[0:06] foreign

[0:36] this is a property reimbursement agreement from

[0:39] 2022 5

[0:47] we do yeah

[1:01] development

[1:09] hello this

[1:19] sticker

[1:23] um

[1:32] being way down there it's like

[1:45] so the only question we have Ms Jackson no no no is is is the over under 60

[1:54] minutes

[2:11] here in 20. I remember a council meeting under um

[2:20] there's a public hearing now hey

[2:29] we're hearing lots of Landing commission meetings to a lesson

[2:35] well we've got this public hearing for obsolete property rehabilities yeah

[2:44] well I'm just wondering if I wonder if Sam Smith

[2:53] in September

[3:00] well we did 12 years ago oh

[3:06] they don't end that other glass thing that you put on here on 117 and 119.

[3:14] yes so they know about the Americans yes

[3:20] rewind it in my head a little bit because I because I was I was in charge

[3:24] of that project when we pulled that face too

[3:28] are you guys ready oh we are all right let's go

[3:33] all right we'd like to call this then I would like

[3:37] to call the study session in order at 6 30. you should go

[3:45] all right call this meeting order like I said at 6 30.

[3:57] of the United States

[4:14] dollar

[4:25] Davis here friends here for Tom Jackson here

[4:33] items for individual discussion let's start with a discussion over the

[4:40] approval resolution of 202304 resolution to approve the

[4:45] obsolete property Rehabilitation exempt certificate for Albion reinvestment

[4:51] Corporation well good evening mayor Pro 10 and

[4:55] Council um yes so um as you might have heard

[4:59] from the city manager this is minus dates change to reflect the current year

[5:05] identical to the Oprah resolution that we asked you to approve last year the

[5:10] reason it's back before you tonight is because the property owners aren't

[5:16] working on this Rehabilitation delayed the start year of their project from

[5:23] 2022 to 2023 is when they are trying to

[5:29] formally start the project this uh you all know that with these projects

[5:35] there are a lot of different conditional funding agreements we are one part of it

[5:39] and the last year they rescinded this application before the State Tax

[5:44] Commission issued any kind of ruling on it so that application no action is

[5:49] taken it was pulled the other one since we're talking about it the other

[5:53] exemption certificate was approved that last year for our Erie Street Apartments

[5:57] over there so one was good we pulled one starting it over this year and I believe

[6:01] at the end of this month uh the big Albion plan will be is that

[6:06] is this okay information to share the msf board yeah so I'll be going for the

[6:11] MS msf board the Michigan strategic fund for formal approval of the funding

[6:17] um so then that kind of gets the green light and they're ready ready to go so

[6:22] ours is the last piece on that um later in the game I know then the

[6:27] applicants were comfortable with but still certainly in terms of getting this

[6:31] exemption approved this year we've got the whole rest of the year so they're

[6:35] they're right on our timelines they've applied exactly the same way they did

[6:39] previously when we sent it to the Tax Commission so all we're asking is for

[6:42] you to approve that again this evening

[6:45] and I and I read that there there is um

[6:50] expected the completion date so I take 24. yes

[6:55] yeah that is uh I've when I read that I thought it was aggressive too that I

[7:00] trust that they've done some more construction than I have and

[7:06] it's from the looks of things I mean how much behind the scenes work

[7:09] can there be there's only been eight years of it so far I'd like to think

[7:13] that they're ready to pull the trigger and get some construction done pretty

[7:17] quickly uh yeah no I verified that the board

[7:21] chair verified that a couple times as well as

[7:24] a couple other people between me and himself we're feeling we are confident

[7:28] that that's what they meant to put yes it can happen absolutely

[7:35] yeah thank you so much absolutely

[7:40] all right moving on to the next discussion Adam

[7:44] first reordered 2023-20

[7:49] that ordinance to amend chapter two Administration by amending article for

[7:56] finance decision I mean division two purchases the section

[8:02] 2-384 purchase purchases and bids General

[8:08] any questions it is a discussion

[8:17] [Music] um

[8:19] you want to speak to

[8:26] I think it was our last name we briefly discussed how the current

[8:31] purchase threshold for the city manager is five thousand dollars for having to

[8:37] do bids and um that ordinance was last done in the

[8:41] 90s which is different than five thousand dollars 30 years ago versus now

[8:48] is significantly different um so we upped it to fifteen thousand

[8:52] dollars um we kept beat the vision thick that

[8:56] requires uh the city manager has to notify Council of any purchase uh that's

[9:01] in excess of a thousand dollars so uh Council will still have get that

[9:05] information so basically the the city manager has the authority to uh make

[9:11] purchases of the budgeted items that were fifteen thousand dollars or less

[9:16] we'll still get Council notice um the um if it's a non-budgeted item as

[9:22] we kept professional uh or the threshold was five thousand dollars we also have

[9:26] been a provision um a problem that's been coming up is uh sometimes the city

[9:32] manager will put out an RP and will not get any responses and the way that their

[9:37] current ordinance is drafted is it doesn't

[9:40] contemplation so as well if you're over five thousand dollars you need to do a

[9:44] bid but what happens if you don't get a

[9:46] responsive bid so what I did is I built in a provision that says in the event

[9:50] they do a bit and they don't get responses then the city management can

[9:53] go out and solicit proposals but she has to solicit not less than three and then

[9:57] make a recommendation to counsel for approval

[10:00] um which is basically what the practice has been when we don't get responses to

[10:04] those bidders but it's just my mom realizes it in a managers

[10:09] um and then the other thing that we added

[10:13] was um

[10:15] when how when the city manager brings a contract before Council for approval and

[10:21] the council votes to approve it we built in a provision that says once Council

[10:26] has approved the contract the city manager does not then have to come back

[10:29] and say approve these payments under the contract that you've already approved

[10:33] because it's redundant to get a permission to distribute money that the

[10:37] council's already approved the city managers better

[10:41] so that's basically it in a nutshell can you give us an example of

[10:47] um well well what if what has taken place in the past

[10:52] um like a for instance or you know just a

[10:56] relative example of okay well the city manager would have to do this this and

[11:00] this before now this streamlines that entire process well yeah so by way of

[11:05] the example I mean when we talk about the purchasing threshold of five

[11:08] thousand dollars there's very few Capital expenditures that can be made in

[11:12] the city that don't cost more than five thousand dollars I know we've all seen

[11:17] um the equipment that has to be authorized for public services they'll

[11:20] be you know something that goes out at the

[11:22] water treatment plant and you know if it costs fifty five hundred dollars instead

[11:27] of you know the city manager being able to say Hey you know director O'Brien go

[11:31] ahead and fix that she's going to bring it to council and it takes time so

[11:35] that's one that we see quite often the bidding issue where we get no responses

[11:39] comes up quite often um

[11:42] but like the contract so say we're doing the Haven Street or the Haven Road

[11:46] Project every time an expenditure has to be made she doesn't in turn have to come

[11:51] back right once the contractors still come before Council and Council will

[11:55] still have to approve the contract but once the contract comes forward unless

[11:59] there's an amendment to the contract basically the city manager can make

[12:04] expenditures under the contract without having to come back and say can I please

[12:07] spend the money under this contract that you guys have already approved

[12:12] got it thank you

[12:15] any other questions yeah I just have one question regarding repealer Clause yeah

[12:21] so part of the ordinance can is in Conflict but you can yeah explain

[12:30] that so I I put at the end of every ordinance of what's called a repealer

[12:35] closet it's basically just a Fail-Safe that if there's another ordinance in

[12:39] another section that somehow conflicts the new ordinance that you've just

[12:43] adopted this eliminates the conflict of okay that I put in I put that in every

[12:48] ordinance we supersedes everything before we could I see

[12:54] that way if you have if you you know you come across some old ordinance and we

[12:58] have a lot of videos that somehow has some language that might raise a

[13:01] question you'll see that there's new Origins yeah

[13:09] the question was that um so I know we're at the bottom of the five out of ten

[13:13] thousand so do you see that feeling you run into working with all these

[13:18] individuals is roughly over the ten thousand percent expenses what is the

[13:24] you know the extra five foreign

[13:34] I think it was councilman friendship I don't know what you looked at but it the

[13:40] 5 000 from 1990s translated to 12 000 I think 500-ish and so rather than land on

[13:47] kind of that odd number I thought 15 000 would be the next round well instead of

[13:52] going down when I started to go up so I landed on 15 000 as opposed to pull back

[14:02] go back and look at something well maybe we should go up to 15 000 bursts staying

[14:07] at ten thousand that's unfortunate because I heard that was worse yeah yeah

[14:11] the number that I quoted was that a dollar equivalent from 1994 seven

[14:18] whatever it was it worked out too because I recall fourteen thousand and

[14:21] one dollars I'm hearing different numbers

[14:27] it's very rare for something to exceed the 15 000 but it is possible I know

[14:32] that we've had some repairs that either the water or Sewer Department they've

[14:36] had to make that have come in higher than that but generally it just gets

[14:41] getting with the times okay any other questions

[14:48] okay moving on to another discussion on

[14:53] approval materials management agreement with Michigan agribusiness Solutions

[15:02] yes yes so this um we currently have a service agreement with this company they

[15:08] haul off sludge or sludge however you want to say it from the wastewater

[15:11] treatment plant um the current agreement is set to

[15:15] expire by the end of the month so director O'Brien he did solicit three

[15:19] bids or proposals for this service we are recommending to renew our management

[15:25] contract with the same company for a three-year term

[15:28] um they are the second lowest and we're making this recommendation simply off of

[15:32] there are testing fees and they have a flat fee of a thousand dollars for any

[15:36] testing where the the lowest bid they it ranged in prices so we could be paying

[15:42] more than what we would if we went with this

[15:45] um with this company as well as we also have a good working relationships and

[15:49] everything providing us with that service so that is why we felt

[15:52] comfortable making that recommendation to renew that to renew that contract for

[15:56] us

[15:59] any other questions

[16:09] okay so moving on to approval discussion basically discussion of the approval of

[16:15] a hundred thousand dollars expenditure request for the fire truck purchase you

[16:19] know the man is in the house so I laid a lot of this out in the

[16:25] letter that I sent you is there anything specific I don't know how much time we

[16:28] have to discuss this that I you have questions on or would you let me explain

[16:35] yeah I got to reading through all of this and

[16:40] I said ma'am

[16:44] trip 10 years ago we basically wrote that entire thing that you're reading

[16:48] there wow um and the reality is the majority of what's in there it's the

[16:54] same on every single truck it's not something that's going to be different

[16:56] there's just a few little things that are different

[16:59] um the main things that we look for in the in the trucks are at least a 1250

[17:03] gallon per minute pump and at least a 750 gallon tank this truck has a 1500

[17:08] down per minute truck in a 1 000 gallon tank so it's above what we what we'd

[17:13] look for in the truck we don't want to go too big because then the truck gets

[17:16] too big and you can't the size-wise it's an issue so

[17:19] um but this truck was exactly what we were looking for it just happened they

[17:22] they have already ordered this truck it was going to be a demo for them but

[17:25] they're offering it to us for the price that they're they're basically paying

[17:28] for it um it was bid through a company called

[17:32] sourcewell which is very similar to what mideal is I don't know if everybody

[17:35] knows mideo that we use here so it's a federal version of mideo um so it's been

[17:41] bid so there's no requirements to do any bidding on it or anything else it meets

[17:45] all the federal government standards for what we have to do to bid a truck so

[17:50] and the biggest thing to know this will be a 2024 expenditure but we're bringing

[17:54] it to you for approval so that we can get our order placed and we don't have

[17:58] to wait and it's a few more years

[18:03] it'll be delivered the expectation they're expected delivery of it on their

[18:08] own already would be March of 24. um so the payment wouldn't be required

[18:12] until after the truck has been delivered yes uh what are you going to do with the

[18:18] press-up truck um I've had some interest in purchasing

[18:22] it um I don't think it's going to bring us

[18:24] very much money um it's completely outdated

[18:27] um I have to double check and see on our previous truck

[18:31] um we we were able to sell it but we had to guarantee it would never be used for

[18:34] fire purposes again um and actually the person who does the

[18:39] um mechanical work on our trucks now is interested in purchasing it he's also

[18:44] the one that purchased our last truck because he'll part it out and use the

[18:46] parts to fix older trucks that he still works on

[18:49] um and last time the deal we made with him it was either four or five thousand

[18:52] dollars worth of work that he did on our trucks review so so if you are able to

[18:58] sell it that would take the 123 780 yeah right unless I traded for work on our

[19:05] trucks but it's still saving money out of the budget for stuff that we'd be

[19:09] spending so okay um so

[19:13] um David's not here but I don't know yeah so we we've talked this over we met

[19:18] last week with financer um Finance director Clark and we are um he proposed

[19:23] that we will cover this out of the equipment full fund based off of the old

[19:26] equipment that we auctioned off last year there is a surplus in that

[19:31] um and that's he would recommend that we play I think he said there was a surface

[19:34] of 200 000 so that money is there from that sales Surplus property and some of

[19:38] that property was military equipment that Public Safety had that we were able

[19:42] to auction up and use that money so sweet so you auction off that uh from

[19:48] the military yes oh okay

[19:54] there's certain amount there's certain property that we have to return to them

[19:57] not very much but most of it when we get it after we've used it for a year we

[20:00] have no purpose for it we can sell it

[20:05] any more questions yeah all right thank you so much

[20:11] right move on to discussion Emergency Management plan

[20:15] um Vivian would you like to call this one

[20:18] well I wanted to bring to the council um the idea of possibly establishing if

[20:27] we don't have I don't know if Albion has an emergency plant management plan

[20:33] but we do maybe to make it known to us or tell us what we have and what we need

[20:40] it it's it's pretty basic um because it's generalized into any emergency that

[20:45] could happen in town and how things operate

[20:48] um the city manager appoints an emergency manager

[20:51] um and that emergency manager right now is uh Jason Kern our the deputy chief

[20:55] and it has been for as long as I've worked at Public Safety generally been a

[20:59] deputy chief or Lieutenant below the chief that is the emergency manager so

[21:04] um we can get copies of the plan I do think it's something we probably need to

[21:07] look at because I don't think it's been updated probably for 10 or 15 years but

[21:11] yeah I was thinking in addition to that uh you know in terms of the human factor

[21:18] if there if there is a flood if there's a power outage where can people go if

[21:24] you know they don't have food

[21:27] County Emergency Management

[21:32] um I know there's uh three designated shelters in town one of them being the

[21:36] Dow Center and one of them being the opportunity school and I'm not sure I

[21:39] think I do think Washington Partners the third one it is yeah

[21:43] um and who knows that though the emergency manager I mean that's where

[21:48] that decision is made based on what's available and where things can go

[21:51] um it's really Calhoun County Emergency Management who runs the show when it

[21:55] comes to Emergency Management we have a designated person

[21:59] um but it's not on the same level as the county can but when when there's an

[22:03] emergency in town um the Declaration of emergency I

[22:06] believe has to come from the mayor once the mayor declares an emergency then it

[22:10] goes on to the county the county would declare an emergency which then goes out

[22:13] to the state they declare an emergency and then the state declares emergency

[22:16] the federal government declare emergency you can't get federal funds until that

[22:20] process has happened right now that doesn't mean

[22:23] the state doesn't declare the emergency before we do or the county before we do

[22:28] but generally it has to go in that process in order for us to get Federal

[22:31] funding um the then the resources come for the

[22:35] other things that we need at that point whether it's FEMA or the state or so

[22:38] forth and bringing in the equipment and other things that we might need for an

[22:41] emergency okay if it's not to that level is it all or none no it's not all or

[22:49] nothing correct it's over 10 years ago because

[22:53] that wasn't cheap um we had the Windstorm to knock down

[22:56] all the trees on the south side of town basically

[22:59] um and we declared an emergency here in town because it was so bad but the

[23:02] county and the state never declared emergency so we never got any funding

[23:05] for that but we were still able to work with Emergency Management with the

[23:08] county at the time who came in and helped with resources and all the things

[23:13] that we needed to do so there's a process that goes on even if the funding

[23:16] doesn't occur um it just whose pocket does the money

[23:19] come on at that point so yeah

[23:23] so there is nothing the community can do I mean in terms of okay for instance

[23:28] people who didn't have a place to go in the in the dark right you know

[23:34] was was Opportunity School open the gymnasium the problem you're into in a

[23:39] small community like this is uh the the Dow Center which is one of those areas

[23:44] was without power most of the time as well

[23:47] um and so you run into those issues where our emergency centers may not be

[23:50] you know good for that if we had a train derailment like uh East Palestine yeah

[23:56] we none of those places would probably be a place to evacuate people too

[24:00] because they're all downwind from everything on this side of town type of

[24:04] thing so um that's where we got to coordinate

[24:07] with the county and we would coordinate and go to shelters that are outside the

[24:10] city I know there was a couple people that uh uh Chris Young who's our

[24:14] emergency manager for the county uh placed one in Jackson I think at a hotel

[24:18] because our hotel was full because the people in town filled it up before

[24:21] Emergency Management could get any rooms so

[24:25] um but but they did help us place people that were displaced uh because of the

[24:29] power outage I just wish some kind of communication

[24:32] can come from the city you know if there is a need all right when there

[24:38] doesn't need and it may not be on the magnitude of the whole you know right of

[24:42] a storm but if someone doesn't have a place to go yeah and so I I was only

[24:48] made a way to one person that there was an issue where there was another person

[24:53] um I know that our officers helped out and it may have been the same person

[24:55] down at the hotel one night at the hotel allowed to stay in the lobby for a while

[24:59] because of key issues and so forth but um most of it is just a matter of

[25:04] letting us know what needs to be done and then we can move from there with

[25:07] Emergency Management to get it done um in this situation I wasn't aware of a

[25:11] huge need I know people didn't have power and so on but there's not a lot I

[25:14] can do about that end of it but um but when there is a true need of somebody

[25:17] who has nowhere else to go and no place else to turn uh there are resources that

[25:22] can get the Red Cross involved we get Emergency Management involved and so

[25:25] forth so um

[25:28] I need to hold that bar in 652 and we do we can bring this discussion back over

[25:35] into the other meeting because of the fact we did not have the we need that

[25:40] information the approval Brownfield uh reimbursement agreement if we need to

[25:44] hit that for a couple of minutes I think we need to do that because that's the

[25:48] approval item and we need to discuss that and out here

[25:51] um before we go any further so I'd like to discuss um about the Brownfield

[25:55] reimbursement agreement and then I'm sorry Donovan but I think we should hold

[25:59] some more the other comments into the next meeting and that's a little longer

[26:03] so that we can get a clear understanding for we approve

[26:13] reimbursement agreement it was approved by the edc's VRA I'm back in August of

[26:19] 2022 Council you all approved it in um September of 2022 the current um EDC

[26:26] CEO they're just some minor changes reflected into that reimbursement

[26:30] agreement it went before our EDC VRA Temple board last week for approval

[26:36] um they approved it and it was just as um

[26:39] formal procedure it comes before the city council to to

[26:44] um to approve I don't believe there is anything major that was changed in the

[26:48] original document you can probably provided with both copies the um outline

[26:52] version just shows those updates and then you also have like the clean final

[26:56] version It's virgin if I missed anything please feel free

[27:08] any questions on this you need a few minutes

[27:13] um was it just getting in um getting us back in line with the state ordinance or

[27:19] was that the reason for the the change when I look through it just it looks

[27:24] like just minor language change um I think it was just a cleanup of the

[27:28] document okay I see and D there was some changes there

[27:35] on that second line that was um that was acrossed out

[27:44] okay by the way

[27:50] gone again

[28:09] all right

[28:14] beautiful over there yeah

[28:18] so yeah so this is at the recommendation of the edc's return

[28:24] thank you all right so

[28:28] um meeting adjourned at six weeks I'm sorry

[28:33] sorry I'm trying to make sure I'm sorry is

[28:37] there any public comments um anyone that would like to address us with anything

[28:42] that we've already discussed

[28:46] yeah hi I'm Virgie I live at 305 East Main and Homer

[28:52] um I would like some guidance at some point whether the changes to this

[28:57] ordinance for the spending affects the EDC because

[29:01] I know we do follow quite a few of your ordinances so I'll probably just need

[29:05] some interpretation on whether that follows so I don't need it now I don't

[29:09] need it for a while but just wanted to make sure that I got some guidance on

[29:13] that

[29:16] thank you so much anyone else

[29:22] okay so we will hold city managers report for the next meeting

[29:28] um we do have one committee but I guess we can't post this list the council

[29:33] members that in the pharmacy Okay so

[29:39] all right motion symbol I mean motion to adjourn

[29:44] ing support

[29:50] all in favor all right any Nays

[29:54] meeting adjourned at 6 56.

CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION - 06 Mar 2023

Transcript