Township Board - Regular Meeting

I'm on board of trustees to order at this time. It's 7 p.m. And we are going to begin with a little prayer from our trustees.

Well, thank you, Jim. Can we all bow our heads, please? Our dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the nourishing rain we had last night and this morning and the sunshine today. And thank you that we live in such a wonderful community, that we have a farmer's market today, and we just hope people enjoy the rest of their summer before school starts. Thank you for your continued blessing on Georgetown Township and the wonderful people that work here. We pray for our first responders as they put their lives on the line for us on a regular basis, and we pray that you'll be with them. And dear Lord, we pray for our nation as there's many challenges, both in our country and overseas. We pray for your wisdom. And dear Lord, we pray for your wisdom tonight as we go over our master plan and our budget, and we pray that you'll be with us And we pray for safe travels as people leave here this evening. All this we ask in your son's name. Amen.

Amen. You can all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

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.

Are you seated? Yes.

Okay, I wanna welcome you to the meeting tonight. John, would you pray? I did. All right, we start here with the role, and Clerk Kuyper, would you acknowledge?

All members are present.

Thank you very much. At this point, is there a motion to approve tonight's agenda? So moved. Support. Any comments or questions related to the agenda? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, our agenda is passed. Before we move to item six here with Patrick Waterman, I just wanna give an opportunity, take the opportunity and also give an opportunity to Justin. for us to address something that came up this week on Facebook and really spread quickly. And we want people to know and understand what the, I guess the misinformation or the mischaracterization is that's out there in the public right now as it concerns these cross connection fees. It was an item that was gonna be looked at by our utilities committee tonight. and it's no longer on that agenda due in large part to the confusion that seemed to be caused among the public and I'm not sure why we get public at every meeting but some of you may be here tonight specifically for that reason or others may be watching the video and we wanna make sure that we're pretty clear about that understanding. So I'm gonna give my recitation but I'm gonna turn to Justin to give a little more full explanation as the one who's boots on the ground with this. But basically the fee that among the public is being discussed, which sounded to the public through various postings as if we were assessing $100 fee per quarter to every resident or every home related to water expenses, administrative expenses and the like. And that's not a correct interpretation. we try very hard to be as clear as we can in our agendas whether it be for the full board or our subcommittees um and i i think we could have done a little better here although we often get legal help in terms of how we phrase things of this nature so we we try to be careful again but i can see that some of the public could read that a different way than what was intended and what that fee has to do with and this is where justin i think can fill in in between to some degree but we've got a mandate from EGLE, state of Michigan, to inspect those with underground sprinkling systems that are tied into the public water system. And we do about 20% of those a year so that every five years we cycle through that test. And so 90% of the homeowners who have those types of systems cooperate with that testing, which is again mandated by the state and is not optional to the township. About 10% do not, either because they maybe ignore us or they oppose us in that respect. They're essentially opposing EGLE, if you will. Some townships and cities handle that by simply turning off their water. We didn't want to do that. We tried to handle it a little more diplomatic way to say, well, the program has to be ongoing. We're accountable. We're subject to fines and penalties potentially by the state of Michigan through EGLE if we don't follow this state mandate. We're going to assess you an administrative fee that's going to help with our cost of administering this program and hopefully we'll encourage you to become a participant as you should and help the township comply with this state regulation. So it really is a pretty narrow subset of people within the township that would be affected by that if that were to take effect. I think at this point, we're just kind of back to the drawing board and thinking, okay, how do we get this 10% to participate? We're not quite sure what the best strategy is, but for the time, we've simply revoked that. We've got enough other things going on and it's not so imperative that it be dealt with right now. So, Justin, can you fill in Anything I've missed there?

No, Jim, I think that was an excellent discussion and presentation on what we're looking to do and we're looking to do better. And we want to be partners and we want to make the system work. For the 90% that are following the rules and doing what they're supposed to, we appreciate it. And the 10% are causing the 90% to have more fees, and we don't want that. We're trying to minimize that. So we're going to listen to our constituents, and we're going to move forward. Again, we have a lot of things going in the township right now, so I think this will be put on the back burner, but we're going to move forward, though.

And maybe briefly, is there a way in which this is ultimately beneficial to those even that aren't having the testing done, meaning you don't know when you might be getting either contamination or otherwise. Explain that part if you will.

It keeps our water safe. If someone doesn't get their system tested and it is siphoning through, it could poison the water in your neighborhood and down your street. So we don't want that. And we also don't want to just be arbitrarily turning people's water off either for noncompliance. We don't have the manpower to do that in our water DPW department. and we're looking up for different options to move forward. So again, this is, we put on the back burner and we're going to come back with a more comprehensive, more inclusive, I guess, policy or implement it in more of an education component too. Because a lot of people go, I don't even know how my underground sprinkling system works. And I go, well, maybe that's a starting point and we can go from there.

Justin, if I can ask, how many residents are we talking about that are not compliant? Can you give a hard number? Because people think this is for the entire system, and that's why we have...

So we have roughly 7,000 people with underground sprinkling in Georgetown Township, and it's approximately 10% of that, so roughly 700. So it's approximately, because we do it in a five-year rotation, it's approximately 100 people a year. Okay.

So we're talking 100 people a year to get them to comply. What most communities are doing is turning off their water. Correct. So rather than do that, we're fining them. Or maybe we'll come up with something different now. But that was interpreted in the notes for the subcommittee. And so the community looked at those notes, and this was lighting up.

It went somewhere else where it should have been. So we pulled it, and we're going to do better.

Thank you. And it's a good reminder. I'm glad that people are vigilant and they read our agendas and you all know that you've got the ability to go to our website, come to these meetings and otherwise. And I would encourage, I guess, if you're someone who either read something or became upset about your own interpretation of what we had printed, feel free to pick up the phone to call us before expressing an interpretation because it might not be accurate, right? So I know that our staff is very good about trying to be responsive to those calls. And so that would be appreciated. All right, with that, then we're gonna move to item six. Patrick Waterman is here from the county. He's our county administrator for Ottawa County.

and we welcome him coming just to discuss his role there and and give us a little update from the county perspective so thanks for coming patrick good evening good evening board members i also uh brought with me tonight brian to set who i wanted to introduce brian is the deputy county administrator and uh just to get a face with the name so you had his face and then he'll give a little bit of brief update on some of the things he's working on but Justin invited me to come tonight to just kind of give an update on what the county's been working on and also put a face with the name. We've been doing this with a lot of the municipalities, and we're going to continue to try to do that as much as possible, but that's always good to get face-to-face. A little bit about me. Again, my name is Patrick Waterman, county administrator. I've been on the job since October, so about 10 months now. West Michigan resident for the last 25 years, live in Georgetown Township right now, proud to be a Georgetown resident, and served as Hudsonville City Manager for a good part of that stint, also Planning Director in Grand Even Township, a short stint as the Deputy in Ottawa, and then back to Ottawa again. So happy to be here tonight. Brian, why don't you have an intro on you?

Good evening, folks. My name is Brian DeSette. So for, well, since February 1st, I've worked for Ottawa County. So not that I'm counting those days, but it's been a short time period. It's been absolutely drinking from the fire hose, learning about the needs, learning about the organization, and I'm very happy to be here. Prior to Ottawa County, I worked for Berrien as an administrator for the prior five years. And before that, I was the longtime South Haven city manager. With South Haven, we were all about sharing of water, sharing of a variety of services. So I got very familiar with drinking water, sanitary sewer issues, as well as regional governance for water and sewer. So hopefully that has some value as I work for the county.

ALL RIGHT, SO JUSTIN TOLD ME YOU GOT A PACKED AGENDA TONIGHT, SO WE'LL TRY TO GET THROUGH THIS PRETTY QUICK. BIG THING WE'VE BEEN WORKING ON AT THE COUNTY IS IN MARCH, THE BOARD MET FOR A TWO-DAY RETREAT TO UPDATE THEIR STRATEGIC PLAN. THE BOARD'S BEEN WITHOUT A STRATEGIC PLAN SINCE 2022, SO THIS WAS A GOOD STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION TO BRING some strategic alignment in the organization to get everybody on the same page. It's a good exercise, and just some of the highlights that came out of that. We have a new mission, vision, and value statement. I won't read all of this to you, but suffice it to say I gave you the abbreviated version. I'm sorry for the small font. There will be a nicer version coming out. But this is standard procedure that you'll see in a strategic plan. What's more important is kind of the meats and potatoes of what came out of that plan. Just a quick look at Ottawa County. We're comprised of 24 local units of government, six cities, one village, and 17 townships. We enjoy the fourth lowest millage rate in the state and we're the largest, fastest growing county in the state and that's really what drove a lot of the strategic initiatives in this plan. We've grown, it's hard to see the bottom, I don't know if you can Full screen that, but we're at about a 10% growth rate over the last 10 years. A lot of that's happening here in Georgetown, as you know, as well as Jamestown and some of our other high growth areas in the county. So that's a big part of what we're going to focus on. Out of the effort came three primary goals. Two are growth related. One is just calling growth what it is. It's growth, recognizing it has a lot of impacts on everything we do from land use, transportation, housing, and infrastructure. And water has been a very big topic. You heard me talk about it tonight already. It's a common commodity that we talk about in a lot of communities. That became its own goal as well. And lastly, the board talked a lot about restoring and building trust in the community, both internally and externally in the organization, and there's an effort to do that. So from the growth standpoint, the tagline is there, protect what we value, build what we need. As Michigan's fastest growing large county, managing growth is essential. We're committed to responsible growth that balances housing infrastructure, mobility, land preservation, and community character through strong partnerships and data-driven planning. The county will support what residents need while protecting what they value. And then there's, if you go down to the bottom of that slide, There's seven objectives and 37 tasks that are outlined under that goal that will be completed over the next three years. The next one is water. They talked about water as being part of the growth goal, but with the groundwater issues we're facing in the central part of the county, primarily in Blendon Township, they recognize this is a separate effort. We have a dedicated groundwater board that's focused on this effort, and we're going to be doing some new and innovative things. I'm going to let Brian talk a little bit about that.

So folks, the timing is appropriate. Earlier this morning, the groundwater board met. That was a very good meeting. We spent about 90 minutes talking about what comes next. The Groundwater Board has been meeting now for the past several years. I think they are eager to see their ideas advancing and that's exactly what this plan will help to make happen. Today the Groundwater Board was briefed on an allocation that's coming from the state's budget through the House Appropriations. There's $500,000 that is coming to Ottawa County that will specifically target trying to understand the aquifer and do a deep study into whether or not recharging the aquifer is something that can work. It has worked in other states, it's worked across the country, and it's something that we hope to see studied and potentially become a reality here. Another item that is touched on in the strategic plan is you can't put all of your eggs into the groundwater recharge baskets. We want to have a better understanding of the patchwork of how water contracts work across the county and what opportunities are there to find some of those missed connections and then take a real deep dive into do Do the local units want to continue under those contract arrangements, or is there any type of appetite to get serious about exploring regional ownership and equity in the systems? So a lot to accomplish. The Groundwater Board was briefed on it this morning. We're excited to keep that discussion going, and hopefully we will have lots more information coming to your township in the near future.

So yeah, different issues facing different communities, some that are more dependent on wells, some that have dependency on, are built out with infrastructure, bringing all of those discussions to the table as part of this group. And then lastly, building trust is the third goal, and the dedicated efforts there are going to be around transparency. We're working hard to REALLY BUILD MORE DASHBOARDS INTO WHAT WE'RE DOING, WHAT ARE OUR PERFORMANCE INDICATORS THAT THE BOARD IS INTERESTED IN, THE COMMUNITIES ARE INTERESTED IN. THE BOARD WOULD REALLY LIKE US TO SEE A CONTINUED EFFORT TO MAKE SURE ALL OF OUR MEETINGS AT THE COMMITTEE LEVEL ARE MADE, ARE TELEVISED OR CAN BE WATCHED VIRTUALLY. AND THAT'S BEEN VERY SUCCESSFUL NOW, SO WE'RE CONTINUING TO INVEST IN THAT. Those are the three goals. So how do we bring this all together, at least from the growth standpoint? So the concept is, and I think Justin probably got to save the date, is we're going to be pulling together this fall a vision summit where we want to invite all 24 units of government to the table with a 24-word vision task force. And each representative government will talk about their own issues, whether it's housing, water, their growth-related challenges, how do we have a concerted conversation about that in a way that's productive and then start to come up with some real ideas on how we address growth challenges and let you be the advocates to take these messages back to your communities, whether they're policy changes or just understanding differences in how we're operating here versus there. So we're excited about that. There'll be four different focus areas. That'll ebb and flow with our board of commissioners with what they're looking to see accomplished. But that's going to be a really, really good exercise for us that we're excited about. So the other big news is the budget. We're right in the middle of that process right now. We're on the October 1 fiscal year. So we are getting ready to have a work session tomorrow night. And then this will get approved hopefully at the September budget. three main focus areas in the budget. Internally, we're looking to support our workforce through hiring positions where needed. And again, the growth goal is affecting how we're providing services, not only the number of employees, but the facilities and the amenities that we're providing to the community. All of that's being looked at from a growth standpoint. We had a new wage study that we're implementing to bring us in line with market values. and safety and security upgrades and doing organizational assessments. Outward-facing, we're continuing our focus on providing high-quality services, renewing investments in capital projects. We had a little bit of a stall on our capital projects, and we're getting back on track with that from our facility maintenance and upkeep. AND CONTINUING TO PRESERVE STRONG FUND BALANCES. AND THEN, AGAIN, TYING THE STRATEGIC PLAN INTO THE BUDGET. THERE'S ACTUALLY BUDGETARY ALLOCATIONS ASSIGNED TO THESE GOALS, WHICH IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR THE BOARD TO SAY, WE DO SUPPORT THIS. WE SUPPORT IT BOTH IN VOICE AND IN DOLLAR. SO THAT'S KIND OF THE FOCUS AREAS. A couple of takeaways from the budget this year. Again, we're the fourth lowest millage rate in the state. We're happy to see that the voters approved both the mental health millage and the parks millage in August. The community health millage will take effect this year, restored back up to three, and the parks millage will be restored the following year. What's important here is that 3.9 mils that we levy is below what the tax, what the voters have allocated at 4.4. So this is an important slide that I like to highlight, and we've highlighted this with our board. And I believe Georgetown, you do that as well. You levy below what you're approved to levy. That's important to know. So the area in the orange shows the cumulative savings to taxpayers since 2020, and we've been doing this at the county for long before that, is close to $39 million of dollars that were approved to be levied that the board has chose not to levy. It's living within our means and providing good value for the tax dollar. That savings is outpacing what voters are receiving from Headley rollback. So encourage you guys to do a chart like this too. It's a good talking point for your constituents. So then just some other county initiatives. You might have read something in the news about our CMH is being transitioned away from a department to an authority. Ryan's been leading that transition. I'll let him just say a couple words about that.

Yeah, so CMH has been a long-time department within Ottawa County. It is now being stood up as an authority. Probably the best local example that I can point to is you have a long-time 911 dispatch authority that operates as its own independent unit of government, still providing constant communication and service to the public as well as to the county. With the CMH authority, it's taking the existing services, making sure that they continue, but along the way you're essentially building a brand new organization. So everything from getting liability insurance separated from the county, setting up your own EIN, setting up your bylaws, and on and on. We have been working on this for months, and we are on a glide path to have our staff transitioned over to the authority by January 1st.

AND IT'S A VERY COMPLICATED TOPIC, AND IT PROBABLY DESERVES ITS OWN DISCUSSION ITEM, BUT SUFFICE IT TO SAY, THE REASON THAT THE COUNTY DID THIS IS TO REMOVE RISK. THERE'S A HIGH LEVEL OF RISK WHEN YOU HAVE MEDICAID FUNDING THAT IS SHOWN AS A SHORTFALL EVERY YEAR. AND OUR CONCERN WAS THAT WHEN THE VENDORS COME CALLING FOR THEIR MEDICAID PAYMENTS THAT AREN'T THERE, THEY'RE GOING TO ASK THE COUNTY TAXPAYERS TO PAY IT. And that's a risk that we didn't want to take, and that was really what drove the decision to separate. It doesn't affect services, it doesn't affect the model, other than the fact that it removes the risk of the taxpayers. Other things we're working on are buying every other year citizen survey, where we get the pulse of the community on how we're doing. We're excited to see those results come in. We're working through an organizational assessment with our sheriff's office, with the sheriff being relatively new in his role and me being relatively new in my role. We both thought it would be wise if we could get on the same page from a goal standpoint. So we're going to look at how his service models are working. He's done some reorganizations. We want to know how those are affecting. We'll be talking to you guys as part of that. So that's a project we're working on. We're monitoring large-scale energy developments. There's a big meeting in Blendon Township tonight about their best energy storage. So those are things our board is very concerned about. I see Commissioner Wenzel's here, so she's been very passionate about this. This is something that we're continuing to keep an eye on, and if need be, we will engage on that as an intervener. And then lastly, congratulations to Commissioner Moss, who won his primary. In Ottawa County, I don't want to jinx it, but usually when you win the primaries of Republican, chances are you're going to win the general. So that's something the board will be looking at is what that appointment looks like for that seat in District 5. And we're going through that as well right now. So hopefully I did OK on time. Good. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm testing on a couple other things, but so far it's going very well. We've got a good team. We've got a dedicated staff, and we're happy to come along and partner with our agencies and communities like Georgetown. Wonderful.

I don't recall the last time the county administrator has come to one of our meetings, and we appreciate that, Patrick. Appreciate both of you. I'm especially happy that you're a Georgetown resident now. and have been for, presumably. Since 23, yep. Because one of the offset things here is that we sometimes feel we're far west of sort of the central hub of what occurs, right?

Yeah.

And that we get missed or not looked out for sometimes. And so it's good to have somebody who lives here administering, because I think that's going to be good for us.

Yeah, it's nice. 20-minute drive to work every day. The county's not as big as it seems, but I think Al Vandenberg said they put the county building where they did so it was equally miserable for everybody.

Well, it's an ambitious agenda. It's going to take a lot of work.

Yeah, we're excited. And again, you have the handouts. And one thing we're going to be doing as soon as I get them off the press is we will be sitting down with every manager and elected official at the top level to talk about this and really invite you guys to plug in on that task force. keep the guy that does the facebook updates i like watching him oh yeah scott he does a great job i will we'll tell him that thank you any other questions you said there's going to be a forum for all the townships coming up so that's over i believe october 20 i'm not mistaken is to save the date on that and then two days later uh water resources commissioner is going to be having his annual water forum so they kind of go hand in hand

Thanks, Patrick. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. Item seven here. We have DeWitt here to give us a monthly update from our fire department.

Matt DeWitt, Georgetown Township Fire Chief. Go over the data for July. uh total calls for service 251 for july so it's slightly down from last month we had 277 the month prior mutual aid we had seven calls given and received with a year-to-date total of 1436 so far uh for public education and community outreach got a picture there grand valley metro council we partnered up with them they had a book talking about safety for kids So we had two of our firefighters, Lieutenant Todd Hauer and Ella Vanden Heuvel went and talked at the library with Liz and they set up a little forum and talked about some fire safety and also discussed the safety of the book. So that was a cool program. And we had 28 CO and smoke detector installs. We continue to see those be pretty steady every month. Notables, we did our SCBA cylinder testing. So we have to do a five-year hydrostat testing where we go and take the air pack cylinders that are on our backs and have them pressured. Make sure they're working. Annual hose testing, we completed that with only a couple of failures. So that's really good. So we can keep the cost down on our hose. We try to replace hose every year, a little few pieces at a time so we don't have one big lump sum for purchasing hose.

notes any questions all I got okay okay chief thank you thank you item eight these are your communications letters reports mostly minutes and then the fire department reports Item nine, which is our public comments. I want to say something about our public comment period here. Typically the first public comment period is geared toward and restricted to the items on the agenda for tonight. I want to expand that a little bit tonight. As you heard at the outset of the meeting, some of you came in a little bit late. I explained earlier, along with Justin, the misunderstanding that seems to have gone through the community related to these cross-connection fees. If you came tonight to speak to that and you heard the explanation but you still want to speak, you don't need to wait until the end of the meeting. You can be included in this first public comment period. So be aware of that. And with that, I open the floor to anyone from the public who wishes to speak to agenda items plus the one I just identified. Usually takes one to get it going. Yes, ma'am.

I live in a condo.

I know you haven't come before. We like your name. Yeah, can you... Can it come down a little bit? Yeah, there you go. Name and then your address.

Oh, Marilyn Martin, 7376 Pine Grove Drive.

Welcome.

Okay, I live in a condo, so I would think the association would be taking care about this, what's going on with the water.

Yeah, they probably don't fall within that 10% of the noncompliant, but if they did, you're right, they would have to deal directly over that.

And you said something about, if I understood right, of course there's misinformation and something about the state of Michigan is tied into the public water. What do you mean?

No, and for your benefit, this isn't a conversational point right now. You make your statements and ask your questions and then we'll have the ability to reply to those questions. if we wish later in the meeting. But I may have Justin repeat. If we get enough questions along the line, I may have Justin repeat the summary.

Okay, a water tank will be going up higher later on down the road. Okay. There was a board that was supposed to be discussing things and get things straightened up later on, but would that mean a water bill would be going up higher?

Okay, question number two. All right, keep going.

That's about all. Okay. I won't because it seems like everything, excuse me, because everything's going up.

Yeah, yeah.

And everybody comes in and gets more money off of us, you know?

Yep, yep.

And so taking care of the problem way ahead of time.

Yep, yep.

Over the months, they probably should have taken care of them and they didn't.

Yep, thank you.

And then the residents were stuck with the bills, making it higher. That's all I wanted to say.

Yep, okay. Love your accent. Thank you for coming. As you take a seat, Justin, I'm just going to ask you, because we did have a few people come in a little bit late. Maybe it wasn't entirely clear the first go around, but just tie in again briefly the EGLE program and how it impacts on what was identified in social media and how those two got misidentified. And I think further, I understood her question to be more about generally speaking about the water system, and that's not for right now, but to specifically that point, if you would address that.

So on the outside of people's homes, if they have underground sprinkling that's automatic, there's a vacuum breaker, and that vacuum breaker has to be tested every five years, and we rotate around the township. So if 90% of the individuals in the township have 7,000 of them, we have 7,000 underground sprinkling, we send a notice to 1 5th of them every year. and that one-fifth of the one-fifth, 90%, get the test done through a third party and there's no issues. The rest is the 10% that are non-compliant that we have to send numerous notices to and we are required by EGLE to get compliance. So I think that's the issue. It's who monitors the water. It's the same people for when the Wyoming's building their, expanding their plant, and once they hit that 80% threshold, they have to expand the plant. They're the regulatory agency that regulates water in the state of Michigan. So.

It used to be called the DNR, right? Department of Natural Resources.

DEQ.

Yeah. Or DEQ, sorry. Yeah. DEQ. My acronym, acronym's wrong.

The Great Lakes environment.

Fair enough. EGLE.

Yeah. So again, it's not like we're over here arbitrarily saying we're going to do these things. We must comply. When we don't, we face penalty and fine. They're looking for a way short of turning off someone's water, which again is what some communities do. Say, hey, we need you to It needs you to follow protocol. But that's what we're drawing for the moment as we go back to the drawing board and try to figure out how do we get that compliance with that small subset of people. All right, still open.

Pete Plowman, 6877 Creek Ridge Court. You do have a high level of credibility that is happening in that the document that went out that everybody was referring to was a bad piece of communication. You admitted that, that's great, but the thing that gets me is, how did that document go out? I mean, Gary, Kevin, John, you sit on the utilities. Do you not look at those types of things? And if you don't, maybe you should. Because It put the community in an uproar. I'm glad you tabled it essentially. That's great. But when we have, like, I want to read a text message from Justin. Thank you for reaching out for clarification. For 10% of the users that don't get their irrigation system tested every five years, there will be a fee until their systems are tested and passed. Currently, 90% of the irrigation users are subsidizing the 10% who are not compliant. This is only being discussed at the committee level. Unfortunately, and this is the part that gets me, unfortunately, there's a group in the township that likes to get people upset. Everything in that email was not in that document. None of that was explained. Is it an understanding that the people get in an uproar? And then when people bring it to their attention, it's my fault? So I think we need to do a little bit better job of oversight. Getting the facts right at the beginning and really doing a better professional job. Because that's why all these people are here. They read the same thing I read. And they can comprehend. And everything that you spoke about, Jim, was not in there. None of it. Is it a wonder people want to keep an eye on you? And frankly, we should all the time because you work for us. And there's already been a lot of decisions that people aren't happy with. So the other thing that gets me is anything as it relates to water and sewer, you know it's going to be a touchy spot for the community. Why would you let that document go out Why would you do that? Thank you.

My only give and take with you would be Tigers in second place. Right? I think. I read it right.

68-54, Rolling View. Follow up on his. Zealand down chip just got raked over the coals. Too many closed meetings, don't keep the... RESIDENTS INFORMED. TOO MANY SECRETS. WE DON'T NEED TO KNOW ANYTHING. THEY KNOW MORE THAN WHAT THE RESIDENTS DO. LAST TUESDAY, THEY SPOKE. THEIR SUPERVISOR, GONE. BEWARE. WE'RE LISTENING. WE'RE WATCHING. WE'RE SICK OF THE MONEY BEING SPENT FOOLISHLY. DO ALL YOU GUYS Run your households that way too? Like money is non-existent, is plentiful? I'm sick of it. Start using our money reasonably. Quit wasting it. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Did we get your name? I don't recall.

Thank you.

We did not? I did.

Oh, you did?

All right. Yes, ma'am.

Hi. I met you at Susie Barnes. I'm at 7528 Pheasant Run Drive. We were at your party there at the Holst residence, Jim and Kim Holst.

Okay.

Okay. When you ran.

Yeah.

I just found out, I don't know where everybody found out about this meeting, but my husband came up home in an uproar and had to leave and said, you have to be at this meeting at 7 o'clock. So forgive me, I did not get that communication. All I heard from the community was that you were talking about the $400 increase per household per quarter, as I recall. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. I was a mortgage lender for 37 years? No. Combined real estate and mortgage lender of almost 40 years. Finally retired last summer. I see how many homes are going up. I know how much the values are going up. And I know how much tax revenue that that is putting in the pockets of this township. And so I'm backing these people up, too, Where is that money going? The infrastructures apparently weren't ready. I know there was a hold on permits for about six months. That does nothing for this community. We've got apartments going up. Our schools are already overflowing. We were drawn here, A, because we have two disabled grandchildren, which that community mental health Information that kind of bothers me, so I need to check more into that. But we were drawn here for the tax base. We're both in our 70s. And it's very confusing to me, A, why are our sewer costs so expensive compared to our water costs? I'll never get that. Always. Our sewer cost is more than our water every quarter. Two, why are we getting our water and everything from Wyoming? I think one of the reasons people are upset is because we just went through this crisis not so long ago with the increase in water bills for everybody without knowing what was going to happen. And then all of a sudden now we're getting $30, $60 to go to Wyoming. Why are we pulling our water from Wyoming? We're in Ottawa Township, that's Kent, that's Ottawa County, that's Kent County, why? So I guess for a lot of us, when we read these things, it's very, very confusing. And I feel like looking at appraisals, watching water bills, looking at millages, all of that, I probably have a better handle on some of it than most, just because that was my industry. But I'm seeing all of these properties are going up. You're pulling, this is just an estimate. Let's say you're pulling, most of these houses are going $600,000 to a million in a lot of these areas. And that is a tax base of $9,000 to $15,000 additional per year per household for primary residents. So I'm confused why there isn't enough money when I'm continuing to see all the building. I'm watching the schools explode. I just would like some of those questions answered. And no, I don't want to pay $400 extra. I do have my, I must be one of the 90% because we have those valves and whatever. But it's just frustrating. And to hear things late, that bothers me too. Is that all right?

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. And just as an aside, I want to say to Justin and Andy, I think it would be a good idea to, on our township website or Facebook page, to post a more complete description of what we've described tonight concerning this misunderstanding. So I think that would be a good way for others then to simply point to and for us to point to that. And I did hear you too, not just that issue, but your others. And I'll just say, remember, we get none of your summer tax bill, we get 7% of what you bill. So if there's 9,000 coming from a home, we get very little of that. Okay, next.

Bob Vander Veen, 8282 Hardwood Drive. My question is for Justin, it's more of a housekeeping question. with what's been in the news lately with cyber attacks. Justin, do we have a backup plan if something would happen to Wyoming system?

So I'm gonna have to say something about that, Bob. We're limiting the first public comment period to items that are on the agenda tonight and I expanded it by one to the water issue or the connection fee issue. That's one that would belong in the second public comment period. We're talking about water, and that's why it's not free.

We could go a lot of places with that, trust me.

He heard your question. I hope he duly noted it. And then at the discussion at the end, or if you want to pigeonhole or call tomorrow or whatever.

It's a contingency plan, that's all.

Thank you. It's important. All right, thank you. All right, this guy's name on his shirt, he almost doesn't even have to say it.

I don't know who I am.

There it is.

I live at 36 in Baldwin. I noticed a lot during the day that the water pressure is fluctuating a lot. So is this because of all the construction going on?

I've let things get away tonight, Mr. McCloskey. We could talk about water.

a lot right but we're trying to stay in this first public comment period to the items on the agenda well i just wanted to go ahead of time here because of the water pressure yeah very so much during the day yeah and is it because of all the work going on yeah yeah okay all right thank you

All right, if someone has a yes or no answer, they could give it right now, but otherwise probably requires a more complete statement. Yeah, all right. Anyone else?

Rebecca Emis, I live at 65 Ravenswood, Granville. I'm in Georgetown Township. I'm four houses off the county line. My question is that we live on Lake Kenawa. We do not have underground sprinkling at this time, but we're putting it in. We pump, and my neighbors all pump from the lake. How is it going to impact us? because it shouldn't. And I'm a little salty because everybody in my entire lake community, all 48 of us, we all got a special assessment two years ago for nothing. Got a $10,000 special assessment on our taxes that our value went up for nothing. It feels like a money grab. So we're all a little bit worried that this $400, wherever it's going to come from, these inspections, how does it impact us who pump from the lake? Because we're not the only lake that's in Ottawa County and Georgetown Township. There are more than just myself. So I would like to have that answered. Thank you.

Thank you. And again, I don't want you to be picking and choosing, but since we've opened this one can of worms, Justin, go ahead. We can respond. It's different when it's pulled from a different source than the city water, correct? Correct.

There's a pump, I'm guessing, outside your lake, and it goes to your irrigation. So you would not be involved in this.

It doesn't cover you. Yep. Next question. Hearing none, we'll close that initial public comment period for the evening. We'll move on here to item number 10, which is our consent agenda, having to do with things like approval of bills and things of that nature. Is there a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda? So moved. Support. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? And it is carried. Item 11, we need to renew our precinct rental agreements. Is there a motion to approve?

I'll make that motion. Support.

Okay, moved and supported. We've seen the agreement, rental fees. Any questions? All right, hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passed. Item 12, resolution for zoning ordinance amendments. This is part of our ongoing efforts here in recent months during this moratorium to Take a look at certain of our ordinances and update some things. So, Justin, I see you getting up out of your seat. Is that indicative of... Okay, Ryan's going to come take the wheel here. All right. I just want to know if I'm supposed to read into that or anything. Ryan, are you going to lead a discussion here for us?

Brief discussion or give you at least an overview of the items on the agenda here. So, let's see. We've got... So, this is... In the agenda, we've got the full resolution for you to be able to view. I've also included it in the agenda as an attachment. However, I've also given you just kind of an explanation document that was on the agenda for you to look at. Brief summary, and obviously if we have questions on any of these specifically, I'd be happy to answer them. But all of the ordinances that, these are actually all ordinances that were initiated by the Township Board, so you have already seen all of these. The only ones from that, those ordinances that you already initiated that are not a part of this right now are section 19.6 and all the ordinances that you proposed in chapter 22. Those were all tabled by the planning commission at our last meeting for further discussion on them. Otherwise, all the ordinances in here are just as you initiated them besides for one, which was section 1910, which had to do, the only change that the Planning Commission recommended to change was they were included as the authority on granting a waiver for public water and sanitary sewer requirement for all commercial and industrial developments. They wanted that authority to be with the township board. Specifically they wanted that to be something that was discussed at a utilities committee meeting with DPW. And so the language was adjusted on that one specifically from planning commission to township board. The rest of the ordinances in here are exactly as you originally initiated them. So any questions on any of these?

Yeah, these were pretty, I mean, they're pretty straightforward. Did you say they're holding and planning yet several of those that will eventually make their way here, specifically chapter 22 related? Okay.

Yes, chapter 22 and a couple in chapter 19 as well were left off of this specific resolution.

And for the benefit of the public, if you thought, well, I didn't read this ahead of time, go home. You look at this particular item and you can see the link to it. In yellow is where you'll get your explanations.

yeah so we've got the actual resolution below here but if you did want an explanation on any of these you click on this top link that has explanations and it's it's a little more color coded for you it's got an explanation in yellow of each ordinance change and what they are about so that is that is available on the agenda these were initiated out of this board went to our planning commission have come back to us in part not in full yet uh with just a minor change as a concern section 1910.

Board, any questions or concerns about, you've already, in essence, approved these changes with the exception of now that they've come back with one small revision, which essentially clarifies authority with us as opposed to trying to take it for themselves. I think that's probably appropriate. So questions, concerns? Kelly, our resident expert on such things, anything, all right.

All of the explanations made sense. Ryan provided a detailed explanation for the rationale behind it. I can't remember if I was here the first time or not, but the only thing that I wanted to point out is I just find it interesting that Georgetown is also taking the approach of many of the more Western municipalities in Ottawa County that are dealing with groundwater challenges. And because they're dealing with groundwater challenges, they've taken the approach to limit private water well development. And so they've come up with language in their ordinances which kick a certain number of lots into a large-scale development, or they force you to go through a subdivision review process or even a PUD. the state of Michigan passed a law to increase or revise the Land Division Act to increase the number of land divisions available to our residents. And with our discussion, especially on the future land use map, of sort of trying to preserve the unservable area in the southeast corner of the township and the currently unserved area in the northwest corner of the township, I just find it interesting that we sort of are talking about preservation of agricultural property and large rural estate-style development when Section 3.51, in my opinion, could potentially be construed as a taking of property rights. So, you know, those folks with large-scale lots are going to be granted a significant number of land divisions beginning in 2027, we're now basically saying at five or more you will be kicked into a subdivision and that subdivision will require public utilities so to me that's impacting people's property rights in those unserved or unable to be served areas but that would be my only comment and what was presented and your solution to that would be I think he said 3.5 when I think he meant three with a 3.6 one or not It says 3.51 in here. I think I'm just concerned about having this blanket statement taking everything to a subdivision in areas where we know that we want to limit or by reasons of topography will be prohibited from having public utilities. And I think by blanketing them into something like this where we really are impacting those folks' property rights. So to me it would be, there could be better language to clarify that.

Anyone? Specifically on that point? Because it, you have my ear personally.

Yeah. So right now you can do, four land divisions up to 19.99 acres, and one more land division for each whole 10 acres after that. At 20 plus acres, you also qualify for two bonus land divisions under certain circumstances. Those numbers are set to double next year. So a property owner, especially a large lot agricultural tract owner who maybe doesn't want to continue pursuing farming, but doesn't want to sell to a developer, maybe their nest egg or their retirement plan is to create land divisions for their family, all of their grandchildren. And we're potentially limiting that by forcing them into a subdivision, which to me is contrary to what we want to see in those areas.

But we can't set this according to expectations.

I just think we have, there is a law that allows people to take more land divisions and we are now limiting them. And I don't personally believe that it should be our role here to limit people's property rights.

But when you say it's expected next year for two more, we can't, we can't. do something today for something that may be expected next year?

It's already passed. It just took a year to go into effect. So the land division law has already been passed. It is set to increase. They just wait a year to make it go into effect. So it will go into effect 2027, but it is already the current law.

Okay. Yeah, I haven't kept up on that.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I haven't kept up on that. I know this particular one was initiated by a township attorney, and I didn't have direct contact at that point. I don't know if it was Brian or you, Justin, but do you know the impetus behind this? Was it originally like, oh, we should do this because...

Yeah, so I'll just briefly say there was actually two that were drafted by our township attorney specifically. And it was this one and as well as the original storm shelter one, which we discussed at the previous meeting. Ultimately, that one was not included. We didn't go with that one either. Didn't go with that one. I do not have the exact rationale behind this. I don't disagree with any of the points. I think in a way it limits certain things, but also the other side of that is if you are going to be splitting more lots, then you're held to a higher standard in a lot of ways with some of the subdivision regulations. So I guess that's another way to look at it. But I do not have the specific rationale behind the recommendation from the township attorney.

I'm not ready to pass that.

I agree with you.

I'd like to look into it a bit further. we know that there's many a lot of the attorney language there's a lot of similarly handled township attorneys or kind of municipal attorneys and so the language gets recycled in many places and i think sometimes it gets recycled without a thought for the individual community they're recycling it into so this change has been made quite a bit on the west side of the county and it's because of their groundwater issues Georgetown isn't experiencing the same groundwater issues as some of the western-most counties. And so I just think it would be worth looking into further. I agree with that.

Anyone else? Will the new law fall under MCL 560.101 or not?

I'd have to look at... Yes, because the subdivision law is actually the Land Division Act.

So can we... change the wording that we need to follow that statue potentially that might be the easiest way to handle it i'm wondering because whatever the statue is we got to do anyway so then we would just follow that mcl 560.101 and then that would just cover us for i think i and to

provide the alternative point of view, Ryan raises a good point in that when you do reach a certain number of land divisions, there is sometimes, it is warranted that you want a more cohesive development to be had. So I don't know that just by outright saying everybody can do as many land divisions as are granted to them is necessarily the right response, but I don't know that five's the right number either. So I think what I would like to do is try to understand better the rationale as to how we came to five, look at, have a better understanding of what the new land division laws allow and maybe come up with something that better fits our township. Because there's also only a certain number of large lot tracts, and I think we could easily come up with what those landowners would be eligible for and come up with sort of a curated response for our community.

Anything else? Anyone else on any point? That one and others? The other ones are... yeah the ones that might feel more quote-unquote substantive are yet with planning these others felt somewhat necessary even clarifying on some counts but the one you point out kelly i agree um with your position so and we anyone wish to make a motion because it's going to be a resolution vote roll call and before we do so i think there is a need to amend what we have put before us so far. So someone who wishes, was there a motion to start with? I'm sorry.

There wasn't.

No, okay. Well then, we could, right from the get-go here, if someone wants to make a motion, they could incorporate it if you think there's consensus on the point Kelly's raising. You could modify right in the context of your motion what you want us to consider. Anyone?

I'll make a motion to initiate the ordinance amendments. Is it an initiation? or to make the ordinance amendments that include chapters 3, 10, 17, 19, and 20 of the township ordinance, except for the section 3.51 as presented.

Is there a second?

I'll support that.

Okay. The roll call vote. Clerk Kuiper?

So we're voting yes to support your?

Yes.

Yes.

Kelly?

Yes.

DeWitt?

Yes.

Beldink?

Yes.

Piper is yes. Grassman? Yes. Wieringa?

Yes.

All in favor.

Thank you. Item 13, the master plan discussion. So this is where, does anybody need a break? Or in the middle of this maybe you'll ask for a break. You can just simply get up if you need a break and use the facilities and come back. The master plan discussion. So the master plan, the draft has been sent to all of us by the planning commission. And tonight is not the night to say yay or nay on what they presented to us as much as to give comment and to make recommendations back to them. I guess I just want to say at the outset, we review the master plan. Most of you know this already, but not all of you have been on the board for a master plan review before. We're required to review our master plan every five years. I think the last time that we reviewed the master plan in great detail with an outside planner and everything else was in or around 2007, I want to say, somewhere in that vicinity. It was just before, I mean, none of us were on the board, right? We've had it come up since then, obviously every five years, and it's been, I'd say it's been very limited in terms of provisions and the like. We made the decision, as you know, the beginning of last year to do a deeper dive. There seemed to be a real push and desire on behalf of not just the board, but the planning commission to say, you know, I think it's time we did a deep dive. And so we hired Williams and Works. They assigned Tanya to us. I'm sorry, Tanya's last name escapes me at the moment. Okay, I didn't want to say that. All right. And she's been leading that process. And you will probably recall the beginning of last year, we had a joint meeting in this room. with Planning Commission and then we did another one this year. So it went on long enough that we've had two of those joint meetings and all this time they've been kind of piece by piece working through this process. They've obtained public input at a level I don't recall that we've ever to this degree on the master plan review. So a lot of work and effort went into that and What looks like an agenda item 13 in the midst of like 20 items on a Monday evening here is you just need to see it and recognize it for what it is. It's kind of their magnus opus or whatever that phrase is, right? Where they're going like this, all right? Gary, you're part of the Planning Commission. You know meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting, right? So here in my life, I can't get back. So thank you. They have presented that, and I think it's important to recognize what they've done and what they've poured into this. So I want to say thank you personally on the record. I know none of them is here tonight, but If they hear it through others or if they should watch the tape, you know, Josiah, Janine, Goris, Jessica, Jeff, Gary, Tom, all of you, all seven of you, I'd tell you thank you. Thank you for the substantial amount of work you put in. I want to say thank you to Ryan, the Arizona administrator, for the amount of time you put in. Oh, my goodness. Ryan's been a rock star. I'll tell you that right now.

I'll second that. Thank you, Gary.

Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I appreciate Tanya for guiding through that process. So a lot of work, significant undertaking, many hours. And we don't treat that lightly. I hope you know that. I hope they know that. And the way it's set up, and again, I don't think I'm sharing anything new with you, but they're charged with, in essence, with conducting the master plan review process. and updating it and presenting it to this board. This board has the authority as the ones accountable to the electorate. They're appointed, obviously, and we're elected to, under the setup, we must agree or we must pass ultimately what they present to us, or if we reject it and it can't be reconciled, And if that were to happen, and I don't know if this ever happened, but I mean our history goes back to the 1800s, I don't know. But if it went back and forth, you could hypothetically come to a point where you go, I guess we're just gonna stick with the old master plan, because that's what would happen. If the two boards or the board and the commission can't agree, then the status quo prevails, all right? That's never happened. Even when they've done deep dives in the past, that's not happened. But it does point to the fact that we have a responsibility for the final adoption of this master plan. And so it's not just another report that sits on the shelf somewhere. The community looks at it, you know, residents look at it. You know, developers look at it, right? The commission, the board looks at it. So it's important, and it will be important for years to come. It guides a lot of decisions that people make. So I know I'm being a little bit long-winded, but I wanted to serve that up in terms of what we have in front of us. I'm gonna spend some time, give me some leeway, and I'll give you the same, right, as much as is needed. But I put in front of each of you tonight a memorandum, and behind that is also the future land use map that currently exists, the proposed future land use map that is in the proposed updated master plan, and then the actual zoning map that shows how different areas of the township are currently zoned. So not mean to talk down anybody, but the future land use map is saying this is what might be forecast as possibly what we see coming down the road, but it doesn't change the ordinance map. It doesn't change what is currently zoned one way or another, right? That only happens through initiation by this board or through a request for a read zone that might come from a citizen or from a developer or whomever. So I thought those are good tools. They're hard to read inside of the document we received, and that's why I blew them up to the extent that you would want them in front of you. They use a lot of colors. A lot of the colors are similar, which makes it harder yet. So that's why I printed those out for you. But I want to begin with that memorandum. Now, why did I put this in front of you? Why did I intend to address it tonight? Manette, as we all know, has been with the Township more than 30 years. She would also give high praise to you, Ryan, and I know she does. Ryan's our next Manette in training, so we hope. We hope we keep him, right? Manette is kind of a special adjunct or whatever you want to call her at this point. She doesn't have a title, but she just loves what she does, and she loves helping with elections and with zoning and all the rest, and we're better for it. We're appreciative of that. I asked Manette, Manette, this is, to everyone but Kelly on this board, okay, maybe Gary gets it next best in line, but it's a different nomenclature. It's not, if you don't traffic in this, it's, some of it can be, right? Yep, yep. John, you and I have been at it long enough on the board that we've picked up enough to be dangerous, but I've said to Manette before, you forgot more about zoning and master plans than I've ever learned. That's a true statement. She's wonderful. So she's, and you know, Manette, she's very deferential. Like even in doing this memo, I'm not telling you guys what to do, okay? No, I'm not asking you to tell us what to do. We understand you're not a voting member of this board. You're not on the planning commission, but You've been around so long and you've been through more of these than anybody who currently exists in the township. Would you help us, would you help me by reading through this and identifying if there are things that you see as either problematic, inconsistent, incorrect, whatever? Because I know the planning commission, as much as this board wants to get it right, nobody wants to pass and go, oh, that was a mistake, right? And on that score, I want to say, You know, in our two joint meetings we've had, it was pretty evident that because we're people, we have different perspectives. And we all have different perspectives. And I don't think, and Gary could, you know, attest to this, I don't think there's one view in the planning commission of what ought to happen in our master plan. And there's not one view in this board of what ought to happen on every point of a 224-page document, all right? But I will say this, and I said it at one of our joint meetings, I think it bears repeating, which is everybody involved in this process, be they on the commission, on this board, Ryan, Minette, you guys, anybody else who's touched this, all have the same objective, and that is they care the heck out of this township, and they want what's best for the residents of the township. What's best is hard to define sometimes. That's why you get public input to the degree that the planning commission did. and why so many people will talk to you and I, right, and give their opinions on things that have bearing on this document. So I just want to say I think we're going to have a lot of consensus with the Planning Commission. And I'll say whatever change, if any, should come out of this discussion and with them, A, is not unexpected, and B, in comparison to what all they've done will be a fractional portion all right meaning they've done a lot of good work they would say a lot of things that would update into kind of you might say bring in a little more current that they'll be pleased to see this board approve but again it's not our job to just rubber stamp either so they know it's our job to look at it with a critical eye and say okay We get to be like the teacher, right? They worked on this thing studiously and now we get to take credit. Kind of unfair that way because they've done so much work, but at the same time necessary. So this memo that I put in front of you, I would probably break it up into what I would call maybe technical words. changes or it could even be grammatical or what have you, which I fully expect the majority of it would simply be received by the Planning Commission and they'll say, oh, yeah, okay, I get where you're staying there. That makes some sense, right? So there's probably only a couple of items in this memo that are what you call more substantial. And if you'll indulge me then, I tell you what, I will hold off for a moment before diving in on detail. I got to spend five or ten minutes right there with just sort of an overview. I'm prepared to move forward in giving some discussion of this document. But before I do that, does anyone else wish to make some opening comments?

Jim, I was very impressed by it. As you said, it's like well over 200 pages. And I shared with you that since I've been on the board, this is the most comprehensive I've ever seen. And even the survey, every comment was shared on here of what people had said. But it's very, very well done. But as you also said, our expertise, we have to rely on other individuals to But you can see that there was just an incredible amount of hard work put into this. And you folks have been very open, talking to Justin and yourself, as far as I'm hoping with Kelly and others, if there are things that we need more detail on. But this was not rubber stamp. This is substantial.

Substantial.

Anyone else? Don't feel compelled? You're all going to get your say, but if you want to say something, I don't want to feel like, well, Jim didn't shut up, so. Okay. I want to move through this as quickly as I can because I'm going to, to use a court phrase, I'm going to try to enter this in the record almost at the end if there's support for that, if there's support. Item A, and she does it by letter. She was just clarifying the phrase is seeking to have with the word requires because, in fact, it is required to be connected to the public sewer systems when the service is available. So, again, that's just one of those where I think it's a clarification. B is about the number of full-time firefighters we have. Just clarifying that wrong number there. It should be corrected. C, roundabouts are... Also going to be constructed, according to the county, at a couple of other intersections. And in the current version of Master Plan, they only mention one of those. So she's saying, hey, mention them all.

Jim, are we going like pages? Are you going through the whole thing first? We're going to come back? or if there's something that we see that we've got our own notes.

Let me answer your question, Gene. In other words, if you want to make a comment on the particular letter, are you saying, well, I want to say something different about that page 50.

That's page 40. I've got something on page 42.

And you've got 44. Okay, so I think the answer to your question is let me roll. Okay. Yeah, okay. Page 63, she's asking for a picture. We've got beautiful parks. Let's get a great picture in there of the parks. Yeah, again, I think Planning Commission would be like, yeah, where can we get one? We love it. And someone just threw one up there. We have... We have better ones. We do better than that.

That's the one that's in there right now. That's what she's saying.

Good for her. I don't think Planning Commission is going to have an objection to it.

In her defense, we asked about the pictures, okay? And Williams and Works only uses stock pictures for copyright issues. So like even some of the homes we questioned because like, well, We don't have any homes like with an alley behind. Should we have that picture? I'm like, well, you could take a picture of a house, but if it's somebody else's plant, we could have copper. So they use a stock. pictures that they get that they have permission to use. So whether this is our park or not, I think that's Hicker Park, but I'm not positive. I've been here for a while, but I'm just saying that some of the pictures we question her on, because she's only allowed to use certain pictures because it's copyrighted.

It's funny, in the past, Dan Carlton would go out and snap photos, and those are the ones we use. You've got enough going on.

Maybe you, Andy.

No. I think what you're saying really is if we don't have one already in hand that's one that we've created or taken, we'll have someone go out and do it. Right, guys? I mean, somebody. Yeah, right? Yeah. Pick your favorite scene, you know? Okay. So you can see the theme so far. These are not like weighty things, but there are a couple that are. All right. Item E, she's just saying to be clear here. the board um makes the final determination on puds plats and rezonings and therefore she's saying it should say and clarify georgetown township board and planning commission good clarification letter f page 71 um i know and i think this was tom healy uh and i knew what was behind his um his statement because he's made that statement to me or he made it in the joint meeting i think we had which is He wanted to say and make it clear, hey, this doesn't have the force of law. And I know from where he comes with that statement, I think he's got a concern about, well, if you don't remember, we were talking a lot about our worry about congestion and road and traffic and bottlenecks and all that. And he was saying, look, I'm sympathetic to all that. And yeah, we're doing some things and we're describing some things here that may sound threatening to that. And I just want you to know this is not, you know, this doesn't have the force of law. I think that's kind of where he was coming from. But I see it from a legal perspective as in a different way, which is to have that phrase in there can actually be turned on its head different ways and used against you. I don't think it's necessary to use that phrase that's currently in at page 71 where it talks about the future land use map does not carry the force of law but, you know, I think, I think the careful or more prudent approach would be to take that phrase out and just begin with decisions related to the zoning ordinance and zoning map.

Alternatively, we should talk about what the document is, because I also am aware of what Tom is speaking about, and that is the fact that our zoning ordinance is a subset of our general ordinances, which are adopted as the legal law of this township, whereas the master plan simply exists as a guiding document.

I like that.

So I would suggest that rather than say this document doesn't what does it say, doesn't carry the force of law, we simply talk about what it is. This document is a guiding document, or however you'd want to phrase that.

That's the word.

That is truthfully what it is. Because you can contradict your master plan, and to be fair, rezonings have three requirements, and only one of them is meeting the master plan. There is also consistency with surrounding development trends, and capability with infrastructure needs. So the master plan is just one piece of decision making, and so it should be treated as a guiding document. But I like calling it what it is, not what we shouldn't use it as, right? Yeah.

I agree. And I'm not, with all those pages, I'm not sure if it says that clearly somewhere else.

It doesn't. So let's make sure we add in that phrase.

Okay. Yeah, I would like the word, even if used, not to carry final authority.

Sure.

That's how the statement we read before planning commission, right?

Yes.

We don't have the final authority.

Yeah, that's good news.

We need to make suggestions.

But I don't want to say force of law.

No, I don't like it either. Okay, more of a, I hear you and I think we can communicate that because what's happening with this is we're, if we capture this on a consensus basis, we're not saying, you know, exactly this jot and tittle. I mean, they can take it and go, okay, we get the gist of what you're asking for here. We'll come up with language to...

But I will just add in for... and for this board's discussion, the semantics of the language you use is critical. Like do not, shy away from being crystal clear and what you want it to say, because the job of a developer is to go into your guiding documents to figure out exactly what you want. And if you are not crystal clear, if there is gray areas, it will be used against you. So it is imperative that we say what we mean here. And it's imperative that we follow it as a guiding document, continuing to uphold our precedents in our decision making. Because when we introduce gray language and gray area in our decision making, it will absolutely be used against you.

But I think that's where a disclaimer could come in, too, because... There's called errors and omissions insurance too for a reason because things are said and written that don't work. And so somebody comes in, there should be a disclaimer saying, hey, you know what? The board has a final authority. You can come in as a developer, but if you don't like it, I'm sorry, but you know, I don't like to become a twist in words because those words can, people can make mistakes. It's a large document and There's always room for errors in something this big.

But I think what we're doing is really important work. Even if it feels tedious going through sentence by sentence sometimes, I think it is important work.

Yep. Letter G, page 74. I agree with that paragraph there in terms of adding that language, if developed as planned unit developments. What's trying to be clarified here is that this category, and there's some new categories created, this category is noted to be associated with what we do call LDR and LMR zoning designations, which do not allow multifamily developments. So as she says here, this could be misleading to a developer who could point to this language and plan to develop a multifamily development in the LDR or LMR districts by right. And then she's also suggesting the elimination of the words and the use of septic systems in wells should be highly discouraged because she says take that out because they're not even allowed in LDR and MDR districts unless public utilities are not available. Correct. I just think she's right on with that. Your silence doesn't mean you agree with me. We don't have to talk about everyone if you're not sufficiently wanting to do so. But H page 100, she is just noting that the phrase is used here, future issues for a sub-area plan to explore. And actually there's four bullet points that are included in the Curt Master Plan that are repeated here, but they aren't characterized as future issues to explore, but as goals to work toward currently. So she was suggesting that the language should be changed to indicate that these are not elements we want to study in the future, but actually goals we want to accomplish as opportunities present themselves, as we currently already do. I think that's accurate. We currently already do that, and she didn't want to make it sound like we're not, we're thinking of doing so. No, we'll do so, and we are doing so as a goal. Page 102 is one of those substance, I don't mean to say the others aren't, but that's really a, to me, that's a substance. And this gets to the Northwest Quadrant, and here I want to park for a minute. The Northwest Quadrant is the largest area within the township that is, as yet, fairly undeveloped. And I appreciate, and I just want to say this for the planning commissions, but I appreciate that we've had discussion in our joint meetings with them, They know how a number of us feel about the worry and concern about overdevelopment, about turning the Northwest Quadrant into, you know, homes everywhere and traffic that can't be sustained on roads that can't travel over a bridge that doesn't exist over the Grand and doesn't have an exit onto 48th that we thought might come from, you know, Yep. 196. And so I felt like they did a really good job here of saying, yeah, we're with you. We understand that. That's an important area to be respectful and careful about any development and recognizing its agricultural importance. And here's where I may diverge somewhat with one or more of you, but among the documents I gave you, If you go to the bottom of the stack, there's second from the bottom. I've got something. I say page 102, northwest corner. This is my verbiage. This is not from anybody else, but this is me thinking through this, and you know that I kind of have a passion about trying to protect the farmland, the green space, and some of the things we have that directly impact on our quality of life. within the township. And what I'm proposing, because I think what they did is a very good job here, is I'm proposing that under this section 102 for the northwest corner, as they call it, I would keep their paragraph one. I would keep their paragraph two. I would keep their paragraph three. I would insert between paragraphs two and three what I've written here, and I just want to read it, Because I think it's our policy statement about that area of the township, and I think it's important to be clear about it, The way I've written it is, it is the intent of Georgetown Township, of the Georgetown Township Master Plan that the northwest quadrant remain predominantly agricultural in character and use with the preservation of productive farmland, open spaces, scenic view sheds, I didn't know that phrase until I saw it used two or three times here in the Master Plan, so that's, I'm learning some words, and the long-term viability of farming operations serving as the primary land use objective while residential, commercial, and urban density development is directed to designated growth areas elsewhere in the township. I want to advocate for that paragraph as sort of the policy statement that fits within what they've drafted, but they've fallen a little short of being that direct. My only other change is I like, if you scroll just a little bit down there, you see the beginning of it, Andy, future issues for a sub-area to plan to explore. I don't like that phrase. personally. And what I put there instead was preservation and implementation priorities. And I've listed on the sheet, and I won't read them, but five different bullet points. Not, you know, not disparate from these, but more focusing again on that policy goal. You know, if I said one in particular you'll preserve large contiguous blocks of active farmland and discourage the fragmentation of agricultural land through incremental residential development i think what's going on right now is we have land speculators in that area of township we have people picking up property hoping that they'll bully this board and this this township into whatever it is they want to do with it someday it's presumptuous it's not wrong I'm not saying they haven't succeeded in some respects, they, whoever that amorphous they is, but I want to state to people who are speculating in that respect, I want to say a little more strongly, I don't think that's going to work out for you, or at least I hope that future boards and others would hold to this, but at least for this master plan, well, I'm still here, and maybe while you're still here, to put an accent on that, I just think it's important in so many ways to what this township's gonna look like in 15 or 20 years. It can go one way or it can go another. So I wanna stop on that one, because that one's one that I think is gonna generate a variety of opinions. And it is, whether you had it in your notes to talk about or not, you probably had those ideas somewhere in what you were gonna say, and I think this might be the opportune time to talk about it, because it gets to the whole question of smart growth, and where do you put the growth, and how do you manage and continue to have quality of life and streets that can be traveled safely and more easily, and so, floor's open.

The first thing people talk about in the community is They love Georgetown Township and they want to see it preserved as much as possible, particularly in that area. It's going to be a tremendous strain on utilities. And then the flow of traffic tends to go down Cottonwood, hit Baldwin, and that's an incredible challenge right now. And as that area out there develops, we need to have a strong plan of how we're going to get people through our town. And I... This has been an incredible challenge for decade after decade. So this sounds very well thought out, and I would support it.

John, you mentioned residents. I suspect we all hear from residents, especially on this point. And this is probably not the fair group to talk about. I remember asking the seniors one day when I was presenting over at Senior Center, well, obviously we're in the older category. We're against change, right? Consider the crowd, but I said, how many of you, if you had, could look forward beyond your lifetime, would want to see in 20 years Georgetown Township be 90,000 people or 95,000, I think I said, or maybe 65,000. Right now we have 56 or what have you. And every hand went up for the 65,000. I looked at the page 129. You guys probably did too with the survey. And look, you can assail me because you use a survey when it's to your advantage and you poo-poo it when it's not, right? But I will say that this survey, to whatever degree of confidence you put in it, the two most common responses are the highest vote-getters, if you will, on question seven, which asked, in terms of potential township priorities, how important are the following? The two top answers were um protection protecting national areas and protecting farmland um i think i think the public is largely with us and i think the give back to the planning commission and to others who are i'll just say it maybe younger more you know forward thinking about what the new plans of development are and the realities of things and housing costs and all the rest i i guess The give back is there are quite a few things included in this plan that are opening doors to some of those fresh ideas. We just don't need those in that quadrant. And they agree, okay? They haven't put that in there. I just want to be a little more emphatic with my language. All right. Others?

I said that in 1973, but you all came after me. Except Gene. Except Gene. He was here with me. So that's what I'm saying. It's always interesting. People say, oh, we don't want no more growth. Well, when did you come here? Because there's been a lot of growth. I've lived here since 1960. So I've seen all kinds of growth in my lifetime. That's part of it, right? And as a builder and a developer, that's how I made my living, too, by the way. So I understand part of it, but I also understand that there are people that bought land, farm land, with the idea that when they retired, they were gonna sell the land. And that's what they're planning retirement on. So I'm like, I get a little nervous when we say, well, hold on, we wanna preserve that property for a farm. And somebody says, well, I've been preserving it for 60 years, I wanna sell it now. And that development land is worth more to be developed than it is to put corn on it at $5 a bushel. so i i get part of it i mean i understand traffic's bad but then again i'm like i've i've i've seen it too i've lived it more than most because i've lived here a long time and i'm not opposed people coming here i have never been opposed from moving here but i find it interesting that those that have moved here maybe only been here 10 years 15 years we're upset there's so much traffic and there's all this development well been going on a long time so i i just i i wrestle with it i wrestle with it you know um whether or not that property in northwest quadrant is prime farm ground or not it's not irrigated it's good ground but it's not exactly like other parts where they've got irrigation and pivots and been able to raise stuff all the time.

Could you see though someday where it might slip into more of a rural residential if farming you know in a particular piece weren't viable or what have you. I could see over time some of those could slip into a bit of what we see more in the southeast corner where you go yeah less and less agriculture but still very open and breathable right. I look at your point about, you know, I'm not suggesting that rights be taken from anyone who owns land out there. I'm just saying you're not promised additional rights you don't possess. So if your land that you've owned is agricultural, then you can do whatever is allowed with agricultural land, but you're not promised the highest and best use. Like we're going to change it to residential. That's giving rights. No one's taking away rights. That's giving rights that they wish they had, right?

The problem is that you've got to look at the big picture. That northwest corner is morphing into Grand Valley and Allendale. So the southeast corner, you can say, well, there's really nothing down there. You're going into towards Byron Center, but there's no real metropolitan area there. The northwest quadrant is moving and migrating towards Grand Valley University and into Allendale. That's probably going to be the the impetus for that whole thing to develop because it's all going to kind of like join from Allendale sewer system maybe some water coming from that way we come from the other way that's what that's what's going to drive that and it's not going to happen you know right away you know you take if a person buys 80 acres you're probably looking at seven eight years to develop that out maybe even ten depending on the economy you know so It's not an automatic thing. Oh, they're going to put streets in there and you're going to have immediate 160 houses on 80 acres. It's going to be a long-term project to do that. I'll say it before I say it again. This is why there should be a push to get another exit out of Jenison over the river.

I agree.

I think that's got to be the number one push in the next 10 years, getting another Bridge across that river. Because right now, it's just going to bottle up until something happens.

Well, there's so many accidents at Cottonwood and Baldwin. So, yeah, we need another.

Yeah. Maybe one thing to be said about that, Gary, is this is a snapshot in time that lasts five years, right? Correct. And I'm saying for this five-year increment, I want this emphasis. Five years from now, they might start to soften. Five years from then, they might, I don't know. I can personally say I hope not.

And I could agree with you on that. We have to do the master plan every five years. So this is the five-year plan, and I could see us preserving that there for five years anyways because of utilities. It's not like it's... pass and sell it for 20 years. And maybe by then there'll be others that have different ideas too that might be better.

I'll add to that. I do think what Gary points out is important because whether or not we like it, that 48th Avenue corridor, we are now adjacent to another community that also has a master plan and has their own goals for that area. And so it's important that we're looking at what London is putting into their master plan as well. We're trying to preserve farmland and they want that to be their commercial corridor. And now we've got competing uses in that area. And it sort of all just doesn't make sense. I'd also echo Gary's sentiments that as prime farmland goes, and as we rank prime farmland, it's not the most prime farmland. And I think the challenge is, and I said this a couple meetings ago, what challenges municipalities in the state of michigan is that we've got a new unit of government every six miles that has a different idea about how they want to do things and it it ends up being completely fragmented and so in this particular area i do think it's worthwhile for us to coordinate with blendon even potentially with allendale and i think Thinking about this area in terms of the next five years as agricultural I think makes sense, but I think we should all be aware that we kind of have to stay on top of what is happening in the surrounding communities. I don't need to go much further than that. The only thing I want to point out, Jim, with what you've prepared is that I would need a little bit of time to mull it over. I just want to think through more than just sitting here tonight at this meeting about what you've written. The only thing quickly after reading it and having you explain it is that It is a little bit, in my opinion, in conflict with the zoning ordinance designation for agricultural and rural residential properties because you don't mention at all rural estate style single family. So this sort of reads as if the intent is solely for farmland preservation. And we allow single family residential in both our rural residential and agriculturally zoned properties. So I would just want to make sure that it's clear that it doesn't prohibit

single-family usage it's just that's a good point yeah okay um page 103 she just want to clarify there were some industrial uses that exist in an area that weren't identified and so that that to me is just another one of those okay thanks for pointing that out we'll we'll clean that up letter k 104 um the pud for longwood golf course and housing kind of development was included in the subscription however the future land use map that they're proposing shows this as housing counter development as recreation only it's actually recreation residential size recreation pud uh so it should be shown on the map rather than entirely instead instead of entirely recreation just needs to be clarified it's a mistake um uh letter l page 105 area discusses the southwest corner of the township here's what i call the the second um really substantive matter that i wanted to bring up among these things that are touched on in manette's memo um so that southeast corner and i think this and gary this is where you could help me i don't think this was by design or intentional but One of the things that has been developed through this new master plan is they've come up with new categories for the future land use map. They don't perfectly mirror what we have under our zoning classifications right now. For example, you don't see rural residential, you don't see LDR, you don't see LMR. LDR and LMR are subsumed by what they now call suburban residential. RRR doesn't even exist on there. Agriculture, importantly enough, which had the definition, has the definition currently as including both agricultural uses and some residential, right, is now strictly defined as ag use. So in discussion about this, and I had discussion with Josiah about this, hey, you've designated on your future land use map that that area in yellow right there in that lower corner, is this new category suburban residential it's currently in the on the land use map it is agricultural and on the zoning map it's rural residential so your suburban residential is a far cry from rural residential agricultural why don't you make that ag well then what they came back was well we really can't because our ag definition doesn't allow for you know these residential these rural residential uses Well, why don't you change the definition? I don't really want to do that. Okay. My suggestion then would be take the suburban residential designation that's been placed on these properties because they didn't know apparently what else to call it and create on the future land use map a designation for rural residential and apply it to everything south of I-96 other than what's marked as green because that's agriculture, but everything yellow below that should be a designation of the future land use map called rural residential, and that's exactly how it's zoned. And then if you look above 196, where it says McClelland and Parsons, that area up to Parsons, if you look on the zoning map, which I've given you, you'll see that that too is all rural residential up through that corridor. And you can see it exactly, I wish I'd circled this. I don't know if I gave you, but if you pull the zoning map, pull the zoning map, That's the actual zoning map, and you'll see in that lower right-hand corner, the yellow area below the highway, as I described already, if you look on the next page, you'll see, yeah, rural residential. If you flip back then again to that zoning map and you look above 196, you'll see that square piece going up to Glen Eagle and all that right there. You see that square piece that is yellow for rural residential. That's how it's zoned, and it fits into the categories that they have here. The yellow on here, which is designated a suburban residential, which again is confusing using the same color, should be turned off and a category should be created called rural residential and it should be turned on for those sections. And one other section, if you look at that zoning map, because I think that's the easiest one to look at, and you'll see city of Hudsonville kind of cuts into us there where it's white. If you look on the west side then of the Hudsonville, their west boundary line, You'll see there some red, some purple, some silver. And then just above that purple there, there's some yellow. That yellow means it's currently designated rural residential. On the future land use map that they've presented, they have that as suburban residential. And you'll see right next to it, right further west of it, that light tan on the zoning map, that's agricultural. Very much agricultural there. And they have it as such. On the future land use map, they have it green. So they've kept the agricultural, but they turned off the rural residential, turned on suburban residential, and that's not transitional at all. Because that subsumes LDR, LMR, and you can get up to three houses, I think it is, per acre. That's not a transitional zoning classification to go right into ag like that. It's currently zoned rural residential. I would advocate that if they create... as I hope this board would support, if they would create a rural residential category for their future land use map like we have under our current zoning classifications and turn it on in those three spots, south of the highway, that block there above the highway that's just below Glen Eagle, and that little block there, I think that's Unity High School, isn't it? Somebody... I don't know what that purple is there, but on the left side there on the west edge of Hudsonville, that little yellow spot next to the agricultural, that too should be rural residential. It would be consistent with our zoning map. I don't think they meant to be inconsistent, but tell me if you had a substantive discussion or Ryan about this. Was there a discussion like, no, we want to, you know.

That is Unity Timbers condo development.

Or Unity Timbers one, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we actually did have a discussion about that, and Gary can speak to it as well. I don't think there was necessarily opposition to creating another designation for more of a rural area, a rural residential area. Ultimately, I think the decision was because we are already limited into what type of utilities can go there, because we already, you know, we know that they're already zoned rural residential as they already exist. And we can sprinkle in some of the more vacant parcels and call the MAG. I would even say, you know, if you look at the Future land use map, you pointed out, hey, there is some in here that are zoned ag. I think Tanya's, you know, her thought on that was those are just like the vacant ones where I felt like it was okay to call those ag, whereas the rest of them are more of a real residential. There's a home on there. So I don't think there was opposition to it, to creating another designation. It was just in practice. This will probably still serve what our goal is, which is keeping this a more, you know, a less developed area than some of our other neighborhoods.

You say it'll still keep in line with your goal. This doesn't because suburban residential is LDR LMR. That's nowhere near RR.

so were you saying if we create a classification it would be in keeping or you're saying they think this is they thought that in practice because you need utilities to to create a subdivision that this would still in some ways protect it as a more rural area of the township but they weren't necessarily opposed to an additional classification let me speak to that and then um kelly you you can disagree with me on this one maybe some you know john you might agree been at this a while here right

um, winding down. All right. My last shot of the master plan. I've seen how this works. You put that in there and go, yeah, but they don't have utilities. Developer comes along and goes, I'll bring the utilities out to this property. And you got it in suburban residential. I'll pay for the utilities. I'll get it there. You don't have to worry about it. I'll bring them. They'll be there. And now I want you to rezone that because the utilities are there. And it says your future land use map says suburban residential. I'll die in this. So I don't, you know, create a category before we we create something that's inconsistent but say yeah but it doesn't matter because we can't do it now anyway and that's against my own self-interest i live down in that corner of the township if i could split my land up believe me i'd make a lot of money i'm sure um but that's not it'd be inconsistent with my position about the northwest part or anywhere else you know where we have some open space i think people are saying try to Be protective of that. I want to know when I enter the township and when I leave it. I don't want to know it just by a green sign and have houses all the way up to that edge and beginning with the next, you know? So my soapbox a little bit.

That suburban way that was brought up, I was kind of lost in the woods on that whole thing, too. So it's like, why are we just going for a residential? Yeah.

This could be useful, too, in the future if you were to look at it and say, you know that area up in the northwest quadrant that we just blanketed as ag because we didn't have an RR and yet there is some RR up there and whatever. It could be useful eventually where you go, okay, let's put a little bit of RR up there, too. But that classification, since there's a reluctance to change the definition of ag because it carries too much weight with it elsewhere in the master plan, it would just create a lot of rolling effect. Then just create RR. the RR, consistent with your current zoning, consistent with the use that's made out there, and let's not get hung up on, well, we gotta call it something, let's call it this, you know?

Keep in mind the Northwest Quadrant. If Grand Valley comes across Fillmore and buys that property, all bets are off, they can do whatever they want. There's no zoning, they don't even get a building from us, they do whatever they want to. They can get utilities there, and they've got big pockets, You can spend all the time you want on this plan you want to. They can buy that whole business up and build a campus.

Yeah. That might be your argument to say allow some level of residential just to keep them away or something. Well, it's been talked about.

You know, you build the buffer, you solve the problem. But I'm just saying schools and colleges can do whatever they want without even getting a permit.

I miss the old definition of ag that had that element of rural residential because it's useful up there. If you just make it ag, plain ag, then yeah, that becomes a little more problematic. But I'm focused on what they've designated right here in these three spots.

It makes sense. I think to Gary's point, what I would argue, I actually don't disagree with you, Jim, for the record.

No, I think that we are missing.

I think I understand what you're saying, Ryan, and I do sort of understand that it would technically work in practice. But it's a little bit of a risk, and I don't think it hurts to have that rural residential designation. But to Gary's point, if we are going to introduce a rural residential designation into this future land use map where it doesn't exist, I don't know that I would stop at just this location. I also don't know that the entirety of this suburban residential area adjacent to the city of Hudsonville should outright just become rural residential. I wonder if

It is now, though, right?

Right, but I guess what I'm saying is I don't know if we should just go all straight back to ag. I wonder if you're going to introduce rural residential, if there's a combo, ag, rural residential, and suburban residential, because I would say that having a dense condo project, you might argue that the adjacent properties nearest it could be appropriately future land use as suburban residential so there might be an interesting combination to look at here but I guess what I heard maybe Gary getting at and what I would support is if we're going to introduce rural residential then I would think that there might need to be a further look in the northwest quadrant to consider some transitional pieces. If you're not going to just outright call it all agricultural preserve, there may be pieces adjacent to existing development or right at the corner where we anticipate maybe needing some buffering from whatever is happening. It might be an interesting thought to consider a few rural residential parcels to encourage the transition in that area as well. So I would say if we're gonna introduce it, it might need to be a little bit more of a holistic review with the rural residential addition.

Anyone else? That's a hot topic. I'll finish, I think I'm finishing here with this. The third to last page I think is where that last issue that we were discussing ends and we pick up with what again I would call somewhat of a correction. Minette pointed out here that the overlay for PUDs was turned off and should be added back for all the PUDs. So you can't on the future land use map, you right now can't see that layer. And I don't think there's an objection on PC's part. I think it just got, right Ryan? I mean it just got turned off, yeah. That was letter B. The information below was previously presented for revision, was revised incorrectly. Yeah, you understand that part, right, Ryan, where she's identifying these different areas. They're not all listed there, but...

So, quick point on that. Not all of these, I would say, were revised incorrectly. Some of them were discussed and specifically left on, but we can kind of go through them, certainly.

Yeah, why don't you? Yeah, so let's see.

First one here. This one, I think... We can definitely change.

Third to last page. Third to last page.

This starts with kind of the senior or Waterford place, right? Is that what you're looking at?

That? Mm-hmm.

Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yep, so you've got the... Let's see... looking at this here these two these two parcels are commercial right by waterford i think that's that definitely i agree with um you've got waterford obviously we've got the pud and then You're looking at these ones here in particular. So these are the zoning class, the designation, a step up from suburban residential. I think this is actually would be included in your area you were talking about for rural residential. So if there was a new category,

Your pointer, you got the pointer on there, right?

Yeah, I don't know if you can see. So these two here, specifically, but keep in mind when they said, when they decided at their meeting to leave these as neighborhood residential, the rationale was it's close to a freeway. I think Tanya was just looking for areas of the township that were vacant, that could potentially serve this kind of development. Think about, you know, A LITTLE BIT MORE LIKE WHAT'S GOING ON AT GLEN EAGLE. GLEN EAGLE IS A SIMILAR DESIGNATION TO WHAT THAT WOULD LOOK LIKE. BUT THERE WAS ACTUALLY SOME TREPIDATION FROM SOME PEOPLE ON THE PLANNING COMMISSION. I THINK ULTIMATELY THEY WENT WITH TANYA'S ADVICE. BUT IF THERE'S A NEW RURAL RESIDENTIAL DESIGNATION, THAT COULD ALSO POSSIBLY FIT THERE BASED ON THE EXISTING MAP. I don't know if there's any further thoughts on that piece. It sounded like, you know, if you're going to propose a change, you would be in favor of it, just kind of this whole area kind of being that new rural residential designation. Okay. Also, we've got a commercial area here that is actually zoned industrial. So there is some industrial... that kinda right in here. So we've got Rosewood here. Here's Waterford as well. These were changed from industrial in the future land use map to more of a lighter commercial. And so it's pointed out in this document of, hey, this was missed. This was supposed to be switched back to industrial. In fact, the Planning Commission did wanna keep this commercial. They felt like, you know, we've got some industrial, it's close to some residences over here and over here. We wouldn't mind some more just general commercial in this area specifically. And if somebody does, it is zoned industrial, so you don't have to rezone it if you don't want to. But if a developer was interested in maybe a lighter commercial in some of those areas, we'd be open to that. And so that was left on there not changed.

Any thoughts about that one?

I agree with that. And if you read through the resident surveys, it was a pretty hot topic after housing was just more commercial opportunity throughout the community.

Yeah, definitely. I would say that's something that could be removed, if you will. Sure. Yeah. OK. From the point of concern. OK.

one i missed that i just noticed as i was kind of looking through some of these was in lowing woods here i believe these are part of the lowing woods pud right in here so these are not these are not agricultural these two specifically you make a note about that yep i got a note about that one in here as well so but just wanted to point that out that i'll include that with the possible revisions for the Planning Commission that they get to see.

It's super important that you're in here and in there, Ryan, because you can translate things that we're talking about in the specifics, right?

Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

What's the next one, or was there that you wanted to specifically, did we look at all of them just now? That's, I believe, all of them that were in here. And then that very last page there, the info below is presented for revisions and was not revised correctly. There again, that seemed to be a mistake. Is that what you were just hitting? Am I wrong? Okay, sorry, I thought it was one of the pages at the bottom, the previous page. Okay, then that one is not incorrect, and we could retract that comment. Okay. I've just gone through my list. Gene, you had asked earlier, hey, I got a list. Is this a good time for, anybody need facilities? Everybody okay? Do we keep plowing? Not meaning to suggest that we have to go a long time yet, but I just want to be sure I'm being sensitive. Good, so, all right. I've just gone through my list. What I'm going to hope to present here for my own part as it relates to what we send back to planning at the end of this discussion is I'm going to recommend that we, you know, if we can get a consensus, that we present to the Planning Commission this update memorandum and the two documents I created, both one having to do with the rural residential designation and where, as well as the one having to do with the farm preservation language, subject to some comments that were made on the point you just made about maybe looking at the western edge of Hudsonville, whether they might want to say, hey, certain of those by the unity timbers, I think that's a point to consider if they want to say, well, you know, I think we carve out certain of those. And then I think Kelly made a good point when it came to what I drafted for the farmland language. She said, try to clarify that it doesn't prohibit some form of housing because it currently exists in rural residential and in ag. So I think her view was it seems to squash the idea that there's any residential in there. I guess they could take that into account in terms of how they want to tweak that. All right. The floor is someone else's.

for it gene okay um page 42 on the georgetown township parks um that last line on the eighth avenue park it says new pickleball courts are planned for this park of 2026. as far as i know they're we don't have nothing planned there and i don't know if we really want that line in there yeah i i did not see it i got this thing marked i did not remember seeing Pickleball, where is it? Page 42? Page 42 on the 8th Avenue Park.

If it was a carryover or something, I would think they didn't stick. Would they? Did you intentionally talk about that?

No, that was a good catch by Gene. I've got Gene's list as well. Oh, you do? You gave his list? Yeah, I do have Gene's list, and Gene, if you want to just go through them, otherwise I might be able to quickly just kind of pull them off. That's a good point.

Keep going. Next one is Maplewood Park, just below that. I think it still says in there that we do charge. There is an entry fee for non-residents and I think we don't charge anymore.

Good catch.

And then it does say opportunities for improvement, including new coding and tennis courts, basketball, sand volleyball courts need maintenance. I think that whole thing should be eliminated and say that we now do have two brand new tennis courts and two pickleball and if people read that, we want them to go to the park and use the facilities. That's the reason why we got them.

He's just pointing out things that we didn't remove like Pickleball Quartz City at the Avenue or maybe we'd park charging entry fees and stuff. And you've got a list, right?

I do have this, yeah.

You're on a roll, Gene. I'm on a roll. Page 44 is a big one. It's talking about Rosewood Park and it says we do have a wooded area there, but if I'm not mistaken, didn't we pretty much ELIMINATE THAT WOODEN AREA NOW, OR IS THERE STILL A LITTLE BIT THERE? IT'S STILL THERE? THERE'S A LITTLE... YEAH, IT'S STILL THERE. IT ONLY CUT A LOT OF IT DOWN THERE, SO I DON'T KNOW. BUT THAT WAS NOT A BIG DEAL AT ALL. SO LEAVE THAT IN, THEN.

LEAVE THAT ONE IN.

YEAH, WE CAN. THAT'S FINE. PAGE 46. on the public safety. I know Manette said something about the two firemen and stuff, which I do, but on the public safety part of it, Georgetown also has full-time traffic, which is all right. The township contracts with sheriff's office for paramedic unit, handles our emergencies. They also respond to general policing. That is no longer a valid statement. We do not have them and they are not doing both. so you could almost eliminate those two lines or put something in there that the fire department is handling those situations those now or or something and i did uh i have something with the roundabouts like manette did so that one's pretty much taken care of the only other one's just really uh typing error on page 46 and i did bring it to tanya when i went to one of the planning commissions She put the Chicago Drive U.S. 12. It should be U.S. 121. And she said that she was doing another master plan of somebody else that had a U.S. 12, so it got kind of stuck in there.

Really good, Gene. End of your list? You guys know Gene's a voracious reader. Do you love reading the 224 pages, or was it different than the novels?

Wow, I read it mostly out loud to my husband on a road trip.

He was like, you're supposed to keep him awake.

He's like, I don't need to hear all this. I have just two quick more technical wording issues. Page 44, actually just one word issue. Page 44 under Pioneer Park, it just bothered me that she called it a baseball court. Oh, yeah. And then I also felt the same way about the picture on page 45. There's a bajillion better pictures of Hager Park. Outside of wording, outside of wording, Jim, you really captured a lot of thoughts reading through it. I do like the idea of adding in the rural residential text and designation. I think that's really important. I do want to clarify that I don't necessarily feel like we need to do an update under the Northwest Quadrant section. But should there be a consensus to support it, I'd like to just make sure it doesn't sound like it prohibits single family. I just wanted to clarify that.

I just have one thing. I was going through it, and I did sit at a couple of meetings when we were, I guess, reviewing the master plan. And so I kind of went back to those notes there just to do some cross-referencing to see how things came through or planned out. And one of them that I came across was under housing. And a minute ago, Kelly said about how being crystal clear about things is very, very important. and I wasn't gonna bring it up, but now based on that, I think it's probably important that we do. Second paragraph under housing basically states the township should work with property owners. What page? 109, sorry. All right. 109, different types of housing for the community, different housing styles should include attached single family housing like duplexes, triplexes, which can be also called townhouses, accessory dwelling units or adus i thought that was something we talked about in the planning commission review of the master plan that adus were something we weren't in favor of i guess i'm not in favor of them for a couple reasons number one i i i don't see how they fit in georgetown township personal opinion um and then again That's probably something, if it is going to be in there, should be crystal clear on what an ADU is. Is it a trailer in the back? Is it an apartment on top of the garage? What is an ADU? And again, I thought that was something we talked in those meetings about probably should be removed or stricken from this section. Again, my personal opinion, and talked to another individual in Byron's Planning Commission, asked him about it, and he says, no, that's something that Byron has been fighting as well, maybe in bigger cities, maybe Wyoming, maybe Grand Rapids, maybe Kentwood, but not in certain townships. He didn't feel it was applicable in their township either, but... That's just, again, that's the only thing that I came across. I did see some of the things that Jean already pointed out with the pickleball courts and some of the parks and things there. And I thought Minette's report was very eye-opening in some areas and very detailed. And she is a treasure to the township. But that's what I had was on the ADUs. Thanks.

I pretty much, you guys already, I'm not going to, beat the horse or whatever you call it yeah I already a lot of the yeah the horse is about dead but you guys already covered everything that I was going to bring up as well so I'm kind of on board with what you guys have said and I will say that Minette and Ryan have done a great job and you guys all pointing things out and Kelly pointing you know some things out along with Gary because you guys have a better handle on it too so thank you for that

Yeah, I agree with the ADU thing. I think we've got to be very specific what we think that's going to look like.

I was going to say, if you don't mind, and I think Ryan would echo this, is that, again, we can kind of go back to what this document is. It's just a guiding document. This does not hold a legal standing in terms of what people can or cannot do with their property. It's meant to guide folks. And so when we see something mentioned in here like ADUs, you would then go to the zoning ordinance to say, where's this thing allowed? And it's currently not allowed anywhere in our zoning ordinance. So I'm okay with the way it's worded in here. And the reason I am is because it is mentioned multiple times by residents in the community survey responses. And so I think it's sort of like a general, it's a catch-all to say, here's what some different housing opportunities could look like. But it's not translated in the zoning ordinance as an allowable use currently.

I guess I went to the old master plan. I didn't see any reference to that at all. So this is something new to this master plan. And I thought, OK, if it's going to be in there, it should be defined what it is. Because to me, it's very, very general as is. And you're correct, what does it What are you allowed to do? So it is a guiding document. But now that the wordage or verbiage is in there, it seems to me like it should be something more than just a term. It should be to include or not to include type of thing.

I don't like where you're going with that, Kevin. That's like a plan B to me. I would rather see it struck. It's something that has to be thoughtfully thought. undertaken if it's ever going to happen. I don't, I prefer not. I agree with you.

Why make reference to it? I agree, totally.

Why make reference to it? Those others that are listed, that sentence you read, we have those. We have duplexes, we have townhomes, we've got multifamily homes, we've got assisted living dwellings. I'm fine with all those references. And you're right, the public made comments on it, both pro and con, right? I mean like, I love it, no way, right? It's both sides.

You have to be careful, though. That's a very small sampling. I agree. It's like, what, 400, 450 responses?

But to be fair, yeah.

That's a pretty small sampling.

I will say, though, we have an incredibly strict zoning ordinance about what the definition of single family means. And I want to explain this just for the record, is that when you have a single family home that contains a secondary cooking facility, you have a kitchen in your basement, It is only allowable on a waterfront lot. Otherwise, you are deemed to potentially have a two-family household, and we make you sign an affidavit stating that you are truly only a single-family home. So now we're staring down the abyss of Family units changing pretty dramatically, right? We can see the data in here that says family sizes are approximately 2.86 members per household. Doing my part. But that actual household consists of closer to four units per people. And it specifically states in here it's because we are seeing multi-generational living. So mother-in-law, grandma, child comes home from college and you want to create essentially like an apartment style living, secondary entrance with their own cooking and sleeping facilities, that's an accessory dwelling unit. So there are ways to do ADUs that are not the scary shed in your backyard with a transient tenant living in it. There are healthy ways to do it and I think we need to be cognizant of the dynamics of the way we all live are not the dynamics of the way everybody else wants to or can live or can afford to live. And I think it's important that we don't project our personal housing values onto the rest of the township. I think it's important that we understand that there's a lot of different family types, family sizes are shrinking, the way people are living is changing, and I think there is potentially a world in which ADUs can exist within our community, that exist within the single family roof, and it still is technically an ADU. So I like it in there because it is mentioned in our survey. It is, whether we like it or not, a realistic housing type. And I don't think this is saying that it's necessarily allowable. And I think it's very clear that our zoning ordinance doesn't allow it.

I think that feels, and I haven't looked up the definition, but it feels like it stretches that definition to some degree. What you just described, is something that we can work on and have looked at before, right? I mean, that's something that could be looked at, but I think the ordinary use of that term is something separate, because it says the word accessory. You can read it both ways, but...

So Manette would argue anything that is accessory to the principal use. It doesn't have to be a separate structure. It's just accessory to the principal use.

The thing is, though, the statistics... The average person that has grandpa and grandma live with them, they only live there six years. So once you spent the money on that, and grandpa and grandma pass away or go to the rest home, then they're like, what do we do with it? Now you gotta police it. They're gonna run into somebody, I guarantee it. So you're like, okay, now you became a duplex. I always have concerns about that, because there's property rights, For this guy, there's property rights for the guy. I use this example. I really like a fire, but when the fire becomes smoky and it goes across the property line, now it's that guy's problem too. So I look at ADUs being that problem. I really do. I think it's going to be a problem that we have to deal with later on if we're not careful putting it together properly because 10 years from now, It's just going to be a duplex.

Wholeheartedly agree. And I do think that that's a valuable discussion when or if we ever consider adding it into the zoning ordinance. I think for the purpose tonight, do we need to take a straw vote as to whether we want to strike the word ADU completely or whether we're fine understanding that it's not an allowable use and it simply approaches the topic.

Yeah, I appreciate the thought of straw vote.

don't normally think of making formal motions but if we did straw votes if you want to call that it's a way of saying to them i i just want to be clear with planning commission that's our audience right so if we took a straw vote versus a formal you know motion because i don't know it's really a formal motion is what we're looking for so straw vote on that you guys want to take a straw vote i think i think we should And I hear your point. Like, one of the things I think, Kelly, is you can both change the zoning ordinance, you can PUD stuff when you want stuff you can't. I mean, there are ways to get these things done. So the question is, do we want to make a singular pronouncement in a document of this size without any definition around it and just kind of go, boop, you know, for someone to latch onto? I don't know. It's each person's opinion. Are you ready to make a straw vote on that? Because I think she's right. We should.

I'd like to see us do it, yes.

To a straw vote? Yes. Okay, all right. Have you feel like you've vetted enough, everybody? Okay, all right. I'm gonna let you, because you typically do it.

So the vote would be, we always try to make right positive votes. So it would be in favor of keeping it. So that's the straw vote. In favor of keeping that sentence structure the way it's presented.

That particular phrase, yeah. Because the rest of the sentence, I don't think anybody objects to. All right, all right.

So to include ADUs, that would be the vote.

Leave it as is. Okay.

I'd be no.

No, I'd like to take it out.

No.

Okay, I'd like to take it out as well.

I vote to keep it.

I agree with Kelly. I think it's a guideline. I think we've got enough things in place.

I would say leave it as is. I'd like to have it taken out. I think it could lead to a lot of problems in the future.

Here's an easy straw vote. What do you guys think of the list that Jean had? Everybody in consensus with these items? Yes. All right.

Yeah, because I had some of those on my list.

You had a couple you pointed out. In Kelly's list, yes, right? Yeah. Okay. Others that haven't had a chance yet who wish to bring up items yet? I don't want to force anybody. Okay. So on mine, I'm trying to think of how to phrase it. I would, because I know they know how to work with you, Ryan. They know how to work with Minette. You guys understand the language. I think we all saw, as I took that time painstakingly to go through it, that 80% of that is yep, yep, yep. Can we, on the technical changing mistakes or language part, we can agree we want them to incorporate that. I understand that very last page was not a mistake, okay, so to that degree that would be eliminated, that concern right there. The two adjuncts that go outside of this document are the ones I presented, and you have copies of, and I'm not married to exact language. The one for the rural residential idea, which Kelly did support, for the record, isn't exact verbiage. It's just descriptions of areas that we mean to include in this rural residential. And the comment to that by Kelly was, and the comment you can take to them too, is maybe we're not thinking specifically of the parcels over there by you know, by unity timbers or whatever, where you may go, oh, okay, you know. Yeah.

Even transitional pieces of Northwest Quadrant, right? Immediately adjacent to development.

So can we advance this thought to them?

I believe so. I don't want to speak for everybody, but I like that.

All right. The last thing was the farmland preservation, and Kelly likes the language as they presented it. I do, too. I kept nearly all of it when I presented it. Here again, I'm not, Ryan, I'm not like wedded to it must exactly, but I did take time to think through this, and it is meaning to make a point that I don't want to get lost, even with Kelly's clarification that, hey, don't make it so stringent that you get the impression you can't live there. So with that, I'm not saying adopt my language. I'm saying can we pass these thoughts to them that I've articulated here? and with Kelly's qualifier and just say, work through that. We're trying to be a little more, I don't know, a little more emphatic. And the one, that paragraph I drafted there that's highlighted in bold, I kind of feel, other than, you know, if there was a tweak here or there, I kind of feel strongly that what's lacking is, you know, and they may not like that. I mean, that may be one they go, that's a little too strong.

I won't go to that meeting. I just won't go to that meeting.

So with all those, you know, sort of context, contextual comments, can we at least have them consider what I've written here?

I would say I don't agree with it. But I'm one opinion.

Anyone else? Okay. All right. Thank you. And thank you, everybody. I love this board because you can talk about stuff without making it personal. And it is not personal. It's not personal to the Planning Commission. So we thank them. And I don't think we've touched but a percent of what they're doing here, you know? So... This is not a rewrite by any stretch. This is a necessary clarifications and a little bit of substance too, you know?

You call it perfections.

What's that?

You call it perfections.

Yeah.

What you do. You make perfections.

Okay. Back to our agenda. Can we go there?

Yes.

All right. The audience says please. All right. Item... I'll scroll back down again. My computer shut down. Item 14... Resolution that came out of finance for revising fire department rates and guidelines for charges and accessible costs. This is something that, yeah, we've been doing for a number of years and haven't really updated of late. Ryan, thank you. Are you taking off? Hey, thanks a lot.

Yeah, thank you, Ryan.

Justin or, you know, Gene, you're both in, you're both a, 50-year guy from the forest as well as a guy in the Finance Committee. Any context you want to bring to this motion and these rates and the revision?

No, these have been in place for a long time. I just want to make sure, I guess for the record, that if you read it over the first time, it's like, I think people almost in the water think, you know, it's like they're charging everything we go to on now in the fire department, which is not the case. You're not getting charged for every fire call the firemen go to. This is when you have that arson case or you have that DUI that has somebody pinned in and ends up being in court or something like that that the township needs some protection on and the documents that they do have to get and things like that. This is what this covers. This is not saying that we're going to charge for every house fire or every car fire or something that we go to. It's been in place a long time. The only time that we ever had anything, and I think I brought up at the finance committee too, is false alarms at some places. Got to be a real issue for a while, and after two or three, you know, it's one thing if there's actually, you know, every six months or something, they have a detector or something that goes off, and it's a false alarm, but when they get to just the point where you gotta go there night after night, and nobody's, coming out to fix it and they're just ignoring you, then it's time to do something on that too. It keeps everybody a little bit honest that way. Time.

Anyone else? If we compare these costs to other local townships, that's kind of what we're... We're in line with what's going on with everybody else.

Actually, the pricing model from 20 years ago to now hasn't changed much under the FEMA guidelines. And we use this for when our utility companies are doing horizontal boring for fiber optic internet and they hit a gas line and we make them pay. And we have a lot of bills for that, unfortunately.

I actually might rent the utility squad at 75 bucks an hour to haul lumber. Can I get a driver for that?

Okay. Hearing nothing else, this is a roll call vote.

We don't even have a motion.

Oh, sorry. It's getting late. Is there a motion to approve? So moved.

Support.

Okay. Now moved and approved. Any further comments? Hearing none, let's call roll call vote.

Grassman? Yes. DeWitt?

Yes.

Schwamm?

Yes.

Kelly?

Yes.

Waringa?

Yes.

Papers, yes. Belding?

Yes.

All in favor? I'll be right back.

Thank you.

Yep.

Number 15, resolution setting fees for appeals. Is there a motion to approve a resolution that would set fees for appeals? Some support. Okay, specifically appeals of fees and charges related to the water system and the sewer service, to be clear, right, as you read through. So this is not, you know, oh, explain my bill to me, I'm unhappy, or what did you change now? This is situations, and Justin, you can better explain what you run into, but these are situations where people with issues with their own service get upset at us because they have a bill. that is a result of their own negligence or failure, and it takes a lot of time and costs us money. So give an example or two.

The most recent example was the property at 48th and Baldwin, where there was a transaction that happened between... owner and a former owner, and there was a dispute over the deferred water line that was adjacent to the property. And we kind of got sucked in the middle of it. By having this appeal, we can at least recoup our costs, so if we get stuck in a court battle, we have some leverage to say, well, if we get stuck or sucked into this, you're gonna have to pay our lawyer fees and our appeal fees, so. It keeps the rest of our citizens from paying for this type of service through our law department.

Is that based on the outcome, though? I mean, let's say they prevailed.

Either way, in this circumstance that we recently had, there was a dispute between the two and I think we won ahead, but it did take us a considerable amount of time and money to fight it. And get to the bottom of that.

My question, we lost an appeal.

Since I've been here, I don't think we've lost, there's been appeal.

If we lost an appeal, though, would they still incur these charges? No, we refund their money, the $25.

So if it was our fault and our responsibility, then we would reimburse them the 25 bucks.

Okay, that makes sense. Yep.

Ready for me to call the roll?

Yes, please.

Schwalm?

Yes.

Waringa? Yes. Kuyper is a yes. Feldink?

Yes.

Grassman? Yes. Kelly?

Yes.

DeWitt?

All in favor? Yes. All right, thank you. Item 16, right? Is that correct? 16? Yes. Yes, all right. Update from Justin on our moratorium runs until some date in November.

Correct.

Can you just give us a high-level overview?

Yeah, so this was a request that we had from a Skyper, and I kind of did like a gas station type of thing where we're at and where we're going. In the moratorium we outline these fundamental areas, the population growth, traffic, electrical grid, fire department, water system, master plan, and zoning ordinances. Some of them are ongoing and some of them we have one that's done. So we had Consumers Energy that came in here and they talked about their plan to build a substation to supply the needs for the electrical GRID IN THE FUTURE. SOME OF THEM ARE STILL BASICALLY IN TRANSITION MODE. SO THE TRAFFIC, THE ROAD COMMISSION IS PUTTING TOGETHER THE FIVE-YEAR PLAN. CURB RECOVERY WILL BE AT THE ROAD COMMISSION. WE'LL BE AT OUR MEDIAN AT 9-14, SO A MONTH FROM NOW. OUR ELECTRICAL GRID, I TALKED ABOUT CONSUMER CIVILIAN SUBSTATION AT 36 IN BALDWIN. The fire department, full-time fire will start on April 1st. We'll evaluate six months of data in September. Additional staffing and budgeting for buildings may be needed and we're going to dive into our budget here next and you'll see why we need to basically have this for the future because a considerable amount of money that we're setting aside for a future station to build out. Water system. Meetings with the engineers and DPW department to discuss capital improvement plan and the future bonding needs. We're going to discuss that and utilities. Currently our system is spiking higher than our 1988 agreement of three to one. This being higher rates for the current rate users of the system. Wyoming optimization study is due at the end of August. So I double checked with Wyoming and they're gonna have us send us a copy. So I got the contract ratio of why our water costs so much and why it will continue to cost exponentially more in the future. And in the last couple years, our system is using beyond capacity. So we talked about adopting and encouraging residents to odd even, and everything is over time, right? We can have a wet summer when people don't irrigate as much, but other years we can have an exponentially dry summer and it's pushing our demand ratio higher. So we almost need more static demand in the wintertime and less peak demand in the summertime. And there's a different graph that City of Wyoming gave me, is this one, is our peak hour demand to average day. So what this is, they use this to look at basically the pumping stations. Even our three to one ratio on the average day has been going down, but our peak hour, so that prime time between 5 a.m. and roughly 9, 10 a.m., that prime time is basically straining the system harder. Fast forward to potential agreements that we're still trying to navigate with our attorney is that these ratios will have a significant impact to our rates for the future. So this is something that we need to basically keep close and keep monitoring it on. Master plan, again, we spent a lot of time going through tonight. It was a good session, work session. We go to the planning commission. The idea is to adopt the master plan, the full board at the November 9th board meeting. And then zoning ordinance. Numerous zoning ordinances and additional policies have been and will be going to the board for review and adoption if they're approved. So we have a lot of things in motion and we have a lot more work to do. So I guess, Ms. Piper, are you inquiring about this and if you have any further questions or if anyone on the board has further questions.

No, I really appreciate it. My comment was, you know, there was kind of a laundry list of items and why we were going into the moratorium. And I just think it's really important to get updates on it. I really appreciate you putting that together. It helps kind of understand why we did what we did, where we're going, and what the next few months hopefully we'll continue to uncover.

All right. Agreed.

Thanks, Justin.

All right. Item 17, your draft budget. It's historically been the first meeting in August, and I think we already set the dates, which are reiterated in this week's agenda, but the dates for the budgetary process and the adoption at the end of September. And typical then is the first meeting in August is that we get the budget to begin the process of the deep dive, right? And I know we got it early enough that a lot of you have begun to read or have read it. And the game that was played fantastically was hunt around for Dan used to present it to us. He was faithfully right on time. But it's like we would hunt for the changes, right? So you go through, okay, that didn't change, that didn't change, that didn't change. Okay, that one too. What is that all about, right? We go through and find 15 things. And Justin thought, hey, why don't I just present it to you tonight, and we're going to have a work session and a public hearing and all that. But let me help point out right away, what you're gonna see that's not status quo. So you, I mean, still read it all and everything, but I'm gonna summarize, he's saying, what you're gonna notice has changed in this presentation. So take it away, Justin.

Yeah, we're gonna do the, my... standards of draft budget tonight. We're gonna take a pause in two weeks for the master plan, and then we're going to hit it hard on the 14th and the 28th. We need to have it done by the 28th so we can lock in our millage for the next year. high points general fund the total requested appropriations are eighteen million eight ninety seven seventy two budget assumes a millage rate of two to five no change from the current year assumes no federal funding or state legislative directive spending items I drove to Lansing twice try to get ten million dollars for pipes 1.1 million dollars for a fire truck and I was denied Budget assumes a contribution from the fund balance of $4,775,085. Budget increase of 3%. Keep in mind, last year's budget was a decrease of 4%. But I can't cut any amount anymore we're kind of then i have to cut services the fund balance contribution be shrunk by 1443 113 if the millage rate up went up to 2.75 fund balance contribution would be 3.3 million a 0.5 millage rate increase of 70 dollars and 55 cents a year based on the average home in georgetown township was 141 100 The water sewer fund, the total requested appropriations is a staggering $28 million. Budget projections expenditures exceed revenue by $9.8 million. And this is because we're doing the final phase of the transmission, of the third, of the 48th transmission line. Looking at our budget, we can't cash fund this. So we're starting the conversations of how do we keep cash flow alive and how do we not We need to have cash flow to keep paying our contractors. High level view, capital expenditures and major items. So these are items that can be added, and again, this is not a mandate to spend, this is appropriation. Township, none. Assessing, none. Elections, none. The biggest ticket items happen, two additional deputies or a combination of the deputy and some more overdime coverages. Lieutenant Grenzer, who's gonna help us out in two weeks, talk about that at our services. Station 2 future rehab. I allocated $500,000 for the next five years so that in five years we can remodel the station or the building and remodel the whole building of Station 2. Earlier this year we purchased the smaller functionally obsolete building next to this fire station. Station 2 design and specifications. I like to allocate and use Lakewood Construction to get all the design specs, engineering, so that in five years we have a plan in place so we know clear expectations of how much it's going to cost and what it's going to look like. Station two fire engine replacement of roughly $1.1 million and a station one replacement of $75,000 that will be rolled into our fleet. So that alone for public safety is 2.1 million.

Fire engine, just real quick, Justin. Of course, we just got one this past year. Is this replacing one that's just...

It's 28 years old. So that's a board discussion. I allocated it. I went to Lansing and advocated from the state. We look at it. And this is the conversation that needs to take place.

I know you're not looking for deep dive tonight, but the 28-year-old Fire truck, is it operating?

It's operating, yeah. For me to give specifics, I think we'd have Chief DeWitt, and we could take a deep dive on the 14th. Building zoning, none. Cemetery, west expansion. So we're continually almost burying 300 people a year, and our cemetery's filling up. And we have roughly a million dollars for the west expansion that we're gonna budget for. A columbarium and concrete, $35,000. It gives people an alternative to bury their loved ones. It's a little bit more economical. And a utility vehicle that's 25 years old that we would replace. Drain. Failed and failing infrastructure will be addressed. On March 10 of this year, it put the majority of our drains in Georgetown Township to the test. I think majority of Georgetown Township is getting a free roof, new siding, and all that damage and rain, and even the two inches we got last night, it's taxing our drains. I will, next month, we're gonna have Joe Bush's office. There's a pump station on Port Sheldon and 12th. They need to replace it. And I don't know if it's gonna happen this year or next year.

Just different than the orphan drains?

Different than the orphan drains. We're going to have that too. That's coming too. And double budgeted, what does that phrase mean? Yes, I double budgeted them out. So normally it was $300,000. I'm budgeting $640,000. We took a break from highways and street, or from basically local roads. Local roads, We need to do it, $2 million. Sidewalks and bike paths, we spent a little bit more than our half million this year, so we're gonna tone it down, and I have a project that would cost approximately $360,000. Senior transportation, there's no grants available. Senior center, we need a dishwasher. Parks, park amenities, park benches. After we get our sporting courts and our different courts up, maybe we can look at additional park benches and other items to facilitate a higher level and better service at our parks. Woodcrest Park Veterans Memorial, we started that process. Pioneer Park and Pioneer Safety Surfacing, this is an item that is 25 years old, but this is an item that we can look at and say maybe it's an extra problem. Our bombardier, we're down to one, and the current one is 27 years old. I can't guarantee it's gonna last for a couple more years. To put an order for a bombardier, they have to go to Canada, and you have to put them in March of the year to get it by October. Veterans Township banners. I have a lot of good feedback from residents about the banners that we put up. And I know we talked about maybe do it for one year, but it's an option that we do it for a second year. And then a library self-checkout. And the water sewer count, which is separate from the general fund. We are required by the state of Michigan to do a 2027 reliability study of $30,000. GT4 booster station, $340,000. 24 have water transmission, third phase, $10 million. That's going to go to bid here in the next four weeks. There's a chance that it's going to be a staggered, so it might be a 27 and 28. We got to know, we'll know here more in the next six weeks. We kind of have water main, this is south of Barry to Jackson, has one of the worst water quality in Ottawa County. and then our water meters. Our old water system is a three to five years remaining. Our KP system vendor said, we cannot support this anymore. You need to make a plan. The good news is we've been steadily working on it and we believe the next two years we'll have 90% of them completed. So that's the high level view of the budget for 2027. And again, going back to our timeline, you can ask questions for me in the next month, and then we're going to hit it hard here on September 14th.

I know we're not going to do a deep dive now, but you showed what you thought the fund balance would be required for transfer for this upcoming year under the budget. Is that with the budget, including all the items you just listed, right? Yes. Okay. And in the past, we would be presented with a budget that was conservative in terms of revenue projections and overly high on expected expenditures. Correct. Is that still your approach with this?

Correct. I did conservative on the income allocation that we have. I think there's one lady that was, she said she was in the mortgage industry. Well, under Headlee, we're capped on what our values go up every year. And the state of Michigan has set their budget for next year already. Compared to last year, they're still struggling that. And we lost $120,000 for this next fiscal year. So the 100 homes that we bought, the expanding tax base, was just ate up by the state of Michigan taking away $120,000 from us. It's a fight.

We lost more than that last year, didn't we? Yes. $200,000 last year and $100,000 this year?

Yeah, they do different allocations. And so we have 56,000 residents, and then you look at a different community like Hamtramck, They have, you know, whatever, $28,000. And there's a disproportional amount of money based on violence. There's a huge table that they came up with. And so it's not per resident. They have all these factors the state put into it. And, again, we lose. We get the short end of the stick.

Okay. Stepchild again.

I, uh...

I appreciate that overview, Justin, so that all of us, as you dive in, you have your cheat sheet, if you will. Budget process has been kicked off. Anything else right now on that? And then we move to the second public comment period. For those who are here yet this evening, welcome to step forward and address the board for up to three minutes. Is it? Oh, sorry.

You're good. Pete Plowman, 6877 Creek Ridge Court. A couple things, a couple kudos so you don't think I'm a total jerk. Gary, you had a very good point on the, I think it was ADU units. It's a crack in the door for not the kind of housing I think we want in Georgetown. We are the American dream. People who come here It's their third or fourth house, and they stay here for 40 years, raise their family. So we cannot be all things to all people. Kelly, I want to say thank you for your description of land use on the farmer, if they want to divide it for their families. I appreciate that. Jim, I'm in agreement with you that you have to keep developers on a short string because they will take control of everything. um because we don't have the infrastructure the roads and so on and so forth so that's very important the main points i want to get to is that um oh one other thing the Administrator Pat Waterman talked about contracts that they want to maybe help us review, maybe redo. That could be a good thing for us to do, to take a look at two of them. One, our assessment contract with Ottawa County. Since we don't meet the requirement for a level four assessor, maybe we can redo that one and save maybe a million or 550,000. That would help to go with two budgets. The other one is to maybe help us with the road commission and Wyoming water line. Maybe we can use them as leverage or help us through that process to redo that contract or, if you will, covenant with them. I think that would be a good avenue as well. And we're looking at it with our lawyer who we're talking with. The other thing I want to talk about is specifically about the tiered water system, the 12 minimum units. I think you need to rethink that. Last time I spoke on this was like two months ago. Amy and Kelly had some positive thoughts. Maybe you should bring that up in discussion, at least start that discussion. It's been two months now. The discussion hasn't started. It's really hurting seniors, people on limited incomes. I think you really need to do it. And as we just heard from the water part of it, There's huge usage on sprinkling on some of the quote-unquote power users, so please do that. The other thing I want to ask you to take a look at, have you increased the rates of which we collect taxes for the schools? That rate should go up if you haven't renegotiated that with them. And we should at least make up for the $136,000 we paid to crossing guards or have the schools pay for that. and keep the rate the same, however that pans out. And one last thing, I would make a recommendation that we hold the utilities meeting in this room for the 20 plus people in here. It's going to be a tight fit in the other room. And hey, maybe we can actually videotape it. Think of your time.

Hello, my name is Schneider. I'm at Hidden Forest Drive, Hudsonville, Michigan. So the few things I want to say is about the additional units. In the last couple months, month after month, there's job losses, job losses, job losses. We pissed everybody off, so we are going to be going into a recession. Having kids at home longer is something that we may need. And January 1st, we do have $500 billion that is being cut from Medicare in that big bill so that billionaires could have more money in their tax rebates. So we will have like one in four nursing homes go down, which is the estimate. So we are going to have people who may have grandparents and they may need a place for them. So that's something maybe just to put in there because how are people going to afford to take care of their grandparents when we get these big cuts, right, that were unnecessary. That's something to think about. The flocks, when you're talking about your costs, maybe we just take those out since that's a Fourth Amendment right violation. I know right now in Oxford, England, which I talked to you guys about before, they now have digital ID and they have flocks and they are charging their people, oh, is it 92 US dollars approximately because they use the pound over there, but it's equivalent to that every single day for them to leave their town. I think that that is nuts. I also think that dynamic pricing to squeeze this for every cent using flock data is also nuts. One of the main people who put money into that area is actually in the Epstein files. It's not being used for kids, obviously. Otherwise, we'd be prosecuting the rapists and murderers in the Epstein files, which we're not doing. And so I don't like a private company having all that data. I don't want it being used to charge us to leave our towns. I don't want it used for dynamic pricing. And if you take them out, it'll actually save money. That might be something to look at. Now, the other thing I'd like to talk about is farming. So we have farmers. We need to protect our farm ground. We need to think creatively of how to protect our farmers. We have a lot of these greenhouses right now that are not being used, okay? And I have, there's quite a bit of information, but the Japanese, we're actually bailing them out of their yen crisis right now. Why are we doing that when we have $39 trillion in debt? We're doing that to keep our own economy afloat. for a little bit longer till we get through the elections once everything pops we are going to have a lot of people who are going to be hungry we no longer log that in this country people who are hungry under this administration and we're cutting stamp benefits and aca benefits so that rich people can have more money the ultra wealthy the billionaires um i think what we could do is talk Get all of our farmers together. Get these greenhouses together. And let's talk about how we can actually do something different than corn. Maybe we do berries. Maybe we do different things where they could actually make more money. We could do business co-ops with the farmers to keep them in business. And that would actually help our local people have cheaper food, and it keeps them in business. Why can't we do something like that? Because I want to keep our farmers. And once it does go to development, then you're screwed. It doesn't come back. We can do things to help our local communities. If you would come talk to me, I have ideas of how we can actually help everybody.

Thank you. Thank you.

Sorry, this is the first time I've been here. So I don't know if my question was answered about why did we go to Wyoming for water? Just curiosity. Why are we using the city of Wyoming and Kent County for water when we're in Ottawa County right next to a lake? I don't understand. So that was one question. Just to address what Justin said earlier, also, yeah, I was in mortgages and real estate for actually almost 40 years. That cap was put on back in 1991, I believe. And that was done. It was a ball and mirror thing. We increased our sales tax from 4% to 6%. We reduced. I lived in East Grand Rapids at the time. When we moved into East Grand Rapids in 1987, our mills were 72 per 1,000. And when that, yes. And when I went to our township to talk about it, they said, quote, unquote, to Now, so I wanted to address that because that cap is there because most people couldn't afford taxes if that cap is removed. A lot of senior citizens, people who've been in their homes for several years, if that went up to half of what the state valuation was, you'd lose a lot of residents here. So I just want to clarify that. I know you know that, but the cap is there for people who have been in their home. It is removed once there's a purchase or a sale, whatever, and then it goes to one half of the sale price so that the state can, they do their taxable value and their state valuation the same at that time. I was talking about the new homes. We have many new homes going up. We have many new condos going up. And those are all being evaluated at one half of their value for the state valuation. I understand you're getting a percentage, but we've had hundreds and hundreds of houses going up. So by far, we should have much more money going into the system. So I think all we're trying to do is figure out Okay, if the water increases, if you want that cap to come off taxes, nobody could, well, several people who live here, when you're saying the, you said the average was 141,000. All right, that's meaning that the house in the state thinks that our houses are worth 280,000. What can you buy in Hudsonville right now for 280,000? I'd ask you that question. You can't. So you're gonna price the community out if you continue. So we're all just trying to keep things down so we can all still afford to live here. That's all.

Thank you.

And I thought the board meeting went really well. Very impressed with a lot of information. I definitely will be back.

Thanks for staying.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Mary Jo Hobb. I live at 2242 Pinewood Street and I'm following up on the flat cameras that were mentioned earlier. I'm here to discuss the two flat cameras that are located that have been installed on either side of Cottonwood, just on Baldwin, just east and west of this major intersection in Jenison that most people drive through every day. Many people have never heard of flat cameras, and they have been placed in our township without the approval of the residents. The two flat cameras that are constantly taking photos of every automobile that drives through that major intersection, taking photos every day, they take photos and record license plate numbers, car makes and models, including identifiers like car rack, car top carriers, Dents, stickers, and windows. Flat cameras are also able to photograph drivers and passengers in the automobiles, including our children. These cameras are located in spots where drivers are regularly stopped for red lights, giving more time to record people and behaviors, all without the permission of those being recorded or photographed. This is a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, The Fourth Amendment requires a warrant signed by a judge for any surveillance, search, and seizure of an American citizen, and you can't do it without cause. Having my activities in my car monitored by a camera, collecting data, and placing it in a pool of data shared by municipalities across the country where other people have been able to access them, is searching and seizing my private personal information with no cause. This data has been improperly used and abused throughout the country by multiple municipalities. I can tell you how in a minute. And the data has been inappropriately accessed by private individuals, employees of municipalities, and who knows who else, including possibly foreign individuals and entities. I am asking that the Georgetown Township Board remove these cameras and any other that I might not know about in Georgetown Township ASAP and refuse to allow any more to be installed in our township. I am asking this board to pass a law that these cameras will not be allowed now or any time in the future because they violate our right to privacy in our own automobiles and they're a violation of our u.s constitution and i guess that's my time thank you thank you

at 3240 baldwin street uh i talked to my family my other siblings and my sister for one where she lived at one time uh at the age a certain age you can't raise your property tax or anything anymore just say it once you get past 75 or 70 you can't raise your property tax yeah i live on social security and a pension that don't ever go up but right now everything i'm doing is going up terrible almost think i have to get a second job to pay for the extras it's getting ridiculous also anything about uh justin with uh power plant, or substation going up. Nothing yet? Okay, well that's, and then, yeah, that's my one thing I was questioning. If you could think about the old senior citizens. Next month, I'll be 87 years old, and I'm still doing pretty good. I hope to live a lot longer. But, you know, the rise of everything just keep going up. It's just ridiculous. I think some of the senior citizens should get some kind of a cut somewhere, you know, because my pension and my Social Security, every time Social Security comes up at the end of the year, they give you a percentage. Most of it's taken out with the Medicare than it depends. So it's not that simple anymore to keep going. Okay, that's my two cents, Ruth.

Thank you.

Okay, you mentioned the Eagles EAGLE.

Could you repeat your name again for me?

You mentioned this.

I'm sorry, could you repeat your name and address again for us? Pardon? Your name and address, please.

Mary Martin, 7376 Pine Grove Drive. Okay, you mentioned you have to answer to the Eagles EAGLE, is that right?

That's the acronym, yep.

Yeah. Well, that's a government agency. well myself i don't trust the government most of the time and i think too uh if the If the board can go against them if they're not doing what they should be doing for the people of this county, you need to stand up for us. And if they go against us, you need to tell them you're not going against this county. You're working for us. You're not working to please them or for them to get their way. I appreciate the board and everything, but like I said, I don't trust this government and they need to answer us and you need to stand up for us.

All right, looks like we're ready to close the second public comment period. Appreciate everyone's discussion. Number 19, discussion and general information. It could be something that you just heard that you wish to respond to, or if there's anything going on, you've attended a conference or anything you wish to update the board on.

I will say thanks to our election workers. you know who work tirelessly our township employees i mean it was you know with the early voting and everything else um so i just want to appreciate that i appreciate manette and ryan and um and me thank you you're welcome yeah yeah yeah you too well i kind of included you in all of our township employees workers whatever Yeah, you stole my thunder a little bit, Amy.

I was just going to tell you that the election went really well. And it's a big deal, right? This year we, the township, had to take on early voting. Two years ago early voting started and the county ran it at four quadrant locations throughout the county and they said no longer. So every single municipality was responsible for their own nine days of early voting. And it is state law, Prop 2 passed. It's nine full days of early voting. We got that question a lot. Can we shorten the times? Can we shorten the days? It is now state law. We looked at coordinating with other municipalities and it didn't work. did their own nine full days of early voting, handled it all. I think it went really well. We had a lot of workers, which is good because November will be busy and this will be a thing forever. So it was a really good opportunity to get lots of people working through the door. And then our election day went really smooth as well. So just a casual 5 a.m. to 1 a.m. day. Exactly.

We need more help. I just want to address you and the water line. We purchased our wire from Wyoming because we have a... No, no, no, it's not back and forth. Go ahead, Gary. I'm just going to explain to you that we've had a contract with Wyoming since 1967, I believe, to purchase our water from them. So currently they're running a new water pipeline from Lake Michigan at more than $700 million dollars. So our contract's always been with them. And actually we are, Ottawa County owns 49% of that water line. Wyoming owns 51%. And we purchase our water with Ottawa County from the Wyoming water line.

I can't address what he's saying.

No, you welcome afterward, although he's got another meeting immediately afterward, but he's, yeah, he's accessible through his email and otherwise. I just thought I'd try to clarify.

Yeah.

No.

No, it didn't.

No. It's a deep subject. If you want to get into it deeper, then this is not the context.

Anyone else? Yeah, I just got historical and we'll just get a little bit on historical meaning. I see Liz has been sitting here so patiently all thing. Historical Society with the library is coming up with a I'm pretty unique. I think it's probably a first time that this has kind of happened. Do you want to address it, Liz, or is she allowed to?

Probably.

Not really. Yeah. Okay, never mind.

You do it.

You can do it. Anyway, they're getting together with the library, the 250, you know, anniversary, and also in coordination with 9-11 coming up in September.

And with...

Rob, the library guy, they're getting things together. They've got a bunch of things to get things together for Red Cross. They're going to work with Hands to Hand for goodies to make some bags there too for individuals. They're doing a writing letter to seniors. And then there's a whole list of other community events. They're trying to get the community all involved. families, kids, different organizations, and they're putting a lot of work into it. I've seen the draft so far. It will be out in the newsletters here, Georgetown Library and the historical newsletter here coming up probably shortly, too. But, yeah, I hope everybody gets involved. It's going to be a neat program, and I hope it goes well for them. And I just want to get that out there in public, so...

Our senior center is doing great. I get great reviews and talk to people there and I'm teaching a class there tomorrow. Anybody's interested? We are making bird houses out of teacups and saucers. There we go. I know, right? Who thought? They like it. Change your plans. I expect to see you tomorrow.

Don't wait for me. Do not wait for me, Amy.

Oh, darn. One of these times.

Okay. Item 20, is there a motion to go into closed session? So moved. Support. And this is a roll call vote. This is to consider possible property acquisition.

Helding?

Yes.

For ZS, DeWitt.

Yes.

Grassman. Yes. Yes. Kelly. Yes. Plum.

Yes.

All in favor to go to closed session.

All right. And I always tell the public when this happens, we'll retreat to a small conference room. We'll come back out. We'll go back into open session. If there's a decision made in there to act, that will take place at that time. If there's not a decision to act, then at that point we're going to close the meeting. So, all right.

that my watch is in sleep mode. And so are you.

I'll make a motion that we go to open session.

Support. I move to support, and I'll call vote.

Kelly?

Yes.

Pipers, yes. Waringa? Yes. Suam? Yes. Eldink?

Yes.

Grassman? Yes. DeWitt?

Yes.

All in favor?

Thank you, item 21, is there a motion to adopt a resolution authorizing the township supervisor and the township clerk to execute an offer to purchase real estate for 1.4 million, approximately 35 acres, at the addresses of 4151 Bower Road and 8649 40th Avenue. So moved. Support. Support. Discussion? Corporation and closed session. Any further discussion?

No.

Okay. Hearing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Carried. Item 22, is there a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Report. All in favor say aye.

Aye. Second.