[0:01] we need to start without facebook live well tim

[0:04] yeah yeah and tim maybe give it another try in a little

[0:09] bit but

[0:12] okay that sounds good we're uh reporting but just not live

[0:19] so it is 5 28 and we'll call this public hearing to order recording of the role

[0:28] please

[0:32] all present thank you and we'll open the public hearing to

[0:38] hear comment on a blight violation of detroit de novo llc at 143 west oak

[0:46] street parcel number 52-27-204-260

[1:01] okay as you guys can see um tom's pulling up a

[1:05] powerpoint presentation here um a little background on this property is

[1:11] we've had some issues here with the previous few

[1:14] people that owned or resided at this property um

[1:19] the most recent it was purchased from a tax sale in

[1:24] 2000

[1:28] um we've had issues there on going back and forth since

[1:32] this year we've sent notices on june 29th

[1:35] july 16th august 31st so again there's some photos tom has if

[1:41] you can go down through them on the left is

[1:45] beginning of this summer and on the right is today

[1:49] in this afternoon um some progress made on these two

[1:52] photos the next photos down or the side of the building what it looked

[1:57] like in july on the left and today on the

[2:02] right so there is some progress being made on the

[2:05] property so i can't deny that fact that it's gotten a lot better

[2:09] the next photos are the left one being in

[2:14] august and the right one right here being today and we still have

[2:19] some issues there in the rear of the yard um

[2:24] mattresses furniture that kind of thing that was in the house when this uh

[2:28] individual has purchased it so

[2:32] and there's one more photo on the next slide that's

[2:36] the rear of the hull switch compared to what it looked like two months ago is

[2:39] a lot cleaner up by the house

[2:46] i don't know if the commission has any questions on this property or

[2:50] any comment

[3:01] is if there's no commissioner questions or comments

[3:05] um tim is there any public that would like to comment on this matter

[3:12] all right let me find out for you if there's anybody present in attendance

[3:18] that would like to make a comment to the commission regarding

[3:22] this this property please raise your hand and

[3:26] that's by pushing the raise hand in the lower center of your

[3:31] screen

[3:40] all right looks like we're good in it okay thank you

[3:44] and um of the commission any other comments before we close this

[3:49] hearing any no okay we'll close the public hearing

[3:55] at 5 32 and i call the regular meeting to order

[4:05] please stand for the pledge of

[4:12] allegiance

[4:17] i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to

[4:24] the republic for which it stands one nation

[4:28] under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all

[4:45] and just verifying um with tim that um our phone link or um

[4:52] online link is working yes thank you recording of the role please

[4:59] all present thank you item c approval of the consent agenda

[5:07] is there a motion to approve i'll make a motion to approve the consent agendas

[5:12] presented thank you is there support

[5:18] motion by commissioner core consecutive by commissioner mildren

[5:21] to approve the consent agenda is presented any other comments questions

[5:26] roll call vote please care

[5:31] corcoran yes mildred yes simo yes virtua yes

[5:38] motion carries unanimously thank you item d approval of the agenda

[5:47] before you make a motion i just want to bring your attention

[5:51] to one item and that's under old business

[5:55] it was added to take action on the public hearing that was missed

[6:00] so just want to make sure everybody has that current

[6:04] agenda make a motion to approve the agenda as

[6:10] presented support motioned by commissioner mildred

[6:14] and seconded by commissioner corcoran to approve the agendas presented

[6:19] roll call vote please corcoran yes mildred yes simo yes care

[6:26] yes virgil yes motion carries unanimously

[6:31] thank you item e are there any citizens wishing to address the commission on

[6:36] items that are on tonight's agenda

[6:41] okay so any um anyone that would like to make a comment

[6:46] uh please raise your hand and it looks like we have one so far so

[6:53] jeff barker i will allow you to speak um and then just have to unmute yourself

[6:59] good evening everybody jeff barker here um 1146 south washington lansing

[7:05] michigan on behalf of some local ironwood

[7:08] residents hoping to get a commercial marijuana permit

[7:13] i want to say again i know it's been a long road um

[7:16] even before i became involved uh late last year uh you guys have put in a ton

[7:20] of work on this ordinance um and i'm really hoping that that we

[7:24] can move forward on it tonight um i'm really appreciative of the edits

[7:30] made after the meeting uh two weeks ago um i would still

[7:35] just point out that the signage restrictions are still

[7:38] overly restrictive um not allowing any graphics on the on the signage um seems

[7:46] to be hard for some of these brands to be able to

[7:49] um to get their brand name out there um to to set themselves

[7:55] apart from others if they're only allowed to

[7:58] do just plain lettering for their signage i think that's going to be

[8:03] problematic and i hope that you can look to maybe allow graphics

[8:11] um as i mean if you if you want to get rid of the green leaf

[8:14] um and things like that that's not a problem um most

[8:18] most companies nowadays don't even use that in their in their marketing for

[8:21] for various reasons um and then i would also um

[8:26] just like to to see if the commission would be willing to

[8:30] increase the cap that they have set um to reduce the likelihood of any

[8:36] potential litigation when the scoring happens um

[8:40] [Music] but outside of that i just wanted to

[8:44] again say say thank you for your time and consideration

[8:47] on this and i hope that we can move forward um and we can start getting some

[8:51] applications filed in the next couple of months so thank you so much

[8:56] for your time i look forward to watching the

[8:59] discussion thank you any other citizens wishing to

[9:04] address the commission on items on the agenda

[9:09] all right so same thing anybody that would like to address the commission

[9:13] please raise your hand all right annette we don't have anybody

[9:25] okay moving on to any item f citizens wishing

[9:30] to address the commission on items that are not

[9:32] on this agenda

[9:38] all right same thing anybody that would like to speak

[9:41] please raise your hand

[9:51] all right looks like same thing okay thank you we'll move on to item g

[9:59] update on the kobit 19 response

[10:06] thank you we'll go through our our normal protocol here

[10:09] and have uh paul then tom and andrew provide any updates for the commission

[10:14] in their reactive areas thanks scott um from the finance side of

[10:22] things um not a whole lot to update the

[10:25] commission on um at the last meeting

[10:29] earlier that day on august 24th i think i had informed the commission that

[10:34] the state completed their august revenue sharing consensus

[10:38] where they were going through the current fiscal year budget

[10:42] state's current fiscal year budget and and the future budgets and

[10:46] really doing some estimates on sales tax um income tax things like that from the

[10:52] statewide level um i'm working through that data and

[10:56] calculating the impacts to the city i hope to have a much more thorough

[11:03] i will have a much more thorough report for the commission

[11:07] at the next meeting when i typically present my financial

[11:10] reports but just in short we did receive um some cares act funding um from the

[11:17] state this was uh the that replace

[11:22] they're calling it replacement for the august

[11:25] statutory revenue sharing essentially that went away

[11:28] and this took the place of it um the amount that we

[11:32] received was about 150 percent of what the

[11:35] august statutory revenue sharing was supposed to be

[11:40] so it's a good thing however it is still less than what we originally budgeted

[11:45] for so so it didn't fully make up for it um but

[11:48] it is something again the cares act money does come with

[11:52] some reporting requirements and there those cares act funds

[11:56] need to be used in accordance with the federal guidelines

[12:00] fortunately for us public safety payroll and and other expenses do

[12:07] qualify for that um so i'm confident that you know we

[12:10] will have plenty of eligible expenses to use up those funds

[12:14] so those are the cares act dollars received to date

[12:18] i did sit in on a mml webinar this morning hoping for an update on

[12:25] two of the other programs that we've applied for the hazard pay premium

[12:29] as well as the payroll reimbursement um going back to

[12:33] april and may they haven't released that information yet

[12:37] they're hoping to release that early this week

[12:41] so that would be tomorrow and wednesday and hopefully they

[12:45] the state will be sending out at least the hazard pay premium

[12:50] funds later this week um they did res they had a hundred million dollars

[12:56] available uh for the hazard pay statewide

[12:59] and i believe they um received anywhere from

[13:03] 40 to 50 uh 40 to 50 million in requests so they're going to have

[13:08] some excess funds available out of that program

[13:10] on the payroll reimbursement program there was 200 million available

[13:15] and the requests to date were upwards of 350 million

[13:19] so with that those payments once the state has gone through and vetted

[13:26] all of the requests it's looking like those will be prorated

[13:30] so if you remember we submitted reimbursement for about two hundred

[13:35] thousand dollars for those months of payroll so we're

[13:38] probably looking somewhere between 50 and 55 percent of

[13:42] that amount once they go through the final approval

[13:46] so again we're waiting to hear we're anxious um

[13:50] of course as information becomes available we'll definitely let the

[13:53] commission know um that's the end of my report unless

[13:58] there are any questions thank you

[14:08] all right um thank you there isn't a lot to report from

[14:13] community development however the grants through the michigan restart grant

[14:17] program are now being sent out my understanding

[14:21] is is that there are some businesses that have reached

[14:23] received checks from the state um so they

[14:27] those that money is being distributed throughout our community now

[14:30] to i believe what it was 31 businesses in the city of ironwood

[14:34] so hopefully that will help people as you may have heard another

[14:42] cara another package at the federal level has not passed

[14:46] so it sounds like there won't be any more money coming to the feds until

[14:50] after the election or from the feds until after the

[14:52] election is our understanding so uh we do still continue to do are uh

[14:57] we're moved to now bi-weekly updates from invest up

[15:01] where we have an opportunity to hear what's coming back down from the state

[15:04] as new grant opportunities are presented

[15:07] we'll definitely share them with the community as best we can

[15:10] thank you thank you

[15:14] um from public safety not much to report we continue to work with city staff and

[15:18] community members on uh covert 19 issues

[15:23] we're reaching out to people if there are

[15:26] issues we would like to be the liaison to

[15:30] contact social service programs those continue to be a challenge

[15:33] according to some people in our community so if there are any issues in

[15:37] the community uh obtaining information to these social

[15:42] service programs we do encourage them to call

[15:45] our office to work out the details to come in contact with those agencies so

[15:52] other than that nothing new to report

[15:56] any update on on numbers uh andrew i don't have an update on numbers we are

[16:02] trending downwards um in google county uh according to

[16:07] western u.p health we do see a an uptick but that's in houghton county

[16:12] uh mainly directed with the testing at michigan tech university

[16:17] thank you any other covet 19 updates

[16:24] no other updates thank you thank you

[16:29] moving on to item h an audience with amber hollenbeck from the ironman

[16:34] tourism council and tim erickson our assistant community

[16:37] development director regarding um updating the commission on marketing

[16:43] efforts from the ironwood tourism council and the city of ironwood

[16:48] okay thank you annette um so amber and i uh prepared a i guess a somewhat brief

[16:55] presentation um you know that about a month ago

[16:59] um you had requested um us to update you on where the itc and city environment

[17:05] partnership is at so i'm just going to share my screen

[17:10] quickly

[17:14] all right can everybody see that yes okay

[17:21] all right yes thank you um okay so let's see

[17:28] sorry one moment

[17:38] okay so uh travel ironwood or iron tourism council

[17:45] so what is travel ironwood and some of these

[17:48] questions are a little bit more or i guess some of this powerpoint or

[17:52] presentation is a little bit more general in the

[17:54] beginning just because i know that a lot of the maybe people

[18:00] that are watching this may not know what travel ironwood is um

[18:05] so it's basically the marketing name for the enrotusm council

[18:09] and the iron tourism council is made up of motels and hotels in the city of

[18:14] ironwood and they are primarily

[18:18] funded directly through assessment tax from tourists so

[18:24] and also amber and myself are the staff members

[18:29] for the tourism council

[18:32] and maybe just a little bit of background about

[18:36] how i guess our partnership kind of fits in with

[18:40] the city's plan um and you know about four years ago the

[18:47] the city of ironwood went through a very comprehensive um branding process

[18:53] and in which we developed a a new logo we got a brand standards guide

[19:00] a platform and a new tagline the finder north tagline

[19:04] and all of this happened through the conference of plan and different

[19:07] strategies through that and then you know

[19:11] constantly taking it one step further um you know utilizing the

[19:16] our different committees and corporations uh like the arnold

[19:20] economic development corporation and creating a marketing plan um

[19:25] and it just kind of all fits in together with with our partnership

[19:30] um and a lot of what we do is is a is focused on the attraction and

[19:37] retention of businesses um tourists and and people into our

[19:41] community um and then some other economic

[19:43] development mechanisms that we that we use um with the the brand

[19:50] i guess specifically is in in helping us market through the redevelopment ready

[19:56] communities program the community profile

[20:02] relocation packets for to employers priority redevelopment sites we

[20:07] advertise those and also the the creation and

[20:11] maintenance of our city website so all these things are

[20:15] i guess based out of the branding and marketing

[20:18] strategy of the comp plan and so just want to give some background

[20:23] on that um one thing that we do the iron tourism

[20:27] council specifically or travel ireland

[20:30] specifically is community branding um

[20:35] and this really just kind of enforces um or reinforces our brand um when

[20:43] when tourists are are in our community and

[20:46] we've done that through uh the creation of

[20:50] um most recently would be the the us2 banners

[20:54] i don't know if anybody has seen them but every other poll on us2 has

[20:59] new banners the downtown banners as well which was actually primarily a city

[21:06] program but um and then different signs and and maps

[21:10] that we're placing throughout the community that kind of

[21:13] guide maybe tourists to different locations

[21:18] or i guess unique locations in our community

[21:24] and then see and then the travel ironwood website

[21:29] is is one of our i guess key key things that we've done

[21:34] it's about a year and a half old and it it it basically has it all

[21:41] everything that you can think of doing in our community um

[21:46] we're out there advertising it we're creating um

[21:49] just unique uh pictures and and content that kind of showcase all of

[21:55] our different things and um the travel iron website is

[21:59] is really our our um i guess foundation to all of our other marketing

[22:05] um because everything that we do points back to this website um

[22:12] so let's see the next page and i'm actually going to

[22:16] turn it over to amber um so amber if you want to yeah maybe

[22:22] take the next um if you haven't met me before nice to

[22:26] see you all thanks for letting us present to you um

[22:30] so travel bloggers influencers um are really popular marketing tool that we've

[22:36] started to utilize our first influencer we had was shalee

[22:41] wanders and she is a nationwide and international travel blogger and

[22:47] what these people do is they come to an area

[22:50] they um explore the area then they write about it

[22:53] they post about it on social media um so she came actually last year during

[22:59] platter day and so she did a stormy chrome or

[23:02] factory tour then she came downtown and experienced

[23:07] latter day and um the downtown and she just thought it was absolutely amazing

[23:12] she went to copper peak she went to the porkies

[23:15] um and then we took her on a sunrise paddle on the guile

[23:19] and it was really great we had a really huge

[23:22] response from her coming um the next one we had was look about

[23:27] lindsay she's a minnesota-based blogger she came this

[23:32] past winter and we had her do some cross-country

[23:36] skiing at abr downhill skiing at powderhorn

[23:39] they did some winter hiking and also when they come they go to

[23:43] different businesses and they kind of post about where they

[23:47] went and what they did and what they liked

[23:49] we don't really tell them too much where to go we let them kind of

[23:52] organically do that and that was really well received as

[23:59] well and then third we had my playground and

[24:03] these are two brothers from down state and they explode

[24:10] for michigan in june and they did black river harbor scenic

[24:17] provided copper peak they did mountain biking they did

[24:20] all the falls paddle boarding um they have a blog a podcast

[24:25] they're also on all social media platforms including tick tock which is a

[24:30] kind of a newer um social media platform for mainly younger people the videos

[24:36] that they did for us are their most shared most like videos

[24:40] um and they are coming back this fall for a fall color

[24:44] tour so we're going to be their first stop and they're doing that all across

[24:48] the u.p and we're hoping to work with them in

[24:50] the winter as well so that's kind of what we've done so far

[24:55] um and we've had a lot of success with that

[25:01] kind of talked about that um so we've also

[25:04] hired videographers for videos that we produced

[25:08] to showcase the area attractions um events we we um

[25:14] have the sisu ski fest as one of the events we did a video for

[25:18] um we've hired brad vara for these videos

[25:22] um tim were you gonna share one of those or

[25:25] yeah one sec i just have to stop one share and move on to the next

[25:32] okay it's a little bit tricky

[25:39] okay so one thing that we wanted to just kind of share with you

[25:43] is um is maybe one of the videos that we produced so this is on our youtube

[25:50] channel and i will i guess make it big

[26:06] can't really hear it you can't hear it no

[26:19] i guess we can just kind of watch it i

[26:22] guess

[26:50] so

[27:07] it's more effective with the music and everything absolutely

[27:11] yeah but i'm sure you guys have seen these and and you can go to our

[27:15] youtube channel and watch all of them they're really

[27:18] pretty awesome videos

[27:43] guys so along with um hiring brad

[27:55] i can hear you yeah i think my uh my computer froze when i stopped the

[28:00] share amber are you able to move on without me

[28:05] yeah i'll i'll keep going okay i'll just try to wing it here um i

[28:10] got i came back okay so with along with brad

[28:15] um for those videos we've hired jake ring to do some

[28:18] ironwood stories and those will be coming out this fall and winter

[28:22] um sharing different families that why they've chosen to

[28:27] live in ironwood and what they love about ironwood

[28:30] um and those will be coming out i think at the end of september we have one and

[28:35] then for the winter we'll have another one

[28:39] we've also hired brad umvara and lexi estella

[28:42] for photography so we could build up our stock

City Commission Meeting & Public Hearing 2020-09-14

Transcript