City of Ferndale City Council Meeting 3-10-2025

Of America. And to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice rule.

Johnson?

Here.

Kelly?

Here.

Mikulski?

Here.

Polica? Here.

Leakes May?

Here. Now may we have an approval of the agenda?

Okay.

Madam, may I move we approve the agenda as presented? Court.

Johnson? Yes. Kelly?

Yes.

Mikulski? Yes. Polica? Yes. Leaksmae?

Yes.

We have a presentation tonight. The presentation is the introduction of our new city manager, Hello.

Hi, Colleen. Welcome. Thank

you. I don't have any formal presentation materials. I think, you guys did a very exhaustive public process to select your new city manager. But I just wanted to take this opportunity to, once again introduce myself to the community and let them know that I am now here full time and available and, happy to meet to discuss any resident concerns or questions. And, certainly, I encourage all of council to do the same.

Reach out to me at any time with questions or concerns.

Welcome aboard. This is your first official meeting, so see how things go. I

yeah. Be gentle, guys. Alright.

Trial by fire.

Alright. This is pretty quick, but we are at the point of the agenda where we're at call to audience. If you have anything that you want to share on or off the agenda or state, please come to the podium, state your name, state your address, and you have three minutes to, say whatever it is you like to say. Open now at 07:02.

Time first. I'm Sharon Shess, president of the Ferndale Community Concert Band. Welcome, Colleen. I hope to see you for years to come. Anyways, it's about time.

In a couple of weeks, we're gonna be at Orchestra Hall celebrating our tenth anniversary. It's a free concert. You do have to pay $12 for parking, but it is a free concert. It'd be lovely to have our mayor and council people there. And if you do come, let us know so we can introduce you to our audience of a hopeful at least 1,000 people.

I've left some, posters and some palm cards at the back table if anybody wants to take one for their business or church or just to have to pass out to friends and relatives. Please help yourself. On another note, totally different from this, is I came last time, and I said I never come to the podium with a problem without a solution, and I have a solution to a problem you don't know you have. So you guys were talking a lot about snow removal last time and keeping the, parks and the roadways and the bike lanes clear of snow and ice. What I've noticed in Grosse Pointe is, in all the points, basically, they have a similar machine that we use for our bike lanes, and they do all of the city sidewalks, the primary sidewalks, all the residential sidewalks.

And I think that would help our residents an awful lot, especially the older ones where it's really hard for them to get out and shovel that snow, and that would make them only responsible for the approach to their front porch and their front porch steps instead of having to do their entire, sidewalk. So I would like you in the future to consider, plowing our residential streets. Thank you. Hope to see you at our concert.

Hi, counsel. My name's Julia Musick. I run Ferndale Pride.

Do I

have to give my address?

That's the record. Okay.

I

don't know.

Through the

chair, she could leave it in the back in the event that somebody needs to contact her from council.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Right? Okay. So, tonight, you're gonna be voting on some things in the special events packet.

And I wanted to bring up a couple things that I noticed. The first one is about the parking fees that could be added. And I know they're not specific fees. It's just the right to, charge fees. However, I had all of the Saturdays, pulled for last year, and I sent those to you earlier today.

If you look across, special events, special events weekends have the highest revenue Saturdays in almost all cases except for two. Those two being Hispanic festival, which is pretty new, and the Dream Cruise. All the rest have higher than average revenue. The ticket revenue is higher across the board no matter what. And specifically, super high for Cinco de Mayo and Ferndale Pride, our tickets are $20,225, which is more than all of the rest of the month of May, June, and a week of July of January together.

So super high ticketing. Lots of revenue through, the fact that there's a special event and there's so many people here. So although some parking lots are blocked off, overall, the special events are why parking revenue is really high. So maybe keeping that off of another burden that we'd have to pay would be super helpful for us as we struggle to keep these events in Verdale. Also, on page nine, for safety purposes, no personal vehicles are to enter the event until the event has been set up and set up has been completed.

For us, that would mean Woodward would have to be shut down the day before or sorry. 9 Mile would have to be shut down the day before because our small stage, is not set up until the morning of. And there's some other trucks and things that we can't get off of the footprint fast enough. But we're super professional. We move things slowly.

We talk to people about the rules prior. But we would have to shut down an entire street the day before to make that happen at our event. And I know it would be difficult other events that I've helped set up just because I know how setup goes. We have people moving on slowly, personal vehicles being pretty undefined. I'm assuming that's vendors, though.

But I wanna get to page 10 also. Page 10 has nothing to do with me. But as a resident, I'm a little bit worried about, you know, parade, rock, walk, or run being allowed to be in Ferndale without 50 per 1% majority of people on the route, signing for that. That pretty much means no five k's or 10 k's ever again in our city. We used to have a foot frolic and we used to have the suicide walk.

We don't have those things anymore, but this would prevent, I think, most walks from wanting to choose our town. Three minutes.

Hi. Chris Johnston. I'll leave my address back there as well. I organize or help organize DIY street fair and Pig and Whiskey. I wanna start by saying that the last city council meeting, I was sitting right back here in camera view, and I wanna apologize to Michael if I made some bad faces while I was talking.

I wasn't directing it towards you, and I respect what you do. So I apologize for that if I did. My, ex wife, Krista, said that I did, so I take your word for it. I wanna echo what Julia said about the proposed changes to those, special events policies, regarding setup that is hard to do. For example, we set up a stage and we start at 07:00 in the morning, and the first band plays at six.

And it's pretty challenging usually to get it done by that time, but we always have. But if no vendors could come in before that stage is set up, that would almost make the event impossible. Also, regarding parking, you know, I I saw the same numbers and it's pretty obvious that the events do bring in a lot of parking money, more parking money than I think would be there without them. So the idea that we're trying to offset money that we're losing in parking doesn't really seem correct to me. And the last one that just pertains, I think, to myself and one other event organizer is regarding liquor and selling it.

And I I believe the desire to contain the area in which we could sell liquor. So we would have to pay for all this event, DPW, fire, police, other city fees, and then there aren't many ways that we can make money, but our we would be limited to the small little footprint that we could possibly sell liquor in, which, would make it very hard to put on the kind of events that we want to. I can't say I disagree with the parking fee in general, but I wonder if, like, some of these, they could be for unproven events. You know, if you haven't proven that you're going to bring in more money for parking, then you could be charged this fee. But if you've, established some sort of record, maybe that wouldn't be the case.

So that's all I really have, and, thank you.

K.

Any more for call to audience? Closing call to audience at 07:10. And we have a couple of public hearings on the agenda today. The first one is the consideration of the special land use application for 1401 Ferrell.

Good evening, madam mayor and council.

Good evening.

A pulp map so we can look at the subject site. Staff will keep this pretty simple. McDermott is requesting special land use approval to expand their storage facility site located at 1441 Farrow to build two additional buildings, one at 2,500 square feet roughly and one at 10,000 square feet. McDermott currently owns and operates a facility on a parcel immediately south of this site, to which they, manufacture chemical products. The site in question is where they store the chemical products.

City council previously considered and approved a special land use application, expanding the site expanding the site on 09/12/2022 and 07/24/2023. The September 2022 site plan and special land use allowed McDermott to demolish an accessory structure and to install pre engineered truck loading docks along with the concrete walkway to connect the subject site to their existing facility to the south. That project was a temporary measure to get operations started. The July 2023 site plan and special land use finalized expansion plans of 1401 Faroe, by allowing an expansion of 12,400 square feet, and then this request again further expands it. The subject site, here's Niemile running east west, and then here is Ferro.

So their subject site is right here. This is the chemical manufacturing facility, and this is the storage facility.

Could you please zoom in? Sure.

So this is Faroe, north and south, nine miles to the north, and then right here is their sites. The map I can show you that shows the expansion plans are right here. So there's currently an office building that's unused, Building Number 3. This is their existing building that's built now in the light gray. They're adding two additional sites.

So the 2,500 square foot addition is to the north, and then this piece is to the east. Planning commission did review the site plan and recommended approval at the February 19 meeting. So, site plans end with planning commission if approved, and so, they approved it. This request is a special land use, that council gets to weigh in on, and I will say that planning commission rec unanimously recommended approval of the special land use. With that said, the developer is here to answer any questions as am I.

Thank you. Thank you. Right. I'm opening up to council to if they have any comments regarding the special land use application here.

Alright. Through the mayor, it's a, public hearing. So we have

It's to open to the public first, and then we'll open it up to council. So if you have any comments, please come up to the podium and state your questions or comments. Do the owners have any questions or comments or or anything they wanna add before I open it up to council? Now it's opened up to council.

Through the chair, I'll kick us off. Since it's a storage facility, how exactly are we storing, the chemicals within? Are they within barrels? Are they in not another lagoon, I'm assuming?

Good evening, counsel. I'm Wayne Dutton. I'm with the CIDOC group. We are the architects and engineers for the project. We've been in law we've been involved since 02/2022, so we've been the designers of all the phases.

The storage is all enclosed packages, plastic barrels, metal barrels of various sizes, hundred gallons to 400 gallons, in containers that it's all packaged next door at 1221 Ferrell where they do the manufacturing, and then it's dry goods or the dry goods, the enclosed goods are brought over to this facility to be out. So

So these are all dry goods?

Well, they're they're in dry packaging.

Dry packaging?

Yeah. So there's no there's no manufacturing or opening of any other products in this building. It's simply to bring it over to store and then be shipped out.

Roughly how long do you store them there?

That's a good question.

Hi. My name is Dean, I'm the operations director for the region here for McDermott Enthome. Our turnaround is about ninety days give or take, for for the the products. So they rotate, but it's constantly full. So they are liquid and dry products.

They are drums, 55 gallons, two seventy five gallons, smaller, five gallons. So they're all closed containers. They're no lagoons anymore.

That's awesome to hear. How often do you get inspected?

Very.

Yeah.

So we have different different agencies. We're a highly regulated industry. So we get inspections monthly, sometimes month multiple times. It's it's it's highly regulated.

And the expectation would be that you're being inspected inside that storage facility as well, just in terms of looking for leakage, anything like that?

Yes. Expectations are we are we are regulated everywhere. So both sites are being, have the same kind of permits in terms of, regulatory, so they are inspected on both sides.

Great. Thank you.

I'll follow-up. I know that there is a PFAS action plan for the site here in Ferndale, and I know that we're working with Eagle on that. You know, what is the current status of the of the plan with Eagle?

So the remediation on the lagoons on the 1221 site, that was completed, I would say, five years ago. Mhmm. So it is under surveillance from Eagle. So they come in and they inspect it, I I believe, twice a year, but that action has been completed from that sense.

Great. Thank you.

Through the chair. So, sitting on the planning commission, I've had the opportunity to, see this, this business come to the planning commission, third third time now. And, each time, planning commission has approved them unanimously. We don't see any issue, with the project or the expansion. And, I'd for myself, I'll be, approving it again.

Okay. This

is what I have this is what I have to read. Alright. So this is gonna be a long motion because I'm gonna read the suggested action. I move that after a properly noticed public hearing and unanimous recommendation of the planning commission that the city council approve the special land use application for a facility for handling and storing of chemicals deemed hazardous by state or federal regulations for 1401 Ferro Street being parcel 24Dash25Dash105Dash007 based on plans dated 10/18/2024 and 01/02/2025, and that we adopt the findings of the planning commission that the request meets and satisfies the review standards as set forth in 24 dash two seven three of the zoning ordinance subject to the following condition. Condition one, the special land use is limited to to only the handling and storing of chemicals deemed hazardous by state or federal regulations.

Manufacturing, blending, refining, or using such chemicals, is prohibited.

Support.

Johnson? Yes. Polica? What?

Well, I I was just gonna make a comment that the reference ordinance section council has now adopted the new zoning ordinance. Actually, if you would consider a new ordinance, section is 24 dash 10 o four.

I will amend my motion. I will amend my motion accordingly.

I support accordingly. Thank

you, Greg.

Johnson? Yes. Polica? Yes. Kelly?

Yes. Nikulski? Yes. Leaksmay?

Yes. We have, an a second public hearing. It's approval of the public hearing and reprogramming of the CDBG funds from yard services to code enforcement. Hello again, Roger.

Thank you, madam mayor. So I made a couple, spreadsheets for your review, and as mayor said, this is a request to, reprogram some monies from yard services to, code enforcement. So the county came and spoke to us about twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three. We were behind in spending our CDBG funds. So they created this spreadsheet

for us. The chair, can you increase that size? Because I'm having a hard time seeing it from here. I'm sure people at home are are Very small. Standing in front of the TV.

Thank you. Better.

I'm a

little better. Usually, the bar down at the bottom Oh. Lower right corner

yeah. There you go. That's good enough. There we go.

So at that time, we had a, lot of CDBG money that was not spent. It was allocated, but it wasn't spent. So we had monies from 2018 under emergency services that was unspent, monies for minor home repair that we were gonna consider, minor minor home repair program. We talked about tree plantings, but we planted trees a different way. And at that time, the, unspent money totaled $411,000.

We said that with the county, and some of these we just needed to submit receipts and get reimbursed for. So yard services from previous years was pretty easy. But some of these monies we've come to you in the past and asked to reprogram it for code enforcement. Code enforcement is an eligible activity under CDBG, and it's much easier to administer. We can run a report for how many code enforcement activities we've had in the city.

It can only be reimbursed in the census tracks, that are disadvantaged, so we can run that report. And then we submit pay stubs and get reimbursed. We have cleared all this backlog except $30,000, and that's for the minor home repair. So what the county said was, if the city wants to do a minor home repair program, they can feel free, but they would not act as our minor home repair contractor. If we would like to reprogram money to the county, they will use it for their loan program.

So it's not a grant. It's a loan, but it would be used countywide. But they did agree any monies we left behind from previous years, is they income qualify somebody for a home loan. If they need extra money, they would transfer this minor home repair monies from the city to the county as a grant to help offset the resident. So, we've spent some of the monies that we held back.

We have $30,000 left. I know the county is working on, one resident who needs some help. And I hope to, within the next probably six months, have the complete backlog taken care of and be completely up to speed. So there's the update on CDBG. Here's the monies we reprogrammed.

So in 2019 program year, we reprogrammed 30,000 from our tree planting to code enforcement. Twenty twenty, we had some down payment assistance we reprogrammed. Some of the minor home repair money, we left some back with the county. Again, down payment assistance for 2021, some of the minor home repair money. Twenty twenty two minor home repair money, there was a little extra money from emergency services, and then minor home repair for 2023.

So the council has previously reprogrammed $214,000 and $214,231, and then here we are today. So for 2024, council approved two programs, one for yard services and one for code enforcement. We could not reprogram this amount, the yard services, because the feds were in the middle of allocating it. So they said once we get the award letter then we can come back and reprogram it. You can see for 2025, we just did all code enforcement from from the start.

So 2025 is clear. This is the last step which is reprogramming $12,691 from yard services to code enforcement. These total, about $3,400,000, that offset code enforcement, from previous years. And, the last thing is why would staff recommend to reprogram this? It's because the OLSA grant we received, and I'll talk about that, my comment piece, but also, we got a ARPA grant for $380,000.

We're earmarking 80,000 of that for yard services over the next two years. We are gonna go up to 40 residents who need snow removal and, yard cutting. And so, because we have those funds, we can take from that amount and reprogram this. So it's that with that said, this is a public hearing, but I am available to answer any questions.

Open it up to the public. Do you have any questions or comments regarding this proposal? And it up to counsel for questions, comments for Roger or comments.

Through the chair, I have a few questions. How many residents do we currently have on the, yard service program?

It varies a little bit from snow removal to grass cutting. I think snow removal might be at 39 and grass cutting might be at 37 Okay. Or so.

And how many did we allow? So were we ever on a waiting list?

In previous years we were. Previously under this program, we probably spent too much. Each resident for if they get snow and grass, about a thousand dollars a year. So if we get 12,000, also takes about 2,500 to do all their work, and we could help about 10 people if we stayed within budget. In previous years, I think our number was about 20 18 to 21.

So we've we've doubled that through the Olsa grant.

So just for a point of clarity, because we have the grant that's able to assist with yard services and things now, we are looking to utilize these funds strictly for the CD department. Correct?

Well, to to offset the general fund that reimburses, that pays for code enforcement.

And can you just kinda give a briefing as to all of that what what that would entail as far as just to for audience.

What is code enforcement?

What will it what will it entail? But what would these funds be used for to offset code enforcement?

Yeah. So we we have two code enforcement officers combo code enforcement slash rental inspection. So one of the inspectors does rental inspections in the morning and code enforcement in the afternoon and that person is North Of Niemile and then vice versa for the other one who is South Of Niemile, they do theirs in the morning. So if you partition out, we essentially have a full time code enforcement officer. Code enforcement officers respond to, citizen, correspondence regarding code enforcement issues whether that be, grass, graffiti, excessive storage, and then in their daily drive throughs, they also find people who who are not following the property maintenance code.

There's a whole process to notify the resident, work with them to get it cleaned up or to meet property maintenance code. But this essentially offsets their pay benefits and everything.

Got it.

Through the chair, I have one more question. So if you were out driving and you found someone that was their lawn was

done that.

Their lawn was overgrown and you found that they were low income, would you refer them to OSSA to help with that? Because what I have a hard time is taking money from helping low income and putting that to enforce somebody who may be low income.

Yeah. So anybody there's a couple things to qualify. You have to be 62 or older or handicapped, I think, receiving SSI. The income limit is actually pretty high. 80% AMI for a one person household is about $53,000 a year.

So most seniors on a fixed income are gonna qualify. But, yes, if we found somebody who was, older who we think would qualify, we would tell them to apply at ULSA. Right now we're holding the number at 40. We're not there yet. If there hasn't been a big rush.

So even when we expanded the program, we've gotten applications trickling in, but if somebody needed more help past the 40, then I would work with you and the mayor to maybe go a little less on the other grant things we're doing.

And then also, we could take some of the funds that we have allocated towards

Admin?

Yeah. And use that if we needed to, potentially.

Yeah. We just rolled up the program. That'll come in my comments. But of the $380,000, Olsa keeps 15% for their administrative work, which takes us, down to, I'm gonna have to do math now, three twenty or so. We've earmarked 15% for our admin work, which leaves, I think, $2.66.

And then of that, 80,000 for lawns and the snow leaves about $1.66 or something. I'm getting my numbers a little bit off. Off. For the minor home repair or the chore service that we're doing, if we do get a rush and we've had a couple applications but so far not a big rush, then we can look at the our admin fee and see what we can do there. STBD.

I will make a motion to approve the public hearing and reprogramming of the community development block grant funds from yard service to code enforcement as submitted by the CED director.

Support.

Kelly? Yes. Kroske? Yes. Johnson?

Yes.

Pollaker? Yes. Leaksmaier?

Yes. Thank you. Moving on to the consent agenda. Item seven a, approval of the 02/24/2025 meeting minutes. Seven b, approval of the resolutions to support the finance and financial commitment for the series of grants offered by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources for up to a hundred and $50,000 with match requirements not to exceed a hundred and $50,000 total, an authorization for the city clerk to sign the resolutions.

Seven c, approval of the two year contract with Hydrocor Incorporated for the cross connection control program for the total amount of $50,816.40 to be charged to the Water Sewer Fund contractual services account number 592000818 and approve the DPW director to sign the contract documents. Seven d, approval of the purchase of replacement laptops in the amount of $32,135.40. 7 e, approval of the extension to the planning and design contract with Transportation Engineering Design. Seven f, approval for the Ferndale Police Department to auction and dispose of lost and abandoned property via property room in accordance with the local ordinance stated and the state law stated. Seven g, approval of the municipal credit and community credit contract for fiscal year twenty twenty five with SMART, an authorization for the city manager to sign the related contract.

Seven h, approval of the annual SMART specialized services third party contract for fiscal year twenty twenty five and authorization of the city manager to sign the agreement. Seven I, approval of the proposal for compensate for compensation study to be conducted at a cost not to exceed $10,000 by MGT. Seven j, approval of Granicus contract renewal with closed caption captioning in the amount of $39,397.18, 7 k approval to purchase of the all materials locator from AIS Construction Equipment in the amount of $8,250. 7 l, approval of door and lock lock and hardware replacements at the DPW main by Jan Doerr for not to exceed cost of $5,690. 7 m, approval of bills and payrolls as submitted by the finance director and subject to review by this council finance committee.

Madam mayor, I approve I move we approve the consent agenda as presented. Support.

Johnson?

Yes.

Kelly?

Yes.

Mikulski?

Yes.

Polica? Yes. Leaksmae?

Yes. Now we're moving on to the regular agenda. Item eight a, approval of the special event policy guidebook, proposed revisions.

Good evening. Okay. Just a reminder that the, special ed policy is a document outlining the guidelines and procedures that organizers must follow when planning events on city property, including details on setup requirements, sanitation, public safety, insurance, and other procedures to ensure this a safe and well managed event while adhering to local regulations. The proposed revisions, presented to council, are recommended by the special events committee which comprise of representatives from the fire department, police department, DPW, sustainability, parking, and the Ferndale DDA. In an event, I just wanna kinda give you a quick outline of the event planning timeline to get a better understanding of what the whole process is like.

And first, an event has to submit an application. Once that's submitted to me, then I review and then if there are questions or concerns, I send out I either plan a meeting or send out an email with for clarity. And if there are any recommended modifications, that's the time to make those happen. We also I sent out a a request by each, of the departments asking for estimated fees based on the information provided. Once that's able to be gathered up, then we plan a special events committee meeting where all the different representatives from the department meet with the event planner and myself for a q and a.

At that time, any questions or concerns that each of the departments might have, the event planner is there to ask that answer the questions to help fully understand what the plan is. If everything is is is looking good for them, there is a motion asked for the special events committee to either support or deny the application. If it's approved, then it comes before you. And at that time, I come to ask for your approval of a special event permit. Once that's done, then of course, any permits that are required and any insurance policy that needs to be provided for the city at that time is required prior to a certain amount of days before the event takes place.

Prior to that also prior to the event also we have a post event walk through with the special event, planners, and at that time fire, police, DDA, sustainability, parking, and myself will walk with the event planner just as a refresher of what is planned for this event. And at that time, if there's any tweaks or concerns, we can hopefully resolve them so that they have plenty of time to make it happen. And then of course the day of the event, the fire department will do a walk through to make sure that all any fire, food service providers are within the policy of fire code safety rules, Oakland County will show up to make sure that their health requirements are acceptable, and then sustainability

will

make sure that they're following the sustainability policy. And then once a successful event happens and the sun is beautiful and it's only 72 degrees and then you'd be able to end the day with being proud and happy that it happened, then within a certain amount of time, if especially if there's any concerns that any of the special event committee has, we will plan a debrief with the special event planner to just talk about any concerns or or problems that might have taken place to hopefully resolve them so that if they're coming back the next year, that hopefully we can have those resolved. Some of the things that are asked in the policy, for example, is concerning about the city logo use in the event advertising. If you see here I gave you an example of just last year one of the events, this is what the city logo looked like. And so what we're asking is that we want to be able to just to see what they're doing to make sure that the quality of the logo is what we and we expect from the city for anyone to use it for special event promotion, and so we want to be able to prevent that, So if we could leave this in the policy then at least we know that we are telling them that it's important to us that we're represented correctly.

I did also modify the policy and proposing that first time special event applications are cancellation, and then also if there is any reason for adverse weather conditions, acts of God, public health or safety, and security alert or threats, that public safety has the authority to to close the event down. As for parades, five ks walks and runs, we're proposing that there's a petition required of at least 51% of majority of residents and businesses. Sign the petition in expression of support for the five k walk or parade. We are at including that there would be an exemption for the Memorial Day parade after a hundred and six years, I think maybe they should be grandfathered in. As for event setup and breakdown requirements, there was a a couple comments that were made earlier.

Just to clarify that this has to do with vendor vehicles, not the event itself and their vehicles because they have to be on the street to set up and do their thing or the the the the service providers who are setting up stage or setting up tents, all these things that's when they need to be there, but you do not want at the same time vendor vehicles, their personal vehicles also in the same area. We wanna try to control the chaos. And so I just also wanna remind you that some of these requirements, the majority of these new requirements or I should say revisions, are asked from the fire and police and DPW. They're not coming from me, they're coming from them on the special events committee. The patio zone, this is just to inform and be aware that we do have a patio zone and we want to make sure sure that everyone is supporting the patio zone during an event, and it and then also that we have to look at the the patio zone itself and the event itself and determine where is the best place for fencing to be placed because currently right now an event that's a % fenced and if you purchase a patio zone drink and you want to go to the event you have to drink it quickly or throw it away before you go into the event because you cannot cross to liquor license you can't cross a Patiosome with a special event license for an event.

Does Does that make sense? Hopefully. If there's any clarity, could you know because, I'm certainly happy to have somebody come up here. Jeanne can come up here and explain the patios on more much better than I can. If not

Through the chair, that that might be helpful, at least for me.

Yes. I would also Okay.

Good evening, mayor and council.

Thank you, Michael. With the patio zone, our social district, those were, when the patio zone was started, set to expire, I believe, in 2025. That is now, to perpetuity. There is no more sunset clause on the social district, so this has kind of become, part of the normal for a lot of downtowns, and it's a it's a real, appeal for a lot of our businesses to participate in the social district, patios on, pay and take it outside as it's branded in Ferndale. So we were looking at this, because we recognize in the downtown the value that events bring, and we also wanna ensure that any events also help to, promote our permanent businesses in Downtown Ferndale.

So the idea here is there is an an option. We want room for flexibility for both the restaurants who participate and special events to find that right balance, that for some special events, they may not seek to pursue, the same kind of licensing if they can leverage the patio zone, which is in effect year round. And then with Michael, and his expertise and plenty of others, finding out what works best for which events. But just being mindful that, a person on the street who might be coming to Ferndale for the first time might not understand that if they get a drink outside of a special event, they may not be able to bring that drink into the special event because there are conflicting licenses. And so this is something that we monitor with, police, for public safety and making sure that people, act responsibly and can per you know, can buy their beverage of choice where they want to and then enjoy a great day in Downtown Ferndale.

Any questions about that?

Yes. So my so, again, attempting to sort of understand the sort of and this may be more of a city attorney question than you, Jenny, so I'll leave it up to either of you to find out who gets to answer it. So the patio zone so the beverage transportation let's call it beverage transportation, between a patio zone to a special designated event liquor licensed area. Essentially, those are two separate things and never the twain shall meet. If if someone buys a drink in a designated event liquor license area, it must it could never enter into a patio zone and vice versa.

Is this a legal requirement or is this just us wanting to support businesses in the patio zone and not have competition from event liquor vendors?

And I will look for support through the city attorney on this. But if you look at it like, two different permanent bars, you cannot buy a beverage from one bar and take it into another bar. It's a conflict with their license, so it's the same concept here that the special event would not have a patios on license, so their drinks would have to be purchased within the patio sorry. Excuse me. A special event beverage would have to be purchased within the special event footprint and could not leave the special event footprint.

Likewise, a patio beverage could not be purchased outside of the footprint and brought into the footprint.

Through the chair, I

I think that's the general rule. I have not expressly looked at whether or not the commission would allow for the special event licensee, which is a special license to utilize, the ADEOS zone footprint. So that's something that I I can look, at, and get back to council on. Mhmm. But as of right now, it would not be because there would be under the, special one day liquor license or or special, liquor license issued.

It has there has to be a designated area as it relates to those sales.

And that just raises my question of, you know, when those two overlap. So, you know, if someone has an event on 9 Mile, that's patio zone. But if they have a special event and they're gonna license for the event, how does how does that's what I'm curious about.

Yeah. I there there may be I think I a further dialogue with the

liquor control commission as to whether or not additional authorization. It would probably have to be through counsel resolution to allow intermingling or transportation, of of the patio zone beverage into the special event beverage area. I don't have an answer for you this evening.

If it helps, I if I'm understanding your question, for example, if it's on West 9 Mile, some of the events that are held on West 9 Mile, if they do not pull a special beverage license, a liquor license for that, The patio zone operates as it normally does. Right.

Through the chair,

unless that event extends beyond the patio zone.

Correct. And I so far, we have not had any events.

That would be it'd be the Dream Cruise, because that extends beyond the patio zone, and Pride, which goes all the way down to, Livernois.

Okay. Yes.

Because those two events, you would you would be forcing that event to then have people there policing for people with cops, and and that's not fair to throw that onto a special event to have to be forced to do that.

Through the chair, I I feel like we do need some level of clarity on if cups can cross boundaries. And again, if if that's something that we can get from our city attorney at a future date, I I think that would be very helpful.

Through the

chair, this is something that we are looking to do over the next year is revisiting what the patio zone looks like in Ferndale. Again, we've we were an early adopter. We know it's time to kind of make some updates to that. We're looking at a number of things, including sustainability, the sizing of cups, and making sure that people really see our patios on as a benefit, that they enjoy it, that it's clear for people, and it creates a good experience for everyone whether you're partaking or not. And so we that is something we would be, we would welcome more information as we we go down that path.

I do have a question. It's for Michael this time. Regarding the guidebook Yes. You mentioned that, when someone submits an application, they're going to sit in front of a committee. Correct?

Yes.

So what I'm what I'm presuming is that any sort of modifications or issues that that commit that that, event has event planner has, they would discuss it with you at that time. Correct?

They would discuss it with the special events committee.

With the special events committee. Mhmm. And so what I'm asking is that with this being a document, a guidebook

Mhmm.

There could be some modifications that offset what's in this guidebook.

Well, the the emphasis is that it's a guidebook. It it's it's to give, you know, direction and guidance on how to plan an event in Ferndale, what our expectations are. Give you an example of where, if if they if there is something written in the guide and they want they don't disagree they don't agree with it necessarily, but the special events committee feels that it needs to stand as is, they have a right to make an appeal to counsel. So that when the request for approval of a special event permit comes before council, they can ask for an appeal, that portion of their approval, and let council decide whether or not to support special events committee or support the event planners, disagreement.

And it could be multiple appeals. Yeah.

Yeah. Right. Just to clarify on also on the patio zone, it is the emphasis here is because if you understand that an event that has a special event license for alcohol sales, If you you're right now currently you're fencing off the entire event away from everyone else. There's a border. So the kind of the idea is you could still we're not saying they can't have a special event license to sell liquor at the event, we're asking that you reduce the amount of your event that's fenced off and segregate the area for alcohol sales and the drinking of your event beverage within that boundary of area, but another portion of your event area is open to anyone and everyone so someone who does buy a drink for example at Mezcal in a patio zone cup can still go to the nine mile area if that's part of the event area and the library lot area and then maybe even East Troy area, but the Falby Lot which is directly behind the wall could be the what I would say the party zone where the the event itself can sell those beverages but you have to stay within that boundary to drink their event drink.

And you can't take a Patios Oat cup inside that event area, but you can enjoy it in three quarters of the rest of the area of the event.

So let me just one more example regarding that. So during pride, and I think this is during pride, but, Western Market has their beer garden. So that's closed off where you purchase your beer things in there and you stand there and drink it.

It. Mhmm.

So you wouldn't go across the street.

Yeah. You can't leave without you can't leave with it. But just to just to let you know, that is completely separate from Ferndale Pride. Western Market retains a special license for that particular thing. So I don't know, does Ferndale Pride benefit from it to some degree?

Do y'all get a portion of the proceeds?

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. So but that so Ferdell applied has does not apply or have anything in, concerning the Western market activity.

So I guess through the chair, the the question that I would have about this is who who gets to determine what the party zone would be? Are there parameters that we're placing on the area that would cover? Because in my mind, what I'm hearing is it could theoretically be a small chunk or it could be a large chunk. If if there's no parameters, then it could just be that we're they fence off the same area that they did in the past.

And again, that's part of the planning process in proposing presenting that to the special events committee, and then hopefully that they can come to a consensus. And if there's a disagreement, they can come to counsel and make that appeal.

Okay. So I think my I think what I'm getting hung up on is, you know, I want to create a I want a policy that provides fair and equitable notice to all participants in events in Ferndale, but that also doesn't overly burden or otherwise impinge on our ability to hold the kinds of special events we wanna hold. Mhmm. So, you know, for me, a 51% threshold on signatures along a five k route, it feels unnecessary. It just feels unnecessary.

It feels unnecessarily burdensome. You know, one of the unfortunate things that occurs is sometimes the city is gonna use your street or something. It just it's it's the cost of living in society. And so, you know, I would love to have that, but I think that if the case would be that, you know, let's say, a charitable run or charity walk couldn't get their signatures, I certainly would not be happy as a council member to know that that event could not proceed because they couldn't get five more signatures on their petition. That wouldn't be acceptable to me.

And so, you know, I I appreciate the desire to to be very clear and and have these kinds of guidelines, and I'm fine with having them. But something like the parade for example, we're carving out the Memorial Day parade. I don't frankly care how old the Memorial Day parade is. We're we're making a carve out for one event. Well, I've made a carve out for one event.

Why does that one get a carve out? Why wouldn't a charity run get a carve out because it's for a charitable purpose? Like, at that stage, to me, the policy begins to be you've got a hole in the policy. I've made an exception for something, whether it's a hundred years old or one year old.

On that through the chair, I mean, council ultimately gets to decide the special events that it deems appropriate for the community. Sure. Having that is really an additional threshold that may council might decide is not necessary since

you have final

call on it, and it may impede, your opportunity to even see some applicants, because of that threshold.

Right. And and even if we do have the ability to override that, we can't would that deter people? Someone goes, oh, I want to set up an event, then they read our policy and they go, oh, that's a lot of work. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna mess with that. It's not that it doesn't even make it to us because someone chooses not to move forward.

So again, there's good thought. It's very thoughtfully put together policy. It's that I don't know that that kind of policy, this kind of item is strictly necessary for us. Everything else, I'm generally fine if we were to add something to this policy that makes it clear that the special events committee essentially treating this like oh, kinda like the planning commission in a sense that the the special events committee can grant waivers. Mhmm.

You can say the special committee could grant a waiver for certain of these requirements if cases are made. So, you know, for the no personal vehicles entering an air an event area until setup has been completed. If that's something that needs to be negotiated out with the pride organizers, for example, and what that means for pride, That means that Julia and the team could come, meet with the SEC, and you the SEC can say, okay. That's a reason what you've laid out is reasonable. That seems like it we can make sure everyone's safe.

Totally get that. We're gonna sign off on that. Where there's an ability to kind of be flexible, which as you when you presented the policy, you said, like, this is meant to be a guideline. It's meant to be flexible. Great.

Let's make that explicit. Let's put that right up there and say the special events committee can explicitly in the policy, You can grant a waiver if if a case is made for many of these criteria. And then we don't have to worry about getting into the language of me trying to rework some of the language on this right here.

I see chief Robinson back there. I'm on that.

While the chief through the chair, while the chief is walking up there. I I agree with you, Cussman. The last walk or run that I remember in in Ferndale was about eight years ago. It was done by the chamber, and the chamber doesn't even exist anymore. It's not like we've been having an influx of people saying we want runs in city of Ferndale.

And I don't think, you know, now that people know that we don't require 51% that there's gonna be this huge rush to say, oh, let's, you know I think it's an unnecessary rule.

Okay. My other concern is with the events, just to add to that, is with the liquor license. You know, if if we block this little area, I fear where's the benefit of the people that are coming in to sell the liquor in that area. Or, you know, if they come in, they grab a drink and wanna go walk around and shop, they're not gonna be able to do that. So I think that's another issue that I wanna raise as well.

So and I'll let, chief Emmy add on things that so there's certain things that fire department handles, certain things that police department handles, and a lot of these things. And I invite counsel anytime if you ever wanna do a walk through with us. We do walk through with the event coordinator days before the event. A lot of what's in this policy now are stuff that they're sitting with their pencil and paper, taking notes and writing down what we're telling them then. It kinda puts them at a disadvantage where we're like, no.

You need more fencing or you need this or you need that, and they're scrambling last minute. So it was the conversations that we have every time, we put into onto paper so they can plan ahead of time and know what's expected, especially a new Julia and and Chris, they've done this a lot, so they know what to expect, what we're gonna ask from them. But a new event coming in, they can see this is what it's gonna be. This stuff is in there for a reason. The vehicles in the space, I'll let chief Evie speak on that.

That's something police dictates and governs and polices for the event, and it's safety. And one of the things I don't think, chief Emery, or I want to, you know, slide on is safety. And so, like, the patio stuff, again, this falls on the police. When people like, pride event, and even though the Western Market has nothing to do with the pride event, people regularly are leaving that event and coming out into pride, and PD is having to intercept them and stop them. You can't have that out here and chasing them back into the event.

So they carry the burden of having to enforce that. So when you say it goes back onto the event organizer but we're talking about the different liquor licenses and stuff. Yeah. In there, they have to they require them to have fencing. When you have fencing, there's other considerations, ADA compliance, emergency response, access in and out of the space.

There's a lot of other logistics. And as our events are getting bigger and bigger, it's becoming and James James can speak on the burden on DPW as our our events are getting bigger and we're exceeding capabilities of them to have the barricades. And now the accessibility and meridians and some of the other things, again, to keep these events safe for our community are getting harder and harder for us to do. So when we sit down as a committee and it's very diverse in all of us, a lot of what went into this policy is stuff that we talk about with the event organizer every single time, and we put it in there. And it's in there for a reason.

So for us, we're always looking at emergency response bill to get in if something happens because it's not just about people in the event, but if any of those businesses or anything else, those vendors in there has an emergency or a fire or something else, I have to get my people in there. So there's things when we have barricades and things set up, there's planning to ensure we can still access and get in there. The liquor, the vehicles that falls primarily on PD, other stuff falls strongly on fire. But and I asked Michael, I said, make sure you stress it. People under counsel and the public understands that this stuff comes from the committee.

He is kind of the face of it, but there's reasons behind any of it. And I really encourage counsel to take the time for anything. If you wanna know, you got DPW, you got police, you got me, you got DDA here. Ask us when it's something that falls into our privy, and let us give you the insight as far as why something is the way it is. And, you know, as a the fire chief, but as a resident and somebody who cares about this community, I think we should care about our events.

I love the events we have here, but I think we should care also about our businesses. And I'm a big huge advocate. I don't think events should hurt businesses. We should find that marriage to support our help our events be successful, safe, and amazing that they are, but also make sure we're taken care of and think about our businesses too. And that's me as a citizen or something caught.

But on the safety side, I think we do a lot of the stuff because there's things we need to do. So we don't have stuff like what happened in New Orleans or what happens other places. That's not why we want Ferndale on the map or in the news. So that's my 2¢ in

In regards to the waiver?

So the waiver as far as so a lot of the stuff is in the time. When we're talking about vehicles being in the space, it's being enforced real time. So there's certain things that can't be, well, let's go back to the special we're not gonna convene a meeting the morning of or the day before. They meet with us. The process when they come in for special events is they come in front of special events committee, and we have a planning meeting with them here to get their event approved.

They ask their questions. We give them all of our things, but so we have that discussion ahead of time so that they know. And then we also do a walk through just before to verify where the fencing is being placed, where, the layout to make sure we're all in the same place, where are the barricades. DPW has to be there to make sure that they have the right barricades, the number of barricades, or we're putting vehicles to fill gaps. And so we do in here in this room to sit down with the applicant when they're applying to have their event and talk through they could tell us everything they wanna do, and we tell them what we can and cannot support, and then we do the walk through the day off.

So they have that opportunity during that meeting to ask them varying variances or approvals. That already exists. But I wanna be careful of putting them in the policy so now it gets down to we write something there so real time the day of they're asking for permission to have vehicles in there. We're not gonna we can't convene a meeting the day of.

No. And I wouldn't expect that. So I would say that the the one, the policy should state that the committee can grant waivers because that should be clearly stated. It needs to be. If the committee is going to grant waivers, then put people bound by the policy need to know that there's a process, but there should be timing on that.

It should say if you're going to seek this kind of waiver, you need to know that in advance. So for our long standing events, they're gonna know because like you said to your point, they've been doing it for a long time. They know exactly what the needs are and kinda what the demands are gonna be of them. And so they can think in advance, okay, this new policy is what it might mean for me. So $30.60 days before the event, they're already having these conversations and saying, heads up.

I think this is gonna be an issue for me. These are recurring events that we we know what that's gonna be. I think

Yeah. It was soon. So,

you know, I think that, you know, putting a limit of time on there and saying, you know, no no later than thirty days before the event, you need to make it clear to the special events committee that you're you intend to seek or you would like there to be some kind of waiver granted.

That should happen when they come in front of special ex committee to ask, you know, for their approval before it even comes to counsel. That's what I'm saying. And, again, invite any of you to attend any of those meetings, but those are the conversations that happen. And that's when they would ask, hey. Well, we need and that's where they have a discussion.

We need setup. We need x amount of hours for setup. Like, those conversations happen. And then we have to plan when DBW is figuring out when to put the barricades, when to do the shutdowns, that all comes out of those meetings. And they're determining when we have to shutdowns to allow the event the setup time that they're requesting.

So I

just want you to understand that that is already occurring. We're just captured in policy.

Yep. So it sounds like so it sounds like the timing that I would put in the policy the change to the policy to ex explain the waivers is that waivers must be granted in these initial applicant meetings or whatever we call them, you know, their initial I don't know. What application review meeting or whatever.

Yeah.

That's the time to state a need. Hey. I think I'm gonna need a waiver. I think I'm gonna need an exempt you know, something that's different with this policy. Great.

Because then that can all be documented as well as part of the approval. And then when it comes to us, it's like, okay. Great. The committee did this way. That to me seems reasonable.

It's well in advance of the event. It's part of that initial planning meeting. That sounds fair. Through through the chair.

Working off of that, so for the longest time, I thought that this guidebook wasn't just it wasn't really a guidebook that it was like, this is what you have to do, and you have no choice in the matter. So even someone who's been looking at it for years just recently found out that some things are optional and they're just, you know, they're considered, you know, the committee could consider not to enforce it. I wasn't aware of that. And how this document is laid out, I think, is why I didn't know that and probably why a lot of other people didn't know that. There are parts in here that are, recommendations, and it says recommendations.

But then in the very next paragraph, it's like, our our policy is this. Okay. So is it a recommendation or is it a policy? You know, do I have to follow this rule or can I say it's it's not? And I think there's certain sections like, you know, the the liquor license issues or the barricades issues or, the the fire lanes and all of that that are are required.

You know, you really can't go beyond that. But just as an example, the sustainability section says, the city of Ferndale recommends food and beverage services providers use certain compostable packaging materials and brands that, made, to provide multiple options depending on needs or something like that. I'm getting confused. And it says to to reduce land landfill waste. And then the very next section is food and beverage service providers shall not use polyureth polystyrene, styrofoam, single use plastics, glass.

It goes through all of this. You can't do that. Well, why did you even say we recommend something when you're really saying you can only use these products? You know, it's just it's a lot of unnecessary information, and it's all just kinda thrown altogether. And I think if you separated this is what's required and this is what we recommend, it would be a lot easier for people to know what they can come to you and say, you know, we'd like a waiver on this item or that item.

I just wanna clarify. As a as a rule of thumb, at least as the police department operates and, a lot of city departments, policies and procedures and guidebooks are simply that. They're they're just a guide, for routine situations, and they're not a law or ordinance that is enforced in such a manner. Reasonable, situational deviations are perfectly reasonable to any policy or guidebook. I agree that it should be, fit most situations.

I think that maybe we should make it very clear, that, we don't wanna have a lot of deviations once it's approved by council. So I I think that if you're looking for that, this if this council's looking for that, I think that would be perfectly reasonable. But I think anything in a guidebook or anything in a policy as a rule is a guideline, and and it should be treated as such. When it's appropriate to deviate, it should be it should be deviated. I think you should on the side of, operational safety, common sense, what's appropriate, and what's right.

And if it doesn't fit, don't be hemmed in by a policy that is it's just a guideline. It's just a simple policy. So this body and, the special event committee are not, they shouldn't look at this as it's as if it's the constitution or statute. There is flexibility. I think it may be we need to have a clear understanding between, counsel, the special events committee, and the producers of the events that these guidelines are set forth to, you know, make a smooth operation, but we expect deviations from this to be handled as far in advance as possible, for what that's worth.

So through the chairs, since you're up there, chief, can I ask a quick question about the the patio zone area and the intersection of patio zone versus where liquor would be sold at an event? How how would you approach determining what area needs to be fenced off for that?

If it is a LCC, special license application, the area has to be fenced off that it is can be consumed in. Now the the question happens, and I I know this is council member Johnson's point is, were these were these areas overlap? I think city council and special events committee and the producers have some wiggle room, perhaps allowing, patio zone into the public zone that's been approved. But the alcohol served within that the confines of that special license application without without a a patio permit would not be permitted to leave. That is my understanding talking to LCC officials.

I would prefer to revisit that, but I think that the guidelines for whether it's, like, a beer garden or some type of fenced area, I I think that's I would be willing to work with the, producer of the event to make it as big or as little as they want because they're the ones incurring the cost on the fencing, which is substantial. I know the event, you know, Chris spends a lot of money on bike rack fencing to properly secure the event space. It's it's not cheap. So it's it would be cheaper to make a smaller beer garden, but I could understand the appeal of having a larger fest fenced event, so they could shop and carry a drink through the event space. So but as a rule, the special license application alcohol cannot leave the event space.

But if it does overlap with the patio zone, I don't see any reason unless it's prevented unless this council weighs in on it and cancels the patio zone in that area. It's still outlined in this in our ordinance for the patio zone that a patio cup could go walk down the sidewalk on nine mile in an event space. But we're making special applications as just like when we suspended patio zone for pride Mhmm. Out of respect for Julia's, request. So we this body makes alterations or amends, the patio zone based on the event.

If I could just I I've had an opportunity to look at that issue. The special license, is not a qualified licensee to participate, in a social, district, area under the LCC's rules. Size of the special license designated area that's not part of the social zone is up to the applicant and then ultimately counsel. But the, special licensee cannot, under the current administrative rules, utilize the social district boundaries extend beyond its its footprint.

That's my understanding as well.

I do have a question for you, Michael, regarding the back to the parade and walk run the parade runs and walk requirements. I know that it's just just so happens that not too long ago, I sent you a request of someone who's thinking about doing something like of some sort of charity, run-in the community. So I my question to you is, what brought about the 51% majority? Because that wasn't the case before. So what brought it about?

Currently, right now, if you want to do a block party in your in your neighborhood, that's what the requirement is. And the other portion of this was, we haven't had a five k in the past couple years, but there's always been frustration with residents who don't believe that they were adequately adequately communicated with, and didn't like the idea of having to wait until the street was reopened to get out of their parking lot or parking, driveway. And it it's really the, you know, two sides of this coin and and and I think that the the greater side of it is is the expressed concerns from residents who feel like they're not really given enough time to prepare or and even though prior to this request, what we have done is we've asked them to notify the residents and of course, again, it's it's a trust issue, you know, you you you trust that they're going to follow through with the directive, but they don't always necessarily follow through correctly. Or it's kinda like, he's well, we we told them we did but they say they didn't. So by doing this, it shows, you know, that at least the majority of the the residents or businesses that are impacted, in that five k run route have been aware of what is happening.

And then, of course, it also says that even seven days prior to the event, they have to then, as a reminder, a courtesy, is to remind by whether it's by flyer or by mail, they can, you know, send out another notice. I I just, you know, I I understand every question, and I understand, as soon as you know that there's truly care and concern coming out of this this this modifications. And, you know, I just hope that we take that into consideration when when we go over these and realize that some of these are based on requirements, whether they're, you know, they're compliments to already a current city ordinance, or if they have to do with Oakland County Health Department. They're required, we have no wiggle room. But by putting it in the policy and being more clear about it, it gives them the understanding of what the expectations are.

I mean, for example, you you see the portable toilets and hand sanitation, each events must provide. That's not a well, you don't have to if you don't want to. It is a must. You need to be able to provide the public with portable toilets for for the you know, and with hand sanitizers. We've had port events that have had portable toilets but nothing to sanitize their hands.

This is a requirement that should be for anyone, you know, it's public safety. So it's it's relevant that we make understand that there is a difference between flexibility and some things that are required for the protection and the bitterment of the community.

I don't think anybody oh, sorry. Go ahead.

I was just gonna say, so through the chair, Greg, you had a great point earlier that you feel like there are requirements and there are recommendations. So let's say we wanna move forward with approving this tonight. Is there is there opportunity to wordsmith it after the fact if we agree in theory that all of these things are okay, and then wordsmith it after the fact for clarity? Is that possible? I don't know what the order of operations would be.

Are you asking me personally?

I don't know. I'm asking the general one.

I'd be happy to speak to that. Okay. I I did have a chance to to talk with staff about some of the concerns that were raised, and I've taken pretty extensive notes on what you've all expressed here. It does seem like the body of what we have is there, and and I do think we have an obligation to the special event community to start prior abiding clarity. We're getting into special event season.

So easily, there could be language added to acknowledge that these guidelines are subject to waivers or special requests as part of the special event commission. I think there's no, concern at all with that question. Regarding the question of them being guidelines and certain things being policies versus recommendations, also, I think there is language that we can add or possibly a checklist that would accompany this as an appendix that would show what is specifically a requirement, a statutory requirement, versus what is recommended. But I do think it makes sense to have all of that information in one document because what we're trying to present to the community is how to present to us a successful event, how to get your application accepted. So to that end, I wouldn't separate them out into two different documents or start creating individualized policies.

And then regarding the the one month policy, because I I've heard some concerns around that as well. It's it's pretty obvious that the concern there stems from communication with those impacted by the events. So one thing that staff, had considered is instead of the 51% signatures or as an alternative to the 51% signatures, perhaps paying a fee so that the city noticed impacted residents. That way we can be assured that mailers went out to everyone along that route. And it may be a a much more obtainable goal for people.

If you have volunteers, great, and you wanna get the signatures, fantastic. If you don't, you know, pay the fee to the city and we'll provide a mailer to those along the route. And then regarding the alcohol question, obviously, we have the answer from legal now. And the nice thing is council's gonna get a bite at that apple every single time. You're gonna get the individual discretion on each event that is seeking a special event permit for liquor use, and and we can weigh into consideration what is unique about each individual, community project.

So to that end, I do hope council sees that that the structure is there for this guideline, and I believe we can very easily clean it up with just a a few little tweaks tonight.

And then just to add to the city manager's comments, you know, nothing stops this body from proposing amendments to any policy or, you know, at any future date. So, you know, if one of us wanted to introduce a a change at at some future date, we we could we could do that.

Through through the chair. So thank you for the the suggestion of the the mailing. I'd I'd I'd like that idea rather than requiring people 51%. And I understand the idea that, you know, people are inconvenienced. You know, we have a policy with the block party.

A block party is all day. You know, a run is a two hour at max. You know, the road's gonna be shut down. It it's not that huge of an inconvenience. And again, the last one we had was eight years ago.

Probably, the next one will be eight years from now. One of the biggest issues that I have is these changes to special events always come right before the start of event season. You know, event season ended in October. This something like this should have come to us in October, November or December so that we could talk about all of these issues before all of these events have already started planning. The last time we had this in front of us, it was regarding the, compost, compostable, materials.

And we were gonna force all of the special events in agreeing in April right in in June they were gonna have to start with all this stuff. And and we made it a requirement that it wouldn't start until January of the following year. And I would like to see the same thing. These changes that are being offered in this shouldn't start until the next, special event season.

I have a I have one more. I have another item. Sorry. So I guess my question is about formulating these policies and and the special events committee. I know who I know who is on the committee.

I know the work that the members of the committee do. But when you're drafting these policies, to what extent are the like, to what extent are the major event folks involved in these discussions about draft policies? I mean, I'm not saying that they're gonna have the dispositive, you know, input, but, you know, when we're creating policies and we know we have folks like Julia and Chris and others who do these events every year, they're big events, they're popular events, we kind of there are frequent flyers. Right? They know kind of what it means to host a big event in Ferndale.

To what extent when we're drafting these policies and especially this particular policy, I mean, how much engagement is going on outside of the committee? Like, is the committee bringing in essentially experts from the event side other than yourself, Michael, you know, to say, like, you know, this is what this policy would mean for me. If there's still a public safety concern, of course, to both chiefs, comments like, yes, public safety is gonna override anybody's convenience all day every day. But I, you know, I'd like there to be more or to understand what kind of dialogue is happening with our sort of local folks who are doing this all the time. And when we're creating policies, if we're creating them in a vacuum without any of that kind of input or dialogue, what does that policy you know, how do I have how do I have confidence that policy is really weighing all of the potential potentialities?

We we did have a a meeting on January 30, with the event planners. We invited them to and so we basically the previous, council meeting, it was a more extensive, it ran longer than I ever thought it would for their their meeting to do a a review of the the revisions and also a q and a. And while the especially if you're referring to the events that we consider annual events, the majority of the things that were proposed, they're very familiar with because they were pretty much implemented but they weren't in writing. Some of the like the patio zone, or this setup and breakdown for example, or the parking lot rental fee proposed proposal, those were new to them. But there there was a q and a discussion.

But the bottom line is, the discussion or the meetings that we had with the special events committee and with the event planners, the bottom line is they come to you. And, we're asking for your support. I totally lost my train of thought. Probably lucky for you guys, so I don't talk as much. I I maybe I wanted to just for the in regards to, setup and breakdown requirements, I just wanna give you an example.

And this has to do with Ferndale Pride and Funky Ferndale Art Fair, because they both do pretty much the same kind of planning when it comes to the morning. They the event itself does their setup, they put out their tents and this, whatever else they need to put out on the street. And then vendors who are participating in the event, they're lining up in the alleyway behind the Rust Belt Market and then all the way down with the lot waiting for their time to come onto the street to be to be sent to their designated area so they can set up. This is where why this was this requirement was inspired, because sometimes and it it's not necessarily event planner's fault, but sometimes they do have volunteers who are helping and they get a little distracted by a conversation and then all of a sudden two or three more cars that probably shouldn't be on the street yet are now on the street and it gets congested. That's where the concerns are where and there's frustration expressed by the police department or the police staff that are there because they're obviously concerned about public safety, because they feel like the cars there's too many cars on the street.

There's or or someone's gonna get hit by a car because no one's gonna be looking. There those are the kind of concerns. That's why that was inspired to be asked to be put in there. So there is a plan, a timeline that we do ask from an event planner to let us know what they're expecting. And, yes, some things can change on the day of, but these are the kind of things that we do have conversations with prior to the event even even takes place.

And so we're trying to hold them accountable to say, this is the timeline you gave us. We hope that you follow through with the timeline you're you're providing us.

Okay. Well, I think we've had plenty of discussion on this. So I'm going to make my motion for an amendment and then we can vote on the whole thing after I've amended it, mostly because I think that's gonna be easier than me trying to roll my amended language into a motion for overall approval. So I'm going to move that the draft, special events policy be amended. On page four, special events committee, adding after sentence three, language as follows.

Applicants must request any necessary waivers of requirements under this policy no later than the final scheduled meeting of the special events committee prior to the committee's final recommendation. The committee can recommend approval or denial of requested waivers in its final recommendation. End amendment. A second.

Support. I'm sorry.

Johnson? Yes. Nikolsky? Yes. Kelly?

Yes. Poloka? Yes. Leaksmay?

Yes. Thank you, Michael, for all your work in this in the committee.

So now I'm going to move to approve the, special events policy as now amended. So moved. Support.

Would you pardon. Would you like that to be subject to city manager final approval so I can add in the language relative to

Yes. I would. So I move to approve the special events, policy as just amended by this body and with the stipulation that final city manager approval on final language is required before this policy comes into effect. Still support.

Johnson?

Yes. Mikulski? Yes. Kelly?

Yes.

Polica?

Yes with explanation.

Leaksmae? Yes.

Through the chair. I was gonna vote no because I haven't really had a chance to read through the whole document, and and there's a number of things just looking at tonight that I have concern with. I voted yes because I will have those conversations with

with you,

Colleen, and, we can we can move from there. So I didn't wanna hold it up, although I would have been the only no vote.

K. Alright. Next up, item eight a oh, excuse me. I eight b on the regular agenda is approval of the one year extension with MacroConnect for information technology services.

Thank you. Good evening. Just get this going here. Alright. So, as we all know, we are living in a digital world, and so providing services requires us, to use devices.

Yeah. One second. I had a little technical issue. Alright. So, yeah, providing services to residents in the twenty first century requires significant IT infrastructure and support.

For example, the city has 13 servers with off-site data backup. We have over a hundred workstations. We have access control and security cameras in city facilities. Access control, this is where we're talking about automatic locking systems for doors, things of that nature, the key card access. But this also requires a ton of security tools and monitoring to keep all of this safe.

So we've got nine firewalls for city things, as well as, twenty four seven secondurity monitoring. So since 02/2021, in December 2021, MacroConnect has been the city's IT, contractor. They provide IT support and guidance for the city. They provide us with two embedded technicians. These are, two staff members that are here in city hall or at our other sites, Monday through Friday helping us out.

They provide us with a virtual chief innovation officer helping to strategize and plan IT upgrades, plan our whole IT strategic plan. We also have access to their specialized skills and expertise through their network of over 30 professionals. Because they're part of a larger organization, when we have something that's a little more difficult than our embedded technicians can handle, they have the expertise to help us. So they what they do is they provide support for all of our workstations and IT infrastructure. Their contract actually was set to expire, 06/30/2024.

We've council has previously approved two different six month extensions, one to get us through, the original Headley override, election, and then the second one to help us during the the initial transition of, our city manager leaving. We're kind of in a similar spot again. We need some flexibility and extension provides us with the, flexibility. But with the upcoming millage election, flexibility of services is gonna be at a premium. Extending the MacroConnect contract is gonna give us some time to assess our future IT needs, give us a chance to take a look at what happens during the millage election and where we wanna go.

It provides us with some stability at a time when there's a lot of lot of these open questions. MacroConnect has waived their traditional, 3% annual increase, so this is a locked in price. And they're giving us an estimated 26,000, cost decrease. This is coming from a change in service provision where we used to have the embedded technicians five days a week. We're gonna go to four days, with Friday remote for the technicians, and also a small decrease in some of the administrative level meetings.

So our next steps, if approved, the extension and cost savings will actually hit earlier than the contract was gonna end. It they'll begin April 1, and then come November, December, an internal team can meet to start evaluating our IT needs, and getting ready to issue and draft an RFP for IT services based on that evaluation, with a potential award for a new or changed contract, with macro in March or April 2026, to award that contract. So what we're looking for tonight is, an approval of the extension.

Hang on. I'm opening it up to counsel regarding that extension. One year extension for MacroConnect.

So through the chair. I guess I'll kick us off. Let's rewind, back to Joe's emails before he left. I thought that we were extending our contract out to June first of twenty twenty five, and now now we're extending it out to January of twenty twenty six. Is that correct?

This would be a one year, that well, I guess, technically, a little longer than a year. Mhmm. Because it'll go into place in April where the the six month extension, would be expiring June thirtieth of this year. So that when when it came to you last time, it was for I think it was December 30 through June 30.

What have we done between the time that we approved the extension to go to the June to present day that we are considering extending this out to a year from now. What have we done to figure out what our course of action is going to be going going forward? And the reason I ask that is because MacroConnect is incredibly expensive. We all know it. The costs have gone up over the years.

I think they do provide good service. There's there's nothing wrong with their service. But we keep on doing these small extensions, and, again, my my issue is we already had one small extension taking us out to June, and now we're asking for a larger extension. My hope is that we have accumulated some information in the meantime so that we can put together a very competent RFP, and I'm looking at the the next steps here with a January 2026 issue RFP. That feels like that's late in the game.

Well, that would give us because if this extension is approved, it will go until 06/30/2026.

Mhmm.

So issuing the RFP in about January, would give us the time a month or so for it to be out there, another month to, evaluate responses, and then bring back an award recommendation. So it would it would line up pretty well with, bringing on a new contractor or, you know, maintaining the same contractor in about May so that they can start onboarding. Or

So do we already have some of the parameters for that RFP outlined?

We don't yet. And most of that is we're kinda seeing what what comes with the head of the override election, and then giving Colleen an opportunity to come in, and assess what we're what we're currently doing and what we're gonna do in the future.

Did we issue an RFP before, when we got MacroConnect?

We did.

So we

have some sort of guideline as to what we

Yeah. We have we have the original RFP from 2021.

The internal team to evaluate IT needs, you know, fine with that being staff for the most part, but I will I will hope that there will be some engagement with counsel as well on what we believe our IT needs are as we finalize that plan.

Totally appropriate.

Through the

chair, it would also be very helpful. There's an old IT RFP sheet from the last time back in what year was this? It was November of twenty twenty one when we approved the the MacroConnect contract. There was a spreadsheet that we used to to basically create a matrix and look at the different strengths of municipal experience, staffing plans, things like that. And there were 11 companies total.

We don't know who those other companies are. It would be helpful to have some of those names, maybe go back and benchmark some of those companies as well and look around to some of the other cities in the area to see if we can find somebody who has potentially comparable experience, but maybe a a slightly better price point, something a little bit leaner for us.

Any other comments, questions? I'll just note for council's knowledge too. I think it's incumbent upon us to at least also consider whether it makes sense to bring those services in house and evaluate that as part of a cost proposal as well.

And through the chair, just a a quick comment. The reason that I'm a little bit on about this is because I did vote no on the MacroConnect contract back in 2021. The the price tag was steeped then, and the cost at that point was 396,000 per year. Obviously, that has gone up as everything has. We went from basically having some folks that were they were in house, but also contractors.

Greg, I'm I'm sure you're gonna be able to correct me on this. But the cost at that time with just a few in house folks that I believe were subcontracted through a company, in Ferndale was much lower. I think our service was comparable. We didn't have a virtual CIO, but truth be told from just a a user standpoint, I haven't seen the benefit. And, again, I I would like to see something from us that really outlines where those benefits have lied, how we can potentially go on without something, something like that, something like a CIO, and see if there's any sort of cost efficiencies that we can gain by pulling it back in house.

Through

the chair. You're correct. We did have a couple of people that that worked in house. We also had some turnover. We had several breaches, which is why we decided to go with a much more reliable company.

We knew it was more expensive, but we knew that we were gonna get a much better service. And I have to say that I'm very impressed with everything. I mean, they've been there have been issues where, I'm not blaming an employee, but, you know, an employee clicked on a phishing email and within a very short period of time, it was resolved as opposed to all of a sudden days and days later, we're still trying to figure it all out. So, as someone who works with data and very, secure data, I understand the importance of investing in good security for data. This is something for me, it's it's kind of not negotiable.

It's one of these I'll I'll die on that sword.

Through the chair, I I think that's fair in terms of asking for quality. What I'm asking is just let's look to see if we can get that same quality.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. I move that we approve the one year extension with MacroConnect for information technology services as submitted by the assistant city

manager. Support.

Johnson?

Yes. Polica? Yes. Kelly?

Yes.

Mikulski? Yes.

Leaks May?

Yes.

Great. Cool.

That's right. Alright. So this is the time, where it's typically called a council, and I typically defer to the city manager to, help, facilitate department head updates. Great.

We do have an update from Parks and Recreation first.

Good evening, mayor and council, and, welcome to our new city manager. Just a few, updates from Parks and Recreation. So last week, we, three myself, Lorena, and Robert attended the in parks conference out in Traverse City, where we attended various different professional development sessions, got the opportunity to network with a bunch of folks from around the state. We also, I'm not sure if we announced this or not. We won the park design award from the in parks conference for, our design of Wilson Park.

So that was really exciting. We got a photo and, news article, I believe, on the website. Right, Riley? Yep. Alright.

We are planning to open up registration for a summer camp on Monday. The plan currently is to open it first to people that want to register for the entire summer, then the next day opening up to residents only, and then the following day after that, opening it up to everyone else. We're hoping to, have a smoother process than we did last year. So keep an eye on Facebook and the city website for further details as that date approaches. We should have something posted around Wednesday once we get some things finalized as far as, what facilities that we have available to use.

Also, the seniors are having a trip to IKEA this week. It'll be taking place on Thursday, March 13. Sponsors still available for that trip. Seniors over the age of 65 get, 20% off of adult entrees as part of this trip. Anybody that is wishing to participate, please contact our front office.

We're also still seeking, skate jam, sponsorships, for the Gary Park Skate Gym that will be taking place on Saturday, June 7. It'll be the first event that it will take place after the end of the school year, so we're hoping to invite a lot of families and, skaters out to participate in the event. Anybody this information I'm sorry. Anybody that's interested in, having more information about how to, get a sponsorship or the different levels of sponsorships that we have available, please contact me at ejohnson@fernandomi.gov. We are also still seeking extravaganza volunteers.

The extravaganza will take place on Saturday, April 12 from, from one to 2PM. It'll take place at three different parks, and volunteers as part of that event will generally be responsible for crowd control and helping to spread the eggs out. Also, collecting shells at the end of the event and, passing out gift baskets. Anybody that's interested, please contact our office. And I believe that is all that I have.

I do have a question. Sure. You mentioned that you were opening up the application process for people who wanna camp all year long. Right. Excuse me.

Not all year long. For the summer.

For the summer. Yes.

So and and for that what that sounds like to me is that it could be for residents and people who are not residents.

Correct.

So I'm my question is is why not has there been any consideration to opening it up to people who are residents? And then the ones who are not residents, they can kinda go in the pool with the residents who wanna open it up for some of the sessions for summer. I'm just saying that, you know, I I don't know what that's gonna look like, but your the programs tend to be pretty popular. Yes. And I think priority should be given to the people who are here.

I I think I agree. I what we wanted to do was make sure that we ensured a level of consistency among the rosters. We, wanted to make sure that we're prioritizing those people that would be here for the entire summer, and then the residents, receive first priority after that. Whether or not that looks like opening it up to residents who want the full summer first as opposed to all people, that's something I need to discuss with our leadership. But that's one of the reasons why I say keep an eye on Facebook and the city website as the week, continues because we're still working on some of that information.

Through the chair, you did there was an announcement last week that you were opening it up on Monday for Resonance First.

Yes.

Okay.

We did need to, amend that because we wanted to accommodate for the people that were going to be paying for the entire summer outright.

Okay.

And then I'd like to invite community and economic development up for an update.

Just wanna, talk about the Olsa grant for a minute, maybe lean on councilor Kelly and the mayor. But for a little bit of background for the community, the city did receive a very large grant of $380,000, that went from the county to also of ARPA dollars. I believe the total was was 2,300,000.0 or something like that. But, essentially, kinda how the program worked is we were allowed to all CVTs, city villages and townships were allowed a first round to request money up to $30,000, for senior tour program, which we requested and we received. They did a second round for anybody who did not apply the first round.

And after that was done, they did a third round where they asked cities to, request as much as they would need, and think big. With the 30,000 we got in the CDBG funds, we could service the clients we had at the time. But then when we were allowed to ask for more more, we asked for 50,000 more, taking us to 80 over two years, which will give us 40,000 every, year for snow removal and grass cutting. The they quickly came back and said, yes. You can have that, and we then reached out to them to see if there was additional funding, and there was.

So we amended our request another 300,000. So we can do snow removal, grass cutting, but then also maybe replacing roofs and heating systems and things like that. Of the 300 I left my notes back there. Of the 380,000, also takes 15%. We've earmarked 15% for our admin costs.

I think that takes us to $2.66. And if we take away the 80,000 more earmarking for snow removal, that gives us one eighty d six, I think, to spend. The council selected councilor Kelly and the mayor, as kind of a committee to roll out, and Riley and Alicia and I have been meeting, with councilor Kelly and the mayor, to roll out the program, which launched, I think, about two weeks ago. So, we're highlighting five things we wanna focus on, roofs, furnaces, plumbing, including hot water tanks, accessibility improvements, and then major yard cleanup. The applications are out there.

So the deadline is April 28. So that gives us, I think at the time about two months to get out there. I've personally received two applications that I've forward on. I don't know if Olsa has received any separately. They'll give us a a weekly or biweekly update that I'll update, councilor Kelly and the mayor on.

The grants are up to $5,000, is the maximum you can request, and we will take the applications until the twenty eighth, and then we will again meet to go through them. If we only have a couple requests, we'll probably grant all of the requests. That'll be easy. If we do get a flood of responses, we're gonna have to prioritize. There is stuff in the application that prioritizes emergency work first.

So, you know, if your roof is really leaking or you don't have a furnace, that would probably take priority. And then I think the next priority is anybody who's not received a grant previously from the city, and then we would flush out the rest from there. But we're really excited for this. We're kinda holding it in advance until the twenty eighth, and then we'll have a game plan. And then I don't know if, councilor Kelly or the mayor wanna add anything to that.

I think there is a meeting that you'll be speaking on March 26 with the seniors as well to kind of gauge the interest and maybe get more applications at that time?

Correct. So I reached out to Jeanne Davis the other day and explained the program to her since she, deals with all the seniors. So I explained to her the application process. The limit I said earlier, one person household at 80% AMI, which will qualify is thousand dollars of income or less. So that's probably, you know, many, many seniors, and we are meeting the twenty sixth.

I think counselor Kelly and I are gonna go to the, senior board and have applications. Applications are available at City Hall. We can email them to you. We can mail them to you. They're on our website.

We can drop them off. And, there's a couple things you have to give. You have to give your driver's license and homeowner's insurance. But if somebody can't scan it in and get it to ULSA, you can mail it back to us. We'll come pick it up from you.

You can drop it off at City Hall, and we'll email it in for you.

Through the chair. Just for clarity. So you you mentioned that the the primary focus is, like, roofs, furnaces, hot water tanks, I think you said accessibility issues. Mhmm. But people should apply even if they don't for things that might not fall in those categories.

I wouldn't say don't. You know, those are the focuses. But, again, I don't know if I'm only we don't know if we're only gonna get five applications, and then maybe somebody did apply for something.

Exactly. That's why I'm saying that even if you don't fall into those categories, you should still apply because you don't know what's gonna get approved. So if someone needs a door replaced because the security of the door isn't as good or windows, or the paint is peeling on their house, they should still apply. But understanding that that might not get approved because we have all these other house, roofs and furnaces and hot water tanks that are gonna take priority.

Correct. Also, what helps if applying is the area that aging services has some programs. So so if they don't qualify here, we can put them in touch there or, the county loan program that also will say at the end of it, this doesn't work for you, but there is a county loan low interest loan program. So even that connection will help us help a citizen. That's it.

Thank you.

Any communications update?

Alright. Good evening, mayor and council. So I am pleased to announce that the farm and learn program is returning for the third year in a row. So this is a free program that allows for the public to get an up close look at how the city works, get to know city staff, and it's a great place to ask any questions or address concerns you have about the city. So I'm gonna read off the departments who will be participating.

So we have city manager's office, police, fire, finance, public works, zero waste, IT, CED, HR, DDA, parks and rec, communications, and city clerk's office. So if you're interested in learning about any of those departments, this is a great opportunity for you. So the program is every Thursday evening from 06:30 to 8PM. It begins on April 3 and will conclude on June 10. The locations will vary.

They will largely be here in council chambers, but we might go off-site to the fire station and a park and things like that if the weather's nice. Dinner will be provided, and I will be sending out emails to participants on a weekly basis to make sure they know where they're going, if anything's changed, things like that. So the sign up form will be launched on the city's website, friend.com.gov, and then our social media channels, Facebook and Instagram, by the end of the week. And if anybody has any questions about the form, needs help filling it out, the best thing to do is email information@frondoonmy.gov or just send a message to one of our social media channels. I manage both of those, so I will see them right away.

But, yeah, I'm I'm really excited about this program. I think residents have a lot of fun with it. I've seen people go and join boards and commissions and stuff, so it's gonna be good. Yeah. Thank you.

And then we had a update from DDA director Beaker. Is she available? Yeah.

Good evening. So up first, Downtown Ferndale, we are partnering with Main Street America to conduct an input survey. This is gonna help us to gauge better what people like, what they don't like, what they wanna see more of, what they have, you know, different visions of for Downtown Ferndale. So there is a survey that is live. It takes about ten minutes to complete.

It is anonymous. There are some demographic questions that will be asked just to help us gauge a little bit better who is responding how so that we can tailor things to a diversity of audiences and people who enjoy Downtown Ferndale. So you can visit this link, bit.ly/capitalfFerndaledash,allcaps, m s a. This is case sensitive, but I tried to make it easy for everyone to see. So bit.ly/furndale-capitalm,capitals,capitala, and that will take you to the survey.

Once we get 200 people to respond on that, we will, go to the next level of that and have, some small focus groups that'll be coordinated with, Main Street America. We are also very excited that, the weather good weather is here as evidenced by this past weekend, so we can only expect more of that. It gets us really excited, but it is also the time for, our businesses to start opening up with some of their cafe seating. So seating on the sidewalk, taking advantage of that. So just a reminder that as the weather gets good, please come out to Downtown Ferndale, walk, bike, or drive safely, and enjoy the things that we have outside.

Part of that will include a, bar crawl with more than eight participating businesses that's happening this weekend at Downtown Ferndale. So, it's a little bit early for Saint Patrick's Day, but just, again, reminding folks of what we have here in Ferndale. And, also, art march is in, well underway. There is a calendar of events. There's a lot of good things that are coming up over the next two weeks, including, an artist conversation at Barrel House on the thirteenth.

There is a zine making workshop that is family friendly, at Hero or Villain. There are several artist celebrations, including Fele, who's gonna be talking about the mural at Syndicate. So please visit artmarchferndale.com. There is a calendar of events, that also includes plenty of workshops and, family friendly activities, including what we have at our pop up cultural arts center in Ferndale House at the corner of Planavon and 9 Mile. And, yep, thank you always for partnership.

Thank you, also to our special event organizers, to council, and all of our stakeholders, including our city partners for a thorough consideration of these things that make Downtown Ferndale as well known as it is, having attended some conferences recently when people know Ferndale because they've been to something here that's really cool. We appreciate the attention and collaboration to make that happen and to keep delivering this really great Downtown Ferndale experience.

Thank you.

And that is it for department updates.

K. Alright. Brief me, everyone. Where did I start last time? I never remember this.

Here or here. Okay. Then council member Polica, we'll start with you.

Two things. Thank you, James, for all of your hard work is, what was the title? It was intern city manager. Sorry. Appreciate everything you're doing, and welcome, Colleen, manager.

Look forward to working with you.

Council member Johnson? I

only have one item. So, normally, I'm loathed to sort of address anything that's sort of floating around on social media or the Internet, but there's one small item that I wanna make sure we address on the public record, only because there was an implication that there was improper activity or behavior happening with city staff and the city council regarding the laptops that are decommissioned at the city government. And so I wanna make it clear that they're, these laptops do not go to city staff. They don't get to keep them and take them home. There's no friends and family plan, I believe, that resident referred to it as.

What happens is these laptops are donated to a local nonprofit called Human IT. That nonprofit takes those laptops. They refurbish them, reformat them, and give them to families that cannot afford computers to ensure that they have connectivity. So I don't appreciate the implication that city staff are engaging in any kind of improper or untoward behavior, especially in a situation where we're in fact taking our surplus equipment and we're doing something very good, in our community. So, other than that, welcome, Colleen.

Looking forward to working with you. Thank you, James. Looking forward to continue to working with you. You think I won't see keeping you busy? That is incorrect.

You will you will both be busy all the time. But other than that thanks, everyone.

Mayor for Tim Bukowski.

Just a a follow-up on what council member Johnson had mentioned earlier. So I I appreciate James, you you've been back and forth with me pretty much all day about the the laptops because I had a litany of questions about the age of them and things like that. Just for the the general public to know, those laptops were roundabout anywhere from six years old. There were a handful that were six years old. The vast majority were anywhere from eight to 11 years old.

So we are not talking about new, laptops. We're not talking about an annual replacement of brand new laptops. These are aged materials, aged hardware that no longer has support. Besides that, I did want to extend a a thank you to our DPW director, James. Thank you so much for taking down that honey locust tree.

I I actually called the resident, and you know I am the biggest fan of every tree, and I wanna save every tree. But that was a tree that had been on the list for a while, and that resident is absolutely thrilled with the work that we did, the way that DPW cleaned up after the tree was taken down, and she just could not speak highly enough of your team. So I want to thank you and also, extend my gratitude to our former interim city manager, James, as well as welcome, Colleen. So looking forward to working with you. I believe I talk to you tomorrow, so you'll get an ear load from me then.

Council member Kelly.

Same. I just wanna welcome Colleen to our team. I'm, looking forward to working with you, and thank you, James, for a fabulous job as interim, city manager. Jay, all you did, and keep putting us in the loop and well informed. You did a great job.

And I'm looking forward to see what you two will do together. I'm excited. So thank you.

Alright. And with that being said, yes, con thank you and welcome, Colleen. And thank you, James, because you got us through so many things where there were so much uncertainty. So I appreciate all the work you've done there. You kinda made the the framework, and now we have something to work with because of your your, initiative.

So glad to still have you and, I look forward to working with both of you. I do want to, just send out send out some congratulatory notes with the schools. I know that, the robotics team had a competition at the high school. It was a lot of traffic. Thank you, community, for being so patient.

But it was a great competition. Our MP warriors came in fourth, but that was out of 40 teams. And I just wanna say something out, regarding them because at in the initial qualifying round, I was sitting in the audience watching them, and something happened with their robot that it just got stuck. It would not move. And the well, I'm watching the heartbreak of these students as the time is ticking down and their robot will not move.

It was out of their control. So I want you to know that they came back and fought and fought hard and was, fourth out of 40 teams. And I could not be more proud of them. So I I think they did an amazing job. Also this past Saturday, for those who don't know, our music program, the band, and the wind ensemble, they had to pro they had to perform at Clarkston High School.

And what festival is is that when you go you go to the high school, you perform the another high school, and judges from all around kinda judge your performance, and give you a a score of a one or a two or a three. One is the best. Also, what they do is so you perform a pieces of music that you pre prepared for, and you also have to go into a room where you have to sight read and perform a piece of music that you're look you're laying your eyes on for the first time at that moment. And I cannot tell you how proud and how wonderful our our students did. They got ones in both categories.

It it was amazing. This is my son's last year of high school. He was, he's in the wind ensemble, and I'm just sitting in the corner just bawling like a baby because they did so beautifully. So congratulations to them for sure. We have a top notch music program, and I hope we continue to support that in the years to come.

Speaking of that, if you didn't get a chance to see Newsies, I did get to go to the opening night this past Saturday night. It's a great show. They have a couple of more shows coming up this coming weekend, the fourteenth, fifteenth, and the sixteenth. The fourteenth and the fifteenth are at Friday, Saturday at 07:30. The sixteenth is the closing show at 03:00.

So if you don't get a chance to go or if you didn't get a chance to go this past weekend, try to reach out and and go to that, that musical. It's really good. It was a lot of people in the audience, and I know that, typically, the opening night and the closing nights are the most fun. So and I saw you there, Dave, too. So we had a lot of fun.

And regarding the information received regarding the laptops, I just want to put it out there. I know we have an organization that we're already using, but I just like to take the opportunity to plug my day job where I help seniors and adults with disabilities. And I will tell you that the Michigan Disabilities Rights Coalition, they actually take those laptops and and give them and give them to seniors who are in nursing homes that want to some access to the outside world. And I'm saying that because recently, I helped someone who is in a nursing home, and she wanted to go she wanted to take enrichment classes and go back to school. Her degree was in marketing, and she just wants to do something, while she's in the home to feel, you know, part of the community.

I was able to assist her through the Michigan Disabilities Rights Coalition to get that laptop, but they only have so many. So just, you know, putting out out there if it's something that we wanna do. But with that being said, it was a great meeting. I hope you enjoyed it, Colleen. But I this meeting is adjourned at 09:09PM.

Thank you.