total time: 12.83 minutes
total words: 1191
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: This hearing of the Metro Community Development Board is being conducted via remote means. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access access the proceedings as provided for in Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2023. A reminder that anyone who would like to listen to or view this meeting while in progress may do so by accessing the link that was included on the meeting agenda posted on the CF Medford's website. If, despite our best efforts, we are not able to provide real-time access, we will post a recording of this meeting on the city's website as soon as possible. A reminder that given the remote nature of this meeting, tonight all votes from the board will be made by roll call. Please note that the actual meeting materials for tonight before the board can be viewed on the city's website at medfordma.org. You can click on city board filings, and Danielle will provide the link in the chat for if there's anyone on the public. I'm going to do a roll call attendance. Vice Chair Emily Hederman? Present. Peter Cowes? Peter's not in. Ari Fishman?
[Ari Fishman]: Present.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Pam Mariansky. Present. Sally Akiki.
[Unidentified]: Present.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And myself, Jackie McPherson. Okay. And Danielle, you can introduce any staff on the call.
[Danielle Evans]: Myself, Danielle Evans, senior planner and Alicia Hunt, the director of the office of planning, development and sustainability.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. And so first meet an agenda, Daniel, can you remind me while I am still fumbling?
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, I'm trying to, I'm going to email you this prep doc if you, for some reason, if you can't see it, there might be syncing issues.
[Unidentified]: Let's see.
[Danielle Evans]: I sent that to your Gmail. Okay. Yeah, so tonight we didn't have any applications and no public hearings, but one thing that I had wanted to discuss was, I mean, every year it's always good practice to revisit the rules and regs. I do want to make sure that it reflects actually what we do. And also I thought it would make sense if it doesn't already to address how remote meetings are handled, because I feel like, you know, that hasn't been, if it's not addressed, then we should address that, remote meetings and hybrid meetings. It seems like they're At least the hybrid format should be here to stay, or at least be allowed to do, probably in some capacity. We're not sure what the state legislature will have to say about fully remote, but we do have that capability until, I think it's May 2024. Does anybody know if that's correct? Or is it another year? I feel like time flies. So if you already have those, then I probably should review those. Let's see if I saw this one.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So I saw some that were old and it referenced... It's just to answer the open meet and laugh, the temporary provisions have been extended by Governor Haley until March 31st of 2025. 2025, okay. I was hoping it was 2025.
[Danielle Evans]: Okay, so yeah, there's looking through the rules and regulations and I'm seeing like regular meetings, and, you know, it doesn't have a set schedule in here. This might have been before that happened, but there's talks about closing of agendas, you know, meeting.
[Emily Hedeman]: Would you mind pulling this up and sharing the screen so we can all be on the same page? Sure thing. I know it's in the folder, but just, you can see exactly what you're looking at. Thank you, Danielle.
[Danielle Evans]: Can you see it? So I'm not sure if, so this was adopted July 14, 2022. Okay. So that was, okay, that was more than a year ago. That's like a year and a half ago now. Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And this is. Composition of the board. If I'm not mistaken, this has been given to each board member since as, as brought on, correct? No.
[Emily Hedeman]: I was not given this as part of my onboarding.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: That was the intention, so I'm not sure where that was left at.
[Emily Hedeman]: If this was only reviewed a year and a half ago, do we really need to revisit this now?
[Danielle Evans]: I mean, it's good to at least look at it every year and see if there's anything that needs to be updated. Like so, for example, regular meetings held monthly on a weekday at no time earlier than 6, in a conference room. Let's see.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, I definitely think so. I can only speak for myself. It warrants us to go through it. It's just I didn't know how much we would get through it tonight. No, no. One of the things I want to be clear on is that we definitely have to do some adjustments, right? And that's even administrative sort of things with the filing of applications and shutting them down. We had discussed that previously as a board, just going forward and, like, you don't want to get something on a Friday night and then have to, like, scramble to read it over the weekend for the following week, kind of. Yeah, so my opinion.
[Danielle Evans]: Yes, no, absolutely. And through the chair, all the expectations of the board and staff should be in this document. So you do not need to vote on this tonight, but just something to start like thinking about. So
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, and just giving the board some time to digest it and see if there's anything that you can recommend or that you want to discuss as a group on what can be changed.
[Danielle Evans]: I see that there have been substantial updates from the version that I saw, which really needed work. This seems closer to how we do things, but I'll have to, I'm not prepared to recommend changes at this point, because I'm just seeing this now.
[Emily Hedeman]: So I have my hand raised. I don't know who can see it, but I'd love to be recognized.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, go ahead, Emily.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, through the chair. So, Danielle, you're just seeing this now, and I'm behind Jackie, like the longest running member of the board, and I haven't seen this. Can we just table this discussion and take the action of let's distribute this and have staff go through, make any suggested changes, and then, you know, the board will make any suggested changes. We can discuss this at a later date. just to efficiently use all of our time this evening? Certainly. Okay. Do I need to make a motion for that?
[Danielle Evans]: I mean, it's just a discussion item.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So, I mean, I just- Yeah, not so much a motion at this point, but I'm interested in knowing the feedback from other board members, and it just can be, again, how it'll go forward. Because I'm sure no one, you're not going to be able to take this in right now. We might go away. and be like, oh, we should have said this, we should have said that. But again, it's like Daniel said, it's more of an open discussion.
[Ari Fishman]: Yeah. I'm going to need time to go read it. I'm going to get a copy of it. Yeah. This is different than the one that I saw attached to the agenda that was sent out. It's a great topic for discussion, but I don't think we can have it right now.
[Danielle Evans]: But through the chair, I'm glad we brought it up, because if you guys don't actually have it, then that's good information to have.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: It is good information, because from my understanding, this would be given to every new board member as part of their onboarding, and it sounds like no one has it.
[Emily Hedeman]: That's correct.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'd like to suggest that we might actually think about, is there a place in these rules and regs that we literally put that, right? Like that that's the.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So make sure that all board members have it on. Yeah.
[Emily Hedeman]: Again, can we distribute the material and then discuss and move on to another agenda item this evening? I think we're all in agreement about Um, the importance of this, but you know, just trying to use everybody's time efficiently this evening.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, no, I hear what you're saying, but at the same time, I'm a little, since we have a meeting and we're open, I'm trying to just get more feedback from other board members and not just like, just my hearing myself for.
[5GOoqKbpo08_SPEAKER_00]: Anyone else have? Yeah, I agree. We need time to read it and review it and then come back together and we'll put it, let's put it on an agenda.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So that's, that's pretty much my feeling from the beginning, but I just want to make sure that I'm not like tabling it and other people wanting to discuss it. And in that case, I guess we can just, if someone wants to give the motion, I guess.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'll make a motion to table the discussion on the Community Development Board rules and regulations until a future meeting date. Second.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Vice Chair Emily Hederman?
[Emily Hedeman]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ari Fishman? Aye. Pam Mariansky? Aye. Sally Akiki? Aye. Wait, she's not here. Sharad Bhattacharya?
[Unidentified]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And myself, Jackie McPherson. I'm an aye. And so the next item, Daniel, was fee schedules. Do you want to lead us in discussion on what you were thinking with the fee schedules?
[Danielle Evans]: Yes. So it doesn't seem that... So the only fee that We have a site plan review. The schedule doesn't contemplate that the city board is a special permit granting authority. And so when we get applications, it's either we don't collect a fee at all or ask for $100, which is what the fee is for zoning board and city council, which are also very low. And if an applicant said there's There's actually no fee here, and we probably couldn't compel them to pay that. But special permits from the other boards are $100. But I have, let's see, I'll share my screen again. This is a kind of what I am proposing. If you look into the meeting folder, there is a spreadsheet. We pulled the permitting fees of various land use boards in some of the surrounding cities and towns and peer communities to see kind of where we're at. They haven't been updated since, I think, 1974 or something close to that. So they're really, really low, like basement bargain low. and we're not, you know, for a city that has a revenue problem, we need to at least more closely cover the expenses or, you know, come closer to that, the business of permitting. I know the building department updates their fees, but for some reason they haven't been for planning and zoning. Um, so I propose that for special permits for use, um, that when the CDB is the SPGA, that'd be $300. Um, and when it's the referral board, uh, $200, uh, reflecting that the work of writing decision and filing in it, it's, and, um, having to send out notices and do all the postings is more work. Still, it doesn't come close to covering time. But cities aren't supposed to operate as a business, like a profit business, but it shouldn't be basically free. And since the city board sees mostly larger developers, this wouldn't really be impacting your everyday resident. We currently don't have a fee for special permit for detached ADUs. So I'm proposing a $250 fee for that. I don't know if there is a fee for, I imagine it's just a building permit fee for the ones that are by right that your board doesn't see and we don't see. And then for a site plan review, currently the fee is 5 cents a square foot over 5,000 square feet for non-residential and 5 cents a square foot over 3,000 square feet. There are, looking through what's considered a major project, there are technically major projects that wouldn't incur a fee at all. based on that calculation method. For example, the convenience stores, those are considered. So it's convenience retail and neighborhood retail. One of them is defined as being under 2,500 square feet. So that would be free. which doesn't make sense. So I'm proposing that there be a base fee for all site plan review, which is pretty standard everywhere else. And then to increase the fee from $0.05 to $0.10. Again, this was from 1974, so it's still not a huge jump, and still lower than some payer communities. So I'm proposing 500, so sticking to 3,000 for residential, I think that's what it is now. Yeah, so I didn't change the 3,000 square foot threshold for residential. And for non-residential, I bumped it down to 2,000 square feet to reflect some of the actual uses that come in. And through the chair, it looks like member Emily has her hand raised.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes, Emily.
[Emily Hedeman]: Sorry, I can't see my entire screen. No, you're good. That's why I figured I'd mention it that last time. And thanks for calling it out, Danielle. Through the chair, Danielle, you mentioned that, you know, this would potentially help the city with their revenue deficit. What is the projected revenue from the increase in fees, just based on the last couple of years of applications? Do you have that figure?
[Danielle Evans]: I don't have that.
[Emily Hedeman]: OK.
[Danielle Evans]: I'm requesting that from our clerk to see. Basically, I don't have, since I've only just started staffing the board, I don't have, um, I think it must be in a folder that I don't have access to or don't know where it is. Um, I'm assuming, I don't know if Alicia is still on the call, if there is a log somewhere of the filing fees.
[Emily Hedeman]: Um, yeah, I just, I'm interested in that number just to understand like the scale of like what this decision would mean for the department, for the city. Um, and then the other question I have is, you know, If we as a board approve fee increases, whether they're as proposed on this, uh, page or, or, you know, adjusted, you know, do we need approval by any other bodies to change these fees or is it purely up to us? It's purely up to you guys.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah. These are planned board, but it's up to the office of, uh, it's up to Daniel's office to make sure that we're in compliance with, uh, the amounts that we can charge. What does that mean? It sounds like Danielle has done it. Like, um, whatever the fees or just, like, just, like, develop. If I'm not mistaken, Danielle, it's the same, like, if we were charging developer, like, some kind of fee or something like that, right? We have to make sure that we're in compliance and that we're not overcharging for certain things, or is this more administrative?
[Danielle Evans]: Um, I'm not aware of, like, any state law that's capped, if there is, based on we're still below peer communities. I don't know. I think that it's, you know, It's sort of like if someone doesn't get a raise for 10 years, or you don't increase the rent in 10 years, that the jump's going to look pretty big. But it's because it hasn't been done incrementally or updated. As I said, I think it was the 70s that they were last updated. For example, also like the Bank of America, that one that we spent so much time on, we actually didn't even get a fee from them. It was just $100 fee to the city council. That was it, a huge corporation. So they have to be updated and it's the purview of this board to update them. at least according to our rules and regs and our zoning ordinance. In Somerville, I don't ever remember voting on fees. I think it was just set by staff. We didn't see them. But per our ordinance and the rules and regs, you all can set them. And just to help Jackie, I think Emily had her hand up again. Did you lower it?
[Emily Hedeman]: You just answered my question. OK. In terms of does it need to be this board or can it continue to be staff? But it sounds like there's an ordinance that means it has to be this board.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, I think it's like perhaps it could be staff. But I think to err on the side of to be conservative that sometimes staff is the representative of the board, and we can do some things administratively. But I feel it would make sense to have this voted on by the board just to be extra careful. And so one of the other items is ANRs. currently they're only $50. So I proposed changing. So two tiers to that. So for revising a lot line $100. And if it's an A&R that creates new lots, then to charge 150 a new lot. And I was basically, I Plucked those numbers looking at kind of what was the ballpark of neighboring communities. That's how I came up with those. I was trying to get my hands on the subdivision. These is I couldn't believe that it was really only $50, but I think it might really only be $50. So. I'd want to make sure that there was a fee for preliminary plan and for definitive plan. And I mean, we don't see a lot of subdivisions. So that one is not as probably urgent. And so we don't necessarily have to vote on all of these tonight, but trying to gauge the will of the court.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Sorry, Katie. For myself, going back to something Emily said, I didn't... I guess I mixed this up with, like, developer impact fees. You know, that can be... that can violate Fifth Amendment if we don't... because it's regulatory, right? We have to make sure that we're within reason. And so since this is more like an administrative kind of staff thing, it's just building a case for us to pretty much adopt. And I guess we just need a little bit more information on... Obviously, we know it's going to impact the city somewhat for the deficit, but just give us something to vote on, I think, a little bit more background. I see you did the research, but I would love to know, like, what we're charging versus another one, another community that's near us or something like that, just to see where we're at in comparison, just so that people have more confidence to vote on what you're presenting, because, again, this should still be, to me, a city staff kind of thing. But since it's not.
[Danielle Evans]: So do you see this table here?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'm sorry. I don't want to be rude. I'm going off camera just to grab my plug. I'm not going to turn the camera off. And I'm just going to jump up and grab my plug.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry. Danielle, did you email? I think this was in the folder that you sent to us. So if people, in my case, it's easier for me to click on it and see it myself, then So this table of the reference fees that everybody that shows what other communities are charging is in the link in the folder that Danielle sent around. If anybody wants the link, I could grab that now.
[Danielle Evans]: Madam Chair, it appears Emily has her hand up. Oh, yes, Emily.
[Emily Hedeman]: Let me know if you want me to stop doing that too.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, no, I just I'm trying to work from two different and I just can't see everyone because it's suppressed. I'm sorry.
[Emily Hedeman]: Very good. So just to clarify, like the intent for this evening, what are you looking for us to do to discuss to request follow up information to approve?
[Danielle Evans]: I mean, if you were comfortable approving the fee schedule in the folder, I would accept a vote tonight, because then we could start charging those fees. Or then because the next meeting won't be until the 10th. Do you need more information? Do you feel they're too low?
[Emily Hedeman]: I mean, I would just turn it back to the chair to see if, you know, this is something she's, you know, comfortable, you know, potentially voting on this evening or, you know, maybe it's a discussion.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, for this item itself, just because, I mean, I don't want to be the odd one out, but I'm, I definitely have an idea of how low our fees are already, but I have more of an advantage based on dealing with other cities and towns. And so the fact that we are so low, but I don't want that to be a reason why I'm ready to vote. I would need the entire board to feel confident and vote in. One of my biggest questions to Danielle was just what does that entail to bring you guys to confidence? I mean, without me even saying that I know other communities and what they charge, the fact that this hasn't been done in 1974, since 1974, that's a reason to up them. But what do we up them to? Are we going high enough?
[5GOoqKbpo08_SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm looking at the sheet right now. I just feel like it's, yeah. I mean, I appreciate all the work that Danielle has done to pull all these pieces of information together. But it's like comparing like an apple and an orange and a kiwi. So I'm trying to like level. And it's hard to do on one screen. So I'm here. I'm thinking about it. I mean, it seems like we're still kind of low based on just my glancing and scrolling up and down. It seems like we're still kind of low. Do we need to consider even going higher is my only question.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And that's exactly where I came to. Are we even going high enough? And will we have to revisit this again to go higher? Will we be doing this a second time?
[Alicia Hunt]: So from a sort of working with developers perspective, in my mind, it's a good idea to put in some fees and to start charging them and then revisit it in six months or a year and raise them because that gives you, for repeat developers, it gives a chance to ease things in, like letting them know we're starting to charge fees for things. We're still reviewing them. They may go up again. The thing that I really would like to see us raise is our linkage fees, but that actually we need a study. And we've had a really hard time finding somebody willing and able to do that study. And I don't mean a staff person, I mean hiring a consultant. And the last time I asked, we asked a consultant for a price, they wanted like $80,000. And I'm like, that is ridiculous.
[Emily Hedeman]: So absent the linkage fee, which it sounds like we shouldn't even be discussing this evening. Maybe we have kind of this like, pilot, like fee raise. I like your idea, Alicia about like a six month fee raise. I think just in order to, like, be transparent, I think we should do, like, a month notice for this and say, like, you know, effective, you know, say we voted on it this evening, 12-20, you know, effective January 20th, or whenever we decide, you know, the fees will be this. And then we test that out for six months, and then we revisit it. And, Ari, I'm sorry, I just saw your hand up. I'm sorry if I jumped in front of you.
[Ari Fishman]: No, I think that... think those are good ideas and I agree with them. The other thing I wanted to throw in is I think that we should also, if we're doing this, take the opportunity to prevent it from going another 50 years before it's going and potentially put in language like this should be revisited once every two years, once every five years. I don't really care what that number is as long as it is a number.
[Danielle Evans]: Put that in the rules and rigs.
[Ari Fishman]: Yep.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. And actually, I'll tell you that that that is a good idea. Linkage says to revisit every three years is in the linkage rules. And it's because it's never been raised that I feel that we need to study and we can't just do it. But I think having it in there because it was in the rules that made me start asking the question, why haven't we raised these? So I think by putting it in the rules, maybe we wouldn't raise them again in three years, but at least it would prompt us and it would warn people. And honestly, I would recommend put something in place now, we could also then gather some more information, collect any feedback into the anecdotal, and revisit it in six months. And in the meantime, put it in that it should be reviewed at least every three years. And by saying at least that would allow you to say, actually, we need to do this sooner or not.
[Danielle Evans]: So through the chair, I can put this back on the screen, the fee schedule.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And again, the linkage fees are the same as impact fees, right? That's allowed through special... I will tell you legally, no.
[Alicia Hunt]: Our linkage fees are allowed by home rule petition and are therefore separate from the regulatory rules around impact fees. That's part of why the difficulty in updating those because it's actually different from what's going on in the rest of the state.
[Emily Hedeman]: Are linkage fees on the table this evening? No.
[Alicia Hunt]: I just sort of wanted to mention that as a side thing because I don't want people to forget about them.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. And I appreciate that, but maybe let's stay focused on the board fees. So we don't get those confused. So what do we need to move this forward tonight?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'm sorry. 1, 2nd, and my question regarding the link histories, because we're tabling it. Someone had asked earlier if we can table the link histories and be separate and I wanted to make sure and Alicia had responded saying that you needed a study and everything like that. So I wanted the board to have a full understanding that that was like a regulatory thing. or if it was through legislation or if it's something that we can even discuss going forward. So I wanted to make sure that that was clear. And Alicia has answered that question. So again, I guess us voting tonight would be, it would definitely take linkage fees off the table, but what does that look for us? What does that look like for us going forward anyways?
[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, I'm mildly confused because I don't think linkage fees was on. I think there was some confusion because as we started to discuss this, there was a confusion between fees that were regulated by the state like development fees versus your permit fees. But we had not actually put linkage fees on the agenda for tonight.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, sorry.
[Danielle Evans]: permit filing fees for the community development board.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And going back to Emily's question, um, to move the board forward, what do we need to establish tonight? Um, are we voting? Is there, are we in a position to vote or are we tabling this to the next meeting? And that's me opening it up to the board.
[Unidentified]: I could vote.
[5GOoqKbpo08_SPEAKER_00]: And can we just clarify what we're voting on? Are we voting to adopt these fees? Are we voting to adopt these fees with the provision that they'll be revisited at a certain time?
[Emily Hedeman]: I was thinking the latter when I said I would vote. But that's a good clarification.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, I'm sorry, I had loosely heard, we didn't put it in writing. We didn't capture it. But basically, the conversation had bounced back, like, I don't know, give it a date, sir. And I like Emily's idea of maybe like rolling this out in a month, get given some time, and then, you know, let them know that it's coming. And then maybe look at it later. And it'd be more incremental later. But right now, roll this out, and give them time.
[Ari Fishman]: So I guess, yeah. Can I make a motion to vote for adopting this fee table effective January 20th, which is a month from now with a scheduled revisit in six months time.
[Emily Hedeman]: Can I propose a mild adjustment to that? Yeah. Adopting this effective January 31st just recognizing that it's the holiday season, and we want to probably post something to the website. So I'd want to give staff enough time to make that change.
[Ari Fishman]: That is extremely reasonable. Thank you, Emily.
[Emily Hedeman]: Just thinking about the humans behind this. I'm not sure if client fees are even on the website. So we have to create a website.
[Ari Fishman]: So we see your chat.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, Danielle, you're sharing your whole screen, not just one window. How do I do that? How did you share the whole screen?
[Danielle Evans]: Let's see. OK, I'll just. Why is it doing that?
[Emily Hedeman]: Sorry. Does Ari need to re-motion?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Oh, Peter has joined us. Peter, did you hear enough to even?
[Peter Calves]: Oh, I was gonna say I'm gonna, like, abstain, or should I abstain or something like that? Because I only came in for the last 10 minutes. Sorry about that. It somehow took me an hour to get from Cambridge back to Medford.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: But no, don't worry. So it took my husband and I nearly 40 minutes to get from Medford to Medford tonight. We went to get pizza and avelinos and we couldn't get home. I'm exaggerating. It wasn't 40 minutes, but it was forever. We're going to do the word play again. If you could try one more time, Ari, sorry.
[Ari Fishman]: I propose a motion to adopt the stated fee schedule effective January 31st. with a scheduled revisit in six months' time.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'll second the motion. Okay. Roll call. Vice Chair Emily Hederman?
[Ari Fishman]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Peter Kautz is abstaining. Ari Fishman?
[Ari Fishman]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Pam Ariansky? Aye. Chirag Bhatracharya?
[Unidentified]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And myself, Jackie McPherson, I'm an I. Okay, and we have minutes. The next item on the agenda is minutes for, is it from 11? Let's see. All right, I have two prep documents open here. All right, is there a motion to approve the minutes from 11-15-23? Motion. A second? Second. Okay, Vice Chair Emily Hedeman, oh, were you, you could. I was gonna abstain. Okay. Just to let you know, going forward, one of the things that I've learned Correct me if I'm wrong, Danielle. Even if you weren't there, you're just voting the minutes to be filed. You don't have to have been there. Is that correct, Danielle? It's true. Okay. But you can also abstain. That's your right. Peter Kautz? Aye. Ari Fishman?
[Ari Fishman]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Pam Mariansky? Aye. Sharad Vajracharya? Aye. And myself, Jackie McPherson, I'm an aye. Okay. Um, and before adjournment, there's, are there any miscellaneous or other updates? Um, is this where you want to discuss the meeting schedule for 2024, Danielle?
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah. So let's see, that is in the folder. So I wanted you, I think this is the first year that we've had a meeting schedule set in advance all on one piece of paper. Let's see, where is? Do you guys see it?
[Alicia Hunt]: And now I'm like, I have to go back. You're not sharing anything now. Thank goodness. And I just dropped a link for anybody who wants to just open it locally.
[Danielle Evans]: So it's mostly keeping to the first and third. So January, we're bumping out to second. Does everyone have that? No? I think it's better to just do it this way so we can see each other. So it's mostly first and third, so you remember that. And then italicized is when it departs from that. They've been shifted for Juneteenth, I think, Eid. There's some other holidays we want to work around. They do fall on the school vacation weeks, which isn't good for me, but I couldn't figure out a way to shift them better. So if I can't staff it, then I see if somebody else can, or if there's no business, then maybe we could bump it or cancel it. But I wouldn't be shocked if there wasn't anything in February. And I propose just one meeting in July, unless there's an A&R and we're beholden to meet within so many days. We don't get a lot of those. And if it is amenable to the board, I could send out an Outlook calendar invite for all of these at once. What is the preference? I don't want to clog up inboxes. But for me, if it's not on my calendar, then it doesn't exist.
[Emily Hedeman]: In the same way.
[Danielle Evans]: So some people put things on their own calendar. So you don't have to accept them, because you probably don't know. But that's the whole thing. I don't know what to.
[Ari Fishman]: Oh, Ari, you're on mute. Oh, sorry. Please send them. The earliest, the better.
[Danielle Evans]: OK, just to get them all there. I anticipate that the 2nd January and the February meetings will be busy. A lot of site plan review applications coming up. And there was some delay in trying to find meeting dates because city council doesn't have their 2024 schedule yet. Before, when they met, when they had regular meetings every week, you didn't have to think about when their meeting was to get them, when they're the Special Permit Granting Authority, because we try to write legal notices for them. So I didn't know when their meeting.
[Emily Hedeman]: This calendar looks really good. Thank you, Danielle.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And this just, I mean, it works for me, but I want to make sure this, is this a date that we're still, because I remember we changed them to accommodate schedules. Emily, are you still in school? Not to put you out, just anyone. I just want to make sure that this still works for everyone and that you don't need to change it for whatever reason.
[5GOoqKbpo08_SPEAKER_00]: You mean in terms of day of the week or first and third, or what do you mean, Jackie? I'm sorry, the days of the week.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: We've tried to accommodate members as much as possible going forward. Like if there was something else that there was a conflict and we wanted to make sure and you would never be able to be there, then obviously we want to look at a date that we get most of our board members. And it seemed like Wednesday we fell on where everyone could pretty much be there. Now that there's new members, I just want to make sure that that's still the same. And I also want to make sure that it's still a good day for the former board members.
[Emily Hedeman]: Wednesday works for me. Okay.
[Danielle Evans]: Well, that's all I have.
[Alicia Hunt]: You don't need to formally vote the schedule as long as you guys are comfortable with it. We can post it. We can also, Danielle, just as an FYI, you can provide it to our comms department now and they can pre-populate the city calendar as well and that'll make it easier for people. As we wrap up, I just wanted to share our new exciting breaking news as of today. We have a new economic development director. He has accepted. He accepted today. I would say that because this is a public meeting, and I don't know if he has told his old job, his current job, that he is leaving, that I'm going to wait a little bit before telling people, but he starts January 15th. I just want to make sure that he's notified the people he needs to notify, because I've only known for about three hours, so I'm still very excited. And I think we told you at our last meeting that we also have an academic development planner starting January 3rd and a housing planner starting January 2nd. So we are going to be fully staffed by the middle of January. Well, at least for our existing positions, and then I'm going to fight for more, so.
[Emily Hedeman]: And you'll pay for them with the fees.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah.
[Unidentified]: Yeah. All right.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: That's exciting. I'm happy that you're fully staffed.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yes. So anyhow, happy holidays. That just made my holiday, but I wanted to share it with all of you. I hope everybody gets to take some time off.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, for my eldest daughter, it's her birthday. It's not Christmas, so.
[Alicia Hunt]: We're going to celebrate her birthday. Everybody gets a holiday for her birthday. Yeah. I mean, like, not that everybody celebrates it, but like, things are closed. Yeah, definitely. A vacation day. That's what I should say.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'm going to do a roll call attendance. If there's no other updates or anything that anyone wanted to share. I will do a roll call for adjournment.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Vice Chair Emily Hederman. Aye. Peter Cowes.
[Peter Calves]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ari Fishman.
[Ari Fishman]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Pam Marianski.
[Ari Fishman]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Sherrod Butchbacheria.
[Ari Fishman]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And myself, Jackie McPherson. I'm an aye.
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