City Council - Regular Meeting

good evening garden city i'd like to call the order regular city council meeting for monday august 24th 2026 at 7 pm the first order of business is our opening ceremonies ceremony which consists of the national anthem followed by the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence for those service members who have given their lives for our country please stand

I pledge 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. Mr. Miller, if you take roll call, please. Mayor Jacobs. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Dold. Here. Council Member Hughes. Here. Council Member Witt. Here. Council Member King.

Here.

Council Member Dold. Present. Council Member Karifotis. Show Council Member Karifotis absent and excused. You do have a quorum with six members present.

Okay, thank you. Next item is the approval of the agenda. mayor councilmember witt i'd like to make a motion to approve the monday august 24th council meeting agenda as presented support for mayor pro temp dole discussion from table from the public all in favor aye opposed motion passes 6-0 okay we do have a recognition tonight Mr. Miller would come up here. Unfortunately, Mr. Miller is going to retire from the city here. And as you know, he's done a lot for the community. He is community development director. He was city clerk. He's DDA director, grant writer, a man of many, many hats. And We greatly appreciate it and will greatly miss you. And we have a plaque, and I'll read the plaque. And Matthew Miller, Community Development Director from January 22nd, 2019 to September 1st, 2026. Thank you for your dedicated service and commitment to the city of Garden City and the greater Wayne County community. Throughout your tenure as City Clerk and Community Development Director, Your professionalism, enthusiasm, and dedication to public service have made a lasting impact on our organization and the residents we serve. Your exceptional attention to detail, organizational skills, and commitment to excellence has set a high standard and contributed greatly to the efficient and professional operation of the city. Your knowledge, leadership, and collaborative approach have strengthened our community and reflect the very best of public service. The City Council of Garden City extends its sincere appreciation for your many contributions to our community and wishes you happiness and success in your retirement. Congratulations, sir. Thank you.

First of all, thank you, Mayor and Council, for this plaque and recognition of my retirement. This kind of concludes 32 years of working for a local municipality, beginning back in 1993 really. and uh... i've always believed that uh... working at the local level is where all the changes are made to make our communities better and uh... of course all my time here at garden city i've enjoyed and uh... in many of my other communities i always felt that uh... and every decision i made uh... i always thought that what would i do if i live next to that or what if i had this affect me and i always felt that that was a good way to approach public service and uh... giving back to the community to make sure that we have a nice place to live work into business thank you again picture

Thank you again. All right. Thank you. Okay, next we do have our state representative, Dylan Wigella.

Rep. Hi. It's good to be back here at Council. It's been a couple months, so I'm going to try to continue to keep coming here. First off, I just also want to extend my gratitude to Matt Miller here. And I think you mentioned that you started at the local level in 1983. That's the year that I was born. So I think that... shows you just how long you've dedicated yourself to this. And I think that that's really special. So thank you for that. And anything you ever need from me moving forward, please keep me in the loop. So I want to give a couple of updates. First, you know, kind of been reflecting it's been a three-and-a-half years or so since I've been in this role I just wanted to report back to you I still have a hundred percent attendance record in Lansing and committed to showing up every day and for those people who maybe don't understand what we do on a day-to-day basis yes we vote on things is that you know that like hyper political side of this job but there's probably the more important side which is when someone calls your office for help navigating the state systems you're there to help them and I'm really grateful for my staff in Lansing and everything I've been able to learn in that space. I feel like we have a really strong constituent service program and we have been doing the best we can to hold Treasury accountable so if there's anyone out there still having issues with their tax returns I think we have something like 37 open cases in the district They can reach our office, or if you have any other struggles with constituent services, our email is dylanwegella, D-Y-L-A-N-W-E-G-E-L-A, at house.mi.gov, and our phone number is 517-373-3818. so first time i've been back here since our budget that passed in early july so i want to kind of talk about that a little bit this is the fourth budget that i have been a part of that process and i wish i could come here and tell you that the process is getting better but that's just simply not true this year the budget process went from 10 a.m. to 8.30 a.m. in the morning, so almost 24-hour period. And I think we took the budget vote at about somewhere in that early morning. I only had, again, an hour or so to read 1,000 pages of budget. and then three to four hours to read a 40-page summary of the budget. I ended up voting no on this year's budget as well for a couple reasons I'll outline here. So if we're keeping score, I voted yes for two budgets and no for the last two. One of the things we're starting to see is that years and years of doing tax breaks for corporations is starting to catch up to the Michigan revenue and the Michigan budget. As you all know, I think I kind of don't shut up about this, but in my office I voted against now something like $6 billion in corporate tax breaks and business tax breaks. We've seen those $6 billion happen in the three and a half years I've been in office. So what that's starting to do is it's shrinking the pool of revenue we have to work with. which is causing the legislature to make really tough decisions surrounding the budget and you are seeing that here at the local level as you might be aware in this year's budget statutory revenue sharing was frozen so what that means for you is you're getting the same dollars from the state through statutory revenue sharing their statutory and constitutional constitutional actually went down so if you adjust for inflation cities are getting less money this year than last year I find that completely unacceptable when we have the budget that we have up in Lansing. We should be giving you more resources, not less. So that factored into my decision. One of the other things we're starting to see is more and more money shifted from the school aid fund. So in the budget, you have generally two big pots of money. You have the general fund and then you have the school aid fund. Traditionally, around 2010, this started to change. The school aid fund was used for K-12 public schools. More and more, we are seeing Lansing create different shell games to use more of that money to backfill some of the cuts happening in the general fund. Last year, when I came to you, it was a record $1.3 billion they shifted from school aid over to the general fund. This last year's budget was $1.8 billion. The way that they do this is they're starting to fund higher education and community colleges more with K-12 dollars. And it's really a shame. As you all know, I was a former teacher universities and experts are saying that we need about four and a half billion dollars more a year in public schools uh... to fully fund them to so that teachers are paid appropriately class sizes are uh... where they need to be you have paraprofessionals and all of these other things and the reality is if we weren't redirecting some of that money we have about half of that or a little less than forty percent or so of that right now that we could be putting into our public schools if lansing simply made that choice On that as well, we are also seeing budget constraints from what's happening federally through the big beautiful bill with quotations for me here. But what we're seeing with that is having to spend more money on Medicaid. So it's going to get worse. Over the next 10 years, when I was talking to House Fiscal Agency, we can expect essentially to have, if we want to backfill to what we have now, $2.6 billion from the Big Beautiful Bill. You might see some of my colleagues saying that that has already arrived. It has, kind of. We had to spend about an additional $100 million this year for work requirements related to Medicaid to make sure that people could continue to keep their Medicaid. That being said, unless we find new revenue, I don't think things are going to get better is what I'm trying to articulate here. Additionally, you might be a little confused if you're looking at budget numbers because they did some really weird things with the reporting. This year's budget had about $86 billion in it, including state and federal. The way that they wrote the budget made it so that it appeared, and this sounds so silly because it is, that it was a seventy five billion dollars so budget one of the things that the house republicans wanted to do was essentially make the budget appear to be smaller than it was uh... so that because we're still getting those federal dollars we can still use and we're just not reporting on them now now i think there's a lot of reasons that that's a bad idea to do it that way one of the budget is already a very complicated thing for regular working-class people to be able to follow and understand and I think this just makes it seem that we made big cuts when we didn't necessarily. I mean there were still some cuts as I mentioned to schools but my point is we didn't make ten billion dollars of money just go away. So now if the public believes that we did and we still get the same services I think that that complicates how people understand how their tax dollars are being used. There's been some articles written about this that could maybe articulate better than I did here in sixty seconds so I encourage you all to take a look at that. Additionally, with the budget, there were a whole range of bills that were negotiated to pass along with the budget. As you know, power is split right now. Republicans are in control of the House. Democrats have the Senate and the governorship. I'm going to highlight just two of those, but I encourage people to look. into it more. One of them I think is actually really good. One would ban lawmakers from lobbying for two years after they're out of office. It's something that I was proud to vote for and have been supportive of since I got into office because I think it's a clear conflict of interest that so many lawmakers go on to become lobbyists after being in office. And then the other one is one I just want to bring up because I think it's going to make this revenue problem even worse. It was a doubling of the Brownfield tax credit program in Michigan, which we've seen double twice now that I've been in office, and changed quite a bit. Essentially, now that program has been expanded by about $2 billion. I expect that to decrease revenues as time goes on as well. And the reason that that was pushed for and passed in this budget was so that billionaire, Michigan's richest person, Dan Gilbert, could re- could remodel the Renaissance Center in Detroit. That was the whole reason that was pushed for. So you'll probably see the Renaissance Center get redeveloped with public dollars. I want to bring this up because you might remember when the Hudson Building was built in Detroit, used Brownfield tax credit dollars to help build that building, which was supposed to bring all these new jobs to Detroit. But what we saw happen was GM moved into that building, which then left the Renaissance Center open. And now they have been saying, well, this building's empty. We need to do something with it. But this same program they're using to redevelop it was part of the reason that it became empty in the first place. And I think I would argue all at the benefit of Detroit's billionaires and corporations. Anyway, that's my end on the budget, but I got a couple other things I want to get to briefly. Sorry there's a lot here, so I appreciate you giving me some time to talk about this. I'd say the flagship thing my office has been working on since I got elected has been bills that would ban corporations from donating in elections, as you've probably heard me talk about quite often. We were unable to get that legislation, even a hearing, under Democratic control and under split power. So a group called Michiganders for Money Out of Politics took the legislation that we worked on with them and ran a ballot initiative. They collected over 600,000 signatures. It just passed the Board of Canvassers and held up in court and will be on the November ballot for people to vote on in November. Unless what I think happens this week might happen, so pay attention. Because and I'll explain what this is. And again, this is a little complicated as well, but I think it's important to talk about. So when signatures are gathered for, you know, a ballot initiative, the legislature has the ability to adopt that before it goes to the ballot, meaning that it becomes law instantly. And you might be thinking, well, you've been trying to make this law. Why would it be a bad thing to adopt it now? And the reason that it would be a problem to adopt it before it goes to the ballot is because most likely it's You know, it looks like it's going to pass on the ballot. And when something passes on the ballot, it is protected by three-fourths vote, meaning that it cannot be changed unless three-fourths of legislators want to change it. If the legislature adopts this bill, it'll be able to be changed with simple majority, making it easier to change the law that would ban corporations from donating in our elections. If it does come up for adoption this week, I will be voting no on it. And I wanted to explain that to you before that happened so that you're not thinking, well, why did our rep vote against banning corporate money? It's because if the voters get to vote on it and put this in the law, it'll be protected for the long term is why I want to see it go to the ballot. And another thing I want to bring to attention is with the work on oversight. So this year, this session, I've been able to sit on the oversight committee. We've done hearings on data centers and corporate handouts. I've been really proud of that work, working with my colleague, Steve Cara, who is a Republican and the chair of that committee. But I've also been able to do some oversight on our corrections facilities. I got to go in... The spring, I went through Women's Huron Valley, which is Michigan's only women's prison, and I spent about four hours there. And there's a whole range of things I think we need to fix there. We need to do mold remediation. The conditions there are not where they should be, and we definitely need to address that. But I want to share an oversight win that I had in my office with you. I'm trying to get it better at sharing these positive things that we do have happened. So as I'm going through the prison, I notice they record audio and video in every room, which is actually interesting because they don't record audio in the men's prisons, just the women's prisons. And I went and talked to the therapists at the prison, and you might know my wife's a therapist, and I noticed they were audio and video recording therapy sessions. And that was a big red flag to me, just knowing the standard practices for therapy. So I brought this up to the warden, and I brought this up to the Michigan Department of Corrections. And at my suggestion, they actually changed the policy to where they're not audio recording those sessions anymore. which I think will go a long way in allowing people who are incarcerated to actually practice mental health in a way that makes sense. I know it's a small little victory, but I think it's just something I wanted to celebrate tonight because I think if we have people that are going through mental health crises, being able to speak to somebody and know that there's some you know there's some privacy there is really important for people to actually speaking the truth uh... and lastly uh... i just want to say thank you to the community and to everyone here it's really an honor to serve in this role and if you ever need anything from me or have any questions i'm always here and available i try to keep that as concise as i could not bad not bad thank you for the update uh... council any questions for state rep no questions thank you thank you

Good luck, Dylan. Okay, we have no presentations, no community events, no petitions, communications, no public hearings. Item 11 is our consent agenda.

Mayor.

Councilmember Witt.

I'd like to make a motion to approve consent agenda items A1 through five as presented.

Support.

Support from Councilmember Hughes. Discussion from the table? From the public? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 6-0. Action items. Item one is zoning ordinance amendment on light industrial zoning district. And I'll call our planning coordinator, Mr. Mario Ortega from McKenna.

good evening mayor council members uh... before you tonight is an issue uh... regarding uh... permitted uses in the m one district uh... so currently publicly owned to the city of uh... recreation facility so city parks are permitted by right in the in the are one are two in our three districts and then indoor private recreation facility so those are not operated by a government entity here so private organization those are permitted after special and use approval in the c two And then indoor and outdoor private recreation facilities are permitted after special land use approval in the C3. So recreation facilities are basically those that have various courts or lanes or alleys, bowling alleys and that sort of larger organized play facilities. And they may or may not have seats for the spectators. And so those facilities, sometimes they typically need larger buildings. Sometimes they need higher roofs. And so we've had people interested in establishing them in the city. Some successfully in buildings that were recently, in the past, were used for these uses. But then they did not have an opportunity anywhere else in the city. However, looking at... the opportunities in the city these buildings are more often that can be found in our industrial district and uh... for my practices in other communities other communities do allow these type of uses uh... in their industrial districts uh... even though the communities adjacent to the city actually allow them near the planning commission uh... discuss this issue uh... they noted also that the benefit of allowing these uses in industrial would give property owners uh... the opportunity to lease their buildings more opportunity options for them so uh... The Planning Commission developed an amendment which would allow indoor-only recreational uses that do not have seats for spectators as a permitted use in the M1, and then they would also allow indoor recreation uses with seats or bleachers in the M1 after special land use approval, mainly ensuring that the site and the facility would be capable of handling the parking associated with the type of permitted spectators proposed. so the planning commission held a public hearing they had no comments from the public and at that meeting they did make a recommendation they didn't make a motion that would recommend that city council approve this proposed amendment thank you so at this time a motion is in order mayor council member king

I MOVE TO APPROVE THE PROPOSED ZONING ORDINANCE AMENDMENT TO SECTION 154.316 TO ALLOW INDOOR RECREATION USES IN THE M-1 LIGHT INDUSTRIAL ZONING DISTRICT.

SUPPORT. SUPPORT FROM MAYOR PRO TEM DOLE. DISCUSSION FROM TABLE. MAYOR. COUNCIL MEMBER KING.

No, I just wanna say, I think it was a great idea. It gives more options, as you mentioned, for leasing opportunities or a business owner to use the industrial building for indoor recreation. And what I've seen recently, it seemed like there is an increased need for more indoor recreation. Especially with our harsh winters, nobody's doing that outside. Thank you.

Further comments? From the public. all in favor motion passes six zero okay item two is another zoning ordinance amendment and this is on mural regulations mr. Ortega so currently the zoning ordinance does not have any sign really regulations that actually define or regulate murals now murals while seeming a

positive aspect there can be uh... some uh... well the fact is there some judicial case law that regards regarding murals that can make this a very complex issue with regards to first amendment rights uh... however the planning commission uh... has navigated the restrictions created by the supreme court uh... rulings uh... regarding the content but also uh... have developed an approach they feel will allow this artistic installation both complies with review requirements and also allows business owners the opportunity to add a message component as well. So the Planning Commission did hold a public hearing. There were no comments from the public at that time, and they have made a motion that recommends City Council approve the proposed regulations of murals.

Okay, motion is in order. Mayor. Councilmember Hughes.

I'd like to make a motion to approve the proposed zoning ordinance amendment to section 154.602 and 154.615 to create regulations to allow murals.

Support. Or from Council Member Witt, discussion from table.

Mayor.

Council Member Dold.

On the first page, Mr. Ortega, it mentions the restrictions created by the Supreme Court, and it says that there was a ruling that the content of the image cannot be reviewed. Can you explain that?

Yes. There's actually a pretty famous ruling by the Supreme Court from several years ago. It basically involved content-neutral regulations, meaning there is a Supreme Court case of Reed v. Gilbert, which examined an issue where the litigant felt like they should not have a fact of reading what the content is to regulate where it can go. The long and short of it is that now regulations for signs can regulate the time, place, and manner in which signs are located and how big they are and that sort of characteristic. However, you're not allowed when you... provide a permit for them to actually read the content, to regulate the content, to restrict that content from a zoning aspect of it. There was some further case law and others which now allowed, opened the door a little to indicating that some locations can be, regulations can apply for the location. It's mainly relating to billboards. But in the end, any new regulation of signage needs to ensure that it doesn't regulate the content. So the way we've navigated this is, and especially when it comes to murals, you know, they want to be more of an artistic expression of some type of, whether it's a graphic display or some image. And so while we can't regulate necessarily them from a zoning standpoint, what the ordinance does say is that, specifies their location, They would be located on side or rear walls, and they regulate the size. It's a maximum of 60% of a wall or 500 square foot, and then they can't have any internal lighting. And then we do allow what we're defining as messaging units. So basically the property owner can have some type of characters, letters, or numbers to make up less than a maximum of 10% of the signage. We won't read what those... what that uh verbiage said you know says but it minimizes the area but in addition to that we do have a stipulation in here which let's say these murals shall comply with the city's current ordinance prohibiting indecency or obscenity so it's an attempt to utilize the police powers of the city to regulate to ensure there isn't any type of indecency or obscenity so

Was it our planning commission or these regulations that stipulated the size?

They developed it over time. They went back and forth several times with how big they should or shouldn't be. And so they came up with these particular numbers. The planning commission did? Yes. Some were larger at first. They talked about making them smaller. They feel this is a pretty decent first attempt. They don't want to necessarily open it up to a larger area and then have a time to try and for lack of a better word, put the horse back in the barn to try and not allow for the larger ones.

One more question. On the permitted zoning districts, so C1, 2, 3, all the other ones other than the residential are permitted with permit. R1, 2, and 3 says regulated with permit on non-residential structures in the district. So how is that different than permitted with permit?

Well, they're all required permits. It's just that within the residential, things like any church or school could have them in the R1 district. That's what that's intended to allow.

basically it's the same thing regardless of what zoning district they're in they just have to get correct the permit okay all right it just it read kind of funny to me so all right that's all i had thank you further comments from the table councilmember hughes

I did watch the Planning Commission meeting on this and they gave a lot of thought to this I could tell they they really went back and forth quite a bit to come up with a great solution for us So I know that this is something that just has to be done It's not something that we were seeking to do but it's something that we should do Compliance and keep client with the murals and things so I I thank you for bringing it forward Thank you for the comments from the table

i have one more i'm sorry go ahead counselor so i like this whole thing i wish that we had been doing murals for a while but i am having a big issue with the size because if you look like if you look at some of these buildings like the salvation army building or the old moose building they're very large buildings and if you're saying i mean 60 you're going to slap this little square mural on there and i mean aesthetically i don't think it's going to look right you go into some tent allen park allen park just redid their mural um ordinance if you want to call it but they've got i mean the whole sides of the building which is usually what you see when you see a mural it's the whole side of the building which kind of completes it i think it's going to look kind of odd if it's only a little bit more than half of the size

Thank you. Further comments? Okay. Mayor?

Council Member King. I think I was reading here is that they have an issue with the size. They can go in front of the ZBA, like if they have a particular image that's

Yes, that's correct. And I do believe the way it's worded would be that... Would comply with the sign portion of the... Correct, yes. So with regards to the ZBA, their regulation, their powers involve a very high standard for the zoning ordinance components and dimensional standards and that sort of thing. However, we have a separate set of parameters that someone needs to meet in order to receive a variance for signage. And it is more about actually one of the characteristics in that consideration is the architectural proportions with regards of the signage to the building. For example, the CBS, what used to be the CBS building right at Ford and Brandt. I think, yes. Southwest corner of Ford and Brandt, that back in the day when CVS was approved, they did approach the ZVA and they did receive approval in addition to the next operator, the Happy Homes, to receive a variance that allows larger signage because that's just a big building, it's a big wall. So they did meet the criteria and they did it. The other criteria is to make sure that signs don't distract from drivers through their flashing or messaging, that also signs don't block other signage, like if somebody wanted to have a bigger pole sign. And so there's a lesser standard, but it is an option that someone could do if they feel the need to... make their first attempt to being a sign that's proportionally more aesthetically pleasing to the size of the building, what you said, because that's usually the reason they go that route. I think the Planning Commission was just, once again, concerned that let's have the first attempts be in this particular size, and then if we do find success, then open it up more and allow more freedom.

Thank you. Other comments from the table? from the public okay all in favor opposed motion passes six zero thank you mr ortega item three is a professional service agreement with plant moran uh our city treasurer miss shannon shepherd

Good evening, Mayor and Council. What we have in front of you tonight is a professional services agreement with Plant Moran Government Accounting Professionals, otherwise known as PMGAP. This is basically just a continuation of the existing relationship we have with them for various accounting services. The purpose of the agreement is just to allow us to engage them on an as-needed basis. The level of assistance will vary from year to year. And so this kind of gives us the flexibility to just reach out whenever we need them for various things. So I'm just requesting, sorry.

Motion is in order and then we can ask questions.

Mayor? Council Member King. I move to approve the attached professional service agreement and engagement letter with Plant Moran to provide gap and accounting services.

Support. Or for Mayor Pro Tem Dold. Discussion from the table. Mayor? Council Member King.

As you mentioned, I know we did use them last year for different reasons than potentially this year. Do we have an idea? I don't know. how much we spent last year and how much you're thinking was fun this year

So we really won't know until the need arises, right? So I had looked a couple of years ago when there was a vacancy in the Treasury Department. The city spent like upwards of $130,000. The year prior to that, it was like $60,000. So for this particular one, I didn't include a not to exceed amount because we still have to operate within the budget that council had already set for us. So the agreement allows us to engage their services, but it doesn't authorize any additional spending.

Thank you. Further comments from the table?

Mayor?

Council Member Dole?

The agreement's just for one year.

I don't know that it says that.

I can't find a time frame in here.

I don't think, yeah, I think it's just, like I said, it's just a professional services agreement to engage their services on an as-needed basis. Because there's no dollar amount attached to it, there isn't a time frame either.

So if we approve this tonight, we could be approving this for the next 10 years.

I believe typically they do, I believe we did one last year too. I just don't think it has a date parameter in the agreement.

I can we change that I'd be open to amend the motion to end at the end of this fiscal year or or next fiscal year whatever the date should be yeah and ending June 30th 2027. I just I don't like to approve something that's open-ended like that now I would agree I'd amend the motion to end at the end of this fiscal year June 30th 2027.

Mayor Pro Tem do you agree yes I agree okay get that Mr. Miller

okay further comments from table okay and everything else i wasn't done i'm sorry okay sorry about that um so under the audit preparation these things the capital assets the long-term debt all this stuff this is all the same things that they've done in the past right okay okay i'm good thank you okay further comments from table from the public all in favor opposed

Motion passes 6-0. Okay, item four is a lot split on Windsor. Mr. Miller.

yes good evening mr mayor members of the council this is a lot split before you on windsor just a little west of merriman and they've made a request to split the parcel into two parcels which would be 60 by 135 each at that location as as i mentioned before building houses is always a little difficult in garden city because we all have We don't have lots ready to build in and so it's a person did find an existing parcel and then is requested to make the split to construct 2 homes at this location. So we're looking forward to a couple more houses and families moving to the city.

Councilmember dole.

I'd like to motion to review and approve lot split vacant Windsor, parcel number 35-001-01-3415-000.

Or from Council Member Hughes, discussion from the table.

Mayor? Council Member King. No, looking at the plot of land in that area, that is a better fit for that area. Many of the lots were only 60 foot wide.

the comments from table from the public all in favor aye opposed motion passes six zero item five is the catherine's eagle grant with uh catherine street lead service and water main replacement project uh yes mr cruz who is from uh mannequin smith group uh

Go ahead. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Good to be back. The item you have before you is the project plan we've submitted to EGLE so that Garden City can obtain additional grant funding for lead water service replacement and water main replacement. And we've had this stretch of Catherine identified with Brad Oman, Steve Mahalik, Tim and Matt for a long period of time. We keep applying for these grants and we never get them. Other communities get them. Well, finally, we got this one. and uh this item is basically approving the project plan so that eagle will give us the grant money and uh so we'll be eligible for disbursements motion is in order

Mayor Pro Tem Dole.

Motion to approve the project plan and proposal grant agreement with Eagle for the Catherine Street-led service and water main replacement.

Support. Or from Council Member Witt. Discussion from table. From the public. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 6-0. Thank you, Mr. Cruz. The next one is professional services agreement with Manikin Smith Group. Mr. Miller, you wanna explain it a little bit?

Good evening. As we just, you approved the agreement for Catherine Street, we've started to again work with Alan Cruz from Manikin Smith to work on engineering services. and part of that is to enter into a professional service agreement to handle our engineering services for catherine to begin the process of course to design and then also handle the construction bid documents and bidding this out so that we can get the work done and also work with us to get grant compliance done and get everything turned in so we get reimbursements prepared for the city

Motion is in order. Mayor. Council Member Witt.

I'd like to make a motion to approve a professional services agreement with Manikin-Smith Group for Engineering Services for the Catherine Street Lead Service and Water Main Replacement Project.

Support. Support from Mayor Pro Temdo. Discussion from table.

Mayor. Council Member King. My notice for this one is for $79,800. But it look at the previous motion we just approved. And that for the grant the grant was 60,000 is the other 19,800 out of the water fund then.

We actually we do have an additional grant for kind of the remainder of Catherine. OK, so we'll be taking that from there. I believe it's 7695 and four and 500 correct. So we've got a little more money coming for Catherine to kind of complete this project. If you saw the 500 wouldn't complete the entire project. So we're going to use those additional funds to complete the Catherine project where we may end up having some extra left on Catherine. We're hoping we'll be able to move it to Ford Road for water main kind of on the next professional service agreement coming forward. Sorry.

All right. Thanks.

further comments from table so the entire catherine project is being funded by grants yes thank you the remainder of the project be funded by that and then we'll see what we can do with it but um anytime if it is some water fund has to come out of it. Anytime we can maximize our capital investment from our fund by just being a part of another project that's already nearly entirely grant funded, we're gonna try and take advantage of that so we can knock those capital needs down on somebody else's budget.

Thank you. Further comments from the table? From the public? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? motion passes six zero uh item seven is a professional service agreement with mannequin smith group for ford road mr miller very similar to catherine but on a larger scale so we've got a professional service agreement with mannequin smith

to do the design for this and also handle the engineering requirements for the drinking water state revolving fund for the city part of this is of course if you in the original request i think we've got ford road really is about a 4.5 to 5 million dollar investment and so far we've got about a million dollars in funding for that. So we're looking at beginning the process but then also utilizing the engineering services to get it all designed and ready to go so that we can seek more funding to complete the project. And of course, Mr. Cruz's familiarity with that, he started actually the original process to prepare the plans and get everything going for the revolving fund for the city. And that's why we felt it was appropriate to continue with Mr. Cruz, even in his new company at Mannequin Smith.

Thank you motion is in order here Councilmember dole motion to approve a professional services agreement with mannequin Smith engineers for engineering services for the Ford Road water main replacement project support or from councilmember King discussion from table Mayor councilmember King

Just to clarify, I mean, $270,000 is a decent amount of the million dollars that we have currently with the grant, but by having the full project design, the 8-inch and 12-inch on Ford Road, puts us in a better position for future grants to finish off the project? Correct.

Just like the ECO grant we just approved, They contacted us like, do you have projects ready now? And it's actually the fastest turnaround in any grant I've ever seen from the state. So I'm impressed, number one. It was hard for us to keep catching up, but we did because we didn't want to lose any of that funding. We believe that, yes, it will. And we're doing the design for kind of a long-range plan so that those designs are good for about eight to 10 years. So we're hoping that in that amount of time, we'll be able to get additional funding and complete the entire 4.5 right now project, $4.5 million project now, because of course, everything will cost more as we go along. But we're hoping the plans will be completed to today's standards that'll last us 10 years. Thank you.

Just to add to that, Federal grants for Ford Road are a little more complicated. You've got MDOT approvals, local agency approvals, and there's environmental clearances with those type of grants. So there's a lot of heavy lifting, not just the design itself. And our strategy is let's get it designed, permitted, in one segment and then you can break up bid packs and make them shovel ready. So as you obtain more grant funding, we've got it permitted. There's no delay with Eagle now. Lots of times with Eagle, it's a crapshoot. You're in September and you're trying to get it built. Well, these are gonna be ready. We're gonna design it one shot. And like Matt has said, we can get extensions for up to 10 years. And then if Eagle decides to change a spec, We revise that portion of the spec, resubmit it, and gets approved very quickly. So it gives us the shovel-ready aspect without the delays, and it prevents us from doing piecemeal projects, which costs the city more money.

Thank you. Further comments from the table? From the public? All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion passes 6-0. Thank you, Mr. Cruz. Thank you. Good to see you again. Okay, we have no other business. Item 13 is public comment. You'll have three minutes. Not 13. Three minutes to... state your state your uh comment and uh if we have an answer we'll get back to you right away at the end of the meeting if not we'll get back to you shortly thereafter anybody wishing to speak go ahead miss peridor

Hello, Mayor and Council. I'm going to read this. I'm here today as an active, long-time resident of Garden City. I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone on the dais here this evening, as well as all of our city employees, for the hard work and dedication to our community. i did a little math recently and found out that the council people who devote 10 hours a week to council duties make about 5.54 cents an hour the mayor makes about 7.69 an hour i believe that each one of them decided to run to help and to make a positive difference i do not believe any one of you ran to hurt or disrupt our city manager clerk department heads and other employees work here knowing they might be able to make a little bit more money someplace else in a larger community yet here they are do i always agree with what the mayor and council and city manager decide on no do i think every employee we have is perfect no Do I think that each and every one of you makes decisions based on facts that I, the general public, may be unaware of? Yeah, I do. Do I think that we have some employees that go way above and beyond their job descriptions to help take care of us? Yes, I do. I would encourage more participation in our form of government, run for mayor or council, take a board or commission position, volunteer with a local nonprofit, get to know more about our city and those who help run it instead of armchair quarterbacking get involved and make a positive difference i just want to say garden city is a fantastic community and thank you again thank you thank you jackie sir

Please state your name. Good evening, Matt Cooley, Florence Street. I've been here a long time, class of 89. I just want to make a couple observations and a couple statements. Some of it doesn't have to do with Garden City, but bear with me and I'll tie it together. I saw Westlands clearing some woods around Cherry Hill and Newburgh for a semi-truck parking, even though the residents, city council, and the mayor were against it. Apparently a judge ruled against everybody, which makes me wonder how much power you actually have if a judge can do that. Next, and I could be wrong on all this, so cut me off if I am, but I'd like to congratulate you. I heard you got a raise recently. I know not everybody's happy with you getting a 10% raise, but I'm not. I'm upset with the six people that decided to just give it away like it's no big deal, especially seeing the city's financially hurting. May I suggest next time ask for 25%. If you lose 25% of the six votes you got, that's one and a half votes. You still get four, still passes. I mean, make your money, buddy. good for you i got a two percent raise last year none this year but if i got ten percent i'd probably be able to water my grass more and start spending money again in this town something i stopped doing when the mayor said to start taking uh shorter showers last meeting someone brought up the flock cameras you said you'd get info to the people but the vibe i got was that you're in favor of them that tells me one of two things garden city either has a lot of crime which makes me not want to be here Or our politicians want us under surveillance, which makes me want to be here even less. I can protect my house from criminals. It's the politicians I have an issue with. Now, last one. I know this was a PR stunt, but I saw the mayor of Dearborn walk around town with the ordinance crew writing tickets. It was good to see the mayor being involved in the community and aware of his problems. last meeting the nemick family brought up a rat problem now labonia's got rats we've got rats westland's got rats there's rats absolutely everywhere but you said it was the first you heard of it that's either a lie and you owe those people an apology or you need to be more like the mayor of dearborn and get out in your community thank you any other comments yes ma'am

Hello, my name is Kelly. This is my first time doing this, so I'm not really too sure where to start other than I was raised here. This is 25 years I've been here. I love Garden City. I love GCYA. I love everything that this city stands for. The way that this last guy just approached it isn't very nicely. I'm coming from a wife, I'm coming from a mom standpoint. I am tired of seeing dead rats everywhere. My children, for instance, Nellie is six years old. We got all new sidewalks so then we can make this a walkable city and I keep on finding dead rats. I don't know that this guy, you guys aren't handing out poison. You guys aren't doing stuff like that and I appreciate that. What I want to see is something along the lines of trapping these or trying to figure out just a solution. I have a 10 month old baby and I am going outside just to get some fresh air and here she is playing with a dead rat. It's not safe. It makes me want to cry. I have animals at my house. There's hawks. There are so many animals that are affected by this. I've even had raccoons dead in my yard, in my front yard. I have posted on Facebook about this. I'm not the only one, obviously, that has seen this. I get frustrated because it's just like if you guys go on the Facebook page, you will see that there's rats on rats on rats on rats. So I just came to take the first step and I'm open to hearing anyone's options, whether we do a volunteer rat trap, just like we do like a watch thing at night. I don't know how to go about it, but I'd love to help. So if there's a way that you guys could kind of

figure out something and the community i'd love to help anyway i can thank you for your time thank you what i would i would ask you is fill out a form with your address uh... a lot of times with rat problems it's due to feeding squirrels feeding deer and that's not just you could be your neighbors uh... could be one of your neighbors with high grass uh... we can come out and look at it that that would be

what i would recommend is our first step is give mr miller your address and we'll we'll see what we can find out there i want to say almost like 90 of my neighborhood they all stay home almost all of their grasses are cut i live on the beautiful street of hennepin and let me tell you everyone is very prideful in our yard everyone picks up after their dogs when they're walking so i don't want to blame neighbors to anybody that's walking

I don't want to blame anybody either, but there might be something that we'll spot. So please.

Thank you.

Thank you. Further comments from public? No further comments from public? Mr. Gibbons.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Just tonight, I just, you know, it's our last council meeting with Matt Miller. And, you know, I've had the pleasure of working with Matt for a very long time. And he's the definition of a public servant. You know, I think we all get into this job to make a difference in the places we serve. You know, to do that, I became a cop. because I wanted to make the community I serve better. You know, I became city manager because I want to make this city as good as I possibly can given the talents I can bring. Matt, I watched a very talented person do that for this community. You know, our LED street lights are 50% replaced and will be 100% replaced in 2028 because of him. So the light on the streets at night are from Matt. this grant that Alan and he worked on. He's so quickly adapted and Matt takes on whatever comes to him and whatever is need to be done in Garden City and he's done it at time and time again. Here, a long-term problem with the water main, Matt jumps on it. He has it done before you could even say, hey, should we do that? So just nothing but impressed. He's had the impact you would want 32 years. If you talk to anyone at Wayne, He was nothing but highly regarded and loved and well appreciated there. And the way he speaks about the communities he serves, you can feel the empathy and his concern for everyone. And he is a great person that when you're discussing a problem, brings the perspective of the community and the individuals he's serving to that conversation, which puts it in good perspective. Because this job can wear on you a little bit. Sometimes people get mad at you. Sometimes people get upset and they don't understand the details and the things behind the scenes they don't know. and it's easy for us to get caught up in that fact that they don't know that matt's always quick to remind but hey if you live next to that but hey they're legitimately upset because of this and it always put a nice temper on the conversation so he's just done such a fantastic job and handed everything handled everything he's done with such professionalism he's left every place he's touched in our city better and i just couldn't appreciate his time more i only wish it would have continued to go but hey i 32 years it's understood and we'll miss you tremendously and i will call every so often to try and get you to come back i'm sorry all right thank you and uh you know there's other things to comment about tonight but i'm just gonna leave it at that that's the most important thing tonight is saying um farewell to our good friend matt and uh thank you mayor council thank you mr miller last comments

Well, I already gave my comments before and I don't want to long elongate any other comments, but thank you for all these nice words and I could have thought of a better place to be than in Garden City.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem Dole.

I'd also like to thank Mr. Miller for his years of service and wish you happiness in your retirement. Enjoy.

Thank you.

thank you council member hughes thank you um i met um matt several years ago when he was working um and wink in the city of wayne and i knew back then he was he was one to really really um he i could tell he was interested in beautifying the city of wayne and and when he came here i walked through the city hall one day and there he was i'm like wait a minute where did you come from but i'm so glad that we acquired you in this trade-off

and i only have one thing to say don't go hey thank you for your service thank you thank you council member whit thank you mayor uh as everyone else is going to say tonight you know we all appreciate your time i'm glad we were able to squeeze just a little bit extra out of it um thank you for all you've done you know it's been awesome working with you and wish you the best of luck going forward thank you thank you council member king

I guess following suit. Congratulations made on your retirement, your final retirement. Even my short time on Council. I've seen a lot of. But a value that is the city and the project you worked on. A quick comment to the residents and make comments at the podium definitely appreciate it even though if we don't trust them in our comments because often there's other researchers has to be done other see staff to be reached out to do further investigation. We do consider that information we do reach out an individual basis, the city manager check on the progress where we had on this. Don't think it's not being addressed just because we don't make a comment on it. And that's all I have. Okay, thank you.

Council Member Dole.

First, I want to know, can I make a motion to not allow Matt to retire? Would that work? I'll vote on it, too. Oh, no. Okay. I think I first had the pleasure of working with Matt when I was still with the DDA so I've known you for a few years now and yes you will be very missed so be prepared for lots of phone calls and you know we'll keep you busy. I do have a couple other things though. The rats Again, there's been a lot of talk on Facebook about it, and everybody has rat problems. Somebody had mentioned that the city of Redford went out and was doing something about the rats. Well, what Redford did was they increased their blight ordinances. They started really going out and ticketing and everything, so I see that as... a way that we are addressing it because we have started play court. People are getting more tickets. But there's so many things. Even when you allow your children out in the backyard and you let them eat lunch out there and half of their sandwich hits the ground and it stays there, guess who comes and gets it that night? It's eating outside. It's storing firewood outside. The rats love to go in the firewood. You know, like Mayor Jacobs said, it's feeding the birds and the squirrels and not picking up the dog feces, things like that. um it's just it's got to be a city-wide effort with everybody taking care of their property and i unfortunately i think that the people that don't take care of their property and that are causing some of these issues are not complaining about the rats they just don't care so with the city with our ordinance officers going out more hopefully we'll start seeing some some relief from that. I wanted to thank Representative Wigella for coming in and giving us an update. I want to thank miss Perry door for her kind words because those are always nice to hear we don't hear them too often and last but not least I wanted to offer condolences to the family of Betty pre cab and also to the family Martha Smith who is Debbie Barson's mother so that is all I have thank you thank you I have a couple comments

as far as the flock to answer to one resident uh i said we would be putting together a report and putting bringing it up uh some information and that we are still in the progress process of doing that so probably within the next meeting or two we will have more information on that whether we support it or not we'll put out the information and go from there the rat issue apparently it's out there again those that know me know i'm very rarely on social media as far as reading all the wonderful comments out there but i will say this the comment i made at the last meeting about not knowing rats was i said i did not believe i did not know we had a rat problem and i still don't believe we do have a rat problem i believe we have rats in the city and i believe we are trying to address it as councilman dold said with our ordinances and our blight court and we are working at it and again it's it's going to be a group effort and it's going to be something that's going to take a little time and with construction going that that creates a problem for them they they move around they they go and if there's any kind of food source they're going to find it and then they're going to stay there so again we are working on it and to the young lady here we'll come out and see if we can find an issue over there and see what we can do and hopefully we can get rid of rid of them mr gibbons i'd like you to reach out i know we've discussed it before reach out to our attorney um I believe there's an issue with Kratom or 70H, whatever you want to call it. It's in our drugstores, our gas stations. It's over the counter and it's a bad drug. It's very addictive. Young adults, kids can get it without scripts, without anything. They walk into a gas station, buy it right off the counter. I'd like to talk to our attorney and see if there's a way I did see some other communities have figured out a way to ban them. So I'd like to get that attorney to look at something for us. It's Kratom, Kratom slash 70H. And it's a very, it's in, I don't know if it's pop or some energy drinks, but it's a drug. It's... And the chief might have more information on it but it's just a bad, it's a bad addictive drug for children and adults because you don't need a prescription to get it, it's over the counter, anybody can get it. And the 7-OH is a derivative of it which is even more addictive and worse for you. i think it's i think it's comparable to heroin but not quite to that level but the federal government hasn't completely outlawed it yet so i'd like to look at that and then a couple good things um I know a little dog that got loose over by Rotary Park, a little four-pound thing, managed to get its little feet down to Rotary about four blocks away, and a young man, Elijah, was kind enough to catch him. which is not easy to do, and called the number on the tag and sat there with the dog until someone went and picked him up. So I won't say who she was, but my wife is very appreciative to Elijah. Thank you. Almost as happy as I am, because I had to hear about it. Also, another good note, we had a young man, Patrick Howard, that had a broken down vehicle in front of his house, or his vehicle broke down. Parker. Parker, sorry about that. Yeah, Parker Howard, right? Patrick. Parker Howard, sorry about that. Had a vehicle, his vehicle broke down, he's a young man, not a lot of money, he was gonna work on it himself. And he started to, had a neighbor or somebody by that wanted to report him for working on trying to get his vehicle fixed. And fortunately, another resident, Matt Hinkle, was kind enough to stop by, give him a hand, and help the youngster, or he's not really that young, but Mr. Howard, back on the road and... know it it's a good story and unfortunately we hear a lot of the negative stuff so i wanted to point out at least those two stories of garden city residents that help each other out and take care of each other and without doing a lot of fanfare and all that that social media stuff but uh so i wanted to thank them And that Mister Miller I've already said thank you and good luck in the future. I've been around you a long time. I don't know if that's good or bad, but I want to thank you are thank you. No further business. We will go into.

Can I say one thing.

Councilman.

I'm sorry. I'd written it down, but I forgot the gentleman that came up to the stand. I believe he said his name was Matt Cooley. I just wanted to make sure that he had my email address. It's doledk at gardencitymi.org. And if you want to get a hold of me, I am more than happy anytime to explain to you why I vote yes or no on anything up here. It's not a secret. So get a hold of me and we can talk.

Okay, thank you. Okay, no further business. I will take a motion to go into closed session.

Mayor.

Council Member Witt.

The time is now 8.12 p.m. I would like to make a motion to go into closed session to consider periodic personnel review, annual city manager performance review of Tim Gibbons as permitted in accordance with 15.286 Section 8.1a of the Open Meetings Act, Act 267 of 1976. Support. Support.

or for mayor pro tem dole mr miller if you take roll please yes council member whit aye mayor pro tem dole aye council member dole aye council member king aye council member hughes aye mayor jacobs aye with that uh we will adjourn to uh closed session we will return

okay at this time i'll take a motion to go back into session mayor make council member what the time is now 8 55 pm i'd like to make a motion to return to open session support support from council member hughes mr miller if you take roll council member witt hi council member hughes hi council member dole aye

Council member King. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Dold.

Aye.

Mayor Jacobs.

Aye. We are now in session. No further business. This meeting is adjourned.