Council - Regular Meeting

I'm going to go ahead and open the uh regular council meeting of the village of Franklin for Monday, January 12th, 2026. Can we start with the pledge of allegiance, please? I pledge algiance 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. [snorts] Thank you everyone. [clears throat] Uh let's do Evan as Abby and Angelina. Let's do a slow play on the roll call, but let's do roll call please. Uh, trustee Daniel Ferris,

present. Trusty Pam Hansen, present. Trustee Jeffrey King, present. Trustee Angelina, present. Abigail, present. Trusty David. David told us he'll be late today. And president,

present. Excellent. Thank you, everyone. Next on the agenda is adoption of the agenda. Uh before I take comments from anyone else that has comments on the agenda, I need to add one thing and I'd like to readjust one thing. So uh Teresa and Rachel have asked us to consider a letter that is needed by uh the bank in order to change signatures from me to Rachel. I was there during the temporary period. So, uh, I'm adding to the new business agenda and item H, bank letter from, uh, or bank letter to, First Merchants Bank, which, uh, Teresa provided us with a copy of the draft.

And then the second item is in order to allow the residents as well as our uh, cable board help to uh not have to wait while we're in close session. I'm going to go ahead and move new business H clo uh request to enter close session to after council reports and then if anybody else has any comments on the agenda. All right, hearing none. If I can get a motion to approve the agenda as amended. So moved. Motion from Hansen,

second. Second from Ferris. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. All right. Motion carries. Next are minutes of our regular meeting of December 8th. Anybody have any comments before we take action? Oh, I had none. Uh, at the end of this year, uh, Sophia is going to be going back to college. We have to

find a new a new minute writer cuz she's phenomenal. So, uh, we have the minutes from our December 8th meeting. We have no comments. So, I got a motion to approve as presented. So, move. Motion by Ferris. Second. Second by King. All in favor say I. I. opposed. All right. Public requests and comments. So, this is the time on the agenda. If anybody would wish to speak uh to council on any matter, this is not an open dialogue. And if it's an item that's elsewhere on the agenda, we'd ask that you wait to uh address it at that time. John, it looks like you want to speak.

Yes, please. John Simon 3032 kind and many others were extremely disappointed by the way the process went for appointing a replacement trustee. [clears throat] The questions asked each candidate by trustees Sulaka and Sali appeared on the surface to be a sincere attempt to gather information to help trustees make an informed choice as to who would add the most value to the council. The process however was disingenuous as the outcome had been decided to trustees Salaka and Sally I ask was there any answer that a candidate could have given that would have changed your vote said another way when you considered Stuart Wood's outstanding qualifications including his six years on on planning commission two years as chairman to say nothing about his years of volunteering and serving as Franklin scout leader and and then compared those to the qualifications of Jeffrey King's three years of Franklin residency, minimal trust, minimal volunteering, and zero Franklin government experience. Please share what it was about Jeffrey's answers that convinced you that he was the candidate who would add the greatest value. I strongly believe, as do others, that the entire selection process is flawed and simply a show and a waste of time for all involved. I am concerned that a cabal has been formed within the council which will certainly reduce the diversity of ideas and independent thought. On a slightly different topic, two months ago, I sent the council a proposal for a code of ethics. I was told that it had been discussed by the council legal committee which decided that since such a code was not enforcable, it was not worth their time and effort to develop one. However, the

comi the committee totally missed the point. A code of ethics is not about punishment. It is a goal to identify ideal behavior and to be critical when it is lacking. The purpose of a code of ethics is to strengthen the integrity and trust and effectiveness of our local government by adopting a simple proactive code for all elected and appointed officials. The code will also help ensure Franklin will be known for its good government and civic pride. [clears throat] 22 surrounding community governments currently have a code of ethics. So, I find it disappointing and embarrassing that Franklin has not. I would I would ask the council to please reconsider the value of a code of ethics. And finally, lastly, I would like Trustee King to know that I meant him no disrespect. My remarks were meant to be critical of the council and not of him. Thank you.

Thanks, John. Anybody else like to speak? Okay. Uh, one other item. So, we received a letter from Natalyia Shub. Uh, it's a several page long letter. Each of the trustees has received a copy of it and uh Evan will make sure that this is entered into the record and a part of the public minutes. Can I ask a question? Um when do we read the letters into the record and when do we not? We don't we don't ever read them into the record. Clerk used to read the letters out loud.

Well, maybe she did. So, I'm just wondering what what the policy is on that. Uh, well, if there is a policy, it's my meeting and I guess until there is a policy, that's how the meetings are going to get run. So, I guess that's the answer. Can we establish some consistency though? I think that's

I don't I I don't think there's been inconsistency as far as the time being that we've been running them in in recently. Nobody has received record. In fact, Mr. King uh asked the same to be done and I didn't read his letter into the record and he he acknowledged his dissatisfaction with that. But that's just been the policy. Uh we don't have the time to necessarily read someone's uh entire letter. Somebody is finds it important enough that it needs to be read to the entire public then maybe they should come to a meeting and and read it. So that's my position on it.

When you said it's part of the record, um for example, Natalyia Shub's uh letter, does that mean it will go into the folder into the permanent file of the meeting records? Is is that is that what you meant? We're not reading it out loud, but does it become part of the meeting record on digitally? Uh Evan will save it as part of the record digitally. That was my I mean our minute book only covers the minutes. Uhu Evan has received it. We received it before the meeting. Again, we didn't receive it in time for legal committee in which case it could have been included in the agenda packet.

Uh which is something we're discussing later today. But if it's something that uh a resident wants to be uh reviewed uh then it could go to legal committee to be an agenda item. If it's something that they want to be uh spoken on the record then they should come to the meeting to read it or send somebody to read it on their behalf and otherwise letters that we receive will be accepted, acknowledged and put into the record. Okay.

Thanks. Anybody else? So, we said we had no one else. So, I'll close public comments. So, reports of village officers. Uh, chief. Uh, good evening. So, uh, as you can tell by the report, it's been relatively quiet in the month of, uh, December. Uh, no no major incidents to report. Uh I do have an update on our co-responder program. You know, we've been trying to get this going for the last eight months. Uh we had two great candidates. Uh one went to a different jurisdiction, another one went in a totally different direction. But we have found, I believe, our person, her name is Kimberly Craighead. Uh she will begin her initial ride alongs with our officers starting on January 20th. uh she's still going on the onboarding process with Oakland Community Health Network, but we expect her to be available to us at the beginning of March, and I will bring her to uh a meeting so you could get introduced to her. Uh she was a clinical supervisor, she's been a therapist, and she obtained her master's degree from Michigan State University. Uh she comes highly recommended, so we're excited for for her to come on board. The last thing I have is uh our department requested membership and we were accepted into uh MCAT and what MCAT is is called it's a major case assistance team and MCAT members agencies include Auburn Hills, Birmingham, Bloomfield Township, Clawson, Troy, Bloomfield Hills and now Franklin. And what MCAD is is it's a group of experienced detectives from these member agencies um that I just spoke about who specialize in major crime investigation.

So if we have a serious crime that happens here within our jurisdiction, I can ask for MCAT's assistance. Uh they will provide one detective per agency to come assist us. Uh, and that's very important if you have a major case where you have to secure the scene and interview witnesses and get search warrants and things like that. So, given that we only have one dedicated detective here in Franklin, uh, I think this is a huge plus for our organization and for our village. And, uh, I'm very thankful for those organizations uh, those cities for allowing us in. And with that, I'll answer any of your questions.

Sure. Um I I believe my understanding is the PD has um participated in countywide like narcotics task forces and are in other special groups. Um are you still doing those? Is this a new thing or is it does it replace something that you are already doing with your officers? So currently we're not in any task forces. Um, originally when my understanding is when the village council agreed to have a 12th full-time police officer that the option was for that 12th person to be part of a task force. Um, I have some ideas of what task force I'd like that to be. But, uh, we have not reached 12 people except for maybe two months that I've been here.

Right. So, uh, right now we have no one assigned to a task force. And this is a task force, but obviously it's just a a very part-time thing and and that we would be loaning out our detective for a short period of time or they'd be loaning their detectives to us for a short period of time. Thank you. You're welcome. Anyone else? Thank you.

Thanks, Chief. Uh Chief Averbuk is not here today. We received his report. If anybody has any comments, feel free. Uh, treasures report. Teresa. Good evening. Um, uh, the bills list for the the month of December totaled $193,83.39. Um the bills are generally consistent with normal monthly spending. Um the expenditures are generally consistent with um what's been budgeted for the 2526 year. Um the village has sufficient funds to meet its current obligations. And um did you get a list of the the balances from the bank accounts in your list? You might not have gotten that, but um I'm working with the banks to to coordinate them and streamline and get the uh signitories done. So, I'll submit that next next month if that's okay.

Okay. Any questions? Question. Um my question is not about the current financial condition. It's a follow-up question on something I that's been um floating around for a while. And this question can be for you and Rachel. Mhm.

Uh I'm aware that that um one of our contractors from the streetscape is looking for some additional funds and I know that it's been difficult to um uh access the records that wondering we what your progress is on that so that we can uh you know close out and really be able to have a final number on the streetscape project. Are you saying we owe money from three years ago? They're claiming. Is that the Is that the ASI? ASIL. Okay.

Um my understanding when we went to look at it and I I can't remember who it was if it was Rachel or Kurt or somebody. Did Did we start to look into that that thought that we did owe that extra 20,000? I haven't had a chance to It is on my radar. I was thinking about it the other day and I know you asked a long time ago. It's been busy. But um what's the invoice? They aren't specifying what it's for. So why would we pay? So what I from from my recollection of and this this began with when Meg [clears throat] was here. It's been over it's been almost the 20,000 has been the hold back. It's been our hold back. Uhhuh.

Originally they had sent uh an invoice claiming that they were owed an additional $60,000. And I think we came to the conclusion that in fact the 60,000 um was not owed, but that the 20,000 that was outstanding in the hold back unless there was anything open to be completed that everything had been completed and they were entitled to the release of that because if we're still holding money everything's done, they're right. Uh if if it's for services, then they need to produce the unpaid, you know, the unpaid invoices. Correct.

They did contact me before the holiday. I asked them to send me the invoice and the list of punch items that Meg created that they needed to address and they have not done so. So once they send that to me and I can verify that these items were completed, we can finalize the payment with them. Right. Perfect. Does council have to approve the payment if it's $20,000? That's a good question. I'll look into it, but I would assume that since all of these payments have already been made, [clears throat and laughter] this was part of a previous approval. It's not a new request as far as I can tell, but we'll double check. I just don't want to make sure they're not taking advantage of us because we have poor documentation or recordeping,

you know, [clears throat] because someone could say and then if we have no record to counter it, we can't really validate them, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I know it's been difficult. So, and I I share um uh Angelina's sentiment that, you know, let's take the time we need to get the records aligned and be clear and that that punch list is in fact done, which is not exactly a treasurer issue, but it would be an administrative issue. And I'm not completely I'm not convinced that all of those items have been taken care of.

Yeah. Well, and I I do plan to go through the um list of payments we've made along with the invoices that we have just to confirm or validate anything that we receive from them or anything that Rachel figures out. That's exactly what you because we don't want to, you know, just take one source, I would think, because because of the lack of information and stuff. Thanks. It is on my radar. We've been um I started to look into it and we got bombarded with uh year-end documents and a lot of that stuff. So, we're getting over that right now and be able to move forward. Thank you. Okay. Who's the contractor?

Stuart, you have anything? Hi, Stuart. So, just briefly, a few things tonight. Um, we made a recommendation for the master plan to be recommended to council. U, I believe it's on hold. We want to make some updates based on some names changing since we started the process.

Um, so that's uh um we we'll talk about what the next steps are um for that, but other than that um and if we have to go back out to local uh municipalities for review, I I doubt it, but we'll have to double check with McKenna on that. The other thing though um is in um planning is working. We introduced the new system um and BL uh abatement priorities the council shared with us um and we had the opportunity to um look over it briefly. McKenna's helping us categorize so that we can prioritize which grouping of nuisances makes sense to start with. Um and we'll be discussing it next week. So um making progress there. Um, that's the really what's going on. Main thing for planning.

Awesome. Cool. Thank you, Stuart. No problem. I don't see anyone from Main Street. Um, all right. Next on the agenda is uh approval of the consent agenda. So, these are items which we do not take discussion on. and they've been included in the packet and we would approve them all uh in one fell swoop unless there's anything that anybody would like to take off for discussion. Which ones are there? Oh, can you go to the consent agenda? Sorry. Sorry.

So, they are Yeah, you can guys can read them. I I would like to take one off because I think we need to make a clarification. What's the check run? It's like the bills. The bills list. Oh, [snorts] did Teresa look at the Teresa? Have you reviewed the annual retirement system report form?

Yeah, I took a look at it. I don't I didn't with me. Um Raina usually prepared she prepares that when she does the year end documents to let us know where we financially we're just below the 60% taking it off yeah one thing that would I guess I don't want to is that something on the agenda that we can get to I have a question on it but

all right so let's do this so uh we're going to go ahead and take uh consent agenda item B off and we'll move that to just after consent agenda and consent agenda item E off. As far as the other items, it's the check run. Uh it's making Rachel the street administrator. Uh it's acknowledging our PA52 exemption. And is that the road fund? with PA152. No, it is what governs how much we pay every year for health insurance. Oh, okay.

You have three options. We've checked the same option we've used for all of our prior years since 2013.

And then the last two are similar to what we had to do last meeting. We approved two ordinances in 2025 that were not codified. and we are uh going to recodify them and we need to reapprove them for second reading so that uh Evan can begin the codification process. Evan I'm these are all going to have to come off now I'm going to take all those off and discuss them in a second too. So, uh, as far as the consent agenda exists right now, it's the check run. It's Rachel is the street administrator and the 152 exemption. So, if I can get a motion to approve the consent agenda items A, C, and D.

Motion to approve consent agenda items A, C, and D. Second. Okay. We have a motion from Sally, second from Gates. Uh, all in favor say I. Uh, one real quick thing though.

Yep. um beforehand. I don't want to take it off uh because it it's not prudent to the approval. But one of the things regarding PA 152 exemption resolution, we again we brought this up in legal. So for context purposes, this is something that we historically haven't done over the past couple of years is that formal approval or acknowledgement. Um, and so my recommendation would be for either finance or the uh HR committee just to look at it again just to familiarize ourselves as a council. Um, because I do think we we approved it and we're all in support of it, but to fully understand and appreciate from a policy perspective moving forward. So what's the authority on that?

Is it required by the state? Yeah, it is. the so um for some context and any if I misspe on this it's the state sets a minimum floor of con that sorry a maximum contribution that an employee can be forced to make. So we can extend ourselves and give a better benefit package to a public official, but we cannot give

go below that threshold, right? And so this is an acknowledgement that we're taking advantage of that exception to give better benefits to our staff. And that's where I'm saying that again, I think as a collective because we haven't previously looked at this, we should inform ourselves. But for the purposes of this year, we need the approval. Okay. Is that why we're doing it retroactively? Yeah. And for three years ago, so we haven't done it since 2022. Well, no, we've been doing it. We just never brought it to council. It's been getting filed every year. It's just council hasn't been taking action on it. This is part of the collective bargaining agreement contracts that you guys are familiar with.

Yeah, we've been doing it. We just haven't been bringing it to council. Okay. So, and yes, finance committee here is going to probably start meeting again in the next two weeks to start looking at budget. So, yes, we will get finances committee's eyes on that. Okay. So, uh we took four of these items off the agenda. So, let's just go through them one by one. The first one, uh it just has to do with the control order. Um, when the control order got written up, it looks like it's calling for stop signs at two locations. And I thought we only approved the stop signs at the Brandingham location. I'm looking at the package that that was submitted in October, which I believe we approved in totality as presented. And again, it only had the

I think there the stop sign at Brandingham and crosswalks at Brandingham and Normandy. And then the crosswalk at Brandingham was um has also been questioned, but we were going to defer that one to the traffic engineers that one to determine whether that something like that was appropriate. But if you go to the the picture the slide at Normandy, it didn't call for Oh, that's Woodlor. Um I don't even know that. Right. What did the minutes say? I think we approved three of them. It was just Brandingham. The stop signs that you're previously talking about were the one. No, sorry. There were

Lauren Franklin. It was only crosswalks. It wasn't stop signs. What? Lauren Franklin. Stop. It was only crosswalks. I mean, go. This is Normandy and Wellington. Yeah. So I think what President Goldberg's saying is that in our packet it's making a recommendation for stop signs to be at both Normandy and Brandingham. But in our last council meeting, we had only discussed stop signs at

right. We didn't we didn't approve stop signs at this intersection. And the traffic control order that they want us to approve is calling for stop signs at that intersection. I just want to correct the control order to properly reflect. not suggesting making any changes. And whether these proposed crosswalk signs are ever installed, those aren't traffic control signs. So that's would be done separately.

But I just wanted to make the record clear on that previous sheet that Evan had up where it should only be one of the one of the intersections, it's there. And in the two places that it's in the packet, that top one should be struck when we certify it. We can't have both. Can we have Well, we didn't approve both. That's a separate I mean whether we can have it is it's completely separate. We only approved the Brandingham one. Correct. I'm not saying we can't have it. If you someone wants If you guys want to bring it back at a later date, we did vet it out and conclude that. I think you were saying like traffic would slow so we might not need excessive stop signs,

right? I mean that would be three stop signs in a Yeah. Right. Stretch. Yeah. Yeah. Um so I just wanted to clarify that if infrastructure committee can bring anything back at any time for consideration. Right. Yeah. I think that's right. And and I had haven't checked the minutes before the meeting. We basically approved this packet. Yep. Yeah. Okay. So, uh, I could get a motion to approve the, uh, traffic control order 25-05 with the revision of removing the Normandy reference. I'll make that motion. I'll second. If I can get a second, Angelina second.

I did. Sorry. I'm sorry, Angelina. Motion by Goldberg, second by Sulaka. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. Excellent. Uh so we David you asked to pull the annual retirement system report form 5572.

Yeah. Um nothing too substantive on it. The one thing that I'm hoping for is uh for background for this again we have to maintain a certain level of 60%. um we were well below that for a long time and had uh filed for a grant specifically for the purposes of bringing us closer to the 60. And so I was just hoping that we could for the next council meeting get a trend report just so that we understand where we've been over the past three years to see if we're going in the right direction. Yeah, I can pull out the retirement um systems. Okay. Report and see if there's something in Perfect. Thank you.

From what per like what period? I think over the past what when did we start Pam David? Do you remember when we got the the grant? Yeah, it I would say whatin years within five years. Yeah, I would have said about three years ago. Would be fairly easy. So you want to go back to 22? Yeah. Yeah. So we were below the 60% you said way below. Yeah. And then we got a grant because for communities that were below you could there was an opportunity the state gave you to like give you a boost. We took the boost. Okay. And now we just want to make sure that we're not falling off too far. Understood.

Is there a vesting schedule or is this just for officers or is it for employees too? And is what's the vesting schedule? Do you know? Yeah, I'm sure there is a vesting schedule. I'm not sure what it is right off the top of my head, but I can get that information for you.

Do you know what it is for the police officers? I think the other thing that um may the finance committee should probably take a look at um on on this is you know we've got a goal there's no penalty from the state to not hitting the 60%. But I think that uh as a village we pro you know it would be worth a discussion to have a a a commitment or create some level of commitment to hitting that 60%. There have been times in past years quite a long time ago um the council allocated a like a cash

some extra cash toward MS. Mhm. I know that there's um uh this isn't a hard and fast thing, but I don't think we can count on grants such as the one that surprised us a few years ago, but as we take a look at our overall financial condition, um we may need to do that in the future depending on what our revenues are. So I I'd like to just reserve that one for the finance committee to talk through. And there could be uh different alternatives too when you when you read through their annual reports

on how to increase that or decrease that depending on where the city or where the village is going. Okay. Appreciate it. Thank you. Because it's not necessarily an advantage for us to try and exceed that. Yeah. For sure. So that's why I want to just have a conversation about it because do do you guys ever meet with the I I don't know we had a separate pension board at West Bloomfield. Of course we were a lot bigger but um so I'm not sure how you get the information because all of this is run through MS and so when you're going through the reports do you is it ever communicated back to you guys?

No. So maybe we should have like MS come in if you're interested to go over the report to see where we are and then any of the different alternatives for funding or anything like that would be included in that. Okay. And it gives you a lot of really good information to be able to make decisions, future decisions. Okay. I'll defer to the finance committee on that. As they they deep dive into it, they can yeah figure out whether or not that's valuable. I apologize. Um, there's a question about vesting and I don't know if I understood it correctly. You're asking when does Yeah. Like how long does the employee or officer have to be with the village?

Okay. I found an old collective bargaining agreement. I don't think any changed to a new one, but it's 10 years of Yeah, Kurt just mentioned that it is that for officers, correct? Is it separate for employees? Employees don't have a DB a defined benefit plan. Okay. So, we don't contribute to your retirement. we do to the 457 contribution and so but that's um and you don't have to serve a set amount of time in order to get as far as I know it's immediate that's immediate. Okay. Anything else? No further questions. All right. Can I We need a motion to uh receive and file the annual retirement system report form 5572.

So moved. We got a motion by Ferris. Second by King. Any further discussion. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. All right. Thank you. Uh so the last two items, reapproval of the second reading of the open burn ordinance and the ordinance for wireless telecommunication facilities. So Evan, uh I just want to clarify this and have you correct it. So, we did this two months ago for another ordinance.

So, when we reapprove these right now, you've got to change this. This is going to have to be the the the open burning is going to have to be 2026 01 and 20262. We haven't Yeah, we haven't done any other actions yet this year because they'll be obviously retroactive from when we do it now and then you post in the time period. Um, I'd like to make a motion so that way we can prevent the slippage of codification of ordinances. Can we as council like get a confirmation after we approve ordinances that they've been codified correctly? Yeah. I mean, well, I'm just saying it's been like

I've been on top of this. No, I know you have, but like what control are we going to have in place so that this doesn't happen? Because if Evan leaves or if we get a different person who's in charge, we just want to make sure that we don't have to backtrack like we've had been doing. Absolutely. I guess that's going to be even though we had a excellent I guess internally that our administrator needs to also keep a a tickler on when we approve ordinances and then we as a body after whenever and we don't approve, you [clears throat] know, more than a handful of ordinances a year. We Yes. Every if we approve an an ordinance, we should as a legal committee at a minimum confirm and that's what we'll begin to do is confirm that

have an annual report or something. We did all of the codification processes in order to make them enforceable and enactable. Is there certain like statute limitations that if it's not codified within a set amount of time, the council has to revote? Well, we are revoting right now. I know, but like what was the window that But for I believe in our previous discussion, we just said to make sure that we have a clean record, we're doing the reapproval, right? I mean, once you guys approve it, there's 20 days. Well, I have to publish it within, you know, within 20 days. And once that laps

once it's not published no longer okay I think that's where the disconnect was. It was not published. It was not published. They were not published. Right. They were never published. None of them. Right. Right. Yeah. The the 2025 and the agenda 24. Yeah. Going through transition is when things will there be more ordinances we have to reapprove or Well, 2024 was know the answer. I have to look. Okay. But I No, I don't believe so. Maybe between I mean, you should you should do a run through of all the 25 ordins. We already checked 24. That was something that Heather did.

Heather did during the interim piece, which led to cleaning up those two. But you should probably go through see the however many ordinances we approved in 25 and make sure that each of those were properly taken care of because you got you know you guys didn't get here till almost the end of the year. Okay. So let's do these one at a time. Um I need a motion to reapprove the second reading of ordinance 20261 open burning. So moved. Second. Motion by King, second by Salaka. Further discussion. Okay. All in favor say I. I.

Opposed. And then we need a motion to reapprove the second reading of ordinance 2026-2 wireless telecommunications facilities. David 20256. No, we're calling them 2026 now. Yeah, we are. We're reent. So yeah, reapproval of the second reading of ordinance 202602 wireless telecom telecommunication facilities. Uh can I get a motion? Motion. Motion by Sally. Second. Second by King. Further discussion. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. All right. Thank you everybody. Thanks Evan. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you Evan for getting that. So all right. So um Rain is not here yet. So, let's move on to new business. We'll have to obviously skip a as well. Uh, [clears throat] so we need to do some adjusting of our committees slash subcommittees. So, we want to do some clarifications on the names that Rachel brought to our attention, but former trustee Seltzer sat on one, two, three, sat in four different seats. So, each of those need to be replaced. They are So, the first one is the Birmingham Next representative. Uh, Mike was the lead representative, Dan was the second. Did you guys kind of do it like Did you both go to the meetings?

We never both went to the same meeting. When Michael was away, I covered him. Right. So, uh, I I was uh, so we we need to have someone replace Mike on Birmingham Next. Uh, someone needs to replace Mike on Birmingham Youth Assistance. Someone needs to remove Mike on liquor control and then someone needs to rem replace Mike on Main Street. So, are we only talking about Mike's positions?

No, we can talk about any of these. I have one or two I'd like to see if anyone would be agreeable to switch switching. Um, but we if anybody like wants to get off of a committee, this would be a good time to do it. somebody isn't comfortable being the liaison anymore, this would be the time to address it. Otherwise, no. At a minimum, we just have to deal with Oh, well. with Mike. Yeah. Because the other thing, too, is when we initially made these assignments, uh, Trusty Ferris also wasn't appointed at the time, so we weren't able to properly consider his skill sets either. So, I do think that we shouldn't limit it to just what

No, I was not. Yeah. I I totally going to open this up to anybody that either wanted to make a suggestion or um remove themselves. But those are the four that we actually have yep

holes on. The other thing just for clarification which Evan can clean up on the next draft of this. Um Rachel was sort of clarifying to us that the way that a um I say a subcommittee of the council should actually be called a subcommittee. We've been calling all of these legal committees. They're technically legal subcommittees of council. Um a subcommittee is made up of trustees serving in a non-majority in a nonquorum um setting. So, the legal committee, the personnel committee, the liquidal control committee, the infrastructure committee should technically be subcommittees. Um, if they're bodies that are not just made up of trustees but are made up of whether it's planning commissioner, residents or what have you, those would be committees. Am I am I saying that right? Yes.

Those would actually be committees. So the deer management group that we're considering today would be a deer management committee because it's going to potentially have people on it that are not it is not made up solely of trustees and the same would be the same for the green committee potentially. So I was just doing that for a matter of clarification as we move forward and we're properly identifying each of these each of these bodies and then again a liaison is is still a liaison. So uh how do you want to any thoughts David? I'll since you've been discussing thoughts on how you guys want to do this. Do we want to deal with Mike's first? Do we want to go through each of these again and just revisit each of them?

Yeah, I think going through it. Sorry. I personally don't have a problem doing this annually. I think it's a good thing and two years in a certain committee is a long time. Maybe you want to roll over and get a a taste of something else. Maybe you found in the course of the year it's not great. Our charter only requires us requires us to at least create our president prom and create our committees after each election cycle. But I do not have a problem if we as a board every November want to revisit now we're doing it because of the the changes but if we want to annually revisit it I think it's a good idea

and can kind of eliminate some burnout and get more eyes on various subject matters throughout the course of the year. Yeah. So, uh, cable board, I'm assuming we're going to keep the same, unless any of you guys want on that one. I think, you know, Rick David's doing a amazing job. He's doing a great job. I I recall when I was on it, they meet like pretty early in the morning. So, uh, if anybody wants to volunteer to replace David, let or Rick David, let me know. But I think we're covered there. Can we focus on like the four main committees and make sure there's like

No, we're absolutely gonna I want to let's let's these these next two Well, yeah. So, the next is is Birmingham next. Um we we need to get Jeff involved into some of these committees. An easy thing is just have Jeff step into Mike's shoes in each of those four locations with the exception of on Birmingham next kind of flip-flopping it if that works for your schedule. I don't want to create Well, real quick though, I I get what Trusty Slack is saying which is like as we come up with priority rather than starting at like Birmingham next which is an external representative or a liaison. start with like what are the core policy things?

Okay, I'm fine with that. And then from there we can figure out all right based off of bandwidth how do we then slot into more of that liaison role. Okay. So so you're saying start with finance subcommittee.

Yeah. Like I see it as like there's four main committees which are like the finance committee, the legal committee, the person uh people committee, and the infrastructure committee because those are the ones that are going to have like major policy impacts. Sorry, subcommittees. Um the liquor control subcommittee is more of an ad hoc. So I don't consider that in the same group. It's like when things come up, we meet. But I think for core policy considerations, we should consider finance, legal, personnel, and infrastructure. I think there also should be some continuity amongst representation on those committees as well. Um we should have some equitability on assignments for those large committees if we're up to me.

Absolutely. Equitability and what's as in like balancing it out. Yep. Yep. and and agreed. And I when we did this a year ago, that was obviously something that we we took into consideration then. And everybody was on like everybody was on at least one of what you just called the major committees. Many of us were on two of those. And between that and a liaison, we were trying to max out at about three. Um like I see Dan, I think you're only on one of those subcommittees, correct? Yeah, that infrastructure. Yep.

Correct. He's also our but he also has to do the historic liaison. So we al got to consider someone's time. Oh no, I agree. No, I agree with that with policy. Yep. Wait. I mean the other committees, yes, I'm not diminishing their importance, but I think from a policy standpoint, if we're looking at what we are elected to do and we are the policymaking body, these would be the four that become the priority items. Yeah. So if there's four committees, three on each committee, that's 12 spots. There's seven of us. So everyone should have a maximum of two and then two. The one thing I will trustees will only have one spot

to that point though. Um so I would like to stay on planning unless somebody else wants to take that. I feel like I've had a good relationship. Um and that is an obligation of a monthly cadence similar to a committee. So, I'm I'm good with uh cuz if there's cuz that's a policy liaison role. Well, it's not a policy because I'm just restating what this collection standing. Yeah, it's a standing meeting. So, I'm I'm happy to just serve on one council or sorry, one. Um, but also too, if we were if we were appointing someone just ba based on current assignments, Mike held zero of those four committee assignments, subcommittee assignments, right?

So there technically would be nothing to easily appoint him into if we're just doing a a onetoone swap. Yeah, I don't think we are though, right? No, I Well, I think Yeah, that's why she's saying go deeper dive into those four. Dan has one assignment. Mike had zero. Yeah, David and Pam both had three. And just for my own humor, I saw that Rick David walked in and we just volunteered him for one of the positions. So, I thought I would at least call that out as we Oh, Rick is actually on finance, too. He's He's on finance. He was on. So, so that's one of the things that not to demote you. I apologize. But for the finance for sorry, the major four

like let's stay in order. We started it really out well and we're bouncing around. That's what I'm saying. Right. So like when we talk about those core four because they're policymaking bodies, the council member should be the official members of that body. Rick David would be like a standing consultant to that body, right? So if you're taking votes, he's not taking policy votes. That still remains the responsibility of the council. [clears throat] That's kind of what he does now. Correct. I think that is what he does. Rick's background is what's

Yeah, thousand% I understand and lay an incredible resource without question. I'm just talking about as far as I I have not been on a finance committee so I don't know its operation but that's how I was thinking about it. Okay, we start with those four.

So, all right. Uh, I mean, being the president of the village, I think I need to be on the legal committee and the finance committee. So, I personally have no problem taking myself off of the personnel committee so that I'm not on three of those bodies. So, an opening can open up on personnel committee. Um, can we talk about staff? You can talk about who you want to replace it with. You don't have to talk about me going away cuz I'm going away. [laughter]

It is massively helpful to have someone with a legal background when we start talking about any employment scenarios because they do start to intersect with law. So Dan, I don't mean to Valen tell you or Valen ask you, but it would be it would be helpful because those decisions tend to at some point come close to Well, let me let me throw a thought in as well. I'm also on HR committee and I'd like to withdraw from that committee. So that leaves two openings and

with and and for Dan I know time is obviously a big deal. Um personnel committee the three of us had a huge role in the course of the last four months. Let's hope that's not the case for a short minute. And uh I don't feel like I should step away from personnel because No, I don't think you should you should step away [laughter] at all because that's your that's why you're there is because that's your forte. But if Pam and I go away, that's an opportunity for for two new people.

For two new people to go. Only thing is David as um president. Do you think that cuz you kind of oversee the village staff and your like daytoday that should be just cuz you would have more insight. Again, I have no problem staying on three. I was suggesting getting off personnel. I'm not leaving the legal committee. Yeah. So, uh, I have no problem also not being on finance committee and staying on the personnel committee. If that is also in an effort to try and keep us at no more than two spots in any of those four roles, I I can go that route as well.

Okay. Is there any are there any um subcommittees that people would really like to be a part of? Yeah, let's let's let's start with that. I would like legal. I like legal. I like legal and ordinances. [laughter] Then you are you we're done with you then? Y okay. [laughter] Um D. Yeah. To your kind suggestion, I I do have some employment law experience and Oh, you really hit the ball on that one, didn't you, Dan?

I would be I would be happy to also serve on the personnel committee, but I think that we should probably make an adjustment and take me off of um either historic district commission or or next if I'm going to remain on infrastructure as well. Uh how have you been how has historic been going? I mean, did you get a feel for it? You did it for a year. I don't know how many times they actually met during the year, but they are they meet pretty regularly. The months. Okay, good. Every month they do. Oh, yeah. No, it's ZBA that the ZBA that isn't always consistent. Uh,

anybody super interested on replacing Dan on historic? Again, it's a one evening a month commitment. It's what what day of the month is it? It's Wednesday. The first Wednesday of the month if I'm correct. Right. First Wednesday of the month. Something I think Wednesday. Oh, go ahead. No, I was just wondering, do we have Do you have to be in person? Do you speak during the meetings? So, you just observe. Just observe. Basically, it's the way his own rule. Do they have you do like updates from council? They used to want I when I had that job, they'd like to have an update. They haven't asked that of specifically. It's a short meeting, Jeff. It's less than an hour typically. Not a big

Let's do that. Let's then Jeff's a liazison. That'll get him at least to learn that body. Yeah, it's great if it's helpful. Um, I've got this in the word document if you want to just Oh, yeah. Go ahead. Uh, do you have a big committee that you want? So, then we're putting Dan on personnel. Pam's suggesting going away and then Pam has Angelina. Are you good with both of those? So,

anybody else for personnel committee? We have an opening on personnel. Do you want to hang if you want to be on I'm happy [clears throat] I'm happy to either personnel or finance, whichever makes the most sense. Do you have a preference between the two? No strong preference. That was not a trick question. Let's let's put Jeff in Pam's spot on the personnel committee. Okay.

So then you'll be our new liaison and you'll be on personnel. So personnel is going to be Jeff, Abby, and Dan. Uh legal committee. Um, anybody dying to get on the legal committee? And then and really if Pam just lost personnel, that should be Tam Pam's two positions. We'll keep legal committee the same. Uh

so what's personnel would have finance committee what have we infrastructure infrastructure yeah so infrastructure has been U3 um I am traveling quite a bit more this year I would not be heartbroken to give up infrastructure I don't think I've able to give it the attention it needed. So if Abby went out infrastructure, I I mean I'd be happy to take Abby spawn in infrastructure then and that's you're saying two big committees for each.

Yeah. So that would be Jeff infrastructure. So Jeff has two, has two, Angelina has two. Pam has two, Jeff has two, Angelina has two, Dan has two, Pam has two, I have two. You're the only one with one. I'm not your schedule. You're you. Yeah. I mean, you have the most challenging schedule cuz you're running your own business. Yeah. So I'll be I mean, traveling at least a week a month this year. So So do I. I have my own business as well. No, I just don't have the same.

We all do. No, I mean I have my own businesses as well. But yeah, her she has her time commitments are very scattered. So if but I'll stay in the subcommittee because the green commission project is a subject. Yeah, that would be cool. And that's right. And we're going to name that next. So all right. So, infrastructure, I I hate to interject. Um, I recall a few years ago we had a resolution about personnel and committees and people throwing in applications. Do you guys want to consider that or are you going to proceed for I thought we clarified that it was What are we talking about? Just for committees, subcommittees committees of our own board. No. Okay. Do you guys accept that?

We have deer committee and green committee are separate items on the agenda. And yes, we're not necessarily appointing people to those. We got to decide if we're going to even create those. Um, and I see Reena is here. So, let's just So, no, there's no applicants for any of these bodies. These are all council council represented bodies. So, go with however you want to proceed, but I just didn't want to I didn't know if you want to open up to other applications. What was the resolution? It was the DEI resolution if I recall that. Oh, the resolution was for appointments. Sorry. It was for appointments to committees. It wasn't a resolution. It was a guideline. Guideline. Yes.

And it that did not apply to anything having to do with our internal council. That was only when residents want to apply for an open position. We had a procedure for announcing it, posting it, submitting applications. That's the whole 30-day. Did you guys have residents on the streetscape committee and stuff like formal and they applied and you guys streetcape started as a there was a huge big there was a huge committee of multiple people residents planning commissioners nothing formal just informal like people would come in and out of it I I don't know I was a planning commissioner at the time um

there were different committees for different points in the process there was a core the roads committee correct was one committee but that but there was also a threeperson council committee that was the streetscape committee standing yeah just a council with the administrator yeah okay okay and that and that was what the infrastructure committee no it was the streetscapes yeah well probably I suppose yeah I think so I think so that's what we talked about okay all right so I think we for the the major four I think we have it listed I think we're good if you want confirm what you've got for finance.

Yep. Pam, Angelina, and DG. David Goldberg. Uh, legal Pam, David, and both David's personnel. Me, Dan, and Jeff. Infrastructure. Jeff, Angelina, and Dan. Great. Good. Yep. Do we still need infrastructure? I can. Do you want a second committee? Abby or Abby just step down? I thought Jeff was on it. Oh, I know. But you only have one. No, cuz I got planning. Okay. So, uh, so you saying move off of infrastructure, but I know you want to be part of the But you want to be part of the green committee.

I'm saying I mean I'll be the one to take one committee. I don't care cuz I'm on it for longer, right? If you wanted to do something like the last eight months on council or

I'm good with it. Okay. So then infrastructure, Jeff, Angelina, and and Dan. All right. So let's go back to the top and make sure we're keeping these. Birmingham area cable board. We're keeping Rick David. Uh Birmingham next. So we have Dan who I think. So, are you can you make it work to be the one who goes every to go everyone and move you to the number one spot and and have Jeff as your backup when you can't make it? Flip-flop that we can do that since you've been doing it would make more sense.

Do we need to go every like do how often do we need to be there for the next? It's expected that someone is there expected meeting. Yeah. Okay. So, there's someone from every municipality. Yeah. What's the meeting cadence? Monthly. It's in the morning. Same time. Yes. Did they ask you to speak? Yeah. Yeah. We give a little update about happenings in Franklin. What What day is it? Do you know? It's on Monday. Okay. It's Mondays are good, so I can be your backup. Okay. Yeah, it's at 8:30 in the morning. Okay. Okay.

Okay. So, let's make it Dan and Jeff with Dan as the lead and Jeff as the backup. And then what's the deal with Birmingham Youth Assistance? Does that meet every chief? Did uh second week of the month on Thursday morning? I And did Mike when he was in town go to every meeting? I was going to ask. No. Are you a If you do you go I'm on the board. So yeah, we just want to make him our Yeah. liaison. That's fine with me. Yeah. Mike never went.

As long as that as long as you're allowed to be a liaison for us as well as serve on the board, that would be our pre my preference. And then if there's like a conflict where you feel like you need someone there, just ask. Okay. Yeah, just ask me. I would go. But sounds good. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. We're adding more hats back. We took them off. We're throwing new ones at you.

All right. So, we're going to have Let's do this. So, we'll let's make Chief Lawson the liaison and then I'll be his backup. My schedule's flexible enough. If he calls me in the morning and says I can't make it, I'll I'll go. Uh fire representative. Anybody want that? You're welcome to it. Uh if not, I will continue to do it. My vote would be that you continue.

Yeah, maybe with what's going on. Yeah, with what we've got going on in the next few months with them, we should probably keep it that way. Uh, historic, we've moved Jeff planning is going to stay. David, we've got finance. We've got legal, we've got personnel, liquor control. Uh, we don't have liquor licenses anymore. So, we should still keep the board open. I would like to stay on it just for the continuity of the one liquor license that we gave. I was on the board at the time. Um, so for continuity of you want to be on that as a as just another have you replace Mike? Sure.

I think I think the other thing that could come up with liquor with licenses is we may decide to change DDA charter. Oh, okay. There's also there's also other licenses that somebody could apply for or try and bring a license in that we would still need the committee to review. So, yeah. Yeah, I think it's going to be a more visible. Yeah, I I hope so. Right. [laughter] I would hope so. That would be great. That means businesses are trying to come in and and serve alcohol and open restaurants. Pam, I think you just you just have um you were just appointed to the land bank authority board, right? So, that change. Yeah, I thought No. Oh, that was a year ago. I'm still on it until um November. Yeah.

I was thinking what's the one in Farmington? Is there something a board you serve on in Farmington? No, I don't think so. No, just the county. Okay. Yeah.

All right. So, liquor control is going to be David, Abby, and Dan. Infrastructure, Jeff, Angelina, [snorts] and Dan. Main Street Franklin liaison. So Mike has to be replaced. Angelina, what are your thoughts on that? I I personally in one of these two spots think we need to move Pam back into the liaison. She's got a more of a pulse on this than anyone. Understands it better than most of us. And I know that they themselves would probably enjoy having Pam as liaison, but we do need to have a second. So, Angelina,

yeah, as long as they post their meetings. Yeah, I mean, so there's a huge issue with Well, hold up one second. This is my take on it is that's totally fine as long as they include both members of council and the administrator and the clerk. It can't be just communicating with one Agreed. And I think Rachel has had meetings with them to voice dissatisfaction with the way that it's being run in that exclusionary nature. Now, what's happening? I don't Can you give an update, Rachel? Frankly, they've sort of phased Angelina out the village. They phased out the village. Yeah.

Rachel and Evan, too. And they don't post the meetings. They don't post the minutes. They don't accept resident applications cuz Jeff applied and he didn't get a response either. So, I'm not sure where they think the money is coming from, but our taxes, right? Which is part of why we were hoping to have started today. Unfortunately, um, John was sick. But I think that all goes hand inand with us better understanding Main Street and better understanding what the liaison role is with Main Street and working with Main Street to make sure that their bylaws and how they're operating are tight and have been updated and have been reviewed. So,

in an ideal world, what would this look like? So if like what what role would the both of you have? Just take council out of it. What should our village administrative staff what kind of role should they have in the main street body? I'm I'm asking I I don't know.

So right now we don't have even though it's budgeted we do not have a main street director nor do we have anyone serving in economic development. Rachel and Evan have offered and have the skill sets to for the time being serve in those capacities. Rachel in working with them on economic development, Evan working with them on some of the other matters particularly their um event planning and community engagement stuff. So I think we should

Yes, they need to be included. Absolutely. And that's part of what we need need to make sure is clear with Main Street is that they are at the end of the day still an extension of us and that we create it created it. And so if there isn't that mutual if if there is a lack of accountability and that is not happening today, why would we still give this time? Why would we? Well, we we are a mainstream community. They can't exist without us, right? So unless we decide to no longer be a main street community, we have to operate. We have to have a board. Yeah. We have to have

certain procedures in place that like this feels like a waste of time and resources if there isn't that today. So structurally something would have to change. So So my re this is my thoughts on it which is it's mutually beneficial, right? Like they want to operate and they're connected to our village and we want to be a village that has a main street that's functional. And so I get that it's I agree with you

and that's why I'm saying yes I'm fine with this but there have been circumvention of village staff and our liaison in these communications and so I think what we're not going to do is say well we'll put Pam in there and then we can still ice out the three but they're working with the commu with the village because they're talking with Pam. No, the expectation is they talk with all four of them and that is a hardline stance. Okay. Agree. I absolutely agree with that. I I I can't explain I don't know. Yeah, because I am not plugged in. I am plugged in in some respects but not at what happens in that board.

But I absolutely assure you that if what I'm hearing from Rachel and Angelina is true, that's inappropriate and needs to change. So how does it change? Because I think what I want to avoid is these are however many people who have careers and commitments and if and if the expectation is that they're going to serve to the best of their ability as a liaison to this committee or or subcommittee or whatever it's called um if if we don't fix the structure or establish accountability then we are just throwing good time after bad like and so until we do that I I would elect that we don't make any appointments until we've established standard operating procedures.

Trusty Gates and I would take a motion that we appoint Rachel main street director. So it's very clear to them that she is the main street director. We make that motion and then once she gets plugged in, once she restructures it, she no longer has the finance entire function of her job and then she can figure out what she needs. Come back to the board and say you need two liaison, you need one board member and a liaison. and Evan can be her backup. And so she's acting main street director, but for all intents and purp purposes, we appoint her director. They don't have a director right now. We need a director. They need to know that they are accountable to the village. Um, I could be wrong, but I thought I wasn't here two meetings ago, but I thought the action this the council took was to um ask for a period of time for Rachel and Evan to make to to step into and operate economic development in Main Street while they were a until they were able to come back to us with a recommendation on a higher.

But she can't do that. She's being iced out. So when we appoint her main street director, they h she runs the meetings. They have to work with her. Like it's been six months of going rogue. Is that reasonable? I'm not sure I see it that way. What? Let's take a vote. Let's let's deal with this and we can come back to a separate motion. We're okay. What is the upside? So let's let's consider it this way. The upside of going that way would be what? And I'm asking Rachel. The upside of going that way is that I would be involved. At this point, I'm not involved. I'm not on their email communications. I have no idea what they're doing internally.

So, I think it would be helpful if I could make thoughtful recommendations to this board because I'm actually there and I know what I'm talking about. At this point, I can't say that I do. and you could theoretically advocate for um the village to make uh like financial commitments to Main Street because you've got some understanding of what their plan might be annually, right? The downside would be what? It will take time away from my duties as village administrator. Is that time well spent?

If if chase her tail if it's effectively if it's effective. Mhm. I think that's why I think we need to take a motion because we have to appoint her main street director because I agree with you Abby and you like I don't want you chasing your tail asking them when are you meeting like send me the agenda or oh it's the location changed or like that to me is a waste of resources but investing in Main Street and Main Street is a huge priority for us isn't a waste of resources that comes up all the time when you're talking to residents about enhancing downtown bringing in new businesses and so I feel like having someone seasoned, experienced, and a former economic developer is time well spent.

And I think I remember when we talked about the economic development director when we put the pause in that role, the intention was you had just started in this role, get your feet under you, you had that background coming in anyway, and at that point, you'd be able to decide how would we allocate dollars to salaries. Is this the real need or might there be something else at six months down the road when you have a full understanding of the picture that might that those dollars might be better spent on? Right. Part of what I had hoped on was that our workshop earlier today would not have been unfortunately cancelled so that when this item came up, we would all be freshly educated on the

I agree. We had a babysitter and everything purposes of Main Street. So [clears throat] I what I'm going to suggest for purposes of this vote is that our main street liaison be Evan and Rachel as you guys are suggesting and we don't take any action on an economic development director right now. I don't know if that's something but can you make a main street director instead of just a leazison because they will assert the bylaws and liaison are not part of the board and that's do we know whether or not we can do that? Are they Yeah. Well, like uh Meg was the main street director and then Susan was the main street director and so but can we was the staff person. Was that a you were the leazison.

No, what I'm saying though is she was the we hired an economic development director regardless of what the title was. You can title it whatever you want. If we take a motion to make Rachel the Main Street director, does that provide any authority within Main Street? Because otherwise, just liaison accomplishes the exact same thing. It Yeah. What authority would it add that she doesn't already have as the village administrator?

They don't recognize her authority. That's what she's saying. They don't recognize her authority. They are telling her she's not allowed at meetings. She can't know when they are. and she can't participate even by observation. So they don't recognize her authority as the mission. Does that make any sense? I mean, wouldn't wouldn't you want partnership with the village who now evangelizes what you're doing and you applies for grants on your behalf potentially? I don't understand what this is genuine question. Why does anyone know the answer to that? Control, power, autonomy. We don't know. I don't we don't know. That's what I'm saying. I'm throwing it out there. Control, power, autonomy, right? which goes more to just to the heart of Main Street lack of oversight

Franklin entirely and how the board operates and questions that I've been also asking which better describes what their membership is and better describes how you become a part of Main Street and what is the role of the board of directors and better understanding their legal existence. I think those are all things that we need to all better understand and that was part of what we were going to have John explain to us is how it all is supposed to work and how it works in I don't know lack of a better term an ideal main street Oakland County community. Show us what the show us the tree looks like and

what are the processes? What are the really helpful Main Street Oakland County website I will say that like says it's about like placemaking. It's about community space. It's about and it says all these ideal things. That's somewhere we where we should all go. We got to the point where we didn't want to rely on us having to go do outside research. So, we literally said, "We're just going to bring the horse here." Yeah. Right to the water and have him explain it to us. So, and the PowerPoint was even good. Yeah. So, if we're agreeable on just letting Evan and Rachel be our liaison and if we want to if it's necessary to if they exclude her from the meeting,

yeah, if we do her so that we can do an approval of this and if you have a subsequent motion, let's do that first. So, we're going to defer we're going to defer the liaison to Main Street then. No, we're going to def we're going to appoint Evan and Rachel as the liaison. Okay, I'm good.

So, we have identified all of them. Do we need to read them again? I think we've read through them all. Evan, you've got it on the record. Abby, you've got it on the record. So we have uh readjusted Birmingham area cable board, Birmingham Next, Birmingham Youth Assistance, Franklin Farms, Bingham Farms Fire Representative, Historic District Commission liaison, planning commission liaison, finance subcommittee, legal subcommittee, personnel subcommittee, liquor control subcommittee, infrastructure subcommittee, and Main Street Franklin liaison. Those all of those parties are on the record. Do we have a ZBA? What's that?

No one. We never had one when I was on CBA. We're not on ZBA because they can't cuz like Yeah, a planning commissioner. If someone appeals it, they have to go to circuit court. Yeah, we're the legislative body. We can't also be on the judicial body. So, um All right. So, we have all of our appointments. If I can get a motion to approve the appointments. I feel like there's a need possibly for like a communications outreach engagement type sub I'm not sure like what it's called but things that come up right now we need to get to okay

arena and we need to deal with this new I I have no problem with the concept if you have your hand got your hands around it no everyone loved when you did that library meet and greet So, I was just thinking like doing like quarterly of those with the community. I would love to do those when possible, but it's a little bit out of the confines of what we're trying to accomplish here. So, let's get these appointments in place. We have them on the record. If I can get a motion to approve them as presented. Motion to approve as presented. Seconded. Motion by Sally. Second by Ferris. Further discussion?

All in favor say I. I. I opposed. Okay. So, I think that's a great idea. I think that's something we should we should get with Evan and Rachel on have them start putting together what something like that would look like, where it would be, how it would get posted. It would only have to be like, it couldn't be more than three of us at one point, you know, but that's once a year. We just each attend it. Correct. if we were meeting and taking actions of any sort. I mean, we can all be in a public place at the same time, but we can't be discussing anything along the village just because I feel like some of the residents want to talk longer than 3 minutes and you know, we can have everybody present as long as we post it. Okay. Yeah,

there can be more than three of you. Okay. Okay. So, all right, we've taken care of that. Now, let's go back to uh Raina and our um our annual audit. Hello. Welcome back.

Good evening. Thank you for accommodating me. I appreciate you moving around the agenda a bit, but that was very interesting to to be here for that. Um are you being facitious? No, no, it's actually um it it tells you a lot about the council, how you make decisions. Um it it's actually very relevant to the auditor. Um so, thank you. Um the you're welcome for the show.

Um no, you made some excellent points there. I mean, and it's very exciting to see your excitement like going forward how you want to change things or or fix things or you know. Um so that's very much also very much appreciative. Um I'm going to start off with saying um we have new staff. They were kind of coming on board as we were starting out in fieldwork. I just want to say a huge thank you um to Rachel, Evan, Teresa, a huge thank you to uh Chief Lawson. Uh he, you know, really like carrying the ball there for for a big good part of it. So uh thank you for everyone's cooperation. The audit went seamlessly and that's thanks to everyone's uh help uh along the way. So jumping in the um this is the villages annual audit for your fiscal year ended June 30th, 2025. Uh you did receive an unmodified opinion, meaning no exceptions, disclaimers, nothing adverse to report. The um starting off with a few highlights. Uh taxable values, your largest source of revenue, of course, property taxes. Um taxable, you didn't raise your taxes, but the um taxable values increased 6.8%. Which you should be very happy with. It's uh very nice to see. The year before was uh just under 6.5%. And so this is beyond uh you know everyone assumed that everyone's getting a 5% increase in taxable value because of the inflation factors but this is above and beyond that. So um I I think you would be uh very happy with that. State shared revenue on the other hand is a different story. Um it was pretty much flat even decreased like 1.8% last year. Um they the state is changing their formulas and that type of thing. They took action at their October 1 budget. Um, so they are changing the formula a bit. They're trying to hold uh harmless for things like that. You want to add things like additional dollars for public safety yet, you know, the roads. They're kind of moving all that around. I don't think those numbers have landed yet, but I think they're pretty close. I think you're probably just

starting to see some some numbers from the state, but no huge increases, I would say, that to project for state shared revenue. Um the um general fund fund balance did increase this year $84,000 and you came in but under budget $249,000. The um general fund ending fund balance at June 30th was $1.3 million. Um looking at I also usually look at the of course your police fund one of your largest expenditures in the village. Your expenditures actually came down from the year before about about $80,000. Now, some of that is capital, but you still did spend some money on capital this year. Um the we Oh, was the it was the police department generator this year. Um but uh the but still it's you know it's nice to see it's not a continual [clears throat] uptick. Uh I know we there are other plans going forward, but um you know everything's going up. Staffing of course always costs more. So um it's nice to stay within within the um major capital outlay within the village other than fleas was house furnace is included in this audit. The installation and also additional the drainage assessment study is also included in here. You did pay down a significant amount of debt. Your principal you paid down about $926,000 and that leaves uh 7.7 million left on the road debt which is only seven years left on that. That's yay. That's 2032 is the last payment on that one.

I think that's about on schedule, isn't it? Yes. Okay. Nothing unusual right there. Okay.

Um and it's Well, you know, it seems like that just happened. So, to me, it was kind of exciting to see 2032 isn't that far away. So, um, the, uh, lastly, the net pension liability, you, uh, actually had a decrease of about $13,000, which which pretty much for a pension plan means it was flat this year, but no significant increases, which which is what we want to see. Um, you had 404,000 of investment income, meaning we had a good day in the stock market at the end of the year. Um, looks like 123125, which will be next year's audit, uh, looks like that was a good day in the stock market. So hopefully, um, those numbers will look good next year as well. Um, you are 56% funded this year, um, up from 54%. [snorts] And if you remember the prior year, um, you the the village did receive a Michigan pension grant of $479,000. That's in last year's audit, not this one. Um, and also if you're looking at the numbers that last year was the last year of your American Rescue Plan, the ARPA grant money. So if the numbers look a little bigger in the revenue stream in 2024, that's why um we didn't have that this year, but still a very solid year. Um, and you should be very pleased at how we ended the year this year. So with that, there was a lot of numbers. I'm happy to address any any questions council may have. So what was our overall as far as red black just across the board from net revenues to net expenditures?

The uh well I mean primarily so the the police the general fund funds the police fund. So you add police fund comes out zero every year, right? Um so you added to the fund balance uh this year and you're you know $84,000. So you're to the good you're to the black. So, we increased our general fund by 84,000. Correct. Correct. Which is probably unfilled positions or the three months that we weren't paying salaries. Yeah. Well, that would have been after fiscal year end though. Oh, yeah. And was that in that was about July 1st. Oh, yeah. This ended June 30th. Oh, June 30th. Oh, sorry. I thought I thought I heard you took the stocks. All right.

The stock the stocks for the Morris plan are valued as of December 31st. Okay. Thanks. Is that expected or unexpected? What? Being in the Sorry. Oh, uh, no. Expected. Okay. Um, and you came in under budget. So, you could have gone the other direction if you had completely, but you you do budget pretty um fiscally conservatively so that you don't I mean, those are were really capital things that you didn't spend money on at the end of year, which is nice. I mean, the village does a really nice job. You do keep your operating expenditures very stable and then you are doing projects within the village which is what you should be doing is what was what was the deficit the year before? Um I don't

It was not a deficit. You actually added 310,000 because of those couple things. I'm sorry. I was okay. Um you added the prior in 2024 because of those things like we recognize the Michigan pension grant and also the ARPA money funds come through as revenue. You know, Reena, we've had a couple of discussions in council um about our financial condition, and I wonder if it makes sense for you to talk about what a deficit is, what it means, how do you define it, uh and and in line with the comments you're making about our you've done our audit for several years now. Have we been in a deficit position? Uh could you just talk about that a bit?

Sure. Sure. So, so and it's it's actually on point for you'll be moving into the budget, correct? So, uh very soon. And it's that's pretty, you know, even though these are June 30th numbers, this kind of gives you the the framework for and then you'll be most of the way through fiscal year 26. Um so, a deficit means there's a lot of misinterpretation about that. The state of Michigan Treasury says that a deficit is spend your ex your revenues minus your expenditures cannot exceed your existing fund balance. So your opening fund balance, let's say you open with a million dollar fund balance. If the revenues are short of your expenditures by a million dollars, they'll go to zero as far as your fund balance will go to zero at that year.

Treasury is actually okay with zero. they're not okay with negative one fund balance or beyond. Um, so just because in one year you may you may show that your expenditures exceeded your revenues does not mean you are in a deficit position. Just means that that year and hopefully it's something like a capital item um that you're spending on a one-time thing, not a regular thing. So, that's what you really want to watch for is operating deficits that um it isn't one-time planned items um that are throwing you into that dipping into your fund balance. So, you you don't want your fund balance to go negative and respectfully, you want your fund balance to be where you're comfortable with as far as what you think enough is. I don't think that should be a percentage that for years they've thrown around percentages. Um you know, they throw around like 25%. Well, that's not that much for the village. That wouldn't, you know, if something happened here catastrophically, you wouldn't, you know, how long would you be able to go?

25% of operating expenses. Correct. Okay. Which if you think about the ice storm that we had Yeah. a couple years ago and the amount that it costs for us to clear out like roads and all of those added expenses probably would wipe that out. Uh there I'm, you know, going back to 2008. I mean, there are so many things that have happened between now and then. we can't things we can't even imagine. COVID, uh, you know, ice storms, tornadoes coming through. Um, they're not necessarily even, you know, acts of nature. Yeah.

Things we we can't even come up with this stuff. So, uh, you just want to be in a position where you're comfortable. Um, [clears throat] that you you sleep well at night knowing if something happens, we're we're in good hands. We've got money in the bank and, you know, we'll weather the storm, however long the storm is. And this is may not be a question you have, but I'll ask it in case you did look at it. So, um, we did the Headley override to try and bring us back in to help with the numbers and that slowly ticks away. So, do we know how that's going to how it impacted us this year and what it could look like for the coming year?

So, fiscal year 24 was, I believe, your first year with the roll back. That's impacted pri prior year revenues. Um it was about 440,000 last year additional that it so that's it's probably a little bit a little bit less than that. Well you have the the Headley override so you roll back but then your taxable values went up went up. So right take about $450,000 um I would estimate. Sorry. And so in a single year if our budget exceeds our revenue according to the state of Michigan that's not a deficit because as long as we can dip into our surplus or our general fund

general fund because local municipality is any money. You you don't have to spend it by the end of the year. Correct. Yeah. It doesn't go back whereas federal funds if you don't spend it goes back to the treasury. Correct. Now, state treasury has this rule where if you go into if your revenues are less than your expenditures or say the expenditures exceed your revenues three years in a row, even though you have fund balance and it's okay to dip into it. Three years in a row, they ask you for a they want to know they'll probably send you a letter saying, "Yeah, what's going Why did that happen? You anticipate because they're trying to they're looking for help,

right? early distress signals, you know, is this your normal are you going to be dipping into fund balance from here on out because you can't meet your operating? But that's separate from what our charter says, too. And then from what um also even like like Southfield Township, they have like a million dollar surplus right now. You know what I mean? So like we have 80,000, but but they're different because school you're in. So they collect their taxes in advance. Okay. So for them, a million [clears throat] dollars is actually 0% funded. Because I got some residents asking, why does Southfield Township have so much more money than we do? You be you're you don't you don't start collecting your taxes till the first day of your fiscal year.

Okay? So basically on at June 30th, you've spent theoretically you've spent everything from that budget. They collect their taxes right at the end of their fiscal year. So they're frontloaded and you're just starting on July 1st every year with a fresh tax roll. Okay. And we have no um regulation that anything goes back to the state. Correct. Okay. Correct. And you you appropriately spent your American Rescue Plan money, so that's not going back. Michigan Pension Grant, you appropriately put that with you met all the requirements. You put that straight into your MS pension trust. Um, so all good. All good. Yeah.

And I'd be the first one here to tell you, hey, you know, um, you leave money on the table. We're not leaving money on the table is what I wanted to know.

Correct. Correct. And we would restrict that money as well anyway at your end. Um, you also receive things like the Oakland County infrastructure grant, critical infrastructure grant. Um, so you've been really, it's nice that you when you take advantage of these grant programs there. You know, it seems like they're lessening now. During that, you know, 2020 to 2023 period, there were a lot more available. You were taking advantage of that. So, you know, that just brings its outside money coming in for the residents to do projects, which is exactly what you're, you know, what you've been doing. Um, Reena, we also talked uh for a couple just a briefly before you came here about um pension contribution and uh you I think you just said we were at 56% or 56% funded.

Yes. And the target is 60. Do you have some guidance for us on any remediation we might want to contemplate? Are you satisfied that we are close enough? Um can you just sort of talk us through that just a little bit?

Sure. The um so we really does a lot of it hinges on a couple things that are really out of our control. One is net investment income. We're alluding to the fact of the December 31st stock market um environment right out of our control. The [clears throat] other thing is a lot of the uh actuarial assumptions our experience rate that type of thing that can that can have a big swing on our total pension liability. However, excuse me. That being said, um I would encourage you and you know it depends it respectfully. This is wherever you're at when you're talking about the budget. Even if it's not even this year, next year, but please keep it in mind. If you can make extra contributions to the pension plan, it definitely and I'm talking like at least $100,000 a year, whether that's on a, you know, broken down into a monthly basis of say, you know, 8 to10,000 a month or once a year you get near the end of the year and say, "Hey, we might have some money available in the budget. Let's let's tuck, you know, $100,000 into the uh throw, you know, to the pension plan." um that would definitely move the needle uh as far as your percentage goes. Um you would to really get you up into you know it ideally be up at 70%. Um, but that would take, you know, multiple years, three to five years at $100,000, say, I mean, I haven't run the numbers, but knowing from experience that that's what would get you, you know, up into a higher range. That plus some good luck with the stock market.

Okay, thank you. Any other questions? Okay. [clears throat] So, we need to um uh receive and approve the 2024 2025 audit as presented by PSLZ PLLC. Uh let's start with a a motion and a second and then we can get into further discussion if we have any. So, anybody want to make a motion to approve receipt of the 2024 2025 audit? I'll move to approve the 2020 for 2025 audit. Second.

All right. We have a motion by Salaka, second by Gates. You said accept or approve. What did you say? Receive. Receive. Do we do we we don't have a It's not We're not really approving it, are we? It is what it is. Correct. Yeah. We're accepting acknowledgement that we're seeing. Yeah. Yeah. Evan will word Smith it. [laughter] Yeah. So we're acknowledging receipt of the 2024 2025 audit as presented by PSLZ PLLC. We have a motion by Gates. Second by Salaka. Was it the other way around? Other way. Motion by Salaka. Second by Gates. Further discussion. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. Thank you.

Once again, thank you very much for all of your help.

Okay. new business. We took care of A. We took care of B. So this next item on the agenda is what? It's it's it's listed as formation of the deer management committee. Although my our intent I want to say my our intent in putting this here, bless you, was not to actually make the appointments today. What I think we need to do is one confirm that we do want to create a g a a gear a deer management committee and if we're going to have a deer management committee we as a council decide what we believe the makeup of that how many people should be on it and what should the makeup of that body be um and that's sort of why we put it on the agenda. I can tell you and you guys correct me where I'm wrong. At legal committee, we had suggested seven people so that at least that gives you at every meeting a chance that two people can't make it but still have enough people there to do something of substance. We had suggested no more than one council member on it and whether we I think we had didn't decide whether one or two but probably at least one um planning commissioner on it.

Yep. and then the remaining five come from the community at large being that this is primarily being driven by community request. Uh, I think the makeup needs to be made up more of individuals and the purpose of this committee is supposed to be more of a fact garnering committee to better understand deer management, the various options, pros and cons of each of those options options, cost associated with each of those options, and that that body be acting. Granted that the the makeup of it could have people that have belief that one or the other ways is better. that this not be an advocacy committee that for the time being we need this to be a factf finding committee bringing to us all the facts that we can garner to understand to what extent if any that the village of Franklin wants to get involved in deer management whether it's specifically hosting events or financial contribution uh solely or not interested at all. So, I would hope that that body would be spending more time at least initially focusing on gathering the facts. If there are some makeup on it of people that believe that the calling is the more appropriate way to go, then okay, then those people can focus on garnering the facts on calling. If there's it should have a makeup on it of people who lean more towards more human humanist human humanitarian ways of controlling the population i.e.

sterilization or other uh means uh there should be a makeup of individuals that understand that so that they can educate us. But when the group comes back, I'm hoping that it be more initially an uh [clears throat] a bunch of facts to bring to us and then from those facts, we can send it back to the committee to start seeking out those who would be proper advocates. And if we want to set up a time for whether of course residents will always have the opportunity, but to bring in third parties, you know, someone that's a third party advocate of calling, somebody that's a third party advocate of um euthan, I'm sorry, um sterilization or other means. I think that would be the the f the second phase. So

yeah, can I jump in real quick, please?

Yeah. So, so the biggest thing that we talked about in legal and I'm strongly of this opinion is that this committee will not take a position. They will bring facts back to us. We already know that there's three options. There's sterilization, there's the call, and there's do nothing. And so rather than us independently going out and doing a lot of research, this group would be exploring those three options and educating us so that we make the policy decision. Ultimately, what will be done will be up to us. But I think there's a lot of questions about effectiveness, overall cost. Um, and so rather than coming up with uh not generic, but just numbers on a page, going out getting an actual quote, what would it be? How much would it cost to participate in local coalitions? Um, so again, very fact specific, but at no point do we want a position taken? That is for us to decide as a policy body. Anyone else got just general comments on the concept? So are we what is the the thought process on one council representative?

My thought would be make it five instead of seven. Five total. Yeah. And then three residents and then one from planning, one from count. only because schedule the meetings the meetings I mean more people should be should be posted when they're getting together. So any resident should be able to come and participate. If we were going to appoint five people to be the actual people that are supposed to be there for every meeting taking the notes gathering the information somebody needs to take the lead on Yeah. Because then three could make it. You have a majority. The seven was a suggestion and it's not easy to get that. What if let's say let's do this.

You could just say up to seven.

Correct. So what I'm going to suggest that's a great idea. So what I'm going to say is let's set up a subcommittee that we agree we'll have one one council representative at a minimum one planning commission representative and made up of at least three other three residents. And then treat this like any of our subcommittees. Evan opens it up like tomorrow for posting. He posted in the normal places you would if this was for a planning commissioner or a a ZBA representative. Anybody that's interested, submit your information to Evan. Give us a little background on on, you know, more specifically your background if any on

do they have to be a Franklin resident, a Franklin taxpayer, a Franklin voter, a Franklin? Like what what are the criteria for serving on a committee? I mean, ideally, if we're setting up subcommittees, they should be residents. So, priority given to residents. That would be a priority if we can't even get three other individuals that want to do it and there's a couple people that live in the surrounding communities that somehow have some desire to be involved in what we got going on here, but no, I would hope that we could find three other residents. And does this committee report I know there's at least three residents that are willing to do it already.

Is this what committee is this reporting up through? They're going to report directly to council. Yeah. Okay. And will it be indefinite? How long do we need to give time? I think we do need to give a deadline for it. Um that's a good point. Yeah. How long are we going to ask them to do this before we should it come before the budget meeting so we can figure out if we need to put That's a great that's an that that's a great if you want to use uh so May 1st because not enough time or April 15th May 1st is when the charter says the first draft of the budget should be ready to go. So it should come to us probably in the April.

Yeah. So, but maybe we should get an update in March. Yeah. So, let's create the subcommittee with the hope that we can get data back by April 15 [laughter] in order to and maybe at least a check like a check-in before that to make sure we're I would love them to come to each of the meetings and speak at the time where we have our liaison because I mean we're absolutely creating a committee right now. So yeah, I would like them to come and speak when we do planning report and main street report. Sure. Are there any um deadline drivers outside of our budgeting process like farming? What is the coalition of?

We've missed anything that can be done in 2026. So anything we would be considering other than financially contributing to what other communities are already doing in 2026, we would be looking at 27. Okay. Okay. So really there Nothing's there's no like urgency. Urgency stake in the ground kind of. Okay. So, if they need more time, they can ask for it. Just so you know, a call already took place. Yeah. In January, a week ago, it was I they sent a report out. It was in which which municipal? In Farmington. [snorts]

Yeah. cuz I know they were doing it in the winter when it was that's when the most traffic is and they were doing it at night and they were doing it when all the leaves were down so that they didn't have and I I'm almost positive the first call already took place. I have no results or anything but 2026 that the our our neighbor communities are are already in action. All right. So, uh, we need a motion in a second to create a deer management committee to be made up of one village council member, one planning commission member, and a minimum of three uh, residents. So, move.

I'll second. Okay. We have a motion by Ferris, second by Hansen. Any further discussion? Did you say up to seven? I I'm sorry. Up to five. Did I say seven? No, no, I was just making sure we're saying five. Yeah. No, Angelina's suggestion was good. Let's start at a minimum of five. Look, if we get 15 applicants and we got a whole mess of people that are interested and it can't hurt, you know, but for the time being, let's set it up at a minimum of of of five. Okay. All right. So, we had a motion, a second. We've had discussion. All in favor say I. I. Opposed.

Okay. Excellent. Uh so item D on new business, consideration of request to employ the Franklin Public Library librarian uh between Rachel and Rick. Rick, do you want to or Rachel, do one of you had either of you plan on giving a 30 second on what we're doing? Do you want me to try and do it? I can do it. Okay. Thank you.

All right. So, what we would like to do is hire the Franklin Public Library librarian to be part of our village staff and then lease that employee back to the library. So, they will pay all of the costs of that librarian's salary, benefits, and a small administrative percentage that we will negotiate through the contract for our services of handling this project with them.

And and so explain the two primary driving forces behind doing this. Well, the first driving force is we would like to partner with our library and help them. Secondly, this gets us closer to our 20 person um covered on our insurance, right? It would be financially restrictive for the library to set up all the things that we have in place for our employees for one employee that does that. Right. That's true.

Um, adding an employee to our roles doesn't hurt us because as you said, it gets us one employee closer to that magic 20 we've been trying to get, which once we get to 20, we receive a significant savings in our insurance cost because the threshold for a business is I don't know if it's business or municipality, but the threshold is is 20 employees. Are we at 19 and this brings us to 20? No. No. No, we do not. I don't have the count with me. We need a couple more. What are the risks?

Well, well, so sorry. So, let last again. So, then ask the questions. So, when this was originally presented to the administration by the library administration, the first thing I know Rachel did was had Peter look at it. I know that uh the libraries legal council looked at it. they've presented us with legal opinions that this is completely legal.

Um, other municipalities do this kind of employees lease back arrangement um all the time. The theory is that we it costs us nothing. whatever it is that we're paying on a monthly basis, we back charge them and a small administrative fee to account for primarily Teresa's time in She's not Teresa anymore. Well, no. Oh, sorry. I thought you meant the new librarian. Still Teresa. Sorry. I didn't mean you. I meant like I thought you were talking about Teresa. No legal name changes. [laughter] Yeah. So, so for for Teresa and and Stephanie, when they when they do the bills, yeah, when they do payroll,

are we leasing back for the total cost of any compensation? So, that would include retirement, benefits, contributions. Yes. Yep. I don't believe there's retirement, but is that right? No. No retirement, but there is medical benefit. Is this the only full-time library employee? The others are part-time. And then in the contract if there was workers comp liability be

essentially what we're saying is like we would just want to make sure that it comes down to a contractual perspective or sorry good contract drafting but we just want broad enough language or I I'll only speak for myself but I would imagine the rest of council would want language broad enough so that all possible compensation is considered and repaid right and then the second part would be a full indemnification from any liabilities tripping on books or something like that. That is correct. Um did it go through

municipalities have um restrictions on indemnifying one another but we would want to be added as an additional insured in their insurance. We'll try to cover all those bases. But to answer Angelina trustee Salaka's question about the risks is just like hiring your own employee the same risks. Yeah. Getting sued all that stuff. But I think we we'll cover that. I looked at the legality. I looked at the memo that was prepared. I did my additional research and I think it is fine. It's just a matter of draft drafting language and coming up with an approval. What about reporting structure? I mean dynamic concerns. Did this go to HR is my question. HR committee. No. No. I did not. We talked um

a while ago. Yeah. Yeah. But it wasn't an official committee meeting. No. What about reporting structure? Does this person oversee anyone? How will they report? Do will they have a direct reporting relationship within the village? Will they have anyone they manage directly within the library? And how are we managing those reporting lines? Well, we're not there is a library act that uh requires the libraries members to directly control their uh library. Um, we're still negotiating the contract, but there was enough there where we could hire or fire based on a an approval of the libraries board of members.

Is that right? Your board of your library board is the only one who can hire and fire her. Good evening. And [clears throat] as as we understand that the employee will be an employee of the village, we will be responsible for the oversight management. And if we have issues with that employee, we'd recommend to the village that they be receive any kind of employment aspect of termination or tips or anything like that. So we would then the only people that can hire fire this person will be the village because it's a village employee. Does that take uh authority or away from your board?

No, because we're responsible to manage this person provide annual evaluations to the files at the village for personnel filing things. Does this impact our library millillage like at all? Like the way we said the funds were going to the library and now they're coming to us. We have a separate mill. We're able to choose how we want to spend it and we're just going to be running the the compensation aspects through the village. Doesn't affect their millillage or anything about the millillage because we're still responsible for the budget aspects of that. Will this person be um receive the same benefits and retirement [snorts] uh benefits? um as other uh village employees,

no retirement benefits are being offered, simply compensation. And we also have a a different Is there a 401k that contribution? We've never had a full-time employee until this point for the last all the years Teresa was with us. So, it's more the health and disability. Yes. But from a So, Peter, this is going to be for you. They do not offer retirement. But if all other employees under a certain classification are receiving benefits, could they then be saying could do they have any type of an employment claim? Could they sue on behalf that they're not being treated equally to other employees? Administrator just brought that up. I'd have to do some additional research on that.

Yeah. If a 401k is offered, you have to allow for any employees to participate if they choose to. And and if the person's defined as a village employee, they would have the option of opting in or not. Yeah, you could you could not exclude them from retirement plan if their if their employment relationship falls with the village. That'd be fine. I don't know. I don't know what your match is if you have the match with the board. 80%. Well, we have we have we have three different levels. So, we would have to determine at which

Can we refer this to the HR committee? Um, yeah, I need to go to the HR committee contract. I'd like I'd like to have the concept approved tonight if possible so we can negotiate. The reason it's called a lease and not a consultant or something else. I'm just wondering is that technical language? No, I think you can call it either or a contract. Yeah, that's what I'm I was just wondering if there was a term of art there. No, you know, the state laws provide as as our legal council provided a memo on that. It's done commonly done. Other cities will do it say for the fire chief, for their building inspector. They'll be leased part-time to another municipality next door if they provide services. So, it's commonly done in governmental area and also private sector.

Yeah, I approve the contract. I just don't want someone to be able to sue us saying that we're not treating her. We don't either. We don't want that either. We'll do what we have to do to and the total cost of their compensation includes retirement, which I suspect it probably will. that that is a figure we incorporate within the lease agreement. Fine. Of course, we want to fully cover everything including any legal costs related to this. What do you need today? Just approval of the concept and then authorize the attorneys to work on a contract and bring a contract back to us. Yes.

I kind of like the points that Trusty Gates was bringing up. So, do we want HR committee to weigh in on some of that. I mean, I'm f I'm fine to approve. I'm not going to speak for the other committee members, but I think like legally you're we're okay. I think more like the the nuance of it just seems like there's management of the Yeah, like management of this employee, documentation standards, reporting structures, retirement. I mean, there are just Could she circumvent the board and go straight to Rachel? No, they would. She would the person report to Yeah.

I mean, I'm familiar with contracts like this in it because it's done all the time, but but I I think I think that needs to be laid out in the contract. I think you're right. It's about the any risk the village would incur. What if the person steals something, you know, and or I mean, you get into um but it can be worked on contractually. Yeah. Um well I mean these wouldn't be contract terms. We we would define reporting relationship within the the the contract. They would be bound by any and all policies that we have in place with the village. So any code of conduct or handbook or

or the purchasing policy like are we is she going to be bound by our purchasing policy? You'd have to think about it. If you're a staffing agency and you employ someone at your within your agency, you bear the risk of hiring that person. So, if you contract them to another body, yes, like it would be in this person's best interest to behave well and to to

um to play nice with their their fellow colleagues and direct reporting relationship. But the point being that like if something were to happen, who has the ability to make disciplinary decisions? conduct a performance review. Who's who's tasked with compensation reviews? What happened if those compensation reviews happen annually with the village? They don't with the library. These are these are things outside of a contract, but are worth exploring.

I agree with and should they all be addressed in a contract? No, I mean contract is really things like IP protection or um job title uh like the effective date of when someone begins with your organization. It would be things that um indicate any benefits that are offered. Anything around those stipulations typically fall within operating employment, but that could be the employee employment contract. We could have an agreement with the library that breaks all of that.

Yeah, you could like an addendum. Yes. But for the purposes of extending an offer and saying, you know, any any additional um terms will be outlined within an addendum, it would be the same thing as if you're saying to a salesperson uh that annually your commission agreement, your your variable compensation will be subject to approval from the executive team and will be provided to you via addendum to your employment contract. So it just serves as a writer. But yes. Okay. But it would not preclude an employment agreement. So we will build all of that and bring it to the HR committee before we bring it to council. Mhm. Fine. But we can still take a motion on this. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. We can take a motion to put it in to start the motion in process. Yep. Bring it back to us when it's ready. In the meantime, you can advise the employee that it's been approved subject to dotting the eyes and crossing the tees. Wonderful. Is there time? Like I mean, I assume as soon as possible, but are there any deadlines we need to be aware of to get this done? They're working already. Yes, [laughter] I think the goal would be that we have everything in place by next month so that we can take action as a council. Do you plan on hiring any other full-time employees? No, this is like your

Yeah, we don't have the budget for it. Yeah, I was just wondering I I would almost structure the like you've got the employment agreement which functions as your like MSA um and I would structure the um the lease agreement to the library almost like a statement of work. It becomes your job description um reporting relationships that might like supersede or apply for your um what's the word? Your assignment at the library. Yeah, we'd be obligated to do the annual evaluations. And there was an identified job description when you hired. Oh, yes. Yeah. Okay. Good. Yeah. [clears throat] And then you can change the terms of that statement of work at any time

um outside of an MSA agreement or an employment contract. Okay. Trusty Gates outshining all the attorneys. I [laughter] love it. But this is why we need legal on the HR committee. Okay. Can I speak by the way? Speaking not a good

No. So, we need we're looking for an action to authorize the village administrator and the village attorney to enter into contract negotiations with the library board to finalize a lease arrangement and any other documents that they think are necessary to memorialize the lease arrangement between the village and the library. Do we need to have anything in here about um like a flat cost agreement and or the retirement piece because I think those are the last two it be in the agreement that yeah so at this stage we're in the motion.

Well yeah I would say right now all we're asking them to do is go figure it out and then when they bring it back if it's lacking that that would be the appropriate time to say hey why don't you consider this. So um I'm just going to go ahead and make that motion since I had just said all that. So, I'm going to move that we authorize the village administrator and the village attorney to enter into contract negotiations with the Franklin Public Library to to provide for a lease arrangement for the village to employ the Franklin Public Library librarian and lease. It's a her right now uh back to the library. Motion if we can get a second. Second.

Motion by Goldberg, second by Sally. Further discussion. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. All right, Rick. Thank you for working through this. Thank you. We will get this done right away. Two items. There's a meet the director evening in February at the library and you're all welcome to attend. And also uh at the last meeting your body you asked that you that our new director come to the council and we've arranging that now to happen in March. That'd be wonderful. She'll come and you can meet her also. Her name is not Teresa. Her name Her name is Susie. [laughter] Thank you very much. Awesome. Thanks. Thank you.

All right. Thanks everyone. Uh next is consider scheduling a village priorities workshop. So uh unfortunately and we got the break today although we didn't get to accomplish what we wanted to. Uh we might be having to have some workshops before our meetings at 5:00 over the next couple months in order to receive information and and and allow presentations to be done that aren't absor being absorbed in our regular council time since our meetings have been moving into the three and a half and four hour range. So, uh, anybody have a problem if we set up a same deal as we were going to do today, a 5:00 before our February meeting? The purpose of this is something that we've desperately been trying to do is discuss and try and start establishing village priorities. These are village uh active priorities, action items for things that the village would like to uh consider taking action on uh funding when funding is available. But in order to do so, we've got to have our priorities set. And then it's from our priorities that we do things like create shovel ready projects so that in order to receive grants and funds from outside sources most of the time you've got to have um a project in place and we need to set what our priorities are before we can start setting projects. Been trying to do this for several months now. It slipped through the cracks. was happening with our last administrator and then again slipped through the cracks and I think we need to need to make this a a priority that

we address priorities. Can we do a can we have Evan send out like a doodle poll or something to figure out a day? I don't think an hour is going to be enough. I think maybe another day cuz I always feel like council day I don't know how other people feel but I feel like being here from 5 to 9 like we lose steam at hour. That's a really good point. And so like should we just do like a like a special meeting? Yeah, like a 5 to 7 or it doesn't have to be a special meeting. We don't have to take votes there, right? Which is a workshop. I don't know how everyone else feels.

You you guys, Pam and I have probably the most flexible schedule. So, I have no problem, you know, like we've done is adding a Wednesday night into the equation or a Monday, you know, another Monday night in the month for us to deal with business. I mean, I don't want to get your kids an option for virtual participation. That gives me a lot more wiggle room. If it's a workshop, right, we can do it virtual. It's a workshop. It should be noticed up just so we cover our bases. But if somebody wants to attend virtually, they can do that. There's

we're not taking action at workshops anyways so that anybody that was participating virtually, we wouldn't they wouldn't be involved in a vote. They would be involved in just verbal communication. I mean, we can check it out. I don't I don't foresee that as a problem, like violating the OMA. Mondays are best, but I would support a se separate meeting with the virtual option so we can have a couple of hours. Otherwise, okay, that's fine. But like a set like like like 4 to 6 or 5 to 7 5:30 to 7:30. Two hour block somewhere. Oh, a two-hour block should be good. Yeah. Toasty Ferris. What's the best? Yeah. Could we start at 6 like we do these meetings? 5:00 is hard for me to start. Yeah.

Right. Well, that we were doing five when we were trying to get them before meetings. Angelina, good point. They we we if we if we had done an hour of of Main Street before right now, yeah, I could see where our brains would start start spinning a bit. I I mean, if it if it's more effective and the rest of you don't mind adding a second day into your commitments, this isn't going to be a standing thing. I mean, like even like Christy Gates said, even if you can do a hybrid, you know, like 20 minutes he's in traffic, but he can show up. But no, but again, I think we're agreeable that that it could be done virtually because we're not taking action.

I mean, I can I can squeeze it in if I'm sitting in a hotel room. Yeah. So, uh, what are your thoughts? Should we have I mean do you want to do it like through like have Evan send an email to everyone with a couple proposed dates and times and then everybody just reply separately so that we're not all communicating to the same email. So are the options like 6:00 Monday through Thursday? Right. On non-ouncil meeting weeks. Yeah. Okay. Can we maximize the time and do a little bit of pre-work or prep? Yeah. Like at least give us some framework of like

rank these things or Yeah. Yeah. We should come prepared X Y and Z like facilitate it. I think I have an old document. Yep. I have been working off of of one of your documents actually. Uh it's in here. Yes, it is. This document right here. This was council goals and objectives and various tasks from what year? March 13, 2023. And I think that is the most recent. It is or the latest, right?

I think some of these things we've addressed already and some we haven't. But this was sort of the last thing that we worked on. Uh November 13th at 6:00. Uh and that was when we were still meeting at 7:00 back in 23. We did a council workshop on goals, objectives, and various tasks. And I don't you know, and again, when if we were to we'll use some of this as background information. Hopefully, we have already addressed a lot of these things and now we need a list of of the new ones and the ones that we never got to determine if they still need to be addressed. I I'd like to propose that we work with Rachel to design a meeting, a a pro a process to get through that two-hour session that will result in

a list of um priorities that we can carry into the budgeting process. Okay. That would also include some advance work, some some pre-work for council members to discuss during the meeting. Um, well, the pre-work could be something like uh preparing a list of priorities that remain open and asking council members to rank them. Past priorities that we've we've considered. Yeah.

Just to get everybody's mind thinking about them, spurring other ideas, start ranking those items that we had already considered. Uh, if they're things that we've addressed, then note that we've already addressed them. And if there are things which we don't feel are as important anymore, that's sort of the purpose of this. Will the master plan have influence on this too?

The master plan is something that we would look to as we make decisions on these types of items. Not I mean, yes, in setting them up because we would hope that we're setting up tasks or implementing uh means that are consistent with our master plan. And I would hate to be setting up things that are inconsistent with it, but yeah, I think the master plan would be more of something. Master plan would be something we would look at as the basis for guidance. Great term for setting our priorities. Could a good course of action be that each committee or each council member send Rachel? I'm not opposed to that. You know, infrastruure directly to her.

Okay. Yeah. And not to the group as a whole. I mean, we'll each probably go through one of these that we have somewhere in our files and be like, "Here, here's my list of what I saw as priorities. Here's my list of what my priorities are." And included in here are some of the priorities that the village had previously. The more items we can get out into the into the into the list makes it easier us for us to decide which ones we want to do. The worst is make a whole decision and be like, "Oh my gosh, we totally forgot about, right? So can we give should we decide now like we're are to leave that meeting with 10 top objectives or five

like what is our objective and goals of that meeting just so we know what we are to accomplish in that two is that what you were saying Pam kind of like what I was I was heading that way I I'm reluctant to suggest that there's a number but I I think we because we will have time to cycle through it again in the budget prep process. Um, uh, I'm comfortable asking Rachel to take this on. You've done meetings like this before. Let's, let's take advantage of your experience.

And, um, I think you'll get help from us. I'd like Angelina's idea of some o open-ended what do you guys think? And I think we can review what we've already done. Um, I have some heartburn about some of those items, so I'm not sure how much I want to rely on them, but I I love the idea of what I did the same thing you did. Yeah. Well, that [laughter] again, they might clearly could be evolving, but well, cost isn't really the metric, you know, it's might be something else. But, uh,

yeah, let let's throw let's let's rely on you. I think we want to provide some input and it might be sifting through some iterations of top numbers of priorities or suggestions from council members and and feedback some feedback loops before the session starts even. Do we want to do like January 25th for your answers to be received by me? Sure. Give us like 14 days. Okay. And then what is the date of the meeting? We don't know yet, but it's not going to be Martin Luther King. So, yeah, we don't have anything that once once he's going to do it. [clears throat]

Yeah. Once you're comfortable that you've got a a a substantive enough list and you've heard from, you know, almost all of us or anyone who's planning on providing you that, then would be the time to Monday because figure out when to meet, but yes, let's plan on it being in the month of February. Okay. 13th day Sunday. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Uh, [clears throat] next item is accepting RFPs for legal services to be considered at a later meeting of council. So Rachel had posted an RFP for uh consideration of uh rep someone representing us for our legal services. It's Peter right now. Peter also will be involved in that and as a someone we consider in that. This is part of an overall review that you're doing that Rachel has wanted to do of all of our consultants.

All of our [clears throat] contracts. Yeah. contracted consultants starting with legal not in any particular order for any particular reason just was the first one that that you chose to address. So have you it's already been posted. You've already received correct and you're [clears throat] just want us to acknowledge receipt. Are you going to provide us with cop? What what's the next step? I guess

well the way I different communities do it different ways. So you can we could have the entire board review the contracts and then meet with the attorneys separately and decide that way and then just bring it to a board meeting and vote or we can have all the attorneys come and present to the board and the community can see all of that happen. That's so that's up to you.

Can I suggest why doesn't can HR committee and legal committee both come with a recommendation and then if it's the same recommendation so that way the whole board doesn't need to review all the RFPs, right? Because shouldn't legal be involved and shouldn't HR be involved? I'm just We would do that if you wanted to break it out into two stages and have a vetting process from the subcommittee or from the subcommittee and then bring it to the body as a whole if you've already I mean we're only we've posted the what the need is.

Well, you bring your recommendation to those two committing. Yeah. And then HR provide each of us with a copy of the our of each of the proposals. Mhm. We would review it. We would each come up with our own idea of who we liked. We would start with who your recommendation is. That's consistent with what we liked. Then that would be an easy that would make it easiest.

Um if who you're suggesting and a lot of us are suggesting are not the same, that's when discussions come. And before we make a decision, we can then ask either all or one or more of the applicants to come and address us. And we're not hiring an employee.

So, [clears throat] we're not bound by the same types of equality as we are when we're hiring a contractor. So, if we get six proposals and there's only three that we'd like to find more information on, then we could invite those three to come to a meeting and tell us about themselves, answer questions, and then take action then or at a later date. Okay. So let's uh [clears throat] I mean as far as today we can move to accept all the RFPs that have been received and ask Rachel to circulate those to each of us in a communication.

Is it I was just thinking is it more efficient for her to get two recommendations than seven? like this is the legal committee's recommendation and this is the HR committee's recommendation and then if that you know what he means that way you don't have seven voices but you have two and I'm not on either committee so like I'm happy to be out of it but I'm just saying like HR has decided that this is their candidate legal has decided this is her candidate and then Rachel has her candidate and if it's all three literally between those two committees it's six of the seven of us

that's what I mean but for her to what if then she has seven different I'm thinking of her if her burden of managing our selections and then being efficient. If legal can decide on one and HR can decide on one, then she only has to juggle two recommendations as opposed to seven. And that's fine. I'm just saying we could all come up with Well, I guess the question is, are we making recommendations to her or is she making a recommendation to us for us to approve? which is which is the order.

Well, it's the council's legal counsel and it's your legal counsel. So, I think council needs to make a recommendation to her and then she has a recommendation for herself and then if that lines up cuz this person would serve as our council like Peter does. So, they have to have like administrative background for all right so let me try I understand what you're saying. So send the resumes the I'm sorry the proposals to all of us legal committee meets reviews them and between the three members of legal committee a recommendation of which firm and then the personnel committee do the same thing and then you have two recommendations. Is she is what what and then what if her she could have a third recommendation.

Exactly. And then we come back to council as a whole and say Rachel is suggesting this individual firm legal committee's suggesting this one personnel is suggesting this one. It would be ideal if they were all the same. Exactly. But then you work on aligning those three as opposed to aligning seven. And if you were doing a technical evaluation panel for a procurement, you'd have three people on a technical evaluation panel. So like three opinions is normally

again if if personnel committee can figure out the time to you know get it posted and schedule a meeting and do it and legal committee can do the same. We have no urgency here. Do committees meetings have to be posted? They do. They are. So, we just haven't been doing that, right? And they're open to the public. Okay. So, this is a new thing that Well, Franklin hasn't done. It depends what committee you're talking about. Legal committee, it's always posted because it's a standing committee. But the other

infrastructure at least any time that I've been involved in an infrastructure committee the last goound they were all posted by finance hasn't been posted and HR is not posted right but I asked for No I agree I rather them be posted we just HR committee the all the interviews and everything were posted I just think we're a little irre we're more irregular than we should be regardless let's just set that aside we could be better right and moving forward. We're all on notice that we need to post. Yeah. I mean, I didn't even know about some of the finance committee meetings, so I know they weren't posted. I [snorts] don't think they were either. I agree with you. They should all be posted.

All right. So, just lost track of where we were at. So about who's doing the inter like what is are we setting a date that you want recommendations back to Rachel. What I was saying was we don't have urgency. We have an attorney. I if we've ever needed an outside attorney on a specific subject matter, we've been dealing with that. So it isn't like we're operating without a village attorney right now. Right. So, yeah, if if you what do you think is an appropriate time period? I mean, legal committee, we're meeting again, right,

the first Monday of the month like we always do. So, we'll just cover it at our next legal committee meeting. So, the three of you that are on the personnel committee, you'll need to get together and but if you have an idea of right now, if you think the three of you could get together in the course between now and the next legal committee meeting which is the first Monday of February so that by between the legal committee and our next council meeting Rachel has each of the groups recommendations otherwise we won't be taking action on it in f February it'll be in March so if you guys are saying on personnel committee you think you'll beyond whatever that is. In fact, whatever our legal committee meeting is in that week of

Rachel, everyone would all of council though should see all the RFPs. So, they can like review them before the meeting. So, the meeting can be 10 minutes for personnel just to decide, right? And we should also see the RFPs to make sure there's no conflict. Rachel's going to circulate them to all of us so that we all have them. Our two committees that we're talking about are made up of literally five of I'm sorry, six of the seven of us. Who's the only person that's you're the only person that's not on either of those and you'll get it to do your own review. Well, just so there's no conflict of interest,

right? No. So, yeah, legal committee will have a recommendation to Rachel by the week of Oh, there's February. The week of February 2nd. Legal committee meets on February 2nd. We Our next council meeting is February 9th. If the personnel committee could have something to Rachel by February 4th or February 5th, that would give Evan and Rachel enough time to put the recommendations into a packet and be in the council packet for February. You don't necessarily have to take action, but if we have all the if we know we can have all that information by then, then we have a date set. If you're saying not enough time, let's just plan on being having it done in March, then we'll we'll plan accordingly.

We can do that. Yeah. Because again, we're we're fortunate. We are we have a set date, so we know when we're meeting you guys have to coordinate it and if if you're comfortable that you can get it done in the next three weeks, we should be okay. Yeah, seems reasonable. I believe in us.

Okay, cool. All right. So, let's [snorts] shoot to get stuff to uh recommendation from each of those committees to Rachel by February 5th. All right. So, um we have a couple reports that we need to get to. We are we need to go into close session because our attorney has written us an attorney client privilege communication discuss procedural process of agenda formation and public comment. So I what I put together I put together today and it is more my edification and from what I've experienced in the bit of time I've been on council and been on legal committee. Do we need the question is do you guys want to deal with this today being that I didn't even send this out until earlier today and let's just table this item and discuss it in February and give everybody an opportunity to review this come up with their own thoughts. I I I have no you know

Yeah. So uh I read through it a couple of thoughts is I I agree with that. I'm also wondering again not to Hey, people committee is very popular tonight, but is this something that would appropriately the the people committee could review? Debbie was trying to offload her on one.

If not, I'm happy to go through and make my edits directly to this and then come back. But I think the material thing that we need to leave this conversation with is when we want to put something onto the agenda for just best practices. I know that previously we've stated to get it to Evan before the legal committee uh agenda is set. That goes out typically at Friday. However, we want to give Evan bake time. So, I don't want to say the Friday before the Monday that we do the legal committee uh meeting. I would prefer for us to say whether it be Wednesday or Tuesday. That way, we're giving Evan sufficient time.

I I agree with that. That's unfortunately practices have eaten away at that. So, what I wrote in here was to be a little even more [snorts] flexible, but you're right. We should eliminate that flexibility and it should be a little more rigid short of an emergency so that Evan does not have to be scrambling on a Friday when he's trying to go home to put together a bunch of stuff that he just received that day. Correct. So yes, I agree. If in part of this we set an earlier deadline on when things should be submitted

for something that you want to get on the agenda ahead of time, it doesn't fall in this emergency category. doesn't fall into the oh, we just found out about it. It's just something we've been working on and we want to get in front of council, then yes, I agree with you that Evan and and the administration should have more than just Friday to try and pull that together. So, sorry. No. And then there was just a couple other things reading through this quickly, but do we want to table this? Yes. No, I'm not going to say anything. Yes. No, that's what I'm suggesting, which is since we just got it Yes. I'm just gonna Can you send it to Evan to send to us in Word so we can track change it? Oh, you did earlier today. I didn't check it.

Um, so Evan, how much time do you typically need? If you got it by Thursday, it'll be all right. Okay. So, we'll set it the Thursday before the legal meeting. Okay.

Okay. Uh so council reports [clears throat] uh I only have one thing and I was asked by a resident as well as uh former trustee Seltzer himself and I would have done this on my own. I just want to acknowledge that uh it was it was addressed at a couple meetings. Uh a resident of the village filed a formal complaint, a campaign finance complaint against former trustee Saltzer that resulted in an investigation by the Michigan Bureau of Elections. And Mike provided me with a copy that the copy of the letter that he received from the Michigan Department of State's Bureau of Elections that the complaint that was uh filed against him had been refuted with sufficient evidence and was dismissed by the department with no further enforcement action. And so I just wanted to clarify the record on that that um former trustee Saltzer had been cleared of any wrongdoings with regard to his last campaign election. And outside of that, I do not have anything else to report. So any other trustees? Oh, hold on. Go ahead. Let's do our reports and then we got to come back to an item. I forgot about our bank letter, but do uh any other council members want to make any comments?

Yeah, the um I want to follow up from uh a comment or I guess a question that was offered in public comment last week that we then responded to last week. Last month,

last month. Thank you. Um, and our response is actually incorrect in the sense of it was uh Joan who had previously asked about whether or not golf carts can be driven within the village. Um, and our response was no from top of mind of what the conversation has been around golf carts. However, golf carts can be licensed as a motor motor vehicle. And so if somebody did see a golf cart within the community, there is a chance that it could in fact be a legally registered vehicle. Eric, it would have to have a license plate, I would assume, in their ATV. They can be registered with the state. Yep. So there are several.

So if you saw someone driving a golf cart, you should be able to go to behind their golf cart and see whether or not they had a license.

That I'm not sure of. I just know that. So for instance, the exception that we previously were asked to look at was for was to avoid the registration process within the state. It's basically that you just what there are certain parameters that have to be bent. One of them is that they can't exceed a certain miles per hour. However, a lot of times people will remove the govern off of a a golf cart so that it can exceed that speed limit. Um, and then often times those are registered. Whether or not the state of Michigan requires a license plate to be put on it, I don't know what registration looks like. I don't know what the license plate would look like. Um, in South Dakota, typically ATVs had a license plate that would be the size of a a little over a driver's license.

So, if we don't have an ordinance that prohibits it or permits it, Mhm. Can someone do it based on just the state law or Yeah, they can do it if they followed the registration requirement. Correct. Correct. Okay. That's why when the discussion came up, it was like if we regulate it, we actually have greater control than if we don't. So again, if you have any type of vehicle that state correct, secretary of state was willing to register. Yep. Then you can operate it on the streets and that's correct. subject to whatever laws there are. There are state laws on it, speed limits, types of roads and things like that.

But despite the fact that we never chose to regulate it or prohibit it, then leaves it into just sort of the whatever the regular domain is, whatever the regular interesting. Okay. [snorts] Even though all the roads in Franklin are owned by the village, we we have we still correct because to the state. Okay. when they're public roads because again it's not that we're defaulting to the it's just a motor vehicle. Yeah. Right. It's we're not defaulting to the state law. It's just a motor vehicle. What we were previously looking at is an exception built within state law.

Right. And the state law decides what are the requirements for any type of motor vehicle including a golf cart. So the state would say you have to have windshield, you have to have this, you have to have rearview mirrors, you have to have turn signals. The state law would govern. We're not in the equation because we chose not to be in the equation, but there is still a standard out there. That's correct. That somebody would have to follow. Okay. It's good to know. Okay. Uh

so anyone else with council reports or comments? I I've got a really quick one. Um I'm uh I was the one that was working with John and and David to set up the Main Street thing. When do you want to do that? Do you want to try and squeeze it in to January sometime? Well, if we're now going to treat the priorities as its own dedicated date. Mhm. Do we do want to can we try and do the 5:00 workshop next February next month?

Can I make a can I make a separate suggestion so that we're avoiding the earlier time is we do have baked into our agendas a Main Street slot. And so his slide was not that long. It's not going to take an hour. It's not going to take a half hour. I think that if we just slot him into a presentation for our meeting, we're better off than moving it to a five. All right. So then as we set the agenda for next month, let's be cognizant of the fact that we could have a 45minut presentation in the middle there.

Be can we tell them like 20 minutes? He he built a 20 minute presentation based on feedback from this group that we had an hour and he and and that he he built a 20 minute to accommodate what pro likely would be 40 minutes of questions. So, I'm happy to pass on or ask Rachel to pass on any parameters that you want, but that was the rationale behind the Should we wait to to see what Headway Rachel and Evan make with Main Street? doing

I don't think so because in my mind uh the existence of Oakland County and the information that they're going to provide to us is completely separate and a part of I'm not expecting John to present on our main street. Correct. Right. Yeah. John was supposed to be as we said taking us back to the beginning. Yeah. and explaining to us the the goals and purposes of Main Street, how Franklin got involved way back in the day, what the objective was, what the plan was back then, probably two seconds of his opinion on how well we've failed or succeeded in that, and then for us to decide how we want to have Main Street exist moving forward.

Yeah. Well, that second part, we won't know until we get a recommendation. No, no. Yeah. And that's not this first part. This first part is more was supposed to be an educational tool. And if getting here at 5 is a problem and staying here a little longer and starting at six is what everyone prefers, then I'm fine with that. Yeah. I mean, getting here at 5 [clears throat] is not easy. So, uh, okay. So, what's the answer? The answer is you're going to reach out to John and see if he can just be at our committee reports at our meeting next month. Okay. And just just build bake it into the meeting itself.

Correct. Now, we might move him up to here so he doesn't have to wait till the end. But not anything just basically be here for six instead of be here for five. Okay. Yeah. Be here for six. Okay. Yeah. That work for you? Not okay. Uh, anyone else? If not, Rachel, do you have anything? Oh, no. I'm sorry. You guys had stuff on my I just wanted to give a shout out that the fire and ice event is happening at the Franklin Library. Oh, no.

And that's going to be January 31st from 2:00 to 4:00. It's a nice event. I was there with my family last year. There was a entertaining fire dancer and you could watch live ice sculptures happening. And last but not least, hot chocolate. That's right. So 2:00. Very tasty hot chocolate. So 4:00 on you say January 31st. That's Saturday 31st. And where is this at? On the library. Oh, at the library. Just outside at the library. They don't actually have fire in the library to be clear. [laughter] That's good to know. Thank you for accommodating that. Perfect. Okay,

I'll go. Um, do you have anything else, Dan? Um, just wanted to welcome Trustee King to his first meeting. Um, I was going to mention the fire and ice thing and then also recognize Martin Luther King Day next Monday obviously um very important holiday um celebrating diversity, inclusivity and um equal rights and the office will be closed in observance of Martin Luther King Day. Um, so thank you everyone that continues to wave the flag of inclusivity and equal rights and um recognize that it was a hard fight for that to occur.

Absolutely. Thank you. I'll just say appreciate the opportunity to work here and uh build Franklin to be, you know, continually a wonderful place and appreciate how I've been welcomed and um glad to be a part and look forward to my appointment. Excellent. Glad to have you here. Rachel, you got anything? I don't have anything else to add. Okay. Anybody committee reports? We will have lots from the people committee very soon.

Perfect. All right. So, I apologize. We skipped Teresa's bank letter. So, uh, Teresa and Rachel have presented us with a letter that would be written by Teresa

to First Merchants Bank um, advising them and authorizing them to remove me as a signer on the bank account and to replace me with Rachel Lacan, our village administrator. And together with this letter and copy of our minutes, Teresa can send that to the bank and they will make the the switch. These are the one, two, there should be nine here, right? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Yep. We have nine bank accounts. And that's the purpose of this letter. Anybody [snorts] have any questions for either Teresa or Rachel? All right. Having no comments. Uh if we can get a motion to uh to I guess what it would be approve the first merchants bank letter written by Teresa Jablonsky and authorize her to submit it to the bank to change the village signer.

So moved. Second. Motion by Sally, second by um King. [laughter] Sorry about that, Jeeoff. No problem. A little brain cramp there. Uh second by King. Further discussion. All in favor? I opposed. All right, Teresa. Have at it. Let us know. Well, you're going to sign it, so you don't need anyone to do that. So, okay. Yep.

I perfect. That is the end of the agenda. Uh the council is now going to move into a closed session. Uh our village attorney has advised us that he has a written communication that he needs to present to us and we need to go into committee to discuss it. Uh we will adjourn the meeting. Just so everybody knows the meeting is going to get adjourned immediately after the close session. There'll be no more no more business being taken. So you won't miss anything if you

or does it have to be by the chair to enter into close? You can do it. You can a motion to enter into close session. Okay, I'll second the motion. Yeah. Motion and then I'll move motion by King. Second by Salaka. Further discussion. Should I move to adjourn this meeting or not? I will adjourn. Okay. Uh all in favor going into close session. I opposed.