February 26, 2024, City Council Meeting

Introduction:

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

Agenda Item #1, Call to Order (Video time mark 0:00:19):

Sue Wylie said so they’re, she’s sorry, they called the meeting to order at 7:00 and it was Item #1. Item #2 is Pledge of Allegiance.

Agenda Item #2, Pledge of Allegiance (Video time mark 0:00:04):

[The Pledge of Allegiance was said before the meeting was called to order on the video.]

Wylie said she remembered this time.

Pledge said.

Agenda Item #3, Roll Call (Video time mark 0:00:28):

Wylie said Item #3 is the roll call. She asked Karen [DeLorge, city clerk] to please take the roll.

Mark Lamphier, Amanda Forte, Gary Casey, Sue Wylie, Ted Quisenberry, Laura Rodgers, and Peg Roth were present.

Wylie said and it looks like they’re all there. Great. Thank you.

Agenda Item #4, Approval of Agenda (Video time mark 0:00:49):

Wylie said Item #4 is approval of the agenda. They’ll need a motion and a second to approve the agenda.

Roth asked Jonathan [Smith, city manager] if anything had changed since this morning. Smith said no. Roth thanked Smith.

Motion by Roth; second; Rodgers.

Wylie asked if there was any discussion.

No discussion.

Motion to approve the agenda passed by unanimous voice vote.

Wylie said the agenda is approved.

Agenda Item #5, Public Comments (Video time mark 0:01:15):

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

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

Wylie said Item #5 is public comments.

(Wylie read the rules for public comments.)

Wylie asked if anyone wanted to make a public comment.

Wylie recognized Donna Papatheodoropoulos for a public comment.

Wylie said you know, before Papatheodoropoulos gets started, they may have noticed Wylie put some little pamphlets out. This was a pamphlet that was approved from the council in 2019. The ones you have actually say it’s a draft because it needs to be updated with some current names, current staff names, and current city council names. And Wylie would like to go back to, their previous way of doing council business was asking public people speaking to come up to the podium, and since Papatheodoropoulos is the first, and she doesn’t have to say who she is. Wylie did check again. There were some questions at their last meeting about it and the Open Meetings Act does say that people do not have to register or identify themselves at your option.

Roth said she also has a comment, so she doesn’t know at what point. Wylie said OK. Roth said just to let Wylie know.

Wylie told Papatheodoropoulos to go ahead.

Papatheodoropoulos said she just wanted to hopefully find out if they are going to be having, and how people will be notified, of the general hearing on the park. She hasn’t seen anything in the paper and the only thing that she has seen so far is Smith’s last e-mail.

Smith said it will be in the paper starting this week, both the Oakland Press and the Clarkston News, and it will be, they’ll put it on the website, and it will be in his e-mail again. But the main thing is on the website. They’ll put it there and make sure people are aware, and like he said, it will be in both papers.

Papatheodoropoulos said it will be on the 11^th, on March 11^th. Smith said correct. Papatheodoropoulos said and anything with the library, to go further on together. Smith well, this this meeting is just to gauge public interest, so they’ll have a normal council meeting, and at some point during the meeting, they’ll say they are opening a public hearing. People come in, come to the podium. They are just trying to gauge public interest in the idea of making changes, additions, deletions, whatever to Depot Park. It’s not really the full assisted conversation like you would have at the library. That would be a step two. This is just determine if there is enough interest in going forward to a step two.

Quisenberry said excuse him, he thinks one of them said March 11th. Smith said March 11^th. That’s correct. The next council meeting. Quisenberry said OK. Papatheodoropoulos said thank you.

Wylie recognized Roth for a public comment. Roth asked Wylie if she needed to go up to the podium. Wylie said Roth is on council, so she can sit. Roth said OK.

Roth said she actually talked to Jonathan [Smith, city manager] about this before, but she noticed that nothing has been done about it. So, she referred to it as Eric’s [former mayor Eric Haven’s] street to nowhere. There was some digging back in the wetlands a few months ago, and Roth only found out about it, actually it was mentioned, the question was asked of her, what’s going on out there? So, Roth asked the question at a planning commission meeting. It just so happened Wylie was sitting next to her and Derek [Werner, planning commission chair] deferred to Smith and Smith explained that there was some digging back there and it was three days done by, Roth doesn’t recall his name, DPW [Department of Public Works] Jimi [Turner, DPW supervisor] – Smith said Jimi – (continuing), Roth said and it cost, Roth believes Smith said under $1,000, but it was unapproved and it was done at the request of Haven because he considered this to be his observation point. So, now that it’s there and it looks like a road or a path, and as Smith mentioned the other day, it would be very not unlikely somebody could take a four-wheeler down there or whatever, Roth is curious because she also sees there’s still two piles, remains of brush there. What’s the plan?

Smith said well, the brush will be chipped. The plan is to chip the brush. Just chip it on to the path. Smith has been given full approval by all the powers to be that they can just leave the chips there. They don’t have to haul those away. Those are buckthorn plants, what Roth is seeing on the side, and those are the cuttings. That was the initial goal. It just happened to coincide with what the previous mayor wanted to do, and that was – (interrupting Smith), Roth said which went pretty deep into what she considers, she thinks, would be called the wetlands, yeah.

Smith said yeah, well, there is a berm there, and that was originally (unintelligible), Smith is not a (unintelligible) expert on this topic, but what they’ve been told is that it was a two track that was developed by Henry Ford back in the day, or his crews, to access the mill race for maintenance. So, this is a berm. So, there’s wetlands on the right, wetlands on the left. It’s just a berm that was there and the buckthorn likes it there because they’re not, it’s not down in the wetlands, it’s up on a dry space. So, the buckthorn has taken to that and is just growing there. So, they’ve been asked, they were asked as part of their normal invasive species control, is to address the buckthorn in there. And then at the same time, the Friends of Depot Park, led by the previous mayor, said well, could you clear it to the point where they could actually have a pathway because it would be like a great first step in showing people what that pathway might look like, a boardwalk in the wetlands. And so, they went a little further. Rather than just cutting the buckthorn at about a foot up off the ground, which they normally would have done, instead they cut it right to ground level. And so that now it does look like a path. Roth said yeah, it does. Smith said if it hadn’t been for this request to make it an accessible pathway, they would just cut these buckthorns off at about a foot or two feet even and left it, but now it does look like a pathway.

Smith said the next step is to is to chip all those cuts, cuttings that you see out there. And there was the one hole there. That wasn’t purposely digging in there. They weren’t doing that. They were never charged to do any digging in the wetlands. It’s just that the skid steer kind of slid off the bump and down in there, so they had to pull the skid steer out, and in the process it made kind of a hole. But that wasn’t the original intent, was to do any digging.

Smith asked if that answered Roth’s question. Roth said it answers her question. She was just wondering, like when, you know, she had mentioned to Smith before about just letting this stuff grow up. Smith talked about, he thought he might get two poles and then make a sign, which Roth just thinks calls more attention to it. But it does look like, and she went by it again today, Smith has two stacks of brush, and a very obvious, more than a path – Smith agreed – (continuing), Roth said that’s back in there, and Smith will sooner or later probably will have some issue. Smith agreed.

Smith said they could do something that’s a little less obvious than a chain link gate or a swinging arm. They could just put some logs across there of some sort to try to, you know, prohibit people from going in there. Roth said she thinks the log idea actually is a pretty good idea rather than, you know, to just block, she thinks, vehicles from getting back in there. Smith said it’s going to be more to stop people from going in there with them now. Roth agreed. Smith said even some four-wheeler. Roth agreed. Smith said they wouldn’t want them going in there because they get stuck – Roth agreed – (continuing), Smith said they had a hell of a time getting that skid steer out of there because it gets very soft, very quickly if you get off the top of that berm. It’s kind of crowned. So, if you get off to the edge a little bit before you know it, you’re going to get into trouble.

Roth said it just seems like there must be some way to get rid of the brush because he’s got two piles on both sides of it, to clean it up a little bit. Smith said they will do that. But Roth’s understanding is that it was three days of work to make it so maybe they’ll take three days to clean it back up. Smith said he doesn’t think, maybe a day to get that chipped, and then they have some logs. As they’ll talk later, they have lots of logs. Roth said yeah, right. Yes, he does, actually. Smith said so, maybe they could place some logs across there. Smith said so, that would be his plan. It is technically part of the park. They don’t necessarily want to prohibit somebody, put a sign saying, access is prohibited, because technically it is part of Depot Park. If somebody wants to walk in there, Smith doesn’t know that they, they’ll have a tough time justifying that they can’t walk there. Let him put it that way. But he certainly wouldn’t want any vehicles in there of any kind, even just a little two-wheeler. Roth said right.

Roth said and then the other question she has with the lights in the park, are they going to be staying on like they do? She thought there was some conversation before she came back, that – Smith said on the gazebo side of the of the river, those they have been leaving on at night. Roth said she knows. Smith said what they agreed is they wouldn’t add any new ones. And they did put up some lights for the Christmas market, but they’re not leaving them on. They’re disconnected at this time. Roth said OK, curious, thank you.

Wylie asked if anybody else had public comments.

Wylie said she did want to expand a little bit on what she said at the beginning of the meeting, before Papatheodoropoulos stood up, council did pass, and she believes it was summer of 2023, maybe some of them remember, some policies about how meetings are conducted, and she just wanted to read some of that, and a lot of that is what’s mentioned in that pamphlet.

(Reading from her notes), Wylie said members of the public speak only when recognized by the presiding officer. Members of the public shall be limited to speaking only during the public comments or issues not on the meeting agenda, limited to three minutes, and following council discussion on each agenda item prior to a vote by the city council on the items, limited to three minutes. Each speaker shall observe the specified time limitation unless the rules are waived by a majority vote of the city council. Wylie said city council shall, and she’s skipping some parts, the city clerk shall record in the meeting minutes the name of those who wish to divulge it of persons addressing the city council and the topic to which they speak. A person shall not be excluded from the meeting that is otherwise open to the public except for a breach of the peace committed at the meeting, and no public comments may include defaming or slanderous personal attacks on any member of the city council or any members of the city staff. Wylie said this is on page two of their City of the Village of Clarkston Meeting Rules and Procedure, and it’s available on the city website if anybody wants to look at that.

Wylie said OK, they did get a lengthy letter, public comments from Chet Pardee, and rather than reading the multiple pages, it could just be included in the minutes. Wylie thinks that would be sufficient. She thinks it’s five pages long. Unless anybody on council would like to have it read.

No comments from council.

[Chet Pardee comments follow immediately below in italics – inserted by Clarkston Sunshine]

Good evening.

Pardee said he encourages the finance committee meetings be added to the city calendar and encourages council members and citizens to attend these meetings, in person or by Microsoft Teams. The first meeting is Wednesday, February 28^th, at 10:00-11:30. Lamphier will be unable to attend. There are five meetings currently scheduled.

Pardee believes the 2024-25 budget will be the most difficult since Smith became city manager. There are more critical expenses, insufficient revenue, and few dollars in the fund balance. It will be interesting to hear how Smith and Greg [Coté, city treasurer] explain how we got to this point and hear their proposed solutions.

Pardee has heard no communications from Independence Township regarding measurements of PFAS [polyfluoroalkyl substances] in our water. PFAS are forever chemicals, cancer causing, from firefighting foam and other sources. Pardee has never seen measurements of PFAS in our drinking water. He suggests Independence Township focus on measuring and communicating PFAS levels. The Pure Water give-away is not the correct priority.

In November 2023, Smith communicated his list of 35 projects on which he was working. In public comments, Pardee provided the below 17 items [linked here with minor edits for clarity] that were not mentioned in Smith’s list, but Pardee believes required his and council attention. 

During the preparation of the 2023-24 budget, Pardee provided this listing [linked here and with minor edits for clarity] of 29 questions to finance committee members expecting Smith’s answers due to budget implications. They were never addressed in a finance committee meeting. For the last meeting Pardee provided answers and asked Smith to provide answers. Pardee did and Smith did, but the items were never discussed. There is also the question of “found money” in several city accounts that has never been publicly addressed.

Pardee is not expecting the two lists below to be read in tonight’s public comments, but he offers them again as items requiring discussion that are not being addressed. Perhaps this year’s finance committee can be aware to these spending needs. Pardee acknowledges there are far more needs than revenue. 

Agenda Item #6, FYI (Video time mark 0:12:42):

Wylie said OK, moving on, they are on Item #6, FYI, and she has none. Wylie asked if anyone and anything that she missed.

No comments.

Agenda Item #7, Sheriff Report (Video time mark 0:12:52 and 1:04:59):

• • January 2024 Sheriff Report from Lieutenant Richard Cummins (page 3/41 of the council packet)

Wylie said and Item #7, they have the Sheriff’s Report for January 2024. She sees Sergeant Ashley is not here. DeLorge said he’s on his way.

Wylie said you know what? Can they just postpone this? How about they postpone this in case anybody has any questions. Roth said she does. Wylie said they’ll postpone it, and they’ll take care of it when he arrives.

[Continued after Item #11a.]

Sergeant Ashley walked to the podium and said good evening. Wylie said good evening. Sergeant Ashley asked how everybody was. Several council members said good. Sergeant Ashley asked if they were thirsty. Wylie said they have water if he needs it. (Laughter.) Sergeant Ashley said they have all kinds of water.

Sergeant Ashley asked if anyone had any questions on the numbers so far or anything like that.

Roth said she does. She compared it to last year. She was just curious but looking at this one violent crime. Sergeant Ashley said yes. Roth asked if Sergeant Ashley was allowed to tell them what was the violent crime, because last year they had zero. Sergeant Ashley said yes, that would, basically, it was domestic. Roth said domestic, OK.

Quisenberry asked if that was part one. Sergeant Ashley said it was a domestic with a – Quisenberry said no, he means the way that Sergeant Ashley has it classified here as violent crimes. Would those be part ones? Both Forte and Rodgers asked Quisenberry what that means. Wylie said it’s police talk. Quisenberry said the major public, murder, rape, robbery, car theft, those major ones. Sergeant Ashley said yeah, that would be probably because the down below is also they had or, he’s sorry, right above, is they had a couple of misdemeanor arrests. Roth said yeah. Sergeant Ashley said but yeah, that would fall under that.

Roth said and then going down. Last year, 51 monthly citations and this year three. So that’s a pretty significant difference. And then going all the way; Roth said she was sorry. Sergeant Ashley said he’s sorry, under the traffic there? Casey said under traffic. M Sergeant monthly citations. Roth said monthly citations. So, last year, there were 51. Casey said his said 304. Forte agreed. Roth said sorry, maybe she’s doing it backwards. Sergeant Ashley said that was for the year, year to date. Casey agreed. Roth said 51. She’s looking here. Sergeant Ashley asked Roth what sheet she had there. Roth said she’s looking at last year. Last January, there were 51 citations. Yeah. Sergeant Ashley said he doesn’t have that. Roth said and this year, there were only three. So, she’s just wondering that, that’s a pretty significant difference. Sergeant Ashley said obviously, they’re not being as hard as they were last year. Roth said yeah, a couple of red lights were running, maybe not – Sergeant Ashley said also the crashes. What does she have for crashes for last year? Because, year to date, was only four. Roth said four. Sergeant Ashley said year to date was only thirty for the whole year, and they’re already up to five. Roth agreed.

Roth said and then calls for service. Sergeant Ashley said that could be anything from neighbor complaints to medicals. Roth said right, no, she gets what they are, but last year it was 261 and this year, 86. She’s just looking at the difference. Sergeant Ashley said yeah, he means, he can compare. Roth said she didn’t need his records. She’s just curious. Like, you know, that just seems like a significant, and then to see the difference in the citations. People are driving more carefully these days. Sergeant Ashley said it could be that, or they might not be in the village as much, Sergeant he means, that could also be, you know. Roth said that’s a big difference. Sergeant Ashley said there’s always that possibility too. Especially with the tickets. They have done many monthly citations, but he knows that their afternoon shift was really big on those. So, he can go back and talk to their afternoon sergeant. Roth said rachet it up.

Sergeant Ashley said they’ve had some personnel changes too. So, actually they’re down on the personnel right now just because of promotions and people, he’s talking county-wide. Roth agreed. Sergeant Ashley said so, that does place (unintelligible) too. Roth said sure, different people on patrol. Just curious. She was looking at the numbers, and knowing how the traffic is around here, it was interesting that it is citations are down. (Sergeant Ashley made an unintelligible comment.) Sergeant

Wylie asked if anyone else had questions for Sergeant Ashley.

Quisenberry said he did, but it’s going to involve Smith as well. In the budget, in the 101 section or account, 574001 or 002 is State Liquor Control Commission. There’s $3,500 that is allocated for that. Is that money that they paid the state Liquor Control Commission. Smith said we don’t pay them. Quisenberry said right, that’s what he thought. So, what is that all about? Because he’s wondering. We shouldn’t be paying them anything. And he’s wondering is there any sort of liquor enforcement going on? Because it didn’t look like there was last year or yet this year. Sergeant Ashley said the only thing that they have is, well, they used to do Rudy’s. They used to do the checks there, but the only thing they have now is the bars that they would check. Sergeant Ashley said they don’t – (interrupting Sergeant Ashley), Quisenberry said he thinks there’s five liquor establishments in town there. Sergeant Ashley said yes sir, normally the LCC, the Liquor Control Commission actually goes in and do the sting operations. He knows they had Pine Knob, they kind of got to them. Quisenberry said yeah, but they’re stretched so far that it’s locals that usually do their local enforcement. Sergeant Ashley agreed. They used to do the party stores. That’s what he was told. So, they used to do all the party stores for Independence, and that has Rudy’s in there.

Quisenberry said so, they don’t do any unannounced inspections at any of the restaurants to see for any sort of violations. Sergeant Ashley said they look for the license, make sure the license is up to date. That’s what he was told. Yes, sir. Quisenberry said OK, but he’d still like to know what is this liquor, State Liquor Control Commission money? It doesn’t make any sense to him, especially because they’re not getting any enforcement. Smith said right. So, he’ll have to look into that. Quisenberry said 101 and then the 000574002.

Smith said that’s on the revenue side. So, they receive revenue. Quisenberry agreed. Smith said they receive revenue from the Liquor Control Commission. Quisenberry said that’s what he thought. Smith said they don’t pay out. He thought Quisenberry was asking – (interrupting Smith), Quisenberry said now, let him enlighten Smith as to why we get that money. It’s to do inspections. Smith said yeah, and so we were effectively paying that to the Oakland County Sheriff through our – (interrupting Smith), Quisenberry said but there appears to be a break in there. Smith said he doesn’t think there’s a connection. So, they received this income as a partial offset to what cost they may have, but there’s no direct connection that says, OK John [Sergeant Ashley], we want you to go out and spend $3,548 in terms of liquor control inspections. Quisenberry said no, they pay us that based on a certain amount with the expectation that our policing agency will do liquor inspections. That’s what that’s all about. Smith agreed. Quisenberry said and he guesses, in order to justify, if asked, what are we doing with this money, if somebody from there would look and say how many inspections have we had last year, was zero, and how many do we have now, they could very well say what’s going on. Sergeant Ashley said he will find that out tomorrow and get back with him. Not a problem.

Wylie asked if anybody else had questions.

No questions.

Wylie thanked Sergeant Ashley.

Sergeant Ashley said someone had a question. Wylie said she’s sorry, yes.

An unidentified man asked, on the domestic violence situations, do any of the residents need to be concerned. Sergeant Ashley said no, they really don’t give out details here when it comes to that kind of thing, but there’s no concern about that. He doesn’t know the whole case himself, so no. The unidentified man said he understands, their business is their business (unintelligible). Sergeant Ashley said he understands. People want to know what happens right next door to them as he would in his neighborhood, but that’s just something that they can’t release. He couldn’t stand here, sit, and tell him. That would probably be a FOIA-able thing that he would have to go through for something like that. The unidentified man said OK.

Sergeant Ashley recognized Paul Angelini for a comment.

Angelini said he is sure council is aware of this too, and he’s sure Sergeant Ashley is as well. A lot of people speed out here. All the time. Hauling ass. He was just wondering. He doesn’t know if it’s to do with like our budget and bring the guys on board for that or how that kind of works, but he’s sure you guys could definitely bring it in, in term of enforcing the speed, in terms of just flying through, and like he’s lost count how many times people, almost like, he’s trying to cross, the crosswalk is clear for him, the light’s on (unintelligible). It’s just something he wants to know. Has there been any increase in (unintelligible) some kind of cars with an exhaust that like explodes. Sergeant Ashley said yea, a pop. (Angelini made an unintelligible comment followed by unintelligible crosstalk.) Sergeant Ashley said he would get with Angelini to see what times it’s happening the most. Angelini said he would kind of keep track. Sergeant Ashley said that’s fine (unintelligible) patrols. Angelini said he appreciated it.

Wylie asked if anyone else in the audience had questions.

No additional questions.

Wylie thanked Sergeant Ashley again. Quisenberry and Roth thanked Sergeant Ashley.

Wylie said OK good.

Sergeant Ashley said he’s sticking around. Wylie said because this gets interesting.

Agenda Item #8, City Manager Report (Video time mark 0:13:14):

• • February 26, 2024 City Manager Report (page 4/41 of the council packet)

Wylie said Item #8, the city manager’s report for February 26, 2024, and they have a few things. Wylie thinks they have two items in the agenda, or in the packet, status of placemaking grant application and possible development of the Waldon and Main property. Wylie asked Smith if he had anything to add to that.

Smith said only that he, at some point, it doesn’t have to be tonight, at some point he’d like to gauge the council’s interest in the possibility of looking at other placemaking grants. The GM on Main Street was just a perfect fit for Clarkston, but it was a very short notice, and it was a very rushed effort to get this put together. Smith thought they had a good shot at it, but they didn’t, and they said that they had an overwhelming response of other cities. City of Holly, congratulations to them. Their Battle Alley did win a $50,000 award, so that’s good for them. And Pontiac. Wylie said and Pontiac. Smith said so, there were some Michigan winners of the five. Smith said so, at some point, he’d like to gauge if there’s another placemaking grant, he’d like to know if council thinks that this is a worthy effort. Smith would still be interested in that space between The Fed and Rudy’s as a possible green space, not a driving road, so that would be the area he’d be interested in, but if the council doesn’t want to pursue it, that’s certainly understandable.

Smith said and then the other piece is just an update that there is a new group interested in developing the Waldon and Main property, so a proposal will be forthcoming on that initiative.

Wylie said OK, great. As she understands it, that makes two possible interested parties on that property. Smith asked if Wylie was talking about Dominic (unintelligible)? He deferred to this group. So, Dominic is kind of backing away from it and deferring to this group.

Rodgers said she wanted to ask Smith a question. Last year, in the fall, they were talking about the whole sidewalk thing, and it must have just gotten too late in the season. Do they, like, do they have a schedule to do that now? Smith said he is kind of raising that along with HRC [Hubbell, Roth & Clark], their city engineer. Smith is working with them to just really try to emphasize that they would like to do this.

Smith said there are two ways they can go about this. Either they can do what they had talked about in the fall, and what council directed him to do in the fall, is scale back the amount of sidewalks being done to fit inside of our $40,000 budget. Or they could defer this until July 1 when they’d have the new budget kicking in. They could add the $40,000 to potentially some funds in a new budget year and get it all done. So, there are two different approaches. Right now, he’s just trying to find out if there are any contractors out there doing this kind of work and their availability. So, they are making calls, yes.

Rodgers said she doesn’t know, you know, landscapers. You gotta get on the docket nine months ahead of time. Smith said absolutely. Rodgers said so, if they’re gonna defer ‘til after their next budget, can they still get on a calendar with the expectation? Yeah, so that in July they can get going on it instead of having November pop up again. Smith said absolutely. Rodgers thanked Smith.

Wylie asked if anybody else on council have questions for the city manager.

No comments.

Agenda Item #9 – Motion: Acceptance of the Consent Agenda as Presented (Video time mark 0:17:08):

• • 01-22-2024 Final Minutes (page 5/41 of the council packet)
  • 02-12-2024 Draft Minutes (page 8/41 of the council packet)
  • 02-26-2024 Treasurer’s Report (page 11/41 of the council packet)
  • 02-22-2024 Revenue and Expenditure Report for the Period Ending 01-31-2024 (page 12/41 of the council packet)

Wylie said OK. Moving on to Item #9, they have a motion, Acceptance of Consent Agenda as presented for 2-26-2024. That’s the final minutes of January 22^nd, the draft minutes of February 12^th, and treasurer’s report for February 26^th (unintelligible). Wylie said she will need a motion and a second and then discussion if necessary.

Motion by Rodgers; second Quisenberry.

Wylie asked if there was any discussion on council.

No discussion.

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

Wylie said that passes. That’s accepted.

Quisenberry asked Wylie if there should have been any discussion first. Wylie said she just did, didn’t she say that? Is there any discussion? Quisenberry said no.

Wylie asked Quisenberry if there was something he wanted to discuss.

Quisenberry said he was just wondering, on the first page of the treasurer’s report, there are a bunch of zeros. Wylie said yeah, actually, she had that question too and she forgot to bring it up.

Quisenberry said so, the invoices that are listed on here, are there any figures to go with them or is that intended to be as it is. Smith said this is somewhat of a template that Coté uses for every meeting, so it doesn’t, there won’t always be a cost associated with every line item. He’s really surprised to see (unintelligible). It just means that since the last council meeting, there’s been nothing, no invoices that were paid or were written, checks that were written in these categories. There may have been other kinds of normal bills that they pay, but these are the ones that typically come to council for approval.

Roth said she talked to Coté today about it and he said that he normally, because the larger bills come in once a month, so a lot of these are only one time, but – Smith agreed – (continuing), Roth said Coté was surprised when Roth told him there was a blank piece of paper in there, and he said he didn’t realize that it had come across, and then Roth did not speak to him again. Roth asked DeLorge if Coté had talked to her about it. DeLorge said no. Roth said OK.

Wylie asked if anyone on council had discussion, even though they just voted on it, did anyone else on council have any discussions or questions.

No additional council comments.

Agenda Item #10, Old Business (Video time mark 0:19:28):

Item 10a – Motion: Election Commission

• • Motion – Election Commission (Video time mark 0:19:31; page 21/41 of the council packet)

Wylie said OK, moving on to Item #10, Old Business, they have a Motion, Election Commission. Wylie said she didn’t know if DeLorge is doing this or Smith is presenting this information. Smith said he would do it. Wylie said OK.

Smith said so, in the January 22nd meeting, city council meeting, they just saw the minutes for that in the consent agenda. They made the appointments to the election commission, and when they did that, they asked for volunteers, and they had Cara [Catallo] and Evelyn [Bihl]  in the audience and the motion was well, let’s select Bihl as the city employee and Catallo as the elector, but the issue is that the city person should be an officer, or must be an officer, he should say, so, and Bihl is not an officer. So, they need to modify the participants in the election commission to include someone who’s an officer. So, besides DeLorge or Tom [Ryan, city attorney], the only other officers would be Coté or Smith, himself, and for this year’s, whatever they call it, the public accuracy report, he was there, present anyways. He witnessed the whole thing. So, it only made sense that Smith be that person to replace Bihl on the election commission.

Smith said so, what this motion is saying is just making a correction to the fact that they appointed somebody who was not an officer and then replacing her with Smith, and he is an officer. It’s a formality, of course, but it’s something that they need to do. They’ve talked with Oakland County. They’re fine with it. Smith signed the paperwork because he was there anyways for the public accuracy report, and that’s submitted to the county. So, this is just a formality of changing Bihl to Smith.

Wylie asked if there are any other activities or duties for the election commission that would require Smith’s presence? What else does the commission do? Smith said well, it says this person is responsible for all activities and duties required of it by state law. The public accuracy test is the most important piece of this, just to oversee, to make sure that if you put a ballot through the tabulator that it counts it and counts it correctly. So, that’s already been done. In fact, they did more than the required number of tests. Usually they only want one test, but Smith thinks DeLorge and Bihl – DeLorge said they did multiple. Smith said they did multiple ones so that’s – DeLorge said to make sure it’s really working at the top speed that it should be.

Smith said the only other thing that might come up if, there was some kind of emergency that, you know, that cropped up. Then there would be duties assigned to the election commission, is to oversee that, the resolution of that emergency whatever it might be. So, of course, they don’t anticipate anything, but Smith will be here on election day, so it’s fine. They’ll be ready. Wylie said OK.

Wylie asked if anyone else had any questions for Smith about this appointment.

No questions.

Wylie said she needed a motion and a second to appoint the city manager, Jonathan Smith, to the election commission, fulfilling the role of city officer, effective immediately, replacing Evelyn Bihl. Wylie asked Bihl if that’s how she spells her name, B-I-H-L. Bihl agreed. Wylie said she always said an E on it.

Motion by Roth; second Forte.

Wylie asked if there was any discussion from council because (unintelligible) they’re going to do a roll call on this.

Smith said it’s a motion.

Wylie said she knows, so it’s a motion, so they’re OK.

Motion to appoint Smith to replace Bihl on the election commission passed by unanimous voice vote.

Wylie said so, the motion is adopted.

Agenda Item #11, New Business (Video time mark 0:23:48):

Item 11a – Discussion: IPW [International Pure Water] Water Filters

• • IPW-Clarkston: Public Health Initiative, Clean Water for Your City (Video time mark 0:23:51; page 22/41 of the council packet)

Wylie said and now, they are moving on to Item #11, discussion on IPW Water Filters, and they have some information in their packet about this. Wylie asked Smith if he had an introduction or something. She thinks this was on the agenda, she thinks the last meeting, no, it must be two meetings ago.

Smith said two meetings ago. So, Eric [Haven, former mayor] first started discussions with the International Pure Water, IPW, some time ago and then at the MML [Michigan Municipal League] conference in the fall, Smith talked with them as well. Smith didn’t know that Haven had talked to them, so he talked to them. He’s interested in, there’s been a lot of news reports about arsenic and other chemicals in the water supply. As you know, our water supplier here in Clarkston, it’s not Detroit water, it’s a community well. So, they take out the rust, they filter out a lot of the rust and metallic (unintelligible). But other chemicals that they might have read about, such as arsenic, are still in the water, and so they’ll let this team tell them what they can do for that. This report that they’re giving is specific to Clarkston. This isn’t just a generic. So, Smith thought in the interest of our community and our residents, that they’re here to protect them and help them, Smith thought it was at least something they should listen to and consider. It’s the council’s decision obviously, but Smith thinks it is something that they should consider, and with that, he’ll let them kick it off.

An unidentified man and woman thanked Smith.

The unidentified man said his name is Zach Silver with International Pure Water. (Unintelligible crosstalk between Roth and Quisenberry.) So, they actually bring public health initiatives to different municipalities. They believe clean water is a human right and they want to work to do that. So, what they do is they partner with cities to provide their filters directly to residents, so then no matter what’s going on with whether it be the water source, the piping, or whatever, your citizens can know that their water is totally taken care of. These filters are delivered directly to their door as well as any subsequent replacements.

Silver said he will allow Jamie [no last name provided] to kind of give them more of an overview of Clarkston’s water. Jamie thanked Silver.

Jamie said yes, so, as they mentioned, as Smith was mentioning, this, you know, it’s been a kind of a hot topic recently, and she wanted to make some clarifications on, you know, what’s in the water. So, a couple of things to know, these three contaminants here are where you are, the ones in your water, that in addition to radium that are below the MCL, which is the maximum contaminant level. That’s the enforceable level. That’s the most, that’s the most of a contaminant you’re allowed to have without the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] stepping in, right? However, the MCLG is the level the EPA sets. That is the maximum health goal. That’s the level at which there is no known or expected adverse reactions health-wise. And that’s zero for lead, radium, arsenic. That level, the MCLG, is zero.

Jamie said however, here (unintelligible) in Clarkston and in Independence Township as well, there are, detected, there are levels of lead found, it like, that’s a very complicated statistic to explain. Some houses have been found to have lead. Obviously, that is largely infrastructure, not well-related. Arsenic has been detected at approximately 4.8 parts per billion as of the most recent water test in 2023. For perspective, that says 4.8 parts per billion. The FDA [Food and Drug Administration], the, excuse her, the FDA allows only two parts per million arsenic in poultry and foods. So, it’s kind of a large difference between the ten parts per billion and two parts per million in the FDA.

Jamie said PFAS [per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances] is something that there isn’t actually, so, EGLE [Michigan Environmental, Great Lakes, and Energy] had proposed some limits back last year that had gotten overturned, and those limits were kind of based on best data. There are a surprising amount of forever chemicals in the Independence Township water. They are below the EGLE proposed limits, but those are like arsenic and other, and lead, those are moving targets, right? They’ve been known to change every few years, right? Lead used to be a lot higher. And even in 2000, they actually considered dropping the arsenic level to five of the allowable amount, but for some reason, that didn’t go through.

Jamie said anyway, as a chemist, as a chemist with a background in water treatment, she understands how hard it is for, it’s impossible for a municipality to get zero part per billion anything in their water, right? It’s just unrealistic because it is, as clear as you make it, by the time it gets to people’s taps, it has gone through multiple different, you know, pipes, and the pure water can contaminate or corrode pipes, right? So, they have to treat it a little bit. So, this is where point-of-use water filtration makes a lot of sense. The water company keeps getting to do their great work that they’re doing, treating our water, making sure we’re not getting cholera, dysentery, things like that. But we get to protect the safety of the consumer by keeping the levels at 0, just like you would want in your food and water at your faucet.

Silver said that’s perfectly said, and he thinks that with, yes, with these emerging contaminants like PFAS, but also with older ones that they know of, like arsenic, the current filtration technology doesn’t get rid of that, which is why these solutions haven’t been brought before it. IPW has actually been independently verified to remove all of this and their data is public on their website. They did not have any vested interest in their lab that was doing their work because they wanted to make sure that it was completely nonbiased, and they’ve been able to pass. They were able to remove lead and arsenic at 99% was, forever (unintelligible) was at 95%.

Silver said out of all of the water filtration available, they are the only ones that have been verified to remove PFAS at that level, and the way they do that is through their filter (unintelligible). So yeah, as they see right now (unintelligible), they remove lead, forever (unintelligible) and many, many more and they have all these on their website. Most importantly is that they can provide these to every family in Clarkston for $0.80 per day. That is the total cost for any family of four, because they, specifically, using the national medical board’s suggestion of 800 gallons per family, their cartridges are 200 gallons apiece, so that means each family only needs about four cartridges each year. To make it simple, affordable, but also convenient so that makes sure that your residents consistently have clean water and never have to worry about what’s going on outside. As long as they put it through their filter, they’re good.

Silver said and now, they’re probably asking, why did you throw this information at us? How can they actually help, and what does this all mean for you? And what it means is an IPW public health initiative, which (unintelligible).

An unidentified woman from IPW (later identified as Jeannie) said she agrees. So, she thinks a part of what they’re trying to do here is just to emphasize that although there is a little bit of a problem, they do have a solution for you all and that they will do that by way of this public health initiative, which would be a partnership between IPW and you all, folks on the city of Clarkson, municipal leaders. So, what they would love to do is to be able to provide your residents (turning to the audience, Jeannie said that would be you) with clean water that would be contaminate free. All the contaminants Silver mentioned, the ways that they would level that out is through this filter, and she knows they talked about it, a little bit about the technology, but with the cartridges, but what they would do is they would deliver these directly to your residents, to their homes in conjunction with you all. So, they would work together as a partnership to make sure that your residents would get it directly to their homes.

Jeannie said they would also provide educational materials that would help with this outreach. Part of that is it’s just, you know, talking the science stuff that Jamie so (unintelligible) about, but some folks may not know what MCLs or MLGs are, and she knows, councilmember Forte, you’re looking at us ‘cause you’re like, yes, but I know that this is a part of what we want to do. Some folks may not know exactly what it is in their water, but they want to make sure that their water is clean. We trust that our elected officials would make it so that we have clean water, and if there’s a level of, a partnership that we could do together, we can do that. By way of doing the tiered approach level, they would be partnering with you all to make sure that if they can target specific vulnerable populations in your community, they’re reaching the folks who are most impacted. And they’re thinking about folks with developing minds that may be affected by lead or by arsenic or by PFAS, those vulnerable populations that you would want to ensure that are most safe, they would want to work with them first.

Silver said they’ve actually done this in other municipalities. They currently have over 1,000 filters operational in Illinois currently, with verbal agreements from three other municipalities to expand, as well as verbal agreements from other municipalities in Michigan to expand there as well. In this one year alone, they have cleared over 800,000 gallons of water, and what they’re hoping to do, is what they’ve noticed with what they’ve done, is that when, with their outreach, where they are trying to inform and educate residents on the problem, but really more importantly on the provided solution. What they found with these municipalities that they worked with is that when you dovetail education with the solution, it actually creates gratitude. Where a lot of people, with the people that they work with are just so thankful to have their solution of their own in their house and to have a feeling of ownership over it, that they don’t have to worry about what’s going on, that they can just have totally clean water. That’s what they’re hoping to bring to Clarkston, is that no matter what’s going on, no matter what they do, they have a sense of safety and ownership over their water so no matter what (unintelligible) and that’s the kind of clean water safety and assurance that they want to give them.

Jeannie said so, for next steps, she knows that this is a fun presentation (unintelligible), but they definitely want to make sure that there is options for you while selecting what type of initiative you would do through the tiered approach. They could also do a pilot program, a pilot program that could simply go to specific folks in your city, or they could reach everyone in the whole population of the City of Clarkson, which, with the idea it would be, you know, equilibrius [sic] throughout the whole municipality. And then they also would love to discuss next steps with you all. Any additional questions they might have outside of this Q&A or that they’ll have shortly after. But, you know, if there’s a thought you might have that didn’t occur to you now that you would like to follow up on, they would be here for you to do just that.

Jeannie said and then lastly, exploring any funding opportunities. She knows they just heard them talking about a grant that was, you know, accessible. So, they understand that with municipalities specifically, funding options to, you know, clean your water, doing things like that, should come from a source that is reliable if it’s not already within your budget and allocated to that. So, they would work with you all to try to find those good funding opportunities, such as the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund through EGLE and other opportunities such as that. And why are they doing this? Because they can help.

Silver said to add on to what Jeannie was saying with the with that tiered approach, what that looks like is, like in one of the municipalities they worked with in in Illinois, they actually partnered with the school system to send out a text blast through all the school-age families, and he wants to say within twelve hours, they had almost 300+ sign ups, families who were just thrilled to have this clean water and have since, those are they’re part of the thousand who are still on their water cycle with them, so that is 100% what they’re looking to do and the exploring funding (unintelligible), it’s truly just a partnership. They want people to know that they’re taken care of and that their municipal leaders identified a problem and then provided them with a solution as opposed to anything else.

Jeannie said, and on behalf of IPW, they do want to thank you all, mayor, mayor pro tem, city councilors, and then of course, Smith for putting them on the agenda and listening to their pitch and they’re looking forward to talking more with them. Thank you.

Wylie thanked the IPW representatives and asked if they were available for questions. The IPW representatives said yes. Wylie said let’s start with council.

Rodgers said so, this gizmo here, do you have, is that just like a stand alone? Do you have ones that can, like, connect to your refrigerator or under your sink so that you don’t have to have a pitcher of water? You know, like, we have water coming into our fridges you know, is there some way to hit it before it comes into our fridge so that we don’t have to have that in the refrigerator. Silver said so, in the future, probably yes, they are in development of that. But their goal is to make it as seamless as possible for both the municipality and the residents. So, they actually identified other water filtration programs where they weren’t able to deliver filters to people’s homes. So, they end up just dropping them off at city hall, and with under the sink filters that there is that installation aspect of it. So, being able to coordinate the logistics of that makes it kind of a nightmare for both the resident and the city. So, this way you just take it out of the box and you’re ready to use and really don’t have to depend on anyone else’s schedule.

Wylie said so, how does it work? Silver said you take it out and you just fill it up. Jamie said they have one that they filled their water bottles with and (unintelligible), has the lid, you fill the top chamber – (interrupting Jamie), Silver said you just fill it up on the top and within about five to eleven minutes you will have a full gallon, 1.2 gallons of clean water, and it’s as simple as that. And then if you want you can put this in your fridge. You can keep it on, you can keep it room temperature, that’s up to you. That’s more of a preference.

Jeannie said that she knows that some things she’s mentioned earlier, but they don’t want to glance over, is that it’s nanotechnology. So, this part right here that you might see is, that blue part, that’s the filtration system, and that this is like the type of technology you don’t see with any other filter. So unlike Brita, sorry, unlike other brands, they do have a specific type of filtration system that is top notch and military grade you could even say.

Silver said they, actually, so granulated activated carbon is what’s used in most filters. Nanotech is like take if that was this size, it’s like taking it with a hammer and bursting it into a million pieces. The reason why that’s important is because the name of the game is surface area. They want the water making contact with the media as much as possible. By breaking into those small pieces, they’ve actually been able to increase that exponentially, which increases the efficiency and the lifespan. So, (unintelligible) they’ve actually gotten that patented, so that is patented nanotechnology and it’s completely proven in a lab setting as well.

Casey asked how do you know when it’s necessary to change your filter. Silver said, so perfect. So, they do it on a gallons-based thing. They’re pretty confident that they actually, they actually give kind of leeway of about 100 gallons both, like, one way or another. They’re pretty confident they actually do 300, but to ensure the safety of quality for residents, and they suggest 200, but they will also, part of it is the replacements. So, at three months, they will automatically send each resident their own replacements directly to their house, so you actually won’t have to keep, pay attention. That will be on them.

An unidentified man in the audience (Paul Angelini?) said and their replacement is out of the blue. Wylie said hang on, they’re going to do up here. They’ll get you.

Wylie asked how you know when you, so you don’t, the only way you know is when you get the new filter. That’s the only way to, unless you keep like, do a little tally. Silver said exactly. That that would be more personal preference, but again, that would be, will be automated on their end. So, the day you get your delivery will be noted on their end and then in three months, you will automatically be sent a new one.

Jamie said and it’s important to note that the water to your, it doesn’t immediately, once you hit that gallon mark, it’s not your protection is suddenly zero, right? It incrementally decreases. So, if it starts at 99 and you didn’t change it when you should have, it’s gonna go 96, 95, 94. So, it’s still going to give you protection, right? Just not the maximum and it’s going to fill up for each one. Wylie said OK.

Wylie said he thought Quisenberry had something.

Quisenberry said yes. They mentioned $250 annually for a family of four. If it’s a family of one, is that adjusted. Silver said no. So, the, that is a very good question. What they are doing is more making it simple for households. So that because of the average family is of that size just by, he thinks it’s like half, but they don’t really do the halves that that’s kind of where they revert. They just backed into that, so, it’s $250 per household. Quisenberry said per household. Silver said yes.

Quisenberry said a couple more questions and that is that he guesses he’s wondering, he went on their website and it’s impressive. And he also went and looked at what are the, their competitors doing. What are, looking at which ones are independently rated as the best filtration systems, theirs is one, number one, which was very impressive. So, they’ve got a very good product. But what he’s still a little struggling with is, and they’ve used the buzzword several times, as partnership. Quisenberry understands their role as a business and out to make a profit and look for customers. What is our city’s role in this partnership except to well, he guesses (unintelligible). What is it? What is it that we have to do? Is there any cost to us and is there anything that we have to do to provide you with data regarding our residents and the households or what? What makes this a partnership with us instead of just an entity that is reaching out to potential consumers saying “use our product.”

Jamie said that is an excellent question. (All representatives started talking at once followed by laughter. Wylie made an unintelligible comment.)

Silver said that he loves that they’re all gearing up. He thinks, he means, he thinks what Quisenberry is asking is a great question. Silver thinks the role of the municipality, just from a basic point of view is, the role that they have in their residents’ life, which is providing them clean water, that is what, they’re providing you with the ability to do that. And so, the way they work with like, for example, the municipalities they work with in Illinois, they do collaborative media efforts, they do collaborative outreach efforts. So, the materials that they send in the box to residents is completely worked on with the city so that they’re making sure they’re informing your residents of what they need to know. So, it’s an entire collaborative effort, and that’s where the tiered approach comes in, where you ask the role of do they just provide you with the information. That is on you. That is how quickly do you want to take care of this problem. If you want to just give them everyone’s address, they’ll have them at, they’ll give them a filter in a month and they’ll be all good. They’ll be out of your hair except when they see you in three months.

Quisenberry said and then once they have that information, they would then make individual contact with each resident to see if they’re interested in signing a contract with you. Silver said so, it wouldn’t be a contract with them. It would be a contract with you. And, if they, they can do one of two things. One, they can do an outright buy where they just provide everything for everybody, or they can do that tiered approach. So, what they did with in Illinois is they had a registration page on their website where people could provide their name number and an address and that was an opt-in option, so that basically, for the municipalities, was that opt-in consent and then they would just work with them to provide them their filters. And then it would be on the municipality to pay for it at, during the payment increments.

Jeannie said she knows Jamie wanted to add an additional point. Jamie said so, an additional point about the partnership is that it’s also publicity for you guys that you care so much about your residents to have the cleanest water in Michigan, that, you know, you want as good for yourselves, for your constituents, as you do for yourselves. In Illinois, they had success with putting, you know, the faces of the leaders on the info to say this is, these are the people who care enough to give you this water, right? So that’s part of the partnership as well as that you get to tell the cleanest water in Michigan. You have arsenic levels lower than, you know, because of the filtration and all of your citizens are drinking.

Quisenberry asked if he, as an individual, contacted IPW and say I want, I want to get your filters, and buy directly from you. Is that – (interrupting Quisenberry), Silver said they can go to their website and buy one tonight. Yeah, absolutely. But that’s what he meant by (unintelligible). Jeannie said yes, and also to the point about partnerships, she thinks they all have some really (laughter, unintelligible). But she thinks what’s most important is understanding the role of a municipality. One of the things you do is you try to put out notices to your residents. A simple council meeting can bring out folks that are residents in your city. And they want to make sure that when they’re reaching out to your residents, they’re educated on behalf of not just IPW’s information which they got, by the way, from Clarkson in terms of the water levels, but that it’s something like this, a pamphlet of sorts, right, goes directly to residents. It could be the face of mayor Wylie. It could even be the face of the council, or even something that says IPW-Clarkson together. Aside from just purchasing, they want to make sure that they’re doing the work, and that sometimes is really, really difficult. You guys are very busy. Sure. And one of those things they want to make sure they can do is lift that burden of educational outreach from you with their own efforts. Obviously, all approved by you all before they set it up.

Quisenberry said so, community participation. Jeannie said yes. Quisenberry said they’re paid at, through, with funds that are passed through the municipality from the community that then go to you, so there a zero-sum cost to the municipality. He’s thinking, she can confirm, because anything that, any community members that want it, and if they’re going to be paying for it, he would assume somehow, it’s up to us to collect from the residents. Silver said so, the way they thought about it, the way they’ve talked about it, is this idea that you pay for fire, pay for police. Quisenberry said all through taxes. Silver said absolutely. These are necessities. Why does clean water not count as that? And so that’s where, again, through the city’s budget through the city’s funds, that’s where they’re able to provide those for the resident.

Quisenberry asked where do we get those funds? Jeannie said that’s a great question. Silver said that’s exactly what they were open to speaking about. Jeannie said one of the things they talked about is also EGLE. They know that they are there for a reason. It’s one of those things they do, the Drinking Revolving Funds, is access for you all to be able to, you know, get capital on those things as well. There’re different funds, even on the EPA level, available. They’re looking at those things and they want it, a part of that partnership is also looking for those funding opportunities and making it as seamless as possible for you all to be able just to make that decision. And she knows a part of it, it takes time to find these funding sources sometimes, and you probably have your own funding sources, and if you don’t, that’s kind of what they’re here for. (Laughter.)

Jamie said that MML also has help. The Michigan Municipal League partnered with them already, and they’re the ones who kind of put them in touch with EGLE and EPA. They’ve already had meetings to, to work on making sure that there’s a way to fund this for community.

Quisenberry said it can’t be through taxes. Jeannie said it could be. Silver said they’ve done it before that way. Quisenberry pointed to the audience and said it’s up to them. Jeannie said absolutely. (Unintelligible crosstalk.) She said the other part of the partnership is the change in regulation aspect. When something does change, how do you implement it? With this, you don’t have to worry about it. You’re already prepared. Silver said be proactive, not reactive. Rodgers said absolutely.

Wylie said she had a question about their company. IPW Public Health Initiative. Are they a private company? Wylie didn’t look up. She didn’t feel like it. The IPW representatives all said yes. Wylie said OK. She sees public health initiative. It sounds like – (interrupting Wylie), Silver said so that is, what that was, the title they used with the municipalities in Illinois that they found to be very helpful as well, as worked well to educate residents. It was a pretty seamless transition. They’re open to ideas in terms of the specific wording, yeah.

Jeannie said but more specifically, mayor, to your point, because it is a partnership, would be working with the municipality and being that you are a public, you know, it could be that it could also be a public/private partnership just to make it more clear as to not just put the onus on, you know, public if that’s easier. They’re definitely open to ideas.

Wylie asked how much. How much does it cost. Jeannie said great question. Siver said so that, the total is $250 per household or $.80 per day. Wylie said she’s sorry, what was that per household? $250 per year? Silver said yeah, that’s for one full year of clean water which breaks down to about $.80 a day.

Quisenberry asked if they’d talked to Independence Township about it? Silver said that was actually, their, that is what, they’re hoping to work with Clarkson as well to do, is their goal would, they would love to work with Independence Township on the idea of either getting funding for Clarkson to provide this program or to be able to provide this program throughout Independence Township. Jeannie said she knows they reached out initially and they’re trying to just have more conversations. Jamie said this is definitely a conversation they want to have with (unintelligible), right, that they don’t get caught off guard by this sort of decision, right? That they’re part of this as well. Silver said absolutely.

Wylie asked if anyone else on council had questions or comments.

No comments.

Jeannie said they all did so well in asking the questions. (Laughter). She just wanted to say thank you. Because they were very thorough.

Wylie said you know that they started the conversation with a community. Well, there’s also a lot of people in Clarkston who have private wells. Jeannie said right, and that’s where this is awesome. She’s on a private well herself, and she’s so happy to have filtering. She has a reverse osmosis system as well, but it actually, she won’t get into that. But she really likes having, like, a countertop filter as a good choice, whether you’re on a well or city water, it’s going to give you the same protection. Silver said that’s exactly their point, regardless of the source, regardless of what’s happening with pipes, they’re safe.

Wylie said Rodgers mentioned refrigerators, which have built in filters for their water dispenser systems. On their website they have comparisons, Quisenberry mentioned, maybe somebody mentioned Brita. Do you guys have comparison to say refrigerator filters and your filter or any other filters? Jeannie said (unintelligible) she’d be happy to send it out to Wylie. Wylie said she’s more interested in the refrigerator. Jeannie said yeah, she can add the refrigerator filter to it. Right now, she has (unintelligible). Silver said the refrigeration unit, the two things, one is accessibility. Not everyone has that built in water. Wylie said of course, yeah, it’s a specific thing. Silver said absolutely. And it is pressurized so that is where while this works with gravity, that works with pressurized, so it is just even with whether it be pure water, Brita, etcetera. Those also work with gravity as opposed to that. So, they wouldn’t have an analogous as well, and he believes it isn’t. (Unintelligible crosstalk between the IPW representatives.) Silver said it is in development, yes. Rodgers said a water faucet one would be great, like, if you could just turn it on our sink and yeah. Jeannie said she agreed. Jamie said that is something that as a company, they’ve already – (interrupting Jamie), Silver said they are trying to balance again like the logistical, the logistical lift that would happen on municipalities as well as residents. So that’s where their goal would be and not more. So being able to provide either. But for right now, this is what they have, and that, and then that way again, sitting at your door, you open it up, you got it. You’re good. You don’t have to worry about either. (Forte made an unintelligible comment). Silver said although, this, being from the midwest, we are more handy than most residents, so we probably would be able to install it ourselves, but some people might have to wait for a scheduled visit, so they just wanted to get that out there. Jeannie said this is pretty seamless. You just pop it in your fridge.

Wylie said she knows people in the audience might have questions. She recognized Paul [Angelini] and said since they are already occupying the podium, if he would just stand up there. (Unintelligible crosstalk from the IPW representatives about the podium.) Wylie said he’s got a laptop; if Angelini would just stand up in his seat and just make his comment or question.

Angelini said they said $225 per household per year? Silver said yes. Paul said so – multiple people said $250. Paul said $250. We have about 1,000 residents, give or take. That comes to $225,000, so if we’re, you know, expanding that the costs across, you know, our residents here (unintelligible) per year, how does that fit into the city budget, and for an ancillary product. Silver said absolutely, but he disagrees with Angelini’s classification of the ancillary. Water quality.

Angelini asked why he disagreed with him. Silver said he would say, he means, if you look at the health, the health effects that these contaminants cause, he wouldn’t think of that as much of a luxury as Angelini is privileged to do, but (unintelligible). Angelini said, you know, he thinks if we look at it, purely numbers, he thinks of a lot of things. He can’t speak for council members here, but just as a resident, he just, he can think of like projects, where that money could be better put to use, and water filtration, which is a personal choice, when there’s many options out there which people can do their research and plug into, you know. There’s obviously different form factors like bridges and these kind of things. But again, from purely a numbers perspective, it seems like that’s a great cost. Jamie said it’s actually not how, it says per household, not per resident. So, it’s actually only about 325 households. (Unintelligible crosstalk.) Silver said clean water in your house.

Silver said Angelini said that was a choice. However, the water is coming out of the tap. So, at what point is that no longer my choice because I don’t control it comes out of my tap, so it wouldn’t be my choice. I would be forced to be drinking not purified water. Angelini said well, that’s assuming that we have to use as this – (interrupting Angelini), Silver said no, that’s actually just using your tap, because if I just have my house and just have my tap and I actually don’t have my choice. I’m given my water.

Jeannie said you know, another thing too, to Angelini’s point, she thinks this is why they really wanted to make sure that there’s options for a tiered approach. So, although it would equate to $90,000, you know, but they see that there are grants and they know that there’s grant funding available. So, they want to work with the municipality. And also, because, listen, she’s a taxpayer too. She would hate to incur costs. That doesn’t necessarily seem to her like it’s, you know, in, within reach, which is why they want to lean on other partners to find other options for funding or even work with the municipality to do the tier approach.

Angelini said right, you know, partnership and cost basis out of taxpayers’ pockets is kind of a different thing. A partnership is working together. This is ultimately coming out of our own income. You know, we’re paying, our taxes here and (unintelligible). Jeannie said that’s what she was saying, yeah. Angelini said yeah, well, sure, but still, $90,000 he thinks could be better used here for greater purposes (unintelligible), fixing our brick pavers, and the sidewalk, any number of things that are going to have a tangible impact, you know. Water is (unintelligible). We can sort our own water filters, you know, and not have that become part of the tax thing.

Silver said again, Angelini keeps using this word choice, right, when the water is coming out of my tap. That is not clean, as clean as it could be, and has actual stuff like arsenic, which he would implore Angelini to Google the health impacts of that. Angelini said he’s aware. Silver said OK, understood. So then when you are getting them out of your tap, would you say that that is a choice you get to say, hey, I actually don’t want that water. Angelini said he can choose. Silver said no, that’s coming out of your tap because (unintelligible) work. That is coming out of your tap and being provided by your city, correct. So, that would then no longer make it a choice that if anything they would provide a need for you that is additional, that need is water purification.

Angelini said he doesn’t need to get these, this product. He can choose.

Wylie said she was going to kind of cut Angelini for time. Now, she realizes they would answer his questions.

Quisenberry said but in all fairness, he does have a choice. Silver keeps saying he doesn’t have a choice when it turns on. He does have a choice. He can drink the water that comes out of it. He can buy an Acme filter. He can buy this other filter, or he can go top of the line and do this. So, there is a choice that you have to be fair in what you’re saying. It’s not as if this or nothing you do have – Silver said he agrees with that. Absolutely.

Jeannie said but they thank them either way and she thinks those are great points. That, as a taxpayer anywhere you want to make sure that you’re not incurring costs that don’t necessarily seem to make sense to you, so she respects that opinion.

Wylie said she thinks they are trying to change our way of thinking of what is publicly provided. Jeannie said yes, yes, but more importantly, she thinks especially what they’ve seen in Flint, and not saying that this is Flint by no means, but you know, they want to make sure that this is still a priority for municipalities. She gets that there’s a vested interest and they’re also a company and all of that, but it still stands true. Public water, drinking water, should be clean for everyone and that’s all.

Wylie asked if anybody else in the audience would like to speak

Wylie recognized Papatheodoropoulos and asked if she wouldn’t mind standing up so they can, she knows.

Papatheodoropoulos asked if they targeted us because our water is so crummy or are they targeting all communities in Michigan. Jamie said that’s a great question and the word target just kind of makes her (gesturing). But definitely looking at all of the potential partnerships. When they went to a conference, they were having conversations with different municipal leaders. They did a presentation where they actually delivered this very same message and there were a couple of folks that approached them, and you know what, your city manager was kind enough (unintelligible) issue that she thinks at least merited the discussion. So, to your point, yes, that is a great question. They did not necessarily target you per se, but they did see that based on the level of contaminant, they thought this would, might, be a good approach to (unintelligible). (Ryan walked across the room and gave Smith a glass of water. Laughter.) Roth said Ryan was a hero.

(Unintelligible discussion among IPW representatives.) Wylie said excuse her, Jamie, they can’t hear.

Jamie said sorry. It was coincidental that mayor Haven had approached them at the first, their first ever Michigan Municipal League conference. He had approached them and wanted to know more, and that it was purely coincidental when Smith had approached them, had emailed them at the conference in Traverse City. So, two different Michigan Municipal League conferences and two different of your city leaders have both had an interest in it because apparently water is highly loved in this community. It’s something you guys prize with all the beautiful lakes and water, water sports that you have. She means, she’s going to see a ton of pictures. So, it’s no wonder why your town is interested in their water.

Wylie said she assumes this is their filtered water. (Unintelligible crosstalk.) Silver said they’re just showmen at the end of the day. (Unintelligible crosstalk.) Jeannie said that’s probably the cleanest water they’ll get right now from this filter, free of arsenic, free of lead, PFAS, which is an emergent contaminant. You know, there’s movies on the effects of PFAS she would encourage them all to watch, but thank you for your time and, you know if anybody doesn’t have any further questions, she –

Wylie recognized an unidentified man in the audience.

The unidentified man said so, when they’re talking about a partnership with Clarkson, are they referring to then they would have an exclusivity that only they can do. The IPW representatives said that’s a good question. Silver said they want people to get clean water, not just from them. They just want people to get clean water. The unidentified man said so, then the second question is why do they need the council’s approval. They can call him and (unintelligible). Roth said that is a good question. Silver said so, they actually do offer the retail space. Like they said, they believe clean water is a human right and also this is a problem we’ve all inherited. You didn’t, did you put in the pipes? Someone said definitely not. Silver said no, did any of them put in the pipes? No, we were born and they were here. So, that’s actually why they are approaching municipalities, is to get that widespread effect. Jamie said she thinks it’s important that they can do a better job at a lesser price than what’s available, which is why we think it’s more, it’s easy, it’s the cost of marketing versus the cost of just being able to provide this at lowest cost possible directly to residents.

The unidentified man said he was referring to the partnership. Jamie said yeah. Silver said there are other filter companies that do partnerships like this. Jamie said Zero Water had a partnership with Flint for a while. There were some logistic issues. Silver said (unintelligible) as well. Jamie said and Benton Harber, she thinks. Silver said but those are the ones they identified and why they created their logistics apparatus so that they would be successful. Jeannie said it’s not uncommon for those (unintelligible) to exist but that’s a great question and she thinks the general, you know, concern, she would be asking the same questions too. You’re trying to bleed out any sense of skepticism that you might have, and this is good. This is how they start those conversations and get to the middle ground. They don’t have to decide this now, but they can begin the conversations moving forward especially from you all who took the time to come to the city council meeting. First of all, congratulations, that really is important, some of them are obviously here because they have to be, but you are here because you want to be, so she does encourage you all to try some more if they like, but they definitely will be going to reach out. She believes their information is on the slide, the very first slide, but she can certainly hand out any more follow up if they want something hard (unintelligible). Perfect.

Wylie recognized Cara Catallo for a question.

Catallo asked if they had tested any of the water around here or is it affordable to have any of the water, like, if you wanted to do a sampling of some of the homes just to get a sense of that water quality. Jeannie said yes. Jamie said the Independence Township water report is available on the internet and she’s happy to provide it to anybody, but you can find it online, and it just samples three different places in Clarkston. Catallo asked in the City of the Village of Clarkston. Jamie said in the Village of Clarkston. In Independence Township, there’s a map on, the PDF of the water report that has, like the North Loop Deer Trail and yeah. Catallo said she doesn’t know, no offense to this, yeah, but she doesn’t really – Jamie said trust – Catallo said trust, they’re not her interest. Like, she’s more concerned about, like she lives by a block that used to have a gas station, and her water has been flagged in the past as having some problems, so she would, in the event that council wanted to do a few samples around the city free of charge especially, she would be open to having her water tested. Jamie said she thinks that EGLE does provide, especially on wells, she’ll verify that, look into that, she knows, she thinks that EGLE does provide some sort of residential testing program.

Roth said Oakland County. Oakland County does too. You can drop it off for free. Wylie said it’s free? Roth said at least it used to be. They’ve had theirs tested a couple of times. Roth said is there a charge? Wylie said she thought it was like $30, but maybe it’s if you want certain tests. (Unintelligible crosstalk.) Quisenberry said he can’t imagine them not charging. Roth said maybe they do. Maybe she hit a good time.

Wylie asked if anybody out there had questions. Or on council.

Quisenberry said it was a good idea bringing up Flint. Jeannie said that was not, she’s sorry, she was not trying to be hyperbolic, but it is, you know, worst case. Quisenberry said it drives the point home. Jeannie thanked Quisenberry. Silver said be proactive, not reactive.

Jeannie said and they, just again, she wants to thank everybody. This is such a very great topic.

The IPW representatives thanked everyone. Wylie thanked the IPW representatives.

Wylie said it’s Zack, Jeannie, she’s sorry. Jeannie said Nairobi. Wylie said that’s what she wrote down. She was right.

Wylie said OK, they are finished with Item #11a. So, they are actually going to go back to Item #7, the sheriff’s report, now that Sergeant Ashley is here.

Item 11b – Resolution: Tree Debris Removal from the Depot Park Storage Area (Video time mark 1:15:32):

• • Resolution – Removal of Tree Branches and Logs in Depot Park Staging Area (page 30/41 of the council packet)
  • Photo of Depot Park Staging Area (page 31/41 of the council packet)
  • Summary of Quotes for Tree Branch Removal (page 32/41 of the council packet)
  • Quote from Otto Tree Service (page 33/41 of the council packet)
  • Quote from Independence Tree Care (page 36/41 of the council packet)
  • Quote from The Davey Tree Expert Company (page 37/41 of the council packet)

Wylie said they are now on New Business, Item #11. They are on #11b, the Resolution – Tree Debris Removal from Depot Park Storage Area, and they’ve got a resolution here.

(Wylie read the resolution.)

Wylie said she thinks they’ve all discussed this in previous meetings.

(Wylie continued to read from the resolution.)

Wylie said this is a resolution, and they will need somebody to put it forward and a second and then they can discuss.

Motion by Forte; second Roth.

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

Quisenberry said all he’ll say is Otto Tree removal was the contract that they used to remove those trees from the – Wylie said the berm – (continuing), Quisenberry said the city’s easement. Wyle said the tree lawn, the city’s berm. Quisenberry said they removed the tree from in front of Quisenberry’s house today and they did an excellent job. Very well done. Wylie said good.

Wylie asked if anybody else had any questions or comments on council.

Forte asked if there is there anything they have to submit to EGLE after this process is done. Smith said just, they’ll do a post completion inspection. That is it. Just when they’re ready for that, there’s no urgency that it be done by a certain date, which is good because for a tree service to work back there right now, it’s really soft and mucky and their equipment will probably get stuck. So, probably unless they get a hard freeze again, it’s probably gonna have to wait until it dries out back there. But it might be April, even May, before it’s, this work can be done, but Smith just has to show they’re making progress. Forte said makes sense.

Wylie asked if there is any expected further cost to remove the pavers and the other material back there after the treatment materials are removed. Smith said there would be two types of cost. There would be Jimi’s [Turner, DPW supervisor] and Carson’s [Danis, DPW laborer] hours, so they’re getting paid for something, but instead of doing street sweeping or (unintelligible) patching, they might be back there cleaning that up, taking truckloads away. And then there would be the actual dumping fees. They take that to different, concrete recycling goes to one place, dirt goes to another. So, they would have to, they’d have to pay to do the dumping. So, there would be some additional costs. But Smith figured let’s first get the tree debris out of there. Turner and Smith talked. It was just so much back there that it just was overwhelming to him to try to do this. He said this would probably take him two months, where the tree service would come in and do it, you know, in about five days now.

Smith said well, first of all, he has some pictures here. It’s a horrible picture. Wylie said it is bad. Roth said five days. Smith said he tried to upload some pictures of the actual debris back there and those didn’t upload very well either, so he’s not sure what’s going on, but Otto Tree service did a flat fee and they’re the only ones that would do that. The other two wanted to do a day rate, $4,500 a day, or Davey Tree service gave Smith a total, but they were still based on, he thinks, was $3,600 a day. And they just said they don’t really know how many days this is going to take, but suffice it to say, it could be easily $30,000, maybe as much as $40,000. So, Otto Tree services, the guys are just go-getters. There’s, Quisenberry probably saw today, they are just hardworking guys, they don’t have the overhead of a much larger company, so they just, they get it done and done recently. They’ve used them previously even before this job that Quisenberry was referring to. They used them last summer for a big general cleanup city-wide, going from Clarkston Road to White Lake Road to Miller. They were all over the city, and they did an excellent job, and very clean and thorough.

Smith would like, they don’t have to do this tonight, but he would like to come back to council for a proposal, speaking of Otto Tree Service, that they be our dedicated tree company. They have done this previously. Previously, Smith had a dedicated tree company out of North Branch, but they went out of business. West, Northwest, right. Smith said they [Otto Tree Company] have just been so competitive compared to, on the last two quotes he did where he got three quotes. It’s just hard to get three quotes on every single tree job. Companies don’t even respond. When he asked them for a quote previously and they don’t get the job, they stop even responding to Smith’s request. So, there are only so many tree companies around. So, Smith would like, you know, a separate motion to request Otto Tree Service be our dedicated tree company.

Rodgers asked Smith if they have a path moving forward, like, this didn’t happen overnight. Things have been dumped in there for years. Those things are still going to come to us. They’re still going to have to get rid of what they used to dump back there. What’s their plan going forward for what they typically dump back there? Smith said they’re going to put in their budget proposal which is, the finance committee is starting to meet, so they’ll be, actually this week have their first meeting, and they’ll start to explore the proposed budget, and that proposed budget will have to include dumping fees. So, if Turner and Danis go out and clean up some trees, hopefully they’ll get a truckful, it’s hard to imagine the efficiency of just taking one branch to the to the recycler, but if they can get a full truck load somehow, some way, so they’re not so inefficient that they’re just taking up one branch at a time. But every time they get those, they’re going to have to take them directly to Bedrock or some other company that accepts drop offs and pay for it on the spot. They have a pretty good deal with Bedrock, and they take everything from dirt to mulch to tree branches, and they take a lot. They don’t take concrete, but they have another place for concrete and steel. So, they’ll try to do their best to do it in an effective manner, but there is going to be a budget hit to this, no question.

Wylie asked if there was anything else from anybody on council.

No additional comments.

Wylie asked if there was anybody out there, questions or comments regarding this motion, this resolution.

No comments.

Wylie said OK, Forte resolved and Roth seconded.

Wylie asked DeLorge if she would please take a vote.

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

Wylie said and the motion is adopted. Thank you.

Item 11c – Motion: City Meeting Transparency Plan (Video time mark 1:24:55):

• • Motion – Meeting Participation & Recording Proposal (page 39/41 of the council packet)
  • Meeting Participation & Recording Proposal (page 40/41 of the council packet)

Wylie said they are on Item 11c, Resolution to City Meeting Transparency Plan.

Smith said so, this is something he’s been working on for months, actually, as much as a year. He’s been looking at different ways to improve their transparency for various meetings. He’s had people ask well, can I call in? How can I view, say, an HDC [historic district commission] meeting. Smith said he’ll be honest, the HDC is the one meeting that he gets the most requests for. How can I view an HDC meeting? Well, they’re not currently recorded or viewable or a virtual connection is not available like Smith is doing this meeting here tonight, and they’re not recorded by Independence Television. Ideally, Smith thinks Independence Television would be a great forum to, you know, to, what’s the word he’s looking for, to capture the images and sound and video and put that on the website, just like they do city council meetings. But if that’s not in the cards because of cost, then they could just do it through a Teams meeting, and there are record options in the Teams meetings, that’s easily done. And their new “owl” is working so well. It captures the images in the Teams meeting as well as the sound, and the speaker is very well accessible, so that’s been a great tool. The owl that they approved a couple months ago, so Smith would like to build on that and make some of their other meetings more transparent.

So, what Smith is showing in this, is kind of a proposal in the different colors. Let him jump to the, this grayish color, so it’s already been implemented. Yellow is yet to be implemented, and the blue is in negotiation with Independence Television.

Smith said so, starting at the top, city council meetings, obviously people can attend in person. All the meetings can be attended in person. Virtual participation via Teams. That’s what Smith is doing right here tonight. So, that’s the connection. They have Microsoft recording via Teams. He doesn’t generally hit the record button for this because Independence Television is in the back doing that for him, but they could double it up and do it in both locations, and then as he said, the Independence Television is already recording this. So, Smith thinks they’re covered on council meetings, but some of the other meetings, not so much.

Smith said so, planning commission. It’s obviously an option for people to call in, or walk in, he should say. But they don’t have any call in right now, so that, it’s yellow because it’s something they could do, Smith could do, as he always attends the planning commission meetings. Forte is on the planning commission and Smith could just start the meeting. That would allow people to virtually call in and say, hey, I’ve got a question or a request or what have you, but it could also be recorded, and the recording could be put out on their website. Having Independence Television record that, Smith didn’t think was in the cards right now, so he said no to that.

Smith said going down the list, zoning board of appeals, kind of similar as to planning commission. They can increase the transparency by just offering the virtual connection, just initially using Microsoft Teams.

Smith said the historic district commission, same way, they could use Teams. That’s certainly a possibility to record it and make it available. People can watch it live on their computer at home. Smith likes the idea of the full recording by Independence Television because, it’s just the quality is so much better so people can view it later if they have a question like how did the historic district commission arrive at their decision on topic X or Y. So that’s why Smith liked, he thought, the historic district commission might be a good candidate for Independence television reporting.

Wylie said she had a question on historic district commission meetings. Smith has got possibly, and possibly for virtual participation and recording. Is that because Smith is not at those meetings. She knows that Smith can’t go to everything. Is that why? Because Smith doesn’t typically attend those meetings. Smith said he does not. He has not attended the HDC meetings for probably a year or more because he was told they didn’t want him there when Smith questioned it, a comment, he questioned something that had come up. He was told Jonathan, this is out of your purview. We’ll stay in our swim lane, you stay in yours, was the comment that was told directly to Smith. So, since then, Smith stopped attending the HDC meetings. And he thinks it is in his purview as city manager, but he was told to stay out of it because they report to SHPO [State Historic Preservation Office], they don’t report to council, they don’t report to Smith. They report to SHPO.

Wylie said so, but that’s why possibly it’s on those boxes, because Smith is not there, because Smith is the expert running the equipment. Smith said he’s not there. They could, anybody can use Teams in their environment. Anybody can hook up to these monitors. Anybody can record it on Teams and make the recording available after.

Roth said isn’t that a bit of concern. Wylie said can they possibly, she knows where Roth is going. She doesn’t know what Roth is going to say, but can they talk about it on another – Roth said yeah, but she certainly thinks they should. He is the city manager. Wylie said she thinks that’s something that could be addressed at another time. Wylie said she just wants to focus on this topic. Roth said OK. Wylie understands and she agrees with Roth.

Smith said so, just going on down the list, the budget committee. They have their first meeting this Wednesday and they’re going to, he’s going to make that available on Teams. They have at least one resident that calls into that and it will be on their website. They will put it on the city’s website. So, anybody can call into that.

And the Friends of Depot Park, in theory, you could put that on Teams as well, and any other meetings that they might have.

Smith said so, the idea behind this was just kind of making their meetings more transparent. They are not trying to hide anything; they just want anybody that has any issues, and they can’t get to a meeting, but they’d like to participate. They’d like to hear about what went on. Smith just thinks it’s a plan that they need to work forward to. Do they get there today, tomorrow, next day? No, but they just need to plan, to work towards how to make their meetings more transparent. This is just their initial proposal.

Wylie recognized Forte for a comment.

Forte asked if Smith would be open to changing this to yes for the HDC if someone would be, even if Smith didn’t do it, if someone would be willing to do it? Smith said right. Absolutely. Forte said OK. Smith said yes. Forte said because it seems like that would be the one that most people would want to attend. Smith said that’s the one he gets the most requests about. Is there a way to view the HDC and he tells them right now, they’ll have to come to the meeting themselves. Forte said yeah, so even if they don’t want Smith there, which seems silly, but, like, because he’s such a confrontational personality. (Laughter.) Roth said he’s the city manager. Forte said but it seems like that one should, if this is our plan, that one should be yes. Smith said yes, valid point.

Smith said so, he’s just looking, in the motion, he just was saying, is this something that you want. They don’t have to vote tonight. They can table this if they would like to think about it, but Smith just wants to work toward a plan that increases transparency to their residents of what’s going on.

Roth said so, this is not sufficient. The owl thing. Smith said no, that is sufficient. Did Roth mean for HDC and having Independence Television? Roth agreed. Smith said this will record it, no question. And they can get the recordings off and they can put those on their website, but the Independence Television system is just a better quality. Roth said because then you can view it. Smith agreed. Smith said (unintelligible) when she moves her camera around when somebody speaking in the back or – Roth agreed. Smith said the owl actually does that too. It turns to whoever is speaking. Roth agreed. Smith said so, you can’t see it right now, but it’s facing on you and me. Wylie said OK. Smith said it has three views.

Forte said for recording purposes, is our website able to handle that? Like if they were to like to add all those videos? Smith said right, they’d have to explore that with their website company. Forte said OK. Smith said you know, they’re getting a new website. So, Smith doesn’t know how much he can do with their current website, but the new one for sure. Wylie said good question. Smith said they would have to explore that as to how much space, storage space, they can accommodate. Forte said OK. Smith said good question.

Wylie recognized Quisenberry for a question.

Quisenberry said the proposal, or the motion, speaks to looking to get a proposal to have Independence Television record historical district commission meetings. Does Smith have a ballpark figure of what Independence Township would charge for that, for the cost for having them do that would be. Smith said right, well, even the recording of this meeting is a little bit up in the air right now because Independence Television is going through some changes and the way that we try to help Independence Television with their costs is we give them our PEG fees, public education fees. Quisenberry said earmarked. (Roth made an unintelligible comment.)

Smith said so, the city gets PEG fees from Comcast, Verizon, AT&T. So, their cable lines go through our city, so they give us money and PEG fees, it’s on our income budget right now. PEG fees, it’s a third down. So far, they’ve budgeted $5,000. So far, they’ve gotten about $2,500 so far this year, but there is legislation in Lansing right now to eliminate PEG fees. Comcast and Xfinity are trying to, and Xfinity and Comcast are the same, but Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, all those companies are lobbying to have PEG fees eliminated. So, if we lose that, then it’s kind of up in the air. So, there are a lot of discussions on several different levels as to how to pay for this. The initial thought was our $5,000 in PEG fees could help offset the cost of just recording this meeting, let alone adding another meeting. So, this is a little bit up in the air right now because of this legislation in Lansing. They’re watching this very carefully, plus Smith is told that there are some other fees that they receive that are PEG fee-like and they’re not in this number. So, Coté and Smith are working on trying to get down to what truly are PEG fees that they can utilize for public education. That’s what it’s all about. Quisenberry agreed. Smith said so, it’s, he knows there’s some loose ends right now in this whole proposal. He gets that and they’re just trying to get something started.

Wylie said so, basically Smith is looking for them to say keep going with what he’s doing, this is what they like, yes, give Smith direction. This is what Smith hopes to see, continue to do this. Smith agreed and said and then maybe, they set a date a couple of months from now where he comes back to them with an update on what he’s been able to find out what he’s been able to achieve.

Wylie said OK. Would anybody on council like to make a motion and this is what it says here, it says [in part]: The attached schedule reflects a proposal to make all city meetings accessible for virtual participation in addition to in-person participation. The schedule also includes a proposal to have Independence Television record the historic district commission meetings and the motion is to expand the use of virtual meeting participation and Independence Television recordings, as shown in the attached schedule as a means of increasing meeting transparency in the city.

Motion by Quisenberry; second Forte.

Wylie asked if there was any discussion on council.

Wylie recognized Forte for a comment.

Forte asked if they could change that historic from possibly to yes? Wylie said oh, she means on the schedule itself. Smith said the schedule. Yes, he will make that change. He can’t do it right here. Forte said yeah. Roth said yes to the HDC. Wylie said under the two yellow squares under HDC, make the yes instead of possible.

(To Quisenberry and Forte) Wylie asked if they would mind amending the original motion to saying with an update from Smith and they name a date, maybe three months from now, February, March and maybe in May. May. Wylie asked Quisenberry and Forte if they would mind amending the motion to say that. Quisenberry said he thinks they’d be happy. Wylie said OK. Forte said she’d second.

Wylie said OK, any other discussion on council.

No discussion.

Wylie asked if anyone in the audience had a comment.

Wylie recognized Catallo for a comment.

Catallo said she was slightly confused about if this is a paying sort of a questionable, or like question mark of funding that will go towards it, because if we can do it free with the owl, it seems like almost an absurd level to pay Independence to come in to record the meetings when, if we could train one of the HDC members, which she’s not saying is possible, to hook it up, it just seems like a peculiar stretch, and she doesn’t know who’s calling in to request these. She doesn’t even know if they live in our city, so if it’s legitimate that way, but she’s just, she’s concerned because it, to her, it seems like the planning commission meetings and the zoning board of appeals meetings are significantly perhaps as important, if not just that curiosity of the HDC, but it just seems like a peculiar like we’re approving – (interrupting Catallo), Wylie said they are not approving any money because this is not a resolution and they’re not, they’re not voting on anything financial. This is just, she thinks, for further exploration. Catallo said she goes to those meetings, so if they wanted to train her, she could conceivably (unintelligible). Wylie said sure. Forte said perfect. Wylie said they’ll have a little title behind her name, video technician. Forte said yeah, exactly. Roth said and the owl.

Wylie asked if there were any other comments or questions from the audience.

Wylie recognized Catallo again for a comment.

Catallo said OK, sorry, she has one other one that she kind of thought that that the new brochure would fall under this for some reason because of, like, it seemed like it’s – Wylie said it’s actually an old brochure. Catallo said OK, well, maybe she’ll just ask Smith about it. Wylie said no, wait. Catallo said it, well, no, she just had some grammatical corrections that she wanted to suggest and spelling. Wylie said that would be great and asked if Catallo’s said draft. Catallo said it does say draft, but it says amended February 26, 2024. Wylie said it’s supposed to be draft. Catallo said OK. Wylie said it does need to, and like one thing, Bihl’s name is misspelled. Catallo said right. Wylie said it’s a draft. Thank you.

Wylie asked Delorge to please do a roll call vote.

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

(Unintelligible discussion between Quisenberry, Roth, and Wylie regarding the draft).

Wylie said OK, the motion is adopted, thank you.

Item 11d – Resolution: Have City Attorney Tom Ryan Prepare: 1. Citation Authorization for the City Building and Ordinance Enforcement Personnel; and 2. A Social Media Policy (Video time mark 1:41:41):

• • Resolution – Work Requests for City Attorney Tom Ryan (page 41/41 of the council packet)

Wylie said they are on Item #11d, Resolution to Have City Attorney Tom Ryan Prepare One, Citation Authorization for the City Building and Ordinance Enforcement Personnel, and Two, a Social Media Policy.

Smith said these are two very different requests, but he thought he would put it all in one motion, one resolution. So, their enforcement group, which is, they get all of their enforcement through Code Enforcement Services, Carlisle Wortman, which is, also they run their building department, so both the building department side of Carlisle Wortman and the code enforcement side of Carlisle Wortman, they have both asked to have citation writing ability. They have this in other municipalities that they support, but they don’t have it here in Clarkston. And they said that really hamstrings them to the extent that they can write letters, warning letters, but they can’t write actual citations, and so they said that we would need an ordinance change. Smith thinks Ryan – Ryan said amendment, yeah – (continuing), Smith said that would allow them to actually write enforcement.

Smith said one in particular is their code enforcement Officer, Stacey [Kingsbury], who they’ve met before. She has not been there for a while, and he’s been asking where is Stacey, and they tell him, well, she got so frustrated because all she could do was write a letter, a warning letter, which she was kicking out warning letters right and left, sending them to residents, but it just, he thinks, it ends up in the in the wastebasket because there’s no weight behind it. She got so frustrated that, that’s what he’s been told, is that she’s not attending because they’re not enforcing right now because she’s frustrated by this lack of authorization. So, that’s what’s behind this. Smith is told that every other city gives their enforcement people citation-writing ability. They’re unique and one that never had this before. So, they would have to amend their ordinances to allow them to write citations. They do have citation-writing ability for their parking enforcement officers. That’s different. That they have, but not for code enforcement.

Rodgers asked Smith if this is like, just some examples of what the code infringements are? And then is there like a, is there already an established what the citation of, assuming it’s monetary citations, is there something already established or is that something else that would need to be developed? Smith said the actual denomination of the, you know, the fee or fine would have to be established. They do have some things established for, he doesn’t know, he would have to look at the schedule. There are some things that are covered in their fee schedule, but things like a junk car in your driveway that has been there for three months, you have trash cans out at the road that you’ve never picked up, there’s your grass is three foot tall. Those kinds of things they would have to, and he’s sure Carlisle Wortman who does this for many other municipalities, would have examples of fee schedules that they could share with us so they could hit the ground running. They wouldn’t have to develop it from scratch. Rodgers agreed. Smith said so yes, some of that would have to be established, but those are the kinds of things, junk cars, trash in the yard, and tall grass. So those are, and he guesses you have to say snow shoveling, or the lack of snow shoveling. Those are the four big ones. Snow shoveling he looks at a little differently because they have an ordinance that says the city can step in, shovel their walk, and then send them a bill. And if they don’t pay the bill, it goes onto their taxes. They don’t pay their taxes, foreclosure starts. Smith said so, there is a means for getting snow shoveling or lack thereof, getting that addressed. But trash in the yard, they don’t have an ordinance that says DPW will go in and pick up the trash in their yard. They don’t have any mechanism for that kind of thing. Or a junk car that’s not licensed, it’s just sitting in their yard. That kind of thing.

Smith said the same on the building department. So, if they start making changes to their house without a building permit, all they can do right now is send them a warning letter. They need more teeth on that side of it as well.

Roth said she had a question for Smith since they had the experience of having that happen when they were painting the Mills. And they had someone come over and they were taking pictures around the building and Bob [Roth], they were all sitting right there, and Bob walked out and asked him what he was doing. He said, I’m just taking pictures for the village. Nothing else. No more explanation. And they jokingly said Smith was probably sending someone over to complement their work on the building, which of course, wasn’t the case. But later that afternoon, she thinks it was on a Friday, they went to lunch and came back and there was a stop work order. Never questioned, never asked them, and apparently it was because there was a question about, she thinks, the boards. They were trying to, you know, it turned into a bigger project. Obviously, they’re not hiding anything. They’re right across the street from here. They got a stop work order, they couldn’t get in touch with anybody at Carlisle’s office to take care of it. She thinks it ended up being a $100 permit that Bob, had they been told, obviously, they would have paid it. It delayed that workforce because it took a number of days through the weekend, they’re trying to get ready for another project, so, she guesses her question is, is there a way, she means, knock on the door ask the question if somebody really isn’t sure. Maybe a more personal approach than just writing a ticket? She just thinks that there can be a way to alleviate it. Obviously, for $100, they would have paid it. It held up the crew for a significant amount of time and wrecked their schedule more than it wrecked ours. Smith agreed. So, Roth is just wondering the steps before you write a ticket, a courtesy knock on the door.

Ryan said you get a notice, you get a notice of violation either verbally or in writing. Smith said right. Ryan said he means, as part of the procedure. Smith said right. Ryan said this sounds like it’s different because – Smith said that should have always taken place. He’s not sure why that step was missed. So, they wouldn’t just write a citation, and they wouldn’t just red tag the project without, or they shouldn’t have – Roth said but they clearly did. Smith said he thinks what was in this case is they, it wasn’t just a painting project. What they said is there’s structural wood that’s being replaced. Roth said so, had he, because he saw them sitting there, just asked a question, it could have been resolved. Smith agreed. Roth said she’s just asking the procedure.

Quisenberry said he thinks that both the answers to these questions are going to be in the details of what they asked Ryan to do. It’s going to all be spelled out. Ryan said and there’s always a notice of violation issue before violation. We all want compliance. We’re always, that’s our goal is to get compliance, so.

Smith said OK. So that’s the first step. The second one is a social media policy. So, social media policy was not so much about them using that, that’s already in the employee code of conduct manual. That’s not about somebody using social media, it’s about how they use that to promote city events, and what kinds of things would go on social media, and how long they stay out there, and would they be archived? The question that comes up well, what happened to that if, right now, if they just we move it, it’s gone. Smith is not a social media user. Some of them might know that once you remove something, that’s gone, you can’t just bring it back. So, a social media policy might include a step whereby you have to archive. There are tools that allow you to do this. Archive what you take down so they could go back and say, well, yeah, back last August, they did have a posting for XYZ. Right now, they don’t have any of that. Social media is being used more and more, almost, a lot of people are using it, and more so than websites. So, they’re not walking away from their website, their new website that is under development right now, by the way, but Facebook and Instagram are getting used so much more. Smith thinks they need to have a policy on how this should be used. So, there are other communities, DeLorge has found a couple of really good examples. Novi has a great social media policy, that again, they can hit the ground running. They don’t have to redevelop the wheels. So that’s what they’ve asked Ryan to do, to put together that.

Wylie asked Ryan if he had other communities he works with that, which have social media policies that he works with them? Ryan said yes.

Quisenberry asked Smith would this policy cover city employees only, or does he intend on having it branch out to affect people on boards, commissions and whatever. Smith said well, they would have limited editing ability. Who could do the editing. He would assume it would just be the city staff doing the editing of this Facebook site what have you. So, he doesn’t think if the planning commission wanted to use Facebook, for example, to get the word out about a public hearing they were having, they could absolutely do that. But he wouldn’t expect the Planning Commission themselves to go in and put this on there. They’ve asked them that they give them the information and DeLorge would post it out there.

Quisenberry said he’s kind of referring more to members that represent the city, on boards and commissions, and using their position through social media to throw something out there that might be detrimental. Smith said yeah, that would be concerning. You give too big of a group that can make, post, you know, postings. He gets a little concerned about that, but they can look at the other examples that Ryan comes up with and make a decision then.

Wylie said pretty much what Smith has said is what this resolution says. The last part says (Wylie read the last paragraph of the motion).

Wylie said this would be a resolution and asked if anyone would like to move for this resolution.

Motion by Rodgers; second Casey.

Wylie asked if there was any discussion from council members.

Lamphier asked if there is any estimate on how much it would take for Ryan to put this together. Ryan said no, back when he told Quisenberry when they talked about it, he’s not going to reinvent the wheel. He’s just going to look at best practices and try to find some of what’s been done and put it together. (To Lamphier), Ryan said he doesn’t know exactly how long it’s gonna take him, he means, it’s not, he means, there are your resources out there they’re going to utilize to hone it down and get it back.

Wylie recognized Forte for a comment.

Forte said and then after they get the first one from Ryan, they’ll have to go to Carlisle/Wortman. That’ll be our next step. Will that, they’ll go through, do they have any estimate on how long that will take them? Smith said well, does she mean in terms of them to start writing citations? Forte said no, she guesses she misunderstood. Does, she guesses, what would be the next steps with Carlisle/Wortman. Smith said well, once Ryan drafts the – (interrupting Smith), Ryan said the ordinance, would be two readings of the ordinance and then the ordinance would be effective, and he’ll work with Carlisle/Wortman so they’ll know what’s going on. Smith said and then once it’s done, then they have, they write citations in other communities, so they have the process in house to do the actual citation writing. They just need authorization from us to start doing that here in Clarkson.

Wylie said she has a question. He brought up Kingsbury is not doing Clarkson, are we still paying Carlisle/Wortman or her for her work, non-work, hours? Smith said that’s a good question. Kingsbury is absolutely paid by the hour. And if you look at the invoices, she has not charged us for – Wylie said she’s not charging, OK – (continuing), Smith said for months and it’s a bit puzzling to him and he’s talked to Carlisle/Wortman several times about this and that’s the response he ultimately got after they said they would investigate. They did come back and said this is what they found. There’s some frustration that things aren’t happening with the citation writing ability. As they know, they have a house at the north end of town that’s half red and half white, and she has written countless letters of warning to that homeowner, and nothing gets done. Smith has called the homeowner. He’s talked to the homeowner on the phone several times. Nothing gets done. They need some more teeth. Wylie said she agrees. And the social media policy can never hurt.

Wylie asked if anybody else on the council had comments or questions on this.

No comments.

Wylie asked if anyone from the public had comments.

Wylie recognized an unidentified man.

The unidentified man said on the issue of junk cars in the driveway (unintelligible) will be very dangerous. But as we’re starting to suffer from climate control, if somebody wants to grow in their yard, they should be allowed to. Forte agreed. The unidentified man said if he wants to grow this tall of grass in his neighborhood or in his house, because it’s not causing any problems to anybody, and it’s very natural, and then there’s more natural life into it, you know, nobody’s going to slip on it. Nobody’s going to, it’s not a junk car, the – (interrupting the unidentified man), Smith said the argument, the counterargument, that he’s heard is that it attracts rodents. How true that is, he doesn’t know. But in this case, this is just an ordinance. This is not Smith going rogue. There is an ordinance about tall grass, and it’s 6 inches is the feeling on tall grass, and so, he’s just enforcing the orders. He thinks what the unidentified man has – (interrupting Smith), Wylie said she thinks that is a discussion for another day. Smith said that’s a discussion for another day.

Wylie asked if anyone else had a comment.

No additional comments.

Wylie asked DeLorge to do a roll call.

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

Wylie said the motion is adopted.

Agenda Item #11, Adjourn (Video time mark 1:57:32):

Wylie said this is the end of her packet. So, they’ve got Item #12, and she needs a motion to adjourn.

Wylie recognized Quisenberry for a comment.

Quisenberry said in school there was always that kid in the front class that when the instructor says is there any more questions and he’d raise his hand and everybody else was – Wylie asked if that was Quisenberry. Quisenberry said that’s him, at least it is today. Wylie showed Quisenberry her watch.

Quisenberry said again, on the whole issue of the water. He doesn’t know that they came to any sort of resolution of what they’re now going to do now that it’s passed, are they going to try to look for some sort of alternative sources of funding or come up with different options before they present it, before they get it back here, so that they know what it is they’re going to be voting on. Wylie asked what he was talking about and Quisenberry said the water. Wylie said this was just a discussion, so somebody’s gotta put it on the agenda another time.

Smith said that was the thought. This was just a discussion to introduce the topic, to just kind of gauge their interest. Quisenberry said OK, he just didn’t want it to linger out there. (The IPW people said it’s much appreciated.)

Smith said no, he thinks they know it probably warrants the next step. He talked to them before the meeting, and he gulped a little bit when they said $90,000. If they were to fund it, Smith thinks there has to be a solution that includes grants. Quisenberry said just, so, there’s going to be looked into where to go from here then. Smith said yes, absolutely.

Quisenberry said the other is they have a handout here from SEMCOG (Southeast Michigan Council of Governments) and they also all got a flyer here on their e-mail from Oakland County planning and zoning about a planners conference and the sidewalk maintenance program. Do they have anybody here on the council that is our rep[resentative] for SEMCOG, and it maybe it’s planning, somebody that can take part and gather information on this planning information so it just doesn’t, we lose opportunity. Smith said so, any of the notices they give for planning he immediately forwards to the planning commission, and if they’re not available, he’s always sitting on, these Oakland County programs are very well run, very professional, and he always gains something out of them personally, so he’ll make notes and he can pass those along. The sidewalk session, for example, is very intriguing to him. He’s very excited to participate. That is Wednesday morning, so he will be watching that closely, and he usually gets copies of the recordings, of the PowerPoint deck that they present, whatever, but generally he’s covering the planners, those planners meetings at Oakland County.

Smith said as far as SEMCOG goes, it’s a good topic to bring up. They do need a council representative. Smith is the alternate delegate, and he goes to SEMCOG meetings all the time and he sits in and listens. But he isn’t the delegate. It is a requirement that the primary be a council member. He’s offered to be the primary and they said no, thanks, but no thanks. You can’t do it.

Wylie said she thought it was her. Did her name not get put in? She doesn’t remember. She thought her name was put in to be the delegate. DeLorge said she emailed Wylie the information when Wylie asked her about it. Wylie said and she never responded to that, OK. She thought she was supposed to be the delegate. Smith said OK, great. Problem solved. Wylie said OK. Smith said that would be great. Wylie apologized to DeLorge. Smith said he’s sorry. Wylie said no, she may have let it slip through.

Wylie asked if there were any other questions.

No additional questions.

Wylie said she needs a motion.

Motion by Forte; second Roth.

The motion to adjourn passed by unanimous voice vote.

Wylie said thank you; they are adjourned at 9:01.

Wylie said that’s a long meeting.

Resources:

• • Link to video recording here
  • 02-26-2024 City Council packet