OK, so we're going to continue with our next session, which is by Avinash, who, in fact, is going to talk about something which was brought up during the last talk about designing things that we don't often think about as designers or don't think about as needing design, about APIs and how you can improve the experience for when you think about users, developers are equally users. So he's going to be talking about designing your API and improving the experience for developers. So Avinash works at Support Me, and he's going to take it forward. Before that, I just wanted to ask all of you, if you have a telephone, I mean, all of us have telephones. Could you put it on silent? And if you do have to take a call, if you could go outside, that's great, because it is pretty distracting for any of the speakers and people around you. Also, there are muffins. And Swissnext, who has helped us with travel sponsorships, arranged muffins for us. So make sure you grab some during the next break if you haven't already. They are either here, or they will be, or there are muffins. The muffins are not a lie. Hey, guys. I am Avinash, and I tweeted Avishas3. I work at Support Me, which has helped us solution, which we have been doing it for two years. Most of the things which I talk during this presentation is what I've learned here, building this product. And because it's very API-centric and dev-driven. So the thing which I will be talking on is developer experience of a web API. The question is, what is developer experience? And the second is, why should we be talking about that? So if you take web applications of today's age, obviously, for the last yesterday and today, you guys have been talking about user experience, because users are the consumers of your web applications, or it might be mobile applications. But in the world of interconnected web, there is a domain where your application is consumed by other applications. So to make this happen, who is making this happen? It is the developer. And how they do it? Using the APIs, which you guys expose for them to develop on. So it's actually very difficult to do developer experience. Because when you consider user experience, you are dealing with minimum emotions. A user is happy or consumed or, as someone said yesterday, anxious. And finally, if he can't figure out what to do, he'll close the site. That's it. But developer doesn't have that choice. His boss would have said, OK, you need to integrate this to the site. So he has to somehow figure out how to make it work. So a developer, as even I, go through a lot of emotions before we end up with what we want. Even we go through all the emotions which Ben showcased yesterday on the stage in front of a computer. So it's really, you cannot satisfy all developers. But you can do things so that they use minimum of these emotions. So let's first look at what you can do with the API itself. The first thing you have to do is embrace JSON. Because that's the future. That's not the future. It's already here. But we see applications still using XML. Pivotal tracker, which is supposed to be done in 2009. Evernote, which is, again, to the post 2005 company, everyone still uses XML. So whenever I see XML, it's like looking at this. So I cringe. Immediately as designers, when they see this, they cringe. So when I look at XML, I also get the same reaction. So I don't want XML. So to give you an example, XML is great if you are just extracting data from the web server or from the web service. But if you want to do something or put something in, like create a record or something like that, XML is a problem. One, as you can see, it's heavy. The second, if you see the name tag, it has hello tags. So that tags will screw up your XML format, because it's an invalid XML. And your API will just fail. So there is an extra step which the developer has to take to make this work. He has to sanitize the content, which is put between the name tags. We are all developers. We like to hack. We love to hack. So it might seem it's, oh, I have to call one more method to get this done. But we love to hack when we are free. But when someone says, do this, we want to complete it as quickly as possible and get back to hacking. So you have to make sure that that's possible. So if you see the JSON representation of this, it's pretty simple. It's light. There is no invalid XML or anything. Even if your application requires XML, for example, Evernote, you have to provide a, if you want to create a note, you have to provide an XML or Evernote ML or something like that to create a note. Even then, what they could have done is encapsulate it in a JSON to make the developer experience better. You don't want to use Evernote API if anyone is inclined to use ready for all the emotions which I showed. The second thing is we all use, most of the APIs today are REST, but they are not actually REST. They are less REST-like. Rails and other MVC format frameworks have made it easy for us to go the REST way. But REST is not REST until there is hypermedia. So what you have to consider is the client which consumes your API is like an user. When a user lands up on your application, you have links for him to do something else, like maybe edit something, edit the user profile, create a new user profile. But when you send a JSON, you send only the data. It should also have actions in it. It should also have links in it so that the client knows what to do, where to go when it needs to do something. So this part of REST is called hypermedia. And REST is not REST unless there is hypermedia. So initially, it doesn't make sense to put these. But as you go along the road which I'll be taking you now, this is an important thing. The next thing is this is same as all you user experience guys have been saying. But just apply to the APIs. Make sure the error handling is right. So how do you do error handling in web API services? Use HTTP status codes. It is there for a reason. When it's 500, it's server error. Don't send HTTP code as 1. I've seen people sending HTTP code as 1, 2, 3, 4, or whatever the whims and fancies they have. So use the error handling properly and always attach a message to the status which you are sending. And don't expose the implementation level, maybe a huge stack trace or something like that in your API. Keep your API structure throughout its lifetime stable. If someone is developing using Facebook, how many people think Facebook has a stable API? So they keep on changing. And they put restrictions that if you don't change your API structure by October 30th, your apps will fail. So the simple technique of how to attain stable API is start small. If you have read Reverb, which is a book from Jason Freyd and David Hammer Hansen, they say that when you build a product, when you design a product, don't add features. Every time you want to add a feature, say no to it 10 times. And finally, if it makes sense, then say yes to it. So it's the same kind of philosophy which can be applied to APIs too. So if you want to add a data field into the API, ask it's really required. So when you start off small and go through the journey of building the API, making it more and more complex, you are just adding stuff. You are never removing stuff. So versioning of your APIs and everything becomes very easy. So that's just what you can do with your API structure and the APIs to the core. So but you can do stuff around your APIs to make your developer experience better. You can create wrappers for different languages, Ruby, PHP, Python. For if I can give you an example where this is not considered a good practice, or people who consider this not a good practice, the people at Mailgun say that, oh, everything is a REST API. Use the REST libraries will never write wrappers for you guys. But when it comes to developer experience, its wrappers is a must. This came up in the last talk, interactive docs or how to create docs for APIs so it's usable, actually. It's not just a dump of whatever your API endpoints are. This, a very good example for this is Stripe. Their documentation is, from what I have seen, is complete. So what they do is they have the code and the documentation side by side, which is annotated code, which is pretty famous in this. And they show documentation in every language. It can basically, Ruby, Python. Also, they customize the code to your account. So if you see that Stripe.API key, that API key is your account. So you can copy paste this and write out as quickly as possible. You don't have to copy this or change the key or do something. You just copy paste this, it works. So I don't know any open source projects which give you, give this kind of a documentation. If there is, please let me know. We want it. So this is what you can do with an API. And around an API, you can build tools which will help you better the developer experience. But you can go beyond the API. The first thing is Webhooks. Support Webhooks if you are a web application. So if you are providing just the API, people have to poll your API maybe in 10 seconds, one minute, depending upon what periods they want. But if it's Webhooks, you are actually pushing data to them whenever events happen in your system. So they don't have to sit and poll every time if something is happening or not, to check if something is happening or not. Again, a very good example is Stripe. Stripe has a lot of Webhooks for all payment events which happen in its system. So you can handle it, for example, invoice paid. So when invoice paid is fired, you can send an invoice to your customer because they don't. The next improvement which you can make is ready-made widgets. The best example for this is what Witter has done recently. Embedded timelines, intents were there since a long time. Intents abstract the code which you have to write to get something done. Say if they have exposed an API to do Retweet, you have to actually call Retweet to do the action. But with intents it's just a URL. They take care of everything. So you don't have to do anything. So the next step to go is something like Zapier. So what Zapier has done is it is exposing your API to consumers so that they don't have to go through the pain of actually looking at your documentation. So if you integrate your application with Zapier, it can integrate your application with other applications if someone wants it. So now there is an API which is perfect. Then you have created stuff on that to make it easily embeddable or usable. But if you want to write an API or if you want people to build on your product, extend features on your product, you need an app platform. So to start off, an app platform exposes data plus UI. So an API just exposes data which you can then do actions on it. App platform exposes UI too. For example, if you take Shopify, Shopify apps will let you hook up UI elements in different pages of the store. So that you can add UI on that. This is same as how WordPress allows you to add hooks and add capabilities at different pages. The next step is OK. So the main problem with app platform is you have to host your whatever the app yourself. You have to host it somewhere, link it to the site and everything. So it's a pain. So to take it one step, you need a hosted app platform. So from what I have experienced, the first people who actually did this was GitHub. GitHub have something called service hooks, which allows you to connect to other applications. But these service hooks are hosted by GitHub itself, but written by others. So how do they achieve this? They have a GitHub repo, open source GitHub repo, which you can fork, add some code. Say if you want to integrate your own application, add an app. They have a documentation and everything. And send a pull request. They will review the code and deploy it. And it will start appearing here. You don't have to worry about hosting or anything. You're making developer experience more and more easy. So we at support, we took this one step ahead. GitHub services are primarily used to connect to other services. But we wanted our developers to extend our features, because our core features are minimal. We have kept it that way because 80% of you, we cover the 85% of the use case and 20% of the use case of our customers are different to each customer. So we didn't want to write those apps. So we wanted to release that as a platform. And others, you can make others write that app. For example, this is a camfire application in support B. This whenever a ticket is created, it will send a ping to camfire if you're using camfire as your group chat. It's just 30 lines of code. If you write 30 lines, you have an app which is running on live production for support B. If you, these four lines of code will generate the settings page for this will be exposed to the user when they add the app to their platform help desk in support B. Just by writing four lines of code, you have a whole screen setup. You don't have to worry about HTML, CSS, showing the screen, nothing. And by writing this one line that is notified ticket for an event ticket created, or actually this is the app logic, that's it. You are only creating, you are writing only one line or max of 10 lines of code. So why is it so easy to write an app in such a hosted app platform solution? One is you don't have to do authentication logic. Most of the time when you consume an API, you waste a chunk of time in setting up authentication. When we accept, when someone adds an app to support B, we accept on behalf of whom the app can access the application and we set it up for you when, for you in usage in your app platform code. So if we support OR2, if you say OR GitHub, we redirect the users to GitHub, get the permissions and give you the access token which you can use in your applications to connect to GitHub. We give you relevant data at hand. So if you are using an API, maybe you get a ticket ID, you make a call to the server, get the ticket details, and then act upon it. Here all these things are set up for you. So notify ticket, if you want the ticket, details say payload.ticket, which we have already set up for you to use. You only write what your app needs to do, that's it. Everything else we take care of it in the platform. If your app needs to send a message to camfire, that's the code you have to write, nothing else. Other things are we take care of it. And we make it extremely easy for you to test it locally. So we have a console where you can, the same kind of interfaces rendered here, you can test all these locally. As we add more and more features, we are making, we are going to make sure this is strong. With, this is the same for at any level. If you're just having an API, you have a console as someone asked in the last session, you have a console for them to try out. If you have a platform, give them a console to try out all the things your platform can actually do locally. It has to run locally. So these kinds of things allows us to do stuff like this. This is Pratik Dhal, who is the founder of support me. He wrote an app in 49 minutes from zero code to deployment with screenshots and everything. In 40, 49 minutes, it allows the app platforms allows us to write an app, publish it in production and see it live being used by our customers. Just in 49 minutes. So it has become a competition in our company to time how much time it takes to write an app. Always we time it. This is the record which Pratik has now. But we are not stopping at this. Right now the platform is at this stage. We'll be soon adding storage for apps. So apps can store the data, their own data. For example, if you are creating a Jira integration of maybe support me, then you want to keep the ID of what ticket pertains to the ID of Jira, whatever issue or something. You can store it in the platform itself. You don't have to go and host it somewhere. And we might support webbooks for our platform. So app can be triggered by other applications. Not the core application, but just the app can be triggered. We have a bunch of stuff planned in future. There is a side effect because of what we have done with the app platform. But it was the premise with which we started and moved towards the app platform. It is we wanted to create a help desk software which is extremely usable. The only aim of support me is a usability. So if we are to cater to every customer support, customer out there, that 20% of features will add up to our interface and clutter everything. So what we did was we went the app platform way. If people want an app or want a feature, they will add it to their own desk and it doesn't clutter other customers desk. So that using that we end up at any time our interface is clean. It might not be the best designed app, but it has the best user experience when it comes to customer support. If you want to know more, you can go to developers.developer.supportb.com, or if not all the things which I've said here, we have already done it. So it's still work in progress. If you like to do something about it, you can go to career page and check it out or just contact me. Thank you. I have a question. So you were mentioning webhooks. Now webhooks are a brilliant idea, but they also disrupt the way developers tend to do development, which is normally you work completely offline or you work in a sandbox environment for your development and you can't do that anymore. Now your development setup, your laptop needs to be on the internet for the hook to work. So the question I had for you is one obviously use local tunnel to make this kind of thing work, but that still seems a little sub optimal to me because every time you start local tunnel you get a different address. Then you need to go reconfigure all your services to point here. And if you're using the same service for production, now you've got a problem because you can't take it off production. Then you need a separate account on your service. You use MailChimp or Centred or whatever. You're going to have a production account and a test account and you're probably paying twice. All of these issues start coming up with webhooks. So what should I take on that? So we cannot solve all the problems. Network problems are network problems. We cannot give a local tunnel or you have to root your request through a local tunnel or something like that. But when it comes to test accounts, we provide it for you for free, not yet, but it's the plan in a month where you can set up, in one click you can set up a developer account. It's not a production based account with data, dummy data with it, like Stripe does it. Stripe has dummy data if you want to go, if you go to the test mode. We are going to create a test support beheld us on which you can experiment on. It is a requirement. You can, I don't see how you can circumvent it and solve this problem if you have any ideas. Actually, so this is not a support-based specific thing, but what is your outlook on this test account business with other services? Like Twitter, for instance, no option but to make a test application. GitHub make a test application. But you don't have to make an account on the server. It's like Twitter, you can use your existing account and make a separate app and use that for testing. GitHub, you can do that too again. What is your outlook on, in general, what seems to be the way that people, the industry is doing this? So I have written a bunch of integrations in the last few months. Shopify does this well. Shopify also has something like Twitter and you can, using the existing account, you can add a test shop.  You cannot, we thought we can write that app in a day. It took like a week to complete.  Yeah, in general, from the integrations which I've seen and made, only maybe 10 to 12% have, 10 to 15% have this kind of a feature where using the existing account you can create a test account. I don't know what way we will take, but we have to wait and see. So, and the other part of it, the local tenant thing is also a little cumbersome. Have you seen people use web sockets instead? That your app makes a connection to the server and keeps that socket open until the server pushes something back. Interesting. Now that's part of the PubSubHubbub model of publishing block content. But I've not seen that happen elsewhere and I think it basically solves this problem very cleanly because you don't need a local tenant when you do something like that. Yeah, interesting. Thanks. Have you seen that anywhere? Let's open question because I've not seen it being done. I've not explored it, but it's a good thing to explore for sure. Go ahead. Hi, so, hello here. So you talked about hypermedia, right? And I think this is well debated in the community today. Everyone is talking whether we need it or not. But you talked about app developers being clients, like just like web users coming through the browser. But I'm trying to figure out what problem is hypermedia solving. It's nice to have it, but I'm trying to figure out what is the problem that hypermedia is solving. So initially, I was on the mindset, we were on the mindset of the way you're thinking, oh, it's not required. What is it solving? We are putting a link there. Or usually it slinks. So, but when we went ahead and built the app platform, now to minimize the communication between our core app and our app platform, hypermedia really helps. So for example, if you want to embed the link to a ticket in your app, which is not available in the API. Yeah, so I mean, I get that. But what I'm trying to say is, I'm trying to see if you're a developer, right? Let's say I'm building an app that talks to GitHub, it talks to Twitter, it talks to Facebook. Now, let's say all of these guys in an ideal world have hypermedia. But the thing is, they all probably have different implementations or different thought processes. So I still need to actually poke into the documentation. I cannot extract it in a completely automated fashion. So it still seems like a redundant effort. I mean, I'm trying to understand. Yeah, I think the way to solve it is follow the rest patterns. Like we follow the rest patterns for edit, create and stuff like that. So name the keys in the similar manner. So keep edit, or edit key always gives you the edit URL or edit URL gives you the... I don't know if there is a standard for this or something like that, but I think that's the way to go. If we do it, it's not like everyone is going to follow it, but if we do it, we'll do the rest. So are there any efforts to be standardized? Just think, are you aware? Okay, thanks. Just on that, there are several like Node.js projects that do try and consolidate all the different libraries in like a standard, or the different platforms or APIs in a standard way. So yeah, there's plenty of Node.js stuff out there which does that that I'm aware of, so. So my question is developing like APIs, like RESTful APIs. I know there's like API-ry is a great tool for being able to test them and document your APIs, but for code that we have to run, I know on the CoffeeScript website, they have some documentation that can run the code snippet. Do you know any tools that make that process of writing documentation for executing code easier? Because that seems like, that'll be really beneficial. We have not found out an open-source solution for to get something like Stripe, then I don't think we can get like, that's a one step ahead of that. So if we can get something like that, I think we can improve that code based on that. Does anyone know if there's something like that? Any work has been done on the API documentation, which in a way can fork and put your documentation in it? Okay. There's a tool that Mashry, which is acting another app platform. They have this open-source implementation called IoDocs. What you basically give it is a bunch of your API schema and it generates the whole console kind of thing, but it's not anywhere close to what Stripe is. I think it's somewhere in between. Yeah. You probably check out IoDocs. Yeah, sounds like APR a bit worse for like restrooms. APX plural kind of a thing. So yeah, there are services coming up like we're planning to make money on this documentation of APIs, but yeah, any open-source stuff? All right, cool. So I was trying to follow up on what you said. So the limitation was more from a consumer of these three services, say Facebook, GitHub, and that they might not have a consistent structure involved internally. So, and I think something like the wrapper, which you was talking about having, if we develop consistent wrappers, of course we don't have control over GitHub, but we have control over the wrappers and collaborate on that. That could be a... Yeah, but you end up with the same problem again. Like you are just... As a community, if you take them out of the equation, the service providers and then you write wrappers. Yeah. But they have no incentive to be consistent with Facebook. Actually I had one more thing to follow was with the web socket. So I think that takes one level down in the abstraction. So the advantage of an API is lost if you just have a socket hook coming back. Whereas if you go the rest way, I mean, when you're pulling, it's more of a structured API, but if you just open up a channel of talking back, we lose that advantage. It's almost like a function call with no structured callback. Okay, so wouldn't you, you know, even on your web socket, you still need structure to the data that's sent back and forth. So I'm assuming that you could still be sending JSON data with every packet that you send with a socket. You can't enforce it on the API is the concern. The thing I was wondering was, could you wrap an API in a socket so that instead of a hook, it comes back through an open socket? So yeah, just coming back to the hypermedia question which is being asked earlier. So I just wanted to elaborate a bit more on that. So it's more about self discovery that, okay, we have hit the first endpoint of the API and from this point on, what are your options to do? So it's like in a very brief example, if I have to tell, it's like, if you have three models and you create one model, model one, model two, model three in this order, you cannot direct end of the end hypermedia and when you create upon creation of model one, it tells you specifically, okay, the next step would be either edit model one or create model two because it kind of gives you an indication that you cannot jump to model three directly. So it's more of self discovery of the API. It's like a flow. So when you hit the first endpoint, what are your options next? You cannot directly jump to probably this. So that is the main use of- That's what makes an API at rest. Otherwise it's rest like, it's not rest. No, it's not like- So this is an addition to documentation. This is- No, you cannot quit on documentation. You have to read the documentation anyway. If the documentation is in the way of, how striped does it create? Even our documentation is not up to that level. We are constantly looking at it. Is auto discovery for people or for the programs? So when you mentioned auto discovery. For the programs. Yeah, so I've actually built a couple of rest interfaces, but it looks like a very big goal, like having something to write where you have programs that can auto discover APIs and then follow. Because I've never really not seen a single program which can actually look at- That's because most of the major APIs don't support hyper media. No, I mean- Is it- Everyone calls themselves rest, but no one is rest. Is there any example of a client which can give an API it can auto discover and then figure out? I mean, I see that it's- I mean, I don't see that as a possibility at all. In a month support, we will surely be like that. Okay. Because we require that. Because our structure is app platform, there's a core platform, there's an app platform, app platform needs to know stuff from the core platform. It's better to add hyper media than make one more call between the platform and the core application. I- I have a question. I actually came in late for the presentation, so I'm not exactly aware of all the context which we discussed, but to the point you're saying an API which gives you auto discovery thingy, so you can try WordNIC. API is a built-in swagger. They do that. WordNIC? So WordNIC is a platform in which you can search meanings and definitions of words and the usage and sample usage. Okay. And it's used by companies. So they build a swagger kind of thing. Swagger is open source, implementation of actually exposing APIs through a discovery URL and the library configures into object-oriented patterns in the UI, JS code. After that, you can actually, let's say you want to get a meaning of word. So you do WordNIC.getMeaning and pass the word so the API takes care of itself. So the API was built on fly. So if you follow that pattern, it actually helps you update your API documentations using that library swagger and the response JS and structures and everything automatically. Okay, thank you. But still you need to know that this is how the API is structured. It's not really auto discovery. So it's, no, the library swagger takes that WordNIC as the discovery URL and then builds the API automatically for you to use an UI. So your library builds based on the already-described URL as object-oriented pattern. But still I need to write a separate client for each application, right? No, no, no, no, no. So when you write your code, you just don't, you don't make calls to WordNIC URLs. You just do this.getMeaning, word.meaning. No, that's true, but still the same thing is, in the response, there could be like two, three different URLs. So if you see, for me in the hyper media, it looks like you're trying to imitate what we see in the browser. So when you click on a link, it gives back a page with a set of links and you can click on the link and follow that. If you look, the same thing, possibly... No, I think maybe we're not on the same page, but it would be a better discussion if you both actually, you look at it. Maybe we can get offline, maybe we can discuss it. Yeah, maybe we can take it offline. All right. I have a question. How different or similar is this to Pares? Pares.com? Pares is a service. But the API part sounds pretty much similar. What they do is they take your data and create a JSON web service or API that others can, like any of your applications can use. But they don't allow other, say you create an application on Pares. Your application is running on Pares backend. Can other developers, can you expose API so that other developers can build on that architecture? I don't really... I don't think so too. The main aim of this platform is you have a core application and you want people to build on it. Like add features, not just get data and post data. Add new features, new workflows. So how do you achieve that by keeping the core platform as simple as possible and making your API work? So and do something like a app platform so they can add features into the application. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, I'll be around. Thank you.


Hey, hey Jack get out of there. I said yeah. Good morning something a little different on the channel today. We got a goose hunt Thanks to annual Pretty excited. We've seen a bunch of pieces today, but he's called me around 11 Pays to get permission and talk to people knock on doors. So anyways, we got a couple dozen Silhouettes and six floaters. Oh Oh Zeentner blind we don't know how this is gonna go guys because We could do some more crazy stuff to it But the problem is it's only on the fence line and just to preface We there is road over there, and we are plenty plenty far enough away from it that be like hey, hey Jack I said yeah, this is pretty janky, but they're so comfortable going in here. We were walking on yesterday We weren't even scared so they're roosting over to where our left will be when the Sun comes up They're showing these silhouettes on here, and then it made it heavier right there And a lot of them were coming in right here yesterday. So, California Goose hunt for honkers tin a piece. What do you think about the spread? Do you think it'll work? I like it a lot I like the idea of keeping more over there and give them almost make them pull the half to stop right here Like a wall kind of but I like it a lot So I guess we'll see and we can always switch it if we need to yeah, I think it's gonna be fun I like the floaters. I think that helps a little bit the realism. Yeah We'll see how it goes. I Like it original Man you went all out, huh? At least I could do Didn't see that coming We just got four mallards did he get all he got it sweet Awesome, they literally we're gonna land in there's a little pond right there Just started hammering the call and they spun right around. How awesome was that? Oh? My goodness Oh, I know I'm already I'm good now. I shot down your hunt paid off dude We should have had like six or six. We should almost have the whole group. I can't believe I didn't shoot good guys We I think we stood up at the exact right time I know who cares yeah Awesome wasn't expecting that I Think it's gonna happen soon. I think of the next 30 minutes You got towards the sign. I'll watch the back. Oh My goodness here they come get that one more Hurry they're coming. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. I Should have brought business the moment Morgan's going to look and see if those keys were in that other field By the time he gets the end of the fence a group of like how many you think was in that? 12 or 15 maybe Maybe more Trying to chase him Stinking that was the worst timing. I turn around look and they're coming in from behind us. They landed probably 35 Yards out. How many shells did you shoot those cripples morning? They see us they see us Can't stick our we got keep our heads below this thing the whole way your guide the guns were going like this Over top the whole thing Do we are missing so many opportunities? Okay, get the gun barrels below.  Don't even look above the thing We're better off not seeing them and then landing close then we are seeing them and they flare I got two two. I got that one, too And he didn't go down. I smacked that thing. Oh, they're coming. They're coming. Here here Yeah massive oh my lord. Hey guys.  Hey, they weren't turn right. They were still coming right at us. Oh, man, we could have we could have them like It's okay. We just could have got more is all the difference. It's still cool though. How many fell? three ouch Out of like 34 Yeah, you'll be just fine. Don't mind don't mind these bulls I am It's been pretty awesome so far honestly The first two groups didn't really didn't decoy and then the last one I don't know what they were gonna do though because they were still you think they were gonna keep coming I mean they look like they're flying right at us come over. Yeah, definitely. I just called it way too soon I can hear my son like they're on top of us and we stood up. They were still a little ways out there I don't know like when you're sitting in the blind waiting for them. They're a lot closer than they are when you stand up Yeah, a little triggered I Can I lost complete visual because this is the only hole I had I thought they're probably right on top of this And I stood up. I was like, oh, they're still little you think that's it, but you we've already seen 150 maybe Any bands no bands yet Well, we're building up quite the little pile Four ducks and eleven honkers and we think we have two cripples out in the grass lines out here, but we got Sleepers out there. We may put out there, too Awesome day. Don't worry about that, dude You know how many times duck hunt we us as duck hunters call shots too early or wait too late Yeah, my promise sometimes I wait too late and they're already flaring out then you shoot them in the tailpipe Straight that way Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah Let's get all these All four of them, baby, you know those two that were tight right in the middle. I think we just put the smack down Those are close Yes Let's go, baby Let's go No, we weren't letting those get away. I did it, too Yeah, and they just set up in a different spot. Dude, if that's how it ends right there, I'd be happy Just just for the fact that they did it Yes, awesome All four came in and all four didn't leave we got 15 right here just here for sure that last group did it Awesome, those are 15-yard shots max. Yeah, that was so good. We'll get a picture on the green. We're gonna be tell gay This is a big You know, this is gonna take a while to clean This one is She have five minutes not I think Hi guys calling that a wrap for mallards to Drake's two hands and 15 honk donkeys, baby Oh, yeah, thank you Nathaniel for inviting me out. All right, load them up in the green beauty, baby


for Rotary. Proclamation, whereas Rotary International was founded February 23rd, 1905 by Chicago and Paul Harris, and whereas Harris's goal was to energize the local business community via a service organization that provided humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and build goodwill and peace in the world. And whereas the objective of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service above self, whereas the Rotary four-way test is a simple but profound statement of things Rotarians say and do. One, is it the truth? Two, is it fair to all concerned? Three, will a build goodwill and better friendships? Four, will it be beneficial to all concerned? Whereas today Rotary flourishes with some 27,000 clubs and 1.2 million men and women as members, providing community service in virtually every nation in the world. Whereas here in Sheboygan, the downtown Rotary Club chartered in 1916, Sheboygan West Rotary Club chartered in 1967, and the Sheboygan Early Birds Rotary Club chartered in 1985 continue to build on Rotary's proud tradition. Now, therefore, I, James Schramm, by virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the city of Sheboygan, do hereby wish to congratulate the Rotary International on the occasion of their 100th anniversary, and urge all the citizens of Sheboygan to congratulate and thank this service organization, which has done so much to benefit our community and its residents. They got a copy of that also. OK, Sue, everything ready? Everything's ready? OK. We will call the 22nd regular meeting of the Common Council to order. Would you call the roll, please? Bowman? Berg? Sirda? Graf? Kittleson? Lauchs? Manny? Excuse. Montemayor? Perez? Rindfleisch? Excuse. Sagali? Stefan? Van Akron? Vanderweel? And Warner? Thirteen present. Corms present. Alderman Warner? I thank your honor. I move the minutes of the last Common Council meeting be approved and that the same stand is entered on the record. We move to the second that the minutes of the past previous Council meeting stand approved. Under discussion. Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. Pledge allegiance? Alderman Perez. Pledge 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. Thank you. And here's Appointment, Steve. This is members to the Virgo Commission, Barbara Grover, Lana Steyer Maloney, Dennis Ladwig, William T. Winkel, Dean Bogan shoots, Rich Gebhardt as a non-voting liaison, Joe Sheehan as a representative of the Sporganary School District, Bill Steffen as a representative of the city, county board member to be submitted by the county board chairman, Bill Gehring, submitted by the mayor. And that will lie over and we'll have the county board person's name submitted to us by the end of the week. Thank you, Steve. Public forum. Mr. Thomas Gessler. Mr. Gessler, can you give me your home address, please? 1711 South 12th Street. South 12th, Incheboygan? Yes. OK. And you will have five minutes. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. I have several issues I'd like to talk about tonight, one being the dog ordinance in the city of Sheeboygan. I had several complaints throughout the years. I had called the police department. And it seems that the dog ordinance is written quite big. It states that, from my understanding, it states that the dog should be on a leash. However, if the dog listens to voice command, that it does not have to be on a leash.  The lady had to go back inside of her van.  Spring of the year is coming up right now. A lot of people are getting out, like today, walking their dogs, elderly people, children. Just seems to me that I'm asking the council to maybe take a look at the ordinance. And it might want to be rewritten a little bit. It seems that a lot of people are walking dogs without leashes, period. And as the dog goes for somebody, it seems they yell to the dog, and the dog keeps going. It's a natural instinct of the animal, I believe. OK. We might want to look into a possible leash law. I don't know if it's feasible, but possibly when you're out in public, sidewalks, alleys, they might want to enforce a leash law. OK, the second thing I want to talk about is some city financial, OK? It's my understanding the city is owed money by some delinquent developers. It's owed money by people who all fines and various other things, OK? I think the city attorney possibly could check into the state statutes as far as trying to recuperate some of this money. I don't know if that would be his job or not. But my idea is if the city, I don't expect them to hire somebody just to recuperate this money that's due to the city. I'm guessing about $4 million. My idea would be for the city to possibly put out for bids to a collection agency. That way we don't have to hire anybody. Doesn't cost us nothing. Say we're owed $4 million. We paid a collection agency 50%. To me, that looks like we've got $2 million of free money coming. I think it's something that the council should really consider. OK, I'm not blaming this council at all. This goes back 25 years. When I got out of high school, the city already had a problem with collecting money from people. It was never really enforced. It goes back several administrations. Most of you weren't even on the council when that began. And now it seems to have just snowballed over the years. OK, and that's about all I have to say. If anybody wants to talk to me about either one of these issues, feel free to do so. Thank you. Thank you. Alderman Burr. Thank you, Your Honor. On that leash law, I just looked it up the other day. And when you're walking your dog on the street, your leash is not to be any longer than 8 feet. Your dog is in the yard, either tied or staked. The leash is to be no longer than 16 feet.  But on the street, 8 feet inside your yard if it's not fenced, 16 feet. We have two hearings this evening. I'll read them both. And in any interested persons here wishing to be heard, please come up to the microphone. We have one proposed assessments for replacement of water laterals in Michigan Avenue from North A Street to North 14 Street. And the second hearing is proposed assessment for replacement of water laterals in Ontario Avenue from North 14 Street to North 15 Street. All interested persons wishing to be heard. All interested persons wishing to be heard. Alderman Orner. I thank you, Your Honor. Move the hearings. Be closed. Move the second at the hearing to be closed. The discussion. Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. Alderman Perez. Your Honor, I have a question, and I don't know exactly where to ask it, because it doesn't pertain really to the agenda. But if I may, who passed these around? It's an endorsement to you by certain people, and they're all in their desk. And my next question is, first question is, who passed them around? And is Steve, is this inappropriate? Since when do we start campaigning on the council chamber? I don't have one. Sure. My guess would be anyone can walk up a chamber laying on desk. I don't know. Well, that was purposely put on our desk. Right. But anyone can. Alderman Perez, I can answer a partial question. Then my question, Attorney McLean, is that appropriate? Do we campaign off the council floor? Can't we? Is that what it is? That's an endorsement. It's a political endorsement. Doing it on the desks, if it's, I don't think there's anything that says you can't, as an Alderman, if they were circulated by an Alderman, that you can't do that. So I can bring my political campaign literature next time, too, right? So what you're telling me? I'll give you this. Can I read it? What is it that you do what you're missing there? The Sheboygan County supervisors listed below endorse. I take it that's political. Mayor James Tram, I list several people. There are others that endorse Tram, but will let it be known later. Is that an endorsement, or is it not? I don't know if it is. Is it political? I have a piece of paper that some of you wrote something on it, and whether or not it's true, I don't know. OK. Hang on, Alderman Perez. I think Alderman Berg. Alderman Berg? Thank you. That was my doings, but it was not going to be read on the floor. It was just put on the desk for your information. That's all it was. That's not doing any campaigning. I just laid it on the desk. You're the one that got up and read it. Alderman Perez, microphone. Oh, here you go. Thank you, sir. I realize I read it. I just got done doing that. My question is, when do we start taint in the integrity of the council chamber with anything political for any candidate, including myself? That's all my concern was, OK? Thank you. OK. Moving on. Consent agenda. Alderman Groth. Your Honor, I'd like to pull something from the consent agenda. Sure. It's item number 2220. Sure. As this has to do with transfer of funds and so forth, I need to have this pulled from the consent agenda, and I'll make a motion that the RC be accepted and adopted and the resolution be put upon its passage. We have a motion in the second before us that the RC be accepted and adopted and the resolution be put upon its passage. Now, this is on 2220. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, would you call the roll? Berg. Aye. Serta. Groth. Aye. Kittleson. Aye. Lauchs. Aye. Montemay or? Aye. Excuse me. Perez. Cigali. Aye. Stefan. Aye. Van Akron. Aye. Vanderweel. Aye. Warner. Aye. Bauman. Aye. Thirteen Ayes. Motion carried. OK. Everything else? Oh, good. I'm sorry. Alderman Warner. Please proceed. Honor, first I would move that all our rules be accepted and placed on file. All our seas be accepted and adopted. And all resolutions, substitute resolutions and ordinances be passed. We have a motion before us that all our rules be accepted and filed. Resolutions and substitute ordinances be put upon their passage and our seas be accepted and filed. Under discussion? Under discussion, Your Honor, just relating back to what we were talking about before, we do get a lot of things on our desk. I think the public puts things on our desk. I have something here from laser ink that was just in my inbox here. I come in a couple of times during a week and check and I find notes from rockets for schools and other places on my desk. So that's not an unusual practice. Just thought I should say that. OK. Alderman, Montemire, you have a question? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just have a couple of questions that will probably be quickly and easily answered. On 229, and I'll bet Tom you can answer this for me. And it's in my district, so I should know this. Where is Silo Avenue? I believe it. South of Geely and east of Kelly Met Drive. I don't even know if it's, I think it's just a paper street. I think it's right behind where the Berg's Auto Detail is. I believe right behind there is Silo. I think it's a paper street, I believe. Paper street. I mean, it's not paved. It's a street that's the right of ways there. OK, so there isn't any actual street or. There's no pavement there. All right, no street sign and all that sort of thing. OK, that makes sense. Thank you. I thought it would be pretty simple. The next one, 2211. Mr. Hemsing called me and he feels that the problem did not resolve itself. And I said, well, I'll ask public protection and safety how they felt it had been resolved. Alderman Spell. Thank you, Your Honor. I was at the meeting where Mr. Hemsing and the people from South High School were there. I felt that South High School has gone pretty much above and beyond to help Mr. Hemsing and to alleviate the traffic problems that have been there. I think most of the public protection and safety committee members felt that South High was trying to do the best that they can with the situation that they have. I think all schools at the beginning of a school at the end of the school are very much congested. And it's really up to the drivers and the people who are parking at the school to make sure that things don't take place. But they have some of their teachers out there. They have their liaison officer out there. There is an officer all in the street. He doesn't stop cars that are causing offenses and all that. But he follows them and stops them somewhere away from all the traffic. So I do think that they are doing the job that Mr. Hemsing has asked them to do. The teacher is a liaison officer and the extra policemen. OK, I'll call Mr. Hemsing and give him that information. Yeah, well, he was there at the public protection and safety meeting when it was all discussed. Right, I understand that he was. He just didn't feel as though it was taken care of. Thank you. Inga and I got two more that want to talk on this. So maybe you'll find out more information. All right, thank you, Mayor. Alden Berg. Thank you, Mayor. I was out there this afternoon. And the biggest problem is when they come out of the circle and they go to the south, make their right hand turn, they right away hit the brakes and they make a wide turn into those driveways. There's about four driveways there. That is what's causing the big problem. If they could have some signs or something like that, no wide turn, because that is where all the problem is coming from. These cars are going out, which they're supposed to. But then they're right away hitting the brakes and they're all going into these driveways and then they're backing out. And all the traffic's coming from the south. And it's a mess. Thank you. Alderman Warner. Thank you, Mayor. We did have Mr. Hemsing in our meeting two or three times, at least over the last couple of months. And we have a difficult situation around all our schools, but especially our high schools and our junior high schools, where some of the kids, the high schools, especially, where the kids also drive besides the parents dropping them off. We put our schools in neighborhoods and we want to maintain the neighborhood schools. But with this motoring society we have these days where not only do many of the students drive, but almost every parent drives their children to school. You have all the sector traffic. But I think the Sheboygan Police Department has worked with Mr. Benes from South High School and his staff to address the concerns that were brought forward by Mr. Hemsing. The Public Protection and Safety Committee discusses, as I said, at length. And both parties were there in attendance. And the problems were resolved to the greatest extent possible. They're not perfect. And as I explained to Mr. Hemsing at the meeting, that it's not 100% answer. We can't fix everything. The only answer you could have is to forbid parents to drive their kids to schools. You can't do that. It is still a public street. They aren't supposed to be making a left turn out of the driveway. So what they do is they make a right turn and then, as Alderman Byrd said, make a Y turn in the middle of the street into somebody's driveway across the street. And that creates problems. So perhaps that's something we could do and I would ask Deputy Chief Shervin is here. If you can check with the department and make sure we get that on the next Public Protection and Safety Agenda, we'll look at possibly putting in some little Y turn signs if that's possible. It's a difficult situation. You have all these people arriving within a 15 to 20 minute period and all leaving within that same period. Under the construction with the school on the south side, they're going to be moving that parking lot quite a ways further down and adding, I forget if it was, and correct me if I'm wrong, a couple of hundred more spaces, I believe, for cars. That's going to help in that end of it. And it's just one of those things where you can't make someone 100% happy. But I would like to add though that the South High School, the police department, and the Public Protection and Safety Committee are going to continue to problem solve the situation over there as it goes along. We've done similar situations at North High and some of our grade schools actually where we've been problem solving the ingress where they put the circle drives in. Everybody likes to just park there and sit there and wait. And it's a difficult thing, but we have to work through it and it takes time. I wish Mr. Hemsing, we could have pleased him more, but we can't literally shut down the street and that's the only way we could get to that point, so. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Hopefully that answered your question. I think so, especially if you agree. Okay, okay. Okay, if there's another discussion, would you call the roll please? Sirta? Excuse me. Where's it from, 22-1 through what? 22-1 through 22-23. You already vote on 21-20, 22-20. Okay, go ahead. Sirta? Aye. Grop? Aye. Kittleson? Aye. Lopes? Aye. Montemay or? Aye. Perez? Aye. Segali? Aye. Stephan? Aye. Van Akron? Aye. Motion carried. 22-24 through 27, to be referred. 22-28 by the City Planning Commission recommending filing the documents submitting a communication from Eagle Squadron Cadets stating their support for the Old Shire Moulting Plan to an ethanol production facility and green storage plant. I need a motion to be accepted and filed. Alderman Warner? And at your honor, I would recommend the report of officer be accepted and placed on file. We have a motion to second before us under discussion. Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. 22-29 through 22-30 will lie over. 22-31 through 34 to be referred. 22-35 by the Director of Public Works Engineering submitting bids for the Sanitary Sewer Lining Project in Michigan Avenue, Alderman Bowman. Thank you, your honor. I would also like to take with that 22-39 and ask for suspension. On both. Yes, please. We have a motion to second before us for suspension. Is there any objections to the suspension? Is there any objections? Hearing none, proceed. Your honor, this is for the contract for the Sanitary Sewer Lining Project in Michigan Avenue and at various locations in that particular avenue. The bids were originally estimated to be at $225,000. It came in at a very favorable amount of $148,365 in some odd change. This is the reason for the suspension and I'd move that the report of officer be accepted and adopted and in resolution be put upon its passage. Second. We have motion to second before us under discussion. Also under discussion, your honor, the contractor would like to come in at least two weeks early. This way, we didn't have to wait for us to lie over for those two weeks. Could you repeat how much that was again? The new amount is $148,365.91. Thank you. Good. Would you call the roll, please? Kibelson. Hi. Lokes. Hi. Montemayor. Hi. Golly. Hi. Stephens. Hi. Van Akron. Hi. Vanderweel. Hi. Warner. Hi. Bowman. Hi. Berg. Hi. Anserta. Hi. Thirteen eyes. Motion carried. 2236 through 38, we'll lie over. 2240 through 42 to be referred, oh, back up a minute. 2240 and 42 to be referred. 2241, we need a suspension. Alderman Grop. Thank you, Your Honor. I will ask for suspension. We have a motion on the floor for suspension. Is there any objections to suspension? Over we go. Okay. The reason we're acting on this is, this was originally supposed to be on the finance committee agenda and it was on one that we discussed. But there was, I hate to say a clerical error, but there was a clerical error that involved this document and it was supposed to be on tonight's agenda so that they can get started on the, and appropriate the proper funds so that it'll be in place for when they start this project. Therefore, that's why the suspension was needed. So at this time I'll ask that the resolution be put upon its passage. Okay. We have a motion to second before us that the resolution be put upon its passage. Under discussion. Hearing none, would you call the roll? Graf. Hi. Kittleson. Hi. Lokes. Hi. Sagali. Hi. Steffen. Hi. Van Akron. Hi. Vanderweel. Hi. Warner. Hi. Bauman. Hi. Berg. Hi. Serda. Hi. Thirteen eyes. Motion carried. 2243, will I over? 2244 by Strategic Fiscal Planning, recommending filing documents and meeting a communication from the co-directors of Rockets for Schools, requesting that the city allow them to use two of the days allotted to the city by the Blue Harbor Convention Conference by the Blue Harbor Conference in granting said permission. Alderman Graf. Thank you, Your Honor. And that one, along with 2245, which is also by Strategic Fiscal Planning, authorizing that one day for the Blue Conference, or at the Blue Conference, at the Blue Harbor Resort and Conference Center, that be used for the American Planning Association's annual spring convention, which will be held on May 18th and 19th. And I would ask that those two RCs be accepted and adopted. We have motion to second before our thunder discussion. Alderman Bauman. Your Honor, first of all, I'd like to ask for a division of the two. Okay. And then discussion on 2244, please. Okay. Thank you. On 2244, of course, this is for the Rockets of Schools, as was mentioned by Alderman Graf. And it's not the fact that they are getting this use for free. Yes, they are getting these cities two of the free days, but they are paying for any of the setup fees, the cleanup fees, and any equipment that they use. So it's not like it's 100% free. Sorry, just that everybody is understanding that. Thank you, Alderman Bauman. Alderman Warner. On the same document, the Rockets for Schools program, we had a good discussion on that at the Strategic Fiscal Planning Committee, but it's just an absolutely fantastic program that we have at the lakefront. The Rockets program provides a scientific link not only for our children and adults, but for many people across the state and other states that come to Sheboygan to participate in the Rockets for Schools program and to go through. When it was an armory, it was a very difficult situation. I think this is gonna be much better for them. They don't have to go across the river for the launch pad. They're on the same side of the river as the launch pad is, which was put in down there as a donation, I believe by Josh Schmidt. Was that it, Tom? Donated launch pad for Rockets for Schools. Yeah, and I think it's just a great thing. It's a wonderful program. It's good for Sheboygan. Sheboygan Area School District used to originally sponsor this, I believe, in the beginning. They no longer do now. It has its own foundation, the Rockets for Schools Foundation. They use the Rockets for Schools name because it's kind of like a brand name. You don't want to change something that's so successful. So I think it's just a great thing and I'm glad to see them doing this. Thank you. Okay. We don't need a roll on that. Or do you want a roll? No. All in favor? Aye. Now this is on 2244 because he asked for a division. Opposed? Motion carried. Now on 2245. All in favor of the motion? Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. Okay, 2246 by Public Works. Recommending filing various documents. Alderman Bowman. Thank you, Your Honor. On 2246, I've moved that the reported committee be accepted and adopted. We have motion and second before us under discussion. Under discussion, Your Honor, there are four items on here and of course, if you want, I'd like to, actually I do wish to speak on item number one and item number four. Item number one, of course, is the communication from the Salvation Army stating that they'll be taking over the administration of the Sheboygan Child Care Center and are asking the council for the same lease agreement that the Sheboygan Child Care Center has had with the city for years. Public Works Committee had a very long discussion about this and the fact of being that we are really not in the rental business and the lease that had been out there before was a $1 a year lease. It was a very long lease. And as of two years ago, we decided that we'd like to sell the property, be honest with you, and if anyone's wondering what it is, it's that little red schoolhouse. And we did let the Salvation Army know upfront that we are interested in selling it and right now they are still applying for the licensing and what have you, but that we do not really wish to be leasing this for $1 a year. Also, the request on item number four is that the paint on the exterior of the building be looked into for lead in the paint and the city will be doing that testing for them. So that's the only two items that I wanted to discuss on this, but again, the resolution already has been asked to be passed. Is there any other discussion? If not, all in favor of the motion? Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. 2247 by finance recommending filing document submitting a memo from the director of planning and development requesting of the Great Lakes Commission Waterfront Revitalization Conference from vision to reality be a city sponsored event and granting said permission. Alderman Graw. Thank you, Your Honor. I'd move that the RC be accepted and adopted. We have a motion to second before us under discussion. Alderman Stephan. Yeah, just as a point of information for everybody, you're probably wondering why the first two documents came from strategic fiscal planning on approving this and then the last one came from finance. After strategic meeting, they decided there should be some committee that meets more frequently that is up on these and the request come to. So it was decided that the finance committee would be in the future of the place where these requests would come and this was the first one that came to us. Just so you understand why there was a difference in those documents. Thank you, Bill. All in favor of the motion? Aye. Opposed? Carried. 2248 to be referred. 2249 by Public Works recommending establishing the fees for the construction site erosion control permits and stormwater management permits. Alderman Bauman. Thank you again, Your Honor. I'd move that the reported committee be accepted and adopted and that we pass the substitute resolution. We have a motion before us in a second to accept and adopt the committee report and pass the substitute resolution under discussion. Hearing none, would you call the roll? Kittleson. Aye. Lokes. Aye. Montemayor. Aye. Perez. No. Sagali. Aye. Stefan. Aye. Van Akron. Aye. Vanderweel. Warner. Aye. Bauman. Aye. Berg. Aye. Serda. And Graf. Aye. 12 ayes, one no. Motion carried. 2250 by Public Works recommending amending section 2638-13D of the municipal code relating to fees for erosion control permits and stormwater management permit administration for one and two family residential uses. Alderman Bauman. Thank you, Your Honor. 2250, I do move that the reported committee be accepted and filed and that the general must be put upon its passage. And if I could please, could I take 2251 along with it? Sure. 2251 is a resolution, I'm sorry, it's a report by Public Works recommending amending section 7.0E of the construction site erosion control ordinance relating to fees. And the general ordinance attach also to that for those fees. And it moved to that that report be accepted and filed and that the general ordinance be put upon its passage. We have a motion to second before us on both to accept and adopt the committee's report and ordinance to be put upon their passages. Under discussion. Under discussion. Hearing none, would you call the roll? Montemayor. Perez. Sagali. Stefan. Van Akron. Vanderwheel. Warner. Bauman. Berg. Serta. Graf. And Kittleson. 12 ayes, one no. Motion carries 2250. Two lies over. 2253 to be referred. Matters laid over, 2140. Resolution by Alderman Graf, Stefan, Serta, Manny, and Montemire. Authorizing a transfer of appropriations in the 2005 budget. Alderman Graf. Thank you, Your Honor. I knew that the resolution be put upon its passage. We have motion to second before us that the resolution be put upon its passage. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, would you call the roll? Montemayor. Perez. Sagali. Stefan. Van Akron. Vanderwheel. Warner. Bauman. Berg. Serta. Graf. Kittleson. And Lux. 13 ayes. Motion carried. 2168 by Alderman Warner, authorizing the appointment of a commission to examine and promote the expansion of intergovernmental cooperation for the purpose of stabilizing local tax rates while promoting a higher standard of living and economic development. Alderman Warner. Your Honor, I'd like to read the now therefore be resolved and be further resolved on that. And it goes on to say, as the mayor stated now, therefore be it resolved, the Efficient Regional Government Opportunities Commission, or ERGLE, is hereby established whose responsibility it will be through the further development of intergovernmental relations to assist in the coordination of plans, policies, and programs to address and resolve issues of mutual interest. The commission will report progress to the Common Council monthly. Be it further resolved that the Efficient Regional Government Opportunities Commission shall consist of eight city of Sheboygan and Sheboygan County residents appointed by the mayor. The commission will be composed of local business, labor, and government representatives from our community, along with the non-voting representative from the mayor's office. On that, I would move the resolution be put upon its passage. We have motion to second before us. Before we get into any other discussion, I will open up. I'd like to say a few words about that. Tonight before us, we have the authorization of the appointment of the ERGLE Commission, which is the Efficient Regional Government Opportunities Commission. I request all those who believe in and promote intergovernmental cooperation to support this initiative. As Common Council members and representatives of our community, you are taking a leadership role in addressing today's issues and tomorrow's challenges by approving this commission. The goal of ERGLE initiative is the stabilization of local tax rates while promoting a higher standard of living and economic development. The target of the initiative's goal will be to save Sheboygan taxpayers $5 million over the next five years. $5 million, which will be allocated for property tax relief. As Sheboygan faces decreasing state revenues and an increasing demand on service, there has been proposed revenue or spending cuts which will leave the city's budget on balance. This unfortunately does not address the issues we face. It simply erodes the foundation of our community. This erosion will result in massive cuts in the essential services such as our police, our fire, and our streets. As mayor, I do not find this acceptable. The ERGLE Commission will address these demands while upholding our community's core values and vision. The commission is founded on local leadership from business, labor, and government for the express purpose of promoting intergovernmental cooperation. This will then decrease the demands on a taxpayer while promoting community-wide economic prosperity and the ability to maintain our services. Alderman Montemar. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think that's a wonderful idea. My question is, the commission will report progress to the Common Council monthly. Does that mean they will report to us what they think we should do, or will they report to us what they have enacted? They will report to you what they think we shall do as a city. Thank you. You're welcome. Just another discussion. Would you call the roll? Rez. Sorry. Did you say aye? Aye. Thank you. Ms. Agali? Aye. Stephan? Aye. Van Akron? Aye. Van Der Wiel? Aye. Warner? Aye. Falmon? Aye. Berg? Aye. Serta? Aye. Groden? Aye. Hiddleston? Aye. Loughes? Aye. And Montemay-Ordes? Aye. 13 ayes. Motion carried. 2152, General Ordinance by Alderman Warner, thank you, Your Honor. Move the General Ordinance. Be put upon its passage. We have motion to second before us under discussion. Under discussion, Your Honor. Under the current system, when somebody owes the city of Sheboygan a fine and they apply for certain licenses or permits, the application is flagged and the permit is held or denied by the city clerk's officer or whomever until a fine gets paid. This ordinance will allow an individual an opportunity to set up a payment program or make other arrangements to pay the fine and still obtain the license or permit. Sometimes as an example, the building inspection department is one place where they can issue an order to repair a problem at a building. It could be a rental property or something else, which requires a building permit for the person to get that building permit in order to do the repair. The offender goes to get the permit and is denied because perhaps they have some other fines out there. This would make it possible for them to legally comply with the building inspection orders by setting up a payment program. One other case that comes to mind is when someone owes fines and they apply for a bartender's license, what happens very often, this person may need a job not only to provide the funds to pay their fine but also for their own livelihood. Well, what ends up happening is they may have $7, $800 worth of fines and their license for the bartending is held up and they have no opportunity to make any money to pay the fines or to support themselves. So this will give us a way to deal with that and there's pretty good safeguards in there and then we just think it's a good way to recoup some of the monies that are out there, allowing honest, respectful people who are willing to do something about the problem that they have with this fine and set up a payment schedule through the city attorney's office. I believe Steve has some input into that and get that fine taken care of while at the same time working. So it's a win for everybody. Thanks. All the way to Bill. And that's so that if they are going to get a bartender's license Sue, are you going to be checking to make sure that they're making payments on the other fines? We're not sure. I'm not sure how it's going to work for my office. I don't have to tell the city attorney's office but maybe Steve can answer while we're going to monitor and not quite sure on how the procedure is going to happen yet. Yeah, I'd like to clarify. The intent here is not to allow somebody to get a bartender's license if they don't have any money. It's only in the situation where we have an order, orders issued against somebody to, say, put a new roof on their house and they've got outstanding fines. We're ordering to do it but yet, on the other hand, they don't have the money to do the roof because they have to pay all these fines. This would allow, if they meet, there's four criteria. That is, license or permit applied for is required by the city in order to perform a task that the applicant's been lawfully ordered to perform by the city or another governmental unit for which failure to perform is violation of ordinance or statute. The applicant shows he's, he, she, it is financially unable to pay the full amount owed to the city. The applicant acknowledges the debt owed, enters into a payment plan and the granting of the license would be in the best interest of the city. This, we've had this come up, we've always, I shouldn't say always but for at least the last 15 years, I'd say add an ordinance that required individuals to pay all their fines and judgments and things owing to the city in order for them to get a license or a permit.  I'd say in the last 15 years that I'm aware of it's come up maybe half a dozen times where this would apply. The intent was not to cover just somebody who doesn't have enough cash to get a particular license at this time. It's got to have some aspect of the city ordering them to do something and they can't do it because they don't have the money to do it and you get this, as I say, catch 22 situation. So that's the intent. It's, in my view, it's going to be only used in limited circumstances would not be broadly applied. Alderman Warner. I didn't mean to mislead the council. I guess in my enthusiasm, I was just thinking licenses but actually I think it is a good thing and perhaps those other issues are something we can look at and it wasn't my intention to mislead when I was preparing. I knew what the ordinance basically stated and I'm just thinking of my mind licenses and just overdid it a little but so I apologize for that. Okay. Would you, do you have another discussion? Would you call the roll? Segali. Stefan. Van Akron. Van Der Wiel. Warner. Bowman. Berg. Serta. Graf. Kittlesen. Laux. Montemayor. And Perez. Thirteen Ayes. Motion carried. 2153. General Ordinance by Alderman Van Akron, Perez, Montemayor, Berg and Laux. Amend the code so as to add and delete various positions from the fire department's keel. Alderman Van Akron. Your Honor, I move the ordinance to be put upon as passage. We have a motion to second before. So under discussion. Alderman Graf. Thank you, Your Honor. Could the chairman of the committee tell us if this was the cost of this and was it included in the 2005 budget? Mark. Yes. And the cost of it? Maybe the chief. Mr. Mayor, Alderman. Yes, it was. It was discussed in the September budget with the mayor how we would save $100,000 and save two firefighters' jobs. So the amount for this was saved in the budget, then we in that line saved the budget $80,000, $85,000 this year. Next year it'll save almost $95,000 and it'll be a continuing savings item on the money early here. Is this going from then two deputy, or three-shot deputy chiefs to two? That is correct. The 19 years we've had three deputy chiefs in the fire department. Budgets are tough. We've been looking at, we lost three firefighters this last year, last budget. I would have lost two more if we wouldn't have made this move. I think Alderman Graf, you were one that says people have to start thinking outside the box. We started to think outside the box. We didn't have a deputy chief retiring this year, but shift commander Hughes retired, discussion with the mayor, discussion with my staff, asking him would you be willing to work that up those extra hours and that much more time to do it, discussion with the union members, because it wasn't a popular thing to do, to lose a position after 19 years. There's a morale situation where promotions, you know, firefighters like to be, in a time of tight budgets. I think citizens came up here saying that we should be looking at fire department administration and we did, and so that's why we made the change. Thank you. Alderman Baldwin? Thank you, your honor. Chief, you want to come back again? Please. Just one question for you directly, then have a general comment. When do you plan on retiring? Pardon? When do you plan on retiring? When do I plan on retiring? It's not officially yet, but I believe I'm retiring at the end of this year. End of this year? Yes. Okay, then you can sit down. Thank you. My general comment, I'm not a judge either, I'm sorry. My general comment, this does increase the pay of the fire chief and of course the two remaining deputy chiefs. It increases the fire chief's pay and it states right here openly that it's $3,009 bi-weekly. That comes to over $90,000 a year and then the others would be up to $70,234 and then the new hire would be $6,124. Personally, I have a problem with that amount of money per person. I will personally be voting against it. Is there any other discussion? Alderman Sertac. Thank you, your honor, just again for clarification. Are you saying that the cost savings is going to be actually resulting in the increase of salary in those positions? Not necessarily going back to the general fund? Alderman Sertac. I'm sorry. Alderman Sertac. Ask your question. Would you repeat it please? Thank you, your honor. I just want for clarification purposes. Are we saying that the cost savings that we just discussed will not be going back to the general fund and they will be given into an increase in salaries? Is that what we're saying? From the way I read it, yes. It looks that there will be an increase to several people here and also then because the chief did state that he might be retiring the end of the year that also does face his retirement funds which also come out of city money. The savings approximate amount of money with wages benefits from Commander Hughes was about $85,000 to $90,000. By that savings, we took out $8,000 to increase the pay of the deputy chiefs on the chief's position by $50. The comments we heard out there was why does the fire department have three deputy chiefs and the police department have two and one chief? They said we should be like the police department. So what we did, we paralleled the police department like it's called parody, it's in a lot of other cities, paralleled one chief and two deputy chiefs, moved the deputy chiefs pay into the same pay grade as the police department deputy chiefs and put the fire chief's position in the same as the pay grade as the police chief. With that in mind of the $90,000, $8,000 was taken out to apply $50 a week to get them up into that pay grade to make it worthy for their extra hour and time that everybody's going to be doing between now and the end of the year. The alternative is to not accept this, the alternative would be then to go back and lay off two firefighters to come up with $90,000 and I will promote a shift commander to replace Commander Hughes. This is the best deal for the city. It's going to be a continued savings of $90,000. Yes, $8,000 was taken. When I retire, and I believe I can say this, Deputy Chief Kittleston is probably going to retire at the same time of the year. Then there'll be an additional $12,000 savings between the money of the shift commander and the deputy chiefs pay. So there's going to be another savings next year, but yes, it costs $8,000 to save about $80,000. So, thank you. Okay, Alderman Stephan. Yeah, I rise in support of this. And we've done this in the clerk's office too when we obviously had to realize that we had an amount of people. We got rid of people. Well, obviously the work just does not get done. People who are there absorb that and after enough time happens, they certainly support this. The one question I have, perhaps for the city attorney, if this document goes, the section two get printed somewhere because I just, you know, the individual's name is in there and that strikes me as being wrong. I don't know if we need an amendment to delete that name, but I don't think it has any reason to be in there if it's an official document that lasts forever. It would get printed. Where do you see the name? It's an ordinance that would have to be... My copy on section two talks about the commander of training, research and developments, and then it has the individual's name. I don't see a need for that. I don't know if we need an amendment to get that out. Can we just as we... So move then to just release... delete the individual's name out of the section two. We have a motion to second before us for amending the document. Is there any discussion on amendment? You know what we're voting on for the amendment? Here's an all in favor of the amendment. Opposed? Motion carried. Now we'll go back to the document. 2153. As amended. I need that. We have a motion to second before us. As amended. Sue, would you call the roll, please? Stefan. Van Akron. Warner. Berg. Graf. Kittleson. Lowkes. Montemayor. Segali. Let's see. We have 11 ayes, one abstention and one no. Motion carried. 2154. By Alderman Van Akron, Perez, Montemayor, Berg and Lowkes. Amending the code so as to delete and add various positions in the city clerk's office. Alderman Van Akron. We have a motion to second before us. Under discussion... Hang on, Don. Alderman Graf is going to ask you a question. Very long. The same one I asked before. Is there a cost connected with this in the 2005 budget? Yes, it was included in the 2005 and it's a wash. All I did was take one full-time elections clerk position and make it two-part time. So it's no change in money. It was just a... It's actually a one full-time equivalent. That's what it is. Thank you. Did you have another discussion? Would you call the roll, please? Van Akron. Berg. Aye. Serta. Aye. Graf. Aye. Kittleson. Aye. Lowkes. Aye. Montemayor. Aye. Perez. Aye. Segali. Aye. And Stefan. Thirteen Ayes. Motion carried. 2254, an hour old by redevelopment authority recommending approving the terms and conditions of redevelopment authority in a ground lease between the resolution to be put upon its passage. We have a motion before us in a second that the resolution be put upon its passage. Is there any discussion? Just for information as a ground lease that we've been typical of what we've been doing down to Blue Harbor. Chris is going to do some development work for us. And if you have any specifics, I'm sure Attorney McLeaner or else Paulette would be happy to deal with any questions. Okay. Sure, Steve. Just one comment. The exhibit A that describes the location. It's probably going to shift over one shanty. I believe your packets have a drawing of the South Pier and it shows it's probably hard to read with the Xeroxing, but there's probably going to shift over from to the west one shanty. It'd be twenty, twenty-one and twenty-two instead of twenty-one, twenty-two and twenty-three. But that's the only likely difference. Just another discussion. Would you call the roll, please? Vanderwill. Aye. Warner. Aye. Bowman. Aye. Berg. Aye. Serda. Aye. Graf. Aye. Kittleson. Aye. Lauches. Aye. Montemayor. Aye. Perez. Aye. Segali. Aye. Stefan. Aye. No. No. No. She. Aye. Go vote. Aye. No. A vote by葉. 취me. Aye. No. A vote byesin. Aye. Morning. Dysart. Yes. Got the vote. Yes I do. Lady. A vote by 7 is a report of officer by the library director with respect to a couple items of information from the library board to the council. That will go to finance? No. 258 is an ordinance creating subsection 29-3B6 of the 75 Schrodingen Code exempting members of the Ergo Commission from the residency requirement of section 29. That will lie over. The motion is second before us. All in favor? Opposed? 13 at halftime but I mentioned that during the third quarter I'd love to have been a fly on the wall listening to Coach Nolak talk to his team in the locker room because they came out and really made a statement in the third quarter. Well yeah at the end of the second quarter it seemed like they thought this game was in the bag and to Norse credit they came out fighting and they went back to what they did best and that's pound the ball and when they did that it was very difficult for Norse to you know stop the run. On the offensive end for Norse very exciting the three scores that they had tonight that's for sure but they got to do a better job of running the football which will then of course set up that passing game even more. They did a nice job passing when they when they when they could get those opportunities but they're going to have to run the football they're going to have some success this year. If it wouldn't have been for that five yard scramble by Kutz in the fourth quarter North would have had negative yardage on the ground as it is they only gained two yards in four attempts and that speaks volumes. For the game Kutz was 16 for 35 his main receiver was Brian Herman who made nine catches and he's going to be a force in the Valley Coach. Yeah he's he's good and you know Coach Tuis does a good job getting him the football and you know you got to get your your talented player the you know of Brian's caliber of the ball and you know they're doing whatever they can to do that. Well I want to say thank you to the crew Kerry Caltzer was spinning the dials in the truck does a good job as always.  Andy McKillop was on the top camera and he's getting his flying wings running that top camera great job up on top Andy Chris Wright thank you for your help. My name is Mike Martin next week TV8 will be at South for the annual North South game so stay tuned for that and thanks for watching everybody and we'll see you down the road.