good evening ladies and gentlemen it is 6 25 and I will call this governance meeting of the Burnsville city council to order uh that's the clear note that um all members of the council are present this meeting is being conducted both in person and online members of the public May attend in person if they like or public can watch this meeting online at burnsville.oh burnsvillemn.gov meetings or Comcast channel 16 or 859 the public can also participate through Zoom joining us at zoom.us join more information about the information about this meeting is on our meeting web page and in the council agenda package the first item on our governance meeting this evening and it's only one item and it's the participatory budget and this is the council dialogue Mrs Bethany Brewer is our strategic initiative director and is going to be presenting Mrs Brewer mayor and Council it's my pleasure to be here with you for our fourth and final meeting of the governance process for participatory budgeting so um this evening you it's your chance to dialogue and provide us Direction um so just to give you a quick uh overview of what we planned for this evening we're just going to spend less than 10 minutes and a quick overview of our environmental scan so our first meeting in May 16th was all about our white paper presentation and the environmental scan that we did with staff on participatory budgeting so we'll spend a little time just as a reminder for you about some of what we found in the scan and then we're really going to turn it over to you to talk and ultimately let you give us your direction on on the program so um if you all have um in before you a copy of that white paper just in case for your reference tonight as well as a copy of our white paper presentation and then a copy of our kind of the memo from our legal counsel the opinion that we received from them um on participatory budgeting so just looking back as you recall when we first began talking about participatory budgeting um a few years ago now Council really defined it as a mechanism to directly involve the community in the budgeting of their tax dollars so we've carried that that definition through as we've gone through the process um of studying and understanding it and what the options are so we're going to share that with you tonight um a reminder on our environmental scan we provided an analysis of 29 cities who have explored or implemented participatory budgeting all around the world so we had 16 U.S cities a number of international cities and some school districts all that had done some different things with participatory budgeting and what they implemented in their own communities um our white paper our environmental scan took us through those case studies to understand the city's experiences we formed some concepts of how participatory budgeting is implemented in all of those cases some considerations what are the things we need to be thinking about the impacts of participatory budgeting and considering the program and then finally a conclusion so from all of the things to consider what are some of the opportunities challenges and best practices um of the program or of a program um just a few notes some of our observations on those 29 case studies the the total of the 16 U.S cities II ended up exploring and then not implementing and implementing a program of of 27 cities worldwide who did Implement a program 26 actually is a project-based approach so we kind of defined that as the community puts forward particular projects and then um then can can vote on those um nine U.S cities right now have an active program more than two years old 12 use a consultant to help administer the program um all 16 do include youth as as eligible to participate in the program so just some things to note about the cities that we looked at back on May 16th um just a few more pieces of data that I think are helpful as we're as you're considering and thinking about the program the average population in the United States of cities who do implement the program is over six hundred thousand so it tends to be an opportunity initiative that larger cities are taking on in general um it um you can see kind of the average general fund budget of about 1.8 billion from those cities that have implemented programs in the United States um and then average participation rate right in the United States it tends to be on average about 1.32 percent um are actively participating in the program in in a variety of of opportunities and engagement type of opportunities that exist throughout the program um we talked through a few of the concepts that we found in those cities so um if you recall back we find that there's a variety of ways to actually Implement participatory budgeting right and and any City that that goes forward or any community that goes forward with the program might choose one or all of these types of ways to implement so a caucus is a meeting of delegates generally to help select develop ideas um there's a number of opportunities to use neighborhoods and create geographically near home initiatives um very virtually every initiative uses voting right so a way for the community to identify their preference to make a decision some use workshops that help provide the community opportunities to share input or learn about the program um oftentimes there's surveys so a time to collect ideas or Community input and then a lot of times they're using teams right so a group of people that are getting together to share ideas to help lead the program to steer the program whatever it might be are some of the ways that the programs are implemented um so a few things to consider right considerations are the impact right what what do we need to be thinking about um when we're thinking about implementing an initiative like participatory budgeting so we got to think about the people right who's involved um we want to make sure that our program can be designed to be as simple and accessible as possible um right we would be looking for barriers to participation and those types of things our community needs right so what do people want how do we understand what they want and what how are we making sure we're delivering that I'm going to make sure that what programs don't interfere with essential services or where technical expertise are necessary so there's certain recommended best practices that would kind of steer us away from some of the things where we really do need the expert to be making those decisions um the investment right so we actually think about it in terms of participatory and operational investment so we want to make sure we're considering how much is the community directed funding portion of that the participatory investment and then what does it take to administer the program right so we kind of think about that as the operational investment and just best practice would be to consider both of those things in a program um funding source is another really important consideration so where's the money coming from a best practice would suggest that using Capital funds helps kind of fund longer-term investments in infrastructure that benefit the community um so a majority of the case studies that we looked at did tend to use capital or Grant funds for that reason operationally right how's it going to work how will we how would we do that a practice would be to use a pilot program that would help us test the initiative before it was fully implemented and then last an important one last but not least an important one legal what's allowed right and so we've talked about this in our group quite a bit but the city council must reserve the legal authority to set the budget so any type of participatory budgeting program your Authority and the budget's not delegable it's informing you can use that to inform your budget decisions from sort of those considerations we as staff in the paper drew some conclusions right what would we need to know and think about um what are the opportunities and challenges and when we think about it you know the people right the who um it's a great opportunity for community members to shape decisions that affect their lives um some challenges might be barriers to prevent that prevent widespread participation you know it might be in some cases if there's not a good you know Avenue to participation that there could be right it could could lead to focus groups or specific groups right having a more um uneven voice the needs of our community are important right this gives the community an opportunity to voice their concerns and say right what is our community looking for do they need um on the other hand a challenge would be competing interest rate might be difficult to prioritize um and then finally resources so some of the opportunities there would be that our public resources reflect their Community our community's priorities and then just again challenges right again considering the funding source and the investment that that would be needed to support both participation and operation or administration of the program so with that we kind of come to a few best practices that we found throughout the environmental scan I'm kind of we say these are widely recognized as leading standards they are reiterated in some of what are experts shared when we had experts come to talk with y'all and that would be we want to engage a variety of people to consider all perspectives right how do we get as many voices at the table as we can to inform the work some important ones would be key decision makers you agree on program goals right what what makes it successful what are we looking for um and then establish guidelines and manage expectations for clarity so making sure there's just some clear rules responsibilities timelines all of those things to be sure that we're being successful in implementing a program um I mentioned this but a best practice would be to run a pilot program which is help inform decisions about future implementation of course to provide sufficient funding for appropriate program Administration and investment participatory investment in operational investment kind of like we talked about um and then it's it's helpful it's helpful to collaborate and form Partnerships right there's folks out there who have great expertise in this area or a lot of interest and so working together with identifying those people can make the program more successful so with that that is kind of an overview of what we talked about and looked at in our white paper you heard from some experts you heard from their community and so we really um look to you to say does the council wish to implement participatory budgeting as a mechanism to directly involve the community and the budgeting of their tax dollars and I would stand for your discussion and then for any questions that you might have as well thank you Mrs Brewer um for that summary and update of the white paper thank you members of the council uh your thoughts with all of this we have heard we've gone through the white paper we had experts come and speak we listened to two citizens who came to the comment section and then we also received some emails from from some of our residents three emails so I'll remember Workman I can go first oh well then yes please um I'd like to thank Steph for all this um very impressed with all the work that's been done to this point um this group has said that we're not afraid to boldly lead and think of new ideas and be creative and there's been no shortage of that in these Chambers over the six years that I've been here I do think this program has the potential to be a positive one but I do have concerns and I just want to air those out now as we begin this discussion um my primary concern is does this program give power to the loudest Voice or those with the most resources to mobilize and push for their cause at the expense of those who do not have the same means my primary concern is is essentially that is is this could this be manipulated for intentional purposes um and I know we're going to discuss this at length but I want to get that out first um my second concern is uh if the participation in this program should it pass mimics the national average of about one to two percent how long would this Council be willing to carry this program forward what is our goal you know short term long term um and then question for Greg or finances if this if this program were to be implemented um what kind of impact is this going to have on our budget um and then how many roughly how would this impact a levy from a percentage point so those are just my concerns um again I that doesn't mean that I'm opposing this at this time I just I I want to be cautious about something like this and um I do think the intent is positive we want to get the community involved and participate in government that is a positive um but those are I guess my starting points of concern as we discuss this so people up here I'm going to go down the line so council member Schultz all right eyes are really pretty good I put it put it in that button like it's the whammy but before you're not going to come I'm just going to go down the line okay so I I think any system has potential to be manipulated absolutely any system um can you reduce the likelihood that this could be skewed uh yes and I think some of the case studies and examples shown in here do show ways to really minimize that so that you are are not just catering to a couple loud voices because that's not what we're looking to do but that you are looking at getting wider participation the other question you had was okay there's the average of about one percent of the the people being involved how long would we wish to continue it I I would say if we have that if we have if we have that low of an involvement then I would say that how it is structurally set up needs to be definitely reevaluated and to see okay and that's that's what you want to do and I also think that's why staff is is pointing out to do a pilot program so that you're doing it in a little bite first and seeing does this work do we keep it scrap it change it what do we do at that point so I do think it's wise to be looking at a pilot program um how how I see this working and this is just me personally but staff might come up with other ideas council members might come up with other ideas as well I really like the neighborhood aspect and I like the workshop aspect I like the two of those together greatly because I think it starts to solve some of those those cautions that you have which are definite cautions to have um if we're looking at this however we divide the neighborhoods up you know which we have different ways you know is it as big as a Precinct or is it smaller like an elementary school neighborhood like what is that are we looking at it as like micro grants where the community that small community is getting together in a workshop situation and saying what do we see as the challenges are immediate area is facing and what Solutions do we as the experts because we live here every day because they are the experts in their neighborhood we're not how do we see addressing this and working with staff to then come up with a proposal or staff says this is how you do the proposal and then the legality of course is bringing it before a council right I think that would do several things all at once not only does it get people involved in budgeting because right now we would be freaking happy if we had one percent of our residents involved in our budgeting process because we do not um when we have when we have our our both our Max tax vote and our final vote this place is a ghost town there's no one here because people have the feeling it is utterly pointless for them to be here so realistically if we had one percent of burnsville's population show up to be involved in our budgeting process we would be overwhelmed and thrilled um but I do think this type of thing would get more people involved because they would see that they actually do have some control over their Destiny their input does actually matter and they can see a result from it from it the other thing that I think it would do is strengthen our communities which is one of the reasons why we have our night to unite right that's to strengthen communities and you know they have the get-togethers and the potlucks and that that type of thing and yes that's for Public Safety but it's also to build cohesion and trust and and conversations and getting to know your neighbor like all of that to form communities because when people are looking at somewhere to live yes they're looking at the city of manatees and they're looking at location and you know can they afford a house but they're also looking for you know do I have this feeling of of belonging here and that that I fit in with my neighbors and and um you know and I feel welcome do I have that feeling and I think this also as like a bonus but a big bonus helps to do that as well as far as costs we have control over that but the costs will not definitely not be determined tonight we have no idea because we don't know how we're going to implement what we can do is we can start out very modestly and we can start out with a pilot program and we can we can do this at a slower Pace because I would rather we get it right and we do it well then we just throw something together and rush it and say I'm done like good enough done tie a bow on it so that's that's how I look at it did that answer your questions yeah or do you have well it helped um yes and I appreciate that okay okay council member Gustafson hmm somehow I find myself conflicted because I agree with both of you I do have concerns about how we pay for this we're for some very tough times in the city and we're we have a plan to move forward that uh it's not an easy plan but I I do I am concerned about the money I'm concerned about the participation of it I would dearly love to have a program that included the neighborhoods where neighborhood groups could get together and come to us but this is what likely see to do in our neighborhood this and then we maybe have a grant program in that but there again everything I've read about this and watched the experts if we're going to do this we still have to put a fair amount of money into this thing even a pilot program is going to require a fair amount of money to make this happen and I'm not sure where we're going to find that this year that's that's my biggest concerns where do we where do we find that and how do we get people to participate in it you know we're doing a lot of Outreach these days we're in the Parks we're neighborhoods all the time with our new vehicle I mean we are trying our best to get people involved in in the process in our budget processes and pretty much everything else we do in the city and so for me it's it I don't see how we do it at this time it's something I think worth revisiting in future budgets and but I would also like it to be something more centered on our neighborhood there's an aging City every neighborhood is very unique in Burnsville we have our very poor neighborhoods we have our very affluent neighborhoods we have our middle class I mean we have a lot of different things going on and so a neighborhood my neighborhood might want to sidewalk but they can't afford afford the 429 to come and do a sidewalk so they may need a grant to have that happen those are the kind of things I'd like to see us look at in time and that will bring different neighborhoods in to tell us what they'd like to do and maybe we set up something to you neighborhood groups get together and give us your presentations by this date and every year we make determinations of what we're going to do and where we're going to do it and then the next year we do it again and and that's I don't know if that's the exact program but they're actually pretty good pretty but I mean it's that's kind of how you in my mind that's how you get people involved in the whole thing and and it's at a neighborhood level but my concern right now is because of the budget crunches we have and you know if we're going to add anything we need to we need to fund it it means that means we need to vote for a budget that will fund it if we're going to do something and that's very important okay go into my results so I actually don't see us putting it in the budget this year if we were to vote for it this way it's going to take a full year to figure out our processes and methods so voting for it this year means in a couple years we're able to implement it yeah exactly not voting for it this year means it's far more years out in the future so this is a this is a fairly slow moving process so I do think if this is something that you're interested in doing especially for the neighborhoods yeah for the yeah exactly for the neighborhoods starting the process now gets us there a few years from now because it it is going to be a process to get there and we do have to fund it and we do have to come up with that we know by no means want to throw this together this has to be done thoughtfully yes thoughtfully and on a process so that we can do that um so no I don't there's no way we're there's no waiver we're funding it this year that's not happening yeah let's remember Keeley thank you madam mayor um well I have to point out the the hard work that staff did first uh as others have pointed out this is I've never never seen a white paper so well and so thoroughly put together and researched it is um and done by our staff not a consultant right exactly done by staff and it was it's an amazing accomplishment it is something I think that the LMC and other organizations should should look at and could learn a ton from just this um and I I would agree with councilmember Schultz that this is not we're not leaping into this we there's a lot of unanswered questions and I would definitely um stick with our original uh values and and maybe guardrails and that is keep it simple it can't be a overburdensome complex difficult process or it'll collapse under the weight of its its own weight so it's got to be something that we take our time doing make sure it's done so it can be easily understood so it can be easily managed and it is not an excessive financial burden on the city that's not the point of why the the idea that council member Schultz brought up in the first place uh it it was to engage our public and there's there's obviously emails that have come in uh in favor and and want to one opposed in the in the group that we're just given but there will be a lot more I'm sure this if this process moves forward a nice wholeheartedly support it moving forward we'll see and hear a lot more over the next year or so uh from our our citizens and people who are really interested in this I do believe this is this is really common for the city of Burnsville to do we have a history of setting precedence and Trends and examples that other cities then turn around and follow and so um I think under our brave um sorry boldly and brave uh our our you know are bold um value uh this fits in it and I think it is I've always believed this is um something that I've always I've always thought was a great idea I valued it when I lived in other states um and they had different types of of uh mechanisms for citizens to get involved they're business owners to speak their mind and get involved and have a say in what was going on I I always felt that was representative government and I think this process is a great example of representative government uh and that is participate participation by the entire citizenry they they vote Us in office and as as was called out during the comments um you know we're held to sort of check our own personal opinions at the door and just bring uh you know well thought out very objective very fair decisions and um there's to me there's nothing better than we're talking about a you know a massive multi-million dollar budget is to be able to reach out and connect with our community and let them tell us where they think the priorities are otherwise it's five of us deciding for the entire 64 000 uh population and or all of the property owners and I I so anyway for for that reason a lot of reasons I do believe that we should continue to move forward with this and I don't know that it's you know we I guess we don't have an answer to the dollar question yet because we haven't actually gotten to the point to start delving into designing a simple system that will achieve the goal and uh and then we'll know an actual hard cost on what even that system is going to uh going to cost the city taxpayers but there's still a lot of unanswered questions but wow did this answer a lot I mean this brought a tremendous amount of ideas and Clarity and out of the box thinking and uh you know this whole process caused me to take notice as I was sitting in a Transportation Commission meeting there was a presentation by MnDOT and there was a section in the presentation that was software that they had built on their website that was all about participatory government it was I sat there thinking about this knowing we've been involved in this discussion and I'm watching going perfect they built the whole psych it's all ready you know to engage people about transportation and pedestrians and accessibility in trails and all kinds of things I mean um it's it's a it's a really good well thought out system that they ended up going with and I'm sure they spent some money on it because they're pretty sophisticated but I realized at that point I mean mndot's doing the same thing they're spending hundreds of millions of dollars uh 10 times that maybe more like a billion dollars of taxpayer money on on roadways Trails pedestrian access and they want to hear from the general public is it going to cause them to actually say well you know the one percent of all the people polled said this so we're going to do that no it's input for the decision makers to be able to take in and factor into their decision which is what we're talking about doing as well um and so ultimately it it what I saw that was presented uh they adjusted and they tweaked some of what they were planning to do as a result of the feedback they got for people and I kind of see us doing the same kind of things enough said I I support it well I've always been a proponent of citizen engagement we've done many different things this is just another way for us to um ask our citizens to be involved in how they spent their money they've been doing that in other ways I mean I can I mean we have some good examples of what we've done with the Heart of the City and having when you said if one point some citizens it was 2 000 people so when you invite people to come and be a part of it and they know it's substantive work yes and that their voices are going to be heard they show up and those people stayed connected for over a year of that process and they kept coming to all of the council meetings um to make sure that they were heard in how we were going to spend the money and how we were going they were involved in all of that so I've always been a big proponent of uh citizen engagement and participating and if we start slow but I don't want to lose the momentum and other things like we have engaged uh our staff is engaging our community in other areas like Williams Drive that's a neighborhood and that's a street and I believe achieve how many engagements on Williams Drive has Public Works done four five engagement some in Parks some in neighborhoods some in our events I think two parties on the Plaza five or six so all of those people are engaged in what they think that street needs to be like uh in the front of their homes and so forth but like everybody else for me one of the big things that came out of this study with that it's going to according to what staff has found and this is why I'm glad to hear council member Schultz that you're saying you know it'll probably 2026. and perhaps into 23. here's the reason being um we know that both police and fire still need Jesus and according to this if we're going to go down this road we're going to need people focused on this plus we don't have a budget amount so for me it's always about how much money are we going to look at the other part is all of the increases that we have seen with work with Public Works all of our Public Works reconstruction and Rehabilitation work in the last two years we're at the 10 million dollar Mark how are we going to continue to fund that so this if um staff is saying let's look at a a small program pilot program and see how it works then I think staff can go back and begin to pull some things together but I know that your plates are all full and I hope that all of us understand that you've got a lot of things on your plate city manager Lindbergh all of you have so the thing is it's I would hope that all of us would just say okay we think a pilot program might be something but here are the things that we need to make sure how much it's going to cost how much ftes are going to we're going to need for this particular effort and um and then when does it phase in because there seems to be a lot of work with everything that we've learned through the white paper there's a lot of work that needs to be done so if I'm hearing everybody correctly city manager Lindbergh and members of our staff is that go slow a small a pilot program but we also need to make sure that you all come back not right away we're in the midst of all kinds of things going now uh maybe next year what what what will it look like and what will it mean how many ftes I mean right now we're saying that we're going to be according to to the organizational analysis uh 57 ftes in the next five years right 60 of that is in police fire and Public Works am I correct in Remembering those numbers uh Madam mayor members of the council the organizational analysis which you adopted in 2023 that informed our uh our 10-year update to the FMP in your non-bining resolution included the addition of 56 ftes across the organization okay off by one over the course of a four-year implementation window in terms of the percentages uh between public work or excuse me between police and fire and the rest of the organization um I would say your your percentage recollection sounds pretty good to me but I would have to go back and actually crunch those numbers I can also show it on your uh update sounds pretty accurate your your weekly update is where I pulled those numbers from so but the thing is um that's what I'm hearing from the majority of the council if I have missed anything but I like the fact that that we're going to do it but I hope that we don't pause any of the things that we're already doing now because I know that um um we're still doing Williams Drive and there are some other engagements uh that you already have in place that's going to happen yeah mayor council we have a great group of staff that not only focus on engagement for their professional careers but it is a core to our values organizationally certainly of collaboration and connection among the community so it's something that we all work on as you very well know um uh so yes we will continue with those priorities Bethany has a next slide and I'm actually going to take it if you're all right with that so kind of hearing the the majority of the council is interested in moving forward I did prepare some next steps for your consideration so with with direction to continue moving forward I hear some conversation about the potential of a pilot program and being realistic about timing I'll pause to say that I very much appreciate the council's patience on this it was February of 2021 that this really came up substantively we have a lot of organizational change since then and to now uh you've been incredibly patient with staff to Alaska and I certainly appreciate that our team appreciates that I would Echo your comments that this this took a us a a significant amount of of staff to pull this together and do this well uh and that team uh really want you to get a divorce over this that team really contributed neither did I here now I will make sure that my wife watches this meeting that team really did an awesome job on this uh we talk a lot about a culture of team in this organization and I will I will absolutely hold this project up and and use it as a very practical demonstration of how a group of people can come together and can partner with one another to use their strengths in a very unique way to get to a great result can you can you remind everybody how many team members all worked on this I do know that you had sleepless nights and I do know because I check in with your wife uh Bethany do you recall yeah how many there were yeah somewhere over yeah yeah somewhere around 34 as as memory serves all of these team members of 34. so I think it's interesting to know right that's what this yeah it's well over 10 of our Workforce that was involved in this somehow uh I think that's something uh to be proud of I am proud of that yeah exactly entire stuff um so a couple of things that I would ask you for just in terms of next steps first it's already come up here tonight um I'm going to continue to need your patience because we aren't going to let off the gas so to speak on other initiatives we're going to keep hard charging towards those things I will I will rearrange and make sure that we have staff resources dedicated to building a pilot as you've talked about but but we will need some time to do that so my commitment to you uh really would be three things that we come back to you for conversations around for a conversation around expectations and timing just so we're on the same page I think one of the things that that I probably took out of the research itself was making sure that we are just abundantly clear with each other uh about what your expectations as our five elected officials are um and then and then using those expectations to inform how this is operationalized so that will be really helpful to me but we can come back and do that in the next several months in order to then further Define roles and responsibilities answer some of the questions that it will inevitably come up that you're going to have about how this is operationalized please don't put so much pressure we're going through a budget you've got what the big thing big thing plate with filling some positions and I think we have an Excel report that's going to be coming soon she yeah okay so and then we still have a safer Grant that's in play also so we all are aware of these so I just am concerned about all of your mental health as well absolutely you know something mayor that's important to us is that we care for our team so we can do that for the community that will always be our priority uh the final item and council member Workman you had mentioned this I don't have specific answers for you tonight on operational costs or FTE needs hearing what the council has said tonight I can start to inform some options and my commitment to you would then in these next steps after we Define those expectations or clear on timeline I can I can start to answer some of those questions in an effective way we committed together at the start of this project that that staff was going to make sure the governance process worked so one of the things that we've talked a lot about as a team is not getting ahead of your policy decision or Direction here right that we wanted to provide a process that was free from our own bias even in making sure that that you were able to make a great decision on our Direction here so we'll continue that the spirit of that approach but with some direction tonight I'll be able to to more clearly start to answer some of those questions just you know small baby steps a pilot and we can certainly Define some of that in terms of that expectation setting part of the process and I hope that all of you will also highlight so our community knows that we continue to engage the community uh in all of the things that we're doing so we hear their voices absolutely yeah so I think we answered all of your questions because the roles and responsibilities are going to come from you guys uh certainly mayor I would the investment is going to come from you I would suggest that that would all be part of the next steps that we bring back ultimately for your direction yeah but information to inform that and I'm glad that you know council member Schultz right away said you know this is not going to be next year or the following it'll it'll probably be 2026 or however for the implementation yeah how do we get through all of that yeah you have a lot of pressures and challenges and in front of you now Marion Council I certainly think that is more than reasonable uh the staff had put together an estimate of an 18-month timeline so uh we're we're tracking uh in about the same space without talking about the specifics so yes I would agree that that's more than that's more than doable okay remember yes to our city manager uh the whole counselor says we know this is going to take time Greg we know how you operate and you were like Full Speed Ahead at all times and we know that but take your time do it right where we know it's going to take time and I'm just kind of urging you to not just late so much on the staff it's a as well and we care about their mental health just as they care about the rest of the staff's mental health then and our communities mental health so from the five of us we care about the mental health of our staff our leadership team and the work that you're doing so we want to make sure that you're all healthy and everything goes well not only professionally but personally for all of you absolutely councilmember Gus is in mayor council um without a doubt I am a maximizer by Nature we talk a lot a lot about strengths in this organization uh as if we didn't know and I always want to deliver on that commitment to Excellence and caring for the people in our organization that are going to really carry this out and deliver it to the community is incredibly important to me and it means a lot to me and certainly to our team that the council is is so thoughtful about our well-being that is a significant is a significant element of the culture that we're trying to create as an organization so I hear you loud and clear we will absolutely do that and we will deliver on on an excellent project along the way but we're still doing a lot of things to engage the community absolutely we will continue on all of those efforts mayor without a doubt okay remember that the council is there any evidence that you want to note that I may have missed in my some summation Council membership I would like to thank staff I would also like to thank my council members and mayor um because this I this is pretty exciting this is yes this is a step forward of of a trajectory we've been on um but this is also I I mean this this is also pretty significant this is this is very exciting for our city to do this and I I do know other other cities are extremely extremely interested in how we do this and how we implement it because they are they're now just from our discussions um interested in it for their city as well so I thank you for also your patience because yeah it's been since 2021 um and thank you for you know being really open to this and you know being cautious and careful because that is our job to be cautious and careful um but being really open to this so that this is this is extremely gratifying this is one of those moments in in government where you're you're hoping you can make that positive impact and I truly believe that this is going to make a positive impact in our community for for years to come so I appreciate it and thank you I thank my colleagues yep we're all on the same page you know we've been doing engagement and Partnerships and this is just another portion of it so I will now second that motion I snuck it in the second all in favor please say aye aye aye opposing a and emotion carries