Month: May 2024

Introduction:

Links to the video recording and the council packet are at the bottom of this post. Please note any errors or omissions in the comments. Anything noted in brackets was inserted by Clarkston Sunshine.

Agenda Item #1, Call to Order (Video time mark 0:00:00):

(The meeting was not formally called to order.)

Agenda Item #2, Pledge of Allegiance (Video time mark 0:00:02):

Sue Wylie asked everyone to please stand, and they will say the Pledge of Allegiance.

(Pledge said.)

Agenda Item #3, Roll Call (Video time mark 0:00:21):

Wylie said they would go to #3 on their agenda, which is roll call. Wylie asked Karen [DeLorge, city clerk] to please take the roll call.

Peg Roth, Laura Rodgers, Ted Quisenberry, Amanda Forte, and Sue Wylie were present.

DeLorge said Gary Casey and Mark Lamphier were absent.

Wylie thanked DeLorge.

Agenda Item #4, Approval of Agenda (Video time mark 0:00:51):

Wylie said Item #4 is the approval of the agenda, and she needs a motion and then a second to approve the agenda.

Motion by Rodgers; second Roth.

Wylie said OK and asked if there was any discussion.

No discussion.

Motion to approve the agenda passed by unanimous voice vote.

Wylie said so, that’s approved.

Wylie said she doesn’t know when this comes up. There was a question going back to two meetings ago she thinks it was, let’s see what meeting was that, 4/22, perhaps. Maybe Tom [Ryan, city attorney] can help her with this, where there was the consent agenda, they did not approve a payment to him. Do they talk about that right now? Ryan said if she’d like, sure.

Wylie said OK, let her see. So, on the 4/22 meeting, she asked in their consent agenda to remove, Ryan had an invoice, and it was for 3/28, preparation of first draft of HDC [Historic District Commission] ordinance amendment for civil infraction penalties and it was for 1-1/2 hours at $95 an hour for $142.50. And the reason she asked to have it removed, or at least they took it off that agenda, because she didn’t understand what it was for, and council did not ask to have an HDC ordinance written. So, what was presented to them that day was not something council had asked for.

Ryan said OK, he’s not arguing with Wylie, but it’s already taken off the bill for, he means – Wylie said so, that’s it? Ryan said yeah, he means – Wylie said OK. Roth said she thought she saw a credit. Ryan said yeah, no, he’s, you know, done and done, so it’s OK. He thinks at some point they’re going to need to worry about it, they’re going to have to have an HDC ordinance amendment to do that, but if they don’t want to do it now, that’s OK. Wylie said that could be, but it wasn’t something they had asked for. Ryan said right, right. Wylie said they were looking for an ordinance regarding the officer. Ryan said code enforcement officer, right. Wylie said yeah. Not anything for HDC. Ryan said he thinks there was a phone, there was a lot of discussion, maybe it’s just internally with the administration, but that’s OK. He’s taken it off the bill. Wylie said OK. Ryan said no problem. Wylie said great.

Forte asked if they’d done the second read of that. Ryan said no. They haven’t done the first reading. Forte said OK.

Wylie said OK, so that takes, and oh, they had a vote on the agenda that was approved. And oh, she’s sorry. She brought that up at the wrong time.

Agenda Item #5, Public Comments (Video time mark 0:03:30):

[Though public comments can sometimes irritate the city council, there is value to both the council and the public in hearing them. While they can’t eliminate public comments entirely without violating the Open Meetings Act, your city council has occasionally decided not to acknowledge public comments during a city council meeting unless the person submitting the comments also appears at the meeting (in-person or electronically) to personally read them. In the past, members of the public have been cut off for exceeding the city council’s arbitrary three-minute time limit (it’s arbitrary because no time limits are required by the Open Meetings Act).

If your public comments were submitted to the council but not read, or if you tried to make public comments but your comments were cut short, please email them to clarkstonsunshine@gmail.com and I will include them in my informal meeting summaries either under public comments or under the specific agenda item that you want to speak to.]

Wylie said Item #5 is public comments.

(Wylie read the rules for public comments.)

Wylie asked if anyone would like to address the council.

Wylie recognized Rick Detkowski and asked if he would introduce himself or not

Rick Detkowski:

Detkowski walked up to the podium, introduced himself, and provided his address. He said there are a lot of new faces here. It’s been a while.

So, they had another summer holiday come and go and they had Mill Pond come and go again. He’s speaking on behalf of himself and some of his neighbors about the frustration level with the Mill Pond being drained before every summer holiday.

He knows this isn’t a question answer but is there any information that can be given out to the status of city ownership of the dam, where that stands, when they can see resolution to do away with this up and down in the summer.

City manager Jonathan Smith said so, the process, where it stands right now is that the, they got a grant. And with that funding from the city of $5,600 and funding from the Mill Pond Association of $5,000, that, combined with a grant of $97,000, was enough to complete the design and engineering phase. And it’s all part of that. They have to do this lake level study that they determine the ideal lake level for the pond. So, they have, they’re working on that, something that they thought was going to be about a four-month endeavor was turned into almost a year. And Smith still doesn’t have the exact results of the lake level study, of the design, and part of the design is to come up with a cost of this future structure. You know what they’re designing is a new structure that would allow the existing dam to be completely bypassed. This new structure, which is pretty simple, is it’s just a standpipe with some kind of control mechanism that allows you to adjust the water level up and down, but basically a standpipe that once that water is up to the top of that pipe, it can go down and then down into the Mill Race like it always has. So that’s what they’re designing.

Smith said they’re supposed to at the same time put together cost estimate, because this is, the next big hurdle is let’s say they come back, just throwing a number out there, $1,000,000. Smith doesn’t know any logic behind that number. It could be lower, could be higher, he doesn’t know. But let’s say it’s $1,000,000 so they would have to then decide how they’re going to pay for this. The thought was initially, let’s initially go seek out the grant opportunities. Let’s find out what grant opportunities are out there. Presumably the damn risk mitigation program through EGLE [Michigan Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy], which is where they got the design grant from, they would also go back to them. And they were told once they give you a design grant, they very rarely turn their back on you and don’t give you a build grant, but that would be the next step would be go back to them and say OK, now we’ve completed our design, we put together this project that’s going to cost, let’s say $1,000,000, and now they would like their help, State of Michigan, with funding for a grant. So, then they come back and tell them what they will or won’t do.

Smith said and then the difference, they would have to decide how they’re going to fund that. Is it some combination of residents on the pond and the city and the Mill Pond Association or other residents. What is going to be the formula. And that’s going to be the next big hurdle is to decide how they fund this. Of course, they hope that the grant will come back and fund 90% of it, but they don’t have any way of knowing that. So that determines how much each homeowner would be willing to pay or would be required to pay. Then they would have to have a public hearing. The Mill Pond Association would probably lead that and say, OK homeowners, we’ve got a grant for X amount that leaves Y amount for each of you to fund. And they divide that up by the number of homeowners and say, OK, that means $10,000 from each homeowner, or not the number, and they’ll spread that over twenty years, or ten years, whatever. There will be some kind of allocation period and then tell them that, here’s what your assessment would be, but it probably would be based on linear foot of frontage, but some algorithm would be put together, and each homeowner would be given an amount and then they’d have to vote.

Smith said they’d have to have, he’s told, more than half. They’d have to have, he thinks the Water Resource, maybe Ryan knows, but Smith thought it was 2/3 – Ryan said 2/3 maybe. Smith said they have to get the ruling on that, what kind of majority they need for this to pass and go from there. If the homeowners vote it down, you could argue OK, then what do they do. They’ve got this design, but they don’t have funding. Do they have to go to some other funding mechanism, maybe spread the allocation out over thirty years to make it less painful. Smith doesn’t know. But the first cost is, the first step is, to finish design and cost estimates, and that’s where they’re at. He doesn’t have timing at this point. He called his representative at the [Oakland County] Water Resource Commission to get that, the timing and all that.

Smith said now, to Detkowski’s other question, is who’s controlling the up and down. The Water Resource Commission had told Smith that in the interim they would help with the up and down. They would help manage the water level. And here again, Smith hasn’t heard from him, from his representative, he hasn’t heard from him probably for six weeks, even though Smith has called him and emailed him several times. So, they need that answer. He’s the key player here and Smith is going to ask that he attend a council meeting. It’s a valid question Detkowski brings up, Smith imagines council wants to know the same question, the same answer. What’s going on? Where do they stand? This is taking way longer than they anticipated. Why? What’s the next step? When are they going to have an answer? All these good questions. Smith doesn’t have all the answers. He’s just relaying what he’s learned, but he thinks it’s appropriate, if council wants to direct him to do so, his having to do that, say, you’ve got to come to a council meeting and give them an update because they’re in the dark right now.

Detkowski said so it’s still in process. Not dead in the water. Smith said no, no, it’s still very much in process. Detkowski said OK. Smith said and not only the design phase and costing phase, but the status of the up and down. Who’s managing that? Is it the current owners or is it the Water Resource Commission? Smith was told that the Water Resource Commission, even before they took full ownership, which is a ways away yet, they would help, quote, unquote, help, with the water level management. Smith doesn’t know if they’re doing that. He doesn’t know if Roth knows. Smith really doesn’t know what is going on on that side of the equation, but Ryan [Oakland County Water Resources Commission, or WRC] would know. And so, Smith is thinking, Ryan, his WRC contact, needs to come to a meeting and tell it to all of you firsthand.

Detkowski thanked Smith and asked If there’s anything that they can do to somehow keep the water level as it is, from going up and down. In summer, people come over, they want to fish, you can’t do that, you can’t kayak, you can’t do any of that stuff. Detkowski just wants to express the frustration level that people on Mill Pond are talking to him about and wanted to be here tonight but couldn’t. So please, the reason is, you know, that they’re kind of here in the front of this on the Mill Pond, that they have to deal with this every holiday, but they’d appreciate it if something could be done to kind of mitigate that, at least until this [gesturing toward Smith] is taken care of. Thank you.

Wylie asked Detkowski is it every holiday they’re seeing something? Detkowski said every holiday for the last two, probably three years. Wylie said she thought they’ve been getting a lot of rain. Forte said yeah, tons of rain. Detkowski said it’s still back up now, but last year before Fourth of July, before Memorial Day, before Labor Day, it would go down to almost trickle level. And it did it again last week, and Detkowski went through channels to see if they could get it closed, because the holiday was coming up, and people were coming over, but he was told it would be closed a little. He doesn’t know what that means.

Quisenberry said it’s still way down. If you look at the shoreline around what he used to call the hydro right by Hawks, and even over on the opposite side, you can see how far down it is even now, despite the rain that they’ve had.

Forte said so, is WRC doing that for lake level? Smith said yes. Forte asked right now. Smith said well, that was supposed to be done back in February, so it’s way past time. Forte asked if they opened it to measure. Smith said no, they shouldn’t have touched the water level. All their lake level study, they look at all the vegetation, they look at the embankments, they look for history, what is kind of suggesting what the ideal lake level should be. They look at vegetation. They’re certainly going to look at the spillway, you know, height that goes down under M-15 over to Parke Lake. That’s a cement structure, and it’s set, it doesn’t move. So, they’ll look at that, they’ll look at the dam, they’ll look at all these factors and determine what the ideal lake level should be. And that, again, he was told would be done in February. Smith never heard the exact results, and even if they said, well, it’s 16.759 degrees above this and that, he wouldn’t maybe, the layman wouldn’t be able to make any sense out of it, possibly. But Smith hasn’t even seen a technical answer. So, it’s past due. Detkowski is right, and to Detkowski’s point, Smith has received no less than probably a dozen calls and emails asking the same question that Detkowski’s asking. So, it’s not unusual. So, it is a question, and he tells them the same thing, maybe a little more of a Cliff Notes version than he just told them, but the same kind of message. He’s been telling everybody that asks.

Detkowski said thank you. He appreciates it. Wylie thanked Detkowski.

Forte asked will that new structure be put on an easement, or how are they doing that? Smith said well, the structure would be, wouldn’t be attached like on the cement weir that they have today, where you can walk out to it. This would, he’s told, probably be out twenty, twenty-five feet from what would be the south end of the, like right by Washington. Twenty-five feet off of that would be the standpipe, and then the pipe would go down under Washington and connect up with the Mill Race, like it does today. Smith said it would require a new easement be created across the property owner’s property there, and it would eliminate the need for the existing dam, which goes under the Washington Management Building. And that’s one of the concerns, is if that were to give away, it could take part of the building away, too. Forte said yeah, totally. Smith said this would completely bypass the building, and the existing structure would be filled in, so it wouldn’t be connected to the existing dam at all. It would just be a separate stand-alone pipe with some structure around it, obviously, to hold it in place. But Smith thinks to get out there and maintain it, you might even have to go out there with a rowboat, because you can’t, there would be no way to walk out there. You’d have to go out there in some kind of boat to do any maintenance on it, if needed. Forte said good to know. Smith said so, if it sounds like there’s a lot unknown, that’s because there is a lot unknown yet at this point.

Quisenberry said he’s sorry, Mr. Detkowski, but it tells us a lot of information, but what it also tells us is, sadly, he’s going to have two more summer holidays coming and going where he’s going to be subjected to this, because it just doesn’t seem like anything is in motion that is going to resolve the issue quickly, sadly. Detkowski said but why summer holidays, though? That’s the question. Quisenberry said he doesn’t don’t know. Detkowski said (unintelligible) a holiday weekend. Wylie said more evaporation, maybe? She doesn’t don’t know. Forte said no, not evaporation. They’ve had so much rain. There’s no way it’s evaporation. Her backyard is flooded. That’s like a big puddle. Like, it should be full. It should be brimming. Wylie said yeah, seems like it.

Wylie said OK and thanked Detkowski. She also thanked Smith for the explanation.

Wylie asked if there were any other public comments tonight.

No comments.

Wylie said OK, moving on – (interrupting Wylie), Forte asked if she could say one thing. Just to circle back about the reading of the new ordinance. Is that going to be on the next agenda? Wylie asked which ordinance Forte was speaking about. Forte said the one that they tabled. Smith said it’s on this agenda. Forte said oh, it is, sorry. Smith said for the first reading. Forte said OK, good. Thank you.

Agenda Item #6, FYI (Video time mark 0:17:47):

Wylie said OK, Item #6 is FYI.

Item 6a – Clarkston Community Art Connection, May 21^st – June 5^th, Clarkston Community Schools, K-12 Art on Display Throughout the Village (Video time mark 0:17:51)

• • Clarkston Community Art Connection Flyer (page 4/62 of the council packet)
  • Map of Participating Artists and Businesses (page 5/62 of the council packet)

Wylie said they have Clarkson Community Art Connection. The Clarkson Community Schools K-12 art on display throughout the village. And there’s a listing and a map showing the location. And they even have two, she thought there were three pieces of art in here.

Roth said that’s here. There are two pieces of art in each of the locations. Wylie said OK. Roth said they were trying to do more. Because they were trying to completely revamp the program, it got changed throughout the course of trying to get this together. But now at each of the twenty locations, there are two pieces of art, and they’re listed on, the places are listed on the flyer. The locations and the artists are listed on the map. And they’ll be up until June 5th.

Wylie said oh, the artists are there too. Roth said yeah, so the families can come in and get pictures taken. She knows a large group went into Honchos, and they were so excited. They got their pictures taken there. So, yeah, the families are very appreciative, and the kids are delighted.

Wylie said great, thank you for all your work getting this done. Roth said she’ll put some more of these maps on the table in the back. DeLorge said yes, and Smith had her put both the map and the flyer that goes with it in the kiosk too. Roth said oh, good. Thank you. DeLorge said she’ll put it in the restroom so people can see it. Roth said great and thanked DeLorge for putting it in the packet, too. She appreciates that.

Wylie said OK and asked if there was anything else FYI that she missed.

No additional comments.

Agenda Item #7, City Manager Report for 05-28-2024 (Video time mark 0:19:21)

• • City Manager Report, 05-08-2024 (page 6/62 of the council packet)

Wylie said then let’s move to Item #7, which is the city manager’s report, which is attached. And there’s two subjects, sanitary sewer pipe maintenance and Oakland County beach water testing. Wylie asked Smith if he wanted to speak about either of these. Smith said just the first one.

Smith said so, the sewer pipe maintenance, this is something that’s required to be done periodically. One might ask, what is periodic? It’s supposed to be done every five years. He’s heard conflicting reports on when it was last done. But nonetheless, they are doing it now. This is fully paid for by Independence Township because they maintain our sewer lines. He shouldn’t say they maintain; they manage our sewer lines. So, they are doing this at no cost to the city. Now, that said, if they find any damage, namely tree roots getting into a sewer line and then crack the pipe, and it has to be lined, then that will be a cost to the city. And they haven’t been told of any events like that. But they are doing this process where they go through, this is a multi-capacity tool, it goes down the pipe. It’s got a camera on it. It’s got a cutter on it. It’s got a water jet on it.

(Tom Ryan left the room.)

Continuing, Smith said and it can go down this pipe, cleaning as it goes. If it gets to a mass of tree roots, it can actually cut through that. If the cutting doesn’t work, it can water jet through it. But it basically works its way down the pipe. And it’s working downhill, if you will, but you know, from the highest point to the lowest point, it works its way down the sewer line in the direction of the flow.

Smith said in an extreme event, and this did happen on Overlook, they got so many tree roots in there that it was like 98% blocked. And they wondered, how is it that, the workers who Smith has talked to at length about this, how is it that these homeowners aren’t already receiving backups in their houses? He can’t imagine, because they said it was 98% blocked. They, nonetheless, they got through the first mass, and they thought they were good. They tried to pressure through a second mass. Instead of going through, it back flowed up, and when it back flows up, it could actually make a turn and go up somebody’s pipe to their house. Not just backing straight up, but there’s pipes going out to each house, as you can imagine, and it could go up into somebody’s house. It’s mostly air at that point, not so much water. It’s mostly air pressure. But it gets into somebody’s house, it’s going to go to the least path of resistance. That’s probably a sink or a toilet in their basement. That’s going to be the first opening that it encounters. Now, it should actually vent harmlessly up through the vent stack that goes up through the roof. You’re familiar with the roof stacks. That’s the stink pipes, as they call it often in the trade. It should be all transparent to the homeowner. But if the vent stack is undersized or it’s been clogged by some devious squirrel dropping nuts down there, whatever the cause, it could actually have no place to go up the vent stack, so then it just has to blow out a toilet. Somewhere, it’s going to just blow out. Now, people think, oh my God, here comes all this sewage in my house. Smith said no, as he said, it’s mostly air at that point that’s coming back up, and all that’s going to blow out is the water that’s sitting in the trap of the toilet. And 99% of the time, if you flushed your toilets recently, that’s going to be clean water sitting in that bowl. And there’s only, what, 2.3 gallons is that what most toilets are now, or are they under that now. He thinks they’re under that. So, it’s just going to take that amount of water. The air is going to hit it and blow that out.

Smith said of course, homeowners are, like, understandably kind of very concerned about this water. What is it? Is it sewage? Do I need to sanitize? Well, Smith thinks that would be a good course of action. But they hope this won’t happen again. It could, they tell him. In the meantime, they say, keep your toilet seat down over the next two weeks, two to three weeks, whatever they do this for. Keep your toilet seat down and put towels over it to weight it down. Then any backflow up through the toilet is just going to go out that little space between the seat and the porcelain toilet, and it’s just going to be, won’t spray all the ceiling and the walls. It’ll just go out on the floor a little bit. That’s their best source of prevention.

Smith said beyond that, he’s been asked 1,000 times, okay, tell me their schedule. When are they going to be doing my street in front of my house? And unfortunately, they can’t give Smith that answer. Because they don’t know. They embark on Main Street or Street X, they don’t know that it’s going to take them ten minutes to get down that, or ten days, depending on how many roots are there. So, it’s hard for them to estimate, okay, they’re going to be at 127 North Holcomb on June 1st at 3:30 in the afternoon. They just can’t do that. So, Smith tries try to communicate that to homeowners that just over the next couple three weeks, keep your toilet seats closed, put a blanket over there or a towel over it to weight it down and absorb any water that should get splashed out.

Smith said so, he wishes there was some better news here, but unfortunately, this isn’t. The reality is they have to do this periodically to get these tree roots cleaned out. As he said, that one on Overlook is 98% clogged. And the bigger the trees, the worse it can be. So, if you have a lot of big trees in front of your house, in front of your neighbor’s houses, he guesses that’s the area that’s probably most subjected to this potential back flow. So, that’s where they stand on this lovely topic of sewer line backup. Smith wishes he had better news.

Wylie said she had a question on that. Smith said it’s no cost, but don’t we pay the township a fee for some of our, which kind of covers that sort of work? No extra cost. Smith said they do charge us above and beyond the sewer to cover some of these expenses. So, you could argue they’ve taken our money over the last ten years and just stuck it in the bank, yeah. Now they’re forced to use it.

Smith said it’s $250,000 for this service. Now if they get it in front of this house and they find that the tree roots were so aggressive they cracked the pipe, their first goal would be to line it with this plastic polyurethane liner. This same miraculous machine can do that at the same time while it’s in there. As it backs out, it can be putting, spraying liner around the inside. And that’s something they’ll do while they’re there, but it would be at our expense to pay for that. Wylie said right.

Smith said no, we also have a sewer fund, rainy day fund, but he doesn’t know, Greg [Coté, city treasurer] maybe knows the balance of it, but if they can’t cover it, then they’re going to have to consider, let’s say it’s really catastrophic (unintelligible) they would have to find a way to cover that either by billing homeowners, but they’ll take this one step at a time. Hopefully, because their sewer pipes are not that old, their hope is that there’ll be no repair costs. We shall see.

Wylie recognized Rodgers for a question.

Rodgers said she had, unrelated, just two questions. Do they have a date yet for the MDOT [Michigan Department of Transportation] people coming here to talk about the crosswalks or anything like that? Smith said he has a date for a Teams meeting. They have been very non-committal. He’s trying to get a more, you know, in-person meeting. Smith said he wanted an in-person at council. Rodgers said right. Smith said that quickly hit a stone wall. They said, how about an in-person meeting on a Tuesday afternoon or something. That even has become a problem, so now they’re suggesting a Teams meeting, and that’s next week. Anybody that wants to join on, he can send the Teams meeting invite out to them or forward it on to them from MDOT. But it still doesn’t have Bill Behr [spelling?] on it. He’s our main representative. It’s got some other people in their planning department, or safety department, he should call it. Safety department. So, Smith’s thought was he’d go ahead and have this preliminary Teams meeting with them, a virtual online meeting, and then still talk to them about going on to the next step of having somebody from MDOT come and explain all this to them because Smith knows Rodgers brought forward this proposal to put flags, See Me flags, at Depot and Main. He’s kind of waiting off to do that. Not that it was a big expense, but let’s see what MDOT’s going to do. Rodgers said right. Smith said if they just come back and say, they’re not doing anything, at least not for the next seven and a half years in their long-range plan, then they can say, well, then they’re going to do the See Me flags. Would you leave them alone? Or they might say, they like those, or they don’t, they just have to explore all options.

(Ryan returned to the room.)

Rodgers said her second question is, do they know yet anything about the independence Police and Fire payment back to us, the overpayment? Do they know what’s going on with that yet? Smith said the short answer is no. They’ve been, with Ryan’s help and Smith’s efforts, Ryan from the legal side, Smith from just kind of the management side, trying to find out what it is, and it’s been just kind of very, very quiet. They don’t have an answer yet. It’s still very much in process. It’s just been a couple different options, whether they give us the full amount or they give us six years, whether they give us interest, or whether they don’t. There’s a couple different scenarios. And Smith doesn’t know anything really on that yet.

Smith said he thinks they’ll get something. When they talk about budget, he was going to bring that up in the budget, because they’re not, he doesn’t have any numbers in front of him at this five minutes, so he doesn’t know what to expect. But suffice it to say, it’s all good news. It’s all, whether they get partial, or whether they get full, or whether they get interest, it’s all going to be good news. They’ll only add to our fund balance. He’s kind of assuming, taking the worst-case scenario, where he gets nothing. And that’s what their budget proposal tonight is. The fund balance calculation is all assuming they get nothing. So, this is all gravy. Whatever they get on top is just going to help their fund balance.

Rodgers asked if they have any, like, recourse or say in, or can they just choose whatever they choose? She means, that just doesn’t seem right to her. It seems like they should have some type of recourse or have some type of say in what, they have been keeping that money for how many years now. The present value of that, six years, is way higher than just six years. That just doesn’t seem like they should not have any recourse or say in what, and just sit around and wait for them to decide what they want to relinquish on us. She means, they sat in that meeting. They know the money that they have coming in and out of there. Like, you know, how long do they have to wait until they decide that they want to drop us a bone. Like, what are they, what’s their stand and what’s their recourse? What are they asking for? Smith said well, they’re trying to, you know, work with them as a partner, which they are a partner in the city. Rogers agreed. Smith said there’s no ignoring that. So, they’re trying to work with them and let them come forward with the answers. As Smith put it in his letter, they are partners. They hope that they’ll do the right thing and take the high road and treat us like their partner, the partner that they are. If they said just no, or if they said six years or something, you know, then they could go on to a more aggressive stance. They’d rather not do that, of course, and in any way risk their relationship with the township, which Smith thinks is a good relationship, and he’d like to maintain that. But they’ll just take this one step at a time.

Smith said he hasn’t received any response. It’s a little alarming. He sent them a letter in writing and at the very least they need to give him a response in writing. Tell him, tell him where it stands. Because it’s been at least six weeks. Rodgers said it just seems to her that what’s legal and what’s ethical are two totally different things in this situation. And Smith is right. They are a partner of ours. They are a community, and you would think that ethically thinking they would see that. But it’s been quite a while. It’s been, what, eight, twelve weeks since they first discovered this? Smith said yeah, it’s probably close to that, yeah.

Smith asked Ryan if he had something else. Ryan said he’s got a call to the township’s attorney. He’s just, he called him last week. It’s Memorial Day weekend, so Ryan is waiting to hear back from him. As soon as he does, he’ll notify Smith and everybody.

Wylie said and we – (interrupting Wylie), Quisenberry said he had a couple of, he’s glad Rodgers brought those up, because he has a couple as well.

Quisenberry said Depot Park lights. The lights in Depot Park were an issue last fall and leading into the winter and nothing’s happened. He knows that they were kind of discussed part and parcel of the Optimist grant that they had gotten that was given back, but now that hasn’t happened. And just as a side comment, he doesn’t know if people are aware, but the Optimists ended up giving, was it $80,000 to the park in Independence Township off of – Roth said Bayport. Quisenberry said Andersonville. Roth said Bayport. Quisenberry said OK. $80,000 they got out of that, so just to make him think they missed out. Roth said that was before the thing went on here. Quisenberry said but anyway, anything new about the lights in Depot Park? Smith said no. Quisenberry said nothing. OK.

Quisenberry said the Depot Park rental fee has been on their agenda several times and kicked around and down the road. What’s the status with that? Ryan said they’re waiting for his memo on that, which they’ll have for the next meeting. Quisenberry said OK.

Smith asked Ryan if they wanted to talk about now the possibility of having a closed session in the next meeting. Ryan said he wanted to suggest, he’s going to do it as an attorney/client privilege memorandum of counsel, and he’d ask Smith then the next meeting to put on the agenda to vote to go on a closed session to discuss that memo. Quisenberry said very good. Wylie said they should probably not discuss it right now then. It’s not on their agenda anyway. Ryan said no, but just to answer the question, yeah.

Quisenberry said and then a couple other citizens he talked with mentioned something about the HDC [Historic District Commission] members and their terms. Several of them are up for either reappointment or appointment of new people. Do they have a status or progress on a process on how they go ahead and either reappoint existing or appoint others? Smith said yes, absolutely. So, on June 30th, they have people that will come to the end of their term on HDC, Planning Commission, and ZBA [Zoning Board of Appeals] and if the council wishes that, either renew those individuals or appoint new individuals. So, the thought was in their June 15th meeting, or June 10th is their next council meeting, was to bring a list of all three commissions, boards, to them for either reappointment or not. Appoint new people. Smith said so, that’s an annual thing that they would typically do in the early June meetings so that they can have those people, the new people, if there are new people in place by the end of June.

Wylie said as a member of council, any of them, they can nominate different people for any of those expiring positions. Quisenberry said but can’t a citizen just all of a sudden express their interest? Wylie said they can express their interest, but they still have to be nominated by somebody on council to be – (interrupting Wylie), Forte asked do they put a list of that ahead of time. Wylie said it would be on the agenda if anybody’s, if they expressed interest in staying on, or anybody else who’s, and if Forte knows somebody, let Wylie or Smith know.

Smith said and it’s a valid point. They will need to put it on our website, and he can put it in his weekly email, on Facebook, and some of their other communication methods, that there are potential openings, and anybody interested in these three boards or commissions should let them know. So then, if Smith gets a name, he can pass it on to each of them, so they have time to think about it.

Chet Pardee said the chairman of a particular commission will have some dialogue with whoever’s expiring to understand if they want to continue or not. Smith said absolutely, yes. And that’ll be part of his process, is he’ll reach out to them just to understand that and that will be part of a proposal, Joe Doe is currently on planning, and he’s expressed interest in continuing on planning. That would all be conveyed to them, so they’ll have all the options. Renew Joe Doe, or bring in Mary Smith, you know, whatever. So that will all be part of the information packet that’s given to them.

Rodgers asked Smith for HDC, do members have to live in the historic district, or just in the village, or does it matter. Smith said just in the village. Yes, it does. They must be village residents. Rodgers said OK, but not necessarily in the historic district. Smith said that’s correct, not in the historic district. Quisenberry said city residents. Wylie said pardon her. Quisenberry and Rodgers said city residents. Wylie said city residents, yeah, but not necessarily district residents. All three, the planning, ZBA, and HDC, all those boards and commissions, they must be city residents. Committees, not so much. Friends of Depot Park or other committees they may have, that’s not a requirement.

Wylie asked if there were any other questions from council for Smith about his report.

No questions.

Rodgers thanked Smith.

Wylie recognized Pardee for a question.

Pardee asked Smith as far as an initial question, will there be an agenda for the Teams meeting with MDOT? Smith said yeah, he means, it’s a pretty simple agenda, it’s just like, what are they doing about safety crosswalks like Depot and Main. Pardee said OK, not pavers or anything like that. Smith said no, he’s sorry he wasn’t going to use that. This is with their safety group. Pardee said OK. Smith said he won’t argue pavers are a safety hazard, but no, this is their safety group and crossings, what technology are they using? Is it a candidate for us here? Ryan said as he’s said to Smith, if he’s going to invite council to attend, he probably ought to post it as a public meeting and if people want to participate, anyway. Smith agreed.

Agenda Item #8 – Motion: Acceptance of the Consent Agenda as Presented (Video time mark 0:39:54):

• • 04-22-2024 Final Meeting Minutes (page 7/62 of the council packet)
  • 05-13-2024 Draft Meeting Minutes (page 9/62 of the council packet)
  • 05-28-2024 Treasurer’s Report (page 12/62 of the council packet)
  • 05-23-2024 Revenue and Expenditure Report for the Period Ending 04-30-2024 (page 13/62 of the council packet)

Wylie said OK, moving on to Item #8. They’ve got a motion, Acceptance of the Consent Agenda as Presented on May 28, 2024. This includes the final minutes from April 22nd, the draft minutes from May 13th, treasurer’s report from May 28th, and these documents are attached.

Wylie said she needs a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented.

Motion by Rodgers; second Quisenberry.

Wylie asked if there was any discussion on the consent agenda.

Quisenberry said on the treasurer’s documents, there isn’t any numbers. Smith said oh, right. The first meeting is typically when the invoices come in, the first meeting of the month. Coté said invoices for approval. Quisenberry said right, he remembers that from last time.

Wylie asked if there was anything else, any other questions or comments on the consent agenda.

No additional comments.

Motion to accept the consent agenda as presented passed by unanimous voice vote.

Wylie said and it is accepted.

Agenda Item #9, Unfinished Business (Video time mark 0:41:07):

Wylie said moving on to Item #9, Unfinished Business.

Item 9a – First Read: Proposed Ordinance Changes to Enable our Building & Code Enforcement Officials to Issue Citations (With Input from T. Ryan [City Attorney] (Video time mark 0:41:11):

• • Draft Ordinance (with markup) (page 25/62 of the council packet)

Wylie said first read, Proposed Ordinance Changes to Enable our Building and Code Enforcement Officials to Issue Citations. This is with input from our attorney, Tom Ryan.

Ryan said so, this has been around for a while.

(Ryan read from the proposed ordinance.)

Ryan said he’s talking to the city manager, he thought it was included, so the highlighted area is the changes to the ordinance. For violations of codes adopted in Chapter 150, the city building official, or the city code enforcement officer are allowed to issue these citations. So, the change was, since our building official felt, strike that, since our code enforcement officer felt that he or she did not have the authority to issue a citation, all they could do is issue warnings and they didn’t have any teeth, although they want compliance, and hopefully most people that obtain or get warnings or notices of violation will come into compliance. If they don’t, the city code enforcement officer wanted the ability to go forward on that issue, and so the change is expanding the two officers of the city that could issue a civil infraction citation, that is the city building official or the city code enforcement officer.

Ryan said Chapter 150 contains a number of the building codes and whatnot, but it also contains the property maintenance code, which he knows has been of particular interest to a lot of the folks, that people on the exterior of their properties are not taking care of their property. So, this would allow not only the city building official, but the code enforcement officer to issue a civil infraction, notice of violation first, and then a violation if in fact there wasn’t compliance within the time period allowed. [Note: There is nothing in the ordinance that requires a notice of violation before the code enforcement officer issues a civil infraction, which requires a court appearance if the resident wants to fight the citation.] Section 201 is a repealer clause, 301 is a severability clause, and Section 401 would be an effective date clause, which would be if the city council adopted this ordinance at the next meeting, it would take effect twenty days after publication.

Ryan said so, that’s the purpose of this ordinance, is to enhance their enforcement capability, if necessary, to add the code enforcement officer who comes to the city more often than the city building official, and you know, rides around the city, and if they view violations, would be able to act relative to those violations. And this is something the council did want to get into, so that’s why it’s here. Wylie agreed. Forte said thank you. Wylie said OK.

Wylie said so, Ryan said twenty-four days after it’s published. Ryan said no, twenty. Wylie said twenty days. Ryan said yes, per charter. Wylie said OK.

Ryan said so, he’ll be happy to answer any questions, but that’s the purpose of this. And basically, it’s the property maintenance code, which is an important item. He means, they all are, but when you get into mechanical codes or the state construction code or whatnot, that’s a little more highbrow. This is kind of nuts and bolts, trying to make sure that the city looks good, people take care of their property.

Smith asked Ryan if the property maintenance code piece is already in their ordinance, right? Ryan said yes, sir. Smith said all they’re doing here is adding these six words that are in yellow. Ryan said yeah, that’s what city council wanted. Smith said right, no, he just wanted to make sure there was no other, the property maintenance code was already there, so they don’t have to change anything else. Ryan said no. Smith said so, once this is, if this is passed, then the code enforcement officer could issue a citation if the property maintenance code is not – (interrupting Smith), Ryan said right, a notice of violation first. You always give notice. Smith said a notice of violation first. [Note: Again, there is nothing in the ordinance that requires a notice of violation before the code enforcement officer issues issuing a civil infraction, which requires a court appearance if the resident wants to fight the citation.] Ryan said and hopefully, people will cure, or if they can’t do it within, say, fourteen days, they’ll talk to the code enforcement officer and work through that system. And, you know, they don’t know what people’s situations are, and so every situation is different. And so hopefully, they can, between the city code enforcement officer and the property owner, they can work through this and get it done expeditiously without going to court.

Wylie said OK and asked if there were any questions for Ryan.

Ryan said and what they could do, he knows it was talked to before, he thinks maybe Ms. Roth said that, that if they want, they could also, next meeting, bring a schedule, fine schedule, so say a first violation is going to be $100, OK, if you have to go to court and you’re found responsible. A second violation within, you know, say a year time period would be, he doesn’t know, $200. He means, they can talk about that next time. But, you know, sliding scale of, you know, lower to higher if, in fact, it’s not taken care of, which hopefully they won’t ever get into that, but they could prepare a schedule, fees, fine schedule. Wylie liked the idea of a schedule. Rodgers agreed. Ryan said OK, fair enough. Yup.

Wylie asked if anybody else had a question for Mr. Ryan.

Roth said she does. Yes, she does. So, someone moves into the Village of Clarkston, where do they find these, the outline of these things that they are responsible for. She means, common sense, obviously, most people. Ryan said right. Roth said but if they’re going to be fined for it, how would somebody – (interrupting Roth), Ryan said well, let’s back up a minute. Roth said OK. Ryan said first of all, nobody’s going to go out there and give them a ticket and say you’ve got to pay. The code, so if a new homeowner comes in, maybe it’s a first-time homeowner, they don’t really know how to take care of homes, they’ve been a renter. Roth said right. Ryan said but the soffit or downspout or something is disconnected. So, the code enforcement officer would see that and say, knock on the door, try to engage with the owner, or leave a notice saying, you know, I’ve been by here, you’ve got this issue, I’d like you to take care of this within fourteen days, or call me. So, they’ll be notified as to what the issue is, and then that’ll bring the discussion to play. [Note: There is nothing in the ordinance that requires the code enforcement officer to knock on a door or issue a notice of violation before the code enforcement officer issues a civil infraction, which requires a court appearance if the resident wants to fight the citation.] (Continuing), Ryan said, he means, you don’t have to, he means, a lot of it is common sense, but, he means, it’s hard to – Roth said it doesn’t matter. Ryan said there’s a lot of stuff going on in houses, so it’s hard to be able to say what the particular issue is.

Roth said so how many are there? How many, a list of – Ryan said oh, there’s he means, a book is – Wylie said it’s pages, it’s huge – Ryan said yeah, it’s a big book. Roth said well, she guesses she should look at that, yeah, answer her own question. Ryan said but, he means, but – Wylie told Pardee to hang on – (continuing), Ryan said he means, you know, it’s a big book, but, he means, some of it’s pretty esoteric. Roth said right. Ryan said some is just, property maintenance is basically the ext[erior], what you can see, not interior. All these other codes are in there, plumbing code and electrical code, that’s all interior, mostly. Roth said right. Ryan said but the property maintenance code is what you see from the street. Roth said from the street, OK. Wylie asked if Roth was good. Roth said yes, she was.

Wylie asked if anybody else on council had questions for Mr. Ryan.

No questions.

Wylie recognized Pardee and said she thought he had a question.

Pardee said he was going to suggest that Stacy’s [Kingsbury’s, the code enforcement officer who is boycotting Clarkston because she wasn’t able to issue civil infraction citations] several pages of communications to homeowners may, in fact, help Roth understand what sort of things have homeowners been advised of. Roth said sure. Wylie said oh, you mean, like, previous things she’s written. Pardee said yeah, the whole – Roth said she means, if they’re, you know – Pardee said the list. Roth said aside from the certain cars in the driveway without a license plate, you know, things like that. Smith said tall grass. Roth said it’s something she should look into herself, so she will. Thank you.

Wylie asked if anybody else had questions.

(Smith made an unintelligible comment.) Pardee said he was just going to say, there’s an open list. Smith said that covers the vast majority.

Wylie said that’s it. They’ve read this. That’s their first reading. Ryan said yes. Wylie said OK.

Forte asked if they add the fee structure, do they have to do two more readings. Ryan said no, no ma’am. That would just be a resolution that would go along with the ordinance. Forte said OK.

Agenda Item #10, New Business (Video time mark 0:49:33):

Wylie said OK, moving on to Item #10. They’ve got New Business.

Item 10a – Motion: Acceptance of Letter of Resignation from City Clerk Karen DeLorge (Video time mark 0:49:36)

• • Motion – Acceptance of Karen DeLorge’s Resignation (page 26/62 of the council packet)
  • 05-20-2024 – Resignation Letter (page 27/62 of the council packet)

Wylie said Item #10a is a motion, Acceptance of Letter of Resignation from City Clerk Karen DeLorge. Wylie said she thinks they all are saddened to hear this.

(Wylie read the motion.)

Wylie said they need a motion and a second to accept DeLorge’s letter of resignation.

Motion by Forte; second Rodgers.

Wylie asked if there was any discussion.

Rodgers said they are really sorry to see DeLorge go. She’s been amazing for all of them. DeLorge said wasn’t an easy decision at all. Wylie and Rodgers said they’re sure. Rodgers said she was a friendly face when they come in there, for sure. Wylie said big shoes to fill.

Wylie said she hated to ask DeLorge to do the roll call on this. (Laughter.)

DeLorge said one last time. It’s all right.

Forte, Quisenberry, Rodgers, Roth, and Wylie voted yes.

Wylie said the motion is adopted. She thanked DeLorge so much for all she’s done and said they will miss her. DeLorge thanked Wylie.

Rodgers asked DeLorge when her last day was. DeLorge and Smith said June 6^th. Rodgers said OK.

Item 10b – Resolution: Proposal for Fencing Behind the City Hall Building, With Cost Comparisons (Video time mark 0:51:18)

• • Resolution – City Hall Rear Storage Fencing (page 28/62 of the council packet)
  • Bid Comparison (page 29/62 of the council packet)
  • Home Depot Costs(page 30/62 of the council packet)
  • Lowe’s Costs (page 31/62 of the council packet)
  • Menard’s Costs (page 32/62 of the council packet)
  • 05-16-2024 Certificate of Appropriateness, Historic District Commission (page 33/62 of the council packet)

Wylie said they are moving on to, they’re still in New Business, 10b, resolution, Proposal for Fencing Behind the City Hall Building, With Cost Comparisons.

(Wylie read the resolution.)

Wylie said so, she needs somebody to make the resolution and then a second.

Resolution by Roth; second Forte.

Wylie asked if there was any discussion first from council.

Roth said she thinks it’s a great idea.

Wylie asked if there were any comments from the audience?

No comments.

Wylie asked DeLorge to take a roll call.

Forte, Quisenberry, Rodgers, Roth, and Wylie voted yes.

Wylie said the resolution is adopted. They’ve got Forte here and Casey absent. OK.

Wylie said and if you didn’t see it, the comparison of the charts here was Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Menards. And there’s pictures of the fence and the different prices for the different sections. And the certificate of appropriateness is also attached. OK.

Quisenberry said here’s a silly question. Menards gives an 11% discount when you go there. Is that factored in, or is that something that they’ll just end up, if it’s less than what they bid, then it’s just that much less they have to pay? Smith said well, there are rebate programs, you have to get your receipt, mail it in, and get a coupon basically in about three or four weeks. Quisenberry agreed. Smith said so, that’s what they’re going to do. And then they can just use that coupon against further (unintelligible). Quisenberry said sure. Smith said but yeah, they will definitely take advantage of that 11%. Wylie said OK.

Item 10c – Resolution – Proposal for Social Media Policy (Video time mark 0:54:58)

• • Social Media Policy (page 34/62 of the council packet)

Wylie said 10c, proposal for a social media policy. Also, a resolution.

[The resolution was not included in the council packet provided to the public; the text that was read aloud at the meeting is provided below.]

Wylie read from the resolution:

Whereas the City of the Village of Clarkston engages with the public through multiple digital outlets, city website, and Facebook, the city should have an external social media policy in place and post it on these outlets.

And whereas an external social media policy will improve governmental transparency and help ensure external communications are appropriate, and if not appropriate, they can be addressed. And whereas the attached external social media policy is based on the state of Michigan Social Media and Community Guidelines, and now therefore be it resolved that the City of the Village of Clarkston hereby authorizes the city clerk to post the attached external social media policy on all digital outlets belonging to the city.

Wylie said she will need somebody to make this resolution, resolve, and then a second, and then they can go over all this.

Motion by Quisenberry; second Rodgers.

Wylie asked if there was any discussion from anybody on council.

Roth asked what prompted this. Wylie said perhaps Smith can answer that. Well, the question was what prompted this. DeLorge said OK, so when she was brought on board, the Facebook wasn’t being utilized. She had, well, Smith had, residents come in and request that they bring it up to date. And without a social media policy in place, she has no rights. She’s controlling what’s written or taken down or handled appropriately. So, they need to post this on their Facebook, and it’ll be also posted on their webpage for the city that this is what they tolerate and what they won’t tolerate. And it just kind of gives them the right to police their own (unintelligible). She knows that sounds strange, but they legally should have it posted. And that’s why Ryan went over the policy multiple times, and they followed the state’s. That’s why they accepted the state’s and they went with it. But it protects them from profanity, things like that, so they can, you know, if there’s someone on there attacking somebody, saying nasty things, she can take the post down.

Wylie asked DeLorge if she regularly or does she or Smith or somebody regularly look at the Facebook page? DeLorge said every day. Wylie said does she. Wow. OK. DeLorge gets alerts. Wylie said OK. DeLorge said she has it on her phone. She checks it all weekend long around the clock. Wylie said OK.

Wylie asked if there were questions or comments from council.

Wylie recognized Forte for a comment.

Forte said she doesn’t have social media. How often does, like, would you think this would be used? Like, do you think, like, they’ll end up using it a lot to, like, take posts down and stuff? Or, like, how often is profanity used? DeLorge said hopefully not, but you know, it gives them the teeth to do it. Forte said yeah. DeLorge said you know, just to say this is what they posted, what they will not tolerate if you went on there and posted something that’s on that list. Forte said yeah. DeLorge said then she would say, OK, well she posted this. You saw it. It’s just like a do not trespass sign. But you went in the yard anyways. Forte agreed.

Ryan said plus it warns people when they read it. It could be FOIA-able [Freedom of Information Act]. He means, it’s a public record. So, he means, think before you try to do something and then post that maybe is not such a good idea.

DeLorge said Smith sent her to a clerk meeting, and the majority of the clerks, it falls under Facebook and Instagram, it falls under the clerk’s office. And so they were, you know, talking, and legally it does, it protects them from, people have freedom of speech, yes, but if she doesn’t, so if she has something like this posted saying, you know, she doesn’t want profanity on her Facebook, well, then she has the right, she has it posted (unintelligible).

Roth said it makes total sense. She was asking more of a question, did something happen? Not that, she understands the reason, she’s not saying like it shouldn’t be, but she just wondered was there a reason. (Unintelligible crosstalk between DeLorge and Roth.) Roth said she understands totally. DeLorge said but they’re not protected. So, she just saw that as, it’s like putting an alarm on the building. Roth said yeah, great idea. DeLorge said just to protect it, so something doesn’t happen.

Wylie asked if there were any questions or comments from anybody else on council.

Forte said yeah, thank you for putting this together.

Wylie said she does have one thing. On the second page, under Freedom of Information Act, on the second line, it says City of Clarkston instead of City of the Village of Clarkston. That’s the only one she caught.

Forte asked if they should change the email.

Quisenberry said City of the Village of Clarkston. Wylie said because it says City of the Village of Clarkston throughout the rest of the document. But that second line under FOIA does say official City of Clarkston. So, it needs to be consistent. DeLorge said OK. Wylie said one way or the other.

Smith said he wanted to ask, DeLorge talked about a software tool that was capture – DeLorge said that’s part of the – Smith said post that then was deleted. DeLorge said yes. Smith said because this has come up before. So, somebody makes a post and says something incorrect or derogatory or whatever, and then it’s up there for two days and then they remove it, or we remove it. This tracking tool, should there be a FOIA request, and FOIA requests are supposed to go back and capture everything, even if it’s since been deleted. So, this tracking tool would allow them to capture, it takes snapshots, and it would allow them to go back, once it becomes (unintelligible), allow them to go back, once they subscribe to the service, allow them to go back and capture that for a FOIA request that should ask for it. Is that right? DeLorge said yes, other townships and cities, she’s been networking, and they, some of the bigger townships use one that handles multimedia. They’re small, so she looked at one that was more cost effective. And they handle, they’ll give you like two for approximately, she thinks it was $99 a month. And they, everything is locked. So, if she types in some profanity and she thought, oh, she shouldn’t do that on here, she’s going to delete it. It’s too late. It’s already recorded. The person at their computer thinks they’ve deleted it. But she has it saved through this pinch freezer. It saves everything for FOIA. And that’s, they were talking about that also at the clerk’s meeting that Smith sent her to, and it was worth its weight in gold.

She would like to bring that to the council definitely. But part of the process, too, is getting the steps in place. They don’t have a media policy. So, she needs the media policy. She needs the car before she can put the insurance on it. So, she wanted to get this in place and then bring, you know, the extra insurance on the car to cover them. And then if you do a FOIA, then she can log on, she can say she needs it from this date to this date, anything that was posted on their Facebook page. And it will give her a FOIA-able printout that takes minutes instead of her trying to go through hours of social media posts, and not, you know, was it taken down? Was it deleted? It’s hard to say. But the majority of the townships and cities are, you know, they’re kind of being forced into this because of modern technology. Forte said for sure. DeLorge said so, they need to protect themselves as the city. And if they can keep track of it and make it more efficient, then that’s the way to go. So, it’s really worth it. They need to get, you know, the policy in place. And then they can look at the companies. She, you know, it’s trying to find the companies because it’s, they only do it for companies basically who are FOIA-able. So, there’s only so many out there.

Forte said she thinks if they do add that, they should add a line in here just saying that, like, she means, they already have the Freedom of Information Act. But maybe a disclaimer saying that even deleted posts are FOIA-able. Does DeLorge know what she means? But, like, they could add that afterwards. Smith said as a warning. Forte said she thinks that’s really smart.

Quisenberry said before they post this, should they change the last line? Do they have a generic city email address? Forte said that’s what they were just – Ryan said yeah, because this is done, like city clerk at the City of the Village of Clarkston. Because DeLorge has got her name in there to receive, so they probably should put something more generalized in there. Smith said they don’t have one. They truly don’t. They can get one. But you pay for every email address you have. So, they’ve been thrifty and just haven’t done any generic ones. Forte asked if they could be generic going forward. DeLorge said what she has seen, too, from other clerks collecting their cards and meeting, a lot of the cities, it’ll just say clerk at the city of the village, not her name. (Wylie made an unintelligible comment.) DeLorge said one, it’s easy for residents to remember. You want to email her? Clerk at the City of the Village of Clarkston. Quisenberry said that’s right. They’ve got to get rid of one anyway.

Ryan said so, maybe adopt this, the one amendment as indicated by Mayor Wylie, and then, again, the amendment about clerk at the City of the Village of Clarkston.org.

Forte asked if they could still vote on it? Ryan said oh, yeah.

Wylie asked if there was any other discussion on this item, on this resolution.

No discussion.

Wylie said once again, they need a, just in case she forgot, Quisenberry resolved, Rodgers seconded, and they’ll take a roll call, please.

Wylie, Roth, Rodgers, Quisenberry, and Forte voted yes.

Wylie said OK, so the resolution is adopted.

(Forte had an unintelligible discussion with Ryan.) Forte said maybe. Sorry.

Item 10d – Resolution – Michigan Historic Preservation Tax Credit (Video time mark 1:06:11)

• • 05-15-2024 Letter from Brenda Rigdon, Executive Director, Michigan Historic Preservation Network (page 36/62 of the council packet)
  • Resolution in Support of House Bill 5430 for the Expansion of the Michigan State Historic Preservation Tax Credits Established Under Public Act 343 of 2020 (page 37/62 of the council packet)
  • Form letter to State Senator and State Representative Requesting Their Support of HB 5430 to Expand the Michigan Historic Preservation Tax Credit (page 39/62 of the council packet)

Wylie said 10d, resolution, Michigan Historic Preservation Tax Credit.

Wylie said so, she guesses it started, she got an email, when was it, a couple weeks ago, from Michigan Historic Preservation Network, from Brenda Rigdon, saying that somebody in the House of Representatives, can’t think of his name, Joey Andrews, has introduced a House Bill 5430. They did this back in February, and they want to have the historic, it reintroduced the Historic Preservation Tax Credit, but this time have the dollar amount much higher. She thinks they’re talking about $100,000, and they have divided it into, she thinks it used to be divided into two categories, the big guys and the little guys. Now it’s like either four or five categories. She couldn’t quite understand it. But one category is for residents, and she thinks they would earmark $5 million for residents. Quisenberry said $5 million to $100 million. Roth agreed.

Wylie said the biggest amount, she believes, was for the big guys. And she looked it up today, and nothing has happened since February, but it looks like now the Michigan Historic Preservation Network is trying to put the push on and get something to happen. So, and she doesn’t remember what the percentage is. She forgets. But, you know, if you’re in the historic district and you’re doing some repairs, making some improvements to your structure, like Rudy’s is – Forte agreed – (continuing), Wylie said getting a tax credit would certainly benefit somebody.

Wylie said so, what they want is they want them to make a resolution in support of House Bill 5430, expansion of Michigan State Historic Preservation Tax Credits established under Public Act 343 of 2020.

So, Wylie would like to resolve that they support this with this resolution, and she needs a second. Second Rodgers.

Wylie said OK and asked if there was any discussion from council.

No discussion.

Wylie asked if there was any discussion from anybody else not on council.

Wylie said in the packet, they can see there’s a letter that they would send. She’s not sure. She guesses it goes to the legislature. And also, there’s an example where people want to send their own letter to a senator in the Michigan House or to the representative in the Michigan House. And you can use that kind of a template and change it any way you like.

Wylie said so, they will need a roll call.

Wylie, Forte, Quisenberry, Rodgers, and Roth voted yes.

Wylie said and it is adopted. Thank you.

Agenda Item #11, Public Hearing, 2024/2025 Fiscal Year Budget (Video time mark 1:09:18)

• • 2024/2025 Fiscal Year Budget Presentation Packet (page 40/62 of the council packet)

Wylie said they’ve got a public hearing. Public Hearing 2024/2025 Fiscal Year Budget.

Item 11a – Open the Public Hearing (Video time mark 1:09:25)

Wylie said call to order. So, she can call to order right now, right? No reason, OK. She’s calling it to order at 8:15.

Item 11b – Presentation of the Draft 2024/2025 Fiscal Year Budget (Video time mark 1:09:34)

Wylie said and Smith and Coté, now it’s yours.

Coté asked Smith if he wanted to do it. Smith said OK, but Coté will have to advance the slides.

Wylie said and by the way, there is paperwork in the back if anybody here did not pick up the packets of what they’re showing them.

Smith apologized for their technical issues tonight. This is the draft proposal for tonight. What they’re doing is presenting something that the finance committee has been working on for some time now. And they’re not voting on anything tonight. They’re just letting Smith present it. They’re opening the door for public comments. But they’re not voting on anything tonight. That will happen two weeks from tonight. They will bring the actual appropriations act, which is a summary of this. And they’ll present that on June 10th for their approval. They used to do it two meetings after this first presentation, but Coté and Smith figured out they can’t do that. They have to get this in the next meeting. And they will have time to get all of their tax bills, which go out July 1st. They can’t wait until the second meeting in June. There’s just not enough time for printing.

Smith said OK. So, let’s go ahead and get started. He will try to go through this fairly quickly. The finance committee, which is made up of Wylie and Quisenberry and Roth, Coté and Smith, and Pardee attended a lot of the meetings. They’ve been working on this since March. And the numbers, with a couple very small exceptions, are exactly what this committee has (unintelligible) on doing.

Smith said so, let’s go to the first slide. Coté, if he can page down.

• • Where Do My Tax Dollars Go? (page 41/62 of the council packet)

Smith said OK, a question that he always likes to show the residents is, where do their tax dollars go. And what this slide is showing is just 39.45, in other words, 39 cents of every dollar that you pay in taxes actually comes to this city office. And the actual number is going to be even lower than that, because this was based on 2023 numbers. They have since paid off one of the bond debts, which will reduce the tax dollars that people pay. So, it’s probably closer to 35 cents of every dollar you pay in your taxes comes to the city. A lot of it goes to schools. Not as much. Everybody thinks that every penny of every dollar comes here, but that’s not true. He means, it initially comes here, but Coté has to turn around and pay the schools and pay the county and all that stuff. All right, let’s go to the next slide.

(To Smith), Quisenberry said SMART bus, that says zero. Isn’t there some fund, don’t they now have to pay some sort of SMART bus fee that was voted on, what, a year or so ago? Smith and Coté agreed. Smith said and this is because this was based on 2023, so it’s a year behind. Quisenberry said OK. Smith said there should be some (unintelligible) on the SMART bus, yes.

Smith said OK, Coté, let’s go to the next slide.

• • Millage Rates 2014-2024 (page 42/62 of the council packet)

Smith said so, they start off talking about the millage rates. And this slide, he thinks, graphically depicts this constant downflow due to the Headlee Amendment. Headlee was passed in 1978, and it requires that the maximum allowable and the taxable levy all goes down year after year. The only exception, and you see that happened in 2023, is when the rate of inflation is higher than the property tax, the assessed values. And in 2023 it was, they had a 9%, actually, more than 9%, inflation rate. Coté said inflation rate. Smith said so, that clause kicked in, and there was no decrease required in 2023. That was kind of an unusual year with such a high inflation rate. But here in 2024, the inflation rate has fallen down below the taxable value increases, or the assessed value increases, so it’s kind of gone back to the original pattern where it just drops a little bit every year.

Smith said so based on this, on the far right, you see the tax levy is 10.9787. That starts with the maximum allowable that they get from the county, which is 11.6697. And in this box at the bottom, you can see that they subtract the library millage, and that equates to what they would actually bill their residents, a millage rate for operating fund, 10.9787.

Smith said OK, they’ll take that number, and they’ll go to the next slide.

• • Assessed Value vs Taxable Value 2015-2024 (page 43/62 of the council packet)

Smith said that’s our millage rate, 10.9787. And they see here, these are assessed values versus taxable values. So here, the assessed value is shown in orange. And you as a homeowner should take stock of this, that it’s been climbing nicely. In 2024, they saw a double-digit 10.4% year-over-year increase in property tax values, or he should say assessed values. So that means the value of your homes, on average, has gone up 10.4% in the last year. So that’s good news for all of you.

Smith said the gray bar shows what’s allowed to increase based on Proposal A. Proposal A was legislation that was passed in 1994, and that limits how fast you can grow. And this is to prevent people from, particularly senior citizens, from being taxed out of their home. It goes up so fast, they just can’t keep up with it. People are accepting of inflation, but when it starts going up higher than the rate of inflation, they can potentially get taxed out of their homes. So, this Proposal A says it can only increase 5% or the rate of inflation, whichever is less.

Smith said so, you might ask a very logical question. Some of these years, like this year, it’s a 7.1% increase. How did that happen? You just got done telling me it’s 5% of the rate of inflation, whichever is less. So, it should never be more than 5%. Yet it’s 7.1%. How did that happen? Last year it was 8.3%. That’s because when you sell your house, they’ve had a lot of sales in the last two or three years, when you sell your house, the clock resets. It becomes uncapped, as they say. So now the calculation gets skewed. So, these ten homes they sold, and so their cap came off, and what they sold their house for now becomes the taxable value. Maybe not exactly, but close. And so, it jumps way up. That’s a problem for the new homeowner. You might say, well, how do these people afford it? Well, chances are, if you’re a senior citizen, you’re not doing this kind of action. You’re not on a fixed income. You’re prepared for the fact that you’re buying this brand-new house, and the taxes may be higher than the person that was living in it before for twenty, thirty years there. So that’s the thought.

Smith said what’s happened in 7.1% is they went up the rate of inflation, but some of these homes became uncapped when they sold. So, that’s how you can increase more than 5%.

Forte said so, is it an average, or how does that work? Smith said it builds up from each property individually. It builds up and totals what, the county gives them all those numbers, saying they’ve done an assessment on every home. This home, grandma still lives there, and it just went up the rate of inflation, or 5%, whichever is less. This home, the home was sold to the Joneses, and they bought it, and it went up $50 grand. They add this up for each individual property, and sum it all up, and then they say, Jonathan, Harry, or Greg, here are your assessed values for the City of Clarkston. Ryan said or if you make improvements on your home. Smith said improvements, too, yes. Ryan said that adds it up, too. Smith said improvements will trigger some changes. It doesn’t become uncapped, but it does grow, for sure. So, assessed values, the orange bars, you can see it in the table below it. Our assessed values for 2024 peaked at over $90 million. Our taxable values are $60 million. So, the taxable is going up slower.

Smith said so, they apply that to get to what they can actually count on in terms of income. This box at the bottom shows, there’s that 10.9787 again, that’s their millage rate times the taxable value of $60 million. That means that they will actually receive, if everybody pays all their property taxes, they will get $663,175. Now, as we go to the next slide, you’ll say, okay, $663,175, I should see that on the next slide.

• • Proposed Fiscal Year 2024-2025 Operational Budget (page 44/62 of the council packet)

Smith said not quite so fast. Instead, what you see here in this middle column in their proposed budget under tax revenue, you don’t see $663, you see $646. You say, why didn’t you put in the full $663? That’s because the $663 includes personal property tax. Like, if you own a business and you own a printer or you own a refrigerator, that’s personal property, and you are taxed on that. The county always guarantees them, if somebody defaults on their taxes, Smith loves this, that they have this relationship, the county will pay them, they’ll get their money for personal property, he’s sorry, real property. So, if you don’t pay your property taxes on your home or your vacant lot or wherever you are, if you don’t pay them, the county will, and then the county will go after that individual to get paid. But they always get their money. So, they’re very confident in that. Personal property, however, for, like he said, a refrigerator or a printer, the taxes you pay on that as a business owner, they don’t guarantee that. So, they don’t want to count on that. So, if, let’s say, every person that had personal property taxes just defaulted on it, didn’t pay it, they’d still get the $646.

Smith said but they hope to get the full $663, but they don’t want to count their eggs until they’re in their basket, however that saying goes. Instead, they’ll just count what they know they’re going to get reimbursed from the county, whether they pay or not, default or not, they’re going to get $646 guaranteed. So, that was Coté’s recommendation, is let’s don’t count on the personal property taxes being paid, let’s just go with what they know they’re going to get. And if they get more, that’s just good news at the end of the day. So, that’s why there’s a difference between the previous slide and this slide.

Smith said now, all these numbers on this page, he was not going to go through each individual line item. He’ll just talk about some of the bigger changes.

Smith said in-kind PEG [Public Educational and Government access] fees are going down. So, this is what they get from AT&T and Comcast and others, and this is what they pay to get their Independence Television coverage that’s recording them as they speak. So, they want PEG fees to continue. It’s very important because that’s what supports Independence Television. Right now, what they’re hearing is that that would drop 20%.

Smith said permit fees are up. They’re getting a lot of permit activity. So, based on input from their building inspector, their building professional, they’re expecting a 31% increase in building permits for it. Right now, there’s a lot of building permits in the system. And they have a couple coming yet. They expect that the Clarkston News building, which is owned by Robert Esshaki, they expect that could be coming in the next twelve months. So, they’re being quite confident that they can increase that to almost $25,000.

Smith said looking down the line, you see some relatively small changes in volume, but on a percentage basis, big, like the local community stabilization share. Coté tells him that’s just based on some updated information that they just recently received. So, that’s not really as big of an increase as it appears.

State revenue sharing. It’s only a 1.4% increase, but those that have been around know this. Smith used to present a slide every year that showed that Michigan was dead last. In fact, Michigan was sharing with local municipalities a percentage of the sales tax. Michigan was horrible about that. They’ve since rebounded quite a bit. Smith doesn’t think they’ve moved much up off the floor, but they’re better than they used to be in terms of getting revenue sharing from the state. So, $109,000 is quite a home run. They used to be in the $60,000 to $70,000 range on sales tax sharing.

District court revenue is down 61%. That’s just based on current trends. Coté will tell you that’s just looking at the current trend line.

Smith said so, he thinks on the revenue side of their 101 fund, that’s all he was going to touch on. At the very bottom, he wants to point out one last thing. In the previous budget, they see a line called transfer income fund balance near the bottom. That’s because they did accounting a little bit different last year versus this year. This will make more sense as they get a little later into the budget presentation here, but last year, they used to transfer monies in from the fund balance. They did not do it that way this year. They’re still bringing money in from the fund balance, but they’re not reflecting it on this schedule. So, it looks like overall a 13.3% reduction in budget, but if you took out that one-time transfer in, it’s actually, as the comment shows, it would actually be a 3.3% increase.

Forte asked what does it mean next to the Christmas Market? Rodgers said she was going to comment on that. She talked to Smith earlier about this. The Christmas Market is not a revenue-generating event. It’s a city-sponsored event. So, people that give them donations are giving them donations for the Christmas Market. So initially, when the Christmas Market was voted on by council to occur, which was two years ago, the council gave them, or the city, gave them $1,000 to do the Christmas Market. Well, that barely covered, didn’t cover the lights that they needed for the side, and so they had to go out into the community and get contributions from them, donations from them. And she can’t remember what the first year they spent. Last year, again, city council approved $1,000 for the Christmas Market. They went out, and now they have people coming to them that want to make donations. They are not making donations to the city. They are making donations to the Christmas Market. As a city-sponsored event, there should be some skin in the game from the city, and then they are using, why there’s $2,500 in the kitty now is they didn’t, you know, they’re new at this, and they didn’t know what, how much money they were going to have to put out last year. They have this, so now they can, you know, do their advertising. They can rent their ponies before the last second, you know, and they will know that they have them instead of trying to scramble for donations. But it has never been a revenue-generating event. It’s a free event for the community. That’s what they voted on. That’s what they’ve always done. And so that $2,500 cannot be seen as revenue. That’s not why their community participants donated their hard-earned cash. They did it for ponies, for prizes, for Santas, for pictures, for blow-ups, for hopefully lights so people can see the games, you know, until they get a structure in here permanent. So, she just, that’s probably an emphatic way of saying it, but that is, that cannot be in here. That is not, they do not generate revenue at the Christmas Market.

Smith said Rodgers and he talked about this just before the meeting, and Coté and Smith talked as well. So, they are going to make this change, and this is, to Smith’s knowledge, the only change that’s going to occur between tonight and two weeks from tonight when they present the final budget for them to actually vote on, is the revenue, as Rodgers just said, this Christmas Market will come out as revenue. They’re going to drop that out. They’re going to go back to what the city council originally approved, and that was to contribute $1,000 towards the expense side, but there will be no revenue expectation of the Christmas or the Holiday Market. (To Smith), Rodgers said you know, at some point, if that is something that council, city, people from the city would like to see a revenue-generating event, then that revenue has to come out in a different way. You can’t take money from businesses that are donating money for this free event that they put on. That would have to be a different structure, you know, paying at the gate or whatever. But at this point, that’s not what it is.

Smith said OK, let’s go on to the 101 appropriations slide. So, these are the expenses side of the 101 account, just at the high level, department level, rather than talking through every detail line item, they stay at the department level, which is consistent with the Uniform Budgeting Act. So again, Smith won’t touch base on all of these.

Smith said he would say at the outset that one thing that touched a number of these, and they’ll see a slide on this later, what touched a number of these line items was salaries. So, salaries are proposed at a 4% increase, and they’ll see that that will impact several of these line items. Let him just touch base on some of the larger ones.

The auditor’s fees are going up from $11,000 to $12,500. That’s the first time that’s increased in several years. So that’s 13.6%, a sizeable increase, but it’s not been adjusted for many years.

The Christmas Market, as they talked just a minute ago, will not be $2,500, it will be $1,000. So that will change the bottom line totals a little bit, but they’ll make that change between now and the next meeting.

Smith said let’s see, what else. Elections is going up 5.7%. Smith thinks they can imagine this being in the presidential election year, there’s a lot of activities going on. There was an election in the spring, and there’ll be another one in August, and another one in November, of course, is the presidential election. So, there’s a lot of activity this year, additional expenses as a result of that. So that’s a 5.7% increase, and Smith thinks that’s really actually being pretty optimistic.

The attorney’s fees, they had bumped that to $37,500 last year from $30,000 the previous year, and that was to cover the potential use of a FOIA attorney. They still are protecting for that capability, but they’re confident, they’re comfortable, that $30,000 will be enough to protect and cover both Tom Ryan’s expenses as well as the FOIA attorney. So, they brought that back down to the $30,000 range.

Insurance, they just got this afternoon. Smith didn’t even tell Coté yet, they got the quote for their insurance, so they protected for the unknown, they put 10%. It sounds like it’s going to be closer to a 4% or 5% year-over-year increase, so they might have that a little overprotected, but that’s where that stands.

Police and fire are always one of the bigger line items in the budget, if not the largest. Those are based on union contracts, essentially. They have no choice but to bring those in here, so those go up about 5.8%, 5.6% respectively. Rodgers said that’s not the stuff that they pay to Independence, is it? Coté and Smith said yes. Rodgers said it is. Smith said they pay Independence Township. Rodgers said so, is their rate going to be lower, though, this year than it’s been in the past? Smith said no. Rodgers said she thought they were overcharging us. Coté said they were, they were including personal property in the billings, which should have been excluded, but after you factored that out, it’s based off of a millage rate, so it’s going to be around 5% once again. Smith told Rodgers that was a good point, and it would actually have been higher if they didn’t get that correction.

Code enforcement, they’re actually taking down. Of course, they have not had much this year because of what Ryan spoke of earlier, not having the ability to write tickets, so there’s been less code enforcement this year than what they wanted, but Smith doesn’t think what they need is what they had previously. Budget $4,000 will be plenty enough.

Building inspection, they expect that to go up. It goes up with permit fees. Smith mentioned in the revenue side, permits are going up, so they can only expect it to go to building inspection, but that’s what that’s reflecting.

Street lighting, going up 12.4%. This is just an ongoing trend line that DTE has shown us, that these energy-sucking metal halide bulbs that they have over much of the city streets are just continuing to increase the cost of those, so they don’t just go up 2% or 3%. They’ve almost been double-digit for the last several years. It is their goal, and he has requested that as permitted, change these metal halides out through LEDs. They’re just far, far cheaper to run, so that’s still ongoing, but they only will do that when the ballast is completely blown out. Just changing the bulb will allow the metal halide to stay longer. They will leave it. So, it’s a slow process.

Planning, they increased that by $5,000. (To Coté), Smith said he believes, he thinks, this was largely because of this potential for the Rudy’s extension phase 2 that will go into the Clarkson News building. Coté said that’s correct. Smith said that would be potentially a large project. They would have to have additional planning fees set aside for that. They’ll get it back in terms of their revenue. Coté said yeah, that’s also the driving force of the increased revenue on the permit side. Smith said yeah, on the permit side, that was part of that. Coté agreed.

Smith said so, jumping to the bottom line here, it’s a 13.9% decrease year over year, but again, if he took that transfers out, transfers in, transfers out, took that out of the equation so they have kind of apples to apples comparison, it would have been actually a 5% increase year over year, which he thinks is within the kind of inflation rate numbers they’re looking at.

Smith said so, any questions on the appropriation side of 101? This is their operational plan.

No questions.

Smith said all right. Let’s go to the next slide where they’ll talk about major local streets. So, Coté? Coté said yes.

Smith said major streets, these just, as it’s shown parenthetically, Main Street, Clarkston Road, Walden, West Washington, and South Holcomb are their major streets. And then down below you see their local streets, the 203 fund. They list all those, get those in there. So major streets, they receive money from the state, and it’s self-sufficient. It does not require 101, does not require monies out of their 101 operational fund. It stands on its own. In fact, it will have monies left over. And so, what happens to those monies left over? After the state pays them, in this case he thinks $87,000, some of that money they will transfer out, and this is something they can do, transfer out to their local streets, which stand alone on their own, less so capably. So, they have to, traditionally they transfer money out of the major streets into their local streets to kind of balance things out. Smith said so, they’re doing that here, and they still leave, they’re still leaving in the 202 major street $10,202. And that money doesn’t go away, it just kind of sits in that fund. And later on, if they need to do paving of a major street, they have some monies set aside in their 202 account. So, it doesn’t go anywhere.

Smith said in the 203 account, they’re doing a couple things here. They’re doing the normal local road maintenance operations, which includes snow plowing and that kind of stuff, and potholing. But they’re also going to do some paving. And they’re going to use $100,000. They’ll see a little bit more about this in the next slide. But they’re going to take $100,000 out of their 203 local fund, which has just been building up over the last several years. So, they have $100,000, which is a good news story, that they can take out of their 203 account and use for capital improvement. So, they’re going to do that this year. And Smith doesn’t think, that doesn’t drain that account entirely, right Coté? It still leaves some monies in there. Coté said yes (unintelligible).

Smith said so, that’s 202 and 203 and asked if there were any questions about those slides.

No questions.

Smith said all right, let’s move on to capital project funding, because this is where the real kind of fun stuff occurs in the budget. It is fun stuff to occur. This is like our capital improvements. This is where they really start to make improvements around the city. Smith asked Coté to slide down. Coté said it was sticking. Smith said oh, is it. It will do that sometimes.

Smith said so, this is a little different way of viewing it than they might have seen in the past. Even the finance committee is not seeing this slide. This is a new format, and it’s showing the capital projects proposed for this year down the left side, and across the top, it shows how they’re going to fund those capital projects. The bulk of it is funded by the fund balance.

Smith said so, let’s talk about, they’ve got the fund balance up at the top, then they’ve got parking fund, major road fund, local road fund and total, and the July 1st, 2024, anticipated balance is shown right there. So, the fund balance has got $270,000 in it. Parking fund’s got $100,000 and so on. Smith said so, what they’re showing here is not only the projects they’re going to do, how they’re going to fund it, and it adds up in the bottom right-hand corner, $326,500. This is how they’re going to pay for this. Let’s go down through the projects.

Smith said they’ll go to Friends of Depot Park, $5,500. This is something they’ve done several years in a row, giving them some discretionary money to make improvements to the park.

Tree planting, the Tree Planting Committee. Smith guesses they’re just called the Tree Committee. They help with decisions on planting, tree replacements that have died and so on. So, they have a budget of $5,000 that’s kind of consistent with previous years.

Street signs and posts. This is kind of a maintenance item. They’ve been having to replace signposts that get hit by a car or somehow get bumped and have to be replaced. So that’s just kind of a maintenance item.

Crosswalk, you could argue, is also a maintenance item. So, these are crosswalk paint and tape. First of all, Smith wants to clarify the crosswalks for the paving they did last year. They’re still waiting. Appreciate your patience. The Road Commission has been very apologetic. The contractor that they use for striping has been so overloaded, they can’t get to this. They know that as soon as they get their striping machine out, they’ve got other work they’re doing, but as soon as they get their striping machine out, so he’s told, they are the first on the list because they’ve been waiting since last October to get their crosswalks painted. You know, it’s a bit of a dangerous issue, so Smith really emphasizes the safety aspect of getting their crosswalks repainted. They understand all that and assure him that it’s going to happen. That’s at no cost to them. That was covered in the repaving project done last year. So that’s coming. This crosswalk paint and tape, $4,500, is for other areas in the city that need crosswalks renewed or repainted.

Office furniture, that’s just basically these chairs that they sit in. Those are starting to age, and they have to start kind of replacing one or two a year.

Smith said then they have this category called professional contractual services, and this covers a lot of different things. DPW [Department of Public Works] storage. So, they just approved, a few minutes ago, the fencing around the back of it. But they anticipate that there might be some additional things needed there, like some gravel. They’re not going to, if they remember the resolution, it said the fence will go out twenty feet. The slab that’s there only goes out ten feet. So, they might say what’s happening, beyond the ten-foot slab is they want it to be drainage, but right now, it’s dirt. They’d like to bring in some stone, some drainage, 21AA [gravel]. He’s not proposing they do concrete, probably cost (unintelligible), but at least put in some 21AA so it’ll be dry and yet still offer drainage. So that’s what this $3,000 is basically about.

Depot Park irrigation. They know they’ve had trouble getting people to maintain the raised flowerbeds out in Depot Park, mainly because they don’t have any irrigation in those raised planters, and the plants just die, and the landscapers get very frustrated and leave. So, they want to pursue that.

General infrastructure, they’ve just put in $5,000 for general infrastructure improvements that may be needed anywhere in the city, and it’s just kind of a general category that they can use.

Computer hardware, they talked in last year’s budget, it’s actually in the current budget, to upgrade a couple of their computers, and they want to keep doing that, get a cadence going. They want to replace two or three of the office computers, get a cadence for those, (unintelligible), there’s a little bit of hardware upgrading occurring.

Mill Pond Dam, they talked earlier about the Mill Pond Dam and what the status is, so Smith is not going to go into that, but they don’t know, well, they don’t know yet, about what’s going to happen this coming year on the Mill Pond cost. So, he’s just put kind of randomly $10,000 in the budget for the city’s kind of contribution towards this. That might be too much, but more than likely, it’s not enough. But they don’t know what they don’t know yet, so he just put $10,000 there provisionally so they have some money set aside should they be asked to personally fund that.

Smith said and last in this category, but certainly not least, is a big one, $35,000 in computer scanning. They talked about the need from both an office efficiency standpoint and a FOIA standpoint. For several reasons, they need to get all of their backlog in this room here, all that storage room is full of paper. They need to get that scanned so they can search these documents electronically, rather than them going through and trying to find it. They also had this past year a document disappear, a street file disappear. Having these scanned, they’ll never disappear. They just are way beyond the times when they should have electronic scanning. So, they’re going to do that this year.

Rodgers asked Smith if he was hiring somebody to do that. Smith said yes. Rodgers asked if it is a company, a person? Smith said a company. Rodgers said a company. Smith said yes, they’ve got two quotes, they’re getting a third. So, they’ll bring that to council soon when they have all those quotes together. Absolutely.

Forte asked if that would be for the historic district files and the – Smith said all of them, yes. So then going forward, it’ll be the office staff’s responsibility as new documents make their way into their office, they need to scan them and put them in the same folder, directory tree that is set up for them. Forte said same as files at, like, HDC meetings and stuff? Smith said yes. So, it’s going to be a change not only, it’s the one-time scanning activity, but it’s going to change their operations in the office permanently. They have to now keep these up to date and then stop storing paper. Forte asked if they have to upgrade their server size? Smith said they may. A lot of this is, all this document scanning is stored in the cloud. Forte said OK. Smith said with backups. So, they don’t need an increased server for that, but if they start scanning things there in-house, they’ll just have to see. Can they store it all in the cloud? Probably. Forte said OK.

Smith said so, they’ll bring in, when they bring this forward, they’re going to bring the contractor in there to talk to them because there’s a bazillion questions that they might have about how is this going to work. When is it? Are you taking documents off-site, which makes them all real nervous? Are they doing it all here in the office? Are they using office staff, taking away from their day job to do things? How is this all going to work? So, they’ll have all these questions ready for you. Forte thanked Smith.

Sidewalk repair. You know, in a previous meeting, two weeks ago, they got approval to do the sidewalk cutting, and they’re going to go through the city and they’re going to cut sidewalks horizontally to eliminate trip hazards wherever possible. Those that aren’t candidates for sidewalk cutting, they’ll need to be ripped out and replaced old-school fashion, and that’s what this $40,000 is for. So, anything that’s not a candidate for sidewalk cutting and has to be ripped and replaced, that’s what this will be. Smith hopes to do that and get this done. So, they’ll do sidewalk cutting, they’ve told him they’re going to do that in June. And then, you know, July, August, they’ll embark on phase two and doing the old-school cutting (unintelligible).

Road resurfacing. This is the big one in the room. So, $200,000. Some of it is coming from parking. Some of it is coming from their local road fund. $200,000 is their goal of getting Overlook, East Church, and Miller repaved. Whether they can get all that, he cannot guarantee the $200,000 that’s going to be paid for all of that. He doesn’t have estimates. They’re working with their city engineer, and he put $200,000 in there. Quite honestly, that’s all he can think they can afford this budget year. He could have put down $300,000, but they wouldn’t be able to give them a balanced budget here. So, he stopped it at $200,000. Is that going to pay for all three of those roads? He doesn’t know.

Smith recognized Forte for a comment. Forte said she was going to ask where is the parking, like, money that they got in here? Smith said that’s a good question. They don’t have the parking fund displayed. Coté said it’s at the top. Those are the fund balances. Smith said those are the fund balances, but did she want to see more detail on the parking fund? Forte said yes. Coté said he’s got bank, yeah, sure. Smith said they can give her the actual bank statements so she can see what they have accessible to them.

Rodgers asked if it has it increased since they opened up this parking lot? Smith said yes, but not to the degree that it was proposed when it was proposed. It’s going up. So pre-COVID, with just the Washington and Main lot, they were consistently making $1,200 a week in revenue. He’s sorry, $1,000 a week in revenue in the Washington and Main lot. Now, they’ve just surpassed that; they’re making $1,200 a week. Now that they’re in the nice weather, $1,200 a week in both lots. So pre-COVID, it was just $1,000 in that one lot. Now it’s $1,200 in both lots. But Smith doesn’t think, you know, you might say, is that because people aren’t using this lot as much, or is it they’re not quite back to pre-COVID levels? Smith thinks it’s the latter. Because there are a lot of people parking in this lot and paying. It’s not as busy as the one up in town, but they’ve got to walk up a hill. So maybe people don’t want to use this lot so much. He doesn’t know. But it’s not getting the, it’s not the 50-50 between the two lots. Rodgers said so, $1,200 total between the two lots. Smith said $1,200 total between the two lots. Forte said she will say the parking total on Buffalo Street has increased a ton since putting in paid parking. Smith said no doubt about it. Because people are always looking to find the free option. Forte agreed. Smith said yeah. They see it everywhere. And they hear every excuse. Forte agreed. Smith said when they get a ticket. Coté said when they get a ticket. Smith said so, they can get her some information on the parking fund balances, but $200,000, again, he needs to emphasize that this may or may not pave all three of those roads. He’s just doing an estimate. He doesn’t have in-hand estimates from, you know, Ajax Paving Company. He doesn’t have that. He’s just going by what his city engineer tells me.

Smith said the last couple here are security cameras. This is something he’s continually looking to upgrade. He has money in the current fiscal year that he has not spent for security cameras. He’s still hoping to do some of that. Rodgers asked if those are the ones for the park too? The cameras to go in the park? Smith said yes, exactly. He’s waiting for technology to kind of catch up with him. Because they tell him that the only way to get a camera out in the gazebo is to hardwire it, bury cable. And it just seems ludicrous to him that he can’t get a wireless connection. It’s not that far. Forte asked if he could do an outdoor router? Smith said what’s that? Forte asked if he could do an outdoor router? Smith said yeah, he’s proposed that. What other technologies are out there that they could use. So, he’s still pursuing that.

Smith said the last one is electronic speed control. He’s told them before that he’s a proponent of putting a Your Speed on Depot Road here. Because people fly down here. The angle parking, while adding additional spaces, has created a bit of a danger zone. If people are flying down there, and sometimes they do, he still thinks they need something there. So, that’s what those funds are being worked for.

Smith said so, those are the capital projects, adding up to a total of $326,500. Smith asked if there were any questions about that.

No questions.

Smith said OK, the next page, they’ll pick up the pace a little later.

• • Significant Sources & Uses (page 48/62 of the council packet)

Smith said Sources and Uses. So, this is showing the big sources. As he just got done saying, they’re going to take $125,000 from the fund balance, $100,000 from parking, $100,000 from local roads, and they know their tax revenue is increasing by $26,000. So that all adds up to $352,000, among other things. But that’s a big source of new revenue that they want to be tapping into this year.

Smith said on the use side, where are they using those monies? $200,000 for repaving, they just talked about that, $40,000 for sidewalk, $35,000 for document scanning, $10,000 for Mill Pond, $6,000 for irrigation, $5,000 for security cameras. That all adds up to $296,000.

Smith said so, a little less than their sources, but there’s more going on. These are just the big six items, the biggest six items.

Smith asked if there were any questions on that slide.

No questions.

• • Fiscal Year 23/24 Projected Fund Balance (page 49/62 of the council packet)

Smith said OK, let’s talk about fund balance.

So, this is, you know, if you were balancing your checkbook at home, you’d be thinking, how much money have I got to spend in my checkbook? So, let’s talk about that. So, this first one is the 23-24 slide. So, they start with Rana Emmons’ [the city’s auditor] audited number, $223,600. That’s as of July 1st, 2023. That’s their starting point. They add to that the expected revenue for this current fiscal year that they’re currently in that ends June 30th. What they’ve spent so far and what they still expect yet to receive is $892,000. So, they add that to the 223. They subtract, same way, their expenses, what they’ve spent so far and what they still expect to go out the door. That’s a net-net increase of $46,000. That will bring their fund balance as of June 30th, what they believe will be their fund balance as of June 30th, $270,451. That equates to a 32% fund balance, which is on the high side. But remember that $270,451. That’s what they expect is their ending balance.

• • Fiscal Year 24/25 Projected Fund Balance (page 50/62 of the council packet)

Smith said now they take that to the start of the new fiscal year. That becomes the starting point. Now let’s do the same thing. Let’s add in the projected revenue. That came right off one of those previous slides. Let’s take out what the expected expenditure, what’s going to the 101 expenditures, what’s going to have to just cover all of their operational expenses. Then their 401, what they’re going to use out of the fund balance, the $126,500 to do the tree planting and the sidewalk replacement, all those. Net-net, that’s a $120,000 reduction in the fund balance. So that brings their fund balance projected as of June 30th, 2025, over a year from now, at $150,000. If they do everything that was on that capital project slide, their fund balance will be $150,000 at the end of that. That’s only 17.6%. And have to maintain a minimum of 16.6% [the city’s policy is 16.7%], so that’s only one percentage point over what, by charter, is their bare minimum [this is a city council policy, not a charter requirement].

Smith said you might say, that’s coming a little close, isn’t it? Well, now enter in the question that Rodgers brought up earlier, is what about the payment from the township? He’s not sure what that amount is going to be. They’re from $86,000 to $176,000, somewhere in there. They don’t know. They’re trying to get an answer to that. But even if it was the minimum, the lower number, $86,000, it’s going to take this 17.6%, when that hits their checking account, it’ll take that 17.6% up to about 23%. So, Smith is not so worried about this 17.6% being a little too skinny, because they’re going to get bumped up here. They are going to at some point get this money. Smith is confident they’re going to get some money from the township. They don’t know the amount yet, but he’s confident they’re going to get some reimbursement from them, and that’s only going to bully up their fund balance.

Smith asked if there were any questions on fund balance.

No questions.

Smith said OK, let’s go to the next slide.

• • Proposed Salary Increases (page 51/62 of the council packet)

Smith said he’d like to go over salaries. He mentioned earlier in the meeting that they’re bumping salaries 4%. If you look in that center column, the percent column change, you see 4% all the way down for everybody across the board except for his DPW supervisor, Jimi Turner. Smith is bumping him 6%. Coté and Smith sat down with Turner earlier this spring and had a very frank discussion. What’s it going to take to keep you here? And that was the number they came up with. So, if Turner hasn’t heard Smith say it enough times, he’s going to say it again, the guy is worth his weight in gold to Smith. He has been so instrumental in turning the city around and getting things done here, getting things done efficiently. Doing repairs in-house, his ability to repair trucks and other equipment in-house rather than sending it out or buying new, his abilities are just so invaluable to Smith. So, 6% is what Smith is proposing, increase for him because Smith needs to keep him here. Smith needs to keep all his staff here, including DeLorge. An unidentified person said got a little less big.

Smith said so, that’s the salary proposals. If you look at the salary studies done by the Michigan Municipal League, salary increases in the municipal world have been between 4% and 6%, 6.5%. So, they’re right in that bubble.

• • Capital Improvement Plan (page 52/62 of the council packet)

Smith said OK, let’s talk about their CIP [Capital Improvement Plan]. They talked a lot about all this already. He’s not going to go through every line item. A lot of these items in this first column, the first year of the CIP is their current budget year. These are the projects they just went through a couple slides ago. So, he’s not going to talk about all this. But he shows this to them because this shows the full five-year, out-year forecast. So, it goes beyond just what they have in the current year. It’s looking at other things that are coming. And this is owned by the planning commission.

Smith said so, that five-year, out-year forecast on the CIP years, that’s been gone over and reviewed and inputted and adjusted based on the planning commission’s vision of what will be needed in these various areas over the coming years. So, suffice it to say, they have gone through all this, both the numbers and the priority ranking. And so, Smith was not going to go through all these unless they have some specific questions. There’s two pages here. Again, the first column is their budget year. And those numbers align with what they already went through.

• • 2023 Parcel Counts (page 56/62 of the council packet)
  • Average Residential Property Values (page 57/62 of the council packet)
  • 2024 Residential Assessed Value Changes (page 58/62 of the council packet)
  • Historical Fund Balance 2010-2022 (page 59/62 of the council packet)
  • 2024 Millage Tax Rate from Oakland County Equalization (page 60/62 of the council packet)
  • 2022 PASER Rating [Pavement Surface And Evaluation Rating] Map (page 61/62 of the council packet)
  • PASER Rating Table (page 62/62 of the council packet)

Smith said so, that brings him to the end of the presentation. He has some backup slides if there are any questions they have. But that’s all on the basic points of the presentation.

Smith asked if there were any questions from council. It’s a public hearing, so they want residents to speak as well.

Wylie asked if there was anybody on council.

Smith said it’s a lot to digest.

Forte said it looks great. Great presentation. Roth said yeah, it was. Forte said thank you. Smith said a lot of details. Roth said very thorough.

Item 11c – Public Comments for Public Hearing (Video time mark 2:03:46)

Wylie asked if anybody out here [in the audience] had any comments or questions.

Wylie recognized Pardee for a comment.

Pardee said it looks like on the, he knows about the major road fund and the local road fund. So that’s on the sources, funding sources. That’s $180,000. They didn’t really, they haven’t used $180,000 in the budget. Right? They used $100,000. This is maybe a question for Coté. Smith asked if Pardee had page 8. Pardee said he’s on that same page there (pointing to the screen). Coté said right here. Pardee said yes, and so the $71,000 and the $111,000, that’s what they have now, they’re expecting to have. But Pardee thinks they didn’t use $181,000 in their capital budget (unintelligible). They used about $100,000. Smith and Coté agreed. Smith said leaves about $80,000 in those two funds to be used.

Pardee said he guesses to those of them that aren’t on the finance committee, he mentioned in their last meeting that essentially this budget and Coté finding sources of available funds, and Emmons is pulling Pardee away from the podium, you know, because they’re really in good condition. (Smith made an unintelligible comment.) Pardee said did that really cost us $23,000 to do the three roads last fall, the Depot and South Holcomb and whatever the – Smith said Depot was about $98,000 on its own. Pardee said oh, it was. Coté said but they had the ARPA [American Rescue Plan Act] funds. Pardee said they used ARPA. Coté said right, for $98,000. Pardee said OK. Smith said so, if you net that out, it probably was only around $20-something. Coté said it is. Pardee said they used tri-party funds. Smith said correct. They used tri-party funds for West Washington. Pardee said yeah. Smith said South Holcomb and White Lake Road, although they coordinated it, it didn’t cost them a dime. That was the road commission because that’s a major road. Pardee said so they really got by this past year with a whole lot of new roads with very little expenditure on top of it. Coté agreed. Pardee said and so that’s why they’ve got these other roads that are probably going to, he’s hoping they can do it for $200,000. Smith agreed. Quisenberry said to add to that, the Depot Road costs, as he recalls, when all was said and done, came in under budget. Was it close to $20,000? Smith said close to $20,000. Quisenberry said yeah. Coté said but all those funds were from the ARPA grant, so that was the driving force behind that. Smith said but it was actually like $117,000 is what he brought to council for it. Coté agreed. Smith said it was Depot, it came in like $97,000. Coté agreed. Smith said so, it was like $20,000 under budget.

Smith said so, he thinks there’s a lot of good news to be, not tooting his own horn, he doesn’t know, but there’s a lot of good news to be shared on road paving. He hopes they can have the same level of success on these three roads that they’ll have this year.

Quisenberry asked Smith about the backup slides, parcel counts, real residential parcel is 380. So, they have 380 residential homes, buildings, correct? Is that what that means? Smith said that’s what that means, yes. Coté agreed. Quisenberry said OK, so that wouldn’t count multi-apartment, whatever. These are homes, 380. OK. Coté said this is from Oakland County. Smith said single family residences. Well, he thinks that includes duplexes too.

Wylie asked if anybody else had questions and asked Quisenberry if he had more. Quisenberry said no.

Wylie recognized Pardee for a comment.

Pardee said he had one more comment, and again, it relates to Smith. Smith was struggling to do all of the capital projects that they’ve got budgeted, just because of all the other things that he’s involved with. And Pardee knows he wasn’t always kind in recent years, you know, because they were always falling short on the capital projects, not getting them done. And then the dollars roll over. And in part, that’s where they are today, but there’s really not more on their platter in the next budget year from a capital project perspective than he thinks they’ve had before. Smith said yeah, it’s aggressive to get all that done, because there’s project management time and materials, and it’s time. But that’s what his salary goes towards, and that’s not accounted for in these projects.

Pardee said so, who was it that suggested that they don’t bring the little kids to city hall anymore? Wylie said she did. Pardee said somebody suggested it. Wylie said she did. Pardee said Wylie suggested that. Wylie said they can talk. They can figure that out. Pardee said he will sit here next year, and his message will be the same. Wylie said maybe modify it. She means, Smith has been put, too, because he gets a lot of joy out of it. Smith said well, he sees the value that these kids gain out of the program, and they love walking around town. It’s part of their historic, they learn about the history of Clarkston. This is tied together, so history and civics all in one day, and they really seem to get a lot out of it. Smith said he hates to say no to them, but they’ll see what they can do.

Wylie asked if anybody had anything else.

Roth said she’ll just make a comment to that. Her daughter was here with her grandson. She said she was amazed that Smith kept the kids’ attention like he did. He really played to them very well. They really enjoyed his presentation. Smith said yeah, you guys are nothing compared to the older kids. He’s had his challenges, but they’re very good (unintelligible), that’s for sure.

Item 11d – Adjourn: Public Hearing (Video time mark 2:10:22)

Wylie said OK, she’s going to adjourn the public hearing, and it’s being adjourned at 9:15.

Agenda Item #12, Adjourn (Video time mark 2:10:30):

Wylie said and they are at Item #12, which is adjournment. She needs a motion to adjourn the meeting.

Motion by Roth; second Forte.

Wylie asked if there was any discussion.

No discussion.

Motion to adjourn the meeting passed by unanimous voice vote.

Wylie said they are adjourned at 9:16.

Resources:

• • Link to video recording here
  • 05-28-2024 – City Council packet