Transcript: Council Committee of the Whole Meeting

Fred A. Neil

I will now call to order the Council Committee of the Whole for Tuesday, March the 10th, 2026. I would like to remind the public that public comments are welcome on any item and will be permitted at the appropriate time. You have before you this evening's agenda, and I will entertain an a motion for its adoption.

Julia M. Pillsbury

Pillsbury moves to adopt the agenda.

Fred A. Neil

Moved by Dr. Pillsbury.

David L. Anderson

Second.

Fred A. Neil

Seconded by Councilman Anderson. Any discussion? No discussion. Please pipe in your approval by saying aye.

Multiple Council Members

Aye.

Fred A. Neil

Any opposed? And passed unanimously. Um, the first item on the agenda, we have presentations. First is a discussion of affordable housing by Michelle Williams, Executive Director, for Center for Housing Delaware. Miss Williams, you're welcome to the podium.

Michelle Williams

Thank you so much. This is such an honor to be here. I'm so excited. Thank you David for inviting me. So I, uh, you have a handout in front of you. It's not, it's a culmination of this whole entire presentation, so it's a supplement to the presentation. So, my goal tonight is simply to provide a quick snapshot--

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

I'm sorry. Point of order. Council President?

Fred A. Neil

Yes.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Can can we quiet the room please so I can hear the presentation? I'm just the getting up there in age and uh the extra conversation just creates a distraction for me, so I just... Thank you.

Fred A. Neil

Thank you, Councilman Rocha, for bringing that up. And we apologize, and that should take care of it.

Michelle Williams

Thank you. So my goal tonight is just to give an overview and uh suggest some ideas that have been working. So I'm not here to advocate for a particular policy. I just am here to share what I was asked to do about housing. So I do have slides. There we go. Thank you. So I'm on slide two. So here's the agenda. Basically, we're going to cover this in 15 minutes, and it's looking at baseline indicators to explain why affordability pressures, they show up before people fall into crisis. And this is the latest data, so if you look on the internet at um the uh Delaware State Housing Authority and look at their community uh assessment, they are it's from 2022. You are getting hot off the press. Next slide. This is what I call a universe of housing. And so when we take it from a big level of Kent County, you've got about 192,000 people in Kent County, and then when you bring it back down to Kent, you've got um about 38,000. That's population. And then there are, just a little tidbit for you, the average home has 2.3 people in it, but there for housing units, you've got about 16,500. That's important, because 92 of those are occupied. And then this again is on your handout, just in a little different form. So you out of that 92, 8% is vacant, which is a very low vacancy rate, and that's why you guys are starting to get a squeeze on it. So, we're definitely here in Dover a renters' majority market, and so uh the affordability pressures are starting to squeeze a lot harder. Uh next slide. So I'm sure you know what a cost burden is. If

Presenter

If you pay more than 30% of your income on housing, you are cost-burdened. If you pay more than 50, you are severely uh cost-burdened. And what we see in Dover is that over 50% of of uh renters are cost-burdened. That's a lot. So, that is more than the average in Delaware and as well as Sussex County. Uh next slide.

Presenter

Now, I'm going to zoom a little bit further and look at renters alone. When you consider the renters and their income bracket, you can see that the cost comparison is pretty much the same across the uh the areas. But when you look at um Kent County, which is considered Dover um MSA, you are looking at um it's the same source, the same data from the other slide previous, and now you have this one. But even the small percentages difference in just hundreds of households, in Kent, you have 45% of housing that is not cost-burdened, while 28 are cost-burdened, and 22% are severely cost-burdened renters. And so when we see these numbers, who are we talking about? Like real families who are stretching their budgets. Uh next slide.

Presenter

So, this is interesting because this shows that you have owners and renters, and you can see from the left that the area median income for Dover is about $71,000, $78,000, and you can see that the incomes for the people with mortgages compared to the people that are not that are renters, you can see the income disparity right there. So, there's no big surprise that when you go to the left or the right side of the the chart, the fair market rate for a two-bedroom apartment is about just shy of $1,500. And so, next time when you're at the hospital or getting something for dinner, have a conversation with the person that is serving you about housing. Where do you live? How far do you have to drive? That's an eye-opener when you go and you're sitting, getting your blood drawn. Yes, sir.

Fred A. Neil

Yes, Councilman.

Andre M. Boggerty

I just wanted to ask a question. Thank you. Um, when you say the median income—

Presenter

Hold on.

Andre M. Boggerty

I'm sorry. I was so engaged. [laughter] I'm moving in. Uh, when you say the median income for owner, you're saying $93,000 and a $100,000, is that a household, or is that a person?

Presenter

Well, that's their income. So, a median income is $78,000. Therefore, those two branches, you've got um Kent and Delaware. Delaware is the blue one. I just wanted to put a little relativity here. So, the median income of of Dover of Kent County is 90 93, 92,000.

Andre M. Boggerty

Per person?

Presenter

Yes, the median. So, you can see that the income, when you look at owners versus renters, how high that median is. So, the the second uh block there, you can see that renters are only making uh 48,794.

Andre M. Boggerty

That's interesting because our census, the last I checked, our household census was, income was, in Dover per se, was much lower.

Male Speaker

and Kent County was much lower than that. Thank you.

Female Speaker

Thank you. I'll I'll look at that. Thank you.

Female Speaker

And when you look at Kent, Kent is an opportunity to look at a lot of places, whereas Dover, it might not have enough population that they can draw those assumptions. So that's where the difference is in the data. And that's why I try to always say where this data is coming from. So if I can get Dover, I have Dover. If I couldn't get Dover, I have Kent. So, um, yeah.

Female Speaker

So, even though housing costs might be the same, the disparity lies in the income of whether you're an owner or a renter. Uh, next slide.

Female Speaker

So this is a real busy slide. You can look this one up online, so that's why I didn't spend a lot of time on it. So HUD has benchmarks, and that's how they base all the things that they, all the programs and services.

Female Speaker

So the important takeaway is that rents have increased over time, and they remain relative to the earlier years. These aren't temporary spikes. So even modest increases in rent can create pressure for those households that are nearly near their limits. But this does not tell the whole story of housing. So let's go to the next slide.

Female Speaker

I don't know if you've ever heard this term, it's called ALICE, and it's by the United Way. Asset Limited, Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. So when you look at that measurement versus a HUD, pretty generic measurement, um what this means is that there's households that are earning above the federal poverty level, but not enough to afford the basic essentials in the county where they live.

Female Speaker

So while I'm not going to do a deeper dive in poverty because you've got a little chart in there um what what the snapshot looks like. So I'll just give you an example on how to read this chart. See the next to the bottom um line there? It's Dover, and you could see that Dover has the highest population, highest households, but the highest percentage of people that are ALICE, meaning Asset Limited, Const- etc., is North Milford at 53%, whereas Dover, Asset Limited, Income Constrained ALICEs are 47 47%.

Female Speaker

So it doesn't matter what your population is, it's really honing in on what is in that county census division. So bottom line is there's a lot of households, they work, and they still can't make ends meet. And really when you look at that, that's an workforce and community stability issue. Next slide.

Female Speaker

And if you want to know how this is calculated, this again you could find on um the uh you can do an internet search for ALICE Delaware and you'll get all this information.

Female Speaker

You can see that they account for, and you can even be thinking about this in your own your own life: housing, childcare, food, transportation, healthcare, technology, etc., etc., and how that all adds up. And then a single adult, monthly total on a single adult is about $2,800 a month. He has to make 17.31 just to make ends meet, with nothing left over. Now imagine if you

Presenter

as a kid, etcetera. So, across the board, you can see that there is a discrepancy and a deficiency of how much people make versus how much they have to afford. Next slide.

Presenter

And so, when you look over time since 2010, we see that the financial pressure among households, it's been consistent. And populations have increased in Dover by 20%, but so has poverty by 25%. And you've got ALICE households, 31%. Again, this isn't just a short-term spike. Next slide.

Presenter

Now, this I find really fascinating. I just took a ton of different kinds of wages, and I took that ALICE budget, household budget, used that to see how much people are short. So, if you were like me, I used to say, "You know, I don't understand how someone making $20 an hour can't afford to live." And then when I started looking at the data, it was an eye-opener.

Presenter

So, you can see that all the way down at the bottom you've got your restaurant workers, they're almost 50% short every single year. And it's just, and you could see the only ones that made out are the contractors and carpenters. So this is a pretty eye-opening slide. Next slide.

Presenter

This one's one of my favorites. So, what this does is it says if your household earns 78,430 and you are, say, let's say you're a civil engineer and you're making 99,000, based on the 30% rule, that person can afford a rent of 2,450. Okay. Or a home price of 294, 294,000. But if your median home price in Dover, Kent County, is 365,000, even people that make good salaries like civil engineers--

Presenter

But here's the most, I want to say sad or eye-opening, if you look at the bottom where it's 30% AMI, area median income, and you look at fast food, cashiers, waitresses, personal care, and what's interesting to note is four of your top jobs are in the 30%. But look at what kind of jobs they are. They're the people that serve us every single day. So, you can see that that person, let's just say she's a cashier, she's going to make $29,000 a year, and she can afford a rent of 588. Can you think about where I could find a rental for 588 a month plus utilities? And if that person were to want to purchase a home, they could only afford $70,000 in order to be not cost-burdened. So you can see, like for instance, the other thing is if that person needs, like the 588 a month, that person, just say they make minimum wage, they still have to work 61 hours to get a one-bedroom that's affordable. So all this is in your handout, but it's astonishing when you actually put a job to a person to how much they have to spend. It is, and that's why I'm saying next time you do a drive-in and get something, you know, to takeout, or you're getting your blood drawn--

Dr. Tiny

um just have a conversation. It is an eye-opener. Trust me, I've done it a lot. Uh next slide.

Dr. Tiny

This is another thing that's really important. So we talked about 30% income and that's down at the the red, down at the bottom. So the the left side of your screen has how many households there are, whereas the right shows you how much available and affordable housing there is here in Dover.

Dr. Tiny

So basically you are at a loss. So when somebody says, "Oh yeah, I looked at this and the total is, oh, we're at a net net gain of 370." Oh no, no, no. You've got to look at how much the area median income person is. So that, you've got a shortage of about a thousand houses, units. Even those that are 30 to 50%, you still have a shortage of 435.

Dr. Tiny

Now when you get to the higher ones, you've got a surplus. This is not new, it's just a matter of the numbers. So when you're really looking at how much house you need, how many houses, how many units, you really got to look at where do those houses go, how much do they cost, and what is the target market for that house? And that's why sometimes a higher-income person will live in a housing unit that really was designed for a 30% AMI person.

Dr. Tiny

Okay, next slide. I'm going to shift gears just a little bit here to wind down. So there's structural barriers that create friction that doesn't allow us collectively to support what we want to do. And it's not just about more houses, although that's true, it's the right type of houses, the right size, the right place, and the right price. So what prohibits that is you've got all your zoning constraints and development costs and permitting timelines, infrastructure limits.

Dr. Tiny

And at the same time, this is an opportunity for you because you have the tools available. And so that could be something like enabling smaller housing types, and that's why they call me Dr. Tiny because I'm a huge advocate of tiny homes. You could support the rehabilitation of your condemned houses or existing houses and you can streamline the approval processes. Those are low-hanging fruits.

Dr. Tiny

And uh they're, like I said, they're not unique to Dover, but they influence how fastly collectively you can you can work on this and adopt new things. And the good news is that you now have the opportunity to take action and do something. So the other thing I did on your last um your the last slide that you have, in fact I'll go to the next slide, I went through and looked at some of the policy um actions that you've done as a not necessarily you all, but as a council. And uh it just looks a little different. Um you can see which ones were passed, which ones were voted down, and which ones were I don't want to say forced upon you, but you didn't develop them yourself. They didn't come out from you. They came out say from a task force or from the governor's directive or etc. So when you really look at a historic perspective and you're thinking, "Why didn't we pass those...

Presenter

three in the middle. That's just a little bit of historic data to go back and say what was somebody thinking, and then how do we want to take action further?

Presenter

So, let me give you a real life example. So, I have a team of non-profits, and we are working with a landowner owner who has 22 acres. And we've decided that we wanted to put um tiny homes for rent and for sale, as well as a little commercial area.

Presenter

So, the infrastructure is already there, funding has been pledged. The issue is prohibiting this project to go forward is that according to the map, it is in a growth zone. So, all I get is no, no, no.

Presenter

So, I'm sure that there's other projects that are sitting there waiting to be developed with a different set of standards, tiny or small, or duplexes or quads or however you want to do that. And we're prohibited because of zoning and land use getting in the way of helping our affordability and housing um affordability, availability. So, next slide.

Presenter

These are my my key takeaways. You might have other ones, but the data suggests that you have a structural mismatch.

Presenter

And at our incomes and housing, there's just a shortage. But building housing can help, but the real question is whether the houses being built match the incomes for the people who live and work in that area.

Presenter

Dover's housing pressure appears strongest because it is a renters, there's more renters and low income workers here in Dover.

Presenter

The housing market doesn't uh does have some availability, but they're out of reach for the people that need it.

Presenter

And I'm going to ask ask some questions just for your thinking. Like when we talk about funding, and I just said that there's a lot of things that you could do that don't need a lot of funding, do you spend more on homelessness, and my pal back...

Presenter

...there, Judson, is queued up um because he does homelessness, but he needs people like me that build permanent structures, because as soon as his folks are done and they move out of a transitional house, where do they go? Where do you put these folks? And, Mr. Judson, I won't take anything. There you are.

Presenter

So um so anyway, do you spend more on homelessness versus ALICE, when 40% is ALICE and maybe 1%, I might have my numbers wrong, is homelessness? So it's just something, I'm not judging, it's just a right, wrong, good or bad, just to think about.

Presenter

And where is more rental and owner housing needed? And uh for Sussex County, I broke this down by census tract. So I know you're all living in Dover, but what are the census tracts? Are you a 30% person, or are you an 80% AMI person in your neighborhood?

Presenter

So it's really important to know those bands because there's the number of rentals and the number of units that are mismatched. Okay, so what next slide.

Presenter

So some of the interventions um that you've done, um here's just some of them. I sat on the uh Governor's Affordable Housing Task Force, so of course I'm waving the rat the the flag for tiny and small...

Presenter

our homes and starter homes, but you know there were 72 suggestions that came out out of that task force, and they were distilled down to nine. So if you want some other ideas, just check it out and I've included the URL on your handout. So when you look at what are people doing across the country, some are preserving housing, some are, you know, really focusing on keeping people in their house by aging in place or fixing a roof, etc., because if those folks that now can live in a not perfect house, but it can be made perfect, if they have to go somewhere, where are they going to go? And others, like like hopefully us here, focus on expanding our small scale housing options to And really here's another one. Look at your vacant housing and why those are vacant. Look at your condemned housing as rehab projects. And these are real life things that happen. And the exciting thing is that you all have that opportunity to unlock a new supply. So, next slide. So in closing, I want to invite all of you to be housing heroes. Because housing challenges are rarely solving, they're not caused by a single policy and they're not solved by a single policy. They usually involve a mix of strategies that really reflect the local housing stock, workforce, and growth patterns. And when your top four employed people are in 30% or below, that's an issue.

Presenter

And my goal tonight was simply to provide a snapshot of what the data shows, and if you need further information, believe me, I've got a lot of statistics and I'd love to answer any questions that anyone may have.

Fred A. Neil

Questions? If not, I have a few. Yes, uh, Councilman Sudler. Uh, Anderson.

David L. Anderson

Thank you, Mr. President. First of all, thank you for accepting the invitation. Uh, you've been a very interesting person to uh converse with, and uh thank you for bringing some of that conversation here. I, the uh I think looking policy, you're looking at uh What could you explain a little bit uh differences between uh like it used to be what what we now call cottage houses used to be uh normal working class houses, like if you look at Rodney Village, Kent Acres, uh even uh some of uh Northwest Dover Heights and the like. And they're nice places. Um what what happened to those?

Presenter

What happened, uh that's what you're talking about is considered missing middle. So right now you've got single-family homes and huge monstrosities. You don't have anything in the middle. I'm looking around the room and I know that some of the folks in here were really like me, a 1,000 square foot home with three kids, a dog, and a mom and a dad, and a one bathroom. And we were fine. That was your starter home. We don't build starter homes anymore. And as uh from the developer perspective, well we build what the market wants. Well, they're about 10 years behind because the market now is really saying, 'I want small because I don't need to clean my big...'

Presenter

house or to furnish it. I just want to pay for what I live in, and that's why I'm a huge advocate for tiny and small, even small-scale developments, um, and so that's why we're doing the project down in Georgetown with the smaller units. But we're missing that, the missing middle: duplexes and quads, even in, you know, the the row houses that have the different floors. We don't build that anymore, and that's what happened. Uh, it started around, say, 1950-ish when the VA, the VA loans and the the soldiers came back. They wanted a house in the 'burbs. They didn't call it that, and they kept on getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. I have a great slide that shows from 1860 on, all the way you could see the housing trends. It's pretty impressive. And on your handout, I believe, there's been a change of what people want. It used to be that the boatloads used to want single-family, now people want mobile homes. We haven't built a mobile home park since 1972. And and mobile homes, I don't know if you've ever been in them recently, but they don't look anything like the mobile homes where you call them trailer parks, etc. Okay, so that's another opportunity to look at.

David L. Anderson

Yes, um, so what could be done without, um, market manipulation, what can be done to encourage, uh, a variety of housing?

Presenter

So that was one of the huge things that came out of that task force. But, um, people there's, I'm not the only one that's really pushing for smaller units. It's that the zoning does not allow for smaller units. For instance, if you have a half acre, how many units can you put on that half acre? Right. If you have one acre, how many can you put on it? Yeah. So that's what happened. Our lots got bigger, the land use got different, and, um, we just kind of put handcuffs on our own self with the with density and zoning.

David L. Anderson

And in the City of Dover, we have something called a planned neighborhood development, which is our our main mechanism to allow for, um, let's say, smaller homes and the like. Uh, yet we've had, um, I guess that they haven't had a lot of takers on that. Um, is there, uh, anything, uh, is there something wrong with that particular ordinance that needs to be tweaked? You don't need to answer that today, or is there, is was it just the market at the time?

Presenter

No, not necessarily. It could have been a bunch of those things, but my gut without looking at the the map on where those, uh, places are and those lots and parcels, I would say that there's not a developer who's willing to take the risk, and it is a risk, to to do something different, like build a tiny home village, we'll just say, or a Pallet village. So, it just, uh, we you need more people like me that are stepping up and say, "You know what? I want to house these people." And and we're we're nonprofit, and my partners are nonprofits, but we're still having that same problem. And it's, "Hey, I'm here to work, like..."

Presenter

Like I said, we have that 20 25 22 acres in Frederica. We're ready to go. But my hands are behind my back because it's in a growth zone, so I'd have to look that up. Yeah, as an example. Yeah. But you know it's so easy to to develop uh like the one that we're doing in Georgetown. We have uh one uh just shy of two two and a half acres, and we're putting 20 units on there for small, and they're not tiny. They're 500 square feet and a thousand square feet, a three-bedroom. One-bedroom, two-bedroom, three-bedroom. It's possible.

David L. Anderson

Thank you. And and by the way, now that I don't know that palace would be our our uh thing, but we'll we'll keep the P-word out. But but the uh but when it comes to uh developers, if your your firm sees a few acres of land that still exist in the city and and uh can make it affordable, you'll probably find some a friendly reception here.

Presenter

Yeah, and it's infill.

David L. Anderson

Exactly.

Presenter

You know, you don't disrupt the neighborhood, the look of it, the feel of it. And that's why the smaller homes are amazing, but we have not adopted them as we should have.

David L. Anderson

I yield, Mr. President.

Fred A. Neil

Councilman Rocha.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Thank you, Council President. That just triggered something that uh Councilman Anderson mentioned just in the dialogue. Um do you have any 3D um models that, you know, if we were to have a town hall or something like that and get our constituents aware of what it would look like um and how it would enhance the city? Is there something like that that you all have developed?

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Thank you. That that's very interesting. I yield to uh Councilman Boggerty.

Andre M. Boggerty

Oh, thank you. Um question, I coming from the inner city of Detroit, be, you know, not common, we I grew up in we didn't have tiny houses, but our houses was tiny. We made a lot with our 200 square feet apartments. But my question now is um the reception again, we need housing, and I'm trying to find a way, but I have to uh ask tough questions. I think it's tough. What what does that look like when it comes to How has the reception been with other neighborhoods and its impact on the home values of other neighborhoods? For example...

Presenter

Oh yeah, that's really easy. Um and plus we do those video walkthroughs of our We have the two of them built already, so we already do that. And what you're asking is I think we probably already have our 22 laid out, our our our 22 acres, not houses.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Like in the whole neighborhood basically?

Presenter

Yeah, we have that all drawn because you're going to need that when you go to planning, and it's really hard for people to imagine 20 units on 1 and 1/2 acres, because people don't know what an acre looks like. So that's why we do that almost upfront.

Presenter

I'm glad you asked.

Andre M. Boggerty

Thank you. Somebody's glad I asked. Um because given our four districts, we, as the at-large individual, every district is is like raising four different, I don't mean to demean anyone, but it's like having four different children.

Andre M. Boggerty

They all have their unique personalities, their unique identifiers, and I love them all. See how I clean that up? A great politician. I love them all, but each district has its, um, own personality and and the receptivity of it, um, would would be would be that.

Speaker

Yeah, that's a great question, and I'm glad that you asked that about home values. As a researcher, academic nerd, that's one of the things that I look at. What is the Is there a value decrease on your home when you have affordable housing? And I hate those two words together. It's housing that is affordable according to your salary. So people have that misconception that it brings down property values, but if you have, say a vacant lot, and you clean that up and put tinys on it, or smalls, you've just increased everybody's value in their homes. And the problem that we had in Georgetown, as an example, is there were two condemned lots that were sitting there for 20-some years, and the owner gave them to us. Well, then all of a sudden, the neighbor said, "We don't want that." Well, wait a minute, they've been vacant for 20 years. You say you need housing, we're here to build housing, and you scratch your head. Across the country, and I can't say across the world because I don't know, across the country there have been study after study to prove that it does not decrease property value.

Andre M. Boggerty

So, I'm I'm I'm like I'm a very I'm a really a nerd. I'm a I'm a really bad nerd, I just try to hide it.

Speaker

Okay.

Andre M. Boggerty

Uh so, I've I've watched YouTube, and there's this whole tiny home, this whole movement of of downsizing or minimizing is the buzzword, cultural word. So, it is a thing, um, and and I have actually went to some, and they are really really really really nice. Um um so, I just want to put that out there. Also one of the concerns is, and I and I have to say this again so we can have it on record, um, when you when you have tiny homes, what is the diversity as it relates to so it won't turn into something that it's not supposed to be considered? And And also, what experiences have you Has it impacted safety or you know, have you noticed any more, um, upticks of of of crime? Because that would be the image. And I just and I I had the conversation, um, but I want it on record so, you know, we can hear it. It's in

Speaker

No, absolutely. So I'll address the first one. And anybody that's watched HGTV and looked at the tiny houses for $250,000, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about things that people can afford. As an example, our rents in uh Georgetown, and I use that as an example because that's the one we have actively going on. Um for a one bedroom, it's uh 950 inclusive of utilities and internet. Our two bedroom is about 1075, but it's below It's It's affordable and it is below market

Roy Sudler, Jr.

Right.

Andre M. Boggerty

No no when I say that in the sense of, excuse me, I mean I say that in the sense of, that's not giving it away.

Speaker (female presenter)

Oh, no, absolutely.

Andre M. Boggerty

You know what I mean? You're not, you know, to, you know, somebody who's, uh, you know, in that 30 percentile, you know, $1,000 is still something that you, you know, hey, you've got to hold your head up and you've got to get up and get to it. Exactly. You know, so I, I, so I just wanted to ask. So do y'all do vouchers typically?

Speaker (female presenter)

Well, let me, I'll, I'll explain about that. We just do working people, okay? So they go to Judson and then they end up needing a place to live. So that's how the sequence, the continuum of care uh, happens. So, um, we, actually, because they're rentals, and we are going to sell some as well, but these in particular are rentals, um, we also have a property management um, company that will manage the property. Uh, we have an application process. It's the same as you would, um, we haven't talked about uh Section 8 vouchers, none of that, because we're focused on this particular project for this particular 30 to 50% AMI, maybe going up to about 60% AMI, but we're focusing on people that can afford 950 a month.

Andre M. Boggerty

Can you touch on the safety issue again?

Speaker (female presenter)

Yeah, that's my next one. Uh-huh, that was my next one.

Andre M. Boggerty

Thank you, sir.

Speaker (female presenter)

So, again, when you look at studies on uh, tiny house communities versus homeless, uh, encampments, you don't find the safety issues, especially if they're home owners, that you would in a shelter, encampment, kind of uh, thing. And there have been no studies, and I actually do have statistics on it, just not in my head. Now, if you had sent me messages, we'd have great conversation, but there is no studies, and I pay attention to that because that is important. Because if you're going to, you know, buy something out of the ordinary, a tiny house, you want to know is it going to maintain the value, is it going to be suitable for me, am I going to be safe? So, the studies that I have, there's nothing that has correlated uh, a tiny house community, whether it's a 200 community or a 20 community, with uh, with negative safeties.

Andre M. Boggerty

All right, chair, thank you.

Fred A. Neil

Um, all right, Mr. Chair. And uh, this gives me a chance to Yes, uh, Councilman Anderson, do you have a comment? If not, I'll take it. Okay.

Fred A. Neil

Uh, now, I you have to make this clear for me, cuz I've been living with Alice, to the chagrin of my wife, for a long, long time. And the definitions are, for me, I mean if if I have $100,000, I can find all kinds of affordable housing. And we're talking about very specifically low-income, workforce, fixed-income, people who don't have Alice, right? Which I know very well. The problem I have, and I don't know exactly where you fit in, because you're saying that you have these tiny, small houses for rent. Is this leased land? Or is this a straight-forward uh, rental?

Speaker (female presenter)

Believe it or, uh, you want me to answer that one right now or you want me to Okay, I'll do that one first. Super easy.

Speaker 1

And that third one was a guy that said, "I don't know what to do with it." He heard me on the radio, he hooked up with me, and he's now our partner. We, he, we, our nonprofit bought it for a dollar.

Fred A. Neil

All right. Okay. Now, who owns the land? Do you own the land?

Speaker 1

The nonprofit owns the land.

Fred A. Neil

You're a nonprofit. Okay. Now, there is a problem that I have, and what I've seen, and nobody wants to touch it. You can create that's fairly low-income. You can borrow money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and borrow it. I live in a leased land community—

Speaker 1

Mhm.

Fred A. Neil

—Wild Meadows, and the problem is this: you can sell at any point that you want simply because you can't stop you. And that's exactly what has happened because we don't have enough housing. And you can show this. I mean, I, I've served on the task force, the legislative task force on housing, but the fact is the idea is, and a lot of these ideas that you put in is already in the mill because we have probably close to a 1,000 housing units that are going up in the city that are on the books now or coming on the books in different kinds of housing. Now, the problem is when you build this housing by a developer and they get to the point where they say, "Uh, I want out. I want I want my bundle." So even though you've gotten the money from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or any other source, and they say "I want out", what happens is the loan that the tenants are being paid off now come into the sale price and there's even higher payments that are happening to every single tenant who are now basically enslaved as long as they want to stay there—

Speaker 1

Mhm.

Fred A. Neil

—because the next sale, that money that has to go back, in addition to whatever goes to investors, goes higher.

Speaker 1

Mhm.

Fred A. Neil

So what the state has not done and refuses to do or doesn't even look at is the grassroots problem of getting affordable housing and keeping affordable housing. We can't keep affordable housing as long as this is permitted to happen step-by-step-by-step. Now, we have to do, I've made the suggestion and nobody's picked it up yet, is to do rent justification utility style. And that basically is the understanding that any developer who comes in is entitled to make a profit. But at the point that they want to sell, they're going to have to sell to someone who is going to maintain the affordable housing.

Speaker 1

Mhm.

Fred A. Neil

And that way, whether it is the members of of the community who are buying it, if it's an apartment house, becomes a condo, or if it's a leased land community, it becomes a common interest community, and they basically control their own destiny and their own money. They need professional help. That I've been studying since 2004, been here in 2000, moved here in 2003. It hasn't happened. It won't happen until that occurs. So, while the idea is nice, like to have it, basically if we permit that we've just have the Edge, that's very close to the Speedway, 216 units, that's 216 units, but who can afford it? Now, I see—

Fred A. Neil

that they can't afford it. I think there there's no question about it. It's no secret. We all know that. It's no secret.

Fred A. Neil

When the new box factory came here into into Dover, and I asked the uh general manager who was there, I said did you come here because of the low cost of living? And he said yeah low cost of living we didn't come here for that because your housing costs so much.

Fred A. Neil

So obviously capitalism, if we had an overabundance would control a lot of it. We don't. We're 20,000 units short. So if Dover comes through with a thousand units, that's a thousand units less. We still have the problem. We cannot control the basis for affordable housing for the low-income, the so-called workforce income and the uh uh uh seniors who are retired on fixed income. That doesn't solve it.

Fred A. Neil

So whether your small houses solve it as long as you remain nonprofit and are going to do it uh well, but it's still a rental. At that point, they don't have a stake in that ground. At that point to say it's mine. If it's mine, that's a different story. It becomes a whole different thing, but it's not a lot, even though you put more on the same ground. And that's where we're failing to find affordable housing for this desperately needed group.

Fred A. Neil

Okay I'm going to yield on that in case anybody wants any making any other comment. And thank you for your presentation.

Presenting Speaker

Thank you very much for listening, and oh, good. Another question.

Tricia K. Arndt

What type of housing are you building in Georgetown? Like, are there like, I grew up in a row home in Philadelphia, my first townhouse was in DE, what kind of housing are you building?

Presenting Speaker

Single units, and they're built on, on-site. And um there's another there's two other manufacturers that we use: Beracah for the modular homes because he can build like 12 in a row. That's 12 houses like in like within 60 days. And then there's The Great Outdoor Cottages, who is also a uh tiny, I don't want to say tiny home because um there's a definition of tiny home that's anything less than 399. So it's not the 200 square-foot house. So when I say tiny, it's anything under 400 square feet. So the ones in Georgetown are stick-built by a nonprofit developer for us.

Presenter

Basically we were doing a carport, um, and there are the solar panels on top of that parking area. So, again, this is like There are so many different models, even models of who's going to own, who's going to maintain... There are so many different models out there that have been proven to to be good and to be not so good. So, um, so when when we look at a parcel of land, hmm, how big is it? Does it have infrastructure? Those are the two things. And then three is what can it sustain? Those are the things that we look at. And then, um, the the housing themselves, they're basically the same, you know, cookie-cutter kind of thing, although they do have some modifications. So everything that we build is different depending on the land, and I'm really excited to look at, um, the ones that are sitting there. Yep.

Council Member

Thank you.

Presenter

You're welcome.

Fred A. Neil

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Fred A. Neil

Our, uh, next presenter is the Springboard, uh, Delaware proposal to partner with the New City Church to create a facility with shelter and wrap-around services for homeless women and children. Dwight Osborne, pastor of the New City Church, and Judson Malone, executive director of New City Church Family Village. Please come forward. Welcome, sir.

Judson Malone

Thank you. Thank you. Um, I'm Judson Malone. Uh, Pastor Dwight could not make it this evening. Um, he sends his blessings. Um, we are very excited to be here, very appreciative of the opportunity to show, number one, what we did in Georgetown, and number two, um, an exciting new proposal that evolves out of what we learned in Georgetown. So I'll start with a little bit of history first. Um, it's known as a Pallet Village because the manufacturer at that time, located in Everett, Washington, was called Pallet Shelter. And as you As we go through the slides, you'll see that they're very modular, uh, but they are kind of bolt-together kits. Um, we had a lot of support from the local community. The American Builders and Contractors Association came out and helped us assemble them in three days, 40 units. Uh, next slide. Other way. And one more. And so, as you can see, uh, it's a community effort. Uh, everyone rallied around the idea, uh, to give people a very simple thing: a safe place to live while they look for permanent housing, because without the Pallet Village, their only other choice was the encampments in the woods around. So this project came as a direct response to a rising homeless population and what do we do about it. Next slide. It was well-publicized and in and by January of 20 23, uh, we were open for business. Um, within a week, we were 100% capacity, 40 cabins. This is what's called a low-barrier shelter, and we allow couples to live together or singles. The cabin is only 64 ft.² I was listening to the conversation earlier about how we all got used to smaller places to live, but 64 ft.², my God, they are just transforming their spaces. It is so incredibly important to them that they can lock their door, they can get a restful night's sleep, they're in a protected community because it's fenced and nobody gets in that doesn't that doesn't belong there, 24/7 support. Uh, we learned at from studying other pallet villages across the country, and we experienced it in Georgetown, that within a couple of weeks, someone who had been homeless for a decade...

Judson Malone

And when you see them after a week or two into this trauma-reducing environment, their posture changes, their attitude changes, and they have hope.

Judson Malone

Next slide. Oh, well you can't read that. Skip that one. So, you can't read this either, but basically, it's trying to say we've got a lot of success stories. People become homeless for a lot of different reasons, and they find their way out by going different paths, but they make it.

Judson Malone

Since we've opened, we've served 220 people, and about 40% of those have made their way into permanent housing. Only about less than 10% gravitated back to rough living in the woods.

Judson Malone

Next slide. Next slide. We've done some creative things. We started a healing arts program. Gentleman on top, John, is a resident. We implemented something we call the resident steward program. We actually have them doing some work in the village in lieu of us hiring staff or security contractors.

Judson Malone

Sarah, they're going on for a job as a resident steward. And Jan was one of our earliest participants, and she was one of the worst cases. She was an alcoholic, she loved to party hard, but she was very smart. And she you know, she was really you know, it was it was dragging her back. She couldn't get past this, you know, but she finally did. But it took two or three tries. She had to go to for for treatment multiple times, but we never gave up on her.

Judson Malone

The point I'm trying to make is the whole model is not around just finding a place for them to stay. It is finding a place to stay where the support is there. Next slide.

Judson Malone

All right. Again, kind of an eye chart, but we we focus on partnerships. We are not a a lone ranger nonprofit trying to solve all problems. We're doing just the opposite. Our corporate name is The Springboard Collaborative. We shorten that to Springboard Delaware as a brand name, but the idea is you know, it takes it takes a village. It takes collaboration, and we have formal relationships with healthcare organizations, medical treatment organizations, banks. They come in and they come on-site and on a weekly basis, and they provide services. Next slide.

Judson Malone

You'll be able to look at the numbers up close, but that's the budget summary. By the way, stop me if I'm going too fast. I know I got too many slides for a short presentation, so I'm trying to stay on stay on time. But I don't mind being interrupted.

Judson Malone

So we have strong relationships with community partners, with faith-based partners, and other foundations. We are entering into a phase of sustainability where we are reaching out to the state to fund operations.

Judson Malone

You may not be aware of this, but the the Division of Health and Social Services has a what's called DSAMH, it's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Division, and they specialize in serving populations that have those issues. They do it through contractors, typically nonprofit contractors, and they fully fund operations for multiple years.

Judson Malone

We are pushing for them to adopt that model to fund interim housing. What we're determined to do is never come to a municipality and say, sorry, but you got to pay the budget to keep it running. Because we our our understanding of the way Delaware is built financially, that just doesn't doesn't work. The state does help. They do...

Judson Malone

take service centers, they do outreach teams, they do, you know, they It's it is a social service issue, but it is also a housing issue. Uh, next slide.

Judson Malone

Now let me slow down a little bit. That's a brief history of the Pallet Village. Uh, we haven't come up with such a catchy name for the next village, but right now we're calling it interim housing. The other term you will hear a lot is low-barrier navigation center. And it's really really two concepts. Low-barrier means

Judson Malone

the reason you have a persistent, chronic homeless population with the worst possible issues of substance use and mental health, the the the restrictions to going to traditional shelters, they they just don't work. I can't get clean in the woods so I can get into your shelter. I need to get someplace where I'm safe before I can get treatment. And that's been our experience.

Judson Malone

We brought people in that are deeply addicted, and they come in and we give them a place to stay. We do not mandate immediately that they go to treatment.

Judson Malone

What we do instead is we reduce their trauma, case manage and interview with them, talk about their life, talk about, you know, their issues. What is keeping you being homeless? Think about it, tell us. We're not here to judge you.

Judson Malone

When we first opened, we had 40 people come in, and within 2 weeks we had 10 or 12 that were already deciding to go for treatment. It works.

Judson Malone

If you insist that they be clean and sober in order to get shelter, they will lie to you, because they're desperate. And so you're still not And and now you have a situation where you can't honestly talk to them to help them get better.

Judson Malone

Next slide, please. Oh, go go back to the previous one. We uh we were asking uh Dr. Pillsbury, we were asking Looking at row houses? It kind of looks like row houses, doesn't it? That's our new product line. Uh, next slide.

Judson Malone

Okay, this is just making the point about wraparound services. Uh, that we There's a whole compendium. There's uh something called a self-sufficiency matrix, which basically looks at a person, encourages them to look at their life and and and a whole You know, the the domains of health, housing, uh education, uh family connections. We get them to talk about all of that, to help them understand how did you get to be homeless and how can we get you out of it? Next slide.

Judson Malone

Uh, Great Outdoor Cottages, that name came up with Michelle. Um, we are partnering with them for this new line of interim housing. So it's a It's a cottage Tiny home chassis, but purpose-built structure on top for different purposes. Uh, we have rooms for sleeping, we have rooms for uh for shower, we have rooms for education even, we have videoconferencing, telehealth.

Judson Malone

Uh, we've designed all the components of a supportive community in the form of 10x40-foot boxes. And we flow them into a site. It's significant. Uh, we don't need much land. You know, it's uh it's very compact. Uh, next slide.

Judson Malone

We have designed these to be rapidly deployable, and we've designed these to be only there at a particular location on an interim basis, and when the need for them uh um reduces or goes away, they can be removed.

Judson Malone

So it's very important to realize that we're not proposing to build permanent shelters. We're not proposing to build even permanent houses. We're proposing to build interim housing villages that will address a chronic problem immediately, giving time for for homes to get built that they can afford to move into. Next slide.

Presenter

Okay. Our partner in this, proposed partner, we've got an MOU with the with the new city. It's not an ironclad. It is a I call it a baby-step MOU. Let's partner together and go out and see what we can do. And if there's if there's a willingness to go forward, we'll go forward. If there's not, we'll draw back. But right now we are moving forward. We have uh we're we're we realize uh that very important and I know you guys have every council in the state has been through some pretty rough meetings with the public. And they do not like surprises. And we are not proposing to surprise anybody. We are have already been exploratory. I've got to go back and get an actual appointment, but I've been to the Safeway store, I've been to the Target store, we're meeting with the mosque tomorrow, we're going to do a door-knock around the neighborhood. Nobody's going to be surprised. And we're prepared to answer any and all questions and fears and concerns and address them honestly. Next slide. So now you look Let's go ahead. I'm sorry, I can't recognize you. The chair has to.

Council President / Committee Chair

Councilman Boggerty.

Andre M. Boggerty

Thank you. Thank you. Um, a few, thank you for that, and we've had tindall, but um, again, for for the record and clarity, uh, there are two, two, maybe two and a half things I want to ask about this particular model. What does your utility function look like? And what does fire and safety function look like?

Presenter

Okay. We have entered into a um an agreement with um DBF in Milford. They're a design, architect, surveyor, engineering firm and we're we will be shortly engineering how that would look. But our goal is to make it as minimal impact as possible so that when we leave, it's pristine again. We don't know exactly how that will unfold, but it's a very firm goal. And the reason I say that is our experience in Georgetown was never to do it that way again. We dug up a lot of ground and not not really meaning to the way we did it. Uh, and we also chose a site that wasn't near didn't have the infrastructure as close by as it should have been. So we've gotten very cognizant of that, um, but my goal is uh that when we leave, the site is like it was.

Andre M. Boggerty

I I just want to clarify, for example, those size homes, um, those size dwelling places, homes, um, is there going to be somebody's home, what does they, you had community showers and restrooms, how does you how does, like, restrooms and showering work in the in a in a

Presenter

So we've paid a lot of attention to um other complexes that have ratios of people to common showers to make sure we get the balance right and make sure we have enough. Uh so we we go by those ratios, um and uh we have a trailer that's that's a the hygiene uh it has ADA accommodation and it has standard accommodations. Uh and in Georgetown, um you know, that there's never been there's never been an issue with waiting in line or anything like that. So we've got we've got the numbers, but essentially, if memory serves me, I think one a four-unit, uh, no, five-unit hygiene unit for a population of 50 to 60 people would be adequate. Okay. And it so it'd be right there on site.

Andre M. Boggerty

And and

Unknown Speaker

...how does that how does that take place?

Jim Martin

We are actually looking at two potential populations. One potential population is the adult homeless and the other is women with children or families with children. They do represent decidedly different profiles and you have different safety concerns when you have them. But in either case it will be a perimeter fence and controlled access. That is why in Georgetown nobody locks their bike up, because nobody gets in there that doesn't belong. And there's somebody, we call it the Welcome Center. It's front, it's very front and center. You don't get in there until you come through the Welcome Center, and you don't go further than the Welcome Center unless you belong there or unless you have a reason to visit. So it's very tightly controlled.

Unknown Speaker

Thank you for that. Chair, I yield.

Roy Sudler, Jr.

Thank you. Please continue.

Jim Martin

Okay. Uh so you can kind of get an idea that it's got a very minimal footprint. Uh the church has been a wonderful partner and they've been very proactive um and uh supportive. So next slide. One of them changed. Uh this just gives you a more uh a zoomed-out look uh where its location is and then one more slide to give you another zoomed-out look. Oh no it has where the utilities are. Uh that was one of the first things I looked for when I started looking at that site. Okay I'm I'm not going to do like I did in Georgetown again. So um so that's very very good. Um next slide. One more. Okay. Let's go back for a moment and let's talk about the conversation that Michelle was sharing about housing shortage.

Brian E. Lewis

Can I just interrupt you for a minute? Chair?

Roy Sudler, Jr.

Yes. Mr. Lewis.

Brian E. Lewis

Mr. Chair, um this is actually in my district, the second district, where you intend to implement this project. Um I have a couple questions and my first one is, um how do you intend to get the community to buy into this? Because uh where you intend to place these, you have Clearview Meadow development. Um and if they don't, and I suggest that you, you know you said you were going to go around with with flyers and, you know, talk to the community, you may want to um make an appointment to address their homeowners association...

Jim Martin

Absolutely.

Brian E. Lewis

...at their monthly meetings, because I think that's very important.

Jim Martin

Yeah. We appreciate you helping connect us.

Brian E. Lewis

Yeah, because I'm very familiar with the area um and uh you know it don't look like you have a lot of space there because actually uh about uh a year ago there was tents erected on the land where you intend to...

Jim Martin

Right.

Brian E. Lewis

...put these tiny homes. Um the other question is uh if this goes through, uh how do you intend to police the project?

Jim Martin

Okay, well here's some lessons we learned in Georgetown. When we brought that 40 people from a harsh, traumatic in the woods environment, we and and by the way my staff uh Trish is here today, uh they knew that population because they had been working with them for years. They just never had been able to solve their problem. Home. Where can I stay? But we knew that there it's a rough, violent, um lawless place. So when we brought 40 of those people in, that was more than half of the encampment, at once, we had paid security and we had staffing around the clock. And it was incredibly expensive, it almost broke us. But over time, we realized that treat these people with some respect, they are...

Presenter

take ownership of this community. We're not having to protect against them, we're trying to protect them. And so we have a resident steward program that has replaced $200,000 worth of personnel cost. We pay them a stipend. I talked earlier about being low-barrier, but we do expect if you're going to be a resident steward, you got to you have to progress. And part of that progression is to be clean and sober and be willing to be tested. But they are invested, and they do a good job. And there's somebody in that Welcome Center 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Brian E. Lewis

Okay. Also, and I'm sure you're aware, you have Luther Village over there, which is a senior citizen community,

Presenter

Yes.

Brian E. Lewis

which is in close proximity across the street. That means that you're going to have to get those residents to buy into this, too.

Presenter

Yes.

Brian E. Lewis

Yeah, and my final question right now, because I'm sure I'll have more questions, is what if it don't work? Then what do you intend to do?

Presenter

Pack up and go home.

Brian E. Lewis

Pack up and go home. Okay.

Presenter

Right. We're asking for a reasonable expectation of what constitutes success. We're prepared to sign a license contractor agreement with the city. It says we commit to all the we'll give you a complete operations plan for the village that you get to approve, and you get to oversee. And so if we fall behind something, you have remedy. That that's the way we'd like to approach it. But if we get to a year or 2 years or 4 years, and we do by the way pay attention to all our metrics and our outcomes, and if and if we're not measuring up, you know, it's it's your right to send us out of town.

Brian E. Lewis

I think a major question that's going to come up by a lot of residents over there, because they're my constituents-

Presenter

Yeah.

Brian E. Lewis

and one is going to be, are you going to fence the area in?

Presenter

I'm sorry, repeat that.

Brian E. Lewis

Are you going to fence the area in? Is there going to be a fence around the perimeter?

Presenter

Yes. Yes. That's what I was saying earlier. It is completely fence well, it's already partially fenced in. But we're going to complete, and it's the only way in is through what I call the Welcome Center. But the rest of it is is fenced. You can't get through it. And, like we did in Georgetown, we we put cameras out on the street.

Brian E. Lewis

Okay. Thank you for answering my questions. We'll definitely be having a further dialogue. Okay, thank you. That's all I have right now.

Presenter

So speed, and and this is not just for this particular site, our goal is we think this is a humane and practical solution to a statewide problem of homelessness. And so we've spent 3 years trying to evolve this model into something that can be repeatable, auditable, and accountable, and to be able to build it efficiently and quickly. And so that's why we the the use of land uh in in Georgetown, the First State Community Action Agency, that's their headquarters, we're on their property. A very nominal rent. Uh here, uh New City Church, we're on their property. They are the landlord. We've been very careful though, operationally, this is not a church operation. Uh we we we encourage them to give spiritual guidance, and and but but for a lot of reasons, it can't be too hung up in it, you know? Uh so, but we're going to be very responsive to that congregation as well as the surrounding neighborhood. But again, uh land is is the key. Uh for one thing,

Presenter

And the other is, as I said, rapid deployment and rapid relocation if things don't go well or if things went incredibly well because if we have enough housing now, they don't need another housing spot. Go ahead.

Presenter

Next slide please. You can read, hopefully, on your, if you have this in your inbox, you can see the idea of a very purpose-built almost Lego block method of putting these components on site. Next slide.

Presenter

Again, we're going to have, and we're talking about, I think you were talking about someone about the visuals, if people need to see something. We will shortly have, these are kind of examples, but we'll have better examples to give you a real, full idea of once we finally design the layout, you'll be able to see what it, and the community will be able to see what it looks like. Next slide.

Presenter

So that's kind of it in a nutshell. We, the reason we think that it is so critical because Michelle did a great overview of the housing continuum and the reasons things are so expensive. And what we have found is the reason for increasing homelessness is tied into that same dynamic. It is not an epidemic of mental health, it is not an epidemic of substance use that would cause more people to become homeless. True, if you look at a case-by-case, case-by-case basis, you'll find incredibly heart-wrenching stories, but also incredible stories that they overcame it. But that's not the reason you keep seeing more and more homeless. The reason you see more and more homeless is the price of, of course, the price place to live.

Andre M. Boggerty

Roof.

Presenter

Your homeless rate, any community's homeless rate will go up when rents go up. There was a study of the Point-in-Time count nationally and they looked at Detroit and they looked at San Francisco, I'm looking at you.

Presenter

Why does Detroit have five times less homeless than San Francisco? Well, Detroit, it's not exactly a blessing, but you've got a lot of affordable housing stock.

Andre M. Boggerty

It is a major blessing.

Presenter

And San Francisco, some of the highest rents in the country. And there's a five times delta in the amount of homeless. And they said, and it repeats itself at county level, municipality level, across the country. It's a constant. So what we keep hearing is, "Oh my God, if you provide services to these people, they'll just bring more." That's not a factor. The factor is they got no place to live, but they are much more local than you think they are.

Presenter

So, I think I might have a request.

Fred A. Neil

Councilwoman Arndt.

Tricia K. Arndt

Thank you for the presentation. And I don't think we could have scheduled this better if we tried. It wasn't even intentional. I think Councilman Anderson scheduled the first presentation, and I scheduled the second, but having the two presentations together and illustrating the need and a potential solution...

Presenter

We've been tag-teamed. We've been tag-teamed.

Tricia K. Arndt

Yes, you really are, you really are. I'm cautiously optimistic. I say cautiously because we certainly know that public opposition comes hard and fast, and we hear it from our constituents. Also noting that you have not met with the planning department, so in terms of looking at what is possible within that zoning

Presenter

Right.

Tricia K. Arndt

and what the restrictions are, and what would need to occur in order to allow such a facility to-

Tricia K. Arndt

to exist in that location. So that is a whole other thing that that needs to be looked at. Um, so I would encourage you to to make an appointment with our planning department, um, and start going down that road. Um, I really like how those wraparound services, I mean that's that is the model that we are encouraged to to support and and to look towards and I'm I'm certainly, um, encouraged by your experiences and the lessons learned from Georgetown. It It It takes a lot to say, "Well, this didn't work and we're going to do this differently," and to acknowledge mistakes that were made and to correct those mistakes. Um, I do have a couple questions. Um, it was on one of your slides, but I don't think folks were able to read it. Um, the length of time that folks stay in these shelters?

Judson Malone

Programmatically, it's 24 months, but the average is about 4 to 6.

Tricia K. Arndt

Okay, thank you. Um, and when you say programmatically, um, folks are living elsewhere, but still coming in to take advantage—

Judson Malone

When I say programmatically, it's our our our operational contract—

Tricia K. Arndt

Okay.

Judson Malone

—allows for 24 months stay.

Tricia K. Arndt

Okay.

Judson Malone

Okay, but we we don't we don't say, "Hey, relax, live here for 24 months." We say, "You're on schedule." We we do insist on a housing plan, and we do insist on an income and jobs plan.

Tricia K. Arndt

Okay.

Judson Malone

We leave it up to them about the other issues of health and with encouragement, and that's very effective. But no bones about it, if you come into this program, you need to be ready to change your life, and you need to be able to accept help, and we need to be able to work with you.

Tricia K. Arndt

So the average length of stay was 4 months?

Judson Malone

Yeah.

Tricia K. Arndt

Okay, thank you. Um, and then after that 4 months, where do they go? Because Ms. Williams has indicated that there are very limited options for where they can go.

Judson Malone

Right now, about 40% do find their way into a permanent living situation. Uh, I may have to ask Trish to help me some other destinations, but basically some have to go to higher-level care, uh some move out-state, and about less than 10% just say, "Nope, I'm going back to the woods."

Tricia K. Arndt

Gotcha. Okay.

Tricia K. Arndt

Um, my other question was, um, you had noted in your presentation that this would likely be or the the target audience would be women and children. Is that based on what you see as a greater need, or is that just more palatable in terms of, um, public opposition?

Judson Malone

Right now we're respectful of what the church would feel comfortable with. They are open to both a homeless adult population or a family population, but they're much more comfortable with a family population. Uh, they have talked to their insurance people, and the risks are higher for one versus the other, but that doesn't rule it out. It just means you got to factor that in. Uh, but we'll also carry liability insurance as Springboard as well.

Judson Malone

Um, so we understand there's a lot to be said for it to be an adult population because, by my estimate, the Target store and shrinkage probably loses a million dollars a year. And that's just looking at chain store averages across the country. Uh, that they got a right to be upset.

Judson Malone

But we we should not allow them to to not realize that we're trying to give them a solution. If we go with an adult population, that's probably the very population that's in there stealing now. Um, and we're not promising you that it will that we will solve their problem entirely, but I think we will impact it dramatically.

Judson Malone

Going with families, they're probably not the ones in there causing the problem in the stores, but they're they're they're desperate and they're barely—

Presenter

the options. So we see the benefit of going one or the other and we're looking for guidance as to what the community wants, what the church wants, what the council wants. And we'll we'll go with the flow in terms of the population that makes the most sense.

Tricia K. Arndt

Thank you. And just reading between the lines, I assume you've had the conversation with Target and they are not supportive of this project?

Presenter

Uh it's been reported to me that they're not supportive. But I don't know they even understood what the project was.

Presenter

Uh I did go in there uh on a cold call to see who I could talk to, and I am going to go back and if I can get in touch with a manager and sit down.

Presenter

But I said, you know, "What's going on here?" And they said, "Well, you know, we had to lock down the men's uh clothing department, we had to lock down the cosmetics, they're stealing high-value items." They do have a problem. And we're we're sensitive to that.

Tricia K. Arndt

And don't misunderstand, I was not suggesting that that was a deterrent and a decision factor for council. I was just

Presenter

Yeah.

Tricia K. Arndt

pointing out that that must have been how the conversation went if that's if that's where you went with that.

Presenter

Yeah. Yep.

Tricia K. Arndt

Um my other questions were about crime, which uh Councilman Lewis had put out there, and also outreach to the community, which you've already answered. So um thank you um for your presentation. And I'll yield to my colleagues.

Fred A. Neil

Anyone else have questions? Yes, Councilwoman Pillsbury.

Julia M. Pillsbury

Thank you very much. Um when you talk about family populations, are you just talking about women and children, or are you talking about husbands, wives, and children?

Presenter

They both are possibilities. the same thing is uh we want guidance. We don't have uh magic bullet answer that this is the one population it should be. We see there's a reason and a need for all. We can't do all, so we got to make a choice. But we want input. We want that to be a partnership with the city, with the church, with the community.

Julia M. Pillsbury

The reason I'm asking is apparently there are very, very, very limited resources for intact homeless families. And they get separated. And I think if you have an intact family that's looking for help, they deserve to get help somewhere.

Presenter

Yep.

Presenter

Yes.

Presenter

So, even even in the design of our product, it it the population we intend to serve will affect the type of trailers we put on site. If it's just adults, we'll do like we did in Georgetown. There's there's a communal shower a bathhouse.

Presenter

If we have families, we'll go what's called en suite. And we'll take and that's an example of it right there. It's a duplex on on wheels. But now the bathroom is right there in the apartment because, you know, we're not gonna you got two kids, and one's three years old, and we just had 10-degree weather, and you've got to go outside your cabin to go to the bathroom. No, we don't want that.

Presenter

So So it's I I guess I'm I'm I'm giving you not a decisive answer, I'm giving you a responsibility to help us make the right decision.

Julia M. Pillsbury

Thank you.

Fred A. Neil

Uh any other questions? Yes, Councilman Anderson.

David L. Anderson

Uh thank you, Mr. President. Uh thank you for your presentation uh tonight. It is uh uh very good, uh the conversation we definitely need to have. Um I

David L. Anderson

a question, um, for research, as opposed to I don't expect you to answer it. And that is, um, there was a property that was, uh, open to even, uh, tents, which was not feasible, um, uh, with with the Unsheltered Working Group. Um, would would they be That was a little more isolated, would they be interested in maybe phase 2 and when, uh, somebody deals with an adult homeless population? Uh, that might be something to look at, uh, maybe a prop- that property, um, that that the Unsheltered Working Group was looking at. Or maybe this one, um, could be more for families, because that's just my opinion, uh, but I think that neighborhood is a family neighborhood.

Fred A. Neil

Mhm.

David L. Anderson

And changing, anything that could change the character of that neighborhood wouldn't be wise, in my opinion.

Fred A. Neil

Right.

David L. Anderson

And nor would it probably be welcome. Um, if and if something that can fit within that And I think And I think Dr. Pillsbury is correct that, uh, that families should be family, that that, uh, the number one, uh, crime prevention, the number one path, uh, that that's that whether somebody will, a family will escape poverty is whether or not their family is intact. Um, that's the Not the only, but I'm saying that's the number one indicator.

Fred A. Neil

Right, exactly.

David L. Anderson

And, uh, anything that we do that that discourages intact families,

Fred A. Neil

Yeah.

David L. Anderson

in in my opinion, is, uh, it takes us the opposite approach from where we need to go. Uh, family first is really a important thing.

Fred A. Neil

Mhm.

David L. Anderson

Um, that's but I That's That's just my opinion, and and maybe this could be phase 1 and prove it and and, uh, with, uh, and it's a little more expensive to deal with families because like you said you have to have the designs with more water, sewer, and with It's It's more It's a little more involved, but it it's an important need we have. And then we do need, quite frankly, the adult population.

Fred A. Neil

Yeah.

David L. Anderson

And, um, that's, uh, yeah, and that's something that could happen. And maybe even, uh, that's the property, maybe might even they might even be willing to sell to do the other program, too.

Fred A. Neil

Mhm.

David L. Anderson

Um, uh, but but there are different properties, and I hope, uh, uh, as well. I hope that that you will touch base with city staff and, uh, discuss some of those opportunities. I yield, Mr. President.

Fred A. Neil

Mhm.

Fred A. Neil

Thank you. Uh Councilman Rocha.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Thank you, Council President. And uh thank you for uh bringing this to our attention. Um, a lot of it uh we have had many many discussions on in the past. Um, the only thing that I would like to know currently is where the numbers are as far as trying to match what the need is for our city. In other words, um, how many fam- versus

Andre M. Boggerty

How many are living in the woods versus male needs and and if

Jim Martin

So, it is a tough question to answer factually. Right. Unless you do an aggressive street outreach program. Not once a year once a year point-in-time count, because that won't tell you much. We in Georgetown for a while, we had a case worker doing for like 6 months to survey, survey, survey, survey. And we found out a lot of interesting data, but we also found out the numbers stayed quite high, but it was over 6 months time. And the problem with street outreach is if you don't circle back, you lose them. They come, they go, whatever, you know. During this recent cold snap, we coordinated with other nonprofits and the Red Cross and with the town to get them out in someplace warm. We have a brand-new community center. We put 20 bodies in it on mattresses. Our resident stewards took care of them. But there was about 70 people that finally said, "I can't stay in the woods. I got I will die." So, we're thinking, well, okay, that's probably an indicator of how much more homeless we have than the 40 we're already housing. So, one of the things to be careful about is realize that it is a concept. It is can be successful if done right, but there's also a scope question. Is it at a level with the need? And and I, quite frankly, will admit, our first effort in Dover, if it happens to be at that church, we'll still have lots of unmet need, but it will show you a path forward. So, we're not promising it will end homelessness, but what we're promising is it's a humane remedy that no one seems to pay enough attention to. You're not going to solve homelessness until you give them a safe place to live.

Andre M. Boggerty

Understood. Yeah. Um, yeah, and I think that it worth looking into um even even if we would consider it as a pilot. Um, I think it's something that we should at least, you know, do our due diligence to find out if it's possible. Excellent. Yeah, I mean, you know, um we're at this point, I think. Thank you, I yield.

Fred A. Neil

Any other questions? If not, I will take over. Um, you've got a a little bit of a problem. One of the problems is is zoning, as Councilwoman Arndt had mentioned. We did provide some leeway in one of the churches and it kind of backfired on us with literally almost the total destruction of the neighborhood around it, simply because the people that were drawn and it wasn't done. I won't say that this would happen there, but basically it is a zoning problem that is a concern because it's going to be totally different from what how that church is is zoned and the services that you're going to provide.

Fred A. Neil

Uh, the second thing is you have a a little competition. It hasn't come out yet, but word is that the state is very interested in the Sheraton building that now is belongs to Delaware State University for a Hope Center. The Hope Center does a kind of straight up and down, mhm, exactly what you're trying to do. And I've been there with uh Councilman Rocha, and it's a marvelous place and a marvelous setup. You may believe it or not, whether you don't think it's a problem,

Fred A. Neil

And there's still a problem in terms of enforcement and the effect it has on neighborhoods. And should that go there, then having the city have to deal with what could go around, whether they like it or not, whether admitted or not, it's there. Then there's another thing we've never talked about,

Fred A. Neil

and that is the cost. Your figures for Georgetown of a $7,343 basically half and half public and private. So we haven't talked about the cost. So what is the cost? What is it that...

Judson Malone

That figure is our... that is our... That's not the annual number, by the way. That's since we started we've raised that much money.

Fred A. Neil

Okay. So what would it cost the city in terms of... are you looking for anything from the city at all?

Judson Malone

We... no, we are not. And I've gone to, every city I've gone to, I've gone to Newark, I've gone to Milford, the same, and Georgetown, the same message: it's the state's responsibility to contract for these kinds of operations. And we have in fact succeeded in getting a contract for Georgetown, but we're still not enough because they haven't put enough money in it that we would like to see. But our model is... and by the way, I don't know who's going to run the proposed Sheridan Hope Center, but we're proposing that we're the nonprofit, we will operate it, we will run it, and we will raise the money through state contracts to do it, and we will raise capital from the private sector for the cottages.

Judson Malone

We we do have a time-limited capital budget of a million-four that we could put towards this project. But as we expand, we're going to have to address the issue that it's both a capital expense and an operating expense. But we also understand cities are not structured for this level of social service. But they're the ones... you're the bullseye of the problem and with no access to funding to solve it.

Fred A. Neil

Well, that's absolutely true with us. Social services, education, and healthcare is none of that is in our bailiwick or in our charter. But it is still the possibility of having two such facilities here. And Hope Center does what is very similar...

Judson Malone

It does what is very similar, yes, in approach.

Fred A. Neil

And the location there at least is within a different zoning category already. Yours is not. And that could run into a problem, just going to let you know that.

Judson Malone

Yeah. Well, our initial reading of the zoning is institutional office zoning, which is where the church is, has language in it about emergency shelters and transitional housing, not as a conditional use, but as a use. So we don't know... I'm sure that's not the end of the story, but it's a start to start looking at it. And that will be our next task is to see what's allowable.

Judson Malone

The other thing is that we're we're almost at at 30,000 ft we we look like a a deconstructed Hope Center, but there is a difference.

Judson Malone

And it is now, their model is to get the biggest building they can get and to offer a tiered level of services. Starts as emergency shelter, you know, and then you can stay there 30, 60, 90 days, however long you've got a voucher for.

Presenter

Then it goes into respite care. Whether we'll try to reproduce that here or not, but respite care is a We One of the biggest problems we have in Georgetown is Bayhealth and Beebe say, "Oh, we got this patient. They just came out of surgery. They're homeless. Got no place to go." They're They're They're well enough that they can't stay in the hospital, but they're way too sick to be in the woods. So we're constantly grappling with that, and so is the Hope Center to the extent that they just took a floor and made it a respite center. That's That's a good plan. They're also progressing. They said, "Well, now we got the same problem everybody else does. There's no housing available. So let's take another floor, and let's turn it into permanent supportive housing." So that's the model they're evolving into. Uh but we work very closely with them, and and Carrie Casey, who is the Director of Community Development for New Castle County, is on our board. So we're trying very much to make this a collaborative effort, not an either/or effort.

Fred A. Neil

Well, we want to thank you very much for a terrific presentation. Okay? Thank you. And uh we will uh we hope uh as soon as we have something we will want you to hear it. Either hear from you, or you will hear from us, okay? Thank you for the presentation.

Presenter

Thank you so much.

Fred A. Neil

Okay. We now move into uh council reports. Uh first district, Dr. Pillsbury and Mr. Rocha. Dr. Pillsbury, would you like to go first?

Julia M. Pillsbury

Past month has been fairly quiet. Um I attended the meeting for the retirees um and they're they're doing well. So, I have nothing else to offer.

Fred A. Neil

Mr. Rocha.

working with our uh

Thank you, Dr. Pillsbury and uh Council President. Most of what I've done has been here internally uh attending um meetings, some some with with you, Council President. Uh also attended uh and Dr. Pillsbury you were with me also with at the pension board uh meeting. Um and also having meetings um I'm on the committee or helping out the committee for the St. Patrick's Day parade this Saturday. And uh other than that, just uh fielding fielding constituent complaints that I'm working with our uh city manager on. And that's all I have to report, thank you.

Fred A. Neil

Is Miss Hall with us tonight? Councilwoman Hall? If not, Councilman Lewis?

Donyale M. Hall

is here. Council President, um I have had Can you hear me?

Fred A. Neil

Oh, yes. We can hear you now.

Donyale M. Hall

Okay, just making sure. Um in my district, of course, we had all of the complaints that uh arose from the snow removal, and I think between myself and uh Councilman Lewis, um we had our hands full with uh that. I just want to again thank um all of the city staff that um aided us with those um asks. Um I have also uh been working on uh doing some research around uh the possibility of a a data center coming uh to uh maybe particularly our area and kind of fielding the research on what we can do to be proactive um should uh one of those facilities decide

Donyale M. Hall

say that they want to make Dover their home. Um, I have also had some conversations around doing some other works within the community with the children. And, um, I'm grateful for all of those that came forward and talked about affordable housing. Um, there's a a national opportunity well that that as well that I've been doing some research on, and as I gather more information, I'll be happy to share that with some of the opportunities that might also present themselves to deal with making housing more affordable. Thank you. I yield.

Fred A. Neil

Councilman Lewis.

Brian E. Lewis

Yes. I, uh, as Ms. Hall indicated, have been dealing with a lot of, uh, concerned constituents, uh, over various, uh, code enforcement issues, uh, crime in the area. Uh, most of the, um, issues I referred to Ms. Duca to address, or Mr. Eddie Kopp, our chief code enforcement officer. Um, I had discussion with the chief last night briefly, uh, regarding trying to, uh, ascertain a a camera still in the alleyway over there between Stoney Creek development and Barrister, because, um, that's one of the areas that is attracting a lot of crime. Uh, not only code enforcement issues with an abundance of trash, but, um, I I've I get at least, um, uh, three to four phone calls a a week, um, from constituents over there complaining about drug transactions going on in that alleyway, uh, with park in. So, um, I look forward to, uh, having dialogue with the chief, maybe we can set up an appointment, uh, to talk, you, I, and, uh, Councilman Rocha, and see if we can come can come up with something as far as, uh, getting a camera back there, so so, I know funds are tight, but maybe we could, um, uh, collaborate with another, uh, agency in the state that could, uh, give us something on loan, and that's all I have.

Fred A. Neil

Thank you. Councilwoman Arndt, from the Third District.

Tricia K. Arndt

Thank you for recognizing me. Um, just several constituent concerns. Um, a few meetings, um, one most recently was the Downtown Dover Partnership board meeting. Um, with regards to constituent concerns, um, now that the snow has melted, I'm hearing a lot about trash on the roadways, um, and up along the curbs, and especially in the medians on Route 13. So, um, something that I'll try to to look into moving forward, um, to see if we can get some of that trash picked up. I yield.

Fred A. Neil

Fourth District, Councilman Anderson.

David L. Anderson

Thank you, Mr. President. Um, first of all, I want to, uh, uh, thank everyone who participated in in the, uh, trash pick up that Being The Seed organized, uh, recently. It was, uh, quite a bit of success. Uh, I didn't get to participate this particular one because I, uh, had to, they ended up, uh, uh, deciding to have a war. Anyway, that got me a little tied up. So, um...

David L. Anderson

not prepared for that. But, but it was a a good thing and I I just want to thank about 40 people who participated in that in the community. It was a There were a lot of community partners and I did get to talk with some people afterwards. Um it that was a um there's a lot of positive um things happening. Um there are also some concerns um uh yeah that uh there is uh maybe uh some drug dealing concerns uh that is starting to creep up uh north the alley between North Governors and New Street. Um that's a concern and there there's some other concerns as well uh different areas requested and forwarded to staff for different places. Um I want to thank staff for the work they've done. I uh Also, uh that we've gotten a lot of uh there's been a lot of high praise uh for the snow removal from uh people all across uh the district. Uh See, yeah, okay it's a lot easier to move powdered snow than it is packed ice, you know, although some people aren't uh making that distinction. But, hey, take the praise when you get it because the uh the staff worked very hard. They did a tremendous job and they did it with the utmost professionalism and and the people in the city are noticing. And that's uh a good thing. Um there's also uh uh uh the people of Silver Lake Boulevard are are tracking and and happy about the the replacement of the barrier uh and uh thankful for for that even though it's gotten a little delayed because of weather, which is can only be expected this time of year. And there's um uh also some diff- other issues that have been uh uh sent in to staff and looking forward to uh to seeing those uh resolved. Um and we look forward to the St. Patrick's Day Parade coming up Saturday, and want to thank all the volunteers who engaged and put that together. I yield, Mr. President.

Fred A. Neil

Thank you. At-large um councilman, Mr. Andre Boggerty.

Andre M. Boggerty

Thank you. Um just a couple things. Um I was able to attend and speak at the uh, I guess it was a Black History program uh at the Modern Maturity Center. Um so that was it was a good, good time. Uh also, um met with um attended a personal meeting with Councilman Rocha and Council President Neil. Um attended a meeting with that and also um continue in my duties, there was a meeting with Construction Property and uh Construction Property and Appeal Board. So, we also had a meeting in February regarding that. Um that's enough. I yield my time. Thank you.

Fred A. Neil

Okay.

Fred A. Neil

Thank you. I attended the say books students poster contest at the George Washington Station which is near near the target building, attended appeals hearing with chairmen Boggerty and Councilman Rocha, met with the mayor and citizens interested in creating a City of Dover Museum,

Fred A. Neil

talk with emails dealing with proposed pedestrian safety, send third District snow alert on behalf of Councilman Arndt and myself, to third district HOA presidents and civic leaders, dealt with emails regarding snow removal issues,

Fred A. Neil

had email discussion with residence in the historic district, with sidewalks needing repairs, which included mark Novac head of Public Works and Councilman Anderson.

Fred A. Neil

The possibility of a former Dover Sheraton Hotel, now being used by Delaware State University, which may be purchased by the state for conversion into a Hope Center, brought about a concern of a hotel owner, and during a telephone call, I urged him to visit the Hope Center in New Castle County,

Fred A. Neil

to have an idea of how they operate. And with that, that's my report, and I now turn it over to Councilman Gerald Rocha to conduct the business of the utility committee. Floor is yours.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Thank you, council president. I, uh, I believe we have Dr. Soso is online tonight? And I think that's it as far as the committee goes. Uh, and with that said, uh, is Dr. Soso, he's online? Okay.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

With that said, I now call the Utility Committee to order. I will entertain, uh, a motion to adopt the agenda for this evening.

Andre M. Boggerty

So moved.

Fred A. Neil

Properly seconded.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

It's been properly moved and seconded for the agenda. Any discussion or questions on the, on the motion?

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Hearing and seeing none, all those in favor, please state by saying aye.

Andre M. Boggerty

Aye.

Julia M. Pillsbury

Aye.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Any opposed? The ayes have it. The agenda is adopted.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

First item on the agenda is Dedication of Water Infrastructure on South Bay Road. Our uh director of Water and Wastewater, uh Mr. Jason Lyon, uh the floor is yours, sir.

Jason Lyon

Good evening, committee chair, fellow committee members, Team Dover. I am Jason Lyon, director of Water, Wastewater, and Engineering Services. Before you this evening is one of two uh requests for dedication of infrastructure. Um this relates to a construction project that occurred on South Bay Road, um fairly southern, near the Dover Air Force Base. Um

Jason Lyon

it's a it's a It's a auto body shop called Caliber Collision. And in order for that uh facility to obtain water service, they had a couple of options. One is to petition for a private well, and the other is to drill across Bay Road and extend our water main to get our water service as it is in our CPCN. Um they chose the latter,

Jason Lyon

and in doing so, um the process would be that they would have to install the water main to our standards. Um and because DelDOT does not allow privately-owned infrastructure in their right of ways, we had to maintain the the long-term ownership and maintenance of that water infrastructure. So, um

Jason Lyon

if we could go to that the map just to get a little aerial, please? Thank you very much. Um this is the the scope of the the new infrastructure.

Jason Lyon

Sure, as you can see it goes perpendicular to to 113. Um, this property is not in city limits. I failed to mention that earlier, I apologize. Um, however it is in our CPN, so we can provide them water. Um if anyone's curious, the sanitary sewer district is the county, so they are connected to the county sanitary sewer. Um, so as part of the process for for accepting infrastructure, they have uh provided us a a value of the construction cost, which is part of our depreciation process, um as well as all necessary as-built plans, release of liens for subcontractors, uh and all necessary bonds related to this project. Uh so we're here requesting uh acceptance of this infrastructure uh for long-term maintenance and operation. I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Andre M. Boggerty

Any questions for Mr. Lyon? Mr. Lewis, recognized.

Brian E. Lewis

Yeah, I was going to mention that this is not uh city property, it's county. Uh is there any way we can recoup funding or anything from the county in this matter?

Jason Lyon

Uh we're not spending any money on this project.

Brian E. Lewis

Okay, so uh there's no money involved, you're just looking for approval?

Jason Lyon

Yeah, correct. That all of the costs were borne by the developer. We're strictly asking for the cost of it for depreciation pur- uh purposes. Yeah, we have not paid a a single cent.

Brian E. Lewis

The only thing we're going to have to do is maintain it, correct?

Jason Lyon

Correct.

Brian E. Lewis

Okay. Uh I'm fine with that as long as it's not going to cost the city. Nothing further.

Andre M. Boggerty

All right, thank you. Any anything further? Um Mr. Anderson, you're recognized.

David L. Anderson

Uh thank you Mr. Chairman. Uh uh unless any member of the public has anything, but if uh not I'd just give me a moment. I I move for uh acceptance of this water infrastructure within the right of way of the of Bay Road uh dedication to include all of the referenced uh water infrastructure as uh the staff recommended.

Tricia K. Arndt

Second.

Andre M. Boggerty

It's been properly moved by Councilman Anderson and seconded by Miss Councilwoman Arndt to accept staff recommendation. Any questions or discussion on the motion? Hearing and seeing none, all those in favor, please state by saying aye.

Council Members

Aye.

Andre M. Boggerty

Any opposed? Got you covered there, Dr. Sosa. The ayes have it. Motion carries. Next item is the dedication of water wastewater infrastructure for Oak Shadows. I must yeah. So um Mr. Lyon, the floor is yours once again.

Jason Lyon

Good evening, uh just for the record, Jason Lyon, Director of Water and Wastewater uh and Engineering Services here at the city. Uh before you is a uh somewhat of a unique project. Um typically when we have um developments built, uh we receive a request for dedication shortly after full build-out. This particular development, Oak Shadows, which is located um off of uh White Oak Road and there's an entrance off of Longpoint Road on the eastern side of Dover. Um and for the record this is in city limits. Uh this particular development um was built as a private community, whereas the roads would not be uh dedicated to the city of Dover, however the water and

Jason Lyon

wastewater were to be dedicated. In other words, they would be in easements for us to maintain. The roads were not built to the city standards, so they were not ever considered for dedication. So this was this this started getting built in the early 1990s. To my understanding, there was a little bit of delay with construction because there was a certain type of model house out there, specifically log cabin. So as time rolled on, there were items that needed to be addressed inside of the development for us to take over the ownership, i.e., hydrant height, valve box location, general things that have to be done as a punch list item. These things were kind of pushed off, and as development continued, there was some transition between the developer and the HOA, to my understanding. And so this kind of just dragged on and on and on and on through different ownership, and now finally there was a push from the ownership of the of the of the community to get this infrastructure dedicated so they don't have to worry about any breaks or any sort of expensive repairs. So we worked with the with the team at the HOA. We met with them a few times at some public meetings, explained to them what needed to be done as far as getting these infrastructure up to current standards as well as as-built uh as-built plans, videos of the sewer to make sure that what we're obtaining is not in disrepair. They they gained enough funds to get all the work done, provided all the information to us, and now we are satisfied with the infrastructure installation along with all the other requisite information. And we are respectfully requesting that this infrastructure be dedicated as originally intended in 1990-ish, so that the city would take ownership of this and take that responsibility off of the the now owners, which would be the HOA. I will add one quick note that the infrastructure that is listed on the the schedule of values is listed as 1994 dollars, because that was a year that we best know of installation. So that is our best information possible. Again, this will be used as part of our depreciation values for infrastructure that we obtain. It's a financial process. But in any event, I'd be happy to answer any questions about this.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Any questions? Uh, Ms. Arndt, you're recognized.

Tricia K. Arndt

Recognizing me. So I I was I met with the community a couple times on-site and then you and I had attended an HOA meeting. I just want to thank you for continuing to work with this community. They were very concerned about finding the funding to get the the work done to bring it up to city standards in order for it to be dedicated. So I just want to thank you for your commitment and continuing to work with them and shepherding them through this process to get to this point, so I certainly am supportive and will vote in favor.

Jason Lyon

Thank you.

Tricia K. Arndt

And with that, I'll make a motion to accept staff recommendation for the dedication of the infrastructure.

Julia M. Pillsbury

Pillsbury seconds.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

It's been properly moved and seconded to accept staff recommendation. Any question or discussion on the motion? Hearing and seeing none, all those in favor, please state by saying aye.

Tricia K. Arndt

Aye.

Council Members

Aye.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Any Any opposed? The ayes have it. Motion is

Roy Sudler, Jr.

Adopted. Thank you, Mr. Lyon. And if there's no other business for the Utility Committee, I'll turn it I will call the Utility Committee adjourned and turn it back over to our council president.

Fred A. Neil

I now recognize Chairman David Anderson to conduct I now recognize chairman David Anderson to conduct the business of the Legislative, Finance, and Administration Committee. The floor is yours.

David L. Anderson

Thank you, Mr. President. The First of all, I want to thank our members online Mr. Shevock, Mr. Garfinkel. You both still there? There you are.

David L. Anderson

Good.

David L. Anderson

Terrific. I hear you. Mr. Shevock, are you there Mr. Garfinkel? Let's try yours make sure yours works, too. There we go. Thank you.

David L. Anderson

All right. But, we The Legislative, Finance, and Administration Committee is now called to order. I will entertain at this time a motion to adopt the agenda.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Second.

David L. Anderson

It moved by Mr. Shevock, seconded by Councilman Rocha. Is there any additions or discussion? Seeing none, all in favor?

Council Members

Aye.

David L. Anderson

Any opposed? The motion carries. This brings us to the first item on the agenda, and the only item tonight: update from the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, AFSCME, on membership priorities. Invited at this time, Mr. Matt Carey, President of AFSCME the AFSCME union, local. Welcome.

Matthew Carey

Thank you very much for having me tonight.

David L. Anderson

Thank you.

Matthew Carey

Good evening. My name is Matthew Carey. I'm the emergency communications manager for the Dover Police Department, and I have the privilege of serving as president for the AFSCME Union, Local 2356, here in Dover. Appreciate the opportunity to come before you this evening. Happy to answer any questions you all may have. This is my first time having an opportunity to speak with you all as a whole. I want to start by I know you get a lot of complaints. I have no complaints. Truthfully, this has been a council that has been very very giving to the employees, so I want to start by thanking you all for that. Doesn't mean we won't come ask for more, but, however, it has been a tremendous relationship as I've moved through the ranks of the AFSCME Union to here. Obviously, there's always things that we want more and you all would like to give us. We understand. So I just want to start by thanking you for that.

Fred A. Neil

I move for adjournment.

Matthew Carey

Well, the good comes with the bad, you know. It's people I think sometimes have unrealistic expectations, and they

Fred A. Neil

I that was a joke for the record, so I won't get caught up in that.

Matthew Carey

I just want to be honest with you. I know you guys catch guys and girls catch a lot of grief up here, so I want to be truthful with you.

Matthew Carey

Just to update you on some things going on with our union, currently, we sit at a 14.58 vacancy rate. I think a lot of that problem comes in because we have a lot of talented people here in the city, not just in the AFSCME union. I believe the 5% rule should be something you all should consider changing,

Public Commenter

And what I'm talking about is in the city handbook under Article 3, the pay plan, section six. It seems to kind of handcuff the current employees to these 5% raises. I know I'm not the first person to come up here and talk about compression. There's been some reluctancy to assume managerial positions, promotional opportunities because they're like, "Well, why would I do that?" And it's no one's fault. It's just the rule. It's the policy. It's the way it is. Maybe it's something worth looking into and getting that 5% rule. Maybe a little more leeway for council, HR, you know, the city manager, something of that fort. I would just ask that you consider that. It would be valuable to retain our people. Recruitment's always good, but retention is better, especially in my union, because we are most of your middle tenured people, 10 to 20 years. So we're kind of in the middle of our careers, so it's really important for us to retain our our talent. We do have a strong desire to put the pension system back in place. I know that's been an on again, off again subject for the city, and I understand that some of the challenges that you all face with doing something like that. And without going into too much detail, because I know you can't, I would ask that we're supposed to have a educational session with the HR director and the city manager. We met on December 1st, all the union presidents, and then we were supposed to put together some educational material to put out to all the employees so they could help fill out that survey correctly this time. I think there was some inconsistencies and some opportunities missed in being able to get it out. So we met at the beginning of December. I certainly understand the holidays, and there's a lot of business for the city of Dover, but if we could really get that out and at least get going down the path of, "Hey, is this what the employees really want?" So we can quit wasting your time. Or, let's try and get it done. You got to know what we want to try and forge a path forward. So that's all I'm asking. It's just to get the information out to us. It's been silent since the beginning of December.

Fred A. Neil

Thank you. Questions from members of the committee? All right. Councilwoman Arndt.

Public Commenter

So with that, I just want to reiterate, communication's key. Last week I sent along a correspondence to all of you through the city clerk's office, hoping to resolve that in the near future. Just communicate. This is a great opportunity, but it doesn't always need to be like this. You can get up with me. I'd like to be able to get up with you. I understand there's limitations sometimes with how meetings have to be held, but I would just like to keep open lines of communication. Like I said, I started off, I told you the truth. This has been a good council to work with. I'm in my 19th year with the city, it hasn't always been that way. So thank you. I appreciate that. And if you have any questions for me, I'm happy to answer.

Tricia K. Arndt

Thank you. When you said educational materials, I think it missed I missed it. On the pension options, what what materials are you talking about?

Public Commenter

So there was a survey sent out in the fall to all the unions, and some of those went unresponded to. Some people just didn't receive it, didn't understand it. Some of the questions went unanswered. So myself, the IBEW president and the DOE president met with the assistant city manager, the HR director, and her team on December 1st. We all agreed that we would get together, put some informative packet together

Mr. Carey

whether it's slideshow, a short video, something of that nature. And when we got together and agreed to that, we were supposed to reconvene in January and approve that messaging before it went out, and that meeting has never happened.

Mr. Carey

So, and that is just so we know, hey, here's all the questions we've been asked as union presidents. This is what we'd like to put out there so it's clear and concise. Do you want this or not? Do we need to fight for this or not?

Tricia K. Arndt

Thank you. Sorry, I must have flaked out on that one. Um, and then just the 5% rule, I get it, the state, state employees are subject to that as well. It really is a pain.

Roy Sudler, Jr.

Councilman Rocha.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Could you help me out with the 5% rule? I I just want to understand it a little better. I thought we kind of addressed this kind of last year, did we, or or was that with the non-bargaining folks?

Roy Sudler, Jr.

The the uh If I may, the uh the 5% will have to do well, I believe the one he's speaking of, it deals with promotions. And like, for instance, if someone takes over in the interim, uh and steps up and is an interim supervisor, whatever the the their promotion is, um they they can get It's a limit to how much of a uh raise they can get. And, uh you know, 5% is not a lot of difference for somebody taking on a lot more responsibility. So, uh there's been issues there. There's also uh another part where um but you can clarify. There's an another part to that as well that if it's below a certain threshold, you can get a little bit more, but but it is there Do you have any other additions to that, um Mr. Carey?

Mr. Carey

So, I don't want to read it word for word to you, but essentially, what's happening is we have people that are coming from DOE into AFSCME or AFSCME into non-bargaining positions. It's more than an AFSCME problem. It's a city problem. Extremely talented people that are currently employed with the City of Dover, and we get handcuffed with, "I can only give you 5%," or if you this pay scale gives you 6%, well, that's all we can give you.

Mr. Carey

And obviously, we all welcome a raise, but sometimes there are some really talented people not getting the opportunity to grow, or, "I'll just stay in this role because that 6%, I'll make that in a month in overtime staying in my current role." So then we compress. No one wants to be the leader. No one wants to move forward and progress with their career. It's extremely frustrating as someone who hires people and as someone who's trying to progress. And that is our union as a whole, because we're in the middle, the AFSCME union, the middle management for the most part. But um outside of that, DOE has the problem, we have the problem, non-bargaining has it. And then you end up seeing these people, they'll take the short-term gain, and then within six months, they're out the door.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Because they they gain the experience so they can go somewhere else.

Mr. Carey

We've paid for their training, we've given them this managerial experience, and now they go out the door. And we can't even sit down and have a conversation, because HR or whoever is making these decisions on the back end, they're they're stuck with this. Everyone doesn't deserve a 5% bump. Most people deserve more. Some

Andre M. Boggerty

you're lucky to get this job. Like, let's be real. But-

Unknown Speaker

Yeah.

Andre M. Boggerty

for the most part, we're just handcuffing ourselves.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

I- I would be I would be curious to see the gap in pay between taking the 5% and what the person that left that position was getting. Like, if it's a six-digit, $100,000, let's say, for the person that was working there and then they left, and then we're asking for somebody to move in on an interim, what that, were they making $70,000 and now we're only giving them 5%, and the person that left was getting $100,000, that that really does mean, I mean, you know, if they're going to do that work and then we want to incentivize them to maybe apply for the position, I think that, you know, the 5% bump wouldn't make sense. And- and- and I kind of understand where you're coming from. So that needs to be looked at, I think. Thank you.

Andre M. Boggerty

And that- and I'm happy to forward this information if you- but it's in the City Handbook, it's Article 3, the pay plan, section 6.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Okay. Thank you for uh that explanation. I- I yield.

Fred A. Neil

Chairman, thank you. Councilman Lewis.

Brian E. Lewis

You- you know me, family knows me, and I'm pretty much a straight shooter. Um I can tell you this that the council has had discussions on this, and I think we need to continue to have discussions on this uh for the, you know, well-being of all city employees. Um but the gloomy part of it, and I think, you know, Council President Neil will agree with me, we got a budget coming up, and um, you know, rumor is that, you know, it it it don't look- I don't I don't want to make any statements, you know, without going over the budget, but we have to look at the budget first. Let's put it that way. Or let me put it to you that way, because um you've got to remember like we report to the taxpayers and constituents, so nobody wants to raise taxes. But I hear where you're coming from. I was a union rep, so I think we definitely have to have more discussion on this. But thanks for coming tonight.

Fred A. Neil

Thanks. Can you dialogue with Mr. Lewis?

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. So, to me in reference to that, it makes sense. But it to me the budget line is already there. Uh unless unless I'm speaking, right, the budget line for that $100,000, let me just use as an as an example, and then that person leaves and then the number two or somebody that's been with the city could take it as an interim, and let's say they're making 70, I don't know what the numbers are, right? $70- or $80,000, but that 5% bump brings them up to 83 or whatever that number is, there's still that, subtract the 100 from the 83, that's still money that was already budgeted. So, I don't think it would put a strain per se on the budget.

Brian E. Lewis

I- I know and I Yeah, and I- and I know, and I- I think I've brought up this question to uh Ms. Mori um when she and uh our HR director came up and spoke a couple of months ago, um and uh I I think, you know, the question I asked is um, you know, because I think they were talking about, because they were not filling jobs and they were using that money for not-

Andre M. Boggerty

filling jobs, but I just want to make sure that the money's there on what's going to happen when we do fill the job. Are we going to be in a deficit because we're using that money from a job we didn't fill? But then the job that we're not filling is not going away from my understanding, and it's still out there posted. So what's going to happen, you know, how is that going to affect the budget when we have to fill that job, you know, if we're using it? You understand what I'm saying? And like I said, I think we have to have more dialogue on this.

David L. Anderson

Oh, yeah, absolutely. We've got to see the numbers, for sure. Yeah, I agree. Thank you. I yield.

Roy Sudler, Jr.

Anyone else? Yes, Councilman Neil.

Fred A. Neil

Yeah, thank you. You've already mentioned, they've already mentioned my name is. We need to look at a number of issues dealing with HR. And this whole area that has sometimes just gone away way out of where we anticipated, whether we can do something within this upcoming budget. Well, we have to discuss it after this coming up budget when we see what we're looking at, because we know this is where we're making these discussions. So if we can't fit it in at this time, because it has to be, I think, a wide, wider range discussions, dealing whether it's pensions, or why we're having so much trouble in getting people in for jobs. I mean, there's some jobs, one job that was out for for 2023. Is that the problem, or was it something else the problem? So, I think we're going to have to grasp this and work on it. So it will happen, and how it's going to happen, I can't necessarily promise you, except that it will happen because there's other issues, I think, that we're dealing with, with HR. And so we'll take a look at it so that we can see if we can find that happy medium, because we did pump up a whole lot of of jobs and change the whole structure to make sure that we were looking after employees. So we'll have to take a look, another look at it. That is the only thing I can promise you, and I yield, Mr. Chairman.

Roy Sudler, Jr.

Thank you. Anyone else online? All right.

Roy Sudler, Jr.

If, thank you so much. And thank you for taking your time and we look forward to, uh, eventually hearing from all four. Um, we we had one that we put last because they're in active negotiations. That wasn't a disrespect to them, but obviously, the purpose for this is to have a dialogue outside of labor negotiations. And I want to thank all of you for participating and we'll look forward to hearing from each of you. Thank you so much.

Public Speaker

Thank you for the opportunity. Have a good night. Thank you.

Roy Sudler, Jr.

Appreciate you. Thank you. Is there any other business? Yes, uh, Councilman Boggerty.

Andre M. Boggerty

Yesterday, you texted me because I humbly admitted that I didn't recognize your military service during my prayer. I would not want to offend the great David Anderson who has saved the world. And council president. So, for all of those who I omitted because I was just in the moment,

Andre M. Boggerty

Please forgive me and whoever sent you texts, I hope they understand it was it was charged to my head and not my heart as we say in the good church. Amen? Amen. Thank you for all your service, sir.

Unknown Speaker

Amen. Is it intentional that you get... Not at all. He's Army anyway, so...

Roy Sudler, Jr.

See, I'm an Army veteran, you see. But uh Air Force service.

Roy Sudler, Jr.

Thank you, thank you very much, Councilman Boggerty, as uh we appreciate that. And we appreciate that. And now, uh did someone else before we... Yes. Please.

Roy Sudler, Jr.

Yes, and that name, address for the record since you're not on the sheet, please. Mr. Murphy.

Bob Murphy

I'll try to be really brief.

Roy Sudler, Jr.

Ha, if you can keep it in three minutes, might be...

Bob Murphy

Three minutes? Thank you. I don't have a watch, so there we go.

Bob Murphy

My name is Bob Murphy. I don't live in the town limits of your fine town, I do live in Milford, and my wife and I are landowners of the proposed Little Living project. And I just wanted to say congratulations to you for doing something that I've never seen before. That is members sitting there discussing with the people that have come before you asking sensible, common sense questions. And I will be brief. But this is 2007 comprehensive plan from Kent County. I'm sure you're probably Most of you are aware of it. Maybe you weren't. Here. 2018 and all the tabbed pages. And what I'm going to ask you is that you've already taken a step that the county hasn't done. This is all mentions of affordable housing and actual polls from the public what the public wanted to see done. You are already doing it. You have already acknowledged that you're going to work with the State Highway Adminis- I mean, the Delaware State Housing Authority, the town of Dover, six other municipalities in Sussex County. Kent County said, "No, that's okay, we got this." The bottom line is what I'm going to do is take the opportunity I can to go to any podium or speak to anyone about what's happening in Kent County and hopefully enough people will learn, listen, and understand. I've discussed this with Councilman Anderson. Information is critical. It involves both facts and rumor. Rumor will kill any idea that comes down the pike. The nomenclature that these people have discussed tonight, Dr. Tiney, who I've now met and know about her; George Mongold, the president of Little Living, when he sat at my dining room table with my wife and I, and said, "I have a dream, and I'd like to fulfill my dream on your property," which was already zoned BG, everything you could imagine under the sun in Kent County. And he said, "I'm not too sure I can meet what you want for this property, cuz it is BG and we've had a lot of offers for it, well, well, a half a mile from the DE Turf." And I said to him, "Let's see what you got in mind, and see if we can meet in the middle." My

Public Commenter

My wife and I are partners with Little Living. There's the money. We get nothing for many, many years. The whole idea, as the president acknowledged, it takes a lot of money. And the reason why you don't see these developments more is because what is it, 35, 40% of the cost of a home today is the land, the site work, and all those other things. Mike Riemann has said it with the Delaware Home Builders Association. And the bottom line is, again, fair and equitable is what takes place.

Public Commenter

When you consider density and sprawl, those two things go together, but they mean entirely different things. In Kent County, 3.5 homes—whoever came up with the .5, I still don't understand. When builders look at where they want to put a theater, they figure 2.5 seats in a theater. I don't know who sits in that .5 seat. But Kent County does the same: 3.5 houses on an acre.

Public Commenter

Those things are driven by a rule of thumb of a 2,500 square-foot house. Do the math. I'm not real good at it, but basically it comes down to something like this: if you did the homes at that amount, you'd come up with 7,500 square feet of livable space on an acre. To take that same formula—and that's what we're talking about, the formula—

Public Commenter

and say to someone who wants to build Little Living homes or anything along these lines, cottage homes, workforce homes, between 450 to 800 square feet. So for the purpose of discussing it with you, I used the larger number, 800 square feet. Little Living could put nine of them on an acre and still be just shy of the 7,500 square feet for normal-size homes, if you follow my math.

Public Commenter

That's why when Dr. Turney said they're putting 20 homes on two acres down in Georgetown, first thing the average person goes, "20 homes on two acres? Are you kidding me?" You got to picture it. You got to see it.

Public Commenter

Tiny Home Tours on Facebook is a site for you to look up, councilmen. Um it's wonderful. It shows these things throughout the country. Has nothing to do with just here, and you can see what these things look like. They're villages. I call them villages, a lot of people call them villages. Walking paths, bike paths, a community center with a pool. There's a big one in Rehoboth Beach, I think it's called Sea Colony or Sea-something. It is beautiful.

Public Commenter

Um so what I wanted to say to you all tonight was basic- basically that. I can only commend you on what you're doing already to take these steps and move in that direction, because what you're talking about, when you said a pilot program, councilmen, I call a proof of concept. Give me a piece of property, let's try this thing out, and if it works, then we just start duplicating it.

Public Commenter

But I cannot see for the life of me—and I can't go into too much, because Little Living is still fighting with the county, another story—but I will tell you this much: I have a problem when someone says, on that side of the road, you can build a microbrewery, you can have a housing development where the homes start at

Mr. Murphy

$400,000 a square, a a home, and build 460-some homes. We're absolutely on the opposite side of the road, and we can't build a village for the people who need them the most. The people who need the most voice are the ones who don't have the opportunity to come to this podium. So I have to do it. I thank you for your time. I'll answer any questions if I can, but I really appreciate, as a council, what you're already trying to take under. And maybe when you all get going, maybe Dover will catch up if I'm still alive.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Any questions?

Mr. Murphy

Any questions? I'd be happy to answer.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Okay.

Mr. Murphy

Well, thank you.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Look forward to continuing the dialogue.

Mr. Murphy

Thank you, sir.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Anyone? Yeah, please, come forward, uh. Thank you. Well, you'll have to wait till you get to the mic. Thank you, Mrs. Anderson. Thank you. Uh, just wait till you get to the mic, please. Thank you.

Jeannie Anderson

I have a quick question, but I'm going to make it quick. My name is—

Council Member

Name and address for the record.

Jeannie Anderson

My name is Jeannie Anderson.

David L. Anderson

We got your address on the record.

Jeannie Anderson

Um, I I have a question. I don't know if it's already been brought up because I'm running late. But I've been thinking about the situation with the fire department. Is is that allowed to be brought up tonight?

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Um, is that uh actually not on the agenda tonight.

Jeannie Anderson

Okay.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Are you are you talking about the uh—

Jeannie Anderson

I was wondering—

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

—the the uh proposal by People's for a uh—

Jeannie Anderson

Yes.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

—for to allow uh police to lease uh office in there?

Jeannie Anderson

Yes. I was wondering um if the council could consider this um because we're having problems with the fire department and the People's Church. I was wondering if there's any way, because I know that we've talked about this because I was at the meeting before, they the police station said that the portable, whatever it was, mobile police would be very cost-prohibitive. So I'm wondering, we already have the People's Place, and then we have the fire department, too. I'm wondering if there's any way, because there's a lot of problems in that area, if we could get the police in that area like permanently, because maybe it would cut down on the crime, because I've been thinking about this a lot, because like I don't live too far from there myself. And I was wondering if maybe if the police would be interested in that, and I know Pastor Hodge um would probably be interested in that, too. But we need um the the VA person isn't in that building anymore, so I think they might even have a room where the police could go. But we need something in that community, whether it be at the fire department or even at the People's Church. So I was just, you know, I don't know, I may not be able to answer questions right now, but I just wanted to bring that up because I thought that'd be a great idea to maybe cut down on the crime in the area. And one other thing I do want to ask, and I know it's a budget issue, but um we got people that are um defecating in our backyards and stuff. Is there any way that we can get some porta-potties so And And they're not being indecent. They do go, they literally stand between the dumpsters, so they're not trying to show themselves. But there are people literally um defecating in our yards right now. I was wondering if there's anyway maybe we could get some couple porta-potties in a couple areas that these people can use so they have a little bit of dignity. And that's all I wanted to say.

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you for your comments. Any other citizen comments?

Gerald L. Rocha, Sr.

Okay. If there's uh no other business before—

Brian E. Lewis

part of the Legislative, Finance, and Administration Committee. We stand adjourned and turn it back over to Council President Neil.

Fred A. Neil

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Is there any other business before the council tonight? If not, this meeting is adjourned.