Ann Arbor Center of the City - Council of the Commons Meeting 6/2/2022

001to act i know they've got a lot of things to do but two years behind two budgets cycles well let's have a discussion about that so real quick so we'll put that on the agenda are there other items for the agenda [Music] a question about the prior items for the agenda i didn't in my bull years hear a distinction necessarily between what al said as far as a report to council and then what i think alice said with as far as further discussion about how to most efficiently prepare such a report to counsel i think that sounds like one thing to me and not two separate topics all right i i agree stephen i'm just trying to give us some things concrete to start with because yes i think the ordinance requires us to make

002recommendations to council we've got to figure out what those count recommendations are are intended to be because that we can't apparently we've tried to give them wording for resolutions but then we were backtracked to recommendations so i whatever it form it is or whatever it's called we need to make those recommendations which start out i think first with getting the parking off the rooftop so i would move for approval of the agenda as stated with the addition of the the the report to city council item that that al has described as further elucidated by dallas okay rita did you have a question or did you want to add something else i wanted to second that motion okay all right any other uh uh well if the motion is seconded then uh we're gonna vote so

003we'll this will be on um i think we could probably do this in one step uh the amended agenda uh as amended with the additional item of the report to city council are we all comfortable with that amendment that would be that would be number new number eight or a new number nine or a new one let's put it we'll put it at the end of the agenda and that'll give us an incentive to get through the rest of the agenda quickly okay whatever and i would actually i would also suggest that it be put at the beginning of the agenda thank you i think this is the most substantive topic and people could do the reports after it yeah okay approve the minutes or whatever and then get right into that discussion that would

004be my my recommendation okay sounds good so i consider that part of the original motion okay so can we have a uh all in favor of the agenda as amended say aye aye aye any opposed all right uh then uh let's get into what's next minutes uh yes from april 7th are there any questions around the minutes from april 7th i would move for the approval of the minutes if there's not any discussion about it have a second um i would just like to note that um one of the attachments is the center of the city exploration of issues item number 11 in the minutes that's all okay and we have us we i think we did have a second erica i believe seconded so could we have uh all in favor of approving the

005minutes as written say aye aye as amended as amended it is correct i don't think the minutes were amended we didn't amend the amendments we amended the agenda oh oh okay sorry okay and i think that takes us to public comment heather are there any members of the public alice you got your hand up do you want to keep it up there no we have somebody calling in with the last few numbers as 326. please go ahead hello um can you all hear me i'm jeff crockett we can yeah great uh so i'm i have been involved i've appeared before this group before i've been involved with the leader of the green team which has helped to activate uh short-term activation of the commons through gardening we've so we're very excited about the new year

006we have this new growing season we have a group called the wild ones a group committed to the planting of native plants and attracting pollinators and we're very excited we also have a number of new volunteers and we're getting ready for the growing season and work sessions except we don't have water and i've been in contact with jeff watson dda director since february explaining about this problem and he right now he is in the process of getting quotes for the repair of the sprinkler system but i offered a plan b which seems very reasonable which is basically to provide a spigot so that we can attach hoses so we can water uh our existing gardens and the new ones uh coming up for the wild ones [Music] so i'm waiting to hear back from him

007we also requested a mural we think a mural would be a great spot there's a couple places in the commons for that we've already contacted mary tfoles early in the spring but we need permission from the dda so in the process of finding out the process for that but we intend to move forward with that and this is all going to come from donations the third thing we're thinking about is tai chi sundays which we're very excited about joette ryoma is a member of the tai chi group and he is connected with a tai chi master and we have talked to the dda about setting up about the application for that the good news is that dda doesn't get any uh revenue on sunday so it's like a no-brainer allocating the space for something creative

008like that a number of us are very excited i intend to attend and a number of other people so it should be pretty exciting the fourth thing we asked is because of the wild ones the wild ones came in and looked at the plot it's just to the east of the elevator the problem is that park cars impinge upon the garden area and sort of interrupt uh the planting and other things so we recommend we ask the dda to remove the five parking spots just to the south of this area c2 which because there's an average of 600 free parking spots will not result in any loss of income for the dda jeff responded that he this would violate the uh operating agreement agreement that the dda has with the city so i i was

009this first time i've heard of that so i went online and discovered that there is an operating agreement but guess when it's dated uh july 2011 and there was uh an amendment that was expired in 2015 and currently the most recent amendment is amendment number two which was promulgated it was started on uh basically july of 2017. so i profound a provision in is actually both in the original uh guide or original contract and the uh amendment that says the dda shall have the right to allocate portions of facilities to third party for long-term parking usage and mutually agreed upon non-parking related use which is exactly what we're promoting we think that what we're asking is reasonable no impact on the dda and i'm a little confused about why the dda which is spending 4.2

010million on the state street uh parking redesign can't spend just a little bit providing water on the commons it seems like a reasonable thing but the other thing that should be of interest to you is the fact that the last amendment was done in july of 2017 which predates proposition a so i've been getting a lot of feedback from jeff while his various aspects of our proposals violate the city agreement so the question i'm asking all of you is why has this not been updated uh proposition a changed the dynamics to the commons and should have changed the operating agreement to uh for the the dda and the the parking structure so in my letter to jeff i encouraged him to reach out to mr dahoney to ask him for much need update and i

011would if mr horney is here i would very much appreciate you sort of looking into it and helping to update it and this will ultimately help in the activation of the commons because when you talk about activating you're going to have to talk about a change in the way dda manages that property so i would encourage you to start that process now but just after you pass the rfp which is probably the most important thing that you will do this year so i encourage you to get on that right away hopefully pass it by september and then look into this operating agreement thank you very much for your consideration and that is it as far as gas with hanzo did we lose adam looks like we did yeah apparently where's robert black [Laughter] well if

012we've lost adam i think um we have two choices to wait for five minutes or i will be glad to continue the meeting as best as i can if you'll if heather if you'll help me because i'm not in my usual um computer environment and i've got to make sure i don't close this window when i open the agenda window will you feel support and the rest of us in moving forward what comes next well the next item would be um the item that you requested right about the recommendations okay an amendment to the uh agenda or addition to them councilmember briggs has her hands up though if you would like to call on her um the next item where is she how much i don't see her hi hi erica erica yep i just

013thought it would be helpful to um all right well let's see i had it up right in front of me um i wanted to read off what council is expecting so uh the next item is actually member comments i think we moved this to the front of the agenda yeah we do we did yep so what council is you know the resolution that was passed um council of commons is an advisory body's city council and the city administrator will build upon the work of the center of the city task force by providing written recommendations annually on such subjects as funding needs and operations and maintenance model and the role of the council of the commons so um based on some of my this is a little bit worded a little bit differently than some of

014the what's expected of some of the other commissions um which is basically an annual report so sometimes you know transportation commission for example that i serve on provides an annual report um about activities of the commission i do think that um in terms of what i can imagine being helpful to council is providing a little bit of an update about what the commission has been working on this past year um i think the somebody mentioned already the idea of using our subcommittees that we have um as kind of a little bit of a framework as well and providing a report out on some of the the known issues there in terms of fundraising and there's been so much great work that's been done in relationship to research around other parks across the across michigan that

015i think that that would be useful i also think putting together something that would also be particularly useful um in uh providing information to the parks and the update of the pros plan i know that the pack is going to come to this commission and ask for a little bit of feedback i think preparing that could be useful for both purposes actually but then i also definitely agree with what alice had mentioned in terms of using that that framework that heather had already kind of put together um the the commission has identified a number of different issues around sort of things that have been parts of different resolutions and some of the some of the the the challenges around that um for example you know maintenance is a big reason why activation of the top

016of the parking lot becomes challenging in terms of putting out things like benches or tables that becomes that's that's a key issue around one of the challenges there and so i think showing city council um exposing the entire council of some of these issues and some of the the things that the commission has been grappling with um and then of course talking about the rfi process and the rf our movement towards rfp and some of the funding needs around that i think that would be an a great report um to bring council up to speed from my perspective thank you erica i do you are are you uh it sounds like you might have a way of making a report section at the beginning and then the recommendations based on the information and the report

017and basing those recommendations pulling from that living document is that sort of where you're coming from um well i mean i think if you know if there are specific recommendations that the entire commission thinks that are appropriate to make right now certainly that could be a part of the report i think that um you know some of the oh the other piece i didn't mention was the update around what's been happening with liberty plaza there's been a lot of the focus around activation around centre of the city space has been happening it's been focused in on liberty plaza from the city's perspective and so i think that's actually something that um the administrator dahony could be putting together as as part of a or an update to council as well but um you know i

018think providing almost a report of activities and some of the issues that we've been wrestling with would be just really helpful stephen uh thank you um so i guess hearing that i'm i'm feeling as though we don't owe city council some report maybe it maybe i'm misunderstanding but it sounds like if city council wants to have written recommendations annually on various topics funding needs uses of the space priorities etc already if i'm not mistaken city council has appropriated some funds first for this space right already we've issued an rfi received responses to it are working on our rfp right city council is not uninformed or somehow in need of a report and if i'm understanding it correctly in circumstances where city council is expecting an annual report from a certain commission that's spelled out more

019clearly right what i'm also seeing on later in today's agenda even is further discussion about our discussions with the parks advisory commission and if i'm worried about the sequencing here and so if we go to city council and tell them some message based upon some belief that we owe them an annual report that should already be coordinated with what what we're already explaining to the parks advisory commission and the results of that dialogue that is really yet to be completed and so unless we've got some obligation to go to city council on some date certain and provide some report on certain topics it doesn't sound to me like we we have a need to do that and i would be if i were sitting in a city council seat i would well great but where's

020you know where's park's commission like how how is this all fit together and i had wonder where that coherent story was so i i appreciate that there is a requirement to keep city council informed on at least an annual basis but i believe that obligation has been discharged and continues to be fulfilled by the activities that we already have taking place and so yes without without interrupting you i want to ask uh does that that that sounds like uh we our minutes should be reported enough when our our obligation is to supply recommendations for consideration is that succinct and clear yeah i mean i don't think there's a there's not an expectation of a of an annual report in a at a certain date certain you know i mean i think there are things that

021the commission has been considering that are helpful to be sharing back with council at different time periods and particularly um i think actually some of the stuff is most important kind of heading to parks right now the pros plan in terms of something that could really be developed and be useful um but yeah i mean there's it's it's fairly loosely worded okay um adam if if you want to take over from here we missed you but i do think we could i think we're still on the same i think there's a general idea that we could use the living document for and add to it for just a a recommendation item you know one recommendation another recommendation and another recommendation which may not resolve all of those issues but will be able to reflect the

022kind of work we've been doing and why we recommend this make this recommendation i think that's that would be a good way to be very succinct and focused that we want the the parking uh removed so that we can do based on these other things that we've been doing so justifying our our recommendation with the activities that we've been doing in research and on the with through the working groups is that is that understandable uh it is it is i uh i apologize first of all i think my wi-fi is really going to be a real problem um all evening unfortunately um but uh it does and alice if you wouldn't mind sort of continuing to um coordinate that would be real helpful okay so um i i will need a little more coaching in

023terms of the agenda because i don't have it up on my screen and i don't have it it's okay heather and i can help with that okay so yes i was just gonna say we do have a hand raised allen's hand is raised if you wanted to call on him um and then just let me know if when you're ready to move on to the next agenda item and i can let you know what's up alan yes well what i heard from steve was that this is all in process and there's no need actually to have the discussion of the first item that we put in front of everything else yeah and just to let them know that we are continuing but that did not seem to me what was our charge to actually have

024some communication with the city council at least annually which we are by and in the various questions that are on the nine questions in there for in our living document the uh the overall fact is at least in my impression of factuality is that there has been no action on any of these and we've been completely stonewalled by the dda as well as by uh three city administrators on dealing with the parking which was the uh third recommendation of the center of the city task force accepted by the city council and the uh and now the city council or the administrative the city has apparently adopted a new contract in direct violation of the uh charter of the city that says there is continuing parking when the charter of the city says that property should

025be developed not as a parking lot or a continuing parking and storage of parking stop but as a central park and civic center commons not as a parking lot and dda has stonewalled us not even jeff crockett was very good in searching out uh the document of the old agreement we have not been able to get any copy of what is a new agreement but it is clear that surface parking is continuing there that's in violation of the city charter and at least our council of the commons should bring that to the attention of the city council and not simply say it as part of our continuing conversation now that conversation should have been finished and similarly while we are concerned about financing the city council has said that that revenue from the surface parking

026should be allocated or sequestered or made available for the development of the central park urban central park and civic center commons so while we are anguished about any funds for a water fountain and they've not even turned on the water fountain in liberty plaza which is existing water fountain and not create any sense of preparation of a tort of water found for the library lane area and similarly there's no progress except that it is difficult looking at the public restrooms and while i understand there is a city policy city long-term plan toward wi-fi uh the the desire from the council from the center of the city task force and city council resolutions to bring wi-fi there has done nothing the library has not turned its wi-fi toward the commons and so there is no wi-fi

027there so we have a situation where all the institutions that should be helpful here that are year-long evaluation and recommendations to the city council our advice to the city council yeah completely blocked and even the question raised properly about what's going on in liberty plaza that milton dehoney is dealing with has given no direct report to the council of the commons as to what actually he is doing there in terms of security when the long-term discussions there everything i've been involved in from the council center of the city task force is how to involve the users of the liberty plaza in the governance and administration and care and responsibility for the place so we're in a situation of a complete stasis as i see it and while there have been activities from various efforts that

028the initiating committee has done toward program and the green team has done beautiful work on the garden but everything seems not to be moving forward except with a lot of shoulder effort and it seems to me our our year-long evaluation should at least acknowledge that and not simply say that we're just continuing and we'll send you a report of the programs and it'll certainly be nice to send the city council a report of what activating activities have been there and what continuing needs remain to be wi-fi is a very important one in the public restrooms as a long-term alan can i can i interrupt you because our our intention should be to start with very succinct recommendations according to this agenda item not to review all the things that we still haven't done well as

029i understand where we are is to ignore this item of the agenda and to go on to uh the working group updates okay we've got three hands up though we and so erica was can i say just by way of replying because i said the thing that provoked the thing i just we're making them i guess relatively modest procedural point that i don't think we owe city council some homework right substantively i wholeheartedly agree with the that we should be having the discussion on all the points that allen just raised we're not going to be able to do any programming on this space unless there's not parking on the surface that's how i feel about it i think others may feel the same way but my first point was the modest one about the procedure

030i don't think we should we should have this discussion if we want to go tell city council to do something then yes let's do that i don't think we should do it under the the belief that we owe them something in addition to what has already been provided right in terms of an annual report or something like this that was that was my only point so simply yes let's continue the discussion i i like what alan was saying and getting those topics back on the table to be considered and how do we prioritize that thank you um and as we do that uh erica um i think we it seems like there is some underlying agreement that we need to say recommendation number one and then support the recommendation with any relevant information but i

031agree with stephen that the report could be done as we go through an rfp if we need to but it's um we need to focus on those things that are barriers now that we need to resolve erica you have had your hand up yeah thanks i just wanted to you know um i guess caution i have a different perspective around kind of what's been happening at the city in terms of the concept of being stonewalled i think that we have heard reports fairly early in the commission from dda and and our previous city administrator around what some of the challenges were of um fulfilling some of the the aspects of previous council resolutions and some of the challenges that that were there and um and we continue to hear it from current dda director and

032city administrator and so i think that's not stonewalling that is providing information that we need to figure out as a city how to proceed you know i i personally um maybe hold the unpopular belief within within this commission of of not feeling that we necessarily need to remove all of the parking on the top of the structure um that that is an opportunity one of the things that we've already heard is that that and gotten presentations on is that that parking can be removed at any moment for any event and that has happened without an without um without delay and so from my perspective um that's that's not a barrier to success that this certainly could be a different perspective from this commission providing that information to council about that recommendation recognizing what the barriers

033are and asking council to provide more direction to staff based on the barriers that we've um we've heard from but heard about but anyway i think that um as as we've kind of discussed that there's there's not necessarily a certain that we need to have this report um i thought it was important to have this conversation at the beginning because it might frame some of the other conversation that comes later on in terms of what pieces of these reports might we might we might start wanting to focus in on in terms of providing recommendations or feedback to counsel at large um i do think there are you know i do think we do need to cover the whole agenda tonight but thank you erica um frank you've had your hand up for a while yeah

034just just following up uh erica's comments um you know there there is uh a deep level of frustration here about working with the dda and and jeff crockett has done a wonderful job of communication and so on i wonder if we're at a point adam where we need to establish a working group to really hone in on this uh i agree that we don't have to have all the cars removed instantly tomorrow morning but we have to we have to come up with a a better system and uh the green team's concern about plantings and uh the the risk of having cars backing into an area that which is i think east of the of the elevator shaft i think is a real one uh and we we do we do need the beginnings of

035some permanent space uh and it could be in conjunction with tables and benches um we we need to we need to force and focus this effort and i i would suggest uh you know lisa erica um adam uh yeah mr de honey i don't know if you need you know he's a member of this group we need some real focus on a conversation that's going to result in some progress this is very this has become very frustrating um and i guess i'll just leave it at that we we need to i think sharpen the focus and up the ante in terms of how we're going to dialogue there isn't a community that we've looked at detroit royal oak plymouth where the dda hasn't played a strong and continuing positive role you know the plymouth dda

036says in almost an apology we're more than just a park but there they're saying you know we're committed to the park but we're more than that well you know when you look at the original documents and the and the amendments and revisions of the of the dda in this city there's strong reference to public spaces and and public uh parks in the downtown and it's just time to get beyond this i'm i'm you you can see my frustration i think it's reflected by a number of members of this this group and the those who are working every day to try to advance this so i'll just stop there thank you um adam are you able to join us i think he's blanked out we'll see i i i'm going to leave my video often i'll

037attempt to have a clear signal here um so i i hear you on the uh on the the uh desire to you know really much more formally engage with the dda um you know i i will say that uh i think we've uh you know attempted to have some conversations here and i do you know i have been i'm listening to the conversation even though i can't uh i can't always uh participate um you know in being on screen but um yeah i i've taken this approach that i i do think that there is a turning you know going on within uh around this property and uh and an improved series of relationships and i i hear what people are saying and i i don't doubt at all uh the past um wrongs of uh

038that have created this uh interpretation of stonewalling i think this is quite real actually um but i i want to look at this from a sort of uh optimistic um standpoint in the sense that i feel like there have there have been we are hearing different things now and i have no reason to believe that that what we're hearing is is um is is not in good faith um and so i want i i am i am very comfortable with reaching out to uh jeff watts and i did reach out to him early in his tenure he's only been there a few months by the way i'll just you know i i'll defend it i'll defend the guy a little bit here even though i don't know him um and uh and you know what

039while this may seem important to him and i i know it's important to people here i know this may seem very important to all of you and it is um i'm sure he has a lot of things going on as well as a new dda director and new to the community and so i do want to give him the benefit of the doubt a little bit here as well but i hear you i hear what is being suggested and i have no problem at all reaching out and trying to form uh you know a productive working group with the dda around the near term activation i've had really good conversations with a number of the block partners if not all of them i think at this point um with the exception of the dea and

040so i'm happy to complete that loop uh at the request uh of what frank just made and so um i'll take that action item if that is uh if that's what uh is being requested here and uh and do that i would just like to chime in i just would like to remind us we are an advisory group to council we are a city commission i don't think there's anything wrong certainly um and i'm with you meeting with um jeff watson i have set up a time to to meet with him next week as well um i haven't had a chance he hasn't had a chance to meet with city council members yet um he said he's new to the city so um and this i'm certainly talking about center of the city is one

041of those topics but i don't know that in terms of having a working group that works between the commission and the dda directly is necessarily the function of this group that's really a staff-to-staff relationship and we need to kind of just be cognizant of of kind of what the roles are of the commission versus staff roles in my opinion um i was just about to say thank you erica and and this ask if we could combine these points of view by um saying you know stating the the goal through of a recommendation and then asking the council for support in going in that direction such as you know how we could strengthen the relationship with the dda perhaps even by changing the composition of our membership on this commission as some groups are representatives and

042it's represented but neither of the public major public institutions are represented we might need to think about that and that would require councils engagement with that issue um and uh now i see um two other hands up so i'm gonna ask i think allen preceded frank you know again just uh i i hearing erica we are an advisory group to the city council and for more than a year we have had zero to say to the city council we've had no advice we have not cohered on any question of a group to convey to the city council individuals have talked to individual city council members but as a group we have not been an advisory to the city council i think that's what we're trying to to attempt yes to focus on right now with

043recommendations advice and recommendations i think are closely related in meaning and require the same kind of communication with council would you say so erica okay so frank i guess i'm responding to erica but just in general uh i see this as fulfilling following up on recommendations to the task force to reach out to the block partners you know what more important black partner is there than the dda i mean we're sort of the site and so i i see this in the in in a positive spirit i think there needs to be more communication and and understanding uh among the new leadership of the dda uh you know the history of this and and uh in the in the in and just better communication on a regular basis and i think through that process uh

044and um i think we'll hopefully see progress so i that that's the spirit of my recommendation okay i don't see any hands up right now so i'm going to move that we start with a recommendation and see if we can structure a recommendation as a an example of other recommendations that we need to make and that so i think that most of the discussion has kind of had a relationship to the parking so um we need to remove the parking we need to make the rooftop more accessible to activation and we recommend that we explore the relationship with the dda in a positive direction to manage that removal if temporary or permanent and to remove the barriers toward any barriers related to parking on the roof toward activation which would include events and gardening ongoing

045gardening and all of that stuff would that be a reasonable way to go just start with a recommendation and fill it out a bit and then go to the second one uh as uh suggested by the living document would anybody know anyone else okay i'll support okay um and uh since we have uh emotion and support uh we can start discussion with jennifer i'm i'm just asking for i guess a point of clarification but i don't understand what barriers are in place for parking when there is activation like parking has been removed i've done it in that lot multiple times right i don't i don't perceive that there is that there is a barrier there that if the space needed to be used for something the dda would grant that it would close that lot

046so i i guess i'm a little confused as to why we're that's like the primary thing that we're focusing on because to me getting the space you know people who are willing to activate the space um is probably a much then that would precipitate the need for the parking to be removed so i i just want to state that i'm i'm a little uncomfortable with that being a primary objective and i i don't see it as an impediment so maybe i'm just confused i want oh thank you jennifer i don't mean to make it the only or the primary we can renumber them but we have to start somewhere and i do believe that there are barriers to casual uses as activation uh rather than just events uh as activation so i think that's why

047there is a in um a perception that there are still barriers to just general activation and not just for events so i think that's that's what i i see but i see that rita and erica also have their hands up so rita yes you stated that there are barriers to casual use and that is correct because if we use of any other public space doesn't require asking permission to use it and so that makes this space very different um very different from liberty plaza and if one were to use it casually right now the best way one could do that is walking maybe carrying a jump rope or some chalk or something to use that space there is no place to sit there is no table space those kinds of things that facilitate casual use

048as i define it which would be an ability to sit in a place in public um comfortably um are lacking so i consider the barrier two barriers to that are the requests required and the um any supportive i'll call it equipment for right now for lack of better views so just to use that as an example erica yeah i mean i i also um in terms of there's been a lot of research that this group has done this is the working group on successful public spaces and there's a lot that that working group has been reporting back to this group about what a successful public space looks like and the level of programming that needs to happen there and sort of some of those public-private partnerships and what they look like and so i think

049that's what we all want is to see a successful a successful public space based on what i've been hearing from the feedback of that working group a successful public space does not look like a parking lot with nothing on it um and so i am hesitant personally to recommend it recommend removal of parking um one of the things that i've heard is a recommendation is putting up a you know putting up some tables and chairs and i think and that's one of the sort of casual uses that i've heard come up a lot in this group and what we've heard early on in this process in this commission is that the barrier to doing that is maintenance so city staff and dda have said if we put up tables and chairs there somebody needs to

050be responsible for cleaning them and clearing them and currently this isn't under the park system um so who is responsible for that they've asked that question they haven't set it up as a barrier but they've asked the question and we nobody's answered that question yet um and so that that is the barrier that i see for um putting activating that space in a more casual way is that we don't have a maintenance model now that could either be a conservancy or it could you know there's a whole lot of different options that could happen in terms of answering that question we also have concurrently heard that we have pretty significant um safety issues that are happening in a public space also on the center of the city liberty plaza that does have places for people

051to sit and so the city has been city council activated in the budget appropriated in the budget 100 000 to help with addressing allowing stuff staff to to move forward with making improvements in the center of the city in that space and so i think that we want to be you know we just want to be careful about how we move forward and be cognizant of what those some of those barriers are that we hear for me it's not that there's parking there necessarily it's some of those other things around maintenance that i think we have to address and that we might want to provide recommendations on around maintenance model or something like that thank you erica i see a kind of conundrum here though is is that if the answer is to keep parking

052uh during times other than scheduled use then you are putting cars there and you can't put anything else there for casual use so well that's what we're going forward with an rfi and rfp so that we can actually do design and actually move into development of a public space that is done in a way that's thoughtfully done and hopefully successful is what i i kind of thought one of the tangible actions that i saw that we were taking as a commission was to issue that rfi get information about you know figure out you know actually moving forward moving this forward as a a public space that we can um be proud of okay oh thank you we have stephen and alan and rita i think was the sequence that came up with hands up stephen

053uh thank you um i guess you all know that what my position is about parking but i'm other people have different views on that uh for me it's less important that question and more important the topic of having the good dialogue with dda and having the good dialogue with with the library board um i don't know that those are topics that we need city council to come and intervene at the moment to tell you the truth i don't know that we've tried and failed uh to really to air out what those topics are and how we would propose to approach them and so from my perspective it doesn't it doesn't necessarily make sense to lead with the idea that we shall start with removing parking um let's lead with the idea that we'll we'll have

054a more uh in-depth conversation with those other stakeholders and figure out what this this path forward is uh and then if we decide we need city council to come do something and make somebody come sit in a room with someone else or make some priority be prioritized over something else then that's the kind of thing that we asked city council for help with but i guess that's my feedback so far thank you thank you steve that sounds like something that could be a different way of approaching the reduced use of the rooftop for parking but also be more constructive in developing the relationships we're looking for um alan briefly briefly well the the second recommendation of the center of the city task force was irregular meetings of the block partners which again for that entire

055time since uh two years now has not been convened and milton dehoney has not and we have now you have been successful in our own uh working group to convene that the block partners have not in fact been involved as a group of how to see this as a endeavor for all of us in that area to make something positive be happening that serves all the different groups around and i would say that uh just to repeat having been involved in what is the commons the commons is not something that is run by the government the commons is that which is commonly pooled resources self-managed by the users and this is a situation we have where the users are not invited into this process at all the initiating committee is in this which i am

056a part is in this council of the commons because we are recognized by the city council as activators as our mission and have done many programs there and even when we seek to put up a information point to have a regular place where people from the city from the the public can see what is going on here what is what are the different ideas that we did have during the council during the uh center of the city task force yeah we're not permitted the uh the previous interim city manager said no there's even a law against a rule against having a permanent or temporarily permanent information point on that parking lot as long as there is parking going on and so we are blocked and if the people were actually allowed to put out some

057benches the initiating committee that's our job to look at how to manage just take care of it keep those not being stolen keep it clean and so on people would like to do this but that we are in a situation where the only way to have anything happen is to pay thirty four dollars or as equivalent and have a particular program for that begins at a time and ends at a time and then we are cleaned up and out of there there should be regular uh facility so people can come and hang out and have a lunch and so on and if it turns out to be a mess then come to the initiating committee or come to ourselves and see how do we clean this up and keep it clean part of the uh

058the is how to look at a zero waste situation and as an ambassador in the a2 0 how to see this as a demonstration place to keep something clean and useful for all of the public so unless we see this is a place actually to invite people to come in and use and have lunch and talk and hang out and bring a table and bring a chair and take care of it and and there are times yes when the chair should be taken off for one reason or another but the dda will not allow us to use the existing storage space in the alley to put a table to put a chair when we did that after the earth date we were told oh no we cannot do that that is dda republic parking space

059and get them out of there immediately and well we did and i will continue my conversation with with jeff watson but the friendly is the way a park happens and this has not been friendly and inviting thank you alan and i would i would uh it i would hope that we could coordinate our contacts on behalf of this group with each other within our group and adam has volunteered to make a separate contact and i would not i would hope that those those conversations could be coordinated somehow rather than randomly arranged and um and possibly having crossed the hospital randomly arranged i've got business to do and i want to talk to the man right that you're you're certainly allowed to do that as a private citizen um rita um i don't want to belabor

060this but i do want to point out that or just ask a question we have um other um benches and tables in the kerrytown area recently placed within the last year between community high and the farmer's market so i guess i'd ask the model what is the model for taking care of those they are bolted into place they're not going to move they are always looking clean to me so i don't know who takes care of them but it doesn't look to me like they need a lot of care i would also say that my experience and discussion with the other communities that have these central parks often have even movable chairs and tables and they are not experiencing vandalism or stealing so i feel like we've got an excessive focus on some elements of

061using this space that i'd like to see break down as a second point i do think that it will be very helpful for all of us to um understand a little better and my point on this is just that our communication in our group isn't really very well coordinated we don't know who's doing what who's what conversations have been accomplished um and and where what the status is and i hope that that we'll find that out as we move forward in this meeting with the report outs but but i feel like we're pretty disconnected and i'm sorry to say that okay now where are we at this point um we've used parking as a jumping off point does someone have an agent um well i think one other jumping off point could be um slightly

062amending our the composition of our membership to include someone from the public library and someone from the dda as a formal member of this mission and i would move the consideration of that idea now if and if it's not successful don't second it but um i think that would be one way to address some of the issues that have come up with the parking in a separately focused way if that's so i'll move that and if nobody wants to go that way just don't second it frank are you seconding okay um so i have a vote on the first um movement that you made pardon um are you are you making actual um movements where you want a vote i didn't i don't know if i did i not move the discussion or exploration of

063that issue as a potential recommendation you did and somebody seconded it and said that it was a discussion and then it would go to a vote to close it out before a next um okay well let's let's just suppose to close it out for now because i it is apparent that we need to um possibly have the rfp groupers or separate group look at actual wording and we're not going to get very far with it tonight if we don't keep going so i will make us i will ask for closure on discussion discussion for now and uh we can take a vote on that and i'll read you what i wrote down um and you can tell me if this is correct or not um there's a motion that the group starts with developing a

064recommendation to explore with the dda steps towards the permanent removal of parking activate the space i am going to clarify that it's the library lane parking lot okay well it's if for uh is this the exploration we're voting on or closing the exploration for now or i i need help in deciding how we move forward from this particular issue i haven't i've interpreted as that the council of the commons will work on developing a recommendation towards exploring this with the dda okay so we could say move to move this is to make one of our recommendations the removal of parking on the roof of the parking library lane structure that would be the basic uh goal is that that recommendation would be to remove parking and whether it gets done on an everyday bus basis

065or not that's that's where we have to what we have to get through to um have action from council i guess and that's the only way out that i can figure then rather than just going round and round about why don't we get it why don't we get it why don't we get it so i move that we draft a recommendation to remove the parking from the rooftop and and then we will get a response one way or another i think if we make it specific we won't get the exploration and the attention that we need i'm a little confused if i can jump in i you had introduced a discussion about increasing the membership of our council right and well right now we're trying to close out yeah okay we're trying to close out

066the first discussion okay and then we could go to the second and that's so that's what i want to do is to um and these don't have to be permanently numbered one two and three but um and so forth but we want to close the discussion for now on the recommendation remove parking for top of the parking structure thank you so that we can move forward well i i'm not out of order to say i don't i don't know that i've i've heard that i mean i heard several comments about parking and many of them were thinking you don't need to permanently remove parking and so i don't know that i'd be comfortable having this commission try to go forward and say that we we this commission have either by vote or consensus or whatever

067thing come to this conclusion i mean if we want to call the question that's one thing but yeah it's not really a i perceive i appreciate that um nuance um i wouldn't want it to be a recommendation until we have explored what we're really asking for and so maybe what we're looking at is how to promote the coordination of removal of parking with the activation of the space um and that would allow for permanent removal or temporary uh event based which i think is still the big question we have it and so but that's that's a major issue and we would recommend that we come to some kind of clarification of that if that would be a better way to go about it so alice can i just ask a quick question so the the

068final language that you're talking about here is that we will investigate we will work with the dda to investigate the possibility of parking of uh parking spot removal yeah i think uh its management of parking would maybe more um better received um the management of parking to make it clearer and and more available and meet the goals of activation of the space i think that's what we need to do because it's it's still perceived as a barrier by many and certainly it seems to be a barrier the parking seems to be a barrier that is unresolvable by the dda and so we want to we want to get some kind of coordination of the management of that whole issue so i'm i'm guessing um and again i'm saying it's not number one but this is

069definitely an issue that we need to resolve and provide some kind of recommendation either to resolve it and clarify it or to change things and i don't think we have the control to do that but i do want to close this discussion uh whether we make this a recommendation or not we will have we will have discussed it in substance i believe and we we need to move on to another issue and i'm all for anybody suggesting a second issue for us to go to because we do have we're at 8 right now and we need to keep moving language that i have for the motion is that the council of the commons works with the dda to explore the management of parking to meet the goal of activation for the library lane lot to

070provide a recommendation to city council anybody like that one i like the direction of that i don't adam are you comfortable uh being cited as chairs to as to initiate that and to bring other members of this of our council into that conversation as needed yeah i'm very comfortable serving as the point person and and you can state that if you'd like in the resolution i do ask in that regard that the other communication the sidebar communication that has historically gone on here also uh is uh is you know reduced or eliminated as well because i think if we're designating uh an official communication stream we need to go through that and we'll work to keep people in the loop okay i'm uh heather do you need to incorporate that or can you incorporate that

071okay this is what i have now the motion is that the center of the city chair or i'm sorry the council of the commons chair lead um work and communications with the dda to explore the management of parking to meet the goal of activation of the library lane lot to provide a recommendation to city council adam okay i'm fine with that okay so on favor uh well we'll move that statement well this little sidebar does not say that my forthcoming meeting with jeff watson i should cancel or i should call it i'm meeting as a private citizen where i'm meeting as a member of the initiating committee and not part of this group and i don't agree with this at all i think everybody should be talking to everybody myself yeah and i think what

072is causing confusion though is i think that there's uh that if we're gonna if we're gonna create a recommendation for this body to do something that we have an official way of communicating and it's not just me but in this particular case if you want me to do it then that's the case but i think what the concern is is and and you know frankly i am just going to say that i have this concern is that there is uh some animosity i think for past historical uh issues with the dda that is being expressed here and has been expressed here several other times and you know uh animosity is uh is not a positive catalyst to building working relationships and i would like to have a working relationship with the dda on behalf of

073this council and i'd like for this council to have a working relationship with the dda and that's not gonna happen if we're uh if we're continuing to have um animosity with the dea for historical wrongs and so uh so i'm fine with this resolution but uh and i'm supportive of it but i have that caveat in there and so i have no issue with you communicating with the dda but you should do so on behalf of a private citizen or on behalf of another group that you are part of representing that group if this resolution goes forward just one point of clarification i think erica said earlier that she has a meeting coming up with uh jeff watson i i don't think what we're doing now should be affected affect that at all no i

074think so no it's it's kind of separate and it's covering a lot of different topics and not not discussing parking management yep and and i and keep in mind too erica and lisa you know have the uh the virtue of being elected members of the city council and so they have uh they have uh you know a different series of purviews but i think if if we're gonna create a formal resolution here then we establish a formal way of communicating in this regard agreed thank you adam um so we'll move that that resolution that statement um and we'll need a second for that i had adam seconding that early on it was kind of written in different ways that's adam yeah adam if you want to let's find that second sure all in support um

075raise your hand say yes all right yes hi uh all um anyone objecting okie doke that's that's one down twelve to go okay um okay i think we should i think the issue of as i think about it i think it is not necessarily appropriate to to consider reformation of our membership um that's a complicated and long and drawn out thing and i would like a suggestion for a second issue or exploration uh to consider erica i would actually this could be a very long discussion i wonder if we might be able to do that as make recommendations and put them to the next agenda to kind of move on with the agenda to make sure that we get through the rest of the agenda by nine okay um i i'm good with that too

076okay well then let's move uh heather what's the next thing on an agenda sure yeah i might add you know you can maybe consider that homework you know for everybody in the group sorry my dog's broken um as well i think i think each group could consider what recommendations they would make as they report out to the rest of the yeah and kind of come come to the table next time with some sample language or um so this time yeah this time so um the next item is member news and updates anyone have anything to say at this point i wanted to see whether this item which was sort of a motion and sort of set aside it seems to me it should be reflected in the minutes that this question is now on the

077table for our discussion even though it did not result in a vote or an action um let's be more reflective of what actually goes on yes alan i think i think we can put because we did take a boat we can put that uh briefly in our minutes we can't we can't afford to or we we don't benefit from a word by word description of what what we discussed but we do benefit by saying that this is an issue and that we have um attempted a temporary uh means of going forward with it by having establishing a formal connect communication channel through adam with the dea about the parking okay i i meant the discussion about increasing the uh who is who is the membership of this yes i i i have removed that as

078a motion and we are going to go forward with the um reports from their working groups is that right heather those member news and updates oh members member news and updates but possibly that can be combined with working groups yeah i think that would be great um anybody who is not a member of a working group should speak now as a member having a communication to the body i i have a concern that we're not going to get to the update on the rfp i um really see it on there no it's not on the agenda well they're working groups uh okay uh the bottom working group okay there's your answer frank okay thanks um so who's on first on the list for the working groups sorry we have comparable communities who's the leader of

079that frank i think her rita frank and rita have been in charge of that well um we're working on a document that we'll try to summarize of the salient points we've learned in each of the three engagements with detroit plymouth and royal oak and i spent the afternoon printing off for my vast and growing collection of documents where that conversation actually is and i might mention and adam you might chime in on this uh i think it was our meeting with david cowan from detroit we actually took on assignments to each of us that would be alice myself rita yourself and i think sarah we took about 20 to 25 minute segments of the meeting and we're going to try to transcribe how that conversation evolved over the hour and a half that we were

080on that and i i don't know if if adam you collected them up i i have my own and i have rita's but i don't have the segments the other three segments i think i'm correct about this alice sarah and adam each had chunks of that zoom tape that we're going to look at and try to capture with those segments and put it together as a whole if that's confusing i'll send you an email later yeah frank i apologize i missed some of that i have i definitely have some information and and um but we could we can chat offline too and try and get some clarification okay i i will add that as a member of that group that um and i started to i tried to start an excel sheet to compare things

081like participation of the dda maintenance of the space and you know to have a to be able to look at one issue with regard to the way other communities do it and see oh this one did it that way this one did it that way or everybody's doing it like the dda seems to be a consistent one to show that all of these communities that we looked at considering them relevant to our work um did this did have a good relationship and a positive growing relationship along with the park itself and so that was very important and there were other things about funding that could be informative to compare those things to separate them into these separate these specific um areas of comparison i tried but i i had trouble using the document yeah that's

082my uh it's that strong skill set of mine to deal with these yeah i've had uh changes in windows changes in in all kinds of things to deal with but so and i read it was was trying to help me but we've all got so many things going that i think that that um we are going to have to recall more from memory and notes right hence yeah i'll just add that we did um submit at least some of our um documentation of each of the separate um uh connections that we made or at least two of them i believe two are minutes for this group i really i believe i recall those i was that's why as frank was talking i thought didn't we do that and i think we did do some some

083of it some of them yeah okay well anything else on from the um compare comparable communities okay next block partners outreach yeah so first my internet connection has been weird all night too so sorry if i freeze um we met right before the april meeting that i did not attend um so i'm not sure what was reported out there i'm hoping adam adam can kind of talk a little bit about it if you did this in april then don't bother doing it again but um i know you you mentioned this earlier you've been having some some communication with some of the the bigger player block partners um so if you wanted to share about that if you haven't otherwise we still have this this survey that we've um designed although i don't think we have

084all of the contacts done and i'm kind of unclear heather who would actually send out this survey once we i think the survey itself is pretty much ready to go if we know who it goes to and who actually would send it i consider this survey your research you know that you're doing to help you develop a recommendation so i would say that it comes from this body okay you know rather than an official survey it depends on how you want to send it out and how many people are on your list i guess in terms of how much support you need maybe from me to do that um you know if it's just um you know a dozen people that it's going to or entities that it's going to uh not so hard to

085do um but if it's going to more than that you know it might involved involved much more effort okay or if you're doing it electronic sorry i'm thinking about it in terms of like a paper oh no we're doing it electronically and not need addresses like easy enough to do i would just say you know you can send it out or you know somebody from the council of the commons can send it out yeah and i think it would be great if you could say this is the working group that is focused on the block partners partnership um community and um all the words we can use um but instead of from the whole body i think that would that would make it a more focused and customized um yeah i mean that also might

086confuse people more that have the part of the point of this was sort of raising awareness like i i just don't think like something coming from me it's going to go into someone's spam or you know like i don't know so i don't know even like the proper method listing out to people maybe um maybe it can be from heather could you say the working group of um the council on the commons is reaching out to the block partners and you're sending this survey on behalf of that group would that work yeah i can do that i could do that yeah would that work with you sarah yeah okay that gives you some standing and also limits the the sidebar and now we have that word sidebar communication yeah okay i think we have a

087lot of contacts i think i think we discussed i can't remember the small group that gathered right before the last official meeting like maybe just um kind of taking off some of the bigger players like the dd just sending it to like really the more immediate block partners adjacent um so i can probably set something up and like survey monkey i don't heather does the city have like a like a survey tool that is preferable we do but it um i i'm not sure if we can only send it to like a select group you know i'd have to look into doing that because otherwise it would just be out too to everybody you know to take um so yeah it's called a2 up in city hall so that's it's just kind of fun yeah

088that's too broad yeah right right so you might just have to do survey monkey also also i've grown concerned about the the relationship between the msaa the main street area association in that there's been recently there was a big newspaper article about all the events they were planning on main street and and it is called the main street area association and this is definitely if they're talking about the area that the dda which is the downtown district you know there's some it's very vague what area they're talking about but i think maybe they need to be surveyed too adam i think they were were they one of the people that you've talked to yeah uh they they are but i mean they are you know the mainstream association is uh is a private entity um

089and they they there's a purview you know a geographic boundary that covers the the uh area that they serve but uh but they are you know they do engage with the city uh and certainly we've seen them request the city to take certain actions or request counsel take cert certain actions in the past but um but ultimately they are a private association that's driven by their board and their members as are all as are all businesses that aren't within the block that we're talking about correct exactly so so i guess my question is is the block part of their area and no it's not okay alice i'm on the board of the i'm on the board of msaa and it's that's that's pretty far we would want to talk to francis at state street before

090we would probably want to engage with main street area association just because of their geographical purview but we did include both associations as a stakeholder the survey could go out to us brainstorming potential i think that's a good idea sarah i think it's having both you know um is it's it's it's kind of a strange location given the geographic boundaries of both associations but yeah and the dda's district is strangely arranged too they always claim that they're the downtown and then they want to claim state street area i mean it's kind of weird campus area is also in the downtown but no it's not you know it's just kind of it goes way back to park's designation so um okay sorry for interrupting but sarah did you have anything else to uh nope i just

091the survey i'm trying to find like the most recent version of the survey and i don't even know if this is it but it's really like pretty open-ended and and you know sort of asking for opinions on improvements or activities or something like that and really just giving them an opportunity to connect more with us um so sort of like an initial stage in feedback so you know give us your thoughts well explaining what everything it like what the center of the city is um just giving their thoughts and then like if they want to keep um continuing to be engaged just sort of if there is this black partner group formed this would give us you know at least some people formed in that number two thing that alan referred to earlier um officially

092because i think that is still something that should probably happen so this was sort of like a first step into identifying like who some of these people are that are interested in engaging with us so i will send around what i think is the final draft of this survey to that sub committee um along with the i will find the list that i think erica started of contacts and then we can just at least get this out there and then you know kind of parallel adam has been and i think eric i've been talking to some of like the bigger the library the dda people that i don't necessarily think need this type of survey yeah i'm happy to fill in too on in on the updates i have talked with the new director of

093the library um and had a really i think it was a very positive conversation um about the ability to you know work together shared some of the comparable communities work and some of that vision um and uh you know there wasn't an ask or anything like that at the end of it uh it was it was just you know an introduction and here's what we've uh what we've been doing thus far and you know here are some of the things that we've learned from some other communities and i left it at that i think it was constructive um and uh you know i indicated that as we move forward in particular with an rfp that we would want to engage with the library as a neighboring institution and prominent member of the block and so

094there seemed to be receptive receptiveness to that we discussed how it would be uh based on uh you know taking those steps that that that uh that you know we would ask them to get engaged when there was a a planning process going on uh for for the planning of a development of the site and so uh so i think it was good we've had some communication since then um i think we're off to a positive working relationship and um you know i i think it's i think it's good thus far um likewise i reached out through some contacts to establish a contact with the university of michigan credit union in fact just today it took a little while to locate the correct person because they've had some leadership changes too and uh just today

095um we traded some emails back and forth with uh with i believe i don't know this gentleman's uh i guess he's he is i actually don't know what his title is like uh exactly but um tom kuslikis uh with um credit union and we've had now a phone conversation and are gonna get together for a cup of coffee and talk more about the project similar to what uh what we did with the the library and so but you know very open willingness to have that conversation and i think that you know i have no reason to think that they will not want to be a a good community partner um and then uh the final conversation i've had i've had a couple of conversations with first martin mike martin and he certainly is very interested

096in uh participating in you know as the as we move the process forward around planning uh you know and and being engaged in that process uh because of the relationship with their property uh both liberty plaza and the uh top of the parking garage that is you know makes up the majority of the center of the city so um you know i think those are good things you know the dda as i indicated previously it's the one entity have not um not directly connected with uh that uh now we will go forward with that um but you know i think i think the conversations i've had you know people um have very uh different uh historical visions around this site and i think it's about i think the success that you know some of these

097companies one-on-one conversations are um indicating is that you know uh if you describe what we're learning from other communities and sort of the interests that seem to be popping up here um it paints a bit of a different vision from some of that historical um historical vision and that some folks may have and so i think that's positive and seems to be moving to uh indicate creator support so we're just gonna keep working at it like that and that's that was that that was my plan and i think that's uh very much in concert with an activity that is in concert with the survey work um and uh and we'll just keep sarah and the subcommittee block partners uh block partner subcommittee or black partner worthy group rather um in the loop on all those

098conversations um and and i'll get into the parks uh commission update later i guess that's another obviously another partner in that regard too wow well a lot of we have a long way to go don't we but i'm glad to hear the progress um and i see ellen i see you have your hand up but i do want to say that i think i'll ask if any of our working groups have a recommendation in mind that would further the work on their behalf not not on the work of the commit the group but that would further the center of the development of the center of the city from that perspective of that working group so keep in mind when you when the group your working group um reports to uh to think in terms of

099a recommendation that would help move your goals along we'll check in with you alan before we go to the next working group if in that in this working group one place we we were including the state street main street uh i think we even talked about kerrytown what are the surrounding areas are really relevant to this but also we had some question as to how to address or touch toward the issues of distress around liberty plaza and i think our last draft was to sort of sort of ignore those questions leave those out of the stimulation of the questionnaire yeah but we need another meeting of this uh working group to finalize what is what is actually the survey and who it's going to go to and uh yep i just put on my calendar

100to do all that tomorrow okay it's not on my calendar i won't do it so it's on the counter good talk to you soon sarah okay thank you alan uh who's next what group is next racing fundraising okay i i can give an update on that one um uh so uh we had a discussion heather frank and i talked um earlier this week i think it was or maybe it was last week uh and uh and um i i think took some good uh created some good ideas about external sources both uh private um you know potentially individual donors and also you know local business contributors that they could partner we talked about public grant opportunities and we looked at associations who helped coordinate some public funds too we took some action items and we're

101getting back together again i think it's next week and uh i thought it was very productive uh first step and i think as long as we keep moving the ball down the field and uh in the in the way we did after this first conversation then we'll be we'll um you know hopefully have some fruit to yield as a result of our labor so i thought it was i thought it was good i don't know if heather or frank would like to comment at all but that's that's what i've got i think that's a an accurate description and uh i think this is this kind of regular what i call massaging the list uh is is important um and i think that uh there are you know there are some key players here who not

102only their financial support but just their presence and involvement it provides an important implied endorsement uh that carries even further than the dollars and um we we the library green conservancy was able uh was able to have a banner at our earth day program with the initiating committee and we you know had four what we call community partners bank of ann arbor largely through matt altrudis efforts we had the zingerman's community of businesses are now supporting uh library green on this project uh the towsley foundation harry and margaret towsley foundation and the mosaic foundation of reader and peter hayden are all substantial donors and i think getting those you know well-known community names uh backing this effort uh uh really uh is a kind of a a parallel goal to actually raising the dollars we

103need to do things that we need to do okay yeah um that's what that's concludes that working group do we go on to the next one which would be near-term activation this one i think has some relationship to the parking issue we we've talked a lot about this one already yeah yeah yeah and i don't know how much i don't really have anything to report out um just as a reminder to the group that we sort of put our cadence of meetings on a hold while um mr dehone and the police and you know some other folks involved in the that immediate surrounding area were dealing with some of the crime and other issues that were troubling at liberty plaza um and sort of us us trying to work through that while those that group

104was meeting simultaneously was not very helpful um erica i don't mean to put you on the spot but i'm going to hold to you i was about to raise my hand yeah i was going to say i haven't been part of those conversations um since i left spark so i i would look for erica to give an update and there was just a um i think adam was at a meeting prior to me but then there was a meeting of the kind of larger working group again which um council member ram lawyer and i were invited to so i did get an update about what's happening there um and kind of i if i was smart i would have my notes in front of me so i will try to recall on the best i

105can all the the details of that and um recommendations for the use of that hundred thousand dollars the council had allocated um for um improvements at liberty plaza one of the primary pieces of how that that funding is going to be used is for um support for programming three staff members um temporary staff members are going to be higher this has been a recommendation long-term recommendation of the parks staff that and what we found here is that successful public spaces require staff that help and and do that um and organize events and so um obviously this is not a uh maybe three temporary staff members the question um i had made a recommendation to perhaps even think about um and others as well uh you know maybe bringing in two temporary staff members and being

106able to stretch that that funding out for a little bit longer um the idea is hopefully that those those staff members would be around through the end of the year and would be organizing events all through the summer and early fall and whole gamut so i'm sure that um there was definitely a desire to connect around um with this group and and initiating committee and leveraging conservancy as well in terms of that space that came out of that discussion but um so that's that's a big win there was also discussions around um sort of how improving sight lines um some of the the issues that had been identified that had caused some safety risks in terms of um some of the shrubbery and um chairs in certain places some of those had been removed or

107changed in order to address those issues on a temporary basis and then additional programming of social service agencies and in terms of making sure that existing users of the space particularly vulnerable users are getting the type of support that they need the real goal of the park staff and city staff is to not to make this a space that works for everybody and to not um so that everybody feels safe and welcome there it's not to exclude any groups um but um and so that's i think a really good approach that the city is taking uh in terms of just trying to make sure that the resources are there and improve for those who need it as well as getting active programming into that space and there was real desire to to be evaluating this

108and a real acknowledgement that this needs needs to be successful i mean you know we've been talking about liberty plaza and the challenges there for a long time um and so this is an opportunity to to really be moving forward in a productive way so um it's we are still a little bit the beginning i mean hopefully within a month we'll have folks in place and we'll be getting an update on that as well in that committee are in that larger working group um but i um i'll also ask for information be to be shared here as well thank you well i'll just i'll add one one point here uh i'll add just one point here um from my perspective and and sitting on the sort of subcommittee on that uh that that uh looked

109at that that uh those recommendations before the working group um you know i think mr de honey is in uh you know really i think he has listened to the discussions here and uh is trying to uh move you know solve the problems that this that the community is experiencing in liberty plaza with an eye to how do we how do we help this be a part of our plan for the for the uh for what the city is going to decide to do or look at deciding to do around the center the broader center of the city i think he's really trying to be a really um a constructive um bridge builder on this uh if you will and and so i i really supported the uh the effort that he put forward um

110and i'm glad to hear what erica just said as to what's what's come out of that a little bit more so that's that's the only other piece i'll add thanks adam i was just about to ask if this was if i was hearing it right that this might be a movement toward integrating the block making it a a hole rather than making it a hole so that what benefits liberty plaza would benefit our further development of the center of the city and vice versa that these would be complementary developments that we're doing to improve the overall situation and potential for this project what else and what else from that group and i think just to that point um there was a a real discussion around um yeah obviously what happens what happens there really is

111is beneficial obviously to this space it's beneficial to all the surrounding spaces um when when there are problems there it is it is it is challenging for the business community when it's not activated activation there is beneficial to the business community when it sees a slowdown at different times of year so um there was a recognition that um that activation was was going to have these um positive ripple effects good to hear next group i've got rfp development so i can comment a little bit here um can you hear me okay okay so uh sorry i can only see when the the little green box moves to my uh picture uh so uh so i i comment a little bit so we did have the first meeting of the rfp uh development um group and

112we kicked off uh heather and you know since then uh we've had and this kind of spills into the parks uh work too um you know a desire to uh ensure that there is um a really symbiotic relationship between uh the parks department and uh and this working group and so um you know we we batted around a number of um number of ways this could be done and the thing that we arrived at uh was uh the you know to make sure that we sort of make this this as a discussion point in our report to the uh in our in our upcoming we had called it a report to the parks advisory commission but it's almost kind of turned into more of a discussion with the parks advisory commission including a you know

113a report out of some of the things that we were we've been working on and so uh stephen erica and i talked about uh about what what that could look like and um so i i bring that up you know here because i think that what we're finding is that this uh advancement of the rfp the the continuing writing of the rfp and um needs to really um there needs to be good alignment between this the council of the commons and the parks advisory committee um on the direction on that and so what we arrived at was we need to make sure we get on the parks advisory committee agenda asap and we've done that we're going to be there on june 20th and have that discussion and the rfp will be brought up as

114part of that and a strong desire you know will be expressed around you know having there be a working you know working uh staff working together on on that and um and and you know dealing with any barriers around the um the uh you know strange jurisdictional issue that um that the proposal the the you know the proposal has created so um you know that's that's where we're at um i don't know if heather or erica would like to add any further comment um but i feel i feel good about the direction we've had it's not sort of a stall it's sort of a just we need to get packed uh we need to have some conversation with pack stephen obviously you could feel pretty uh frank your hand is up i just want to

115make a quick comment uh i've really encouraged erica on the report of how this money's going to be used the hiring of the temporary staff and it really dovetails uh in some ways yet to be determined uh the earlier conversation we had about activation of a library lane parking service and and you you correctly observe that we're building on sand unless unless we can solve the the issues around liberty plaza and activation uh obviously is is key and um so it's i think it's going to be exciting to see how that goes and how we can uh leverage off of it in some way for the broader public space on on the block in the in the near term thank you frank um next group is it then it's uh the next item was updated

116on report to parks advisory commission which adam basically covered unless there was anything more to add to that no not unless stephen or erica would like to add any additional comment yeah i i think just it's just important that um as adam mentioned that this is it's it's a little bit more than a report it's really making sure that a check-in with pac and um um getting um making sure that they're comfortable with the the approach that that um moving forward with as well right now and um we need to kind of be in alignment is in both commissions and um steve's been providing great updates um so they're they're pretty aware of how things have been going um so this doesn't come as a surprise uh but just it's a good check-in point and

117a good opportunity for for pac to be able to weigh in on kind of um before we're moving forward you know so we're moving forward together with rfp process hopefully i i would like to mention that this might be might also involve a conversation about what the role of special properties are in the park system such as the farmers market cobblestone farm and i think four or five others um and whether designation as one of those properties is possible or beneficial or not not really working in this situation that would be a good thing to kind of sort out along the way i think i guess i'm not sure what that means we've got park we got two things we have parks and we have natural areas and special properties farmers market because those those

118start to look like different ways of managing and administering those properties and also the funding is different too that i agree with it yeah there are several uh instances of having some sort of a non-profit or other sort of partnership with the city to manage or program in a particular space community action network um the skate park farmer's market there's a variety of examples yeah that's something to keep in mind is as either a bank of ideas or something to avoid i don't know which that's a good point has this question actually been on the parks advisory committee agenda as a topic that everybody talks about besides periodic reports from you stephen um i'm not hearing that yet i guess i don't maybe i don't understand the question no we've not had a discussion as

119to how to activate the space somehow if that's if that's the question we've had discussions and updates just as far as uh me reporting in from this commission yeah okay thank you and heather you said that's our last group working group yeah that's it then the next item is next agenda items and then after that we get a public comment um agenda items for the next meeting is that for the next meeting yeah so if we want to list out some agenda items it sounds like we are wanting to return to a discussion about recommendations yes definitely recommendations to counsel i would also recommend um we're gonna have a report back probably on how that conversation with pac went yeah exactly that'll be an important discussion um and it it might be helpful um to

120have a presentation or update somehow from mr dahony around that may be a good check a good point in time either for him or somebody else on staff to be providing an update around what's happening exactly on liberty plaza we may have enough of development around staff being hired that might be the right timing in terms of just a little brief update on that i would think okay doing that makes sense maybe check in on whether we do want whether we want to consider a [Music] slight adjustment of our membership in order to support the things that we're discovering have more equity in terms of the participants in this project at least i don't know i would like to be more succinct than that but um to maybe to review our the status of our

121membership would be one thing and we can remove it from the agenda or table it if we if we need to because that is a long-term kind of thing but if it would help to move that forward then we'll anna if this sounds okay with you i would put that under recommendations the discussion of recommendations because that's something that i believe needs to be a council resolution right it would be yeah okay anything else what's next is that the next thing before adjournment it's public haven't time oh i'm so sorry you got booted out and i'm just now seeing there she is i think all right you're back in sorry about that um uh for public health we do have one person with their hand uh and i believe that's jeff crockett thank you very

122much i just want to congratulate you all i watched the whole meeting i thought it was exceedingly well run alice you did a fantastic job um and i appreciate especially the outreach to the dda which i've been trying to do for the last three and four months and i believe eventually it will work very well i do want to comment on a couple things first i want to say that the addition of wild ones in my opinion is going to be a game changer we're talking about a group with 90 people 90 volunteers they're talking about classes and other things they're really invested in using this as an educational experience and in fact if you look more broadly down the road imagine having 14 different lots 14 different gardens with 14 different themes supported by

12314 different groups which i believe in the long run is possible one uh one year building on the success of others and then what you're going to find is you're going to have a lot of people eyes on the street eyes on the park a lot of people there maintaining their gardens this is what we've experienced we're there you know our group of 20-plus volunteers is there three and four times a week checking irrigating and all that kind of thing the other thing i want to mention is that the parks department well i want to say that there will be no trouble finding volunteers to come in and maintain the tables the parks department has an adopt-a-park program and one of our volunteers who came in to help plant is a member of that program

124and he goes around the different parks and cleans things up and maintains uh the facilities there this is going on right now and the parks department could not do this without these volunteers and i have every confidence that if we activate the space and start off with just a couple tables next to where the wild ones is doing it we will have no trouble maintaining it and we will fulfill our obligation to begin to activate the comments so i just want to conclude by congratulating congratulating you all on a very well-run meeting thank you thank you jeff anyone else heather that's it that i see with her hand raised whose hand is raised nobody nobody oh okay good and i want to [Music] state my personal kudos to all those people who have participated in

125the gardening efforts uh and the excitement that the wild ones joining the group is going to generate um i think they've they deserve all the singing that we can get and keep them from being unsung because um it's it's the it's the thing it's a really active and exciting group and group effort so with my comment i often i welcome any other comments about anything else before we adjourn nice job alice thanks for stepping up really well done yeah it's easy adam laid a good foundation yeah he did wow seamless i really appreciate it too uh yeah all right i just want to say thanks and uh i but i also want to say i do think that uh you know that we saw last year um about some of the excitement that the gardening

126uh efforts did provide and uh i know jeff is trying to be good at good partner in this and and those folks are are having a good time and they are beautified in space and so i think that is that that comment that made that alice made is a uh is an important one to recognize so um just thanks everybody sorry for the technical difficulties but thank you again ellis for everything thanks everyone for overcoming our adversities and moving forward with courage so good night everybody thanks everyone everyone bye everybody [Music] you