Video recording

Um, good evening. I'm speaking tonight about the historical grant efforts of the town from 2010 to 2025. The purpose of this presentation is to show that as the town has grown, so has the town's use of grants to assist in funding necessary projects. As I have been part of this process, I have realized that there are some misconceptions about what a grant is and what they can do, but I'll discuss that later in my presentation. So, let's get started with the breakdown of grants awarded to the town from 2010 to 2019. There are limited records available for grants from this period of time. So, please forgive me if I've missed something.

From 2010 to 2019, grants were researched and applied for by the engineering firms hired for municipal projects, WEDA, and town staff. As you can see, the largest award year was 2017 with a total award amount of $3,248,000 closely followed by 2019 with a total award amount of 1,480,000. This award was for a singular project of sidewalk improvements along Ridge Road from Jackson Road to 5M Line Road. Through the combined efforts of town staff, WEDA, and engineering firms, the total amount awarded to the town was $4,950,000 from nine grants. From 2020 to 2005, grants were researched and applied for by the engineering firms hired for municipal projects, WEDA, and town staff, as was done in 2010 through 2019.

However, in October 2023, the town secured the services of Gene O' Connell and Associates as well as assigning the tasks of town grant liaison to me, Maria Der. Each firm or person filling these roles plays an integral part of the process. Engineering firms identify and sometimes write grants that apply to the project they were hired to design. WEDA identifies and applies for grants tied to economic development. and Gino Connell and Associates identify and apply for grants that range from municipal projects to IT hardware upgrades. My role is to keep the grants application moving. I help gather materials or remind the teams of each project of items needed for an application.

Mainly, I leaz between Gene O'Connell and associates and the town. However, I like everyone else on town staff assist with other projects as needed. This vast team enables the town to be proactive rather than reactive to grant opportunities. As you can see, teamwork pays off. The largest award year was 2024 with a total award amount of 20,471,657. The largest award was funded by the NYSE EFC or New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation for improvements to the wastewater treatment plant phase 2 to accommodate the increase in waste flow. Closely followed by 2024 in success is 2021 with a total award amount of $2,372,859.

Through the combined efforts of town staff Gene O'Connell and Associates WEDA and the engineering firms, the total amount awarded to the town was $25,852,924 from 14 grants. The grants tracker presented in November of 2024 has been updated with the grants awarded and applied for to present date. This update includes grants written and applied for by Gino Connell Associates, WEDA, engineering firms, and town staff. This tracker can be found on the town web page under our community. As mentioned at the beginning of this presentation, as the talent's efforts to offset costs through grant funding has grown, I have noticed some misconceptions about what a grant is and what they can do.

I'll speak on them now. Misconception number one, the town can quickly pull a successful grant application together. Fact, developing a grant application requires significant research, planning, and writing time. Planning and research are significant piece of the process as some grants include requirements or restrictions that preclude us from applying. As an example, sometimes the match on a grant is high is a higher percentage than we'd like. When that's the case, the urgency of the project is taken into consideration. If it's not urgent and just something we'd like, then the project is put on hold while we look for better opportunities.

where sometimes a grant requires specific studies that haven't been conducted and can't be completed in the time frame of when a grant is due. These are just a few of the things reviewed by the grant consultant and project teams. Misconception number two, don't worry. We'll get funding. Fact, grants are competitive, subjective, and based on a total score of points given to each application by the review committee. There is only so much money to go around. So the review committee must scrutinize each application. As each application is scrutinized, sections are awarded points. Those with the highest number of points are selected for awards.

Two areas we struggle with and it's not a bad problem to have are one, we are not a disadvantaged community, and two, our MHI or median household income is higher. These are two areas that we we receive zero points for. So, we start out with a lower number of possible points to earn for each application. It puts our application at a slight disadvantage. Misconception number three, grant money can be used for anything. Fact, each grant award comes with specific guidelines and restrictions. Most have a compa a component of what goods and services can be purchased as well as the percentage of funding that should be spent on goods or services through designated or registered businesses such as MWBE or minority and womenowned businesses.

Generally, there's a 30% requirement tied to all grants for MWBE. If you aren't available to meet this goal for factors outside of your control, a waiver of the requirements can be pursued with the possibility of the waiver request being accepted. This is a very detailed process with many parts and takes some takes quite some time for approval. Misconception number four, if you don't get the grant, you should give up. Fact, rejection is part of the process. If a proposal is not selected, review the feedback, make improvements, and try again. As an example, the first application for the Smart Growth Comprehensive Plan Grant was rejected in 2021.

In 2022, the feedback received from the original application was incorporated into the new application and it was awarded. Misconception number five, grant funding is solely derived from taxpayer money. Fact, although tax revenue is an important source of funding for grant programs, other revenue streams from collection of fines, fees, and borrowing through bonds are also utilized. If we don't pursue grant opportunities, we risk losing out on getting some of that taxpayer money back into our community. In summary, grants are a great way to supplement funding for a project while also lessening the overall expense of the project.

However, there are often strings attached, hoops to jump through, and stringent reporting requirements that need to be considered. Grants aren't free money. This is why we weigh each opportunity and reviews the pros and cons of applying or not. When we take the time to review and select the best strategy for the town, we get the best outcomes. So, I'd like to thank the town board for their continued assistance with the grants process. Whether it's making phone calls or writing emails, your assistance is greatly appreciated. Thank you. Do you have any questions? Thank you for the very detailed report and your toutelage earlier with me regarding the dog kennel grant.

Happy to help. Appreciate it. Um first of all, Maria, thank you for a wonderful presentation and uh special thank you for the acronyms list. You're welcome. So many times we all get lost in that alphabet soup such as LGRM, local government records management improvement fund. Unless you're in the department that's getting that, you have no idea what that might be. Um secondly, when you spoke about the misconceptions in of number two with median household income and the things that might put us at a disadvantage to applying for some grants. I think it was two years ago in spring of 23 where we considered and heard presentations on being a climate smart community and we were also made aware that that could qualify us for some grants especially for some of the projects we were already doing.

Um fact is unfortunately this board board voted that down. Do you see grants that would be available but we don't qualify for because of not being a climate smart community? Um I see that we lose points for not being a climate smart community. We're still able to register. Um but again with um there only being so many to there's a total maximum points per application. And if you start out already minus three or four points or whatever bracket they've assigned that to then our application is um really going to struggle to get funding. Certainly, it won't be as as competitive. Yeah, very competitive.

Very competitive. I also like the piece about rejection. Don't give up. Um I immediately thought of a classmate of mine who for the junior prom. This young man, I think, invited at least 25 different girls to go to the junior prom with him and they all declined. But he did finally find one and he attended the junior prom. So there you go. Don't give up. Nope. Never. Yes. Wow. I didn't say who was I I one of the things that I think is an interesting fact that I learned is joining the board is how difficult it is to write a grant and how you how having the the right words and the right language and everything has to be very specific and on point and any small deviation could also impact the the grant.

So it does take a very special skill set to be effective at writing grant applications. It's not be very challenging for somebody who doesn't have that ability. Yeah. Agreed. Um well obviously uh this is something near and dear to my heart. Uh so um I don't know if I have any questions per se, Maria, but I just want to highlight a couple of things real quick. Uh this presentation along with the next slide after questions, which is the acronym list. Um that is on our website. Yes. Um so the community um certainly has access to that uh 247. Dave, I I see you at these meetings. Go up with your camera and taking pictures of these slides.

Every single one of these presentations, they're usually up on the website. Uh we try to shoot for about 48 hours before the meeting. Um which is the the end of business on Tuesday before a Thursday meeting. Um I can say with this one, I think it it got up on Wednesday because I think we we collaborated with a bunch of people to to develop a few last minute edits. Yeah. Mhm. Um, but just going through the pages, uh, when you get to the grants tracker, the one that, uh, if you can go back a couple pages, uh, Maria. Mhm. Uh, this is on the website, uh, 247. It's, uh, updated um, probably quarterly, I would say.

Yeah. Um so just to give an example like the last one in sequence the fast New York grant uh last upstate update had preparing the application and actually that was uh it's pending now it was submitted uh I think on April 4th um so it's a living breathing document and where the first couple pages of this presentation uh Maria showed what we were awarded this gives an idea of just all the applications that we've ated made and it it is a it's an art not a science. We have been not awarded as you can see on several of these and we still have some pending uh as of today. So you know when you look at the fact that we've gotten $25 million of grant awards in the last five years and four months compared to 5 million in the previous 10 years.

You know, we've got some grant applications out there pending that tomorrow we could get awarded on and that number could go from 35 million to to 30 I'm sorry 25 million to 36 million. Um the the myths the myths versus facts. Um I got to say uh on the myth number three um when you brought up uh M MWBE is it MWBE? Yes. minority and womenowned businesses. Yeah, this one has confounded me uh the last couple years. And I remember when we were looking at the sewer plant that we were warned that if we went for a certain type of uh grant um a WEIA grant from uh EFC um that we might get um let's say a $1 million grant, but it it would potentially could add a million5 to the cost of the project.

Mhm. So you got to, you know, the grants, you got to be very careful because if having 30% of the work done by a minority and uh womenowned business, they may not be the low bid. Uh so that that could work against you. Uh and we saw some situations where we uh thought that the the return, if you want to call it, of getting a a grant was not worth the risk that it looked like we would be paying more on the total project uh net of the grant we got. Um myth misconception number five, um I just want to make sure everybody understands where it says grant funding is grant funding is solely derived from taxpayer money.

Uh look, the the town uh taxpayers, the real estate taxpayers, uh for for every dollar of grants that this town gets, it's one less dollar that we have to really tax the uh uh the citizens of Webster. Um that's a fact. um we either need to go into debt one less dollar for the grant money we get or we need to take one less dollar out of our budget or out of our whatever fund general fund or whatever. And I always go back to the fact and I remember you know anybody go to I don't know what it's called now it's Frontier Field Redwing Stadium whatever innovation field innovation field it's been around 30 years now that's amazing to me right but back in the early 80s through the mid 90s there was this it was very controversial like you know the state has these entertainment grants and stadium grants and people would say you should use that money for feeding the poor and for homeless and it's like well you don't understand that money is slotted to go to entertainment and stadiums and if Rochester doesn't go and get it I can assure you some other community is going to get it and that really is what this misconception in this uh number five is is that yeah you can argue that these monies all of these monies that we've received over the years are taxes that you're paying into the system probably New York state income tax or sales tax and whatever.

But we're trying to bring that money back to Webster to improve the quality of life in this 35 square miles that this board. That's our job. Our job is to govern Webster. My job, the board members, is not to be a state legislator, not to be a state senator, not to be the governor. If you want to change how the state collects taxes and creates these pools of funds for grants, then you need to do that through the state assembly, the state senate, and the governors in the elections and all that. But but here the town of Webster, our job and I've said it many times from this day is I could argue that the the most important job of a town board member is the stewardship of the taxpayers's money.

I can't stewardship your federal taxes. I have no influence over the federal budget. We don't have any influence over the county budget. We have no influence over the state budget. We have 100% influence over the town budget and that's why it is to me it is it's imperative that we go out and get as much of this money that is out there so that downstates not getting it or the aderonics we need to bring that money here if it's available and it is available and I think really we have made this a premium the last five years um and not just my lips flapping about it the way we approach it and be proactive and analyze it and be strategic.

This is nice to go out and show the record. The record speaks for itself. 10 years prior less than $5 million in grants award. We have 25 million plus in the last five years and four months. And if we came back, Maria, in three or four months with some of these pending grants, you might be pushing 35 or $40 million. So, I said I'd be brief. That wasn't that brief, was it? But I wanted to make sure that that didn't go unspoken because I think grants is a very um I don't want to say controversial but it's a misunderstood uh aspect of uh government funding. So thank you. Thank you. Thanks for the presentation.

Thank you. Plus I knew that I had a few minutes there, right, Chris? Uh took me a while to get over here, right? You know, uh I said we have two workshop uh agenda items tonight. Uh on our agenda, it was slotted for 6:50 p.m. And an Maria, I think it's 6:50 p.m. How about that? How about that? Um our next uh agenda item tonight is an update on the Sandbar Park uh well, food trucks for the summer of 2025. and Chris Bo, our uh the town's parks and recck commissioner, is going to give that presentation. So, Chris, have at it. So, what I'm going to do is just kind of go back real briefly and then uh give an update to kind of how we got to where we are here, May 2025.

Okay. So, as you recall back in November uh of 2024, did a presentation uh this was a few weeks after we had the bid results. It's actually about a month after we did the bid results from the uh from the brickandmortar concept that uh that that the town worked on with Sam Fantuzo and his team. Um as a result of that those bid numbers that came in and obviously the uh the overall construction cost and payback etc that would go into that u the decision being made to not pursue the brick and mortar. And if you recall there was uh basically four options at that time uh really to kind of consider how to move forward.

Option four is uh the direction that was chosen to sort of pursue uh which was basically to look at a less costly option provide seasonal food um at Sandbar Park is an example food trucks. Uh one of the things that we had discussed kind of all along even during the discussion with the Fantuso team you know there was a number of different opportunities but it was pretty clear that option one from the start was to look at a brickandmortar type of a facility. So that's the reason that we went that path to start. Um this was always sort of another option that we knew may it may or may not have to ever uh sort of be pursued.

So after that presentation to the town board in November, um the the parks and recck department uh starting in January sort of began putting together, I'll call it a process or a plan of how this might work. Um because obviously between January and you know summertime or June, while it's on a calendar or several months, from a scheduling standpoint, it's a very short time. So we started in January, kind of all agreed that a food truck uh system was probably going to be the best option for us. Again, working under that time frame. Uh and then sort of how we should best go about putting this process together.

Uh so the first thing that we did is in January created sort of a a survey, short survey, um where we sent it out to 26 different food truck vendors just kind of asking for their input uh on what the operations from a schedule from, you know, June 25 through September of 25 might look like. Um we received back 14 responses. uh out of those 26 um you know we asked things like you know your availability, your scheduling, your um you know your commitment level, how committed you know you would be to this process uh just so we have had an understanding but again receiving the 14 14 initial responses was I think a good sign.

So that that brought us into February where uh we began sort of a similar process as what we did with uh the brickandmortar concept where um only this time it was myself. Uh I met with eight different um eight different food truck vendors. Um they came into the office. We sat down very casual conversation. Every one of them sort of brought something different to the table. Not menu related but just also ideas and concept wise. uh kind of how this process might work. Um so that was a it was a good discussion because it really sort of uh changed the thought process of how this may be structured as we moved forward.

What I think was our original or initial dis um thought of what a schedule might look like from a consistency standpoint. We started to realize wasn't probably going to be feasible based on how food truck operations function between events and private businesses etc. Um so we did that the month of February. Uh then when we got into March, we ended up uh again sort of similar process with our brick and mortar um um meetings. We ended up with six food truck operators who were what I'll say committed to the process or committed to uh providing the service this year. Um so from there then we then created a Google doc to be able to ask for their availability.

Again, we are right in in this March time frame, right in the sweet spot of when these food trucks are starting to plan their season. Some of them were already pretty much committed, so their availability was less than others. Um but again, we didn't want to wait any longer than we we could because they'd fill up obviously um and we would be in a different boat. So did that through the month of March. Sort of got the uh got the days and times and again that's where that discussion of consistency came in. Um, we knew once we started this Google doc from a calendar standpoint that we weren't going to have a consistent Friday night from 4 to 10 because it was difficult to be able to find food trucks during that time.

We're providing a service there where we can't guarantee them x number of people. If it's a rainy cold night in June, there may be nobody there. If it's a beautiful 75 degree night, there could be 300 people there. It's hard for a food truck vendor when we're not paying them to be there uh to turn down what I'll call paying gig. So, if they get a graduation party on that Friday night, they're going to commit to that. To the credit of the the six food trucks that we were dealing with, they all were committed that once they put their name on that schedule, they were committed to that even though they're not being compensated by the town.

So even if something better comes up, um they've given us their, you know, their word that they'll they'll honor u their obligation. Once we got into April, um we sort of had an initial schedule set where we went from June 1st through September 15th. Um again, just based on what I'll call Rochester weather, that seems to be the easiest uh for us to be able to schedule. Um you know, you do get the one-offs where, you know, we do have nice weather later in the season. We do have the ability to extend this. Again, food truck operators said if it goes well and you know we want to go a little longer, we can always extend it.

We're not locked in, but we wanted to give the operators at least sort of some parameters. Um also started the promotional campaign um in regards to how this might look, how we'll roll it out. Obviously getting this meeting here to present the concept to you guys. um also working with the food truck uh operators to sort of make sure and encourage that those folks are doing the same that they don't just rely on the town to be able to promote it. They all have their own Facebook groups and social media following etc. So u they have to have some of that buy in. Town installed picnic tables in the park um especially in the location of this area.

We spread a number of them out as we see need. We'll either move them around or bring some more in. But we at least do have tables down there now. Um and then once we reached May, we got into our final schedule after some shifting around of some some dates. Um we've created a promotional flyer uh that's been out on the website now for about a week and a half just saying that the schedule is coming. Um we're going to have some flyers that are going to be uh hung up. Um obviously this presentation tonight and then full full-fledged pre uh sort of marketing campaign would start tomorrow. Everything's reloaded and ready to go.

Assuming this board gives us the the good to go, uh we'll start that tomorrow. The way this the schedule is sort of going to be rolled out is again because of the um changing in the sort of the the structure of it, it's going we're going to roll it out in two week blocks. So the first two weeks will start June 1st. Uh kind of go through Friday, June 13th, a list of the trucks, the times that they're going to be there. So this first schedule, and I feel pretty confident that this didn't change since I put it in this presentation. Um but, you know, it's it's kind of a little bit of everybody between um all six uh vendors.

Like I said earlier, some have more dates than others. Some are only going to be there a handful of times. Again, that's just because they have other events that they're tied to. Um, we will have some signage down there. We'll have a a sign where the food truck trucks will be parked, which is in the uh same area that the restaurant was to be built. Um, we'll have it with a QR code that'll take them directly to this um this site or this page on the website. If you go to the parks and rec page on the website, this there is a flyer right now that once somebody clicks on it, it will show that twoe block schedule.

So people will be able to see that in advance. Um uh we're going to reach out. There are five marinas that are on around Quake Bay. Uh we're going to be sending the information to them as well. So hopefully they'll encourage their boers uh because one of the things we talked about with the food trucks is reaching out to the boating community uh because we obviously have that really nice new dock. Uh and it'll obviously be able to be a draw from from the water. Um the trucks that are um committed are the six that are listed there. Sammies and Sweets, Rock City Sandwich, the Melt Truck, Uncle Bucks, Tuskenwood Fire Pizza, and Wraps on Wheels.

Um so pretty regular and well I'll say you know commonly known food trucks in the area and then I I got this in here um for future consideration. So, as we as we met with or as I was meeting with the uh the food truck vendors, I let them know that 25 is sort of I don't want to call it a pilot season, but it's, you know, it's new for us. We've never done this um in this format. It may prove to be very successful. It truthfully, it might not be as successful as we all hope. Weather's going to be a huge driver of how this goes. Um I have no doubt that there's going to be an interest from the community.

I have no doubt that there's going to be uh people in the park that are going to benefit from having these food trucks down there, but we may find at the end of this that um maybe there's another option for us too. And again, go back to when we started this whole process with um with Sam and and his team. One of the other concepts that we we have discussed is what I'll say more seasonalbased. Uh, one of the concepts that we've kicked around for the last several months is uh, these storage container concepts where we could actually have seasonal storage containers that sell one would potentially we could have two on site where one is a food option and the second one could either be a snack or a beverage container.

We would then look to obviously see if there's a potential vendor to be able to operate those or those could be done internally, especially if it's a what I'll call a snack container. You know, if it's an ice cream if it's an ice cream container. Those are kind of things that, you know, we run the concession stand here at Miracle Field that aren't so far out of our scope. Food is a little different, but there might be an opportunity for a local vendor to be able to do this, especially knowing that it's seasonally. We've done some preliminary drawings down there. We can fit uh we could easily fit a couple storage containers down there.

Still keep plenty of green space, have tables, hightop tables, umbrellas, etc. Uh create a fun atmosphere, even have a small stage area set up potentially. U but there is enough there is enough space for us to potentially have uh two food storage containers. Number of different ways you can go with these. Uh we've started to look into made some contacts with some uh vendors that actually build these. So there's a number of different directions we can go but truthfully till we go through 2025 in this initial concept kind of holding this in our back pocket to be able to see what uh what the interest level is and how the success goes in 20 25 with food trucks questions.

I think this was a great presentation. I genuinely appreciate the creativity of what is possible down at Sandbar Park because there are there's many people who are still very sad, disappointed about the Bayside not being there. And this is a a step in the direction of bringing people together and being able to have a bite and hang out by the water. and your your vision for what can be done in the future with the potential of having a a drink or a bar like facility with a food facility. Very casual, lots of room for people to hang out, bring chairs, um, listen to music in the pavilion area. could really bring back the same vibe that was there before and at a clearly a fraction of the cost.

So, I I I like it. I think it has a lot of merit and a lot of potential and um could really be a nice place for people to congregate in the summer months in the town. I I also think it's a great idea and I applaud you for for as Jen said that creativity. Um, one of the things that as you got into talking about the seasonal storage containers, um, I think it's important that we, um, look at something that is in your promotion, and that's that because this is not a structure that's permanent, we don't have a lot of the requirements and the stumbling blocks that we had with state agencies for the previous plan that we looked at.

Correct. Well, once again, Chris, I commend you in thinking outside the box when it comes to creativity with the storage containers. Um, I just had a couple questions. I I'm very familiar with three of these vendors, so I'm looking forward to uh to uh visiting when they arrive. I noticed that there was no Saturday dates on here, though. To be honest with you, John, I don't have the I didn't bring the full seasonal schedule. There are some. Okay. Um, but like I said at the beginning, when I started sitting down with them, right? That's the food truck world. I learned that this is called like an open vent is what they're kind of doing for us.

That's how food trucks originally, I mean, kind of got started. You know, they were showing up downtown and they're on street corners and those kind of things, right? They call that open vet. A lot of them don't do that now because there's a lot of overhead for them between between hiring staff and then supplies. So they they're comm they they commit themselves to either events or private parties. And it was actually fascinating to learn because I always I thought, you know, again, it's Rochester. It's a limited set number of events or activities going on. A lot of what they're doing now are private catering events, whether it's a graduation, a wedding, a rehearsal dinner, or just a block party.

Wow. So they're and most of those take place on Saturday. Yeah. So it's tough for him, you know, tough for these these folks to sit across the table from me and say, "I'd love for you to be there on Saturday night from, you know, six o'clock until 9:00, but I can't promise you that you're going to have x number of people when, you know, they're going, well, I've got a party that's going to pay me for 500." And right, I totally understand why they would need to do that. Well, it could turn into them coming on Saturdays. And that's where They were great. They could we could find that there is a larger interest.

I've also I'll say reserved the you know the uh the the right to be able to sort of modify the schedule if we need to be. So that's why I think having things like the QR code that takes people directly to this. It's important for the community to understand how they get this information that it's it's not possible for us to say just every Thursday night from 5 to 10. It just doesn't work that way, right? So communication is going to be real big as we sort of share this information with the public. So the only the only other question I had was is there a cost to the vendor? Are they going to have to rent space from at Sandbar to do this?

We're not charging. Great. Great. Because I have talked to vendors before about some of their prices and their response was, "Well, it cost us x amount of hundreds of dollars just to be here." So we the only thing that's great news. Yeah. The only thing that we we were very upfront with them. We said again truthfully they're doing they're doing us sort of solid by coming in and doing this open bet. So we said we're not going to charge it for you know for space. We're not going to put a permit fee on it. The only thing that we required them to do like we do with any of is they complete a permit so we have it which automatically certificate of insurance is included and they got to be up to date with Monural County Health Department standards which again we have six food trucks that are established that are so right.

Thank you Jenny. Thank you. You answer my questions about the insurance part. So thanks. No problem. Well, I'll be I'll be interested to see how this goes. Chris, you know, me, too. I was uh uh truth be told last Friday I think I was baragging you with some videos and some pictures from when I was down in Clemson, South Carolina and there's a there's a barbecue place down there, the smoking pig, and they a couple years ago took their parking lot because there's such a wait to get in to eat that they put three of these storage containers kind of two of them in like an angled thing facing out and then one on top and it's unbelievable.

They they got a bar going on out there. They got you know and it's um but we've looked at this and I mean some of the I mean you can see on the picture that he has you know that that's a storage that's a you know they they trick these things out like you wouldn't believe. They're houses now. They are actually one of the one of the food trucks does it. Rock City I think it's Rock City. They actually convert um he takes small storage containers and puts them on flatbed trucks. So it's it's a food truck but it's a storage container. And he brought one by for us to see. So there are some local options but again I've looked at there's there's a couple national companies that do this.

You can get 40 foot 20 foot. You can get ones that open three windows, five windows. You you name it. similar to what you sent me, Tom. I've been to a number of these places where they're, you know, they're becoming more popular in destination areas and it it fits seasonally for us. We don't have the ability to operate it, you know, but it does give us the flexibility that if in February the department wanted to have an ice fishing tournament, we could open these this type of a structure and and sell hot dogs or hamburgers or hot coke or whatever. It gives us that flexibility. So, yeah. And you know, Chris, you and I went through the the brick and mortar through three or four rounds of this.

And all the way along, we're like, this is tough because it costs money to build a municipal building. And we saw that, you know, it was going to be $2 to3 million. And by law, we have to we have to recoup the taxpayer money on a bond for that. And it was going to cost the private restaurant tour 20 $25,000 a month in rent. Nobody's going to do that. No, I mean that that's a bankruptcy waiting to happen. So, um I don't know. We haven't started pricing out things such permanent non-permanent structures like a a storage container. Yeah. But my gut tells me that, you know, we got all the power down there.

We got all the utilities ready to hook in. Um that, you know, you probably wouldn't even have to go into a bonding situation. You could get out of the parkland. uh trust fund trust fund. And then, you know, you talk about taking complexities off of a uh we we always knew we'd have to have a licensing agreement with a restaurant uh private restaurant tour that, you know, pays back the taxpayers. Now, it'd be like, hey, you know, what do you want to do? Do you want to go seasonal? Uh you you tell us what you want to do, and if we agree as the town board to take that, it's revenue. they would be paying us.

Um, and I'm sure we would uh we'd be getting the money back for any amount of money that we put in to put a storage container down there and whatever. So, it's exciting and I mean and that's why I think this this summer is this process is the right way to go about this without trying to go down taking biting too much off at once. This gives us the time that we can at least introduce the concept and then and adjust and move forward in your presentation shows and you said it so I won't be when we knew that you know November around Thanksgiving this is just this is not going to happen all right it just is what it is we got 20 bids it was the heaviest bid number of bids we ever got on a municipal you know Wix law project whatever you want to call it was a $3 million building so it wasn't some anomaly where we just got one bid you know what I mean so uh once that died you know we knew that you can't 5 months I mean what can we get down there to test the and I think you know your presentation shows I mean you you did yman work on this one I mean every single month you so uh good group to work with so well thanks I can't wait to see I can't wait to see how many people are down there I can't wait to go and check out the the scene and the vibe well that concludes the workshop for the night and that means Uh we got about 18 minutes before we start the uh regular town board meeting.

So we won't be rushed with uh you know kind of stretching your legs and whatever else.