call the Committee of the Whole to order. And I will call redevelopment authority to order. We have a quorum for the Committee of the Whole. And we have a quorum for redevelopment. All right, would everyone please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Is there anyone for public forum today? All right, seeing none, we will jump into Committee of the Whole approval of the minutes from our April 8th meeting. Is there a motion to approve the minutes from our April 8th meeting? There's been a motion to approve in a second. Is there any discussion on our minutes from our last meeting? Seeing none, all those in favor of approving the minutes from our last meeting, please state aye. Anyone opposed? Chair votes aye. Okay, redevelopment authority approval of the minutes from the April 17th meeting. Chair will entertain a motion. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Chair votes aye. Opposed? Motion carries. All right, next we'll jump into a presentation. 3.1 Development of Boots and Sports Complex. We're going to take this one. First, before we start, if anybody's having trouble hearing me, if I need to move my mic or if you're not understanding what I'm saying, just flag me down and let me know that you can't hear or that you didn't understand what I had to say. I know sometimes these mics are a little tricky. With regard to how I'd like to present our ideas and our concept and our development to you, is I'd like an opportunity first to show you what it's all about. What does it look like? What does the plans look like? What does the design look like? And then after about 20 to 30 minutes or so of discussion about various aspects of our development, I'll open it up for questions for all of you. And I'll be glad to stay as long as you see fit and as long as you still have questions for me. I'll hang out for 10 minutes. I'll hang out for an hour. So please, by all means, I'm sure after hearing what we have to say, there's going to be a lot of questions. So we're hoping you'll ask. You're probably wondering who are these guys? Why are they here tonight? Some of you probably do have an idea. My name is Joe Velker. I'm Vice President and General Counsel for the Buttson Sports Complex LLC, as well as Lakeshore United FC. Seated tonight in the gallery are members of the Buttson Sports Complex Board of Directors. That includes Tony Cloco, Jim Visor, Chris Lacy, and Mike Phil. They're here to lend support, answer questions if necessary. So on some subjects, I might defer to them with regard to specifics. But at the outset, I just want to say on behalf of Buttson Sports Complex and Lakeshore United, thank you for the opportunity to present. We want to describe for you what we believe is a truly extraordinary project for our community and an extraordinary development and opportunity for all of us. We can start the first slide, please. Lakeshore United is Sheboygan's youth soccer club. We have more than 1,300 members, but tonight's development is really about a vision. It's developed and cultivated over more than five years of planning, of meeting, of discussions. And it's what we view as our vision is being the finest sports facility, not only in the state of Wisconsin, but also the entire Midwest. We're starting from Lake Michigan. We're showing you the flyover of where Buttson Park is and what it will be expected to look like. Lakeshore United is Sheboygan's youth soccer club. We have more than 1,300 kids that participate in our programs. They range from select soccer to recreational soccer, as well as camps and other events. We serve more than 3,000 parents. And needless to say, as many in the room here can attest to, that the coordination and programming of all of those things is a huge undertaking. And likewise, the project that we're showing tonight is no small undertaking either, just by way of history. It involves a parcel known as the Buttson Farms. Some of you may be familiar with it. It's located on Sheboygan's near Southside on South Business Drive. At Buttson Farms, when the owners passed, the parcel was gifted to the city of Sheboygan. It had a restrictive covenant as part of that gift. And that gift specifically was that this parcel be utilized for recreational purposes only. Buttson Sports Complex LLC is the operational entity that's been formed to run this particular facility both operationally, as well as to develop this particular parcel. We are currently engaged in a 25-year surface lease with the city of Sheboygan. And we are going to develop and propose to develop this particular tract for that very reason, recreational purposes. This not only perpetuates that legacy that the Buttson family left for the city of Sheboygan, but it's also the spirit of the family's generosity. And that is a promise we not only intend to keep, but that we intend to bring into our development as a whole. What is Buttson Sports Complex? What is all the talk about? We want to show you a little bit about it. Buttson Sports Complex is a 57-acre facility and parcel located on Sheboygan's near Southside. It is located on South Business Drive, less than a half of a mile, from the South Washington Street corner. If I can have visual number three, please. Page 19. This particular facility is envisioned as a multi-sport, multi-use facility. It has 16 sports fields. We can keep running to the next slide, please. Thank you. 16 full-size fields are envisioned here. It's planned and designed not only to be utilized as a soccer facility, but for all types of activities and sports. And we'll go through that a little bit later on in the proposal as to the specific activities that we are proposing. Next slide, please. The facility envisions not only 16 fields, but it also envisions a championship stadium field, which is you'll see in the upper left corner there with the stands. That is going to have a capacity of roughly 2,500 to 3,500. We will have four artificial turf fields as part of this development, and you'll notice that those are the ones that have the lights on them in that particular diagram. When we look at those of us that are engaged in spring sports, whether they be track, baseball, soccer, softball, tennis, all of these sports, this spring in particular, demonstrate the fact why artificial turf is so important to a development such as this. As most of you can attest, if you have kids that play sports or engaged in spring sports, we have a lot of washouts. We have a lot of missed times. We have a lot of schedules that don't get met because we don't have a facility or a surface that allows for playability. These four turf fields are just a critical component to that. We've also got a very unique feature, and I think you see what it is in the upper right corner. That's an interior dome. It has a turf field underneath it. It will be utilized all year round, and that is a very important feature we're going to talk about as we go. The design also includes concessions, restrooms, shelters, lighting, parking, scoreboards, seating, and what we also are hoping that it will also include the most state-of-the-art technologies, including sound systems, informational systems, and digital technology for advertising purposes. These are all a part of what we were proposing in terms of a design. Next slide, please. We have engaged, as part of our design concept, is we have engaged Rettler builders out of Stevens Point in Wisconsin to provide us with the designs and the graphics you're looking at now. Rettler has extensive experience in designing and constructing recreational facilities throughout Wisconsin. One of the things I would invite you to do is to visit rettler.com and take a look at some of the facilities these folks have been involved in in terms of design, which includes universities, high schools, and various other recreational facilities throughout not only Wisconsin, but the entire Midwest as well. One of the things also we want to show you, next slide, please, is what is building Boots and Cost. This particular graphic, I'm hoping it's clear enough for everybody to read. Page 24. Thank you. The total cost for the project without going through the specifics involves two very special components. There's an east parcel, which is the majority of what you've been looking at, and also a west parcel, which includes grass fields. The total cost of this particular development, including all infrastructure and facilities that I talked about previously, is approximately $24,700. I think my eyesight is terrible, but I think that's what the number is. Correct. Sorry. There was $1,000. That'd be great. Okay. $22 or $24.7 million. We invite you to take a look at the Rettler cost estimates contained in your materials. They can be found at the appendix of some of the materials you've taken a look at, and they include itemization of any and all parts of our project. These source materials include not only itemizations of the cost, but breakdowns by items in areas. I think with a price tag of $24 million, you're asking yourself, well, why build such a facility? What's the allure? Why would we want to do this? As we've maintained, and there are some folks in this room, they're familiar with the fact that previously we had talked to many of the members of the Common Council about a project involving Field of Dreams and Aurora several years ago. In those presentations and as part of those discussions, we had stressed throughout, and we stressed today that this is a community asset. This is not built simply for Lakeshore United. It's not built strictly for soccer purposes. It's got artificial turf, which means it can be utilized for a lot of different purposes. It's also got a lot of space and can be utilized for a lot of different purposes. We want to stress, as I have earlier, that this is a multi-use, multi-purpose facility. It's a community asset. We view it as an elite first-class facility, and you're asking yourself, well, for $24.7 million, I certainly hope it is. We're hoping that in viewing the materials we've showed that that's apparent in and of itself. Another strong purpose for doing this, and a great reason for doing this is we're trying to attract and retain people in the Sheboygan area. We're trying to put together first-class facilities throughout our community to keep and retain all the folks that live here now, as well as those we're hoping will come, and we believe this facility can be a part of that particular selling point. Again, I want to stress, it's a multi-use facility. It's not a Lakeshore United asset. This is a community, a city of Sheboygan, a Sheboygan county, a greater Sheboygan area asset. That's what this is about. As part of our preparation and part of our planning, the Butts and Sports Complex LLC engaged the services of SB Freedman. SB Freedman prepared for us an economic impact statement. The reasons that we've gone through hiring vendors such as SB Freedman is to demonstrate and to establish the economic impacts to both the city of Sheboygan and the greater Sheboygan area. We have provided for you in your appendix materials the entirety of the economic impact statement prepared by SB Freedman. We believe, of course, for tonight's purposes we're not going to go through the entire report, but there are certain highlights that we're going to talk about in just a moment. Needless to say, when we take a look at some of the numbers on this particular slide, the conclusions in the data and the economic impacts to our area are simply astounding. If we take a look at page 34 of your informational packet, we take a look at the total tourism impact. I want to point you to the 2017 table involving spending here in Sheboygan County. Sheboygan's currently ranked 16th in terms of direct visitor spending. That's a number of about $232 million. This really begs the question. How can we improve that particular figure? How can we get more visitors to Sheboygan? How can we get more visitors to spend more money in our community? We believe this facility meets that need. It provides an outlet for visitors and for people to say, Sheboygan is a destination. It is a place where it's not just about soccer. It adds to our overall package of amenities that we offer to our visitors. The complex boost tourism, and what I want to do is take a look at some of the figures on this particular slide. When we look at it on balance, the numbers, and you'll find these in your EIS, the intention at the facility would be to run 80 to 85 events annually. That is a lot of programming, but we believe that this facility not only can accommodate that particular type of events and density of events, but let me give you an example of how this facility changes the game a bit. This last weekend we had our Kicking at Lakeside tournament. Kicking at Lakeside is Lakeshore United's annual select tournament, and currently we run that particular tournament out of Horace Mann Middle School and various other sites throughout Sheboygan. When you take a look at that particular tournament, there were nearly 200 select teams in our community, bringing nearly 6 or 7,000 visitors to Sheboygan. It included hotel stays, it included these people utilizing our hotels, our restaurants, our small business owners, our retailers. These are critical economic impacts for all of us, not just the four industries I've referenced. When we take a look at that impact and we look at this facility, we would project the ability to run repeated tournaments, events, and various other types of events over the course of a year that would generate similar numbers. Imagine for a moment five or six tournaments of the size of the Kicking at Lakeshore run at this particular facility. This has increased capacity to host those tournaments as well as the numbers themselves, not just once a year, maybe not just twice a year, five, six, seven tournaments drawing these kinds of numbers and these kinds of visitors. Those are big numbers, everyone. Let's take a look at the next figure right below that. It says 227,000. 227,000 represents the number of visitors annually that would come to Sheboygan as a result of this facility having been constructed. If we take a look at that again on balance, that is a lot of opportunities. That's 227,000 opportunities to spend another dollar, to visit another restaurant, to visit another store, to visit another hotel for an overnight stay. Those are great opportunities, everyone. As part of our EIS as well, you'll see the next number which is 23,500. 23,500 represents the number of overnight room stays that would be generated by this facility annually. That's a large number of overnight stays. There's also a number below that, 3.2 million. A $3.2 million, according to our economic impact statement, is another $3.2 million annually in additional revenue and economic impact, not indirect, direct. People who come, they spend their dollars here, and it's a direct benefit to our business owners, our restaurant tours, our hotelers, and all of the folks that are here. That's a large number, again. The last number on that particular diagram is $4.9 million. That is an annual figure of indirect economic input. What does that mean in English? What that means is that that is companies and or businesses buying goods and services from other local companies and vendors. That, again, is a very sizable number, and a very important economic benefit to our community. Last but not least, you'll see the number 57 at the bottom. 57 full-time equivalency jobs would be created as a result of this particular facility. Now, we know that Sheboygan is doing awfully well when it comes to unemployment figures and all of those things. That's great. This particular facility provides an opportunity for that status quo to continue. In fact, improve. We see that as an outstanding opportunity to maintain the current, I don't know what the percentage is, but it's quite low as compared to the rest of the state. We want to keep that. We want to keep that. Last but not least, and that's not included on this particular diagram, but I want to stress this. By virtue of development and construction of this particular facility, in the construction aspect of it, we are projecting 162 construction jobs in Sheboygan as a result of this particular project in development. That is a tremendous opportunity for our local excavators, all of our local contractors, and all the folks that are involved in those related industries to have an opportunity to work on our project locally. That's a great opportunity, and we're very proud that that's part of our presentation. What people ask is, well, you have a first-class facility. What do you do with that first-class facility? How does it run? When you look at it from a programming perspective, I want you to take a look at your presentational materials at pages 5 to 10, and I'm not going to go through all this specific programming, but I do want to highlight a few things. The programming aspects of this particular facility involve use soccer programming, stuff we've already talked about. We're talking about Wisconsin Inter Scholastic Athletic Association events, such as the state tournaments, such as regionals, and other types of WIAA events. We're also talking about local high school games. Obviously, we have North and South, but we also have other area high schools that can utilize the facility. We're talking about the Wisconsin Youth Soccer Association state cup tournament. This is a huge draw in the state of Wisconsin, involves kids and programs from all age levels, and we think we can bring it here. In fact, we are supremely confident with this particular facility. We would expect to have those competitions here. That brings in even more economic impact. What we've also got, there's some other things that we're leaving out. We've got soccer camps, we've got adult soccer leagues, colleges and universities, sports camps, exhibitions, domestic professional soccer teams. We're talking about other sports, as I mentioned, multi-sports. We're talking about lacrosse. We're talking about rugby, football, ultimate frisbee, sports camps, emerging sports. I want to talk about something that we initially, and there is the dome. From approximately November to about, let's say, March, who knows, maybe even longer, there's a gap. What do we do during those months? How does the facility operate during those months? What does it offer? That dome presents a unique opportunity to keep the facility running during winter months. It'll have artificial turf. It will have heating elements and will be able to be used from multi-use facilities. There are only three domes in the state of Wisconsin that are presently running. Market University. Market University certainly doesn't make that available to the general public in large part. We have our dome that we're proposing, and then there's one at UW Oshkosh. We believe that this dome will be a tremendous driver of wintertime activity, something unique to largely outdoor facilities such as this. This is a great opportunity. We've got golf academies. We've got indoor soccer, baseball training, health boot camps. The dome allows for all of these things, something that is part of the programming and part of the overall financial package and operational package, which we'll get into in a bit. We're also talking about things like corporate events, holiday events. If we think outside the box, there's any number of possibilities here for this particular dome. We think that's another feature of this particular development that is unique and would make Sheboygan, again, a destination for these types of things. Now, are we thinking really about operationally? How does this place run? As we all know, we can all put together the greatest laid plans of mice and men, but if we don't run it right and we don't operationally do the things that are necessary, it's a great facility that isn't run right. To that end, we want to impress upon all of you that one of the key components to the development of this particular facility is operationally for it to run in such a manner that not only is it self-sufficient, but that it also takes care of improvements, capital maintenance, and all the other bits and pieces that go with operation of large facilities. One of the things we've built into our pro forma budget, which we'll talk about in just a moment, is we've put payroll into that particular budget. Payroll obviously means we have employees. What we would envision is having an executive director, a tournament operations director, a general maintenance director, someone who takes care of the facility, obviously, and a marketing person, someone who's directly involved in getting some of these events that we've talked about to Sheboygan. That's what we would envision to get the place up and running operationally to begin with. If you're going to build a first class facility, you have to staff it with first class people. We believe we're going to do that. Now, what I would like for you to take a look at next slide, please. And again, this highlights some of the multi-purpose sports facilities boosting our local economy. That can be found in your materials as well. Next slide, please. And again, when we look at the upper right corner, we look at the soccer family target audience that's contained in our ESI. If we look at those figures, those demographics, we think match up very well with what we're trying to do at this particular facility, both operationally as well as developmentally. With regard to expenses and revenue figures, next slide, please. All right. Obviously, when you run a facility of this size, we're not here to tell you or to even remotely suggest that there isn't any expense associated with this particular facility. Of course there is. We're not going to ignore it. If you want to put it out there for you to look at, we look at the annual expenditures here as being all of those things. We believe the facility to be self-sufficient in that regard, which leads me to our pro forma, which can be found as part of our economic impact statement in your appendix. Now, without getting too deep into the weeds with regard to the specifics, we're hoping that all of you will have an opportunity to review that, but the figures in that pro forma are not fiction. They're not wild guesses. They're not made up far from it. These particular figures and projections are on the basis of data that's been utilized from facilities throughout the state of Wisconsin of like kind, such as Elan Soccer Park in Milwaukee, Shields Sports Park in Appleton, and like kind facilities throughout the country. These profiles that I'm talking about in terms of like facilities can be found at pages 12 through 17 of your presentational materials. Well, we're hoping you'll review that. As I referenced, we project the annual spending to provide enough operational revenue to not only pay our expenses, but to provide improvements and to pay debt service for the construction of this facility. And I pause because I think some of you have now heard the words debt service. What is debt service all about? One of the things we're here to talk about is obviously with the price tag you've all seen, there's going to be a need for some serious fundraising. As part of that, we want to impress upon you that we've thought about this very carefully. We've had very high level discussions with various folks about how this might be structured. And how is the facility going to be financed? Next slide, please. And the next one. And one more. One more, please. Very good. Our timetable for this is a set forth above. And in order to meet that project timeline, we're launching our capital campaign. It's 2019. I think we're right on schedule there. We're hoping to initiate our final design in the summer of 2019 with a finalization of our financing for this particular development in 2020. We're hoping for springtime. And we think we've got a very good jump on that. We're hoping to start construction in the spring of 2020 with a grand opening and operations to begin in fall of 2021. Next slide, please. And the next one. One more, please. It's okay. Very good. The concept of financing the Boots and Sports Complex will be found at pages 43 and 44 of your presentation materials. I'm going to refer you to that. It's a three pronged approach, three facets. The first of which is municipal bonding. We're going to talk about that in some detail in just a moment. We're looking to finance approximately $15 million in a revenue bond. We will talk about the specifics of how that will be done very shortly. The other second facet is the capital campaign. That is, is obviously that's not enough. Who do we approach? We're looking at corporate, local business donors, not only locally, but statewide and even nationally in some settings. We're looking at that to be approximately five to seven million dollars. The last part we want to impress upon this is that even throughout this entire process, we haven't forgotten that we need to work with local sustaining partnerships, our local business owners, our local small business owners, brick and mortar things, things that all fundraising from the bake sale to the broad fries to the sale of bricks to all of the things that are a part of putting together a community asset like this. Grassroots financing, and I'll call it that, is extremely important. Everybody in the community feels like I'm a part of this. This is something I helped build that I'm a part of. We think that's an important component of what we're trying to do in this development is that our local business owners have a stake in the game, that this is something they help construct. So we have hired a Milwaukee based marketing firm to help us with some of those steps. Small step solutions LLC is going to be assisting us in targeting particular types of packages, sustaining partnerships, naming rights, local placement, concessions, all of those things. The list is very exhaustive and something that we are going to be working with them to do. But this leads me to the point that I want to talk about in some detail and that's talking plainly about the reasons we're here tonight. Of course our first priority is to show you what is this all about? What does it look like? What are they planning to build? And we're hoping as part of what we've shown you is that the design, the development, and the programming for the facility, I'm hoping and I'm optimistic in this regard, but that I'm really confident that when you view the materials, I think all of you have the impression or will have the impression that it's a first class, first rate facility. I'm hoping that's become very clear. But the issue of whether, how do we build it? How do we finance it? And what we're looking to do and we want to talk about this at some level with the folks in this room is to propose financial backing with the assistance of a revenue bond. As part of our concept, I would like you to take a look at the specific details at 41 and 42 and read those on your own time. That's a detailed discussion point. However, to direct you to page 44 is a general overview of what a revenue bond and our various sources include. At the outset, I want to go back to the cost of the project and I want to impress upon everyone as part of those construction processes that we intend to seek in kind services from our local contractors and so forth. We're hoping that the opportunity for them to be a part of this project will also be an opportunity for us to realize some in kind contributions towards our project. We're hoping to realize some of those. Secondly, as I mentioned, we'd be seeking a revenue bond of $15 million. This would begin our accumulation of construction funds. It's a city facility released from the city of Sheboygan. I would submit to you that it is absolutely and critically important as part of this financial package, not only to outside donors, but outside prospects, corporations, and even in the grassroots arena, that it's important that we establish this project as being well funded, well organized, well thought out. And we believe with city backing on a revenue bond that that screams credibility. It screams that the city is prepared to back and to help finance something that is very special and very extraordinary. Taking a look at page 44 to pay for the bond service, the debt service associated with that, the exact terms and conditions of that bond, we haven't reached that point at this point. We have a lot of discussions to undertake, but what we do want to do is lay out some foundational aspects of a bond. If you look at the current room tax revenue of the city of Sheboygan, the city currently generates $1.6 million annually at current levels in room tax. That figure is based on an 8% room tax rate as it stands currently. For the past 15 years, room tax allocations of $800,000 have been provided to the Blue Harbor Convention Center. As some of you in this room may know, that allocation or debt has recently been retired. Under state statutes, we believe that that is an opportunity that would certainly qualify to be utilized for bond debt service. Additionally, and I think this is important for all the folks in this room to talk to their constituents about, but it bears mention, it's important to keep in mind that room tax as compared to other models is not paid as a general matter by people who live here in Sheboygan. Room tax is generated on hotel stays. Most of that revenue is generated by people in overnight stays that are from where out of town. There's not a direct significant impact to the taxpayers of Wisconsin, I should say of Sheboygan. It's generally paid by persons residing outside the county. When we look at the opportunity here, and as I pointed out, we have some real opportunities for economic impacts. We are proposing for consideration that we have a 2% increase in the room tax rate to bring the total to 10%. Many of Wisconsin's communities that are building these types of facilities or that are considering the construction of these facilities are using room tax dollars exclusively to design and to construct these facilities. I want to give you a prime example. Grand chute in the Fox Valley has built a new indoor facility, primarily indoor sports. That particular sports facility is financed solely by a 3% allocation of room tax to pay for the revenue bond to construct it. The grand chute indoor facility is a 30 million dollar facility, paid directly and solely by room tax. Now, we're not proposing that the development of our particular development simply be funded solely like grand chute with room tax. We would like an opportunity. Our structure includes the following. Obviously the 2% room increase that I referenced, at the current levels at 1.6 million dollars annually, a 2% increase is $400,000 in room tax revenue. The reason for our ask is the impetus is this, is that 2% is being asked for to build this facility. Therefore, the room tax increase generated by this 2% can be directly paid for debt service on this particular project. That allocation will be utilized towards that purpose to pay that debt service. As we've indicated earlier in our economic impact statement, the facilities expected to generate 23,500 room nights annually at the 10% rate I indicated with a 2% increase, that would generate another $234,000 in room tax revenue. Seeing as the additional room tax is largely attributable to operations in our particular facility, we would be asking that portion be attributable towards the debt service payment. That total allocation is $634,000 and some change as you'll see in pages 41 and 42. This is less, substantially less than the $800,000 the city has been paying for the Blue Harbor Convention Center for the past 15 years. One of the questions you're asking yourself now is, well how on earth is it proposed that the rest of the debt service get paid? Who's going to do that? Where is that going to come from? When you review the pro forma that's attached to your economic impact statement, you'll see that there has been an annual contribution or allocation of operational revenue of $600,000 annually over the life of the bond for debt service. When you take a look at that comparison as to grand chute, Boots and Sports Complex LLC is matching what it's asking for. It's a skin in the game. Some people call it motivation. It certainly is. As I indicated earlier, though, that pro forma is based on data coming from any number of like kind facilities. So therefore the total debt service allocation, including room tax and the amount that Boots and Sports Complex and its operations would be kicking in to pay for debt service is $1.23 million a year. We believe that to be sustainable. We believe that to be appropriate. Maybe one of the questions you're asking yourself is well, what might happen if when we start out this facility and it's not running at full capacity? We would propose to address that issue in two distinct forms, the first of which being we would seek to negotiate with the bond issuance paying interest only on the bond for the first two years until the facility is fully operational. Obviously interest only is a substantially smaller figure than the total debt service. Additionally, we would propose to escrow or allocate or segregate two years of debt service up front. In the event that there are shortfalls, we would be able to utilize that fund to pay any shortfalls. As part of the bond structure, those particular proceeds would be pledged and we would talk to bond counsel about that particular issue directly in terms of negotiations. So when you consider our proposal and what we're asking for and I understand everybody that $1.23 million annually is a lot of money. Nobody has any illusions about what it is. People want to call the project ambitious? You bet it is. We believe we're prepared to meet those burdens and to meet those obligations. What I want to go back to in talking about all of this, I want to extrapolate a little bit, get into some math here. When you extrapolate and you add over the period of time of a revenue bond, which could be anywhere from 18 to 25 years, and I'll use 18 years as a conservative number. We take a look at the numbers provided in our EIS and here's what those economic impact numbers sound like. Over 18 years from bond issuance, $58 million in hospitality, restaurant tour, and other retail revenue to the city of Sheboygan and its surrounding communities. $88 million in indirect economic output, companies buying things from other companies. That's over an 18-year period from bond issuance. 423,000 room nights. 423,000 room nights.  Last but not least, this is probably the biggest number that I'm going to share with you in terms of overall economic impact. When we extrapolate and we put together the numbers over an 18-year period for the number of visitors that come to the Sheboygan area over that period of time, 4.1 million visitors to Sheboygan. That's 4.1 million additional opportunities for everyone to see the benefits. I'm expecting a lot of questions tonight. I certainly think when you show up and you talk about numbers of this size and the types of ambitious financing that we've got in mind here, we expect questions, but I want to summarize for purposes of what our ask is. The first of which is we'd ask that the council and the RDA consider the increase of the room tax rate 2% for a total of 10%. Secondly, we would be asking for a room tax allocation of $650,000, which includes the 2% increase plus additional room nights that I talked about earlier. And lastly, that we would have an opportunity. Let's assume for purposes of discussion that the revenue from operations exceeds and performs extraordinarily well, which we anticipate that it will. We are hoping that the common council and the RDA would consider allowing our group to come back and discuss whether additional room tax allocations are appropriate. It's a merit-based system. You have to meet certain benchmarks. You have to meet certain performance aspects of it. But at the very least, we'd have an opportunity to talk about allocations increased from what we're asking for tonight and what I want to stress. I'll wrap up. I've gone a little longer than I expected to. But the guys in this room sitting in the back have spent a lot of time, along with all of our supporters, our parents, and everybody that we serve at Lakeshore United, and it's been a very, very long period of time. We believe that this is a once-in-a-generational opportunity, an opportunity to build something absolutely extraordinary. It's the culmination of years and years of planning, of meetings, of careful consideration, and all the things we talked about tonight. And I'll submit to you that once it's built, it's going to be the finest facility in the state of Wisconsin and the finest facility in the Midwest. We all know that Shboygan's a destination. We all know we have all the amenities and things that appeal to a broad group of people. We see this as just another opportunity to underscore the fact that this community is a destination. Always has been. This helps establish that. Under scores makes it better. It's value-added. And I'm hoping that when you consider all of the things we've talked about, and I know we're throwing a lot of details at you, but I think when you take a look at this project and you see the passion of the people who have been involved in this process over a long period of time, we're hoping you'll look at this in much the same way. We're hoping that there is that passion, that want, to build this facility. And I'll wrap up with that and just say, on behalf of myself, the gentlemen in the gallery from Boots and Sports Complex, our Lakeshore United FC board members, and everybody, including myself, including our parents, our coaches, our supporters, all of our friends, and all of us in the community, we want to thank you, all of you, for the opportunity to show what we think is a very special opportunity to you. So thank you very much. If there's any questions, I'll be glad to take whatever questions you may have. All right. Thanks, Joe. I appreciate it. Thank you. All right. So we'll move into 4.1, debt financing related to the development of Boots and Sports Complex, items for discussion and possible action. So this is a joint committee. So we're going to take turns with who's speaking. So Bert, do you want to say anything? Here, you've got it, John. All right. We'll kick it off with Jim. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When I read this over yesterday, I noticed that there was about 900 and some hotel or rooms available in Sheboygan County. And of course, this is going to be a very pleasant problem for the lodging facilities. My question is, in any of your studies, are there enough rooms to support not only this, but everything else that's going on during the summer? I mean, every weekend there's something, whether it be Elkhart Lake, stuff in Sheboygan, the Greek picnic, Bratwurst Day, all of the stuff that's going on, is that a concern? Is it a concern? Certainly. But here's, it's an excellent question, by the way. And one of the concerns is we know we have a lot of things that go on. But when you look at a multi-sport facility, when you look at the opportunity to build and to utilize a dome and to utilize artificial turf, Alderman Bourne, to your question, we're able to utilize a schedule where we can move things, where we have opportunities based on the amount of fields and space we have, to schedule events that don't necessarily overlap, that don't necessarily run into road America, that don't necessarily run into broad days, that don't necessarily run into other events. We've got that flexibility and we will have a full-time staff that will be able to address exactly those concerns, is how do we maximize the operational opportunities here? So to your question, we think we have the operational flexibility to avoid unnecessary overlap. If I could just follow up, Mr. Chairman, this facility would be in my district, Ken, on the south side. And I like what I see here. Of course, we're going to have to work out all the numbers. Of course. The other thing is, I guess I could maybe ask Director Bebel this question, and that is, in studying this over unless I missed it, is there going to be any other financial responsibility for the city as far as infrastructure on the location? You want to take that, David? At this stage of the game, we do have some budgeted figures potentially for, let's say, utilities. We haven't put that necessarily in the capital plan. It's kind of like as a placeholder. One of the things, as you've noticed, the stormwater ponds, they'll be necessary for the development, but there's an opportunity for us to leverage that and make them more regional, especially the one to the, what it would be, to the south of the site, which is immediately right of the dome. That would serve also some of our industrial park. So if it's sized properly, it would have other benefits besides the parks that the city could then participate, obviously, to fray cost of this project directly. And then, again, that could be part of the funding package in terms of city support. That's where he mentioned some of the in kind. And I guess that's something that we'd have to take a look at overall as infrastructure and where it makes sense for the city to participate or not to participate. Thank you. I would like to now talk to the committee of the whole members. I had the opportunity to sit for about an hour and a half with the gentlemen, Chris and Joe and Daryl and Bond Council on the phone. This project, and this is for everybody, this project is very different for the redevelopment authority. Typically, the redevelopment authority provides gap funding. So we are used to seeing projects that come in. We hear the project. They have personal equity in the project. They have collateral that we lean against. They have a banking relationship that has already vetted numbers for us. So this is different in that case because this project is coming in whole for us. The second thing that is very different is we will be the bondholders in my history on redevelopment authority. We have not been. So that's very different. And I would have you go to page 45, if not now later. But you see that the redevelopment authority is central to how we get this done. And it is very different. And it is very unique for us. And having said that, not only the size of this project, but the differentiation of this project, I think it's imperative for the redevelopment authority who has not met on this yet, that the redevelopment authority have just a redevelopment authority meeting, which will be open, but have a redevelopment authority meeting to talk about the wise and where for us. Bond Council was on the phone with us. We also had discussion with grand chute and the grand chute finance director and the grand chute manager city manager were on the phone talking about how they did it, how they were unique, how it worked for them. We have some similarities, but we don't have all the similarities. They had 10 communities. We will have one community doing this. So my recommendation to redevelopment authority is to have us take this back and have a RDA meeting just about this or have it at our next meeting and continue the conversation. Okay, I'll go to Chad. So, Joe, you had mentioned in your presentation that the event that you held last week or two weeks ago, in comparison, is that event, what is the size of that event to the size of the average event that will be at this facility? Soccer event. Yes. Correct. Thank you. Chad, good question. And when you look at it, the tournament we ran a couple of weekends ago ran at Horace Mann as well as three other facilities. There's a reason for that is that based on the school district materials and opportunities at Horace Mann, we had to run other sites. We believe this to be a self-contained type situation where the entire tournament is run at one particular facility. Directly to your question, we believe that the kicking at Lakeshore event would be smaller in scale than events run at this particular facility for that reason alone is that there's 16 fields. Huge opportunities to run larger tournaments, not only larger tournaments, but more frequent. So in short, in summary, we believe that the events at the new facility would be larger in scale than those I described earlier. So can I follow up? So in comparison, is it 50 percent, was that event 50 percent smaller than what you're going to run there? Or what, I mean, I don't want to put you on the carpet, but what, what, I'm just trying to get a comparison of what's going to be at, what's it? Right. To see the behind me, Chad, Chris Lacey is our operations director. That's, that's a question he can address directly. Outside the area. So I would, I would call it about probably from a like, if you're looking at it from the impact to the community, probably above 50 percent. So some of the other tournaments that we're talking about would specifically, might have the same amount of teams, but they're coming from a distance where they would actually stay. That you'd have more hotel stays based on that. There's probably five or six of those type of events. The state cup and the president's cup that Joe's, Joe's mentioned. Those are, those are tournaments also in the state right now that they, they, for instance, given the weather this year, they had to cancel two straight weekends and they wanted determining a wide variety of that. And they didn't penalty kicks for like, so they, they didn't drive two hours for a 20 minute thing and maybe they, that they were looking for us to see, we actually ran several games during our tournament for the president's cup that we were able to integrate in. You're able to also then bring in, there's a WIA sectional final or regional final that was brought in. So there's, I think that event, we could have done a lot more had we had more space. And some of the events, like I said, probably about six to eight of those types of events will be from, there might be only 10 percent of the teams from Wisconsin that are looking for this type of facility with the, the four turf fields plus the fifth one under the dome that you could, you could bring in people, especially other times of the year. So that arch time frame, that April time frame, that was able to play that November or October time frame with a facility, even with just those five fields, you could probably replicate what we had this weekend. So as a follow-up question, have you, have you contacted the hotels to determine what the room night stays were as it related to that? We had talked to various hoteliers about capacity and one in particular was up to capacity for the entire weekend. And we would expect, given the types of events Chris described for that to continue in large part, I can tell you, and I think it's intuitive in nature is that I would have a difficult time believing that a hotelier, a restaurateur, a retailer would struggle or not care for having increased traffic regardless of the issues regarding capacity. Now, of course there are issues with that, but most of the hoteliers we've talked about were, if not at full capacity, darn close. And we would expect that to continue. Sorry, I just have one other point of clarification that I'm done. You had mentioned that this before this council, before the committee of the whole in the RDA is the decision to raise the room tax from 8% to 10% to allocate $600,000 towards the debt service payment and then the $15 million bond under state statute, the council has no authority though in allocating the room tax dollars. That's going to have to be through just so the council's aware that's going to have to be through the room tax commission because by statute we have to turn our room tax proceeds over to the room tax commission. That's certainly fair and that's a consideration. I think the overriding question chat is really this is whether the common council and RDA are willing to engage in high level discussions about that particular 2% increase. Then of course gets passed on to the room tax commission to make the final determination and make its recommendation. We certainly are not looking to supersede or end run any type of state statute procedure. That's not at all what I'm talking about. David, did you have a question? Yeah, I David, can you use your mic? You have to use your mic. Sorry. You've obviously done a lot of work and a lot of thought in here. My child I'm on the RDA and so the question is for any expectation of us to do some due diligence on this thing, I mean anything you read here looks great to me but I have no reference point. I'm trying to think of how do we do our due diligence when we're asked to be the bond holders of $15 million when we've never been a bond holder of $1. And so what kind of due diligence do we do? You know, I mean if this was a private bond placement there and there's a buyer of this thing they're doing all kinds of due diligence on looking at profit and loss and related it, you know similar, you know it's all I mean are any of these other do you have access to these other organizations that if we wanted to put together a list of people and try to get some financials from them to do some analysis of how these others have done to put some kind of our own analysis to the to your numbers to say yeah these numbers are based on or you can share with us Joe kind of the data that you use to put together these numbers or whatever right. I'm just thinking otherwise I don't know I don't know how I make a decision other than say yeah it looks good. What you're looking to do ultimately is to say hey look all of these source documents and all these things contained in all these materials these are all great things but what do we look at to be able to verify these things and what we've directed you to is as part of our pro forma as well as part of our analysis is like kind facilities and certainly we would make available for you the contact information you would want to take a look at as a matter of diligence right to convince yourselves and have access to good information verifiable information that you can look at in order to make what you would consider to be an informed decision and certainly we can provide that and that is something we would ask as part of this we would fully expect those kinds of requests yeah so I somehow we got to get our hands on that because in my mind and I'm not trying to draw a bad comparison but of course you think of your past experiences is the RDA had experienced with a similar project that came on they had really great presentations they were convinced this was going to be a centerpiece in the Midwest and it was going to bring all these people in and all these hotels and triple play ended up not going anywhere I'm not saying this is the same thing but how do we avoid that happening that was on a smaller multiple of this you know that is so we and obviously the more we can do our due diligence the more we help you be successful I think this would be great for the community but somehow we got to figure out how we do our due diligence right and to your point David we would certainly make available to you any information that RDA wanted in order to perform whatever due diligence it saw fit we would make that available because we're very confident as I indicated we're confident that source data matches up and we think you'll find that in fact I'm very confident you're going to find that that being said me telling you and you looking are two different things and we're hoping you'll do that and we'll help you do that and I am glad as well as these gentlemen in the room we're glad to make ourselves available for those kinds of questions where did you get this from who did you talk to if I can just announce I think for us madam chair is yeah how does the RDA I mean who does this due diligence for us I mean is it the finance director for the city do we I see Chen yeah we've talked about this already oh okay what I'm going to recommend when the RDA meets at their next meeting is that the RDA goes out and hires an independent third party reviewer to review the performer the financials and the room tax projections and we've got some consultants that we've been able to find that do this kind of stuff and do it on the sports venue and understand those things so we're doing some internal review right now and we're hoping that by the time the RDA meets the next time we'll be able to come forward with some thoughts on some potential third party people to bring to the table to help us understand these performers and make sure they're you know on course and and the other thing that we and it's it follows on my initial comments is this is a big departure from what we've already done we've ever done so we have to theoretically want to do this sort of thing it's not obligatory we have to want to do it and then we can look at detail and do that at the same time but RDA hasn't had the opportunity to do that yet but we'll make sure we do okay I got a speaker's list going because I see some hands going up so we've got Marcus Matt Mary Lynn and then Todd so Marcus you want to go thank you very much I would just like to first make a statement this seems like a really good idea but I'm going to ask some pretty hard questions fair enough so the what was the assumption for average occupancy memorial day to labor day when you were trying to figure out the room nights what I will defer to on this is the EIS statement addresses those specific data plans specifically and instead of getting too far on the weeds on those issues we'd ask that you have an opportunity to obviously digest that and take a look at it those assumptions are based on data from in plan which is the type of program they utilize in plan is a is a is a program that's utilized by a lot of municipalities to assist it in determining what economic benefits are out there including room nights and other things so that's a part of that analysis so we'll follow up to that the 22,000 room nights that we're expecting is that county-wide or specifically in the city that is I think for purposes of our EIS that is a Shabuigan tourist district particular figure it can include surrounding communities it can and are you reaching out to those other communities to assist with your payments as well we are thank you did you have a question yeah just a quick question is room tax rates in other areas how does that 10% compared to what other municipalities have Matt with regard to the 10% rate you're going to see 10% in a lot of communities of similar size as well as larger municipalities that are utilizing 10% as their base rate or as their cap rate that is a common theme in today's building of sports complex it's utilized in the Appleton Grand Shoot project I referenced and there are specific allocations being made out of that 10% figure for sports complexes and sporting facilities thank you one other question we've talked a lot about the tournaments one of the big revenue items in the P&L is hosted events too can you speak to what some of those are versus the tournaments I'm just just curious I think this is best left for our operations person who has a better handle on the numbers than I certainly do in that regard a little bit when the data goes on online but typically what they'll come in and they'll tell you what they need your the facility will provide provide the services they'll promote the event they bring in your teams and again it's very specific to what they're trying to they're trying to have a series around the country so that they can bring in either coaches, college coaches or different things thanks very lid thanks and chat I appreciate your explanation on the room tax because that is a more complex entity than it used to be in terms of just because we raise the room tax from 8 to 10 percent doesn't mean we have total control over how that gets used and we have taxpayers and business people who may not necessarily want that increase directed solely to one entity maybe maybe not I mean that's that's a a bridged cross you know in the city and I've lived here for a while when the city does things that are beyond its mission and finances things that are businesses or whether it's a marina or a conference center things have not gone well for us the city is engaged in providing basic services to our our constituents certainly having an amenable community where people want to come and and so forth as part of that but I'm thinking that first of all it's a huge project and although I'm sure you will have many experts involved it's as as chair flicky paneski has said it's nothing we've ever done before and so I would be interested in a more scalable model starting out small and seeing how that might go I would probably need some sort of arrangement where the city is held harmless some some mechanism by which our taxpayers unlike the marina or unlike blue harbor where they've had to pay in because we made business decisions that may not have been so well we did things that cities normally don't do I think we would need to have some there's no collateral exactly but I think we would need to think through but my suggestion in terms of how we think about creative financing is a county-wide sales tax this is how stadiums have been built in our state before a small one quarter percent would raise a fair amount of money the half the half percent county sales tax now raises about ten million dollars a year and if there were a specific stadium quarter percent eighth of a percent however it would be then that interest on the part of our citizens and our residents would be shared throughout the county the city would be held harmless you folks in an obviously extremely well thought through well researched and pretty well documented proposal will be able to you know to move forward so those are just some random thoughts I have before I gotta leave at 715 so I'm gonna run out the door but I just to say I so appreciate the I mean for volunteer soccer hooligans here you guys have done a professional first-rate job of putting a proposal together it's it's just I don't see the city and the proposal necessarily having a point where they meet at least at this point so thanks thank you so next we have Todd the Marcus then Dean so Todd thank you chair and madam chair I think you guys have done a great job putting this together it's obviously well thought out obviously some some great you know renditions and that and I think that the the overall spirit of this project is is very positive and I'm glad to hear that it's not this is going to sound like an advertiser it's not just soccer it's other things but part part of the many questions that I have and then we don't have a lot of time tonight to go through all of them with everybody but is you know obviously this is something that we as a council whether it's the city council or the RDA we really do have to take a step back it's not something that we're we're familiar with doing it's it's very new to us and we need to walk before we run as as one of the elders we've done what I consider a lot of aggressive decisions and spending and changes within the last three four years and the economy has been very beneficial for us you know I'm very concerned about the 15 million I would really like to see and I'm asking that you guys would provide us more details to me right now we're at that five thousand foot level we're looking like you like you did that aerial in the very beginning I really feel like I'm in that plane right now we're sitting on the droid or whatever and just kind of looking down you know what when you talk about the the number of stays at the hotels I I would like to see a schedule of and better understand all of these soccer tournaments or just the tournaments in general how how that actually looks in the months that you're looking at because several times during your presentation you reference the dome and I think the dome is extra and that's extra opportunity to expand your your seasons it's correct but there's only so many times you can use the dome for tournaments and I need to I need to be educated or we need to be educated on when are the tournaments when are the the games and things the opportunities available throughout the year because you correct me if I'm wrong but you're going to steal from Peter to pay Paul some of these tournaments are presently being taken care of by other communities and you're hoping that they're going to come to sheboygan's great diamond in the rough which is this you know assuming that we have that opportunity but how does that all play in and then how does it play into the existing as it was brought up earlier by our our council how does that play in and feather into what we already have established whether it's all cart lake or golf tournaments or just other facilities and functions going on presently and we have a five to ten year history that we can go back on and look and I would like to see that because I also look at the 894 rooms hotel rooms and you know that's a broad stroke of the brush but there's also a lot of them that people don't like to stay at because they're not the greatest so when we look at this 800 plus you know is that enough and does it fit within the time span that you're talking about and then I guess I would like some better understanding of of how the money comes in for you guys do the tournaments does everybody that plays if north high wants to have a a game there who pays for that is you know it's you're referencing that it's a city involved community you know north high is not going to want to pay south I was not going to want to want to pay is Plymouth going to have to pay you know how do you generate your revenues right and and to your inquiries we'll call them with regard to getting additional information we we had roughly about an hour or so hour and a half to present yes a very complex concept yeah I have no illusions and nor does anybody in this room have any illusions that we were going to have an ultimate decision about some of these things when people come in and ask for significant sums of money we expect a certain amount of diligence and to that point we're hoping that you'll have an opportunity to wade into that pro forma that's been talked about insufficient detail because as I mentioned we're very confident that those numbers are not only accurate but they're spot on as compared to some like kind facilities we think it's going to work now just because I'm trying to tell you that it'll work doesn't mean you're absolutely convinced just because I say so we expect you to ask tough questions and to look at those things and we will provide everybody in the room with any information that they request and if we don't have it prepared already we will get it for you we will prepare it for you we will provide it and let me ask another question if I may the amount the information I mean we've got two groups here we have the council we have RDA um RDA we we need to meet we have to put our our questions together but how do you want those questions to be focal focused back to you I personally don't think that having 10 elders call you at 10 o'clock at night and ask questions are going to be a good thing but I guess I'm just asking that right now who should RDA and the council be reaching through Joe Joe excuse me for a point of information Alderman Wolfe is the representative to the redevelopment authority so he sits on both of these bodies of course and thank you to that point I think it makes a lot of sense if we're able to run questions you're away and you may sift through those and you may you know go through those in sufficient detail to get those to me then our group will will dissect those and get whatever information we can for you and we'll get it as quickly as we possibly can and I'll also put this out there if there is a need of any either RDA or the common council I will make myself available as well members of of Boots and Sports Complex to Wade and to help you through those things to give you background information to help provide whatever information we can I will personally make myself available for that um all there has to be is a request to me and then the gentleman in the back can help me do this and we've done it as a group and we're going to continue to do that so I can be the point of contact if that makes sense for everybody I guess just as a comment to Joe's mention of fully expecting that there will be questions and more than happy to answer those I think in order to better manage the process we will assign a city staffer to collect the information that way we don't lose something and that way to uh as we receive the information back we can make sure that everyone equally receives the information so if you don't mind Joe we'll we'll collect the not at all the questions from RDA uh can be the whole members and we'll forward them on that makes a lot of sense thanks next Marcus thank you very much mr chair I have some questions about how many parking spots are going to be on this plot that's a good question but I believe that number to be upwards it is in your presentational material I believe that number to be upwards of 600 700 I write that what will be the max with overflow parking in other areas yeah thank you for that uh and could you explain how membership would work as far as a revenue source and how um memberships is the very first line in the P&L right all of us to laser operations director address that question thank you very much uh my third question on the P&L would be in regards to what you mean by holdovers for hotel rooms I'm not familiar with that term and I have a BA in hospitality I'll again defer thank you that answers my question very well thank you all right next on the list is Dean thank you mr chair um I guess my question that I have is uh do you have a plan B if this doesn't go this way I mean do you and is there any kind of thoughts of a phasing in of this you know possibly doing a portion of it and then you know I know that this is all but this is a lot of money and if this doesn't come come to fruition do you have other ideas and other plans to go with this we certainly do we certainly do we have multiple contingency types of situations the project is a scalable one uh it can also be done in phases it can be done in any number of different ways uh I will qualify that statement by suggesting though when you build a facility at full capacity immediately you realize the economic benefits in an accelerated way meaning that if we phase things in the economic performance is not necessarily the same as you would expect at a facility at full capacity so obviously the preference is to build the entire facility as quickly as possible but to answer your question it is scalable it is workable there are contingencies thank you um on page 44 you have the listing of 15 million plus 5 million plus 2.5 million which um my computer brain says that's 22 and a half million right um so we're a little bit short there is there a reason for that or um are you building that in somewhere else we're looking to scale back some of the construction costs by virtue of in kind contributions as well as other discounts so that's how we've got it built in we have a reasonable expectation that there's going to be reduction in total cost that one was already built in there into the um 2.5 was in kind are you hoping that you can we're hoping we're going to get down to that 22 and a half million level and um the surface is is that grass or is that artificial turf that you're putting in both um the environmental impact from have you looked at that at all because then you're using equipment to cut the grass and turf fields are as as an environmentally responsible in the context of how they're maintained and installed as is a grass field and I have one more um the parking spaces um have you looked at maybe charging for the parking rather than yes the increased tax um room rate because everywhere I go I pay for parking so you know if you put a couple bucks per car on six to seven hundred spaces um you can make some nice chunk change there and I certainly appreciate that that is a part of revenue however um that is not an issue with regard to debt service payment that it goes into the six hundred thousand dollars we talked about as our own contribution towards that parking is something we've always charged for we intend to continue doing that that particular revenue goes to revenue for operations which will be utilized for debt service thank you thank you all right Marcus again last three of the whole right yeah so the you mentioned 4.1 million visitors to um Sheboygan county correct are they duplicated or unduplicated we anticipate those as being largely unduplicated fantastic and then the current threats or um other construction that's going on as far as more domes in the state of Wisconsin uh are you aware of any have you researched this what's that we have and one of the things I indicated earlier is that there are only three like kind facilities that are utilizing a dome one of which market university not particularly accessible uh for general use and the other being Oshkosh and ours would be the third um there are some similar type of dome facilities but there's no current construction for domes that we are aware of thank you my last question would be uh do you have any prospects or a short list for the executive director and would they be local or coming from outside of this area we have discussed uh that possibility I would say largely without giving away the store obviously is that we have had discussions with both local as well as others from outside our community we would hope to fill an executive position with someone locally could you uh describe the ideal candidate the ideal candidate for an executive director position as someone who can manage uh three components we have marketing we have peace persons who work in uh uh tournament directions uh directorships uh as well as uh field maintenance that executive director is going to be someone who is going to be responsible for the management of those three things to make sure that synergy is there um and my idea of an ideal candidate is someone who has outstanding organizational skills because it's a lot to manage as I mentioned earlier in my presentation the second is that that has to be a person who can work with a wide variety of different folks because there are going to be people in maintenance there are going to be people doing tournaments there are going to be different aspects it's having a broad based knowledge basis if you will is a critical component of that particular position we view it as much the same as we would for any administrator of a large facility is the kind of character traits time management high organizational skills those kinds of things those are absolute necessities without a without question thank you for putting up with me thank you all right the speaker's list is exhausted is there any other questions no one else okay anybody rda we're good is there any motion or i i don't well there was an emotion made i don't believe we this is just an information receiving information so well i i'm not i'm not recognizing that motion at this moment so that's great that's great so i think that's your motion no no he said rda oh rda perfect and matt seconded okay rda moved and seconded to discuss this further in committee all those in favor say i oh it we should probably have first pass at it from from the questions we received tonight we don't have all the answers there was some in essence research assignments that i heard that additional time needs to occur as a follow-up i think both the rda as well as committee the whole need additional information and i think we're better prepared to do that homework consultant was mentioned to probably assist either the rda or the common council and i think all that information needs to be pulled together prior to asking the tourism commission to to consider this i think there's there's a vacuum as far as some information that i think is critical that we don't have at this time so i would not support going to the tourism commission at this time Todd thank you madam chair i guess the reason i'm suggesting that we're making a motion to go to rda is so that we can start formulating some of our questions from that level because until we can get it to other groups if we don't have our our questions answered we can't even support it or answer questions that the other groups are going to come forward with i think right now we're still at that five thousand foot level it's a great opportunity but it still needs to be vetted by multiple areas including you know travel and tourism and that right okay there's a motion on the floor to send this to committee and hold a committee meeting all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion moat cheer votes aye motion carries thank you gentlemen okay now committee the whole um i guess this we just received the information so there is no set motion that needs to be made um is there a motion to adjourn for the committee the whole motion to adjourn there's been a motion in second all those in favor of adjourning the committee the whole please state aye and you want opposed chair votes aye the committee the whole is adjourned we have one more question from rda perfect okay chair will entertain a motion to adjourn rda motion to adjourn rda thank you is there a second all those in favor chair votes aye we are adjourned all right thank you everybody for coming


quite serendipitous. My husband and I decided that we would eventually retire to the D.C. area. And so I was doing research on surrounding communities of the District of Columbia. And we'd been to Alexandria on our visit several times and liked it. So I kind of put the others aside and started focusing on Alexandria as a community. And I was reading about demographics and I was reading about social history and all sorts of things. And I learned from the Alexandria Black History Museum's website that there was a sit-in protest in 1939 on August 21st. And in fact, my dissertation found me. So that's how I really fell into this situation. And I was fascinated by the story and didn't understand why it wasn't addressed in Black history books, on the history of protests. And I didn't understand why it wasn't taught in library school being the monumental event that it was. So I was determined to tell a thorough scholarly history that would also appeal to general audiences. History, more often than not, is recounted by those who are empowered to preserve it. And those same people frequently dismiss the voices of the less empowered and those they feel are subordinate. I was determined to tell a full story of the sit-in and to correct the missing accounts of the sit-in even in my research in the Alexandria Library. So I continued to do research at the Alexandria Black History Museum. And I did research in several other library schools and universities here in Virginia and was determined that this was going to be a story with national implications. Well, I spoke with the director of the Alexandria History Museum, Audrey Davis, who was a wealth of information. And she gave me a couple of leads. Those leads led to other indirect or direct witnesses. And on my own, I found relatives of the sit-in protesters and, most importantly, of Samuel Wilbert Tucker, who was the architect of the demonstration. And including those interviews meant that the voices that had been silenced because they were missing in the authoritative accounts would now be told. Absolutely. I hit a dead end when I was trying to get information on the lives and careers of the sit-in protesters after the sit-in demonstration. There is much written about Samuel Tucker because he spent the balance of his career in efforts to integrate Virginia school systems. But I ran it to dead ends with the protesters. I got leads for my interviewees. I searched historical newspapers, both black and white. I researched in databases for the people. And even the obituaries that I found were very sparse and essentially gave only name, date, place information. So I eventually turned to the Alexandria City directories, which gave me limited information. But it did provide some information for me to include in the book. I didn't want the protesters to simply drop from the scene since they were such a central part of the story. They were all unfortunately deceased by the time I was conducting my research. From the beginning of library creation, blacks, however, as a rule, were excluded from access to these libraries just as they had been excluded from the educational systems in Virginia. Alexandria, Virginia, like many southern communities, until 1932 only provided black students with an elementary school education. It was only because of parents beseeching the city that they added an eighth grade, which was their accommodation. And then in 1932, the segregated Parker Gray School was built for black students. Before that time, students had to travel to Manassas, which is 30 miles away, which means it's really out of reach for most people. Or they essentially bootlegged an education at the District of Columbia school system by use appropriating addresses of relatives, family, friends, colleagues, people like that. Parents were determined that their children would get a complete education and they were undaunted by the fact that educational equity did not exist in the community. That's true. And the segregated black library, which operated as a branch of the Alexandria library exclusively for blacks, was constructed as the city's response to the effort to desegregate the white library. They absolutely were adamant in their refusal to integrate the library. So they constructed this black library, this separate and very much unequal library to serve blacks, because even the library's meeting notes acknowledge that blacks had a need for a library. They weren't willing to provide one, but they acknowledged that the need existed. One of the things that I think is so important is that there were racialized differences in the two libraries. The white library, when it was constructed in 1937, contained, for example, 10,000 books. 3,000 of these were rare, valuable additions, a mass from the origins of the city's library. 7,000 books were new. In 1940, just four months after a judge's ruling, the city built a library for blacks, but it was very, very much inferior to the Alexandria library. It, for example, only contained about 1,500 books, and the vast majority of those books were cast-offs from the Alexandria library, books that were either well used or outdated, that the library felt were no longer suitable for the white patrons. So they shipped them over to the Robert H. Robinson library, the black library. The distinctions in the way the facilities were maintained is also an example of these racialized distinctions. The white library, from its inception, was well maintained and well established in the totality of the community. When the black library was built, it was reluctantly by the city officials and library board members, and not at all maintained. For example, in 1956, less than 20 years after the construction of the white library, it was dramatically renovated. In 1964, another thorough renovation occurred. By contrast, the black library was not renovated at all until 1988. In 1956, the black library underwent cosmetic improvements, interior improvements, but, for example, even then, the shrubbery that was very pronounced and very beautiful at the Alexandria library, the white library, was nonexistent at the black library. The city felt that the fact that they had even built a library for black residents was sufficient support for the community, and it essentially advocated them of any further responsibilities for supporting the black community. Black parents were always concerned with educational equity. As far back as the days of enslavement, they were denied this opportunity, but secretly learned to read and write some of them and taught other enslaved blacks to read and write. After so-called freedom came and more blacks began to move to the northern parts of the country, southern libraries continued their quest for state's rights, which meant they supported individual states making decisions about educational equity and library equity. I think the fact that black parents pursued educational equity for their children and the fact that the sit-in undertook library access efforts proved that blacks were determined not only to get a school education, but also to enhance their opportunities for self-directed learning opportunities and recreational reading. Samuel Tucker realized that it wasn't enough just to have access to a library. What was also necessary was a library having a full complement of resources so that patrons could also explore recreational books that enabled them to advance personal agency, and that personal agency contributes significantly to the development of individuals and communities' collective growth and development, and also to the establishment of the library as an important institution that was actually a complement to the educational system's infrastructure. Tucker realized at the beginning of the process of organizing the sit-in demonstration that his self-directed law education had been gained at the integrated Library of Congress and he wanted local opportunities for blacks who could not afford the time or the financial resources to travel to the District of Columbia to get that kind of a learning experience. He also realized the importance of agency in individuals' lives. As far as national implications are concerned, from their onset, libraries were understood to be important community centers, but they were not necessarily recognized and acknowledged as critical compliments to the educational infrastructure of the community, and he wanted that for black citizens, and black citizens, although they were disappointed, greatly disappointed with the construction of the black library, still patronized it very well because they were grateful to have a library of any sort. I think the reason there isn't a more general national conversation about libraries as part of the educational infrastructures is that libraries, though they've begun increasingly to add special programs that target certain audiences as a common factor in their operations, they have not embraced the fact that the library itself is a learning space and an important one to supplement the education of those who were not able to get an education through traditional resources. The significance of the library sit-in is contained in a very few a handful of influences from the sit-in demonstration. First of all, it was the first recorded direct action sit-in protest for black access to a library. Sit-ins had occurred as early as the 19th century, so this was not a new phenomenon, but it was the first time an effort was made to integrate libraries, recognizing their importance as learning instruments. Another is the fact that the sit-in protest prompted a challenge to authority of the running of the library, the operation of the library, and to the functioning of the city by its white residents. Whites to that point, remember now we're in the Jim Crow era when virtually everything is segregated and blacks have very few rights because segregation is codified as is Jim Crow legislation. The whites at that time believed that they were the exclusive receivers of literacy, education, culture, and power, that blacks were disempowered and subordinated because they were inferior and essentially didn't need much education at all. Another reason is that the library protest, as I mentioned, I think a little earlier, was not only the first sit-in for library access, but it was also the first instance in which protests were lodged directly against the issue of segregation. Prior to that time there were boycotts and pickets for integration of other facilities, movie theaters, recreational parks, spaces like that, spaces belonging to the community, but the provision of library access continued to be denied. The library was an important symbol, as I mentioned before, because it was a challenge to the authoritative perspective that library access was reserved for whites and that blacks did not deserve admission. They could not learn, they would always remain ignorant, and so there was no need to provide them with library access. I think the involvement of a larger number of individuals in social equity has led to greater interest in equity and public library access. I think there's motivation coming from black communities now. Libraries are officially integrated, but de facto segregation continues because of de facto housing. So those communities, for example, receive the short end of the stick in terms of library resources, library access, and community funding. I think part of the implication is that public libraries, just as the American Library Association has not done, have not developed a national conversation on why libraries are essential to the community and why they tie in to the city's educational infrastructure, but they truly are. People turn now to libraries more than ever for newspapers where they find jobs, where they find houses for sale, homes for rent, services to hire. They also take an important part of developing recreational reading skills because recreational reading empowers individuals through their personal agency to construct communities and to grow and develop intellectual and communal development for underserved communities. But I don't think this has translated yet into a national conversation for the powers that be. I think in many instances local communities are still reluctant to provide sufficient funding to libraries. What strikes me is that there was still so much resistance to education equity and that includes equity of library access until after the turn of the middle of the 20th century. Although Brown versus Board of Education was passed in 1954, Southern libraries, for example, didn't really embrace library access equity until the late 1960s. Protests were still being conducted and protesters were still being jailed for protesting for their rights to use the public library. I came away from that saddened. In Virginia, particularly, Harry Bird Sr. established the concept of massive resistance by which he meant decisions about education should be left to the schools, not to national communities. Virginia refused to support many educational systems in Virginia refused to support integration because Bird swore that their educational funding for schools would be cut if they integrated. And so people went along. Now, of course, this meant white parents who had resourced to send their children to private schools were fine. And private schools were still supported. White private schools were still supported. There were black makeshift schools that were supported by the black community, but not necessarily by the city as a whole. That too appalled and shocked me. In the late 1960s, Petersburg, Virginia, and Danville, Virginia, for example, were still having protests about integrating their public libraries. Now, we're talking just a little more than 50 years ago, so that's not so far in the past. History repeats itself, and change only comes, as Frederick Douglass said, when it's demanded. And so protests continue to this day for consistent and sufficient support of libraries for all members of the community.