Village Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to the June 23rd, 2026 council meeting for the village of Holly clerk.

Please call the roll. Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.

Here we have a quorum if you are willing to enable please stand with us for the pledge of allegiance. This brings us to the approval of our consent agenda. All items listed under consent agenda are considered to be routine and non-controversial by the village council and will be approved by one motion. There will be no separate discussion. If discussion is desired, that item will be removed from the consent agenda and discussed separately immediately after consent agenda approval in its normal sequence on the regular agenda. Lisa, can you please read the consent agenda?

A, agenda approval. B, consideration of the- I'm sorry, one moment.

There's some voices that are carrying that are making it difficult to hear if you don't mind. Please and thank you. Pardon my interruption, Lisa, if you would continue.

Sure. b consideration of the approval of the village council minutes of may 12 2026 c acknowledgement of receipt of historic district commission minutes of february 12 2026 D. Acknowledgement of receipt of HDC minutes of March 12, 2026. E. Acknowledgement of receipt of HDC minutes of April 9, 2026. F. Acknowledgement of receipt of Parks Commission minutes of March 12, 2026. G. Acknowledgement of receipt of Parks Commission minutes April 1, 2026. H. Acknowledgement of receipt of planning commission minutes of February 2, 2026. I. Consideration of approval awarding the leaf removal RFP bid to R.J. Hoffman Management. J. Acknowledgement of receipt of business registration for Cranberry Cottage. K, acknowledgement of receipt of business registration for True Harmony. L, consideration of approval of the fiscal year 26-27 meeting schedule. M, consideration of approval of the continued participation in the Community Development Block Grant Program for program years 2027 through 2029. N, consideration of approval of the special event application for the Holly Moose Lodge annual picnic to occur on July 26, 2026. O, consideration of the continued participation agreement with Clemis and authorize the village manager to sign the agreement. P, consideration of the approval of warrant 2026-006 in the amount of $432,288.51. Thank you, Lisa. Do I hear a motion to approve the consent agenda?

I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Second. We have a motion by Weinbrenner. We have a second by Kier. I would like to amend item L of new business to include that we will be discussing attorney written opinions. Um, Weinbrenner and Cole, are you willing to amend your motion and your support?

Yeah, I'll amend my motion and support.

I'll amend my support.

Okay, we have a motion by Weinbrenner and a second by Kier, including an amendment to discuss attorney written privilege on item L. Clerk, please call the roll.

Go ahead. In regards to that, can we get like the motion prepared for us to include the entire statutory reason for it?

Yes.

So that way we have it properly done. Thank you.

Thank you.

clerk please call the roll yes yes yes yes yes yes motion carried this brings us to tonight's first presentation our first presentation will be by our chief of police chief marsh

Thank you, Council, and thank you that we're the first presentation. That's awesome. So there's no greater news and good news always begs to be shared, although it's sad news, but I would like to invite my number two and our administrative Sergeant Craig Simpson to join me. Tonight, we recognize and celebrate the 25 year career of Sergeant Craig Simpson. From a broader sense of law enforcement, 25 years of service is far more than a measure of time. It is a testament to unwavering loyalty, relentless determination, and extraordinary courage. For a quarter of a century, he answered every call, stood watch when others slept, and carried the weight of responsibility that comes with protecting a community, and all while keeping the grandkids in check. Through long nights, difficult decisions, moments of danger, and countless acts of service that may never be fully known, he remained committed to a profession that demands both strength and sacrifice. His career reflects not only a dedication to law enforcement, but a steadfast devotion to the people he served, those he served with, and with the badge he wore with honor. Today, we recognize his legacy, and it will not be measured by the years he worked, but by the lives he touched. the trust he earned and the example he leaves for those who will follow in his footsteps. And I would like to read a little bit so everyone here kind of gets to know if you haven't met him in 25 years, you'll know him tonight. He concludes an extraordinary career of public service, spanning nearly four decades of military fire service and law enforcement. Sergeant Simpson's journey of service began shortly after graduating from school in Detroit in 1988. And that summer he entered active duty military service with the United States Army. Although he originally enlisted with the goal of becoming a military police officer and serving in the airborne circumstances led him to pursue a career in heavy equipment operator while maintaining his airborne status. I'm picturing parachuting with a bulldozer. I don't know if there's a patch for that, but that would just be awesome. Following basic training and jump school, he was assigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, serving with the 37th Engineers, where he operated heavy construction equipment and conducted airborne operations from both airplanes and helicopters. After year at Fort Bragg, Sergeant Simpson, received orders to Germany, where he served for three years with the 237th Engineers and 535th Engineers. During that assignment, he further developed his expertise as a heavy equipment operator while serving his country overseas. While stationed in Germany, he returned home in 1991 to marry the love of his life. In 1993, at the conclusion of his active tour of duty, he and his wife welcomed their first child. Upon returning to Michigan, Sergeant Simpson continued his military service with the Michigan Army National Guard, beginning with the Detroit Light Guard Armory, before transferring to heavy equipment unit in Battle Creek. As military downsizing occurred, he transferred to units in Flint and Bay City, earning promotions, and in 1998, transferred to the United States Navy. I've often joked with him that he's the most conflicted person at the Army-Navy game. But Army came first, right? Okay, then he joined the Navy Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 26, the Seabees at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, and he served there until 2004. and was an E6 at the end of his career. Throughout his military career, he reserved numerous medals and awards and recognitions, letters of commendations and promotions to Sergeant throughout his military career. As he balanced military service with civilian employment, Sergeant Simpson and his wife expanded their family, welcoming two more children and in pursuit of a career in fire service, he attended the fire academy. Still trying to arrive in Nirvana, clearly. at Schoolcraft College in May of 1996 and worked in non-emergency medical transportation. That same year, he was hired as a community service officer with the University of Detroit Public Safety Department. And shortly thereafter, he attended the Detroit Metropolitan Police Academy as a member of Class 97-0, graduating in the fall of 97, serving with University of Detroit Mercy Public Safety. He learned the profession from experienced officers and mentors, including his father-in-law, Ron Hrubik, a Detroit police officer assigned to the 12th Precinct. After approximately four and a half years with the University of Detroit, Sergeant Simpson moved to White Lake and simultaneously served as a paid on-call firefighter with the White Lake Police Department while continuing his law enforcement career, or fire department. his law enforcement career and military obligations. Now the important part is where it gets good. It's where it gets really good. On April 16th, 2001, Sergeant Simpson joined the Holly Police Department. Where he quickly found that he would become, this would become his professional home for the next 25 years. Throughout his career with Holly, he developed into a highly respected and well-rounded police officer. Learning from mentors such as Officer Buster Weinbrenner and Sergeant Tom Clark. You got some acknowledgement there, brother. In April, 2013, he was promoted to the rank of Sergeant where he continued to lead by example while learning from then Sergeant Mike Story and Sergeant Dennis Saino. His law enforcement accomplishments include Meritorious Service Award in 1998, the Mad Mothers Against Drunk Driving Award for the most drunk drivers in 2006, Meritorious Service Award November of 06, Complimentary Letter for CPR Response September 09, Complimentary Letter for Suicide Intervention 2010, Life Saving Award 2012, Promotion to Sergeant 2013, Life Saving Award Silver Star Pin of Life July of 2015, and numerous citizen letters of cards expressing gratitude for his professionalism, compassion, and service. Throughout his career, Sergeant Simpson has demonstrated exceptional leadership, discipline, professionalism, and operational excellence. Whether serving in the military, the fire service, or law enforcement, he has devoted his life to helping others and making a positive impact in his community. After 38 years in uniform and a lifetime dedicated to public service, Sergeant Simpson has earned the opportunity to begin a new chapter. One focused on spending more time with his family, traveling, pursuing hobbies, and enjoying a well-deserved retirement. So on behalf of your team, your members that are here with you today, the Village of Holly and our esteemed Village Council and Village Administration, we extend our sincere gratitude to Sergeant Craig Simpson for his decades of faithful service, dedication, sacrifice, and commitment to our community. Congratulations on an outstanding career and best wishes for a long, healthy and rewarding retirement. My friend, my number two, Sergeant Craig Simpson. and I come bearing gifts. So I have two things that you got to get when you leave this. One is the ID that you pull out every time you get stopped for doing 20 over that says I'm a retired police sergeant and badge. Congratulations. And please don't use it in that way.

And don't use it in Holly.

And number two, and this is kind of cool. So a long time ago, we wanted to do something good for officers that do their full service to the community. So everyone agreed that an officer that retires in good standing gets to buy their service duty sidearm. and take that with them and it's at a reduced price but they can buy it and leave so at some point in this game um we all carry the same gun so he didn't realize this but i i'd switched out his slide now that was kind of weird but um he knew he figured that out but i switched out his slide because we had something special done to his so On the side of his Glock slide, it says, Sergeant Craig Simpson, 4-16-2001, 6-30-26, 25 years of service, Holly Police Department with a state seal. And on the top is forever his badge number and the Holly Police patch. And I'll give it to you, but I have the other one, so I got to swap it back out. So congratulations. And thank you, council and I'm honored to have and I know Craig is too. We have several members of the department here this evening. Uh, some came from home. They're not in uniform, but his team came to celebrate him. And, uh, I, I know we're gonna want to do some pictures. So, and thank you. Council your time.

speech okay i didn't prepare a speech but uh real quick no oh no i just uh you know a life lifetime of service and i feel it's now it's time to move on to another chapter in my life and then uh spend more time much needed time with family and friends i missed out Yes. So I missed out on a lot throughout my career and it's time to build that relationship better and rediscover hobbies and discover new ones and get a part-time job doing something less stressful and less dangerous. No, but I want to thank all of you for coming tonight. And I will miss everybody. I love the town. I love the people in it. And this is my second family here. So I will miss it dearly. But thank you, everybody. Much appreciated.

Thank you, Sergeant Simpson. And if you don't mind. Would you shake our hands? And then we're going to take a 10-minute break so everyone can do pictures and mingle a bit.

Congratulations. Thank you so much. Enjoy the family here. Happy retirement.

Thank you so much. Awesome. I think he noticed by the way he came shaking.

I know you're going to be blown off.

And then this hands to show you I know how to type.

If you guys want to come around front so it doesn't look weird, we've done it before.

All right, get in a little closer if you can.

All right. One, two, three. All right, if we have any other officers that would like to. We need some officers in there, too. Any officers? Any uniform out here? Get up there. Come on, everybody. I trust you.

There we go, second row, perfect. Take charge. There we go. All right. All right. See you later, Art!

Yeah, I'll come down to you.

Madam President, I'm going to tell Bob to go to his seat.

Are we live?

Yep, we've been live.

Okay. Our next presentation will be a proclamation of June as Pride Month. Tim, will you please read the proclamation?

Yes, Village of Holly Proclamation Pride Month. Whereas the Village of Holly, Michigan is committed to being a community where all people are treated with dignity, respect, fairness, and compassion, And whereas the month of June recognized throughout the United States as Pride Month, a time to honor the history, resilience, contributions, and lived experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning individuals. And whereas the Village of Holly is strengthened by the many residents, families, business owners, employees, volunteers, students, faiths, communities, civic organizations, and visitors who contribute to the life and character of our village. whereas Holly's small town character is built on the belief that neighbors look out for one another, that every person has value, and that strong community is one in which all people are able to participate fully and safely in public life, and whereas these individuals have made meaningful contributions to the cultural, civic, educational, economic, and social fabric of Michigan communities, and whereas recognition of Pride Month provides an opportunity to affirm the importance of visibility, understanding, and belonging, while also acknowledging that continued efforts are needed to address discrimination, prejudice, isolation, and unequal treatment. And whereas the Village Council recognizes that inclusion is not merely a statement of principle, but an ongoing commitment to ensuring that all residents and community members feel welcome, respected, and valued. And whereas the Village of Holly encourages thoughtful dialogue, kindness, and mutual respect amongst neighbors, and affirms its commitment to building a community where every person can live authentically and contribute fully. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that the Village Council of Holly hereby recognizes this month as June of June 2026 as Pride Month in the Village of Holly. Be it further proclaimed that the Village Council encourages residents, businesses, organizations and community partners to join in promoting respect, acceptance, understanding and inclusion for all people.

Thank you, Tim. At this time, i hear a motion to open a public hearing regarding resolution 2026-026 for approval of a special assessment levy for financing of police and fire protection services i will make a motion to open a public hearing regarding the resolution 2026-

for approval of the special assessment levy for financing of police and fire protection services.

I'll second that motion.

We have a motion by Cole. We have a second for Weinbrenner. Clerk, will you call the roll please?

Cole? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. At this time, would any members of the public like to make any comments? As a reminder, at this time, comments should only be related to the public hearing. Ms. Manson.

Anna Mattson, 15091 Western Valley. I am here to oppose this tax increase because that's exactly what it is. If council does not pass it, my property taxes would decrease by about $500. So in approving it, you are increasing my taxes. Last year, you swore to the public that this was the only option because you didn't have time to cover your deficit. A year later, and now what do you have to say? You are still not sending it to a vote of the people. and you have made no serious attempt to cut costs. I've listened to all your unproductive meetings this last year, only to hear approval of new spending, not less. Instead, you come demanding, not asking, property owners to cut out of their own household budget while you refuse to cut your own. For those that are not aware, budgets have two sides, a revenue side and an expense side. You guys have spent so much time worrying about bringing in more revenue that you haven't taken a serious look at expenses. Even look at the agenda tonight. You want to pursue cityhood, which Manchester estimated a cost of around $120,000 just to start the process. You also have approval of an attorney and an attorney budget of 300% higher than previous years. Not because of lawsuits, because your insurance covers those. It's because of incompetence on both counsel's part and the attorney's part. I've seen you look to him for non-legal questions like how Robert's rules work, and I've watched him give you poor legal advice. Stopping the cityhood pursuit and fixing your legal issues could reduce this request by one mill alone. If you do have to ask for more money, you should at least reduce costs for residents where you can, like on the water bill, where residents are being charged for water bonds that are expired. See, it's not so hard to budget, but it is difficult when you believe every suggestion or disagreement is a threat. If you came to the public with a sincere interest in making things better, we could all figure this out. But it's much harder when you sit up here thinking you know everything, because you don't. No one does. But we are all better together. But until you make a serious effort to work with the public and for the public, I will continue to oppose any new taxes. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Manson. Any further public comment? Is that George?

George Cullis, 601 East Maple Street. In 2022, the village put on the ballot a millage proposal for two mills for public safety, and the voters voted it down. At that same time, we elected Ryan Delaney as our president. April Brandon and Amber Kier were our new council people. And they joined Debbie Musgrave and Richard Kinnaman and Jim Perkins on the council. There's one name missing and I can't remember who it is. Paul Harrington. Pardon?

Paul Harrington.

Oh, that's right. Later, Paul Harrington was appointed. Okay. In that term from 2022, after the voter said no. The village didn't cut anything back. They didn't cut anything out. They didn't change anything. They just kept business as usual, full steam ahead. Four years later, we found a public act where we can force four mills for public safety because that's what we said we wanted. Last year at the meeting, the village manager said, next year we won't be in this position. That meeting, that clip is on social media. I saw it. He also said we won't have public hearings in June because Mr. Wendell said, can we have them earlier? And he said, yes, we will have them in April or May. There's a reason why government has a problem with their credibility. And it's these kinds of actions that happen. I myself, my wife and I, we live in the village. We voted for that millage for public safety. It isn't a debate about whether we need public safety. It's a debate about whether we listen to the people we represent. And when we force millages like this without putting them on the ballot, at the same time, we're going to look at a budget where we have an increase in several departments and we're broke. And yet we didn't have a hiring freeze. We've expanded the budget of the clerk's office to cover it. It's just an unfortunate way that this is happening. And I certainly wish we could change this. The village manager told us a year ago we were going to, and yet here we are. It's not June 17th, now it's June 23rd. Last minute again. Thank you.

Thank you, George. thank you george i just heard my name sorry any further public comment um over here first reagan rockwell eight three six holly bush drive

Just wanted to stand in solidarity with Mrs matson and with Mr colors I oppose any tax increase this has been a tax increase it's been something that voters have really verbally stood up against and again and again and again. we feel as though we are not listened to i will continue to be vocal on facebook encouraging people for their voices to be heard i implore with everyone today who doesn't agree to at least stand and say i oppose this it should be something that goes to vote it should also be something that shouldn't be such a drastic increase Our property taxes have increased by 20%. That's a ridiculous amount. I think about the people on fixed incomes. I think about the people in this community working two jobs to make ends meet. All of the working mothers and fathers, fathers working two jobs, mothers working two jobs sometimes in double parent households. not fair they didn't ask for this it's going to push people out of the community something that i was told by a former dd dda director was kind of a goal of the municipality and i'm i'm seeing that happen and i'm concerned that people will end up moving out of the community to find more reasonably priced places to live thank you so much

Thank you, Reagan. Jane, I believe you were next.

Good evening. My name is Jane and I live on East Holly Road and I'm a resident of the village of Holly. You know, having worked in local government for many, many years, I understand many of the concerns that are brought forth by our residents. But one of the things that I've learned is that we need to communicate with our residents, explain to them why this is needed. I've looked at your websites. I've not had a chance to speak with the village manager myself, but I think that's key. I agree with many of the people that are here, but the one key thing is that we need to inform the public why we're doing this, why it's needed. I personally believe in public safety. I support public safety. But I want to know where these dollars are going to, and I want to make sure that they're fair. And with that, I ask the village council and the village manager to please provide us with some more information. Help us understand why this is needed. There are so many people that are making sacrifices. This is a wonderful community, and I would hate for anybody to leave here. With that, that's all I wanted to say. Just thank you very much. And again, please listen to the comments that are made here today, and I respectfully ask that you provide us with additional information to help us understand why this increase is needed. Thank you.

Thank you, Jane. Ellie?

Hello, Ellie Beauchamp, 207 Park Avenue. Just a couple of thoughts, and a lot of it is just kind of regurgitation of what some other folks have said, but Mr. Price, it's been a year. We were never offered any other solutions when one doesn't have money for the budget. and we've talked about this, I'm an advocate of police and fire, but when you don't have the money to afford it, we should have all been presented at least a couple options somewhere publicly. We could do A, B, or C at these costs. I've never seen the numbers unless I'm not looking, but I've looked at the website, I've looked at Facebook posts, I've looked at other people's points. I think as a 32 year resident, it's the same story. We're a little village of 2.5 square miles with 6,000 residents, plus or minus, and we want to be a big city. Well, guess what? We're not. And we don't have the funds to support two governments, two fire departments, two governmental offices, two governmental attorneys. We are a small community. We spend more money here on the clerk's office than they do in Clearwater Township, where I have property. And they have people on Torch Lake, Torch River. We have one clerk and one support person in that office. We collect a lot more money up there. So why do we need all this? Cityhood? That can has been kicked for 30 years. Good luck. It will not happen. If it were up to me, and I'm sure this won't be popular, we are a village in a township. Why can't we be a township with a historical village in it managed by one government? There's not enough money for all of you. Not you, but all of you on both sides of that coin. Don't have the money.

Thank you, Ellie. Any further public comment? Mr. Love.

It's time to Make some changes.

Could you please state your name and address for the record?

I'm sorry.

John Love, 200 North Saginaw.

And the problem with the police and fire department is there's no reforms.

Just, well, we just need more money. That's the only solution.

There's a North Oakland County Fire Authority that is 30 seconds away.

Sorry, technical difficulties, just a moment.

What?

Go ahead, John. You're fine.

I'm all over?

No.

I was saying that we need to combine police and fire. I lived in Grosse Pointe Woods and was active there. And they have police and fire. They have fire equipment in the police cars. There's a fire, okay. We have North Oakland County, but we're not in North Oakland County. We have our own fire department because we have plenty of money. So without making reforms, we need more money. But using your brain and making some intelligent adjustments, we can live with what we have now. But that requires some thinking. So I mean, maybe it's out of control, but that's the way to be thinking. And this other thing is just ridiculous. Thank you.

Thank you, John. Yes, please, go ahead.

836 holly bush um i couldn't add anything else to what they've said in terms of their facts and figures um i will add when we got our first bill a year ago that was only supposed to be needed for a year said mr price um it didn't look like a assessment it looked like a new tax in fact everyone's reference that's new tax ours was 20 Matson's was $500. I don't know what percentage that is, but those are huge numbers. And it looks, the way it reads on our bill, it looks like it's there forever, not five years or the one year we were promised. So that's an issue. And as everyone's already spoken of, there were no other considerations. Someone like, I'm sorry, ma'am, your name? She, that's the, that was brought up at the meeting a year ago. Beautiful option. There are a lot of other options, wonderful suggestions people made, people that were thinking. People that were thinking. And you always had your minds made up before you would even consider anybody else's suggestions. So it really is a matter of what everyone else has said. There's another way than taxing people to death. And if we ran our households like this, we'd all be bankrupt. Your only recourse is just to charge more money to people or you'd be bankrupt. Maybe problem solved, but that would happen.

Thank you. I thought I saw another hand somewhere. Any further public comment? Hearing none, seeing none. Okay. Do I have a motion to close the public hearing?

I'll make a motion to close the public hearing. I'll second it.

Motion by Wendell, support by Weinbrenner. Clerk, please call the roll.

at this time can i hear a motion to open a public hearing on consideration of proposed budget for fiscal year 2026-2027

I will make the motion to open a public hearing regarding the fiscal year 2026-2027 proposed budget.

I will second that.

Motion by Kier, support by Cole. Clerk, please call the roll.

Cole? Yes. Weinbrenner? Yes. Paschala? Yes. Kier? Yes. Wendell? Yes. Bryan? Yes. Brandon?

Yes. Motion carried. At this time would any members of the public like to make any comments as a reminder at this time comment should only be related to the public hearing.

I think I see John is that you back there did you want to come on up please state your name and address for the record.

I'm still John Love. 200 North Saginaw. You didn't move.

Hi, John.

Hi. I live across the street from an intersection of Saginaw and Oakland. And there's a pole with a street sign on it that's bent. So we can't even fix that. and maintain what we have. I don't know what the amount of money is for the next go around, but we need to make some changes. And one of them is this deal with the North Oakland County Fire Authority. If we combined with them, we could save a lot of money and we're not gonna be burning the town down. it's not going to give us less coverage. I was at a meeting and prevented them tearing down the water tower. And when I asked the one question, where's the problem? When they answered, the whole room went quiet. And that was the end of the procedure that the village was going through to tear down the water tower. And if we had torn down the water tower, we would have lost the hotel. So I'm in favor of having an effective fire and effective police, but we need to make a few reforms. In Grosse Pointe Woods, the policemen carry firefighting equipment in their cars. So when there's a fire, they can go out and hit it right away instead of even going through the process. So that's the kind of reform that we should be looking at instead of, well, we need more money. Because you can make some changes and reforms and improve efficiency and not require more money. We would need to require more thinking. So try and boost that. Appreciate it.

Thank you, John. Public comment.

Hi, I'm Jean. I live on East Hollywood and I'm a resident for the village of Holly. I have not had a chance to take a look at your budget directly. but I respectfully ask that you take a look at our local roads. I know they are in really horrific condition. If there's any ways I know that we could address that matter, I would sincerely appreciate it. I've had to travel throughout our community and especially the local roads. They are so bad. One of them had a very bad pothole and I almost drove into it and luckily there was just one little cone there. And I was thinking maybe they'd have a little bit more than just that one cone had I not seen that, you know? But so please, please take a look at our local roads. They're important for our community for maintaining. And obviously as many of the residents here, I'm sure the manager has looked into other options. Public safety is the, type of service that John Love was talking about where policemen are both combined. They do both. They do police and fire. So I'm very familiar with that. It works, but again, it has to be something that is requested by the government. But it's tough. It's tough. I've worked in cities where we have public safety, and it does work. But again, it is something that takes a little while to get in tune. But in the meantime, my biggest issue right now is please take a look at our local roads. They are in dire need. So again, thank you very much.

Thank you, Jane. Any further public comment? Yes, please.

Hello, everyone. My name is Matthew Campbell, it was 7 Marianne right here in Holly. So I agree with what everyone is saying in regards to the roads and taxing us more and more and more. We need more money. The 1 thing that I find to cause a concern about the roads is the fire hydrants in our town. I've had a fire hydrant now that has had an out of order. in front of my house, which could potentially create a lot of problems for public safety to be able to do their job, to be able to access any patients or any animals or whatever may be going on within that facility. When I did call about it, all I got was we're going to have to wait until the budget. That's scary because fires don't wait. When it happens, fire personnel need to be on scene and have the tools ready necessarily to do that job and to do it properly.

safely as well i'll have to say thank you thank you could you um could you email me your address later uh abrandon halleyvillage.org further public comment george

So without George Cullis 601 East Maple Street, I'm trying to figure out how to say this without sounding like I'm reiterating what I just said a few minutes ago. But it goes back to this relationship that local government has with its residents, your constituents. Just think of what it would be like tonight if we were standing here. and the homework had been done and we had froze salaries and we came back and you were able to say we're in a better place and instead of four meals we only need 3.5 or 3.3 we've cut here here's the numbers and we explain it to people but those meetings haven't been had like the lady over here said we kept looking for alternate plans or here's your choices or here's what we have again we're at this point And I can't help but remember when we were talking about building this building, Debbie Bigger sat at the chair when she was asked how we were going to pay for it. And she gave you a list because you had to have $500,000 to do this. And she told you the X amount of dollars was coming from the fund balance. That's your insurance marker. So she told you you were spending it. Then she said it was coming from future funds. One of those funds was from the marijuana stores. Well, if those future funds are going to pay for that, that means they won't be there in the future. Now, here we are a year later, and those funds for this year should not have been appropriated to anything else. And it makes you wonder, why are we still in the same boat we were in? Why are we seeing a 300% change in the budget for the attorney? Yeah, I know he's had to go to court. He's had these... FOIA issues but the insurance company gets involved on that and the way to end that is just give people the documents they ask for. I don't understand there isn't anything in our office that we don't make a copy of and give it to somebody if it takes more time we have to get involved but other than that I just I get so frustrated when I watch And see what's going on somebody else stood up here and talked about or a small Community 6000 people the township as a whole is over 12,000 pushing toward 13,000. Think about it, we have five units of government in this township. Springfield township has more people than us and a triple the budget of us and they do it with one unit of government one audit. not five separate audits, not five managers or whoever's in charge of these directors or whatever the titles are. When you look around the county, there are townships with more people than us all under one roof. There are townships with less people than us all under one roof. And yet for some reason in this community, we have five units of government. That's food for thought. Thank you.

Thank you, George. Any further public comment? Mr. Matson.

Brian Matson, 15091 Western Valley Drive. This gentleman over here raised a great point about fire hydrants. Last year we had a four mil increase for police and fire. But yet he raises a question about fire hydrants this year and we have to wait for the budget. Where did the four mils go? This administration has proven they are not good stewards of our finances. I don't believe the budget, actually, those funds get allocated to police and fire. We have a history over the past year since that of expenditures not for those services. It's right in the audit, the previous audit that was just completed by Plant Moran that it helped fund administrative and police and fire, which is illegal from my understanding. So just extremely concerning that we have these mills on the agenda getting proposed approved and it's just not good stewardship of our finances here, thank you.

Thank you, Mr anson. Any further public comment. hearing none oh Reagan.

Reagan Rockwell, 836 Holly Bush Drive. I just cannot say enough. I don't think some of us in this community can say enough about the roads. You can do whatever you want to make the buildings beautiful and the people great, but roads say so much. They help our businesses out because people want to come here. I don't know about you, but I will sometimes avoid a community if the roads are not great. And they do a tremendous job. They are such a huge piece. in making our community look better. I think a lot about the bike lanes. My husband and I are avid bikers and we use the bike lanes. We might be the only people in Holly that use the bike lanes. Do I like the bike lanes? Nope. I understand that they were part of the main street Holly plan to slow people down so that they would look at businesses. So I think the businesses really wanted them, but you know what the issue is with the bike lanes now, besides the fact that they really reduced the flow of traffic through Holly, it's that they're not cleaned look at them they look like trash that's what we show people our roads are the majority of our face that's what we're showing people when they come to our community we're really showing them that we don't care about the community so let's say everybody in this room i'm pretty sure really cares about the community but do we really care about holly are we really doing what's best for holly because i really think it would be best if we merged and we were the township i think is that ellie or ella Ellie said it best in talking about the numbers because if we really truly love Holly, we would do what's best for Holly and we're going to have so much more money if we come together and dissolve. There won't be so many positions to pay for. Honestly, we can pay for positions like your guys' as you guys are not paid enough, I don't think, for the work that you do. I just want to thank you for your work and commend you for your work and for listening to us when things don't seem like they're right. But what about listening to residents? That's really important. And Mr. Price, I hate to call you out on this, but I have sent you emails and I haven't attended the coffees with you, but I've sent emails that I don't get response, but it looks like you're doing some behind the work scene. but I still have this meeting in my head to where a resident was up here talking and you turned to the side and I just thought it was the most immature thing. So that's created a distrust from the very beginning of you and seeing that some of you guys may have seen that as well. Um, I would just ask that we act like adults and come together and do what's best, perhaps a community survey where we look at what businesses want, and what residents want. What are the most important things to us? And I guarantee roads would probably be at the top of that list. So I live on Holly Bush Drive. And we see the roads on Rosette and the roads on Park Street that come around Lakeside. And it's tremendously I mean, they're in dire repair. They've been even before the flooding, the road was a mess. A lot of people come and use that. And I just asked that it's repaired.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Reagan.

Hearing none and seeing none, do I have a motion to close the public hearing?

I'll make a motion to close the public hearing.

I will second that.

We have a motion by Weinbrenner. We have a second by Cole. Lisa, can you call the roll, please?

Cole? Yes. Weinbrenner?

Yes.

Pascala? Yes. Kyer? Yes. Wendell?

Yes.

Ryan?

Yes.

Brandon?

Yes. Motion carried. That brings us to public comment. Members of the audience may address counsel on any item that is not on the agenda. Those addressing counsel will be limited to three minutes of speaking time. After each agenda item, there will be an additional two minutes public comment period to speak to that item before council votes. The exception to this is for items that were the subject of the public hearing. Council will hear all comments for future consideration, but will not have a response at this time. Prior to addressing council, members of the public shall state their name and address for the record. Public comment for items not on the agenda. Ellie.

Ellie Beauchamp, 207 Park Avenue. I just wanted to make a comment on the last month's meeting that I listened to, and I want to make sure. I was appalled at Ms. Boone's response to the good Councilman Ryan. He simply asked Ms. Boone for some transparency and where we stand with the bond debts. Is there a document? This is a big, a lot of people are talking about it. We're talking about raising rates, but where can we save money? It's been a big topic of conversation amongst the community. Water bills, we've been talking about those for a long time now. Okay, so anyways, I was so happy, Councilman Ryan, that you brought up the point is people have been asking Ms. Boone, do we have a document that clearly states where we stand with each bond and what we owe and what's been paid off? And your response was, we've been responding to people via FOIAs. And if they want information, they can file a FOIA. Now, why would you say that to him? He's a councilman working on our behalf, asking questions that we want the answers to. Completely unprofessional. We want the answers. Maybe you could provide them publicly so we don't have to all file a FOIA so you don't have to hire another helper for all the FOIAs as you've requested. Do your job.

Public comment. George.

George Cullis, 601 East Maple Street. I stand before you this time as the township supervisor. There was a comment that was made in a village council meeting a few meetings ago, and I've had several people stop in the office and ask me if it was true. The comment was made that every time a village DPW worker went out into the township to service the water customers in the Riverside or the Pulte subs, they weren't being paid. That is misinformation to say the least. The village has its boundaries. They're two and a half square miles. But your water district has its own boundaries, regardless of where the village boundary is. If they're in the water district and their home is in the outer township, your DPW workers are getting paid by those water bills they pay. And that's misinformation to say that they're not. because the water district boundary is very different than the village's boundary, and it's different from the township's boundary as well. So I wanted to make that clarification. Thank you.

Thank you, George. Any further public comment? Yes. And when you come up, please state your name and address for the record.

Hello, I am James Lasser. I live at 401 Oakland Street. The question I have is, A fair number of the major roads that are in terrible shape are in the DDA district. I believe DDA funds can be used to fix those roads. Why hasn't anyone looked into this to my knowledge?

Thank you. You're welcome. I think I saw a hand over here somewhere. Yes, Mr. Manson.

15091 Western Valley Drive. I just want tonight's meeting in its entirety to be a wake up call or call to action for those that are here. Thank you for being here. Those watching at home, thank you for being involved. But the decisions over the last year tonight really demonstrate the power of the vote, the power of getting involved. We need people to get involved. We need people that are willing to run for seats. We need people that are willing to put themselves out there and get votes from people that share the same values, because it just clearly doesn't seem to resonate with majority of this council and administration, unfortunately. So I hope those watching, involved tonight, get a calling upon their heart to get more involved. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Manson. Any further public comment?

uh regina regina keiko 711 south broad street um i just want to say i don't like tax increases like anybody else i mean they're no fun it's expensive it's hard nobody likes this economy that we're in um i i want to say it is important to step up and get involved it's what i did a year ago with the mill pond and it has proven that it made A huge difference in doing so. I have put that tax burden on myself and everybody else in that special assessment district and removed it from the financial burden on everyone else in the village of Holly. They don't have to pay that now. And that could have been years of remediation that they don't have to pay for now. I want the roads fixed, too. That's a big reminder that that does increase our taxes. So, yeah, I will pay for a tax increase to fix our roads. I think that's a beneficial thing for us. Thank you. Thank you, Regina.

Mr. Love.

John Love again, 200 North Saginaw.

Right across the street is Oakland and Saginaw street sign. The street sign's been hit and bent. And then there's a sign above that that says museum. And that has a corner knocked out of that. So that should be removed and they should straighten out the street sign. I mean, this is just basic stuff. You know, like you're driving around in some hillbilly town. And also there's a sign just prior to that, near that, it says bike lane. It's at the end of the bike lane. So there's no bike lane. It's all car lane right past the sign. So the sign is just dumb. And they should just take the, i-75 sign and put it where that one is so you don't have an i-75 sign in front of somebody's house so it's just kind of tacky and these are just kind of basic things but they just kind of lay there i don't want to write out a list but you're all in the town you know what are you doing to fix these little things you know you're all here thank you john james oh wait a minute

I'm sorry, there's only one public comment per. Thank you, though. Any further public comment? Reagan?

Reagan Rockwell, 836 Holly Bush Drive. I'm just wondering if we can get a list. I think some other people have mentioned it to see where money have went, where monies from last year have went. I'm wondering if from last year to this year, there's been any attempt to try to trim the budget. I think everybody's had to cut back in these times. Our families have had to account for increased food prices. What can we do to trim and not spend in excess? And while we are in support of fire and police, I don't feel comfortable continuing to be a poor steward of my money and I say poor steward of my money because we're just being taxed and taxed and taxed and where our money's actually going. So I'd like to see where they're going to and if we continue to tax, anybody can do that, anybody can tax. But what we pay the big bucks for, a village manager, hopefully, is to get grants and to be able to trim a budget, decide where we're spending in excess. And I don't sincerely feel like we're getting what we're paying for. And we need to know, we need some answers. Ms. Bone, I would love to see that. Thank you, Councilman Ryan. I did not know you had been asking for that. Wow, I don't know why we wouldn't want to create A list of what bonds are expiring what money we are freeing up to be transparent with the Community, so that we didn't have to wonder, so that we didn't have to file for your request. that's something that should have been a long time ago and I just encourage you, I just hope that if any of us can help let us know because we're willing to help. I just I can't understand why that wouldn't be done and I can't understand why there wouldn't be some pressure by.

our president and our village manager to get that done that's what we want thank you thank you reagan matt wright yes matthew campbell 807 marianne drive so i'm the grandson of charlie campbell who was on the council for 22 years she applied pressure and is fitting that i do so as well Roughly a week ago, I decided to try something. I requested information from the Holly Police Department regarding salaries, complaints, and other public records. I received no response, no direction, no nothing, nothing back. When I tried to locate the FOIA information on the Village website, the page returned a 404 error. I had to go through other people just to find out what email address I had to submit that request to. While reviewing the council agendas, I noticed a stark difference in transparency between the fire department and the police department fire department provides, uh, detailed reporting on the calls that they run the police department. I can't say. Provides that same level if public safety consumes a significant portion of the budget residents deserve meaningful information to evaluate that spending. On another side note, in the June 23rd, 2026 agenda, I found the general fund involving businesses, or their charges to the general fund involving Mike's Coney Island, Scooters, Amazon, Sam's Club, and someplace out at Dearborn, I think it was, called Bamboozlers. We're not a meal ticket. We don't have the money for this. I don't know where this stuff is going, but that's a no-no. Also too, with going through this agenda, it took me until about reading page 300 to find this information. It shouldn't be a treasure hunt. As a reminder, you work for the public in their best interests. Residents have every right to review budgets, spending, and department performances and share that information with others so voters can make informed decisions. If you believe people will not continue looking into these issues, you are mistaken. Unfortunately, right now, as we're trying to get information, we have a FOIA issue that's going to be discussed and I really hope that it rules in our favor. Thank you.

Thank you, Matthew. Any further public comment? Hearing none and seeing none. That moves us to new business, old business.

Lisa, will you please read item may have old business consideration by council of the approval of the updated village of Holly FOIA policy.

As a reminder, this was an item that was postponed from last month's meeting. Council wanted to wait for the village attorney to be present in order to answer any questions. Do I have a first to consider item a of old business?

I'll make the motion to consider item A of old business for the approval of the updated Village of Holly FOIA policy.

I will support that.

We have a motion by Wendell. We have support by Cole. Any public comment on this item? Hearing none. Seeing none. Council, any discussion?

into it. So you said what was put into it. Okay.

Will this be posted on our website so that yes.

And we will look into the error that may be given. Yeah.

Okay, clerk, please call the roll.

Wine burner. Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Motion carried. Lisa, will you please read item a of new business?

Consideration of Resolution 2026-026 for the Village Council to approve the distribution of the Special Assessment Levy as prepared and directs the staff to make the distribution as prepared.

This item is the formal resolution approving the Special Assessment Levy for this fiscal year. Do I have a first to consider item A of new business?

City Council Chambers, I will make the motion to consider resolution number 2026 dash 26 for the regarding the financing of police and fire protection services by special assessment.

City Council Chambers, i'll second that we have a motion to make hire.

City Council Chambers, We have a second by wine brother discussion.

Madam president, I can lead off with a couple of things just on that. Yes, because I know obviously there was some public comment on it, uh, the concern with activity in it. Obviously all the activity. I mean, if you look at our, uh, agenda tonight, and all of our agendas, we put all of the activity on there. Um, it's, you know, almost it was about 650 pages long because we. Try to provide all the information I know it feels like a treasure hunt. Um, and, you know, we try to bookmark best we can, uh, to provide that information, uh, to be as transparent as possible, um, for accountability. Because I know that was brought up 1 of the things we'll notice in this budget as we move forward. And that's a little different is that we have moved police and fire out of the general fund that it is in now a 205 fund, which is as well as a special assessment money. So that literally could not be used for anything else because it has just in and out right there. So that is just a note as well. I know that there was a comment, uh, that, uh, they reviewed the audit and the audit said that it was being used for things. Well, the audit was for the previous fiscal year. That didn't include the special assessment. The only time that the audit mentioned the special assessment was saying that the village has proactively worked in order to, uh, correct some of these deficits. So.

Can you also speak to the fact that we did, um, go out for. Um, quotes to go to or to go to a different, um, like, to contract out through welcome county.

Yeah, I mean, we, we did, uh, we have, we, uh, we reach out to the state police. Um, that was obviously brought up before we've talked to, um, different services. I mean, as you can look at the township, um. Uh, charges millage, uh, I think it's before I. 4.25 for their service alone. Um, we talked to the state police state police basically said, they know that we weren't really interested in, uh, pursuing them. So they were going to give us, um, like, uh, an in depth quote on it. Um, we use comparisons. I'm sorry, not say please. You're right. Open county, uh, state police, um, is the de facto 1. it's not, uh. I know that Councilmember Koskla, you know, had spoken with Oakland County as well. You know, I guess open back up for your discussion on that.

Well, basically, I was just going to bring up, yeah, that Oakland County currently, they're having massive issues even supplying what they're supposed to to their own townships that are contracted through them. It's been a big thing at the Oakland County Commissioners meeting where they have literally doubled or tripled So that is the only choice we have in terms of contracting. We could potentially go with a shared services with potentially a closer community. But again, we don't really have a closer community that has the same. Level of staffing as we do for our please talk to, uh, um.

Chris Barnett from Orange Township. I mean, they have been working with the county. I mean, they're one of their oldest clients for police, and the budget range that they gave them between it could be this amount could be this amount was $2 million. That's our entire budget for it. That was just the range of the sway it could be. And so he has had to just for budgetary purposes, started to FOIA the county. And there's all kinds of things that are going on with them. And so that is who would be logical people that we'd have to go with as well if we were to not have it in-house.

I also started looking at the ballot initiatives that are going on in the municipalities around us. Independence Township is one of them. They are putting a millage for their Oakland County costs. They're actually putting two millages out to their voters. One is going to be for covering SROs. The other is to include the $2 million increase, just the increase that they are looking at for their budget for police and fire. Now, on May 20th at 26, our Holly Township went ahead with a special assessment They have had that going for since the creation of knock fuck they are asking their residents to pay 1.2 just over a million and just for fire so that does give us an idea of what fire costs. surrounding us and, and that is not us, that is not a village, they did a special assessment and the same. spirit that we are, they are also using special assessment to be able to offer. different funding so that their residents have services such as that.

I can add on to that. I'm sorry. Just additionally, if we look at that, You know, whatever that military is our, our fire, I think, at the end of the day, there's about 900,000, just under a 1Million. But what we also get from that is because we have a very proactive fire chief gets us almost 350,000 dollars of cost recovery on that. It has, they've started doing training that they were becoming, like, a community leader and different types of training. So we're also getting, you know, we're. finding different revenue sources within as well, based on having really great department heads that are spearheading these initiatives.

I do think our school resource officer program is top notch and they, the school district is paying for that too, for their portion of it. We clearly cover when the officers are back on duty for us. In this day and age, when you have children in school, a school resource officer is a priceless asset. There is a lot of things that go on in different parts and I don't see us cutting that.

As well, I would also say that Chief Narch and I have been renegotiating with the school district on this because they value our officers. They know that it would be twice as expensive for anyone else as well and so they are increasing their contributions on that and to further cover any costs that would affect the community for SROs.

Legacy costs was, uh, 1 of our. Biggest costs for police and, um, I know that there's been a little bit of reform there. Could you discuss that for the public? Please that are unaware because this was just a reminder. This was discussed at length during our. 8 hour budget meeting when we went over our receipts line by line, and these items are available on YouTube for the public to watch at any time. Go ahead.

Yeah. So our 2nd, largest expense village, our 1st. if you're looking at what our price tags are, our first largest expense is our police service. Our second largest is our unfunded pension liability. When people keep mentioning the clerk's office increase, well, what the increase actually was is because of our unfunded pension liability of where it comes out of, it's allocated to those personnel, and correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, because this is not my area of expertise necessarily, but they were participants in the defined benefits plan. And so the remainder of the people that are in that defined benefits plan have to absorb that cost for the people that were that have since retired. And so as that group gets smaller and so it just so happens that an individual that is in the defined benefits plan works within our first treasurer office, that expense wouldn't go away if she were to retire. And then it just is a statement of it. Um, we did renegotiate with MERS, um, and. Previously, they, there was some money that was put away. Um, that was kind of just sitting. We, uh, within MERS, um, that when we got the state, um, what funds were those? It was a state grant to cover some of this to get us up to that 62%. And so we've had them do, uh, they, we've had them, um, reallocate some of that money in order to lower our, uh, our. Our annual expense, I think it went down like $300,000 when we did this annually. And it allowed, but it did not also change our date that we would fall off of this program. It still is like 2040, I believe, is when we would be 110% covered is what they look at.

Another thing that was mentioned is something that we did some research on, which is getting a first responder unit where people are both police and fire. Jane DeCessa and I met and discussed this once, and she's worked in several places where they had those people there, and she said that learning both positions was really no big deal. I can't say that our forces would necessarily agree that learning police or fire duties is no big deal, but the startup cost is completely unaffordable for us and just not something that we can consider at this moment, though it could be down the road. I wouldn't say it's off the table. It's just not right now. Anything else, council?

Yeah, I see on there we're doing the four mils plus we're adding $258.96 for solid waste.

That's not on this item.

That is just your... What it says right here and whereas the village council shall cause me levy the collection.

I think you're looking at... Let me make sure that I'm... I think you might be looking at the next item. It's not consent, eh?

That's just the solid waste because I'm sorry, I'm my computer jumped down on me.

And I retract my statement. I'll cover that in the next item.

Could you clarify and give some nuance to the assertions that last year you said we wouldn't be in this position and now suddenly we are because I believe there needs to be a little nuance to that.

Yeah, I mean, we are making strides to, we wouldn't be, we, Elise and I, when we first started, we were, you know, within 90 days, we were having to submit a budget. And so a lot of this had never been addressed before I identified. And so a lot of that was just, we wouldn't be caught as unaware. Now, we're still operating, You know, we haven't, although we have action items on here to move forward. We've worked with municipal analytics to plan better, to have like strategic plans. So we are looking forward and we're having these things, but nothing in government works quickly as everyone here I am sure knows. So, and when we get to the cityhood item, I'll talk about that more in depth and address some of the things that were said. But the truth of the matter is, as they still exist, we still are reducing the amount of income and we have cut back in many areas. It just the reality is, if we as a community don't want to cut services, if we don't want to remove our police, or we don't want to remove fire, or we don't, you know, or we want to cut back on roads and all these other things, then

if that is something the community desires and we would have to make dramatic changes other than these other things that we're going to talk about with cityhood and things like that council i have a few items um some of these i already know the answer to but i want to clarify for the public um why did it take so long to send out the notices because i know we had a problem with that because i know myself i never received mine in the mail for it And I know there's people on Facebook saying that they've also never received it or some people have received it. So can you clarify the public? Yeah, we waited.

So initially, so we we had been discussing and we've been discussing for months like how we wanted to we wanted to do it right going forward when we looked and we didn't want to be in the situation. I know that it was mentioned, you know, that, you know, why I think George mentioned, why are we waiting until now? our understanding and i think we still hold the understanding that the way that the public act is written is that we technically didn't even have to do this public hearing as it sits um but the council like as because we did not change a special assessment district um it's in public act 33 it's section 801 is where you create a special assessment district section 802 is your annual requirements if you are not changing your special assessment district if you're not changing your amount The understanding the, the legal opinion we had is we didn't have to do that. Council, um, a couple of weeks ago said, regardless of what that says, we still want to do a public hearing to make sure that people because we made a commitment that we want to do that. And so as soon as I got that guidance. we put it out and the way that we did that is we used the same address book um lisa was actually off at the time because it was hey we have to get this out now to meet the requirements of the timeline um so tessa and i used the same address book but we just updated any of the adverse changes that have occurred so and that we sent them out that day um i would also like to point out that last year on june 17th we put out a council wanted the public hearing

And that was already given directions to staff. So. I'm still confused on why we waited so long and I also disagree. With that interpretation of the for the public hearing. I know that's not what this discussion is going to be about. I just wanted that out there.

When we had that discussion, when you and I had that discussion. And we were talking about this guidance. The statements were, I would like the attorney's opinion on it. I gave the attorney's opinion. And you said, I wanted the attorney's written legal opinion. We gave you the attorney's written legal opinion. And then the answer was, I disagree with that opinion. We want to do this. So that was the kind of the flow of that communication with staff on this item.

right um i know it was also brought up last month that we should possibly have another meeting to discuss the budget more and possibly at the same time as the public hearing so it still took a long time to even get back to council and say we're not having this public hearing so i'm kind of worried about that as well but going back to it for the four mills amount How much carryover do we have from this past budget going forward to this new budget for our account? And how much money do we currently have? For operating it? For mills or? No, for how much we just have.

Like our general budget?

Yeah, like our general budget. Like how much are we contributing to our bank accounts from this past budget that we did not spend to carry over versus how much we also still have in our bank account to move forward with.

So I will defer to lease on that. However, we have to also understand that we haven't done our year end reconciliations. So we have one budget amendment that's going to happen tonight. That will be a bunch of amendment for those things. And then In the next in the following month, we're going to do a budget reconciliation that close all those out. So even if that amount is Project. I mean, even if we're saying, hey, it's $100,000 right now that doesn't account for payroll that occurs this week, for example, for those amounts. I don't know if you have anything on that.

Yes, I'm not. Like you said, I haven't closed. I'm still working on May because there was a problem with BS&A. So I've not even closed May out yet. And then we are not finished with June, so I can't do June.

Right, but we should have a projected amount for the end of the year.

Yeah, and it's not with like... when we're talking about putting money away it's not like we are so tight right now with it it's not like we're half it's like within ten thousand dollars ten like ten twenty thousand dollars that's like how tight the the left and right is and how we've been trying to i mean even when we've had a request for other things we have done freezes when uh there were requests for additional like parks things we had to have like hard discussions about hey i know that we talked about this however the contractual expenses for lawn mowing has gone up which has affected all of these things and so um yeah so i guess we don't have an exact amount we can and if we had this question beforehand we would have been able to project out and give you that but for the municipal analytics tool that's supposed to help us determine what we needed or do we have like a progress report for that um the budget committee met with John from them and we kind of went over it. I don't know if the finance committee, sorry, the finance committee met with John. I don't know if they want to talk about that at all at this point or in your reports. Because that would give us a better clue on how much we actually need to use for the special assessment.

I don't think that was covered.

Yeah, it wasn't.

We really just.

Order, order. The chatter from out there carries and it gets difficult to hear the conversation.

will say uh the finance committee when they met with us we only really went over roads and water rates is related like things that we went over in terms of just the analytics we did look at some projections as far as like what it would look like if we did not do this special assessment and some of that but yeah i didn't think he was prepared to discuss that but we're like we're not really totally going to focus on that so i think if that was information we did want to move forward you'd probably pull it off yeah it's available

water questions and things that were being asked.

And you're not going to like it.

Just to clarify, how long is this special assessment for?

So again, the special assessment district is correct.

I'm not asking about the district, the assessment itself, the assessment role.

So it's annually, it's annually, just like the last one was, it is an annual appropriation. And then next year, if council wants to do a public hearing and we haven't changed anything, I mean, we, we should put it on the calendar for it, but it is an annual assessment every year. The public hearing requirements are, are different than what the, um, that question is.

Well, last year we sent this.

So I mean these distinctions matter when it comes to this because we could set that and then We wouldn't even have to do the special hearing and all that stuff again next year.

We kept it the same or lowered it so that's why I'll plug to you if that's all right.

Well, I don't have anything new to contribute to that. It is, as my opinion stated, and I appreciate the fact that you disagree with it, but if you wish to have this annually, it can be done annually, just as it was tonight.

Regardless, we have to have a vote on the amount

Well, I would like to add it at least into the resolution that we plan on having a public hearing on next year and that we plan on having it by

Are you proposing that as an amendment to the motion?

Yes, but I would like to see that as an amendment to the motion. And I would also like to see the mill rate drop, because I do think there are probably cuts in this budget that we said we were going to revisit during our budget workshops that we haven't revisited.

So my concern with that is, we heard a speaker come up and say, everything is going up. Food's going up, everything's going up. So gas is going up all of our employees salaries if we're not taking care of people want to take care of equipment which is not going to have anybody for any equipment.

Well, how many extra stuff did we purchase since then. An analytic tool that was supposed to be ready by like March timeframe that we could have waited to this next budget cycle, the budget for. From hearing extra employees that we hire since then, did we hire employees. for moving people up from part-time to full-time after July.

But I believe that was out of the, it was to a support water sewer side, so that was.

That's coming out of the water fund? Yes, coming out of the water and sewer fund, not the general fund.

And they weren't at DDW during that period for water sewer.

In this middle of the formal rate also reflects that we are bringing in last because of the heavy rollback correct we are bringing in like 10 points something knows which is less than the last two.

If I'm not mistaken, I remember last year that we did say, you know, when we came back to see this again, we weren't gonna try to keep it at the four mills. We were gonna try to drop it. And I do remember stating that we need to have motion or a discussion about this before the budget term meeting we had to have right now. And I don't think it's appropriate to keep it at four mills. We should have been able to cut something somewhere, which I believe we did, or I thought we did.

and it's not fair that we stated we wanted a public hearing and it feels like to me it feels like we're stonewalled we had we had eight hours of budget work session that staff really received very little to no guidance on any cuts that the council wanted to make we proposed some but it was pretty much said well that sounds like stuff we need to keep I mean, you can watch the videos. No, I know that.

I'm just saying, when we had that meeting last year, before we had our new budget meeting, we said we wanted to make sure we did right by our constituents. And we wanted to have a hearing before the time that we had it now, instead of last minute.

I believe what Tim is saying is we did. We had those budget workshops where we talked about this, where we talked about potentially putting off the roof replacement for the DPW. No, I know that.

Literally line by line at every single expense.

I believe we had incomplete budget workshops because there was many times we said we will visit this again later, and we never visited again. We didn't schedule another budget workshop since then. And I know I've at least asked for it. And last May, I was under the understanding that we were going to have one more meeting between May. And then that just went away when it was decided that we didn't need the special care. And that was only one part of that meeting.

I guess, for me, at least just for me personally, I know that you did request that last month, and so I figured that you would call a meeting or you know send something to try to get somebody to call this that meeting I figured I didn't need to have a special hearing.

And that's mentioned last time I call special meeting I got vilified for it by members of the Council.

but the videos on youtube well i saw the video that's because wendell was making a special meeting i do think that you should be somewhat educated before calling special unless you gave an education I do agree that there is unfinished business with the budget. I'm not disagreeing with you on that, Mr. Ryan. I do think that there is unfinished budget issues. I have an issue with the line item for parks. So I do think that is something that needs to be said. As far as the special assessment levy, unfortunately, I don't see how we cut police and fire on that. So I don't see where we are bringing in less money by the Headlee rollback and still having this like we have to pay for police and fire unless you want to defund the police like are we defunding the police is that where we're at no we should dissolve the village if we cannot do this stuff right we should dissolve it april this is my rice condition please take it in full not get told that i was

Mr. Wendell, I appreciate your service and I hope that you change your mind.

This resignation does not count unless it is turned in written to administration. So you have between now and then to reconsider. Council, any further discussion? Okay. Clerk, please call the roll.

Pascala?

Yes.

Beyer? Yes. Yes, motion carried. We're going to take a five minute recess.

Thank you.

God, I just can't imagine if it were any other way.

Golly fucking gee.

He might be coming back in. They're checking his numbers. Okay.

I asked him to reconsider. Yeah, and I told him to call his way.

Well, he's getting his number checked out.

So some people do want to .

When your revenue goes up so high, there's past inflation.

So there's, they feel that their dollar amount has gone up so high that they might have to have a hedge fund.

No. No. No. No.

We're still on break. We're going to give him a couple

I don't know.

Are we live? All right, we will resume. Daniel is reconsidering his resignation. And for that, I am glad. I respect his civic-minded heart and his service to this community. And I'm going to take this opportunity to say that my mind is blown that anyone would applaud his resignation. I know it was in the spirit of supporting him, but it's just mind boggling to me. This is a team and we're all on it. And whether we agree or not, when the council makes a decision, the entire council makes a decision and we're together here through the good, the bad and the ugly. And there's a lot of bad, but Daniel is a part of this team and I'm very proud of him. Lisa, will you please read item B?

Consideration by Village Council of the approval of Resolution 2026-027, Acknowledging Receipt and Adoption of the Village of Holly Fiscal Year 2026-2027 General Appropriations Act.

This item is the formal resolution acknowledging receipt and adoption of the budget. Do I have a first to consider item A of new business?

So, there's a couple items. I think you have done this. I'd like to amend. What's the process for doing that? Do we need to make it just say, I mean, guys, for instance, we want to talk about it 1st, or actually.

Before we do this, uh, I will entertain a motion to excuse Mr Wendell from the rest of the meeting.

I'll make that motion excuse Mr window from the rest of the meeting. I'll 2nd, that motion.

We have a motion by Ryan a 2nd, by wine runner all in favor. Say aye aye. All opposed say nay.

motion carried okay Jim back to you I think to answer the question and Mike correct me if I'm wrong that we would open it up for discussion and during discussion talk about any amendments and then I mentioned original motions is that correct all right okay so uh

Do I have a first to consider item A of new business?

I'll make that motion.

We have a motion by Cascola.

Second.

We have a second by Kier. Any discussion?

I can kick it off just quickly because there has been changes since the last one. There have been a couple reductions and things just to further reduce whatever we can as far as projects. I know like in parks, the amounts have gone down on some of the projects there in any area else we could. And then also, as I mentioned, the police fire dispatch have been removed from 101 and have been moved into 205. Okay.

Jim?

Yeah, so thank you, Madam President. So my understanding this has not, the DDA hasn't approved their budget yet. They discussed it, but it actually hasn't been approved yet. So what I think we can do is we can make adjustments to it and then send it back to them and then they can approve it. So there are a couple things that are missing from here that had been talked about previously. One of them was the Basically, the cost to reimburse the village for the expenses incurred in the district by the village. So, 1 of the residents product street sweeping, I think, for instance. items like the rent of the office discussed previously and that's just not budgeted for currently so are you suggesting to remove the DDA budget out of this budget to be approved at a later so I proposed that originally because I was under the impression that the DDA should they should have the budget already because they don't what we can do is we can remedy that by saying we're going to make these adjustments and and put that contingent on them approving it.

Time-wise for reporting to the state for the budget, would we have to have another meeting before July 1st to approve the DDA budget in two hours?

If the amendment is that it's approved pending their certain actions, then you guys would not need to meet again. Or to remove a portion of the budget, Then you would have to and they were to go to see it again, then you would have to meet to approve it, but if you're just amending it based on the specific considerations happening, you can approve it with those amendments.

Always look over make sure. I just want to make sure the village was covered the budget's not ready by July. 1st that we are still good on this board.

And then, and just today, um, had brought this up to me and it had not been noticed before because again, how it reads it is. It says in it, it talks about how that the DDA can't adopt the budget until the governing body approves it. But there is a step in there as well that is supposed to have some kind of approval. It's not like the DDA hasn't seen it. The DDA has reviewed this before. They just haven't had a motion that we can direct to that says, you know, we are, you know, we approve this budget. So I think that's essentially the head. Exactly.

They have not said as a group, we approve this. So are you gonna amend it or? So what I'd like to do is figure out a cost.

We can also, the other thing we can do is, I mean, you can amend the budget too, like you can amend their budget. Even if we approve this budget, budgets can be amended just like we do throughout the year. If we don't want to rush through, like if we don't want to put these kinds of contingencies on there, my concern is an unwillingness of the DDA's part to work to approve it.

if you guys are going to make an agreement with us to reimburse the village of the expenses that residents have even brought up, now's our chance to do it. Because this is what they said they want to do too. So it's not like us saying, hey, we're doing something without you. They just haven't done it yet.

How, um, and this is more of a question for Mike. How, what are the latitudes on an amendment like that as far as if they were to the latitude? Because I, what I don't want to do is be put on the spot right now and say, this is the number, you know, because that the arbitrary and it would not be as, you know, thought out. Um, but could they say, um, they're giving like, you know, myself and staff latitude in order to, um, to negotiate that portion with them and then present a number or. How specific does the amendment have to be? I'm just trying to so we can meet all the state requirements and not an amendment being what? Amendment being that approval is contingent upon the some kind of agreement that it has the caution that it specifically covers.

I think this happened in Lake Laurier where they said So they're able to come up with these cautionary agreements somehow, probably just estimate their expense and go from there. So that would be something that.

Yeah, I mean, obviously, on the fly, coming up with a number for any of those costs or services is not feasible. I don't see a problem with there being a condition that We approve it on the condition that there be some cost sharing agreement acceptable to the village manager, for example, and the DDA, something along those lines. So for instance, it's my understanding too that DDA could also provide fire protection services for their community.

So I think it'd be very easy to figure out.

I think there's a lot of what would be easy for when we're talking about rent because we can use like market rates and we can use all of those things to determine my square footage, all those very quantifiable things. There might be rates that we set, you know, that we have to calculate throughout the year that we do this in these metrics, because what we can't do what is dangerous to do is just to put it to the test. And so, you know, we're going to have to, you know, we're going to have to, you know, we're going to have to. A dollar amount on it, because we are supposed to, you know, to be able to directly attribute the expenses to the services being provided.

All those things can be quantified. It's just quantifying them in such a way that they're not too arbitrary on one hand, and yet not too restrictive on the other. I don't know how you do that on the fly.

will be legal for us to say does counseling want to do this do we want to reimburse our village for the expenses incurred yes but i don't i don't want to make up numbers on the spot i believe that tim is working on negotiations right now with kevin stephenson the dda director we we looked at how other ministries are doing it and we've been working we i gave them here's the first draft based on some other communities what they've done they've come back and they've given us uh As it is looking right now and it's not a point that I would put it before Council or anyone else that there has to be a lot more negotiation into it and that only covers. The relation to everything else outside of what happens here, we have to do a separate agreement and also covers. Their usage of space and those reimbursements here to separate agreements that we're working.

I can't define that any better. I don't know, within $10,000?

Well, even if we don't put a dollar figure on it, so what would be acceptable for state law to do?

State law doesn't talk about that particular issue and it certainly doesn't on that issue. It's how arbitrary does counsel wish to be?

I think Tim's idea of how we pass and then pass an amendment later is probably the best and easiest route to go about it because we can make that determination. Like where I work, the DDA there pays us money for it. And just these numbers that you guys are shooting at would be really low compared to what comparing that because there's just more services here. And if you're finding out all the costs for it, it's going to take a while and it's going to be more significant than people think it is.

based on that, what I would ask is that if we're able to pass it, how it looks now with contingency, that they approve their version of it, that it's amended, that they have to approve it before it gets finalized, adopted. And then basically just give me a direction, which I've received now, which is what we've already been working on within the next

You know, because my concern is, I mean, I'll talk about it in the next budget amendments, but they've been spending money basically illegally and without our permission. And we've told them this already that they need to have our permission. And it's just so I'm not sure why all of a sudden they're going to say, oh, yes, let's follow the law and share money. So if you guys are confident with that.

Well, from my understanding, it's just the 1 line item that we're questioning right now, and that's how much for the shared services that they're paying for.

And then the rest of it was already what they were going with. Okay, and there's no shared services on there right now.

Right that can always be added after with an amendment.

Tim how long do you expect your negotiations to take for that service agreement it's honestly on me right now, like, because they have provided me at least for the they provided me recently with their draft. I review it, I have to get legal opinion on it, and I would hope that we'd be able to do it and you're confident that if we did, and we pass it as is you're confident that they would come back with a budget amendment. I based on all my discussions with them, I believe they would. Okay, I everything that I've done with Kevin has always been, I think the staff has always been in pretty good faith in that, you know, they're, they're trying to, they would like to do it, but they also want to make sure they're meeting all the requirements as well. I don't know what that number would be. Council.

Well, is there an amendment that he needs to make? I don't disagree with you, Mr. Ryan.

I think that our shared services, when they look at it, I love the parks and I've always been a parks person, but they have a project cost of $40,000, whereas HIA has a line item budget of zero. I would like to see an amendment to that $40,000 estimate on a project cost where we are giving $2,000 to HIA. Not community block grants, but a $2,000 line item. they have had line items in the past and for the last three years we've given them zero i think we need to remedy that i also want to acknowledge that we are township taxpayers and holly village residents through their township taxes contribute to hyatt that way and is why i'm not asking for 3500 which was previously budgeted a few years ago i think 2000 is a nice in our you know fiscal era that i think that two thousand dollars for high out of that parks budget can be

I will say on that that the way that we can do that legally is that we have to have a contract agreement with them that states. This is, it has to be a contract agreement that states, these are the services being provided. And this is how much we're going to pay you. We cannot arbitrarily give amount of money to another municipality or another another government entity or anything like that without having a contract and services agreement. because we cannot loan our credit out to any other agency.

So that's clearly defined in the law. And the other youth assistance that Oakland County Courts established within this county, they are able to do that based on a charitable contribution to another municipality as long as it is reported. what they are using the money. It could be annually, it can be quarterly. It's up to the council how they would like HIAA to report that. But I do think that we can do that. And I think that they have the ability to come back and let us know that they spent that money on skill building camps and different things. As long as it benefits the residents of the municipality, as far as I can tell, and my research that is covered through the law.

So the amendment would look something like pending Legal a legal contract agreement that that meets the criteria.

I don't think she's asking for an agreement. That's no, I think they should have to do that.

But I also want to give them 2000 dollars.

We can always have the 2000 dollars as a budget item and not spend it if there's no agreement made.

Absolutely.

I would ask if, um. My representative to parks, maybe could talk about what that why not and would be utilized for so you can just understand what you're maybe yeah because this, this is also a number that has gone down that originally it was at like 75 that we brought it down to 40 you know. Thank you.

Good evening council so I can speak to that. Um, I put some money in the parks budget this year parks project budget so that we could continue to move forward with some of the projects that we're have identified through some of our, uh, walkthroughs. Um, 1 of the big line items would be at Gansha park to, uh, continue with that 5 year plan that, uh, council had adopted. Um. Again, it was an attempt to start to fund some of these larger projects that the parks commission has identified and you have approved. So that was the basis of increasing the funds to that that line item. would that be for the review of the fun or the removal of the weeds it would be it would be almost for well the one quote that i got for the entirety of the project was sixty five thousand dollars exactly that's why it won't cover the numbers it won't cover the entire project but it would certainly help start the the fen exploration as well as engineering costs if needed

And have we again because, again in the Ganshaw park agreement, the DDA has committed to financing some of these updates.

I don't know if I don't know if he has like, I don't know if DDA has fully committed, but there has been conversations about them wanting to be involved with the certain parks that are in DDA and helping to fund some of these projects.

So when I was on parks and my first clear cut Ganshaw, that was something that the DDA got a grant for. They were willing to commit to fixing and it is in their TIF plan that they beautify those parks. I would like to see the DDA come through on that. I also think that Cyclone Park may be more of an issue than Ganshaw right now as far as pressing in. As a Council, I understand the parks department can come to us with a recommendation, but it is up to us to vote on what we do with that and. I think cyclone has some pressing needs that might also be we're talking about. Such as drainage, parking. This park was originally, I know at one point you were part of the first design committee who came to speak to us when we were on parks about things that we need to do here. I just don't know that Ganshaw is where we throw all of our money.

Did you have anything else you wanted to say, Danny?

I'm at I have at the last couple of parks meeting. I did speak about. Cyclone Park.

About what that would look like kind of drafted it up, I know, at the first time, it was not well received and we kind of articulated it a little more, and I think that there's more thought three years ago, I was all about putting boardwalks at Ganshaw and I was part of that and I do think it would be a wonderful thing, but in our budget at the moment, it is a wish list of mine and maybe not a necessity.

So just so we can keep this in order, because we have a minute. So the first amendment a would be that it's contingent DDA is budget is contingent upon approval by the DDA board. amendment b would be to remove two thousand dollars from the parks project costs and move it to uh and probably non-departmental community out community uh programs uh for cbg i think we actually have a cdbg item it is listed as a line i'm not seeing i'm sorry not a cdbg a lot of acronyms right now hi has an account number on your department And I know that I, in fact, Lisa has talked about...

Finish that amendment pending the contract agreement that meets the criteria.

Yes, and we have to draft a contract agreement which would have to be still approved by council. And that should be, as long as it's agreeable by high, that should be a fairly simple one that we can draft up and hopefully even have on the meeting in two weeks.

Okay. So that's amendments A and B. Any further amendments?

Doesn't HIA now keep track of everything that they spend or what goes out?

Yes. They know. They do report it. They have a transparency agreement. They do put out what they spend it on so it wouldn't be

Yeah, as long as the contract agreement, it's not just, you know, that that's important thing. I know that when Lisa has spoken to them about utilizing funds, and it has proven unwieldy for them to manage those requirements of it. Um, and I know having us use funds, I understand because, you know, a project that would cost us 40,000 dollars to sidewalks because of. Any further amendments. Council. I have more discussion on this. Go ahead.

So, I'm not going to present this as a mix. I know how poorly it's going to go over with the rest of council and I don't want us to ruin the other amendments for it. Um. 1st, I want to applaud you guys for the 1st budget you did within 90 days. I know how hard that is. I recently went through that on much smaller scale. Um, so that's a good job for that. Um, 1 thing I would suggest we do is. Get the budget a lot more like park spending if it's not needed, get rid of it to capital improvement plans. If they're not emergencies. Get rid of them and we could potentially. Save some money on that, especially when we don't have the fullized capital improvement plan to know. What we need to prioritize that money on. Because like you said, this park right here could use some improvements more than what Ganshaw might need. So with the improvement plan, we would be able to see that and be able to focus where we spend our money more. So that is more I set for.

Ganshaw's in the DBA district. It's in your TIF plan. This one's not. Yep.

Which would be part of the funding. Yep, you're right.

I agree with you.

What are the legal requirements surrounding capital improvement plans? Do we have to have those?

Yes, we have a master plan. We're supposed to have one. We've been delinquent on it for years.

It also helps out with redevelopment, renting communities and other grants and all of those other things. And again, we sit down and we work on it. And a lot of what we come back to is, well, we have our wishlist of things. It just, you can't assign years when you have no additional budget to budget for any kind of real improvements for capital improvements. You know, there's there's no revenue to allocate for a new truck or things like that. We can do the maintenance thing. That the the windows that the fire department need to be replaced, you know, and we can do that. We project out that the roof will need to be done in 5 years. The carpets in this amount of time. Those kinds of things again, but like the large ticket items, the things that really take hits the budgets. Those are just, you know, wishlist items. But we've got our draft is We're finalizing that, but again, it's a wish list at this point. It's not a true capital improvement plan to my standards.

But eventually, that wish list isn't going to be a wish list. It's going to be, we need to do this now. It's an emergency.

I will stand up for Parks a little bit in that we have never once gone anywhere close to over budget. In fact, this year, we gave you guys a lot of money back to put into things, and I think to negate what parks bring to this community is dangerous because not only does it improve your property taxes and your and your valuability being around a green space, it also lowers depression, it increases people's physical fitness, there are so many

positives to parks i agree maybe not forty thousand dollars but to just completely wipe out the parks budget is would be negligent we also speaking of negligent we have legal requirements too like for example the softball chips that you're going to see on a later one that is a liability requirement through our insurance like that we have to have You know, a certain level of so that there are those kind of consideration to that a lot of these project costs are necessarily that we just want to new and shiny. It's that we have to make sure you know the rusty slide. It's not killing kids.

Yeah, I want to be clear that the swing sets at Crapo and the swing sets at Lakeside have been there since I was a child in the 80s. So yeah, we don't have parks people that are just willy nilly in the 1980s, but We don't you don't see the improvements you look at our benches they're chipping paint two weeks ago we had people complaining about weeds in our parks that I went out personally and pulled because we don't have the staff to do it, I just understand that, for my parks, because we need them.

i'm also going to agree with you, I don't think that parks needs to be gutted I think that. A lot of our. committees. Parks are the ones who are hands on the ground doing the work. I've attended every parks cleanup for the last five or six years, and there are a few people here that have done that. And it's the parks people who come, and they're the ones who are there. They do the work. I understand softball. I understand things that we need to do. There's maintenance for sure. Maintenance is one thing.

Fen engineering,

If there is a fin there, that's great. We lost some funding from SISMA. That was a huge loss. I personally had signed up to be their liaison when SISMA went under. I agree. Those are things that we need to look at. I just don't see Ganshaw as the one we spend the money on. I'd rather see him paint the benches. So, parks.

Well, Parks checks families to live, to play, and for events. So what's necessary and what are investment style improvements? How much of the budget is going towards that and how much would you guys say is unnecessary and where there's no investment as well?

I was good with $19,000.

So as opposed to gutting, what would you specifically recommend taking away?

Well, I can't really make that determination without the capital improvement plan to determine where we need to put that money. So, and when I mean getting, I don't necessarily mean taking away the necessity stuff that's like safety and things like that. That would always be in there because that's needed. I'm talking about, like, the outside value, like, spending extra money for other projects and things of that nature.

I agree. I think, you know, again, the township levy is a 1 mill. For their parks, they get. quarter million dollars for two parks. We usually sit, when I came on to council, we sat between 10 and $15,000 for projects. A water fountain costs us $8,000. There's your budget for the year.

That'll bring us to another point. People brought up if we can't afford all this stuff. Why not consider looking into how much money citizens can save by just being a township and not a village. So, I know we have the city hood initiative on the docket tonight, but. What about considering other options other than city hood? I agree, which I look at, I know President Brandon brought up. Several times in the past.

My concern is if we go to a township, it's my understanding the outer township residents do not want police services at all.

I think you're considering if they were to become a charter township.

If they were to do that. If the village was no more, the township does not want police.

Yeah, but I think we're talking two different things. We're talking about if they created a charter township versus just like he's talking about just dissolving.

Other things we could also consider.

One second, let's stay there for just a moment. I feel like I remember we've spoken in the past about how this is numbers that can be run through municipal analytics. Do I remember that correctly?

Yeah, I mean, they have a lot of that stuff already programmed in, yeah. Yeah, the city had portion of it.

Yeah, so we could do a comparison model between charter township and not for I don't know about charter township because we wouldn't have information.

We wouldn't have information on that because that's their decisions to make about all that like how that would look now that again I don't and I don't want to even speak on that too much because that would be a decision. our municipality if they're going to do that because then they would have a requirement to provide police and fire and all those things to the uh to the exterior of the like so their their taxes would increase across the board for the rest of the tarp of the township if they were to do that um so i don't want to even hypothesize on like what that would look like because i have no idea well and truthfully i know like when i researched

more villages turn into cities than dissolve and go into townships it just seems to be where they're all headed michigan started out with all townships and then you created these villages to kind of you know you had larger populations and then once they grew to where they needed to be and they cover all of the services that we do the natural step is to go towards cityhood

maybe with our budget we can't afford all those services so maybe that's why we might need to reduce stuff like for instance for the water department have we reached out to like water or talk to the water resource commissioner about possibly putting some of that responsibility ask them to take over like per se billing for like a phase and then eventually work towards getting the county to take over our water system

So our water systems aren't the thing, or our water sewer are not, although they obviously, those are not general fund expenditures that are the things that are really...

Right, but we have huge expenses coming up with the pump stations and stuff. So that's still going to be more resources.

Those services and expenses don't go away.

No, I agree, but...

we still have staff that support those because when we talk about dissolving it we talk about we talk about getting rid of it like it's like it's not that it your police goes away you don't have police coverage your fire goes away you have to get from you know somewhere else you have to get the state uh you're like those things still exist right but with through like economies of scale say they did our billing for us

It might cost us less money staff wise to fulfill that. If we contract with them, and they're paying a portion because they have a larger system, more staff there, they can take on more at a lower cost and the economy of scale is and you're also paying into.

The other communities that are doing that, you know, the larger, and so then we've seen how that has worked for. Every other service up on county provides how they're the most expensive per people in the game for every service.

I'm just suggesting it might be something we could look into.

Any other amendments, Council, or discussion points on the budget?

Do I need to amend my original motion? I think that you should probably, the safest bet would be to do a vote on each amendment. So you're doing, rather than just doing one on amendments or vote on

Why don't you start with, uh, why don't you start with the amendment of, uh, the DDA budget requiring being pending approval from the DDA.

Do you want to, I'll make that motion.

Okay. And then I think hire was support. Do you amend your second? Okay. Uh, uh, please clerk, please call the roll.

Yes. Brian.

No.

Cool. Yes. Wine burner.

Yes.

Pass the law?

Yes.

Brandon?

Yes, motion carried. And now Shannon, would you like to make a motion about?

So I would like to make a motion for B of the budget of motions that we reduce the project costs of parks by $2,000 and put it into a non building fund or HIA pending a contract that they sign with us to show what they're spending their money on.

Do I hear support? I'll support.

We have a motion by Cole. We have support by Weinbrenner. Clerk, please call the roll.

Ryan?

No.

Cole? Yes. Weinbrenner?

Yes.

Toskela?

Yes.

Tire?

Yes.

Brandon?

Yes. Motion carried. Lisa, will you please read item C?

Consideration of village council of the approval of resolution 2026-028, acknowledging receipt and adoption of the Village of Holly fiscal year 2026-2027 fee schedule.

Similar to last item, this is the formal resolution acknowledging receipt and adoption of the village fee schedule that has been part of the budget discussions. Do I have a first to consider item C of new business?

I'll make the motion to consider item C of new business.

I will second that.

We have a motion by Ryan, we have a second by Cole. Also, I just remembered earlier Angela popped in and asked us all to speak into your microphones, please. Any public comments on this item, the fee schedule? Mattson?

Ryan Mattson, 15091 Western Valley Drive. I'm just hoping as part of your guys' discussion, if it can be clarified, I believe I think I saw just something about like a work from home fee and then like at home business registration fee. what that distinction is between those two would be appreciated. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm sorry, you said that was the at home fee versus the?

Work from home and then the at home.

Work from home and at home, thank you. Any further public comment? Hearing none, see.

I just got from the peanut gallery out there a good point. That was that you guys voted for amendments, but you didn't vote for the finalized on the last item. You guys voted on amendments A and B, but you didn't vote to approve for the approval of the actual general appropriations act.

Oh, I thought that was part of Jim's original motion along with the first amendment.

You voted for the amendments, but it should be item B as amended.

Okay. uh can i get a motion i suggest we finish this item and then go back to it since we already have a motion on the floor oh we do you're right brian and cool yep okay and then so we will go back to b in just a moment was there any other public comment i think that's where we're at that is where i was at yeah and there was no further public comment so council any discussion

Um, I would like to know the distinction between those 2 fees as well.

Yes, I'm going to pull it up right now. Thank you. If I can now, as I'm looking at it, um. I do know that, um, chapter 110 of our ordinance requires. Anyone that's operating as a business at all has to, uh, uh, register within the village. So I'm sure that's why the fee exists. And so.

Council any further discussion or questions while he's looking it up.

I do have one I would like to actually see our notary fees be zero. It's standard practice at like the library, the different things and things that you don't charge for notary. I understand it's $10, but We have a special assessment for police and fire, and one of them is a $10 fee for different notaries with gun purchases. I think we can cover that with a special assessment.

Council, anyone else?

Just a comment.

What do you got? So dang it. Your time is up, Jim. Sorry. Go ahead. Thank you.

One item. I know I have mentioned in the past one I'd like to see is if we do have new changes or if there are changes to any of these, if we can just highlight them and say this has been changed.

I believe, unless any of the department heads, you know better than I am the whole occupation versus the new business registration home business, I believe, is just a legacy. Is that your view of the two. But it's been on there for a while.

Shannon, which fee were you looking at?

The notary fee. There's a notary fee. It's under service fees. Under service fees? Yeah. And service fees.

So I see it under service fees. And then where else did you say it was at?

Under police department fees, there's a $10 notary charge and then notarized gun purchase permit. I believe the permit is $10. So we don't necessarily have to waive that, but I don't think we need to notarize.

Did we pay for them to be notarized?

But the $10 notary fee in the regular general is not for the police and fire. The $10 is for the upfront when people just come in and want things notarized.

It's free at the library. It's free at the banks around town. I just don't see why we haven't caught up with that person.

Do you think it's being notarized a lot of documents? Does staff do that?

We do, yeah. I see that as part of

Just a side note, the library is not doing it anymore because he wasn't comfortable with it. Correct.

I think our taxes cover notary fees.

I believe we can also get notarized at the township for free as well.

I don't think we should be charging residents.

What is the township charge?

Nothing. It's free.

I just think it's a fee that we need to update.

What are people coming in to get notarized? Is it stuff for the village or is it stuff?

Personal things.

Okay.

So maybe we remove the notary fee from the police department but then keep it just

Or maybe we just have let them know that they can get a notarized for free at other locations if they want to. A quick synopsis.

I'll make it quick.

Um, actually it was a great idea from council to have notaries at the police department because the number one thing we do is Um, uh, pistol purchase permits, and there's no fee for the permit. It's just the notary fee, um, was that's what the village charged was 10 dollars. So that was the notary fee. So that's why we attached it there. The fee is irrelevant to us. And by the way, our 1st, um, uh, public service agent slash clerk is now a notary. So we have another 1 going to the school and to the question is what it costs. It's about 300 dollars per notary.

But under the police department fees, we have a notary fee for $10 and we have notarized gun purchase permits for $10. If the permit is $10, that's great. I don't think we have to charge an additional notary fee for those.

I think that might have been an error. There is no fee for the permit. Those are free to village residents.

No, it says notarized gun purchase permit. So the notarized part is what they're charging and then a notary fee by itself for Other things is also $10. I don't think it was a typo.

Oh, okay. A notarized gun purchase permit is $10 on this fee schedule, but we don't charge that?

We don't charge. We were never doing notary. And when you get the permit, then they have to go get it notarized and then bring it back. So we were never charging that because we didn't have the notary. So I think that was the intent. was to notarize a gun purchase permit because it has to be notarized. And we get a lot of those, so sometimes we might get two or three a day.

Yes, I think that's a service our police department can provide.

And it is just a village resident, so it is just our community that's being serviced by that.

So I don't think we should have that. What about the cost of paperwork and everything that goes along with this?

Well, that's the legislature has pretty much capped. In other words, if you come in, you want to name change and you're going to get fingerprinted, it's $100. If you're getting fingerprinted for a concealed weapons permit, this legislature has capped it to $15 because that is a constitutional right to be able to have access to that. So, um, traditionally the federal courts and, uh, even state government has looked at anything constitutional as being something that we're going to cap the costs. Otherwise, then people could say that I've been denied that because of the cost. So, uh, anything like that, um. them in favor so cutting cutting that cost so we only provide that service to our residents and that's a requirement of state law so I cannot technically they have to go to the community of the police department that services them to get that so I think that having notaries at the police station to handle these gun purchase permits are a wonderful service for our community who pays for this and I don't see charging them

I think we've got enough to vote on. Thank you.

Thank you.

They already asked for public comment.

Not on this. We're not there yet.

I mean, it's something, too.

I mean, I did it a little backwards. I did discussion first.

No, yeah, because Mr. Manson spoke about the fee schedule and public comment. What? Mr. Manson spoke about the fee schedule and public comment. You're right.

Oh, yeah, Mr. Matson did speak. It has been a long meeting. Yeah.

My concern is, are we going to have, we don't want to burden our staff with tons of FOIA, not FOIA, tons of notarization. Thank you. If we do it for free, I think we should. Let's get feedback from our staff. If it becomes, that's all they're doing is notarizing every day.

We can always revisit it. How much have been authorized right now?

I don't, I don't, I don't honestly, if this is what counts, it's obviously your fee schedule. I don't think that's going to, we're going to get overload for notary. I think this is a new thing that the police department wanted to do. When we originally talked, he said, I would like to get my staff notary to be notaries to do this. And I said, well, any new expenses, we need to see how we can offset those costs. And so, since we charge for a notary here, he said, all right, well, you should also charge for the notary there in order to offset the expenses of the training of the personnel.

Is everyone that comes there from Holly?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay. So, um, offset costs, offset costs. No, we don't want to charge people. I don't know. Um, all right. So where are we at?

Was Shannon like to amend it?

So this was a motion by Ryan, second by Cole. Would you like to request Ryan to make an amendment?

Or would you like to make the amendment and then we do ours?

Are there any other fees that anybody else has an issue with?

Okay.

Then I would like to amend the fee schedule to not charge for notary fees.

And? All notary fees.

Oh, and to...

Remove home occupation.

What is it?

The home occupation. And so the reason that was on there, I believe, is because according to Chapter 110 of the budget business registration, there's supposed to be an initial fee for registering your business, but your annual requirement isn't to have any more fees on it. It should be that you register your business, and then you have to renew your business every year, but there's no fee for the renewal. And so we were trying to make

harmony with our actual ordinance and so i believe just the home occupation 20 should be removed okay so the re i would like to see an amendment to remove the home occupation 20 fee notary fees as well all the notary fees yes okay um ryan d i would like to amend my motion to include the amendment made

And we did do public comment already, you guys are telling me. Yes. Please call the roll.

Ryan?

Yes.

Cole? Yes. Weinbrenner? Yes. Paskella? Yes. Kyer?

Yes.

Brandon?

Yes. Motion carried. And now we have to go back to Part B.

So it should be a consideration of this as amended.

Okay. Okay. Do I have to first consider?

Well, it would be back to the original.

Back to the original.

So, I believe Jim made the motion, I seconded it.

Yeah, that's why I thought it was already included in it. Can you read back that motion, Lisa?

So the first one was B, and it's Amendment A, and it says that was for the DDA budget contingent upon approval by DDA and a contract agreement for the shared services by the DDA.

Okay, so we just need someone to move to approve Item B.

No, those two, the two amendments were added on. To the original. So now you're just making a motion on the main motion. So you would be, it would be a motion to approve this as amended.

Okay. Can I get a motion to approve this as amended?

I'll make a motion to approve as amended.

I'll second.

We have a motion by Weinbrenner.

We have a second by Kier.

Any further discussion? Clerk, please call the roll.

Weinbrenner?

Yes.

Pascoa?

Yes.

Tire? Yes. Ryan?

No.

Cole? Yes. Brandon?

Yes. Motion carried. Item D. Lisa, will you please read item D?

Consideration of the approval of resolution 2026-029, amending the fiscal year 2025-2026 budget.

Do I have a first to consider item D of new business?

I'll make that motion.

We have a motion by Koskola.

I'll second the motion.

We have a second by Weinbrenner. Tim, can you please introduce this item?

Absolutely. This is simply, we already talked about a little bit before, that we do some budget reconciliation at the end. This is just the amendments that we're doing at the end of the year. We're going to have to do one more of these when we get past our fiscal year that says, hey, these are the final amendments and any changes that we had to make to the budget.

Any public comment on this item? Hearing none, See none. Any discussion Council?

I've got one. So once again, DDA, they put in for $15,500 budget amendment. And I think for these budget amendments, Mr. Stetson has indicated to be here to talk about them. This is another one I looked through and I couldn't find any discussion on the legal fee discussions for the DDA. So how they're coming up and spending money, I'm not sure. So I'm not sure why they're like everything officially had been the meetings at least had been spending it with tech funds.

that has the and be able to pay these expenses. That was their ideal situation.

If I remember the timeline correctly, they put in for a budget amendment. We said no. Then they said it doesn't matter. We're just going to spend money with tech funds. And then when I asked them how they're using tech funds, then they said, no, we're not using tech funds. We want a budget amendment. Because they can't use tech funds without a permission, essentially. So I'm just, I would like to have some clarification on that to see how that's, what's happening. I don't, I think the tech funds and I remember I asked at the budget study session, I said, how are you paying for legal fees? And they said, tech funds. That's what he said.

I still believe any, I still believe any expenditures that they do still have to be following the budgetary That they can grant or tech funds and all of that.

So if that's the case, we said no to spending money and they said, we're going to spend money anyway. That we voted to not approve their amendment and then said, we're going to spend it anyway. So, I mean, if council has to approve it, and we didn't approve it, how is that legal? I was looking it up, and I was like, well, it seems like if our attorney's over budget, for instance, but we have never explicitly said, do not spend money on the attorney, whereas that's what we said previously. So I was trying to get some clarification from the DBA how that could be reconciled.

Well, us as a body never voted to tell them not to spend it. Yes, we did.

So they put in for a budget amendment for legal fees and was the other one. ahead of time they probably would not be passed Mr. Price said that at the meeting and then they said it doesn't matter we'll pass it anyway then they sent it to us bundled and we said no and then the next meeting they said we'll just spend money on tech funds with the attorney which didn't pan out well I don't know I think that it didn't pan out I think that it turned out they weren't allowed to use the tech funds for that I think it was at our budget study session that's what they said it was in April whatever it was they said we were going to use tech funds and I questioned how they're using tech funds legally and That had changed.

Well, because originally they wanted to pull the health insurance for the director.

Shannon, can you speak into your microphone? I'm sorry.

Originally they had asked to pull the health insurance money from not having a director, but they have since hired a director. The question I had always wanted clarification on was then are they still pulling the fees from the health insurance line item of a director? That was the hang-up in the beginning. I don't know where we're at with it now.

Is that related to the legal fees?

That was what they were pulling the line item from to pay for legal fees. They wanted to move the entirety of that line to legal fees.

At the budget study session, he indicated, Mr. Stephenson, the DDA director, indicated that it was being tech-taxed. And it was because we didn't approve their budget. Right. So... And my understanding too is if we decide not to approve this, their attorney just doesn't get paid. So I think when you contract with a municipal, let's say I'm an attorney. I'm a municipal attorney. I contract with municipal government. I'm supposed to know and I'm expected to know how budgeting works. They can't just say, hey, I didn't know how budgeting works. I didn't realize they didn't have any money. The lawyer that they hired should have realized they didn't have any money and said, why am I not getting paid?

Is that correct? I would expect that they would know whether it's in the budget or not.

So it's just weird. They haven't discussed it publicly, so there's someone making a decision somewhere about this to not use tech funds, to use tech funds, but I haven't seen that in any meetings.

What's your recommendation?

I'd like to see the some type of justification. I'd like to remove the attorney fees altogether. That's something we definitely didn't authorize. They've never communicated with us about it, and I don't think we have to do it because they didn't have permission to actually even spend the money.

If they don't have permission to spend the money... Who had the... Who did the motion?

I would amend that motion if you would second it.

It was, did you second it or did you? I started that. Do you want to amend it?

I would amend that motion. To? To not pay for legal fees.

Buster, do you amend your support? I'll amend my support. I'm sorry, that was affirmative? Yes. Thank you. Speak into your microphone.

And so to be clear, excuse me, to be clear, it would be resolution amending the 2025-26 budget With the exception of you are removing the DDA attorney fee line item. Correct, legal fees.