Township Board - Regular Meeting

So, I just wanted to do that. I usually don't need to use it, so I'm grateful for the opportunity tonight. Going to call the meeting to order. Welcome the board here and welcome the public that's come to observe the board's business tonight. We appreciate you being here. And honestly, if we had known there had been this many people, we would have found a different venue. So, my apologies to those of you who are standing, you took me by surprise. I know some years ago, we had I think the highest number I've been told that we ever had at a meeting was about 750. and we have very cooperative churches on either side that were gracious to allow us to use either one of their facilities in that instance. So, um yeah, in the future if we know we've got something coming, we'd been happy to accommodate you, but for those standing tonight, we appreciate your patience. Uh perhaps you can rotate through the seats. All right, we uh we open our meetings uh with prayer. And so, at this time, I'm going to ask Miss Kyper if she'd be willing to do so. If you would like to bow your heads. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this night. We thank you for the sunshine that you brought us today. And we thank you for the ability for us all to gather here and meet to discuss township business. We especially thank you for all of the guests that we have tonight, these residents that we are able to serve. And we ask that you be with us. uh help us to uh uh make quality decisions, be respectful of our residents, hear everyone out. Um, and we ask that you uh of course be with our police and fire and those that serve our township uh in a safety capacity. We also ask that you be with our township staff people who work so hard for us every day. And finally, we ask that you bring all of us home safely tonight. Uh in your son's name we pray. Amen.

Amen. Thank you. You all stand 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, liberty and justice for all. Thank you. You may be seated. All right. Item four on the agenda. It would appear clerk that all members are present. All are present. So we have a quorum. Item five, approval of agenda. Is there a motion to approve tonight's agenda? So move. Support. Move supported. Discussion. Okay. Hearing none. All in favor say I. I.

I.

All opposed. Agenda is approved. I would like to say for the benefit of the public tonight, so we've got a couple of presentations on the front end of the meeting and then we have some board uh business and then toward the end of the meeting, I'm no Nostradamus, but I'm predicting I think this has to do with water. Um, and so therefore, what I'd like to allow you to do is to be able to speak to that issue at the end of the meeting. We have public comment period. Uh it's not a direct agenda item tonight. Um perhaps we should have made it so or would have had we known, but uh nevertheless, you're going to have a chance to speak to it uh before the meeting is over. I see a lot of people smiling and nodding. It certainly been part of our agenda in past months, but we're happy to address it here tonight, and it's good to have all of you here. Um what I'll I'll ask of our uh manager Justin tonight is that he would before that second public comment period that he would uh give us an overview, give you an overview and the board um things we're familiar with, some of you may be familiar with, some of you may not. give him a chance to uh in brief form lay out what has occurred so that when you speak you're able to speak um knowledgeably meaning I don't want you to feel like well if I had known that I would have said this right so we want you to know uh the salient points and then be able to address them as you choose all right all right so with that we have uh first off here Jason Shamlin I just said hi to here he is from the county from Ottawa County and parks uh department. We appreciate you coming, Jason. And Jason, how many years have you been now with county parks

in 2019? Okay. All right. Well, for our sixth year, I can speak for the residents in here that ravines is wonderful that uh people love Hagger. Uh they love what you're about to do, I think, eventually down there at at Cottonwood and Filillmore. Okay. And for the benefit again of those here tonight, the board's been part of that. The township's been part of that. All of you as residents have been part of that, but the Ottawa County Parks Commission leads the way. So, yes, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for allowing me to come out today. So, um, we do have a presentation. The go do I control it on here?

Excellent. So the parks commission's been around since 1987 um when the board of commissioners had the insight um to form the parks commission really to focus on our natural spaces and our greenways. So we have four greenways, Grand River Greenway um is obviously the one that we'll focus on mostly tonight, but there's also the Lake Michigan greenway, um Pigeon River Greenway, and the Makatawa Greenway. So since the formation of the parks commission in ' 87, all our land acquisitions and development really have focused in those areas. Um and you can see there at the bottom of that slide in 2024 we uh completed our strategic plan um really looking at defining um our vision um re-evaluating our mission um and special thanks to John uh from Georgetown here. he came and was a we had a committee advisory committee for the strategic plan that we invited various stakeholder groups and community leaders um and George Georgetown had representation on that. Um so our vision is to be a leader in creating a legacy of expansive accessible biodiverse natural communities for all to enjoy. And when you think about the Grand River Greenway stret stretching from Lake Michigan all the way to Kint County and then a trail connecting between, we really feel like that is what we're striving for. And then our missions to enhance the well-being by stewarding a connected system of natural communities and promoting outdoor experiences. And really we have um several values that that we refined and said from for all of our projects and initiatives and day-to-day activities we want to challenge ourselves as staff and our parks commission that are we right meeting these values. So, accessibility, collaboration, education, integrity, sustainability, and health and wellness.

And really, you know, I want to thank Georgetown for for being a great partner collaborating on this. The Bend area goes back 20 plus years. Um, and Georgetown was a true partner in that. Um, so we had lots of community input in that strategic plan. We had over three or 6 thousand stakeholders or surveys or participants who were um gave us input and some of the things that we heard, you know, folks wanted us to be a leader in natural resources management, outdoor education and the the exposure of nature to school kids. Um protection and conservation of natural features, engaging the public in experiences in nature and the outdoors. um coordinating countywide trail system. So yes, we want to see the IDMA Explorers Trail running through here and connecting between Kint County and Lake Michigan, but we also want to see it connect into the Northbank Trail on the north side as well as the Lakeshore Trail that runs down along Lake Michigan and into the Makatawa Greenway Trail that runs connects in with the Fred Mild Meer Trail. So all of those things and then continuing to invest in upgrading the current facilities and modern restrooms. I note that because overall resoundingly folks want to have modern restrooms when they come visit and they want to when they're there in December or January with their kids, they want to have a a warm restroom, not just some of our traditional uh vault latrines. So um we heard that and the the residents spoke. So there's some great survey information. Our strategic plan is on our website and it has all the data in it. So we refined those that feedback into our core key initiatives. So connectivity, connecting people, it could be trails, but connecting people to the parks in our communities, community engagement, so educating

people about the parks, the natural resources, the activities that we have, our volunteer opportunities, how are we engaging the public also, right? the transparency of what's going on, what programs do we have, what projects are we having, how are we informing the public and staying engaged with that organizational quality. So, reaching out, listening to the public, and making sure that we're reinvesting into the facilities that we have. We have some amazing facilities, but making sure we're taking taking care of them and updating them to meet the current expectations. And then still having strategic land acquisition and protection. we won't see the the growth in parks and acreage that maybe we did for the past 30 years, but we still want to work to protect some of those areas. And then conservation really, you know, how do we continue to foster that natural resources management? Um, right, educating folks about invasive species and then providing those resources to you as a township and how can we be of help with that work that you're doing here locally. So, a few other things maybe. There we go. So, um, our most visited parks, the Grand Ravine. So, by a raise of hands, who's been at Grand Ravines? So, it is by far, I would have thought when we started looking at our attendance, um, it would have been one of our lakeshore parks, but Grand Ravines by far tops the chart. Then Tunnel Park, Hagar Park, Kirk Park. So we had over two million visitors in um fiscal year 24. See if I can go back.

What do you mostly attribute that to the high attendance? Is there is it principally you hear about the dog park or do you hear more about the just the beauty of the ravine? Yeah.

So yes, I think both of those combined plus the location and proximity to you know dent housing, right? Georgetown's our most populous jurisdiction I think and it's accessible to people and then the dog park adds to that but then also just the scenic right overviews at Grand Ravine to the river and then the foliage and we know in October those first few Saturdays when it's beautiful out there isn't going to be parking there. So, and if you do go there and go to visit on that Saturday in October and it's full there, just head down to Grand River Park because now the trail system connects between the two.

Um, so we are a little over 7700 acres. Um, 29 property. It's actually 42 properties combined, so over 130 miles of trail. Um, and then some of the ones in Georgetown. So, Grand Ravines, Grand River Park. Now, it's one of the most beautiful segments of the Item Explorers Trail between those two. So, if you haven't checked Grand River Park out, check it out. It's got a nice little playground there, too, and some boardwalk along that pond. Um, the Bend Area. So, we've been working with the township on that. That's there off of Cottonwood and 12th Avenue, dead ends into it, and see if this and then obviously Hagar Park, right? It is uh one of our most heavily used parks by the neighborhood and um one of our older parks. So that was one of our first parks that we um received from the rope commission. And then Jenison Mill, it's a property that we don't call it a park, but it's there just right on the border. So but in that Jen Mill area, right on the border is where we have the SEIA Grand Connection Archway. So um Peter was chair of our campaign committee and um helped lead the fundraising campaign. So we do have a few. Let's see if I can get it to line up here. Oh, thank you very much. Can I go to the next slide? One more. Perfect. So, Georgetown Township residents use our parks more than any other jurisdiction. And that's not just because you have a higher um population, but the percentage of visits also is higher. So 20% 26% of our visits um right versus the average of 18% of the population. And other than right, we can

see Grand Ravines and Hagar Park right lead the way. Um but Winds Nest Park is the most visited for the lakeshore parks from your township residents. So 2, 276,000 plus um visits to our our Ottawa County parks from Georgetown Township. So we're always really excited to see um residents coming out and utilizing. How do you know those numbers, Jason? You don't you only monitor at certain times, right? Certain parks.

We mobility data. So we online mobility data that just helps us with this. And especially when we did our strategic plan, it helped us, right? really delve into, you know, who's visiting, how many people are from in county and how many people are from out of county. So, and it played into um I think so we were able then to forecast that next slide. Gosh, I'm not very good at economic impacts. So, um, annually just by our parks operation, we contribute over $6 million to the local economy. Um, our parks generate $41 million in additional assessed residential value of properties near our parks or trails. So, and then our tourism economy, visits to our parks and trail systems, our campground, our marina generate over $26 million in tourism spending. Um, we were able to use the mobility data to calculate that out. Um, so parks also are a positive economic driver for um the local economy.

That's interesting because I would say of the county parks in Georgetown, almost none of them have commercial uses right next to them. Well, so that's across the entire county.

So, and it would be people who are coming in to visit. So, they might be we have a lot of non-residents who visit Grand Ravines. Um, probably over 50% of our resident or visits at Grand Ravines come out from outside the county, which is no surprise with how close it is. Um, plus all of the lakes shore parks then are right a destination for non-residents. So, um, a few of our current initiatives. So, we talking about our 24 strategic plan that laid the foundation really looking to the future. Um, and our 2026 parks, recreation, and open space plan. I'm sure the township has one. It's a requirement for us to to qualify for the state grants, specifically the trust fund grants, but we take it take advantage of this one to look at our next 10 years um as we focus on our millillage renewal, which will our millillage expires um in 2026. So, we're trying to determine what we'll do um in the next millillage levy. So, some of the areas that we're talking about are the bend area segment of the IDMA Explorers Trail. So, that connection through um the Bend area. We have expans additional property to expand there. Um some additional regional community engagement, Allenale segment, Eastmanville segment, all of the Idan Explorers Trail. um uh trail going through Bass River, the Bayou segment, Sterns Connector, which is actually open. Um we will be talking about Hagar Park here a little bit and looking at doing some upgrades of the facilities there as well as looking at some of the natural turf areas and um more native um species there. Um and then community engagement. So this past year we focused on a our first ever all day summer camp. Um so that went all summer long and that was here. We hosted that at at Hagar Park. So we have a focus on new programming, health and

wellness initiatives, step it up and parks challenge. So um so this talks just a little bit more about the parks and recck open space. The um the thing to mention about that is it will go out soon and we'll make sure we relay that out to to you all. Um it will be posted publicly for 30 days to get public feedback on it and then we'll have a hearing at October 22nd at our Filillmore complex to provide allow residents um to come and provide input on that. So some of those areas in the projects in there will be the bend area improvements um educational nodes along the IDMA Explorers Trail. So spots designated to you know uh have themes focused on culture and history um along the trail and the new improvements and retrofits of existing facilities really to help us focus on that community engagement and education. So we center this one maybe. So this is the bend area and I added this slide. Um so this was it completely in partnership back not long after the parks commission was formed. One of the things they identified the possibility of a large regional park in the eastern part of the county along the Grand River. So that's called the Bend Area Open Space. And so that was in 1999 when parks and the township came together and then engaged the local mining operators all in that area then to facilitate a master plan. And as they renew their mining permits, the reclamation plan that's used is this master plan to allow us in the future to be able to acquire that property when they're done mining with it and then

develop a large regional park. So some of the things that are included as initial concepts, you know, obviously our greenway trail, but the potential for a swimming beach, we would have restoration, possibly some event space. Um so there was a master plan done in 2000 and it's been updated um at least twice and we started our first acquisition then in 2008 and I'm glad to say that last I think it was last week on the 27th we closed on the Grand Rapids gravel property. So that was an addition of another 184 acres and some of the staff or those with the township know we've been working on that actually longer than than it was predates me. So before 19 or um 2019 um the previous director had been working on that acquisition. So really we're really excited about that. And so part of that scroll down just a little bit. So, we're just at now um the uh the whole area in the green is what we own. And then there's a little bit the road commission has some property that they're working on extracting aggregate. Um we'll work with them when they um when they complete their their mining activities. And then there's the Heisinga Pit up to the north. they're actually working on as they do their reclamation, they're building a land bridge that then will serve as part of our trail connection there. And you can see the item of trail connection is that that red trail that will go through there. So, there's about 80 acres or so left that we would like to be able to secure, but we feel like we've got a great property there um to do a great regional park for folks. And that picture on the bottom left is that land bridge that that they're working on. So the trail will be be able to to cross over that.

I think that red trail might be a little premature. So, right, it's uh we we have down 12th Avenue into the Bend area and we actually have the property now with Grand Rapids gravel the you know, we're pretty confident on the Heisinga property, but then yes, there's a spot a couple spots on there that we've still got to work out those final alignments and we know that and we have you know backup options if that doesn't work. So, you're correct. So this is the concept plan that exists right now. Um so the wooded peninsula 12th Avenue comes into that. But then this idea that we'll have a spot that can have a facility that would host our outdoor education and community engagement activities. And we've we're kicking off a feasibility study for that to really see what type of infrastructure we'll need um you know electric, sewer, water, what will the real cost be to to build that facility and then that will feed into the master planning process that um will include the township in. So, and we've already had some some conversations with staff what might work here. what are some of the needs and wants and desires from the township that might really work at this site. One of the things about and we see that yellow blob area

um one of the areas that can have a little more active development on it. It was all completely disturbed by the mining activity and it's up out of the flood plane. So, a lot of the rest of the site um is in the flood plane and even the floodway. So the so these is just a little bit more about some of the different segments. So if anybody's been um this is uh right the bendary segment. So a little different concept. You're right. We still have to have that one on the north segment. We have to refine that routing and and finalize that. The one thing we like to point out to folks, so we spend a lot of time working on our project here and our our side of the county, but this is a much bigger um project. So Kint County has kicked off their um construction. So they're looking at building and connecting the trail all the way out to LOL. So, I had the privilege to to um speak with some other um representatives from Kink County and talk about the trail system um not just from Lake Michigan and through Ottawa County, but all the way through then Kink County out to LOL. And then we know they're working on it farther than that. So, it's really as as residents are out on the trails and in the parks, they don't necessarily know where one boundary or one jurisdiction is. So, we're really working hard on making sure our partners are planning and and coordinating um along with us. So, a few other we have the Allenale segment. That one's a big one. So, it'll come out of GBSU. We already have the the trail coming out of Grand Ravines, but then this will eventually cross M45. So, we've been working with the state MDOT, the township, and the local road commission on what that would look like.

And the conversation at this time is a a true um traffic light at 60th Avenue. So that would cross M45. And we really let the township pick that route because that's where they wanted to see that traffic light. So we're coordinating with them. And then hopefully we'll apply for a transportation alternative um grant that will help fund that um in the future. So then the Eastmanville segment will connect in with the right the Allenale go down and then connect in through Eastmanville Bayou and it'll cross underneath um and then connect in with the Bass River segment. So we have the funding ready for that and we're hoping to start construction if not this year early um in the spring of 2026. And then the Bass River segment, we'll start from the western edge of the Bass River. Um Bass River, we have split up into three different segments and we've been working with the state for years on this and getting the alignment. And you know, we're excited about kicking off construction um in 2025 if we're lucky. Um starting on the western edge of of Bash River and then working our way east and then we'll have two more that will connect. So this segment from Bash River at the end of North Cedar at where Riverside is um we'll be off road when you consider then Eastmanville Bayou I think it's something like 9 miles of trail multi-purpose trail off-road through the parks along the river. It'll absolutely be spectacular. So we're really excited about that. And then we were able to do our our grand opening of what we call the bayou segment, the Sterns Bayou segment. So at

where Connor Bayou ends um and then at Green Street and um North Cedar the uh sorry the um that segment was complete at the end of last year and earlier this spring we did a dedication and one of the things we're really excited about that it opened up then the trail comes down um 231 And there's a trail head there. And now you can head west all the way into Grand Haven. We have the Grand Haven route signed, but then you can go north and cross the bridge, pick up the North Country Trail, and I think it's something about 26 miles of trail, 24 miles of trail um that you can ride now. So, it's a great opportunity to get out and already use a segment of that trail system. And it's all signed, too. So, this goes over we have right a couple different options on routes for getting through Grand Haven and look for those IDA Explorers trail signs and we have it signed you can cross the bridge and pick up the Northshore trail and it connects in with um the Lakeshore and Ottawa Sands on the north side. So, one thing I did want to just mention, so Hager Park, one of our most heavily visited and beloved parks in our park system. So, we're looking at our facilities and doing facility renovations. We're also looking at a natural resources management there and reviving some of the existing natural areas and native plantings that were there, but then also looking at some of that big turf and mode lawn area um that really doesn't get utilized by the public that much. So, um we're working through the plans now. we'll be back and connect with the township to get we'll want some public feedback on that um and see how how folks feel about it, but um we're pretty excited about it.

And then as I mentioned before, Hagar Park was the home of our first all day camp. So, as you guys start thinking about, right, anybody with school aers, um, and they need to find activities for their kids to do during the summertime, um, it's all day, all week long, and we have options for, um, pickup after hours. So, extended care. It's a fully licensed day camp. So, we're really excited to provide that opportunity to the local residents to have a non-traditional opportunity for, you know, childc care like camp activities. So, and we also kicked off our archery program this year. So, and check out on our website, sign up for our newsletter. Every Saturday each week, 10 o'clock across the county. We have our nature Saturdays, recreational Saturdays, service Saturdays, or family nature days. So, depending on what week it is, we'll have different themes and different activities all over the county. And then we have a weekly Sunday stroll at Hemlock Crossing. So, if you haven't had a chance, go to our website, sign up for our newsletter, and get the activities. We also have a challenge. There's a park challenge. We're challenging people to visit every park in the park system. Um, and if you do so, you get entered into a raffle and um there are some prizes for the winners.

I nominate Kelly for that. There we go. Pretty close.

And do it as a group, right? We found some people like to meet every week and do it together um and explore some of the new parks. So, in this past this past year, we've had about 3,000 students so far going through our outdoor education program. Last year, we were up over 4,000. So, I know we've got a few more to to um run through this year. And then, you know, a lot of our programs have been supported by our friends of Ottawa County Parks. So, we have, you know, digital microscopes, chrome chromebooks, macro andvertebrate table, all to help with the um the outdoor education programs, and it's all curriculum base to meet the um state science standards that the teachers are teaching in the classroom really to try to um help further that education and and bring it to the kids. So, and I'd be remiss, Ottawa Sands on the north side, right at the calmness of um at the end of the Grand River and close to to Lake Michigan. Um we reopened it last fall. It was closed for a number of months for um major construction restoration efforts. Um and it's won several um it won a state award for design award as well as a national award for conservation. So, if you haven't been there, um please please take a minute to check it out. One of the reasons why I want to point it out, we feel like this can have the potential to have a very similar park here at the Bend area in the future um once we start to establish those facilities and trails. So, and we like to we get excited in talking about the development, but at Ottawa Sands, our focus was um really ecological enhancement. So every part of the infrastructure improvement incorporated ecological enhancements. It's a just like the bend area. This was an old sand mine. Um and it was like a

blank canvas for our staff. So we've created six acres of interdal wetland. All of the shoreline around the lake. We've pulled back and increased that latoral zone. So it's much better habitat um for the fish and then the wildlife. So, and also we have a really cool camping experience. If you haven't heard of it, check it out. It's year- round activi access with tree houses and yurts. So, um and we have tent pad. So, our hope is somebody might want to hop on the trail here at the bend area, you know, um bike down or paddle down. We have a universally accessible kayak launch and then spend the night there. So, you can stay in a treehouse or yurt or just one of our tent sites. So, and then Rosie Mound expansion. We closed on 127 acres of Rosie Mound last year. We completed our master plan process. And this is what the overall phase one looks like. So, the the new acreage is on the top right hand side. So, the northwest part was the expanded 127 acres. So, some of it, the little parking lot there in the bottom right is our existing parking lot and trail system, but our first phase will improve parking access, a real simple but ADA accessible loop trail. And then this is one of the most exciting, the things we're most excited about. There will be a universally accessible paved pathway that will take you up on top of the dune with a dune overlook and then you'll be able to look out over the existing Rosie Mound in the Lake Michigan. And we think it's um just going to be an incredible access especially for those families and um folks with some mobility issues. They'll be able to get out there and see it. So,

and then right if anybody's interested, we are accepting donations to help with that project. So, in partnership with our parks foundation, I'm happy to answer any questions. I tried not to take too long. I'm sure everybody was here for the parks presentation. Me go first, but Jason, if I can ask you, downtown uh by the water treatment plant, uh the trails are beautiful. The bridges uh like breathtaking. They're very, very well done. And they were paid for in a unique way. Can you explain that? So this the Idmma Explorers Trail um behind the the treatment plant.

So well that's in Kink County directly behind the treatment plant over here. But our section

our section so well so the township contributed um and has been a contributing partner. We also raised $7.2 million to help with this project. It's well over I 20 it's a the last number is 26 something million. um is it right takes longer, it's more expensive. Um but then we've also leveraged numerous grants um to help support it. So trust fund grants, transportation alternative grants um to help support it. So it's a mix between our parks millillage um some philanthropic support, the township um included contributions and then um lots and lots of grant dollars.

Wasn't there oil drilling? So yes, so the trust fund, yes, is so the state of Michigan and I don't know how many decades ago, I'm a transplant here, so it was something exciting to learn about. I came from that great state down south. Go Bucks. And uh I'm taking friendly gentleman wagers on this. So, but no, the they had the foresight to use the gas and oil proceeds from um drilling on state land and they created a trust fund from those proceeds. So every year they they let that build and then they use um the proceeds, not the the capital, but they use the um the interest every year to help support either um development projects, so like a trail or we've really leveraged a lot of they also have funding allocated towards land acquisition and preservation. So yes. No. And it's a it's a spectacular program and we're really lucky to have it here in in Michigan.

Jason, you spoke about event um spaces at the Bend area. What do you foresee? Because like isn't it Millennium Park in Kent County has like a wedding venue, band shell or whatever. What do you see for Georgetown Townships? Well, I think what we would So, and if we went back to one of those original sketches, you know, we see some type of facility to host that community engagement and outdoor education type focus, but all of our venues we want to have be multi-purpose, right? So, um, and then obviously we would hope to have a shelter. I know one of the things we've talked about with some of the township staff is the possibility of a a ban shelter. So I think as we go through our initial feasibility study, we'll be looking at the footprint of what will the initial access improvement and that first building cost. Um and then we'll use some of that to help us try to, you know, identify and secure grant funding and philanthropic support, but then we'll have other components as part of that. So and it'll be a whole public input process like we would with any other.

They're still working on it. Yes, definitely. And there's some concept plans that go back to the early 2000s when we partnered with the township and they did a whole master plan. So it'll build on that. Thank you. And shelters and maybe a band stand were in there. I'm not sure. So So can I add something to that? Thank you. Thank you. I believe the also uses some of their money and they're using my hunting fishing license.

Okay. Yeah. All right.

Well, no. And so we worked we did work um for years with DNR especially on the route through Bass River. Um and one of the reasons why they are helping support that project is because we moved the route um that was went through Bass River on the western side away from the the riverside. So we moved it towards the north n towards the south um away from some of that waterfall hounding um in particular. But it it increased the construction of the project quite a bit. So the state is helping. Um but we also tried to be respectful of that. So and then on the other area there equestrian trails. So we've tried to work with the the state and the parks folks and then also the equestrian riders to try to much as possible.

I had a quick question. Have you gotten any feedback on now that I think this is the first season right that the geodome and yurts and things are open the modern facilities at Ottawa Sands. Have you gotten any feedback on the nightly rate? I was so excited when they opened and when I looked at the nightly rate, I was absolutely shocked and thought maybe 30. Have you come out and seen them yet?

Yes, I have. They're just um it's shockingly expensive and I'm just wondering what's driving the cost per night of those very cool facilities. If accessibility is a goal, it feels like that fee makes them quite inaccessible for most people in our community. So um and we've so yes we've had lots of feedback. We also had robust conversations about um trying to establish that. So when we realized we were going to be building the um the explorers camp, we developed a business plan and one of the things that then drove the business plan were pricing from comparable facilities. So all around the state, tree houses, yurts, Airbnbs, the local hotels and having a sliding scale just like any of them would. um we will right after a year of operation we'll evaluate those and adjust accordingly. So, um, we want, right, residents and folks to be able to come, um, with both the the tent pads, their twoerson accommodations, fourperson, then six person. So, there's a, right, a pretty big sliding scale of cost to stay there overnight. So, but we will adjust it. So, yeah.

What do you have like a um a plan for maintenance of all this stuff? I mean, these trails are nice when they're new, but everybody knows that they have a lot of life, too. Yes. So, where do the funds come from to the trails and keep up with all the folks?

So, so part of what we do when we do our this work that we're doing right now is we look at our funding going out. Um, it's only a five-year plan, but we'll look 10 years out for the millillage. And what we try to do, we have a complete inventory of all of our infrastructure and cost. We've updated all the cost estimates as part of this parks and recreation open space. And then we allocate a certain percentage that we'll know, we might know, not know exactly what the project's going to look like, but we'll take 20% of whatever that, you know, facility or restroom building or shelter house or maybe parking area and plan that into our budget. So part of the upcoming um 10 years, we have a million um dollars annually going straight to renovations and maintenance projects to take care of that infrastructure.

And my other question is this been this all been put to the master plan that we're working on right now, planning commission? No, not yet. So this would be something that we would probably want. Yeah, this this for the master plan we're working on right now for the township. So reach out. We got this now. House Justin can fall down to Josiah. Yep. And we're happy. We, you know, happy to work and collaborate however. Good. Lord, I hope you don't mind it. I want to cut questions at this point. Um, just if it's all right, we can reach out. Yes. Well, directly to you, Jason. I know that you work with John as our representative to you.

Let us know how we can continue to be helpful as a township uh to your efforts there. Um, we appreciate all that you do and what you've done out there. And I will remark to the public here tonight, you you did it as well. that is whether it was with township dollars, DNL our dollars, whether it was county dollars. We're fond of reminding the public u that we get no money in Georgetown from your large summer tax bill. Uh county gets a lot of it, schools get a lot of it. County does allocate money to parks, but you also raise a lot privately, which we think is great. Um but again, all of you then are to be commended as well for contributing.

So, thank you. And right so we have a couple of our board of commissioners please um here so and I know that they attend regularly uh commissioner and commissioner Winsel so um the you know they're also my boss so don't don't be afraid to share input with them either so but no we appreciate the partnership let's let them identify Miss Wzel where are you uh there you are okay so you can all see there's one of your two uh Ottawa County commissioners and then way back in the corner there John Toples is your other. So you have two here in Georgetown because of the size and and population. We appreciate both of you for your service. Each of you in your first term, correct? Is that accurate? Yes. Thank you for serving. Appreciate it. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Jason. And Jason, you can feel free to go. We don't take any offense. Speaking of uh first time service, we now have two officers who are going to make presentations. Again, we didn't know all of you were going to be here. We want to be expedient with our agenda tonight because I have already seen a few people get up and leave and we don't want you to go. Okay? We want you to be able to stay and not tire you out here. So, we're going to we have important items, but I think we can move through them fairly quickly. But one of the things we expected tonight was a report from Gene Dit who's our treasurer again was recently elected first term. And then I'm not sure who's going first, but Kelly Kyper then is our clerk. And she too is in her first year of her first term. So, thank you both for providing an update to the board on your particular positions.

Ladies first. All right.

Um Okay. I'll I'll keep it quick. I just wanted to give I was asked to give a little bit of an update, but I'm happy to do so. Um obviously supervisor, clerk, and treasurer. We have a little bit of a different role than the trustee. And so taking in um what my role is uh meant to accommodate right elections recordkeeping uh there is a requirement by the state of Michigan to become accredited as an election official within the first 6 months of your term. So I did complete that election official accreditation program through the state of Michigan back in May. So within that six-month time frame. Um it was a virtual learning program. Um, you know, I have been an election inspector. I've worked elections since 2010. Um, so a lot of the material was very familiar, but it's great to get a refresher and go back go back through that. Um, I've been able to go to a couple of the Ottawa County Clerks Association meetings. Um, for all of you, a lot of you might not know, but the Ottawa County as a whole has um, incredible clerks throughout the entire county, every municipality. And our county clerk's association is very robust. Amber happens to be the president at this time. She does a great job. Um, but I've been able to go a couple times. Amber does a great job running it. I think it's so amazing to meet the other clerks, get good information on what's going on throughout the county in terms of the clerk world. Um, and then really important was um, understanding and trying to analyze how we're going to handle early voting moving forward. Um so as you're all aware our responsibility for early voting we tried to look at this um in a fiscally responsible way. How can we not bear the burden? Can we share uh those costs with other municipalities? Uh Amber Jeanie and myself they did a lot of the work

put together data numbers. We met with the clerks from Blendin Township, uh, Allenale, City of Hudsonville, um, and we sat down, is there a way that we can all join forces essentially to sort of spread out the costs amongst everybody rather than each of us individually being responsible to bear the burden of those early voting costs. Um but the reality is as a 55,000 plus person township um truly one of the limiting factors is the space. Just the sheer space we need to set up for early voting, the sheer amount of parking necessary. Um and once we essentially all got together, there was not a facility big enough that could support all of our municipalities together for the full 10-day early voting period at a reasonable cost, I should say. of course there's facilities but at a reasonable cost. Um and so then once we tried to get even more creative um once you prorrate those numbers the cost ended up being that even if we all join forces once we prorrate our voting constituents as compared to everybody else we're essentially subsidizing the other communities. So, uh, after a lot of work, and again, Amber and Genie did so much of it, um, we really decided that we needed to handle the early voting on our own, which is one of the budget items you will see, um, fortunately or unfortunately. Um, and so that was a big topic of conversation the last few months. Um, but I'll just end with Amber um, does so much of the heavy lifting. She I'm so blessed to work with Amber and Jeanie. We have such great staff people. Um, so I really give a lot of what I'm able to do up here to you. So, thank you. Um, and I just want everybody to know how much work that they do for that department.

You Jean,

Jean Dit, uh, treasure. Um, also have to commend the staff that I have that handles a lot of the taxes that go to the schools and everything else and collect. Um, if it was without them, we wouldn't be able to do what we do. Um, the biggest part I do on the personal part that I got didn't really know was part of my job, but I found out real quickly is a delinquent personal property tax. Um, we got end up getting a sheet on 530 of 25 and on that sheet we had 39 businesses that were delinquent with a total of $61,600. Um, and that goes back to 2020 on up. There's an average of probably 10 or 12 um per year that are usually delinquent, but because we were behind by about four years, it uh it was a unfortunate thing. Um 27 of those as I started looking and collecting and knocking on doors and making phone calls um either have left Georgetown or have gone out of business. So, hate to say it, but out of that 316 will have to go into delinquent fund Ottawa County for forgiveness and in after 5 years of being delinquent. In the last few months though, I've been able to go after the other 12 and I've got money from all 12 except for one. So, actually 11. Um, and once a couple of those we kind of did a little pay payment plan uh, excuse me, payment plan for um, by the end of November um, we should have the other 30,000 collected and then we'll uh, see what 2025 does. Um, I appreciate being here. I also went to a couple conferences which you always learn something when you go. uh learning every day and I appreciate the board around me and uh thank you.

All right, thank you Jean. This time we'll go to item eight in our agenda tonight. Communication letters and reports received for information for the public's benefit. We receive a lot of information in between board meetings, whether they be minutes of other subcommittees, whether they be uh reports from our fire department on calls and so on, whether it might be u items paid out of the budget. So those items are simply received for information. We move then on to item nine, which actually was a typo. So if you saw that and wondered what are public hearings, u we're not having public hearings this evening. I think that was meant to refer to public comments, which in fact is item number 10. So for the benefit of our public this evening, there's two public comment periods. Um, I used to have to explain it more than I do now, but since Ottawa County became very popular online the last four years, everyone's seen, I think, this drill sometimes uh for hours. Uh, people get an opportunity to come forward to address uh the board for up to three minutes. And uh we ask that you respect the two different types of comment periods. So, the first one that comes tonight has to do with items that are on tonight's agenda. You're saying, "Well, I haven't seen tonight's agenda." We publish it online uh 5 days, I believe it's five days or at least four before the meeting. There's a lot of links to other information that you can see when you see those and encourage you to avail yourself of of finding those. I think tonight, Andy, you might have printed off some copies. Okay. And are those on the table or people pick those up?

Okay.

All right. They're all gone. So, some of you have those in your hands. Some are maybe looking on your phone or otherwise. It's a just a few items tonight. if you saw this something to do with a sidewalk uh budget uh which in fact there will be a public hearing coming up on that. So whether you speak tonight or then or both that's up to you. Um something to do with a parking lot at a park. So if any of you here tonight wants to speak to those items on our normal agenda, then you can step forward right now. We'd ask you to identify your first name and last and your address and then you'll have up to three minutes to speak. So the floor is open. [Applause] Michael Bosch, 3245 Golden Oak Court. Um, I would like to speak um about agenda item number 12, the budget. Um, I hope all of you have really dug into it and taken a look at it. But I mentioned it at the last public uh comment section of last meeting. Um and like I said before, this thing is bloated. I've watched these budgets for over 10 years. In fact, I've got this year got the last six years sitting over there. I go through them with a fine tooth comb. So, first up on that is item number one, which is page 30 of the budget. Uh and that is revenues from the water and sewer department. Um, and I think you've underestimated the revenues that will be coming in. You have it at uh, let's see, for 2026 17,200,000. Uh, just for reference, in 2023 it was 10,434,730. That year we profited, the water sewer department profited $2.5 million after expenses. And then in 2024, that's after that 36% increase, the big one, uh 13,618,829,

we made 3.2 million in profit in 2024 from modern sewer. And for anybody that wants to look at it, it's right online in our audits. We have yearly audits. Township is required by law. Uh so that's all covered. So my question is in 2025, what are we going to look at in profit? 5 million 2026, what it be 7 million, 8 million? So I think that needs to be adjusted um and I think it needs to be reduced um because that is extreme. Also in 2021 we made 1.5 million profit water and sewer. 2022 we made 1.1 million profit water and sewer and people ask you know where' the money go? Well wasting $6 million for an unnecessary building did not help. Wasting over 2 million switching water endpoint brands that didn't help. That thing is a boondoggle. That's going to end up costing us $5 million. I see on the agenda, I forget which item was water and sewer. 300,000 for the pilot program, which was supposed to be 125 per household. How's that working out? What percent are we at? Uh looking forward to hearing the excuses, too. Why why the rates were increased? Uh item number two I'd like to talk about is our senior center. Uh that would be page 21. Um and I've been watching that for years and I think it's fantastic. We have a place for our seniors to to go. We are subsidizing that. $430,000, 800 people. 35% don't even live here. That's over $600 per person. We're subsidizing. It's broken. It needs to be fixed. That's taxpayer money. Uh let's see. I'm going to move quick here. Um parks. You eliminated park entrance fees. We're losing $27,000 on that. That's an issue. Uh that's page one. Uh, and then page 24, you need to remove $2 million of pickle ball. That is ridiculous. People are struggling to pay their water bills and increased utility bills. 2 million for pickle ball.

[Applause] That was not accurate. Anyone else? And in case uh for the benefit of the public, it's not a dialogue during public comments. So much as board members might want to respond, it's your opportunity. So yes, welcome. Welcome. Yes.

Okay. Okay. Pete Plowman, um 6877 Creek Ridge Court. I want to talk on two items. Um well, one is the budget, of course, specifically on the fire department part of the budget. Um we see that we have a budget for what the um going off the top of my head, it's like 2.2.5 million. What these folks probably don't understand is is that we're looking at going at a full-time fire department. Um because as you told us, Jim, um if we hire these guys full-time, what happens to the paid on call? they go work someplace else like Telmage and other places and then you don't have anybody to back up the full-time guys. So that means you hire more full-time guys. So that means our budget probably in two years, three years that budget line item might be 8 million. So in order to pay for that, that means your millages are all going to go up. And that's not a small bill. We currently pay 2.25 25 on our millillage. Our millillage will probably be in two years three three and a quarter three and a half to pay for those types of expenses. Um the other thing just a side note um I looked at the uh fire report that was in there from the fire department. I looked at the attachment there and looked at the fire that was at Brook Meadow. And just one question I had is did we bring in our big heavy equipment for that fire because we had seven or eight or six or seven different other townships and fire departments helping us. Did we bring in our aerial fire stuff that can shoot three two to three,000 gallons per minute to mop that up or did we have our firemen working in 90°ree heat pulling hoses everywhere? Just curious. Thank you.

Anyone [Applause] else? All right. Excuse me. It It is. Yeah. You Yep. Yep. Or there's a couple other items, but yeah. Yep. Anyone else? Okay. Seeing no one will close the initial public comment period. I'll go to item number 11, what we call a consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda? Support. Okay. Any comments? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I.

I. Opposed? It is passed. Again, that's a pretty standard agenda item that we have, approving of minutes and the like. All right. Item 12. This was what was alluded to here as far as the uh 2026 budget and uh this has been before this board I think twice before. Tonight is the possibility of a approval uh tenative approval rather of the budget and the setting of a public hearing. Is there a motion to do so this evening? So move

support and support. Just so it's clear the motion that's being made right now is to tenatively adopt the budget. We do that this meeting each year and then we set a public hearing date which in the motion mentioned within the agenda would be a public hearing on September 22. So exactly two weeks from this evening. Um when we have a public hearing then you're allowed at that point on the agenda to come forward and address the board on the budget generally or specific line items that you're interested and concerned about. Uh so that will happen on the 22nd. Any comments among the board as it relates to first of all with the public hearing all set on that date? All right. Yeah.

All right. As far as the tenative adoption of the budget this evening, comments among the board comments from My only comment is the fact that the state has not approved the budget yet and that could affect revenue sharing. Uh, currently the house has a budget proposal that would short our township 192 $196,000 I believe. So without having that state budget pass, it could affect what our revenue would be in the coming year depending how they decide. So there's a reconciliation between the Senate and the House right now and then it's got to go to the governor. So it's close to 200 grand. So just putting that out there. Yep.

Hopefully by the time we get to this this uh public hearing, we'll have we'll know more specifics on our revenue sharing.

Um I have a question just about how this budget is proposing to handle the question as it relates to the ending of the eunit. Um, and I don't necessarily I'm not quite sure I don't want to get locked into something. This budget sort of suggests that um, and I know we've got details to work out with the safer grant, but this budget suggests that we're utilizing a single life unit. Um, and I just I'm not I don't love the fact that it's sort of starting to make some decisions when we really haven't made a decision yet as a board. Um, and so I just want to be very clear on what our options are as a board to suggest that we're going to tentatively adopt something that really isn't final as in terms of kind of a big budget item. So is the purpose to keep this thing moving along and then we will address adjust it later. But I will also caveat that by saying when we tentatively set the public hearing what will be publicly noticed to the community are the numbers enclosed in what we are seeing today and those numbers are subject to change. So, how do we make sure that we are public noticing and discussing a budget that more accurately reflects what our needs are going to be as it relates to the fire department, e-unit, life, all of those decisions that need yet to be made.

So, I'm going to take a stab at this here a little bit. So, right now, um, like Gary said, the state budget is still in limbo. So, I have, you know, a potential hole of $200,000. The safer grant, I can't have the positions on paper when we adopt our budget. So, what's going to happen is we'll know here by the end of September if we were awarded the safer grant. When we if we do get it, we would do a budget amendment and we would add those positions, add the funding in. Right now, there's just so many unknowns. We basically have to start with a starting point and then through budget approval add into it.

So you still have the contractual service still in there. So it still shows like right it's saying and along with that push it again Jean. There you go. You're on now.

I'm agreeing now. Um along with that, since it's the same item, you can throw in the $600,000 for eight pickle ball court that even though safer grant covers, if I got it right, six, if we put in a fireman in actually five, so we can't do anything with that, but can we still have move the 600 from like a pickle ball thing right now? put that on hold for a year or two, put that money into the fire department thing so that we can actually have it there if no matter which way we go, the money's there for extra fire.

It's a general fund budget item or parks and wreck and the fire department. So, if we did add in between five and 27 firefighters, that would be have to be a budget amendment. I have to put something in there as a like a placeholder and then we it's all through board action that has to be approved.

But like Kelly said, when the public comes and you see it written contractual service or you see $600,000 for a pickle ball, you got the reaction before. I mean, when they come to public and it's still written that way, that's my concern, too. And I mean, yeah, to piggyback off what I was getting at is what options do we have statutoily as it relates to setting this uh notice or scheduling this public hearing? Are we really up against a clock here? We have to move it forward. Can we push it out at all? Yes, we have to. We have to by September 30 set our millage rate according to state law. So yes, we have to

we have right this right now we're projected to take from fund balance. If we do everything on the list, we'll take from fund balance. Um but we don't have to do everything on the list. This is not we have to this is allows a space for us to spend and then it goes anything over $20,000 like our policy has is it would go to board for board action for approval. I think my biggest fear though is that a potential outstanding line item is, you know, we see tonight we have a big room full of people and we've all gotten a lot of emails, you know, about the e-unit and people's thoughts and opinions on fire department versus life EMS. Um, and while it's obviously not completely representative of 55,000 people, there's been actually an overwhelming number of people who really support like the top tier fire department um uh option. So what I sort of want to understand is when we set that budget then we are not necessarily beholden to that amount. We can add to it. But I guess my question is is we're sort of representing to the public that that's the budget amount and then you know if we add to it later it just feels a little bit like this is done premature as it relates to the numbers.

If you don't know what it's going to be and you have to put something in there.

That's what Justin's saying. He's doing his best to put a placeholder depend on which way it breaks. I mean, one of the comments tonight had to do with the fire department made it sound like some sort of foregone conclusion that's very much up in the air. It's very much being debated still and still being studied and considered. And it could wildly sling one swing one way or the other. And I kind of pity you just in that respect a little bit to kind of predict where things might go because we don't know. But we do know we can always amend the budget and if that happens, it's done through a public meeting and all the rest. So people have a chance to speak to that. But I I I agree with your I mean I understand your concern. It's just it's kind of hard to know which way certain of these things are going to break. Another perfect item which we got a lot of applause to tonight was the false numbers about a pickle ball uh complex. Two, one of which was a grossly overexaggerated number and and two was the assumption that something's been decided and approved. So neither of those things is true, but if something were to be approved, there has to be some level of placeholder within the budget. This year we had something for 48th Avenue sidewalks. They didn't occur for various reasons, which we've talked about. That money didn't get spent, but it was there. Uh it had been allocated. We thought we were going to go that direction and then the way it turned out, we didn't. Um so yeah, I it's hard. It's hard. All I can say to the board is is we have the ability to make adjustments as needed along the way. Um we just as a a baseline I say this again for the public's benefit. We are conservative in our budgeting. That is we we overly estimate what we think our expenses will be and we underestimate what we think our income will be. That's just how we are. That's how Georgetown is. That's how we've done our budgeting. A lot of people come tonight, I think, concerned and rightly so, with cost increasing with water, sewer, with everything in your life. Um, I think of, for example, we had the 18th Avenue, I'm sorry, the 48th Avenue water sewer project, which

is still ongoing. Um, 18 million is where we started and I think if Joel were here tonight, he'd probably say we're we're north of 20, not because we're doing more, but because prices just keep going up. And so, for example, when someone from the audience says, "Oh, we we profited, you know, $3 million in our water and sewer," it's called budgeting. You have to accumulate the money to be able to undertake a project of 18, 20, $25 million. Um, you can't just suddenly say one year, we're going to spend $18 million. So, the point is budgeting is a bit fluid, but it has to be done, and we have to be as predictive as we can, and sometimes we're not right on. Uh, but we do our best in that respect.

Nope. Now's not the time. Now's not the time. I think this why they're called appropriations, too. What's that? It's called an appropriation for a reason. It's because we are trying to guess on what things may cost and figure out what we're going to decide we're going to pay um for things that come along that we can't predict, too. Yeah. And we vote on these. We got to vote on all these things, too. it just doesn't normally come just cuz it's in the budget. Have to vote on anything over 20,000. So,

with all due respect, we'll give you an opportunity uh when that second public comment period comes. So, thank you. Um yeah, it it is it is not a perfect science. Sometimes it feels a little bit more like art. Um, yeah. Others I I would say, uh, how can you not be aware the public is here and more in mass than you normally are? And you're always welcome, by the way. And to those of you here in the hallway and weren't here earlier, our apologies. If we'd have known uh we would get this many people, we'd have gladly have accommodated to one of the churches near door nearby. But uh um okay, maybe we should have known. Uh anyway, so I would remind this uh this public that at 2 and a/4 mills, you still stand as the the lowest tax rate of anyone nearby. I know Granville's north of 12. Hudsonville's I think north of 12. Um Granville recently took out a $10 million bond which is called borrowing as it relates to their uh water and sewer realities that we're all facing. Um we do have a good rainy day fund. uh we do not have any debt and so uh to walk away with any sort of impression that that this board most of whom are fairly new uh to the board um having taken their seat out there and now come up here and maybe some of you will one day um yeah we we are a very conservative uh group and we have been historically as uh as board members and as past boards would attest to and so I think we're we're blessed that We were fortunate um to be able to keep our taxes low and and to stay out of debt. All right. Anyone else on the budget tonight? Again, it will come up again on the 22nd and then at that point after the public hearing, there'll be a vote.

Okay. Hearing none. Uh you know what? Do this by resolution. Resolution. Yep. Schwang. Yes. Kelly, yes. Dwit, yes. Belink, yes. Kyper, yes. Grassman, yes. Yes. All those in favor? Thank you. All right, we are up to item number 13. This is second reading and adoption of ordinance number 202507, sidewalk sidewalk ordinance revision. Came out of utilities, I think originally. Is there a motion to approve this second reading and the adoption of the ordinance? Support.

Okay. Moved and supported. Someone want to briefly touch upon it again for the benefit of the public to know what we're voting on here. Gary, would you hit that? So when he was bringing the parks presentation here, he am I not on?

Is that better? No, you hold it to it's not close. Is that better? There you go, Gary. Is that better?

Hear me? So, when you get the parks presentation, you will notice that I brought the fact that he had drawn a trail uh through a plat that's going in along the river. And um I said that that's not a a for sure thing. And part of it is because I don't think it's fair that we push upon a developer to put a trail in just because people want it. So, what we'd like to do is change our sidewalk installation where that that uh parks trail would come down uh 22nd and then we put a tar path along um Filillmore to 28th Avenue and then bypass that Cedar Valley development there without having all that traffic go through the residential area. So that's the reason for this um resolution to continue to have that trail go around that development and that would make them put that tar path on Filillmore.

And this water recall some of that money is is reallocated from what we had hoped to do on 48th but it proved uh cost prohibitive. Yeah. Yeah, John real quick. Well, if we don't make this revision, then they could put in a conventional sidewalk that would be 6 ft wide. And this would require to put in um matching the rest of the trailway at at 8 ft.

So, it was important that we do it quickly so as they're planning, they can build that into their budgets and their process so it so it gets done. It's kind of a safety net. Well, if I remember right, when they when that developer came uh to the planning commission, that was their goal to have something along Filillmore. I'm not sure it was going to be the size that we're looking here. So, you know, I think it's they're they're aware of it. It's just a matter of getting it right. So, public, we'd love to have uh great paths along all of our primary roads. We're just little by little uh biting off a piece at a time. Okay. Any other comments?

Hearing none. This will require a roll call vote as well. Am I right? Yes. Yep. Wearing. Yes. Det. Yes. Kelly, yes. Grassman, yes. Schwam, yes. Piper, yes. Velink, yes. All those in favor? All right. Thank you. Item 14, Rush Creek Parking lot improvements bid update. Uh, is there a motion to contract with Apex Contractors and Prime and New Hoff for this parking lot update and improvements? I will make a motion. Yep.

I moved by Amy, supported by John. Uh, Amy's on services. Uh, John, you filled in last time. Appreciate that. Kelly's on there. I'm on there. Uh, the numbers, this is a great example I was saying before. The numbers will keep going up if you don't get going. So, and we put in a new uh play station. What do you call those? You know, a new uh Been a while since you've been on one.

Yeah. Yes. And we put in a handicap swing for um special needs. And we also did a uh merrygoround that fits special needs children too so that they can play. We got a lot of emails and um people talked to us about, you know, they want their kids to not stand and watch. They want them to be able to play. So, we um we listened and we started putting in some handicap um equipment. So, this is kind of a necessary thing to make the parking better. Driving in and out, it's like one lane. It's hard to turn around. So, it really needs to be done.

So, for the benefit of the board who's not on services, you maybe have a little days on food. We did vote on this. We approved this previously. Costs have gone up in the meantime. Uh there are additional improvements as you recall that are going in that park that we're going to need a good parking lot to be able to accommodate. People who live nearby are going to love it, but it's going to take some time and we need to get moving on it. So John, you look like it's a beautiful park and an incredibly good location that badly needs to be updated and this will make it a beautiful park for becoming a high population area out there. Mhm. Along Rush Creek is a a treasure in that area.

I keep saying this, but for the benefit of the public, uh, one of the things that's going in that park will be a um multi-use court. one of which could be used for pickle ball, for tennis, for uh basketball, right? Um as opposed to dedicating a single usage. It's not a major complex. It was to be pretty discreet. Uh likewise with Maplewood Park, which uh kind of came in companion with what's happening be happening there at Grand River. um is uh you know what what was a volleyball court there will now be there will be I think a two pickle ball courts a redone tennis court and a redone basketball court. So um not not going ham on one sport or another but trying to within the area we have uh do something that is useful to the people who live especially immediately around it but of course anybody who lives in the community. Okay. Uh any other comments? None. All in favor say I.

I. I. Opposed. Okay. Now item 15. I'm going to have Justin Sto. I don't know how many of you have ever met Justin, but Justin became our manager here in the spring. Before that, he was our assistant manager, and uh he has come up to speed very quickly. and Justin is going to talk to uh you tonight in very broad perspective about the water increase that you've seen recently and then of course we're going to open the floor. So Justin, go ahead.

Thank you Jim. So I've been getting a lot of questions and our staff here at the township about what water rates look like and how we use and how we look and read them. So, this is kind of a quick tutorial and we're just going to talk about it and then we'll listen to citizens. So, all everything I used when I look at people's bill could be found on our website. Um, you go to our township website. There's a property info page. You click on that and you click on utility bill info. And once that pops up, you'll have a chart of all your history of of your bills. And you're going to have a chart that kind of looks like this at the bottom. I took this uh this chart after my neighbor eight houses down uh called me and said, "What do you do with my water rates?" And I said, "Well, Mr. Dan, uh I was the best man your wedding. I'll come down and uh we'll talk about it." So he had an interesting one because he used to uh water his lawn and then life changed. He didn't want to water his lawn anymore. So if you go back to 22, you can see his high water mark is 55 units. So 55 units is equivalent to 55,000 gallons of water. So that's this. So when people call me and say, "Hey, why is my rate so high?" I say, "Well, I look at your the rate and I look at the theme that you have." So, in Mr. Dan's um scenario here in 22, he used to water his lawn. And then you can see the winter months. The winter months is the minimum that he uses. He's not watering his lawn or watering his garden or whatever, filling his pool in the winter time. So, his low water mark consistently from year to year is 12 to

13 11 units. kind of hovers around there and then um all of a sudden it kind of goes up at the end and he doesn't water his lawn and he is consistently at 20 to 19 units. So, kind of takeaways that I could see without even going to his house is one um like that's the difference between 55 to 12 is really the difference between him irrigating his lawn and him living in his house with his wife, two kids, and a dog. So, I kind of have a takeaways from Mr. Dan's uh house. The homeowner stopped irrigating their lawn. The dam summer usage ranged between 11 13 units. a running toilet started between October 24 and January 20 25. So I didn't walk through his house. I could see my question to him was okay what happened uh last fall into I said it looks like you have a running toilet or do you added a new member to your house? He said well I I have a running toilet but it's not that big a deal. I go, "Well, like looking at your history on here, your leaking toilet is costing the homeowner uh when I looked at it about seven units of sewer, seven units of water, about $70 in three months. The to fix this, it's a $7 part." So I said, "Mr. Dan," I go, "I can't fix your leaking toilet. You have to." and he said, "Well, I, you know, for $7, it seems makes sense." So, another call I got was this homeowner. So, this homeowner uses uh 205 units a couple years ago. They've cut back usage. And this usage is very dramatic, right, between their highs and their lows. Uh, you know, like I said before, for every unit is equal to a,000 gallons. So this person is roughly

putting a 100,000 gallons of water. So 100,000 containers of water on their lawn. And what that what that's creating is basically unsustainable demand. Uh the average Wyoming citizen on the whole Wyoming pipeline only uses 29 units on average for the whole year. So, we get into the financials. You're like, "Well, Justin, what's going on?" Well, this is we have a contract with Ottawa County. Ottawa County then has a contract with the city of Wyoming. And every year, May, June or May, they start estimating how much water, what are consumption rate be per millions of gallons. And they estimate it year to year. So in 24 it was 14.3 in 25 it was 1881 in 2021 48 that a water mane was estimated at 13 million and it was presented to our board and you go back and listen to it on our YouTube channel by 2027 that same water man is now going to cost $20 million. The only reason we need to put this water man in is for the irrigation of lawns. without rate increases, we'll have government subsidized water. So, this is a good slide because recently and then this packet today, we actually approved that bill on the right hand corner. I don't uh Amber, can you zoom in on that at all? Well, uh maybe not. So, right there. So, I have it listed on the corner right. So, in June of 2024, the bill that I get for water was $441,000. Again, um there's usage. Usage can change demand.

In June is up to 525. In July, it's $843,000. So, the cost that I have that I get, we have to then give to the home uh the homeowners to pay for this account. Wyoming and Georgetown cannot make a profit off water. It's separate than the general fund. So, we have we hired uh a company to evaluate our water system because uh Rob Blitch, the former superintendent, and myself weren't going to guess on this because we know we knew in December that we would have this huge hurdle of trying to one educate people of what the demands are and two trying to uh make a plan for all the infrastructure projects we have to do. primarily most of them are tied to irrigation. We have a link to the report and you're more than welcome to read it at home. So this is the Wyoming um chart um that was presented uh I think at our May meeting where they went through and they talked about all the capital projects that we're going to have. So the total cost right now is planned out at $600 million of which Georgetown right now is responsible for 42%. The first three columns right here 1 2 3 those three columns are set in stone. I can't whatever we do for the township there's nothing I can fix that what usage and what citizens can do can affect the fourth fifth and sixth column because that is based on usage. The only reason that we have to put the 48th A water man in and pay for the $600

million or roughly half of it $300 million is because our de peak demand in the summertime is causing us to put these pipes in the ground. And once they're in the ground, then we have to maintain them forever. So this is kind of the history how we got here. In December 24, we contracted with Bazinski to review um our current problem that we had. On May 12th, we had the Wyoming Water Link. You're more welcome to uh go back and listen to that. On June 9, we had a rate study presentation and uh the board had different options that they could use to subsidize this or since we are a debt-free community, any money that's left at the end of the year will pay for the next year's pipes. And going back to this, we owe 42% of this and we owe all of this. This is our plan. We have to pay for our pipes. I may go ahead, Jim. You got

I'll go back to that last page and allow people if they want to click the picture of it or something or if they want to move from where they are. Not this one, but the Nope. Sorry. They're really plain when you said where it's found at this meeting or that meeting or what have you. Oh, the history want to do research right there. And this this presentation will be linked in our minutes.

Well, okay. I my apolog. So, it'll be part of what you're going to link after this in the minutes. Okay. So this is um this is the history of how we got to this point. So this is our ready to serve rates were built on consumption because what we learned is half our population that we have in Georgetown is primarily a one to two household um family and they are on a fixed income. So if you look at our ready to serve, so that's the cost that if you use no water, this is how much you'll get a bill for is $30. So it's based on consumption. So the more water you use, the bigger your bill will be over. Okay. So people people who who say hey so look at so I like to point out that there's other communities that are not maybe on the Wyoming line or on the Grand Rapids line their ready to serve charges are substantially higher than ours and then that's just beyond the system and then they have a charge for every unit they use or they have like East Grand Rapids has like a tiered system that over you get over so many gallons you have a premium.

So inflation and rates. So in 2017 we had a a rate increase. There was no increases to 24. And what that does is inflation the consumer price index compounds every year. So once we get to 24 that 27% roughly is the cost of doing business that if I do nothing because of wages, supplies, supply chain, look what happened between 20 and 23. I couldn't get pipes, I couldn't get anything. There was an 8 to a year lead time. What we did in 24, we realized the inflation for the past roughly seven years. Final takeaways. Rates will go up every year for inflation. Large period of time with no increases. We kick the can. My recommendation, we're not going to kick the can. We have to be um basically conservative about how we do this. Consumers who use water will have to pay for it. It's a utilitarian approach to rates. Georgetown water sewer fund is separate from the general fund and will remain debtree. We're going to reduce our usage so that we pay less. In the future, I will do a mailer 90 days before rates start. We did put one in our newsletter. Not everyone felt like they saw it or they throw it away. So, I'm going to do a separate my recommendation is to spend $8,000 and do a separate mailer. And one of the options that we've talked about and going from this process from December to May is look at a tiered system. But the tiered system, the people that use a lot of water would pay substantially more. So this is a LOL Charter Townships uh tiered system and

they're paying 920 for every unit of water. So that like that example I had that someone was using between 147 and 201. They would pay a substantial amount of of money at this point. I don't recommend this. Okay. Thank you. Um I don't want to be the only one here to preface and if someone else feels strongly, I want to just make a couple of comments. maybe one or two of which was already stated by Justin. Um, I'm really glad you're here. I think I speak for the board. I'm very glad you're here. Uh, we wish we had higher public participation. I regret sometimes the demise of the the advance. Everybody read the advance. Everybody read the advance. Didn't read the press, but they read the advance. Sometimes the advance got it wrong. it causes uh challenges, but most of the time it got the word out and people were more informed and frankly people would come more frequently then and be able to address an issue in real time. This is this is something that's been getting addressed as you can see for a period of months and we preferred you back to some previous uh meetings of ours. But I understand we all have busy lives and if you're not responsible for these things, you're doing your thing, right? You trusting us to do things for you. Um so we regret that we use our our newsletter. Um, not everybody signed up for that. Please avail yourself of that and add yourself to that. We do use our Facebook page. We use our website here. Again, we're busy people. Um, I'm sure that it doesn't reach everyone and it's not always explanatory in the sense that you can read something, but there's more context that you wish you had. Uh, each of us has been having, I think, dozens of conversations, which is why, again, I'm really glad you're here. um because we can speak about this in a greater group setting and then hopefully um obviously we hear from you but also

you're able to convey to others in your families and friends and your circles your neighborhoods uh about some of the things you may learn tonight and I just remind you we we are your family and friends and circles that is I see people out here I know well they were sitting out here uh several of you here until just recently um you know we're you so when we raised rates, we're raising them on ourselves, right? I can't say enough what Justin has said already, which is we don't we can't make money off from water sewer. It is itself is a lock box, so to speak. And so, if you see, oh, they're going to, you know, spend X dollars on paving the the parking lot at Grand River Park or something, it's not coming from raised water rates. It's it's coming from the general budget. And so, we we can't profit. It gets applied to the next year. So, we're we're only raising the money that's needed to keep the system going. Otherwise, as he said, it's government subsidized water, and we can't go backward. All right? We're not borrowers. I alluded to it before. We could put it on the next generation or two generations, which our federal government does. Um, we could borrow this. We could do a bond uh for half or all of it. Uh, it's tens of millions of dollars, right? We could do that. We could make other people who don't live here now or maybe aren't yet born pay for it over time. Um or we could have the people that actually live here like ourselves who are the ones using the water um pay for the rates at the present, you know, necessary rates. And so, um it fits with how we are as Georgeians, if I can use that phrase. We're not borrowing people. We're not wealthy people by and large, which is why we feel this strongly and it hits us hard. Um, but it is I think it's the right way to go that you pay for yourselves and for the usage you make. And I know we we kind of chuckle when Justin said, "Well, if you use more money, you're going to pay more money." Well, of course, right? But I think the

point underlying that is if we uh if we were to do a say a tax increase of some kind or essentially a bond or what have you, um a tax increase, we could look at it that way. um we could raise everybody's taxes and then those who are using more water have more or less gotten the rest of you who aren't using quite as much to subsidize their habits. And so I think your point in that Justin is to say at least this way we have some control. I mean all of us needs water. Probably isn't going to vary things a whole lot but but we can at least control it to some degree. Uh it's not a it's not an easy thing. Give me one moment here, John. I'll I'll allow you to say something as well. Um, I I want to own this uh as it related to what Justin said because, you know, Kevin, you're new. Gary, you're just starting your second term. Amy, you ended the last term by uh being appointed. And this is your first election. New, new. John's been here for a time. John and I were on the board back in 17. We didn't raise the rates. We didn't raise them in 18. We didn't raise them in 1920, 21, 22, 23 when every other city and township upon study, I don't think we were looking at at the time, but uh we're doing so um cuz we don't like to do that, right? Well, in hindsight, I think if we had just had a little cut, a little cut, a little cut, it wouldn't have stopped, I think I want to say this, it wouldn't have kept there from being material increases last year and especially this. It just wouldn't have been as significant a change because it would have been little by little each year. And so we uh I regret that. I wish we had raised them sooner. As funny as that sounds, I wish we'd raised them sooner uh than we did. Uh but we didn't. And now we are uh listening to both, you know, the the experts and and people are telling us this is what it's going to be. We've looked at it carefully at City of Wyoming and others who are users and we have to pay for our share of everything as it relates to that system

as well as everything within our own system. And uh it's just really like everything else in life right now, it's just really really expensive. Go ahead, John.

Well, Georgetown has been debtree and that's been our our history. Justin just talked about Granville floating at a $10 million bond. You have people that have wells and they pump their own water. Do they subsidize everyone else? Um we've been able not to do that. And then during CO when all of us were suffering, do we start raising water rates? Uh other communities did. Should we have and as from Justin's numbers here you could see that we'd have already raised your rates about 25 26% that might have cut down on some of the usage and then you wouldn't have seen the dramatic jump uh because your rates had already been much higher. This has been incredibly challenging.

Anyone else? I'm going to open up the floor here in a moment. Nothing. All right. I want to say before um you speak a couple of things. So, uh, if someone gets up and makes a point that you agree with, I don't mind applause. Although, don't take their time. Maybe you wait till the end, but it's up to you. Uh, this isn't a graduation where they say wait till all the names are called. If you want to applaud, it's sort of a way of saying, "Hey, I want board. I want you to know I agree with that statement right there." And it may make it so you don't feel like you need to make the same statement, although you're welcome to, right? But it might be a way of us taking a litmus test of the room to go, "Oh, a lot of people agree with that point." So, feel free. Um, as I say, you get three minutes. Uh, you can identify your name and your address for us if you would. We appreciate that. It's going to seem a bit awkward because you're going to make a point and undoubtedly you're going to want to ask a question or get us to respond and it's not the way it works. So, protocol-wise, we're here to listen. This is our board meeting, but this is your opportunity to speak at the board meeting. We want to listen to what you have to say. Uh we always end our board meetings with a time of public I'm sorry with board comment among us. We may choose at that point in time to uh talk among ourselves or toward you as it relates to points you've made. Um but if it became a dialogue it would quickly break down and I think we'd be here unfortunately all night. But we want to listen and we want you to be able to to be uninterrupted in what you have to say. So the mic is open 8:40. I know it's been hour and 40, but that's not We've We've had a lot later. So, yes, ma'am. Got to get her to bed. Be first up. All right. Welcome. Uh, yeah. Name and address. Thank you.

Uh, my name is Katrina Bremmel. I am actually a business owner here. So, I am at 557 Baldwin. I own Luna Aesthetics. So, I feel like I have a pretty unique perspective as a Jenison business owner and a Granville resident. At my home, I am sadly not shy about using water. We run our ingground sprinkling twice a day, multiple showers a day, dishwasher two times a day, and we'll throw a load of laundry in each day. The highest our usage at home has ever been is 36 units equating to 36,000 gallons for a quarter. We also had a rate increase in Granville this summer and still my bill was just 209 for the quarter. On the other hand, at our business, I actually know my exact water consumption. We do not have a dishwasher there, no laundry machine, or even a shower at the office, taking out a lot of the main water usages. On a busy day, the toilet flushes maybe 10 times a day. It is a brand new water efficient toilet and only uses 1.6 gallons per flush. We have one small strip of grass at the roadside and a small area landscaping out that we use soaker hoses to save on further water usage. These soaker hoses are on a timer each day. Also, to further conserve water, we run our quarter inch soaker hose for 1 hour each morning, which equates to 15 gallons per hour. I know the times that we are open for business, and there is no water usage being done outside of those hours. So, before the new meter was installed, we had a quarterly usage of just six units. Our current bill was 95 units. Since I know our exact usage, I calculated what our expected water consumption per quarter should be. At 15 gallons a day with hoses, with the hoses running 1 hour a day for 90 days, that should be 1,350 gallons. There is no other hose usage besides the soaker hoses. And then our toilet flushing and sporadic handwashing. With our new meter reading of 95,000 gallons this last quarter to make up for the difference in our hose usage, this would mean that we would

have had to flush our toilet 650 times per day to come up with the water usage that we were build for. When we went when we went into the office to discuss our bill, we were told that the new updated meter does not lie and we must have a leak somewhere. If this was the case, that would be a leak large enough to fill a 40,000galon pool twice over. Somehow, I feel like I would notice that water leak. Also told that we could install another meter that is just for the irrigation system to separate that out of the equation, which would then lower the sewage cost. The quote that I was provided was over $1,500 to install along with a monthly service charge for this new separate meter. I don't know about you, but the last time I got a new meter, it didn't seem to be in my best interest, as now my bill is more than 16 times higher than what it previously was. I completely understand having to raise rates to cover high costs of inflation these days in future infrastructure improvements. What I don't understand or find fair is charging residents and business owners for what was not actually used.

What was the last thing you said the very last statement? Charging them for what? I missed the words. What wasn't used? What was not used? What was that? Okay. So, a different question from rate one of saying I'm not sure you're measuring it correctly. I'm I am okay with the rate rate increase. I totally get it. Okay. But our last last summer in our peak usage address again the business address 57 Baldwin Street right across from meer. Right. We obviously want to be accurate. We have a very small strip of grass.

Thank you, Katrina. [Applause] My name is McCloskey. I'm at 3540 Baldwin Street. I like to know why. Uh, as Justin as Justin said, a unit is $9.20 for a unit for water. What's Huh? 490.

490. Well, that's less than. So, is one unit equivalent to,000 gallons? I got three,000 gallons on my last ticket and that don't come up to $44. That don't come up to $44. So why am I paying for that? And then my sewer bill is 90 almost $95. Now, if you're I only got one and a half toilets and I I'm a widowerower, so I pretty much live alone. So, I'm not using I'm not using that much. So, why is my sewer water 90ome dollars? It don't make sense for what I'm being charge what I'm being charged for. So, I like to know how how they how they charge for that. It's only $4 and something for a th000 gallons. I only used 3,000 gallons in the last 3 months. But where is that money going to? Why is it Why is it uh $44 for water and my sewer is 90ome dollars? It don't make sense. So why why am I being charged for something that according to your figures it don't add up? My [Applause]

name is Jim Dyke, 6615 Rolling View Drive. Um, I think we all realize the more water you use, the more you're going to pay. Simple, right? [Applause] I ripped out my lawn sprinkler. I'm never going to want lawn sprinkle again. But what I don't understand is it went from 315 to 490 which is a 55% increase. That's not not logical at all. Um and besides that I am build for June, July and August. Okay. So half of that time I should be under the the higher rate, half of that time I should be under the lower rate. I charge I was charged the full rate. Now I know that I used too much water and I'm fixing that. But let's answer these other things. Why am I charged for a month and a half at the high rate when it went up in July? You know the the technology nowadays, everybody used computers. It's simple to plug in a couple numbers and have that averaged out. Why is it charged? It doesn't make sense to me. I'll try to just be a backup to you.

Again, Michael Bosch 3245 Golden Oak Court. Um, number one, I want to start out say, well, just because it's in the budget doesn't mean we're going to spend it. Here, the budgets going back to 2020. Every line item in here is like, well, we just put it on. There's a possibility, a placeholder. Guess what? They all got spent. I'm excited to hear that 48th Avenue, for the first time in Georgetown history in the past 12 years, a line item a line item isn't getting spent. I think we need a party for that. That's amazing. So, I guess um so number two, we should bond it because we got to this point. I don't like bonds, but this is a case where a bonded is an an issue. Rather than gouging people trying to get $5 million extra every year for the next five years, let's bond it. There's nothing wrong with that. Let's be good stewards. And here's the other thing. You're saying, "Well, we're responsible. We need to use less water." Well, guess what? We have the infrastructure. We have paid already for upgrades at the Lakeshore plant. We've paid for Granville sewer updates. We're part owners already. Our use is not expanding that much. We're doing what? 70 homes a year now. We're we're around a hundred. So, us being charged 43% is ridiculous to begin with. We've already paid that amount. We've already made our investment. It's a new development that needs to cover it. Where's the new development? I don't look at Byron Center. How many houses they do a year? Let's figure out who's doing it. Those are the people who are going to be using it. They need to pay. We already paid for our share to get us to where we are today. And our infrastructure is only at one-third life. We're doing good. We need to make money. we don't need to gouge. It's ridiculous. Um, and along the lines of gouging, I I just want people to know the township general fund, now that's separate from water. Water water and sewer is a proprietary fund. Any money made in water and sewer cannot be used for anything but water and sewer. The general fund on the other hand can be used for water and sewer. Any other department it goes that but in

2021 the township made $3 million off our taxpayers. 2022 2.2 million off our taxpayers. 2023 2 million. 2024 2.7 million you're making off our taxpayers over taxing. We could give it back, lower the rate. What we should do is save that money like we used to. I mean, we've we blew money on Kmart. We lose what? 2 million on the Kmart boondoggle. We used to have cell phone towers that we leased. Right now, we'd be making about $186,000 a year on those leases. But a knee-jerk, short-sighted board, some board members still here, decide to sell it for 1.5 million. Sounded great. Great. Cash advance. Sell your gold today. Terrible idea. That's revenue we could be using for our parks. All kinds of different things. You run as conservatives. You don't act like conservatives. You spend and spend and spend and spend. You don't run your household budgets like this. But when it's taxpayer money, it's free for all. There's no no effort for efficiency. I could talk for hours. [Applause]

Anyone else? Yes, sir. Um, Mike Collison, 7258 Vice. Was that Talison? Talison. C O L L I S O N.

Um, you mentioned that you didn't want us to to ask a question for you to to you folks directly to answer, but I'd like a question from him. Um, I'm sorry, your name again. uh have to excuse my ignorance and and my stage fright, but uh I I have uh I don't have a quite an understanding of the billing. So I thought I was getting build uh from Georgetown, but I thought the bill was based on meter reading that was directly from uh Wyoming. So, and that's not how it's working from what I understand. So, what the the what it sounds like is Georgetown is getting built. Is that correct?

And actually, it's it's a good point. How about we include that in our remarks at the end and he can go into depth on that. Thank you. Because that was under the misunderstanding and that's so now I believe we are collectively being build. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for the question. Yep. [Applause] Yes, ma'am. There was someone making their way up down the center aisle. Did you want to continue? There you go. Welcome. Hi. Hi, Jean. How are you? Doing fine.

Maggie's dad. Caroliser, 6924th Avenue. I had no intention of speaking tonight. I wasn't even going to come to this meeting, but sitting here listening to you guys, I think all of us want to know this. What are you doing planning a $2 million pickle ball court? You are wasting our tax money. Wasting our tax money. Is it in the Why are you shaking your head? Do you Okay, why are you shaking your head? Do you have plans? Is it in the budget to put in a $2 million pickle ball court? Is it in there? Is it in there? No. And we'll just Not in there. No, it's not. So, we don't have to worry about you guys spending $2 million of our money on a pickle ball court we don't need. That is correct. Correct. Okay.

Correct. That won't That's not to say that this court ah this court my other day job. Not to say that this council will not eventually decide to do something, but nothing's been committed. And here I am answering and breaking my own rule. I'll address that Carol in the final remarks. Okay. Go ahead. It's your time.

The bottom line is this. And I we're all in agreement. We are suffering because you guys are mismanaging our money. And I think that that's the truth. And I don't care if it's appropriate to say right now. That's what's going on. And I'm sick to death truth and you're sidestepping issues and you're wasting time because I don't even know half the you need to be you all need to be replaced. Anyway, I thank you. Scott Leakman 8 8546 Corsica Drive. I've got it.

Is that Leakman, Scott? Did I get the right Leakman? Yep. Leak Leapman. Okay. Ironic, right? Leak. Oh, leak.

I'm a teacher. Can I just do this? I'm more comfortable doing this. Is this okay? All right. I I I had no intentions of speaking today. I wanted to come see who was showing up. I wanted to see what the the mood was going to be, but I feel moved to speak. Um I I actually was one of the conversations. We we we spoke for quite a long time. Justin, when I got my uh bill for $4.90 uh per unit, and the thing that I I really wanted to to to press upon everybody is the things that I'm hearing make me nervous. Um I've been in Jenison for 10 years. I'm not a lifer, so I'm learning I'm still learning the culture of Jennison and Georgetown, but I get nervous from some of the things I'm hearing. I'm hearing over and over and over, we're debtree, almost to the point of being braggadocious. Um, I'm hearing things like we worry about how money is spent. Um, I was I I'll say it out loud. They voted for the bond for our school system. We're going to get a brand new fifth and sixth grade building. They're adding all kinds of updates to the schools. All of them. We have an unbelievable um what's the name of this? Tell me. I'm a little nerfed. The school way out there, the Elente. Now, if we use the same financial mindset for the school system as we're using for the water and sewer, we would have facilities from the 1930s here without ever updating them. We we have to have the bond. We have to use something other than what I'm hearing. I I Jim, I think one of the things I heard you say at the very beginning was we are one of the lowest taxed municipalities here. I disagree. You quoted the Go

ahead. That was a good one. You quoted I think it was 2.5. 2.25. Yeah.

2.25. Now, I wonder what that number would be if we added in the new water rates. So, to say that we're being taxed, well, legally, yes, that's correct. I'm thinking about how much money I'm spending every month on bills. I'm thinking, you're right. All of the groceries, all the things we have to do. Please, please do not tell us how great the taxes are when everything else is going up. I'm just going to end my time with suggesting please at least be open to other financial uh opportunities. Uh Grand Rapids, this greater greater Grand Rapids area was what I think number one in the country, greatest place to move. Stop pushing people away because of stuff like this. We want them to come into our communities. Thank you for my time. [Music] [Applause]

Mike Keaney 1927 Tula. Um I think one issue um that is is here is the communication. I to say that you know we put a video on uh for a board meeting where you get five six people to show up um and expect that the community has seen it and understood it is kind of ridiculous. or that a newsletter that you have to sign up for of you already know how many people are receiving and assuming that everybody is knowledgeable about the need and demand um for the change is kind of ridiculous. To say that you didn't expect 150 200 people here tonight is a little ridiculous. Um my wife told me you better get there early because there isn't going to be any room to park. I mean just a a little bit of looking at the first in Jennison informed or the best jennison informed you can see that people were hot and we got to do something about it. Um I do appreciate I think it was Michael Bosch there um giving us some numbers um and I do believe he has some experience in this um so I do kind of trust that just hearing from some other people that do know you. I don't know you. Um, but I also think that we do need to look at other options of funding. Um, the rest of the county, much of the county is on a well. Most of the county is on a well. There's a big problem with the aquifer. They're going to be hooking up in the future and down the line increasing demand, you know. So, sharing the burden just because they might have a well, they're also watering their lawns with those wells, which is causing the aquafer problem. We're all going to be sharing that burden. and I don't want them to run out of water, but maybe we do need to look at a bond. And you're hearing some people say that maybe that's a better option. So, at least hearing that, hopefully you're listening

to the community that maybe we need to do something like that, looking at what other options are cuz getting a 24% increase 2 years ago, a 55% increase now. Um, it it has doubled. Our water bills have doubled, you know, and that doesn't doesn't make sense. Also, when you see the local news reporting that Wyoming has increased their rates, and I might get this statistic wrong, it could be like 13%. So, if they've increased theirs low and the city of Wyoming is saying that there's no justification for a 55% hike, maybe that's not accurate, but we should have some explanation and some communication and saying that we knew this coming in January and you hike this up and vote for it in June for July, right in time for the busiest peak water season with no preparation. I don't think people would be as mad if they hadn't heard about this for a while and being educated. We need to look at those forms of communication to get that out. Even if it is $8,000 to send a mailing set, take a dollar of my $700 water bill and give me a mailer, email me. You know, you have it on the website. We should This shouldn't have been such a surprise as is and people wouldn't be as mad. [Applause] Thank you. And Mr. Haney and others, if you've got ideas for communicating, feel free to to send those to our emails as well. Speaking of old friends, here's an old friend.

Jim, how are we doing? Welcome. Doing good. How are you? Glad Glad you came. Maybe not after hearing you. I don't know. We'll see. Huh? Well, I just have two simple questions for the board here. We won't answer right now, but we'll listen. Okay. Name name and address. Can you hear me? Oh, yeah. Name and address. These guys don't know you. I'll see if I can talk in there loud enough. I have two questions. I know your name. I don't know your address. I'm sorry. I spoke over you enough. Start. Start again. Start again. Martin Vector, 7743 Baldwin Woods Drive.

Okay. Um, two questions for you. Number one, I looked at Georgetown and the four surrounding communities, and Georgetown has the highest water and sewer rates combined of all five of those communities. First question. Secondly, the rates that you're charging for the right to serve. $30 for water, $30 for sewer. That's for a 3/4 inch line. Unfortunately, some of the people or some of the units have to have a 1 in line. Would you believe that when going from 3/4 of a inch to a 1 in, it doesn't go up 33%. It goes up 250%. It goes to 150 a quarter. How's that justified? a three a one-third increase in the size of a pipe and a 250% increase in price. Those are the two questions I have. I don't understand how you can justify the rates being the highest in the of the communities in this area. And then number two, sneaking in how you did the minimum rates and the right to serve.

Okay. Thanks, Martin. [Applause] [Music]

Anyone else? Good evening. My name is Connie Meyers and my address is 11:08 Corvette Drive, Jennison, Michigan. Number one, I'd like to thank everybody that showed up here. You're awesome. Okay, I got my bill a week ago and it was $632 plus. Now, my grass is straw. I don't water. There's only two people, us two old people in my house. We have no leaks. We have nothing. My sewer bill was $262. my sewer. I have no leaks. I don't water. Nothing. Okay. So, you tell me. But while I was looking at my water bill on your website, I decided to look at all of your water bills. And they're all under $300. All of you under $300. Everybody in here has a $600 to $1,000 water bill. Now you tell me what the hell's going on. [Applause]

I want to take a poll on that one, but it's not true. Jeans is 500 and some. I just I just wonder by show of hands, how many people have a bill between 600 and Excuse me. This is public speak. You haven't started yet, Pete. Thank you. How many people have a water bill approaching a thousand bucks or Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. [Music] Thank you.

Okay. Pete [Music] Pete Plowman. Um 6877 Creek Court. Um I think we should have a town hall to address this matter specifically for this matter. I think you should make a motion tonight. Set up a date for a town hall just on this one issue for accommodations at one of the churches and bring as many people in as you possibly can. That would be awesome because you tell us you have the pulse of the community and I think you're getting the pulse tonight. So many people don't quite understand their bill. The water usage, like the man said, we all know we pay more when we use it. It's the ready to serve prices that have tripled, doubled just for having the service to your house. Whether you use water or not, whether you go to Florida, you're going to pay a base rate of at least $150. So, those are the costs, the hidden costs to you. They don't itemize those on your bill. They just tell you it's Wyoming's fault. I mean, they're hiding the ball, too.

So, I I've read some things and people want to know what can they do? What can you folks do? Hey, Pete, just in all fairness, Jim, what can the folks do? Let me help you. Thank you. So, let's let's say you don't want to pay your water bill. The township turns it off, right, Jim? Of course they do. Goes on long enough. Yep. Yep. It's my time. If you want to ask me a question, that's fine. So, I just ask you, it's my time, Jim. I just asked you address the board. I reclaim my time. I had a minute 18. You can reclaim 10 seconds. Go ahead. Just would remind you to address the board and not the audience. Will you reclaim my time for 18, please? When it goes off, you can make your your point. Okay.

Yep.

So, what can you do? You can not use water and or not pay your bill and not have any water. You can use as much water as you can and pay for it as you possibly can. Or the other option, and I think you need to start considering this, Jim, that people are going to want to recall this board for the dollars being used. That's a serious consideration that people should look at to see if indeed the people that are running this board because as we found out, John and Jim have been making bad decisions for a long time on this water deal, forever. And now we got them here making another bad decision. Is that what you want? I don't think I want. Then if that doesn't happen, then maybe you guys can explain to us how you are different. How you are different than a tax and spend socialist Democrat. [Applause] [Applause]

I'm sorry, Mr. McCloskey. We we just allow one time uh per session. You could have done at the beginning. I I'm sorry. I have a question. You can speak with us afterward. Yeah. Any one of us you can find afterward. All right. Thank you, though. I I want to give these people a chance who've not had a chance to speak. Miss Yeah, we we're happy to talk with you. We just want to make sure we follow protocol. Well, right after the meeting. Okay. Sure. Talk to him now if you like. [Music]

Yes, ma'am. Um, Kristen Beltima, 6615 Rolling View Drive. Um, I kind of want to speak on behalf of the 57% of Americans that live paycheck to paycheck. Um, my family is currently living with my dad because we cannot afford the cost of regular expenses including groceries and other bills. So, think about those people in the community that they're not going to be able to pay these bills. They're not going to be able to pay their mortgage payment because of it or they're not going to be able to pay a car payment and get a car repoed and things like that. You know, there's a lot of people in this community that are in debt, probably the majority of people. So, yeah, the I love the idea of having a township that's debtree. I would love to be debtree, but that's not where we are. And we need to be able to afford to pay the bills or we won't be Georgetown Township residents any longer. [Applause]

Anyone else? Yes, ma'am. Welcome. Thank you.

My name is Kristen Timmer, 4143 Malard Lane, and I just want to say thank you for leading our township. Um, I think you all have great intentions with um managing the township's resources, with managing our water infrastructure. I think it's a difficult position that you're in and I appreciate the investment to make sure that our wallet water quality uh stays um protected and that the system is also well fortified from any cyber attacks, terrorist type attacks. Water is obviously critical to everyone. Um, I appreciate the information as well about the irrigation and how we can reduce our usage by looking at um, irrigation. I don't know, but I hope that our ordinances help support people who choose to minimize watering at their lawn, installing native landscaping, and those types of things. Um, and then I think that it would be helpful for the township to look at what you can do to help connect people here to resources or other information. Obviously, some people's bills jumped quite a bit and they're in a really tough spot for budgeting. So, um making sure that people have the information and the help that they need so that they can keep their water on and pay their basic um living expenses. Thank you.

You Thank you. [Applause]

Jeff Colleen 7561 Sunset. Uh Justin, I'd just like to say one thing to you, sir, is I'd like for you to change your thoughts, the process on why we're raising our water bills. Your water department, well, your water department is telling me something different. You're saying it's because irrigation. They're saying it's because of the infrastructure, the housing increase in the area. So, please rechange what you're saying. Okay. The other thing, too, is the Neptune T10 water meter that installed in my house is known for reading high. So, I'm going to request that the board please have those meters changed to something else. I'm being built for 142 units with two people in my house. I do have irrigation, but my neighbors irrigate more than I do. I've actually measured how much I irrigate, and I'm getting build for 142 units, which Andy told me was impossible. That's $900 for my water bill. I will pay that if I use that. But I believe that your Neptune meters that you installed are not accurate. Please change them.

Thank you. Anyone [Applause] else?

Hello. Come forward. You may take his seat right here and you're ready to go.

That's all right. My name is Bert Pollock. I live at 7797 Lilock Drive here in Jennison. Couple things I want to touch on. The water bill situation. Do you guys realize that you and had this bill due or came to us the first day of school? How many people have kids that are buying clothes trying to buy everything for your kids to go to school and you get a $500 water bill? That's crap. Why am I going to go downstairs and measure my water line? I didn't put the damn line in. Why should I be handicapped? Because I have irrigation. John, I know you've got irrigation and I'm sure pretty much everyone sitting on that bench has irrigation on their lawn. I realize you're going to pay the same as we are. or you're not hiding anything. But the bottom line is to be put in into a premium rate because I've used more. We've never had that. We've never had brown outs. We've never had turn your sprinklers irrigation off in all the years I've lived here. 30 years. Never seen this. But your timing was pathetic. you you didn't take into any consideration of what time of year it was, what parents were going through. We've all been there. We've all had kids. We know expenses plus sports, you you got a lot of money out. But when you get a water bill that you've never seen before, it's insane. You guys really need to look at your timing. Why not break it down into a six-month period or break it out for another calendar year, but put

put enough in there that it's going to cover what the rate really is, not what he's speculating it's going to be. Thank you. [Applause] James Kyper 7989 Hearthway. Um I'm a underground equipment operator for a local contractor. Worked with Georgetown, worked with East Grand Rapids, worked with nearly every municipality. Um my pay rate hasn't gone up 55%. I see the cost I see the cost of every stick of pipe we put in the ground. They've gone up. I know that they haven't gone up 55%. The cost of sand to back fill the trenches hasn't gone up 55%. In my personal opinion, it's piss poor planning. And for that, I think the board needs to be recalled. [Applause] Marie Carsmeer, 7499 Brower Lane. I would like to yield my time to Mike Bosch. [Applause]

He knows you can't do that. Um, so you can't do that. You can't. But we'd be glad to hear from you, Moren. Yeah. No, you know that, Michael. Yeah. No, you know you can't yield time. So, just I want to give you the chance yet. We're not going to create new rules tonight. It's not has nothing to do with Michael or anyone else. It's just that's just not the rules. Not permitted. Uh, thank you. But that's not true. But would you like to Would you like to address the board? And was it Marine? Marie. M A R I E.

Okay. I was out in the hallway, so I'm pretty sure I heard this right, but maybe I didn't. There was a lady who came up here earlier asking you all if that pickle ball thing was in the budget or not, and I'm pretty sure I heard no. I think her exact words were, $2 million pickle ball thing, is that in the budget?

Yes. But the response from the board was no, it's not. And I would just like to point out that the PDF that you linked to in the minutes for tonight on page 24, budget report for Georgetown Charter Township. And this page has to do with parks and recreation. If you scroll down, there is 1.2 million pickle ball for Maplewood and Rush Creek and then 600,000 for pickle ball at 8th Avenue with It says it's only 50%. So, I'm assuming you're going to spend more than that at another time, but the pickle ball is in there and it's at three different parks. I don't see why we would even if you even if we went through with pickle ball, why do you need it at three different parks? It's just not necessary. [Applause] Hello, Georgetown Township Board. My name is John Van Man and I live at 842 Rosewood. I too would like to share my sentiments and the fact that I appreciate what you do. I know it's not an easy job and I know there's a lot of emotion in this room. I know it's not easy, but you also have to understand that this is our livelihood. These are our families that we're talking about and these how our this is how we provide for our families. If you even think about implementing a premium rate, I would just like to point out to you I'm a proud father of six children. Three that I adopted out of foster care. And I don't say that to tap myself on the back. I say that because naturally we're going to use more water than a family of two or three. And for us to be charged more per gallon because I have more kids, which is my choice. I get that, but at the same time, my kids have also

provided a tremendous benefit to our school system and everything like that. So, if you're going to charge a premium because families are larger, I would strongly encourage you to consider what the family structure means in today's society. Second, this pickle ball thing. I live next door to 8th Avenue Park. I too think the pickle ball amount is a little high, ridiculously high. And I think what's actually being hidden is the feasibility study that I believe was done by the township that I would actually like a definitive answer because I've heard up to $800,000 was spent on a feasibility study to add 16 pickle ball courts to Georgetown Township or to 8th Avenue Park to find out that it was in a flood plane. That's not true. But

okay, that if that's not true, Jim, then I'd like an explanation from the board on how much money was spent on the 8th Avenue Park study for the pickle ball courts. And I want a dollar amount, okay? Because I know it was in a flood plan. I know it was a serious consideration at that particular time to put a big pickle ball facility there. I think pickle ball is great. It's one of the fastest growing sports. I think we as a community should embrace it. I think it's great for community involvement, but I would also caution you to be conservative in what you spend towards it. And then finally, the other thing that I really think is at the cart of this water issue is I think there's a trust issue because we are going to speak fast because I think what we get is we get our water bill and it's like, well, I used 99 units. That's what I used. My bill was 99 units last quarter. Okay. And I just got to accept that 99 units is what it says. This lady that spoke first was very articulate. I have no idea how she can pay that much of a bill or use that much of a consumption. I too echo the same sentiments from the gentleman here. I think you as a board need to look into the validity and the accuracy of our water meters. If you can come back to our community and say, "Hey, we've done A, B, C, and D, and I know for a fact that you're using this amount." I'll be happy to pay it for your time. Anyone else? And only once, twice. Yes, sir. My name is Ray Vala, 10008 Meadow Lane in Jennison. I would like to say that for 40 years that I've lived here, which

is a great community, great people to to live around with. And uh you and uh and in 40 years, I've never had a water bill like I did when I received it two weeks ago. It was I I opened up mine. I said, "WTF? I mean, that is ridiculous. My bill has never ever ever been that high. What are you people doing to us? You know, for one thing, I retired four years ago and I feel like if you keep raising rates, I might have to go back to work. How many people here are are retired? You're forcing elderly people like us to go back to work part-time because to so we can pay our bills. You know it. Everybody here knows it at all. Everything's going up. Gas, food, groceries, you name it. It's going up. How How can a senior citizens keep up with that? But go back to work. That's all we can do. And like that lady said back there, if you guys can't do nothing about it, then maybe you all need to be replaced. All right, we'll close the second public comment period. All right, appears that we're done. Uh item number 17, discussion and general information among the board. Normally, this would be a time we might talk about a conference we attended or something that we'd like to see go to a committee. But, uh, if any would like to touch anything you've heard tonight or anything we've went over as a board, uh, feel free at this time. I'll look to my left first, I guess.

Yeah, I'd like I'd like to address a few of the concerns that were brought up tonight. Um, I don't I don't like it.

We'll pause for a second. If if there's a large number leaving, we'll pause. Okay. All right. So, there were some comments made tonight that I think need to be addressed. And um one of them is uh I'll just give a little background. The the GT1 pump, I'm on the utilities committee, so I'll take a little heat for this. Not all. The GT1 pump that's at the corner of 8th Avenue and Berry Street. There's two pumps in there, 100 horsepower pumps. If you go there in the winter time, those pumps do not run because the pressure that comes from the city of Wyoming is enough to run the township and fill the water towers. Just the pressure generated by the city of Wyoming. When irrigation starts in May, those 200 horse pumps start up and they don't stop until irrigation season's done. And them things run so hard that you can't even be in that building without your protection. They're just screaming. So it it tells me that that irrigation is a big deal. We go through a lot of water. All right. So that's it. The other the other side of that though is you have to understand is that when those pumps blow, and right now we're going to have a meeting after this about talking about this. We need to upgrade that water pump. We're going to need to build a new building. We're going to need to buy some more property. We're got to have a long range plan. It's going to cost a few million to upgrade that water pump to upgrade our system. Those are the monies that are raised with the ready to serve and the water

increases. The new water line down 48th Avenue um continues to be more and more money. Another thing is I I I I can understand the timing. I I I understand that, right? I I don't think that was thought about to be honest with you. Um, I have been in numerous meetings for the last three years with Ottawa County and with the city of Wyoming and the problem we've been having, the city of Wyoming has had a really difficult time trying to nail down numbers for this thing. Um, it started out probably two and a half years ago at 40 million and now it's it's ballooned to $80 million. So, it's doubled in three to three and a half years time. So water rates, we couldn't even set them things until they decided what's going to cost. And those costs are carried on to us. On the same time, they wanted they want us to know, they want us to start charging us this year. So we don't have a choice. We got to start raising water rates according to the numbers that they gave us. Wyoming, the guy that Vista was on WODV said we didn't raise our water. It's like, well, that's really a lie because they have an infrastructure bill. We don't have that. He didn't tell you that. He told the water rates didn't go up. He didn't tell you about his infrastructure millage which is about 1.75 I believe Wyoming in infrastructure mill.

It's but you know that that wasn't factored in when he talks about that. We don't have that. We only have one millage 2.25. So that that's been a that's been a difficult thing as far as bonding the thing. We had that discussion. I'll be honest with you. I'm I'm not for a bond. Um the public school has a bond and guess what? It never gets paid. Once you go down the bond highway, you're bonding forever. You will never pay it off. You tell me one public school in this area has paid off their bond. They just renew it. It just continues to renew it. And it's in the village all the time. It's just a constant village. It doesn't go away. Public schools just renew the bond. And so I look at that history and go, I'm not sure I'm ready to go down that road because once we start the bond, you're going to add more bonds and everything's going to be a bond. Next thing you know, you're paying debt on all that stuff. That's a gut. The other thing um that was said tonight was, "Oh, we're making money off the taxpayers." Um we don't make money the money that may be excessive to the taxpayers still belongs to the taxpayers. I'm I own I own several businesses. If I make money, it's my money. Any money that's made in the township stays in the township. It's not It's not like It's not like, "Oh, you guys made all this money. Oh, guess what? Must be the trustees got it." Well, I tell you guys, but I got 5200 bucks last year to be a trustee. All right. So, if that's too much, let me know and I'll write you a check back. So, I'm just saying uh the WT WOD TV news was wrong. Um I'm not sure about the 3/4 inch and 1 in line. I would doubt many people have a 1-in line put into their house. I know there's a extra rate for it, but I don't know if that's true or not. Um, just to share with you people that wonder about water. Um, in

my house, my second floor, my kids moved out. Um, I had a leaky toilet last two water bills and I had I was using 11 units both. I had the toilets fixed. Now I'm down to four units. That leaky toilet takes seven units of water in one pay period, one water period. So, if you don't think a leak in your toilet doesn't make a big deal, it does. It's 7,000 gallons in 3 months for one leaky toilet. Um, I I still have a little problem with Wyoming's timing of trying to figure out this waterline. They've known about it for 5 years or four or five years, but they've had difficulty trying to get costs to us in time to get a contract put together. We're under the gun with a budget coming up in September. Maybe there's a different way to do it. I I don't know. There was so many numbers. I've got I got a stack of paper this high. Those numbers have changed six, eight times in the last three years. So, um, we also know and I and I I don't understand some of the water units people are using. I I get when you tell me somebody's like 200 units, I'm like, wow. I But I also know that um we have to reconcile the water of our all of our units end up at the end of the year. we reconcile with the water that Wyoming sends us which is metered from their line. So when we reconcile if let's say Wyoming says we we ship you a million gallons and our meters show that we only use 700,000 or we use 1.4 million. There's got to be a reconciliation. We may have to figure that out if there's issue. I don't think in the past we've had an issue. I don't know. I I don't know. Um I I'll I'll

probably sit down with DPW in the next week and and and so get some of these questions answered. Um it's it's a big deal. I you don't I don't think people realize we agonize over this ourselves. This isn't something that we like in one meeting went, hey, you know what? Let's just raise water 55%. This has been a big deal. And I from my first several meetings on the board 5 years ago, I said we probably should be raising water a little bit every year. I made that statement and yeah, it nobody likes to see an increase, but I never realized it was going to be this hiatus until probably in the last year all of a sudden it got dropped on us. So, we also know too, just to give you a little history, there are some big projects coming up in the township with sewer lines. Our sewer pipe is 50 to 60 years old. And some of the pipe that was put in 50 years ago was a uh cement pipe with a cardboard base to it, which was the best technology for the day, but looking back it isn't. We've got bulges in this pipe. One of the pipes is running down Port Sheldon by Bersley. One of the pipes is going down Mary across from Bersley. They service the city of Hudsonville and they go out to Chicago Drive. We're we're now right now trying to figure out can we repair the bulges just where the bulges are. Do we take out the entire pipe? Do we put a liner in it? Will the liner hold the bulge? We're having conversations about that right now. But you know that could cost anywhere from $500,000 to line it to 78 million to rip the whole road out, put a new pipe in. But guess what? When you do it, you need the money to pay these people. And that decision comes to us. We have to make a decision in a year, in the next year. What are we going to do with this pipe? And we got to make decisions on this. We run a camera down. We try to figure out what's the most economical way. The sad part is you don't know what it's going to cost until

you start getting into a little bit deeper with engineers and professionals. And the question is if we have to tear that pipe out and it's 5 million, we need 5 million to pay it. And that's where that money and the water sewer fund is available to be able to be able to fix the infrastructure in our township. Um, if you go to that Bazinski report, if you read through that, he will bring Andy Campbell put that together. He will tell you that the the life site the lifespan of sewer and water system is 50 to 60 years. Um, we signed in with a Wyoming water plant in 1964 and we put our first sewer lines in 1967, I believe. So, we're at that 50-year spot where we're going to start fixing infrastructure. And so, you need funds for that. And that's where Andy Campbell came in and went through all of our pipes and tried to give us a future number of what we can look at in the next 10 to 15 years of repairing sewer lines, maybe upgrading water lines, and then on top of that, Wyoming drops the bomb of putting in a new water line from Lake Michigan. So, it was like the perfect storm of having to be able to upgrade our infrastructure and then also put a new water line from Wyoming. And unfortunately, it all came to a head at the same time. And now we got to figure out what we're going to do. And this is what we came up with. And I'm not going to say it was a perfect system. It's a system we had to adopt. Maybe the timing was wrong. I'm I I can't I can't say I disagree with that, but I also know that's what it costs to do business. Um,

if I may, um, we don't normally discuss this way as much as we do this way to conclude our meetings only because it is a board meeting, but I'm happy, you know, that we're doing so. I just the expectation when someone looks at you and speak to you is to respond, right? And so it it is it is odd. We understand you speak, we listen, now we speak, you're listening, you want to immediately, you know, well, what about this and what about that? Um, I get that inclination, but this is and not to suggest that somehow we don't care. It's it's just not the way that it works. That's the best I can say. So, they'd like to respond if they want to respond to you. And of course, we are um we're on committees. We're back in this boardroom, you know, twice a month. And of course, you've got ways to contact us through the, you know, through the website as well. Um, you don't have to anybody. I'm just making sure everybody gets a chance to.

I'm good. Yeah. So the other question I I started thinking about when all the discussion of

the microphone I think a little bit maybe got me. All right just the discussion of the cost to have water come to me the cost of water. I guess I always think about the other side of it. What if you turn on the faucet and there wasn't water and and you put yourself in in the area like Flint, Michigan that had tremendous problems with their with their pipes and their infrastructure. They didn't have the money to fix it and Georgetown Township's lucky enough that we have the money to fix it. And as Gary mentioned, that's through proper planning. That's because because the township has planned that we have the money for 8th or 48th Avenue that we have the money to do repairs. thing when when uh Andy did that presentation on repairs, you know, saying that the average water man main repair the average water man main break was about $380,000. Well, it's good that the Georgetown has that in the bank to pay for those repairs. Otherwise, we're handing out bottled water to everybody. You know, we have a water station. We don't have water for you. Sorry, we can't fix the road. You know, we we when we get the money, we'll fix it. And I think it is through proper planning and and and you know and I like all of us got numerous emails and phone calls and had clients stop in my office and and ask me about their water bill. And you know to me as as a financial adviser and a business owner, I look back and I go, I like to break things down. You know, I mean the one person's bill, she showed me her bill. She's 153 units, 153,000 gallons of water and and her previous bill was 12,000 gallons when she wasn't watering her grass, right? And but I break it down. It it's the cost to put the water to her house. She can do whatever she wants to do with it is 0.0053

cents per gallon. A half a cent a gallon. If you go to Costco and you buy a bunch of these, your water bill will be about $100,000 for that same amount of water. Okay, we have a water jug at our office. A 5gallon water jug. You put the water cooler, that thing is five gallons is $7.50. You're over a million dollars to buy 153,000 gallons of water. Is the rate high? Is it higher than other townships? No, it's not. And we've done that study and we've looked at those numbers. Georgetown Township, even with the last increases, the rate is very competitive and much lower than a lot of our surrounding neighbors. Okay. I think right now the last one comment I heard was it's a natural resource. It is. Lake Michigan gives us 2.2 2 billion gallons every year that Georgetown Township uses, but it's not a natural service to get it to us for free. It costs money to get you the water to your house. It costs money to fix the roads. It costs money to put in big projects like 48th Avenue. The cost of construction, the cost of putting those pipes in the ground. I mean, I think there'd be just as many people here upset if we all of a sudden couldn't supply water to you or the sewers were backing up into your house. And so, we do feel the pain. I have a well, but I also have city water as well. I have a pool that I fill with my city water because my well stinks. Okay? And if you look out in Blendon Township, you start reading the articles over there, their wells are drying up right and left. Okay? And you know what the the last comment I'll make is about the bond bonding the deal. Well, okay, for

us that have water, maybe it's easier to spread that out in our normal property taxes, but what about the people who don't have city water? What about the people that just have a wealth? So, they got to pay for all the rest of the people because if it's a bond, everybody's tax rates the same. Okay. So, if it's a bond, then they're paying for that upgrade into city and having water that they don't have. Okay. So, yes, we do. We pay for more that way if we use more. I get that. I haven't watered my grass even with a well once in August, once in September. My grass is green because these cold nights, you get that natural dew on there in the morning. We had some nice couple days of rain over the last couple weeks. And my neighbor across the street, he's one of the people that you saw up on that chart right there. 242,000 gallons of water in the last quarter. That's three Olympic size swimming pools. That's ridiculous. I get it. We do feel the pain of everybody. And and you know I I think maybe the big thing as we all mentioned is communication. So I guess we got to be better at that.

Anything Amy? Yeah. Well, of course we we all feel the pain and I think that this is a good, you know, discussion that we should look into things, look into the meters. I think that there's things that, you know, hopefully we can do as a board to represent all of our friends that are here tonight and our residents. Um, so yeah, I think, you know, we just have to be good stewards.

Yeah. Um, you know, I don't want to I don't want to repeat necessarily. I just wanted to sort of state that, you know, one person mentioned there's a lot of emotion in the room and I really agree with that and I, you know, feel that and I I don't want that to go unnoticed. What I also hope doesn't go unnoticed is what a couple of other people had said is um the amount of time and energy that we spent looking at options for these fees. Um it feels a little bit as if um there's a lot of fingerpointing like you did this to us. Um but we did it to ourselves too and it's because we weighed a lot of pros and cons and we looked at a variety of ways in which to cover the necessary expenses that are required of our township. And I will say I am a little shocked to hear that so many people support a bond or raising taxes um because to me that is uh completely antithetical to what um this community has been about. To to subsidize other folks uh water and sewer usage just doesn't feel on par with the way our community uh operates. What we use we pay for. Um and I think it should remain that way. to ask other folks to put a bond together or to raise taxes um just doesn't feel appropriate to cover other people's uh bills. I do feel very strongly um about that. But I just want to sort of end with um you know the obviously we have a lot of resources online. There's a lot of different Facebook pages and different things and I do think that that's a great way to connect uh the community. But I will say opposite to what Kevin mentioned, I didn't receive that many um emails or phone calls about this. Um and so I just want to encourage everyone, you know, to

spend $8,000 on a mailing. Yes, it will get the the letters to your mailboxes, but there are a lot of ways in which we are providing information whether you're taking advantage of them today or not. The township has a Facebook page. We do have a newsletter, and every single one of our emails are on the website. Our board meetings happen twice a month. I just want people to take advantage of the opportunities to connect with us because I haven't had a lot of this dialogue with folks. Um, and so and I I'd like to have some more. I'd like to understand a little bit more of these questions. I think there were so many fair questions raised tonight that really did seem completely out of whack that I'd like to look into. Um, but on that same token, as it relates to kind of engaging online, I just caution, um, when you do read something online, um, you know, maybe fact check it and double check, you know, contact somebody at the township or somebody here. Um, I did hear a lot of misinformation being spoke tonight and it's a little concerning and I just want to make sure that you all know that you have access to us to get factual information whenever you want it. Please contact us if you have questions in the future. I really want to hear from you.

Thank you. You don't mind talking to John because I know he wants to say something.

Um, this has been a great audience and you've been very mature, very respectful. Uh, we sincerely appreciate that. You've been allowed allowed the board to go about their business and I think that speaks highly of you and highly of our community. Uh the state of Michigan uh particularly with the Flint crisis put in many many regulations and people are are blaming the township that if you have underground sprinkling all of a sudden they have to be inspected by a plumber. That was required by the state and we had to do that within a specific period of time. As far as the new meters, uh those are required by the state and we've got a timeline and we're trying to get those in as quickly as we can. I would say with a with the Neptune meters, there's a lack of confidence there and we can feel that from you. I I I'd like to have a presentation from Joel about that just to kind of educate us and maybe even some type of communication with Neptune be because these people are very very concerned that it's the meter itself

that is causing the problem and and we've got to

we've got to approach that and and do the best we can with it and find find out the real reasons. also um when people particularly the very first lady that spoke uh she seems so sincere and those numbers just do not seem logical and I I think we have to take a close look at our staff now we only have 32 full-time people that run the township and we have seven people that are in the water department you know most people that this size Dan Carlton used to say you you need 300 full-time people to run Georgetown township But we privatize most things like cutting grass and so forth throughout. So we only have 32 full-time people. Uh but I I think with these complaints and these concerns and some of them just seem illogical, I would not be against having some staff going and and checking individual homeowners that have incredibly high. And if it we have to work that into a budget for Justin that he can pay people overtime or even have someone else, I think that would help dramatically um to when particularly that first lady, she was incredibly sincere and I'd be okay to have someone go to right to their house. Now, I know we've done that in the past, uh but maybe we need to do more of that

otherwise in Granville, but her business is in Georgetown, right? So she was comparing kind of back and forth. Yes. Um otherwise the crowd here was was uh really wonderful tonight. I thought the other communities uh this this would have uh gone viral but it but it didn't because of their maturity. Appreciate that. Yeah, I did hear Gary say he wanted to talk to uh Joel and others at DPW. I think it might be most appropriate to have that looked at in utilities at some point coming up right before it just drops into board. Um okay I think I heard a lot of people nodding and saying yeah

um we need to make sure it's one thing to say your rate has gone up X it's another to say I'm not sure it's measuring correctly that's that can't happen. So, um, but as you point out, Gary, I mean, it's never been a complaint I've received and it's something that we try to reconcile. And so, if there's something new with the new system that's not working right, then I'll figure it out. You figure it out? I don't know. I think so. Uh, do I even weigh in these water? I I think I I don't want to leave hanging a couple of comments as it related to pickle ball. One was that someone said that there was an $800,000 feasibility study, and you heard me say that wasn't true. Justin, give me a ballpark. Uh, what for that feasibility study last year?

Check the record, but I believe doing an over under 50 under 40. What? Give me I'm trying to recall. It was not in services at that point, but I remember I would say with confidence it's under 50,000. Okay. We just don't know how much. But anyway, we can go back and check though.

I I didn't want to leave that statement hanging. Um, you you heard uh Miss Heiser ask us, you know, is is there $2 million for pickle ball? And you heard us say verbally to her, "No, there's not." Um, I think later she or someone else then alluded to improvements at a couple of parks plus what what is set aside for possible improvement at 8th Avenue, which would have totaled, I think, roughly 1.8 with with the the math. Um, again, that 1.2 2 million for those two parks is not I mean the great majority is not pickle ball related since that seems to be the key word or the hot hot button topic. Um as I said earlier there's there's multiple improvements being made at each of those parks. Um and so that is where the the bulk of what she alluded to uh is being expended. um the portion allocator set aside in the budget. Back to the point earlier about saying, "Hey, we we put things in the budget that we're not sure which way it's going to break, whether it be the fire department, whether it be a park improvement." And so there is, as she pointed out, there's a footnote about setting aside money toward the possible addition of of pickle ball at 8th Avenue Park. There's been no I I said on services, I know there's been no decision made in that respect. Um, if it were made, I suspect it would be more than 600, but not anywhere near near 2 million. It might be less, and it might be that it doesn't have support. I don't know. But at least I think as a township, I don't want you taking away misinformation on that particular point. Um, I don't know. I think that's about all you. You guys said it well, better than I. So, is there a motion to adjurnn?

Some move. Support. All in favor? I I opposed. Okay, the meeting is is adjourned. Uh I know there's a utilities meeting, so if you see several people walk off real quickly, it's not that they don't want to talk to you. If you see me slip out fairly soon, it's because I have a wedding Friday night for my son, and I just my daughter and her family just came in from out of town overseas, and I've not met my granddaughter yet. So,