Center of the City - Council of the Commons Meeting 10/7/2021

001um and do a roll call uh heather could you help us out with that sure let me pull up the list just taking a moment so jennifer's in the waiting room or in the house where did she go there she is hey there she is hi jennifer hello wildly overdressed for this meeting sorry to be late i dressed up sorry i came from another event i apologize to be late that's fine and our brazilian army time okay we are just getting to bro call and if my list would come on so really you're just right on time jennifer well my list has taken its time falling out so why don't we go with who i see here we'll start with that jeffrey honey hi i'm jeff and i live in ann arbor all right uh

002councilmember briggs here in ann arbor adam zumke here in ann arbor rita mitchell you're in ann arbor frank wilhelm here in ann arbor camila lazandia here in ann arbor sarah hammerschmidt here in ann arbor alan hamer yes here in ann arbor back from france welcome back thank you stephen forkster i'm present from ann arbor great jennifer cornell aaron ann arbor am i missing anybody alice ralph is not here and who else are we missing anybody else i think that's it well our city administrator interim city administrator is supposed to be here this is i think the third meeting he has not been at isn't he in a member of this and supposed to be a regular attendee as our liaison with the uh city administration yes i think it would move to him so yes

003he's aware of it he's been invited to the meetings i think this verification i don't think he's required to attend all meetings i think that was if i remember how the um it was set up it was um city administrator or um or their late liaison but i'm not a liaison i mean i'm not a member of the i'm not assigned as a member of the council of the commons so i'm the staff liaison that's what i mean that's yeah that's what i mean so you're i mean you're representing the city we have we had two but you don't have somebody that's sitting on the council from the city from city staff just to clarify that that person hasn't been appointed well that is a city administrator the city minister is one of the members

004of the council yeah right or or their appointee and nobody's been appointed we'll bring this up with the a new city administrator as they are uh just starting very shortly i believe yes i'm hopeful for november uh then we have did we have frank before yeah i wa i went off camera to take a bite off okay allowed very good very good all right um in that case um we'll go on to the approval of the agenda uh has everybody had a chance to take a look at the agenda that's posted online all right any questions or amendments yes i want to add to the agenda it may come in the area of block partners but i was at the dda meeting as i've been at a number and they have a regular position of

005report from city boards and commissions relevant to the dda and we are such we are indeed are in the center of their downtown development authority and i would like us to pass a resolution requesting the dda to put us have a regular monthly report to the dda on what is going on on the council of the commons and the development of the commons such as the downtown citizens advisory committee has they have also a monthly meeting and they report regularly to the dda for as to what is going on so i think the place would be for that resolution to be when we were talking about block partners but it could be in some other place on the agenda all right thank you any other amendments the agenda okay we have a motion to um

006to prove the agenda as amendment as amended or as noted emotion all right motion second all in favor say hi all right raise your hand all right all right all right um then let's go to an approval of the minutes uh from the last meeting heather um is there a way you could pull those up um or put the link i suppose uh sure uh yes i can make yesterday all those up but typically uh the expectation is that people have read them over prior they look rather uh thin to me the ones that i saw at least uh on the link prior to the meeting and it just had sort of like the section headings of what had been discussed but not really any of the substance of it i did have a few

007remarks from my from my notes i was wondering if it would make sense to maybe table this uh until we have a chance to maybe flesh them out a little more only motions are noted in there in the minutes so they're not they're not notes of that they're just minutes that give the basics so if there's a motion that's passed it'll say that that's passed and it shows attendance okay so if somebody wants to take extra notes and have that attached to the agenda we can do that but i just want to like things like public comment like there was public comment there were a few people that talked at the last meeting and it just says public comment and then goes to the next thing like like no one was there so i didn't

008i i think that people who had made public comment at least the name should be noted but we did have a a decision to establish a subcommittee to look at the cities that might be involved to aggregate the list of cities and the criteria that was some enough of a formal decision that it seems like it should be reflected because it's now you know coming back and you know i would like actually following what stephen says that uh we maybe among us that we selected each meeting somebody to take notes or that we allow a uh an informal uh any of us to append notes to the agenda as uh unofficially but uh that is not his formal emotions but if somebody is trying to look at what goes on they see nothing by looking

009at the minutes and uh much is going on hello alice is this i think this is one of those situ i guess i might be misunderstanding but my unders my understanding was that this this it's fairly formulaic across different commissions and different groups that it's there's a standardization under which sort of the minutes are produced so i don't i don't know heather if you could comment or who's the right person to ask on that but i feel like this has come up almost every meeting and we we address it almost every meeting but i feel like there's a standard to which we're adhering and to deviate from that would be unusual yeah this is a discussion that we've had before yeah so the minutes that um i am to take as the staff liaison are

010really meant to be the bear the bare minimum so just reflecting whatever motions are passed and who moved the motions and who seconded it and the outcome of the motion but not really take any notes on what was actually you know what was said we do have all the recordings posted so if a member of the public or if anybody wants to go look at the recording of the meeting and see the substance to it you know that's available to people and with the center of the city task force um there was a desire by the group to have more in-depth notes to it but a member of that task force took the notes and i attached those to the agenda so you know somebody from this group is if you would like that somebody

011from this group is welcome to do that but that's not part of the formal minutes so i think we don't necessarily and maybe i'm wrong on this uh it'll stephen but i don't know that we really need to table um the eight minutes if that's the case do do we want to go through with the minutes we can obviously bring up a scribe if somebody wants to volunteer to do that job but um stephen are you okay with uh going forward with improving the minutes i haven't heard a motion to approve the minutes i look at the minutes and i see just like a list of the same agenda items as we started with yeah there were no there were no motions at the last meeting i guess to allen's point didn't we decide that

012we were going to discuss and identify certain criteria i mean i i if someone wants to make a motion to approve the minutes i would probably vote in favor i've said my peace but i'm not going to be the guy making the motion i'll move to a proof thank you erica i'll second it all right all in favor say aye all right all right are you opposed all right motion carries um are we able to such as stephen has notes and some note on what the decision actually was about appointing this subcommittee to determine can we subsequently any of us just attach notes uh as informal uh uh scribes uh to the minutes without having to go through uh calling them official i think heather yep i think heather offered that she'd be happy to

013add in any notes um and attach them to the uh in the public uh public document area i think i think if you have notes you'd like to submit go ahead and submit them to heather and she'll put them out there is that right heather yeah i can attach this to the agenda i just when we've had this discussion in the past i recall us suggesting that there might be concerns that each of us captured different um components in the meeting and that one of the reasons we didn't want to do this is because we didn't want to necessarily have sort of one versions um one person's version of of the meeting i mean i i get the point that is it is nice to have to be able to look up it at some

014notes and understand what's going on in a meeting without having to watch the two or two and a half hour meeting um yourself so i don't i don't think the discussion is bad i think it's i just i'm bringing up what we had previously why we previously decided not to go this route well we could have kind of a side note uh dialogue on such questions if steven has a representation of what this decision was and somebody else has a different view that could be added on it and it seems we want to be more open and uh representative to ourselves and the public as to what the discussions are i i think just to weigh in a little bit on this i don't think there's any harm with attaching somebody's notes to the um

015to the in the public documentary as long as they're clearly articulated that they're notes from that individual and so you know i think as long as we're clear on that um that you know they don't represent the official record of the meeting then i don't see any harm in this if if folks are not satisfied with the level of detail that are in the standard format of uh minutes i don't see any reason to sort of police it just individual notes i asked can i ask how the recording isn't a actual literal capturing of everything that's discussed in the meeting i'm sorry i'm i'm not trying to like i'm not trying to derail the idea i just i don't understand how if it's the whole thing is recorded anyone could watch it why the public

016can't access the discussion in a meaningful way verbatim literally and without bias which i think we all as humans are probably naturally predisposed to well one is getting a quick snapshot with some clarity as to what the discussion was and another spending two hours to you know watch the meeting which uh few people seem to be uh interested in doing i just have very modest goals i was thinking like the minutes could reflect if it says like public comment it could say two members of the public commented about and maybe not even about two members of the public comment and then it could say during relevant boards and commissions it could have a sentence under there that says the commission heard reports from the relevant boards and commissions or something because it just at this

017moment it just has the headers there's no substance beneath it and that's my only concern is that it literally looks like we didn't discuss those points and i'm not asking for like motions and seconds and whatever i understand those would be there but that was that's my only hope is that it would at least indicate that there was discussion or not discussion about those topics and on pac i don't think that's inconsistent with what we see on the pac minutes it would be odd for me to look at a pack minutes and have it just have nothing for us something that we looked at in the meeting and got comment about and discussed that there would be nothing in the minutes that even reflected that there existed a discussion not that it's a detailed log

018of everything that people said but that that that's my only that's my only comment and so i and i i agree with what was said before i i don't think people need to submit their handwritten my little handwritten notes would not be helpful um to the discussion but so so just for the sake of uh of keeping us moving here i think if it let's take a let's take a discussion offline um and we'll see i know honestly i don't think i've ever looked at the minutes from any other city meeting but we'll take a look and we'll see what we can come up with and thread the needle on this thing so um and um is that sufficient for now i will note that previously it was requested that i do know that when

019things aren't discussed so i have done that in the past just noted that when it so you can assume that if there's not a note in there that it wasn't discussed that that would be reflected but otherwise there was discussion on the topic i'd like to just give a little more support to jennifer's comment about our biases um if we get into one person or two persons or three persons who are consistently putting their notes in as their point of view anybody any member of the public could could get a a partial picture of of the meeting and and the recorded uh the video recordings i give you a full picture so i don't see that it really adds much to the uh recording uh just a quick comment i think it would be helpful

020and i don't know whether uh heather or someone else could from city city hall could uh cite some examples of other commissions or committees have dealt with this in an effective way that seems to work over time um i i don't know we're kind of i don't have a reference point uh how how this is handled by other other groups appointed by well and i've never worked with another group aside from the center of the city task force and in that instance the request was to have a member of the group to take more detailed notes that people approved at the next meeting to try to eliminate that bias so one person took the detailed notes and then it was it was either accepted or not at the next meeting similar to minutes but the

021direction that i have from the city attorney in the clerk's office is just the bare minimum you know you just that i'm just to reflect what if there's any kind of decision a formal decision that was made like a resolution or if um like our emotion i should say or you know if the agenda was approved or the minutes were approved and then if the if the agenda was amended for example i would put in a note about what the amendment was so that's that's the direction that i have and if other you know people are doing it differently and there might be different styles but that is the question that i've been given so yeah go ahead jeff sorry i was going to suggest i always like experiments and research right i'm an academic

022so uh i'd be willing to volunteer to do short very short minutes next time to see whether we can do something useful for steven's purposes um and to see how objective i'm capable of being okay so if you want to take that offer i'm willing to to run an experiment next time and take the minutes it's up to you guys just to break the log down i'm comfortable with that well i say give it a try why not can't hurt might help the one question i was concerned with we did make some at some substantive discussion about you know searching out relevant other cities and criteria uh that led to a decision and a into intermediate process and it seemed like that should have been somehow reflected as a uh action of the group whether

023whether we had a formal motion for it i don't remember but we did have moved to a consensus decision that well let's go forward in that mode so so i'm going to suggest that we we do take a look at this a little bit um in between now and the next meeting and jeff we can have a conversation uh to try and uh figure out what we're gonna do and if uh if we need to make amendments to the formal uh meeting minutes or jeff if at that point um you know we'd collectively decide that we want to accept your offer and try try that does that sound like a fair fair point i don't i don't know that we're going to make any progress on this right now yeah i agree i just wanted

024to put that out there it's up to you for sure thank you if it's okay with folks then we'll we'll move into public comment um let's see if there are members of public and we have robert black you should be able to speak now thank you heather good evening everybody thank you nice to see you again and thank you for this opportunity to speak before you again tonight um since the inception of the council of the commons i have watched each meeting steady progress to build common ground with more focused actions toward achievable goals this is encouraging for those of us in the public and builds trust that the process is working well i look forward to hearing more tonight about your research into other communities experiences with their commons and how this will establish

025meaningful criteria to inform your next steps concerning next steps i'm heartened by the recent events to activate the center of the city well not directly associated with the council of commons i want to acknowledge alan and odile haber for their tireless year after your commitment to peace week and all that they do to build awareness of what i believe is an aspect of the commons vision more recently the first fun art of nutrition it came off as a great success which you'll hear more of from professor haney tonight and also from mr haber some of the good feedback from attendees i call these launch and learn events where you could posit critical themes related to the center of the city development process that can enliven community involvement while learning each time about the critical elements

026that will make this part of the city unique to the world i offer the following suggestions from my diverse experience within armor and many other communities i encourage you to set up a strategic task in time framework to guide your efforts while individual tasks of holding themed events and researching other communities experiences are important i believe they are more effective when held in the context of a holistic visionary view number one begin informal conversations with each potential partner on the commons block seek to understand their attitude toward the commons project whether pro or con hearing their concerns now is essential component of the next phases of your work specifically seek to engage the aadl and its coming director to explore the wonderful new possibilities for public libraries that are playing out across the country number

027two lay out the criteria that you need to have in place to solicit rfq's rfps from professional planners and pick a date say june 2022 when this would be completed number three set key milestones to develop an emergence of solutions one or two dynamic compellingly articulated artistically rendered design scenarios to put before the public city council dda and other players in commons for their feedback and input this all leading to number four the time goal to complete a master plan for the center of the city by 2024. i wholeheartedly recommend this to be accomplished by joining forces with the aol's visionary project called ann arbor 200. thanks for your kind attention and have a productive meeting tonight thank you thank you robert anyone else other no all right we'll keep things going then um we

028have a number of member news um the first one up on the list is is fan and uh jeff uh did you want to talk a little bit about this or others sure i got a little presentation if if heather will allow me to uh oh sure uh you know share my screen get there i should be able to can i interrupt before we go that far is anybody else experiencing incredibly terrible feedback yeah i'm so sorry i don't i don't know if it's a matter of us all being muted but it's really distracting to i don't i don't know the solution i just wondered if it was me no no you're not alone i heard it too i thought it was one of us or maybe robert alice's alice is uh raising her hand

029sorry she's muted else do you want to meet yourself yes i'm getting the background noise too yeah is everybody continuing to get it i got it during well robert black was talking but i'm not hearing especially while he was talking but i got it but when jeff started to talk i heard it as well otherwise i wouldn't have okay so i wouldn't have said anything but then i really i assumed it wasn't related okay i so can you hear anything now when i'm talking yeah you oh no i i feel it's very it so for some reason it totally went away at least in miami so um if i share my screen here and you see this little uh document which you all have access to obviously so that's a picture of the signs that

030we put out among others several kinds of signs that's part of the the garden of the commons or the library law area of the uh library lane area um it has you know kind of a description of what fan is and promoting sustainable community and some icons and stuff this is some examples of the kind of publicity material that we put out in advance of the event in various form forums we also sent this material to journalists and broadcasters and so forth kind of a general one outlaying outlining what we were planning for uh activities um highlighting the date and it's a pre-free public event and giving the address and three of the main attractions if you like and uh there's a different angle here with these other items just to give you a feel

031for the material that we used so as i go through this very quickly you'll see pictures on on my right if i'm looking at you uh of some of some key elements or key of parts of the of the story uh some some detail we had approximately 200 people participate in the event which i thought was quite reasonable considering that the forecast for quite substantial rain and thunderstorms was there up until quite early in the morning and so that could have intimidated a lot of people but uh as i say 200 people did show up and this was during a four hour period we we were hoping to have more vendors than than six but we had six vendors which was good too uh it was a pretty representative sample we had some jewelry vendors

032and we had a non-profit sustainability power non-profit local power nonprofit we had um a local supplier of knitted goods we had uh a uh supplier of uh agricultural well garden products and um uh we had uh uh an astrologer uh uh there and a bunch of other so we had six vendors uh we had um three acts uh the main act was uh actually we started out with a small uh band and you can see the band over the bottom right there it's a griff is uh quite a well-known character in ann arbor and he has has a band of three and they they've been playing music for decades and uh so they they were kind of the background and and they kind of launched things and then we had uh kip barry who's a

033nationally known musician who lives in ann arbor but has a a big center in uh cabaret center and across from disneyland in anaheim he goes there every other week but he lives here and he was very kind uh and and and happy to to do uh do do part of his act for us and then uh stacy murray who's who's actually quite a well-known songstress and soul singer who had who won the detroit soul award uh 2019 so she's uh she's quite a quite an extraordinary talent and so we had a really uh good entertainment for folks we also had uh the as i have mentioned before i think or was shown in the publicity material treestown murals who do a lot of murals around town and they came and showed us how to do

034murals and also work with the kids who came and to do chalk drawings and and street art on the site which was really quite fun and i'll show you some examples of that we'll or just a bit of an example in the next next slide we got uh articles an article from ryan stanton over at m lights some people some of you know uh ryan he's a journalist and and uh covers a lot of these kind of things and uh he said some very nice things about the event uh but this was before the actual event uh and uh it's written up i can share provide people with a link if you want to get read his article he was he interviewed folks and and wrote something very nice about fan and about the commons

035and what we're doing um we also got an announcement on wemu and they they announced what we were doing and um we also did a a brief street service a survey uh five questions those will be made available allen will speak to that uh of about 20 or 30 people so we began the process of of trying to get some feedback on our event and also one or two questions on the sort of broader story we had attendees of all ages which was great we had kids we had quite a few students from u of m and clearly a number of other places we had older folks and we had middle-aged folks and you know it was a nice mix of of of the population and of course the weather gods were kind as i

036said they they actually during that four hour period there was essentially no rain and there was sort of rain before and there was overcast and rain afterwards but somehow the weather god said we want fan to happen so they they let the uh they let the weather be okay okay so next slide here so here you can see uh the kids doing some uh chalk drawing and stuff that's down on the on the left hand side under the guidance of treetown murals and you can see people kind of milling around and going and looking at the different uh vendors and i thought it was kind of cute and appropriate that we had that community commons little a write-up or drawing by a kid on the concrete just to give you a feel and there you

037can see kip performing uh in front of his audience we had uh also um like i said we had some jewelers and so uh actually stacy had a booth along with being a performer and she's she's uh showing off her wears there they're really beautiful jewelry look made made by herself and with her partner and so i'd like to just reflect on uh the experience and to tell you some lessons we felt we we learned from from this experience the first is we we really needed maybe a little more or a fuller program and more media exposure we didn't we you know this is an experiment a learning experience for a lot of us i'm not a natural i mean i maybe my my personality is somewhat impresario like but i'm not you know skilled

038and trained in in setting up the or running these kind of operations so it was a learning experience for me unfortunately i had dana queen to help me who was kind of doing it uh more more full-time than me but we we definitely need to flesh out our program a bit and and be more conscious of getting to the media earlier we were a little late off getting to the media um we should also have more kids activities and better staging so the the the the program went well but it could have been more professionally uh organized it could have uh it could have been uh there were some some periods some lull periods there that could have been filled with with programming and uh just could could have been more effective and more efficient

039than than i was able to put together and of course kid activities it's great to do chalk and so forth drawings but there may be some other things that we could be doing with the kids that would be helpful on the food side we had some challenges i had a food truck finally it was really hard to get a food truck uh because uh for some reason either they've gone out of business or they're booked up everywhere and so in in the future you know if we're gonna have food trucks i need to get a relationship going with a food truck company or two and book them well in advance of course there was the whole issue of whether we should have food trucks at all on the site because of controversy about that with

040certain people but you know um as alan will will tell you in the survey people really missed having food on location we did bring some food to the event uh some baked goods and so forth but that really wasn't what people were you know some people like that but they were looking for food truck kind of food and of course we were not able to get local restaurants which we solicited uh and including block partners because they're all understaffed so it makes it a real dilemma for us to if we don't you know if people don't want us to have food trucks and we can't get you know local food uh vendors because they're because they're under staff we're in we're in a difficult situation so more perhaps about that later um i think our

041survey was fine but it needs to be strengthened we need to to to we needed to get it going earlier we didn't start till later in the event and we had the five questions but and we'll see how those turned out or alan will talk about it but we could do probably do things a little bit more professionally and i i i i would like to consult with members of the council the comments on that who i know have some experience in this uh so i recognize our limited experience but i think it's important to get feedback and we got some very good and interesting feedback above all i think it's important always to listen educate and learn from participants so we learned a lot from talking to participants about what they want what they're

042interested in just talking to them and we need to do more of that we didn't do quite as much as we should have we also in future i think uh need to educate people about what this is all about because it quite a few people sort of understood but they didn't really and i think a more of a dialogue with the participants would enhance you know our message to the community and enhance their understanding of what this is what what the commons is all about what the center of the city is all about and what we're you know the divergent views about what what what's possible and so forth um we need to recruit you know sponsors and uh and vendors earlier like i said sponsors also we had some sponsors we had holidays uh

043holidays restaurant who who who put some money up and they're gonna put some food out for us next time uh they're a pretty well-known restaurant in town and and of course adam was very kind in in sponsoring us as well with his uh his scooter company and uh obviously the the council of the uh the uh library green conservancy and the uh um initiating committee uh were sponsors as well uh we need to deploy more volunteers to count and observe what's going on we we didn't have enough of that going on checking out what what how people were doing and and and figuring out you know more precisely how many people were there and what the breakdown was and so forth better sign and poster posting would be great i think we did a pretty

044good job but we need to do a better job and fi finally the library actually did help us they provided some equipment uh we didn't have to use it in the end because the musicians brought their own but they were very helpful the the staff at the lower levels uh you know turned uh turned things over and and they really you know searched out stuff that would help us like microphones and and uh amplifiers and cabling and they were they were ready to help in whatever way they they they could and i think we need to further engage the library in our activities since they're our next-door neighbor okay and so here's uh the finale uh this is the kind of the team that was involved in in kind of making this come together and

045uh of course the garden was always a draw and we talked a little bit with folks about that all in all it was a really you know very fine experience good experience i think people enjoyed it as alan will probably speak to and i'm very grateful for the people who came and uh thank you uh for listening to me as i say the the the presentation that will be available is available that's all i got adam thank you jeff i think that was uh it's wonderful i uh ended up obviously not being able to make it because i get really sick over the weekend so i apologize but uh glad you're glad to see the pictures um any questions at all for jeff before we get into the survey oh frank and rita both have

046their hands up i don't know who's first uh frank you want to go just uh an observation i i i found it it was just uh exhilarating to be there you know we've talked for weeks and months uh about uh beginning to activate the the site and uh it was just great to see um this come to fruition uh uh i stood out in front of the library and kind of hailed people from from there over towards the site but in fact people were were on their way uh to the fan event and weren't necessarily stopping at the library i i would just uh encourage everybody from the council the comments to uh put it on their schedule to attend this uh second event i guess it's november 7th uh at least that's the the

047tentative date uh for our second fan event um and we we can act as you know informal uh ambassadors uh um engage with people i think we'll we'll individually learn a lot and collectively we can share uh those conversations and and uh interactions with the the public i i just uh it would it just it was a wonderful uh event in in the sense that uh we're finally uh activating the site uh as we think we we've intended all along for it to be used uh rita and erica thanks frank thanks um i just want to say i was um there as a participant and vendor for a non-profit called ann arbor for public power a community-owned utility organization or going to be talking further about that but as a vendor i just want to

048say that it was very easy to set up and access the location and well organized so i want to give compliments to um jeff and dana queen on their actions that way and i would say that the the feel of the event was probably really what i would like to have established in the long run it was low-key it was warm it was welcoming um and it was very easy to talk with people so um that was that's those are my impressions and um i'd say that this was a success in its low-key way thanks freda uh erica and then alan i think yeah thanks um i uh it was fun to to see the activity um and um congratulations i know it's a lot of work to put on events like that so um

049you're good and reflecting on what you could do better next time but um definitely a strong start i think um in i just wanted to get a little feedback in terms of food trucks i i think it's important to note the difference between a non-profit um and uh organizing an event downtown you'll notice that i mean there are certainly many events that organize downtown and some of them bring in um food trucks and i think that's a different relationship um regard then sort of the resolution that the commission put forward asking the city to permanent on a regular basis activate food trucks on the site and so i've had um more conversations with main street association on that and so you know we can talk about that more later but um i think it is

050it's different i in terms of what maybe the feedback might be on something like that but i think it's worth being being aware that um yeah downtown downtown businesses are struggling and that's why there's there was some feedback on that um but i'm not sure it's the same concerns when it's a event here and there throughout the downtown thank you before alan says something i'd just like to say uh a shout out to erica because erica was there and spent quite a quite a while there and i really appreciate her presence thank you very much erica you were your support was very much appreciated alan yeah well uh you've all gotten attached to the minutes the uh the responses to the questions on our survey and i won't try and summarize them but i hope

051you will read through them because in aggregate they give a sense of the interest the warmth the the way people felt very happy and liking what went on and there was some interesting ideas to add into the uh into the pot um people wanted more kids activities the the kids there were very it gave a very positive nice feel and many people said i wish i had brought my kids and the music was definitely outstanding and that is an important part of some kind of event of this sort and stacy murray who's uh won the jazz singer of detroit annual award a couple years ago just you know uh blasted it out come together heather will send it to you a minute and 36 seconds have come together and it'll give you a really nice

052feel of the positive energy that was all around the place a lot of people musicians felt there could be more sense of how do we jam together dance together it was a much more multicultural multi-racial than most things that i have experienced some old civil rights activists were there quite a number of african-americans a good feeling of this was this was an inclusive feeling of warmth and uh happiness this was going on we had a question do you know what the commons is and many people said yes and fewer people said no and one person i thought the best was now i yes now i do and it was really a sense that coming into this experience it was a manifestation of what the commons is of welcoming friendly uh happy and definitely the sun

053showing shown on the event i hope you will read the uh the uh comments on the uh survey uh hardly uh uh comprehensive but that's what people said i didn't edit to edit anything out and we had a we had a very good educational opening event and i think we learned much for how to do it uh better next time and i think the cross class element was very uh important somebody suggested that we should have a soapbox with a webcam on it so anybody can get up and say what they have on their mind for five minutes and let it be broadcast all over seemed like a neat idea somebody said we should have a uh a fire pit and a council fire and uh if that could be safe but uh people were

054beginning to get there let their imaginations uh loose as to how to make this even happier for their own particular tastes so that that's what i want to say on on the fan event i would like to uh is was commented the week before i was involved in the peace week and you got a uh when that was happening and subsequently on the minutes an outline of that and it had it gave several things i'd like to comment on that we need a a facility there that is an educational space on the commons and the peace week was very good with our uh decade but they're also their need we need to make arrangements with the dda for storage of stuff chairs and tables and so on it is a hassle to have to put

055things away at night and drive them away there should be a a facility that really allows events to easily to take place so that's something that needs to be on our agenda and perhaps when we come later on to talk about the our block partners and our relation with the dda that that question can be raised again it was very positive i thought to have the place open for people just to pass through for a week and not have any cars that should be the general state of affairs there as it was intended so those are my uh my comments on activating the commons i think we were getting some momentum in that direction and if everyone would put their thinking caps on as how to make november 7th that's the first sunday in november

056even more interesting and you know you know please do it is a commenting event and i think we could all you know have a good time doing it more together than uh than the smaller group that did it and did it in a very good way and everybody who participated felt like they were were part of part of a collective effort that was very rewarding satisfying the music was great just one quick uh addendum to that um what was interesting uh the university of michigan students that came and the clery students uh both said jesus i had no idea what you guys were doing we're going to we're going to bring truckloads of our friends next time and in fact some of the administrators in touch with me from both institutions we're going to have

057buses with students to come down well i'm glad the event went very well and it's also good to have the update on peace week allen any questions at all before we move into discussion on block partners all right well with that we'll uh we'll open up the discussion i know you know ellen did bring up the point about the dda but i know that we've had this item on the agenda um uh at least on a preliminary agenda for a little while here um to talk about how we want to engage uh the block partners and what the formal process will be for doing that so i don't want to open it up i i think we probably want to establish what uh our goals are going to be for any external discussions and you

058know uh see see where folks would like to go um you know i think i think this speaks to the some of the long-term planning items that are maybe on the agenda i i i'd like to open up and see where folks would like to go with regard to gathering input from block partners ellen i can't hear you huh alan could you imagine yourself yeah i hope i wasn't muted all the time i was talking uh we need to establish a better a better relationship with the library especially in their time of transition as they are determining their new vision and new leadership we the commons and the center of the city which is their near neighbor should really be as is sitting as close to the table with them as we can i'm particularly

059interested in continuing the conversations that we've had with mike martin and darren mckinnon from the first martin corporation also including john teeter who is their staff person that looks over liberty plaza yeah they've sort of adopted liberty plaza but their their property and their expansion their vision of their property is so it intersects with what is possible and uh and with high aspirations as to what we might be doing so i'm very i've had conversations with them over the years i think that we should really continue that conversation and uh they've also indicated an interest in uh having the city assume uh ownership in some trading way of the carriage house and the noble house and the noble house could be a very great asset to liberty plaza in terms of having a social service

060center and at least the accessible ground floor so there are many possibilities with those two partners in particular and i think we should get some teams of us to pursue those discussions and probably to see who is everybody on the block um the owners of the buildings the residents the uh the residents of the condo there and send out an invitational message that ultimately we see some block a group formed which was the original recommendation in city council directive but inviting their thoughts and their involvement and even their you know participation attending our next meeting giving their own public comment and hearing what people have to say who are the running the restaurants and the guitar place and and so on and i think also you know we don't the the ace the transit is

061across the street yeah but is very much involved in what we are doing and impacting us and i think the same as the planning group that is working on the y lot we should consider them also as a block partner because the buildings that are going up there should in some sense have a consciousness and an input into what we are doing because we are the we are their front porch in a way in their green space which will be very much needed for that new housing real quick just a clarification by the way i uh accidentally missed the comparable communities update so if it's okay with folks we'll keep going to the blog partners and then come back to that right afterwards um i apologize i scrolled too far down on the agenda um

062ellen uh i think that you've identified a few of them i think that there would be uh i know one item i'd like to see is if we before any reach-outs are happening we establish a process for how that's going to work and to who and and similar to how we're doing with comparable communities we um we um do a lot of pre-work so that would just be my thoughts in response to one of a lot of the suggestions you made erica's got her hand up though so i'll turn over her ex yeah thanks um so in my uh sort of um informal conversations with different uh block partners and um uh downtown partners the the feedback that i'm getting is that uh although this is obviously the priority of this commission um sort of

063the the development of the the center of the city other folks have a lot a lot on their plate um we are still in the pandemic the downtown is is still struggling mightily um and it is really challenging for folks to make time to to do something like just attend one of our commission meetings to kind of generally speak about this subject i think it would be a much more i think we need to honor the time of of our partners and recognize that at least in terms of feedback i'm getting that it would be useful to think members would likely like like to respond and provide reactions when there is there are tangible things to react to i think we if we had maybe done that with the um the proposal that we went

064to council last resolution was going to go to council if we had engaged folks at that point we might have gotten some feedback before before it hit the council table and maybe come to a different decision but i think there are times that it might be useful to engage folks but that we might want to think about really doing it strategically and really um honoring their time i also um spoke with um the was trying to meet actually the with jim the president of the library board today and he actually had to counsel um cancel uh because um things are busy on his end work wise but also the library's really swamped um they are in the process of of trying to hire a new um director for the library and that's going to be

065their focus moving forward and so i'm just another reminder that um that folks are going to you know some of the some folks are are thinking about other things as well other other questions or suggestions about uh black partner engagement frank has his hand up there oh sorry frank and sarah i miss both you frank go ahead well uh i think i'm yeah i'm unmuted um i'm wondering if uh we the council uh need to take some steps to in terms of longer or intermediate or longer term planning uh and and uh and development work um that we've talked about at previous meetings to to get that process going we do have some some funding available uh to move that forward and i think if we begin that process and i'd be interested in sarah's

066comments and uh erica and alice too uh so that we have something to engage them about at least in the early stages and as we move along because their i think the block partners input as that planning process begins to unfold will be absolutely critical and so that's my thought thanks i had a lot of thoughts about this a couple weeks ago and now i'd like they've just like completely left my head um but i i think i i guess i don't fully know like the whole back story with engaging the block partners i know it was um uh it came out of the task force report they need to be involved erica that was really helpful to know that you know you've been having conversations with them and like a good reminder too i

067think that like people are just struggling with a lot of different things right now so certainly coming to a meeting like this to present to us probably doesn't make the most sense i guess i'm wondering for any of you um that might have i mean erica maybe you i don't know heather if you've been thinking about this from like a staff perspective but like would there be appetite from any of the black partners for like more one-on-one meaning i mean i think it would be helpful and maybe for i guess i'm thinking like like offering up myself like i would be happy to be involved in this process as somebody that like is newer to the council of the commons sort of also has that like real estate perspective um i'm just trying to like

068understand from them like what are their longer term plans going forward i mean i think frank your idea is a good one but i almost also think we need to understand some things from these people like i'm hearing these things of like well the library might want to move to the spot or like first martin might want to expand their building and like maybe they would swap this land because i feel like there are a lot of moving pieces that we need to understand before we can get any sort of like plan done so i wouldn't want to like make a plan and then have a blog partner be like no like because we're going to do this thing to our property and just completely mess this up i'm not totally positive like the exact

069right way to get from like a to z but i'm wondering if we start like a very small group um just trying to have those like casual informal conversations like on their terms um that might be a way to start like opening again like i have no idea like what the conversation flow has been like either previously or recently um but that's sort of like like i do think we need to engage them i think they're incredibly important to the success of this effort and i i guess i'm not 100 positive the right way to do it but i feel like it needs to just be like one or two people sort of designated to go and like have these initial conversations and i saw a lot of hands go up so i stopped talking

070for a little bit thanks sarah jennifer then allison erica i i sarah i don't i don't know how to piggyback on that without just not making any sense other than to say i know like how do we simplify it is it asking for people who are extremely busy and you know just trying to run their day to day whether or not they're short staffed or you know trying to figure out do they open during lunch i mean these are these are real concerns for businesses downtown and then to ask them to give more of their time is there a way to do um a survey and just even ask the black partners for some initial feedback um i i don't i don't know that asking them for individual meetings or one-on-ones like i don't i

071don't know that that's necessarily the right route i don't know the right answer um but i agree with you that it's a complex problem that probably we need their input and i i guess i just want to go on record just saying i i'm uncomfortable with somebody saying i talked to someone so when i heard this and this was the feedback like i'm just uncomfortable with that like i think we need to hear from them directly in a way that is recorded and put into some sort of notes where it's not some sidebar conversation or something that is not um that we're asking the very specific questions to inform our decisions um i'm very uncomfortable with that and then i think this the second thing is i'm uncomfortable on the flip side with let's just

072throw stuff at them and see what they react to like that feels like an incredibly terrible it doesn't feel like the most respectful way to approach this in terms of you're our partner tell us what you think we're going to tell you what you should think or what we want for you to react to that doesn't feel like the right thing either so um if we could even just have we ever surveyed them like just this group of surrounding neighbors to ask them specifically a group of questions that they could react to um about usage about you know what would increase their satisfaction with the space you know i think that there's probably a way to solicit their feedback at a very base level that's a step above where we are now thanks jen uh

073alice then erica then allen yeah um occasionally i come across um an idea that i think that i think oh gee if we could just have that here and one of those ideas recently was uh i was doing some research it's one of those serendipitous things i ran across a site for an organization that um belong to i believe i'd have to go back and figure this out but it's just a an example of the kind of thing we need to offer to people or to ask them about hey is this of interest to you because it sounds kind of interesting can you give us your perspective because we can't always be going asking for them to do something for us we have to figure out how what we do can be of value to

074them and the only way we can do that is to figure out what their values are and what this library thing was an association of libraries who had partnered with their local civic organizations uh mainly the city governments or the whatever group would support them in doing this in hiring a library social worker because uh i don't know any how many years i've heard josie parker and sometimes other staff talk about how they've become a center for solving problems or maybe resisting problems i don't know with people who who need a place who need some services but end up prevailing on library staff and library spaces and this isn't always a very good situation so you know i don't know why i had to look elsewhere to see this kind of thing going on because

075it sounds perfect for ann arbor you know we have a school of social work here and um but there are library library social workers out there they actually have this job so that's one example we can't say hey why don't you do this here but we need to find out okay this is a problem for you what besides calling the police can we can we do that would be more beneficial to the parties involved and more beneficial to everything else we want to go around so that's just one example of the kinds of things i've been running across which make us i think make us look more like partners rather than leaders you know please help us do this what can what can you do to help us do this yeah and so if we

076can be more like partners ourselves i think that might be one way to look at it all right thanks alice uh erica then alan and rita yeah um i think you're absolutely right sarah in terms of you know we don't necessarily just want to um throw something at the block partners and say hey what do you think and bring him in at the end of the process but i might i guess my thought is in terms of some of the feedback and getting this you know just being strategic about when we engage them um i would think that a role a way that would be real beneficial um really beneficial for us to engage them and and get their feedback in a meaningful way is one of the reasons i'm so excited to get started

077on the design process at some point is you know once we get that rfp out there and have a firm contracted we can easily then have stakeholder engagement um and that's a big part of design right is that we would have we would engage the um block partners in you know early in the process and you know multiple times in the process saying okay you know what are you you know getting their feedback at the beginning of the process giving their feedback um later on in the design process and i think that could be a way that would be facilitated um in a meaningful way and that their feedback would be captured and utilized effectively so um that's how i can imagine in the near term um getting information and there may be certainly other

078ways to to engage with them but maybe there are a few a few key entities that we might want to have come in and provide some some sense to us about what their their future thoughts are around development on the block but at least from the you know my conversations with the library they are pretty they're pretty occupied right now with their own own issues uh thanks erica alan and then rita and frank yeah i uh i think each of the different uh potential partners has has its own uh character uh during peace week a woman pat flower came to park on the commons and i said well we were having peace week here and she said oh i shouldn't park i said you're very welcome and she was going to she's part of the

079historic district oversight of the kemp house and i told her what we were doing and she said this is all very interesting and very relevant to our thanking and it seems like we should be tuned in to when the camp house has their meetings and somebody should go and attend and simply tell them what we are doing and invite and learn more of what they are doing and make a channel of communication you know the uh in relation to the library you know i think we need to attend to what is going on there but as for a social worker uh i had had numerous conversations with the school of social work with which i used to be connected as to whether there was a faculty person who would supervise a student social work placement

080on the library lot and uh and in liberty plaza that there actually be somebody there who is attentive to their problems and learning the situation that we didn't find anybody as yet but i think that is part of the approach to uh having more eyes on the place and a helpful service-oriented capacity i'm particularly interested though in the dda and in the question of the agenda i propose that we adopt a statement to get sent to the dda that we request as our as a city board and commission to have a voice in that agenda item as to what is going on in the council of the commons comparable to what the downtown citizens advisory commission uh has and we have in the 36 months since this land was declared as to be developed in

081perpetuity as a central park and civic center as a commons the dda has not had one public discussion to recognize that has happened we need to become part of their process and be recognized so i'd like to move that particularly i want to see us promote and reinforce that the parking they should see how to remove the parking they are now in the process of finding a new parking operator they have nine corporations that are vying with republic parking to undertake their parking contract which expires next june and they need to have some sense that they are cooperating and co-existing with a development in the center of their authority area that so far they have not recognized i would like us to have a regular position such as the downtown citizens advisory committee to report

082monthly at their meeting as to what is going on here might be a little report it might be a big report but we should be in their picture and so far for whatever reasons they have not allowed this question on their agenda in 36 months ellen before you make that that formal motion on something here i'd like to see if we can let others comment and finish out the comments so we can finish out a discussion here if you don't mind oh i don't know all right thanks uh i think it was rita and then frank if i recall correctly um thanks i um just want to say that from my perspective the engaging with the black partners i would like to see it as being something that we hear from them some things that

083they think they could gain from us in in terms of value and i don't have any characterizing way to describe that but um what we want is to enhance the area i believe um and i think that that earlier someone mentioned something about structure um in terms of what we would present i think that would be good um and so that's that's kind of really where where my thoughts are right now that's all i want to say thanks rita frank um i i want to kind of hearken back and really playing off something rita just said now uh sarah i i i view you as our expert your urban planning background the the conversations we had when we were walking the site about the economic value to what we're trying to create to the business

084community um commercial residential etc um so i and i think you made an offer or you know maybe 10 minutes ago and i don't want to i don't want to pass that up and i'm not quite sure what the offer was but uh i would like to you know maybe offline or whatever yeah talk a little bit further about your idea of a role you might be able to play in others uh and then about the library i i think this is and i understand uh at some level uh probably not the level when where the rubber hits the road uh the stress and strain that all uh activities in the downtown are experiencing but this is the moment i think where in a constructive way groups like ourselves and others in the community need

085to engage with the library as they go about the process of selecting new leadership and i assume that there will be a process where the public can be involved in that in a organized way and i just think rather than pulling back i think we should look for constructive ways to engage while while this important decision is being made about future leadership all right unless you've got your hand up uh and i'd like to make a comment too at some point here uh else go ahead you're muted else i think um just following up on frank a little bit um that muting and unmuting just makes me spin around um but if we could go uh years ago when in fact what led me to run for city council or maybe you know which came

086first the decision to run or to or this whole i spent about a year and a half going to dda committee meetings going to the library board meeting going to all these different meetings and simply listening and i got to be so annoying i guess to the dda at that time they you know i would show up it's a public you know it's available to the public nobody says it's it's private and i'd show up and i just you know take a seat and listen and i think we don't do enough listening i think we go too much too often with an ask and one way we can know a little bit more about these blog partners is go and listen to their boards go and listen to what they talk about and understand what

087they're facing um even i don't know you know it's a private group i guess the main street area association but what would we learn if we heard if we heard directly from them talking about their situations maybe that's one thing we should do just occasionally drop in on a meeting especially the library board as they decide what they're going to do with for their leadership the dda what they're going to do for a new executive director and we have a new city administrator coming in i mean the stars are i don't know whether it's aligning or misaligning but all of this leadership change is pretty interesting and seems to present an opportunity that we don't want to blow up we want to learn as they go through what they're going through and maybe be able

088to participate in some way should they ask us to yeah also i think that's a really good really good point i i uh too agree that i think there are a lot of um this this period as we're hopefully coming out of covet but certainly what covett has done i think has rocked a lot of standard norms for uh organizing organizations and uh for for um just the normal way of doing things and so i do i do feel like it has create it's created a period of thought where maybe we can change things for the better in a lot of ways i i we talk about this a lot in my day job too and so uh i agree with that sentiment um you know listening to everybody's uh comments here i certainly um

089i feel like one of the things that i've learned in this uh subcommittee that we've been uh having meetings with uh is that um with a lot of good uh planning and good questions by people you can get to um what i hope will be a really productive first discussion uh tomorrow um i almost think that that model maybe lends itself uh some um some things for for this uh outreach too and so you know i feel like um i don't know that we want that same subcommittee i almost want to ask sarah if she'd be interested in sharing this other subcommittee on on uh you know potentially the same type of uh research but but maybe in a little different way and and it being totally local um but i feel like we've we've

090learned a lot in the just the discussions we've had to create um to create this outreach effort for the other uh uh community comparisons i just feel like there's a lot that we can apply from that learning experience to to this and i realize that not everybody has participated in that we're going to get into that in a few minutes i think um but you know from frank and rita and alice and heather and myself and sarah i don't know i just learned a lot already without even getting the nuts and bolts of what's going on in their communities so i just want to throw that out there i do think that we've had some uh really productive discussions there and maybe that's the type of approach we can apply um i like that comparison

091i really i i hadn't linked that up until you mentioned it but i think that might be a a good model um to to prepare ourselves for whatever engagement we decide on with the partners i think some some you know as we say bench research uh let's think through the questions uh i think we'd be better prepared we'd understand better how to approach this so that that's a nice link up thank you what a good segue adam so real quick before we leave this topic i think that maybe that's just me maybe that we get some feedback on the idea of of um having a smaller group of folks a subset of this group get involved in [Music] in preparation for outreach uh well maybe maybe that's my suggestion uh for um downtown partners you

092know maybe not just block but beyond the block i think that to the point that have been made by a lot of folks here everybody is wants to be concerned that the that any uh outreach efforts are valuable by both parties myself i put myself in that camp that i'd want to make sure that the outreach is uh is really done in a way that uh that creates and adds value but i do think to sarah's original point at the start of this conversation i don't know how we can start planning something and frankly i would find a little offensive if i was a block partner uh for somebody to come in and tell me that well we're gonna do this and um you know what do you think without asking for some input first

093and so i i think it's a it would be it would behoove us to be a good partner uh to try and figure out how to collect some uh research in a way that is productive that's just my own opinion so i don't know jen you've got your hand up i'm sorry no i i raised it in response to your comment um let me take it down before i forget um i hear like we should have these plans that we these designs and this these things that we put out for comment and then i also hear this strong desire to solicit feedback to inform that and i feel like we go in this circle and i feel like we go on the circle on things and i don't know what the right approach is but

094i i guess i would err in favor of finding some way that is respectful of business owner and community partners time to um solicit their feedback and involve them in the process right like if this is something that um alan has so wonderfully encouraged um you know thought around commenting and what does that mean this it almost feels antithetical to go to them with this fully baked plan and here are some drawings or hear some designs and react to them and give your opinion it just it doesn't feel it doesn't feel it feels wrong in a way um but i guess it kind of goes back to my my comment a few minutes ago in terms of um how do how do we solicit their feedback how do we get their um opinion and their

095buy-in so that it is truly a community um it's reflective of what the community wants and needs including you know those who are in business and those who are our neighbors that's that's what this is all about right um so that's hat tip to allen for getting me to thinking that way in a very meaningful way but it just brought i think a little bit of a pause in this conversation for me in terms of thinking all right i agree with that jeff you've got your hand up yeah i just wanted to say that in my experience the the process of um developing models of possibilities and engaging people you know is sort of interdependent and you know at the end of the day what we're all about is trying to build community and and

096you build community or a closer community than we than we have at the moment you you tend to build community by engaging with each other in an exploratory process in a research process uh in a discovery process in an adventure in a you know in a in a what would be the word um you know a quest you know uh and so we're kind of on a quest to discover a new kind of community for our city or to make our city better uh by developing new kinds of community and you know engaging people in that process uh builds commitment and also builds understanding and it also uh people when when they start this if it's properly organized don't mind carving out time to do that because we all are looking for some meaning in

097our lives and we all care about community and want community to be better and i don't think that the the block partners and other folks um out there are necessarily going to be uh reacting negatively as long as it's framed in a way that is an exploratory process where they get some idea of you know what our longer term goals are and um and they see it as a as a joint exploration towards building community i think if we can get that message put across you know we'll find the way we'll find the way to work together we'll find a way to engage their time productively that's just sort of a general statement thanks thanks jeff uh sarah uh jeff you calling it exploratory and discovery presence resonated a lot i think that's exactly how

098i've been trying to think of this is like bringing them in first identifying these black partners so adam i really liked what you were saying making those connections between sort of what we've been doing on the other subcommittee did i get muted accidentally yes sorry um we would sort of do that that bench research and come up with like the list of partners that we want to initially engage and like kind of go through like some of the backstory in the history before we just like go at people i assume adam that's sort of what you were thinking um yeah but i think like having those types of like discovery conversations with partners that want to engage with us like that's sort of how i was envisioning this going because i mean even if they

099were they were talked to or brought into conversations as part as the part of the um whatever came before this council of the commons that i have the name i'm blanking on that was a long time ago at this point and things have changed dramatically um so i think it's worth like reviving those conversations in ways that are comfortable for the black partners and for this group so i think thinking of it in terms of like that sort of discovery and exploration to me makes a lot of sense and i would hope um that these partners would want to engage with us because i really do think that like if this this whole the public spaces on this block are created like in a way that i think all of us hope that they are

100this it should be beneficial for you know not just this block but like well beyond but actually financially valuable for a lot of the people that own property on this block um so i think that there's a lot of there's a lot of like mutual interest in getting this right and so i would hope that people would want to start having these conversations with us and i think that after these initial conversations you know we can engage them however make sense in like starting the design process as well but i don't know to me i think those like initial exploratory conversations would be really useful with whoever wants to have those with us thanks sarah alan and then frank you're muted alan on your muted unmuted here i am again you know exploratory conversations yes

101we're there with everybody as we go along uh as i said with meeting uh pat flower from the uh camp house come come to our meeting tell us what you're doing let's talk let's see let's learn from each other and so we just have to begin the conversation uh the question with the dda is a little more formalized because they have a specific authority on what we are doing and they are exercising their authority by ignoring their capacity to be helpful and we should have a place like a board of commission on their agenda so we begin in a formal way to have a communication that can be expanded in many informal ways but the continued non-recognition of the center of the city on the group that has a downtown authority in the center of

102the city is not it should not be acceptable we should just ask can we be a a commission that would report monthly as to how we are doing and that would certainly stimulate further conversation and might find us a way to see how in the affordable housing and economic development uh partner group that we might have something to learn from what they are doing uh i attend i attend their meetings i know what's going on but they they have blocked consideration of what is happening in this area from their agenda and maura thompson well friendly in one way is basically not helpful in providing services that could easily provided in terms of storage and they have an obligation directed by the city council to terminate service parking and they do it when the garden is

103happening they did it when we had a specific activity for peace week uh but that should be on their in their consideration particularly as they're now talking about switching their uh their parking operator so that specific proposal that we ask to be a city commission on their agenda in their end in their monthly meeting i think we should pursue that's not to say that we shouldn't have conversation with maura and other dda members and learn what their other interests are and so on and similarly with the library and similarly with jerusalem garden and with the denali building residents and with the martin company but formally we should have a relation with the downtown development authority such as other city boards and commissions are built into their formal organizational process so alan real quick here i

104do want to i want to be conscious of uh the fact i think it's probably counterproductive to to kind of go after the dea like that a little bit so i think it would be i i understand your frustration on this um but i think that there's been a lot of really good conversation here about trying to engage the lock partners in a really constructive way and i i just ask if we can keep the conversation going on that because i think we're making some progress i understand uh or i hear you on your frustration regarding the dda but i do i feel like we've talked about and maybe arrived at a way to try and reach out to a lot of the block partners or at least establish a team of folks to engage

105in that and i just feel like um that's really productive and and maybe the direction the frustration uh can be channeled in a more productive way that's the only thing i had to ask um i think alice and uh frank uh i don't know um who had their hand up first i apologize [Music] you're uh i'll i'll go um um i uh i echo your request there adam um because um it's exactly it's sort of there are a lot of metaphors you know why beat your head against the brick wall when you when the same thing happens over and over again um but i was thinking of another example that was sort of surprising to me a while back with the greenway and now called a tree line so there was this i remembering a

106word from the 70s synchronicity um when uh jerry forgotten his last name clark maybe was working on flood mitigation plans and um the greenway was trying to figure out how to connect to the b2b tray trail how to make that more fundable that kind of thing and then what happened was we got a tunnel underneath the railroad it took probably eight years to get that to happen and it wasn't by pushing and it wasn't by weedling or insisting it was by going to meetings talking with people offline being community members really and and supporting one thing because it fit in with some with other plans and not going in with my priority is most important and yet there were several different angles on it and you could listen to those two other people you know

107they were i can almost remember the names of people who would consistently be at the same meetings and once once that is witnessed it has a sort of a multiplier effect an exponential growth where you know if you can avoid being seen as the annoyance if you can be seen as the supporter and the listener uh all of a sudden conversations are started not by you not by not by me but by by the sheer existence of a community that's developed around an issue or an idea so that's that's kind of what i wanted to talk about because that's physical evidence of something big that happened but it took a lot of wheels turning for many years and sometimes the gears mess meshed and sometimes they didn't but eventually it did happen and i think

108that's kind of a good lesson in persistence as well as participation frank i think you're uh you're up next okay alice i'm glad you went first uh because i i was i wanna add on to an example uh both what you've just said and what sarah said earlier in my fundraising experience at the university over 30 years you you want to engage in that case a prospective donor you want to you want to do the listening you don't want to do a lot of talking uh you want to engage people hear them out find out what what's important to them you know what's their passion what's been important in terms of in that case the business school their business life and how did that how does that mesh up with what the business school is

109trying to do so it's it's finding linkages finding common ground and uh i just think it's it's important uh what happens at the end of the day is that the people and organizations you engage begin to take a stake in a shared vision of and these conversations uh i think uh are an important way to get us uh into that process uh and there's a formal uh you know development design process that that will begin to capture this and that's i think what eric has been so helpful with in terms of funding but um i just saw this analogy from my my fundraising life and uh wanted to just share that thanks frank uh and then jeff yeah i just wanted to add to that and just say briefly you know the old academic uh

110there is actually a discipline that covers this and you guys are describing what the ideo folks and stanford design school call design thinking and and some of you are probably familiar with that term but that's exactly what design thinking is all about it's uh and it's what steve jobs did to come up with his beautiful designs all the rest of it you start out with empathizing with the people that you're trying to work with and listening to them and understanding their issues and getting inside them a little bit understanding how they see the world and you begin to identify what what problems they're trying to solve and what issues they have and then you are able to formulate an in a disciplined process there's a whole process for doing this people teach design thinking i

111do myself uh and then you you you go to the a set of design possibilities or alternatives that reflect that experience that that ethnographic if you like um empathy ethnographic you know understanding of the other and then you have these different possible options for addressing the issues and challenges that people face and then you run a series of experiments to test out which one of these options makes some sense and you get feedback as a result of doing that and it's a continuous process and it's not sequential but and and and you gather data and then you you adapt or you move to maybe a different option because the particular experiment didn't work out very well or there was a better way to do things and you arrive at then some kind of end product

112that everybody has been involved with but it's a highly it's a highly disciplined process and i think it's well worth people uh taking the time to look at how design thinking you know works and essentially what what's being described here is that and i'm happy to uh maybe uh at some point discuss that a little bit with folks or send out some material on it so so i'm gonna make a suggestion hopefully uh to take us to kind of a next step on this item you know us sarah since you so nicely volunteered uh i think maybe we want to take you up on your offer to try and um you know i think about what you think if it's a smaller group of folks who are interested or what what you think would be

113best uh to try and um start a process for engagement and then maybe we can invite others kind of like we did with the with the um other subcommittee into that process are you okay with doing that are you willing to do that yeah but so wait what is what are you thinking the first step is i mean i think last the left with the last one did we have people like say that they wanted to be involved in myself into that process yes i'm hoping you inserted yourself and uh and if others would like to join i think that would be great too um i'd be happy if if if you were willing to to to take me on to help out if you were interested this is i'd be happy to balance out

114both of your smarts so so that's four right there so that's uh all right and then we can always you know others i was sarah jeff jenn oh erica and alan sorry and then we can always add folks you know as as folks would like but um maybe that'll get us started on a process what's the number where you don't have to notice the meetings i think you're at it it's five yeah five is it um right now about whether subcommittees need to actually be formally noticed that we're trying to sort out internally now i don't i think uh our our uh enabling ordinance or what do you ever you call that i think that we're allowed anything under a quorum um any number of committees any number and as long as they are not

115more than a quorum not not up to a quorum um so well there's an internal discussion at net right now about that interpretation of that whether subcommittees need to actually be noticed or not so i'll keep you tuned on that and if there's a difference between working groups and subcommittees right now the group that's doing the exploration i would consider a working group it's not really well i'd say i think we should use the right term that allows us to do what we want to do and it is all of those guidelines but yeah so at the baseline keep it under quorum but i even had a question about how we're going about this my understanding is that so far we mostly have done zoom meetings with other people have we done any in-person meetings

116um with i mean the communities explorations were those all zooms actually we haven't done any of them yet um so that's why don't we transition to that real quick uh and and maybe turn it over to frank and rita um to uh give just a brief update on where we're at on that that's okay because i do i know we're still struggling with pandemic behaviors um and i i want us to be sure we're all on the same page and it's the best way we can do for sure well we're frankerita yeah he has to send out a list of of organizations or people that we thought should be consulted was that ever consolidated or shared or whatever remember we each one of us sent out something yes it was and so uh well heather

117real quick do you want to talk a little bit about the buckets of questions and then frank and rita or either or to get into a little bit about what our first steps are going to be sure yeah so the buckets of questions ended up being the partnership administrative structure and operational model financial structure equity and inclusiveness and site development um and then after development what happened after development and jeff dear to your question what we did was we took a lot of the or we took all of what was submitted and tried to categorize we ended up with this giant list of stuff and tried to bucket it together and synthesize things and get to an overall sort of like framework and and sub-pieces to be able to break into both background research uh

118and then uh conversation so frank do you want to highlight a little bit about that yeah uh just further background i think this all started either at the august or july meeting the idea which i may have suggested others i'm sure did too that that we really need to learn from successful situations in communities either in proximity to ann arbor or they could be in other locations across the country and so we formed this this group it's myself alice rita adam and sarah so everybody and heather has been joining her time to have joined us uh for our meetings as well and we developed uh a set of topics and the questions uh and we took the input from the the broader group on potential communities and um i think we've settled initially on detroit

119and plymouth and we decided to go at it one at a time and to have the entire group uh of five um be involved with with detroit and we'll jointly learn from that interchange and we are also encouraged by such a robust uh engaging response from a gentleman by the name of david cowling excuse me cowan c-o-w-a-n who is the chief open space uh person for a group called the uh the downtown detroit partnership um i won't go into a lot of detail but it's a 100 year old business association that has taken on with the cooperation of the city of detroit and other organizations the management and development of seven downtown parks in the city of detroit and tomorrow afternoon our group uh of uh five uh you know are gonna have a uh

120up to two hour zoom meeting with david and we're going to address those topics and get into those questions and uh i i think uh you know my enthusiasm i think is shared by everyone that uh engaged with with david he's not only had 12 years experience he's only 30 um he says 12 years with the downtown detroit partnership but communities around the country and in the state of michigan have been reaching out to him we discover and so he's knowledgeable about uh other situations of other communities and that that's i think that maybe one question we don't have is advice of other communities that we might uh learn from uh as well but anyhow that that we're looking forward to that uh engagement tomorrow afternoon um and uh we're we'll obviously be reporting back

121to to the full committee in some detail on on how that goes i read it you want to add you're muted i think sorry uh yeah actually i don't have anything to add that's a great summary frank thank you thank you oh thank you for doing that remind me just of the time of that meeting tomorrow uh three three p.m okay okay there actually had been an earlier engagement with david we discovered a couple years ago will hathaway and a fellow by name of uh john floyd and i think jack eaton was involved and they actually went down there and met and toured but you know things happen and here we are 36 months out but uh he's been extremely generous with his time and he he knows about ann arbor he has family here

122he you know he wants us to succeed as much as they've experienced success in detroit so we've got a couple questions for you i think eric goes first and then jeff great to hear this movie forward and it's exciting sorry if i um this is part but how is there going to be a process for um recording this this engagement so that um we don't necessarily revisit in a couple more years and ask you know we're keeping track of what um the good information that they're sharing with us is there kind of a thought i'm doing that i think i think that's a heather question but i assume that this is this will be a zoo meeting so it could be recorded but we would need david's permission to do that so assuming that he's

123comfortable with it we can record it but then also my assumption all along and and members of the working group can confirm or not was that they would develop a written report about it that would be attached and given out to the full group yeah and things you know even though the contact was made three years ago things change yeah and you know it's not going to be that useful in a year or two yeah so i i don't know they're recording it is that essential it's for now that we really need to well my 77 year old brain tells me i would benefit from recording i think too so we don't have to scramble or scribble notes since we have present hopefully i think this is going to be information rich conversation and at

124least for some period of time uh and and asking for his permission i can't imagine he wouldn't but uh i would hope for a recording so we so the whole group can hear what goes on there and yeah yeah oh sorry frank no no no uh jeff then yeah i think jeff here you end up so i think this is fat fantastic and i think it's very important that we do this uh but i don't want us to lose sight of two things one uh there is a lot of international experience which um can be brought to bear uh people have been doing stuff in europe for in in asia uh for longer than we have and are in some ways more forward thinking than we are about um you know urban uh commons and

125urban center of the city kind of development ideas and activities so i don't want us to lose uh that kind of input i don't know how one would collect it i had identified a few people that we ought to consult um who who know a lot about that and have been engaged in it in europe and the other thing i would want to say is that ex nobody in the world has really produced you know the perfect model and nobody ever will but uh we're you know we're we're all struggling in the current environment to come to good answers and of course climate change and and the and the virus have made that even more uh necessary and so i would like i i would like to add if you like the sauce if you

126the the the the uh that should go on to this beautiful work that you're doing ought to be some an international dimension and some of the visionaries out there who are trying to imagine better solutions than anybody's got right now because ann arbor hopefully is going to wind up with a unique answer for itself and and hopefully a model for others down the road and i don't think we just want to be i don't think we want to be me too too much that's always a danger and the way you avoid me too is you extend your thought process and your framing to include forward thinking or visionary thoughts as well as international kind of dimensions and i and i talked about this concept of insight before where you have hindsight you have outside where

127you look at other models around you and then you have foresight where you look at possible future scenarios and i don't want to lose that foresight element and so somehow if we can weave that in that would be helpful thanks jeff uh rita you've got your hand up and then alan um jeff you ended with something that i was gonna contribute which is um i want us to have our ann arbor solution um i see this as something of um just reaching out to see what other people what other areas are doing but we want to have our uniqueness and i do not expect us to try and carbon copy i hope that that is not um a result of of these efforts this is really more like to just explore uh ellen yes we

128have our our own uh unique situation but we should be learning from what's going on in the rest of the world and i encourage you in the uh agenda notes the paper that odile submitted the commons a key concept for the future of development from france that reviews many of these ideas i hope that people will read that and begin to see the commons as a you know mode of thought is developing all over the world how we apply it uniquely in our situation is our challenge but there's more going on than what we know from our immediate area so plea please read the uh attachment that's in the minutes that odile sent out excellent thank you alan um so uh unless there's any other further top uh conversation on this topic the last thing

129really fast oh yeah sorry sir i didn't see your hand up yeah i could just put it up um i just wanted to so we do not expect i think this is like our first step talking to david and frank and rita had had this like prior conversation with him so he was again like a spring said he's being very generous with his time i think we're using this because we have had the prior contact it's sort of like a test for our questions too like we have a lot of questions to get through and we do not expect future interviewees to take two hours with us so i think this will sort of be a good test on like what are the questions that are are resonating the most with you know like our

130situation and what are we learning from the most to help us sort of like pare it down and make sure that the future we can do future interviews in like a more streamlined manner so i just want to not all interviews are going to be too harsh i don't think that's awesome no definitely yep uh so unless there in any other further points on this uh topic the the last item we have on the agenda is the long-term planning and uh you know it being that it is uh 902 i was gonna make a suggestion that i think we've gotten a lot of good discussion tonight and i feel like this long-term planning piece is really important um i'd like to make a suggestion that that we table that to the next uh meeting and

131that we also ahead of time fill in elements that we feel are outstanding for the long-term planning like i know fundraising for the planning uh uh piece is an element that i'd like to talk about i know there are probably a host of other elements too and so if we could submit ideas under the long-term planning banner to heather for the next agenda i think if folks are comfortable doing that rather than starting a conversation tonight i think that would be really helpful just my perspective do we good with that okay so i'm good with that i hope that the various criteria that there was a number that were mentioned could somehow be included in somebody who's taking notes could include those in the notes so for memory as to what's in particular criteria are

132that we're being looked at from detroit and plymouth yeah for sure ellen you're definitely gonna get a i will tell you i think our our this uh working group uh our subcommittee is very dedicated to i'm gonna meet you for a second here so i'm giving this feedback is very dedicated to getting you uh as much information as we possibly can on this so um so in that case we'll table the long-term planning and i think the last item on the agenda then is uh public comment heather do we have any members of the public here yes robert black would like to speak all right thank you heather um congratulations all i am enjoying watching you form a mastermind here um your respectful communication to each other is creating these channels of communication together and

133i'm i'm really applaud you for this good work i know that you will never present a baked plan to anybody it should not be done that way this is a process of patient ground work and you're doing it i'm just so happy to watch this your outreach ideas of informing the process from other communities even the larger picture that jeffrey said and then this next one where sarah's going to chair this i think you're right on with these sort of mini task forces or whatever you want to call them and i i have a number of notes here and i won't even get into it but this idea of preparation for outreach before outreach like adam talked about and what sarah's going to do with that group is is wonderful and what i've noticed in

134my work with other companies and in watching the the major players of facilitation around the ann arbor area this idea of sort of patient informal conversations like alice said it took eight years to do that tunnel i remember jerry clark and worked with him when we were doing some of the groundwork for miller's creek and the work i did with james jane lum it took a while to get that watershed plan to be number three in the country by the epa and we engaged the whole northeast neighborhood so kudos to you guys in bravo for this um let's see i just wanted to see if i had a couple quick comments to leave you with um this idea of positing a future vision that you that jeffrey's talking about the the foresight is really important

135there was a process i did years ago with jack losman and some other people to create a vision for a data center in saginaw and there's a process called back casting where you go into that future and you create kind of a news item of what it looks like when you're already there time travel into the future and see what this is and if you can create you the council of commons can create a compelling vision for the the work build on the task force look at page 16 of their recommendations listening to feedback from the community building on past work learning more about commons and cotton and then learning more about designing public spaces you're right on track to do this and just be patient um it will unfold but give yourself a target

136to shoot for john kennedy stood on the steps of the union and started the peace corps at late at night one night he threw out an idea to put a man on the moon in ten years it took eight and a half years to do it so you guys can put your own moonshot out there and then you might be surprised who will come to that conversation mike martin the new library director the new administrator i think as uh alice said so beautifully the stars are aligning for you and uh have faith and just keep up your good work i really am applaud your your beautiful work tonight thank you thanks robert anyone else other no that's it all right i'd like to say this is the earliest we've been done yet so we're continuing

137to improve uh 908 i think and i know there's some laughs the last thing i'd say is i love being on zoom uh for meetings because of the furry friends that join us and we saw a few of those and i definitely uh tried to restrain my laughter so anyways it's really wonderful to see all of you again uh and um and do we have a motion for adjournment so move two any seconds all right plenty uh all in favor say aye all right any opposed all right motion carries see you soon thank you you