That's really interesting. I could incorporate my silver and glass. But once I got started in the glass, I discovered a medium that I just couldn't stop working.
Amber Smith asked that our resolution regarding the MML legislative action request is the microphone
sounding really strange?
Okay.
We're going to try and fix that.
Is that better?
Okay.
All right.
So on the consent agenda, the Maryland Municipal League legislative action request will be pulled
from the consent agenda and we will discuss that.
Other than that, there are no changes to our agenda this evening.
If you need copies of the packet, the agenda, or other items we're discussing, they're
on the table over here.
In addition, if you would like to sign up to comment on the Tacoma Junction, either one
of the resolutions we will be taking up this evening, there is a sign and she at the back
of the room.
And then tonight is our last meeting for the summer.
After this evening, we will be in recess until early September.
So our first thing this evening are public comments on voting items.
Our first voting item is the second reading ordinance authorizing the FY 2019 budget amendment number one.
Any public comments on that?
Okay, so you know public comments on that.
That our second voting item is the second reading ordinance authorizing the FY 2019 storm
ward of budget amendment number one.
Seeing no public comments on that, we have the second reading ordinance awarding a contract
for Lincoln Avenue sidewalk constructions.
Any public comments on that?
Okay.
Next is the second reading ordinance authorizing purchase of replacement police vehicles.
Any public comments on that?
Next is the second reading ordinance authorizing a contract with the International Association
of Chiefs of Police to conduct a promotional process for the police department.
Any comments?
Next is the Resolution Authorizing Submission of Legislative Action Request to the Maryland Municipal League.
Next we'll have our consent agenda that includes resolution providing for
redeployment to the Commission on Landlord 10 Affairs.
Oh, go switch out my microphone.
Okay. And then we have a resolution setting forth dates for the City Council's summer recess.
All right, no public comments on that. We'll go to our voting session.
The first item is the second reading ordinance authorizing the FY 2019 budget amendment number one.
I don't believe there were any changes since last week.
There's no changes.
These are mostly carryover items.
There were only three items that were new, which we went over last week.
So I think unless there's questions it's straightforward.
Okay.
Would someone like to move the order?
Councilman Searsy.
Would someone like to second?
Councilman Costa.
Any discussion or questions?
No.
Would the clerk like to call the roll, please?
Councilmember Covar.
Councilmember DiValla.
Yes.
Councilmember Costa.
Councilmember Siemens.
Councilmember Smith.
Yes.
Councilmember Searsy.
Mayor Stewart.
Yes.
All right.
Next, we need to vote to convene as the Storm Morton Management Board.
Was someone like to move that?
That's what I was going to say, do I have a second?
Is that a Councilwoman DiBala?
All those in favor of convene?
Yes, the Storm Morton Management Board.
Hi.
Any opposed?
Any abstaining?
We are now the Storm Morton Management Board.
And we will take off the second reading ordinance authorizing the FYI 2019 Storm Morton
Budget Amendment number one.
This is the second reading.
There's no changes from the first reading.
So was someone like to remove this?
Council Member Smith, second.
You know, Council Member Costick, second, any discussion?
A little clerk called the roll.
Council Member Cobar, Council Member DiBalla, Council Member Costick, Council Member Siemens.
Council Member Smith, Council Member Circi, Mayor Stewart.
Yes.
Next item is our third voting item, second reading ordinance awarding a contract for the Lincoln Avenue sidewalk construction.
I don't think there's any.
There's no change from this item that was introduced last week and as we said, the company
is SEC Corporation with a construction bid of $435,000 and I urge her approval.
Right.
Would someone like to move this?
Councilwoman DiBalla?
Is it five a second?
Finally.
Councilwoman C.O.C.
Second.
Councilwoman DiBalla?
Yes.
Yes. I have one question. Do we know when, if this is approved tonight, do we know when
this might start?
It should start. No, I'm fading up.
Just hold up fingers for months and we'll be good.
It should start fairly soon. We're waiting to sign a contract.
Okay. All right, so that was fairly soon waiting to sign the contract. In case anybody didn't hear that.
Great.
Terrific.
A little clerk called the roll.
Councillor Member Cogor.
Councillor Member DiBalla.
Yes.
Councillor Member Costick.
Councillor Member Siemens.
Councillor Member Smith.
Yes.
Councillor Member Searsie.
Mayor Stewart.
Yes.
Next item is second reading ordinance authorizing purchase of replacement police vehicles.
Again, no change on that item.
Do I have someone who would like to move that?
No move.
Councillor Member Siemens.
Do I have a second?
Thank you.
Councillorwoman Costick.
Any discussion or questions?
Councillor Man de Balla.
Yes, I don't know if you talked about this last week or not, at the Maryland Municipal League Conference, there was a police officer from Hyatt'sville with a retrofitted sit-in, and so I would ask the Fleet Review Committee and the police chief to look into that for the next go-round.
Okay, great.
Any other questions or comments?
Councillor MacLeod?
The clerk called the roll.
Councillor Bimbe-Covard?
Councillor Bimbe-Daballa?
Yes.
Councillor Bimbe-Costick?
Councillor Bimbe-Cemanns?
All right.
Councillor Bimbe-Smith?
Yes?
Councillor Bimbe-Cersei?
Mayor Stewart?
Yes.
Our fifth item is Second Read The Ordinance, Authorizing a Contract
with the International Association of Chiefs of Police to conduct a promotional process
for the Police Department.
Again, this one had no change from its first reading with someone like Convovat?
We good.
Councillor Bimbe-Cemanns, second.
Councillor M...
Yes.
Councilmember C.R.C., second. Any questions on this one?
No questions? All right, we'll clerk all the roll.
Councilmember C.R.C., Councilmember Smith, Councilmember Siemens, Councilmember
Kostik, Councilmember DeBalla, Councilmember Kovar, Mayor Stewart.
Yes.
Next, we have the resolution authorizing submission of the legislative action request
to the Maryland Municipal League.
And we had the work session last week for council members, the updated resolution is in your packet on orange.
And just to recap what we talked about last week, the City Council held the work session and selected the following for submission to the Maryland Municipality.
The first was legislation to support residents impacted by increasing property values and rents resulting from infrastructure improvements.
transit projects such as the purple line and redevelopment.
The second request was legislation mandating coordination and cooperation between utilities,
the state highway administration and municipalities to minimize impact on residents and businesses
during infrastructure construction and repairs.
And the third item was legislation to enable municipalities to decrease dependence upon property
tax revenue by having additional options for raising revenues through taxation either by increased
intergovernmental sharing of tax revenue or by allowing additional types of taxation.
So these will be sent to the Maryland Municipal League and each year they consider the requests
for municipalities across the state and then the legislative committee decides on which
ones they will move forward.
So would someone like to move the resolution?
Council Member Siemens, do I have a second?
Any discussion on this item?
All right.
Seeing no discussion, all those in favor, please say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Yes.
Any abstaining?
Okay.
That's six to one.
Our next is our consent agenda with someone like to move the consent agenda.
Councilwoman Steercy, do I have a second?
Councilmember Covar, all those in favor of the consent agenda, please say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
any abstaining, consent agenda passes. All right, we will move now on to Council
comments for the evening. Are there any Council comments this evening?
Councilman
Costing. Yeah, I'll keep things brief since I know we have a long night ahead of us.
I'm happy to see everyone here tonight. I first of all I want to say I've gotten a
lot of emails from people and I appreciate all of them. I do apologize if I
have a chance to get back to you. There have I've gotten a lot today that I have read but
haven't had a chance to respond to and I do hope to get back to everyone within the next
couple of days. I also want to note since we're not having for their meetings in August that
there will be an event on August 22nd for Ward 3. We're having our Ward 3 day at the
Crossroads Farmer's Market on Anne Street and there will be a guided tour of the Farmer's Market
at 11.30, that day, and 11.30 AM, followed by an opportunity to sit and chat, enjoy some of the food, and talk about city issues, whatever's on your mind.
So I hope people will join me, and I'll be sending out some email blasts to remind people about that.
Thank you.
Yeah, I was going to say something similar about emails, but I first want to thank the city staff and other council members for
for helping me through while I was away on a long schedule family visit for the last two weeks, but I'm back.
And if I haven't, I've read everything, I think, but I haven't responded, and I will win the next few days to all of you individually.
Thank you for your comments.
Thank you, just two quick things.
One, I had the opportunity to meet recently with representatives of the Tacoma Park Youth Council, as people know, that's a newly set up group.
I met with a small subgroup of them the other day here in the community center, and I just want to encourage my colleagues if they haven't already done that to do the same thing because they had a lot of great suggestions, and they were very active and interested in what we're doing and happy to be part of the process that we have going on here in the municipalities, so I think it's a good example of a nice step forward that we did, and it's great to see engaged people
younger people like that. I just want to mention one of the things, just kind of a light
hearted thing since we might need that for later, but I was parked somewhere a couple
days ago and as I moved toward my car this gentleman came up to me and he looked at me kind
of strange and I went in and came back out to the car and said, oh, I was really worried
and profile you looked like Ted Cruz, but then I saw your Jamie Raskin sticker on your
car and I knew you were okay so just throwing that out there with with permission I
forgot two things are we a question for the city manager are we done in
Long Branch Lago with Washington yes we'll wait on that one because in my
other question was also for the city manager so why don't somebody else go sorry
All right, Councilmember Smith.
First, it's great to see everyone.
Can the volume go up?
We're having issues with the microphones this evening.
We're working on it right now.
The halls, I brought my own table inside.
Is that allowed?
No, we have too many people.
As far as it up, somebody told me I couldn't move.
Why would I be able to put this group like any other way?
Councilmember Smith, I don't understand that.
They took away the table.
There's a huge lobby out front.
Thank you. That's what I want to set up. That's what I use to set up. I do not understand why I'm being challenged by the city manager and
brought some grip to the planner. You can front me and mean it a lot. You tell me I can't use a public table and a public bed to do a public thing
which is called a recall, called democracy. It's part of the Georgia, right? Very bright to set up.
All right, we have dealing with two situations right now, the city manager may need to leave, so I just ask your patient, all right?
There's a situation that we need to deal with in the city and I all ask you to please just your patients for one moment.
Secondly, we are having issues with the microphone that we are trying to fix.
We do have an overflow room. Is that correct? And where is it?
The isalea row. So if you would like to sign in, if you want to speak and then go
sit in the isalea row, you can't. Okay?
Yeah, there are seats up here.
All right, now if I can continue.
It's good to see everyone here.
I have just a couple announcements.
I want to thank WPFW for hosting last week's town hall.
It was really great.
I even learned a lot about gentrification.
I want to thank Katia and Dave, the host.
They actually live here in Tacoma Park. I want to remind everyone that this Saturday is community day at Essex House Apartments. It runs from two to six. You can get a chance to see local reggae ban positive vibrations. There will be free food, kid performances, face painting, and a chance to share some food with your neighbors. This Saturday in the parking lot.
And then finally, the Park Valley Bridge will be closed for the next 18 months for reconstruction.
There is a traffic detour that is out on social media, so please you can go to my Twitter,
page, Jared Smith, and get the information.
Thank you.
Great.
Any other council, council, and woman?
Seriously?
Good evening, everyone.
So I'll be real quick, so I had the opportunity on Monday, along with the Executive Director
of the Crossroads Development Authority, Kaylee Gnall, to attend Purple Line now forum.
It was a great exchange and included the new Executive, the new CEO of the Purple Line
transit partners. So we were able to learn a lot and also make some really important connections,
not just within Montgomery County, but there were a lot of representatives also from
Prince George's County as well. So that was a wonderful opportunity. I want to continue to encourage
people if you are interested in knowing more about the construction schedule. For the purple line,
You can sign up online for alerts, particularly those that are in Ward 6 as well as areas of Ward 5.
As they are continuing to move forward with construction, there's definitely going to be times in which streets will be closed or utilities make flicker things like that because they're relocating a lot of utilities right now.
So I just want to encourage everyone to please sign up for for the updates.
Thank you.
Any other council comments this evening?
All right.
We'll come back to unless the WDC Manager have the City Manager's comments.
Do you want to review those while she's out?
So just very quickly we wanted to remind everyone that Tuesday, August 7th is National Night Out.
Well, this year's, last year's got canceled at the very last minute due to whether very much like we're experiencing tonight.
This is where police departments across the nation come together to host an event that will involve all sorts of games and food and giveaways, things of that nature.
The purpose of the event is to heighten safety and crime prevention awareness and to support locally based businesses, groups and organizations.
There are going to be all sorts of community groups there with tables and giveaways of their own.
Again, it's going to be on Tuesday, August 7th, from 6 to 9 and it'll be at 7510 Maple Avenue right in front of Piney Branch Elementary School.
Also a quick update on the Dockless Bike Evaluation Report that we've been expecting from the county.
We heard from county staff that they expect their consultants will wrap up the report in early August and we'll share information with you all as soon as it's available.
On a related note, you may have seen yesterday's Washington Post that OFO is pulling out of the area there, the yellow dockless bike.
A representative for the company said that DC's regulations were too strict to work for their business model.
And finally just a note on the city manager of my schedule during recess, she'll be out of the office on vacation August 17th through the 31st, and I'll be taking leave earlier in August.
During that time, one of the two of us will always be here.
Terrific, thank you very much. All right, we will just as a reminder.
Can I ask my.
Oh yeah, sorry.
Never mind.
Do you need something?
As
a reminder, there's sign up in the back of the room if you'd like to speak on Tacoma
Junction.
I already have two full sign-up sheets up here, I'll start reading off of.
And there is the overflow room in the Azalea room if people want to go and sit there.
So we will start now with public comments on both resolutions, the alternative resolution
regarding the Decoma Junction site and the resolution regarding the Junction site or any just general comments you want on Decoma Junction.
The first person I have is Vaughan McCandish and I'm apologize if I pronounce names wrong this evening.
Vaughan McCandish and I am a resident of 8300 Flower Avenue Ward 5.
I'm also the managing partner of the covered market in Old Town, Tacoma.
I'm neither for against the Junction development based on its design.
However, I wanted to make a few points about why I believe it is not the right time for this development to occur and to come apart from a financial perspective.
The type of retail and restaurants that exist in your community are important.
Equally so is who owns those businesses.
It's basic economics that is city and grows best by acting to bring in as much money as possible into the community from outside sources.
businesses. It also then must act to try and ensure that most profits earned within the
community remain here. This results in more tax dollars. Small businesses generally
keep profits local. Unless locally owned, regional and national businesses often send much
of their profits out of the community. In 2013, Old Townscoma Park was primarily entirely
first location small businesses. Over the last five years, first location entrepreneurs
within our community have not taken over the majority of the empty spaces.
There are many viable openings in terms of opportunities for small business, but
lately the city has not motivated its entrepreneurs to fill those needs.
Instead, we are often taking the easy route of finding regional businesses to fill the gap.
And the number of retailers in the district has declined dramatically.
Developing when you know that the resulting tenants are likely to be a detriment to the community by removing money from our economy is definitively not the right choice.
I believe we need to counsel to take a few steps back and consider how we can best encourage the entrepreneurs within our city before any development occurs.
The issue is that as larger businesses arrive, the more larger the business, they will be more likely entrenched.
If regional or national businesses continue to take over more and more spaces, we may eventually find it very difficult to secure spaces for our local entrepreneurs.
The unique field that all visitors envy very much about our city is fragile.
We need to maintain a small business oriented community in order to maintain our diversity
and to keep selling items not found on the shelves of big retail.
After all, while we may have some good food coming to town, the field of walking down
the street and the business district is greatly influenced by the items in the window.
My understanding is that the city will receive lease payments starting at $120,000 per year
from this development.
I've also heard that the cancellation of the contract with NEC may cost the city's $75,000.
In perspective of the city's budget, both of these numbers are minor.
There are better ways to earn the income and the cost to end this development contract currently would be the better result for the community.
I understand that it may be difficult to be in a situation we have to pay to escape but we should not proceed with a bad idea because canceling a contract is uncomfortable.
Thank you.
Stella and Diane Cameroon and Carol Clayton, the next three people.
Hi, I'm Jenny Stella from Ward 1 and I'm going to second what this gentleman just said about keeping
having local business owners because the profits remain in our community instead of corporate profit
but going out of our community.
I am here to say that I dissent from the NDC plan and I urge and beg you to please second and vote for the alternate plan.
And then Carol Clayton.
My
name is Diane Cameron. I live in Kensington, Maryland. I shop at the Tacoma Park Silver
Spring co-op. I'm a former resident here. I have attended Earth Day celebrations at
the publicly owned lot. And I'm here to support Council Member Jarrett Smith's alternative
resolution. And I urge all of you to vote for it so that we will keep public lands in public
I have raised two children here and my roots are here.
I urge the council to please, if you don't adopt the alternate plan, to delay the vote until mediation is complete.
Thank you.
Emily Cone, Harry Solomon and Jessica Landman.
Emily Cone, it looks like?
Yes, sorry.
Ward 3, Emily Combe.
This flower represents our hope that you will vote in the interest of our community.
And second, and vote for this alternative plan.
Thank you.
Harry Solomon, Jessica Landman.
I'm used to it.
It's Harvey.
Not Harry.
Oh, I'm sorry.
My name is Harvey Solomon.
I'm a proud resident of Ward 1.
I hope 17-year-old homeowner here in Tacoma Park.
Many of you might recognize the logo on my t-shirt.
I just like to tell you briefly how it started.
On January 17, 2017, several days after the women's march on the wall,
seven people slipped into a construction site near the White House after midnight.
They climbed up a crane and unfurled a 70-foot banner for all the world to see.
My best friend, Karen Topakian, chairman of the Board of Greenpeace, was one of them.
Despite her fear of heights, she climbed in the bitter cold, in the pitch black, more
than 100 feet in the air, and chained herself to that ladder.
Six others climbed even higher to hang and later remove that banner before they descended
and they were arrested.
it. Does anybody here have that kind of courage? I know I don't. But tonight, some of you
are facing something that could be very tough, not physically, of course, but mentally.
What is it? Changing your mind. Resisting the temptation to just go on.
Resisting the temptation,
the urge to just science say enough is enough, let's just pass this draft resolution and
be done with it. But that won't be the end of it. It'll be the beginning. The beginning
of the development that'll be here long after most of us are gone. I'll leave it to others
to explain who are far more eloquent, to explain the particulars of how we can do better.
We're to come apart with a long, proud history of not doing what's easy or
expedient, but what's right. I'm not equating your decision. I'm not equating
your decision here tonight to risking your life climbing up 100 feet in the
dead of night. But let me say it's a pretty humbling experience to sit at your
dining room table and hear firsthand about that kind of commitment, about that
kind of courage. I think it takes a different and no less valid kind of courage to dig down deep
and to say you know what I got it wrong. It's not too late. Vote for alternative resolution
seven. Let's work together to find a better solution. I know it's a lot to ask but the train
hasn't yet
Good evening. I'm Jessica Landman from Ward 1. That was a tough act to follow, I have to say.
I want to draw people's attention tonight to one specific fact, which is that in the resolution the city is finally acknowledging that, and I'm paraphrasing here, that the proposal in the resolution involves multiple lots, and includes construction across at least one property line, which must be addressed either through consolidation of the lots,
or through a legal agreement that satisfies the requirements of Montgomery County.
Thank you, at least for coming forward and stating that problem clearly at long last.
Now there is this whereas clause that's in the resolution says that-
The city has a preferred alternative for addressing this situation, which is to, and I'm quoting again, consolidate the lots under city ownership. Now that does sound good because it would address the problem of multiple ownerships. But my question is, how is this going to be accomplished? Is the city planning to buy the Johnny's auto lot for a million dollars? Or are you counting on NDC to buy the lot as currently planned and then donate it to the city?
Because the residents who have been assured that taxpayers are not going to be on the hook for any costs associated with this project need to be informed how this key problem is going to be resolved.
And I, for one, would be very interested in hearing what NDC has to say about the city's preferred alternative, what their perspective is on it, and how this consolidation is proposed to occur.
In my opinion, I think the resolution needs a be-it-resolved clause stating that if this is moving forward, which, as you know, I think is premature and inappropriate, that there needs to be a clause in this resolution stating that the city will consolidate these lots through an agreement with NDC, and that this is going to be accomplished without cost to the city and taxpayers before you proceed to the stage of this resolution moving forward and the county being asked to
to begin considering the site plan.
Otherwise, we're talking about wasting the county's time
and the taxpayers' money.
Thank you very much.
I would very much appreciate it if the mayor or city manager
could speak to this question for everyone here tonight
before you take a vote because taxpayer dollars are at stake.
So thank you, and thank you, Jared Smith,
for your resolution which I encourage
all council members to vote for.
I
just want to remind folks who you have an overflow room
in the azalea room if you want you can bought back and forth if you'd like to have a seat there and the sign-up sheet is in the back.
You may want to mention that child care is available in the team room.
Yes and child care is available in the team room if anyone wants that.
So the next three folks we have are Merlin Kettering, Susan Schreiber and Byrne Kelly.
Merlin Kettering, greetings council members, mayor, city manager and all who help to guide the city.
Thank you.
Considering the permanence of the infrastructural dimensions of the development and considering
the irretractability of the social dimensions of the development.
I believe the decision will be best made when it is based upon the most well informed discernment possible.
Gaps in your discernment will become very visible for the future that we are shaping.
Therefore, I support and I urge you to support the alternative resolution by Councilmember
Smith to second it and pass it
because we are shaping a future that will have tangible
and intangible effects.
Good evening, I'm Susan Schreiber, formerly of Maple Avenue, formerly of Sherman Avenue
and for the last ten years on Willow Avenue. Mayor Stewart and members of the council,
I would like to ask that each of you prior to voting tonight on NDC's plan for developing
our property at the junction, to explain the reasons for your vote. You have told us that
you have been listening, but you have provided no public response to the many issues and questions
raised by hundreds of people in our community who have weighed in with the legitimate concerns
about the size and scale of this project is probable impact on the future viability of
the food co-op, as well as other existing businesses in the junction, on traffic, and on
our concerns about how the development as envisioned will contribute to increased gentrification
and racial and economic segregation.
You've heard from 15 architects and builders, environmental scientists, and overwhelming
majority of the business owners in the junction, and many, many informed residents who
have expressed serious concerns about these and other issues, including why our city is
so eager to hand over a centrally located place of publicly owned land that has so much potential
to be developed in creative ways that could truly benefit our community, to a developer
who has shown no particular interest in the values of our community, for a term of 99 years
in a deal that seems extremely favorable for the developer, and with little financial
return coming into the city for at least 20 years.
We know you have been listening to NDC, but I ask that before you vote tonight, each
of you, each of you, explain the basis of your decision in detail, including how, if and
how, the concerns that so many people have raised have informed and shaped your thinking.
And please don't tell us not to worry, because changes to this plan can always be made after
your formal—after your—you formally vote to approve it.
You have told us not to worry about traffic.
You have told us not to worry about the co-op.
We are worried and we deserve a response from you now.
Why are you supporting this?
Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor, Council, Administration.
I thought it was pretty despicable to be told by two planners and a police officer I couldn't set up a table.
I always have a table.
I have plans.
I've worked on this project for free for four years.
I've given an alternative site plans and I've met with everyone.
And here's the problem, that kind of bullying by the city administrator and
her staff is part of the problem.
The council who is underpaid is a bigger part of the problem.
Your eagerness to get done and go on your vacation is a part of the problem.
NDC is part of the problem, but they're also the answer.
The co-op is part of the problem, and they are part of the answer.
That has to be recognized.
The mediation has to end amlicably without one side having more strong opposition than the other side.
We need to heal this division, okay?
the way you don't include Jarrett, because he's the only one who had the
temerity to say no to you. And basically you gang up on this looks terrible. You
guys look bad and we need to fix this government and the way we can fix this
government is through a recall if you won't fix it. We need to get the $200,000
plus salary chopped in half of the city manager and give the other $80,000 to the
mayor, so it's a full-time job, and they can work alongside the city manager.
And the council people, thank you.
And the council people also need to be paid an adequate salary in the 40 to $60,000 range,
so that people who don't have the means like me can run for the council.
And they can also work in the city with the staff because they obviously bring expertise to the table.
But the expertise that none of you have is in planning and zoning.
If you would take that other lot and you were in Montgomery County, that would be considered a major subdivision.
You would have to go through the entire process, but you're not.
You're a little fiefdom and you can block me from having a table because you're afraid of the truth.
And you need to change, this council needs to change, this administration needs to change, you need to be gone.
You don't live in the city and you raise our taxes and you want to want to listen.
I just, I know you had some slides and I gave you five minutes, but you put them up, I'm sorry.
We're going to put them up now.
But when I came up, yeah.
Okay.
I just, I gave you the five minutes and you have two and a half minutes left.
I just really.
You'd love to see it.
I already went over the line that I've made four different plans.
I've circulated them.
They're solution plans.
They're not exactly what I want folks.
What I want, after we get the new council and the charter change, what I want is we,
We, all of us, pool our resources with the $2 million that the co-op has, and we develop that site.
You all remember what happened in Silver Spring with the carpet?
The carpet that we all played on and had a blast on?
That was temporary and they put something up there that wasn't quite as good.
At the same time, Discovery had to put a park, but they put a fence around it.
And nobody used it except the homeless.
We need a green carpet.
But we need to be able to play, dance, sing, and have fun, and be to come apart.
And this representation here, except for Jared Smith and his resolution, is not that.
We want that, we want to wait, there's no hurry.
Why are you so eager to do it now when it can be done in September?
Thank you.
The next three people are Carter Dardy, Emmy, and Debra Zuckerman.
This
is Zeb. He wants to talk to, but he'll have to wait.
My name is Carter Doherty. Sixth Crescent Place in Ward 1, Neal Cohen, Columbia Avenue Ward 3.
I last wore my resistance t-shirt to a demonstration against ICE last week when they started snatching people off of the streets,
blocks away from all souls' unitarian church.
I hope that's one thing we can agree to resist on.
In the future, when the rain falls and when it storms, I hope you think not of the runoff
from the impermeable ugly to comb a junction, but instead think of better storm water management,
lead certification, a green roof, and maybe holding up inside a restaurant while you wait for
the storm to pass. Like former Mayor Bruce Williams said, once right up here, it will pass. We will go on
after this and continue a great life here in Tacoma Park.
That said, this is not in the end of the line.
You are making an extremely important strategic decision here, but there's still much to
be carried through to see this through the completion.
So far, you have done a fantastic job.
You have shown the patience of job.
For now, all we ask that you do is simply say, yes, on the primary resolution, get this
underway, approve the site plan, and let's move on with life.
Zav, what do you want to say?
At this time, in the interest of civility and time and
respecting this council's prerogative to actually listen and get work done,
we would like to ask everyone here who is here tonight, who is in support of the council's site plan,
to please stand up at this time and show the council your support.
All
right, thank you.
We'd like to close by thanking the city manager.
Excuse me, we'd like to close by thanking our public servants for
over four years of this process of tireless listening and of changes to this plan.
This is not something that's been pushed through.
We'd like to thank the council, all of the council for their persistence and the prior councils.
and we'd like to thank the rest of the city staff who has worked tirelessly to answer the number of questions that have been brought forth in a thoughtful manner on the website with facts, not just with slogan-ears, slogan-earing.
So thank you, and let's move this forward. Thank you, come on.
Hello, my name is Mline Brown. I'm a Ward 2 resident. I'm 10 years old. I was born in Tacoma Park and I attend our public school.
I feel that we should follow through on this junction project and it will bring prosperity
to our small businesses and community.
It is an opportunity for our beloved town to come apart prosper and should not be seen
as a rivalry for other businesses, beloved as they may be to us.
Nor should it be a rivalry amongst ourselves.
While not all of you agree with me, I sincerely believe that it is an idea for the best and will
help our town continue to develop as a vibrant town should.
I hope you take the suggestions seriously as we the children will inherit this town and we are ready to feel the winds have changed apart on their backs.
Mayor, council members, citizens.
Thank you for your time and your cooperation.
So what do they say don't follow animals or children? My name is Deborah Zuckerman. I live on Poplar Avenue in Ward 3. I'm really proud to live in a city that is supportive of affordable housing, but I'm not proud to live in a city that's using the current project plan to fund that initiative.
And the reason I'm, I feel that way is in part because of something, because I really feel that the, the project is currently proposed is actually going to perpetuate segregation in the city.
I'm paraphrasing Council Member Circe, if I remember correctly when you were on COJO show, you said that relatively few of your constituents go to the junction currently.
I don't think anyone on the council can seriously say that they think that's going to change
if the current plan goes forward.
The other basis for my concern is a conversation I had with another council member who pretty
much said that, and I'm paraphrasing, but I think I'm being true to the comment that most
Just low income and minority people in Tacoma Park shop on New Hampshire Avenue and Langley Park, and that people in other parts of the city don't want those kinds of stores at the junction.
And that view, I believe, is really an inappropriate view.
In fact, based on my circumstances and my tastes, I'm actually much more likely to shop on New Hampshire Avenue and Langley Park than I am to shop at the retail establishments that are likely to go into the New Junction Project.
And a view that both those views, I believe, are really going to be detrimental because they will perpetuate racial and economic segregation in this city.
And that's too high of a cost to pay to, by generating income to support a lot of goal of affordable housing, but not at that cost.
Thank
you. Can I have Alex Baca, Sally Kern, and Beth Cover?
Is Alex here? Yeah, I
Alex.
Apologies for bringing my laptop up here. You all have so much to say. Good evening.
My name is Alex Baca, and I am testifying on behalf of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.
We are the leading organization in the Washington, D.C. region dedicated to advocating for more
more inclusive and accessible places.
We also advocate for the land use and the transportation policies and investments needed
to make those places flourish.
CSG wishes to express its support for this agenda item, resolution regarding the Supplement
Judgment and Flight Fund.
We urge the city to adopt the resolution and to quickly begin the implementation of this
project.
We support this low-scale, two-story project as currently proposed, because it replaces
This is a surface parking lot that would be subject to updated stormwater management,
which will improve water quality, and a community as progressive as to come up park,
I am sure we can all agree that climate change is real.
If you've looked outside in the past few days, perhaps you, like me, have thought about
how this kind of weather is only going to get worse and more intense, which will lead to
greater stormwater management issues.
It integrates the TPSS co-op, which is a car-oriented standalone site into a row's shops along
a public sidewalk that will better welcome TPSS visitors on foot.
It will strengthen the financial viability of businesses at the common junction and create a stronger commercial node by filling in a dead space with active storefronts and places that are pleasant to walk.
It will provide local employment opportunities for city residents.
It will generate revenue for the city to provide public benefits, such as perhaps more affordable housing and diversify the tax base.
It will improve traffic safety by slowing down drivers.
Drivers slow down, I'm
sorry, please.
Apparently, as difficult as it may be for many of you in this room to believe,
drivers slow down when they have more visual cues.
Like seeing people in foot walking, shopping, and engaging with their city.
I don't, excuse me, as
a person who rides a bike for transportation.
I don't take this comment lately, and I make this in very serious good faith.
Thank you.
If crossings to Morrison Park, just across the street are enhanced, that in itself can become a more usable public space.
And that's a great opportunity that I would urge you to think about.
The Coalition for Spreider Growth encourages a more affordable, healthier and more sustainable region by supporting projects like this one across the region.
What happens in Tacoma Park does impact what happens in the region overall and who has the ability to live here.
That's why I'm here to testify tonight in support of this resolution.
But also on behalf of my organization, I would like to note that we do think this project is a tremendous missed opportunity to make to come apart more inclusive by building mixed income housing on top of ground floor retail.
One second, I have to change formats.
We would hope that a project like this one would help an increasingly expensive and
in demand community become more inclusive with more housing choices.
And we would like something that further reduces traffic, air pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions from new housing opportunities that are doing more people to live near stores and walk to major transit services.
Making the development even smaller than the current proposal would only exacerbate these missed opportunities.
We are extremely disappointed that the city is no longer considering any housing opportunities for the many people who would like to live here.
Like you, there are many people who wish they could live here and shop at local stores and enjoy the farmers, market, and festivals, and walk to Metro, whether those shops are at Tacoma Junction or on New Hampshire Avenue.
We urge the city and residents to consider how they make where you live, more inclusive of the many people who would like the opportunity to live here.
Thank you.
All
right.
Next we had Sally Kern and then Beth Cover and then Jeff Trunzo.
Sally Kern, Ward 2.
Dear Council Member Smith, thank you for introducing your alternative resolution to postpone the
vote on NDC's combined site plan.
I
urge the mayor and all city councils to stand with you and vote to postpone until residents
like me and all of us feel secure that we have fully vetted the full negative impact
of the combined site plan on pedestrian, cyclist, and transit user safety. I don't need to
remind you all that these negative impacts on pedestrian, cyclist, and transit users will
disproportionately affect people of color.
They will disproportionately affect neighborhood children on their roots to school and on their
roots to Blair cluster neighborhood bus stops like the high school bus stop in the junction
at the corner of Lee and Carol.
I am only a concerned parent watchdog, not a traffic expert, but I have grave concerns
about the basic health and safety trade-offs.
Our council and mayor are about to trigger into motion.
Our city has spent $42,500 to date on a 99-page traffic study, and I'm sure NDC has paid
the traffic group handsomely for their 201-page traffic impact analysis. I don't understand
how a novice mom like me can do a cursory read through of 300 pages of traffic studies
watch a couple hours of city work sessions and come away with a startling number of red flags
concerning the traffic studies methodology considerations and results. I've
compiled 12 pages of negative impacts so far and I have only scratched the
surface. I am laying the groundwork to work directly with you or for going
directly to Christopher Bishop our district's community liaison at SHA if it's a
Yes, vote. I'd rather work with you directly instead of bypassing you. Beware the mother bear with cubs.
We
will fight to protect the safety of their own. Please stand with council members Smith tonight and vote for his alternative resolution to postpone the vote and keep every
Every single resident of Tacoma Park, safe.
Thank you.
My name is Beth Culver and I live on Manor Soccer on the Ward 2.
I just wanted to bring the perspective of having worked at Spring Mill Bakery for a while,
that that corner is a place where my son and many kids walk.
And I'm still actively concerned about the traffic.
I would love for us to just hold off and wait for more, not more studies, but just more comprehensive plan that would address the dangers of that corner.
I've seen the crossing guards on many occasions, yellow cars as well as actually stop the kids from crossing into a road with a car that will go through red lights.
I don't necessarily think that a development will stop that particular problem, as well as aggravating some of the other trafficker shoes.
I also just wanted to thank the community to come apart.
I've been here for six years, and I'm really glad that I live in a city that I can come up here and speak to my city council about my views.
And I appreciate you giving them consideration.
Thank you very much.
Jeff
Trunzo, Sherman Avenue, Ward 3, mayor, council member, and city staff.
Tonight my statement is going to be a little bit different.
I'm not speaking solely for myself, but I'm speaking for Howard Cone and
Seth Grimes, who were co-chair of the Tacoma Junction Task Force and
myself who was the co-secretary.
We ask the Tacoma Park City Council to vote in favor of the resolution regarding the
to Comma Junction Site Plan, authorizing neighborhood development company to submit the project site plan for Montgomery County Planning Approval.
We believe the Decomma Junction redevelopment process, as recommended by the Decomma Junction Task Force, implemented by the 2013-15 City Council, and continued by subsequent councils, is on track.
The site plans propose building height,
massing, setback, public space are within range to advance this project to planning review.
Where further design changes may be identified and addressed, along with related points,
such as junction roadway configuration.
We are confident that accommodations for Tacoma Park Silver Spring co-op,
Operations and growth can and will be satisfactorily concluded within the current process.
Please vote in favor of the site plan and reject further project delay.
Respectfully, Howard Cohn, Seth Grounds, and Jeff Trunzo.
Yes, sir.
Laura Barclay with the old to come a business association.
I'm here to read a statement from the Board of Directors.
The Board of Directors, the old to come a business association would like to thank the mayor,
City Council and City staff for the thorough and thoughtful work on the Tacoma Junction
Development Project over the past four years.
We appreciate that the process has provided many opportunities for input and discussion
and recognize the council's consideration of the project's many stakeholders and community
input.
We believe that this project will provide economic activity to an underutilized piece of land
in part of our commercial district that could use a boost.
It will also provide the density and additional activity which will benefit all businesses on the
block.
We ask that you vote to pass the proposed original resolution and move forward with a project with no further delays.
Thank you.
Great,
just a reminder, we do have the overflow room in the Azalea room and we have child care for one more hour.
And the hydrangea room is also set up.
And the hydrangea room is also set up if you want to sit there.
Next, we have Billie Cutler, Una, Kettering and Lisa Bode.
Hello, my name is William Colter. I'm a 20-year resident this month of Ward 3 and a former member of the Tacoma Junction Task Force. It was a privilege to dedicate a year and a half of my time to studying this little slice of our community. There's been an awful lot of talk about the proposed development, but I've noticed one thing has been lacking from the discourse. That is gratitude. Gratitude for a mayor and a city council who have given us a
transparent and honest process to choose how this land will be developed.
Whether or not you like the proposed plan, a level playing field was provided for all to participate.
There has been no evidence of the type of back room deals with money changing hands that I'm sure happens often in other communities.
Gratitude for an experienced professional developer to take on the many challenges this project faces.
not the least of which is the environmental remediation that must take place at their expense.
NDC has been patient and cooperative in what has become a tense and
embattled situation. I should note that the local developers, the task force, spoke to,
were not at all interested in taking on this venture.
Gratitude that the wishes of a popular local business, the co-op, are being considered.
And to that point, I believe that the amount of effort and expense the city has put forth to accommodate a single private entity is unprecedented.
Moreover, I would be remiss if I did not mention that the co-op was probably the first business in town to learn that development was being considered on the city lot.
Armed with this foreknowledge, did they act expediently to secure ownership of their building?
Did they put together a feasible proposal to develop the property and deliver it in a timely manner?
Or have they encouraged what amounts to civic uprising to try and stem the process of the selected winner of the development bid?
Yeah,
in closing, I'm grateful that residents are able to come here and express their opinions openly.
But I am also somewhat embarrassed by the extreme actions I've seen lately.
It is my sincere hope that the opponents to this development will pause and recognize
that this process has been more than fair to the co-op and that the city government understands
your concerns about traffic, environment, and quality of life and trust they will be treated
with deserving respect.
Thank you.
So to council members, my name is Una Kettering and I've lived in Tacoma Park for over 38
years.
I am here tonight to ask you, to first say thank you for what you are doing and what you
have done, but to ask you to consider the alternative proposal by Jert Smith.
In light of our, let us think of the safety of the future, our children and grandchildren.
Let us think of racial equity and what kind of the commerce park we want.
not just for a few, but for all of us. Please do the right thing and consider Jarrett Smith
proposal. Thank you.
Hi, I'm Lisa Badett from Sigmore Avenue. Firstly, would everyone in support of Jarrett
Smith's alternative resolution please stand?
I am in favor of Councilmember Smith's alternative
resolution and urge the Council to second his resolution and delay the vote on the NDC
site plan until it reaches a form that engenders greater community cohesion than is currently
apparent. Thank you, Madam Mayor and City Council, for your patience with this long process.
But I beg your patience a little longer and give the process a chance to correct itself and catch up
with where it should be by now. As a vote for the current NDC proposal feels extremely premature.
You have provided many responses to the community, but if the community felt that their concerns were actually being heard,
would there be so many people here this evening when it's pouring cats and dogs?
Okay, the mediation with the co-op should have started from the outset when there was first a clear problem and not just recently.
There is, as of yet, no clarity on the common junction intersection reconfiguration.
Infrastructure must precede development or it will fail miserably.
The corollary that development must be right-sized for the existing and planned infrastructure is also true.
We recently had an example of what happens, kind of an example in miniature of what happens
when business pressures are put on local businesses at Capital City Cheesecake, now confectionery.
There were a lot of young people who lost their jobs in that reconfiguration,
which was not the first choice of the business owners.
An expensive and oversized development leaves less room for businesses to have some wiggle room
and hire our local youth, small business incubators and pop-ups like the our house that I gave you a letter about could provide a way forward.
We need a creative solution to build something that goes hand in hand with the inclusiveness that's apparent in things like the community.
Control, a public property is a treasure, and control of it should not be relinquished cavalierly.
Thank you.
Please second and vote for the alternative resolution.
Thank you.
Next up, could we please have Cynthia Morrell, Ron Davies and Nadine Block?
Good evening.
My name is Cynthia Mariel.
I agree with Councilmember Terry Siemens that the views of ward 4 residents are important.
I would expand that to say the views of all residents in all words are important.
Democracy is civic engagement.
Democracy is meeting with neighbors new and old, talking with them, and engaging in political discussion.
I'm sure Mr. Siemens would not disagree, nor would people in this auditorium.
Promoting democracy is not only an act of service, engaging in democratic action is an act of
an empowerment. It is a step along the process of empowerment that ideally ends with engaging
in going to the polls and voting and eventually sitting here on this council.
When only 195 residents of Ward 4 vote to elect the winner of the Ward 4 council seat,
then all of us would have to agree that a great deal of democratic engagement and empowerment
work still remains to be done.
Council. I urge you to join Mr. Smith to support the alternative, the intelligent resolution, and to vote yes on this resolution.
Thank you.
Ron Davies, Ward 3. There is a serious problem at this point. Most of the council and the mayor have made no efforts to find out with the total voting population to come apart really thinks about this ill-advised.
current plan. Just holding Council meetings with three-minute statements by the public allowed
or a one-on-one session with a Council member as a poor substitute for an official
repraperendum. It is obvious the only folks who show up to either a Council meeting or
a one-on-one are strong partisans on either side. In fact, the appears majority of the electorate
is against the current plan, but we do not know. It seems that you are determined to make sure
we never find out, which can only be done through a referendum. Why are you afraid of a referendum?
At a minimum, council member Smith's resolution should be passed tonight, not the original resolution.
We do know there is an addition to those of us who have already made our opposition to the current
plain-known list of current businesses in the Tacoma Junction area, who are also against it.
The last time someone attempted to read this list, she was shouted down.
Okay, the list includes quite a few people.
The Old Town Business Association is in favor of the development of it.
But the people actually at the junction have a different view.
They include Rick and Bernita Leonard, Heritage Building and Renovation Incorporated,
Suds Laundromat, 7334 Carol Avenue, Eric Zeppler, Kinetic Artistry, 7216 Carol Avenue,
Catherine Rurka, Spring Meal Bread Company, 73000 Carol Avenue, Mark Schneider, Urban High
Fire LLC, 736 Carol Avenue, Paul H, Salone 2000, 730 Carol Avenue, Joanne Carey,
Tacoma Park Animal Clinic, 730 Carol Avenue, Mark Howard, Tacoma Framers, 7312 Carol Avenue,
Harresh Lahari, Tacoma Postal and Business Center, 7304, Carol Avenue.
Kendra Blackett-Dabina, Bikram Yoga, Tacoma Park, 7324, Carol Avenue.
Steven Cho, Carriage House Cleaners, 7308, Carol Avenue.
Bruce and Inan Phillips, Healy Surgeons, 7311, Carol Avenue.
Nassau Dach Aumenn, ND, Wisdom Path Healing Center, purple, mountain organics, 7-1-2-0 carol avenue,
D-Doli, RS Automotive Incorporated, 7-2-2-0 carol avenue, Rachel Hardwick, President
Tukomu Park, Saurastrin, COA.
Okay, stand with that.
There's only one more thing to say.
Referendum now, referendum now, referendum now, referendum now, referendum now, referendum
Now, referendum now, referendum now.
Good evening, I wasn't actually going to speak tonight because so much has been said.
But I do think it might be helpful to share with you my thoughts prompted by Keith Coslov's comment that I shouldn't be concerned about the fate of a small parking lot.
It is not about the fate of a small parking lot.
By the way, my name is Nadine, I'm in board three.
To me and many of us, we are morally and ethically required to hold the line on further extractive
corporate growth in our fair town.
We must stand on the shoulders of those who found it to come apart, kept the eight-lane
highway from dividing us, insisted on a nuclear-free zone, sanctuary status, voting rights for non-U.S. citizens
in 1617-year-olds and more.
We have been asked to hold the line.
We've been asked by D.C. residents, by businesses who are owned and run by folks of color,
by environmentalists, by folks who moved here for the racial and economic diversity, our city says
it holds dear. I believe that giving this piece of public land away to a corporate developer
for private gain is a serious affront to our community values. It will also cost the city hundreds
of thousands of dollars, if not millions, simply to reconfigure the traffic patterns to make this
possible at all. No one has explained where that money is coming from. I am afraid of the implications
for years to come. I will continue to show my love for my hometown by exercising my right to
protest against individuals and policies that I believe that are harming my hometown. Sometimes
this might be interpreted as uncivil, but in spite of this obvious civil tone, simply because of a
Disagreement on tactics or principle, I believe in community values over corporate profits.
And standing by, while the city elected Zach Contra, each of this, is not in my nature nor is it helpful to the city's residents, especially our lower income neighbors.
Again, this is not about a small parking lot.
We have massive infill development happening at the Metro, where it should.
And we have infill going to be happening around the purple line in New Hampshire,
after Avenue quarter, where businesses are established and we have transportation access improvements that are coming.
And we should be supporting more businesses there.
They're requesting it, as noted, fixing the failed intersection is going to cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And the State Highway Administration has not said that they'll pay for it.
In fact, we know that there's more critical infrastructure on a decades-long waiting list.
If this reconfiguring were to happen, it would be on Tacoma Park's dime eating any revenue
that might come in.
If this development doesn't go bankrupt, anyways, from the-
Opposition, a mile away, and you're the Metro, or on the New Hampshire Avenue side. This money sink will effectively eliminate funds for supporting the progressive plans we say we value. So, we're a lot of us are mystified. Why do you seek to settle our city with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cost? Simply to reconfigure traffic patterns that might only work for short time. Why can't we hear what you're going to do to address this financial concern? It's not hyperbole. This is about the heart and soul of Tacoma Park. If you don't hold on community values over corporate profit,
It's now thank you miss well.
We will lose to coma part that we love.
Thank you.
Sue Katz Miller, Maryam McDormann and Xavier, and I'm going to really get your name wrong.
Last name wrong.
Xavier.
Are you there?
Okay.
So, this is it.
Here we are.
The county, whatever else happens with this plan, is not going to add in more public space
for us to dance together and sing together and be a community together.
The county, whatever else happens, is not going to concern itself with the fact that
Kendra of Bikram Yoga just lost her bid to buy her building to a speculative DC developer
as commercial gentrification takes off in anticipation of this development.
We do have to wonder what the county is going to think about the safety of the lay-by and
the exit from the garage on a blind curve, and the trucks backed up and worrying the fire
chief.
And we have to wonder what bank is going to want to finance a project that has been
so passionately and consistently opposed by the community despite a very slick and often
nasty pro-development PR campaign.
And by the way, our support is broad and deep, this is our community, and we are not going
to disappear after tonight, no matter how the votes go.
So for years now, we've been earnestly emailing, testifying, and signing petitions.
At meetings here, week after week, you have listened to an overwhelming majority of diverse
residents pleading with you to stop, including renters, junction workers, young people, architects,
and small business owners.
Last week was not atypical, with 30 speaking against the plan and zero speaking for it.
Each week, we get bewildered residents who've never spoken at a council meeting before,
just figuring out what's happening here, trying to understand why the city is promoting
this development.
And in each stage, we've been told to be patient that nothing has been decided yet to trust
the process.
But tonight, you, our mayor, you, our council members, can steer us to a better plan.
tonight at the 11th hour is not too late to turn around.
Tonight we ask you to vote yes on the alternative resolution or no on the proposed site plan.
These requests are not inflammatory nor divisive nor uncivil.
Here in Tacoma Park we ask questions we organize and when necessary we resist from Lafayette Square to Tacoma Junction.
This is the Tacoma Park we claim as our legacy.
And so, I offer you this flower of hope, hope for unity, hope for peace in our city.
And as I do that, I ask all to stand, who would say no to the proposed site plan.
Hi, I'm Marion McDormand, I'm a 25 year resident, I live in Ward 5.
and I would like to ask you to support the alternative item that Council Member Smith has put forward.
I'm not against any kind of development at that parking lot site, but I think it should be smaller and more commensurate with the community.
I also feel that there's an inherent conflict of interest in having a commercial entity
who will profit from the development, drop the plans.
Okay, neighborhood development company, if all this goes through, stands to profit from the development, right?
So, of course, they're gonna drop a plan with maximizing their square footage, which will maximize their profit margins, you know?
But that's not necessarily what the community wants.
I think the city count, and having lived in to go and park for 25 years and more,
I've seen a number of projects come up like this, okay, and I think that the council should pass some kind of resolution that says if we're going to drop plans for, you know, proposed new development, it should be with an independent architect or development firm that has no profit, potential profit from the project.
there.
It has no skin in the game. It would have been much better if, you know, at the
beginning of this process, the City Council and the Mayor had hired an independent architect
to drop different options for what this junction development could look like. And I think we
would have ended up with plans that would be much more in character with the rest of the
city and not, you know, making to come apart into Bethesda or D.C. Thank you.
Hello, my name is Xavier. I do live in Tacoma Park, Prince George County. I mean,
do we regret tonight not to be part of a city of Tacoma population when I see this kind of engagement?
But you have to know that everything that is happening in the city of Tacoma is affecting us,
and many of our residents do participate
in the fabric of the city of Tacoma in very often
in artistic ways, such as rhizome, radio Tacoma,
and so on.
Very soon, with the purple line,
our neighborhood will be surrounded
by enormous development, mostly commercial.
The old Tacoma Park is a breath of fresh air for us, I mean, and to see that you're planning
a little bit over development in areas that should not need those kind of development
is of a concern.
This is why I decided tonight to come and support the restoration of Council members.
Thank you.
Karen Elridge, Brian Robinson, and Eve Jenkins.
Hi, my name is Karen Elridge, and my home is on Monoc Avenue.
I have been a, I think, 38-year resident here in Tacoma Park.
I've raised my children and my daughter is raising her grandchildren.
And this isn't just a small piece of land.
And we wouldn't be here night after night after night, mostly against the project, I don't
think I've ever seen more than 20% of the people get up and say they were for it.
And this has been amazing that all these people came out tonight in this rain.
And I'm begging you to please listen to the people, we won't go away.
This I'll be here with you to 2 o'clock in the morning and we'll be having these conversations again and again and again until we get it right for everybody in our neighborhoods.
We need to have a town hall. We need to be able to talk back and forth because I know a lot of these folks who are for this project would be able to agree with things that we are who are against the project where there are lots of things that we can work together.
We don't want an empty parking lot.
There's a lot of us who want development.
We just don't want the oversized development.
And I'm really asking you guys, please back to Eric Smith
so we can take a time to look at this.
I know we've had it for a long time,
but obviously you have not convinced us
that this is the right thing to do.
Thank you.
Brian Robinson, Maple Avenue in Ward 1.
I work with an organization called Friends of Old Decoma,
which was originally founded to try and save part pharmacy from being bought out by a chain store.
The business, and the business association at the time supported our efforts.
But only two years ago, they sent out a mailer saying, what would you think about Starbucks coming in the neighborhood?
Just out of curiosity, we don't have any knowledge.
So, I've spoken to a number of the business owners.
We also rent an art space on Carol Avenue.
And this development, the developer would pay less in rent for the entire city lot in
ground rent than we pay in rent.
And the businesses across the street are already seeing the rents rise.
So each of them will be paying more in rent than this developer will be paying in rent.
And the developer is being brought in explicitly to gentrify those lots.
In fact, the Business Association is basically in favor of raising the rent on the businesses in the notion that this will revitalize the block by increasing demand by bringing in a better class of business.
And that's just disgusting.
There's also the issue
of the plan.
And if we're a progressive community, then we should be doing what a lot of progressive communities do,
which are designed by Syrent, not relying on the developer to give alternative plans and treat it as a city lot.
I'm in favor of development, but not poorly planned development.
This design would fill the entire lot with a building, it would cut off pedestrian access to Columbia Avenue through the wooded park plan, which could be easily provided.
You may also notice there's a fire station parking lot that cuts into the lot.
organization working with the Carol Avenue neighborhood association was responsible for getting the county to build that parking lot, to avoid tearing down two more houses on Carol Avenue.
And when I spoke to some of the realtors and architects at the time, they said well, we want those houses torn down because they're nothing but a bunch of illegal immigrants anyway.
And I called them out as racist on the localist's serve and I was denounced and I was denounced for calling them racists and
And we saved those two houses, but now without a fight and the reason we had that the reason we recommended the Mark carriage
They built that lot was to have a two-point turn
Coming in off the city lot for trucks coming into the back of the co-op
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And that is the way to design a development. Thank you very much.
Hi, my name is Eve Jenkins and I live at 7127 Carroll Avenue. So right down from the
fire station, obviously very close to this development. And I also work at a small local business in
Old Tacoma restaurant.
And I've been to a lot of city council meetings and listen to a lot of
comments about this and this is the first time that I think I've ever actually made a comment.
So I've had a lot of opportunity to think about it and I've listened to a lot of things.
And ultimately come to the conclusion that I don't think that the development is appropriate
for the location.
I think it's too big.
I think the traffic problems are maybe well-nigh insurmountable.
And also, you know, as in my experience working, again, at an existing longstanding local business, I can see that we already have increased restaurant and retail coming in into Koma Park that is creating enough competition for the existing businesses that we maybe really can't support as many new restaurants.
as what's coming in, so I'm not sure that we actually need the additional restaurant and retail in that location.
We're starting to have some thriving activity along Carol Avenue, you know,
where some of the new businesses are coming in, and I think that that's great,
but we don't really need an additional building.
Just, yeah, I'm not really pleased with the escalation of rhetoric that there has been.
On this issue and the recall effort and the maligning of the city council that has gone on, I don't feel that the Tacoma Park City Council is the enemy.
But I hope that you won't let any irritation that you might feel or feeling of being besieged, cloud, the issues and that you will still be able to clearly see what is right and appropriate in this and vote no on the
project as it stands and maybe go ahead and vote yes on the resolution to
extend the timeline of jurorsness resolution. And please consider that there
may be a lot of other citizens like me who don't have a flare for the dramatic
but still oppose this project. Thank you.
Alison McDonald, Rachel Hardwick and Sam Branson.
Hi
everyone, I'm Alison McDonald. I live in Ward 2. This is my first time here tonight.
I'm pleased to be here. I have two children. I've been following this for some time both
streaming the City Council meetings when I'm traveling for work in hotel lobbies and also
when I'm driving Carpool for ballet. I've tuned in from home. I really want to thank everyone
here and the mayor and the council for your deliberation, for your time, for your consideration,
and for putting up with so much conversation, sometimes divisive within this community.
I really appreciate the democratic process that we have and that you're a consideration.
I'm really excited about the junction.
I'm really excited that there's an opportunity for our ward and ward two for something vibrant
to be in the the junction space itself.
It's a walkable for our neighborhood.
We live on the other side of Slego Creek and I'm really excited.
I believe I speak for a lot of people.
I've heard over and over again about the disproportionate amount of people that are here tonight
and have been here over the course of so much of the deliberations and I just want to let
you know that I think I speak for many of my friends within my neighborhood and within
in the greater community that maybe don't have the time
to dedicate to come out every night.
So thank you.
I'm going to find a shop.
And I would just say thanks once again,
and I urge you to move forward.
Thanks.
They're telling me I can't have the table.
Well, I always have the table.
Mr. Kelly, I'll talk to you in a minute.
You're cutting into our time.
I'm sorry.
Yeah, I'm not going to get over it.
You're not going to be special.
I want to leave the table there.
All right. You can begin if you want.
Hi. I'm Rachel Hardwick, and I'm President of the Board of the Co-op. On Friday,
Monday, and today, representatives from the Co-op, the City of Tacoma Park, and the developer
attended mediation sessions sponsored by the City Council and designed in an effort to
to resolve a number of issues related to the redevelopment of the city-owned parking lot located next to the co-op.
Specific discussions during mediation are confidential.
However, we can say that our discussions were extensive, lasting over six and a half hours so far,
and that they addressed some but not all of the complex issues we have agreed to discuss.
The board has concluded that at this time it is in the interest of the co-op and its members to continue with mediation.
The board asks the council not to approve the site plan, and instead wait until mediation
is concluded.
We expect to finish mediation before the council returns from its summer recess.
We make this request because the board thinks that approval of the current site plan before
completion of mediation could jeopardize the mediation's chances of addressing what the
board understands is essential purpose, that is, to find mutually acceptable and reasonable
accommodations of the co-ops operational needs.
This goal is fundamentally important because redevelopment of the city lot, as currently
proposed, will deprive the co-op of its current delivery loading zone on the city lot over
flow customer parking spaces and a place to store waste and recycling.
The board, with the help of its experts, has determined that the current NDC site plan
does not provide reasonable accommodation of the co-ops needs.
We are concerned that if the Council approves the site plan tonight, the approval would
officially sanction the current plan.
In our view, any such approval thereby could materially change the effectiveness of the
mediation process.
We ask that the Council not approve the NDC site plan.
Instead, please approve the pending alternative resolution, which is the only resolution offered
to this point that requires mediation to be concluded before the council votes on the site plan.
The co-op sees mediation as the best way to reach a resolution that can be endorsed by the co-op,
the city, and NDC, and we urge our members and shoppers to support our request. Thank you.
Sam Bramson, co-op shopper. Let me also thank everyone present for every contribution
they are making to a peaceful, rational, democratic
deliberation, and all the ways in which to come a park
government is doing a great and valuable job.
I invite both the supporters of the current NDC
proposal and those who oppose it to remember how many
goals that they have in common.
Don't let room-filling cheers and booze stop you from
inquiring honestly with someone in disagreement why they
feel the way they do.
A consensus on a way forward could be so close.
I am recently returned to the Washington area after a decade in Pittsburgh, where the
food co-op, the only one in the region, struggled in an analogous way as to come apart currently
with community interests versus corporate interests.
Please support Alternative Resolution 7, and in support of that, let me second the arguments
made so far, and also echo the pleas for creativity and risk.
If the world is going to find new, currently unknown ways to sustainably solve development questions that put community interests above all else, it will be through experimentation.
Tacoma Park has resources, community interest and a legacy in perfect alignment with this goal and would be an ideal place, frighteningly rare for such an experiment to take place.
The history books, 99 years from now when the proposed
least would end, will either say that the
municipality lost its unique character or that it
kept it.
But perhaps equally importantly, those history books
can say that the municipality stayed safe by trading
public property for what was still essentially
corporatism or that they struck out swinging.
Please swing.
Someday, a history book may say that sustainable,
community-based land usage became commonplace after experiments carried out in progressive
municipalities across the U.S. such as this one. Thank you.
Thank you. I now have Wellman Lahn and David Korn and Margaret Vitola.
Oh, did you have a slide? No, you didn't have slides, right?
No, I didn't have time, so that's okay.
Hi, my name is Valmoud Lantzra, I live in Ward 1, Peter Kovar's ward.
I want to thank everyone, the Mayor, the Council for taking the time.
It's going to be a long night.
I want to say a few words about one of the aspects of this development.
Can everyone hear me?
Yes.
Thank you, Umarins.
Imagine, just imagine driving home one night on Carol Avenue and you see this vibrant
with people at night mingling about or you drive to work and you see this lot
and people are just hanging out talking to friends and neighbors.
And then imagine a community that's known for its inclusiveness
and commitment to social justice, doing an infill project that serves many needs
for this community, such as pedestrians, bicyclists, moms with strollers
and middle and high school students.
by providing amenities such as stores, family-owned restaurants, and a public living room.
Providing a safe way to school and to work without permanently disturbing and uprooting existing entities.
Instead, I see a proposed development that does not allow for adequate public space
creates additional traffic at an already very complex intersection.
basic issues that have not been resolved and that I refer to as details, promises to
deal with these details after a resolution has been voted on.
But these issues are key infrastructure problems, including traffic flow, pedestrian safety and
parking, all unresolved up until today.
I also see a design that is too big for its allocated space.
And once the site plan has been approved as is by voting yes, if that's what you were
to do, there will be no opportunity to make any significant changes to the amount of
public space in the project.
This should be the path forward, postpone the vote and vote no to the resolution and vote
yes to Jared Smith's amendment, we need to make as the community a fully informed decision.
Emphasize that the space should serve the community not just consumers.
Develop a project that will create additional tax revenue while still ensuring public accessible
space that's appropriate in scale and purpose and show all of us. All of us that we can resolve
all of these issues in the Tacoma Park Manor, which is with expertise, knowledge,
deliberation, compassion, and a sound vision for the future.
Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor and the City Council members.
I'm here as just second to her.
Basically, I can't second Jarrett's resolution, I would if I could.
But just sitting here, I hadn't expected to say anything further.
A thought occurred to me listening to all the great speakers on both sides.
I know that this is very difficult for a lot of people, but we have an existing business that we want to thrive in that space, and that is the co-op.
We're now talking about a perspective enterprise which is a risk and which is a gamble.
You don't know what's going to be there, if there's stories that are going to support an element of social justice or not.
We just have no clue at this point in time whether there will be necessary outlets or restaurants that serve the local people or bring people that make things harder for the existing businesses.
But so it seems to me that as you go into this, you have these two great unknowns. The unknown is the co-op mediation, which is not over, but is soon to be over.
And that's something that you will know very quickly.
And the other great unknown is the traffic dimension.
Having lived in Hickory now, living in Cedar, I lived in the traffic problem that exists
now.
And to sort of say, we'll deal this down the road, no pun intended, sorry.
Just doesn't seem to be sufficient to going ahead with this project.
You know, it could compound the issue and as Nadine talked about it could put the city on the hook financially.
It's a gigantic unknown.
So I know that Jared's resolution doesn't address that because you're not going to have that answer in four weeks after your well-deserved vacation.
But it seems to me that at least on the co-op side that's something that will be answerable.
And I hadn't thought of this until we heard from the co-op board of director.
But if you go ahead and vote for this now, it will affect the mediation process.
At least it should. And give the upper hand to the NDC.
So these two great unknowns, you know, lying out here, I think you got to take, you got to hit the pause button.
And hopefully as you resolve those issues, you're never going to get full cohesion on this.
but maybe you'll move closer to some community consensus so that this project becomes less
divisive as you proceed down the road. Thank you for considering that.
Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. My name is Margaret Fattulo. I'm a resident
of Ward 2 and I'd like to tell you a story of community and I'd like to be very respectful
of the time that I have a lot of it as I do that. But I'd like to begin my story in an unusual
I would like for us all to take 30 seconds of silence and use that 30 seconds of silence
to think about what we love about this community.
Community. Not this issue. What do you love about living care? What do we all love about
it?
Thank you. I belong to another community that had another very similar fight. There was
a group that believed strongly that a particular kind of development needed to happen. A particular
kind of building needed to happen in a particular location. There was another group in this very
beloved community of mine. It felt absolutely strongly that the building needed to be a different
kind of building in a different location. And this fight threatened to tear this beloved
community that I consider my second family. Threatened to tear apart,
people were disappearing
from the community saying they would never come back again. People were feeling threatened.
And everybody said we have to keep going.
How can we let this get derailed?
We've put so much work into it,
but we did.
We stopped.
We took a pause.
We went back and did another process of listening.
It was painful, but we did that.
And that beloved community of mine is now moving forward on a building where there is real
unity.
And that experience of working across difference, and taking the time to do that, helped preserve what I was thinking about during that 30 seconds, and my time's up.
Thank you.
It is the love of community, it is our neighbors, it is our friends, it is the bonds between us, that is the most important thing for us to value.
I
have Rick Weiss, Martha Feldman, Buriedett, Fines.
Hi, I'm Rick Weiss, 25 year resident of Pine Avenue.
I've spoken to you all before and written to you about my issues with this development.
I want to just reiterate to that particularly stick in my crawl and bring up one new point that I haven't gotten into before.
Craw number one is the lay by this kind of horrible plan to have trucks out on the street where garbage and
groceries will be delivered across the sidewalk and in people's way.
The lay-by, which is unsafe, unsanitary, unworkable, unbeautiful, unwanted, unwelcome, and it's
just a bad solution to a problem that didn't exist until NDC decided to try to squeeze
every square foot of space it could into its profits.
And whatever you think about the lay-by and its effect on the co-op to approve a plan
And right now that uses that is, as has been said a couple of times now, going to completely
undermine the mediation process that is currently out of way.
And for that reason, alone, you really need to vote to put a pause on this process.
The second crock, or on number two, is our so-called community space that's built into
this plan.
A space that is unspacious and uninviting and is completely in opposition to what we all
agreed to when the task force did its work some years ago.
Now, I heard some people who led that task force have changed their minds, or have a different opinion.
But let's remember that the task force report was not about their opinions.
It was about what everyone in the community said they wanted.
And what people in the community told the task force they wanted.
And what the task force reported was, among other things,
quote, expanded community use including a pavilion, a playground, a garden space and or a park.
It talked about food trucks and gathering space and a place to dance.
That is not what we have appearing in this plan.
The, to say that the planned, slightly expanded patch of sidewalk between Carol Avenue and a driveway,
way, satisfies what the community asked for here is just demonstrably false.
It's an insult to what we asked for.
It's a slap in the face to us and it should not be allowed to go forward and called a public
meeting space at all.
The third and last and new point I want to bring up is that one great thing that's come
out of this process is that we've seen a whole bunch of beautiful alternatives starting to
pop up from people in our community who are quite creative and have some great ideas.
The slides that Wilmaid showed a few weeks ago at a meeting of all kinds of creative ways
to use that open space.
Some of the ideas that the 15 architects and others have put forward with what you could
do in that space are just so fantastic, so creative, so experimental, so to coma park.
Why aren't we thinking about these things?
It is not too late to turn around, NDC has shown us what they would do.
Now we're starting to see what we would do.
Let's slow down, let's take advantage of our local talent and do something better.
Thank you very much.
Hi,
I'm Martha Feldman, I live on Jackson Avenue, and I'm a 33 year resident.
So I have a few things.
first of all I want to thank everyone on the council, every one of you who I know is a truly
decent person and I don't think we can say, you know, we may not agree with you every time but
you're all great people. I think part of the problem was that although I went to the meetings for
this project. And even though it appeared to be open and it was intended to be open,
I think it was actually a very close process where things were, the pictures they showed
us of developments they had done or thought they might do were very different. They were
would, they were smaller. And we also, as a number of people have said, were given
assurances that things, you know, would develop and be better. But I don't think, unfortunately,
it's worked out to the satisfaction of all the residents. And I think that may be why all
this opposition is now coming up later in the process, because it just didn't seem
I mean, like things were going to change, and now I have a few things on my own.
I want to just mention, we keep mentioning walkable communities, but as a 73 year old person I think you have to think that not everybody is going to be able to walk, and we definitely need to have parking throughout the city.
I won't say any more about that.
I support the mediation with the co-op, and I,
anyway.
And I have written a letter about these things before, but I think the traffic problems are going to be horrible.
The changes in lights that we have now, they may have improved the traffic a little on Ethan Allen,
but now it's worse on Carol Avenue, you know, we just, we want to keep a single lane,
or a double lane highway, and we just cannot support a tremendous amount of traffic. And I want
to say, and this relates to the traffic breaks for NDC, my husband and my taxes are now up to $9,600
dollars a year and that is because we had to move from the Prince George's avenue because I
could not stand living across the street from the basketball court on Prince George in Forest Park.
So, you know, I am now paying probably several thousand dollars more than I would have had to pay.
And I really resent the idea that someone's gonna come and not have to pay their fair share of
Yes, thank you.
Thank you.
Is Bernie dead still here?
No, did she leave?
Okay.
Then is Ann Maxwell?
I think she just had to go pick up her child
as she back yet?
Does anyone else child care is closing?
Is anyone else have a child and child care
that they need to speak?
All right, so we'll wait till Ann.
So Lorraine Pierce saw?
Ann just got back.
Okay.
All right,
so we'll have Lorraine first and then Ann.
I'm Lorraine Peer-Salvice President of Historic Tacoma and I'm here tonight representing
our organization and our Board of Directors.
Our concerns remain with respect to the impacts of this out-of-scale project on our historic
district and the 410 corridor.
410 corridor is an ever-present worry and please remember that widening will begin with
simply, with a third lane.
We must really be very careful of the loading that we put in this area.
As a property owner at 7328, Carol Avenue, historic Tacoma does not support the city resolution or the current site plan.
There are too many serious uncertainties that remain, many of which are in the alternative resolution.
but even that is incomplete, as you probably heard,
many additional ones tonight.
So, this project should be in better shape by now.
The developers should have provided us with multiple options,
a lot sooner, and drawings that were not just artistic renderings
and incomplete at that.
It's a bit embarrassing to be putting it forward
in his current state and I concern that when the county starts to look at it they're
going to wonder why on earth didn't we work on this more.
And I don't believe that the residents really comprehend the scale of what they will be
living with.
I've been looking at plans for many, many years and these are renderings that are not
to scale that they're showing us so right now I'm here to say please either vote no or put a pause on this project and find a real solution.
I know you don't want to hear that but it is this is such a major issue.
We're about to hand a 99 year lease to a developer that we really don't know.
we don't know how he's going to develop this and frankly we don't know what his
errors and assigns are going to do and so what are we doing in future generations?
Please put a pause on this to work this out and find solutions that will work for
us and then we can go on the regulatory pathway. That makes a lot more sense and it
will save a lot of heartburn and heartbreak in the future. Thank you.
I
am Anne Maxwell, word one.
This is my daughter, Yanna.
Thank you for letting us slip in.
Child care just closed, and we've got to get home to bed.
I just want to say very quickly, beyond being a to-home park resident,
I am a co-op member and a frequent shopper.
And the very things that I love about the co-op.
The walkable convenience that it provides,
the interesting food that I can buy there.
And the sense of community I get when I run into neighbors and
friends while shopping or walking to and from the co-op are the very reason that I support
moving ahead with the development.
I have faith given the deliberative process that has
gone thus far that you will guide this project in a way that reflects all the concerns that
you have heard and in the true spirit of Tacoma Park. So thank you very much.
Paul, are you still
William Ryker, Lois Wessel, Joanne Malone.
Good evening everyone, Paul Kristowski, only 26-year resident in Ward 1, but I did live
in Berkeley, California before that, so I think that probably counts for something.
As you know, I've had many environmental concerns about this project, and for those in the audience
who don't know me, I am an environmental scientist with 40 years of experience in environmental
impact analysis. Some of my concerns have been addressed by amendments to the current
resolution. However, it hasn't gone far enough, and there are still a lot of environmental
questions in the current resolution. For example, I heard a member of the audience tonight
site this often referred to urban myths that the material under the parking lot
is going to require environmental remediation. The city's own consultants to
which you paid a nice fee to did a great phase one and phase two study there.
And that material that is under the parking lot currently meets EPA standards
for clean fill. It doesn't require any remediation. This is just one example of
some of the environmental issues that need to be cleaned up in that resolution.
So I would like you to take a pause and vote no on that current resolution and vote yes on Councilman Smith's alternative resolution with the proviso that when we hit the pause button and take this deep rest that we look at all of the potential environmental impacts.
Well, there's still a chance to get the developer to mitigate them before our community has to suffer the ill-effects of environmental pollution.
And the last thing I heard the coalition on smarter growth here tonight, given enthusiastic endorsements of this project, as I would have expected.
But I would like the coalition on smarter growth, maybe to come up with some way of offsetting the 90,000 metric times of CO2 equivalents
that are going to be admitted during the construction.
Maybe the coalition for Smarter Gross can help work with the developer and with the city
to mitigate some of these impacts, which are major impacts.
Thank you very much.
William Reiger, Ward 1.
I spoke to the public comments about a year ago when City Council voted to move forward in this process.
Tonight I want to urge you all to do the same and to pass the original resolution.
The idea that at this point, the city can pivot and go with the development that might make the crop happier is quite frankly completely unrealistic.
NGC has already put in a tremendous amount of time, money, and most of all patients.
And to go ahead and pull the plug on a project like that, I think poses serious danger to the Tacoma Parks economic future going forward.
No developers won't want to come in here and touch anything, and quite frankly, it discourages business as a whole.
I also want to remind everyone that yes, NDC does want to make a profit, so does the co-op.
The co-op is actually a for-profit corporation, and they actually might profit more without competition,
while also having all the trucks and being able to lease this land from the city.
So I want to ask the you please focus on serving the entire community and
past this resolution that will help energize the entire area rather than focus on the business continuity of the single for profit business.
Thank you.
My name is Lois Wessel.
I live at 7105 Westmoreland Avenue, which is Ward 3.
And first of all, I want to thank all of the council members and the city manager and the deputy city manager for
are always being attentive, answering emails even in the middle of the light and keeping
us abreast of how this project has been shaping up.
As I said, I've lived into common part for 25 years, and I'm looking this way because
I feel like I'm speaking to everybody here, not just to the council.
And this has been a very contentious, clearly, tonight situation where people who are friends
and neighbors, and now maybe enemies have talked about this at every social gathering for
the last month.
And my family, we have a joke that this is Parks and Rec, and we are living in Pawnee
because it's gotten a little bit ridiculous, frankly.
I think we are all very disturbed by the world we're living in, where immigrant rights,
LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights, environmental rights, et cetera, our own democracy is being
questioned.
And maybe that utmost frustration that we have with the government of the United States is filtering
down to the way we're treating each other.
Frankly, I am appalled. My quote-unquote leftist credentials have been questions by my
quote-unquote friends and neighbors. I'm not a true revolutionary, because I support
the development. I believe that the city of Tacoma Park, the council members and the
Deputy City Manager, who happens to be somebody who's known longer than anybody else in this
room has done due diligence to the process of listening to what the community wants.
No independent local consultant is going to come in and have the capital to do a development
there.
So if we don't go forward, we are going to be stuck with a vacant lot, not a community
park, not a gathering space, but a vacant lot.
I also think that the development is going to bring a lot of more business to the co-op.
And in closing, I wanted to look back on the 25 years I've been here.
I bought a futon at the futon store.
I recently got rid of it, but that futon lasted a long time.
My husband and I bought our wedding rings at finewares, which wasn't Carol Avenue, where the site
get was.
I don't see them coming out on one way or the other on this project.
Many of us were disturbed when park pharmacy closed.
But I don't think there's a single one of us in the room who haven't enjoyed the convenience of the corporate CVS.
And I hate CVS. I'm a health care provider.
I try to convince people to go to other places to get their medications, not to CVS.
All of us have benefited from CVS.
All of us have bought the $12 localist drink at Republic, which is way too expensive.
The people I work with, the immigrants that I serve as a health care provider can't afford
to come to, to come apart to eat at Republic, yet we all enjoy it.
And we all enjoy Ace Hardware, and that is a chain.
And so I'd like to say that due diligence has been done, and if we take a pause, I'm concerned that we will lose momentum.
Thank you.
Good evening, everybody.
My name is Joanne Malone, and I have lived in Tacoma Park for only 28 years.
But a good 10 years before that, wanted to live in Tacoma Park.
And I especially want to thank the speaker who asked us to quietly take a breath for 30 seconds and remember what we love about Tacoma Park.
I also want to thank those of you that are speaking with a different view, including
the speaker right before me, and especially the ten year old who I assume had to go home
to bed, but please tell her she was very eloquent.
And I
want to thank Mayor Stewart and the council members for their patience, and for all of the things that you do do right, of which there are quite a few.
However, I feel strongly that moving forward with giving up this last small piece of land into coma park,
to a developer without the process that many people have spoken to very eloquently tonight,
to finish the mediation. I mean, why can't we wait a month?
What is so difficult about that?
I've read Jarrett Smith's resolution, I support it, unless you're willing to vote no against the project outright.
My main concerns have been expressed, and I'll just repeat, racial equity is one of the very top concerns.
concerns. I am concerned about businesses like Rowan's barbershop, RNSR demotives, the
Beak from yoga, and many others that are going to be negatively impacted. The fire chief
has spoken out against this. If one life is lost because of traffic blocking a fire department,
How can we possibly move forward with this, without a decent plan, for the fire department, for parking, for waste, for all of the things that need to be looked at.
Thank you so much for listening.
Can I have Robert Patton, Stephen Kern, Ben Rosenthal, and Esther Siegel?
Robert Patton, Westmoreland Avenue Board 3, I'm mostly concerned about the process.
I haven't been involved in the process at all because I really trusted so many great
people in the community who were working on this task force and who represented us in government.
And I want to keep that trust and honor the process that we're trying to go through.
It sounds like some of the people who have come here to testify tonight have been a part
of that process and they maybe feel like some important content got lost along the way.
I think that's really important to listen to.
I suspect there's a lot of us here tonight on both sides who didn't participate in the process before and I think we all need to reflect on how important it is to participate and go through the process and not just come in at the end and
and misrepresent what's happened or misrepresent the intentions, suggesting nefarious kinds of
intentions that people have in going through this.
I think everybody has the best intentions.
I think everybody is trying to do the best thing.
The thing about development in a capitalist society is somebody has to have the money to
make the development happen and our city probably doesn't have all of that capital.
I really like all of the idea that we could design a building and a redevelopment by
a committee.
That's a pretty damn hard thing to do.
I'm not going to be the consultant that facilitates that process, though I have been a consultant
because it's hard to do art by committee
and it's hard to do architecture by committee.
But I want to urge us to think about
if we're going to fully take ownership of this process
and not take advantage of having a developer
which we picked through a process
and had competition, et cetera, et cetera,
that we're gonna have to come up with the money
need to do something different with that parcel.
The one thing I'm glad I think we have almost complete agreement on is just having a parking
lot is probably not the best use of that land.
So as we pursue the alternative, let's pursue it holistically and make sure that we can come
up with the money to make it all work.
Stephen Kern, Woodland Avenue. I come to, I'm going off script tonight. I come to you with solutions.
Solution number one is, I think you have to vote for the Councilman Smith resolution tonight.
I think what Rachel said, Mayor, I think you were out of the room. Maybe you heard it over the speaker.
I think what she said pretty much kills any vote that you would take tonight. If you take a vote and
And you vote yes, you are poisoning the co-op mediation.
And so what you're saying by that is you're not going to, and David Porn spoke to this,
what you're saying is you, it's just lip service you're supporting the co-op.
So I think you have to kill that, and my solution is that's going to make the evening much shorter
for you guys.
I honestly think that.
My second solution is this, I can solve this problem.
I can get 90% of this room together.
If we stick with Tim Maill's 30,000 limit and we do a public-private partnership with Johnny's and make that a park, we've solved two of our big problems and we support the co-op, the comedy the co-op by giving them a lane for their trucks.
We've solved everything. We can actually get this whole room, raise your hand if you guys think you could go for that.
Guarantee the co-op, keep the development, just wait, I'm not going to get everybody, I'm not going to get everybody,
keep it under at 30,000 feet or under, and make sure there's a lane for the co-op.
Can we live with that?
I mean, I'm in favor of one-
A big park, okay? But I'm willing to compromise. I can find a compromise, and to me, that's leadership, and you guys have failed. If you go forward with 40% of us, you have failed. It's a complete failure. And if you are believing in this Nixonian silent majority, please, this is to come a park. You have to go forward. You have to go forward with a clear majority of us.
or this will go on forever? You know, Councilmember Schultz said it was a whack-a-mole. It's not whack-a-mole.
We've asked the same questions. We want to make sure the co-op is safe and we want to make our kids are safe
and we want to make sure we're not going to be paying extra money. None of this have been answered. That's not whack-a-mole.
We've asked the same questions over and over again for four years. You need to answer them.
Good evening, Mayor and Council and friends and neighbors.
Ben Rosenthal, I think this week I'm starting my 20th year as a resident on Carol Avenue.
This whole development is my front yard.
I think the first thing that I did upon moving to the neighborhood was become a member of the co-op.
So that's a member 4, 5, 5, if anybody needs a discount, I have to use it yet this month.
And it pains me that once I reveal what side of this divide I'm on, everyone in the room will then think of everything that I have to say through their partisan lens.
and this includes people of known for a really long time since I am not on Facebook particularly and I don't contribute to the listserv and because things have become rather vitriolic,
even my rather activist wife has noticed, refrained from speaking her mind for fear of neighborly reprobation.
So, I do have a recommendation for you, that's the sort of purpose, but mostly I'm here to appeal to everybody in the community.
I'm proud to be in the Sami Abbott room, and I know that many of the sort of foundational values of this community emerged over an oppositional fight around development, in that case it was a highway.
I'm looking at a picture of what used to be right across the street from my house, which is what the fire department looked like.
And I was quite involved as a butter of that project in trying to get to what we thought was a workable resolution to the counties demand that we improve the fire station or lose it.
And there were many people at that time who thought we couldn't possibly have anything
other than that fire station, or we would somehow lose a sense of who we were.
And we were in a building that needed major re-engineering, and many people thought we can't possibly
go on after the fiasco with the planning of the community center.
We've gone on.
We will go on.
We survived the fire department, we survived the community center.
I hope, and I think we'll survive this development, however it goes on.
I do encourage you to move on with the process there.
I've revealed my position.
I think you've done your due diligence, and I support you going forward.
But mostly I appeal to my neighbors not to go to civil war over whatever the outcome is.
Thank you.
I'm
Esther Siegel, Ward 5, 30 years.
I started writing about, I started every sentence with, you're going to vote in favor of the NDC plan even though.
And I had about seven, which many, most of people have already said so I don't need to go through all of the even those.
But I always wonder if you were doing a home renovation and there were so many even those to the development plan.
would you actually go through with it just because you're tired and you want to get it done?
No, you would look for the absolute best.
So I was thinking this plan is backwards.
First and foremost, the whole traffic issue has to be dealt with before anything can be done.
And then secondly, can you imagine having incredible town hall meetings discussing what this project would look like?
we could even have food if we did in a town hall meeting.
But to imagine what we could do as a group, and I think that's been said before.
But listening all these weeks, my number seven is really the one that I am the most deeply,
deeply troubled by.
You plan to vote for the current NDC proposal, even though this particular proposal has caused
such devastating divisiveness among your constituents.
Neighbors being pit against neighbors, horrible things being said towards you and on social media,
as well as concerns raised by neighboring businesses and emergency responses.
We look to you for leadership.
Part of being a leader is to bring your community together.
The divisiveness that this is caused, the anger that's in this room, neighbors.
It is so, it is like a screeching siren that there's something wrong with this project.
Not the people, but the project.
So I urge you, like everyone else in this room except the people who didn't urge you,
to
support the resolution before you, by Jared Smith, so that you can open the way to focus on the neglected parts of the city, secure a comprehensive and rational traffic evaluation, and plan, and then while we together as a community, not an outside developer, explore and imagine what our public space could be.
Thank you.
Great.
Next, I had Stephen Tells, Sarah Fitzpatrick, Louise House, and Mike Royce.
Steve Tells still here?
Sir, you have Tells to have a get back to us again.
Okay. So, I have Sarah Fitzpatrick, Louise House, and Mike Royce.
Hi. My name is Sarah Fitzpatrick. I just wanted to speak very briefly and ask that somebody
on the council, second Jared Smith's alternate resolution, so that at least one public discussion
can be had on its merits.
I support the passage of the resolution, but at least if we can have a discussion, I
think that's really valuable.
I do not support NDC's plan in either its details or its spirit.
Please vote no on the resolution to approve this plan and move with purpose and love for
all to come apart residents to commit this public land for equitable use for all.
Thank you.
Hi,
my name is Louise Howells, I've lived in Ward 3's in the same house since 1991 when I moved here with my family.
Before I came here, I lived in the city of Houston and I was at a senior city attorney and I worked on development issues for them, community development issues.
Since I've been here, I've been a professor of law and I run an economic development law clinic.
And I also study development and the law and how it affects people in their communities.
So I come at this from both a professional stance as well as I live here.
I walk my dog, I shop at the co-op.
I can't believe that people don't know what co-ops are, that they don't understand that they're
not private entities and that they're owned by people, that they're public entities in
very strongest way.
I have studied different projects across this country in my academic work, and I have seen
communities do it right, and I have seen communities find ways to create public space that's not
an extension of the sidewalk on smaller places, in smaller places, to make space that's comfortable
for people, and to provide real rights within the documents that support the project, legal rights.
I am a guest when I'm actually going to use this project in my law and economics class.
So I'm going to teach this fall, because it's going to be compared with other projects across the city.
And I'm going to ask my students to examine it and compare them, and find out what's right and what's wrong, and what should be done, and what shouldn't be done.
And I just think not that this is a bad path to go along, but that's so far you've got
it wrong.
There's a lot that's wrong about this that needs to be corrected.
It can be corrected as so many people have said here.
What am I talking about, many people have talked about the environment, but I really am about
public ownership and capital, the public's right to control its own capital wealth.
This is our capital wealth.
It is part of our space.
It is part of our commons.
And we need to have control over it, and you've heard many people here tonight say that
they don't think they have that.
And I think if you can't understand the difference between a good faith, comment, a will try
our hardest, provision in a contract, and a very concrete, very well developed, very
contractually enforceable right of people to uses of space, then I think you need to go
back to the drawing board.
But if one of my students were to have produced the documents that I have read, they would
not pass my course because they are too paid.
Takeness is not good public policy.
So I'm here as a teacher, I guess I apologize for that.
But the other thing is, I think economically, I'm not an economist, but I read the economists.
And the economists are telling us, I don't get them, I have to, I have to, I'm sorry, I'm
sorry.
Okay, but we thank the economist you will learn that we are moving towards the slow growth.
Thank you, commute a slow growth economy.
Good evening. My name is Mike Reist. I live in Ward 1 on Park Avenue.
Regarding the Tacoma Junction Revitalization effort, after attending many City Council
meetings over the last year, I have noticed that many comments made by some residents have been made
based on an underlying presumption of fear.
Fear of gentrification, fear of serious implications for diversity,
fear of serious implications for the quality of life, fear that traffic will only worsen,
fear that children will not be able to safely cross the street,
fear that there won't be enough parking for the co-op patrons,
fear that the co-op will go out of business.
But unlike the small percentage of residents who believe this project will only bring problems,
I, along with the overwhelming majority of residents that I have spoken with.
See how this project will bring positive benefits and opportunities to the city.
The redevelopment and revitalization of common junctionally will create a vibrant area with new offerings that residents and visitors alike will be drawn to.
It will create employment opportunities for local residents.
It will create a more lockable city.
It will be the impetus for the state to reconfigure the existing poorly designed intersection into an intersection that is greatly, that greatly improves the circulation of pedestrians, bicyclists, and vehicles.
It will create a new revenue, revenue source for the city that can be used for important city programs.
Change is never easy, but always possible.
This is a quote by someone we all know.
Now, change is never easy, but always possible.
This quote is from Barack Obama.
Please make this change a reality by voting yes for the resolution before you tonight.
The overwhelming majority of the city and I will thank you and support you.
Mayor Stewart, thank you for your leadership regarding the recall effort.
If the city of Tacoma Park is a nuclear free zone, then why are there some residents that have chosen the nuclear option of starting a recall campaign for certain members of the City Council who are only doing the job they were elected to do.
Thank you for listening.
Great, can I have Mike Taver, Barbara Arnold, sorry, and James Anderson.
My
wife's last words to me was please be good.
So I'll try.
I often feel since I knew Sammy Abbott pretty well.
I mean, I was in my 20s, but I knew him as a fellow activist.
I didn't know why I always felt like I was channeling somebody,
whatever I was in this place.
In this case, interestingly enough, I'm probably channeling my wife
because I've reached totally independently of what she said.
Some similar conclusions. So my, but my first question is why would you trust? Why would any of you trust? Or any of you in this room? Trust a developer? Why? I don't get it. Once that whole is dug, it's dug. There's no going back. They have only one interest making money. Why wouldn't you trust?
Just trust the views of the people in this room, who over the past years, 80% of whom
have said we don't want to go ahead.
Why wouldn't you agree with Jarrett and postponing this?
I don't get that.
I don't get it.
So the second, and here's my wife being channeled, the level of anger that I feel here and
amongst my neighbors, the divisiveness, big factor in this.
The level of anger, pettingness, negativity, and accusatory conduct between neighbors,
both in our district, has already accomplished the job of dividing neighbors and neighborhoods.
If the development goes forward, it will do so in a less unified,
the less progressive and more divided to come apart.
The hearings are not a numbers game where people clap and
applaud with those they agree with or those they don't.
If it goes forward, we're all the losers.
I already feel differently about neighbors and
the neighborhoods in my community.
If it goes forward, I feel those differences will only increase.
Please vote this proposal down.
Let's start again with a more modest, simple, and more funky plan.
That's to come apart.
Do I have a minute, by the way, left or what does that mean?
20 seconds.
30 seconds.
Go to Bethesda co-op.
Bethesda co-op used to employ 70 full time employees in downtown Bethesda.
go there on a Sunday. You'll see three employees and hardly any customers. I think that's one of the
fates we all fear will happen if you go forward.
Is Barbara Arno still here?
Yeah, and after her was James Anderson. Good
evening to all. I think this is my third time speaking
to this issue.
And before I get into some of the details of it, I would like to emphasize the
importance of the courage to change your mind and to listen to that little voice inside
of you at night and to think about how you will feel inside if you actually go forward
with this weather solution without allowing the time for the co-op to finish with the
And without at least seconding and considering the prospects of Mr. Smith's alternate resolution.
So you're going to be alone at night and that little voice or your conscious, you know?
It's going to be eating at you.
Even if you move on to bigger political office, it will have eaten at your soul.
And we all know about the portrait of Dorian Gray.
Well, maybe if you haven't read that though, okay, so anyway, people mentioned town hall
meetings and I had mentioned it to a friend of mine recently, I think it's a great idea
and it would allow for more back and forth discussion.
Here I'm able to give you my views and you smile and you nod your head, but then I never
really get, we never really have a chance, I never got a chance to hear how you feel
about my view and what works and what doesn't work and how it can move forward and how some
of my ideas or other people's ideas can be worked together.
So town hall meetings for the future.
So most of us choose to live here and what we like to about it is that it is a progressive
of community, or it has the reputation for being a progressive community.
From the onset, I didn't know too much about this process, I wasn't a part of it initially,
but I was really concerned that the developers who won the project did not honor the RFP stipulations,
the request for proposal stipulations.
There were a number of changes and things that were not honored, such as in particular
public space.
That has really not been addressed.
Whoops.
Okay.
My other really big concern is for such a developer to not have the lack of professional
rental renderings is a real concern because a sketch can hide a lot of woes and a professional
rendering should have the neighboring buildings, a co-optifier station, so that it's clear how
it works.
Thank you.
I would like to see professional renderings and I would like to see this place on the whole.
Thank you.
Yes. Good evening. I'm James Anderson. I'm a resident of Ward 1 for over 20 years.
We moved into Tacoma Park because of the values that it represents.
And when we brought up our children, that was something that we were very proud of.
Frankly, this process that we've all gone through, I think is something we all collectively should be very ashamed of.
What I'm asking the council to do is to just make a decision.
I am not convinced that delaying the process will, in any way, further bringing the community back together again.
I've been at social events, I've been walking on the streets, and
frankly, the behavior that has been exhibited by both sides have not set the example that I think we all want to set for our children and for our neighbors.
And it frankly is not what we represent.
We just need to move on with this, whatever the decision is.
Both parties need to live with it and support it.
Frankly, I just don't believe that delaying it is going to be in anyone's best interest.
Either we're for it, or we're against it, but a middle ground is just going to continue to tear this community apart.
Thank you.
I
have Joni Eisenberg, Ted Jacobson, and Jenny Evans-Mier.
Good evening. I'm Joni Eisenberg.
I've lived in Tacoma Park for 39 years.
And I hope to live tonight to be here when you vote for Jarrett Smith's proposal to vote for the alternate plan
and not move ahead with a plan that is so fraught
with problems, questions, and concerns.
I moved here because of the different values
that Tacoma Park represents.
We are still the only jurisdiction in Maryland
that has rent control.
That's the reason why I live here, one reason.
We are one.
We have a precious co-op, which I walk
to every day. And we have the history of a community that stood up against development
of an eight-lane highway, which was considered to be a feta-complete. No one imagined that
that eight-lane highway could be defeated. But Sammy Abbott and many others stood up and
said not in this lane are we going to allow eight and eight lane highway to come through
the town.
And there were people probably like you who turned that decision around and said no we're
going to stop that eight lane highway.
And what came up instead of that highway has been the Metro responsible development.
And, you know, Sammy Abbott, I've had this sign in my living room for 30 years, and I just realized it's more relevant today than ever.
Sammy Abbott said to come a park, preserve it, or lose it. And when we think about 99 years ago from today, which was 1919, women didn't have the right to vote.
We didn't have the threat of nuclear war yet, we didn't even have cars.
So how can we imagine what this developer would do with the United States 99 years from
now, which is 2117?
How can we trust a developer to preserve our precious Tacoma Park and make sure it's
the place that respects the environment, respects diversity of people, respects people's right to rent a home that's affordable.
We are demanding and respectively asking you to vote for Jarrett Smith's alternate proposal.
Good evening. I'm Ted Jacobson.
I've lived in Tacoma Park for 30 years, and I'm from Ward 2.
I don't think I've ever been more involved in any public or political issue than this homegrown one.
And so it's clear that there are passionate feelings on some sides.
We should not find ourselves in this conflict.
I think the main reason we do find ourselves in it is that the scope of the project has inflated beyond the original scale that was proposed by NDC.
And that the council did not resist that and allowed it to happen.
And so, we find ourselves in it, but I think it's a false conflict.
Because I think that it's possible to please mostly everyone,
this comment was made earlier and I hardly agree with it.
The proponents of the plan, the NDC plan, want to see the lot developed.
Most of the opponents do as well.
I think that both groups could be relatively pleased by the same development,
just not one of the scale in the current plan.
So I urge you to support the alternative resolution.
I beseech you to recognize that you can achieve harmony and progress that way.
And that in fact, it is your responsibility as democratically elected representatives.
to do so. I cannot imagine how you could view it as correct to move forward with a current plan given the huge amount of opposition in the community.
Good evening. My name is Jenny Evans. I'm a resident of Hilton Avenue in Ward 2. I'd like to read a statement that was sent as an email today to Mayor Stewart and our Councilwoman DiBalla.
Dear Cindy and Kate, we are writing to you as residents of ward two in connection with today's
vote on the Tacoma Junction Project. First, we want to thank you both for your leadership and
openness during this debate. Sometimes heated, though it may have been. We are very appreciative of
your thoughtful and deliberate consideration of the junction proposal and the important role
that you have played in making sure all sides could be heard. We want to take this opportunity to
underscore that we remain strong supporters of the project and we hope you both can vote yes
to move forward with the development.
We believe this project reflects to come apart values and our shared commitment to improving
our community and respecting our diverse population and needs.
We hope you will reject any resolution to postpone this vote.
After more than 20 years of debate about the use of the land, a comprehensive review of
the proposal on the table and an open and transparent process, we strongly believe now is the time
to take positive action and move forward.
As Ward 2 residents, many of whom have been here tonight, but many of whom are not able to be here because of either travel plans or childcare issues.
We hope you can count on your votes.
Many thanks, members, below sign of the Long Branch Sligo Creek neighborhood.
Casey Brown, Sam Brown, Kelly Gibson, Caleb Gibson, Jessica Hepin, Jessica Hepin, Cesar Bones, Kirk Kershaw, Dina Hickson, Michael Bevington, Ben Bevington.
Carrie Cesario, Jim Woodworth, Sarah Goldberg, Josh Goldberg, Beth McNair, Ian McNair,
Megan Holland McDonald, Tucker McDonald, Janet Maxx, Jeffrey Maxx, Margaret
McDonald, Claire Andrews, Arla Stevens, Nathan Goldstein, Leah Salza, David, sorry
I forgot a couple who wanted to be added but my husband Ed Muir and myself Jenny
Evans Muir. Thank you very much. Great,
now can I have Jeff?
Make something from Ethan Allen Avenue, sorry, and Kenneth Burton, Susan Hoffman.
I'm Jeff McQueen at Ethan Allen Avenue, and that's passed my bedtime, but I will try to speak in coherently. But I don't know much about politics. I'm a scientist. I didn't, and I don't have a resist shirt. And I've only been here six, five years, really. But I do have a dog.
And I had a page, someone to, you know, an arborist to go look at my dead tree so I can take it down.
So this is what a lot of what what what what what what to come apart represents.
To me is that we are very environmentally conservative.
And we care about the environment and how it affects not only the dogs or the trees or the asalus, but people as well.
and I'm a meteorological modeler and what we've seen here is traffic traffic is
the killer the silent killer this things that you do not see are the are the
junk that comes out of idling cars and trucks and buses so the more you
increase that pattern the worse you know your air becomes and to come apart is
is really a very progressive town,
but it's probably one of the dirtiest air pollution towns
in Maryland.
So it's kind of a contradiction or hypocrisy
of what we really represent and what we want to be.
Because that air, you know,
from our modeling study shows it's a neighborhood scale,
it just doesn't stay on Ethan Allen,
it doesn't say it actually kind of seeps down
and goes into the valleys like on Elm and on Sycamore
and Woodlands, and it kind of seeps down,
just kind of sick, it stuck down there.
And that air is plenty of studies are showing, you know, how it affects mainly the most sensitive,
the most vulnerable people who are the elderly and sadly the children like my little girl as well.
And it really does, you know, you're talking about carcinogens, so the key here is to, at all costs,
don't increase the traffic problem, but do you think that are going to probably
elite try to alleviate it a little bit more than what we have today? That's
really the direction that we've done. I think all most neighborhoods are going to
be looking at in the future at these new studies come out. You're going to start
seeing neighborhoods, we just saw a neighborhood scale, heat index maps, one of
the hottest, most awful places to live in Washington. You've got to say the same
anything about air quality, and to come apart could be this really green city that's
surrounded by a cloud of very brown and dirty and dangerous air.
So we need to, that's all I know about.
I don't know politics, I don't know much about it, but I do know whether.
And I do know air quality, and I think it's really critical that we consider the impacts of traffic,
not only the quality of life, but the quality of the air.
So thank you.
Hello my name is Kenneth Burton. I'm a member of the co-op and my husband and I are six
year residents of Ward one. For those in this highly charged room I'm going to say that I respect
your views and I hope you will respect my right to express mine. It's harder to come out and support
of this project than it was to come out as a proud gay man.
I support. Thank you. I support moving
Moving forward on the current site plan, this is the culmination of a four-year,
inclusive, probably plus, inclusive process.
I support adding a mix of new small and local businesses, and the jobs this will bring.
On what's currently a parking lot.
And to be honest, I have to drive past the coma junction to do most of my shopping in Langley Park.
And at home, I have one of those collapsible shopping carts in the basement that's getting dusty.
that I would love to use in this town, but without a mix of businesses that will reinforce each other,
I'm going to have to continue to drive past the parking lot that caps a landfill so I can buy what I need in other places.
I urge you to please move forward with this project and I urge the community to move forward with respect for one another regardless of what happens. Thank you.
Madam Mayor and members of the City Council. Susan Huffman, I'm in ward three. I'm going
to speak briefly. I urge you to vote for Council Member Smith's alternative resolution.
As time has gone on, we have come to realise the huge ramifications and possibly unintended
the protected consequences the proposed junction will have in terms of safety and economic justice.
Please take the same care you are taking with the purple line and
protect us and local businesses and vote for the alternative resolution.
Thank you.
Jordy Hannum, Dennis Hoffman, Joseph Klockner.
Hello,
Jordy Hannah, more three.
I support the to come a junction revitalization.
I've lived in Tacoma Park for 10 years,
and I've lived on Sherman Avenue for five years,
and I actually want to share the views
of the fellow Sherman Avenue.
Kathy Anderson, we had a coffee a few months back,
and she relayed that 20 years ago,
a similar project, a similar scope, was denied
for many of the same reasons discussed today.
And for 20 years, we've lived with what everyone agrees is an eyesore and a place that should have development.
And I don't want to see another 20 years go by.
At that time they said we just need a little more time that there's another project while there wasn't.
It is time for this.
The fact is there's not a consensus on a logical plan B, and I strongly support moving forward today.
I also just want to say one other thing about the process.
I work a lot on Capitol Hill, and over the past months and years, I've been
partened by this full sum and lengthy debate.
My God, if only Congress and a quarter of the time debating things like that
abominable tax bill or the upcoming Supreme Court, we'd be in much better place.
This process has been something worthy of respect.
This process put forward by the council and mayor.
And whatever the outcome of tonight, I would respect that because there's been strong
support on both sides and strong reason of debate.
So I was so dismayed to hear about the recall, the recall effort.
And again, regardless of what one thinks, the job of the council and the mayor is not to
come up with something that everyone agrees with.
Their job is to hold forward a debate where people can come and share their views over a
period of time and listen to a range of views, and they've done that.
And then their job is to articulate a rationale for their viewpoint.
And if you look at the mayor's blog post, if you look at what my council member, Kostya
wrote a few days ago, if you listen to what councilwoman Circe said on the Code Joe show,
These are well articulated reasons.
Again, even if you don't agree, I haven't always agreed with some of the views of Councilman
Covar, but there have been so well articulated and reasoned, and that's their job to put
forward, to listen, and then put forward reasons, and they've done that.
And I think their work should be applauded and not recalled, thank you.
Dennis
Huffman, Ward 3, thank you for this opportunity.
I urge you to support the alternative resolution because I'm concerned about traffic.
I'm concerned about the survival of the co-op.
I'm concerned about the survival of minority businesses, and
I'm concerned about the need to build equity in the city.
Of course, I'm also concerned that the project feels inevitable if it moves forward.
and it turns out so many of us were wrong, I, for one, won't mind a bit admitting
that I was wrong. That would be easy. We're all neighbors.
But what if you're wrong?
Thank you.
Joseph Klockner and Ward 2.
I've been here for 35 years or so and I hadn't spoken to this
body for many of those years until about the last two months.
And I think I've written a number of letters and communications to the Council and there.
And I think you know how I feel about it now.
You've probably never heard of me before, maybe Cindy.
But I feel very strongly that there's so many issues
about the proposal for NDC that are unresolved and potential for negative consequences, and
that just to go forward because we're tired of talking about it is not the right path.
And I think that we really need to support council members' dismiss alternative resolution.
The most important reason is to try to come to some kind of consensus amongst the group,
the neighbors and residents here.
I do believe that we have a similar vision of what needs to be there.
It's just how to get there.
And if we spend a little more time, we can realize our commonality rather than our differences.
Thank you.
All
right, next we have up Keith Berner, Maureen Tath-Meralis, you Tath-Meralis and Reginald Ruffin.
Thank you.
I've been a progressive activist for 50 years.
I'll hold up my credentials against anyone's.
In the county level since I've lived in the county for nearly 20,
I've been a consistent voter and advocate against the development industry and its dominance of our politics.
But I'm not against development, and even though I see the flaws of capitalism,
I'm not against a private entity earning a profit.
It depends how and where.
Now the history of the attempts to develop this impervious surface parking lot, go back
30 years.
If failed at that time, a good friend of ours was on the task force at that time because
no one could reach an agreement about how to move forward.
Those who are proposing tonight to stop this process are dreaming that we can all come
to the table and agree.
Those who say we could downsize the development somewhat or turn it into a playground are
lying to us about who's going to pay for it.
Do we want to raise property taxes further to fund a development at this junction, or would
But we rather on the flip side generate revenue from this development that can go into the
progressive programming that we favor in this city.
Now let's also address honestly the co-ops role.
The co-op tried to be the developer of this project.
It's hard enough to run a grocery store.
Their proposal was rejected rightfully, and since that time their posture has been to hold
a gun to their own head and say, one move and we shoot ourselves.
They have not engaged, forthrightly, fully and completely in this process.
Many of the opponents in this room missed the four years of open conversations in citizen input,
missed them completely.
But the co-op has purposely whipped them into an ideological frenzy in which an end goal,
which is stopping this searches for rationales from gentrification and harm to minorities to safety of children.
Frankly, this reminds me of how the Republican Party will find a rationale for a tax cut regardless of the economic conditions.
And frankly, those of you who are wearing resist shirts tonight, which would be appropriate in a protest against the Trump administration's policies, you offend me.
Because this is a two-story building on an impervious parking lot, this is not a moral issue of our time.
Thank you.
I'm Maureen Tafmeralis, Board 3.
Thank you again for being here to listen to our input.
I remain very concerned that the neighborhood development company has not complied with many of the stipulations that you, the council, has set forth in response to the community concerns that you have heard.
At last week, City Council asked several questions to which I did not receive any answers.
I have also submitted them in writing.
Before you vote on whether to move forward with the current Junction Development Plan, please
provide a public response to these questions and I will repeat them here.
Numerous citizens have requested and good practice would require an independent evaluation
Any of the compliance of the NDC plan with the council stipulations? Has the council asked for an independent evaluation? I will add, have you conducted any evaluation? If not, how is the council going to evaluate NDC's compliance with those county stipulations, such as public space? Is the council going to demand compliance before voting on the plan if you haven't? Why not?
Will the Council hold NDC accountable for compliance with Council stipulations?
Once its current not fully compliant plan has been approved, if so, how, if not, why not?
I would ask the Council to impose substantial fines on NDC for noncompliance with Council's guidelines.
Will the Council impose any penalties on NDC if it does not comply with Council stipulations?
I greatly appreciate that previously Councilmember Covar asked NDC to provide two scale drawings
of the proposed development and particularly you asked for a scale drawing showing trash
cans, trash trucks, delivery trucks on a trip typical trash pickup day so that the Council
in the public could see the impact on NDC's proposed public space across which trash will
have to cross.
has NDC provided these drawings to scale. If so, please provide them to the public before voting on the NDC plan.
If they haven't, why is the council not demanded that NDC respond to the request for two scale drawings and let the public see how trash delivery will be handled?
And how it will affect the sidewalk size public space.
I also ask, how can a mediation procedure be fair if the plan designed by one party is
approved before mediation is complete?
NDA has shown a lack of interest in community input showing up either after public comments
or not at all to these meetings.
They have been deceptive.
Their original design was smaller, included a driveway for the co-op deliveries and more
public space.
Those have disappeared with no consequences.
I ask again that if you said that you vote for Council members, alternative resolution, and if it does not pass, please vote against the city's resolution.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, my name is Hugh Taff Morales, I'm award three residents of 22 years into Co-opark of 32 years.
I appreciate the calls for civility, from everybody here, I appreciate the time of the Council, of the volunteers.
I hope we move forward in a respectful manner.
I would like to council to second council member Smith's alternative resolution and vote for it.
From the very start, my priority in the early phases when we saw competing architects show design programs has been to facilitate the co-op remaining in business.
I understand that might have not been easy working with them, but moving forward without mediation be concluded seems backwards.
words. The traffic plan is in complete racial equity issues are still in resolve.
Please vote for councilmember Smith's alternative plan. Thank you.
Yes, it is.
Well, thank you.
You're welcome.
Hi, it's Cole Park family.
Oh, boy. All right. I'm Reginald J. Ruffin, lived here for over 50 years.
By the way, the gentleman that left, we got to resist teacher for him.
Isn't it being mad about it?
Hi, it's Cole, more Park family. We got family business to deal with.
It's okay if we agree or disagree. You know, you're not going to agree with my
My patients is not over either of you or yours, it doesn't matter.
The matter is that we do it in a way that we can respect one another, okay?
All right, which means putting our community first, that's our culture.
It's a simple choice, community interest before corporate interest.
But we seem to be a family divided, divided by what?
We say, we say develop, but develop in the interest of the community, not the corporation.
Choose councilman Smith's balanced approach.
It's like about, it's like an olive branch being passed out.
The City Council says local businesses will be helped, but the co-op is a local business that's fighting for its existence, and in this mediation now, and you're going to vote without the benefit of that mediation.
That voting for corporate interest, that's voting for corporate interest, not community interest.
In fact, the people who say about revenue coming into the city, Ward 6 is a primary example.
They generate the largest business income that comes into the city, but the funds are not
redistributed, just reduced, reduced, reduced, new word with the lips.
Redistributed fairly as far as their district award is concerned.
That's a prime example.
Those are facts, by the way, not my opinion, those are the facts.
It's estimated that the far as the funds coming into the city is estimated about it will be
about another 20 to 30 years before any kind of significant profits are seen from this kind
of project.
20 to 30 years?
But even more importantly, we seem to have a family divided.
People who can afford this change, definitely or for it.
I can afford the change, but I don't want to leave my family behind.
As city leadership, why would you go forward with such a division
between family members like we're having now?
We've got almost 100 years of this side.
We've only spent 4% of the time or less than 4% of the time actually researching.
With that said, it's our culture to put the community first.
Which in fact, Mayor, we were just outside selling the burn table issue together.
So we were able to do that and work it out.
It means that we can work things out as a family.
It means that we can do things and work them together.
So like the resolution says, whereas the corporate has not meant certain constraints, whereas the community has not been with the,
it has not been with some of the regulatory process, whereas this has not been met with some of the stipulations that have been met.
We're saying we're as choose councilman Smith's alternative solution so that we can all just sort of move on to delays
Not going to kill anything by the way. We've delayed things before and gone forth with them in the city's history
So after half a century of living here. Let's just work together as a family and make it work together. Thank you
All right, next up we have Aaron O'Brien, Ronda Krants, and Carrie
Kitscher, Richard
Okay, then Walter Miles will be next. So Aaron, Ronda, and Walter
Hi
everyone. My name is Erin O'Brien. I live on Ethan Allen Avenue. I have a two-year-old
daughter. We live a few blocks away from the junction. I really like the project and I do
think it's good for our community. It's green. It's a lead certified building. It preserves
the forest. It remediates the old dump site. I think it's the right size. I think two stories
is reasonable and similar to the fire station. It's not going to compete with the co-op. It's not
going to have chain stores in it. The rent is comparable to other renovated spaces.
The tax space is going to help us fund progressive programs and the alternatives will cost
us money instead of make us money. Traffic is already really bad and we need to fix
the intersection either way. And it will give me a place to walk to and see more of my neighbors.
So please vote yes tonight. Don't delay again. And thank you for all your hard work.
know that a lot of people support you who just cannot come because we don't
have childcare or we work night shifts. We live in a very opinionated city as you
may have noticed and you can't make everybody happy but just know that the
loudest voices are not necessarily the most representative. In my
neighbors, Corrin Jeffers, George Cidell, Rachel Specter, Juan Oriana, Jonathan
Browning, Justin Marion, Morgan Snyder all support this as well and I also just
I just wanted to ask everybody to please respect your neighbors.
I am not going to be booing anybody tonight who doesn't agree with me or coughing very loudly.
I just, we all have to live together, long term together so if we can try and do that, I would appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
So I'm Rhonda Crants, Ward 3, and I moved it to Coma Park two days before I turned 40 so you can just go ahead and get how many years I did.
And thank you to the council and to the mayor, and thank you, mayor Stewart, for the blog post you sent.
I thought that was very informative and I appreciated it.
I would like to urge the council members to second the Jarrett's Miss proposal.
And my reasoning is really one that we've heard before.
There are several things that still need to be dealt with.
There really is no plan for the traffic.
These are things we know that are important.
Again, the co-op is going in mediation, and I agree that if we go ahead and accept
their proposal that you're basically saying what's the, you know, you're basically saying
there's no reason for mediation.
I worry with all the good intentions there are that if the proposal goes ahead resolution
goes ahead right now, that it will be very, very hard to deal with these issues.
I know I really believe that you have good intentions with that.
It's been hard enough to deal with these issues, but once it leaves, once it goes to the county,
once it goes to the other people that are going to have input, it's going to be harder.
So I think we should take the time to try to really make plans.
Think ahead, deal with those traffic issues, at least have a plan for moving forward and not just assume.
And I understand people just want to move it forward, but just to assume that these things are all going to be worked out without a plan beforehand is pretty, I think is not realistic.
And I'm a program manager, I've been through these things myself.
And you get to a point, you say we have to move forward, but it's the big picture, and I've seen it not work many times.
I do appreciate all the efforts, and I just urge you to vote for Jarrett Smith's proposal to try to address some of these issues before we'll make more of it.
Thank you.
Walter Miles, Lincoln Avenue, just two things.
I really think you should vote for Councilmember Smith's alternate resolution, and secondly,
I need to take her class.
Sabina Weistrick-Brown, Sabina's still here?
No.
Okay.
Andrew Strongin, did he leave?
Okay.
Andrew left.
Todd Solomon.
He left.
Okay. Kurt, Kurt, sure.
Kurt, sure.
Okay. Thank you.
Good evening. I'm Kurt Kurt, sure.
Resident almost quarter of a century.
Central Avenue Ward two.
First, I want to thank everybody on the council,
the mayor for the time and energy and commitment,
and for the public input.
I shop at the co-op and enjoy it,
and I'm also very excited for the development.
I feel if you delay, we could face another long, long period of no activity.
We're talking about a parking lot that is environmentally not a good thing at the moment.
And I'm concerned about the tax implications for our property taxes if we don't go forward to this.
Many of the same people I hear passionately opposing this development also really rail against the high taxes and to come apart.
And the solution to that is to expand the commercial tax base.
And this would do that.
And I strongly encourage you to please go ahead and vote for it.
I'm concerned if it doesn't go ahead.
It sits a very bad precedent for future development in Tacoma Park.
And other developers wanting to come here and try to do business.
Thank you very much.
Amarins, Europe, and then Robin Buck, Linda Provost.
Hi,
my name is Amarins, and I am part of Ward 1.
It is a sad day when we have realized our elective officials have failed us.
When they have failed to represent their constituents' interests and choose to listen to the voices of corporations instead.
Builders, architects, and site planners have all openly come out against the proposed development.
The development not only hurts the co-op, a prized sable of Tacoma Park, increases traffic congestion,
risking the safety of our children walking to school, but will also further the racial and
socioeconomic inequality in Tacoma Park.
And as a community that prides itself on being an inclusive progressive area, I ask the
council not to be complicit in this clear gentrification.
Thank you.
I decided on the shirt because it worked better with these pants.
So I'm Robin Buck, I live in Ward 3 and in all the times when I've come to these meetings,
I think I've only heard one person speak out saying that what he wanted was all park
all the time.
So I think that we're really in agreement and wanting something to happen there.
The concern that I have is that it happens responsibly.
And so I really want to thank Jared for putting forth a proposal to get some of these really critical questions answered, so that the project does move forward responsibly.
Last week, I missed the council meeting. It was with my mom. She's been, she's been really quite ill in and out of the hospital. My sister and I have talked about that and about how, in a lot of ways she's reaping the harvest of not taking care of herself in some different ways. And, you know, the high blood pressure, the problems with the kidney, the congested part failure, those weren't things that were predestined. And I'm not saying that to blame my mom.
I love my mom to pieces.
We went out there for 10 days and dropped everything
to just be with her and read to her and play games
and brought boxes and boxes of old pictures.
And it was great to see pictures of my mom
when she was young and fit.
I'm an eldest of five.
And when we don't look forward down the road
for how the decisions we make today will impact our health as a community.
There will be consequences whether we like it or not. It's like that's the way the world goes.
And one thing that I wanted to mention too,
a lovely woman from Coalition for Smarter Grounds spoke earlier this evening
And when I was involved with the public land use issue in DC for many years, they weighed
in on that too.
And I thought, hmm, never heard of these people before, because I was kind of new at
this business then.
And so I wanted to know also who funds them, how do they survive?
I contacted them and they said, well, our donors don't want to be revealed.
I thought, well, that's interesting.
Well, these days, their donors, they are revealed.
you can look them up. They're all developers. It's a developer-funded organization, so I would
just really caution you. In a coalition for smarter growth, sounds great, but I just, you know,
follow the money mix. This is kind of a good role with them, so I'm just really, really hoping everybody
votes for Bruce Jürgens.
Linda Provost? No, she's not here anymore. All right,
Okay, Satchel, and I can't quite make the last name.
No, he left, okay.
Janae Weeda, I don't think she left.
I haven't seen her.
All right, then we'll move on to.
Excuse me?
You're on the last sheet, Bill.
I have Lars Olsen next.
And then someone from Frederick, Maryland, I can't.
Is
she, is that first?
Okay, yeah, you're next then.
Okay,
you're up.
I'm Lars Olsen, Ward three.
Hancock Avenue, don't let my youthful appearance fool you.
I'm not an import from Bethesda.
I've been here almost 20 years and my wife and I have owned our house that whole time.
And we both support the resolution of developing the junction and urge the city to move quickly into implementation.
Thank you to the council, the developer for their past and continued patients.
Hi, I'm Sylvie Mortensen and I want to thank the council for listening all the voices tonight.
I'm a decade-long co-op shopper, which originally kind of attracted me when I lived closer into Tacoma.
was the co-op and a good gym and a drum circle.
You can find those all on Tacoma.
I feel like I'm going to echo a lot of voices that I've heard tonight.
I have sort of watched this process and been following everything with the co-op and
witnessing what I don't feel like to this point has been a super collaborative process.
I feel like the mediation has been the most profound step towards having a collaborative process.
I think it's a clear signal more as an observer now with this much outpouring of citizen participation that it's a signaled at pause
and think about the next step and moving more carefully.
I think in the haste and the legitimate reason to want to resolve one problem of this parking lot you can also come into other problems that you didn't expect.
As the where I last understood it the issues with the lay by and as to whether you know the trucks can make it into the co-op those are all legitimate things that could shut the co-op down potentially over time if the trucks decide we can't make these stops.
You know, it's just, it's not possible anymore, that's a concern, the traffic is a concern.
So I just want to, you know, echo that point that I think you have the opportunity to pause and make the best choice.
You don't really have the opportunity to fix it once you've made the wrong choice.
And I would just urge you to vote for the alternative plan, thank you.
I have Catherine Tunis, Linda Colca, and Alex Perkins.
Hi, I'm Catherine Tunis, how do you do?
I want to thank everybody who's worked on this.
I know there's been a lot of work going through all of this.
And I also want to say that I don't see this as co-op versus NDC or
development versus non-development or remind everyone whether they know it or not.
Is that this process started when the co-op purchased the city to develop a lot
themselves so that they could expand onto the lot.
So I think that's important to keep in mind, I'm going to go through the package here pretty quickly with some comments on the background piece.
The question about paragraph five on income tax, they're talking about a numbers of employees.
I think that should be normalized into FTE because there's a lot of part time employees that work in these stores.
The square footage, price per square footage is a little bit, the assumptions I think are quite off because the junction is in between all-town and New Hampshire Avenue and they're quoting all-town rates as like $45 to $50 a square foot.
Well, what I was able to find on the web the other day for New Hampshire Avenue is $2.17, $2.17 per square foot for an office and $1.67 per square foot for retail.
I think it's speculation about whether or not our property assessments are going to continue
to go up or not.
It's in a larger economic sphere of this nation, so we can't really say that for sure.
One of the things that bothered me about the proposal is that it does not talk about the
loading dock.
That was a key issue for the co-op, and it was one of the reasons why I supported NDC going
forward in the beginning because they assured me that there was going to be a loading dock right
where it is now with 18 wheelers able to turn around and that's not happening and I see that
as a major problem. I'm going to go very quickly through my other comments here. First of all,
the date, the date is incorrect. It should not be today. It should be at least two months today
from today so that we can see the results of the mediation. And if any changes need to be made,
I think it's really inappropriate to be picking winners and losers now you need to put that forward. We have a typo on line 32.
I'm glad to see the lead things in there in terms of energy. So there's a lot of good things in here too. The Lonnie Doc was promised that's around line 200.
the labor is a problem. I'm speeding through here. The trash is going to be taking out over the sidewalk, not in the back of the building, not picked up in the back of the building, they're taking trash to curb side. That is going to be a big issue.
The tree protection plan line 361, I would like to see the city make that public so that the public, there are a few people who really know about these things and how they should be done.
I'd like to comment on that. How are we going to guarantee the continuity of operations?
Thank you, Ms. Tunis, your time's up.
And I'm going to stop there, but I'll send you an email if that's okay.
Hi, my name is Linda Kolko, resident of Tacoma Park on Sherman Avenue Ward 3 for 32 years.
I have written to you, this is your mayor and city council. I'm sorry, I should have started off like that.
Anyway, I have written to you several times in spoken at City Council meetings to express my support for the redevelopment of the Tacoma Park Junction.
I truly appreciate your dedication and work on the junction redevelopment.
I've reviewed the information on the website and followed the debate carefully.
This point, I'm just going to make a few more comments.
I hope that as I said, I joined, I, like I said, I've been a resident for 32 years.
I joined the co-op when it moved to the junction about 20 years ago, and I shop there often.
I look forward to the redevelopment.
I am confident that we will find a way to ensure that the co-op remains viable, while allowing
other small businesses to thrive in a new reconfiguration of the space.
So therefore, I support the current site plan proposal and urge you to vote yes on approving
the draft site plan resolution this month.
As several people have said tonight, we have tried for many years to turn Tacoma Junction into a viable commercial and community space.
Let's move forward and work with NDC on its draft site plan to redevelop and to redevelop Tacoma Junction.
The City of Tacoma Park cannot continue to expend any more valuable energy and resources as we need to have time to focus on many other critical issues affecting our community.
Thanks again for all the time and effort you have expended on the Tacoma Junction redevelopment.
I wish you the best and look forward to the City of Tacoma Park moving forward on the junction redevelopment.
We need to move forward now on making the City's junction more robust and vibrant.
Thank you.
Is Alex Perkins still here?
Oh, there are.
And then Seth Hazard, Hazard, and Stuart.
Hi, Alex Perkins, 311 Boyd and a co-op member.
I should never know, I'm mad, I'm angry and I'm frustrated by this country's administration
policy, by the Trump administration's economic policy, and by its foreign policy.
But what I'm not angry about, what I'm not mad about, what I'm not frustrated about, is
the process of this council, this mayor, and this city of undertaking over the past four
years.
As someone said earlier, if our government worked like this, we'd be far better off.
I think it's time new forward, it's time to vote, and it's time to support the development.
Thank you very much.
Hi, Seth Hasset from Sherman Avenue, Ward 3.
And it's been a long night, I'm torn between wanting to express an opinion and not wanting this to go one minute longer.
But to put my wife and I, we strongly support moving forward with the development.
We've watched this process closely and spoken at previous council meetings.
But I do agree with one thing I heard earlier, which was, I don't think we're paying
you folks enough for the hard work that you do and for the process that you put forward.
I also do want to say, I mean, I hope that as we move forward that I'm a member of the
co-op, we chop there, we like shopping there.
And I hope that we can continue to feel included and welcome.
And it is a community resource and I don't think these two things are incompatible.
I think it's possible to move forward to have a strong and vibrant co-op that serves our community.
And to bring more cohesion to that area.
I've been going past there for 10 plus years and
And just waiting for this to move forward, I think it's best for the environment.
I do think it's going to help ultimately make this a more livable and vibrant community.
And so thank you, and I hope we can move forward.
Stuart, yeah, and then I'm Bill Simmons, Jamie and Nuggo.
Sorry, I'm from this grounds.
Okay.
Hi everyone. Thank you to the Council and to the Mayor for allowing me to speak and for anyone else to speak and taking such a long time to work through this. I was, as some know, got very involved four years ago, but then got busy with family and with travel overseas and wasn't able to spend as much time on it is what I would like to, so it's a personal matter to try to stay involved in these things, but it's also professional, and I think we've heard
a lot of the fears and the hopes, the dreams, some statistics, some that seem like less
than well-researched information about what may happen.
And so I'm not going to go back and forth on any of those, but I think I just want to
sort of tell a story.
I live in Ward 1 now, Peter and I have not agreed completely on things, and we've gone
And that's it.
I can forward on this. And I leave previously in ward three in two separate houses on Montgomery, which for the people who live in Montgomery. It's a very small one block street, and so we all know each other. So, and as others have said, we're all neighbors, we're a family. We have to continue to be neighbors and family. In 2011, it moved here. So relatively new to Tacoma Park. I chose to work on the Obama camp.
I chose to then follow two DC to work in the administration, but I also chose Tacoma Park and I had one cousin who's lived in DC, this entire time that he's been here, and he's my closest cousin from home, and he said dude, as he would say, you are going to live in Tacoma Park.
And I said, what do you mean?
You said you are going to live in Tacoma Park.
That is where you're going to live.
That's where you belong.
And so tonight I am here because I really did choose,
and I looked at Tacoma Park not just because he said so and predicted it,
but for all the reasons that so many of you brought up,
it's also why I believe in what the council has done.
I've returned to take an interest in this in the last six months
because I've been home more, and I believe in the process.
And, Pierre and I've talked a lot about that process.
He and I also worked at HUD together.
And so not a lot of process there sometimes.
So I just want to say that I'm very much for moving forward.
And that we move on this and we move forward.
And we continue with what has happened.
And we continue with the process.
Because that's what I believe in.
And I want to thank everybody for all their input.
Thank you.
Sorry, you guys are here so late.
I was not planning on speaking tonight.
I hate speaking in public probably more than anything else.
But I've been listening to everybody talk,
and I first want to say I came to this really late.
I'm kind of ashamed at how late I came to this.
And when I did come to it, I think at first I thought,
it's just two warring factions in Tacoma Park.
They'll figure it out.
I'll live with whatever it is because it's just
between two progressive differences.
And I was really saddened and appalled when I learned
what was really being proposed,
the lack of imagination,
and the complete lack of community gathering space
as the plans changed.
I was really confused as to why the council
wasn't holding NDC accountable.
And I share a lot of concerns that people have brought it
tonight and I don't feel we need to go
for them, they've been expressed very eloquently.
But I just wanted to say like when I hear people
who support this, I want to ask them the question, like when you think about community and what
it means to be community and where you want to spend your time in a community, especially
if you have children in what we're teaching them about community, do you want them to
know that community gathering spaces are centered around retail?
Or do you want them to know that there are green spaces, that there are open spaces where
where we can come together as community
and we can exist without having to purchase something.
When I think of my children when the green space
in Silver Spring that somebody brought up earlier,
everybody was so sad when that space disappeared
and the original plans for this development
included space that could have become that space,
again, not to that degree, not that size,
but I just feel like we're capable of so much more,
or something so much better than a large building
that you can't be in unless you're gonna buy something.
And I think that is Tacoma Park.
I've lived here my entire life.
And this goes against everything that I've thought
and felt Tacoma Park to stand for and to represent.
And sorry, I really didn't have anything prepared
and I'm not getting, I've lost track of where I was.
But I just, I feel that not, I do have a lot of concerns around the Relatial Equity aspect of this.
And I really feel like people, one thing that people keep saying is that this is going to bring a lot of job opportunities,
but it's not going to bring a lot of small business opportunities to people.
People who come from small socioeconomic backgrounds are not going to be able to afford these rents.
So they can be employed, but they can't be business owners in this space.
And that, to me, is also a huge concern.
Anyway, I hope that you guys support Jarrett tonight, and I hope that we can find a way to make more community and to come apart.
Keith Cosloff and Bruce Williams.
Hi, Keith Cosloff, word three.
I want to start by thanking you for all your patience with my many and continuing suggestions on this project.
I really thought carefully about the resolution that was
drafted by some of my neighbors and put forward by council members Smith and in particular I
asked could a further indefinite delay
meeting the four conditions in that resolution
really bring us all together
reluctantly
I concluded that the likelihood of that is low
It's not a perfect project and the process hasn't been perfect either, but on balance, I urge the council to move forward while maintaining both strong due diligence and holding NDC accountable at every step of the way.
Thank you.
Good
evening, members of the council.
My name is Bruce Williams.
Lincoln Avenue Ward 3.
First, I want to thank all of you for all of the effort
that you've put in on this process,
going through this current four-year process.
And I want to thank the staff as well,
the city manager, the deputy city manager,
and Sarah Danes and Ross Griggs being anybody else
who's worked on this because I know it's taken
and a lot of your time to do this.
And I know that you've put in a lot of effort
to try and get this right.
I just wanna give a perspective that I have
that I think is from 30,000 feet
and looking at the long-term as people talk about this
four-year process, in my mind it's a 30-year process.
It started back when I first moved to the city
30, 38 years ago, and it started with the co-ops original intent to try and move and move to what is now the city lot before they move to what was then the Turner Building.
It involved a lot of processes that the city worked on, that residents worked on, there were surets, people talk about you, would be nice surets, we had surets.
We had various committees, we had a, what we called with tongue firmly in cheek the last
to come a junction committee, obviously was not the case.
There have been continuing efforts through today, and this current effort, this for your
effort will continue past today, whatever you vote on, and I urge you to move forward and
vote for your resolution and not to stop this process,
not to put a hold on this process,
not to wait for mediation.
All of these things will continue.
I have had long experience with sitting where you are
and knowing that whatever happens tonight,
there's a whole lot more work to do.
This process will continue.
There's everything going forward with the county,
with the developer, with the co-op,
with mediation, all of these things will be dealt with, changes will happen, things will get better, and I urge you to move forward and vote yes.
I don't have any other sign, people who signed up, is there anyone else who would like to speak this evening?
Okay, then I didn't have any other sign up, so if you haven't signed up but would like to speak, just line up at the podium and you can speak.
I called you name, you must have left the room bill, I did call your name before.
Sorry.
I didn't hear you, but I didn't leave the room.
All right.
Well, hello, Mayor, Council, City of Authorities, once again.
As you probably remember for last week, I am strongly against this project in its current
form.
And I do kind of feel like I can understand the feelings and even the arguments or thinking
of both sides.
And what I'm about to say, I don't want to seem to come across as a personal attack to anybody.
But I was astounded earlier to hear CVS and vote as an example of why we should not be
you've concerned about this project, you know people may occasionally go to CVS and maybe there are some amongst us who really like CVS, I'm not one of them, I've gone to rhizome many, many more times and I've gone to that CVS down there and I think it does matter what we put into space and I think it does matter if the developer caused the shots or whether
the city caused the shots.
To those who decry further delay or
against that, I would like to
remind people that there was a smaller development approved a year or a year and a half ago that
people had bought in on and had started meeting with the developer and his representatives to
go over refining the plans, I know somehow that got delayed so that we haven't even bigger
project of less clear nature with much more threatening to the traffic and everything else.
So I urge you to go forward with Jared Smith's alternative proposal and build on the project
from there. Thank you.
Hi Zachary Wathen, Ward 2. I just want to thank all the council members for all your amazing
support and work that you do. I'm from Ward 2 as I said and I think what we need most
at the junction is parking and I feel like we already have parking but obviously you know
we have to do something there.
And so I think that the office plan,
I don't think it'll really work for our kind of,
to come apart because that doesn't really fit with our values
of preserving what we need for to come apart,
which is small businesses and collaboration with people all over the city
to come up with different alternatives, like the green carpet or something like that.
And I just think that it's really important that we try to bring a coalition delay, delay,
and I hope you, if you don't delay, I hope you at least vote for Garrett's idea.
Thank you very much.
Well, good evening.
I'm Catherine Desmond again from 238 Park Avenue in Ward 1.
And I'm just going to read a little bit from a letter that I wrote earlier this morning to Mr. Seamons
and I sent a copy to my councilman on Ward 1.
And I just want to share some of that.
The hour grows late, actually this wasn't in the letter.
The hour grows late, so many words, and will mine make a difference.
So I'm going to add 77 more words to my statement just to be sure.
So three parting thoughts, the junction, it's first of all just that.
It's two roads that cross and carry people on their way to the next part of their journey.
It holds the relics of three gas stations and three auto shops,
testament to the great golden age of the automobile.
And no matter what happens on the parking lot, the junction will forever be a way east or
west, north or south, for people who need to go somewhere else.
Second, the junction is the village of a residential neighborhood.
but okay, sustenance character of the area,
even as much of the traffic on the streets
is simply passing through.
But the most important thing to me,
I'm sorry, I should say there's so many important things
and maybe this isn't the most important thing to me,
but it's very important,
the junction is a protected historic district.
A designation that is not intended
just to protect bricks and mortar of yesterday
no matter how charming they are,
but to give value and meaning to our lives today
and going forward. And it's a value that's easy to overlook. It's there to give
those who walk on its sidewalks and frequent its buildings a space to capture time, the
most valuable commodity that we as humans have. The historic district is a bridge between
past and present, and a buffer zone between the present and the future.
Whatever that brings. Now, everything, unfortunately, grows old, including people. We become historic at some point. And a shopping center, or an office building put up in 2019, will bear the characteristic look of its era, and in some point in the future will be the harvest gold refrigerator amidst whatever follows it. So how do we reconcile these concerns? Well, I'm going to quote James Joyce. And if you want the full quote, I'll be in the back.
whatever is added to it, and this part is not the quote, whatever is added to an existing
historic district should be very, very respectful of the Sintillant, Circumambient, Cecil
Air into which it intrudes.
All right, NDCs converted a lot, including a historic building
in Tacoma Park, but the proposal they brought you is jarringly disruptive. So please ask yourself
Is this simply urban infill?
Or is it part of the whole cloth of the junction neighborhood that has meaning and value that will stand the test of time?
Thank you.
Central corn fell ward five, flower avenue, flower house, 12, 13.
It's arguably 17, 18, F four.
These are all bus lines that travel through to come a junction that provide accessible needs, both to the elderly, people who are ADA compliant.
using modern 21st century technology, these buses are even lower for the elderly, and thus,
people who are arguing for cars need for parking and to come a junction, I'm finding their
argument to be rather hollow. Additionally, we're looking at public space, the gazebo,
cross-away that seems underutilized in the city 99% of the time. I would urge the council to reject
councilmember Smith's motion and go forward as voting on moving forward on the junction now. Thank you.
Hello,
I'm Dan Walker from I live on Sherman Avenue Ward 3 and definitely appreciate everyone's time and patience here and giving me the chance to speak.
I have three young kids who I intend to raise here. We love Tacoma Park, we love walking around.
There is a lot of green space, a lot of community space if you've got three young kids and you don't drive very much.
much, you get to understand there are quite a few parks and places to meet and play and get
together with your neighbors.
We are looking forward, though, to this junction development.
I think the choice now is going forward with what we have or nothing, and I don't support
keeping a parking lot there.
I think it would be great to have some new development in the area, and I think the plan,
as it is, looks like there's a lot of good possibilities.
So, thank you.
Hi, I'm Gina Gaspon, 40-year resident of Ward 3.
I was certainly not planning to speak tonight.
I will make it very brief.
I've spoken to many of the council members and made my feelings and my thoughts known.
I just, I want to say thank you, everyone, for the process, which I heartily appreciate.
I happen to be a supporter of Council Member Smith's proposal, and I would just like to say I hope that at least one of you has the courage to second the proposal so that it can be talked about and voted on. Thank you.
Hi, I'm Sora. I live on Manor Circle, just moved there two months ago, so I have an excuse
for not getting involved earlier. I also can't say I've been here for 20 years. I'd like
to say that someday as a disabled person who can't work full time, that's really going
to be dependent on affordable housing and access to that. So that's really important to me.
I do have a job right now, I work as a tutor, and one thing I'm always thinking about as
a tutor is, where can I take the kids I work with?
So I rely on CVS sometimes.
I had to go there like two weeks ago
to get some food coloring for a project.
Sometimes we have to hang out in the Duncan Donuts
or the Starbucks if their parents are late picking them up
and I need somewhere where I know it's safe
and I know what to expect where we can just relax.
But the places I've had the most fun going with them this summer
and the places I think they've gotten the most out of
our arts spaces, our community spaces, where they have a chance to really interact with
other adults and see, okay, what do I want to be when I grow up?
In ways that are not, okay, this person is selling something to me.
So even as I think a lot about like things like property taxes, I do think it's important
to invest in those non-retail options for me as a tutor, for parents, for kids to grow
up imagining what are they going to be.
Any other public comments this evening?
Anyone?
All right.
Well, we will close off public comments.
And I did you want to?
You were like, did you like a break?
I think we will take a break until 11.30.
And then we'll come back and finish up our agenda.
Thank you.
voting session. The first item is the alternative resolution regarding the Tacoma Junction Site Plan. I'll first turn it over to Council Member Smith.
First before I make a motion to bring this to the floor for my colleagues to consider. I wanted to thank all the residents that worked on this resolution. I think it is really important and it speaks to the sentiment that is in our community.
Okay, I am not hopeful that this resolution will be considered by my colleagues.
There's been little to no feedback, given whether it's the amendment that was offered by a resident or even considering reworking some of the whereas clauses or some of the resolve clauses.
So I hope my colleagues will take a few minutes and maybe speak to the resolution, even if they aren't going to vote for it, but I think it is really important that our community is heard, and this is an opportunity for that to happen.
So I would like to make a motion for the alternative resolution to be heard by the body.
Thank you, would anyone like to second?
Councilmember Cove, our second?
So I seconded that because I think it's important to have these discussions.
I just want to be cleared everybody that I'm not voting in favor and I'm voting against
it.
I'll talk about that why when we get there.
Just go ahead.
I do not.
You guys ready?
Well, there were four conditions or criteria in the resolution.
And I think everybody heard about that quite a bit this evening.
And thinking about it and looking it over, it just struck me that most of those would really create a situation in which we'd have a very lengthy delay.
And not just that a delay per se is bad, but an open-ended delay.
And I also think that on several of them, it isn't the right time to
necessarily have all the things that are being asked for, fully realized.
And what I mean by that is, with respect to the traffic during, you know, in previous jobs,
I had involvement of various kinds legislatively and politically on a number of traffic and
transportation projects of one kind or another.
and even in our own case here with the Flower Avenue Green Street, the financing and a lot of
the other aspects of that come together over a period of time. And I don't think personally
that it works to say we have to have every single one of those things figured out before we go
forward. And I think that the design alone can take over a year. And I think with respect to
to racial equity, you know, we're working on a number of items here in the city and
those who had a chance to read the statement I sent around, I listed a number of them.
I think when we approved that policy last year, we knew that it was something that we
were going to have to spend a lot of time working on.
And then I agree that the initial listing in the materials wasn't where it should have
been.
But I think we've rededicated ourselves to that.
And I think it's going to be an ongoing iterative kind of process.
I hope in the fall we're going to be, there's been some discussion of it.
I've supported.
I hope we can get there.
There we're going to be having a committee of residents appointed to help us really work
work on those a set of issues around regulatory equity and actually move from it being something
that we want to work on to really be a useful tool for us to be able to do it.
But I don't think that the way that language is structured in the current version of the
resolution that Jared could forward is something that can be just done in a specified amount
of time.
That's going to be something we're working on all the time.
And I do think, you know, we're working on the hatchery of an erect center.
We're expanding the library.
We're getting more translations going on.
We have increased the extent to which our grant program is targeted to residents of color
and lower income people.
We're working on a stronger community policing process.
And if you want to look in my blog, there's a lot more references of that type.
And I think on the third point, which is having a series of town halls and so on,
I just don't see that as being transformative to what we're doing here.
I think from my view, it'll be better to vote on what we have now.
I'm planning to offer when we get to that, another amendment on public space,
and I understand it may lose, and I'll most likely end up voting against the resolution as a result.
But I just don't think that the town hall process out line did it would work.
And then in terms of the co-op and the mediation with NDC, we do have language in the resolution which I think has been strengthened.
I know the co-op at least commented on that through their lawyers.
And I think that language is structured so as to regardless of how the mediation goes forward, what happens with it.
It could fail, it could succeed.
We have the ability in that, through that language to ensure that any necessary changes are passed along to the county in that process.
I don't think we'll have been too far along then for that to not be able to be to function.
And so I know it took a long time running through each of those, but to me, I just don't think that at this point,
the resolution is the way for us to go.
Thanks.
Council Member Smith?
Yes.
And let me just touch on a couple of the resolve clauses that are, I think, really important.
I think the mediation, that's number one, we're not asking for a long period of time.
We're looking at September for this, for the mediation between the co-op and
the NDC to be concluded, I think that's a reasonable request and I think that would be helpful during the co-ops negotiations with NDC.
And I will offer that as an amendment when, you know, if these alternative resolution fails and I'll see if what my colleagues say about it that.
One thing that I think is extremely important is the racial equity.
You know, when this policy was initially thought about a year ago and it eventually passed,
I always thought that we would iterate, that it would get stronger, that it would be more robust, right?
And this issue, the junction development, was the catalyst.
I mean, it could have been another project in the city.
But I do not think that we should wait on this.
There should be an urgency of now regarding racial equity.
It is the biggest issue for our country.
And if we do not lead on this, like we lead on the environment and many other issues that rise to a national level, 16-year-olds voting, something I supported when that came forward by my colleague to mail, if we do not lead on this, there will be repercussions.
We call ourselves a progressive city.
This is an opportunity to show how progressive we truly are.
And then finally on the town halls, when WPFW hosted a town hall last week,
I thought it was an excellent opportunity to talk about some of these issues about this project.
I learned some stuff from some very, very smart people that do this every day.
So I think that incorporating that into this process would be the right way to go.
Thank you.
Thank you,
Mayor.
First of all, I'd like to just start out and a lot of people were here tonight.
I heard a number of them strutting their stuff about how long they've been here.
I've been in the city for 35 years and lived with my wife who won't let me tell you how long she's been here because she was born here.
I'm just going to say that black and white TVs were not common in the household when she was born, and I'm just saying.
And anyways, I have been concerned that so many people through this whole process have
talked about, you know, we're not hearing them, but it seems so confusing me because as I
think most people could see in this project is progressed, a lot of issues have been brought
up and a lot of those issues have been addressed. And there's decisions have been made that
some of us didn't agree with, but their decisions they got made along the way in response
quite often, in response to community feedback. And the, you know, the comments about the
fire chief I think is one example that we did check into those concerns and we talked
with the county fire department too and found that they did not have the concerns, they
are responsible for the fire station that the volunteer chief had an opinion that varied
from what the county was telling us.
Anyways, I think the biggest thing I've heard from people is,
the real gut concern here is the co-op.
So many people are worried that the co-op cannot survive this development.
And yet, you know, this council has repeatedly said how important it is for the co-op, and we have tried to...
To work with the co-op and as all along the way to make sure that the co-op does integrate into this plan in a successful way. There are things that have changed in the plan. And I'm glad that we're still working on mediation through mediation to try to find and overcome the other issues that the co-op have.
and as you know that's mostly with the deliveries.
Anyways, I did want to just say that I am not supportive of the resolution put in front
of us by Councilmember Smith, but I certainly appreciate his bringing that forward and I know
that the community worked on that resolution and I appreciate you putting that forward and
also Council Member Cobra, I thank you for seconded so that the Council does get the
chance to talk about it.
I guess that's all and you know we talk a little bit about the
other resolution and amended if this one does not pass but I guess it's no sense to talk
about that now of cases does pass.
All right.
Councilwoman DiBalla?
Yeah.
Thanks.
So I also appreciate your bringing it up on behalf of people.
And I understand that there's a lot of you out there
that have got some pretty deep set and valid concerns.
I've been talking to a lot of you.
I've been reading the emails, listening to the comments,
I'm not convinced that delaying, I'm not convinced that taking a pause is going to be the best way to address these issues.
I agree there are serious issues, starting with perhaps the most compelling mediation with the co-op.
I am thrilled that it's rolling and progressing however slowly in that both all parties are committed
to it.
And I hope to now that I'm back to be one of the council members joining in.
I had to talk with one of the board members last night about the reasons why the co-op board
field, it would be in their interest to have, to not have a vote on the resolution to
have a pause.
And it was as if there were mirror images.
It was precisely in order to get both parties to focus.
That would be the reason that I would want to move forward with a resolution and not take
a pause.
I will try it again, thank you for the feedback.
I care very deeply about the co-op, 30-year member, three-digit number, frequent shopper, lover of chocolate omens, but seriously, it's very important to be as well as it is to allow you in the room, but I don't see that a delay
a pause in the process will help the co-op to get a better deal if you will.
I feel that a lot of the answers that we're looking for, some of the questions that we have are better served.
If we move this proposal forward to the county level and start having those more specific discussions with the county.
and the state agencies.
So if you're still looking a little puzzled,
I can talk with you about it again tomorrow.
But I have given this a great deal of thought,
and I have talked extensively with people,
and that is where I'm coming out on that.
On the other issues, again, I think that moving forward
is, and not taking a pause, is the way to get the answers
and to address the issues on traffic.
We all have a lot of questions about traffic.
If we don't go up before SHA, we're never going to get the answers.
If we want to move forward on equity, let's start talking about who's going to be tenants
and whether we can have a clause on formula businesses or a clause on its favoring minority businesses.
Let's start talking about who's going to rent and what kind of tenants we want to see there.
There's nothing to prohibit some of the creative ideas that have been put forth.
This is a site plan for a structure, in my view.
And what we fill it with is the community piece that we need to work on together.
I don't think we need a pause to do that.
And I, in fact, I think a pause will just drag out the divisiveness.
So
as much as I believe these are issues that need to be worked on,
I don't think this is the way to work on them in summary.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mayor.
So I want to thank Councilmember Smith.
But more so, I want to thank the residents that pinned to paper on this.
Councilmember Smith has made it clear that it was not necessarily his resolution, but those
of some of the residents that have expressed concerns.
So part of my concern with some of the elements that are here are that they are stating, we're
stating the problems, we're stating waiting, we're not necessarily focused on the potential
solution or offering solutions.
So to kind of pick up where Councilmember DeBolla left off, some of the answers that we're seeking,
I mean, we could try to analyze as much data as we want on traffic.
We could come up with as many assumptions as we want.
At the end of the day, state highway administration has the final say on what that configuration
will look like.
And so we've had two separate traffic studies that have been done to kind of provide that
foundation for external review or for the county developmental review.
And I think now it's time to kind of say, hey, if we really want this intersection fixed,
we have our own traffic study, we have NDC's traffic study, we have a lot of traffic
studies, we have a previous SHH traffic study, we can put all of that stuff forward to say,
hey, now is the time for us to really take a constructive path forward with addressing
the problems that we know exist in that intersection right today.
In terms of mediation, I think the purpose of what we're talking through today is kind
of setting some of the base for the reasonableness of some of the accommodations.
There are things that are clearly already included in the resolution, because sessions that
have been made, including the second elevator to better accommodate the patrons of the co-op
and providing access to the underground parking underneath, increasing the number of parking
spaces that will be made available in the underground parking lot.
The lay by, love it or hate it, it was devised for the purpose of trying to meet the needs
of the 18 wheelers, which typically would be problematic to move on and off site any other
way.
Again, in the goal of meeting some of the needs of the co-op, I think what's going to be
really helpful in not pausing until mediation is over, but to actually vote now means
so we kind of set that foundation, we're saying, look, we know that we want that second
elevator, we know that we want you to make sure that parking is included, we know we want
at a minimum that lay by, maybe something better, but we want that.
We know we want a design that makes the current loading dock accessible, which it does, may
not be accessible for an 18-wheeler, but it is accessible.
So it kind of sets that foundation, which I think will actually help structure more
constructive discussions on both sides in the remaining time that we have with mediation.
Again, it sets the foundation.
It does not set the ceiling.
The goal of mediation is to reach that consensus to aim higher.
Lastly, I think that the social economic equity analysis that Councilmember Smith speaks
very passionately about, and I'm passionate about it as well, and I do think that there's
more, and we've talked about some of the changes we're making and trying to better identify
some of the equity issues that are a result of this project, but one thing that this project has identified as a need for us to really take a comprehensive look at how we're assessing equity more broadly, and so I kind of see it as an issue that is bigger than just this project alone, and it's something that we need to think more globally about not just how this project will fare the city, but how we're assessing all of our projects, how we're ensuring equity, not just as it relates to an individual project, but how
aspects of that project might impact other areas of the city.
So I would actually suggest that this would be something that we would need to do, should do,
should really take our time doing, but shouldn't necessarily be compelled to hold up
the process for reviewing the site plan in order to do that.
So again, I appreciate the feedback that residents and the time that residents have put in to drafting this resolution.
I know there's been lots of comments about the tenants, who the potential tenants will be.
We need a lease.
We need a lease before we can agree to anything.
Somebody needs to sign something.
And I just want to kind of ask everyone to put yourselves in the position of renting an
apartment.
And you show up, and there's an empty lot, and you ask, okay, I want to rent this apartment.
Where is it?
And they're like, we haven't built it yet.
You're like, okay, well how much? Okay, when is it going to be built? And they're like, we have no idea well
Is it approved to be built yet?
Not quite yet. So would you sign the lease?
So you have to ask yourself
How easy is it for someone like in DC or anyone to sell space that has not been or at least the design or the concept
that has not been greenlit by the city.
So it's really important for us to keep all of those aspects in mind, and I know we want all of the answers now.
But in reality, this is an iterative process, and it's going to take different steps in which we will get the answers that you all seek.
Thank you.
Councillor McCostock.
Thank you.
Excuse me.
I want to echo my colleagues' thanks to Council Member Smith and the residents who worked on this resolution.
I took some time to really seriously consider this resolution because I think there are a lot of important sentiments in it.
And I really understand and sympathize with the desire for more clarity, for more answers before moving forward.
And I think that's a really reasonable thing for people to want.
The thing that I keep coming back to, as I look at the information in front of us, is that it seems to me it's very difficult to get most of these answers prior to, as some of my colleagues have discussed tonight, sort of setting a path forward and setting some of these processes in motion at the county level through our discussions with SHA related to traffic.
So I think for me, it makes a lot of sense to move this vote forward to show a direction
that the city is taking.
And that doesn't mean that everything in the site plan is exactly how it will be.
It doesn't mean that exactly what we have in front of us from the traffic studies is exactly
what we're going to end up with at this intersection.
But I don't think we're in a place where we can say that, and I don't think we're going
to be at a place where we can say that until we move this process forward and see what happens
at the county level. And there will be opportunities for us throughout that process to continue to
weigh in, to continue to have discussions about traffic, to continue to have discussions in
September about the mediation process with the co-op. So I want to just go through these four
points in a little more detail. The first issue is related to the mediation. I have been
I'm very encouraged by the fact that both NDC and the co-op have been committed to this process.
I had the opportunity on Friday and again on Monday to be a part of those meetings.
And it was a great opportunity for me to see and to hear from all of the participants involved.
I think from my perspective, sitting in those meetings and talking with people,
it makes a lot of sense for mediation to be ongoing.
And I don't think that a vote on the site plan does anything more than gives us a little
more clarity about where we as a city are going.
I had a really great discussion, just a personal discussion, one-on-one with one of the board
members just the other day.
It was a long discussion an hour and a half, and it was a great discussion.
So I want to thank you for the opportunity to talk more.
And I think those conversations are the types of things that we need to continue to have,
and
And as a city and I see this vote as an opportunity to provide some more clarity on the direction the city wants to go.
So that our mediation discussions can continue.
And in September we'll have a session.
We have language in the resolution that's proposed related to the site plan.
We have a work session.
There will specifically talk about that mediation process and the outcomes of that. And that provides the sort of opportunity to really consider those things specifically, and with the intent that we need to when that process has continued along further.
Related to traffic, related to traffic, I think, again, I've been involved in transportation issues in the city for a while. I was a member of the Safe Roadways Committee for about
five years before I was elected. I care very, very much about traffic issues. And I live
about three blocks away from the junction. I walk through there frequently, I drive through
there frequently. I understand the challenges that are at that intersection. As we're looking
at this process, we've all been talking about improvements related to this development.
And just for years before there was a development, even really seriously considered here, like we're
We're looking at now, people have been talking about the problems with this intersection.
So, I see the process is moving forward.
We have a great opportunity right now.
We're talking with SHA and SHA is listening and that's a great opportunity for us.
Whether or not, you know, whatever happens with the vote and whatever happens with the future
of this project, SHA is talking about improving that intersection and that's huge.
So moving this project forward, if we vote on this, to move it forward to the county process
us, will allow for those further discussions with SHA that will give us more of the clarity
that we need related to traffic.
The third point is related to racial and socioeconomic equity, and I absolutely agree that we need
to continue to focus on this.
We need to focus on it more clearly.
I agree with Councilmember Circe who noted that one opportunity for us as we look at this
project is to use this as a model and to start to develop our process a little more.
I've had some really useful discussions just in the last couple of days with a couple
of people who I think might be able to help us work on that sort of thing.
I met with a professor at the University of Maryland who works on racial equity issues and
gave a presentation at the Maryland Municipal League conference back in June.
I just met with her recently, and she has a process for basically conducting a racial equity audit and
helping a community devise a strategic plan for moving forward. And to me, that's the sort of thing that we need to be focusing on and can provide us with a
holistic look at these issues in the city that we can then take and apply more specifically to the issues, the specific issues,
it was like a new project or a policy that we're considering.
And I think, again, I think there are opportunities as we go through the process with the county,
there will be more opportunities to look at that in the context of this project.
And then finally, related to building a consensus to building more community support, again,
I think having a little more clarity on where we're going, where the council stands on this issue,
where we want to see this project move forward will help us in many ways start to have more of those conversations to bring people together and find those commonalities.
I know that people won't, people won't all be happy with our results tonight, people won't all be happy with what happens in the county process.
But I think several people tonight expressed really clearly in the public comment session and I really appreciated the focus on building community and maintaining community and finding commonalities.
And I think that's really important.
I also would like to see us as this project moves forward, if it moves forward, find ways
to work together on things like maybe we don't all love the site plan, but can we work
together to find tenants that we really, really want in this building?
I've heard some fantastic suggestions about wanting an incubator project, for example.
I don't see there being any reason why we can't work together and bring something like this
to this project.
And I think that could involve discussions with the co-op.
I think that could involve discussions with nonprofits, with the city, and looking for an opportunity to put that into this very building.
I don't see this building as precluding any of those fantastic opportunities.
So I hope that we can come together as this process moves forward and work on those sorts of issues, because I think there are great opportunities.
Regardless of whether or not you agree with the exact look of the site plan and specific things that you want to have in it.
So, thank you.
Thank you, I just want to remind my colleagues that before them in the blue folders was a version of the resolution with a friendly amendment by Joseph Glockner.
So
there isn't, yes, it's the highlighted yellow, I just would, when we vote on this, I would like to make a motion that we vote on the resolution with the friendly amendment.
Is that fine with the second? Peter, is that okay with you because you seconded.
Okay, that's okay, all right, read it and then tell me if it's okay, and I'll go to Councilwoman Devallant with your light on.
Yeah, yeah, what I got diverted.
I want to say two things that I forget to say the first time run.
One is that I am completely serious about the notion of going back to the,
going back to the draft side plan as a result of mediation.
I may be the only one.
I don't think I am, but I just want it to be very clear that when I say that I think this does not disadvantage the co-op board.
It's because I am very serious that about going back if there need to be changes later,
with respect to the specifics of accommodation for the co-op.
And I do think that having some clarity about the focus of the project moving forward
will help both parties, I don't think it disadvantages the co-op if anything, I think it gives you
a party who may be more willing to come to the table.
So I just want to put that out there.
And the second thing I wanted to say is they're following up on what Casey said.
There's nothing to stop us from pursuing community consensus.
Even if this dress I plan goes forward tonight or not either way.
And I've heard two people tonight, two weeks ago I threw this out there that I would
volunteer to pull that together with anybody who is interested.
I heard two people tonight as there and Mary Margot, Vittulo.
I'm sorry, I'm forgetting your first name.
Yeah, saying that you were interested in doing that too.
So maybe we can connect on that later this week.
So, Councillor McCovar, are you?
And I just, one last thing.
I have listened patiently for several hours.
members and quite a few people asked me to share my thoughts and I'm trying to do that
right now. Thank you. Councilmember Cove, are you okay with the
friendly amendment? Okay, so when we vote on it, we'll vote on it with the friendly amendment.
Was there anything else councilmember Smith? So I'll just add my thoughts to this. A number
of people have mentioned over the last few weeks that they feel like some of the council
members are were tired and we just we want to just move on for the sake of moving on and I want to
clarify that point that that is not how I think any of us feel up here. In fact when I was the
City Council person for Ward 3 and I first came on the council the RFP process has already started
and I advocated for and successfully commits my colleagues at the time to slow down the process
of selecting a development partner to garner more community input.
And then over the last three years, there have been numerous times I have supported and
built into the process pauses and more time in our process.
And I've been open over the last four years to slowing down our process when I thought
it was advantageous to our community.
At this point, I don't believe it is the best interest of our community to delay this vote.
It's time that the City Council makes the decision whether or not they believe we believe that this draft site plan should move forward to the county level and we should decide tonight if a majority of our council believes that and believes we should move forward to review by state highway, the County Planning Board and Historic Preservation Commission.
I agree with my colleagues who have said that we have many questions to continue to ask and we've heard many of the same questions being asked of us and until we go to state highway, the county planning board and historic preservation, we're not going to get the final answers or the input.
But we need to answer some of these questions.
And I think as Councilwoman DeBalla said, all of the issues that Councilmember Smith raises in the alternative resolution are incredibly important issues and ones we've all been talking about.
The thing that we differ on is the approach right now.
I understand and I very much respect Councilmember Smith in saying he believes at this point is time to take a pause.
There have been times in the past where I have suggested taking a pause and he didn't agree
it was the right time.
And right now, I don't think it's the right time for us to take a pause.
Regarding the mediation between the co-op and NDC, again, I've always said I felt like
the mediation is a time for us to build trust and a stronger relationship because if we do
If you move forward with this project, it is not just about the next month to September or even through the end of the year.
It is not even about just getting through the county process and the planning board.
It is about really building trust and a relationship because it's really about our community and creating a space that we all want.
And we want the co-op to thrive and work on that.
And so, I see the mediation and the building of this relationship as something that will hopefully continue.
And I think with the information we'll get through the process at the county with SHA and HPC,
it will help strengthen that mediation.
I'm glad that all the parties are still agreed to move forward with the mediation.
And, again, as Councilwoman Debala mentioned, we've worked very diligently on the language
of the resolution, have taken the suggestions from the co-op to make sure that it is strengthened.
The language is strengthened to make sure it reflects the fact that if, as the mediation
moves forward, there are changes to the site plan, we will make sure those changes happen.
I will just say that I tried to lay out all these points in the blog I sent out earlier
this week because I had a feeling we were going to get to this point and it was going
to be very late.
I, if you haven't seen it, I'm more than happy to send that around and talk more about
these issues.
And I will just say that I want to thank Council Member Smith and the residents who helped
to write this resolution on the points regarding racial equity.
I think these are incredibly important points, as all my colleagues have said.
And I look forward in the fall to coming back from our recess,
revisiting, putting together a community conversation to help us look at the,
maybe the professor at University of Maryland who may do an audit for us.
The community conversations we've had in the past have really helped us to move forward
on our affordable housing work and our use development work and I think that it was a good
model to help us as councilmember Smith said really be much more intentional and strengthen
our work on racial equity. So I think that I will leave it there, councilman DeVolody
before you're assuming you're moving toward a vote before you do that. Can I propose that
we go on to Alaska time, which would make it only eight o'clock? Okay.
We'll do the last good time. Does that mean it's still light outside then?
It's the light outside of who has been there. That's true. Council Member Smith.
Can we have a roll call vote? Absolutely. Are we ready to vote?
All right. Will the clerk please call the roll?
Council Member Cobart? No.
No. Councilmember DeBalla. No. Councilmember Costick. No. Councilmember Siemens. No. Councilmember Smith. Yes. Councilmember Circev. No. Mayor Stewart. No.
Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Smith. All right. We will move on to the next item, our agenda.
It is the resolution regarding the Decoma Junction site plan.
So we will
take another 15-minute break and come back. Thank you.
Thank you, the meeting. I want to thank everyone. Again, we listened to public comments and we discussed the alternative resolution. We'd like to turn our attention now to the resolution regarding the Tacoma Junction Site Plan. And I'd ask first, as we did a few weeks ago, during the work session, that if members of the council would like to make any general comments regarding the resolution, and then we can go through any amendments or
changes people would like and then take the vote on the resolution.
So first we'll start with general comments.
Are there any general comments that people would like to start off with?
Council member Coveyer.
I didn't mean to press the button.
Okay,
yeah, you sure you don't want to start us off?
Why don't you start us off?
Thank you.
And we have talked, I've talked quite a bit about the concern I have about public space.
I guess I think a number of people who spoke tonight during the public comment did mention that, and as I said myself,
when we took this up two weeks, so last week we didn't, the council didn't formally consider Junction related matters, but we did the week before on July 11th.
And it was late at night and I understand not everybody stayed up,
was able to stay up for that and may not have been able to watch it on video subsequently.
But one of the points that I made was in terms of public space.
If this resolution is approved, a process will unfold which will involve several county entities,
the county planning office and also the Historic Preservation Commission,
as well as state highway, those three in particular and even our facade advisory board will have some say in the matter.
So a number of those entities will be opining in various ways on the process, and
each of them will do the part that they're assigned to do.
And so from the state highway perspective, for example, they will have input into,
to, you know, does the labor work, what about the safety for pedestrians, how does the ingress
egress from the potential underground parking lot work and what's the overall set of questions
about the intersection and even the potential for reconfiguring it that we have to think about.
Planning will address the typical sort of planning type issues that will come up with them
and that will include a lot about the construction of the building, and then historic preservation will look, and I hope make some changes that might scale the building back to some extent in terms of height and what the facade looks like.
All of those changes could occur, those kinds of changes could occur.
I don't think any of those entities is going to say, hey, you know what, it might be good if you had more public space there.
That's not what any of them will be assigned to do.
The closest you might get would be historic preservation, but they'll be looking at the facade, but they're not going to be looking at the facade from the perspective of how much public space the city needs.
And so we're the ones who have to ask for more public space if we think we want it.
And so I mentioned this really for a number of months, people will recall when the concept plan as it was called came out last year.
And then I think a lot of people looked at that and thought that building might be okay in certain areas
It doesn't work well for us into common part comes out really too close to the side work all the way along and so one of the
Points that we made I thought pretty strongly in the resolution that was passed in October
There were a series of things we looked at that we that we didn't like about the concept plan one of the ones that stood out was the need to have more
public space and the precise
I'll just read the precise wording since that might help, just to explain what it was that we thought it would need a large amount of vibrant, comfortable and easily accessible street level public space that functions as a community gathering spot does not require the purchase of food or beverage to use and is accessible for year round use.
And then there was also another one that sort of fits with that, which was massing and fits the area.
And it's comfortable for those using and passing by the site on Carroll, Sikamore, and Columbia Avenue.
And so there's this overall size question and public space question that I think is really fundamental to it.
And so I think like a lot of people, I was hopeful that when NDC came back with their next iteration of the plan,
and it was first through the concept plan, there was a site plan that that would be addressed.
Well, they did put some, they did put some public space in there, but in my view nowhere near as much and so the discussion is centered around the fact that it's the same amount as you see at the gazebo and it's right around the same amount, I just don't think that that's a good comparison because people will be drawn to the site that's the purpose of it to be drawn to various retail and commercial outlets in the offices and so on that will be there.
I think a lot more people will gather.
And the point that I made, and then I'm coming to a close,
the point that I made to, I'll ask you a time, yes.
The point I made two weeks ago was that, you know,
some people said, well, you don't need that much base.
That could be too much public space.
And it's easy enough to fill in the public space afterwards.
You could put the fountain that everybody from Fred Schultz on down has talked about.
You could play equipment for kids.
You could put additional tables, chessboards like to have in DuPont Circle.
Well, there's no shortage of things you could put to fill public space if for some reason you feel that it's underutilized.
But the reverse isn't true.
Once the building is structured, the public space is the bug space and you can't sort of say,
hey, I wish we had more, let's grab it now.
And so, when I had offered it an amendment two weeks ago,
it was to sort of split the difference between the 34,000 that people were talking about square feet
and just under 50, about 48,000 that I think the current numbers are at and go to 41.
My colleagues didn't agree with me, so I'm proposing a different amendment.
I decided just to be worth making it a little smaller and see if maybe I could persuade them this time.
So it calls for a 10% cut, but what it specifically says in the languages that that would be used specifically
to move back the facade. It doesn't say exactly how the facade would be moved back, but that all the
space created from that would be at street level in the front of the building.
If you want to make the thing a little deeper or push back the sidewalk or whatever it is,
that will get more space at street level.
And it'll be roughly a doubling of the area and the size where there's the gathering spot now.
So for those who want full blown concerts, it wouldn't do it.
But for those who want to get more public space, it would certainly do that.
And I think the point is, it looks like this resolution could pass, I think this is a good opportunity to at least live up to what we, what I thought we were saying with the October resolution, so I'll stop there.
Anyone else like to make some opening comments before we go to the resolution and amendments?
Councilwoman DiBalla.
So I may be the only one who hasn't blocked extensively already, largely because of scheduling.
So for all of you more to and beyond, I will write down and get around my rationale for
my thinking. But I do want to make a couple of points and one is that there's been a lot
of question about what do people in board two think? Everybody on every block thinks
that they're block and their friends represent everybody. And I've learned that there's
many different communities in Tacoma Park and that many different communities even within
in one neighborhood, have different views on what is appropriate here.
I have been working to, within, and I've said this from the beginning, that I'm working within the development agreement.
I'm working within the resolutions of previous councils, I respect that a lot of people before me have made some choices here.
And I have offered two weeks ago, and again tonight, I will have a couple of tweaks to accommodate, to address many of the concerns that got raised tonight.
Now, some of you may feel like it's not far enough, it's not fast enough, it's not big enough you want to jump the whole thing.
But I am within the bounds of the proposal that we've got here trying to get the kinds of values that many of us have been looking for on environmental sustainability on affordable housing on some of the other topics that I've put forth on height and now we're going to talk about public space.
So, so that I get that, I just want to get that, get that covered.
Thank you.
Council on Costick.
Thank you.
I don't need to share a lot right now.
I talked extensively before about some of my thoughts on the previous resolution, but
I did want to note that I think, I think a lot of the work that we've done in this resolution
has really brought it to the place that I think really.
Okay, well, I'm going to go ahead and use my soccer voice.
I think the work that we've done on this resolution and the amendments that have been proposed
and the things that have been changed already and maybe some of the things that people have
to add tonight as well. I think it really brought this to a place that addresses a lot of the
concerns and tries to address a lot of the concerns that we've heard in the community. As
Councilmember DeBalla said, it might not address all of the concerns that people have and I understand
that. But I think there's been some great additions to this. Things like the Environmental Sustainability
clause that Councilmember DeBolla mentioned,
dedicating some funds to affordable housing,
borrowing formula businesses,
listing a minimum public space,
providing protections for the back of the building related to light and noise,
as well as minimizing the impact on the wooded area,
providing for the work session to address the mediation outcomes after the mediation is
complete with between the co-op and D.C. as well as the clause on height.
So I think there are a lot of resolutions in here that have moved the or a lot of clauses
in here that have really strengthened this resolution from where it was when it first started.
and I think we've done a lot to try to address the issues and I think it's
something that I feel like has become a very successful document because of
those things. So I want to thank my colleagues for the additions that they've
proposed to this. Thank you.
You can use it. Just use the hand my eye. We're just
going to use the hand mics tonight. All right. Well then you have to wave at me if
if you want to talk, anyone else going?
Yeah, Councilwoman C.O.C.
All right.
Thank you all for hanging in there.
So I just want to reiterate a number of the points
that Councilmember Acacia brought up.
I, you know, it's often hard because at the end of the day,
as I noted in a message I sent out
to Worstick's residents today, this issue
She was not black or white, it is really a various shades of gray depending on which topic
you're trying to cover.
And I think that there are benefits and their costs for everything that we do.
But I appreciate this resolution and that it tries to come up with and promote actionable
will step to try to mitigate some of the potential challenges to the project and also to try
to continue to promote a number of the benefits that we see in this type of development.
I know that there are quite a few folks that may not be 100% happy with what was ultimately
that we'll ultimately talk about today,
but when we think through some of the major topics
and some of the aspects and steps forward
that are noted here,
I think this is a really good first step.
Keeping in mind that we're going to continue.
I'll continue to have to take steps along the way. This is a marathon. It is not a sprint. But it does provide a really good first step towards realizing and noting the goals of the city as well as providing a path forward. So I just want to, again, thank members of the council who provided some really wonderful.
additions to this resolution, and I look forward to discussing it.
Can you hear it? All right. Would anyone else like to speak?
All right, so I'll just say a few words, as I mentioned, because I knew it was going to be late tonight.
I sent around most of my thoughts on this earlier this week.
And I just want to say one, we know this process has brought out a lot of emotions
and a lot of people, and I think that there's drawn out long time residents, new residents, old friends and new friends, and familiar faces and new ones as we've been talking not just about the junction but about the future of our city.
And I know it's been at times challenging, it's been challenging for me personally because I know as we move through this evening, there are definitely people who I have known for many years who I am probably going to disappoint by.
by some of the decisions that I plan on making tonight.
I appreciate everyone's insights and concerns and feedback.
And whether or not we have agreed or disagreed
throughout this process, I've really sought
to understand viewpoints and the diverse perspectives
in our community.
And I really do think that this is an opportunity for us,
that this project provides us an opportunity today
and in the future for our whole community.
And, you know, I've consulted with people inside and outside the community and I know people
have said, oh, we have architects who think this, architects who think that.
There are really a range of opinions and I think all of us up here have tried to do
our best at listening and pulling together the best information we have.
And that as that Councilwoman Ciarci just said, the resolution really does reflect much
of that, talking as Councilwoman DiBalla has done about really working hard on the environmental
aspects of this.
I want to thank the residents who came forward and we talked about adding language to ensure
that we're really attracting local businesses and that we are borrowing chain stores or
formula businesses in this location and many of the other things that we have
worked on and so I just want to thank my colleagues for all their work on
this and even if we don't ultimately agree on every point I want to thank
everyone for their thoughtfulness throughout this process and for all the input
that we received and I do want to thank the city staff as well. There have been
And lots of questions asked throughout the process and I appreciate them going through
the information and providing that to residents and to council members.
So I think at this time we will, let's first walk through the resolution,
no, let's actually
start.
It's late.
I know.
It's 14 pages.
is I'm going to ask if someone would move the resolution.
Thank you, Councilmember Siemens.
So I have a second, then we're going to walk through
and then take amendments, yeah.
Councilman, CRC, second.
OK, and now let's discuss the resolution.
We have the deputy city manager.
Has it up on the screens?
Everyone should be able to see it, correct?
We'll walk through.
There are no changes since the last time we discussed the resolution until we get to line
435. So unless someone has something that has not been raised yet or they would like
to go back to, I'll give you a second. But the first thing that we have to discuss is
line 435.
Is everybody okay starting here?
Yes, thank you. So, on line 435, I am at a
resolve clause. This was the, what is in red? The first part of it, not the last line
that's attached to it, is language that we had worked on with the co-op to be reflective
of their changes that they had suggested since our work session on July 11th, so that
is what is in red. And then NDC sent us some suggested changes in blue on this.
Okay, we're scrolling here. And so the question before us is, is there a preference between,
I mean, or what is the preference between the what is in the resolve clause in red or blue or any other further amendment someone would like to make council member co bar?
It's on, I thought I was waving.
Is that working?
No.
Yeah.
Oh.
You're on.
People can hear.
I'm sorry.
I prefer the existing language. It's in red and I'll just say why.
So this is the language that's in there, so that at the conclusion of mediation to the extent that changes are required in the site plan, that would be approved if this resolution is adopted, those changes can be forwarded on and in fact are required to be forwarded on to the county and the language in red, which is what is currently in there.
says that if site plan changes are required, whether because of mutual agreement between
NDC and the TPSS club or otherwise, and the otherwise is if there isn't a mutual agreement,
which could happen.
And the alternative language only focuses on changes that are agreed to by NDC and the
And I think it's important, I'm hopeful and based on the reports that I've heard, including some optimism that I've heard that the mediation will bear fruit but we have to have in the back of our mind at least the idea that maybe it won't.
And so to me, it's important to have the language cover both of those eventualities.
I agree.
Is it on? Yes. I agree. I don't like the blue for all the reasons that Council
member Kovar said. And I had to talk with someone on the break. I would like to just explain
in case maybe not everybody in the room knows the development agreement is the contractual
agreement between the city and NDC, and in it there's a whole section about if one party defaults on one part of the agreement.
And one of those default items is reasonable accommodation for the co-op.
And so that is the leverage by which we would either say, oh this is great, you came to agreement, we're good.
Or if it comes to that where we would say, okay, wait a minute, we will
require NDC, direct NDC to make changes that they might not have agreed to, that would be based on the development agreement language just so everybody sort of clear on the mechanism here.
Anyone else like to speak to this?
Probably don't have enough to say to warrant having passed the mic that far, but I agree.
I think the original language is better than the proposed language from NDC.
Ditto.
All right, and I will agree as well.
And so since we have a majority, that will be in the clause.
And when we vote, the red will be the clause we will have when we vote on the resolution.
I just had a question for the city manager, apologies, but I thought I saw somewhere in the drafter.
Did I read it somewhere else that we were asking that NDC put in the lay-by so that we would have continuity of construction for deliveries.
That's in there.
That's later on.
Okay.
I was looking forward and I couldn't.
I'm sorry.
I couldn't remember which clause it was in.
Did we just add that and not have it as a discussion point?
Yeah.
I think we did, right?
There are several places in here in red where it was clear that it was either a clarification
or whatever.
And that was put in there because there was not any controversy whatsoever that the label
the first element constructed so that continuity of operations could continue.
Great. Which line is it?
565, where it starts.
Okay. Great. Thank you. I just couldn't remember where we had put that in and wanted to make sure.
Okay. So it says the document will include the requirement to build the lay-by in the first stage of the construction process.
Thank you. All right.
Then do we want to say unless agreed upon, unless otherwise agreed upon by NDC and the co-op?
Wait, let's go back to that language.
Never mind.
This was a request by the co-op to have this language in.
You know, if there's some, I mean, there may be times in this resolution that all mutual parties agree to some option and then you, that can be discussed and followed up.
Okay, terrific. So then the next item we go to is the box that starts on line 462.
This was originally an amendment move forward by Councilwoman DiBalla regarding the height
of the building. We have two things to consider here. One was so in red is the original that
Councilwoman DeBalla had put forward. The first blue is suggestion from NDC and then Councilman
Costick had other suggested language. Councilwoman DeBalla, do you have, since you had put this forward,
do you have a preference and we'll start with you?
I'm fine with Councilwoman Costick's suggested
and I do not like NDC's suggested language.
Okay. I will ditto that and I'm going to see how many different ways we can pronounce councilman
cost the last name as the hour gets later and later.
Okay, and I think we're going to go with that because I think we keep pronouncing it differently.
Council member Calvar.
I'm less supportive of council member Cases suggested language.
The reason is, I agree that it's preferable to the NDC language.
The difference is, and the point I'm just concerned about is the initial red language
has to reduce the height of the building up to five feet through various means.
This one says to seek aesthetically appropriate ways to reduce it.
So, well, neither is definitive because they will talk about up to five feet.
the newer language is just talking about seeking as opposed to simply doing it and I understand
if you're saying it's up to five, then even doing up to five could end up being only
one, I wish it could be five, but I'd rather call for it than just call for seeking it if
that makes sense.
And,
yeah, Councilman.
So I will say that I was proposing this language just in an attempt to sort of merge the two of them.
I'm fine with something that maybe says something like to reduce the height of the building by up to five feet in an aesthetically appropriate way.
Kamma working with Montgomery County Historic Preservation Commission.
Is that acceptable to other people?
No, so what I proposed, but starting with two reduce and
to reduce the height of the
building by up to five feet in an aesthetically appropriate way,
comma working,
is that okay?
That's fine. Okay. There's any.
It was a will adopt that language from Councilwoman Costiac with the changes. Any? Yeah. I just would like to say that originally it did say five feet, exactly. And I was persuaded, and I was persuaded that by people who work with historic commission, we're not in the room now, that it ought to say up to five feet. Okay, agreed to that. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. All right.
All right, the next line is at line 486 and this is Councilmember Covars suggested language.
The next one is the additional language proposed by Councilmember Costick on line 510.
This adds, explore the potential of adding a paved or unpaid walking path into or benches
is in the Forest Conservation Area easement.
I think we don't need area again.
Provided that these elements do not disturb the natural
elements and conservation goals of this area.
Is that any?
Yeah, can I say something?
Yeah, so there was an informal tree commission memo.
couple three, whatever it was several months ago and and I meant I meant to contact you about this beforehand.
I'm sorry to tell you that they recommended not to do that because of the slope and because of the kind of path that would have to go in as a result.
I would personally think it would be a lovely touch, but I also think from an environmental point of view that it's just not feasible.
If I might just on that, it is absolutely the case that if there's slopes and that kind of thing because of ADA requirements and the other kind of impacts, you know, these kinds of paths would have to be very close to the two Columbia.
I don't think it harms anything to say explore the potential, but those other kinds of regulations would come into play.
Yeah.
Did you? Well, just if it says explore, it doesn't mean we have to do it. Right. Is there any harm in exploring?
No. Well, I mean, it's just literally impossible. Fine. But if we get explored, I don't see the harm. That's what would be my view.
Okay. Yeah. We good.
Yeah. I'll just say that that was partially my thinking in terms of including this language to say explore.
and hopes that maybe if we can't have a paved path or unpaved path, the benches could at least be some,
there could be some benches or something like that closer to the sidewalk.
So my perspective would be, I would like to see it in there just as an opportunity to explore it,
whether or not it's possible, can be decided further than the line.
Okay. Hearing no objections, and that will be in the resolution that we vote on.
The next is at line 524. I'm going to turn, this is regarding the stormwater treatment.
Councilman DeBala can I turn it over to you? Yes.
There was only one word missing. Treatment
and it will significantly exceed the city's 50% requirement for redevelopment.
We talked about putting that in there and it just didn't, the word didn't make it in there.
But the intent here is 100% storm order treatment on site, compared to say 95% is prohibitively expensive.
And is probably not a good choice.
but to push way beyond the 50% that the county requires is the intent here.
And I think this staff language captures it better than what I had.
Thank you.
Anyone have any questions regarding the storm water?
All right, then that will be included.
Before we move up, I just wanted to go back to the line regarding on 567 and 568 regarding the lay by.
This is the document will include the requirement to build a label in the first stage of the construction process and I want I'm trying to get in there and sorry it's late and that it will be
to be used by the co-op for deliveries during construction or for the purpose.
One purpose because it made a use for the purposes.
The whole class is about continuity of operations but I feel better if we spelled it out.
Did everybody get that?
We jumped to line 565 and we're talking about trucks again.
The document as in the document that describes how construction impacts on area business
will be addressed. Could we just add to facilitate co-op deliveries during construction?
Oh, that's good. To the end of that? I think that works.
At the very end, where it says the first stage of the construction process to facilitate co-op
deliveries during construction.
I heard a label out there in the audience somewhere. Facilitate,
Okay, so let's add that to that to clarify that point.
Council Member Cove, are you okay going back to your amendment?
Okay.
So now we have, before we leave energy neutral, is this last?
So I would just like to clarify once again for council what I said two weeks ago that the
The intent on line 537, creating an energy neutral building through INSET methods or off-site renewable energy credits, I do mean energy not just electricity, because a building that might potentially have a restaurant in it will use a lot of how water, however, many residents myself included by renewable energy credits in compensation for the natural gas heating that we use.
So it isn't hard, it isn't that expensive, even though there was some confusion about whether it was electricity or all energy.
I do, in fact, mean that all energy.
Just before we vote on it, I just want to make that clear, everybody.
And then there are ways that you can convert.
All right.
Then moving back to line 486, this is regarding,
Is actually Council Member Covar suggested language, starts on line 496.
Council Member Covar, I know you said this in the beginning statements, but is there anything else you'd like to?
Don't you use the microphone?
I think I explained it.
I would encourage my colleagues to join me in voting for it.
And I would just say one other thing.
If we were to put this language in, and NDC doesn't like it, that doesn't mean the project gets killed.
that just means there's a little more discussion with NDC.
Okay, would anyone like to speak to this?
Council member Searsie?
Assistant gone.
Okay, awesome.
So my concern still is the fact that in order to increase
the amount of public space proposed,
it would mean the setback for the project would be too great.
in whether or not that would be approved.
So for me, I think we want more public space, true.
But I also argue whether or not we have a provision that would,
that ask NDC to partner with the city on revitalization of B Y Morrison Park.
And so I wonder if, because of the setback requirements,
If we're not able to get that extra space at the current location,
would revitalization of be why Morrison Park and making it more functional
also kind of add to the overall public space.
Again, I'm just thinking about the overall setback requirements for the businesses.
Well, I think that the idea of revitalizing Morrison Park is a great idea.
And that should happen regardless.
But I don't view that as a substitute.
And the reason for that is I think that what people see with both Mars and Park and
also the gazebo, at least those two, there isn't a lot of activity there unless there's
something specific schedule there, for example, a concert or gathering of some kind that
is announced and people are invited to it.
And so to get the kind of more spontaneous sort of gathering that I think a lot of people
We'll talk about in the public comments tonight and that we've talked about a fair amount in the past.
If you're drawn to a site because there's a restaurant or cafe or other shop there that you're interested in and then you hang out, I think that's typically where you get where you get that now I would add that the language, which is also what was in the earlier version and I think Councilwoman Costa had been responsible for part of that.
It says that if the label gets modified during the county review process that the space still has to be preserved and put somewhere else, and so if one of the concerns is that if I'm understanding council members seriously correctly that the facade might be the historic preservation might insist that the facade be kept closer to the street, perhaps that's what you're suggesting.
I'm fine with the idea of just saying that this same amount of space that I'm asking for has to be put somewhere there.
My sense was it made the most sense to have it at the front, but if they don't like that and then we want to have it somewhere else where it would still be useful to the public, I'd be okay with that.
No, so I just want to make sure that the point is raised that there are setback requirements by the county, like Montgomery County.
So, you know, pushing like the suggestion that we could push back the actual storefronts and have them sitting further back from the street, their requirements there.
And again, I think I understand that process, but I can just wreck me if I'm wrong.
Maybe I wasn't going. So I guess what I'm saying is although this says move back the facade, I'm fine if we also added something that said, but if the store preservation says you can't move back the facade, we'll get the extra space somewhere else.
I would like to see the extra space.
My preference would be to have it at the front, but what's that?
Then why not just say 10 by 10% period?
If people want to vote for that, I'll accept that.
To be clear, I think there's two issues.
The first is the planning requirement for where the setback line goes, and that's a discussion
not just for historic preservation, but it's for the zoning.
The other obviously has the financial implications of a smaller building and how that might change what their contributions are in other aspects of your requirements.
Any other comments regarding this? Councilwoman DiBalla?
Yeah, I hate to make this more complicated because I would at least in theory like to see more public space.
It's more importantly, I would like to see public space that's useful regardless of the
size.
But one concern I have is that there may be other demands on square footage as we go
through the process, the back end for stormwater retention on the side if the corridor gets
wider for whatever reason. And I'm reluctant to say right now 10% off the top knowing that
there may be another 10% of the top somewhere on another issue and then the economic viability
of the project is a little more questionable. The rents are a little higher and we don't
go there. So that's something to think about.
I appreciate that. It sounds a little bit though, like negotiating against ourselves
in advance. Those things could happen, and there's, and there are trade-offs when anything
is done, for me it's sort of difficult to imagine. I mean, this is not as big a increase in public
space that I had wanted or as big a percentage reduction in public space in square footage
for the building as I had hoped for, some people said, well, why bother, that's such a small
amount. It's not going to make any difference. Well, it's not going to make any difference in,
why don't we just approve it? I mean, it's either significant or it isn't. I think if you double
the amount of public space by a pretty modest amount, you know, I think a few extra dollars per
square foot, it doesn't strike me as that's going to create, you know, the next Citronelle having
to move there, I think that's a pretty modest thing, so.
I think we can, we've discussed this and we've discussed this two other times.
Why don't we just take a vote on this one?
All those in favor of including Council Member Cove are suggested language and
the resolution, please raise your hand to all those opposed.
Please raise your hand.
All right.
All right, are there any other amendments or changes people would like to suggest to
to the resolution.
All right, seeing Noah. I would like to in response to many of the comments we had tonight in the section on SHA Reconfiguration and what we expect, just online 592 to add to work with SHA on Reconfiguration of the Junk and Intersection and other measures and on a county.
of costs so that we can and I'm sorry and what and on accounting of costs so that I really
can't hear you say it's okay and on accounting of costs and on accounting of costs or just
and on costs so that we can signal very clearly that that is an upfront issue that we need
to know how much it is and start talking about how we're going to pay for it. How it is going
to be paid for. Let me for phrase that. So the council will continue to work with
SHA and reconfiguration and other measures to improve traffic flow and on
costs. It doesn't make sense. I'm sorry. Okay. And on cost and on cost of the
juction and intersection and other measures, comma and on costs.
Yeah,
that's
comments on that or
I just think it should say taking into consideration of something because otherwise it says improve because
otherwise it says to improve because it's a little weird.
Are we both going to change?
All right. Any other suggestions?
All right. See no other suggestions.
I'll take a roll call vote.
Yeah.
Sorry.
It's okay.
Yeah.
I just, I see this as going back to what I said before.
If I thought that some of the people who commented earlier that there is a compromise that
many people will agree with, if I thought that was the case, I would be pursuing that.
But the people that I have talked to who say that they want less development mean a lot
less than 10% more public space.
And the people who I talk to say they're fine with it,
mean they're fine with it, and then they'd like a third story.
I'm not seeing a lot of middle ground.
And so on then making the assumption that I'm working within this framework,
I would rather have a better shot at more reasonable rates,
more minority businesses, more flexibility for the co-op and for the stormwater requirements.
And that's just why I personally voted the way that I did on the public space.
Thank you.
Okay.
Why don't we do a, do, all right, we'll do a roll call vote.
Okay.
Councilmember Covear.
No.
Councilmember DeBalla.
Yes.
Councilmember caustic Councilmember Siemens. I councilmember Smith. No councilmember Cersei. I mayor Stewart. Yes
I think that is our business for this evening. We are adjourned