[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:04] All right. Good afternoon, everybody. Good afternoon, Sioux Falls, and welcome to the informational meeting of Tuesday, November 28th. We do have a quorum of members present today. We will begin with any Councillor Remarks. Councilmembers, Councillor Beringo.
[0:36] I have a few things, first of all, tonight at 5.30 at Jefferson High School is Family Park Open House.
[0:44] It's a second open house, I'm going to be attending that.
[0:47] I think they're going to be talking about some concepts and things that parks has come up with in the consultant regarding the future of Family Park.
[0:55] There's a lot of public interest between off-leash dog park users and people that live in the area.
[1:03] And it was one of the most well-attended I've seen in a long time and I expect tonight to be no different.
[1:09] The other thing I wanted to bring up, which was very, very interesting, this was on October 31st.
[1:15] There were two cases heard by the United States Supreme Court that relate to us.
[1:21] And for four of us, the decision is probably going to come down as we're coming out the door or we're gone.
[1:27] So it's not going to be terribly helpful to us, but for everybody else, it's going to be very interesting.
[1:31] And they both centered around whether a public official engages in state action subject to the first amendment by doing certain things on social media.
[1:41] One of the cases involved school board members who blocked a few people and those people sued them because they were posting to their Facebook page what they considered negative or
[1:55] and then in another case, there was a city administrator who had a personal page and he converted it to a regular page, and then he had somebody who was posting negative things about him.
[2:06] And so he deleted those comments and he blocked that user. And those were in two different circuits. And there were different decisions. There's been like four different circuits that have ruled in different ways.
[2:17] and really what it comes down to is, and it isn't just for elected officials, it's also for government employees, and if you go to black people, they talked about a lot of hypotheticals that are not just, so it'll be interesting to get some guidance when those rulings come down as to what that means for elected officials and city employees.
[2:37] Thank you.
[2:38] Thank you, Councillor Neitzert. Any other comments from Councillors?
[2:42] Today, first I'm going to call on Councillor Jensen to welcome some special guests that we have today.
[2:47] Thank you, Mr. Vice. Of political and commercial affairs at the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest.
[2:53] He was appointed to this position in Chicago in July of 2022.
[2:59] In this diplomatic position, Biron oversees outreach to the business community
[3:05] and elected officials in nine of the Midwestern states in his region, including South Dakota.
[3:12] So that's why he's here today.
[3:14] Earlier today, he met with the Chamber.
[3:17] He'll be meeting with other community members as well and the Jewish community here in the
[3:24] city of Sioux Falls.
[3:26] So with no further ado, we have Etai Baran, who's going to give us a brief update of what's
[3:33] going on.
[3:33] Thank you.
[3:37] Sorry.
[3:39] Ladies and gentlemen, council members, thank you very much for having me here today.
[3:44] It's my honor and pleasure to be here.
[3:47] My name is Itaib Iran, I'm the Council for Political and Commercial Affairs in the Israeli
[3:52] Council to the Midwest.
[3:54] I'm in Israeli as you probably hear.
[3:59] And I'm here for two reasons.
[4:02] First, to show my gratitude to the city of Sioux Falls and the great state of South Dakota,
[4:07] of the unwavering support that we got from South Dakota,
[4:11] from the city of Sioux Falls.
[4:12] These are challenging times for Israel.
[4:17] October 7th was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
[4:23] More than 1300 Israelis were murdered, butchered.
[4:29] On October 7th, 156 people still held hostage.
[4:34] still held hostage in Gaza, including babies, toddlers, kids, elderly and Holocaust survivors.
[4:43] This support is important to us, gives us the power and the strength to cope and to do whatever we can to protect our people in Israel.
[4:55] We saw it from Chicago, we saw it from Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Highfine, Israel, all of the
[5:01] supports that we got from here, from South Dakota, from the governor, elected officials,
[5:08] congressmen, the beautiful, beautiful, you had here in Sufalse and thank you for a council
[5:14] man, Rich McCorris and hope that I said it right.
[5:19] It's really important to us and I wanted to share, to show our gratitude.
[5:24] second thing is to share some information about our activity, the consulate activity here in South Dakota in the Midwest in general about business opportunities.
[5:35] I've already shared it with the chambers but I think it's very important for you to know as well.
[5:41] So as mentioned before we covered nine states here in the Midwest all the way from Michigan and Indiana all the way to the
[5:50] the code is in Nebraska, each and every state is very different from each other, I have to say,
[5:55] but we believe that the potential is unlimited, the business potential, the economic potential,
[6:01] and our job, our role is to build those bridges between Israel to South Dakota.
[6:10] We focus on several sectors, ag tech, food tech, health, cyber security,
[6:17] water and so on, I think that the opportunities, the number of fields that we can cooperate
[6:25] and partner in are unlimited and our job is to bring the Israelis over here to know
[6:32] South Dakota, to show them the industry, the companies, the organizations and we will do
[6:38] that and bring South Dakotans to Israel to see our ecosystem and to make it much, much easier for
[6:49] you, for South Dakotans, to work in Israel and to create partnerships. We can facilitate meetings,
[6:56] delegations, events and so on and so forth. If you have any questions, I would love to answer
[7:05] and thoughts, and ideas, something to do any matter,
[7:09] and thank you for that opportunity.
[7:11] Thank you.
[7:12] Dave, time.
[7:13] We'll take questions now from Councillors.
[7:14] Any questions for our guests?
[7:15] Councilor Nightser.
[7:16] Thank you for being here.
[7:18] It's an honor.
[7:19] My condolences to your country and your people.
[7:23] Can you just remind us, what is your current,
[7:25] what is 1,000 square kilometers?
[7:28] It's about the size of New Jersey.
[7:29] If you want to get perspective,
[7:31] and make sure some details, the GDP is 560, which is nice.
[7:41] So what are your main exports?
[7:45] So the biggest exports are obviously high-tech knowledge services.
[7:52] This is our most important industry in Israel.
[7:57] That's what we are famous of.
[7:59] the innovation industry and beside that chemistry,
[8:06] pharma, naval services, but I guess the high-tech
[8:10] is the most important sector.
[8:14] Okay, thank you very much.
[8:15] Thanks for coming.
[8:16] Other questions?
[8:20] Well, I'll see now, and I have one.
[8:22] Are there any active trade things taking place
[8:25] between South Dakota and Israel right now
[8:28] in any specific areas?
[8:30] Yes, there is. I think the export and the import both are about $8 million, not more than
[8:37] that. We are working hard to make much, much bigger. And this cyber security is something
[8:44] that we are focused on, but we want to expand it to another fields as well.
[8:49] All right, great. Thank you. Thank you for being here today, and thank you for your time.
[8:53] Thank you for having me. Thank you.
[8:55] Thank you.
[8:56] A councillor's just heads up on that as well.
[8:58] A South Dakota trade was a big instrument in helping this make happen today and South
[9:03] Dakota trade will actually be here for an informational in early January as they're
[9:06] building relationships all around the world and helping the economy and Sioux Falls and
[9:10] South Dakota and being opportunity for us to learn a little bit more about how we can
[9:13] help the economy and the director.
[9:15] Pritchard?
[9:17] Monthly financial update.
[9:24] Happy to be here to present the October financials a little bit later in the month
[9:31] and then we typically would be and that was just due to some scheduling issues and needing to get some parks presentations underway and so we moved back to this, to this date, a little bit like ground.
[9:44] But in the nature of timing, I'm going to move fairly quickly through this. We have a more walk right into the statistical portion of our presentation, which talking about unemployment, September of 2022.
[9:57] to some very much in line with what our expectations
[10:00] have been seeing for population growth in our community.
[10:04] Unemployment rate continues to remain very, very tight
[10:07] at 1.6%, just slightly below the state average
[10:10] of 1.8%, we're hovering at about less than half
[10:13] of the national average, which is currently 3.6%
[10:17] as of September 2023.
[10:19] Inflation improved a little bit after being up
[10:21] the last couple of months.
[10:23] So we came in at 3.2% in October,
[10:25] which is down from 3.7% the last month and certainly down from the 9% peak we saw back
[10:30] in June of 2022. So seeing some positive things happening there but still not hitting
[10:35] that 2% of the federal reserve would like to be in terms of some of our annual inflation
[10:41] rates. General inflation as I said was at 3.2% for the last month. If you look at the broken
[10:48] down by the different sectors, food cost inflation is continue to drop so that's coming in at 3.3%
[10:54] or October, you'll see the energy index going negative 4.5%, so that's been a major driver
[11:00] in the overall inflation rate and seeing that come back down.
[11:03] And then of course, you're so your core inflation rate, which just loads food and all energy
[11:08] which are more volatile coming in, it's still slightly high at 4% and then averaging out
[11:13] at 3.2% overall.
[11:15] On the building permit side, again, much the same information that we've seen in the past
[11:19] few months and throughout this year, through October we've had $964 million in building
[11:24] permit evaluations and I believe we've already surpassed the billion dollar mark which
[11:29] will be hearing about in the next financial presentation as well as the press that comes
[11:33] out from the planning and development services. While this is down, compared to last year
[11:37] clearly that was an aberration for a year so we've tried to be more comparative to what
[11:43] we were two years ago which was a more normalized year and overall we still remain slightly up
[11:47] from where we were two years ago.
[11:50] New residential continues to be kind of the story of the day
[11:53] with those numbers of permits for homes and single family
[11:58] and twin homes being down fairly significantly
[12:01] from the numbers we were seeing even two years ago.
[12:04] Apartments still seem to be pretty strong
[12:07] compared to two years ago, just slightly less
[12:09] in terms of total units.
[12:11] New commercial, however, is still doing fairly well.
[12:14] It's up 32%, or about 156 million
[12:17] from where we worked two years ago.
[15:00] And that's driven by manufacturing being up 36 million office institutional being up 30 million apartments just up slightly at 4 million even though slightly fewer number of units and then other commercial, which would be your, your strip malls and things of that nature is up about $85 million. So still really seeing across the board increases, especially in the non residential sectors locally. As you can kind of take a look at the numbers by the type of housing that's being
[15:29] built much the same what you've seen in the previous month. You've seen a significant
[15:34] lag in new homes for single families. Twin homes are staying fairly competitive from
[15:40] where we've been in the past but still down. And of course apartments down significantly
[15:43] from where we were last year but again that was a very different year for us still staying
[15:48] fairly consistent with where we were two years ago which was a record year at the time as
[15:53] well. As far as sales tax collections you can see we were up just 0.6% in the month
[15:59] of October, year to date, we still remain up 3.1%, but we're seeing that hover downward as we've
[16:04] seen three months now, I would say lackluster sales tax returns. And we'll get a little bit
[16:09] into that here, but as we look at the various industry sectors, if you're looking at the consumables,
[16:14] people are still spending money on experiences, restaurants, going out, hospitality, things
[16:21] of that nature. So we're still seeing that coming strong, and a 5.3% increase in October,
[16:25] and still remain up 8% year to date.
[16:28] If you kind of look at it by the industry numbers here,
[16:31] the story is much the same what we saw in the prior months.
[16:34] You're going to see various,
[16:36] what I would say, more business related sectors,
[16:38] such as manufacturing, lumber hardware, and garden supplies,
[16:42] and then wholesale trade of durable goods,
[16:44] which is probably our most significant sector,
[16:46] especially in the business side,
[16:47] all consistently being down here over the last several months,
[16:51] whereas the consumer ones of eating establishments
[16:53] still up 9% remote retail sales, up 10%, department stores still up fairly strong at 3%.
[17:00] So the consumer is still buying, but we're certainly seeing that softness occurring with
[17:05] the economic kind of slowdown impacting our business sectors more so.
[17:10] Lodging taxes were up 11.6%.
[17:12] I think that's more of a derivative of some timing issues.
[17:15] The lodging should have been up in the prior months I believe as well if you're looking at
[17:18] the occupancy numbers.
[17:20] The red part which drives that lodging tax.
[17:22] So I think there's some timing in this but still slightly positive I think on a trending overall basis
[17:27] You'll see occupancy down just slightly which drives the bid tax
[17:31] So you can see we've been negative here for the last three months
[17:34] So slightly lower occupancy, but as far as revenue per average rate because of the higher rates still coming in as slight growth
[17:41] Overall you can see from a revenue standpoint
[17:43] We are 78% collected on our expectations for revenues for this year with two months remaining in the year
[17:50] That's slightly lower than the 81% we were at last year, however we were getting very robust
[17:55] sales taxes last year, and of course that has become much more mediated for this year.
[18:01] Property taxes certainly coming in within our expectations, licensing's a permit still
[18:06] strong, but below where we were last year, but overall from revenue standpoint, no concerns
[18:10] at least as it relates to the budget year for 2023.
[18:15] And then on the expenditure side, we are 77% expended through this portion of the year compared
[18:19] They're 72% the prior year.
[18:21] Much of that, again, driven by the snow expenditures
[18:24] that we had in the earlier part of this year.
[18:26] Fortunately or unfortunately, we haven't incurred much of that.
[18:29] This year so far, and we'll kind of see
[18:30] how the last two months of the year go,
[18:32] that we wouldn't have to utilize some of the additional
[18:34] appropriations so that this body approved
[18:36] in order to make sure that we were meeting
[18:39] the resident expectations for snow removal.
[18:41] But overall, it's been pretty light here
[18:44] over the last couple of months.
[18:46] And again, on the expenditure side,
[18:47] that no areas that present a major concern for us at this point.
[18:51] So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.
[18:54] Thank you.
[18:55] Councilor Chair.
[18:56] I appreciate that.
[18:57] If you look at that 2022 December, where is 41 million, and you can maybe help me, was
[19:03] that inflated because of snow?
[19:07] Why was that inflated so much?
[19:09] Yes.
[19:10] Well, part of that could be snow, and then part of it is just your end-of-year accruals
[19:14] was your trueing up expenditures, but a lot of it was, I think, related to snow.
[19:19] There was a lot of even bills that were coming into January.
[19:22] And if I were, that got back dated into December, because they were related
[19:24] to those snow events that came around Christmas time of last year.
[19:28] And then in March of 2023, was that also snow?
[19:33] That I am not sure for 23 if it was significantly higher there from that.
[19:38] Some of it depends on when we schedule those transfers.
[19:41] We have various transfers that go up.
[19:42] We've shifted some of that more earlier in the year rather than in later parts of the year.
[19:47] Are you feeling like we're in line with two months to go?
[19:50] I feel at this point that I don't have any serious concerns, especially with the additional funds that we've appropriated.
[19:55] And unless we have significant weather changes in terms of moisture that they're predicting, I think we'll be fine through the rest of the year,
[20:04] especially with the additional funds that we hopefully we won't need to utilize, either the contingent or those that were appropriated.
[20:10] Thank you. Thank you for the report.
[20:11] I failed to mention there was two requests made at last month's presentation.
[20:16] One related to where we were on vehicle shortages and parts shortages.
[20:20] And so I did have Scott Russ come with me who is our purchasing manager and he was going to address that.
[20:26] The second topic that was asked about was come to review a public parking from Councillor McCorris.
[20:31] And I did ask him if we could defer that until next month, just relative to everything we have an agenda to cover today.
[20:36] So if you pardon me, I'm going to ask Scott Rust if he would come up and give you a little
[20:40] bit of update on the parts piece as well.
[20:46] Thanks, Sean.
[20:47] City Council.
[20:48] Thank you.
[20:49] Good question.
[20:50] Ask.
[20:51] We're right out with a vehicle and parts shortage for 2023 yet end 2024.
[20:56] Obviously, if you for this year is impacted both vehicle and parts availability.
[21:03] Impact impacts are obviously being felt SUVs, heavy duty trucks, vans, et cetera.
[21:08] There continues to be a part shortage, where there were three suppliers for manufacturers, there's now one, and so we're dealing with some of that, but they're also at the mercy of those suppliers, and there's also some quality concerns that these manufacturers are dealing with trying to bring on new suppliers, so I don't see that problem getting any better any time real soon, so we'll plan ahead and I'll elaborate on that here a little bit later.
[21:36] But body repair parts, same situation, you know, lead times are longer than normal.
[21:43] The city's contracted vendor that we use for auto body repairs is really done on what
[21:48] I'm going to say a fabulous job trying to plan ahead.
[21:51] Some of those longer lead time parts that we may need for patrol cars and those types of
[21:55] things are being stock, so we're not waiting for those trying to shorten that time window
[22:00] up for those types of repairs.
[22:02] Dealer warranty repairs are also taken a lot longer than what we'd expect.
[22:06] So for example, typically we get our patrol cars in and out in three days, and now it's taken seven.
[22:11] So we're working with the dealer on that, but again, it's the supply chain that they're waiting on.
[22:18] Over in fleet management, I talked to our parts workers the other day and they're saying,
[22:23] instead of getting OEM parts, we're relying on many of our aftermarket parts suppliers to help us out in the need if we can't get OEM parts.
[22:30] So that's that's you know bridge that gap there so they don't really feel it
[22:34] There's too much of an issue there in 2024, you know
[22:37] What's that kind of what's that kind of look like I think we're going to have a lot of lingering effects from the strike
[22:42] And the supplier shortage
[22:44] Currently, you know, the city buys a majority their vehicles off the state bid
[22:51] Availabilities of these models again this year. This would be the third straight year
[22:57] There are some that are going to be there, but again, we're forcing the, it's forcing the hand of the procurement team to solicit bids for vehicles that are not available and then buying vehicles that are available sometimes in dealer lots.
[23:10] So we'll continue to watch that, but again, it's something that does concern me a little bit, but there are not a lot of vehicles that we need to buy this year, so I think we're going to, we're going to be okay.
[23:22] Okay, one of the things I think you should know about the 2024 Police Interceptor Order
[23:28] Bank has closed, that was by design by Ford, Ford went ahead and gave dealer pricing
[23:35] or should be giving dealer pricing here to this next month for the 2025's, they're releasing
[23:40] a brand new model, and I'm also being told that hybrids will be available.
[23:44] If you remember right, we basically shuttered the hybrid idea for at least a year, well,
[23:50] they're going to be available this next year.
[23:51] So I think we will try and bid our hybrid models this year.
[23:57] So we plan on doing that in January.
[23:59] Hopefully for delivery late 24 early 25 is what I'm thinking.
[24:05] Currently, we've got 15 of the 2020, 2022 police
[24:09] interceptors that they have been received down at fleet.
[24:13] We've got 18, 20, 23s that have been built.
[24:17] And this is not shipped to the dealer.
[24:19] We've also ordered two F-150s for the K-9 and patrol units, which we do believe will be delivered this year.
[24:26] Works has begun by the procurement team to really figure out how we're going to attack this year.
[24:32] We'll work on a plan, we'll work with fleet management, and we'll do our best to get everything prepared that we possibly can as close to the specifications that they need.
[24:42] Looking ahead, I really think we're going to see fleet allocations improve right now.
[24:48] a lot of the allocations from the manufacturers go to retail sale, leaving kind of fleet
[24:54] hanging. And that's what really kind of keeps governments running. We buy a lot of fleet
[24:57] models. And so we do plan on seeing fleet allocation improve. We're starting to see the retail
[25:03] sales start to soften a bit. So I'm receiving communications for the big three every month,
[25:10] and they're providing the updates when order banks are going to open close. And so we can adjust
[25:15] when we're going to be bidding our vehicles.
[25:18] So overall, I think we got a good handle on the situation.
[25:22] It is a lot more work.
[25:24] And it used to be pretty easy for us to just buy them off the state bid.
[25:29] But again, we're working diligently to make sure that we do not reduce any service times
[25:36] or anything like that for people because we don't have vehicles.
[25:40] And we will have vehicles.
[25:42] It's just going to take us a little bit longer to get them.
[25:45] Any questions?
[25:47] Thank you.
[25:48] Councilor Stark.
[25:49] Thank you, Mr. Russ.
[25:50] One of the other that gives us a good idea on that part of it,
[25:54] but with the rest of the capital expenditures for the year,
[25:58] are we holding back on anything?
[26:00] Or is there anything that seems like there's a lot to be delivered
[26:05] in the last couple months of the year, which would make sense that we
[26:08] Yeah, the projects I've worked on and the projects my team has worked on and I think we'll start to see our
[26:14] We'll go through our open orders report here this month, and we'll see a lot of stuff that hasn't come in yet
[26:18] You know, I did a project over at the pavilion
[26:21] It was roughly three quarters of a million dollars and they're telling me and that was like mid-year and they were telling me
[26:27] It was gonna it was almost a year out before we would see final delivery of all parts and pieces, you know, so
[26:33] Lead times are just long and we've kind of adjusted to it. It's become the norm
[26:38] And so we'll get through it.
[26:41] People just need to be patient.
[26:43] I know everybody wants their new vehicle to do their job,
[26:49] that type of thing, and the one that they have has probably been there for at least 12 years or longer sometimes.
[26:55] So we'll have to be patient.
[26:58] We'll get through it.
[26:59] Makes sense.
[26:59] Thank you.
[27:00] Other questions for Scott or the director?
[27:05] I think I've got one for the director, Councillor Branco.
[27:10] I was curious, you were talking about with the hotel lodging, how it had improved, but
[27:16] I think what you said was that that may have been an artifact of some previous months.
[27:23] Were you saying that that was an under-reporting situation or are now correcting?
[27:28] Yeah, I'm not exactly sure.
[27:30] I mean, these are numbers we get from the state, but they didn't make sense based on the
[27:33] Star's data that we have access to in terms of where I see the occupancies.
[27:36] And if anything, we saw it.
[27:38] We've seen our revpars maybe not being quite as high as they were in the past to the average
[27:42] revenue per room, but they were still at most of the time exceeding where we were last
[27:47] year or two years ago occupancy has just been slightly softer but not materially.
[27:52] Okay.
[27:53] That makes sense.
[27:55] Councillor Star.
[27:57] I'll turn the microphone on.
[27:59] So maybe to follow up on that, because again, we'll be looking at some of our requests from
[28:04] the legislature and state government here shortly around the first of the year, but do
[28:10] we need to work with the State Department of Revenue to get better information of where
[28:16] some of this comes from because we hear this quite a bit as a council that we don't get
[28:21] good reporting or we're missing some of the data or it doesn't make sense or is it a communication
[28:28] question thing, or is it a need for a change in statute, or just a...
[28:37] From your point of view, where's the meeting about matters of sub-industry items that
[28:42] are listed for every municipality and county in the state, and so it's just based on
[28:46] what they're receiving and the data they're receiving and then they're reporting out.
[28:49] And so there's probably a qualified explanation as to why it was down, and I didn't expect
[28:54] it two months ago, and it's up more than it should be this month.
[28:57] could be a delayed revenue, you know, it could be a delayed receipt from a particular hotel or you know
[29:02] that's an industry that's prone to a lot of turnover within it and so you might see some that get delayed and
[29:08] in piling their sales tax revenues and it's catching up in another month so I would say it's probably more that than anything
[29:14] I think what you're alluding to is the one time when we took a significant audit adjustment and weren't informed of it until
[29:20] after the fact and that's something that we probably need to have a discussion with I don't think it requires any sort of legislative
[29:25] of revenue other than just communication.
[29:28] Yeah, I put a kink in our budget to, well, I remember a couple of times through the
[29:33] years and some of it is whether it's communication or they didn't see it till they sent us the
[29:38] money with the transfer and in some of those.
[29:41] So just curious if there's something that there's a better way that we could get the information
[29:45] overall.
[29:46] I think it's tough to look at everything from month to month.
[29:48] It's better to kind of look what the trend lines look at an average, you know, and not
[29:51] get to shook up on one month versus another but like if you look at our sales
[29:55] taxes being negative or near stable or
[30:00] We are 0% for the last few months. That's certainly a trend line and looking at the industries that are getting impacted the most is showing that softness that I think we kind of probably expect but hope for better. Thank you. Any other questions, the director? I've got one question, director, and one comment, one request. First question, I'm going to sound like a clanging symbol for saying the same thing, and there might be a slow learner. But if I look on page 16 of the financial report for the ARPA dollars and LGA dollars,
[30:28] Can you help us understand or help me understand at least a little bit?
[30:32] We've got the remaining commitment on all of these that have not yet been encumbered or expensed.
[30:37] So for example, $800,000 to the aquarium or butterfly house or 750 to the core neighborhood.
[30:44] Are those dollars located in the unrestricted cash balance of the general fund?
[30:50] Or where are those dollars actually located?
[30:53] So, I mean, most of them are budgeted based on what our expectations are for when those
[30:59] funds will go out.
[31:00] They're not necessarily restricted.
[31:01] They're part of fund balance and typical.
[31:04] But we budget for them every year, depending on their several of them that we know are probably
[31:08] going to consistently go out at 300,000 a year and that's what we'll budget for them for
[31:12] that year.
[31:12] But they're not, you know, as you look at housing, housing's a little bit different and I
[31:16] think that's probably where you see a lot of the commitments that are not encumbered yet
[31:19] because there's a lot set aside for like the home safety and repair emergency repair grant
[31:25] program and those won't be considered while they're restricted and set aside and program for
[31:29] that purpose within the housing fund until we actually have a grant application we're obligating
[31:34] them to they remain unencumbered from a perspective from our standpoint. As far as the butterfly
[31:40] house it's the only one that I that I in my awareness that one that was held off just due to the
[31:45] changes relative to the zoo and the butterfly house, that was not funded.
[31:49] It was out of the operating account a couple years ago and because it expired at the end
[31:55] of the year, that is just part of fund balance right now and it's not in any way restricted
[31:58] in those funds.
[32:00] We're to be obligated, it would have to come from fund balance for that piece, but we keep
[32:04] it on here because it was part of the original things that have been approved by the Council
[32:08] to accomplish and just keep it on a radar stream and let it fall off.
[32:11] All right. Thank you. And then request or comment would be last week we had a presentation from the Director of Parks and Rec and a lot of conversation about the quality of life bond and I counsel can correct me if I was wrong on this, but I sensed unanimous support from the council of trying over the next 30 days, getting a clear timeline from yourself or from the director of parks regarding how does the quality of bond look like regards to elections next year, potential of where that would land and so forth. You believe it would be feasible before the end of the year for us.
[32:41] I just have a presentation from you on timeline of how that could look.
[32:45] I think we could probably just extend the finance presentation for next month
[32:47] and just include it as part of that if that would be okay.
[32:50] That would be great. Appreciate it.
[32:52] Thank you.
[32:53] Well, appreciate your time. Thank you.
[32:54] Thank you.
[32:56] We will now move to our third presentation today.
[32:59] Maybe you're going to start us off there as well, Director Pritchett or Director Ekhoff.
[33:02] We will start with you on transit.
[33:05] I
[33:14] have a new council, Jeff Ekhoff, planning and development services.
[33:17] Thank you for your time today, as always.
[33:18] A couple of weeks ago, we came to you on an informational meeting along with Alex DeBoi,
[33:25] who is the COO via transportation, who is the provider that we have engaged for transit
[33:33] services in the coming contract.
[33:36] At that time, we gave you an update and a report of the transition process, what was going
[33:40] on, the different work streams and all that.
[33:43] And at that time, we were also very deep into contracting negotiations with them, finalizing
[33:47] those aspects of the all-important contract for services that will be entering into them
[33:54] with them for the next five years.
[33:56] Today we come to you to talk to you more specifically about that contract and Director
[34:02] Pritchett will go through some of those specifics here in a little bit and then all this is an
[34:06] preparation of the December 5th meeting where we'll bring the resolution and the contract
[34:10] to you for approval.
[34:12] to, in the time I will start in the contract will become effective in January 1.
[34:19] So before that, because there were some of you work, because cities are not able to
[34:23] hear, I just want to use some high level overview, just kind of how we got to where we are.
[34:28] Some of the goals we had with the RFP and also some of the goals we had in our contract
[34:32] negotiations before I turn it over to Sean.
[34:36] So just as a reminder, back in June of this year we opened up RFPs, we received those
[34:40] through August of September.
[34:42] We had a committee of folks that included representatives
[34:46] from planning the mayor's office as well as finance.
[34:51] We had two members from our PTA Board.
[34:53] The sat on that, two users of the system.
[34:55] And then, again, thanks to Council for Knights.
[34:57] It's representing you on that selection committee.
[34:59] We had in-person interviews.
[35:00] We had follow-up interviews with the proposals.
[35:04] And then made our selection.
[35:05] Made that announcement in June 28th.
[35:07] would be with the transportation services.
[35:11] The goals that we looked at, one of the things that really drove us through that RFP process
[35:16] was we needed to look at somebody that could really reinvent transit for us.
[35:20] Obviously we're focused on the right of experience, we're focused on the culture of the drivers,
[35:25] but we really wanted to look at somebody that could help us reimagine transit services.
[35:30] Come up with a turnkey system for us that would really lead us in transit versus us leading
[35:35] in them as much. From that, there were several work streams that were created, operations,
[35:41] marketing, compliance, technology, maintenance, those type of things that we looked at as
[35:45] we interviewed them, and we really wanted somebody to take a look at making our fixtures
[35:50] more efficient, and then also really expanding our and demand services from the SADRI service
[35:56] we have now until more, but they referred to as micro transit. As I mentioned, we made
[36:02] the selection of VIA, they had a very dynamic presentation, the world leader of public,
[36:11] they're actually a technology company that's in that transit specialized in the transit
[36:16] space.
[36:16] They've got a great depth of experience and then what we really like is very much a writer,
[36:22] first focus, but also the use of technology and data to make their decisions.
[36:28] They do have a presence kind of throughout the Midwest, you can see through their maps,
[36:31] some of the locations they are in, in particular they use high-value transit in Utah as kind of a peer community
[36:39] and we actually did interview them during the process to hear about their experiences with the
[36:44] and their ability to grow that. From there we have the select way we went at the contract discussions
[36:50] over the last few weeks and at this point I would need you to send a thank you to Catherine Slimgan
[36:55] from the City Attorney's Office who really was our guiding star through that hung in there with us
[37:00] and it did a lot of work as you'll see an agreement that's in your packet.
[37:05] So with that, again, we wanted to abroad all inclusive scope of services that are offered
[37:09] and it includes fixed-well micro transit, pair of transit, but also the ability to take
[37:14] care of the maintenance, the technology, the compliance and all those other aspects of
[37:18] transit with us.
[37:20] You'll see in the contract that there's a couple things about it, it's a unique setting,
[37:26] It's a master service agreement with service options that Sean will talk about, but we wanted to provide an incentive within their incentive fee structure for a positive employee and writer engagement.
[37:40] We want, as you'll see, this ability to be flexible, we have a do not exceed them all but within that we need to be flexible as they mix the services and we find the right combination of fixed route and micro transit for that.
[37:53] So we'll see that flexibility built into it.
[37:56] And then we really want, there's a portion in there for using VIO's expertise to help us modernize and actually as a consultant to help us come up with the best service for us moving forward.
[38:08] So with that, I'll turn it over to Sean for more specific questions, and then we as completed
[38:14] of course will both be available for questions.
[38:16] Thank you.
[38:25] All right, diving into the fascinating specific minutiae of the contract terms before you
[38:31] today.
[38:32] I do want to make a couple of high-level comments kind of following up on what Director
[38:37] Eckhart had said as well, just in my own kind of perspective on going through this process
[38:43] of negotiations on this contract.
[38:45] I would say it was of the contracts that I've been involved is this has certainly been
[38:50] the most intensive negotiation on a contract that we've had and it's not because we didn't
[38:55] have a very solid partner that we were working with.
[38:57] In fact, I would test that they were very workable with us, but it's a bit like starting from scratch
[39:03] and starting something entirely new and going through this process with them and I think
[39:08] I think Director Ackoff would share my respect for having worked with BIA through this process
[39:14] is you're always looking for partners and I call them partners and not vendors but you're
[39:18] looking for partners that reflect the values that you have as a city and those tend to
[39:23] make the best partners and as values for a city we have values of safety, teamwork, innovation,
[39:27] character and respect and I believe from my experience having worked with them they exhibited
[39:32] all of these insignificant quantities as we worked through this process and so that was
[39:37] That was great as part of the experience, but the other thing that I wanted to speak to is that this is very different in terms of a management agreement that we have with our other partners.
[39:45] And there's some very specific reasons about that because this is a very specific type of service that we're asking them to manage and we're asking them to do it in a very different way perhaps than we've done in the past.
[39:56] In many ways, it's the same.
[39:58] If you look at our partners with ASM Global, or the Great Plains Zoo, or Spectra, or the
[40:04] Washington Pavilion, we have a history and an experience in a successful one at that
[40:09] of hiring partners that work with us, that we put our faith in and they are to bring us
[40:14] their industry experience and help advise us on how we should utilize our assets and whatever
[40:20] assets we happen to be utilizing.
[40:22] And that was, as Jeff stated, a major goal of this, to be a turnkey operation where
[40:28] we're not directing traffic, but we're expecting them to advise us.
[40:32] And then we consent to, you know, the way we work and manage our facilities as partners
[40:37] with them.
[40:37] But the reason this is very different is because we're just not managing assets, and we're
[40:41] managing an entire system, and a system that is going to evolve and be dynamic over time.
[40:46] And this contract needs to be able to be constructed in a way that allows for that flexibility
[40:50] for that dynamic ability for a system and an area of service that I believe from a technological standpoint is through innovation is not just going to evolve as it has been evolving here over the last couple of years but maybe even become a revolution in how we handle public transit and we need to have a strong partner that helps us guide and lead through that so that we can have an efficient effective system that gives a very high rate of return for our residents and make sure that we continue to have this important service for our community and residents going for the service
[41:20] especially for those specifically that rely upon it.
[41:23] Much like our other management agreements,
[41:25] this term is, the term of this agreement
[41:26] is for five years and then there's a five-year extension
[41:29] exercisable with a consent of both sides.
[41:32] Structural a little bit differently than our other agreements
[41:34] where you'd see one just big master agreement,
[41:37] this consists of really four pieces,
[41:39] a master services agreement and then there are three
[41:41] separate service orders that are attached onto it,
[41:43] including appendices and addendums that go along with it.
[41:46] So I would echo Jeff's comments
[41:49] that these were very complex to put together
[41:51] and really appreciate the City Attorney's Office
[41:53] and Ms. Schlemman for helping us guide through that process.
[41:57] And we look at the master services agreement
[41:59] in terms of what the financial responsibilities are
[42:01] for each of the parties.
[42:03] As far as Sioux Falls Transit, again,
[42:05] the major shift in this being a turn key operation,
[42:09] the facility maintenance costs up to $2,500 per project.
[42:13] It will be the responsibility of Sioux Falls Transit
[42:16] and Sioux Falls Transit is the wholly owned
[42:17] subsidiary of the VIA, which will be used to manage our facility.
[42:23] That's not unlike many of the other structures that we have with other managers that we have.
[42:28] That will be responsible for ground maintenance, no removal, capital equipment purchases, repairs
[42:32] and maintenance for all of our capital fleet and all technology, and that's a little bit
[42:36] of a shift.
[42:36] It's been kind of a partnership and somewhat a responsibility in part by the city to handle
[42:40] some of the technological pieces.
[42:42] This shifts now to a turnkey operation where they are responsible for all technology, hardware
[42:47] we're in software no longer reliant on the city system to networks.
[42:52] Shared responsibilities will be related to fleet acquisition.
[42:55] This has previously always been a city responsibility.
[42:57] We have always bought the buses.
[42:58] We've always taken care of that piece working junction with our manager.
[43:02] But in this case, with micro-transit and the evolution with that,
[43:05] whether we go to smaller bans or we begin leasing bans instead of buying them,
[43:09] that might be a responsibility of Sioux Falls transit or via as opposed to the city.
[43:13] When it comes to large buses or any facility maintenance costs above $2,500, those will remain the responsibility of this city.
[43:21] It's part of the master services agreement, as far as where revenues will go.
[43:25] So before we basically had an account that we'd shift over to Suerim Metro, where they would pay the expenses out of.
[43:33] But we were transferred out of our transit fund as needed to help support that account.
[43:37] They would take in all the fair revenue and utilize that first for paying this.
[43:40] This is a slightly different approach.
[43:42] There won't be a separate account we're paying an hourly cost per service.
[43:46] And so the fair revenue will now be coming into the city.
[43:49] Those fairs are set by the city council.
[43:52] Depending on how these evolves over time, it may come back and make adjustments to that.
[43:56] Do we need a little bit more dynamic?
[43:58] Do we need a little bit more flexibility, especially as it relates to micro transit?
[44:02] Probably not so much on fixed route, but those will be things that will come in the future.
[44:06] But the one thing I want people to know and to reiterate is, this continues the same
[44:10] services that we've had as is in the short-term period as we move into the various months ahead
[44:15] we'll be going through a period of kind of review with VIA to determine what changes
[44:21] could potentially be made and what they would recommend.
[44:23] As far as sponsorship revenue and marketing we've assigned those over to Sioux Falls Transit
[44:28] to be utilized.
[44:30] In the main thing there is it's a fairly insignificant amount of revenue but I think there's opportunities
[44:34] and want them to incentivize to be able to sell more sponsorships and see what they're
[44:38] able to materialize from that opportunity. In the master's service agreement, it does
[44:43] talk about personnel. There's only one non-KIPI provision and that's for the general manager
[44:48] that VIO would be bringing as part of taking over management of this operation. This is
[44:55] not unlike what we have in many of us are there a management
[45:00] I think the intent is to retain most all of the current workers, whether it's on the maintenance, on the driver's side or all the other employees. They will be responsible for all employee relations and oversight, union relations and contract negotiations. The one thing I do want to point out is because of the change in the kind of how we structure the economics of this relationship where they're not operating out of our account, but rather we're paying a service hour. Many of the employees that are coming over are coming over with accrued liabilities in terms of
[45:29] vacation time and sick time, particularly those that would be paid out at retirement or
[45:35] upon a separation of services so you can have up to a certain number of vacation hours
[45:40] and separation of services.
[45:41] You get a certain amount of sickly paid out if you make it to retirement.
[45:45] Those liabilities were on the city, really indirectly through our previous transit provider.
[45:53] So because this now shifts the burden to them, one of the things that we've agreed to in
[45:58] the agreement is that we would be responsible for any departures and accrued liabilities
[46:04] that come up to the point where the DIA took over as the responsible part because they
[46:09] were our responsibilities.
[46:10] And we're not going to, the whole liability as of December 31st is about $636,000 approximately.
[46:18] Some of that will never be paid, right?
[46:20] So if you don't make it to retirement, you may never get your sick leave accrual.
[46:23] And so there's there's there's a portion of that that would not be that probably never materializes and so what we've
[46:30] Suggested doing is we're going to place $400,000 into a restricted asset account
[46:36] Checking a account so to speak and then they would be able to utilize that for paying any accrued leave
[46:41] For any of these employees on pond separation of services whether it's sick or vacation
[46:46] It would not be utilized for paying of any vacation or sick leave that occurs while Bia is in under contract
[46:52] And so really it's just us absorbing some of the liability that we're essentially transferring over to them, which is reasonable, makes sense.
[47:00] On the opposite side of it, we've also negotiated kind of if we were to terminate services with via our Sioux Falls transit that there's kind of a two year one way on the same deal with them that they have to pay out on those type of liabilities up to $150,000 maximum during that time period.
[47:18] It's just to make sure that we're not incurring the same liability if we were able to, if we changed providers in the future.
[47:24] So, hedging against that, as far as the management fee, not unlike many of our other manager, we have a management fee.
[47:32] In year one, it's about $200,000, which just helps to pay some of their costs for the general manager and some of their overhead.
[47:39] And that does escalate at a 4% escalator for year two and beyond during the entire term or option term of the contract.
[47:45] We also built in an incentive management fee.
[47:48] This is something that we've utilized in other agreements, big believer and incentives to help mobilize them even if they're not significant incentives.
[47:55] So this is a $50,000 qualitative fee, not unlike how we do with ASM Global.
[47:59] This one is set and would be determined based on two factors on an annual basis employee and customer satisfaction.
[48:06] So we'll work with them to develop how they want to handle surveying both their employees as well as customers.
[48:12] From the technology standpoint, the customer piece should be fairly simple to have to have something for their employees as well
[48:17] But those are the two considerations. We thought were most important
[48:21] factors for measurement in terms of the assignment of this fee and the reason being is because if you're doing everything else right your customer
[48:28] Satisfaction will be high and your employee satisfaction will be high and so all the other metrics kind of fall under these two
[48:35] When it comes to providing excellent and quality services. So that would be determined. There is it would be
[48:41] really subjective and determined at the city.
[48:44] I can tell you how we've done this in the past with ASM Global
[48:46] is we've had an internal staff that work with ASM every day,
[48:50] as well as we invite a city council member to participate
[48:53] and usually a city council staff member
[48:54] to participate in those discussions
[48:55] and the assignment of that fee, which is done
[48:58] after the year closes.
[49:03] As I noted, so this is a different model
[49:05] in terms of how we're praying for these services.
[49:07] So instead of just handing them over our checkbook
[49:10] and saying, please run our services.
[49:12] In this case, we are predetermining what we will pay based on vehicle hours.
[49:17] And so there's a rate per vehicle hour, which will be paid.
[49:20] And then we have an agreed upon number of vehicle hours and
[49:23] a not to exceed total that goes along with it.
[49:25] And these are defined in appendix B within the master services agreement.
[49:30] A couple of things I want to point out, so you'll see fixed route at about 54,000 vehicle hours.
[49:35] That's what we're planning for a paratransit at 39,000 hours and that's consistent with our current kind of annualized amount for both of those services.
[49:44] Micro transit, which we have been calling on demand, but what we've been calling micro transit going forward.
[49:50] That was a Saturday only service and that was only about 2400 hours a year.
[49:56] And so what we've just budgeted for or put into the MSA right now is 1200 micro transit at the current rate of 90 dollars an hour.
[50:04] And that per vehicle hour.
[50:07] And the reason for that is we would hope that by the time comes, we get to the middle
[50:11] of next year, we have the analysis that's completed by VIA about our system and their
[50:15] recommendations that they'll be able to find some cost efficiencies and some suggested
[50:20] changes that will help on that and then be able, if we choose, to move forward with a more
[50:24] expanded microtransit model.
[50:26] And so you'll see there are amounts budgeted for the second half of the year, about 17,000
[50:31] hours for micro transit and reduced rate of $79 an hour with the expectation that they're
[50:36] able to leverage that for a reduced cost based on efficiencies such as potentially using
[50:41] vans instead of the larger mini buses that we're currently using.
[50:45] Those rates and so forth we did intensive analysis based on our current fee structures to make
[50:51] sure that we were getting a competitive rate based on what we had been paying in the past
[50:54] and we felt comfortable with where we landed on the fixed route sides a little bit higher
[50:59] than maybe where we were at previously, we're a little bit lower on the pair of transit
[51:02] and the on-demand. But a big reason for that is we are pushing more of our responsibility
[51:08] on to the other previous, whereas we might have been doing things on a staffing-wise, as
[51:12] as the city we are now moving toward them and asking them as a turnkey operator that it
[51:16] be a part of their responsibility as well. You can see the total not-to-excite amount
[51:20] is $12.2 million, which equates to the amount that we have for operations budgeted for
[51:26] next year, you'll notice that there's a flexibility built into the contract that will allow us to
[51:31] shift hours between and rates between some of those services just based on as needs come up over time
[51:38] to remain the flexibility and going back to your comment. Flexibility is going to be very important
[51:43] in terms of how this is operating, especially this first year where there's going to be a lot of
[51:49] unknowns as we bring in via to handle some of these items. So as I noted, there's not to exceed
[51:55] amount that is to be an alignment with our city budget from a year-to-year basis but it includes
[52:01] flexibility to adjust those hours and cost of services between them as long as they do not exceed
[52:05] the not-to-exceed amount for that particular year. As I stated, we assume some fish should see gained
[52:11] in the implementation of micro transit in the second half of the year, which is why you'll see the lower
[52:14] rate at $70.79 an hour. We're hoping to achieve with them. And then as I noted, the hours for fixed
[52:21] throughout as well as paratransit our alignment with kind of previous year to date and previous
[52:26] years of what we've seen for those services. Just a couple of termination comments on the
[52:31] termination provisions within the master services agreement. They're typical what you
[52:36] would see in most agreements, uncured default of the agreement terms, non-payment or non-appropriation
[52:41] by the city bankruptcy, by via or Sioux Falls transit, or breach of liability, which we've
[52:47] We've kept liability at $15 million per current, but if they were to breach that, we want the right to terminate the agreement and move forward if necessary from that perspective.
[52:57] We've also included at our option as a city to allow termination if via is either merges or acquires and this happens quite often, we've seen it happen recently with days in global, we have not previously included this provision within our agreements.
[53:11] In this case, being a technology company, I think we're just sensitive to what that looks like.
[53:15] We want to make sure that we're protected as a city in terms of our transit provider and it's just an optional piece.
[53:21] Should we choose to execute it?
[53:23] Service order one really encapsulates our views on what the scope of services all entail.
[53:29] And I don't want to go through this in too much depth, but I want to give you just a flavor of some of the things that are covered in service order one.
[53:35] It's not an exhaustive, all-inclusive list, but it was our attempt to define our expectations for
[53:40] what we believe a turn key transit operation really looks like, and so it covers things like
[53:45] obviously system operations of managing all routes, scheduling, dispatching, fair management,
[53:50] pair of transit interviews, and eligibility, determination, supervision of all facilities
[53:53] and grounds and quality control.
[53:56] As I noted, they would be responsible for all technology when it comes to procurement, operation
[54:00] and maintenance, whether software or hardware.
[54:02] They will direct all human resource needs and trainings, safety and security being able
[54:07] able to manage and improve employee safety and security, regular monthly trainings,
[54:11] accident investigations, things of that nature.
[54:14] FTA compliance, it was really important to us that they take a leading role.
[54:17] And working with us on the FTA compliance, but taking the lead and primary role as it relates to that.
[54:23] Financial and budgetary services, so monitoring budget and monthly budget status reports,
[54:27] annually verifying customer transit assets, and in preparing managing and processing all financial and accounting transactions.
[54:33] They've been responsible for all marketing that will not be the responsibility of the city.
[54:37] This includes planning and organizing and developing cost-effective service marketing, ensuring cohesive brand and customer service experience,
[54:45] making sure they handle all public transit signage, all digital communications and the training and all use of all technology for writers.
[54:52] And then on this slide, but lastly, customer service is really important for them managing all aspects of customer services,
[54:59] being able to review, track and respond to customer inquiries and complaints.
[55:02] updates. Also covered under this is public participation meaning they are required to participate
[55:07] in anything related to public hearings at our request as it relates to public transit
[55:12] as well as participate in city meetings and presentations to the city council. Documentation
[55:16] of for compliance and reporting, very important for us to make sure that we are seeing compliance
[55:21] with our FDA requirements given the funding that we receive so they are responsible for
[55:25] preparing submitting those reports and documentation with review by the city and in compliance with
[55:30] all federal rules and regs, maintaining maintenance records and other required documentation
[55:34] for FTA and issuing monthly reports relating to financial status, urine projections, metrics
[55:39] and ridership.
[55:41] Grants and funds, they have a responsibility to maximize the use of grant funding and assist
[55:46] us with the advising and with application as needed for additional grant or funding opportunities
[55:52] ensuring that those reporting requirements are being met, they will be fully responsible
[55:56] for all maintenance of the sewer and metro fleet, capital fleet as is current, maintaining inventory and essential parts, and performing property maintenance for all of the sewer and metro facilities.
[56:07] And then finally quality, providing route service recommendations, work with customer to develop metrics.
[56:16] And then they have to require annually submit an annual comprehensive service plan where they would outline proposed services for the upcoming year that aligns with our city objectives.
[56:25] It demonstrates a continual commitment to improvements to all the service components
[56:30] for the forthcoming year and such service plans shall be delivered to the city as part
[56:34] of its budgeting process.
[56:36] The service order two is more of a one-time item and this results to the consulting services
[56:41] so it's a one-time $50,000 fee that is related to their comprehensive review of our system
[56:46] and to make recommendations.
[56:47] These deliverables will include review of the previous studies looking at existing conditions
[56:52] and transit market analysis, development of the multi-modal transit solutions,
[56:57] evaluation of the transit alternatives, provide recommendations and cost estimates for implementation,
[57:02] and a post-launch service evaluation should those recommendations be moved forward.
[57:08] This is a one-time thing because it's a fairly significant lift to basically do a complete and total
[57:13] review of our transit plan as it was previously proved and making changes or recommendations based
[57:19] on their experience as well as the technology that they're able to implement for us on our
[57:23] behalf.
[57:24] Obviously, we are going to rely on their consulting services ongoing, but this is just
[57:28] a one-time live that's going to happen, and then after that, it will be more about continuing
[57:32] review process.
[57:33] They will do from a consulting basis.
[57:35] The last order is just the service order three, which defines the three services to which
[57:40] they are providing, which is fixed route paratransit and microtransit services, defines the hourly
[57:45] service fee, which is covered in Appendix B to the MSA, it defines the monthly fee,
[57:51] which is essentially the hourly service fees multiplied by vehicle hours.
[57:55] Again, those are established in Exhibit B, as well as the not-to-excite amounts.
[58:00] And then there is a provision for allowing for adjustment of those hourly fees or
[58:05] those monthly fees as it relates, if you see a 10% or more increase in either labor,
[58:10] driver pay, vehicle cost and maintenance, as well as fuel.
[58:13] And certainly I think that's just a bit of a hedge against some of the experiences we've had over the last couple of years
[58:18] Which hopefully will have become made like more mitigated in the years ahead
[58:22] Lastly in the exhibit to service or a three I want to point out the data sharing
[58:27] Piece of this so it establishes data practices between the city and with the via one of the things that view allows us to do
[58:34] Is a certain number of individuals from our city at the capacity to log into their system and review all of the data of all of our
[58:40] ridership, but as you might be aware, you know, that could contain certainly personal
[58:45] identifiable information, which needs to be protected, as well as really intellectual
[58:49] property.
[58:50] And one thing that makes VIA who they are is their intellectual property and the systems
[58:54] that they've developed and they do not want to be, you know, available for another competitive
[59:01] potentially reconstructed algorithms with them.
[59:03] And so, recognizing that, we certainly want to have access to the data and we also want
[59:08] to be able to provide that information in many ways publicly and with our council and
[59:12] so we've identified in the two areas with those kind of a section A what we call public
[59:16] data measures is our top level. So there's talking about total ride requests met, it should
[59:21] say met demand, completed ride utilization, detailed ride request status and utilization
[59:27] average ride durations, ride ratings, walking distance drop offs, how many requested, how many
[59:32] drops offs were on time, time scheduled versus actual plus rider experience graphs. Some
[59:37] One of the pieces that obviously are looking at a more proprietary or intellectual property side is related to rider ID numbers and things of that nature, a number of passengers, their origin, destination, and address points and then ride prices, distances and durations.
[59:55] Again, information that will be available to the staff.
[1:00:00] As well as two elected officials, but not something that they want really advise or available to their competitors who would want to reconstruct some of the things that BIA does from that standpoint. Last thing I will talk about is the performance metrics. So there's a section B exhibit one, believe to service order three, that might be exhibit two. Yeah, it is exhibit two to service order three. And this is the performance metrics that we will work with BIA to construct annually. I think mostly we will be consistent on an annual basis.
[1:00:29] but these are the things that we will agree upon are the things that we want to monitor and report on
[1:00:34] and that we think would be most important to you as policymakers and as elected officials of the
[1:00:39] government of the city government but as well as to staff as we monitor that system. So we're working
[1:00:44] on constructing those performance metrics and allows some flexibility for them to change over time
[1:00:49] but I think they'll be fairly specific or consistent once we kind of adapt to a model and it'll be
[1:00:56] things like, you know, timeliness and performance around those.
[1:01:01] So those are still being crafted and will be adjusted as needed within the agreement.
[1:01:08] So I know that was a lot of information.
[1:01:11] And so happy myself, hopefully, obviously Director Ekkoff is here as well as various other
[1:01:18] staff members that were involved in the process for negotiating this agreement and hopefully
[1:01:22] We can answer what questions you have as we prepare for considering this agreement at the December 5th Council meeting.
[1:01:28] Thank you, Director.
[1:01:29] Councilor's questions.
[1:01:31] Councilor Seal.
[1:01:33] Thank you, Mr. Chair.
[1:01:34] Sean, I've got a couple of questions.
[1:01:36] Let's talk about the restricted account to hedge against accrued liabilities.
[1:01:44] $600,000 for the liabilities that the current SAM is going to walk away from.
[1:01:51] They're working to pick up.
[1:01:52] So they are not walking away from it because think of the way that the previous structure was constructed is those were our liabilities.
[1:02:00] They're operating with our money, we were just paying them a management fee.
[1:02:03] So it's a little like ASIM Global, we're handing you a checkbook and you're monitoring through that and your employees,
[1:02:09] while your employees are still there, those accrued liabilities would have been paid out of our accounts anyway,
[1:02:18] just like all of their salaries and so forth are.
[1:02:20] Whereas when we're adjusting toward a model of just paying on an hourly basis for vehicle hours and saying everything else is up to you.
[1:02:28] Well, via would be coming in and absorbing $600,000 of liabilities that truly, we're not first transits, they were in the city of Sioux Falls and liabilities through first transit.
[1:02:39] I'm probably going to circle back for more detailed explanation because it's hard for me to wrap my hands around.
[1:02:46] It was a little hard for me to wrap around to it, so.
[1:02:50] And secondly, a one-time $50,000 fee for consulting?
[1:02:55] Yes.
[1:02:56] If they would have not been picked in the RFP, would we still have owed them the $50,000 for review of our current program?
[1:03:06] No, so they've done some initial review of our program.
[1:03:09] They do not expect to wrap this up until March of next year.
[1:03:13] And really part of it is they need to actually get into this system.
[1:03:17] They have limited access to real time data, right?
[1:03:20] So they've been given some reports from our previous provider and they've been given
[1:03:25] our transit development plan and we've tried to provide them as much information as we can.
[1:03:29] But their technology that they will implement will have a really intense ability to really
[1:03:34] look in a different way at our system and then they'll be able to see where our writers are
[1:03:39] coming from where they're getting dropped off at and seeing how all that flows and then
[1:03:43] factoring that end.
[1:03:44] So that no, that wouldn't have been something we would have occurred had been not shows
[1:03:47] them.
[1:03:47] And it's a one time fee basically to lift and to review our transit development plan.
[1:03:52] If I recall correctly, just based on the technology we had previously, I think we could probably
[1:03:57] figure out where we were picking them up, but we couldn't figure out where we were not
[1:04:00] tracking where we were dropping them off, is that correct?
[1:04:03] Because I mean we could check based on the bear boxes where we were picking up, we didn't
[1:04:07] have a tracking system in the know where those riders happen to be going. And part of that is
[1:04:11] understanding the whole system. So the data just doesn't exist yet. And the contractor requires
[1:04:17] them to have that reviewed done by April 30th. But they had told us they expect to hopefully be done
[1:04:22] by March 31st of this year. Thank you. I appreciate all your hard work on that.
[1:04:28] And direct your act off. And Councillor Knights are for getting this food forward. I appreciate it.
[1:04:32] Thank you.
[1:04:34] Any questions?
[1:04:35] Councillor Branco?
[1:04:36] Yeah, I've got a few at it.
[1:04:39] So when you talked about the data sharing, you gave us two kind of category one and category
[1:04:45] two.
[1:04:46] How am I correct in understanding that category one will be data that's publicly available?
[1:04:51] It could be yes.
[1:04:52] I mean, it really is a lot of the same stuff that people would have requested or we would
[1:04:55] have recorded on previously.
[1:04:57] It's just having access to, when you're generating so much more data, there are certain things
[1:05:02] that you wouldn't want to have available to the public, right, whether it's an ID of
[1:05:06] somebody where their ridership is, are things that are truly identified, are truly a part
[1:05:11] of the technology that they're using, that doesn't really tell you a whole lot about
[1:05:17] the system.
[1:05:17] There's certainly going to work with us in many ways possible to provide as much information.
[1:05:22] And that's really where kind of defining those metrics is really important too, because those
[1:05:26] are the top level things that should matter the most to us.
[1:05:29] But that kind of leads into my second question.
[1:05:31] So, the second category would be more public.
[1:05:35] The second category would be restricted access, but, for example, a councilman who's
[1:05:41] very interested in learning about this system would be able to see some of those numbers
[1:05:45] and participate in conversations about, okay, now we're seeing a great deal of terrific
[1:05:51] data about who's using the system, where they're going, what a ridership is.
[1:05:55] So we can have an intelligent conversation about how to move forward, improve, optimize.
[1:06:03] Yes, and I think there's a lot to the system that we can't even know yet, because we're not getting it.
[1:06:07] Oh, no, of course we can.
[1:06:09] And so once we actually start using the system, we're going to have a better understanding of what we're able to kind of generate for reports on that.
[1:06:15] But I think there's just the volumes and information is going to be much more than what we've been able to have the capacity.
[1:06:21] But I see that as an incredibly good thing once we get there.
[1:06:24] Let me ask, may I ask another?
[1:06:26] Yes, go ahead.
[1:06:28] Or, I'm sorry, I mean to...
[1:06:29] Oh, that's a good idea.
[1:06:30] You have to go ahead.
[1:06:31] Well, you talked about, I mean, I'm with you, you know, incentives are important.
[1:06:35] You said you wanted to incentivize sponsorship and marketing revenue, which I see as something
[1:06:41] that has been underutilized in the past.
[1:06:44] Can you explain to me how diverting that to our partner will cause that to be incentivized
[1:06:50] to, I mean, how does that work and how does that benefit the stake
[1:06:55] They're going to factor what they think they can do as part of their net pricing when they set their hourly amounts.
[1:07:01] But since it's not a significant amount of revenue,
[1:07:05] you're incentivized if the capacity is for them to grow that over time,
[1:07:08] and I would love to see them grow that over time,
[1:07:10] to a point where if it becomes a significant opportunity,
[1:07:13] then we get into more of a revenue sharing of that,
[1:07:16] which could be something that we could identify within the option for extension at that point.
[1:07:21] but I think right now, given, I mean, it's a few thousand dollars a year,
[1:07:25] I don't even think it's hardly any significance.
[1:07:27] Actually, the true value we could have and some of the sponsorships is
[1:07:31] that the more we get it out there, you know, like experienced Sioux Falls,
[1:07:34] sometimes sponsors of bus and things like that, it's an opportunity for us
[1:07:38] to hopefully help share some of the things that are already out there,
[1:07:42] like experienced Sioux Falls and so forth and really leverage some of that.
[1:07:45] But if I could just, so I guess the idea is if we let them capture that revenue at the beginning,
[1:07:51] that incentivizes them to grow that, and then in future years, that could be something
[1:07:56] that will revenue share with them and therefore the ideas that could reduce our cost
[1:08:02] once it's grown.
[1:08:03] Or if it grows enough, you could reduce your hourly rates below what they would charge previously.
[1:08:08] Yeah, right, so it's all one bucket essentially from their perspective.
[1:08:11] I may have more questions, but I'll pass the mic.
[1:08:18] Councillor Neill, answer?
[1:08:20] Yeah, as I stated before, I'm super excited about this and very grateful for probably
[1:08:24] the enormous lift for all the city staff.
[1:08:27] A couple of quick questions, just a couple of headline things that I think people would want
[1:08:32] to be clear about.
[1:08:33] So right now the 2024 budget does have 12 million essentially in change for the operating.
[1:08:42] And so, you're attempting at least to start to be essentially budget neutral in operations from old provider to new.
[1:08:50] Is that fair?
[1:08:52] Yes, but we had allowed in the budget to have some expansion capacity within the next budget.
[1:08:57] So it contemplated more expansion of what we called odd demand.
[1:09:01] And now we would call micro transit and hope that if we would get to more portions service of the community.
[1:09:07] And so that was part of that budget, and that's why you see those numbers factored into
[1:09:11] that 17,000 hours for microtransit, which we are currently not providing.
[1:09:16] But we wanted to also ensure people that fixed route and paratransit were at service levels
[1:09:22] that we're budgeting for them at service levels that we were at previously.
[1:09:26] Our hope is through some efficiencies that gained that even the hours can come down, or you
[1:09:30] have more expeditious service in terms of buses on routing systems.
[1:09:34] The fixed routes might change somewhat, but hopefully it would be more efficient with an expanded microtransit, alongside it to complement it.
[1:09:43] Okay.
[1:09:45] We're going to run the same that we have on January 1st, so that we have continuity and we can ease into and we got a way for them to do their analysis anyway.
[1:09:53] Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
[1:09:55] Do we stipulate going forward in the contract, a minimum,
[1:10:00] you know, that you must operate it minimum, let's say,
[1:10:03] seven a.m. to five p.m., five days a week,
[1:10:06] or, you know, some minimum amount that they must cover.
[1:10:10] If that makes sense, days of the week and hours?
[1:10:13] We didn't specifically, I don't know if you want to address
[1:10:16] this question. We didn't specifically call that out
[1:10:18] with the agreement. I think, you know,
[1:10:20] their assumption is that they're going to continue to
[1:10:22] to cover the same hours that they were previously, and hopefully, you know, if they find
[1:10:25] efficiencies gain on that, but better let Director up top in.
[1:10:31] So, yeah, Director Pritch was correct, it's not called a specifically an agreement,
[1:10:35] but the agreement that we have with them is, yes, they would mirror the same hours of service
[1:10:40] and not reduce those.
[1:10:42] In fact, we are also looking at ways to expand services, probably through micro transit,
[1:10:47] they'll be part of that analysis.
[1:10:48] Yeah, yeah, I mean, obviously that's the hope is eventual expansion.
[1:10:54] One thing that I think I just want to just say out loud that because I've gotten this question a few times because we all know micro transit sometimes is controversial.
[1:11:03] And so I think it's just important to reiterate to people we are not, this is not a micro transit service, this is a hybrid service.
[1:11:10] Fixed routes will continue to be there and micro transit is our essentially our adjunct to cover more of the city that we can't cover right now.
[1:11:18] So just so people are clear, because I've heard anything from people so far as some hesitance of oh, are you just going to micro transit? No, fixed routes are going to still be there.
[1:11:26] Correct, it'll be a hybrid system, but exactly as you described.
[1:11:29] And then maybe my only last final statement is I'm so excited for service order to the consulting services.
[1:11:37] I can't wait to see what they can come up with in terms of what we can do in terms of how the system can look and what route should look like so that we can get.
[1:11:46] Hopefully expanding the micro transit last question January 1st we're going to be continuing
[1:11:53] to run on demand just on the weekends like we are now. Are we going to keep using our
[1:11:59] fixed route buses or are they going to transition to their fleet? Is anything going to change
[1:12:04] and let's say the first three months in how micro transit works until they've done their
[1:12:09] analysis?
[1:12:09] This probably won't be a lot of change that I know we are looking at bringing some vehicles in.
[1:12:14] The great thing with lack of transit was smaller vehicles and getting the neighbors that we can't with larger buses.
[1:12:20] But their tent is to keep service exactly the same to start with and then slowly transition over correct.
[1:12:25] Okay, thanks.
[1:12:26] Councillor Jensen.
[1:12:27] Thank you, Mr. Chair.
[1:12:28] Director, I'll correct off.
[1:12:29] You might be the best for this, I don't know.
[1:12:31] And maybe I missed the report on it.
[1:12:34] But I know we are going to look at potentially moving where the buses were stored and all that can you just bring us up to date on where that
[1:12:45] Conversation is going because I know gone because I know that there are some appropriations that have come in us in front of us before and
[1:12:51] Just want to get an update and how it relates to this. Yes, so we are in the final stages of that process. We've hired TSP to
[1:13:01] So that the different sites for us to be down to, I think for our final selection will be.
[1:13:07] We will be then working with federal transit authority to make sure that they accept the site.
[1:13:12] And then after that it becomes a matter of working with the council and our busing process
[1:13:16] to be where does that fall into the CIP in order to acquire the land and then go ahead and
[1:13:22] make the construction.
[1:13:24] So with that in mind, it's probably, by time you get approval, by time you get the money
[1:13:30] and CIP by the time you design a construction,
[1:13:33] we're looking at probably a five-year process.
[1:13:35] So there are some funds in there for the third maintenance,
[1:13:38] some things rough and things that have to be done.
[1:13:41] So you'll see some of that.
[1:13:43] But the intent is long-term is look at the long view
[1:13:45] whether or not there's a higher better use.
[1:13:47] And so, VIA is aware that we're in that process
[1:13:50] and we certainly would, as we get into the design phase of that,
[1:13:54] we would certainly be working with them
[1:13:55] to make sure, especially now, that we're looking
[1:13:57] a smaller bus with different side vehicles that the facility is suitable for them.
[1:14:03] Great. Thank you for the update. One last question, with regard to the fleet itself,
[1:14:09] you talked about them bringing in some of their fleet to the project and we have a fleet
[1:14:16] of buses as well. How does that work long-term? Are they going to transfer all of the buses
[1:14:24] to their own fleet and we will eventually have, you know, obsolete buses as it may be said.
[1:14:30] So the larger buses will always have a need for those for fixed route and because of the way we
[1:14:35] purchased those as a federal share, federal dollars into those, the intent probably a long term is
[1:14:39] for the city to retain those, the ownership of those. The para transit, the most medium-sized smaller
[1:14:45] buses, we're not purchased with federal funds so there's a discussion whether they transfer to
[1:14:50] be or whether we keep ownership, but it's important to remember at the end of the day these
[1:14:54] assets are ours and so if they were to leave, assets do return back to us.
[1:15:00] Model on the vans, the smaller vehicles has been, they have agreements with some of the rental companies, larger hearths and evils, and some of those. I believe they lease those vans. And so those would stay on their side of the ledger, and then they would manage that part of the fleet. Very good. Thank you. Councillor star. Yes. Thank you. Actually, I want to start with Director Pritchett, if I can, and then I'll probably, well, you know what, you're here. No, you're here. No, no, no, let's go. Let's do the pair. Tell me how,
[1:15:28] how paratransit will change because we've kind of taken will that totally be their responsibility
[1:15:36] because we've used River City we've looked at different things what will we see different
[1:15:41] with paratransit I guess.
[1:15:43] So the core paratransit will stay essentially the same long term you're looking at the
[1:15:49] ability to combing all the micro transit with with paratransit to have a larger coverage
[1:15:56] area.
[1:15:56] With the River City, those agency rides, that's a totally separate agreement.
[1:16:01] That actually is an agreement between those agencies and River City transits.
[1:16:05] And we fund those, and that's a whole other story, we had that conversation.
[1:16:08] So we don't see that changing, the first year, there'll be some discussion in the long term whether that's something that
[1:16:14] via could bid on with those agencies, but those contracts are technically with those agencies and River City.
[1:16:20] But there are changes in that for the first year.
[1:16:23] Do you see in the first couple of years some kind of changes in rates because, and again, this is where I was going to go with Director Pritchett a little bit, but I mean, do we get 10% of fairs to cover the overall in relation to the overall cost of the system. I mean, it's not even close to that.
[1:16:42] No, I think last year, of course, writing a ship was down.
[1:16:46] I believe our fares are about $400,000 or $400, $500,000.
[1:16:50] Now it goes back into their budgets and offsets,
[1:16:52] but it's not significant amount of no.
[1:16:55] All right, then that's, now I can do city employees,
[1:16:59] or I can do employees with you.
[1:17:02] Yeah, I know I should have switched
[1:17:03] when you had the chance.
[1:17:04] You stayed at the podium too long.
[1:17:09] Who are the current SAM employees?
[1:17:14] When they look at their paycheck, who are they employed by?
[1:17:17] Technically, so the whole income needs first transit.
[1:17:21] And first transit created a sub-corporation
[1:17:24] in Sioux Falls called Trans-Del.
[1:17:26] And that's technically who they're employed by.
[1:17:28] And they have that because then the union works with that.
[1:17:32] Via is doing a very summer thing.
[1:17:34] They're creating Sioux Falls Transit LLC.
[1:17:36] And that's technically who they'll be the employer
[1:17:39] of those drivers and administrative staff.
[1:17:42] But it's a whole new subsidiary of the who represents them currently from the the union standpoint. What's the overall?
[1:17:52] Are they asked me the drivers are the employees the employees slash drivers?
[1:17:59] It's a specific union. I don't have exactly a bread. That's what I was I'm glad you came
[1:18:06] Well, thank you
[1:18:09] So, yes, they do have a union representative and that's voted on by their delegation and I cannot tell you his last name first name's Cody and he's actually a mechanic within the operation.
[1:18:22] The name of the union currently is Sutran.
[1:18:28] The larger.
[1:18:30] AFL CIO.
[1:18:32] ATU.
[1:18:34] ATU.
[1:18:35] Perfect.
[1:18:38] How do we get those employees negotiated and moved over because we haven't approved
[1:18:43] the contract until the first week of December, is it next week that we're going to approve
[1:18:49] the overall contract?
[1:18:50] Are they able, are they negotiating already with the employees so that we have employees January 1st?
[1:18:59] Yes, my understanding is that they've reached a remote to the union that's, that was part of why they set up a two-fall
[1:19:05] transit so order to absorb the union. Typically, I think a lot of the BS shops are non-union.
[1:19:11] Gotcha. Yeah, I'm not going to go there.
[1:19:18] Oh, if Director Pritchett probably by the time, can you
[1:19:22] We flip back to slide 11.
[1:19:28] When we look at the 12.2 overall budget that we have, how does that break down between
[1:19:36] city, state, federal funds, fairs?
[1:19:40] I mean, you gave me part of it with, you know, the 400,000 in fair portion was by to 600,000.
[1:19:46] But I'm going to have to, I don't know if Tim, if you know, at your fingertips, kind of what was
[1:19:50] federal, $400,000, $4,000,000, it's a federal funding.
[1:19:55] Okay.
[1:19:56] And then the rest is low.
[1:19:57] City sales tax slash that breakdown.
[1:20:01] And then the one thing that you said that there was, if there's a number not to exceed, what's the incentive for them to not use up the whole budget?
[1:20:12] I mean, wouldn't you, you were saying that hopefully there'd be some savings.
[1:20:15] means we wouldn't get to that whole point, me as the greedy sales person that I normally
[1:20:22] am, I mean, I'm going to use up the whole budget depending on, you know, in order to
[1:20:27] utilize the budget, they have to serve a number of the other hours, right? And so, we have
[1:20:31] to monitor for, okay, what is the vehicle frequency? On the fixed ground side, we haven't even,
[1:20:36] we didn't, I don't think we're projecting to hit 54,000 hours this year because of just
[1:20:39] driver shortages of that nature. And so, yes, I mean, there's certainly going to want to
[1:20:45] maximize the number of hours that they want and we want to maximize the number of potential hours that we have transit services
[1:20:50] Provided in an efficient way throughout our city, but part of that is monitoring those performance metrics as well and making sure that you know
[1:20:57] Timeline S and how often the buses are running the service areas. Those are all key things for all we're getting from our dollars
[1:21:03] No, and they have the ability to move it over to micro or on demand so that helps with the approval from the city
[1:21:10] Right, and we would be thrilled for them to move as much of that as possible so that we can expand
[1:21:16] And I think that's one of the the overall and whether it's helping additional and para transit and expanding some of those areas
[1:21:22] So right as long as we continue to maintain, you know, the capacity to provide fixed route services, which I think is key to many of our
[1:21:30] Riders
[1:21:32] Awesome. Thank you
[1:21:33] All right. Thank you. Any other questions from other constable?
[1:21:35] Councilor Barranco.
[1:21:36] So, if we're asked about like what's the cost of this contract, part of it you might
[1:21:41] say we can't know exactly because we don't know how many rides we're going to be giving,
[1:21:45] how many hours we're going to be utilized, but we're prepared and it seems like there are
[1:21:50] some incentives that will drive the total cost up in this $12 million range.
[1:21:56] However, in some ways that's good news because it means an enormous number of our stakeholders
[1:22:00] are getting rides on public transit, presumably that's helping people get where they need
[1:22:05] to go, presumably it's helping take cars off the street as well.
[1:22:08] That's correct, it's good.
[1:22:10] I have a couple of questions, Director.
[1:22:13] First, going back to Councillor Say on the $400,000 fund, where will that be funded from?
[1:22:19] Will that be funded from the current balance of the transit fund, or will that come from the unrestricted general fund?
[1:22:26] So right now, I think we have enough money already sitting in first transit account.
[1:22:30] So again, that's part of the transit fund, but it's now sitting in first transit.
[1:22:35] that's already been transferred to them,
[1:22:36] that'll be remaining after they see
[1:22:38] providing management services on December 31st.
[1:22:41] So we would, you know, take the first 400,000
[1:22:43] and set it into the restricted account
[1:22:45] and then we would shift everything back to the city
[1:22:47] from that account, that fair.
[1:22:49] We would take whatever's left after that
[1:22:51] and put it back into the city's account.
[1:22:53] And then you use the word turnkey
[1:22:56] kind of moving to that type of management agreement.
[1:22:59] Is there any levels of authority
[1:23:01] that are changing for PTAB or the City of Council where this group is being given authority
[1:23:06] that the previous group didn't have authority where maybe PTAB or Council had authority?
[1:23:12] Not that I'm aware of. I mean those authorities are setting an ordinance or they're setting
[1:23:16] executive order in at this point. I don't think there's the intent to shift any of that.
[1:23:21] I don't want to speak for Director Ackoff but that's not really the intent to modify PTAB's
[1:23:26] or the City Councils?
[1:23:29] Okay, and my final item, I guess be a request, has there been, like, a five-year projection at all that now that you've got the contract in place and kind of the metrics of what the transit fund balance would look like over the next five years based upon the projected balance at the end of this year?
[1:23:45] Well, you know, it's probably not materially different in the previous forecast that we've
[1:23:50] put together based on the expanded model because that's what we budgeted for this year.
[1:23:54] And then we factored in that the other factors in terms of growth over time.
[1:23:58] I think we're going to have to give it some time and get through that first few months and
[1:24:01] see what the analysis comes back from the Sioux Falls Transit before we would go back and
[1:24:06] probably update that model to something differently because the unknowns, we just don't know what
[1:24:11] to know yet that we might learn through this process, so.
[1:24:14] Great, thank you so much.
[1:24:16] Appreciate the presentation today,
[1:24:17] and all the effort that's gone into it.
[1:24:19] We'll now move to the public comment portion of our meeting.
[1:24:23] Speakers are allowed up to five minutes to speak
[1:24:25] on any topic covered during today's meeting,
[1:24:28] any public input.
[1:24:33] Thank you very much.
[1:24:34] I was expecting some citizens to say this, okay?
[1:24:38] So listen, it's good for the Israeli's to come up here
[1:24:42] and try to partnership with people.
[1:24:43] Has anyone reached out to the Arab community and the Muslim community?
[1:24:49] No, we
[1:24:54] can't put politics into this whatever's happening in Israel's in Israel. Let me tell you something
[1:25:00] We have a war going on in the city, okay? We got human traffic and we got kids getting raped
[1:25:08] Drug dealing kids with guns 12 13 years old selling dope for their parents six in Cleveland. I'm fixing to go out there
[1:25:17] and help police that neighborhood for the police
[1:25:19] because City Council's not listening to the police, okay?
[1:25:24] So we have a catastrophe right here.
[1:25:26] Nine year old getting raped.
[1:25:28] We don't care about Israel.
[1:25:30] So let's not help these people to go around the world.
[1:25:34] We gotta help within our community.
[1:25:37] So there won't be a council member like me
[1:25:39] because when I look over here,
[1:25:41] I see a bunch of Nancy Pelosi.
[1:25:42] They don't know what the hell's going on
[1:25:44] in city government they wanna run.
[1:25:46] They look so incompetent here. They don't even know their right from their left hand sitting out here in the audience.
[1:25:51] It's it's pitiful. It's sad because rich people are sponsoring them and making them come up here and run and don't have no clue about government.
[1:25:59] It's statement. It's statement.
[1:26:04] I don't give a damn about Israel. What we need to give a damn about is what's going on in our city right now because we have a war.
[1:26:12] We have gang members shooting gang members right down Cleveland wake up wake up council members has been here for eight years. They're
[1:26:20] They're called amnesia
[1:26:21] They're murdering starving right there
[1:26:25] Our people our black people
[1:26:29] Our native where's the native community helping the natives?
[1:26:33] I have to go out here and battle these black people because they're uneducated out here
[1:26:37] That's what you call a war. We need to help those people and that neighborhood
[1:26:42] because I'm risking my life out there for that and you know how I can relate
[1:26:47] because I grew up in the hood and I'm a part African-American and I can get
[1:26:50] down with it. None of y'all can do that. But when Christianity says that in a
[1:26:56] Bible get your hands dirty and put blood on you from the Jesus of Christ, they
[1:27:00] don't say you're Christian unless you done it. So before we listen to these
[1:27:05] racially people, we better go help Cleveland Avenue and I again, every single
[1:27:10] councilmember, I'm meeting it. Chief Trump cannot get up here in the police
[1:27:14] department and say this. Chief Trump will be out of office and you ask these
[1:27:19] policemen. They will not have a job tomorrow. If they would come up here with
[1:27:25] issues, it's facts. Every single councilmember, don't tell me they can come up here
[1:27:29] again, will not have a job tomorrow. You think the union protects them?
[1:27:33] absolutely not.
[1:27:40] Exit Cleveland all the way to 26 in Cleveland. Let's go help
[1:27:44] those policemen. Let's get a crime under control. That's Israel. We have
[1:27:49] throw-row country people right now that slice each other up with knives out
[1:27:53] there. Pulling guns on people out there, drug dealing, pimping, prostitution,
[1:28:02] kids,
[1:28:03] sex assaults, and kids getting sex assaults because in their country they think
[1:28:06] legal. Kids, I can't even tell you the nine-year-old that just happened to you. Does that get
[1:28:13] reported to the police? Yes. Do they follow through with it in court now?
[1:28:19] So while we hugging
[1:28:20] it, we kissing back to the Israel state, I thought tonight that's thickening, let's go kiss up to the
[1:28:25] police department and help stick the clean blood. Get in my car and let's go do this because not
[1:28:31] never want to go bidding a hoodie could relate. You'll think y'all can get out there with a pistol with
[1:28:35] me and say put the pistol down you're going to box me and let's box. We're going to clean up
[1:28:39] this neighborhood because there's no sense that criminals should take over a neighborhood like this.
[1:28:44] No sense that the police department and our taxpayers is paying for a war in Israel on Cleveland and
[1:28:51] this one customer will laugh it but he's not going to get out there because he don't have enough
[1:28:55] balls to get out there and go into the war and help it really. But he thinks that's why there's
[1:29:02] police bar. We have the police to do everything don't we? I can't wait to this
[1:29:09] elections over because some of them need to get up off their seats. They have
[1:29:13] night-night crop in eight years. That I have done in a three years and I don't
[1:29:18] get paid for it. So walk up in my shoes what they laughing. Because right now I'm
[1:29:23] going to six equipment when I leave here and I'm going to get my hands dirty in the
[1:29:27] crime.
[1:29:31] Any other members of the public wish to address the council? Seeing none and
[1:29:36] and see no further business, this meeting is adjourned.
[1:29:38] We
[1:29:48] are now the host of this meeting.
[1:29:50] Waiting for others to join.