Wednesday, November 30, 2016

City Council Meeting 11-30-17

We had another City Council meeting tonight... It is the third to the last meeting that we will have this year.

We started with the Roll Call where everyone was present except for Councilor Benson, who was out of town.

I then opened up the Public Comment period, but no one spoke so we moved right along.

The Consent Agenda was composed of the usual three items, approving the meeting agenda, the previous meeting's minutes, and the City's bills. There were no concerns about the Consent Agenda, so there was a motion and it was approved unanimously.


The first thing on the agenda was Cook County Soil and Water.  They had two presentations for us.

The first was that they have been testing water quality for three years at strategic locations along the shore so they can have some baseline numbers for water quality. They are the first group on Lake Superior that is formally taking these measurements! There are 5 spots, East Bay, right off shore of the water plant, the marina, the harbor in front of the Trading Post, and in front of the rec park boat launch.

What are they gathering? E. Coli numbers, temperature, clarity, Chlorophyll, phosphorus, chloride, Nitrogens, different solids in the water, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, PH

The site by the East Bay sewer plant had the lowest E. Coli number, which means the treatment plant is doing its job. The marina had the highest pollution numbers, which isn't a big surprise. They will continue doing these monitoring activities for another 2 years so that they can have a solid baseline.

Their second presentation was a historical trip through the City's stormwater management plans and other associated information. There was a plan in 2001, another plan in 2007, and an update in 2009.

Most of these plans addressed the perceived stormwater concerns at each time. Soil and Water brought up the new concerns and future concerns for the City:
The Municipal Parking Lot's issues,
how development changes our area's hydrology (i.e. more paved area causes more run-off, more infrastructure limits the lakeward flow of water, etc),
a changing understanding of what is acceptable with stormwater runoff,
etc...

They proposed that it is time for a new stormwater management plan and there is some funding available.

This management plan would have:
modeling of precipitation events,
a stormwater inventory which would include checking culvert size and placement,
answer the question of "Where is the water coming from and where is it going?"
identify necessary projects to mitigate stormwater problems,
costs of these projects and scheduling,
and assessment of projects' effectiveness.

Our watershed is not typical, instead of having a steep slope and a nice flat plain before the lake we have a water break at the top of the hill and then a steep hill leading right down to the lake... This makes the development of our stormwater management plan more difficult, but necessary.

They shared with us that there is a lot of grant monies that are available for such a plan: we can likely leverage $25,000 of City resources in order to get $188,000 in total grant funding. We are a Tier 1 Priority area, which moves us up the queue of grant funding...

They want to know if the City would like to commit to up to $25,000 so that we can capitalize on this opportunity. Since the City has had this conversation several times at this point over several years and the stormwater issues faced by the City are coming to the forefront we committed to investing $25,000 in the instance that we would be able to apply for and secure the additional funds, which would allow us to complete the study and to complete a few of the projects that the plan calls for. This was concluded as a situation where the City can actually be money ahead by ending up with both an up to date plan and with a good start on the projects that were identified by the plan. In the end we voted to commit the funds in the instance that we can secure the other funding.


Next, we had Dave Tersteeg of the Parks Department come and give us an update on the performance of the Rec. Park in order to give us some perspective on our budgeting process for 2017, mainly to make sure that we were writing somewhat accurate numbers into the budget and that we would be able to distribute the monies into the appropriate locations. Tersteeg's report basically showed the facts that the Rec. Park has consistently, over the past 10 years, increased its revenues in spite of the recession and the Park Board has adopted new, more innovative approaches to increasing revenues. This all was to help the Council understand what to expect next year. Part of the reason for this conversation was to support the next item on the agenda, which was...

The Financial Report provided by the City's Kim Dunsmoor had a number of different items, one of which related to the Rec. Park. It was the Finance Director's suggestion that the City officially create an assigned fund for the Park Department and to fund that account at an amount that is roughly equivalent to half of the year's operational expenses. The Council had been talking about this action for several years and was really pleased to see the suggestion supported by the Finance Director.

The next item on the Finance Report was concerning the Golf Course. The Golf Course hasn't made money for the last 12 years. It has been something that the City has financed consistently with General Fund monies for the past 12 years. This raises certain issues with the Golf Course itself, but the request from the Finance Director was to have the Council move the Golf Course account from an enterprise fund for the City to the General Fund. This move would more accurately reflect the nature of the Golf Course since enterprise funds are supposed to make money. The City also moved all of the City's other enterprises into the General Fund several years ago, so it made sense to consolidate them in the same place. The Council thought that this made sense, so the vote was taken and it was done.

The final item on the Finance Report was concerning the Library's restricted accounts. The Library has two restricted accounts, one that is composed of several gifts made to the Library and the other that is composed of a generous bequest by the Hazel Matthews estate that happened quite some time ago. The request was that the Council move to combine these accounts into one restricted account since the covenants that govern both of these accounts are exactly the same. I asked several questions about whether the Library Director was asked about this and whether this would change the way that the Library was able to use this money. The answers to these questions did not pose any concerns and the Council voted to combine the accounts.

Following that, the Council heard the second reading of the ordinance that we would like to opt out of the state restrictions on "Granny Pods" imposed by the state earlier this year. This passed unanimously.

The final thing that the Council heard was the recommendation from the City Personnel Committee to hire the new Assistant Library Director who will start around the beginning of the year. I have to confirm the name, but the selection has been made from a pool of very well qualified applicants. There were 5 interviews and three very good candidates. The Committee felt very lucky to have to make this very difficult decision.

Then on to Councilor Updates:

Councilor Moody had a question about whether sledding at the golf course is going to be allowed this year on the golf course. There has been some confusion about whether or not that is allowed.

Councilor Kennedy reported on the County's efforts to establish a Parks and Trails commission which is calling for one City representative either Council or staff on the commission. We need to have a conversation about who that person should be. Just about all of the Councilors present showed interest, but there was some discussion about Councilor Mills since he is on the Park Board here in the City.

The PUC's rate increases were approved. 2% for electric fund, 2% for water fund, 3% for sewer fund to reflect increases in purchase rates etc.

Greater MN Parks and Trails Commission is up for renewal in membership in this group to continue advocating for development of trail infrastructure in greater MN, including the Gitchi Gammi Trail.


My report was composed of a summary of my experience at the latest meeting in Beaver Bay concerning the sexual exploitation of young people in MN. We heard a presentation from a young woman who was actually exploited and trafficked within the State and her experience being exploited. She made it really clear that the people that are doing the exploiting most of the time study and know human psychology and are able to identify those that are vulnerable almost immediately...
The conversation will certainly continue, but will focus on trying to find ways that we can meet the needs of the young people in our community and thus remove the access or appeal of the exploiters.  There is a lot of stuff here and it isn't easy to tap into.

The other meeting was a North House Board meeting where they discussed the continued growth of the organization, future planning, the 20th anniversary, accommodating the new (but now postponed) overtime and labor rules, a new staff handbook, etc. It was overall a very positive meeting with a great deal of good information.

I couldn't remember the last item on my list during the meeting, but I remember it now... I will share it in another post because I think that it warrants its own post...

That was it! We were done and adjourned the meeting a little after 8.

As always, if you have any questions, please let me know!



Monday, November 14, 2016

The Best Ways to get Involved in Your Community...

A few days ago, after my re-election to Grand Marais Mayor (thank you to all of you who voted for me!) I put out an invitation on facebook telling people that if they would like coaching on how they can better get involved in their community, I would be willing to work with them to help them find a way to do that.

*As a definite caveat, I write this not because I know it all or because I have any secrets, but because the response that I got from that simple shout out was very, very strong and I haven't had enough time to get back to most of the people that contacted me, so I thought I would write up a few thoughts and observations that I have had from my experience. This won't, by any means, be complete, but it may serve as a decent place to get started!

**As another caveat, I am going to throw out a lot of ideas that don't require much if anything beyond having a willingness to stand for something. There are, of course, many positions within cities and counties that you can serve formally in, but it is much more powerful to live out what you want to see happen and work to bring others with you in that lifestyle...

First of all, the simplest thing that you can do is to KNOW WHO REPRESENTS YOU and build a relationship with them. This doesn't just mean you send them letters when you are angry. This means that you know who they are and, as much as you can, communicate with them about your views on the situation for which they were appointed.

For example: Every district in our county has a school board member. Sending your school board member a message when they make a decision that you agree with is very good for them. Sending a message saying how proud you are of the volleyball team (well done this year ladies!) or that you noticed students doing science work outside of the building and you think that's great speaks volumes about what the community puts value in and helps those people do their jobs better.

Being respectful when a decision is made that you don't agree with and asking how that decision was reached can help significantly as well. Educating yourself is easiest when you get the information from the "horse's mouth" so to speak. Then you can start a conversation about how you feel about the process that led up to the decision and not only the decision.

*Calling people names never gets you what you want.

There are dozens of these boards and commissions in our county and there are even more in more populous places! We have:

Mayor and Council
Public Utilities Commission
Economic Development Authority
Planning and Zoning Commission
Library Board
Parks and Recreation Board
School Board
Hospital Board
Visit Cook County Board/Grand Marais Area Tourism Association/Lutsen Tofte Tourism Association/Gunflint Trail Tourism Association
Grand Portage Tribal Council
County Board of Commissioners
Airport Advisory Commission
Board of Adjustment
Board of Equalization
Broadband Commission
Emergency Communications Committee
Community Center Board
Cook County Invasives Team
Cook County Soil and Water Conservation District
Univ. of MN Extension Committee
Human Services Board
Local Water Management Plan Advisory Committee
Revolving Loan Fund Committee
GES Board
School Curriculum Advisory Committee
School Health and Safety Committee
School Academic Team
School Communications and Collaboration Team
School Long Range Planning Team
School Extracurricular Activities Team
School Health and Wellness Policy Team
...and I haven't even gotten into the non-profit boards around here!

**I know, that sounds like a lot of people to get to know and to build a relationship with, but I'm not saying you have to know and have a conversation with all of them, but did you know that we have an Airport Advisory Committee? Did you know there was a Long Range Planning Team at the school?

All of these committees were listed on the webpages for the City, County, and School. Check it out and if there is a part of everyday life that you feel very strongly about, like invasive species or emergency communication, then reach out and make a connection there. Your board members will appreciate it!


Secondly, since I went through the trouble of listing out all of those boards and committees I figured that would be a good place to segue to the conversation about actually getting on a board or two. Many of the boards and commissions that I listed (and non-profits that I will list below) have community representation on them and THEY ARE the folks that make decisions concerning everyday life in regards to those specific topics. You may have noticed on the ballot this election there were a number of people running unopposed for seats on many of these committees. There are also a number of non-profits that would LOVE to have some new folks come in and sit on their boards.

**You: "But it takes too much time."
Me: Valid concern. Very valid. Many of us are working quite a few hours and those that are not often have other concerns to deal with within our families and homes. No guilt there AT ALL. Life happens. Take care of your own first! You can't impact change in your community if your own home is in shambles!

BUT,

Many of these boards and committees are structured to allow for busy schedules and are very flexible to work with and sometimes even do meetings via group phone call or skype, which means you don't have to leave your house to participate! Also, if you have interest and energy to be on one of these, I can bet you that the existing people on the board will bend over backwards to make it work...

SO SECOND: Find a Committee or Board to sit on. (Check out Number Three first though).

Cook County Higher Education
Boreal Community Media
Coldwater Foundation
Grand Marais Art Colony
Arrowhead Center for the Arts
Grand Marais Playhouse
North House Folk School
North Shore Health Care Foundation
North Shore Music Association
WTIP Community Radio
Sawtooth Mountain Clinic
Violence Prevention Center
Cook County Local Energy Project
Superior Cycling Association
YMCA Council
Northwoods Volunteer Connection
Social Justice Project
North Shore Ski and Run Club
Norpine Trail Association
Friends of the Library
Empty Bowls
Arrowhead Animal Rescue
Cook County Ridge Riders Snowmobile Club
Cook County ATV Club
Deer Hunters Association of America
(I'm missing about a hundred I think...)

THIRD: Don't get involved specifically, but represent what is important to you fairly and publicly. This is probably the biggest thing that you can do honestly. Ask yourself what you are really good at and what makes you love where you live. Is it that cup of coffee with friends at the Blue Water in the morning? Is it saying hello to someone that you vaguely recognize at the Post Office? Is it buying that kid at the next table a dessert because she has been so well behaved? Do these things and encourage others to do the same. If they don't, no worries, but every little bit makes our community stronger.

Do you have a personal connection with a topic? International Workers? Domestic Assault? Drug Abuse Prevention? Environmental Protection? Something else?
Find a way to encourage these things. Offer to help/host an international worker, stand up against domestic assault, buy into a community solar program, etc...

**The one thing that I cannot stress enough in this area is to not assume that your beliefs are superior to someone else's. You have to bring what you have to offer as just that, something to offer. It doesn't have to be taken. Which gets me to the next point:

FOURTH: LISTEN and EDUCATE YOURSELF. Listen to what people are saying even if you disagree with it. Ask questions to clarify. Ask the person who you have the issue with, not the fourth person down the chain. Be respectful. It is much harder to make headway in a compromise if you can't talk through something enough to know what you have in common!

We lose nothing by talking to people as we would like them to talk to us. This doesn't mean you have to be passive, but is does mean that you should wait to judge someone until you have had a chance to talk with them about what you disagree on. If there is a leader in the community who you often disagree with, contact them and ask them how they got to their decision. Then you can inform them of WHERE you disagree with them, not just that you DO disagree.


Well, those are 4 things that can give you a place to start.

If you have read this and have an idea of how you can get involved in your community, great! If you still need some help formulating your thoughts, let me know and I would be glad to help think it through, but it may take me a little while to get back to you...

So, in conclusion: Find out who your representatives are in your community (and beyond) and start communicating with them. If you find a topic that you really believe in and that drives your desire to get involved, then research an organization or ask people who are already involved how you can get involved (then be clear about your time constraints).
If not, represent your beliefs in a way that will encourage others to consider them and ask questions so you can better understand the situations that you don't like.

AND, if any of you get a wild hair and want to run for an elected position, let me know. I can help you organize that (even if it is just to get you information to get registered on time... I have learned that is really important...). Thank you all for being great community members. I look forward to serving the Grand Marais area for another two years and am willing to be a resource for people from other areas to help them get involved as well!

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

City Council Meeting 11-9-16

After that eventful election night the City Council met yet again to get down to a long agenda's worth of important items for the City. But first of all:

Thank you to everyone that wrote me in to be your mayor for another two years. It has been a trying time and I have made many mistakes and have learned many lessons, but I am very grateful for the opportunity to represent you all again. I am committed to keep doing my best to represent the unique needs of Grand Marais and the area around it to all of the different agencies and jurisdictions that we have to work with on a daily basis.

Congratulations to Councilors Benson and Kennedy who both won another 4 years on the Council! Be sure to congratulate them when you see them around town!

Ok, on to the meeting!

The meeting was called to order at 6:30 with everyone in attendance.

I then opened up the Public Forum for community members to speak. No one was in attendance to speak, so I closed the Public Forum and we moved on!


We then brought up the Consent Agenda, which had the usual three things on it and an application for the Oh Ole Night Parade on November 25th: the approval of bills, the previous meeting's minutes, and the current meeting agenda. Not seeing anything out of the ordinary, the Consent Agenda passed unanimously.


Our first real item on the agenda was a presentation from members of the Creative Economy Working Group, a group of local artists and administrators that have met for over the past year to get down to the nitty gritty on what our local creative economy is based on and where it needs to grow and how it can do that. They have put together the Cook County Cultural Plan, which is a comprehensive exploration and explanation of the growth that we can actualize in our community. There are three major tenets of the plan:

1. Telling Our Story--This is the marketing/branding conversation where we work together with local artists and craftspeople to write a unified story about the creative world in Cook County... and then market that to the region and country as something to come and see. The power of a well written story is pretty compelling, and it is something that we currently have, but don't have formalized.

2. Working Together--This section has to do with getting the full support of the community through government policies (a potential City/County Arts Commission or something of the like), creation of more marketplaces for Grand Marais art, and support services (education, studio space, etc) to enable the creative economy to grow. We already do some of these things, but developing them with this in mind is where the effectiveness is.

3. Placemaking--This has to do with how we can make this a place that creative people want to be... and CAN be. This includes long-term and short-term housing for artists/craftspeople/students with access to studio space, it includes developing new focal point facilities that highlight the creative economy in our area, and it includes improving public spaces and streetscapes with public art and other installations.

**Cook County is already a regional destination for arts and crafts and culture. This plan desires to build upon that concept and expand our reach and impact to grow our local economy year-round. The art's and crafts economy already contributes over $10 million annually to our local economy.


The next conversation we had was with the Cook County/Grand Marais EDA to discuss how much money the City will be contributing to the proposed housing developments in Grand Marais through OneRoof out of Duluth.

For those just tuning in, the EDA has been working for over a year to develop plans with an affordable housing developer out of Duluth, OneRoof. They have decided that the best way to do this project is based on a land trust model where an owner purchases the home, but not the land under it (It is a secure lease though, so there is no chance of getting kicked off of it). The plan is to build 4-7 single family homes in the northwest corner of town next year to be sold in the 80-120% of median income range. This may sound expensive, but the EDA did a study that showed that we need to build houses in ALL of our income ranges, thus this is a way to start and to hopefully free up some lower income housing when people move up into these.

The required "local match" for the project is roughly $25,000/unit, which sounds like a lot, and is, but that investment is used to leverage almost 3 to 1 funds to make the project affordable. The question is, who is going to pay this money? The two major players in this conversation are the County and the City.

Why do houses have to be subsidized you may ask... Well, here is a little story about Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing, or NOAH:

NOAH doesn't happen anymore. It can't really. This is why:

1. Construction Costs will NEVER again be equal to low income rent without some subsidy of some sort. You just can't build cheap housing that is quality enough to promote for people to live and thrive in over time. It sounds pretty disheartening, but there are a few solutions here:
a. Mixed income housing units are more likely to succeed because they have some people who pay more for their (more luxury) accommodations in the same building as lower-income folks, but share the same infrastructure.
b. Density makes this more likely. Single family homes are the most expensive thing to build. At some point you have to come to grips with increasing density to lower cost.

2. Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing (NOAH) is something from the post WWII era. This means that most of the affordable type homes available now were built then. (Most of those were built with GI Bill money anyway).  If they haven't had proper maintenance, that means that they are disappearing... and as I said before, the economics of building lower-income homes doesn't work out right now and probably won't without some sort of subsidy.

3. Value added development depletes NOAH. This means that people with greater means like to buy cheap houses and make them expensive. This is the whole real estate flipping thing. Buy a house for $70,000, put $30,000 of repairs and updating into it, sell it for $165,000 because the market is there. OR, around here it is more like buying a cheap house for $165,000, putting some time and energy into it, and selling it for $220,000.

**So that's it. If we want housing for lower income people, we have to develop it ourselves or help facilitate it because the market won't ever allow the economics to work out again and we either need to build higher density developments (which was very unpopular when we did our focus groups on this a few years ago) or we need to subsidize it. The Land Trust model is good because it guarantees that the value of the home stays affordable through re-sale stipulations in the original purchase. For more information on these homes (which I believe that they will be pre-selling...), please contact the EDA.

The conversation hinged on what the proper amount the City should contribute to this project. At an earlier joint meeting of the City and County there was a resolution made that the local match would be provided. We didn't say how much each would give. There was a long consideration about whether or not the City residents would be double paying for this project, which we were not in favor of. It was also pretty clear that the City felt that it wasn't appropriate for the City to contribute a full half because of the county's responsibility in housing development and the fact that EDA levy funds are levied evenly across the county.
Many numbers were thrown out there, but the eventual number that was moved upon was $75,000 for the project. There was some conversation saying that this number was too high, but the desire to see the project go forward and to fulfill our responsibility to the project eventually was enough for the vote to pass. This passed contingent on the County/EDA providing the remainder of the project match. There was also a caveat put on the conversation that the City and County need to sit down and decide how to fund more projects like this in the future without it being a surprise or a huge hike in levy.


Our next piece of business was from the Planning Commission. The item for action that the Planning Commission brought forward was a recommendation to pass an ordinance that allowed the City to opt-out of a new state law that was put in place regulating "temporary family health care dwellings," or Granny Pods. The idea is that you build or adapt an accessory building on your property as a place for a family member to live while they are ill or recovering from an injury, or just living while infirm. This ordinance would exempt Grand Marais from the regulations that the state made on these particular units. Since we already have an ordinance that oversees accessory building use this was seen as redundant, thus the Council voted in agreement with the Planning Commission to opt-out.


The next conversation was a lively one to select the City's construction manager for the upcoming Public Works Facility project set to start next spring. The City interviewed two companies who put in bids on the project: McGough Construction out of Duluth and Kraus-Andersen of Duluth.

The two companies had similar, but in some ways significantly different proposals for the project. Both proposed that the project would be roughly a 5-7 month project and their bids for the work differed by $180,000. The McGough proposal had many more man hours involved in it and had a part time project superintendent who would also be working as a craft person on site, so he would be there full time for the extent of the project. Kraus-Andersen, who is currently doing work on the Grand Portage Lodge and Casino, had a lot less man hours included in their project, but included a full-time project superintendent who's only responsibility would be the oversight of the project.

There was some unclearness about McGough's proposal as they mentioned that the cost of their bid could be cut significantly under certain circumstances. All of the City Council members who were present at the interviews were much more impressed with the professionalism of the McGough workers that came for the interview as well.

The conversation was based on some concerns about each of the bids. For Kraus-Andersen the pros were that they have done work in this area and already have relationships with local contractors and know how to do business in the area. The cons were that there is some uncertainty about the finish date of the Grand Portage project and because they would be using the same team that is up in Grand Portage for our project we didn't want to be forced to start our project later because of delays on that project.

Concerns for McGough was cost largely. In their interview McGough made it clear that they work extensively with local contractors preferably and put a large focus on planning ahead for contractor schedules. Another concern is that they haven't done a large project up in this area yet.

In the end, the Council voted to offer the contract to McGough Construction contingent on them accepting our offer of a 2.5% construction manager fee, which is significantly lower than they originally bid.


Our next piece of work on the agenda was a very simple one. Last year we agreed to be the financial agent for a grant to the hospital through the DEED program (Dept. of Employment and Economic Development). The hospital has pursued and arranged for an extension of this grant so that they can use that funding throughout September 30th, 2017 instead of December 31st, 2016. The Council agreed to this extension unanimously.


Following that was another pretty simple one. This was a contract with our auditor for this year's auditing services, which will be performed early next year. The contract is for $300 more than last year, which is a very modest increase considering that we are expecting to have an increase in revenues from the Rec. Park and have additional expenses due to the Public Works Facility project. Overall the expense for the audit comes to just over $30,000, which is a lot of money, but it is a state requirement for cities to do this to make sure that there is no funny business in the City's numbers.


Then we moved on to Council Reports;

Councilor Mills attended the Park Board meeting, 1.3% increase in rates at the Rec Park for just about everything. There was conversation about a larger increase in the expense of the sites, but the Board approved roughly a 1.3% increase across the board.

Councilor Moody attended an ARDC meeting where he was able to be a part of the conversation in the re-organization of the ARDC Board even though it was his first meeting. This will hopefully improve the efficiency of their ability to get projects done.

Councilor Kennedy had a Planning Commission Meeting on Non-Conforming Use conversation. They were looking at changing some of the language of the Non-Conforming Use and the Planning Commission is being very careful to re-write this language so that it captures the meaning of the ordinance and so it is easily understandable to residents (and is very clear).
Also, a PUC meeting where they spoke about utility rates. Looking to the future, they are looking at a 2% increase on electric and water as well as a 3% increase on sewer. These increases are to accommodate utility increases that the PUC has to pay as well.

Councilor Benson had a question about a planning update.

I had two meetings of the Creative Economy group to try and create an idea of what is next and of how implementation of the Cook County Cultural Plan will go. We also chatted with ArtSpace, an organization that specializes in developing live/work spaces for artists. Their ideas seemed to be pretty well tailored to our plan and to what we are looking for.

I had a meeting with the North House board where they looked at potential program expansions in the coming year and another staff hire, so stay tuned to their website for more updates on that!

I also have an update from CCLEP, who's Residential Energy Efficiency Program (REEP) has been so successful that it has used up the appropriated money for the program and will continue to be offered through use of general fund monies. They are starting to plan next year's Builder's Workshop as well. Summer Solar Kid's Program and they would like to help gather information regarding renewable energy options for the Public Works Facility.

I also have been doing some Community Visioning activities at gatherings around the City. If you would like to host one, or know some people who have a lot to say about the City, let me know and I will come to where you are and work through one of the activities!

On that note, the Steering Committee for the Community Visioning will be meeting again in November and going over the first round of activities that were done and we will start digging in more to figure out how to reach people that we haven't yet reached!

That was all. As always, let me know if you have any questions or comments.