Council - Regular Meeting

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I know. be so busy. Oh no.

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hungry because Well, I got to talk to somebody about it because all of a sudden we're too education for the email sends it. It doesn't send It works on our cell phone just fine. But the Microsoft authentication we say to your authentic Microsoft

it makes my cell phone as a computer or my computer. We'll do both. Yeah. All right. We're going to go ahead and get started. Page 631. We do

four. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all please. Council member Williams Stewart here and Mayor Snider

here. All right. So, we do have a lot on our agenda in regards to action items. So, we're going to try to get through as many as possible in our study session. Uh so, we'll start off with resolution 20268 uh to approve the contract for senior services for the Fort Senior Center. um city or senior center um contract previously the I'll the city has approved for many years now the recreation mill for recreation programming and in the past the city was providing recreation programs um through the department we hired a director and other staff And there was a direct funding for senior services to the Park Senior Center. With the transition to the Battle Creek YMCA providing some of the recreation programming, it was understood that they were to also um be the payment for the Fork Senior Center complicated. So, it made sense to pull the Fork Senior Center out of the Y contract for them to contract directly with the city. And there's also a slight increase. Um they've been receiving an average of 10 to 11,000 since I think 2008 or so. So um I'm recommending that the increase to 16,000 a year paid quarterly quarterly $4,000.

Just a minor thing since we had a we'll just say a flurry of resolutions for tonight's meeting. So Jill's going to have to assign a new resolution number to this particular one cuz the 20268 is already taken. You want to change that was that was going to have no the actual resolution 20268 on it.

Yeah. So whatever whatever the next one in this I think we're up to 34 if I'm not mistake. So, are all new resolutions outnumbered?

No. No. We had pulled 20268 earlier this year. Um, that was the one for the uh ballot language. We just we didn't vote on it because it had to get pre-approved from the EG. Somehow that got put back into the mix. So it just needs to be changed to 126 34. Okay. Like we're gonna have the same thing. No, that one's correct. The O8 is okay.

On number on item B. That's correct. Yeah. Just change it over there. So kind of going back to this item, the senior allocation has only been 10 or 11 since how long? How many years? I think it was 2008. New year.

Okay. And this Yeah. Yeah. And and this particular one is retroactive only for 2026 January 1st. So we are not throwing that in. Okay. And uh city manager, do you see any downside any any negatives to increasing or or removing it from the from the mix with the Y? Any downside? I don't think so. Both the Y and the U Court Senior Center have both agreed that it would be far simpler to just stick with this practice representative from the courts. Isn't there

great thank you? Right. Any other questions on this? Right. Next, we're going to be asked to Yeah. 2608 the ballot language. Uh to amend our city charter. This is to allow for the board of review to go from four members to three members. Do we have any questions?

So, uh, council recalls we had brought this to the city earlier this year. This was at the request of the city assessor. Basically he was saying it was becoming increasingly difficult for the board of review to make quorum. Um statutoily the board of review is only required to have three members. Our charter currently provides for four plus I think. So um he had requested that we change the charter language to reduce it to three. Um council had indicated earlier we see they were good with that. Um the the procedure for these is to uh send these to the attorney general's office for informal approval before we vote on them. I finally after several months got our informal approval that that the language is appropriate and they gave us their informal thumbs up so um council can vote on this one tonight and and J can submit it to the county board um the November election. So in the interest of kind of being in the uh 2026 calendar year, if you look at uh section A, board of review, fourth line, second last word, the last sentence says if the mayor is unable to serve, a member of the council shall be designated by the council shall serve in hisstead. Given that our mayor is not a him,

I would suggest we change that word to there. move forward. There's a lot going on in the original chart. Is that inclusive? I understand. But I would like to start every time I'm going to change it with a valid measure. Let's change it. I agree.

I saw that too, Madam Mayor. And also there is um an alternate for the point of view. So will that still count uh in terms of the consideration? Yeah, I mean we will need an alternate like as you see this July I am not avail dates that are asked and so that alternate would lead me to where

I assumed it was the police radio. No, not that.

It sounds like it's up there. Well, in terms of the language itself, what I would say we can just replace the where it says shall serve instead shall serve in the mayor's. It's like we have a mic somewhere else but sounds doesn't take touch

check one two check that's a different conversation sounds like police it's definitely this machine I There's no controls. Oh, it it is YouTube. Yeah. March 2nd. I'm like, I know that's not the conversation that's being. So, even if it was,

it's not. just so you are the IT drone.

Okay. So, all right. Any other questions in regards to this resolution? Very good. Uh next we're going to be asked to approve resolution 52623 uh in regards to amending the merge contribution for separate.

But this one's just for discussion. So So this one's only in for discussion. Yeah. Because this is going to be the same thing. It's got to go to the AG first. before we go. So then,

so are we are we approving the resolution and then discussing you're just discussing whether or not you're good with the language so that I can send the resolution for pre-approval to the AG's office. Okay. And then assuming the AG Oh, this is a different website, right? Yeah. Yeah, the first one is board review. The second one is the is the educational requirement. Okay. So that's a section. Yes. Assuming you just did you have a question? No, I was asking for discussion. Oh, did did we need to discuss this or your mind was on?

I was just going to say that we we have discussed this before. We asked the initial and You did. I moved it over.

Sounds good. All right. Next, we're going to be asked to approve resolution 2623 for the MERS contribution. Um so this was previously we had exempted the um uh the positions of sorry I should get there the public services director and the uh or I'm sorry we are exempting spent a while everyone's under the mer program right now um the the positions of of public services and utility superintendent are looking to be exempted from the plan uh because they have uh my understanding alternate um retirement. I see a nod from the public services director in the back. So I believe that's accurate. And then previously we had exempted out the city manager position. I believe when city manager mcclair was here he was participating in 457 as opposed to merge but uh city manager uh wishes to participate in the merge plan. So, in order to effectuate those changes, we have to um basically the readoption of the plan with those two positions out and the city man back in.

Okay. Do we have any questions in regards to item? I'll just kind of Is there a way that we could do this to us without having to pass a thing every time? No, unfortunately. I asked the same question the last time we did it and unfortunately and knowing from my own firm's uh retirement plan, anytime you want to make a plan change, you have to read the agreement. So, are there budget implications with this change? Of course, because we're not going to be paying in for the two that are now opting out and paying in.

Yes. So city will get some money for that.

Just trying to next we're going to be asked to approve resolution 202626 uh to wave the vendor's permit requirement for the festival of the forks. I think this is the second year that we've done this not being able. Yeah, because they're they're still going to pay a fee with the paint chamber, right? That's

they've already certification. Anything else you would like to add? All right. Next, we may be asked to approve resolution 20.627 uh to approve change order for the Albian Street improvements city manager. I'll ask Jason to join us. Um but this is basically regards to the intersection of South Street um Avenue project and we're looking this where we're hanging the curb. Yes,

we're doing some changes to the um the curb line and then we're also doing some changes to some of the sanitary sewer. We're adding there's a section that needs to be added in that is old. what we identified as being old. And so, um, it' be going along Eerie Street and just while we're there putting all new water and sewer line in, might as well just fix this little section, too. I believe it was $6,500. Yes. Just go remove and replace a leaking water valve. Yes, that was all part of it, right? Just don't see anything. Well, it by doing it it's it's causing understand. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But it's mainly because of the water lines leaping right now. So,

do we have any questions for graphic? Right. Thank you. Next, we're going to be asked to approve resolution 32628 uh to adopt the county multi-jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan. Yes. Um mayor C, we were at the process of applying for um grant funding and part of what was requested was that we have acknowledged uh participation in the C county mitigation plan and although we had some years ago and the new plan has been adopted since that time.

Great. We have questions for city manager on this side. So, one of the benefits for the city participating in this grant funding. Very good. Next, we're going to be asked to approve resolution 202632 uh to apply for a CDBG grant. 2632 for CBD grant for 300 superior 215,000 superior.

So this city council actually already approved this resolution. There was just a little typo that needed to be need to be tweaked last time it was approved. It said that um it referenced uh the MEDC and it needed to reference Misha. And so the only change that has been made is in the second to last whereas paragraph that now references Michigan State Housing Development Authority Michigan economic program. So otherwise completely unchanged just that one reference didn't want to offend any state agencies from DC. The only question I had and it may be in here someplace is this a matching grant or just a full grant without matching requirements instead of go back and look at the

I just remember someone told us you know be mindful of mention remember that someone Any other questions? All right. Next, we're going to be asked to approve resolution 2633 uh for the approval of DPW for the sale of equipment. Are you speaking on this one? Yep.

That's

Oh, that's different one, smaller one. Um, good evening, council. This is in regards to purchasing a couple different items. Uh, one of them to start off with is going to be the sanitary sewer camera. This is uh a van mounted unit that allows us to instead of paying the contractor roughly $1,500 each time we call them out, we're able to do this ourselves and do it in house where we can send a robot down into the sanitary lines and the storm lines and video record everything that's in there. We have that sewer line program that's coming up. Mickey estimated about 700,000 just in cameraing fees or video recording fees alone uh to do that project. He's looking to see if we can turn around and bill back for that for when we do it ourselves instead of paying someone else to do it. Uh the other thing that we're able to do too is also look when the contractor needs it in town, we are able to turn around and bill them for that same service. As you all know, we have roughly half of the the sewer system has not been televised at all. And so that's something that we definitely have to do on top of the grant that we're going to be getting hopefully uh to reline some of these sewer pipes. So uh there's a buyback program with this which is very unique. We're able to get in 5 years another 63,000 back to replace just the unit. It would not mean replacing the van. Uh if we go out seven years they would give us a guaranteed buyback price of 38,000 to put a new system in. That's price will be drastically different than the 238,000 because we're not buying the vehicle that's with it. We just reuse the same one that we have. Um the next one is going to be the jet truck or the back truck. Our current truck is a 2013. We bought that used

when we did get it. It is in decent shape, but it is a 2013 and it's there are better units that are out there and for as much hydro excavating that we do a much as much jetting and cleaning of the sewer systems that we do. Uh for anyone that's not familiar, basically this has a huge spool on the front of it that sends a 600 foot hose down through it and it brings a jet back and it's it uh basically power washes the inside of the of the um either a storm sewer or a sanitary sewer and while it's bringing all the sludge or anything back, there's a huge tube that goes down in the manhole and sucks it up at the same time. This new style system actually has a compressed uh a big plate on the inside, compresses it into a solid material, pushes out all the liquid, and then it's able to dispose of it a lot easier. The capacity is bigger. And for the amount of lead and copper that we're doing, we also use that same jet truck to uh suck out holes down into our water man instead of esavating the entire area. This too also has a a guaranteed buyback. um in five years they're guaranteed to give us 223,000 in return for it or in seven years 159,000. We've researched between the camera system and the trucks. We've had many demos come in. We've ran them side by side by our truck to see what it was. We actually used them on water man brakes uh when we're doing demos to just see how well they work. And these are far superior than what we currently have. But technology is 2013 to 2026. So, uh, the large leaf bag, we ordered this, the council approved this back in July, August of 24. It is scheduled to come in in June. The plan is right now, we have the one that broke that we got fixed and we're

currently using. We got just completely overwhelmed with leaps. uh way more than we ever thought we would get had to deal with. Before that, we had bought a smaller back for about 18,000. We had to fabricate the box for it to go in, but it's very small. It can only do so much. The goal is to turn around and sell that with the box, the whole unit for 20,000. And then now we'll be running both. We'll split the city in half and we'll run two teams. One for the north side, one for the south side of the city or east west, however we decide to do it. This last time while we time we add it up, it took us every bit of three months straight running every week trying to pick up leaves. By the time we got the leaf back back, we're looking to cut that down because we don't have three months fall. Last year we didn't even have a month. So um with this that comes out of solid waste fund and that's all it's used for is to pick up pick up leaves. So, um, the fourth one is going to be the large grapple bucket. This goes on new, uh, on the front end of our new front end loader. This is to pick up huge logs from down trees from when it comes to uh, storms or when we're moving things around the tree dump. The forks that we have just don't just don't cut it. The county and other municipalities have the same style grapple bucket. This is just a lot bigger and allows us to pick up debris that much faster instead of having to call the county to help us.

So, I'm not going to offer up questions because of the time. I do need to allow for public comments, but we'll definitely be able to discuss further at our regular council meeting. So, for a heads up on all that. Uh, so given the time, is there anybody in the gathering that would like to stand and address council? If so, please come up to ask your name and address and 3 minutes is yours. That's Michael. There's a ordinance in Albian don't have a place on

you don't understand it either. No, I I just want to make sure that you understand that public comments just public comments, not a back and forth. But if you give us your address, I'll make sure that your council member gets in contact. I already talked to him. I talked to her and I talked to AP and he is not going to do nothing about it. He's the boss. That's exactly what he said. If you want to send me a message, I can hear. If you want to send me a message, then I can help follow up as well.

Well, it's I've been 6 months and I ain't got nothing done yet. You can look right there. You could look right there and see it. It's the other way. But if you can give us your address, your home address. 107 period. Thank you.

And you got 20 20 to 30 yards. It ain't been cut. Why didn't they give them tickets for them? Then you got 40 days, 40 people mark on the wrong side of the road. I talk to him about he ain't going to do nothing about it either. He's the boss. He said, "I didn't get nowhere out of you either." Answer you right now. Yeah. Is there anybody else that would like to stand and address council?

Seeing no movement. Oh, go ahead. I'm moving. Come on. Come on.

I thought someone else would be here with me, but I guess they're not. I'm really standing not to represent but to be uh sort of the voice tonight with the Alway Ministerial Association just to let you know that we are in the background. We are praying for you. We are encouraging you. We want to see that you would succeed. And I was thinking before I came up here tonight, we live in a community of about 7,400 people, about half of what it was when I was a child growing up here. And about 5,800 of those people are registered voters and that's how you got here tonight. Uh and so we're praying just so you know that we are praying for you. We pray the impact of your presence that the impact of your presence has on this community. We pray because you establish the tone and the atmosphere for this community. and you sit where you sit tonight because a large portion of your precinct voted for you to get you where you are. That's why you were here in the seat that you are. But keep in mind that where the majority voted you in, there was a percentage that voted that did not vote for you. And basically those who voted for you, they were saying you represent the type of community they want to live in. Okay? Those who didn't vote for you obviously were saying something different. So we pray for you because you must land on a place where your decisions impact everyone that is represented in this city. It's about thousand people per person about 960 each of you. Some of you precinct not even 960 but uh but your the choice that you choices that you make impact the entire city. So in the spirit of 1 Timothy chapter 2 1 and 2 where we're commanded to pray for those who are in authority but for selfish reasons. I don't know if anybody really noticed it

was for a selfish reason that we may live a quiet and peaceable life here in this community of Elgen. So just to let you know we're here in the background. We're praying for you, encouraging you and expecting the best. That's it. Any other public comment? We have a motion to move. Support. All in favor say I. Meeting adjourn 7:00.