I'm sorry. Those are yours.
» Yes. Okay. I'm going to call the meeting to order.
Mayor Brown
» present. Council member Fellows >> present.
» Council member Tusent >> present.
» Council member Simmons is absent. Council member MC
» here >> and council member J present. We have a
board
» move to excuse council member Simmons
» you mean support. >> Can we add though? Can we just add what
happened as well? Oh, sorry. And council council member Wilox support
» the move to excuse me.
» Any conversation? All
» in favor? >> I any opposed?
» No.
» All right. I'll entertain a motion for agenda approval.
» So move. >> Been moved by council member supported
by council member Spade. Any updating changes to the agenda?
» There we go. Resolution
26-191 of fireworks permit from consent.
» Thanks for letter H on the consent agenda.
Um,
this agenda is so long. Um, and they're already close to the end.
» Perfect.
» Any other changes to the vote?
» Thanks. I know. I'm sorry. All in favor of the agenda as amended,
please say I. I. And your oppos. All right. Good evening everyone. Thank
you so much for being with us. Um this is our opportunity for public comment.
So members of the audience will have three minutes to address council. Um we
have one hour aotted up front. If we make it through and have additional
folks who have still been signed up, um then we will continue that public
comment at the end of the meeting. uh we will alternate in the numeral of 10
between in person and then online. So when I call your name, if you are able,
please approach the podium. Um and if you could state your name and addresses
for the record if you feel so comfortable, that would be wonderful.
Um, first I have Teresa
and I get my name is Teresa with us at 1703
and here on behalf of the app the landl which is at South Washington and at that
time we were talking about the people congregating in front of our building
and making difficult difficult for us to have make sales so that we can use that
money to support the community. I must say that things have not been as bad as
they were. I haven't had any complaints from people, all the volunteers that
work there. Um, and I we did see something online where somebody misqued
us saying that we were all we were all women and we were all afraid. And we're
not afraid of them. Very little anyway. uh what we're afraid of, what we're
worried about is the fact that if we can't keep people coming into the
building, then we can't make money and we can't help the community. And that
was sort of how I speak. The other thing I'm concerned about is that I did say at
the end of my brief presentation last time that I'd be willing to help help
with any kind of problem solving that relates to this this group of people who
are well known at least to the police in this town. So that I'm not trying to
vilify them. Many of them are are customers. I'm just trying to find
another way. So that's why I'm here. Thank you for your time.
» Thank you so much. >> Jim Clark.
[clears throat] >> Good evening.
Uh Jim Clark, 116 College Place. Um I'm speaking tonight in reference to
resolution 2026-142. Um there was a task force put together
uh to come up with a viable solution um other than simply sweeping the
encampment um and relying on paths to find placements for people. Um what I'm
proposing is a temporary safe hunting zone. Um everybody's heard me talk about
this before and I've sent multiple emails. Um I do believe that there's
enough support from from the council. Um, Miss King, you actually brought it
up once upon a time and spoke of it favorably if I'm not mistaken.
Um, and I've talked to uh Mr. Tusen, um, Miss Fellows, Mr. McClean, um, Mr. Wil
Coxin and I had conversations about it. I'm not sure where he stands exactly
right now. Um, and at this time, I want to thank uh, Mr. Langa profusely for
taking this seriously and helping me see it through. Um I'm going to say the task
force essentially has failed. Um all the people that were originally tapped for
it um they I haven't been able to to contact um any of them regarding this
thing. However, uh the idea itself is sound. Um there's precedent set for it
in other states. U Washington, Oregon, uh for example both have safe tenting
zones. Um the uh idea for the ordinance was came
from Kalamazoo. Um it originally called for uh constructions such as tiny homes,
but I've amended it so that it refers specifically to tents. The minimum thing
that we need from this is a sanctioned place for people to go. Um when we talk
about it, I hear people say, "But we don't have authorized tenting zones in
San." Well, this ordinance is intended to provide just that, to create a uh a
system where an entity such as um a nonprofit, a church, a private land
owner, or a government um can apply for a permit to host a safe tenting zone. Um
the tenting zone would have minimum safety requirements. All that stuff
would be in place, fire extinguishers, it would have portagons and such. Um,
we're trying to make it as bare bones as possible to eliminate uh as much cost as
possible because we know the funds for the city are eliminated. However, a port
of John's and handwashing station shouldn't be too big of a deal. Um, the
management piece of it, um, I've talked to the residents or to the survivors of
the Bell Kramer encampment and they're in agreement that they will, uh, they
will manage it themselves. um we would have um outside help like myself and a
few others that would participate in that management team. Um but the goal
there is to protect everybody at the encampment and to make sure that there's
a process for the surrounding neighbors to uh lodge a grievance and allow us to
to to handle it. Um yeah, I mean if you were to enact this
right away, there's a couple of viable stocks that we could start with. It's a
90-day program uh subject to review. >> Thank you.
» Okay. Thank you. Melanie P.
» Hi, I'm Melanie Peek. I'm a resident in Midtown at 501 Pearl Street. I've been
there for 10 years. When I bought the house, I bought it along with a land
agreement that binds my property and sharing it with a rooming house next
door where they're they have access. It's a very vague document written
actually type that in 1976 on a typewriter. It's very vague, but it one
thing that's not vague is the access point is just for tenants and visitors
to drive over the property and park in the back. Um, but that isn't used that
way. It's used for parking. Um, it's gotten 10 years of that. There's also
quite a police report on the house. Pull that up. many many incidents kind of
pointing to the idea that possibly a rooming house in Midtown is not really
working out when there's no one inside the walls monitoring. Um so one of the
reasons why I'm here is to speak on behalf of the ambitious and bold um
presentation of the ordinances that hold landlords accountable for actions. Um, I
don't know how much time I have, but one incident that happened recently in the
rooming house on June 13th, um, a very sweet man was found deceased. Um, they
did not know that he had passed. That was a week that was pretty hot. Um, how
the tenants knew he was gone was he they could smell happy. And so on June 13th,
police came out. His body was removed. His belongings were packed up, including
a rug rolled up that he passed away on with body fluids put in plastic bags
laid out in the back in my garden and on part of the property that I don't
actually have to share. This was June 13th when the stuff was brought out and
it's June 15th. Um, it's still sitting there and I called the city. I called
Red Shields. Um there was a response eventually. Um
again, I'm hoping that this ambitious ordinance that people are tableabling
for now is somehow going to help me and other people because after 10 years,
what I'm looking at now is maybe I should just not be here, that I should
sell my book. Um that's Thank you.
Michelle,
congratulations all the electors and I am here regarding the 128 my address and
I'm here regarding Mail Street in capital again.
I know everyone think that's an appropriate place for it to be. It is
not. This past weekend, I went down there and a friend, a couple friend of
us, and we end up cleaning that area up with needles. I had
so I don't know what happened to the dumpster.
And another thing too, I don't understand why people think that area is
appropriate. Okay. One of the uh abandoned house two years ago, three
years ago, a homeless person was found deceased.
A couple weeks ago, someone was found in an encampment deceased on suicide.
A couple months ago in the um apartment area, someone was shot and killed
because engagement. So, I'm trying to figure out where do y'all feel like this
is appropriate for this place to be in that small neighborhood.
I don't understand that. I see that we do have signs saying vacate. There's
more people, white people, all the blacks are gone. I have video of that,
too. More white people have come down here to invade that area. It's no longer
five. It's about 20. So I don't understand where you guys feel that this
is a appropriate area. You keep saying you go help clean up, but if you go to
help clean up, why I just found needles, garbage everywhere.
I'm trying to protect my neighborhood. Why we can't have a safe neighborhood?
Everyone else does. So why we can't have it? So, I don't
understand why people continue on thinking Kramer and Bale because it's a
field is a appropriate place to put a tent.
And what's wrong with having a small house? What's wrong with having that?
He's saying that's inappropriate. I prefer them being in a house than being
in a tent, which is more condensed to their situation. So I don't understand
why where we getting this information from and why we feel that this situation
is good for the community that y'all concern that y'all love the community.
Give us respect as owners and residents. I am I don't understand where we plan on
going from here but I guarantee you that encampment would not stay there.
» Thank you Harvey K.
Good evening. >> Thank you. Good evening, mayor,
counselors. My name is Harvey Frankie. I'm at 504 Pearl in Midtown. I want to
be real clear about what I'm going to say here is what I'm going to talk about
the ordinances that we talked about reviewed last time uh 1468 1469. I
support health, safety, and housing standards that we intend to uh implement
in our city. And uh the issue that I'm finding specifically about those two
ordinances is fairness and proportionality, particularly for a
specific class of landlords, not all landlords are the same. I am a
homeowning residential landlord. I I rent out part of my own house. And so
under these proposals as I read, a homeowner who lives upstairs and rents
out a basement or a spare bedroom or perhaps another division in my dwelling
unit can face the same regulatory framework as large corporate landlords.
But there's a huge difference between those between someone who rents out one
unit and someone who rents out multiple properties. A large landlord can spread
these inspection fees and compliance costs to the payers and administration
administrative burden across many units where an owner occupied it comes out of
what I use to pay the mortgage and the insurance and the repairs for my house
and my own budget. So an owner occupied rental is one of the simplest ways
though for Ipsellani as a city to add affordable housing. Why do I say that?
because a homeowner landlord uh creates another place for someone to live
without any obligation for new construction, new land or large
development. And if we make these arrangements unnecessarily risky or
complicated or costly, these same homeowners will just simply abandon
renting out their home, which takes away from the stock of rentable housing in
the city. The city's legitimate safety goals don't require a one-sizefits-all
approach to to building um to land. A homeowner who lives in the property and
rents out a room should not be regulated exactly like the owner of 20 30 40 50
rental units and buildings. So, I'm asking council and the building
department for some simple changes. First, we should separate owner occupied
rental category with simplified registration and less frequent
inspection. Secondly, let's make the enforcement proportional to the risk. A
minor violation of a rental unit should not automatically jeopardize the
homeowner's own residence. Third, provide reasonable notice and cure.
Notice and cure goes together as a phrase for non-emergency violations,
especially when the owner is making good effort and good faith effort to fix the
problem. Fourth, let's reserve the strongest penalties for serious repeat
violations, not ordinary homelords trying to comply.
» Thank you. >> Thank you.
» Thank you, Sebastian.
» Good evening, mayor and city council. My name is Sebastian Craigy and I'm asking
you to vote no on proposed ordinances 1468 and 1469 as written. Let me be
clear. I support safe housing. I support enforcing legitimate health and safety
standards. But good intentions do not automatically make every new regulation
good policy. These ordinances expand and modify if
salami is already extensive rental inspection and property maintenance
system. The city already requires rental properties to have certificates of
compliance and the building department already has enforcement authority when
properties fail to meet required standards. My concern is that adding
more requirements, more administrative procedures, and potentially more
opportunities for penalties will increase the cost and complexity of
finding rental housing in its lane. And ultimately, those costs don't just
disappear, they get passed along through higher rents, deferred maintenance,
or owners citing that a rent that renting a property in Epsilani simply
isn't worth the additional expense and risk. That matters because ifi already
has an affordability problem. We should be extremely careful about adopting
policies that make it more expensive to operate and maintain rental housing.
There is also a fairness issue. A large property management company may be able
to absorb additional inspections, paperwork, fees, and compliance
requirements. A small local landlord with one or two rental properties may
not. We should not create a system where the people who provide naturally
affordable housing are pushed out while larger operators become more dominant.
And if council believes these changes are necessary, I ask you to demonstrate
exactly what problem each new position solves, what it will cost the property
owners and tenants, and whether there is a less burdensome way to accomplish the
same goal. We don't need to choose between safe housing and affordable
housing. We should demand policies that protect both. So I respectfully ask
council to reject ordinances 1468 and 1469 as written. Slow this process down.
Engage tenants and small property owners and make sure these changes actually
improve housing and rather than simply adding another layer of regulation.
Thank you. >> Thank you.
Good evening. >> Hi, Mayor Council. Uh my name is Kadus.
I'm a resident of W three. I have two items to talk to you about today. Uh the
first is taking you back several meetings to our budget conversations. Um
one of the more concerning things about those conversations was the amount of
overtime acred by the department. Um, if I remember correctly, for 2024 25 was
$471,000 and for 2526 it was $323,000.
Uh, both years well above the budgeted amount. Um this was particularly
concerning because in a previous session we had heard from the finance director
that our uh general fund balance was going to be forecast to be greatly
reduced over the next couple of years and these overtime bills are going to
draw from that general fund. Um so I I guess I am um asking council, mayor
and city manager to take this issue seriously as we move forward. Um and
hopefully that you know as we have more hires this year that um you know this
fiscal year we hope to see lower um overtime bills. Um the second agenda
item, after a few years of observing from the sidelines, I've decided it is
time to get in the arena of city government and have applied to be in the
planning commission um seats on your consent agenda today. Um given the
volume of projects happening in the city, some master plan updates and some
upcoming data center or zoning regulations,
I expect this will be a very productive time in this commission. Uh, thank you
for inspiring me to get more involved and I hope you'll approve my
appointment. >> Thank you.
» Larry Simmons.
» Good evening. >> Good evening.
My name is Larry Simmons and uh I noticed that down there on the
encampment basically talking about encampment down there on Bale Street
Bra. Okay.
I listen to some of the comments and concern towards the uh the settlement
down there about how they feel unsafe. But what about the residents? I mean,
it's hard for me to uh feel comfortable with my nephew, nieces, my grandkids to
be out there playing basketball, what we usually do on a regular basis, every
summer, spring, whatever. With the kind of problems that we got down there, uh
like my sister mentioned, you have people down there using drugs.
You have a continuation where people getting comfortable. So that I don't
know if they put word out that that's a safe zone or whatever.
» Yeah. >> But uh I can guarantee you one thing
down there as I remember as a kid that was a duck.
So I don't know how city council people if it's y'all opinion of how y'all feel
that it's a good environment for them to be down there. I may say for their own
health reasons. Okay. And like I said before I have concern about a lot of
things. I have uh simply towards people that be in certain condition that trying
to get theirel out of but I don't think that the residency
okay then the homeowner people that live down there have to be down there
suffering and making it comfortable when they paying rent taxes
they should feel comfortable too okay to enjoy to enjoy their propert
um I I guarantee you there's a lot of people down there that comfortable with
how they live. >> Okay? Cuz we've been noticing this for
years. This ain't nothing that just happened. Okay? Now, I see y'all put up
the sign. They laugh at that sign. And I watch I sit up there sometime and uh in
the backyard sitting at the table or sitting in my car like I usually do
sometime. But now I feel funny doing that because you got all kind of people
walking back and forth. Some of them doing strange thing that you don't know
what they might do. I don't know if they're gonna come up to my car and do
something crazy or whatever. We deal with a variety of different type of
people down there. And the only way to solve that is to close that encampment
up and come [clears throat] up solution. Other than that, I don't think the res
people that paying taxes. Okay. Then, and y'all say that's our neighbor. If
they paying taxes down there, they
» Okay. If they if they doing anything down there to make the make the uh
people that been living there for years okay then feel cal you got all kind of
strange people walking back and forth down there. Okay. So I appreciate if
y'all my time is up but thanks for uh
listening. >> Those are the only names I had signed
up. If there are others in the audience who would like to address counsel you
can raise your hand. Anybody?
No one has their hand up. Oh, now someone has their hand up.
Um, so Tita Matine,
» good evening. >> Hi there.
Uh oh. Is there an echo?
» Oh, hi there. My name is Tahita uh with the Small Business Administration,
Office of Disaster Recovery. And uh a part of my job is to make sure that I am
getting information out to communities who um are declared in the presidential
declaration um from the storms that happened in April. Um our federal agency
is still in the state of Michigan letting people understand and understand
that they can still apply for disaster recovery. um that includes businesses,
homeowners, renters, nonprofit and private organizations um helping with
their physical damages that they incurred. Um now, something important
that I do have to mention is that the deadline is coming up on August 31st.
Um, so for those homeowners or those renters with uh uh private physical
property that they need to replace or repair from the um April storms, they
can submit their application. We encourage and uh people to apply with
FEMA and SBA at the same times. Um we are at the Michigan Disaster Recovery
Centers. We have business recovery centers set up. Um, people can go in
person to start the application process or do that online. And the way to get to
us and start the application online is sba.gov/desaster
and that's sba like small businessadministration.govsba.
And we encourage those people, those businesses uh with unmet needs from that
storm. Um whether it be um reimbursements that they um paid for in
April, but you know, now we're here um as federal agencies. So whether it be
any reimbursements they need or um any uh damages that they just noticed, we
encourage them to apply before that August 31st deadline. And thank you so
much. And that's all I have for you today.
Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm making sure to share that with us.
Anybody else on the line? No one else. One more time in the audience. Any other
hands?
Right. See none. I will post public comments.
» I do just have a few quick questions. One, I didn't know the trash can was
moved from Dale Kramer. Was there a reason why?
» Um, so we had the dumpster for um Shine when they were cleaning things up. Um,
it was full, so it was removed. Um, we can put another one back, but it seems
that we have the September 1st date coming up. We probably should do a
cleaning session after that. Um, we can have a dumpster put back out there. Um,
also I did receive word from Hath uh today indicating that half the people
are willing to leave, the other half don't, as it was said during public
comment, don't take signs seriously. Um, so I'm trying to uh confer with them to
see how best that we we can ensure that they understand that the the signs are
real and September 1st would be the deadline uh to move
» and do we have a plan since we have not met with the task force if we have some
kind of plan in place or how does that removal look? So the the removal will be
they either go for the path or eventually officers like to come and
trespass people.
Also um because I did see some of the videos of the residents down there
cleaning up the needles and stuff and that does sound problematic to me.
Michelle Fman spoke for public comment and she talked about
people being deceased in that area. Residents have called me about that. Do
we have any update that we can talk to the community about?
» Um other than there was a deceased person.
That's really the only thing that we
» I guess lastly. Do we have a count of how many people are down there? That is
one thing we discussed at the last meeting.
» Sure. And I until now I thought it was five. Um, so I'm I'm reaching I just
sent an email to the path team to ask their account so we can get an updated
number.
» Anything else? >> I mean that's it for now, but again um
residents came and spoke during public comment about people being deceased. I
know when we initially went down there, we did hear about a shooting that took
place and again if we could give the residents down there some kind of
information so they can have some kind of peace.
That's all. >> Thanks.
» Thank you, mayor. My comments were really along the same lines or same
kinds of questions how many folks are there and uh some assurances that we are
continuing the the timeline that we talked about. I think it was at our last
our last meeting. Um make sure that that there's clarity for the residents here
before they leave tonight. >> Yeah, it's September 1st. Nothing
changed. So they not as stated on the the signs that are out there, I believe.
Um so if we need to send an officer with the PATH team to ensure that they they
understand that this is something that needs to happen, we're more willing more
than willing to do that.
So just quickly is the past team helping the people and that because again we
have not had a meeting to discuss what the next steps were with the task force.
So again I'm wondering what that also looks like.
» So they've been going out several times and it's to offer several different
types of services. um one being relocation assistance. Um also other
other services provided through CH. I've sent a few emails out to the task force
and only one person has gotten back to me.
So I'm not sure what the status of that is.
Thank you. >> Thank you. Um yet from my understanding
that has been down there and you know half the folks have been engaging with
them the other half but not that that we that they don't know that they were
aware of. Um, I also heard that there had been I don't know what group this
is, but that there was a group that was offering or stating that they would
hotel people. And so I think that is where maybe you're seeing more people
because I'm hearing that more people are coming over there because they've heard
that they needed support from some group that nobody knows who the group is. Um,
and so hoping to get information on that. Nobody knows who this group is. I
said that favorite hotel people off. >> Yes. I Matthew informed me of that today
as well. And it's an unknown unknown organization.
» Unknown. >> Unknown. I don't know. Thank you.
» All right. Okay. So, there's some work to be done.
Um we'll move into our presentation um on
vacancy tax registration fees by chair.
» Okay. >> Good evening. Welcome.
» Thank you. >> Um I believe Mia is going to actually be
presenting first and she's on. So I'm just I'm gonna wait for her to Sorry.
Yeah. Good evening, Mia. >> Hello. Is the audio working? Okay.
» Yes. >> Okay. My camera's on. I assume I can see
myself. I guess you can see me. >> We can see you.
» Okay. Perfect. All right. I'll go through my slides and then I'll pass it
over to Jasmine. Jasmine, thanks for being there in person. Um I'm in San
Antonio, Texas. So not very close to Ipsy, so wasn't able to attend in person
today, but um just wanted to walk through a couple of
the takeaways we've seen from vacancy taxes and vacancy fees across the
country. Um you can go to the next slide.
I don't think I have advanced slide privileges.
They're working out. Okay, >> amazing. And apologies if there's any
internet delays. Just just let me know if it starts lagging. Um, so just brief
intro. My name is Mia Loaf. I'm the program manager for housing at Local
Progress. I use she her pronouns. As I mentioned, I'm in San Antonio, Texas,
not Michigan, but here to kind of inform some uh takeaways from across the
country. Uh, next slide.
So, just a brief overview so um you all are familiar. I'm with the local
progress impact lab. So, we're a network of local elected leaders. So, think city
council members, mayors, and county commissioners. Um and we bring together
those local leaders, partners, and issue experts to build knowledge, skills, and
leadership needed to advance racial and economic justice at the local level. So
my work is all within the housing world and I do this with our networks across
the country. Um next slide there's just a brief
overview of our our network. Um as I mentioned we're across the US, many
members, many states. So I share this just to be um just to share that we work
with folks in many different cities, big, small, large, rural, suburban, etc.
Um, and so my hope for today is just to kind of share what I'm seeing and um,
offer the options available to folks so that folks you all in Ipsy who know your
community best can kind of know what options you have and consider what tools
are on the table. Next slide.
All right. So my plan for today um, kind of briefly we'll just do some defining
of vacancy taxes and fees. I know you all have discussed it prior a bit
familiar with it. So, we'll just use that for tone setting. And then, um,
I'll speak a bit about what I'm seeing elsewhere about why people or why
different jurisdictions choose to employ a vacancy tax or vacancy fee. And then
we'll go through some case studies of different jurisdictions who actively,
excuse me, actively have vacancy fees um, in effect.
So, next slide. All right. So, I can go back one more
just quickly to define vacancy taxes fees. Um, this is a fee charged by a
jurisdiction on residential and or commercial properties that sit
unoccupied or underutilized for an extended period of time. Um, so I I
start with this slide just to say that and as you're crafting an ordinance or
when jurisdictions begin to consider this strategy, these are kind of some of
the questions they have to answer, some decision points that have to be made.
Um, since you you all already have a vacancy
uh vacant registry, some of this question of how do you define vacant is
not as relevant since I think you've kind of already answered that, but it is
something that folks have to consider as they begin this process. Um, so deciding
whether the vacancy fee applies to lots, vacant homes, as in residentially zoned
or vacant commercial buildings, which also includes vacant lots that are zoned
for commercial uses. Um, usually the defining factor of these vacancy fees
are that there's an increased tax rate for the vacant properties. Um, often it
is an annual fee that is charged in addition to an escalating or a higher
annual annual tax rate. Um, often they'll escalate with with each um year
that is kept vacant. Um, you can go to the next slide.
So the other thing I want to just do at the at the top end is is state clearly a
lot of jurisdictions that we've seen work on this start this process with
understanding what specifically the goal is of a vacancy fee or tax, what issues
they're trying to solve and what the ordinance should aim to do. And I would
just encourage everyone in this conversation and considering the
strategies to have that at the forefront because there's obviously very different
decision points you make and and intentional components to include or not
include depending on your goal for your vacancy fee. So um these are some of the
common reasons we see why jurisdictions decide to take on a vacancy fee. Number
one, I would say is wanting to reduce the number of vacant properties and or
vacant lots. Often this is very closely paired with an acknowledgement that the
vacant lots or vacant properties have um unwanted or unsafe activity happening
that wouldn't happen if the property was in use or occupied. So that's obvious
often a central goal of these policies. Um the second big goal can be to
increase the tax base of a jurisdiction. More often than not, an occupied or an
improved property is going to be assessed at a higher market value than a
vacant property. So, this might be a sub goal of a vacancy tax or vacancy fee
that one jurisdiction might consider. Um, another big one has been that
jurisdictions want to bring more units and lots into use. So, whatever that use
may be, housing, community centers, green space, business, what have you.
Um, most of the vacancy rates or vacancy fees that we see are pushed forward
because jurisdictions want to see those lots get into use. And I will note that
some jurisdictions specifically target either residential or commercial. Some
have both. And when we get into the case studies today, I will go through um two
examples for commercial and two examples for residential on the vacancy taxes.
Next slide. So, some other reasons you might want to
pass a vacancy tax or fee. Um this top one, penalizing negligent owners. I will
say off the bat that negligence is a big part of vacant properties throughout the
whole process. So this is often a goal that needs to be tackled via various
strategies, various tools. So just keep that in mind as as you're considering
this. Um when the main goal of a city is to penalize negligent owners, um this is
often tied to a subgoal around properties that have fallen into
disrepair. And often times we see cities pass um rehabilitation funds or programs
to help rehab a property alongside a vacancy tax to try and work on that
goal. And across um kind of two angles of that
um vacancy taxes and fees have also been strongly used to penalize speculative
speculative land ownership practices. So the idea of property owners sitting on
land or just holding on to land with the hopes that um the value of the property
will increase year-over-year even without anything being done to the
property. That is speculative land practice, speculative speculative land
ownership practice, excuse me. And um often times jurisdictions will take on a
vacancy fee to target specifically that behavior and wanting to make sure that
the property owners that just sit on their property keeping it vacant
year-over-year are heavily disincentivized from doing that. And
then lastly, we've seen some jurisdictions that are interested in
helping property owners find tenants. Sometimes in certain jurisdictions,
commercial or residential, there's just a disconnect and there's not um clear
pathways to get tenants into vacant properties. So, it's less about
negligence and more about property owners not seeing or finding the options
to fill their units. And so, that's another um kind of goal that could be
targeted. Next slide.
And thanks for advancing. So, I just want to put it plainly here. The biggest
takeaway from all the different cities we've seen do vacancy fees um is pretty
much boiled down to this. For most jurisdictions, the point is almost never
just to generate revenue, i.e. tax the owners. Usually the point is to activate
the spaces and most jurisdictions are approaching vacancy taxes or vacancy
fees from an angle of wanting their neighborhoods or downtown or communities
to be lively and used and in the best um the highest usage possible and vacancies
are obviously the lowest end of that scale. So, just a a plug to kind of
center the goal and and be intentional about the decisions you make to craft a
given policy and thinking about all of these when thinking about a a vacancy
fee. All right, so I'm going to move into the
case studies and kind of what we are seeing elsewhere. Um, you can go to the
next slide. I'm going to start with Lakewood, Colorado, which has a vacant
property fee. Um, Lakewood is a suburb just outside of Denver. It is a smaller
jurisdiction, not as small as Ipsy, but around 150,000 people. And um their
vacancy property fee went into effect in September of 2025, so just about a year
out from it. Um and it is mainly targeted to commercial buildings. So in
Lakewood, there is a $700 registration fee fee every 6 months. Property owner
is um required to pay that and it is required to register a vacant property
after it is vacant for just 30 days. So, this is one of the most frequent fees
we've seen and also requires a pretty fast turnaround. Once your building is
vacant, once it's declared vacant for 30 days, you have to be registered and
paying that fee. Um, Lakewood, Colorado also has a very interesting part of
their ordinance where they have a services response fee. Um, that's an
extra $800 added to your registration fee you pay every 6 months when
emergency services are called to the property. This was largely incentivized
or initiated, I should say, because in Lakewood specifically, police, fire,
code enforcement, other city resources were being used on vacant properties at
a really high rate. Um, and it was also causing a lot of uh like issues around
safety for the people in the area and the people on the properties. And so
they added this fee to to both center safety and also make sure that city
services are not being used on properties that are vacant when that
could otherwise be paid for by the owner.
Um, and I'll note one more thing about Colorado. They have this Colorado state
um same restrictions as Michigan does, which I think Jasmine will get more
into, but the fees in Colorado have to be proportionate to the amount of
service that you provide in order to maintain a program. So, the example in
Colorado is a good option to consider since um there are similar limitations
on on the fees and taxes. Um and then just some some more details about vacant
property fees in Lakewood. The properties that are actively for sale
are exempt and um liquid's property or vacant property fee was really targeted
to try and get um empty units either demolished or into use. And so the um
there's a larger program called the distressed property program and part of
that is the lakewood reinvestment authority which offers a revol revolving
loan fund to pay for the cost of defol demolition excuse me. So there's an
understanding that um some of these properties that have been vacant for a
while have fallen into disrepair and it's pretty costly to actually try to
demolish or sell um and get into use. And so the city via the reinvestment
authority offers um this revolving loan fund to cover the cost of demolition and
then the um the the city is repaid once the property sells. Um just in the year
since it's been implemented there has been um first motel vacant blue sky
motel um has been a part of this program. It is um you know they were
going to be charged a lot of fees. It is now it was a vacant property for many
many years um with lots of police calls and safety issues and and uh fire called
called to the property and now is owned by the city and has recently been
demolished with the materials recycled and prepared for for sale.
Next slide. So our next example is Portland, Maine.
Um, in case you end up googling, Portland, Oregon is also considering a
vacancy ordinance, but Portland, Maine is the one that's active right now. So,
they have a vacant storefront ordinance, and theirs is focused in the downtown
area. They have a pedestrian zone, which is actually just a zoning district
overlay, and their vacant storefront ordinance is applicable to ground level
commercial spaces, specifically in that pedestrian zone. Um, the the ordinance
requires them to pay escalating fines. Um, they define a vacant building as
vacant for six months and then once they hit the six-month mark, the owners have
30 days to register. Um, you can see there it's a $500 fee for every 6 months
vacant. And then they have a pretty aggressive escalating fine structure
where it's $1,000 additional every year it's vacant up to 7500
$7,500. Um, there are exemptions for the vacancy
storefront ordinance in Portland. The fines are waved if owners allow art in
the storefront window. So, the city of Portland, Maine, will pay for art to
fill a storefront window because they don't want the downtown area to seem
empty. So, filling the window makes the appearance that it's full and then
they've seen a red reduction in criminal activity or unwanted activity in these
vacant units. And Portland also has an 180day temporary use permit available
for these vacant properties. Um, the idea is to put popups in the unit, the
commercial unit or the storefront window. Again, to either temporarily
fill the unit in the commercial, sorry, that downtown pedestrian district and
also just to help the appearance of of making sure it doesn't look like it's an
empty storefront. So, it's trying to discourage some of the activity that
would otherwise maybe be invited by a vacant unit.
Um, one thing I'll note about Portland, they have passed in October 2025.
They've went into implementation April 2026, so they're about 4 months in. Um,
they had a really recent immediate success in this longtime vacant building
called the Schwarz building that was empty for 15 years. When Portland passed
their ordinance, um, it was in effect and they notified vacant property owners
and it was backdated. So, the Schwarz building would have had to pay close to
$95,000 in fees, which was obviously a big incentive to not have to pay that.
And so, the Schwarz building after passage of this ordinance um started
leasing to a coffee shop pretty immediately. And, you know, the the
ordinance has has worked to kind of prevent that vacancy.
Um so, just to mention a few more additional support for Portland, just
like um Lakewood, this is kind of like a wraparound. their their goal is really
around activating the commercial units downtown. So, the city provides a couple
of additional support to this the vacant storefront ordinance. One is that the
city connects commercial property owners to prospective commercial tenants
through a program that um looks for startups or just new businesses who are
looking to begin leasing out a commercial space and links them with
folks that are registered as a commercial property um vacant commercial
property in the area. And the city also offers interest free loans up to $20,000
for commercial properties within that district to improve the facade,
lighting, entryway upgrades, excuse me, entryway upgrades and signs. So there's
kind of a wholehearted kind of comprehensive approach from Portland
Maine to activate these buildings downtown.
Next slide. [clears throat] So I'll briefly go over the next two. These two
are in jurisdictions much larger than Ipsy with more staffing capacity, bigger
budgets, but I just want to mention them since they are good examples of how this
can work for residential. Minneapolis, Minnesota has a vacant building registry
and they have a $24,000 annual fee for vacant residential buildings. I know
this is not possible for Ipsy at the time at the current moment, but I want
to offer it because it is worked really well and has, you know, a huge fee on
these residential properties that has made it come incredibly um unappealing
to keep your property empty. And then the next one is Vancouver, BC
in Canada. I mentioned this one because it is one of the first vacancy taxes in
the US or North America really. Um, it's from 2017 and they have an increased tax
rate for empty units in a building. So, not just a whole apartment complex, but
individual units that are left empty for over 6 months of the year. Um, this
policy has been, you know, Vancouver is an extremely tight market and it's about
making units available in a very tight housing market. So again, maybe not the
most adjacent to Ipsy, but I do mention it because it has reduced vacant homes
significantly since since its inception, vacant homes that are down 67% in the
last 9 years since it was passed. And it has also generated quite a lot of funds
for affordable housing programs, which I know is not quite an option IPS. So just
offer those two for residential. And then um you can go to the next
slide. I'll kind of wrap up here with just a few of the lessons learned/t
takeaways that we've seen from other jurisdictions that have passed vacancy
taxes or vacancy fees. Um, one big thing is that these policies are most
effective when you have a clear understanding of the types of vacancies
in your locality. Uh, we spoke to city staff and it sounds like through the
vacant um the vacancy registry you all have that information already which is
great. These are just some of the questions that are asked upon um
jurisdictions considering this type of an ordinance. Um but you guys are
already there which is awesome. Um another big thing is that compounding
escalating fines and I'll add escalating enforcement as well is a really strong
tool to target speculative behavior. You want to make it really expensive to sit
on land. That's what an effective vacancy fee will do. And that's kind of
the hope for a lot of cities or jurisdictions that pass these
ordinances. And then the last point on there to
activate vacant spaces. It is important to both incentivize new tenants/owners
and to penalize existing vacancies. So just considering both the care and the
stick of your approach and also of course centering the goal of what you
want to do with your vacancy ordinance.
Um I think there's a couple more slides. Um yeah, these two are the last two
takeaways. One thing that has been really clear
when we see other jurisdictions look into this tool is that this is a very
strong messaging point. Um you know, residential vacancies are really hard to
justify in any landscape with a high housing demand. I think at this at this
time point in time, almost every city or county is dealing with high housing
demand. So, just keeping this at the forefront when you're talking about
leaving units empty, you're talking about people who could have access to
homes or shelter and are not. Um, so just a strong takeaway to keep in mind.
And then along the same point, um, you know, vacant land is the worst case
scenario in terms of land use options. So, this has also been a really central
point of vacancy fees across the country. You know, when you have a land
or a lot or a building that is empty, it is taking over space that could be used
for literally anything else. Parks, housing, garden, community space,
whatever. So, any kind of crackdown on vacant lots, vacant units is a benefit
to the community and like a lack of action on that point leaves the
community missing out. So, just some things to keep at the forefront. And
then I just had think of one more sl two more slides. um just want to offer some
adjacent strategies to consider. Obviously in those case studies are
focused on vacancy ordinances or vacancies that a lot of the
jurisdictions that have effectively reduce vacancies partner or kind of
couple a vacancy tax or fee with other strategies. So I'll run through these
briefly. Um want to offer escalation and receiverhip as a kind of progressive
enforcement to to consider as an additional strategy. So, this is the
idea that after a certain amount of years and a certain amount of attempts
to contact a property owner, if the lot or or building is still vacant, the
jurisdiction actually takes it over. Baltimore does this with their inrem
foreclosure process. Basically, the city of Baltimore is able to foreclose on the
leans on a vacant lot or building if the value of the leans exceeds the assessed
value of the property. So, the leans would be things like unpaid property
taxes, potentially the vacant tax or fine, um environmental citations, water
bills, anything that the city is charging against the property. Um, if it
gets to a certain point, the city of Baltimore is able to actually take over
ownership of that lot or unit. Um, another thing to consider is a
repeat offender of sorts. Put it in quotes. You can choose how to name it.
Um, since you already have a vacant property registry, it might be pretty
easy to track if a given property owner would have multiple vacant properties, a
jurisdiction could consider tracking this and deciding a certain cap. Once
you hit certain number of properties or fines, the owner would lose um
certificate of occupancy or ability to operate in that jurisdiction.
And then one more.
Thank you so much. Um, the last couple things I'll mention here, land value tax
is another strategy to consider. This is where you tax the land itself rather
than anything built on the land. So, a single family home is then taxed the
same as an empty lot. Um, and this is really strong for discouraging land
hoarding, speculation. If you are paying the same amount of taxes whether
something's built on the lot lot or not, it's going to be an incentive to build
because you're getting taxed the exact same amount. Like, you don't want to
keep it empty. Um, a jurisdiction can also consider
incentives for timely occupancy. So, potentially making local funds available
to owners who activate um their [clears throat] vacant property or get
someone a a tenant or someone leasing the property within a certain amount of
time if you want to kind of encourage rapid um occupancy. And then the last
thing I'll mention is adaptive reuse. Um, you know, this is a lengthier, more
complex, multi-step process, but the idea of identifying identifying vacant
units or buildings and converting them into um residential units. This has been
done actually really well in Michigan. I know Detroit is very different than
Ipsy, but I pulled that example because Detroit was able to use a lot of state
funds that I think would be available to Ipsy as well to launch their
institutional adaptive building reuse program that looks at empty or
underutilized buildings such as like post offices or libraries or old um
railroad stations. I mean, a lot of different institutional buildings that
can then be converted into housing. And adaptive reuse can obviously be used for
many things, but considering you know what use might make most sense for that
given area is really strong. Acknowledging that, you know, a vacant
sea or keeping it unoccupied is is the lowest benefit to the public.
All right, I know I ran through a lot, but I'm going to pass it over to
Jasmine, and I'll have her take it from here.
» Okay, great. Hello, everyone. >> Hello. Um, thank you so much for
inviting me and myself to present for you. Um, and I think um, probably Mia's
presentation is going to be the most useful for this body in terms of some
innovative uh, policy solutions. So, um, but um, I have some some details on
Michigan in specific that I think uh, might be of interest to this group and
I'm very grateful for the opportunity to present to you all. So, um I work for
the Home Rule Project, which is a nonprofit um that aims to restore home
rule powers that are taken away from cities and eliminate um corporate rule
over cities and to instead encourage and empower community rule and and um local
decision-m. Um we do this by advancing research, education, and policy
solutions to empower local governments. We're grounded in the belief that those
closest to the problem are closer to the solution. Um and and our goal is to
ensure that when local governments set their own standards for development and
investment um that that will best mean that prosperity reaches every
neighborhood and census tract etc. So um to just really go through what um I hope
to cover in my um brief presentation today. I'm just going to talk a little
bit from my I live in Detroit. I do not live in Ipsellani. So I was looking into
some of the data and I'll talk about what I saw about Ipsilani that I imagine
um this council probably already um is aware of. Um, and then, um, uh, I'll
talk about, we also talked about this, I'll talk about some goals with the
vacant property laws, talk about what a vacancy tax could look like, the
legislative landscape on that, and then if this body is interested, what some
next steps for consideration might be. So, um, this is a map. I took it from
the county website. It looks like it was last created or updated in 2025. So, I
don't, um, exactly know. Alpha course vacancy is something that can shift. Um
so um that being said, it looks like the city of Ipsellani has um some higher
vacancy rates compared to the rest of county. There are some online
aggregators that place it residential vacancy at 6 to 7%. This map seems to
indicate closer to 5% for some um tracks of the city. Um obviously there are some
precipitating factors to this. There's a high rent population in Absillani.
There's a lot of uh students in the area. Um and as uh M was noting there
are various properties in the city that are owned by LLC's. Um also some clearly
owned by you know just individuals and like Mia was saying um you know when it
comes to property speculation that's generally something that people want to
discourage. We want you know space to be active and useful. Um, so I had the u
wonderful opportunity to um talk with uh New York City staffers about um vacant
um vacant property uh fee program and um it to me seems like a a reasonably
robust program. It's integrated with the code enforcement. Um and so um you know
I think the city of Ipsellain and seems to have been like ramped up in the last
year. I think the city has a lot of actually good data and resources on its
hands to really take an evaluative look at vacant properties in the city, which
is something I would probably encourage like diving deeper on um with city staff
too. Um so based on some uh probing I've done and this is using um the county's
website and then you know using some Zillow estimates and stuff when there is
not data available. seems to me that there's approximately 48ish million
dollars in property value being left idle um or unproductive in the city. And
I think that's uh really the the key point that we should be grounding some
of the um policy decisions around vacant properties in um I think this represents
a really big opportunity for the city of Ipsellanei. Now I'm going to say this,
this is my number, okay? And so, um, a a a great idea would be to really dive
into this with the city assessor or pay for a study if this is, um, something
the city is really interested in pursuing to, um, perhaps arrive at a,
uh, uh, a number that we're more 100% sure of. This was based on I I had I
left off um 40 of the addresses that were on the registry because I wasn't
really able to find the values. um you know we used like the uh assessor's data
where it was available but um I think this is a reasonably um conservative
estimate because we did leave those 40 values or 40 properties off um this also
includes our road one so um so um but yeah there are you know
monthly fees for inspections for vacant properties that are actively tied to um
the city's fees. there's also um an escro program that staff feel has been
pretty successful. Um so um I think you know if landing has uh some like work to
be proud of when it in terms of like the um property enforcement that there's
that they've done. Um but I think Mia also um provided some like really
interesting policy examples that it would be good for the um you know the
council to to consider, but that's really um her area of expertise. Um me
talked about goals as well. Um I uh in my view I think that uh fees are can be
effective in reducing and removing blight and getting compliance with parts
of city code. But uh I think if we're really interested in moving markets
because of this the restrictive nature of Michigan um or precedent when it
comes to a fee has to be representative of like costs. Um, I think we could
consider that uh taxes might better accomplish if goals if you're really
trying to move the market and more aggressively attack um vacant
properties. And I think we've seen um in some of these other cities and the
examples that Mia has provided that when the fees are much much higher, more
exorbitant, that tends to be what's moving things. So I think the fees could
get more compliance, but taxes I believe would move the market um in in a bigger
way. So of course in Michigan though we live in a tax preempted environment um
because of our uh you know the constitution in 19 what is it 62 63. Um
so um we make it very easy to give money away and give away tax incentives. Um
and we make it much harder to really hold people accountable or tax um
businesses or entities or property in inventive ways. And that's just the
structure of what we have in the state. Um so um but if I if I know this is a
place where um you know the city tends to be more interested in some innovative
uh public policy if the city wants to um do a a genuine vacancy tax. Um it that
would that would be an addition onto the city's property taxes because it's an
addition onto the city's property taxes similar to like owner occupied or
non-owner occupied. Um the um based on um my looking around um you would have
to amend several Michigan laws um to make that possible similar to what um
the city of Detroit attempted to do for the land value tax. And so that means
amending the general property tax act, the tax and vertically title act, the
act and the income tax act. Um because you know your property taxes are okay.
Um, so, uh, so here's some some suggested next steps based on like what,
you know, the the this body might be interested in doing. Um, I would dive
more more into the, um, I think great work that the city has already done on
with its vacancy program and code enforcement. Um, Mia referenced this.
Are there more 911 and emergency calls to properties? Is there um, I assume
there is a much more code enforcement at these properties. I would look at some
of the disperate resources that um the city's uh work has to address advocate
units as well to get a better picture. That's just not something I'm quite able
to do. Um and then um at that point you're looking at doing um enacting
legislation unfortunately with the legislature and amending those various
um amending those various laws. I know um you know this is an interesting time.
There's a lot of local governments and state governments where new people are
being elected. Michigan's legislature of course has term limits and has massive
turnovers all the time. Um I would look and see I think this is not a problem
that is of course is not unique to um I certainly I live next door to two vacant
houses okay in my neighborhood. So um my you know my next door neighbors to the
right and to the right again. So, um I think this is something that uh affects
a lot of Michigan communities and that's so I think that there would potentially
be a lot of people um interested in this. So there might be other cities um
or townships even in the area that are also interested in this policy. And so I
think if this is something that if wants to take seriously and wants to do
greater study on there might be other cities um to work with. Um and then of
course after you get enacting legislation of course as you're very
familiar with um you know you'd have to get voter approval. So it's likely a
multi-year timeline to be able to um accomplish a actual vacancy tax uh in
the city of Sling. So um those are my slides but um just let me know if you
have any questions for myself or for Mia and then I'm going to kind of screw my
business card um around maybe on the table out in front.
Thank you for the presentation Jasmine and
um I will send questions or comments from council
more fellows. >> Hi, thanks for being here tonight. Um, I
want to thank both you Jasmine and Mia for a presentation on kind of like a
more macro level scope of what is possible around the country and then
also the customizing it to our needs in in Michigan. So, I really appreciate
that and also appreciate the work that was done before this to coordinate with
our staff to get um kind of the update of what we've been doing uh before even
entertaining this. Um, unfortunately we don't have our full council today, so
we're not going to get the full scope of what everybody feels on this issue, but
from prior meetings, uh, it was stated that there was a lot of interest around
this issue. So, um, I think we're at a spot to start looking at legislative
strategies. Uh I am intrigued by the idea of doing a multi-municipal strategy
to kind of like uh bring more attention to some of the preeemptions or some of
the barriers to vacancy pack itself and also maybe exploring the ways in which
we could enact it now like with the Colorado uh example.
And I also really appreciated from Mia the um information about the kind of
complimentary strategies that might go along with uh vacancy fees or taxes
because this is something that's a little bit newer to me about all the
different things we could do. Um maybe what I would ask you is given the
particular barriers that we have and you've been looking at this information,
what do you think we would get like the most bang out of our buck now um in a
shorter timeline than this kind of multi-year vacancy tax strategy.
» Yeah. Well, I think when we when it comes to um attacking preeemptions and
then you know I'm sure the council knows but um for anyone in the audience, you
know, a preeemption is when a higher form of government prevents a local a
lower form of government from enacting what it might want to do. Typically um
you know they set a floor and not a ceiling. Um but that's not always the
case. Anyway, um when it comes to tackling preeemptions, um I think the
the strongest argument that um you will be able to have is when you work around
the preeemption to the extent legally possible. And so I think having like a
strong local vacant property program, ramping it up, I you know, I didn't know
about Colorado service fees, for example, that they do. that might be
something else to like look into and add on to the program. Um so um I would
certainly recommend enforcing um the uh fees related to service to the extent
possible and uh using that to see how effective it is. Um if it's a little bit
effective but not really tackling the problem, I think that makes the case
even stronger to remove the preeemption legislatively. And so I would definitely
um I would definitely encourage that. Yeah.
» Thank you, mayor. Thanks for the presentation.
Curious one of the I think the first example city example that you use from
Colorado for your college use I read that right suggested that the
vacancy tax or fee kicked in after just 30 days.
So I wonder if you'd talk about the the timing. I also wonder if talk about
how do you handle when there are very legitimate reasons for property being
vacant. So for example, you're updating mechanicals or you're fixing the
structural problem. >> Yeah, for sure. Um, I'm going to mostly
let Mia answer that, I believe. But I did want to note that um, my
understanding is that um, insulin for a property to even really be like flagged
or tagged as vacant and get added to the registry, it's typically because city
staff have noticed issues with the property or have like apparently noticed
that it's vacant through mail piling up or code violations or like a tree fall.
I think an example is like a tree fell on part of a property or something and
it never really got addressed and or part of a structure never got addressed
and um those like signs and signals that it's actually vacant. And so um in my
mind that would indicate that there's probably properties that are vacant for
quite some time before they're even added to this registry in the first
place. And so there might be sort of an inherent um buffer. But I think um it
would certainly I mean you know having the values of knowing that solutions are
grounded locally. is a college town, you know, a college county in some ways. So,
um I think um it it would be um uh certainly relevant to include exemptions
um and in a time period to come into compliance with um any vacant property
ordinance or tax. But Mia, do you want to
» Yeah. Yeah, I can weigh in. I I mean, basically to what you just said, I think
it's all in the exemptions. Um, Lakewood is small but not as small as Ipsy. So, I
think the way it works with Lakewood of Colorado, they'll the city will identify
the property and mail out the notice. And from the notice, hey, we've noticed
your property is vacant. You have 30 days to register. That's how they do
their process. I think very much up to you all, you know Ipsy best, you know
the process best as to when you determine when a property is vacant. 30
days is obviously quick, maybe it's longer, but I would just offer that. Um,
I think a lot of that is in the exemptions if exemptions and process.
So, if you had a some kind of like a zoning board or like a land use board
that you already have for the city, making that process available to
property owners to kind of appeal or basically just come forward and say,
"Hey, my property is vacant. I've acknowledged it. I I got the letter,
what have you. The reason it's vacant is XYZ." and allowing for that built-in
appeal process is probably a smart um you know part of your ordinance to
include. If not that, then some other way to either like through a city staff
department or something for property owners to share a reason for their
vacancy would probably make a lot of sense. If it feels like too cumbersome
to do a person by person individual case like that, it would just be in your
exemption. So you could kind of spell out, oh, this propertyy's, you know,
undergoing renovations or this property is for sale or this property, you know,
we received a signed letter from the property owner as to why it's vacant. I
think you could bake it in that way and kind of all leave for more flexibility
to tailor to that because, you know, as we both kind of alluded to, it's not
intended to penalize people who are actively trying to get their properties
in use. It's more the negligent behavior that we want to avoid. So I think, yeah,
definitely build that into the ordinance. Right.
And council member Simmons, I see you join us. I see your hand.
» Thank you for the the answer to that. Um, a little further a field. Does your
work on preeemption go beyond housing or is it strictly relative?
» Um, oh, it I mean it certainly goes beyond housing. Um, so um we we do work
on uh uh various kinds of preemptions. Um, at the end of the day, I think in in
many cases, preeemption um is is a neutral tool. We've seen preeemption
used for good and for bad. You could think about, you know, um after the
Civil Rights Act, local communities trying to oppose integration for lo and
like public housing units for local patrol, you know, that's that's some
preemption we um are in favor of civil rights, you know, but um but um overall
um and the trend obviously, I'm sure as you've experienced in Michigan has been
um instituting preemptive laws to the detriment of what local communities and
citizens want. Um we do other kinds of preeemption. Um I do a lot of work on
labor related preemptions and labor and development related preeemptions. Are
you allowed to put um you know mandatory labor standards etc in into development
projects? Um um you know uh we work with some groups on housing preeemptions
related to rent regulations or relating to implied preeemptions and like the
landlord um tenant relationship um you know tax related preeemptions. Um
and you know if there's uh any organizers or movements working on other
preemptions you know we um of course like evaluate those with our values and
and decide whether or not to take of that work as well. Yeah.
» I'll simply put fireworks on your >> firework. Yeah. Because as as some
people know and as I've complained about publicly uh the state of Michigan and it
wisdom has decided we must allow fireworks to be blown off for at least
11 specific days in the year. >> Interesting. Okay.
» Which in my mind they have no business getting in that. But
» lobby must be strong. >> Yeah. Some some lobbyists got to some
state legislators. That's >> maybe pyro technic has a lot of opinions
and wins I guess. >> Absolutely. And money.
» Yeah. Council member Simmons. I see who on
your hand raised. >> Hi. Can you hear me?
» Yes. >> All right. Thanks y'all. I'm sorry. My I
know I'm I'm in the loud space and my internet is funky.
» Um >> Oh, she It's just what it got louder in
a sec. All right. Well, um thank you for the presentation. Um very helpful
and just wanted to lift up a couple of things that I was like that seemed
really interesting and definitely want to um explore more. And also just saying
too, I also like a lot of options that can build on things that we already have
too. Um, and to think about how we can round it out. Um, so things like the
repeat offender um idea, which I think can build on a
couple of other things um in terms of safety. Um, also how um so that property
owners aren't kind of having certain properties that are in like really great
and really like um not vacant versus and ones that aren't. So like they kind of
use them against each other. Um and then also I also am interested in this um
further conversation about um how like with that IPS's vacancy
rates are higher than other parts of the county. Um that seemed really
interesting to kind of explore to understand more about why.
Um, also the emergency service um fee. Um, I'd be interested in
understanding more about what that what calls for service are already happening
and maybe that's something that we can look at already with our call for
services um information to know how effective
that would be um or if that's something that would be relevant for our context.
Um, I also was interested in the pieces too that were looking at ways that um,
you know, I appreciated kind of looking at like the goals and like why we do
this and that it's not to try to be in opposition,
you know, with our community, but, you know, to enliven it. And so thinking
about opportunities to be in partnership and I
I don't I wasn't sure what examples there were too about um things like how
the city would partner to help fill the vacancies like to help find
» or those properties like in And last thing I just noted here was just the
thinking about how to >> I'm sorry.
» Yeah, you're you're breaking up just a little bit.
» Okay. Um, and then the other thing was just thinking about um finding this
information out to get a more accurate number um with the assessor because of
course that 48.9 million
um you know that sounds like a lot of money um and you know what we could be
doing with that. So that's that feels like a really good kind of part of our
information finding in terms of how we want to um lay foundation and baseline
for this work. >> For sure. And and just really quickly, I
would encourage getting obviously the assessed value, um the tax assessed
value, and then um some estimates of what the market value would be would
just like typically write like 20 or sorry um twice the assessed value um to
to get like a picture of like what the full picture potential revenue for the
city could be. And that is one of the things that I think is uh and I did not
say this but was one of the strongest reasons to potentially institute a tax
out of those programs like to help reactivate the spaces. Obviously that
takes money so you need the revenue to come from somewhere you know um and it
would be a great situation to um you know enact a tax that can punish um uh
uh speculative practices and then use that money to work with community
members and owners of properties that they would like to bring back online to
actually renovate. um and and turn them and return them to um you know community
use. >> And Jasmine, is that how that um that
project in I wrote this down where they have the
Yeah. the Lakewood Reinvestity.
» So the fees go that go into that are then used for
I don't believe so. I believe it's that um Colorado has the same situation as
Michigan in that a B has to recoup like city costs or whatever for that service.
Is that correct me? Yeah. Mia
» further comments or >> Yes. Thank you for the presentation. I
have a question surrounding the escalation of receiverhip. So the x
amount of years of vacancy as well as the x amount of attempts to contact is
that directly related or to this Baltimore's process of you know
foreclosing on leans or is that just an example of that? Because I know that
there's some uh some residents that have are in ownership of homes that are has
been in their families for quite some time. and the the conversation of
selling is not on the table. Um so are those two separate or are those
together? >> Yeah. Um really quickly, I think it it
would have to be investigated, but I imagine that like in um first first
defense 100, next second offense 200, third offense 300 probably wouldn't be
allowed unless it was directly correlated to like city services. Um um
that being said, I think if there are like specific ipsilante
um you know situations where people or uh where people use like a a family
house is like a a gathering house or something. Um, I think if there are, uh,
you know, specific things that are, um, particular to the community that you
could explore exceptions for things like that or define what occupancy and
vacancy is within those bounds. Um, but Mia, I'm going to let you answer. Sorry.
» Yeah. No, no, you're fine. Um, to answer directly the question, the Baltimore
example does not require a certain amount of years or certain amount of
attempts to contact. it's purely based on if the amount the value of the leans
on the given property is more than the assessed value of the property. That's
when the city of Baltimore can step in and take the property. Um the kind of
like this many years, this many contact attempts is something that could be an
option to set up I imagine for the city. I would also offer that through this
process or if this is a kind of tool the city wants to take on, you would have
the option for the owner to appeal or go before that, you know, whatever it is
for your city, the the local land use or zoning commission or or body to appeal
for exactly those situations. You wouldn't want a situation or rather you
wouldn't want an ordinance that requires or mandates a city to take over a
property after a certain amount of things without an opportunity for the
property owner to kind of appeal or explain their case. Again, I think this
is important when it's like you have a family or, you know, clouded title or a
bunch of of um, you know, kids of a given deceased property owner who are
managing a house together or something like that. Those situations happen all
the time. And so those people who know they have the property, you know, it
might be vacant, but they're very aware of it and they're probably residents of
the city are not probably the target for a vacancy ordinance. You're more trying
to get to the negligent not around property owners that have let their
property fall into disrepair. So, I think I would encourage um if that's
part of the policy or the ordinance, just baking in that kind of appeal
process, choosing whatever body makes most sense and allowing the property
owners to, you know, explain their case cuz I think a lot of these are kind of
situational dependency situ situationally dependent. And the biggest
issue is if you just don't get any response and you have a completely
absent property owner who won't answer anything and I don't think what you
described would be that wouldn't be the case for that situation. if that makes
sense. So, just baking that in an appeals process would probably respond
to that. >> Yeah. And and also to um add on to what
Mia said, I don't think I assume I guess I don't think anyone's interested in
like one, two, three, lose your house, you know? I mean, let's let's not do
that, right? Um, but I think if if someone's being negligent and they've
tacked up um like you know $50,000 in like unpaid fines and fees and unpaid
taxes over like many many years from negligence um and and that um you know
exceeds the value of the of the property. I mean 50,000 being on the low
end given the you know housing prices that we're in. See 100,000 probably
minimum for many properties, right? So, um, you know, I think, um, there's some
like built-in things there and and you know, some cities might even forgive the
fees, right, under a certain circumstance or if you're improving the
property or, you know, so I think there's lots of ways that you could
design this ordinance to not like penalize people who aren't doing uh,
speculation. Yeah. >> Thank you.
» Any further comments or councils? Yeah, I'm just glad that the receiverhip point
was brought up because that is the Jason strategy that I was most interested in
given you know we have a very serious issue with arbor one and it's to the
level where it's very unsafe um and you know situations where somebody loses a
certificate of occupancy for a number of months or years and also has leans out
and all sorts of fines against it. there should be that's enough of an argument
to say that this is no longer um you know a functional partnership and that a
receiverhip should be on the table. So um I I know that this been like going
through the court system, but it's something that the city could start
looking at as far as like what would it look like for the city to do reser
receiverhip of some of these deliquid properties to um adapt readapt. So, I
appreciate that strategy and I hope that we um take that seriously going into the
future. And also, um Jasmine, if you could send your presentation to city
council as well because we didn't get that in our packet.
» Yeah, and that's my bad. I was um I got sick and then I was on vacation. I just
came back from up north and no one can see my sun right now, but there is one.
So, I did my my slides did not make it into the packet and I apologize, but
yes, I would love to email you. >> Without further, thank you both so much
for your time. Thank you. >> Thank you.
» Thanks so much. >> Okay, we are going to move into a loaded
agenda. >> Um,
number two, our first ordinance reading 147
» 147.
I think the opposite. >> Yeah, thank you.
» Yeah, you should have um Congratulation 182.
» Yes. Okay. I'm sorry. >> Um,
so this is for quote me.
» Oh, 181. Sorry. >> 181. Okay. Uh, resolution number
2026-181 resolved by the council of the city of Sani. Whereas YCUA board of
commissioners approved a recommendation to city council for a water and
readiness to serve to serve rate decrease. And whereas the proposed
decrease of 7% to city division customers would become effective
September 1, 2026. And whereas the Great Lakes Water Authorities water charge
increase to YCUA was 5.63% which became effective July 1, 2026. And now
therefore be a resolved city council approves an ordinance to amend chapter
106 article 5 section 106-454b of the code of ordinances to adjust
water services service rates within the city of Ordinance number 1470 upon first
reading and I move >> the board moved by council member Sus
supported by council member King.
» Good evening Mayor Brown and members of council. Um I know there's oh there's
two agenda items for the water consumer increases. I hope it's acceptable. I
normally like to talk about YUA and a water bill. We see received one water
bill. So I talk about everything kind of as one and then I'll specifically focus
on the water piece and do that and you said the next agenda item agenda item
that's accepted. >> Um
good. Y. >> So, every year that uh we go into the
rate and budget setting process, uh it really kind of starts with what GWA rate
increases to by especially on the water side of things. That typically uh that
process starts in January, February. Uh myself and the finance director try to
set what are our goals this year? What what are the things that we're trying to
achieve? Uh something that the authority has been impacted by for several years
now is a a declining fund balance that that is creating some uh operational
issues. Uh, also we have a serious commitment to reinvest in our capital
infrastructure as you can see just the amount of water main improvement work
going on in the city and township. That's very important for us to invest
in that infrastructure and stay ahead of catastrophic failures in the system. Uh
revenue this year is estimated to be about 52.97 million with expenditures of
about 51.98 million. Uh overall expenditures uh we've tried to
keep them as flat as possible. They are anticipated to increase by about 0.59
million or about 1.2% over last year's budgeted item. Uh just so council's
aware, GWA did increase YA's water service charges by 5.63%
which became effective July 1st of this year. Um,
I know this has been discussed at at a couple previous council meetings. So,
I'm trying to start to get better at putting together some different
infographics for for council uh to kind of demonstrate the flat usage that we've
seen or declining water usage in the YA system over the last several years. The
chart on the bottom is just our sales over the last few years. Uh the table on
the top is just sales for each year, the percent change from year to year. Uh
what is purchased by the community and and we're always looking at water loss.
Uh that would be the difference in what we pay GWA for water versus how much is
actually metered through uh the metering at residential or commercial properties
and so forth and or sold to our contract communities.
This chart is just kind of another visualization of uh different operating
expenses on the water side and as you can see kind of an increasing line for
operating expenses yet the uh decrease in water usage creates just that gap. So
essentially the the product that we move or or that we sell to our customers uh
is getting more expensive to provide and we sell less of them.
Now, I said I wouldn't talk too much about sewer, but this is the we're not
seeing this as much on the sewer side. So, we see a kind of a different uh
situation operationally to where just the introduction of additional sewage
into the system that the sewage uh volume has been pretty flat. Our
consumption has been fairly flat. We're increasing and we've held expenses
pretty close to that.
» [snorts] >> Typically things that we spend
less than a million
over a million dollars. We typically look to
move that project through the safety that we usually have two phases of that
every single
upcoming debt service.
Just a chart to break down uh the different allocations of debt service.
The city currently has about 17.63% 63% of the total debt or about $1.47 million
annually. Uh or you have about 21% of the total uh wave water and sewer system
regional system debt within the entire system.
One of the major factors that uh did have some influence on our rates this
year was uh uh's largest contract community which is Pittsville Township.
uh their contract expired and we had not updated the contract with Pittsfield
since I believe it was 1974. Uh it was extended many years ago in the
early 2000s, but the methodology behind it uh was not there. Um so with the
contract expiring at the end of 25, we knew that we had to do a cost of service
study to establish new water rate for Fitzville Township. uh we took that
opportunity to just do a whole cost of service study on the water side since
changing something for your largest customer, not looking at everything else
felt like we wouldn't be really doing our due diligence. So, we went through
and and and reset and kind of updated our water rate methodology uh for all
customer classes on the water side. Um the last time we had done that was back
I believe I wasn't at Y2 at the time was 2018 uh time period that was when we
went away from the search charge system and went to the RTF system. So it had
been quite a few years since we had updated our water rate methodologies.
So based on this information for for an entire uh water bill, what we are
proposing is a 7% decrease in water rates uh for the city uh customer and 2%
increase in sewer rates. Uh for an average bill, this is about uh we always
use 10 units of usage, which is when looking at the data a fairly reasonable
estimate for a single family dwelling. Uh the bimonthly cost would be $14,183
or a decrease of about $5.17 per bill or $2.58
per month.
Always
want to remind council we share information and try to connect customers
uh when they reach out or or contact us regarding financial assistance. Uh WA
has staff that is trained in uh water residential assistance program that is
uh partially funded through dollars that we pay to go and rates. This is a
separate program that they've set up. Uh we connect customers with that. It will
help them with, I believe, somewhere around $1,200 of plumbing repairs that
are that may need to be made inside of a home uh and and with uh payment so forth
for their water bill.
Welcome to questions. >> Thank you so much for the presentation.
First of all, always pleased to hear about a decrease no matter how small. I
think both are happy to to hear that. um and that it's you know you all are
considering um you know the impact on on users especially as we're seeing water
usage decrease. I guess one of my questions that I had and I think I I may
have asked this the last time we went through doing these presentations is
just people talk to us about um in terms of consumption like we see in 2024 there
was a big dip in usage and then an increase in 2025 like what that kind of
comes from where does that resident
change >> I think there's a lot of driving factors
behind water usage uh hopefully the uh smart meter system that we're
implementing will give us more real time uh information on water quad usage.
Right now we're still uh for the most part we the city system has been in
place for by a little less than a year where we get real time usage. Most time
we're looking at usage every couple months every time we go by and read that
meter. Uh I think weather has a major impact on water usage. The hotter it is,
the drier it is. If there's sprinkling of yards, that tends to dry up water
usage. There's no doubt about that. Uh I I think every time there's a building
renovated or updated or a new home uh such as Dorsy Estates put in, you see
much more efficient utilities and water appliances within those uh structures. I
think every time a business such as uh some of our industries here such as
marsh plating uh or finishing services has opportunities to uh be more
efficient with water usage whether it be within plating line or new business
activity they of course take those opportunities. Um we have seen a a
recent uptick as we placed all the meters within Eastern Michigan campus.
Uh so that's that's something that we recently completed. Uh so it it doesn't
always go down, sometimes it does go up. Uh and and capturing that, you know, a
more accurate water usage, I think, is important. Uh historically, we haven't
seen a w a lot of water loss in the system. So I don't think it's due to
leaky infrastructure, so to speak. Uh but I do think those are the main
driving facil.
» Thank you, mayor. You just made a reference to water loss in the system.
Yes. >> So, how are we doing with that? I know
that you worry about your maintenance and try to minimize that, but are we
trending in the right direction? Are we going to have problems water loss
20 years from now or I think we have always stayed below the
kind of the 10% is the number I see in standard best practices try to stay
below that. uh I think last year was 7%. Some of that I do believe is uh a result
of new metering from GWA and YCA. So we're seeing a lot of these changes and
we're kind of the orange just a little bit new.
» I do believe our infrastructure uh specifically in the city. I think the
city has done a great job of investing in its infrastructure, coordinating with
road improvements to stay ahead uh and not have infrastructure dramatically and
or having main breaks run as some communities do for months on end. Uh so
I don't think that's a a city in or YCA issue. Um I think we have to continue
investing in our infrastructure as we're doing now and balancing water
affordability with upfront investment in the infrastructure so that we don't have
catastrophic failures and not revenue generated water. I think those are
things that just add to uh increase our inability or ability to provide a lot of
services.
Thank you.
» Yes. Uh, thank you so much for the presentation. I
really appreciated this one over last years because both had a lot of
information, but I think this one had a bit more um context building information
for us to be able to understand um some of the wise or why uh these
numbers come to us. I do have a couple more questions about it.
It's been mentioned that there's new methodology and you had a slide about
it, but I still don't know like what is the methodology or how would you explain
it as an elevator pitch? It seems like there's been a change from Pittsville
Township to you RTA is the acronym RTS.
» RTS, but I'm Yeah. Yeah. What what is readiness to serve compared to what
Pitzfield Township had in the past or like how are we using methodology?
» Great question. Um the I would say the methodology that we had with Pittsfield
Township was no method. They were only charged a commodity rate and it was
equivalent or commensurate with the township water rate. That was the
contract that was in place in 1974 extended in the early 2000s and this was
our opportunity to get in and look at that methodology and preset. Um, I feel
like historically we've always had a very robust methodology on the sewer
side, but it never translated on the water side. Uh, so we brought in a
consultant that helped us do the 2018 study. Uh, it's it's a generic cost of
service study. They they look at two ways for what we call nonowner
infrastructure. It is called a utility basis of ratem. I think I'm saying that
correctly, but I'm not a financial expert by any stretch in the
imagination. uh we did bring that consultant in to give a thorough
presentation to the YCA board. Uh so I'm not an expert in any one of these areas.
It is it starts with ensuring that you're properly identifying the needed
revenue to operate the system. uh it is following what we call American
Waterworks Association's methods of rate making where we look at uh depreciation
rate of return from that customer uh operating expenses capital outlay making
sure that there is a methodology for uh allocating those costs to the
appropriate communities. Uh so going into it pretty much every project which
is a very tedious task for for quite a few years and ensuring that there is a
methodology for when we do US12 water main work that that cost is allocated
correctly or that the cost of dared projects is allocated correctly. It is
historically very easy to do it at the wastewater treatment plant because we
just look at wage for flow allocation. When we do those projects in a water
system it's it's not as clear. So, we have to go through and look at each of
those projects and make sure that they're those costs are allocated
properly.
Does that kind of answer what you're looking for or am I you want me to be
more much more specific? >> Maybe one of these days I'll have to get
the full presentation to really understand the details of it. Um
but with regard to like for example I see that we're getting closer to par
between the city and the township rates um which were quite different in years
past and the explanation I've heard over the last year has been because some of
this these bond debts are coming off of our roles and I see that uh the
presentation there's more coming off in the next couple years as well though I'm
wondering about are we approach are we going to get to that place where
basically city and township customers are paying almost the same rates because
we're still paying more than the township based on new rates. Um even
though they have they're they're going to get hit with a 9% increase and 2%
increase on sewer rates. So they're going much higher. We're going down a
little lower but we're still paying more in township. And really I'm curious
about how our rates compare to all of the uh different places that we're
servicing because we Yaka services Augusta Township and all these different
places. So really comparing with everyone um is my interest uh in looking
at these proposals. But yeah, I'm just curious as to like how do you come to a
place where you're like, "Okay, we can do a 7% reduction on water,
2% increase on sewer, and for the township, we're doing this." What what
is how do those numbers come through? >> It it's driven by your share of cost in
the system >> and your debt service.
» Those are the driving factors. both. Um I I I think par is important, but
they're two different systems on the water side. Uh the economies of scale
and township side are substantially different as they're uh so
interconnected with uh communities that were part of YUA or part of the township
water system before Y2A was municipality. Um so that they have
clearly 70% of the consumption on the within just the city and township side.
So the city has always been a much smaller piece of customer class and when
large capital improvements are done that are only city improvements I would say
the rates can be more valable. That's why when we go into the rate making
process we're trying to do things that smooth that out. Uh but it it is it is
more it has always been more difficult in the city because they don't generate
as much revenue uh as the township does. So creating par is very difficult.
when it was being discussed, it combined the utility between the township and the
city. I mean, was that some of the considerations that because we're
sharing across two entities that were really like
dividing some of those >> uh wasn't FY2A when that when that
happened or some of the discussions occurred. Um I actually believe I would
need to double check our articles on incorporation but I believe it is
memorialized in those articles that the development of rates in the city
township will be separate. Mhm. >> So there's a lot of par at the
wastewater treatment plant level costs because those are just shared flowbased
uh allocated on a flow-based proportion. Whereas the water system, if the city
spends a million dollars and generates a third of the revenue, but the township
spends a million dollars, that impact is so much different on on the rate itself.
Um I can't tell you what next year's going
to hold. I can't tell you what, you know, future years are going to hold. I
believe the system that we put in place in the city to get in front of our work
to be very aggressive with revolving fund loans to see 2.6 million of loan
forgiveness, $300,000 loan forgiveness. I think the city made great decisions 20
years to go to get in front of capital improvements as replace
portion of their water infrastructure. I'm hoping the future is much brighter
for minimal rate increases andor these type of years where maybe there's a
decrease. I I never know what GWA is going to do year-to-year. This year was
7%. Uh they went to their board for a 7% increase and they ended up at a 5.63%
increase. So that is on the water side the single largest light item we have is
around $13 million. So that whenever that changes even by a percent, it's
very substantial in the rate making process. So not knowing that year to
year makes very difficult to project what we may come back to with rate
increases. There's a commitment with our team to make sure our services are
affordable. Uh every year and we present this to the finance committee. Uh we
benchmark adjacent communities. So I have those tables of 30 or 40 adjacent
communities with water service costs, uh readiness to serve costs, sewer costs.
So those are readily available and just takes an email and I can fire those off
to you. We do that every single year as we go through this process. I would say
the city right now is still on the higher end of of these adjacent
communities, but it's getting better. Uh they're definitely not the highest, but
they're definitely not the cheapest. >> I recall that from last year when I saw
the numbers, I think we were number two or maybe number one um before.
» It depends on how far out we look and and the comparables that we develop. Uh
I think this year we did a handful of more communities, try to make sure that
we have appropriate comparables uh demographics. Uh, but I can share that.
I think the city's more competitive this year, but they're still on high.
» Yeah, I would like to see that. Thank you. And this is probably not a thing,
but like is it possible to do multi-year contract with uh Great Lakes?
» Not at all. >> We're part of
78 communities. Uh, and it's we're part of a what's called a contract alignment
process. It's a every four years we negotiate different parameters in the
contract such as uh usage uh pressure uh those type of issues but doing any
two-year rate adjustment process unless the entire member community agreed to
that or the children that we agreed to that uh I don't foresee that change. I
think that would be a good idea if we're facing increases every year,
year-over-year to think about that. Um, since they have a monopoly on, you know,
water service. Um, one last thing I want to mention. Oh, I so I guess I
would just say I'm still hopeful that Yaka can provide us in the following
year as more debt service falls off even more par at least since we can see
what's going on between the city and the township. It's m makes it really hard to
come to our residence and say uh well you just have to pay more and here's all
the reasons why when it's you know like people are really struggling to pay all
sorts of bills but the water you know coming down a little bit is great but I
think it could come down a little bit more. Um so I just want to say that. So
I I do want to bring up it's a slightly different issue, but I just want to get
it on your radar that there's been a lot of complaints in the city about work
that Yaka has done to um it's not always Yaka, but I've heard it so many times
that it is Yaka to kind of dig out service lines underneath sidewalks and
then replace it with cold patch. Um and then also replace the law surrounding
lawn with sand. And so, uh, I just want to start that conversation because if
these need to get fixed, it's like a big complaint across the city.
» Absolutely. This is the first I've heard of it, uh, for the specific residents. I
heard a little bit about a bit from, uh, Andrew before I came in. And Bonnie, uh,
I will follow up. We take those complaints very seriously. Uh, we have a
pretty, uh, efficient process, I believe, for restoration of properties
and so forth. Uh, just due to some settling, timing of contractor
involvement and so forth. Sometimes there can be some delays. Uh more often
than not, uh at least once it reach reaches my attention, it's usually not
YCA services that that have been affected that another contractor's came
in and done some work that they thought YCA performed a contractor for DTE or or
some other type of contractor. At least once I hear about it, normally it's
we've already solved our issue, restored our areas, but that's subsequent
contractor work that Washington has no involvement in. Uh I'm not here to push
blame or say anything, but there's a lot of utilities out there and Y's just just
uh has just the two. Uh so sometimes it's not us, but I have those addresses
and I can guarantee we will follow up on them first thing.
» Great. Thank you. >> Uh anything from council?
» Thank you. >> Um we do have a public hearing for this.
So I am going to open the public hearing if there's anybody in the audience who
would like to address council on this topic.
Your hand Anybody
online? No one has any
seeing none. Resolution number 2026-182 resolved by
the council of the city of Swani that the public hearing for ordinance number
1470 entitled an ordinance to amend chapter 106 article 5 section 106-454b
of the code of ordinances to adjust water service rates within the city of
be officially closed and I so
all in favor hold the public hearing please say I
Any vote? All right. Further discussion from
council. If we ask question
all right.
» Council member McCle. >> Yes.
» Council member. >> Yes.
» Mayor Brown. >> Yes.
» Council member Phelps. >> Yes.
» Council member Tus. >> Yes.
» Thank you. Council member Tus. You have 183.
» I do. All right. Resolution number 2026-183
resolved by the council of the city of Salani. Whereas YCUA board of
commissioners approved a recommendation the city council for an increase in
sewer and readiness to serve rate. And whereas the proposed increase of 2% to
city division customers would become effective September 1, 2026. And now
therefore be it resolved that the Islanic City Council approves an
ordinance to amend chapter 106 article 5 section 106455A
of the code of ordinances to adjust sewage disposal service rates within the
city of Ordinance number 1471 upon first reading and I so move forth
in support of our council over. >> Thank you. So this is the the sewer side
of the rate process. This is the side we of course have quite a bit more control
of because we operate the regional uh treatment facility. Um as I mentioned
during the presentation there's substantial amount of capital
improvements going on at the treatment plant. Uh there has been enough costs
over the last few years whether it be electrical improvements uh built
improvements on our primary tanks control and so forth. Uh it has been
quite a balancing process with special improvements to ebase and piping and so
forth. Uh so we've tried to mitigate those increases as much as possible. Uh
but do recommend a 2% increase and would definitely welcome any further
questions. >> I'll open the public hearing first this
time. Anybody in the audience?
Anybody? No one should close the public. resolved
by the council of the city of planning at the public hearing for ordinance 1471
entitled an ordinance to amend chapter 106 article 5 section 106455A
of the code of ordinances to adjust sewage disposal service rights within
the city of be officially closed and I move
» of course
all in favor all right questions for on the sewer
rates See,
please. >> Council member McClean.
» Yes. >> Council member King.
» Yes. >> Mayor Brown.
» Yes. >> Council member Phelps.
» Yes. >> Council member Tusket.
» Yes. >> Who carries?
» Thank you so much. Thanks. Appreciate >> appreciate the support. I will first
thing in the morning share with council the benchmarking uh information that was
shared with the finance committee. Uh and I'll also share uh presentation that
was given on the uh method out. >> Perfect. Thank you so much.
» Thank you. >> Council, you'll recon agenda without H.
Two things look for Cairo. Is it just number eight
or number seven? Yes, if I if I may, there are two
resolutions for fireworks. I only noted one the agenda. That was my mistake and
bring it up when we talked about >> we can talk about that.
» Resolved by council of the city of the landing that the following items be
approved. Uh resolution number 2026-186 approving the minutes of the regular
meeting of July 23rd, 2026. Postpone resolution number 2026-144
approving the new collective writing agreement between the city of Salen Dpom
with the term terminating on June 30th 2030 as presented and authorized by the
mayor, city manager, and city clerk to execute the agreement on behalf of the
city after approval by city attorney as to form resolution number 2026-187
approving the tying of teal ribbons in the business districts during the month
of September for tied town teal to bring awareness to ovarian cancer.
Resolution number 2026-18 appointing residents Matt Jones, Barry Laroo, Erica
Lindseay, Hannah McCriedi, Paul Shrivever, and an Steven Vincent to the
HCC study committee for the amendment to DPS's local historic district until
completion of the study. Resolution number 2026-189
appointing resident Kadus to the planning commission with a term ending
of July 1st, 2029. Resolution number 2026-19B
appro approving the uh request of Maniacal Meat Company located at 15 East
Cross Street for a social district license contingent on the approval of
maniacal meats company's request for a local liquor license and ISO
» support. It's been moved by member fellow by council member Sus please
follow the role on consent agenda. Council member King,
» yes. >> Mayor Brown,
» yes. Council member Phelps, >> yes.
» Council member, >> yes.
» Motion carries. >> Thank you. Uh, council king, you have a
resolution 19
where me has applied to the city of Lenny and Michigan liquor control
mention requesting the small wine offering this retailer permit with
outdoor seating dance and social history for maniac me company per MCL 436.11
1112 for use at 15 East Cross Street at
Michigan 4197 County and whereas a public hearing to
consider the proposed offensive retailer for manifold me was duly noted and held
on August the 18th. Now therefore it be resolved that the request of made for
the property located at 15 East Michigan 97D approved contingent on approval of
all applicable move.
Hi. Yes. Come forward, sir.
» Good evening. >> Good evening. Hello. Uh, mayor and
counselors. Uh, I'm Patrick Ekan. I'm part owner of 734 Brewing and also part
owner of Maniac Me. Basically, what we're just trying to do here is, uh, so
Maniac Me has a tasting room in the township on Ecourse Road. Um, we're just
trying to put them both together since they're both my babies, I guess. Put
them both under the same roof. Um, at our current or at 734's current
location, 15 cross. Um, so that'll allow me to put some investment money from
Mania [clears throat] into the building at 15 cross and uh, you know, hopefully
make things a little more vibrant down there.
What I'm going to do is open a public hearing and then bring back refer
council if they have questions. >> All right. If there's anyone who would
like press council on this application uh please
» no I just did it right now. >> Sorry if there's anybody who wants
» nobody nobody. Okay. Uh council member you can close the public.
I know >> resolved by the council of the city of
Vitali that a public hearing or a small wine maker off premises retail permit
with outdoor seating dance and social disting.
» I [clears throat] oppose. All right.
» All right. questions for council. Okay.
» Um I think I heard it right, but you said
you're part owner of both. Um does this mean that 734 is going is no
longer or like are you going to be leasing from 734 or how does that work?
» We're doing it as like a a shared space. So, we're going to have a new name, but
it'll be the new name by 734 Mi. >> So, we'll still be doing same 734 stuff,
a lot of the same events, but we'll have several more apps and more things to
try. >> Do you do you have the new name yet?
» Not 100% sure. >> Okay. Uh, are you retaining staff from
734? Yeah, I mean assuming they want to stay, but I assume they will.
» Mhm. Okay. And then it sounds like there'll be expansion of like uh items
on the menu. Is there any other Sounds like you're talking about maybe some
building improvements or >> Yeah, I mean um
Maniac has been Well, we actually rented a another spot in the township,
but that didn't quite work out for what we were hoping to do. So, we're still
using that as a production facility. Um, but because we have some money we were
planning to spend on, you know, fixing up a building, we're going to put it
into that one. This one. Oh, I should say it is 48198. I think the zip code. I
just want I just want to make sure the paperwork goes right to MLCC. They're
» picky.
Further comments or questions from counc
» yes. >> Council member Phelps.
» Yes. >> Council member Tusson.
» Yes. >> Council member Mccleley.
» Yes. >> Council member King.
» Yes. >> Motion carries. Unanimous.
» Thanks so much. Uh, council member King, you have 179
original by the council of the city of Isoli. That attached fee schedule is
adopted pursuant to the Isoli city code and the following fees related to
various sections of the city code and activities of the city are hereby
established and the various city departments are authorized to charge and
collect such fees effective immediately. by council in supported by council
member council. This was uh presented at the
July meeting. It was asked to be tabled. So council could reach out to their
constituents and ask questions about the fees. Uh so myself and other staff
members are here to answer questions that you might have. And if you saw on
the agenda, there is a second section in which following the um the uh special
events policy. It does include the freight house, rental fees, and um and
um special events. So, we're happy to do special events now or if you'd like to
wait to that point. But if if the remainder of the fees aside from special
events and um the freight house are agreeable to council, I would request
approval. >> All right, council.
» So for clarification, what we're looking at right now, what's
before the body is everything, but it does not include the freight house. So
it does include the freight house and special events. However, if when you
move on to those other uh other items, it'll essentially amend this once those
are approved if approved. >> And further clarification, we we made
changes to the freight house last time. Those also would be incorporated what
what is before the body right now. >> That's correct. It's actually included
in the uh special events policy.
Well, questions or comments on the schedule?
» I just have a quick one. When I was looking at the schedule, I was just
thinking about the Junth parade that was proposed and I was looking at the fees
and why I didn't have that contract in front of me. I know we never seen it,
but the fees were pretty outrageous. When I was looking at the fee schedule,
it did not seem like sacross would amount to what we heard potentially or
what. >> So, correct
» or parade. Yeah. >> What we were looking at is mostly staff
time um and um looking at when we updated the PE
schedule last time, that was all removed. Um, but a parade is it requires
substantial amount of police presence as well as uh DPW staff. So that's why that
cost was where it was. I did indicate to the to the organizer that we were only
concerned about the labor costs. Um, but again that was nothing was ever applied
for. Um, so we usually typically do if if an
event is has all fees waved, if they expand it, then that that's going to
need to have council approval to to remove those fees,
which I encourage them to apply so that council could could do that, but they
the organiz organizer didn't wish to move forward. So, I guess one of my
questions is for a parade, even though it say like the $90, I have to look at
the exact page. We wouldn't include the police presence and the DPS staff in
that fee so people would know up front. >> So, we're we would just we would just uh
basically charge costs. Um, we typically do not have any type of police
involvement other than a parade because certain intersections have to be closed
off. We are working to instead of using police do a volunteer basis and then
those um those event organizers would need to provide that training um to take
a little bit of burden off of our staff but we did not have that in place at
that time. >> Okay, great. Thank you.
» I think further on the schedule.
Um
the schedule issue is, you know, such a such a big pass to take on to try to
figure out how to bring fees into a place that's equitable and accessible
um to our residents. I think this is starting, especially with the new
special events fees, that includes the community events. I think we're
approaching more uh equity and parody that I'd like to see. The only thing I
want to I've I've brought it up a couple times, but you know, looking in how
other municipalities, even nearby ones like Fitzfield Township, um Ipsy
Township, uh handle booking their facilities, parks, pavilions. It's very
easy. It's done by a third party, you know, um, website. And, uh, you can book
Montabella Park for under $200 for four hours. Um, which is a brand new
pavilion. Uh, and you can also book the the uh, like baseball fields and the
kickball fields and for, you know, hour at a time. And [clears throat] so it's
more of a universalized approach to doing fee schedule at least for parks um
which maybe wouldn't capture things that are like for profit like beer fest. You
know we want to be able to um change those uh fees depending on if a
event is for profit or not. I agree with that. Um, I'm just mentioning that some
of the other nearby municipalities handle it as a more universal approach
where everybody pays the same amount and it's relatively easy to book and it
makes it so people uh book things much more often. uh end up paying uh more
fees to uh the nearby townships instead of just like maybe using our facilities
for free unless it's like a big enough event to where um you know it's too
burdensome to do that without approaching the city. So I just want to
name that as a potential target in the future. Um, I think given we've been
talking about the fee schedule for a little while, adjusted it for now, I'm
mostly going to support um what we have in front of us today. I just imagine
there's going to be situations that come up that we bump into. One of the things
I I did see already is that we charge for if someone is bringing a sign into a
park. I'm kind of curious as to why that is like bringing signage. Um,
it's barely the $50 fee, but I'm a little concerned for those kind of like
nickel diamonding type of fees. I also asked Bonnie earlier, I don't know if
there's an answer now about um what's the what's it called? Capital
improvement fees for Riverside and Bron Island. Um where is this coming from?
Why are we charging it? I would like to know that.
» Now, is it this a part of the specific fee schedule or is that going to be
later on with those? >> I think it's in both.
» Well, it's not. No, it's not. It is in the current book.
» I would like to have an answer for that, but yes,
» we did email about that.
» I think everybody should know. Yes.
Good evening. So, the parks capital fee was proposed and adopted back in 2011.
The intent was to um capture some of the revenue from the larger events and apply
it to capital improvements throughout the entire park system. Although the
intention was quite noble, it doesn't align with how bulk is applied to
cities. So, we have discontinued its use. We may choose to revisit it in the
future at council's pleasure, but it's no longer sustainable as it was, but
we're still applying it to a frog island.
» Not as proposed as proposed. So, what is the new
» zero? Zero. Yeah. For no approvement fee for anything. Okay,
that's helpful. Um, I think the other thing I wanted to
bring up was that there are a number of
um, events that are currently booked and haven't happened yet that have kind of
been booked in that in between time between when we approved the budget
without any fee waiver budget and now when we're adopting a new um, fee
schedule that includes community events. And so I know of some of those events
are community events would be applicable to this. So you know when we emailed
about it you said that if if the contract is signed then this with new
change wouldn't apply to that. I think it would be good for the city to let
those applicants know um if these new changes apply to them so they can cancel
their existing contract and make a new one because
then that would be >> yeah I'm saying I think that's only fair
given we don't have any u you know fee waiver application form
anymore no budget for it and there was a gap between June and now so just those
events should be able to you know utilize these new changes that I would
recommend that that actually be a resol or added on to the adoption of schedule
the the next schedule not this >> yeah special one
okay
are there any questions council
Yes, please call the role. >> Mayor Brown,
» yes. >> Council member Phelps,
» yes. >> Council member Tusson,
» yes. >> Council member McClean,
» yes. >> Council member King,
» yes. >> Motion cares.
» Thank you. passion 195
by the council of city of slanting where crew community credit union has
submitted an application requesting the res property located at 424 south
Mansfield from PMD production manufacturing and distribution to GC
general corridor and whereas request reszoning has been processed in
accordance with the requirements of the mission zoning enabling public act 2006
six as amended in the state of their sun zoning ordinance and whereas planning
commission will have public hearing on the proposed reasoning on June 17, 2026
receiving public comment and considering the application. staff report of
applicable documents. And whereas following review, the planning
commission recommends approval of the proposed resoning to the city council.
And whereas the city council conducts the public hearing on the proposed
resoning on July 21st, 2026, receiving public comment considering the
application staff reportable documents and approve it approving its first
reading of the reszoning request. And now therefore be resolved that the
Ipsellini City Council hereby approves at its second reading ordinance number
1466 amending the zoning map to reszone the property located at 424 South
Mansfield from PMD to GC.
Anything else about this? >> Um nothing has ultimately changed. Um,
you know, if you guys have any memory questions and have made it through the
insert, um, they're glad. >> Thank you. Questions or comments from
council.
Please follow. >> Council member Phillips.
» Yes. >> Yes.
» Council member McClean, >> yes.
» Council member, >> yes. Council member Tusson.
» Yes. >> Motion carries.
» Thank you so much. Council member Tusen, you have 196.
» Yes, I do. Council voting council of the city of Salani. Whereas the city is
committed to updating the zoning ordinances to address evolving business
practices. And whereas the proposed amend amendments introduce definitions
for drive-in service, curbside service, and walk up windows to clearly
distinguishing business activities. And whereas the proposed amendments aim to
improve accessibility for all city residential visitors. And whereas the
Ipsellani planning commission reviewed the proposed amend amendments and
recommended approval following a duly noticed public hearing. And whereas the
Ipsellani city council reviewed the proposed amendments and approved its
first reading of the amendment following a duly noticed public hearing. And now
therefore be it resolved that the Ipsellani city council hereby approve
his second and final reading of ordinance number 1467 entitled walk up
window zoning text amendment. And I mean by council supported by council number
same same as the previous one. >> All right questions or comments from
council for
the same council member. >> Yes.
» Council member
» I'm sorry. Yes. >> Council member King.
» Yes. >> Mayor Brown.
» Yes. >> Council member Phillips.
» Yes. >> Motion carries.
» All right. Council member 197. >> Resolve by the council city of SL where
mission planning may impact public code act 33 of 2008 requires that at least
every 5 years the adoption of a master plan. The planning commission shall
review the master plan and determine whether to commence procedure to amend
the master plan or adopting a new master plan. And whereas the city adopted the
shape IPS lending master plan in 2013 and last night the plan in 2021 and
comprehensive update is warranted to reflect current conditions and provide
current policy basis for land use decisions. And whereas the city of
planning issued a request for proposals to a comprehensive master plan update
and receive proposals. And whereas the proposals were evaluated by staff
selection committee on the basis of proposed approach, team qualifications,
community engagement scope, regional local experience, proposed level of
effort and total fee and many unanimously ranked proposal submitted by
the Smith group as the highest ranked proposal and where the adopted budget
includes $100,000 for the comprehensive master plan update of which 50,000 is
anticipated from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation grant and the
Smith proposal is within the appropriated amount. Now therefore be it
resolved that the city council of the city of planning award to the
professional services contract for the comprehensive master plan update to
Smith Group in the amount of $96,900 to be funded from 101-97210-7818-00
be further resolved that the city council authorizes the city manager
execute the contract on behalf of the city following review and approval as
informed by the city attorney. I so moved. support
» by council member McQueen supported by council member Tus.
» Good evening council and mayor. Um so resolution kind of said it all. The I
think we put together a pretty comprehensive
RFL except for the subject to use the same templates and so the actual subject
is wrong on the actual RFL. It does say demolition of dangerous building. That
is not what it is. Um like the resolution stated, we had uh eight
proposals. We had four really good proposals and really two outstanding
proposals. Um and then so we tried to figure out what the best way to to
review it. We kind of gave I think pretty detailed notes and I don't know
if anyone has any questions on it. Uh so the the top one and two were Smith Group
and OM and they're within $2,000 of each other. We did get the final paperwork
for the grant from the MEDC and so we did receive the $50,000 to help pay for
half of this which is a huge relief. Um you know staff felt that
um between Smith Group and OM
um based on the experience that Smith Group has um they're normally more of a
national firm but they're located right here in Ipsellani. They do have local
staff that live in that will be working on the plan and just their breadth of
knowledge and experience. That was where it came in. We also compared
um based on what was done and the lowest uh so just the uh conductor was the
lowest amount of hours and also pay and they had probably the least amount of
experience. Um and so we kind of tried to figure out the best way to do it. We
wanted to keep it or our purchasing policy as local as possible. Both OHM
and Smith have local offices in county. Um
and so that's kind of uh what we what we have. I know uh Josh and and uh Gary in
our office really liked the the attention to detail that some of Smith
Group's master plan have gone into and I thought to be a really good fit and I
completely agree. Um, I think either one are a really good company. Um, well, we
kind of thought that that would be the best the best match. So, I don't want to
ask any questions. >> Thank you for that. Questions coming
from council. >> Okay.
» Thank you, Joe. Um, does the master plan include an implementation plan as well?
» Ours currently hasn't. We've done a lot of what we wanted to do. We can't ever
do everything obviously because things change over time. I think the biggest
regret is that we wanted to, you know, but it's it was a 20 or 30 year plan,
but two AR streets is still obviously an active discussion. But most of what we
wanted to actually do in our master plan, we really accomplished a lot. And
now that's why instead of going for just a smaller update like we did in 2021,
really doing a little bit bigger detail look um because 2013 was a long time
ago. Um whereas uh you know 20267 it's a lot farther beyond that. So, I
think when we updated it in 21, we did a really good job um and updated it, but
we really do need to do a little bit bigger, a little bit bigger of a dick
and and dive in. >> Josh is going to have to stay with us
for a good long time, right? >> Josh is already working on the public
engagement strategy as we speak. Uh and we actually had a meeting with our
comm's team to really help uh push that out. And so, really excited to get their
hands dirty in the public engagement on top of having some outside help
facilitating some of these meetings.
What does the public engagement look like? Every ward or just one central
place? >> I'm gonna have Josh actually speak to
that. He's been working on this pretty aggressively.
» Yeah. So, um there's a lot that we are working on in terms of the community
engagement. um not only uh will be doing community engagement meetings here,
we also know that generally um there are um you know populations
that have historically been disenfranchised and so we also want to
go into people's neighborhoods so that they don't have to come to us but rather
we go to them. Um and so uh as part of the strategy, we basically uh took the
city's census tracks and split the city up into um basically a north side, east
side, west side, uh and south side. Um obviously uh like you there's a map that
I created um like that's in our system, but basically it is draw it is drawing
directly from the census track lines themselves. And so that's why the uh it
might look a little um funky based on what determines north side, west side,
east side, south side. It's just, you know, making it easier to organize data,
but um yeah, basically we'll be going uh we'll be having, you know, the same
types of meetings uh here in council chambers. We'll be going into the
neighborhoods um and having that same exact type of meeting. Um on top of
that, we will also be doing popups at different community events. So, uh, you
know, potentially Fall River days might be one of the first ones that we do. So,
we want to make sure that we are actively, um, meeting residents where
they're at. Um, we do have a draft survey also prepared as well. Um, you
know, we'll be doing a video series and I already have like transcript for the
first video. So, um, we'll hopefully have that, uh, in the most rec.
But uh ultimately um sorry there's a lot of like a community engagement that
we're doing but um ultimately like we'll be doing a lot of social media
engagement. We'll have yard signs that we'll have um I don't know how many yard
signs just yet. that we're going to look at the budget and everything, but we'll
probably have a QR code to basically link people to that survey or to the
master plan website where they can get a bunch of information on what is the
master plan, be able to review our master plan. Um, and have, you know, all
types of information like where we are in the updating process. Um, so, so
yeah, there's a lot that's coming. uh it has been very time consuming but um you
know if there's any uh there's any other types of community engagement that you
guys like to consider. >> Thank you.
» Um yes. So,
I don't I I think when we did the update,
the contractor was about $50,000 for the update. This is from
» 2013 or 201 >> No, it was it was 2020.
» In 2021, we were looking at a potential $50,000 contractor, but then when CO
hit, we didn't do internally. >> Right.
» There was no cost. >> Yeah. So, and I remember that. So what
would change this time where we wouldn't want to do it internally again and we're
spending $100,000? >> Yeah. So at that point uh we our staff
is much busier as far as pure applications and zoning text amendments
and things like that in the office with CO we were able to actually dedicate
some time when city hall was shut down and actually dig into some of that work.
We would have never been able to do it if we didn't have COVID um in 2021. uh
but we had some time and we had staff and so that was the the big reason for
that. The difference between an a small update just kind of updating census
figures um and not doing as as robust public engagement as we're doing versus
what we're doing now it's the public engagement. It's doing a much more
robust look at what we had and kind of uh helping us formulate new strategies
based on the public input. >> Okay. So, as far as the deliverables
[clears throat] besides just the text document, it's going to be some public
engagement, >> lots of
» Okay. Um, yeah.
And you think that it's because of increases to current like zoning text
amendments that makes it so we can't do it internally? So when when COVID hit
and a lot of our permit applications kind of dwindled and staff was working
from home and um we we had a we just had a little bit more time in the office and
so that's where we're able to be a little bit more creative um and do some
of the things that we could have not done if we if we would have uh we
wouldn't have had co um but you know as as staff changes and and as people um
expand their roles at the point where that happened was happening. The city
planner wasn't reviewing zoning at that point. The building official was, which
didn't make any sense because the building official didn't know the zoning
ordinance. And so that is tacked on a substantial amount to the city planner.
Um, and so with all of those things, um, there just isn't the time and the place
for on top of the fact that we do have a grant to pay for half of this.
» Yeah. >> And costs have gone up substantially
since 2020. um which is is a bigger part of the the increase.
» Understood. Yeah. I mean I know that we budgeted for this so it's not like we're
budgeting outside of what we already budgeted for. However, it's just it's
basically like a whole staff position. You know the amount of pay we could add
city staff for it. So it's just something that I think about at least
going into the future is if we want to increase kind of private consulting
contracts or if we would like to bring some of these jobs in house so we are
providing like good paying um public service jobs to the community as well.
So, um I think you know I would expect a lot to come out of this contract if
we're going to spend that much um much more than just like the master plan
document and implementation plan and public engagement but something that um
would be like lasting for people in the community to be able to
look at and actually find um that they can track if progress is being made
instead of just like oh progress has been made up master And I don't know.
Um, one of the things that I believe definitely needs to be addressed in this
master plan that wasn't as addressed in the last one is like our current housing
crisis and homelessness in its state. Um, R1 zoning is also going to be a
thing that's going to be talked about a lot in the community, I'm sure.
Anyway, hopefully um, if we're going to spend this money on the contract, we
will have lots of engagement with council too between um, now whenever
this is finalized. Definitely. >> Further questions or comments?
No.
» Council member McQueen. >> Yes.
» Council member. >> Yes. Mayor Brown.
» Yes. >> Council member Fellows.
» Yes. >> Council member Ch.
» Yes. >> Motion carries.
» Thank you so much. Council member Fellows. You have one to eight.
Resolution [clears throat] resolved by the council of the city of
Atlanta. Whereas on the October 2018, OHM advisor's parks restroom evaluation
study documented the renovations required to return the turning point
city's park restroom facilities to a safe accessible year round public
service and whereas staff has escalated the study's estimates um to $226 and
added the Kend King Park facility resulting in a combined estimated
project cost of approximately $558,000 for the renovation of restroom
facilities at Park Ridge Park, Ride Park, Prospect Park, and Patty Be
And whereas modern uh hygienic and accessible park residents are priority
for improving parks equity and user experience consistent of the city's 2026
2030 parks and recreation master plan. Now therefore be it resolved that the
city council of the city of Muslani approves the park restroom renovation
project at Park Barker Parkside Parker Park and Canine Park and authorize the
staff to competitively bid the work be it further resolved that the city
council approves utilizing funding from CDBG and releasing an RFP for the
project and I move forward and move by council supported by council member.
Hello. Um, so to give you a little bit of
background on how we ended up here back probably six months ago,
uh, city manager proposed an idea of having self cleaning restrooms in our
our parks. Uh, and the plan was to go with two of those. Um, and really
digging into the numbers and we've kind of put those numbers, those estimates in
this proposal. self cleaning systems, you're looking anywhere 400 to $550,000
per bathroom, which was pretty exorbitant. And we have $900,000 in CDBG
funds that we can actually play with. Uh so then city manager tasked me with
working with the building official who's also a licensed builder to actually look
at the bathrooms and see really what could we do with what we existing have
instead of building these kind of placing these new self cleaning systems.
So we went through and investigated what we had um looked at what OM had done in
2018 and then revised it in 2021 um and revised those numbers and we
realized we could get not just Arbridgeidge Arridge and um
» awesome >> it was Prospect Riverside we could also
have Prospect and then and the city manager was like well let's get one in
each ward so we could have a working bathroom at at our major parks and in
each ward and there would be two in But that's because Riverside Park is kind of
for the whole city. Um, so we we looked at it. We we took a deep dive and looked
at how we could actually escalate the costs and I think uh for the price of
less than two self thinning systems, we could actually get four older renovated
bathrooms. Um, the trade-off is a self-cleing bathroom would be less
annual maintenance whereas a as a renovating his existing bathrooms would
have more annual maintenance. But in going to what Councilman Fellows uh
talked about of working with the city manager about potentially in-ousing some
of the janitorial service, I know you're about to approve a janitorial service
now, but really trying to bring that in house to actually have somebody
responsible for maintaining these bathrooms on top of other facilities
over time because I completely agree. Why outsource something that we could
actually do uh better and more efficiently in house? And so that's one
of the things we're looking at. Um, but in doing this one, this was drastically
different than what the city manager proposed to you. So, I wanted to bring
this to you before working with CDBG to create the RFP because we had started
working for the RFP on the self cleaning bathrooms. This is a drastically
different uh uh proposal, but I do think we could actually get four working
bathrooms, well, four parks with working bathrooms um more efficiently and with
less issues because there was issues with the self bathrooms because of the
CDBG steel requirements which requires all steel to be made in America uh
without a lot of complicated things. The CDBG pro program is a very labor
intensive uh bureaucratic process and so uh we can definitely redo four bathrooms
not be able to help in the maintenance they wouldn't be able to cover the beach
something but this is probably the cleanest easiest way for us to get
bathroom
» Joe when do we think these will all be online best case scenario
» well a lot of it will have will depend on CDBG environmental review process. My
hope would be next summer. Um in reality, even if we started today
because we still got to get this uh to CDBG to help us create the RFP, then
release the RFP. And while these buildings do exist, some of the work
cannot happen in the winter. Um but some of it can. And so there there are some
there are some differences uh there. And so, um, I would say to give a realistic
goal and not a two months, right? It would be it would be next summer, but
we're going to be working all the way up until then to get this done due to the
CDBG requirements.
» Question.
» Great. Thank you. Um, [clears throat and cough]
when I was talking about this with the city manager, um, it sounds like every
single one of these bathrooms are single stall, like single room.
» There are two bathrooms at each park with a single stall.
» Yeah. >> Yeah.
Um,
and one of the things that, um, I was hoping, I mean, when we discussed
it back in whenever that resolution passed to fund these, um, we talked
about seeing the RFP and this, this basically um, triggers the ability for
staff to make an RFP, but I would still like council to see the RFP before it
goes out to bid. Um just because like in this new resolution
it doesn't have some of the things that council had put in the original which
talks about like um high quality durable materials and um
drinking fountains with bottle filling stations and um bedet attachments and
stuff like this. So just like to see what the final form is before it goes
out to bid. Um >> that's that's completely doable that
once again and it will you know that's where sometimes you know next summer is
probably a very realistic thing just because we have to get the RFP created
and CDBG really does handle I it's funny when we put out an RFP versus something
just a city project it's 20 to 30 pages when you do a CDBG project it's 200
pages and so um I think there's there's just a lot of governmental
is we might be able to actually get you the meat and potatoes of the proposal
that has everything you're talking about cuz um the vast majority that I don't
know if we had the bottom flowing stations in there but that's not that
challenging of a thing to add right um so it's one of those that like we could
definitely get that do you want to see the entire legally CDBG stuff or do you
want to see what we're going to be bidding out
» primarily what we're bidding out and just making sure yeah I mean lot the
bathrooms are being made today in different parks around us have the
exterior, you know, exterior drinking problems, the bottles and filling. Um,
and so I think another part of the RFP I was curious about is if it would if it
could be flexible enough to include options for demo reconstruct as well
because there might be some bids out there of people are like we don't know
if we want to rehab the existing structure but we could do this instead.
Um, yeah, it's just like another >> and there's one bathroom that we have
learned is we have some concerns about that's candy cane park just because
there's some just not they're not that big like even if you were to
be because of ADA requirements. >> Yeah.
» Like it's funny. They're probably an ADA and a half bath when you go inside the
these the these structures, which is is kind of weird because it like you can't
really put another stall in. uh adequately. Um and so
I I hear you. Um but they're like too small to have more than one bathroom.
There's one that is not ADA and it's at uh it's not part of this plan. It's at
uh
Peninsula Park and I think there's a little
» uh urinal in the men's bathroom, but once again that was that that's a
completely separate one that that we're not going to do. So
» I think without building brand new, which is going to substantially increase
the cost uh here, um really getting more than one stall in there is probably
going to be a little challenge. Oh, I'm not talking about stalls. I I
mean, I'm a fan of rehabbing existing structures. If we could do it, we can be
in compliance with ADA and we can add the, you know, drinking fountains, all
that. Great. Let's, you know, reuse the stuff that we already have. I'm just
saying that there I could see a situation in which um there are certain
companies might approach us with a new construction instead of rehab. um and
that it might be favorable to council depending on like how much it costs and
whatever else. So, I just don't want to rule it out completely um because I know
that we were talking about prefab versus rehab versus new construct and so I'm
just requesting that we leave some room around it. Um
and I think it would be great to have more than two bathrooms per park, but I
think at least two makes sense. And if they're single cell, that means they
could be unisex and that or whatever, you know, their family restrooms.
» Yeah, there's some like weird things in the building code, but I think we
there's ways of working around that. It's building code is is written as a
very um gendered >> it would be best if they were not
gendered, especially if they're single stall. movie theater.
» Yeah. >> Okay.
» Another thing that we Joe and I talked about is to make them ADA accessible.
There's going to be a need for extension of walkways to the bathroom. So, we've
been looking at that as well. >> Yeah, I think Prospect is the probably
the hardest one because there's an ADA path there and there's definitely not an
ADA path at Candy Pain. However, with some of the play structures, we've
actually gotten an ADA path closer to that. Oh,
» but like essentially what we're hoping for out of today is number one, we want
to go with rehab and potentially replace and we that fact could be added into the
into the bid. It just um just looking at the cost and talking to
to Jerry um really the cost to to renovate is usually always
less expensive. Um but we want to make sure that you're good with this plan. Um
that our plan is just to renovate what we have. Uh or potentially new and then
go through the CDBG process uh to get the bid created. But that's not going to
be a tomorrow thing because it does take ample time and there's only so many CDBG
staff and all of these parts will be done.
» 954. So we move forward if we do have move forward. Uh so
you know with regard to prospect part it it I mean it would be great to have the
ADA path anyway you know about the bathroom. Um
most uh yeah just like if can we expect like
seeing the RFP for after CDBG go through it within the next couple council
meetings. So it depends on I I will get back to you on that just because uh if
this gets approved because to see the CDG RFBS to be a that's a lot
much longer document we might be able to actually fine-tune it and get you
similar to what this doc is but with just a little bit more detail.
» That sounds great. Okay. Further
down >> Mayor Brown.
» Yes. Council member Phillips. >> Yes.
» Council member Tusk. >> Yes.
» Council member McCle. >> Yes.
» Council member. >> Yes.
» Thank you. >> Mayor move to extend the meeting until
11:00. >> Support.
» All right. All in favor say I.
» 10:30. We have a whole another page that says
to go. >> Yes. Um the council receives you have
199. >> Yes. Whereas city of Columbia is a
member of the Michigan municipal league and their annual convention will be held
in Traverse City October 7th through the 9th 2026. And whereas the city has
received a request from MML to designate an official who will be in attendance at
the convention as our official voting delegate as well as a designate
as well as designate an alter alternate I'm sorry. Now therefore be it resolved
by the council of the city of Senny that blank be appointed as voting delegate
and that blank be appointed as alternate delegate for the Michigan municipal city
annual convention to be held in Traverse Cities October the 7th through the 9th
2026 so
» if I may um council member King is the only council member who is currently
registered for the conference >> but they do want us to designate
on um me would be the voting and then possibly an alternate if we have
somebody else who would come. >> Okay. I'm sorry. I saw your email
there. >> Yeah.
» One thing
» and then the alternate will be council member Kane.
That's kind of cool.
» Do we need to like cuz it wasn't writing
conversation on Fridays?
Yes. >> Council member Tus.
» Yes. >> Council member MC.
» Yes. >> Council member Ke.
» Yes. >> Mayor Brown.
» Yes. >> Motion carries.
» Wait, who seconded that?
» Yeah, just so resolution number 2026-200
resolved by the council of the city of Deleni. Whereas the Frog Island parking
lot replacement project has been has been awarded and whereas the city
requires project oversight and construction coordination services and
has solicited a propo proposal from OM the city's engineer of record. Now
therefore be it resolved that the city council approves a proposal submitted by
OM in the amount of $142,825 and be it further resolved that the
mayor and city clerk are authorized to sign this contract subject to approval
by the city attorney and that any change orders may be approved by the city
manager to facilitate completion of this work and I so move
» by supported by council member.
» Good evening city. >> Good evening.
I am if you have any questions
questions I can add just one thing um that I'm
sure council's aware of but this is part of the METC funding for infrastructure
that we received so this would be a good hunk of that.
» Thank you. which this MBTC funding is specific to reconstruction of Frog Adler
as well as DVW.
Um, first I just uh want to up list that the
comm's team did you know do some outreach to the public or to let them
know this was happening soon and that there would be some conflict with IC
pride and I thought that was good communication to give people
expectations of what to expect. Um I am worried about how that's going to go. um
if we might have like a plan for busing people or something because there will
be um much less parking than in than previous years. So we've actually worked
out with the contractor the lot is going to be open and safe to park in during
Ipsy Prime. So for the 30th and although they did start on concrete removal I
believe today I saw a giant truck full of concrete rolled down the road. Um the
concrete that is most crucial to the success of Ipsy Pride cites associated
with the ramps around market plaza and at southern end parking lot are to
remain intact till after pride. Great. Yeah. So we're ensuring accessibility
the best we can. Rumble of the bumble is going to have more challenges likely.
However, >> do we know kind of the date to start the
end? It's approximately middle of October I think is the end and the start
was yesterday. >> Yeah. Okay.
» Um yeah.
Just one other comment is um I heard a lot of feedback about parking in um
specifically metering and so I know that there's been some discussion about how
to tackle that for the Long Island lot. I'm just kind of bringing up that there
probably needs to be more because we got or at least I got a lot more input the
last few months about different considerations and why we
might meter and why we might might not. So um it I don't see it as part of this
plan right now for the reconstruct but I imagine is that something that's being
integrated at some point. >> So ultimately the plan is to meter it so
that we can maintain it. >> Is that going to be part of the
reconstruct? >> Not directly. No.
» Yeah. But something that will come within within the next month.
» Yeah. >> Okay. All right. Thank you.
Further comments, questions for
» Yeah. >> Yeah.
» Council member Tusen. >> Yes.
» Council member McConey. >> Yes.
» Council member Hay. >> Yes.
» Mayor Brown. >> Yes.
» Council member Phelps. >> Yes.
» Motion carries. Council member of 2011. resolved by the council of visiant
whereas the profit road bridge design superstructure replacement project will
be veted through the MDOT local agency program and is programmed for the state
fiscal year 2028 funding through the neighborhood roads fund and whereas the
city requires project oversight testing and design services and solicited a
proposal from OM the city's engineer of record now therefore be resolved that
the city uh city council approves the proposal submitted by OM in the amount
of 305,860 60 and be it further resolved that the
mayor and city clerk are authorized to sign this contract subject to the
approval of the city attorney and that any changes uh change orders may be
approved by the city manager to facilitate completion of this work and I
so move >> by fellow supported by counciloman
» again would love to answer if you have any questions
cross bridge.
Um,
this one
I mean one of the things I think I saw was that there was going to be expansion
of the sidewalks. That sounds great. um
thing I always want to bring up in any of these major reconstructions or um
changes to our roadway is non motorized including bike and so I'm wondering like
what are we doing as far as preparing and thinking about future bike
infrastructure and how the bridge would be
» so I believe we're still looking at the feasibility of adding dedicated bike
lanes or at least space for added bike lines Um the superructure is very dep is
very wide right now because it is two lanes.
» Um so I believe that we should have ample space. We're still in the design
phase though. So I I can't guarantee and one of the things that the planning
department is actually pursuing in parallel is ensuring that there is
actually added to the non-motorized transportation plan a provision um that
uh one of the goals of the city is to approve non motorized transportation on
all these bridges and significant infrastructure features features because
that helps us actually secure funding uh from our federal partners to supply
these things. Um, right now it's a we bit interesting. Um, but it's still a
good plan for the long term and should help us uh in other bridge replacements
in the future, which we hope not to have to do on our own for quite some time.
But, uh, the Michigan Avenue Bridge is coming up under MDOT's perview in
approximately 2030. So, that is something that we are hoping to
ensure that they consider their design. As you've noticed, no doubt the
sidewalks on both sides are rather narrow and if nothing else, we need
wider sidewalks. >> So, is that meaning that we're probably
considering going down to one lane each direction? That makes sense to me given
that seems like the traffic is not impeded now. It's probably less wear and
tear on the bridge in the long term. And um yeah, that sounds good to me. So, I'm
just like hoping then there's some like conversation in the design. We want to
plan for the future. We want to plan for the road shift. We want to see.
» Thank you.
Please follow. >> Council member McClean,
» yes. >> Council member King,
» yes. >> Mayor Brown,
» yes. >> Council member Phelps,
» yes. >> Council member Tusk,
» yes. Motion carries. >> Thank you. You have two or two.
resolved by the council of city of whereas proposals were solicited for
janitorial services for several city facilities and whereas the bid of 59,400
annually uh submitted by facilities 360 of Ann
Arbor Michigan meets the specifications is within 5% of the lowest qualified
bidder subject to the city's level preference guidelines and would best
service the interests of the city and now therefore be resolved
That's the city council of the city of epsilenia award 2026 gitorial services
bid to facilities60 for an annual cost of $59,400 and authorize the city
manager sign the contract documents and any change order subject to approval by
the city attorney to complete the board of this contract support.
» Yes. >> I'm sorry.
» Okay. Sorry.
» Again, once more. >> Yes.
» After 10 10 p.m. on my roll. So, I'm just here if you guys have questions.
[laughter]
» Questions for me. >> McDonald's. Uh how come we're changing
services? >> Uh we have had a lot of feedback from
stakeholders about the RNA services. It has not been universally good.
I've also been under contract with them for about five years now. So
it's time
Council
member McCle, >> yes.
» Council member King, >> yes.
» Mayor Bren, >> yes.
» Council member Phillips, >> yes.
» Council member, >> yes. Motion carries.
» Thank you. Council member King, you have 203.
Whereas the city of Islami help helps to host hundreds of events per year both
public and private in its in its parks and public areas as well as within the
Islamic pray house. And whereas the special events policy was last
significantly revised more than 10 years ago. Whereas the city has reviewed the
policy and made updates to align with the current ordinance and the adopted
policy goals of the community. Now therefore be resolved that the city of
city council adopt the special events policy as move by councel king
» support >> by council member.
this one. As I said, generally my rule is after 10 p.m. I'm only here to answer
questions, but I did send you all an email earlier on that compiled some of
the questions I had been asked uh prior to the meeting uh both at parks and arts
last night and generally via email from members of council. So, uh one was how
are the insurance amounts said? Generally, there's on the events of our
legal council. Uh two, there's a discrepancy between an amount mentioned
in the text under 5.2 alcohol and in the table, which is correct. The amount of
the table will cost adoption. Uh that table as well will take precedence
correct the amount of text. What happened to the capital fee? What was
it? Um we addressed that earlier on in the larger fee schedule exception. Uh
the community events policy, it doesn't seem to automatically apply to
nonprofits. That is an intentional choice. Uh oftent times people who are
not nonprofits uh help community events. So people who are individuals, Anthony
Williamson is usually a great example. uh he helps to host things like uh the
Parkridge Summerfest. He is very active in about at least three different
organizations that I know of and sometimes he's doing it as an Anthony
Williamson thing and sometimes he's doing it as men and women working for
change or part of the Parker Committee or this or the housing commission and
it's it's fascinating and wonderful and we want to see more in the community. Um
but we know that other uh individuals actually do step up to help run some
truly lovely events that bring a lot of vibrancy to our our community. Um so the
goals that we have intended to reach with the community events uh was to uh
encourage more events that were open to the public, provided lowcost recreation
opportunities and to um and vendor fairs that provide market opportunities for
local artists and artisans. So, nonprofits are sometimes organizers of
these events, but not always. And nonprofits occasionally hold private or
semi-private events such as donor appreciation events or employee things
or uh events that are specifically for their clients. Although we'd love to
host them in our parks and the freight house, uh we recognize this does not
always align with the stated intent that we've heard from Council on Parks and
Arts. So, it's if council wants to open that up, of course, it's your will. Uh
we're just aligning with what we've heard so far. Uh security deposits, what
are they meant to cover? They are meant to cover and have been charged when
there's significant damage like tire rods in the parks or broken pictures and
frames in the freight house. Um they're meant to cover the cost of site
restoration or repaired items. Uh security deposits, much like other fees,
are also forfeit when there's a ruler ordinance broken. Uh the most common
ones are driving in the park without approval or staking things down where
they shouldn't be staking things down. The vast majority of the time deposits
are fully profited. Uh when would these changes take effect?
We addressed that earlier on. Um yes, generally these fees are a lot
lower. The aim here was not to cover the entire cost of putting on events for to
staff and the operational budget. Um but just to cover the direct cost in many
cases of having a person there to either check on the site beforehand to assist
with an event uh as it's going on or to check on event afterwards to do the
direct setup. So we are now attempting to as we have in years past incorporate
some of the ongoing maintenance costs, the costs of maintaining things like
barricades, costs of uh maintaining the electric in many of our parks, uh fun
things like that. So this is generally incorporating only the operational
costs. Yes, the direct operational costs for
actually having the event capturing of the maintenance costs. So the things
like janitorial and whatnot for the non-resident events with the
understanding that residents are subsidizing the events already through
the general fund and debts. self. Um hopefully that explains things
to come into a little bit more depth, but we've heard demand for lower fees
and we've attempted to accommodate that. Um what is the process if something new
or weird or cool happens? What happens if exception needs to be made or
something is done on the fly? So we know that one policy can't anticipate
absolutely everything uh or every situation. So in section 6.1 we provide
for usually large and complex events and in section which would include actually
every new parade. So the only parades that are currently considered under this
policy are the existing parades or processions the memorial day procession
and the fourth July parade. These are extremely large and complicated events
for both the organizers to put on and for us to to help with.
Um so another parade or similar type of event like a 5K uh that would be
considered an unusually large or complicated event and that would
actually come to council for the for your approval. In section 7.4 four which
is um the chapter or section about community supported events of council
supported events. Uh we provide for a scope or budget impact changes for city
partner sponsored events uh that will often require counselor parks and arts
position review. You are welcome to build in more flexibility if you see
fit. Uh noise permit. So there is a 2hour
gap. Uh, you are of course welcome to fill that in as see fit. Either louder
from 10:00 a.m. to noon or quieter from 10:00 a.m. to noon. And in my email item
nine, um, I do provide a couple of thoughts.
Then there are some typos andor inconsistently phrased things. Can those
be fixed? Yes, this those can be fixed without council specific action. We can
do things called scrims
where it doesn't affect the actual policy. We can fill uh errors like
number of issues and of course yes we will be updating
questions
questions.
Um, page 472, when we get into these
community events, um, just for clarity, it says like a
medium event is 250 a day or large event 350 a day, etc. And then it says
community event 40% discount. Does that mean it's 40% of 250 a day?
» Okay. >> Or 40% off of that price, I'm sorry. Not
» Yes. 40% off of that price. >> And then uh the security deposit that's
listed is the only security deposit. >> Yeah, there's no discount to the
security. >> Right. Right.
» Okay, sounds good. Um
I think you know we had that when we talked
earlier about this applying to exist existing um
applicants. Um you suggested that it gets changed.
So we did have the opportunity to take a look at the pending events. everybody
that has already signed a contract, they're um they're already at a lower
rate than this would actually provide. And the people that would benefit from
lower pricing, uh we've encouraged them not to sign the contract until we see
what happens to that. >> I do know of one event that is not true
for >> I would love to look them up,
» what events for Bread and Puppets on September 30th.
They're being charged like 4,000 when by this one it would be
October 2nd. >> Nope.
» Uh September 30th.
We did not have a time to go into a full dive as to whether or not something
would be classified as a community event necessarily under the
new uh schema. So that's actually a good point.
Yeah. So I mean that would bring it from $4,000 to 450 plus security deposit. So
950. go. Um I do think that the whatever events um
haven't occurred yet, but people are in contract, they should know of this
change and they should be able to access this change because it's significant.
» Yeah. >> Is that okay? You don't have to do
» the will of council and it would be easier to explain to all applicants if
there is an actual resolution or something included that I want to that
isn't that that does not seem like it is a win of step.
Okay. So, where >> were
all of these uh contracts signed after the start of the fiscal year or some
before? >> I would have to look on a case by case
basis.
» Sorry, you said that was what date again? I'm sorry. I had to do the two
factor. >> September 30th.
Anybody
know where this resolution is on? What page it's on?
» I'm using the portal. So number one is it
» maybe it's 483 special events >> 203.
Yeah, I mean the portal.
» It looks like that contract was on the 5th of August.
» Yeah. So this was helpful. >> Okay. So I will just offer then a
amendment to the existing resolution that says
um uh therefore be it resolved that
uh staff reach out to um
existing reservations and contracts with special
events um to so that they aren't
uh aware of the new policy change and and that uh if applicable that that
those changes apply to their event
is that supported by council member Kane
» discussion on the amendment
we're going to say something or Um but this portion would be fine or we
could just provide any applicant with the updated fee structure and say here
this is what you actually owe now rather than just say we change this just
say here this is the so just update their existing
» with the notice >> that would be preferable
that be way easier um yeah it'll And that's a lot of contracts to review.
I'll be honest, but we'll check >> that are in this fiscal year.
» I think was that what you were you were getting at?
» Well, I was going to say anything that you know
at the contract prior to the change in the fiscal year because essentially
those fees would have been the last >> between June 1st was it and now
» July 1st and now. >> Yeah. Basically in that time period,
anybody that's signed a contract, they should, you know, this should apply to
them now. >> Okay. And it's so this would actually be
specifically for events that may uh may qualify for the reduced community rate
because that's not something that we check for in in our initial law.
» So then would the amendment be different from that? That's a
fellow >> provide all
events that's scheduled following uh the new fiscal year the updated rate.
» So any events that signed a contract for pay fees on or after July 1st of this
calendar year >> we provided the updated
» right? >> Yeah they can accept that as a friend
lane. Did you write that down Tracy? >> Yes. You said that
» this further discuss further discussion please follow.
» All right. This is to amend the resolution.
» I thought it was >> uh it was a
» Oh, I'm sorry. To change the the language
what we Yeah. [laughter]
» Mayor Brown. Yes. >> Council member Phillips.
» Yes. >> Council member Tuska.
» Yes. >> Council member Mccleley.
» Yes. >> Council member Q.
» Yes. >> The amendment carries.
» Okay. Now we're on the amended schedule policy.
» Appreciate the work putting into this. Thank you
and arts commission and many staff today. Thank you. Council member King,
» yes. >> Mayor Brown,
» yes. >> Council member Fellows,
» yes. >> Council member Tusker,
» yes. >> Council member McCree,
» yes. >> The amended motion carries.
» Thank you so much. Uh, Council King 204. >> Quick question about the noise policy,
the noise permits. Would you prefer to be noisier earlier or quiet or later?
» Noisy earlier or quieter later? >> It also applies to screen closures.
There is be your earlier nestled.
» No. >> So there the adopted noise permit
policy. Um so events are required I'm going from
» um to be no more than 76 dB before 10:00 a.m.
However, after 12 noon they must be below 80 dB.
So as you know decibel scale is a logarithmic uh progression. And so
there's actually quite a difference between 76 and 80 in space.
So we've uh currently effectively there's a 2hour furniture period.
» Well actually the underlying noise sort of put so it's opposite but it is more
entertaining.
» So you're saying do we take the decimal that gap? Do we fill it from the times
or do we fill it from times [clears throat]
» whatever?
» Yeah. >> So I think they've already passed the
motion that have to be a separate motion. Sorry.
» You could do that and you did the events policy. Now we're gonna do parks and
events fees. Why don't we just do that? >> So messy
part of fees >> is
by the noise subject. There's no property challenge.
» So you want to just have someone you don't seem like you like that, but is it
okay if it's okay? It is our council's council
» 204. >> Whereas the city has updated its special
events policy and whereas the policy provides a free framework that offsets
the city's cost of operations and maintenance related to events held
within the city. And whereas this policy also describes a new community events
policy that provides a reduced rate for the certain event conforming to the
specific criteria. And now therefore it be resolved that the Sandy City Council
adopts the fee schedule proposed for the park and events fee schedule as proposed
and attachment A of the adopted policy as
council.
And that thing we said about >> Yeah. We want
» there be it resolved that the noise uh permit thing will be adjusted.
» Isn't that right? >> Yes.
» Yep. >> All right. [laughter]
» So the noise permit policy will um extend the time period for the 76 decel
permission to be till 12. >> Perfect. and getting back in terms of
» so more quiet time. So more quiet time. >> Yes,
» absolutely. >> I wouldn't call it quiet.
» Well, couldn't >> relatively quiet
» until the comments or question is is unravel.
» It is >> from council.
» Thank you. >> Please call the role.
Yes, member fellows. Uh, yes. >> Council member Tus.
» Yes. >> Council member McCle.
» Yes. >> Council member King.
» Yes. >> Motion carries.
» Thank you. Council member King 205. >> Where the city has updated its special
events policy. And whereas the policy provides a a fee framework that offsets
the city's cost of operations and maintenance related to events held
within the city. And whereas this policy also describes a new community events
policy that provides a reduced rate for certain events conforming
to specific What am I reading the wrong one?
» It's the same thing. >> It's the same thing. It says house.
The policy also describes a new community events policy that provides a
reduced rate for certain events conforming to specific criteria. And now
therefore be resolved that the issuing city council adopts a fee schedule
proposed for the break house fee schedule as proposed in attachment B of
the adopted policy.
support
» and they came in a packet in the first one and so you know I am council member
you have a question >> thank you mayor yeah so clarification
is this fee schedule the same as what we just passed the
» no it's close but it's not the same
» so which one which one governs. >> This one governs because it's
» it amends the one we did earlier.
» Exhibit. >> Y
» unless you don't pass it. >> Exactly.
» I got a don't have it in front of me, but I got to see that. So, does it cost
more? Does it cost less? >> Yes.
» Exhibit B in the fee schedule. The fee schedule in the um moment
» the policy. >> Okay. And does it also include the
amendment last? >> The policy includes that amendment.
» That amendment dropped it for nonprofits.
» Yes and no. So the policy that applies to special events is the same as the
policy that applies in the freight house or community events. So it has to be
free, open to the public. um if it's a vendor event then it has to meet certain
thresholds in order to qualify. We did attempt to craft it around existing
events and as far as residency for the artisans or other vendors we did base
that on 1978 uh rather than attempt uh
yeah so let me read that here. So free to attend free to attend open to the
public if a vendor based event then 60% or more vendors are residents or have a
regular storefront within the city of the or 80% are within 481 19897 and
vendors cannot be charged more than 20 an hour to participate
or aids in one or more of the following community based goals. More access to
local parts opportunity for local artists increases tourism regional or
global city prevents a variety of opportunities to the community. I need
is a offering um and provide who provide certification opportunities. So this is
intended to encompass the vast majority of things that are currently considered
as >> there. So
that I think covers the spirit of what we had tried to carve out last time.
» Yeah, that was the attempt >> and thank you for that and
Is it also the case then for those that they would pay 40% of the base?
» Yes. >> And so if the event organizer and I want
to say this applies to both parks and the fairy house if the event organizer
is a resident even if that event organizer is a business. Uh so I've used
Schultz Outfitters is the perfect example. Um if Schultz outfitters is
hosting a class either at Riverside Park or in Freigh House, they would be
charged the resident rate as their base rate because they are historic within
the city. They are within the city. >> So the car that you've created
would be considered more expansive than the one that we created last time.
» Yes. everyone that had been included last
time would also be subsumed in this and then there would be additional
» except for the the cases where we have nonprofits that have a private event. So
that usually happens when they have a fundraiser event or donor appreciation
something like that.
So community event would have $150 an hour, 40% of that and then they would
have the application fee and the security
that would be a
question for Bonnie.
» Is application fees the same across all event applications?
» They scale up with the complexity of the event. So something simple like a if I'm
uh attempting to rent a pavilion, uh it's very straightforward. I believe
that's a $10 uh dollar application fee for the pavilions that do not have
power. And it is slightly more pavilions that do have power because there's
usually back and forth about how much power is there, where is the power, what
can you do with power, do you really want that power, do you want this power,
uh when do you want to turn, all of that fun stuff. And then we also have to
check it to make sure it's actually optional. So there's more that goes into
that. Um and then the application fee then goes
up for these the events. So that is um ones where there's more than 50 people
expected. So that is beyond a simple pavilion uh or field or amphitheater
rental. So that's when you're open to the public expecting more than 50
people. Um that goes up to a $100 application fee in the parks and then
the application fee for the uh great house is almost $100. And that
reflects the amount of staff time and effort that goes into the application
process, making sure that people are getting what they need, that they
understand what is uh required of them and what we do provide. over time with
this new policy that is quite a bit more clear that may actually go down. But
there are events that are very straightforward. They know what they
want and bing bang boom, easy peasy. But there's also events for you to have
maybe a first time event organizer. Um, thanks
from uh noon to 6. And so walking them through all of the requirements of that
is sometimes very easy and other times very challenging. So this is intended to
reflect the disperate effort in those events and scales of those events.
Question
member Phillips. >> Yes.
» Mayor Brown. >> Yes.
» Council member Mle. Yes. Council member. >> Council member.
Motion carries. >> Thank you.
Gio 206.
» I'm very sorry. >> So I misspoke when we spoke about
community events in the freight house. I apologize. I have a headache this
evening. So the entire building is not a black point discount. It is $150 per
hour. Um, so
weekend per hour for days. So that is not the
40% discount. It's a actually a little bit more for weekdays. Um, to
incentivize those weekday events a little bit more. It is a
check here.
It's exactly 40% discount actually on the weekends. So, but it applies equally
to resident economics.
» Yeah. >> If I heard correctly, that just doubled
what I think >> this is.
So this is exactly 40% of
this resident rate and this is more than 40% off of the resident grant but it
applies to both resident and non-resident but this community event is
its own category. It's in parks where community event is not its own category
and it's 80 40% discount. So it's a better deal
for the great 40% final 40% discount on this.
» 40% discount though. It's not a 40% discount. It was 40% of the 200. That
was the original the original fech schedule for
that we had talked about. >> Correct. So this one
» $200 carve out gave it to them 40% of that which took 200 to 80. If I hear
what you're saying now, it's been taken from 80 to 150. It's just double
» but yeah, slightly less than double, but it is significantly more
» points.
Reconsider.
» I've never done >> just move to reconsider. He's on the
prevailing side. So if anybody >> support
» Yeah, support. All right, we move in support to recons the vote on that.
Okay, >> so it's you support by council member
Tus. Thank you. Please follow the consideration.
» Council member Tusen. >> Yes.
» Council member Mley. >> Yes.
» Council member King. >> And this is just to have a conversation,
but I know it's no questions. I guess I just say yes.
» You're correct. >> Mayor Brown.
» Yes. >> Council member Phelips.
» Yes. >> We will now reconsider the motion.
» All right. Thank you. Okay. So, it's back on the table.
Um, as I was that I was like, "Yep,
» yeah, this this is fairly tricky." Um, I mean, my goal is
is to create no one who was a net loser from what we thought we passed.
What? Two weeks ago, three weeks ago, whenever we last voted,
U and for that carve out group
it was 40% of $200.
That makes that's $80.
» Nobody signed at that rate. >> I'm sorry.
» Nobody has signed at that rate. >> We're waiting for the rate to come
through. >> So that rate went into effect on pass
that >> we didn't pass it. There was no there
was amendment to something that we could pass
back
» but this was this information in the packet.
» Yeah. What's being discussed? >> So it was the fee schedule was never
passed the 40% would have been on the old fe structure what that was.
But if the intent is to have that be 40% of 15 is that is the intent to be. So
our baseline cost to have somebody staff the freight house to ensure that it is
open is around $35 an hour. Um and actually more than
that. So that's just straight up staff cost them about $20 an hour plus
etc. So >> payers
» well it's either >> Yeah.
» Yeah. >> You know rough a rough would be to
modify that 150 by by 50%.
We're just slow%.
» I I don't think my question was directly about that. It was about was why is it
the same for resident and non-resident? That is one of my question.
» It's not >> it's not one is resident city employee
and the last role is non-resident. And then there's three different
» the security deposits are the same though.
» So the first >> So which one should I be living on? I
have it printed out. I just want to look at it because I thought when you went
over there that's what you said. >> Page 474.
So
» the previous
» And it was based on but it was based on a bigger number, right?$200.
at that time, but >> it was
» so that you pay.
» Yeah, they want you to go back and >> she was just doing it over there. Yeah.
» Okay. What is the outcome that we're looking for?
» So, if the intent is that you want them to pay
» $80 >> 40% discount, was it a 40% discount or
you want to pay $80? >> It was it was $80.
Just say that >> 80. And could [clears throat] the
community events would be for any one means a community event doesn't matter
if they're resident or not. So, Yep. And so, as long as it aligns with community
of the policy as previously stated.
» So I move that the 150 be modified to eight supported
by council member. Might I suggest also so the 80 is the
weekend rate. If you would like to review the day rate
as well that is 75 per events.
So there's not a huge difference between the two right now.
» I don't want I don't want to confuse things. So
» okay, we're >> already confused.
» Yeah. So the motion is just to decrease community events for the entire building
weekend from 150 to $8, >> right?
» Per hour, right? >> Okay. Council follows for the amendment
or you guys have >> uh I mean I was just going to bring up
that is two separate categories. Um and by reducing the rate um I do
understand the incentivizing weekdays versus weekends. And so
I don't know, I could imagine it being like $100 for weekend
or $100 an hour for weekend booking and 75 for weekday.
But yeah, either of these months are fine
with me. >> Because right now it would be at 90
which is only about $10 more. >> No, it would be at 150.
It's currently at 150. >> No, I have it right here. So, it's 150,
» but I thought it Well, where are we getting the minus 40% from?
» So, that's not that was just what was brought up in the last meeting as um the
request, but now the the amendment is to just move that 150 to $80 an hour.
» And so, that would make it only $5 more than what it is from weekday to week.
Right. And that is sensitive modification.
» Mayor, I have no objection to to somebody modifying the $75.
» There is there is >> it's a community event. There is it does
incentivize resident and employee and then non-resident. So if we're looking
at the community event, yeah, it's $5 cheaper, but
lot of community events on weekdays. So we want to direct more community events
to the weekdays to see more utilization of great house overall and more foot
traffic into town as well.
» Well, but I still think 75 is still a good rate to incentivize someone who was
afraid officer. I mean, I don't think that
» Yeah, I don't think that would be deter folks. I think this is that would
make it Yeah.
Sorry. >> I want to make sure that you guys get
what you want in one shot preferably so we never have to see each other again.
» Maybe not quite so. >> So, we have an amendment on the floor.
It's about weekends only um to move it to $80. Is there further discussion on
the amendment? Council member Fellows. I guess my question is just for like why
$80? Why not like $100?
» My answer. >> Yes, of course.
» Because what we passed last time was 40% of 200 equals 80. That's exactly where
the 80 comes from. As I remember it, it was 40% off. So,
I have it actually.
Okay.
For me, I'm also looking at it as 150 and the weekday is half of that 75.
So to drop that to 80 again, Bonnie spoke about how much per hour
we pay someone to be in a building. How would how would that look if we
drive it to 80? And I do think I don't know. I think 80
is too low for the for the weekend. That's one of our prime spaces here in
the city.
And I mean, I think the other part to consider is that it's only for the
community events, not for the other two, >> right?
» Um groups of uses. Uh, and so it would have to meet those
criteria for it to be considered in community event. So that already kind of
wields it down to what it it could be. Um, I am fine with somewhere between 80
and $100. I I can't make any notions. I think um when I was looking at this
initially and I saw you know that the weekdays were half of the weekends, I
felt like a a greater um you know range between the two did
incentivize the I get um incentivize it a little bit more. Um but I am not I I
don't want to fight about this. I think that we want people to use the freight
house. We want these events to happen and as long as we are covering the cause
of what it requires to open the doors, I think that is enough for me.
We have an amendment on the floor. So,
» is that enough? Was that enough or is that only the $35? Is that the cost?
That is the absolute hard floor at which we
should not go in for that covers just the cost of somebody being open
and to uh attend the event and be available in case
» because they're at the event the entire time.
» Yeah. >> Yeah.
» So I would say I would adjust it to 100 at least.
» Well, we have an amendment on the board right now for 80. So we need to
vote on that. >> Would you consider changements at 100?
» Okay. So then we'll we'll call the RO >> on the amendment.
» Yes. On the amendment for $80 a month. >> Council member McCle.
» Yes. >> Council member King.
» No. >> Mayor Brown.
» Yes. >> Council member Fellows.
» Yes. >> Council member Tusa. Yes,
» the motion the amendment carries. >> Okay, so we are on the amended schedule
again.
» Further discussion on this is now attempted.
» Thank you. >> Quick question.
» It's the same question. >> What's the same question?
» So it just depends on the event and nobody can't technically answer because
it depends on how long the event is. So if the event is longer than four hours,
the fee will not even cover that employee.
» 75 per hour. An hour. Okay. Okay. >> Per hour. So yeah, it'll be covered.
» It'll be >> So again, I do want to emphasize we're
not really covering a lot of our maintenance costs. We're not covering
our capital costs, but we are covering the absolute direct operational costs.
Just just to clarify, so as that is an hourly rate, so somebody that rents the
the freight house for 10 hours, pay $800.
» Yes. >> Not a small fee.
» No, not at all.
» Okay. Anything further [clears throat] from council?
Who's call?
» Mayor Brown. >> Yes.
» Council member Fellows. >> Yes. Council member Tusen,
» yes. >> Council member McClean,
» yes. >> Council member King,
» yes. The motion carries. >> Thank you.
» Um, it is 1051.
» All right.
» All right. Okay. Resolved by the council of the city of Salani. Whereas the city
awarded a contract to OHM for professional engineering services. The
payment or construction of Cornell Road Avenue to Bor Trail just south of Mahu.
And whereas after soliciting neighbor feedback, the city wishes to amend the
design to include roundabouts. Now therefore be it resolved that the city
of Saleni city council approves an amendment to the contract with OM to add
additional design survey and permitting services in the not to exceed amount of
38,200 bringing the new total to 278760.
Um be further resolved that the mayor and city clerk are authorized to sign
this contract. The amendment is subject to the approval of the city youth
attorney and any changes change orders may be approved by the city manager to
facilitate completion of this work and I >> support
roundabouts is perhaps a misnomer and I apologize for that. Technically traffic
circles would be exactly the same. TV time,
the typical teeny tiny. So, it's not going to be at the scale that you think
of when you think about roundabouts. Um, you may or may not think of them like
what you see up at Gettys Superior or at state andor. These are single lane uh
traffic circles uh that you may see more have seen over in neighborhoods in Ann
Arbor. Um they are intended to calm traffic and to facilitate traffic. So uh
these would be in lie of stop signs at several intersections but they do
overall have a significant effect upon how
traffic and compliance with speed limits. They do also serve to define the
amber as far as a maintenance and operational uh impact. they do have
uh
I don't want to say a positive impact upon maintenance because of course any
additional or different infrastructure does require more maintenance but in
scale of things from uh no intervention to
not throwing absolutely everything in the book including speed home speed
tables and uh bumpouts these are a lot easier to work around and through for
things like snow removal and even for salt water because they work with the
natural crown of the road.
Um, it it seems like we might run out of
time before you voting on this, which um I was actually probably going to suggest
we table this anyway because um I've been getting a lot of feedback
from residents on Cornell uh who were really not satisfied with
the public input session. Um, unfortunately, uh, I've been told by
more than a few people that they felt unheard by staff. Um,
and so I think we need another input session
um to for me to feel like any sort of plan moving forward would
make sense because I just got such negative feedback about it. And
I am wondering about the traffic circle idea. It seems kind of unconventional
for a residential neighborhood. So it's actually pretty popular right now. Um
there are lots and lots of Ann Arbor. We're seeing more of them in Pittsfield
Township and even road commission roads. Um so it would be brand new in its but
they're not new and they are broadly accepted in
other factories as well. I'm not saying I'm full I can be convinced. I'm just
like it is new. And I I did hear one resident ask for traffic circles, but
that was just resident. Most residents I was hearing from want more um access to
cross Cornell Street. So like better pedestrian
access. Um especially with the you know some of the crosswalks are not visually
safe because of the hill. >> Yeah.
» Um yeah so we are um all concepts included an improved crossing at
Whitmire uh for Whitmire I should say but it's a little bit up the hill from
Whitmire proper to address some of those visual concerns and then it's a raised
crosswalk as well. Yeah, it came up just to um just to point out that through our
federal funding, we have to have another public meeting for roundabouts
specifically. So, that has to be done or else MDOT won't even permit us or draw
too big for this. So, we did um budget that we're going to have some public
input to specifically for a roundabout, not about not even about traffic homing
or anything else, but if you're proposing a roundabout, but getting
these LAP funds, you have to do that. So, I just wanted to point that
» because they they can be squirrely, you know, they're they're new, so
» polarizing. >> Yes.
» Yes.
discussion.
» I mean, I would propose that this waits until we get another public input
that's not just specifically about the roundabout, but um that there's a little
bit more outreach to residents so that because it's going to be a major
project, full reconstruct, right? So, >> if we want to do it in 2027, we should
proceed. >> Um, I'm not going to operate under
urgency like that. I think there's enough um negative input from residents
that we should take it seriously and I'm sorry to bring that news, but you know,
I can miss this neighborhood very heavily. So, I know pretty well like the
level of dissatisfaction that's going on. So, and you propose that we um visit
this for next meeting uh so we can get input session
motion. >> Yeah, I move to do that.
» Okay, I support I need a I have a question.
the table that there is no
» right. Council member Fellows.
» Yes. >> Council member Tusen.
» No. >> Council member McClean.
» No. >> Council member King.
» Okay. >> Mayor Brown.
» No. >> Council member King.
No.
» Will that table go?
» Further discussion. All right. Please call the rules.
» Mayor R. >> Yes.
» Council member Fels, >> no.
» Council member Tusson, >> yes.
» Council member McCree, >> yes.
» Council member King, >> yes.
» Motion carries. >> Thank you.
» There does need to be more in to extend
» 11:15.
» If you're going to do it, please do it. >> All in favor till 11:15.
» All in favor?
I >> Okay.
by the council of city of SL where underground storage tanks US at both the
public works and the fire department fueling stations are experiencing vapor
lock when employees are trying to refuel vehicles and whereas the industry
standard solution is hurting the suction system to a submersible turbine pump and
the vapor locking issue does not occur with submersible turbine pumps. Whereas
the city's fuel management and monitoring equipment is in need of
upgrades which would optimize efficiency and accuracy in fuel management tracking
and reporting. Now therefore we have resolved that the city of landing city
council awards contract for underground storage tank pump conversion and
upgrades to the key reader at DEW and upgrading the DW fired beater root
monitoring systems to RW first serve in the total amount of 73,638
» support.
So point of personalization I don't feel well so I'm going to leave. Does that do
we have a form? Okay fine
questions from council advice.
Okay. Follow up, please.
» Council member McClean, >> yes.
» Council member King, >> yes.
» Mayor Bre, >> yes.
» Council member Tus, >> yes.
» Motion carries. >> Thank you, Council King. 208.
» I'll be back. Oh, you can't. >> Yeah.
» Yeah. Might we have a recess for one minute?
» Two minutes.
» Stretch these last week. Those
statements receive the next meeting.
We're back. Okay. >> Um, council member King.
» Okay. So, we are accepting and filing the appeal of Alex Alexander Monroe
today. I'm >> support
accepting the appeal acknowledging its receipt and then
» uh formal motion regarding PQR will be >> ruled upon at the next meeting.
» Okay. Is that good? Because you said that you have a microphone.
» Yeah. >> Yeah.
» All right. >> So we accept
a ruling will happen for the following meeting. The next meeting. Okay. Thank
you. >> Just get the next agenda.
» All right. Thank you so much. Um, >> fireworks.
» How's my thing? You have our last resolution.
» See, I have two of them here based on I have 191 and 192. Which one would you
like me to read first? >> Uh, 191.
» Okay. >> Right. Yes.
» Is that right? >> All right. Whereas the city of Italy has
received a request from Ace Pyro LLC for a pyroch permit for fireworks displays
on August 29th, September 4th or 26th, October [clears throat] 17th and 24th,
2026 said right here stadium 799 North Road, Eastern Michigan University and
where the fire department will require certain inspections. Now therefore be
resolved by the council city of SL that the pyro technic permit is approved for
ace pyro LLC subject to approval by the fire department. So
» support by council member Clint supported by council member two.
Um we have uh Chris Pavas here from Pyro. That's
» hi Chris. Thank so late. Sorry. >> Good evening. I get it. I get it.
» I it was pulled off for a couple of u I think questions. Um, I we get this every
year. Uh, so I don't know if we need a a lean in right now, but I do have a
question about the highlighted quote at the top. Can you just explain when it
says EMU has removed the audible effect fireworks for their football games? What
does that mean? The audible enhanced effect is um formerly we had a what we
call in the firework industry a salute go off with each touchdown uh at the
direction of EMU and concern last uh over the past years from city council.
We decided to remove that aerial salute. So now after each touchdown uh there
would only be what's called a mine where it's just um sparks that shoot up from
the ground. Uh it is still considered a firework uh but it is more of a whoosh
noise versus your typical uh just salute in the sky.
» Okay. >> Is that um
the the cannon? Does that still happen? >> We are not
» Yeah, we're not affiliated with the cannon. Uh I do have Will Stitilus. I
think he's on uh from the university. He's the assistant athletic director for
marketing. So if he's if he's here, he could speak to that.
» Oh, okay. Thank you. >> Hi, Will.
» Hello everyone. All right, here on the call.
» Thanks for hanging out so late. >> No problem. Apprec appreciate you guys'
time. >> Um,
» as it relates to the Cannon, that is something that is a related to like our
ROC program and is a tradition on game days. Uh typically it's fired off after
touchdowns, but uh obviously with the timing of our games, it runs a little
bit, but we are conscientious and we do note the 10 o'clock time frame that we
do work with on that and make sure that is communicated to all parties related
to games. >> And yes, I wasn't saying it to say I was
against I just wanted to clarify the difference between the the pyro and the
» Yep. Yeah, those are two separate entities.
Thank you, mayor. Yeah, and for the for those staying with us uh on the line, I
appreciate you doing that. Um no, I'm the one that pulled this off of the
consent agenda. Um, and I would say independent of this particular item on
the agenda, uh, I have received repeatedly
questions, comments, pleadings from, um, members of the community, uh, all of
them coming from College Heights, um, who have made
broader, uh, points about the amount of noise, uh, the decel level. Um, I think
it also the carrying that some may have something to do with all the um
trees that have been masquered by DTE. Um,
but there's there's some real concerns and and my interest is I hope that
having this conversation spark of dialogue with the community about
how late we do things, uh, how often we do things, uh, that make a lot of noise
and that scare pets and that keep people from being able to put their kids to
bed. and uh and generally make it difficult uh for those also veterans. Um
I've had broader other conversations about fireworks in general um and
continue to hear people uh who just don't like them and and the noise is the
main the main issue. So, as I told the mayor, I I'm not looking to rain on
anybody's parade here. not looking to uh not have this happen this year. Um I had
planned to vote no just simply to send that message and uh and ask that that be
a catalyst for a discussion. Um we've lost uh one of our members here a few
minutes ago. So with that, if I were to vote no uh then
these measures would fail. Um, and that's that's not what I'm trying to do.
So, I'm going to go ahead and support uh these two items. Uh, but I'm just I'm
hoping uh especially for our friends at EMU um that you would take the good
faith effort to have a conversation u with us with the community um and just
talk about what we might do uh to make it a little bit more more livable and
maybe look at the technological fixes that that might create some barriers uh
that would mitigate the the impact of some other noise.
I mean I'm happy to participate in any conversation or help to bridge whatever
is necessarily by multiple
to the university. So um okay anything further
call the vote please. >> Council member
» yes mayor Brown. >> Yes.
» Council member Tus. >> Yes.
» Council member McCree. >> Yes.
» Motion carries. >> Um so what is the second one? Cuz I only
have one that was on the agenda. So if I may, my apologies. Um
the sorry um Chris had asked that these be two separate because one was the
normal one that they have done before and this is an additional event that
they want to do after um the homecoming date. But
» oh >> Chris can explain that more.
» Okay. Well, it's 11:11. I don't I I think we need I think we need more than
four minutes. >> I do.
» All right. Right. I don't know. So, okay.
» Okay. >> No, it's not on the table yet.
» Okay. No, I'm I don't know. Go ahead. It's not on the table yet. So, you
» resolution 192. Where is city of received request M LC for additional
fire tech permit for an additional firework play at the conclusion of the
game on September 4th stadium 799 North Eastern Michigan University. Whereas
fire department will require certain inspections now therefore be resolved
with council cities. Perfect is approved by see by
» support >> supported. Hello again.
» Hello
» in two minutes. >> I I don't know what Okay, this is for
after the game. There's nothing else that we're supposed to hear about.
You want to explain what this is? >> Yeah. Uh and Will can chime in at any
point. This is for aerial display after the game. That'll be taking place by the
inter mural the intramural fields. Uh they uh requested ACE to do this to
enhance the um the entertainment package for the game. Um so postgame uh
10-minute firework display. Um again these are traditional professional
display fireworks. Um, and we have opted to not use anything that just goes up
and bangs and has no visual effect. Um, just out of respect since that's a noise
maker and we're trying to keep that out of the city. [snorts]
» No salutes. >> No salutes. Got it.
» Anything from council? >> No.
» Mayor Brown. >> Yes.
» Council member Tus. >> Yes. Council member MC.
» Council member King. >> Motion.
» Thank you. >> Thank you, council.
» Thank you. >> Anything pressing for council?
» No. >> Council member.
» I mean, no, we don't have enough time, but I do have a list.
As I >> uh anything I mean, we got two minutes
on Muslim. >> All right. Um I Okay, I'll bring
something in the last few minutes. Then I'll get point privileges from there. Um
the communication we got from embracing our differences about the destruction of
the fortress in Riverside Park. I don't know if you saw that. I got an email
from Nancy Margolas as well as one from Amanda Maymore about this and concerns
about not being able to continue using Riverside as the display. I do not want
to see that happen. So I we I I'll forward you what I got. I thought you
were CCed on there so we can talk about it. um because how can we support
keeping them in the in the park. It's been such a wonderful addition over the
the years. And I'm not exactly sure what happened and and when. Um but definitely
something that I I want us to look into and you know see what's happened down at
Riverside because that's really upsetting you know like I mean and
apparently the portraits like some of them are like destroyed pieces of them
are tape on top of the actual um structure that holds them up. Um, and I
plan to reach out to uh Nancy tomorrow to to find out more. Today just got
away. It was so busy today. >> 11:15.
» Good night. >> Good night.
» Sign off these things.