Council of the Commons - Center of the City 1/6/2022

001you can keep things on task i'm sure alan will pop in here um but uh heather if you could start by um i guess we'll do uh call call to order and uh and um you know just remind folks that it it would be uh wonderful we could uh end by nine o'clock um and kick things off uh right in 2022 and uh with that we will go ahead and do a roll call uh heather could you call the roll sure and then i would also like to ask people just to introduce yourselves slightly you know just a little bit just tell us a little bit about yourselves because we do have our new member council member lisa dish um so who you are um where you're at that's part of real call where you're

002calling in from in terms of jurisdiction and then maybe a little bit of trivia something about yourself so we can start with oh stephen is gone jennifer cornell hi everyone um president jennifer cornell i'm here in ann arbor michigan um i am senior vice president of marketing communications and events for a local non-profit um ann arbor spark and um i have four kids two cats and one dog a little bit trivia and a little bit about myself thank you um alan haber he's not here yet um but i'm sure he'll be joining a little later sarah hammersman garen ann arbor i'm elisa and i know each other and i can't think of anything interesting about myself i always tell people like i have twins but she knows that um i grew up in michigan and

003left for 17 years before i came back to raise my family in ann arbor oh you didn't know there you go yeah welcome back thanks all right jeffrey kenny oh hi i'm jeff henny from ann arbor present uh i have three kids and uh four grandkids and i'm a professor at cleary university and i used to be a director of technology medic biomedical technology transfer at university of michigan all right uh camilla hi present in ann arbor michigan i am a second year urban planning grad student at u of m and i have one cat you're on the home stretch right the semester yeah i graduated may oh congratulations very exciting thank you uh rita mitchell hi i'm rita mitchell i'm here in ann arbor and um i have a long history of being a

004cross-country skier so i attempt to be tolerant of cold and i have two cats alice ralph was ralph attending from ann arbor michigan washington county michigan since we're talking about weather and geography i grew up mostly in oklahoma and went to college in wisconsin and thought i was going to freeze to death in my freshman year finally you realize that you don't buy your wisconsin winter coat in oklahoma so i came back for winter term and got myself a wisconsin coat and had my skates uh my ice skates sent from oklahoma which had been on a shelf for probably eight years because not much ice skating in oklahoma and uh survived and then i became a college textbook publishing rep [Music] and traveled most of the wood well the upper midwest um as a representative

005for a college textbook company now not known because it everything got collapsed in that industry went back to school became an architect and i've been in ann arbor since so i've been involved with the tree line and other civic and civic activities great thank you frank wilhelm hi i've been in ann arbor since uh i think 1968 i went to school at eastern and uh back then you could travel west on washington leave ypsilanti go into the country and then begin to enter enter ann arbor that's no longer possible i went from eastern to becoming a high school history teacher and geography teacher at dexter high school um i'm enjoying staying in touch because of facebook and so on with a number of my former students are who are entering their their eighth decade of

006life i'm barely ahead of them in age um and i uh segued it's a whole story which i won't give you a segue from teaching to becoming uh the executive director of the historical society of michigan for eight years and then uh transitions to what is now the ross school of business in 1980 and spent 30 years there as assistant well eventually i had many titles assistant dean for development and alumni relations retired 12 years ago thank you frank i mean i'm in ann arbor in the fifth ward oh yeah thank you adam uh adam zemke here in ann arbor um uh let's see here i will join the uh uh camilla with the the one cat club um she although i'm definitely confident that she has us not uh the other way around um

007and uh but um but uh you know grew up here in ann arbor um i've been involved in politics for about a decade uh and um you know care about uh seeing this project come to fruition um and outside of that uh my day job i have a couple of day jobs i um run a uh education policy coalition called launch michigan that is comprised of business educators and philanthropists focused on improving equity in public education and then a few years ago i got the uh bright idea maybe bright idea of uh getting involved in the multimodal transportation business and founded a scooter uh moped store here in ann arbor and that's been a fun adventure um definitely an adventure uh at some time and um but um you know just pleased to be here

008and be involved in the community great all right councilmember briggs i assume you two know each other but a pretty sure a bit of trivia for the restaurants fairly well yeah so um erica bakes here in ann arbor um let's see some trivia that might be new to all of you um i my more exotic travels occurred when i was before the age of five i lived in morocco and kuwait um and if we want to talk about cold spots morocco was one of them our family moved because we didn't have heat in the house so we came back to came back to indiana moved to move to morocco or moved to kuwait um and then slightly different climate and then ended up here in ann arbor where my dad was pursuing a phd when

009i was five and council member dish there we go my unmute just wouldn't work um so i am the representative for ward one in ann arbor i'm also a political science professor at the university of michigan which is a job that i just adore as much as i am enjoying council as well um and i'm teaching a class this semester on uh really democratic politics and we are going to read a bunch of cool stuff some of it by dead people but some of it by live people and then we are going to culminate in doing a two case studies one on the flint water crisis and one on the great lakes water compact diversion decision for waukesha wisconsin and you would think that one is an example of government failing and the other is

010an example of you know a smart sustainable compact succeeding but i would argue that the flint crisis was a better success for democratic politics given what the citizens were able to accomplish than the waukesha diversion which should not have happened and will enable sprawl and enables suburbs that prevent multi-family housing from being built in them it provides them with water from my lake so i am and i hope the students come out perfectly indoctrinated great work and here's alan haber alan we're just going around doing introductions since we have a new member uh you're the last one so if you thank you i had my usual trouble getting through the zoom and rita is my savior and thank you rita for sending me again the link i'm allen hebron and ann arbor and uh hello

011lisa hello everyone uh i'm intimately connected with this project since 2009 when i first spoke that the center of the city should be developed as a community commons uh fostering a culture of peace and non-violence for the children of the world and if i bet we're getting there so i look forward to this meeting heather you're up last oh me oh gosh um oh i'm heather seiferth i'm a planner uh in the systems planning division at the city so which is different than the planning department um my focus is on community engagement but i do specialty projects like this like the tree line as well as center of the city and other random projects i get pulled into to do project management for my background is actually collaboration and planning the first uh big job

012that i had out of school was working for an agency and helping jurisdictions get along with each other so township cities and villages get over past disputes and work on whatever planning project that they wanted to do and so traveled around the state doing that and then since then i've done work with clean energy i've worked in the private sector for a little bit and then um here i am at the city working on a variety of things well i could say just a little bit more because i was really brief i see these are wider introductions uh i've been i yeah i began the university of michigan in 1954 and became a political activist in that first year which i have been uh ever since initiating the group called the students for a democratic

013society in 1959 i was part of the war on poverty when i went to the school of social work and got grant for the university of michigan and worked in the willow village area around the obama factory i've lived in california i lived in california for 25 years after i spent a year at the institute for policy studies in washington d.c and i'm particularly i when i read peter linebaugh's writing on the commons i began to see the commons is really the critical question in so many movements and struggles all around the world that the enclosure of commonly pooled resources or the commonwealth by corporations or the government is really the struggle and here we have an opportunity to provide a a model for the self-management of the resources both a bit of land and

014also the talent of the community so this is a long development for me and and i hope i was part of the center of the city task force and while at the beginning people were very hesitant to this idea by the end there was an educational process and people saw this comments there's really something to it and i hope that all of us here will see similarly that there's a profound idea of how resources are managed more than just what is the uh where there are benches and stages and things like that thank you thanks ellen i also just noticed that i had re paused the recording for the zoom this is actually being recorded by ctn and being aired live by ctn so it is being recorded i do a zoom recording as a

015backup so i'm going to resume that recording in progress all right there we go all right well thank you uh thanks everyone welcome council member dish it's wonderful to have another council member here so um we'll go ahead and start with the approval of the agenda um any amendments to the agenda this evening all right can we get a motion to approve them any second very good all right uh all in favor say aye raise your hand any opposed all right motion carries um we'll go into the approval of the minutes from uh the last time heather uh had posted those on legistar for us any uh questions regarding the minutes from uh last i guess the last meeting of last year can we get a motion to approve moved by councilman briggs any uh

016second all right by jen all in favor say aye aye aye you opposed okay um and uh we'll go into public comment uh heather do we have any members of the public we do we have three people that joined us tonight and one person has their hand up so i will um it's the person with the phone number ending in 326 i'm allowing you to talk welcome welcome you should be able to speak now again that's the person with hi this is uh jeff crockett calling and i some of you first of all i want to thank lisa for as a first ward constituent i'm very pleased that lisa has joined this committee i've already talked to her about the commons and the garden but i'm speaking tonight oh just just a brief word about

017myself for the people don't know me i recently concluded a 47-year career in education my focus was on assistive technology my real interest though was in developing educational communities and uh community uh and educational community engagement so when i retired uh getting i started to get into the commons and i thought wow this is just the natural fit i just sort of love this so uh some of you already know that i was involved in starting a community garden we called ourselves the green team with about 25 people who spent the summer building this garden many of you've probably seen it but in the process of that i realized it was important to collect data and to create a presentation so i created a powerpoint presentation which i previously distributed to you all and i

018realized that the importance of a powerpoint because seeing is believing text just doesn't really do it you have to see to understand really is going on so at the conclusion of the growing season i connected with alan and odile haver realizing that the best way to chronicle the activity of the the commons as a whole was through a powerpoint presentation so i believe alan through heather probably communicated or passed along a 53 slide presentation i hope you have an opportunity to look at that if you haven't already probably the most important slide on that presentation is number four which has to do with the contributors and you'll see a wide range of contributors we had probably close to 30 individuals who at various points got involved in the garden but not only that in the

019planning of the various events we documented 450 hours just in the garden alone i would estimate that we at least spent 200 more volunteer hours in developing these five events which i felt were very successful but we took pictures just to show you what it was like and there's a difference between describing it and being there and sort of seeing it so i hope you sort of take a close look uh one of the things i want to point out with what i realized through the activation of the uh commons was how much local businesses you know can benefit so for example we had jerusalem garden factory printing window one photography big city smallwood bakery treetown murals b-square design studios etude scooter ankara jewel holidays restaurant archer's farm stop and margolis nursery not only participated

020but we advertised and promoted them and this is sort of following the lead of what plymouth has done with their kellogg commons because they regularly promote local businesses and this is a real strong incentive for us to activate the garden but beyond the promotion of local businesses we learned that you can do a whole bunch of different activities including fundraising demonstrations supporting non-profits interestingly enough painting chalk drawing entertainment the open mic was particularly interesting because in this age of social media where a lot of people don't participate this provides an opportunity for people who aren't on social media to engage and speak their minds to other people and community discussions all of which by the way are on a space which is handicapped accessible and you don't have to shut down streets when you have

021uh events on the commons like you do in other places you can have events on the commons and keep the city streets running the last thing i want to mention is that there's a great website that it's about public it's um a project for public spaces and if you google that you will get to the website and this is a non-profit group which has explored developing public spaces for many many years and they've listed this one document 11 principles for creating community places and i would like to highlight number six which is start with the petunias lighter quicker cheaper the complexity of public spaces is such that you cannot expect to do everything right initially the best spaces experiment with short-term improvements that can be tested and refined over many years elements such as seating

022outdoor cafes public art striping of crossword crosswalks and pedestrian havens community gardens and murals are examples of improvement that can be accomplished in a very short time and i would appreciate if you could keep that in mind as you look in the next steps certainly go for the request for information but you can certainly check this document out for a lot of other wonderful ideas and how to get started thank you very much for your time thank you jeff all right and our next person is robert black and i forgot to start timing but we do need to remember that comments need to be cut to three minutes so robert here we go you should be able to talk i have it heather thank you um hello again and happy 2022 we look forward to

023new goals and actions this year for ann arbor central park and civic center commons i'd like to address agenda item number eight tonight design process draft rfi review this version too is a good progress from your previous version one a key change being where you highlight all the land parcels noted in proposition a liberty plaza surface of library lane parking structure library lane and kempfos i also applaud the reference and link to the center of the city task force report i suggest here however that there is more work to do in researching this report and harvesting the most important takeaways from that report this important groundwork will aid professionals in tailoring their responses to the rfi and may also prove to be a more efficient use of limited public and private funds the last paragraph

024of section one history references the fifth recommendation of the task force authorize initial planning for the development of the public spaces on the center of the city block this is an important step yet the task force noted necessary priorities before goal number five for example goal number two schedule regular meetings of a center of the city block partners group this is an important step and can be done informally at first to build awareness and assess potential interest in the immediate neighbors of the block i'm glad to see that your agenda item 7b this evening we'll talk about that goal number three approve ground level parking on the library lot structure and begin efforts to redesign as an active public space the first part of this goal is already being addressed the second part the activating

025part has been inspiringly done through the past year as you just heard from my colleague jeff crockett by the committed volunteers of the initiating committee working in collaboration with your efforts a recent powerpoint as jeff described shows the many successful events this group did to activate the commons in and goal number four authorized initial planning of the long-term development of the center of the city block as a priority under the city's master plan this goal is paramount to the foundation of a complete rfi work that would pay dividends in soliciting potential professionals and could be accomplished in one or more facilitated working sessions they would knit together the current thinking on critical planning elements such as ann arbor's comprehensive plan the ann arbor sustainability framework plan 820 and much more this need not be a

026daunting task for each of you are guided by a shared desire to create a central park and civic center commons for ann arbor a vision that is forming into a more defined reality at each of your successive meetings you would not be here if you didn't have such a commitment thank you for this and have a productive meeting tonight all right thank you oh and mr dehoni is here so let's welcome him he's coming in now and i see one other person um who has called in but has not raised their hand so if you would like to raise your hand and speak please go ahead and do that and welcome mr dahony thank you thank you welcome okay i think that's it for public comment all right um in that case we'll move on

027to member news and updates uh i think alan you uh had some information you wanted to share here yeah well i have several i do i was part of putting together this powerpoint on the history of what the initiating committee has done in the course of the year and i do hope you'll give it all a good read um i am in the slide 20 and 41 uh we had participation from native american people and have developed the sense beyond the land acknowledgement that we generally give in any public program recognizing that before ourselves and our antecedents here this land was uh occupied by the pottawatomie people who were displaced in the 1820s and forced military march away and so the idea is percolating to see how the ann arbor community could extend a invitation

028to return if there be established a a community from the pottawattamie people here in ann arbor particularly besides just the justice of the matter that the indigenous cultures have a great sense of how the commons actually works and even more important importantly have a cultural experience of sustainability and resilience in terms of the cultural and environmental stress and that is something that we and everyone needs to deal with so i make that announcement that these conversations are going on between ourselves and people of the original people here and anyone interested in participating in that development i do hope you'll be in touch with me and i'm hoping that we will have some uh gathering for martin luther king day on the monday the 17th later in the afternoon there are lots of things going on

029but it's very important in some sense that this center of the city be a place for the important holidays and celebrations and consciousness-raising events have their location yes in the center of the city so i think that's what was on my mind i did send forward a number of edits toward the uh request for information that i wasn't there actually i tell you they all come up as they come up okay any questions at all for alan all right thank you allen um and you obviously did a 10 or send that document as well um i started looking through it but i haven't finished yet so um it will come an agenda at agenda time absolutely so we'll move on to the working group updates then um first one up is the comparable communities and

030i know that we had some discussion uh before uh before the uh christmas holiday at least and i don't know frank or rita or sarah would like to talk a little bit about the latest uh i can also add some things as well but i i was not in attendance on the visit and uh so i wanted to see if there's anybody else wanted to wanted to comment um i guess i have a question whether whether we're gonna take a quick look at our field report from the detroit visit and uh i think myself and rita and alice can all uh comment about this but we've just i think we've established a very uh rich uh connection with the detroit of the downtown detroit partnership this is a 100 year old business uh organization that

031has partnered with the city and they really manage and and uh and help with the design and development and improvement of uh a number of downtown detroit parks and uh on the 10th of december we are blessed with a a pretty nice day in detroit and uh alice ralph arena mitchell and myself were able to make the trip and to walk uh and visit uh five separate downtown parks and i i guess we'll just um well there was one thing that struck me as we got on the ground there that um a number of these parks uh although they show up on augustus woodward's 1805 plan after the devastating fire that destroyed most of detroit we got ahead of chicago with our fire and a whole new plan was developed and these plots of land

032were there in the the early design but they in the early 20th century they they got co-opted by motorized transportation and they became uh public transit uh transfer points uh and so the it's only in the last uh 15 to 20 years that a number of these parks have been reclaimed as open spaces uh in detroit um if you could scroll a bit uh um this is a picture of grand circus park which is the largest of the parks by far that we visited um and it is probably the most uh passive of parks it doesn't have uh standing regular daily activities that we're aware of but they it it is close to important public venues like comerica park and the orchestra hall and and not really too far from uh ford field either so

033it it does serve as a venue uh for opening days and uh for baseball etc um i just want to point out one part of it that the that semi that circle that we're looking at there is actually an elevated space and it's really easy to sit on it it's like an incorporated bench just pretty nice um and this you don't you can't really tell but there's a little dog park there as well that's right on the left i believe and uh am i am i correct that this is the one that's on top of the parkings that's great we don't want to leave that out that's right thank you that's right and so look look at those trees the the park predated the underground parking and then was put back together after the underground

034structure was placed there i think initially in the 1950s so it uh but it's a good example for us to study and understand um i think we can move on to capital park i believe is next this by far is the smallest park we visited it's about i believe this is about a half a half an acre and again it was uh well it its history is that the first state capital of the territory of michigan and the first very first years of statehood um was uh on this site the building was destroyed by fire but it's also the burial ground of our first governor steven st mason who was became governor of the territory at the age of 23 or something like that it was unbelievable but it uh this was redeveloped uh with

035a funding of 1.1 million from the detroit uh downtown development authority uh in the early 2000s and has really been a spark to rejuvenate the adjoining neighborhood uh it's very enclosed uh with you know relatively tall buildings just really adjacent as you can see here and those poles there are permanently placed uh umbrellas to protect against the weather and uh i think we are all kind of envious of that i wonder how we could do that on the library lot um so there there are activities there um maybe moving on to campus marshes that it's kind of the this is in some ways the jewel of the downtown parks it's quite small 1.2 acres these smaller parks are really comparable in many ways to the size of the top of the library lot it has

036a full not a full-size ice rink but one that's larger than grant than uh rockefeller center they're proud to say um and there's a four seasons restaurant on the site and uh major events uh for example you can see the uh the christmas tree in the background here uh which attracts uh they say 75 to 100 000 people for the lighting of that tree so this is a real hub of activity uh in the downtown i'd like to mention also that uh there is an in-ground uh performance platform that uh is integrated with the sidewalk around the skating rink and it can be elevated as a performance space right yeah there's a lot of flexibility i've been on this site when it's just um pre-pandemic i guess just shoulder to shoulder with people involved in

037multiple activities including the ice rink and so on immediately adjacent to it is cadillac square park i mean you don't really realize you're leaving one and entering another cadillac square park is i think i'm right 360 feet long and only 60 feet wide there's basically a corridor with small but uh effectively used uh portable buildings which are removed in the summer but uh they are uh they house a small startup business and so jen i thought about you immediately that uh gee we could have some some business startups right here on the center of the city um and then there's this large it's called cadillac lodge this large indoor space that hosts a variety of activities i didn't actually get in there but i think it did cozy it was it's giant and cozy at

038the same time it has multiple seating areas with big comfy chairs it was heated there's a coffee bar here there's some other food in the back and this was a huge tent just hey frank and frank can i jump in for a second too like i know that there are businesses um retail businesses in town who have actually gone to the pop-ups for campus marches so local businesses so um rock paper scissors for instance like i know that they have done a pop-up in campus marshes um and so i think that that we could even draw from the local business community to to source some you know best practices or whatever to activate the space in that way so thanks for letting me add that yeah that would be a a great way to keep

039uh the space active in the in the winter months i guess i mean maybe more than that but i think these are brought in like in november and taken out in in uh you know early spring uh and then brought and then brought back uh the following year at least that's their their method of operating yeah i i i think jen makes a good point these are more likely more aptly described as pop-ups rather than startups yeah thank you that's good it could be both actually sure and then finally uh beacon park uh sorry for the page separation there um this is different because uh dte energy uh started this park on their on their property and it's uh managed by the detroit the downtown detroit partnership david cowan's group um and it's uh it's

040very open and airy but there is also an indoor facility for the winter months a lot of activity much of it directed towards children there is a four seasons two-story restaurant on the site which we don't have pictured here it's kind of in back of that where that person is standing taking that picture and that's the temporary in well maybe it's permanent they i think they bring up pull up the sides uh in better weather maybe that is a permanent structure i don't recall i don't remember yeah yeah i think it is i've been there at multiple points throughout here yeah yeah it looks more permanent but they considered this this uh swinging bell to be an art installation that it came from australia i believe and was brought in for the holiday season here

041um yeah so there was music and lights associated with moving on the swing it's kind of cool not permanent unfortunately right we'll see what comes next right i also want to point out that this site is where i remember most of it may be available elsewhere this this area had multiple places to charge phones there was wi-fi available um it was it was welcoming that way and we were told that people during the pandemic have come out and worked here you know as outdoor space um just a couple concluding uh observations and uh well here it is i didn't know that was it was going to show on here um you know it's clear that the business community through the downtown detroit partnership and other other means are very committed and active financially and otherwise

042to the success of these downtown parks and open spaces detroit has really knitted together a cooperative arrangement with the city the dda etc and you you look for comparables and and hope that in ann arbor over over the coming months and years that we can begin to share a vision uh that all will want to participate in and uh it's pretty clear that uh this is working well in detroit uh this this partnership really um is well honed and well organized and uh they really touch on all the essential services that this kind of endeavor would need so uh we i we will continue to be in touch with detroit uh david cowan is uh interested he has family out in ann arbor he'd like to come in and walk our site and share his

043ideas on the ground with us about how we might proceed forward frank i'll hop in just for a short comment about uh another important partner that we need to look at is parks detroit does work with their parks department too right and and we need to make sure that we that is you know that we are not that we are at least accounting for the major participants yeah thank you for catching that absolutely um just a quick quick update we are uh going to be meeting by zoom with uh paul sincock who's city manager for the city of plymouth a week from today rita and i've had a preliminary conversation with him earlier in the fall and that's a very different organization much smaller community of real focus on kellogg park in their downtown area

044and the city manager is mr de honey still on their uh their whole effort uh to manage uh kellogg uh park and uh events that spill out into the downtown are are handled right out of the city manager's office and i don't know getting to know paul sincock you'll find that this this gentleman really thrives on events he he likes to call plymouth disneyland north uh because of all the events that uh happened there uh during the year so this will be a i think a useful experience in interchange but very different from what we've had and uh we we also would like to at some point uh down the road in the near future uh talk to uh uh mr de honey uh about his experiences as city manager in cities like cincinnati and

045other locations and what he might bring from his experience experiences there to what we're trying to accomplish here so we look forward to that as well uh rita could you it would i think it would actually be good if there are other comments made perfect thank you um any questions at all for alice or rita or frank but i think the one thing that i think is is really maybe a model for us to consider about this particular example is that there aren't permanent structures and which we know is a huge hurdle and really an unlikely challenge for us to be able to overcome on this space you know we know that you know puncturing the roof of the parking garage and all these other things really causes a lot of um strife versus having

046a pop-up having these sorts of things it allows the flexibility it invites some sort of creativity and almost a community involvement in it um which i think sort of bridges the we want to park we want a commons we want etc to to kind of blend in a really um more authentic way and organic way than what we've considered in the past so i i love this example because i just i think that you know when we look at businesses community nonprofits etc you know it just has a whole flavor of um inclusiveness that some of the other ideas from either a budget standpoint or um a utility standpoint have have really lacked so this this to me seems like an exciting comparable for us to consider thank you other questions at all question of

047how the uh programming is actually organized on in these various places how do community groups get access to do it and uh who does the calendaring what's the sort of on-site management process is that alan almost all of that is um is through the downtown detroit partnership they have a staff of about 20 or 30 people who organize hundreds of events and hundreds of groups who put who need need to use the spaces so that's the answer they have staff and they have money through the downtown business department whatever their name is downtown detroit partnership i think thank you in plymouth uh again it's uh it's it seems like a quite an organized process through the city manager's office where um they're capable of sitting down with an organization who wants to have an event

048and they work out a budget and the costs uh and the city uh attempts i think with a good degree of success to help support the maintenance and ongoing uh operation of the parks through uh the uh sponsorship fees for for events i i don't know the details but uh it seemed like there was quite a well-established process in plymouth through the city of manager's office well we had with an earlier city manager mr dahona you should know there was a request to the initiating committee the library green conservancy the uh the community activists could you take on the calendaring and that responsibility because it was too much of a hassle within the administrator's office or if there was more going on than just was handled by the occasional projects through the community services what

049would could the community itself take on that management and it does not seem that either in plymouth or detroit uh that has been done i was wondering also in terms of other communities whether any look will be taken to stratford in ontario which had a similar kind of parking lot that turned into a very vital location and also uh cummins indiana columbus indiana where the commons corporation sort of may be in the same form as maybe kellogg that functioned in plymouth gave a big impetus to the community developments there so are there other cities that you are looking on beyond the plymouth and detroit both of which and thank you very much these great so i really appreciate what you've dug up but are you still digging out there we are we're going to be

050digging for a little while alan for sure and i i know you mentioned uh stratford i think in the december meeting and i did look up uh some uh information there as well um and i i we are going to be digging for a while with a few more options this is just the first i'd like to just point out a couple of things as well that um with respect to the things that we saw in those spaces um the chairs were very often freestanding anybody could move them around than the tables um and they were just out we asked about the potential for um those things disappearing and they said they lose maybe two chairs a year they do have staff who sort of patrolled the area they have eyes on the park but

051it really had a very relaxed feeling that was was very comfortable rita or frank or alice do you want to just touch on on how they handle i think they do have a really neat way they interact with the community members there that doesn't feel like a law enforcement based uh feels very open do you want to touch on that a little bit i thought that was a very important characteristic yes it's a i think it's from one of my understanding of the budget which is incomplete it's it's a major part of their budget that they hire people from the community to be part of their ambassador group and um i haven't seen a printed job description but these are people who are uh eyes on the park they're there to engage with people in

052the park if if for example if i show up and i want to know where the grand river is they'll you know they'll help direct someone from out of town um but uh they're the first level of uh i wouldn't use the cert the term security i'm not sure what the right term is if if something is just beginning to become a problem uh they i think are trained to uh observe and maybe uh engage a bit but if they sense something's really getting out of control then they'll ask for more help um but they're also kind of have a i will say a kind of a custodial function and uh we met a couple of these employees and uh it had a very very easy feeling to it um these people are obviously uh

053well trained and understand their role and uh it's it's a major uh force of people to cover these parks uh they had pride sorry for interrupting frank but they definitely had pride of of their job and their place one of them in particular said i just love this particular park and it was in the grand circus being on on adam's street i think it is adam's avenue it was really um it was really nice to see the way this group of people interacted all of them yeah yeah and i'll add that they sort of acted like a mobile kiosk system they were they had had carts that had clean up things and also um information about resources whether it was uh social needs or um tourist needs or whatever and they just reminded me i

054mean i just harkened back just now to going to greece and you went to the kiosk for everything you know everything and it was kind of like that they knew they knew the usual people and then they could help the the visitors as well and they had printed material and they had the ability to communicate with other uh forces like the police or um whoever needed to you know even i'm sure they are prepared for uh health emergencies as well but at least to call in for help so it was it was a very it felt like there was a friend in need you know there was a friend indeed in that uh at a return and they were quite quite um identifiable as well with yellow vests and their little carts with full of

055some kind of helpful stuff where's the pay scale i don't know you don't know we talked about ambassadors in the commons it seems like a good idea local people with their eyes open yeah i might take might take two instead of 200 but remember who else does sorry council member braids oh yeah erica please um yeah erica you're muted yeah try again thank you so much for that uh for the presentation i think it was really interesting to hear more about the this partnership and kind of how it's playing out across different parks and um also the additional information about the sort of the ambassadors that are working i think that's an interesting piece that might be able to we might want to dig into a little bit more just to um explore the idea

056the masters downtown in general i think that might be an interesting idea to carry forward um i was just observing that it's um if we were getting to the tail end of this conversation um it's eight o'clock and i know we already approved the agenda um but i was wondering if there might be like general um willingness to move agenda item eight before seven just so we have a full discussion of the rfi process because i felt like that might be longer and i feel like that might be we just wanna make sure we get the full conversation there since we're trying to end by nine if that was amenable folks were available to that i think that'd be a great idea folks are comfortable with it yep okay um any questions at all before

057we wrap up on 7a and then we'll we'll jump forward i would like to mention that um the ambassador program that brings up brings to mind the need we have for something like that in helping to resolve the issues around liberty plaza and i think that's that's a very tight thread right there between those between the difficult issues we have and the way those kinds of issues have been resolved in other places absolutely some communication with the school of social work whether it is feasible to have a a intern assigned in the on the commons somebody with a little training to keep their eyes open about what our problems a field placement no no answer is that yet requires a local organization that wants to do the supervisor well i uh any other final questions

058for alice or rita or frank jeff has this handoff oh uh sorry who does jeff yes well i just i didn't i don't really so much have a question as to i want to strongly uh support jennifer's perspective on modularity and temporary structures and so forth i think that's uh there's a lot of creative things that can be done with that and that's the direction that it's the future and the world changes a lot and needs their multiple needs in our community and and having a uh flexible and modular approach to organizing this uh will be very responsive to that and then the technologies exist to do some terrific things with that all right well unless there's uh anything else we will jump ahead per councilman briggs suggestion um and then heather do you want

059to present the rfi um and i know you've been collecting feedback so yeah and i'll bring that up in just a second and i'll do some live editing of that but just to help everybody remember because i know that my brain needs to be refreshed you know what happened at the last meeting it just seemed so long ago a lifetime ago but what we talked about with the edits last time was not just emphasizing the library a lot but talk about all the public spaces in there so that's one change that i made um organizing project goals into category so you can see that i did that um add other transportation options such as tunnels or even skyway so that's mentioned in there include a mention of the gardens um talk a little bit of

060the the function of a civic center so there's a brief statement in there and we can look over that and talk about that a little bit more add some language about having a sustainable legacy so that's been included and again i'll we'll go through this in detail but i just kind of want to give the review of the feedback that you provided last time in the changes that i did make one request that i did not make was add information about street conversions because that's not set yet there is talk about converting um fifth and division to two-way streets um but that's not definite there's going to be a study that will be happening in 2024 but if there are any changes that's not going to happen until 2026 and again that's not definite i

061don't want to put anything um about that in there until we really know the direction of it um there was another request about putting language in there about potentially moving the elevator enclosure and the ramps and the feedback that i received is there's not really room to move those around that that causes a big big whole thing under underground that it would be very very very costly very difficult to move any of those features around so as it stands right now people do not want to entertain moving those features i had more deep there was another request about adding more detail about we what we know about water and electricity i actually don't have all the detail about liberty plaza and some of the other areas um and i would say in this since this

062is an rfi we're requesting information we don't really need to go into that level of detail about where every single water spigot is and you know an electricity electrical outlet so that that's my opinion that we don't necessarily need that in there um we had a request about adding more info about kent house and liberty plaza and i did include that add more groups to the people that we are wanting to reach out to so i included the ride housing commission tree line main street association state street association kerrytown an equitable ann arbor land trust and then i did have a question about deadline that's not in there yet but i would imagine that this would be on the streets for about a month that would give places time to really think through this and

063work it into the workload to respond to it but we can talk through that if you want a shorter time or a longer time i see um alice's hand is up if you want to jump in there before while i'm bringing up the actual document yeah a couple of things real quick if i could just ask heather uh could you explain uh because we have councilmember dish here uh exactly why you went with the rfi and kind of where we're at in the process yes yes i can definitely go over that so uh what we're looking to do and you might recall that council had authorized forty thousand dollars to do a design process for the site um originally we had talked about doing an rfp a request for proposal but because we don't have

064all the funding in place we thought that and we meaning staff thought that it would be better to do a request for information because that's less cumbersome on consulting firms to put something like that together and that would give us the information that we need to put together a robust more detailed rfp so what we're looking for generally with this rfi is a process that they would propose and what general costs would be not going into detail hour by hour you know how much it would cost but generally what what would the process cost in their mind so that way we can put a request out there or know how much funding we really we really need for this perfect thank you sorry again go ahead um am i on did you say okay um

065oh yeah a couple of things almost lost my train of thought as you described all that stuff but who are we still on yeah um the people did not want to entertain the idea of using the structure that is there that doesn't people who people and um also i mean that kind of wrinkles with me because um i know for a fact that there are speculative structures within the overall structure that are intended to be used for something and i think we need to count those as assets for repurposing if nothing else such as the elevator which was also speculative to serve a much taller building by reconstructing that in that location perhaps but these are not fixed ideas at this point um and never were like the cutouts in the foundations and so forth

066and the foundation itself which is reinforced in a certain area i think those things could be quite determining in a very exciting new creative repurposing of those existing structures without increasing costs or ruining warranties or anything like that so and i'd also like to keep in mind there's a time period for the debt structure to be removed so you know a lot of these things that we're avoiding are really not worth avoiding we want to make sure that you know for instance if we decided to build a permanent structure we'd want to kind of consider what's there to build on uh so i i didn't like the idea that people don't want to entertain changes to the structure because they did when they built it and that'll i'll end with this it's not um not

067entertaining changes to the entire structure then you know for example the breakaway panels that which you've talked about um that's something that we can maybe work with which might provide walkways or tunnels or something like that it's just moving the elevator shaft and moving the ramps that is viewed and by day i mean the dta dda and the city um who own the structure um don't feel like those can be moved well still they built it for that very very in that very way i mean and they complained about not being able to use that those things but we're not talking about removing them we're talking about repurposing them um well i don't know about repurposing that that's not how i frame the question when i i asked the question of whether the ramps could

068be moving the elevator shaft be moved okay and then frank i see your hand is up yes uh i would just like to second alice's point i i think we want to have as quote-unquote clean a sheet of paper as possible to imagine what the possibilities are here and my impression was that that central exit entrance area um and maybe even the positioning of the elevator but i'm just focusing on the the ramp that leads down and leads up for people going in and out of the structure i don't i i think it's uh i don't think the word is premature to rule out any any adjustment of that uh entrance area which i think was primarily to serve uh the high-rise that hasn't uh hasn't come about so i it i just wish that

069the city could be a little more open and imaginative it may be at the end of the day nothing will change but unless we have more flexibility on what the possibilities might be we may be closing ourselves off from some exciting opportunities down the road rita um okay uh well and since we're on that topic the um the way i see the ramp is like can we even just close it off you don't have to necessarily move it um but maybe there's a way to temporarily um cover it over um or use it as access for storage or something our experience in detroit showed that they needed storage for many of those things that they place in and out of of the area so um i think i'm saying something in support of flexibility thanks

070thanks um it sounds like there's some debate around this it seems like um this might be something that might you know be more important for the next phase of the project too like this is the rfi that's going out i don't know if we need to get incredibly detailed about this site in to that degree i mean i think this can those issues could still be explored even in the next phase once we understand exactly how much how much this process of engagement is really going to design gonna it's gonna be my suggestion and then the one piece that i um i noticed you didn't include but i was um thought maybe there was a reason you didn't um or maybe it was just um uh just you know slipped off the notes page kind

071of creating a um a limit like a dollar figure uh a proposed dollar figure you know that wasn't within the document and i was wondering if there was a reason that that wasn't included in here or if there was a way to you know if you had any additional thoughts about that heather oh um yeah i apologize when we talked about that last time and and you requested or you or anybody else requested putting in a dollar limit my thinking was that we wanted to find what people thought this would cost you know that would help us with an rfp but if we want to put a limitation to it then you know we can certainly do that i personally would i think we could end up with really grand proposals about engagement process around

072this and i would be at least interested to find out you know what what's you know what type of projects proposals could we get for 80 to 100 000 and then you know maybe maybe a category about you know what what's not included in that what could you do for more than that you know what would what are you cutting out in that process or is you know is feedback you know are we are we shooting too low when we suggest something like that so no i'll just add in a couple of points here as well uh if i can i think i do think that some type of uh you know range around the uh cost is probably helpful um you know i think that uh you know we certainly do not want something

073that uh comes back that we really fall in love with that is uh you know out of the realm of reasonable um but uh so i think some type of range maybe that that allows for um for some um for some more grandiose visioning um you know that doesn't cap us too much but but also gives any vendors looking at the uh the uh rfi you know a somewhat of a degree of what we're looking at so what is the range that you would propose not more expertise not available throw back on you but um on this than i do i mean i i think we were talking you know we originally said 70 i don't know how um how um you know solid of a number that is and then i think we have

074gone up to say maybe realistically that's too low and and we'll be over a hundred but i think that top we had sort of really talked about was like 140 um and thought that and that does feel a little ambitious to me even so maybe somewhere that's the high end uh and but i i'm throwing out numbers they're not necessarily educated um and you know i i heard i did want to just chime in into on the previous topic um you know i do feel like the blank canvas is really important um you know in the uh you know either in the rfi or the rfp process i know that when i've uh looked at doing things where we have to really test uh test the limits of things you know if we if we

075artificially limit ourselves to a degree too much then then we can really um we really take some potentially neat ideas off the table not to say that that you know the structure would be altered for sure or that we even decide we want to go down that route but certainly eliminate ourselves from the start i think is not really a good way to go about it so i guess that sort of vision is what i have around this range too uh yeah and i would i would say so the pushback is the the idea of like altering you know what's below the surface and how that would be really make a lot of changes how expensive that would be to change to the parking structure and that there's not the thinking at least this is

076the feedback that i received is that there's just not enough room to move those things around um so i i my feeling is if if it really cannot be moved or we're not willing to move it um then you know i don't want to go down that route of designing with that in mind that being said i guess i'll put it to mr tahoni and sorry to put you on the spot but maybe you can um you know kind of ask you know the dda and have conversations internally about what we are willing to do so maybe we can come back to this group next time with a definitive answer like yes or no maybe maybe we can think about moving it um because the last thing i want to do is put out an

077rfi or an rfp and say we we can do something then ultimately we can't like i don't want us to go through you know several hundreds of thousands of dollars of doing a design process um only to get a design in the end that we can't do or we're not willing to do that the language the language we're using is getting more and more confusing because i thought this was an rfi and are we talking about the cost of putting out the rfi no it's not going to cost to put the rfi out and it'll ultimately be an rfp so an rfi will feed into you know what we get back the information will feed into an rfc so uh we're and i think there is someone in the room so to speak who uh

078i think i'm almost quoting that we don't want to um define our projects or our improvements by what we can get or what what we think we can spend we need to define them by our values and um i also you also said you're getting feedback who are you getting feedback from so that we understand why we can't uh can't leave off the limits it's interesting to me if we're doing if we're requesting information to actually get information that would help us define the project uh the scope of the design work that we want to take we're not asking these people to design something no but but we're also not telling them what we want so i i think this is a conundrum at this point and we need to really resolve this and then

079i i don't have the answer myself at this point so yeah one way is that we just don't even include the language about the ramps and the elevator shaft and then rfi because it's again you know we're only asking them for a design process like what they would propose so i don't know if we need to really continue worrying about this too much you know for the rfid we can continue to investigate um the people that i talked to are the dda staff and city staff um you know again if mr dahony might want to pursue this a little bit more and come back and see if there is a wiggle room right now what i've received back is there's not wiggle room um so um i i just received a note that mr de

080honey needs to step away for a moment um but i can talk i can carry this on with him a little bit further later on to see if we can get more definition around that i do want to say that i was impressed with uh the report of something that mr dahony said it was that we don't want to just um buy what we can get we want to know what we want and see how we can get it i'm sure i'm paraphrasing and and i think that's a really a solid premise upon which to proceed sure but we also need to put out the parameters and i see mr dahoney's hand is up so please go ahead oh you're muted thank you this is better yep uh the comments that i would make are

081[Music] we shouldn't let [Music] processes and procedures come before consensus around vision we we have not really said what we want and maybe we don't know what we want and maybe there's a difference of opinion on what we want but my experience in other places is we you have better results if you begin with a consensus around a vision of what you're trying to create and so the conversation around the built environment and move this ramp move that door you know drill a hole don't drill a hole should be secondary to a clearly coordinated vision around at the end of it we want this to be a place that does x number of things it's a gathering place it is a place that provides resources it's a place that provides activities it is a place

082that is programmed it's a place that offers cultural offerings knowing or having a deeper sense of what would be acceptable in terms of the activity level and um you know i'll share a brief example uh when we started developing the cincinnati waterfront it was 18 acres of dirt and we determined that we wanted it to become a 24 7 environment that had a residential component that had a nightlife to it that had a pad for a corporate tower that had a park at the waterfront and a streetscape that connected the stadiums from where the bengals and the reds play ball when we started we had nothing but once the vision was clear as to what we wanted it to be the processes that we implemented were all meant and designed to help execute the vision

083that had been decided and so [Music] asking a design firm to provide information is certainly appropriate but i do believe we need to get to a point somewhere down the road where we can clearly articulate what we want the center of the city to be and in my short few months here uh i've heard differing versions from different people about what that is and you know that's fine but at some point we've got to coalesce around here's where we're trying to go so what are the mechanisms that will enable us to get there and when we do processes and the price tag provides sticker shock then we start to either value engineer or adjust the vision to what we believe we can reasonably afford in cities where you see uh ambassadors or people that are

084in orange shirts or some kind of color who are out there uh connecting with the public um i've had those in multiple cities and they are paid for through the implementation of a bid a business improvement district so it's the property owners that have agreed to pay a little more in order to have the ambassadors out there so that you don't have to have a saturation of police officers out there and so it factors into [Music] uh signage and lighting and activities and a lot of communication among stakeholders so everyone is aware of what's coming in a very very strong volunteer component even if you have staff the cities that do it well have a strong volunteer component to help to implement the activities that they put on so whether it's festivals or concerts or

085whatever uh ann arbor is a lean organization dda is a lean organization we don't have the infrastruc internal infrastructure that other places do so we're going to have to supplement that with whether it's volunteers from the community at large from the university from wherever in order to pull off uh if in fact we are trying to strive for something that is a lot of activity a lot of day daytime activity and night time activity um or a service oriented environment where people who need help can come and hopefully find it and so i you can do a lot of things but the pieces do need to connect so if you want 24 7 night life that's not the same kind of place where people go to seek services this is a very different dynamic that

086can't mesh so i'll stop talking um i hope that made some sense and i appreciate the opportunity to uh share my thoughts thank you yeah i would say that this process at least how i've been thinking about it you know we kind of got so far with the center of the city task force which was meant to put forward a vision for what was wanted in the space and that this would be carrying that on along with putting actually a physical design to that vision so that this is meant to be um you know a process that gets at all of that you know we could scale it back and say we just really need a vision you know we need a process as step one to get consensus on a vision since we're not

087quite there yet and then we could go to step two and then say you know then put out an rfp for a design process for the physical manifestation of that vision basically rita and then jeff and camilla and then alan rita you're up thanks um i feel like the kinds of things that we're talking about right now um point to the need to be in touch with what we've been calling the block partners um it just feels key to have input from them on this phase of of our planning and so that's my plea you know it i feel like in some ways you've done some of that with connection connecting with the dda and with staff heather um but it's a start and we know we have a number of them so maybe maybe

088um maybe that's where the rfi will take us to connect with those those groups um but i feel like it's a missing part of the puzzle yeah again that's how i've been envisioning it you know we have the list of people like to me the important thing is the process of this is you know there would be um all these people would be engaged i mean it would be a large public engagement and you know that's that's part of the vision like we need the community involved and what the vision is um again we got you know to a certain point with the center of the city task force there was a lot of engagement with that and we have some things that rose to the surface which are listed in here um but as

089far as like a cohesive vision statement maybe we're just not there yet um in terms of like we want you know to be specific enough saying we want i don't know chairs and dining i mean i guess we do have that in there we want a play area so i i mean i you know i guess maybe we need to make a decision about like how how uh how much of a fine of a point on this do we want before we put an rfp out or if we're comfortable with that being part of the process like creating that vision so i think i had jeff and then camilla and then alan and then frank yes thank you very much um stahony for your your reviews i uh i'm very much uh in agreement that

090we've got to have a vision to drive excitement and interest and i've been saying that for a long time um what i'd be interested in hearing from you is whether you think what some cities have done across the country and across the world is organized like competitions with prizes and financial prizes for the community to propose or to suggest ideas um for a center of the city and the city civic center commons whether competition of that kind uh with a juried competition would would uh would sort of generate a lot more support and a lot a lot of engagement that that may not be there right now it kind of puts together the top down on the bottom up approach i feel it's a little bit top down right now i know we need to

091do it that way up to a point because it's you know we did the task force and uh sometimes it's very difficult to get you know lots of individual views you know through surveys and stuff like that but i've noticed that several cities have have put those competitions out there and gotten some exciting ideas and results and a lot of commitment from from the community as a result i was wondering if you had had some experience with that and what you thought of that i have certainly uh seen and been a part of uh some competitions um that have prizes attached to them to uh generate creativity from the community and so uh it can be as uh granular as you know here is a parcel of the footprint and what do you envision can

092go here it can involve naming things it can involve creating a theme for the area i think activities like that uh help with one transparency but also developing the groundswell of support that is essential uh for the end project to be successful you want the community to buy in and feel like regardless of where they live i have a stake in what happens in the center of the city i have an opportunity to participate in helping to make that happen and so a competition that has uh prizes typically cash prizes will bring out tit tends to bring out different kinds and different levels of participation for example you may have a group of students from eastern michigan that want to participate in a competition that has a prize attached to it you may have students

093from elsewhere or even uh if the prize is attractive enough you may generate all kinds of participation but it does take an effort to run those you do have to have a source to generate you know the prize and you do have to be clear on what are you asking people to submit camilla hi um so it feels like we're describing our dilemma as uh who came first the chicken or the egg do we do visioning first or do we start the rfi and rfp process and i just want to say that we've been visioning for years now and frankly with only a small percentage of the population and publishing an rfi doesn't mean that we're done with visioning with the community a key part of bringing in consultants is that consultants can lead community

094engagement workshops envisioning workshops with a broader um set of um residents so i'm in the camp to you know finalize this rfi and and soon published the rfp um i have less experience with rfis than other people on the call but i think it looks great so thank you heather and and other staff members for writing this um it's never going to be perfect so so let's just put this out and see what happens frank actually since our last meeting uh rita and i and and others uh on the committee and in the community have been kind of wrestling with questions very much in line with what we're wrestling with now and we've already touched on one uh or probably more than one but uh this engagement with the the block partners i think is

095absolutely crucial if uh and maybe it's a function of the of the you know the consultants uh but i i i question whether you're going to get longer term uh robust engagement uh and it should be started now to really get these black partners focused on on this issue and i feel that they they need to be integrated into this planning effort and the design effort if this is going to have ultimately have success in the longer term because we need their participation and buy-in and support and it just seems like we need to get started now and it may actually enhance the the professionally organized study with the consultant and it seems like uh liberty plaza might be kind of the the lightning rod here uh i think the block partners have a strong

096uh interest in in seeing a redesign and a reimagining of liberty plaza which can spread out over the entire uh public land on on the block um i'm under the impression there's a lot of data in the appendices of the task force report there are some key earlier reports i've been i haven't looked at but i've been told the 2013 parks and advisory downtown subcommittee report is important to look at for for data so i wonder if there's existing material that could be looked at now and uh and understood at a better level than we now have that understanding uh in anticipation of the of the consultants coming in there's this issue of really engaging with the dda and we need to we the council needs to be a direct part of this and understanding

097the the engineering limitations uh the structural limitations and and um possibilities more more on the possibility side of what what can happen above that structure and it seems appropriate to ask the dda to shoulder that and get that study going i don't know whether some visioning could take place before we get to the rfp but it seems like in a preliminary way at least we we the council would benefit from profession some professionally facilitated working sessions that would perhaps draw on some of this information from previous studies and have this council and and maybe it could be an expanded council plus i don't know that could begin to do do some visioning um rather soon in you know multiple sessions um anyhow that those are some thoughts that have occurred to us and in conversation

098with uh other members of this board the library green board and donors and uh just people in the community are interested in the these ideas seem to be surfacing and i'm i i think we offer these rita and i as a way to kind of move the process forward and and ensure we get the most beneficial uh studies that we'll pay for you know for professional consultants we want to be sure that we expand those funds in the in the most thoughtful and intelligent way possible so those are just some thoughts i have about what we might be doing in the shorter term in preparation for the rfp so real quick here i'd just like to jump in real quick so we're not talking about an rfp tonight right right we're talking about an rfi

099and i do i want a second what i think camilla was getting at here which is you know to the the comment that you made about sort of professional facilitation frank i actually think there's pretty broad agreement on the fact that that does need to happen but that would come as i understand it and i'm going to lean on heather in particular because she's a professional designer uh to to help us i mean to back that up i mean this is part the the items that are listed in this rfi the groups that have to be engaged with of which the top one is the council the commons um you know should be part of that that visioning and so as i see it what you're suggesting um is going to be taken care of

100as part of a professional process that is that is responded to by a potentially interested uh design firm here um and so i do think it is very important that we have a professional facilitator a professional group that guides this process but frankly that is exactly what we're doing in my opinion by going out for bid for or not going up for bid going out for a request for information um i don't know heather can you speak to maybe there's some confusion as to what we're trying to get at here well yeah i think there is confusion because i i think we all are everybody's saying that they want the same thing and um yes adam i completely agree with the way you stated it and the way camilla stated it that this that is

101the process that's what we're asking for is to refine the vision and then put put it on paper you know what does this physically look like because that is just something that we don't have yet um you know we we just kind of need it and it needs to be a public process because this is such a meaningful space for the community so i would i would hesitate for you know this group just to kind of do their own visioning or for us to do some sort of preliminary visioning stuff that select groups or select people and rather just put it out to a consultant you know professional team to begin this process and for it to have a consistent cadence to it a rhythm and you know that it's all building towards this ultimate

102kind of vision design you know vision statement and a vision design for the physical changes to the space well that's that's really smooth thank you um alan you've had your handle yes uh i uh our moving to this question is what postponed uh item 7b on the agenda which was looking at our relation with the block partners in our immediate outreach uh which we will get to next meeting and that is very important and i concur with frank that somehow quite apart from this request for him from further information it is harvesting the data that we have and the getting some evaluation from the city or the contractor uh to the structural limitations of the place or its structural capacities or what is needed to adapt yeah i put in the amendments to the thing

103to the draft this i look for uh an inspired design or alternative designs that i'm very interested if it were possible that the uh uh center ramp to the parking structure be uh decommissioned that i think it was sense that it is was for the building it's not going to be built there and maybe it is not necessary and the parking could as a parking lot underground parking lot function perfectly well with the entrance on fifth avenue and the exit on division street we should at least have some evaluation of that or attention to that as is that at all feasible in terms of how everyone analyzes parking structures and so on i've assumed that it's not feasible i've been interested in as a principle in the vision they were maximizing people's space and subordinating

104automobile space so i've been interested in a terrorist balcony over those [Music] ramps in the down down area that would increase people's space considerably and it could extend over library lane and that we need a a connection between liberty plaza and the library lane parking lot and that has to have either a bridge over uh the martin property or through the modern property and i think the efforts that stefan trendoff did to draw some of these alternatives is really as close as we have come to some vision of maximum utilization including extensive some civic center building which is at least engineeringly feasible over library lane that should be part of the exploration and having a sense of a indoor outdoor capacity and functions as would be in some sort of civic center building maybe that

105is subordinated or transferred to the library or to the martin company but at least in the design that should be the exploration of a civic center building over library lane not to minimize not to reduce the sun area that could be for people but to make use of maximum use of the area that we have in this public space and similarly the vision includes some sense of a relationship with the martin uh property in terms of how we interface with liberty plaza in the library line lot and a potential inclusion of the noble house and the carriage house into the overall commons design so all that is part of the vision and that should be what a what is explored in this request for more information what details more do we need and those were

106elements that i put into my list of [Music] amendments or improvements of the rfi but i don't know at 12 8 48 whether we're going to get to any of those you know numerous things with all these hands still up so everybody everybody wants to talk how good oh so real quick i'm just going to make a suggestion here because i do think uh i'd like to i'd like to start with the premise that it's i really do think it's going to be difficult for this group we've been at this for now a few months and i do think it is going to be difficult for us to move forward without some professional um professionals who who do this for a living guide in this process and uh so i do wanna i think that

107there are alan as you referenced you've submitted some amendments i have one as well um but i think it it is in our best interest for all the reasons that folks have stated up to this point tonight to move forward with an rfi we're not expending dollars um we are not choosing a proposal but we are asking for information from professionals who have uh frankly far more knowledge about this than i do at least and i'm willing to bet you know most folks here too and i i feel like we're going to tread water for a long time and go nowhere unless we unless we engage some professionals and so um you know i would if it's if it's okay with folks like you know obviously go beyond nine o'clock but i would like to

108to uh take us back to amending the document so that we can give heather some direction um and uh and uh then moving forward with a propos with this rfi establishing a time frame you know and and moving forward with it so that we can really answer the questions it does no harm to us by doing this can we go back to amendments that folks would like sorry ellen go ahead i just said you're internet unstable your sound disappeared i can't hear you i'm sorry um i was just gonna ask can we go back to amendments that folks would like to make to to the rfi i don't know if that's better if heather pulls it up or not um i have one but i i can go first if that's fine heather i think

109you had suggested this or maybe councilmember briggs had suggested this earlier regarding the site details i would just like to strike the the bullet point that talks about the elevator enclosure and ramp to the underground levels of structure which must stay in place we can just take that out i think it's best to be silent on it and that's really the only change that i have i'd like to reinforce uh that amendment or a second hit or whatever in that that would resolve some of the discussion as to what can and cannot be done when we don't know yet um so i'll third that and the in the uh the parking structure was originally designed to support a building yeah well i i i actually else i thought about that one too to be honest

110with you but i i actually think that's a good piece of information because there is that speaks to the structural nature of the parking structure um and i don't think that limits us at all okay i think erica has something to say yeah um i do but i don't i don't want to jump in line i do have a specific amendment i wanted to suggest um i do i agree i'd like to get this out um i if you could scroll up heather um there's one that jumps out of me i don't maybe it may be useful to vote on some of these rather than like discuss them at length um so i'm fine if there's not general agreement with this sorry i should have told you stop scrolling back down i'm not paying attention

111um project goals um the second bullet point where it says create and enhance multimodal transportation connections i know you were asked last time to add things in here to me this is the second bullet point in our design and it doesn't it doesn't resonate to me as like what came out of the center of the city design process i do think that one of the pieces that's important is just creating enhancing connections to from and within the block and if we just kept it simpler right now and instead of kind of creating visions of tunnels and skyways and it may end up very grand or it may end up with you know simple design connections between the process but if there would be support in just simplifying that bullet point to creating and enhancing multimodal

112or non-motorized transportation connections to from within the block um would there be support for um simplifying that bullet point i'm good with simplifying it i think it's a broader vision and better for this point process yes i agree okay wonderful thank you um and then because i love to argue with myself essentially if um i will leave it up to you heather um if you feel like it is limiting to put a dollar amount on this right now you know i'm i'm not going to feel strongly i'm just pragmatic and i don't want to end up with like a you know a proposal for her i don't know that it's limiting you know it's kind of right that balance which we're trying to meet with us between the pragmatic and you know like let's see

113what we can do with this um you know realistically you know how much is the city willing to spend on a process um so i don't think that's a bad thing to put a limit on it but i also do kind of wonder if maybe that does make us want to jump to an rfp and this is just me kind of thinking out loud because originally i thought you know one of the purposes of doing an rfi um versus an rfp was to get a better sense of what the cost was um but if we're going to you know kind of already just put our cards out of it there and say we're willing to do a design process up to a certain point then uh heather i i think that uh that's the you've

114just it articulated whether you meant to or not why we should not put a dollar amount on here that's what these professionals who look who put the rfi together they will figure out how much is how much is there to work with and how much it's going to take to do whatever they they're the ones that know the numbers uh of what they're going to be analyzing they'll they'll figure that out because they know something about it and that's what that's what i think and therefore you know well i didn't disagree with eric i'm fine with it being removed if it's if that's a key point point of information we can get out of the rfi process if there's a way to slightly refine it to you know you know provide some tiered cost i

115don't know yeah do you want me to leave it at that ask for tears yeah i think that's a that's actually a great way of threading the needle i think to whatever yes because the professionals will know what they're talking about if they're any good well this is ann arbor we only get the best right but again i will i will refer to what mr duhone implied is we don't want to buy what we can get we want to tell them what we want to buy i know that i know there are a number of folks with their hands up i think sarah has had her hand up the longest uh wait and i keep changing what i'm going to say nothing wrong with that so now that we're talking through amendments um i guess

116this is a specifically an amendment and i think i'm still a little bit confused and like what an rfi is but this project goals section i guess i'm confused what exactly we're asking them to submit i think i'm i think i'm clear but then we get to the project goal section and everything we've been talking you know the design and inspire design we're not actually asking them to give us a design though right i'm just wondering if like this project goals are these horror projects like it's just it's a little unclear to me like what do we need to be more clear i guess in the rfi like what we want these firms to be submitting because we don't want them to give us an inspired design that is just i don't know right but

117you know then right so the engagement part like in that design section or in that whatever project goal section too like you know there's that process like a design process these are sort of like our these are the things that we want i guess like a potential like full proposal to include maybe but this this piece like confuses me i guess just like how it's in there and i wouldn't want it to confuse design firms that are i think that under the category of design i think we should strike out that um go back down to the next page uh where at design you shouldn't even use the word design there is it's what i'm thinking it's too confusing what design of what um yeah and if this is if we're not asked if we're

118just providing these project goals a sort of like background if like this is stuff that like sort of has come out of like all of these other endeavors like maybe there just needs to be a few sentences under project goals that sort of says like these are things that we've gathered through other processes that might help you you know in proposing a design process because i don't think we're asking yeah and maybe i'll just put in a clarifying sentence you know this all of that is under the background section and maybe that just needs to be made a little bit more clear so that word right there design under project goals is third well that that that was there because i was asked to put it in these into categories and i could take that

119out i think these categories out right um the problem with goal is that inspired design and this equip request for information is to contribute to an rfp that will do that right so here's the instructions at the bottom this is what we're asking of the consultants i wonder if that should be bumped up i could do that i mean this is following a template that we have well maybe it can just be like copy like it can be there but i don't know like as i'm reading through this i'm like why are we telling them all of these yeah yeah again the the idea behind maybe the maybe design is not the right word here but i do think when you know if you look at the the uh categories that heather chose you know

120she's very very clearly um you know speaking to like physical items you know trying to to build that vision uh please stop and and then the process and so and then implementation and so i don't know if design is the right word but i think it's you know it's it's clearly trying to differentiate like you know these are the elements of the things of the rfi that we're asking maybe if we ch would it i don't know if it would help to change design to program well i think we actually are i mean we are out of the our goal for this ultimately in the rfp is to get a design right i mean we do want to design at the end of that process i think one of the pieces i'm wondering if we're

121missing is we actually need to refine our vision a little bit to create this design but um yeah i think the program actually actually goes more in that direction than design does design is like a result we want a program a method is what we want you know well i think we've got a method process i almost think we it's like a sp it's a it's like a vision or maybe a vision uh a layout or or elements of uh physical elements it might be a better um i mean i don't know yeah that doesn't work with this for a long time like we could birds need this forever i just think like if if we just had like a few sentences before it even says design like it just says project goals and then

122there's all these categories i don't know just something to describe i don't know this there's so much in this background before you actually get to like what we want them to submit like i was sort of getting lost and the way that stuff is worded it's almost like we're asking them to do these things but we're not if that makes sense right you have to have something that has so many bullet points is a little bit real quick i i do think so a couple things i uh one um let's let's go back to the hands here so that we can not drive heather too crazy with jumping around um but but uh i i think just i i think actually sarah's suggestion is probably a really good way to resolve this because you know

123at some point we are going to have to ask for an rfp we're not doing that now um but that rfp will be around a design and so so putting some vision in the heads of the of potential design firms who could submit to that rfp around what we're trying to get at by by this bucket of bullet points here is actually not a bad idea um that does help them really think about what their what they're looking at um you know potentially for a future rfp and uh so i i think sarah's suggestion actually maybe is a good way to resolve this and what was my suggestion just like add a few clarifying sentences on like what they're doing clarifying introductory sentences what is the suggestion right here alan it's going right up on

124the screen okay that's all i had i'll take my hand down but i agree that i think we should just get this out there and like the sooner the better so whatever it takes for us to do this like you know without having to rehash this at the next meeting let's do it can you just end it with background information i mean that that's probably enough right there i mean the other thing is that you know just speaking to the point that we probably don't necessarily need all this detail in here um i think it is like if i were reading this like i like that kind of background information but if if it is confusing if you're reading it and thinking it's confusing like we can take all of this out and just have

125these bullet points like an inspired design you know like a community supported design so i actually really i mean i think there are a lot of there's a lot of thought that goes into the elements here and at least in my opinion they do help sort of paint you know they help create ideas and you know i just as uh so i'm actually not so sure i like the idea of taking them all out i don't want frankly taken out i want them improved i think at this point we're not going to conclude this discussion tonight i put forward a number of the proposal to go through an adjustable time i think we should consider the question what is that clarifying sentence and come back to this in an intermediate meeting or at the next

126meeting that i want to have the proposals that i made about uh four season building and uh connections between liberty plaza and so on and library lot and so on included or specifically said no but i think they should all be included if you say well include everything all my little suggestions that was fine then i'll say pass it all real quick yep understood alan so why don't we actually pull up the because he you did make a number of suggestions let's pull those up and and take a look at them and just make sure they're addressed because i do think it is important that we get through this even if we stick around a little bit more tonight and that way we can get it out in the field we're gonna have a window

127of time afterwards and it would definitely be nice to get a response to this thing so let's let's let's power through if folks are okay with it and take a look at allen's suggestions if heather can put them up there i don't have them and i've neatly typed them out so somebody can put them up and i can go through what what each one is together so first i made some suggestion in the history um in the first paragraph that the inclusion of the liberty of the specific elements is not really listed in the charter and should be put into parentheses in the next paragraph giving the history for the decade for decades this question yes came for but it came to a head not with the prospect of misuse development but with putting forward

128of a uh request for for proposals that's when it came to a head when there was actually different questions on the table it had been a long-standing question and so i would reverse the uh the group interested multi-use and uh and on the other hand the group interested in the park in the other order the primary the first interest was in replacing the lost central square when the courthouse was torn down in the 50s that was a long-term interest unsatisfied it occurred in every one of the [Music] working groups that looked at this only the multi-fact building only came forward when it be when the rfp came out and then there was an actual proposal let's let's just split the apple on this and just take this sentence out um and that way it seems

129the story is good story and just do it a little more accurately it's not controversial with understanding facts okay well i i think it would be it would be in everybody's best interest to try and uh because it's actually uh less relevant to the rfi itself you know i think it would be in everybody's best interest to focus uh i i want to get to the points in your suggestion we can cut it all out okay let's we'll just work on cutting that out and then um i do think we need a nice little history in that form that is accurate we don't have to debate it now okay all right sounds good so we'll work on uh amending that sentence that that takes out the portion that that is the coming to a head

130um and then uh let's keep going down uh you guys take out that paragraph uh well i think we want to have the pro we'll work yeah we'll work that all right okay uh let's let's keep going then um oh here we are i'll just note that that's language from the task force report um so that's where that came from but you want me to take that just to be clear because i'm not sure what we're removing yeah i would say one of my numbers through the first line where are we so i i let's let how about this uh so heather let's just take out the came to a head with the uh in the second paragraph uh came to head with the prospect of misuse developmental librarian outside maybe just uh questions remain

131about the future of the city's uh the block city-owned land and then we'll just take out the next sentence in the recent years the question came to a head with the prospect uh just take out that sentence call it good and maybe take out everything about ultimately this led to proposal a yeah all right that's fine yeah we'll we'll strike a balance of this section i think alan if if it's okay with you we can work this this wording out in the histories absolutely i don't think there's any difference there so let's go to the actual elements that deal with the the rfi elements that we make sure we capture that others may have opinions on here um i think that starts with the project goals is that right item two okay calls yes so

132i would suggest that looking for information that we might have alternative design design enough and inspire design or alternative designs just leave it be open because there is one there is one design that's been floating around and i don't know why nobody just says that's the best design but there must be an alternative design that people have in mind rather than the one that stefan drew off so what stefan drew out is certainly going to be one of the designs considered then maybe there's another one i don't know what it is nobody has shown me a picture of it how about i i don't think it's speaking to you know i think it's uh speaking to the the point between behind an inspired design is speaking to a vision that that this rfi process would

133would uh submit to we could say you know inspired designs if we want to say plural um you know there's nothing wrong with that i don't think okay strong for the engineering realities okay so why don't we just change that to inspired designs are you fine with grounded and engineering realities yeah okay all right keep going then um i don't i don't i don't know what you're asking them to do is is when you when you talk about um engineering realities are you ex telling them to uh reign us in or are you talking you know i think that they should know what the engineering realities are when they do the design if the desi if the design is like grand circus park to put on 10 feet of dirt then that requires a reinforcement

134of the existing roof and some recognition of what that might cost so people say their limitations are well we can do without exceeding the limitation if the vision says well we want more tree then what is that going to cost and some they could figure that figure that out as to looking at the engineering drawings how much can that roof structure support and if we want to put more weight on it in a diverse way rather than on the pillar post what would that require yeah so i i i think let's just leave that language and if folks are comfortable with it i do think it it doesn't limit us but it does speak to you know a pragmatism um [Music] okay the next one is is the more i'm most concerned about is to

135one of the things that should include is a four season indoor outdoor civic center building or the functions of touch as well as outdoor central park function okay that was discussed the last time around and i thought that it was uh put in there that something about civic center indoor functions and so i offered some uh simple language okay i would um yeah i'd like to weigh in on that i mean i would be hesitant to say that this the final design design should definitely include that i don't mind the the you know the idea that we might be exploring that within the design process you know as an element but i want to be careful about suggesting that the final design is going to have a civic center building because i think that is

136a that's a that maybe should have the design process and in the engagement of the block partners and the community well it's an open question but it does seem that there are four season functions likely in a civic center building it may be that these four season functions will defer will be absorbed in a building and public space that the martins court create or in a reconfiguration of the new library or in a new building and it could be also the inclusion in terms of some social service the inclusion of the noble house and some deal with the martin company that they're quite open to from my understanding so all those sorts of things are part of the potential design could we could we add in some language to it speaks to what erica was

137getting at which is you know could include um and uh because i i am in the same spot i'm not so sure that anybody's decided this is definitely going to be there but could include this and then i feel like that's the same way with the second item you get there could include a water fountain feature um that just be like in that second bullet under design when all these things are detailed out like that proposes ways for the sunny of center city to do i don't know how we would say it but it's like those are they're like all considerations that we've talked about i'm really confused why we're being so specific on this because we're not asking this rfi we're asking them to design a process to do this later we're not asking

138that like these should just be sort of like broad examples at this point i just don't think we need to like get down to this level of detail in this specific rfi and to give you the background the detail that was included are the top things that came out of the center of the city task force process so the the things that came out of that were the seating and tables and after play area water feature feasible you know so that's why those things were listed there yeah those are things that people generally we'd seem to have general agreement in the community about those things yeah potentially include a year-round civic center building i mean i add that in there but that's that's why those other items are there so people understand that background i

139hope i can just interject that um [Music] um oh lost my dream of thought never mind uh heather i think the language you just utilized i think that's a fair compromise with what allen had suggested could include a potential year-round civic center building okay what's wrong with that uh could you scroll down a little bit into the process area uh sure thank you um meaningful to maximum feasible here i was in the war on poverty maximum feasible participation was a turn to reinforce not critical what is what does that mean alan what does maximum musical mean to you participation it means as close to everyone as you can get yeah i don't support the inclusion of that language um not because i don't want to see that element but i do know that what's going

140to cause you know what is going community engagement is what is going to um those are the costs that are going to drive up this proposal and we obviously can't have everybody in the community for um well we don't know what we can have but the ideal should at least be to maintain when we talked about community engagement at least maintain a standard as the war on poverty put forward and having worked in that and that's a language that i would say would be normally part of such a thing meaningful you can say meaningful and then we can say well that's anyhow you don't want it you don't want it okay uh i wanted to put in in terms of the phasing a recognition of 2024 is the ann arbor bicentennial and in the staging

141of however they see this unfolding over time that is a focal point if there's a building to be built or a bridge to be made or something something in that process should culminate on that timeline i think we should have that as part of our recognition of what we are dealing with is that a problem i'm good with that about the dda site details mentioned in the dda district yes it's also a midtown a character district i'm not exactly sure what that is but looking over all the districts of town this is in a sort of there's a midtown character too and as long as we're identifying districts i think that maybe that language would be useful that's why i included that alan real quick uh do you you know the midtown character the dda

142is a defined area um that you know adding a midtown character district is not something that currently exists and so at least to my knowledge um i'm not so sure we need to add that in i saw it in the plan okay maybe i missed that is that actually in there heather in the test course report no um i'm not sure i don't know that people would know that it would what that would mean um i'm not sure what the midtown character district is myself to be honest unless you're talking about the zoning district uh rather than looking at the dda districts i read some of the districts of ann arbor oh i see yeah i don't know that i don't know that i consulted you know like it would it would make them do

143leg work to understand what that even means so i don't know that it would be helpful and there was a midtown district which is sort of in this area where we are in a number of different neighborhoods and then there was moving down packard another district it's not important okay i wanted to include as the relevant participants there the credit union and the inter-cooperative council uh jerusalem garden the noble house and carriage houses historic buildings and note that there are other pacific buildings and music and the apartment houses and the space of the space also includes library lane and the ramps whatever we do with them and whenever we are speaking usually the spoke of the library lot and we have been cautioned or desire to speak of it as a library lane lot so

144i wish that language would just be corrected and then i added two other sections there was a section on the liberty plaza and the different parts i added library lane to look at the walkability and landscaping of that is a pretty dry and to look at the potential of an elevated terrace and to look at the potential of a civic center construction building and those are potentials i wish they would be looked at and then i added another section of potential connections and how we would actually interface with the first martin building and with the library building existing or future and to project across the street to the new housing on the y lot and the blake bus terminal from a new library there could be a second a bridge over the avenue anyhow that

145is part of design stefan had some view of that in his drawings ellen we don't actually have jurisdiction over that though you know i mean well just say we're trying to envision design you know we how do we interface with our neighbors there and what is the potential and difficulties of closing the west end of library lane for large events which is what was designed but now there is a convenience of the bus company that goes through there and so that can't be done uh but that is something that we should request information about so so real quick on just looking at this um library lane subsection here you know i i guess i'm just going to ask you you know when it comes to the library lot or library lane lot i'm fine with

146getting the language corrected here um you know our is there any reason um why we just can't include the library lane in you know library lot and library lane or library lane lot and library lane and just take care of having to create another section and um because library lane is a dose is a street and these are both elements that look at how can we build over that street to increase people's space and subordinate the automobile which is an implicit principle you know we want this as monster people and as little to the cars yeah i tend to think we're you know i appreciate all the extra effort you put in on this alan i'm i'm a little worried that we're i think heather's done i think we're we have the potential of overloading

147this this this document a little bit and um i think heather's done a nice job of trying to integrate what we've said at the last meeting um but i think it gives folks a pretty good sense of what the space is and and what we're what you know we're really trying to get to the design process and there's a lot that's going to come after this but i don't you know it looks pretty good right i know at the last meeting i brought up a recognition of a potential civic center building and i didn't see it here so i'm making a little explicit yeah i i i think the question that we need to have a helper help us look at is the connection between liberty plaza and the library lane lot and that intersects

148with the first martin company and that recognition that we've got to get into what are the options the commercial arcade through the martin company that they seemed interested in when it first was presented that that hasn't been reinforced is a pretty interesting idea and whatever our information people should be looking at and look at that it seems like those things are appropriate in what we're looking for information otherwise they'll should come to us and say so what are we looking at with these people why don't we put out maximum information of what we offer yeah ellen so i'm going to just make a quick suggestion here i i'll i think we should just take your your library lane section here and i think we just put it in i don't see any harm in doing

149that it is part of the block um and then i do think you know adding a point because we have talked a lot about the importance of connecting liberty plaza and uh and the other parcels maybe adding a point i'm not sure where it goes best maybe it goes under the block uh section around the connection points you know at you know the desires to connect the elements together um i think i would caution if if you're saying take this whole library lane section you know the potential for an elevated terrace over the ramps and bridge connection between liberty plaza library lean lot and the potential for civic center building constriction over heard a lot library lane i don't know that just feels pretty prescriptive that's that's a fair point why don't we just take

150the first the first section and you know get yeah and be a little broader is there any objection to that okay so heather if you could put in just the library lane subsection and then that first line and then add at a point in the block subsection around connecting the parcels together um so you know the description of the different areas the public spaces um on the land are just our descriptions um that's a fair point yeah so that's that just gives background i just don't have you know there wasn't a lot of information that i had about librarian you know i could say that it's a public lane i guess you know in the description area but i can put you know in the design section or for changing that to program section yep

151i think that makes sense yeah that makes i think i go i know where you're getting what you're you'll add a connection point into the design section and then just enumerate that the library lane is one of the parcels under the site details that sounds good just suggest that you note that library lane is not a public road it's a private street and that's only a classification in terms of engineering so if they're looking at the width of this street is under under the usual size of think as long as it's called out as a feature uh given that we're just talking about site details that's probably fine i think i think the point that alan getting at and just enumerating that does exist there actually that does make sense to me and he's called

152out is a feature in the uh first part for the last line of the first paragraph it is library lane parking structure in library lane it is yep and there is a view you may not share it and it may need to have professional dickering with but the library lane airspace is potential people's face that should be developed and can be developed as part of the commons how it is done requires some inspiration some of it might be a building some of it might be a deck some of it might be the western opening to the new martin building it will improve the quality of their space but that is all potential in this and somebody who is looking at a design process and a design vision should know where things are at now if

153there are any other ideas that should be put in you know that's what we want to stimulate a potential bidder for this you know to actually be thinking about what's going on i feel like we've crossed way past rfi and into almost rfp territory this is awfully this feels so prescriptive and so we've gone off of what this purpose is in my opinion and i i mean no offense it just i feel like we've gone way beyond what we should in this document and for its intended purpose as to what i understood the intended purpose to be so real quick okay if we get heather if you could pull up the document just and take a look at the changes that we're making here i do think that you know pulling pulling up allen's list

154you could certainly get that impression gem but i don't actually think that that's what we're we're adding in here um yeah i haven't added a whole lot to it so i i mean i'm just kind of keeping notes at the end right now um so adding recognizing 2024 the ann arbor bicentennial library lane lodge not erd library yeah not library lot so changing that and then i did add um you know something towards the end of design improve walkability and landscaping along library lane so that's what i have so far but i mean i i do i know what jennifer is saying because i do feel like if we just kind of like this could go on forever where we're including detail after detail detail and then adding you know like these partners like how

155along this part this is just supposed to be like a sampling of people yeah you know like i don't know that we want to just keep adding to this again this is just supposed to give people consultants a a sense of you know the history of the background what we're generally looking for to come up with a very general process again we're not asking them for a proposal but just kind of give it help them get a sense of what a process would be to help us do design so i i think that i mean alan given what uh heather just listed off i mean um you know it obviously does not correct all the wording that you had asked about but it i think it does speak to a lot of the elements that

156you had asked to include all right well if somebody comes forward to uh you know bid on this uh i obviously have the opportunity to tell them what there was left out of this that they should know about absolutely not sort of wasted my time and looking through this and how to make a better document that is more instructive but to a potential bidder who might give us information that we need i would like in the list of organizations the initiating committee to be identified as i said as recognized by the city council as a on the ground a partner in this development and i provided some texts for that and i wish there would be a reference to the city council resolution that recognized the initiating committee and our community commons initiating committee uh

157i mean i know i made far too much of this and it's on the which is uh you know an abusive and so i'm satisfied with whatever is put out there and whoever bids on it i'll have plenty of opportunity to say what i think is relevant presuming that they're not going into the positive but they will actually deal with these people yep that sounds good [Music] are there uh are there any um are there any other amendments for the rfi uh i would like to ask if a companion references are expected to be every expected to be available to the responders to the rfi such as the task force report which i think includes a lot of the things that alan is you know looking for it this is really i i'm with jen

158this is really kind of ballooned into a very detailed and somewhat prescriptive uh you know you must include every uh you know all of these things including engineering realities you know it's just it it's their j it's their profession it's their and that to to be informed and if we give them some of the major documents they'll go from there and everybody wants to make it their own so the respondents will try to make it unique in their interpretation i i just think we're going way beyond their they'll stop reading who's going to want to respond to this so i i do think though that uh you know i mean just respectfully to the original draft i actually don't think we've added very much to this tonight in terms of you know we made some

159maybe key changes that folks wanted to see but i don't know that we've added a lot of material here um you know is there a reference uh heather to the yeah center of the city report there it is right there so i i mean i think that point is pretty well that's the that's the task force so do they have do they have access to it yep they should should be a public document right there i don't i don't know why you wouldn't just list the access to these reports if they just a link yeah it's linked right here in the blue yeah but i i mean just just eliminate all that verbage and let them you know look at it i well never mind whatever you want to do any other any other points

160yep i just want to add one small thing that as far as like the the groups to be consulted if we could just like leave that sort of open-ended um because there are others you know um so instead of you know we have this whole very specific list but there are a few others and i'll spare us a listing of what i've thought of but you know let's leave that door open like such as do you want to yes such as yeah such as would expand it a little perfect um well the statement here it says it is critical for this effort to have an equitable engagement approach that is highly inclusive of members of our community that have historically had limited participation in decision-making processes keeping this in mind as a central tenant to

161and top priority of the engagement process the engagement process must also include the following interested and affected parties so it's you know it's not limiting it's it's just like originally this was just meant to list you know kind of the partners that we saw and it ended up expanding a little bit further than that right so the first paragraph to me sort of speaks to people who might be more casual users and i'm thinking of like the liberty plaza people who use liberty plaza i feel like they're described in that first paragraph and then there are the other more established groups um so i hope that the engagement will include um regular users of liberty plaza in some way um but let's leave the door open that's i want to say yeah i i almost

162think that uh your description rita is actually covered in that first sentence though um you know that when we reference uh highly inconclusive members of the community have been historically had limited participation decision making process i mean if you want to add in user including current users no i know i'm thinking that that is inclusive of that so but i'm thinking so there are still others you know so i'll just say one the martin building includes the center for a continuing education of women you know so that's another kind of block partner so there is so let's just leave the door open okay so um and maybe that's just including start the list including maybe maybe uh maybe heather go back up to that last sentence on that first part there you go right here

163there's such as such including at least the following interested and affected parties include must include at least the following interested thanks yep no problem any other any other points okay you do are you raising your hand oh not at this time and i won't get too i i'd like to say something at the end i guess for next agenda definitely so do we need to vote on this to put out the should i put a mission forward yeah i think we should i do do you want to put a deadline on what they are when they are we want the respondent back um i will leave that up i'd like heather maybe to just suggest when that's an appropriate date would be um well probably a month after it goes out is what i would

164suggest just to give consultants plenty of time to respond that sounds good to me i move that i'll go with that too are we developing a list of consultants to contact are we putting it out generally what are we doing it goes out generally we have a board that our all of our rfps you know things like this go out on and i can send you a link to that if that's helpful so you can see what that looks like sounds good uh heather heather uh erica did you make a motion then officially yes do we have a second second okay uh there's motion on the floor to put forward the rfi um you know uh with a few of the history wording changes and the suggestions that heather uh looked at if there's folks

165are okay with it heather and i can talk offline make sure that gets done and then but the motion is to put it out after that's done um and uh it's been seconded uh all in favor say aye hi any opposed okay sounds good it goes out thank you uh thank you everyone um if if it is okay with folks uh can we table uh the items and i am in uh agenda item seven to the next meeting we're gonna come up they're gonna come up again anyways and so that way we can we can advance into um any next agenda items i think you had wanted to voice something there uh alice in the public comments yeah i i do have when you say table do you mean put it on the next agenda

166is that what you mean yeah yeah the items uh in agenda item seven should be on every uh meeting agenda certainly and in that respect i wanted to mention a couple of things we might think about for the next agenda is whether it's whether the timing is right or not to consider expanding the members of this commission to include the major block partners like the ann arbor district library the um have them listed dda parks you know have somebody on on from those three at least have somebody so i have them on there we have we even have two people from two different organizations do we need two people from these organizations we could make room for including a few of the major institutional block partners which we really need to engage with um because

167we don't get a chance to otherwise so if we could have them be part of this process instead of being just bystanders i think that would be better um that's something to consider for the next agenda whether we want to expand or re-um distribute our seats on this board um [Music] i think that would also help engage the public and have them understand it would be a broader be a way of broadcasting within the general thing um and also that kind of applies to funding more people will have different ideas about funding than public funding and private funding as well so if we um if we look at that as not relying on those we know but uh relying on those everybody knows you know get more input in that i think we should that's

168where that i'd like to consider the inclusion of these public entities as well as maybe another like i don't know i don't think we could get the ann arbor area community foundation to put somebody on this commission but but um maybe somebody adjacent to that we kind of need to build our commission with more knowledge more broadly i think and so those are two things about engagement and and money i think that we can talk about within these items on item seven but i would like to have them specifically called out like it's that expansion of the board does it does allow us to do our ordinance does allow for that um to add more seats maybe it's time to do it no i mean the resolution that created this you know prescribed um the

169number and people that would be involved um i think that and the bylaws the bylaws that have been adopted by city council yeah i don't think that's correct maybe i'd be glad to be corrected if i'm incorrect but i i believe it said foundation you know to be formed as such and that other seats not to be exclusive additional seats sorry to interrupt alice i think heather's correct but i think you know we could certainly discuss oh yeah and it has to because the bylaws that have been adopted and approved by council reinforces what was originally stated about who are the members and then the amount the number of people that are on this board well then there would be a recommendation that would go back to city council from this body you as a

170body cannot change it it would be recommended to city council okay well then we should consider the recommendation i think so that would be one thing as a sub point on in one of the in the uh seven maybe seven d e or something i really think we should think about the impact we could have if we added more diverse seats substituted that's fine any other uh final appointments for the next agenda before we move into public comment then we could we could uh give consideration to when we expect our annual advice to the city council to be delivered or discussed we have our obvious the one obligation we have is to advise the city council annually we began meeting in may we were formed earlier than that when do we have to do this

171and how do we bring it about to be what we would like it to be we could talk about uh the delivery on the next agenda yep absolutely put on the next agenda okay any other points all right in that case let's move in a public comment heather do we have any members of the public here robert luck and thank you all you guys are amazing to listen to and to watch your process unfold it is not easy and you reach the good consensus tonight in passing the rfi so congratulations i think you're going to learn a lot by doing that and things will come to you that you don't now see and i'm really glad that you stepped into that space so thank you for that um i was looking back at my notes

172from april 1st 2021 and much of those discussions from that meeting and the prior one and subsequent ones have been a lot about this same stuff you're talking about i would suggest you may have been able to save yourself some time by just referencing the work that was done before in the hundreds and hundreds of hours the 12 people on the task force heather was there alan was there and many many many many public meetings if you look at page page seven let me just see here of that task force there's a vision if you look at page 26 urban spaces preferences like balance of fountains prominent sculpture grassy and paved areas prominent trees these all came out of that task force and they were done a long time ago february 2020. if you look

173at page 27 you will find activities preferences survey like sit and talk or read a book or have live music or drink a drink at a cafe have public restroom those are all in there and then if you want anything about physical sketches look at appendix d norm tyler did some great work stefan trendoff has some things you already have a host of information in this task force that's gold for you and i'm glad you're referencing it in the rfi because you'll see that that the professionals are going to bring that right back to you so don't do any extra work that you don't have to do as my suggestion and then if you want to look up another example that i have given many times look at the kaiser center roof park in oakland

174california chad monfreda who's on the green team and used to work there and walk through that park every day it uh it has a lot of the things that you want to do here on top of a four-story five-story parking structure so that's another example along with the other things that alan mentioned and and your um you know comparative communities outreach and that's a powerful example you already have in front of you model those behaviors and we'll be doing well to consolidate our efforts and work more successfully together and i really want to echo mr de honey's comments which are right on in my opinion know what you want say it right up front don't put the history up front in the rfi say what you want i want an rfpii to help us build

175toward an rfp and design ideas tell them exactly what you want when you want it and what are the deliverables you'd like to see not just a letter but maybe some other things that says i want to design or i want to process you already have you could edit heather's list into these physical elements and into the qualitative principles there's sort of two things and then approach or method or process is almost all you need for this and then just get a lot of the words out of there keep the links simple and then watch what happens you're going to be amazed so congratulations good luck in the next meeting and i'll enjoy watching you from here on out thank you robert any other members of the public uh heather there is not excellent okay

176well uh is it possible we could get a motion for adjournment then i move all right moved and seconded all in favor say aye aye opposed excellent long meeting but good you all have a nice evening we'll talk soon i'm 52.