Township Board - Regular Meeting

going to call the meeting to order at this time. Welcome the board members. Welcome the public tonight and ask for Miss Grassman if she would open in prayer tonight.

Yes, please bow your heads. Um, thank you Lord for this day and for all of you here tonight. Blessings and prayers for our first responders, police and fire caring for our safety. Thank you for all our township employees dedicated to serving our residents whom we call our friends. Let us each walk in faith. Remind us to be kind and to lend a helping hand. Let the peace of God rule in your hearts. That's Colossians 3:15. Also pray for our fellow local leaders and our national leaders. Teach us all to be more like you, Jesus. Keep us safe upon our departure tonight. And if you can't find a nice person, be one and let your light shine brightly onto others. Be a positive beacon of light. We ask your prayers and all of this in Jesus' precious name. And all God's children say, amen.

Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Excellent. If you would rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. You may be seated. Wonderful. Beautiful evening out there tonight. Fall on the air. I got word earlier today that Kelly would not be able to be with us. Um she didn't specify that something came up unexpectedly in the family. So I will serve as clerk tonight uh for the purpose of calling the role and it would appear that all are present with the exception of Kelly. And so we have a quorum uh and we'll move forward with item five, the approval of tonight's agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda before you tonight? So move. Support. Okay. Any comments, questions, additions? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. I.

You oppose. And the agenda is approved. And for our public, I think you know this, but we follow along on the screen. And if you've got your phone, you can also click on any of the links. We publish the agenda several uh days ahead of our meetings. Um, tonight we are blessed to have a couple of different uh speakers here to share with us their area of expertise. We're going to start with Justin Robuck, our county clerk. So Justin, if you'd come forward, we'd appreciate it. I think Justin is no stranger certainly to this board and most of you in the public. He's served in his position a long time and um puts a lot of hours in and hard work especially with all these changes in the law in recent years. So Justin, we appreciate you coming and and giving us an update from your perspective.

No, thank you for for having me. I appreciate it. I know think I think the last time I was here was in November to administer the oath which was a a pretty cool thing for me and a privilege and thank you for having me do that. And um I just wanted to kind of come and share a little bit from our perspective on the early voting process uh that and the decision basically that we've made with early voting. I know I had a good conversation last week, a couple weeks ago now I guess with Gary. Um and I know this is really a concern in a lot of our communities. And so I just wanted to I don't want to take a lot of your time, but I do want to address sort of the perspective that we came at from the early voting decision and then obviously answer any questions you might have either now or even later. Um, but as you guys know, I mean, our our office, the the responsibility for early voting and the statute is placed on municipal governments and allows those municipalities to contract with county governments or other municipalities. And in 2024, we kind of took it upon ourselves to to uh explore the opportunity sort of a pilot project with all of our municipal clerks in Ottawa um to have a collaborative agreement and essentially uh we've decided not to move forward with that in 2026. And I really don't view this as a step away from partnering, but it's really a matter of positioning ourselves uh our voters uh for long-term success in in what we can deliver for them. So, there's really two factors that that came into this uh decision-making process for me. The biggest concern was essentially that our county was unintentionally suppressing voter turnout because of the way that we had designed the early voting process. We had centralized sites. We had four centralized sites where anyone within the county could vote at any of those

four sites. But that model essentially meant fewer locations for voters and it it ended up in longer wait times consistently and substantially longer wait times for our voters in the presidential election. Yeah. Are you talking Justin then about the day of voters or those that use those four locations? Those that use the four locations. So when we talk about early voting and obviously Georgetown was one of those centralized sites. Um, I don't know if any of you had the uh pleasure of being out here during any one of those days voting. It was an incredibly long line and positive voters overall. I mean, I

I am very grateful for, you know, the attitude that most of our voters had, almost all of our voters had when it came to waiting in those lines, but we also saw hundreds of people turning away because of of the lines. And when we look at the data from other counties, this is really interesting. We we wanted to kind of thoroughly research and understand more of this, but when we we had a 13% early voting turnout in Ottawa County, um Kalamazoo County, very similar operation to us. County run sites, four sites where anyone in the county could vote, they had an 11% turnout. Moskegan, a countyrun uh operation with two sites instead of four, they had a 9% turnout. We look at Alagan County, which was all municipal governmentr run sites. So, city and townships were opening their precincts for voters. They had 24% turnout. So, they doubled our turnout, their turnout from ours.

Um, and it was and which is interesting, too, because obviously Alagan County is a smaller county, but percentage-wise, we are consistently a higher percentage of voter turnout in in elections than Alligan. Um, but we we saw the frustration that voters were experiencing with not being able to connect and participate in their own communities and then we saw the data that sort of backed up the reality of the turnout. I think ultimately I believe that our voters are going to be better served with local sites that are closer to their homes and that are more accessible to them. The other big factor for us was a sustainability issue. When we look at how we were set up to operate when the county was set up to operate these um sites, our model was not sustainable. We had over 2,000 hours of unpaid overtime from our elections team uh on this project alone. And and when I say unpaid overtime, it means they're salaried people that we we don't have a a choice, right, of billing back overtime. Um, and that was truly a very difficult process to manage for 2024. We had our HR and our fiscal services department as well that were weighing in and telling us like we're sustaining pretty significant amounts of resources, pulling together, hiring hundreds of election workers, making sure the insurance process and all the uh the payroll process works for them, fiscal services and managing the accounts and the budgeting and the the grant funding. So that was a difficult lift and I think continuing down the road for us what we saw we recognized we would have to expand sites. Um but the expansion of those sites would mean even more resources coming to bear in terms of how we were going to be able to uh fund the management of the sites and and obviously that cost would have had to

have been passed on to our local jurisdictions as well. I think one thing I do want to stress is how much we are engaged with you guys in making sure that we are supporting every possible way that we can when it comes to early voting. And we are committed to doing a number of different things. For example, the programming and the testing of all equipment. Um that is fully within our our wheelhouse and our responsibility and we'll continue doing that. The testing in particular is a quite an extensive operation where we test every physical piece of equipment used throughout the the county in in whatever manner whether it's absentee early voting or or election day voting. Um but it but early voting alone entails the the testing of thousands of ballots. Uh training, we train uh election workers across the county. Georgetown does a phenomenal job of training their workers as well. Michigan law allows jurisdictions with a 10,000 population or above to do their own training, but we offer training consistently uh to all of our community partners regardless of size. And we're really drilling down on making sure that we have learned lessons from 2024 that we're incorporating in that training. We are focused on input from our local clerks to make that the best quality hands-on training that we can for all of our election workers. Troubleshooting and equipment support. This is a big factor for us which makes this a little bit unique in Michigan. Ottawa County is currently the only county in the state that owns the election equipment. So in all of the other 82 counties, municipal governments purchase election equipment and fund the election equipment maintenance process and the support of that equipment is their responsibility. In Ottawa County, the county purchases election equipment. We fund maintenance half and half with the jurisdictions and then the county is

solely responsible for the servicing of that equipment. And so our commitment to you through the early voting process as well as on election day is to make sure that we have technicians on site who are able to fix anything, replace a a piece of equipment that goes down, a printer that doesn't work. Those functions are our responsibility and we want to maintain that. So what we're doing is ramping up our recruitment efforts because of the early voting process is going to require another group of individuals who are on staff ready to service communities across Ottawa County through all nine days and all hours of early voting. Um we are also facilitating the grant process. So the the state law requires the the county be the facilitator of the grants. So, for example, any grant funding that comes from the state, for example, paying for election worker salary or other costs that the state does end up contributing to, um those funds or that that grant application process flows through the county and we uh collect and maintain those. And then, you know, importantly, we want to provide that ongoing support to our clerks. This is fundamentally our responsibility and our job to make sure that my phone is available at any time. Uh that our office is is open for every single hour of any community's early voting hours and making sure that we have that on the ground support. Um ultimately I think our mission here is to build trust in the community by serving our voters well and I want to do that the best way that we can. And I think that is making sure that they feel confident in in accessing the polling location uh in a timely manner, being able to conduct uh their voting experience well and positively. And then also making sure that we have the resources at the county

to do what we are statutoily required by law to do. um and that we're we're dealing with maintaining staff and trying as hard as we can to eliminate burnout, which is a real thing. I mean, I don't have to tell you guys, uh we've had a lot of change in election law. And I think really Georgetown is probably an exception to this, but across the state of Michigan, we have not seen resources marshaled at the level of change that's happened and the the the required responsibility placed on our local clerks as well as county clerks across the state. Um, communities have to step up and and fund this. Uh it is it's a tough it's a tough decision because our voters decided it in a constitutional amendment. Um but there is a price tag that goes with this and and we are trying to balance that out to the best of our ability and serve all of our voters well. And so that's kind of our shortened version of the mental anguish. I got to be honest, this was not an easy decision. I think for me, you know, you you know, my my passion is to make sure that we have adequate support on the ground for our clerks because our local clerks are the ones who are truly running elections. Um, and they're the ones interfacing more so with their voters. But I'm also always telling our team, let's run the experiment. I mean, that's one of my favorite phrases. We want to be able to be nimble enough to try to figure out, is there a better way we can serve people? Is there a way we can save money? or a way that we can be more accessible. But I do think we also have to recognize when models don't work well and how we can make those adjustments um to make sure that we're doing right by all of you. And and I hope that makes sense, but I definitely I understand the frustration um because I think this

whole constitutional amendment places significantly more on you than it does on counties. Um and it's uh It's a significant cost and it's a significant uh resource factor and so we're very open to any questions or comments or any way that we can, you know, serve you guys well through this transition. Thank you. Questions, Justin?

I just I'm just wondering why um it seems like Georgetown is going to be shouldering a lot of this cost. Why aren't we collecting from the outside townships that aren't doing this, the county doing that and reimbursing our township for that money? Well, so under this uh so every jurisdiction in Ottawa County is responsible for conducting their own early voting. So Georgetown is not an exception to that. The 2024 agreement that we had was essentially an agreement for the county to step in and manage precincts, right,

for all jurisdictions and that portion of our our collaborative agreement is is going away. And so the county is not managing precincts for any jurisdiction. So, it's interesting because I was having a a budget conversation with Kelly a few weeks ago. We're talking about this. Um, where, you know, I think I know you guys aren't surprised by this, but she was saying it literally is going to and Amber as well. Amber and I had a conversation. It's literally going to take the elections budget times four. Yeah. Extraordinary. I had a conversation last week with Chester Township, one precinct jurisdiction, 3,000 in population, and she said, "My elections budget is quadrupling."

Right? So, that is a reality for all of us. And when you when you look I mean, the voters essentially gave us nine nine more days, you know, when you consider the cost of an election times nine. I get that, but there's only four sites in the county are the nine days. But it seems like we're shouldering we're shouldering the cost of that for those that come from Blendon or Jamestown or or any place else away though. What's that? It's going away is what he's saying. It won't be just four sites. There'll be a site in every jurisdiction. 20 23 sites. Okay. But yes, you I mean I think everyone's shoulder their own. to your point, Georgetown hosted, you know, yeah,

the site in 2024 that was a centralized site and that was a huge lift and I my hats off to Amber, uh, who was my hero for many of those days of early voting. We had many conversations because So, so every district's going to have nine day voting, early voting now. Yeah. And that is the constitutional. So, I didn't I did not understand. And I thought we were going back to the only four sites in Georgetown was picking up the cost for everybody that was coming here. See, I misunderstood. That was that was my my mistake.

Yeah. No, the the the sites will literally be every jurisdiction responsible. Now, we do have the ability for municip municipalities to contract with. So, say for example, we do have a couple of agreements. Holland Township and Park Township. they are going together. um their facility is at New Holland Township um recreation center which is a large facility and they they feel that for their voters who are kind of centrally you know Park Township doesn't really have a community center right they've got a lot of voters traveling into Holland Township anyway to eat or work or shop or whatever and so that is a a site that is combined and then uh we just have a couple of other ones but otherwise every other uh municipal government will have their own. Well, I appreciate you explaining that.

And I appreciate all you do, too, by the way. I mean, you picked I called you a few weeks ago. You picked up the call and Oh, absolutely. Appreciate that, too. That was That's But I just I did not get that. That was all precincts were going to have nine. I thought it was just going to go down to four again and we were going to pick up the cost for everybody in the air looked good last time. That would uh Okay. be a very unreasonable approach to that, I think. Yeah. And we, you know, I appreciate you guys, too. I think this this is an incredibly well-run community and well stewarded community and

we notice that I mean obviously our interaction is largely with the clerk's office and elections but um you know you guys do a phenomenal job and and we want to be a part of that ecosystem that supports that and not detracts from that and why this decision is tough.

Justin you used the word earlier suppressed. I just want to take a little bit of a different opinion on that in terms of suppressing the vote versus say alligan where they spread it out. It's really matters of convenience when you can vote absentee and you can vote day of this is merely something that was passed and therefore has to be made available and the percentages of those who use it um is is truly a convenience. I don't I don't consider it voter suppression if we don't have a a site in every jurisdiction. Although I understand we will get a higher percentage will vote early because we do. Yeah. But it's just for I mean when you can vote absentee almost for no reason at all these days. Yeah.

You can still get your vote in whether you vote the day of or whether you're going to be absent needed. So, it's convenience, but but to your point, I mean, the county was was trying a model and it was expensive and it was it cost you 2,000 hours of unpaid overtime and so on. It was arduous for you. Hard to hang on to your people. You tried something and you didn't feel like it worked very well. And I guess I can I can appreciate that and a fix the if there's any blame I think it's to the voters themselves when they approved of this wide um you know voting scheme I don't mean that in a bad way but you know right

that that's where it lay the voters voted it passed and you had to deal with it wasn't something you initiate as a county and so we don't lay that at your feet and I can see where you tried to take an approach that was pretty aggressively helpful and now you're like, "Hey, we got to back off that. That's too much. Others aren't doing it." I think you said, did you say a moment ago, we're the only county that wherein the machines are owned and maintained or maintenance by the county. Why is that? Why are we the only one? Why do others not? And when you say others, you can say, well, Detroit does things different. Well, but you're also talking about Northern Michigan and Southern. Correct. Yeah.

Why why that difference? It's really interesting because we we previously have not been so the numbers have sort of dwindled over the past several cycles of purchase of election equipment. But for us, it started in 1956 when uh several township supervisor actually this was back in the days when the supervisors was the board of supervisors right at the county. Um before the constitution in 1963, you were a member of the board of supervisors. We didn't have a commissioners. Um, but they decided to go with a model where the county actually funded these new fangled voting machines that had levers where you could pull the lever and it was very convenient. Um, and and we did that countywide so that we wouldn't have diverse communities doing something differently. Well, this township is handc counting their ballots over here. This township uses a punch card method. So since 1956, we have owned the election equipment and have maintained it universally across the county. Uh which is which is the model that about 48 other states use where it's counties that that own equipment. Uh and as we have had conversations with you guys uh not only our clerks but also our governing boards, it's a huge savings. I mean, we're we're looking at currently the capital improvement project budgeted in my budget in the county for new voting equipment purchases about $1.6 million. So, that is a cost that we are uh committed to taking on because we believe this is the best model and it's the model that we've used for a long time. And but because of that, that ownership comes with a couple of things. By statute, it comes with a requirement for us to be in charge of testing, which is a very expensive and detailed process, but also servicing the equipment when it's um needs maintenance. So, we're in charge of of

those things. But, that's kind of an institutional thing that I think has just worked here and we don't want to fix what's not broken. uh particularly given the the mounting challenges that we're you know that our local clerks are facing with elections. Justin Dan Dan Carlton used to say that for the size of our population most communities would have 300 350 full-time employees operating everything and I think we're up to 32. So our big problem is we don't have a deep bench Yeah. of people. I mean, of that 32 that that's our water and sewer and our maintenance. Yeah.

And so we have just a handful of office people that do an incredible job. And um it was run incredibly well by by Dan and Rob and now Justin has hit the ground running doing an incredible job. Right. Uh, are we going to have to hire people just for this or do you have any thoughts for us because this is Yeah, I mean it this is a big deal. It's a it's a it's a watershed change. You know, when I was saying earlier when when voters and this was not the first magnitude change. We had another one in 2018 which I think you alluded to,

Mr. Chair, about the expansion of absentee voting rights and that to we took on significantly more. our local clerks took on significantly more there and now our voters have essentially said we want you to take election day times nine. I mean the staffing and and when I talk to colleagues I can tell you I mean I have personal opinions which I'd be happy to share with you about early voting. I I talked to a lot of colleagues around the the country who've done this for a number of years. It is very resource intensive. Um and I do think that in the next few years we're seeing a generation of election officials. I mean there's been a lot of data now done st uh university Stanford University the Hoover Institution did a big study. Pew has done some studies on this. We're losing election officials at high rates uh of attrition. And part of the reason is because of this. You know we're we're adding more to the plate. And realistically, we have to be able to resource this well because we can't think about I mean, this is how we choose our government. This isn't I mean, I know I'm biased, but this is a big deal. And so we I think you should hire somebody more. There's my plug for

Okay, I'm not here to tell you what to do. I'm really not. But I honestly do recognize that it it results in significantly more resources. President Trump has talked about uh early voting and actually he's uh floated a balloon of concerning and I'm sure you've heard of this that um he may suspend it for 2026 and uh not allow early. Now that'll be challenged in the courts. It's going to be interesting to see what happens. Was it just mailin votes? It was mail in. It was Yeah, it was. It was mailin voting, absentee votes,

which I don't know if that's because ours would be by statute by the state. So, I'm not sure how all that's going to work, but yeah,

the corruption you have through this is what has everyone scared. Well, and I think, you know, we we have an incredible system in the state of Michigan where, you know, the process of there multiple checkpoints of voter security when when it comes to mailing an absentee ballot out, tracking that ballot, the voter responding with that ballot, signature verification that happens. I don't know how many hours if you've tracked Amber that your staff takes make phone calls when they're looking and verifying signatures to say to a voter, hey, you're going to have to come in and correct this and cure this ballot because it's not a signature that matches or that's on file. Whether that's cuz I was 16 when I signed and now I'm 30 and my, you know, or I have a broken arm or I'm elderly. a lot of factors there, but the reality is we do have um we've been absentee voting in Michigan for 175 years. We've we've thought through a few things. We we know how to do a secure system. We have a live database that's updated when someone casts an absentee ballot that it shows that they are a voter and that they have voted and they can't go to another jurisdiction or try to vote again in another way. Um, but I mean I could talk about that for a while, but I think

it will be interesting to see. And I think we've we've seen a lot of unpredictable things over the past several years when it comes to the politics of how our elections are administered. And when it gets down to the wire with a big election, that's another pressure, unbelievable pressure on our election administrators. When you when you consider, oh, we're going to change the method of voting. Georgetown has 8,000 absentee voters

11,000. So imagine that kind of a change and what that would look like for the staff if that were to change overnight whole process for how to manage that. And those are some realities that we do have to deal with in an election year because the politics always plays a part in that. The legislaturator's changing rules at the last minute. and we appreciate all that you do. Oh, I thank you for that and I appreciate you guys. Thanks for being willing to have me here. You work hard. You do an excellent job. Thank you. Anyone else? It means a lot that you'd come here and because this is such a hot topic

and absolutely time to explain it to us and we know you have an open door. Oh, absolutely do. and feel free to reach out if there's anything else that comes up. Sounds good. Or free to leave if you like or stay. It's up to you. I'm gonna go have spaghetti with my kids, I think, if that's Do that. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We also have a presentation by Connor Gallagan. Connor, if you could join us now. And um Connor, for those of you in the audience who don't know, I know the board knows, um works for the county, but has an office right here at Georgetown. And when we changed our assessing and went with the county, it's been more than a year now. Just over a year.

Just over a year. Y uh Connor is who they assigned over here and we've appreciated having you and you're here to give us a report on how that's going.

Yeah. So um you said all you know and some of you know, but I'm Connor Gallagghan, the assessing manager here. Um, and I'm just bringing some good news and it'll be a lot shorter than the uh Justin's was. Um, but first I wanted to echo what Ian John said. Amber does a great job and she's like the busiest person I've ever seen. So she's doing great. We're lucky to have her. Um, so every 5 years the state does an audit of assessment roles. This used to be called the AMAR, the audit of minimum assessment requirements. Um, this year they changed the name. It's the PA660 audit. Um, but same basic thing. It's just making sure that um we are doing our job correctly. Um it's pass fail. Um there's two basic parts to it. There's substantial compliance and then there's technical compliance. Um we passed is the good news. Um uh we actually got a little star on the top of our paperwork. She said it's the first time a countyy's gotten multiple stars. Um that was nice. We had one little issue um where I added a name to a sheet that didn't need to be there. there was just our alternate board of review member. Um I didn't need to put her qualifications on because she didn't actually serve um at any of the meetings this year. Um don't have to fix it. It was just letting us know. Uh so we passed that. Um the report will be mailed to Jim. Um I also sent a copy to Justin. So if anyone wants to look at that, it is available. Um, just wanted to throw out a thanks to um, Jill for the job she did because this is just a audit of the 2025 role, but if she hadn't been putting in the hard work for the past 15 years or whatever, uh, there's no way we would have been in the good shape we're in now. Um, and I have a a big team, uh, me and then three full-time people, uh, Jen, Chris, and Beth, who do great work. Um, and the

fact that Jill was able to do it with um, herself and then Emily part-time. They're both awesome. They're great at what they do, but I'm amazed by what they were able to get done. Um, so just want to thank them. Uh, yeah. And all the units that Ottawa County Equalization does the assessing for did pass the review. Uh, some other units in the county did not, but all of ours did. Uh, yeah. Any questions about how many units in the county do does the county handle the assessing for? We now do seven. So, Grant Haven, Hudsonville, Pulton, US, uh, Blendon, Rockery. Did I say City of Cooperville? Okay. Yeah, I hope so. Okay.

And we're not looking to take on anymore. Obviously, that's never that's just a lot more work. Um, it's just if municipalities cannot find um assessing services, then we're there as a backup. Right. Are you a level four assessor? I am not. I'm a level three. Brian signs the role. So Brian is the director. He's a level four. He actually does the signing. I do the work and Yep. He oversees it. Questions? Anyone? Are you happier with us or Ottawa County?

Well, honestly, I got two great teams here. It's crazy. Like, um, yeah, I got the office here is amazing. Um, but then I got a really good team. Ottawa County is well regarded in the assessing field as just having one of the best offices. So yeah, I got two really great offices here. I don't know. They're both good answer. That was a really Yes. Meet Georgetown. Yeah. Good. All right. Thank you for that report and for the good news. No problem. Yep. Appreciate it. And you too are welcome, Conor, to resume your life activities if you like.

All right. There you go. All right. We'll move on to item eight tonight. Communication letters and reports received for information. I would highlight eight, Roman numeral 5. Um, not so much for the board's benefit. I know you've read through it previously and here it is again, but I think for the public, both those here and those that might watch the meeting uh online. That's a water and sewer final report. Uh, and very helpful and full of information, a lot of which I think many of us are repeating as we talk to members of the township when they have questions about There you go. about water increases and sewer increases and the like. Um, yep. I have those conversations pretty often. I know all you do. I had one the other day with someone who owns a car wash. Imagine that one.

Yeah. Um, water uh is obviously their primary staple. But, um, yeah, it's helpful to be able to cite chapter and verse, but keep getting the word out there. I know I think Rob Bristo said he's going to highlight again in our next communicate. Yeah. um some of the information that's just essential that people can also bridge then to go to this meeting at this minute mark you know to hear this presentation from the city of Wyoming or um from our consultants etc. You were going to say something, John. I can tell.

Well, he did a terrific job on our website where he said, "Refer to June 6. Here's the link, 43 minute mark, and it was the presentation we we had from the expert that uh outlined it, and he was very articulate, and I thought it was powerful. So, if they missed that meeting, that was incredibly good information that was available." I I'll point to one summary sentence uh you know that shouldn't be lost in anyone here. The city of Wyom is anticipating 174,214,063 of capital improvements to the water system by 2030 fiscal year. Of this amount, Georgetown is currently expected to be a portion 43 million81 I'm sorry $881,114. Let that sink in. So, um, yeah, it's, uh, the township is anticipating 26 million plus of capital improvements by fiscal year 2030 for its own distribution system and assets the township alone is responsible for. Um, you can go deeper in this report too about the increases from Granville and and with the sewer. So, it's just a good resource and I wanted to to highlight that. Item nine then is public comment period for action items on tonight's agenda and uh there will be another public comment period at the end. You can speak at one or both. We just ask at the initial public comment if you would address your comments to those items which remain. If you say I don't know what's left on your agenda, I would just say again always check online uh several days before we have a board meeting. We meet the second and fourth Mondays of each month. Um and there you can see what's coming up. So, does anyone wish to address the items on our agenda this evening? Yes, ma'am.

About the what? I'm sorry. I still can't hear. Surveillance blocks. Did you say flocks? Okay. Okay. Sounds like a great second public comment period only because that's not a specific agenda item. So, we'll commend you for that. Um, I see Joe's getting ready to get up. Joe, I'll just say if it makes any difference because you are an agenda item tonight. In essence, you'll have an opportunity to come and speak at the point of that item if you'd prefer. I I'm always amazed how you can fit into three minutes, but we don't need to to see it tonight. All right. All right. Um, anyone else?

Welcome. Well, thank you. Uh, Michael Bash 3245 Golden Oak Court. Um, couple items. Item 16, first of all, um, the lobby renovation. Um, I I I spoke about a little bit last time. I think it's completely unnecessary. How many complaints are we getting that it's not pretty enough related to the early voting? But continue. Yeah,

it's it we've managed as is. Um, that now is not, especially with this water thing. Now is not the time to be spending more money. But it it seems like um last 12 years board members current and uh previous are just addicted to spending money. It's like they get a high from it. Like how can we spend? I I never hear like how could we save? What could we do to save? Um so we got 140,000. I guess my next question. I I've served here for eight years. Um how much are we going to spend on furniture? all the other stuff. I noticed in the quote it says uh uh HVAC uh not included. Does that mean it's non necessar so we can keep that number looking smaller like we we did with the senior center we did with the library. It's always kind of slush slush. Keep your eye on the ball. Things moving around quick. Average person's not going to notice. Give them the low number and they think, "Oh, that's not too bad." Uh next item 17. Um life EMS. I'm looking forward to that presentation. Um, I guess my question is it the three options that were present last time uh included life EMS um but it it was a apples to oranges bid request. We're losing a paramedic with an equipped paramedic rig. Why would we get quotes for EMTs that are two levels below? Why did we not ask life? What is the cost going to be if we have a paramedic and either an SUV or an ambulance here 24/7? We used to a long time ago we used to do that. They'd be stationed around. Then for a while they went to the station on 36th Street. They were always here. Let's get it. Why did we not get a quote? Why did we not get a quote from AMR? I don't think there'd be ambulance wars if they split it. Maybe. Maybe there would be. I don't know. But or they each take half

of the township. Why did we not get a quote from life? not only life EMS for the fulltime 24/7 paramedic and rig also one from AMR. It it just doesn't make sense. Um what else do we have? How much time do we Okay, 33 seconds. Uh and I guess my next issue would be um with that the three proposals, life EMS. Um I think it's a conflict of interest to have Gan vote on this being on the fire department and his history. The other thing I found concerning last time is Justin was going to bat for it, giving a little presentation too at the last meeting. I'm like, that's weird. He used to be a paid on call. That was one of the reasons we hire him as assistant to the uh manager and then as soon as he got hired, he quit. That was a perk and then he just quit. He was no we were going to have somebody here in the office all the time that could go out to call us then quits. I think that's a conflict of interest. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? [Laughter] Sean half 1482 Winterfred. Just quickly I just Can you say a little more clearly? I'm trying 1482 Winterfred Street. Got it. Thanks. No problem. Sorry about that. I just ask I support a resolution on the Campbell plant and I just ask that the board uh in the affirmative on that. Thank you. Good.

Anyone else? All right, seeing no one else, we'll close the initial public comment period. And at this point, we'll move on to item number 10, our consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda? Some move. Support moved and supported. Comments, questions. Hearing none, all in favor say I.

I. Any opposed? It's passed. Item 11, introduction and first reading of ordinance number 2025-07, sidewalk revision ordinance. This came out of finance. And I know that there was good background information provided to each of you by your manager. Um, so is there a motion here initially then to approve the introduction and first reading of this ordinance? Some move. Support. All right. Motion is before you. Any comments on board members questions? I know we had a pretty gritted discussion in finance about it. Everyone understands?

I I understand it, but I do find it interesting that there's this big big push to run this greenway trail from Grand Rapids to Grand Haven. And there's some people that just don't want it. You know, if they got property on the Grand River, they don't want that 100 bicycles coming in front of their house. So, we're making a provision so that we can continue the greenway. But I do think sometimes a little bit of extortion. There's a big push in the media and everybody thinks it's a great thing, but not everybody thinks it's a great thing. It was all over the news, big stories on the news,

right? Right. Oh, we're going to we're going to do this. Well, you can say that, but if I own property on the Grand River and I don't want bikes coming across my property, then I guess you're not going to come across. It's not going to happen. It's kind of a guilt trip. I kind of have a little problem with that. But this this this will resolve some of that if we can make this trail come around around there. But I just kind of went, "Yeah, we we aren't precluding the county obviously from doing what you're describing, but we're making it I suppose you could argue less likely." Right. Yeah. Right. But you see what I'm saying though? There's just like this. They've been they've been bullying their way along. I don't know how often they've resorted to um you know to eminent domain. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know.

I think they've negotiated a lot and they've hit out money you know and so on. plottable goal, but you know, as you say, there's a limit to how much force you want to apply. We joged out on cottonwood as you guys know, and we're this would be a jog out on a Filillmore, which again is a it would be in addition to other paving that's going to be done on Filmore, I think. No, I understand that part of it. I'm just making the point that just seems like it's kind of a bully pulp for some things. Sure. Well, this will solve the problem now, but they still can negotiate with those people, right? And try to put along the river. I understand. So that that option's still there. Yep. Yep.

But if if this wasn't done, then it could be tied up in the courts for many years. Yep. Anyone else? Okay, this is a roll call vote. I'll call the role here. So, looking to my left, Kevin? Yes. Harry? Yes. Amy? Yes. I vote yes. Jean? Yes. John, yes. It passes six to zero. Uh, item number 12, full uninterruptible power supply quote in server room update. Uh, is there a motion to accept the quote from Fusion IT? And I do see we have a a representative here tonight. So move. Okay.

Support. Supported. Um, I know you're here and would seem able to to answer any questions. Would you also like to make a statement or prefer to just respond if people have question? Absolutely. Back on what John was saying about how everybody here is lovely to work with. It's been a it's been an honor to serve Georgetown Township uh it capacity. So I appreciate all of you and Justin and could possibly we have a quick overview on why we need this because you were pretty persuasive

and even before you get in the technical if you don't mind could you Justin first of all give just a quick overview of of you know we got that generator recently that we authorized and now we have this because we've had experience with things going down during voting or otherwise. give the the scenario what happened at least one of the examples and then you might be able to explain why from a technical standpoint that would prevent that.

Yeah. So the generator actually is going to come next month. So we're working on bids for that. This is like the first step one of two. Um over the summer actually three four times here in the last seven months we've lost power um through the township hall. Um and it's really killed or it's wearing on our servers. it's wearing on our infrastructure that we have. Um the great resource that we have is I called Fusion IT when we start having problems as the power comes back on. Um sometimes we lose a phase and uh Fusion came here and we started going through the system through this network which you see on the left um is our current network room and I'm going to let Mike kind of talk about the room and where we're at and where we want to go. Yeah, the the picture really speaks for itself. Um, if you look off to the right on that desk, there is actually the NVR, your camera system server. There is the door lock server and there is also the new w water meter server which is down on the bottom. Um, those are all blade. They're supposed to be rack mounted. Um there's also a switch up there um on top of that MVR. That's generally not how we like to see the stuff put together. And also there lacks actual battery UPS uh power. So, the ones that were there, you can see next to that monitor, that little black box, that is a very basic, very small, 1500 amp uh UPS, they they immediately go down and really generally don't even have enough time or power to shut down those servers correctly. um when consumers had the few power surges that they did have, uh we were lucky that none of these servers had corrupted

data. Um, however, you know, we want to make sure there's contingency in place that not only if they have to be if the the continuity from when the power goes out to when the generator picks up, but what in that case where the generator does not pick up, we want to make sure that we have something that can power these adequately enough to where we can shut them down correctly. Um, couple other things I want to point out is there's a number of switches that have gone end of life, end of support some years ago. Um, if there were to ever be some type of breach, um, security breach when the insurance company sends auditors, that's the first thing they look for. So, we want to make sure we take care of those at the same time. um that server room is is adequate, but you guys have a much newer um better secure-wise and uh environmentally up in the library. So, we want to move these servers upstairs into that library um server room. um put them in those large racks, replace the switching that is end of life, end of support, and put some environmental sensors and the proper batteries to then power both scenarios for when the generator picks up and for um if that generator doesn't turn on. every device that we're going to be replacing from the switches, the UPS's, the environmental sensors, and the PDUs, which is that's the box that has all the electrical sockets on it that comes out of the UPS. These will all be able to be managed remotely. So, we won't have to roll a truck. We won't have to have Justin or Andy yanking cables and moving stuff around trying to

get hardware back up. um all of our techs can just handle that remotely and we have a lot more ability to alert us for when there's an issue. So it senses moisture, if it senses the door is open um during a time that it shouldn't be, if it senses the the the power, um if it any of these type of things, it immediately can then send out alerts to our technicians, Justin and whoever else we deem necessary. So you said a lot of this product was end of life right now that we're using currently. What is what is expected life then out of the new?

So currently right now there's no end of life cycle when they when they say the end of life cycle for the new um switches. It's generally be 5 years after they they put that date in place. Um, currently the cambiums that we are looking at came out I think about 7 months ago, 8 months ago. So I think that they'll have a life cycle probably the next 3 to four years and then 5 years after that. So somewhere in between that 8 to 10 year life cycle that most hardware has. Any questions? Dustin, talk about uh I mean between the generator and this we avoided city Gaylord. I know we talked about that was in the news again today. They're asking for more money from the federal government which was part of was turned down. Um but um we'd be able to operate in the event of emergency. So I look at um being resilient um when we have an ice storm, tornado, heat wave, um cold snap um basically the township hall will keep on running. um through thick and thin and we have an EC eco room downstairs that uh the fire department even police and we can activate our tornado sirens if Ottawa County can't um manipulate them from the county. So to me this is like ground level zero that we have to make work and to me this is step one of two so that we can uh do that moving forward.

We'll all be here charging our phones. So that's what a lot of people I talked to, they said, "I don't have a home phone. So if I didn't have power for 3 days, do I go out to my car to try to slowly charge it or maybe we open this room up and we have power strips that people can charge their phones, they can talk to their loved ones after a natural disaster?" Like these are all these things that could happen as, you know, uh, different generations own homes and live in this community.

Anything else you'd like to share? No. Um, pretty much that again, you know, that rack in its state is a nightmare to work on. We've I've had heard this from many of my technicians. When that will be completed and done, um, it'll look much like that rack on the right that's at the DPW. Um, there's currently a server that's underneath it. However, it's all clean. It's all labeled. It's all tested. It's all toned. Um, if a technician had to work on that, they would know exactly what they need to do. instead of having to search for, you know, where are these cables going? What do they do? So,

how long is the battery life? You say if the generator fails or doesn't come on, how long do we have from that point to before we need to either shut things down or get a backup service or anything? How long are those batteries? Is it just a five minute thing or an hour thing or an all day thing or Okay, so um I have down here we're looking at closer to 55 minutes. Um but upstairs where all these servers will be there, it would be closer to 25 minutes and that's based off the current wattage load of of all the devices. So So if that doesn't come on then we want to make sure we shut things down. Correct. to avoid any issues.

Yeah. So the way it will be configured is after 5 minutes if it does not sense that the power has returned it will go into an automatic shutdown mode. Okay. Okay. So when this has happened to us um Justin and Andy have had to take a lot of time because when it would kick back on there were certain phases that would not and then they had to know how to bring that up to speed and then call you in. So by having this that's much less likely to happen and then if we have a good backup generator then we would be probably the place for the community to come to to have power.

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's all about continuity and um making sure that we're staying up 100% of the time. So and if there is that worst case scenario that we're bracing for it. So all right. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Board members, any other comments? Okay. Hearing none, your motion is before you. All in favor say I. I. I. You oppose. Motion carries. We'll go on to item number 13. A resolution requesting the Campbell Do I have that right? 13.

Is that right? You looked at me. I thought All right. Resolution requesting the Campbell coal plant remain open. Is there a motion to approve the resolution requesting that the Campbell coal plant remain open as recommended by the utilities committee and as provided as a link within your I will make a resolution. So move. Okay. I um I know that I promised Joe an opportunity to speak. I'm I'm thinking it's it's to both items but in particular the second one. Would you like to make your statement now before there's a vote on the first of our two agenda points here?

Yeah. Hopefully it will be helpful. But however, I can help with this. Joe, how about for this first one, which I suspect has good support. If there's anything you'd like to add to this, yeah, that's better.

Okay. I think this has has um broad support given the last vote that we had on the previous resolution. So, um, anybody want to amplify anything about it? Uh, whether from utilities or or not? Joe has done an incredible job supporting this and not just with the board but out in the community and he's very visible and uh many people have um been critical but he's handled it very very well and unpaid volunteer that uh just really believes in this and he provides excellent information and u very eventempered kind and person to do this.

Anyone? Anyone else? All right, that's a roll call vote. I'm going to look to my right this time. So, a yes is you're approving this resolution. So, John, yes. Jean, yes. I vote yes. Gary, yes. Yes.

And Kevin. Okay. Six to zero. Appreciate that. Now, I'd like to invite Joe up. This second one, I think, is is a little more involved. And for those of us not on the on the utilities committee, I think we'd like to hear directly from you uh more in depth and even that you'd take question and answer if people have those. Okay. Thank you. So, we'll move on then to item number uh 14. This is a a potential resolution to declare intent to join a committee dedicated to acquiring consumers energy's interest in the Camel Coal plant. I think before there's a motion made, why don't we just hear from you Joe?

Sure. Okay. Uh, Joseph Parnell McCarter, 6408 Renwood, Georgetown Township, volunteer leader of the Save the Campbell effort. A lot of the statements I make are going to be more impromptu. I first of all want to thank this board um for considering this latest round of Campbell resolutions. If it had not been for your early support and that of Jamestown board in the Save the Campbell effort, I am not sure I would have continued to press ahead with it. It really has been your support and encouragement advice along the way has frankly been totally pivotal. Um now on this I'm I'm now I'm going to go off what I script of what I saying here. Um as far as this second this this committee would simply be for informationational purposes. In other words, it's not binding. The committee is to ga gather information to determine the viability and the wisdom of trying to get control of the Campbell and control of electric as an option. Okay. But there's nothing. It's just to gather information. the the the the the sad reality at this point is that Consumers Energy and the MPSC, which rules it, um which under Whitmer's appointees, is really committed to the net zero agenda. I mean, they they want to their goal is to basically remove fossil fuel plants and to go to solar, wind, and battery. Um, as you may know, uh, Blendon Township people have have got started getting wind of this. Uh, there's also a battery plant plan for Port Sheldon Township. And I don't think people really fully understood what a battery storage plant, a massive battery storage plant means for your community in terms of the fire

evacuation. And the the risk of those battery storage plants are frankly a lithium ion battery storage plant are far greater than the Campbell ever was. And um and especially with the anti-polluting equipment of the Campbell and actually I mean I'm a believer that more even should be done on that. Okay. But um u the the risk are so much greater and it's the whole net zero agenda at this point is so unrealistic. uh in in terms of like even this with battery it's it lasts for it stores energy for four hours. Well, that does not do you when you you're you have solar and wind if you're really trying to go to solar and wind. It's simply not practical here in Michigan. Maybe in certain areas of the world, but not here. And so they're they're on this agenda that frankly is unrealistic. Um, and yet we're the ones paying we're we're going to be the ones paying for it. We're going to be the ones paying for it with these battery plants which are we we don't need the battery plants if we have fossil fuel plants. We don't even have them now. So why do we because it's you don't it with with the combination of gas and coal you can adjust uh how much electric you generate based upon demand. It's when you go to solar and wind that you can't control things. But but even with a battery plant, it's not enough to to to really give you the reliability that you need. Uh we're just not there with battery technology. So this is the problem is is Consumers Energy has us on a pathway. We already have electric rates that are about almost twice as high as Zealand. Um Zealand has an electric co-op. Uh back in the 1930s, they were with Consumers Energy. Okay? So, they were

where we were right now. They were with Consumers Energy and they decided to uh to municipalize and and put it into an electric co-op. Well, obviously we're what I'm advocating here and what you're considering for this resolution is that we at least get the information available to see is this does this make sense for us or not. What we do know is the case is that consumers energy uh is at logger one and some what works for us is at loggerheads with the Trump administration uh on this and um they want to demolish it and they're they're basically uh want to well they're racking up millions of dollars saying well the the Trump well actually the customers again this gets back to customers are going to have to pay to keep the Campbell open. They're unwilling to scale back their net zero agenda expenditures, which I think is foolish. Also, um at a time when we do need electric for data centers, we could use this to our benefit. This is actually great timing for us in that uh a certain percentage of the Campbell could be dedicated to uh an AI data center electric and it's right there by the water. uh but then use that make them charge them a lot of money and let the consumer rates go down. Okay. So is to so this is um this but but on the other hand we want to control that locally in my op that's what the purpose of this do we want to sort of let the uh tail wag the dog or is this going to be done for the benefit of residential customers I think we want it we want to make sure residential customers have all the electric we need before data centers get one bit of electric so anyway the there it is a 100% fact before Before

beginning on this project, I made sure we have as a county the legal ability to to to actually municipalize and put that into an electric co-op. We have that legal ability. The question is, is it politically wise? Uh I mean polit do we have the political will to do it and also is it economically wise and that has to be negotiated in terms of the price because at a certain price no it's not worth it. Um so there obviously but there are a number of avenues to achieve it with the Trump administration. It is the ideal time frankly for this to happen because they they have the ability for um for instance through their um rural electric cooperative program to help us if we go that's that's in this process. Um so but the purpose of this committee would simply be one of gathering information. would do nothing that's legally binding. So that the t each town the townships involved in the committee can and the county can can't board can have information to decide okay does it make sense to go forward with this or basically does the information we collect basically say it's a no-go. Um so that's it's really just for information gathering. It's not binding Georgetown Township to do anything other than get information is what it is. Now you where it does require I would say is is hopefully the the Georgetown would would be willing to contribute someone as a representative of Georgetown on the committee. Okay. Um or more than one. Okay. Um so so that would be you know as a a practical matter um of this. But as far as binding Georgetown Township to that we're going to go you know actually do this. No, it's binding no one. It's just gathering information.

So, don't you think that Zealand's power plant was really promoted by Herman Miller and Howard Miller and Gentex that I just always envisioned that they went to the municipality and said, "We need more power." I I can't tell you this, but I always figured they were the driving force in making that all happen. Well, as far as the the Zealand's history of moving from consumers energy at that time, I think it was consumers company or whatever, u it was in the 1930s and one aspect of that that they moved from consumers to to their own electric cooperative. Okay.

Um was uh Franklin Roosevelt's rural electrification program and all of that so they could more readily get uh had had the federal assistance. Well, it so happens that we have a serious with the Trump administration being basically supportive of what we would be doing and consumers energy taking attack that's very and the NPSC taking attack very opposed to the Trump administration probably we have no better time to get assistance from the federal government which frankly as a practical matter you know it it makes it the job a lot easier. Okay. There's no

What do you think about Trump saying no net zero? Open that plan up, use it. And that's I I think that's the direction it's going to go. I think they're going to this net zero is going to fall apart.

Well, the only thing that I would say on this is I mean just as it now stands, consumers energy of course is is very much against that and the state is very much against that. So what we have is really a waste of what we have going. I don't know that can Trump can the Trump administration actually stop will these will they stop uh all the the net zero plans from being executed in the state or really do we have a situation where we sort of have both which is frankly expensive in order to have if we're doing both it's like and and that's what the cost recovery I don't know if you've read about what consumers energy is trying to do with basically Who's going to pay for they say keeping the Campbell open? This is why I get hate mail because uh you know they say well uh Joseph you you pick up the bill for this because you're the one who started this thing. Um but right now I mean consumers is saying someone has to pick up the bill to keep the Campbell open. Okay. Now my like I say and and this was in terms of you the first resolution you just passed is well just stop doing the net zero expenditure or scale them back significantly and look into an AI data center that actually can be a net positive for consumers energy there's no cost but the way consumers energy right now is doing it keeping up the net zero program plus keeping the campbell open I'll admit there's a cost. Okay. So, so this is the question. I mean, it's hard to know predict what's going to happen in this. All I know is you have consumers energy and NPSC who very much want to go forward and it's not just go forward in terms of just as the law requires. Consumers energy is

going far more aggressively into net zero. They did not have to uh close the Campbell in 2025. uh the the Monroe plan of DTE is not closing till 2032. They could have kept this open till 2032 um and arguably longer than that even according to the law. They are just pursuing net zero very aggressively. And frankly, they really haven't stopped pursuing it aggressively. They're just bowing, okay, we'll we'll let we'll follow the Trump administration on this, but who's going to pay the bills? the customers. Okay. So, this is not going to be nice for for us. Okay. Because

they're they're still producing electricity. Yes. And when when they were when you were being attacked on social media, they said, "Okay, this is a million dollars a day." Mhm. But they're producing electricity. I mean, there's got to be profits there. Are they saying that there's a million dollar loss?

Well, that's what they're arguing. I mean I will say this there is but but of course this is one of my objections with net zero agenda overall is um you have duplic it's almost inherent in it you unless you have are going to have load shedding and blackouts you're going to have to have duplication of fossil fuel plants plus the solar wind and battery in order to get the reliable electric you need so you either are going to have blackouts in which yes, you could go to total solar, wind, and battery, but then you're probably going to have periods of load shedding or blackouts. Or you can go the other route. You have duplications. You have all these fossil fuel plants and you have solar. It at times when things are great, you have you're producing two or three times the amount of electricity you need at times. So, it's but it's a what I'm getting at it. though they're actually I don't deny that consumers energy is telling the truth in the sense that as they're doing it this is a waste of money

I'm just saying the question is cuz they have duplication of electric generation they do but the question is is what's the solution to it is the solution what they're doing well you know in that case what they're doing is basically making the con customers, us put the bill for their their way of doing this. Or again, if I'm just saying if if I had my brothers, what we would do is we would cut back on the net zero, we wouldn't even I mean, someone's going to end up paying for that battery plant in London. And I'll tell you who it's going to be. It's going to be Consumers Energy customers. They're going to make a contract with Consumers Energy anyway. So the point is you cut back on your net zero and you maybe even look into an AI data center with some of that Campbell electric and then you you're not wasting any money. You're making more money and then use that to cut consumer energy customers rates. That's all I'm saying. So um but but as it's now I will say I know the consumer's energy isn't is telling the truth but they do have more expensive because they have duplication of services and that's the reality you know consumers consumers camel plant never needed a backup but solar needs a backup

yes okay

solar solar needs a backup and I can say that because I have an off-grid cabin that's totally run on solar and come November I'll have to back the batteries up with a generator cuz you don't have sun. So if somebody wants to argue with me, I'm the wrong guy to argue with because I've run threeear solar, total solar. In fact, 90% of the solar companies I contact to put solar in wouldn't even talk to me unless I was hooked to the grid itself because they know you can't run off solar. So system I I have the system. I run the system. I know the system. You need backup. Solar won't work without it. We're going going back a little bit though. Are we where are we with Ottawa County? There should be a leader in this thing. Is Ottawa County Ford should be the leader of this US township villages be the the next step? Is somebody that's going to be our leader here or

so the looking at Georgetown to be the leader? ical reality has been from the beginning and this is both whether it was the OI board or the nonoi board is that frankly the political reality is townships have had to lead this okay

they've had to be would have gone nowhere on either the OI or noni not for Georgetown township Jamestown town township boards I'm tell and and then the other boards adding on it's the political dynamic it point though. Do you see Joe that getting to the point where that would change and they would take because I I saw something OI sent out last week where they used to be opposed and now they're in favor. You notice that I'm sure of all people. Um but there may be four members, right? So

how how how likely is it that the current board of commissioners at the county would say, "Look, we'll take the lead. Thanks. Thanks for bringing it this far, Joe. I guess I guess you were right. I think this is the right direction to go." Honestly, I believe just like with the first Campbell resolutions, if there are enough township boards that get on board, and I'm getting indications besides just Georgetown and Jamestown that we can get that even more so because of the battery that then I think that the the the county board will jump on board. I will say like, okay, I'm talking about the nonoi I mean, yeah, the nonoi Jordan Jeritzma advertises as far as how he say helped save the Campbell. Okay. They're proud of having saved the Campbell, the nonoi and the OI are also advertising that way. So, I'm just I'm now speaking politics. No, I think they will. I But I do think for various reasons they're hesitant do something until they the township boards basically show that it's it's it's it's not just the county board. I I why that has been I would have loved for them to be more take be willing to take more leadership but what I'm just my practical real the practical reality I've seen is that first of all needs to be the township boards and then the county board is willing to act. I mean, I can't promise you though the county board would. Now, I but I will say this, the other dynamic in this, it is possible. It is possible that even without the county board, though I think if the town enough township boards do it, they will. But, um, it is possible the Trump administration could decide to help the townships do it without the county board. I mean, I I wouldn't recommend it that route. I I but but I'm just saying it is possible. So, we need to to kind of move along here, but with this committee, how large

would it be? Who's committed thus far? How long would they serve? And what would be the ultimate outcome of what they would do with their determination? Who would they make that to?

Right. So, the the if if the Georgetown passes it, Jamestown already passed it. Georgetown would be the second. I do getting positive indications from a number of other boards. Obviously, I'm my basis is the the seven boards that passed the original Save the Campbell. They're all skeptical of the direction of Consumers Energy. Um and so now then, yes, we would have to come up with each each township that was involved would would have to give some representative on the committee. The purposes is for information gathering. Like I say, it's not for purposes of uh it has no legal authority to do anything. It's just to find out the viability of of of this route of basically doing what Zealand did on a smaller basis of of turning from consumers energy to um private and and and in the process taking the the cooperative. It's because it's best if a cooperative has a means of generating electricity and the Campbell would be I mean the Campbell provides electric for a million people. Okay. So we would be if there were such a cooperative um then it would it would produce it would be an exporter of electricity. It wouldn't just even be and I I will say this already uh the city of Holland and some others actually indirectly and and Wolverine Co-op already own a portion of the Campbell already. It's just a minority share consumers as the majority.

Okay. Um, unless I guess the way I feel about hearing unless we're at the point where someone because I I want to protect and I think you all do Andy's time, Justin's time and with all going on, it would seem to me and they and he's not going to want just, hey, here's an upstanding resident within the township. We'd say you're our representative because you're a Georgetown resident. You're probably looking for a board member, I suspect. Correct. It would really be your decision. Yeah, but I mean

I would it would be your decision who you would want again this is only forformational gathering probably you would want someone who is uh who is interested in the project right but it's for purposes it has will have no authority it just has it's just to give information to the board um and again we I'm hoping that the table will frankly be Trump administration representatives and maybe AI data center representatives because I But yeah, I my instinct is to maybe look to finalize this at the next meeting. My only recent presentation is probably twofold. One, there'd have to be somebody here be willing to say, "I'll be a part of that." Um, I'd be willing to be a part of that. Okay.

I'd serve on that committee. Okay. All right. You talk to your wife or No, kid. She She's got friends. More than just me.

All right. My my second is I don't know if we should have any concern about a quasi governmental type of committee that I I don't know if there's a I don't know if we have to ask and say is there a liability is there a is there any potential liability are we covered in such an activity maybe I'm being too cautious in that respect it is interesting because as you point out Jean it's not really being led by a governmental organization as much as you know what hats off to you Joe persistence and just keeping on right um so no doubt head nod to you in that way and a big head nod But am I you think I'm being too cautious from the standpoint of do we need to know if a quasi governmental type I think there's there's got a lot lot of hoops got to be jumped through first you know to see if we even need it we're going to have a committee

I think I think we need to table it for a little while go do more information our staff is already overure so Gary has I mean he's kind of that's what I'm saying I don't think the staff's got plenty to do the fact that Gary is open to doing this is very powerful yeah And uh Gary, if you're interested, I' I'd be willing to support it. I mean, support the action whether or not you want to table it. Um I'd be willing to act on it now. Okay, Kevin, your thoughts?

I I was along the same lines with you. It's like, well, who who sits on the board? Who who makes that volunteer? And obviously Gary's got a passion for it. seems to know be pretty knowledgeable about the whole, you know, whether it be solar, whether it be coal, whether it be any other source of energy. If he's willing to sit on the board, I don't think there's reason to table this. Is there any drawback commitment to anything really for the township? It's just so he can come back to us and say this is where they're at now. This and who knows, two months from now, they might go plant shut and and the committee's done. Yeah. Yeah, and could go on for another two years. Yeah, it's just information. I do want

I suspect too that Georgetown is important to your recruitment efforts because this is I will say this that's I want to speak at the practical level. I can't tell you how many people actually look Georgetown is the largest municipality in Ottawa County. Hey, that's by far actually.

And it is very hard very hard to get support for mo Jamestown has is unique. It's very hard to get any other township to do it without Georgetown. So what if it were subject to I mean voted on and if there's sufficient support voted on subject to a review with our liability carriers to you know is this something and omissions or something like that

can I just throw one quick question hopefully it's a quick answer I have heard nothing about palisades are nuclear they're coming up they got service 800,000 people where does that fit in equation for west Michigan if and whatever it flies like people say it's going to. Well, of course, we really have no control over that. No, but will that give us will it help our grid? I mean, or how far does it go out? I don't I don't know. So,

the issue of Palisades even if they get all I can say I mean I'm biased. I I am biased. Okay. Palisades was open until a few years ago, but even when it was open, it was having problems and it would have to shut down because of those problems. And the plant is in no better condition, actually probably worse condition than it was when it shut it down. It shut down because it had it's an expensive proposition. All I'm saying that in my opinion to put your hat on the Palisades is it's not the same as putting your hat in the Campbell. And Joe, you went to school. Short answer. School with Gary. You've known Gary for years, so you know what you're getting into. I'm sure. Yeah.

I think they stopped at I think they stopped at the Princeton level, though. I think you went to Princeton. I'm not I forget which. Oh, there you go. Where your team colors were black and blue. Yeah. Okay. Uh well, how about this? Could we modify the language? And I could vote on this to say to approve the resolution declaring intent to join a committee dedicated to exploring the possibility of the acquisition of consumers energy's interest in the Campbell P coal plant. This sounds like we're dedicated to acquiring, but I hear you saying it's really dedicated to acquiring the information necessary to make a determination whether that's feasible. That's right. That's right. So I don't I think is that what you meant when the motion was made? Is that

is that whoever you Yeah. Yeah. So, we want to me that was just a clarification of what motion you've made and seconded. All right. Um, with that, are you guys ready to vote? It's a roll call vote. Sure. All right. Heather. Yes, Amber. I'm sorry. Amber,

we have it. You're right. I said we wanted Okay. How about um that would be the motion. I I'll make a motion to approve the resolution declaring uh our township's intent to join a committee through a representative dedicated to acquiring information about the feasibility and wisdom. Yeah, I'm a lawyer. Too many words, I'm sorry. And wisdom of acquiring Consumers Energy's interest in the Campbell coal plant. That's my motion. It's a mouthful for it. Okay. Now, with that on the table, I'm sorry, you got something, Amber or no? Okay. Uh, then I'm gonna start on my left here and this a roll call vote. Kevin, yes. Gary, yes.

Amy, yes. All right, I'm a yes. Jean, no. Okay. And yes. Okay. So, five and one and that passes. So appreciate uh Joe, your time and explanation and efforts and Gary your willingness to to serve and explore that. Item 15, revision of policy 2021-01 policy regulating employee use of township owned vehicles and corresponding section in the personnel policies and procedures manual. Is there a motion to approve of these revisions which would relate to the fire chief's vehicle and the onduty vehicle for DPW on duty employee I should say. Sorry, you said Gary. Yes.

Moved. All right. Support. Supported. All right. Um discussion questions. It sounds like it's one vehicle that somebody's on call for when we have emergencies. So, it's kind of efficiency for our taxpayers and our residents so that if there is a water mane break, the he can doesn't have to run and quick get a vehicle to go and fix whatever is broken. Mhm. So it sounds like it's kind of efficiency for our town. Chief the same. He can go directly to a he can go right to a response emergency.

Just to be clear, this is a modification meant to sort of fit what is practical reality. That is back in 2021, we changed the policy um about who can have their vehicle at home, right? It was to be kept here. But in practical sense, those two point people, if you will, at any given time have been taking their vehicle home for the reasons that we just went over. So, this would be to make consistent our policy with our practice. And we checked with our insurance carrier. It will not raise our rates. Um, and it will and it will not permit them to use it for other personal reasons, right? Um, so I think in if anything it probably shores us up for what our present reality is

that they couldn't use that as maybe a way to um negate coverage in the event of an incident or something. So it's not a complete repealing uh of what was done then it's more of a narrow um change if you will to match reality. Um any other thoughts? All right. This is not a resolution. So all in favor of the motion say I. I. I oppose and it carries. Item 16, Township office lobby remodel. Is there a motion to pack with Lakewood Construction? Excuse

you. Office lobby remodel not to exceed the 139458 proposal option one. So moved. Okay. Almost like with him gone, we weren't sure who's going to make the motion. So thank you. And the support was Kevin. Kevin.

Kevin. Okay. Um, I think we've done our homework on this. Uh, this is largely related to what Justin was touching on earlier. It's part of that cost that that mandate from the vote uh that got passed on to the townships among other things. Um, anything you wish to add from the utility committee perspective who did a deeper dive? Um, the only thing I thought of is is when they we talked about safety features such as bulletproof glass, whether or not that was necessary or not, we voted against that. Um, but just to make it safer for our people working behind the glass, so to speak, that the number of people that are coming in and out of the building during the voting period, um, just just so they have a little more peace of mind knowing that that uh they're protected, you know, today's day and age. So, um, but I think it the upgrades were definitely necessary.

Sounds like it was efficiency for the voting for the especially the early voting and correct everything. Safety being one component, right? Yeah. But this will also help also

people actually go into the offices, right? I mean, you're going to have got a little bit of security door now, but I mean, sometimes when I'm in my office, you see people just walk right in all the way to Ryan and you don't know who he is or what he is or what he's, you know, and then he's right in our right in our main office. I mean, he could or she could do anything at that point in time. if we had security somehow of letting people in or if Ryan gets a new spot by a window that he can handle things there rather than go into the main part of the office. I'm not sure exactly how that's all going to be arranged, but um that part of traffic would be better too.

That that part of it always bothers me that we let anybody just walk right in there and the girls are sitting there with with money out from taxes and whatever out jump over a little ledge and do anything. I mean I you know Yeah. um not just strictly for bon per se which only happens a few times the sure the four years but I mean overall I think there's a balance in in that implement that has to be struck you know between safety and the fact that this is the people's house so to speak right this is our resident's building where they come to do certain things they can only do here

and so I think sometimes it's the attitude with which is done more than just the structure right so people still feel welcome but at the same time our people feel protected. It's a fine line, you know, right? Yeah. Well, we've been fortunate, but I I think it's time we need to do this. Yeah. All right. Um motion's before you. Any further comments? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. I.

Anyone opposed? All right. Five to zero on that one. Um item 17, life proposal presentation with Craig Dodge. Craig is here this evening. Craig has given us just before the meeting a packet of information to go along with prior proposals that every board member has seen and so we welcome you and u ask you to please make your presentation. Yeah. Thank you.

Uh my name is Craig Dodge. I am vice president of resource delivery at Life EMS Ambulance, which means operations. I oversee all of our operations in uh 10 counties in West Michigan that we operate in and I am a paramedic. I've been a paramedic for approximately 35 years and uh continue to be licensed and I am here to um I think just discuss a little bit our proposal that we were asked to put together for you. Um, I am not here necessarily to sell you on this proposal because it's a service that we can provide to your township if you decide that it's the route that you want to go. Okay. Um, I'll talk a little bit about our company and and um how long we've been in business and all that. Um, we can certainly provide this this uh service to your community if that is what you would like us to do. Um, and I know that you have some difficult decisions to make. I have reviewed the fire department fire department proposal as well and there's a lot of other issues that are raised in that proposal um that are way beyond life EMS having to do with your own community fire protection all of that um and that's for all of you to sort out. I'm just here to address the issue of can life EMS provide medical first response to your community. The answer is yes, we can do that. So just in terms of life EMS, uh we have recently celebrated uh our 45th year in business. We have been in business in

the greater Grand Rapids area since 1980. As I said, we serve 10 counties in West Michigan. We actually are just starting up um in Barry County, so that will be number 11. We have over 700 associates in West Michigan. A mix of paramedics, EMTs, billers, mobility associates, behavioral health associates. We have 84 ambulances, 51 um mobility vans like wheelchair vans that we use throughout West Michigan. And we also have nine behavioral health transport vehicles. Those are Ford Escapes. That's a relatively new service that we provide. Uh basically what we have done is we have started to transport behavioral health or psychiatric patients in those vehicles instead of in an ambulance. And one of the big benefits for communities is that that that's a service that has been being done by ambulance and now we're keeping the ambulances available for what they should be used for which is emergency calls um because they're not tied up on as many of these behavioral type responses. So there's a list of the many different services that we we provide such as behavioral health, integrated care, paramedics, um tele medicine, tactical, that kind of stuff. So our proposal, which uh I'm assuming that all of you have read that I know that it's been available to you for some time. Um, just a quick review of that is that we would prov BLS medical first response units. And I'll I'm going to kind of clarify some of the terminology a little bit if I

can, but one of those units basically would be, you know, 24/7, 365. There would always be one unit available and then we would also provide a second unit during the peak busy hours of the day. Now, our data suggests that that is probably roughly 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on most days. As we if we were providing this service for you as we gain data, we could refine that a little bit and maybe tweak that. But the idea there is to have two units on during the peak times when it's likely that there's going to be simultaneous calls, multiple calls at the same time. Um, we would use these vehicles to respond to all medical calls, priority 1, 2, and three. And I can explain that if you'd like me to, with the emphasis on priority one responses because priority one calls are the life-threatening calls. And and honestly, that's the real reason that you need this service is to have somebody to get to those high priority life-threatening calls as soon as possible. That's really what this is all about. So, for example, if our medical first response vehicle was responding on a med 3, which is a low priority call, and a med one came in, that unit would get diverted to the med one because that's higher priority. We do that with our ambulances as well. That's common um that if an ambulance is going to a med 3, but they're close to a med one, they're going to get redirected to the med one. That happens probably on a daily basis

um all all over the country. Um we would manage all aspects of of providing this service. In in our proposal, we called it sort of turnkey. um you guys would be hiring us to do this and we would we would manage it. We would report to you um and we would provide the service and you would you would really not have to worry about it. If we're doing a good job, we're doing a good job. There won't be any issues or very very few issues and um you'll have the service available as planned. Um we already have in place the basic infrastructure to provide the service. Um Ottawa County would uh they receive the 911 calls, they already give us ambulance calls and they would give us the request and we would be dispatching both the medical first response vehicle and an ambulance at the same time. Okay. The difference would be that the medical first response unit is dedicated to Georgetown Township. They're not going to go anywhere else. They're not going to be transporting patients into Grand Rapids to the hospital. So, they're going to always be here in your community. As soon as they clear one call, they would be available for another call. Uh the pricing that we gave you is is in the proposal. The first year uh $520,000. That's for both of those vehicles for us to again provide you with that turnkey service. We will of course provide you with response time data. I'm actually going to show you some data coming up here. um and any other data data that is needed or requested.

Uh we are very transparent in our operations. Uh we don't mind at all sharing how we are doing. U most of the time we do very well but sometimes we don't and we need to be held accountable and we're okay with that. This is what we call a heat map. Uh probably this is not going to be any surprise to anybody here. Um, this is just meant to show you where most of the calls occur, where the medical calls occur in your community. And, um, if you can kind of see, it's a little bit like weather radar. You can see where the um the, uh, reddest area there is in the upper right hand corner or to the right side there. Um, that's where the most um, calls occur, which is probably somewhat to do with Sunset Manor. um but also you know the Jennison area and uh just a lot of people there and so there's a lot of calls in that area. Um I do also want to point out to you that Hudsonville even though it takes up a portion of your township is not a part of this. So this unit would not be responding to calls in Hudsonville even though it does show up there. Um you can kind of exclude that. Any questions about that

map? Can I ask how many full-time people you're would be be hiring in order to provide this service? Um, I don't know that off the top of my head. We would probably need roughly 8 to 10 EMTs to do this. And we it would probably be a mix of full-time and probably some part-time EMTs. And we have we have lots of EMTs. So, I think we had seven. We would have a problem being able to do that. I think we had seven full-time from Ottawa County that were patrolling plus. Yep. Yeah.

Yep. So, I know some of you in the audience probably can't see this very well. This is just a standard response time report. We actually provide this um to your fire department on a monthly basis. We provide this to um all of the communities that we serve. And what this does is if you look down at the bottom, you'll see med 1, med 2, med 3. Okay? Med one being a life-threatening emergency. Now, that's how the call is categori categorized by dispatch. Okay. The reality is a lot of times we get on scene of those calls and they're not necessarily life-threatening. The true most life-threatening calls like a choking, a severe bleeding, cardiac arrest, uh those are a very low percentage of all the calls that we Okay. But a lot of the calls are still categorized as med one. Uh, and I'm going to show you some other numbers just because we we over respond and um, you know, we don't know for sure what's going on. So, we're going to get somebody there as soon as possible in case it really is an a true emergency. Med 2s are um potentially life-threatening calls. maybe not currently an indication that a life is at threat, but it could um it could uh their condition could worsen. And so we call that a med two. And then a med three is a truly non-emergent response where time is not of the essence and um

we can take longer to get there. So if you look across um there's a couple different response time parameters that are at play in um Georgetown township. The medical control authority in Ottawa County has in a protocol they have a 15minute response time requirement for uh the priority one calls med ones. Okay. We when we started serving Georgetown Township, which was um several years ago, over a decade ago, we told Georgetown Township that we would have a self imposed response time requirement of 12 minutes and 59 seconds. That's why it says over to the right, the target is 1259. Okay? And so we meet that 85% of the time. Now, the data that you're looking at is this year through the end of July. So, pretty current data. So, we meet that um 85% of the time. And then right next to it, the column says MCA compliance, that would be if we go by the 15 minutes that is set by the medical control, uh then we're at 92%. Okay? And I want to point out to you the average there, which is 8 minutes and 46 seconds. So, we're talking here about ambulances. And what that's telling you is that we have an ambulance on scene on average in less than 9 minutes for priority one calls in this township. Okay.

You believe that time would go down if you were if you were hired? Pardon? If you were hired as the primary ambulance in the township with two people, do you believe that time would go down? Um, no. I don't think that number will change. Okay. Because what you decide to do with this first response stuff that it's not going to change anything we do from an ambulance perspective. Okay.

Okay. We're we're still going to be providing the exact same service that we are right now. Okay. for you? That's a good question. So overall right now for all types of calls, our average response time is 10 minutes and 49 seconds. So really under 11 minutes to get an ambulance. And it that's actually really good. So where where does the medical first response fit into all of this? The medical first response service is vitally important. Now, we operate in those 10 counties in a lot of areas where there is no medical first response service. I live in New County and a lot of Neweg County um there there's no first responders. The fire departments don't provide that service. lot of different reasons for that whether it's funding in or difficulty to get um trained responders etc. Um so what that means is the ambulance is going on the call and the ambulance crew has to do everything. There's no medical first response at all. However, that is not ideal. Not ideal at all. And we as an ambulance service, we absolutely like to have, we recommend, and we support that there be medical first response service. And that's really why, you know, you're looking at all of this because it's important. And it's important for your residents to have this service available to them. The I the question is what's the best way to make that service available to Okay. Uh but it is extremely important and um of

course we support that you do this um however you decide to provide the service. The the key is that you want the first responders to respond, the medical first responders to get there in most cases before the ambulance does so that if an airway needs to be opened, if CPR needs to be done and an AED applied, if there's severe bleeding that needs to be stopped, those are the time critical interventions that an EMT can provide or an MFR, a medical first responder can provide um before the paramedic ambulance gets there. Okay. Now, you have for several years you have been having in your township a paramedic level first response vehicle. You know, the sheriff deputy paramedic response mode. And that's fabulous. That is that's that's absolutely, you know, the gold level of of provision right there. Um to have a paramedic level first response. Honestly, a very few communities have that level of first response. And the reality is while it's great to have a paramedic to be the first responder, it's not really necessary because they're going to do the same thing. Even if it's a paramedic, they're still going to have to open the airway, stop the bleeding, start the CPR, put on the AED, the paramedic is going to do the same thing that the EMT is going to do in those very first critical moments when a when a life is at risk. Does that make sense?

So again, it's great if you can have paramedic level service. Most areas around the country do not provide paramedic level service for for MFR. They do for ambulance, but not for MFR. So, this is just a breakdown of our calls. Now, please understand that what we're doing here, since we are your ambulance provider right now, we're just using our own data because we're going on the calls. And so this is just a breakdown of our data, but basically what this is showing you is that um you know, and again this is year-to-ate information up to the end of July. 1700 um times that we've arrived on scene of a call um about a thousand of those or 55% have actually received an ALS treatment or medication. And what I want you to understand is that that is a lot of that is done on the way to the hospital. That that's not necessarily being done, you know, in the home or in at at the scene. Um that is being done over the course of us getting them to the hospital. So I gave you that just to kind of give you an overall perspective. If you look at the meds, see that's 86%. So they're higher priority calls and it it makes sense that we are more likely to do an ALS intervention in those calls. Now another thing that I just want to point out is that in some communities the first responders go on all calls. So, for example, um Calonia Township, the fire department there says, "We want to go on all

medical calls." Period. End of story. We want to go on all of them. That that's how their fire department views it and that's what they want. So, they go on everything. In other communities, the fire department or the first responders, which is usually the fire department, they only respond to the priority ones. So, they only go on the life-threatening calls, maybe the the ones and twos, but the med 3es, they leave for the ambulance crews to handle, and first responders don't go on those. Again, remember that those are non-life-threatening calls. uh we have a longer response time um you know set aside to get to those calls. And um there are some communities around the country that have even started to say we're going to allow up to 60 minutes to for an ambulance to get on scene of one of those calls. And in some of those cases, people just put their family member in the car and take them to the hospital. Um, some of that has been because of a lack of of paramedics and you know that kind of thing over the last several years. So, um, that that's all the slides that I have for you. Um, just a couple other things that I wanted to mention and I I might if you'd like me to, I might be able to answer a couple of the questions that the gentleman had um that spoke during public comment, but first of all, I I really want to emphasize I know there's many members of the fire department here tonight. Certainly, they they want to know what we have to say about all of this. Um, again, we were asked to provide you a quote for providing this service. if you

choose to have life EMS do do the service for you. We'll do a great job. Um, we will really do a very good job for you. Uh, but we're not here to compete with your fire department. They are vitally important in what they do. They do a lot of stuff that we don't do. So, we're not looking to supplant them or anything like that. Um, we're just telling you that that we can provide the medical first response service for you. will do a really good job and you know we've shown you what we believe it will cost to provide that service. Um we have a great relationship with the fire department. Uh we've worked well beside them for many years and and we want that to continue. Okay. Um one thing I want to emphasize is I said we'll do a great job. Uh I do believe we will be very reliable in this service. One of the nice things about this model would be that um different than a a sheriff deputy, we are not going to be um doing traffic stops, responding to B&Es. Um you know, we're not going to be doing law enforcement type stuff. Um and so therefore, um if you hire us to provide this service, it's going to be dedicated and it's it's going to be there. um you know we will be able to make a very very high percentage of the of the medical calls in the community because of that. Um so the the gentleman that that spoke had asked a question of why not ALS first response? Why not have a paramedic do this? And you could ask us to update our quote if you would like and we could certainly calculate what it would cost to have paramedics providing the

service. Okay. I will tell you I'll just tell you that it's my opinion and you can disagree with me. Um it is my opinion that you don't need to have the paramedic level of of service. And I I kind of touched on that a few minutes ago, but a lot of it is because when you have a a paramedic ambulance showing up on average in anywhere from 8 to 12 minutes, okay? Um the the medical first responder is there to do th to you know treat those those life threat threatening things as I mentioned and whether that's an EMT or a paramedic, they're still going to be doing those things. So an EMT can provide the service and do it very well. Um, another thing that is a factor is in more recent years, the medical controls allow the basic EMTs to do more than what they used to be able to do. So today, um, EMTs can give epinephrine. Um, they can check blood sugars. They can, um, start a breathing treatment. um and a few other things that they can do that um used to not be able to be done by the paramedics. But um you know and that that's an overall improvement in the level of care that a basic EMT can provide. And then the other thing um that the gentleman asked was why not have an ambulance dedicated to the township? And I would say to you that you you can't afford that. It is extremely expensive and right now you have excellent ambulance service being provided to your community and it's not costing you a scent. Um you know we we operate multiple ambulances serving the

greater Grand Rapids area. We move them around in a very sophisticated manner using data to have them at the most likely locations for there to be calls. We often, not always, but we often have one or more ambulances located in your community. It is very common for us to have an ambulance posted like um like right in the uh you know Chicago Drive kind of strip here, Granville, Jennison type area. And um you know you're you're not paying us a subsidy for that. So you're getting excellent response times and you're and you're not having to pay for it because there's enough call volume in this area that we can bill the users for of the service and we don't have to come to the to the government and ask them to help subsidize. In other areas like up in Lake County, we provide two ambulances 24/7 and they pay for a part of that because there's not enough call volume there for us to be profitable in that county. Okay? But in Kent, Ottawa County, you know, there's enough call volume. Okay? So, um, you you don't really need to have an ambulance dedicated to your community because you have lots of ambulances dedicated to your community. And if you had one ambulance, then every time they run a call in transport, then you're they're going to be out of the township. And now what? You you're still going to be relying on other ambulances to come in. and we're providing that already for you with the way the system is.

Along those lines, costwise, is there a cost for that medical first responder if you send someone out? I know there's the transport cost, you bill it to the patient or their insurance or whatever, but how about to respond? If you were in that role of being the medical first responder, would our resident get a bill for that? Okay. Not at all. So, you're you would be paying for the service. Georgetown Township would be paying us for the service and that's it right there. We're not billing the customer for the first response part of that because you're paying for it.

That's the service that you're providing. We'll still be billing the customer for the the other side and the transport but not for the first response. Are you billing for non-transport though if the ambulance comes and they we do we bill for certain non-transport um if we if we do an assessment and any level of care on scene we do bill for that and and we will still do that that's once the ambulance arrives right yeah

yes again that's related to the ambulance part of it not the medical first response part so I'm on. If you have any questions, I'm happy to do my best to answer them. Are you going to be able to guarantee staffing or we going to have things like we have other units right now that the fire department's going to have to cover and we paying to tell you that there won't ever be an open shift because there probably will be. Okay.

But we have a lot of other ways that we can mitigate that. Um, we already have BLS ambulances on the road. Uh, we could bring one of them here until we can find somebody, you know, I mean, like if somebody calls in sick, right? If somebody if their shift starts at 7:00 and they call in sick at 6:00 a.m., uh, we may not be able to find somebody by the time that shift starts. Uh, but it'll be our task to get somebody here to cover it. Or or you could work with the fire department to cover the shift for you. That's what we're doing now. That's what happens, right? That's what we're doing now. When when the unit's not available, fire department covers.

Yes. You're not available. Yes. It makes sense for the fire department to cover, right? Well Well, if we're not available to respond, um I believe they would respond anyway. So, how do you know? We don't know unless how does that communication go on where you'd say, "Well, we got three medical calls all at the same time. We had two guys on. They went to each the separate ones, but there was a third one and fire needs to respond." How how do they know that? How do you uh We would coordinate that through central dispatch. They they would need to know that we're all tied up and they need to send the fire first response. H the car is staffed with one or two individuals.

Each vehicle would be staffed with one EMT. I'm not going to do anything with staff like crashes for oil dry, try to get into the house. You're not going to put a Lucas tool on anything like that for stuff that a fire department can provide because you I'm assuming kind of I mean we got a good relationship. We want to keep a good relationship with you. But if we got an echo, you're definitely going to call the fire department for Lucas to help out and assist. Oh, sure. Yeah. There's going to be certain types crash with a flush down or something, the fire department's going to go. You can't get in the building, fire department's going to go.

There's a lot of things that fire can do automatically, right? if they're in a situation different than what um AMR or I'd like to do. Sorry, Principal S. But with the sheriff's department, they're doing that right now anyway, right? Yeah. So, what we have right now that's happening. Yes. Will these will these slides be made available to us? You have them. They'll be put them in the minutes. I'd like to see that.

So, no matter which way we go with this, it seems like we're getting not in a negative way, but a lesser service. Like you say, we had the gold standard, if you will, if you're getting a paramedic responder through the sheriff's department that ends, we have a level of EMT or otherwise with either fire or with you guys. We don't I mean, we are we're losing something. I suppose you could say you could say that. And I'm not sure does I suppose the whole county do you know of anyone in you you cover 11 counties almost now there anybody else in Ottawa County that has a paramedic responder uh

uh there's just a couple of townships over by Holland that um that when when they shut down the the law enforcement e unit over there they hired several paramedics so that their fire department can be ALS. So, they're still the fire department is still providing the service over there. I did do a little research, Jim, and talked to a few people in the no um and they said whatever we choose, our service will not change in our township that we will still have very good medical response service.

Well, it's going to be a little bit different because they're going to provide one with a unit. There were times when we had two or three on. We're not going to get that with him. We're just going to get one and two maybe during that little eight hour period of time. If we went with a fire department, and I made this quick time to discuss, we went with the fire department. We have if we go two or two and two or whatever, we have guys on 24/7 all the way through. And we've got two for the first call, we've got two for the second call, and we got a third group, a third call. Um so we we are giving actually as good if not better service um by doing that than we are just having paramedics because he's going to provide life is going to provide one guy and that second guy just for an 8 hour period of time. So that is losing service from what we have now because the paramedics seen a chart that we put up here last meeting with you know we got one over here and they're over here and on certain times of day we're supposed to have three of them and then we go back to two and all that kind of thing. So to to do this all respect for what you did and how much time it took you because it's not been done in West Michigan anywhere. It's probably a big project for you to come up with all this and I really appreciate your hard work on it. But um yeah,

but the fire department's still not going to have the same training as what the paramedic is. They're

they're not they're not going to give us paramedics. They're giving us EMTs just like the fire department has. The life ambulance, which is the ALS unit, which backs up everybody, will back up his single guy and back up the fire department, will be the same. And they'll do the times that you gave on the on the border, 8 and a half to 10 minutes. When they are fully staffed, they have issues just like anybody else did. We had the fatality on B on Fillmore the other day and it was almost 30 minutes for life to get there. The helicopter almost beat him there. It's and it's not no fault of it's just the way staffing is but um fire department stepped up and did what they had to do and there's you know another crash down the hill I think it took them almost an hour to get there and and then I'm I'm not trying to bash your head so don't give me Craig but how how would um so you have a you have a building in Hudsonville right life yes how would how would that be able to feed into the township if we needed extra is that for just Hudsonville What's the What's the

So, we have two main operating bases in the Granite area. We have um up on Cedar North northeast Leonard and Fuller area. That's where we've been since about 1990 and then more recently the we built the the bigger the big station in Hudsonville. Both of those locations are really just deployment centers. So that's where the crews come in and punch in. They get their ambulance assignment. But a Hudson a crew that starts their shift in Hudsonville, they're still going to be all over the greater Grand Rapids area. They're they don't stay like in Hudsonville. Okay.

Okay. That's just where they start and end their shift. Okay. So, for example, right now it's whatever 8:30, 9:00 on a Monday night. We we probably have um we probably have say 12 ambulances on the road right now in in the greater Grand Rapids area. Okay. A few hours ago at 300 p.m. we probably had 21 ambulances on the road because that's the busiest time of the day. So, we up our staffing and down our staffing to where, you know, this morning at 3:00 in the morning, we'll have five ambulances on because we don't, you know, we don't need any more than that. So, our staffing is constantly under adjustment, but when the bad crash happens in Georgetown Township at, you know, 5:00 p.m. and there's there's five injured patients, um, you know, we can have four or five ambulances at that scene because we've staffed up at that time of the day. And we all we we mutual aid each other all the time. You know, AMR might have in their area a bad crash and they might have two AMR trucks and two life trucks there because they only have two trucks available at that time. So, they ask us to send a couple that that kind of stuff happens all day. They end up calling Rockford for this on this crash we had the other day,

which is So, I'm happy to answer more questions. I'll I'll stick around till the end of your meeting, but uh Justin knows how to get a hold of us if you have any other questions. And uh I would also invite you if you'd like to come up to our um Cedar Street location and see dispatch and get a tour of our facility. We'd love to have you. Um, we're all we always like to show it off and have you come and actually learn what EMS is all about because, uh, it's it's actually really different than what most people think. So, um, I'll just extend that invitation to you if you'd like to come. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Greg. Thank you. Very professional.

Appreciate it. All right. Item 18 on our agenda tonight. Second public comment period. At this point, anyone wishing to address the board can step forward, identify a name, address, and you've got three minutes on any topic you like. [Applause]

Welcome.

Uh, good evening, Georgetown Township Board. My name is, uh, Chris Falsen. I live at 6592 Rolling View Drive in Hudsonville. And I've been a resident of uh Georgetown Township since uh 1998. This is my first time speaking before you uh and as a lifelong resident here since my wife and I came out here. I just want to say thank you for each of you for the time that you put into leading this township. And I know that from a lifelong resident here of uh not lifelong but for being here since I've been out here and a dedicated voter, I appreciate every single one of you that have stood out there to take this position to lead this township on a various of issues. And I know just from watching from the background that you've had a lot of push back for those that have been here short term and those that have been here long term. But I will tell you from a family that we've raised five kids here in Georgetown, the library is phenomenal. I'm glad you put and stepped up and led to build the library. And you've had some push back on the clock or you've had push back on a waterfall, but I'm telling you the reason I'm standing before you here right now is it's time to step up and lead and it's going to be costly and it's going to fiscally sometimes hurt a little bit. But you guys stepped up and led, you dug a hole. You put water into this township because this township has grown and people need water and people are griping and bummmoning because the thirst is great. And so therefore, what will you need? We need infrastructure. Well, now you're standing before it because now you need infrastructure upgrades in your fire service. And his proposal is great and by means of saying he can provide a great service for a township residents. But I'm telling you right now as a resident here, it's time for the fire service to take over first response. Because when he says they're medical first response where you get an ambulance here in 9 minutes, when you put firefighters in each one of your stations 24/7, 365, that can pretty much assure that you're going to give a firefighter first response with an engine that could actually do fire and

EMS within less than 4 minutes. That's cutting it in half. And if you know your fire service data and you can talk to Chief Dit is that firefighters are making grabs more often in life residence. So Dit brings uh Dwit brings up your recent crash on Filillmore. Let's go back and talk about your fire that you just had at the at the apartments. Let's not take it that that's a just a storage unit. Let's take that as a house and your limited staffing during the day put Granville second do with second engine fulltime. Let's put Georgetown residents first and foremost with full-time rigs so that when that fire comes out and you have uh full-time staffing in each one of your stations. That means you have at a minimum if you're starting with your proposal that's six guys on the rig 24/7 and they then are getting there and you're getting a timely response on not only EMS, you're getting a timely response for fire as well as well. And so you're getting a win-win. Now, as he talks about your cost up front on that, you're talking about for their proposal of 3 years. That's $1.23 million that you're going to cost. The proposal for the fire department is $1.7 just for labor. And I know that's going to be costly and I know that's going to be expensive. And I know that's going to hurt cuz you now got the political people pushing back saying, "Oh, we're going to spend a bunch of money in this township." And I'm willing right now to stand up and say, "It's time to pay. We're not 14,000 people anymore. We're 55,000 people." And it's time that we're have to pay a little taxes for better services.

Thank you. Thanks for your time. Thank you. Can I get you spelling in your last name? I didn't quite Is it Victor E L Z-Nate? Appreciate it. You else name Chris.

Yeah. Chris Plumbman. Um 6877 Creek Ridge Court, Hudson or Hudsonville. I've been a resident for 30 years. So 30 plus years on the fire department versus life EMS the whole thing that we're discussing. I think what you guys need to do is think of it in a very simple terms. You want to buy an appliance. What is an appliance? It does one thing very well. I think with the quote that you got from Life EMS and maybe a subsequent quote you get from AMR or somebody like that, the dollars point to a great solution, which leaves other money available for you as well. Let the fire department work on the things they do best, putting out fires. Are we going to have a fire department, first responder, life EMS responder, and a sheriff's department, paramedic all responding at the same call? because that's what we'll have because those paramedics at the sheriff's department don't go away. What I mean with the extra money you'll have available, have you considered at all maybe going to the sheriff's department and buying their vehicles or supplying their vehicles and have them still do their first responder what they're doing, but we take up that cost. And maybe with those paramedics, if they still want to be on the sheriff's department, do we pay them a bonus for continuing to do what they do as an option? Because the one $1.7 million that he's quoting, that's year one. That's with selling what? A platform truck that we'll get, I don't know, 50 80 grand for and then a grant. What's year two? What's year three? What's year five? That's could be multi-millions of

dollars. That's a big suckup. That's a big time payup. And I think there's better ways to skin the cat here. So I think if you do a combination of us some things like EMS, you could actually ask them find out what their costs are to dedicate trucks in our township cuz half a million dollars is what they're quoting. 520 to 560 beats the heck out of 1.7 million first year. I mean, it really, really does. I think there's other options you haven't considered, but I think you need to focus on having the departments and the ambulance and the sheriff's department, those kind of combinations to do what they do best, not a onesizefititall. And one other point, Jim, I want to make, and I'm not sure how you're going to take this, but how is it that Jean is part of this? His son runs the fire department. Is that a conflict of interest? Some place, someplace. You don't have to answer me, but I think it's something you need to consider. So, I think it's basically bad form. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Thank you for all you guys coming and doing these meeting things because they're kind of, you know, takes a long time and I appreciate it. Um, my name is Schneider. I'm from Hudsonville. I Sorry. Your name is what? Snider. Snider. That's your last name. What's your first name? E R. First name is Lair. I'm sorry. L. So, anyways, Lair. How do I spell that? L A I R he's Schneider. You just call me Schneider. And then where in Hudsonville they live? Hudsonville just right off Baldwin. Um so the energy we have to

we have a protocol that that I've been criticized for not following and so I'm trying to be more careful about that. No one's going to come and follow to your home and presumably could find your address online. But what is your street address? Recorded like 7553 Hidden Forest Drive. Okay. So there you go. Um did you hear that? I I ma'am I I can't we won't start your three minutes but I can I 553 Hidden Forest Drive 7553 Forest Drive Hidden Forest Drive. All right. Thank you. I'm It's my hearing I think. Thank you. Go ahead. Go ahead. Yep. In regards to the energy thing really quick. Um there are sand batteries for larger communities. Norwegian. You have to speak in the mic ma'am. I can hardly hear a word you say.

Okay. So in Norwegian areas they actually have sand uh batteries if you ever want to hear about that. And there's also areas in the region areas in China that are using their waste and burning it and they're doing it without any chemicals actually getting energy off of it. So these are some other alternatives to what he was saying. Okay. So why did I come here today? I came here because um in meeting that I came to they were talking about flocks. Flocks are the AI and the cameras and everything. Um that information is going to Palunteer. So when Elon Musk broke into the government agencies and took our data and put it in Palunteer for a surveillance state. You can look that up in the hundreds of billions we paid them. Um 13 employees have left Palunteer recently and in an open letter they said we have deep ethical concerns about big tech enabling authoritarianism. It's also enabling systems that harm civilians quote unquote. It is a weapon that threatens democracy. Um Karp who runs Palanteer has stated in open interviews I don't believe in win or lose. I dominate. I want to use drones with fentanyl laced urine and dump it on IT staff who've said bad things about our company. This is not someone I want our information going to. So I'd really appreciate if we do not use flax. There are actually a couple other alternatives, but I don't want this data. I don't think that our local staff would misuse it, but I absolutely know these guys would. Um so I'm asking you not do that. Um then just the very last thing is um with the big billionaire bill that they just passed uh HR1 December January of this year AHA will have cuts. So that's through the health care system. Next December after the midterms there will be 500 billion cuts to Medicare and that is because the deficit it hits pay as you go bill and for that we will have one four nursing homes that will go down. all of our health insurance is going to go up. Why? Because when people don't have health insurance, they go to the ER and they

don't want to go to the ER. So, they'll wait until things get really bad and more expensive. And we will have that advertised over us. What we could do are some things like at the fire station if you had a couple extra buildings we could have an urgent care kind of center where we could have if we have certain laws put in place PAs that could do viral tracks vaccinations UTI ear infections so that we don't have this overrun of the ERS which would actually reduce all our cost also when these people come out of these nursing homes what are we going to do there are strip malls that are not being used we can add rollin showers and then make the storefronts which there's no one in there anymore single little hall with little rooms with just a bed and a a nightstand. And in the center hallways, very small apartments because the foster care kids won't have any place to go that have aged out of the system. They donate five 15 hours a week to the elderly. The elderly are down on the street. They're not on the street and they help each other. So, I'm done. Thank you for your time. But those are some of the issues that are coming up and some possible solutions. Have a nice day.

Thank you.

Thank you. Dave Butler, 728 Chancellor Granville. Um, I've been on Georgetown Fire for 38 years. Not quite as long as Jean served, but um been on a long time. Craig's proposal he gave is a good proposal, but it's it's one vehicle or two vehicle deep. Georgetown Fire, we have 11 or 12 licensed EMS vehicles. So, when two vehicles are tied up, we have more vehicles ready to go. Um, we have 50 people plus deep that are MFR EMT level. We are deep as far as running multiple calls Saturday night when we had the crash at Filillmore. We had all three stations manned because it took quite a few people out there. We had a couple medicals that came in. We picked them up, ran them without without a hitch at all. It It's deeper than the medicals. It's also personnel to man the fire stations just like Little League Church, everything else. People don't volunteer anymore. we have less and less people coming forward to to be paid on call firemen for Georgetown, Granville, anybody. It's it's a nationwide crisis and um putting two people in each station or three people in the stations gives us a quick out um response not only on medicals but on fire calls as well.

Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. Y others see all right. Yep. Welcome.

Uh Jared Dit 1147 Maplewood Drive. Um like to speak to this fire and EMS issue. Um to speak to life as a ALS company. They they work wonderful. We work very well with them handinand um for this proposal. I just don't see them as a good option. Um so with with two people, the fire department's option, you're going to get two people first on every call. You look at a cardiac arrest, you need somebody to start CPR, you need somebody to put an airway in, somebody to apply the AED. All those things work well with two or more people on an apparatus. One person just can't do that all by themsel. Um, so that's a benefit you get from the fire department. You get that on cardiac arrest. Vehicle accidents, you have multiple patients, multiple responders. You can take care of multiple people at a time. Um, vehicle accidents, you can extricate someone, that EMT gets on scene, they can't do anything until the patient's out of the car. Um, I think you'll see a loss for morale on the part paid side and I'm not going to give any names, but I have talked to members of this department who have discussed maybe resigning if the board doesn't choose to support us. And I don't think that should be your primary driver in your decision. Um, but I think it should be a consideration that your support to us as firefighters is important. I will not be stepping down regardless of the decision you make. Um, but I I would have you consider that. Um, I think you could see a conflict of interest. As uh as you stated, they won't get build if we only provide the uh first response care. Um, but as firefighters, we could take in uh what we call an AMA. You it's against medical advice. It's a release a liability waiver. They sign on scene and we could take that and cancel the ambulance. Whereas, I think you'll see an incentive that maybe the EMT would wait for that ambulance to arrive. Once that ambulance arrives, a bill gets generated for your patient. And that would be double dipping for your resident who's paying through the choice to hire life and then also through using the service life provides. Um, another thing, life's proposal would include staffing members in our fire

stations. So regardless of infrastructure, you have to house these people and that should be a consideration. We put our firefighters in these stations or we put life in these stations. We've had life in our stations in the past. It didn't work well. They ended up getting their place in Hudsonville. um the members didn't feel welcome in their own stations. Um as well as the fact that the members um would consistently come into a station that wasn't clean and wasn't kept up. Uh the fire fire service provides more things. Um I touched on the the vehicle extrication, but we provide medical low angle vehicle extrication, fire suppression. We have a drone team starting soon and dive rescue operations. These are all things you can get when it's called for. You're not getting somebody coming from home. You're getting somebody coming from the fire station. that response is going to be quicker and you're going to get guys who are training on duty. They're training on shift. They're keeping the trucks up. All things that are done by full-time personnel during the course of a shift. Firefighters don't just sit at the station waiting for a call to come in. Um there's many things we do while we're while we're working. We check the truck every morning. We're training. We're doing physical agility, physical fitness. The job is demanding. Um and there's lots of things we can do. We're not just sitting at the station. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. [Music] [Applause] Sean Half482 Winterfred Street. A couple of things that I've heard a comment that I think are important to consider and one that hasn't been brought up is if going with the fire department is really going to cut the amount of time required before they get the call. I think that's extremely important. Another point that hasn't been brought that I find personally very important is I asked Chief Dit about our volunteers in the fire department. He said every single one is a member of Georgetown Township. So that means they're our neighbors. So they're going to be highly motivated to get here to take care of their own neighbors, their own community members. And I think that's very important to consider. These are our neighbors. They're are people here. They've served us for a long time. I understand cost that's always important to consider. Maybe there's ways we can save money at some other things, but between cutting the amount of time that is required for response and the fact that these are neighbors, these are people that have volunteered, they're going to provide us with a really good service. I I think those are some good points to consider moving forward. Not something that's going to be decided today. But I also am friends with Chief Sean Shrader out in Grand Haven Township or I'm not quite sure. They have one in the city of Grand Haven and then they have a he's a chief there and I talked to him on the phone. He's a childhood friend of mine and he said for our size and compared to other communities of similar size, we're pretty low end as far as resources and amount of people that are working for the fire department. That's something else maybe to consider moving forward as well. 50,000 people or so.

You compare it to Kentwood, uh we're just according to a lot of national recommendations and so forth, there's just not nearly enough people full-time employees right there at the moment. But that's something to be considered. Thank you.

Thank you. [Applause] Uh, Michael Bosch 3245 Golden Oak Court. Um, I want to thank um, Mr. Dodge for the presentation. That was um, I thought it was fantastic. I learned a lot of stuff. I I was just assuming we're losing a paramedic, so we'd replace the paramedic. So after his explanation that does make sense. Um but I guess my question would be I think Gary had asked a question uh would it cut down the ambulance time which I don't think it would and he said it wouldn't. Um but I'm my cur my I'm curious what is the response time of that EMT in the township if we went that option. So I'm guessing he's that person is going to be either mobile or at a station. So that that it's not I don't think it would be the eight minutes. So um and maybe Mr. Dodge could uh I could talk to him afterwards and find out. But I think that's a question I would be asking. Um and then I would like to see more options. Um if EMT is satisfactory, could we have two vehicles and two EMTs constantly in the township at all times? because my my concern is that that response time um and on top of that with the life EMS solution uh we're still going to have our sheriff's department and those paramedic deputies on so we are going to have that response time um and like um Mr. Plowman had had mentioned is everybody kind of has their specialty. You start to people always tell me is what do you do? I do I do flooring. I can do framing. I can roof. I can do siding. I can do uh cabinets, paint.

Uh what is I forget what the term the the phrase is a a man of many. Jack of all trades.

Yeah. Jack of all trades, master of none or something. So, and that's that concern you run into as you try to like, well, we can do that and we can do that. Well, if you're doing that, then who's going to do that part? So, um, I just I would just hope that the board really looks at this and says, "What is best for our residents? What is going to be the most equivalent to what we had before that we're losing? What's what's going to be the solution?" And also, of course, cost effective. Um, and I I I just hope everybody looks into it. And then I guess my next question is I sent all the board members the survey results from the 2,700 residents who took I hope everybody get everybody get it. I don't know if everybody Nobody got it the email. It's a PDF. It's like 400 pages.

I know. I had it from before. I don't recall getting something. I sent it to the whole board a week two weeks ago. Are we gatekeeping? No. It's strange it wouldn't go through. So, I'll send it again and I'll follow up. Yeah, please. All right. All right. Thank you.

Thank you. I do want to say I watched the videos. I'm assuming Andy had something to do with that because that's the one thing that's different now. The resolution is phenomenal. The screen shows what's on the screen in the video. Phenomenal. Excellent job. Justin. Justin. Excellent job, Justin. What were we waiting for? I've been asking for it for six years and now suddenly we get it. Same cameras. magic.

No one else. Seeing none, we'll close that second public comment period and open up for uh discussion on general information. I know you had something you mentioned to me ahead of time related to u hand in hand. Oh yes. Tomorrow there is a ribbon cutting at Handto on Chicago Drive. I believe they're right behind Aldi, like in that original Aldi building. Um, and they're looking for volunteers to help pack stack lunches, I think is what they do. Um, and the ribbon cutting is at 9:30. So, if anybody is available, please come out to Hand to Hand tomorrow morning and maybe pack some help pack some lunches. Okay. Appreciate that.

Look like you're about to say something. Yeah. Yeah. I just saw a picture on Facebook of you coming down a slide um celebrating 60. Ignore 60. Yeah, it looked like in the club looked like you had a wonderful time. I guess you got together with your brother and did some golfing. Thank you. Yeah, wasn't pretty. Go ahead. Went to uh historical society meeting last Yeah.

Thursday. Um, they came up with a couple ideas for working on this grant which is supposed to come out here in September once they figure out what the grant actually says for the next year for the 250th birthday celebration. And it looks like a couple of items that they're working on is to really enhance their Facebook page um to make it a lot better, a lot easier to go to things and possibly um hooking up with QR codes um to put things in their uh Tiffany house. You can use your phone to pop up things to read about certain things in the house or that bedroom or that kitchen or whatever along with the possibility of maybe doing something around the park with different stations that you could do is kind of same thing. So there a couple ideas that they're the three top ones I think they came up with and we'll see how it goes next month or so here yet. So

great. Thank you. I'll say um about Gan, I have not really talked to Gan directly about this, but I have thought about it and and I've thought that others might have questions as well, which is essentially that you'd be surprised at the at the threshold um legally for one to abstain or otherwise be um kept out of a vote for a conflict of interest. So, um, honestly, because you're not by your vote on this subject receiving a direct financial benefit of any kind, your son is already holding a position, and you personally do not benefit from a a decision of this nature as a retired member of the department. There's not a legal conflict of interest. Okay? You could choose to abstain from a vote if you wanted, but even then, we all would have to vote on whether we would allow you to abstain. we might say, you know what, no, we want you to vote, right? So, um it it is u it it is the case that you have the right uh to vote on this and uh unless you felt differently and you wanted us to consider your absention, which would be up to you. Uh we would then vote on whether to accept your abstension, but otherwise um in this case, legally speaking, you're you're not conflicted out. So,

thank you. Historically, it's unusual if the board allows someone to not they want you to vote. Appreciate that. It sets a precedent if we cross that. Anyone to my left?

Um, just to address uh Mr. Mr. Plowman. Um, we have done a lot of due diligence on this fireman proposal, including reaching out to the sheriff's department whether or not we could hire the EMTs, give them a bonus to stay on is not an option. So, we have reached out to them. We've we've run a lot of different scenarios in the past year. So, we have been talking to them. So, now it's a matter of trying to figure out what's the best for the township. So, we have done some of that. Kevin uh I just those last words that that uh Gary just said, what is best for the township? I think as John said in previous meetings, this this decisions going forward for the township will change the township and and many different ways. And I think that, you know, we need to think long and hard on what is best for 55,000 residents uh for the township. And and whichever way the board decides, I don't think it's swayed one way or another on do we support fire, do we support life, do we support a combination of the both. We support 55,000 residents of the township and we have to do what's right for them. and and you know it's a tough decision for for seven people to make.

So can I say one more thing on that too? I mean just Mr. Plow once said also is that

you know that fire do best with fires but 80 to 90% of our calls nowadays and that's not only Georgetown that's all over is medical calls. We do just as much training I say we I'm sorry. They do just as much training on the medical side of it once or twice a month. I mean all winters almost all training medical plus their fire side of it so that we can be good and to do fires that were firefighters. But nowadays the way things are going as much as population is there's 80 90% of all the calls are medicals and they train just as hard doing that as they do doing fire. So they're very good at both.

And with that, is there a motion to adjurnn? So move. All in favor? I need to journ services.