Council - Regular Meeting

I'm going to call to order the Monday, March 9th, 2026 regular meeting of the village of Franklin Council. Could you do the pledge please 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. Evan, roll call, please. David Goldberg, present. Hans here. Present.

Jeffrey King here. Thank you. Uh any comments on the agenda before we adopt it?

Anything. We get a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Motion by Hansen, second by Gates. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. Three sets of m three sets of minutes. Two from special meeting. Well, I'm sorry. The closed minutes are in your envelope. Yep. Let's start with the regular meeting of February 9th. Anybody have any comments? No. No. You got a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Second.

Motion by Sally, second by Gates. All in favor? I opposed. Motion carries. Uh, our close session minutes of February 9th. Also, any comments? I get a motion to approve. Moved. Second. Motion by Gates, second by King. All in favor? I opposed. Motion carries. Last our special meeting of February 10th. Anybody have comments? No comments.

All right. I'll entertain a motion. Motion to approve the minutes from the special meeting. Second. Motion by King, second by Gates. All in favor? I opposed. Motion carries. Public comments. So, uh, anybody in the audience who would like to address council? Uh, if it's something not on the agenda, feel free. Welcome. Nice to see you.

Hi, Daniel Rosenberg. Live on Dennis. I've been meaning to come here. It's been a while since we got our new stop signs. I just wanted to show gratitude and appreciation for the council, Chief Lawson, for getting those up. It's been so helpful. It was like such a It's crazy because like I'm on Ramsey and Dennis and we go down Dennis one way and it's safe and then Ramsezy we had such an issue with people flying by our neighbors, delivery people and everyone else. Um, and getting those stop sign made a world of a difference. So, I just wanted to I've been just meaning to come just to like show gratitude and be really thankful and just like it got me thinking. I have three young kids. Uh, it's not just about families like me. It's about like creating more safety in the village, um, pedestrian areas. And I think making these type of improvements makes such a world of a difference. So, I'm really grateful that you guys prioritized this. I know some of these things take a while, but I feel like it took a while and then when it was happening, it happened and the stop signs popped up. Um, so again, just, you know, prioritizing things in the village that focus on safety for families, pedestrians, people, walking dogs, you know, is just so important and crucial. And I feel like this is emblematic of something like that. So, again, thank you for the fifth time. I'm very grateful for

Thank you for letting us know. We appreciate that. Mr. Simon, everybody, I'm John Simon of 30320 Karten.

Um because the present Franklin Council, you guys have decided not to develop a code of ethics and whereas 22 other surrounding communities already have one. A group of concerned villagers has decided to take on the job declined by the council. The people making up this group include Franklin residents who are concerned about the character of Franklin and those who represent it. This group will develop their own code of ethics which they will eventually which will eventually be presented to the village in an unfinished form. They will ask for further input from interested residents and will welcome for consideration additions, subtractions, and modifications. The comments and suggested changes will be considered in the formation of the final document. This completed document will then be available for all the village to read and will be hope and will hopefully serve as guidance for village organizations including the village council and and administration to help them in their day-to-day uh actions and decision-making. It is hoped that this will encourage everyone to act more ethically and will and and with greater responsibility and integrity. It will not serve to punish but will be used to commend good behavior and to criticize poor unethical behavior. The purpose of a code of ethics is to strengthen the trust and effectiveness of our local government. Ethical standards will help promote civility, respect, and professionalism amongst the council and staff. It is about correcting. It isn't about correcting past behavior. It is about building a foundation for trust, fairness, and accountability while going forward. The code will also ensure that Franklin will be known for its good government and civic pride. Although this group

Although this group recognizes that the code will not be sanctioned by the village council, it is hoped that the council will agree with most of what is proposed and see the benefits that can be derived from adopting it. if they and if they choose if they choose uh it is they're welcome to use the this this code that we've developed uh as a foundation for creating their own code of ethics. Finally, I ask why wouldn't any village government welcome a code of ethics? In conclusion, I quote Bert Wood, Franklin's first historian and greatgrandson of Daniel Wood, who was the third person to settle in Franklin. He said, "We who now live in Franklin must accept the responsibility of being both the caretakers and of the past and the authors of its future." Thank you.

Thanks, John. Anybody else? Okay. Uh then to close public comments, reports of village officers. Let's start with Chief Lawson.

Hello, sir. I believe all of you have reviewed the monthly report for February. Uh you might have noticed that traffic citations and traffic warnings are up substantially. That's probably due to the warm weather and the officers like to get out of their cars a little bit more. And then also we uh we did a lot of community engagement which I always encourage our officers to do. We had the Birmingham Youth Assistance Dog Show. Uh we were at Bingham Farms quite a bit doing lockdown drills. also a ribbon cutting ceremony and then we had several officers who participated in the Special Olympics Polar Plunge. So that was kind of the highlights for February and then I believe all of you got the annual report and I'm sure you love the officers showing up at your house.

Love it. My daughter love it. Any questions? Sure. Not a question, a comment. Um, uh, Officer Dones develop delivered my, uh, annual report and I really liked the format. I, it was less focused on statistics, right, and more focused on um, allowing us to get to know our PD. I hope that you can make that report widely available. Um, I really liked it and had a chance to talk with her about it. Good.

Thank you. I know Evan is going to put it on our website and also in the newsletter a link and obviously Stephanie uh our executive assistant over there um she did that report a little bit of my input but she did all the the heavy lifting so and the idea is to kind of humanize the badge a bit with this annual report so I think we we did that great are great helpful thank you thanks chief good evening

um you've all received my written report, electronic written report, whatever it is. But, uh, if there's any questions, I'll answer. But, I just unfortunately want to put a a little bit of a temper on this wonderful day we're having because it's going to be snowing potentially later this week. So, just wanted to let everyone know that although it's 72 degrees and shorts and short sleeve shirts are wonderful, um, don't forget about inclement weather and preparedness. Uh we're getting into we are approaching uh severe weather awareness week which will take place next month. Uh we'll be starting off with the uh severe weather siren testings on the first Saturday of the month. Uh the one that was supposed to take place last week was cancelled because of the actual inclement weather that we uh we were experiencing. So uh while we relish the good times, please prepare for the not so good. Uh pending your questions. That'll conclude my report. Anybody?

Thank you. And Tony.

Okay, we have four items on the consent agenda. Uh monthly check run. the temporary contract for uh our treasurer finance director who's working on Fridays and then the approval of the library director contract itself and then the contract between the village and the library board with regard to leasing the library director. Uh all of the contracts were included in our packets. Anybody have any questions that would want to take it off? Otherwise, um, all we need is a motion to approve the consent agenda.

I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. I'll second, but I have a question. A motion by Hansen, second by Salaka. What's the question? Um, the term is postdated by over two weeks. Is that going to be an effective contract for Linda Vance? Yeah. Is it fine? Yeah. Okay. Okay. I just want to make sure it doesn't nullify anything. Okay.

All right. No further comments. All in favor of uh approving the consent agenda as presented say I. I opposed. Right. Motion carries. We have a presentation from Oakland County Health Network supervisors and co-responders. So, I'm excited to have our friends at Oakland Community Health Network here today. Um, my good friend Hillary Nosbomb is the uh co-responder supervisor here in Oakland County. And then we have our co-responder Kimberly Craig Craig Heg Craig Head. And I will Kim. Yes. I will uh pass it over to you guys. All right. Thank you.

Um Kim is going to pass along our PowerPoint presentation in case you guys want to take any notes or have any questions. Um and we'll kind of go from there.

Um so we did a little PowerPoint just to kind of intro you to the co-responder team. Obviously, you've met Kim. Um this is a little bit of an outdated picture. We need to update it, but um currently we have um 10 co-responders um here in Oakland County. Um and we um are embedded within 20 police departments in Oakland County. So you can go ahead and hit the next one. Um a little bit about OCN. We are um community based uh local public mental health system um that manages um support and services to persons with serious mental illness, emotional disturbances, um intellectual developmental disabilities, infant mental health, and then substance use disorders. Um, so most people who receive services through Oakland County's mental health system um have Medicaid coverage or no insurance. So we help people get connected to Medicaid insurance if they are not already connected. You can go ahead to the next one. Um, and then here's another like a little collage for you of some of our co-responders. Um, down here we have Kim. You can recognize the face. Um, and then again just some of us um, you know, we have changed colors uh, throughout as we've morphed into the program. We've been, you know, going for probably about 5 years and we started in green and now we're in blue. Um, so that's our that's a little bit about um us and you can go ahead to the next page. Um, I'll turn this over to you.

Do you want me to go over like you already kind of went over that?

Okay. So, um, our clinicians from OCN are embedded into the police departments it itself. So I am personally my my desk is located in West Bloomfield but I come out and visit and stay and dispatch to Franklin as well. Um we aim to just partner with our police. The benefit to having me into the police department is we have OCN network uh partnerships. So when I come in contact with families, I'm able to connect them with any resources um through OCN that they might need. case management, therapists, um like Hillary said, um Medicaid coverage, therapeutic groups. Um there are some of the main ones I miss.

That's you go for the next one too. Okay.

Um so essentially how this works is um I have a radio. I listen for the calls to come out. anything pertaining to a mental health substance call um mental health substance um fatalities family troubles um suicidal ideation any types of those calls I will self-dispatch and I will meet the officers on location and then kind of get a debrief from the officers and then I will enter um the scene once it's safe to do so and then I begin my interactions um with that person or family from there I can also offer followup. So, I do a lot of stuff on the back end as well. Oh, sorry.

That's okay.

So, I'll go to this in a second. Um, but I do a lot of like backend stuff, too. So, let's say the family does identify that they need Medicaid. Um, I will then later on that day go with the agent, connect to the agency that they're going to be using, give them the heads up that this family is coming or calling, let them know what they're going to be asking for, and then I assist that family with either finding ways to get there or ensuring that they get there. Um, so on scene, again, I will help with deescalation, suicide assessments. I help the officers with petitions. So let's say we do have a suicidal um individual, we will go to the hospital together um and then I will walk through the petition um with the officers um or if we have if an individual has like a frequent amount of calls um they can petition and I will go to the courthouse and pick up the order for the officers and then we will go and complete that petition order as well. Um again providing lots of resources to our families. Um, and even if it's not through OCN, let's I had this in Franklin, um, maybe a couple weeks ago. Um, I had a kiddo that could really, he already had a therapist, but he was lacking support um, within the school day. So, I help the family connect with their social worker at school to make sure he's supported during the school day as well. Um, so even if it's not in our network, I can still help facilitate any support that they need. Um, assist at fatalities. Um, so a lot of times at a fatality, um, our officers have a lot of jobs to do. Um, so I kind of take over with the grieving family. I offer them support. I want to know stories. They'll show me pictures, um, carry box of tissues, but a lot of consoling. So that way the officers are able to conduct their investigations, contact the me, um, and do what they need to do. Um and then from that I can even maintain contact with those families,

grief counseling. Um if they need further um assistance as well, I can uh facilitate that. Um again, linkage to the crisis and support treatment providers. Um consult with the hospital and crisis providers. So um within our system, I'm able to see like let's say one of our residents already has an OCN case, but we keep coming in contact. I can reach out to like a fellow co-orker and go, you know, I've kind of had contact with this person about four times over the past two weeks. I'm really concerned. I feel like we're missing something. Um because we keep going out and then we can link up and collaborate on next steps for that person. Um if I'm not on scene, um detectives might have somei some cases where I would need to follow up. Um, I just had one where they the family was dealing with um an online security issue with their 11-year-old. So, I walked the family on like internet safety for their child um and helped identify like safety apps for them. Um, dementia, homelessness, um, APS. So for those types of services, um housing or shelters, we we do a lot of searching and calling, a lot of calling to find shelters for those in need. Um same with dementia care, the long-term care providers, um getting in contact with them. Um I've had made APS and CPS calls um as well and then again following up with it with their foster care worker, let's say. So, I have had that as well. Um, and a lot of follow-up calls with the family's individuals. So, even if it's just like the next day, I will call that person to see how the night went. So, I had like a teen who was kind of living on their own at the age of 18 and their parents just kind of washed their hands of them, which obviously is a really upsetting

scenario, and the kid felt really lonely. So, I then facilitate just follow-up calls. What do you need? Do do you have groceries? Do you need um help getting uh food benefits? So just checking in on her just to make sure she's doing well from the the previous crisis the night before. Um general coordination um obtain pickup orders from court.

Um also I will support the officers. So with this profession they're exposed to a lot of trauma um a lot of significant um scenes. So I'm there to help them too. So, even if it's just to help in a debriefing process, um, or just, hey, just want to check in. That was a really tough call. Where are we all at with our headsp space? Um, just kind of being a support for our officers, um, as well. Here in Franklin, I've spent, um, time doing ride alongs with the officers. Um, just to get to know them, how law enforcement um, and our city in Franklin um, functions and just the area. Um, I've been very um I feel very honored to be able to be a part of the Franklin community um and work with our our chief and officers.

Thank you.

And we have a couple we have a little bit of data for you. Um obviously Kim is fairly new so we don't have a ton but you can go ahead and go to the next slide. Um we wanted to give you guys since you're newer to the initiative just sort of get an opportunity to see the number of referrals by our fiscal year where we started. Um at the at the initiation of this program in 2021 there was only three police agencies that were on board. Um that began at after training like in September. So right at the edge of our fiscal year ending. So we really had a month before the end of our fiscal year in 2021. So you can see that number is low. It was about 32 referrals. Um in 2022 we were up to six police agencies. We had 712 referrals um overall from our um police agencies. Um and then in 2023, yeah, 2023 still had six, but you can see that number jump um quite a bit. And then we moved up to 11 in 2024 um in 2200 roughly um referrals. And then in 2025 we got to 16. And that number obviously increased um dramatically um from our police departments. These are the number of referrals and um onseen um calls that we go to. And then um you know, we're we're still within like the first um I guess we're into our second quarter now of fiscal year, but that's why we're low. But now we're up to 20 agencies um with the addition of you guys and our our contract um with with these four agencies. So, we're excited to see where that number goes. But you can see that we've really grown um and we are are we're busy. We'll just say that. Um so you can go ahead and go to the next slide. Um so for Bingham Farms um and Franklin um Orchard Lake, Sven Lake, and West Bloomfield, you can kind of see um the combined referrals since um Kim began. So um these are broken down by jurisdictions. So you can see like where the the bulk of, you know, the calls are coming from, which is Westlandfield. And then March, we really only had, you know, stats for the first week when we

did this PowerPoint. So it's low right now, but we expect that to go up. Let me go ahead. And then finally, I'm gonna kind of step over here. Um, some of the outcomes. We think this is a really important thing for you guys to see is what does Kim actually do, right? Like when she goes to the scene. So, you can see by looking at this graph, um, there's a lot of attempts to make contacts with individuals. That might be phone call, that might be showing up at the house, you know, if they're home, if they're not home. Um it's um you know giving out community resources um making referrals to our access department to get people connected to resources. Um you know talking to the our one uh provider. So if we notice that someone is open in our in our system then we we're going to reach out to that provider or like a case manager and ask them or let them know what's going on. So we're constantly trying to make those connections. Um, so you can kind of see all the different ways that we're trying to um, you know, provide resources within the community um, so far. So it's a it's yeah, it's a great number of things. Um, we can go ahead to the next one. That's it. Um, does anybody have any questions for us?

Yeah. So the upside here is that by providing more specialized care here, it deescalated situations and we stop short of perhaps like incarceration and instances where someone might need specialized mental health care instead. So yes, is that the Did you want to answer? Yes. So um the goal is to really take those frequent flyers too and really see a decrease with those mental health services that we can put into place. um we know they're not going to go away, but at least if we can decrease them um is our overall goal.

Yeah. So, and what to your point, jail diversion is one of those goals for sure. Um if there's any way that we can turn what would be like a misdemeanor into getting them mental health treatment instead, that's what we'll do, you know, like and so a lot of that is the relationship that we establish with our police departments. So, do we have any data around how many like um scenarios have been we've gotten to the stage where we've avoided jail time for instance or that we've deescalated and

Yes. So, I mean jail diversion includes like a lot of like when when we're able to go to a scene, deescalate and leave them at home, that's considered jail diversion, right? Because they're they're not going to the next place. even even if we can keep them from going to the hospital or being involuntarily transported somewhere, um that is a win for us and that's considered like you know being able to kind of divert away from that system if you will. Um so knowing exactly like the number of people that would be going to jail per se, not so much, but we do have like data on a lot of the other ways that we're able to keep them sort of out of the system. Did that that previous slide Do you mind going?

Yeah. So effectively we're looking or I guess I just am wondering like are we tracking outcomes on this is just for this group up top. Yes. Um I guess it's kind of hard with small sample sizes but like you had 5,000 or whatever from 2025. Mhm. Do you bucket that in any way or just building on Aby's point like how much

we we we keep track of like all that data um cumulatively like throughout all of our 20 departments and then we can break it down however you know we want to. So um one of the things that we always offer our chiefs especially when we have our monthly meetings is if there's certain data points that they need um and they want to bring back to you we can definitely do that. Um so if there's certain like data points that you're looking for by all means. Yeah. Just curious on effectiveness. I mean, I think it seems great, right? Just would like to know how it's working over time. Sure. Yeah. At what point um in your relationship with a client does it does your involvement end? How and how does it end? Typically,

yeah, that can be case by case. It just depends on the situation. So, um I usually even if I'm on scene, I will still always try to do a follow-up call the next day. Okay. Some cases can just be more um severe. I don't know if that's a or acute where it might be it might require a little bit longer of work. Um but it really doesn't go past it's very short term so it usually doesn't go past like a week or two. Yeah. Um but sometimes that might be a frequent flyer. So although I might close it um I anticipate maybe a future call later down the road. But that's the goal is also trying to prevent that. But just on like what they need it can take a little bit longer. We the sorry go ahead.

No go ahead. I'm I was just gonna say um our our job is sort of to be like a liaison between people and getting connected with community you know mental health support. So it's really like we're acting in acute crisis situations just like police. So we're in a sense like sort of the the mental health side of police. Yeah. Um where we go and like help deescalate those situations, get people those resources and then we have to keep going because you can see like the numbers. if she were to carry a case load, it would be nearly impossible um for her to do her job. So, um it's yeah, some some cases last a little bit longer than others depending on what's going on, but yeah, depends. Thanks. I know there's a couple hands. You had something?

Um to Jeff's point and Trustee Gates, um maybe next year some of this data and statistics could be in the police report, your annual report. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. and work with Stephanie because I think and he's like Google Analytics so he'll tell you every KPI that he wants to see but um I think this would be really good for our residents to see.

Yeah. And usually um we provide quarterly reports too um to chief and so he can you know as you wish uh provide this to the council but that's really exactly what we do is we provide quarterly reports so you guys can see that. Um we also do like a newsletter um for your four jurisdictions. So that goes out to like the officers because one of the things we've noticed is that officers don't end up hearing a lot of like the the followup that Kim does and doesn't hear a lot of like what happens behind the scenes. So we really want like we created a newsletter specifically to go out to like um our law enforcement like officers who are on the road. So um two questions. So you've been around for five years this this um entity. How was it done before? And then the second question is for anyone who's listening to this, um, citizens would never reach out to you directly. If they need any sort of help, they're reaching out to their respective police departments and they're then directed to you. Is that correct? Okay.

Yes. So, when I'm not on scene, so if there's a call that has come in where they think that this person or family could use some assistance with me, they put in a referral. It comes directly to me like that night or the minute that they put it in. And then the next coming day, I reach out and begin my efforts to get them whatever that they need. The police put in the referrals just to make you want people to like, oh, you're um the officers can also give them my direct number, too. So, okay. They're kind of making sure it's like twofold. So, they'll get my information, but then the officers will submit that referral.

Got it. And how was this done before? So, was there any did this kind of support exist for police departments prior to 5 years ago? Um, are you talking about like in our county or just like anywhere? In our county, just

in No, not in our county. So, I was actually the first correspond hired within our county back in 2021. And I had um Auburn Hills, Bloomfield Township, and um Oh my gosh. Oh, Birmingham, city of Birmingham. Um, and so I was responding to those three. Um, it was a I I laugh because like, you know, it was kind of like we hit the ground running and it's like we're we're just going to see how this goes, you know, like we're gonna we're going to figure this out together and we've put a lot in place. We put a lot of like safety trainings in place and a lot of um, you know, we've built stuff up quite a bit. So, now we have like a whole protocol that we put our new co-responders through to make sure they're safe. Um, when they start, we want our officers to feel like they're not going to be a huge liability on a scene. So they're trained by their law enforcement partners. Um they go through their own sort of FTO um training process. Um that's for them. But yeah, before 5 years ago, we didn't have anything. I mean, we had other like mental health supports. We had community mental health. We we still had OCN, but not any kind of co-response program. We did have jail diversion that was still going on, but it wasn't people going out with police like this.

Would you be involved in domestic assaults situations? Yes. Yes. As long as it's safe. So, those tend to have like a high safety risk. So, um I will go on those and I just I wait for the I'll clear and then I go in. Okay. Thanks. So, all the follow-up work that you're doing and the wonderful referrals and as you said, some cases can go on longer than others. Is there a certain point in that follow-up process that the resident begins to get charged? Like how does how does all that work?

I I'll take this one. Um so yes, there is a point where that could happen. It depends really on every department's very different, right? And it's very situational. um if someone is repeatedly, let's say, like misusing 911 and we've put all of our efforts into helping them, like, you know, here's another number, here's an alternative, try 988, try this person, try, you know, um and it still continues to be an issue. Um I've seen some departments like offer charges, but then if it stops, they kind of drop the charges, you know, like at least putting something out there to to sort of be like this has to kind of stop because what our efforts sometimes don't always, you know, unfortunately get to them. So, okay. But in general, it's a county sponsored program and All right, it's great.

Y um what is the relationship that you currently have with the schools?

Okay. So over the over since I've been on board, um I have the school resource officer's information. So, if there's something that I need to like a teacher or a social worker, I will contact the SRO, the school resource officer to find out who that kiddos's um social worker is um to link them up. I've also had like where a school resource officer would contact me like, "Hey, this, you know, I'm a little concerned about this kiddo. You're making statements today. Can you go do a welfare check?" And the officers and I will go out and do a welfare check. Um and then I will follow up to make sure that that kiddo has um an assessment. Thank you.

Thanks. Excellent. All right. Excellent. Thank you so much. No problem. Information is on the back if you guys ever need to get a hold of us. I mean, police departments all over the country are talking about programs like this and you guys are doing it. It's so amazing. Thank you.

Thank you. So, I will say just as a um I've been a social worker for 15 years and when I first learned about co-responding from other states, it was just one of my like dream jobs that I've just because there is such a high need. Um so, kind of anxiously waiting for Oakland County to get it and here I am. So, it's um it was no question. Um so, I'm very excited to have this and excited to be here in Franklin. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. All right, that was informative. That was really great.

All right, we're going to move on to new business. Rachel, you want to take number one or a

Sure. So what this is about is just approving banks that we the administration can use as a depository or as a place to invest surplus funds. So, I did some research, provided it in the packet, and have come up with about five different banks that are all rated A. And I believe they're all national or they are all national banks, but they're all safe banks for us to use. And considering the issue that we had recently, um I think we need to look at our other options.

Okay. So would this mean um all monies that we have in our bank accounts would be shifting over to these or only specific accounts? I would move everything. Okay. So this Oh, sorry. Okay. You go. I'll wait. So this is approving a list but not any specific bank. Correct. yet, right? Everything's where it is now. And if you approve this list, then when I hire the new treasurer or if I do this on my own, I will then already be allowed to choose any one of these that I want or the treasurer wants. There won't we won't bring it back to you again. Is your intention to use one bank? Yes,

just one. Mhm. Uh except for investments. Mhm. but we don't have a lot to invest, so that's not a huge concern of mine at this point. But, um, looking down the road, if we do wind up with some surplus funds, um, that's why like the Oakland County local government investment pool is on here. That's a great place to invest. Um, and each one of these banks has their own bond sales groups, so I can choose from one of those. Does the state of organization impact our rights or liabilities?

No, it does not. No. um any call outs for uh let's call it like cyber security practices andor support within any of these banks like if we are we going to ask any questions around just protection as consumers of these banks as we're deciding which banks or which bank we want to work with we will ask questions of that

yeah I think um okay. So effectively this is basically a a go ahead to give RFP effect to use services and you will you or the treasurer will decide which one you want to go with based on a general understanding that all are rated well. I did not intend to run an RFP process for this. Okay. I would prefer to just meet with the bank to talk to them about their services. Okay. And make our choice that way.

To Trusty Gates point, um I think one of those evaluation criteria should be um multiffactor authentication and enhanced um cyber security protocols, financial obviously internal controls and stuff. How did you get to this n this group? How did you arrive at the six that you're proposing? Oh, well, I used the Robinson Capital website. Okay.

To review banks that are based in Michigan through PA20. We can only invest or we can only put our funds in a bank that's physically in the state of Michigan. So, I used their website to look up banks that were here physically and then check their rating. Okay. Thanks.

Yeah, fully support this. Um, I'm honestly we need to be conscious of their security. Most of them should have similar security and they'd be liable for their own losses from a cyber security event compared to the obligations on us as an internal policy. So, I think one of the things that I would look to um as you're going through the due diligence process is their outline plan for responsiveness. So, less concerned around like do you require MFA? It would be more of a we want to require MFA as an internal policy, how do you support that? And then in the event of a cyber attack, what is your process for responsiveness

for escalation criteria? Yep. disaster recovery protocols. Um, is the HR committee going to be interviewing the treasur candidates? Yes. I thought you were going to ask about the bank and will Aby's reach extend to financial institutions. Unless you want to. I would not take that away from you, Dan. Okay.

More questions? Can we do anything to support on this aside from this discussion, Rachel? Any other

do you do you need a motion? We do. Yes. Yes. See, and there's one right there if you just want to read the bottom. Yeah. I'll move to authorize the village administrator and treasurer to deposit municipal funds into one of these or into these approved institutions and execute all necessary agreements, signature cards and related documents to effectuate such deposits. Second motion by Salaka, second by King. Any further discussion? All in favor? I opposed. All right. Motion carries. Thank you.

Thank you, Rachel.

Thank you, Rachel. All right. Next item is uh this is just a discussion to uh kind of get the dialogue going on whether we're going to consider a police millage uh in the a at the time of the August 26 primary. Uh how do you wanna how do you want to tackle this? We want to just start with generally questions. Uh what Rachel's included is two items. One is Chief Lawson's kind of forecasted budget which goes out almost eight years. Uh and then a chart which describes our current property tax rate situation and well as a comparison to some of our surrounding communities. Right now all of the police expenses for the village of Franklin come from two places. One is a small police millage of 3 802 mills. And I don't know if that's what it's currently or let's see. Okay. So 3802 is what the millillage itself is which expires in 2030. Uh currently with the Headley roll back it's at 3743. So between those three almost 4/10en of a mill

and the entire operating uh budget comes from the general fund which in total for the village of Franklin is only three and a half mills and based upon we don't have this here we've had charts before but the percentage of The police expenses in the general operating fund is over 70%. I'm pretty sure it's not all the way to 80, 60 to 70. Yeah. So what we have to consider is creating the police millillage as its own standalone millillage and not have it coming out of the general operating fund to allow the general operating fund to be used for other purposes and then not have to draw as much out of the general operating fund in order to cover all of our expenses. and then have uh the police's funding the police's funding come from one dedicated spot. And if there are instances where the millage or the millage in a particular year due to extraneous expenses doesn't cover it, the general fund is always there available to help cover. But this would get us uh get the two separated uh similar to some of these other communities. So that's really the discussion uh

to consider that the pension is underfunded. So with the millillage that will open up space in the general fund for us to make additional payments as needed so that the general fund can become more of a as needed.

Mhm. uh fund which would not necessarily require us on an annual basis to max it out because we wouldn't be having it's maxed out every year now because the the police dominates it and doesn't leave very much left over for the rest. We would need obviously financial experts to take chief's budget and what these expenses are as we get five and six years out into the future and how we would set up a police mill. Do we need to set it up so that it's has enough available for the end of its projected life period? In which case, again, until we reach those numbers, you wouldn't have to draw on it all. Or do we shoot more for where we're at around now? And if these costs significantly increase, we'd have to look to other sources. There's also this existing millillage which expires in 2030. Would we keep that in place along with a new millillage or would we create a new millage that would essentially consolidate the two into one? You can basically buy out one with a new one and then take that term out. Right now our millage goes to 2030. We're already in 2026. We probably should be looking at expenses farther out than 3 and four years from now.

For sure. Chief has gone one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, almost eight years out. So those are that's generally what the discussion that has to take place over the course of this month and next month's meetings based on an attempt to have this on a ballot for the residents to consider in August. We would have to have approved ballot language by our May meeting, right? Is that what Dan told us? So Dan, Dan, Dan Kelly.

Oh, okay. At our we we first ran this by him at legal committee and asked some general questions about timing for trying to have this in an August election as opposed to November. So, you're looking for some some decisions tonight? No, no decisions at all. Okay. This is just discussion. Uh, so this is March. Mhm. So, this is to just get out there into everybody's mind.

Okay. um start having Rachel work with our financial analysts to kind of put together what the budget needs are in relation to our current taxable values. some prognostication into where our taxable values will increase during this time period and give us maybe not just one but a couple different scenarios of how many mills they would recommend would be needed to put together uh a a fully in a a fully contained police millillage. Can I ask you a question about overall structure? Um because I'm looking at some of this and I I think have we ever explored other options for public safety? Meaning like even at Bingham Farm shouldering 35% of this, what this says to me is can we afford this? I mean this is a in a substantial cost for us as a village. Um has there ever been any exploration of a shared model with another municipality as another option to decrease some of our costs? I mean I'm looking at 15% increases of health insurance over the next

however many fiscal years, right? And that is 15%. and it'll take us from 175K to over half a million. Retirement contributions um as of this time 20 33 34 take us from 600K to 1.4. Can we afford to have this? I mean this is

so I guess what I'm hearing is and again as you're looking through these numbers what you can see I guess just to distill it down quickly which may be obvious for everybody is at the bottom we see this year is a 2% increase next year is a 10% increase then 8 6 7 888 um but when you look at it most expenses are only increasing 2 to 3% but the retirement the group health and the well retirement healthcare, group health insurance, and retirement contributions are all increasing at what Trusty Gates was talking about of 15, 15, and 12. But because there's such large line items, it influences the overall bottom line at the bottom of 10 to 8% fluctuations.

Yeah. So, I mean, it is your first and second largest cost overall between health insurance, salaries, and retirement contributions. I guess my question would be is what would the so if we put in a millillage to cover the cost, what would that millillage be to be able to keep up with this increase? Like what are we looking at? I think Trusty Kate's question needs to come first. Can we afford it? Well, I don't think you can make that assessment. I mean, the answer is if you tax the people, you can. What's the alternative? not having police. I'm not following. No, no, no. There's a bunch of things that like my question

right now, today we're on a shared department between municipalities model, right? Could we move to a contracted services model where we contract with another municipality? So we reduce our overhead by not carrying labor costs and then contract those services because that's a steep cost over the next not just a steep cost a steep cost of your first and second largest buckets of expenditures. So if we don't carry that burden we reduce our risk. you do you'll probably possibly reduce your level of service to I doubt that another community would provide the house checks and things like that that our local police force does.

Sure. But you would have to make the presumption that all of the money that we would then be taking to pay another agency to provide service to us that they would take that and use it to increase their needs to serve us. Sure. But that would be a part of a contract process of you know what are expected response times, what are the expected service categories, what is it that we're paying for. Okay. And once you've abandoned what we have and are operating entirely based on a contract with a third party,

contracts expire. What happens when the contract has to get reuped and I mean the same happens today. I mean we're on a three-year cycle and there's

we wouldn't have any leverage at that point. Right now, if we were to sit down with someone and ask them if they would consider contracting with us, they would know that we already have a police department. So, the fallback would be would just keep status quo. So, I would I would expect the the inducement to be more favorable for us. But what happens 5 years down the line when the contract's up and we don't have a police force to fall back on and the people we've contracted with say, "Well, you know, this isn't going so well." Or, "Wow, you know, we've really looked at it after these five years and that deal that we offered you. We think it's going to be double now." And then we're in the same situation with having to come up with money to pay for police, but we're not even having our own police department.

Could we max out? Could we put a ceiling on increases pacing with either the

place? Remember, it isn't like we can there's a a lot of places to go to and we it would have to be someone I would assume bordering us unless we wanted to make a deal with the county which is very challenging and in the places I've seen it not not an ideal situation. So the our surrounding communities are Bingham which is our sister community and we're partners with to go further beyond them is Beverly Hills which you can't do because they're a police and fire agency allin one. It would have to be Farmington Hills, West Bloomfield or Bloomfield I would assume. And I have no idea what those agencies would be um in a position to deal with an increase of of of picking.

I'm just saying we don't know. No. And at at this rate of increase, can we afford this? And is it a forever solution? If we stabilize our finances and find ourselves in a much more favorable position in seven years, do we put that contract in effect for seven years and then reassess in five or six years from now to say, are we in a position to reestablish a police department here?

I don't think I don't my response to that is no. because of how we're financially structured. We're we're solely dependent essentially a high majority of our revenues are from property taxes, right? So, we're not going to see some massive influx in property taxes unless we're raising the taxes, right? If we have status quo as far as millages go now, we will always be where we're currently at. Well, and we could probably take an analysis of our tax bills and see what percentage of the community is, let's say, has been uncapped within the last 5 to seven, let's even call it the last 7 to 10 years

because I'm I'm sure based upon our population that we still have at least 25 to 30% of the population that have lived here for 20 and 30 years where their difference between their taxable value and their assessed value is great. So maybe in the course of the next couple years we might see a sign a a greater than normal increase but nothing that we can bank on. Unfortunately a lot of our surrounding communities have commercial tax b income which we just don't possess. So, we've always are always going to be hamstrung by the fact that we're only going to go increase as much as our residential property values increase.

I've got a question for Abby. Um um thinking about contracting for services, how would you imagine or would you that that contracting for police services would save us money? theoretically um that we wouldn't bear the burden of paying for things like health benefits that would typically sit with their home their home agency.

We wouldn't pay for retirement contributions. I mean, I'm assuming there's some contract negotiations involved in shifting over pensions. Um but salary increase costs and renegotiation of police contracts wouldn't sit with us. Those costs would still have to be incurred by somebody and sure that they'd be shared across a larger amount of revenue presumably at a lower rate. Are you thinking? Don't you? Yeah.

I And I'm not saying that this is the best option. It's just, you know, when faced with shortfalls, for instance, in my house, the first question that happens is what can we cut? What services don't we need as a family? What are nice to haves? So, is it the home checks go away because it eats up what percentage of police time today? Is it other services are reduced because it reduces things like overtime? Or do we consider another model? Are is

we just pay more in taxes, a little more in taxes, and then we don't have the problem? I mean, this this chart shows us that we're certainly not maxing out above our comparable communities. are significantly below. So, I think I just have a question. I'm sorry. This chart I think it would be more helpful if it was similar to the way Rachel did for the um who did this? Sorry. I don't know who did this.

Okay. The way Rachel did evaluation criteria verse cost for the selection of the village council I think is important because if I say I'm getting a credit card with a $300 annual fee and one has a $800 annual fee and I haven't compared services benefits like this to me doesn't like Beverly Hills has many more city services than we do. So, like this just tells me the cost, but I'm interested in what are the residents getting back. I can't compare apples to apples when this is apples, oranges, grapes, mangoes. Well, they're getting more back cuz they have more money to spend.

Not necessarily. I want to know like Beverly Hills has a lot more that we don't offer our residents. Clarkson has a lot more like Oran Ortonville. Those are things that when we go to the residents and say, "We're going to raise your taxes," and they're going to say, "We don't even have a pavilion with a barbecue." What am I going to say? Right. Well, again, Beverly Hills has Well, we don't know cuz a multitude of businesses that are paying taxes on a non PR 52 mills. Clarkston's got all kinds of businesses paying taxes on nonps. we have

yet you want us to compare them. So that's why I'm saying this this is a inflated or collapsed scope because we can't compare what we have to other villages when they have different things than we do.

And all I'm saying is we're in a situation where we've got to consider trade-offs there. There is no bad idea here. That's all I'm saying. I'm not even saying this is the best course of action. I'm saying it's worth looking into if it gives us some breathing room because the the situation we talked about in last council council meeting was that it's a dire situation. And so given that position and given all of the priorities we talked about, we're fighting over crumbs to do any of those things that we talked about last time because of this part of it. I mean, we're spending so much money on this part of it. Is this worth looking into? Isn't everyone else spending that too? It's not like this is a unique situation to us. It's a cost that's part of

yes and no, right? Like so even within these comparables um how we're not factor did we factor in on our mills uh I guess this would be to trust Salaka's point to a degree that we also pay Southfield Township for services, right? And so those mills aren't really contemplated in here about what somebody's actual tax bill would look like. Um for kind of localized services. Uh so when considering general operating, I think that's what trustee Slack is saying is like the way that is split out is difficult to actually assess. I guess my concern here is um twofold. The first one is well sorry and then sorry President Goldberg specifically to the point that you were raising it's not in the sense of well everybody's paying this amount because again it comes down to overall population size compared to police force and so I think a natural trade-off to the question of what happens if we change things is exactly uh what Rachel had brought up which is probably a decrease in service right like if we entered into an agreement with another community community, I'm guessing they're less likely to try and stick it to us in the contract and more likely to just not patrol the area as frequently. Um, and so I would actually I I think that's a difficulty in measurement too. Coming back to the root cause of the question that's being asked is like do we want to move our entire police budget into a millillage? That's the first question. And then that naturally increases the taxes because everything that we are paying for the police department is now times two because

we're not decreasing the overall tax revenues. Is that what we want to do? I know we don't have to draw the entire amount down, but I'm going to make the assumption that it will be the next the the part two of this is, but even if we lift out the police millage entirely and we put a times two next to it, we are still looking at an increase year-over-year of between 10 and 8%. So we lift those mil. It's not just times two because we have to contemplate the increase in the overall cost for the police budget. So we're looking at potentially times 2 and a half, right? Because if we look at the projections for

2033, we're looking at about 40% what we're current 40% increase from what we're currently paying on this expense. So that's like what I I I genuinely struggle with do I want to increase resident taxes by that much? And I from when I first got on council said I thought it was a great idea to move the budget out the police budget out of the general budget so that we can say this is the police budget the the people because uh we often as we sit up here people are wondering well you're frivolously spending funds and it's like we're not we have no funds right because so much of it is going to the police budget and you we collectively want the police. Now you see how much it actually costs from a dollar sense perspective cuz that's something that people don't appreciate. However, when I had that position, I was under the assumption that we would be reducing our our general fund taxes or what we're drawing from not drawing but what we would actually collect and authorize from a general fund perspective because like I said, I'm going to take the position that if we allow ourselves to be able to draw down the full amount, maybe not in the first year, maybe not in the second year, but we will quickly chip away at that amount. out um for things that I don't know that residents necessarily want because we're not going to have an avenue to say this is a service that the people want compared to they don't want because we just said you're voting to move the police millage out of the general fund and that's how it's going to be messaged to the people and so that's what I have concern about. I have a I I may be asking the question. I think you might be correct. I I'd like to have a discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of having a

separate police or a public safety millillage and versus a scenario where we would simply leave the police in the general fund. What are the pros and cons of that decision? It seems like it's a starting point for everything else. Um, was that close to what you were going to ask? One of them talking about something else. Okay. Are we opening public comment? Not yet. Um, but could could we have a short discussion about that? I I'm um Who are you talking to right now?

I'm talking to whoever wants to listen. This is a discussion. I'd like either now because we're moving ahead on the on the assumption that we're going to create a spe a separate police village. Have we made that decision? And what on what basis would we should we consider that? What's the other basis? We we we don't we can't create more money in the general fund and clearly the general fund isn't enough to well no it's maxed out. So at one point in we were talking about going to the citizens and asking for a charter change authorizing us to levy greater than

so then that would be that would be going that would be giving us more discretionary use of the funds which is what David is implying that we don't have the ability to control ourselves that somehow we're going to become spend thrifts and waste villagers money on non essential items when we live in a village that doesn't even have essential items. and don't have the money to pay for and has historically not taken all of the available tax dollars that was available per the millages which is part of the problem what we don't have a surplus now is because we have been so conservative and not maxing out expenses for literally decades that we're in a position that we have to do something more drastic because We didn't allow the slow buildup.

I think that's a mischaracterization of the comments. I think we've underinvested in infrastructure and long-term planning and been shortsighted and given money towards things that we shouldn't have because there was no long-term financial planning. So, we've spent money. We've spent so much money we have no money in reserves. What we've spent it on wasn't prioritized. It wasn't planned. And it was off the hip. And I disagree with that. I agree with that. Yeah, I'm not gonna agree with that. We give raises for no reason based on nothing. Oh my god. We hired salary.

We've retroactively given a raise. One situation for two employees in one calendar year with two administrators ago. You retroactively gave a raise to someone who failed in general duties. But that did not create that's why we're a couple that practice. Let's pull back real quick of saying we will do it because someone's asked for it and not based in policy planning or forecasting.

Those are individual circum those are individual things that I completely agree with. I was against it. I was one of the people who was vocal about the retroactive application and authorization of future you like not only for the approval of the amount but then to say yeah now that's your new salary moving forward regardless pull that back to the point that I think is more material is and I I don't want to go down this path but we were spending we were producing budgets that were exceeding the amounts we were taking in for years and not having a conversation about that.

That is the root problem. Not the one or two things off. Fundamentally, we as a community got comfortable with passing budgets that exceeded the amount of revenues without increasing the taxes. I acknowledge we need to increase the taxes in order to keep up with our expenses or we need to make drastic cuts or both. But let's I just want to move the conversation back to like what is the core and fundamental issue of how we got here. Our expenses have exceeded our revenue for decades and violated the charter and the council has voted in favor of it. The majority of council because it was not unanimous last time.

And I think more than anything we have to recognize we have to make some hard decisions somewhere. I don't want to do it. It's not fun. Ask any leader. It's terrible to have to do. But we're going to have to make some hard decision somewhere. Not really because something has to give. What? I don't understand why you're I don't understand the I can understand that. I don't understand how this this this discussion for the better course of a year

is under the the people that I sit on council with are under the impression that we are going to be able to fix our problem by controlling expenses and not by increasing revenues. I'm not saying that that's not on the table. I'm saying is it possible we have to do both? I I kind of am because we are out a million dollars.

But that has nothing to do with the budget situation. Okay. That the budget situation has been going on for years because yes, our expenses exceed our revenues. To the extent you believe there's been extenduating frivolous spending over the last couple years, Angelina, find it and tell us how much you really believe that is because it's not going to be enough to fix the couple million or so dollar increase that we need to have for our police department over the course of the next. There is nothing to say there hasn't been frivolous spending when no one is reviewing and accepting contracted services. When you have a $45,000 unpaid balance for your landscaping and we have to pay that, that means no one's been looking at what services have been completed, when they've been completed, what has been completed, the time it was completed in. So the lack of contractor oversight just in procurement and acquisition that Rachel has focused on improving is a huge huge loss of money cuz we don't know what's been happening. We have no control over the financial operations of the village. So you show me that we haven't been spending frivolously.

Okay. Can we

all I'm asking is for an exploration of options. I'm not making any decisions or determinations. Could we explore is it an option and would it give us breathing room? That's all I'm asking for. Could we explore a comparable list of services? Could we explore a contract that would be that would allow for us to consider that is a is a reasonable option? I don't know. I mean that is what any organization would do when faced with either increases of spending or having to cut expenses somewhere is exploring how we determine services that we have what we need and what we want to have and that's that's how any organization runs. So would your request be to Rachel and the chief to provide us a a budget maybe more than one budget proforma for this period that represents um a a police an operating budget at a lower at some level that maybe you would request. uh and the and the level that he's at and and what that would in what that would mean in terms of um FTEES and levels of service.

I would want a current state cost analysis. I mean I think those are requests that this discussion should result in. Right. I mean I would love to know benchmarking across comparable municipalities, what services other municipalities get, what's the cost per household and the cost per resident. Um I would know I would want to know um like transition considerations obviously there would have to be some transitions of uh things like pension there'd have to be some legal and operational impacts considered I am not saying that this is the option I'm saying we would be irresponsible not to consider it

my contribution to that would be that I do with regards to the police budget I and which is what seems to be on the table Now it is driving most of our revenue and most of our expenses. Um one is that um for I have 14 years on the council. It's not forever but it's long enough to have heard three chiefs talk about pros and cons of numbers of officers on the streets. um the costs of part-time versus full-time leasing versus buying automobiles. Uh um and in every case and particularly since our current chief started work um it a budget that has very little slack in it. uh because the expenses at the end of the year have been very close to the projected uh expenses and my and and we review those. So so I would argue with us not having oversight. We have monthly conversations with the chiefs. Um ultimately you do need to trust that person to run a good department. And right now, uh, our current chief has, um, uh, put a pause on hiring that last officer that was, um, um, hired or approved by this council. What we're probably talking about is move migrating to a fully part-time police force where we don't have to incur pension and benefits costs. And then you have to ask the question, is that good practice? I mean, these are hypotheticals, but where I think you're where I think you're headed is, you know, do we trust that this department's been run properly? If so, this is what the cost is.

I think it's unfair to make it personal. I'm not making it personal. You did. You said we have to trust the person. And I've heard from three police chiefs. What Abby is saying is it's not personal. That's just what it is. Of course, we trust chief. She's asking for a business impact analysis and a costbenefit analysis so she can make a datadriven decision. That is what we want. A data-driven decision, a business impact analysis, a costbenefit analysis. We are up here and we have to sell to our constituents a tax increase. Give us the justification to do so. Not because I trust him and 14 years of police chiefs who have been giving me monthly reports. data driven analysis, data-driven decision- making based on risk.

Maybe we net out that it is the best option. I'm I'm selling we have to consider all options. It would be irresponsible for us sitting up here not to consider all options. That's all I'm saying. I have no inclination either way. Yeah. I think Chief does a wonderful job. I think he is wonderfully communicative. I think he's a wonderful partner, a wonderful collaborator, but when we're considering the amount of money we spend on any bucket of of expenditures in the village, we fine-t that's that's that's what you do as responsible fiscal stewards. You got to consider trade-offs. That's all I'm saying.

I think D has something to say.

Thank you. Uh I'm not buying or selling anything. I just want to comment about the process that the finance committee had hoped to go through. What you're talking about are very important matters from a budget perspective and that's a that's a discussion that this council will have to have over the next few months when they look at the budget. What the intent of the discussion now is overall millage strategy and you're responsible as a council every year to set that mill rate. So you do not the the kind the question is you can set them your millage rate within the boundary. You don't have to go to the full millage rate. In fact, you have in some areas you do not charge the fully approved millage. You go you go less. And President Goldberg alluded to that earlier that you you've been authorized to say to spend 3.5 to assess 3.5 and you went to 3.1 or whatever the number may be. So your comments are very appropriate as fiscal agencies to look at the on the budget when the budget comes before you. You have a responsibility to review it in detail to challenge it to look at the aspects of what it will do. As trustee Sally said for many years you've underfunded your expenses and that's causing part of the problem you're having. The question that we want to have you to think about is there is a need for increased millage. Uh the only the only aspect you have now the cap you have is that the charter puts a cap on the general. The question may be and and council uh trustee uh Hansen raised it. Do we want to go for a do you want as council to go for a charter amendment to increase put a high millage opportunity there to allow council then to increase within that cap an additional millage revenue and whether that be done on a split basis of just total funding for police and it's general and a general funding. I think as trusty Sally said you do not expect to just put a police message out there

and not adjust general. Right. Yeah. Okay. And you'll have to determine how much of that you want to adjust. If you go up, you raise one here, one full millage, you take this one down 75. And when do we do that? That's your decision to make. Once you decign determine what you can, whether millage goes through when you set your budget, do it every year when we file our L425. Every year you have to go through and determine your millage rates within your approvals. Mhm.

So the straight the question it becomes do as you as it was asked do you want to go do it as a split and say we want to go to the the public for a fully mandated police say a public safety millillage or do you want to go and as you have in the past and say we have a general mill of X of which a certain portion of that is allocated to the police and every year you're looking at the police budget to determine the allocation. you don't blindly pass it over just the same way you don't blindly pass a budget and those are the options you're g you know so the budget questions are really very real but we want to talk now about more strategy on overall basis you uh and whether you go if you go for a 10-year millillage you want to go and set a cap up there that'll hopefully potentially cover that but again that that estimate you have before you which is mind-blowing and 40% you know it's it's you can't go there and say we want to increase 140% % today. You also have to put into account as someone else mentioned your property value should increase over time. So there will be additional revenue from the property taxes that will also offset that increase. You do have the question if it's a 10% here but cost of living you capture property at 3 or 4% based on cost of living assuming you know unless people go and uncap and go through that process. So you got that issue to think about on a projection basis

and the charter doesn't I mean Birmingham public school taxes can go up, Southfield Township taxes can go up, Oakland County tax can go up. Like these are separate things that we don't have control over. Correct. In fact, I believe there is an Oakland County Intermediate School District village going on the ballot. There is to pay for teacher salaries, right?

It could be. Now, as far as you talked also about contracting out, you've got, you know, your health care, your pension, your uh salaries. Those aren't going to go away if you contract contract out. You're in a very competitive environment. You know, these police officers are very funible, can go anywhere they want. They want to go for a right environment, and the compensation's got to be competitive. And you find that you're seeing that every time you go to hire someone. You also in the meantime also have in your financial statements a five to6 million pension obligation right now for prior service that you have to fund over time. Oh yeah it's there is this retirement contribution pension

part of that is part of that is for current service. Part of this you also are funding prior expensions. You know typical with most governments and school districts and a lot of other companies. We'll give you the pension benefit. We're not going to pay for it. Now, let let the next council pay for it when I'm off the board. Yeah. Let the next school board member worry about that. Not me. You've got a $6 million problem right now. That's out there. That's contracting services won't get get rid of that one. That's that's on you guys. No, it's on the next council.

Well, it's there, but that's the other thing you got to think about too when you go through this. So, I think you I think what President Goldberg wants us to look think about is strategy-wise on the millillage. You need to I think you've all agreed you need to go for a millillage. But what if we just taking your example for instance, we've got a $6 million problem and if we sign a five-year contract capped at uh price increases or a flat fee over the length of five years and we don't see increases like this because we negotiate that contract and then spend down that $6 million that $6 million problem that we have. Is that an option?

So yeah, my response in one Thank you. Um, but two, I think my response to that would be what Rick is suggesting is logistically whether it is this police force or a contracted police force, we have to solve the revenues behind it. So you can talk the strategy of where who those revenues go to. Now is more of a how do we fund the president. My my only adjustment to that is I do think your considerations play into the strategy conversation because it would go into how long we'd go out to a millillage for

and that's what you got to think about and whether you you should go and what will the voters be more immunable to if you want to go and say look we're going to wipe out the existing millillage now in three years ahead of time and replace with a longer term long-range planning gives you a chance to plan but again you want to you'll put a cap up there request a cap a high limit and you you have to show the vision and the and the the tough decisions to say we're not going to spend it all. We're not gonna we're not going to charge you that. We just want to have the ability in the future for a council to say it's time for us to raise more revenue. Cuz right now we're effectively capped at what the charter says on the general fund. Right. Why should they believe us? That's what they're going to vote. That's the point of the election.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we haven't shown them that we can be fiscal custodians of their money. That is an opinion to each person that goes to it is to each person that goes to the poll. That's the point of the poll. That's the decision that that's why you got to go and that's why also why uh President Goldberg I think suggested that you go in August in case you have to go back down in November. Yeah. Do we are you allowed to go back twice in three months on the same issue? Mhm. I think people do it in the exact same way. Well, you mean if it doesn't go the first time? Yeah. You just keep on putting it on the ballot until they vote yes. You can put it on the ballot again. Yes.

In the exact same way you have to treat the language. I can't answer that on the phone. Well, I don't know if the language is the issue as much as the the concepts behind it. I mean, if obviously, you know, uh you know, if you do it once, fool me once, do it twice, shame on me. If it didn't pass the first time, I got to change. amount would potentially change if it you can change the amount or you can change failed. It's a first go around. People will pay if they know what they're getting. Okay. Well, you're you're implying that there's all these people out there that don't know what they're getting. So, that's I don't see up here telling us what do you guys do with all your money. But I think just this is the first time we've discussed this in an open meeting.

What do you mean? You're implying that for years now we've just been wasting money. Nobody comes up here and complains about all the wasted money we're spending because why did you buy this? Why did you do this? Why did you do that? Why did you do that? Raise taxes. But you're So who's going to come here when you raise taxes? You're saying that for years we've been wasting money. And I'm just saying to you if we've been wasting money, nobody's been up here complaining because it has five new people on council. So I guess that's something. This is unproductive honestly on both parts. It's fine. Discussion's over. Let's move on. Discussion is not over. Discussion. You have to have a motion in a second and a vote. What are we What?

No. I'm the chairman of this meeting. I can stop the discussion anytime I want. Point of order. We're not voting on anything right now. You can't. We have them. Is the chair allowed to close discussion? The chair will be able to table the discussion with the chair. It's a discussion. It's there is no motion on the table. Okay. I'll move to keep discussion open. Second. Motion a second. All in favor to keep the discussion open say I. I. I. No. Okay. Motion carries. Keep your discussion going.

Can I just ask I just want one clarification. I didn't have a chance to speak yet. Rachel, do you have a good understanding? I mean, to me, it's there's a lot to look into on processes and how we're going to implement this, but I and to Trusty Gates's point, we have hard decisions ahead of us. It from when I look at this number and I look at what we currently bring in, I don't really see a a world where we can't raise the bills. Is that accurate, Rachel? You mean we can't raise the bill? We We're going to need to get a We're going to need more take a millage. Like, you need a millage. Yes, if you're going to keep your police

and I think the discussion so far is we need a millage but we also want to understand and be able to communicate effectively what we're getting if we do this because this is substantial to what we have people are used to. So when they get their bill in the middle of the summer they're going to be like whoa this is not what I have done for the past 10 or 15 years

and we need to be able to effectively communicate that and what they get. Do you like your police chief? Do you like to have them do your home checks? Do you like all these things? Do you like them? And I mean, that's what we're going to ask the voters effectively. But I want to make sure when we put that in a resolution effectively, this is why. And we are clear because I look at these retirement contributions. I'm like, "Holy cow, we we can this will not be sustainable." But I want to make sure the voters understand that. And that seems to be the point of order. And I think also when we're asking for that, they expect us to be good stewards. So we need to also show that, you know, to Rick's point that we're not just going to keep the general fund at 3.5 mills because that was paying for the police department, but we also need to effectively communicate what that will be paying for and continue to pay for. And I think that's fairly reasonable. Yes.

Yeah, that's all we're asking. What are we selling? I'm sorry. Were you going to say something? No, I want to make I want to ask Rachel a question. You're done. I'm done. Thank you. Um, so Rachel, what would help me uh uh is because I think where we're headed here in the based on the discussion that I've heard is um uh this is not happy making, but it real. Uh we're also going to have a similar spreadsheet for operating other expenses required to operate the village that right now is around what half a million $700,000 or so a year? Y.

So, um, is there a is there a a way to create a similar worksheet so that we can actually see what the total operating costs are to run the village? And then so we can get to the question of how much um how do we divide up or what how much of that money should go into a police millillage and how much of it should remain in the general fund. I would like to understand the scenarios of you know worst case being leave the current village current millillage as it is and then add on a police millage. What does that look like in terms of revenues? What if another scenario? What if we um moved um uh x amount of dollars into a police millillage and then drop down the operating village operating but um millillage income revenue um so we can still get to this we can still make make sure that we're in a good space a good financial um space at the end of eight years I'm looking for scenarios so that we can understand what the real um uh picture is here because every all of us do have to face off with voters and and uh I'm I'm nervous about being able to make that decision with good data in what next meeting basically April because if you we need it by May that's that's scary

um and educate voters there's a lot to do. Um, but it sounds like from a strategic perspective, the the the council is leaning toward, and I'm kind of checking this out, a reduced village operating millage and shunting more of that more of those funds over to the police or the public safety mill or having the option.

So, I think yeah, that's why That's why I voted in favor of continuing the conversation because I want to hyperfocus on what does next meeting look like, right? And what are we bringing back to the table? And what I'm hearing from you, Pam, and maybe it's a little bit different, but strongly how I feel is I want I'm hearing kind of two options, which is we wholly lift out the police budget and we base a millage of the entire expenditure of the police budget being outside of our general fund. And then I would like the alter an alternative proposal which would be if we split the cost between general fund and an increase in the millillage what would that look like and what would that amount be?

So if we did that and this might be this may be a stupid question but if we did that if we split the cost would that give us more room for dollars to operate the village so that we have money to spend on some of these priorities and initiatives we talked about give us less.

No because it wouldn't be a one one. I'm not asking for a one to one. I'm asking for evaluate our total budget, understand what increases we need to actually operate and then we incre we pass a police millillage to allocate that amount out of our general fund to free up that general fund to pay for the thing the expenses that we need to rather than just wholesale saying entire police budget pick up move out. Like we could pass a charter change to raise the amount that we can tax in the general fund and then pay for the police budget along with what our future priorities are in the operating. Those are two different things. Yeah, those are two different things. But

you could do either, right? Yeah. To Rubick's point, there's multiple ways to get to the same end goal. And it is it matters what strategy you want to take. So you're suggesting increasing the general fund instead of having a police millage. What? Well, kind of right. So I guess

general fund is what's the discretionary spending? You' be putting more money into our hands to be discretionary about. That's why taking it all out and putting it to the police millage means we know that the police department money will be paid and covered every year and we don't have to use as much of our general fund. you guys are under. Well, some of the discussions that we're having is this idea that just because available funds become available that we're going to draw upon them for no reason. And I'm saying we've never You were right until you said for no reason.

I I don't I don't I think the the point is like there's a lack of governance and control over how dollars are being spent. Could we within Wow. with any specificity understand how dollars were spent in past fiscal years. Do we have controls around those things? I think that's all that's been said. And I know that that question has come up several times tonight. It's a budget question and you're talking about controls over spent. Um, I would appreciate knowing what specifically is causing the heartburn about the spend.

Sorry. Well, let me if I could just finish. Um, there was a bug flying in our face. Oh, okay. Sorry.

Um, because then we can do something about it. But broad statements about well there's no stewardship or there's no oversight. That is not true. There may be different views of our oversight in areas we can improve. I agree with that. But let's let's carve that out as a separate discussion and have it as we build the budget for next year for the for the village operating expenses then and and use those priorities that we set as as part of the the the guard rails for doing that. We need to figure out and I'm trying to figure out how to how to fig how to create a formula for what we're and what we're going to actually ask villagers for. and what the impact is on households. very little of our tax bill actually goes to pay for the village.

Have could we create could could we inform ourselves of that better than we seem to be and what would the impact of path A on millillage be on each household path B path C so we can actually look at real numbers. So you're saying Pam that we would understand like each villager will be able to say in my tax bill that is being that I'm getting at my household this percentage goes to operate the village this percentage goes to operate the police department this percentage goes to X Y and Z so that everyone would understand when they come here and say we want X Y and Z

we say all right the math doesn't math because this percentage of what you're spending in taxes goes people people who have mortgages get they're paid through the bank typically. I don't know how many people look critically at that summer tax bill. I think not that many. But we should be talking about what the actual dollar amount is from each from our tax bills goes to pay for operating this bud budget. We've acknowledged tonight there's township, there's schools, there's state, there's this and that. Let's take a look at that.

That's what this is. That's Yeah. It's not like we don't have this data. Well, general fund expenses, three-year Trends. This was from 23 to 26. I saw that. It could be updated, right? And between administration and police everything's like this tall and in real numbers the police is this tall.

The the typical definition you get is well per the mil definition of a millage a mill it's this much per thousand. Well how much is my house worth? Who who do I agree? How much how does that formula translate into what is the check I have to write to run the village? So if we're talk if we're appealing to value, what do you get for your money? I would I would like to be able to say to somebody, well, your your bill to run the village was $1,200 last year. And for that $1,200, you got this in very simple, real terms. That's what we've been saying. You want more data so you can make a decision. So we've all been I'm very comfortable with data.

Yeah. So we I think we all agree. We all agree. Well, I'd like to have the data before we start looking at should we contract out for our police force. Totally. because that is not a that is and and I don't want to ask the village staff to do a scenario analysis of outsourcing police because that's g that's a big deal and it's a very loaded strategic question that I don't want to go there right now unless we're really serious for this coming year which I I think we aren't I think in the short term do we have solutions if this doesn't pass so that way we can do greater due due diligence.

Absolutely. We should have a plan B. One of those plan B's should be run the ele have another ballot question just in case. But we should be no the next possible election maybe a little different question just to just to make sure we're covered. So just does what I'm saying make sense? All of that Pam I totally agree with you. So if we're considering a plan B and if the millillage doesn't pass, what is the harm in considering contracting out the services if it doesn't? That's all I'm missing. I think I don't think Pam has I don't sorry I really don't mean to say what I'm hearing because I feel the same way. It's just in the sense that I feel the same way about what Pam thinks.

No, I know that's why that's why I apologized ahead of time, right? Um but what I'm hearing is we can have that conversation if we have to cross that bridge. But let's focus on the number one thing right now, which is we do have an immediate need to increase our mills and increase our taxes for additional revenues. Let's get that across the line. And then if we need to go into those considerations, let's do that. But those I view them as totally separate questions. Yeah, they are. Can I ask you what you think because you've not said anything?

Yeah. Well, one thing I've been wanting to say, I appreciate the conversation. One voice I'd also welcome hearing from in this conversation is from Chief. And I I don't mean to put you on on the spot. I know we aren't making a decision today, so maybe it's unfair to put you on the spot. It would be more appropriate for you to collect your thoughts and, you know, speak at at the next meeting. But if you have anything to say, I just wanted to give you that invitation because I I for one would would like to hear from you on this. Well, first of all, I'll talk about the budget a little bit and the projection. So, these projections are not conservative, right? So, do I think that the officers are going to get a 4% raise every year for the next eight years? Probably not. Okay. Could we have a situation where we had several years ago where, you know, 30% of the nation's police retired and quit and yes, wages are going to go up? That could happen. I don't think that's going to happen. I think we're getting seeing more people in the academy. So, I'm thinking salaries will be a little bit lower as far as the percentage. I know Rachel has been proactive and going out with health care and getting some comparables to see where we can save money. One of the big issues is, you know, the pension is it hasn't been properly funded. And I know Linda who comes in on Fridays that uh that Rachel got from Independence Township is very concerned about the pension and it has been properly funded for years. So, that's a little bit about the budget. Um, I've said this before, you have a very, very good police department. You have great individuals that love Franklin that could probably go somewhere else and get paid more. They like to be here. So, you you have a good product, but you guys need to do what you feel is best for the village, and I will support that. So, I guess I'll just leave it with that. I mean, you got elected by the residents to make the best decisions possible for for the village. And I think Rachel also has uh

the village's best interests in mind. And so whatever way I can help, whichever way the wind blows or you decide, then I will support that. Is there any question other questions for me?

Yeah, I I have a more specific question too. We're talking about the option of potentially um eliminating our own police force and lobbing on to a nearby jurisdiction. Have you seen that done before? If if so, has that been a successful? Has it been a horror story? Do you have any experiences to share about that or or I I've heard of um municipalities um eliminating their their local force and going to the county. Do you have any experience of that?

So, I used to live in Clarkston uh maybe 20 years ago and I was actually a proponent to get rid of that small police department because it was mostly part-time people and it was either people right out of the academy or people that are kind of retired and I wasn't comfortable with their training and I thought that the county was a better option and I don't remember what the cost was for that. When I was at West Bloomfield um there was discussions of us taking over the Tri Cities. There was two separate discussions and I think it made a lot of financial sense for those small communities for us to take them over because of what we brought to the table. Chief, what's the Tri Cities? Uh, I'm sorry, Silven Lake, Orchard Lake, and Keigo. Okay.

Um, there was such an uprising by the residents um about they wanted their own police department that um that fell apart both times. Um, if you were to look at options here, I would suggest that you did not look at the county, but you would look at probably the best choice would be Bloomfield Township. Whether they would take this on as both Franklin and Bingo Farms, I don't know because they are like most departments short staff, but that's

if there was an avenue that you wanted to take that you you would probably look into that avenue. Is it possible we retain like this physical space and become like an outpost of Bloomfield Township? Is that a viable option where it's like we might be absorbed within that larger structure but largely retain like that would be all part of your negotiations with another entity. Is there an option why we haven't combined fire and police like Beverly Hills? like we have a separate fire millage and we have a police millage and it's considered public safety, right?

So public safety is difficult because we would have to train all of our police officers to be paramedics which is a long process as as as also have to send them to fire uh academy. Is that what Beverly Hills says? $5,000 a person and it's more expensive right to have a public that you have to be able to do both. You have to be able to be a police officer and a firefighter. It's very expensive. Um, another thing I'll mention that if you do get rid of your police department, getting your police department back is almost unheard of. Extremely expensive to do that. Yeah. So, I'm not I mean, yeah, I was just wondering why Beverly Hills felt it was best to combine.

There was a trend many years ago. I know Kellazoo did it. Some other Bloomfield Hills did it where they combined to public safety. Um, these days the trend is away from that. Okay. Is it combined? Is it just combined public safety millage or is it actual are you cross trainining? They're they're crossrained. So you're spending money training which then one day you're a police officer, one day you're a fireman kind of thing and that decreases your pool of who you can recruit from as well. Yes. Right.

Is there a larger upfront cost to do that but a less expensive long-term play for that? Meaning like it's more expensive to train and combine the two, but because you combine them, you know, 10 years out, 20 years out, it is an overall decreased cost even in spite of the upfront initial.

That's not even a scenario here because our fire department aren't employees of ours. We have we have a contractual relationship with a 501c3 or C4 organization. So that we would have to first take the idea on of making all the fire fighters employees. Make that a department of the village. Then we would have to decide if we wanted to make the officers and the firefighters be trained in both areas.

I would guess that you'd probably lose most of your police officers if we went that route because they wouldn't want to go to the the fire academy and be paramedics and all that. I wasn't so much thinking of the operations of the amount that we pay in the fire millage and the amount we pay in the police millage. If it could be one pool, you know what I mean? And so we keep our fire department, but you guys take some money.

That would be your guys's decision of how you'd want to set that up. Um, so I want to just kind of focus on my core consideration, which is do you what are your feelings on or what are the added benefits of having a police mil picking up the budget the entire police budget and moving it over into a millillage compared to the division between general and police millillage? Well, I think when I sit here and I hear all of your ideas and what you want to do for the village and and how many services are lacking, I think if you if you give me a police millage and I I have my own money that you guys approve and tell me how to spend and then you reduce the general fund, well, where's the money for all these projects that you want to do?

It's not going to be there. Uh so, you know, you have some very difficult decisions that I think it's going to be relatively expensive for sure. Does that answer your question? I mean, I maybe I didn't answer it correctly.

Uh, I mean, it maybe it just is what it is, right? In the sense of administratively, it just again allows you to say this to residents, this is how much we cost. Here's how I'm fitting within the budget and there's just clear lines um for probably just easier processing, but outside of that, there's probably not much of a difference. I know you mentioned already that the budget was conservative in some respects and that maybe you overestimated a little bit on some things which is a a normal practice. Do you think there's any opportunity for cost savings in this budget? Well, the building was built in 2001, and the first time we really did anything with that building was last year when we did the generator and the HVACs and things like that. Um, there's a lot of things within the building that are listed in the yellow section or capital expensive that really need to be done. Now, you can push that farther down the road probably, but somewhere within that eight years, that's going to have to be done. Um, and those are some relatively large expenses. um vehicle equipment. I mean, we pretty much purchase a new vehicle every year and the cost of these vehicles is ridiculous, right? So, you know, you're talking, you know, $55,000 for the vehicle, another 15,000 to 20,000 to outfit it. Um projecting out to, you know, 2,000, you're buying $100,000 patrol car. So, it's just a very expensive business that we're in. And obviously, healthc care costs is limited on what we can do. We can try to move it one way or another a couple percentage points, but

yeah, it's the trend nationwide. That's my question. Since like a lot of these are none of these costs seem to go down, right? They're not like capital investments where you purchase a police car in 27 and then you don't have to purchase one again for six, seven years. Like we're spending $180,000 a year between auto car operations, car leasing. Is that typically how it is? Like you don't see older cars in a fleet. I I'm just wondering, you know what I mean? Like so so that way we can tell our constituents like, well, we buy a new police car every year and it costs 100k. Well, and then like why do you need a new car

that you'll have for four years? You know, we we probably try to put a minimum of 80,000 90,000 miles, but remember it's also idling a lot. So you're probably putting more like 130 140,000. I have those that information. I did this at West Bloomfield. So, it's amazing amount of wear and tear on these vehicles because they're just driving, driving, driving, and idling. So, I did put some things in place where they can't idle the vehicles if it's nice weather. It's only if it's really cold or super hot because we got to try to keep the computers and the cameras working. So, okay. The biggest line items, retirement, and health insurance. Right. Right.

And I can't do anything about that. I'm sorry. I don't take a pension if that helps. I don't Chief, I just want to acknowledge like none of the discussion tonight has anything to do with your department. It is everything to do with I understand. Yeah.

Thank you. Well, I would just like to say that I might have been criticized for using the word trust in leading this village, but anybody who's been part of an executive team that where trust is not present no understands how important that level of confidence is in colleagues. And I defend my right to say that. I I think we do trust you. We need to trust you. and otherwise we're going to have to hire an analyst to follow you around and verify all of your um your projections. So, uh thanks and I'm I I want to also say that uh as part of this budget discussion, you know, um I'm really glad that we're able to ask you questions about how you're operating your department without you uh becoming angry and retaliatory. Um,

he is armed and no I mean I completely agree with you totally because again it's the same thing like when we went through the appointment processes like I said it's the worst part of the job because we have to be able to have hard conversations civily. Yeah.

Both up here but also how it's received. And so I think that that's of the utmost importance. So again, thank you so much because it's not just the value of you yourself, which you're tremendous, but every single one of our officers is such an asset and I feel incredibly lucky to have the people in the actual human beings that are there. So again, I just want to emphasize the point that Pam was making, the point that Abby was making that this conversation is just looking at the dollars, but by all means, like, thank you for everything that you do. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anything that we're missing or that we're not offering our constituents that with this millillage you'd be able to offer

additional? Yeah. So, we can say like this budget. Yeah. This this budget besides funding the pension of this budget is built off 12 officer police department. Um if you decided to take it back down to 11, that's a viable option. Um we we can do that. Uh it does make it tight. I mean, last year we had an officer um leave us that was on uh administrative leave for quite some time, which created a lot of overtime. This year we had another officer that was out for quite a bit of time on an injury. So, it does leave us a little bit short, but um if we wanted to go down to 11, if that would help, we could probably discuss that. But this is based off a 12 person police department.

I'm looking at more. Like, would we be able to give our constituents more? Do you have something in mind? No, I I don't know. I mean, I'm just asking. So, like if they're like, "Oh, are we gonna get, you know, I don't know, like black party patrol when we have our

but we're conflating the issue, right? Like that's the problem is that we no, he really can't offer more because we're not increasing the amount of mills that are going to the police force. We're just se pulling it out of the general fund." So for the police force to offer more, we would have to allocate more to them either by increasing the overall millillage or pulling more out of the general and moving it there. That's my point. Is there more other cities offer that you would like to offer in Franklin that you feel like we're missing? Okay. But you really want that drone.

I was going to say it's the drone. Nat. She's like,

"Anybody else?" I want to acknowledge this is all out of respect. I I have nothing against this discussion or how things are being run. It is just sometimes you got to have hard decisions and sometimes you have to have hard discussions and sometimes you have to poke around things and sometimes you have to consider the uncomfortable. It's kind of neat. It is not a comfortable situation that we're in. I don't think any of us would agree that that's the case. And so it is the responsible thing to do to poke at this problem from every single angle we can. That's all.

Okay. Finance committee meets Wednesday. So Wednesday maybe we'll get in more detail some of the requests the council's asking as far as generating some of these analyses that everyone's looking for. cost analyses, savings. Let's talk about that at finance committee. Okay. I am particularly interested in what does this look like from the voters's perspective.

You know, it's one thing for us to worry about line items in a budget, which we do. Um, but we're really about educating voters and convincing them to vote yes on what what whatever we end up proposing to them to fund the operations of the village and the police department. So, as you think as you create those analyses, I really would appreciate if you'd look at it from that perspective. And I see the strategic issues needing to be dealt with. um but but not but but as a separate um activity and looking forward to doing that.

Okay. All right. So, that's that's the extent of our new business. The next two items on our agenda are both to have us go into close session to discuss attorney client opinions drafted by the Kelly firm and then we would come back out for um reports. So, uh, I'm going to move that we first go in re go into close session, uh, to to discuss an attorney client opinion drafted by the Kelly firm.

Second. A motion and a second. Discussion. All in favor? I I Actually, we have to do this roll call, don't we? Yeah, we have to do a roll call. Yep. Uh I

All right, motion carries. uh come back in out of close session at 8:20 and what remains on the agenda are council reports. Uh I have nothing to report today. Anybody have anything they want to say? The only Oh, no. Go.

Only thing I was going to say is I attended the next couple next board meetings for Dan who was not there. mostly discussions about the lease at 400 Lincoln that has been at the Birmingham Commission a couple times since then. They're effectively moving forward I think in the last commission meeting they voted to approve the lease for their first floor move into 400 East Lincoln. Um so you know they have to be out of what is it? Midvail. Midvail by May 27. Okay. pertinent to us. They will likely look to renegotiate the interlocal agreement for starting in May 27th for more money. I'm assuming

I I asked for what that might look like. I didn't get a firm answer, but I would be surprised if it was less money. Excellent. Thank you for that. Since it's zero, thank you. No, we don't,000. Well, but that's not mandated. That's our at our initiative, which we can change anytime we wanted to, but yeah. So sorry interrupt only I guess I don't do you want to say anything else for or I'm done sorry I know you wanted to talk

oh sorry um so one thing are we going to add committee reports to the agenda or when are not this meeting but just so we know because I know that at the special priorities meeting we talked about updating on the special priorities at the council meeting by committee or are we going to wait till after the budget season? Not sure I understand the question like infrastructure committee next. Well, that's what sort of the last one is committee liaison.

Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Um, so just want to recognize that uh March is women's history month. Um, it's important obviously to have parody on all of our boards. Um, and um, just encourage more females in leadership. Um the public restroom, do we think that may be open by baseball season? Yes. Okay. We will be able to open.

Okay. Cuz there was like hund 100 people here yesterday and the um bathroom wasn't open and then the library wasn't open and the police station wasn't open. Walked my kids over to the porta potty. Um okay. And then um I just want to make a statement that um I want to make everyone aware of an automated text message that went out using my name to ask some residents about community issues. The message was sent by a third-party system and was not reviewed or authorized by me. Once I became aware of it, I took immediate steps to stop the outreach. I also followed a police report. I respect your privacy and take this matter seriously. If you receive the message, no response is necessary. I am committed to secure and open communication and sincerely apologize for any confusion or concern this may have caused. Thank you.

Thank you, Abby. Pam, you can go ahead.

I I also wanted to comment on Women's History Month. Um, I generally take a jaded view of months and weeks and but I do celebrate my birthday for a month. So I think you know this this this is okay. Um so the question really for um designated holidays or events is really why is it important and why should all of us regardless of our age or gender um take this seriously? uh all of us get mailings and read um uh you know perspectives on on women and uh um what I found is just a couple of just points that I wanted to make in in this regard. It is really about understanding the contributions and the struggles of women in our history. Um uh I think that the the um no one would argue with the fact that uh for those as we look back on what we were taught and weren't taught in high school, in elementary school, middle school, um the presence of women uh was is not as powerful and not as present as the as the um presence of men, particularly white men, in shaping our country. We're all paying a lot of attention right now to I mean, how much how many of us have reread the Constitution recently because we've had to and because we need to be part of that dialogue about protecting democracy. I'm gonna my my perspective is that um designations such as Women's History Month, Women's Day on March 8th um is really to call attention to that and to continue to bring the contributions of women into the

conversation with our children um and those of us who are in policy roles that we do what we can do to um address pay gaps. We've we've done that in our village. Uh we did that a few years ago and we have made a commitment for example to to have parody with other communities um and and and and remedy um positions in the village which have not been at par with other similar positions. Um, and and we've also uh because we've got three uh women on council and a woman administrator, I think it's easier to have those conversations because women aren't overlooked the way they were at at one point and talked over. It's really tough to talk over this group of women on this council as it should be. Um, and that's an example of um of something um all of us need to pay attention to. So, I I feel pretty passionately about this and uh and thanks for the opportunity to speak to it. Um because I think all of us uh can be leaders. We're all responsible to grow our daughters into leaders and we all do that individually and and should continue to do that. So,

thank you P. Thank you. You're here. Great. Do do we want to take a vote to designate March Women's History Month for the proclamation? Um, Women's History Month has been claimed um on the month at by presidential proclamation. We could do something in the village, but I think we're probably covered unless you wanted to do something special. I think it's worthwhile. That was a good speech you gave. We did it last month. Yeah, I think I'd vote for something special, too. We have a lot of girl dads and girl moms on this.

We have girl dads and girl moms. Absolutely. And that's a good thing. Um uh because I think it I think the council sets the tone in the village and if we're concerned about how we all raise our children, good. That means other people will think about that as well and consider it important. So, I'll make a Go ahead. No, I was just saying then let's go ahead and make a motion to declare notwithstanding what the federal government has done to declare that in Franklin March is Women's History Month. So moved. I'll second. All in favor? I Are you going to ask? Is anybody opposed?

Not even going to ask. I live I live I live in a household where if I even brought the nay up I probably wouldn't go home tonight. Um one quick thing just I will give a uh committee liaison report. Um but also just as an announcement and general awareness for villagers. When does yard waste pickup start now with the nice weather? Great question. Isn't it the first Sunday in April? I think it's the first Sunday in April. put it on the website. If we could send that out in the in the villager, that'd be wonderful. Good idea. One other thing just

that I've had heard that other communities do that we should take advantage of is we pay to send a tax bill to every single resident twice a year. Other communities add other PSAs in that communication. That would be a great place twice a year to say, "Hey, we still need your email address." We have a plan to do that. But just so you know, that's two sort of free, not free, but we're got we're we're we're spending the money anyways opportunities that I I got something from my business and I'm like there's like three like oh okay. So I'm like you can do that.

You can't you cannot include anything in the school collection though. But in the other two you have. Awesome. So let's maybe take advantage of that. Anybody else have anything to discuss? All right. Um if anyone wants to make a motion to adjurnn. Nope. Real quick. Oh, I got my uh committee leazison. Oh, please.

Yeah. Um so providing the report for planning commission. Um I talked with well I guess for general awareness one of the things that we talked about for increasing efficiencies of these meetings is providing opportunities for um any of our reports from officers uh including or representatives from Main Street planning to uh provide a written report rather than coming and attending in person or I offered personally to just deliver the report as well. Um, so I talked with Stuart, he was really grateful um, for that. Um, Evan reached out and notified him and then him and I had a subsequent conversation. And, um, so one, first of all, just wanted to raise awareness that he's very appreciative of that. And then second of all, that he had raised that any major decisions or with any real progressions in the planning commission um, that he would want to attend in person. Um for general updates from the planning commission itself, the majority of the actually all of the conversation from the last planning commission meeting was around the nuisatement. They were um they took the feedback and are focused on the things that we prioritized. Uh, one of the things that I had had a conversation separate with Stuart and then it came up at the planning commission itself is and just for general awareness based off of what we received back is that the nuisance from um from rubbage in yard is one of the reasons that it didn't initially come on the list as a priority was difficulty in establishing the threshold for it. I use the example of what how do you create the material difference between the kid leaving uh his soccer nets up in the backyard compared to somebody having a knockdown metal tin sitting there for decades, right? And so um how do you drawing

those thresholds between what is general community compared to what is actually a nuisance um is something that they're mindful of. Of course, they're going to do their due diligence and look at how other communities are addressing, but something that I appreciated. Um, I still think that our priorities that we have listed out are the right priorities, but we'll see what they come back with. Interesting perspective.

And then I think the the other item was um around the uh I'm drawing a blank. Uh what's the name of the we are still in progression. He said it's with the administration for the um planning. What's their major? I'm totally blanking. What's the master plan? There we go. Um so there's been no update from the planning commission, but it's I believe with it's with me. I am reading through it. Yep. Checking it for errors. Perfect. No issues. Oh, yeah. Because that was going to come on the agenda for acceptance, I think.

Okay. Next. That's the last step, but there's a couple there be straight out. Yep. So, we'll get that handled. Okay. Anyone else? All right. Motion to adjurnn. Second move by Sally. I Excellent. Thank you everyone.