City Commission - Regular Meeting

Those are cool and matching. Perfect.

The countdown.

Are you going over there? That's the plan. Close of the night. What's that? I know. I was going to say clock probably stopped. All right. 6 o'clock. Call this meeting to order. If everyone could please stand and join us in saying the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

So the first item on the agenda is the approval of the agenda. We will need to modify this evening's agenda. Um, we are going to be adding the oaths of office for city commission who are reelected up to right after this agenda item. And then also we will be removing agendum item number eight. So may I please have a motion um to add agenda item number four, the oaths of office to this evening's agenda. A second. Wonderful. We go to vote. All those in favor say yes.

Yes. Any opposed? Right. Motion carries. Uh, next, I also need a motion in a second to remove agenda item number eight. Um, the consider the approval of the updated poverty exemption policy resolution. Um, remove that from this evening's agenda. So moved. Second. All right. All those in favor say yes. If I madam, just real quickly for those in the audience, um the reason we're removing that is we did get feedback from the state of Michigan um that the changes made at the last meeting to the revised policy were acceptable. So there's no need for further action on the exemption policy. So we are good to go. Perfect. All right. All those in favor say yes.

Yes. Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. So now we will go on to the oaths of office for city commission. for those who are reelected. Who would like to come down first or do you want both going to go together? No, I'm sorry. Sure, but like I don't want to ruin your photos. Yeah, I'll put away for photos. Don't worry. Together, most efficient efficiency.

I know, right? I like it, too. It's great. I'll just read it and then you can say it. Go ahead and raise your right hand. I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States in the Constitution of this state and I will faithfully discharge the duties of Second W city commissioner, Third W City Commissioner of the City of East Grand Rapids, County of Kent, and State of Michigan to the best of my abilities. I love you. and sign. Thank you. AWESOME. CONGRATULATIONS.

Thank you.

Congratulations. Thank you.

Thanks for coming. Thanks for coming, guys. Girls, congratulations. Okay, congratulations to both commissioners on their re-elections. Also to Commissioner Skaggs in the first ward who couldn't be here this evening to join us. Um but congratulations Commissioner Wesley and Schwarz and thank you so much for for running. Um so now we move to public comment. So, those of you who are joining us this evening that have public comment to something that is not on this evening's agenda, now is the time to come forward.

Please state your name and address for the record, please. Certainly.

My name is Steve Williams. My address is 1038 Ren Avenue Southeast. Um, I'm a longtime resident of East Grand Rapids. Uh, retired from the consulting firm of Williams and Works. A major portion of our practice was community planning. So I'm familiar with the public and many of the public officials misconceptions of the scope of planning and zoning authority uh as allowing a government to restrict property rights in any way that they deem to be in the public's interest. Planning and zoning law is complex, has some fuzzy edges and uh generally but generally the legal basis for zoning and planning lies in the reasonable consistent application of the police power granted to the government to protect health, safety and welfare. abridging a property owner's rights by not reasonably basing property laws in the lawful use of this police power or the property owner's constitutional rights can lead to disastrous financial consequences. And so a recent case in point is the $50 million judgment against Old Mission Peninsula in uh Grand Traverse County for violating the rights of commercial property owners there. The current light gaslight per uh partners proposal is an important issue for our community. To the extent the citizens via petition would like the city to take unconstitutional or unlawful actions, which to my mind they clearly do, the city must reject these requests. Also realizing the very large potential risks of mishandling this issue, the city should seek a legal opinion that is safely on the side of

not creating a financial liability for the taxpayers if it hasn't already. I don't know. Uh it may be uh prudent to make that opinion uh available to the public as to provide an indication of the boundaries of what is clearly allowed and constrain the discussion uh to those activities so that we're not discussing things outside of our purview. In my opinion, this is not a time to explore the limits of governmental authority. So I a as I guess to summarize I I don't know exactly where we are in this process. I believe that there's a detailed plan that has PUD plan that has to be reviewed and approved by the planning commission. I don't know whether that's been done or not. And then that gets approved or denied by the city commission before that PUD actually can go into effect. And if I understand correctly, that's the part of the process we're in. And I just urge the city commission to be cautious, to stay on safely on the side of the law, and uh use the advice of your attorney uh to to uh protect us all from uh financial liability. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. There's anyone else? Hi, I hope everybody had a happy Thanksgiving. I'm Jerry Anderson 435 Edgeir Drive. Um, speaking on behalf of uh East Grand Rapids Responsible Development and uh several well, 1400 residents who signed a petition and thank you um for that. And and I agree it would be awfully nice if the city um were forthcoming with the reasons it had for the decisions that it was doing.

Well, I'm I'm he gave me uh pause to to consider what I had to say and I think that I I agree that if the city were forthcoming with why it was doing the things it was doing, it it would be great for all of us. Um, I'm here to remind you that you've had three municipal attorneys, uh, specialists in this area speak to you on the legislative versus administrative issue, which seems to be the hangup for this project. All three of you have told you in very clear terms that calling this decision administrative is just not true. They showed you examples in case law to reinforce what they had to say, and you've chosen to ignore the advice that they've given you. You did, however, have the attorney for the developer give you a big thank you and commend you on your decision-making, and I suppose that says something in itself. Um, you've now chosen to enter litigation against your own residents rather than disappoint the developer. I want to remind you one more time that you do not need to do that. Mr. Huff has told you very clearly that the decision on whether to accept the protest petition is up to the commission alone, not to the developer, not to Mr. Charles, not to Mr. Huff. It is up to a vote of the commission. The protest position petition has been in your possession for two months now and you've taken no answer on it. There's an easy path forward. Acknowledge the obvious that a vote by you, a legislative body, constitutes a legislative decision. It's pretty simple. By definition, it's a legislative decision, which is what attorneys have already told you.

Honor the protest petition and the litigation between you and your own residents can stop right away. Do that. Get to work. Within a week, you can be working on a development that is safe for your resident, that will make you and your residents proud, and the path forward will be way quicker than waiting for litigation. And then, as the developer would like you to do, I'm sure, appealing the decision that will be against you in 6 months from now, finding yourself in the same place you could be in a week from now. Thank you. Thank you,

Lady of the Lake here. Nancy Patterson, 214 Gorm Drive Southeast. Evening, madame mayor, commissioners, congratulations on the re-elections. So, for months, I have been presenting little bits and pieces of information about Reed's Lake. I want to kind of bring it all together. I am proposing that you think very, very hard about stopping fireworks over Reeds Lake. All fireworks over Reeds Lake. even for the next year's 250th anniversary of our nation. Why? Human health. The particulate matter from the prettiest pollution is harmful to our lungs and cardiovascular system. The American Lung Association suggests all of us with sensitive lungs, even those with asthma or some other kind of chronic lung disease from any cause. Um, they recommend we stay indoors and away from the smoke, preferably indoors with a whole house fan running with a hepailter. Of the metals tested for in the lake in September, ones commonly found in fireworks, barium and copper were elevated. uh lead and cadmium were tested for but they are no longer found in commercial fireworks. Um other common metals include aluminum, strontium, titanium, zirconium and magnesium. These were not tested for in the testing in September. So pollution, environmental issues, noise. Our canine friends and the wildlife around the lake do not like the sudden loud bursts of sound and light, nor do our veterans. Native wildlife have been known to leave their nests during fireworks displays, sometimes never to return. I do not believe that that effect has been

studied at Reeds Lake. It has at others. Cost. From my reading, I have learned that fireworks are wicked expensive. The cost for the product, ensuring safety when firing and clean up afterwards is a needless expense for we the people. Four, fire potential. Climate change is bringing droughts and high fire danger to our area. There are other cities banning fireworks. Many many cities, many for fire concerns and some for environmental concerns. And what they are doing is using synchronous drone displays and laser light shows for their celebrations. So, let's get back to Reed Lake. I've been told to not be concerned about the concrete jungle that may be built nearby as when Jacobson's and the Ramona Medical Center were there, it was no big deal for the lake. I would like to see the testing data from the 1990s to make sure the same testing was done in the same way it is done now so we can have valid comparisons. The EGR website only provides data from 2015 and forward. Of note, a 2022 East Grand Rapids High School project found elevated levels of phosphates and E.coli at the kayak launch area and they attributed that to storm water runoff. So, thank you for your time.

Thank you. Go east.

Would anyone else care to make public comment? Hi, my name is Mark Armstead, 220 Elwood Drive. Um, good evening. Um, really the there's a lot of things on my mind. Um, it's hard for me to organize it all because it's just uh there's just a flood of information. But uh anyways, um one of the things I'm concerned about is the uh the continual deficits that the uh that the city seems to uh um always be up against uh which which lead to millages andor other expenses uh which are just u it's spending that uh becomes the burden of the taxpayers. So deficits are really nothing more than debt. I mean, you can, you know, rephrase it any way that you want, but uh so that leads me to, you know, some of the things that the city's some of the city's initiatives as well as, uh, you know, the tax increment financing they're talking about for the development. Again, I'm not opposed to development. Uh, but, uh, I really don't feel that, uh, the tax increment financing, I know, is presented a lot of different ways and they're saying there's there's no cost to us and or there's just benefit long term. I I I fail to see that. Nobody's been be able to explain that. Um but uh again it's uh you know the the continued uh uh expenses andor you know some of the initiatives the carbon net zero you know another way to look at carbon net zero is I mean if that money was given back to the taxpayers we ourselves could invest in energy star appliances or maybe would use some insulation or replace windows or something else. I think the uh community as a whole would far exceed anything that the uh government is

doing, any of the initiatives they're doing for that. Um so I'd like to, you know, again just, you know, I mentioned earlier in one of my one of my talks, you know, re recommmit to the community. Uh get us involved. Uh there's a lot of people out there that have good ideas. There's a lot of different ways uh to skin the cat, uh per say. um you know the the government just keeps growing and our def our deficits keep increasing our debt keeps increasing and um the reallocation of resources from individuals to the government um doesn't seem to be resolving anything it just seems to be creating more controversy more issues and um you know it's uh I I just I just received my um my healthc care um quote for for this coming year uh the cost is unbelievable and the exponential cost that healthcare is increasing every year is is just it's becoming unsustainable. But that's true with everything. And I'm sure the government has the same issues that individuals have. But the um you know, as an individual household, we have to figure out ways to uh get around this. A lot of times the only way that we have to get around these issues is to um um to work harder. Uh that's really not the solution. Um, you know, my last comment is, um, I never dreamed as a kid that I grow up to be a debt slave, but it almost feels like that's the direction that, um, what we're all heading. Um, you know, so again, I you know, I I I don't want to, it's just who wants to be a debt slave the rest of their life? Thank you.

Thank you. Would anyone else care to make public comment? Okay. All right. This time I will close public comment and bring it up here for the report of mayor and city commissioners, including committee liaison reports. Uh, Commissioner Berdick, do you have anything to share?

Um, since I'm first, I can be the first to thank our public works for all the hard work they put in removing the snow. Our roads are in great shape um from driving around uh the area. I appreciate that. And from our talks um with public works, uh leaf pickup might be a little tough, but if you do have bags, go ahead and put them outside because they are still going around and collecting them this week. That's what I got. That's right. Till the fifth, right? This is the final week. And if we can see it, we'll get it. Okay. I cannot get my kids to part with their pumpkins. So I'm like, we till the fifth, right? They're snow covered. But thank you. Commissioner Wesley, do you have anything?

Uh nothing. Just excited to be here for another four more years. to serve the city and I'm excited to to to see us keep moving forward. Wonderful. Appreciate you. Yeah, congratulations again. Thanks, Mr. Nothing for me this evening. Nothing to add. Mr. Schwarz, I'll just echo what everybody else said. And also, um, Mr. Armstead, if you want to stick around, the next item on the agenda is the audit presentation. Um, which will go through our budget and how we've been performing if you're um, interested in sticking around for that agenda item. Um, and then we're of course always here for um, if you want to email or call with any questions about specific items. Wonderful. Thank you. Great point.

Good day to bring that up. I don't have anything to add. I just wish everyone drives safely and thanks again to DPW for all the hard work they've been doing.

Um, just echo the u positive comments about public works. Um we had teams in all throughout the snow event uh keeping major roads and then yesterday morning um all of our crews were in at 5:00 in the morning had the city both streets and sidewalks done by 1:20. We actually had two employees uh spend the night two nights or one night two nights. Two nights um during the snow event um they live a little bit further away so they ended up sleeping at DPW and volunteered to do that to um keep our roads open. So again, just an amazing job by um by our team and um just the again the great work that that group does u for their city residents on a daily basis. Um lastly, as was already noted, leave pickup December 5th. So good luck with your pumpkins.

Yeah. And staying overnight, that's amazing. Thank you for to them for their dedication. That's that's incredible. So now we can move on to the regular agenda items. Uh the first item on the agenda is the audit presentation um regarding the annual comprehensive financial report for the fiscal year ending ended June 30th and that introduction is by finance director Se. Thank you. Uh so we finished the audit and I have Doug Bradold here to go over some high points in the audit. Um and we will be submitting this audit for the fourth year for the GFOA award. Um, so I will turn it over to Doug and he can talk all things numbers.

Okay, you got my slides, right? Thank you.

Appreciate coming again to go over this with you. I met with finance a few minutes ago and we went over in a lot of detail. So I'll give you more of a highle view, but overall the audit did go very well. Again, it's it qualifies for the GFOA uh certificate of excellence award that you've received the last few years as Charlotte mentioned. Um if you go to page one, if you do have your book in front of you, I'll go to a couple pages here, but not very many. Uh but page one is our independent auditors report and that's where we give the opinion on the financial statements after we complete our audit work. And it's in the second paragraph. It says in our opinion the statements present fairly in all material respects the financial position of the city. That's a good clean unmodified report and certainly what you want to have. Uh also the very last page of the report is an additional um report on the internal control and compliance of the city over financial reporting. And if there were any issues with material weaknesses or reportable conditions or anything else or compliance issues, we would report those here. But there are none to report either. So it's all a good clean audit report. Then it just there are two different sets of financial statements in here. I'll just go through the slides, but the the first set of financial statement information comes from pages pages should write more of this down, right? 13 13- 15. Uh so this is just uh the overall basis of the financial statements is a full acrruel basis I should say and uh it's more like a business so everything is included in here and this first slide is is a kind of shows the there was a positive bottom line I should say and that but this first slide shows the expenses versus the program or direct revenues associated with each of the functions of the city and you can see there that the

expenses exceed the program revenues of each of the areas and What this really tells you is where your state shared revenue and property taxes are making up the difference. So in each of these areas, that's what that's what they're doing. And then the next slide shows you where all that the funds come from. U 2025 was kind of a normal year. I usually like to compare these to um to 2024 which was a very unusual year but but um for for example the property taxes made up 55% of the total revenues in 24 and 69% in 25 which again is is quite normal. Um, and that's due to some significant grants that were received in 2024 for your pension primarily and also some uh big items received from the school for playground and that kind of thing in the parks and recreation area. And then the next slide, this is just to show what your net investment in capital assets is. Uh, you can see this has been going up every year, which means the city is doing a lot of capital work. uh this line continues to trend upwards as new capital is invested and as bonds are paid down related bonds and then it it'll start to creep down if depreciation of those assets exceeds what what you're purchasing and and when there's new bond issues. So this year you can see it continues to go up. there was a lot of investment in streets for example. Um and the next set of statements is on pages 16 through 19. I'll focus a little bit more on the general fund here. But again, all was positive. Um on page 18, if you have it in front of you, this is the bottom line. The third line up is the bottom line for all these funds. Uh you can also see on page 18 right in the

middle of the page the amount of that was spent on major streets, local streets and out of the municipal street fund there was you know about $4 million was spent on streets all in all. So a lot of paving was redone and I'm doing math in my head there so if I'm if I'm off a little bit that's rough. Um, but the general fund, page 18, again, the third line up from the bottom left hand column, that's your general fund. The net change in fund balance was 537,000 positive. So, your fund balance went up and your total fund balance, we'll see on I'll get to that on a slide. Your total fund balance is at 7.2 million in your general fund. And just as far as budget goes, since you mentioned that, I'll run you uh to page 47. So you can see the budget was set to have a $290,000 deficit in the general fund and you actually finished like I mentioned with a little over a half million positive. So you finished about 800,000 ahead of what you were budgeted. So that's very very good performance. And then the next slide. So these are just general fund statistics that we kind of track over the years. And you can see tax revenue has just gone up steadily in the general fund. That's with taxable values increasing. Uh charges and other are about similar year after year. And then you can see the state had a big jump in 2024 and back down to normal in 25. That jump was the pension grant that you received. So that made that one look kind of goofy. Uh the next one is the general fund expenditures. The next slide. This one fluctuates primarily based on capital outlay and each of the different functions. Uh the general fund there again that's that pension grant getting paid out in 2024. So that's why that one's up so much. Public safety

fluctuates just uh capital items. Uh public works, there was the new some a lot of building activity this year. The new public works building was underway, I believe. And then uh some other building projects. And then you have parks and wreck has been up the last couple years due to uh park work in the parks and the playgrounds and so forth. So then the next one is the the fund balance in the general fund. You can see this year it's up up to about 50% about 49% of your annual expenditures which is a very good level. Uh the rule of thumb is to keep it about 25% so you're well ahead and looking very good. And as we discussed in finance, there are plans in place to spend that back down. There's um some you're so you're saving up to spend the money uh which will mean you will have deficits in the next couple years, but to get that fund balance back down for some necessary expenditures in various departments that have to be made. So it's great to save it up ahead of time and then spend it rather than borrowing debt every time you have to do a big project. Then the next slide is just your water and sewer fund. Um this you can see for the last several years this is a comparison of operating revenues to expenses and it's been positive every year. Uh that means you're covering your depreciation in those funds and uh the funds are doing very well and again accumulating a little bit of money each year to for future capital projects and cash flow in that fund is the next slide. You can see at one point that was kind of getting starting to be dangerously low back in 2019 and 20. So, so you can see that has gone up a little over 2 million this year in the cash balances area. So, that's that's very good to see that that's starting to come back up.

Uh the only other thing I was going to mention again we went over a lot of footnotes and so forth in the finance committee but the couple other positive things are in the the area of the pension plan. Um that has several years ago the the pension was switched away from MS to your own your own defined benefit pension plan and that has now about 71% funded. So, it's it's gone steadily up since making that switch, which is good to see. Uh, the o other post-employment's benefits plan is at about 31% funded. There really isn't that. That's more paid out of general fund uh money rather than having money set aside for it, but it is 31% funded. So, that's my highlevel overview. Is there any questions I can address?

Any questions? And you mentioned an award. Uh do you mind elaborating more on that? I I don't know much what entails that and and I guess sounds sounds prestigious. We've gotten it how many times in in a row? Four four times in a row which is fantastic. Just curious to know yeah what what in and I think it's good for the audience too. Sure. There's a there's a nonprofit organization called the Government Finance Officers Association and they're the ones who sponsor this award and what you have to do is submit this this comprehensive annual financial report to the GFOA and then they they put it through a very stringent review process to make sure you're meeting certain qualifying standards to give the award for the excellence in financial reporting.

That's great. But we we work with probably 50 different governments and there's maybe 8 to 10 who receive it. And it is I mean it takes a lot of effort internally by Charlotte to be able to put this all together and and there's additional procedures that we have to do too to make sure everything ties out. A lot lot more pages. Sure. Yeah. But but yes, it is a prestigious award and and they go through it. It's there's always little comments to fix up and that kind of thing, but yeah. Well, what an honor. Thank you. Congratulations. Very good. Thank you. And thank you, Charlotte, for the work.

I heard you mention um that you said that there are plans in place to spend down um some of our our fund balance and this was discussed in the finance committee. I'm wondering if a member of maybe the finance committee could share what those plans are.

Yeah. So, we talked about um well, we did talk about setting a a separate agenda item to talk through this in more detail with everyone in this setting, but 7.2 million is the general fund balance right now, and our target is roughly 4 million, right? So, there's a delta of about 3.2. We have a ladder truck on order that accounts for 1.7 million of that. and we have uh an upcoming need to replace the vac truck that is um going to be $700,000 roughly. And then there's also those delayed projects um that are around $350ish,000. So, a lot of that funding is accounted for and um you know, it means that we don't have to go out for debt millages or you know, debt financing or millages to pay for things like a ladder truck. Um because that is a big part of our it'd be $1.7 million out of a normal $15 million budget. Um so, thank you to staff for uh being so fiscally responsible that we don't need to do that. Um, so that leaves us with some delta in there. And so that's part of our future conversation of what to do with it. And then we also need to forecast for a legal defense fund and that will be coming as well.

Thank you. Yeah. Did I miss anything? Just um the the other uh big expenditure that's working out there is going to be replacement of um the engine itself, which a few years out from, but we're making sure that we're pre-planning for that expenditure. Yeah. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you for being here. Appreciate it. Yeah, of course. And Charlotte again, thank you for all your hard work with that. Uh so now we'll next move on to the next agenda item which is the public safety quarterly report. That introduction is by public safety director Rick Tika.

Good evening mayor and commissioners, fellow city staff and those who are sticking around to hear this. Um it's my pleasure to present the third quarter report for the public safety department. Uh if you look on page one, most importantly, part one violent crimes and property crimes remain extremely low. Grand Rapid is a very safe city and we plan to keep it that way. Almost every category in part two offenses were down when compared to the third quarter in 2024. Moving on to page two. Uh happy to report that all accidents are down in all four categories. Four categories include property damage accidents, injury accidents, and those that occur on private property, as well as hit and runs. Support services tasks have hopefully reached a peak with with respect to foyers and gun permits. As you remember, those have been uh continually on the rise for the past several years. some software upgrades um have assisted the clerks and it has helped them tremendously in completing their tasks in a very timeefficient manner. Both clerks Caroline Ford and Emily Simco have been fantastic with problem solving and handling the increased workload. Uh moving on to page three. Just wanted to highlight that our school resource officer Troy Brown conducted stop the bleed training at every school in the district. This has been wellreceived training and empowers educators and school staff to act swiftly and confidently to enhance the safety of all the students. On pages four and five, you will find the ongoing traffic stop and traffic crash demographics reporting that has been completed uh and reported since the beginning of 2022. Before I address any questions or comments that you may have, I'd like to

do a brief overview of the cover memo that that I provided. As we all know and previously discussed, the department has been collecting traffic stop and traffic crash demographic data since January 1 of 2022. To my knowledge, we are the only department that is reporting this type of information. Each quarterly report there's been discussion on what to do with this data. Suggestions have been made for statisticians, consultants, and subject matter experts to analyze the data. We've heard often that our data sets are too small um to provide any insight or draw meaningful conclusions. By comparison, one of the attached links to the Michigan State University study conducted in 2020 analyzed over 297,000 traffic stops. Since 2022, we have collected information on 3,26 stops and 1,028 traffic crashes. Due to the low numbers in our data set, any absent or due to the low numbers of our data set, absence of racial-based complaints, absence of any violations of our fair and impartial policing policy, and continual supervisory reviews of INCAR and body cam footage, I'm recommending exploring an independent holistic assessment of the public safety department. This can focus on topics related to what may or may not be causing disparities in any of our traffic stop or traffic crash uh data sets. In reviewing options of providers that can offer this type of service, I've identified the center for safety assessments and inclusion. This company is based in Florida. The center has uh done assessments in um several different cities, most notably in Lancing Police Department and Fire

Department. I also included a link to that assessment um in the memo. I briefly spoke to the managing partner, Kevin Drummond, and he is willing to do a presentation and a question and answer session at an upcoming uh commission meeting. He's willing to conduct a customizable independent assessment of the public safety department that focuses on any area that may create disparities. In reviewing the Lancing assessment, it's clear that this would provide a comprehensive area on any areas of improvement, strengths, or awareness. As a director of public safety, I'm extremely proud of the diverse and dedicated public safety team. With that being said, I look forward to learning areas of success as well as any areas that we may do to improve on to serve the city the best possible way. Thank you for your time and I'd be happy to address any questions that you may have.

Are there any questions for Director Bikama? Um maybe uh I might have missed it. Uh walk-in PBTs. What's a PBTS? It's a portable breath test. So, uh, sometimes a court will mandate that somebody comes in and does a preliminary breath test at our station and we provide those. Got it. And it seems like we don't provide didn't provide as many. There hasn't been as many I I don't believe authorized by the court um probably in the last year. Tick down a little bit. Go ahead.

Couple questions. So, one um just looking at your tables just just wondering why um compare crash to to traffic stops versus like stops and t number of tickets issued or something. I'm just trying to trying to understand the correlation between crashes and and and traffic stops. So traffic stops and traffic crashes were the using the traffic crash demographic set was a way to provide somewhat of a benchmark for us um initially uh as compared it would give you um a closer um what's the word I'm looking for here?

So part of part of what we use is the crash data is a measurement of what our demographics are for our travel population. We know that our travel population is not the same as our resident population. Um that those um commuting through the community um racially are has a different makeup than just what um our residents are in East Grand Rapids. So as we put together this program in 20 2020 20212

um and implemented it, it was how do we identify our travel population? And there two or three methodologies out there. Um this is probably the um most cost-effective. Um the challenge with that is because we are a low sport low-speed community, excuse me. Um that we just don't see the number of crashes that you would in in our surrounding neighboring community. So when we talk about um trying to measure or excuse me, not measure, but understand our dem the travel population demographics, that's one of the things that um we look at. So that's why we compare crash data with our stop data to try to get a sense of if we see a disparity between the two. Um and I've talked about this before is the concern is that are we getting um data demographic data from our travel population that truly is indicative of what that population is.

Sure. Well, thanks. Thank you. Appreciate it. And my followup question is um I know you're suggesting independent review. I think Oh, cool. Great idea. Sure. I I just didn't know if there was it spawned from a need, you know, hearing and seeing that, you know, crime is down, historically down, accidents are down, we have zero complaints about our our amazing police force. Just, you know, um why now? Did something come up or was it just maybe just now's a good time that we have enough data that we want, you know, I guess just curious about that?

Well, do we have enough data? I I don't think any of us can answer that question. So that's part of, you know, uh I'm not a subject matter expert in this area and um questions have come up. We've had this discussion and and quite frankly just wanted to create that conversation of is is this something that we want to explore and and look into. Great. Okay. So this um company that you have selected um have you I'm sure have you discussed with them at all how low that data is? Is this something that they are I did um just it was a very brief conversation but just kind of a brief overview. It was one of the few places that I found that has um conducted some assessments on a police and a fire department

and um like I said I think it's important to look at you know take a holistic approach and and look at our entire department and rather than just focus in on one area because we may be missing something. Um we we're a new uh team. We have a lot of new changes and I think if if we're going to do something like this, let's take a look and if there's areas we need to improve on, you know, now's the time to do it and um could provide some benefit for it rather than just focusing on and honing in on one

on the one. Right. Right. Okay, that makes sense. Just to expand on director becoms um part of what um when he identified u this organization as a potentials um partner to look at do the comprehensive holistic review um we know that Mr. Drummond is in Michigan on a fairly regular basis. So um it's not like we're talking we're going to bring him up specifically for a commission meeting. we would coincide when he was in find a time that he was in Michigan already and to then bring that about. Part of what our thinking is by having a s subject matter expert being able to speak with the commission to help you all understand this is what um what to look for here are the areas of um concern um and you know potentially get into the data collection discussion just to provide some additional experts um expertise on this. Um I believe mayor, you're the only person on the commission at the time that when we rolled this out um was we had more involved conversations leading into that. So I think it's a good opportunity to um provide an opportunity for the entire commission um to hear from somebody who who does this for a living.

Great. Thank you. I just want to say thank you for setting this up because I know you've been promising this and we've had a lot of milestones leading up to it. Let's get up to staff. Let's get some permanent um you know placements. And so I appreciate you following through on that doing this. I'm excited to see um what this consult I would be in favor of bringing in um this company just to hear them out here hear what they would present get some cost estimates. I'm sure there's tier one, tier two, tier three kind of pricing of what they could provide. So um thank you for presenting this. I'm in favor of bringing them in. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Any other questions, Mr. Hunter? No question. No question. But okay,

I'll just say again, I'll echo thank you. I know that specifically I've been asking what our next steps for quite a while. So I am appreciative to see that that we are looking at at moving forward with what do we now do with this data? Um and I certainly don't want us to underplay or say that this is this is not a lot of data. I mean, we're a small community, but I think probably if we look at 771 year to date, we're probably looking at 4,000 plus data points over the last 3 or four years. Um, which is not insignificant. Uh, especially when we consider that consistently that data shows that um there is racial disproportion disproportionality in the traffic stop data um and that our interest is in. So, what's causing this, right? Why do we see um 30% of our traffic stops um as black motorists? Um and why is that number even double what we would estimate our road user population to be based on traffic crash data? Um you know what I've suggested in the past is is a deeper dive into the data or helping our data sets to talk to each other so that we can answer questions um like where are these happening? Why are they what are they being pulled over for? What is the disposition of the traffic etc. Um, and so I I look forward to asking I think you said Mr. Drummond um would certainly be in favor of of bringing him here and and asking him questions uh related to what the options might be um for moving forward in that direction. Um and uh yeah, I'll leave it there.

Did you have a question?

Yeah. Um thanks for all your great work, Director Bumma. um obviously a a extremely tough job and our city appreciates um all your you and your staff's work. On page four where we look at medical activity um and thanks for compiling this data as well. I mean we see a difficult trend uh when we look at medical I'm sorry mental health under medical activity. My my question just was, you know, we see in the last row, second to last row at the bottom a title of just mental health, right? Um, but then below it is mental health pickup and then above it is mental health suicide. I'm just wondering if those are all kind of combined in the mental health category. Um, it appear that they wouldn't be because there's more um in the other two than there is in the in the one. uh eight total for mental health, seven and two. But I'm I'm just curious to know, I guess, first of all, how how those numbers play out. And then, you know, furthermore, you know, what what what is a good sort of deescalation tactic, right, that the officers use? we approach, we get a call, we approach um a residence and begin the work of of I would assume deescalating. And then I guess the the final takeaway from that was are those numbers, let's say that that situation ends in some kind of domestic abuse, right? Does does do those numbers then correlate back over to um something else on the previous pages? just th those numbers, you know, it could be aberration from quarter to quarter, see them go down next quarter as we've seen with a lot of these trends. But could you speak a little bit to that those numbers there?

Sure. That's there's a lot to unpack there. I'll try and

try trying to attack it one piece at a time here, but um some of the difference in the calls, a mental health call, it could be just somebody experienced a mental health crisis that needs um you know, a social worker or some time and we may determine on whether they need actual medical care, transportation by an ambulance versus uh a suicide threat where we might be transporting somebody. Um there's also court orders for uh pickups which I think are noted. the pickup order which are which are different that may be a family member um that has petitioned that particular person because they need um in treatment care. So we will actually go pick them up via a court order and take them to whatever facility um is listed in court order. So that's the difference between some of the numbers that you asked about. As far as uh techniques, every single officer um has been through CIT training which is crisis intervention training. That's something we've been doing for the last five years and um we've seen um a great improvement on how we respond and find a a disposition for uh responding to people with who are experiencing mental health crisis. Um any new officer whether they're a lateral hire or a new officer will go to that training. It's um conducted by physicians, fellow officers, um people from the court system and everything is geared towards uh how to respond to people in mental health crisis. And oftent times, you also noted what happens if there was a domestic assault in that case. Um what we have found more successful is if somebody's in a mental health crisis, we try to avoid taking them to jail. That's the last place that they should go. There are certain times where we have no other option, but a lot of that crisis intervention training is geared towards not taking them to jail and finding programs that help them succeed. So hopefully that answers your

Yeah. No question. Maybe I could come, you know, meet meet with you sometime this or next week and and get some more detail, but that's a great amount of information. Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions for Director BMA? Thank you. Thank you. So then we are going to vote on uh this agenda item to consider and discuss initiating an independent review. So may I please have a motion in a second for this agenda item? So move. Wait, I'm sorry. Sorry. So So sorry. Let me clarify. Um um before that um we're not asking for action this evening other than we did then that's going to say in my

I know I know that that's my fault. That's my fault. It's right here. That's my fault. So, um, having said that, sounds like there's consensus with moving forward with Mr. Drummond. We will set something up and get this on, um, we have enough feedback for to take the next step to have Mr. Drummond join us in the foreseeable future. So, thank you. Yep. My apologies. So,

that's all right. So, next we have to consider authorizing a changer order in the amount of $71,214 for the cost to refinish concrete on the elementary school playground sites. Uh good evening, Madame Mayor and commissioners. Um as I know you all recall in uh 2023, we uh completed most of the elementary school playground renovation project that included significant improvements in the ADA accessibility and pathways throughout the sites um in by the way of uh concrete sidewalks. Um and um following uh the first season of of weathering in in the spring of 2024, um there was some aesthetic um irregularities in the concrete that was noticed by uh school staff. Um and that was like light chipping and cracking of some of the the very top surface of the concrete. Um and so uh city staff and school staff and um some consultants that we were able to connect with uh really studied the the issues that we were finding. Um and ultimately um the um led to the conclusion that we believe that um some changes in the concrete industry um a few years ago changed the mix design of concrete. Um the the reason they changed that was due to like environmental regulations. Um and um this new concrete mix design after again after extensive uh research and and review um we've we've learned that um that has caused some spalling or cracking of the top layer of concrete with this new mix design specifically after the first um winter or the first two winters of of weather um on that concrete surface. Um, we also learned during that process that really it was more of an aesthetic issue and affecting the top layer of the concrete, not the structural integrity of the concrete. Um, but of course when you have nice new, beautiful spaces, um, you want to them to look nice, but also for maintenance purposes, having smooth

concrete surfaces are are beneficial. Um, and so we um went back to our um, contractor Kerberg Verhag and talked through these issues. um as noted as we learned that they weren't caused by anything that Kerberg Verhag did or there's nothing um that the city or the schools did that caused these issues um but we were able to negotiate a solution to that issue um and um because everyone was um wanting the same result you know a very um a very positive project that we can be proud of um and so Kater Vag um committed to helping fund a solution a 50/50 cost share um but what that meant um we didn't quite know yet. We had to look for different um options to um either repair um the concrete or replace it. Um as noted in my memo, um one of the options we looked at was uh ripping out and replacing the affected concrete um which would be an extensive project. It would have caused disruption to the school's uh playground areas that also serve as parks in the summertime um with a cost of approximately $150 to $200,000 based on the um the quantities of affected concrete. Um after some further study, uh we did identify another solution that was concrete grinding or or polishing. Um a process that you would normally see on like higherend finishes and um like industrial warehouses, etc. um that would remove the very top layer of the concrete to remove the affected layer um but without um affecting the integrity of the concrete um for the long term. Um ultimately we did settle on the the concrete grinding uh solution um and that work was performed this summer. Um included within the memo you will see a photo of the before of one of the areas at Lakeside Elementary, the stage as we call it. um that was uh

affected. And you also see uh an after photo that shows the uh the grinding um the post grinding solution. Um one thing to point out um it it does look nice and smooth. We actually um have testing that shows that it actually is less slippery than um just normal poured concrete. Um and so it's um not only was it an aesthetic uh solution, but also a safety solution as well. Um ultimately the the total cost came in on the low end of the projections of $142,000. Um and and that's based on the approximately 35,000 square ft of um of concrete that was um that was ground. Um due to that negotiated commitment of a 50/50 cost share, um our contractor Kerberg Verhag did cover 50% of that cost. Um and so um the um what's before you this evening is to approve the $71,214 for the 50% um that will be split 50/50 between the cities and uh between the city uh and the the school district. Um so happy to answer any questions you might have about the the process. Um I certainly learned a lot about concrete during during this uh investigation. So

I just have one quick question. So, this grinding, you said it had something to do with the the chemical makeup and the the recipe for the concrete. Was this grinding going to permanently fix this or do you think we'll have to keep revisiting this?

At this point, the analysis, yeah, the at this point the analysis is and there's other communities that experienced we're not the only community that experienced this. um that um this was actually started was identified as a potential issue in um early 2024 from on another community in the east side that does exclusive concrete streets and sidewalks and they they're they have many many miles of road that look like what we were dealing with. the um analysis material analysis engineer that we um worked with noted that once you get past the first or second year and we get that little kind of top layer off um then they're not seeing any subsequent degradation. Um having said that um

we'll see what happens in a couple years. Um the best guess is we're done with this but hopefully Right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Director Melville, do you want to just put it up there? I feel like people sitting here and I think it looks so great like the the I mean you look at this is the before.

Yeah. So this is the before um where and it's it was hard to tell even on the printed copy here but there's areas here that have chipped and again it's like the top like 16th inch of the concrete. Um and then the post completion um is this where um kind of like the exposed aggregate look which um you would normally see on a higherend finish somewhere else. Um and and just to add the u because of the quantities and the um um the desire for everyone to come to a nice positive solution. Um the actual costs here are were approximately $4 a square foot where if you were to have this done in your home or on a smaller scale somewhere else, you'd be looking at like $810 to $12 per square foot. Um so there was um some respect to that as far as um some give from the contractors and their subcontractors.

That's great. Yeah. Thanks for showing us Director Mville. My my question might be partially for you, might be more um up here uh at the dis. So when we brought this up in finance two weeks ago or maybe a week ago uh given our calendar here as of late since then I went to Lakeside and saw the actual work that had been done. So I was a little confused. Maybe I missed it in finance last time. Uh the work was actually done this summer. Yes, it was to refinish. It was done. Um the the desire was to get it uh completed before the uh before the school year began to um to to limit the disruption on the on the school year.

Um and and to your point, yes, it was completed earlier. part of the reason for the delay in the um in the approval. Now, number one, that um we we there was a delay a little bit in the um the invoicing and we requested some additional information from the contractor um prior to to bringing it to you. Um but this and this was also I I failed to mention it but I did put it in the memo that um we we had previously um talked this through at um the finance level and at the joint facilities committee but at those times we weren't sure what solution was going to be um accepted by both us and the and the school district and also the um the quantity of the um of the the grinding um was unknown as well. um the 35,000 square foot that I referenced, uh when we were looking at um removing and replacing the concrete, it really was going to be just the worst areas that were affected by by this. And there was potentially going to be some picking and choosing, you know, picking the worst areas and maybe leaving some of the um least affected. Um but with the grinding um that does change the look and so we were able to do more widespread um like not not the entire um um not the entire site at each of the three elementaryaries but areas that made sense so there was more continuity in the in the grinding as opposed to um spot work. Yeah. No, I mean sounds like it's a good end result. Um, I guess my concerns are that we've, you know, spent the money and now we're approving the spend. Um, and then secondly, we don't know yet the long-term durability of it. So, I mean, I think the words were just spoken that we could be back here in some amount of time, one or two years, just to echo some of our residents concern about, you know, I mean, again, we've coming off of a great year fiscally, but um I guess maybe my first time in two years where we're approving a spend that's already that's already

been done. And then secondly, again, we're looking at something that, you know, has as of yet is sort of an indefinite durability time frame. So,

so if I can speak to that as Mr. Melville noted we did um meet with finance on this a while ago. We did um working with our partners of school joint facilities committee both um the schools and the city said yes this is the approach we wanted to do. Um yeah there was a evolution in regards we went from replacement to the grinding solution um and again working with our engineers and looking at the potential solution the price point was within what was expected what was agreed upon amongst all the partners. So yeah, this is a little unusual, but again, we weren't um we were also trying to be uh timesensitive in regards to getting this done while the kids weren't in school. So that was just kind of um I want to say expedited, but um that was the process is not our normal pursing, but again, it was a little bit of clunky um process.

Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for director Milville? One question. And it just sounds like the concrete mix company has a bit of liability in this too, right? I don't know if you know if this is a problem that's been happening not only with our mun municipality but others and I just kind of seems like that's I didn't know if there's any thing that we can get from them. Um I'm sure that other municipalities are probably already reaching out to them to go hey you know this mix is not working correctly. And I guess the other question is that is there any insurance that could be claimed as well?

Insurance? No. No, we did explore that question. Um again it was this is a um nationwide issue. This wasn't just an issue. This was an issue because the change was mandated by the federal government um through the um and it's an effort to reduce greenhouse gases as part of the region Burgess came forward to offer a lower cost solution in regards to grinding versus the ripping out and replacement and whatnot. So they did bring some as Mr. Melville noted that this is normally a process that's $8 to 12. they gave us a discounted rate on that um on that solution. There were actually two uh concrete companies that were um part in the mix um or part of this um that uh Kent Concrete and Burgess. Uh Ken Concrete had taken the position this was not their issue um and then Burgess was willing to partner with us. So again, trying to find a solution for something that none of us anticipated. And um if we had done this project um a couple years later wouldn't have been an issue cuz since then the industry has identified um this challenge and is making changes. So no one else going forward um has this issue. Um we saw a similar type of issue on this oh gez now 20 years ago um where um you were seeing scaling from concrete on major projects and that's what ultimately was figured out was the pits that they were pulling the aggregate from were at the bottom of the the basically at the end of the lifespan and the acid levels in the aggregate being pulled out from the bottom of the pit were very different than the top and we saw as in m um in the municipal world a similar issue 20 years ago that no one would have predicted. No one predicted um this in regards to that. So to your question, yeah, Burgess did come forward.

Got it. Okay. Great. But Ken has not Ken denied. I Yeah. And and and just to go a little bit further deeper on that is then part of it is given the amount of money we were talking we identified how much we were talking 150 to 200,000. Then to get somebody other entities involved then you're talking to attorneys and you can spend lots of attorneys fees for an amount that for ultimate we felt was a equitable solution for all parties involved. Understood. Okay. Thanks. Any other questions? Thank you.

Okay. Can I please have a motion and a second on this agenda item? Move to authorize a change order in the amount of $71,214 for the cost to refinish concrete on the elementary school playground sites with EGRPS reimbursing the city for 50%. Second. Wonderful. Any further comments? Hey, we can go to a vote. All those in favor say yes. Yes. Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. Next on the agenda, we have the approval of tonight's consent agenda items. May I please have a motion and a second to approve tonight's consent agenda items? So moved. Second. All those in favor say yes.

Yes. Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. Meetings adjourned. Thanks, man. So, yeah. Sorry.