Bangor committee approves data center moratorium, parking committee changes

[0:10] Daniel Carson: we're live good [0:14] Joseph Leonard: evening everybody welcome to another regularly scheduled meeting of the business economic development committee i am your chair counselor leonard committee members around the table we have counselor maler we have counselor fish we have counselor balloon when she gets back and we also have this economic director and we also around the table councillors beck councillor walker councillor dean council chair hawes and oh and playing author colette has joined us at the table as well so first up on the agenda we have a continued discussion on the possible moratorium of data centers and i believe anya you'll be taking [0:59] Carollynn Lear: the lead on this that's right so at the march 2nd meeting we outlined the challenges that these data centers would pose for Bangor. And it seemed that most counselors were amenable to a potential moratorium and so we can develop regulations to address those issues. So we did with legal staff drafts, the moratorium is in your packets. We use some samples that other communities have used and based on the state law around moratoriums drafted that. And so we do propose that if you are amenable to that, this that we would put this on your april 13th council agenda next week and due to the emergency nature of this issue if you're amenable we would recommend waiving the requirement for first reading of the ordinance and going straight to second reading which you can do with a two [1:51] Joseph Leonard: thirds majority vote if you so choose before i take questions i did want to acknowledge i neglected to say that counselor carson was also here and he's also a committee member he will be at the table as well with that said any discussion or comments for staff regarding a moratorium on data centers yes counselor back not a member of the committee but i would be [2:18] Susan Deane: in favor of seeing this come before the full council i guess the only feedback i would offer is i would like to see the length longer i don't concern that 180 days is not enough time you know for public hearings and everything and maybe something closer what the state's proposing and i think it's november 2027 is what their moratorium would go through that 's what i would i'd like to see you just match that and really look this issue over and get it right [2:44] Carollynn Lear: yeah unfortunately i believe the state law actually limits us to 180 days we can't extend it once we get to that point if we still need more time but we are limited to that [2:54] Joseph Leonard: That's interesting to know, so potentially expanding the date on there and expanding the language a bit more. Any other notes or thoughts on this moratorium right now? [3:08] Daniel Carson: yes council carson i mean i know the limitation of 188 but i'm actually okay the last time we you had come to us you had the framework of potential policies so regulatory framework solutions and we added to that i think in our discussion so i was pretty confident that we were we're sort of moving the right direction, I think for 180 day. [3:34] Carollynn Lear: And I do anticipate, I want to add, we're expecting our draft new land development code next week, hopefully. And we did ask them to address this in that, and I sent them the memo that I sent to you all. And I also included the things that you had said last time you wanted to be included. So I do anticipate them having that, but I know that we'll have a lot of kinks to work out. So I do think we need that time to really make [3:59] Joseph Leonard: sure we have something good, and I think it's really important to clarify that this is going to be a work in progress, because we're going to be getting more information, not just from the technology itself, but also some of the other things that the, that these centers can do and have both positives and negatives in the environment. So it is important to keep an open mind to that incoming information. Other thoughts or questions? So how do, how does the committee feel about the current 180 day period? Do we want to lengthen that to the maximum amount, or are we fine with 180? [4:41] Carollynn Lear: I don't know that we can lengthen it. I thought you said it was 280. [4:45] Joseph Leonard: No, it's just 180. Oh, okay, so that is the maximum. Okay, my apologies. All right, so I think this is all we can do unless someone wants to add any specific language into the moratorium right now. [5:00] Carollynn Lear: The only thing I guess I just want to mention, we had made this draft ordinance retroactive to March 2. Given that, you know, you might be considering this next week, and we don't have any pending applications, we could change this to where the effective date is next Monday, which would give us a whole nother month to extend into September. So [5:26] Joseph Leonard: And I did want to include, I did appreciate the water district manager providing his letter on this as well. If we could actually maintain a good correspondence with them regarding data centers or future discussions with that, I think that would be really appropriate just because of the nature of what data centers require, not just for electricity, but also for water as well. So I was really happy to read his mind on that as well. Do you need anything else from us at this [6:02] Carollynn Lear: this time or just a vote? I believe we need a vote to send this to council next week. Okay so [6:08] Joseph Leonard: unless anyone has anything else they would like to specifically add, I would entertain a motion. [6:13] Daniel Carson: We forward our moratorium ordinance on data centers, city of Vancouver. [6:21] Carollynn Lear: I have a motion. I have a second. Sorry, one thing, did you not want this to be retroactive? Do you to change the effective date in here to next Monday and then the 180 days would end around [6:33] Lisa Goodwin: early September, to change that from March 2nd to [6:44] Carolyn Fish: 13th if that's okay with seconds? I second the [6:49] Joseph Leonard: amended proposal. That ordinance has changed, okay. So we have a motion that was amended and then it was seconded. Unless it's doubted that we'll move on, okay. So that leads us to our next item, which, do you want me to take the lead on that? Okay, so this was something that I talked to individual counselors on this issue as well. So the Downtown Bangor Parking Committee is currently the only volunteer committee that has a counselor as its chair. And that has in the past provided a lot of issues related to how that committee can meet and also what its overall functions are, because they really take their leadership cues, issues from the council chair, and there were a lot of issues that I had with that, and the committee seemed to also appreciate those concerns as well. So what, on a light note, I do want to point out that I provided a edited version of like what this ordinance would look like, and I thought it was hilarious that was just crossed out chair with liaison next to the counseling, so I thought that was very funny. Anywho, so that's really what the change is overall, the council chair, the only thing that's going to change is that will now be a counselor liaison and the committee will function just like any other committee that the city has under it. But one of the things that I think would behoove us to have for potentially a future conversation, and we might want to talk on this now, is do we, because we are now issuing Within the ordinance of the downtown baker partnership, if this were to pass, which I'll get to that in a second, but obviously I support it, but if that were to pass, do we want to talk about out adding other liaison language to other committees as well? So I'll leave that question out if anyone wants to entertain that, but unless anyone has any further questions of me, I mean please ask, or any comments. Yes, counselor Beck. Just I get a typical question. [9:18] Susan Deane: It looks like the ordinance doesn't say anything about the term of the liaison. You know, it does below it says each member will serve for two years, but I don't think there's anything specific to [9:27] Lisa Goodwin: the liaison. Oh, do you, could be appointed annually by the council chair? I could just put the word annually there. Okay, thank you for that correction. [9:41] Joseph Leonard: It's like any other comments or questions on this? Yes, council Dean. Not on the committee, [9:48] Susan Hawes: but I do think that if you were to make some changes so that all the committees are more are similar in how they are run, it would be easier for the public to know how we do things. If every committee has a different way of doing their business, I think it gets confusing. So I'd be in favor of looking at maybe having a liaison for more committees, if that works out. [10:13] Joseph Leonard: So I don't know if that would fall under a government operations committee or not. Yeah, okay, not yes, so that might be a future gov ops conversation that we want to have regarding the committee structure overall. So good point on that. Any other comments or questions? If there are no other questions or comments or, and do you [10:46] Lisa Goodwin: have anything that you would like to add? No, I mean, I did put in some language about the election of officers because just to clarify chair, vice chair. Okay, well, unless there's anything else, I [11:00] Carolyn Fish: would entertain a motion on the site. I'll make a motion that we sent to council on Monday the amended whole downtown parking advisory committee and that the thing the counselor there will be a liaison versus the chair of such group. Second. I have a motion, I have a second. [11:24] Joseph Leonard: Unless doubted that will move on. Okay, so next we have the review of tiff and credit. [11:37] Lisa Goodwin: enhancement agreement yeah at previous committee member committee meetings and also in anticipation of the budget cycle this year i wanted to just and it's a little longer number than normally i write to you but i wanted to give you an understanding of you know what is a tiff what's the credit enhancement agreement and what's the special assessment district so that you have a good understanding of the difference between them It can be confusing because in the case of downtown, they cover the same area. So I just wanted to be sure that you had that explanation. I won't run through the whole thing because I know you have a long night ahead of you, but if you do have specific questions, I'm happy to answer those. Questions [12:35] Carolyn Fish: or comments? Yes. Alice Fish. Have you had a negative impact, say, on a developer that is in the TIF district where these, the CEAs in the TIF kind of collide or somehow adversely impact? [12:58] Lisa Goodwin: I mean, there's a limitation, like in order to do a housing one, a housing TIF district that's not in the TEF, it's a process that has to go to Maine State Housing, and there is, part of the process is that the units have to be affordable on the deed if it's for sale or other instrument if it's for rent, and there's oversight of that, so you know, there's, there's drawbacks with that, and so that can be difficult for those situations, but like in the downtown TIF, I mean, you've done quite a few credit enhancement agreements in the downtown, I anticipate another one coming shortly. So and those have been very effective. We're getting to the point now, because the downtown TIF ends in 2036, which is 10 years from now. So and often your credit enhancement agreement costs are usually about seven to 10 years. Years. So we're kind of getting to the end of when I might recommend a quick enhancement agreement unless it's more truncated in a shorter amount of time. But it's been, it's been a great tool for the city. You've used these for a long time. So most of the time it works well. [14:21] Susan Deane: Yes, Kelsey. Back, I just remember that the affordable housing piece was that a recent addition for use, yeah. [14:29] Lisa Goodwin: The affordable housing TIP was just put in a couple of years ago, I think, at the state level, as an allowance, because before that it was only, you know, really focused on, you know, commercial development and not housing, but with everything happening with housing in Maine, the legislature [14:49] Speaker I (unidentified): legislature put in the affordable housing tough have we had any yet for that purpose yeah [14:53] Lisa Goodwin: Penguis has done a couple already with you, so yeah, you've, you've approved a couple, so and I anticipate one more coming. Great, two more coming, thank you. Yeah. [15:05] Joseph Leonard: All right, any other questions for staff? Unless you have anything else in on this subject matter, one move on to downtown single partnership. Okay, yeah, where is our friends here? They are, do you, oh please, yeah, go ahead, this [15:39] Lisa Goodwin: is our quarterly report for the third quarter of the year. It goes through about the end of February because we had originally prepared it for March and then it got pushed back a little bit this year, but we thought it was still worth presenting. Even though having a quarterly report is not actually part of our contract with the city, we like to give you a little bit more information about our programming throughout the year so that when we jump into, you know, our budget approval process, there's no big surprises and you've had little trickles of information coming through. We also tried to seed it with a little bit of information about various conversations that we had with counselors along the way, questions or comments that we fielded. One of them was around the issue of economic health and vitality, so we took a look at the current makeup of our food and beverage sector and our retail sector and compared them against national standards to see how our downtown was doing. We also provided you counts. We have 55 restaurants in the downtown district, which is just a little over a square mile. It's actually a very small area to have so many restaurants, and that's really great. What you don't want, though, is to have just a constant restaurant turn. So we were looking at that national average and the average lifespan. We looked at the average lifespan of the restaurants that had closed within the last five years to see if we kind of have rapid turnover happening. And we don't, because the average lifespan of the restaurants that closed within the last five years was 12.5 years, which is well above the national average of a five-year lifespan of a restaurant. So we're looking healthy in terms of when and why our restaurants are closing, and then we looked at the average lifespan of the restaurants that are currently open, and we have an average lifespan of 15 years, which is also well above the national average, even taking into consideration the fact that we Had seven restaurants that are in their first year, so we threw in those seven one-year marks, and we still arrived at the national average. We looked at pulling those out and looking at that number, and we were over 20 years, which was a really healthy number. We did similar for retail. Retails measured just slightly differently than restaurants. Kind of the national markers for that is how many clothes within the first year, and nationally 20 percent of retailers closed within the first year. We don't have any retailers that close within the first year, and during the study period of 15 years, which is what we went back nationally, 50 of independent retailers closed within the first five years. For us, we're at 26, which is half the national average, which is actually really great, and shows that we are retaining our retail establishments at twice the rate of the national average, which is really great. And then we looked at the lifespan of our currently operating retailers, and they are at an average of 26.6 years, which is also really great, and total retail establishments of 41, with some new ones added recently. Additionally, two new restaurants added just this week, so lots of really great success stories happening there. Then we just took a little look at the beautification committee and the streetscapes that we've done so far this year. We've raised eleven thousand dollars in private sector funding to complement the money that we have from our special assessments to bring improved streetscapes in downtown, and we have, we're about to enter the biggest part of our year where the largest part of our beautification fundraising is applied for our summer programming. So obviously when you see the end of the year report, well, actually I have to do the end of the year report before the end of the year, so it probably won't be reflected in the end of the year report, but we're in the biggest part of the year at this point. Any questions about either? Yeah, do we have many open spaces? No, it's actually really difficult. It's a, it's a popular misconception that there's lots of empty space in downtown. I would say that there, one could make the argument that there is not space when you're talking about first floors used to its highest use. So we have spaces that people are renting that they're using for not customer facing operations. We've made some headway and shifting that around. Like we had somebody who was renting a first floor storefront space and using it for storage. We actually got that person to turn it over so that it's now a retail establishment, and that was really great. We had a few spaces where the property owners were, for a variety of reasons, not allowing anybody to lease them. Did lots of talking and negotiating and got some of those back on the market, and those are some of the spaces that you see filled. We currently don't have, or another one is like a restaurant that had closed, you know, because of issues related to unpaid taxes, and it looked like a big empty storefront, but it was literally like somebody had a lease ready to go in that space, but they needed the state of Maine to clear the property from the tax liens that were on the space before they could go in. So they've been waiting this entire time to be able to move in, but we're lined up. So sometimes it's a little tricky. You might think that there's an empty space, but there's really not. We have a couple of them, 73 Central, which I hope is on the vacant registry. Big improper, yeah. Like, so there are some, they're like 73 Central is a really big one that I would love to see developed and turned over, but that's actually going to take some development before it's prepared for use. Yeah, so I think in terms of spaces that are available to people, there are very few. I know we failed a lot of calls and we do a lot of matchmaking, and there aren't a lot of options. We do continually work with property owners and people who are leasing spaces to say, hey, could you do this thing over here so that this space could become part of the market? It'll be really great for you to have an active store next to you, because some of those people will also go into your store, so it's a win-win for you. And I will say too that when Merida does the commercial vacancy rate for downtown Bangor, it is 2.4%, which is incredibly low. Anything considered below 8.9% is unhealthy. So Merida, by national standards, we actually have an unhealthy vacancy rate because we don't have enough vacancy to allow for growth and movement in the commercial sector or in the residential sector downtown. Other [22:21] Joseph Leonard: questions for the partnership? I noticed that for next year the [22:29] Lisa Goodwin: budget for rent is considerably more. Justify, I don't know why you have the 2027 budget yet because that's going to be part of the budget cycle and it's still in draft form, so I'm not, I'm not sure how that ended up in there. [22:46] Wayne Mallar: It was in the information we looked. [22:50] Lisa Goodwin: I'm not sure why that was submitted to. [22:52] Wayne Mallar: It was the rent at $42,000. [22:56] Lisa Goodwin: I'll speak to that a little bit, but it is actually part. That was not supposed to be part of the Q3 report. I think I had given that to you and Carolyn as just conversation points as we enter the budgeting cycle to talk about these things. And then you can see I actually highlighted them in yellow to because they are talking points for our future but I think if you look above you'll notice that the that it's because we are subletting the majority of the space to other entities so our portion of the rent is not 42,000 we are actually bringing in 42,000 in sublets. Does [23:38] Joseph Leonard: that answer your question, Councillor Muller? [23:40] Wayne Mallar: Well, it's still the heat's 8,000, so you're not bringing it all in. No, that's fine, I understand what you're saying, but the other point I'd like to make is if it's a partnership, it would be nice if the partners knew what was going on before. I asked you how many months ago about an invoice, which I've yet to see. [24:02] Lisa Goodwin: I think there might be a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of the partnership. The relationship between the Downtown Bangor Partnership, which is an independent organization, and the city council is one in which the Downtown Bangor Partnership, as an independent organization, makes those decisions, looks at that information as a board, and kind of the role of the council begins and ends with approving the budget holistically put forward by the board, not in managing the funds as they're expended, okay, but [24:38] Wayne Mallar: But every brochure that I've seen recently that you put out never gives credit to the fact that your funding comes almost entirely from the city of Bangor. You mentioned the Downtown Partnership, but the reason why we never get any credit [24:58] Lisa Goodwin: for giving your money. It's an assessment that the city takes, but those aren't city funds. The money doesn't come from the city. [25:08] Wayne Mallar: But we have curfew, it doesn't automatically go right to the Downtown Partnership, there's [25:16] Lisa Goodwin: multiple votes that happen with the assessment district. There's one whether or not to do the assessment, and then there's one where the assessment goes, correct, but it's a general where it goes to the partnership. It's not allocated, it's not the level of oversight, it's not like it wasn't oversight to just get credit for giving you the money. Is that an oversight? I think if you were giving us the funds from the general fund, like it could, I could understand how it could be seen that way. But if we say no to the, to the assessment district, where do you stand? Well, we could still rely on our other sources of funding, or what percentage of your funding? Well, I actually, I mean, you can look in our draft budget to see what other sources of funding there are, but it is the core of our funding, and it comes to us via the property owners of downtown. And yes, it does pass through the city to get to us, for which the city takes a fee for collecting the funds and passing it on to us, but the funds would go away if the [26:22] Speaker I (unidentified): partnership also went away. Not necessarily, we could give it to another group, couldn't [26:27] Lisa Goodwin: you would have to redo the whole district, but it's possible. Yeah, you'd have to redo the whole [26:34] Wayne Mallar: district. It's not a requirement that we give it to you. No, well I believe we sign a contract every [26:42] Speaker I (unidentified): year for it. Yes. Any [26:48] Joseph Leonard: other questions for the partnership? Yes, Council Fresh, are you going [26:53] Lisa Goodwin: to go over there? I think included wizard. Okay, so you're not finished? No, I always just stop me, I just stopped to pause to see if there were any questions about kind of the retail and economic vitality report, especially where it's kind of a newer element this year. Beyond that, we have our events and activations. They were incredibly successful, revenue neutral is always our goal, and we achieved that goal with our events and activations this year. We had for networking and advocacy, we welcomed 22 businesses last year, which was a really robust year for welcoming businesses, and really exciting all around. Marketing, we saw incredible growth with our print marketing, with our digital marketing, with our website, with our social media. We actually generate income now on our social media, which is really exciting, and are leaning more into that, and are expanding our digital marketing program this year. We dipped our toes into digital marketing last year and are now expanding our digital marketing based on our learning from that process. Finally, we have safety and hospitality, which is continues to be the number one. We're still on the, we're still collecting data with our annual survey, but as per the last six plus years, safety and hospitality remain the top priority for folks. I think our downtown ambassadors have really hit their stride. I actually brought a couple of board members here who work closely with them and can share personal stories about their experiences working with them. They cover an incredible amount of ground, literally. Have a lot of interactions, have built really solid relationships with all the partners that they work with. Yeah, I think they're just doing an incredible job. We get great feedback in this program. And you can see the jump kind of as we went from a staff of four, we've always had kind of a core four. And then, you know, there's usually like one or two people like rotating out, but now we have like a pretty solid six. So hopefully we'll remain, move from having a continual core forward to having a solid six for a period of time, because once they really get to know the territory and the people in the territory, it's, you know, those relationships are everything. I don't know if you want to hear from Robbie at all, about, you want to talk at all [29:30] Joseph Leonard: about, I'm totally fine with this for them, like when we want, we, I'm Robbie, could you come up [29:42] Robbie Beam: Robbie Beam, work for Ebsign Properties, and I represent the owner of the property from the downtown area. I just wanted to first of all say thank you. We appreciate and have worked very hard with the ambassador program over the last couple years now. It's made a significant change and difference in our properties, and so we hope that moving forward this is still supported by the council, because it has made it, made a big difference just from our tenants, hearing from our tenants that, you know, we've had some problems, and a lot of the things that happen now with the patrol in the area, we don't, not even really hearing of any issues. And then Betsy will say, oh, did you know about this? I'm like, no, because the problem was found, it was addressed, it was cleaned up, and didn't hear from any tenants, any complaints. And so it's been, in my opinion, for our properties, we have six State Street, Key Plaza, 23 Water Street, so we have some pretty big properties in downtown, and it's made a significant difference so I want to say thank you to everybody [30:53] Joseph Leonard: Everybody for the support, it's really made a difference. Thank you for that input, I do appreciate that, and I know it took a long while to get to where we are right now. And not to impose too much of my thoughts on it, but like I've also seen a decent amount of the work that they've done in the downtown. I know not everyone sees them all the time, but that is because they [31:19] Robbie Beam: are doing things actively. It's nice to look out your window, see they have five gallon pail, they're picking up trash in the park. They're they wear orange so they're they're not really hard to see, so I mean they're they're making their rounds and they do cover a big area. A lot of people might say, well I don't see them, but if they're down it down at in town plaza on Harlow Street, something's happening over by the casino, so that's quite a quite a ways to you know things are going to happen when you only have a small staff, but we have people patrolling 24 7. Was it over 2 000 patrols checked during that time period? So that's that's significant, yeah, and they are all [32:01] Lisa Goodwin: geolocated, so you know there's no way to not be accurate in what you're doing, so when they are doing their patrols, each of those points is a geolocated point on the map. [32:14] Carolyn Fish: Yes, Council Fish, when so is this like a quarterly, like I know what the number of you know the medical people, so the number of hazardous weights, do they do they work with Mapnacki or do they work in our relationship with the other providers that offer cleanup and stretch services, and do they and I know before we didn't have the numbers, but this looks like a significant increase from the report from last year. Yeah, so I think one [32:50] Lisa Goodwin: of the things was changing the way that just their reporting software works, so for example, like it used to be in their in the old way of reporting, it was like it'll pick up, now that could have been one needle or it could have been 50 needles, and we were like, no, we really want you to change the system so that it actually reflects 50 needles picked up or whatever it is, you know, so that you have more accurate data to present, just like another thing that's come up recently in conversation because We try to remain in conversation with them to be like, what are you seeing and how can we work that into the reporting? Is bathroom checks, like they're constantly checking the outdoor restrooms, and I know that's because I hear that as an area of concern for the public. We're going to now start tracking bathroom checks so that they can show that they're checking the restrooms, you know, 20, 30 times a day and picking up things that they find in there and, you know, just trying to like, you know, focus on different things. So yes, I think some of that is like, as you're out, as they're out there, as we're having conversation, as I'm hearing different things from different people in the downtown, we try to modify what they're reporting and how they're reporting to make sure that we're accurately capturing the picture for folks also. [34:01] Susan Deane: Back, another question about the, person, I'm sorry, the direction and assistance, because the numbers on those seem kind of low? Yeah, they are. Is that just maybe because folks might not know that they're able to provide that assistance and they might see [34:18] Speaker I (unidentified): the best and think, oh, they're used to public works kind of person? I think it's partially time of year, [34:22] Lisa Goodwin: like even, there's like, to your point, their summer uniforms actually look more hospitality focused, right? Like clearly the orange jackets look very like safety, public works, you know, like that's construction worker or something, like something along those lines, whereas the summer shirts are polo. And but also we have more visitors in the summertime, more people aimlessly wandering when it's bitter cold in January, you know, where you're going before you get out of the car, so it's much more direct point A to point B. So I think we'll see more of those kinds of interactions in the summer. However, because, you know, we could have gone different routes, you know, they have that kind of wheel of services, and as a community we decided to focus on the, on the safety and security, because that was the number one priority that year after year has emerged as a concern for downtown stakeholders. Well, to that point too, is that I remember when [35:17] Susan Deane: this was first being proposed, it was also a prestige piece, like, hey, look what we've got. And I'm wondering, with all these kiosks going in and, you know, different placards going up and things, could there be some kind of a little splash screen that comes up on there and says, hey, scene [35:30] Lisa Goodwin: Orange best just ask a question, just ask. Yeah, definitely, I mean that's one of the things that we want to do is have, and we had started the process with Aaron Hootery when he was the director of public works. We were gonna put stickers on the trash cans, but then he left and somebody else came in, and we're letting them catch their breath because I'm sure they have more important things to worry about than stickers on trash cans, but we'll eventually like circle back to that, you know, so like where There's like a QR code and, you know, like information is going to be a combination of things that direct to the events calendar and things that direct to the interactive map so they can help people find the restaurant near them or shop near them. And then also directions to, you know, these services or, you know, information about the ambassadors. [36:21] Joseph Leonard: Any other thoughts or questions on the ship? Any other final thoughts that you want to leave us with, Betsy? No, actually looking, I [36:34] Lisa Goodwin: Oh, actually, and suggested that I mentioned something too in relationship to the welcome center. We got a little stuck on the budget item of the welcome center without getting into the content of it, but that's something that we're really excited about, and I will say that we had it happened faster than we had intended that we, it was kind of in a couple years down the road kind of plan to have a front customer facing Welcome Center for downtown. But when mixed mean and then WK it came to us and kind of presented us with an opportunity where we could get the physical space together to help us build the programming around it without increasing our rental costs significantly. We're going to more or less land with the same amount out of pocket as we had when we were, you know, two rooms up a flight of stairs that wasn't handicap accessible with this new space, which is a really great place to be, and it allows us to actually build the programming for the space that we have rather than trying to build a program and then seek out a space, and it activates a building in Bangor that I think a lot of people have really wanted to see open to the public again, so every time I walk in the door I'm really excited, and the number of people who come in and say I used to come here with my parents and do my banger hydro bill or my dad's office was around the corner, can I go take a picture of it, you know [38:04] Joseph Leonard: that sort of thing, it's been really lovely. No, that's, oh yes, Council Walker. Oh, okay, go ahead. [38:11] Speaker I (unidentified): I just wanted to say you had mentioned that you didn't ask for this information and that you were able to compile all this for us and it's very informational and I appreciate it a lot. Thank you for the work. Thank you. [38:25] Carolyn Fish: Didn't you just get accepted to the main community? [38:31] Lisa Goodwin: Yes we didn't mention that 's sorry. Yeah those should be in the annual review like I was trying to keep it short and I know that you guys tonight but yes we were we were accepted as a Main Street affiliate this year and it has been very energizing for the for the board. They have lots of professional development opportunities. We've already applied for a grant through the Main Development Foundation for our Broad Street Park project so it's you know already brought a lot of things our way and we've only been in it for a couple of months and we're looking forward to building that relationship and it's been wonderful to have connectivity with other downtowns in Maine as well and we're hosting a bunch of things here so you know we're going to be bringing a lot of people here they're going to hold they want to hold their annual conference here next year in [39:17] Joseph Leonard: Bangor so we're already starting to work on that. Awesome and did you have anything that you wanted to add before she covered everything? All right thank you so much and thank you so much. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Okay so time is of the essence let's go on to CDBG. [39:43] Lisa Goodwin: Yeah Robert Stanicki community development officer couldn't be here tonight so I'm just gonna go through some of the points that I wanted to bring to your attention is open house here tomorrow. Story plug tomorrow Tuesday April 7th 4 30 to 6. Every year you know for Community Development Week which is this week we try to do some kind of like open house, or to come and hear about what's happening with this program, the types of projects that the city has funded through this program, and also use it as a time to get some public input, which is great. We're also planning more public workshops at the end of the month because the budget cycle for Community Development Block Grant that you'll review you for the coming fiscal year is pretty much the same as the rest of your budget cycle. You'll have a public hearing in May on this so we're now in the in the throes of finalizing the action plan to get that to you for your public hearing. That's it. All right that counts it back. Yeah question. [41:00] Susan Deane: About the public hearing, so last year public hearing, I had made some comment from the dais. And I don't know if that was the proper procedures for entering into this, if that was captured, or do I have to actually get up from the desk and come to the podium? No, absolutely. [41:16] Lisa Goodwin: I mean, you're approving, you know, you as the city council ultimately approve how we expend these funds through that process. So no, the public hearing or, you know, in advance coming to BED that, you know, to let us know, you know, when we have this on the agenda, to let us know that, hey, next year, I would like to see more funding given to, you know, this type of work or, you know, because there's, in the block grant program, there's certain percentages of how much we can use for administration, programmings, and capital. And so, you know, it would be good to get that direction early as to what you, the types of projects you want to see happen. [42:00] Joseph Leonard: Good question, thank you Mike. Any other thoughts or questions for Ann? [42:06] Susan Deane: Yes, again, and also are we allowed to crash the party tomorrow? Absolutely, all right. [42:13] Speaker I (unidentified): Everybody's welcome, yeah, Tuesday April 7th, 4 30 to 6 o'clock, yeah, and we'll have refreshments. [42:21] Carolyn Fish: All good, okay, oh yeah, but the public engagement, do we, how do we reach, I know that these are pretty much they have pretty strict guidelines what you can do, but with partners or developers, how do we reach those that should, you know, be more aware, be more engaged, be, you know, so we can do and we [42:49] Lisa Goodwin: we will do because of, you know, housing is your priority, council priority this year. For those meetings at the end of the month, I would like to do a direct mailing to, you know, the housing developers that do a lot of work and make more so that they know that these are funds that, you know, could be available to them. Yeah, that's a good [43:11] Carolyn Fish: some of them that I speak to, they know of it, but they don't show up at the meetings and they're not as familiar as I think they should be. [43:23] Joseph Leonard: All right, unless there's anything else, should we move on to city lease review? Yes. [43:30] Lisa Goodwin: Our economic development officer prepared some documents for you for your review. [43:40] Carollynn Lear: Yes, and please crash the party, okay, so we're gonna go over our city owned lease properties, I sent you guys a memo and we, if I, if I can, I should say really quick so [43:57] Joseph Leonard: One of these properties, which is 120 Century Penquist, I do sit on the board for Panquist CAPS, so I do want to make that clarification very quickly. So we've already decided that I'm a compliment of interest, so could I have Counselor Carson, could you lead the discussion on this? Okay. All right. Oh, [44:26] Carollynn Lear: So we have eight city owned properties that we currently manage and are leased. In our memo, I gave you the lease amounts for each. I know there was particular interest in how many of these properties do we pay the expenses for? First, let me say that the portfolio is strong with most properties is operating at 100% margin. Those that we pay expenses for, and I'll go into that a little bit with more detail, but even those that we pay expenses for 60 to 70, 60 to 77% profit margins, so very healthy portfolio. I did not negotiate these 39 Florida and 49 Florida, those are the ones that we pay expenses for. But in really researching the properties, it makes sense because the properties are multi unit. So there's several offices within these properties, which the mindset could possibly be I mean, I can't I mean, we 've lost institutional knowledge with my predecessor, but the mindset could be we don't want to consistently change accounts, right with these multi units being leased. And so the city will pay for it and that is reflective in the lease is what we believe, the good news, and that's third, that's only so out of the eight properties it's only two that would put the actual expenses for, the good news in 39 to 49 Florida, 39 and 49 Florida is that those lease agreements are coming up so we have the opportunity to negotiate and actually look a little closer on whether or not those lease amounts are the right amount considering the expenses that we pay or perhaps we want to be in a position to change the structure if it makes sense so that we don't pay [Speaker I (unidentified): those expenses any] questions so far just [46:25] Wayne Mallar: a quick question so what you're telling me is that in all of these eight properties we're showing a profit that's correct so specifically we asked to see these individuals can you give us that information also i can give that yes [46:48] Susan Deane: did the clerk write a question the last one 931 unity street says it's 1500 a year that's supposed [46:54] Carollynn Lear: To be for camera, yeah, so I saw that question, reviewers, yes, so what that is, that is an actual conduit license. And so it's a conduit license that apparently there is, and I can't really speak to this because it's not my area of expertise, but there are lines running from the main business enterprise park to 931 Union, which is Northern Light. And so that was negotiated as a conduit license agreement for fifteen hundred dollars as a lump sum every year, no opportunity to negotiate just yet, I believe that is up in 2030. So in other words, [47:36] Susan Deane: so we don't own the whole property, it's just to get that, okay, that makes sense, yeah, that makes [47:44] Carollynn Lear: reasons. Okay, so we are to go and I can send this to all of you tomorrow. The [47:55] Wayne Mallar: sending it tomorrow is fine. I just want to see it. [47:58] Carollynn Lear: Sure, I'll send it. Any other questions? Let me see. I wanted to make a drive home certain points. I wanted to talk about the fact that the portfolio was strong, the percentage profit margin, the 931, our opportunities. So we have opportunity to renegotiate those upcoming leases, which is 39 and 49 Florida. I also want to take a tour of the actual multi-unit spaces, 39 and 49, to see whether or not there's opportunity to lease those additional spaces if the actual organization is using all of the space, because we could potentially capitalize on those additional spaces, and then, oh, this is really important, so just being able to monitor the leases, making sure that we structure it correctly, we're looking into proposing utilizing funds from the enterprise fund to outsource a property manager service. This way that service is directly focused only on our city owned properties, really be able to facilitate those needs, respond to those needs efficiently, and understand kind of the market and what we really should be putting those properties on the market for, and again, where the opportunities are. [49:18] Wayne Mallar: Yeah, I have one more question. Sure. Well, I thought about that, like one right now, the innovation center behind GE, I forget what street that's on, Johnson Street, where does that fall? [49:32] Carollynn Lear: That is the, so that's a van air managed building, so that building is owned by the airport, managed by Banner, which is our nonprofit. So I believe, is it our next, our next bed committee meeting, I'll be giving everyone kind of a holistic understanding of Banner and how that sits with the city and how it aligns and how we manage properties from that standpoint. But it's a whole different hat and it's a nonprofit. Do [50:02] Susan Hawes: you have any new lease properties in the works? [50:05] Carollynn Lear: We do not. So what we're currently doing, and I'll bring you that plan in May, is we have a bunch of parcels available at the main business enterprise part. And so again, we want to utilize the funds in the enterprise fund to get those shovel ready. So that's something that we're going to be doing in alignment with our commercial represents realtor, who represents us Epstein properties, because it's just important. Those are like prime locations that we need to make sure that they are shovel ready, and we can start to promote them. It's a great space. [50:40] Wayne Mallar: Did we discuss at a council meeting that we preferred leasing as opposed to selling? Is that the way you're going? Is leasing rather than selling properties? [50:54] Carollynn Lear: It all depends on what you guys decided. I mean, we were open to it. When I first started, that was the case, that we were looking into leasing. I know that we sold once in Hildreth, which made a significant amount of money, which then goes back into the enterprise fund to be able to utilize to do these projects. But yes, if that's your stance, I mean, would you be open to, if there was a particular situation where we felt selling was the right angle, would you be open to hearing that and the reasons why? [51:29] Wayne Mallar: Well obviously we're open to hearing anything, but I think that the opinion of the council, I'm not going to speak for the council, was that there's only so much property and once we sell it all where I would like as far as doing any more. So no, I'm not in favor of selling any. Yeah, we didn't [51:49] Daniel Carson: have a council, no council, right, but in a business and economic development committee meeting I remember Councilor Carson making a really strong argument for not getting, you know, we're in a very unique position as the city to be able to have these properties, so. [52:08] Lisa Goodwin: And that's been the traditional stance of councilors for a very long time with these properties is that, you know, to lease rather than to sell. [52:18] Carollynn Lear: With Wands and Hildreth, that was an exception because that was a building that had a lot going on and would of course that's a lot of money to be able to get that in good standing again. [52:31] Susan Deane: there's a question about the other property management is sounds me like that would help also with kind of the institutional knowledge they can help with maintaining you leave these leases are renegotiated maintain the system work everyone on the same page with it because that must be a real challenge with all the other responsibilities having to you keep practice on top of it and it's something that we run into a few times where you know we just don't we lack the institutional memory yes for institutional memories when we look for kind of like what the verizon leads to be where it just paper shuffled, offices move, people leave, and having one, you know, company, one outsourced company that's [53:12] Speaker I (unidentified): responsible for this, I think would just add to efficiency. Oh, it would be efficient, and like you [53:17] Carollynn Lear: said, you're building institutional knowledge and it stays in one place, so it's centralized, and as you mentioned, and I appreciate it, we do a whole bunch, so to be, I mean, and the thing is that when you have so much going on, you're going to be really great in certain areas, in certain areas maple, you know, on the wayside, and these are our city assets, so we want to make sure that they're focused on and with experts who really know the market. Any other questions? Thank you. [53:55] Daniel Carson: Counselor Leonard, come back. [54:00] Speaker I (unidentified): Even though it's [54:03] Joseph Leonard: not been nice for a while. All right, all right, all right, so, oh, and what's that in? Yeah, and then executive session. Yeah, okay, well, on that note then, do I have an entertainment to go into executive session then that we pursue it to one MRSA section 4056c [54:32] Daniel Carson: acquisition of real property and I'm development. We're going to do it. [54:37] Joseph Leonard: Second moved and seconded, so we will do a roll call vote. Counselor Mallet? Yes. Counselor? Yes. I'll be, yes. We'll be in executive sessions, okay. So we are out of executive session for a bed and we'll entertain a motion. Maple, Easter weekend, I certainly did and it was quite fun. I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend and are getting ready for spring coming up sooner or later. Yeah, sooner or later. Yeah, that's where they needed like a second groundhog to see their shadows. [1:05:05] Daniel Carson: I would like to make a motion to move forward with the sale of 10 Hershey Ave, 17th 4th Street, and 75 4th Street to Back 40 Builders. [1:05:23] Joseph Leonard: Second motion and a second, almost doubted that will move on. The time is currently 8 23, I know.