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Regular City Council Meeting Monday, March 23, 2015 Page 18 tion now was whether or not the City was willing to acknowledge the existence of these brownfields and do something about them now. Mayor Roe questioned what type of firm a brownfields consultant worked in: whether legal, engineering or a combination, and also questioned how many there were who specialized in this type of work. Mr. Bilotta responded that a brownfields consultant would be from an environ- mental engineering firm, typically a larger firm specializing in regulatory issues with the Environmental Protection Agency, with multi-disciplines over a larger and more complex area, not simply in testing and developing Phase I and Phase II reports. Mr. Bilotta advised that there were several such firms in the metropolitan area and there would be no need to seek a consultant from out-of-state. Councilmember Willmus questioned if Councilmember McGehee's comments meant she was supportive of moving forward with efforts to identify and clean-up brownfield areas. Councilmember McGehee responded that she was supportive of moving forward if the City intended to develop the area, opining that there were significant issues needing to be addressed and there was no strategic plan in place, even though the City had been given Port Authority status for the purpose of cleaning up the area and yet had not done so. Councilmember McGehee opined that a consultant could provide the detailed information needed to move forward. Councilmember Laliberte noted the current activity and development going on in the area, and questioned whether a brownfields consultant would factor in all those things or only focus on areas yet to be developed. Councilmember Laliber- te reminded her colleagues that the City didn't own any of this land, and ques- tioned what would be potentially done with the information versus current lack of interest by existing property owners in cleaning up the area even with increased interest from developers. Mr. Bilotta advised that past, current and prospective development would all be tied together in the work of the consultant. When a private property developed and environmental reports were done by other firms as part of that development, Mr. Bilotta noted that it was necessary for someone to review those environmen- tal reports, but admitted there was no one on the in-house staff with that level of technical ability at this time (e.g. hauling or burying soils). Mr. Bilotta clarified that brownfield clean-up occurred on the redevelopment side and often current property owners did not see economic reasons to provide that analysis themselves or pursue grants on their own. Mr. Bilotta advised that by taking this step for- ward, the City could assist property owners to move things ahead faster, noting that real estate deals did not work well with uncertainties, and things considered minor by a seller were viewed with a worst case scenario lens by purchasers, of-