Bangor committee weighs portable restroom options, approves homelessness measures

[0:03] Michael Beck: You're live. All right, good evening. It's 8:37 p.m. on June 1st. It's a really regularly scheduled meeting. On a chair, Michael Beck. Joining me at the table are our fellow members, Councillor Fish, Councillor Deane, Council Walker. On Zoom, I believe we have Councillor Meller, if he's joined us, not yet, or would be joining us. We also have Councillor Faloon and, we'll be doing this again when he returns. Just want to do a quick piece of housekeeping, regarding, how we address each other at the table. I take responsibility for this. I should have been enforces before. Under Robert's rules, comments get directed to the chair, and then get redirected to staff. So I just wanted to bring that up. So again, I apologize for not enforcing that before. With that said, that brings us to our first item, the public like bathrooms discussion and I believe counselor, I mean city manager Lear will be going to the [1:05] Susan Deane: table and Tracy and parks and parks director Tracy will add because what would be a discussion about bathrooms, very careful. I don't think that who would like to kick us off. So at Tracy's budget workshop we had started to discuss the status of the four deployed click restrooms as you remember Tracy's budget has about $200,000 in it for the continued service and maintenance of those and you can ask for some follow-up data specifically to help you make your decision where it goes from here and we have aggregated some data. I'll be transparent to see Qlik Fix data was actually quite a bit less than what I had expected. It looks like there are nine separate complaints about the bathrooms not being clean, being used for illicit activity, or that people were occupying them as well as sort of more generic supply type complaints. And in my office, we have also sporadically gotten emailed complaints not through the cyclic fix portal and then we also have the police response data pulled for the four public restrooms and we've had 20 or the police have had 29 calls since the first of the year approximately six a month mostly targeted at Harlow and Broad Street and as you'll recall as part of that discussion director Will that mention that those are the two that also incur the most damage, welfare checks, vagrancy, drug use. And Chief Hathaway did have the caveat that, you know, neither of those locations have discrete addresses, so they're being sent to Broad Street or to Abbott Square. So it could be that some there were additional complaints that weren't associated with the bathrooms but were sort of in and around, so these were the ones that were sort of clearly associated with the bathrooms. Okay. As you know, I was a proponent for these public restrooms, knowing full well that there could be challenges, which we have certainly seen. We have two that are no longer or that are not in use, and I'm thinking about the future. If we are discussing a sanctioned encampment, they would probably need to have running water, but they would also need facilities. We do have two that are not in use if they were policed. [Carolyn Fish: Better and utilized.] In the way they are supposed to be used, is this something that we would consider in a sanctioned encampment, or in our research have we decided that the sanctioned encampment must have browning water or restroom? Because obviously we're talking about a big expense. We haven't even gone there yet. Yeah, I think that's probably, oh, I'm sorry, I'm not following the rules. I think that is probably a broader discussion about what the characteristics of a sanctioned encampment are, but I would, I would make eye contact with Jen Gunderman and intuit that she feels like running water is a necessity for a sanctioned encampment for various health and safety reasons, which doesn't mean you couldn't use the facilities also, but because. Of each other. Well, I just know that was one of the big issues in Tent City. They were, you know, waste disposal, no restrooms. I mean, obviously you can't just tent out without something. It's just a thought since we do have the two that have not been utilized yet. [5:14] Carolyn Fish: I'm wondering if 200,000 a year maintain and there's a big part of the public that won't use them, and you know, other municipalities have public bathrooms that you have a sink and you can wash your hands, and there are more public bathrooms. So I think that some of these locations, they seem to be working, and other locations seem to be more problematic. I wonder if we couldn't expand, for instance, not to pick on the Harbor Master public facility that's only open so many hours, but or where else we could have a facility. I think that the bus station has one. I wonder if we couldn't think a little more outside of the box of where we might be able to expand services so that the general public could have a benefit. And you know, even if we, if the cost initially was more than 200,000, if you accumulate that over the next few years, what would that initial investment be to perhaps be more successful to the majority of the population at large? And not to mention the time and the resources from you know our police and public safety and parks and rec and that they're having to spend on these bathrooms that we have. You know, maybe we leave one or two, put the others in storage for an event that we might not, we do have a you know day camp. Do we better have better use of them out there or something we haven't thought of yet? But in my opinion they failed more than they've succeeded, and I think we still haven't accomplished the idea we had in mind of having a kind of a decent public bathroom for the average person to use. It's just my thoughts, and I don't know who I addressed that to. I addressed it to you. Yeah, sure, we're all catching on, sure. [7:27] Unidentified speaker (City Staff/Director): So as we talked about during our budget workshop with respect to facilities, I think I've shared with the council before and the reference to the harbor master building. So currently we have a couple different varieties of public restaurant facilities available to the general public. Reference to our master link counselor, our park rangers are able to open that in the morning about eight o'clock, and their schedule generally is until six in the evening, and then in addition to that we schedule rangers to keep it open at least to the entry of most events. The main same exam with you so that generally on show nights is about eight o'clock and night. In addition to that, we make available the restrooms in the new service building where the storm water tank was installed on the waterfront. Those will be along the same line of ours as long as park rangers available, so those two facilities are available and open when we have a range run duty, which currently is seven days a week. We post those Hours in each of those facilities, as we talked about during the budget workshop and manager alluded to in memo. The two locations we seem to be most challenged with issues are on Broad Street and on Harlow Street and Square. The unit at Cascade Park has functioned well, and I believe the unit of course Street at Cole Park also helps with the food medicine community garden folks that are over there. So again, as we discussed a budget workshop and as a city manager alluded to in random to you all that Seems to be where we're at right now with each of the facilities. The two that are in storage are still in storage. If the council wishes to hold on to those for some sort of other use, that's that's certainly a decision that we'll keep on. I just wanted to review that we did chat about possibly using them in a couple of other parks, but again [9:42] Michael Beck: Thank you so actually for the did you have any call for anything coming from fish [9:50] Unidentified speaker (City Staff/Director): I just wanted to comment on Director Willett's point on the two facilities that we still have. I think keeping them in storage is I think it's exacerbating the issues with the other facilities, I think having more out there will reduce the overall stress and strain on some of these other bathrooms. I do wanna say though, I am completely open to looking at potentially other locations for some stalls that we may or may not want to consider moving. I do think it is a missed opportunity though, to have more accessible bathrooms for individuals, even if they are only being utilized by people in more suburbanized environments with parks, because there are still kids that go to these parks. And if they want to use the bathroom, they have to go home basically in some of these parks. But I also do want to stress the point that a big reason why this was an issue in the first place was because downtown businesses were always the front line for quote unquote public restrooms. And that wasn't fair to have, you know, I'll make it personal, my own family business, we've had multiple people, not just people who are unhoused come use our restroom in the past, but also just random tourists coming in, completely bypassed my grandmother at the time it was our best hostess in Bangor and we just bypass her and just go straight into our bathroom and then not even say hi to us and then completely leave we don't really have that issue anymore I haven't heard a lot of issues like that with downtown businesses and maybe that has a lot to do with the more so the bathroom in the transit center that 's that's helpful. Maybe it's only one or two specific of these outhouses that sort of curb that traffic. But I would like to see the those other two bathrooms deployed in some place. But I would want to make sure that we deploy them in places that we know they would be utilized and effective and in good manner while also reducing the strain of preventable diseases as well. Because we don't have a lot of publicly accessible sanitation stations, that just means it's easier for preventative diseases to spread. [12:39] Michael Beck: It's easier for them to spread. Remember to come to Lena. Can you come perform? I would. [12:45] Susan Deane: Agree that it would be nice to have these in all the public parks. My fear is if we start, if we take away Broad Street or Harlow, then where are the people that are using those facilities going to go? And then we're going to migrate to some of the parks where our children are. So that would be my fear. So I don't know if we could eliminate the ones that are being used, but maybe it would cut down a little bit. But obviously the tourists and residents are not using a couple of those. I mean, I walk by one all the time. My husband and I walk downtown and the one that I would like to use, I look in it, but I'm not going to sit in there. So I don't want to see the park ones become what these have become. And I also have concerns for kids. We can't have them walking in there and seeing needles or watching things that are going on. Excellent. [13:38] Susan Faloon: A question and then a comment, if that's OK. If we deploy those other two, then we're going to be paying more for the maintenance of those,. So that's gonna add to the to our budget. There are these trailers, which I think would be great for someplace downtown if we had a spot for, but it was trailers that have bathrooms and they have sinks, you know, they have full bathrooms in them. So it would be interesting to see how much one of those would cost. And if we could put something like that downtown because they're really nice inside. So like we would have to build it. And the great thing about that is we could move it, you know, if it wasn't working in one place then we could move it to another place. [14:24] Unidentified speaker (City Staff/Director): Those trailers require both permanent water and sort of connections to them or some sort of service for that as well as appropriate electrical connection. That would be the start of finding that location for that. I. [14:46] Michael Beck: Would say so we don't have a way of determining exactly how much utilization these bathrooms have because, yeah, okay, yeah, to answer [14:59] Unidentified speaker (City Staff/Director): the question, just saying no, I mean, we're not having someone there doing, and it's not like an admission to the pools, for example, or anything like that, so no, we do not have any sort of usage [15:11] Michael Beck: data. Yeah, because the complaints are real. I hear all the time about, you know, situations, you know, and of course people post on social media, look at this and all that, but you know, I mean, they are being used. You just wish they weren't being abused. I'm also wondering, because you know we've got a lot of folks downtown around housing, they're the number one utilizer of those two particular problem ones. Is this also something that, you know, if we're going to be, and we'll talk about this at a later agenda, but we're going to be amending the homelessness committee, you know, to talk about short-term challenges, you know, is this one that we put in front of them and saying, hey, we understand that these folks need a place to go in the bathroom, but this is the challenge we're facing because of it, the cost and everything else, and get their opinions, or anything we can do to, I don't know what the answer is. I mean, yeah, I know we hear this phrase a lot of education or something. I don't know, I don't know what the answer is, but yeah, I hate to take it away way because the other statistic is disgusting to think about, is you know how much human feces have people found compared to before the bathrooms and then after downtown. I don't even know there's a way to quantify that because a lot of it just gets cleaned up and it's not like there's someone taking a tally on it, same thing, whereas you know, do we then exacerbate that situation and bring that back where it might be kind of winging. Hopefully I don't know, we're [16:46] Susan Deane: looking again, and I just to be clear, I see that there are probably several different options, but because it was sort of a pilot, I think it's the right time to evaluate. I think we could get rid of one, two, three, four, say it's not working, reduce the line item in the budget and be done with it. That's option one. We can just continue on the way we're doing, funding it at the level that we currently are, that's option two. We could also invest more in cleaning the ones that are deployed to see if higher Frequency of cleaning makes them more palatable for folks to use in the community or even new locations. For a couple of them, we could try to see if there are other. Are they movable or will they stand moving? I guess that's the question. [17:38] Unidentified speaker (City Staff/Director): Recall. Yes, to answer the first question, they were designed and intended to be portable and removable, sit on a portable slab. They can be moved. And recall, some may have been here in the council at the time when we first went through the process of vetting locations. We held three different public forums to get that kind of feedback and arrived at the four locations that we are currently using as a result of that public discussion. So if there's a, if there's a desire to revisit those locations, I would suggest that we go through that form process. The two that are in storage currently, we had suggested Essex Woods at one time as a possibility. I believe we talked about it at our budget workshop. Additionally, the city forest again, if there's a sentiment that sounds like there is to hold on to and we can certainly do that as well. So again, the, this, the locations that we arrived at trying to balance within the downtown that would be acceptable locations here on city property as well as when a cascade we've had for years, then Cole Park was that a fourth location. There's [19:05] Michael Beck: a cover, a couple of different possibilities. I'm wondering maybe for the purpose of discussion if it's possible that maybe staff talk more about those options and be able to say if we take option A, this is what you're looking at cost. Here's option B. If staff has a recommendation of what's the best way to go, that would be helpful because I'll be on me personally, I don't know which way to go with this other than I know that people need to go to the bathroom house or not and I just, I want to balance the, you know, people have a right to a beautiful downtown at the same time people also have a right to go to the bathroom in a private place, you know, and so I'm definitely looking for as much guidance I can get on this personally. [19:55] Carolyn Fish: Initially, I know the ARPA funding for the bathrooms had already been allocated when I came on. But there was a lot of conversations because I think we were, they had been ordered and then they arrived and then we're going to put them, so I was involved in that. And I believe the, you know, the anticipation participation was going to be that the public was going to use them. However, as a result of a similar bathroom facility in Portland, and that they basically had failed in Portland, we were hopeful we wouldn't experience the same thing in Bangor. But I think we've pretty much have experienced the same thing. So I don't think that the general public and I appreciate I've heard the same thing that the businesses were getting a lot of, you know, everyday day people coming in to use the bathroom facility and it was an inconvenience. But I don't think that those are the people that are using these bathrooms that we have out there now. And I think that segment of our population still has a need and will not use the bathrooms we have out there anyways. That's the consensus I hear, so I don't know what the answer is. Yeah, right, so [21:12] Michael Beck: So I guess we're looking to give staff some direction about where to go. We've had this conversation and, you know, there's a lot of great points to this. I mean, does it sound agreeable to the committee that we do have staff to come and say, hey, here's some scenarios, here's the costs, and then give us something to be able to point to and say, well, A looks the best, B looks the best, and we know what we're, any objection to that? [21:39] Susan Deane: Maybe what we can do is I'm putting together a very long comprehensive memo for you with a bunch of follow-up questions from the budget discussions. We can sneak those as in as part of that, okay? And I expect we'll give that to you on the 8th or the 10th of June. That works. I'm sorry, I just have one thought. Perhaps they should be placed closer to those that can observe them. I know there's a park across the police station and it's being utilized quite a bit, but the police presence is there as well. So maybe we get some input from those, you know, law enforcement or other people that are looking in on this more often, where a spot would be that maybe we wouldn't get so much legal activity and it would be utilized more for the purpose it's supposed to be utilized for? Because if people aren't watching, they're, they're doing whatever they want. [22:41] Unidentified speaker (City Staff/Director): Another thing I would like to see, if it's at all possible and applicable, is with those options that you recommend, like here's the cost of this also, the strategy that would be implemented to put one strategy out, for example, I'll just use a the nuclear option, which is like removing all of them. I would want to see the strategy of what we expect to see from what happens from that, so here's the cost savings, here's what we are expecting to see from having now only the harbor master and the transit center as the only two public restrooms in the city, on top of all the other options that staff can put out there, what are the other accompanying strategies to those costs overall? Okay, any other questions [23:36] Carolyn Fish: comments do [23:40] Michael Beck: you have enough direction on this particular? Okay, let's move on to number two, the council of all resolved ratifying staff action accepting and appropriating 685 221 in grant funds from the united states housing and urban development to fund the bengal rental incentives program. I believe director veneman from public health will be joining us on the table about this item. Welcome [24:06] Unidentified speaker (City Staff/Director): director veneman and take us away. Sure, so this funding is the head funding that supports our rentalist program. This is the funding that was tenuous, I guess, at one point there was a new nofo that was put out, it was pulled back, our contract was renewed. It's even interesting is that not only was the contract renewed, we actually got more funding. The reason why the ratify staff action is because it happened really quickly, the contracts were delayed and then all of a sudden they were in our inbox and we needed to process them very quickly. So what you see before you is the set of funds that began april 1st in about another week or so, whatever the 10 years of meetings, you're going to get another resolve to accept the HUD funding that we get in August. So this is what we have now, this is for one year of funding, we do expect this HUD NOFO to go out in June, at that point we'll understand the direction that HUD wants to take. Comment [25:15] Susan Deane: questions? I just wanted to clarify, you didn't actually get the contract though until the end of april, so this is for the period april one, but it's actually only been a couple weeks since you've had it in hand. Thank you, yes, we were waiting on it looks [25:35] Michael Beck: Like, we're looking for a motion on this. Is that right? I'll entertain a motion. Okay, we have a motion in a second for the staff recommendation. I believe we'll have to do a roll call though because Councilor Malheur is online. In fact, we'll start with Councilor Malheur. Yes. Okay, Councilor Fish? Yes. Councilor Deane? Yes. Councilor Walker? Yes. And that'll be a yes, so five yes, zero no. That goes to full council. This item goes to full council. Okay, yeah, that'll be referred. That brings us to item number three. Also a council referral resolve authorizing the city manager to accept and appropriate $41,312 from the Maine Cancer Foundation grant to implement everyday alcohol reset challenges to reduce alcohol use. Again, Director Gunders. [26:30] Unidentified speaker (City Staff/Director): Yes, so this grant funding that we're seeking is actually for materials. Working on alcohol prevention is already part of our work plan through the Maine Prevention Services or some of the Maine CDC funding. But this funding would allow us, the staff to do, is to provide incentives, website of work, and program needs that are not associated with staffing. The staffing is already taken care of in a different work plan. This intervention is specifically targeting work sites in Penobscot and Piscataquist County to do this program. [27:07] Michael Beck: Questions or comments on this item? I just had one question for the director, And then with regard to just getting an idea of whichever work sites, what exactly were [27:21] Unidentified speaker (City Staff/Director): you talking about? So really this is almost like a wellness program. It was piloted, actually our program, health promotion program piloted right in our department back in October. It's really sort of like a month-long motivation of giving people incentives and ideas and motivation and help people to set plans and set goals for their alcohol use. So this would be open to work sites throughout Penobscot and Piscataquist County to register with our health promotion team and engage in this program. [27:56] Michael Beck: Any other questions? This also needs a look like it needs a vote, I need a motion. So moved. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. We're going to do a roll call vote. Councilor Malheur? Yes. Councilor Fish? Yes. Councilor Deane? Yes. Councilor Walker? yes and I'll be yes as well so yes or no that'll move to full council bring us to number four a proposal for community learning and listening session regarding homelessness counselor [28:25] Unidentified speaker (City Staff/Director): I mean, yeah, and I just want to say Bruce Hughes wanted to be here during this time, but his son had a baseball game, and that's way more to go to. So then I worked on this proposal together. It has become pretty kind of obvious to everyone that attends a city Council meeting, but there's a lot of frustration and tension growing around addressing homelessness in our community. And we have this wonderful committee that's formed with tremendous individuals on it. But Bruce and I had some conversation and wondering that, you know, sometimes frustration comes from a couple of things. One, not having all the information, and two, not being able to engage in conversation. And so what we were proposing with this idea is that we would sort of pilot this where we would offer a listening learning and listening session one in the evening in person in June, and then another one online for those who can't come in person in July. The way that these would be structured is for the first about half an hour Bruce and I and some other partners would talk about what are the general systems services and processes for someone who's experiencing homelessness and living on the streets. What does it mean to get into coordinated entry? How are vouchers given? What are the different programs that are working together, not in detail, but just sort of an overview, so that when people who feel passionate about this topic, they have at least a kind of like a little bit of an understanding of what is happening, because it's always helpful to learn about how to do things better. And so by having that sort of baseline information, we can maybe get some more input. And the committee would be welcome to come, would be welcome to participate and even help facilitate. So that's the learning part. The listening part would be a facilitated conversation to hear what people have to say. Now, we would use a structured way of having that conversation. I don't know if anyone's familiar with frameworks called the SWOT analysis or the SOAR analysis or the impact resource analysis. You don't need to know the fancy terms, but to know that this is a structured conversation run by myself and Bruce to gather community input. What we do know is that when people come up and they speak so passionately, you all can't interact, right? That's the rules. But this might be an opportunity to be able to answer some questions, to have a structured conversation where We're able to have it, and then we collect all this information. We can bring it to the advisory committee. We can bring it to you if there's a need for having more, because they went well, or maybe they didn't go well, we could do it better. But at least maybe this is an opportunity to take what's happening in the council meetings and maybe having a little bit more depth into it. [31:16] Susan Deane: Who is it you would be [31:21] Carolyn Fish: sort of teaching or speaking with or communicating with? And how would you reach these people? Who is it you're hoping to attract? [31:33] Unidentified speaker (City Staff/Director): It would be community members, the people who come to speak at City Council, those who are interested in learning what is happening around homelessness and Bangor and how they can participate in part of the conversation. So this would be something that we would have this in a public location to be determined at a time in the evening so people after work could attend, and so it'd be open for the general public. [32:00] Michael Beck: Well I'll just say I really like that because you know we do have a lot of people come into public comment, they deserve to be heard, we listen to them, but you know our policy is we don't respond because it does kind of get back and forth, we got a business meeting to do. So this not only affords people the opportunity to be heard, but I like what I heard about the fact that it's a chance to kind of get some information about what's going on and get some response as well, but the other piece I really like about it is the connection to the homeless advisory committee, because one of the next item we're talking about is modifying the ordinance a little bit to kind of get them working on a short term and this is something to help them kind of hit the ground running, some information put right in their hands. So I really appreciate what's put together here, and now are you looking for anything from us? Is it just information about what you're doing, or do you need some kind of something from us on committee? [32:51] Unidentified speaker (City Staff/Director): Well, I think this was a proposal and to understand particularly how it aligns with any ideas that want to come up as redundant or things that you thought the committee should take to heart. I just want to make sure that we're working sort of in alignment with what your vision is. [33:06] Michael Beck: Sure, and I'd like to hear from some other committee members as well, just speaking for myself. You know, I did want, I wanted to make sure that public, you know, comment was included in their work, but also they've got a lot of work to do and trying to organize somebody to do something like this that I think this is, this will be helpful to that committee. You know, again, they'll ultimately come up with their own decision based on it, but I think this is a wonderful resource to offer them. [33:33] Unidentified speaker (City Staff/Director): My opinion, I mean, come to learn the council, I do to think that's a good idea, but my only caution is there are some citizens who mean well that I feel like sometimes will come in and a lot of time will pass and a lot of work and labor will have to be sacrificed for hearing some of the concerns or the statements from other citizens, and as valid as they are, one of my worries, I just don't want this committee's time to be hijacked by actors that might be acting in the best interests of the city. Regardless of what side that they're on, I want to make sure that this committee, because this is going to be a very strenuous and very difficult committee to work on, and these committee members are giving their free time to work diligently on this as possible, and I just, I just want to make sure that we also respect their. [34:34] Michael Beck: Service as well. Sure, I get to the clarifying question for the director from that is my understanding that, you know, the community was certainly welcome to attend, but it would not be done facilitating me of a health or actually facilitating this. Okay, all right, I come to. [34:50] Susan Faloon: I love this proposal because, like, yes, people, because they just fill in the blanks on their own when they don't have good information, so this is great. I'm concerned if it's gonna be enough time because I think a lot of people are gonna show up, but otherwise I love it, so thank you. [35:11] Susan Deane: I would agree, I think it's a great idea, and who better to run it than you and Bruce, you know, two experts that are answering questions and not just trying to come up with answers, so I think it'd be great, and I think we all have greatest faith in what you will come up with to say to people. I don't think we need to worry that things will be thrown out there that we have to worry about, so thank you, it could be great, that's. [35:36] Carolyn Fish: A fish, I think it's a great idea. I think I'm a little bit concerned that because it's going to be put on by you and Bruce, that the members that want to come and voice their opinion, that even though they may not understand the complexity behind and a lot of the information and the data, that they may interpret the education as being, I don't know, led of course and not listened to, you know, because some people showing up very passionate, you know, we basically have crises right now and there isn't many people especially downtown every day, that aren't having interactions. And it's kind of evolved to where a lot of people are frustrated, if not downright angry. So the communication, just think some may misread this as this being an avenue for us to explain to them, or they need to be more tolerant, more compassionate, and that they might feel they're not really being heard. They're being talked to and not heard. So that just crosses my mind. [36:38] Michael Beck: Absolutely, do you have any responses to anything? You can hit the park. No, I think this is, we're [36:47] Unidentified speaker (City Staff/Director): going to see how this goes. I think each time that it could be more than we may anticipate, but I think Bruce and I will start to work through some of the logistics. We just want to present this to you first to get your blessing and you're okay, and then work through the list. [37:03] Michael Beck: I'm getting is that everyone's okay with this. So any other comments on this time before we move on? Okay, well thank you for that. Thank you, and that takes us to number five, ordinance amending the code of the city of Bangor to modify the mission of the committee. Yes, so [37:25] Susan Deane: it's difficult to remember when now, but at some point we had conversations about amending the Homelessness Advisory Committee to add to their charge to include the creation of a stabilization plan to address any immediate issues, as well as any other issues that council might refer to the committee. And so this is a draft ordinance that hopefully achieves just that. [37:53] Michael Beck: Questions, comments on this item? I wouldn't throw that other the highlight like what I see here, and also I saw under the mission it added the line that at any time the committee may immediately address any issue referred to it for city council. So I kind of saw that as a catch-all point. We don't have to go back and keep the menu. Things come up that we can just make the referral and then that'll be that. Anyone have any comments, questions on this? Well, I'll entertain a motion to approve this and send it to full council. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. We will do a roll call vote. Councillor Maler? Yes. Councillor Fish? Yes. Councillor Deane? Yes. Councillor Walker? Yes. And I'll be a yes. So five yes, zero no. We'll send that to full council for the change. And that takes us number six ordinance amending the code of the city of Bangor to grant city [38:56] Susan Deane: manager authority to apply for grants. Yes, so this is the first item coming from the work product that Jose produced to the sort of describing some of the inefficiencies that he sees from his perspective. One of the sort of low-hanging fruit that we can address is to eliminate the need for city staff to come to council to get approval before applying for a grant, and this would benefit every single department, not just the airport. So I would have the authority to approve a grant application if this department was actually awarded the grant. The grant would still need to come to council for acceptance and approval. So at that point, if you wanted to say no, this is not something that we actually support here in the city, then you could do so at that time. But given sort of the track record of grants coming through council, I think generally we have a good sense of what it is that council supports and doesn't, generally only bringing things that we have confidence that you'll support. So I would expect that to be relatively [40:02] Unidentified speaker (City Staff/Director): there. That's a lot and I just want to say I'm not on the committee, but I would support this if I were on the committee, mainly because there are just some grants that just go by like that and it, by the time staff comes to us to talk to us about whether or not we should apply for a said Grant or not, sometimes that conversation is frivolous because the grant is already gone at that point. So due to prudence and timely efforts, we want as much Grant income to come to the city as possible, and so I think this sets up the city for success. Your [40:45] Michael Beck: comments? Thank you. I'm not [40:48] Susan Faloon: on this committee, but has there ever been a time when the council said no, we don't want you to apply for this grant? They are aware of not in my 11 or so months. I'll look around from the other department heads, they're all shaking their heads though, so it kind of seems like a no-brainer to me. [41:10] Michael Beck: I think the time for oversight is at the acceptance phase, you know, good, like me, the only thing I think I would be concerned about, you know, the grandma considering it is, there's a create a new program kind of like with some of the ARPA stuff, and then, you know, are we gonna be on the hook afterwards? Like, that's the time to have the conversation, you know. I hate to see miss out on opportunities didn't get applied in time, and if we're putting more pressure on staff to apply for more grants, that's the timing of this is perfect. So, any other comments or questions on this item? I'll entertain a motion. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. We'll do a roll call vote. Councilor Malheur. [41:51] Susan Faloon: Yes. Councilor Fish. Yes. Councilor D. Yes. [41:54] Michael Beck: Councilor Walker. Yes. And I'll be a yes. Five yes, zero no, we'll get one on as well. And that brings us to the end of the agenda.