[0:01] All right. I'd like to go ahead and call this regular city council meeting to

[0:04] order on Monday, March 19th, 2026 at 6 p.m. If we could rise with pled of

[0:09] allegiance, please. >> I pledge the algiance to the flag of the

[0:15] United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation

[0:20] under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[0:27] » Holly, will you call the role, please? Bloodwick

[0:30] » here. >> Haynes, Jenkins

[0:32] » here, >> Grimes

[0:34] » here, >> Gilroy

[0:35] » here, >> Hansen,

[0:36] » yes. >> Uh, we also had notification from

[0:39] Councilman Haynes and Councilman Vanzberg that they would not be able to

[0:42] be here this evening. I'm looking for a motion to excuse your absence.

[0:46] » So move. >> Do I have support?

[0:47] » Second. >> Thank you. All in favor say I.

[0:50] » I opposed. Motion carries. I'm looking for approval of this evening's agenda

[0:56] unless there are changes that need to be noted. to approve.

[0:59] » Thank you. Support. >> Second.

[1:01] » All right. Thank you. All those in favor say I.

[1:03] » I. >> Opposed. Motion carries.

[1:07] » Just as an aside, if we had one more person gone, we couldn't meet. Is that

[1:10] right? >> Uh, no. We four. We have four, but then

[1:13] everything has to be unanimous and nobody can vote no.

[1:16] » Okay. >> But if you vote no,

[1:18] » let's never get to that point. >> Thank you, Carrie.

[1:21] » All righty. Now, we have an opportunity for audience participation with a

[1:25] maximum of five minutes per presentation. Would anybody like to come

[1:28] forward? Please come forward. State your name for us.

[1:35] Caroline Canarelli. >> Hi Caroline. How are you? We haven't

[1:38] seen you in a while. >> I know.

[1:42] » Can't come out with our golf carts anymore.

[1:45] » Why not? >> Okay. This is a concern about the lights

[1:50] that go through town and we notice that you're

[1:55] doing away with the amber lights and you're putting in the white lights.

[2:00] » Okay. >> Why?

[2:02] » Um I'll go ahead and respond to that. We usually don't respond during public

[2:06] comment, but those are DTE lights and those lights, those ballots are all

[2:12] getting changed so so that they can be uniform and it's a DTE issue. So, I

[2:17] appreciate your >> I've had so many people tell me and

[2:21] friends and relatives that come in town how how nice it is with the amber lights

[2:26] ambient, you know, >> and those are are probably reaching

[2:30] their life expectancy. You'll notice those are only on South Putham and the

[2:34] rest are, you know, all that new LED [clears throat]

[2:37] and so, you know, >> six of them right downtown.

[2:40] » Yeah. I'm sorry. >> That's too bad. Well, but thank you for

[2:44] coming out on such a sunny day, Caroline.

[2:46] » Appreciate it. >> Would anybody else like to come forward

[2:48] during public comment? >> Yeah, feel free. Please

[2:53] » state your name for us. >> Hi, Marie Bowen. Uh, I just came here to

[2:57] introduce myself. I'm opening Run Boo, which is a run and strength studio in

[3:01] town. Our grand opening is April 11th, and hopefully we can schedule a ribbon

[3:06] cutting ceremony and see you guys all there.

[3:09] » All right. Thanks so much for coming and introducing you yourself and we're

[3:13] excited to have another business down in our our uh downtown area.

[3:16] » Thank you. I'm excited to collaborate. >> Thank you. Anyone else at this time? All

[3:22] right. Moving forward, we've got our council meeting minutes of February

[3:25] 23rd, 2026. I'm looking for approval unless there are changes that need to be

[3:30] noted. >> Move to approve.

[3:32] » Do I have support? >> Thank you. All those in favor say I. I.

[3:36] » I. Opposed. Motion carries. Terry, you had an opportunity to review accounts

[3:42] payable. Can you tell us where the money went?

[3:45] » Where did all that money go? Okay, so um an interesting thing I said last time

[3:49] that was not quite correct. I said the street lights are 50% of our electric

[3:55] bill. That's not quite the case. It's 50% of what you might call the municipal

[3:58] electric bill. So, the municipal electric bill includes all of our DPW

[4:03] buildings, this building right here, police station, some of the lift

[4:06] stations and other things like that, but that's only about half. There's the

[4:10] other half, which I saw this time, is the wastewater treatment plant and the

[4:13] water treatment plant, which are big, big electric loads. So, street lights

[4:17] are actually only about one quarter of our total electric bill. And one of the

[4:21] reasons why we've got the white ones coming in, they're less expensive. So,

[4:24] » for what? >> They're less expensive to run.

[4:27] They're less expensive. >> Yeah. Yeah. So I Yeah. Um so that's my

[4:34] interesting thing in >> Thank you, Carrie. Appreciate it.

[4:37] » Time around. And as usual, this this just gobsmacks me. The um the advil

[4:42] valorum things that we pay to other government units were again 80% of the

[4:47] amount of money that we spent in our budget.

[4:49] » Yep. So, um, with that,

[4:52] » all right, >> I will, uh, make a motion to approve

[4:56] checks 78908-78,928

[5:00] and AC2099-2133

[5:04] for a grand total of 864,428.25.

[5:09] » Thank you very much, Terry. Does anybody have any questions regarding accounts

[5:12] payable this week? >> All right, I'm looking for

[5:14] » Oh, one other interesting thing. Um, if you get caught driving while

[5:18] intoxicated, it's going to cost you 10 $15,000, something like that. It's a

[5:22] very expensive thing. Well, I found out this time around, it's also expensive

[5:25] for the municipality that catches you and and charges you. Yeah. So, we're

[5:30] having to pay uh lawyer Romley, I think it is. We're having to pay them because

[5:34] we're prosecuting an EWI, >> but I think we get it back if with as

[5:39] part of a conviction. So, that's what John said. That was

[5:42] » more trivia. Thank you. All right. All right. I'm looking for support.

[5:45] [clears throat] >> Support.

[5:47] » Thank you. Holly, will you call the role, please?

[5:49] » Ryan, >> yes.

[5:50] » Gilroy, >> yes.

[5:51] » Lewig, >> yes.

[5:52] » Hansen, >> yes.

[5:53] » Jenkins, >> yes.

[5:55] » All right. We have a very short list of action items this evening. Our first is

[6:00] to set budget work session dates. Monday, May 11th or T and Tuesday, May

[6:07] 26. We do have a memo in our packet from our city manager, John Hanniban. I'll

[6:11] turn it over to him. >> Thank you. This is part of the annual

[6:14] budget process for our fiscal year. Um per charter a draft budget is required

[6:18] to be presented to council by the April April. It's the first meeting in April.

[6:22] This year it's April 13th. And then part of the uh process is the work sessions

[6:27] that we have the two a minimum of two. We've never gone beyond that but there's

[6:31] nothing that says that we can't. And then the public hearings for the

[6:34] millillage rates, utility rates and fees and then the fiscal year budget.

[6:38] [laughter] reason we do these early. I mean, we're required by charter to have

[6:41] a budget adopted by the end of June. This gives us plenty of time. Um, if

[6:45] there's, it's happened before throughout my career. There's changes to weather,

[6:49] building issues. So, you can, you know, come back later at a later date and and

[6:53] finish the process. So, pretty simple. tonight. It's just the motions to set

[6:57] the budget work sessions for Monday, May 11th, and Tuesday, May 26th, which is

[7:02] the day after Memorial Day, >> and then to set the the public hearings

[7:06] for the millage rates, utility rates, and fiscal year on the 26th.

[7:10] » All right, great. Any questions before I call for that motion? We're going to

[7:15] need two motions. So, I'm looking for the f first motion, please.

[7:18] I'd move that we set our budget work sessions as provided May 11th and May

[7:24] 26th. >> Thank you. Do I have support?

[7:27] » All right. Hollywood, call the role, please.

[7:29] » Rimes, >> yes.

[7:30] » Gilroy, >> yes.

[7:30] » Leadwick, >> yes.

[7:31] » Hansen, >> yes.

[7:32] » Jenkins, >> yes.

[7:34] » All right. And I'm looking for that second motion, please.

[7:37] » Make a motion to set the following public hearings for May 26th of this

[7:40] year. Fiscal year 26 27 mill rates. Fiscal year 2627 utility rates and fees.

[7:46] Fiscal year 26 27 fiscal year budget. >> Thank you. Do I have support?

[7:50] » Support. >> Thank you. Holly, will you call the

[7:52] role, please? >> Gilroy,

[7:54] » yes. >> Lewig,

[7:55] » yes. >> Hansen,

[7:56] » yes. >> Jenkins,

[7:57] » yes. >> Ryan,

[7:58] » yes. >> All right. Our last action item of this

[8:02] evening is easement for Innovation Parkway. And we do have a memo in our

[8:06] packet. I'll turn that over to our city manager, John Anaban.

[8:09] » Thank you. So, the goal here is to to grant a easement 101 Innovation LLC,

[8:14] which is the the LLC that owns the the currently vacant PI engineering

[8:18] building. Innovation Parkway is the driveway that services that parking lot.

[8:24] And if you can you can see on the aerial there there's a stub out that originally

[8:29] was intended, but based on my research was to was going to go all the way to um

[8:34] Centurion Way, which is one of the loot roads and the uh the uh industrial park.

[8:39] Um what came to light is there is a purchase agreement for that building and

[8:43] as part of their due diligence it was discovered that while there was an

[8:46] easement, the easement was not correctly described from a from a

[8:52] kind of a meets and bounds perspective from a survey um nor

[8:55] [cough and clears throat] was it ever registered. So when we acquired that

[9:00] property, this is part of that. It's actually on the property that we own.

[9:05] Um, and that's just one of those those interesting anomalies when you work in a

[9:08] town long enough. Um, so what we're asking for is simply to allow that that

[9:12] driveway to be included in an easement. The easement language was prepared and

[9:16] reviewed by by Mr. Cron's office. It doesn't grant an exclusive right. It

[9:22] just allows the building to have access to it. Um, and it's not a public street.

[9:27] We're not required to maintain it. And it certainly it it meets the end goal of

[9:31] when we we acquired that property. If it can facilitate the sale of that that

[9:35] that property to a a new entity and have a have it be occupied by some sort of

[9:40] business, that's a good thing. So I'd have you happy to try and answer any

[9:44] questions you may have. I mean I was doing researching the archives and uh

[9:49] there was a recommendation for that road to go all the way through but somehow

[9:52] that that got you know abandoned somewhere along the lines about like I

[9:56] said about 20 years ago. All right. Any questions? Yes, Dan.

[10:00] » With this easement, you said it doesn't grant them exclusive rights. Let's say,

[10:04] you know, we've just reacquired a lot of this property. If in the future we

[10:08] wanted that to go the whole way through with this easement, that would still be

[10:11] feas. Absolutely. >> Anyone else? Any questions? No question.

[10:16] » All right. Great question. Thank you. >> Yeah. Yeah. They there is there's no

[10:22] obligation for the city to maintain it because it is a it is a private drive

[10:26] effectively. >> Okay. Great. I'm looking for someone to

[10:29] make the motion then. >> Where is that motion?

[10:34] » It's going to be down on the bottom of the first page.

[10:38] » Make a motion to grant the attached easement to 101 Innovation LLC, a

[10:44] Michigan Limited Liability Company, whose address is 2375

[10:49] Woodlake Drive, Sweet 380 Okamus, Michigan 48864.

[10:56] Thank you so much. Do I have support? >> Thank you. If there's no other

[10:59] questions, Holly, would you call the role, please?

[11:01] » Lewick, >> yes.

[11:02] » Hansen, >> yes.

[11:03] » Jenkins, >> yes.

[11:05] » Ryan, >> yes.

[11:06] » Gilroy, >> yes.

[11:07] » All right, that concludes our action items for this evening. Moving down

[11:10] along our agenda, we have our discussion items, which is our main four safety

[11:14] improvements. Do we have any >> Nothing to update this time. Haven't

[11:17] haven't heard back from the state, but that was to be expected.

[11:20] » All right. Continuing along our agenda, correspondence received. We do not have

[11:25] anything. So, we'll move right into department head reports and I'll go back

[11:29] to our city manager John Han for his >> just a couple of of brief things. Um,

[11:34] last Friday the the mayor and the chief of police, we were invited to business

[11:39] leadership lunchon which I thought was excellent and well attended. We had some

[11:42] folks here in the audience that were there. I thought it was a really good

[11:46] discussion and a dialogue about, you know, bringing the business community

[11:50] together and talk through common common issues and and, you know, strategize on

[11:54] how to to make Wellington an even better place. So, I thought that was a really

[11:57] good first step. So, that was good. Um, about a year ago, we adopted you, we put

[12:03] these resolutions in front of you seeking grant funds, and I always with

[12:07] the qualifier that it's usually difficult for us in particular because

[12:11] we're we're we're a non-entitlement community. that means that we're doing

[12:14] really well. But I'm happy to announce that we did receive a4 million grant to

[12:18] help pave Industrial Park Drive in Progress Court. So that's part of the

[12:22] TED FB project. No idea what that afterward. I could make up what it

[12:26] means, but you could look it up if you really needed to know. So that is uh

[12:32] 2026 uh fiscal year project for the state. So, we're going to be required to

[12:36] have that as they call obligated before the end of the state's fiscal year,

[12:40] which is uh the last day in September of this year. But, um based on that, we had

[12:45] planned to do those projects as part of the they are in the TIFFA district and

[12:49] so it's TIFFA funds that that are paying for it. Um we'll still have plenty of

[12:53] funds to do that if we do in fact actually have to build it this summer.

[12:56] We got a meeting with MDOT MDOT representative next week to talk about

[13:00] that whether we just have to have it obligated which means bid it out in this

[13:04] their current fiscal year and then for us do it like next May if possible we

[13:09] may do that. One thing that will allow us to do we'll we'll get a really great

[13:13] economy of scale for paving because as you know the plan and it's been

[13:17] presented in the visioning session to do mail and railroad streets

[13:20] » and we can bundle this project together. So we'll really save a lot on

[13:24] mobilization. So, um, so beyond the grant funds and it's great. Um, it's

[13:29] it's will really help queue up a lot of good things. So,

[13:32] » excellent. >> So, it was a good way to end the week

[13:34] last. >> Yeah, that's great. That's great news.

[13:36] » Sort of a related thing. Remember [clears throat] that 300,000 from

[13:39] Senator Water something something was going to do was Lloyd Street and uh

[13:44] William Street and it was kind of pending pending pending. Did we ever get

[13:48] that money? >> Three million.

[13:50] » Three million was what the total grant was.

[13:52] » So, so we're awarded that. We haven't we haven't received an allocation from

[13:56] that, but we we expect to receive that. >> That was one of the things um John

[14:01] covered that in uh our visioning, I think, where we have to fill fill out

[14:06] some more paperwork >> and then uh once that's hopefully the

[14:10] first branch will come through. >> We'll we'll keep shaking that limb on

[14:13] that money tree at the state of Michigan to get our money. Well, and and on that

[14:17] and on that front, I mean, the the congressional earmarks, which is the

[14:22] nice way, there's a like a, you know, more derogatory term for those

[14:26] » or somebody. >> Yeah.

[14:27] » Well, no [laughter] for the program

[14:31] more derogatory term for pork rail projects is what they were called.

[14:34] » I just said, >> but anyway, no. Don't turn this.

[14:38] » No, no, no. My my my point is bring it back around.

[14:41] » There's congressional ear marks again. There's Senate eararks again. So those

[14:46] are all due right right this month. And so we we've submitted every year that

[14:51] I've been here for those for wastewater plant improvements and we'll do that

[14:55] again this year. And you know we'll cross our fingers. It's it's it's a

[14:58] challenge. It's difficult but we were successful once which sometimes helps

[15:02] sometimes doesn't. So >> but we'll keep at it.

[15:05] » See the fans how long we've been waiting for that. Is it a year? Is it a year and

[15:08] a half? >> It's roughly a year and a half.

[15:10] » Year and half. >> Okay. Right. Just going.

[15:13] » That's all I have. All right. Thank you, Chief. Thank you for your memo and here.

[15:17] Would you like to expound upon it? >> Uh, the only thing to highlight is we

[15:22] did um if you recall, we had the lean, the law enforcement identification

[15:27] network uh audit that we came through to find colors. Thanks to officer Smith and

[15:33] Vonnie uh did a great job. But we also uh last month had our M goals, the

[15:38] Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards assessment which assessed uh

[15:43] three areas of the department, our training program policy and employee

[15:48] history records and they know we had full compliance with no issues. So that

[15:53] was those are the two big audits by the uh by the state if you will and we did

[15:59] great and and we provided escort for the Williamson High School wrestling uh team

[16:05] members that went to states uh last week.

[16:10] And you guys do so many great things. And I just have to compliment you with

[16:15] Officer Pong helping one of our military service persons coming home.

[16:23] If you didn't see it on Facebook and see the video, you absolutely should. But

[16:27] Officer Pong um executed a traffic stop on this military service person's family

[16:33] in front. They had no idea that the military service person was in the car

[16:38] with Officer Bong. And so he got to surprise his family that he was back

[16:43] from deployment. Y >> and I think he had been a year in

[16:46] » year in Korea. >> A year in Korea. So just wonderful. So

[16:50] » it was great. >> You do a lot of great things, but it's

[16:53] these other little things that make it just so special. that uh that had the

[16:57] most uh Facebook uh stats, most Facebook likes, loves, comments of any Facebook

[17:04] post we've ever had. >> Excellent. Keep it up. Keep it up.

[17:06] » Watch it when you're done and grab your tissue.

[17:08] » So, just so you know, you can ask the police department to do special things.

[17:12] They will uh they'll come up with something very clever and um you know,

[17:15] let's see if we can beat that Facebook, you know, post.

[17:19] » Thank you. And please extend thank you to Officer Belong.

[17:22] » I will. >> All righty. um in our P. Yeah. Yes. Go

[17:27] ahead. >> I had a question for Chief as it relates

[17:29] to the M. Cole's audit. Is that a pass fail or is that uh rated on a percentage

[17:36] basis as to how well you comply? >> The the lean audit is pass fail. Uh the

[17:41] the second one, the MCOS is is an assessment which isn't necessarily past

[17:46] fail, but you do have to as they describe it to us, you do have to comply

[17:50] with uh uh these three areas. Uh if you don't comply, then they will assist you

[17:56] in compliance. Um but the lean is definitely pass fail.

[18:03] » If that makes sense. >> This is the answer to the question, how

[18:05] do you know you live in a small town? [clears throat]

[18:09] the police stop your relatives to let you know you've come back from

[18:12] deployment. Exactly. >> Yeah, absolutely.

[18:17] » All right. Uh our last uh is our department building department report

[18:23] which is our Livingston County of building and safety engineering. They

[18:27] are who uh issue all of the permits for new construction, renovation,

[18:32] residential, commercial. Uh, so if you do have any questions regarding what's

[18:36] happening and going on in our wonderful city of Williamson, please reach out to

[18:40] John and he will contact Livingston County and get those answered for you.

[18:45] Moving along our agenda, we've got our committee subcommittee reports. Did

[18:48] anyone have a committee meeting that they attended that they'd like to share

[18:52] this evening? >> I have one coming up this week. It's a

[18:55] Nissa meeting. >> Excellent.

[18:56] » And there's the floating public member. What is it called? The open member at

[19:01] large. >> Member at large. large election is

[19:03] coming up sometime. Um, and I'm I'm going to ask that they add an agenda

[19:07] item where we discuss the process of electing that open that open member. So,

[19:12] if you know somebody, Dan, who might be interested in that job, please get a

[19:17] hold of me or let me know about it or and I'll try to keep you guys up to

[19:21] speed on how that process is going. Okay,

[19:23] » great. Thank you. All right, anyone else? All right, moving along our

[19:27] agenda. We have another opportunity for audience part participation with a

[19:31] maximum of five minutes per presentation. Was that the timer that

[19:34] we're done with the meeting? >> All right. Would anybody like to come

[19:37] forward at this time for our last audience participation?

[19:41] All right. Council member comments. I'll start down at this end with Tim.

[19:45] » You know what I would say is um it's really nice to see all the improvements

[19:48] consistently happening where people are improving their properties and you know

[19:54] making the nicer.

[19:56] » Yeah, it's good to see. Yeah. >> New business owner, where do you live

[20:02] here? >> Um, yep. I live in Williamston on

[20:04] Shaffburg between Hasla and Bella. >> Cool. We're very glad to have you here.

[20:09] » I'm very excited. Thank you for inviting me to the Z.

[20:12] » All right, >> Steve.

[20:14] » Sort of echoing that comment. It is good to see downtown storefronts being

[20:19] occupied. So, the two main two of the main ones that have been vacant for a

[20:25] while, it's good to see that they uh are going to be on right now.

[20:29] » Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. >> No.

[20:33] » All right. Well, as you can see, we went through uh daylight savings time on

[20:38] Sunday. So, it is staying lighter longer out there. And that means that we're

[20:42] just going to have a lot more activities that are happening in our wonderful town

[20:46] of Williamson, which if you'll notice, I brought in my uh lucky shamrock hat with

[20:49] pot of gold. I've got on my earrings and my shirt because this Friday um one of

[20:55] our first events for this year is going to be our uh Shamrock Shuffle through

[21:01] town. We have a 10-stop pub crawl that starts at 5:00 pm. Continues on uh with

[21:08] gathering at Zinda's for the end of the rainbow pot of gold party. Um we'll have

[21:14] a DJ uh a photo booth like we did um after the ugly sweater crawl um during

[21:21] our light parade weekend. Um we're really excited that we've got 10

[21:26] participating restaurants including Brookshshire and also the Eagles. So,

[21:30] you can find it more more information on our Williamston um events Facebook page,

[21:36] but again, it starts at 5:00. You can go to all or a few of the participating

[21:41] restaurants, show up at Zindas at the end of the evening. We're going to have

[21:45] some fun giveaways. We're going to have some uh drawings, and then we're also

[21:49] going to vote for the best restaurant experience out of the 10. Um, so it's uh

[21:54] definitely something not to be missed as we, you know, kick off springtime. And,

[22:00] uh, we've got a lot of other great, uh, events coming forward, um, that we're

[22:05] working on. Um, and we'll, uh, we'll share those as they continue to get

[22:09] closer. But, um, just excited that it's light out again. We did not beat my

[22:13] record time of shortest council meeting by about five minutes. But anyways, I'm

[22:18] going to go ahead and say just enjoy this beautiful sunshine before the

[22:22] weather's turn, you know, second winter, third winter, fake spring, whatever you

[22:26] want to call it. Um, get out there and enjoy the sunshine. Stop at Twister,

[22:31] stop at Candy Cafe, get your ice cream cuz it's warm outside. And, um, with

[22:36] that, I will go ahead and call to a journ at 6:22.

[22:41] » Quick. Good job. >> 18 minutes.

March 9, 2026 Williamston City Council Meeting

Transcript