Council - Special Meeting

It is 6 o'clock and I am going to call to order the village of Franklin special council meeting of Monday, November 24th, 2025. Uh, can we please do the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Uh, Evan, roll call, please. David Goldberg, here. Pen Hansen. Trusty Daniel Ferris here. Trusty Gates here. Trustee Angela present.

David South here. Okay, we have three items on the agenda. Public hearing for our CDBG allocation and then a consideration of our CDBG allocation and then a consideration of our purchasing policy. Anybody else have any comments for the agenda? Any additions? Can I get a motion to approve the agenda, please? Motion to approve. Second. Motion by Sally, second by Gates. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. Thank you.

Uh, public requests and comments. I see we have people in the crowd. If anybody's here for something other than what's on our agenda, it's a time to come forward. Feel free to speak. Nobody. All right. I'll close public comments. Uh, next item on the agenda is we uh in order to allocate CDBG funds, we have to schedule and hold a public hearing. So, at this time, I'm going to open at 604 the public hearing for our 2026 CDBG allocation. Uh Rachel, you wanna you want to give us a brief description of any what we're doing here or I don't want to put you on the spot. So essentially uh the public hearing is to take comments from anybody from the public who wishes to comment on what are uh proposed or any suggested allocations for our CDBG funds. We typically uh have been getting $7,000 a year, which I believe is looks like that's our allocation for this year. So, if anybody from the public would like to speak, if there's any organizations that would like us to consider the allocation of our funds, this is also a time to speak. So, if anybody would like to address us on this subject, please come on up. Good evening. Um, hi. I'm Tanya Medie Hammond. I'm the vice president of the Franklin Community Association.

And my name is Matt Howell. I'm the treasurer and I've been the treasurer since this past January of FCA.

Uh, we're here on behalf of the FCA alongside a few others in the audience. If you guys want to give us a wave. Um, as you know, uh, the FCA is an entirely volunteer-run nonprofit organization managing the park here in downtown Franklin. We host our events and maintain and ensure the park entirely by membership dues and donations that um, are provided by the generosity of our villagers. We don't come to the village for assistance very often, but when the CDBG grant opportunity crossed our path, it sparked an important conversation with our board and one that ultimately led us here this evening. So this year, as you may know, we hosted the 80th annual Labor Day roundup and art fair. Our most cherished and largest event that we spend much of the year prepping for. We were fortunate enough to have uh just a gorgeous weather, plenty of volunteer help, and a huge turnout. The villagers, for the villagers, the roundup is more than just a park event. It's a moment when our community comes together and takes pride in all that makes Franklin special. For those visiting from neighboring communities, it's an opportunity for us to show off Franklin's charm and the wonderful community we have cultivated. In many ways, it's Franklin's very best and biggest advertisement, wrapped up in a fun-filled, familyfriendly with something for everyone. And of course, the parade, well, that's the heart of the event. It's the moment that brings everyone to the street corners and sidewalks waiting with excitement. We've always been honored to welcome you, our council members, to participate, and we hope the experience has filled you with the same joy and pride we see in the faces of families lining the routes. While the event brings in thousands of attendees to Franklin each year, what many people don't know is that the event does not pay for itself. In fact, this past year, even with the perfect conditions, we lost $1,600.

I have provided a financial overview and you'll see that we have approximately 18,000 of fixed costs before we bring in any revenue on the day of the event and the current revenue streams will continue to not cover our costs. We believe with this being my first year as treasurer, I spent some time analyzing our finances related to the roundup and coupled with my experience and also being the treasurer for the Michigan Thanksgiving parade. And we believe that a sponsor or sponsors are key for this treasure tradition to continue for many years to come, which brings us here today.

While we would be very grateful to be considered for the CDBG grant, we recognize there may be guidelines that could limit our eligibility. So, we would instead like to ask the village council to consider a regular annual $7,000 donation to the FCA to have the village of Franklin be the lead sponsor of the parade. The donation would cover the direct cost to put on the parade as well as other fixed costs like the port of hotties used by parade goers and the golf carts that both the Franklin police and the fire department use for the event. For 80 years now, the roundup has been a day when Franklin comes together, when we reconnect with our neighbors and celebrate our village and feel really proud of the place we call. With the village villages partnership as the lead sponsor of the parade, we can ensure this tradition continues to bring joy, pride, and connection for our community for years.

Thank you. Thank you. That's not good to see. That's tough.

Anybody else? Okay. Okay. I only brought myself. Um, I'm representing Franklin Community Preschool. Um, I am a current parent, former board member, and I'm now currently the ones teacher. Um, so we're putting our hat in. Our preschool currently bears sole responsibility for maintaining the community playground at the preschools. While small contributions from the FCA and Franklin baseball helped support us in the past, we haven't had that funding in quite a while. Um, and meanwhile, the usage of the playground has only increased as people have found out about it. So, our preschoolers only use the playground, they use it every day, but it's about 1 to one and a half hours every day, and it's only from September to May. Um, so the playground used by the preschool is pretty minimal compared to the community. Uh, beyond our school hours, thousands of people enjoy the playground annually. families attending baseball games, Labor Day roundup, music on the green, cider mill visitors, mom's groups. There's a lot of homeschooling groups that come there now, and daily neighborhood visitors. Um, so it's clearly more than just a school playground because of how much it's just used by everyone around us. So, we would love to be considered for it. Um, we just wanted to give I should have brought the treasure, I guess. Um, in 2023 alone, we spent $18,000 on equipment upgrades and remove removal of unsafe um structures. So, each year we're required by Michigan licensing standards to refresh sand and mulch to meet safety regulations, and that's about $4,000 each year. Um, and this might be unknown, but because of um the free preschools have opened up in the the uh public schools, our enrollment has gone down quite a bit for the four-year-olds. So, we're really struggling to cover the cost of that $4,000 every year. Um, last year a one-time $2,500 facade grant from the village funded through Oak County

helped cover this cost, but it's not a sustainable solution. Um, so the 4,000 is what we spend. It's a bare minimum of what we spend each year. Um, if we receive the funds, we would like to add um more picnic tables, purchase usable and functioning sand toys, um, have the three to four stumps removed at the edge of the playground that I personally tripped over today when I was there. Um, we'd also love to add some landscaping in the spring and there are just so many ways that we'd be able to utilize this um, funding for the community to use. Thank you.

Anybody else? No one else. Okay. So, I'll go ahead and close the public hearing at 6:12. So, uh, next item is now the consideration of our CDBG allocation for 2026. Uh, anybody want to start? Uh, I guess just an initial question. Do we did we receive any other interests or applications other than the two that presented baseball league again I believe? No, no, did not. Did not. Okay, that's all.

Okay. Uh, aside from the roundup um financial overview, what other revenue streams does the FCA currently have? And uh we we receive dues from our members and um and then we have sponsorship of of some events like music. We so throughout the year we have events. Some are ticketed, most are free. Um we bring in revenue from some events like Unforced Wine Tasting. Um that also of course goes to putting on those events. And then other than that, it's the dues, the annual dues that we ask families to pay and any donations that might come in separately.

And and then those dues are primarily to support the park, um the the upkeep of the park, the the cutting of the grass, the insurance, accounting piece. We don't have that many numbers either. There's like 300 that give us dues. So with dues, the 3,000 that live here, not many. We try every year. Yeah. So for dues and donations, I understand you're running in a deficit for the roundup. Where does that put you for the year um in terms of what you've raised with dues and what your operating budget or expenditures might be?

Um I would say um we're estimating to um come in at about 7500 to 10,000 profit. Okay. How closer to 7500 this year? I would say in the last few years is we've run a loss each year overall.

Yeah. The membership, if you look at our annual memberships year-over-year, we've declined, and that's what Lisa is saying. She's on our board and head of our membership committee, it's declined little by little, year-over-year. Um, we've done little things. We've increased the dues by $10 about two years ago to kind of help make up for it, try to encourage donations. um with our request for the parade sponsorship is more to ensure that the roundup always happens and that the parade can always happen in the form that's in um you know the roundup is an event that's highly affected by the weather. If it's a rainy day, no one comes and we we really don't we still have to pay for everything. Uh and so there's a lot of fixed costs to the roundup that kind of don't have to do with attendance um that we still are responsible for paying out. So this would really help us ensure that we can continue to put on year over year um because we know that the dues aren't always a reliable source of our income.

Sasha, question for you. You'd mentioned a um sort of same question. So you'd mentioned a reduction in enrollment. Um is the Can you come up here just so that that we can pick up the sound? Um do you have an idea what's what's been the reduction in enrollment year-over-year? Are you operating at a deficit?

Yes, we are. So we're like barely covering the cost of being able to run the preschool and pay all the teachers and assistants. um really truly because the fours program is what brings in so much to our school cuz it's the most full-time that we have and so last year we had I believe 18 students in the force like full-time Monday through Friday and this year we're down to 10 and even those 10 aren't full-time. Okay.

Stay up here. um any in in like costs saving measures any increase of enrollment costs or how are you so I guess my question is between the two it's like if you're operating at a if you've got some revenue to play with and the preschool might be operating at a deficit and covering those costs might be out of reach for this year I think that's something that's important to me yeah considering not for Sasha not for you um sorry for the FCA Okay. Um, quick question. So during when you were presenting, were you requesting for CDBG or further consideration for recurring 7,000?

So I think our understanding was the CDBG grant may not be applicable to the FCA. Um, I've seen that there was and and I hope I was looking at the correct thing online, but uh requirement that it goes to certain groups of people, but I'm not sure fits into. Is that correct? How long have you guys had your 501c3 back? Maybe that was there a time. Um we um were informed um in late October um that we got our 501c3 back retroactive when we lost it about three years ago. Okay. Oh, you lost it three years ago. Two years ago.

Two years ago. It was made in 2023 technically when it were just notified that it was retroactively reinstated. Okay. Do we know whether they're eligible to receive this grant? Peter, is it did they have to be eligible by the time the CDBG application was that? That's where I would see it as. No, no. I think what Aby's asking is that there was a question from the FCA on whether or not their eligibility is based off of people they serve. But so if our if our directive tonight is to determine the outcome of this grant and we have one recipient and if there if the FCA is ineligible to receive it, well then that makes this discussion pretty Yeah. quick and easy, huh?

I can I can just see it being like you have to is there a 501c3 eligibility requirement by the time the application opens or is it by the time you award it? But we graduation. Yeah. Yeah. I just I don't know. And we can provide our

Yeah. No, I mean I trust I'm not that um so from my perspective I feel like um I mean I feel like the Franklin Village does support the Roundup. Like I know we pay our police a lot of overtime and we do a lot of the security and we um obviously allow the use of our property. Um, I would be more pro like I I would like us to do a specific thing, you know, like we us take a part of your roundup and be like, let's like have ownership of that, you know what I mean? Like um

and that's kind of like a

Yeah. Like like a function of the roundup that you guys can kind of outsource to us and like we have a FCA liaison, you know what I mean? Whether it's like um I don't know I feel like the the the grounds like you know I can see or even the parade since we're in the parade and you guys like do a lot of that um for probably um building trust and awareness of who your elected officials are and I feel like that's a good thing you know to be like these are your representatives. Um, but I also feel like the Franklin preschool, like I feel like it's like the gift that never stops giving cuz like I don't know how many people would know that's not part of the FCA, you know, where like a Franklin baseball game that has kids on the playground and an FCA event that has kids on the playground. Um, music in the green that uses the playground. So, I kind of feel like uh we could re-evaluate our support of the FCA, but um to me, the playground is like the only playground that's open to the public in v in the village. They've never fenced it in. They've never, you know, required a fee to use it. Um and I feel like if it wasn't here, you'd be like, how does the village not have a playscape? Um and I can see the improvements every day. There's people there. Um and and they don't really have these big events and maybe that could be an opportunity for you guys to join with the preschool, you know, like have the kids in the parade. I think they were in the parade this year. Yeah. But maybe like the, you know, parents group do the bake sale part or something like I feel like there's more partnership opportunities. Um and then the infrastructure committee was already working on possibly um donating for the cost of the mulch and the sand every year for the playground as a fixed cost. um similar to what we do or did for the church for the parking

since we use it as a community asset. But those are my thoughts. Um and then also too like the parade like how can we get some of those costs down to like donations? I don't know, but I know not everyone likes to donate. Do you guys hire help? Is there like does is there a management fee to this? Like do you have I'll give you an example. The band that that comes um it's from high school. A payment is made to their boosters. I mean, they need to raise money for them to come. So, we need to pay um for example for that band. Yeah. As a donation. But I'm saying, do you have any professional like do you use a professional

event planner? Do you use Warren's in charge of our parade? Okay. Oh, hey Warren. I'm Warren Robinson. You're the professional event planner. I'm the professional unprofessional. I am the parade. Yeah. Nothing comes to me. Yeah. But everything that we do for the parade is just expenses to pay for somebody or something. The example is the Oak Park High School band which is like this crazy band which has been probably the greatest thing we've had in five years for sure.

Prior to that, we would have we had the FIF and drum people. We have everybody costs everybody's $1,000 no matter what you do to have the signs to have the magnetic signs on the cars. It's not like uh you know to to figure out how to get the parade as inexpensive as possible but realizing that it's not a money-making venture and how to just do it better. So, I mean, with all due respect at the recent uh the roundup uh windown meeting. Yeah. So, we talked about the idea that maybe it's time to have a sponsor. Well, we never had a sponsor.

I mean, I'm open to doing anything, but in the meantime, it is what it is. And you know the fact is that the parade brings in a tremendous amount of people that really you know like enjoy Franklin for and recognize Franklin and it's like our putting our best foot forward and this last year was was tremendous in terms of the numbers and um you know if we can get the funding you know by way of or get the sponsorship or however you know would be really very very helpful and consistent with this village sort of taking care of itself.

Okay. And this parade is just an extension of that. You know, I'm going to make the parade any which way as long as they want me to. Yeah. Okay. And uh we'll carry it on. But it's all about tradition. So you're welcome. Nice to meet you. And the advertising is that like in the eagle? That's the big um cost on your advertising. I think it's about $850. So for the eagle and then there's um cost um for producing some of the signs that are distributed in the in the area advertising the event. Yeah. Posters and things like that. And those costs, you know, increase every year. The Eagle cost has gone up has gone up a lot in the last few years. So, it's

Yeah. Some of the big things like in the grounds, the golf carts that we ran are a couple thousand dollar that I have an idea for that. So, just come to the next meeting. I can save you on that cost. So, um,

my my initial thoughts are we had an outstanding request um from the from the Franklin preschool to assist with the playground. Um, the fact that we're able to support them through CDBG funds rather than our own, I think is which I supported using our own funds to support them. Um, so my initial inclination is to uh or my favor would be to go in favor of the Franklin preschool for this year. However, that's with the caveat that I think we need to have a larger conversation around community organizations and support. Um, so that's not to say that I want this conversation to end, but as you all noted, um, it's something that you talked about as a annual reoccurring and that's not foreign from other organizations that provide services. And so I just think that we need to collectively have that policy discussion on, you know, how how we try and take our minimal funds that we do have and make sure that we're benefiting the community the best that we can.

Well, thanks everyone for coming here. We have two, I think, um, critical assets of the village represented here today. Um, the the roundup is such an an amazing event. It really does put the spotlight on Franklin. And thanks to everyone who makes that happen. And the playground is something that's just used on a daily basis by so many residents. I think many people would be surprised to learn that it was privately owned and and wasn't actually a literal asset of the community. So, I I wholeheartedly support both organizations. I think there are though questions about the FCA's eligibility for this particular um this particular funding source. And so, with that said, I I think that it makes sense for us for today's purposes to u make the award to the preschool. Um, however, I think subject to ongoing discussions about support for FCA and for the roundup in particular.

All right. Uh so as I mentioned at the last meeting, I think that our our CDBG funds are a portion of what we should be allocating on an annual basis to the various organizations that support our residents in different capacities. For years we gave and I'm reiterating for years we gave money to next uh they provide our community with senior services. They eventually found their way into our budget. We at times gave money to the um Birmingham Youth Assistance, which provides youth assistance to our community, and we had a discussion at times of getting them into the budget. Uh, as part of Rachel's purchasing policy, she's educated us a bit on what we can on an annual basis do with money that we have. And that just our regular general fund money, we can't just donate to a charitable organization unless we're getting some type of public benefit back. And it seems that the two organizations in our room today, the Birmingham Youth Assistance, the Next, they all provide public benefits and public services to us in various ways. So, I personally would like to see in ongoing budget years, particularly for the last two years, we've had money allocated for what we what we've called special uh special projects.

Um, and that that that has been at least $100,000 each year. and it's unfortunately not gone to the greatest as far as fund projects in the last couple years, but it is money we've had in the budget that I would like to to consider moving forward and having some of that money go to some of these organizations that don't get the opportunity to receive CDBG money that our CDBG money can't be the only money that we're prepared to share with these organizations that provide irreplace replaceable services to us and the CDBG is one of the opportunities where we can do it without necessarily having to receive a quid proquo in any way. But I don't see any way that moving forward we can't consider all the groups that have or you know to the extent the groups that I've mentioned but these various groups that have ongoing regular support that we can't just give money but can certainly enter into arrangements with them. As everybody has said, we the request from the preschool has been on our

has been on our plate for four months now. Whether it was CDBG money or not CDBG money, we were going to figure out a way to do that. Uh, you know, they certainly provide us with a benefit and a service. They, as you know, Angelina said, they could put a fence around it and a lock on it and that and we would have no use of it. So, you know, we on an annual basis can be entering into license agreements with them to use the to use the playground and then be able to allocate budget money because now it's not a gift to a charitable organization. There's a quid proquo. We have same thing with the FCA, the same thing with the Birmingham Youth Assistance. So, I would like to not consider when we're dealing with our CDBG allocation to have it seem as if that's the only way we're looking at it because to the extent it's available and to the extent we don't have other projects that we need to address throughout the course of a year. As we know, the last two years there were mechanical failures in between the two buildings that we had to deal with, but this year there haven't been. And we're now halfway through the year and haven't really done anything with it. So, I'd still like to not forget about that dialogue and that discussion moving forward notwithstanding what takes place today. Uh it would seem based upon the four of you having spoke before me that it looks like the consensus for this allocation of this CDBG fiscal year uh would be to go to the to the preschool to address that concern.

And I know that the request that came to us had $4,000 sort of as a minimum what they could use on an annual basis. And it certainly seems like the FCA could use assistance. And I mean we already have other projects in the works that we're trying to uh gain funding to enhance the FCA property, village property. So, uh, I just wanted to make sure that we don't forget that we have opportunities and we do, I feel, have a duty in some way to support these other organizations when it's available in in our budget to do so. And that's that's all I got to say.

Yeah, I agree with uh, President Goldberg. Like the finance committee I think starts meeting in January. I think we need to look at like what can we give permanently to the FDA whether it's for roundup or another thing and then they can use that money that they don't spend on you know all the other maintenance expenses they have it goes the big kitty yeah it we could somehow be allocated to one certain place so

you know call it a sponsorship as you called some level of ownership share in that event which we do. Uh I you know I fully support I fully support that. So any other discussion any other comments from the public? Sorry question. Do you guys do any surveying from the members who didn't renew their membership? Like did they say why? Is it people moving out? Is it?

So, we haven't done that. Um, two years ago, we moved to a new website platform that has a lot of really great membership capabilities and just this year figured out how to like donate the people who were members in 2024, not 2025. Um, we haven't been able to do anything like that, but that's a really good idea. Yeah. Um, to figure out how many people didn't renew year every year and the reason.

Yes. I just know I always get texts like, "What time does the roundup start?" I mean, like, "It's not the village." I was like, "Let me pull up the advertisement." You know what I mean? Because I'm like, "I don't know." You know? Um, but like I think it's just just awareness and education, too, like you know. Um, and so, and then when people move here from another city, like I grew up in a city with parks and wreck, you know, so like they do think parks and recreation is part of the village. So it's like hard to reprogram someone's brain of like well of course I mean the playground has to belong to the you know to the village who else is going to have a playground you know or like the you know tennis courts are open to everyone because that's part of the park like nope you know and it's not like you're going to put a sign I mean you guys have signs but like not everyone reads the signs and they could just think FCA means the department under the village

you know cuz not like you know it has the word Franklin in it and same for the preschool whenever I say like Franklin Priest. Oh, your village has someone moves into the village, we do have a pack of materials, okay, that we give to them. Oh, that's good. Okay. I know. She's so good. Yeah, we see that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I still tell people I'm just like, you know, it's separate. Like, you have to, you know, make sure you subscribe or like put your email in. But, you know, we do a number of mailings. Um, we put up the villager newsletter that goes out right now. pretty regular twice a year at least.

Um and we always put together we do a membership letter twice a year go to all the homes in print but we tend to have a lot of engagement from visible mailings. Yeah. Um but we try you know we try to do our best on email. We have a really large email list which is great. We really high open rate. Um people love coming there. Yeah. I think it's also too hard because like Birmingham does a lot of their their city sponsors their music and their nights and like Birming Hills and so even in the area we don't have that like the FCA is distinct you know so people just kind of put it together I think like a night in the stars or whatever. Yes.

So yeah it's not your fault. It's just like hard for people to think oh it must be. Yeah. And we also get a lot of requests about that have nothing to do with it. So, it's anybody else? I will entertain a motion. I'll make a motion to allocate the funds, CDBG funds to the Franklin preschool. I'll second for program year 2026. Correct. Motion by Ferris, second by Sally. Okay. Right. So, the full amount also in the full amount of $7,000. Correct.

Thank you. So, we have a motion that's been clarified. Second. Seconded. Any further discussion? All in favor? I I opposed. Okay. Uh you're welcome. Thank you. Thank you both. Uh, so the dialogue, again, I just want everyone to understand the dialogue is not over at this point in the game. Yeah. I wouldn't want to give it to any other organization than a Franklin one. Like I'm glad that the last couple years we've kind of brought it back home. No, that's Yeah, nonprofits that serve Franklin because I think for a while it was like Birmingham as so many

and as you've been learning, just so you know, um, and we'll we'll figure it out, but the money doesn't come so quickly. Yeah. Oh yeah, it won't be there probably for how long? About this time next year. Okay. Oh, this time next year. Yeah. Wait, we won't get it until this time. It's crazy how bad it is. Um my only we haven't even given so my only uh request would be then if we could help provide timelines for the FC sorry not the FCA for the Franklin preschool for when it needs to be expended by if if you're doing an allocation for sand and mulch. Um just so you know the time it has to be expended if you already paid for it. Yeah.

Are you the PC? Do you want to give Rachel your number and stuff, Sasha? Um point of contact. Oh yeah, and Holly like and just so you guys know, Holly runs the bake sale, you know, at the FCI. So like it's all uh for the community. She only brought in $514. We'll have a cocker about that. I think she was giving away some free pastries. We suffered from a lack of donated fake gifts this year. Yeah, everything was sold. Really? I know. Yeah.

All right. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Uh last thing we're going to consider tonight is the purchasing policy which we had reviewed uh at last meeting. I know that a couple trustees, I think David, Angelina, you guys both had some comments which have now found their way to Rachel and incorporated in here.

Yes. Peter, hold on one second. Angelina Peter, do you have any comments on this?

No, I I worked together with Rachel. I reviewed the meeting. I think I captured everybody's comments that were made that I found you guys had a consensus on. I can point those out. Um, they are in section 21 AI. I think you guys wanted some um background. You wanted me to include where this authority comes from and if there was any inconsistency that the obviously the charter and ordinance would prevail. So I I incorporated that. And then if going down to section 21 F two small I uh there's a general consensus on what type of authority would be given if there was an emergency or disaster situation. And we said if the village can't doesn't have the ability to act in an or ordinary course because of some extraneous event, fire, flood, windstorm or something like that that the village administrator may go ahead and um bypass the normal procedures to purchase and that would be granted for a 48 hour period. Um the next discussion was under J2 I think that's where I put it where uh if the village council approves of a contract that maybe is for a 5year duration but then there are options I should a fiveyear duration but the um contract only renews every year or every two years the administrator would be able to um go ahead and exercise that option. And I think I um summarize that memorialize that in under Jouble I it states the village administrator has the authority to exercise option years and contracts that were previously approved by village council so long as

the contract duration is no longer than 5 years. So does that mean the original contract duration is no longer than 5 years or the original contract plus whatever options the administrator is exercising doesn't go beyond 5 years or does that mean that the option can't be more than 5 years? I think it was fiveyear duration the way I five year duration collectively.

So it was originally a one-year contract was originally a three-year contract. It has renewable things. The whole contract in totality between original contract and her un un uh you know not not having come to council for authority exercise means the whole contract can't extend beyond five years at least once I think I what was that when I talked at least once every five years council would be reviewing a contract for the same services. Okay. So like market research would have to be done. That does mean in totality totality.

So then the language I had said no then this language stays because that's what the intention was. The whole contract and the options can't go beyond 5 years. It could, but she couldn't exercise it. Any the original term of the contract that we approved and any options that she's exercising can't in totality go beyond 5 years without coming back to us to renew whatever the is that enough then here to reflect that? It feels like it may not be. Well, it should be so long as the contract duration, including all options, are no longer than 5 years or all exercised options are no longer than 5 years.

We could just add another sentence that says um anything over 5 years, the contract must be brought to the village council for approval. Yeah. Like inclusive of any inclusive extensions or inclusive of extensions. Yeah. Approval or extension. Yeah. Yeah. I mean again we can fix the language either way. I just wanted to make sure we understood the concept and that the concept is yeah every five years we should be renewing something. We shouldn't sign a three-year contract and then have the administrator exercising another 5year of options and now we've gone eight years without visiting a contract. Exactly. No, I I wasn't questioning it. I was just

trying to understand it cuz I think either way it needs to have a little bit of a tweaking in the language. Okay. Now we're clarifying the language to be in totality before it it without coming back to council again can't be more than 5 years. Got it. Yeah, that's good. As a government, how long can you bind contracts? Can you bind a future council by a long-term contract? Oh, yeah. Our police contract. So, other than labor, other than labor, can you really go and find you could pass budgets and lock down, but option years don't bind anyone because they have to exercise it. Yeah,

it all depends on the statute too. There's some statute says you can't bind more than 40 years for example. That's so I think it's statute specific but yes this happens all the time because trustees resign vacancies all that. So um there's turnover of uh of trustees and village councils. Yes. Well, as long as it doesn't breach a a contract, a future council can always change any existing contract we have as long as it's done within the terms of the contract. Sure. Without breach. Correct.

Now, maybe as a general Well, as you said, our council's every two years our council is changing potentially. Any future budget Yeah. Well, if yeah, we don't operate we don't operate in a vacuum on a year-by-year basis. I think David and I our intent was like if you can't to to avoid the administrator going out to bid on a public works contract every two years, but at least at a minimum every 5 years because the market conditions have changed.

She would be doing that. But in between she could exercise option years. And then what if we have like a two-year contract? We want to rebid it, but there's not enough time. She could exercise, you know, a 12-month option while we buy time to develop a new solicitation and put it out to award, right? Well, it's just more for the the need to go out and rebid something every 5 years. That's different than Yeah. You're on the finance committee. Do you think that's Well, I just want to make sure you're not out. You're not buy any future budget numbers other than we always buy future budget numbers.

I think there there's clauses in there saying you can't allocate future budget years. You have to allocate budgets every year to spend on leases. You have the option to withdraw any lease. I just want to make sure. I'm not sure I agree with that, Rick. We have contracts with priority that that go beyond just I just don't want to make sure it's stupid. I already have long-term contracts. Yeah, a municipality has the authority to bind itself obviously to contract durations. So long as you're not running a foul of the charter or statutes or stuff like that, you're allowed to do it. And it provides the predictability too when it comes to budgets.

I think what Rick is saying is because we only we uh only have money every calendar year, we shouldn't have a contract that has a base year longer than 12 months because we wouldn't be able to pay for it. I think we can. It's not possible.

Okay. So here from a federal perspective that's a different form of government, right? Because part of the allocations is to create the separation of powers between the e executive which is the one actually doing the expenditure of funds against the legislative. But point taken, we just there's no uh the only thing you're saying is from a policy perspective making sure that we are not unintentionally violating something. Peter, it sounds like we're not. And more importantly, that wouldn't even be necessarily contemplated in this policy because if that were something, we could just obligate it as a condition within the contract negotiated. Yeah. And I talked to Rachel about that like termination clauses that she's going to include in the contracts to prevent us from

Yeah. So, I'm not too concerned about it.

Okay. I I don't I don't understand where that comes from at all. We have contracts, numerous contracts that go beyond one year. And I mean that's how we couldn't have a collective bargaining agreement with our police force. We couldn't have contracts with our our service providers if we were not to mention we wouldn't get the benefit of bargains because every year we would be subject to them changing pricing on us. So I I don't know where I've never I personally have never heard that. So if if that's based on authority somewhere, I'd like to like to hear where that concept comes from. For our purposes, we would like to make sure that nothing's going out beyond 5 years before it's been revisited by this body.

And I think that section can be addressed the So my comment was to that section to clarify that. And then so Peter, in the emergency section, there's this last sentence. this exception is granted for a 48 hour period. So there there's got to be a carve out to that of some sort because emergency situations can go beyond 48 hours. What happens after 48 hours is the administrator lost their emergency power. So this exception is granted for a 40hour period except when circum extenduating cir I mean there seems to me there like why is there a time period on it I guess at all if it's an emergency

who deter like someone have to determine when the emergency ends is that what you're when I reviewed the video of the meeting I think there was a 48 hour proposed and it seemed like there was a consensus ultimately you guys can change that right now oh okay so that you're you're talking that you're you're basing that on our discussion that's not based on law or anything. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. And I I don't know if the basis was we could have a special meeting in 48 hours, but I did hear a 48 hour window. So, I put it in there, but you guys are ultimately approving it, changing it, revising it.

Yeah. I mean, by charter, it takes 18 hours or like roughly a day to call a special meeting. Uh, if if we're going to put a period on this, I'd like to see it be closer to three or four days before you sitting here.

Well, yeah. If if we're in an emergency situation and our administrator can only authorize something for a 48 hour period, that seems pretty limited. If the intent was we could get a special the intent for limiting it was well, we could always just get a special meeting called. I mean, if a tornado has hit Franklin, it's going to be so easy to just get a special meeting called. So, that was just my point. And I was curious if it was by law. If it's not, and that was just by our discussion, then I'll defer to the rest of the to the council. If 48 hours seems like that's enough time to be in a quote unquote emergency, then then I'm fine with it.

What would you guys do as a HR? What would you give your uh the board vote? This wouldn't be written into any document. I'd be writing. So I'm fine with like five days if you think I would be fine with that. I mean to me a week is the max. You have a snowstorm, right? Is that what you're thinking? I absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean if there's Yeah. If there's a snowstorm and Jerry's like, "Guys, I can knock off like a quarter of the village today. You need to talk to the county. Call Bloomfield Township. See if you can get one of, you know. subcontract out one of their trucks. I mean, I it seems to me that that those are the types of s circumstances that we're talking about and only letting that authority last for two days without us just having to get together and say, "Yeah, absolutely. Go spend whatever it takes." Or, you know, "Go spend 20 grand." If you talk to them, "Oh, yeah, it's going to be, you know, $3,000 a day to do it and it's going to take two days to to dig us out. It would seem that and and maybe five seems maybe a little even long. I personally was thinking 72 hours just three days if it takes a day to call a meeting, a day to figure it out, day to call the meeting, have the meeting and then so that that's what my thought

I wonder if we even need a requirement like a time limit on it at all. I don't think we do. I would prefer to strike a time limit. Good. That puts the oblig puts the obligation on us. as trustes together and the trust of our administrator that in an emergency she's not going to get wasteful and if she has to get wasteful in an emergency that seems to be the right time. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with Trusty Ferris cuz at what point everyone be like no I was wondering if the whole sentence was by law and if it was just pulling out of comments from last meeting and it seems like we're all kind of cool with just going with let it roll then I I like that even better. Yeah, I agree with Trusty Paris. Good. Good. Good. Okay. So,

more authority by the minute. We have the purchasing policy that was presented to us. And I know Rachel did draft a proposed resolution to be used. What I do with it? This one.

Yeah. I'm I'm not going to make it anyways. Yeah. As long as someone has it. Yep. Okay. So it looks like the only changes we are proposing to the policy as presented are striking the last sentence of F small to I and having Rachel rework the language at the end of J2 to make it clear that the duration of the contract and any options do not collectively extend beyond 5 years. Other than that, any other suggested changes to the policy as presented. So, if anybody wants to make the motion,

uh, I'll make a motion to adopt the, uh, Village of Franklin procurement purchasing credit card policy as uh, amended per David Goldberg, President Goldberg's comments. A second. You good with that? No. Okay. Motion by Sally, second by Gates. Further discussion? Okay. So, we have a procurement policy. Excellent. Thank you for putting that together. Okay. So, the motion carries. I Oh, give me that vote. Oh, I thought we All in favor say I. I opposed. My bad. Motion carries.

Uh, now you have procurement policy. Thank you. So, uh, I don't know if we're being recorded. Just uh reminder, we have an open trustee position. Uh since we're not going to have the meeting to discuss the candidates until our December 8th meeting, anybody who wants to put their name in in the hat has until November 28th, end of business day, November 28th to get that in. That'll give us a week to review, communicate with people, and then address at our December 8th meeting. Perfect. All right.

I have a question. Um, is the intent to do the appointment at the beginning so we can so you can swear the person in and have them sit for that meeting? Sure. Is that your intent? Yeah, we'll discuss that at legal committee, but yeah, we can put that at the beginning of the agenda because then we have a full body just in case. That's fine. I don't have a problem with that. Well, did you want to spend the meeting interviewing the trustee or Yeah, it took us quite a bit of time last time. Well, we're still going to go through that whole process. Is that going to work? Well, you want to watch the meetings? Well, we we we will at legal committee. We'll figure out where in the agenda to squ put in the Yeah, there's going to be discussion. Okay.

And then hopefully a a motion and hopefully a vote. We didn't get it done the first time last time. Okay. But the notwithstanding that, yes, the intent would be, you know, maybe still again let Chief and Tony and Teresa get out of here. Mhm. But then, you know, put ahead of of all the business we're doing for the day so that that, as Angelina said, so that trustee can participate in all of our business actions. I see. They can still be sitting here listening. Yeah. Okay. they can still be listening to the other stuff. Okay, thanks.

I will just take a position on this uh so that it's here and not in our legal meeting, my preference would actually be to put it at the end for two reasons. One, um I while we're holding people longer by having it at the end of the meeting, as we learned last time, we don't know what the outcome is going to be. And so I don't want uh any de hopefully it's a fast vote but if there's delayed conversation that that happened at the end of the meeting. The other thing as well is the reason that we get the agendas ahead of time is to prepare for the meeting and we would then be appointing somebody to then take votes on a packet they didn't prepare for.

That's a fair comment. I like that. That's a fair comment. So then the position would only be from January to November, right? Well, we would swear them in at the end of the night. So that because honestly, when I was appointed in 22

Mhm. I had come to the meeting thinking they were going to have a discussion on the subject and they voted on at the beginning of the meeting and then made me come up there and sit for that meeting and participate in votes that I had no clue what I was talking about and and and having been new I like didn't even wasn't even like keen enough to be like I should probably be like even abstaining. So I I actually do from personal experience even

I do kind of understand where that's coming from and that to put someone in that position and put the residents in the position that somebody's voting on something that they're not. So I what do you guys think two of you like it took me a year to get settled in this so I feel like it's one meeting so I think that's a perfectly reasonable approach here. Yeah, I think that makes sense to save it for the end as well. Yeah. You didn't you didn't come on until the next meeting, right? You sat in on those meetings, though. Sat in on several meetings. It was three meetings. No, no, but I mean Dan didn't

Oh, he wasn't even sworn in that day. That's why I think he needs to be sworn in right at that meeting. Swearing in part. Yeah. But he didn't he didn't his first meeting was the next meeting of council. Let's do that. Let's do it at the end of the meeting. All right. So, good call. Yeah. Okay. Uh, any other discussions before we go?

Oh, I guess just for Evan, when people apply, are you telling them to come to the meeting? I no I haven't been saying anything other than rece what we'll probably do is when we get to the 28th and we have you know everybody who has quote unquote applied that would probably be when we would send an email to all those candidates they should have given us their email address and say hey we're hearing this on the 8th yeah I just want to make Make sure you're Is it Thanksgiving week? So like if someone doesn't check their email that

there's consistent messaging. Okay, we can reach out. Mhm. How many people have applied so far? Three. Oh, are two of them here? I'm thinking if that like you guys know to come to these meetings so is it a m point? Okay. All right. Excellent. Anybody else? All right. Uh almost. Yeah. I always remember. Do we have to move to it? Right. So in your meetings that you've done in the past because I've seen it done both ways. I'm just curious.

Move to end the meeting. Yeah. Or Yeah. Yeah. I prefer that. I've always done it that way, but I've been to meetings where the chair just ends the meeting. I'm like, that seems weird. So, if I can get a motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. Motion from Sally. Second by Salaka. All in favor? I opposed. All right. Good job, everyone. Thank you.