HHAND Commission Monthly Meeting January 2025

For being here. Welcome to our new commissioners. Uh, yeah, we are an actual commission now with a quorum and can do some business. So thank you. Uh, and a new commissioner arriving as well.

I have— I have Laura— Jessica, sorry, Jessica.

Papers.

Join us, and then we'll get into roll call.

Jessica, nice to see you, not on Zoom. Nice to be here, I know, in person.

I did underestimate the ride. Yeah.

Oh, great. So this is, this is our first meeting with an actual quorum since probably the beginning of summer. So this is, this is wonderful to have. We'll start off, uh, with roll call. My name is David Rittenberg and I am a commissioner.

Daniel Sager, commissioner. Richard Maestrom, commissioner.

Frankie Dell, uh, staffer for this commission. And online.

Well, good afternoon. Farina Brown, Special Assistant to the Mayor, Homelessness and Health.

And this is Thea Agnew-Bemben, also Special Assistant to the Mayor for Homelessness and Health. All right, thank you everybody for being here. We'll move on to approval of the order of business. Can I get a motion to approve the agenda? Move to approve.

Do I get a second? Any discussion?

Any updates or changes? Anything you want to add to the agenda? Move around.

Seeing and hearing none, we have unanimous consent to approve the agenda. Anyone opposed to approving the agenda as presented?

See that, guys? We just did the business. Ah, awesome. Um, and then we can move to approval of minutes. And would we be able to also approve previous minutes, um, or did I miss that when we did the proof of agenda?

You know, I— so I think another 30 minutes to It would be from the last—. Maybe, maybe we want to, um, table that for the next meeting to catch up on minutes. But, um, can I get a motion to approve the minutes from the meeting of December 4th?

Approved. Make it a second. Second. I'm going to take a moment to review them, and if there's any discussion or corrections to the minutes, now is the time.

Any perspective on the minute?

All in favor, or can I ask for unanimous consent to approve the amendment? Any opposition?

All right, then it's approved. Wasn't right through. Awesome. Um, here.

Oh, okay, election of a new chair. And Secretary— oh, update from special assistance to the mayor. Yeah, I missed old business. So updates from special assistance to the mayor for health and homelessness. Uh, Farina and Thea, the floor is yours.

Well, hello again. Thea, are you in the room?

Or is she still walking? She's still walking. Alright. I'm not there yet. Okay, so just a quick update.

I am very pleased to say that we have warming center operations up and active as of January 3rd. That was something that our provider community really expressed the need for, as well as our hospital partners and the Anchorage Police Department, having a safe place that we can take individuals individuals in the late night hours, often when individuals are being discharged from emergency rooms or as our patrol officers are encountering individuals on the street. Instead of having those folks in the back of their police car for the next 3 or 4 hours while they try to figure out somewhere to take them that will keep them safe and warm, we now have a designated location. Warming Center operations have been activated nightly. As of 1/7, that would have been Tuesday night, was the first night that we actually hit capacity for warming and what that means based on, let me back up a little bit.

We initially solicited for multiple warming locations but we had one vendor, one bidder that really kind of exceeded the threshold. They wanted about $98 a head for an individual so their bid was way past what the municipality had funds to support. We had a second bidder that rescinded their application, which left us with one vendor offering warming services, and that was Henning at the Henry House. We solicited for services for up to 50 people at a single location. After Henning received their fire marshal inspection, they only had authorization to have 49 people in their space.

So we can only serve 45 people because the staffing ratio requires that there are 4 staff on site, which puts, pushes them to capacity at that particular location. Last night was the first time that we had individuals that were asked to wait and it was a situation of one in, one out, but just really grateful that we had the service available. APD drop-offs are pretty consistent, as well as calls from hospitals ensuring that they can safely discharge discharge someone. What we've seen now that we have kind of a functional continuum, while it was slow, we now have a functional cold weather system. Our providers are doing a really fantastic job of connecting and really talking about where there's capacity at different locations.

Something that happened organically with the providers, they had roughly 11 people throughout the night at warming that were able to be transported over to CWS, the congregate shelter on 56th Avenue for empty beds that were available throughout the night, which freed up 11 spots in warming and ensured that we were filling beds and that just individuals weren't cold outside when there were beds available at our congregate shelter. Those are not practices that we can put into kind of a policies and procedures or standard operations document. Those are things that we can absolutely ask for aspirationally, but are really a reflection of a functioning continuum of providers that are talking to each other in real time and connecting people to needed services. So it's something that I just wanna highlight that we are seeing as we are working through having a number, a diversity of vendors that are at the table. We are continuing to use coordinated entry in partnership with the coalition, as well as making sure that we are leaving our, or connecting with our partners through HOPE so that as they're doing their community outreach for individuals that are in encampments across town, that we're able to place those people using CE and that real-time boots-on-the-ground engagement from APD.

Not because Jessica's in the room, I would've said this if she were there or not, the coalition has really stepped in to support the work that we're doing when it comes to coordinated entry and really really finding individuals. It's— this is the first year, and you know, when we initiated this, I talked about that this is our first year of implementation where we have multiple vendors and we're using coordinated entry or the by-name list. And so there are a lot of, uh, ooches and ouches to kind of work out and how we find people and we move them into the system. And having everyone really be willing to lean in and figure out how do we operationalize that again from a policy aspirational level on what we would like to see. And then someone like Jessica and her team making phone calls at 10 o'clock at night to say, we found Joe, can he still get into that bed that we're holding?

Is, is something that I think is really important that all of you as commissioners recognize that as we move forward in our ongoing years under the LaFrance administration, we want to get better and better at what we're doing. So taking a data-informed look at how did this work, who did we serve, how did we create flow in the system by connecting them to housing and Where can we do things better? And then how do we actually operationalize the good work that we're seeing that happened organically are some of my aspirational goals I have for the commissioners. As you are thinking about how to partner and, and give that feedback to the administration, this component of service is so absolutely essential, but it is also incredibly expensive with high visibility when we get things right or wrong. And so I really look to all of you for feedback on how do we continue to do good work but operationalize it so that it's just a rote process.

And it is— and I say this understanding that when we're serving people, it is always going to have a rather hefty price tag. But how do we do it in a way that's economical?

Thea, are you in the room?

And if you're not and you're still walking, is there anything you'd like to add? Um, maybe just that here we are at the beginning of the year, we're getting our, um, I mean, the good part is we're really sticking to the strategy that we put out, but we'll be making some updates. Um, And sorry if I missed it, did you talk about kind of connecting with the hospital association? I did not. I have only provided an update on kind of the immediate success of, as of January 3rd, we activated warming and have not provided any of our partner contacts.

Great. Yeah, we're really trying to, as you know, like make a lot of connections within the broader healthcare landscape and specifically around behavioral health. So we've been really trying to engage those partners. We're interested in better connections with hospitals just because we know that sometimes there's discharges to shelter that don't always feel great and just a lot of gaps in the system for providing the type of supportive living that, that some people are going to need. So we're want to work on that.

Um, but yeah, there's a lot, a lot happening. We will be doing some more kind of external communications over this month on the work, the mayor's priorities, and the work that we're doing. Um, we're still working with AHD on some of the different funding sources. We have an RFP out right now for housing services that the deadline was extended, so If that was something you were looking at and you thought, dang, I missed it, it's actually extended now till the 14th.

So encourage people to apply for that because our priority really is with the folks that we're providing a location for through emergency shelter, we really want to be focusing on helping them move out to a more permanent outcome over the next few months. So I think that's all I would add.

Well, thank you both. Um, at this point, I'll open it up to questions, comments from commissioners.

I got a question for Thea. The RP that you mentioned, was that— that was for landlords?

Oh, no, no, that is for anyone who Any organization that wants to offer services that help people connect with housing, so it could be rapid rehousing, it could be, you know, navigation and supports, case management. Like, there's a whole list of things in the RFP that can be proposed, and it's the— you do need to be— Jed, correct me here if I'm wrong, but you do need to be a nonprofit to apply, but But what we've seen in other settings is, you know, sometimes obviously landlords aren't nonprofits, and so they can sometimes be a, you know, kind of subcontractor or contractor to a nonprofit in a proposal. So no, it's definitely not just for landlords. Yeah, it's— this is Jed. One update to what Leah said, we actually did get a couple more questions that we had to answer.

And so the deadline was pushed out one more day to the 15th. And yes, it is for housing services. There's a wide range of things it can be. It can be, it can be like rental assistance, it can be navigation support, it can be rapid rehousing. And yeah, it's the applicant Or the grant does need to be a nonprofit, but there can be partners or contractors involved.

It just, you know, it needs to meet the small purchasing requirements for single units. And that basically just means subcontracts. And yeah, so that's open until the 15th. It is $1.5 million of home ARC. It's a special allocation of fund funding, and then $1 million of general funds, 3.5, that's going to our IGP.

So it's 2.5, and there's no cap on the individual grant, so people can apply for however much they need up to that. Thoughts, questions, comments? I kind of have a question about what What does a night look like in the warming shelter? How much kind of churn is there in clients and how many people, I know it's early in the process, but I wonder how many people we're serving in the evening. Do people generally stay all night or are they in and out?

I do have some data points for you. On Friday night when shelter was initially activated, we had 62 unique individuals. So that was not 62 individuals in the building at one time, that are, that is representative of those that flowed through throughout the night. There were a total of 23 individuals that stayed from 8 PM to 8 AM, so for the full 12-hour shift. On Saturday, there were 53 unique individuals that touched the service, with 36 staying the full 12-hour period.

On Sunday, there were 49 unique individuals, with 33 staying the full 12-hour period. I don't have update, data updates for Monday and Tuesday.

What does the night look like for the people that are staying there for that 12-hour period? The 8:00 PM to 8:00 AM? So warming really is intended to be a low-barrier service that individuals can go in and you get to sit down, you get a blanket if you need a blanket, coffee, warm beverage, a snack, and then you have staff that are circulating if someone wants to connect to services or if someone is talking about how do I get into shelter, that there's the availability to do that. The shelter, the warming center operates 8:00 PM to 8:00 AM, so you don't have folks that are coming in saying, "Hey, I wanna do my housing application." This is really a life safety program where we want people to go and they don't feel like, "I have to do something to engage in this service," but it is essential that we have staff that are available if someone is asking for services or support. If someone says, "Can you sit down and help do this application with me?" Sure, we can do that with you, But as of right now, what we're really seeing just in this very short runway, less than a week, people are really looking for how do they connect into shelter, and then from there, that gives them greater access to case management and other services and supports to get connected to housing and other resources that they may need.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Marina, can you talk a little bit about the temperature trigger for warming? Sure, warming is triggered at 20 degrees and wind chill is included in that calculation. I will tell you, I have lived here 14 years, and those of you that have lived here longer, please chime in. I, you would, I'm, I remain completely shocked that we are seeing temperatures that exceed 20 degrees in January. The other night I walked out of the building and it was like 36 and it was just kind of a bit of a shocker because setting the threshold, this is the first time that we've actually gone through the administrative process to stand up warming.

In previous years, it was done through the Mayor's executive powers and it was stood up alongside our mass shelter at the Sullivan outside in tents and then last year specifically, it was only activated at sub-zero temperatures for about 2 weeks in February where we, when we had that real cold snap. So setting the temperature at 20 degrees felt like it would really allow for shelter warming operations to be activated every evening, but Mother Nature has her way and has determined that it's been a little bit warmer. With the wind chill factor, we have been able to initiate warming operations since January 3rd. But the temperature trigger is one that sets— that allows providers to know that they are going to activate the service. And so, David, thank you for that question because it is a little bit nuance-y, unexpectedly.

Thank you. I would also add, while I understand the focus on colder temperatures, there is a lot of danger that happens when temperatures get above freezing and people get wet. And so probably not something that could be adjusted for this year, but, you know, I think we see a lot of danger in the shoulder seasons when snow is melting or there's rain. And so, you know, I know we had to sort of pick a system and go with it, but maybe thinking about for future years, you know, that wet weather when it's wet and cold and people that are camping or people that are outside and all of their stuff gets wet, it can be even more dangerous than when it's 5 degrees out. Hey, David, I appreciate that feedback, and I absolutely feel like that is the role of the Commission where you would all take that on to say what you've seen in practice and do you support warming?

Do you support warming as an emergency cold weather operation that is activated during a certain period, and does that certain period include the shoulder season. All of these pieces are the first year that we have really activated these types of services through an administrative process to really better understand and create a level of transparency for the community to see what it costs if we were to stand up these services, and then how well utilized are they, and then who are the providers and the individuals that are using the service. So do we have the right mix of service and the right amount of resources?

I am going to say that I would love to see this, but I am not the Commission and I am not the public that wants to be able to demonstrate how they're— how are their tax dollars being used in the most meaningful way. So having data-informed feedback coming from the Commission would be one of those pieces that we could stand on to say this isn't just because we feel like it's best practice, but here's who's using the service and then what is that impact on our community, not just the individuals that are experiencing it firsthand because they are experiencing homelessness or inadequate heat in their homes, but for our hospital partners as well as APD. Okay, thank you.

And I'm also willing to hear if people don't feel like it's a valuable resource.

Thoughts? Well, I, I think it's— especially with rain and the ice, people get wet like you mentioned.

Thank you.

Yeah, I agree with the, the conversation about the types of— it's not always just cold. This wind, I'll just say I had a pretty intense conversation with a couple yesterday who lost their camp due to the wind. Like, their, their house blew away in this storm, and, and they were really struggling with what they were to do. And so I was able to help get them to shelter. But knowing that the types of emergency that might exist or that response that might exist don't always have to do with the cold.

You're much more likely to die due to hypothermia in a wet 34 degrees than 10 below. It'd be really interesting to see the, the data at the end of the season for how many of those people actually are connected to services throughout that process. Yeah. And is that, Jessica, you might know, is that throughput through the system that would be—. It's not trackable.

So that's something, well, it's not right now. That's something for us to think about for next year. Right now the warming center is not using HMIS, so we wouldn't have record other than a sign-in and sign-out sheet to tell them who came in and who went out. It really is, like Karina said, intended to be pretty low barrier. You don't even have to give them your name.

You just come in to get warm. So it's more about how many people are there. We do have information, like she said, though, on how many people, and then the people who go to shelter afterwards, we would then track from there. All of our cold weather shelters are using HMIS. We'll have very good data at the end of the period to show how people touch the system and where they move throughout it.

But warming won't necessarily have that this year.

Thank you. I would say one of the things that sort of I've been trying to track and it's a little bit concerning to me is how we are communicating to users of Warming whether Warming is on or off. And I think one of the things that is important in a system that is going to be serving people that may not be checking the internet or may not have a charged phone or may not have these resources is predictability. And I think while I understand the temperature trigger I think that something like that could be confusing. So I would almost like to see in future years, you know, we sort of talked about this in the past, that warming starts on a date and ends on a date, as opposed to having a specific trigger that I think we all understand, but someone who's cold right now needs to know, is there a place I can go before I pack up all my stuff and I walk all the way to wherever it's going to be.

So, you know, I think that's a— maybe that'd be a question for you, Corina. How are we communicating to potential users of warming that warming has been turned on for the next 7 days or warming will not be on? We're doing that through our vendors and I am communicating with hospitals right now because we've not turned it off. There's been, it's just communicated that it's on. We have a 7-day window where we activate warming for the next 7 days, so on Monday we will look at the temperature and do the average for that 7-day outlook and that either triggers warming or not and then that is the communication that will go to our law enforcement law enforcement and hospitals to let them know that the service is not activated or is activated.

But I would, again, I would highly encourage as commissioners that as you're writing your annual report, this is some of the feedback or concerns that you have with either having this service or not having the service. And I, I would just because as your role as commissioners, also taking into account if you are asking for the service to be on for either continuous operations, what is your feedback to the administration about the fiscal cost of that? Because I, I can always argue the mission-driven cost, but it is also what I would like to see and to have support is kind of a data-informed approach that's coming external of the administration around the viability of these services. Both as continuous operations with a temperature trigger, and what are the pros and cons of all of the above.

Thank you. And I just want to add something there. I mean, just as we think about the cost, because this was the first time it was really put out to bid, you know, there are specifications for the service or staffing ratios, many of the same things that you would require for shelter because we have people with us for 12 hours. So the cost is really not too far off what it would cost to shelter someone for a half day because it's like half-day service. So I think when you're thinking about the cost and thinking about the pros and cons of the service, you know, just keep that in mind.

We also know that there's many people who won't come into shelter. So, you know, it's tempting to say, well, let's just do more shelter beds, but then we have to remember there's people who, you know, may take advantage of warming but may not come into shelter. So just some new nuance there to think about. I just want to clarify, it sounded like you said they decide whether or not it's going to be open based off of the weather for the coming week and you take an average, and if it's going to average 20 or less, then that's determines if that week it's going to be open and if the average is 20 or more. So it sounds like there'd be quite a lot of the season where it would just be on and off and on and off and on and off once we get into especially the shoulder seasons.

Well, it's— its services are activated December 15th through March 30th. Okay. So yes, you— we would expect to see that you wouldn't— you would not need warming as we move closer to the end of the month. The month of March, but this is again our first time activating the service and it is in alignment with our emergency cold weather period, which always expires on March 30th, and our shelters have typically been extended through May because they were just, they just operated during the emergency cold weather period, but because the Mayor added it into the operational budget, we now know that our congregate shelter will operate year-round. So when you think about the dates, like why was March 30th set?

That was our standard operating— operational season for emergency cold weather with the opportunity to extend, but we no longer need to extend simply because the shelter will remain open through operational funding from the general operating budget. So we've got, again, a lot of things that are different in how these services are moving And just lots of opportunity for us to talk about what does that look like and what does that mean now that we're moving into a new space with ensuring that there are year-round operations. Will we have warming center in winter 2025? Is that, is that going to be necessary? Do we actually have the right amount of capacity?

Lots of conversation to be had. And really, and I keep saying this, and I know it's, it's because you guys are, are at the annual report period, but using and having the Commission to provide that type of feedback around what are the areas that we should be looking at, what are those kind of pain points that you've seen over the years from constituents that you're engaging with, communities where you live that are absolutely impacted by the decisions that we make right now. So, for example, the location of warming. There's a lot of pushback around that we added another service in the downtown area, but then you also have kind of the, what are, what's the benefit of having that service? We're seeing that it's at capacity right now.

You know, there are concerns that we're not operating it enough. Well, you also have the counter concerns where, you know, that we didn't need warming. So, So again, just having a nice conversation and a document that's helping to inform is welcomed.

Thank you. Any other closing comments on this?

All right. Thank you, Marina. And Thea has joined us in the room. So thank you. Thank you so much.

Moving on to new business. Since we have a quorum, we can elect a chair and a secretary for the Commission. Dad, how is this usually done? Well, it's, it's been so long since we've done it that I don't, I don't really remember what the process has been. Um, you know, I think chair is really the main role because you need someone to run.

We had had a secretary that was taking notes, but we've since gotten feedback really that she should be staffed. She's done such a great job. She's doing a great job at it. So, you know, I, I think a secretary position probably by drafting resolutions and doing other work that might be considered because of— especially, I'm not sure if that's in the past, but the co-secretary was appointed have a vice chair.

I don't think there are a lot of specific requirements about what the— should be or how they're elected, but, you know, like, yeah, you can see it. She might, she might know.

Expert on commissions the same. So they hope. Um, but yeah, I mean, the basic option is— Anyone interested? I nominate Dave Rittenberg for chairman. Absolutely.

Um, how would we do that? Well, I don't think you have a chair right now. Yeah, we don't have a chair. I'm the acting chair because I was the vice chair when the previous chair left. So, so that someone Temporary elections.

Okay, uh, Jessica, you're pretty familiar with Robert's Rules, right? Sure, I can run. What basically do is you open the floor for nominations and start with the chair position first and nominate each other. And then say nominated person here, she could say I, I decline. She said decline.

If you do two or more persons that accept, then you will read your election. You'll— it'll be a verbal election. She, um, Frankie has to write down yes or no, uh to get a form or to get a— sorry, I'm a little bit— and so after you do the chair, then you'll call for a vote. And you can, you can do it and just raise your hands, and then Frank, you can make out who is asking. Fine, then you have to start all over onto your vice chair.

But also what may happen is perhaps, um, say Darcy was nominated to be the chair, but she said, well, I can't do the chair position, but I would, um, be open to being nominated for vice chair. So you can put her down as a possible for vice chair after next application.

Basically, very simply, you just do your nomination, they accept or they don't accept, and then you—. We're about to do that. Would you mind sticking around to supervise so make sure we keep everything kosher?

Know if those are the only two officer positions that are required. Is chair and vice chair— I'm going to have to come over here. Oh, I have a little hearing problem. Sorry. Are those the only two officer positions required, chair and vice chair?

Chair and vice chair. You can have a secretary if you like to do minutes, but Frankie does minutes. She's— that's what the staff liaison does. And you have no need for a treasurer.

Uh, so I would open the floor For—. Okay, yeah, I'll do it. Yeah, okay, great. So, uh, the floor is open for nominations for chair.

I nominate Dave Rittenberg. Any—. Any other nominations? I would accept the nom—.

Any opposition to closing nominations? Nominations are closed. I guess we vote. Do we have to vote if there's only one nominee and they accept it? You can do a— Well, yeah, you still have to, but if more people want one.

True. Everybody who would like to approve David Rittenberg as chair, raise your hand.

Anyone opposed? Congratulations, Chair. Now, should the Chair run the nominations for Vice Chair? I think—. Keep doing it then.

Nominations are open for Vice Chair.

I would nominate— Richard, back at you, bud. I'll accept the nomination.

Any additional nominations for vice chair? Opposition to closing nominations? Nominations are closed. Everyone who would like to approve Richard's nomination as vice chair, raise your hand.

Any opposed, raise your hand. All right, congratulations, vice chair.

I will hand the ceremonial gavel over to the chair. Thank you, uh, Jessica. Well, that's exciting, we have officers now. We're, we're just doing business left and right. Thank you.

Special thank you to Judy. Um, okay, moving on into business. We'd like to invite, uh, Graham Downey, special assistant to the mayor, to present the mayor's housing strategy. Welcome, Graham. Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me. You all deserve it. Lovely to meet you all. Oh, maybe I can bring you over here. Sure.

Great. Um, and I sent Frankie a presentation. Were you able to pull it up, Frankie? But I thought, um, maybe you all have had a chance to read this, or maybe not, but happy to either give the presentation or also just chat about this document, depending on what the Commission would prefer. I mean, you, you put the presentation together.

Let's see it. Um, I think that will will help sort of whet the appetite for the conversation. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is really just picking out a few items from the strategy to dig a little deeper into.

But yeah, anyway, so this is the URL for finding all the mayor strategy documents. So share that and access that if you want a digital version. We're really excited about the 10,000 homes in 10 years as a really concrete and ambitious goal for driving housing goals or increasing housing supply. So, if you go to the next slide, you all probably, or perhaps I think all of us have been thinking often in terms of affordability as like sort of the main A word when we think about housing, but something we're doing with this strategy, not that we want to neglect affordability, but really the focus is on abundance as the framers think. More housing means more options for people, more diverse types of housing are really critical.

Meeting people at different points of the income spectrum. We want to have smaller options for seniors who are downsizing or folks who don't need a full-size single-family home. We see affordability as a function of supply. We're going to sort of— supply-demand dynamics in Anchorage are a little bit out of whack. We have really low vacancy rates, and that means that landlords have the ability to set rent pretty much where they want to set them, and it means that folks who are struggling at the margins are more likely to fall from housing insecurity into homelessness.

I'm sure all of you are more familiar with I Am than the problem of housing as a homeless myth. So really looking at this sort of abundance mindset. Thanks. So we have 3 goals, 3 primary goals as part of the strategy, 3 things that we control. There's lots of things we don't control, but these are 3 of the big things that we do federally controlled.

This one's probably going to be— this first bucket is probably going to be the area most familiar to you all. These are what we were already talking about earlier today, the CDBG funds, leveraging both philanthropic and federal and state funding to sort of direct it in a focused way towards driving housing production. We're also thinking in particular, upcoming soon is a— we're looking at tax policy. So currently we have a couple housing incentives in the tax code. They aren't really working.

We've got an incentive for affordable housing transit corridors that's only been used once by CIHA, and it was a real hassle for them. And we've got another develop— another incentive for downtown multifamily that was used by Block 96 Store, but otherwise it's been challenging. And as you can see from this, uh, image, which was prepared by Agnes Beck, again analyzing the gap between what makes the family pencil and what it actually costs to build. The incentive, 12-year downtown tax credit, that covers half the gap, right? So you're still $700,000, $70,000 a unit away from making that whole building pencil.

So that, if we're not getting over that finish line, if we're not making that building pencil, then The incentive isn't really doing that much. So, to fix the problem— go to the next slide, Frank— we're looking at simplifying the application, expanding the geographic scope of the application, and making it long. So, we're going to start at a 15-year base, and then my peer Nolan— he's a brilliant economist— came up with a really good structure on this. We're going to, instead of, say, as we currently do, requiring affordability in transit corridors, We're going to say, well, you get a couple bonus years for being in a transit corridor, and you're going to get a couple bonus years for being affordable, and you'll get bonus years for being union-built. And rather than you sort of making things requirements, we're going to create a number of incentives to give developers options.

So, we'll be able to get up to 25 years maximum, and you have to do it in units, and at least one of those needs to be a new unit. So, you need to be creating new housing.

Another small detail about this for— policy is it's technically a land value tax because we separate the housing value and land value. So the abatement is only going to apply to that increased housing value. The land will continue to pay rates since the developer isn't doing anything to increase that value right there. That was the issue I think that Sean Devinham had, wasn't it, with his project here? He had the miscommunication or some confusion about what the payment was going to be.

That's right. There was confusion that the state was able to clear up about. There's a difference between the school tax and the community tax, and we didn't have the ability at the time to pay school taxes, which I think is— Yes. Mostly the problem Sean had was the previous slide was too small. Okay.

Yeah.

So anyway, so that's incentive. That's just one example of the strategies we're implementing. We expect that ordinance to be released Mullen's going to be talking about it at the Community Economic Development Committee meeting tomorrow. They have a draft, so that's really exciting. Second bucket is cutting red tape.

This is getting out of our own way, getting— primarily these items are focused on Title 21, looking at zoning regulations. If you go to the next slide, Frankie. This is an image from the site access assessment report, which I hope you'll never have to read, but you may have heard the saga of site access. Rules the Assembly passed last year. They did some floor amendments that caused some problems in addition to the underlying rules being, as the previous planning director called them, gibberish.

Like, even the planning director did not understand at the time, did not understand what the rules did. They did things— this is an illegal house under the current rules, under the set access rules, because the driveway is taking up too much of the footpath. So, sort of the question we're looking at when we look at buildings like this is, is the public value of creating regulation? I mean, the point of Title 21, the point of zoning is to create public value. Um, and the question is, what is the value of minimizing parking in front of buildings worth the additional cost in terms of making buildings not pencil or making it just harder to get things built?

So we're taking a hard look at complex rules that are stopping housing from getting built. We're focused really on simplifying and public value. If you'll go to the next slide. And I also, I think I also really want to emphasize briefly, we're focused on changing the rules, but we're also really focused on how we're changing. Um, the site access is getting fixed for the collaborative working group that the mayor's office and the assembly have joined the team.

And probably, and I sort of leading that group, we brought developers, neighbors, and others in who have real experience, both commercial developers. It's turned out to be really critical that commercial developers and residential developers, folks from community councils that are impacted by these rules, making sure we're bringing people together to find shared solutions rather than just like imposing solutions or saying this is my way or the highway. So hopefully taking a collaborative, transparent approach to making these changes.

And then another exciting idea coming soon, Transit-Supported Work Zones. So this is an idea that's from our 2040 Plan. It maps out areas that are supported by bus service or rather that would support bus service, because you need a certain amount of housing density in order to make transit work. So the idea is we need to probably have density somewhere in town. This is where our friends call for it, so let's build it.

In particular, we're looking at, uh, 5-over-1 development, which is really big, boring, boxy, uh, multi-use buildings that are really effective at building housing and are probably more of the type of development we need in Anchorage. We're also looking at sort of much smaller minimum plot size for infill development. This could, to be transparent, be a pretty big change for the neighborhood. We're definitely going to need to communicate with Airport Heights and Rogers Park and South Division and other neighborhoods that are along these transit routes that, hey, like, there may be change coming to your neighborhood. Are you comfortable with it?

Are there ways we can mitigate that? Definitely going to be— All right.

And bucket 3, which is related to bucket 2, but slightly different. This is more about what we, how we do business as in what it looks like over at the center when someone goes to get an entitlement to build housing or zoning approval, looking for approval. What we're really looking at, the really, really emphasizing here is systems that are fair and you don't have to know someone to make a call to get through. Really trying to increase transparency. Part of that's going to be a function of having simpler rules.

Simpler rules are easier to enforce, but another piece of it is going to be a lot of iterative learning and empowering staff to tell us, like, I'm constantly having to do this thing and I always am making this exception, and can we just change the rules so I don't always have to make an exception? So really going to be trying to empower staff to improve their own working conditions, which will hopefully improve the experience of folks trying to build stuff.

Generally, one of the hoops we're really focused on in particular— I mean, this is, I think, sometimes what developers— the Elmore Building. So not always fair. Office staff are really working really hard, but we want to create a little bit more of a space for permitted construction. One of the hoops we've heard a lot about, if you'll go to the next slide, from developers is the appeals process. Apparently in some neighborhoods, there are neighbors who are using the appeals process sort of abusive way to say, if you're building something, then you're gonna lose it by appealing.

So, Alaska Supreme Court issued a ruling that clarifies that for purposes of state court, you need to have what they call interest injury, which means that you need to actually be harmed by the issue. Currently, the way we do standing for our administrative appeals is it's more like a citizen taxpayer standard, which means like, I am a citizen of Anchorage, or I lived in this neighborhood, or the literal standard is I testified at the Planning and Zoning Commission hearing, then you have a right to sue even if you're not suffering. So that's a shift that preserves people's rights if they're injured, but makes sure we're not allowing people to sort of use the process in an abusive way. Something we've heard from developers a bunch about. Is there another?

I think there's another solution here. Yeah. This is something we've talked about that we've already done, which is really exciting. We brought in new leadership in both planning and development services, although actually in development services we just gave Greg Suley a permanent position, which gives them the authority and the discretion to actually be the building official to make tough decisions, not expecting you might get fired. So, um, yeah, next slide.

Really excited to have— hopefully they can drive Cultural training to empower their staff. Something really excited we were able to do in our first 6 months, bring those 2 talents. So that's a little preview of some of the things we've been working on. We'll go to the next slide, Frankie. This is a little bit more meant for builders, but I think— and I just see on the appeals one, I think is a good example of how important it is.

We really need to hear from folks who are trying to solve problems. Like, I really want to do this thing and I can't do it because zoning codes in the way, or because I can't get this approval, explaining it actually in a constructive way is actually really critical for us. Okay, that's all I've got presentation-wise. I'm happy to dig into any of the action about whenever you want to talk. Hi, I'm Julie.

I'm back here. Yes, thank you for coming. I hopefully politely said it, and I just want to thank you and Greg. I've never met because building in our backyard is certainly different. That even though we have this accessibility, it didn't really match with what was the Planning Department's experience.

And then I know nothing of contempt, and so I was like, One of my people would go down there and then say, no, you can't do it. I'd say, well, we can do it. And so thank you, thank you for answering all my questions. And everyone at the department was kind and helpful. It was just figuring out all that, that we're new and don't know what to do with us.

So I just want to introduce myself, and thanks. Nice to speak.

I was almost going to bring you up as an example. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got—. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, and it's good. I mean, it's going to lead to really cool changes.

Like, there's a Title 23 building code exemption for the pallet shelters that the Assembly passed last year. But through your experience, we learned, oh, there's all these hiccups and all these challenges. And now Development Services has a really, hopefully much clearer guide, actually, what are the remaining requirements. Like, there was like a whole problem with fire extinguishers. Obviously you have them, but you didn't put them on the drawing.

Yeah, we didn't put them in the drawing, but we knew we're gonna— we're supposed to. I won't go into all of it, but I learned a lot. You know, I'm always learning. Yeah. And you guys are always very helpful when I say, help, we need electricity, right?

They're saying we can't, right? And hopefully, so that means that the next person It doesn't have to be called that.

Yeah. Thanks. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Is your goal to track 10,000 homes in 10 years data annually to see what types of homes are being built? Do we have the right number? You know, are the incentives working?

Do we need to adjust for certain are you not seeing interest in individuals building out those type of housing that's needed? Just curious. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, 100%. This—.

The original version of this document had a really complicated, uh, list of metrics that didn't quite fit on your beautiful one-page thing, but absolutely. And that tax incentive in particular gives gives us a lot, a lot of data about is this working.

That should be a really good source of data. And then there is a— right now you'll be able to find through the AssemblyZone site, I think it's probably the easiest way to navigate it, but there's the permitting dashboard that shows the number of single-family homes, duplexes, triplexes that we're building right now. And you'll see a pretty steep drop-off from— we're pretty much only building single-family. What that doesn't show right now is multifamily, so we're trying to figure out how we can. Have you guys spoken with developers recently that are like, as soon as this stuff gets in, I'm going to go build 1,000 units like tomorrow?

Does that come up? Yeah, that's a lot. That's a lot. It's a lot. Yeah, it's a huge difference.

So there have been— we're really— people that are just like, yep. Let me know when the incentives are there. Uh, yeah, I mean, the short answer is yes. Sean Devanham and I were chatting about this recently. He's—.

Sean, you may know, built Block 96 along with Siiha, sometimes the only builder of multifamily housing in Anchorage. And Sean was absolutely like, pass this incentive and I'm going to be able to build more houses over off of Grannis Ferry. $10,000 Though is probably— I mean, $1,000 a year is going to mean we have to increase the capacity of our building industry, which is a good thing because then sure, more capacity means lower cost, but really positive cycle there. I don't think— that's one of the reasons we chose 10,000 in 10 years is because we didn't think we're going to get to 1,000 next year, but we do need to be sort of on that average. So I think it's hopefully going to be a little bit of a contract.

Interestingly, the Assembly is considering a pause on multifamily design standards, and the Planning Department asked, surveyed developers, are our design standards currently in the way of any of your planned proposals? And would you change your proposals, resubmit them if design standards were paused? And Sean Devinian, JJ Brooks, and Dion, or someone, maybe someone else, all said yes. In particular, major site plan review, which kicks in at 31 units, developers potentially target even when they could have built more to avoid major site plan. So that's one really critical piece of that legislation.

We'll go down the line, they're like, yeah, we'll resubmit, we'll do 36 instead of 30, we'll have 6 more units. So far away, away, every, every bit counts.

What's the average housing built per year right now? Last decade, it's been going down. Um, if you look at the permit dashboard for the single through fourplexes, we're at about, or less than 200 for 2024, which is really bad. I'm told by Development Services that multifamily is adding another 300, but I really, we really need to run down the number to see if we actually did. We are at 500 permitted, but I'm a little suspicious about how many— did we actually build 300 units in multifamily housing last year?

I didn't see it. So we need to run that out. So it's somewhere between 200 and 500. Definitely a long way. Yeah, there is a long way.

And you know, it does seem like, you know, Cook has a lot of requirements with their money for soundproof apartments, right? I mean, they build these amazing buildings and they're expensive. Yes. Um, and then on the other side of things, you know, what was it— what were those neighborhoods called when they, they were just building people— building out the townhomes and not putting in services that could get truck. I think it was the site condos.

Site condos. So the concern would be, right, you relax things too much, then you go back to— you drive along Muldoon, you see the back of all these site condos right against the road. Yeah. So there's a— I think there's a happy middle ground somewhere in there. Yeah.

Where you can encourage building and it'd be pleasing. That's right. Yeah. And I think that's one of the things that's really nice about the Site Access Working Group is we've been able to have really honest conversations about the cost of— is this driveway standard actually aesthetic or is it a safety thing in terms of interactions between driveways and the street? And sort of like more design or neighborhood folks are able to say, I'm concerned about safety and interactions there.

And builders are like, but it means I can't build a fourplex, I have to build a duplex or a single-family home instead. And we're able to have a really honest conversation. The cost of the standard versus the public benefit. So I hope we can keep having those conversations. Do we care about building articulation?

You know, where the building has to all— see how buildings look the same, pop in and out, and not just be boxes because we're afraid of boxes. We need more boxes. You know, it's a really efficient shape for architecture. So those are definitely going to be some of our conversations.

Does this number also include things like transitional housing, permanent supportive housing, assisted living, or housing for individuals with complex medical and behavioral health issues in this 10,000? Yeah, I think Thea's probably a better expert on where exactly the line— I think there's a line somewhere between shelter and housing, and I'm not sure exactly. Probably Thea would be better at drawing it than I would. But I think something like senior housing or supportive housing, the hotel conversion units, the affordable housing trust, I think those are probably things we'd want to count as housing. Shelter, we'd probably not want to count.

Does that sound right to you? Yeah. I mean, I think some of these—. Right.

It starts with— yeah.

But a little bit about the— We are also very interested in transitional living and expanding units for people who aren't, you know, get out and being able to understand that different—.

And though we're actively into different structures, but we could get them down efficiently and have a different structure for them. So I was—. I appreciate you all and end up— so thank you for being in it.

Doesn't roll off the tongue that well. Yeah, in terms of the where the line is, by HUD standards, transitional housing is considered shelters. Um, the usual test we use there is So if you go to shelter, nothing, right? Yeah, it, it, um, and transitional housing also usually not rent charged to you. Um, permanent supportive housing, assisted living, things like that, usually there is some sort of rent charge.

It's not necessarily the person paying. It's paid through benefits they receive or vouchers, projects, that— but if there's a, a rental charge for permanent occupation, um, that's usually what people consider housing, not shelter. And it does make a difference from our perspective funding, because certain types of funding, uh, allow housing but not shelter, or vice versa. Um, and when we're deciding what bucket of funding project is eligible for, um, that line about housing can be pretty important. That's a component, but we see it, you know, as a continuum.

So it's more, it's more a matter of like where on the continuum for all the—.

Yeah, and I would just add, when you said rent, it's, it's a little bit of the definition of rent. So, uh, you pay rent when you have a lease. You pay fees when you don't have a lease. So if you're paying an occupancy fee at a facility, that is not a lease, that is not rent. So it's protections under Landlord-Tenant Act, Fair Housing applies.

Like there's things that come into play when it's housing versus shelter or transition.

Yeah, and I think that is a, you know, sort of, I'm always really excited And I get to work on exciting projects like modular housing that sort of crosses the line. But I think, yeah, this is, this is a little bit, this is quite a bit upstream of day-to-day, right? I mean, hopefully this is sort of homelessness, but it is a little bit tenuous. It's going to be a little bit slow. It's, it's a long-term investment in creating that abundance that addresses the root causes of housing.

It's gonna be a long time before we get to 1,000 homes. I know it's not 1,000 in year 1, but do you have an idea or a goal of what year 1 might be? And have you identified any, like, are there any, is there anything in the works where you're like, all right, our goal is actually 700 for year 1 and we've got 300 going? And when is year 1? Did that start when LaFrance took office?

It should be her anniversary. Wonder, that's a great question. Yeah, I would probably want to do a calendar year because that's what we seem to have data for. So maybe year 1 would be end of 2025. Uh, I want to get a little more clarity probably on what actually happened in 200 or was it 500 before.

Finding that, yeah, it'd be really nice if it— I mean, if it's closer to 200, then probably having a goal like something in the range of 4%.

Yeah, that's a good idea though.

And then speaking of goals, you see that there are some target completions that have passed on December 31st. I'm just curious, have those been met? How— you know, we really meant to say, I think this is a living document. Yeah, we also, for the record, I should have said that right away. We initially were just calling this draft, but now that we're presenting it at community councils and like this, it's just a public document.

So I think we should really actually accept that should be January 31st. And I think if it's January 31st, then we will hit all of them, uh, because the, the first one is the tax abatement I told you about. Yeah, the second one, we, we think that RFP is forthcoming really short— really soon, uh, the program we applied for. I think Jed, to be honest, really thankful for this, this communication between planning department and the zoning commission and community council is something really focused on, stood out by Title 21. It's going to be really driven on driving sort of that code change piece and communicating more regularly.

They're going to try to do an omnibus ordinance every 6 months, so May and November is sort of what we're targeting for 2025.

Got the Assembly Site Access Working Group convened. On 3H, probably add the appeals thing I told you about. We'll have to hopefully have that introduced by the end of the month or in February. Power the building infrastructure. I'm not sure we've achieved 3I1 in terms of building the systems that empower staff, but we have had— this document got over 100 pieces of feedback from staff.

So I think we're starting to create a culture true. Like, hey, we want to hear your voice. We actually want to hear when you disagree with us.

Yeah. What's the goal for the size of the development at the Archive site? The goal? Yeah, how many total units are you—. I don't think— I think we're trying to just as many as possible.

Last time I looked at the archive, all that fit, right? Yeah, I mean, basically, right? I mean, if we get that, I think we're going to get to that 10,000. We we have to stop fiddling around with like beautiful 30-unit. We need a lot of units there, I think.

And that's going to be a tension that we're actually on the RFP is like how we're balancing maximizing units versus how it goes to cutty in the library. Are we also going to mandate mixed use or sort of how prescriptive are we going to be on an RFP? And that's a, that's sort of why it's been delayed. The challenge I see with a lot of these Cook Inlet projects is the mixed uses on commercial portion. Yeah, it's forced to build it and then it's hard to find a commercial tenant.

Right, right. Just from the outside looking in driving by the—. Yeah, totally. And that's the tension that we have on so many of these issues. It's like, if it's hard to do, then maybe we need to require it so that it actually happens if we want that result.

But if that's going to make it harder to make the units pencil, then We need to lose that old way of thinking and shift density. You have enough density, then the multi-use is great, right? And then maybe it comes naturally or organically if you build. Yeah. I think some of it is targeting the right mixed use also.

I think that's a challenge I've seen in some of the buildings where it's not necessarily planned in advance, and so you're not thinking about it as you're building. And designing the area. Like, am I in an area that is far from a grocery store? Should I be targeting as part of my mixed use, you know, like a corner shop or, you know, a place where you could get things or a drugstore? Or am I in a place where there is not a lot of banking?

And so maybe a partnership with a bank, and then you have that in the planning phase. And you, you know, all along your mixed use is going to be a bank in there with you. So that you hope the right tenant comes to. Is that typically how those C-Hall ones go? Is they got 7 units here coming?

There's probably some planning or thoughts in advance, but whether they actually come through— a lot of them are vacant right now, and a lot of them are really random. They— yeah, it seems like they typically plan, okay, we're going to have X amount of partial properties building, but they don't actually— I don't know if they try, they probably try, but my experience just seeing them has been, yeah, they often say they have that style, they often end up getting filled by properties which they probably have existing partnerships with. Although in their defense Sea House is responsible for the best and the first, in my opinion, good bagel made. That is very true. Wooden spoon at Bud Ice commercial kitchen.

Yeah, they are creating crumpets.

What do you mean you got to Fire Island to get the best bakery in town? Oh, in the Elizabeth Place. Yeah, um, yeah, I think Yeah, I, I think that issue of like mixed use as a policy goal often tends to be tension with, and sometimes that is like because of policy. So I think there was sometimes maybe housing that's something you And I think we have to be really careful about, as you said, like, who's the we that's paying the cost? Is it the tenant, or is it— is the community putting money in to make the mixed-use work?

And if we're not, then it's the tenant paying. Yes. Um, has there been— or the odds of outmixing— and, um, you know, when both trades— and there is A lot of church buildings are not utilized enough, or they're older and need a lot of repairs that are expensive. So as everyone talked about, you can have your church in the bottom part and we can build housing, supportive housing, those kinds of—. I mean, you're doing—.

Yeah, a little bit, but I mean, like, but yeah, I You know, I, I didn't know about this. Yeah, I think leveraging the faith community, you know, St. Mary's has a housing plan for some pretty significant housing. Um, they have some zoning issues we need to work through on Spruce. They would love to be able to build 120 units, but can't. Anyway, I don't need to get into too much, but those are the kinds of problems They also potentially need a lot of money.

Another critical piece that we need to figure out is how are we going to finance sewer and water without also creating fiscal liability.

But again, I agree. Yeah, faith partnerships. I think what we've heard from faith leaders like you and Michael and others is make a real commitment to solving the root cause of housing problems. Offering building housing as a solution. Yeah, hopefully you and Mary Jo and others showing it works.

Thank you, Graham. Anything else before we— Thanks, y'all. Yeah, more feedback, totally welcome. Like, so as you're digesting this, if you check it out, if you want to share it with others, just like send us really detailed— be like, no, this should be a 4 instead of a 3, or all this like granular and meta feedback. Thank you.

Um, moving on into your business discussion, preparation for the annual HAN report. Our homeless is due in June. I know it's January, but cold and— well, not even that cold, but Summer will come and June will come quicker than we expect. I do want to share some response that I got from Farina and I will forward this all along to you about— there's a question about the Open Meeting Act about whether we can get together and talk about things. And then she has some feedback about the annual report.

So response to open meeting for our 5-member Commission, going back to statutory language, meeting means a gathering of members of a governmental body. When more than 3 members or a majority of the members, whichever is less, are presented, we read it as meeting means a gathering of 4 or 3 members, whichever is less, are present, or no more than 2 members can discuss commission business without being at a publicly noticed meeting, or no more than 2 members can discuss commission business without being publicly noticed open meeting. So I interpret that as 2 of us can chat about commission business without having to be an open meeting, but 3 of us cannot. So that's good that if we do bump into each other at a coffee shop or something, we can chat and not, you know, uh, or work on a document together. We can work on a document together, or, you know, have a phone call.

Um, so that's good. And then response to, uh, about the annual report, uh, she got some feedback from the mayor's office. So I appreciate that, uh, Farina. Mayor's office would benefit from a report highlighting feedback on the homelessness and health strategy document and actionable recommendations informed by data on addressing immediate and long-term housing and homelessness challenges in Anchorage. Key focus areas include strategies for increasing transitional and permanent supportive housing, insight on repurposing underutilized structures like vacant facilities when applicable to decompress emergency shelters, and opportunities for expanding public-private partnerships in affordable housing development.

Additionally, the report could offer guidance on integrating transportation and wraparound services to ensure housing accessibility and sustainability while identifying ways to revitalize at-risk neighborhoods in a forward-looking report. Don't expect this year's report to have all the suggested elements, but wanted to ensure that we had a healthy starting point. So appreciate getting some feedback there, Farina.

At this point, I'd sort of open it up to commissioners about discussing a plan of attack or strategy for Sikan Artif into creating a report? I assume we are looking at a calendar year report of 2024 that will be due in June of 2025. So thoughts, ideas about how we might want to get cracking on something like this, noting that we have 9 minutes left.

Was there—. There was the one that was sent out. It's actually here, SJ, from 19. Was that the most recent one that we had? Because that one was basically just saying, where are we going here?

There's a couple more in this pack. Oh, there's more in that packet? Yeah, I think 22 might be more. Okay.

So maybe, maybe as a starting point, I think it would be good to make sure Commissioner reviews the previous reports. I think the actual Commission meetings probably are not lengthy enough, and there's enough on the agenda to where I don't know that we're going to be able to make more progress on creating a report. So we probably don't even have to— oh, even a work session or some, some, you know, extracurricular activities to start working on that. So that's just sort of where, where I'm coming from as far as, uh, progress on this. But, um, that is just one person's opinion.

There's other—. Sure, might think about a strategy for putting pen to paper, or if there is data that we want to gather, things that we want to look at.

I was just going to say, that sounds good. I think structure-wise, thinking about when we look at like what's in, what's in code, like that might be the easiest way is just to say, what are we supposed to be doing? And then what did we do in 2024 that was part of that? Or the community in 2024 that was part of that? And then kind of bulleting it out that way.

I did like in 2022 that it was structured a little bit more with identifying issues and then specific recommendations. So if they fell under some of those initial bullets, if there were specific recommendations for improvements or future activities, and I think that very easily could be a work session or individual work groups assigning different sections.

I'm not opposed to doing a work session myself. But I think that if we dedicated essentially an entire meeting or two to working on this, we probably have to, you know, that would be something. But I'm also not opposed to session either. But yeah, my, my, um, my concern with that would be we will be putting on any other agenda items and get like business. Yeah, if we were spending all the time doing working on documents, I, I don't know, but my first time around.

Yeah. Um, what other—. What else? Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm happy with work session. I mean, I think biggest thing is to get our framework together.

Yeah, yeah. We can fill it, you know, from when we know what, what points we want to work up from. And I just try to look up the code, but not exactly the subsection states, but I can't wrangle it in terms of what this entails. But yeah, I, you know, I'm happy with the work session too, and it doesn't need to be on all of us. Yeah.

Is anyone—. When you are doing a work session or working on documents, do you use Google Docs that you can cut and edit, or what? What's— I'm wondering what people prefer to do. Or you, um, you use Google Docs a lot, and you can go and cut on that, and— but I don't know, that's Old school or new school? I like Google Docs.

I don't think we have an established protocol. I think the question I have for Big Jed would it be— I think to make sure something gets done, someone needs to kind of own it and lead it. I'm wondering if like a annual report subcommittee And we create a— yeah, I mean, you can, you can certainly, you know, appoint committees and something to share that. They, they can kind of take ownership of that, secure sessions and so forth. And we can provide some type of staff support for that.

Frank is great at open forums, so like, sure, can we talk to him again? Some options that we can provide. Is anybody interested in leading this?

Anyone feel especially equipped? Paul does. Thank you. Um, so with that, I think, I think we should probably keep this on the agenda for next meeting. I'd ask commissioners to review the previous report really think about what, what we want to sink our teeth into, what kind of data requests we might have, those types of things.

Potentially at the next meeting, we'll create a subcommittee and name Jessica the chair of that subcommittee.

Does that— that's not kosher? Oh, thank you, Jessica. I appreciate it. Well, yeah.

So we were a little frustrated with what they came up with. I think it didn't— it stemmed from questions that they had panelists answer, but it didn't seem like it got answered.

Made it into the final curriculum. So that was at a point when we were kind of at that point where we Um, so I think she responded yes, that's—. I mean, that's what I was thinking. There's like a lot of things have been addressed over, over 9 really issues.

Well, you know, like Jessica was suggesting, look back at the code. I don't know, like, as you can see from these examples, the previous Commission— so part of that issue is that as this is becoming more the specific subject matter expertise role is no longer what it was. Also has expertise on— And so I think that's kind of what you see in some of these soul-searching here about what is the Commission's specific role. So yeah, I mean, I'm not sure there is— not sure.

But the purpose of having a commission is because you're all— and so you're advising the mayor and the example from that perspective. So that, that is the— yeah, um, but it just seems like some kind of Like, I don't know, I mean, like, you know, this is the best we could—. Yeah, but the recent ones have been, um, I think we need to find a framework. I don't think I see it, but that is a decision. And I think one thing that they added, getting your feedback on strategy, that would be Yeah, so I mean, you want a framework, got some frameworks here.

One of the advantages of not having a consistent framework for Warp Optim is it gives us flexibility to be creative and create it how we want. So again, thank you. With that, we'll move 2, or, or any, any last thing before we move to general public comments? I see all staffers and others. Do we have anyone from the public online?

I see a picture. No. Okay, so hearing no public comments, we'll move to commissioner comments. So quick, I'm glad we have a quorum. Excited about that.

Take some action on things. I think we'll again welcome to our 3 new members. Really appreciate you all being here. Uh, no reports I think of, so with that I would entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved.

Second. Second. Any opposition? All right, thank you everyone. Thank you.

Um, Commissioner, before you go, let me sign it with my name. I could do that if you wanted to. Um, it's just.