Introduction:
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 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. Mayor Eric Haven also frequently cuts people 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 by the mayor, 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.
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 (Video time mark 0:00:01):
Sue Wylie called the meeting to order at 7:01 p.m.
Agenda item #2, Pledge of Allegiance (Video time mark 0:00:07):
Pledge said.
Agenda item #3, Roll Call (Video time mark 0:00:27):
Al Avery, Bruce Fuller, Laura Rodgers, and Sue Wylie were present. Eric Haven, Gary Casey, and Joe Luginski were absent.
Agenda item #4, Motion: Approval of Agenda (Video time mark 0:00:45):
Motion to approve the agenda as presented by Fuller; second Rodgers.
No discussion.
Motion to approve the agenda passed unanimously by voice vote.
Agenda Item #5, Public Comments (Video time mark 0:01:08):
Wylie read the rules for public comments.
Due to apparent connection problems, Mr. Pardee wasn’t able to read his public comments. Mayor Pro Tem Wylie agreed to read them.
Chet Pardee:
The idea of offering suggestions as solutions, instead of criticism, has not worked. None of the suggestions offered on January 24th have been taken, not even the ones made to the mayor and city manager for February and March implementation. Of the six city council meetings for 2022, two have occurred without a virtual connection. The mayor seems to take pride in quick meetings without controversy or accomplishments. Oops, the three minutes are up and no time to finish Mr. Pardee’s comments.
After the last meeting, the mayor’s email suggested I listen carefully to what Al Avery said following the reading of my public comments. Mr. Avery did not disagree that the finance committee waited too long to acknowledge the city has insufficient funds to repair its streets and sidewalks. By waiting, the ship has sailed on using millage to offset the expiring general bond obligation. Taxpayers will see reduced millage in their July tax bill.
Mr. Avery seems to suggest that the city seek voter approval to do major projects requiring millions funded by a new bond issue rather than using additional revenue or millage to repair streets and sidewalks. The bond issue for major projects appears to be the focus of the finance committee discussion in its March 23rd meeting. Thanks to Sue Bisio, the transcription of that meeting is available in Clarkston Secrets [Clarkston Sunshine] as shown below. The city manager included his summary of the finance committee meeting (also shown below) in his 3/24/22 communication.
Street and sidewalk maintenance needs annual revenue. Sidewalk repair has been ignored for several years. The city has ignored HRC’s [Hubbell, Roth & Clark’s] road assessment recommendation in the 2018 RAMP [Road Asset Management Plan] report to spend $100,000 per year to move the road condition from 4.3 rating to 4.6 out of 10. Anything less projects degraded roads.
Consider doubling the paid parking fee, expanding paid parking as recommended by the parking committee, and selling naming rights to Depot Park to provide increased revenue without taxpayer impact. Other ideas are welcome.
Not read in the 3/28 Council meeting: Beginning in September, the font size of the monthly financial report was significantly reduced. I suggest this report revert to the August format to continue the city’s commitment to transparency. (August and September examples were provided.) It is not likely that font size is the root cause of the City’s financial issues, but it would be helpful if financial reports could be easily read.
Chet Pardee Attachment #1, Excerpt from City Manager Report
Chet Pardee Attachment #2, Finance Committee Meeting
Wylie asked if anyone else had public comments.
Avery said that he wanted to respond quickly to what Pardee said. He may be confused here, but the sentence “Mr. Avery did not disagree that the finance committee waited too long to acknowledge the city has insufficient funds to repair its streets and sidewalks.” It was never really discussed in the finance committee meeting that he recalls, and he would never make a statement like that. Avery said that he doesn’t think that’s actually accurate. Finding money to take care of streets and sidewalks, we did just, we’re coming out of the back end of a pandemic that did affect our finances, and Avery thinks that’s lost on Mr. Pardee at times. Pardee sent Avery another letter and Avery won’t go into the specifics other than to say that as he understands Pardee’s thoughts on the millage, or the bonds that are getting paid off, it’s Avery’s understanding that Pardee was suggesting that we get additional bonds to take care of some issues that we have in the city, and now Avery understands that Pardee’s position is he doesn’t want the bonds, he just wants to take the millage that the bonds were used, the millage was used to pay the bonds off, he wants to take that millage and just incorporate it into the general budget to increase revenues for the city over the long term, which would be a permanent tax increase versus by doing it by way of bonds. So, we just maybe disagree on how that would work.
To Avery’s knowledge, and again, his recollection was that no one suggested, and Avery certainly didn’t suggest, that any improvements that would be made possibly with this looking into a bond which would cost millions of dollars. What we discussed was generally, if we can get an idea of what needs to be done on a bigger scale, and what road improvements and sidewalks, if we had an idea of how much that might be, then we can look at it at that time. No one suggested that it was going to be millions of dollars, so Avery thinks that needs to be explained. No one’s agreed, on the finance committee, no one agreed to these bonds, we’re just trying to access and get information so we can make informed decisions, that’s all.
[See Clarkston Sunshine comment.]
Wylie thanked Avery. Wylie asked if anyone else had a public comment to make.
There were no additional comments made at the meeting.
Wylie closed public comments.
Agenda Item #6, FYI
Friends of the CIDL Used Book Sale (Video time mark 0:08:05)
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- Friends of Clarkston Independence District Library Spring Used Book Sale (page 3/22)
Wylie said that it was members-only preview night, Tuesday, April 26th from 6:00-8:00 p.m. The book sale is Wednesday, April 27th, from 10:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., and Thursday, April 28th, same hours, 10:00 a.m. to 8:30. Half-price day is Friday, April 29th, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and $5 bag day is Saturday, April 30th, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Again, that was the Clarkston Independence District Library.
Wylie said that is all she had and asked if anyone had anything else for FYI.
No additional comments.
Agenda Item #7, Sheriff Report for March 2022 (Video time mark 0:08:51; page 4/22 of the council packet):
Smith and Wylie noted that Sergeant Charlie Young(?) was present to discuss the report. Wylie said it was nice to meet him.
Wylie said that they have the report in their agenda packet. She asked if Sergeant Young wanted to talk about anything or bring anything up.
Sergeant Young said that he would discuss one of the items. There has been a little bit of an increase in traffic enforcement in the Clarkston and Independence areas for their substation. The reason for that is during the pandemic, there were times that they were told to just kind of ease the traffic enforcement, only stopping reckless drivers or something that endangers the public, and for a while, they weren’t making regular stops like they normally would. Near the end of the year, they had a crisis with the pandemic where they had a lot of deputies out at home, that had tested positive, recovering from COVID, and so they were told to kind of ease it. He would say that in mid-February, early March, they were asked to start doing traffic enforcement. That wasn’t just in Independence Township; it was county-wide, state-wide, and actually, national right now. Traffic enforcement is necessary because people have really increased their speeds, not just in cities and townships, but on the interstates.
Wylie asked if he was talking about traffic monitoring, citation enforcement. Sergeant Young said warnings and citations and violations. Wylie said if people don’t see it, it says thirteen in March for “Monthly Warnings – Citation Report,” and Citations is up to nine.
Wylie asked if anyone on council had any questions or comments.
No questions or comments.
Wylie thanked Sergeant Young.
Agenda Item #8, City Manager Report (Video time mark 0:10:48; page 5/22 of the council packet):
Wylie said that the city manager’s report is available in their packet to read. Wylie asked if Smith had anything to add to what is written.
Smith said just that he was not able to attend the grant-writing class that he identified due to his injuries. He is looking for replacement days to attend that grant-writing class. Smith said that everything else there is still appropriate.
Wylie said that they were glad to see Smith was back.
Wylie asked if anyone had any questions or comments on the city manager’s report.
No additional questions or comments.
Agenda Item #9, Motion: Acceptance of the Consent Agenda as Presented (Video time mark 0:11:33):
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- 03-14-2022 Final Minutes (page 7/22 of the council packet)
- 03-28-2022 Draft Minutes (page 9/22 of the council packet)
- 04-11-2022 Treasurer’s Report (page 11/22 of the council packet)
- 04-06-2022 Check Disbursement Report, 03-01-2022 – 03-31-2022 (page 12/22 of the council packet)
Wylie asked for a motion to accept the consent agenda.
Motion by Avery; second Fuller.
Wylie asked if there was any discussion.
No discussion.
Motion to accept the consent agenda passed by unanimous voice vote.
Agenda Item #10, Old Business
Item 10a – Discussion: Meeting Rules of Procedure (Video time mark 0:12:06)
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- 04-07-2022 Meeting rules of Procedure (page 16/22 of the council packet)
Wylie asked if they were still talking about discussing the Meeting Rules of Procedure. Smith said yes. Wylie said she missed it when she looked at it before.
Smith said that they talked, and he thought that it was at the first meeting in March, about establishing meeting rules of procedure, which is a recognized document that the council can pass. It’s within council’s ability just to pass this as a document that would be followed in all of their meetings. It’s not an ordinance, you don’t have to go to the voters, you don’t have to put this through public hearings, it’s just something that you would follow as a matter of course in all of our meetings.
Smith said that this is done probably by 2/3 of the municipalities in the state. Smith said that we had one years ago but it was not being followed, and it was basically just discarded after years of not following it.
Smith thinks that there are many benefits of having this in place. So, any time any questions come up in the meeting, you can say well, our rules of procedure do not allow for that kind of discussion in this meeting. A lot of things are kind of commonsensical. You have to be respectful of the people in the room, you cannot be calling names or anything like that. It’s very commonsense kind of stuff, a lot of the things that they are already doing, it’s just putting it in writing.
Smith said his plan tonight was not to vote on this. Effectively, this is just what Smith would consider a first reading of this, and Smith would like to vote on this two weeks from tonight in the next council meeting.
Smith is just bringing it up for the council to see it in advance, so if they have any questions, he is happy to entertain those today, but he was not going to go through all of these individually. Again, a lot of these are things that we are already doing. Our rules of order, for example, the voluntary procedure suggests that we use Roberts Rules of Order for running a meeting unless you decide to overlay them with your own rules, that’s within your ability to do that.
A couple updates that Smith made, and he said that he should have said at the outset that there was a committee, he thought that it was mainly Wylie and Jennifer [Speagle], who were working on this over a year ago, but for whatever reason, it didn’t get to council for final approval. Smith started with that document, much of this is what was pulled together, and then Smith looked at other municipalities. Smith has pulled up at least six other municipalities to look at what’s in their rules of procedure. When you get to something like the City of Lansing, their rules of procedure book is one-half inch thick. Even Armada was like 60 pages. Smith didn’t think that Armada was that large of a community, but maybe it is. They had a very detailed rules of procedure document.
Smith went through six or seven other municipalities’ rules of procedure and he kind of pulled the things that he thought were most relevant to Clarkston. The beauty is you can kind of steal from these. There’s no plagiarism here. Use what other cities have developed. Or the Michigan Municipal League does a lot of these as well. They’ve developed their own, and Smith has taken from some of the clauses that are in their recommendation.
A couple of new things are in 2.14 and 2.15. Here, this was not in existence when we first developed this. Video recording of the meetings. It’s not saying it’s a mandatory item. Smith thinks it needs to be very clear these are optional, both of these, video recordings and virtual connections are optional things that we would like to do. If at all possible, we would like to do it, it’s a good transparency thing that we should be following, a procedure that we should be following, so both video recording and having a virtual meeting as we are here tonight is a good way of staying contact with the community. Virtual meetings have become just the new standard as you know, Zoom meetings and GoToMeeting are very popular. People have busy schedules and can’t get away from the house. Smith said that he thinks that they want to strive to make those connections available, but not making it mandatory, stopping short of that.
Smith said that he would scroll through the rest of it very quickly and see if there is anything in particular that he wants to comment on.
Smith said again, a lot of the wording that is in there came from other documents. It’s all adjustable. Smith said it’s pretty straightforward, and he thinks this last item here, number five, is where he would like to go with this, and this is based on input that he’s received from residents. Why aren’t the other meetings videotaped, why aren’t the other meetings virtual connections so I can watch them from home, or if I can’t make it to the meeting, I can watch it the next day on Independence Television. Smith said he’s included in there this new section five, which is to the extent possible, again, not saying it’s mandatory, but to the extent possible, we would like to have the Planning Commission, the Historic District Commission, and the Zoning Board of Appeals adhere to the same meeting rules of procedures. So, they have to follow the same guidelines that we follow for meetings. When you can call people up to public comments; what the order of the sequence of addressing an action item is; when you have a motion, you get a second, and you open for discussion; all that same format should be theoretically used by the boards and commissions. They’re making decisions, and they should really be following the same guidelines that you are. So, the thought here was to, in this last section, to say oh by the way, we’d like the Planning Commission, the Historic District Commission, and the ZBA [Zoning Board of Appeals] to use the same rules. There are some exceptions, clearly. For example, their meetings are not the second and fourth Monday like yours are, just calling out some of the differences here. And a quorum for them is three versus five, or four for you, so just calling out some of the differences.
Smith said here again, he’s not looking for a vote tonight, he’s just looking to put it out on the table, answering any questions they may have, and then we’ll talk about this again in our second meeting in April and hopefully vote on it. If it’s not ready to vote on, we can postpone it, or table it, but Smith would like to keep moving forward on this. It’s an important procedural item that we should be following.
Wylie wanted to know how possible or likely is it that they could connect virtually, for GoToMeeting, for say Planning Commission meetings, the HDC [Historic District Commission], and zoning, and do a video recording. Smith said that is two different kinds of questions. He’s talked with Independence Television about video recording. Their concern is budgetary. Is there a limit on the number of cameramen? We have one here tonight. They’re limited on the number of cameramen and camerawomen that they have available, so they would potentially look for us to provide some funding if need be. Smith has to talk to them about what that number might be, especially as we approach the budget, is it something that we can afford to do. They’ve already committed to covering the council meetings, two per month. Could they cover Planning and HDC once a month, so that’s another 24 meetings a year. What would that cost be to do that? ZBA just doesn’t meet that frequently. So, that’s the obstacle for video recording, the potential cost. Now, they said if we want, they could bring the equipment over the day of the meeting, and we could just plug it in and turn it on. Smith isn’t sure if it’s that simple, but that might be an option. As to the Zoom meetings, it’s just whoever is comfortable from a technical standpoint. There are no earth-shattering mechanisms being used here. It’s just connecting to the meeting and connecting the computer so you can display it on the screens. In theory, you don’t even have to show it on the screens, but it’s a helpful thing to be able to see everything.
Wylie asked Smith if he was pretty much constantly monitoring it. Because, if, for instance, the Planning Commission is doing it, that would probably mean somebody who’s taking part in the meeting monitoring it at the same time. Smith said the Planning Commission, and they’ve just had the Planning Commission meeting, Smith is pretty much intimately involved in what the Planning Commission is doing and vice-versa, so Smith thinks that he doesn’t have any issue attending a Planning Commission meeting and running the Zoom meeting or GoToMeeting. The bigger question is on HDC. Smith doesn’t typically attend HDC meetings, and he would have to find someone on the HDC who would have the technical ability to do the hookups. So, it’s something that Smith can talk to Jim Meloche [HDC chairperson] about. Even if they have a student or someone who is technically strong who can just come in. It’s not even that difficult. If one of the board members wants to take it, that’s great, Smith can give them a tutorial, but Smith thinks in both cases, those obstacles can be overcome.
Wylie said OK and thanked Smith.
Avery said that he had a couple of thoughts, questions, more clerical. Smith has got two, on page three, 2.13 is Study Sessions and also 2.13 is Publication of Council Proceedings. On 2.14, you’ve got two of those, and Avery said that he’d just renumber those. Smith said good question.
Avery said and then, when Smith says on the back here, and this is the attorney in him coming out again, you could say boards and commissions to the extent possible, including the Planning Commission, the Historic District, and the zoning board, shall adhere to the same rules of procedure adopted by the city council. Avery thinks Smith needs to be more specific. If you’re just talking about the way the meeting is conducted, that’s one thing, but there are other sections that talk about the mayor setting the agenda and all that sort of thing, which doesn’t apply, but in adopting them, we would be saying oh yeah, they all apply. Smith said OK. Avery said Smith needs to be more specific. Avery thinks that’s where Smith is going, Smith wants the meetings to be run with the same kind of public comment, and then if something’s on the agenda, people can comment on that (unintelligible crosstalk). Smith said exactly, so we’re following the same format, consistent across our meetings, and people going from one to another can expect to have the same general process. Smith said that Avery was right. Some of the comments that were relevant to council may not apply. Smith said that he tried to call out the exceptions, but there are probably others. Avery agreed. Smith said that he just needs to go through those. Avery agreed and said those were his thoughts on it. Smith said OK.
Smith and Wylie asked if there was anything else.
There were no additional comments.
Wylie asked if anyone in the audience had anything to discuss on this item.
There were no additional comments.
[I’ve included the following information from Cory Johnston. This information was emailed the city council members and the city manager in advance of the April 11th city council meeting but was not acknowledged by the city council or the city manager at the meeting.
Cory Johnston:
For your consideration with the discussion of agenda item 10a. on Monday’s council meeting agenda.
Cory Johnston Attachment #1, Council procedures 2022-04-11
Agenda Item #11, New Business
Item 11a – Motion: Mental Health Awareness Month (Video time mark 0:26:12)
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- Mental Health Awareness Month May 2022 (page 22/22 of the council packet)
Wylie said that May 2022 is Mental Health Awareness Month, and at the very end of the packet; actually, they need to read all of this. [Wylie read from page 22/22 of the packet.]
Avery said that he would just change that last paragraph where it says that we resolve that Oakland Community Health Network – (interrupting Avery), Wylie said it needs to be us. Avery agreed. Wylie said the City of the Village of Clarkston. Wylie thanked Avery.
Avery said he would move to adopt the resolution; Rodgers second.
Wylie asked if there was any discussion.
No discussion.
Wylie thought they needed to do a roll call.
Wylie, Rodgers, Avery, and Fuller voted yes.
Wylie said it’s unanimously passed.
Agenda Item #12, Adjourn (Video time mark 0:30:36):
Wylie said that there was one last item on our agenda, Item 12. Wylie asked if anyone wanted to make a motion.
Wylie asked if there was any other business.
No discussion.
Motion to adjourn by Avery; second [if there was a second, it was inaudible].
No discussion.
Motion to adjourn by unanimous voice vote.
Wylie said that the meeting is adjourned at 7:32.
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