Good afternoon. We're going to go ahead and can I get everyone's attention? Thank you all so much. Good afternoon. And I want to say thank you all so much for being here today. But before we get started, since we have so many ministers in the audience, I'm going to ask Pastor Gundy if he would come and lead us in prayer. Amen. And thank you so much. I know you are always ready. All the pastors are always ready. So I think we all know why we're here this morning. And so we had a finance meeting on Tuesday with the finance committee. And there was several discussions regarding the closure of Winn-Dixie on 48th and Main. I don't think we need to go through a whole lot. We already know why we're here. And I just want to go ahead and get started and thank my colleagues for supporting me and doing so. And before I get in the discussion, I'd like for us to go around the table and introduce ourselves so our audience will know who we are. So we'll start on the end with Councilman Carlucci. All right. Thank you. Councilman Joe Carlucci, City Council, District 5. Ron Salem, Group 2 at large. Councilwoman Jacoby Pittman, District 10. Good morning. Jimmy Peluso, City Council, District 7. Good morning. Raw areas, District 11. Good morning. Nick Howland, at large, Group 3. Phillip Peterson, Councilor's office. Terrence Harvey, Office of General Counsel. Okay. Thank you all so much for introducing yourselves. And as I mentioned earlier, not only do we have City Council representatives here, we have the representatives from the administration office, the chamber, community partners, and an opportunity to discuss and weigh in on the closure of Winn-Dixie. But as we know it now, it has made a commitment to remain open. And some of the other things we'd like to propose in the amendment is the protection measuring relationships to the ordinance 2026-0326 and the economic development agreement. That's specifically what we're talking about today. I'd also like to thank Winn-Dixie representatives for understanding the purpose and the need of keeping Winn-Dixie open. I think you heard the audience that day. And of course, I live in the community. I shop in the community. And so I want to make sure that we don't have a food desert in any other neighborhoods. And to my colleagues, we had a vast discussion, recommendations that you all made. And you all have showed up here today. And I am most appreciative. And not only that, we have pastors and we have residents and stakeholders in the community to let us know that their voices need to be heard and that we need to have a space at the table. We also want to remember that it's important that we have jobs. There were several people that worked in the Winn-Dixie who depended on having jobs that live in the neighborhood. And also, we want to make sure when Winn-Dixie is over that it's stabilizing the community. And when you stabilize the community, those of you all know that we deserve that because District 10 has gone through a lot of inequities. And we want to make sure we want to keep the assets that we have in our community and the surrounding areas. So I heard the Winn-Dixie representative advise us that they were very interested in staying. And we want you to stay as long as you keep that store open. And with that said, to have practical solutions regarding that. So together, let's open up this notice meeting and talk about what we came here to talk about today. And before we get started, colleagues, I'd like for Mr. Wallace to come up to just kind of give us a summary of the bill. And following him, we'll also have Mr. Ed Randolph. And then we'll open it up for some questions and talk about the amendment and also open it up to the audience. And that will be the order. Colleagues, y'all jump in and ask questions as we have the presentation. Is that all right with everybody? All right. All right. Thank you so much, Mr. Wallace, for being here this morning. Thank you. I know you were out of town and you were trying to get here, and I really appreciate you being here this morning. Yes, ma'am. Good morning. Andre Wallace, president for Jacksonville. It's a partnership. It's a pleasure to be here before you. Thank you. And this is important to the community. It's also important to me, professionals as well, as I started briefing you all around about March 17th with regards to the conversations that we've been having with Winn-Dixie. And some of the things I want to talk to you about is, number one, from the deal structure standpoint, this is to retain their corporate headquarters in Jacksonville for 15 years at 550 Edgewood Court. Number two, it's also to retain 500 jobs in Jacksonville at the headquarters that would be at Edgewood. Number three, it is to create 200 new jobs at Edgewood with an average annual salary of $100,000 per job. Number four, the company will invest $17 million into the Edgewood Court headquarters itself. And number five, the company will invest $48 million into Winn-Dixie stores in Duval County. The 48 and the 17 is a total investment of $65 million by the company. What has been before you that you will discuss, the company is also seeking to invest and keep the store at 201 West 48th Street open, for which there is an amendment language that has been put forth by the attorney to Councilwoman Pittman for consideration today. And hopefully through dialogue with you all, as well as the community, that there will be conversation that hopefully this will be taken to either your process, either back to finance or, if you so choose, to bring it before full council at any given council meeting for this charge. If you choose not to go back to finance committee, that is your call. But that is what is before us today for consideration and for further discussion. But I want to clearly let you know, being out of town, I heard you came back and want to make sure that talking to the company, that we put forth language that I think addresses what I saw on the tape Tuesday evening and make sure that we got that to the company and got language back to you. But that's where it stands today. Thank you. And so who would be the representative today to talk about the amendment after Ed? Is it going to be you or was it? I think it's more appropriately that an attorney talks about the actual amendment itself and walk you through what it actually says. Then questions can be had from either Ed or myself as well. Okay. Okay, thank you. Thank you. And so I appreciate that presentation and overview. And secondly, I'm going to ask Mr. Randolph if he would come and discuss it from OED standpoint and the agreement. Sure, good morning. Ed Randolph, OED. So I think Andre summarized the project well. And really, collectively, we're really looking at the 200 new jobs at $100,000, the 500 existing jobs of which total about $70 million in overall salary in the market, which we do not want to lose, especially in an economically distressed area. And then as it relates to the store, the conversation we had on Tuesday, glad to hear the company is willing to keep the store open. And the two other stores in economically distressed areas, we've also made sure in the agreement that if they were to close, that they would need to be reopened within 18 months in that particular area. So collectively, I'm happy we're here today with the proposed amendment and happy to take any questions. Any questions? Okay. Okay, if you can go ahead, Jimmy. Thank you, Ed. I'm very happy to see that there's this amendment. So I'm very grateful to you, Councilwoman Pittman. So you said if a store closes in a specific area that there must be a new one open in 18 months. What is – how close do they need to be from where that store closed? It needs to be within that economically distressed area. So I'm not sure if specifically we put the actual distance in there. I won't need to look. So that's probably very important. So the economically distressed areas, if we're using the federal HUD guidelines, it's like – it's a bunch of portions of a zip code. So if it's just that portion of a zip code, that could be less – it's probably less than a mile. So that would make me happy. I just want to make sure. Go ahead. Sure. I'm sorry. It's a quarter of a mile. A quarter of a mile. Okay. That's pretty all right. I appreciate that. I just want to clarify that for the audience to hear in the event that a store may close. And to that point, a store may close because, like, the rent that's being – for that store has gone up significantly. So sometimes it is financially unhelpful for that store to remain there if they're being fleeced by a landlord. But to do it, you could make it smaller. That's an option. But also size of the store might impact the ability for it to be solvent, too. So for it to at least be within a quarter of a mile, that at the very least makes me feel substantially better. Correct. And to Councilman Peluso, with that, we did, you know, contemplate six to eight months having that turnaround in a new store. But understanding, as you just mentioned, sometimes there's not available space in that neighborhood to accommodate a store of that size. So that's why we gave them 18 months to relocate that store within that economically distressed area for that very reason. So is it the announcement of the relocation or the physical moving to that relocation? Physical moving. Okay. Go ahead. Thank you, ma'am. All right. Mr. Randolph, so everything sounds great in paper and in theory, but I truly don't even like it at all. I don't like any of it at all. I'll tell you what I don't like. I don't like the fact that we're talking about in three years from now. If we pass this legislation now, we have no control in three years from now. They could easily leave from that location. It could be examples such as lease going up. So my question is, who's the landlord? I want to be in communications. I want to know what kind of conversations they're having to make sure that it truly is because of the lease going up or whatever the case is. Number one, we could also make the store smaller, have a smaller footprint. All right. Any restaurant tour, any hospitality, if things go up, just make your footprint smaller. You don't need a 50,000 square foot store. I don't know what the size is, but I'm just giving you an example. The second thing is 18 months is way too long, way too long. If you know your store is closing, trust me, you'll know well in advance, so you start making the steps to actually open the next store up. Don't wait until you close to then say, okay, we're going to look for a store now. Yes, a site may not be already available, but at the end of the day, if you're being proactive on it, trust me, work a year in advance, you'll get that store ready to go. So if we're going to have the provision of 18 months, I'm not voting on this once again. It needs to be within a timely manner to make sure that they don't have a food desert for almost two years sitting in that district. All right, that's one. Well, that's more than one. And then the last thing is I have more to go on the actual bill itself, so I'll hold that to the end. But because we're talking about this, I want to make sure that we change this amendment to signify that, hey, you guys have like three months to get your store open. Right, right. So I'll hold off the rest until more conversations, but I just wanted to lean on that part. Thank you. I will say to Councilman Arias, I'll go ahead and defer to the company's representative here as it relates to that. But to your point, we did express that we wanted to have that finality as to where the new store would be in a much more expedient manner than 18 months. But, you know, I understand your reasoning behind the amendment. I'm sorry, Mr. Pittman, but here's the thing. Once again, we're voting on this now. After that, we have no control. We have the control now. So I want this in writing now is what I'm looking for. I want to make sure that they know we got their back and they have nothing to worry about. Once I'm gone, once whoever's gone, they have nothing to worry about. So we need that in black and white. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Pittman. No clapping. Please. Thank you. What are the provisions for this particular store and other stores where you maintain a certain level of meat, produce, of a traditional store? I know there were discussions earlier in the week, I guess it was, where if you can't keep this store, maybe you can make a smaller store. So I want to make sure that the store that remains there continues to be a full-service store like it existed before they began ramping down. And if that kind of language is needed, there are other 17 stores. I mean, keeping a store open is one thing, but keeping a store open as a full-service store would be my concern anywhere in town, particularly in this area. Sure. Councilman Salem, again, I would defer, you know, it's your, you know, if you were to offer that amendment. And, again, I will go ahead and ask the company representative to speak to that specific issue. But, personally, yeah, I feel free to obviously make that amendment. But I will have to defer to the company representative on that. I'm not sure what the language needs to be. I mean, I use the term full-service. And I don't know which of these stores have pharmacies, if any of them do, and which of them do not. No, unfortunately, that was another item that we addressed early on in the conversation with Winn-Dixie was the ability to at least have a pharmacy in any of these stores. But they are no longer entertaining having pharmacies within their stores. So that's not something. Okay. Well, then, whatever language we need to have that says groceries, meat, cold, produce, I would ask the attorneys to help draft some language that reflects all that that Winn-Dixie is comfortable with. And to make sure, too, that it's in the right section of the legislation. I know there have been questions regarding, you know, opening up pharmacies, but I understand that they have gotten out of the business. I have. So, you know, today, as I said earlier, we want to stick to why we're here today and get OGC to give us the right language. Can I add one other point while I have the microphone? Yes, you can. Yeah, I think to try to bring this to council Tuesday night under a discharge is too much. I would want all this to come back to committee where we can look at it one more time in less than two weeks and make sure we're comfortable with all these amendments before we pass it to the council. I mean, that's up to the president. I understand that. But I know there's been discussion of a discharge. And with all these moving parts, I think that's a bit much. Yeah. And I'm not sure if we can do all of that by Tuesday as well. I know that it takes the support to do that. Did you have a? I do. I have some comments. Listening to all the discussion. And this council spends a lot of money and takes great pains to make Jacksonville a wonderful place to do business. We have a low cost of business. We have a high quality of life. We should, therefore, make it painful when companies ask for money to stay. And I think we've done that here. However, if we make it too painful, they'll leave anyways. And one very important thing is this ordinance started with, related to Winn-Dixie's headquarters, not its portfolio of stores in Jacksonville, across Florida, writ large. We've extended that and demanded that this store stay open. And that's great because we've won that battle and that store stays open in that part of the neighborhood. And I praise Pastor Gundy and all the neighbors who came out from the community to do that. And so I support this bill with the amendment as discussed, if Councilwoman Pittman supports it, but not just because they stay, but because, remember, they're putting $65 million into their facility over in Lackawanna. They're adding 200 jobs over to their facility in Lackawanna. And if they stay, there's 550 jobs there which are preserved. So for me, if we can get resolution on this amendment and get agreement, I actually would push for potentially asking the president to discharge it so he can vote on Tuesday. Why? Because Pastor Gundy made a statement in his prayer where he said he hopes we can get to a solution that benefits the people, the city, and the company. And you know who's the victim group here as long as this continues are the 550 people wondering if they're going to have a job at that headquarters in Lackawanna. So I would like to see us come to a conclusion, solidify that this store stays open, and get this done as quickly as we can. Councilman Harris. Okay. Sorry. Yeah, go ahead. All right. Thank you. Councilman Carlucci. All right. Thank you, Ms. Pittman. Is this the amendment? Yes. Okay. Where does it say anything about 18 months? Councilman Curley, that's in the agreement for the other stores that are in the economically distressed areas in that the store that we're talking about today was one that they had planned to close prior to us finalizing the economic development agreement. So we understood the importance of stores in the original. So it's in the original bill? I'm sorry? It's just in the original bill? Is that what I'm hearing you say? Correct. Okay. Okay. And then can someone define, it says, you know, in section 3.1, section 4, whatever, companies shall use commercially reasonable efforts. What does that mean? I will go ahead and let the representative from the company speak to that. He's the one that drafted this particular amendment. Please. Good afternoon. I'm Josh Ehrenfeld from Foley and Lardner. I mean, the language is meant to – apologies. Is that better? Yeah. Sorry about that. No, the language is meant to ensure that we do everything possible to obtain a new lease or to maintain a location in that spot. Our lease expires in 2029, and so we're limited by the contract we have in place, and all we can do is put forth our best efforts to extend it or find a new location within that. My concern is just there's, like, wiggle room on that. I mean, you're, I guess, a commercial attorney or whatever. What is a reasonable effort? It's – What's not a reasonable effort? You know what I'm saying? I'm just – I'm being on it. I'm – this is a real question. I'm not trying to – A reasonable effort would be we would approach our landlord. We would work with them as much as possible to get them to come to a resolution to give us an extension or a lease term where we would find a new location, or we would try to find a new tenant to put a grocery store there and maintain. Yeah, I'm not worried about it after your lease is up, but it says commercially reasonable efforts to maintain or secure an extension. So, like, the maintain part, do you have any concern there that you aren't going to be able to maintain that in your current lease? You already locked that up. There is no concern, right? You're already done. No. The maintain is to maintain a store after the lease expires. Okay, okay. To try to get someone there or us there after we are formally no longer allowed to be there. Okay, all right. That makes me feel better that it's post-lease, not maintained during the lease. Okay, cool. And then the 18-month thing, whatever. And, you know, my concern is it's Friday, and I don't know, you know, on Tuesday it's – I feel like there might be a little bit of committee work that's going to happen on the floor. I mean, that doesn't bother me, per se. We've had a short committee weeks, so I think council has the potential to be a shorter meeting. I think at the end of the day, I just want the neighborhood protected. I want Winn-Dixie to feel comfortable with it and to get to everybody on the same page. If that's doable by, you know, Tuesday or Monday, then so be it. If we need to hash out a few more, you know, nitty-gritty details in committee, then that's fine, too. But I assume – are you kind of running point on this, Ms. Pittman? Yeah, so I would definitely say that based on the conversation we had during the meeting, I was – in terms of the conversation that they wanted to keep the store open. And I think, you know, being that we had the conversation in the meeting, what the residents in the faith-based community wanted was the store to stay open. But again, I'm going to be gone, and what I want to make sure that's done before I leave is that the language is correct that the store would not be closed in three years. That was my main concern. And so when I read the proposed amendment, I was – I approved it, and I was okay with it. But I don't want them saying, you know, after, you know, two years, we still can't find a place. I want to make sure that we put language inside of the amendment to ensure because if that store is closed, there's nothing else between Main Street to East Side to close to my colleagues' area. So I don't want a small store. We want either a medium-sized store, a large store to accommodate what's in the community. It is an older community. We have a lot of seniors along Moncrief where we've increased, you know, trying to get transportation in that area so the seniors will have an opportunity to shop. So, you know, maybe the question to OGC, if they could get the language done before Tuesday, I'm okay with moving forward. But I do want to hear from the residents that are here today before we make a decision. Okay. All right. That's fair. Thank you. For the second time, Councilman Ayers. All right. Thank you, Mr. Pittman. All right. So I 100% agree with Council Vice President Howland. I really want to make this happen for both parties. I think it's critical that we focus as well, not just on, like, in business. Like I said this the other day, we're not just here to sell. We're also here to retain. Jobs are important to make sure that our community is still thriving. So I see that, obviously, Winn-Dixie is going to be a big catalyst in our community. However, everything else that I said earlier still stands, and it's the principle for my judgment and how I'm going to vote. So I do have a couple of statements and comments and questions here. So I'm going to treat this as an LUZ committee, right? And if anybody, you guys, understand what LUZ means, land use and zoning, PUD. A PUD is where we negotiate. Very simple. We're here to negotiate. So as Council Member Carducci just stated, there's a lot of wiggle room in this language, a little bit too much wiggle room to make me comfortable. So in order for us to truly approve this, we want to make sure that you guys put the best foot forward to make these efforts to reasonably stay there with your landlord. In order to achieve that, though, once again, my problem is that we're not going to have any input. So I would like to have language written in there, Mr. Harvey. I'll send you all this by email. But part of that effort is that you're going to meet with the community before you decide not to and to see why you're not going to or if you are going to renew. And then also maybe, I don't know if this could happen, but also have it be sent to committee as well so that way we as Council Members know what the heck is going on before you guys decide to potentially close the store in three years from now. So not only are you going to have a community meeting, but you're also going to have a committee meeting as well with us, too. Because at the end of the day, these dollars, if I'm not mistaken, Mr. Harvey or Mr. Peterson, but this is a five-year commitment on our part. Every year we're giving them money. At any given point, we could also stop the money, too, right? Let's say year three. Am I not mistaken? Part of the cash incentive part? It's through the Charity Council of Arias. So the headquarter retention is a five-year payout, but it's also a 20-year rev grant tied into it. So the point is we could stop the money at any given time should we feel that that, quote-unquote, best effort hasn't been met by you guys. I'm not saying it won't because I trust your judgment, but once again, a lot could happen in three years. So two things. I want a community meeting. Second thing, I want it to be sent back to a committee meeting so that we as Council Members could have, once again, another round of conversations should things not go the way the committee wanted to go. That's one. Second thing is we talked about the new potential 200 jobs. Great, 100%. Yes, let's do it. But let's also not, those are more high-level corporate jobs. I'm more worried about the 65 to 85 potential workforce jobs that we as a body constantly fight to bring to our city, and here we're shutting down a store which has 65 to 85 potential jobs that are going to be lost. Those are the jobs I'm worried about. I don't care about the $100,000 jobs. I care about the workforce jobs, the jobs that daily, everyday people do, right? My friends, my cousins, everybody, our friends do. Those are the jobs that matter the most to me, not the high-level executive jobs. The last thing, well, two more things, one more thing. The last thing would be, in here it talks about commercial reasonable efforts to maintain the store and all that, but nowhere here does it say maintaining the store reasonably stocked, or better yet, fully stocked. I heard from the community that the store is, like you walk in there, it's already a desert as it is. I want that store in here in the language to say, it's going to be maintained as a regular operational store, fully stocked every single day, all the way to year number three, till the last day if you had to shut down. That's the one day that I'll allow you guys to not have anything on the shelves. Till then, it needs to be stocked, and I don't see that in the language here, because as it is, that store is not stocked right now. If we walk in there right now, it's not stocked. So I want to make sure that you guys are doing right by your community, not just leaving it open, but also leaving it open, it stopped. So, Mr. Harvey, that's another thing I would like to add. Once again, I'll compile this and send it to you by email, but once again, it's about retention. I want to make sure that we work with you guys and give you guys what you want, but we need a community. And yes, I understand one more thing, is that this was done prior to you guys deciding to close, but at the end of the day, it goes back to my statement earlier this week. We're giving you guys over $12 million in incentives. I don't really care if it was done, if you decided to close the store a day later, a day prior, or a year prior. The fact of the matter is, you're closing a store after we vote on this. It's not that you closed it already. You're going to close it after we give you guys money. That's where I'm having an issue with this. So I do appreciate you guys making the effort to keep it open, but once again, that's just where I'm at. And I will definitely support this on Tuesday. If it gets to Tuesday, if everything's done. But if it's not done, which I don't think it will be, then I think it needs to come back to committee. Councilman Jamie. Thank you. And first thing I want to ask, I do not think this should go to council on Tuesday. It absolutely should not. This is not ready for prime time. I don't know why it only went to one committee. I really don't. I don't know what the council president was thinking. This is a very big incentive deal with a company that has a lot of history here in Jacksonville. And I know Councilmember Howland had said, you know, oh, we should make it tough, but not too, too tough. Totally understand that perspective, but we should make it really tough, especially when it comes to a company that is a grocer. And we talk about food deserts in this city for, we've been talking about it for decades. And so now we actually have an opportunity to ensure that a grocer, a reputable grocer, mind you, that has called Jacksonville home and has made its great success because of the awesomeness of being in the city of Jacksonville, it's about time that we make sure that what residents have been asking for for years can get met through this incentive deal. That's what I keep suggesting. So I'm very glad that a lot of my colleagues have said that we probably should send this to committee again. I agree with Councilmember Salem and Councilmember Arias on that. I think that if, to the point of what Councilmember Arias said, about 18 months, I think six months makes a little bit more sense. I don't know if that's fully acceptable to the company. I think six months is probably, you are going to know if you're going to close down a store, you should be able to open up a new one within six months of that time. I think one quarter mile should be deemed in this specific language, a specific amendment in terms of shall use commercially reasonable efforts to be within one quarter mile. Let's just define it right here. That way if they, because admittedly I know if they are getting fleeced by their landlord and their landlord's clearly going to be watching this on TV, they're going to know that this store is of high value. So I want to make sure that it does make sense because I don't want them to now cut employees just to be forced to be in that space. I think we should put in definitions for what a fully, a full service grocer is, which does include fresh fruit and produce, as well as a functional deli with fresh meats. So I think that should be defined in the bill. I also believe that we should define a fully stocked, right? Listen, what they're doing in New York is not so bad. What they did in Baldwin is not so bad. Anyway, so those are suggestions I have for the amendment that's on the table. I have another amendment that I was going to offer and another reason why I want this to go to finance. I believe, especially while we have Winn-Dixie here, that we discussed adding more grocery stores, specifically in the 32209 zip code area. And so I am willing to offer an amendment and I kind of wanted to get people's thoughts in here. We do have the Northwest Trust Fund. In the many years, in the several previous years, we've done incentive deals out of the Northwest Trust Fund for grocery store expansion. I'd be willing to add an additional incentive to Winn-Dixie if they open up future grocery stores within 32209. And I want to craft that language a little bit better by the time it gets to finance, but I'm willing to accept that it might not be financially easy to do right this second, but if within the next five years they open up a grocery or two, I'd be willing to have there be another incentive. That's good public policy. And so I wanted to have that conversation with my colleagues. It's one of the reasons why I wanted this meeting as well. And that's something I will offer as an amendment, but I just kind of want to get people's thoughts. Is that something that other people would agree with? Because I know when you drive up King's, there's not a grocer for a very long time. And I'm very grateful that we're going to be keeping this grocer. Thank you very much for that, this store. But there's other parts of our city where there are many, many deserts. So I'm going to be offering up to $1 to $2 million in incentive for new stores that'll be open within the 32209 area. I kind of want to get thoughts. Thank you so much for that. Councilman Carlucci. Thank you, Councilman Wilman Pittman. Just to, you know, I'm sitting here, I'm hearing a lot of these comments. And just keep in mind, guys, you know, we can, like Councilman Arias, we can put whatever restraints, or we can ask for whatever restraints we want, but this is a business. And I own a business, and you've got to understand, they could just say, okay, cool, we'll keep the store over here, we're just going to close these three over here. Because we can't control their business. And that's where I'm kind of leaning, where we might want to pull back on the throttle just a little bit, because I run a business, and I know if I'm painted into a certain corner, you can fit in that corner, but stuff's got to give. And I don't want to start, to Councilman Paluso's point, where they're cutting employees just to make this one store stay there. We want the store to stay there. And I think they're putting forth a reasonable effort to make that happen. I think we're putting forth a reasonable effort to make this work for everybody. But I don't want to get into a committee meeting on whenever, Tuesday, two Tuesdays from next week or whatever, and it just gets so difficult. And let's say they did agree to it, and then down the road, they're having to make tough decisions just to meet this one thing. So I just wanted to air that out there and have my colleagues kind of just think on that. But otherwise, yeah, I think we put it back in committee, make it smooth, and iron it all out. Thank you. Councilman. Thank you, Ms. Pittman. And I agree with Mr. Carlucci down there. Winn-Dixie's a privately owned business. It's not a government-owned business. The only reason we're sitting here allowed to ask for a concession like maintaining 201 West 48th Street store is because they've come to us and asked us for an incentive to not only stay but to expand. So if we don't give them that incentive, they don't have to do anything. They can move to Orlando and close all their stores if they want to. So we need to be very mindful that we don't go too much further. And if Councilman Peluso wants to introduce a piece of legislation that we introduce city-owned grocery stores, by all means, let's see how that flies. That was for fun. Okay. Listen, I heard you, so let's see what your amendment is. I'll be quick. Okay. Yeah. So I hear both my colleagues right here and all the way in the far right over there. Nothing, you're far right. Mr. Joe Carlucci over there. All right. And you're right. This is a privately-owned business. You know, if my business was applying for city dollars, I would have to do whatever I had to do to maintain within the compounds of the city restrictions. At the end of the day, they don't have to do anything if they're not asking us for money. But because they're asking us for a substantial amount of money, we do have leverage, which is why we're doing this. They're doing it on their part. They're in good faith. But at the end of the day, I still don't want to diminish the fact that we are giving them $12 million. Let's not forget that part. All right. So I don't want them to also be put in a position, like Mr. Paluzo said, that now they're going to cut corners in order to stay there. Because if my business was there, I'd also be like, oh, great, now I'll have to do this. But where there's a will, there's a way. I think there's a will from their part. And definitely, I know for a fact there's a way. And also there's a commitment from the city. So we're all doing this together right now to make sure that we come to a happy medium. But let's not forget the fact. The fact is, we're not forcing them to do anything. They're coming to us for money. That's it. That is a fact. All right. Thank you. It was a good. Amends for my colleagues. I know, Jimmy, you have an amendment. Well, yeah. I just wanted to kind of, I wanted to get people's thoughts on that. And I also wanted to see if Winn-Dixie would be even interested in something along those lines. If there was a new part of the agreement that would allow for an even higher incentive if you opened up more stores and 32209 are in these distressed areas. We'll define the distressed areas better. But is that something that would be of interest? I have to get, excuse me, I have to get back to them and ask. One of the concerns I think has been brought up is certainty for the existing employees of the store support center and their headquarters trying to get that kind of sorted out. So certainly it's worth a discussion. But I just don't know what they would react to. And the point being is this would not, this should not be something that would harm the current deal that exists right now. I'm just trying to get it right now while we're talking about food deserts and this incredible company that we have something in an agreement as of now that my colleagues can vote on and I can vote on to see if there's an opportunity for later expansion of different grocery stores. And that's just something that, it shouldn't harm the agreement right now. But I want to make sure that you understood what my amendment was, bring it to the folks, and I want to see if my colleagues would even entertain that. Councilman Salem. Thank you, Councilman Pemmett. Councilman Peluso, I think what you're trying to do will complicate this deal and we're going to be working on this for the next two months. I'd like to see more grocery stores in 32209 as you do, but I think we're getting a little beyond our scope here in this particular deal that's been negotiated and I think we've done a wonderful job of keeping this store open. Let's don't go too far here and get this deal so bad that we don't have a deal at all and there's a lot of good stuff in this bill. So if you want to get into that, I think that's separate legislation or a separate discussion with Winn-Dixie, but I would not complicate this deal with that provision. That's just my thoughts. Okay, for the last time. I just want to retort to that. I think a lot of these communities have been waiting for a very long time from different large-scale grocers to sit in a room with them and if we're going to waste that opportunity, right? Like, okay, maybe it could be later legislation, but we've been talking about food deserts for a very long time and we have not had, like, right? I think you're kind of hearing it from the crowd. We have an opportunity. It's meant to be an additional incentive, so it's not meant to harm the current agreement. It's just to say, on paper, we can provide more if you guys start working with the city and with the community to open up a few more stores. They don't need to be of the same size and scale, maybe of the, you know, 50,000 square feet, but, like, Deb's store is pretty successful and that's not exactly a giant store and it's been a great local grocer. I'm just saying, I don't want to waste this opportunity. So, you want to, before I, go ahead, because I want to kind of start wrapping it up and getting some comments from the president. So, Mr. Producer, you bring up a great point, but to Mr. Sando's point, I don't want to hold this up any more than it already is. However, I think that the conversation that started now, we have that gentleman, Ed Randolph, right there. I think what we need to do in the future, maybe next year, Mr. Vice President, will be talking to OED to see how we could create incentive packages for Ed to offer grocers to open up more stores. We have those. Well, maybe they need to push it more. I don't want to force Winn-Dixie to be the only people having open stores. That's not fair to them either. No, it's not. But I think, Mr. Randolph, I think you hear the narrative here and I think we want more stores in those areas. So, I think your department should really push that throttle a little bit more harder moving forward to open up more stores to get rid of these deserts. Thank you. So, I'd kind of like to wrap it up. Would you like to respond to that before we move on? One point I think I'd like to make is that you're 100% correct in that right now, the assortment in that store is dwindling down. It's because it was scheduled to close in about two weeks. As of Tuesday evening, we started restocking it and have been moving emphatically to get it back up to speed. So, we're effectively turning on a dime to reverse engineer what we've done. So, it should be within the next few days ready to go and back up to stock as fast as we can. So, that explains probably the reason it was not looking very well stocked previously in the last few days. And I can tell you that I have been there myself. I live not far from there and that's why we're here today. I'm very concerned but I don't want to get what we came here for today and that's why I mentioned at the very beginning I want to kind of stay on target in why we're here today. Right? I understand we won't, I would like to say yes, I would love to have other grocery stores but we can't put that all on you all. I think today what we heard on Tuesday from the community is what I want to deal with today. And so, from what I heard from you all in the discussion and of course we have OGC here that hopefully we can put some of those discussions that we talked about today. my main concern is that I didn't know that you all were closing and I think I shared that with you all. In less than 24 hours your team got back with me to say we're not going to close the store. Especially it's a high performing store. When you said that part that got my attention. Right? And so if we can just kind of deal with what we came here to deal with is to keep the store open stock it I do agree we need more fresh produce in the store a little more cleanliness in the store more lighting like your other stores like in Gateway I'd like to see that. I think the signage is important we have a very we have a new apartment complex right in front of the store so we need to make sure that we have assets in our community that's in close proximity so colleagues I will tell you in terms of the amendments any conditions you know that some of you all said today but I don't want to put Jimmy and I know you you know in your district you're having some issues as well but it's more than Winn-Dixie right and some of the stores as you all know not going to come in some of our communities we know that we know that stores like Banners are the ones that stay in the smaller neighborhoods and so I don't want to get in a conversation about you know tit for tat what I want to know is that this store is going to stay open and at the end of the day before I'll be gone next year but I want to make sure before I leave that it's inside the agreement that you are going to know before three years that whether you are going to be able to stay or not and I'm hoping that you made that commitment to make good on your commitment and so today I know you are probably not the person to say yes but at this time to see this store stocked up holidays are coming up soon we need to make sure these stores are stocked up and I'm glad to hear that you started immediately and of course we set this meeting up within 72 hours and we are here and so we all have had an opportunity to share I'd really like to open it up to the community and some of the faith-based communities there and public comments and so if you all have anything else to add right now Mr. Randolph I just wanted to clarify to Councilman Arias this question about there is a structure the administration has a food desert program on the books right now so it could be better funded but we currently do have a vehicle to get to attracting stores to areas such as 32209 thank you and I also want to ask you about the one I know we mentioned 13 stores those are renovations for those stores is that correct as well that is correct okay and that includes the one on Moncrief and the one on Main Street is that correct correct all the stores yeah all 13 stores will be getting 48 million that's where the 48 million is going into that investment into those stores and what's the average for the renovations for the stores they didn't supply us with a specific number I'm sure it's going to be different for each store based on the needs the age of whatever the refrigerators and what not are so we don't have that breakdown but collectively their commitment is total of 48 million all in for those 13 stores okay thank you very much so I'd like to have our first speaker if you all as you come to the podium your name and address and we are going to have since we have quite a few we're going to do two minutes and I know most of you all that I see out there it's not going to take you a whole two minutes to let us know what and how you feel so our first speaker we have is Ms. Lydia Bell when they start two minutes after you start talking please good evening Lydia Bell address is on file president of Metro Garden Association in Brentwood what I find so amazing is that ever since this issue has come up I've been hearing things about the stores closing because of low sales the stores closing because of theft and if anybody want to hear from a 20 year resident of Brentwood who have shopped at that store for 20 years I don't find that store dirty you have a if y'all do open that store please bring the manager back to that store B it be waxed I know when he's around because that store is always clean I don't have no problem with the vegetables that is and then for people to have supported that store that is functional that's a profitable store why are we being abused like this they should show us some appreciation instead of coming out there saying we're just going to shut it down and close it and then with these two senior citizen buildings of course we didn't know anything about but two additional senior citizen buildings are coming which would bring more business so we need to see some appreciation out there for all this that store has been around I think for about 40 years I've been shopping at that store for about 40 years but I have lived in the Brentwood community for 20 years and I've been shopping if they're going to stay in the community we need to know exactly how long they're going to be there and if they are leaving bring another store back I never want to see that building as a food desert just have someone to come out there and let us continue let the Brentwood community to continue to give that store any store to come into that area some good business like we've been good afternoon I'm Denise Scott my address is on file I don't have much to say you all I'm proud of you because you're having this discussion I don't want you to rush it though I do want to I just want to say that the city wants to give taxpayer monies to a store that's making profits I mean their incentive they said that if we don't give them this 12 million dollars then they're going to leave because they want to put in 65 million dollars for doing stuff at their headquarters that's extortion now I will tell you that I don't agree with a lot that councilman diamond says I did not have that on my bingo card to agree with him this year but he said and I agree with it this is corporate cash out now everybody wants to stay especially if you say that's a profitable place but come on we're going to play we want jobs to stay but no you can't keep pushing out money to people that's going to buffalo you to bully you if you don't give it to them they're going to close the store let them go especially if they're not saving a bunch of big little jobs like councilman Pelosi said you they cannot buffalo you and please do not rush this this cannot come upon a vote on Tuesday you've got some more talking to do but I appreciate the talking thank you Colonel Oliver yes my name is Colonel Oliver address is on file what I'm going to say about this deal I'm not really for it you know it's extortion like the young lady say if I want real return on investment do not put me underneath the sword for my head to be cut off just because you want to reward a corporation my thing about when I look at this deal and as it stands right now kill it let them walk let them find a new location because here's a concept and idea that I'm thinking about since Jimmy Peluso want to run his mile he want to give eight million dollars I think to a corporation how about we give eight million dollars to the Brentwood Association they can manage their own store they hire an asset management company and what they do every dollar that is generated in that community they can use that to invest in whatever they want they control their own situation and without even have to defend their rights of being black Americans and when I look at incentive packages I want more incentive packages lineage based lineage based gets us away from DEI because most black Americans are foundational in this country so if Ed Randolph can get off his butt get with the general counsel's office and start looking at terms of lineage based incentive packages in this city I want my people to start owning the things that we built in this country I am 1866 and I stand proud as a black man and for us to sit that'll be ran over by a corporation I'm not gonna go for them let them go to hell Mr. James Matchett James Matchett address on file I don't have much to say y'all said it I wish the people from the community could have seen y'all at work here today that's what they expect when they come to city council to see y'all fighting for them so I'm gonna give you kudos I know y'all understand I give it to you when you don't get it and I give it to you when you do and y'all did but here's some things that I want to understand I get it you're right we need to try to retain all the jobs that we can bring I'm skeptical about 200 jobs 200 corporate jobs as a prior business owner myself I understand at the top is where we cut first so we bring in 200 jobs that most of our community don't qualify to get so we'll never see that $200,000 we do have an opportunity to address food deserts I'm not gonna try to run Winn-Dixie business they do good because between 21 and 24 they made over $9 billion a year in annual revenue so this is this is not a desperate thing for them as somebody who traverses around the country and speculate on property Jacksonville is primed per square foot to buy anything it's hard to find the kind of dollars that you can buy per square foot in Jacksonville anywhere else in Florida so it is just a much a benefit to them as it would be to us so what I don't want us to be is on our hands and knees begging for us giving them an opportunity to elevate their product and provide revenue for their system because again that $9 billion revenue that $100,000 the scale is 33 to 68 on the stores and we need that and if we have an opportunity to address the food deserts we should and quit pushing it off thank you okay Dr. Teresa Gamble good afternoon everyone and thank you Councilman Pittman for putting this meeting together I provided each one of the finance members on my letter but I'm not gonna read the whole thing I want to point out something specific because like Coach James stated you all did beautifully here today I was very surprised but it's still yet work to do Winn-Dixie has a documented history of financial instability and bankruptcy filings the reason I know my husband worked for them for nine years working overnight shifts from 6 p.m. until whenever he got finished to come home working in that toxic environment trying to get pay increases to take care of our family was to no avail so we need to actually have Winn-Dixie to go back and look at their own financial history since we since the city does not manage their company to see why every time they filed bankruptcy they closed stores in 2005 and 2018 right before the pandemic so if we want to really make food serious change with this grocer with Winn-Dixie and the reason my husband left because of the lack of the worker opportunities I'm like councilman Arias it's not the corporate jobs it's the people that you see in the stores stocking them shelves bringing in those grocery carts working them cash registers them the ones that Winn-Dixie needs to be giving that $200,000 to not to the corporations because they're the ones that helped kept us fed during the pandemic I know many of you all remember y'all was in sheltered in place but you had black and brown workers in them stores pushing groceries out so I'm asking city council you all manage our budget as a city why can't you not have Winn-Dixie go back and do their own audit to make sure they need to cut from the top and re-divert some of that money to those corporate jobs and give the rest of this $12 million that they're asking the city for to pay the workers to keep everyone fed in Jacksonville Florida I'm Dr. Teresa W. Gamble and my address is on file thank you so much Trey Ford good afternoon Trey Ford my address is on file but I do stay in Grand Park Grand Park got fire still but it also has farms I also represent Duval Soil and the Water Conservation District and I'm the founder of Florida Fish Pepper Co which is essentially an urban agricultural chamber of commerce I'm here to talk about the support talk about and support the Free to Garden Act which we've been trying to get into the hands of city council for a while which I believe would help alleviate some of the issues we're having with large corporate large corporate grocers it's aligned with the state of food state of the food plan that COJ resilience and sustainability departments are working on it's aligned with what Duval Food Policy Council has been working on as well as aligned with Duval Ag Council and the Duval Urban Ag Council which is forming now I believe it's also aligned with the journey forward and other workforce development which is also subjects that we've been bringing up today market gardens micro farms by right citywide fast tracking COUs urban acts tax subclasses are all inside of this bill and I know Councilwoman Pittman as well as Peluso have seen it but again infrastructure is here the zoning code is the only thing that is missing let Jacksonville grow I'm glad you stopped because you didn't keep on the agenda we was talking about the agenda today okay all right just want to let you know nobody else come up here unless it's about what we're talking about today okay all right Reverend Aaron Flagg and after him we'll have Miss Laureen husband and Miss Holloway if y'all could start making your way to the front because it's only get less than two minutes we want to thank Winn-Dixie for all they've done for this community I went to Stanton High School Reverend Flagg move closer please or bring it down thank you I went to Stanton High School in the 70s the early 70s and Winn-Dixie was giving out scholarships for us to go to college back then when Dixie's been very important in this community my daddy would say if you got a bird in your hand don't worry about them two in the bush sometimes we we got a bird in the hand and we worry about the ones in the bush sometimes we're looking too far down the road and don't see what's right in front of us like jobs for our our people our neighborhood I agree the the the hundred thousand dollar jobs could have been here and get people down on down the line the money things like that but like you say we got to stay on point we got a bird in our hand right now let's not worry about the one in the bush until we eat this one thank you God bless you thank you Ms. Husband are you still here okay Ms. Holloway are you still here Mishanda okay Dr. Gundy after Dr. Gundy Denise Hunt and Armeen Shafi Dr. Arleroy Gundy my address is on file first of all let me thank Winn-Dixie thank the city council for this meeting and the outcome of it I think we're dealing with a short term solution of the three years and I'm hoping that we can come up with a long term solution but I'm back to what Mr. Carlucci said about commercially reasonable efforts that's a Greek word epikios and epikios says that that's thinking and wisdom and acting with fairness and responding with balance but this commercially reasonable effort is based on economics and if the economics don't look right it may not turn out right so we got to address that some way but I got a better recommendation to Winn-Dixie I suggest that they come up with a pilot program for this one store on my radio show Monday night I want to brag about what Winn-Dixie and the city council has done and I'm going to do that but I also want to push 150,000 people that listen to me in a month towards that store you have a place where you can put a pharmacy in there so you have an opportunity now to not only just put the grocery store there but to put a pharmacy in there and even if Winn-Dixie doesn't want to do it they can have somebody from the outside who come in and basically pay to put the pharmacy on the inside so you alleviate two things you alleviate the pharmacy desert you alleviate the food desert and I think Winn-Dixie has always been a store of good faith and good will and I think that that's something that they might want to think about use it as a pilot program and then maybe down the road you can do some other things because we have a food desert and we have a pharmacy desert over there and Gateway was 4.0 in its production 48th and Main was 3.9 in its production so if you put the pharmacy in there you got more foot traffic coming there more food going in the basket more people coming in and out of there you're going to make more money that's going to exceed Gateway by a lot so it's just something to think about but again thank you my goal and our goal was keep the stove that's the first thing keep food in there and make sure but that bill this thing you got written right here you need to define what commercially reasonable outcomes mean because when you start looking at words words mean something and if you don't clearly define that then down the road you may not have what you think you have that's thank you so much thank you it's time the Lord send it to me I was looking up you know when they talk I'm Denise Hunt my address is on file thank you but I want to say it's 434 Basin Road I used to live at 67 Andrews which was right right around the corner from that same Winn-Dixit for about eight years and was poorly serviced I'd like to say that but anyway I was looking up wondering was Winn-Dixit still a DEI company and they said they are committed to belonging and virgin and diversity so I'm glad to hear that I want to say that I am strongly against subsidizing any business with our taxpayer dollars tax incentives tax credits tax anything that's about giving any company money to operate and become profitable or stay profitable or transferring wealth to any corporation their shareholders that can assist low income residents and directly help the people that I just saw over in Brentwood who's trying to choose between food and buying medicines I am strongly against it as Republicans y'all used to be about waste y'all used to be about standing up about capitalism a free market economy if they lost it then they should they 9 billion they were 11.8 billion dollars and we're going to fund them to be profiting off and by the way 78% of their profits come from EBT so they're already getting profited by our money to be there so how dare they come in here that's greed white greed I hate to say it and come in here and ask for more and ask for us to subsidize their greed come on their profits that's wrong when we got so many people that can't even buy medicine right now you're cutting food stamps but you can't cut money to them you're cutting health care you're cutting all across the board but these people want to come in here and ask for money to build a what is this a headquarters none of us going to benefit from that come on what we need to do is get to the root cause of why that area is de-invested let's talk about that and I don't believe in any promises that they're going to do because we still haven't reconciled the broken promises of consolidation in 1968 which would have fixed the infrastructure in that area so we could get more businesses see we need to talk about it we need to talk about it I am tired of subsidizing we just gave 775 million the stadium deal and not one black contractor or prime contract that's getting any money I'm tired of the inequitable welfare handouts to these greedy corporations and hijacking us guess what if they don't want to be there hightail it out of here go somewhere else they got enough money Miss Hunter they got enough money well listen you gonna get excuse me you need to sit thank you the next person Miss Shafeece would you come up I'm not gonna have you disrespect so you need to sit down well listen I don't this is personal I don't yeah I know you don't Miss Shafeece would you come up to the podium please that's what I said Miss Shafeece will you please come up well then you shouldn't come to the meeting Miss Shafeece will you please come up is she still here Miss Shafeece is she not here okay um I can't see Rosa I can't read your writing you live at 1230 Talbot just walk her right on out thank you Nancy Statt MD are you here thank you very much don't know whether it's an easy or a tough act to follow there um first I would like to thank the four council members who have stayed to listen to your constituents comments thank you I am greatly grateful for that and disappointed that not all of you are staying um I would just like to back up a little bit and have someone explain it to me like I'm in kindergarten they're increasing 40% their corporate jobs from 500 to 700 while at the same time their plan was to close two of their 15 stores so decrease by 13% their volume of stores while increasing jobs by 40% at the top how does that work exactly because I would think this 12 million dollars was earmarked to incentivize avoiding food deserts and providing healthy food for people and encouraging Winn-Dixie to maintain those 15 stores right isn't that what you're doing with our 12 I don't I don't have a problem with you using my taxpayer dollars but it should be directed towards the problem which is food deserts and having good clean stores we're not we're not spending 12 million dollars in incentives to give jobs in Lackawanna are we I mean because that's how it sounds like we're doing and that's just wrong they're promising only to find a replacement tenant that sounds also very vague that needs to be they should for 12 million dollars they should be willing to commit to at least this store to not closing this store for as long as they are getting a tax break in my view for the next 20 years they can keep that store open especially if it's showing a profit which of course it will finally there's this language has a lot of work you know there's a lot of work to do on this let's face it there's a lot of issues that remain undefined we've lost a sight of things I understand the bird in the hand argument and wanting to please Winn-Dixie however citizens and interested parties have a right to look at the language with enough time before the meeting to respond as well so I would encourage you to give this the due time that it needs thank you so much thank you Rosalind Van Narstead Rosalind you still here and Vanessa Cullen Hopkins I know she's here Vanessa Cullen Hopkins 3283 Edgewood Avenue West 32209 Councilwoman I applaud you for putting this together as quickly as you did and for having this now the process is asked backwards and the reason why it is is because all of these comments should have come a long time ago prior to even putting together the provision or amendment now if I'm understanding the timeline correctly and I probably got this wrong but y'all correct me when Dixie actually put the proposal in for this provision and the council and the councilwoman didn't find out until 72 hours so she quickly put this thing together and what we're dealing with is something that should have been done way before trying to put anything before city council the process is backwards first of all we need overall urban planning especially on the north side as it relates to grocery stores and where they should be located we want to take advantage of the goodwill of stores like Winn-Dixie that know because of their corporate bottom line they're going to have to leave the community yet trying to transition something into the community so that we can continue to have grocery stores you did it in terms of Aldi's buying a number of your branches and we're finding that Aldi's is doing a good job in 32209 over on Avenue B and Edgewood so help us work with Aldi's or other stores to bring in a store that wants to be that wants to be on Main Street we don't want to lose that store and we also want to make sure that there is enough merchants between Norwood Pearl Plaza and that Main Street area to take care of the needs of all the residents yes we need more pharmacies but we need to figure out how we can do that utilizing the incentives that the city gives it is good that we have tax incentives the reason why people are upset about it is because they haven't been involved in it and they don't know how tax incentives bring businesses into the city now I just happened to get up and God told me to put this Jaguar shirt on and I'm not even really a big Jaguars fan but the Jaguars are needed to bring business to this community it's time to go okay bottom line change the process you're doing a wonderful job definitions not good give us some concrete definitions thank you okay we're going to wrap up Mr. Pulisic you have one I don't have your card okay let him make will you all look you have it thank you okay can you make your comment okay come on if you can come on up front and make your comment and you can refill it out I don't have it come on up come on up because it's time to go now come on let's do it oh freedom oh freedom oh freedom over me before I'll be a slave I'll be buried in my grave and go home to my lord and be free understand Winn-Dixie A&P all these stores I couldn't get a job in because they only hired white people now that ain't been that long ago I'm not all that old but I am old but we thought we were being enfranchised we fought we demonstrated I demonstrated in front of Winn-Dixie stores to make them hire black cashiers bag boys that is my history that's our history here I stand and I know we have been disenfranchised we've been taken back they've been taken back from us what we had part of that disenfranchisement is economic food deserts that's we when I was a boy we had had grocery stores in the neighborhood now they're taking them all out that's disenfranchisement so we need to focus we need to focus on all forms of disenfranchisement it's not just black and people I'm finished it's not just black and people of color representatives who are being taken by MAGA but it's also everything which we would vote for safe neighborhoods safe schools and my message to you on this store see I talked to my pastor and he's a good pastor the pastors represent you today but we gotta cut it off he's a good pastor and believe me when I went and told him the situation he went down there he did he went down there to investigate all of our pastors should do that I'm sorry gotta go thank you councilman the last one just to OGC I did want to make sure there are 13 stores in the legislation right now that are guaranteed to remain open and if they are closed based on a potential amendment they need to reopen one within a certain amount of time right please through the charity councilman only the stores in an economically distressed area have to reopen but it's 13 stores that we've identified right okay point being is that say again and this would be the 14th correct point that I'm getting at is that we at least know that in the city of Jacksonville like if this company did move somewhere else or did something else we would not have a guarantee that these 13 stores would remain and so like there is a benefit to a lot of this because I do not like incentives for companies or corporations but I do at least want to acknowledge that and show that there is benefit we'd probably want to talk about how many jobs that would save like if they close one of those stores or that a new store would open with the same number of jobs it's probably something we want to add to an amendment too that's all I wanted to clarify thank you thank you and I'd like to acknowledge Councilman Rockman Johnson Dr. Don Johnson thank you for being here today we have a lot of work oh okay do you mind if I have one wrap up thank you Councilman I just want to say it looks to me today I've been real happy with this conversation this debate all the public comments all the comments from my colleagues I think we're going to find a middle ground here I think there's been a lot of mistakes made probably on both sides I think Winn-Dixie probably never should have proposed retention but should have done an incentive based on growth because we can't forget that they're going to invest 65 million and 200 jobs in Lackawanna at $100,000 is not just jobs for white collar folks it's business that supports ancillary small businesses all around that area what I say yeah white collar yeah and on the other side I think we risk going too far as a council putting too many parameters on a company where we start to look like we're being obstructive to local business as a government we never want to do that I mean the key element of any well-functioning community is great jobs that enable families to be supportive and to that point I don't think we're going to be able to get this done by Tuesday I was hoping we would but for the 500 families out there that are kind of waiting in limo to see what's going to happen I hope you know that we will get a compromise with Winn-Dixie this council in Winn-Dixie will do that together and so as you as employees and your families are listening to this debate we're all going to work together and we're going to make it work so there are bright skies ahead here thanks and I just would like to say in closing first of all thank you all so much for being here and we are having a seat and a space at the table where council members took what you said very seriously and that's why we're here and we're going to continue to work on this and we'll keep you all posted thank you all so much for being with us today thank you