Council - Regular Meeting

I can get like a used patrol car.

Is she walking in? I'll wait a minute.

You know you can charge them like overnight? I heard. I have the same conversation with my kids.

I get everyone's attention. I'm going to go ahead and call to order the Monday, September 14th, 2026 regular council meeting of the village of Franklin. If we could do the pledge, please.

Next item is adoption of the agenda.

So before we get into any of the comments that we've come up with, does anybody have comments, questions, suggestions?

Yeah, I'm going to add a few items.

You're going to add a few items? Yeah. What does that mean?

I'm going to add a few items to the agenda.

You're looking to make a motion to amend the agenda.

Yeah, do you want me to put it in the form of a motion?

Well, that's typically how it would go, but yeah, if you could.

I'll move to add items to the agenda. I don't actually need a motion according to the charter, but I'll do a, you want to write it down?

All right, well, so what is it you want to add to the agenda? Let's start with that.

Yeah, 13 Mile Road projects.

Okay, do you have any backup, or what is this? Is this just for discussion purposes? We're not looking to take action.

Yeah, to take action.

To take action on stuff that we don't have any material on?

Well, I mean, these were proposed agenda items. They just didn't make it on.

Just proposed agenda items, okay. Go ahead, let's hear your list.

Okay, 13 Mile Road sidewalk projects, or safety projects. Exchange of services to church for parking lot and playground use. And CRM platform. And council listening sessions.

Right.

I'm not sure I got all those 13 mile. I think it's not sidewalks really.

Uh, safety projects. Yeah. Number two, you said was, uh, exchange with church, change of services for use of parking lot, parking lot and playground.

Third is the CRM item. Yeah. A public CRM. And then fourth, uh, council listening sessions.

just so they have a spot on the agenda. So that way we can talk about them in an orderly fashion in new business. Yeah. Oh, technically listening sessions would be old business because we brought up before in 13 mile and the, everything would be old business, but the CRM.

So I don't talk about the CRM last month. Yeah.

Yeah. We talked about last month, so we can put it wherever you want it president, but I don't care if it's old or new.

I know where I want it. So I would just assume, put him at the end of new business, being that we had old business that, well, we have other items in new business that I'm sure police chief would like to get to before we let him go.

Point of order question.

Yeah.

We have a procedure that normally would drive this new agenda items, particularly substantive ones, to the legal committee first so we can plan for the agenda. I was at legal committee and those items weren't presented. So I'm wondering if they were not presented. We didn't discuss them at legal. They didn't make it to legal committee.

I submitted them.

So he said, I could just maybe finish my sentence and please. So I would propose that if they're discussion items, like that would just be discussion. I think they would. I'm fine with it. I don't want to. But these are big items and the opportunity to see some collateral or before the meeting, especially if we're being asked to take action would be most helpful and so I would decline wanting to add these if that's the case with these items. My input. You can vote no if you want. I know that and I probably will.

There's no written procedure, but they were forwarded for review by the legal committee, just so you know.

They were forwarded the night at 7 o'clock before our meeting at 9 o'clock in the morning, if that's considered ahead of time.

Well, I thought they were before the Monday meeting.

All right, but Monday was Labor Day, and we posted it as a Friday legal committee meeting, and they came in on Thursday evening.

Oh, I didn't see the post. Was it posted when?

So they're on the agenda. They're going to be discussion items.

No, some of them are for action.

Well, the action items, if somebody makes a motion and it's supported, that's kind of how it works.

Okay. Thanks for the question.

Yeah, no problem. Anybody else?

To your point, where's the procedure for adding agenda items?

I mean, I've sent it to you like three times.

Has it been approved?

No, it has been approved.

So is it considered a council procedure if it's not approved by council?

Not all procedures are approved by council. Policies typically are. So we don't bring every single thing to the council, otherwise we would almost never get anything done.

Should agenda setting procedures for council meetings be brought to council for action?

That would be one that would clearly be in the purview of council.

Shouldn't council decide how to set its agenda?

Are you asking me?

Yeah.

Yeah, so the charter says that this council is able to determine its own order of operations, which is generally through an agenda, and you can set a procedure, have a set of procedures for how you do your committees, how you set your agendas, and they would then be presented to council for approval, and then that would be the process that you would follow until otherwise changed.

So we could add that to the next meeting, too. President, do you want to do that?

Sure. Being it's the last meeting of this council, we're going to have four new people on council starting in November, but potentially four new people too, for sure. But okay. If you want to have this council starting to make governance policies for future council, we'll talk about it next week. As of this week, we're adding four items to the agenda as new business items, E F G and H. Anybody else have any comments? All right, the last item that I'm going to address is we have a resident who would like to make a comment regarding the demolition permit for 32875 Wing Lake Road. So that was on the agenda last month and we tabled it. So we'll move that to old business item A and take it off the consent agenda. And then move everything else in the old business down.

I'll just say in response to adding things to the agenda, our biggest priority item for this year was. Governance and policies, so I don't think it's ever too soon or too late to discuss. Definitely not to discuss. I would argue that we should take it at every opportunity.

Government's policies aren't here. That was already planned for discussion and consideration. These are newer items, but okay. Thanks.

I'll second that sentiment. Thank you.

The last item is we received on September 11th from the Daughters of the American Revolution. In the past we have designated Constitution Week as it falls each year. This year it's September 17th through the 23rd. So I'm gonna go ahead and add to the end of new business I Consideration of the Daughters of the American Revolution request to make September 17th through September 23rd of 2026 Constitution Week. Anybody else? Okay. Next item is the minutes. Well, I don't know. Apparently we've been told we don't have to approve. Apparently anything can go on the agenda now, so do we want to?

Well, no. Hold on. Point of order. We can add, so the opportunity of discussion of the agenda is for anybody who wants to place something onto the agenda to put it onto the agenda, and then our vote is to actually adopt the agenda that we've set. So we would need a motion.

And per the charter, council members can add items to the agenda the day of a council meeting. I'll make a motion to approve the agenda. Or do you have to do that?

I don't do it.

You made a motion?

Yeah.

I'll second.

We have a motion to approve the agenda by Salak, a second by King as amended. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Aye. Me.

I'll vote opposed too.

I am, we do have a procedure for getting substantive items on the agenda. It's been communicated more than once. I really want to talk about these things, but I want to do so in an informed manner, and committee members understand that. This is a habit of last minute adding things to the agenda, and I just object to it.

Thank you. So just for clarification though, in response to that, it's already been at, it's been handled. I mean, what's well, once person's permitted to comment regarding it, why wouldn't another one? I don't have a problem because again, I just want to clarify that. I think some of the confusion here is I don't that the procedure that was established for us was to submit any proposals by Friday. And what changed is that the holiday week forced the change of when the committee was meeting. I'm not sure that Trustee Slack was informed of when that was happening. I don't know that anybody outside of the legal committee was, and therefore they would not know to then alter the expectation of when something would be submitted.

Respectfully, that's correct, but that procedure and all this stuff that has been circulated and discussed also talked about things like written material to support it, backup material to explain it. What we got was literally six bullet pipe items. So they're on the agenda. When they come up, you guys are welcome to have discussions. Thank you. You're welcome. Next are our minutes. First of the regular village council meeting minutes of August 10th, 2026. Anybody have any comments? We can get a motion to approve.

Second.

a motion and a second to approve the regular council meeting minutes of august 10th all in favor aye opposed motion carries second of the closed session meeting minutes of august 10th 2026 anybody have any comments you get a motion to approve motion to approve We motion to second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Next are public requests and comments. Again, this time is reserved for any resident or anybody that has a comment regarding items that are not on the agenda. If it's for something that's on the agenda, we ask you to wait until that item. Otherwise, we have a request that you keep your comments to three minutes.

Okay. Hi. Hello, council members and residents of Franklin. My name is Laura Parker and I am the president of Franklin Community Preschool, which is right in the backyard of this parking lot. I have four kids. My youngest twins are here with me, so I'm not going to be able to stay long, which is why I need to speak now. And two older kids who have attended Franklin Community Preschool. um our previous director holly reached out last year requesting funding to help maintain our playground our ones teacher franklin resident and fcp parent sasha croswell has come and spoken to you guys twice regarding this matter we purchase and maintain all equipment and get new mulch and sand every year for our playground as a small tuition-based preschool we are fighting to stay open while in competition with the new free preschool gsrp programs where all public schools provide free preschool for four year olds. So we walk a fine balance of providing the best education for our students, paying and keeping our wonderful teachers, paying for licensing fees, while not raising tuition prices to maintain our enrollment and stay open, but also have to keep up the playground where we are not the only ones who use it. Our playground is open to the public at all times, and it is heavily used by the residents of Franklin. I would argue it actually gets more public use than it does from our students. Our time, our class hours are usually from nine to nine to noon with the four year olds who stay until two, only three days a week this year. Many of us on the board feel that we should be fencing in the playground because we are the sole people responsible for the upkeep and also unable to use it at times. Last week we held our meet the teacher event and during that time there happened to be a Girl Scout meeting that we didn't know about ahead of time where there were 30 to 40 children and adults on the playground and we were unable to come outside and use the playground. There are kids from Franklin, families, your residents, who often use it with parties, gatherings, and socializing at the playground year-round. Most of us don't even know that it isn't the village's asset, it's ours. We have never excluded these groups, but because we see you guys as a partner and hope that you see us the same way. Now, as a parent and a former first grade teacher at West Maple Elementary, which the majority of Franklin residents' children go to school, I see the value of having an updated public playground, especially when your neighboring cities do not have public playgrounds. We are asking that this community support us and this community asset by providing funding on an annual basis to maintain the playground in a safe way. I know that this has been an ongoing topic and it has taken up valuable time for us and you, all of which we have countless other things to discuss. And I also know that at board meetings, things can continue go around and around until they are voted on and finalized. So I'm asking you to vote today and support our preschool, the huge community asset and keep it open to the public by providing us with annual funding. Thank you.

Thank you.

Right on time.

Lisa.

Good evening members of the Council and fellow residents. My name is Lisa McDonald and I wanted to take a few minutes tonight to share some exciting news about the Cummings Sends Commons Cafe and where things stand. Last week was my 16th Labor Day Roundup and this year we handed out samples of cookies that I can't wait to serve at the upcoming Sends Commons Cafe. Talking with so many of you that day, I heard real excitement about the concept, along with some honest questions about our progress and timeline. As many of you know, I've run a personal training studio in the village for 16 years. That business and the trust in this community has placed in it is the only reason the cafe is possible at all, and I'm deeply grateful for that. I'm at the studio seven days a week, and I'm always glad to talk with anyone who has questions or just wants to say hello. As we finalized the plan and made sure it fit within the capital available to us, I looked seriously at more than one way to get there, always asking which one would work best to serve the village and which one would actually execute well there. After all that work, I can tell you that the answer landed exactly where I originally planned and proposed. a coffee shop and a wine bar with me as a sole owner and proprietor. There's no mystery investor, no outside operator, it's only me. As for when you'll get that first cup of coffee in Franklin, we're moving as quickly as we reasonably can through the renovation of the building that it was badly in disrepair. My goal, just as it's been with the studio, is to bring something intentional and carefully considered, and we're making every effort to get every detail right as we go. If you walked by recently, many of you may have noticed that the sculpture from Robert Sestock, a local artist, was just installed, and the building has been painted and is beautiful. So this is just a small preview of the atmosphere that we're building towards. I'm looking forward to opening before the end of the year and bringing a true neighborhood gathering place, warm, welcoming, and generally ours to Franklin. Thank you for your time this evening.

Can I ask a question? What's the inspiration behind the name change? I've been meaning to ask.

So SENS Commons is SENS means senses. And so it's bringing all sensory items under one roof. I wanted to have a very organized approach to what I'm offering there and to just bring a whole common area. So rather having separate entities. So just sensory experiences. Thank you.

Thank you for the update. We're super excited.

Thank you. It's looking beautiful. That's great. It looks great. Thank you so much. Have a good night.

Hello, Mark. How are you doing tonight? Mark Ziso, 32695 Redfern, long-time resident. I'd like to thank the council and the chief for working on the e-bike things, especially after what happened on Telegraph, Labor Day. Those two children are still in pretty bad shape from what I understand. I think we need to work a little harder with maybe a little bit stranger control of this. The other thing is, is consumer's power is redoing service lines in the neighborhood. Everybody's yards getting dug up. The residents should be aware that they are not only tearing up yards, they're tearing up driveways. And they, I had to fight myself because they came across the driveway when it was super hot. They took the machine and turned it over a thousand dollars worth of patching. So if they're going to, come into your yard, you might want to make sure that they do put the pads down, which they do have on their machine, which is a consumer's power ruling, and consumers was very upset with the contractor that they did not follow protocol for consumer's power. Consumers has been very good about this, and We are pretty well closed on the control, but they are doing a lot of damage to yards besides. Thank you. Thank you.

Hi.

Hi. I'm Linda McKeon. I'm a 44-year resident of Franklin. Two things. In all the time I've lived here, I don't remember any time where there's been so many vacant businesses, buildings on Franklin Road at one time. I don't know what happened. I don't know what caused it. For the period of time that it happened, it seemed like a short period of time. possibly it's the rental amounts if that's part of the issue i don't know but i feel like the village really needs to do something i mean it doesn't look good for our downtown if you drive through building after building has signs up so it's clear that there's nobody there and i don't necessarily have any suggestions at this point in time but i really encourage the village to do something to revitalize the downtown area. Secondly, again, 44 years, I have seen several companies that are utilized for the waste removal. By far, the current one is the worst. They're the most consistently In that company, I've seen not picking things up on time, maybe spilling them on the road. I've seen various things happening. I understand we have a contract. I don't recall when it expires, but the fact is we need to do something, not just let it go in impunity, let them just keep doing what they're doing. We have to come up with something. I know other communities have had this. It's been reported on the news that have had this issue. maybe even worse than we have in some respects, but the fact is that they've come up with solutions. I think Clinton Township, I believe I heard, has like a $50 a day or some fee that's being charged. um but it's probably part of their contract which i know our contract doesn't have at this point so but we need to do something we can't just let let them do whatever they want to do whenever they want to do it and i don't know if anything is in the works being done but i encourage you that you really have to come up with some kind of solution i'm sure the village is tired of hearing from me calling not every week but frequently saying they didn't pick up the yard waste they didn't pick up whatever it was. There was some stuff strewn on the, garbage bags strewn on the road. I mean, it's just ridiculous. And like I said, they're the worst contractor I've seen in 44 years that I've lived here. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm Steve Bancroft. I live at 27310 Wellington Road. A year and a half ago, I had a heart attack. If it had not been for the fantastic work of the police department and the fire department, I would be a dead man. Literally, the doctor told me that I got there within 15 minutes of dying. This past week, I live, as you may guess, at the end of Wellington, near the end of Wellington. We were out power for four or five days. That's okay, because I have a generator. But that meant Xfinity went out.

Without Xfinity, I have no phone.

No cell phone. And I'm not alone in this town of having cell phones not work. And it's been brought to one council after another, they withheld putting up a cell tower for looks purposes for years, even though the cemetery, which I run, offered land. The answer was that we would be able to have the small towers put on telephone poles. That works, it does work. The problem is there's not enough of them. And there are segments of this town that do not get cell phone coverage in 2026. And as we all have heard, and as the chief knows, they're moving 911 to cell phone and will eventually be cell phone exclusive. Therefore, it is a matter of public safety. I'm asking you again that this one not be like the previous ones, talk about it and do nothing. We have looked at it, we have looked at it, we have studied it, and we have studied it. We know what needs to be done and no one's going to do it. Unless you do. I've already talked to Verizon about this. They can't come in without you involved. You're going to have someone die. And then you're probably going to get sued. So I'm here one more time asking you to get serious about this. Thank you.

Good evening, council. Excuse me, allergies. Good evening, council. I'm Rick David on Wellington Road. I echo Mr. Bancroft's points. I happen to be a neighbor of him, and I was also in a dead zone. And you have maps that show where the dead zones are in this community. It is a safety issue. One of our neighbors is a medical professional. He was on call. He could not serve his patients. He did not have service. Now, we don't expect to have cable go out, and we rely on that for the Wi-Fi, which allows the cable to go, but it does happen. And I was talking to the contractors. They were out working to repair the lines. They didn't have service either. They couldn't get calls from their dispatchers where to go next to help serve the residents of this community. Please, do what you can. T-Mobile's got poles up and nothing on top of them. Do what you can as a council to encourage T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, whoever, to add that service to this community. We desperately need it. On another note, October 2nd, Oktoberfest. Put it by the library. the friends of the library. I encourage all of you, council and all our citizens to participate, support the friends who support the library so we can have a great turnout. It's a great event, great community event, and you're all invited to attend October 2nd. Tickets are available at the library. Thank you.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

Margaret Bancroft on Wellington wife of Steve and I'm just here to I'm reminding everybody I want to make it you know, clear that there is a deer survey out with the DNR, and the Southeast Michigan Urban Deer Coalition, which I hope everybody will get to see and fill out, one way or the other. It's just a survey, and we're trying to get it, you know, presented to as, in front of as many people as possible. And we've been putting out some posters. Also hoping that the council might consider sending out a mailing to the residents to get this survey in front of them so that everybody can participate in it. And of course it's a seven county wide participation. So it includes all of the towns and the cities in this seven county area. And just wanted to get that word out and I'm hoping that council will consider sending out a mailing to the residents of Franklin. Thank you.

real quick questions following up on that comment uh have we put the survey into our newsletter excellent thank you the question can i can i talk the question is how many people get back it's on the website too right yeah it's buried and maybe let's adjust that up being that we're

They're looking for survey results in the course of the next 60 days, so as many results that we could, or as many participants as we could get would be great. Sending out a mailer, we'll have to discuss, there's an expense obviously associated there. But thank you, sir.

Michael First in 32644 Colony Hill Drive. Nice to see you. Yeah, nice to see you guys. So I just want to say thank you for the recommendation of the Planning Commission. It's been a pleasure already and look forward to doing some good work on there. It's a really, really great team. DEFINITELY LOOKING FORWARD TO DOING SOME GOOD WORK THERE. JUST A COUPLE QUICK THINGS. KIND OF THINGS THAT I'VE NOTICED WATCHING A LOT OF THESE MEETINGS AND A COUPLE THINGS I WANTED TO SAY. NUMBER ONE, I THINK THAT like i would advise the trustees and the council to watch like bloomfield townships meetings or you know some of the other municipalities locally the way that they conduct their meetings how things are voted on how everyone's kind of on the same page in a way on what's happening it just seems like a lot of these meetings some things are sort of done hastily or without all the information and to the