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Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=7VVu6A7rozg

Part: 1

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Good evening, everyone. It is 05:45. We'll get our Bloomington City council listening session underway here. I'll call it to order. Thank you everybody for being here tonight. We've had 12345 people call ahead and registered to speak. I just want to make sure everybody's here. Sally I saw you as I walked in. Cherish, Amalo? Good evening. Brian Hoffman and Brian. Amber, there's Amber, and Tony. Tony Hellman? Very good. What we're gonna do, what we usually do based on the number of speakers we kind of parse out the time based on what we have. And so everybody we we've got to be out of here by 05:15 or 06:15 to get down to the council meeting, so we gotta get everybody in.

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I don't know, so we'll give you five or 6 min to speak, don't be surprised if there's council questions back and forth. And what I'd ask you to do is you come up speaking to the mic so everybody can hear you. We do get complaints about that, that folks at home can't hear it. So do speak into the mic and then after you finish up, if you could take the clipboard and kind of step to the side and then sign in, and so whether we can call it the next speaker, so. Everybody good on that? Why don't we get started? Sally Ness, you were 1st on the list. I'm the last listening session, when I asked the city, if the city could opt out of the shared agreement, the mayor said.

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Quote. So the city manager did indeed respond to you unquote. He did not. He replied him email, but that but he did not answer my question. If he had answered my question, he would have answered my question at the listening session and he did not. After the listening session I sent the city an email on 4 June. Asking three questions and again the city did not reply. 1st question, can the city opt out as the city chose to do for the 2015 agreement that was amended in 2024? It cannot. The mayor said the city chose to opt out of the agreement to share the field specifically because.

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Quote, the field will need significant capital improvements in the very new future unquote. For information data does not support this statement. The city will not be able to opt out of the new agreement. If the parking lot needed significant capital improvements as it recently opted out of the previous agreement. The mayor said that the city chose to opt out because of needed capital improvements, and I am asking if the city would like to use the Smith park parking lot for winter hockey, can the city opt out? It cannot. The 1st term ends 31 May 2046. Can the city choose to opt out of the agreement as it opted out this year?

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It cannot. The agreement does not allow the city to give Algezari notice of its intent to terminate. The agreement requires the city to find Algezari in breach and remove the conditional use permit requirements that protect Smith Park neighborhood. And it is not because the city determined they were not needed. At the last solicity session, council member Dallas Sandro comments confirmed that the city can't opt out. She stated opting out was just a one sided function.

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That does not mean that it can't either be dismissed or executed differently or modified or amended or any other of many things that we could do. But it does mean the city can't opt out and that is the answer to my question that the mayor and city managers should have stated. Council Member Lessandra is also incorrect when she states there are many things the city can do. The city can't dismiss it, the city can't execute it differently, modify it or amend it. The city can ask Algezari, but the power to change the agreement is solely with Algezari.

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She's in the states. It's just that we can't unilaterally say the letter F and then yourself. Is that what the city did when it opted out of the shared agreement for the field? Did the city say the letter F and then the word yourself? It costs too much to maintain and we do not want to invest in capital improvements? No. Council member Delassandra confirms again the city can't opt out when she adds, that's what it means. And I don't think that's ok. I think that's why we're fine with it because we wouldn't want to do that anyway. That is not what it means in.

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Means the city can choose not to continue the agreement for a set determined time as it did with the fields. The city can't out out of the agreement and that should not happen. I asked the council to address this concern so that it does not happen again. Thank you. Thank you Sally. I do want to clarify, I don't think the word opt out appears anywhere. The word is terminate and we we can terminate that agreement. There are three reasons why we can terminate the agreement, and that's what mr. Walker responded to you in an email on at least one if not two occasions. You know the three, is it three or four?

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There are three legitimate reasons that the, the agreement can be terminated and those have been explained. You use the word opt out when you responded to me saying that the city chose or you chose to opt out of the. Agreement for the fields, that option is not permitted in the new agreement. That is the understanding of opt out. You used it when you responded to me at that one point. That is what I'm referring to. There are three ways that we can terminate that agreement.

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You know those three reasons. Mr. Walker has explained those to you in an email. He sent me the the and it can be terminated, but it has to be in breach. There, there are three reasons, three ways that that can be terminated. So yeah. So, we're we're we're at time now. I'm gonna, we've got a lot of speakers tonight, so I'm gonna move on, but thank you Cherish!

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Good evening, welcome. Thank you. My name is and I'm a Bloomington resident living at the corner of a hundred and six Street and Thomas Avenue South. I am here to talk about traffic and resident safety on a hundred and six street. To 305W. Two weeks ago, there's a an extremely devastating accident that occurred at the intersection of a hundred and six and Heritan. My husband and I heard the accident and ran over immediately to see if there was anything that we could do. That crash resulted in two fatalities and it underscores the ongoing safety concerns and fear that we have experienced.

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In our over eight years living at a hundred and six in Thomas. I've reached out to the city before, requesting that tangible action be taken to improve the safety of my family and neighbors along a hundred and six street. In the eight years I've lived on a hundred and six street I can count five accidents where a vehicle or vehicles have ended up in one of my neighbor's yards. This particular is particularly concerning to me as it demonstrates the severity of these accidents and they are not just putting drivers at risk, but also my family could simply be playing in the yard or on our driveway and we could be struck.

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These date, these are the dates of those accidents I am referencing. 24 June 2022a hundred and six in Thomas. 16 August 2023a hundred and six in Cherardon. 31 December 2023a hundred and six in Thomas. 14 May 2026a hundred and six in Thomas. And then lastly, 29 May, a hundred, 2026a hundred and six in Cherardon. These are my three main concerns regarding the traffic on a hundred and six street. 1st, general speeding cars consistently drive way too fast on a hundred and 6th street.

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Second reckless use of the turn lane. Impatient drivers are frequently using the center lane as a passing lane to bypass traffic at high speeds. And 3rd lack of traffic control. Because both Thomas and Sheridan avenues provide direct connection to old chocoate road. They're heavily used as cut through routes. I frequently observed northbound drivers growing frustrated while waiting for a safe gap in traffic to cross on a hundred and 60. Out of impatience, they often forced their way across the intersection creating a severe collision hazard for themselves, other motorists.

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And nearby residents. I urged the city to take swift measurable action to prevent further accidents on a hundred 606th street and to prioritize resident and driver's safety in this area. Thank you. Thank you very much and and thanks for bringing this forward. You're not the 1st person we've heard from about 106 streets so we we do appreciate this. I'm I'm typically a, a big advocate of not just enforcement, but there's gotta be education, there's gotta be ways that we can change the environment and so on. I'm leaning toward heavily enforcing. I mean, I I want to see our our our police out there making sure that if we've heard stories of school bless drivers actually passing in the, in the the center lane and and speeding that's going on and that kind of thing, that's just absolutely unacceptable. And I think to, to, to bring, to bear the.

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The, the, the, the consequences of their actions I think would be the way to do this. We can also look at environmental changes, whether it's stop signs, traffic control of some kind, and we certainly look for the input input from the folks on a hundred and 60 who might be able to help out, so. Thank you. Yeah, I'd emphasize that last point around the traffic engineering just with Thomas and shared in being. And those cut through routes to shared in. I do think that our two intersections are at greater risk than other intersections than 106. And that's a good point, so. Thank you. Thank you counseling. Any questions or anything to add here? Hello, ok. Hi. Thanks for bringing it up. You're definitely not the 1st person in the I will say that last traffic accident that happened actually happened because of medical, a medical emergency with one of the drivers. It wasn't.

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And speed related potentially. It's not to diminish your point at all, but to just make sure that we know what causes accidents. Could, could that medical issue have been prevented by something? I don't think so in this particular case, but what I, if you were since you stand since you're there, the. Thomas and Sheridan, we could put I mean I think they are already stop signs on the corners, correct? No. Of Thomas in 106th or shared in 106? Not four way stop signs. Not four way stop signs. Okay, so you're thinking about stop having s having traffic stopped on a hundred and six at Sheriton and or at Thomas. Okay, thanks for the clarification.

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Any questions council? Alright, well thank you much for for being here today. Thank you. Great, they are. Yep. Brian, good evening. Nice to be back. It's been a little bit over a year. At that time I came to talk about probably one of the most important things about a city government and community was for the city to provide.

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Responsive quality service, and that wasn't always the what, but the how. And, that still goes still very important. Tonight I wanted to expand on that a little bit though and talk about potentially unintended consequences of project Creep as well as transparency. Both very important. So a few years ago, I think a great idea the city came up with was to do the 9 mi Creek Corridor project. I think most people were understanding that, you know, it's time for the pavilion and the park to be upgraded. The stairs have been crumbling for 30 years and.

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Actually started walking down here in 1965 and with my parents and been a resident in the current house for 30 years, and it's a daily walk for us. And so it's been very hard over the years to get any maintenance minimum maintenance done on the trail and we had safety issues, and now you talked to council member Lowman repeatedly about that. So this made some sense, and I think. To a lot of people. And I'm glad there was someone reaching out into the community, but there was concern when all of a sudden talk about a bike path came up, and then it was just like, well, to make bike path work you have to have a wide corridor where you have to remove all the trees. And people said.

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Remove trees, and so there were meetings out at Moyer Park. There was the the greenshire gang, which has a mailing of almost a thousand people mailing lists, and the comments that came and that I heard people say at these sessions was. We want to preserve this gem as a place that's wooded where you go and you feel like you're not in the city. You don't see houses, you don't hear the cars, it's quieter, it's cool in the summer when the sun's out. Don't take any trees out. And that was the message from hundreds of people.

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And so, when the project started, it was like, ok, great, we're gonna put a bike path down there, we're gonna keep as many trees as possible. 1st stage of the project occurs. The clearing along the lower part of the creek, the communications group, you know, talked about, well, there's gonna be 7080 trees removed, a lot more than 7080 trees. After the the large area down in the bottom land was cleared to allow for the the wetland, it played a hundred and tears. It's looking at what it's like. Okay, free loss like that it means something to people. Now, I could always explain that I say well having done stormwater analysis for the city of my career, I understand the need to do.

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Detention of of storm water, which is what the creek turns into as an urban creek. It makes sense. You want to preserve the down stream infrastructure and prevent the washouts. I can get that, I can get the the embankmentment, like every part of the project so far, you know, I can sort of explain even though sometimes people are going well why do we have to do all this? Then that came out. And now all of a sudden recently I've learned that there's an RFP that I think was now extended until the 6th 17th of June.

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That calls for clearing the trees in the upper portion. I read the 3536 page on it, out of that 88 page document, it calls clear cut from lawyer Park down to a hundred and 6th street and other areas all the way from our properties lines. On the west side, all the way up to the the the Creek Valley wall. Huge clear cut and massive operation except for oak trees. And once I started realizing this I started asking questions, why are we doing this? And it's like, well, we're getting the little Oak Savannah. Well, it's actually hurry with oak trees on.

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And I realized the magnitude of this and it's just like, how come nobody has said anything about this? The extremess of this is getting people really upset that found out about it, and there's very few people that I think know even that this is gonna happen. I think it's gonna be a huge public outcome. If these trees just start coming down, there's NO reason to do this. I think you can explain all the other parts of the project, but this, this becomes a science project. Hundreds of people said we use the community to live there, that value of the park is the deep woodland.

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Now, I get if we've got smoke trees that are old. Love the idea of saving it. You've talked from a horrister I knew he'd say well just trim the trees around the old trees to give them some room to breathe. You don't have to tear out the whole forest. Then I also hear that this project ran a bit over budget. And it's always nice when council members do stand up at meetings and say, hey, why are we doing that? So having done project management before, in cities, I've watched what happens when a group gets together. It might be the city staff or somebody from the community and talk with the designer and you say, here's what we want you to design.

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And our designer comes back and says, hey, look what I got. Well, we asked for a draft and you just gave me a design for an elephant, and I've heard designers say, this is what you want. We're, we're getting close to time here. To wrap this up so we can make sure everybody just have a chance. And why this is being done.

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There's nothing that went out to the mailing of nearly a thousand people about why would be doing this. So that's what I wanted to offer and thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Brad. Amber. Good evening, welcome. Good evening. My name is 2020 born in Minnesota. I thought tonight would be me complaining about how Bloomington police Department was failing to answer a data request that I placed on 5 March 2026.

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But, and I am generous enough to presume coincidence, approximately 29 h after I notified city council secretary that my comments here tonight would be about the failure of BPD to respond to this data request in a timely manner, I received a response to two of my three requests. 99 days later. Or more appropriately a non response, telling me that I needed to be more specific, at which time my brain started activating memories from this time period and I knew. Confirmed by a partial screenshot of the record request that I had submitted, that I had indeed been very specific in a 3rd request.

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And yet I didn't have an email to confirm this very specific 3rd data request that I submitted that same day because state law allows for body camera footage to be deleted after 90 days. And you may recall that my request wasn't even acknowledged until 99 days after it had been submitted. And so today I contacted the data records office and they were also not able to find this request. But within 17 min we had worked through my request, the data was identified, and what was able to be released to me as the non subject or complaint of the data was received within an hour.

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And the-camera footage and call for service form confirmed what I already knew that on 9 February BPD received a phone call from federal agents at 1621 and intentionally engaged in locating friends of our community, pulling them over under the offices of their headlights not being on at 1731. Even though sunset was 1733 that day, in Minnesota Statute 169 .48 vehicle lighting only mandates that lights beyond from sunset to sunrise. They attempted to bait them by suggesting they were trying to hide something by following best practices for the subject of a police stop by keeping their hands on the wheel, and then proceeded to.

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Which to my knowledge is not yet a crime in the state of Minnesota or the United States of America. What the-CaM audio also offers is that BPD officers maybe capable of identifying people and vehicles and engaging conversations about their behavior. But this seems to only apply to community members, as they were more than happy to ignore the erratic and highly dangerous driving throughout all of our neighborhoods to include school zones and highly violent arrests throughout the operation metro surge.

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All while meeting up with DHS officers in parking lots for long periods of chip chat time. Additionally, I would like to remind our elected officials that it is well known DHS violently detained and destroyed the lives of multiple people in their families throughout Minnesota to include citizens of Bloomington who were residing lawfully within. In the United States. So if BPD is out enforcing laws, which laws are they getting to pick and choose from? It should not also, it should not take an entire season for city employees to respond to data requests. But again, I am generous and aware that they have received a significantly higher number of data requests in the past.

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Several months. And since asking BPD to do less sketchy **** that necessitates the public being more interested in what they are doing is probably not a viable practice, it maybe long past time for you to hire some more data compliance officials. And with my remaining time. Shout out to the Human Rights Commission for initiating Bloomington Pride a few years ago and the continuing work under the Bloomington pride committee. One point of concern that falls on the city is that the beautiful grassy null hosting the performances becomes less enjoyable due to the lack of shade during afternoon festivals. Perhaps the city could consider using.

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In the money that is currently going towards a homophobic Christian evangelist who is hired to make men with guns and absolute power over other people's lives feel better about themselves and take that money and put it towards a combination sunshade and solar pamela for the outdoor area instead. And then a plus one to what Cherish shared already. And noting that police law enforcement is not a long term viable strategy, whereas speed bumps, a forced leave with barriers or roundabouts are proven factors to slow down traffic. Thank you, Amber. Council any questions?

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Please, Amber hold on 1 s. City manager. I think in our last conversation, city manager, you had mentioned data requests and the fact that we were behind on them, so I do think that there's a plan to, to, to add more resources and or funding or however to, to do that. So on that one point, I just wanted to make sure that you knew that council was talking, having those conversations. Tony. Thank you for the opportunity. My name is Tony Hellman. I'm, who's probably pretending not to know me. We live at the house at one oh 357 Morgan.

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I'll get back to that in a minute. Until a couple of hours ago. I was born and raised in Bloomington and we've been coming to this park for the last 30 years back when I was patrolled on the horseback. In fact, my mom thought that I drowned in 9 mi Creek twice and bush Lake wants. Good times, not a lot of oversight.

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Amy if I Amy and I have been coming with our dogs for more than 30 years and when we decided to get out of Minneapolis 18 months ago, we told our realitor that Mayor Park was the episodener of the search. Anything else, anything in walking distance. We found ourselves one of Bloomington's more notorious properties, the silo house. If you are yeah ok You've seen. Trip from Indianapolis.

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Just to spend an hour or two surrounded by the sounds of nature and the absence of manmade structure. So when the opportunity arose not just to live near Moyer park, but surrounded by it we jumped at it. It didn't matter how ugly it was, it didn't matter how much work it needed. It didn't matter that we had to sign an insurance waiver just to tour the house. What mattered was proximity to the park. In the 1st week of moving and our yard was visited by dear Kayoti Fox, raqons, squirrels possims, chipmunks, and rabbits, also one snake, two lizards, and a toe that we know of. Also owls, huge woodpackerts, huge hawks, ducks, cranes, egrets, bats, and events.

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The most surprising was Firefox. I haven't seen those in Bloomington since the 1970s. That brings me to the woods right behind our property. We had been coming to this park for decades and never even experienced the upper trails. We didn't even know that they were there for 25 years. And to get up there and to see all of the life that exists, all the deer, you always wondered, where are the deer? We've been coming here for 30 years, we never see dear. 2nd we got off of there, we were seeing ten or twelve of them betting down on a bluff, just, you know, 1012 feet from people walking past them.

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Unbelievable. Let me get back up. The reason that I mentioned this exhaustive list is that the track of land that you're looking to reimagine is already perfect. It is already healthier and more diverse than anything you can possibly hope to achieve, and it is stronger than any ecosystem in the twin cities. It is that way because those being. That's what we're asking for. The trees you're looking to clear out both standing and lying down both dead and alive, are the habitat for massive amounts of life, big and small, and once it's gone, it'll never be bad, not in our lifetime. We've talked to a lot of neighbors and not one is voice voice support for what you were considering, especially with the impendent train removal along the upper trails.

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The oak Savannah and the coat controlled burned so close to the houses. Along with being habitat for countless life swarms, these trees also clean the air and dampen the sound of the freeway, the hundred and six degreet bridge, the old shock beat road, and even muffle the sound from the flight pan flight path directly overhead. If you think you can make this better with what you're proposing, I suggest that you walk these trails at sunrise, and listen to everything coming to life. The fog, the frost, the mood, the do, the mist, the must, the birds, the insights. Take a close look at what it is you're about to destroy because once it's gone, it's gone forever, and that will be your legacy.

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We and many of our neighbors are extremely pre pleased and appreciative that he chose to keep bikes out of the corridor. As someone who loves biking, it's clear that it would have been too far too busy and crowded. With the abundance of great bike trails in this area, a sincere thanks for sparing this park and preserving the slow pace himself. Thank you for listening to the voice of the people. The city of Udina recently had the wisdom to reverse course recently on a $20 million pedestrian bridge that NO one wanted. They listened to the people, they paused the project, they're studied it, and they did the right thing. This feels a little bit like the east wing of the White House being crammed on our throat without anyone taking.

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Time to get everyone's opinion. One side doesn't like it when the other side does it and when you're kind of in the middle, you feel like you're getting screwed on both sides. So it would just be nice if there was a little bit of a pause to consider what's. What's happening up there? Because this is, I mean, we've got, we've got trees that are 200 years old that have been on the ground for 60 years and they've been housing habitat every one of those years. And once that moss is gone, it doesn't come back. It takes forever for these things to return.

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We don't mind our taxpires tax dollars going into the parks. It's what made Bloomington by far the most livable suburb. We have the best parks anywhere, that's why I loved growing up here and why I couldn't wait to get back. We don't object to the money just how it's being spent. Take this money spend it somewhere else, it isn't needed here, it isn't wanted here. Think of the improvements you could make to other blooming parts with the same dollars reallocated. Please hear the voice of the people that represent the residents and the local interests. What you are prepared to do cannot be undone.

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Thanks for your time and the opportunity to speak. Thank you and and I appreciate you coming forward and I appreciate Brian coming forward also in the emails that we've received and the concern that people have and I and I know there is concern around this. I think I'd I'd like the opportunity I'm gonna ask our staff to reconvene the the meetings that we've been doing, had been doing as we do. During the the question about the bike pads and to be able to explain it to talk back and forth and to get some understanding on all of this. Understood. Yep, we will hope to make that a little.

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And, and, and I'm I mean I will I will point out, I mean the group of Brian mentioned the the green t shirt wearing group. I mean the name of that group is restore the nine. Yes. It's not. Maintain. It's for store. There there is restoration that needs to be done down there. There it is it's nice and wooded, but not necessarily the best or most the healthiest ecosystem in the world. So I'm gonna ask staff that we continue those conversations that I know were very helpful as we were talking original design and as we were talking.

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Talking byte pass and all that. And see if we can't bring in the folks who, the, the experts who were recommending this in the 1st place and and see if we can't understand both sides a little bit better. I blew, I grew up in Bloomington, this is the best part department I've ever encountered. I photographed golf courses for the ancipalities photograph parts and trails all over the Twin city. This is where we wanted to live and it is that park gets Bush lake, Thailand, it's all what you guys do. So it's appreciated. Great, and we appreciate the fact that you chose bloomington. All right Jerry. Thank you so very much. Thank you.

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Council we are at 06:15, we've got to get downstairs for our meeting. I would entertain a motion to adjourn a motion in a second to adjourn. We so we've got a motion in a second all in favor? I we are adjourned. I do want to talk to mention to folks I don't know if anybody hears about the Adora project. That is not it's on the, it's on the agenda tonight, but there's not a public input portion of that.

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So we'll have an opportunity I'm sure in the future, we are very early in this process. We are brand new in this process. So there's gonna be plenty of opportunities for, for you to have a voice in this and and we'll definitely work with you and and listen to the folks who are concerned about this. So, but thanks everybody for coming tonight, we appreciate it.