for Bill gaer our chairman who's out with some health issues I expect he's watching Bill We Wish You a speedy recovery um so uh first item on the agenda we do have an u a revised agenda that was made uh prepared shortly before
the meeting sent up by email and there are copies available in the back but with with that if everyone's had a chance to look at that could I get a motion to approve the agenda also move I'll second okay all in
favor and I I should note that we do have a quorum of the Commissioners um the second were there any questions or comments on the February uh meeting minutes uh if not then move to approve
the meeting minutes I second okay great all in all in favor I I any opposed no no opposed okay uh new business is there any new business for
the purpose of the for the commission or the authority I hearing none um move on to uh Jeff and you're going to present an overview of the different projects under the director's report we are moving
along I expected there would be a lot of conversation before no exuse uh we have to move some of the things that are the original agenda we have to move to next month um a couple of people pointed out something about the the sale exchange that we have to we have to make sure that we are doting all our eyes and
Crossing all our teas so I'm glad to do that but the director's report I I just wanted to go over all the projects because I need to get up to speed but you know honestly that two or three month process between when Jason was the interim and then left and then I came on board there's been some developments on
a lot of these projects and so I just wanted to bring everybody up to speed at the same time and including the public as well um as far as Gunflint view um there was an open house a couple weeks ago it sounded like a lot of people attended I heard some good feedback and some some feedback that maybe um um you know could
lead to some new opportunities as well in the community but um on different projects but I just wanted to say that the open house was successful I reached out to um the developer and the manager and asked if we could actually have a tour ourselves at a different time um I
only learned about that that the week the the Friday before and I was already had it home so I wasn't able to make it myself um but I thought maybe it would be a good idea for us to and and the manager said she was going to be up here next week so maybe we could figure out a time as soon as I find out some information I'll let everybody know um
the one thing that I um I did have a good conversation with the highway engineer at the county Robbie hos and he brought up that there was a couple of concerns with the um with the drainage going onto to Gunflint trailer C Road 7
and um some some of the ditch work wasn't to the spec of the design originally and so there's some conversations that are going on between the developer of Gunflint View and the county on that process just want to let everybody know in case somebody out in the audience is also um interested or
concerned about that um that there's there's it's been pointed out right um and then also as far as the gunflip view they're still on track to have their May 1st opening um um commissioner O'Brien and I just talked a little while ago that they're
almost a 50% over 50 I me they're now posting that they have 23 units left to uh excellent to that are still available so that's that puts them over the 50% Mark I'm not surprised so that's a a wonderful thing
I know they're working on the exterior of the building now which hopefully means a lot of the Interior is done and and that sort of thing uh so that's all I really wanted to bring up on The gunflip View good news it sounds like at least potential for good news in the future um the the heights um we closed
on the Heights on the last day of February so the 28th of this year and I just had a great conversation on Monday with Gary Latz who kind of represents the the organization of um GPS and LPS in that project in the community and U
they're still they're still very excited about their timeline um you know the the the modu structure of the homes are that once they get built they get shipped here and um as I was talking to somebody else in the community today we might need to find a place to Stage them until
the construction happens and so they'll be working on um good problems I think uh to find solutions for in the community but we might be finding bits and pieces of apartment complex um in our community for a little bit in that process so very interesting uh from
start to finish um I looked through their their their design and everything like that 34t roads curb and gutter they're really planning on having a really nice put together development well thought I thought um and also there's an opportunity for expansion
down the road potential for a child care center in that neighborhood so I think that's going to be unique and a wonderful opportunity and so that's really what I wanted to point out about the heights the next project um I have uh I have a need for some advice from
you all on the board um so the temperance Trails project is over by tofy it's uh next to the school there it's right behind the school um and um I was just approached by Peter grubish who's the developer actually I went out
to oana Minnesota which is about an hour from where I live now and I took a look at his his projects that he's working on he's working on some single family homes really nice well put together homes I thought um and uh we had a conversation about some of the needs
um to the county provided a punch list between when they got the preliminary plat to when he can get the final plat um and you have that all in your packet as well it's the county document with the County's uh symbol on it dated January 15th and it shows a list of
about 12 punch items that are needed to be accomplished um and um Peter said that he's well over 60% of the way done with that list which is a good good a good thing to to note and he um also I
asked if he could send a letter to articulate what his needs were right now and um you'll see that I think it's the back pages of the document um under the the the Timberline Homes originally when the project was put together it was
green bow construction now he is realigned is doing business as Timber uh Timber line homes and as you'll see here he's looking for an extension which I no that's something that this board has contemplated before but specifically he's looking for
an extension to close in July when he receives final plant um in the conversation that I had with him he said he still is very interested in the project he still wants to move forward with the project but he wants to get all of his eyes dotted and his te's crossed in order for this project to be
finalized so that he can uh build construction he wants to get his first units in before fall um so so that July he gives them 4 months to do it before fall before winter um if you can get the structure built then the then they can reside inside of it while they finish
the inside which is what a lot of people do in this area it's a good strategy for success in building up in the North Country um but the real conversation I have with you all today and I really want to get your feedback and your opinions um is um how you feel about an
extension another extension of this project um there's been some history with this project yeah I understand um but how do you want me to proceed on it well my question would be is there
anything anything that's uh triggered by the extension um in regard to you know any subsidies or other things we've done with him is there any conflict there or is it is it just just delaying it a few months um the ITR excuse me my throat
got dry to much talking um U the ITR still has um 100 I believe $100,000 into this project for Grant and they're fine with it for right now um if they have to extend it they'll look at that um the
scope of the project has somewhat changed as well we're no longer looking at the 24 units because of the easement with the school district out there and with the um the need for blasting Wetlands how we going to put this septic
system in and has shrunk a little bit down to 16 units um but he's still very interested in making it work um but um and from the standpoint ITR the scope has changed slightly but I don't think enough to change or trigger that money to be
returned I have no problem in uh extending the closing makes me nervous but you know every project makes me nervous so there's no difference there but um um but I I see his rationale here and and because of the
changes uh the power line was a big issue oh yes which which as I've mentioned before was an issue back in the 80s when that power line was approved given approval by the county over the objection of the the West End
representative and sure enough came back to haunt us so interesting so that's what's that's the problem with having too much history in the County but uh but anyway uh that U you know obviously going back for the final plot seems reasonable not to close
before he gets that okay it' be useful for to have him maybe send a follow-up note would he he in his note he highlights the items in the in the County's punch list that he has not done yet um I think it would be useful to
have him explicitly um confirm the items that he has has done and sort of estimated cost sunk so far estimated sunk cost so far just to get some confidence um my my read through of this uh today indicated that it was the
septic design that's the the primary gate right now uh and I think that uh there's a broad level of support for sound septic designs protecting our ground wallity resour nobody's going to object to that so
this if if this is a statement of fact and the the gating items the septic design septic septic design can't be done right now because the ground is still frozen these are all realities that any uh septic installer could could tell you about up in this area and uh especially because the cost of a system
can vary wildly with the site conditions which vary wildly over very small distances the the the justification for a delay to me seems very well reasoned I'm not disagreeing at all that we should make sure that it doesn't have ramifications uh with Administration and
with the possibility of other uh you know roadblocks existing for closing uh but at least as I read this with the statement of fact I I can get behind the justification for this delay okay do you need any more formal feack
resolution or that give you in with this you know right now we have an agreement in place and to put out a new agreement I think would we would incur a little bit of the cost from the legal standpoint to create a new or extended um um
um agreement um for this project and so I don't know if that's something that the H had considered or wants to consider or anything with that um you know we have it in our budget if we to absorb it if we need to so I just wanted to point that out as well my sense is that well I I I don't I
I don't think that that rises to the level of something that requires commissioner approval it's I think part of the normal course of your doing business just to um we have a budget for legal costs we have a budget for financial costs and this is you you're
you have the authority to use that um part of it was you know Jason he's on retainer Jason hail um and he had suggested perhaps that we ask the developer to pay those costs mhm um to to put a little skin in the game on this I mean we have had several extensions
and I it's well reasoned you know it's not a fly by night thing but any stretch he's making a argument for it it's just um um when do we get the plane to land is really the important part of it then we can't see in the future but um maybe
we have that discussion as well I I just bring it up that sounds reasonable sure I would support support that okay mention it to him I would support too okay so the the do there be Motion in
place then for that particular issue of of asking the developer to pay the costs associated with the new extension sure I'll I'll move that um the developer be asked to pay for the cost of revising the contract for the um to accommodate the um requested delay to
July closing okay I'll second okay um all in favor I I any opposed great I'm just going to not this so that way we get it in the minutes the next project that we have I just wanted to
give an update on here is um all the way above here okay so the um 1800 West um Highway 61 really doesn't have a name yet but that's what we're going to know it as
it's right uh just west of the high wtip on the highway kind of cross from up yonder or the been in actually um it's kind of a vacant lot next to the County's property commonly known as uh tomoto there we
go the old Tom the old Tom kabot and and um and honestly um I had a good conversation with Alex Duval um on Monday as well right before I met with Gary Latz talk about the project across the street so we're being efficient geographically in those conversations
and U it was more of a meet and greet opportunity he had some concerns with the um how things were going to go at um Gunflint View and of course with the uh the project across the street at the heights um he's certainly very interested in still doing the project in
fact he said that um he's finishing up a project now in gayer Minnesota which is in the southern part of Minnesota and um you know I think that there was a question he had of um you know if we were going to update our um strategic planned perhaps it's worth having a
conversation about updating our um snapshot in time that we have known as the housing study and so you know we can have that conversation I think that that's healthy thing to talk about because you know when we did that initial housing study it proved a point but it was back in time I don't think
that has changed much I think maybe perhaps it's actually made it uh more pointed that we need more housing in the community and perhaps more of it um and on talking to an awful lot of people in this community housing is still a concern it's still a needed thing for
Business Development Economic Development um just overall it's just a needed thing um myself and the Eda director are looking for housing still you know it wasn't like we walked into the realtor and said I'll take it you know uh which is the case in some
communities but not in this one so we feel it ourselves personally but um from the standpoint of that you know that's worth I think having a conversation when we talk about that strategic plan perhaps um and I think if nothing else it's going to prove that we need it and
more of it but um going back to the strategically speaking when when might that be best time to uh to update the study or to do the Strategic plan itself to to update the study okay uh well I would suggest that we maybe look at that
this year I think that that's something that would especially now that we have a couple of units coming online and stuff of that nature um to give people uh uh a thing to think about more you know I will say that in some of the conversations I've had with people in
the community by far they've said well I'm you know kind of waiting to see what'll happen with these units um I talked to Alison plumber when I went through the HR process for this job and she had a board of eight people that she was on boarding and most of those people
needed housing and if that's the county I can't imagine what it looks like for the rest of the community and so you know we don't want to lose people good people that we need in county jobs city jobs all over the the county itself and so um you know I think that that's one of those things that's going to Bear its
bear its way out but you know I would say that we probably should have that updated this year the scope of that study was through 2026 you know they and that was based on income guesses or uh population guesses
which I think we've met or exceeded probably uh thanks to the they weren't really thinking about the pandemic the effect of the pandemic so um I don't know that you know as a use of resources and time that we need to really worry about that too
much I think we can point to that if developers are worried that we're overbuilding we can point to that or have them talk to a few of the employers around town and dispel that in a hurry I do think you know we're we're we're making a dent in gr marray sure yeah um
but there's a lot of need countywide still yeah and um um so it's you know I I'd be comfortable with moving letting that slide until until uh 2026 until it sort of expires uh I don't see the point
in doing again we did two other housing feasibility studies before that okay that are obviously out of date now but you know how many feasibility studies do you need at some point so um can't study your way out of the problem I understand well I mean it's important to have the
information but um I understand where you know where they where they might be a little nervous with the with all the housing coming online but when you put it up against the need we're still you know we're probably a fifth of the way there if if that if I I would agree that
that oh yes yeah thank you um as a manager of public housing um multiple studies the number that I've gotten over the time we've been there 15
years and uh So based upon the conversation I would say that that the influx of what we've seen in what we're building uh and commissioner certainly have had conversations about this it would be good based upon the timing of your study that you've had right now
that you would get more information back on the nature and the demographic of those that are availing themselves of the housing that is in place and so that you can learn from that lived experience based upon expectation and then and then
identify real need as to where we're missing it rela to housing that's a very good point yeah that's a good point commission Sol um another comment that I'd like to share is that um the housing study um is valid through 2026 as
commissioner Hansen mentioned and that there were between 5 and 600 units of housing that are needed now we know that we've um discovered through that study and just through a conversation with our Community we need all kinds of housing
we need Apartments we need starter homes we need um homes for families and one of the things I think to also look at and in particular Jeff for you to be thinking about is as the apartments that we're building fill up again finding out
the demographic of who is in there but also are we seeing older members of our community people with hair the color of mine are they moving into those units and are their homes going up for sale
for members of our community who are in the workforce and I buying them right and I think that's going to be a really important piece to watch as well I do too and we've had this conversation before on this board and Jason reminded us that that's confidential information
often times for apartment managers or whomever right we can't mention names or anything like that so how we find that information is going to be critical but well one of the ways we can find it census of course that's going to be a while before we get that next census but
I mean some of that stuff um is available you could do a voluntary survey yeah and then just extrapolate you know just to get a sense I mean it won't be deadly accurate but yeah and I would love to provide that information to you because I'm curious myself to see how it
goes right curious um anecdotally in a lot of communities when they build Apartments they find people move from other a to the community as well and so hopefully we'll be attracting some people that's the goal right to take care of our housing stock but also get
more Workforce online as well in the in the county okay well that was the conversation about the highway 61 property um then the next one is the Birchwood Apartments the only thing I really wanted to say about Birch Birchwood Apartments is that uh there is
still um some work that's going on from the on the background of closing and stuff like that um once the project gets closed I think there's an obligation we had for some financing as well and the once that gets triggered we'll be coming back for that but um that's all on that
now the next uh next one I have is a little bit more interesting it's Cedar Grove we have um we have an agreement with the Eda for two of the Lots in Cedar Grove Business Park and looking back at some previous conversations at
least it sounded like the board was very interested in doing something with the realm of assisted living and so I had a great conversation today at lunch with Howard hedstrom who mentioned it yesterday at the Eda talking about how we need to do something with assisted
living and um I think there's more than enough um evidence to prove that we could work together with the Eda on some sort of Assisted Living if something like that were to come up um it was brought up yesterday that perhaps we should be in the process of looking at
requests for proposals to see if anybody wants to jump onto this idea um the one attractive thing I like about a request for proposal I don't mean it's all right it's all right the majority board is over here is that um um at the end of
the day we get a snapshot of what the cost would be and then myself can look I can look at opportunities to make that cost lower through some different Grant processes and different uh pots of money that might be available on the federal or state level to make it more enticing to get those folks to build um and it
just so happened that when I was at the the lunch with Howard a woman came up to Howard and said that they're moving to Crosby for assisted living uh we're losing community members and and I know everybody knows somebody that is thinking about it or has done it already
and I think at the end of the day if we want to you know if we want to have that value where we're holding on to the the family member or that neighbor or that volunteer or whatever the case is that fulfills a a real really good part of our community um we need to start having
the conversation more seriously I think now uh although it's been kind of in the background for a long time I did hear about in 2018 it was pretty close to getting something didn't happen for maybe a few reasons and then Co hit and then we
crawled our way out of that and now we're in 2025 and one of the main reasons that did not work out was the developer couldn't find housing for his workers okay that's a good point and I think an RFP would be the
appropriate way to do this we can't just offer it to any one person right right so one of the things that we're also thinking about um the Eda brought up yesterday was that there was a uh
organization out of duth uh whip whip fley they did a study back in 2018 about assisted living in the need well that was in 2018 um and I think maybe there's a great argument to be made about what does the study look like in 2025 and
2026 first assed living in this area um knowing full well that we're not going to disc collect people from just grar we're going to get people from the surrounding area that might want these Services as well and right now we don't really have these services and so we're we're losing or we could be gaining
where we could be holding um and so I don't know what a cost sounds like for an update of that study from 2018 um but what I'd like to do is look into it to see what a cost would be to update that study and perhaps we could share the cost with the Eda and partner
together on this particular issue there is a there is it is delineated in the housing Fe feasibility study they actually talk about I think they I'm just trying to recall but I think it's 20 to 30 was the demand might been 20 to 40 units and I think the issue with it
was Carefree assisted living that was looking at this very property that you're talking about back in 2018 and they were way down the road on that they were really they put a lot of resources and effort into it and then ultimately decided and it was an economy scale issue okay they said they really needed
50 to make it happen and it's just not likely to happen here so just just so you know that was the issue before so we don't just go through the same iteration yeah and have the same conclusion at the end of it um that it's it's the economy of scale that makes it hard to hard to
uh pencil out right now having housing for employees will help surely will and I would argue that people might move from other places even to come here for assisted living but yeah you know if their family has a you know less and
less we have summer people and winter people more and more it's people that live in two places they live in Cook County and they live elsewhere and so if maybe if they're not homesteaded here but one of their homes is here maybe their parents would like to end up here instead of in Omaha or wherever they are
so uh you know so I mean there are there variables there but I just wanted to let you know what that history was very disappointing that it didn't happen and really the closest assisted living is in Silver Bay M gell yeah thank you I think
Commissioners are allotted so many words and then we're done right but uh I appreciate the conversation um what I would say with regard to any study is is that the more that you understand intent of what
you're trying to arrive at the more that that study is going to provide that information other words you got to identify and so when I when I look at Cook County and we can look what's happened in the housing market here where we have people that always say boy I'm going to retire in Cook County and
they they import their wealth that they've made elsewhere and they can purchase either as an investment or as a retirement home and that is a demographic that affects our housing because we see normal residential housing going off the market because of
investment and people that have more money that they import from elsewhere to compete with people that have little money here when you look at the 87 counties and we have we are the second next to Aken County as the demographic of
retirees that that that segment of our demographic if they say we've lived here all our life but we can no longer maintain our residency how can we stay here that demographic is an element that needs to
be identified if you look at that demographic that's looking for subsidized housing affordable housing not the workforce housing which is another demographic is to say um people that would love to be here but when they come up and they find out we couldn't
afford here we' like to retire here too but there's no housing that is another that is our imported portion of demographic so I think in any study recognizing who are the potential and how do we address need the other
component of is it is affordability beyond the affordability of the house so somebody can come in and have a house that they find out is Affordable but it's not affordable to live in the county and so how that plays into
decision making is an important element and the other ingredient is psychographics which is why people do what they do there's a demographic element but there's a psychographic element and when you look at that psychographic element that is getting behind what is motivating a person to do
whatever they're going to do so I think that's hugely important understand why why this and and it it helps to know then how we respond to that need identified need but because we do have a big population of retirees a lot of people that like to stay here but they
can't afford to understand is is it the housing or is it a combination of Housing and affordability overall thank you good conversation about this issue I think it's something that um at least I I've bumped into a number of people who
have had this thinking about how it's needed there was a study it was done a while ago unfortunately and you know I think this might help to entice those rfps and and to see we can get and how we can get that accomplished in the
community um the next uh subject I wanted to bring up was energy and envelope pilot update and so um I've sat on two meetings now with the um the folks at the county and the city and um of course myself and we've talked about
that pot of money that was put together for um Energy Efficiency and that sort of thing uh I'm poised to have my first bill sent to me here as soon as it gets closed out we get the testimonial from from uh Shane steel at the city he's working with uh the person who's uh gone
through the process they were actually working on constructing the the the work was done on Tuesday and so um I haven't seen it yet but it might be in my inbox my email is been uh unfortunately I've been busy today but um I'm I'm we're poised to have that we've got four
people who have um are going through the process now they're accessing that that funding so that's a really good thing um the question poised to the the group on Tuesday was okay well we've got these people that are in the hopper and
hopefully we'll get them to the finish line and they can get all these improvements on their home where do the next money come from and so that's something that I'm looking at now with possibly state federal nonprofit entities and that sort of thing so um you know I just I just
wanted to give you an update on that to say it's it's being used and people are really benefiting from that so um that's a wonderful thing that the to when we give a pot of money like that to an organization like the county and the city to say hey look can we benefit
people's lives and then it ends up happening so more on that in the future as soon as I get some more of these bills in um but uh that's good to know the next uh subject I really wanted to point out was the possibility of I I AR
um applications so I kind of put these out of order by accident I guess but the Hamilton habitat received a a grant with the ITR I was down Twin Cities on the um 25th of February when the board met and
approved all these projects and it was it was really one of those things where that was a really um beneficial part of of that but unfortunately some projects didn't get funded that we are going to be looking at in future months um I've
talked to Sean and uh over at ITR and they suggested that there's going to be another uh um request for proposals in July with a funding date somewhere out in fall and so some of these projects that we have are going on community are
really important projects I wanted to point out one that was Nora scogan um Unfortunately they didn't get their funding but according to the ITR we're happy to take applications and continue to review that we we're not saying no on that project at all in fact
none of those projects um the other one I wanted to list one that was the borberg project it seems like there's some renewed interest in bukberg um and and it the Pud is going to change somewhat from what it was before uh when it was before the Planning and Zoning
commission and before it was and before the city as well um and um that might make it a little bit more attractable for Theirs to support that in the Pro in the community we of course you'll know with bukberg we had to turn back some
funding that ITR did want to support um again they didn't say burn burn Bridge not going back they said we're encouraging you to apply in the future and so um the developer and I have had a conversation the developer and some
other people have had conversations in the community it sounds like there's uh a timeline that's pretty pretty good for us to go before the ITR in July to get some of these funding and maybe in the process U more conversations will be
done in the community for the benefit of this project and so um you know when when it did not uh get approved um there's a lot of concern about now what do we do and how is this going to look and there might have been something that you heard about on wtip a conversation
about that um what happened before what I would say is that um you know anak Don is a former city C member we said no to a project three times before we said yes to a project once and so I know that sometimes things need to be massaged and
changed and how they fit into the community how does it fit in the puzzle piece that's missing in the puzzle um and so um we might have more opportunity for us to apply for some of that funding and we might have more opportunity to see that project get done so good news
there uh I think that's the end of my report and I think we wanted to talk about financials next uh I think the financials were included in your packet I don't know if if there's any any questions on that U
one of the things that is on my to-do list um going forward is to lay out more a clearer dashboard um that talks that that lays out the financing for each of the projects that the H has been involved in
developing and just to be make sure that we're all you know have have just a clear presentation about which you where where the project stands and what what funding is coming from where because it um just a useful tool that's not in
place yet the parts of it are with the um the materials that Jason has handed off but plan to make that a priority to work on for our April meeting um are there any questions on the expenses okay
um any other um strategic Plan update I don't know if we want to address that we haven't we've talked about that a bit but do you say anything else you wanted to well I think the the the point that I guess we can make on that is that there's continued conversations between
Mary Snus and Bill cabler about having that when and how does that look and so um we'll find some times and put that together I think that's a good thing for us to have have that discussion um but yeah that's all I have for an update on that okay excuse me uh would that be a workshop uh sort of
situation I think it would be I think that would be like a half a day you know maybe in the afternoon or morning depending on what schedules look like and um board still supports Mary to be the facilitator she would come in and we'd facilitate looking what the Strategic plan looks like now and how
it's going to impact the future and how do we make it look that way so yeah moving on I don't think we've have any uh uh committee reports um any are there any other commissioner items to um
add you want to just go in order or does anybody else have Al so I met at with the for knowledge and approval of the board I met with the uh board of directors of visit Cook County the Cook County visitors bureau today to talk about a
voluntary Workforce housing service fee uh modeled on what we're doing right now with Cascade vacation rentals which has been very beneficial to us and um so I brought it to them and I also presented the at the chamber meeting which is the
the the two organizations are are similar connected um but um and I just uh was suggesting to people that they might want to add a voluntary uh service fee so they basically the way it works at Cascade vacation rentals they have a
transparent uh 1% fee that's right up front when you look to book a room or book a uh stay with them uh that says this is a 1% fee that we charge that's used for to uh to go to the HRA for Workforce housing and they don't put any
constraint on us on how we use it so it's very good flexible money to have and it's quite a bit of money um you can see that Top Line in the financial report uh so I was just kind of Reviving that effort a little bit when it first
happened with Cascade there were several other properties that expressed interest and then it just kind of got lost in the in the shuffle so kind of putting it back fresh in mind so I requested that the the board of the visitors bureau uh passed a resolution in support and they
did unanimously and was well received um it doesn't have to be a 1% fee I mean this isn't a tax right so it doesn't need the legislature anything it's something they do on their own and they could even make it they could even present it as a voluntary check off thing or a Roundup you know whatever
they can design it however they want as the only legal restriction is it has to be transparent up front so people know but uh which would be only ethical anyway so it seemed like there was a lot of interest um you know if I use just as an example if Odyssey and Bluefin were
to do this at a one% it would be it would be a really significant amount of money that we could use every year to subsidize predevelopment cost cost rent subsidies you know U construction snafus you know you name it really good flexible money so if
with the board's approval I'm going to keep pushing on that the plan is for clar sorry Claire Stoddard um has who's an owner at V at Cascade vacation rentals has agreed to go with me to the
decision makers at at some of the major uh lodging organizations to actually talk to them one one about this to try to convince them to come on board I'm Jason tells me told me that I'm not exact I'm not permitted to make the actual ask but but clar can so um but I
just provide the information and just talk about how useful it would be to us and I think given the fact that funding especially from the federal government but you know a lot of that passes through the state um and just given the current political climate we're probably
not going to see any big increases in housing funding coming up in the next four years or so so if we can do it ourselves all the better you know but it's but the burden the actual payment comes from visitors to the county uh Steve serba just anecdotally I said do you get any push back from clients and
he said we've never had a complaint he said I've had five or six people who made the effort to reach out to me to say how grateful they were to be able to make that wow contribution that they were happy to do it because they understood the problem so he said it actually works as kind of a a net gain
PR gain for them people are glad that they're doing something to help out so yes I think it's a great a great concept uh in in your representing it um you said that they would be unrestricted
funds and and could what I mean by that is that that if if if we look at that I my recommendation if people share the value of where their money is going that the selling point of it would be I think that would be huge in how it's
represented if you move forward and and because funding mechanisms oftentimes lose their vision and get used elsewhere that if the board chooses to have that discipline built into the resolution whatever I think it'd be advisable
because then you can always point to here's the value this is where your money is going and U and it'd be subject to something else if if that were going to change and then the trans transparency issue would be communicated with that change Nota but I think value
is the selling point yeah they um I mean there's no reason why an organization couldn't say I want my money spent in cofy or schroer you know which should be fine we can do that if we can't spend it we give it back but um it's um or use or
get their permission to use it more generally just have a Workforce housing fund that's you know it's identified and that's yeah so I mean I they you don't have to sell the businesses in Cook County on the need for housing they know
more than anyone they know so uh it was very well received and I I'll follow through uh um the executive director is the same person for both those organizations chamber and the and so she said she would bring it allow me to come before the chamber board as well and get
a resolution of support from them I'm hoping they'll use their Goodwill to help promote it you know put it in their newsletter kind of you know propagated among their uh their members so they people are aware of it and aware of the possibility and then CLA and I can go in and close the deal she can close the
deal plant the seeds but and it's not limited to housing or lodging it's could be anything could be canoe rental as I keep pointing out to my daughter and son-in-law who are actually are interested I mean they didn't they didn't poo poo it when they they provide
housing for all their employees and you know everybody's in a different situation some people may not be able to or want to participate and that's fine that's the beauty of it is it's voluntary so terrific thank you any other commissioner items uh just a note that
uh you piling on um uh the importance to recognize the Goodwill that we have in the community I think people generally are supportive of uh greater accessibility of housing uh it's not often you'll uh tack on a fee for anything and get people thanking you for the opportunity to to give you more
money um I think there's an opportunity there for um you know getting out a message that we'd want to get out whether it's for collecting useful data to us that we have no mechanism to you know force people to provide but just say here's a voluntary survey it will help us better serve uh housing in the
community I think you'll get a much higher than average uh response rate uh than any arbitrarily selected survey and I think that uh it's it's difficult for an individual perhaps in the community at large to think about well what can I do to make housing more accessible in
this community that's a large problem if you give somebody a tangible thing that's quite reasonable you know pay an extra 1% on your vacation um take this you know uh housing survey you know give us some information that's valuable to
us costs you nothing and takes you 20 minutes of your time um those are sorts of things that you can put uh simple tangible uh steps in front of people and get uh information or resources that are quite useful to us actually at the meeting uh today Linda jerck was
brainstorming and thought what about a Roundup uh like a two-month Roundup program that people could sign on to like the co-op does where as you check out at any store in town or where whoever decides to participate they say would you like to round up to the even
dollar to benefit Workforce housing in and support the H in Cook County if that was done by a significant number of business businesses in July and August that could that could end up being a fairly good donation so but that was her idea to something she's like what about this what about so people were thinking
it's great to see great Homegrown Solutions yeah I love it uh that's all we have is there a motion to [Music] adjourn I move everybody's having too
much there was a pause a second I'll second okay all in favor all thank you everybody
super thank you Jeff yeah yeah good job I'm GL upate everybody cuz there's a lot of stuff going on