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 0:00:01):
Sue Wylie said ladies and gentlemen, it’s seven o’clock, I’m calling the meeting to order.
Agenda Item #2, Pledge of Allegiance (Video time mark 0:00:04):
Wylie said if everyone will please rise, we will say the Pledge of Allegiance.
(Pledge said.)
Wylie said thank you.
Agenda Item #3, Roll Call (Video time mark 0:00:24):
Wylie said our third item on the agenda is a roll call. And Jonathan [Smith, city manager], are you still the clerk? Smith said yes.
Sue Wylie, Laura Rodgers, Al Avery, Gary Casey, Amanda Forte, Erica Jones, and Ted Quisenberry were present.
Wylie said great, thank you, everybody’s here.
Agenda Item #4, Approval of Agenda – Motion (Video time mark 0:00:46):
Wylie said item #4 is the approval of the agenda. I need a motion to approve the agenda as presented.
Motion by Rodgers; second Jones.
Wylie said is there any discussion from council.
No discussion.
Wylie said any discussion or questions from the public.
No discussion.
Motion to approve the agenda passed by unanimous voice vote.
Wylie said and the agenda is approved.
Agenda Item #5, Public Comments (Video time mark 0:01:14):
[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 said and would anybody like to make public comment.
No comments.
Wylie said okay, that’s it for public comments.
Agenda Item #6 – FYI: (Video time mark 0:01:44):
Wylie said Item #6 is FYI, and we have a few items on FYI.
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- Winterfest 2025, Clarkston Area Optimists Club flyer (Video time mark 0:01:50; page 3/146 of the council packet)
Wylie said and we have a few items on FYI. One is the Clarkston Area Optimist Club Winterfest event February 8th at Depot Park, and they say, bring your skates and join us for an afternoon of free family fun, ice skating, hockey shooting contest, hot chocolate, s’mores, cozy fire, music, Frozen characters, and more. This is Saturday, February 8th, from 12 noon to 3 p.m. at Depot Park in downtown Clarkston.
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- 40th Annual Clarkston Community Awards flyer (Video time mark 0:02:14; page 4/146 of the council packet)
Wylie said and the other FYI is about the 40th annual Clarkston Community Awards. And this year is the 40th year for the Clarkston Community Awards. And right now is a time to submit nominations. They are being accepted online. And there’s a little, I forget what you call these things. What do you call those things? Quisenberry said QR code. Wylie said QR codes, yes, there’s a QR code on there, on the flyers you can use. You can go to www.clarkston.org. You can also go to www.cidl, it’s going to the library website, and they will also direct you to that.
Wylie said for 40 years, the community has come together to host this event, recognizing outstanding people, organizations, and endeavors that make Clarkston great. Save the date for the awards breakfast, which is Wednesday, May 14th at 2025. I’m sorry, May 14th, 2025. I believe it usually starts at 7:30. It’s going to be a hot breakfast. And this year, the breakfast is going to be catered by the Clarkston School’s head chef. Supposedly it’s going to be a great breakfast.
Wylie said and I just wanted to let people know the different areas you can nominate people for. There’s an award for citizen of the year, youth of the year, adult youth volunteer, businessperson of the year, community beautification/preservation, community enhancement, and community collaboration. Many of these are volunteer, but not necessarily.
Wylie said you could go online and look at the different qualifications and I tried to come up with a sort of a list today of some previous winners that were either from the city or had a connection to the city. Rich Little won because he was the interim city manager. I think he did it for $10 for six months, something like that. Sharon Catallo won, I think hers was a lifetime achievement award. Jim Brueck won with the Clarkston Biophilic Committee. Steve Percival and Curt Catallo won for running a campaign to recognize one of the deputy sheriffs from Oakland County. Peg Roth, I believe, maybe lifetime achievement. Twice she’s won. Twice, lifetime achievement and citizen of the year? Roth said both, yeah. Wylie said both, okay. Ken Ermer, who’s not from Clarkston, but he won for his work he did as a member of Friends of Depot Park. Denise Couture and Dana Bless (spelling?) won for a mural they had painted in downtown Clarkston. Andrew and Emily Herman won for work at Depot Park. Emily put the musical instruments up in Depot Park and Andrew put the bat houses up.
Wylie said so those are just some of the people off the top of my head. If you have somebody who you think should be considered, please go on and nominate them. Sometimes we don’t get people nominated for everything.
Wylie said okay, so that’s FYI. Item #7.
Wylie said does anybody have anything else for FYI?
Quisenberry said how about if we just give a gold star to councilwoman Forte for her suggestion about double page? Wylie said double page, yes. Quisenberry said double page packet. Wylie said yes. I did think about that this time too. Instead, otherwise, then the packet would be this high.
Agenda Item #7 – City Manager’s Report (Video time mark 0:05:22):
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- City Manager’s Report, January 27, 2025 (page 5/146 of the council packet)
Wylie said Item #7, the city manager’s report.
Smith said okay, just a couple things to update you on. I’ll touch on what’s on the report itself.
Smith said the new website is launched now. Ask for your patience while we complete the updating of that, it’s rather time-consuming. Unfortunately, the website company took a snapshot back in June of our current website and that’s what transitioned. Through some delays, largely due to elections, there was a lot of other water that went over the dam since then. So, we are now having to do all those updates manually. Smith said so, thank you, Angela [Guillen, temporary clerk assistant] for all the work on that and everyone (unintelligible), too.
Smith said anything else on the website that I should update the council on. Evelyn Bihl (deputy clerk/administrative assistant) said if they find something that needs to be added or deleted, just let us know. Just email us.
Smith said we want to make this website, this new friendly website, as upbeat as possible. We’re looking for new pictures, videos, that we can put on the website. We can do just about anything as far as pictures and website and just make it a very friendly, useful website for our residents to go to.
(To Smith), Peg Roth said who’s doing the website? Smith said it’s a company called Revise, and they just recently launched the Independence Township website. Same company.
(To Roth), Guillen said are you asking for a web host? Web host is Revise. Roth said no, I just wondered who’s creating the website. Thank you.
Smith said next, in February, we’ll talk about the CDBG [Community Development Block Grant] funds. We need to decide on those real quick and, in fact, that’s why the Clarkston [Area] Youth Assistance is here. There are CDBG funds that we have, our 2024 CDBG funds that need to be allocated. So, we’re coming up on the deadline for that.
Smith said and then, I mentioned that I will be out of town next meeting, so I will not be in attendance for February 10th meeting. So, between Wylie and Guillen and Bihl and Greg [Coté, treasurer], we’ll make sure that it’s covered.
Smith said couple other things that are not on the report. We’re looking to hold a shred day on Thursday, March 6th. We have our shred box in here that we are having emptied every quarter. We thought maybe for this first update that we’d open it up to the public as well. Have a two-hour window on that day and people could come and shred their documents and they can watch them be shred. It’s not just leaving here at the city. And so, we’re looking to do that on Thursday, March 6th from 11:00 to 1:00. There’ll be more information coming out about that, but we’re just kind of finalizing the plan on that today.
Smith said and then lastly, I just want to mention that the State of Michigan Bureau of Elections has given us a clean bill of health on all the elections that have gone through all the audit steps and that we will not be audited. So, that’s a good thing. [To Guillen] Smith said so, anything else on elections. Guillen said that’s pretty much what I had, that we were not selected for statewide or countywide. So, our 2024 November election is complete. We’re completely certified from state and county from the Board of Canvassers. We had a clean election.
Wylie said is that a random selection that they audit? Guillen said it is a random selection. They do it by almost how they do the lottery. They do roll the dice, and they write numbers and somehow it’s generated from a computer about who’s gonna get audited. Wylie said okay.
Wylie said anybody have questions.
Wylie recognized Rodgers for a comment.
Rodgers said I have two questions. Can we get an update on the lawsuit that was put against us regarding the HDC [Historic District Commission] charter amendment information meeting? Smith said I’ll turn that over to Tom [Ryan, city attorney]. [To Ryan], Smith said do you have any.
Ryan said the record was just filed. We’re still waiting. The Secretary of State is still reviewing one of the two complaints, and we haven’t had a response yet from them. Rodgers said okay. Ryan said so, nothing has happened yet. Rodgers said and then we – (interrupting Rodgers), Ryan said when it does, I’ll update it. Rodgers said you’ll let us know? Ryan said yep.
Rodgers said we just got, I’m sure you got it too, a letter from Mr. Bisio about not turning in the FOIA information because we were advised not to and then he sued us, he got the money, and he was telling us that we should try to recoup that because we were directed to not turn over the FOIA and when we did, it was too late. Like, what is that about? Ryan said I haven’t seen that letter. Wylie said I forwarded it to you. You haven’t got it. I did forward it to you, but it was late this afternoon. Ryan said okay, I haven’t seen that letter. Rodgers said could you look at it and let us know. Wylie said I thought it was sent to everybody. Ryan said yeah. Wylie said did you get it? Ryan said yeah, I got it.
The first one was when we had an HDC charter amendment meeting for questions with a public, open public meeting. He filed a lawsuit against that now that it was a – Wylie said January 12th – Rodgers said something about campaign. Forte said oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Smith said campaign finance. Rodgers said yeah, it was against the campaign finance. Wylie said January 17th (unintelligible). Rodgers said yeah, can you at the next. Ryan said oh, yeah. Wylie said okay.
Wylie said anybody else have questions for Smith about the city manager report or about the city?
No comments.
Wylie said anybody in the public questions or comments.
Wylie recognized Cara Catallo for a comment.
Catallo said I just was curious because we had talked about sort of keeping track or letting the public know more clearly like how many FOIAs have been filed and if that was gonna be the case if we could get a sense of like, you know, in January, you know, this many FOIAs or just also I think if you’re starting to charge for FOIAs like other communities do. Smith said yes, we are starting to charge but we have not had one FOIA yet so far in January. Not a single one. So, I don’t have anything to report to council. So, that’s a good thing. But yes, I am planning on bringing a regular update to council to show you what we’re working on FOIA-wise. Wylie thanked Smith.
Wylie said anything else on public comments, or, the city manager’s report.
No comments.
Agenda Item #8 – Consent Agenda (Video time mark 0:11:52):
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- 12-09-2024 – Final Minutes (page 6/146 of the council packet)
- 01-13-2025 – Draft Minutes (page 8/146 of the council packet)
- 01-27-2025 – Treasurer’s Report (page 10/146 of the council packet)
- 01-23-2025 – Revenue and Expenditure Report for the Period Ending 12-31-2024 (page 11/146 of the council packet)
Wylie said the next item on the agenda is Item #8, consent agenda. And this includes the final minutes of the December 9, 2024, regular meeting, the draft minutes of the January 13, 2025, regular meeting and the treasurer’s report for January 27, 2025. And I will need a motion and then a second to accept the consent agenda as presented.
Motion by Quisenberry; second Rodgers.
Wylie said questions or comments, discussion from city council members.
No comments.
Wylie said questions, comments, discussion from the public.
No comments.
Motion to adopt the consent agenda as presented approved by unanimous voice vote.
Wylie said the consent agenda is accepted.
Agenda Item #9, Unfinished Business (Video time mark 0:12:41):
Wylie said Item #9 is unfinished business and there is none.
Agenda Item #10, New Business (Video time mark 0:12:46):
Wylie said Item #10 is new business.
Item 10a – Discussion: Clarkston Area Youth Assistance (Video time mark 0:12:48):
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- Youth Assistance Structure & Services (page 21/146 of the council packet)
- Value of Clarkston Area Youth Assistance, Sponsor Information 2023-2024 (page 22/146 of the council packet)
Wylie said Item 10a, a discussion, Clarkson Area Youth Assistance. We’ve got a presentation by Lauren Klos and Tricia Delude and they are here to present. Is it Klos? Klos said yes. Wylie said thank you.
Lauren Klos:
All right. Good evening. Thank you so much for having us tonight. I’m Lauren Klos, I’m the case worker with Clarkson Area Youth Assistance and Tricia Delude is from our board of directors. So, she’s representing our board tonight. You know, I was looking back at the last time we were here, and it was a year and a half ago. Oh my gosh, it felt like just a year ago. It goes by so fast. So, we’re glad to be back with you tonight and give some updates and reconnect with you guys as one of our sponsors and, you know, look at, you know, filling you in on what we’re up to. So overall, I know there’s some new faces on the council. So, I wanted to give a quick little overview of Youth Assistance and who we are and what we do.
So, in your packet, you should have this little what we call our (unintelligible) angel map. This outlines what we do and our structure and sponsorship. So, I use this often to explain our services with families. Overall, our Youth Assistance is a prevention program. Our mission is to help strengthen youth and families and reduce incidences of delinquency, abuse, and neglect through community involvement. So, we have a ton of things that we do that’s all about prevention and all about strengthening kids and families in our area.
Now, Youth Assistance is a county-wide program. There is one office in every school district throughout the county. So, each office serves the families that live within that particular school district. We’re all structured the same way with intergovernmental collaboration and a tri-sponsorship. So, you see that in your little angel demonstration here with these three triangles of our sponsors.
So, the Oakland County Circuit Court Family Division is one of the sponsors because they provide the casework staff. So, like myself and my supervisor and our department chief, we’re actually employees of the court and that is what they provide to youth assistance is that professional casework staff in each office. And now we’re not like a formal court program. So, I always like to clarify that. We’re informal. We’re like the prevention arm of the court system. So, even though I’m a court worker I’m not like a probation officer or something like that. So, whenever we have an open case, it’s not a formal court case. It’s not a juvenile court case, something like that. Again, it’s all about prevention. So, we wanna prevent kids and families from getting into the court system. However, we also work with many families that are not at risk of court involvement at all. So, we see families for prevention and just early intervention and maybe some school discipline. And of course, we have diversions where they are getting diverted away from court.
So that’s one of the main sponsors. And then each office also has local sponsors of the local school districts and local municipalities. So here in Clarkston, obviously we have Clarkston Community Schools as well as Independence Township, Springfield Township and the City of the Village of Clarkston. And so, the role of the local sponsors is super critical and crucial to every office. What the sponsors provide is typically some funding for help with our operating expenses as well as some in-kind support to help us just be able to operate as an organization.
And so, the other little handout you got is our value and kind of just some sponsor information for you guys. It outlines the income that we’ve received from our local sponsors as well as in-kind support. The in-kind support, like, for example, is our office space. That’s in Sashabaw Middle School. We don’t pay rent or utilities. That is something that the school district provides in-kind. Or if we have events and we need a room or a space for that event, you know, our local sponsors provide that. As well, we work with Independence Parks and Recreation, the Independence Township. They give us free day camp slots so that’s part of their in-kind as well. So those are the in-kind amounts.
And then, like I said, the sponsor income, the cash income that we receive helps cover our operating expenses. So, I’ll circle back to that in a moment.
So, with the structure in place of our local sponsors and our county court really working together for each office, we have two branches of services. So that’s back at this little angel guy with our casework side of things and our community programs for prevention. On the casework side, that’s what I do working with families one-on-one. Providing direct casework services to families to help meet and address their particular needs and concerns. So that list kind of outlines what I do. Providing resources for families, parent support, short-term school building type counseling, as well as helping kids learn from mistakes if, you know, they’re referred as part of a discipline or court diversion. Being held accountable but learning from those so that they cannot repeat those mistakes.
And then we also have our other branch of our community programs open to the larger community. All about prevention. It’s more of a primary prevention piece. Super critical and crucial to help support and, you know, help our kids and families thrive and promote wellbeing and all about that strengthening families part. So, Trisha [Delude] will expand on that in a minute. But real quick, I do wanna share some fun facts with you guys too.
So, Youth Assistance has been around since 1953. It was established in Hazel Park originally when the superintendent of Hazel Park Schools met with the probate court Judge Moore at the time. They got together and they said, hey, there’s a lot of things coming into this courtroom that don’t need to be coming in. It’s preventable. So, let’s make a program. And that’s how Youth Assistance was formed.
So over time, it trickled into other communities. In Clarkston specifically, it was established in 1961. The local sponsors all passed some sort of ordinance or resolution saying that, yes, we will be a sponsor of this program. So, the city actually passed their resolution ordinance back in June 16th of 1961. Independence Township did it in June, sorry, May 16th of 1961. The school district did it on June 12th of 1961. And then Springfield Township did so in May of 1981. Now they actually split their sponsorship between us and Holly Area Youth Assistance because their municipality covers both school districts.
Okay, so then with casework, just a quick highlight impact on what we’ve been busy with over the past year. So, from July 1st of ‘23 until June 30th of ‘24, I worked with, in some capacity, about 215 families. So that was between open cases that I had, new referrals that came in; I had 74 new referrals come in in that year, a good majority of which engaged in services with me. I had also 35 families that were consults. So, they came in and I just gave them resources or met with them on a few things, but they weren’t an official open case.
So, it was a very busy year last year with my caseload. I always get some great positive feedback.
Last year, I also had 103 closures. And so, at closures, I have them write down how they felt the first day, how they feel the last day. And I always, you know, we always talk about the growth, all the growth that we’ve seen. And it’s just always fun to reflect with families on that and where they were and where they are at closing time. And I do wanna note that of my closures last year, about 74% closed successfully. So that was they either completed their goals or they made progress on their goals. So that’s really significant. That’s a huge number of families getting some good impact, good services and heading in a good direction. So, with that, I’m gonna pass it over to Delude to talk more about our board programs.
Trish Delude:
Hi, I’m Trisha Delude. I’m one of the board members for Clarkson Area Youth Assistance. And what the volunteer boards do is we put together some family education programs throughout the community. So, I’m just gonna briefly go over a couple of the bigger programs that we’ve done within the past year.
We had our resiliency series, which we had 60 participate. And that’s where the youth learn how to conquer stress, build healthy habits, and master positive thinking. We also had our Girls Stand Strong program. We had 11 girls attend and they learned about healthy body awareness, self-esteem, and positive decision making. Power of Choice was drug and alcohol education for families.
We’re really excited. We have a new podcast. You can visit it on our website called Kayak Conversations. We’ve partnered with two local therapists who are on the podcast discussing stress-busting parenting tips and secrets to a balanced family life, which we probably all need. So far today, we’ve had 70 downloads of that. So please check out our website and listen to that podcast.
We had a middle school baking workshop with 15 kiddos attending called Smarter Choices. And then our other new program that we’re really excited about is a music mashup. So, this is an interactive hands-on educational program where kids learn about the world of music. So, we’re rolling that out. Klos said February. Delude said February. Pine Knob Elementary is gonna be our first run at that.
So yeah, so those are our family education programs. So, you can watch out for those in the community.
(To Klos), Delude said back to you or, yeah, sure, go ahead.
Lauren Klos:
So real quick to some nice little stories too on the impact of our programs. We do a ton of skill building scholarships and camp scholarships as well. And we always get really great feedback of how much kids enjoy the camp. There was one student that we did a scholarship for her to go bowling and be part of a bowling league. And it was like life-changing because at the time the family was going through a lot with some health and other things. And it was just such a great impact for this kid and this family to have that out there. So, you know, some really great positive impacts that we’re having with all of our programs.
And we did outline some of the numbers as I did a brief summary in that value at the bottom there. So, you can kind of take a look at some of those numbers. So, going, speaking of that document, actually, we’d like to point out, where did my paper go? Somewhere, there it is. That’s okay. So going back to the value document here.
So, you can see what we received for our income from our sponsors last year, totaled like $13,500. So, and again, as a sponsor, it’s so important that we have support to help cover our operational expenses. So that helps us have more to impact through our programs. So last year, our operational expenses totaled over $18,000. So that left us in a deficit of almost $5,000. So, and we still have made such a great impact with the kids and families in our community. It’s just unfortunate we still have that deficit. So, it’s still impacted what we could have done with kids and families in the area.
So, and I also like to point out too, like we mentioned the skill building scholarships and camp scholarships.
And I know Smith mentioned the CDBG funds, which yes, like we definitely appreciate CDBG funds hugely. We get some from Independence Township currently. We spend that money pretty quickly because the requests, you know, come in and they’re great. We can use them for the scholarship programs because with CDBG, since it’s a federal program, there’s specific rules and guidelines that have to be followed. Like they have to be used for kids who are 13 and over. They have to be a direct service to a child. The families have to be low income. So that’s why we use those funds typically for our skill building and camp scholarships because it’s easy to track that data and make sure it lines up with the contract, with the township and what we need for that program, for that funding. And so that’s where CDBG is actually, it’s different than the sponsorship dollars where the sponsorship dollars, as you can see, can actually help cover our operational expenses. You know, with having, we have a part-time secretary. We have obligations with the state and the IRS with that. We have volunteer insurance to purchase. We have office supplies to get. You know, there’s things that go into running our office. So that’s where those local sponsors are super important and helpful to help support us in operating so that we can make more impact with kids.
Trish Delude:
All right. So, as you can see, we’re a solid, strong organization here in the community. We’ve been around a long time and we’re doing a lot of great things, but we do need your sponsorship to help us make a bigger impact. So, our ask today is, would you consider reinstating the $5,000 sponsorship that you had done in the past?
But we thank you for your time, your support and everything you do for the City of Clarkston. Thank you, everyone.
Wylie said thank you. Is it okay if anybody asks you any questions. Klos and Delude said yes.
Wylie said anybody has questions or comments from council.
Wylie said I went to the youth recognition ceremony last year. I was so impressed with the students, with the families. It’s a really great way to recognize everybody. They were so excited to be recognized. Klos said oh yeah, that’s such a great feel-good program. We always leave that night feeling so good. It’s so great to see them. Wylie said that’s a good way to put it. Everyone, when I walked in, other people said, oh, you’re gonna walk out here just floating on air, and that’s true.
Klos said and it’s nice with that program because we’re not, the criteria we use, we wanna emphasize well-being, either, like, kids with their own personal growth and well-being or looking out for the well-being of others. So, it’s probably kids that may not always get recognized for things. It’s little things that they’re doing. I remember one year we had somebody who, she was, she’d go around the lunchroom, a high school student, and like pass out these little kindness notes like every single day, you know. Or other kids who like have had such good, tremendous personal growth. And you know, no, they’re not the A+ student, but that’s okay, like they’re making strides to improve themselves and they get recognized for that. I mean, that’s so big, you know, especially in kids’ world when they’re not going to the honors convocation or whatnot. You know, it’s so important and they get to shake hands with dignitaries and school principals and get these certificates that have their name on them from, I mean, all over the place, with the county dignitaries and so many other places. It’s just, it’s a wonderful event. So, it’s a really nice impact.
Rodgers said how long ago did we stop our contribution for our sponsorship. Klos said very good question. I have been in this office since 2015. And as far as I’ve been here, we’ve not received sponsorship dollars from the city. There was, I think, one year we received some CDBG funds, but again, that was different than sponsorship dollars. So, I’m not sure exactly what year it stopped.
Wylie said anybody else on council.
Avery said no, I was just going to say that typically we would earmark some of the CDBG funds to, because we always have a choice. There’d be four or five different organizations vying for it. Some years we’d pick them, sometimes we’d pick the Independence Township – Wylie said transfer. Senior buses. Avery said yeah. Quisenberry said I think last year we split. Casey said last year we split. Avery said I don’t remember it coming out of the general budget. Wylie said I don’t either. Avery said ever. I mean, I think it did come out of the support. Klos said I know the city used to. I do know that, but it was definitely before I was here as the caseworker. Avery said yeah.
(To Ryan), Wylie said did you have – Ryan said yeah, we can’t, I mean, you say sponsorship, we can’t make a direct, I mean, it’s a wonderful cause, but it would be, we have to have a contract. They’re going to provide us services that we can’t provide for ourselves, you know, youth assistance. So, it would be a contract and whatever money is, it’d be a service provided by them for us, which we can’t produce for ourselves. Quisenberry said that would be if we’re going to use general funds, right? But if we could, we can still allocate the CDBG, a portion of the CDBG. Right? Ryan said yeah, yes.
Klos said I do know Independence Township, because of the same thing, like with municipality providing funds to a nonprofit, it’s a little different than just providing to a general nonprofit. And that’s because of the intergovernmental collaboration with all of the youth assistance offices. So, there is a document, I believe Independence Township has used to help clarify that. So, I’m sure we could get in touch with Independence Township if we needed something further, clarification on that.
Wylie recognized Peg Roth for a comment.
Roth said oh yeah, I just wanted to make a comment that this is the group that the blue pinwheels represent. Klos and Delude said yes. Roth said for prevention, yeah. And I’ve worked with a number of them. Klos said yes, yes. Roth’s been amazing helping us with that over the years. Roth said interesting group. You guys work hard.
Wylie said anybody else.
No comments.
Wylie said thank you. Klos and Delude said thank you so much. Klos said thank you for your time. Wylie said always very informative.
Item 10b – Discussion: Proposed Canada Goose Management Program (Video time mark 0:30:07):
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- Wildlife Damage and Nuisance Control Permits for Resident Canada Goose Management Programs (page 23/146 of the council packet)
- Application and Permit for Canada Goose Nest/Egg Destruction (page 37/146 of the council packet)
Wylie said Item #10b is discussion, Proposed Canada Goose Management Program presentation by Steve Hargis, who’s here. Are you going to read that whole document? Hargis said no way. Wylie said that’s another reason why the packet’s so big.
Steve Hargis:
Good evening. My name is Steve Hargis. For those of you that haven’t run across me before, I’ve lived here on Main Street for 31 years now and just wanted to bring you up to date on what happened here with the goose program. For the past 20-some years now, we’ve been collecting geese off the Mill Pond down here when the conditions were okay to do so. We have hired a private contractor all those years and he would sweep through and you know, he’d clean out whatever we had.
Well, okay, you may have noticed around the whole area, the Canada goose population has just exploded and the MDNR [Michigan Department of National Resources] has come to recognize that fact. And so, they now have come up with this program where they’re going to round up every bird they can get their hands on and euthanize them. They’re not even gonna bother moving them someplace because they’ve tried that for years and all that does is it moves them somewhere and then they come back again. Now it’s kind of this yo-yo thing back and forth all the time.
Okay, so where that comes to us is I got this document in the mail because I’ve been the one, you know, doing this thing for all this time and so I started asking questions and it’s like, whoa, this is going to be something much bigger than we’ve ever done over here on the Mill Pond.
And oh, by the way, it’s expensive. And it didn’t say so right in the document, but I called this lady, and I talked to her over there at Lansing and she says, oh yeah, it’s gonna be about $4,000. Whoops. There is no way that we are gonna come up with four grand here on the Mill Pond to do that kind of project. So anyway, then I got the idea that maybe we could, you know, get the township folks involved and started talking about that, and I talked to Sam Morocco about it over at the township. He’s our guy who sits on our lake board and he of course has a bunch of questions and anyway, where we are today or tonight is that I’ve talked to this lady and I said, okay, if we can put together some package, you know, like we have about, I’d say about five sites here and within our boundaries where there are geese, and if we could somehow identify those spots and incorporate that into one package, also with the support of our township friends because they live on all these lakes and bodies of water that we do around, you know, different parts and see if we could come up with that. She said, well, I don’t know. I have to talk to my folks about that and blah, blah, blah. So that’s where that is right now but I think there’s a possibility of that.
The only problem is, you know, if you read through that document, it says, you know, each site has to make its own application. Well, if each site has to make its own app and then pay you that four grand, there is, I mean, four out of the program right from the start, that’s just way too expensive, and I talked to her and said, well, okay, how about our guy that’s been doing this for us all this time? He’s about 10% of that. You know, like, he can do our Mill Pond for about 400 bucks usually and we’ve had all sorts of different numbers of birds but she’s saying, oh no, we can’t do that. We’ve got our own people, and they’re all trained and lined up to do this thing and okay, we’ll let it go at that for the moment, but I don’t know, if it comes down to where it sits right now, we are not gonna be able to do this.
I don’t wanna throw cold water on my speech here but if they can’t come up with a little bit of a combination here, a coordination with us, we can’t afford to do it and we’ll just have to put up with the birds and come out like we have for the past several years because they wouldn’t allow us to round them up the last several years because of this avian bird flu that’s out and about and I see that is still out there. I’ve read some things about it just recently so they may end up even canceling this year whenever that rolls out again, so we’ll see where that goes.
So, I guess at this point, I’m identifying like five sites, Mill Pond, and I represent that, over across the Parke Lake over there, talked to Casey, he could be representing that spot. Possibly (unintelligible), yes, over here on Middle Lake, he could handle, he could represent that part and I got, I’m thinking of Smith, you know, we have geese right here in the park that probably should be rounded up because there’s all these kids, there’s the park, there’s bird droppings, all kinds of things right here in our own park plus then over where you live over that way, that you were talking about an area there.
So, there’s about five different spots, and I don’t know how many total birds we would have but they kind of have this other requirement, they want to have a minimum of 100 birds. Well, we can’t guarantee 100 birds on any one of these spots. In combination, yeah, we’re gonna, I think, easily total 100, maybe a couple hundred, you know, throughout the city. So, you know, there’s a possibility. So, I’m kind of hoping that they bend the rules a bit and work with us and if we can do the whole thing for the four grand, get Independence Township, kick in some money, good possibility, we can make it all happen. So, that’s where we are right now and any questions?
Avery said so, they require at least 100 birds. So, if you don’t have 100 birds, would that make us not required, or I’m trying to say, we’re not eligible for the program so should we be able to operate on our own because we can’t qualify? Hargis said well, that is a good question. Could we do it? I’ve tried to get her to say or to think that, you know, our guy, Goosebuster guy, Chris, whatever his last name is, could fill in the gaps here. I mean, he’s been doing this for a long time. He knows where they are, where they hang out, but they’re just sort of, you know, let’s push him off to the side. They want him to do the nest destruction thing, which is a, and this is another one of these funny things about their requirements. There’s a thing called this nest destruction program that has to go through like in the March, April timeframe where you go out and you look around and if you find their nest sites, you can destroy the eggs and so forth. Well, she says, well, we’ll have him do that. And I say, well, yeah, but he’s not gonna be interested in just doing that. The money is in rounding up the geese. And I don’t know, she can’t seem to connect with that part of it, but maybe cooler heads will prevail here, you know. Maybe some of these folks will realize, all right, common sense would say, you already got somebody that can do it. Avery said and she’s connected with the Michigan DNR? Hargis said yeah, she’s an employee of the MDNR. Avery said I got you. Hargis said yeah.
Hargis said well, anyway, that’s kind of where that is. I would say, give me a little more time on this thing and we’ll see where it goes. She said she’s gonna take my comments and thoughts and requests in with her people and see if she can get anywhere. I don’t know how far she will work on our part, but we’ll see what we get in a time period here. Okay.
Wylie recognized Quisenberry for a comment.
Quisenberry said what, again, is the carrot to try to entice Independence Township to kick in some money? Why would they, if all these spots are here, what’s gonna – Hargis said what’s in it for them? Well, they’re already in it, in our little Mill Pond program. They, there’s like 60 families that live around the lake, and I think 20 of them are Independence Township residents up on the north end up there. So – Casey said north end of Parke Lake. Hargis said pardon me? Casey said the end of Parke Lake is township. Hargis said exactly. Parke Lake has got residents. There may be some on Middle Lake. Wylie said a little bit on Middle Lake. And of course, Deer Lake. Roth said Deer Lake. Wylie said Deer Lake is, I mean, we gotta think, there’s probably a lot of geese over there. Casey said yeah. Wylie said and they’ve got the beach they run over there. Hargis said yes, and I think we’ve talked a little bit about that. Didn’t we, about that corner over there, you’re not sure that they really have a goose problem around the, over there where the beach is? Smith said I haven’t heard of one, no, but that’s not to say they’re not there. I just haven’t heard of them. Avery said yeah, strangely, if you drive by, you don’t see a lot of geese on Deer Lake. They’re all here. They’re all in the park. Smith said they’re over here. Avery said they like to get around.
Jones said wait, where is she coming up with this $4,000 number? Because if I’m reading this correctly – Hargis said it’s not in there – (continuing), Jones said it says that it’s a $200 permit for him to do the capture with the $100 fee to do the nest egg. So where is she just making up numbers from? Hargis said well, it isn’t in print there. It’s that thing called the, what is the name of it? She is, it’s in the document where it says an agreement. Some sort of an agreement. Forget what the exact name that she calls it, but it’s an agreement that each site has to agree to, that when they come in here to do this program, that you’re willing to pay for it to happen. And oh, by the way, the charge is $4,000. And I asked, well, okay, well, why is it so expensive? Well, we got all this manpower, we got these tools and equipment, and blah, blah, blah, and blah, blah, blah. Well, okay. But it seems like that’s quite an overkill for a site. If you only got, let’s say, a hundred and some birds, and you’re paying a $4,000 price tag for that. (Wylie made an unintelligible comment.) Hargis said that’s a bit much. Avery said well, I’m wondering if they’re independent contractors, if they contract with what the state has, so they gotta charge everybody to cover the costs that they have. That’s what they’re being charged per site. Hargis said not according to her. She says it’s their people. So, you think if it’s their people, all right, they’re already on our payroll. Avery said right. Yeah, we’re paying taxes, that’s what we’re paying for. The DNR, we pay for those people, don’t we?
Wylie recognized Forte for a comment.
Forte said do the lakes have like an HOA [Home Owners Association], like these respective lakes? Hargis said some do. Like, we have a group together, and we have a lake board, and on that lake board sits representatives from the city government, from the township government, and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, well, not all these lakes have one. Wylie said we do not. Middle Lake does not have one. Hargis said no, and I don’t know about Parke Lake. Casey said Parke Lake doesn’t have one. Hargis said so, I know you have citizen groups. I know you have like a group that with the park there along the beach, which is Robertson Court. Casey said yeah, that’s a separate, that’s just Robertson Court. Hargis said yeah, completely separate.
I see we got some dead-, is that March 24th and a March 30th deadline coming up, so – Hargis said March 24th is when the request for the nest extraction goes in, and there is no charge for that one. But you need to have your ducks in a row, your geese in a row, at that point, saying, okay, this is the site, or sites, and these are the folks, and this is what we want to do, you know. So, there’s some (unintelligible) work that’s gotta be done, and some agreements made, in order for us to even begin to do this thing. Or, I suppose, without having any money up front, we really don’t have, we don’t have a real quick deadline, because if we, you know, the one where you’ve got, come up with the $200, is like in May, I think, where you have to have the final request for the euthanasia, somewhere in about the middle of May, I think, is the last deadline on that.
Wylie said of course, the number may not hit 100 until all those eggs hatch. That’s when you really see lots of geese. Hargis said but yeah, the ways, I’ve not counted 100 birds at one time on our little lake. Upwards of 60, 70, but not 100. Wylie said a combination – (interrupting Wylie), Quisenberry said there’s a couple sections in here that will, you can get by the 100-bird restriction, about health and human safety situations. You can, you don’t have to be held to the 100 birds if you have any of these other conditions, which I think we probably do. Hargis said well, I’ve never heard of one posted, or if there is one, like the beach over at the lake over here would be a prime candidate for that, or down here in the park, the public park. Quisenberry said well, it’s a public or private swimming beaches, which would be every beach along the Mill Pond somebody lives on, and they put their own beach out there.
Jones said but that’s with elevated E. coli counts. But yeah, this says where exposure to geese can have serious health consequences because at least some patients’ residents will have compromised health and mobility. Yeah, there’s exceptions on here for that 100 birds.
Hargis said well, if we had cases that we could report. Casey said there’s frequently a lot of geese over on the beach, at the beach on Robertson. Hargis said yeah. Casey said I’m directly across the lake from that, so I see, you know, 30 or 40 of them over there at a time. [To Casey], Rodgers said I counted one day in my yard before I put the fence up along the lake shore, and there was 44, 44 big birds in my yard. And they don’t move, they don’t, and when their babies are there, I walk through Depot Park every morning in the summertime, and you literally have to go around, like, I have to come up to the building and around because they will straddle that. Am I right? Avery said yeah, they hiss at you. Rodgers said and they hiss at you, and they chase after you. Yeah, it’s, I don’t know if it’s the same 44 birds everywhere I go, but I literally counted them because they were driving me crazy. And, yeah. Casey said we need a hunting season.
(To Hargis), Wylie said so, what’s the next, what’s the next steps. Hargis said the next step is for me to keep pressuring the lady at the DNR for agreement that we can bundle our group so that we can apply as a group and move forward. Otherwise, I suppose there’s nothing saying that I can’t go ahead and just apply for the Mill Pond if we don’t have it all worked out and because it doesn’t cost anything, and before the deadline, and work out the details later. But I’d rather get it put together prior to that. Wylie said sure.
Avery said or maybe we, it’s just a thought, maybe we can have Ryan draft a letter identifying the spots and the conditions based on the rules that they have to try to get a waiver so that we can just do like we’ve always done. Just hire it out. Sometimes when you put it on the letterhead, attorney’s letterhead, that might prompt. Hargis said I could initiate something of that nature based on what I’ve done thus far, what I know about, and see how that applies. And you can review it and see if that’s a major requirement, isn’t it? It’s an idea, it’s a good idea.
(To Hargis), Wylie said how effective do you think Goosebusters have been? I realize they haven’t been around for a few years, but how effective do you think they are at getting rid of geese? Hargis said he has been, they have been very effective when they are in operation. I think the last good roundup we had was 2021 prior to COVID. And I think there were 40-some birds. And yeah, he knows what it takes. You just start pushing them. They all pretty well stay together. And during the June timeframe is when you have to do it. So that’s when they’re flightless. You have to push in June, because the young haven’t gotten old enough and big enough to fly yet. And the parents are unable to fly and won’t leave their young anyway. So, when you approach them, they will pretty well stay together. And then you just round them up into a pen, sorts. And then wade in there and pick them up. It’s not rocket science here, but that’s the way it works.
Wylie said anybody else have questions or comments.
Wylie recognized Jones for a comment.
Jones said I mean, not sarcastic or anything like that, but I almost wonder if it would be worth calling back to the MDNR and talking to another woman, because there’s, again, just there’s nowhere in here, like all of these fee structures and permit things, they all refer back to sections that are in this. So, with her saying, oh no, there’s another section and it costs you $4,000. I’d like to see that section, you know, before we like, just because that seems like if there’s some other piece of permitting that is required or some other payment that it would be listed out here in the packet that they give you to do your fee structure. Hargis said yeah, because it’d be good to know that it’s a not to exceed – Jones said yeah – (continuing), Hargis said because they might have a $4,000 and say, okay, as they’re doing it, oh, this other thing costs a certain amount, you know, and they tack on more money. Wylie said right. We had 101, that’s another $100.
Wylie recognized Forte for a comment.
Forte said yeah, does the lake board traditionally pay this cost or who traditionally pays this cost? Hargis said we have a lake board, and we are a part of a SAD [special assessment district]. And so, we pay a certain fee based, or amount of money to this, you know, on our taxes that covers the expenses relative to our Mill Pond. And that mostly is involved with the chemical application sprays and so forth, but we also have in there money allocated for the goose program. So, in the past, you know, we have always had sufficient funds, and they haven’t exceeded more than four or 500 bucks. So, you know, we’ve always been able to cover it as the property owners. Yeah.
Wylie said anybody else have questions or comments.
No comments.
Wylie said so, you’ll get back to us when you hear more? Hargis said yes. Wylie said and I know the biophilic committee was meeting, talking about this last week at their meeting. And so, they’re involved with it too. Hargis said yeah, I sat in with one of his, Jim Brueck’s meetings. Wylie said okay. Hargis said he asked me. Wylie said that’s right, you were supposed to, he was hoping you’d be there. Hargis said yeah, he’s in St. Croix right now. Wylie said he might be back today. Hargis said yeah, okay. Wylie thanked Hargis. Hargis said all right, I won’t be going further than that in St. Croix.
Wylie, Forte, and Casey thanked Hargis. Casey said appreciate your time. Wylie said very much so, yes.
(To Klos and Delude), Wylie said you guys don’t have to stay for the rest of the meeting if you don’t want to. I should have told you that afterwards. Klos said that was very interesting. Wylie said okay. It might get less interesting. (Laughter.)
Item 10c – Discussion: City of the Village of Clarkston Salary Study (Video time mark 0:53:35):
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- City of the Village of Clarkston Compensation Study (page 39/146 of the council packet)
Wylie said we are on Item #10c, discussion, City of the Village of Clarkston’s Salary Study Presentation by Jeff, oh, that’s who that is up there. By visual, virtual presentation by Jeff Rahmberg. Is he – Smith said yeah.
Smith said so, just a quick intro. So, we talked to city council late last fall about the idea of doing a salary study so that we could identify the appropriate salary to offer to a clerk. We’ve been searching for clerks. You know, we’ve had that sort of rotation of our city clerks. And really the realization is that we’re just not paying competitive salaries. So, we’re competing with McDonald’s and Wendy’s. We’re not competing with other municipalities. So, we’re not getting the qualified candidates that we need to have in this very important role of city clerk. So, I appealed to the city council to do a salary study. And Jeff Rahmberg is the company that Michigan Municipal League (MML) represents or supports Rahmberg and his company, Rahmberg, Stover & Associates. And so Rahmberg has been working on this and he’s here tonight online to present the findings to us.
(To Rahmberg), Smith said so, hopefully you can hear us okay? Rahmberg said I can. Good evening.
Quisenberry said if I can, just before he starts, to be fair, Smith, I’m not, I would like to know, because I didn’t think that our issue with the clerk had something to do with a salary structure. We were going through a revolving door of clerks because of a different issue. Isn’t that accurate? Smith said but it all comes down to salary. That’s, they’ll deal with the issue if the salary is, you know, is there. But with a low salary and the issues, it’s a revolving door.
Forte said can we turn him up a click before he gets on? Smith said yes, I can try. (To Rahmberg), Smith said I’ll turn up our mic here, but if you could do your best to speak loudly, we couldn’t hear you too loudly when you started. So, with that, go ahead. I’ll rotate the slides as you ask.
Rahmberg said okay, so can you hear me now when I speak? Smith said I can, yes. Rahmberg said okay, so we’re all right with that? Wylie said if there’s anything on your end to turn up a little louder. I mean, I’m sitting right by the speaker. I can hear you, but Amanda’s – Rahmberg said okay. Wylie and Forte said better. Wylie said thank you. Rahmberg said is that better? Rodgers said yep. Rahmberg said all right. Yeah, if you can’t, let me know. Wylie said okay. Rahmberg said not sure how to turn it up. I can turn up my speakers, but I don’t know if I can turn up my – Wylie said you’re really loud. Rahmberg said all right. Whoops. Avery said time to go back to the basics sometime. Rahmberg said there we go.
Jeffrey Rahmberg:
Okay, well, nice to be with you. This is fairly straightforward. We can go ahead and turn in a couple pages if you want. And if you’re gonna be the scroller there for me, thanks. That’s in the documents, it’s a table of contents. Most of this document is a lot of data, but we’ll start here with the overview.
So, we were asked to help look at the market, if you will. What’s the going rate, the marketplace for four positions, the manager, the treasurer, clerk, and deputy clerk. And to do that, we spent some time upfront, just getting a bit wiser about what’s going on in the city with current pay and benefits that are provided. We looked at job descriptions, financial data, just again, get us more up to speed as we then went forward. We decided to use the data that’s available in the Michigan Municipal League’s database, if you will, they survey all the time, municipalities. And because these positions are pretty typical, then we would have expected, which is the case, that the Michigan Municipal League database would have lots of information.
And so, the challenge becomes, which is actually in step two, so how do we decide which municipalities we should compare to? So, we used two important measures. One was population and the other was budget or your budget expenses. Those are statistics that are tracked in the Michigan Municipal League database. And we said, well, let’s start with under 5,000 in population and under $5 million in budget. And we’ll first look at southeast Michigan since that’s where you’re located. And we did that. And unfortunately, we got a fairly small number, but it still was a number, but it wasn’t a large number of communities that would fit the bill. That is under 5,000 population, under $5 million budget that in fact were in their database. So, we then said, let’s take a second cut. Let’s look at all municipalities in the state, all of them that again, satisfy those two criteria. Under 5,000 in population, under $5 million for budget. And so, we did that, and we put together an actual summary.
We can go through and look at all the data, if you will. And we collected the information looking at what’s the average pay of a clerk in these communities? What’s the median pay, which would be the 50th percentile? And what’s the 25th percentile? And we were particularly interested in the 25th because of your size. So given the size of Clarkston in terms of things like population, taxable value, budget, expenses, revenues, what have you, we wanted to look at taking a smaller cut out of the sample. And so, we also pulled the 25th percentile data. And we’ll go through all this with you and give you the results in a moment.
Another activity we performed was to look at your benefits and actually did an analysis of that. Again, relying upon, this is a separate survey, but the Michigan Municipal League does a regular benefit survey. And so, we’ve included the results of that survey in our report for you to look at. And we have some thoughts for you that you might want to consider.
And then lastly, we put together recommendations based upon all that.
So, if we can move to the next page, which we start with recommendations, this will sort of give you an overview of what this data told us. And what we decided we should focus on when it’s all said and done was this lower data percentile, which is the 25th percentile. And so, what we show you here is by position. Again, these are communities with less than 5,000 population, less than $5 million annual expenses. And this is the 25th percentile.
And so here’s what the city manager data is. That number is $93,000. It’s for Southeast Michigan. It’s $78,000 if we take this big statewide sample. And just to give you a sense, there are only nine communities in that Southeast Michigan number that make up that number. There’s 87 that make up the statewide. And again, all that’s back in the details of the report, but just to give you a feel. So, we said, let’s take the 25th percentile for each position, Southeast Michigan, statewide, and then average the two together. And that’s what it did. So, it comes up with the number for the city clerk of $48,000, for the treasurer, $44,000. You can see the numbers.
And then all of the numbers that we pulled from the database, either we’re assuming we’re 40-hour a week jobs, 52 weeks a year, or if not, we annualize the data. Sometimes they give you hourly pay. Sometimes they say the job only works 32 hours. So, we said, let’s make them all assuming they’re full-time, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. And then we’ll take that and adjust those numbers because that’s not what’s happening with these positions, specifically in Clarkston, right? So, their work schedules are, it’s eight-tenths for the manager, treasurer, and clerk, and it’s 50, or it’s halftime, 50% for the deputy clerk. So, we took the average numbers and multiplied times this work adjustment factor to come up with a new number. And we rounded that number to the nearest $500, or $100, excuse me. And used that to then arrive at a salary range midpoint.
So, let’s back up for a second. All this data was collected and analyzed and put together with these computations for the purpose of helping you have formal salary ranges for these jobs. So, we would have a minimum and a maximum and a midpoint. And so, what we said is, and typically what organizations try to do is once they target where they wanna be in the market and they get this actual pay data, and that’s what this information is, it’s what incumbents are actually making in their jobs. And you typically say, well, let’s put that in the middle of our pay range, right? So, we can have highly experienced people paying higher in the range and newer people should be in the lower end of the range. We’ll have some room to work with and also have room for employee to progress in terms of annual or future salary increases by having a range to work with. It is what most organizations do, most municipalities do, they have pay ranges. And so, our thought was, we’re gonna give you some pay ranges that you hopefully can work with.
And again, it’s all based on this MML data, these two sets of samples, look into the 25th percentile. And so, if we go down further, you’ll see here in fact is the suggested ranges for the four positions. And you can see that midpoint number and then there’s a minimum and a maximum. And so, what we did was we took the midpoint and we multiplied it times 1.15 to get the maximum and by 0.85 to get the minimum. It equates to a salary range of about 35%. That is the maximum is about 35% higher than the minimum.
And that didn’t come out of thin air. Where did we arrive at that? Well, many municipalities have salary ranges that are in the 25 to 35 range. And we thought given this is new for you, you might want a little wider umbrella net to work with because you haven’t had salary ranges before. And so, we suggested 35%. And so again, we build pay structures all the time for municipalities throughout the state. Probably have seven other clients right now we’re working with, six or seven. And so that’s, yeah, we’re quite familiar with what’s going on in the marketplace in terms of salary structures and salary ranges.
So, that’s one of the things that’s being suggested is that you adopt pay ranges based upon this market data with the thought that we need to probably stay at the lower end of the market. And so thus the 25th percentile because we’re smaller.
And again, it’s easier to see all this when you get into the data in some detail, which we can walk you through in a moment. But I wanted to at least get you through that. And if we could go to the next slide or next page, if you will, the report.
We have more thoughts about those salary ranges. One is we would suggest you actually develop steps that guide the pay through the range from the minimum to the maximum. For example, you could have 11 steps. And if each step was 3%, then as you go one step to the next, it represents a 3% adjustment in salary. That would yield about a 34% pay range. That’s pretty close right to that 35%. And that’s sort of the neighborhood we’re suggesting you may wanna work in. So, the thought is we would develop, we would put steps into your ranges. And then the way to implement the program is, the easiest way to implement the program, is to put employees in their range for their position and on the step that’s closest to, but not less than their current salary.
Obviously, if you implement this program, no one should go backwards, right? So, we’re gonna move you to the closest step. Having said that, that’s the simplest way to do it. You could also consider one’s experience and credentials as yet another consideration. So, someone has a lot of experience, and we’re only gonna put them at the first step, but they really should be in a higher step. You might wanna make a further adjustment. So those are things to work on and consider how you might implement it. But at a minimum, people should be put on the step closest to, but not less than their current pay. And for a couple people, that’s a pretty meaningful adjustment. If you look at, go back and look at the ranges, actually, the clerk and treasurer ranges are not that out of line with current pay today for the clerk and treasurer.
That is not true, however, for the deputy clerk or the city manager, who would be much further below than even the minimums of these ranges. So, we can go back again to the next, move on to page three again, if you don’t mind, thanks.
And these ranges, by the way, should be reviewed and updated on a regular basis. That is to say, every year you, so I mean, you adopt some, to say the structure where you have ranges and steps. The fact that the market’s gonna keep moving, so every year you should find out how much salary ranges are moving in the marketplace. And assuming they are moving, by the way, we can help you with that every year. Just call us, we have all that data. And we help lots of municipalities annually with that decision. But the point is, you would adjust those ranges. May all go up by 2% or pick a number. Whatever the market’s doing. Some of us people think of it as cost of living. Compensation people don’t think of it as cost of living, because we really don’t care about cost of living. We care about how much the job’s going up in the market. So, if the job’s worth 2% more in the market, or the ranges are going up in the market by 2%, then that’s what we should be doing.
Assuming, assuming we can afford it, right? It’s another point about the step system. So, the idea of having the steps is every year an employee has a chance, if they are performing well and performing effectively, they get a step increase. And again, that’s kind of how they’d march through the pay range till they get to the top of the range, and then they don’t get any more step increases. But in theory, they’d be getting a step increase plus whatever adjustments made to the schedule. And this is the most, again, this is the most widely used system, particularly in government, whether it’s in local government or cities or townships or counties or school districts or what have you, it’s the most common methodology that’s used. And I think for lots of good reasons. It’s understandable. Employees know what to expect, what’s coming. It’s easier for budget standpoint to predict what your costs are gonna be. And for those and more reasons, it’s a very popular, popular program. But the one thing that’s important is there always needs to be the caveat that says, we have to be able to afford these increases. So, there may be a year where we can’t give step increases and that’s fine. And I think that needs to be clear to anyone who’s in a step system that it’s not an automatic entitlement. You don’t get it every year just because it’s been another year. You get it if you perform well and we as an organization can afford it. So, there’s step increases in these schedule adjustments. That would be the typical part of how the program would work all of that happening annually.
We also looked at the benefits that are provided to these four employees and quite candidly, and we have data for you to look at from the Michigan Municipal League. It’s a big survey that looked at, trying to remember now, it’s how many organizations that were in it. Fair number, hang in there. I think it was over a hundred. And I thought for sure I had that. 236, yeah. So, 236 communities. They surveyed their benefits. And when we look at those results and we have them for you here, candidly, your benefits package isn’t very competitive. And it’s particularly a concern in, with health insurance and your kind of retirement plan, which is really a 401k match program. And so, the fact is you don’t provide health insurance to these individuals. And what you’ll discover is if you’re working 32 hours a week, most employers are doing just that. They’re offering health insurance.
And so, I think you’d know some of the employees today, this happens to be the circumstance, don’t need the health insurance. And so that’s the case, then usually what is offered is some payment in lieu of. So, if you don’t need our health insurance, here’s what we’ll pay you instead. It’s actually typically an incentive employers have. They like people not to take the health insurance so, because it costs money, right? So, here’s what we’ll do for you. And that average payment, according to the Michigan Municipal League survey, is around $3,000, $3,080. That’s what’s written in that last paragraph on this page. So, seems to me you should think seriously about that. Either providing health insurance. And I say by providing, you can get an employee to contribute to that. And there’s again, there’s data in this survey that we’ve got in the back to look at.
We’ll show you kind of what other municipalities are doing in terms of how much of the employees, what percent employees contribute to the cost of the health insurance. So, you could either offer health insurance or if it’s not needed to give this payment in lieu of. But to do nothing, candidly just isn’t very competitive. And I think in the future, you probably might very well have people you’re trying to attract that in fact need this health insurance. And again, at 32 hours, employers are in fact providing health insurance if in fact employees ask for it. So that’s an important one.
The other one is your match. So, you have a match to your 401k plan up to 3%. And so, if you look at what other municipalities are contributing in what we think of as defined contribution plans, not defined benefit plans, as we all know the defined benefit plans in government and in the for-profit world as well have really diminished in their use. And it is because of lots of reasons, primarily cost. And so, they’re going to defined contribution plans, whether it’s a 401k match or any other kind of program. So, we would suggest that your 3% match is again, not competitive. And you might wanna think about increasing that. And again, we can look at data, but the data would say a reasonable adjustment would be to please move it up to 6. In fact, a lot of the defined contribution plans by municipalities don’t require a match. They just give it to the employees every year. So, two key items there with the benefits package, health insurance and retirement. That and coming up with a formal salary schedule is really the essence of the recommendation.
Now, if we go into the appendices and we don’t have to go through all of these, but we’ll take a look at page five. This is kind of how the data is formatted. So, this is looking at the Southeast Michigan group, right? We looked at Southeast Michigan and then we went statewide. And this is the Southeast Michigan group where the municipalities’ population less than 5,000, budget less than $5 million, city manager. What do we have? And you’ll see the municipalities here and all their statistics, including among other things, including the actual pay for the city manager position or the incumbent, if you will. And though you’ll see the mean and the median and 25th percentile, we run all those calculations for each.
And so, we have data, and there’s the clerk. And if you go to the next page, you’ll see the deputy clerk and the treasurer, excuse me. So, if we can, yeah, and then flip one more page. So, then the next piece here is, which is meant to be, is statewide. So now we got a much larger sample. So, these are all the communities in the State of Michigan, again, less than 5,000, less than $5 million. And that’s quite a large sample that you see. And on page 10, where we can now see the mean here for the city manager is the end rather, excuse me. How many did we have is what N stands for, 87. So now we get 87 communities statewide. And again, mean, median, 25th percentile. So, we did that, both sets of data, Southeast Michigan and statewide for each of the four positions.
If you flip all the way to page 19, because all this you can look at at your leisure, plenty of data, you get, page 19 gives a summary. So, here’s a summary we worked on quite a bit to look at. So, this takes by position, the Southeast Michigan data, the statewide data, mean, median, 25th, shows you population, the actual salary of the incumbents, and then those max included taxable value expenses and revenues just to get a look. And it was from looking at this data that we said, you know, I think the 25th percentile is where we should be. We shouldn’t look at the median, which is the middle of the data because the communities are much larger by and large. And so, let’s go with 25th. So, this is the summary for, again, for the four positions. And it was from this data, this summary, that we went back to that original, we tied back to the original schedule we looked at, which came up with this number of averaging the 25th percentiles for both Southeast Michigan and state. I mean, the thought is we ought to look at Southeast Michigan. Our concern is it’s not a big N.
So, let’s get a bigger N. Why don’t we look at the whole state and see what the numbers tell us. And by and large, as you would expect, the statewide numbers are lower, right? Look at the salary column. Look at the 25th percentile. City manager, $93,000 Southeast Michigan, $78,000 statewide. Clerk is $50,000 Southeast Michigan, $46,000 statewide. And even the deputy clerk’s $47,000 and $40,000, and the treasurer’s $45,000 and $42,000. So those are, and we expect that, right? But Southeast Michigan’s gonna pay more. That’s why we think Southeast Michigan is important, not to ignore it, but to consider it. Because, in fact, the pay levels are higher. It’s a more competitive, higher level pay in Southeast Michigan, period. That’s true, and I do a lot of work around the state. And so that’s the dynamic, maybe it’s cost. Whatever it might be, the fact is the pay levels are higher. And, I mean, in some respects, it’s not a lot higher. I’d say it’s like 10, 20%, depends what set of data you wanna look at. So that’s the thought, was we’ll blend them both. We’ll combine them together and arrive at this kind of overall 25th percentile market value, and we’ll use that to put in the midpoint of ranges we’ll develop with steps. And that’s ultimately what we are recommending.
Page 20 is the benefits data. It’s pretty straightforward. It shows you what you provide. And, by the way, your holidays look good. Your vacation time looks good. It’s when we get into health insurance, as we mentioned, and into retirement, where there are, I think, some opportunities here for you to be more competitive. And the intent is not to be the highest paid in the market, right, but to be in a space where you can attract and keep the talent that you need to operate the city. So that’s what this report is, what attempted to address through this study.
It’s a little unique. The fact is there’s no other community like Clarkston, is there. And so, you know, what’s the market? Well, the market, in theory, should be where can we recruit from, or where might we lose our staff to, and within the world of municipal government. And so, I think that’s the challenge we had in trying to arrive at, so what’s the right sample? You know, what is that market? And obviously you wanna stay as close to home geographically and as close to the city in terms of size. And it’s the size where we have a lot of challenges. And so did have challenges. But I think, I mean, I’ve been doing this for decades, and I’m pretty comfortable with this is, I think, a reasonable approach. Keeping it conservative at the 25th percentile and getting a big sample statewide and averaging it with the smaller sample in Southeast Michigan.
And we can rate that, weight that differently if you wanted to, you know, like the 50-50 weighting. Maybe you weight one more than the other, or just rely on one set of data, not the other. I think, you know, it’s likely you’re gonna have your competition locally, although there won’t be as many organizations, you know, to match, that line up. So, I’ll stop and let you fire away with any comments, thoughts, questions. Happy to try to respond.
Wylie said questions or comments for Rahmberg or anybody on council.
Wylie recognized Quisenberry for a question
Quisenberry said I’m gonna work backwards. On page 19, I don’t understand it, and it’s probably a simple explanation, but when you look in the population, city manager, clerk, whatever, the column for population, the city, the population listed under the city manager, those numbers are different than the population listed under the clerk and under the deputy clerk. Rahmberg said right. Correct. Quisenberry said I guess I’m not understanding that, because I thought our population is what it is. So why are these numbers different? Rahmberg said so, these are population numbers for the sample that was used. So, for the nine communities in Southeast Michigan that had a city manager, had salary data for a city manager, that met our criteria, right? Less than 1,000 in population and $5,000 in budget, right? And $5 million budget, 1,000 in population. There were nine communities. In those nine communities, this is what their average population was, their median and their 25th percentile. Quisenberry said I got it. Rahmberg said so, it’s a different set of communities for the city manager versus the clerk who has a different set of communities than the deputy clerk, than the treasurer. And again, you can see all of those in detail, you know, back in the document. They’re different because the samples are different. They’re not the same communities. Quisenberry said I got you. Rahmberg said there might be some that are in each. See, that community shows up in all of them, but they’re not all the same, which is why the numbers are different.
(To Rahmberg), Wylie said my question kind of ties in with what Quisenberry’s asking. Why is it that there’s only five communities where we’re getting data on the clerk, yet there’s nine communities? And this is Southeast Michigan. Why is there nine communities with city managers? Does that mean that there’s a lot of communities that don’t have clerks, or they’re not submitting their data? What’s, why is there such a difference? Rahmberg said all the above. No, they all have clerks, but they, you know, it’s just a matter of the data that would have been submitted in the survey. So, you can, again, go to, if you want to look at, let’s look at the nine, and you can see what the nine are. If we go all the way back to page five, page five’s great, it’ll answer your question. So here are the communities. On page five, we get there. There you go. So, starting with Wolverine Lake and going down, those are the communities that, in fact, reported data for a city manager that meet our criteria. And there are the five communities that reported, met our criteria, that reported data for a clerk. So, we, Pleasant Ridge, Clio, Orchard Lake Village. And I think – Wylie said yeah, those are the only three that – Rahmberg said I think those are the three. So, we have three where they’re in both, right? And, but there were more for the city, and I can’t answer that question other than, I suspect that Goodrich has got a clerk, but we didn’t have the data. Wylie said okay. Rahmberg said it’s not in the MML database. Wylie said okay, thank you.
(To Rahmberg), Smith said is it possible that they have a combined clerk-treasurer, or combined, a clerk, whatever, DPW [Department of Public Works] director or something. There wasn’t a clean clerk-only position. Rahmberg said that’s possible.
Wylie said any other questions or comments from anybody on council?
Forte said I do. Wylie said oh, sorry, yeah.
Forte said so just like to mathematically look back at this and then compare it to our revenue and expenditure report. So, looking at this, can I just go through this real quick, on what we’re paying versus this? Wylie said you can. Is it related to anything that Rahmberg gave us tonight? Forte said yeah. Wylie said okay. Forte said so, for the, and just so I understand if this is correct – Wylie said what page are you on in this. Forte said so, if I look at the page one of 10, and then I’m under – Wylie said oh, you’re back – Forte said yeah. Quisenberry said it’s a financial statement. Forte said yeah. Just because I couldn’t understand where he was getting these numbers for 34% until I understood what we’re actually paying. And I just want to make sure I’m understanding this before I ask the question. So, for city manager is $44,990, correct? Smith said that’s right. Forte said okay. And then city treasurer is $33,320, correct? Okay. And then city clerk is $38,220. That’s, I can’t tell you where that is. It’s under – $38,220, yes. Okay. And then deputy clerk is $12,400? Smith said yes. Forte said okay. So that’s basically his table. So, the 34% is the difference between, this is my question, the 34% that you recommend that we take over, so, is the difference? Jones said so, so that’s what the range is. Rahmberg said no. Jones said so, from the minimum to the maximum, and then that 34% is if you did 11 increases at 3%, that would get you from A to, you know, from min to max, like that would get you almost to the 35% range that they’ve built into the salary range. Forte said okay.
Forte said and then I might’ve missed this, but what is the step? Like, is that a – Jones said it’s a pay raise. Forte said yeah, but like over what extension of time? Years, months? Casey said years. It’s typically years. Forte said okay. Jones said so, like on your annual – (interrupting Jones), Rahmberg said you typically, you get a step a year. Every year you’d get a step increase. Again, if you perform well, you’ve got the money to pay. Quisenberry said eleven steps. Forte said yeah, so like that would be 4 years. Jones said no, that would be like 11 years. Forte said 11 years, sorry. Yeah. Jones said so, if you think, well, just assume, like you assume like typically you have an annual evaluation and you get a pay raise of anywhere from 3% to 5%, right? So, this would build us seven to 11 years of, for one person within a salary range, if you did it like that. Forte said okay, so I guess my question is, in 11 years, if we were to do this, would that make sense? Would these numbers still work? Jones said no. No, you’d have to keep updating them. Forte said okay. Jones said yes. Quisenberry said so, they’re gonna get more than a 3% raise every year for 11 years because in those 11-year periods, they’re also going to get step, salary increases based upon how we pass our budget. Forte said so, it’s a finance commitment? Casey said unless we just use a static grid. Avery said right, but these numbers that they just gave us today in 11 years would be way outdated. So, we’re gonna have to – (interrupting Avery), Rahmberg said yeah, they wouldn’t (unintelligible crosstalk between council members). Rahmberg said it wouldn’t be competitive. Jones said yeah, it’s a number. Rahmberg said you need to track the market every year. You have to pull all this data, but you need to know how much ranges are moving. And that data’s available. And so how much should we increase our salary schedule or schedules for these four positions each year so the employee would get that adjustment plus the step increase? If you can afford it, and if they’re performing well. If you can’t, you don’t give it to them. It’s not an entitlement. But it’s the way to help make pay decisions. It makes your life a lot easier. When the council say, whomever, we’ve got a system to follow. And it’s what most municipalities do.
Wylie said anybody else on council.
Quisenberry said yeah, the nine communities that you’ve listed here, I’m just looking to see ones around us. You’ve got Goodrich. Ortonville and Holly are not on here as comparables. Is there a reason why? But the criteria was just under $5 million budget and under what was, there was just those two points of criteria. $5,000. (Unintelligible crosstalk between council members.) Smith said they may not participate in the study. Wylie said they might not be in MML. Smith said Ortonville, I know, does not typically attend all of the MML functions, so I assume that they’re not contributing to this annual survey. I don’t know, what was the other one you mentioned? Quisenberry said Holly. Smith said I’m not sure about Holly. Rahmberg said yeah, I don’t see them.
Wylie said anybody else, questions or comments from council?
Quisenberry said I just think that when you’re trying to look at comparables, us being compared with Pleasant Ridge doesn’t seem appropriate. Casey said we’re saving money. (Unintelligible crosstalk among council members.) Rahmberg said and so tell me why you say that. I’m interested in that reaction. Why would you say they’re not comparable? Casey said because of the tax base. Quisenberry said yeah, the tax base, availability of funds, the net worth of the community, the structure of the community. And I just think that when you’re starting to make comparisons, you should focus primarily on like communities. Rahmberg said well, I don’t, so I don’t disagree with that. But part of the problem is if you pin it down to your size, more precisely, you won’t have any communities in that database to use. And so I don’t, you know, what we could have done and still could do, take you more time, cost you more money, but if somebody has to do it, is do a survey. We just do a custom survey. You pick the 10 communities, and we’ll survey them for you. But that takes a lot more time and effort and energy to get done. And so, this was, here’s a reasonable way to get a lot of data from this database that we have access to, the league lets us use. And, you know, we in fact did think about, we thought about two things in particular, the budget and the population. But we showed you the tax bill, but you see all the data. We didn’t keep anything from you. And if there’s some that you think are too big and you don’t want to include them, then shouldn’t do it.
Quisenberry said well, Orchard Lake Village, our village, their budget is more than four times what ours is. Rahmberg said right. Wylie said it still gives, it does give us some of that. Rahmberg said so (unintelligible crosstalk between council members) you could, in fact, go through this and say, take these out if you wanted us to. And that’d be fine. Again, it wouldn’t, I can tell you statistically, it wouldn’t have a big impact on the 25th percentile number. Remember, that’s the number we use in the end. You know, we’re not trying to pay what Orchard Lake Village pays, right? Quisenberry said no, but Orchard Lake artificially makes that average higher. Rahmberg said yeah, but we’re not using it. We’re using the 25th percentile, which means there are technically 24 points lower and 75 points higher. It’s the 25th point, right? But it’s not, they don’t have 100 points, but if you did. But if you took out Orchard Lake, you’re not gonna change that 25th percentile number very much. So, it doesn’t really influence it. You can see it in the average, right? The average is 108, and the median, which is the middle, is 96. So that’s the influence of Pleasant Ridge and Orchard Lake. Bumping up, a lot of times, the mean and median are closer together. But we didn’t use it anyway. We used the 25th percentile. And I’d be happy to go through, and maybe we should do that.
Rahmberg said why don’t we, Southeast Michigan, take out the ones you wanted to take out. We’ll rerun it and show you what the 25th percentile number is. And I can tell you now, it’s not gonna be that far from what it is now, including those. It’ll be a little lower, but not much. But we’d be happy to do it, if you wanted to take some out. I understand your point. I understand your point about the size. If we cut the size down more, so we wanted to introduce taxable value and said it’s gotta be less than a certain number, we’re just gonna have a smaller sample. But we could do that. I mean, we’re happy to do however you wanna look at it.
Wylie recognized Jones for a comment.
Jones said well, I was just gonna say, we’re paying city clerk is what, like, it’s advertised right at $15 an hour? $28, what are we? That’s what I went over. Quisenberry said $38,220 is what we’re paying. Jones said no, but I’m saying, isn’t there an hourly rate attached to that? Like, are we paying them a salary right now? Smith said we’re paying a salary. Jones said yeah, I was gonna say, because when you do the math to break this down, if we were to implement this salary scale, right? So minimum city clerk is $33,150. If you divided that out into an hourly rate, that’s $15.90. So, you’re competing against a $16 an hour job. If you hit it up to the maximum at $44,850, it still only brings you up to like $21.56 an hour in terms of like what it is an hourly rate. So that’s – Forte said do they get paid more at Honchos? Jones said oh, I’m saying you’re still, like, this is still tracking along the lines of what, like, what some starting jobs are. So, I think that in terms of, yes, we do have some, there are some larger numbers that we see on here, but with them bringing it down to that 25th percentile, this is still keeping it within what would be considered the acceptable range for our size and the experience and the workload that they’re looking for. Wylie thanked Jones.
Wylie recognized Avery for a comment.
(To Avery), Wylie said okay, you and Smith were having a conversation again.
Wylie recognized Quisenberry for a comment.
Quisenberry said well, I agree with what Jones just said, but I guess in my mind, that just says, okay, do we want to look into our salary structure based upon all of this data or based upon what the market is paying other workers commensurate with what the job that we’re asking our people to do? Jones said you have to look at both of them right now. It is such a terrible job market and economy. It’s so messed up right now. Like, in every way, shape, and form, across hourly, across salary, it is, it’s abysmal. And we want to keep the best people, so we’ve really got to look at all of these options. And I mean, even, I mean, God, 16 bucks an hour for some of the stuff, you know? I just think that these numbers aren’t shocking to me, is what I’m trying to say. In terms of what, like, it comes out, what the expected value and what we should be paying in the schedule and how it would work out, that’s how, I mean, this all looks very reasonable and acceptable and, like, in line with what we would be expecting a result like this to come back with. Forte said yeah. Quisenberry said and I agree with you, but I’m just trying to move this to the next step and think, okay, then these salaries are then going to be going up this much more, and in the next couple weeks, we’re gonna be meeting and trying to go over our budget and realizing, okay, now that we’ve decided this is what we want to pay them, how are we gonna then do it? There is the issue. Jones said we’ll have to look at the budget before we decide what we’re gonna pay. That’s why we’re having to decide, I mean, that’s – (interrupting Jones), Avery said yeah, the purpose is why we have Rahmberg here. I say focus on what is information, when we can chop it up later as to how much weight we put to it, but I guess the question is for him while we’re have him on the line here.
Wylie asked Rahmberg if he was trying to add something.
Rahmberg said yeah, sorry, I just wanted to go back to, this is about the math. So, you look at the city clerk proposed range and the minimum’s $33,150. That’s based on working four days a week or eight-tenths of a schedule. So, you don’t divide that by 2080, you divide it by 1664. And so, the hourly rate at the minimum is $19.92. You could still argue that’s a little low, but the fact is that’s, you can look at what the data showed us, and if we want to stay at this 25th percentile, so the range is actually like $19.92 to $26.95 an hour. That would be the maximum.
(To Rahmberg) Jones said I’m sorry, what did you say that number was that you were at the 16. Rahmberg said 1664. That’s taking 40 hours a week, actually it’s taking 32 hours a week, excuse me, times 52 weeks, 1,666, that’s the hours, the schedule anyway for the city clerk, as it is for the treasurer and the city manager. And by the way, we do have a note about that because I don’t think your city manager comes close to only working 32 hours a week, but that’s, you know, whatever. We did, we adjusted the numbers down, assuming they did, the position was in fact, 32 hours a week. But anyway, so it’s, I thought someone was doing the math real fast in the city clerk math, looking at the 13, the $33,150, and was coming up with a different number, so that’s all. But it’s not, yeah, it’s a very competitive marketplace out there, and so how do we attract people at even at 20 bucks an hour? Which is the minimum, $19.92, pretty close to $20 for the clerk’s job.
Rahmberg said and, you know, and if you have, if you hire someone, you don’t, by the way, you don’t have to start at the minimum. The minimum should be for someone who’s got the minimum qualifications and not a lot more, right? But if you have somebody or a candidate with a lot of experience and a lot of credentials, you can start them higher in the pay range. In theory, you could start them at the top of the pay range if you wanted to, but they wouldn’t have much opportunity for progression, but it, generally speaking, you think about the experience of the candidate or the new hire or the potential new hire, you’re trying to come up with an offer, and say, well, if this is our pay range and structure for our pay system, where do we put them in their range? And it should, in fact, be tied to how much experience they have, and also where do we have other people in their ranges? And so, you won’t necessarily want the new kid on the block to be way ahead of others, but if otherwise they shouldn’t be if they had comparable experience. So those are some things you need to consider when you come up with starting salaries. The background of the incumbent and where are you paying your other employees who are already working for the city and are in a pay range. Wylie thanked Rahmberg.
Wylie said anybody else on council questions or comments.
No comments.
Wylie said anybody in the public have questions or comments for Rahmberg.
No comments.
Wylie thanked Rahmberg.
Wylie asked Smith if he had anything else. Smith said no.
Wylie thanked Rahmberg for his time
Rahmberg said seriously, and if you want us to do any massaging of the data, taking some municipalities out, redoing the, you know, we’re happy to do it. Wylie said thank you. Rahmberg said okay. Wylie said have a good evening. Rahmberg said yeah, you too. Good talking to you.
Forte said so, what’s the next step for us now? Wylie said oh, this was a discussion. I assume, to me, it goes to finance committee. Forte said and then where are they doing this? Wylie said well, that’s something we were going to – Avery said we’re gonna figure it out, yes. Smith said right, we’re gonna try to figure out when the finance committee should start meeting next week or when. I think it’s gonna take a few meetings of the finance committee to review all this and decide where we go from here. Avery said and then we would bring it back to council and then have a discussion based on our recommendation.
Wylie said so, we are setting a time to meet or not. Smith said we can absolutely do that. Wylie said I think we should. I mean, it doesn’t have to be tomorrow or next week but at least let’s get a date on the calendar. I mean, we are somewhat facing a deadline because Guillen’s got a contract that lasts until February 28th, is that right? Avery said but that can be extended. Wylie said I know, it can be extended, but that was, at one point, that was kind of the deadline we were looking at. Avery said we’re trying to get this resolved here one way or the other. Wylie said and that’s kind of been the impetus to do something about our salaries. Smith said yep.
Wylie said so, we’ve got, (to Avery), you still work, right? Avery said I do. Wylie said I said it that way. So that means, I mean, what’s your time? I mean – Avery said well, it depends on the day. Wylie said depends on the day. So why don’t we start with you because you may, you and Smith have jobs. Avery said yeah, next week, I’m pretty available. Wylie said okay. Avery said so, you pick a time, I’ll work my schedule around it. (To Quisenberry), Wylie said how are you next week. Quisenberry said I can’t do Wednesday. Wylie said can’t do Wednesday, yeah. Quisenberry said Thursday, or Tuesday or Thursday? Wylie said Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I’m good. Quisenberry said you’re talking about – Wylie said I think we’re talking – Quisenberry said the first week in February. Wylie said yeah, the third, fourth, and fifth. Avery said yeah, Thursday – Wylie said we’re talking date, so, because we really need to do a daytime, so Smith can do it during his workday. Forte said and Coté. Quisenberry said and Coté. Wylie said oh, and Coté, yeah. Quisenberry said yeah, I’m good on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Avery said yeah, Monday’s no good for me, but Tuesday, Wednesday’s fine. Wylie said you said Monday’s no good? Avery said yeah. Wylie said let’s start with Tuesday. (To Smith), how are you looking for Tuesday? Smith said I have a noon meeting that I can move that. Talk about sewer pipes. Wylie said oh, yay. We could, I mean, do you want to do it like 10 o’clock on Tuesday? Avery said that’s fine with me, yeah, there are other – (To Quisenberry) Wylie said you okay with that? Quisenberry said no, on the fourth. Wylie said on the fourth. Quisenberry said yes. Wylie said all right, so 10 o’clock on Tuesday, February 4th, finance committee. All right, whoops. Finance. Oh, there we go. Budget Committee. The fourth at 10 a.m., so we can be done by 11:30. (Unintelligible crosstalk.) Wylie said and, I need the fourth. Sorry, everybody, we gotta get this, okay.
Quisenberry said do you want to do another day later that week, like Thursday or Friday? Wylie said I can’t do a Thursday, I can’t do a Thursday or Friday. Sorry about that. Quisenberry said and Smith’s not available on the 10th for the meeting that we have, but I don’t know about – Smith said the week of the 10th, I’m out of town, so you can meet without me, but – Avery said what’s the matter with Tuesday? What? I thought we were good. Wylie said yeah, he wants, he’s looking to look a little bit forward. Avery said so, we’ll talk about it. Wylie said yeah, we can talk about it next week. Smith said we can schedule that. Wylie said all right, I mean, I just, we’ve got a lot of people sitting here.
Wylie said okay, thank you. So, Item #10C is discussion, City of the Village, no, that’s what we did, sorry.
Item 10d – Resolution: Acceptance of the Findings of the Clarkston Historic District Study Committee (Video time mark 1:48:20):
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- Resolution – Accepting the Findings of the Clarkston Historic District Study Committee (page 63/146 of the council packet)
- Local Historic District Study Committee Report Cover Form (page 65/146 of the council packet)
- Michigan SHPO [State Historic Preservation Office] Architectural District/Complex Identification Form (page 67/146 of the council packet)
- Boundary Description (page 95/146 of the council packet)
- Clarkston Historic District Study Committee, Review Findings of 2020-2024 Project (page 96/146 of the council packet)
Wylie said Item #10d, resolution, Acceptance of the Findings of the Clarkston Historic District Study Committee. So, I’ve got some Clarkston Historic District Committee people here. Are you guys presenting? I mean, how are we doing? Nancy [Moon, Historic District Study Committee Chair], are you presenting this or discussing this? Nancy Moon said I can answer whatever questions you have, but since we had the public hearing, I wasn’t gonna represent everything, but I thought, (to Smith), did that presentation get to the – Smith said the presentation? Nancy Moon said yes. Smith said in the packet, plus your summary – Nancy Moon said the other documents. Okay. In the packet, you should have what’s labeled as a final report. It’s one page and a second page and has Smith’s name on it.
Nancy Moon said and after the resolution, the date’s put in the upper right-hand corner. Also included in that packet should have been the map, as well as a written description of the map. And then there should have been something called, I can’t remember the exact name, Michigan SHPO [State Historic Preservation Office] Architectural District/Complex Identification Form, which is the overall summary of the historic district. And that’s what the State Historic Preservation Office considered the final report.
Forte said so, do we just need a resolution? (Avery made an unintelligible comment.) Forte said okay, can I make the resolution? Smith said I’ve summarized this in a resolution, yeah. Nancy Moon said I know not all of you were able to attend the public hearing, so if you have some questions or comments, I’m happy to answer them, but, you know.
Quisenberry said I don’t know how important this is, but I mean, I looked it all over, and coincidentally, my house has the wrong address. It’s 27, you’ve got it down as 27 South Holcomb, and it’s because it was a duplex, and there was 27 plus 29. 27 went away, and the home is now 29, if that matters to you. Nancy Moon said well, which is your tax ID, 27 or 29? Quisenberry said 29. Nancy Moon said then we were given incorrect information from the county, because the county code is 27. It should be your tax ID number. I can correct that, no problem. Quisenberry said I just saw it. Nancy Moon said no, please, tell me anything that’s wrong. Quisenberry said I don’t think anybody else would have caught that. Nancy Moon said you know, if anything is wrong, please tell me, but we got the tax records, and that’s what we had to work with.
Wylie said so, what we would do is take a resolution, somebody can make, resolve for this resolution, and second it, then if there’s any discussion, before we vote on it.
Resolution by Jones; second Forte.
Wylie said anybody on council have anything to say.
Wylie said I was actually, I went to the public hearing, and one of the things that did bother me at the public hearing, and I believe I asked about it, was the fact that this study findings were sent to SHPO before it came to council, and I really, and I still think it should have come to council before it was presented to SHPO, because it’s not, it wasn’t official, but you said, I believe that SHPO has already accepted the study results? Nancy Moon said yes. We had to follow Public Act 169, and we followed the rules, and that’s what they said. Michael Moon said it is set down in the Public Act, what the, it’s the procedure. Wylie said sequence. Michael Moon said sequence is, and we followed that sequence, and this meeting, before the city council, is stipulated also in the law, and follows the public hearing. Wylie said and it says SHPO before the city government actually accepts the study results. Nancy Moon said yes, and the copy of the Public Act 169 is in volume three of those notebooks that I put together that we talked about. Wylie said yeah, the four notebooks. Nancy Moon said yes, yeah. So, we just basically had to follow the guidelines that they told us to do. Wylie said okay.
Wylie said I did receive a letter, and I guess I’ll read the letter:
I’m outraged at the newest antic of the HDC [Historic District Commission] study committee under the ploy of a study of the homes in the historic district. It, in fact, is a done deal that lacked transparency as a ploy to strengthen their hold on the power they feel is necessary to maintain the historic charm of Clarkston. They initiated this study back in 2019 and really kept it hush-hush and very vague to protect their own interest in declaring homes up to 1970 historic. The notice to the citizens was a vague notice to report the findings of their study. That, but it also was a gotcha moment when at the end they explained how it was going to be moving forward. Were separate notices sent to the residents affected? No. At any time in the last five years were we notified as to what was going on? No. Because the HDC – Wylie said I think they mean the HDC study committee, oh, I don’t know – (continuing with the letter) HDC has a long reputation of ruling unchecked over the residents of the historic district. Some of us are working to change that, but the old guard is unscrupulous in their dealing with the public because they feel they know what is best. Moving forward, I ask that this not be approved due to the total disregard to the citizens of the historic district. Think to yourself, let’s go to a community so we can look at the historic homes from 1970. Who in their right mind would do that? But that is what our HDC is wanting to do. Is it right? In your hearts can you condone such an action? Vote what is right.
Wylie said this is from Annette Zemon-Parker and provided her address.
Wylie said I also want to say that I also received a phone call today from another resident in the historic district who was also unhappy about this. They did not say I could use their name, so I’m not going to use their name, but they were unhappy about the fact they felt like it was, that the fact that residents whose homes were affected were not notified. The fact that those, what, 17, 18, 19 homes, that they were not notified that the status of their homes was being changed. And this person, they were also aware of this letter. Casey said who wrote the letter? Wylie said Annette Zemon-Parker. She’s a new person we just appointed to HDC about a month ago.
Wylie said I do, I have to say myself, I do think it was incorrect that the homes that had their status changed, that those residents were not notified before all this, before the SHPO was notified, before the public hearing. They should have been told that the status of their homes are going to be changed because that has a big difference on their future as far as – (Michael Moon raised his hand) – (continuing), Wylie said hang on, their future as far as making any kind of changes to any construction they now have. (Michael Moon raised his hand again.) Wylie said I’ll get you in a minute. I know you got your hand up. I know you both have your hands up. I do think it does make, they should have been notified. And just like if your next-door neighbor is gonna do something next door to you, you are told, everybody with, I don’t know, 200, I don’t know what the minimum is, but everybody’s notified that there’s going to be a big change made to their neighborhood. People should have known this.
Wylie recognized Michael Moon and said yes, go ahead.
Michael Moon said it does not change. The only thing that this change affects is that people who are considered to have property that is historical, okay, that changed approximately 14, 15 properties. Okay, the only thing that changes is they are now eligible for the Historic Preservation Tax Credit. That’s what changes. They’ve always had to come to the Historic District Commission if they want to make changes to their property. That does not change. They’ve always had to come to the Historic District Commission. Historic District Commission has purview over those properties. So that does not change. Only thing that changes is they are eligible for the Historic Preservation Tax Credit.
Avery said so, you’ve done them a favor. Michael Moon said yes. Wylie said so, you’re saying that, for instance, before, previous to this, a house that was built in 1955, before they were not, now they’re, before they were significant, is that the term? Ryan said period of significance. Wylie said in the period of significance. Before that, they could change their, they could change their, if they wanted to change their windows, they had to come to you guys and get approval for that? Michael Moon said exactly. Wylie said and now it’s gonna be exactly the same? Moon said exactly. Wylie said because somebody on the HDC who’s not here tonight told me something different. Peg Roth said me too.
Wylie said okay, let me get, I’ll, go ahead, Nancy (Moon). And then I’ve got Peg waiting.
Nancy Moon said first of all, the HDC did not control the study. Wylie said I, and I understand, and I did talk to Zemon-Parker because I only got, I did tell her that. Nancy Moon said we need to make this crystal clear. This was not done by the HDC. Wylie said yes. Nancy Moon said it was done by an independent group. Wylie said yes. Nancy Moon said our guidelines came from the State Historic Preservation Office, which got its guidelines from the National Park Service. So it was, I know it may seem like we worked in a vacuum, but a lot of people knew what was going on. The people in that particular house, I talked to her husband at great length. I did not talk to her personally. So yes, this building right here, when you went to make changes, Smith came before the group to have those changes, one most recently was to put in a fence, if I recall. They put in a fence back here, I think it was. So yeah, it, could we have done it differently? Maybe, but we followed the guidelines that we were given by SHPO. And it is [Michigan Complied Laws] 399.203, is the act. This entire act is in volume three of the book. And it says, we had to notify everybody in writing, which is what we did.
Wylie said and I do know you came to the council periodically and told us what was going on. Nancy Moon said yes. Wylie said but I do, I mean, if I was one of the homes, I would want to be personally gotten a letter, personally addressed letter saying, by the way, just so you know, your house is now within the significant period. Avery said well, she talked to her husband personally. I mean, what else? Wylie said she’s not the only one who’s upset. Nancy Moon said but what I would like to see, but it’s not up to me. Assuming this is approved by the city council, I think it would be nice if something was in the local news saying, hey, people, you now have access to the historic tax credit. This is how you go about getting it. I think that would be wonderful. But that’s not up to me.
Wylie said so that’s the only change, that is the only change that’s going to affect home owners. They now are eligible to get the tax credit. Nancy Moon said and that’s a Michigan state tax credit. Wylie said I understand that. Not property tax. Not property tax. Wylie said right. Nancy Moon said okay. Wylie said yeah. Nancy Moon said and, you know, as I pointed out that night, I don’t have the latest form because they always change it in January and January is still here. Wylie said right. So unfortunately, we don’t have that. But I do know people in the village have applied. Whether they got money, I don’t know. They never came back and said yes or no. And it’s none of my business personally whether they got money or not. I know people in surrounding communities did. Wylie said okay.
Wylie recognized Roth for a comment.
Roth said the notice, we are two of the properties. There are 18 that they are changing the qualifications or whatever the term is. I also have been led to understand there was a different distinction between being a home that is contributing and a home that is within HDC boundaries. I think you all got this notice that I received. This was the letter that was sent. As a matter of fact, I asked Mrs. Moon, were these property owners notified? And she said, well, no. But then she remembered that she did go over to my neighbor’s house and speak with her husband when Zemon-Parker was not at home about why this would be this big tax break if you would willingly become a part of this. So, both of our properties, we were not notified other than this note, which at the top, you can see the handwriting. During a SCAMP meeting, the day of this meeting, my daughter’s on the SCAMP board and Beth Kirschner approached her and said, why is there a meeting tonight about SCAMP? Or I’m sorry, about the Mill Pond. And my daughter, who is a representative there, said, there isn’t. And she said, well, I have a notice at home that tonight there is a meeting, and if I don’t have to go, please let me know. So, Tara then called Smith, who said, I don’t know who wrote that note. I mean, I have looked, made sure it was on this letter when we got it at the office. Smith said he was going to announce it before the meeting that this is not about the Mill Pond. I don’t believe it was ever said, but this is the, this is it. And this says, the Clarkson Historic District Study Committee. But this was, it’s very vague. That’s all it says, is to come for their – Nancy Moon said public hearing. Roth said yeah, a public hearing to review the findings. How would a homeowner know? Oh, this is about my house. 18 homes that are privately owned homes. So, I made some calls today and I ended up speaking to a municipal attorney who says, told me, the right to due process applies when government action adversely affects the personal property rights. So, if a classification of a property will create new restrictions on use or improvement, before the classification can be applied, the owner is entitled to notice, explaining the proposed action and a right to a hearing to object to the action. We never received, and I am willing to bet, I know of at least one other person that I have been trying to reach. I think it is very unfair to be doing anything to someone’s private home without their knowledge.
Avery said well, I guess maybe I’m misunderstanding, but I thought you just said that it had to be adversely affecting their property. Roth said or. Leah McLean said or. Avery said or what. Roth said either or. Either or, yeah. Or improvement. Or improvement. Avery said adversely. McLean said creates new restrictions on use or improvement. Avery said right, and I don’t, unless Mr. Moon is. McLean said it’s affecting it, improvement, if tax, if you’re gonna get a tax, that’s an improvement to you, but it’s either way, it’s impacting. Jones said but that’s not adversely. Avery said yeah, the key word’s adversely, like it’s a negative to you. And I haven’t heard anybody say that it’s, that what was done here adversely affected your property rights or your property. Roth said I think it’s just something – (interrupting Roth), Avery said I know you think so, you believe it, but until someone tells me specifically, then I have a hard time. Roth said you have a hard time thinking that an owner of a, a private owner of a home. Avery said if somebody sent me a, or told me that, and I didn’t know this beforehand, that they passed a law that allows me to get a tax break, and I’m gonna complain about it? I don’t understand. What am I missing? McLean said I think it’s a decency, I think it’s a decency. Avery said they do it all the time. McLean said it’s a courtesy. Avery said they give us tax breaks. McLean said it’s being kind.
Wylie said okay, hang on. Erica (Jones) has been waiting patiently. McLean said sorry.
Jones said all right, so I just wanted to get two things clarified so that they can be on the record or whatever. So, the 1970 thing, that is actually coming from the federal government. Nancy Moon said well – (interrupting Moon), Jones said or who has said that 1970 is the new historic? Nancy Moon said okay, when the city council established a study committee in December of 2019, we were all volunteers. We were still all volunteers. We were not experts. We started a series of classes with the State Historic Preservation Office. The first one was held in-person in February of 2020. All the rest of them were online, and we all know why. Okay? What they do, because the state, as well as many other states, have been given the charter, we need to maintain our historic properties within the state or within the country. Okay? And so, they take the current year. We met in 2020. They subtract 50. That becomes 1970. That’s the magic number they came up with. Jones said yeah, so just to get into the point that this 1970 was not arbitrarily decided upon at a local level, it’s coming from a higher, so that the 1970 isn’t just like being thrown out as just like, whew, let’s just add new houses to the HDC.
Michael Moon said 50 years before the current date is the historical date. (Unintelligible crosstalk between council members.) Wylie said yeah, so just to simplify it, the State Historical Society, they said 50 years, and that’s where the 1970 number comes. Nancy Moon said right, and they said, your charter is, you need to provide documentation on all the structures and landscapes, which includes the Mill Pond, the dam, Depot Park, and Parke Lake. It may seem strange, but they had to be included, okay? We had to send them volumes one and two, probably 1,500 pieces of paper.
Wylie said excuse me, Nancy, that’s all stuff you talked about during the hearing. I think you answered Jones’ question. Jones said yeah, no, and so, okay, and so then, just to reiterate this again, so we can understand what is happening to the homes from 1970 prior that are now being added to this, what, 15 to 18 new homes. So, the only thing changing, they were still having to go to the, they still have to go to the HDC like they had previously, like before they had to get these, the same type of approval. Michael Moon said for external work, yes. Jones said for external work, okay. And so now they get the tax credit from the state as a result of that. However, it sounds, if I’m understanding this correctly, these new, the new houses that were added, they didn’t receive the letter, okay. Nancy Moon said they got the public hearing. Jones said they got the public hearing, okay. Nancy Moon said everybody got the public hearing letter. Jones said yes. Nancy Moon said okay, and then, you know, the state sort of leaves it up to the community then to figure out, you have, first people we went to was the planning commission, believe it or not. We had to go to the planning commission because they had to approve the boundary. Well, the boundary never changed, okay. Then we had to do a public hearing and then we bring it here. When all those boxes are checked, copies of everything go to the state, okay. It goes on file. So, if somebody turns in an application for the tax form, they’re gonna look up that document and say, yes, here’s a document. It’s recent. Here’s the history, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You used to have to put that in the form. Right now, you don’t, okay.
Wylie said I’m sorry to cut you short, but again, this was stuff you talked about at the public hearing. Jones said yeah, so I apologize for that. So, just so I’m clear. So, the 1970 wasn’t that. Was it not? Wylie said that’s good to know. Jones said yeah, it wasn’t locally. Everyone got the letter about the thing. And in terms of external improvements to the homes, that’s not changing from what it has been previously. And now they are eligible for the state tax credit. Nancy Moon said correct. Jones said all right, cool, thank you.
Nancy Moon said the only other change is the state uses the words historic and non-historic. Everybody used to use contributing and non-contributing. When they changed, I don’t know. And just to clarify for me, and Mike (Michael Moon), you’re on the HDC, so you know this. So, the difference between a non-historic home in the HDC and what is now an historic home in the HDC, say it was built in 1955, there is no difference to how it is judged and advised by the HDC between now and say a year ago. Michael Moon said that’s correct. Wylie said okay, all right. That’s what I was – Michael Moon said as long as it’s in the historical district.
Wylie said by the way, I’ve been corrected. It’s historic, not historical. Ryan said this whole process was the original charter in the HDC and that the ordinance was 1830 to 1930. Wylie said and that’s 1832. Ryan said that they realized under (unintelligible) because we were a village until 1832. So now they’ve changed it to 1832 to 1930 is our initial portion. And 50 years from, 15 years or 50 years added to that is it went to 19 – (interrupting Ryan), Nancy Moon said no, it’s 50 years from 2020. Ryan said yeah, right, from 2020. So that, but that put us at, they went from 1930 to 1970. Wylie said okay, great. Cool. Wylie said I think we’re (interrupting Wylie), Jones said just needed to get that 36,000 foot over again.
Michael Moon said one more thing. Wylie said one more thing. Michael Moon said some people may seem to think that there’s something insidious about this. The whole idea, it comes from the national level trying to help preserve historic structures. The Michigan component of that, one of the ways that they wanted to help do that was this historic preservation tax credit program. They voted in actually more money this year to support it, I think up to $3 million. So, in order to use this money in an appropriate way, they want to get as many possible structures within their umbrella. Ryan said and now they’re recognizing mid-century structures as opposed to, you know, the structures built in 1880 or 1890 or, you know, now mid-century modern is now considered, because of its age and effects. Michael Moon said exactly, Tom. Ryan said so, like it evolves. Michael Moon said they haven’t, there hasn’t been a lot of respect for the mid-century structures until now. And they’re finding that, oh, we are losing these structures. We need to preserve them. Wylie thanked Michael Moon.
Wylie recognized McLean for a comment.
McLean said I just, I think it’s great. I think it’s great that there’s money. And I think that if this is what the historic district study committee is indeed, you know, intending, then it’s just logical to be, maybe I’m wrong. And I think it’s a courtesy to these homes that this Nancy Moon and her people, I mean, I remember when she went around, like, it looks good to be talking to the homeowners. Like, hey, we care about you. Like, why weren’t they? If it’s a good thing. And we’ve had so many conversations about HDC versus homeowners. Like, this is a place where something good is happening. So, I just don’t understand why there’s all this, like, secrecy – (interrupting McLean), Ryan said well, except for respectfully, I mean, everybody got a notice. McLean said everyone got, yeah. I got a notice. Ryan said whether you want to prepare, pardon me – Roth said did you see the notice? McLean said yeah, I did. The notice doesn’t say, you might be, this is gonna encompass the 18 homes. And like, you might be one of those 18 homes, by the way. Ryan said but there are more than 18 homes. McLean said absolutely. Ryan said okay, but so everybody in the district, everybody got this notice. McLean said yes, I got one too. I’m just saying, it’s actually a bridge builder. Wylie thanked McLean.
Wylie recognized Nancy Moon for a comment and said really short. Nancy Moon I know there’s a lot of concern about a letter sent because of Mill Pond. There was also one sent, a second one sent to city hall because of Depot Park. Wylie said okay. Nancy Moon said and he said, blah, blah, blah, this is in accordance with Depot Park because that’s inside the historic district.
Wylie said may I make a suggestion, and I realize your committee is done, but maybe those 18 homeowners could receive a letter saying, congratulations, you are now a, I’m sorry, historic home in the district, and you are eligible for this tax credit. Michael Moon said it would come from the city. Wylie said come from the city. Okay. Because you guys are eligible. Nancy Moon said but we more than, we have, Carol’s [Sawyer] on the committee, Cara’s [Catallo] on the committee. Smith said wait, no. Wait a minute. I wasn’t, no, I didn’t know that was my assignment. Moon said we can do that. Wylie said yeah, his name’s not on this list. And by the way, thank you very much for the people who are on the committee, for the committee resources, special thanks to the people who made the maps and all that.
And we do have a resolution resolved by Jones and supported by Forte to adopt the following resolution.
(Wylie read the resolution.)
Wylie said and we need a roll call.
Wylie, Rodgers, Forte, Avery, Casey, Jones, and Quisenberry voted yes.
Wylie said okay, and thank you, that means the resolution is declared adopted.
Wylie said and I do have a question. So, is Guillen clerk now? Because this certification said, no, (to Smith), Wylie said you’re shaking your head, no. Smith said Ryan wrote this, I’m sorry. Wylie said oh, okay, all right. Smith said there’s a question, no. I’m still the clerk. Wylie said okay, all right. (To Ryan), Smith said all right, thank you. (Unintelligible crosstalk.) Wylie said I know, also mine are too.
Item 10e – Resolution: Participation in the 2025 NoHaz Recycling Program, Approval of the Interlocal Agreement (Video time mark 2:15:54):
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- Resolution – 2025 NoHaz Program Participation and Interlocal Agreement (page 115/146 of the council packet)
- North Oakland County Household Hazardous Waste Interlocal Form Agreement (page 117/146 of the council packet)
- Exhibit A – 2025 Projected NoHaz Budget (page 131/146 of the council packet)
- Exhibit B – 2025 Estimated Costs (page 132/146 of the council packet)
- NoHaz Program Description (page 134/146 of the council packet)
- 2024 NoHaz Information for the City of the Village of Clarkston (page 140/146 of the council packet)
- 2024 NoHaz Program General Information (page 141/146 of the council packet)
- 2024 NoHaz Statistics (page 142/146 of the council packet)
Wylie said we’ve got a resolution, participation of the 2025 NoHaz recycling program approval by the inter-local agreement. And I’ve got to find, I’m getting so messed up now. Forte said I know, me too. Jones said if you need it. Wylie said if anybody’s got it, thank you.
(Wylie read the resolution.)
Wylie said and I need someone to resolve and then a second.
Resolution by Jones; second Wylie.
Wylie said any discussion from council.
(To Avery), Wylie said do you have a discussion. Avery said no.
Wylie said by the way, it’s a great program and they run it really, really well. You can get rid of all your electronic junk which you have to pay to get rid of.
Wylie said anybody else discussion in public.
Wylie recognized Guillen for a comment. (Guillen made an unintelligible comment.)
Wylie said oh, okay. Anybody else comments or questions?
No comments.
Wylie said then we need a roll call.
Forte, Jones, Quisenberry, Casey, Avery, Wylie, and Rodgers voted yes.
Wylie said and the resolution is adopted. Thank you very much.
Item 10f – Resolution: Budget Amendment (Video time mark 2:18:37):
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- Resolution – 24/25 FY Budget Amendment (page 145/146 of the council packet)
- 24/25 FY Budget Amendment Request – January 27, 2025 (page 146/146 of the council packet)
Wylie said and now we have the resolution on the budget amendment. Thank you again, I can’t find it.
(Wylie read the resolution.)
Hey guys, this is the interesting stuff. They’re all leaving.
(Wylie continued to read the resolution.)
Wylie said and the schedule is attached. Jones said it’s on another page. Wylie said on another page. Jones said the last page here.
Resolved by Forte; second Jones.
Wylie said anybody with any discussion from council.
No discussion.
Wylie said anybody in the public.
No discussion.
Wylie said we need a roll call.
Casey, Avery, Forte, Quisenberry, Wylie, Jones, and Rodgers voted yes.
Agenda Item #13, Adjourn (Video time mark 2:20:18):
Wylie said and I need a motion to adjourn the meeting.
Motion by Jones; second Rodgers.
Motion to adjourn passed by unanimous voice vote.
Wylie said we are adjourned at 9:20.
Resources:
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- Link to video recording here
- 01-27-2025 – City Council Packet