City of Ferndale City Council Meeting 08252025l

Order at seven 1PM. If you're

Here. Here. Madam Mayor, I move that we excuse council member Paul Kalachat tonight. Support.

Now how about approval of the agenda as well?

We need to vote.

Oh. All in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? Thanks.

Alright. Approval of the agenda.

Madam Mayor, I move to approve the agenda as presented.

All in favor? Aye. May be opposed? It's approved. We have a couple presentations tonight.

The first one being the current arts and beautification commission, August 2025 beautification award.

It'll be away. Hello, mayor, council members, and assistants. I am pleased to be here tonight. My name is Anne Janek. I'm one of the chairs of the arts beautification commission.

I'm here to present the artist beautification awards. Our opening photograph is of the The Ferndale Garden Club Memorial Garden, which is at West Oak Ridge and Liberty, Illinois. They help their, traditional and yearly designee on tests. So we recommend you go check out their web page as well as gardeners in full blue right now. Our first one is gonna shoot this in August.

This month is 495 West Lewiston in the Northwest section. This modernized traditional home has a wonderful, beautiful white birch out front with possible electric green light your eye. It's got three major renovations in the past few years with the addition of the front porch, and we're very happy to present the new porch. Anyone here for $4.09 5?

Hello,

Okay. Our second house is in the Southwest section. It is 87 Pearson. This mid century, bungalow maintains its charm and features a wrapped garden full of blooms all seasons. This, neighborhood well known spot is in bloom all year and was abuzz with pollinators.

It is directly across the Blue Center and lines on Liberty, Illinois. Our our Our Southeast winner is two seventy seven Jewel. This is the monitor that touches a cedar and a shelter over the porch. The Kirkwalkway is is softened with Kirkway is softened with Kirkway is softened with from the stone greening and cold patients. This was also one of our beautification winners over the past years.

Our Northeast winter is 41 East Woodland. This press has been updated with natural landscape featuring native plants that will welcome you pressed a while on the swaddled porch. Did anyone hear from 418 East Woodlands? So, our upcoming events are the beautification where nominees are currently open. It's a little early to be to to be, decorating for for, Halloween, but some people do it all year long.

The Hall of Harvest Festival is coming up. The nine ninety nine concert series is is coming to a close. We have two more weeks. Sunday at Shipper Park starting at 4PM, you can come and join the community for concerts and dog treats and sidewalk chalk and everything. Also the downtown retreat series is coming up soon.

So thank you very much.

I don't know. Are we all gone? I'm going. Thanks. She's a liaison.

She can

do it.

Our next presentation is the FIRMDA Accessibility and Inclusion and Advisory Commission's award presentation.

Hello. Good evening, mayor, council, and Ferndale residents. Today, our presentation is kind of twofold where we give, our annual report as Ferndale Accessibility and Inclusion Advisory Commission, then we'll end it with, our annual award that I'll explain a little bit more of. So for folks who aren't familiar, the Ferndale Accessibility Inclusion Advisory Commission, our mission is to help make Ferndale a place of choice to work, live, and visit for people with disabilities in our community, and remove barriers, to access, along the way. I currently serve as chair, along with we have Rachel Sellers as vice chair, Monica Monica Mills, Dave Cottrell, Kevin Roche, is our newest member.

And then we have, two seats currently open. So if anything, through this presentation, sparks your imagination of ways to help, improve Ferndale, please don't hesitate to, reach out and see what it takes to apply. Our current council liaison is Donnie Johnson, and our city staff liaison is James. We get the question a lot, what is accessibility? And, I'd say in, the world of, civic planning, there's upper case a accessibility, and there's about a thousand lower case a accessibilities.

But accessibility as defined by, federal and international policy, is really, the design construction, development, and maintenance of facilities, information, and communication technology, programs, and services so that all people, including people with disabilities, can fully and independently use them. So it's a pretty big definition, and it's a pretty big, domain, across the globe, and it's one that we try to bring to Ferndale as a commission. Examples can include eliminating outdoor indoor physical barriers, having good accessible web design, making information available in different formats and different ways, and then managing, the sensory environment, for noise and light levels. When we have a lack of accessibility, it reduces the ability of disabled people in our community, to live independent lives while enjoying our public spaces and resources. So our role as a commission is to really help uphold that value and ensure that people with disabilities can participate, in our city.

Across, the last, couple years here since we gave our last presentation, We try to really reach out to all the different departments in the city, including mayor council, our new city manager, our city clerk, working with CD, DDW Communications, DDA, Parks and Rec, and special events. And really anywhere where people with disabilities can exist, there's some light touch accessibility. So, we really love, kind of intersectionality to buy as a lot of different projects. Our commission was seriously coming emails and syncing up with with all the things we've gotten to help with with. So this is not a comprehensive list, but

these are

some of the hits. One of the ones we're most proud of, are are helping almost all parks and rec projects that come through and then that's the script applications, for parking park, Wilson Park, Marmaro Road Park, to make barrier free paths, to improve accessible parking and accessible routes so that people, can get from parking to whatever they wanna do in the park. And then then helping with, inclusive universally designed entities. Things like what's coming targeting part two. Hopefully, it's, an inclusive skating rink.

Some of the work we did with some of the different facilities designs. I'd say shelf, but I'd say never too far off the shelf as we're seeing a lot of improvement still coming to Marto Road Park. And then some of the work that had been done in the past, the concept for the combined fire station. Something we're really proud of is our zone Ferndale. We're really getting ahead of, walkability across kind of all their their areas and pockets of Ferndale, and then it'll help them improve accessible housing standards and availability, by helping really define what accessibility means in all of our different types of housing.

Something we need to do as well as voting, helping to build some local and much resources. On the work for making sure precincts are accessible. And then, the picture here is one example of a very light touch project, but one I feel like a big impact was, helping win with the DDA on their work to update our parking system to zones, where we help, highlight some accessible elements, contrast and readability, and then making things easier to understand folks as well. And then, the last one was a Things that our commission really leads, a lot of the last ones, ones that work with the city departments on. These are the ones we really need, as a commission.

So April, you saw this as an acceptance month. Sensory and biospace. Something nice. I caught out of this year. You can see picture, in the top.

Right is my

two month old daughter Nora at the time. I got

to join, for a little bit. And our 2024, one from last year. And then, we're always looking at as new policies emerge. Our our mission is as a group of folks with lived experience with disabilities, all all kind of here locally in Ferndale, but many of us also have, national or international experience accessibility, as a professional domain as well. And so some of those emerging policies, that that really come out that are starting to touch on how local government works, is that permanent justice, just, two years ago, released a clarification that digital assets with, city and state governments have to be accessible.

So that that runway in the lead is in 2026 to 2027, for digital accessibility requirements. That's something we educate the city on. And then that's something that came quite a bit. Zone that we were able to touch on are some of the new regulations for the public eye point accessibility guidelines. Cleared, having patience, lending, and, these are all things we do try to promote.

And then we have here illustrations. Another not to a Zoom locker or former commissioner. For us to help IGJ, kind of all four seasons of accessibility of, To give just another snapshot of, kind of our calendar, we recognize as a clinician as some of our milestones to the air. March 1 is disability community day of mourning, May is the third Thursday is Global Accessibility Action Awareness Day. July is Disability Pride Month.

October coming up soon is Disability Employment Awareness Month. Kids, it's also mid career now. So when we think of accessibility and gaps that are out there, thirty five years is a really long time. But it's not that long ago. Yeah.

So there's a lot of opportunity to improve, and acknowledge both how far we come and how far we have to go. Something we really with disability pride, is really kind of owning disability as a cultural identity, to bring both, visibility, and awareness to disability in our society. So it's not something that we, fear or get scared about aging into, firing through our lives. But it's an act of life. It's something disability impacts everybody.

And, we're

all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all all

all all all one day, throughout our lives. So it's something to really embrace. To have a positive view on in our culture. And then just to know how the disability pride is like. If you see this around town, I'll just read off the key here.

Red is for physical disabilities, and the black background, stands for mourning and recognition, for the victims' ableist violence and abuse. So now on,

to our our board,

And our awardee may be taking a meeting from, the parking lot right now. So I'll take some time explaining our award. Our award was launched several years ago, to, really recognize one to be proactive in recognizing, impacts of accessibility, throughout the mail of businesses, organizations who are really making an effort to improve our community for people with disabilities. There are a lot of different categories we define around that to make it easier to identify whether it's something structural that you're changing in, the physical environment, whether it's, it could be the business process. It could be how you hire.

It could be kind of any number of things that we really should try to recognize, from all those different aspects, that that one could have in our community, anywhere where people can really make that sustainable change. So our goal when we first created this award was to recognize that effort and how it really impacts, humans in our community. We wanna provide encouragement and inspiration for other businesses so that people can continue these stories, and think about what they can do to improve accessibility. And then we also want to acknowledge incremental improvements. And so it's not just about, somebody needed to rework their facade and put thousands of dollars into things.

We don't really want to recognize just that. There are a lot of aspects of that that, kind of come building. It should probably be done, kind of by default. But it's really about, like, any of those incremental improvements. So one of our first stories, that we recognize, was with Canvas.

And one of the key things was they were teaching a lot of their staff. They were doing time, like, classes on the weekends. So it's it's it's little things like that that make a big impact, make a big difference for people. And then we really, also wanna wanna demonstrate how this award, how businesses and organizations recognize, go above and beyond just kind of those minimum requirements set up by the NDA or the domain code. So without further ado, we are recognizing Ferndale prices here.

So in response to a lot of work we had done, in, 2021 on ways to improve accessibility. Julia came to our commission, and really sat down with us, and we had a lot of conversations about how we can improve accessibility for a nail pipe. And then now kind of fast forward, it's been, more than four years of, through director music, passion in this space and commitment to accessibility. Has made a lot of improvements. They've increased digital accessibility footprint for the website, making information more clear and available, along with, making it easier to navigate.

They've added restrooms and a lot of different locations that they were working for. They they, have really paid attention to the sensory experience and offer, fire stage performances for folks. They offer free earplugs, a lot of stages and events, and are a sensory booth that I'll talk about in a moment. They offer sign language, a lot of stage events. They have dedicated themselves to they have dedicated themselves to provide kind of exceeding a lot of different locations, including stages and affairs.

And then, they worked on some of that information accessibility, making volunteer positions descriptions a lot more clear, run sensory and buy a tennis festival, to great success. We're we're the place that people can come,

to

take a break, from some crowds or the heat or noise, and be able to relieve stress so that they can more fully enjoy pride. We've got the fidget toys. They always go fast. But, both for kids, adults, everybody can find our booth, throughout the day. And having that space, we've we've been told that it has made made a difference in pride for a lot of folks.

And we've, through the years, since 2022 when this started, we've been able to really serve hundreds of people through pride. And that's been something we've been really proud of and something we've been really proud to work with, Julia for Delphi. So thank you, so much for making an impact on our community. We'd like to recognize an award. Thank you, or in helping make a fun more accessible place.

Okay. Hey. I'm going to do that. I like talking to everybody. Everyone knows that.

I just I wanna thank

FYI because every year they sit down

with us and have frank conversations about what we can do better. And we are able to respond and make things better for everyone. And we look forward to continuing, the most global equitable pride hopefully as a mission of the scale. So thank you so much.

To, close out I just wanna thank everybody, for, listening to me talk and nerd out about accessibility for the last, twenty minutes or so. And then, if you ever want to help, in your own way to make Ferndale more accessible, we don't have eyes and ears everywhere. So, nominating businesses, through our forms, and this link should be available, through our agenda packet here, or on our Facebook page. But if you ever hear of a business or organization in Ferndale, doing things to make it better, we wanna tell those stories. And then, again, we have two commission seats open.

And the easiest way to, see what's going on is to join our Facebook, for all of our, major event announcements. But I wanna thank everybody for your time, and thank you again to, Ferndale Pride.

Alright. We are now at the portion of our agenda, which is called audience.

This is the time

that you would come to the podium. Anyone can speak on anything on or off the agenda. And I please state your name and your address, and you have three minutes to speak. And I open up call to audience at 07:27PM. Okey dokey.

I know Okey dokey. Per usual. Chris Hall 19. That's not my address. 1845, Syme Street.

I actually have some documents for counsel. So last week, there was a resident here talking about the vacant property issue stating, that, our director of community economic was calling him. I'm kinda over people lying on Roger and also code enforcement in regards to the stunts and the crap that they're doing in regards to their properties. As you all know, with 1963, Syne Street, this person has passed away, almost a year ago. Nothing has been approved at the property.

Just for clarification, also what happened in the past, they were dumping their human sewage into the street that was actually flooding in the basement. I believe on believe in giving chances to people to fix their properties, but, she's dead. She's literally dead. We shouldn't give people chances

who

are dead. And the brother is living in New York. Last time I saw him, he was wearing denim on denim, 2,000 American Music Choice Awards, Justin Timberlake's now doing yard work and yelling at people. He's lying to the city. He's using city resources, and I'm over it.

The neighborhood is over it. It's sort of point now that with that documentation, it's showing that the former person that is dead is living down the street when she's not living there at all. I'm not sure why. And now per that documentation I provided, it's showing as tenant. There's nobody living in that house.

Unless it's Casper or some or is there Spirit? I don't know. I'm trying to make light of this because this is kinda ridiculous. And also, the water usage is not being utilized at all. I provided a chart, and I don't know what Homeboy is doing.

The property is still in her name. I'm really hoping that the city just gets rid of it. I'm over it. I really have a new development. One of those mansions that people are complaining about throughout the city there or something better than that.

There's three abandoned cars, a bathtub, rats. Everything you could think of is in there, even probably a ghost. But I just wanted to put on the record, she is dead. I even tried finding the death certificate, but I didn't couldn't get it. But, hopefully, we can get an answer tonight or by the end of this week, and that's all I have.

Good evening, madam mayor, members of council, my fellow residents in Ferndale. My name is Ken Warnock. I live at 884 Sillman. I, have coordinated security and safety with, Michael Laird, the events director, for a number of years. And I just wanted to take a moment to express my appreciation for DPW that never gets enough appreciation for the hard work they do and the extra hours they put in.

Also, for, sergeant Scott Scott Blanchard with the police department and detective Simpson with the police department, as well as our, fire chief and, fire marshal for their visibility during the event, to keep people safe. I think this event, just from my perspective, I know that we had things kind of wrapped up and tightened up, by about 08:30 on Saturday, which is the earliest we've ever got that accomplished. So the, city was very, helpful in making sure that that, happened. And we had great collaboration with your city departments. So I just wanted to make sure that you were aware of that so you can share my appreciation, to the appropriate pea people.

Thank you.

Are audience still open? If, you're on the agenda for, even boards and commissions, you're also welcome to introduce yourself as well, if you like.

Hi, mayor. High council members. I wanna thank you for inviting me up to the microphone. I wasn't sure exactly how this would work, but my name is Kate Baker. And I wanna thank you for what you're about to do in considering my application to join the the Ferndale Housing Commission board.

I've been a volunteer in Ferndale in many capacities, for a long time, and I really enjoy giving back to my community. I believe, in particular that I can be of service in this role. I'm the executive director of Oakland Housing, which is a 90 year old affordable housing nonprofit. I have many years of experience leading boards, reviewing budgets, navigating public sector bureaucracy, and importantly, serving residents. Both Fernald Housing Commission board president, Rachie Sutherland, who's here with me tonight, and executive director, Olivia Magawi, feel that my skills and backgrounds will be a good fit for the Fernald Housing Commission organization.

While I work in the affordable housing sector, my work does not overlap with the Ferndale Housing Commission, and there are no potential conflicts of interest that have been identified. I look forward to continuing to serve Ferndale residents as a member of the Ferndale Housing Commission Board. And I'm also excited to share that I'll be serving our residents as a member of the Oakland County Parks Commission Board, which county executive Dave Holder appointed me to earlier. Thanks for the opportunity. And

Reggie's here. I don't know if

you wanna say anything or you're just moral support.

Morals support.

Is there anything for us, madam?

Thank you. Any other audience members would

like to speak on anything on our off the agenda?

K. And I'm closing call to audience at 07:34, And then moving on to the consent agenda.

Second.

Item seven a, approval of the August 2025 meeting minutes. Seven b, approval of the listed appointments and reappointments to the city boards and commissions. Seven c, approval to rent front front end loader from the from Michigan Cat in the amount of $20,480. Seven d, approval to apply for the special license through the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs Liquor Control Commission and acceptance of the accompanying resolution for the fifteenth annual fall festival. Seven e, approval of the membership agreement with Incubiso Incubiso within the amount of $2,750 per month.

Seven f, approval to purchase two twenty twenty five Dodge Durangos and one twenty twenty five Jeep Cherokee Laredo from La Fontaine. CDJR Lansing with accessories to be purchased and installed by Canfield Equipment Servicing and Magic Graphics in the amount of $196,350 $196,353.26. Seven g, approval of the library compactor NBI replacement by Motor City Electric in the amount of $4,360. Seven h, approval of the Microsoft licenses from CDW dash g in the amount of $44,192.50 for one year. Seven, seven I, approval of for the purchase of Motorola radio and batteries in the amount of $9,965.75.

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

I move we approve the consent agenda as presented. Support.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We're moving on to the regular agenda. City clerk, all of these, items will be individual roll calls.

Okay. Perfect.

Item eight a, proposal for field inventory and GIS development by OHM in the amount of $328,750.

Thank you, mayor and council. I have Jake Morawski, the, project manager with o h OHM here with me today.

Good evening, council mayor.

Let's get this going here. Alright. So, first things first, give you a little bit of info in general on GIS systems. So, DPW wants to improve our GIS system and data because that will improve our capacity to perform preventative maintenance planning. We'll be able to respond quicker to emergency repairs.

It's gonna improve our capital project prioritization. It will increase operational efficiency. We will have a more accurate budget. We will be able to share data and info between engineering department and city hall, city council, and, respond to foyer requests quicker. It will allow us to make better decisions as a city and a department of works.

It is best practice for public works and infrastructure management. And, the reason we would like to use ArcGIS is because that is a system in which Ferndale holds all the data from now and forever. I included two small graphics just to kind of show, one system that we do have a pretty good handle on with GIS is our lead service line placement program dataset. That is a state mandate. We have spent a lot of time, effort, and energy in maintaining that system, which is why you see, and we're gonna get a little bit to attributes and graphics, but you'll see that there's a lot of attributes that are recorded.

What we have now and some of our other systems, which I will show you is not a lot. So you can see that private site is copper for this address. It was built in 1995, newer home, verified material at Curves Top copper by Gustafsson, put in by HRC engineering. Jeff has went over this data. This is all there and it's there until the program is done probably long after all of us are here.

Not to be morbid, just here with the city, I'm hoping. Twelve years for that. So inventory and GIS asset collection. Field data collection and inventory will locate a map as

part of

this proposal, and this is something that the city wants to do. We decided that we wanted to start with our water and sewer system. Roadway, we have a lot of information that can easily be, added to those maps, and then parking lot condition is something that we would like to do as well, for this kind of first step. So hydrants, we have about 640, 640 hydrant valves. Water distribution valves, we have about 1,030.

Sewer manuals, 2,027. Catch basins, 2,069. Water and sewer main, in between those, I have it written down is roughly a 150 linear miles. So, again, roadway condition and PACER, we do PACER analysis every year. All of this information, to some extent, exists mostly in spreadsheets right now.

We do have some maps, and I'll show some of the data gaps that are in those. But those are not what those are not robust enough to where they can even be compared to the lead service line replacement maps. The data is not reliable. It is inaccurate, and it's not enough to really, base anything on it almost always requires requires additional investigation in the field. So to look at the data gaps and inefficiency, and, actually, I'll just point out real quick that, so this picture shows four assets that will all be recorded as part of this proposal.

Each of those assets, has roughly six to eight attributes that cannot be seen, and it doesn't seem like you would spend a lot of time cracking manholes. But if you had a cracker within one of those, if you had to look at the hydrant, these are inspections, investigation time that you can't get back. And if you can just pull it up on notepad in the field while you're doing the work, you save time every single work order. So data gaps and inefficiency. This is a map that we currently have.

We do have our water distribution system on housing GIS, but it is more of just a map. It's not

something that

I would consider a GIS system. None of these have attribute data, which I'll go into a little bit. But I just wanna point out, so in our water distribution system, we have several. They're inaccurate, and that is nothing against the person that put these down.

It's just that, the city did not

spend enough time fine tuning all this information.

So if you

see that, that is all at nine in Hilton. That is all under buildings. That is all not possible. I think in this case, we actually have two twelve inch water mains that run under Hilton. So if we were trying to figure something out at nine in Hilton, this would not be helpful.

We would look at this, and then we would have to go through maps, files. We have a book with old information, some of which is outdated. We do have some of the information as

built on external

hard drive. It's just a process and it takes a lot of time. And then you multiply that time by every work order and field investigation have to do throughout the year and the life of each asset. Sanitary and storm system is similar. This is Marshall, just East of Woodward.

You can see the sewers don't line up with the alleys, manhole One manhole is in the alley. There's another manhole in someone's yard where it doesn't exist. There are eighteens that run past 20 sevens, two twenty sevens that pass each other that are actually connected that are not connected in the map. So if you have a sinkhole, something you're trying to investigate, this information is just not reliable enough to be very helpful. So an efficiency example.

One of the things we do a lot of throughout the year, especially in construction season, is utility locating. We do roughly 4,500 missed gigs annually in which we have to mark the water, sewer, and sometimes electrical in our downtown area. So let's say that you have 40, you multiply that by fifty two weeks, you get two thousand eighty hours for a full time equivalent staff member. Take eight weeks of that offer, time off, training, nonproductive hours, you get about seventeen hundred and sixty hours. Utility locate.

So if we have forty five hundred, we save seven minutes on each. That gives us roughly five hundred and twenty five hours, which is approximately three tenths

of a full

time equivalent. So about a third of a total employee's work for a year, potentially, could be saved by, just increasing the efficiency of your utility locating. And then I just put some numbers together. Typically, internally, we can do, at an hourly rate of roughly $25 cheaper than private market. If we did that for eight hundred and eighty five hours, that should say five hundred and twenty five, is $13,125.

So that's just an example of basically a way that we can save time and we can divert that person's attention towards something we would typically have to contract out because we don't have the capacity to do internally, and it will be a cost savings for the city. So, inventory in GIS, we have no attributes as I mentioned and some are and are inaccurate. These are two screen grabs of the attributes.

You can

see the first one is for a water system valve. Literally, the only thing we have on that valve is the, letter designation letter and number designation that we came up with thirty or forty years ago when we put these on a spreadsheet. So it's GV12244. It doesn't really tell us anything other than it's in this location of the city. And if you actually know what those values mean, you can kind of say it's one of these eight segments.

I circled a 16 inch diameter hydrant service, which is not possible. I guess, maybe it's possible, but not with our hydrants. That's almost always gonna be a six. So that's just in another spot where this accurate this data is just not accurate enough to work with. I put a little squiggle mark because we also have a water main that stops at a valve, starts back up mid block, and that's not actually the way it is, on-site.

Four two six and current JS data for attributes. And I will say that hydrants at least say East Jordan Ironworks, but about 99% of them are from East Jordan Ironworks. So asset attributes, I've mentioned that a few times. I haven't really set it up, but this is from the proposal. These are the attributes that will get inspected, recorded, mapped, and added to each asset within our GIS.

And the way that kind of works is if our technicians out in the field, there is a hydrant at a certain service address that's reported to be leaking. Before they even go out, they can pull it up on the notebook. They can see manufacturer, when it was built, the location, surface type. So for excavation and restoration, they know what they're getting into. You can usually locate a hydrant in the field.

So that's not a big of a problem. But having all that information lets them go to the site, look at it, call the water team, see if they've got additional parts based on that manufacturer year, type, and the asset. Location and photos save us investigation time. Manufacture year makes it easier to replace parts and replace, and repair things quicker, which is pretty important for hydrants. Surface type, again, excavation restoration, it takes a different process to get at something under a roadway than it does, grass.

Valve type for repairs and parts, I'll also mention that part of the reason we want a lot of these attributes is you can come up with really accurate budgets. If you know you have 900, this diameter valve, you can put a price to that and you can say, I expect to have to repair two to 6% of my inventory every year. Gonna come up with a budget number, which is pretty important with water budgeting, and it's much more accurate that way than to just know that you spent this last year. You might have to spend it again next year. There's gonna be fluctuations there.

So, pipe direction, also important for locating problems and exposing the pipes that need to be fixed. All this, again, is kept on Ferndale's ArcGIS. So then, OHM's proposal. The proposal was sought from OHM for field inventory and map development. This is gonna take about twelve months to get all of these attributes and assets, in a good dataset versus probably eight to ten years if we try to do it internally.

And I'll say that we've been working on what we have now for four to five years already, and it's just a matter of not having time, to put all those things together. I'll also say that some of our inaccurate, measurements are less than helpful. They're guaranteeing a two inch accuracy versus what we have now, which is sometimes 20 feet, sometimes 12 inches, sometimes 200 feet. We talked to neighbors, including Oak Park who uses o j OHM for these services, Birmingham, Livonia, Saline, Southfield, Novi, similar scope. Of the total 5,760 assets plus a 150 linear miles of water and sewer.

Again, that's what's a part of this proposal. The budget, we found delays and cuts in water and sewer of about 359,000 in the budget to cover the 329,000 for this and I imagine there's questions. Let me just go to the future. I'll bring it back to this. We can look at that, and then we can open up the floor.

So what we're trying to do for the future of inventory in GIS, this is really a first step. And this is like walking before we can run all this data. You know, it is expensive. It's time consuming. But it is what you need in order to do everything else that we wanna do, like digital work order tracking.

That is something that we really wanna get into. All those little efficiency gains, that'll be provided by this, we'll really be able to take advantage of that when we have a digital system in place. Collecting, refining GRS data internally, we want to send our guys out with notepads. We want them to take pictures. We want them to record things.

We want them to be able to upload that to the data so that way the data talks both ways and is updated as we go because it's part of operations. It'll always be accurate. We have staff internally pursuing GIS credentials at MSU. We have an engineering internship program that we're working on to identify service leads. That's something that we we thought it doesn't take a consultant or an engineer.

We have access to some interns through some of our community contacts. There's 10,000 service leads. We can kind of send them out until those are done. Those can take a little bit longer than, the data that we're looking for now because it's it's less, just the priority is a little bit lower. Plus, we're gonna be doing a lot more lead service line work, and that is something that can happen in parallel to those replacements.

So we also have a sewer capacity study, hydraulic modeling that is being completed by HRC through, county grant program. We have sewer CCTV data, water and sewer as builds, tap cards, other legacy info. We would like to attach all of that to GIS, to hyperlink it. So that way, when we look at a service address, we can see all the information right there in five seconds instead of multiple hours. We're also looking at the sidewalk program, which we're gonna be starting in spring.

We would like to do the same thing with this, use our GIS to perform all of our inspections so that data is housed for the next ten years, twenty years. Parks and rec and downtown asset inventory, digital work order system will come next. Facility asset inventory and work order system would follow. And then finally and we put this off till last because we have a pretty good, pretty good GIS system that we're currently using for so that's kind of next steps for where DPW would like to be. And I will go back to the proposal and see if there's any questions.

Okay. First, we entertain the motion and then have discussion. Make a

motion to approve the proposal for filled inventory and GIS development by OHM Advisors in the amount not to exceed 328,750 as submitted by the DPW director and to authorize the finance director to amend the appropriate line items to reflect the changes in plan department.

Support.

Alright. So now what we'll do is, open it up for questions, and I just have one just one question of clarity. So, essentially, what GIS will be doing o h m OHM, GS through OHM will be doing is pretty much everything that you all did individually for many, many years, and this is just to kinda shorten the process.

Yeah. It's kind of taking everything we have, in file folders, in our supervisor manual, all of our tap cards, and putting it all together in the same system. And it's actually in addition to that, it's field locating everything. We GPS wasn't really around when a lot of this data was put together. So, it is actually gonna allow us to every single asset, all 5,760 within two inch accuracy throughout the city.

The

city. Regarding this proposal. Through the chair, of

course, I do. I know I asked via email, but for the record, did we go out for bid for this?

We did not. We spoke with, Oak Park. We used our neighborhood references like I, have up here, and then we did price check them against consulting and engineering costs that we have with our other, party providers of that.

And I will note just for the record, OHM is the industry leader in this topic. I don't wanna underscore this, but I I think we quite possibly have standing with us in this room tonight, the best, if not one of the best, GIS project managers in the state of Michigan. What they do compared to what other firms can offer is quite unique in terms of being able to put it all together in one place. So, yes, we could piece this together, through other firms. But as we've seen, like, our efforts to kinda do this slowly hasn't been very successful.

So we need to get with the times. And that's really what this proposal is about is getting us there, to to where we need to be to do our work effectively today.

Thank you. Beyond that, would this become a sort of a master sheet?

What do you mean?

So what I mean is in the email that I sent earlier today with all the the various disjointed maps that I've found, if you do a Google search for Ferndale ArcGIS, you find a lot of old legacy material. You find, obviously, some of the the legacy material that's inaccurate. Would those go away and fold into this new map system?

Yes. They will. And part of this proposal is to kind of clean up those, and develop those maps, get rid of some. There are some legacy, maps that are no longer relevant. If you looked at the DPW maps, I think we have 13 or 14.

A few of them are duplicates. There is one that's sort of like a master map that has four or five different filters with, sewer, storm, hydrants, ski valves, catch basins, and things like that. But, again, I kind of showed the state of ours and how inaccurate everything is. That can all be rolled up into one, but this will roll up everything. This will basically create an accurate representation of every asset in the city, and there will be a master map, and that will all be publicly viewable.

I'll add to that. That is what a lot of what task two is. So we're gonna get all the information available, compile it, see what we're working with. And as we go out in task three in the field data collection and moving into task four, now we have a spatial point to tie all of that historical information. We have new information that we've collected in the field, and the final deliverable product will be, you know, as is of that time of inspection dataset.

Great. Thank you. Additionally, I had a question about the items that we're delaying. How confident are we that we can delay those without any sort of emergency need to to act on them?

So that would be the future items?

The items that we had previously purchased.

I I understand. I apologize. So that is a sewer, That is a CCTV. So we do CCTV regularly through our program. This was prioritized as a higher need, and it's just because as those less of those emergency, CCTV investigations come up than have in the past because we've been doing a better job of regular sewer lining and maintenance.

It's still important at some point that we have one because the one we currently have, I wanna say, is nine eight or nine years old, and that's pretty old for technology. But I think we can make this one work for one more year, this information. Because the other thing that I'll add is that I don't wanna do a lot of CCTV yet because I would like to take that data and roll it into our g s. As we're doing CCTV, every segment can be added digitally, and we have a good storehouse of information that includes the additional stuff that we do.

And that would be part of the future iterations of this?

Correct. Yep. That this will be, as you said, the master dataset that all those additional things get added to. So, like, sewer capacity study, hydraulic modeling for the water systems, sewer c CCTV information. And, basically, every time somebody goes out and performs work and they have a tablet, they'll have the ability to update the data in the field.

So they can mark, if we do a water main repair, they can mark exactly where that water main repair took place. So, we'll constantly look at that data, and we'll use that to make better decisions for capital improvement, prioritization, budgeting, and operations.

Great. Okay. Thank you.

I just wanna say I'm really thrilled we're doing this. It's long overdue and super important for our infrastructure, and it's, you know, it's it's a testament to how hard you and the DPW team, the water team work to to do your jobs without this kind of robust data and and do your very best. But, you know, this this is a game changer for how we do business, and it's really important that we take these modernizing steps, I think. So thrilled to see it. I'm also thrilled that the fee schedule doesn't look like there's anything in here that's super padded out, so I appreciate that, Jake.

You know, this looks like it's just it's a tight proposal of a lot of work and not a lot of fluff, and I really appreciate that.

Any other questions, comments? May we have a roll call?

Kelly?

Yes.

Johnson? Yes. Mikulski?

Yes.

Leakes Bay?

Yes. The motion to approve the proposal for filled inventory GIS development. The OHM advisors in the amount not to exceed $328,750 as submitted by the DPW director and authorize the finance director to amend the appropriate outline items to reflect the changes in planned depart departmental expenditures as passed. We're moving on to item regular agenda item eight b. We're gonna stay there.

Approval to

Thank you again, mayor and council. So this one's a lot quicker. Purchase of a new mini sweeper. So in 2023, we put on our CIP budget, and it was approved for a mini sweeper for sweeping and a mini loader for snow. For 2023 to 2025, we kind of delayed that.

We wanted to test our current fleet, see how it worked out on Woodward bike lanes, some other areas, of need. We, we kind of selected this now that we're a few years in, and we see that, most of our equipment doesn't work great, for the narrow bike lanes. We don't have anything that'll fit on a sidewalk outside of power washer and blowers. All these things are labor intensive. They take a lot of time.

This piece of equipment is ideal for bike lanes, sidewalks, park paths, parking lot areas. I included this picture because we don't currently have something that can go in the, parking structure, which is eight seven clearance. We don't have anything. We do have a skid will fit down there, but that's not really built for parking structures. It's more for, like, construction sites.

It doesn't have a water tank. So you end up cleaning the floor and then making all the walls dirtier than they should be. So this is really a piece of equipment that we have rented seasonally, that we will no longer have to rent, and we didn't rent one that, was this quality, had this size hopper. So, additionally, there are some barriers on the sidewalk in front of the parking structure, and we'll actually be able to maintain all those brick pavers now using a piece piece of equipment that's designed and meant to do that. So, again, rental, if we did four weeks for the park structure itself, it was roughly 2,500, a week, so 10,000 a year that we're just spending on a rental equipment.

Few options. So we looked at multiple options. Not only did we delay, we looked internally, but we looked at a tractor. We looked at a a loader, a mini loader, and we looked at some smaller sweeper options. We also once we narrowed it down to a sweeper, we looked at a few brands, Multihog, Trackless, and MadVac.

So, what we settled on was the Multihog CV three fifty. It has very simple controls. Cameras are good. It watches the brooms. It has the perfect dimensions for everything we wanted to do.

It has a hopper for water. Got good reviews from Dearborn, Detroit, Brighton. It is much quicker. It works around delineators well. Delineators do have a cost.

As they get ran over, they don't always pop up. These go around those delineators. Sourcewell pricing is locked in at $183,995, and Brown Equipment Company is the regional vendor. We have

a motion before discussion.

I move we approve the purchase of a multi hog mini sweeper from Brown Equipment Company in an amount not to exceed $183,995.

Support.

So, James, regarding this purchase, just kinda give us some details about this. I mean, obviously, this is something we've never purchased before. You said we've always rented. What's the the the lifespan of one of these equipments? Is is it worth it in in your opinion?

So I would say it is. On our fleet replacement schedule, small equipment, medium sized equipment is supposed to be in service and typically would remain in service for ten years. This is a newer piece of equipment. Detroit uses it. Dearborn use it.

Bryte use Bryte use it for a lot of the same reasons that we would use it. Bike lane maintenance in Michigan is particularly difficult. We put a lot of salt down on our roads. There's a lot of road debris. As they narrow and as we put up barricades to protect bicyclists, it means that and you'll see what a larger Elgin Pelican, which is our main sweeper, you'll see how big that is, and you'll know that it cannot get in and out of those areas.

We also again, we got our parking structure, I wanna say, three and a half years ago now. I should actually when we got it, but, this is a piece of equipment that will do wonders in that building. That building gets a wash down. It sees a lot of oil, debris. As you do this maintenance to pavement, it extends the lifetime of the the pavement.

So you're using fleet. The cost of which to purchase is 183,000. But if you added up all the totals for all these different areas we're gonna maintain, and do a better job of maintaining, The money that we're really gonna save is gonna come from doing less, payment replacement and repairs, and it's gonna actually extend the life of all of those assets.

Is there a guarantee for this? And and what's the maintenance for this?

What does this look like?

Yeah. So, typically, we would look at four to 8% maintenance every year based on the cost of the vehicle. So that's typically what we look at. And this vehicle, as it's used in other areas, will, be paid for from special funds. So the sanitation fund is actually booking this vehicle because this is primarily used for, sweeping, and then we have designated sweeping as a sanitation operation.

Water can use this if there's a water main break. And if they do, we have rental rates. The water fund will pay by the hour for using this equipment, and it's the same way. So most of this is going to be used from the sanitation fund, but a lot of this is gonna be, in special funds.

So when we talk about using this to maintain the bike lanes, how does it is this narrow enough? Like, how walk us through how it maintains the bike lanes. Like, how do we go about a maintenance cycle with a bike lane with this piece of equipment?

Yeah. So if we looked at Woodward Heights, that's our narrowest bike lane. There's there's curb about six feet, and then there's, well yeah. And then there's barricade that goes between traffic and bicycle lanes. We can't put a full size vehicle down there.

We can't really even fit our skid with brushes on it. This would be able to go down there once a month. I'll talk a little bit about our sweeping program, but we sweep all city streets. We sweep would like to sweep bike lane on that same schedule. Major sweeps, major streets get done twice every month for seven months during the season.

Residentials all get done once, every seven months, so seven times total throughout the year. These will be on that same schedule. And if you look at the city streets, they're pretty good. And, it's not just about aesthetics. We don't want people to look out front and say, you know, that street looks good.

But what they don't see well, we do want people to say that, but that's not the only reason we do this. All of that debris, all that oil, all of that salt, all those things do degrade the roadway, and they also degrade the stormwater system. So that gets washed in every time it rains. If we don't get to it that month, it goes into the stormwater system. It's a higher cost for treatment.

It's corrosive. It's worse on our sewers. So as you don't maintain,

all of

these things, bike lane included, it just puts extra, on, like, harder to understand cost on all city infrastructure. And, really, if you go drive down, the bike lanes on Woodward, there are times where you can really see there's a lot of gravel, there's a lot of rubber, there's a lot of oil, there are things that get washed to the outside of the bike lane. And right now, the only way for us to do it, and it's not very efficient, is to basically have four or five guys with backpack blowers come in at 5AM, start in Pleasant Ridge, and blow and blow and blow, and then our big street sweeper comes through and gets everything that they can out of the travel lane. It's not ideal. It takes a lot of time.

Again, similar to the proposal, the more time we spend doing things inefficiently, the less time we have to do the things that we want to do. And this is not just for the bike lane. So this is something, again, that we can use on the sidewalks. If you're just imagining the brick pavers here, brick pavers, it's very important that you maintain them. But sometimes, sometimes power washing, using, yeah, water out of a power washer can blow a lot of the, it should be, polymeric sand from between the cracks of the pavers, and then you have to redo the polymeric sand.

This is really something that can extend the life and, like, extend the maintenance schedule for almost all these assets. Sidewalks, park pass, we don't currently have anything that we can run the park pass with. So, again, you got guys out there with blowers. They'll run a mower over it. The mower will be on, and it'll kinda blow things off of it.

But we would really like to add park pass to a regular maintenance program. Those are asphalt. The longer they last, the less we're spending per year getting them, installed.

So the questions. Yeah. So through the chair.

So this rental at 10,000 annual cost for four weeks total is only associated with the parking structure?

Correct.

Okay. Okay.

That's for quarterly sweeping at Yep. One week.

Yeah. In my head, when you were going through this the first time, since this is the first time that I'm seeing

this

presentation, I thought that the the sweeper was doing bike lanes and sidewalks and park paths as well. If it's only doing the the parking structure sweeping, that makes a lot more sense that we're only spending 10 Yeah.

I mean Yeah. And I would say too that even if, yeah, if we're spending 40,000 annually on all those assets, it would still pay for itself in five years.

But

that is just for the parking structure. The last few years, we have done two weeks total, because the rental cost is just prohibitive. So we do a little bit more with power washing. We do a little bit more with washouts because we have two inch hose bibs at the parking structure, so we have done roughly two weeks total.

So through the share, one more question. So it sounds like this will be this will be in use pretty much all year round. We can get it on a schedule with our parks, get it on a schedule with our downtown sidewalks or all sidewalks.

Potentially. We haven't done that yet, but so all of our city buildings, sidewalks, parking structure, alley, if well, the sweeper actually fits on the alley, so that would be it. But, we can use it on any sidewalks that we maintain. We do maintain sidewalks in the downtown through the downtown, through the DDA contract. That is something that we could use this for.

And this thing doesn't handle snow or anything like that? We would still need

to It does not. Okay. This is primarily for and it's for one use. And it's because it has a, hopper on it for water. We did look at some multi use units, but you end up getting a product that's can do two things not well.

Mhmm.

We

would rather have something that does this one purpose well.

To pick up on, Pro Tem's question, that does raise the question of, you know, how do we ensure this is great. I'm very much in support of this. There's no worries there. But she brings up a good point, which is if this doesn't do snow and stuff and we're thinking about downtown sidewalks where we have a persistent accessibility and safety issue throughout the year, you know, what what other solutions do we have? This isn't the solution for for that.

You know, that would be a problem I would be looking for us to also solve relatively soon is is coming up with a strategy for dealing with the snowy sidewalks in a way that doesn't tear up the sidewalks, that isn't just a mini plow that's gonna damage and mess up flags. You know? I know that I'm asking you a question that's really not on point with the item we're discussing right now. I get that. But

We've thought about this. And we do have a mini skid. So we have a mini skid that we added, I wanna say, in the winter. That is something that we are going to be able to use. It was delivered, I think, midway through the winter last year.

We're gonna be using that for sidewalks, crosswalks. That's gonna be a great tool for that. And we are looking at replacing a tractor as something that can push snow on bike lanes, push snow on sidewalks, and do things. Right now, we use two Ventracs. Those are both up next year for replacement.

We have a tractor in our parks fleet that's due for replacements. We're kind of trying to find a way to take those three things, combine them into one tractor that is more appropriate for pushing snow and be more of a workhorse than something specifically to do the sweeping? So we

have a net so we have the equipment we need right now to kind of take some, let's call them, more advanced snow removal actions during this coming winter while you all are kind of scoping and and identifying what a newer piece of equipment for next year's round of purchases might look like. Yes.

And we are looking at as well potentially demoing a mini loader, a couple other options to push snow in bike lanes and in other areas where we don't have. I'll just say that the Ventracs are a little undersized. We've been lucky because we haven't had a lot of snowfall. At some point, really need something that has a little bit more, power to to actually push snow than those things currently provide.

Any other questions, comments?

Johnson? Yes. Kelly?

Yes. Mikulski? Yes.

Lakes Bay? Yes.

So The purchase a $183.95 dollars that was submitted by the DPW director is passed. And we're moving on to item eight c. You might as well just stay there, Approval to purchase the replacement Elgin suite street sweeper from McQueen in the amount of $322,500.

Thank you again, mayor and council. So our street sweeper, is an Elgin Pelican. It looks like this. It is a three wheeled sweeper. That is our main line sweeper.

Our street sweeping program, a little bit of context, we do about a 124 lane miles,

So I

kinda went over seven times monthly. Majors and Woodward get done twice a month. Our locals get done once a month. So when I say locals, I just mean mostly residentials. There are some majors interspersed with residentials, but it's pretty much the street in front of your house.

We also use our street sweepers for special cleanups and program assistance. And by that, if we have water main breaks, some kind of construction, or if there's an infrastructure project that leaves a giant pile of dirt somewhere, we will use our sweepers to go take care of that mess. Right now, we have a 2021 Pelican similar to this. That is our primary. We have a 2016 VACOL.

That is our secondary. I didn't take a good picture of it that shows it, but it's built on a truck chassis. It is better suited for straight line sweeping operations, whereas this one is three wheeled. And part of the reason it has three wheels, the third wheel in the back turns, then you can imagine it can kinda turn on a dime. It can go around cars.

It can go around cans. It can do what it needs to do. In a city where there is a lot of on street parking, it's pretty important that you have a street sweeper that can move around them. So, again, I talked about this for a second, but our ten year replacement, that is identified as ideal in our fleet replacement policy, is the same for this type of equipment. And I say five and five because best, yeah, best practice, you would have a primary.

Once that primary becomes five years old, it gets converted to your secondary. Your secondary age is 10 years old, and it gets replaced. And then you just do that on and on every five years. Buy a new one, you sell the old one, and then you swap primary to secondary. So the Elgin Pelican, this was actually scheduled to be replaced in 2027.

So we're asking for this a year early, and I'll why. Right now, the 2016 VACOL has probably 20 to $25,000 in repairs. There's an impeller housing that's where it generates the vacuum pressure that it needs to pull up sweeping material. There's two pictures. There's an x that's just to kind of show you this detailed picture to the left is, the impeller housing.

It's got a giant hole in it. What happens when these things get a little bit older is they're constantly sucking in debris. It's a vacuum housing. It's almost like the interior is being sandblasted, and then it just slowly takes material off. So what's this thick becomes this thin, thin, thin, thin, and then a big rock or something else runs through it, shoots out the top, and then there's a giant hole.

That whole part has to be replaced. This is the third time that we've either had to weld or replace. You can see it's an expensive, repair. So three times 20 to $25,000 is a lot of money, for us to continue investing in something that we're gonna replace, or is budgeted to be replaced in a year. Additional to that, this is down.

It's probably gonna take two months to get that part to get that part on it, to get it back to us. We're looking at needing a rental sweeper November 1 through the fourteenth. If it's not delivered in time, those rentals are roughly $5,000, per week for two weeks, $10,000. So you got 20 to 25 in repairs, potentially 10,000 for rentals. And that's why we're asking for this to be replaced one year early.

And I'll say that the VACOL has been unreliable. My predecessor's predecessor went with a different product, and that product has just not been good. And it's not anyone's fault, but that's just how it is. This thing has been down for repairs a lot. It does not do a good job going around cars, other objects.

We did get a demo for an Elgin Whirlwind that does the same straight line sweeping, and it's just not a good fit for our city. Our highway team didn't think it would be good. For operations, it takes longer. You can't get everything. So two pelicans is probably the best way to go.

Elgin pelicans are also used by neighbors. So Hazel Park, Oak Park, Berkeley, Birmingham, others in Oakland County all use this piece of equipment. When our pelican was down and the vacol was down earlier in the season, as the season started, we actually had to use Hazel Park's pelican. We got that from them. Our highway team was already understood how to operate it.

It was very easy. They were able to give it up for a couple days. We were able to catch up on sweeping. Same equipment means that, the same maintenance performs where mechanics are gonna be able to work on, the Elgin Pelican a lot better if that's the only thing that we have in service. So source well pricing, again, McQueen is the regional vendor for Elgin, and the price for this vehicle equipment is $322,500.

And then I'll say that they're offering $20,000 as a trade in, and that seems low, but you need to consider that, whoever buys it is gonna have to make 20 to $25,000 in repairs right off the bat, and there's actually a hydraulic leak that'll add 2,500 more dollars. I did try to look at some of these. They're not as used. It's not a brand that we see a lot in Michigan. I was able to find some similar years looking around 30 to $40,000, which is kind of what I would expect with the trade in plus the repairs.

Need a motion? I will make

a motion to approve the purchase of a replacement Elgin Street sweeper from McQueen for 322,500 as submitted by the DPW director and to authorize the finance director to amend line item 226000977500. Support.

You actually I think you already answered my question regarding what to do with the Vocol. It's a trade in.

Correct.

I open it up for discussion for other council members.

Through the chair, that $20,000 trade in, have you looked at, like, private market? Is it possible that we could get more if we sold it direct rather than doing, a trade in?

Yeah. It so it's an option, and it's hard to say. It's hard to say because it does have 20 to $25,000 worth of repairs. It is an older unit. It's less desirable.

Most of our neighbors most most of Metro Detroit really uses the Algen brand, whether it's the Whirlwind or the Pelican three wheeler. I'm not confident enough to say that we wouldn't do a little better if we went and did a surplus sale, but I'm also not confident enough to say that we wouldn't do a lot worse. So it's really it can be risky, and I I don't see a lot of reward.

Yeah.

What is the so, you know, one of the issues that Detroit has when it's with its street sweepers is they're, you know, they're very expensive to maintain. They they would do wear down fast because they're a an a piece of equipment that has a lot of moving parts that are moving constantly. But the number one thing that puts Detroit sweepers out of service is users. The drivers themselves, the operators are not well trained, and they're not operating it properly. They're not main managing the brush height and stuff like that well.

What's the training regime look like for us? And if we're getting a new new sweeper, are we looking at sort of refresher trainings on the staff so that they're familiar with proper brush heights and, you know, when to have them spinning and when not and and things like that?

Yeah. So we I would without having all the knowledge of how it works in Detroit, I would say that we have a much smaller highway department, and, typically, street sweeping is performed by five people, crew leader, four crew members. This year, we actually flexed the schedule, to where we had the same person doing almost all the sweeping beginning at 5AM. Mhmm. We do eight hundred hours a year, and Steve probably did six hundred and fifty of those hours.

We do in house training. Anyone that isn't familiar with it cannot run it until they run it with, someone who's an advanced operator with hours in the seat. Okay. And then I'll say that as well that our highway team is responsible for most of the preventative maintenance. So they know the equipment.

They run the equipment. They change the brushes. They do the adjustments. They do everything unless something actually breaks down, at which point the mechanic takes over.

Questions? Comments?

Kelly?

Yes. Johnson? Yes. Mikulski? Yes.

Leaksmae? Yes. The motion to approve the purchase of a replacement Elgin's Street Sweeper from McQueen in the amount of 322,500 was submitted by the DPW director and authorize the finance director to amend line item 226Dash000Dash977Dot500. Solution to increase purchase limits per city charter.

Thank you. So within the city charter, there are three locations that identify limitations on when the city is triggered to come to council for approval of an item. In those three sections, the the trigger is currently $2,500. But in drafting the charter, presumably, there are some forethought given to the fact that in the future, this would need to increase. The last update of these sections was in February 2001, so over twenty four years ago at this point.

And, really, when you adjust for inflation, what you get is, bringing it up to what is already stipulated as the maximum allowable right by resolution, which is about $5,000. So what we're asking for with this, resolution is to approve what had already been conceived in the charter, which is to adopt resolution to increase the purchasing limit to $5,000. Anything below that would not require specific council action. The reason we're asking for that at this time is, as you've all experienced, there are a number of instances on our consent agenda where very small ticket items have to wait two to three weeks to get on a council agenda, things that may be holding up, putting a piece of equipment back in service, or the operations and function of our DPW staff most notably, but really it impacts every department. I will say, you know, things that have been recent examples of this, a piece of equipment you approved tonight is not operational.

So we have video down on one of our compactor units because we can't replace it until we get the approval. Previously, we we had on an agenda purchase of mulch that needed to be delayed until we got that approval. So just normal routine maintenance and operations. As you can see in the context of the bigger things that we're doing within, the organization, being able to streamline those smaller purchases is really a time efficiency and a cost savings for us because the time that it takes staff, to put into creating these agenda packets and going through, the the process of creating, you know, bids for small taken items, really just doesn't have the bang for the buck that, we would like it to. So that's that's the reason behind this particular resolution.

I'm happy to take any questions.

First, the motion. Yes. I move

that we adopt the resolution to increase the purchase limits for general expenditures as permitted under the Ferndale City Charter. Support.

Now we're going to open up for questions. I just wanted to clarify, with you, the city manager, that so the last time that we've done this as far as the the purchase agreement amount. It was 2,001. We've not increased it since then.

Correct. And it it looks like that was done by, that those changes were done by the voters. I do think it bears mentioning this is probably something that our finance committee needs to look at more holistically. What I'm asking for tonight is just really a operational stop gap, but we need to think about

what makes the most sense.

And I'll note that, you know, just it it is an even even $5,000 is is an incredibly low amount, for sort of day to day operational need. We're just we're hemmed in by the charter. It it put dollars. You always wanna avoid dollar amounts in charters if you can avoid it, because it doesn't reflect the realities of of the way the world changes, but this is this is as much as we can do. So this at least gives a little bit more flexibility, on the day to day.

But, yeah, I think, you know, there's not much we can do by resolution or ordinance. It it it's just it's hard coded into the charter.

Any other any questions, comments regarding the increase?

Johnson? Yes. Kelly?

Yes.

Mikulski?

Yes. Leaksmae?

Yes. So the motion the proposal to adopt the resolution to increase the purchase limits for general expenditures as permitted under the Ferndale City Charter has passed seven o. K? And now it is call to call to council where I open it up to the city manager for department head updates. Parks.

Good evening, ma'am. And not a lot from us right now. The main thing

that we wanna make sure

that everyone is where is aware of is our upcoming fall festival. It's annually the largest event that we put on throughout the course of the year. This year, it is sponsored by the Garlic Artichoke Foundation. They have been a continued partner of partner of ours for several years running now, so we wanna give thanks to them for sponsoring. It will take place on Saturday, October 4 from 11AM until 3PM.

During that which time we will have a bevy of different opportunities for recreation that will include things like pony rides, hay rides, climbing towers, bounce houses, different foods that are available. We'll have a DJ that'll be playing music. We'll have, roller skating that will take place inside, a bunch of different carnival games, some trick or treating, all types of stuff for you and your family to get into. So we encourage everybody to come out on Saturday, October 4. Wristbands will be required to partake in any of the attractions that we have available.

They can be purchased ahead of time, through our, city website. The wristbands will be $8 per person until October 1, at which time they will go up to $10 per person. That will include online and at the door. You can purchase your wristbands at the door, but we do encourage everybody to purchase them ahead of time as much as possible. That way we could just check you off the list, put your wristband on you, and send you on your way instead of having you wait in line to make a payment.

And that is about it. We look forward to seeing everybody out there.

Police?

Good evening, mayor and council. Riley helped us, with a great post today, because, recognizing that we are back in school, for a new starter back today, and Hazel Park School starts back tomorrow. Obviously, we have both districts in our in our city. She came up with a really nice info, I guess info what do they call it? Infographic.

There you go. That's the word I was looking for. But she came with the acronym LEARN. Look both ways, eyes on the road, always stop for the school buses, remember your route, and no distractions. I thought that was pretty clever of you, Riley.

Okay. So, with that, you know, passing the school buses, if they if they have the red flashing lights, you are required to stop. It's a civil infraction to drive past the school bus. If you have young drivers, please reacquaint them with that statute and, you know, be on the lookout. Those school bus drivers can report you and we can follow-up on that.

So we encourage people to pass the word, and, let's, have a accident free school year. Thank you.

I was told

James, on behalf of DDA.

Alright. So as you guys heard tonight during the, arts and beautification commissions presentation, there are still two more, nine on nine concerts at Shiffer Park at 9 Mile in Planavan. And, yes, it is Labor Day weekend, but they are going on this weekend, this Sunday, from four to five. And the finale, September 7, there will be miss Megan's Music Makers who are gonna join, from 02:30 to 03:30 encouraging children and families to participate in a fun musical activity. So the DDA is excited to see everybody there.

Fire.

Good evening. Well, October 4 is gonna be a very busy day in Ferndale because that's our fire department open house also. So our fire department open house will be one to four on October 4 to kick off fire prevention week. And so everybody go out to the fall festival, come to the open house, start one or the other, go to the other. Support both events, that'd both be great.

We'll be having a lot of things. We'll be doing the fire safety blanket demonstrations and giveaways. So we do have the fire blankets to give away, but you do have to attend the demonstrations. We want to teach you how to properly use them before we give them to you. And about we have our fire prevention trailers so you can bring your family, go through it, do some practice drills to learn, take your little ones through so you understand what to do in emergencies, and a lot of other demonstrations of fun things.

So come on out October 4 from one to four. Station 2 down by 9 Mountain Hilton.

And then clerks.

Just a couple announcements. The first one, in observance of Labor Day, city hall will be closed on, Monday, September 1. The other one, regarding city council meetings held in September. Just a reminder that on 12/16/2024, city council approved the schedule for this entire year. In the month of September, we won't be holding it on the second and fourth, Mondays, or rather the second and fifth Mondays, due to the celebration, and beginning of Rosh Hashanah on, Monday, the twenty second.

So, again, just a reminder, in September 8 and the twenty ninth will be the two city council meetings. Thank you.

That's all. K.

What? No DPW? They've talked enough. Alright.

They're gonna stop asking for stuff.

Alright. Alright. Ignite for Jim. Yes. Alright.

Then I will open it up to council member Johnson.

Thank you, madam mayor. I only have one item this evening. A reminder to the community that the Ferndale High School marching band, the Golden Eagles, are currently fundraising. Their annual fundraiser is ongoing right now. You can donate through a number of different ways.

They were out this weekend at a number of different businesses throughout Ferndale, a lot of the band and color guard members. And, you can also, find them on Facebook. I believe there's a GoFundMe. So there are a number of different ways that you can contribute, PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, I think. Just a lot of different ways.

So just encourage you to support our our, Marching Golden Eagles.

Alright. And to my right, Mayor Pro Tem.

Tonight, the only update that I have is I will be doing a Ferndale rat patrol presentation on September 9, six to 07:30. That is coming up. September is known as peak season within Ferndale. So if our residents are seeing more rats within their backyards, within the the area around their homes, this is a great educational opportunity to come out to the Ferndale area district library, learn about how to prevent them, how to eliminate them, and why we see these sorts of seasonal fluctuations. This is not a new thing.

This is just an ongoing issue, and it is part of routine house maintenance and taking care of your neighborhood. So again, please come out September 9, six to 07:30 at the Ferndale Area District Library.

And council member Kelly.

I just wanna remind everyone that we're still doing our nine on nine last two weeks. It's a lot of fun. If you haven't been yet, I encourage you to make it out. This Sunday, it's at 04:00 at, Plan Avant in 9 Mile at Shiffer Park. The Tread Lightleys will be performing, and they are local residents as well.

A lot of fun. So hopefully you can make it. And then also a reminder that Wednesday is the senior, forum. So if you wanna meet your candidates, please come out to that. It's Wednesday at City Hall at, 11:00.

Alright. And I just want to say that, well, tonight was an example of council coming together and supporting our services. So I think DPW, you're the winner tonight. So,

I'm proud

to be able to support you and and your your you and your team work so hard as is and to be able to, ease the load and make it just a little more efficient for you is is makes me personally very happy. And then, other than that, I don't have anything else. So with that being said, this meeting is adjourned at 08:42PM. Thank you. Have a good evening.