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 OK it’s seven o’clock, she’s going to call the meeting to order, and if everybody would rise they will say the Pledge of Allegiance.
Agenda Item #2, Pledge of Allegiance (Video time mark 0:00:04):
Pledge said.
Agenda Item #3, Roll Call (Video time mark 0:00:26):
Wylie said they would move on to Item #3, Roll Call, and she asked Karen DeLorge (clerk) to please call the roll.
Sue Wylie, Gary Casey, Mark Lamphier, Laura Rodgers, and Peg Roth were present.
DeLorge said Quisenberry is excused.
Wylie said Amanda Forte was absent, out, well, what it takes to get excused.
Agenda Item #4, Approval of Agenda (Video time mark 0:00:54):
Wylie said OK, Item #4, approval of the agenda. She needed a motion to approve the agenda as it’s written.
Motion by Rodgers; second Roth.
Wylie asked if there was any discussion on the approval of the agenda.
No discussion.
The motion to approve the agenda passed by unanimous voice vote.
Wylie said that’s approved.
Agenda Item #5, Public Comments (Video time mark 0:01:15):
[Though public comments can sometimes irritate the city council, there is value to both the council and the public in hearing them. While they can’t eliminate public comments entirely without violating the Open Meetings Act, your city council has occasionally decided not to acknowledge public comments during a city council meeting unless the person submitting the comments also appears at the meeting (in-person or electronically) to personally read them. In the past, members of the public have been cut off for exceeding the city council’s arbitrary three-minute time limit (it’s arbitrary because no time limits are required by the Open Meetings Act).
If your public comments were submitted to the council but not read, or if you tried to make public comments but your comments were cut short, please email them to clarkstonsunshine@gmail.com and I will include them in my informal meeting summaries either under public comments or under the specific agenda item that you want to speak to.]
Wylie said Item #5 is public comments.
(Wylie read the rules for public comments.)
Wylie asked if anybody would like to make a public comment.
No comments.
Wylie said OK, hearing none, and she did not receive any emails this time, so she will close public comments.
Agenda Item #6, FYI (Video time mark 0:01:53):
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- 2024 NoHaz Program Flyer (page 3/30 of the council packet)
Wylie said they are moving on to Item #6, which is FYI.
Wylie recognized Roth for a comment.
Roth said she did have a couple of things. Roth said she has been contacted by the Clarkston Community Schools program, and they’re going to reinvent their art program. So far, she has forty prints. Roth said she didn’t know if anybody remembers it, but there’s a large art show at the high school, at the administration building. They have over three hundred pieces of art between all the schools, and then the businesses pick which ones they would like to hang in their businesses. So far, she has fifty pieces of art already picked up. They’re hoping the village maybe can do a couple in here. Instead of the originals, they’re doing high quality prints this year and then next year hopefully they’ll get back to the originals. The art show runs from April 19th until May 10th and then the artwork will be distributed after that for probably until the end of the school year. Roth said she would talk to [nodded in the direction of Jonathan Smith city manager] and see if he would be interested.
Lamphier asked if they take donations, do you bid on them – Roth said no, it doesn’t cost anybody any money. It’s the kids, the kids have this art show. It’s a big show in the administration building every year and so, what they’ve done in the past is the retailers would all go to the art show, and they would tag which ones they wanted. This time, the art teachers are doing a brochure they will distribute to the teachers, they’ll fill in their order, they distribute the work, they’ll pick the work up, so it’s just a matter of putting it up. It’s a really nice program.
Roth said oh and then also Pinwheels for Prevention, the month of April. Roth said she would drop this (holding a form) off to DeLorge so if anybody is interested, she has the form.
Wylie said OK and asked if anyone else had any FYI.
Wylie said she just had just one brief one. Last week, she went to the SEMCOG [Southeast Michigan Council of Governments] General Assembly and learned some very interesting things and met some very interesting people, but one thing she thought was interesting was Clarkson was actually highlighted a little bit in it. They did a program on big data, and how a lot of communities use lots of data, and how SEMCOG helped Clarkston work with the Safe Streets and Roads Program using data, and they supplied Clarkston some information to try to hopefully sometime in the future make our streets safer and everyone around me is going “the picture, the picture.” They had a picture of Main Street on there.
Wylie said OK, moving on to Item #7, Sheriff’s Report – (interrupting Wylie), Smith said the NoHaz. Wylie asked if she missed something, oh Smith is right, NoHaz. They do have that in there.
Smith said it’s just talking about the upcoming collection event. Wylie said OK. Smith said the same as last year. Wylie said $15 a load. Smith agreed. Wylie said she sees there’s one coming up on April 27th at the Oakland County Service Center campus. They’ve mentioned, she thinks, every year that it’s a good program, it’s easy, and well-run.
Wylie asked if there were any questions or comments on that.
Smith said they won’t have one at Pine Knob this year. People have asked. It’s because Pine Knob is repaving their parking lot, and they have to do it in spring – Wylie said before the concerts get going – (continuing), Smith said so the April, the normal April time for that isn’t gonna fit in this year, so that’s why there’s two at the Oakland County Service Center. Wylie said OK. It’s a great way to get rid of your paint and electronics, because electronics, a lot of those, you have to pay to get rid of. That’s good.
Agenda Item #7, Sheriff Report for February 2024 (Video time mark 0:05:26):
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- February 2024 Oakland County Sheriff Department Monthly Report from Lieutenant Richard Cummins (page 5/30 of the council packet)
Wylie said OK, now they have the Sheriff’s Report. She didn’t see anybody there. She printed out the paper because she couldn’t read the little one.
Wylie asked if anybody had any questions or comments on the Sheriff’s Report.
Roth said citations are up by a lot. Lamphier said yeah, January to February. Roth agreed.
Smith said after their last meeting, he met with, he went to the township one day and met with Lieutenant Rich Cummins. He told them about their concern about some speeding going on the city, and some really crazy drivers in the city, and he says he will step it up no problem. He will send some additional officers out there. So, Smith would like to think that some of these citations or traffic citations, were a result of some additional patrols that he’s been doing. Wylie said OK. Smith said now, whether that will last, or how long, he doesn’t know. It’s one of those squeaky wheel kind of things so he’ll continue to be the squeaky wheel. Wylie said OK, good.
Agenda Item #8, City Manager Report for 03-25-2024 (Video time mark 0:06:44):
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- City Manager Report (page 6/30 of the council packet)
Wylie said all right. Item #8 is the City Manager’s Report, and Smith’s report is in the packet. Wylie asked Smith if he wanted to comment on anything.
Smith said well, he’ll cover the second one first. The Depot Park staging area cleanup is underway. There are pictures on the desk, but everything looks kind of gray, but the first picture on the left is the before. It’s really just hard to even see the stacks of brush and wood that’s back in there, but there was a lot, and Otto Tree Service did an amazing job. And so, this is what it looks like afterwards on the right. There’s a lot of work yet to be done to remove some old concrete and pavers, some old playground equipment, so Jimi [Turner, DPW supervisor] is going to work on that. And the pavers, you might ask well, don’t we need pavers up on Main Street because they’re disintegrated. Yes, we do, but these are considerably just as bad and they’re still out in the weather, so they’re just as disintegrated as the ones on Main Street. So, they won’t give us any value (unintelligible). Wylie said OK.
Smith said he’s going back to the first topic. He did go to the Michigan Municipal League’s [MML’s] Capital Conference. A lot of this, this conference is a little drier than the fall conference. It’s all about legislation and how this impacts your local community, but they did have an interesting update from Michigan’s Chief Growth Officer. It’s a new position that was created to address the fact that Michigan is losing population. You might say well, why is that a problem for us, our community is full, but in time, they’re envisioning the young adults leaving the state, and it’s kind of sad because when they grow up here, they’re educated here, and then we lose them, so this effort is to try to retain those people, make it a good spot for them to live.
Smith knows he’s talked in the previous council meeting about the importance of placemaking, and to him, this really brought it home, because what they’re saying is, with young adults, some new patterns, especially since COVID, is young adults, and they’re talking eighteen to thirty. It used to be they were attracted to communities where there were jobs. That is not so much an importance now because of the ability to remote into your job, so a lot of these, what’s changed, and a lot of these young adults, is the priorities have flipped, the jobs is like second, number one is a community that they love, that they want to live in, and everything is within reach. Some of these young adults don’t have cars, or heck, don’t even have a driver ‘s license. They use Uber to get, if they have to go a far distance; otherwise, they walk or have a bike, but they want to live in a small community where everything is close by, and so placemaking is really an interesting higher priority than it used to be, Smith thinks, because you want to retain these young adults. Yes, we have a full community right now. We don’t have any problems selling our houses. Great demand for homes in Clarkston, but they’re saying long term, the trajectory is not good. These young adults are leaving the state and one of the states gaining the most young adults, believe it or not, it’s Indiana. Smith isn’t from Indiana but it, to him, it sounds like a farming community or oil refineries. No offense to Indianians, but he was just was surprised how many people, they’re tracking them, and they’re saying they’re leaving Michigan and going to Indiana. And they say the main reason is because it’s all within reach, well within walking distance, a great small-town community that they can walk, and they can, there’s restaurants, there’s bars, there’s grocery stores, all within a short distance, and that’s the kind of community that these young adults are looking for. It’s not so much jobs anymore.
Smith said so, it was really an interesting presentation by this Chief Growth Officer and her council, it was a really amazing council, and they had some just brilliant people, they’re doing some really amazing things to find out why people are leaving the state. So, that to him was the most important presentation at the Capital Conference, but overall, he loves going to these conferences. He just learns so much every time he goes to them. Really well done.
Wylie said you know, at SEMCOG, they also talked just very briefly about population and how they’re looking very closely at it also. Basically, they showed a graph. Smith agreed and said SEMCOG’s got all the data (unintelligible). Wylie said it looked like the decline was slowing. Smith said OK. Wylie said because she thinks they had just gotten some real recent data. Smith said OK.
Wylie asked if there were any questions from anybody on council about the city manager’s report.
No questions.
Wylie asked if anybody else had a question or comment.
No comments.
Wylie said all right, they’ll move on.
Wylie recognized Lamphier for a question.
Lamphier said he’s not on the agenda, but he’s just wondering about the dam. Any updates there?
Smith said it’s been slow, very slow, and he’s talked to this Ryan Wolkowski [Woloscyk?] from the Water Resources Commission [Oakland County Water Resources Commission] as to why it’s going so slow, and he says it’s because well, first of all, there’s like three of these projects, similar projects, going on in southeast Michigan right now, so that’s part of it, why it’s taking longer, but the engineering company that we hired, or the grant wants to hire this engineering company to design, what was potentially going to be the dam, and they took a lot longer than expected. Something they thought would take about two or three weeks took two to three months, and Smith is not sure it’s even still done at this point. So, it’s going a lot slower. It is moving forward. It’s just taking a lot longer. The concern is our grant money which was supposed to get us through phase one, which is the design phase, the design engineering phase, the concern is we could run out of money but Wolkowski tells Smith that so far, so good. It’s just taking longer. Lamphier said moving ahead.
Wylie asked if anyone else had a comment.
No additional comments.
Agenda Item #9 – Motion: Acceptance of the Consent Agenda as Presented (Video time mark 0:14:00):
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- 02-26-2024 Final Minutes (page 7/30 of the council packet)
- 03-11-2024 Draft Minutes (page 10/30 of the council packet)
- 03-25-2024 Treasurer’s Report (page 12/30 of the council packet)
- 03-09-2024 Revenue and Expenditure Report for the Period Ending 02-29-2024 (page 13/30 of the council packet)
- Carlisle/Wortman February invoices (page 22/30 of the council packet)
Wylie said Item #9 is a Motion, Acceptance of the Consent Agenda as Presented on March 25th, 2024, and that includes the final minutes from February 26th, the draft minutes from March 11th, the Treasurer’s Report dated today, March 25th, and the documents are included in the packet.
Wylie asked if anyone would make a motion on that.
Motion by Lamphier; second Casey.
Wylie asked if there was any discussion.
No discussion.
The motion to accept the consent agenda passed by unanimous voice vote.
Wylie said it’s approved.
Agenda Item #10, Unfinished Business [Old Business] (Video time mark 0:14:40):
Item 10a – Discussion: Follow Up On The March 11th Public Hearing On Potential Depot Park Changes (Video time mark 0:14:41):
Wylie said Item #10, Unfinished Business, discussion, follow up on the March, Wylie said she just realized she left some papers at home, follow up on the March 11th public hearing on potential Depot Park changes. So, they had the public hearing last week, or she’s sorry, two weeks ago at the last meeting and she wants to say maybe twenty, twenty-five people spoke at that. Well, she also got some emails, and council got some emails, and this is what, she put together a little chart mostly for her own, where she went through, she was making notes on everybody’s comments and then she kind of did a chart and little tally to see where people stood so she could, more than just her thoughts on what happened, she wanted to see a little bit more, something more tangible, and what she saw was there were more people saying do nothing than anything else.
Wylie asked if anybody else wanted to comment or say anything. If you look at Lamphier, he looks like he’s ready to go.
Lamphier said no, he means, he wasn’t there but he did watch the tapes – Wylie said OK, good – (continuing), Lamphier said of the meeting and he kind of felt that way too, that it seemed like it was more favoring not doing a whole lot, but he thinks part of it was brought, maybe the electrical, upgrading that. Wylie said yes. Lamphier said when they have events down there, he thinks that’s a really good idea. Wylie agreed. Lamphier noticed coming in here and they, he thinks Mr. Lowrie [Tom Lowrie, Friends of Depot Park and Clarkston Optimists Club member] mentioned that some of retaining – (interrupting Lampier), Wylie said he mentioned some block walls – (continuing), Lowrie said walls and stuff, and they are falling apart, so he means, it looks like there’s some things that need to be done just to keep up what we have. Wylie agreed.
Wylie said she knows that the do nothing, lighting, there was a couple of comments on lighting. Lamphier agreed. Wylie said do some event lighting and she knows they always look at Rodgers, and there was a number of comments where people said but don’t have them on all the time, and then there were some comments about path lighting, perhaps low lighting that would just illuminate the paths for safety’s sake. Wylie said actually, some people spoke to her after the meeting, not immediately after meeting, but they walked home after that meeting and talked about how dark it was walking through the parkway, this is down towards Middle Lake and then getting on Main Street, and it was dark, and of course, once you’re out of the park, you’re out of the park, but there were some concerns. They said that, to them, that just emphasizes how we need some lighting to make walking safer.
Wylie pointed to Roth and Rodgers and said you two were here. Rodgers said she thinks Wylie’s assessment was pretty spot on for who was here. Wylie agreed. Rodgers said you know, just she knows the question came up, like, how do we know where this is going to go, or how do we get our input, how do we vote, and Rodgers doesn’t know that they have still, she doesn’t know, maybe they will never get a consensus of more than, you know, thirty people of what is wanted in the park and what’s not wanted in the park. If you take, took what they had here that night, which was probably thirty to fifty people do you think, she thinks Wylie is spot on with what she was saying, she said the consensus was as far as structures go, no, not really.
Wylie said there were a few people who spoke in favor of special needs equipment. Rodgers agreed. Wylie said playground equipment for special needs children, especially (unintelligible), and there was, she believes, two people who could, were in favor of a small pavilion, so there was a cover for a picnic table.
Roth said oh, Jim Brueck. Wylie said perhaps. Roth said and then the one gentleman who spoke about the boardwalk. Wylie agreed and said he was immediately followed by somebody who said he didn’t want a boardwalk. There were two who mentioned the boardwalk that she heard.
Roth said she thinks Wylie is right about the overall consensus was do nothing. Wylie agreed.
Wylie said so what do they do.
Roth said well, right now there isn’t any money on the table, so she thinks unless they’re going back to Optimists to ask them, if they’re going to go back to the Optimists, they need a plan, what they’re asking for, and then they’ll take it back to the board, and they’ll discuss whether or not that’s something that they would consider. So, before they do that, they have to have the plan.
Wylie said so, her thoughts were, and she has talked to some of the Friends of Depot Park since the last meeting, about where they see themselves, they want to know where Wylie sees them, and she sees them still as an advisory committee to the city council, and if they need to move further, they refer anything, if there’s anything that needs to go to planning commission, they can still do that, but she still likes them as an advisory committee to the council where they say, they give them direction, this is where they would like to see them go, they work on it, they can come back to them with what they have found, and obviously, they’re going to come up with some things, some of their own ideas. Roth said and they’re the people doing it. Wylie said yeah, they’re the people doing it.
Wylie said as far as the Optimists Club though, it’s got to be kid centered. Roth said that’s the only way it’s going to be approved. Wylie agreed and said because that’s their, she thought the pavilion was a bit of a stretch. Roth said that was a bit of a stretch on them too. Wylie said so, if they want to get funding from them, it would have to be probably playground equipment or something that kids could use anything else, oh irrigation was another thing that was brought up once or twice, electrical repairing or fixing or replacing those blocks, lighting, that’s going to fall on the city or grants. Roth agreed.
Lamphier said OK, so the Optimists wouldn’t necessarily get involved with that (unintelligible). Wylie said she would say it’s extremely unlikely because that’s not their – (interrupting Wylie), Lamphier said what about the, he didn’t see it on here, he thought it was going to be on here, that Pony Cycle or whatever. Wylie said he’s going to come to the next meeting. He wanted some extra time to get some facts together. Lamphier said he was wondering if the Optimists would be interested in maybe that.
Roth said she thinks that’s all of the discussion. Wylie said OK.
Wylie said, so one of the things they’ve talked about in the past was is there, and they were going to use that last meeting as a guide to do they need to have a large public meeting like at the library where they have, they’ve done something like in the past, plans for Depot Park took place there with Julie Meredith [Clarkston Independence Library Director] organizing and coordinating it, getting opinions from people in the audience, do they want to take it to that step, or do they think they know enough now to say something. Wylie said she doesn’t want to put words in everybody’s mouth. What she heard is pretty much do nothing except for infrastructure, like lighting, irrigation, fix the blocks, if they get some money, add to the playground, and that’s going to need some work because Ken Ermer [Friends of Depot Park] keeps bringing up appropriately if they add special equipment for special needs children, they can’t isolate them in a special area, and that area (gesturing) is filled, so they have to move something out. It’s going to take some creative thinking. Roth said which is why it’s good to keep them on board because they’re the ones, they’re doing the work, they know what’s there. Wylie agreed. Roth said and all the repair work. It seems like to do another, to do again what they did at the last meeting, given that some of the same people are here, to do it again since the offer was already there, it seems like overkill. Rodgers said she didn’t like it. Casey and Wylie agreed.
Wylie said she thought if there was a lot of people two weeks ago who wanted to see more, let’s do more, let’s develop more, then that might be something to take it further but yeah, that’s not the feeling. (Rodgers made an unintelligible comment.) Roth said she thinks Wylie got the answer.
Rodgers said so, let her back up just a second. Weren’t the Optimists at one point willing to pay for lighting? Weren’t they the ones that were funding the lighting that was voted down. Wylie said Smith would know best. Smith said he didn’t think they were, they ever stipulated that as one of the enhancements. They really were focusing on the pavilions. Rodgers said so that was going to fall on the city when that resolution came. Smtih said yes. Rodgers said OK. Smtih said he believe it was. Rodgers said OK.
(Donna Papatheodoropoulos raised her hand to be recognized for a comment and Wylie signaled she would recognize her once the discussion among council had concluded.)
Roth said she means, Rodgers can always put it on the table. Rodgers agreed. Roth said and ask them. Rodgers said and ask, right. Roth said if the focus was the Christmas – Rodgers said yeah, there could be a lot of fun activities at nighttime if they – Roth said she means, she could phrase it in that, if you’re going to bring it back to them. Rodgers agreed.
Wylie said she wants to see if anybody else wants to say something, and they’ll see if they are in agreement. Wylie said she knows that Papatheodoropoulos wanted to speak.
Papatheodoropoulos said Rodgets mentioned the lighting, and you said low lighting. Wylie said the description she heard was something about this high (gesturing at around waist high) with lights shining down on the pathway and it would just be a safety, something safe for people to see where their feet are going. Papatheodoropoulos said OK. Wylie said that’s what she, that doesn’t mean that’s going to happen, doesn’t mean that’s exactly what will happen, but that was the description that was given to her. Papatheodoropoulos said OK, because she did want to mention that one of the things that was mentioned was the problem of light pollution that happens. Wylie agreed. Papatheodoropoulos said back there, it is dark, that’s very true. She’s glad they’re not having that pavilion built there because that would be built with people hanging out in the dark but big lights that would be lighting that whole part of the park would be really intrusive. Wylie said she agrees.
Rodgers said she thinks the thought was that more along the lines of having the ability to, for events, to string the party lights like they have on this side of the park throughout right now. It’s really hard to do that, even lighting and getting music and stuff like that because they’re putting extension cords everywhere and they get pulled out blah blah blah, so if they could just have the infrastructure built, that for those events they could, you know, put them up without stringing a thousand extension cords.
Wylie said she was surprised how often electric, that things electric were brought up, you know, the power, like Sam Moraco brought it up maybe (unintelligible), she can’t remember who else, but something she never even considered that for events they need more electrical service. Rodgers said if they’re going to do nighttime events. Wylie said but even daytime, she thinks. Lamphier said yeah, the vendors or whatever need some help. Wylie agreed.
Wylie recognized someone named Derek [Werner, planning commission chair] for a comment.
Werner said just on the lighting, he noticed walking home after the meeting, it was pretty dark. Wylie said that way too. Werner said it’s pretty dark on Holcomb, so maybe it’s something city-wide you can look at, you know, lighting in terms of safety. It’s a lot of walkers in this community. Wylie agreed. Werner said and to Smith’s point for losing people, you know, they want to have a safe community and having maybe better lighting for sidewalk through some people. Wylie said it’s a good point, and she knows the capital improvements plan used to have adding lighting on Main Street. Is it still on there? (Smith made an unintelligible comment.) Wylie said yeah, she thinks there were two different, there was a north Main Street and then the south Main Street. Werner said that goes more for intersections. They we can look into adding something to the next planning [commission meeting]. Wylie said based on what Werner is saying and what she heard from the people who left, and there’s been some people down her way, this, the south Main Street, Middle Lake area, who regularly complain about lighting, about not so much in the neighborhood itself but walking down Main Street, that there’s some really dark spots. Wylie drives to meetings. She wants to drive home in the dark. She’s scared. Not for anything particularly, she’s just scared.
Wylie asked if anybody else had a comment to make.
No comments.
Wylie said so, do you guys agree, should they just tell Friends of Depot Park to stick with it and see what they can do in terms of electrical, event lighting, start looking into – Roth said the blocks Lamphier mentioned. (Unintelligible crosstalk.) Rodgers said and then with the Optimists talk more about the special needs.
Roth said Ermer handed out the flyers last week. Wylie said he did. Rodgers agreed. (To Casey and Lamphier), Roth said you guys weren’t here last week. Lamphier agreed.
Rodgers said they could even move the regular kids swings across that pathway and put the special needs – Roth said she thought the one, the second one looked a little – Wylie said this is the generation swing. She thinks that these are the two swings. (Wylie passed a piece of paper to Roth.) Wylie said one is for, one you can put a bunch of people on. That’s how she understands it. Roth said but she thinks they’re both something that anybody can use. Lamphier said yeah, that’s more like a handicap. Roth said yeah, but this is for, she thinks for both. (Unintelligible crosstalk.) Lamphier said he means, so you can access the other side. Wylie said she’s sure there are other pieces of equipment, but those Ermer has been talking about that for a while. Lamphier said he’s seen something like that over on (unintelligible) park. Roth said that’s a good point. She forgets the price on it. It’s a lot, way more than the pavilion.
Wylie said so she’s got electrical, infrastructure, event lighting, the downward lighting, blocks for landscaping, special needs equipment. Do they want to add anything else to that. Do they want to add irrigation. She can put irrigation in. Smith said infrastructure. Wylie said OK.
Wylie asked if there was anything else she missed.
No additional comments.
Wylie said OK, then she will talk to them.
Rodgers said is there any way that, like, when they do talk to them that, like, they can get a kind of like a gauge as far as, a time, like, so that they’re not sitting here next March with the same questions and everyone trying to figure out when they’re going to talk about it next, you know, it’s kind of hot right now, and so maybe they can come up with some kind of rudimentary if nothing else plan. Wylie said they actually suggested, one of the members who she spoke to, suggested that they start regularly coming to city council, and Wylie thinks it was mentioned as once a month. She said maybe once a quarter because that’s what HDC [Historic District Commission] does. No final decision was made but they did agree that there probably needs to be a little bit better communication and back and forth between the council and Friends of Depot Park, so that that would probably help with that. Rodgers said all right.
Wylie asked if there was anything else before they moved on.
No additional comments.
Wylie said that was Item #10.
Agenda Item #11, New Business (Video time mark 0:30:06):
Wylie said they are at Item 11, New Business.
Item 11a – Resolution: Request to Waive the $200 Park Rental Fee for the 2024 Harmony in the Park Event (Video time mark 0:30:07):
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- Resolution – Waiving Depot Park Rental Fee for Harmony in the Park Event (page 24/30 of the council packet)
Wylie said the first thing they have is 11, a resolution, request to waive the $200 park rental fee for the 2024 Harmony in the Park event.
Carol Eberhardt said she would like to speak to it please (and started to walk toward the podium). Wylie said as, when we get, they’re going to have, council will talk about it and she will give Eberhardt a chance to talk.
(Casey made an unintelligible comment.) Wylie said Casey is probably thinking what she’s thinking, is like why don’t they take care of this before they start getting these individual requests. She doesn’t know how many they get, it comes up, she means, they’ve talked about it so often over the years about let’s make a general rule about how to handle these things. She doesn’t know if that’s what Casey is thinking but that’s what she is thinking, and she wishes she had done it.
Casey said they assume it’s confined being mainly to 501(c)(3)s, nonprofits.
Wylie recognized Smith, who said that is the way, they’ve been kind allowing in the most recent ones. Wylie said OK. Smith said generally, it’s the nonprofits. Wylie said OK.
Casey said other than that, people do the (unintelligible). Smith said yes. There was just an Easter Egg Hunt Saturday, and it was hosted by a local realtor. Roth said Spencer. Smith said she paid willingly and happily, she paid.
Casey asked Smith if he had any idea how many of these 501(c)(3)s make a request each year roughly. Smith said there’s probably going to be less than a half a dozen. It might be four or five.
Rodgers said it probably feels like more because they come to them to ask, you know, if you think about how many things go on in that park, weddings, and all kinds of things, it probably feels to them like they ask all the time but – Casey interrupted Rodgers with an unintelligible comment and said yeah, so maybe they make a resolution that Smith is the authority to waive the 501(c)(3)s so it doesn’t come to them every time and he could just report to them when it happens. What do you think? Smith said he’s fine with that. Take an agenda item like this off the agenda because it would be a quick approval.
Rodgers asked if historically, have they ever said no? Does Smith know? Smith said there has been questions a couple of times, you know, can they afford it kind of question.
Lamphier said it seems like they need to make a decision. Either they’re going to do it or not. Wylie said right. Lamphier said because OK, they’ve done it for you but not for you, so – Roth said so, should they have Smith make up a list of the ones that are the, that they see every year returning, the annual events and then they can look at those.
(Unintelligible crosstalk.) Smith said it’s in August. Wylie said so, they don’t have to do it tonight. Wylie said if it’s in August, yeah, because she would prefer to come up with some blanket policy and not have to deal with this all the time. Smith said he would agree. Lamphier said he would agree.
Wylie said so then, they have not even moved on this, you know, they don’t have Tom [Ryan, city attorney] to ask, so, nobody ‘s made a motion for this resolution. They don’t have to table it, even though it’s in their agenda. But just to cover it, she’s going to make a motion to table this resolution waiving Depot Park Rental Fee for the Harmony in the Park Event until the next meeting.
Wylie said after that, they will get Eberhardt up there to talk.
Second Roth.
Wylie said she thinks they have to be unanimous to table that.
Wylie asked for a voice vote – (interrupting Wylie), Rodgers asked if they could put a time that they’re going to table it to. Wylie said they said the next meeting. Rodgers said the next meeting, OK, all right.
Motion to table passed by unanimous voice vote.
Wylie told Eberhardt she was sorry and asked her if she would like to get up and say something. Eberhardt said what’s the point. Wylie said they are still going to talk about it.
(Still seated), Eberhardt said Harmony in the Park is an event that the local arts council runs. It’s a yearly event. It is free to the community. The age of the group is about six and under. It lasts about an hour. They hire March and Archibald from the Children State of Michigan to lead the children in songs and dancing, and they provide a craft that typically makes a musical instrument so they can participate in the music that way. It’s a yearly event. They’ve been doing it for many, many years. Wylie said OK.
Wylie said she wishes she’d known Eberhardt was giving information on it. She thought Eberhardt had an opinion on it. Eberhardt said no. Wylie said she didn’t realize Eberhardt was giving information on it. Eberhardt said she has been before the council. Wylie said oh yeah, she guesses she did know that. She connects this.
Eberhardt said so, the board asked her here. So they know, they’re doing a bunch of work. They have been charged. Wylie asked if Eberhardt could wait two weeks for a decision on this. Eberhardt said yeah. Wylie said OK. Eberhardt said she will say they have been charged, which is why, she was charged last year, and that’s why she’s coming to ask for the park fee to be waived. Wylie said OK, great.
Wylie asked if there was anything else on this Item 11a.
Roth said she thinks when they look at doing that is, will there be any restrictions on it, because each one like the one Eberhard is talking about is a day, and then other ones are a day, and the historic is like three days. Wylie said they can certainly talk about it. Lamphier said it’s a good point. Wylie said it’s a good point. Roth said she means, the big difference, you know, and the other ones that come in they’re all day, one day. Casey said just a few hours. Roth agreed. Casey said like Eberhardt. Roth said yeah, so she thinks they need to look at that as well.
(To Smith), Wylie said she assumes there’s a difference in work for the DPW [Department of Public Works] people if it’s a one-day event with children, as opposed to (unintelligible crosstalk).
Lamphier asked if it’s a $200 fee per day or per event. Smith said per event. Lamphier said per event. Roth said but most of them, again, like weddings to one day. She would think, the only one that she’s aware of is the historic [Smith’s Clarkston Community Historic Society’s annual Art in the Park event]. Are there any that are more than one day other than that one. Smith said he couldn’t think of one. Roth said even SCAMP, when they do theirs, they’re all one day. Smith said there are some that’s set up the day before, so there are some that if you include your setup, which is what the historical society does on Friday. They have to set up. The actual event is just truly Saturday and Sunday. But yeah, there are some things that do set up the day before. Concerts in the Park is, you know, they don’t ask for a waiver. They would pay, so that’s not a good example (unintelligible).
Wylie said they’ll probably want something on the agenda about making a blanket policy for, so, they would have, let’s bring this back for the next meeting and have a resolution for a blanket policy on all 501(c)(3) organizations.
Wylie asked Casey if that covered what he was interested in doing. Casey said yes. Wylie said OK.
Smith asked if they voted on that.
Wylie said they voted to table it, yeah. Smith said oh, you did vote. Smith said it was unanimous. Wylie said it was unanimous, yeah.
Item 11b – Discussion: Handicap Parking in the City (Video time mark 0:38:29):
Wylie said Item 11b, Discussion, Handicapped Parking in the City. Wylie said she actually asked for this only because she’s had a few people talk to her about, you know, think, when’s the city going to do something about handicapped parking in the city, and she knows it’s a problem, and there’s not enough, and it’s inconvenient, so she doesn’t know what they can do about it.
Smith said so, he went back to his parking study that they did a couple years ago, and they actually have a total of seven handicap spots in the city. Downtown. Wylie agreed. Smith said not including down here (gesturing). They are down one right now because of Rudy’s, where the Mill Street – Wylie said OK – (continuing), Smith said there was one that there is now unusable. So, they do have, let’s see, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, yeah. If he doesn’t include the Depot Park ones down here, they have four, five, six, seven, eight. So is there a need for more. Smith thinks there is.
Smith said what he would like to do is talk to their city engineer because there is a formula that says if you have this many parking spaces overall, X percentage should be handicapped accessible, and there are two types of handicapped accessible, the van accessible that has the extra space on the side or the non-van type. So, if the city is, if the council is interested in pursuing, you know, some additional spaces, he should start with HRC [Hubbell, Roth & Clark, the city’s contract engineer] and let them tell us how many we need and recommendations for where because he remembers last time they talked about this, there was an interest in a space over near what would be the northeast (unintelligible). Wylie agreed. Smith said there are some by Honcho, but there’s none by, you know, Two South Brunch House or Mason’s Lodge, there’s nothing there, and the problem is their grade, the pitch to handicapped spots cannot have more than a two percent pitch. Wylie said right. Smith said and so, it really became a challenge to find a spot that didn’t have some kind of pitch to it. Wylie said she remembers. Smith said they talked about they can dig it up, level it off, so you come onto the space level and then it drops back off again. It would be, some awkwardness to it he guesses is it’s the best word. So, he can dust off that conversation with HRC and see, you know, what they might recommend what we do.
Wylie said the conversation, one of the conversations she had, it was before the two spots were reopened at Two South Brunch House, the two spots on east, that’s East Washington on the south side of the street, are those, and she said what, how would those work if they open those up and turn them into handicapped parking. They said that’d be great, give them that side of town. Casey said there’s a grade there. Wylie said there’s a grade there, OK. Smith said so, they would have to regrade that and, you know, tear up the asphalt and probably you’d have to roll up from the street onto it and then we might have a curb where the sidewalk starts because it has to level off. Right now, it just angles up to the sidewalk. Casey agreed. Smith said so, it might be challenging. Wylie said it’s going to be challenging.
Wylie said sometimes, these are people who are walking with walkers or canes not necessarily – (interrupting Wylie), Casey asked what about using the spaces on Washington left. Smith said they have one in there. They could add a second one, no problem. That’s a nice flat spot. No question that would be a good place to – (interrupting Smith), Casey said he doesn’t think they should go to the expense of trying to level someplace when they’ve got little places. You know it’s possible on West Washington too. There’s a couple of spots going west and then there’s some spots on the south side. Smith agreed. Casey said that are level. Smith said those would all be good for the one type, and again, he doesn’t know the terminology, but they’re the one type that doesn’t, it’s not van accessible, so you don’t need a space next to it to get a wheelchair out onto it. So, on street, it just has to be the first level, whatever that is, handicap space. If it needs to be a van accessible, then it would best be in our parking lot.
Wylie said not having any direct knowledge, it would seem to her if somebody’s using a van accessible spot is using it for a wheelchair, motorized or, and they can move a little bit longer distance while somebody who’s using a walker a cane, or just needs a handicapped spot to be close, they don’t want to move very far, they want to be, as close to the restaurant, that’s where they’re going, restaurants and the shops, as close as possible.
Roth asked what about on Church, the three spots that are not marked. Casey asked by Honcho. Roth said yeah, right down there, more than three, she thinks, maybe five. Smith said angle spots. Roth said yes. Smith said yes, they have two right near there, further east by that telephone pole, still in front of Honcho, but it’s not, five angle spots, and then he thinks there are two, you know, he believes there are two handicapped spots there so they kind of have Church pretty well covered but something over on Washington, and whether it’s East Washington or West Washington would be, he thinks, where there’s kind of a dry spell. Wylie said a little drought, yeah. Roth said she’s heard that too. Wylie agreed.
Wylie said if Smith could talk to the engineering people again and see if maybe they can find them a couple spots, especially that, near Washington area. She thinks that would help a lot. (To the council), Wylie said do you guys agree that that’s a good idea. Roth agreed. (Roth made an additional unintelligible comment.)
Wylie said OK, thank you.
Item 11c – Motion: Appointment of a Committee to Conduct a Performance Review for the City Manager (Video time mark 0:45:02):
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- Motion – Appointment to a City Manager Performance Review Committee (page 25/30 of the council packet)
Wylie said OK, Item #11c, Motion for Appointment of a Committee to Conduct a Performance Review for the City Manager.
(Wylie read the motion.)
Wylie said so, the need a motion and a second on this to appoint a committee.
Wylie said she’ll make a motion because this is something she would like to see. Second Roth.
Wylie said all in favor, oh, they can’t vote on it yet. (Unintelligible crosstalk.)
Wylie said she did ask for this. Smith mentioned it to her when Smith and Wylie first talked a couple months ago, and she thinks it’s time. She will bring, and she has talked to Quisenberry about it. He can’t be here tonight. His thought, and she’ll bring up his thought that he wanted brought up, his thought was there are, he thought there were companies and maybe MML [Michigan Municipal League] had some services where you hire a group to come in and do a private assessment of a city manager. Well, he researched it and he has not, last they talked, found anything more about it and Wylie researched and she couldn’t find anything about it. In fairness, Wylie doesn’t think having an outside group or person come in and make an assessment of Smith is really fair because they’ve never set any goals, so, what are they looking for, she means, it’s an outside company would have to say OK, he did this, he did not do that, but we don’t have anything like that. Roth agreed. Wylie said she really thinks that two or three people on council could manage this. Roth said and then coming up with some list of expectations. Wylie agreed. Wylie said and something that could take place yearly, a yearly review. Roth said as it’s supposed to be. Wylie agreed and said it’s not fair to Smith – Roth agreed – (continuing), Wylie said because he’s like (gesturing) what do I do, what goes, what happens next, so it’s not like they’re trying to ding Smith for anything it’s just he’s asked for it. It’s for his benefit.
Smith said it’s just about managing expectations. Wylie agreed. Smith said if the council wants him to be working on this, this, and this, and not working on this, this, and this, that’s direction he needs. Otherwise, he’s left to his own devices or decisions if he doesn’t know what the council wants him to work on. Roth agreed and said working on a job with no direction is hard.
Wylie said would anybody like to be on the committee. She would like to be on the committee. Who else would like to? (Casey raised his hand.) Wylie said he’d like to be on the committee. Wylie asked if anybody else would like to be on the committee. (Roth raised her hand.) Wylie said OK, they’ve got three people. Would anybody else want to be on the committee?
Wylie told Cara Catallo to hold on a second.
(Speaking without being recognized), Catallo said she thinks that the community should be heard before they choose the committee.
Wylie said OK, hang on one second.
Wylie asked if anybody else wants to be on the committee. Quisenberry did not express any interest in it, and Wylie did not talk to Forte about it.
Wylie recognized Catallo for a comment.
Catallo said yeah, she thinks that, frankly, she kind of trusted outside source a little bit more, and she, no offense, but she prefers it to be made up of people who are serving positions that the people elected them to serve. (To Roth), Catallo said again, no offense, but Catallo thinks she’s animosity, she’s had lawsuits against the city, Catallo just didn’t know that Roth is a right fit. She knows that when Smith came up for this job, Roth brought forth somebody else who wanted the job, but Catallo is just not entirely certain that it would be fair to have somebody enter into this with a bias against Smith.
Roth said she was fine with that. Catallo doesn’t have to convince her anymore. She’s OK. She doesn’t remember doing that, but OK, they’ve had many lawsuits against, with a lot of people. It’s not a problem with her. Catallo said she just feels like it would be better, and maybe to, just, she doesn’t know, if they spoke with somebody from the MML, or if they would be open to having a resident or even a business owner or somebody not on council also serve. She just feels like to do checks and balances correctly that would be the appropriate way to do it instead of being in this situation where it seems like, you know, she just feels like there should be somebody also involved in the conversation than just council behind closed doors. Wylie thanked Catallo.
Wylie asked if anybody else had a comment.
An unidentified man said he agrees that a resident or two should be part of the committee. Wylie said OK. The man said because they’re making a decision with the village and residents besides the elected officials which they have found (unintelligible). Wylie thanked the man and asked him if he could speak a little louder. She’s having a really hard time hearing him. The man said yes, instead of just talking to them (unintelligible) he agrees that a non-board member or should be part of that.
Rodgers asked the unidentified man if he had any thoughts on how to go about selecting those people. The man said he was sorry. Rodgers asked again if the man had any thoughts on how to go about selecting the residents, just should it just be like, hey, if you want to be involved or does anybody want to – (interrupting Rodgers, the man made a series of unintelligible comments).
Roth asked if there was any direction in the charter. Because that is a requirement.
Wylie asked Werner if he wanted to make a comment or was he volunteering. Werner said he thought Eric Haven was keeping a list of hand-raisers in the city for various jobs, so he doesn’t know if that’s something they reach out to Haven or Smith if that ever happened. He just when Haven was making appointments a couple of years ago, he was keeping a list of viable candidates for whatever things came up, so you might want to check with Haven. Smith said Haven never shared it with him, so he doesn’t know if he has the list.
Wylie recognized Eberhardt for a comment.
Eberhardt said she suggests thinking about people who are serving on commissions, maybe someone from the HDC, someone from the planning commission, someone who has had direct contact with the administration of the city, not necessarily Smith personally, but the actual administration and how it works. Wylie said if they bring somebody else in, that would make sense to have somebody on the committee or commission
Wylie asked what the council thought. She asked Roth if she still wanted her name on it. Roth said no. Wylie asked if Casey still wanted his name in and he said yes. Wylie said she still wanted her name in.
Rodgers said she does think somebody from the planning committee or a citizen, however, you know, you don’t want it to (incomplete sentence). Casey said he thought Eberhardt’s suggestion is a good one. Rodgers said it’s a great suggestion. Lamphier said yeah, why not, he means, there’s no committee right now, so something is better than nothing, but (unintelligible cross talk).
Casey said (unintelligible) if they want more community input besides council, he would withdraw, they could have Wylie, two people from other committees in the city, so, you know, that’s a possibility. Lamphier said they don’t have to limit it though, do they. Wylie said no. A big committee (unintelliglbe crosstalk). Wylie said going through her mind who they could find. Werner is not volunteering. Werner said if she wants, he will. The unidentified man raised his hand and said he’s good too.
Wylie said she would really prefer, she does like the idea of having somebody who’s on a commission or, and nothing against the unidentified man, but Smith reports to city council. The unidentified man agreed. Wylie said that’s why she wanted the city council to evaluate him. Werner has a lot of experience with planning commission and city council and maybe he’s done other stuff too, so she likes the idea of having Werner, and she thinks it will be a great committee with herself, Casey, and Werner; the council would go along with that. Roth agreed.
Wylie said OK, so she thinks she jumped the gun. She said motion by her and Roth to appoint blank, blank, and blank, so she’s going to amend her motion to appoint herself, Casey, and Werner to a city manager performance review committee.
Wylie asked Roth if she still wanted to second it. Roth agreed.
Wylie asked Werner if he was willing to do this. Werner agreed. Wylie said OK.
Motion to appoint the review committee passed by unanimous voice vote.
Wylie said OK. So, the three of them will get together and put a time together
(Casey made an unintelligible comment.) Wylie said she needs at least two meetings to decide what they’re looking at. Casey said (unintelligible) vehicle are they going to use. There’s all kinds of evaluation tools out there. Maybe they get one from some other municipality. Wylie said OK. Casey said or from the – Wylie said the MML. Yeah, that’s what Quisenberry was trying to find out and he had, at last they talked, he had not had any luck. Casey said they’ve got MML. Roth said it seems like somebody would have something he (unintelligible crosstalk). Casey said if they could find something that applies to, you know, municipalities it would be good to give them a tool to work with. Wylie said OK. Casey said there are quite a few of them out there.
Smith said you can look on the internet, just google and you’ll find hundreds, but he’s right, something from a municipality makes more sense. He has one in the city that he’s used for all of his staff, but those, and they’re not necessarily goal related. It’s because they don’t do a good goal setting process like they used to do at Chrysler back in the day, so it’s more about just kind of things going right, things going wrong, what is it, what are they doing well, what do they need to improve on. Wylie said that’s a start. Smith said yes. He can share that. Wylie and Casey said OK. Wylie said the three of them can talk and figure out when and what they’re going to do. It will probably be tight getting to Werner. He’s got a full schedule. Werner said no so right now. Wylie said skiing’s over. Werner agreed. Wylie said OK.
Item 11d – Motion: Select Otto Tree Service as the City’s Dedicated Tree Removal Vendor, Replacing Shiver Tree Service (Video time mark 0:56:38):
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- Motion – Tree Removal Preferred Vendor (page 26/30 of the council packet)
- Bid Comparison (page 27/30 of the council packet)
Wylie said this is Item #11d, a Motion to Select Otto Tree Service as the City’s Dedicated Tree Removal Vendor, Replacing Shiver Tree Service.
Wylie said they’ve got a whole bunch of information here.
(Wylie read the motion.)
Wylie said so, even though this is financial, still can they do this as a motion? Is it really not? It’s just they handle business. Smith said that’s how they did it last time. There was a motion, but should it be a resolution, Ryan would have to weigh in, but it’s just picking them as our go to tree removal specialist. Wylie said right. Smith said because they have trees falling all the time. It’s probably two to three times a year where he has to bring in a tree service to do something. Wylie said OK. Smith said getting competitive bids on this, just it’s difficult getting three, finding three companies that he hasn’t already burned through this, you know, process. Wylie said right. Smith said they won’t come back.
Smith said so, it’s a challenge. The only other one they have is their electrical service. They have an agreement with Hutchinson Electric to be our preferred electrical, and it’s not that they have that many electricals, there’s a different reason than tree removal. They don’t have that much electrical work that every time he wants to find three electricians. In this case, for electrical work, they wanted one company that kind of showed their, that they were consistent in how they did things, and another electrical company comes in and says what the hell happened here, you know, this is weird the way this is wired. Smith didn’t want that, so that’s why he proposed a few years ago, probably back in 2020, that they have a preferred vendor for electrical services as well. Those are the only two contractors that they have where they bypassed the three bids. Wylie said OK.
Smith said they’ve been using Shiver for several years, but they’ve gone through some changes, and they don’t even seem to be really much in business. Wylie said plus they’re a long way away. Smith said a long way away. They really only want to come down here for big projects. If he just had one tree that fell across the road, Jimi [Turner, DPW supervisor] would probably do that anyways, that’s a bad example, but they wouldn’t want to come down here unless Smith had, you know, two, three, four days’ worth of work. Wylie said OK.
Wylie said she needs a motion and a second.
Motion by Roth; second Casey.
Wylie asked said they would start with any discussion from council.
Lamphier said he had a question. So, they kind of have somewhat of a history of cost for services, so Smith would be keeping an eye on that. In other words, this seems kind of on the line. Smith agreed. He definitely has to watch this, and Shiver has been doing this for three years, and it was just recently that Smith started getting some other quotes. So, he’d say, you know, it would be about a three-year agreement after which they should start putting it back out for quote to make sure they don’t take advantage of us. So, that would be in the process.
Wylie asked Smith if he had a contract with Otto before? Is that how it worked? Not Otto, with Shiver. Smith said with Shiver, they did it, it was nothing in writing. Wylie said OK. Smith said it was just an agreement that they would use them as their preferred vendor. Wylie said so it’s kind of it’s our way because we have the ordinance and OK.
Wylie asked if there was any other discussion and whether Lamphier got his question answered.
Lamphier said he wasn’t sure. So Smith is going to keep his eye on the charges that are coming from them. Smith said absolutely. Lamphier said OK. Smith said so, if something seems out of line you can question. Smith said if something seems out of line, he’ll get a second quote or a third quote if it seems to be out of line. Lamphier said OK, so Smith will get a quote from them. Smith said lately, Otto’s has just been – Lamphier said they want the business – (continuing), Smith said half or less than, you know, Shiver’s.
Casey said it looks like they do good work also. Smith said they do. Casey said from the pictures he saw of the cleanup back there. Smith said if Quisenberry was there he could tell Casey that they took the tree down in front of his house. These guys are just animals when it comes to getting the trees down. (Laughter.) Smith said they just go after it, and they get it done quickly, but they’re very professional. You talk to them, they’re very nice and professional or, not crude or mean. He loves them. They’ve done a great job for the city. Wylie said OK.
Wylie asked if there were any comments or questions from anybody not on council.
No comments.
Motion passed by unanimous voice vote.
Wylie said it’s approved.
Item 11e – Discussion: “See Me Flags” For Possible Use At Crosswalks In The City (Video time mark 1:02:40):
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- Photos of Flags (page 30/30 of the council packet)
Wylie said Item #11e, Discussion regarding “See Me Flags” for Possible Use at Crosswalks in the City.
Wylie asked Rodgers if she’d brought this up before. Rodgers said she had.
Rodgers said she asked Smith to put her on the agenda tonight. It’s been on her mind for a while, and then in the last couple meetings people have brought some unsafe practices in the crosswalks, and you know, our city is, we take pride in being a very walkable city. And she knows that she walks two and a half to three miles every day around the city and has had some near misses. So, the intersections that are usually, she hears questions, she herself has experienced is, of course, the Church and Main by Honcho there where there is no walking man, there’s no light there, you just kind of head your way out and hope that somebody stops.
Casey said there is a thing. Rodgers said there is a thing in the middle, yes. Then there is Clarkston Road and Main Street which seemingly should not have an issue, but both from a driver perspective and from a pedestrian perspective, she’s almost been hit in that crosswalk multiple times, and drivers have told her that if you position your car in just a certain way there’s a blind spot there, and there is. So, that’s one of the crosswalks. And then the other one is down on Walden, that was Clarkston and Main, Walden and Main Street. There’s two crosswalks actually, and the one when you’re coming onto Main Street from Walden, that’s what would that be, north of Walden, you get the green light on Walden to make your right, and if you’re not like stopped there, if you’re just coming up Walden to make a right onto Main Street, that person crossing right there gets the walking man sign, which is what her granddaughter calls it, gets you can cross sign, that sun hits you right as you’re making that right hand turn, and you make the right hand turn because you have the green light, and there’s somebody standing there in in the road.
Rodgers said and this is, a couple people have commented to her just recently, and she doesn’t know if it’s because we’re finally getting sun that they’ve noticed it or what, but anyhow, trying, she knows in the bigger scheme in the capital improvement plan there are, there’s talk about all the crosswalks and particularly the one at Depot and Main, or Church and Main by Honcho there, that they’re going to she thinks, one of it was that one parking space in front of Harrisons would be shortened or taken away, so that when you actually are standing there, you not only can see traffic coming but traffic can see you too, and she doesn’t think anybody in their cars are wanting to hit anyone, it’s just that everyone these days seems to be in their own head or in their phone or, you know, somewhere else, and all of a sudden somebody walks out, and they might not see them. So, there is, this is a very rudimentary product that is out there, and more than anything, she just wanted to get a conversation started about these crosswalks before somebody gets hurt.
Rodgers said these are flags that attach to a pole and the idea, they use them a lot in the south, but you can get them with reflectors, you can get them without reflectors, you can get them that light up, these are probably the least expensive and could actually be homemade if you wanted to, and the idea is that when you’re on one side of the street, before you cross, you grab a flag and you head out on into the street with the flag and that’s just, it’s just another sight, another attention grabber to cars that are going by.
Rodgers said the naysayers to these are they’re going to get stolen, right. Casey said what. Rodgers said they’re going to get stolen, somebody’s going to take them, right, and most likely, yes, but she thinks that they need to start thinking about not all the vandals in the world but trying to take care and protect the non-vandals of the world, right, and so one mayor from one of the cities in Chicago that has them said yes, they’re being stolen all the time, pretty soon so they own one and they’ll leave them alone, and so, that was his kind of take on it, and for, in the brief research that she’s done on the various cities that have done it, for every city that says, you know, they’re a waste, there’s another city that says they love them, so, but more than anything she thinks, she just wanted to get a conversation started because she doesn’t know that they should wait until the whole grand master plan, the capital improvement plan moves different, you know, car spaces. She doesn’t know if anybody has any other ideas that could help them help the people that are walking in our city. They have a lot of walkers in the city. in this town, and just recently, and it’s probably just because it’s spring, she’s had probably six people say to her they almost got hit at Clarkston and Main Street, like how can that be, that seems wide open, you know, or they almost, and then the most recent one was Walden and Main Street. So, Rodgers just wanted to throw it out there before she did any hardcore. To get a system like this, it was a $199, so $200 basically, for the canister, the flags, there were twelve flags, and you know, all the apparatus to connect it to the pole.
Roth said so, $200 for each intersection. Rodgers said it would be $200 for, if they were to do each, all the intersections. Rodgers said she just really wanted to get the conversation started because she’s afraid something ‘s going to get – Smith asked if Rodgers wanted to watch that video. Rodgers said you can watch it, yeah.
(Smith played a video on the display screen.)
Smith said it’s generally fuzzy there, but they were using it and it did stop all those cars that were flying along there.
Rodgers said she saw them when she was in Siesta Key last year. Wylie said she’s passing around a picture of Wylie using them in Seattle. Roth asked Wylie how that went. Wylie said it worked great. She thought it was wonderful, and she thinks she brought it to planning. The reason she had the picture was she’s bringing this back to Clarkston, and she thinks maybe they talked about it at the planning commission. She doesn’t know if she brought it to a council meeting. But they had them all over Seattle, and they worked really, really well. That picture is like five years old. She thinks she showed them the picture before, these are why, she showed Rodgers that before she thinks, yeah. Wylie thought it was a neat idea that didn’t catch people, the bright color is even better. Roth agreed.
Lamphier said they have at those crosswalks; they have the person or whatever. Rodgers said oh, the walking man. We do. Lamphier said this will make people think that they can go without the walking man’s approval. Rodgers said right. The only place they don’t have a walking man is at Honcho. There is no walking man. Lamphier said but what he’s saying is if people grab that flag, are they thinking they’re going to go without the cross light. Rodgers said oh. Casey said (unintelligible) in the middle of the road there between Honchos and – (interrupting Casey), Wylie said not the high, not the electronic lights. Roth said up high. Wylie said the pedestrian says you can walk or you can’t; the walk, don’t walk signs. Rodgers said yes, they do have that cone kind of thing in the middle of the – (interrupting Rodgers), Casey said he thinks that works pretty well.
Rodgers said well, it’s just like, you know, just so happened when she was walking here, she was on Honcho side and started to walk out and like, you know, a big old white Suburban came rolling by her at thirty-five, forty miles an hour, right, and the guy behind him stopped and kind of chuckled, you know, and was like, and go ahead, but then you’re halfway out there and you’re hoping that the guy coming this way also is, like, it’s a much bigger problem than just the walking man signs and flags, but she just wants something to start to trigger them to think that this is really an issue and not something that can wait till, you know, whatever, the thousands of dollars go into the capital improvement plan.
Smith said he did ask MDOT [Michigan Department of Transportation] for one of these the hawk signals they call them and push a button and it’s the flashing lights in both directions. So, it’s not a traffic light, but it is a pedestrian activated warning signal that I’m about to cross the street. Wylie said those are great. Smith said and they are great. They said they didn’t think this intersection warranted it, and he was talking about Depot, so ironically, they said if there had been a, if there’s been some accidents there with pedestrians, especially fatality, that would really get their attention. Roth said that would get their attention. Smith said it is really sad that it comes to that, but – Casey asked who was going to volunteer. Roth agreed.
Rodgers said she didn’t know even if this was something like, if she could find, like, you know, somebody that wanted to, was doing a project or something. Does she, would she, would they want her to like, expand with them that, because what she doesn’t want to do is find that group of people that say yeah, I’ll supply these, or I’ll make them or whatever, and then she’ll say like, no, because then they’ll have to replace them as they get, you know, they would have to make that commitment, so she doesn’t have anybody in mind, but she’s just saying if not these, what.
Wylie thinks it’s a great idea, especially at the Honcho crossing spot there. Roth said let’s try it then. Wylie said yeah, that would almost like be a pilot for them to see and she forgot if it’s Lamphier was the one who said does it do that, or Casey who said, does it override the – Lamphier said yes. Roth said the pedestrians take advantage of it. Lamphier said what if people are thinking they’re going to take it and go. Rodgers that was one of the things interestingly enough that was on the nay side. There was like yeas and nays, and nay side was stolen. Roth said that was stolen. Rodgers said and embrazens [emboldens?] people to, you know, take a step out, but maybe if they tried them at the Honcho place where there isn’t any of that anyhow. Wylie agreed and said she thinks people would have fun. She had fun doing it. Roth said Wylie directing traffic.
Rodgers said so, this isn’t a resolution or motion. She just wanted to get a feel before she, you know, gives her time. Roth said it certainly wouldn’t hurt anything to put it there.
Wylie asked Casey if he was in favor of Rodgers moving on with this. Casey said he has reservations but he’s not going to stand in the way. Wylie said maybe they didn’t think of his reservations and asked him about them. He thinks the kids around here are vandalizing the park. Rodgers said that is a very valid concern. Casey agreed. Wylie said it’s a very visible location, and there’s many times, there’s a lot of people there. Roth asked if Casey means abuse it in terms of something more than just dealing with flags. Casey said no. Roth said she agrees, they’re going to steal them, so how do you resupply what do they cost for fifteen or twelve more. Rodgers said for twelve more, they’re forty dollars. Roth said OK. She was thinking you could get the Boy Scouts or the Girl Scouts to make it. Rodgers said she was thinking like an Eagle Scout. It could kind of be a cool project. Roth agreed.
Wylie said it sounds like Rodgers has the go ahead from council.
Wylie asked if anyone else wanted to chime in on this or have experience with these.
No comments.
Wylie said OK, then they are on item, unless, does anybody have anything else to add this meeting.
No comments.
Agenda Item #12, Adjourn (Video time mark 1:15:08):
Wylie said Item #12 is adjournment, motion to adjourn.
Motion by Roth; second Rodgers.
Motion to adjourn passed by unanimous voice vote.
Roth held up a document and said she would leave it for DeLorge.
Wylie said they are adjourned at 8:16 p.m. and thanked everyone.
Resources:
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- Link to video recording here
- 03-25-2024 City Council packet