Okay, great. We have a quorum. And Mr. Bisson, I don't know that we have any Belle Isle Park advisory committee members online joining us. If so, we will make sure they get introduced at the right time. But while you're ascertaining that we will go into our action items, the first of which would be the approval of the July 18 meeting minutes. Are there any questions or comments or changes? All right, moved by Curtis, is there a second, seconded by Elliot, with that All in favor, any opposed or some absent? Okay, great. Thank you. Mr. Bis. I understand Miss Woods is on the call? Good evening. Would you like to introduce yourself, summer.
Hi summer woods and calling in from Detroit, Michigan.
Great to see you. Thank
you, summer. Okay, so we have approved minutes Next we move into general updates, beginning with our parks and recreation updates. Mr. Olson on the call, or who will be delivering that report? I'll
do that. So Ron is out fishing. It's his one vacation of the year, so he's already sending me smack top photos of the fish he's catching while we're here. Yeah. So congratulations to him, but in general, just small update regarding the Parks and Recreation division we're currently working through our capital outlay priorities for 2025 and should be hearing from those soon on how Belle Isle and the urban district fared, we obviously have dedicated capital outlay money for Belle Isle every year, so Amanda will get to the projects that we're going to be doing later tonight. Don't want to go over that too much, and I don't want to step into Gail stuff, but just a brief update. And I didn't I'm hoping I'm going to steal from your sheet here. Okay, good. I don't see the boathouse on here, so I'm just going to talk about
it now. Okay,
so we received two proposals from the three groups that successfully submitted letters of intent, so we have two proposals in front of us, and the DNR team will be taking a look at those proposals to verify that they've met the criteria we set forward, remember, we asked for public access, we asked for a funding mechanism. We asked for experience with rehabilitation of historic structures, and obviously, for a financing possibility or a plan. So once we take a look at those plans, if we have any follow up questions for the proposers, proposers sounds like a word. Once we, you know, have a chance to talk to them, fill in the blanks. If there are any, then we'll be presenting the proposal, or the proposals that qualify to BiPAC and to the Bic and to the rowing club and to the sailing club and so that is still being worked on. It's been two weeks. We did receive two so please bear with us. But just wanted to share that update.
Thank you. Questions.
This is going to be a very difficult deal to put together, so we just want to understand that very, very difficult because it's a publicly owned property and we can't close those collateral funding. So it's going to be, it's going to be good point.
That's all I have. Excellent. Thank you. Okay, Miss woods, just raise your hand. We'll keep trying to watch, in case you have anything. Alright, Tom's so you you covered both A and B, then right, we're ready to move. Or just Mr. Pick Yeah, Gail, take
care of the park stuff. Gail
Fitch, welcome this evening.
Evening. Yeah, just a couple of things with the beginning for winding down the season. We have things like shelter reservations and rental spaces like that starting wind down a bit. We have everything up and running, and we maintain it, all those facilitates well into the fall,
we will be
questioning. I get a lot. How long will the side be running? That will be up until Labor Day weekend on Fridays, the second things and Sundays.
For the folks online, hopefully everybody can hear,
I'll quickly repeat, we have our rental and event spaces winding down, but still running until into the fall, and we will be ready and maintaining those until then. As for the Giants fly, we'll be running that until through the Labor Day weekend, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Fridays, 1230 to 530 and Saturdays and Sundays. 1033, $31 a ride. Come out and see us. And that's that's all I got at the moment. Reachable anytime
uncle, yet you've all got questions for him. Somebody press a button and you got it checked. It's objective
questions for Mr. Pitch. All right, so with this slide, then it's really only open for two or three more weeks. Then if it's Labor Day, right? Okay,
three more to go. Okay,
all right. So, oh, I suppose it is probably worth mentioning this. Amanda was going to cover this, but an update on the megaphone project. Is that something you were going to update on, or I know that's been through, okay, so we won't bother get with that now. Okay, all right, so we'll move into the law update. I see we have Lieutenant ciska here in person. It's great to see you in person, we welcome you to the hot seat. Thank you. Usually you get to put people in the hot seat.
I appreciate that Lieutenant our law enforcement vision for DNR, last meeting, I was asked to put forth statistics, very good for what our efforts have been out here for summer and actually for two years to show you what kind of sitting and Tom I appreciate if you can forward the slides when you get it. Yeah, just give me time I get it. I'm working off my phone.
Just want to make sure
everybody can see you. All right, should be good to go. So I don't have MSPs data. They will provide it when we did it, we can show you what they're doing for success, which we both cowork. Yeah, I went to law enforcement after us, but I'm going to give you a peek into what we do for our law Division team. And we, we do a whole year segment of this for Detroit City Council when we present here annually. So what I'm showing you are three basically from beta, August or eight months, because after that, our statistics or data would show that, you know, activity levels are level. So, um, if you could, um, so we had a big problem with, oh, no picture. So I there's a picture there of an officer that's getting trained for radar. There you go. So we between 2023, and this year, we've been equipping and training more of our caster based officers in radar and LIDAR training, because when we've seen it speeds a problem on the island right, and it ties right into public safety issues. So our general law enforcement that we do really radar is not something that we usually accompany itself, as our grass roots are fishing game enforcement, even though we're fully commissioned law enforcement officers. So we get small amounts of general funding to go into our efforts. So with that, we need tools to help us. So we've been outfitting our officers with them as we can, and we've been training quite a few poor in this. And we've used the island as it's been very good for training officers. So with that, we have the mobile radar, a platform that can be moved around a trailer. And then Tom was gracious with parks to put up those initiative signs that are in different areas. It says the sisters feed, and it's generating out the public. Hey, you know, depending take this seriously, slow down. So with that, you want to move to the next 2023, stats.
So
in a nutshell,
in a given year through the months, you can see the first columns, contacts, then there's complaints and their color coded arrests, warrant arrest, warranties and assists and then tickets. So this is for 2023 data. So we have a lot of public contacts, and that if we're not hitting 2000 3000 a month, it would surprise me, because of the unbound citizen. And say, Come on the islands. And with that comes complaints, right? So you can see some of the peak months happen as the summer progresses. And it's not unlikely to get 65 a month or over, and that's just citizens calling into the dispatch hotline and certainly help with so when we talk about physical, physical arrests. We're not really averaging a whole lot, and you'll see that our numbers are even going down this year from that. That just shows you that I think it's starting to work for some of our front grant retention stuff. But when we say arrest, these are physical, any custody or someone's done something that's really, really bad, that's random, and that's whether it's a domestic dispute in other shelters or you have somebody that's, you know, unfortunately times to be driving a cost accident. So you can see the data shows that as we hit these months in 2738 1212, it's not a whole lot of address Well, we do pick up on a lot of Unfortunately, our warrant arrests, because people don't take care of whatever tickets they get out there in the general world, when they get a traffic stop with an officer or something, and it's ran this person, we had had so many warrants, the courts want to pick up on some. Don't, but we have to track the data, so I'll just say even those arrests warrant arrest numbers are high. They're not always physically being put in custody, because if a court cannot receive them, then they're just released. So we give a lot of warnings in a year, and then assist would be for the medical fire, all those different runs that we're doing it. And if you look at ticket numbers in reality, like 134 111 126, 86 we're not really even breaking that's supposed to like 400 and dull math. So that's for 2023 those are physical citations. And if you look at how many people were contacting versus the number of citations issued out it's pretty and a lot of those citations are traffic, and it's there's a lot out here. We do have a lot of park violations too, which are simple infractions, but by far and large, majority of things are traffic drive issues. So time continue to slip to 2024, so a lot of the same trends that you're seeing, you can see we hit our peak. July is always busiest, and then August. So any of our data is going to show that, and I ran it as far as even today. So that's going august 1, August 15. So we'll probably see an increase before that ends for this month. But we're already at this month. We're already tracking 11. We're 1174 contacts, 29 complaints, three physical arrests, four warrant arrests, which is pretty low, and 115 warnings, three assists and 29 tickets issued. So, and of those, 29 and those are, again, traffic citations, so, and if you go to the last slide, Tom that will that'll show you together, like these modelings. But you can see we're pretty close on peak size, on a lot of the same thing. So this pretty goes on average. We go back to our beginning roots of the year we took this 10 years ago. It's going to be huge, and we've been seeing this shrink down. So I think we're having a good effect on public Savio here, and I think awareness is a little bit better. I mean, wherever you go, you're still going to have some elements that don't want to behave, and that's by law enforcement. So we appreciate it. I just wanted to put that out and be transparent that you know, in reality, although there are citations issued in a given year, they're low compared to the contacts that are that are out there in public. So, and that's all I have on your head. He has questions. Yeah,
thank you. What would you say the Michigan State Police numbers are their years equal higher low,
I would say suspect lower, because their bodies they put out aren't as many as what we usually carry to the whole season, their staffing plan is different than ours, because we're covering, like, late hours. So we're not in the later hours because Tom has security secured at the bridge, doesn't incur as much issues as, like, your daytime stuff. So, like, our peak issues are after doing things, really, to be honest, I hope this could be later in the day weekend is is pretty high, after some action to happen. If we get Detroit state police, that would be great.
Yeah,
we'll get in that file. Take a look here. We'll get that to you, and we'll keep pumping the information you're requesting. So we can show you one. Yeah,
the last question, I think that it's very. Second to see those speed signs that are lit up. How many do we have on the island?
We're up to war,
right? All right? Tom, yeah, I have three stationary ones
from last year, and then I have one that I just got on the bridge this year. And then Sergeant Owens has the mobile one that can be moved about the island for event purposes. And, you know, enforcement of areas that become problematic
and we keep looking like Tom and I Gail talk about this all the time. Where can we put more of these? We're open for public because there's zones out there that we want to make sure. I mean, our goal would be, they're not they're not cheap. I know Tom can quote it, but the leaving aspect probably needs to be addressed to, like, bridge wise, right? Because incoming, we're doing it, but unfortunately, like when we're doing radar stationary, that bridge is like, yeah, it's terrible. Like, it's a really nice bridge. I'm not saying the bridge is bad, but it's a speed. It just opens up our speed, because we've had vehicles clocked that are coming on in excess of 8590 miles an hour, because, and we all know, with all this grande aisle, if you're doing that speed, you maintain it. You're getting some air when you're coming down past the park office. And we don't want anybody here. And what
are the thoughts of a drone or a couple of drones?
Well, we've talked about drones, but like, DNR policy right now is kind of like, it's kind of a no fly zone for us, law enforcement DNR, MSP has drone capability, and we can bring them into this discussion. For the DNR, they use them for forestry, in most sorts of practices, and then for GIS mapping, but for like, a law enforcement tool for PRD and led, it's just not bought up right now. You said it's a no fly zone, like I need for us to have, like we can't get it right now, but MSP could probably, you know, they do have drone capability, or drones, and we do try to see what we can do with them on most because they also have their helicopter draft. And when we have some of these high impact traffic days, we call them in because we're trying to get an overall what's going on out there. And I know we tried to get some more of that when you're having all the mobility studies going on, because it's hard on the ground, when you're here to see what traffic's doing. It's easier right up here to see and
draws would be so much cheaper than 200 rolls against one helicopter. Way that really three we cover the whole lab, yeah, but I
mean, for search and rescue and for the regular time ball, for your two minutes, it's just we're we ask we have to answer to our bosses right now, and our bosses are,
is that a political reason they don't do that? Or it's,
it's a budgetary I mean, yeah. I mean, obviously, if you have a drone and you're flying it over a park in a populated area, you have to have staff members that are trained. That's their job, right? Probably the only job they do. So that would be the first consideration, and then obviously the cost of the equipment itself. But you know, I the one thing I do want to add to the discussion, though, is that some of the improvements that MDOT has has implemented in the last year or so with traffic calming and crosswalks, and you'll see small crosswalk I don't want to call them bollards, because they're not bollards, but the small traffic signs that's had an impact in some of the areas that we saw, some concerning speeding, as you'll all recall the tragedy that happened at the beach a couple years ago. So there's a crosswalk there. Now. There's a crosswalk at shelter eight. MDOT will be implementing a project this coming fall for the strand and further on. And so some of that plan will also have some traffic calming too this fall only,
I would imagine some of the provisions in the mobility study as well, our strategy, I should say, will hopefully mitigate some of the negative impacts. All right, any other questions for the lieutenant? Well, thank you very much. Lieutenant,
thank you for your time again, and I'll make sure that, again, Lieutenant coordinates info, this setting with clients will get it
well, I think it also should be noted with the number of contacts you're having. It also means your ambassadors for the park, right? You're messaging, you're making people feel comfortable. You're having good, positive interaction. That is a way to control the behaviors too, right? Where you leave them feeling good? You leave. Them wanting to be compliant and trying to educate them on what's acceptable and what's not so. Thank you for that, too.
Thank you. Great work again.
I'll give the hot seat to the
next All right. Well, now we oh, your next victims are our next victims right here. Welcome. Amanda Treadwell, we look forward to our infrastructure report, very
quiet, saving,
okay, and for sharing updates for August and always, we're going to start off on everybody's favorite current construction project. So lots going on there that I've been covering over the last year. Even though we're done with the dome glazing, there's still a lot more to do. So I've got some pictures about the showroom. There's a lot of work going on in their time before just a minute
bar disappeared
down. Where did you go to the arrows?
I usually have a PDF. We'll do what I wanted to do when I come down here.
Yeah, manually, like this. You're suggesting, right? Amanda, do the arrows
on the arrow. Sometimes these little details,
give that shot.
It was there, and then I did something else.
Okay, okay, so here's share museum show room floor in construction they went down. We have a very nice exposed stone perimeter around there, you can see. And there that hole in the floor is done forming the plain concrete that will go in the center. It looks like that club. And then that contraption on the left is what they had to do to get the concrete in you to the showroom. And they had to do that twice. You did one core with that exposed aggregate. And then they had to come back and do the four. Actually, they had to come back again to do the walls, which are you'll see next so, and then narrow all finished looking good, all the little brick trip hazards out of there. So that's looking really nice. Look at the walls there. And then Jeremy will put in new soil and get it all ready for what we anticipate will be a winter reopening for the public. So working with a contract for getting that ready. And then 2024
winter or 2025 Yeah.
And then we did a lot of work on this overlook of Lake Tacoma. They took out the gazebo and placed that in the garden, and then redid all this concrete here and that ugly security hole in the background that is removed now too. So this has become a really nice
space.
So the best of you is getting a new group that was leaking down, causing a lot of issues, even in the masonry on the bottom of the walls that has been on our to do list for a long time. So you can see they completely removed the decking, put in new steel decking. That's the new mentoring roots there. They're still working on the ceiling, but we beautiful sky blue, still paneled ceiling up there, you let it reopen. Next slide, this is some of the deterioration of the steel. You can see that over the years with the water coming down from the window. So that is, that's on the corner there, on the entrance, and that steel had to be replaced. I think it was just that one had to be replaced, and then all the others were exposed, plain painted, before they closed them up again. So yeah, because eventually we're looking to wind that down. The glass should be coming in September, and they'll start on the tropical house and then be finishing up in the Texas House. So now to the casino. Here's, this is, this is how detailed we get in these $6 million projects. Re doing the entire group, new structure, new drainage. Um, but we are detail oriented, and we have spent quite a bit of time on this proper ball here. This is, this was part of this. And from the original construction these, we redid the copper roofs on the dormers back in like 2017 and this time around, when we're doing the roof, is that, let's put these proper details back on it's we integrated into the new lightning protection system. So you can see, on the picture on the right, there's that fit proper cable. That's the protection system, lightning system that goes all the way down the ground. So if you look at it, you wonder what those metal cables are going down. That's blanking protection. So there's one of these on each for the dormers and the break. When they're all done, they're still working on where they need to go. This is just a mock up, but in the then these are the towers we had to do a lot of structural repair underneath these play tiles are very heavy and a lot of times still many of these buildings around the park, for example, shelter nine so the casino, the calculations for the structural members don't meet current code that been standing there for 100 years, but to put it back, we've got to reinforce a lot of these. So that was reinforced. Some of the stringer one stringers was replaced, and you can see here the ice and water shield the left side, and then the process of putting on the plate tile there. And then, look really closely, you can see a lot of the copper flashing that's put on under the windows and using a lot of the historic materials when we look to replace the use of big features of the building that slide there. You can see, as you know, Bell Isle contingency, I always say, is double every other contingency you can see on the left there. And they remove the old flashing a lot, and that masonry was deteriorated, so they started to replace it. You can see where the top point of replaced. So they restored that integrity of the grip there, and then they'll replace that with the copper flashing. You can see on the right next slide, I think last time I was showing the new ceiling fans in the back porch. Now they're all painted and finished up. And on the right, that's the contractors continue to put in new drywall to replace a lot of the deteriorated wall that was faster, that was damaged because of the roof leaking and then as well at this spot, but we had a lot of the utility lines coming down for the new AC equipment. Next slide, and there this kitchen, we had to remove all that, all the metal wall sheeting, replace electric outlets and replace the wall, the material behind it, because it was all completely deteriorated from leaking. So that was another spot that we are addressing the interior generation. Next slide, all right. Now, moving on to shelter nine. You can see on the right all those black pieces are what were, what had been put in to shore up the wood post because the bottoms were deteriorated. So they like, cut off the bottom from the post and put those in around the outside. What we're doing is going in and replacing the entire post now, and so there's maybe they're doing it in third. So a third of those posts are being removed. It's all being shored up. You can see best deal post storing up the roof there. And they're when they do a third they equally spaced it throughout the whole shelter and stuff. And then in that picture on the left, you can see the new eight by eight with posts getting ready to be put up. Those are treated from the borate to, you know, weather them, and then they have a good primer and pink tongues looking really nice. It should be, hopefully done around October or October again, the multi mobility study, the team is wrapping that up. We expect to have that final report issued this month, and then once the DNR, the IC, MDOT review that make recommendations to further. Report will be sharing what those final recommendations are to the public. We expect to post that on the mobility website, and we're talking about the best way to communicate the results of that study. And then also, we're looking to use this opportunity to transition invite people into our next phase, which is Park wide strategic development plan. This mobility study really key to inform that plan going forward, and looking at how we're connecting all the different wonderful facilities and amenities in the park so and then at the top I just had on there, we will be focusing on implementing some of the way finding around the part that's related to the vehicular weight binding, and then we'll be phasing into the pedestrian bicycle wave finding, hopefully in the next year or Two, after that slide, the Ralph Wilson trail is kicking off here soon. We've got our contractor on board. He's submitting all his paperwork and submittals that call or meeting tomorrow with Rick price to go over the scheduling the DYC work, but we'll have to work closely with them, because the trail will interface with their entrance there to the to the club, and this year, the goal is to complete that DYC gap there, and then also the portion of the trail in front of the US Coast Guard. So we'll, depending on what how schedule flushes out with those two groups. I don't know which one first, yet to be determined. And then, so the orange line is the Wilson trail. The blue line is that represents our two way cycle track that we'll be implementing as part of that mobility recommendation. And then Tom was mentioning the M dot resurfacing project, which, for the most part, overlaps with the two way cycle track. Their project is a little bit shorter. It starts at the road picnic way. So there starts where the asphalt is and then comes around to the other side of the bridge entrance by the toll booth. So we're working closely with the MDOT team to align those the two way cycle track with their resurfacing, and they will be implementing some of the markings to complement that, and then again, to Tom and Todd's point about slowing down the traffic. We're also working with our mobility team to implement some rapid fire beeping at some crossings. One of the big changes will be the two way bike lane. The bike lane won't shift at insulin. And I'll stay on the inside till I don't know the first big loop elbow there and come in so well, it's on your loop around there. So bicycles can just loop around on the inside if they have want to do more than one loop. And then that we knew that will be a safer crossing
further down there. So we're hope to roll that into the trail project, and we'll be adding funding. We anticipate that funding to that contract, so we can coordinate all those efforts together slide and then just want to give her a sneak peek of our wonderful this is one of the one example of the interpretive signage that will be going on these flatwood trail kiosks that are just sitting there waiting to get their sign down on the bird migration. This one of my favorite interpretive panels. If you go this particular one is down at the beach. If you go to the next slide, Tom, you can see we've got QR codes for people to link on to birdcast and eBird and Merlin. So while they're walking through the flatwoods or anywhere on the park, they can, you know, that's a great tool to see what you're listening to. I use them all the time out here. I'm walking my dogs, and so just to tie into the megaphone, Michelle, you mentioned that. So we were talking, I was talking to the rep on that object. Thing we should do, you know, similar signage. We can get the QR codes out there by the mecha phone.
So the people are sitting
there in their home of, you know, natural sounds, they can see what they're listening to. So that is project is coming along, and actually they had a wonderful video of the Atlantic impact students that put that together. This project was sponsored by the Ralph I showed it before, sponsored by Ralph Wilson, and they partnered with Atlantic impact, their young folks in Detroit, and these kids get paid and paid summer job, and they learn hands on construction skills and well, I was told that that video is ready to go, and we can share it. We'll post it on our work with Tom and his team that can post on our Facebook page. But that's a really wonderful project that's come out. So we're still working with the Michigan Tech team. They had a whole team that came down from the public peninsula to do sound studies about the best place to put that forward, so figuring out where that's going to be, so to be determined, but it's ready when we find a landing spot for it to go. So I think that was it. Yeah,
questions, covid,
that number put December? When?
December? Yeah, okay,
a lot of people the main question, I
know, yes, believe me, I know, right, yes, yeah.
And then the the other project, like the casino, that for next year. I
mean, that is for next year, not because of the roof, but because of I didn't talk about the elevator this month, but I'll say about that, but that'll be that should be wrapped up soon, actually. But then we also doing the ADA accessible walk and the porch resurfacing and redoing the ADA access up about the pool, and not sure I can't commit to this year. We're rolling down the side and make it happen. Yeah, I'll know more.
Anybody else.
I'll just note too that I think you've gotten a lot of folks wandering around the conservatory that I think on Google, they're pulling from old information. I just want to make sure everyone listening online and here knows that. You know that the update from Amanda that are talking in December, because even if you check you just don't think that it's changed. Just checked it out.
Yeah, and we go to the DNR web page, we have a banner at the top with an updated fortunately, we can't pull old news articles from three years ago, and so people look at those, and maybe they don't read the dates, but they think it's current. You know,
so and all the visitors, sometimes the visitor decides they'll listen at some places, oh, my last month, like, oh, we get up online. So they walk up there, you'll see, when you get the answer, I think a lot of people, guys come out like, especially in the summer, Summer. Do
you have anything before I go, Okay, Amanda, great, great presentation. As always, I know that in the beginning, like 10 years ago, you guys did a bunch of work on the snow. Is this duplicate work? Is this different board focused
on? That was the band aid. This is
the Yeah, yeah. So that was, well, we were, we did some structural repairs there that, like, replaced 30 flat valleys not attached in there's a lot of that, and then replacing some of the clay tiles. But that it's best hard to do in peace. So there was still a lot of leaking. And, I mean, we have those burned out things and poses going down, like all a little bit, yeah,
this is the
bottle. Yeah. That was like, maybe with a minimum, that when we did the scene on river, that was like, we were just trying to fix the big structural issues, or trying to stop the leaks, it's about to be good. And then we also, at that time with the IA building, we did the complete structure. Over here, there's type orders,
yeah, this is probably go ahead.
Could you just share a little bit about the million for folks? Thanks. We're in this beautiful building, and there's the right here. Oh, sure,
sorry. In building, yes, it
is nice to be back in here. It's been a while. It's been closed for a few years, not because the scope of work was so long, but because it just, you know, that's our funding site that is in so we don't have enough funds, and there isn't funding around it, you may have to wait there not to be there. So unfortunately, that was why it was sold so long the work that was done be replaced all through the single being window bottom that was already insulated glass with insulated glass. And then really see so much on the inside, but on the outside, a lot of that the wood surrounds was replaced because it was rotted through so it was flat water would get trapped there, and this side, especially with the southern exposure and all the wind and the wood from here to here, pretty much just all rod of that. I mean, you could just stick your finger through it. So they replaced, like probably 70% of all the window frames and they, you know, it was all hand done, like, you know, the wood. And then we did modify the new design a little so that it slanted out, so hopefully it will just have to be redone as soon because the city had done this fairly recently, 15 years ago, but it's just the it's just gets so much weather on the side of the building, but yeah, and then maybe we finished big doors, like we eventually took some point in their old rail. They really took
that out. It also,
yeah, and then January point and
again. I, you know, I always try to do mission moment, right? I thought, Yes, we're in the Flynn pavilion. It should be our mission moment, right? Because it's one of the, I think, one of the most beautiful structures on the island. And so it's wonderful that the DNRs preserving it, because, if I recall correctly, I think it was designed by Robert Swanson, who was a student of Yamasaki. So it's historically significant, architecturally significant. It has those classic elements of his which are the glass and the stone combination. And we know how much history has taken shape here. Right at one point was the launch pad, and for those who wanted to go ice skating, correct? And that was kind of the observatory area up there. So it's beautiful today that we were looking at the swans earlier, right? And it's always so light filled, and then in the winter, you can watch many folks out there ice skating. So I hope the DNR feels really proud about in fact, that was going to be one of my questions for you, Amanda, too, and the team. I guess it's twofold. One, have you been here 10 years yet you're probably right about there, right? Yeah, there's probably not anybody who knows the park better than you, right? You've seen every little nook and cranny, and the cumulative impact of that work is so significant, and sometimes it's hard to realize because it's so piecemeal and gradual, right? But it's major, and I'd love to know which was your favorite project, if you if you have one or which was your most interesting nook? Was it the glad the Tiffany? Okay, she got her
answer. That was just very transformative, and it just looks so lovely now up to like the gentleman, hand cap, hand working those finials, copper finials on top. But, yeah, I think that was a that was building was in really bad shape, and it looks so good now. And they had a really great talented skill well. And as you
were talking about putting the copper back on the the casino, and it reminded me of what Ford has done at the Michigan Central Station, right? That just real commitment to the historic preservation so know that we're doing that here on Bell Island. That was going to be my second question for the whole team, because we're here in partnership, right? How can we support you? Is there something more that you need beyond just these report outs? Do you need help with advocacy? Do you need help? I mean, I the answer. Yes, I suppose, right, you need more resources. But is there something tangible that we can do to support you or anybody on the call, or if you need time to think about that? But let's think very, you know, solution oriented like that, right as we convene these meetings, so don't be afraid to come and ask. Or is it something we advance on our own social media channels, or a programming idea or a partner, or, you know, something that's just missing and been troubling you for a long time. You know, let's, let's talk about those things. So just know we're here to assist and really further the work. Michael,
sure that you're
going to have people come in for that.
What does that start? Yeah, we're really just at the preliminary planning stages to figure out what that engagement piece would look like. And when I was going like a one year, some of really a year and a half. But, yeah, that's a great thing to bring up. Essentially, what I was thinking is just spreading the word to everyone and encouraging people to participate in all the different you know, whether it's personal or virtual or survey, I think we'll have a lot of different opportunities for folks to participate in that. But that is, that is what I feel like we've been working together for, for the last 10 years. Take that to this point where we can, you know, look, look, what's been done and we moved and then work with the community where we go,
make it a celebration. Michael,
what you were saying about what the building means everybody, for me, it's emotional. I mean, I just put my hockey school down right over there. I can tell you little Mikey did that. There was so many kids in this building, and there was rows of benches where people could just sit and put your skates on. And it was so full and so exciting
my life right there. Music, oh yeah,
your commitment has certainly manifested itself here too. You've been with us from the beginning, and really love Detroit, so it's an honor to serve with all of you. All right. Thank you very much. Amanda, public comment, speaking of our other partners, our public our community, right? So this is obviously a very important part of the meeting where we are in connection with our community. I know we have some folks present here, Mr. Visit, I hope that you can help us. I would just advise folks who do want to speak virtually to just put their hand, their virtual hand up, and we'll get to them. We unfortunately, it's not an opportunity for back and forth. That's just not how these meetings are organized. But we will do our best to be customer service oriented and get you the answers that you need. And I'm really excited to hear from you. You have three minutes. I will set my timer. We just ask that you, in this case, come to the hot seat and say your name and take it away, and then the same for those that might be online. So I'll open it up. Do we have a I believe we do.
Richard revick, I've worked down the island for over 20 years, when it was Detroit police radio, the office building now, and my main concern is the police station, because in four short years, we're going to celebrate the 100th anniversary of police radio, which began right here in Detroit. And I'd like to see some progress, and then building. Since she turned off, instead of building, she had to be running that
and I remember that day of the 90th anniversary, so can't believe we're four years away from the 100th All right? Well, great point to be part of that strategic plan discussion, right? Thank you for all that you've done and your commitment. So anybody else here in the present? Okay, what about online? I have any hands been raised? No, okay, so we'll close the public comment portion of the meeting and move into member comments. Any of my teammates like to speak or be heard or share something
I'll share, but just to echo what Amanda had said about the island wide development plan and building out the community engagement strategy for that if anyone has a cadence of existing community meetings where it'd be beneficial to come speak about just even the process and and then provide some links to surveys and kind of just in overall context. It doesn't have to be whole meaning that to itself, but there's a nimbleness to kind of coming to where folks already are gathering. So please, please reach out and let us know. Um. Um, either to myself or neither. And we're communicating about this all the times.
Summer, you're good,
yeah, no, I'm good. I was just gonna echo, just the earlier about the Flynn, excited that it's back open and and that's appreciate that that's
about all I got.
Great.
Um, I think we, oh, birthday. Well, actually, summer, I think last month it was your birthday. So belated birthday wishes to you, and you almost share a birthday with the bell Isle aquarium. If I recall correctly, I think it just had its 100 and 20th anniversary. Uh, well, so
on Sunday is when we're celebrating that. So please come out this coming Sunday rain or shine, which is a very important part of that. Rain or shine, we'll be celebrating. We'll have a bounce house, a DJ free food, just a lot of fun activities and engagement for families. And we'll be celebrating this beautiful historic building and all that goes on inside of it. So that'll be from 11 to four on Sunday.
Great.
We'll meet you there. Community. All right. Well, my goodness, are we to adjournment? Is there a motion? Second? Curtis Thomas, all in favor, the opposed, right? We are adjourned at 652 Thank you. Everybody see on the islands? Yeah,
