Council - Regular Meeting

uh the village of Franklin's regular council meeting for Monday, October 13th, 2025. Can we please do the pledge? [Music] I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Evan. If you could do roll call, please. President David Goldberg here. Pam Hansen here. Daniel Ferris here. Abigail Gates here. Mike Selzer here. Angelina Salaka here. Trustee David Solid

here. Excellent. Next item is adoption of the agenda. Uh after some communications with the infrastructure committee, they as you can see have we have a little bit of a some pictures in front of us. So they would like to continue the discussion on road crossings and relocations within the village. So we're going to add that as actually you don't have to add it. Yeah. I mean, it's uh it's actually old business, but we'll add it at the end of new business since we're adding it to the end. We'll put it in as uh item 10 F.

Thank you for that. Yep. Under new business. Under Yeah, we'll just do it under new business. Let's knock these other things off first. Uh so, can I get a motion to adopt the agenda as modified? So moved. Second. Motion by Seltzer, second by Hansen. Any further discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries. We have minutes from two different meetings. The first is from our regular council meeting of September 8th.

Motion to approve packet. How you look? Should we do a second and then discuss? Yeah, of course. We have a motion by Selzer, second by Silaka. Discussion. Yeah. Um, on page seven, 96 2025. Is that supposed to be the date? Cuz I think the meeting was on the 23rd and then if you go to the back page, it's like 94 2025 under new business. So, that was kind of throwing me off. Do you see the I do uh I don't recall. I don't think it's a date because sequentially it goes.

I know. I don't think it's a date either. Evan, do you know? So, in the minutes on the motions, it looks like remembering the motions. So, is that what that is? So, 2009 means it's the September 25 and motion number two. Motion number one. Yeah, that's what it is, Andrea. Okay, that's what I thought it was. Yeah, the it's the the year, the month of the meeting, and and the number motion so that we could always go back and reference the motion by a number. So, is that new? Fairly new. Yeah, good. Thanks. That works. Okay, that Yeah, that that's what that looks like. And then, uh this is the this is the regular council meeting of September 8th, right?

Correct. Okay. Um page four. Mike, were you here? at that meeting December 8th. No, I was not here. Okay. It says motion by seller. You know, I had s saw that earlier. I thought we had already fixed that. That needs to be fixed. But I don't know who made No, they're just so used to it. I think I did. Okay. I wasn't sure, so I figured. Yeah. I saw your Yeah. Yeah. I had left him a note on a couple of these items when I read it before legal committee, and that's definitely one to go back and see. Aunt thinks she made it. Just for the record. I'm fine with that. I just don't No, no, you're absolutely right. That was a good catch.

Okay. And then um I think Trusty Gates asks about the deer and the police report. Not me. Abby, well, that was you, right? Okay. Under uh page three, uh Roman numeral number seven under Kurt Lawson submitted report and says Salaka asked, I think it was Gates. Okay. That answer? Yeah. Okay. Anybody else have discussion or comments? Um Mike, are you okay amending a motion with the change?

Yeah, I'll motion with the corrections indicated. I'll continue the second. So, we have a motion by Celtzer, second by Hansen to approve the September 8th, 2025 regular meeting minutes as amended. All in favor? I very good. Second is our special meeting of the 23rd. Motion to approve. I'll support. We have a motion by Seltzer, second by Hansen. discussion. I didn't have any on this. Yeah, that one was short. I didn't see anything. Anyone else?

All right. All in favor of approving the minutes say I. I oppose. Motion carries. Uh, next on the agenda, public requests and comments. Uh, got a good number of people here today, so we'll hold comments to a three minute maximum. Anybody? Mr. Mr. Blandon. Oh, hold on. All right, you got trumped. She made the quick move. Nice move. Okay. Hi everyone. I'm Denise Jacob. I live on Irving and I'm here today because I would like to organize a Franklin spring cleanup day.

And um I was I talked to one of the trustees and they said I should bring it to the to the meeting. I've noticed every spring that there's a great deal of trash in between the road and people's yards and um this year I went around with my little grabber thing and some bags and you know there's only so much that I could do but I think it would be really fun if we advertised it, we picked a day. I'm suggesting April 25th. Happy to put together a committee. I've already talked to folks who are excited about this. Maybe we start with some donuts and and and coffee in in the parking lot and then just get everybody going. I think it would be really fun and it's something I propose that we do every year and spring is a great time because people just haven't walked their perimeter um since the winter and and don't even realize what's out there. So, I think we can use all our available mechanisms for marketing it with the FCA emails and the library and so on. And I have all my comments and my address and everything here if you'd like me to submit that. So what would be the process from this?

So yeah, it was you and I who communicated and it's not until April. So every council meeting, there's this form. Uhhuh. Getting it to Evan, our clerk, to get on the website and for him to include in his weekly newsletter once you have a date established. Okay. And I mean those are definitely the forums that the village can make available. Great. To get the word out. You guys have to vote on it. Do we have to vote on it? No. Well, if it's just a resident I mean unless you're asking for the village for money to do any part of it if it's just helping organize. No. Abs. Absolutely.

I think it's a a nice idea. How many people do you have that How many people do you have on the committee? Right now I I've I've talked I've had two people who have said, "Oh, yeah. I'd love to, but I haven't been really talking to people. Hi, I'm Pam. Hi, Pam. Hi. Um, I know that the FCA does the spring cleanup of their grounds. Is there an Have you spoken with Kathy Erlick? Is there an opportunity for you guys? There's the one who told me to come here. Oh, okay. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. Otherwise, we'll But I will I will talk to her and see if she wants to coordinate. That'd be great. Thank you. Just watch.

Good evening. Bruce plant 27175 Garden Way. This is not meant to be deja vu all over again. I've been at several meetings, some other people have to discuss the deer call issue. I know that President Goldberg has been in contact with Brian Farmer from Farmington Hills. I've seen some emails that have circulated and have come to me and I want to give you some props and kudos for moving this forward. And from what I understand, the deer call issue will be part of your agenda for the November meeting. And I think that's appropriate and I really appreciate your taking this and moving the ball down the field so we can have some public discussion and education on the issue. This is not going to go away. It's only going to get worse. Thank you.

Just Yeah, I'll I'll update I I planning on updating it. I know you do. I just wanted to come down and say thank you. I think you know I appreciate your efforts and your attention. Hi.

Hi. I'm Margaret Braftoft and I live on Wellington and I wanted to thank the council and you David Goldberg for your careful consideration of the deer management concerns of the residents. And I would like to make a request that Franklin Council establish a committee of residents that would also include a member or two from the council to work together to coordinate deer management efforts with the DNR. I would be pleased to serve on that committee along with others of us who are brought have brought this effort to your the attention of the council. I feel that we need to leave at least have at least one member of the council or maybe two. This would take a lot of the work off of council because we could communicate with the DNR and other communities as to the procedure and methods. We could be called the Franklin Wildlife Management Committee. We could receive input in collaboration with the efforts of our surround of the other surrounding communities and this would take much of the work off of the council members. As stated, the committee could actively seek and receive input from residents and others with concern regarding the wildlife in Franklin. We could work collaboratively with individuals of all points of view regarding wildlife in Franklin. when work collaborative collaboratively with wildlife commissions or similar organizations in nearby communities regarding wildlife and work with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and other county, state or federal entities responsible for wildlife management in regard to wildlife village. Franklin Village is already a member of the Southeast Urban Deer

Coalition. Brian Farmer with the DNR suggested that we request to have this resident member to have a resident member of this newly formed Franklin Village Wildlife Committee be appointed by council to represent Franklin Village on the Southeast Urban Coalition. Thank you.

As I said, I'll update everyone in a minute. And I do I'm not going to repeat everything that she said, but I really am grateful to you, President Goldberg and Pam, for taking this issue on. I know that David, you've talked to Brian quite a bit. I'm really concerned. I live at 27355 Wellington. I have seven beautiful Bambi deers in my backyard. I love them all, except I have been challenged three times by even by a six-point buck in my backyard. So, this has become a major concern for me because it's terrifying. I don't even want my grandkids going out playing in the backyard because they become aggressive. Um, I've been in conversation with Brian Farmer for the last two months and for the small group of us that have been talking about this, I've kind of been his point person. So, a lot of the information that he's given, he's he's sent it through me. He did suggest that we develop the um Franklin Village Wildlife Committee. not a commission. So, we don't have to have bylaws and all that kind of stuff. It would just be a group of residents and council trustees that would get together and actually Brian suggested that we maybe follow Southfield's wildlife commission format the way that they put theirs together and we've already talked to u Mayor Kin Cyber and Brian and they generously offered to help us if we wanted to set something like that up. The um Franklin Village Wildlife Committee, as Margaret mentioned, would assist the council in educating our residents, holding forums, educational opportunities, and hopefully bringing in speakers not only from DNR and from our surrounding communities, but also a representative from the boot food banks because I think it's really important for people to understand that this is going to benefit our community as a whole because the food banks are saying people call and ask when is the venison

going to be available? Um the other suggestion that he made was that he would should we decide to participate in future callings, he would bring together not only the DNR but some U ofM master students to work with us to put a specific plan for the DNR for Franklin Village because we would have to have our own um plan even though we would be participating with Southville and Farmington Hills and Farmington and the other communities that are now beginning to speak up and say, "Yeah, they want to be a part of this for 2027 because 2026 is already done." And just this week, Brian texted me or to ask me to circulate a property volunteer form and I sent it to you, David, NSA to Pam. you may have seen it uh by email and it was put together by the Farmington Hills Wildlife Committee and it was developed to glean interest from residents who were interested in using their property for any potential future cullings and I shared that form with the people that we've been involved with this small little committee here and we've shared it with other residents other neighbors that are also interested in possibly using their property as well.

Thank you. So yeah, boy that your three minutes are up, but if you could, you know, please share that information with me. A lot of what you're talking about is already in motion that I'll share with everybody. Yeah. In a minute. So appreciate your and and all the feedback that Brian is getting from this particular residence form. He'll make that available to us as well. So again, thank you so much for taking this seriously. Thank you.

Hi, I'm William Elders. I still live on Apple Tree Lane. Uh we've spoken several times in the past and tonight I have just a few remarks regarding the deer call subject matter and I can assure you my comments will be very brief. First, Mr. Goldberg, I want to thank you and your council members for complying with our request to hold our dear call plea to your list of agenda issues coming up in November of this year. Acknowledging our request manifests your sincere concern has been given to the subject and we appreciate your prompt response to resolve our excessive deer population issue. I would also like to place a ditto mark and endorse the remarks made by Mr. Blandon, Mrs. Bankraftoft, and Mrs. Graham. In closing, I've learned from some research the DNR has compiled regarding the deer population matter, and it is truly truly astounding. According to their research, the village of Franklin possesses 2.7 square miles. The ecosystem that they have in their possession reveals the village can accommodate 10 to 15 deer for each square mile and it can accommodate 30 to 45 deer for each three square mile area. Unfortunately, the DNR map information estimates there are approximately 300 deer

making their home in the village of Franklin. Needless to say, this is excessive. If we do the math and choose to do nothing about the allegations that are being made regarding safety, health, and property damage, the problem will only become more cumbersome. Thank you once again, Mr. President, for your leadership and your prompt attention to this matter. It is deeply appreciated.

Thank you, sir. Good evening everyone. Uh Natalyia Shopee. I'm here to address the Michigan Department of State Bureau of Election recent determination. In SH versus Selzer campaign finance complaint in its September 23rd, 2025 determination letter. The bureau found reason to believe that multiple violations of the Michigan Campaign Finance Act occurred in connection with Mr. Steler's campaign. The bureau explicitly stated that if these violations are not resolved informally, the matter will be referred to attorney general for possible prosecution and penalties. Despite this, in August, Mr. Seltzer misled the council and especially Trusty Hansen by falsely claiming that the case had been closed. This uh official state makes clear that the case still remain uh open and unresolved. For the sake of transparency, this document should be shared publicly so that the residents understand the seriousness of this findings. I have copies available for anyone who wishes to review it or it can be requested through a foyer submission to the village. The bureau also confirmed that Mr. Selzer no longer resides at his previously listed Franklin address to 7160 drive and failed to update his campaign filings as required by law. Furthermore, his alleged Mis contains unlawfully redacted address information and expiration term that appears to be months to months and reducted monthly payments information which could be potentially zero or below market value. also zero security deposit with all utilities, maintenance and repairs included in that list. All this represents potential undisclosed financial benefits and a possible illegal gift from a landlord who is a Franklin resident and owns several Franklin properties used for short-term leases. Residents have a right to know whether a sitting trustee actually resides in the village and is a registered voter at the same address listed in the alleged lease agreement since July 30, 2025 as both the charter and constitution require. Beyond this violations, there are serious ethical

concerns. Uh, for too long, Mr. Seltzer has used his position to manipulate, intimidate, and mislead colleagues, residents, and even county and estate authorities. As I told Mr. Seltzer last year, and I will repeat now, it's time for you to resign after sitting on the council for so many years, the line between right and wrong, between legal illegal no longer exists for you. Um, I'm sorry. And I want to add this comes from a family that once supported and defended Christy Selzer and did not believe others when they reported similar treatments. I respectfully ask this council to finally address all of this ethical and campaign finance violations, verify whether Mr. Selzer is in fact a resident and qualified voter of the village and determ at the address that the list says and determine whether he remains eligible to serve under the charter. It is also time for the council to consider amending the charter to include term limits as Mr. Selzer conduct clearly demonstrate the consequences of the per of one person remaining in the power for too long. I also would like lastly add in June 2024 Mr. Selzer ambushed my family in our backyard demanded that I remove a post I had posted on next door regarding certain certain council members misconduct and when I calmly said no because it's true he turned to my husband and said order your wife to move the post. My husband said, "No, there were other things he said, but he said your in front of my kids, uh, your family is better and should move out of Franklin." That was only a fragment of what he said that day as such a conduct is unacceptable for anyone, especially an elected official. Thank you for your time and consideration. Welcome, council members. I would like to say that that last comment was derogatory towards a person that's been

on this council, many boards for many, many years. He this has all been cleared by our legal firm and we need to shut this down and move on with console issues like that you have been doing with hiring. I just don't think that it builds good rapport within the village because of false accusations. Mark Zeisso 32695 Redford. Thanks Mark. Hi John.

Hi. I'm John Simon of 3032 King Carden Trusty Sulaka. When I spoke last at last council meeting and explained that Meg Schubert's letter of resignation accused the trustee of overstepping her job description, I never once mentioned your name, nor did Magg. Yet your defensive response directed at me was an implied acknowledgement that it was you who Meg was referencing. You went on to say that Meg's letter was a smoke and mirror's misrepresentation and that Meg was actually a good friend. In fact, Meg's letter states quite the ob opposite. For trustee Sulaka and Meg to have such totally different interpretations of their relationship, it can I can only can only be explained by Meg's effort and determination to make the best of a bad and compromising situation. When a new administrator is coming on board, the council must assure that person that no individual trustee will be allowed to interfere or direct uh this administrator or staff. If we are to avoid a repeat of the crisis we have just overcome, the new administrator must be willing to immediately report any such transgression to the council president. Trustee Sulaka, your energy and passion are obvious and we all hope that you have only the village's best interest at heart. However, due to a number of letters from various village organizations that have that have voiced serious complaints about you, it should become apparent that your impact can turn out to be quite different from your good intentions when people feel disrespected and unappreciated. So, please consider the possibility of your ways not always being the best and know that respect and compromise go a long way to building bridges and gaining support. Thank you.

Hi, I want Cindy Sherburn 30950 Woodside Drive. I'm sorry I'm not seeing so well today because I had to have a retina exam. That's always exciting. that lets you see life in an entirely different way with lots of bright spots. Okay, I want to start with what Mr. Simon spoke about with the prior manager letter. This is what I have to say to anybody on this council or any other council. I spent many years advising judges on a court and their administrators how to deal with things. This is what I have to say. You can be best friends with whomever. That's fine. But your role as a council member requires you to treat that person in their particular role with the council with things that are going on. Friendship doesn't matter. You can be friends. You can go to lunch with people. You've got to maintain the proper boundaries between your job and their job when you're doing those positions. Um I think that that's the source. You could probably be best friends with her. I don't care. Doesn't matter. Are you doing your proper job with the council? That's a question in these things. So, that is something I think needs to be kept in mind when you're doing these things. You have to do your job as a council member. Okay. I have noticed you picking up your cell phone. I hope you don't have it today because I've got something to say about cell phones and council members. You are here as village council members, trustees, with a fiduciary duty and a duty of care to those of us who are the villagers. That's your duty. Your duty is to sit and listen to us while you have these council meetings. It's not to take calls from your children. It's not to do any of that. You need to do your job as a council member. I am asking that you do that and you not have your cell phones out during these these matters when we are going ahead with these meetings. You've got to listen to your villagers. It sends a really strong message when you don't. Okay. Now, Mr. Sally, you talked about

constitutional issues and blah blah blah constitution. Did you do an analysis of that that was written out somewhere? You talked about the constitution and not being able to step down from the position because of the constitution. Were you just throwing out words or did you do an analysis? This isn't a question and answer period. So, justice,

I I I am I'm asking him to think about that because he made statements about the Constitution and what it said in his statements. And I have this to say the Constitution contains a lot of limitations on who can serve in certain roles. There are ordinances that may contain other limitations. We have nepotism rules, for example, about administration and council. We also have in other areas of this state there are also charter provisions that don't allow say spouses or people related to the second degree to serve together on a council. There's kind of three minutes. So if you could round it up, please. I'm getting there. I'm really close. Getting there. You need to round it up.

Oh, no. I'm I'm definitely getting there. The problem we have with this whole thing is we start having a concentration of power. We have something like what,200 houses here. Two of seven being in one house is kind of a major thing. That takes a lot of power from other people. I want you to consider that as you look at this. And there are provisions elsewhere in the state of Michigan that require marital relationships to be All right. Thank Thank you for your comments. Okay, that's all I had anyway.

Anybody else? All right, I will close public comments and open reports of village officers and agents. Chief Lawson, start with the police report.

Yes. Uh in front of you, you have uh the monthly report for September. And as you can see, we remained active in both communities uh throughout September. Uh specifically engaged in community engagement. We had the Labor Day roundup. Uh we did two separate mobile watch presentations. Uh one on gun safety in Bingham Farms. And then we teamed up with the library and did a cyber security which was very well attended here at the library. Um, and we also had many officers, including uh our sergeant out there who uh ran the torch run for Special Olympics. Uh, so I applaud for that. Um, want to talk a little bit about staffing updates. We did have an officer resign in July for personal reasons. Um, and then we also had we still had one unfilled position uh for a period of time. Actually, since I've been here, we've had an open position. But I'm pleased to report that tonight we have successfully filled both open positions uh with highly experienced officers. And I'd like to introduce them tonight. Our first new officer uh not so new to me. He's got over 30 years of experience. Uh we worked together for a long, long time in West Bloomfield. He retired from West Bloomfield as a sergeant. He has extensive training and experience as a special response operator and team leader. His leadership and experience will make him an excellent mentor for our younger officers. And with that, I'll I'll pass it over to Officer Wessle if you'd like to say a few words.

Hi, everybody. Come on up to

I did uh 29 and a half years in West Bloomfield. A lot of roles there. I was a FTO. I was on the peer support team. I was sergeant. Um, I worked undercover for 11 years of my career, both running the running the unit and as a operator in the unit. I was on our special response team for 25 years. I led our sniper team for 11. Um, got a lot of experience. I'm happy to be here. Like the community, I think it's great. Um, pretty excited. Uh, just trying to get used to the, you know, slower pace. Thank you so much for choosing to join our force. We're fortunate to have someone with your experience to join us. That's sort of one of the our department's been very good at chief especially

making sure that we are getting well experienced officers like yourself. So thank you so much for being with us and I uh I appreciate you uh coming back to me after all those years. So you're welcome. I know it wasn't easy. So undercover.

And our next officer is officer Jessica Allen. Uh she joins us after six years of experience in the city of Detroit and she was uh for part of that time in tactical services. Uh so she uh is very experienced, has a lot of experience with pretty tense situations, but she also understands the importance of customer service and professionalism, which is what we demand here in Franklin. and from what I've seen over the past two or three weeks, uh, you're going to be a great fit here. So, with that, I'll turn it over to you.

Um, you kind of you like stole everything I wanted to say. Um, yep. So, I did six years in Detroit. I actually grew up in Detroit. Um, and like the chief said, I was in their tactical services section. Um, not as cool as him, but I did I wasn't a sniper, but um, I have some pretty good tactical training there. Um, and then I switched over to their uh kning unit where we uh recovered firearms and I got to shoot a lot of cool guns. Um, but yeah, I'm looking forward to the slower pace here. Um, I like the friendliness. I like, you know, people actually recognizing me. Speaking in Detroit, you don't get waved at. Um, you get waved at, it's a different kind.

Um, but yeah, I'm excited to be here. Thank you so much. What do you do to help you? So, I was actually homeschooled. Oh, okay. I was actually homeschooled. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I went to Henry Ford High. And you remind me of somebody that I went to school with. You have a sister? I do, but she was also homeschooled. So, right. Well, there's somebody looks just like you that. Okay. I have Everybody has a doppelganger, you can say. Yeah. Well, welcome. I want to thank both of you because I know you're both off today and you came in for this, so I I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. And then finally, I'll wrap up with uh you know, we have been a little bit short staffed. Uh when you have a smaller department, when you're missing two people, that's going to cause uh a little bit of strain. Uh so we have been paying out a little bit more overtime than I anticipated. I just want to bring that to your attention. And as soon as we, you know, move forward, we should stabilize quite a bit. And that's my report. Thank you, Chief. Thanks, Chief. Chief Chief Tony, you waving at me? Yes.

Okay. Hi. Hi, Kurt and everyone else. Um, you've received our written report for the month. Uh, October is fire prevention month, and I just wanted to add in a request uh for everyone to do three things, only three. Usually, it's two, but today it's three. Number one, if you call us, can we find you? Do you have your address numbers clearly marked in a different color than the background of your home somewhere visible? So if it's 3:00 in the morning or if it's a snowstorm or in the middle of rain, we can find you. Number one. Number two, do you have fire extinguishers in your house? If you do, where are they? And don't think about it. Actually find them. Um, I've lived in my home for 18 years now. 17 years, excuse me. And things move over time. So please take a look. Find out where they're at. see if they're even workable or operational. So, if they're not, please take care of that. And number three, for yourselves, for those you care about, for your families, whether they live in your home or not, have a plan. A plan for an emergency that happens in your house, as well as an emergency that might happen in the area, severe weather, ice storms, windtorms, tornadoes, and whatnot. Um, make sure that you have a place where you can meet up outside of your own home. Uh, this becomes very important, especially with people with kids. Kids may not want to be outside in the middle of the night when it's cold. They may go to a friend's house. And if you don't see them going there, you might not know that they went there, which could cause you to go back in to look for them. So, we can be as safe as possible, but take this month, take just a moment to go that extra step just to make sure that you're ready for anything that can happen. With that said, I'll conclude my report pending your questions.

How do you tell if your fire extinguisher is operable? Well, uh, most fire extinguishers will have a gauge, and that gauge should have, uh, an arrow in the green area. But you bring up a good point. Also, look on fire extinguishers for the date of manufacturer. If the extinguisher is over 12 years old, it's time to replace it. Um, over time, springs weaken, springs break, and we'd hate to have something that looks like it works when it doesn't. Um, I know when I purchased my first house, uh, in a different city, uh, the extinguisher that was required for the mortgage inspection, uh, was older than me. It was in 1949. It had a chemical that has been banned for fire extinguisher use for probably 30 years, but according to the mortgage vendor, we're good to go. So, it's one of those things that we should really um, just take a moment. Thanks.

Thank you, Chief. Always appreciate your insight. One real quick thing. If you're if you do have an expired uh fire extinguisher, is there a particular way that you need to dispose of it or can it go in the garbage? So, uh there's two different ways. Uh one is very messy, which I don't recommend.

Uh and the other is find a fire extinguisher store. Uh there are several uh in the area, take them the old extinguisher and let them dispose of it for you. Putting it. You bring up a good question because fire extinguishers generally speaking have something that is uh compressed. It has compressed gas. If it's a regular extinguisher, um, like I think it's behind the door here, um, or outside, the whole extinguisher is compressed. Um, others, older fashioned ones, have a small, uh, canister of carbon dioxide. But if you put it in the in the garbage, um, you end up creating a potential issue when that garbage truck crushes the trash. Um, and it's a lot safer and better and easier just to get the new extinguisher and give me the old one. Let them deal with it.

Tony, can't we take them to SORA? Um, you could. Yeah. Yeah. So, we all have the ability to Franklin is a member of Sakra. So, then not only fire extinguishers, but batteries, hazardous chemicals, oil based paints, um, whatever whatever you don't want in your home that shouldn't go in the regular trash should go to SORA and they're over in Royal Oak by appointment only. Y, you can go in any I'll just let you go. You can go in anytime. Anyone else? Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Teresa's here as well. Oh, Teresa. Well, we have treasures report. Oh, I guess so.

Teresa, come on up. You are our treasurer now. Today, you are official. It is official. Everyone, Teresa Jablonsky. Hello. I was going to introduce everybody.

Um, today's my first day in case you didn't know. So, um, hopefully this goes okay. But um in your packets you should have a list of the checks that were distributed for the month of September. Um the total amount of the bills list report is 48,59756. Um the amounts of the bills that are included in this list are normal normal monthly spending or um and routine. The expenditures are generally consistent with the 202526 budget. The bill's list for the month includes a large entry in the amount of 49,711 which was for the purchase of a 2025 Ford Explorer police vehicle um paid to Gorno Ford Inc. Um the village has sufficient funds to meet its current and anticipated obligations and the list of account balances should be in your packet um which are as of October 1st 2025 held at First Merchant Bank. Any questions?

Anybody questions after? Sorry, I have a lot of questions. Um, I don't know. This is done before I start. Hold on. Wait till we get the bills. Oh, okay. Sorry. Not nothing I want to say. And I don't know if Teresa had answers to any of them. Yeah. Uh, no, that's it. Thank you for the report. Appreciate it. We'll do our bills. Okay. Uh, I also I see Lance is here today. Lance, again, thank you for coming in today and assisting Teresa in the transition. Pleasure uh serving as the treasurer for the last decade. I told Teresa that although I'm not in the position, I'm here to help.

So, as she has things that might be uh new to her, etc. Uh it's not in the ways of Franklin. I'm here to help to get you up to speed and always be a resource. And that goes for anybody that has questions on any of these. Yes, Lance, you've been a champion for us over a decade. Amazing. And uh if there is anything that we could have Teresa lean on you for is is to complete that the investment. We've already discussed that project. You've got an important meeting tomorrow with farms. Okay. Follow that through and sit through because uh I I want that whole portion of our program improvement.

Yeah, that was part of why we brought a treasure. Teresa has great background in that and to the extent you can give her some direction on what your thoughts were and what has been discussed in the past that would be wonderful. I'd like to make a motion to do a reclamation for land. That's able to and I I just would like to thank the former treasurer also for taking his own personal time to come in today and go over the process with me and go over the reports and I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you both. Thank you. You're welcome. Today's holiday.

All right. Sorry. All right. So, next, uh, Angelina, uh, submission of current bills. So, let's start with any questions and then we can get go to a motion.

I just want to make sure I'm reading this right. for under local streets bond 203 um it's about 49,000 that we're paying Johnson landscaping is that in addition to what we pay them under building and grounds um so it would be we're paying them close to 72,000 a month uh Mr. President. Um, I asked Jerry Johnson to be here today because some of the invoices are higher than they are usually because when we went back in time, we discovered that some several of these invoices were not paid. So, we've been trying to catch up with some of those invoices. And in reference to your question, ma'am, I believe he could probably answer that for us today.

Oh, Jerry is here. Hi, Jerry. Oh, hey. Sorry. Everybody, throw it at me. So, I was just wondering um there's local streets about 49,000 and then there's um under building and grounds 22,000 but they're the same check number. So, I don't know how it's broken up as how everything is put in the slots. Back the Jim Creature, they were discussing uh slotting them for building maintenance as far as the different buildings and roadway maintenance broken down. So, how Britney Yes.

How Britney breaks it down. I have no idea how how um Susan I have no idea how how she broke it down. But that is that is how it's been consistent. Yeah. But I'm just saying so it's 50,000. So like 72,000 this month.

I I think No. So again, I doubt that Jerry will be able to speak to it, but I think what was to your question, it's all under a single check because they probably just did a computation of the total amount that was due and issued it in a single check based off of the category in which the expenditure should have been filed. So, one of the discussions I had with Teresa today uh was getting with Rachel when she arrives and trying to find a little bit better system so we can capture that data because there's a contract that you're under, but then he does a whole lot more than that on a daily basis, whether it's our ordinance officer seeing a tree down or a request from myself or Jenna, and we want to make sure that we capture all of that and record it properly. So if it's the total amount when the past administration left there was an outstanding balance that was extremely high and that I just got paid. It was 4 months back. At one time it actually is going back to 2024.

Is that that 49,000 was that back pay? Yes. Okay. So we normally pay you about 25,000 a month.

It it varies. It varies in a peak season from April to about September or October can range anywhere based on storms and what is what is requested of me from those months because of the downtown area somewhere between 22 and 35 and that rolls up and down. And what I try to do is I try to spread it out over uh a 12-month period. But what happens a lot is the requests become real high where intersection trimming, roadway trimming. I try to do some of that when the guys aren't plowing snow. Mhm.

Well, when we get uh like we did the last couple years, the ice and the heavy snow, that takes away from the general maintenance. So, that causes um the six to eight months of the busy season to be even to generate even more work. Now, through octo uh November, December and January, it switches into snow removal, which the all the bills come down. that ends up in the area anywhere from 12 to 18,000. So it drops it down substantially.

Yeah. I was just used to seeing between that like 22 to 35 number. So this month when it was like 74,000 I was just like okay what what's he doing? But that was so we uh we were not paying you um we were not paying the invoices that were being sent to the village and I apologize for that. That was business for administration. Sorry,

Jerry. I think in general a part of what Teresa will be working on as well as when Rachel starts is a more defined system of what falls under your general contract for services and what it will call special order projects so that we can keep them differentiated so that we can track how much we're spending annually for things that have to be done every year to get an idea of what that average is. And then special projects go up and down. As you said, we could get three ice storms in a winter and you're out there for 4 days. We could go, you know, a whole winter with no ice storms. Same thing in the summer. Some years, this year we got a little more active, cutting back intersections. So, yeah, we we're working on getting a better system in place, whether it's using BSNA or or some other type of software so that we're all on the same page and you don't have to be answering. And as far as bills not getting paid for four months and stuff, I can assure you that's not going to be happening anymore.

Understandable. Yep. Anything I can do to make it easier. Really appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thank you. No problem. Thank you. Have a good evening. usual. Just so generally everybody knows, we've bid out Jerry's contract numerous times and he's like so far below what other contractors would would charge us for his services that it's it's still an amazing deal for us. Uh Angelina, anything else? Um that's it. Yeah, that's it. Anybody else have any questions? All right. Can I get a motion to approve the bills list? So moved. Second.

Motion by Selzer, second by Sally. Further discussion.

All in favor? I opposed. Motion carries. Special reports. Okay. Uh I'm going to address uh just a couple items today. Uh the first item I I think I'm assuming Trusty Seltzer might speak in greater detail, but I would be remiss not to mention the the historic and monumental day today with the release of the Israeli hostages and the hopes that we will soon find a resolution to the conflict in Hamas. So, uh, I wanted to make sure we did not fail to recognize the importance particularly to the Israelis and the Israeli families getting their family members back. Uh, second item is I wanted to introduce Evan again for this being his first official council meeting.

I could Is it two or three weeks? Uh, threeish.

Yeah. So I think today is roughly the will be the beginning of the third week. So uh Evan has taken on his duties amazingly has grasp the system faster than we could ever have imagined. We asked Heather to be here for a uh a full 5 days to assist him in the transition and by the end of the second day uh she had already quit and basically said he started to roll his eyes. So, we appreciate how quickly you've picked everything up and you're a welcome a pleasure to have in our community and we we welcome you and we hope it's for a very long time.

Thank you.

Uh I also want to make sure that she actually came up, but I was going to mention that today was Teresa, our treasurer's first day. So, again, Teresa, thank you for joining our team. Uh we're look forwarding look looking forward to having you take this treasurer's role and take it to uh whatever level you think it needs to go to. And lastly, I want to mention that we are officially signed up with our village administrator. She has resigned her position in Pontiac and will be joining us on Monday, October 27th. And that will be her first day. And soon, Chief, you'll start taking hats off, buddy.

Uh, and do you want to mention get together? I won't make Oh, wait till it's your turn, but Oh, sorry. Okay. I won't I won't I'll skip. Not my turn. Yes. Uh, we're we got it. Yeah.

Dear call update. So after we we spoke on the subject at our last meeting, looks like some of our people. Oh, some of you are still here. And I had mentioned a couple items. Uh the idea of the fact that deer calls typically require five acres in order to uh participate in the call. And we had also discussed that the village wanted to do some further inquiry into sterilization. So after our meeting, I reached out to Brian Farmer as I I had indicated and he did sort of I'll say correct me and set the facts straight on some of those issues. So the first is 5 acres is a generally what they prefer to be, it's not a hard fast rule. The other thing is uh although it's easier that way because the the governmental body has the authority to allow someone onto public property even though it's typically done on public property. private residents that have whether it's one or a combination of residents who were willing to allow the DNR on and would be willing to allow them to do it the you know the to their protocols it can be done on private property and it can be a little less than 5 acres. Uh the way it was explained to me that the calls are done in the middle of the night. Usually the shooting goes at about 1:00 in the morning. They're usually in wooded

areas. They set up a bait pile. They stay there for a certain pound of time. So I don't even think there's a certain number they're looking for. It's just what comes during that time period. Uh the snipers sit on elevated positions so that their bullets are always aiming towards the ground so the chance of ricochet and miss although I don't I'm assuming they don't miss much uh is limited. So I just wanted to set the record straight on those factual areas. Now, with regard to Franklin, also as believe Mr. Dor had mentioned, 26 is already full by the DNR. Anyways, I think it's 16 locations that I thought Brian had said they've identified for 2026 in our area and that's it for 26. So, the next call would be in 27. Also, I asked Brian to give me some details regarding sterilization. Uh, I did not understand at all how it occurred. I was, I want to say, naive to think that it was something as simple as you gave the deers a pill, you caught them, you gave them a pill, they couldn't make babies anymore. Not that simple. Uh, from what I was, what I've been told is for every female deer that they sterilize, it's essentially the same as spaying your dog or your cat. It is a full-blown surgery. They have to be caught. It's either taken to a veterary hospital or they bring mobile hospitals. They have to be caught. They have to be

an

anes an anesthesized. There's a full-blown surgery. They have to be sewed up. There's risk of infection. There's risk of not surviving. And the success rate is no better than the other. And it's extremely costly, way more than calling. So although maybe a little more humane, questionable if it's turns out that you can have risk of infection and then we're have deers running around that are that are infected and die from that from those causes. Uh our economic situation, I don't think we would ever be in a position to support that. So uh what about the males?

I don't know what they do. I mean, I guess it would be the same thing as neutering as far as that goes. And the calling, I don't know. I I I'll be honest with you. I'll get that's a great question for the call. Is it the call all females, all doze, or do they also try and um and take out bucks? So, as a followup to all of that, uh Brian Farmer reached out to me after he saw that you had been communicating with them and then our communication he sent uh to Evan and I, which Evan and I talked about today now that he was back that he's back. Evan will get on the website and on his new weekly newsletter, a couple links to Farmington Hills's data that Brian provided us, which is just a whole educational piece on calling in general so that residents can go there to get educated on it. And then the last item is I reached out to the DNR uh spoke to the people that lead the call. I have a conference uh teams call set up with them on this Wednesday at 11:00 in the morning. Uh which I'll probably do here if anybody wanted to come sit in the room in that meeting. I'm going to ask uh the DNR representatives just some general questions consistent with what Brian has told me and more importantly ask her or one of their group to see if they would come to our November meeting and be here to address the call and answer questions. If they're not available, I'll maybe try and lean on Brian, but I was maybe hoping that the DNR would be here so we could hear straight from them. David, has anybody considered using capture guns rather than killing and moving places?

According to Brian, they don't capture and move in capture. So, uh, so that's basically my update. The links will be available soon. Uh I'll get us some more data. I will um I'll participate in the team's meeting here in in our chambers if anybody wants to sit in the audience at 11 on Wednesday to listen in. And that's where we're at on that front. Uh

have we heard any concerns south of 13 Mile? I know we hear a lot of concerns north of 13 Mile, but having spent time living south, I see no deer there. I wonder if it's simply is it all concentrated in the north and could that be because of the development that we've seen my in Farmington Hills?

I don't know an answer to that. I'm just wondering in my head the only thing I would think would be northwestern's a challenging road and maybe because of northwestern we get less influx from southern border from Southfield like we do our western border non-stop because I live on our western border from Farmington Hills and the deer just cross back and forth 14 mile road the same I'm guessing telegraph and northwestern are more of a barrier but definitely Bloomfield Township us Farmington West Bloomfield are sharing the same deer, how they know who lives where. I'm sure they fly around and they do heat pictures and then just do guesstimation.

Curious if we had if we had links any of you guys south of 13 and do any of you live south of 13? Yeah. Yeah, John does. And yeah,

do so. Okay. Uh, I'm going to I' I've mentioned this a couple times in the past and uh Evan is got his news newsletter up and running again. Uh, we are working on uh a a a program that will be rolling out soon that is going to be an interface between residents and the village government. and all of this and all of the communications and all of our ability to reach out to you, whether it's for a survey or to have you lodge a complaint, it's all email based. To the extent you have not sent either one or more of your families or whatever email address you want the village to communicate to or communicate with to Evan, our village clerk, or any trustee, so that they could pass it on. you're missing out. And it's hard for us to feel bad when you say you don't get information when we tell you right now that the way to get information is an email address. 21st century, if you want to be in the know, the way to do it is get us email addresses. And that's it. I I'll start I'll just move our way down. David.

Yeah. Um, first of all, I just want to thank and welcome both Evan and Teresa. Um, Evan, I can already I can state that your contributions already have been amazing. Um, even like I don't know if it seems like the big stuff or the small stuff, but your notifications on Facebook of just like one of the things that we really emphasized prior to you joining was uh improve communication out to residents and trying to meet them where they're at and uh your the the updates that are coming through on Facebook as well as other mediums um do exactly that. So, first I just want to say welcome and thank you. Um, next off, uh, today I'm rocking one of the, uh, Franklin Birmingham Police Department sweatshirts. So, those are available over at the police station for purchase and highly recommend it. Uh, for anybody in the audience or watching at home, they are extremely comfortable and highly recommend. As the young kids say, 10 out of 10. Would buy again. Uh, next one is um that I I don't know if we do it here. Uh I don't know that we need a vote of it, but I would like to for next uh month prepare a resolution or a proclamation um recognizing the contributions of Lance to the community, somebody who has served as a uh represent or just a volunteer for the community for that long. Again, thank you. Um

absolutely will take place.

And then the the last item is uh today is Indigenous People's Day. Um and I just wanted to share some words and experiences um regarding the topic. And so uh I started my professional career I'm from South Dakota originally. We have uh nine tribes there. And spent my professional my early professional career both living on the reservation and working with indigenous people. Uh I then went to law school with the intent of working with indigenous communities and so had an emphasis on that. and then life takes you down a different path. Um, but wanted to share some education that I learned along the way that I think is important for everybody to understand um, on a day such as Indigenous People's Day, which is within the United States, the the legal recognition of tribes is actually a political status. It's not a race. And they're recognized as uh, sovereign domestic dependent nations. And what that means is that they are not under the purview of the state but recognized as a government uh a sovereign government under the federal government. And that's important for several circumstances. And one is the the continuity and the continued um support uh and just I guess continuation of the culture, the beautiful cultures that exist. And I think the other thing to recognize is that in recognizing uh these tribes as political affiliates or sovereign domestic dependent nations is recognizing their differences. And so again, they're not referred to as people, but peoples recognizing uh that distinction. And so I do think it's important to honor uh indigenous peoples, not just one day, but every day. Um and if you're not familiar with their cultures, I highly recommend it. Um it's in extremely important to to each of the governments because that is

how they continue to carry over um the government through colonization. Um and there's a lot of uh tragedy, there's a lot of pain and there's a lot of um there's a lot of pride and there's a lot of joy and there's a lot of uh recognition for what it's taken them to survive this long. So, um, again, just wanted to take a few moments to share some of the education that I picked up along the way. Uh, and again, say h happy indigenous people's day. So, that's it for me. Thank you, David. Well said. Nothing for me except welcome to Evan and Teresa. We're glad to have you. Nothing for me. Thank you.

Um, I have a couple of things. Um, let's see. Rick, David, I'm going to need to call on you for the time, but um picking up on David Goldberg's comments about a staff welcome. Um on Tuesday the 28th, uh the library is hosting reception for our new staff and the time is at 5 to 7 6 to 6 p.m.

Okay. They've prepared a nice flyer and we'll be handling the promotion uh on that. And I'm sure you're you're going to get copy for the newsletter, Evan. But tell your friends. We you know to David Goldberg's point, we don't have a good way of ma broadcast communicating in the village, but please invite your friends, the commissions, the c the committee should be invited uh the the fire department and and uh it would be great for everybody to come and meet the the new team. So, I hope I hope you'll put that on your calendar. Um, my other item uh is uh just kind of a pitch um for uh some awareness um those of you who know me know that I'm a strong proponent for economic development in the village. I've been a supporter of Main Street for years and um uh and and I and and part of part of my involvement in helping us uh build out our streetscape had to do with creating a livable environment for residents. Uh so so from my point of view um uh it's important in in Franklin uh you know we're mindful of our historic roots. We're our goal is to create livability for the diverse residents who live here with different lifestyles, different ages uh and uh and and and and really understand, you know, the the changes that are going on in the community that may call us call on us to pay, you know, figure out how to do sell service. We need to have a really good tech infrastructure, things like that while we're living in uh buildings that were built in 1828. and and both of all of that can live together. It's not either or. And and that's one of the messages

for tonight. Um I I had a I had an opportunity to sit in on the his um Franklin Historic Society board meeting this past week. Um a group that uh kind of flies under the radar um most of the time. And uh uh during that conversation, I learned several I learned a couple things that I did not know and want to share that with you tonight. Um one of the streetscape additions was the light poles in down along Franklin Road. Um this village did have lights in the earlier part of the century, but didn't until 2020. And uh one of the things we added were some banners, banner uh uh uh arms. You may have noticed the banners that were placed by the historic society with mug shots of um people who contributed to the village. I thought that was amazing. Uh and I encouraged them to continue doing that. It's kind of a an education, but it's a celebration too of people who are important to Franklin. Did you know that the Franklin Historic Society has two guided walking tours available for the downtown? Uh you access it via a QR code from your phone and our friend Mitch Albam is the narrator. He's donated his time and they're really good tours. Annne Lamont is a historian. She breathes and sleeps history. She's the one that does the cemetery tours. She's a quiet person. I encourage you to get to know her. and if there's anything you want to know about the village, she would be the person to call. Um, but but they wanted you to know about this and I think you would go on the the historic society's website to um get access to uh these tours. Um, the Kitan key comes out twice a year to all homes regardless of

if whether you're a member or not. And usually Ann tells a story. She's the editor and and uh and there's information there that dives a little bit deeper. Recently the historic society partnered with the library to do an American Now some if you don't have little kids at home you might know about American Girl but they had an American Girl event recently where there is an there is a a a doll um version that is um uh early American and and uh they did an education session around an American girl party with the girls and it was the well I don't think I I don't know if it was girls boys with the people who were there and it was very successful and really a fun and creative event. And then of course we've all seen the scarecrows up and down Franklin Road and that's done in conjunction with an event. So those are five things that the historic society has done that maybe you saw but weren't aware who was behind that and I really wanted to point them out today. We have two other organizations that are concerned with historic preservation. the historic district commission which trustees know about and many of you probably do as well and um if you've remodeled or or live in the historic area but the other one is Main Street Franklin um and if you remember the mission of Main Street is to um support the survival of small towns through historic preservation and economic development and and that one hits us in a little bit of a different way but u thank you for this opportunity to support the historic Society and trustees are invited to go to their meetings and I really encourage you to do that. It's in the museum and it's a great tour. Great chance to get over there if you can. Do

you know how many scarecrows there are? No, I don't. My little 5-year-old grandson was visiting two weeks ago and counted 47. Oh my god. That's crazy. Anyway, it's quite a project. It is really quite a project. Yeah, they do that out of the barn. Yes. Thank you for the time. Okay. Thanks, Pam. Angelina.

Yeah. Um, so first I would like to recognize the Friends of Franklin Library for throwing an amazing October Fest. Um, it's the annual fundraiser by the Friends. Uh, it's my favorite night of the year in Franklin. It's always the first Friday of October. Um, they have a raffle. It's dinner. It's music. It's um German beer. It's outdoors under the lights. Uh it's beautiful. People come um from neighboring communities. We always have a presence from the police department um and the village administration and it's just um really great to support the programming that we all receive for free from the library. Um so please mark your calendars first Friday of October every year. Um, great job to the friends and you can be a member uh for very little dues every year and get a discount on your tickets uh if you support the friends. Um, second, the Franklin Bing Bingham Farms Police Department uh recently sent out a uhformational letter to all Franklin residents on the benevolent fund. You should all be receiving it. Um this year there's that opportunity to contribute specifically to scholarships for the children of our police officers. Um so um it goes towards um scholarships and it's really important that we support um our u officer's children and you can also just contribute to the general fund but I really liked the option this year that you could contribute to scholarships for them um and support uh further education. It also could go to like sick or injured officers um or someone that was killed in line duty. Um second is uh just like to say this report is amazing. Thank you to Chief um

Evan for all of the things you have done. There are probably 45 plus on here in the three weeks. This is like all I ever wanted to see in my entire tenure on console is like I did all these things and we are moving in a great direction and there are no questions as to efficiency or productivity. Um this is amazing. Thank you for everything you do. Thank you for noticing the meetings ahead of time so people can come. I feel like we've had such a good showing here because people know about the meetings. um that's super important as far as public outreach and the progress and the um just efficiency and improvements we've seen have been great. So, thank you.

Um excited for the staff welcome and uh I don't know if you know, but our local elementary school, West Maple, was recognized um as one of the green schools. Only two schools got it. Us West Maple Elementary and Lancing School District. And uh West Maple is the elementary school that Franklin kids go to. So it was a very big deal. Um and uh there's about six, seven kids um of council trustees that go there. So that's exciting for us. Um and I think that is it for me. Thank you.

Yes, sir. Uh it's no accident that I'm wearing multiple peace signs uh today uh to commemorate uh a historic event that we should all be so grateful for. And uh needless to say, many of us spent the night watching uh in anticipation and and thank God almighty we got we got there. Um it's also the beginning of Yisker. I mourn for my father, lit a candle, and will be serving tomorrow at Temple. In that spirit, I would like to reflect on what has been a tumultuous year on council and to speak to uh my fellow council members to say that I know that we have frayed uh nerves and sensibilities. There have been some very unkind things said. Uh last month I was absent and there were things said about me that were to say the least unkind. Um I would like to move past that. The only way we can do that is to begin a new and communicating. Um and I think that we have enough on our plates and we have a new opportunity with a new staff. uh we don't have to reflect on why we have a new staff. I think the public knows about that. The public has seen us and watched us and it's up to us to operate now together in a peaceful manner. I would like to propose that going forward. Um, I came here with a whole different attitude before I heard some things that were said tonight. And I don't want to amplify them because there are all kinds of specious claims

and mischaracterizations, but it starts with actual communication and taking things out of context and exaggerating and dramatizing is not helpful. Um, I have a package that I prepared called the receipts and you either get it or you don't get it. I have in here texts without being foyed in their entirety, unredacted. And I was going to make this package available to our clerk to provide to our constituents on an in camera basis. No copies. I don't want to see any of this on the internet, but I've decided tonight that I'm just gonna hold it for the moment. Uh because it will be damaging to some to see the actual context of actual texts and to see what Meg Schubert had to say about last month's meeting and things that were said at that meeting. I have all that. And so on the basis of peace in the Middle East, I would like to see peace in Franklin Village. And so I have devoted three decades to this community and I'm proud of that. Um, and I will continue to serve for as long as I choose and I will not be pushed out. Um, I am here to help and to work and people who know me know that I'm available constantly. My phone number has been widely circulated. I took at least four calls today from people in anticipation of this meeting. I take them wherever I am and I'm available. If you don't want to talk to me, that's on you. I ask that if you have an issue and you want to talk, let's talk about it person to person. And if you don't, it's on you. So, in the spirit of that, I would like to just

move forward with our new staff in a clean slate and hope that I don't have to share this, but if I do, it'll be a reflection of what happens following this meeting. and it's everything in its entirety and it will explain an awful lot. Um, I leave you with this. We have a great gem of a community here. We've had some very challenging times. This has been a most troubled year and I've been sitting in this seat for a long time and I've never seen anything quite like this. We've had marathons to select someone to replace someone's position. the leader of the village chooses who he thinks is best suited. Really, we should support that. And I hope going forward when I eventually retire that we give deference to this great leader cuz David Goldberg is really one of the best presidents we've ever had. I know this because I know him well. We are friends. We do socialize. I do have a relationship and I see his car here all the time. We've never had that before and we've never had to have that before. So, thank you, David. I want to work with you. I want to work with this council and I am devoted to this community as I always have been. Thank you,

Mike. I want to thank you for taking the high road. I greatly appreciate it. And I too would like to hope that everything is behind us. Uh we have been working together very well the last several months. Uh and I too would like to see our new employees be welcomed into a much more uh accommodating and respectful environment. So uh thank you for that. I hope that puts to bed a lot of our history. Um, I can tell the villagers that having been here pretty regularly the last month and a half, we are in a better spot than we were. There is no doubt in my mind. We have brought in talented people. We vetted out the process. We followed a a a process from day one. Pam and Abby were integral in in in being a part of that and we implemented it and we are reaping those rewards. And I I I want to let everyone know that the village of Franklin is in a strong spot. We got a little work to do this next year. Get us financially strong, but spiritually strong and talently strong. We are in an amazing place. And with that, we will close council reports. And Chief, maybe your last time having to wear this hat.

All right. Make it a good one.

Okay. Well, I'll just second what President Goldberg said about the new staff. Uh they've been absolutely fantastic. Evan, his first day hit the ground running. Uh you know, he's improving our website, social media, Facebook, Instagram. It's been amazing. He's improving processes. Uh so fantastic. Appreciate you. Uh Jenna, who's our building clerk and is actually got a bigger role than what she signed up for, working extra hours, helping Evan, helping myself, working side by side with Stephanie because of all the foyas we've been receiving and getting those done on time. Um, also want to thank Stephanie who is my administrative uh assistant across the street. She's been spending a lot of time a lot of time here as well. Certainly doing the village foyas with me and working on our MS 457 account which we've seen some issues we had to correct. So um I just want to thank all of them. And of course Teresa her first day today and she got a ton accomplished on her first day. So so thank you. And with that I'll just uh remind you that if you didn't see it, we did a memo of what we've tried to accomplish the last three weeks. Um more than half of this was done by Evan. I appreciate that. But uh again, thank you for your contributions and uh I'm very excited about our new team.

Yes, Chief, thank you for everything you've done last 3 months. I know there's a couple weeks left, but uh you've been a champion of the village. Thank you.

So, this I know um my comment should have actually been in public comment, but I I wish you indulge me for a moment. Um, on the morning of September 28th, 2025, a mass shooting and our attack occurred at the meeting house of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints in Graham, Michigan Township. Though this is tens of miles away from us, we have three meeting houses within six miles of our village. Having to tell your child that you need to be evacuated mid-service because there's an attack on one of your church buildings is something I never imagined I would have to do. However, as tragic as this is, I implore anyone that has differences of belief or faith or thoughts of anyone. Find a common ground. Reach out in peace. Reach out in hope. Love each other as brothers and sisters. Nobody should have to have that fear. I'm indeed grateful for the for the rapid response of our law of our law enforcement and the constant updates that we received in the aftermath of this attack. I appreciate those that reach our local meeting houses to search for bombs and other other things that could damage or or injure anyone of our faith. Though those members of our faith were not local to us that impacted members within our village and I think it's important for us to understand that peace should prevail when hate rises in your heart. Look for the common ground. Normally I'm more cheerful when I'm up here and I apologize for my

emotions but at the same time it is an emotional situation. Now for my report from planning commission. I appreciate your indulgence as I shared these sentiments with you. Last month we had a public hearing in which we discussed an update to the ordinance for the R3 district which we're going to cover today. And this month this Wednesday actually in our planning planning commission meeting we'll have another public hearing for the addresses located as understood as the Oyster Bar for an update with regards to some um renovations they were wishing to do. Those are the main tasks that we've been working on um as a planning commission for for right now and I'm open to any questions or comments.

God bless you. First of all, I want to apologize on behalf of myself as well as the entire council for failing to address that situation. Uh it was a horrific event couple weeks ago. It fell right in the middle of of the council, but we we all failed in not mentioning that. Thank you. Planning Commission questions. Don't worry about

I just want to say, yeah, thank you for being vulnerable up there and again, it's it is a failure on our part. Um, and you and your family is are with us and um your your family, your extended family serve uh Franklin and they um go to our schools and they contribute to our community and their in our clubs and um that that that news was devastating. Um and uh thank you for sharing it and reminding us um to um be um be better at you know raising the tough issues and remembering them. Thank you Stuart. Thank you Stuart.

Mark anything from Main Street. Good afternoon everyone. I want to thank you for the opportunity to come before you. I um sad situation. Sorry to hear that. I looked at it and I watched it and I still couldn't believe it was taking place. But people are have their own idea sometime and their own remedy sometime. It's just not the right way. Anyway, coming to you from Main Street as of we just we we we are we secured another grant for Main Street and the businesses in Green Street and and I'm sorry. [Music]

It's working. We want to see if we're still recording. I It's We're still recording. Okay. [Music] It's definitely gone. Go ahead, Mark.

Go ahead. And um as of the first week of October, uh Main as as the first as of the first week of October, Main Street has secured close to $25,000 in grants from various organizations and sponsorships to get our events sponsored. As we're moving forward, uh we're we have applied for the permit for the Frankenstein Frankenstein. We're moving forward with that. And as we've as we're moving forward with Frank Franklin Stein, our next adventure that I've been bouncing around the town is we want to do um a Main Street Friendsgiving dinner on the 23rd of November, the Sunday before Thanksgiving. And the way that's going to be is it's going to be put out to the entire village and we're going to invite them to have a dinner at the um it's going to be newly named Sirills Hall Community Center versus Community Church. And what we're going to do is the dinner is going to be a full dinner. It's going to be chef cooked. The whole ball of wax, the cloth paper uh cloth um it's going to be full-blown. It's going to be a good thing. And a lot of the villagers and the people as I speak are really interested in doing it. And what I've noticed throughout my years is that the holidays come and a lot of people because we get caught up in our families, we forget that there are others who don't have that opportunity to have the family and the camaraderie around the holiday season. And as I talk to different people, I've discovered in our village itself, there are number a number of people that would love the idea of coming together for the dinner with the people and sitting back, talking, sharing, and enjoying the camaraderie of each other and just fellowshipping. And as I talk to

people that have been part of the church for 40, 50 years, this is something they did many years ago. And we like to bring that community back together as a community so we can work together, get together and get to know each other. The best way to achieve peace is to find out what each other's talking about, what's on your mind, what open in a place where you could just sit back and just share. And a dinner is going to be a donation only. It's no charge. Donations only. And we've already getting people sponsors who's coming up one step forward to help us do this. And I'm excited about it because it's going to grow. We're going to put it out even more. What we're going to do is after at the um Frankenstein event, we're going to start sending out posters and bulletins to let people know what's going to take place. It's going to be from the hours of 4 to 7 so people can come have a dinner, sit back and leave so somebody else can come in behind them in order to have a dinner as well. We want to do it for as many people as we can in the village to let them know we appreciate their support. We want the businesses to know that we appreciate their support. And as we're moving forward, it's my goal as part of Main Street is to get as many people in a village as possible so they can know what this village is and what it's really about. And a lot of people are noticing that and it's starting to show. The attitude, the the spirit of the village is starting to come together and look out for each other more. And that's what I want to do as we push things forward. We got other events coming along and that we got the Groves High School choir is going to come and sing and put on a Christmas performance. So, they're going to come and put on performance. I um it's just so much that we want to get done to bring the people together in the Franklin Village. I want to see it. I want everyone to know that they're important, that it matters. And if you have any ideas, any thoughts, please bring them to me. And I reach out to all the businesses on a consistent basis. I send out emails once or twice a week to let me let them know. And as I send out emails, I do talk to the

people. I do go up and down on the street. I let them know. I hear what they got to say. I don't I don't ignore. And I always respond with the with the positive response to let them know they are being listened to. And that is having an effect and that now some of the businesses are actually starting to look for people in some of the spaces that are empty. The actual business. Well, I think we can put this guy here. We can put that guy. I think just be good fit here and that's what's taking place and it's a good positive sign for the village because we are coming together as a family as a team and as a community and that as Main Street that's that's our goal. Any questions or

Hey Mark, I I just want to say as someone who's been involved in Main Street since its beginning, you are one of the finest leaders we've ever had. You are such a great communicator and maybe it's your church background, but you bring so much sincerity to Main Street and you push out more messages every week than anybody else. I commend you for that. And there are some big potential announcements coming forward in the next few months. Yes. About vacancies. And I I humbly thank you for that. I appreciate that very much.

Is this a combination of a Main Street event? Yes, it's going to be it's going to be a Main Street sponsored event with the church. So, we got the volunteers, we got chefs coming in that we got actual chefs cooking the food. It's not going to be potluck. It's going to be actually cooked there, served their plates, the whole boloax. So, people can have a nice dinner, not paper plates, a real nice sit back and enjoy each other thing. I want it to be the church. I didn't when I spoke this church also. Well, it's going to be what what we're doing is we're Sirill Hall in the kitchen is applying for a 5031C or whatever they call it to where now that's going to be named a community center hall. So, that's going to be separated out from the church to where now the church is going to own the property, but now they can rent it out as a property that's not part of the church. So, it's going to be a totally different entity from the church is what we're working on and we're moving forward with that as fast as we can to get that taken care of. So, it'll be a community hall to where if the villages want to have a a Uker night, it's not in the church, it's in the hall, it's in a fellowship hall. They want to have a craft night, it's now in the hall, not in a church. And we want to make that separation distinct and clear as we're moving forward with Main Street. Looking for Main Street to grow and show that we're here and we're here to stay in a positive way.

Great job. Any questions? Thank you. Yes. Are you looking for what are you doing about servers and people to kind of keep the event going? Do you need some volunteer help? Mark, we have the church members are stepping up very well and some of the community people are starting to step up and move forward and it's it's a lot of good support. I'm I'm feeling really good about it and that I know that a friend of mine, she had a house. She lived not too far from here.

And what she did was she started a dinner in her home and she started out five or 10 people with her family because they well they had too much food. come on up, join us. Within 5 years in her home alone, she had 75 people coming to her home because they had nowhere else to go. They enjoyed the camaraderie. And it was really funny cuz just a funny quick story. I um I was sitting next to a lady, beautiful, beautiful person. And they were eating Govea fish and I looked at her, she says, "Mark, I'm 94 years old." I said, "I know, honey. How are you doing?" And she goes, "I hate Gota fish." Oh, she said finally admit it. And

she but she said if you cover it with enough of this stuff right here, you won't even taste it. So it was just a beautiful thing. But it's like people learning about each other. She doesn't want I'll take man. But it's a beautiful thing. I I learned about different cultures and you learn from each other and that's what we want to do is bring the community together to learn. We can learn to come together in peace and understanding with each other and it'll go a lot further than anything else we could do. And I I think it's a beautiful thing to see the council coming together. It's beautiful. I love it. I love to see the people coming together and understanding that we move forward. And that's what Main Street wants to do. Bring people together as we move forward. Thank you. Yes, sir.

Quick question. While you have the microphone, would you be so kind as to give everyone the details of the Frankenstein event and the date and time and such? I can say personally that's one of my favorite events every year in Franklin. and I'll be there with with my two daughters and we were actually just spreading the word over the weekend bringing in some people from outside of Franklin to come in too for that. Okay. The Franklin stand is happening to think it's the 25th. Am I correct? Yep.

It's the 25th. It's going to start at 11:00 and we we pushed it back to four because of the pumpkin roll down the hill. So we pushed it back to four so that they can have the streets closed off with the kids in a pumpkin roll. Uh we have a lot of the businesses are going to be supporting it with the trick-or-treating and some of them putting trucks out in front of their place in order to have trick-or-treating out of the backs of the cars. Uh most of the business are going to be able to have the kids coming back and forth. We've got people donating bags. We got people donating materials. We got it's it's it's nice. I like to see the people coming together as a unit and it's great. and and and as we move forward, what I would like to do is as we plan these events, I want to plan them out months in advance so we can get more done because I mean, if we plan it out further in advance, we can also get Oakland County to support us with different games and different activities they can bring to the village because Oakland County, Oakland County, Main Street nonprofit, it doesn't cost us anything to bring that stuff in. And if we call in plenty of time, we can get them to deliver these games, support them, and at the end of the day, take them with us. It's just timing more than anything else.

So, my understanding is the event begins at 11:00 and the parade is at noon. Is that right, for everyone? And if people haven't been, the parade is just one of the cutest things ever to see all the kids in their costumes walking down the streets of Franklin. And the pumpkin roll is at 4. You said it's I'd say the pumpkin roll is about two. It starts at two. From 2:00 to 4 is when they have the pumpkin roll. And you have Franklin and Franklin Stein and his wife. Yeah, that's be a handsome devil. But but we got to find a wife. Somehow somebody don't want to marry the guy. I don't know what it is. Nobody wants to hang out with him. I don't know what it's Mark. As you start to talk about forward planning, you can plan on that every year just like Roundup. Yes.

And if there are if there are Oakland County funds and support mechanisms available, go get them, man. We know we're going to do it. What like what we've already done is with the roundup. They're actually, believe it or not, planning a roundup already this year.

We've already got volunteers that want to do it. Now, we are partnered up with the FCA. As far as when it comes to volunteers, how we going to treat the volunteers differently and that this year doing the roundup, the volunteers will be fed. They will be fed and it won't be any cost to them guys being fed. Volunteers shouldn't have to pay for their own food. And that's one of the things we're moving forward with when it comes to the roundup next year. And we've already got I said easily easily 10 volunteers already ready to do it and they're planning it up. They're saying what they want to do. They want to move forward with the roundup next year. So I'm looking forward to it and I think it'll be an even smoother event and I think we make it a much more beneficial to all organizations as we move forward.

Awesome. Good job. Great job. Thank you. Thank you.

Uh committee liaison. Anybody from any committee you want anything to report with? Uh okay. I guess the only thing would be infrastructure. Let's try in the course of the next month to try and reach out again to the preschool so we don't let that slip through the cracks on us. Is are are you guys going to talk about infrastructure? I thought there was that. Oh, I see. Sorry. Sorry.

Okay, that moves us to new business and I am going to I'm going to make a slight adjustment to the agenda. Uh I I believe it might be this gentleman sitting right here that we have someone here from McKenna. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So uh McKenna who is our planning consultant uh on item new business E is considerating uh the contract contracting with McKenna to proide to provide mechanical and plumbing inspections. You've sat patiently, sir, and I'm going to go ahead and move your item up on the agenda. Well, I appreciate that. Thank you.

Yes. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and I'll actually before we do that uh let me give everyone an update. So, uh it was Rich, right? Uh Jerry.

Jerry. Okay. So, we have Rich and Jerry. One's our plumbing and mechanical inspector and one's our electrical inspector. Our plumbing and mechanical inspector had a double leg break. nothing related to his work here in Franklin, but has uh impacted his ability to serve as our mechanical and plumbing inspector. Uh built in has been falling behind on his inspections. Our residents have been impacted by it. Staff has been trying to find a replacement has been unsuccessful. So, we reached out to McKenna, who is our longtime partner in planning services. Uh Chris Dusen is a longtime friend of ours.

Fantastic. originally and now again and in between we had Sarah Traxler. We've had great planning success and leadership from you guys and as it turns out McKenna also has other outside services including these type of inspections and we have asked McKenna to consider filling in at least for the interim and potentially for the long term depending on what happens with Jerry in serving as our plumbing and mechanical inspector. Uh, I appreciate you being here. Answer questions if necessary. It wasn't probably wasn't even needed, but that's just goes to show your guys true professionalism. Sure.

So, uh, Kurt, you want to go ahead and and explain just quickly? Is it Kurt, are you on lead on this or is that who's uh, really? It's, uh, Bill who's not here, but I'll stab at it. So, um, this is a temporary situation where we would hire you, uh, at your the current rate of $75 an hour per inspection. Um, we don't know how temporary this is, but you want 70 70, correct? 70. Okay.

Right. No, absolutely. So, um, I've been with for 5 years. I happen to live in the area and, uh, was asked to, you know, attend this this session and I'm happy to do so. My name is Carson Clawson, longtime resident of uh of Birmingham. Had a bit of a history going back to the 70s and 80s with Franklin at a personal level. Had some good friends here back in the days when horses were like plopping around quite regularly. It was a lot of fun to see, a lot of fun to come here. But all that being said, uh presently I'm acting as a building official, plan reviewer, and code enforcement officer for McKenna. And um while we've been for 40 45 years planners, 15 years ago or so we started the building services. And so we're more than equipped to be flexible to support this interim time when Jerry's out with people for as long as you need us. And you know, God willing that Jerry's going to recover and be back on his feet and and doing doing what he can here for you again, but for as long as uh u the city of Franklin needs us. you know, we have any number of uh mechanical and plumbing inspectors to help, you know, fill the void in the short term or long term, whatever it is we need to do for you.

Happy to do so. That's wonderful. Uh economically, it's pretty close to to what we're we're paying Jerry. This is a more of a flat fee. Jerry would got a little lesser fee, but got a percentage of the permit permit fees. Correct. This is just a flat fee. But uh I know that uh uh Jenna and I think it was Britney had looked at the the cost comparison and it's it it fits in the budget and makes sense. Well, for as long as you need us, we're here to serve and so um you can always avail yourself to uh you know, contact me as well. Um happy to provide my contact information. You're the actual you're are you yourself actually the inspector?

I am a building official. I'm not a mechanical plumbing inspector, but I kind of play a role where I I help manage as a leazison between McKenna and a number of communities in the area and you have more than one individual that Yes. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. All right. So, we don't have to rely anybody could be available to come out. Absolutely. I think that the goal would be where and when possible to have that continuity of like you know one person as much as I can get to know the community and the people as part of your department and this is for a temporary period until uh until he's he's well so you want a motion to uh yeah with a motion to Yeah, we're going to need a motion to authorize

I'll make a motion to authorize uh the village to uh utilize McKenna to provide mechanical and plumbing inspections on a temporary basis. Second. I have the questions. Hold on. So, we got a motion by Seltzer, second by Gates to approve the additional services uh well, I guess an addendum to our an a contract we already have with you guys for planning. So, this would be an addendum to our existing contract to provide mechanical and plumbing inspections at the rate of 70 per inspection. That's what I How much do we charge the residents per inspection for the permit?

I think all of it, don't we? We charge the $70 plus the permit fee. Well, I I'd leave that to your I'm just asking. Do you know? I'm pretty sure we back charge everything to them, but that's going to be unfortunately that's going to be agenda. It's a pass. So, we'll get I'll get that. Okay. I was just thinking like if cuz I can see us charging less for the permit than it costs us for the inspection because we haven't updated our permit fee.

No, no, the permits the per just a building inspection tax are based on the estimated cost of construction and then it's percentage of that. So if it's a $100,000 renovation and or and our fee is 10% then it would be00 fee. Okay. And then this $70 is build to the um resident who Correct. Okay. Correct. So this is really the $70 per inspection is the rate that our residents will pay for us. Okay. That's for the applicant. Correct. It could be a mechanic on track. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. That we're not um one losing money and two that we haven't raised the fee to our residents and not given them notice.

It should be pretty much seamless to the residents in your contract. Okay. Yeah. I'm in favor of it. Thank you. Anyone? Well, I'd just like to say, you know, thank you. It was great to see uh um you know, many of you here and get to know the community a little bit and uh thanks for, you know, pushing me up as well. Absolutely. Appreciate that. Any other questions? Thank you. We do have a motion in a second. We've had discussion. All in favor? I opposed. Excellent. We're good. All right. Thank you very much. Happy holidays, everyone. Thank you for being here. All right. Thank you everyone. 75.

So in in our uh in our packet we have a Metro Act permit application from Easy Fiber. Easy Fiber gave us a pretty detailed breakdown of their company. Chief I know spoke to him. So I'll let you follow in after me. But our understand our understanding is easy fiber is an internet internet service provider. Correct. That would like to and is using their rights to our right of ways to have an additional internet uh a fiber what do we call it?

They're going to build a third network to compete with AT&T and Exfinity. uh and their model and their business plan is to have uh as soon as you sign up, if you sign up in the next year or so, that fee or that amount you're paying stays steady for the next 10 years, so it doesn't increase with inflation. Um they're building it all over uh southeast Michigan, all the communities around us. So, is this going to help connectivity in places where we have um blackouts? Is this a wireless? This is this is a wireless internet cable. has nothing to do with our cell. It's not a cable service. Has nothing to do with cellular. Okay. Other than to the extent your

inhome wifi boost your cellular fiber optic transmission is a faster and more powerful transmission than through the wires and through the just through the air. But yes, this is only to provide an additional internet service. They are not a cable company. So they don't provide cable services. They're not a telephone company. They don't provide telephone service. I believe it's entirely internet and it's at no expense to us. They're doing it in the right way. It's all done directional bore. Motion to approve. So I don't have second. This is just to give us another option. Correct.

Correct. This is a third this is this would be a third option for internet service in the village. All of this information is in the data we got us if any of the residents want this uh reach out to the office. Uh although this is on this is in the packet right they're going to do mailings I'm sure. Yeah, you'll get mailings from them. But anybody wants to see all this data, just go online to the council meeting uh today's agenda packet and this whole uh easy fiber uh little background of their business model will be available. Did it say when construction was going to begin? The date

I think it said October of 2025. Um but the application date is July. So, I'm assuming it may be kicked out of when you guys are dealing with approving it. October 2025 is now, correct? Yeah. So, like tomorrow if we approved it today?

I I don't know. Um, but that's what the application stated. It would start um it stated the application dated July. It said it would start working in October, but I don't know if they have they're delayed because we were delayed. So, if you guys do are inclined to approve it, just allow me to prepare the permit, which is uh a form that is used by Michigan Public Service Commission. I will prepare that and then have President Goldberg sign it if you're so inclined. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Did you have a question for me?

I have a question. Uh so, you made a reference to an installation term that I don't know the meaning of. I'm my con my question is what is the impact on the residents on the individual property is it the DTE easement or is it the easement along the road and what is going to be the experience of the home owners the term I used was directional bore these lines go underground they don't go up in the in the in the lines okay

and a directional bore is basically how they drill this way and they don't open a trench. I mean, you'll see those guys with the machines on the side of the road and the pipe going into the ground. I mean, that's a pipe. That's that's them directionally boring and feeding a sleeve into the ground. And that sleeve is then used to run a fiber optic line through it.

And that's how you move things along the rightway without having to open up the road and the land on the top. They they have entrance points along the way where they drop in and pick it up and create manholes, but a directional bore is just an underground directionally boring through the ground to move this line through. And and what will we see on the surface um hub points uh structures uh and where will those be in the village?

That's a great question. My guess is how this works is once you sign up from with them, it would be no different than like Comcast. They would go out to the rightway, pick up the line from the direct, you know, from the the main fiber optic line. And I would assume, and I don't want to say it, that in today's world that they too would do a small trench in your back in your backyard and bring it into your house underground as opposed to bringing it in wires. and even like contrast Xfinity today whenever they get an opportunity to try to drop it down the poles and bring it in underground. But the the idea is that all of this is done uh underground,

right? And anybody that signs up is going to get that information directly from the provider. I we won't have anything to do with that.

And I thank you for that. My question had to has to do with from a village standpoint, will there be structures, um, uh, control points, maintenance portals or hubs? Um, we've got a couple of those in the village from other fiber optic other utilities. And I'm just interested in knowing what the impact on the uh, service of the village is going to be. And and I didn't see anything in here about that. It was really aimed at the homeowner. What about the infrastructure from which the lines to each um home will will will happen?

Don't know the answer to that. I guess I'd like to find that out. Is there any way to quick I mean I'm I'm not going to vote against it, but you know, we don't need people putting up big metal boxes on corners. It's happened and it's because we haven't asked questions. Do we want to turn this over to our administrator to research further and come back next month or do we want to conditionally accept and approve based on our satisfaction after hearing those kinds of specific answers? Under state law, do we have the ability to deny? I guess that's another factor.

Those words are you cannot unreasonably deny. There's a shot clock as well. We're sort of behind the curve here. if there are structures above ground that are you are are are um sort of like that big box over on 13 and telegraph and then we've got a thing that thing we call the crypt along Franklin Road that's a a a a maintenance point. I I would request that to the degree that we can legally that we can approve those locations because we don't want them in people's property and we already have some places where ideally they would the spot is already taken put another utility

structure there. Um I would just like some input into that on behalf of the village right there. So there are I agree with Trusty Hansen. Could we just also add to that to give notice to the residents who are impacted? Oh yeah. um send them a letter even if I know this came up a few months ago under the old administrator that we can't do anything but could we give them notice that there will be a you know installation on their property or I'd prefer that they're not they they we work with them to that they're going to send a letter to them. Yeah. Okay. Perfect.

Right. Right. Um David, well hers is different. Sorry, mine was a letter notice. Hers was more President Gold. Um, just to provide you notice. I got to go pick up the kids from the babysitter. So, I may be able to make it back with some attendees for the council meeting, but just wanted to let you know. We love to see the game. So, thank you for Yeah. being here. Uh, there's he found a picture of it. That's we just can't have other people's yards. um hi

for the trustees that's in your packet about midway through and and there in fact is a um a significantly sized box that's on a concrete base. I really feel to put it up that we need to have input into where these are located and putting parameters around this that we not leave that completely up to the company. Why don't we ask for the representative to come to the next council meeting and present

there? We can ask I know they have no physical people really to do uh in Michigan at this time. They're based out of Chicago. But I certainly can ask maybe they can zoom with us something like that. Right. Or can we vote on which rather have the one that look more like sewers than the ones that are protruding with them? Okay. No, they aren't. But if we could and I'm fine even delegating this to the administration because I think you can act in our interests, but just can't leave this one unanswered. So, so do we want to approve additionally or bump this to next month and ask for further

um further information. Peter has uh something there's a quick shot clock here that requires activity whether approval or denial within certain amount of time. So, it's been sitting there for a little while. Oh, has it? Looks like since and if July the application date says July. Oh, okay. So, it came in the midst of our approval. So, if we don't approve it, are we liable? You are subject to fees. They usually work with us. Um,

but yes, we could state law requires action right away and you you could be subject to violation penalties. What if we take a vote on like the least obtrusive? Um, well, you're looking at two different things there. The the holes the the the look like manholes. That's how you access the fiber optic lines and they have those like I mentioned access points every whatever so many hundred feet so that those directional bores you can get in and repair.

Yeah. Uh the two things you're seeing on the right that's those are Those are power boxes. I'm have to assume that these fiber optic systems need power to move them through. And I don't know how often those are put in. I mean like how many you would put in. So I Pam's has raised one really good question and as far as the shot clock, we'll cross that bridge with them. uh just because it was dated that doesn't mean their application was completed on that date. But they give us this map of the village, which is what they call exhibit C, but all exhibit C looks like our all of our roads are are implying that they're running this fiber on every road,

right? And the question that you had would be is how often throughout this would there be where are those? Yeah. Are they in our market right now or not? Like some sort of landscaping where it's at Birmingham by Commerce. So So could we go see in Birmingham what one of those looks like? Like would we be able to get a location to go? I could ask or or we can talk to the the planning department in Birmingham and ask what conditions they put on it. Oh, I'll call.

Okay. I'm just uncomfortable with leaving this open-ended, you guys. I will vote no. Um, well, I'm sorry, Peter. Like I said, why don't we do a conditional approval and ratify that next month? I could go with I could do that. So, I'll I'll make a motion to Hold on a sec. But if we have to if we have to come back and still deal with it next month and they haven't really accomplished anything in the interim just I don't know if there's any urgency if we've been have you've been getting calls or emails saying hey what's going on Peter this is the first I've seen it

oh this I think this was by previous administration and Peter and I just aren't up on right discussion could have slipped through the clerks or maybe we maybe prior administration advised time of our transition and that's why they've been patient and waiting. I go ahead go ahead.

No, the application form says February 2nd, 2015. Um, and then there's another application says July 8th, 2025. So, I'm But then they actually applied for service in Michigan back in January of this year. Um, so I feel like starting in January, they probably came. I bet this February 2nd, 2015 is a misprint. And then in July 8th, they sent us the application, but they were trying to get into Franklin since February, it looks like, and that should be a two. Yeah. Yeah. So, they may have been waiting eight months at this point, right?

The application date is July 8th. I'm not sure when or how it was received. I know there was personnel issues here. I can engage them if you guys want to give me the authority to do so to discuss any of these questions. I think that's the direction we should go. I agree. And maybe they're inclined to approve it, but we we just need some more information. Yeah, I think that's a good course of action. And you can indicate that we had a change of management during that period and that's where the Scott sort of lost.

Yeah. I just want to make sure also it says under MCL 44.3115 they could charge us of 40,000 per day if we violate that. So just make sure we're not going to get charged. I will do my best to tell them thank you for granting us the latest extension. We are waiting on this issue. We will address it right away. We may already be acrewing that says 45 days when the data provider files an application. There is a penalty provision from nothing less than 500 to 40,000 per day. That's correct. In in the metro,

well guys, I don't seems like no one's real comfortable acting right now. I'm gonna say I lean towards it set here for this long. I think we should like I'll withdraw my motion immediately this week. Kirk, let's reach out to them or I'm sorry, Peter.

Let's reach out to them and find out where they're at and if they're in a if they're okay with us pushing this to November. If you're getting like a lot a lot of push back then obviously let me know and worst case scenarios we have to call a special meeting for 10 minutes and deal with this rightaway application if it turns out that they're threatening things against us. I'm not I mean just we vote on it and then if we So that was sort of your conditional. That's what I'm thinking. So that way if he has to act quickly, we don't have to call a special meeting.

Call a special meeting. So then we can go with a conditional. That's what I'm saying. I go back to my motion for a conditional approval pending a determination by our village attorney that we've satisfied uh trustee Hansen's query. Just a quick thought. It sounds like we're required to approve this under the law unless there's something unreasonable about it. Is that essentially what you said? I mean, are these kind of things that we're concerned about? Do you think this even provides a basis for us to to to deny it? Like this this seems just inherent in the technology that they're going to be these boxes periodically and it doesn't sound like we can do anything about this anyway. Yes. Tell me if I'm wrong. Your hands are pretty much tied.

You're absolutely right. And in dealing with T-Mobile over the course of the last year, they have been cooperative and have been understanding and have held off till we could get our act together.

We can't necessarily say the same of this applicant and we probably wouldn't know that until we reached out to them to let them know, hey, we've had a trans, you know, a transition. And as far as a conditional approval, what is it that you want an answer to for the condition to trigger? How many like is it a all of this is going to go in the rightway? And these things do exist all over the village. Most places hide them in the trees and the bushes, but they certainly exist. But what is it that we want to get an answer to when we reach out to them this week? Location of the various pieces of infrastructure,

whether it's manholes or electrical service stations as well as how does the line get from the rightway to the residence? Is it also an underground trench? Is it a directional bore or do they bring it up and and and they can't be running enough poles because poles are mostly in the backyard. My guess is this is going to be running in people's front yards and it's going to probably be a directional line right to the street. I was reading through this. They restore your property. All of those things are a part of the process. But

I would just like conditionally approve. The question is, are we going to try and do a conditional approval where we want to leave Peter to be the one that's comfortable with the information we have obtained or do you just want to plan on bringing this back next month? And if in the course of the dialogue we start getting some threats and push back, we'll just have to deal with it or conditionally approve it. That's what I just need to know. What's the condition that's going to be the trigger if we conditionally approve it? Won't have to call a special meeting. Right. Correct. But conditionally approve it on what's the condition that we that we get sufficient information satisfies

president or sorry what if trusty Hansen sends Peter her concerns and then when you speak to them you can send an email that can answer them if they can. But we approve it tonight so that way like you said you just want to know. Well, I want I want this council to have input into where these power boxes are located. And my my preference would be that they are coll-located with other similar structures wherever possible. Um, but I think we need to be noticed on where these structures are going to be. before they are installed. That that's all.

But it does come back to do we even have a say in that legally?

Well, we have with other utilities. They've been they've been willing to be flexible. Can we just make a motion that um MZ colllocate the installation of fiber optic power boxes next to existing power boxes where feasible? So, I'll mend to my condition a conditional approval based upon our satisfying uh concerns about location in areas that are already um containing fiber optic boxes or something like that. Does that make sense?

Yes. We want it collocated with other boxes. I mean if where possible yes I as soon as I is that yeah I will leave a message tonight. Okay with that. So that's that's my motion. I trust you. You know what you know what I'm talking about. Thank you. Okay. Give me a second. Not sure what the motion is right now. Are are we on the we still on the we're going to do a conditional approval? Conditional approval based upon

subject to village attorney's satisfaction that questions of trustee Hansen with regard to type of infrastructure, location of infrastructure, and access to the home is answered to your satisfaction. If you're satisfied that that Pam's questions have been answered, then you have the authority to say go ahead and sign it. If you don't, we don't aren't comfortable with it, then you would tell us you're not, and we would reach back out to them to see what they're willing to do to fix it or deny it and deal with what happens from a denial. What I can do is report whatever I obtain to President Goldberg, Trusty Hansen, and the the forms are are provided

and if we can tweak them to um condition this approval and them saying yes, we'll collate colllocate it. I'm comfortable. Good. Yeah. If we had to argue anything, it I would argue that their exhibit C is not very clear and demarcating Are they implying by exhibit C? I mean, exhibit C looks to me like every road in the village right now. Are they implying that they're giving us everywhere where I see a red line, I'm going to have a fiber optic line? That's the way I read it. That's an ambitious sales target. It certainly is an ambitious roll out. I'm looking forward to switching internet providers.

Uh, all right. Well, we have a motion. And Abby, did you second? I did. Yeah. A motion by Selter and a second by Gates to conditionally approve the easy fiber application subject to attorney go being satisfied that trustee Hansen's and other concerns of the of the council have been answered to your satisfaction and we'll we'll let you be our arbiter of that if you're not comfortable, let me know and we'll uh we'll figure out what to do from there.

Understood. Any further discussion? All in favor? I opposed. All right, guys. Good. That's a good resolution. This isn't this good question. Hopefully, this isn't going to be a major impact on the village.

Thank you. Uh next item uh consideration of Mark Zizowl as application for fire board of appeals and construction board appeals. Uh I have been trying to fill these positions. Uh Mark has stepped up to uh be on both the uh construction board of appeals and the fire board of appeals. Mark's uh background in in his everyday life uh makes him qualified for these and we certainly appreciate his volunteering. Uh having been on one of these boards in the past, this is not a regular meeting body. I don't know the last time we called them, but we do have to have one. So, let's start by um approving Mark to be on both of these. And I I apologize. This is on me. I will make sure that by next month we have app. It's been getting people to fill out the application. The biggest issue is I will make sure the others that I have been speaking with that have background that are residents in these areas get applications in for our consideration next month.

Mark's a great candidate. I'll make a motion to consider Mark's application for fire board of appeals and construction board of appeals. I'll second. Any discussion? I serve with Mark on the ZBA. Are you going to be able to do all three? Because you'll be here. If anybody can, he can. I'm very proud to be able to help the the village and I will take it to wherever it needs to be. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you, Mark. No problem. Yeah. And like I said, Angelina, I I don't I can't tell you either of these bodies, of course. Yeah. Yeah,

it requires either someone to appeal a decision that the fire department made on them, which what do we do? Inspect buildings a little bit, or an appeal to the the construction board uh of appeals really deals with appeals to code issues, whether or not code was properly applied. No, I just know Mark, he showed up more as an alternate than the regular Mark's amazing um members of ZBA. So, I just want to make sure we don't burn out a good volunteer. No, I don't think that'll happen on this one. Uh, so leave a motion. We have a second. Further discussion. All in favor say I. I. I.

I. All right. Mark, thank you for your continued support of the village. Item C, discussion on zoning ordinance R3 district amendments. So, and Oh, Stuart did. He's here. We're on the cameras. Does Steuart want to? No, we're on the R3. Oh, district. Okay.

So, our council uh and a lot of it was triggered by a couple of nonconforming fences in the village. Council asked the planning commission and Chris Dusen to do a deep dive into the R3 district and determine to what extent the setback requirements and our ordinances impact residents in the R3 district from getting the full benefit of their property that the rest of us get having larger lots and that some of these standards that are being implied on them which are even the same than are applied on all the other lots in the village have proven to be ownorous ranging between 24 to 27% of the houses in the district which totals what did he say 30 you know

37 so eight nine 10 of these are non-conforming so the commission and Chris looked into these and have made some recommendations on some fixes. Go to the next page, you'll see a red line marking of that. That's where the the next page are the literal literally the changes that they're

suggesting. So, um the main one that from the um setback from the both sides totaling at 25 ft. Um it it didn't for us it didn't make sense to set an arbitrary distance so you could have 10 and 15 ft on both sides. why not just leave it at 10 on both sides rather than um having to do the extra math to to give you that 5 ft um of a restriction. So just keeping it consistent um for the neighbors um helped significantly. And then for the rear um just by moving it um 10 feet by 30 to a 30 foot we're able to help help those um in violation of the rear of the side I'm sorry the rear setback um concern um the wording below with regards to the red line of the except in the R3 district was added um and then and then the red line where it said in the R3 district the attached accessory building shall not be near than 5 ft. Um and this is in also in accordance with the recommendation by Bill Denon with regards to international building code and how um anything less than 5T will require uh special fire um protection to prevent cascaded um fire effects between buildings of adjoining properties. Um so that that is um where that that's that's in compliance. that satisfied the the concern of the building um official. Um and then on the last page um a red line of um adding the um specifically the 5 ft from the side lot um in the R3 district. So the in case with a garage erected 10 ft from the side lot line or 5T from the sidelot line in the R3 district just emphasizing that for everyone else it is 10 ft but for the R3 district it is 5T. So those are the main um points. Um I think the red line helps explain um fairly straightforward um how

this should be done. Yeah, please. Yeah, love the red line. Um question um if they're pre-existing non-conforming, they they're not not necessarily. So pre-existing non-conforming means that that in some cases they existed prior to and in other cases they were built even with the ordinance in its current form. So unless we pull back old records to see if they're pre-existing non-conforming, we wouldn't know if they're grandfathered in or not where this is just allowing them. Yeah.

So we don't know which ones were in violation of the ordinance when they were built and we don't know which ones were pre-existing non-conforming. So people could have been building secondary dwellings in violation of the accessory buildings. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I mean you remember we're deal with historic district. So some houses were built in the 1800s and we didn't have building ordinances at all. So there were no setback requirements.

Right. And and then in addition to that and along with your concern, um I think that it's important to point out that even if it's a um existing non-conforming in the in the event of a disaster or or a um um destruction of that facility, they would have to be brought to code or to ordinance, which means they couldn't actually rebuild the structure that that was already existing non-conforming. Yeah. But I'm saying is that a bad thing because isn't the point of the ordinances to bring people it to be in compliance with them and you're grandfathering them in because they built it and spent money at a time and now that we have a new code

if you need to rebuild it, you'll rebuild it in compliance with the ordinance. Yeah. Yes. Well, it Yes. It basically allows them to stay um status quo um to what they have today, but not if it's destroyed. But not if it's destroyed, right? So, do we was there like what council? It was last council that asked for this, right?

Uh it was Yes, it was last council. We've been talking about this for a while because we also worked with the historic district um commission to ver verify whether these changes are in accordance with their principles of historic um the historic nature of the village. So, um this was a joint effort, not just I think I don't know if this actually calls it out in this letter here. Oh, it does. Okay. Yes. Uh uh no it doesn't. But one thing I did want to point out is that all of these efforts were actually done in in connection with in coordination with the historic district commission and the n their vision for the historic district.

So of those 37 homes in the historic district, do we know what percentage of them? Like do the residents want this? Uh I know they didn't show up to the Wednesday uh public comment, but I'm just like asking like those lots are so small. Would they want an accessory building on that small lot within five feet of their neighbor? So, the majority of the historic district commission members are representatives of that district. Did they vote on this? They yes, everyone was fine with it. So,

the repres I mean they represent where they live essentially. So, um I think that because they're protecting the the um the nature of of that district that the people the residents probably didn't feel obligated to show up and support because it was already given the the support from the historic district commission. So, that I'd like to think that's what it is and not that people couldn't make it to the meeting.

The ordinance doesn't initiate their already existing legal nonconformity. What it does is is like for instance, there are 12 people that have a garage in their backyard that doesn't comply with the 10 foot minimum setback and their whole house and everything exists on that. That garage burns down

today and that garage is only 5t from the property line. When they go to rebuild it today, they'll have to build it at 10 ft just like everybody else in the village. The whole point of this was because those lots are so small and because they already have existing things that are on top of each other when we range from 21 to 75% nonconformity. Should we make those restrictions a little less impactful so that somebody could I know that we have all I I've seen ZBA variances where people are looking for variances because their garage is six feet from the sideline, right?

Well, this would take care of that if we reduce it to five. That person can't do anything to their garage, fix it, replace it, do anything because it doesn't satisfy it. So, one thing that I'd like to give larger context for which isn't actually explained very well in this document actually and I think um I think David Goldberg you uh President Goldberg you mentioned it earlier a little bit but um the request was not just for the setbacks and easements. It was actually a holistic look at all of the different ordinances and how they impact the the downtown R3 district. Um, one of the areas that's been impacted are fences. Um, and and um, we looked at our neighbors, we looked at similar villages and townships like ours and we and everyone has a different feel, a different look at what they want their historic district to look like. We determined at the time that um that for fences the fencing ordinance that we should just be enforcing the one that we have. And so those that are legally non-conforming, we the we would the historic district commission would also like to consider them updating their fences to meet the ordinance rather than changing the ordinance to meet the existing non-conforming. Um so so what this is is after those many discussions over all of the different ordinances that we could update to help um uh bring alleviate some of this uh some of these concerns for the Arthur district. This is the culmination of that effort in that we've narrowed it down to an area that we think makes sense um and excluding the areas that we don't think a change is necessary. I have a question. Sorry. Related. Um I think last meeting we had the owner of the Franklin um Oyster Bar come in and see if we considered um I guess loosening the restrictions on businesses in the historic district so that way you know there could be more done in regards to like updating infrastructure, uh water signage. Are we looking at them too like

to make you mean to make it more friendly for? It's just like more investors, less restrictions on signage and I just want to know like when you say it was holistic, was this holistic in the housing not and Okay. So, is there an effort to look at how are our restrictive historical ordinances um limiting investors?

You know, that's a really good point. Um, I think that it would make sense for us to meet with the main street and find out um, how they're being impacted and prevented people being prevented to actually come into the village because of the restrictions of our ordinances. Um I think some of the restrictions are not necessarily by us but due to some um like the bank has some funny things that are difficult to deal with but it's not like it's something we it's it is something that we should consider because we do I mean one of our goals in the planning commission is to improve the downtown area as well um and make bring commerce back into the village more so so I that's a good next step for us is to talk to Main Street and say how are our ordinances also not fair to our our commercial entities that are down here. So that's a good point to bring up. Thank you.

So you guys totally chose to not deal with the sideyards. Why the fences? Sideyards in general.

You got rid of the 25 foot totals, which means you saved the people five having to have an extra five feet somewhere in there, but still stuck with 10 feet and 10 feet. It's just even though nine people have it on one side of their house and eight on the other side of their house that if they you know they had issues they're they're going to be keep holding fast. So that that was sort of where you guys sounds like that's where you guys drew the line that front and back not such an issue. Accessory buildings since they're accessory and usually aren't aligned with the residents they're usually in the back at corners back line. I'm assuming that's your rationale why you chose to not address sideyards at all.

I mean the right right now the the properties are so close to each other as they are as they are have shrinking that even closer is not necessarily a advantageous thing for people. I'm not sure I'm saying one way or the other. I'm just more asking the question that's how you came to that conclusion because um I mean that that's one

somebody's garage burns down and it turns out that their garage now has to be a couple feet off the property line more than it was before. That's not as impactful as your house. And I mean I've seen some of these that have one and zero feet of setback. I mean that's someone losing potentially 10 to 15 feet of house. Are you are you referring to like because there's a fence structure that's right against it or is that the actual property line is right they're right on property?

I went when I read through this Chris's chart of he went through every single house and of these nine that don't have meet on the left side and eight that don't meet on the right side. Some of those are like zero and one ft and that's fine. I mean that's just what the you know deal with. I'm not saying it's bad. And should we try and rewrite the ordinance so that somebody can build a house right back on the property line? I don't think that was I think part of the challenge though is is if you look on on on this last page, but if you build it too close within the side lot line, then you're you're also um there's also a fire hazard for downtown as well if there was a um you know a fire. So

absolutely. So keeping it separated does is a protection for the neighbor and and in in some you know that's the one area that you guys have concluded we're just not going to be able to help people. That's just the nature of that type of living. And back in the 1800s surveying surveying uh equipment wasn't quite what it was today. And for all we know, you know, these were try to be these were trying to be built farther from what was actually the property line than they ended up being built. But yeah, now we have to deal with it. And as long as those residents understand that it's still on your side yard, there's still a big chance that something happens. You're

have to move it a little bit again. Repairing it, replacing it. We've been pretty liberal in that regard. If you're just putting it back to where it was, and it's generally what it was, we've let it go. But if it gets obliterated and it's gone, that's different than fixing. Gone is gone, right? They could still apply for a variance. They could absolutely 100% they would. That would be certainly a a fair hardship in that I had used to have it and right now I didn't and I didn't do anything to what this does is it minimizes it minimizes the effort that the ZBA is going to have to go through anyway. And these are these are few ex exceptions not majority. Right. Well and and you guys did good because these other areas are where probably where majority of the variances are coming from.

Right. not new homes. there are new no homes being built and yeah if someone's doing an addition or an overhang that could be impacted but again real ripe for variances if you're on you're 10 feet but now you want to put a second floor on and that roof goes a foot into the setback or two feet into the setback those are the areas where you would think that ZBA would be right all right so that was really the reason for my question was you definitely analyzed that one out and concluded that the sidey yards is no go, right? Okay. I guess someone Are you looking for Are you looking Are we looking for We're looking for action here, right? Uh I think this is first reading, right?

There's no reading. It said discussion. Discussion. No, this we would set it first. We're ready to adopt the ordinance uh revisions as proposed by Chris in page two and page three. Then yeah, we would get a motion in a second to schedule a public hearing. Well, you already had your public hearing public hearing. Schedule our first reading next at next meeting. Yep. And we have in the past also done more deep dives and had further information between first and second readings. Uh if if if something comes up or as as a result of the first reading, we get a bunch of residents here that say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm one of those nine and why are you right

doing this to me?" Right? And then we'll we'll cross that bridge. Then I'll make a motion for a first reading of the zoning ordinance R3 district amendments. Second per the September 19, 2025 memo of McKenna. We have a motion myself, sir, second by Sally. Further discussion? All in favor say I. I opposed. Good job, Stuart. Way to vet this one out.

Thank you. Um just a side note for ordinances in the future. Um, I noticed on the um, municipal ordinance website that um, we used to add ordinances to a a table of when they were updated and what so that people could actually look at the most recent ordinances. It hasn't been updated since 23. So, um, there's some concerns with regards to uh, people being for I've been getting calls and emails and texts, but how do I know in the last three years what has been actually been passed? I know we passed ordinances in the last three year, last two years. Uh so the when they go to it is on Evan's list. Uh I think Heather pick up that Heather picked up on a lot of things like that.

Well, yeah, she was the last one. Add that to the list of the things that are getting corrected in the village and why our new staff is going to lead us into the That'll help me a lot. So, thanks. A lot of that can take care of. Yes. Next meeting. Can we talk blight? Yeah. Okay. Well, we're doing it's on November. It'll be on November. It will. Well, that's part of what I was going to mention. Can we remind everyone to do that? Well, that Yeah, every I supposed to Evan's sending a Evan will send an updated email from McKenna a month ago. We got the memo from McKenna on blight nuisances. Yes.

Then we got that chart that you guys prepared, all the other communities, all the different areas where you can address nuisances, whether it's in ours or not. And then it asked us to do a yay or nay whether you would want to continue supporting it, you know, or get rid of it or something that we're not including including, right? We need that everybody to review it and be prepared to discuss it next month. In the course of that, Mr. Ferris, yes, doing his legal research concluded that two of those items were erroneously written in the list. EVIB has the updated fix from Dan. So, yep.

Although it only changes two of what you have, there will be this week Evan will get out the updated one and by next month, yes, absolutely. It'll be on the November agenda to begin discussing nuisances. I think Chris had I think I had Chris sent to Heather. Chris concurred. Yeah, that Dan was right. Yeah. No, thank you, Trusty Ferris, for coming to me afterward sharing that. So, that was a couple layers deep. You did a pretty good job on uh researching that out. So, thank you for doing that. So, Evan will get the updated one out this week. So, look for that one. Then you could, if you've already done it, just transfer it over to a new one and we'll be ready to discuss next month. Cool.

I have a question. Um, I don't know if it's possible or if there's been discussion about including our ordinance officer and certain circumstances where he's boots on the ground dealing with these different ordinances. Let's see if Don can be here next month. Okay. Pay him to stay for the extra hour. I know Don was at the infrastructure committee uh when we first talked about blight. Okay, good. We included. Perfect. And that was in um July, was it? Yeah. Okay, that's just No, it's Oh, actually May that was

Yeah, it's in since he'll be forcing it as we discuss these items. I mean, it would be great to have clarity for him and his input as well because I know that for some of the ordinances that have come out, especially the ones I'm thinking of that I'm being commented on regularly, um, you know, he's having to enforce ordinances that aren't currently on the books, though we were approved by village. I know he mentioned today that he'd love to be involved if it's possible. So, yeah. Yep. Yeah, sounds good. Thank you, Evan, again, for picking up on the undone work from the past couple years.

Thank you. All right. No problem. All right. Item D, uh, consideration of purchase of two flat cameras in the amount of $6,000, uh, this year using state orbiture. Uh, Kurt, you want to go ahead and update everybody on what lock cameras are and how things have changed that we now have to step up and be participants in the in the Sure.

in the game. Uh, I think I'll start off by saying kind of piggybacking a little bit of what Stuart said about Graham Blank. And one of the things I saw on TV during that incident was a police officer saying that he never thought a thing like that could happen in such a small, quaint place. And one of the things I've said since I got to Franklin is that bad things can happen anywhere. and I asked the council for some new equipment, some red dot handguns, tasers. Uh, we tripled our training and you all said yes, which I appreciate. And it's keeping in mind that bad things can happen and that's why we bring in experienced officers. And you might ask, why would we need officers that are tactically trained? It's because bad things can happen and we want to be prepared. And this system, this flock camera system kind of came into existence, at least on my radar about five years ago. And we had bought over 24 different cameras in West Bloomfield. And surrounding communities have jumped on board as quickly as possible because they really are a gamecher as far as investigations. Uh these cameras, which are positioned at major intersections, are constantly taking pictures of cars that are going by, and that's just gathering data. uh if a stolen car goes by or a wanted vehicle from another jurisdiction, that information is pushed immediately to a local dispatch center, which for us will be Bloomfield Township, that can let us and surrounding jurisdictions know uh that the vehicle's wanted. If we have a major crime right here in Franklin or in Bingham Farms, uh we can use those cameras to immediately within minutes find out uh the vehicle type, the color, how many times it was occupied and get that information out to uh neighboring jurisdictions as well as track those vehicles, which um incident in West Bloomfield. We had a shooting at a house

where several people were shot and we're able to track that vehicle from the northern end of West Bloomfield all the way to the city of Detroit to a general maybe mile uh area of where that person lived. So, it's a very effective tool for investigations and we've used that here in Franklin in the past. Uh about a month and a half ago, two months ago, uh unbeknownst to us, uh they shut off us borrowing other jurisdictions information. So we would call Bloomfield Township or West Bloomfield say, "Hey, we need to use your Flock system to find a vehicle." They would give us that information. Well, Flock has caught on to that that small agencies were doing that and they said, "If another agency does that for you, you can't use our system anymore." So, we're kind of handicapped at this point. So, I talked to the block representative. I said, "For a jurisdiction our size, for the number of officers we have, what is the least amount we can buy into to access all 500 cameras in Oakland County?" And he said that uh it would be two cameras, $3,000 each. So, we're talking about an investment of $6,000 a year for a minimum of three years. And that would be my recommendation for this type of advanced technology. I think it's a benefit for certainly the police department, but for the community. And this would have helped you with regard to incident on Franklin Park Drive with the young girl?

Yes. And that's where we found out we no longer had access to black cameras. Yes. I make a motion that we approve this uh block camera uh proposal using $6,000 of forefe money. So, well, we have a motion. Anybody want a second? We have a motion to second. I'll have discussion. uh your thoughts are 14 in Franklin, 13 in Franklin.

So, Flock will come in and they will do a study for us free of charge to to look at neighboring cameras and where it's best for us. But my thought process is because we have so many events in this the village here, FCA or the Green or and Main Street that I'd really like to have two cameras at those intersections at 14 Franklin and 13th Franklin. Well, when you when you alerted me to this about a week or so ago, when you found this out and said, "We got to put this on the agenda." I've been paying attention as I drive in Farmington Hills in West Pointfield, you you'll pretty much it'll be at every intersection. And if you look in Farmington Hills, it's at they have it at a lot of the half blocks, a half miles. It basically on a telephone pole, it's about this big around. It's white. It's got about four or five little antennas sticking out of it. And it's basically like a LAR camera. It's just spinning nonstop

picking up make, model, and license plates from what Chief Y and then that gets plugged in and they get a ping for that license plate here and then a ping over there. They just follow the pings and it's I mean it's been such an effective tool. Like I know like I said I think I bought $50,000 worth of West Springfield. They're going to buy another 24. Farmington Hills is right around 60 cameras. And we're seeing that different subdivisions are also buying their own cameras over on Woodland and Bingham Farms. They have their own block camera which we'll be able to access. So HOAs here can jump on board where we would have access. Is does Bingham Farms already have one at 14 telegraph and 13 Telegraph.

There's one at 12 and Telegraph which is Southfield and there's one at 14 and Telegraph which is Township and then Beverly Hills has 13 I believe cameras. So being right essentially it's our police department. So flock would have come to you if they wanted to put them in Bingham. Correct. Are you going to be talking with the Bingham Farms Council about this? How have they been do? They're going to get cut off too. Well, we are them. But I mean, do they want one at 13graph because that's

No, because really the 12graph is going to pick it up in in 14. And then there's already ones on 13 mile and 15 mile 14 mile in Beverly Hills. No, they'll have access. So, are they explaining the cost with us being a farm? I haven't discussed that with them. Well, the money is forfeite money, but I mean, but moving forward, it's going to be part of their 35%. Because we're putting it in the budget moving forward. This is the only year that really we have enough fore to cover this. We'll have to look at if we have different revenue stream in the future of covering it that way, but it's a small price to pay for the level of security. Oh, I'm just asking if now they know that they have access to this. Yeah. Which is great for concept. So, um, to the extent they would get in is what? Well, again,

I'm just saying if they want extra cameras, right, that would be a discussion that we would have is do we want to get more than two? We could get three because maybe we could pay 6,000, pay,00 in telegraph. Sure. I mean, it it's it's a great tool.

So, just uh a couple of things. So, real quick, I just want to make clear for the record, anybody watching. So, again, this year is completely out of state forfeitures. It's a three-year commitment. So, not to rule out that there won't be a potential for forfeitures in the future. Let's just make the assumption that it's for us uh or that it's coming out of our budget. Uh this is a representation of how many flock cameras there are within this area. And so to anybody who's want I wholly support this um because if you look at this map and I encourage anybody who's interested to do so by looking at our council packet. We I don't just view this as cameras within our community. The amount of data that we are accessing for $6,000 a year um is astronomical and far exceed the cost of

and we've been literally poaching that for for the last however long. and they finally said time to step up and we have to step up. There's just no way we won't. Yeah, I support this as well. I was just wondering if you've heard of any kind of grant opportunities to help support the funding of this. It just seems like the kind of initiative that really benefits all of Southeast Michigan. And so it seems that kind of thing that potentially could be subject to grant funding. Just curious if you've heard of anything about that.

I have not heard or researched that. Um, I didn't because the the dollar amount was lower. I certainly did for like the the tasers and the axon cameras, but I can look at that in the future. Bottom line is that when Chief and I spoke about this a couple of weeks ago, as it related to that very scary incident on Franklin Park Drive, had we had access, we would have been able to capture potentially that individual. And right now, we we don't have that. So, it's help clarify the investigation and give us more more information. Certainly. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. David David hit it right on the head. It isn't $6,000 for two cameras. It's $6,000 for access to 500 cameras. Obviously, we'll put very detailed policies in place. Um, we're not going to be using the system. Uh, I'm responsible for the system. Uh, and really the only the supervisors are going to have access and Bloom Township dispatchers already has access. Yeah, but when I read it, it said unlimited licenses, which is good because that means like an administrator could look at it. Evan, you know what I mean? Like if Well, it's got to stay within It really should stay within the police department. Okay. Yeah. What does unlimited licenses mean then?

Officers. So, typically, yeah. Again, from a contractual standpoint, if it's unlimited licenses, there's probably another provision if they said you can no longer provide access to surrounding communities that they would say essentially within your entity, you have unlim unlimited licenses, unlimited licenses, which means that Kirk could make a determination of how many officers he wanted to have access to the data without increasing our cost. Y All right. Any further discussion? Uh just a reminder, we had a motion by Seltzer, second by Sally. Yep. All in all in favor of approving $6,000 for two flap cameras out of state forfeiter, say I.

I opposed. Excellent. Kirk, thank you. Thank you.

Last item. This is for our infrastructure committee. Uh we received uh sort of a follow-up packet with some drawings. Uh I'm gonna turn it over to you guys to deal with, but this is essentially you're asking us to focus on three specific locations where you'd like to have us consider sidewalk crossings. So take Dan, you taking it away. All right. So thanks everyone for giving this a little bit of attention here late into the evening. U we've been continuing to work on this with the infrastructure committee and special thanks to chief also for uh not only his his input along the way but actually being so kind as to host us and his office for a meeting last week as as we went through this. And this just gives an overview to start um to refresh everyone's memory where we're thinking about putting in crosswalks and a stop sign. The blue dots represent three proposed crosswalks and and the red dot is a a stop sign that we'd also like to consider and and discuss here tonight. And so Evan, if you can go to the next page. There we go. So on the subject of crosswalks and the subject of one of our named trustees here and then if we could go forward and also trustee Gates uh in addition to being a font of knowledge in the center for the human resources it turns out that she's uh something of a graphic designer on the side and put put together these amazing images. So this is coming up Franklin Road at Woodlor to help orient people. There's there's a compass there, but we are facing north. And so what we're proposing here is, you know, we have the the sidewalk sidewalk

along the right side, but we also would like to provide a safer means for people to cross Franklin Road. Um, this being a natural pedestrian crossing really for this this whole kind of vicinity of of Franklin. So, our goal with all these things is to increase safety for pedestrians in the community to just give drivers that awareness that this is a place where they should be on the lookout for for people to be crossing. And um we think that's a worthwhile endeavor here. So, I think it probably makes sense if we take them one at a time for discussion purposes. So with that said, let's open up this particular but before we can Can you go back, Evan? Yeah. Do we have any comments on this particular intersection? Another part of it before I do that, too, is we should probably um talk about the signs that we've had in in the middle of the of the road here. We we've tried some of these out in other locations, but um and and Chief can speak to this with more firsthand knowledge, too, but our our signs are are getting used and abused. And so, we're talking about improving how we how we use those signs, too. Um and Chief can can speak speak to this. Do you want to share what what we've observed with the

So, we invested in the uh popup signs which are relatively um heavy and durable and uh certainly at like scenic um when people turn left apparently they're not looking to the left, they're looking to the right. So, they turn left and they drive right over the sign. Uh and it's really taking a beating. So, these signs are really only going to last a year at a time and they're relatively expensive. So, we're looking for other signage the infrastructure committee and that could be uh just as effective at intersections like that. So, one idea we talked about it would potentially be possible to drill them into the pavement, right? Because because right now they are just they're just kind of sitting there freestanding, right?

But but they would have to be replaced periodically based on what does that can I ask what does that sign indicate? I cross that every day. And my question is, is that sign telling people not to hit me when I walk across? That you have the right way? Okay. Yeah. Um is in your opinion, is that an effective? Well, there's I don't know if we've settled on the exact sign that we're going to use, but there are several different variation of crosswalk signs. Um, I know Angelina has done some research on that with also like an arrow pointed down towards the crosswalk to get people's attentions attention.

My question has to do with demand. Um, so do are you hearing from residents that that this is unsafe and they there are a number of walkers? Uh it strikes me that this is a a a a serious point in the village where people would want to uh come onto Franklin Road. But what you're saying is also they want to cross over. Actually no east west crosswalk from the beginning of Northwestern and Franklin until scenic and Franklin.

Okay. So there's nothing I mean there's nothing on Franklin Road. There's nothing at 13 Mile East West. There's nothing uh until you get to Scenic. And then Scenic is where that sign's taking a beating. So Chief had to actually move it off the road. So instead of drilling into the actual road, which we felt like was installation, and we didn't want to do that, we wanted to put the signs where there's already signs. Okay. And people are used to looking on the east west side of um their car. Yeah. And my question only had to do with I I'm surprised that there are a lot of people that want to cross Franklin Road right at that point. Well, we have an office place there quite often, do we not? Yeah, we do.

Okay. Um so there's a lot of traffic and people crossing there. Okay. And especially have to cross the road. I'm just questioning whether that sign is going to tell somebody to slow down. Yeah. So, Mike, I there's trusty Seltzer, I get where you're going. So, real quick clarification, Chief, is when uh I know we've previously talked about that when somebody enters into a crosswalk that that is when police can actually pull somebody over. Correct. Do we need a sign making does the sign have to correlate with the crosswalk in order for you to enforce?

You know, looking at the law and talking to the road commission, it's pretty vague. So, if you would go to court and someone would want to fight us on the ticket, we're going to have to convince the court that this is in fact signed not properly, but enough that it looks like it is a crosswalk. That some the normal person, everyday person would realize that that's a crosswalk. stuff. Yeah. And I speak to that too. I think the intention here isn't to have our police officers out writing people up with with tickets for this. The intention is to just raise awareness.

I mean, to me, it's glorified awareness. It's it's it's a glorified alerting system, not a natural not necessarily a legal area. So, what's the cost of striking in in this case? Is it is it a is it a major expense? So, we talked about, I think, four intersections at one point earlier with the infrastructure committee, and I got quotes anywhere from $1,500 to $5,000 just for the paint. Um, I for all and I talked to Jerry Donson, and he has a vendor or someone that works with him that can do the painting as well as the signs. Uh, I don't have that cost back yet.

It's not even a factor as far as I mean, it's a safety thing. I I support it. I I I walk across in the post office, people speed up when they see me. Oh, no. Stuart, you want to talk? But we were also thinking the reason to put two of them is to add that little canister of flags as well. If the Boy Scouts still wanted to do that as a service project, we hope. Just so you know, we Yeah, I have a different comment, but yeah. Can we see the other ones just so we get a sense of

Can can I make a quick comment on this? Um, so one of the problems that pedest I cross here all the time. One of the problems that pedestrians have is there's no consistency in these triangles in the village. So in this case, you can exit, you can stop on this side of the of the island or stop on that side of the island. When you're crossing from the um west side to the east side and there's someone parked at a stop sign, they're directly in front of you. Like you're going to cross right into the the the parked car. So, the fact that we don't have a oneway only going in going um east um eastbound here and then your westbound exit on one side is a little confusing because in in this area of Franklin, all the other triangles have oneway

signs that you can you stop on the right side and you and you and you go in on the on the opp the opposite side. So, you go in on the right side. So, this is actually a point of confusion for people. the fact that if you're going to put a crosswalk sign, changing that to a oneway would also help because otherwise you're going to have people that that are trying to cross into a car that's stop. We're talking about a parked car. What do you mean parked car? If you stop your car right here, you're going to stop facing right at the crosswalk. Oh, I cross there all the time and I I'm grateful there's no one stopped here going turning south on.

So, we discussed this like do we put it in the north side, the south side? And I think with chief and the infrastructure if we did need to add that sign like we would be in favor but we figured my my point is that area is not consistent in the village. We figured most people already follow the rule of thumb like go and out but to your point because this is the only triangle in the village that doesn't have that we figured to move it up. Yeah. No, I don't disagree with where it's located. But all I'm saying is that it's very it's very confusing because you could have someone turning left onto Franklin, turning southbound from the right stop sign and from the left sign simultaneously. And now they have to pay attention to the crosswalk and the car that's south of them. So you're saying we need a one-way sign saying

just like everywhere else in that part of Franklin. So there's triangle. If you go to any of the other triangles at the at the exit of this section of Franklin, they all have one way except for here, which I don't understand, but Yeah, it's a good point for sharing that. I think I would support your proposal of making them one way as well. We can add that to this location. Give me 10 minutes. Sorry. our graphic designer. Well,

I' I'd like Peter to weigh in, but if whatever you decide to approve, um I can come back in November with the traffic control order that that which will go to the clerk for signage and uh if that works for everybody to make it legal. All right. Am I correct on that? I I believe so. Is there a traffic officer? Is that a chief? He's our traffic engine, I guess. Yeah. You have another hat already. Next one.

I mean, it would seem that we do have engineers. There are consultants that have traffic engineers. My my my question is outside of whether or not to approve it in these various locations, notwithstanding Aby's wonderful graphic artist abilities, h how do we know what is the proper place for this? As Stuart said, if it's going to be a crossing and this is still a two-way intersection that on this south side of the Woodlure that if you lined it up here, you're walking more you have the chance that you're walking straight into the car facing you or if you went,

you know, to the north side, then you would at least be walking parallel into cars that were turning in. Like to what extent have any of these intersections been looked at by HRC to chime in with But where it is, where they located is actually makes a lot of sense. Where they where it's drawn here makes a lot of sense because those Woodlord does not line up perfectly on either side of that island.

I I get that. That's a lot of our roads aren't aligned like that. So like in this exact graphic on the on the left side, you're sort of walking into the grass. You're not really walking into the intersection and you're walking into like the middle of the inner section here. Is there a standard where and this is this one's a little harder to line things up than say the one we're looking to look at at Normandy and Wellington where it's more of a true T uh intersection. That's just what I'm wondering. Not is just what are we going to get any input from somebody who actually does this for a living to tell us no. You know what? You should do it right in the middle. put it right in the in the middle and have it go across right like I don't know like where does it

we had like a very surface question for HRC and chief I think you asked them on the phone and we got a bill for $2,000 so the cost of consulting HRC for these ones that are within Franklin will cost more than the actual improvement itself and would it make a difference and also we kind of still have that

uh project entire 13 mile which we will be using HRC's studies for so like the and HRC was also the one that said to remove the stop sign on Franklin Park Drive in Mountain View and then all the residents came in and said no and then we put it back and so like is HRC going to direct this council on where to put crosswalks and do we want to spend the money to have them at we have no idea how much an hour they charge us but it is not cheap and they want to charge us $1,000 just to update a quote that we can add inflation percentage to. So that's like our thing. Angelina, the issue of what they charged us for answering the question if it was $2,000 goes more to the question and the answer in the bill and the discussion with HRC as to why they charge us so much and an understanding of it. I still can't I don't see how us as layman council people can sit here and say that we're going to make a decision over our traffic engineers and the reason we don't want to ask our traffic engineers is because it costs too much to ask our consultants to do what we pay them to do. Then that's a that's a far greater question than this sidewalk and it's do we need to look at our engineer consultants and things like that. That's a a far greater question of what you're getting at than should we ask our and I mean we don't have to use HRC for everything we do. There are consulting engineers that

specialize in traffic and I mean I'm in the industry. I can go to my phone and give you five traffic engineers right now. So the the greater question of not doing the right thing because we don't want to spend the money to get the answer that we need to have is not how we should be doing business. I'm not saying not do the right thing. I'm saying um we we have very limited funds. We're in a financial uh

crisis essentially and we know 13 mile is going to take extensive extensive study and um bidding out a new traffic engineer contract could be 6 months in the making. Um and we've already put up stop signs against our traffic engineer recommendations. So I don't think we have a president where we would follow their recommendation anyway. But we have made but we asked for the recommendation. We don't just make the decision our own. Real quick though, can we get just get clarity then?

Is it hey HRC should we put a sidewalk connecting across Franklin Road at Woodlure? Or is it we want to put a crosswalk at Woodlor? How's the best way to do it?

I'm not suggesting we ask them for permission. What I'm asking them is as a traffic engineer, there has to be some standard. Look, we could just not call these crosswalks, okay? We can just put paint on the ground and just call them warning and it's just an alert that this is where people cross and it doesn't have like to have it be controlled by traffic control orders and have some level of specification. I don't see how we can just randomly be the ones that decide where that goes. I'd much rather have a dialogue with HRC about how we got a 10 the $2,000 bill you're saying for asking a question that just doesn't seem to make sense. But

I would Oh, sorry. Stir it. Um, one thing that's missing here um because Street View hasn't updated is there is a sidewalk that exists already along along um crossing Woodlor. And so whether you if you look at satellite view, I mean either side you can make an argument for and to your point, President Goldberg, like having it um there might be a standard of care for crossing. There's a sidewalk here. You don't see it. This this image right here doesn't even contemplate the street. So, right. Again, that's why I'm so confused. Is this where the crypt is? Yes. That's why I'm like, where's Okay, that's why I'm like, why I keep thinking I'm up at Normandy. That's why you hasn't updated.

It's Google's fault. Go to Google's fault. Yeah. But so, it is it's that intersect. I think just in general the let's consult HRC but first we would have to get a quote on how much per hour we would be charged for their consulting services. But when we brought this to the council in May, it would have been super helpful to know that we wanted HRC to consult on these issues because now we're in October and we're just hearing about it and we've met with the old administrator, the code ordinance officer, the chief multiple times, probably a dozen or so meetings. So

yeah, but I still I agree but again I I still agree with President Goldberg on this because

again do I want to pay some absorbent amount? No, I don't. But my initial thought is if we put on the south side then and I again because it's not an updated image, it won't accurately reflect the sidewalk and the blind spot. But again, one, you have traffic. If somebody's coming across the street this way and entering onto the sidewalk or even going down Woodlor, the cars will be turning into essentially that crosswalk. Whereas, if it were on the north side, they'd be crossing at the point of a stopped parked car. And so, you're not running into that same instance. And so, that's where my mind goes if we were to couple it with oneways. So again, the reason that I fully acknowledge what President Goldberg is saying is like we already have a difference of opinion or starting to see like uh based off of how we would structure oneways, it could change the outcome of the safety of the pedestrian.

Visibility on the south side is way better than on the north side when I cross. Yes. I um you they're coming down a hill from going northbound. Okay. Yes. So on the record now, uh we're doing it live. Um, sorry. So, no, same point. So, if you're going southbound on down Franklin Road and we put that crosswalk on the north side and somebody's turning right, you have the exact same problem, but probably more of a blind spot to your point because there's no sidewalk clearing out that section. Makes sense. Thank you, Stuart. Well, could we do a conditional approval tonight to help move this forward where we say something along the lines of we approve crosswalks at maybe this and other locations if we agree subject to HRC fine-tuning or something along those lines?

Well, I I'm going to go out there and take a look, but what I'm wondering is is there room next to the crypt to have a sidewalk intersect with the existing sidewalk and then have the crosswalk go right up the middle? Because if now what you're saying is just north of where that sign is and just north of the Woodlure sign and sort of where this stop sign is, we've got a sidewalk running this way and couldn't we put a sidewalk just from the edge of the street that intersects it there and then our crosswalk, like I said, walks right starts in the middle. Like it's just so weird to start a sidewalk on the end and have it go straight across into like Stuart's saying into the front of a parked car. If you're driving a car and you're coming up to the intersection and there's a side a crosswalk staring right at you, like what do you feel like you're supposed to do?

Yeah.

Well, there's a a couple of things to that point is uh again with the image you'll see this sidewalk actually bends back um into woodlorure. So you it's not as easy as just putting it towards the center because Pam I'll give you credit that crypt is catching on because it's descriptive and makes sense. You have the crypt then you have the sidewalk. You have road sidewalk, which is why this makes sense because the pedestrian would essentially be standing before the stop sign so they don't have to worry about traffic to their back and then when they cross they'd be entering essentially onto the sidewalk south of Woodlure. And then if you have the directional of the the uh oneways as Stuart was talking about, that would correct your potent that stop sign issue that he was talking about. So, can we

So, so just let me just say that we used other engineers here. HRC is probably a little mad because we've cut them off. That happened with May. For good reason. So, I mean, what I've heard, we've used other way

and I think that that's something that the future administrator with the support of the council could maybe rebid that contract. But we never had a we never had a contractual relationship with HRC. Never. We should have been going out to bid with those guys all along. We didn't. What Meg's contribution was was to stop projects that didn't look like they were producing anything. But we never reupt and had a discussion about that. That would have gone to the finance committee and it we just it never happened. So my my I I I I tend to agree with David Goldberg and say let's let's get somebody to take a look at this. It's a complicated crossing. We may not be seeing some things, but let's not necessarily go to HRC any more than we would anybody else. I know that your predecessor has hired Dan's hired a traffic control company and who does we made who to school get one. So, they're there.

It definitely costs. Well, it's a cost. Yes, it is a cost. Can we make a motion to approve it and then the council decide how much they want to spend? We're we're this is on today's agenda for approval. I mean, if someone wants to make a motion, they can make a motion. I thought we were discussing it, but help me with understand the urgency. We are in late October about to transition into November. Is this something that you're trying to get done now? like are we going to go and put fresh paint on the ground in November when it's about to snow and have salt and we brought to the old administrator the first week of May. So now it's been it'll be six months.

Okay. Well, life's that's how things go in government. I mean like is there still help me understand the urgency? Do you have a list of like a numerous amount of residents that are really complaining about this? We want to start work on 13 mile uh figuring out what we're going to do and that's focus and this was uh the first initiative of the infrastructure committee and we like spend a lot of hours meeting. Can we see the rest of them and not not focus on just one? Okay, let's see the others. The others. Okay.

Oh, go back to the side. So this is okay. So this one we're facing east just to be clear to everybody where we are. We have Brandingham coming into Wellington. Um so this is a point where we proposed putting in stop signs in addition to the crosswalk painting and signage as this is it's it's a pretty long straightaway on Wellington before you you get to this point. It seems like a sense of I understand the crosswalk. I understand the stop signs, but why what are you bucking across from one patch of grass to another? Yeah. Well, nobody crosses there.

Well, we're up for for discussion for sure. So, we appreciate everyone's input on it and and admittedly it is unusual for a crosswalk because it doesn't actually go across, right? Brandingham doesn't go all the way through to the other side, right? Um the thought was again though just to raise awareness that this is a a natural crossing point for residents coming to events uh on the village green uh baseball field church etc. and um to raise awareness to have cars be on the lookout for pedestrians here. And I think it is a little bit of a tricky corner the way that that Brandingham bends around there. So, so that's our point. I think, you know, if we put in the stop signs, one way of looking at it would be that maybe that's sufficient and we don't also need the crosswalk.

I think the crosswalk's a little odd in that location. That vertical white thing that says crosswalk already. And and that's what's on scenic and Franklin, too. Remember what I was telling you earlier? There's like that vertical sign. Those don't do anything. Well, I think even pay attention to that. Exactly. Yeah, I was going to say Trusty Seltzer's point is you could just put in the side or the stop signs and remove that crosswalk sign. Yeah. I I don't In all the years that I've been here, I don't think I ever noticed that hole as any kind of a crossing indicator.

No, I'm saying that's what the crosswalk signs look like outside the church or outside the post office right now. and outside scenic in uh Franklin that's all we have in the village right now are like those verical things and that's why people don't stop cuz like no one notices them. Well, okay. I get the stop signs but there's been a some history with concern about putting up too many stop signs because people then tend to speed through them in anger. And so I don't know I

I to your point though I think there may be more because what's the what's that other what's the one right before this that has a stop sign? We go to the next one cuz that's not even a that's not even like a thoroughare that's a dead end. It connects two dead ends across Wellington. So my point is is that not my point my statement I guess right now is I think there's probably more value to having the stop signs here than at the other one. And this this makes some more sense. Yeah. Yeah. So the those that that's a natural crossing area even though it's not crossing to a it's not a main street but people are hauling down Wellington.

Yeah. And and here to just give a little bit more thought behind it as well. We already have people who are going to be stopping um at Franklin Road if you're if you're headed westbound. It seems too soon to have another stop sign right here in proximity to Franklin, but it's a it's a major intersection, any kind of event in the community. You have people walking going every which way uh at this intersection. And so just to have the signage and and the striping out to put people on notice, uh we believe that that's just wise to increase safety in the community at a minimal cost. So,

is your objective to get people to use the crosswalks and not just cross the road wherever they are? Well, I think that's one of the things that makes it safer if you have a designated place where people are supposed to cross. Um, I think that helps so people aren't, you know, going diagonal across the intersection, which is not not as safe as is crossing in the designated place. The only time there's really heavy usage in this space is is Roundup. I mean, we don't get that much traffic for music and movies. We don't kids going to play in the park, though. Say it again. Like kids going to play in the park. And there's a school right there, too.

Yeah. Or like um uh like baseball games and stuff or like the I mean there's pretty heavy traffic down there. The parking lots are always full during the baseball games. Yeah. I mean, I I would look at something like this like it can't hurt. But again, to David Goldberg's point, we need a traffic expert to tell us how to position these really. I mean, I appreciate the volunteer time put in to selecting these based on your own examples and criteria, but are they really legitimately areas that we should that a traffic engineer would say?

Does somebody would somebody looking at this necessarily understand? I mean, in this ex And again, Aby's not expected that she was able to drop this exactly where it was supposed to go. But is the idea that the be like this where it's actually off of the intersection itself so that it's just like this is how you get from one side to the other. But if you're five feet this way and you want to cross over, you just don't get sidewalk protection. So if you get hit 5t this way or 5t that way, it's the car's fault. But if they hit you when you're in these lines, then it's I mean, it's your fault. And if they hit

I think best practice is to cross at the shortest distance. I just don't know that people would actually pay attention so much to crossing in that space just because it's there. You know what I'm saying? It's like I I just want to make a point. We have a downtown, but it doesn't feel like downtown once you get away from Franklin. This is a downtown area. This is a place where people do cross in both both spots. The baseball fields are this way. It make having these things downtown makes it feel like you're part of a downtown that you're actually people are are commuting, walking, walking around. Yeah. So,

the fact that we only have it on certain spots on Franklin Park Drive doesn't makes it feel like we're a pass through village and not a central location. Look, I'm not I'm not objecting. The cost of this is insignificant. We're talking less than $5,000 for all of this. I don't think we should spend a whole lot of time sifting through the dollars to get to the pennies. I'm just saying a traffic engineer should probably tell us, are these good locations for these for implementation? And if so, I'm I'm 100%. It's not a lot of money. It's not even worth thinking about. If it helps make things safer, there's no downside. I

but I think we're just sort of arbitrarily I'm not dismissing the effort that's gone into this but I I I mean there's so many places in our community that we all walk and we take our you know we take risks every single place we walk. So again um there's lots of ways to control traffic. So if the objective is to slow traffic down and to direct pedestrians, is that is that correct? Improve safety. Yeah. I'm sorry.

Yes. Like that we concentrate the crossing of pedestrians for more predictability for drivers. So, what if what did your committee consider um a 15 mph speed limit in that zone and slow signs or other ways to notify drivers to be mindful of pedestrian traffic? I'm I'm only operating from what is the objective legally. What a speed limit less than 25. What about speed bumps? You put those data things in. Yeah. What about speed bumps? That's infrastructure

usually not overly popular, but No, I know. I I I hate them. I mean, if we're really worried about speeding pedestrians, so you don't want to like increase ticket revenue with these. We're trying to We're trying to increase safety. Yeah. I'm just not sure. For us, it was like the sidewalks came

and to us there's more people outside walking because there are sidewalks. There's more downtown. We have a growth in our Franklin baseball, a growth in the community events. Um, most traffic and attendance we've ever seen at Roundup. So, like this, to Stuart's point, like increases a city center and makes it safe for residents to walk to the center. And that that was our intent. Our intent wasn't to like I get it. I support it. I just think we need a little bit more guidance. That's all. Well, and again, I would propose making the motion tonight to approve these locations subject to consultation from

I'll make a motion to approve these locations subject to further scrutiny. And throw these all in as one. You throwing them all in as one. I'm making the motion. Make a motion to be clear on what you're doing there. Yeah. I I just did all three at once. So, let's test that and see if that passes. Yeah. Oh, you made a motion. Oh, I'll second that. Thank you. Any further discussion? But it's conditional based on condition on what consultation for more scrutiny and traffic uh uh guidance from professionals to identify the exact location recommendations. Yeah. Yeah.

Get recommendations on location of of striping and signage. Yeah. Yes. At these three intersections, you don't want to do like Not to be devil's advocate. HRC may want connecting sidewalks. So, if if your crosswalk's going to end at the grass, they may want some sort of connecting sidewalk to the next intersection. That would be against the charter. Can't do it. I'm just saying. Can't do it. And that's to my point of like when they come back and say it, we're still probably not going to totally listen to them because we can't put sidewalks here. All right. Well, there was a motion. I second it. Any further discussion? Have roll call.

I'll vote yes. Jenny, yes. Trusty Evace. Yes. Trusty Mike Selzer. Yes. Trustee Angelina. Yes. Trustee David Sally. Yes. President David Golder. No. All right. Motion carries. So, uh h who's going to be in charge of reaching out to HRC? Do you want Kirk to do this? It should be I can do it if you'd like. Wait, do we want to HRC or do you want to get their price per hour before I reach out to Oh, well, we should clarify. Hold on. Let's back up a second. We We'll

We can figure out We can let our administrator figure out who to consult with. Let's Let's I want to back up a degree to the $2,000 bill that we got allegedly for asking a couple questions. And I'd like to get my hands around that bill and see I agree. what $2,000 bought us and what those answers were to try and extrapolate from that. Well, oh well, they answered a whole bunch of stuff so we could get all of our answers for another 2,000 or do we need in order to accomplish what they accomplished for two grand, we would be needing $10,000 worth of answers. Yeah. Before we ask be ridiculous and in which case we would go elsewhere.

Before we ask them, we need a clarification on that charge. and and and what we would get a proposal. I would get a proposal. I mean, it doesn't cost money to get a proposal. We send them these three drawings. We say, "We're looking for direction on the appropriate location for striping and signage in these intersections. What would you recommend? Why don't we have them on a retainer? Has that ever been considered?" I didn't know we they didn't do it. We didn't have said we've never had Not with them. No. Roger liked because somebody at the other end of the phone that's all he didn't want to do it. But if we take a look at what we spend with them annually

I agree and build a retainer based relationship so that we don't feel like every time we ask a question it's going to cost us $2,000. I think Chief had a really good he brought up to infrastructure that he knows other communities use various traffic um companies and HRC isn't like the only player right now. Oh god. Yeah. Well then let's look at that. Not even they're not I don't even know if they're really engine traffic engineering specialist. I think though President Goldberg's point is let's figure out what that previous cost that we char were charged were.

I agree. uh cuz I think we're all interested in that. Uh I don't particularly need to know but I would and then I think there's a separate question of how do we make the dec I think leave it to your discretion on then who we would actually use for the request. I think we could reach out to three different companies to get their proposal on how much they would cost to give us an answer to our question. As referenced the the invoice uh yes I thought it was a little high. I think there was also some discussion with HRC about 13 mile project. So I think that was kind of looped in there. But it seemed like they're in my opinion highriced.

But just in full disclosure too, the infrastructure committee asked Chief to have HRC update a quote that they gave us in 2022, right? So three years ago. And just to update the quote, they told them it would be $1,000. And the infrastructure committee said, "No, thank you." So, I'm just I'm just letting you know like we have been very like chief has been making sure to pass any charges and the infrastructure committee has been like we don't need to update a quote. Goldberg was like just add you know 10% to that 15% it's three years you know like so we're just trying not to spend uh frivolous agreed

can we talk on this because it is it is October assuming that we call this out for bid and get three quotes. It is likely we're going to be smack dab in the middle of the holiday season. Is this something we would project we do like springtime or do we want it done as soon as possible? probably at this point a springtime property regardless. It's already approved, right? So, are you good with that? We can approve it, but I don't think we want to do it until we get past the winter. Yeah. Just a thought. Uh, with Rachel coming out of the economic development background, she may have connections with other companies that she'd be more comfortable suggesting to all if if she can get it done before

let's wait for her next week. the first snow. But again, we're just putting in Yeah, we're putting on wear and tear of an entire season for something that nobody will get the benefit of order given the weather and the wear and tear. So, just I know you're frustrated because you started this.

No, I'm I was going to go with the gold. Just as a council, should we be bidding out like this almost like to your point maybe a more holistic conversation like should we bid out to decide who our preferred traffic engineers are and then if we have a couple months, right? Because in the like where we go to for the study, it might be like a trial run and then if we like that company, we may switch to them from using HRC all the time. That way we have a possible retained traffic and engineering firm. We talked about doing that with last year though like uh we talked about the budget and it was we should renegotiate contracts and we should go through the entire exercise of considering

who does services and any category we did. So about I would think Rachel I mean not first order of business but I mean now that we've freed up time on budget stuff and um given her a bit more firepower there that she'd have a little breathing room to renegotiate contracts was the thought right I mean according to Pam we haven't looked at this issue in in a while which we don't even have a contract with an engineering firm to quote unquote be our consulting engineers on a regular basis that we just literally on a time and worth basis

incident B and are we getting a discounted rate for is that a contract we can't no no because we've got some guidelines on spending ceilings for the administrator we had a big project with the streetscape we did go out to bid for that um when it's been when the when the we've bidded we've bid contracts when they've been large.

Uh we're way behind on that. Jerry Johnson, for example, is one that we you that the coun years ago council used to review that and and send it out for bid. We had an administrator who preferred to have a continuous relationship. And that is how he explained it to me. I objected. I I think the council needs the council decision would be do we want to hire a consulting engineer and what would that take? We have never gone down that road. So if council wanted to do that, that's one thing.

Yeah. but also across all categories like our, you know, our landscaping and maintenance crews, our I feel like we were over a barrel with our garbage contract, right? Like we were No, no, I thought that was kind of a last minute negotiation. It wasn't a last minute negotiation. It's just like Yeah, exactly. The reason we were over a barrel on that one is because there's no other service provider. Okay. There are advantages to having a contractual relationship with an engineering company. We've never had that many bank projects where it made sense and all I wanted to do was bring it to council. I could not get that. I never knew that P. Yeah. Arrangement and I'm curious if we're paying like we're paying retail, right?

Well, I believe exactly. We're we're putting the government discount that goes in the other direction. Yeah. Normally the government discount goes in your favor because you hire a contractor, you give them volume business and they give you a break on the hourly rate like McKenna does. We get Chris Dooen at a ridiculous rate. Go try and go to hire McKenna as a private contractor and get Chris Dooen to, you know, for that rate. So we have a contract with McKenna. It's performed well. We negotiate the contract. I never knew that didn't exist with patrons. No. No, it never it never did. Well, we have a new project for our administrator.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so here we are and I'm I admire what Meg did, which is to review all of the the bills that we got from from HRC. She made a decision to pause them and and ask for accountability, right? I think that was the right thing to do. We are at the place now with our new administrator to restart that engine and and take a look and make the decision as it on how we want to handle that. There are numerous municipal consulting engineers out there.

Yeah, this is a small job. We should go out and find somebody. So for this in particular though, like we can have the new administrator call like three companies, but then that will we can kind of test how they are and then maybe to Aby's point, we do like a contract vendor review in in January or February before the budget cycle starts. Sure, why not? Okay. Yeah. So, but this is separate than the full scale because this Yeah, that would be how I would look at it. Yeah. Okay. I just want to make sure that we're not like waiting for a full I'm not sure you can Well, you remember that they also there's a there's a frost date. Mhm.

And that applies to asphalt. I don't know what it if it does with paint, but then we're into plowing. And to me, I just think that we put down the paint in spring because otherwise we're running shovels, salt, all that put down brand new paint and by the time we go to use it in the spring, it's going to be faded and nobody's going to have the benefit of using it because it's going to be covered with snow. And what we have this is this is a two day. This is a this is a one this might only be a one day project if if not a two-day project. One day painting and the next day coming back with signage. We could do a sign before

and and you definitely could if you know where they're supposed to be. And if we, you know, the the weather breaks in late March, early April, kids aren't out of school till May, June. So, the question will be, you know, come early April, are we able to put paint on the ground? We should be. Yeah, we should be ready to go. To me, the signs are going to do as much as the painting. Like in time for baseball season. Yeah. Yeah. And in terms of event issues, we don't have event issues between now and spring, right? There's the one little one on Franklin Road. The sip shop and drink and sip. Sip, shop, and drink. You're not strong. Your

priorities double. Um, all right. It's quarter quarter 10. Um, all right. So, we've taken action on this. That is the end of our agenda. Anybody else have anything else? Otherwise, I get a motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. Second motion myself, second by Sally. All in favor? I opposed. So, Abby