jackson county board of commissioners
meeting for 2014 to order
the invocation led by julie alexander
and the pledge of allegiance led by
addison alexander
julie
thank you
dear heavenly father
we humbly thank you for our many
blessings we are blessed as individuals
as a community and as a nation
it is easy to overlook and take for
granted the gifts you have bestowed on
us we take this moment to simply thank
you
please protect those that serve our
country at home and abroad our first
responders
law enforcement and military that serve
our great nation we ask in your holy
name amen
i believe addison who is four will
recite alone the pledge if not if any
grandma will proudly say we will join in
if that does not happen
okay ready
i pledge allegiance
to the flag of the united states of
america
and to the republic for which it stands
one nation under god indivisible
with liberty and justice for all
thank you addison
adam clerk could you please call the
roll
yes mr chair commissioner lutchka
commissioner rice
here
commissioner duckham here commissioner
alexander president commissioner mahoney
mr pelachick here
elwell
chairman chatwell here
we have eight present
at this time i'd like to entertain a
motion to approve the agenda
support
we have a motion and support
any additions deletions or corrections
seeing nor hearing none
all in favor of the agenda
those opposed
duly carried
awards and recognitions we have none
communications and petitions are there
any to be delivered to the clerk at this
time
seeing no hearing none we have no
special orders nor public hearings
we've arrived at the first opportunity
for public comment each individual will
state their name and have five minutes
to address the board you may only
address the board once under this public
comment opportunity and may not yield
your time to others board members will
not debate nor answer questions at this
time
opportunity for public comment first
time
you steve
my name is wendy chamberlain i'm
supervisor of parma township
go over to the mic
good
okay
thank you
at this time
i would like to speak for parma township
with regard to the street naming
ordinance or the amendment to it
i a supervisor and parma township
support the adoption
of the amendment to this ordinance
we have on several occasions had our
firefighters
our rescue
our police
have a difficult time locating
individuals
that are in one case most recently that
had been stabbed by a knife
he lives on what we call west court but
it's all addressed to michigan aves
i personally got a phone call
told the individuals where they could
find him
that's a concern
i've heard it tossed about that it's
going to cost too much
what price do we put on someone's life
what if it's your child
your parent what if it's yourself
i've read it
i've discussed it
ordinances are good in this respect
keeping in mind it's a working tool
and if there's a problem it can always
come forward again
for recognition
and amendment again
i have a lot of problems in parma
township
with
the non-sequencing
of numbers
in a quarter of them in an eighth of a
mile
i jump from the 19 000 number to a 17
000 number
that's very difficult
my building inspectors have told me they
have difficulty
finding properties
with this problem
we have the ordinance that requires
addressing for new properties
that's not a problem
but with the old problem or the old
properties that don't have the numbers
out
and it's out of sequence
that's where the problem is
i have roads that aren't named
they started out as a driveway
now they may have three or four houses
on it
if you have three or four houses on a
private access
that's addressed to the primary road
our local
firefighters
may know it
but what if it's mutual aid
i'm very concerned about health safety
and welfare for the residents in parma
township 30 seconds wendy and i want to
come on board first
to be a township that would be addressed
first
thank you
any other public comments
good evening commission
my name is jb dj i'm the president of
the village of brooklyn
i'm representing the village and we
oppose
what is written
i have read this in the street naming
and addressing ordinance
it is improved it is important to
improve the system
for public welfare
but we need to look at all the all of
the alternatives
i mean how many streets are there
the list was 52 pages and relatively
small font
which makes roughly 2 800 streets within
the county
27 of the 35 streets in the village of
brooklyn which amounts to roughly 77
percent
may be effective
108 in columbia township itself as well
we're trying to solve a problem that we
have with human air
i can understand that i understand that
the technology already exists at the
county level
now with what is called the advanced 911
system
perhaps better training would be a
solution
everything is recorded
voice and data
and where deficit deficiencies
can be shown more training can be given
my understanding is that the ambulance
the hva
does not have a problem going to the
wrong place
this alone
by renaming all these streets
still will not address
the issue of human error
out of towners i understand it's a
problem because they don't know where
they are well you can name the street
anything you want and they still aren't
going to know where they are
so it will not solve that uh
that problem the ordinance was
written open interpretation
and i believe that i do know some of the
people who would sit on the advisory
committee they're all good people and i
trust their judgment but that's those
who sit now what happens when it changes
over
we are presently part of the lrua
and i'm sure everybody can understand
what the
with the sewer district and the
contracts how open to interpretation has
caused many problems
in section 1a chapter 87 talks about
civil infractions
and when i read that
i see nothing about misdemeanors but in
your penalties misdemeanors can be given
and it seems a bit draconian as far as
the penalties
in section six point a point four and
six point b
point seven the villages are not to be
informed as all other government
entities are as far as changes that will
occur
there's a burden to private citizens and
businesses and government
a few things for the citizens
you have to change all your paperwork
mortgages insurance anybody you do
business with
wills power of attorney even your church
directory
the businesses
all advertising licensing state and
federal your business cards contracts
signages
it's a very excessive burden
as well as with government property
descriptions assessing
billing of water and sewer
not to mention the cost that would be
incurred by schools if they have to
change theirs the navigation systems
that we own in our cars and in garmin as
well as onstar will be obsolete for
several years to come
this appears to be an unfunded mandate
which i'm
sure that
no one appreciates having unfi unfunded
mandates
are there surplus funds
what is the true cost
and regardless of where the government
funds do come from ultimately those
government funds come from the taxpayers
themselves
i do understand parma township's
situation she had many she had several
points
that i think are valid
but it does not necessarily mean that we
need to make wholesale changes instead
of
taking care of the problems individually
i thank you for your time
my name is tom miller i'm here as a tax
paying citizen
in opposition to the street naming and
addressing ordinance
while i
applaud
the commissioner's concern with safety
and the well-being of
our people
i don't think that
allocating those types of resources is
something
that you get the best
return on
there are other ways to improve the
safety that would be less expensive and
less onerous on the people
as
the previous speaker talked about
businesses will pay a huge price
if their street name is changed
in many ways
i could go back to my own experience
when i would lived in toledo ohio
they considered changing the name of one
of the streets
and when they really looked into it the
cost that it was going to cost their
citizens and their businesses they
dropped it
because it's an exorbitant
cost
now some of the things in the ordinance
i think are good
renumbering when there's a problem those
types of things but the whole sale
changing
of names
would be very expensive and it would
take a toll on the people
of jackson county
thank you
hello i'm pamela johnson i'm a trustee
from norvell township norville township
is opposed to the addressing ordinance
as it stands right now for many of the
reasons that the gentleman that spoke to
you in front of me stated i am also a
business owner in our community i own a
radio shack franchise and i've had it
for nearly 30 years
my address is listed on innumerable
websites that are national
i am also tied in with different cell
phone companies and things like that
in our community i'm on main street if
these changes are made
30 years of my my business cards my
letter had
my customers and everything else could
go by the wayside it would be an
astronomical expense for me as a
business person to have to redo
everything associated with my business
so from both sides there the government
side and the business owner side
please not the way it's written and the
way it stands thank you
any other public comment
dan weimer napoleon township supervisor
also speaking in opposition to the
proposed changes to the ordinance
i've provided
three sets of written feedback to the
committee
various concerns that i have with
several different iterations of the
ordinance as it's gone through various
edits
i guess the the main point that i would
like to make is
the technology is available to solve
this problem
if you know where the phone is that a
person is calling from you know where
the problem is in an emergency situation
the technology is available to identify
the location of cell phones there is an
app you can buy to put on your cell
phone and on your computer
uh your desktop computer and anytime
your phone is somewhere that you don't
know where it is it can tell you exactly
where it is and the information is
available the technology is is there
i believe we should be going down that
path to solve this problem rather than
putting such a huge burden on residents
and businesses to change
potentially thousands of addresses
so thank you
any other public comment
put the comments now closed
we have no special meetings of the board
we've arrived at the approval of the
minutes of the october 21st 2014 meeting
i have a motion and support
any corrections or deletions
seeing or hearing none all in favor
proposed
duly carried
we've arrived at the consent agenda
entertain a motion for the consent
agenda
we have a motion and support any items
for removal
getting our hearing none
madam clerk did you post the vote
consent agenda passed unanimously
thank you
we've now arrived at standing committees
affairs and agencies commission chaired
by commissioner david alwa commissioner
thank you mr chairman we have a
group of appointments tonight
give me just a second if you would
please
we had two committees region two
planning commission the current member
is teresa abbey there have still been no
applicants and therefore no
recommendation from committee
we also have the parks and rec board
which expires december of this year uh
the most recent member was michael rand
there were no applicants for committing
nor recommendations
commissioner david elwell
david lutzky i apologize
hi brother
we have an open nomination from the
floor to serve on the parks and
recreation board are there any other
nominations from the floor
seeing or hearing none
all in favor of kenny price being
appointed to the parks and rec board
those opposed
duly carried commission railwell
no additional business mr chairman thank
you
standing committee report human services
chaired by commissioner julie alexander
commissioner alexander
thank you mr chair human services
committee has no business to bring to
the board
thank you standing committee report
personnel and finance chaired by the
vice chairman philip ducam commissioner
duchamp
mr chair personnel finance has no
business to conduct tonight thank you very much
and we've arrived at an unfinished
business we have item a the leoni sra
bond resolution
is a discussion item i'm going to let
the county administrator controller
speak to it
administrator overton
thank you
as everybody recalls that our last
opportunity to discuss this
i indicated at that time that i would be
bringing forward a resolution
with hopes of
passing tonight
but the truth be told after speaking
with legal counsel
we have to wait for them to default so i
want to make it very clear
if leone
maybe retract that if we the county do
not have the bond payment as of december
1st
we will declare leone in default on the
bond payment at such time
this resolution
will be eligible and i would want to
have a potentially a special meeting to
go ahead and move as quickly as possible
to declare default notify the state
treasurer
so that they could start procedures to
withhold
some of their state revenue sharing
as well as
we've already done the calculations on
the math for what the millage rate would
be
it'd be .1688
and that millage rate would be passed on
to every
property owner in leone township
assuming the board were to approve the
resolution in december that's assuming
they don't
pay the bond
commissioner
would it make sense to send them a copy
of the resolution even though we haven't
approved it yet so they know what's
coming if they don't or would that be
too forward they have it very good i've
shared that with them
commissioner
this is only for the interest payment
this time there's no principal payment
on this that's correct this payment
would be
seventy seven thousand eight hundred and
twelve dollars
commissioner
uh just to make my fellow commissioners
aware of this uh
leone township board is having a special
meeting tomorrow morning
you're all welcome to attend it's at 10
o'clock in the morning
and they're going to readdress the
voting on the bond payment just to let
you know
any other commissioner comments
any other comments from the
administrator controller's office i have
nothing to add
as chairman i believe it would be
responsible and appropriate
for us to set a december 2nd 8 a.m
special board of commissioners meeting
for that as soon as we can act and this
would allow us to have two weeks notice
on that meeting to be published
can i entertain a motion from someone
we have a motion and support any
discussion to the motion
that's assuming they default correct
okay
correct we can cancel a meeting anytime
we'd like we do need to give public
notice
to when we're going to have a meeting
we have a motion and support any further
discussion to the item
mr elbow i'm just going to say i think
it's the discretion of the chair really
to call a special meeting if you so
chose would it not be without a motion
or
it would be but it's much easier to do
it here because i don't have to send
sheriff deputies out to get you guys
all in favor of the motion
all right those opposed motion carried
eight zero
new business
draft addressing addressing ordinance
this is for discussion only this is not
a first reading or anything like
that i'm looking for commissioner
comments at this time commissioner
elwell
i've been pretty quiet about it publicly
up until now i've sat and listened to
comments from the public here at a
couple other public board meetings i do
have strong thoughts on it i guess and i
don't support
the street addressing ordinance at this
point
and i think there have been enough
points raised by the local communities
to make it clear to us that there's
probably a majority that do not support
it i do agree that safety should be the
primary issue but there are other things
that can be done to assure accuracy and
therefore safety that includes training
expanded use of gps and other technology
i think the original plan for the street
addressing ordinance was to only bring
forth changes brought by local
government to the board of commissioners
and that may be a happy middle ground
that we could still work towards
i also am disappointed that
the city was exempted from the ordinance
i think that just opens up a larger can
of worms
with a number of streets in the city
that would be duplicated outside or are
duplicated outside the city and i
understand they couldn't do it but it
doesn't mean we have to like that
the cost issue has been raised it's not
just the physical cost of changing signs
but stationary
and so many other things mentioned by
the previous speakers during public
comment
i also heard an issue raised last night
about filings with a register of deeds
office that
apparently used what's called a common
address i don't know what this would do
to that if some of those changed
by this there's also as i recall not
an appeal
for decisions by the committee to the
board of commissioners in the current
version that might be something easy to
fix but it's something that i don't
think is in there i've also heard the
comments that
the committee would be reasonable jb
mentioned that he trusted the people on
the committee so do i
but reasonable really is a matter of
opinion and interpretation
and
i think really if if there's a law which
this would be that is written
people expect laws that are written to
be followed and enforced
and to write them without the that
expectation is in my opinion stupid and
a waste of time
uh i also note that there's a mandatory
requirement for every address in the
county to be posted
is it realistic to really
expect that we're going to go after that
and enforce that at the risk of
prosecution
and i will lastly say that i do strongly
support
the ideas
behind this ordinance from this point
moving forward
but not retroactively and not to cause
a bunch of changes to street names thank
you
any other commissioner comments
commissioner.com then commissioner
alexander
thank you mr chair
uh first of all
public safety aspect of this
okay
i i support the uh
the issue of public safety
uh but as points have already been
spoken uh i do believe there's other
methods
to uh
to correct some of the problems probably
not all a lot of it some of the issues
we've had has been
uh
just uh human error
and uh
this could be could have to be spoken to
with greater training but we don't have
any perfect humans
and i'd like to preface what i say with
the fact that it's a difficult job this
addressing
and street naming ordinance it's a
thankless job and and no disrespect to
the people
sat on the committee
but i just don't feel that
this is
there's too much left to interpretation
here and and like
the
president from the village of brooklyn
said
i trust the people's on the board right
now
to make the right decisions on on these
issues
but there's too
much that isn't written into the
ordinance
options such as
not changing the street name but
changing the addresses from three digit
addresses to four digit addresses and
leaving the names the same
i'm told that's an option
however it's it doesn't say anywhere in
the ordinance that that is an option
so
while the board
the addressing board
may be
workable on these issues such as giving
you an option to do that
that's the current board
the next board may say
nowhere in the ordinance does it say
you're allowed to do this so
it's a difficult issue i understand that
but there's a huge economic impact for
the people i represent in district four
and probably every area of the county
and
at this point in time i can't support
this ordinance as written
going forward i'd certainly
not allow any duplicate names street
names
this duplicate sounding spree street
names or duplicating addresses but
if i go backwards and correct
the many years of uh
addressing and street naming we've done
i can't support going back on that thank
you mr chair first of all i'd like
to publicly acknowledge uh what the
committee consists of
the original adoption by the board of
commission for street naming and address
ordinance
placed on this committee on the original
committee
the following individuals
two copies here
again going back to 2006.
the committee will consist of the
following individuals a jackson county
commissioner
county clerk road commissioner
representative from the u.s postal
office 911 central dispatch county
jackson county gis and the affected
governmental unit
the new ordinance the new proposed
revised ordinance
has everything
again similar with the exception of
adding
the chair of the jackson county township
supervisor association so again serving
on this committee would be
one county commissioner county clerk
register of deed
representative from the township
supervisors association
a county jdot employee
u.s postal service 911 central dispatch
and county gis coordinator so
understanding that's the committee
those are the individuals that are going
to review any issues that come up
if issues come up and that knowledgeable
and informed committee
make decisions that constituents believe
are not in their best interest
i have the utmost respect for all of
those of you that live on main street in
jackson county or michigan avenue or
jackson street
those are issues to be discussed
if this ordinance is not written
correctly then that needs then the
ordinance needs to be modified and those
suggestions will be taken by the
committee
but to sit here and say the ordinance
isn't good i don't like the five hundred
dollars it costs too much
that goes back to the original ordinance
that was written on july 18 2006.
so to say that the ordinance isn't good
the ordinance is the ordinance and that
is in place right now so i think we can
all agree i think we need to find some
common ground here
we know that modifications need to be
done
what are the modifications that this
board would like to see
what places can we move forward with
do we see that
addresses that are out of sequence are
our priority
do we see that private roads that have
the same name as the road that they are
coming off of are a priority
again that is the information that i
believe the committee would like to see
and have and
easily could move forward with in a
collaborative manner
commercial
um
to address one issue you can't put every
single scenario that might arise in an
ordinance
i mean you can't you can't think of them
and you can't put them in there because
once you put them in there
you have no choice but to absolutely
follow that you have to have some
flexibility to make the thing functional
um
the the numbering sequence
is terrible i mean you got
fedex trucks and ups trucks running up
and down the road trying to find people
i mean they pull into our yard all the
time wanting to know how where the next
number
next door neighbor is that's two miles
down the road when the numbers start
over again i mean you get there's common
sense things that need to be taken care
of
um
some of the things i heard tonight might
and and i know i'm not on the committee
and maybe it wasn't thought of before
was
maybe businesses
need to be handled differently than
residences
a business is
should be
more well known to
the delivery people and the ones
providing services than
some of the individuals
that
live on a private road that doesn't have
a name
so i
mr rice
thank you mr chairman
um i also appreciate everybody that got
up and spoke tonight
whether it be pro con
is not the issue uh
um you had something to say and i
appreciate you saying it
um
what i do want to comment though is on
uh
today i write a today i read an article
and uh
in that article the statement was
and it questioned if the policy in this
case of course we're talking about this
ordinance question if the policy wasn't
being
initiated due to inept training
and inept employees at the county level
i find this to be wrong and in poor
taste let me comment further
first
consumer's power
had
the task of street addresses in the
first place
they didn't want anything to do with it
they screwed it up it didn't work
so in 2006
county puts together an ordinance
the townships have the responsibility to
deal with the addresses streets
except for a couple exceptions
the scope of work was not completed
now
jackson county from my perspective
not only
is obligated to do this
but if we're going to follow our
strategic priorities
and public safety being number two has
been number one for years
if we're truly gonna follow
that as a strategic priority
then that's what we need to do
anybody that's been out there as a
police officer anybody that's been out
there on a campaign trail anybody's been
better first responder anybody that's
just went into a neighborhood to find an
address
many many times you can't find it
and i realize there's technology down
the road there's this and that
but the fact is
this is a responsibility that's been put
on but in our labs because the work
wasn't done before
and those are my comments thank you
any other commissioner comments
you have your
notes from the board of commissioners
we wait for the december study session
correct
okay
if
this isn't something that the county
just
fought up and said oh we need this
ordinance there's a state law that says
that the counties have
the authority to go ahead
and
for public safety make
ordinance
we're looking for legal clarification on
that dave
to make sure that we've got it
okay what was it it's listed in the
original ordinance so i okay
did you want to comment phil
i i could think of one more
we're talking public safety
but
one more scenario
that that's gonna happen because of
humans being imperfect
and that's
people whether it be police car
ambulance uh fire department vehicle
dispatch gonna say
something like
cooper street
everybody remembers where cooper street
used to be
and it's been changed and
we're gonna get a police car or a safety
public safety vehicle
because if you grew up in the area
and you know where all the roads are you
know all the names
it's gonna be a big learning curve to
erase that out of your mind
and go to the newly changed name
and
i could see a lot of uh
emergency dispatch calls
going in the wrong direction because
that's where the road used to be and uh
i say we gotta
work more towards the technology end of
it
and try to eliminate the human error
because this will open the window to
probably
several years of human error until
google map maps and such catch up with
uh
with the times
and then the street changes
question alexander
before we meet for study session i'm
getting two varied pieces of information
very knowledgeable and resourceful
people that i respect have given me the
information that when an individual
calls on a cell phone
that that location of that cell phone
is then
displayed
on the screen at dispatch center
however when i'm asking other
individuals who again are very
knowledgeable i am being told that the
location is not that of the cell phone
it's that of the cell tower and that the
fcc has not mandated that it's the
actual location and will not come 2018
it will give more information closer to
it but i think that's a critical
question here we need to ask so we're
picking up the phone and we're calling
9-1-1 on our cell phone can we make the
assumption that they know where we're at
based on where i'm at with my cell tower
because that to me is a critical piece
of information that we would need to
have so i would like clarification on
that please
mr elwell
well knowing that we just spent what
million dollars on our dispatch center i
would think that we have the most
up-to-date equipment on it
but prior to the meeting tonight i went
to the verizon wireless website and
looked up their frequently asked
questions and i'll read a
very brief portion of it it says we also
provide peace apps public safety
answering points
with what's known as enhanced 911 or
e911 service
where psaps have upgraded their
equipment
e911 automatically provides call takers
with the mobile phone number the cell
site and sector and the estimated
latitude and longitude
location of the 9-1-1 caller if the psap
is capable of receiving it i have to
believe that ours is when i drilled down
a little further in the comments to see
how close it was
it estimated between 50 and 150 meters
50 meters being 164 feet
i would think that's close enough to
figure out where somebody's at
and that's off the verizon website
any other commissioner comments
seeing none again
please keep getting with the committee
scott aims to get questions answered and
share stuff with commissioners as you
are concerned or your commissioners
and we'll talk more about it at december
study session
as chairman of the board i'd like to at
this time to recognize commissioner
sarah lightner who's been requested to
serve on the judiciary and public safety
committee for mac
and i would have hoped to get the
board's endorsement
of that
entertain a motion please
we have a motion and support
any comments
seeing none
all in favor
proposed
be noted 8-0
thank you sarah
we've now arrived at the second
opportunity for public comment
is there any public comment
seeing none
any commissioner comments
mr duckham
yes i'd like to thank the uh
representatives from the village of
brooklyn columbia township napoleon
township but norville township
for taking the time to come up here
tonight nasty weather slippery roads
to express your viewpoints and concerns
on this ordinance
i i believe we we need we got to do
something but i just don't feel this is
ready yet and
i i appreciate you coming up with your
comments and concerns thank you
any other commissioner comments
seeing or hearing none we have no closed
session a reminder reminder from the
chair that the december tuesday night
meeting will be starting at 5 pm
be aware of that
seeing no other business to come before
the board we are adjourned
you