Note: links to the video recording and the council packet can be found at the bottom of this post. Please note any errors or omissions in the comments. Anything noted between brackets was inserted by Clarkston Sunshine.
Agenda item #1, Call to Order (0:00:00):
Haven wished everyone a good evening and noted that there were seven people in the audience and seven people at the table. There was no formal call to order.
Agenda item #2, Pledge of Allegiance (Video time mark 0:00:11):
Pledge said.
Agenda item #3, Roll Call (Video time mark 0:00:27):
Eric Haven, Al Avery, Gary Casey, Bruce Fuller, Joe Luginski, Laura Rodgers, and Sue Wylie were present.
Agenda item #4, Motion: Approval of Agenda (Video time mark 0:00:44):
Motion to approve the agenda as presented by Wylie; second Avery.
No discussion.
Motion to approve the agenda passed unanimously by voice vote.
Agenda Item #5, Public Comments (Video time mark 0:01:09):
Haven read the rules for public comments.
Wylie asked if they needed to read a printed public comment. Luginski said that they should at least acknowledge that they received a public comment. City manager Jonathan Smith said that they had comments from Chet Pardee, but they changed the policy, and now that they have full connection, they are not reading those. Wylie said OK. Smith said unless they’re present, they’ll read it themselves. Haven said OK. Smith said it was just reverting back to what it used to be. Haven said they can join us if they’d like.
(Chet Pardee joined the meeting late, at time mark 0:09:03)
Haven said that Pardee arrived a bit late for public comment, but they will allow him to read his comment if he’d like.
Chet Pardee:
Pardee said that there was an incident that delayed his ability to get on and wished the council good evening.
After the last council meeting the mayor advised that it would be more helpful for Pardee to offer suggestions for improvement rather than criticism of city officials.
So here goes:
I suggest the mayor provide in a February council meeting the listing of city commission positions and city council positions with terms expiring in 2022. I suggest in a June council meeting the mayor provide the listing of city commission members with expiring terms who do not wish to be reappointed. This should provide to city officials and city residents an awareness of upcoming commission appointments.
I suggest the city manager present in a February council meeting the result of the audit completed in December of the actual fund balance on 6/30/21 and his recommendation for changes to the current capital project budget items.
I suggest the city manager present in a March council meeting his recommended priority for city streets needing repair, the number of sidewalk sections requiring repair, and estimated repair costs of both streets and sidewalks.
I suggest Sue Wylie present in a March council meeting the Planning Commission’s updated status of the city’s Capital Improvement Plan.
I suggest the city manager present in a March council meeting the updated cost of the East Washington Street sewer repair and any other known city sewer repair projects which have been postponed.
I suggest the city manager present in a March council meeting the status of the grant for Miller Road repair, any updated consideration for improving safety for those walking on the intended blacktop sidewalk, and information on water levels and water health of upper and lower Mill Ponds and Parke Lake after the Miller Road culvert is replaced.
I suggest the council’s liaison to the Oakland County Drain Commission Interceptor Sewer project present in an April council meeting any timing and estimated costs for Interceptor Sewer repairs applicable to Clarkston.
I suggest the city manager and treasurer present in an April council meeting the dates of the expiring bond issues, when elections would be required to replace the expiring millage with similar millage amounts, and the estimated timing and amounts of dollars that could be provided for potential use for sidewalk and street repairs without an increase in cost to taxpayers above the current millage levels.
I suggest the city manager present to council in a May meeting a listing of the capital improvement projects and costs which were discussed for the 2022-23 budget but could not be accommodated because of expected revenue constraints.
Haven thanked Pardee and said it was always helpful to hear his thumbnail of the kinds of things that are outstanding. Haven thought that many of these suggestions have merit and he believed that many of them will be taken care of in due course. Many of them fall into their annual rhythm and he thanked Pardee again for highlighting them.
Agenda Item #6, FYI (Video time mark 0:02:11):
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- Notice of Public Hearing, Community Development Block Grant Funds (page 4/36 of the council packet)
- Notice of Special Primary Election, March 1, 2022 (page 5/36 of the council packet)
- Notice of Public Computer Accuracy Test for the March 1, 2022 Primary Election (page 6/36 of the council packet)
- Official Sample Ballot, March 1, 2022 Special Primary Election (page 7/36 of the council packet)
Haven said that Jennifer Speagle (clerk) has a lot to tell them.
(City attorney Tom Ryan entered the meeting at time mark 0:02:20 and was greeted by Haven and Luginski.)
Speagle:
They have a public hearing for 2021 CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) funds. Those were sent out.
The notice of the special primary went out. Everything should be in this week’s Clarkston News.
Speagle will be performing a public accuracy test at 2:00 on the 14th of February.
Regarding the sample ballot for the special primary, everything has been added to the website and will be in the Clarkston News.
Haven said that was excellent, and Speagle is where we need to be.
Speagle said that the absentee ballot applications should be received on Monday. Haven asked if the way it worked was that applications are sent. Speagle said that the last time she was able to do it for the primary and for the special election, so keep in mind that there are two checkmarks. If you want an absentee ballot sent for just one of them and not the other, check which one you want, or both, or none. If you don’t want any absentee ballot, you are supposed to send it back.
Haven asked Speagle if there were any applicants so far for the CDBG funds that she knew of, had she received any. Speagle said no, but it will be published in the mail, and it’s out in the kiosk, so they have until February 2nd or something. Once they see it, if anybody wants to apply for it, they can come to the public hearing. Haven said if they were going to do it, it would probably be by letter because there’s no form to fill out or application. Speagle said no, they would just have to come to the public hearing.
Haven asked if there were any thoughts or comments regarding Speagle’s announcements.
There were no comments.
Agenda Item #7, Sheriff Report for December 2021 (Video time mark 0:05:00; page 8/36 of the council packet):
Haven said that the Sheriff’s report was in the packet, and Lieutenant Hill wasn’t there tonight. Haven asked if we had a new representative from the Sheriff’s department for us. Smith said yes. Haven thought that Lieutenant Hill got promoted and asked Smith if he knew anything about that. Smith said that he did.
Smith said that that there is a new sheriff in town. Lieutenant Rich is on the phone, and he asked him to introduce himself and his background. Smith said that he met with him this past week and thinks he’s a good fit for our village.
The Lieutenant said that his name is Rich Cummins, and he has been with the Sheriff’s Department for thirty-three years. He was recently promoted to Lieutenant in October. He was in the Independence Township substation for ten years, and for six years of that he was a Detective Sergeant. So, now he’s back, seeing that Todd (Lieutenant Hill) got promoted to Captain. Glad to be back.
Haven said that was excellent and asked Lieutenant Cummins if he had anything that he’d like to reflect upon in his report, or maybe it’s Todd’s report and that’s not fair to him. Lieutenant Cummins said he would, but it was all done prior to him, and he hasn’t had a chance to talk with Todd because he just recently got out of the hospital and he’s still recuperating. Smith said that Lieutenant Hill had COVID. Haven said he hadn’t heard that. Lieutenant Cummins said that Lieutenant Hill had double pneumonia with COVID. Smith said it was very serious. Haven asked if he was recovering. Lieutenant Cummins said he was trying to leave him alone a little bit, but sometime this week he will get hold of him and go over some things with him. Haven said to tell Lieutenant Hill that they wish him well for sure. Lieutenant Cummins said he would.
Haven said that the report was in front of them and asked if anyone on council wanted to ask Lieutenant Cummins about it or just make a comment for him to follow up on.
Luginski said that December was a busy month. 184 calls for service, more than any other month of the year. Felonies were up quite a bit, relatively speaking from 1-0-1-2 to 5. Lieutenant Cummins said that was correct. Luginski said he was curious if there was any, and he knows that it’s not Lieutenant Cummins’s report, but he wanted to know if there was any indication as to what or why that would be. Lieutenant Cummins said no, he doesn’t; not being able to talk to Captain Hill about this report, he can’t comment on it. Lieutenant Cummins said that he knows that the calls for service were up. One of the first things that he did when he got to the substation last week was to tell the guys to take credit for what they do, so if they’re doing building checks or if they are in the area doing area checks, he wants them to call dispatch and get a number for that, it’s just a D card number, and they should take credit for that for that area check or that building check.
Haven said that Lieutenant Cummins had met Smith, and he’s the main man for connections. They look forward to meeting him in person at one of their future meetings, so he should please feel free to drop in. Lieutenant Cummins said he was hoping to make the next meeting. He’s not working from the office this week. He will be back on Thursday because he’s on a detail for the Sheriff’s Office, so he wasn’t able to get there tonight. Haven said OK, it’s nice meeting him long distance, and they will see him soon at one of their meetings. Lieutenant Cummins said that would be great. Haven thanked him for attending virtually.
Agenda Item #8, Discussion: Parking Revenue Update for September, [October,] November, and December 2021 (Video time mark 0:08:57):
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- Parking Fees & Parking Tickets, July-December 2021 (page 9/36 of the council packet)
Smith said that he sees that Pardee is on the line now, so maybe he wants to read his public comment (see Agenda Item #5).
(This Agenda Item #8 resumed at video time mark 0:12:41.)
Haven said that they are past public comments, and he wouldn’t take any more. He said they were going to move on to Item #8 on the agenda which is a discussion of a report that they were given about parking, parking fees and parking tickets. It’s really a six-month report since they initiated probably in July. Haven asked Smith to confirm that was the case. He remembers doing it but didn’t know exactly when it was.
Smith said that this is a report that they have not been giving the council regularly because there was not a lot of activity, but now they have six months of activity. What’s shown on the report is a combination of parking fees and parking tickets. Parking fees are on the far right and total $22,978 in the last six months of 2021, and ticket revenue was $11,540. It’s about a 2/3-1/3 ratio there. Smith said that they subtracted the actual costs from that to pay the parking attendant and supplies and what not, so the net revenue for the last six months was $28,349. That’s down a little bit, year over year. Smith said that he should say two years over year because they did not have data for the last six months of 2020 either. He would have to go back to 2019 when it was considerably higher and up to the upper $30,000 range.
Smith said that was the report and he welcomed any questions that council may have.
Luginski that that he noticed on the expenses that it has continually gone up significantly to $1,700 a month. He was curious, is that because there were more hours being patrolled? What is the reason for that big increase? Smith said exactly, more hours. They started out very, very slowly with the parking attendant, so now they are up to kind of the normal cadence. Luginski said Smith doesn’t need to be exact but he wanted to know if that is the range that they are going to expect to see every month, $1,700 give or take. Smith said yes. Luginski asked if it would be even higher in the summer with the amount of people, the traffic. Smith said that he would have to go back and look at what it was at the peak in the summer months. It might be a little higher than that, but it probably doesn’t exceed $2,000 a month. Luginski said that was fine, he just wanted to make sure he understood.
Haven asked if business traffic was up in downtown. Smith said it’s picking up. It’s not to the level it was pre-COVID for sure, but it is picking up. Haven said that was encouraging.
Pardee said that he had a question. He asked about the difference between Lines I and K, tickets issued less voided and the income [from tickets paid in a month]. It looks like there is a $4,000 difference and Pardee is wondering if those dollars ever get collected. Smith said yes. It’s not uncommon for people to get a ticket in September and pay it in October or get it in December and pay it in January. There’s always a lag of when the tickets are paid versus when they are issued. Line I is telling you the value if everything is paid on the spot, the same day they received a ticket, it would have been $15,000. But because there’s a lag, it was $11,540. That tells Smith that there’s about $4,000 in outstanding tickets yet to be paid. Or they may be contesting them. They get contested tickets so that might be another reason for the delayed payment.
Haven asked if there were any other comments or questions from council.
“Eric” had a question from the audience. He asked how they were going to use the numbers for the first half of 2022 as far as using them in budgetary ways. Smith said that what he is going to have to do is to apply some ratio to try to estimate what the first half of 2022 is going to look like so they can do a proper forecast. Eric said that he thought the ones for January, February, March, and April are going to be substantially less than June, July, August, and September. Smith agreed. Luginski said that they had some historical data from years past that they could look at too. Smith said that’s what they would have to do, but just to look at it on a proportion, so January as a proportion of the calendar year was maybe 8%. They would just use that and then apply it to after COVID-related income. Luginski agreed.
Haven said this was good and asked if they would be seeing this monthly now. Smith said yes. Haven said that would be good, and it was an excellent report.
No further comments or questions.
Agenda Item #9, City Manager Report (Video time mark 0:18:25; page 10/36 of the council packet):
Haven said that the report was in their packet, and he asked if anyone had any questions or comments about it.
Luginski said it wasn’t on the report, but the summer concert event series was in there and he was wondering if Smith had heard any rumblings about the 4th of July parade. Smith said that he hadn’t, not yet. He would expect that there will start to be some activity on that pretty soon, but there was nothing yet. Speagle said that she hadn’t received any calls yet as far as reserving it and (unintelligible). Luginski thought we hadn’t had it for about two years. Wylie said two years, 2020 and 2021. Smith said that they are hopeful that it will return. Rodgers asked if someone was typically in charge of it. Wylie thought that the Optimist Club was doing it. Speagle said yes, and Joette Kunse was kind of in charge of it, but Speagle doesn’t think she’s doing it anymore. Smith and Haven said she wasn’t. Haven said that he thought that the Optimists have a role in it. They might want to check with the president, Tom Lowrie, but he said it’s not totally an Optimists endeavor at this point, so they have some organizational things that they’re working on. Smith agreed. Haven said we’d sure like to have a parade.
Smith said that one other topic that he’d like to bring up is the ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds. Smith said that there’s been a lot of conferences, two or three a week now, webinars and conferences that he’s been calling into to learn more about how to spend the ARPA funds. Lots of meetings on these, and a lot of the communities that are participating in these have big money to spend – ten, twenty million dollars. So, our little $98,000 doesn’t sound like much. They’ve got big plans, and there’s lots of discussions about building a hospital, or building a homeless center, doing some infrastructure upgrades, water lines, sewer lines, and broadband of course. All these kinds of things are being talked about.
A question that Smith was going to bring up at the next council meeting is how does the council want to proceed with this? He learned today that Ferndale did a survey, a very professional survey, put some money into it, to their residents asking them how they would like to spend their millions of dollars, he doesn’t remember the exact number. Smith asked if the council thinks that Clarkston should do a survey. The category that they are expecting to put their funds toward is the lost revenue account. There are other things. If you had overtime that you are paying your front-line workers, that would certainly be an area. If you have homeless people, if you have water lines that need upgrading, those are all good categories.
Smith said that the Department of Treasury recently, and it’s amazing that they did this, they recently simplified the plan dramatically so just like when you file your taxes, you can take the standard deduction. Now, with the ARPA funds, you can take the standard allowance, and if your community receives less than $10 million, the standard allowance greatly simplifies the reporting you have to do after the fact. Smith said that they will definitely be taking the standard allowance, that much he knows, because our funds are so much below $10 million that it’s just the obvious thing for the city to do. But still the question is should we be spending the money on something other than roads. What they’ve been saying to date is that the lost revenue for the city during COVID, the primary area of lost revenue, was the city’s parking kiosk. Smith thought that was down for more than twelve months, and they lost an estimated $100,000 in that twelve-fourteen months. The assumption is that we would replace that loss with revenue with these ARPA funds. That’s what it was intended to do, replace lost revenue. Well, that lost revenue, had we had it, would have gone toward roads, sidewalks, and parking lots. That’s what parking kiosk money goes towards.
Smith said it’s very easy to walk into an assumption that these ARPA funds should be used for roads, sidewalks, and parking lots. But it doesn’t have to be. There are a lot of things you could apply it to and take a different path on how you justify that these funds are replacing lost revenue. So, Smith is looking for council input. They don’t have to decide it tonight. Smith just wanted to plant the seed tonight if they are going to start thinking about how they should decide, and there’s not a really big hurry on this, but how should they decide where the ARPA funds, the $98,000, is spent.
Haven asked for confirmation that the city is going to get the $98,000 in two increments over a period of two years. Smith said it was $48,000 and $48,000, $49,000. Haven said that really Smith’s request is for input from the council and others, what the public thinks. Smith said yes. Haven said that it has infrastructure written all over it, kind of. Smith said yes. Haven said it’s a broad category as well. Smith said yes.
Smith said that he knows that they plan on convening the finance committee coincidentally to start on the budgeting process, and it could be a topic that the finance committee takes up, but they need to start thinking about this. They have until 2026 to spend the money, so there’s not a big hurry and they don’t have the second tranche. The city just received the first $48, almost $49,000, tranche. There’s a second one coming, Smith believed that it was in May or June, so they don’t even have all the money yet, but it’s probably something they should start thinking about.
There are, as Smith has indicated in one of the meetings, there are grants available and they can use this as their matching portion as a way of growing the funds. So, there are lots of different ways they could go on this, and Smith would like to start entertaining a discussion on how to proceed. Haven said that was a very important comment that Smith made, because obviously leverage is a good thing. The city can double its money if they use that money wisely in that respect so they could have $200,000 to do something with if they thought of it that way. But Haven thinks that the question has been all along with all of these meetings is what are the legitimate ways that it can be spent. Haven thinks that Smith can help with this by giving them a list of ideas that he sees as emerging from the other communities. That might give them some ideas about ways they can use it here that would fit into their context. Smith agreed. Haven said it was just a suggestion.
Pardee asked whether we signed up for $69,000 for our portion to respond to another road grant, and then Pardee thought they were going to talk about another $55,000 in the next several months for the seven aprons. Haven asked Pardee if he was talking about a grant application outside (unintelligible). This is not for discussion.
Pardee asked Smith if he was wrong about a Miller Road grant that the city sought. Smith said that Pardee had lost him; he didn’t recall any grant for Miller Road. They talked about a lot of ideas for paving Miller Road, and even got some preliminary costs from HRC (Hubbell, Roth & Clark), but he wasn’t aware of any grants. Pardee asked Casey, because he remembered that Casey asked a question the evening it was discussed, and he said well, what if they get to that point, which Pardee thought was the end of June, and they don’t have sufficient funds for the match. Pardee said that this was paving the west end of Miller Road, including a culvert replacement under the road, and including replacing the sidewalks that run along between lower and upper Mill Pond. Pardee thought our part was $69,000.
Casey said he knows that there have been some discussions about that intersection, but he doesn’t recall making any comments to that effect. Pardee said that this is Miller Road between Glenburnie and North Holcomb. Casey said yes, right, but same comment. Casey said he knows that they’ve talked about that, but he doesn’t recall addressing that issue in a public forum. Pardee said he would help them with some information. Haven said if Pardee is writing grant applications these days, that would be great, thank you. Pardee believed that this is one that’s been written, and that’s why he was asking in his suggestions for an update from Smith. Pardee thought our portion was $69,000, and Pardee can recall seeing lots of numbers on an HRC document. Haven said if Pardee recollects it to please let them know. Pardee said he would.
Haven said that they are still on the city manager’s report, and Smith has contributed some additional information in addition to the question that Luginski asked. He asked if there were any questions or comments for Smith about the city manager’s report.
There were no other questions or comments.
Agenda Item #10, Motion: Acceptance of the Consent Agenda as Presented (Video time mark 0:29:46):
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- 12-13-2021 Final Minutes (page 11/36 of the council packet)
- 01-10-2022 Draft Minutes (page 13/36 of the council packet)
- 01-24-2022 Treasurer Report (page 15/36 of the council packet)
- 01-12-2022 Revenue and Expenditure Report, Period Ending 12-31-2021 (page 16/36 of the council packet)
- Carlisle/Wortman invoices, December 2021 (page 22/36 of the council packet)
Haven said this was the second motion for the evening and he would entertain a motion to accept the consent agenda. For those in the audience, the consent agenda is kind of a compilation so that they can act upon them in a single vote, motion. What’s involved in it is their final minutes from the 12-13-2022 meeting, and the draft minutes from their next meeting of 1-10-2022, plus the Treasurer’s Report, and all of these things are online as part of the packet. If you download them before you come to a meeting, you can see all of these things. Haven said that he’s asking for a motion from council to accept the consent agenda as it has been presented to them.
Motion by Wylie; second Casey.
Haven asked if there was any discussion.
No discussion.
Motion to accept the consent agenda passed by unanimous voice vote.
Agenda Item #11, Old Business (Video time mark 0:30:51):
Haven said that there was no old business.
Agenda Item #12, New Business:
Item 12a – Discussion: Historic District Commission Quarterly Update (Video time mark 0:30:54):
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- The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation (page 24/36 of the council packet)
- 11-09-2021 Draft Minutes (page 26/36 of the council packet)
- 11-16-2021 Draft Minutes, Special Joint Meeting With Planning Commission (page 28/36 of the council packet)
- 12-14-2021 Minutes (page 30/36 of the council packet)
- 01-11-2022 Draft Minutes (page 32/36 of the council packet)
- Historic District Commission 2021 Activities (page 34/36 of the council packet)
- Brochure Cover, “I Live In Clarkston’s Historic District, What Does That Mean For Me?” (page 35/36 of the council packet)
Haven said that this first item was a discussion that they are encouraging from the different commissions and committees from time to time. This commission in particular, the Historic District Commission or HDC, a quarterly update, and Jim Meloche is here, he’s the chairman. Meloche has given them some information in the packet that he’s sure they’ve read, and he will reference that.
Jim Meloche:
Meloche said he only had 500 pages, so don’t worry. Meloche said his task was to put together a quarterly update. He thought that January would be a good time to do it because they are usually slow in the winter, he would have more time to work on it, and it worked out fine.
Meloche said he patterned it against the description, the actions requesting part, of the citizens’ requests. He highlighted some terms, and everything that he wants to show them going forward addresses these things, sometimes repeatedly. He put a lot of things in their packet, and a lot of the information is in the midst. When he gets to that, he will highlight a few things and put some flesh on the bones so to speak. The description says report on current minutes, well, he has the minutes with him; applications; CoAs which are certificates of appropriateness; notices to proceed; denials; there’s a notice of denial as well; and an update on current finances and legal requests.
Meloche said that he’d like to point out that, unlike some of the other commissions in the city, their mandate starts with the federal government, the Department of the Interior and National Park Service, and the local entity that they deal with is the State Historic Preservation Office in Lansing. They are the spokesperson for the federal government. The next level is us. This is all the same structure that manages and selects candidates for the National Register of Historic Places. So, it is pretty important stuff, and it’s important to Meloche.
Meloche asked if they’d all seen the legendary Ten Commandments. Their ordinance is about 13 pages long, depending upon what printer you put it on. He thought that the zoning ordinance, for example, was 80 pages and it’s full of finite numbers – numbers for setback, numbers for building height, numbers for this, numbers for that. They don’t have any of that. This is as difficult as it gets. The ordinance that they have spells out how to set up a historic district study committee, and there’s a lot in it about establishing a district, but these are also in the ordinance, and it’s in the state act as well, and we have these at every meeting, and believe it or not, they disappear. So, people are taking it with them, and they hope it sticks.
Meloche asked Smith if he would put the minutes up. Smith said that these are the draft minutes for November 9th. Meloche asked if they had the minutes with them, and Haven said that they were in the packet. Meloche said that he would point out a number of things here. The comment he’s going to make was generated by an email that he received from Mr. Chet Pardee. He asked if Pardee was still on because he may have some questions. Smith said he was. Meloche said that he would read as much of it as he can. It says it’s a portion of comments made at the city council from October 25, 2021, and it has two elements to it. He said to Smith that they are suggestions, not complaints. Reading from Pardee’s comments – “I suggested that the City of the Village of Clarkston mandate the disclosure, in any sale listing document for a home in the historic district, noting that the Historic District Commission will limit what changes the new homeowner may make in accordance with applicable laws.” Meloche said that the second part is another interesting idea about the developing a document of lessons learned. Pardee talks about the 93% positive and 7% denial rate that they have over three years that was talked about at the October 11th meeting.
Meloche said that they will notice on the minutes, if they go to page 2, there’s a paragraph toward the end, that says “public comments made to city council at October 25, 2021 meeting regarding in part the HDC were read by the HDC Chairperson Meloche. The comments particularly regarding interactions between the HDC and current and future homeowners were discussed. Commissioners agreed that greater distribution of the Historic District brochure would be greatly advantageous.” But there’s more to it than that. During the meeting, and this is not a transcription, it’s a set of minutes, there was a very enthusiastic conversation, primarily between Melissa (Luginski) and Jennifer Radcliffe about coming up with tools to help people who live in the district understand what they have a little bit better, to know what to do when they need something. Luginski had a great idea about identifying the styles in the district. It turns out there are not all that many, but they had a case in January where an applicant came to them. They kept talking about Italianate, and they had asked her to look around her neighborhood and see what other Italianate features were. She said they couldn’t expect her to do that because she didn’t know this stuff as well as the commission does. So, that’s one of their assignments. They are going to put together a primer of the architectural styles found in the district, so if this comes up again, and actually, the new site on the library website that actually used to be a walking tour will eventually be able to be sorted for styles. Look at all the Italianate buildings in the district. Because if someone comes to them and says there’s a house here with shutters on it, a house here and here and they’re all Italianate, well that makes their life a lot easier.
So, out of the recommendation to have this new level of interaction that came from Pardee, this is what came out of it, a very healthy conversation at their meeting in November. There’s one other aspect of this and it comes from an email that Meloche received from Haven. They will look at that later, and it also involves Pardee, so if Pardee is still on, they will have more to talk about. Pardee said that he’s on, and he guessed that he’d ask for Meloche to describe what was the nature of the discussions that occurred on it when in fact it was discussed at the HDC. These were comments that Pardee made at the October 25th meeting, and he was suggesting that the city mandate the disclosure on any sale listing document for a home in the historic district, noting that the Historic District Commission will limit what changes the new homeowner can make in accordance with the book of the laws. Pardee has heard, and he’s not sure if it’s accurate or not, that there were instances in the village where folks got to closing, found out that they were in the historic district, and then did not close because of that. Meloche said he witnessed one himself. He talked to the realtor, and she said that she didn’t think that she had to tell them. Meloche said that they are going to talk about this in about fifteen minutes where the mayor is concerned, because he had some suggestions on that very point, something that goes beyond what Pardee is suggesting.
Joe Luginski said that this has been discussed for many years, informing the potential buyers that they are buying a home in the historic village, and unfortunately, they’ve run up against some opposition from the real estate profession because of exactly what happened with that when they found out, they decided not to close. They’ve had some opposition, because it’s like well, maybe it would limit the number of people who might want to buy the home, and it might jeopardize the sale, and they’ve heard those comments. So, it’s not like they haven’t thought about this and talked about this a number of times, but they’ve run up against that opposition. Meloche said that he thought there’s more reasons to be doing it, and he will share that as soon as they move on. Meloche said that takes care of the November 9th.
Meloche said that November 16th was a special meeting. They’ve had about three or four special meetings for a number of different reasons. It just so happened that it was a joint meeting with the Planning Commission. Meloche didn’t think there was anything significant on this one, unless someone had a question. There were no questions.
Meloche said he would like to point out two things from the December 14th meeting, and he’s sure they’ve read them. Public comments by Ted Quisenberry where he wished to express his satisfaction for the entire process and outcome of his recent home rehabilitation and renovation efforts that encompassed conversion of a house from a duplex to a single-family dwelling. There’s more verbiage there, but it says Quisenberry invited members of the Historic District Commission to stop by and see the results. That was the first time that he’s ever gotten an invitation to see the results. The invitation would be (unintelligible) looking for. Haven said he’s serious about that. Haven went over to his house the other day and it’s beautiful, what he’s done is actually wonderful, and he would like many people to come and see it. Haven said that he’s a good cook too; he’s even offering some hors d’oeuvres if you would like to come so they’ll work on an event.
Meloche said that they would see in a little bit when he shows them the applications from last year and what they are doing for this year, but it’s been a slow start for 2022. There is one thing on the agenda that he thinks bears a little explaining. There was a Planning Commission meeting right before the HDC meeting. All of their commissioners could not attend, so Meloche went with the intent of making the report at the HDC meeting. The only thing that Meloche needed to hammer home was this verbiage – once the ordinance conditions are approved by city council, site plan review for R1 and R2 properties in a historic district will be performed by the HDC, not the Planning Commission. Haven asked if Meloche was on one of the meeting minutes pages, and Meloche said that he was on the second page of December 14th meeting minutes. Haven asked where he was on there, and Meloche said HDC 2022 meeting schedule. Haven said he saw it down at the bottom. Meloche said that what’s important here is that it used to be that way and it got changed to where the Planning Commission was reviewing site plans, and it’s ironic that they should have a quote from Ted Quisenberry, because that’s one of the examples of why it should have been done that way. The HDC approved it because they heard it first with the porch that they had. When it got to the Planning Commission, they questioned the setback of the porch. The HDC did it on the basis of uniformity with the neighborhood. This is the way they evaluate setbacks. The Planning Commission did it, as Meloche said earlier, the 80-page zoning ordinance has a specific number for setbacks. But once they looked at it, the ZBA (Zoning Board of Appeals) took a look at it and approved the porch.
So, in final analysis, it worked out, but they didn’t need to have all of those false steps. So, once the council is asked to look at and make changes to the zoning ordinance that moves back approval to the HDC, the council should look at it hard because Meloche thinks it’s a good idea to have it go back. Haven asked if Meloche was talking about the sequence of approval that starts with, in the new ordinance, a review by the building inspector and Smith, and the first question that gets asked is if a variance is required, because a variance request goes to the ZBA first of all. And then the second question, if it doesn’t go to the ZBA, the second question to ask is it in the historic district. If the answer to that question is yes, it goes to Meloche’s purview and he works with them, and if it’s outside the historic district, it goes to the Planning Commission. Meloche said he thought it was a more equitable thing for the applicants too. Haven agreed.
Meloche went on to January 11th, the recent meeting. If you look on page 2, they will see that because they didn’t have a whole lot of business that evening, they took the opportunity to have a review of the prior year and (unintelligible) focus on what things were still open. These are things that they don’t normally discuss at meetings. The second item, and Ryan needs to let Meloche know how much they can divulge, strictly speaking, they had a meeting on November 9th, and nothing has changed on 42 West Washington since. Ryan said they’d filed a motion to expand the record and that’s up for Wednesday and he will report after the court hearing on Wednesday. He has a copy of the pleadings. Meloche agreed. Meloche said that there’s a letter in there from somebody who inspected the building, and he asked Ryan if he looked at that. Ryan said he did. Meloche said that it is their opinion that person isn’t qualified. Ryan said he didn’t want to discuss it here, but he’s responded in a motion, and he sent a copy of that to the city. Meloche said OK.
[See the next Clarkston Secrets post titled “Things The City Attorney Apparently Doesn’t Want You To Know (Revealed)” if you want to know what Ryan didn’t want to discuss during the meeting.]
Meloche said 177 North Main Street, the second dot there, had to do with a homeowner seeing what they have done with another homeowner, deciding that maybe they could use the same logic at this house, and it was 177 North Main. They’ve not heard anything back from the homeowner, and there’s a court date on that one of February 14th. Meloche asked Ryan if that was still the case, and Ryan said before a hearing officer before the state. It’s in the Administrative Procedures Act. It’s an appeal to the administrative law judge, which, after that’s decided, it will go into the State Preservation Historic Review Board for final decision. Haven said it’s procedural.
Meloche said the 49 South Holcomb note is a result of a policy they’ve developed to review all cases every sixty days, especially the ones that get postponed by the homeowner. So, this is Meloche telling the rest of the commissioners that they’re working with their architect and they’re not quite ready yet. So, in this case, they’re going to have to file a new application because the other one is over 60 days old. It’s all in the interest of staying on top of things. Instead of just expecting the applicant to remember, they help them.
There’s nothing new to report on Rudy’s, #5 and #9 South Main Street, so he wanted the commissioners to know that when they discussed it (unintelligible).
It’s pretty much the same with the development at South Main Street and Waldon Road. The case there is there was a request for a joint meeting with the Planning Commission. Meloche talked with Derek (Werner, Planning Commission) about that, and the HDC thinks that they can’t do anything anyway unless the council decides about the adjustments that will be made to get the unit count. Smith said the density. Meloche asked if they’d done that. Smith said that the density count has not yet been determined and is not finalized. Meloche said it doesn’t make sense for the HDC to meet on it because they start asking questions about building style and conformity to the neighborhood and all that and they don’t even know how many units are there.
Wylie said that their style isn’t necessarily going to be changed by the number of units. Meloche said anything can change style when it comes to the HDC, but the unit count changes the site plan that they are showing the HDC. Whatever they show the HDC now is not going to be what they show them once they’ve brought it to city council. Wylie said they recently had a joint meeting, she thought it was on November 16th, the Planning Commission and HDC. It was to help their process. They were trying to get some feedback from Meloche and the HDC, and the HDC seemed to be very willing and actually eager to help them and give them feedback. She thought they had a meeting, a joint meeting, scheduled again with these people. Meloche said that the next time, the way they left that one, was that they were to come to the council and find out if they can do tradeoffs of wetlands for numbers of units which wouldn’t change the site plan – have they done that? Wylie said no, the last she’d heard, they were trying to schedule a joint meeting, there was a joint meeting and the HDC couldn’t do it, and now she’s heard that the HDC did not want to do a joint meeting any longer. Meloche said he didn’t know what they could help with until they see what you are going to approve.
Ryan said “you” meaning city council. Meloche said yes. Ryan asked if it was under the RPDD (Residential Planned Development District) ordinance. Meloche said yes. Directing his comments to the council, Ryan said that there’s some tradeoffs there, benefits and whatnot, under the new ordinance and they can maybe get up to max density or not. It depends on what they’re offering, and they have to work that out with their professional people. Meloche said that’s not something that the HDC thinks they can contribute to. Haven said that nothing has come to council yet. Ryan said no. Wylie said no, it’s not even through the Planning Commission yet. Meloche said that they would be glad to be there in an advisory capacity of some sort. Wylie said that maybe Meloche could talk with Werner, because she didn’t think that Werner thought that. Wylie said she thought that would be helpful, because the last time that they all met together, there was some suggestions made by at least one HDC member, and the Detroit Riverside people were going to take that into consideration. Wylie said she thought that was one of the things that they were going to bring back to them. She thought it was about material on the exterior. Wylie thanked Meloche.
Meloche said he hopes that he covered most of the categories because now he wanted to start getting into specifics, and that has to do with projects. He told them not to be intimidated by the big folder that he took out of his briefcase; it was all the background for the chart that was provided. Haven said that was last year. Meloche said yes, but it gives them some idea of the scope and scale of what they are doing.
One of the things that they were asked to update the council on were the numbers of the certificates of appropriateness, notices of denial, notices to proceed, and if they look at the key, there are two or more mentioned because they are not used very often. A conditional certificate of appropriateness is issued with the understanding that it will eventually become a certificate of appropriateness when something that is missing is provided to the HDC. It might be a drawing, it might be specifications, but this is an accommodation from the HDC to the applicant to allow things to proceed within limits and a CCOA (conditional certificate of appropriateness) states that specifically. For example, pending a revised site plan that shows (gesturing) this, this, this, and this. Once that is accomplished, they rescind it and issue a certificate of appropriateness (COA). So, it’s an accommodation for the applicants.
So is an MOAA, a memorandum of administrative approval. For a long time, people wanted to replace a roof, patch a fence, do things that are somewhere on the cusp between what they don’t need to come to the HDC for and those that they do need to come to them for, they’d have to wait 30 days for their next meeting, or longer if they were in the middle of the month. The way this works is they discuss it at one of their meetings, two commissioners visit the site, share feedback with each other, and they issue a memorandum of administrative approval for the lower end of the complexity scale. That has helped the HDC, and it’s helped homeowners because they can move faster because they’ve given them an MOAA.
There were no notices of denial that he could see.
A notice to proceed is for when something doesn’t have historical value but it’s a significant element in the neighborhood, and that is what it sounds like. It gives the applicant the opportunity to complete something that doesn’t violate any of the ten of their standards.
Haven asked if Meloche is saying that they’ve added some of these categories to add ease to the process. Meloche said yes but asked if it was the CCOA – (interrupting Meloche), Haven said the MOAA is a real add to expediency because they’re helping the homeowner along. Meloche said yes, the CCOA, instead of telling somebody they need something else, and they’ll see them in 30 days, the HDC gives them a conditional building permit would be an example. Haven said in the past they’ve sort of thought about it as black and white in terms of a certificate of appropriateness or a notice of denial, those two extremes, but what Meloche is saying in here is that a whole lot of efficiencies are being built in here by – (interrupting Haven), Meloche said that a CCOA always ends up being a COA unless something is wrong but what it gives them is a 30-day jump on what they’re doing.
Meloche said that the MOAA is as much for the HDC as it is for applicants because it manages their caseload dramatically. There are a bunch of them on here. If we can do it with two people instead of five.
Haven said so the (unintelligible) for what happens when people come before the commission and they make them familiar with the paragraph formats of the ten directives they have, and they can see whether their item fits in compliance with them. Meloche said that’s right. Haven said so it’s not about the numbers so much as it is about the concept, compliance to keep the neighborhood authenticity in place.
Smith asked if both the CCOA and the MOAA ultimately turn into a certificate of appropriateness? Meloche said that the verbiage in the MOAA makes it a certificate of appropriateness. A CCOA will always become a COA, they get a second document, and they put both of them in the book. They put the original there marked as having been rescinded, and they put the second one whenever they put the new date on.
Meloche asked if there were any questions on any of it or how they handle them. Haven said that he appreciates the review of meeting minutes so that they see the progress on the issues there when they have summary on top. He asked Meloche if he was thinking about quarterly coming to give them a review. Meloche said yes. Haven said that helps council a lot. Holding up the chart, Meloche said he sees it as a floating twelve months. Haven agreed. Meloche said that the next one will be May to April. Haven said that he was trying to inform them closely in proximity of time to when things are going on so that they are not caught flat-footed (unintelligible). Meloche said that they are trying to make it more like you guys are attending their meetings and reading their minutes. Haven said exactly, that’s really helpful. Meloche said it simplifies it.
Cara Catallo said that she thought the council would be better served if they actually attended one of the meetings because the image that Meloche is painting is delightfully biased. She’s gone to two meetings recently. Some of what he said she did not experience at those meetings and some things would have been helpful. One of the things she suggested is when they make a motion that they follow the pattern that they set when she was on the HDC and reference which of the standards they’re talking about in their motion. They sort of shrugged it off and said they’ll add that later and that it should be in the minutes. She hasn’t reviewed their minutes to see if they are there, but they had a form, and she even brought one with her, where they knew for sure what it’s going to be.
Catallo said that she finds that this is like a rose-colored glasses version of the HDC and not what she’s experienced in the last two meetings that she attended, or she found it was not a very friendly setting in (unintelligible) that wasn’t bringing forth their opinion that was already set. Ultimately at the second meeting, she was told that the public could no longer comment after a certain point, which to her seems very unfriendly, especially if the person might have pertinent information. Catallo has experience in this arena you could say, and she felt very shut down to the point that she thought the decision-making felt a little bit arbitrary and capricious, and that’s alarming in something like the HDC. And, as far as the notice to proceed, the way that Meloche has painted it is completely different from what she understands it to be, and in a way, she thinks that the fence on Miller should be a notice to proceed. She felt like she was treated in a somewhat smug manner that she saw previously in one of the Zoom meetings with a former neighbor of hers, and she doesn’t think that’s the way to treat your community. Even if you don’t agree with the photographic evidence that she presented, she doesn’t think that they should have taken offense, and they have been challenging and smug towards her. It’s just not the way to treat your community. And she felt like they did that to the Cherwaks when they said they had to go to the ZBA, that they can’t wait to see how that goes, and Catallo felt like they could have found a better tone.
Meloche asked Catallo who she was speaking about. Catallo said she was talking about the Cherwaks at 7 Buffalo when they were running into issues. They were clearly uncomfortable in the meeting, and Catallo felt like they were kind of baiting and poking them. It was very clear that Mrs. Cherwak was not happy, and Meloche kept saying that Meloche couldn’t wait to see how it goes at the ZBA. Meloche said he doesn’t remember that name.
Catallo said that she encourages council to attend the meetings. Catallo said that Meloche said that the 60-day review is because he wants to stay on top of things, but this is the law. If the HDC doesn’t respond in 60 days, they get what they want, so it’s not like Meloche is doing something amazing. Meloche said that they just don’t always remember when the 60 days is up. Catallo said it’s also his job.
Catallo said that she just feels like there is a lot of rose-colored glasses going on here. It seems that it would be more beneficial, and she knows that the last thing they want to do is go to another meeting, she understands. Sitting through this one is particularly painful, but Catallo still thinks it’s worthwhile to see how the interaction is. Just hearing from one person who is clearly biased, and a mayor who’s a big fan, they’re not really getting the real picture. She just feels like they must be very careful about seeming to be arbitrary.
Catallo said they talked about Italianates a minute or so ago, probably because she’s here, but she doesn’t feel like any of them have done any of the research on Italianates, and she still doesn’t think so. She just read the minutes and they reference a book where there are two Italianates with shutters and the rest didn’t have them. Catallo feels like there’s always room for progress, she encourages it, and she encourages Meloche and the rest of the commission to take a look at themselves and see if they are arbitrary, like if they don’t like these people, they are going to be harder on them or anything like that. She’s just saying that when she made her comment, Meloche said that shutters were removable and she said so is a fence, but they are willing to take that to court, so it seems that they need to be very conscientious about the power that they have and not misusing it.
Catallo said she wanted to add one thing and then she’ll be quiet – she’s a huge fan of the historic district and believes in it very strongly, that’s why she speaks so passionately about it, and she thinks that the commission needs to represent the historic district well.
Haven said that they are interested in (unintelligible) a whole lot. Haven said that he’s been to the last two meetings, the ones that she’s referring to relative to shutters on Italianate. Catallo said she doesn’t remember him at the first one. Haven said he was there twice, the last two; Catallo was there, and they talked. Catallo said she saw him at the second one; she’s just saying that she doesn’t remember him at the first one. Haven said he was at two recent meetings and one of them was the Italianate. He tries to get to as many of them as he can for that very reason. He’s concerned about tone and so on. Haven said that Catallo could say what she wants, but he’s found this commission to bend over backwards, including – raising his voice to try to talk over to Catallo, who said that was his opinion – personal business to homes with people to understand their situation and what not, and that was the nature of Ted Quisenberry’s comment was. He was exceedingly impressed with the kid gloves approach that he got.
Haven said that Catallo is painting a picture too, and he just wants her to be careful (unintelligible). Catallo said that she’s being very careful, and she did not go into this lightly. Speaking poorly about her historic district is not something that would ever be on her mind. Catallo said that she feels like she owes Wylie an apology because when it came to the point of seeing who is going to stay on the HDC, Catallo felt like Catallo should have spoken up because she had opinions, but since they put them both up together, it felt wrong. So, that’s one of her comments too, that next time, don’t just group whoever is up for joining the group again as a pair, because it was Mr. Moon and Mr. Meloche. Instead, make sure that they do it independently because they might have a different outcome. She doesn’t know if that makes any sense because it goes back several meetings, but it’s been on her mind. Again, Catallo said that she doesn’t take any of this lightly; she’s just saying this is a presentation, and she thinks that reality might help even more. She feels very strongly about this.
Fuller said in terms of these shutters going onto an Italianate home, Catallo was opposed to this, correct? And the homeowners were requesting to put shutters on their house. Catallo said that was correct. Fuller said so they did some investigation and came up with the five images or whatever, two with them and three without, and on that basis, they granted these homeowners the allowance to put shutters on their home. Catallo said that was correct. Fuller said that because of Catallo’s belief in the historic nature of an Italianate home, they shouldn’t have been allowed to do that. Catallo said that actually, it’s more specific to that Italianate home because the same commission had denied the previous residents permission to put corbels right underneath the roofline because it was too fancy, it didn’t go with that style of house, and there was no photographic evidence or otherwise, like notes, that would have said that that house had such decorative pieces, and it’s again, purely decorative. When you look at a house in a historic district, you’re supposed to weigh all of those factors. Is there photographic evidence, is there any kind of evidence from the time period at which that house matters, its time period, that it had shutters. And that’s her thing, that house did not have shutters. Italianates often didn’t because at that point they didn’t need them. We’re not on a coastal region where you might want to batten down the hatches, and for her, it takes away from the character-defining features of the house which has really sort of pretty trim above the windows to add just a purely decorative feature that didn’t belong in the house. It can only go in the upstairs because the other windows aren’t the right size for shutters, and this house wasn’t that fancy so it would not have had a purely decorative feature like that.
Haven said Catallo brings up an interesting point and she’s gone into a lot of details. They are losing the audience here for sure. They weren’t necessarily there for the details, but he just wanted to ask Meloche a question relative to this and generalities, because what he asked him earlier was germane to this discussion. Haven said that Meloche said they make their decision according to what they humorously call the Ten Commandments. They’re basically the directives from the Interior Department relative to the interpretation for preservation of historic homes, right? Meloche agreed. Haven said that when they make their decisions, they reference those. Meloche said and it’s in the minutes. Haven (talking louder over Catallo whose comments were unintelligible) said that so the rationale behind the decision (unintelligible crosstalk from Meloche) is referenced and it’s important for persons defending decisions and so on moving forward that we have that reference for the foundation from which the HDC make decisions, OK, so that’s the nature of what they are talking about here. Referring to Catallo, he said she’s talking about specifics, he gets that, she questioned that house relative to Italianates in general, he gets that, OK – (interrupting Haven), Catallo said further from that though, at the previous meeting where they approved the fence, she said afterward that she thought they should reference the standards, and they add those later, and she doesn’t think that’s appropriate. Catallo thinks that when they’re making the motion, look at the standards, it’s not a long list, and choose those and put them in the motion. She thinks it’s inappropriate to add anything to the minutes after the fact. Haven said that the minutes are drafted first and then approved, right? They go through this formal process just like the council does with their consent agendas so that corrections can be made and so on. Catallo said not really, if it’s that reference in the meeting, can you add something (unintelligible). Haven said that she’s saying that they’re not referenced in the meeting. Catallo said she was at the meeting, so that’s her point. She was there. Meloche said yes, and they were referenced. Catallo said maybe in a second meeting, but when she watched them approve the fence, there was no mention at all because she brought it up and she thought that one of his commission members said you know, we try to shorten the meetings and we add that later, and Catallo thinks that should not be the way that it’s done. Meloche said that every commissioner now has the standards (unintelligible cross talk within the room).
Catallo asked Meloche why they don’t allow the public to speak anymore. Haven said that’s a misunderstanding of what Meloche was saying. He was talking about sequence of presentation, and Meloche might explain that what she was coming to relative to an approved way to run a meeting is to have public comment first (unintelligible) public comment relative to things on the agenda and there is a sequence for that. Meloche agreed. Haven said Meloche didn’t allow a modification on the agenda for that, and that’s what Catallo is referencing. Meloche agreed. Haven said it wasn’t to stifle public input at all. Catallo said that it felt like that as a member of the public because she can’t really predict what’s going to be in the discussion to be able to answer ahead of time, and to be told that it’s the law, it just seemed a little bit peculiar. Haven said it’s a procedural thing and the commission can set its own procedure. Catallo said procedure (Haven began speaking over Catallo and the comments of both were unintelligible) – Haven said procedure for that sequence, Meloche made a change in the way they do meetings. Meloche said it struck him when they had the first meeting on the shutters, and they didn’t have enough information, they only had four commissioners there, and it struck him that they can’t continue to have public input once they start deliberations. Catallo asked why, if they didn’t do their homework, how can someone presenting their information to you – (interrupting and talking over Catallo), Haven said it’s hard to reason with interruptions, OK? That’s part of the reason. Meloche said that it’s also clearly stated in the public meetings act that once deliberations begin, the public is no longer welcome to include input – (interrupting and talking at the same time as Meloche), Wylie said the discussion period when people can make a comment on each item as it comes up, not just comments at the beginning. Meloche said yes, after every case, it’s open for public comments, until they start deliberations, until the focus changes to the head table and the applicants and not the audience. Wylie said that she doesn’t know the way they do things, it doesn’t happen in the Planning Commission because nobody comes to those meetings. Wylie said in the discussion, they try to do discussion among council members first, and then if the public wants to speak up, they can speak up because that way the public can hear where the discussion is going, is somebody going off in the wrong direction and sometimes (unintelligible; Meloche was talking at the same time).
Meloche said that they define the scope of the work, they ask the applicant to repeat what they put in their application, all of the background is there. Wylie asked if the commission members have been able to have some discussion, so the public knows where – (to Catallo), it sounds like you did have, you didn’t? Catallo said that she was told that it was before everything, so then she ended up just leaving because clearly, she was being shut out of the discussion. Catallo said that we all have our opinions.
Avery said so he understands what Catallo is saying, the HDC, when an item comes up, there’s public discussion first. Catallo said that’s what she was led to believe. Avery said and then you guys deliberate, and then no one can make (unintelligible) deliberation. Meloche said that they discuss the scope of the project and review what has been discussed at the prior meeting, and then the commissioners are available for questions from the audience, questions of each other, but at some point when they start deliberations, when it starts getting focused, specific, and between the commission and them, he thinks once deliberations begin, he believes (Meloche turned to Ryan and said to tell him if he’s wrong), there’s no public input after that point. (Ryan didn’t reply.)
Wylie said that Meloche used the word deliberation differently than from discussion among. Again, does the public have an idea of what direction the commission members, how they’re thinking about something, do they actually discuss “well I think Italianate windows should have shutters,” “I think Italianate windows don’t,” and she’s probably saying it all wrong, but does the public have an idea which way you’re going so that they can give you input, because if the public doesn’t realize the direction that the commissioners are thinking, they have no comment to make. Wylie said she could think of some examples here before she was on council where all of a sudden, as a member of the audience, she could see that the council was thinking one thing, and the public needed to make a comment to kind of redirect them.
Meloche said he supposed if you express that or ask for a consensus from the audience, have you heard enough, do you need to know anything, you can ask questions, but when they start deliberations focusing on the issue that will result in a vote, that’s deliberations. And that’s the way it’s worded in the Open Meetings Act. Catallo said that she asked Meloche for a copy of that or where that law was and he did not respond, so if someone could forward that to her, she (unintelligible). Meloche said (unintelligible) he will give it to her.
Referring to the chart, Fuller asked if this is how they question, is it on there. Haven said it’s on there twice, 7 Buffalo. Meloche said that this was a January meeting. Meloche said that was 2021. Fuller said he sees fence; he doesn’t see shutters. Haven said it’s in there in January. Fuller said he wasn’t there to second-guess what their decisions were or anything, he’s just curious; he doesn’t know what Italianate even looks like. He wondered where this house was at. Meloche said it was at the corner of Buffalo and Washington. (Unintelligible crosstalk and laughter.) Haven said it’s near Gary’s (Casey’s) house. Meloche said that there’s an Italianate house across the street from it too, the two together, see what they are talking about.
Haven asked if there were any other thoughts or comments for Meloche.
Meloche passed out a document to council. He said he only had five of them. (Unintelligible cross talk.) Haven told Meloche to keep his because he was going to need it for the reprint. Meloche said unless they desperately wanted to keep them, he wanted them back. (Unintelligible crosstalk.) Meloche said that the primary purpose for doing this was to address the real estate issue. There’s an organization, and he didn’t know if it was still in business but he thought it was, the North Oakland County Board of Realtors. You can make presentations to these people. You can go in and tell them what the protocol is for offering a home for sale in the historic district and give them each a copy of this. They are all out of them, so he will be talking to Smith about a budget for 2022-2023 and print some more.
(Haven asked a question but it was unintelligible.) Meloche said that they could do that, they have a PDF of it. They just had to repaginate it because it’s in printer’s spreads now. Haven said OK. Meloche said that they need to make reader spreads out of it. Rodgers said that she thought this was super important, that education of people is super important because she knows that when she bought her home, she didn’t know who to call and she probably called the historic society versus the commission because someone told her that she didn’t have to worry about anything except for the outside of the house, the front street is all that you have to worry about. And then to not understand the whole process that goes on, so educating both the realtors and something like this that any home that’s for sale should have sitting on – (interrupting Rodgers), Meloche said that idea that the front face of the home is all they care about is not correct. Rodgers said of course, she found that out, but when she was buying the home, and she didn’t go beyond that and research it herself, which was her error too. But just having something that realtors can give, or have to give, or should give or whatever, is super important. Meloche said that there’s a page in the back of the brochure, he thought the second to the last page, it says if this, do this. Rodgers asked if they are going to be handing these out when they know that a new resident has moved in and take it to them, in case the realtor did not. Meloche said yes. Rodgers said that’s awesome. Meloche said that this is what started their relationship with 61 South Holcomb. He sent one of them by certified mail to Chris Moore, and at that point, he filed an application for the fence he was putting up, so it evidently worked. Rodgers said that people don’t know what they don’t know. Wylie said you should be able to count on your realtor, because the realtor should know and they should inform you and that’s wrong on them, 100% on them. (Unintelligible crosstalk.)
Avery asked what is the reality that the city can require that to happen. Meloche said that was his next exhibit; Avery walked right into that. It’s a letter from Haven and it says to please consider this a formal request from him to the HDC to submit to council for approval a new ordinance, or a historic district ordinance modification, requiring realtors to obtain at closing a signed document indicating the purchaser has been presented with the requirements of the historic district, requirements within the brochure, and that signed affidavit would be submitted to the city for filing in the permanent records of the property in question. Haven said that he was referencing what they were just talking about, and they’ve been talking about this for eons (unintelligible). Meloche said that he’s not sure that it’s his idea but (unintelligible).
Avery said they can do anything, but it’s like closing the door after the horses are out. They’re already there signing paperwork. If their concern is that they want to educate people so that they know what they’re going to buy, then they should be doing it at the beginning of the process, not at the end of the process. Luginski said that he 100% agrees, but the problem that they run into is that first of all, there aren’t that many homes for sale. The problem is that they don’t have any idea who is walking through those homes to see it, so you have 20 people going through a home, how do you know who they are, you have to leave that up to the real estate agent to do it because there’s no way they can monitor or track that. They don’t monitor how many people and they don’t know who’s coming in to see a house that’s for sale. So the problem that they’ve had, and the pushback that they’ve had before, is that there’s been opposition to doing that, so he doesn’t know how they can mandate anybody to do that. They’d like to.
Avery said he doesn’t know how, can they, in any kind of reality, can they mandate something like this. Ryan said he would have to look at it. What is it, a civil infraction ticket? They have plenty of ordinances on the books they can hardly enforce with the stack they have. Ryan said he would have to look into this, but they are going to be a third party, that is the realtor, they’re going to put an affirmative duty on them that in a certain area of the city that they have to give this information or the city is going to issue them what, a ticket? A citation? Avery said (unintelligible) action and they can pay our attorney fees when we have to fight these things. Ryan said he would be happy to look into it, but education would be better than (unintelligible). Haven said no question. Ryan said especially they are talking about a limited number of homes, closed, it’s not like, you know. Ryan said anyway, he would be happy to look into it if that’s what council want.
Haven said the issue always becomes ignorance is no excuse, you know, but there’s a lot of ignorance out there. So how do they bridge it. That’s the question. Haven said he wasn’t sure that they know how. But if Ryan can help them at all in bridging that, it would be helpful. Ryan said that they are on the right track with the brochure and then talking to the Oakland Board of Realtors. Haven said he agreed. Haven asked Smith when permits come in for any kind of changes and so on, this probably should be part of that packet within the historic district. Because you read the guidelines here, and it’s not written in Chinese, it’s really straightforward. If anybody thinks about these ten paragraphs and they’re very short, like three- or four-line paragraphs most of them, they describe the reasons and the rationale that they use for their decisions, so this isn’t difficult at all – unless there’s an agenda that wants to make it difficult. Then that’s when you get into trouble.
Luginski asked if they could get them, and Meloche said that they don’t have them anymore, to do as Meloche said education, the real estate companies that do the majority of the work in town. There’s only a handful of them typically, they should focus on the education of those folks. Let’s get each one of those branch offices 50 of these so they have them in their office, all the agents know, because Luginski would be surprised if some of the agents don’t know where the historic district begins and ends. So, they don’t even know to tell the prospective buyer “oh, well this is in the historic district” (unintelligible) need to know. Avery asked about the brochure, and Luginski said that the map is in the very back, the last page. Luginski said that at least that way, they can see with the documentation in the first four or five pages, and then they would go to the last page, and they go “oh yeah, I’m showing a home today that at whatever it is, 81 North Main, oh, it’s in the district. Maybe I better take one of these brochures with me and talk to the people about it.” Or take a brochure, a lot of times for open houses, just leave it there for when they come through. There’s somehow to do it. It’s not easy. Haven said it’s not easy. Wylie said perhaps even getting in touch with some of the major realtors, Luginski mentioned some of the ones that do business in town, and ask if someone from HDC can present at their next sales associate meeting. A lot of times they are required to do that, take a bunch of them, tell them, 5-10 minutes – (interrupting Wylie), Luginski said those branch offices have sales meetings all the time and someone could go there with a handful of brochures and do a half-hour discussion about it. They have to start somewhere. Forcing it on them is going to be very, very difficult and challenging. Luginski doesn’t know how they do that.
Avery asked if he could make a suggestion about the brochure since he’s just looking at it for the first time. He assumes that the dark lines are the historic district, but it doesn’t identify that. There’s a lighter green line that he assumes are the city limits, and then there’s a dark green line that he assumes is historic. He thinks that they are going to want to make it a little bit more clear. Meloche said that there’s a new map. They are working with the county, and the county is making them a new map that’s got all that on it. Haven said Meloche had trouble finding what they were looking for. Meloche agreed. Meloche said that they used the map they had just to get these things out the door and there’s a lot missing. There are a lot of blocks that have been divided since that map was drawn. Luginski said that we are out of these, and they need to get more, so let’s make sure they have a new map. Meloche said he’s working on that too.
Haven asked if anyone had any more comments or thoughts. He told Meloche he didn’t mean to preempt him. Meloche said unless they had any more questions.
There were no additional questions or comments.
Haven thanked Meloche for coming. It was helpful to them.
Item 12b – Discussion: Preliminary 2022 Road Project (Video time mark 1:27:18):
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- 01-24-2022, Preliminary 2022 Road Work Plan (page 36/36 of the council packet)
Haven said that they have in the packet a preliminary 2022 Road Project Report looking forward this year. Smith said that was correct.
Smith said that they are not voting on this tonight, and there are no decisions being requested of them. They just put together a preliminary road plan for 2022. Some of the questions that Pardee has presented in some of his public comments have been about road plans. If they did all of this this year, that would be a significant amount of work and projects that they would see. There are three primary steps being proposed – Clarkston Road, Main Street, and then the downtown driveways. There’s a little different approach on each one.
Clarkston Road would just be a cap, no disturbing the existing roadway for a few different reasons. One, because there’s really nothing that they can do. They can’t put in any storm drains at this time because there’s nothing to connect those storm drains to. They almost have to wait some time when, as was pointed out in the comments, until some future date at which MDOT (Michigan Department of Transportation), hopefully MDOT, puts in some storm drains that extend as far north as Clarkston Road. Right now, they end at Robertson Court. They need the storm drains to be extended and enlarged because the ones that end at Robertson Court are eight inches in diameter, so they are pretty small. Haven asked if Smith got a timeframe on that about the state money. Smith said that they don’t have a timeline. It’s at least five years away because he looked in their five-year plan and it’s not on there. So, it could be ten years. Somewhere probably between five and ten years. In the meantime, just buying themselves some time, the thought was just cap the road, address the horrible pothole condition of Clarkston Road, let’s cap it and then do some minor edge draining to encourage drainage. That could happen this summer and be 100% paid for by the (Oakland County) Road Commission. It would happen after school was out for obvious reasons.
The second one is Main Street, and this is not so much Smith’s involvement here. The first one, he’s been heavily involved in, but the second one is just something that MDOT came to Smith and said that they wanted to do this summer. It’s completely what they call mill and fill, so mill it down two-to-three inches and then fill it back up with two-three inches of new asphalt from Dixie Highway to I-75. It’s not in horrible shape now, but MDOT will tell you, and the Road Commission as well, that the new strategy is don’t wait until the road is literally falling apart at which point, they have to really dig down and replace all the subgrade. Don’t wait until it gets to that point. If they can do a mill and fill, and you will see a lot more of that throughout the County, they might extend the roadway another ten years or more.
Luginski said that they did this not that long ago, MDOT did this five or six years ago on Main Street. So, it didn’t last ten years. At some point, they need to just replace that street. Smith agreed. Luginski said regardless, there’s degradation that happens to every house on Main Street when they do that. He can tell Smith for a fact that they came into Luginski’s house before they did it and filmed, they went downstairs with cameras and took pictures of the walls and everything else. While they were doing it, they came in because his house happens to be a little bit closer to the street than some others, but there’s degradation that happens to the foundation of those homes when they do that. Smith asked if that’s when they were doing the milling, and Luginski said yes, because there’s a lot of vibration going on. And as much as it is nice for the street, it’s not good for the homes. So, they’ve got to be careful. The city doesn’t own the street so they can’t say they can’t do it, he gets that, but they have to be careful and talk about the cadence of them doing it. They say ten years. Look back and see when they did that last. It was not ten years ago, and Don Frayer, who’s gone, told him that his house has the same damage when they do that. Luginski said he didn’t know about Rodgers’ yet, but potentially. It just creates a very, very big vibration through the ground that you can see when they were doing it. Luginski said he could see mortar falling when he went into his basement. So that’s a problem, and they said that they would, and he can’t remember exactly so he guesses he shouldn’t say that. If it gets to the point where it’s bad, somebody’s got to pay for it, and it shouldn’t be Luginski. It sounds like a great idea but being a Main Street resident living in one of those old homes, not so much. Haven said that it sounds like they are trying to be proactive by (unintelligible). Luginski said yeah, but if they do it again, he will stand on his street and block the road until they come into his house and do that again. Trust him. Do you think he’s kidding? Haven said (unintelligible) sure.
Haven asked Smith to proceed.
Smith said like he said, it’s really out of the city’s control and this is really just information.
Wylie said since they’re probably going to mill, does that mean that new lines have to be painted? Smith said yes. Wylie asked if that meant that this would be a good time perhaps for reconfiguring. They’ve talked for years about maybe a bike lane, and it was always wait until MDOT is going to paint new lines. Smith said that you could, but the only way that bike lanes can be accommodated is to eliminate a parking lane. Wylie said that this would have to not be through the downtown area itself, but more through north of downtown. Smith said he sees what Wylie is saying. Haven said where it’s wider. Smith said probably north of Clarkston Road. South of Waldon was also talked about. Wylie said north of Washington and south of Waldon. Smith agreed. Smith said it’s something that they can talk about in those sections but not the downtown area. Wylie agreed and said that she understood. Haven said that this is one of the elements of traffic calming. Wylie agreed. You narrow that perceived roadway to slow the traffic down.
Luginski said he’s been involved in this for many years on Main Street, and they tried to get MDOT to do that. One, they said they wouldn’t do it because it was a truck route. They wouldn’t put a bike lane in. And two, the comment was OK, we have a bike lane, and they were talking about Main Street north of Washington, so they said OK, and he was sitting in the meeting with the MDOT folks a number of years ago, and they said OK, let’s think about that, what you’re asking for. If they were to put a bike lane going in south on Main Street, it comes in front of the antique shop, what happens? It just ends? Where do those bikes go? Wylie said they would have to go to the side streets. Luginski said he knows, but that’s their point. It just dead ends into a parking spot and a car. What do those people do with their bikes? That’s their concern.
Wylie said that she thought they have been shifting their thinking over the last four, five, or six years. Wylie said that Rich (Little, former Planning Commission Chair) was working with that group of people for MDOT and she forgot who else, she thought Oakland County Road Commission, on the study, and she doesn’t know what’s happening. An unidentified person mentioned SEMCOG (Southeast Michigan Council of Governments). Haven said SEMCOG, the software that we are going to be piloting. Wylie agreed. She said that they are at some point going to make a suggestion, and certainly at some point bike lanes are going to be brought up, and she’s just saying that since they are talking about this to kind of keep it in mind. Smith said absolutely. The team that’s working on this with MDOT and SEMCOG from the Planning Commission, they should absolutely ask the question, can they do these. Haven said is this imminent, for sure, if we could get a representative from the Planning Commission, that would be great. Smith said OK. Wylie thanked Smith.
Smith said that the third option is something that they’ve talked about before. This has actually been facilitated by the second option. If in fact MDOT does do the mill and fill and the repairs to Main Street, they would do some concrete work at the same time before the asphalt work starts. So, they would come in, dig out any damaged curbs, broken curbs, broken edging, any sunken sewers would be raised back up, and they would do all that concrete work in advance of the Main Street repaving. The advantage to the city, the opportunity for the city, is to piggyback on that concrete contractor. The city would get their very attractive concrete prices. So, what Smith is proposing is that they stay in very close contact with MDOT and try to piggyback on their concrete contractor to replace the paver driveways with concrete driveways. Smith said that they could do it in asphalt too, it would be cheaper, but it doesn’t have the same appeal. Haven said that Smith has $55,000 on this for the city; perhaps this would be a good place to use some ARPA funds. Smith said that it could very well be a place to use those, yes, absolutely.
Smith said that the $55,000 is a very loose number based on concrete prices. Haven agreed. Smith said it could be more, or less. Haven said it’s certainly infrastructure. Smith said he’s not asking for a decision tonight, he just wanted to update the council about some work that’s on the horizon, so the next time they talk about it, he may be bringing a request to them for approval. The beauty of this is that the first two don’t cost the city a dime, and they potentially have a source of revenue for the third one to pay for that, the ARPA revenue stream. Haven said that was good news.
Smith said that’s all he wanted to (unintelligible crosstalk).
Haven asked if there were any questions.
Fuller said if you’d lived on Clarkston Road for as long as he has, he’s (unintelligible) with Hubble Roth (Hubble, Roth & Clark) years ago about that intersection at Clarkston Road and Main Street, and he thinks that the proposal at the time was to run a drain over to the property owned by Mr. Catallo and into Parke Lake. He doesn’t know exactly how they were going to do that, and now they are talking about tying it into a storm drain that probably will end up draining into Parke Lake anyhow. Fuller said when you talk about draining water and putting an edge on that, where the water collects is right next to a utility pole. Fuller asked if the gentleman from SEMCOG could actually come out and look at where he’s proposing to drain the water from and where it’s going to go. Smith asked if Fuller meant in this proposal. Fuller said yes. Smith said they’re just doing what he calls some very minor edge grading, just trying to encourage the water, it more than likely would flow along into some of the edges on both the north and south side of the road into the lawns that are there. Hopefully that puddle, that big puddle by that utility pole would be eliminated, but it’s hard to say. They do not think the relocation of that utility pole is in the cards for this summer. That’s a very big intersection of utility wires with lots of things going on there. You have AT & T, Comcast, and Edison lines on those poles, and it would be a very big thing to get it relocated by the summer’s work. Smith didn’t think that is in the cards. So, Smith’s thought was they could do some regrading around there, there’s kind of a pretty good sizable mound of stone there that could be regraded slightly. But the key here is that they’re not going to enlarge the roadway because that involves putting subgrade below. It would have to all be excavated out, the sand and junk dirt, and put down 21AA compactable stone. That’s a big deal and it may in fact violate the work agreement now for that roadway because of the previous pollution that existed there. They might not get approval to do that excavation at this time, so that’s another reason for delaying the ultimate job that they would love to do there, which is storm drains. Smith said that yes, Fuller was right, at one time Hubbell, Roth & Clark talked about storm drains and devised a plan. The Road Commission has seen it many times. That would have easements going through over to Roberson Court, down Robertson Court, and into Parke Lake. If they don’t do that, they connect up to Main Street storm drains. Guess where those are going, they’re going down to the spillway, dropping into the spillway, and out to Parke Lake. Either way, the reality is that water from Clarkston Road and Main Street is going to Parke Lake. But that’s neither here nor there right now because that’s not in the cards at this time.
Haven thanked Smith for his report.
Agenda Item #13, Adjourn (Video time mark 1:42:00):
Haven said that the next item on the agenda is adjournment and said he would entertain a motion to adjourn.
Motion by Wylie; second Fuller.
No discussion.
Motion to adjourn by unanimous voice vote.
Resources:
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- Link to video recording:
http://216.11.46.126/vod/3667-City-Council-v1/vod.mp4 - 01-24-2022 City Council packet
- Link to video recording: