the one hand option a becomes a lot it's it's stricter for multi-family between zero and five thousand it leaves the gap for commercial most multi-family fall into five to ten thousand anyway so the stricter probably doesn't make any difference and so the significant thing there is leaving the gap for the commercial but then for stuff that's super big it eliminates it eliminates what it seems like we need because we have 85 of our construction in the city that was constructed without detention and we're saying go ahead and make new construction without detention so i am confused by what a is doing i'm sorry and this is what's up first of all i'm sorry this is why i wanted to have your your feedback because you know i just want to make sure this is clear this is i think it's really important that we get this right and everybody understands but i want to be clear a doesn't change the existing framework so a is not going to increase a is largely not going to increase the rate at which we realize stormwater management in our community beyond the rate we're getting it now so large projects are still going to be subject to that slightly smaller projects in the 10 to 15 are still going to have to do more than first flush but not the full not detention we are still going to get first flush for five thousand to ten thousand square feet we still have a gap in five less than five thousand so i want to be clear option a doesn't doesn't give a pass to larger projects from stormwater management investment it doesn't plug a hole yeah i think if i if i could i think maybe part of the confusion also i think because of how we wrote the the bullet point there because one of the bullet points it says if greater than 15 000 square feet at a limit but those are meant to apply strictly to the example above the three or four unit so i think as it was written like we had a three or four unit project that was the example and then if that three or four unit project was greater than fifteen thousand square feet it would only require um for slush but so that those like bullet points were only meant to point to that three or four example um so i think that that's kind of part of the confusion i believe maybe commissioner dish you see that and you thought like greater than 15 000 no so that was only meant for like a three or four unit project right now if it came in today if it had 25 000 square feet it would have to of impervious which again would probably be very unlikely for a fourth four unit building but if it did it would be required first flush bankful and one percent or 100 year but under option a then the revision it would it would only require because we're taking out site plan it would only require for slush and i think one other thing that i wanted to add to which i think might uh help make some of the difference too is that so again taking a three or four unit as uh brett and i looked at those examples that they're all less than ten thousand square feet so that right now they've triggered first flush so obviously those are typically smaller sites more compact as you guys know very well i mean um these are typically r4c site zone sites so under option uh a again that when you get the same option right here you get the exact same storm on under option b they would then be required to do first flush uh bankful and hundred year so that's kind of that that difference they would then so then again you start getting into and you look at those sites that's not only retention but that's detention and that's clearly where on these sites with four units you'd have to go underground um and i mean as i think we all know that that drives drives up the cost significantly so that's maybe one way i also kind of kind of look at it is that that three-four unit 5000 as an option a no change but on the at least the four that we looked at and under option b they would then be required to do um even more than they are now so painful as well as hundred year so i don't i hope that clarifies it a little bit yeah i think that does so in other words these uh there are very few if any three and four family units on a footprint of 10 to 15 let alone bigger than 15 square feet these were just dumb regulations that we had on the books which were taking off i mean i shouldn't take down like well but they they apply to everything else too right we're sort of pulling three and four out of that they're still going to apply to everything else okay just and just for details the the numbers of the four we pulled um uh 1300 south main game day condos that was about 7 300 square feet of impervious surface davis row which was a series of town homes on davis not right at the corner but a couple properties in yeah that was about that was just over five thousand it's 5056 square feet um uh a four unit on hill uh 143 hill was 551 square feet and 542 north main was a four-year unit that was eight thousand five hundred and sixty square feet so when we're you know they do range but they all fell in that five to ten thousand square foot category while we're talking about the stormwater stuff the commissioner dished you have more okay i also want i saw this in the staff report and i want to make sure that i understand the that this is the distinction in comparing the language i think i'm seeing this too the in option b this is also changing the trigger to be a grading permit not the development which seems to me based on the nods that i'm getting like that's going to capture a lot more things is that potential that that you would need a grading permit and not go through any of these site plan processes now yeah i think i think both option a and option b accomplished that option b requires a grading permit specifically which would include a lot more activity for example that would include maybe just redoing a parking lot that doesn't require site plan it just you're just redoing a parking lot where you're maybe milling it that could potentially require a grading permit i don't want to speak for that option a um and frankly these are just approaches crafted by two different people option a just says for any development or construction activity so what that's going to mean is anytime you're doing something that requires a permit whether it's grading permit or a building permit so both of those are adding a much broader application of these standards than the former when site plan is required i think the question is a good one i don't know if it should be limited to grading permit or it should be any permit that's something i might look at based on the direction but in both cases that is the intention to say it's no longer just site plan whenever you're doing something that meets these requirements that meets these physical attributes you are subject to these stormwater management requirements i think that regard so my inclination is to go with option a if the goal of this exercise of like these revisions that we're doing right now is to reduce costs for smaller improvements i think that option a is truer to that option b at the same time i think it would be while we have unearthed this and there is a suggestion floating this by environmental commission which was like what i read in the staff report as the intention of like this length of delay i think forwarding this to them to say like let's this is not you know you guys should talk about it and bring it to us if this is something that we should or city council if this is something that we need to like that we want to change later but for right now i think that option a seems truer to the scope and so i i guess i would suggest it just a little bit differently you've been directed as the planning commission to do this work for that purpose and i think that any changes here i that's where that language came from i agree i think it warrants their that commission's perspective but i think that's a little bit different than a more open-ended conversation i think it is i just think it's good practice for us to share with them how we intend to answer this question that council's asked of us that's quite different from how do you want to change the stormwater regulations and and so i i guess i would respectfully suggest that based on the direction we get from you what we share with them is this is the direction that planning commission has directed staff to go in this is the impact it's going to have or not have on stormwater help us help us take your feedback along with the planning commissions to the city council for that decision got it that's helpful for me i didn't quite understand like what you wanted from us and to bring to them that's i think option a seems truer to what we're doing but when we come back what this question has raised for me is um by taking site plan away and knowing that there's like other permit activities how many projects are we captured like do we have some sense of of how many projects have these other permits going on that will this will trigger because again if that's if they're minor enough right now to not require site planning i don't want to inadvertently be capturing them in the future right yeah i i think the i don't have that answer for you i think we do you deserve that answer before you take action i think that some of that is built into the regulations that when you're not disturbing a lot of the area this isn't going to come into play when you're not adding impervious surface it's not going to come into play so but i will answer that i think that's a good point to make sure that by by pulling it away from site plan it's not having the opposite impact um commissioner gabriel i have a couple more things on my list but if yours is since you know about this area if you're okay um the other things that i have aren't uh let's see are not about the stormwater options so one is i really appreciate you mentioning the public hearings and um like pointing out that change i did not pick up that change previously before i have before i put in my two cents i want to ask if there's no more public hearing associated with coming before planning commission for a site plan where we are the final body is there notice provided will will there be the postcard sent to the neighbors no i'm not comfortable then removing that personally i think that um i recognize like that people can come and talk to us about anything but i i would actually prefer here like i i think that that feedback is i think that that change while it doesn't apply to the rezonings that change would this change applies to a whole lot of projects and i'm not i'm not comfortable yet going to the point of um that i don't think that was the intention honestly when we talked about this um like removing public that part of it i don't think was was um is um a necessary aspect i don't think sending the postcards adds that much to development so if we can add that back in i would that would be my preference and then um the third and people can respond to that too like react um because that's just my vote um the third part is about the electrification and sustainability elements and i think that's awesome thank you we talked about this in one of our work sessions about what it is that we can and you know like how can we be contributing what's in our goal i think that this is a fantastic way to say how can we limit projects like what are the impacts i in terms of what the threshold is was that how much was this voted uh like um vetted with osi um so not at all um it comes out of city policy documents um so we have um you know the sustainability framework talks about renewable energy expanding renewable energy the 60 threshold is something that we've talked about before as it relates to sort of a balance of um providing some space for access mechanical equipment on a roof and the electrification just seemed consistent with that the ideal companion to uh solar is that it's driving as much of the energy usage of the building as possible so um so you know um unrelated to the sustainability framework other cit you know other council policies do talk about that as a goal as getting toward more electrification looking for other ways that to provide accessibility to other electric electrical sources our community at large so um i think it's consistent with that but in short i have not um discussed it in detail um with them um i i don't i i honestly don't think there's a right or wrong there it but i think it has to be a reasonableness of is it viable and is it beneficial enough to maybe provide that benefit so to be and just one more thing to be clear and that same discussion as we're talking about with public hearings if that happens it's also going to have that impact where it's no longer going to go to planning commission it's not going to have a public hearing it's not going to have notification so it won't have citizen participation because administratively approved don't so i just want to highlight that to the extent that we're changing that that provision goes back [Music] then that would have implications to those categories of products i'm up to well so one i would like osi to weigh in specifically on the language around electrification okay um to to see if there are things that could be electrified that we actually like i mean the idea of no natural gas hookup like cool but do we want to put stipulations on the means by which folks are heating i don't know i think that that's a good question and i don't because that language is not i would imagine that many of our planning documents don't get into that level of detail like i would like them to weigh in on that but i also think weighing in on all of these things like that means no notification to the surrounding properties right i think that i'd like their take on it but and as much as i'm excited about this like honestly when i saw it i was super excited um to see like this might be an opportunity i worry a little bit of a little bit but this is where i saw other hands go up so i welcome impact input on this of putting this in with a packet with a in a in a change that was really intended to do one thing and and we're now doing another and i'm not so worried about like it being well first of all i think making that known is important but also like this would be a big deal like i think that this is a really this could be a really big deal for um our ability to to move forward and to to do things incentivizing and my guess is that it's gonna get a little bit lost personally so i i love the idea of it and we that we would know how to do it but i welcome others thoughts um and i also i want to give a little bit more thought to whether if it is a fully electric building and it does have lots of solar on it is that is that the check that you need to have mr leonard sign off on it or do we want notice given to neighbors and opportunity for our discussion of it i i don't know how i don't know yet i haven't formed an opinion but that would be a change and i think that's an important part that we're talking about so that's my list um commissioner gabe randle and then commissioner clark and then commissioner weich um back to the stormwater piece i would say based on what you are what you were saying before mr leonard about trending towards option a but i would be interested in plugging the hole and and the the numbers that you gave us some of them were just barely over 5000 you know so it's not like they were all like way easily over that and again that first flush is not that difficult really in terms of cost and so i that's that's the direction that i would that i would give you in terms of moving forward because i think it's kind of an odd gap that we require people who build a single family to build a patio have to do something and then if you're building you know that that just seems a little odd to me um and then the other piece that i think is uh what the you know caller had brought up on what commissioner um mills is talking about is this whole kind of idea of like bad electric you know um and that my guess is is that we probably can't get too prescriptive because first of all it's like you know technology's gonna change too like we put something in there it's gonna shift um it has to be this system and you know ordinances are like really as you all know a big deal to change so but this is where i think perhaps some some um some guidance from the office of sustainability maybe they could help us with this because yeah it would be kind of crappy and missing the point if we just get a bunch of really inefficient electric you know because of that um in terms of the public piece that i hadn't really thought about that um chairmills i mean like prior to this too and so that is tricky it is part of what adds time and cost too in fact the scheduling for the public participation like for the citizens participation thing like that adds a lot of time you know to the project too because you have to notice it you have it you know so um i'm not saying one way or the other which way i think it has to go but it is part of how to make it leaner in terms of getting through the system more quickly so um yeah i'm not sure how i feel about that either go ahead commissioner clerk i just had another question for brett about um can you hear me okay just barely um so my question is about what happens with the things that are on a planning manager review when they get denied is the next step for the developer to just immediately go to like a lawsuit or would they go to have some avenue to go to light planning commissioner council with that denial to try and make their case um just curious about that yeah currently currently the way the udc is structured there is no sort of internal appeal process for site plan at any level whether it's staff planning commission or city council so they would have the same sort of rights to avail to them within legal action or um of course you know we you know but to be clear we spend a lot of time with petitions both at the administrative level and at your level on city council trying to get to compliance so but the short of it is is whatever approval authority um currently the way the udc is structured we don't provide any additional appeal structure to that and can you still hear me i just changed my microphone okay cool so my other question was about um the electrification and just um it's more of a comment just following along with the caller that talked about you know how some systems can be more energy intensive especially since we're in a cold climate when those overdrive systems kick on um the heat you know the certain lower end systems can get really expensive very quickly in in the lowest temperatures um that's not to say that i don't think it's a it's a good goal but i just think that consulting the office of sustainability or whoever else may be of use um would be a really good idea and then also i want to just be mindful that we don't incentivize um you know if we're doing multi-family developments and the tenants are responsible for paying the utility bills and a building is built with really poor insulation low r score the building envelope isn't sealed and there's these backup electric heating systems that kick on as soon as it gets cold that we're not saddling um renters with incredibly high utility bills and that's just something we need to be mindful of commissioner wage uh so two uh things maybe to start one is on the stone storm water between option a and option b is it possible when that comes back to the commission it could be presented in a table because it's hard to scan and comprehend the information and hold it to compare so for me just visually i would benefit from a table presentation and then um if there could be some explanation for how the gap well something around how the gap got created in the code that we've been referencing between residential and commercial so is it intentional did someone decide to create this gap and our undoing of it has an unintended consequence downstream or is this just something that because we are now evaluating it we have daylighted this gap so any background or additional information around the gap i would benefit from as i come up to speed um on this storm water i also wonder so still inside the storm water if we would be open to splitting these decisions up and that we would conclude the work on the site plan and then that would give us time to do the stormwater i know they are related so i know that some things kind of trigger the site review or site plan review but i i just wonder does it actually make sense to keep both of these in lockstep um as we move forward just so that we can get an approval for the site plan revisions that commission has been working on for some time moved along which i think might benefit the community as we figure out the storm order so those are like three requests they don't have to be dealt with today and if you you know review the third one and say no let's keep them in lockstep i i won't protest and then um on the electrification i wondered if there was a justification if you have an answer today if not if it could be in a memo for why it would stop at the planning manager and not stop at the planning commission and so that way it would skip a city council step so when i first sort of thought about this i thought one incentive would be for a developer because of the time that is involved of going through staff review and then getting a staff recommendation to go to commission if then they have to go to council that adds time and money but we could stop at planning commission which would then allow for the public head hearings and community input but would not require the council component and could be an incentive for developers so i imagined you considered that and made a decision for why you made the recommendation you did and if you are willing to share that i would love to understand that either now or in a memo and then i have one more question but i will pause in the event you want to respond now sure uh so as to where that sort of 5000 or less came from i i don't know i'll try to find that out i'll spend no i'm sorry oh yeah i didn't you don't have to answer that it was just the the electrification one if you want to answer that one now but um you're a human being so you get to answer what you like i'm sorry um i don't know i'll give you that information on the background about where it came i speculated it was just that at the time we didn't have a lot of stormwater regulations and by adding them there was some sense of moderating it for small and modest projects and so we built in additional standards for a larger project so that's probably but i'll i'm speculating i'll try to get you some more i would back that i was here when we that was 20 i was here that's exactly why when we came up with that structure i wasn't directly involved with it but that was exactly why the 5 000 it was kind of like smaller projects it wasn't as and then like then after and at that time there was nothing for single or two family so that's why there's that apparent gap because then later many years later we realized well you know the majority of our develop you know these things are singular to family are the major contributors well not the major but one of them to the stormwater so that was added after so that's exactly why that gap exists because we tried to facilitate smaller projects with 5000 and then we realized a single family and i think it was and i don't know why we think we as a city didn't go back and open up that 5 000 for other but the single family and two family was added after so that's why so all right thank you matt and then as far as electrification um the reason that that's there is keep in mind that this proposed site plan thresholds already takes a large category of site plans from city council to planning commission so currently so this proposed framework would take any permitted use site plans that don't require a rezoning or legislative action and they would automatically move to planning commission and again the philosophy of that is that both the planning commission and city council are complying with the same criteria of standards in order the reason that i propose adding that in from a planning commission down to planning manager was frankly from the challenges that we face when from a incentive base versus a regulatory base and so that's that's why i got placed where it did conversely um i think you could explore not making that change to for site plans to move generally from city council to planning commission and maybe that is an incentive tool to to accomplish that but that's why i got put there because uh the majority of them have already been moved under this proposal and i was looking for even in that category what would be the ways to incent um more sustainable development consistent with uh sustainability framework and other companies thank you and then um the question around that so it would would staff be open to density being added to that um threshold so if we hit a certain density level plus um electrification plus solar that it sits at the planning manager um sort of level or is that something we would discuss at a working session to sort of negotiate that because i i agree with the previous commissioner's comments around maybe getting a benchmark from osi on electrification and solar so that they that's the threshold we're looking at as opposed to just the electrification so they're you know like now that they're going to move through these benchmarking of buildings and it's going to be focused on energy efficiency that part of that could be if they hit this threshold then it can come over to um the planning manager as opposed to coming to um the commission so so just like density is also one of those uh thresholds that i in particular am interested in like you know we have the i don't know if i can talk about developments that are still before the commission i mean we're before the commission can i talk about them yes no the toll house one you know it's like it's on a site where it could go to 147 units but they're only proposing 57 but if they had proposed 147 with electrification and rooftop solar with that fit being able to be approved in your threshold and they could see that as an incentive because they don't have to come to this multi-step process of their first reading and then their revisions and then their second and then that gets us as a community something that we value so the a2 0 goals get hit but um more housing stock also gets hit and so then there's that twin incentive that's already built in we could look at it i think it would be my initial thought is it would have it of course has to still happen within the context of the udc so you couldn't be deviating from the densities that are already provided there so it would have to be sort of a subdividing of those but it's something we could explore okay and then i have just one final question which i would love to take offline uh just for the sake of time which is um the caller reference valhalla and lockwood i went back and looked at the first memo from staff for valhalla and i recognized that it was asking for um a zoning change i think from rs our for something okay right yeah so they were moving around uh with it and staff denied the first two and then approved the second two and i just wonder if you could take developments just to to give me an example of how those sites that may have been i guess let me go at it a different way i'm the thing i am concerned about is the denial at the pro at the planning manager level where the commission would have disagreed with the planning manager whether that planning manager is you or someone who follows you and given that our udc does not have an appeals process which i heard you answer and understand i i just have a pause on that and i would like to try to answer my internal question of what are the potential unintended consequence with this incentive and i don't have a good rubric to begin to answer that question and i feel like staff you would and you would be able to say it would hit this but not that and you'd be able to say that more quickly than i can do the research so if that's not too much staff time to help me with that i would appreciate it and i'm happy to do my own labor if you just point me to sites where you say it would be this one it would be not this one it would be this one not that one yeah we can definitely follow up and have that conversation with you but to be clear in that case that was a legislative decision um so yes i know i know i i i recognize that yeah but but but that's really significant because um a site plan is there a site plan doesn't have discretion a site plan is measuring a proposal against standards and and i i don't want to say that you know i i have to measure it against the same standards you as the commission have to measure it against the same standards and that example there that you're talking about that was a difference of opinion that staff had and the planning commission had on a legis legislative decision our opinion on the applying the standards once that legislative decision is made is the same those are the same standards that we're evaluating with so but that's a really important distinction but uh but yes i'm absolutely happy to talk talk that through and we can come up with some other examples where there has been a divergence of opinion maybe on site plans between a staff perspective and planning commission not a lot of them are coming to mind to me right now um but i'm happy to have that discussion no i don't i don't presume that there are what i'm trying to anticipate is the unintended consequence of changing where that decision is made um as an incentive and so i can think of some but i don't know that they make sense so what i'd like to first do is hear some from you and then i can put that through my own rubric and say ah okay my concerns are not valid and we can move on and i i think that's pretty quick um but i i actually don't know how much labor it's going to cost so i want to acknowledge that thanks so much commissioner clark i want to throw out there um another quick point just like i've been hearing a lot about talk about benchmarks and my first um reaction is enthusiastic about benchmarks being really promising area um especially for like tenant consumer protection that's kind of out of our lane right now but um so i think that's that's great but i i want to just put a word of caution in incorporating any thresholds into um decision making uh from our view um as a body because those thresholds um often might incentivize a landlord or developer to influence behavior of their tenants in ways that are not exactly socially like if you have a tenant that's struggling with mental health issues or something like that um or you know just things happen and they might be leaving a window open while having their heat going and that might not reflect accurately the building's capability but rather the usage and um the potential for landlords having worked for a housing first organization that avoided evictions um this was something that that came up um was tenants not necessarily maintaining their apartments in ways that were the most energy efficient ways and then those scores reflecting poorly on housing for populations that may struggle more with keeping their their housing running as it was intended to could potentially incentivize landlords to increase in evictions of tenants or find reasons and ways to evict people that are difficult or that aren't efficient tenants just because to protect their building score so i just want to be mindful of that in the discussion and i know it's a bit outside of our lane um but just as far as planning standards go i think that thresholds could be opening a lot of doors once we start talking about that it might be a longer conversation commissioner hammer schmidt and then commissioner dish oops sorry similarly to commissioner mills i appreciate you calling out the eliminating the public hearing i also don't think i'm comfortable with that i maybe would like to understand where the rationale behind it um at some point doesn't have to be now but i think it's really helpful to hear from the public and i think i understand the like trying to streamline but this sort of relates to the electrification and solar incentive too i think that it's important for people to know what's happening adjacent to their homes um and so on that electrification and solar piece like again i understand the intent but i don't know if i'm super comfortable like taking that away from coming we're like using that as a way to make potentially major projects not come before planning commission i also think we offer some good suggestions to developers outside of just electrification and solar so i think like my opinion on that is like i don't right now support it i don't think um there's a lot of stormwater conversation that i like mostly followed but i agree with commissioner gibrandal and that like closing the gap so if there is like a hybrid something between a and b um and then i'm i feel like i harp on this every time that those n a's in that table there are still some n a's that like just aren't it's not felt like that it doesn't require a side plan it's like literally that is not um compatible if you just want to leave them with n a one of the n a's is capitalized and the rest of them are a lower case and that is driving me nuts so the very least just like make that one lowercase um i think that's it do that fix the nice things commissioner dish yeah so i have one question for commissioner mills and commissioner hammerschmidt because honestly i i was distracted for a minute commissioner mills when you brought up your concern about the elimination of public hearing uh and is it where exactly on the table are you worried which which categories that would lose a public hearing are you worried about is it only specific to the electrification incentive or were there other shifts to require m instead of p that you're worried about um in particular the uh there could be um [Music] site plans that are you know already zoned appropriately for you know um 1500 or not 1500 we don't see 1500 units but 150 units that my reading of this is that they would not if it doesn't if it doesn't require rezoning our shifting is that it comes to us now is that right mr leonard so so to have i mean i think that it's important but at the same time it's it's a change and i do think that there is some benefit in letting neighbors know what's going on um and in neighbors ideas for things that we might ask for because that happens like and sometimes we bring up things that actually don't cost a whole lot but the people think about but we're not in that neighborhood that's what that's among the reasons that i think um having for those situations were i think it it warrants still having public hearings to be clear like we already recognized that there's a whole bunch of m's on this table that's mr leonard doesn't actually stand for mr leonard stands for planning manager and i mean i and we know that that would not have public hearings but that's moving a decent amount of you know things that right now like the buck stops with us to him um and things that are smaller um and i i am supportive of that and recognize that there are there are things on the table that that pertains to so new construction of residential buildings up to um [Music] five and six dwelling units like that's one of the things that there won't be a public hearing on anymore and i'm not proposing changing that um but um yeah i i um so that's where i'm i'm asking for specifications so so the specific area that really concerns you is new construction that part of the table and you're not worried about the five and six ah sorry yep but you might be worried about the seven plus dwelling units that might come in with electrification and then be exempt that's for example one um well right now as written five to seven or you know seven units that would come in as written without electrification there would be no public hearing and there would be no notice wait no it says p there doesn't it am i but this was the distinction that mr leonard brought to our attention today which was that and what's that sorry it's not it's on page nine it's like uh like it's not in the table it's not in the table it's it's right after the table um if i'm writing this correctly and maybe i'm not i think it's that anything now that comes to us where it's like the buck stops with us would not require a public hearing and along with that that was my point of clarification along with that along the way there would be no meeting with neighbors ahead of time but also not even just meeting with neighbors it's that there's no notice that something would be was being proposed in their neighborhood yep okay i'm sorry could could you i i don't have page numbers in mine so oh it's along this far if you look along this i guess yeah i'm not in the top guy so okay wait a minute could we just read this i'm so sorry we were up so long last night and i'm clearly not in the best uh shape so i get what you're saying um yeah so is it planning for a development it's the comment box commissioner dish on it's comment lb2 yes i see it okay which i hadn't seen previously so this is why i appreciated it at commented out and brought up okay uh okay gee yeah well i'm with you on that okay um i thought yeah yeah so i why would that take away the public hearing and then just so yeah so could we just talk a little bit more about why that's true and is there any flexibility there and yeah all right so i mean i'm actually just i think we need to talk about it more and then so i'm still trying to figure out that a and b options here i'm worried that we yeah so if we make a hybrid of a and b in the way that you guys are thinking about it actually it's gonna add cost to smaller developments so it will in fact then both options not just b b significantly against the mandate from council because it takes a large group of developments the ones that are between 5 and 10 and it adds detention to them so that so and that could be a disincentive for infill project am i making a correct leap there like infill it would be adding more expectations of of sites greater than 5 000 square feet of impervious surface and those sites am i correct in thinking that infill is often at that point if we're yeah by way of example of those recent four units those are those are instances of four unit residential infill in our community that are all in the five to ten thousand square foot range yeah right so and i'm not i'm not being anti-stormwater i'm really pro-stormwater but these are trade-offs we're talking about trade-offs and i think we want to air them in the most honest way possible so that when we make a choice we know what we're making so um couldn't agree more yeah well i'm totally okay but in any case um yeah so okay so could could you walk us through um currently when we when planning commission approves a site plan it goes to council is the is the reason we have a public hearing because it's going to go to council i mean why is taking the going to council part which i thoroughly support as a best practice i do not want these to go to council but why does removing that step mean that there's no longer a public hearing so it doesn't have to just as a reminder from where we started we we regulate private development through state law state law enables us to do that state law says that site plan review is an administrative process we put ordinances in place that we measure a site plan to to say it meets this or it doesn't meet that if the answer to all of those questions that we pose and the answer to all of them are yes the site plan is approved that is the same process whether i do that in my office or city council does that after a public hearing at planning commission and a public hearing at city council notified to 300 every property owner within 300 feet and 2 000 emails so it is this the same standard so in our ordinance historically we as the city have said despite not having to we are going to hold public hearings for this administrative process and so in approaching this language to the point of trying to make things easier for small and modest projects eliminating that step would simplify the process to an extent not substantially but to an extent public hearings do bring information and they do add notification requirements and they do add frankly an uncertainty to a staff determination of or the planning commission determination of those standards being met or not being met and so this this change here says let's do how we do planning manager approval and apply it to planning commission as it is drafted in our current ordinance and it could continue to be it is whether it's city council or planning commission we want to hold the public hearing even though that's not required by law we want to add that to our process and so i just i from the from the lens of trying to make it simpler i went the other direction with this change to be clear there are both large and small and modest projects then that would be impacted by that there would be small and modest projects that don't have to go through that process there would also be large projects of 150 units that are really zoned would not go through that process so i think the discussion is good and that's why i thought it was really important to highlight but the short the short answer is we can keep it it as it is based on a city policy that we want to add more process than the minimum required i'm not saying it's a bad but that's a policy decision we want to make and so that's that's where this change came from though from me probably weighing more a faithfulness to how do we make the process easier and this would be a way to make it easier it's not a right or wrong like you said there are trade-offs so can i try another line of argument on this which is um the rationale for not forwarding site plan approval to council is exactly as you said because it's an administrative decision and it's a best practice not to not to create the impression that there can be judgment call negotiation over an administrative decision that's a bad impression to create and that's why that is the rationale for the for the chain for the big change that we're which is if it's a site plan approval if it's buy right it doesn't go to council so essentially what you've done uh and you're expressing it in terms of simplicity but actually what you've done is you're being consistent and you're saying if it's an administrative decision it's an administrative decision with respect to planning just like it's an administrative decision with respect to council so in the council end it means we don't send it to council council sets legislation and policy it doesn't do administrative decisions so then at the level of planning to be consistent we should treat administrative decisions like administrative decisions i think that's a strong argument i also think that there might be an argument for saying at some degree of density an administrative decision it might be useful to have some feedback at the planning commission level not at council uh from the neighborhood um i can't so i can see a like a there's a there's an intuition on the part of commissioner mills and others that a certain size of project it might be useful to keep these public hearings that are not required from your perspective and possibly from mine as well because the simplicity part doesn't work for me but the consistency part if it's an administrator decision one place it's an administrative decision in the other that works a little better for me so possibly from your and my perspective it really doesn't matter the size this is the nature we are talking about the nature of a kind of decision and when you have a public hearing you are saying what you say matters and can change this project well it should be able to so or maybe it should right so i mean i i i saw your headcock and i'm i'm open to having this discussion about whether i'm totally open to having a discussion about whether there's been something good and useful and ann arbor exceptionalist about inviting more public participation but we'd want to talk about would that just then be all projects at planning or would it be a certain size of projected planning and how do we justify that um so i hope that was not completely unhelpful in thinking through the resistance to the removal of the public care i i think that's a great exercise and i think a way to add an example is you know the public hearing cannot impact the standards the public hearing can't say you can't have 10 people say the ordinance says that you can do 10 units here but i think it should only be 6.

thank you everybody for your patience i got out of work late and everybody was waiting on me so that being said we are getting started with our executive session or our um live session this evening thank you for the agenda is everybody in and ready to join fabulous we'll call our meeting to order madam secretary roll call everyone is present thank you the live stream has started yes okay please join us in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you tonight our discussion item is the district 2 school board member selection and before we get started with that i wanted just to review how we got to where we are today and i did mention most of this yesterday but for those who were not in attendance yesterday i just wanted to review you one once again so we're all on the same page on friday august 22nd 2021 carmel clay schools announced the retirement of our district 2 school board member pam niles with an effective date of september 13 2021.

um there's a motion on the table do i have a second second thank you discussion um i'd like to say a few words louise so i was really um honored to participate in the interviews yesterday i did not know any of the candidates personally so i really tried to take time to think about what was shared during the interview process yesterday i know it was only 20 minutes but um you know i would have liked to have heard more specific examples of things some of the candidates have done in terms of how they have navigated specific challenges in their roles or as a community member but we didn't have you know an exhaustive amount of time so i can say uh with fincott i really really appreciated his commitment to understanding people of varying backgrounds perspectives i think he brings innovation and a technology expertise that we could always glean from in our district i also really appreciated what jonathan brings with his experience with the i believe it's the simon foundation and having worked with after care programs with students i also appreciated what nikki has brought i know i've learned a little bit about that the safety referendum and how passionate she is about making sure our children are safe and she's put in the time and work for that and so i tremendously like respect that and jennifer i really have a deep appreciation of her commitment to our school district through the children that she's had in the school district and her countless hours in the classroom and her leadership experience and starting an awesome organization like women for change like so impressed and i can honestly say like i could work with either of these four candidates and so at the end of the day we are making a decision that's best for the kids and so it's a team decision and i look forward to hearing additional input from you too i am not ready to go ahead okay thank you um i think that this is definitely an interesting situation i think that when you apply for a job usually decisions are made behind the scenes and you're notified of that decision i think when you run for school board a decision is made in a voting booth and it's behind the scenes and people kind of get to pick and this is a very different opportunity that we have as for board members to kind of pick that final that final person i did want to speak a little bit about each of the candidates jonathan your commitment to education and the whole child approach i really admire i admire how you put um that social emotional aspect into children's life and lives and you have for a very long time um vincata i appreciate how you continue to support our teachers and spend your time working with the carmel education foundation that is such a valuable partnership with carmel clay schools and we are truly thankful for the people who kind of spend their time there nikki i your dedication to carmel clay schools in the past and through all the kinds of different things through parenting i'm so thankful for your voice that you have and for jennifer i really appreciate the fact that you bring together people who think differently that you talk about respecting backgrounds and respecting different ideals and values and that you know to bring them all to the table to kind of find that common interest i'm so thankful for people who came and you know put their name out there it's very very difficult it's very difficult to put yourself in the public view for scrutiny and then also to have a group of people who don't know you to kind of judge to see you know how you'll be and that's extremely hard so i appreciate the fact and kind of to echo previous sentiments please don't stop doing that please don't stop putting yourself and being that servant leadership because that's you know not only what carmel clay schools need but that's what we as a community and as a society we need people who are willing to put themselves before others and kind of bring themselves to the plate so thank you and i want to thank my fellow board members i think each of you have shared thoughts that resonate with me about each of our candidates i found this process to be extremely difficult it was easier to pick a superintendent than it was and that it is to to pick a board member it's a very difficult position to be in for us to deliberate in public and i like i thought everybody did a phenomenal job during the board interviews and and deciding it's just a tough it's tough and i really appreciate the comments that each of you made about each of our candidates there were such phenomenal strengths from each one from their personal brand to their community experience to their work with equity for children and for women and it's we would not go wrong with any of the candidates and well thank you for your work and effort in working with us to get to this point does anybody else have any comments they'd like to make okay well then we have a motion on the table that has been seconded and we're finished with discussion so all those in favor of appointing jennifer nelson williams to the district 2 board seat signify by saying i i any opposed motion carries unanimous four to zero welcome to the board jennifer moving forward we will have board orientation similar to how we've had orientation for new board members when they've been voted in during the regular election cycle we will bring jennifer in she'll meet with dr bearsford and only two or actually one board member so probably be myself or katie or even louise which i think would be great since you are one of our newer board members and you've been learning a lot this past year and you might have some interesting perspectives to share with jennifer as well is there any other discussion or questions anything else we'd like to share this evening i just want to wrap with a thank you to each candidate incredibly hard and thank you to you laila too you know in preparing for this whole process you've led us and i really appreciate that and also dr bearsford just making sure we were set up for success to make a fair and equitable uh decision and to have all the pieces that we need to have in play to make this process as seamless for candidates as possible so thank you so much thank you mike i that reminds me i feel like i would be remiss i said six sets of thank yous and i did not thank each one of you individually for what you've done you know each and every day for um four point year four plus years one plus years twelve plus years um your dedication to this community um is beyond reproach um and it is an honor and a privilege to serve with you so thank you well thank you mike and what i'd like to share i guess with the community since people are watching i feel very fortunate that we work together as a team and while we might not always see eye to eye we do work together as a team and when we walk out of this board room we are a team and that is so important and i appreciate the way we work together i love that we have different perspectives in different views and can really bring different experiences to the board to help us provide a very balanced approach for our students and staff so kudos to you thank you and guess katie well i think i should just say ditto you guys pretty much cover it all but i'm so thankful for you guys i'm so thankful for the people who are watching and supporting of the board in the district thank you so much for everything that you're doing and um there's great things to come we're excited this is a you know new a new phase for the ward in the district and we welcome jennifer and you know we'll see where we go next fantastic well that being said i will take a motion to adjourn our meeting thank you katie second second thank you louise all those in favor aye meeting adjourned you

hey everybody welcome to meet the candidates tonight brought to you by the citywide pto we are excited to be back in person finally in a long year so let's get started i just want to touch on a few housekeeping items first first things first fire exits are located on both sides bathrooms if you go out the far door and turn left and immediate left or right on the back wall here uh please keep your mask on at all times that includes the kennedy results you guys talked about that already um the last thing in terms of housekeeping just so everybody is aware this is a night for all of us to listen to the candidates views on education it is not a debate we are not going to go back and forth and have battles we all have conversations it's gonna be a nice civil night and just give you guys an opportunity to learn where each of the candidates is coming from with that being said the format for the event will be each candidate will have a specific amount of time to answer our questions including from us and yourself from the audience there will be a there was a coin flip already that we've held the democrats will be going first in terms of the mayoral questions yeah and then following the mayoral questions where event candidates will introduce themselves as well after the mayors and they will then alternate between parties so we will be starting with the evening with three determined questions we've already came up with following that will be asking questions that we have gathered from the audience that you guys have filled out with cards when you walked in the door uh east canada like i said have about a minute and a half to answer uh we're hoping to get as many of your questions in as possible for this evening with that being said let's get the evening started but before that i could ask everybody to stand for the pleasant evening [Music] pledge allegiance which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty justice okay everyone so we're going to get going we have the introductions by the mayoral candidates first two minutes each and we're going to start with councilman elf thank you so first i want to start by thanking the citywide pto and for having all of us here and one more public thank you before it really discovered is to my wife robin who's here with me and it's important i thank her because with this let me tell you the story of why i'm here what brought me here to run for marriage i actually met my wife in these hallways we were on this stage many times we started dating at the every high school and we were in the part of the marching band we were in the band and now we fast forward from where we met in these schools in this very building and we have children we're planning our family planning and when you get ready to have children the first thing you start thinking about is you know think about when they're 20 years old you're thinking about their college their future think about where they're going to go to school so we started having these conversations on where our children are going to go to school and then what we noticed was our peers our friends we grew up with our age they're moving out of town we always hear that people are coming into damage but we don't talk about the people we're losing our peer group has been moving other towns with a perception of better schools and we knew we wanted our kids to grow up we knew we wanted to go to not only one of the most diverse school systems in the state one of the most diverse school systems in the country with tremendous teachers with great administrators so we vowed to each other that we were going to fight for it and that vow really quickly changed in my wife saying well i think you're going to run for office and now here i am right so robin thank you you're the reason we're here i appreciate that now we knew it wasn't going to be hard we saw what the challenges were the schools weren't broken they didn't need to be fixed but there's a lot of opportunity here because they have they haven't been invested properly our schools are ranked that last when it comes to per people expenditure 169 of 169.

this is not new we cannot fix them with the same ideas the same stagnant leadership we have to move on we need new energy with new vision we need a new direction thank you thank you next question regards to infrastructure as it relates to school remote learning sidewalks those kinds of things as a parent i value internet service as a public utility as well as sidewalks to make foot traffic safer what infrastructure expansions and upgrades would look to do within the school district with any potential money that danbury may receive as a result of the federally passed infrastructure bill and this question is open to anyone who would like to answer could you please just raise our heads israel having taught during the pandemic when everybody had to have hybrid teaching teaching from home and students were learning from home there were incredible unimaginable challenges that went along with that and i believe that some of the money should if we get money for this kind of thing especially for internet that it would be very good not because i'm hoping to have another event and i'm going to be the last thing from my mind if it ever had to be again that we fund families to be able to have the internet because some don't so their children aren't getting the best education without that and um also maybe make help students learn in an environment for instance i'm just going to give you an example some of my students had small homes and um there were lots of family members so for them to sit in front of a computer especially very young children to sit in front of a computer and try to learn all day was an extremely difficult path so i would like to see some kind of backup system uh implemented if there's money or funds for example to be able to address those kinds of issues within our school district because our school district doesn't end inside the buildings um you know teachers have lives that they go home to students have families they go home to but they're still part of us they're still part of danbury and the more we can do for them to be able to get the more we do for them to be able to get them to have the best education we have fine that would be great [Applause] [Music] anyone else like to take a shot okay the next question is for the mayors um i believe on this [Music] for the mayors do you intend to speak with mr donovan and his team about their ideas for the needs of the high school sure do you intend to speak with mr donovan and his team about their ideas for the needs of the high school i would definitely speak with mr donald about his needs for the high school but directly with our superintendent who is his overseer and we have an excellent new superintendent and we're in a good position to move forward now and i think building a great working relationship with the i hate to say education side and the city side it's all our size we're all damn bearings here we all want the best possible education for the students i've talked to him every single day i know he's a football player i've played football here myself so i think we're on the same page if he needs to move forward he needs support he must make suggestions as their next mayor i'll definitely listen to him and i'll sit with mr uh the superintendent kevin walston and understand what the needs of the school are directly with the high school and each and every school in this city because we have some of the greatest schools in this state of course we'll still mr donovan mr wallston we'll sit with all the assistant principals the parents and the teachers when we're invited to talk to them we're going to show up and talk to them so i welcome any invitation because that's how nobody has a market corner on the right ideas some have to corner on bad ideas but the way you find out when you get to where you need to be is by having coalitions we've been building coalitions since we started this campaign before so i welcome any conversation [Music] this next question is open to whoever would like to answer do you support school mass mandates and faculty vaccine requirements imposed by the states please keep it simple people are scared to answer this i'll just do it because the responsible thing is to say you support mass mandates you support vaccine mandates with testing this is about health and saving lives i think everybody here that's a bipartisan issue we want to save lives our city has been doing a good job that doesn't cross that's about doing what's right and about being responsible [Applause] just really simple none of us on the board of education are health professionals i mean in any decision we look to the experts to help us make you know make decisions to enforce them and i agree it's about what's doing right for everybody else and we want to keep our kids in school this is what we have to do [Applause] yes and yes [Applause] [Music] feel free i'm gonna have to go with uh yes obviously follow the science i think that is something that changes every day um i do have an issue with masking children when the percent is .03 i think that really impacts their mental state of mind um i think that there's a lot of loss in the education in their facial expressions you know you identify a lot from the child through their face so i think that that is a big burden for our children to carry the science really doesn't support that but again i am aware of i have been vaccinated i'm aware of the importance of it i do they'll feel that asking people about whether they get vaccinated or not is a violation of hip-hop but i always will i will always follow the law and until that changes then yes we will have to wear our masks and you know social distance and do everything that we have to do until hopefully this emergency is over but it looks like we've got to march 22.

all right good evening and welcome to the regular board meeting for the azusa unified school district board of education on october 5th 2021 we are calling this meeting to order uh open session at 702.

in the event that the in-person event is cancelled if you have previous engagements we will also be holding a virtual celebration you can find more information on how to access our virtual event on our flyer or website at thinktogether.org thank you so much for your time and your service to our souza community thank you so much tomida and now we have spelisa hello thank you for um this time can can you hear me yes yes okay yes thank you um once again i was one of those very vocal members for the dual immersion program um and although the situation wasn't ideal i do want to take the time also to thank you um the staff superintendent the board the principal for bringing on an aid as well as an intervention support in the afternoon i hope that this changes a trajectory and this continues establishing just positive um experiences in the dual immersion program and staffing so i want to take the time and say thank you for hearing us thank you for taking action that makes a difference i also want to invite um cabinet board superintendent uh to join hodge pta right now our campaign is going on and our pta does a lot of good for our school we provided every single student a mask we do things like fund ex field trips we do red ribbon week just a variety of things we have emergency funds we have funds for service projects so i invite you all to become a pta member or donate our theme this year is cougars create and we're just encouraging the um cougars knowing that they can create when when it means with art artistically but also that they can create change so i invite you to join you can go to join totem we have links on our facebook on our instagram we can email i can email them out um but i thank you for your time and i invite you to join that's it thank you lisa lika do we have anyone else we have no other hands raised thank you moving on to item 7.0 comments reports and requests by the board of education uh we'll begin with board member cruz gonzalez i have nothing to thank thank you board member beau good evening everyone uh it's nice to be here i had a couple of community events to report out on as well as uh an idea that i want to share with my colleagues here on the board as well as cabinet um this past uh monday we had our golden days kickoff ceremony at the library it was a wonderful time to honor jenny avila a long-time library commissioner council member and important citizen here in azusa it was also a great time to see our azusa unified young musicians play and really add sparkle through the evening and i'm happy to represent the district on the golden days committee this year and look forward to participating in the rest of the smaller scale but no less meaningful events this year and i encourage everyone in the community to stop by the library and see the exhibit of the historical artifact from golden days dating back to 1949 there are some great photographs um ribbons trophies awards um it's a very well curated exhibit so i encourage everyone to see that um i also want to take a couple minutes uh for my trusty time today to share my thought on um where we are as a district uh in the paradigm of reimagining um really kind of seeing the reorganization process as a new paradigm and an opportunity to create the best possible vision for our students staff and community and as we know we have currently have an open position or director of i.t and i know that we've begun that search process and in all transparency i've had some initial conversations with mr ortega as well as dr mitchell on on my ideas on this and i really want to put forward the idea and i'd like to have a conversation at the board level on this that we reimagine this head i.t position as something like a cto or chief technology officer position and give high consideration to creating that position as a new cabinet member position i think that the pandemic has showed us many things in terms of what we can do given certain pressures and responsibilities to our community it's shown us the the integral role of technology and its impact on instruction and it's really shown us that it can technology if used correctly um and used wholeheartedly can really jump start and really give some rocket fuel to our instructional program and i think um really getting the best talent that we can from institutes and and cto academies across the country bringing that to our community into our district and really elevate what we're doing and i think that um you might say it's a it's a bold step and really that there are a lot of things to figure out but i think that if we are able to come together and say that we want to make this investment for our students and staff that we'll look back in five years and say that we're really glad we did that and that we're really among that that kind of lead cohort with other high performing districts across the country thank you thank you board member bill board member rodriguez pena yes good evening everyone um i just want to report that i went to the well i went on the zoom to the back to school night for the transitional adult school and um the teachers and the director did a great job on doing their powerpoints and speaking about what their program brings to the students that attend um the adult transitional i was very surprised to see a teacher i seen her name um and i was wondering is that the person that i knew so i went online and i seen um actually i was very glad to see another she was a student instructional aide and now she's a teacher melissa casas melissa casas was inspired as an instructional aide in the adult transitional class to become a teacher with students with special needs and if anyone knows her she was also a young student in the mariachi the azusa and now she sings professionally for mariachi camino real and i'm very proud of her i was very proud to see her that she was she went back to school and became a teacher here at ausd uh i also joined the adusa pedestrian walk we walked um through it by apu by slauson and by a aero highway and azusa avenue and the focus was to take note of any safety issues such as handicapped ramps believe it or not some of those handicap ramps are outdated sidewalks roadways to improve conditions that will encourage walking azusa will make walking in the making it safe comfortable convenient and more accessible for the pedestrians of all ages you actually don't really realize what you really see when you're when you're driving and when you're walking you finally you know i've been driven to my arrow you know i drive right there all every day practically but certain things that you notice like oh well i didn't realize it you know there's a bump in the road where someone could trip but these are the great things that the city of azuza um had this team go out and a community residents joined and walked and we took note of certain and we gave our input and that was really good so they are going to start working on these roads um throughout the community and again another success though azusa leaders are learning golden days virtual fundraiser on saturday we made enough for three more scholarships thousand dollar scholarships and then some i would like to thank the donors all the all ed directors mayor robert gonzalez mayor flotem jesse avila jr robert zamora parent mary dodd for president arianes former board member helen jaramillo and of course we even had our own lunch with the superintendent so we sold him that day els outlet adelino's maxes mauricio's but wait our cash winning prize winner of 630 dollars was our community liaison anna gonzalez you wouldn't believe that her daughter won last fundraiser 600 and they only bought two tickets don't see one ticket would do it so um but anna was so kind that she returned 300 back to the foundation for our scholarship funds also our fantastic entertainment with studio 26 was mr uh kimbo coburn i want to thank him and we had a zoo the orchestra director mary turner and they really enjoyed the entertainment so we couldn't have did all this without everyone's help and i want to really thank you and appreciate that and i'm sure the students will too so i want to congratulate also azusa glaston high school interact club for being recognized last night at the city council meeting by the city of azusa and the l.a county supervisor hilda solis for creating the golden days logo slogan united we shine i would like to thank the advisors mary turner mary turner is always so involved and also darla elliott from gladstone high school and happy golden days week so i brought my bad today watch out thank you board member rodriguez pena and uh for me this evening i just want to uh remind any who are interested that this thursday i will be holding an online coffee that's october 7th at 6 p.m this will be held on zoom if you have attended one of these meetings in the past you should have by now already received an email that gives you information on how to uh communicate your interest and and have the details to be able to join the the meeting and again this meeting is open to anybody who would like to really discuss any any item uh whatsoever um it's a intentionally structured conversation to be able to have a conversation uh around areas of uh that we want to celebrate or areas that are that are concerned and so anyone in the community is invited to take part in that and again if you have not received one of those invitations and you're interested please feel free to reach out to me on any channel really and i'll make sure that you get that information moving on to item 8.0 uh comments and reports by superintendent cabinet and student board member i will uh turn it over to you superintendent ortega thank you good evening i just wanted to report a couple of things i had the pleasure of being invited by the k-12 foothill consortium they held a cte tour that fish that featured our very own jim hegg's digital media arts program at glasgow high school although i've been in that room uh several times it's just a reminder what an awesome opportunity our students have whose interests are in that field we have top-notch equipment we continue to expand on that program uh adding um new uh technology and so just very grateful for that and just wanna thank glaston high school mr hague for the passion and the project project-based approach that they are taking to that pathway um as board member rodriguez pena stated this saturday we held our all ed foundation fundraiser we were able to raise over three thousand dollars to benefit the students and staff of our district i do want to thank publicly the foundation for all of their work in raising funds to support the district and to all the participants who helped by either buying tickets uh donating or participating in the auctions and lastly i just want to say that i was able to join daniel infante sanchez who is our current teacher of the year he is a teacher from glaston high school and maria sims our former teacher of the year they were recognized at our in-person laco teacher of the year banquet again just nice to be in person to get the recognition that they deserve and it's just a great uh a great event that really highlights the impact that teachers have on our students thank you good evening i would like to give appreciation tonight to uh gary creel who is our director of child welfare and attendance he has been organizing and facilitating our vaccination clinics with our partnership with mercy pharmacy and last saturday they administered 236 vaccine doses which were first doses of the johnson johnson second and third doses of the pfizer vaccine our next clinic is saturday october 16th at gladstone high school at nine o'clock in the morning from 9 to 12.

call her with the phone number ending with nine five five you can press star six to unmute your phone and address the commission for up to three minutes good evening uh commissioners it's kirk westfall 3505 charter place just a couple of brief comments i am enthusiastically awaiting further action on limiting parking minimums i think particularly in light of some of the reports we've gotten about variety of climate change and the fact that we're still insisting on all developments to be accompanied by in most of the city to be accompanied by parking i think is something that should be assessed um very soon um the uh other issue is thinking about what's going to happen on corridors during the tc1 rezoning process which could be somewhat lengthy and just what the philosophy is on development proposals that come in that are in opposition to um what these parcels are going to be rezoned to um i know it's a fairly common practice to do something like a moratorium if something is designated for rezoning and there's that awkward interim time where you don't want bad development to happen before the good zoning gets put in place i don't know if that's on such a wide area for so such a long period of time um so i'm wondering if there's any other creative ways around you know tapping the brakes on bad development while we re-zone for good development and i think one idea could be looking at city-wide commercial parking maximums either from a form-based perspective or some kind of ratio perspective uh i know these are being discussed for tc1 but um you know i'm just trying to think of what would be what what level of card dependence are we comfortable with accepting um before these commercial areas get rezoned um you know could it be like parking shall cover no more than three quarters of the site or something like that um something that we'd be comfortable with for the whole city um just throwing that out there because my suspicion is that as the economy heats up you're going to get many more development proposals that are you know 30 more seconds do we want so much for being brief this last thing uh has to do with parking unbundling and i don't know the legality of this in michigan but um just putting some conditions on parking for residential buildings where the developers for the parking they do include they may not include the cost of renting a space in with the room rent um and just insisting i know other cities do this insisting on a certain minimum amount that they have to charge for residents to park in their parking structures thanks so much have a great night thank you if anyone else wishes to provide public comment at this time you can press star 9 on your phone if you've dialed in or use the raise hand feature at the bottom of your zoom screen if you joined us through the through the zoom meeting all right seeing none let's go on to item seven the public hearings for the next business meeting mr leonard can you walk us through what we have yes uh for the next uh business meeting which i believe to be on october 19th we have three new public hearing schedule one is for 106 north fourth avenue it's an addition for city council approval this is a proposed building edition of 910 square feet to an existing 5240 square foot building in the historic district the second public hearing is 2145 independence boulevard this is a2 montessori child care center special exception use for planning commission approval this is a request to allow a2 montessori a child care center for 30 children with 10 teachers added at the existing church of the good shepherd and then the third public hearing is 1525 south state street a natural features mitigation for city planning commission approval a 24-inch landmark tree was removed during construction that was indicated to be saved on the plan they need to present an alternative medication under the udc penalty and will be coming to the planning commission for consideration of that mitigation plan very good um okay we're on to 8a which is our unfinished business and this is the proposed amendments to section 529.6 site plan specific standards in chapter 55 of the unified development code yes so thank you um i'm promoting um matt city planner matt kowalski who is newly shorn and helping on this petition um and so i want to start off with a couple of uh one mia culpa and just one set the stage of our recommendation so since you'll recall that we've been working on the table a table format for the site plan review thresholds for some time and the mia culpa is the version that was included in this packet i stupidly took on some changes to while matt was out of town i didn't use the correct version so a new version has been uploaded to the packet this afternoon the difference is the newest one is referenced as an october proposed oregon state and i i just want to be clear those included a few changes where we had clarified that n a doesn't mean that you're exempt from permits it just means that your site plan um we also had referenced a couple of specific references to the building and we had previously changed some references from administrative approval to planning manager approval and removing a uh i wouldn't say antiquated but a prior version which referenced a level three site plan review which we're no longer using that terminology so my apologies there has been an uploaded version of that those are the only changes that have been ones that have been previously discussed and actually presented to you i was just working off of the wrong table so that's why both the originally published version and an updated version you will find online at legistar a second the reason that we were postponed last time and the reason that i'm recommending postponement to you today is mostly about stormwater in large part i am confident and i feel that the dialogue at the planning commission and the orc leading up to this point the proposed site plan thresholds i think are in good shape i like the table format personally that's ultimately obviously up to the planning commission to to determine but uh as a reminder one of the reasons that we sort of have paused this is because our stormwater regulations are specifically tied to the site plan review process it's kind of a unique trigger in our udc in that we had requirements applied to development based on the process that it was happening as opposed to perhaps the characteristics of the development itself at that last meeting you'll recall we explored some of the different aspects of that i'm happy to go back into that but just as a quick reminder right now the city's code reads that if you are a one and two family residential property you are required to do um we we often refer to it as a worksheet but it is it is calculation of what's called first flush and that is just that sort of the first uh detention of the first flush of sort of cleaning out the mechanisms that you have on the site for a rain that is a rain event of designed around a one-inch rain event then apart from one and two family our ordinance has a series of thresholds for that require different storm water management techniques based on the quantity of impervious surface if you are one in not one and two family and you're any other type of development and you are five thousand square feet of impervious space or less no storm water is required in any regard if you are five thousand to ten thousand square feet we require first flush as i described if you are ten thousand to fifteen thousand we require flush and something called bank full which is again the detention quantity for the full bank of a storm event based on that nearby capacity and then if you are over 15 000 square feet of impervious surface you have to do those things as well as detain for a 1 storm event or previously that was often referred to as a 100 year storm event so um that that is so we discussed um that in changing some of our site plan thresholds and the triggers that we had there we were actually removing some projects from having any site plan requirement are excuse me stormwater management measures required as part of them since that time we took your direction from the last meeting and [Music] we have had conversations with the city storm with members of public services and also taken some of the advice that came out of your discussion with a couple of modifications one of the modif so the proposed ordinance that's presented to you reflects basically two approaches and would be grateful for your direction as to which of those approaches seems most desirable the first approach or option a i believe in the ordinance is what i am proposing is is a change that is probably most consistent with the city council resolution directing a desire to make projects easier or more cost effective for review those proposed changes do a couple of things they would change the requirement of three and four residential and pull them into that one and two family where regardless of the square footage of impervious surface of a three and four unit residential structure it would require first flush [Music] storm stormwater treatment that would be a change in that if right now that is governed by those other thresholds that is is it under 5000 nothing required is it 5000 to 10 000.

the ordinance makes that decision i think the way a public hearing can be beneficial is through the rubric of staff giving the planning commission that staff report it's conceivable that some information is brought to the commission's attention that wasn't put forth through the process by review to that point um i think we hear more frankly about standards and and and thoughts generally about outcome than we do missing information or incorrect information but i would say that that's an argument why public hearings for this administrative decision can be valuable maybe there's some bit of information that's presented that didn't come out of the process that is relevant to the criteria but at the end of the day those criteria are evaluated and you're absolutely right an administrative decision is the same whether it's happening in my office at your table or at the city council i'm going to chime in here quickly because uh to the point of like what is the line in my look at the table and this is why this having this as a table is really helpful unless we're talking about a private street or construction of a residential building in a mixed use district we're not seeing anything that is less than seven units that's the only thing that comes before us everything else is going to planning manager or if it's rezoning then we are seeing them on their way to city council so we're really only talking about things that are at least of the size of seven units or that they're some other use that there's a lot of things that are some other use that are also in our purview too so um maybe that's the wrong level and you know we could continue to do that i i see but i also see that um like if there's not tons of discretion uh um i get that i it's not necessarily the public hearing part i think it's just the um that there's development that there are there are changes and if suddenly the bulldozers show up right um because you know i think that that could actually lead to some more out pushback that was not the intention of changing this personally um commissioner clark and then commissioner abrams i was going to ask um i know that the postcards that get sent out to all the neighbors they can add kind of this unknown variable and it's a whole process from the developer perspective especially for small developments i'm wondering if there is a way to do um instead of like public engagement but incentivize early stage developer like charrettes community charts because i do think that the public engagement provides useful opportunity to sensitize people to what's going to happen in their neighborhood and can give the developer developers um an opportunity to diffuse tension i'm a little bit hesitant to say on one hand i i it's great that we can reduce expensive expenses on smaller developments and it is a really cumbersome process on a smaller project to go through the postcard notification all that on the other hand i am concerned that if we um only have public hearings for larger developments then the public understanding of the current development situation in the city is going to be that only all these big developments are getting passed and they're never hearing about the more like mid scale um like human human scale smaller developments or for example if we bypass the public process with these sustainable developments um people won't know that those developments are happening and then they'll see the the only thing that we're hearing about are these bad developments so finding a way if there was a way to do some kind of a light especially now that we're in the the covert era of um digital everything like virtual meetings for some um and then others required in person but one of the big things with those note cards going out to the neighbors and all that from a developer standpoint was the timeline that um if you have to do subsidized paperwork you have to make sure that those are through the system by a certain day and you have to get your documentation that you held that meeting and you have those notes well if those postcards get delayed and they're not in your two week time frame or whatever the requirement is your entire project is is thrown off its schedule and that comes with a lot of different subsidies and stuff that require all those processes and boxes to be checked so it would be really beneficial to make that process as straightforward and clear-cut as possible and maybe framing it less as like um a combative interaction but more of like an informational character and engagement i enjoy those sessions i think they're great for getting people to maybe understand details and show intention behind developments and like um commissioner mills just said it can be very startling when the bulldozers just show up and there might be things the developers don't know that maybe the neighborhood used to have flooding issues with the site and they're annoyed and very concerned their houses are going to flood and they can easily diffuse that with hey no we're actually putting in this system so um that's kind of my thoughts it's a complicated one and there's benefits and drawbacks commissioner abrams and then i just looked at the time and realized that we've talked a long time on something that we're going to postpone i'll be quick um i wonder just two quick things one is i wonder if we can think about this in phases as opposed to an all or nothing so i think it would be possible to take a small step and prepare ourselves to take another step i think it's easier to remove the public hearing than it is to add it back so maybe we think about that um and then the second question i had i wondered is the is the format of the physical postcard is that is that illegal is that regulated by law would it ever be possible to switch to email or trans transition over time because i think that that would be cheaper and faster and would maybe cut cut back some of the cost and time constraints of the notification uh um if there's anything else um commissioner mills to your point maybe i could do a quick recap and maybe i'll maybe i'll even address some of the questions um so generally i'm hearing support for postponement but an urgency that we've been working at this and you want to see this move forward so i'm um i am hearing some pressure to make sure i'm giving you a as good a product as we can at that november 4th meeting um we will consult with osi on that electrification language although i have to say that i think um i'm leaning towards removal of it the conversation about the public hearing maintenance at planning commission level suggests to me as it was maybe brought up before that this warrants a larger conversation than maybe shoehorning it into this particular one it's not to say it's not an idea worth pursuing but i wonder if we've got enough enough to tackle in this context i do think that it's important that we that these are not bifurcated that the storm water aspect and the site plant review thresholds go in concert unless you are comfortable with the site plan for thresholds going forward knowing that there's going to be a lot of projects that don't have storm water at all in that interim i don't think that that's probably legal that we want so that's why i think it's important to keep them going um i am hearing the one thing that i am not hearing a lot of um consistency of but i'm going to propose an approach to fill the gap of stormwater main facilities of 5000 less with from the standpoint that it's infrastructure that's critically needed in the city if we keep it moderate at a first flush approach it should be able to be accomplished in a relatively um cost effective manner um and we will also explore um sort of presenting maybe even tablifying it like um to commissioner weich's uh suggestion and as i am quick to do with a lot of other aspects of the udc that seems to resonate with the planning commission as a great way to display information maybe we even look at that whole seg section as a way to present that in a little bit more understandable way and [Music] will work to address commissioner hammerschmidt's editorial eye and um as it relates to the public hearing i guess i'm generally hearing that this is perhaps going a little bit too far afield from the direction of city council resolution so again this is i'm hearing some different voices on it um so at a minimum i think when it comes back to you i will present a recommendation but i will have some alternative language at the ready should the commission want to explore that further [Music] i am reluctant to delve into much changes with our citizen participation requirements that that's its intention is to notify residents early in the process those deadlines can be really burdensome to a project but they are also designed to be measurable so that we can assure that some of that information is going out in a timely basis and frankly it requires some space it doesn't require a petitioner to respond but it requires some period of reflection based on that conversation to see if they want to make adjustments to their proposal i think that's less genuis if that conversation happens and then they're just submitting their application the next day um i'm not saying that they always take advantage of that but at least building in the space we're probably going as far as we can to lead them to that water to to maybe respond to some of those questions um i to the point about noticing i can explore that i know that that's something that's been discussed in a lot of ways at the state level we also have some charter issues i don't know specifically if those relate to notices but i i think that there has been discussion about allowing electronic notices i don't think it's allowed by state law yet i'm speculating so i will follow up on that too and um that's what i'm hearing as maybe a product to come back to you any major i missed or mischaracterized or misread the room on great thank you very much for keeping track and recapping um i realized that what i read was that we would postpone this to november 2nd but that is election day so it's actually november 4th it's a thursday yeah i'm sorry my typo um uh no you you corrected it when you just said that which is why i noticed that um so i read the motion before effectively reminding us what i said an hour and a half ago which is that we're going to postpone this until the fourth thursday november 4th yeah yeah and all in favor of the postponement just raise your hand or say yes that is all of the hands so the motion carries i just gotta notice that i'm i need to go find my laptop plug so and it's also ten after nine can we take a five minute break um and then we'll come back and do regular business order uh so this is item 9a the 3874 research park drive site plan for city council approval and we'll start with the petitioner's presentation you'll have up to 10 minutes folks um and then mr kowalski can offer comments um and the staff's presentation and then we'll open it for the public hearing sorry my bad mr chang will be this city planner presenting this petition this evening oh okay very good mr covert we're ready for you whenever you want to start thank you good evening everybody uh my name is tom covert i'm with midwestern consulting uh it's great to be here with you tonight to review the 3874 research park drive site plan it's formerly known as or also known as the vanguard project but we'll be referring to it here tonight is the sartorius site plan you will see that in this next slide that we have a long list of folks here that make up the stakeholders team from the development side of the project uh in the interest of time i'll assure you that all these folks are here on the call tonight and available to assist and answer questions should you have them as they come up with regard to the site plan and with that i'm going to ask that um mary lavin is she brett did you promote her i have not seen ms levin all right so i'm going to um we have a caller um yeah i was going to say did she raise her hand yeah we um i'll go ahead and promote the caller we'll see if that's the right um mary are you able to hear us uh yes i am able to hear you yeah and thank you can you hear me perfect thank you great so um i i cannot see the screen i'm just on the phone so i appreciate that it gives me the chance to speak for a moment so i'm the president of sartorius here in uh the u.s and i'm the key stakeholder for this project here in in ann arbor uh we're really excited about this opportunity to expand our live cell analysis site there uh just a little bit about sartorius sartorius was founded in 1870 um so we have a long history of success both here in ann arbor in the u.s and uh founded as the mentioned in germany so we have been uh continuously operating as a company and also a a important community sponsor for the last 150 years and we're looking forward to being a partner the items that you have spoken about tonight i also have on the line with me dr reinhard bontos he is specifically here to talk about our corporate responsibility activities to promote sustainability uh why are you on the line are you able to speak i think we just moved him in okay great thank you yep fine how would you would you just like to highlight some of the proactive activities we're doing to ensure that sartorius is a sustainable company not just globally but also specifically in in over yes it's a pleasure to me so good evening to everyone so ingredients from germany it's a pleasure to join the meeting it was so far a very interesting one but just coming back to the topic um here so what we plan to do here in an hour and what the intention for for that meeting here is as well is to build the center of operations um as the foundation for our sustainability growth sustainable growth in in north america as was already mentioned before sustainability is one of our major targets and objectives in our commercial activities what will be about so you see on that slide here that a multi-purpose site is planned so the very core of the um business in the nava will be the operations where we're going to consolidate several businesses which are currently distributed across north america and what will be about assembly engineering and also then the distribution since we're a company focusing very much on the biopharmaceutical industry um it will be as well then this center is planned to be a center of excellence and for regions so regions used to be and life sciences to indicate a status of cells or organisms furthermore it will be as well a repair center for the products we have installed the us as well one part and one element of our sustainable strategy or certainly sustainable strategy beside that it's uh is well product development or an r d scale up hub so we plan to further invest into the today's r d activities we have in particular already today in ann arbor and to involve our customers into that it will also include then training a demo center and this is in particular of interest from the sustainability perspective since we know um and this is the the reports we had look into that the major impact when you have a look at the emissions footprint um we are involved in as a company is about the product use and the product uh utilization at the customer site and so the side in an arbor will be then as well focusing on training and in order to help our customers to use their products better to do that more efficiently with less energy consumptions reduced and more focused work workflows they do so as a summary so what we plan to see here is an increase in efficiency and resilience to be closer than to our customers in the north american market and also then to reduce complexity for instance when you think about logistics for the north american market where that side will be play a major role thank you reinhardt and mary moving along context-wise we are the central properties of the research park drive industrial park area we're located south of 94 east of state street north of ellsworth and then west of the ann arbor railroad which you can see here we are these properties highlighted in green we're about 16.9 acres zoned office research and lab we have studied the existing conditions of the site you'll note that we are five of the properties in total we have frontage on research park drive both on the east and west side of our property there are some flood plains and wetlands associated with the mallets creek drain that exists to the long and the northern border there are some landmark trees that were planted with the existing facility and infrastructure that sits there today that is planned to be raised the building that is you'll see in a minute that we're preserving some of these landmark trees and then utilities exist both in research park drive east and research park drive west which we plan to connect to the project itself is a building of about sixty thousand square feet of office and two stories so the footprint of the office is thirty thousand square feet on each level and and that exists in this area we have a seventy thousand square foot uh research and development facility which will be one story we are we are parking um this site with 299 parking spaces 150 of those meet the ev charging requirements per the code and then we also park with 64 bike parking spaces you'll note we have three access points we have one to the west here on research park drive and we have two to the east along research park drive for loading unloading and fire access a couple of key features to the site are that we are completing a lot of the sidewalk connections that exist currently we'll be putting sidewalk in each frontage alarm research park drive and then we'll also be adding sidewalks so that you can get from the site all the way out to state street where there's public transit and those kinds of things that happen so we're completing those sidewalk connections we have a food truck patio on site a pavilion some patios from gathering spaces and then we've preserved the landmark trees here adjacent to the previous development in research park drive this is just a quick overlay of the site on the aerial that exists a picture of the aerial what exists there today again pedestrian scale we've moved the building up near research park drive we've completed the sidewalk connection on this side of research park drive to get you out to state street and then again along each of the frontages of the property utility service to the site is pretty straightforward we anticipate having a sanitary lead to research park drive to service the building we are planning to construct a 12-inch water main in parallel to the eight inch that exists in research park drive and then taking that eight inch offline to to meet the current standards of the 12-inch water main service we also plan to bring a 12-inch water main through the site and connect to the other side of research park drive to complete one minute i guess it would be fire hydrant access and and the ability to fight fires at the site if needed we have a rain garden we have storm water detention in the form of infiltration tom i'm going to turn it over to you here here if you want to talk about the building uh absolutely thank you uh tom phillips and black uh down the block here one more north state street good evening um commenting about uh architectural aesthetics um here you're seeing the uh south elevation of the building um actually that is the east and west below you want to flip the next one tom and this is the north elevation and south elevation uh the south elevation is the building's main entry we'll go to the next one so commenting about architectural aesthetics we work closely with sartorius to design what we feel is an elegant modern composition uh with an envelope composed of insulated metal panels and glass and the the concept is to help convey the dynamic nature of their culture um the high performance glass is designed to shed heat ten minutes thank you we're very proud of it and we we feel it's going to be a cutting edge asset to the community thank you uh there's also uh we have so 9 000 square foot of solar panels on the roof which you'll see on the roof plan that's a kilowatt uh system array and we'll be happy to answer any questions thank you thank you very much all right um mr chang uh yes i'll just follow up i know they had a lot of information to cover there so some points uh as there was pre that was previously mentioned uh you know approval is contingent on combining the five lots before permits will be issued uh they just started to get into the the sustainability they are adding solar panels to the roof i believe it was 150 kilowatt hours at dc and 125 if it were kilowatt hours at uh ac which the alternating current which i did have a brief conversation with the offices to stay in the sustainability of how much power that is it's approximately between that would power between 15 to 18 houses uh yearly and that all depends again on you know on a typical 2000 square foot home depending on you know how they're heating and cooling their house um there was also something that came up just today and it was from the the neighbor to the south um that is actually a school i had listed it in the staff report as office space but is actually currently used by the washington intermediate school district and that is used for special needs students they're not opposed to the the proposal but they are concerned with the stormwater detention on site if some because there are playgrounds in the rear of the site and i think yeah if it shows right kind of where the hand is located i don't know if you can see my cursor but where the hand is where they have either a playground or or a student garden so they did have concerns that they were that were brought up regarding the stormwater detention uh because it was brought up so late in the day i did send an email off to the county drain commissioner's office which has approved this proposal i do have some questions uh regarding you know this that does have infiltration on site so i'm curious about how much water may be stored in those detention ponds and if fences are possible uh to put or they're not required i know from the from the slopes but it's a discussion that you know i'm sure that the applicant and um the neighbor they're happy to to explore further just for the it's really more for the safety of the students i think there's about 40 to 50 students that are out there um so i'll follow up with the county drain commissioner's office and in fact the the uh the petitioner tonight may have more information regarding how much standing water would be in those ponds other than that i think they've mentioned everything there is electrical vehicle parking on site and i'm open to any questions you may have all right very good um before we get to those questions we will have the public hearing for this item so this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed 3874 research park drive site plan if you wish to address the planning commission on this item please press star 9 if you've dialed in or use the raised hand feature if you've joined through zoom for phone access if you're watching us right now you can call eight seven seven eight five three five two four seven and then you can enter our meeting id which is nine seven seven sixty six thirty four twelve twenty six city staff will select callers that have raised their hand um again you do that by pressing star nine on your phone when um you are promoted to speak please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we can hear you clearly and please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments caller with the phone number ending with 134 caller with the phone number ending with one three four you have three minutes to address the commission um thank you mr leonard and chair mills this is ken garber again 28 heavyweight court as a science reporter covering biopharma i commend the petitioner for providing modern lab space to sartorius and other life science companies and for its commitment to ann arbor this is a good developer but there are some problems here the solar array covers only nine percent of the flat roof area 150 kilowatt power output by my calculation will provide only four percent of the building's electricity demand that's based on doe estimates of commercial electric usage per square foot i realize the petitioner can add more later but it would be nice to see a bigger investment up front and gas heating for new construction is just unacceptable in 2021 we just can't lock in co2 emissions for the next half century come on mr mccousland mr big mr phillips put in a geothermal system you have the land area but there's a larger problem beyond this building emissions have to stop buildings like this perfectly evoke the cognitive dissonance of the strange times that we live in we know we must quit fossil fuels but we can't help ourselves this petitioner talks a good sustainability game with the building envelope insulation the high performance glass the led lighting but let's look at emissions referring to the us eia commercial building energy consumption guide and dte's current energy mix i calculate that this building will emit about 696 metric tons co2 equivalent emissions per year from electricity consumption alone now we had gas combustion emissions which i estimated 572 metric tons co2 a year for heating the total 1 268 metric tons co2 equivalent emissions a year that's a tangible 0.3 addition to the city's current overall commercial emissions at a time when we're desperate to lower those emissions of course this project meets our zoning code and you have to approve it as is i get that but let's not call it sustainable now what about future petitions your zoning code options are limited to incentives for planned projects we can't require solar or heat pumps much less zero emission buildings and conventional wisdom says forget the building code too because state act 230 supposedly keeps us from exceeding the state i think that's wrong and that we can have our own code but that's another discussion at least do this have staff calculate and report the greenhouse gas emissions of every future development that comes before commission that way you and council will at least know the climate impact this idea has been out there but let's implement it thank you if anyone else wishes to um participate in the public hearing please press star 9 on your phone or use the raised hand feature to raise your hand see no indications all right then i'll read the motion the ann arbor city planning commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the 3874 research park drive site plan and development agreement subject to combining lots before issuance of permits moved by commissioner wyche seconded by commissioner gbrandal who wants to kick off conversation or questions no one ready for a roll call to that end oh go ahead commissioner give randall go ahead i think we're kind of in this awkward place of like um [Music] this is a whole lot better than we normally get and then we've been reminded of our kind of like ultimate goals from one of our callers you know so um and he also states you know where where we don't really have wiggle room and things like that and i don't know if he attended our session several weeks ago where we really sort of got the pretty specific line about where where our influence can lie and not um so um i i i want to aspire you know but i also feel like my hands are tied to and i also on one hand want to commend the developer for what they're doing here which is a whole lot more than what we usually see and um and i think it looks like a great project it it um it makes me think with all of those bike parking spaces and things like that that man we gotta get with it with our state street bike scene because it's tantalizingly close when you hit the intersection at eisenhower and then it all completely falls apart from there over to this area and um i think as a city we really need to get with the program uh with with i know state street the states recorder has been studied for a lot of years but we just have to act because uh it's just in um i've i liked it once and i will never do it again um with that overpass uh so we really need to figure out how to be able to move people through this area too so that um somebody who works in a place like this who actually may be partly attracted to a place like this because of all the different sustainability elements finds that it's actually quite dangerous for them to to bike here um so uh yeah i i i i'm supportive of everything that you're saying here i i do see that you know it is kind of a small solar panel area when you look at the whole roof um i get it that there's other needs that are up there too but it does seem kind of small in terms of the what you could be what you could be running from that so that would be a wish but i know that you know we we only have so much influence with this um so at the very least i would love to see um the way that your electric capacity is set up so that there could be more not just the roof can handle the the structure but that your the way your panels are set up and things like that there's more opportunity for that in the future as well so that's it for now great i was going to similarly chime in um that i was excited to see this and i'll be honest i had this vague recollection of right before covid having seen something else on this site and i didn't go back and dig out things and compare my sense and maybe this is um for the development team this seems to be utilizing more of the site than previous or it's a larger building than before is that right that's correct yes great the previous project really only utilized about a one one parcel and maybe a quarter of the other where this sprawls into the second parcel right okay well i for one am excited to see more development here and i also am excited to see the plan that that there is land envisioned for future expansion um particularly i mean i think that all of this is suggesting that this is the beginning of what could come i'm really excited that you have only provided one more parking space than what our current minimum is um i'm really excited that this will lead to 30 new spaces that have ev chargers installed in them um and um also you know the connection down the down the road beyond your property line is that am i understanding that right that you were talking about the sidewalk connecting even correct we have offsite sidewalk improvement yep um i did some of the calculate when i saw the development agreement i was doing the calculations about the solar and i don't know the original thing i thought it was one panel and knowing that it is a thousand panels um is quite different um i you know i certainly i would share commissioner gibb randall's um hope slash expectation that we the city intends to be carbon neutral in a decade and your roof space will be super valuable in helping us get there and so even if it's not envisioned immediately making that building so that there can be future expansion of solar um would be i think a really wise investment um this seems to be like something that you intend to be here for a while and so i i would just encourage you as you're thinking about future expansion the opportunities for thinking about ways that you can utilize some of that property for additional you know for geothermal heating um looking at the changes in technologies you're a german company we have a lot to learn from germany um like this is stuff that i'm imagining you have already deployed there um and hope that you bring it to ann arbor and and find a you know um folks here that um i mean i think the things that you're doing to build this so that people are driving evs there that they have an ability to park and charge during the day um and that they can walk there and use use the bus um i think is really fantastic so um yeah commit commissioner just to be clear that you know the uh we acquired you know more land than the first option that you saw a couple years ago and that's that's primarily to be able to have future phasing for this project and and ultimately i'm sure that we'll look at additional you know green energy type opportunities the the real reason why our solar array is really where it's at right now is because we we haven't developed the entire uh footprint interior but you know this is a lot of lab space so we're gonna we're gonna be in you know incurring a lot of rooftop units we just don't think we could fit it to be perfectly honest by the time that the the amount of mechanical gets up on this roof to be able to really have anything greater than what we're anticipating with the solar array that we're that we're suggesting that context is really helpful um and i and although it is not a requirement seeing this within the development agreement um that it's um this is what caught my eye that like the expectation that there will be solar panels on this site um is within their development agreement i think is great and that you would use that as the floor not the ceiling i think um is is uh um exciting so thank you commissioner clark go ahead um so yeah i just want to echo some similar sentiments but looking forward to seeing this be built um i'm especially excited about the commitment to sidewalks that's awesome so um and i just had one small question out of curiosity and was just wondering um if bike parking will be provided or even electric bike parking but yup other than that thank you for bringing this forward i i don't know if we have a we have a plenty of bike parking i don't know about electric bike parking specifically i'm not sure what what that entails even as far as the charging capability or what's needed there i think the one thing that we we try to emphasize with this project not unlike our last petition that we had for the previous uh iteration of of the site is that you know we are trying to keep people in a walkable community that is somewhat self-contained so if you really delve into our site plan it's a little difficult with the with the limited time we had but we do have not unlike the previous version we do have a spot for food trucks we have outdoor spaces for employees we have now we can circulate through the entire park which will be beneficial for the entire tenancy of the park which is you know a 60-year forlorn area as i think we all know uh in addition to that you know the walkability aspect to the new hotels that are out on state street in the retail and the restaurants was a big attraction um you know for sartorius to choose this the this site uh you know for their consolidation here in ann arbor so you know it's meant to keep a lot of people very practical to the site and not to dump out onto state street um you know as we tried to do with the previous project so i think we're accomplishing that and you know with the acreage that we have there um you know we could you know ultimately you know the plan is obviously to have that further growth here at this location and you know we envisioned at least a probably a doubling of the site if not more so and you know in addition this is generating you know a substantial amount of new very high paying jobs for the area as well so it's it's a it's a huge benefit to our community that you know to keep a tenant uh an occupant of a building like this in our community it's it's it's a big it's a big boost for us mr colbert did you raise your hand if i could real quickly um with regard to bike parking spaces we have basically three different areas where we're proposing for bike parking we're proposing two areas near the main entrance for a total of 14 bike parking spaces out by the main entrance and then over by the uh what we're envisioning is the employee entrance we have an 18 bike parking spaces so those are in real close proximity to the building so if there were uh the notion to electrify those it would be something that could be done relatively easily because they are located near the entries where people are going to be using them so that was something that we had thought about with the design commissioner clark go ahead really quick i was just hoping you could point out on the map just where the food truck area is going to be because that does sound really exciting too i'm just curious yep so this is um the layout plan and then the food truck patio is here it's kind of this gray shaded darker area with a connection to a pavilion area and then outdoor patio and seating areas great other planning commissioners and there's even closer up commissioner hammerschmidt i'll just confirm i agree with everything that's been said i think this project looks fantastic um aesthetically and everything um the what mr chang brought up about the comment that he received today from the school i just wanted to i guess verify with the petitioner that they're going to be working to address any of those concerns that they have in terms of potential flooding or water infiltration into their site yeah i i've already indicated to we'll reach out to the neighbor actually it wouldn't be flooding which would be the concern in fact you know this site has no storm water at all on it currently so what we're doing is a vast improvement to the area um but we'll definitely meet with them to make sure they're you know any concerns that they may have you know for safety especially during the construction period that would that we would meet you know any concerns of theirs you know there's there's you know clearly there there is some activity going on there you know it's a conditional use to school there so it's you know we're we are obviously you know we fit within the zoning they're sort of shoehorned in there but you know but i i think that there's no question we would want to be you know we would want to be careful with what's going on obviously with uh with activities there but i think as far as from the standing water perspective you know that that's something we'll take into consideration great thanks and yes extra thanks for the sidewalk connections i think that's gonna vastly improve this area so thanks any other questions or comments if i can um mr covert if you could just stop screen sharing so that i can see people's faces a little bit better thank you very much while we vote uh mr leonard can we have a roll call though oh wait commissioner gibrandal is going to sneak in go for it commissioner get randall just one other little thing when you're pointing out the the patio area i know this isn't required but you might consider adding a few trees because that is just a big huge paved zone with a whole lot of nothing in terms of shade and um i just think it would be much more comfortable for people to hang out in that area if you were able to integrate some some um some shade and trees in through there again probably not required so that would just be out of your own um your own kind of concern for your employees and making that a space that feels hospitable to them uh because otherwise they're they're in the middle of a lot of a lot of pavement for sure that's that's somewhat planned it's probably not really representative of what you're looking at for sure sure all right any others before mr leonard does the roll call vote mr leonard please commissioner abrams yes commissioner hammerschmidt yes commissioner dish i see a yes yes sorry i couldn't on you commissioner clark yes commissioner white yes commissioner mills yes commissioner gibb randall yes motion carries unanimously uh proceed to city council thanks folks and thanks for you didn't have much of a choice but for sticking around for our last conversation thank you everybody thank you very much all right um we are on to item 10 now which is another opportunity for public participation persons may speak for up to three minutes about any item of interest if you wish to address the planning commission at this time and you've dialed in please press star 9 on your telephone to raise your hand or if you're watching us through the zoom link uh you can rate use the raised hand feature for phone access uh you can call 877-853-5247 and our meeting id is 977-6634-1226 city staff will select callers that have raised their hand calling on you by the last three digits of your telephone number or by your name um you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak um please move to a quiet area and mute any background sounds so that we can hear you clearly and please also state your name and address at the beginning of your comments uh mr garber you can unmute your phone using star six and address the planning commission oh but like there we go there you go okay yeah sorry about that um yeah ken garber again you've heard a lot from me tonight so i'll be brief on the question of public hearings for site plans that fall to planning commission to decide i'm surprised it's even a discussion the public has to be able to weigh in on these projects and we should encourage that participation remember that this change would apply to projects big as well as small granted i come from a neighborhood organizing background not from a professional planning background so of course this is my view but i see public hearings essential to the democratic process and also critical for making developments better i don't think that any significant project can be adequately reviewed and modified and approved without public input that's all i have to say thanks to everyone for your hard work and have a good night thank you would anyone else like to participate in the public comment opportunity if so push the raised hand use the raised hand feature seeing none we'll move on to item 11 which is commission proposed business commissioner gibrandil you still have your hand up i assume it's not for commission proposed business but is there any commissioner who does have commission proposed business that they'd like to bring to us tonight i don't surprise langley all right um then we'll move on to 12 which is adjournment may i have a commissioner move that moved by commissioner weich seconded by commissioner gibb randall all in favor please say i or raise a hand that's everybody's hands and a thumb from commissioner dish have a great night folks we'll see you next week

following that announcement carmel clay school board of trustees began the process to appoint a new board member to fill the remainder of the term for the district 2 vacancy which is until december 31st of 2022 and as required by statute the board does need to fill this position within 30 days of the effective date of the vacancy with that in mind cc has posted the application for the district 2 school board vacancy to the district website on august the 27th and district 2 residents were invited to to submit an application if they were interested and that was open through midnight this september 12th of 2021 on monday september 20th the school board met an executive session to review the applications and select four applicants to move forward to the public comment portion the public interview portion please forgive me of the application process last evening monday october 4th the school board held a special session to interview these final four candidates tonight the board anticipates on appointing a district 2 board member we will finish the appointment process on tuesday october the 12th at a school board workshop and at that point we will swear in the new board member carmel clay school board wants to thank our caramel community for their engagement and willingness to serve the students staff and families of carmel we received several applications and we were impressed with the all the number of qualified candidates that had applied selecting the final four candidates for the public interview process was a very difficult decision with so many highly qualified candidates if you were not able to watch last evening it is available for you to watch each of the candidates did a phenomenal job sharing their background and their interest and their skill set with us this is what makes this evening a very difficult evening because we have to decide of those four who will best fit and be able to serve our caramel community at this time those who we interviewed last evening were jennifer nelson williams jonathan shapiro nikki mcnally and vakata tatikanda so that is our background and we are going to continue to have discussion so does anybody want to begin with their thoughts of last evening mr kirschner thank you laila first i'd like to thank pam niles again for her service to our district and community from the classroom to the boardroom pam impacted thousands of students and families making carmel clay schools and carmel a better place as i was working on my thoughts for this evening i remembered that when pam had something that needed to be said that she would write out those remarks and share those thoughts with the board especially the few times where she was in the minority for the most part during our service together we all agreed as a board the few times in the six and a half years that we did not agree on a particular issue we always had civil discussion knew that what we were doing was what we thought was best for the students and families of carmel schools and moved forward as one second i'd like to thank dr bearsford and the rest of the administrative team for all that you have done for our district over the last 18 months we have been in uncharted waters and you have guided our ship through some difficult times always putting students at the center of every decision i am proud of how our district navigated the challenges of covid and is dealing with the current political climate we always have and always will put students first third teachers food service maintenance and bus drivers thank you for all you do as well you are the point of contact with our students each and every day you do your jobs because you love what you do we as a district community and the board are thankful for each one of you while we're able to increase compensation for the next two years you still are not financially compensated enough for what we ask you to do which is to prepare the next generation for a world that does not yet exist fourth to our community we may not all agree on every issue but hopefully we all can agree that carmel clay schools are one of our community's greatest assets and responsibilities please know that the board is always interested in public comment and working collaboratively collaboratively with our community to make ccs the best that it can be for our students families employees and taxpayers we as the board miss having the public in this public meeting room with us we look forward to the day that students parents and community members will be at our meetings in person and not just seeing us on a screen but we also have a responsibility to our students families and employees and taxpayers to keep the district working for our community fifth thank you to all the applicants that applied to fill the current vacancy on our board we as a board were impressed with the number of applicants the great skills that they could bring and the willingness to serve their community on this board it was not easy to narrow the field down to the four finalists and sixth thank you to our four finalists for applying and answering our questions yesterday the decision that we are making this evening is not an easy one as i have thought about what the four of you have in common it is that all of you value service to your community it is in your dna you value public schools and your past service to ccs in our community is what made you stand out in our decision to make you a finalist that was clear in your applications and your answers yesterday for the three of you that are not appointed tonight please stay involved in ccs and share your experience with our schools i like to share that my son reminded me when i ran a second time for this board after losing the first election that i said i enjoyed meeting a lot of great people but that i would never run again and then two years later i ran again we never know what the future will bring but for me two years after i ran and lost it turned out to be the right time it was the second time that afforded me the honor and the privilege to be elected and serve this district when we started the process of filling the vacancy after pam's retirement we had no idea who would apply or how many great candidates we would have but i said to my fellow board members that we will probably know most of the best candidates i personally did not expect and was surprised that i already knew three of the four finalists before meeting them last evening the decision this evening is not who mike kirschner would vote for at the ballot box based upon my personal beliefs the tough decision that this board needs to make this evening is who would be the best school board member at this time the four finalists all have skills that would make them great board members and i encourage all of you that if you are not selected tonight that does not mean that your community does not need you to serve you all have a lot to offer ccs and please continue to stay involved in our district venkata i had the privilege of meeting you when you ran against pam almost three years ago i enjoyed meeting you then and thank you for all that you do for our community your community includes ccs but is bigger than carmel indiana and the indian community i am impressed by your desire and dedication to help others around the world nikki we as a district really owe you and need to thank you for everything that you have done for our district from volunteering in the classroom to making sure that we have the funding to make our schools as safe as possible you truly live two of our ccs guiding principles a safe non-threatening learning environment is essential and students academic social emotional and physical needs must be addressed jonathan you are the one finalist that i had not met before last evening but we have had one degree of separation since you moved to indiana i too married a hoosier and moved to indiana my wife and i like you and like many other families moved to carmel fred's schools you have dedicated your life to working with youth and your experiences would make you a great board member jennifer our past had not crossed in the past but it was our past had crossed in the past but it was not until we volunteered together at porch fest your application and your answers last night that i was able to learn about you in more detail i had the privilege of knowing your father and like all the other finalists i know community service is in your dna as i said about when i was elected to the board the timing was right i think the timing is right for you to serve your community as a member of this board mike that sounds like a motion are you ready to make a motion yes leila i am happy to make a motion that we appoint jennifer nelson williams to fill the open carmel clay school board position for district 2.

our teachers are aware our counselors are we have real challenges here in danver but we need real solutions because for the last years things have been stagnant and the only way to change that is a new vision new energy and people who really have a stake in this parents residents neighbors thank you everybody [Applause] yes thank you first i'd like to thank the pto citywide pto for hosting tonight uh thank you to all the candidates that are here tonight to speak directly to the constituents so they hear exactly what we have to say i also would like to thank the audience all of you here tonight that came to listen to what we do have to say so you know where we're coming from on issues especially of education and education is one of the most crucial issues that we face in this city obviously uh i'm going to take a little time to introduce myself again dean espegido i'm the candidate for mayor here in danbury she was born and raised here in danbury and like mr alex i went to this school as well and i was a little bit before his time but i was here as well i attended all danbury schools right from south street school in kindergarten to danbury high school as i said and graduated actually my daughter went to south street school as well and i was the president of the pto actually there back in 89 98 97 98 my son attended saint joe's for preschool i went on to be elected to the common council or the city council as they call it now in 1998 or yet 98 or 89 i'm sorry and then i was appointed to city clerk in 2003 that was a true honor that i was selected by the party that i represented at the time 30 second time clerk i went from there to seal our weights united for the city i went from there to this mayor's staff with mayor balcom and i became mayor bowen's chief of staff for the last six years and now i have the honor of being chief of staff from mayor cabo and i think that we have to focus right now in this time as we sit here today we need some experience that's going to help move this city forward especially with education especially with everyday operations experiences [Applause] we'll have one minute to introduce themselves and i think we'll go from left to right let me just move down the line hi my name is here um the jamboree area i have three children all three born raised in danbury and all right so while they were in school so thank you [Applause] good evening thank you my name is joe dasilva i'm currently a member of the danbury board of education i ran two years ago because education as mr alex just said it is key we all agree with that in this room but first i want to thank every member of the on this diocese everyone is running for office it takes a lot to put yourself out there to run and everybody here should be commended for doing that because education is important everybody here believes that there's some difference in philosophy as to how that is done education is important and i'm a proud product of the gambling public school i went to king street school i went to rogers park and i graduated from denver high school after attending this very building i was in between councilman alves and candidate esposito um i had a great education my children are receiving a great education i believe we have to work hard to make sure all kids get the same access to the same great education that i got and that we all just really have thank you [Applause] my name is [Music] um as i can make an important contribution to my hometown based on my background knowledge and experience i was born and raised here in january my dad graduated from gamer's eyes in 1959 and was a world war ii living veteran my mother immigrated here from rutland after world war ii i attended local schools and i graduated from dealership in 1970 i received a ba and ma industry from western connecticut state university my husband andy milga and i have been married for 45 years we raised our two children in november we both graduated from the united states academy that was going to serve your country in iraq i retired after 20 years from western connecticut state university as the administrative assistant emeritus to the provost and academic vice president in my position i worked with faculty staff and students as well as the csu system office in hartford some of my work consisted of infinitely good policies [Applause] right i don't think you'll have any trouble hearing my big mouth but um so ralph measure festa a long time danbury resident two children through the jamberry school system uh sun that graduated daughter and our current senior here at manbra high school served on the board event for a total of six years former chairperson former chairperson sites and facilities committee a former city-wide pto president great organization thank you guys um former great plane pto president there's any great players here um great great school and just um basically come out of retirement to uh you know run again for the border then because um [Music] these days things are a little different and they need a unique um you know perspective and i think i offer that [Applause] i um a current board member my husband carl and i have lived in danbury for over 20 years i have two children in the danbury public schools one in middle school and one here at the high school as long as my kids have been in the school system i've been heavily involved as a volunteer a pto officer junior achievement facilitator kindergarten interventionist and a board member for the past four years before deciding to run for the board i attended board meetings for several years became a graduate of the current leadership training institute and an advocate for fair education funding as i became aware of the state's broken ecs formula during my time on the board i have served as vice chair secretary and chair of the policy committee over the past four years i have been grown in knowledge experience and passion for this work and i hope that i will be able to continue to serve my community thank you so much [Applause] again better um i've lived here for 24 years i have been teaching for over 20 years i used to teach attending high school and broadband middle school i start english in both schools i am a master of education i have three children who graduated from denver high school that they attended while i was here i have three published books i have a grandson who's now in pembroke school so i have a very vested interest in what happens communication in danbury and um i've served on several boards of directors one international one and uh that's pretty much i'm a from mothers and [Applause] grandmothers that have worked so hard to put this evening together i appreciate everyone coming out this evening my name is okay i'm first generation human american that has been proudly working in the diverse city of january for 20 years married to michael and a full-time working mother of three beautiful children 23 15 and 11 the reason i decided to run is because i think our children should continue i want our parents to feel confident that danbury schools are continuing to provide the best education and opportunities for their children while working with incredibly talented teachers i will listen to concerns of our kids and parents and make sure we hear all their perspectives but make decisions that put our resources in the right places just want to say good evening quickly because i guess i have to talk a little best from dr perlman and i'm very happy to be here to share the discussion and our future with our schools and students for over 50 years as an educator teaching in danbury working at the state department with professional development administrator at new ridge primary for 25 years i've had the privilege to serve with very wonderful students families and staff because they work for the benefit of all many have experienced schools of distinction ribbon awards and alike i've seen them accomplish marvelous things in spite of finding concerns by now our city continues to grow we must continue to seek other ways to be sure state officials realize this growth and what it means for our students 15 seconds i've been involved in all aspects of school development he came to grade 12 and have lived and worked within many cultures and beliefs there's so many things i would like to say but i know we're stuck with time frame and as my staff would say dr c you better be quiet um i do want to say i'll plan to work with the city and state of virginia to develop a plan for improvement and funding for educational systems as we face a growing population please help me let me do this and help you it's time thank you [Applause] so we are going to move on now to a couple of questions i just also wanted to mention if anyone needs interpreters we have portuguese and spanish in the back with headsets so please just go to the back and somebody will help you moving on our first question is for the two mayoral candidates mr esposito will answer first and the question is and we've had many questions regarding this topic in many different forms but it comes down to there's multiple questions and comments regarding increased enrollment in danbury so besides being much discussed and already in progress career academy and ellsworth annex what do you propose to do to address the needs of our ever-increasing enrollment in our district now thank you i i think we've been taking initiatives now we've been moving forward with our current administration which i've been part of uh with the freshman academy we have ellsworth avenue as you mentioned we have granville avenue that we've developed and younger kids you've got the career academy moving forward which is a middle school high school i think when i read this note it says now in capital letters how do we provide that now well in my opinion now is the time to move forward on a public charter school charter school is it gives us the ability to move forward now if we would get our state legislators to approve this so we can move forward and get the monies that we deserve we've got a donor that's there to help subsidize this we have the state that's going to fund it so their impact on our taxpayers is minimal so if you want to get this move forward now a public charter school is the way to go [Applause] well thank you for that question but more importantly thank you for the way that question was ended with the word now because dandry's overcrowding isn't a new problem it's a now problem and i see it firsthand every morning when my children get on that school bus on their way to school that bus drives by an elementary school before it gets to theirs and those two schools aren't even the two closest schools to our house and that's just one example of some of the challenges of our problem another one is that the city of danbury right now is currently leasing space for kindergarten kindergartners and brookfield we don't have space for them here we are in dire need now tonight you're going to hear a lot about how the state needs to do more but the truth is the city you're also going to hear a lot of bug passing and having somebody else figure out these challenges but that's not what our teachers and students families deserve but you know what we don't see when they say that they're doing some fixing now we don't see results that matter results that make a difference we don't need like i said earlier more families leading to neighboring communities like brookfield they invest 60 percent of their budget towards education we need leadership that's committed to not making excuses and blame in others and addressing the challenge now the state just increased our pilot funding by the tune of two and a half million i'll make a commitment to put all that money into education as it was allocated for that's now we make a commitment to increase the city's portion of the education budget now that's what we're going to do now not past the fall and the question is what are your goals regarding education here in danbury and how do you plan on accomplishing that well we need to address three major things the conditions of our schools the students are packed we see these pictures every year staffing at all levels especially right now there's examples of guidance counselors in our city with 375 children to one counselor the american school council associate counselor association recommends that these children have a ratio of 250 to one think about what we're going through these days the mental health issues and these counselors are overworked the other thing we need to do is address how the city allocates our budget a decade ago 55 of the city's budget was allocated to the border fed for the last five years since 2016 it's only been 51 and in fact the education funding over the last five since 2016 hasn't increased a single percentage point that's a huge divester in our children now let's talk about what we've been doing what we've been doing is we stopped and we've been listening we aren't where we are because the other side hasn't been listed 30 seconds i see a lot of familiar faces here you're familiar because we've rallied together we've organized together we've demanded action together but those demands have fallen on death's ears their priorities have not been with our children with our families with our teachers with our administrators i hear you that's why we have a plan it's been out for weeks a real plan now to pass the buck and it starts with adequate funding allocating our precious resources accordingly and increasing the percentage that we give to our schools that's how we get it done thank you i want to reiterate the fact that overcrowding is not a problem here in danvers the overcrowding issue came up in fact when my youngest child was in second third grade and he's now in college and back then there was no long-term plan initiated by the city to help us get out of this so what we need is a long-term plan that helps us dig the whole take us out of this whole of overcrowding that we've gotten ourselves into and we need somebody in the city that's actually going to implement this plan but also we have to discuss the lack of funding that's been given to our school system as a whole and what that's done when we were on the pto we had to fundraise for a new school sign and new stage curtains because there was no money for the city to replace them for us and that's unacceptable we had to fundraise for smart boards because there was no money to give them to our classrooms that's unacceptable so we as a board as a city as parents need to push this for our children and need to put them first so we need to make sure that our students are in classrooms that are adequately suited for learning and we also have to make sure that every child in the city has equitable access to the state-of-the-art resources that they need to build that foundation of learning so when we as parents see our children graduate danbury high school they are leaving with the best high quality education that we can give them thank you thank you two years ago when i ran for the board of education i had two goals in mind the first was to address overcrowding because as you've heard this evening that's not a new problem it's been a problem for years the other was to address the gross lack of funding on the part of the city of danville very proud of the fact that the board of education over the last few years has moved and then acted and addressed the issue of overcrowding the granville pre-k academy that freed up seven classrooms and schools the ellsworth avenue annex the coming career academy those are concrete examples that we've done to address overcrowding tomorrow evening as a member of the sites and facilities community member of the sites and facilities committee there will be a meeting where we will discuss future growth and how to deal with middle school overcrowding that was our goal for two years it still continues to be our goal to be clear the solution and i will work with everything in my power to avoid a charter school in this town the only thing public about a charter school is the public money that funds it a charter school is managed by a board of directors [Music] a public money should not go to a private corporation the charter school does not answer to the members of this board of education they do not answer the mayor of danbury it is not the solution for dead hello i think there's a lot of money out there and i would like to work towards getting more funding from grants for the schools the bottom line for all our problems is [Applause] all right so i think we could all agree we've never been involved in the school district i don't like using when i was on the door but when i was on the board and then you know no agree there's not just one issue that is that stand there um danbury is such a diverse and unique school system there's you know a lot of different issues that come up so the way i would accomplish some of the goals of moving the district forward and addressing the issues i was always a big fan of visiting the schools talking to the teachers and really the people who see what really goes on in the school so i used to visit the schools you know twice three times a year every school and it was great because you get some information from the administration you know that's two or three filters through there and it gets yeah once it gets down to you everything is great so i was a big proponent of going in 30 seconds and seeing the people on the ground teachers deal with stuff every day and each school has a unique issue so when you go there you go and you understand and try to get a feel for what you're dealing with so that's how what i bring back to the boardroom and how i try to make decisions so i would continue to do that because the teachers are you know all all unique situations in school teachers are working hard and they really know what the school needs you know when you sit up in a board in a board room and you don't go out and visit people and see people and understand what people need you know it's very difficult so that's what i like to do and i like to hear from the people that are actually going through the problems [Applause] first and foremost my goal as a board member is to place children at the forefront of every decision i will continually strive for ways and opportunity that will allow them to succeed there are several district initiatives that began during my time on the board that i hope to be able to continue and see through to completion and free election at the start of my term i asked about our district vision and mission busted that off which happened to coincide with an opportunity to develop the portrait of a graduate several years two grants many focus groups and one new superintendent later our district is headed in an exciting new direction having served on the city gps task force i would like to see through the completion of our ongoing building project as well as on the educational side and implementation of the career pathways of the new career academy the board is currently in the midst of auditing our entire policy manual while this isn't the most exciting or glorious work right though 30 seconds i do enjoy it and it's critical and would like to see that through and last but definitely not least communication is always a high priority for me as a parent i know and recognize the importance of communication so as a board member i will always look for ways to strengthen that communication thank you as a teacher and a parent of uh students um i think i have a perspective from both sides of the aisle and so to speak one of my primary goals is to fund our students and teachers based fully on what the boe approves one of my primary goals is to ensure our students are considered our number one resource and stop being put on the back burner by cutting proposed budgets another of my primary goals is to alleviate the tremendous toll our underfunded budget and ever increasing student population has hung on the shoulders of our teachers and staff with the expectation year after year that they should be able to accomplish growth and achievement with less and less money with less and less resources overcrowded classrooms pleased to the leadership that fall on deaf ears and to ensure our leadership going forward endorses and trust the thoroughly researched budget proposal and then fund it 100 30 seconds my primary goal is to once and for all help find equity in the funding of our schools the sixth largest school district in connecticut with the absolute lowest funding let me repeat that the sixth largest school district with the lowest funding doing these things will ensure being able to attract and hire teachers counselors and increase the quality of educational resources for our children and i want to work to keep charter schools out of here because and if they're going to put 1600 students in a charter school by [Music] i'm on the other side of the coin i believe the charter school would immediately um satisfy some of the needs that we have on overcrowding it is going to be fully paid no increase to the taxpayer it will be in downtown granberry um growing as a part of our new community the hispanic latin community they have new programs the lead program that would work i would hope together with the parents and the teacher together and our students to shape the future of our education here in danby and prepare for it not just keep finding areas to put children we are going to address that issue now then we need to actually start constructing and it would not impact the current public school funding it is not private it is [Applause] [Music] thank you for beaming up scotty i i you know i'm listening to all of it but you know after being in the school district over [Music] and 50 still talking about overcrowdedness my school itself was overcrowding when i walked in and it was still on the problem we have to do something and as she just said this is a freebie why would you look this look at this like it's you know something terrible it's an awesome thing to have you have nothing to worry about you get the money you get the teachers and if you're already employed in another school you certainly can move to this charter school your did your certification work so it's not a deal about anything other than these we have to give our students the opportunity and our families they've got to have the space they've got to have the area to explore new curriculum as well so uh i will be working with the city and the state of bishops to see it's come to a reality i really believe it's something finally that can be so you can answer question two and then you will also get question three okay thank you well obviously questions two has hit some nerves uh we're sitting back and talking about an opportunity for the city of denver to move forward and instantly get space that we need quality education that they provide and bring the city to a point where we have a breathing space to up to move forward and look into other options as we know there's an opportunity out there for us we're not going to be able to build a new school within a few weeks we know that we are looking into new opportunities with renting space or buying pre-existing building buildings and renovating them but you know my friend down at the other end of the table keeps saying they did not do this and they did not do that but my friend is a sitting councilman as we speak right now and i haven't heard him step up and make an offer or an option when he votes no on our proposals what is the option he hasn't made that clear so the option for us for me right now is to move forward work closely with our new uh superintendent we're closely with the new director of finance on the education side and they have a more than one new staffer over there in finance we have a great stafford finance director on the city side and we're going to continue to work closely together to move this thing forward time to provide the best services we can to the city of denver and especially the ones that mean the most are the children thank you [Applause] the next question the danbury public school district as we have been discussing here has been underfunded for many years at both the state and city level given the current state constraints how do you propose to bridge the gap in funding and give the district the tools necessary to succeed including more teachers more staff and more programs how will you ensure that danbury can provide all of our students with a competitive high quality education miss mr escazo your friend oh thank you this is sorry this is for the mayors only thank you again there's an opportunity here to fulfill those obligations that we're looking for in this question more teachers more staff more programs they'll be out they'll be offered with the charter school gives us the opportunity to move forward very quickly and provide the space that we need you know i get concerned about some of the comments here tonight about underfunding or cutting budgets just to make it clear the fact is that we've never cut the education budget ever every single year it's been increased those are documented numbers you can ask for the the number that you're asking for is yeah sir by law you can't cut the budget if you get you have to be at least the same number as last year the fact is we never cut the budget on the education side we have a surplus this year of almost two million dollars so we're doing something right here in danbury we're gonna continue to do it right no matter what the the facts are that people bring out in a negative way i'm a dan marion i want to move dan murray forward and danbury is where we have to be we have to unify and provide a quality education for these kids not sit out there and argue about that so let's start working together and build a coalition here for the city and the students and the kids that live here because that's the future we all know that thank you [Applause] thank you this isn't much about the city of gabriel this is about the state meeting anymore but before we really get into it i think a quick finance lesson we haven't gone up a percentage we increased the dollar but the value of the dollar today isn't the same as the value of the dollar 20 years ago or five years ago ten years ago that's finance there's inflation involved when we talk about inflation we haven't even kept up with inflation and if it wasn't for graded funding every year as far as schools would sort with funding sources we can't rely on year in year out we wouldn't even need contractual agreements that's no way to run a business there's certainly no way to run a city so what we have to do is stop kicking the can down the road stop passing the boat because that's the reality this isn't new every year we hear this and how we how we go from that is we need a leader who's going to implement the most efficient and effective solutions that don't sacrifice quality along the way that don't take from the public schools what am i going to do like i said before we are committing to increasing funding the two and a half million dollars that the state increased that's supposed to be allocated for education from the city saying they're going to allocate all of it i am committing to that we're going to increase the funding because it's our responsibility to do so and as a city councilman for the last two years i've done more than the city government does in 10 years that's why these people know me because they've seen me advocate for that thank you we are moving on to the audience questions now um a lot which are similar topics obviously and this next question or the first audience question is for the two mayoral candidates and councilman house you'll be going first since you were last and here is the question for the past 18 years the board of ed requested education budget has not been fully funded by city hall this has led to a 54 million dollar shortfall in the education budget which has hurt our kids and community tremendously and led to a severely overcrowded school and reduced services and the question is will you support the budget requested by the superintendent and approved by the board of ed thank you for whoever submitted that question i look forward when we win to working closely with the new superintendent on whatever the most responsible budget is for our schools because again the passion in this room is because our schools aren't being funded fairly so the city has to step up and do its part so we have to find responsible ways to do that and that's increasing the allocation it's increasing it's guaranteeing money that comes from the state and again like i said this isn't about the state not doing it not but of course i'm going to ask this thing to do more i'd be crazy not to and i'm gonna use my relationships with my friends in the harvard legislature our state senator and all our state reps instead of bashing that movement delivery every year working with them to get even more that's what we're gonna do so yes of course we're gonna we're gonna be okay with any responsible budget well i have to say i agree with that we're going to work together for any responsible budget like we do every single year you know we we spent this year alone 146.4 million dollar investment in education that's more than half of what it costs to run the whole city i'm telling you there is no one on that diocese besides my colleague friend that voted against there were a couple others but the reality is the money is being spent where it needs to be spent we can't put a burden on the city's taxpayers we're just coming through a pandemic we've been trying to do everything possible to keep that burden off their back and thank god for the quality teachers that we do have on the front line doing the actual work they're out here each and every day educating those kids because those are the people that really matter not the ones behind the scenes not the ones sitting in back trying to dictate what's happening those teachers are the ones that are doing the real work and i praise them so that the teachers are doing the job the city's providing the money that we need to get the quality education and we got seven schools of distinction and where do they come from did they come by accident no they come from hard work and investment into this community thank you the next question is for the board of event candidates and just a reminder you are not required to answer these audience questions if you would like to answer you may raise your hand and we'll just go in orderly fashion um and here is the question it is on cooperation with the local teachers association teachers have often had a seat at the table while not necessarily feeling that our voices were heard will you pledge to include the local teachers union discussions and final decisions surrounding all matters related to the local school district its schools and its funding you may start uh i think it was jane roberto having been a teacher myself for many many years and understanding their perspective of things and having been a parent i would fully support something like that and i think they deserve to be heard i think they deserve to be included they're the ones uh actually that mr esposito just said they're on the front lines they really are and um and they know what they need and they know better than anyone what they need [Applause] is no i totally agree your teachers really need to be part of the whole operation actually like you said they are at the forefront all the time and after working with them for 50 years [Music] there's a lot that they have to give and they can get um you know i'm not talking about all their pockets we talked about on their minds and their hard work so yes teachers should get involved and i'm sure they will do especially with new school sites are coming on board [Applause] i just wanted to bring to light that we do have representative um that keep your representative at every board meeting every regular board meeting um so there's a place for them there's also a place you know for the administrators union uh to come give us an update um we do appreciate when they come and tell us what's going on in schools they also have a seat at the table you know on various projects our reopening committees [Music] we have the portrait of graduate was you know largely largely run by the teachers um i've worked with them on uh t-deck and t-val committees um as well as hiring panels [Music] as accessible as possible um you know like ralph he would you know walk to school um [Music] you know i i did the same and i appreciate when teachers reach out to me first time so thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you um of course teachers the same thing um frankly all of our stakeholders should have a stage behavior that includes teachers it includes parents includes administrators it includes residents of denver who don't have kids in our school we need everybody involved we need everybody behind education needing everybody to support education that said it doesn't mean you put giving teachers a seat at the table is only important if we're actually going to support them it's one thing they say that they're number one or they're in the front lines it's another thing to support them it's another thing to attend their forum it's another thing to fill out their questionnaire it's another thing to say the state doesn't fundament schools well enough and we have two and a half million dollars of pilot funds only one candidate is committed to dedicating an education teachers need a seat at the table and they need our support when they're there [Applause] i think we're good okay the next question is for the team of mayoral kenneth um councilman alex movie first history indoor air quality will you make it a priority within your first term to ensure that schools in the city have updated or newly installed hvac systems including air conditioning to provide healthier air and standard temperatures for learning and teaching throughout the year yes or no thank you well yes everybody wants clean air so we can absolutely begin the work i think we have to talk about feasibility i think those are major projects that nobody would say that it's not going to finish in the year but reasonably we have to commit to doing it as fast as possible and that is my commitment yes i definitely would agree with quality air systems you know our grandville avenue school that was just developed uh has one of the top quality air systems that you could possibly get and the landlord there provided that system at the time when it was just coming out so our goal is and we are in process of looking into uh building the the air systems to make them more qualified our quality air system so uh if you're asking yes or asking me if the air systems should be better yes they should so thank you [Applause] thank you the next question is for all of the board event candidates what experience do you have in advocating for the needs of large groups of children and the second part is how do you see your role as a board member approval only or active purchases please raise your hand the last part is how do you see your role as a board of ed member approval only or an active participant what experience do you have personally in advocating for the needs of large groups of children and then are you approval only or active participant well i i've been on the board of education for the last two years i'd like to think that as a board member we've been advocating for the 12 000 give or take students that are enrolled in the danvers school so i think i come to this with that experience i think it is an active participation role i think the existing board has all been active i don't think anybody's been passive it's not approval only we ask questions we send emails we listen to constituents it is an active and engaged process so i think that's that's where my experience comes from comes from as a board member but it is definitely an active role it's not something that's passive is not a rubber stamp thank you [Applause] so when i was on the board so yeah so experience advocating i served in many different roles on the board as chairperson especially as your chairperson any board member here will tell you you see behind the curtain you really see what goes on in each each aspect of those school districts so um people who serve with me or people who know me it's definitely not approval um i'm probably rachel will smile at this but she has a mascot so you can't see it um i was probably one of the loudest board members uh maybe joe's up there but i was one of loudest board members and would really make things uncomfortable for the administration and hold us accountable and just not take you know someone's word for it you know it's just so it's not just like joseph the rubber stamp it's that and i feel most of the board members that i've served with and the new ones now we're committed to really getting down to the issue and making sure it works right the right thing to do so that's my unique experience is being in different roles on the board with organizations like gtl and stuff like that very unique uh perspective i think it's a great part of the experience and um [Music] [Applause] it should be active and involved and knowledgeable [Applause] um i'm very proud to say that i was actively involved in um the first bond that was improved back in 2012 when the overcrowding started we had a group of parents and i and we became very vocal in advocating for the first expansion and bringing to life a lot of the problems with the overcrowding that were starting to bubble up back in 2010 2010 2011 and uh finally we got the expansion to be the school of the edition and westside middle school um so i'm definitely familiar with that with being an advocate for the kids and really however by the time construction was completed we were fully private again it didn't really solve any of the issues long term um but i would not be up here if i was planning to take a rubber stamp approach to being here with one egg so i will definitely be actively involved thank you [Applause] yeah definitely active um almost every year since i came across glti and the penn state school finance project i've gone to hartford have advocated on behalf of our kids danbury wasn't always last for people i remember just this happened within years and this was a direct result of total abandonment of ucs formula by the state legislator legislature for years all districts remained flat while most of the districts saw a declining enrollment so naturally their poor people went up and our our ranking just kept going down by the goal like the first and the per pupil amount is not an accurate reflection of all that the city spends on the school it does not include capital expenditures building expansions and property renovations like the clear academy the brand new tracking field right outside is beautiful if you haven't seen it yet uh science labs elworth avenue expansion dhs freshman academy the west side middle school elevators i thought at um i fought for our elevators to be replaced um in front of the council just you know a year or two ago for the staff bond meanwhile our eps formula is a disgrace we would not be last if the state would probably fund education once and for all we had an opportunity to be fully funded immediately through a very strong bill this past legislative session our state senator was one of the very few no against this bill and now we have to wait until 2028 to receive our fair share of education funding from the state school finance is a state level issue so why haven't our state delegation brought more money back to danbury they should be fighting for a budget that puts students first and creates immediate and long-term change to address all of the needs of our students [Music] [Applause] thank you [Music] there's a lot of talk about uh defunding i just wanted to point out that um last year 651 was the budget it was increased this year 9.82 um i believe there was a little bit of a higher request but this the city did find 9.82 gave the teachers a raise which obviously they deserve um and the state owned funds about three thousand six hundred dollars or so for danbot every other school everyone [Music] that is a significant difference that has to do with the state it does not have to do with us the state is funding only we have to pick up the difference every other city in town here is getting so there's a really big problem with this ecs calculation it doesn't take into construction all the work that's been done transportation there's so many factors that do not get included in that 169 to 169 number as we all know the population here is growing our students are there is more every day and other cities that are nearby our towns bears are going down that means they get more money for students because you by law are not allowed to give a penny less than the year prior so every year dan barry for the last 18 years has contributed and giving an additional amount to whatever the state has provided lastly again our students are on the top city of the congratulations [Applause] thank you [Applause] next question is for the mayors and i believe it is mr esposito's turn to go first it seems that there is constantly a new apartment building or condo complex being built in danbury the economic benefits of which also come with hardships with regards to continued school enrollment growth what responsibility do you think the city bears for facilitating this that's a very good question as you know we have some serious growth here right now in danbury amber is the shining star of the state we do things right here in danbury we keep the taxes low and regardless of what some people think we provide excellent education to the students i met a lady the other days 35 years in the realtors business and she said that one of the greatest selling points that she has is that danbury's educational system is so good people want to come here so that's it i guess there's some people that don't think that again but the reality is that it has to be with managed growth managed growth is something that we always focus on and uh that's what we'll do for the future of danbury and it's your next marijuana i'm sure the managed growth will be positive [Applause] i have two articles in front of me let's read a quote from one of them we're saturated with condominiums and multi-family housing in the city our traffic is a mess our high school is one of the largest in the state that's one the next one esposito wants this city to control growth more particularly new condominiums which he says put more pressure on the schools and increase traffic this was 2005 being esposito i like that dean esposito because he was fighting for our schools but since he's been working for the city and his new bosses that has changed all of a sudden but the pressures in his schools have not changed so what we have to do is manage responsible growth and that welcome 2005 venezuela to work with us so we can do this responsibly it wasn't working then again we can't stress these aren't new challenges to vanguard there are the challenges in 2005.

[Applause] [Music] next question why and this is forever for anyone that would like to answer why are the democrats now pushing for more school spending as a platform when they've never pushed the democratic state reps to get danbury is fair allocation from the state before thanks for the softball first of all the state delegation has gotten us more money than the governor's proposed budget every single solitary year period this is more important the state of connecticut the way we do pilot funds pilot is payment in rule of taxes those are funds that the state gives to the municipalities for things later not tax like hospitals colleges etc with that re-tiered system danbury winds up with 2.5 additional 2.5 million additional dollars because we are an alliance school district now while the state legislation does not tie those funds specifically to education that is 2.5 million dollars denver is getting an additional state funding because we're an alliance system because of the way our school system that's where we get those funds we hear a lot about the state doesn't fund us enough i don't hear anything from the other end of the table about devoting those dollars to education 245 right now for education that will help there are challenges our students face we know that because of pandemic take the state money that we all say we need and devoted to that got to be clear we could use more money from the state i want more money from the state believe me i want more money from the federal government too we need more money from the city of danbury this is not an issue this is not an either or situation but to be clear the governor proposes a budget every year the state delegation and it's not just a democratic delegation that's been recent the delegation even prior to that when it was a mixed and bipartisan delegation has gotten us more money than the governor's proposed budget every single year is it enough no we want more of course we want more that doesn't mean we haven't gotten more than what the governor has proposed and we have more money right now sitting here for the city of danbury ready to appropriate for education the time to commit tonight [Applause] well like howie joe you said it best is it enough no it's not enough we always want more and i've made it clear before i'll make it clear again the city of danvers steps up every single year to fund the budget for education every single year my colleague here michelle spelled it out for you eight almost nine thousand dollars per student is paid by you the taxpayers of danbury out of your pockets and the money that we send up to the state in tax dollars is 3 500 coming back when it's reversed in most other cities i don't understand that if you can clarify that for me joe that'd be great [Applause] sorry there's no no no answer response thank you [Applause] so we've always lobbied to save her more joe said what i've been saying all day the state has given us more and we've made a promise a commitment to allocate those funds that don't affect our tax dollars to our board of education the only people talking about raising the only person talking about taxes going up here is dean esposito we have money that doesn't affect our taxes and we're committing into that now i'll ask right now hey representative bucker say senator julie please give us more we've always done that nobody is that we are working for more funding we're just saying that the city has not allocated their funds appropriately last five years 51 every year yeah you may increase a couple dollars but the percentage stays the same that's not how you do budgets year in year out maybe these people have been in the city talking too long and it's time for a fresh approach [Music] [Applause] anyone else would like to answer this question that has not spoken on this yet go ahead he's talking about funding he's talking about defunding and not having enough money you know asking the governor and not getting the money i believe he's a democrat and i just have one question for everyone is how is it that we don't have enough money yet for the last three years the board of bed has not used all their funds in that [Music] the mayor has in other words that money goes back to the city and the city has gone and reimbursed or given that money to the board of ed so i don't understand where that disconnection is i just don't understand how we keep talking about defunding when the democrats are on the state the governor the governor and the board of ed and zoning i mean i think you guys need to answer some of your own questions if you have not answered the question yet you may answer the question anyone else yes mr plessy it's been a while since i've heard the question so i'm a little no problem why are the democrats now pushing for more school spending as a platform when they've never pushed the democratic state reps to get danbury its fair allocation from the state so just to clarify the new ecs formula that was frozen for far too long was fixed in 2017 when it was basically a split legislature that's that's the group that's the delegation when we had more republicans on on the delegation there was it was basically split and i believe it was a republican budget that was that was pushed through that year and the new eps formula took effect in 2019.

i will begin with item 4.1 which is our flags blue and we have jimmy jimmy ann from powell jimmy are you here with us yes i am all right take it away okay um so my name is jimmy ann terrazas i'm a sixth grader at powell um and i will be leading you in the flag salute so if you could please stand put your right hand over your heart ready begin 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 by liberty and justice for all thank you moving on to item 4.2 uh roll call board member rodriguez pena president board member bo here board member cruz gonzalez here and i board member greer am here and board member arianes is abstinent for the night moving on to item 4.3 approval of the agenda uh is there a motion to approve make a motion to approve second moved by board member rodriguez pena and second by board member cruz gonzalez let's go ahead and vote and the vote passes for yes to one abstinent moving on to item 5.1 excuse me 5.0 report action of closed session matters and 5.1 resolution uh 21-2206 to approve the reduction or discontinuance of classified management services for the 2021-2022 school year is there a motion to approve i make a motion to approve second move by board member cruz gonzalez seconded by board member rodriguez pena any discussion then let's go ahead and vote and the item passes four yes so one abstinent moving on to item 6.0 items from the floor public comment on agenda or non-agenda items this is an opportunity for the public to address the board of education on agenda or non-agenda items individual speakers may be allowed up to three minutes to address the board of education on any agenda or non-agenda items when the public wishes to address the board of education on an agenda item they may fill out a blue card send at the podium or raise their hand while in zoom attendance the board of education will take blue card requests first followed in order by speakers at the podium then those in the zoom attendance and again i just said this but i will reiterate that uh three we have a three minute limit and so i uh if you are going over i will stop you at three minutes um it doesn't look like we have anyone here that has a blue card do we have anyone online uh yes first we have amber fish you may mute your mic hello i just wanted to um come out here and say thank you to the board to mr ortega mr ankio um for getting our hajj dual immersion teachers the aid that we requested i know that some of us parents were very vocal about the changes that were made with our dual immersion program this year and we we asked for a lot of help for our teachers and it was really nice to see this week that our teachers were given an aid to help the students um and to help them so it shows us or it shows me that you are holding up to your end of our of the bargain of adding support for our teachers and your dedication to this program so thank you for listening to us and thank you for following through that's it thank you amber uh next person we have is samira mejia good evening honorable board president uh council members men and women of the community my name is samira mejia and i'm the general manager at the san gabriel valley region of think together a statewide organization that provides expanded learning supports and after school programs in over 400 school sites from preschool through high school and here in azusa we're proud to serve our elementary middle school and high school programs throughout our partnership with this is the unified i think together's mission is to partner with schools to change the odds for kids we all know that back to school this year has meant more to students than ever before as we continue to rise together from an unprecedented year we're seeing students come back to our after school programs eager to learn reconnect with friends and seeing their seeing students back with their friends and teachers so in addition to think together's commitment to our students after-school programs are of great value to the azusa community and our economy according to research done by the national after-school alliance there are over six hundred thousand kids in california who are left unsupervised after school on october 28th being together sites across california will be holding their annual open house event called lights on after school our students are super excited to show off their hard work creativity and innovation from think together's expanded learning programs students have been very busy these past couple months and are eager to share this with their parents and community leaders i would like to formally invite you all to attend our lights on after school on october 28th at powell elementary from 4 to 5 30.

i also attended the golden days kickoff last night and had an opportunity to hear our fantastic orchestra and our azusa high school advanced choirs and it was just it was a lovely evening outside to see everybody out there um also i had an opportunity to see our gladstone and azusa high school interact students uh received certificates of award from the city council and also supervisor hilda lisa's office so it was wonderful to to see all of the students getting recognized their advisors and then of course the azusa rotary partners who supports our interact students so congratulations to them thank you and good evening i'm board of education staff and community i just want to update the board of education and the community that today we launched our calendar committee meetings uh we are scheduled to meet four times in october we look forward to finalizing this process by the beginning of november to provide the association's time to vote on a calendar and we look forward to bringing to the board of education a finalized calendar to the regular board meeting in december for a vote thank you good evening board and fellow cabinet members i would like to use this opportunity to publicly thank ms shannon and miss sylvia and as well as miss melissa who assisted in putting on our september 30th asb and booster training which we were able to trade all of our asb clubs and our parent groups on proper handling of how to do revenue recognitions how to account for your expenditures um what expenditures are allowable for a booster and asb they've received handouts as well as a four-hour training um that was facilitated by our auditors additionally i would like to thank brian uh allen who was able to procure five more contemporary ac units that have been successfully installed at both azusa high school and glaston high school thank you okay and then from our student board member i believe that we do have crystal lamino here from gladstone high school crystal are you there yes i am the floor hear me yes gladstone had its homecoming game and dance on september 17th and 18th students were excited to be back in person and celebrate the in-person rituals that we used to have before schools were closed gladstone is proud of the football team's win against workmen last friday and the tennis team's performance against workmen as well gladstone's eloc meeting is virtually on october 7th at 8 15 a.m links for the online meeting will be shared with p p with parents via blackboard and school website asp is preparing for our club rush on october 8th during our lunch we have 19 clubs participating and that students can learn about and sign up for if they're interested gladstone counselors are planning for an in-person fafsa night to support parents with the fafsa process the first support night will will occur on october 20th from 5 p.m to 7 p.m in english and the second night will be on october 21st from 5 to 7 in spanish thank you so much crystal we move on to item 9.0 general functions and specifically 9.1 full reorganization superintendent ortega thank you um at a previous board meeting when a study session talked about school reorganization board president arianes and i were tasked with coming up with a timeline based on the feedback of the board of education um and we were able to do that and so today we launched a day one of of three that we have outlined uh today is an info item for the board of education uh to begin conversation about model 3 and model four we have our second uh info only item uh scheduled uh two weeks from now which is uh the 19th of october and then on eleven two the second of november um is our third meeting um and that meeting it has been slight slated for an info action um item and so uh that's that's um based on the feedback that's what we came up with and so i turned the border i turned the floor over to the board of education to begin conversations about school reorganization and the models at hand but that's uh definitely broad but we haven't have space here to discuss does anyone have any anything uh to start our conversation okay i'll start i was looking at me um i i've honestly um had my focus on a certain model but as i go on hearing more about i'm pr i'm annoying a person so you know i like to do my research and speak to staff and students and parents so i have changed my way just a little bit but i'm still very concerned regarding the um the one to two high school models i'm concerned on the one high school model having to do with um overcrowding uh traffic um teacher to student ratio you know i do know we have a ratio cut we'll just say you know one to 35 for example so maybe right now we have one to 30 or 28 i'm not sure but you know then we're gonna reach one to 35 if we put them together so then the i think it's it's very hard for the students to learn and it's very hard i have so many students in the classroom that way that that really concerns me on the one high school and um and of course you know and also the traffic and um most important thing that we we're doing it due to expanding enrollment i also see students that live on another part of town they have a high school right to their right i i i i fear that they will go that route and we will lose even more students but i do not like the stem to tell model when i first when we first started i assumed that the seventh and eighth graders would be in a whole inception but as we spoke the last time like i said you know now i'm hearing that they will be mixed with the high school students in pe or elective classes and and i'm not for that i work 40 years in a junior high school and i do see that the 7th graders and 8th graders they're in their own little world i think they need to grow on their own and not all of a sudden going mixed with the high schools i'm very concerned about that um i have other situations but i will start with that mr ortega has has the district um begun the process of doing any traffic studies we have not begun uh traffic study what would the process be to start that we can start doing that um again are we saying like a traffic study for every model every school or is our specific uh data point that that we need her um did we board member cruz gonzalez did did you get the answer to your question or or if you could refresh my memory about um the distance that students have to travel um was that in our board packet yes i believe when i'm mistaken seven miles and do we have data that show like um or could we compile the data that show that the cluster of students so for example um do we have more students living on the outside of that at the edge of the seven mile radius and what impact that would have if they were going to a different campus i'm kind of looking at the whole district as a whole and figuring out how far students would have to travel is it more on the near side or would locations of campus greatly impact more students traveling a farther distance i think that's some of the questions that i think about and also in terms of um students who walk or bicycle versus students who are have auto pick up and drop if i'm not mistaken and latash i don't know if you know this or not but if i'm not mistaken uh with the exception of uh students who live in uh in the canyon uh the students within uh the not in the canyon i don't go past that seven mile radius and so um technically um there is no transportation provided but we have been speaking about and this was brought up during the school reorganization process that it is important that regardless of the seven mile that we still offer uh transportation um especially i think that was brought up in consideration of model 3.

first flush is required is that ten thousand greater other measures are required um matt and i did some research this after this afternoon um four recent four unit developments all fell within the five thousand to ten thousand square foot of impervious surface threshold which means that this option a would not result in any change to the requirements although it would be happening in in a different way instead of requiring first flush under the 5 000 square feet of impervious surface it would simply require five thousand square it would simply require first flush through the worksheet that would be the same for a three and four unit if it were um fifteen thousand square feet or twenty thousand square feet which seems unlikely or on the flip side if it was less than 5 000 square feet in that circumstance a three and four unit would be having to add storm water infrastructure that is not currently required under our framework today the option a further makes it clear that it's no longer site plan that is triggering compliance with these standards it is any development activity or construction activity or impact to natural features so it also separates the natural the site plan review threshold from the determination of which stormwater standards apply rather it is again would solely be distributed attributed by the type of development that's been proposed so that is option a and as i said i believe option a is consistent with a desire to make things to frankly not change our stormwater regulations or make them easier option b is a proposed option that has come out of conversations with our public services team one of the um and i think um to be clear some of this is just once we started delving into this it warranted that conversation and looking what those standards are option b proposes a different approach whereas it would largely keep the same structure very similar to option a it would eliminate site plan as the sole determiner and add permitting or site plan as the trigger for storm water having to be met a couple changes there however though is that it would take what is currently a category of development which is greater than one and two family but less than five thousand square feet it would now require that first flush to be occur for those developments where right now no storm water is required for those developments so in those circumstances it's going to be potentially adding a little bit of infrastructure requirement i would say incremental the more the larger change being proposed is to actually then eliminate the subsequent structure so at this point you would only have two categories of project when you're when you're regulating by impervious surface 5000 and less is first flush 5 000 and more would be everything that is it would require first flush bank full and detention for up to a 1 storm event whereas now that is only required for those developments that have 15 000 square feet or more that would also have some benefits potentially not a guarantee but potentially with our community rating system at the city we are one of a few committees in the communities in the state and i'm not going to [Music] speculate at the numbers because i'll get it wrong but we are in the upper echelon of communities in the state of michigan where our our flood insurance rating is um beneficial to our property owners where we get a they get a higher discount than many other communities in the state of michigan and the country for that matter because of a variety of stormwater regulations and measures that we take advancing and requiring more for these types of developments have the potential to improve that i acknowledge and this is a little bit of the conversation we had through the floodplain overlay discussion i think that would be a perfectly valid policy discussion i don't feel like that's what the resolution from city council is directing the planning commission to look at as far as small and moderate scale develop and so i really value i think it's appropriate for us to be looking at that standard if we're going to be looking at it at all i'm happy you know to bring any other expertise to that point or questions that you have but i think that there's a bit of a i just think it's a bit of a policy direction that i would value the planning commission's perspective on i think the planning commission absolutely values progressive stormwater management and to do option b would be to be pushing the envelope in that regard i don't i think in fact it's going to have some offsetting implications to development and that you might be transferring obligations of process costs for stormwater management costs which is also a different benefit for our community as well option a is a little bit closer to and not exactly but it's closer to just keeping everything the same um in the context of eliminating the site plan threshold adding three and four unit and then everything stays the same for impervious surface five thousand and less is nothing five to ten flush etc etc etc i think that's a little bit more consistent with that city council resolution that was driving this analysis and i value the planning commission's feedback in what your senses of the direction you'd like to explore in that regard and then the last piece of that is because we are starting to talk about changes to that section of the ordinance that is one of the reasons that i would like to recommend postponing because i think it's important that we actually notice thus far public notice has been strictly focused on the site plan thresholds this interrelationship between these two sections is i think important for us to get right i think it's important for us to share with the public that we're looking at both of those sections if we are going to make adjustments in that regard so with that maybe i'll just give one second to matt to see if there's anything i missed particularly with the updated uh table from [Music] the version that was originally published there was the one little addition about we're going to cover regarding the site the sustainability options thank you so much yeah i sort of gloss over that um also totally unrelated similarly unrelated to what city the city council resolution is is i've added a provision for your consideration about electrified and solar renewable energy projects and it is what i think is a fairly simple perhaps elegant way to incent uh projects that are fully electrified with no natural gas connection and with 60 of their rooftop covered with solar renewable energy or an equivalent if it's better on site somewhere in those cases any project that would normally require planning commission review would change to uh planning manager review and then a last piece that i just wanted to highlight that has been in the draft previously but i just want to make sure it's been called out i am also from the council resolution direction of keeping thing trying to simplify the process you'll note that after the table there are standards and process determinations about how those different levels approve site plans planning manager does not require a public hearing it's an administrative process i have replicated that language in the planning commission set stanza as well that would the result as drafted would be that planning commission site plans are an administrative process also not through a public hearing process city council those petitions are still going to be petitions that are associated with a legislative action and so i wanted to highlight that you've seen it in the language before i don't know that we've spent much time discussing it i think it is faithful to easing the process for projects but it might be going a little farther because it's going to potentially apply to projects beyond small and modest projects so i just wanted to make sure that that has been highlighted as well and thanks for the note on the electrification as well so with that um happy to answer any questions of the commission after or before the program all right we'll have the public hearing and then we'll open this up for discussion um this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed site plan ordinance amendments if you wish to address the planning commission on this item please press star 9 if you've dialed in or use the raised hand feature if you've joined us through zoom for phone access again the phone number tonight is 877-853-5247 and our meeting id is 977-6634-1226 city staff will select callers that have raised their hand calling on you by the last three digits of your telephone number or your name if you join through zoom and um you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak please move to a quiet area and mute any background sounds so that we can hear you clearly please do state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and i see a hand up uh mr darren mckinnon you can unmute yourself and address the planning commission hi good evening my name is daryn mckinnon with first martin i was a member i guess i still am a member of the advisory work group that was put together as part of this process and i appreciate you giving me a chance to speak quickly tonight i will say that i'm mostly happy with all the proposed changes uh that are we've been working through this for quite a long time now the single biggest item from a cost standpoint that i see as an obstacle to most projects is the stormwater it's it's significant in cost and it if you think back to where this kind of director from council came from in my opinion was we've got these buildings that perhaps modest improvements can be made but they're not being made because some of the regulations make them you know cost prohibitive storm water is at the top of the list of the things that make projects small modest projects cost prohibitive so i'm a little concerned especially with the option b which actually makes it harder and therefore more expensive so i would i understand mr leonard saying uh postponed and i understand how this conversation with city staff probably went where it got to that but that's clearly the opposite of the goal of this on option a i guess it's a step in the right direction for certain projects but i would say if there's a way to ever so slightly i realize there's a strong desire to not open it up too much allow for projects beyond three and four family residential to have whatever would be deemed tolerable for um first flush retention only and nothing beyond that i realize there's you know very difficult to where you draw that line but i think that there's an opportunity there to allow some projects that are commercial in nature to move forward which would then provide an ability to do some increase in storm water because if you've got these old buildings there's no storm water detention right now so you go from nothing to something which i think is a benefit to the community and if it's only first flush it could actually be accomplished at a low cost if you get beyond that these are the standards that brent was mentioning they become extremely expensive and just very quickly the project is shelved so thank you everything else looks great appreciate all your work on this thank you caller with the phone number ending with caller with the phone numbering with one three four you have three minutes to adjust the planning commission um thank you mr leonard and chair mills this is ken garber 28 haverhill court i apologize i haven't been following the many discussions on this topic i just looked today at this for the first time so i'm coming in completely cold with three questions the first is about um the last entry in table five 29-1 which mr leonard just told you about his new change for electrified developments with 60 rooftop solar putting them in category m or planning manager approval if i heard them right these projects will not go through planning commission review now we of course want to incentivize building solar and electrification many of you have heard me talk ad nauseum about this topic but what about large and complex projects i think of valhalla glen and lockwood senior living major developments with hundreds of units both fully electrified granted neither had enough solar to qualify for this new category and both originally came in with gas heating so they would have gone through commission review regardless but if they had started out all electric with 60 rooftop solar under this ordinance change uh it sounds like they would have been exempt from commission review and approval i liked both these projects but they benefited from going through planning commission and the neighbors deserve to be heard at the public hearings as we see more large electrified and solarized projects they shouldn't be able to skirt commission review maybe i'm miss reading this but um i i'm happy to be set straight if so but i think i heard mr leonard um correctly also not all building electrification is good electrification for example electric resistance heating whether in the form of baseboard heaters wall heaters or electric radiant heat is very inefficient same for the p-tech units you see in hotel rooms these are basically individual air conditioners that can heat the room when you reverse the flow we don't want to encourage these forms of building electrification also electric reheat systems may be the single most inefficient hvac system type around so not all electrification is good so i question this change to begin with but if you do end up keeping it at least by at least specified geothermal heat pump air source heat pump or vrf system my second question is about section b approval procedures uh under planning commission approval if i'm reading this right there's a change that eliminates the public hearing requirement when planning commission reviews a site plan if so this is a bad idea too uh finally i am right if i am i right that these amendments eliminate city council review of site plans where the petitioner does not request the rezoning and that the planning commission vote would be final for these site plans if so i'm conflicted about that but i'm out of time so thank you thank you very much if anyone else wishes to provide a public comment uh a comment during this opportunity you can press star 9 on your phone or you can use the raised hand feature in zoom all right seeing none i'll close the public hearing and read the motion the ann arbor city planning commission postpones further discussion and consideration of pro of the proposed site plan amendments until the november 2nd 2021 planning commission meeting moved by commissioner hammerschmidt seconded by commissioner dish we're in discussion and i assume that it's fine to not just discuss postponing it but anything else that has come up mr leonard um that's my intention yeah okay great anybody want to kick off conversation or questions go ahead commissioner randall um could we start with the questions that mr wilbur just addressed so that we can make sure those are kind of clarified and out of the way it's it's my understanding that the two developments that he brought up valhalla and lockwood both required rezonings and with those rezonings therefore would not fall in this category am i correct about that that yes that's correct so those two petitions because they required legislative action they would still need to go through the process um i think his other questions were accurate reviews as i mentioned the text on the planning commission process is proposed to change it to be more focused and administrative it would still be you as a body but it would not be a public hearing and generally yes i think it's an accurate read what this proposes is absent legislative corresponding legislative action site plans would be approved by the commission i would also though add i think this is correct that it doesn't exempt them from staff review which is still extremely robust so am i right about that yeah it's you know just as a reminder whether whether staff the planning commission or the city council are approving a site plan all are bound by the same ordinance criteria for to determination whether or not that is approved so it is absolutely the same criteria so in other words you may qualify for this you still go through a robust staff review you're just getting approved by you or by you know somebody the planning manager or whatever rather than having the public hearing and going through planning commission correct i mean i guess i i would i just want to make that distinction for um for the caller because um you know i know going through planning commission i think this is an interesting incentivization but and going through planning commission is is no small thing too but the staff review is is a lot of the lion's share of the work of going through the system in my own experience of it that's what kind of can happen over and over and over and over again um and doesn't mean that you're not table the planning commission or denied or you know whatever it is too but um i just want to make it really clear that everybody has to have staff review no matter what the project so it all still has somebody going through it with the fine-tooth comb so i think that's that's correct really important to to point out um that it's not like it's a free-for-all in it you don't get any review so um um so in terms of the stormwater so um so if like there's a project i worked on where you know somebody wanted to add um you know 250 square feet of something to their building but it was a it was a it was a public building actually not not owned by the city but a public building so would they still be required to do storm water because they're not just three and four bedroom like a a residential unit like how does that work yeah so um it's a good question none of the changes that we are proposing here would change so the city relies upon the washington county water resources commission's stormwater rules and design standards right inherent in that is a mechanism that is apropos to your example where if you are doing a modest addition to a site while the site might determine what you have to do from an impervious surface perspective if it is less than 50 disturbance of that area you don't have to extend those standards across the entire site and so what we're talking about here would not change that so what that would mean in that circumstance is that a two i think you said 250 square foot addition that would be calculated into a that would go into the calculation of what standard is going to apply currently is it one or two family if it's not then we go to the five thousand ten thousand fifteen thousand thresholds based on the addition of that and the balance of impervious of impervious space on the site that's going to determine the category but then the standards are going to apply to only that portion that you are disturbing if it's a small amount of the site the flip side of that is if you are disturbing greater than 50 of that site and it's determined that you have to provide everything you will be expected to meet that standard for the entirety of the site okay so it's not just the kind of three to four bedroom thing it's it's just a little bit more complicated than that yeah and that's and we're not yeah you're not changing the big picture with that yeah yeah and the the regulations are still the same we don't impact those we're still pointing to them at the county right it's just when when we want to invoke them okay okay um um it's really hard for me answering stormwater questions coming [Laughter] you're doing great though geez you probably you've probably gotten over to speed on all kinds of things in the last couple of months so um it's a little strange to me that you can have an impervious area under 5000 square feet and not do any storm water yet we still if you build a shed that's 250 feet and you're in a single family residence you're doing so yeah i would i i agree i think that's a weird that's a weird sort of um exception in our code and that's with anything not just the downtown that's any so we have other standards for the in the downtown where we provide different because of the land um limitations yeah yeah right yes the short is it applies anywhere so if you are if you are building a 4 800 square foot duplex a duplex with 4 800 square feet of improved surface you are going to provide first flush if you're building a convenience store that has 4 800 square feet of impervious surface you are exempt from storm [Music] okay it's it's just tricky because it's that feels like a big gaping hole to me um but i also understand the intent of not trying to to to keep this streamline it's it's a hole in in our code um i would also just say that i get it that storm water is expensive i i totally understand that the first flush rain garden approach is not that expensive it's just not compared to the other stuff that like did they having to do you know bankful and hundred year and uh and having it needing a standpipe with you know metered like it's just a whole different deal so um it takes up space but it's just not that crazy expensive either to do that if we're allowed to do that kind of fill it up and when it gets filled up then it spills out into some safe place essentially so i guess that's part of maybe what we consider too if it's more than that and we have to follow all the county standards then it's a whole different ballgame so i guess i just kind of want to put that out there so these are just my initial thoughts right now so i'd just be curious to hear what other people have to say too and when i also want to follow commissioner gibb randall go ahead commissioner dish i am confused so um we learned the distinction between detention and retention last time and the new the the paper with the new uh requirements on it uses all the language of detention is that simply conflating detention and retention or does it really mean detention which is to say you keep it for a while and you gradually release it um i'm gonna pull up the code i think our code references detention so matt's gonna actually pull up the code yeah well in the memo that you've written says detention but um so what we talked about last time in the meeting was that three to four family development be required to do retention with rain with rain gardens um to the first flush standard yeah i think the first flush is the most important aspect of that versus retention detention terminology i know they are different but i think the important item is that it's designed to accommodate the volume of the first flush okay can i come in here just for a second because i might be able to explain this so because you say if it's less than five thousand square feet of imperfect would add first flush requirements which is essentially what you're saying commissioner dish it's first flush retention requirements but once they go up then you start getting into the more robust system with the standpipe and the restricted outlet and that's where a lot of the cost comes in so that's the the detention requirements are a lot more expensive than the retention requirements and they're just not using in my understanding of this you're not using the word retention with um the first flush system that's my understanding right that would be correct so it is retention exactly as commissioner randall just referenced retention for the small for the five the first flush um it says retention infiltration which would ideally be the goal between those and then as well as with between the 10 000 to 15 000 again a retention infiltration but as we get larger that's a much larger volume to retain so there is that d tension that's referenced above for the uh one percent or the hundred year storm is referenced as a detention system i don't think that retention of the first question yep exactly it says retention of infiltration of first flush detention of bank full and hundred year storm events and i i would i would just suggest i think if the question is great and i i don't i think part of this is making sure we're giving you the information and an understanding i want to be clear though i don't i unless you want to go down that road i am not proposing that we change sort of the building blocks of different ways to address stormwater on sites we have we have these defined in the county and the question is which of our sites do we want to link to which one of those tools and so i i think it's important to understand those distinctions but i just want to be clear i'm not proposing changes from the county standards of when it's retention or when it is detention relying on them for that expertise i think for our question here i i really do think it's more about as you go from nothing of course to first flush to bank full to one percent storm event you're you're talking about volumes of water meeting the design standards of those for our question is right now we make those connections in a certain way which by changing some of our site on thresholds it necessitates us reconsidering some of those i think from just a usability of the udc so i just want to be clear i don't i'm not proposing that we change first flush from retention to detention or anything my apologies if i'm using the terminology wrong but i the volume calculation and again linking those approaches is more important than us i don't think it's appropriate for us to try to sit here and design what the appropriate system is i'm not asking for that i think i think the memo is a bit difficult to follow honestly okay um because it references uh it references the for it it references existing in the um option a it references existing requirements which i had to look back in my previous notes to figure out what they were although you say them below and option b anyway it's just it's really it's extremely hard to follow but um i so so i get it so first when you're talking about first flush you really just mean infiltration retention that's great and that's the worksheet option that we talked about and um [Music] and most multi-family projects already have first flush for five to ten and we're adding it for zero to five which seems smart so um [Music] but so i i think that i'm so what i would like to know is how consequential so we're adding something at a range that um we're adding something for commercial and multi-family from zero to five thousand or just multi-family so that's that's the question okay and that's kind of the question is that this this analysis has daylighted i mean i don't want to say it's daylight it's staff has always been aware of this there is a segment of development now that doesn't require any stormwater we are so on top of that because we because we want to change potentially what types of development require which site plans and the way our stormwater is triggered by that we have to figure out the right place the right way to fix those connections and so option a maintains a gap for anything over one and one to four family resident so it pulls three and four into one and two so we're now treating one to four the same as we've traditionally treated one to two it maintains the gap for other projects that have five thousand square feet or less and it maintains the increasing structure as you get larger four four units again just based on four project examples that we looked at about over the last six years it would have no impact to those because previously they would have fallen under the flush 5000 to 10 000 now they'd fall under the first flush under that one through family so that that is that is option a option b is instead of taking three to four families into that one and two it's take anything that's five thousand square feet or of impervious surface into that category so one and two family residentials and anything else that has five less than five 000 square feet of impervious surface all becomes first flush so that's taking a category of development into that category it's not i don't i i can't tell you right now off the bat how many that is i don't think it's a lot of development activity that is less than 5000 square feet but it would be taking potentially a bigger a cat it's filling that category but then option b goes further than to eliminate the sort of incremental structure and so maybe the question is maybe an approach is and maybe i'm hearing this from the commission is sort of a hybrid that you actually would like that less than 5000 addressed but maybe not so far as to bring everything all of the storm water mechanisms into every project above it so sort of keep the hybrid but plug the hole at a first flush level maybe that's what i'm hearing maybe what option a and option b seem really difficult to compare to me because of but but i don't know how consequential it is in option a to eliminate detention of bank full for 10 to 15 and eliminate thankful and detention of one percent storm event for multi-family over 15 square feet i don't know how many developments fall into that so on the one hand option a becomes a lot it's it's stricter for multi-family between zero and five thousand it leaves the gap for commercial most multi-family fall into five to ten thousand anyway so the stricter probably doesn't make any difference and so the significant thing there is leaving the gap for the commercial but then for stuff that's super big it eliminates it eliminates what it seems like we need because we have 85 of our construction in the city that was constructed without detention and we're saying go ahead and make new construction without detention so i am confused by what a is doing i'm sorry and this is what's up first of all i'm sorry this is why i wanted to have your your feedback because you know i just want to make sure this is clear this is i think it's really important that we get this right and everybody understands but i want to be clear a doesn't change the existing framework so a is not going to increase a is largely not going to increase the rate at which we realize stormwater management in our community beyond the rate we're getting it now so large projects are still going to be subject to that slightly smaller projects in the 10 to 15 are still going to have to do more than first flush but not the full not detention we are still going to get first flush for five thousand to ten thousand square feet we still have a gap in five less than five thousand so i want to be clear option a doesn't doesn't give a pass to larger projects from stormwater management investment it doesn't plug a hole yeah i think if i if i could i think maybe part of the confusion also i think because of how we wrote the the bullet point there because one of the bullet points it says if greater than 15 000 square feet at a limit but those are meant to apply strictly to the example above the three or four unit so i think as it was written like we had a three or four unit project that was the example and then if that three or four unit project was greater than fifteen thousand square feet it would only require um for slush but so that those like bullet points were only meant to point to that three or four example um so i think that that's kind of part of the confusion i believe maybe commissioner dish you see that and you thought like greater than 15 000 no so that was only meant for like a three or four unit project right now if it came in today if it had 25 000 square feet it would have to of impervious which again would probably be very unlikely for a fourth four unit building but if it did it would be required first flush bankful and one percent or 100 year but under option a then the revision it would it would only require because we're taking out site plan it would only require for slush and i think one other thing that i wanted to add to which i think might uh help make some of the difference too is that so again taking a three or four unit as uh brett and i looked at those examples that they're all less than ten thousand square feet so that right now they've triggered first flush so obviously those are typically smaller sites more compact as you guys know very well i mean um these are typically r4c site zone sites so under option uh a again that when you get the same option right here you get the exact same storm on under option b they would then be required to do first flush uh bankful and hundred year so that's kind of that that difference they would then so then again you start getting into and you look at those sites that's not only retention but that's detention and that's clearly where on these sites with four units you'd have to go underground um and i mean as i think we all know that that drives drives up the cost significantly so that's maybe one way i also kind of kind of look at it is that that three-four unit 5000 as an option a no change but on the at least the four that we looked at and under option b they would then be required to do um even more than they are now so painful as well as hundred year so i don't i hope that clarifies it a little bit yeah i think that does so in other words these uh there are very few if any three and four family units on a footprint of 10 to 15 let alone bigger than 15 square feet these were just dumb regulations that we had on the books which were taking off i mean i shouldn't take down like well but they they apply to everything else too right we're sort of pulling three and four out of that they're still going to apply to everything else okay just and just for details the the numbers of the four we pulled um uh 1300 south main game day condos that was about 7 300 square feet of impervious surface davis row which was a series of town homes on davis not right at the corner but a couple properties in yeah that was about that was just over five thousand it's 5056 square feet um uh a four unit on hill uh 143 hill was 551 square feet and 542 north main was a four-year unit that was eight thousand five hundred and sixty square feet so when we're you know they do range but they all fell in that five to ten thousand square foot category while we're talking about the stormwater stuff the commissioner dished you have more okay i also want i saw this in the staff report and i want to make sure that i understand the that this is the distinction in comparing the language i think i'm seeing this too the in option b this is also changing the trigger to be a grading permit not the development which seems to me based on the nods that i'm getting like that's going to capture a lot more things is that potential that that you would need a grading permit and not go through any of these site plan processes now yeah i think i think both option a and option b accomplished that option b requires a grading permit specifically which would include a lot more activity for example that would include maybe just redoing a parking lot that doesn't require site plan it just you're just redoing a parking lot where you're maybe milling it that could potentially require a grading permit i don't want to speak for that option a um and frankly these are just approaches crafted by two different people option a just says for any development or construction activity so what that's going to mean is anytime you're doing something that requires a permit whether it's grading permit or a building permit so both of those are adding a much broader application of these standards than the former when site plan is required i think the question is a good one i don't know if it should be limited to grading permit or it should be any permit that's something i might look at based on the direction but in both cases that is the intention to say it's no longer just site plan whenever you're doing something that meets these requirements that meets these physical attributes you are subject to these stormwater management requirements i think that regard so my inclination is to go with option a if the goal of this exercise of like these revisions that we're doing right now is to reduce costs for smaller improvements i think that option a is truer to that option b at the same time i think it would be while we have unearthed this and there is a suggestion floating this by environmental commission which was like what i read in the staff report as the intention of like this length of delay i think forwarding this to them to say like let's this is not you know you guys should talk about it and bring it to us if this is something that we should or city council if this is something that we need to like that we want to change later but for right now i think that option a seems truer to the scope and so i i guess i would suggest it just a little bit differently you've been directed as the planning commission to do this work for that purpose and i think that any changes here i that's where that language came from i agree i think it warrants their that commission's perspective but i think that's a little bit different than a more open-ended conversation i think it is i just think it's good practice for us to share with them how we intend to answer this question that council's asked of us that's quite different from how do you want to change the stormwater regulations and and so i i guess i would respectfully suggest that based on the direction we get from you what we share with them is this is the direction that planning commission has directed staff to go in this is the impact it's going to have or not have on stormwater help us help us take your feedback along with the planning commissions to the city council for that decision got it that's helpful for me i didn't quite understand like what you wanted from us and to bring to them that's i think option a seems truer to what we're doing but when we come back what this question has raised for me is um by taking site plan away and knowing that there's like other permit activities how many projects are we captured like do we have some sense of of how many projects have these other permits going on that will this will trigger because again if that's if they're minor enough right now to not require site planning i don't want to inadvertently be capturing them in the future right yeah i i think the i don't have that answer for you i think we do you deserve that answer before you take action i think that some of that is built into the regulations that when you're not disturbing a lot of the area this isn't going to come into play when you're not adding impervious surface it's not going to come into play so but i will answer that i think that's a good point to make sure that by by pulling it away from site plan it's not having the opposite impact um commissioner gabriel i have a couple more things on my list but if yours is since you know about this area if you're okay um the other things that i have aren't uh let's see are not about the stormwater options so one is i really appreciate you mentioning the public hearings and um like pointing out that change i did not pick up that change previously before i have before i put in my two cents i want to ask if there's no more public hearing associated with coming before planning commission for a site plan where we are the final body is there notice provided will will there be the postcard sent to the neighbors no i'm not comfortable then removing that personally i think that um i recognize like that people can come and talk to us about anything but i i would actually prefer here like i i think that that feedback is i think that that change while it doesn't apply to the rezonings that change would this change applies to a whole lot of projects and i'm not i'm not comfortable yet going to the point of um that i don't think that was the intention honestly when we talked about this um like removing public that part of it i don't think was was um is um a necessary aspect i don't think sending the postcards adds that much to development so if we can add that back in i would that would be my preference and then um the third and people can respond to that too like react um because that's just my vote um the third part is about the electrification and sustainability elements and i think that's awesome thank you we talked about this in one of our work sessions about what it is that we can and you know like how can we be contributing what's in our goal i think that this is a fantastic way to say how can we limit projects like what are the impacts i in terms of what the threshold is was that how much was this voted uh like um vetted with osi um so not at all um it comes out of city policy documents um so we have um you know the sustainability framework talks about renewable energy expanding renewable energy the 60 threshold is something that we've talked about before as it relates to sort of a balance of um providing some space for access mechanical equipment on a roof and the electrification just seemed consistent with that the ideal companion to uh solar is that it's driving as much of the energy usage of the building as possible so um so you know um unrelated to the sustainability framework other cit you know other council policies do talk about that as a goal as getting toward more electrification looking for other ways that to provide accessibility to other electric electrical sources our community at large so um i think it's consistent with that but in short i have not um discussed it in detail um with them um i i don't i i honestly don't think there's a right or wrong there it but i think it has to be a reasonableness of is it viable and is it beneficial enough to maybe provide that benefit so to be and just one more thing to be clear and that same discussion as we're talking about with public hearings if that happens it's also going to have that impact where it's no longer going to go to planning commission it's not going to have a public hearing it's not going to have notification so it won't have citizen participation because administratively approved don't so i just want to highlight that to the extent that we're changing that that provision goes back [Music] then that would have implications to those categories of products i'm up to well so one i would like osi to weigh in specifically on the language around electrification okay um to to see if there are things that could be electrified that we actually like i mean the idea of no natural gas hookup like cool but do we want to put stipulations on the means by which folks are heating i don't know i think that that's a good question and i don't because that language is not i would imagine that many of our planning documents don't get into that level of detail like i would like them to weigh in on that but i also think weighing in on all of these things like that means no notification to the surrounding properties right i think that i'd like their take on it but and as much as i'm excited about this like honestly when i saw it i was super excited um to see like this might be an opportunity i worry a little bit of a little bit but this is where i saw other hands go up so i welcome impact input on this of putting this in with a packet with a in a in a change that was really intended to do one thing and and we're now doing another and i'm not so worried about like it being well first of all i think making that known is important but also like this would be a big deal like i think that this is a really this could be a really big deal for um our ability to to move forward and to to do things incentivizing and my guess is that it's gonna get a little bit lost personally so i i love the idea of it and we that we would know how to do it but i welcome others thoughts um and i also i want to give a little bit more thought to whether if it is a fully electric building and it does have lots of solar on it is that is that the check that you need to have mr leonard sign off on it or do we want notice given to neighbors and opportunity for our discussion of it i i don't know how i don't know yet i haven't formed an opinion but that would be a change and i think that's an important part that we're talking about so that's my list um commissioner gabe randle and then commissioner clark and then commissioner weich um back to the stormwater piece i would say based on what you are what you were saying before mr leonard about trending towards option a but i would be interested in plugging the hole and and the the numbers that you gave us some of them were just barely over 5000 you know so it's not like they were all like way easily over that and again that first flush is not that difficult really in terms of cost and so i that's that's the direction that i would that i would give you in terms of moving forward because i think it's kind of an odd gap that we require people who build a single family to build a patio have to do something and then if you're building you know that that just seems a little odd to me um and then the other piece that i think is uh what the you know caller had brought up on what commissioner um mills is talking about is this whole kind of idea of like bad electric you know um and that my guess is is that we probably can't get too prescriptive because first of all it's like you know technology's gonna change too like we put something in there it's gonna shift um it has to be this system and you know ordinances are like really as you all know a big deal to change so but this is where i think perhaps some some um some guidance from the office of sustainability maybe they could help us with this because yeah it would be kind of crappy and missing the point if we just get a bunch of really inefficient electric you know because of that um in terms of the public piece that i hadn't really thought about that um chairmills i mean like prior to this too and so that is tricky it is part of what adds time and cost too in fact the scheduling for the public participation like for the citizens participation thing like that adds a lot of time you know to the project too because you have to notice it you have it you know so um i'm not saying one way or the other which way i think it has to go but it is part of how to make it leaner in terms of getting through the system more quickly so um yeah i'm not sure how i feel about that either go ahead commissioner clerk i just had another question for brett about um can you hear me okay just barely um so my question is about what happens with the things that are on a planning manager review when they get denied is the next step for the developer to just immediately go to like a lawsuit or would they go to have some avenue to go to light planning commissioner council with that denial to try and make their case um just curious about that yeah currently currently the way the udc is structured there is no sort of internal appeal process for site plan at any level whether it's staff planning commission or city council so they would have the same sort of rights to avail to them within legal action or um of course you know we you know but to be clear we spend a lot of time with petitions both at the administrative level and at your level on city council trying to get to compliance so but the short of it is is whatever approval authority um currently the way the udc is structured we don't provide any additional appeal structure to that and can you still hear me i just changed my microphone okay cool so my other question was about um the electrification and just um it's more of a comment just following along with the caller that talked about you know how some systems can be more energy intensive especially since we're in a cold climate when those overdrive systems kick on um the heat you know the certain lower end systems can get really expensive very quickly in in the lowest temperatures um that's not to say that i don't think it's a it's a good goal but i just think that consulting the office of sustainability or whoever else may be of use um would be a really good idea and then also i want to just be mindful that we don't incentivize um you know if we're doing multi-family developments and the tenants are responsible for paying the utility bills and a building is built with really poor insulation low r score the building envelope isn't sealed and there's these backup electric heating systems that kick on as soon as it gets cold that we're not saddling um renters with incredibly high utility bills and that's just something we need to be mindful of commissioner wage uh so two uh things maybe to start one is on the stone storm water between option a and option b is it possible when that comes back to the commission it could be presented in a table because it's hard to scan and comprehend the information and hold it to compare so for me just visually i would benefit from a table presentation and then um if there could be some explanation for how the gap well something around how the gap got created in the code that we've been referencing between residential and commercial so is it intentional did someone decide to create this gap and our undoing of it has an unintended consequence downstream or is this just something that because we are now evaluating it we have daylighted this gap so any background or additional information around the gap i would benefit from as i come up to speed um on this storm water i also wonder so still inside the storm water if we would be open to splitting these decisions up and that we would conclude the work on the site plan and then that would give us time to do the stormwater i know they are related so i know that some things kind of trigger the site review or site plan review but i i just wonder does it actually make sense to keep both of these in lockstep um as we move forward just so that we can get an approval for the site plan revisions that commission has been working on for some time moved along which i think might benefit the community as we figure out the storm order so those are like three requests they don't have to be dealt with today and if you you know review the third one and say no let's keep them in lockstep i i won't protest and then um on the electrification i wondered if there was a justification if you have an answer today if not if it could be in a memo for why it would stop at the planning manager and not stop at the planning commission and so that way it would skip a city council step so when i first sort of thought about this i thought one incentive would be for a developer because of the time that is involved of going through staff review and then getting a staff recommendation to go to commission if then they have to go to council that adds time and money but we could stop at planning commission which would then allow for the public head hearings and community input but would not require the council component and could be an incentive for developers so i imagined you considered that and made a decision for why you made the recommendation you did and if you are willing to share that i would love to understand that either now or in a memo and then i have one more question but i will pause in the event you want to respond now sure uh so as to where that sort of 5000 or less came from i i don't know i'll try to find that out i'll spend no i'm sorry oh yeah i didn't you don't have to answer that it was just the the electrification one if you want to answer that one now but um you're a human being so you get to answer what you like i'm sorry um i don't know i'll give you that information on the background about where it came i speculated it was just that at the time we didn't have a lot of stormwater regulations and by adding them there was some sense of moderating it for small and modest projects and so we built in additional standards for a larger project so that's probably but i'll i'm speculating i'll try to get you some more i would back that i was here when we that was 20 i was here that's exactly why when we came up with that structure i wasn't directly involved with it but that was exactly why the 5 000 it was kind of like smaller projects it wasn't as and then like then after and at that time there was nothing for single or two family so that's why there's that apparent gap because then later many years later we realized well you know the majority of our develop you know these things are singular to family are the major contributors well not the major but one of them to the stormwater so that was added after so that's exactly why that gap exists because we tried to facilitate smaller projects with 5000 and then we realized a single family and i think it was and i don't know why we think we as a city didn't go back and open up that 5 000 for other but the single family and two family was added after so that's why so all right thank you matt and then as far as electrification um the reason that that's there is keep in mind that this proposed site plan thresholds already takes a large category of site plans from city council to planning commission so currently so this proposed framework would take any permitted use site plans that don't require a rezoning or legislative action and they would automatically move to planning commission and again the philosophy of that is that both the planning commission and city council are complying with the same criteria of standards in order the reason that i propose adding that in from a planning commission down to planning manager was frankly from the challenges that we face when from a incentive base versus a regulatory base and so that's that's why i got placed where it did conversely um i think you could explore not making that change to for site plans to move generally from city council to planning commission and maybe that is an incentive tool to to accomplish that but that's why i got put there because uh the majority of them have already been moved under this proposal and i was looking for even in that category what would be the ways to incent um more sustainable development consistent with uh sustainability framework and other companies thank you and then um the question around that so it would would staff be open to density being added to that um threshold so if we hit a certain density level plus um electrification plus solar that it sits at the planning manager um sort of level or is that something we would discuss at a working session to sort of negotiate that because i i agree with the previous commissioner's comments around maybe getting a benchmark from osi on electrification and solar so that they that's the threshold we're looking at as opposed to just the electrification so they're you know like now that they're going to move through these benchmarking of buildings and it's going to be focused on energy efficiency that part of that could be if they hit this threshold then it can come over to um the planning manager as opposed to coming to um the commission so so just like density is also one of those uh thresholds that i in particular am interested in like you know we have the i don't know if i can talk about developments that are still before the commission i mean we're before the commission can i talk about them yes no the toll house one you know it's like it's on a site where it could go to 147 units but they're only proposing 57 but if they had proposed 147 with electrification and rooftop solar with that fit being able to be approved in your threshold and they could see that as an incentive because they don't have to come to this multi-step process of their first reading and then their revisions and then their second and then that gets us as a community something that we value so the a2 0 goals get hit but um more housing stock also gets hit and so then there's that twin incentive that's already built in we could look at it i think it would be my initial thought is it would have it of course has to still happen within the context of the udc so you couldn't be deviating from the densities that are already provided there so it would have to be sort of a subdividing of those but it's something we could explore okay and then i have just one final question which i would love to take offline uh just for the sake of time which is um the caller reference valhalla and lockwood i went back and looked at the first memo from staff for valhalla and i recognized that it was asking for um a zoning change i think from rs our for something okay right yeah so they were moving around uh with it and staff denied the first two and then approved the second two and i just wonder if you could take developments just to to give me an example of how those sites that may have been i guess let me go at it a different way i'm the thing i am concerned about is the denial at the pro at the planning manager level where the commission would have disagreed with the planning manager whether that planning manager is you or someone who follows you and given that our udc does not have an appeals process which i heard you answer and understand i i just have a pause on that and i would like to try to answer my internal question of what are the potential unintended consequence with this incentive and i don't have a good rubric to begin to answer that question and i feel like staff you would and you would be able to say it would hit this but not that and you'd be able to say that more quickly than i can do the research so if that's not too much staff time to help me with that i would appreciate it and i'm happy to do my own labor if you just point me to sites where you say it would be this one it would be not this one it would be this one not that one yeah we can definitely follow up and have that conversation with you but to be clear in that case that was a legislative decision um so yes i know i know i i i recognize that yeah but but but that's really significant because um a site plan is there a site plan doesn't have discretion a site plan is measuring a proposal against standards and and i i don't want to say that you know i i have to measure it against the same standards you as the commission have to measure it against the same standards and that example there that you're talking about that was a difference of opinion that staff had and the planning commission had on a legis legislative decision our opinion on the applying the standards once that legislative decision is made is the same those are the same standards that we're evaluating with so but that's a really important distinction but uh but yes i'm absolutely happy to talk talk that through and we can come up with some other examples where there has been a divergence of opinion maybe on site plans between a staff perspective and planning commission not a lot of them are coming to mind to me right now um but i'm happy to have that discussion no i don't i don't presume that there are what i'm trying to anticipate is the unintended consequence of changing where that decision is made um as an incentive and so i can think of some but i don't know that they make sense so what i'd like to first do is hear some from you and then i can put that through my own rubric and say ah okay my concerns are not valid and we can move on and i i think that's pretty quick um but i i actually don't know how much labor it's going to cost so i want to acknowledge that thanks so much commissioner clark i want to throw out there um another quick point just like i've been hearing a lot about talk about benchmarks and my first um reaction is enthusiastic about benchmarks being really promising area um especially for like tenant consumer protection that's kind of out of our lane right now but um so i think that's that's great but i i want to just put a word of caution in incorporating any thresholds into um decision making uh from our view um as a body because those thresholds um often might incentivize a landlord or developer to influence behavior of their tenants in ways that are not exactly socially like if you have a tenant that's struggling with mental health issues or something like that um or you know just things happen and they might be leaving a window open while having their heat going and that might not reflect accurately the building's capability but rather the usage and um the potential for landlords having worked for a housing first organization that avoided evictions um this was something that that came up um was tenants not necessarily maintaining their apartments in ways that were the most energy efficient ways and then those scores reflecting poorly on housing for populations that may struggle more with keeping their their housing running as it was intended to could potentially incentivize landlords to increase in evictions of tenants or find reasons and ways to evict people that are difficult or that aren't efficient tenants just because to protect their building score so i just want to be mindful of that in the discussion and i know it's a bit outside of our lane um but just as far as planning standards go i think that thresholds could be opening a lot of doors once we start talking about that it might be a longer conversation commissioner hammer schmidt and then commissioner dish oops sorry similarly to commissioner mills i appreciate you calling out the eliminating the public hearing i also don't think i'm comfortable with that i maybe would like to understand where the rationale behind it um at some point doesn't have to be now but i think it's really helpful to hear from the public and i think i understand the like trying to streamline but this sort of relates to the electrification and solar incentive too i think that it's important for people to know what's happening adjacent to their homes um and so on that electrification and solar piece like again i understand the intent but i don't know if i'm super comfortable like taking that away from coming we're like using that as a way to make potentially major projects not come before planning commission i also think we offer some good suggestions to developers outside of just electrification and solar so i think like my opinion on that is like i don't right now support it i don't think um there's a lot of stormwater conversation that i like mostly followed but i agree with commissioner gibrandal and that like closing the gap so if there is like a hybrid something between a and b um and then i'm i feel like i harp on this every time that those n a's in that table there are still some n a's that like just aren't it's not felt like that it doesn't require a side plan it's like literally that is not um compatible if you just want to leave them with n a one of the n a's is capitalized and the rest of them are a lower case and that is driving me nuts so the very least just like make that one lowercase um i think that's it do that fix the nice things commissioner dish yeah so i have one question for commissioner mills and commissioner hammerschmidt because honestly i i was distracted for a minute commissioner mills when you brought up your concern about the elimination of public hearing uh and is it where exactly on the table are you worried which which categories that would lose a public hearing are you worried about is it only specific to the electrification incentive or were there other shifts to require m instead of p that you're worried about um in particular the uh there could be um [Music] site plans that are you know already zoned appropriately for you know um 1500 or not 1500 we don't see 1500 units but 150 units that my reading of this is that they would not if it doesn't if it doesn't require rezoning our shifting is that it comes to us now is that right mr leonard so so to have i mean i think that it's important but at the same time it's it's a change and i do think that there is some benefit in letting neighbors know what's going on um and in neighbors ideas for things that we might ask for because that happens like and sometimes we bring up things that actually don't cost a whole lot but the people think about but we're not in that neighborhood that's what that's among the reasons that i think um having for those situations were i think it it warrants still having public hearings to be clear like we already recognized that there's a whole bunch of m's on this table that's mr leonard doesn't actually stand for mr leonard stands for planning manager and i mean i and we know that that would not have public hearings but that's moving a decent amount of you know things that right now like the buck stops with us to him um and things that are smaller um and i i am supportive of that and recognize that there are there are things on the table that that pertains to so new construction of residential buildings up to um [Music] five and six dwelling units like that's one of the things that there won't be a public hearing on anymore and i'm not proposing changing that um but um yeah i i um so that's where i'm i'm asking for specifications so so the specific area that really concerns you is new construction that part of the table and you're not worried about the five and six ah sorry yep but you might be worried about the seven plus dwelling units that might come in with electrification and then be exempt that's for example one um well right now as written five to seven or you know seven units that would come in as written without electrification there would be no public hearing and there would be no notice wait no it says p there doesn't it am i but this was the distinction that mr leonard brought to our attention today which was that and what's that sorry it's not it's on page nine it's like uh like it's not in the table it's not in the table it's it's right after the table um if i'm writing this correctly and maybe i'm not i think it's that anything now that comes to us where it's like the buck stops with us would not require a public hearing and along with that that was my point of clarification along with that along the way there would be no meeting with neighbors ahead of time but also not even just meeting with neighbors it's that there's no notice that something would be was being proposed in their neighborhood yep okay i'm sorry could could you i i don't have page numbers in mine so oh it's along this far if you look along this i guess yeah i'm not in the top guy so okay wait a minute could we just read this i'm so sorry we were up so long last night and i'm clearly not in the best uh shape so i get what you're saying um yeah so is it planning for a development it's the comment box commissioner dish on it's comment lb2 yes i see it okay which i hadn't seen previously so this is why i appreciated it at commented out and brought up okay uh okay gee yeah well i'm with you on that okay um i thought yeah yeah so i why would that take away the public hearing and then just so yeah so could we just talk a little bit more about why that's true and is there any flexibility there and yeah all right so i mean i'm actually just i think we need to talk about it more and then so i'm still trying to figure out that a and b options here i'm worried that we yeah so if we make a hybrid of a and b in the way that you guys are thinking about it actually it's gonna add cost to smaller developments so it will in fact then both options not just b b significantly against the mandate from council because it takes a large group of developments the ones that are between 5 and 10 and it adds detention to them so that so and that could be a disincentive for infill project am i making a correct leap there like infill it would be adding more expectations of of sites greater than 5 000 square feet of impervious surface and those sites am i correct in thinking that infill is often at that point if we're yeah by way of example of those recent four units those are those are instances of four unit residential infill in our community that are all in the five to ten thousand square foot range yeah right so and i'm not i'm not being anti-stormwater i'm really pro-stormwater but these are trade-offs we're talking about trade-offs and i think we want to air them in the most honest way possible so that when we make a choice we know what we're making so um couldn't agree more yeah well i'm totally okay but in any case um yeah so okay so could could you walk us through um currently when we when planning commission approves a site plan it goes to council is the is the reason we have a public hearing because it's going to go to council i mean why is taking the going to council part which i thoroughly support as a best practice i do not want these to go to council but why does removing that step mean that there's no longer a public hearing so it doesn't have to just as a reminder from where we started we we regulate private development through state law state law enables us to do that state law says that site plan review is an administrative process we put ordinances in place that we measure a site plan to to say it meets this or it doesn't meet that if the answer to all of those questions that we pose and the answer to all of them are yes the site plan is approved that is the same process whether i do that in my office or city council does that after a public hearing at planning commission and a public hearing at city council notified to 300 every property owner within 300 feet and 2 000 emails so it is this the same standard so in our ordinance historically we as the city have said despite not having to we are going to hold public hearings for this administrative process and so in approaching this language to the point of trying to make things easier for small and modest projects eliminating that step would simplify the process to an extent not substantially but to an extent public hearings do bring information and they do add notification requirements and they do add frankly an uncertainty to a staff determination of or the planning commission determination of those standards being met or not being met and so this this change here says let's do how we do planning manager approval and apply it to planning commission as it is drafted in our current ordinance and it could continue to be it is whether it's city council or planning commission we want to hold the public hearing even though that's not required by law we want to add that to our process and so i just i from the from the lens of trying to make it simpler i went the other direction with this change to be clear there are both large and small and modest projects then that would be impacted by that there would be small and modest projects that don't have to go through that process there would also be large projects of 150 units that are really zoned would not go through that process so i think the discussion is good and that's why i thought it was really important to highlight but the short the short answer is we can keep it it as it is based on a city policy that we want to add more process than the minimum required i'm not saying it's a bad but that's a policy decision we want to make and so that's that's where this change came from though from me probably weighing more a faithfulness to how do we make the process easier and this would be a way to make it easier it's not a right or wrong like you said there are trade-offs so can i try another line of argument on this which is um the rationale for not forwarding site plan approval to council is exactly as you said because it's an administrative decision and it's a best practice not to not to create the impression that there can be judgment call negotiation over an administrative decision that's a bad impression to create and that's why that is the rationale for the for the chain for the big change that we're which is if it's a site plan approval if it's buy right it doesn't go to council so essentially what you've done uh and you're expressing it in terms of simplicity but actually what you've done is you're being consistent and you're saying if it's an administrative decision it's an administrative decision with respect to planning just like it's an administrative decision with respect to council so in the council end it means we don't send it to council council sets legislation and policy it doesn't do administrative decisions so then at the level of planning to be consistent we should treat administrative decisions like administrative decisions i think that's a strong argument i also think that there might be an argument for saying at some degree of density an administrative decision it might be useful to have some feedback at the planning commission level not at council uh from the neighborhood um i can't so i can see a like a there's a there's an intuition on the part of commissioner mills and others that a certain size of project it might be useful to keep these public hearings that are not required from your perspective and possibly from mine as well because the simplicity part doesn't work for me but the consistency part if it's an administrator decision one place it's an administrative decision in the other that works a little better for me so possibly from your and my perspective it really doesn't matter the size this is the nature we are talking about the nature of a kind of decision and when you have a public hearing you are saying what you say matters and can change this project well it should be able to so or maybe it should right so i mean i i i saw your headcock and i'm i'm open to having this discussion about whether i'm totally open to having a discussion about whether there's been something good and useful and ann arbor exceptionalist about inviting more public participation but we'd want to talk about would that just then be all projects at planning or would it be a certain size of projected planning and how do we justify that um so i hope that was not completely unhelpful in thinking through the resistance to the removal of the public care i i think that's a great exercise and i think a way to add an example is you know the public hearing cannot impact the standards the public hearing can't say you can't have 10 people say the ordinance says that you can do 10 units here but i think it should only be 6.

this is not new we cannot fix them with the same ideas the same stagnant leadership we have to move on we need new energy with new vision we need a new direction thank you thank you next question regards to infrastructure as it relates to school remote learning sidewalks those kinds of things as a parent i value internet service as a public utility as well as sidewalks to make foot traffic safer what infrastructure expansions and upgrades would look to do within the school district with any potential money that danbury may receive as a result of the federally passed infrastructure bill and this question is open to anyone who would like to answer could you please just raise our heads israel having taught during the pandemic when everybody had to have hybrid teaching teaching from home and students were learning from home there were incredible unimaginable challenges that went along with that and i believe that some of the money should if we get money for this kind of thing especially for internet that it would be very good not because i'm hoping to have another event and i'm going to be the last thing from my mind if it ever had to be again that we fund families to be able to have the internet because some don't so their children aren't getting the best education without that and um also maybe make help students learn in an environment for instance i'm just going to give you an example some of my students had small homes and um there were lots of family members so for them to sit in front of a computer especially very young children to sit in front of a computer and try to learn all day was an extremely difficult path so i would like to see some kind of backup system uh implemented if there's money or funds for example to be able to address those kinds of issues within our school district because our school district doesn't end inside the buildings um you know teachers have lives that they go home to students have families they go home to but they're still part of us they're still part of danbury and the more we can do for them to be able to get the more we do for them to be able to get them to have the best education we have fine that would be great [Applause] [Music] anyone else like to take a shot okay the next question is for the mayors um i believe on this [Music] for the mayors do you intend to speak with mr donovan and his team about their ideas for the needs of the high school sure do you intend to speak with mr donovan and his team about their ideas for the needs of the high school i would definitely speak with mr donald about his needs for the high school but directly with our superintendent who is his overseer and we have an excellent new superintendent and we're in a good position to move forward now and i think building a great working relationship with the i hate to say education side and the city side it's all our size we're all damn bearings here we all want the best possible education for the students i've talked to him every single day i know he's a football player i've played football here myself so i think we're on the same page if he needs to move forward he needs support he must make suggestions as their next mayor i'll definitely listen to him and i'll sit with mr uh the superintendent kevin walston and understand what the needs of the school are directly with the high school and each and every school in this city because we have some of the greatest schools in this state of course we'll still mr donovan mr wallston we'll sit with all the assistant principals the parents and the teachers when we're invited to talk to them we're going to show up and talk to them so i welcome any invitation because that's how nobody has a market corner on the right ideas some have to corner on bad ideas but the way you find out when you get to where you need to be is by having coalitions we've been building coalitions since we started this campaign before so i welcome any conversation [Music] this next question is open to whoever would like to answer do you support school mass mandates and faculty vaccine requirements imposed by the states please keep it simple people are scared to answer this i'll just do it because the responsible thing is to say you support mass mandates you support vaccine mandates with testing this is about health and saving lives i think everybody here that's a bipartisan issue we want to save lives our city has been doing a good job that doesn't cross that's about doing what's right and about being responsible [Applause] just really simple none of us on the board of education are health professionals i mean in any decision we look to the experts to help us make you know make decisions to enforce them and i agree it's about what's doing right for everybody else and we want to keep our kids in school this is what we have to do [Applause] yes and yes [Applause] [Music] feel free i'm gonna have to go with uh yes obviously follow the science i think that is something that changes every day um i do have an issue with masking children when the percent is .03 i think that really impacts their mental state of mind um i think that there's a lot of loss in the education in their facial expressions you know you identify a lot from the child through their face so i think that that is a big burden for our children to carry the science really doesn't support that but again i am aware of i have been vaccinated i'm aware of the importance of it i do they'll feel that asking people about whether they get vaccinated or not is a violation of hip-hop but i always will i will always follow the law and until that changes then yes we will have to wear our masks and you know social distance and do everything that we have to do until hopefully this emergency is over but it looks like we've got to march 22.

this past legislative legislative session the governor originally proposed freezing the new formula we're still due we still do our fair share bottom line we're not getting it until 2028. most of our people have been graduated by them we need it now we had our chance we need to come up with a way to appropriately fund our children now they need [Applause] this is the last audience question before we have the final question for everyone and again this is an open question if there was community momentum desiring metal detectors at our high school would you be in support of that action if there was community momentum desiring metal detectors at our high school would you be in support of that action thank you yes it's next mayor danvers i would definitely support that because the safety of these kids is the most important thing out there and i know everybody in this room would agree no matter what party we are thank you [Applause] thank you i also would say yes i think we can also keep tragic event today and anything we can do to keep our children safe you know i think like being said everybody here is for so of course [Applause] [Music] okay so we have a last question um it's going to be for everybody and i think we'll just go down the line here sure we can start with mr esposito and come down this way and we'll go two minutes each and the question is drawing from your demonstrated record in danbury please share with us what is it that distinguishes you as a champion for teachers students and public education champion for education that's easy the teachers themselves are the champions i support the teachers in every single way the frontline teacher that actually does the job and educates our kids every single day those that stepped up to put their lives online to educate our kids during this pandemic my goals are simple as the next mayor i'm going to support the teachers the true teacher that's actually doing the job out there each and every day i'm going to support you the employees of this city each and every day but most of all i'm going to support you the constituent the people of this city we are one city danbury is a one city and we are a shining star because we all work together and put our differences aside when we have to that's the best part about this city i've lived here my whole life basic and there you go i'm 61 years old i've lived in the borders of danbury for 45 years yeah they are so the reality of it is my goals are simple i love this city i work together with anybody out there that needs to watch to put this city first like i do the city of danbury is the best place to live in this state and in this country as far as i'm concerned and the kids of this city deserve better than what we're putting out here today we need to work together and provide founding answers to the students of this city so they're safe and there's to continue to get educated in the top quality education that our teachers are providing them our administrators are providing them and our city government's providing them thank [Applause] however you know after living working especially with all teachers and being able to work with the state department worked with all the people all my life over 50 years in education i still say we need to support them yes and we need to make sure that all of us in this city work for the city if this is where we're living this is where we need to support this is what we need to do for all our residents and our students we've got to make those students the next reign of residents in our city and yes i believe we need to put every foot forward to help this make it happen so you know education 50 plus years what am i thinking right i've been here all this time i've lived through here longer than everybody probably sitting in the audience and i'm still here in this city because it is the best place to be just repeat that question sure drawing from your demonstrated record in danbury please share with us what is it that distinguishes you as a champion for teachers students and public education okay um i'm a parent my son is 23 years old i've been through the system iep i've got two other children um i would say most importantly what i can contribute is my background i'm again a cuban american my parents came here exiled about 60 years ago they made it very clear and instilled in me how important an education is especially for people that have a second language they are not victims they have more to offer they have the ability to add diversity more diversity to the city which we already are very diverse but we want to make sure that every single child in danbury is successful and graduating at the same rate and it becomes inclusive an inclusive city with everyone um given that opportunity and able to shape their future they cannot take anything away from you the only thing you can keep in life is your education um and that will take you forward in life so i'm basically here to oversee and try to help wherever i can to make sure that our kids get an excellent education that we know where to put the money more money does not mean a better education and um i think that the republican party is really um addressed all the facets we're trying to push through there's always so much more to do but you know we're all here all of us i think on this stage wanting to help our kids and trying to find out the best way to do that and i think together if we all work together we can get there [Applause] [Music] uh thank you for that can you hear me um i think in my last 20 or so years of teaching um i have proven that i am a champion not only for teachers but for students and i've had thousands of them many many many many of them i'm still in touch with teachers that they say teachers affect students lives but students also attend and to be a champion for public education i would and for the reasons i'm going to give i would fight hard to not allow a charter school in danbury it is a hope it is a private empathy run by private people and the people who run them donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to people that are running campaigns um they fail within forty percent of the charter schools in connecticut fail within 10 years and go out of business and i say out of business because they're not public also the one that is proposed for danbury please let him speak thank you the one that has proposed for danbury is taking in 110 students per year for six years but guess what our student population is projected to grow by at least 600 students in six years so that is a complete wash thinking that's going to obedience 30 seconds the crowding in this damn schools it's not and we need to find better ways and better solutions so yes i would definitely be a champion for public education [Music] [Applause] advocating for our schools for our public schools there's nothing there's actually nothing private about charter schools in connecticut just like magnet schools technically technical schools and activism schools the purpose of a charter school is to raise student achievement in the state's lowest performing districts and are only permitted in alliance districts the charter management organization has to be by law a non-profit everything is open uh finances are transparent board meetings are open and they're they're held at a higher accountability for autonomy to to raise green achievement that is that's the goal of the charter school now if you want to talk about enrollment study we are bound by our demographic studies of what we're building we've had several demographic studies in the past three years we're about to embark on another one uh with our new superintendent um but we're building we're building right now all of our our projects that are ongoing the career academy the elder santa um the middle school classrooms are all based on those projections from the demographer we are bound by by them that's what we build on baby state um reimbursement so that the burden doesn't fall totally on the local taxpayers um and and we're bound by where the growth is the growth is in our downtown and that's why we're building an annex to eldworth avenue school [Applause] so i just want to leave everyone with this is that my personal opinion is i don't i'm speaking from one of them i don't feel that corn event should be really political it turns out to be that way political here tonight so all i'm saying is i'm not guaranteeing money i'm not commenting on charter school only one that i can guarantee is that i will always and always in the past have put the teachers staff and kids in this [Applause] [Music] who have served on the board understand that sometimes things just don't work so it's do your best and always put the staff and children ahead of politics [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and after the election there's no more politics it's going forward for the best of the town and our schools thank you thank you i will agree with ralph in this regard i am very proud to serve in the board of education for the last few years and i can say with the utmost honesty i have an amazing respect for everybody on that board that i've served with for the last two years and politics has never crept into it everybody's done what they thought was right and that's what we have to do as elected officials and as a champion for kids i think i've done that for the last two years i think i'll continue to do that both in advocating for our career academy and the innovative education that that will offer our children advocating for the other expansions that we're doing to address enrollment and fighting for proper funding to be clear mayor mayor of the oral candidate esposito is correct danbury spends about nine thousand dollars per student to be clear norwalk spends 14-5 in stanford 16 000.

in the event that the in-person event is cancelled if you have previous engagements we will also be holding a virtual celebration you can find more information on how to access our virtual event on our flyer or website at thinktogether.org thank you so much for your time and your service to our souza community thank you so much tomida and now we have spelisa hello thank you for um this time can can you hear me yes yes okay yes thank you um once again i was one of those very vocal members for the dual immersion program um and although the situation wasn't ideal i do want to take the time also to thank you um the staff superintendent the board the principal for bringing on an aid as well as an intervention support in the afternoon i hope that this changes a trajectory and this continues establishing just positive um experiences in the dual immersion program and staffing so i want to take the time and say thank you for hearing us thank you for taking action that makes a difference i also want to invite um cabinet board superintendent uh to join hodge pta right now our campaign is going on and our pta does a lot of good for our school we provided every single student a mask we do things like fund ex field trips we do red ribbon week just a variety of things we have emergency funds we have funds for service projects so i invite you all to become a pta member or donate our theme this year is cougars create and we're just encouraging the um cougars knowing that they can create when when it means with art artistically but also that they can create change so i invite you to join you can go to join totem we have links on our facebook on our instagram we can email i can email them out um but i thank you for your time and i invite you to join that's it thank you lisa lika do we have anyone else we have no other hands raised thank you moving on to item 7.0 comments reports and requests by the board of education uh we'll begin with board member cruz gonzalez i have nothing to thank thank you board member beau good evening everyone uh it's nice to be here i had a couple of community events to report out on as well as uh an idea that i want to share with my colleagues here on the board as well as cabinet um this past uh monday we had our golden days kickoff ceremony at the library it was a wonderful time to honor jenny avila a long-time library commissioner council member and important citizen here in azusa it was also a great time to see our azusa unified young musicians play and really add sparkle through the evening and i'm happy to represent the district on the golden days committee this year and look forward to participating in the rest of the smaller scale but no less meaningful events this year and i encourage everyone in the community to stop by the library and see the exhibit of the historical artifact from golden days dating back to 1949 there are some great photographs um ribbons trophies awards um it's a very well curated exhibit so i encourage everyone to see that um i also want to take a couple minutes uh for my trusty time today to share my thought on um where we are as a district uh in the paradigm of reimagining um really kind of seeing the reorganization process as a new paradigm and an opportunity to create the best possible vision for our students staff and community and as we know we have currently have an open position or director of i.t and i know that we've begun that search process and in all transparency i've had some initial conversations with mr ortega as well as dr mitchell on on my ideas on this and i really want to put forward the idea and i'd like to have a conversation at the board level on this that we reimagine this head i.t position as something like a cto or chief technology officer position and give high consideration to creating that position as a new cabinet member position i think that the pandemic has showed us many things in terms of what we can do given certain pressures and responsibilities to our community it's shown us the the integral role of technology and its impact on instruction and it's really shown us that it can technology if used correctly um and used wholeheartedly can really jump start and really give some rocket fuel to our instructional program and i think um really getting the best talent that we can from institutes and and cto academies across the country bringing that to our community into our district and really elevate what we're doing and i think that um you might say it's a it's a bold step and really that there are a lot of things to figure out but i think that if we are able to come together and say that we want to make this investment for our students and staff that we'll look back in five years and say that we're really glad we did that and that we're really among that that kind of lead cohort with other high performing districts across the country thank you thank you board member bill board member rodriguez pena yes good evening everyone um i just want to report that i went to the well i went on the zoom to the back to school night for the transitional adult school and um the teachers and the director did a great job on doing their powerpoints and speaking about what their program brings to the students that attend um the adult transitional i was very surprised to see a teacher i seen her name um and i was wondering is that the person that i knew so i went online and i seen um actually i was very glad to see another she was a student instructional aide and now she's a teacher melissa casas melissa casas was inspired as an instructional aide in the adult transitional class to become a teacher with students with special needs and if anyone knows her she was also a young student in the mariachi the azusa and now she sings professionally for mariachi camino real and i'm very proud of her i was very proud to see her that she was she went back to school and became a teacher here at ausd uh i also joined the adusa pedestrian walk we walked um through it by apu by slauson and by a aero highway and azusa avenue and the focus was to take note of any safety issues such as handicapped ramps believe it or not some of those handicap ramps are outdated sidewalks roadways to improve conditions that will encourage walking azusa will make walking in the making it safe comfortable convenient and more accessible for the pedestrians of all ages you actually don't really realize what you really see when you're when you're driving and when you're walking you finally you know i've been driven to my arrow you know i drive right there all every day practically but certain things that you notice like oh well i didn't realize it you know there's a bump in the road where someone could trip but these are the great things that the city of azuza um had this team go out and a community residents joined and walked and we took note of certain and we gave our input and that was really good so they are going to start working on these roads um throughout the community and again another success though azusa leaders are learning golden days virtual fundraiser on saturday we made enough for three more scholarships thousand dollar scholarships and then some i would like to thank the donors all the all ed directors mayor robert gonzalez mayor flotem jesse avila jr robert zamora parent mary dodd for president arianes former board member helen jaramillo and of course we even had our own lunch with the superintendent so we sold him that day els outlet adelino's maxes mauricio's but wait our cash winning prize winner of 630 dollars was our community liaison anna gonzalez you wouldn't believe that her daughter won last fundraiser 600 and they only bought two tickets don't see one ticket would do it so um but anna was so kind that she returned 300 back to the foundation for our scholarship funds also our fantastic entertainment with studio 26 was mr uh kimbo coburn i want to thank him and we had a zoo the orchestra director mary turner and they really enjoyed the entertainment so we couldn't have did all this without everyone's help and i want to really thank you and appreciate that and i'm sure the students will too so i want to congratulate also azusa glaston high school interact club for being recognized last night at the city council meeting by the city of azusa and the l.a county supervisor hilda solis for creating the golden days logo slogan united we shine i would like to thank the advisors mary turner mary turner is always so involved and also darla elliott from gladstone high school and happy golden days week so i brought my bad today watch out thank you board member rodriguez pena and uh for me this evening i just want to uh remind any who are interested that this thursday i will be holding an online coffee that's october 7th at 6 p.m this will be held on zoom if you have attended one of these meetings in the past you should have by now already received an email that gives you information on how to uh communicate your interest and and have the details to be able to join the the meeting and again this meeting is open to anybody who would like to really discuss any any item uh whatsoever um it's a intentionally structured conversation to be able to have a conversation uh around areas of uh that we want to celebrate or areas that are that are concerned and so anyone in the community is invited to take part in that and again if you have not received one of those invitations and you're interested please feel free to reach out to me on any channel really and i'll make sure that you get that information moving on to item 8.0 uh comments and reports by superintendent cabinet and student board member i will uh turn it over to you superintendent ortega thank you good evening i just wanted to report a couple of things i had the pleasure of being invited by the k-12 foothill consortium they held a cte tour that fish that featured our very own jim hegg's digital media arts program at glasgow high school although i've been in that room uh several times it's just a reminder what an awesome opportunity our students have whose interests are in that field we have top-notch equipment we continue to expand on that program uh adding um new uh technology and so just very grateful for that and just wanna thank glaston high school mr hague for the passion and the project project-based approach that they are taking to that pathway um as board member rodriguez pena stated this saturday we held our all ed foundation fundraiser we were able to raise over three thousand dollars to benefit the students and staff of our district i do want to thank publicly the foundation for all of their work in raising funds to support the district and to all the participants who helped by either buying tickets uh donating or participating in the auctions and lastly i just want to say that i was able to join daniel infante sanchez who is our current teacher of the year he is a teacher from glaston high school and maria sims our former teacher of the year they were recognized at our in-person laco teacher of the year banquet again just nice to be in person to get the recognition that they deserve and it's just a great uh a great event that really highlights the impact that teachers have on our students thank you good evening i would like to give appreciation tonight to uh gary creel who is our director of child welfare and attendance he has been organizing and facilitating our vaccination clinics with our partnership with mercy pharmacy and last saturday they administered 236 vaccine doses which were first doses of the johnson johnson second and third doses of the pfizer vaccine our next clinic is saturday october 16th at gladstone high school at nine o'clock in the morning from 9 to 12.

so you're talking about home to school home to school transportation not special ed transportation that is correct i don't remember that as a deep topic was that in in the meetings themselves or was that here at the board uh that was in the meetings uh that also shows up in our surveys as well um this this notion of if we're going to be closing schools again i believe it shows up more for those that want model 3 that it's important that we are providing transportation because technically right you're going from one side of town to the next side of town so i think it would be helpful um to understand because though i don't i mean it may be wrong but i don't think we saw like cost estimates for that with some of these models with i guess would be model three did we did i missed that was it was it in there so there was no cost estimate because we currently have the fleet that if we needed to transport all of our students right now we have enough buses we would just have to increase our drivers so that but that but that would be a cost right yes yes but that was not including any of the models yeah so it would be so i guess what i'm asking is that would be good to understand right how those any any any anticipated transportation costs um that would that would be required um and i would just i mean i would just say i i appreciate that we have enough buses but i know there's also maintenance there's you know having to buy new buses as you upgrade i mean i appreciate we have natural gas buses right a lot of districts are moving to electric buses at this point um so i think that's important information first take into consideration and i also i also wanted to add that i did notice the model three and four that uh and i would say it again that i see in elementary school middle school and a high school um foreclosure on those both models so the question is on model 3 and 4 the board of education or the other or can be mixed you know um that's my one question then i also see an elementary school and and nom talked about enrollment that has maybe 300 and some students and then the others who has 408 that have already been moved there from another and then now the um um oh no i'm sorry not now the smaller school i i think that should be easier to to move than this other school that has more students and that have already been moved there from another school just a couple of years ago thank you to address the first question uh we have been uh very open and very transparent through the whole school reorganization team process that their recommendation could be accepted by the board of education it could be outright rejected by the board of education or it could be amended by the board of education so the answer is yes um the two models that exist right now do come from the team but they know um we said it more than enough times that this was a recommendation only and that the board of education could change those models or can come up with a different model that we haven't even discussed or thought about so i do i do have a question and and maybe leave more information but um as you talked about just looking at the models um was there any discussion about what glendora high school looked like and how it's set up because my understanding is it was built at the same time as it was the high school right they've been able to reconfigure to house a very large student population so was that part of the conversation or have we looked at what that school looks like the layout of that school so to answer the first part of the question yes um glendora high school as other high schools uh have been mentioned uh in terms of if we went to one high school like what what what could be or or what what we can you know aspire to or think about or use as an example uh but have we gone to to look at it no so my understanding is that it was actually the exact same layout as this is the high school so it's not like maybe other high schools where this actually when they first built they looked identical that's the same architect right so that's why i'm recommending that maybe we look at that and just so we can maybe address the concerns about what what would a large facebook look like on that you know with with us with the original footprint that we had yeah absolutely a thousand percent and and also too i mean just our own history right our own history in azusa there was a time uh when our high schools were large uh there was a time when on the existing campuses right now we house a large amount of high school students and then um apologies if it was at the update but in terms of the demographic piece when do we anticipate in getting the information about or did that already come to us in terms of like that you know the multi-year outlook for demographic ah yes that was in the board packet and you have uh ten years of that so we're not going to get 20 years like we requested we did speak to the demographer and they said 10 years as as far as they go and then i just have one last question um regarding the high schools you know um on the models you know everyone assumes this is a high school because i know it's in azusa california but at one point they told us don't look at the schools look at the capacity you know so there's two high schools they're both in a zoo unified school district we have to look at what does it i believe the capacities are the same ones not or close to each other um you know what is the newest school you know which one has more room we haven't looked at that we just everyone just seems to assume that it should be there because it's in azusa and it's there but you know they're both in this unified school district that that's just a thought a couple thoughts that i had um the one i had been i had been kind of operating under the assumption based off of early conversations that the the whole concept of a 7 12 model would in include i remember hearing language like a school within a school i remember i remember hearing things like that and um i guess as as that figured my imagination around what what how how might we creatively offer specialized electives to our younger students if there were uh teachers and and and and courses and programs equipment that was on the same campus and and in my mind went through how might we you know creatively utilize that for them to gain access i don't know that my mind back then went to the idea of fully mixing uh seventh and and eighth grade students with with uh high school age students um and i mean i i'd love to hear some for us discuss a little bit about that and share the thinking behind that and the the where and why we land what what does that look like if we can unpack more of the model because i i as i've talked to a number of folks i hear concerns and i and i understand the concerns that are involved with that uh layout and i'll let cabinet chairman if they want to chime in after after i kind of open this up um i think it's still a school within a school uh but i think i think what we're talking about um is this is not gonna be a fenced off like the kids will never mix type of environment right now at our high schools if we look at our core classes we do have a lot of classes at 36 we do have some electives at 36 but we have some courses with five kids and so the the the concept of reorganization is to maximize and be able to offer uh multiple programs and multiple avenues and so if we if we if we do not envision or think about especially like elective courses that that can be taken by multiple or multi-age students then we might still be constrained uh and still challenged with the type of programs and the amount of programs that we offer that are not quote unquote past the court right um so not to say that that's insurmountable now you are going from technically three middle schools to two seven eight so that helps and that and that is definitely a plus but we never um and again not that it can't be but we definitely never thought that this would be a fenced off um never ever gonna be able to to come together at no point in time that definitely was not the thinking behind that but the concept of school within a school just like just like in in in some ways uh valley dale and and hodge right a dual immersion program kind of a school within a school kind of the same thing but but but no we never thought that it would be completely fenced off or roped off and that that there would be no no flow but again not to say that that cannot happen uh but that was never the thinking actually so could you speak to that i mean if could you speak to the viability of of this if if there were actual barriers so you know school within the school you talk about dual immersion at valley dale or hodge my mind goes to uh adult ed in stara high school my my my mind goes to adult transition and magnolia so that's that's where my mind goes when i think of school within the school and you speak to the potential viability of that type of school within a school with a 712 fund um so i mean again it's possible but then i guess the question would be if if if the whole concept is to rope it off now we're talking about an administrator a secretary like like legitimately a school which again can be on the same campus but for that matter can be off campus as well right so that's again the feasibility i think is there but there's these other things that right now we're not considered as part of the 712 model because again if you're completely fencing it off now you're thinking about a staff that is dedicated to run that school just like we do for matp just like we do sierra and adult school mr ortega and for the next uh info meeting on the 19th i'd like to request that um we get some you know a summary or memo outlining the what the research says about the barriers and drivers for to successful 7-12 program so i know we're positing things like um our junior high kids having access to higher level electives um but we don't have to there's a lot of precedent and research around what work and and and what also are the barriers to those successful programs i'd like us to have a greater understanding um from from other district and and the literature and in addition to that if we could also as as ad ensure that when we have these items so we're going to have two more conversations that are that are scheduled at each of these conver conversations and items but we include attachments that that lay out the the models that we're that we're discussing and even some of the info um i'm thinking about the the analysis of the qualitative data is that something that has been been shared out widely um or or not figured out put out widely but i think of some of those some of those requests for information that we have if that were here and and available for anybody who is checking along with us as we're having these these subsequent conversations that they're they're looking at the the same information as we're making these requests and i also would like to see if i don't know if it's possible that we can visit a school if it's a seven or twelve model i i've never seen one before myself i do dr mitchell i know i spoke to her and i know her daughters go to the 72 70 12 school but i would like to see it i mean i don't know if we have time to do that but i i would like to see what does it look like you know other than on paper i ever like i do i do want to say since we're talking about 7-12 i i am concerned at for the high school level and i appreciate you saying that we have some classes that are full and just this the number of high school students that would be on each campus because it wouldn't reduce i mean it would still those would be small numbers and we're pushing we're going to be under a thousand soon at both high schools which makes it very difficult to offer a full-fledged program for those kids and opportunities right i mean the schools that i see that are that small i think of like the the one they have and passing is not a good example because they have a lot of small schools but like their smallest school it's a specialized ib school right same thing you see in west covina these are not we they're not offering full athletic programs all the pieces that we want to see at a comprehensive high school so i have a lot of concerns about having us i also have the concerns about the you know having mixing the grades but just about like what kind of what kind of like opportunity are we giving these high school kids when they have these very small school i did want to ask a question um because i and i appreciate you making it clear that it really is it you know that where we can be open to other ideas one of the one of the suggestions that we all got via email was looking at maybe looking at one of the high school sites to be the site of the middle school because then you would have a gym that we don't have in any of our high schools we would have some really amazing we'd have an amazing field right so i'm just wondering up from our perspective around having a conversation about what would that look like right i mean i think in my mind i think some of the issues that would come up would be transportation right because it'd be very difficult to ask middle schoolers to travel travel all the way across across the whole city i don't know i think those are things we need to discuss but i would like us to consider if we go that route of having one comprehensive middle school one comprehensive high school think about how do we best utilize the site right because i i mean i think and then plus the fact that you then wouldn't have to modernize a different middle school so we'd be saving money on those two middle school sites so that's something for us to think about yeah i like that that idea well i'm curious when we say that something for us to think about where in this process is that thinking about happening if if if the if november 2nd is the scheduled decision is that think about now well so then i guess maybe my request is for the next meeting can you come back and so what would be the feasibility of having one comprehensive high school and one middle school and really looking at what would they what would how would that look at it to be honest a point about being agnostic right what would it look like to have gladstone being the high school azusa being the middle school and also azusa being in the high school being the middle school right so we can have a conversation about what that look and i think the transportation piece for me is probably one of the most key factors i think transportation and understanding those operating costs right because we have a sense of the capital cost already um and i think just as important if we were to have a single comprehensive middle school what would that mean for course offering yeah i i'm guessing it would greatly expand but i'd like to see more detail on what what the change would be from what we have now at our separate middle schools and what it could be if we went that direction uh just i think i heard it correctly but just basically what we're going to do is we're going to bring model 3 reimagined um and the reimagining is that we're going to have one of the high schools become the the middle school uh we're going to flip it both ways so this is what it looks like if azusa is a middle school and gladstone is a high school this is what it looks like if azusa is a high school graduate high school we want to look at the impact that that's going to have on program and we're also going to be looking at the impact uh of of what it what it looks like to provide transportation i also would like to see the you know what does the enrollment look like and and the capacity you know we keep talking about capacity but i like to compare both of them on on both models you know when you when you speak of a time of ancient times past when um there were more students at the high schools i think back of my time uh in in the the high schools and and so is it is it helpful if we were to have a snapshot of let's say 15 20 or 20 years ago and look at what the capacity was back then to get a sense of how we have how we have operated um at various capacities absolutely so you're talking about looking at like the peak years sure yeah you're trying not just the high schools too because it was i mean it varies right because we have a large group correct i think i think so um i mean what what are your thoughts on does it have other do we defer to our theory to figure out like what no i would say at least i would say at least high schools my my question is is in the context of high schools but as you're looking at that if it makes sense to include others uh please please do as well i'm sorry did we discuss that we wanted to see what the 7012 model looked like we do that um i think you requested that yolanda you said you wanted to know what it looked like i want to see what it looks like but i like to see um again what programs you're offering but but i also like to see i still like to see the separation of it high school i mean a school and a school reimagined as we talked about reimagining if it was reimagined with greater barriers and you know intentional structural barriers two schools on one site two schools on one side yeah okay yeah and then there was also requests for research uh around seven as well and a small thing and i think it goes to uh board member grier's comment about having all the additional data and documents that we're requesting to have that available to the public um there are those you know newcomers in azusa that maybe are not familiar with where all the schools are i think it would be great to have a map of the district at with the locations of the site so as we're looking at people a b c d we can really visualize the distances and the concentration of campuses throughout the city on that note can i also ask a clarifying question uh is this going back or moving forward uh because there was a lot of requests uh and again it's there so it doesn't cost anything but are we saying for the uh what we're reading 1019 board meeting go back and attach the server analysis attach where school reorganization team members um like all all of that um there was a quite a bit of a request which is fine i just want to make sure i understand what we're attaching for 10 19.

[Applause] [Music] next question why and this is forever for anyone that would like to answer why are the democrats now pushing for more school spending as a platform when they've never pushed the democratic state reps to get danbury is fair allocation from the state before thanks for the softball first of all the state delegation has gotten us more money than the governor's proposed budget every single solitary year period this is more important the state of connecticut the way we do pilot funds pilot is payment in rule of taxes those are funds that the state gives to the municipalities for things later not tax like hospitals colleges etc with that re-tiered system danbury winds up with 2.5 additional 2.5 million additional dollars because we are an alliance school district now while the state legislation does not tie those funds specifically to education that is 2.5 million dollars denver is getting an additional state funding because we're an alliance system because of the way our school system that's where we get those funds we hear a lot about the state doesn't fund us enough i don't hear anything from the other end of the table about devoting those dollars to education 245 right now for education that will help there are challenges our students face we know that because of pandemic take the state money that we all say we need and devoted to that got to be clear we could use more money from the state i want more money from the state believe me i want more money from the federal government too we need more money from the city of danbury this is not an issue this is not an either or situation but to be clear the governor proposes a budget every year the state delegation and it's not just a democratic delegation that's been recent the delegation even prior to that when it was a mixed and bipartisan delegation has gotten us more money than the governor's proposed budget every single year is it enough no we want more of course we want more that doesn't mean we haven't gotten more than what the governor has proposed and we have more money right now sitting here for the city of danbury ready to appropriate for education the time to commit tonight [Applause] well like howie joe you said it best is it enough no it's not enough we always want more and i've made it clear before i'll make it clear again the city of danvers steps up every single year to fund the budget for education every single year my colleague here michelle spelled it out for you eight almost nine thousand dollars per student is paid by you the taxpayers of danbury out of your pockets and the money that we send up to the state in tax dollars is 3 500 coming back when it's reversed in most other cities i don't understand that if you can clarify that for me joe that'd be great [Applause] sorry there's no no no answer response thank you [Applause] so we've always lobbied to save her more joe said what i've been saying all day the state has given us more and we've made a promise a commitment to allocate those funds that don't affect our tax dollars to our board of education the only people talking about raising the only person talking about taxes going up here is dean esposito we have money that doesn't affect our taxes and we're committing into that now i'll ask right now hey representative bucker say senator julie please give us more we've always done that nobody is that we are working for more funding we're just saying that the city has not allocated their funds appropriately last five years 51 every year yeah you may increase a couple dollars but the percentage stays the same that's not how you do budgets year in year out maybe these people have been in the city talking too long and it's time for a fresh approach [Music] [Applause] anyone else would like to answer this question that has not spoken on this yet go ahead he's talking about funding he's talking about defunding and not having enough money you know asking the governor and not getting the money i believe he's a democrat and i just have one question for everyone is how is it that we don't have enough money yet for the last three years the board of bed has not used all their funds in that [Music] the mayor has in other words that money goes back to the city and the city has gone and reimbursed or given that money to the board of ed so i don't understand where that disconnection is i just don't understand how we keep talking about defunding when the democrats are on the state the governor the governor and the board of ed and zoning i mean i think you guys need to answer some of your own questions if you have not answered the question yet you may answer the question anyone else yes mr plessy it's been a while since i've heard the question so i'm a little no problem why are the democrats now pushing for more school spending as a platform when they've never pushed the democratic state reps to get danbury its fair allocation from the state so just to clarify the new ecs formula that was frozen for far too long was fixed in 2017 when it was basically a split legislature that's that's the group that's the delegation when we had more republicans on on the delegation there was it was basically split and i believe it was a republican budget that was that was pushed through that year and the new eps formula took effect in 2019.

we're dead last in per-pupil funding the mets and padres were third in their divisions this year to fire their manager they were third [Music] [Applause] i will always fight for our kids and i will always fight for our teachers and excuse me respectfully the only thing public about our charter school is the public money that funds it a school that answers to a board of directors in brookfield or brooklyn is not a public school a charter school does not answer to this board which means it does not answer to you the voters their [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you we're almost finished this overcrowding issue started to bubble up and my kids were still young and we could have easily sold our home and packed up our bags and moved to one of our neighboring communities like the festival of brookfield that wasn't having the issues of overcoming what we were having but we didn't we chose to stay and we stayed because we have the best educators the best administrators and the best support staff that our kids could want to have and also we have a wonderful diversity diversity in our community which we should embrace but after having my kids in the school system for 20 years i can honestly say that you know the city did look out for our kids as a parent i don't feel like they were able to have the best interest of our kids because we're sitting here tonight as parents and we are discussing and we're advocating for the same issues that we as parents sat here 15 years ago they're the same issues we were advocating for then we're doing now so nothing's changed our schools are um a diamond in the rough and we can polish them up and they can be the gems of our community we just need to to focus on doing that and when we do that our children succeed and as a whole our community succeeds as well thank you [Applause] long now since we asked for the question leave the questions what have you done to support what are you giving me to support like i said before we're going to listen we're going to listen we're going to speak and i've shown that i ran for city council in 2017 because of our schools and i haven't stopped advocating for them since when we're when i won in 2019 we continue to advocate advocate for that and we continue now everybody here supports the teachers it's nice it's easy to say that but i'm the only opinion who accepted their directly from the teachers i'm going to continue to support the teachers because they are our front line they're the ones there sacrificing the scholarship so i'm here to support the teachers supporting their administration and continue to support them that is not going to stop thank you [Applause] all guys so at this time we're running a tad bit ahead so we're going to go ahead and give just the two mayoral candidates a two-minute closing speech of their choice potential is to go first thank [Music] i think you made that clear when we did the twin uh coin toss so i'm good with that ladies and gentlemen i'd just like to say thank you thank you each and every one of you for being here tonight to see what we have to say the next mayor of danbury sits up at this dyess either myself or mr alves but i just want to let you know that if i'm selected as the next mayor danbury my goals are simple to move danbury forward as we have in the past 20 years keeping gambling taxes low providing quality service i've been involved in public service for 30 years so i personally believe that experience matters in these times i just want to thank each and every one of you i want to thank the members of this board anybody that's up here is a candidate it's uh it's not easy to step up and put your name out there to be a candidate people get mad at you because of certain things but i just want to bring everybody together tonight as bambarians we're still going to have our issues we're going to still be separated on some of these things but we're all dan durians let's stay focused on danbury and i would like to ask you for your vote in november 2nd so i can continue moving danbury forward with 30 years of experience and a good working relationship with all our departments thank you again for being here thank thank you to everyone here who spent your evening with us because this matters thank you to cypto for hosting this event and thank you for everybody who i'm sharing this guys with this is not easy this is hard for a lot of people you do push yourself out there there are people who don't agree with you almost always it is civil so thank you everybody i think my opponents and everybody who is on this stage my two kids go to our public schools they're gonna go to our middle schools they're gonna go through our high school public high school system i'm here because i've got skin in the game that's what we need we need everybody that's in the game to have a seat at the table and be invested this election is about our future it's about making things better because we can make it better making it better is moving forward making it better is accurately addressing the issues at hand allocating resources accordingly how we need them not kicking the can down the road the board of education is the city that is one of the city of andrew's largest employees we have to listen to what the employees in the larger senate way they start telling us they're telling us they need help this isn't you they have intelligence needing help when organizations aren't run right they change leadership they don't bring in more of the same we need to move forward and we move forward by looking for a leader who isn't afraid to acknowledge that we have practical systems and was willing to make the improvements we needed to make by strategically allocating our resources by committing increases in state funding that we've all talked about that we need and is there to education let's stress that again we're committing to you by committing to increase the flat percentage of the budget it's been for the last five years since 2016.

i also attended the golden days kickoff last night and had an opportunity to hear our fantastic orchestra and our azusa high school advanced choirs and it was just it was a lovely evening outside to see everybody out there um also i had an opportunity to see our gladstone and azusa high school interact students uh received certificates of award from the city council and also supervisor hilda lisa's office so it was wonderful to to see all of the students getting recognized their advisors and then of course the azusa rotary partners who supports our interact students so congratulations to them thank you and good evening i'm board of education staff and community i just want to update the board of education and the community that today we launched our calendar committee meetings uh we are scheduled to meet four times in october we look forward to finalizing this process by the beginning of november to provide the association's time to vote on a calendar and we look forward to bringing to the board of education a finalized calendar to the regular board meeting in december for a vote thank you good evening board and fellow cabinet members i would like to use this opportunity to publicly thank ms shannon and miss sylvia and as well as miss melissa who assisted in putting on our september 30th asb and booster training which we were able to trade all of our asb clubs and our parent groups on proper handling of how to do revenue recognitions how to account for your expenditures um what expenditures are allowable for a booster and asb they've received handouts as well as a four-hour training um that was facilitated by our auditors additionally i would like to thank brian uh allen who was able to procure five more contemporary ac units that have been successfully installed at both azusa high school and glaston high school thank you okay and then from our student board member i believe that we do have crystal lamino here from gladstone high school crystal are you there yes i am the floor hear me yes gladstone had its homecoming game and dance on september 17th and 18th students were excited to be back in person and celebrate the in-person rituals that we used to have before schools were closed gladstone is proud of the football team's win against workmen last friday and the tennis team's performance against workmen as well gladstone's eloc meeting is virtually on october 7th at 8 15 a.m links for the online meeting will be shared with p p with parents via blackboard and school website asp is preparing for our club rush on october 8th during our lunch we have 19 clubs participating and that students can learn about and sign up for if they're interested gladstone counselors are planning for an in-person fafsa night to support parents with the fafsa process the first support night will will occur on october 20th from 5 p.m to 7 p.m in english and the second night will be on october 21st from 5 to 7 in spanish thank you so much crystal we move on to item 9.0 general functions and specifically 9.1 full reorganization superintendent ortega thank you um at a previous board meeting when a study session talked about school reorganization board president arianes and i were tasked with coming up with a timeline based on the feedback of the board of education um and we were able to do that and so today we launched a day one of of three that we have outlined uh today is an info item for the board of education uh to begin conversation about model 3 and model four we have our second uh info only item uh scheduled uh two weeks from now which is uh the 19th of october and then on eleven two the second of november um is our third meeting um and that meeting it has been slight slated for an info action um item and so uh that's that's um based on the feedback that's what we came up with and so i turned the border i turned the floor over to the board of education to begin conversations about school reorganization and the models at hand but that's uh definitely broad but we haven't have space here to discuss does anyone have any anything uh to start our conversation okay i'll start i was looking at me um i i've honestly um had my focus on a certain model but as i go on hearing more about i'm pr i'm annoying a person so you know i like to do my research and speak to staff and students and parents so i have changed my way just a little bit but i'm still very concerned regarding the um the one to two high school models i'm concerned on the one high school model having to do with um overcrowding uh traffic um teacher to student ratio you know i do know we have a ratio cut we'll just say you know one to 35 for example so maybe right now we have one to 30 or 28 i'm not sure but you know then we're gonna reach one to 35 if we put them together so then the i think it's it's very hard for the students to learn and it's very hard i have so many students in the classroom that way that that really concerns me on the one high school and um and of course you know and also the traffic and um most important thing that we we're doing it due to expanding enrollment i also see students that live on another part of town they have a high school right to their right i i i i fear that they will go that route and we will lose even more students but i do not like the stem to tell model when i first when we first started i assumed that the seventh and eighth graders would be in a whole inception but as we spoke the last time like i said you know now i'm hearing that they will be mixed with the high school students in pe or elective classes and and i'm not for that i work 40 years in a junior high school and i do see that the 7th graders and 8th graders they're in their own little world i think they need to grow on their own and not all of a sudden going mixed with the high schools i'm very concerned about that um i have other situations but i will start with that mr ortega has has the district um begun the process of doing any traffic studies we have not begun uh traffic study what would the process be to start that we can start doing that um again are we saying like a traffic study for every model every school or is our specific uh data point that that we need her um did we board member cruz gonzalez did did you get the answer to your question or or if you could refresh my memory about um the distance that students have to travel um was that in our board packet yes i believe when i'm mistaken seven miles and do we have data that show like um or could we compile the data that show that the cluster of students so for example um do we have more students living on the outside of that at the edge of the seven mile radius and what impact that would have if they were going to a different campus i'm kind of looking at the whole district as a whole and figuring out how far students would have to travel is it more on the near side or would locations of campus greatly impact more students traveling a farther distance i think that's some of the questions that i think about and also in terms of um students who walk or bicycle versus students who are have auto pick up and drop if i'm not mistaken and latash i don't know if you know this or not but if i'm not mistaken uh with the exception of uh students who live in uh in the canyon uh the students within uh the not in the canyon i don't go past that seven mile radius and so um technically um there is no transportation provided but we have been speaking about and this was brought up during the school reorganization process that it is important that regardless of the seven mile that we still offer uh transportation um especially i think that was brought up in consideration of model 3.

well that's the purpose of this meeting correct meaning what our meeting that we're having that's the discussion that's the purpose that was thinking about it you know wanted to see certain you want something different than i'm going to see in him in here yeah that's why we're here yeah i would say i recognize that should someone expand this item uh based off of what we're requesting there could be a number of attachments that that that could be there but i i think it's i would suggest that it's better to err on the the side of over communicating and if and if someone does not want to click and read through they do they don't have to but still still providing it foreign like the summative document right so that the last school last committee fly deck that had kind of the final recommendations and the qualitative server analysis from cal poly cal poly pomona like those are things that um those are some new things that we haven't seen but that haven't been made available to the pub i am not hearing that but if that's what it is i'm hearing that is that all the requests from the board around school reorganization that those become attachments so i'll give you just some examples uh it was requested that i reached out to uh the parents that were not present at the last school reorganization team meeting and find out how they would have voted and so that was provided there was a request to know uh when was uh how long have the the parents been on the on the committee when did we switch out and so i just want to be crystal clear about what what you want there was again a lot that was requested which is no big deal all that can be attached i just want to make sure that i'm attaching the right thing that's not what i had in mind okay i okay thank you yeah so so i i wonder if there is if there are questions that we asked at previous meetings maybe it's valuable to share some of that information out i i i suppose it's it's usually more helpful if it's in writings but someone can see it but that so maybe but that's not what i was requesting i'm saying more along the lines of the the summary documents um again the analysis of qualitative data from from cal poly as an example um i think about today we're having a conversation and so if somebody if somebody were tuning in today we and going to 9.1 there's no information there so so as we're talking model three we're saying model three model four the way that someone would know what we're talking about is they're needing to dig in on our website or look at previous uh spooler meetings to know what we mean when we say these things so providing that information so that as we're discussing anybody who is here is able to track along um if they've read the the attachment that would be my hope but and i still recognize that that's a that's a kind of a large ask and it's still a large number of requests but that's what i had in mind more so than um some some of the questions that we've had along the way okay i just wanna do one thing i i don't know if we should have this is really important this is really important to this community this is gonna be a lifetime thing and and i'm feeling pressured um because we need to one more time and then we have to vote you know i i and i know we have an agenda that we need to follow during our meetings i would like to ask for a special meeting just on reorganization just this time reorganization um between now and then wherever but i i just not comfortable just having a meeting and i know we have an agenda we're still gonna go through and then we're gonna have another next meeting in the 19th and then we have a regular agenda on top of that i i don't know how many of them feel so a special meeting where we just discussed yesterday organization those special meetings where we take action on the item or just this year we do additional discussion and then we take action at a regular meeting i'm sorry i said do you want us to actually take action at a special meeting or do you want us to take action at the regular meeting just at a regular meeting but i just like to have your special meeting for information we have a lot of questions i see it and i'm just feeling like right because at the first study session we were supposed to listen and now that we have more no we i agree i think we need a set aside time so that we can have this discussion we never said anything it was our listening right you're right so on october 26th does that work because we have meetings every other tuesday i am available on the 26th of october i am as well yes i'm good and the 26 works for me i do i do still think i'd like to request the information that some of the information that we requested today to have that come back to us at the at the next meeting as you originally intended and and made available and this is an addition too so we're still having this conversation that the next board meeting correct i would say yeah yeah okay yes but i i think we asked for a lot of information so there's probably a lot for you to share at the next meeting with now knowing that we have two more number at least at least three more conversations about this and and we've sent out some some requests and some some homework to the cabinet um does anyone else have any other questions comments to add at this time just to clarify a clarifying request so when we're looking at the idea of a comprehensive middle school and the impact on the curriculum and what that would mean for course access and availability i would also like to see as much detail as we can get regarding the cost of implementing some of these programs as dr mitchell presented two meetings ago the idea of what would an ib elementary and middle school program look like what would a design academy look like in terms of staffing professional development other training specialized equipment i think the more information you know the closer we can get to having some of those estimated costs would help us understand the full picture of of any change so i do want to just point out for us that we spent a lot of time talking about the secondary schools and really didn't talk about the elementaries right um but in my mind um if we do go the route of you know one comprehensive each right which which elementaries what they end up looking to be matters is is going to this it's going to matter on which which way direction we go with it with the with the heist the secondary school yes and i one point of clarity as well we talked about having a meeting adding a meeting to the 26th we haven't talked about what what time um i i would i would request that we that we have it at a normal time which is seven but it start at 7 pm because that's a normal start time so even even though it may be it may be helpful to start earlier for to allow for more conversation i think it's important that it happened at a time that most uh expect and anticipate the meeting but 10 26 at 7 p.m correct special meeting no close touch right any other questions comments moving on then to item 9.2 uh azusa unified school district one-time funding update miss latasha jamal thank you let me prepare my screen share so good evening board uh fellaini cabinet dr mitchell and i will give the board an update on our one-time funding um this has given us a summary of what we have remaining the spin dates and what our plant expenditures are for those appropriate buttons sorry it's a delay so i have to wait till it comes up so right here we have a listing of all of our one-time funds so we see we have a total of 37 million dollars that we either have now or plan that are scheduled to receive so on this schedule we see what the funding is from so we have the carers act it has the funding source it has the allocated resources and also the appropriate deadlines as to when we have to spend the funds by we show that our current allocations we show expenditures if we have any to date and what is the current balance as of right now so here you'll see we have sr1 where we have 1.8 million dollars year one four four hundred thousand dollars and then we go down to your sr3 where it's approximately 20 million dollars that is the one set of allocation that we do not have but those are just um that is the funding that we're slated to receive and you will have the planned expenditure plan that will have to be adopted at our subsequent board meeting now going down we have our elo so these are funding the reason why the balance sheet hold on so just which which um which amount is going to be in the plan that we need to adopt yes or three so that's 17.6 plus the 4.4 any other question okay and so then we have our elo um grant the reason why the balance shows zero is not an indication that we have spent at all but that is showing that we have already approved those planned expenditures and they are budgeted and they were approved back in may at our last board meeting so for this presentation we are going to go over each funding source one by one we are going to identify the funding source what we have available we are also going to show the slide that shows the allowable expenditures as well as the next slide will show you our planned expenditures to spend the allocated fund so here we are going to start with sr1 so sr1 we have 1.8 million dollars available these are a summary of the allowable uses this is coming directly from cde so it tells us exactly what we can and cannot spend the funds on for each of the allocation funds that we have received i mean here even with the same line this is our plant expenditure plan for the 1.8 million we've been getting uh quite a bit of input from stakeholders including staff and students and we will be having an upcoming meeting uh that includes parents as well and these are um what we are considering uh as areas for the expenditures so additional certificated instructional staff at both the elementary and secondary levels reading specialists to support our literacy plan we have a plan that we are aligning to the state literacy plan um saturday summer professional learning for certificated and for classified staff so beyond the workday which does alleviate the need for subs staff for mental health support funding to support any possible school reorganization and then funding for western justice center to continue the program and to expand as well so keeping in line with the same plan so we go to our gear one fund we currently have four hundred and ten thousand dollars remaining this is a list of the allowable uses again according to cde and here is our planned expenditure plan for the four hundred and ten thousand dollars in some of the different kind of buckets of money as we like refer to it you'll see some of the same items that are repeated as we are able to use multiple funding to support some of the larger expenditures here you will see summer programming you'll see funding to support tutoring for students and as well as continuing to expand and to purchase culturally relevant instructional materials which would also include elementary classroom library materials now moving to sr2 where we have 9.7 million dollars this is where we have until september 2023 you spend these funds here it outlines the allowable uses and here is our proposed expenditure plan for the nine million dollars and this funding specifically delineates uh purchasing uh technology so hardware network so we would use this to upgrade and improve our network technology we've also included a social emotional learning coach as a possibility for our mental health support for students now moving to sr3 sr3 we will receive approximately 20 million dollars it is broken up into two buckets twenty percent of our sm3 allocation has to be applied to instruction and so here we are showing the first the 17.5 million dollars is the allowable expenditures for sm3 and our current expenditures plan for sr3 for the 17 million is to upgrade district-wide um with the hopes in alignment with our school reorganization all of our hvac um or the heating and ventilation and ac conditioning unit as well as to continually improve insulation by redoing our windows so they can actually open um and also incorporate shade structure and outdoor seating on our campus now going to the 20 allocation of the 4.4 this is our current expenditure plan so in this uh bucket we have our steel instructional coaches to support our steel instructional implementation um so the seal coaches in addition to supporting teachers with instructional planning and the implementation the steel coaches would also be supporting the grade level professional learning communities with supporting how we use data to inform instruction and provide differentiated support through instructional groupings uh we have a plan to have steel at all of our elementary sites and right now we are implementing uh this year we're super excited to steal at three of our elementaries but our plan is to expand to all of our elementaries and so in the meantime while we're waiting for that expansion we would have um additional instructional coaches and it would be the same idea so um these would be the same approach as the steel coaches and then those coaches would transition uh to be being still coaches at the other side now moving over to our in-person instructional grant um we currently have 2.7 million dollars available following the same format these are the allowable uses for those funds and here is our planned expenditure plan and so again you'll see some of uh some of these same um areas that we can uh spend additional funding on but some of the other things that we've added to this one are experiential learning so um things such as field trip um also our project-based learning implementation and we would like to spend it on that as well and to our last bucket is the extended learning grant um again this was board approved back in may we currently have 3.3 remaining of our current allocation here are the allowable uses um as well as the plan sorry and here's the plan which was previously on board approved and i'll pass the doctor mitchell yes and this these are just we've listed some of the uh the key areas uh that are in our expenditure plan so within this we have we spent money on our summer programming project-based learning field we've hired additional certificated classified and certificated staff for professional learning uh project-based learning mental health supports and think together as well so those are some of the the big topics of what we've already um budgeted and we've been spending our our funds on for that and with that we would like to say thank you and open up for questions okay i guess i'll go first um so i think this is very helpful um and so i really appreciate it um um i think what would be a good next step is to articulate um i see and and as you as you pointed out right we're layering dollars to be able to fully fund some of these right so correct i think what would be helpful for us to understand is really what are those key approaches that we're doubling down on back to um sabrina's point about like reimagining or reimagining how we do how we do education right so what are those key strategies that we're focusing on i see them all in here multiple times so let's articulate very clearly what those are and really what the investment in each of those is going to be like the total investment um as well as um one of the things that i get concerned about like so i appreciate that we're spending one time dollars like on our stl coach what is going to be our plan when those dollars expire in two to three years right how are we going to ensure the sustainability the steel coaches right how are we going to ensure sustainability with the coaches that we're putting in um so i think those are the pieces that i would like to see and understand so more a more comprehensive view of how the dollars are being spent um that's that's number one for me um i think this is this helpful but really putting dollars next to our like high doses tutoring right this is how much we plan to expand um and what this is when it's going to start right this is how many students we plan to to be able to read um um so i think that that is important to me um just i'd like to see that right i guess maybe when you bring back the s3 plan addendum that you're going to bring back it's a it's a template right you're going to fill it you're going to bring us right so um to understand that um and then for us to have time to have a conversation about what are those areas right i think i saw on slides uh not last night but the time before like talking about like bringing ib down to middle school and elementary right like is that part of this is this that a good use of one time dollars where we know there's really high startup costs that take three years right maybe we have conversations about what what you know is that valuable there are there are initial costs around like fuel immersion right is it valuable project-based learning right so so just understanding like how how important are these each of these pieces and what we're planning to invest um i was taking a quick look on the website and maybe i'm just not looking in the right area but it is our safe safe to return to school plan um for the so3 funds is that on the website no so the sr3 we will actually be bringing it to the board for approval um at the next board meeting was there a i think it's called safe to return plan that had to be posted on an lea's website yes you have that and i believe that's on our covet um but it's a safe school for where did i find the cove tab i don't i don't see it covered tab or reopening i'm sorry not clothes did you find it sabrina no if i'm not mistaken uh the that plan is a um it's taking the the appendix protocols with the cal osha prevention plan and i think those two together is what is referred to as the safety plan and so there we don't have them combined here together but i think those two things make up that plan and so those are under covert 19 reopening document if i'm on the home page where how do i navigate i apologize for picking up no worries reopening schools okay i'll take a look at this page thank you there's also uh there's an icon a link on the find it fast on the home page that says we're opening cool oh thank you okay thanks and i uh so i just just add another request i do want us to think about and maybe not coming with this doll these dollars but um we have significant amount of unspent um supplemental concentration dollars right over right so really articulating how we intend to spend those dollars um you know or if there's a plan for it or if it's something that we're going to i don't know i just want to understand like it was how much was it it was like 20 5 million oh sorry about making up numbers like no no no it's 5 million so but that's i mean that's a good that's a good amount of money right so just you know that that as well thinking about how how do we how is all this going to layer to build up this this vision that we have and maybe the vision is the most important piece right what is that some of that has been uh being spent down also because we had our summer programming um go into august and so we still had um invoices coming in from like high tech high from the you know pbl professional learning and from think together and all that so some of those you know those things have been spent with that though and then my other question for you speaking about summer learning um so i mean the state is is is investing significantly right in some of these pieces that will come into effect in the next upcoming years i'm thinking about expanded tk right where now we're not going to be having to fund it out of lcff um some are expanded learning opportunities because we'll be getting additional dollars for that um the community schools initiative that hopefully we'll apply for and get right and be able to layer that onto the work that we do so i'm just wondering i don't think that needs to come in like this month but i do think i think for us within this year to have a conversation thinking about like how can those dollars that have been captured that we were using for these broken really critical programs how are we going to think about reallocating those dollars yeah good point that's all i have adrien any other questions remember bo not at this time thank you then we'll move on to um 10.0 consent calendar and 10.1 approval of consent calendar so all matters listed under the consent calendar are considered by the board of education to be routine and will be enacted in one motion there will be no discussion of these items unless requested by a board member if a board member requests discussion that item will be removed from the consent calendar and considered separately is there a motion to make a motion to approve 10.2 to 10.9 my second i think you had made a motion to approve just item 10.1 right that that would cover everything yeah and actually if i could substitute make a stew motion here to pull approve all items uh except for [Music] item ten point stick i would just ask yolanda to amend promotion it would be easier to do that would you you're gonna pull an item item 10.6 oh okay so um i retract my motion um make a motion to approve 10.1 the consent calendar with the exception of 10.6 i second that motion any discussion and the motion passes four to four yes the one happens now moving on to item 11.1 uh which is the approval of the contract between azusa unified school district and nancy acabian consulting is there a motion to approve i make a motion to approve 10.

this past legislative legislative session the governor originally proposed freezing the new formula we're still due we still do our fair share bottom line we're not getting it until 2028. most of our people have been graduated by them we need it now we had our chance we need to come up with a way to appropriately fund our children now they need [Applause] this is the last audience question before we have the final question for everyone and again this is an open question if there was community momentum desiring metal detectors at our high school would you be in support of that action if there was community momentum desiring metal detectors at our high school would you be in support of that action thank you yes it's next mayor danvers i would definitely support that because the safety of these kids is the most important thing out there and i know everybody in this room would agree no matter what party we are thank you [Applause] thank you i also would say yes i think we can also keep tragic event today and anything we can do to keep our children safe you know i think like being said everybody here is for so of course [Applause] [Music] okay so we have a last question um it's going to be for everybody and i think we'll just go down the line here sure we can start with mr esposito and come down this way and we'll go two minutes each and the question is drawing from your demonstrated record in danbury please share with us what is it that distinguishes you as a champion for teachers students and public education champion for education that's easy the teachers themselves are the champions i support the teachers in every single way the frontline teacher that actually does the job and educates our kids every single day those that stepped up to put their lives online to educate our kids during this pandemic my goals are simple as the next mayor i'm going to support the teachers the true teacher that's actually doing the job out there each and every day i'm going to support you the employees of this city each and every day but most of all i'm going to support you the constituent the people of this city we are one city danbury is a one city and we are a shining star because we all work together and put our differences aside when we have to that's the best part about this city i've lived here my whole life basic and there you go i'm 61 years old i've lived in the borders of danbury for 45 years yeah they are so the reality of it is my goals are simple i love this city i work together with anybody out there that needs to watch to put this city first like i do the city of danbury is the best place to live in this state and in this country as far as i'm concerned and the kids of this city deserve better than what we're putting out here today we need to work together and provide founding answers to the students of this city so they're safe and there's to continue to get educated in the top quality education that our teachers are providing them our administrators are providing them and our city government's providing them thank [Applause] however you know after living working especially with all teachers and being able to work with the state department worked with all the people all my life over 50 years in education i still say we need to support them yes and we need to make sure that all of us in this city work for the city if this is where we're living this is where we need to support this is what we need to do for all our residents and our students we've got to make those students the next reign of residents in our city and yes i believe we need to put every foot forward to help this make it happen so you know education 50 plus years what am i thinking right i've been here all this time i've lived through here longer than everybody probably sitting in the audience and i'm still here in this city because it is the best place to be just repeat that question sure drawing from your demonstrated record in danbury please share with us what is it that distinguishes you as a champion for teachers students and public education okay um i'm a parent my son is 23 years old i've been through the system iep i've got two other children um i would say most importantly what i can contribute is my background i'm again a cuban american my parents came here exiled about 60 years ago they made it very clear and instilled in me how important an education is especially for people that have a second language they are not victims they have more to offer they have the ability to add diversity more diversity to the city which we already are very diverse but we want to make sure that every single child in danbury is successful and graduating at the same rate and it becomes inclusive an inclusive city with everyone um given that opportunity and able to shape their future they cannot take anything away from you the only thing you can keep in life is your education um and that will take you forward in life so i'm basically here to oversee and try to help wherever i can to make sure that our kids get an excellent education that we know where to put the money more money does not mean a better education and um i think that the republican party is really um addressed all the facets we're trying to push through there's always so much more to do but you know we're all here all of us i think on this stage wanting to help our kids and trying to find out the best way to do that and i think together if we all work together we can get there [Applause] [Music] uh thank you for that can you hear me um i think in my last 20 or so years of teaching um i have proven that i am a champion not only for teachers but for students and i've had thousands of them many many many many of them i'm still in touch with teachers that they say teachers affect students lives but students also attend and to be a champion for public education i would and for the reasons i'm going to give i would fight hard to not allow a charter school in danbury it is a hope it is a private empathy run by private people and the people who run them donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to people that are running campaigns um they fail within forty percent of the charter schools in connecticut fail within 10 years and go out of business and i say out of business because they're not public also the one that is proposed for danbury please let him speak thank you the one that has proposed for danbury is taking in 110 students per year for six years but guess what our student population is projected to grow by at least 600 students in six years so that is a complete wash thinking that's going to obedience 30 seconds the crowding in this damn schools it's not and we need to find better ways and better solutions so yes i would definitely be a champion for public education [Music] [Applause] advocating for our schools for our public schools there's nothing there's actually nothing private about charter schools in connecticut just like magnet schools technically technical schools and activism schools the purpose of a charter school is to raise student achievement in the state's lowest performing districts and are only permitted in alliance districts the charter management organization has to be by law a non-profit everything is open uh finances are transparent board meetings are open and they're they're held at a higher accountability for autonomy to to raise green achievement that is that's the goal of the charter school now if you want to talk about enrollment study we are bound by our demographic studies of what we're building we've had several demographic studies in the past three years we're about to embark on another one uh with our new superintendent um but we're building we're building right now all of our our projects that are ongoing the career academy the elder santa um the middle school classrooms are all based on those projections from the demographer we are bound by by them that's what we build on baby state um reimbursement so that the burden doesn't fall totally on the local taxpayers um and and we're bound by where the growth is the growth is in our downtown and that's why we're building an annex to eldworth avenue school [Applause] so i just want to leave everyone with this is that my personal opinion is i don't i'm speaking from one of them i don't feel that corn event should be really political it turns out to be that way political here tonight so all i'm saying is i'm not guaranteeing money i'm not commenting on charter school only one that i can guarantee is that i will always and always in the past have put the teachers staff and kids in this [Applause] [Music] who have served on the board understand that sometimes things just don't work so it's do your best and always put the staff and children ahead of politics [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and after the election there's no more politics it's going forward for the best of the town and our schools thank you thank you i will agree with ralph in this regard i am very proud to serve in the board of education for the last few years and i can say with the utmost honesty i have an amazing respect for everybody on that board that i've served with for the last two years and politics has never crept into it everybody's done what they thought was right and that's what we have to do as elected officials and as a champion for kids i think i've done that for the last two years i think i'll continue to do that both in advocating for our career academy and the innovative education that that will offer our children advocating for the other expansions that we're doing to address enrollment and fighting for proper funding to be clear mayor mayor of the oral candidate esposito is correct danbury spends about nine thousand dollars per student to be clear norwalk spends 14-5 in stanford 16 000.

this is a question of where our values lie where our priorities stand and if i'm fortunate enough to earn your vote in november you know you can count on me to prioritize our kids and prioritize our future so thank you everybody for sharing this evening that ladies and gentlemen we'll conclude our night on behalf of the city-wide people we would like to thank all the candidates for coming out tonight spending their evening with us we hope all you the audience have enjoyed the evening with us as well good night [Applause] you

so you're talking about home to school home to school transportation not special ed transportation that is correct i don't remember that as a deep topic was that in in the meetings themselves or was that here at the board uh that was in the meetings uh that also shows up in our surveys as well um this this notion of if we're going to be closing schools again i believe it shows up more for those that want model 3 that it's important that we are providing transportation because technically right you're going from one side of town to the next side of town so i think it would be helpful um to understand because though i don't i mean it may be wrong but i don't think we saw like cost estimates for that with some of these models with i guess would be model three did we did i missed that was it was it in there so there was no cost estimate because we currently have the fleet that if we needed to transport all of our students right now we have enough buses we would just have to increase our drivers so that but that but that would be a cost right yes yes but that was not including any of the models yeah so it would be so i guess what i'm asking is that would be good to understand right how those any any any anticipated transportation costs um that would that would be required um and i would just i mean i would just say i i appreciate that we have enough buses but i know there's also maintenance there's you know having to buy new buses as you upgrade i mean i appreciate we have natural gas buses right a lot of districts are moving to electric buses at this point um so i think that's important information first take into consideration and i also i also wanted to add that i did notice the model three and four that uh and i would say it again that i see in elementary school middle school and a high school um foreclosure on those both models so the question is on model 3 and 4 the board of education or the other or can be mixed you know um that's my one question then i also see an elementary school and and nom talked about enrollment that has maybe 300 and some students and then the others who has 408 that have already been moved there from another and then now the um um oh no i'm sorry not now the smaller school i i think that should be easier to to move than this other school that has more students and that have already been moved there from another school just a couple of years ago thank you to address the first question uh we have been uh very open and very transparent through the whole school reorganization team process that their recommendation could be accepted by the board of education it could be outright rejected by the board of education or it could be amended by the board of education so the answer is yes um the two models that exist right now do come from the team but they know um we said it more than enough times that this was a recommendation only and that the board of education could change those models or can come up with a different model that we haven't even discussed or thought about so i do i do have a question and and maybe leave more information but um as you talked about just looking at the models um was there any discussion about what glendora high school looked like and how it's set up because my understanding is it was built at the same time as it was the high school right they've been able to reconfigure to house a very large student population so was that part of the conversation or have we looked at what that school looks like the layout of that school so to answer the first part of the question yes um glendora high school as other high schools uh have been mentioned uh in terms of if we went to one high school like what what what could be or or what what we can you know aspire to or think about or use as an example uh but have we gone to to look at it no so my understanding is that it was actually the exact same layout as this is the high school so it's not like maybe other high schools where this actually when they first built they looked identical that's the same architect right so that's why i'm recommending that maybe we look at that and just so we can maybe address the concerns about what what would a large facebook look like on that you know with with us with the original footprint that we had yeah absolutely a thousand percent and and also too i mean just our own history right our own history in azusa there was a time uh when our high schools were large uh there was a time when on the existing campuses right now we house a large amount of high school students and then um apologies if it was at the update but in terms of the demographic piece when do we anticipate in getting the information about or did that already come to us in terms of like that you know the multi-year outlook for demographic ah yes that was in the board packet and you have uh ten years of that so we're not going to get 20 years like we requested we did speak to the demographer and they said 10 years as as far as they go and then i just have one last question um regarding the high schools you know um on the models you know everyone assumes this is a high school because i know it's in azusa california but at one point they told us don't look at the schools look at the capacity you know so there's two high schools they're both in a zoo unified school district we have to look at what does it i believe the capacities are the same ones not or close to each other um you know what is the newest school you know which one has more room we haven't looked at that we just everyone just seems to assume that it should be there because it's in azusa and it's there but you know they're both in this unified school district that that's just a thought a couple thoughts that i had um the one i had been i had been kind of operating under the assumption based off of early conversations that the the whole concept of a 7 12 model would in include i remember hearing language like a school within a school i remember i remember hearing things like that and um i guess as as that figured my imagination around what what how how might we creatively offer specialized electives to our younger students if there were uh teachers and and and and courses and programs equipment that was on the same campus and and in my mind went through how might we you know creatively utilize that for them to gain access i don't know that my mind back then went to the idea of fully mixing uh seventh and and eighth grade students with with uh high school age students um and i mean i i'd love to hear some for us discuss a little bit about that and share the thinking behind that and the the where and why we land what what does that look like if we can unpack more of the model because i i as i've talked to a number of folks i hear concerns and i and i understand the concerns that are involved with that uh layout and i'll let cabinet chairman if they want to chime in after after i kind of open this up um i think it's still a school within a school uh but i think i think what we're talking about um is this is not gonna be a fenced off like the kids will never mix type of environment right now at our high schools if we look at our core classes we do have a lot of classes at 36 we do have some electives at 36 but we have some courses with five kids and so the the the concept of reorganization is to maximize and be able to offer uh multiple programs and multiple avenues and so if we if we if we do not envision or think about especially like elective courses that that can be taken by multiple or multi-age students then we might still be constrained uh and still challenged with the type of programs and the amount of programs that we offer that are not quote unquote past the court right um so not to say that that's insurmountable now you are going from technically three middle schools to two seven eight so that helps and that and that is definitely a plus but we never um and again not that it can't be but we definitely never thought that this would be a fenced off um never ever gonna be able to to come together at no point in time that definitely was not the thinking behind that but the concept of school within a school just like just like in in in some ways uh valley dale and and hodge right a dual immersion program kind of a school within a school kind of the same thing but but but no we never thought that it would be completely fenced off or roped off and that that there would be no no flow but again not to say that that cannot happen uh but that was never the thinking actually so could you speak to that i mean if could you speak to the viability of of this if if there were actual barriers so you know school within the school you talk about dual immersion at valley dale or hodge my mind goes to uh adult ed in stara high school my my my mind goes to adult transition and magnolia so that's that's where my mind goes when i think of school within the school and you speak to the potential viability of that type of school within a school with a 712 fund um so i mean again it's possible but then i guess the question would be if if if the whole concept is to rope it off now we're talking about an administrator a secretary like like legitimately a school which again can be on the same campus but for that matter can be off campus as well right so that's again the feasibility i think is there but there's these other things that right now we're not considered as part of the 712 model because again if you're completely fencing it off now you're thinking about a staff that is dedicated to run that school just like we do for matp just like we do sierra and adult school mr ortega and for the next uh info meeting on the 19th i'd like to request that um we get some you know a summary or memo outlining the what the research says about the barriers and drivers for to successful 7-12 program so i know we're positing things like um our junior high kids having access to higher level electives um but we don't have to there's a lot of precedent and research around what work and and and what also are the barriers to those successful programs i'd like us to have a greater understanding um from from other district and and the literature and in addition to that if we could also as as ad ensure that when we have these items so we're going to have two more conversations that are that are scheduled at each of these conver conversations and items but we include attachments that that lay out the the models that we're that we're discussing and even some of the info um i'm thinking about the the analysis of the qualitative data is that something that has been been shared out widely um or or not figured out put out widely but i think of some of those some of those requests for information that we have if that were here and and available for anybody who is checking along with us as we're having these these subsequent conversations that they're they're looking at the the same information as we're making these requests and i also would like to see if i don't know if it's possible that we can visit a school if it's a seven or twelve model i i've never seen one before myself i do dr mitchell i know i spoke to her and i know her daughters go to the 72 70 12 school but i would like to see it i mean i don't know if we have time to do that but i i would like to see what does it look like you know other than on paper i ever like i do i do want to say since we're talking about 7-12 i i am concerned at for the high school level and i appreciate you saying that we have some classes that are full and just this the number of high school students that would be on each campus because it wouldn't reduce i mean it would still those would be small numbers and we're pushing we're going to be under a thousand soon at both high schools which makes it very difficult to offer a full-fledged program for those kids and opportunities right i mean the schools that i see that are that small i think of like the the one they have and passing is not a good example because they have a lot of small schools but like their smallest school it's a specialized ib school right same thing you see in west covina these are not we they're not offering full athletic programs all the pieces that we want to see at a comprehensive high school so i have a lot of concerns about having us i also have the concerns about the you know having mixing the grades but just about like what kind of what kind of like opportunity are we giving these high school kids when they have these very small school i did want to ask a question um because i and i appreciate you making it clear that it really is it you know that where we can be open to other ideas one of the one of the suggestions that we all got via email was looking at maybe looking at one of the high school sites to be the site of the middle school because then you would have a gym that we don't have in any of our high schools we would have some really amazing we'd have an amazing field right so i'm just wondering up from our perspective around having a conversation about what would that look like right i mean i think in my mind i think some of the issues that would come up would be transportation right because it'd be very difficult to ask middle schoolers to travel travel all the way across across the whole city i don't know i think those are things we need to discuss but i would like us to consider if we go that route of having one comprehensive middle school one comprehensive high school think about how do we best utilize the site right because i i mean i think and then plus the fact that you then wouldn't have to modernize a different middle school so we'd be saving money on those two middle school sites so that's something for us to think about yeah i like that that idea well i'm curious when we say that something for us to think about where in this process is that thinking about happening if if if the if november 2nd is the scheduled decision is that think about now well so then i guess maybe my request is for the next meeting can you come back and so what would be the feasibility of having one comprehensive high school and one middle school and really looking at what would they what would how would that look at it to be honest a point about being agnostic right what would it look like to have gladstone being the high school azusa being the middle school and also azusa being in the high school being the middle school right so we can have a conversation about what that look and i think the transportation piece for me is probably one of the most key factors i think transportation and understanding those operating costs right because we have a sense of the capital cost already um and i think just as important if we were to have a single comprehensive middle school what would that mean for course offering yeah i i'm guessing it would greatly expand but i'd like to see more detail on what what the change would be from what we have now at our separate middle schools and what it could be if we went that direction uh just i think i heard it correctly but just basically what we're going to do is we're going to bring model 3 reimagined um and the reimagining is that we're going to have one of the high schools become the the middle school uh we're going to flip it both ways so this is what it looks like if azusa is a middle school and gladstone is a high school this is what it looks like if azusa is a high school graduate high school we want to look at the impact that that's going to have on program and we're also going to be looking at the impact uh of of what it what it looks like to provide transportation i also would like to see the you know what does the enrollment look like and and the capacity you know we keep talking about capacity but i like to compare both of them on on both models you know when you when you speak of a time of ancient times past when um there were more students at the high schools i think back of my time uh in in the the high schools and and so is it is it helpful if we were to have a snapshot of let's say 15 20 or 20 years ago and look at what the capacity was back then to get a sense of how we have how we have operated um at various capacities absolutely so you're talking about looking at like the peak years sure yeah you're trying not just the high schools too because it was i mean it varies right because we have a large group correct i think i think so um i mean what what are your thoughts on does it have other do we defer to our theory to figure out like what no i would say at least i would say at least high schools my my question is is in the context of high schools but as you're looking at that if it makes sense to include others uh please please do as well i'm sorry did we discuss that we wanted to see what the 7012 model looked like we do that um i think you requested that yolanda you said you wanted to know what it looked like i want to see what it looks like but i like to see um again what programs you're offering but but i also like to see i still like to see the separation of it high school i mean a school and a school reimagined as we talked about reimagining if it was reimagined with greater barriers and you know intentional structural barriers two schools on one site two schools on one side yeah okay yeah and then there was also requests for research uh around seven as well and a small thing and i think it goes to uh board member grier's comment about having all the additional data and documents that we're requesting to have that available to the public um there are those you know newcomers in azusa that maybe are not familiar with where all the schools are i think it would be great to have a map of the district at with the locations of the site so as we're looking at people a b c d we can really visualize the distances and the concentration of campuses throughout the city on that note can i also ask a clarifying question uh is this going back or moving forward uh because there was a lot of requests uh and again it's there so it doesn't cost anything but are we saying for the uh what we're reading 1019 board meeting go back and attach the server analysis attach where school reorganization team members um like all all of that um there was a quite a bit of a request which is fine i just want to make sure i understand what we're attaching for 10 19.

11.1 moved by board member rodrigo espana all second seconded by board member uh cruz gonzalez and discussion let let me let me start um correct me if i'm as i'm looking at the document that's attached this is a um this is a contract document from from the consultant correct or is this this is not our that's correct i so i know we've had some conversation about this in the past and i'm and i'm i'm i'm comfortable with this document as as is but i i want to i want to remind us and and and kind of um look at which what the types of documents that we are we're creating and when we're entering into these agreements how might we shape and craft um when we're entering into agreements most importantly what i what i'm looking for that i don't exactly see i do see that well it talks about um the contractor services and so professional development on small group literacy but still what's missing is what are what are our hope for outcomes when when we're doing this what are we what are we hoping that through this what happens and and what are those success indicators just as we are evaluating these these dollars that are spent year to year that we just have an opportunity to stay this was worth that investment and here's how we here's how we know i'm asking a clarifying question uh because we definitely heard that um and i think uh to the board's point last time i think that some of the consultants were not doing that and so with our last board meeting actually with this board meeting coming up here on 12.1 we trying to ensure that those things are there this is this is a contract and so i just want to make sure that i understand fully um are we talking about all contracts are we talking about instructional contracts um so that again so we know you know moving forward because i mean contracts come i mean there's lots of them and some are you know for repairs and some are for like this one for instruction uh so just want to make sure that as we're moving forward to make sure that we're doing what's being asked yeah i would say that in in the recent past i have heard a lot of uh conversation and question around how our district utilizes the ways that we utilize consultant and and the differences between choosing to utilize consultants for things first is building capacity within our own district to be able to do things and not needing consultant it's also my my understanding that even prior to me being part of part of this board that there was a a tremendous reduction in number of consultants that that we use and so therefore those that we do use we're bringing forward because we we've already kind of filtered through and decided now that the ones that we have they are they are worth that at the the while in an investment of the dollars that we're spending and what an roi that we get from that so knowing all of that and and being being mindful of that i guess i guess my request is when when we are i don't know how maybe maybe consulting is broad is a broad term um but but yeah my request i guess broadly is as we are entering into those and we're spending dollars maybe if we have a threshold maybe if there's a threshold of dollars or uh that we are saying that beyond this threshold then we are this is the accountability that we put in place to stay that we're spending these dollars and this is the this is the roi roi we are expecting um and also benchmarks to be able to say we still we still think it's worthwhile to invest these dollars in in a consultant or to because we don't have the capacity within our district but we're not getting that from this particular consultant or this particular agency and so that that moves us to look to look elsewhere it would just be helpful for me it would be informative for me as a board member as i'm making some of those decisions to have a better sense of um of of of those performance indicators to add on to what board member is saying i think what i would like to see this is a discussion item is for you know i'd like to see a standardized contract template for management consulting so i think many of the things that fall under curriculum instruction like ms akavon's contract and she's a continuing person we've heard her name come up over again um maybe we saw ms amis's contract right so having the district finalize its contract and say that you know we're comfortable with all the terms we're protected and building in the requirement to have the detailed scope of work that describes date timelines deliverables quantities so that the questions that we have brought up in recent meetings we can feel more comfortable with that any contract any consultant that's engaging with us we're going to have to put in that work to fill it all out before it comes to board so that maybe we won't have questions or that all the information that's presented is comprehensive is that a possibility so just a couple of things just for though and i know it's broad but so there are people like nancy this is a business right so she has a contract there are people like chrissy jones uh who is a consultant right and they might not have a business and so we're just going to hire the consultant to do xyz so those are two different processes if you will right um but just like we break a contract with um nick partner right to come and help us with the network or whatever um so those are two kind of different ways that consultants might come come to us uh but i think it's still i think there's some there's some doable i i know that some some companies this is our contract and this is you know what we do um i'm sure that there's going to be lag time there uh because you know they're gonna say this is our contract i'm gonna say okay well we're we're sending it back because we have we want these things uh there then they're gonna say okay well hold on there's we have to check with legal and so there'll there'll be a disruption there in terms of timeliness um but i mean again can it be done i'm sure it can be done mr trigger i'm looking at these i mean nancy miss jones was amos they're all independent contractors whether or not they're incorporated as an llc or or or working as a sole proprietor so i think the umbrella of independent contractor versus a firm like nick partners i think that's a line of demarcation and i think you know for example if we were contracting with pepsi we're going to use pepsi's contract right they're the bigger fit but if we're working with independent contractors or smaller smaller consulting firms or that we're engaging as an independent contractor i think a district we can have our own standardized and vetted form that we can use and then if the contractor if the consultant wants to negotiate on that then you can entertain that on a case-by-case basis depending on what they what flexibility they're asking for so i i just want to add to that um because i think uh i mean i know you said that some of them have their own contracts but we know that there's some entities like i will say laco who insist you use their contract or go away right and i'm not saying that we need to be that inflexible but i think that it makes sense for us to have our own contract the second piece around like some of the content pieces that that sabrina talked about in terms of like what are deliverables what are expected outcomes i would expect that would be coming from our staff right because you are bringing the consultant in in your mind you're bringing them in for a specific purpose and so maybe that doesn't belong on the contract i know before adrian there was this form developed that that that you were supposed to fill out or not for any contract um i think that i felt a little onerous to me and maybe i missed it right but i think maybe more deliberate about what those expected outcomes are and maybe end some of the end the benchmark i think that's what i hear my colleagues saying those are our responsibilities right and those are the things i think that we as a board are asking that we expect see when contracts come it gets there yeah i'm gonna keep pushing you just want to make sure i i cuz i heard something different here so so maybe and the laco like well this is the contract or the pepsi or whatever um but that doesn't preclude us or stop us from saying in the rationale or in a subsequent like hey this is what we're expecting out of this contract or this consultant these are the deliverables these are the benchmarks make some yeah i i i i would say that that sounds it sounds like you're capturing the the spirit behind the some of the conversation in the request here is it would it be more helpful or or not if if you and or your team were to look at what what some of those guidelines would be because because you are there and you're hearing what what some of the requests that we're making does it make more sense for you to put some of those guidelines or thresholds or or or how we go about that because there are probably exceptions that we don't know or don't realize and so as we're if we're making a request and you walk away from this as a as a a board directive and then find yourself in a in a pickle that we that we didn't anticipate that maybe you all could have anticipated is is that a would that be a more appropriate way um to communicate the guidelines through which we approached that and then even if that was thrown into uh i i would be comfortable with i don't know if it was is it something needs to be approved or is it a is it a packet it would be helpful if it somehow came back to a board meeting for info even if it was in consent i don't know that we need to talk a whole lot more about it unless someone wants to but it might be helpful just to communicate uh publicly this is an approach that we're going to take and maybe let me ask more specifically would that be more is is what is that is that feasible and is in it does does that have the potential to make uh the work that you all have to do easier um by by by doing this and and still get us to where we are where we're asking or would it be better for the the previous request i think the latter request if you allow us the opportunity to wrap our heads around this and then bring it forward i think that that would be the best perfect okay then any other any additional discussion then let's go ahead and vote and the item passes four yes excuse me to one absent moving on to 12.0 curriculum and instruction uh item 12.1 approval of the consultant agreement between azusa unified school district ausd and christy jones holistic health and mindfulness code is there a motion to approve and make a motion to approve 12.1 moved by board member rodriguez pena i stuck in the motion and seconded by board member bo any discussion then let's go and vote and i would just say this is a good example of how it's really clear what it's going to be what this is for or when it's going to happen i think you know and the item passes four yes so one absent moving to item 12.2 approval of the contract between azusa unified school district and the tides center is there a motion to approve make a motion on 12.2 moved by board member rodriguez pena oh second seconded by board member excuse me who's gonzalo any discussion let's go and vote and the motion passes four yes to one absent moving to item 12.3 public hearing for sufficiency of instructional materials is there a motion to open this public hearing i make a motion on 12.3 to the public hearing moved by board member rodriguez pena do you have a second i snack in the motion pregnant by board member beau um and so this the public hearing then is um opened at 8 33 pm uh lika do we have anyone online who wishes to speak at this time we do not have any hands raised at this time any comments from the board so this um attestation that we have sufficiency of instructional materials does this include any materials that are on back order that we have not yet received or how do we count what is sufficient does that mean it's physically in hand and distributed students what is our threshold it's both in hand and it's also online it can be either one the los angeles county office of education we do a survey for them of all the um the instructional materials that we have and so um we have certifications from all of our principals that we have sufficiency of all of our material and does that sufficiency mean that there is one license or one textbook per student or does that mean could it also could it instead mean that there is a class that for students to use when they're on campus no it's not a quest that it's one it would be one bird that they would be able to use in class and take home as well is this the same or different from williams act requirement uh it's the same thank you those are my questions you're welcome another question then i will go and close this public hearing at 8 35 pm and we will move to item 12.4 approval of resolution 21-22 sufficiency of instructional materials is there a motion to approve to make a motion to approve 12.4 moved by board member rodriguez pena do we have a i second the motion seconded by board member beau any discussion then let's go and vote and the motion passes four yes to one absent moving on to item uh 13.0 and actually 13.1 through 13.6 which are curriculum and uh policies policies and bylaws are there any items between 13.1 to 13 point stick that any board member has any questions or comment in regards hearing hearing none we will move to item 14.0 uh adjournment uh do we have a motion to approve our adjournment i make a motion on 14.1 meeting adjournment i stuck in the motion moved by board member rodriguez pena seconded by board member beau any discussion bye hearing hearing none uh let's go and vote and the motion passes four yes to one absent and our meeting is adjourned at 8 37 p.m thank you everybody for joining us have a good night

we're dead last in per-pupil funding the mets and padres were third in their divisions this year to fire their manager they were third [Music] [Applause] i will always fight for our kids and i will always fight for our teachers and excuse me respectfully the only thing public about our charter school is the public money that funds it a school that answers to a board of directors in brookfield or brooklyn is not a public school a charter school does not answer to this board which means it does not answer to you the voters their [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you we're almost finished this overcrowding issue started to bubble up and my kids were still young and we could have easily sold our home and packed up our bags and moved to one of our neighboring communities like the festival of brookfield that wasn't having the issues of overcoming what we were having but we didn't we chose to stay and we stayed because we have the best educators the best administrators and the best support staff that our kids could want to have and also we have a wonderful diversity diversity in our community which we should embrace but after having my kids in the school system for 20 years i can honestly say that you know the city did look out for our kids as a parent i don't feel like they were able to have the best interest of our kids because we're sitting here tonight as parents and we are discussing and we're advocating for the same issues that we as parents sat here 15 years ago they're the same issues we were advocating for then we're doing now so nothing's changed our schools are um a diamond in the rough and we can polish them up and they can be the gems of our community we just need to to focus on doing that and when we do that our children succeed and as a whole our community succeeds as well thank you [Applause] long now since we asked for the question leave the questions what have you done to support what are you giving me to support like i said before we're going to listen we're going to listen we're going to speak and i've shown that i ran for city council in 2017 because of our schools and i haven't stopped advocating for them since when we're when i won in 2019 we continue to advocate advocate for that and we continue now everybody here supports the teachers it's nice it's easy to say that but i'm the only opinion who accepted their directly from the teachers i'm going to continue to support the teachers because they are our front line they're the ones there sacrificing the scholarship so i'm here to support the teachers supporting their administration and continue to support them that is not going to stop thank you [Applause] all guys so at this time we're running a tad bit ahead so we're going to go ahead and give just the two mayoral candidates a two-minute closing speech of their choice potential is to go first thank [Music] i think you made that clear when we did the twin uh coin toss so i'm good with that ladies and gentlemen i'd just like to say thank you thank you each and every one of you for being here tonight to see what we have to say the next mayor of danbury sits up at this dyess either myself or mr alves but i just want to let you know that if i'm selected as the next mayor danbury my goals are simple to move danbury forward as we have in the past 20 years keeping gambling taxes low providing quality service i've been involved in public service for 30 years so i personally believe that experience matters in these times i just want to thank each and every one of you i want to thank the members of this board anybody that's up here is a candidate it's uh it's not easy to step up and put your name out there to be a candidate people get mad at you because of certain things but i just want to bring everybody together tonight as bambarians we're still going to have our issues we're going to still be separated on some of these things but we're all dan durians let's stay focused on danbury and i would like to ask you for your vote in november 2nd so i can continue moving danbury forward with 30 years of experience and a good working relationship with all our departments thank you again for being here thank thank you to everyone here who spent your evening with us because this matters thank you to cypto for hosting this event and thank you for everybody who i'm sharing this guys with this is not easy this is hard for a lot of people you do push yourself out there there are people who don't agree with you almost always it is civil so thank you everybody i think my opponents and everybody who is on this stage my two kids go to our public schools they're gonna go to our middle schools they're gonna go through our high school public high school system i'm here because i've got skin in the game that's what we need we need everybody that's in the game to have a seat at the table and be invested this election is about our future it's about making things better because we can make it better making it better is moving forward making it better is accurately addressing the issues at hand allocating resources accordingly how we need them not kicking the can down the road the board of education is the city that is one of the city of andrew's largest employees we have to listen to what the employees in the larger senate way they start telling us they're telling us they need help this isn't you they have intelligence needing help when organizations aren't run right they change leadership they don't bring in more of the same we need to move forward and we move forward by looking for a leader who isn't afraid to acknowledge that we have practical systems and was willing to make the improvements we needed to make by strategically allocating our resources by committing increases in state funding that we've all talked about that we need and is there to education let's stress that again we're committing to you by committing to increase the flat percentage of the budget it's been for the last five years since 2016.

well that's the purpose of this meeting correct meaning what our meeting that we're having that's the discussion that's the purpose that was thinking about it you know wanted to see certain you want something different than i'm going to see in him in here yeah that's why we're here yeah i would say i recognize that should someone expand this item uh based off of what we're requesting there could be a number of attachments that that that could be there but i i think it's i would suggest that it's better to err on the the side of over communicating and if and if someone does not want to click and read through they do they don't have to but still still providing it foreign like the summative document right so that the last school last committee fly deck that had kind of the final recommendations and the qualitative server analysis from cal poly cal poly pomona like those are things that um those are some new things that we haven't seen but that haven't been made available to the pub i am not hearing that but if that's what it is i'm hearing that is that all the requests from the board around school reorganization that those become attachments so i'll give you just some examples uh it was requested that i reached out to uh the parents that were not present at the last school reorganization team meeting and find out how they would have voted and so that was provided there was a request to know uh when was uh how long have the the parents been on the on the committee when did we switch out and so i just want to be crystal clear about what what you want there was again a lot that was requested which is no big deal all that can be attached i just want to make sure that i'm attaching the right thing that's not what i had in mind okay i okay thank you yeah so so i i wonder if there is if there are questions that we asked at previous meetings maybe it's valuable to share some of that information out i i i suppose it's it's usually more helpful if it's in writings but someone can see it but that so maybe but that's not what i was requesting i'm saying more along the lines of the the summary documents um again the analysis of qualitative data from from cal poly as an example um i think about today we're having a conversation and so if somebody if somebody were tuning in today we and going to 9.1 there's no information there so so as we're talking model three we're saying model three model four the way that someone would know what we're talking about is they're needing to dig in on our website or look at previous uh spooler meetings to know what we mean when we say these things so providing that information so that as we're discussing anybody who is here is able to track along um if they've read the the attachment that would be my hope but and i still recognize that that's a that's a kind of a large ask and it's still a large number of requests but that's what i had in mind more so than um some some of the questions that we've had along the way okay i just wanna do one thing i i don't know if we should have this is really important this is really important to this community this is gonna be a lifetime thing and and i'm feeling pressured um because we need to one more time and then we have to vote you know i i and i know we have an agenda that we need to follow during our meetings i would like to ask for a special meeting just on reorganization just this time reorganization um between now and then wherever but i i just not comfortable just having a meeting and i know we have an agenda we're still gonna go through and then we're gonna have another next meeting in the 19th and then we have a regular agenda on top of that i i don't know how many of them feel so a special meeting where we just discussed yesterday organization those special meetings where we take action on the item or just this year we do additional discussion and then we take action at a regular meeting i'm sorry i said do you want us to actually take action at a special meeting or do you want us to take action at the regular meeting just at a regular meeting but i just like to have your special meeting for information we have a lot of questions i see it and i'm just feeling like right because at the first study session we were supposed to listen and now that we have more no we i agree i think we need a set aside time so that we can have this discussion we never said anything it was our listening right you're right so on october 26th does that work because we have meetings every other tuesday i am available on the 26th of october i am as well yes i'm good and the 26 works for me i do i do still think i'd like to request the information that some of the information that we requested today to have that come back to us at the at the next meeting as you originally intended and and made available and this is an addition too so we're still having this conversation that the next board meeting correct i would say yeah yeah okay yes but i i think we asked for a lot of information so there's probably a lot for you to share at the next meeting with now knowing that we have two more number at least at least three more conversations about this and and we've sent out some some requests and some some homework to the cabinet um does anyone else have any other questions comments to add at this time just to clarify a clarifying request so when we're looking at the idea of a comprehensive middle school and the impact on the curriculum and what that would mean for course access and availability i would also like to see as much detail as we can get regarding the cost of implementing some of these programs as dr mitchell presented two meetings ago the idea of what would an ib elementary and middle school program look like what would a design academy look like in terms of staffing professional development other training specialized equipment i think the more information you know the closer we can get to having some of those estimated costs would help us understand the full picture of of any change so i do want to just point out for us that we spent a lot of time talking about the secondary schools and really didn't talk about the elementaries right um but in my mind um if we do go the route of you know one comprehensive each right which which elementaries what they end up looking to be matters is is going to this it's going to matter on which which way direction we go with it with the with the heist the secondary school yes and i one point of clarity as well we talked about having a meeting adding a meeting to the 26th we haven't talked about what what time um i i would i would request that we that we have it at a normal time which is seven but it start at 7 pm because that's a normal start time so even even though it may be it may be helpful to start earlier for to allow for more conversation i think it's important that it happened at a time that most uh expect and anticipate the meeting but 10 26 at 7 p.m correct special meeting no close touch right any other questions comments moving on then to item 9.2 uh azusa unified school district one-time funding update miss latasha jamal thank you let me prepare my screen share so good evening board uh fellaini cabinet dr mitchell and i will give the board an update on our one-time funding um this has given us a summary of what we have remaining the spin dates and what our plant expenditures are for those appropriate buttons sorry it's a delay so i have to wait till it comes up so right here we have a listing of all of our one-time funds so we see we have a total of 37 million dollars that we either have now or plan that are scheduled to receive so on this schedule we see what the funding is from so we have the carers act it has the funding source it has the allocated resources and also the appropriate deadlines as to when we have to spend the funds by we show that our current allocations we show expenditures if we have any to date and what is the current balance as of right now so here you'll see we have sr1 where we have 1.8 million dollars year one four four hundred thousand dollars and then we go down to your sr3 where it's approximately 20 million dollars that is the one set of allocation that we do not have but those are just um that is the funding that we're slated to receive and you will have the planned expenditure plan that will have to be adopted at our subsequent board meeting now going down we have our elo so these are funding the reason why the balance sheet hold on so just which which um which amount is going to be in the plan that we need to adopt yes or three so that's 17.6 plus the 4.4 any other question okay and so then we have our elo um grant the reason why the balance shows zero is not an indication that we have spent at all but that is showing that we have already approved those planned expenditures and they are budgeted and they were approved back in may at our last board meeting so for this presentation we are going to go over each funding source one by one we are going to identify the funding source what we have available we are also going to show the slide that shows the allowable expenditures as well as the next slide will show you our planned expenditures to spend the allocated fund so here we are going to start with sr1 so sr1 we have 1.8 million dollars available these are a summary of the allowable uses this is coming directly from cde so it tells us exactly what we can and cannot spend the funds on for each of the allocation funds that we have received i mean here even with the same line this is our plant expenditure plan for the 1.8 million we've been getting uh quite a bit of input from stakeholders including staff and students and we will be having an upcoming meeting uh that includes parents as well and these are um what we are considering uh as areas for the expenditures so additional certificated instructional staff at both the elementary and secondary levels reading specialists to support our literacy plan we have a plan that we are aligning to the state literacy plan um saturday summer professional learning for certificated and for classified staff so beyond the workday which does alleviate the need for subs staff for mental health support funding to support any possible school reorganization and then funding for western justice center to continue the program and to expand as well so keeping in line with the same plan so we go to our gear one fund we currently have four hundred and ten thousand dollars remaining this is a list of the allowable uses again according to cde and here is our planned expenditure plan for the four hundred and ten thousand dollars in some of the different kind of buckets of money as we like refer to it you'll see some of the same items that are repeated as we are able to use multiple funding to support some of the larger expenditures here you will see summer programming you'll see funding to support tutoring for students and as well as continuing to expand and to purchase culturally relevant instructional materials which would also include elementary classroom library materials now moving to sr2 where we have 9.7 million dollars this is where we have until september 2023 you spend these funds here it outlines the allowable uses and here is our proposed expenditure plan for the nine million dollars and this funding specifically delineates uh purchasing uh technology so hardware network so we would use this to upgrade and improve our network technology we've also included a social emotional learning coach as a possibility for our mental health support for students now moving to sr3 sr3 we will receive approximately 20 million dollars it is broken up into two buckets twenty percent of our sm3 allocation has to be applied to instruction and so here we are showing the first the 17.5 million dollars is the allowable expenditures for sm3 and our current expenditures plan for sr3 for the 17 million is to upgrade district-wide um with the hopes in alignment with our school reorganization all of our hvac um or the heating and ventilation and ac conditioning unit as well as to continually improve insulation by redoing our windows so they can actually open um and also incorporate shade structure and outdoor seating on our campus now going to the 20 allocation of the 4.4 this is our current expenditure plan so in this uh bucket we have our steel instructional coaches to support our steel instructional implementation um so the seal coaches in addition to supporting teachers with instructional planning and the implementation the steel coaches would also be supporting the grade level professional learning communities with supporting how we use data to inform instruction and provide differentiated support through instructional groupings uh we have a plan to have steel at all of our elementary sites and right now we are implementing uh this year we're super excited to steal at three of our elementaries but our plan is to expand to all of our elementaries and so in the meantime while we're waiting for that expansion we would have um additional instructional coaches and it would be the same idea so um these would be the same approach as the steel coaches and then those coaches would transition uh to be being still coaches at the other side now moving over to our in-person instructional grant um we currently have 2.7 million dollars available following the same format these are the allowable uses for those funds and here is our planned expenditure plan and so again you'll see some of uh some of these same um areas that we can uh spend additional funding on but some of the other things that we've added to this one are experiential learning so um things such as field trip um also our project-based learning implementation and we would like to spend it on that as well and to our last bucket is the extended learning grant um again this was board approved back in may we currently have 3.3 remaining of our current allocation here are the allowable uses um as well as the plan sorry and here's the plan which was previously on board approved and i'll pass the doctor mitchell yes and this these are just we've listed some of the uh the key areas uh that are in our expenditure plan so within this we have we spent money on our summer programming project-based learning field we've hired additional certificated classified and certificated staff for professional learning uh project-based learning mental health supports and think together as well so those are some of the the big topics of what we've already um budgeted and we've been spending our our funds on for that and with that we would like to say thank you and open up for questions okay i guess i'll go first um so i think this is very helpful um and so i really appreciate it um um i think what would be a good next step is to articulate um i see and and as you as you pointed out right we're layering dollars to be able to fully fund some of these right so correct i think what would be helpful for us to understand is really what are those key approaches that we're doubling down on back to um sabrina's point about like reimagining or reimagining how we do how we do education right so what are those key strategies that we're focusing on i see them all in here multiple times so let's articulate very clearly what those are and really what the investment in each of those is going to be like the total investment um as well as um one of the things that i get concerned about like so i appreciate that we're spending one time dollars like on our stl coach what is going to be our plan when those dollars expire in two to three years right how are we going to ensure the sustainability the steel coaches right how are we going to ensure sustainability with the coaches that we're putting in um so i think those are the pieces that i would like to see and understand so more a more comprehensive view of how the dollars are being spent um that's that's number one for me um i think this is this helpful but really putting dollars next to our like high doses tutoring right this is how much we plan to expand um and what this is when it's going to start right this is how many students we plan to to be able to read um um so i think that that is important to me um just i'd like to see that right i guess maybe when you bring back the s3 plan addendum that you're going to bring back it's a it's a template right you're going to fill it you're going to bring us right so um to understand that um and then for us to have time to have a conversation about what are those areas right i think i saw on slides uh not last night but the time before like talking about like bringing ib down to middle school and elementary right like is that part of this is this that a good use of one time dollars where we know there's really high startup costs that take three years right maybe we have conversations about what what you know is that valuable there are there are initial costs around like fuel immersion right is it valuable project-based learning right so so just understanding like how how important are these each of these pieces and what we're planning to invest um i was taking a quick look on the website and maybe i'm just not looking in the right area but it is our safe safe to return to school plan um for the so3 funds is that on the website no so the sr3 we will actually be bringing it to the board for approval um at the next board meeting was there a i think it's called safe to return plan that had to be posted on an lea's website yes you have that and i believe that's on our covet um but it's a safe school for where did i find the cove tab i don't i don't see it covered tab or reopening i'm sorry not clothes did you find it sabrina no if i'm not mistaken uh the that plan is a um it's taking the the appendix protocols with the cal osha prevention plan and i think those two together is what is referred to as the safety plan and so there we don't have them combined here together but i think those two things make up that plan and so those are under covert 19 reopening document if i'm on the home page where how do i navigate i apologize for picking up no worries reopening schools okay i'll take a look at this page thank you there's also uh there's an icon a link on the find it fast on the home page that says we're opening cool oh thank you okay thanks and i uh so i just just add another request i do want us to think about and maybe not coming with this doll these dollars but um we have significant amount of unspent um supplemental concentration dollars right over right so really articulating how we intend to spend those dollars um you know or if there's a plan for it or if it's something that we're going to i don't know i just want to understand like it was how much was it it was like 20 5 million oh sorry about making up numbers like no no no it's 5 million so but that's i mean that's a good that's a good amount of money right so just you know that that as well thinking about how how do we how is all this going to layer to build up this this vision that we have and maybe the vision is the most important piece right what is that some of that has been uh being spent down also because we had our summer programming um go into august and so we still had um invoices coming in from like high tech high from the you know pbl professional learning and from think together and all that so some of those you know those things have been spent with that though and then my other question for you speaking about summer learning um so i mean the state is is is investing significantly right in some of these pieces that will come into effect in the next upcoming years i'm thinking about expanded tk right where now we're not going to be having to fund it out of lcff um some are expanded learning opportunities because we'll be getting additional dollars for that um the community schools initiative that hopefully we'll apply for and get right and be able to layer that onto the work that we do so i'm just wondering i don't think that needs to come in like this month but i do think i think for us within this year to have a conversation thinking about like how can those dollars that have been captured that we were using for these broken really critical programs how are we going to think about reallocating those dollars yeah good point that's all i have adrien any other questions remember bo not at this time thank you then we'll move on to um 10.0 consent calendar and 10.1 approval of consent calendar so all matters listed under the consent calendar are considered by the board of education to be routine and will be enacted in one motion there will be no discussion of these items unless requested by a board member if a board member requests discussion that item will be removed from the consent calendar and considered separately is there a motion to make a motion to approve 10.2 to 10.9 my second i think you had made a motion to approve just item 10.1 right that that would cover everything yeah and actually if i could substitute make a stew motion here to pull approve all items uh except for [Music] item ten point stick i would just ask yolanda to amend promotion it would be easier to do that would you you're gonna pull an item item 10.6 oh okay so um i retract my motion um make a motion to approve 10.1 the consent calendar with the exception of 10.6 i second that motion any discussion and the motion passes four to four yes the one happens now moving on to item 11.1 uh which is the approval of the contract between azusa unified school district and nancy acabian consulting is there a motion to approve i make a motion to approve 10.