City of Ferndale - City Council Meeting 3242025

Order at 07:00. If you're able, please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one mission, undervalued, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. May we have a roll call, please?

Johnson? Present. Kelly? Here. Mikulski?

Here.

Polica Leaksmae? Here.

Madam mayor, I would move that we excuse council member Polica from tonight's meeting. Support.

Johnson? Yes. Mikulski? Yes. Kelly?

Yes. Leakes, may?

Yes. Also, I believe I'd like to, because I don't see it here, if someone could entertain a motion to add another presentation, regarding the death of a community partner, Jennifer Whiteaker, a resolution.

So moved, madam, mayor.

Second. Support.

Johnson? Yes. Kelly? Yes. Mikulski?

Yes.

Leaks May.

Yes. Thank you. Alright. Our first presentation and will be, the Ferndale Schools bond presentation. And we have a

superintendent approval of the agenda.

Oh, we didn't do that? You did not. We need to Just a minute. Hold on. Okay.

Make a motion to move regular agenda eight a to be taken off and put on the next agenda.

Do you wanna not allow public comment for that at this meeting or continue to allow public comment?

No public comment at this meeting for that.

Alright. So,

somebody will probably table it to the next

Table it? Table it to the next council meeting?

I will support that.

Kelly? Yes. Johnson? Yes. Nikulski?

Yes. Leaks nay?

Yes. And now approval of the agenda with amendments.

Madam mayor, I move we approve the agenda with the amendments previously made. Support. Johnson?

Yes. Nikolsky?

Yes.

Kelly?

Yes.

Leaksmae?

Yes. Alright. Presentation, superintendent Camille Hitler.

Good evening. I don't know how to

pull up the presentation. Good evening. Good evening.

I'm sorry.

Nope. That's not it. I have it. I can plug in there.

Have it. We can plug it in. Okay.

Here we go. I'll I'll work with that. That's perfect. And then

definitely on the agenda.

Yep. I got it. You got it from there? Yeah.

Thank you, sir. Yeah. Appreciate it.

There it is. I got it.

I'm close. That's okay. Take your time.

Alright. Good evening, madam mayor, honorable, honorable, city council, Ferndale community. My name is Camille Hibler, and I'm a very proud superintendent of Ferndale Public Schools. Thank you for your time this evening for us to talk to you about our 2025 bond proposal, which will be on the May May 6 election. So you may recall, that we had a 2020 bond proposal that did pass.

Much of the work, we are still actually spilling down our bond dollars. However, you may notice that, if you've been to any of our, school buildings, we've had significant work done to each of our buildings, all of our buildings except for Ferndale Middle School, Ferndale High School building, specifically in our classroom spaces. So it was really important for us for this proposal to impact specifically that. And this evening, I'm gonna talk to you about what that looked like and how we came to that point. So, there was significant, bond planning and community engagement.

As I mentioned, it's very important continuing to have, community engagement, community input at the forefront of all of our projects and that was definitely in place with our bond proposal with our facilities community and we'll continue through our financial planning. And we're hopeful that we'll, pass our bond proposal, and we'll continue in that design process as well. So what do we hope that our bond will accomplish in simply we hope for exceptional education at every level? You I am hopeful that you had a chance to, come to our ribbon cutting at the new Ferndale Lower Elementary School. Earlier this school year, we're very proud of that work and we're very thankful to our voters, who allowed for us to, get that proposal passed.

And we now have a new building, to show from that as well as other things. So the twenty twenty twenty twenty five bond will continue our facilities master plan and renovate our for no middle school, first or high school environments. So let me show you what that will look like in detail. So our focus area is ensuring that our middle and high school learning in their environments, match the quality of our recently improved elementary buildings. In that first picture, the top picture in the purple background, that is an actual classroom at our Ferndale High School, Ferndale Middle School building.

In comparison to our new lower elementary building, you can notice that, at the middle school, high school is aging, is crowded, static versus at our lower elementary, you'll notice it's flexible, inviting, and even collaborative. We hope for that at our middle school, high school building. Again, on our left side, you'll notice that our middle school, high school is pretty much a nineteen fifties classroom. If you went to Ferndale High School or Ferndale Middle School, 1950 and beyond, our classrooms look exactly the same. So we would like for our elementary school, which is new and modern, supportive, hands on allows for flexible learning to look the same in our middle school, high school building.

At the top, you will notice, top pictures. It is very interesting walking in the halls of in the Ferndale Middle School, Ferndale High School. During passing time, it's crowded. Normal school day translate transitions are difficult. But beyond just transitions, we hope for more collaborative spaces, and we do not have the opportunity for expanded group learning.

We hope for that. Very similar in our elementary, spaces in the bottom, you'll notice that there is plenty of space for collaborative expanded learning opportunities. So in in addition to new academic configuration, we do hope to ensure that our middle school, our high school have separate identities all all while still being in the same building. We will, we are we are currently planning to replace an entire academic wing. Again, our focus are on our academics, and we'll be moving middle school to one floor ensuring that our again, our middle school or high school have, separate identities.

In addition to the academic configurations, we'll also look at fine arts upgrades, so a new high school music room, renovations to scene room. Our current vet band room will be now have a separate extension onto our building, for a new band room separate from a middle school band room. Also, you haven't heard me mention safety, but that still continues to be a priority, And we're looking to include a secure visitors entry point for our middle school and for our high school building. So most importantly, what is the financial tax info, info for our voters? It it is a zero mill increase.

If approved, the voters can expect there'll be no increase in their tax rates, for this bond proposal. That was very important to us. As I make these presentations I always get lots of questions about, well, can we use the funds to pay the teachers more as much as I would love to? We cannot use bond dollars in that way so this slide is to ensure that the community understands how bond dollars can be spent. So, as I'm hoping that all are aware of, election day is May 6.

You know, the early voting begins on April 26 and absentee ballots are right around the corner on March 27. So we wanna ensure that, we take this opportunity to inform our voters. So, there are lots of information. If you need more information, please visit our website. And and many, often wonder what what happens if the proposal passes on the sixth, what happens next?

We are not we are looking to continue to enhance, student community voice. So we'll have a collaborative design process. We'll design what the intricate details of this bond proposal will look like, and we are not looking to begin building until at the earliest 2027. That's always a question that I get, so I wanted to make sure that I answer that. And before I go, we are taking on quite a lot in further public schools in addition to a bond proposal.

We are also going through a strategic planning process and we are definitely looking for our community's input on, how far we've gotten so far. So we are at the on the cusp of developing goals, and we wanna make sure that our goals that we are beginning to develop are on the right track. So we would encourage all of our community members to please give us input. Your voice matters. The QR code does scan to surveymonkey.com/r/fpsstrattest.

So I believe that is it, and I'm very appreciative of the time to be able to tell you more about our 2025 bond proposal. Thank you.

Superintendent Hibler, regarding that, survey Yes. Is it open for a certain amount of time?

It yes. It will close on, next Friday. So the April Is that the fifth? Fifth. That's fourth.

Fourth. That is the fourth. It closes April 4. Thank you, madam mayor.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Any other questions from council?

No. Looking forward to seeing the next amazing steps for Findout Public Schools.

Thank you for your

time. I'm trying to think. Should we have the fleet?

Alright. So next step, we will have the city fleet information and updates presentation.

So since this one's a little bit, longer, I'll go ahead and start with the topics. As questions come up, just go ahead and jump right in. So the topics being covered today, general fleet data is what I'm gonna start with. I'm gonna look at the fleet management policy that city staff put together in 2020. We go over the total cost of ownership and cost over time concepts because those are both important to this policy.

I'm gonna go over some examples of ideal versus deferred maintenance, look at patrol vehicles, ambulances, dump trucks. I'm gonna look at a gas versus EV for a passenger vehicle, some costing there. I'm gonna look at the surplus auctions and report on, what was just sold this, last month. And then finally, look at finance versus purchase and lease to own and talk a little bit about next steps for our fleet management policy. So the fleet management policy put together in 2020 was developed, presented to council.

Policy stated three main efficiency goals. It looked a lot at efficiency, so both cost efficiency and sustainability. So number one, the elimination of unnecessary, vehicles and equipment. So first goal, two is purchasing and using the most cost effective lower emission vehicles and equipment while still meeting operational requirements. Three was to focus on fleet electrification wherever feasible to decrease carbon emissions.

And I'll mention that this policy is five years old. A lot has changed. It is important with any of these strategic plans to revisit them time to time and make updates, and this is one that does need it. So the first thing I'll show, in terms of data is general fleet. So by, police department, fire department, public works, CED, parks and rec, and parking, we have 95 vehicles total.

You can kind of see the vehicle by type. This is from the fleet policy. It defines and I'll go over this a lot more in detail, but it categorizes every type of vehicle, gives it an ideal replacement schedule and then make some other determinations based on the vehicle size and type. Tracking assets by department, I'm not going to go over every column, I'm just going to show this is that I pulled from the DPW fleet and CD fleet that just kind of shows some of the things that we track. I blacked out plate and VIN for obvious reasons, but I've got, like, MSRP, service life, age, replacement year are the most obvious ones, and then these are what we use to make recommendations to counsel based on when we should replace things.

So continue the fleet management policy. It has several goals and guidelines and objectives. Again, optimizing the fleet size, which just something that we do, throughout the year. Purchasing, leasing fuel efficient vehicles, that is something I believe we have three hybrids in service, which is a start, and that's putting it nicely. Replacing the older diesel engines with low emitting diesel engines, we have replaced several, larger dump trucks and, DPW fleet over the last five years, so those are all emitting less diesel.

So increased average fuel economy using alternative fuels. We do have anti idling policy. Again, we don't have very many hybrids or EVs in the city fleet. That's something that we need to do a better job at. Evaluating and using alternative fuels, again, investigate maintenance and management practices that reduce fuel use.

This is often overlooked, but it is something that we strive for. DPW, police, and fire all try to prioritize routes to decrease mileage. If you can cover without putting on extra miles, that's just cost savings and less fuel consumption. And DPW, as an example, does that a lot with the, snow routes and leaves. So measures of success, reduced emissions, gas consumption, smaller fleet, higher EV and HEV.

We do have a slightly smaller fleet with better emissions. Again, EV and HEV percentage has not increased very high. And then the big part of the management policy is the replacement schedule. So the fleet replacement schedule is basically the, sheet that tells us when it makes sense based on industry standard and best practice to replace a vehicle in the fleet. And, again, it's done by, subtype.

So if we, if we replace our vehicles according to the ideal, I added the column for actual just to kinda demonstrate that's not in the policy, but that's more like, in practice what we're we're we're looking at today. So other than the ideal, what we also look at is low mileage. So we do make exceptions of vehicle as incredibly low mileage. We look at mains and backup vehicles, so it doesn't always make sense that a backup vehicle with low mileage gets replaced according to the schedule if it means that it's not getting a lot of maintenance and repair because we are saving a little money there. And then actual cost of maintenance, vehicle condition, mission, criticality, all these things are variables that we look at when we're recommending a replacement to councils.

And one of the most important concepts that builds out that, replacement schedule is vehicle cost over time. So cost and time are interrelated. Simply put, repair cost is maintenance, repair, and fuel inefficiency, and all these things get worse with time. Capital cost equals purchase and depreciation losses. Capital cost lowers with time.

So, again, repair goes up, capital cost goes down. There's a sweet spot circled in red. That is when you replace your vehicle. An obvious example would be if you have an old car that's worth $400 and then you need to do a $2,500 repair, probably doesn't make sense. You may have waited too long.

You're only getting $400 from that vehicle when you're replacing it. And we'll talk about depreciation value a little bit too. But older vehicles, simply put, they can cost more than new vehicles can if we wait, too long to replace them. So the total cost of ownership is the next concept that's important for the replacement schedule. Cost over lifetime of the vehicle is what that is.

That includes things like purchase price, financing, insurance and taxes, fuel, maintenance, depreciation. And then I I included this picture to just kind of show, we all see the purchase price. We know what that is. The vehicle costs that much. But the next five years, you spend a lot of money, and the city does too, on all these other items that are kind of underwater.

Those are seen as hidden costs. So, I'll note too that when we get into these schedules, or examples rather, I've divided the total by year to come up with an average annual per year to to make the comparisons apples to apples. Before we get to that, I will show, maintenance repair log for a 2021 DPW vehicle. A lot of the numbers that I built into the examples are based on actual data. This is data from the RTA system, which we use to track work order, on city fleet.

So

this is an f one 54 x 4 gas powered. This is our water supervisor vehicle. In four years, the city spent about $10,822.88, and that's just city cost for labor and materials. This vehicle's low mileage, only has about 33,000 miles on it. Maintenance and repair costs will increase with service life, which you can kind of see, but right now, this is a lower maintenance vehicle.

Despite that, it's right around four years old. It's cost about $11,000 in repairs. So depreciation table of Ford f one fifty, just so you can kinda see, it loses roughly 30% of its value in the first three years, and that's pretty standard for vehicles outside of, like, ambulances, special vehicles, large dump trucks. And you can see that this vehicle loses, about 60% of its residual value at year ten. So it's, again, harder to predict value with specialized vehicles and older vehicles, but you can see that this truck loses half of its value by seven, which is part of why the ideal, replacement for a light duty truck is five years.

And no one can read this, but this is a patrol vehicle maintenance repair log for a p 21, same age. This is a Chevy Tahoe. It's gas powered. Four years, cost about $21,371, got about a hundred thousand miles, so high mileage. Police cars see a lot of, rough use, a lot of miles, and a lot of, little repair and maintenance items that end up, equating to a lot.

We'll look at a patrol vehicle first and you'll kinda see how these numbers were made generated from this data. So I'll just say again, maintenance and repair costs increase with service life and especially when there's a high mileage on the vehicle. So now looking at the scenarios, patrol car, six year versus three year service life. I'll kinda breeze through, but we've got MSRP, miles per gallon for the vehicles. Look at mileage, we cost out gallons, PPG, efficiency loss.

That gives us a fuel cost. Fuel cost gets worse over time because of wear and tear. Repair and maintenance cost goes higher because there's more wear and tear, more miles on the vehicle, and then the value of the vehicle decreases with time as well. It depreciates, 60% over six years. On six years for a patrol vehicle, depending on industry standard, usually, they say two.

But if some say three, so I just went with three because it's a little easier to look at three and six. Looking at three, you also importantly get much more, value when you sell the vehicle surplus, about 31,000 versus 19,000 at the, year six. And then when I calculate everything for that six year term and then I divide it, I get $20,530. When I do the same for three years, I get 18,380. So it's only a couple thousand dollars, but this is by basically to show that sweet spot.

You should be replacing this vehicle right around three years because after three years, you're spending more on an old, less reliable vehicle that you're not gonna get as much value for. Service is gonna go down, and at the end of the day, you're gonna sell it for less money. Ambulance. Again, these are a little bit harder. The timeline's extended, but you see the same pattern with fifteen years and ten year service life.

If you keep it in service for ten years, higher ticket item, 305,000. This is a diesel engine. You pay more for diesel, you pay more over time. It does have somewhat high miles, 20,000 versus PD, 25. And you really see at the end of this, 15 versus 10, you're looking at 4,500 more annual per year, if you keep this vehicle in service for five years longer than is ideal.

So scenario number three is a DPW dump truck, same thing, about the same cost. I'll say that these are more desirable, the surplus than ambulances because more people can use them. They have a little bit lower mileage. You see that we're only putting $8,500 a year on the dump trucks because they're not used three sixty five days a year. So again, fifteen year higher maintenance, higher depreciation, ten year lower maintenance, higher value surplus, about $2,000 difference.

And then to look at everything holistically, because you might say $2,000 here and there doesn't add up. Well, there are nine police SUVs in service or squad cars. There's actually, I believe, four chargers and five SUVs, but, that ends up being about $20,000 a year that could potentially be saved by replacing vehicles according to the vehicle replacement schedule. There are two ambulances in service. You'd save about $10,000 on those.

DBW dump trucks, we have eight in service. You potentially save 12,000 on that. You combine all that together, and it's about $42,000 cheaper, if those vehicles get replaced when they're supposed to be replaced. And then just to kind of show the math over time, five years, that's a little over $200,000 in savings. Ideal service life should lower annual vehicle costs.

Shorter service lives typically means less depreciation, and individual vehicles inefficiencies do add up for the total fleet. So a passenger vehicle, EV versus gas costing, I've got a seven year schedule here. I substituted the fuel with EV. So I kinda put together range, kilowatt hours, price per kilowatt, efficiency loss is a little less with EV over fuel. And at the end of the day, for four, passenger vehicles, gas versus EV, you'd be looking at a cost difference about $8,600.

And that is not comprehensive. It doesn't account for EV grants, charging infrastructure.

There's

probably some other variables that I've, missed. This is just something that I wanted to show you. This is how, when we look at changing over to EV, this is something that we would generate to make sure that we're recommending the best option to counsels. In our vehicle surplus auction, so I think it was December that counsel approved Bittergy as our surplus auction vendor. We've done two auctions, February 18 and just March 18, last week or the week before.

So part of this process, the city handles the vehicle. We get it ready. We locate the titles, and the vendor handles everything else. 5% of the sales go to the vendor. That's typical and that's industry standard, and that is well worth it if you ask me.

On the chart for the 2025 surplus for sales here, you can see we had a lot of older vehicles, some of which haven't been used in some time. We were kind of waiting until we had a vendor in place to auction off a lot of these, and we made about $73,000 on 12 vehicles. Bad accounting, was on the spot. I should have included that. But $73,000 that was just sitting in parking lots and in storage areas taking up space.

So financing the capital fleet. Typically, we had three options last several years. Loan, so we would go to a bank, $325,000 vehicle, large ticket item, we would typically try to finance, just to kind of minimize and to spread costs over budgets evenly. So we would look at a five year term. If we had 4% financing, that's roughly $34,122 over the five year term.

That would be about $6,800 a year. Now lease to own is an option where we would traditionally go through enterprise for a smaller vehicle. Let's just say $45,000, 5 year term, 4% financing. Look at about 2,600 over term. It's 522 a year.

And part of that, they would they would cover some of the maintenance while the vehicle was still under lease. So or we would do cash. And in that case, we would go to a fleet, GM fleet, Ford fleet, or a dealership. We would pay, pay by check for the vehicle, take it back, do with it what we will, and then surplus it when we're done. And I will say that, it's important to know because there's some misconception about how lease to own works.

We were leasing those vehicles but purchasing them. We were never leasing them and giving them back. We were paying towards the principal, then the vehicle was ours. We would pay a fee, to have transfer title, and then we would auction it off like we would any other surplus vehicles. So next steps for capital vehicle purchasing, we need to update our fleet management policy, build out replacement scoring matrix.

So we have a fleet replacement schedule, but one of the things that we do need to do is add a little bit of meat to the way that we look at individual vehicles and actually score them based on mission criticality, mileage, cost, and, lead time, things like that. So, we also need to identify and make recommendations for finance strategy through that, fleet replacement policy by vehicle type. And then we need to look at, potential of vehicle replacement fund, which is something that we're talking to the city manager's office about. We need to find ways to add alternative fuel vehicles to the fleet. The costs in 2020 were a lot different.

They've came down a lot. I know grant the grant situation for EV vehicles is kind of in flux, so that that's another question mark we'll have to deal with, but, there are some vehicles that will be up soon that are likely good candidates for, electrification or hybrid. And then we need to always make sure that we are optimizing our fleet size, eliminating unnecessary vehicles, and that we're eliminating any unnecessary surplus vehicles. And that's important too because just because it's paid for doesn't mean it doesn't have a cost. If it's there, it's being maintained, it's being used, we're spending money on it.

And thank you. Are there any questions?

Any questions of counsel?

No. Thank you.

So the presentation that we've added tonight, is a resolution honoring the life of Jennaker Whitaker, who was a DTE representative, partly partner, community partner, serviced a lot of, municipalities and died suddenly last week. Typically, we don't add resolutions to the agenda so so suddenly. However, her services are this week, and we wanted to get this resolution to the family, because, again, she was a community partner and and actually a

friend.

So, thank you, counsel, for being so flexible in adding this. Again, it's typically not something that we do. I would like to take this opportunity to read the resolution if I could. And then, do you have any you're good? Okay.

Alright. The city of Ferndale, Oakland County Of Oakland, State of Michigan, hereby recognizes the life of Jennica Whitaker. Jennifer dedicated over thirty years of service to DTE, a Detroit based energy provider helping power over 2,200,000 people's lives. And Jennifer held roles at DTE in operations, public policy, corporate contributions, and community involvement, and rose through the company's ranks, achieving the role of manager of regional affairs. Jennifer had an unwavering commitment to DTE and the community she served, including the city of Ferndale.

Jennifer was a consummate professional, maintained a positive attitude, always had a smile on her face with a genuine care for others. Jennie Jennifer was the recipient of DTE's Sarah Sheridan Award, named after a DTE customer service pioneer. Jennifer was described by colleagues as a giant, a giant of DTE and for the community she served. Jennifer was proud of her work and more importantly her family, her husband Scott, children Jack, spouse Riley, Sophia, spouse Alex, and granddaughter Delilah. Be it resolved, we at the city of Florida expresses our hurt felt sympathy for the loss of Jennifer Whitaker Whitaker, excuse me, and extend our deepest sympathies to our families and loved ones.

We honor and celebrate the life of Jennifer, recognize her outstanding contributions to DTE in the Ferndale community, and lasting imprint of her spirit. Thank you. Would someone entertain a resolution, a res you know what I mean?

I move to adopt the resolution. Court. Johnson?

Yes. Kelly?

Yes.

Mikulski? Yes. Leaksmae?

Yes. Thank you. Now we're at the point of the agenda where it's called audience. I invite any of the audience to come up and speak about anything on or off the agenda. Please state your name and your address, and you have three minutes to, speak about and, again, anything on or off the agenda?

Hello? Hello. Reed Turnbull. Five one nine East Oak Ridge. Thanks for hosting us all.

Council and mayor, sorry for your loss. And and welcome, Colleen. First, I would just say great presentation from James. And I thought while you have your notebooks open, I would provide a few other numbers just to help inform any planning for, fleet maintenance. I'll also mention, I guess, as a as an aside, I am a electrical engineer at Ford.

I hope that doesn't, provide any bias. I personally drive a Chevy Bolt. So maybe, you know, a little different there. Also, I I these views are my own, but I am also a member of the Ferndale Environmental Sustainability Commission. So, I think James made it very clear.

This is, it is a good idea to put EVs in our fleet. I would just add a couple numbers to highlight some things. So in our master plan, the climate action plan goal number six states that we should have 15% EVs in our fleet. That I may be referring to, citizen vehicles, but the goal lists that the city should lead by example. So with about 95 vehicles in our fleet, by the end of this decade, we should have 14 or 15 EVs.

So let that be a North Star. And I'll just I'll just add, I think I'm sure many of you heard about this, but the state troopers have bought, Ford Mach E's for about $40,000. They've passed all of their tests. They go zero to 60 in about half the time, maybe less than the Dodge Durangos we recently purchased, and they have comparable range. So I don't think performance should be a concern.

And, yeah, that's really only the numbers I wanted to add. So thank you for your time. Thank you.

Hi. I'm Sharon Chess, president of the Coondale Community Concert Band. And this Sunday, it's our tenth anniversary, and we're celebrating at Orchestra Hall. At 03:00, the concert is free. If there's anybody who would like to come and they go, I don't wanna drive down to Detroit.

I don't know where I'm going. The senior group, is actually taking a bus down there. So you can register. Just call the, actually, you can call city hall, and they'll connect you with, Alicia, Pardo, and she'll make arrangements for transportation. They're meeting at 145 at Incubizzo, which is just, it's on the East Side Of Woodward just North of 9 Mile, but they'll give you directions.

And it'll cost you $4 to, ride the bus down there. So I'd like to take this opportunity to encourage council and the mayor and all of the citizens here in Ferndale. Bring your families. It's an excellent opportunity to expose children, to an ensemble like this and to peruse through a building that's historic, iconic, and well recognized around the world as a musical venue. So thank you very much.

Oh. By the way, I brought my pen because I'm willing to sign autographs. If you saw me on Fox two or if you read the article in Oakland Press, just don't crowd.

Yeah. Dallas Augustine 15 50 Spencer. And time sure have changed with Ferndale. Because when I was there about fifty five years ago, that school did not look like that. You know, between ninth and ninth grade to twelfth grade, there is a lot of kids there.

But my question is, I've had several people tell me different, how would you say, charging for EVs, and and they've had different, you know, lengths of time, how much is, how much time is there gonna be for an EV to charge if we're gonna have it in our police department? And how many hours are we gonna be having a police officer that's gonna be checking out, you know, these EVs while they're charging, or are we gonna have somebody from city hall that's gonna run down there or, like, at the DPWR, run down there and just make sure that every one of these vehicles are charged when the officer goes on duty. So I just wonder you know, I've I've heard several different, you know, stories about how long it takes. Me, I wouldn't own an EV for the simple reason when I go on vacation, I ain't near no power pole. Okay?

I'm too far out into the woods in that. And to to charge my vehicle, if I had an EV, I would have to go back to town somewhere in that. But my point is is this, is what's it gonna take and how is the city gonna handle these electric vehicles when, you know, it takes you know, like I said, I've heard various times as to how long it takes to charge a vehicle. Okay? Big vehicles, you know, you're talking about SUVs and stuff like that.

You know, in Ferndale does have a few, you know, the police department, they do have a few big vehicles, you know, and that and, but I'm I I just kinda curious as to how that how that money's gonna be passed on and how that's gonna be budgeted for the, taxpayer. You know? So, I mean, that's my question right there.

Thank you, Dennis.

Hi. Rachel Sellers. Fifteen forty one Morehouse Street. And, facing forward by necessity, but please, just want everyone to know I'm addressing everyone because I'm here to represent the Ferndale Accessibility and Inclusion Advisory Commission. This is one of, the city commissions that operates on a monthly basis.

We're made up of, volunteer city residents approved by this or appointed by the city government. Every city commission tries their best to make Ferndale better in a different way. And, the accessibility and inclusion commission, We do that by talking about together, like, the different disability accessibility issues in the city and then advising city council and other, city employees, members of city government on how to make our city easier to live in, work in, visit. And I'm here tonight in particular because of the, proclamation that I'm extremely excited for later in the city council meeting where, it's gonna be presented, to the council to approve, April as officially autism acceptance month here in Ferndale. That's something that, we made happen.

And, it was extremely cool for me because I was, like, a big part of that push. And as a as an autistic woman, as an autistic resident, this enabled me as a as as an autistic self advocate myself to have a voice in, what the city does and how included, you know, myself and other folks like me get to be here in Ferndale. So, I'm up here primarily because we have some open seats on the Ferndale Accessibility and Inclusion Advisory Commission. Various people have, like, moved away for different reasons, and we're looking for new people who want to make Ferndale a better place to, an easier, more accessible place to live, work, visit, a place where, disabled folks and everybody feel more included. So, I made a post promoting the commission on the Ferndale Forum and the fabulous Ferndale Forum.

You can find it on both of those groups on Facebook. As well, I prepared a oh, I'm not sure if I can where's the camera? A QR code that, can be scanned to take you directly to the, place on the city website where you can apply to the commission. But we'll we take anybody if you're passionate about making this place better for everyone, then we would love to have you. So thank you all so much.

Thank you, Rachel.

Wanna scan this later, just, come up to me. I've got a full mic.

Dominic Scappatici. Eight forty La Prairie. I just wanted, I was gonna say something about Ferndale Garden Club. I wanted to, invite the community on April 10, at 06:30PM at Olive's Bloom Box on 9 Mile, not the Liberty, Illinois location, to our annual, members meeting. It's always a fun time if you're interested in gardening or learning about what the garden club does in our community.

We've been a part of Ferndale since 1931, long before me, and we maintain a community garden for the benefit of the public, that we hear from neighbors that they love, just enjoying the blooms there. We offer free gardening programs to our community to encourage gardening. We advocate for the protection of wild birds in our community, and we also award a scholarship to a graduating Ferndale High senior. Couple years ago, one of the graduates is now on its way to being a forest ranger, which is pretty cool. I don't know what that one always kinda, thought it was a really great thing.

And then since I'm up here also, I wanted to, take a moment to, let you know Ferndale's Memorial Day parade and ceremony. We're looking for, a community member that's either a veteran or an active duty service member that would like to give a short speech during the ceremony. There'll be other dignitaries that will be on the stage too, making remarks. But if you know of a veteran or an active duty service member here in Ferndale, they can email. It's FerndaleMemorial@Gmail.

Or or Gmail dot com. So please pass that along. And I also wanna say a little thank you, I guess, to our DDA, whoever put together art march. Garden Club was asked to help with one of the events for art march, two weekends ago. And it was fun, and it was downtown, and it drew in a lot of families, like parents with their kids.

And it was really cool, like, having that right downtown. Some of the parents knew each other, some didn't, but their kids kinda all met. And it was kinda neat to see that happen. So I just wanna put a shout out that thanks for the DBA for doing that. But also to everyone in Ferndale, maybe we need more events and programs for, kids and families with kids, and especially maybe in the downtown area.

That was one thing I heard talking to the parents where they were just either walking around downtown with their kids and stumbled on it or they read about it online, and they were glad to have something right down there that they could do. So I wanted to pass that along too. And I hope I see everyone May 26 for the hundred and seventh, I'll say, Memorial Day ceremony, and parade. The parade is probably shorter, less many years, but thank you.

Good evening. Chip Warner with Disability Network Eastern Michigan. This This year, Disability Network Eastern Michigan will honor the thirty fifth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This current month of March, we're like we're, recognizing developmental disability awareness month. And in April, we'll recognize autism acceptance month.

As a center for independent living, we'd like to thank you in advance, the city of Ferndale, and the Ferndale accessibility and accessibility and inclusion advisory commission for the autism acceptance month resolution. The work we do together strengthens our communities, allows people with disabilities to live independently, and pursue personal choice through access to resources and choice. Thank you.

K.

Alright. And I will be closing call to audience at 07:50, and we're moving on to our public hearing. The public hearing is the for the consideration of the resort class c liquor license for Sidecar Ferndale LLC located at 241 West Niemaw Road.

Thank you, madam, mayor and council. As the mayor stated, this is a public hearing for the consideration of a resort class c liquor license for Sidecar Ferndale LLC located at 241 West 9 Mile Road. Just a little bit of information. Per the submitted application, The business model states that Sidecar Slider Bar will operate as a bar and restaurant in the space where Public House has operated for the past four years. There are currently seven Sidecar Slider Bar locations.

On 02/26/2025, the liquor license review committee met with the applicant and voted unanimously to support the recommendation of city council to approve the resort class c liquor license. With that said, staff is available to answer any questions and applicant's representatives here as well.

Oh, yeah. We do. I would like public comment.

So open it up for public comment regarding this liquor license. Seeing there's none, I open it up for counsel for discussion regarding this, liquor license.

The only question I had was, you know, this is not really since this is really not a change in you know, this is public house, so there's really isn't anything different than what was being done there. This is the same type of license that was previously in that premises, let's say.

The applicant would have to use that. I don't know what current license they have.

Good evening, counsel. My name is Chris Tower. I'm here on behalf of the applicant, which is Sidecar Furniture LLC. Over there is, Bobby Vetter. He's one of the members of the applicant.

Just to answer that question, so it was a bit of a funky funky situation. Tiger Lily and Public House operated under one liquor license under common ownership, so they are redefining their license premises to just contain Tiger Lily. That's a separate entity that is gonna go on as operating as Tiger Lily with a class c license. We purchased a class e license just to serve your wine and spirits on the premises, and we'll be using it in that two forty one space. It's basically kind of a record keeping situation.

They are going to be holding their own license. We are gonna be holding our own. So it's no difference really. It's just defining the license premises and separate entities.

Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments from counsel?

Not for me.

Madam mayor, I move that we approve the transfer of a resort class c liquor license for Sidecar Ferndale LLC located at 241 West 9 Mile Road.

Support. Johnson? Yes. Mikulski? Yes.

Kelly? Yes. Leaksmae?

Yes. Thank you. Our second public hearing is the approval of the amendment to the PACE financing resolution.

Good evening, mayor and council. Nice to see you all. We are here tonight to, potentially approve an amendment to our 2015 PACE financing, resolution. This follows up on the changes in state law, to make it essentially easier and more flexible for business owners to take advantage of PACE financing. To date, we have not had any, any business owners do so in Ferndale, but, this potentially would allow them to.

Any specific questions?

Through the chair, could you give us a primer on what PACE financing is?

Sure. You can

do it.

Yes. Fair enough. Many of us weren't here in 2015. PACE is the property, assessed clean energy financing. So, and we have, Mary Freeman from Lean and Green Michigan who administers that here as well if we have questions.

So that allows businesses or commercial property owners to, you know, use this financing to, support clean energy, but now will also allow them to support climate resiliency and change some of the mechanisms of, like, the funding minimums or the minimum returns.

Through the chair, another question. Have we communicated this opportunity out to the DDA to maybe get that in front of some of our business owners?

That's a great question. I Jenny, I don't know oh, Jenny, you stepped out.

I don't know what's been done in

the past, but I'm happy to communicate that to, our business owners downtown as this is a great opportunity to take advantage of some clean energy financing.

I will open this up to public comment. Oh, go ahead. Do you have a comment?

Just wanted to clarify. This is open to all businesses, not just downtown. Correct? So and when you're saying for environmental, so this would help with plumbing, electrical, all that type of infrastructure for updating?

Yeah. There are specific. So it's it's not necessarily just HVAC specific, but, it is, yes, meeting certain environmental criteria, which I'd be happy to go in-depth further. And, you know, there are also some folks who administer the program who are very well versed. Yes.

Thank you.

Hello. I am Quinn Zigler. Seven zero five West Camborne Street. I am also a member of the environmental sustainability commission. So we learned a lot about this PACE financing, had, folks from Lean and Green Michigan come speak to us.

We had lots of questions for them. One of the things, Logan, that I did not hear you mention is that most applicants have gone through the county. So that's the jurisdiction that has overseen, PACE financing. It's not necessarily that they're not coming through the city. It's that they have another entity that they've preferred to go through.

So just wanted to say that FESC did bring this forward to you today, and we are happy to continue weighing in on all things environmental, even, you know, maybe your fleet purchasing policy. Love to weigh in on that as well. We are here for you. Any, research that we can do for you or feedback, happy to give it. Thank you.

Oh, Logan, do we know why to to something that Quinn was just saying? Do we know why businesses have been working for the county versus us? Like, is there any kind of sense of why that is?

That's a great question. Mary, would you be interested in in addressing that? Yes, sir. Absolutely.

I'm just wondering if there's a a barrier that may exist here at the city level that maybe we can work to eliminate.

So so we had, we established Liena Green Michigan in 2012 to actualize a 2010 statute, to bring private capital for, this kind of, reduction in utility bills for, businesses. And, it happened that nine cities and townships in Oakland County joined in those first six or seven years, and Oakland County did not wanna join. So, and then Oakland County joined, and, actually, it's overarching for the cities and townships. So any city any city, town, any entity in Oakland County can go through the Oakland County PACE program. The reason that we went to all of the nine, townships and cities to, bring forward the PACE program is because there have been instances where, for whatever reason, they preferred to go through the local government.

It hasn't happened in Oakland Oakland County, but it could. But the primary reason is to bring it to light, to have people be aware of the program, to have people steer people in our direction if they are looking for financing, even, even for, it doesn't government entities cannot use PACE, but if there were a private entity that was going to install the EV charging for your, electric vehicle fleet, it can finance EV charging stations. A lot of hotels, hotels and multifamily around the state have done that. So, I know that we went through a process with Logan of presentations and things like that to, alert people, but there isn't a there isn't a reason why one would do one or the other. There's it's possible to do either.

They're both fine. But we do want those programs to be updated so that when people go to your website or come to you, they're actualizing pace in the current amendment of the statute.

And this can be, so it's let's you you hit on something that I was along the lines I was going toward, which was multifamily housing and housing development generally. So if a developer is gonna do housing, they're able to include PACE financing as part of their capital stack as part of their overall okay?

In fact, that's the typical is that, there'll be, you know, there'll be rebates and MEDC grant, a a mortgage, maybe two mortgages. People put together all kinds of different financing. Often PACE is the last, thing like, they they can't get get any more of these kinds of we encourage everyone to get every government program

you can.

Sure. But then there's a certain point where you may need additional money. And also for construction loans, PACE is a % financing upfront. So you can get started you get the cash, get started on a project, and, and also you can address these, these technologies that can really reduce your costs in the long run.

And then one final question. Sorry.

Oh, sure.

I've got you here. So

Oh, I'm I'm really lucky to get up here.

You're the expert. I did note that, you know, one of the categories of of, eligible qualified properties is nonprofits including houses of of courtship. Correct.

So,

so this is something that we can encourage the church community in Ferndale to utilize, especially some of our churches who are struggling to kind of keep certain community focused programs going. And if they can reduce their costs in other ways, this might be a way to help kind of solve some problems for us.

Churches, absolutely. We've had several churches use PACE financing. YMCAs have used PACE financing. It's, it it can be a great option for certain types of projects. Logan has my contact information, but we talk to people every day.

Just giving a quick ten minute screening is PACE, appropriate for your project.

Great. Thank you so much. Yeah.

Thank you for having me.

Any other questions from council regarding this?

Make a motion to approve the amendment to the PACE financing resolution as submitted by the sustainability manager. Support.

Kelly? Yes. Nikolsky?

Yes.

Johnson?

Yes.

Leaksmae?

Yes.

Before we move on to the consent agenda, I noticed I've there was a question asked by a resident regarding the maintenance of EV, the chargers. So if someone would like to present maybe speak on that maybe during call to department heads at the end of council, that would be great. Alright. Alright. So consent agenda item seven a, approval of the 03/10/2025 meeting minutes.

Seven b, approval of the drainage improvements at DPW Martin and Wilson Parks by Sun Sun Building Incorporated for a not to exceed cost of $8,750. 7 c, approval of the special event permit permit for the third annual Cinco de Mayo to be held on May 3 and 05/04/2025. Seven d, approval of the special event permit for the hundred and seventh Memorial Day Parade to be held on Monday, 05/26/2025. Seven e, approval to fill smart program specialist position. Seven f, approval of the to purchase mosquito tablets from Clerk in the amount of $11,374.44.

7 g, approval to renew annual water smart software agreement with Ferguson in the amount of $2,323,713 dollars and 98¢. 7 h, approval of resolution adopting poverty exemption guidelines. Seven I, approval of payment for repairs to 9 And Woodward Medians Marquis for up to $5,000. 7 j, approval of lead cleanup and bullet trap maintenance in the police station pistol range by Best Technology Systems in the amount of 10,303 hundred dollars. 7 k, adoption of the resolution proclaiming April as autism acceptance month as sponsored by council member Johnson.

And seven l, approval of bills and payrolls as submitted by the finance director and subject to review by the council finance committee.

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

Johnson?

Yes.

Kelly?

Yes.

Mikulski? Yes. Leaksmaier?

Yes. Are you gonna read the resolution?

Yeah. Oh, sorry.

Take a

drink of water first. I choke choked on my own spit, so, you know. Who says it's glamourous being up here? Okay. A resolution a resolution recognizing April as autism acceptance month in Ferndale.

There are more than five million people in The US with a diagnosis for autism spectrum disorder and many more who would qualify for a diagnosis and benefit from commute from the same community supports. Autism is not becoming more pervasive in children and adults, but rather the increased accessibility to services and professionals is assisting individuals in the process of becoming diagnosed and seeking support. And the city of Ferndale is home to many autistic residents, and these members of our community are valued and accepted as they go about their daily lives in the city. Adults with autism are often subject to a greater degree of employment discrimination in addition to financial and housing insecurity. And it is critical to ensure that our autistic Ferndale residents have access to the lifelong community support and services needed to pursue their personal happiness, independence, and roles in our community to the fullest.

There are many opportunities for us as a community to take a more active role in engaging people of all neurotypes, creating a more welcoming and accessible society for people with autism. And Ferndale recognizes the intersectional identities of its residents with autism and the rich and diverse community and culture that is built around their lived experiences. Ferndale is honored to celebrate the many ways our autistic residents enhance the quality of our community and is committed to fostering acceptance and a sense of belonging as we all work together to create a more accessible, welcoming, equitable, and inclusive city for all. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that the Ferndale City Council hereby declares the month of April to be autism acceptance month, affirms the agency of autistic self advocates within our community, and encourages residents to move beyond awareness and into celebration of neurodiversity by showing support and acceptance to all of their neighbors and fellow autistic community members. And on a personal note, I would like to say thank you to the members of the Ferndale Accessibility and Inclusion Commission.

They're an amazing group of folks, and I'm incredibly honored to be the council liaison to the commission. And, you know, it's I've I've very seldom met a group of residents who are willing to spend as much time, in their personal lives just really thinking through just the intricacies of of how not only as a government, but as a community. We work together to support our fellow community members in all their different walks of life, and and the commission is just a very active one. We're always in dialogue with each other. We're always sharing updates with each other, even news articles, and and that's exactly what you hope for in a resident, you know, a commission based of around residents.

And so just wanna thank them, thank Rachel, Dave, others, our chair, Alan Hale. Just thank you all very much, for the work that you do and and you bring to the city.

Thank you. We are now moving on to our regular agenda. Item the new item eight a is the consideration of a bid award for cured in place pipe sewer rehabilitation to DVM Utilities Incorporated.

Alright. So I always like to start with context. The sewer improvement program or the CIPP, cured in place pipe program, consists of preventative maintenance and repair of our city sewer main, of which we have about 81.8 linear miles total. Of that 81.8, we have replaced about 27.4 linear miles since 1991. That is 33% of the overall system.

The program is a four year cycle. It consists of three cured in place pipe programs following one year of CCTV and cleaning, and condition assessments for our sewer main. So that's about 20, 5,500 per a four year cycle. That means that the this maintenance cycle is on roughly a sixty seven year cycle. CIPP is supposed to last fifty to seventy five years.

The just simply put, it's a cycle that doesn't stop. You just keep going and going and going, and when you're done, the ones you started with have to get done again. So our online sewers in the city are about 75 to a hundred years old, 25, 20 six, this year's program. And I'll get into why it's split up that way. Those are mostly at the results of the 2024 CCTV program.

So last year's CCTV program, the sewers were found to be in better condition than expected, so we did bundle two projects together to bid out at the same time. And I think we're on track to have two years instead of three. Oh, and I will say, I'm also gonna talk about this 33 inch sewer. This is actual footage of the inside of one of the segments that we're addressing this year through the program. So again, cured in place pipe, for those who aren't familiar, simply put, sock goes in, we blow steam through it, it cures, it hardens, it turns into what you'd see as PVC.

It's obviously a little different than that, but that's how it's done, and it avoids digging up everything. And this is important. We'll get into the 33 inch sewer, but a lot of these sewers are in easements or on the roadways. You can't just dig them up and replace them. So the sewer rehab program history, going back to 2021, you'll see and Stitchiform did a lot of our work.

We always do around 10,000 linear feet, for roughly $400,000. It's more expensive. We're doing less linear footage. Again, I keep saying 33 inch. I probably should've explained that beforehand.

But with a 33 inch pipe, it's much bigger than the 18 inch. That's why there's more money, less linear foot on this two split projects because it's $225, linear foot for the 33 inch as opposed to the 18. So this year's program, we got five bids. The estimate civil engineering estimate was about $835,000 for the work. The low bid came in, pretty far under that at 661,000.

The high bid, and I've got an asterisk there, was $8.32 because we did have one bid that was one five, and I'm just gonna say that they were just did something wrong. They weren't in line with the others. That was not right. So, $200,000 roughly spread, and we're under the, engineer's estimate, so it's pretty good. Alternative construction timeline for this program.

April 15, preconstruction meeting. April 30, program begins. They start with cleaning, televising, and then they order the materials, and then the work begins. Phase one should be relatively complete, by the next fiscal. July 15, phase two work will begin.

September 30, we should be mostly done with construction. And then October 30, we should be finishing our punch list closeout. And I'll say again, this is tentative, especially with the cured in place pipe program. Summer, rain pushes things. You can't work when with the combined storm and, sanitary having stormwater pushed through the sewers.

And this is the map. You can see it's kind of spread out. We've got quite a few south in Areas 3 3, 3 2, And 2 3. The, 33 inches in Area 13 right off Woodward in the Northeast part of our city, and I'll get into that one a little bit specifically because that 33 inch, is gonna be a little more disruptive. So this is where the 33 inch sewer main runs.

It goes from the Woodward Alley to Bermuda. It is between the, it's a backyard easement sewer. It is 33 inch, so it's transmission. A lot of, I think there's actually a 33 inch connection to the Northwest side of our city that crosses Woodward, goes down the alley, and goes through there. So because of that, we'll have to do a little bit of bypass pumping.

When they're doing their work, they have to stop the sewer, which means anything else has to get diverted past it. There are three segments in this area. They're gonna start with segment one, complete that work, and then go on to segment two and segment three. Segment one is in a unimproved alleyways to love better access. Segment three, the, manhole is in a backyard.

And because it's in a backyard, it's very difficult to get materials and vehicles back there. So they're gonna set everything up from the alley and work towards segment one. This should take roughly three days total. One day for segment one, two, and three should take one to two days each. When the CIPP program is taking place, we the residents cannot use sanitary.

So it is disruptive, and this is a bigger, project, so it will be a little more disruptive. And because it is, we're gonna do a public on-site meeting two weeks prior to construction. Usually, with the CIPP, What we do is we give a twenty four hour notice, and we put a door hanger up. The program was in my neighborhood in 2020, and I didn't even realize it until I got a call from my wife saying that steam was pushing out of the ground in our neighbor's yard. I was like, oh, yeah.

I guess they are over there. So it's really not that disruptive when it's not a huge, main. But because that 33 inch is going to, we're doing a lot more communication. So as I said, two weeks out, we're gonna do a public meeting with neighborhood. So the contractor would be there, our civil engineering firm.

I'll be there. Any city council member that would like to be there will be there, and we can all talk to the neighborhood and let them know what's going on. In addition to that, we'll do door hangers, door knocking a week beforehand, forty eight hours, and twenty four hours. Because it's disruptive, we wanna make sure that everyone knows. And thank you.

That's another picture of the 33 inch.

So I did notice that, you went through the references, but you said there was one negative reference. And I'm presuming that you you checked that out and you're still confident with this.

Yeah. There was. So we did a little bit more investigation than we normally would. Giffords Webster has worked with them in the past, and we required them to answer some questions specifically about process materials for this 33

inch. So because this is coming in fairly lower than expected, in terms of costs and we had budgeted, 550,000 in the current fiscal year budget, and we're planning to budget $5.77 500 in the next fiscal year budget in the current draft budget. Is this the sort of thing where we could do more? I mean, not that I'm all about spending all the dollars, but these dollars are set aside specifically for this type of purpose in this fund. These aren't just general fund dollars.

So at this point, because we had the responses before we presented the budget workshop to you, the numbers that were were reflected in the budget workshop did reflect these actual dollars. So it's not to say that the dollars couldn't be there, but they're not currently what was presented in the budget allocation. So that would change the bottom line impact to the water sewer fund.

Sure. I just I just mean that if we haven't utilized if we had the budget and we don't need we weren't the cost have come in lower than expected, is it is there capacity for the vendor or even bringing on a second vendor to get even more done if we'd already budgeted the money for it?

We we had the project in the CIP. The dollars weren't necessarily there. Like, the the

Got it.

This is all just coming out of revenue from the water sewer fund.

Mhmm.

It it isn't from, like, a dedicated bond millage or anything like that. So there's not a reverse side to the equation other than our standard revenue line items for it. Again, you know, it's always council's discretion if we wanna make a project bigger, and these are very good unit prices. But I would just say that we would need to look at what the revenue side of that is because there's not a pool of money that this was specifically coming out of in the first place.

Understood. Okay. We'll put a pin in that.

Okay. If you're asking me, I would be happy to find more things that we could Yeah. And to prevent.

You know, I I it just feels like, you know

I don't disagree. Yeah.

These are very good it's just these are very good unit prices, considering a lot of the sort of exogenous variables we're dealing with in the economy. So I, you know, really like I I liked these unit prices. And since they came in so low, I just figured, could we could we push for more linear footage

Let's

in this season. Yeah. I I would say I let myself, director Jamieson, take a look at our budget, and we'll be presenting the budget again in its first reading April 14. If we can make something happen, and the contractor's amenable before then, that would be the time that we present it.

Okay.

And we can just do a contract amendment.

Thank you.

Madam, may I move we approve the bid award for cured in place pipe sewer rehabilitation to DVM utilities incorporated for the per unit cost of $661,047 and the expense charge to the water sewer fund, capital outlay account number 592000977000 and approval for the director of public works to sign contract documents following the approval of the city attorney. Support.

Johnson?

Yes.

Mikulski?

Yes.

Kelly?

Yes. Leaksmae? Yes. Item eight b, the acceptance of the Michigan it's a lot here. The Michigan grant.

I'll leave it up to you, CD director. Roger.

Thank you, madam mayor and council. As the mayor stated, this is item eight c, acceptance of a Michigan State Housing Development Authority, MSHDA, housing readiness incentive grant in the amount of $50,000 and a contract amendment between the city of Ferndale and McKenna Associates for additional community engagement and work related to the zoning code rewrite in amount of 40,000. So staff thought it would be prudent to put together a little presentation of the history of the code rewrite just very briefly and how we got here. So if you recall, council adopted plan Ferndale, which is the city's master land use plan, on 09/26/2022. Throughout the document were several mentions in various schools about updating the zoning code.

The city zoning code dated, to nineteen sixties or so and was pretty archaic. To, I can speak. Through the selection process, the city issued a request for proposals and a selection committee recommended approval of McKenna Associates. There were five responses. Two of them were in the hundred and 50 to $60,000 range.

McKenna estimated the cost at 105,800, and we did have a 10% contingency in there, which would have taken it to 116,380. So, the city was lucky to receive an MEDC grant for the $50,000 for first round, because we're a ready redevelopment community. So the city's anticipated cost of the code rewrite would be 55,800 up to $66,003.80 if we utilize the contingency. I took a screenshot of the contract today. So the thing to note in here is task five and six.

Task five was a zone zoning ordinance first draft, and task six was first draft review and preparation of a second document. So what they put in the task were pretty basic community engagements, pretty, basic drafts, public hearing adoption. You probably recall me reading this slide at the, code adoption. I read off every meeting we had, and discussed it so that the public would see we, did a lot of community engagement. The green highlights are kind of the extras.

So there was an extra city council update. There was the online engagement for six months between the summer and winter, 33 additional check-in meetings with the staff. That was me. Draft 4.1, four point two, five, six, and seven. That was also me.

Community open house in Inkiviso, if you remember, the planning commission city council workshop after that, and then the second reading was city council. What you don't see in here is the steering committee did ask McKenna to go back in kind of the tenth hour and make the residential piece form based too. So originally, we were talking about doing a hybrid with the commercial industrial kind of a form based code. They drafted it all, and at the last minute, the steering committee said, go back. We'd like to see that.

They had to start backwards and create a bunch of graphics and do all that work. In concluding this, on 12/13/2024, MSHDA awarded Ferndale a $50,000 housing readiness grant. It was on top of the, MEDC fifty thousand dollar grant. Council adopted the zoning code three days later. So when we were granted that second grant, council was adopting within a couple days.

We didn't have updated billing from McKenna. Staff has worked with McKenna, and, the increased work directed by staff, the steering committee, the planning commission, and supported supported by city council is north of 40,000, and that was in the packet. So where we are today is council has two, general options. Option one, decline the grant and do not amend the contract. We would, pay McKenna under the contingency.

So our total cost would go to that $66.03 $80.66 $3.80, because of their extra work. Or option two, accept the grant and amend the contract amend the contract. That will have the city collecting 10,000 more. So we'll collect 50 and we'll reimburse 40. The city cost will be 45,800.

The reason why we can't capture all 50,000 is because the base scope of the contract was executed way before the second grant. So, and anything that was paid definitely cannot be so I think there's a little bit room we can capture a little bit of it, but, if we go too far, I think the, Mishta will rescind the grant and and not pay it out. Happy to answer any questions from counsel.

Open it up to counsel.

So I'm gonna preface this by saying I'm not mad. I'm disappointed. But I'm gonna sound mad. So sorry about that. This is not a situation that, council wants to be in.

So I don't like being brought something like this where we did work beyond the scope of a contract, and we're finding out about it when it's time to settle up. If we know we're gonna do more services, the minute that happens, I expect a change order to come to this body to come to this body. So so I don't seem to have a lot of choice, obviously. I'm not looking to, you know, hurt our partner in McKenna partner in McKenna. But there are two parties at fault here.

Us. Us. We should not have told the vendor to do more work beyond the scope of what they were contracted to do, knowing that there was not sufficient authority to do so. And McKenna, the vendor, should have known better that the scope of the project they were contracted for did not extend that far, and they should have said no. Bring me a new purchase order purchase order, and then I will do the additional work you're asking.

So both of us fell down on the job on this one fell down on the job on this one. It's things like this that make it very hard for us to fight back when we're criticized for bringing in consultants and vendors and using our taxpayer dollars on them. It's these things that these are the self inflicted wounds that happened to us that happened to us. And it's this council that has to go out and try to keep convincing the public convincing the public that we don't do things like this. And then weeks later, we're brought something where we did do something like this.

And I think it's incumbent on me as a council member to say that honestly here at the table honestly here at the table that we messed up as a city, and we have to make it right because we exceeded the scope of our contract, and now we have to pay for it. Now I will applaud you for getting a grant that is going to help this, but that is that is small comfort because we have a lot of other contracts in the city government in the city government. And what I'm gonna be asking for is an accounting of what we're doing with those contracts those contracts. Are we exceeding our scope in other places in other places? Have we instructed vendors to do more than they're contracted to do?

This council needs the assurance that we have not. So I will I will vote for option two. I will be proposing option two proposing option two, but I am really unhappy to be here happy to be here. This is something that this is something I deal with a lot I deal with a lot at work

at work.

I am constantly yelling at departments at work for doing this for doing this. I don't wanna have to do that here. I expect

better from Ferndale.

I expect better from Ferndale.

So as a response, you're 100% correct. You are not wrong in that, and I feel, guilty in that. I think, as you know, they they change project managers throughout it, and it's easy to say, let's have another community engagement. Let's add something. And so I absolutely take part of the blame in that.

I think, they should have provided change orders and said we can't. Now in the end, there was you know, we didn't know we're gonna go through them in each drafts through them in each draft. So it probably would have been six or seven change orders repeatedly, which would have been better when out in the public. So I 100 feel, guilty about it. I think McKenna's a little bit to blame.

We're to blame. You're absolutely right. We are lucky to have gotten this. If not, we would have just settled with the contingency and said that's where, the cards lie. So, for the public, I 100% agree with you.

I 100% agree.

And, you know, I will allow my colleagues as well to weigh in, but I will say that, you know, I will say that the split on this and what we're gonna agree to do is is gonna be slightly less favorable to McKenna than I believe folks are hoping for because they do have a part in this. They do have a part in this. They are responsible for knowing they're not contracted for this much work and saying, I'm sorry. I cannot do what you're asking me to do that exceeds the scope of my work. So they have to bear some of the bear some of the consequence of this.

Not so much that I wanna ruin our relationship with them. They've been a good vendor for us. They've been a a positive experience in a lot of ways, but there must be consequences. There must be consequences.

And I will add, the total cost that they've put together for all of the extra things is about 55,000. So they actually have taken a cut, but I have forewarned them today forewarned them today that the council, may look at it a little bit deeper a little bit deeper.

So did McKenna ever submit a contract amendment contract amendment through the process at all? Or is it just at the end?

It's in the, city council packet, I think.

Okay.

It's a it's a two page council, contract amendment for 40,000.

Okay. And that was at the end of it? And when did you realize it?

We

there were complications. So they had a project manager, then that person disappeared, then somebody else got assigned to it that worked out better. They're to blame if they woulda had the second person. I think it woulda went smoother. But it wasn't till towards the end when we started adding all these drafts that I kept reviewing that we said we are going slightly over thinking the contingency would cover most of it.

Then we did the Incubiso event because we wanted another event. So it was towards the end when we started realizing. I think after, we started realizing, we said we'll go for this grant. We pretty much said if we don't get the grant if we don't get the grant, we don't know, you know, we might have different story for you. If we get the grant, then we'll work on what what it can be.

But it was towards the end towards the end, that we realized we got the grant and then post approval, we asked them to put together all their, documentation for where they were.

So what if we just went with the original contract original contract with the contingencies and then kept the grant? Could you do that, or is that an option?

Can't keep the grant.

So it only has to be used towards this?

It it it's complicated. It can only be used towards making the city housing ready, which we could, make the case that all the form based code that was a last minute change was housing related and the community engagement was housing related. But if we said we'll keep all 50,000, when I submit it to MSHDA, they're gonna ask us a for invoices on when we paid it, and then they're gonna ask us what our original contract was. And when I say our original contract was essentially 55, and now it's only 5 because we kept it, they will say no. They will say no.

No. We already agreed to 55 as the base case. Okay.

And can we squeeze a little more, you said, potentially, so we could take a little bit more off of that?

I think that's council's prerogative. I think McKenna is prepared for that. You know, I I really think $40.10 is fair. They're already taking the cut. But if you were to go lower, I'd say I would say $35.15 is a pretty 15 is a pretty fair, counter counter.

For the chair, I would also support that. It's it's wildly disappointing that McKenna moved forward with this without without doing all the things that a contractor and a vendor with a city knows that they need to do. So if there's any more that we can do to decrease our cost and and and help them understand that this is partially their fault, I would be in support of it. I would be in support of it.

So what are the next steps regarding that, Roger? Would you have a

You can make a motion, to accept the grant for 50,000 and to amend the make a contract for 35,000 if you wish 5,000 if you wish.

I'll make a

in support of that. Yeah?

Okay. So I'll make a motion to the acceptance of the Michigan State housing development housing readiness incentive grant in the amount of 50,000 and a contract