City Council - Regular Meeting

by any means necessary. Good evening. It is 6:31, Tuesday, February 24th, 2026. At this time, I will call our city council meeting to order. Uh we will have pledge of allegiance and then invocation will be given by fourth ward council member Connor Wood. Pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Please join me in a moment of silence for the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Thank you,

Madame Clerk. If you will proceed with roll call, please. Mayor Mahoney, present. Council member Robinson, present. Vice Mayor Dansancy, present. Council member Gun, present. Council member Wood present. Council member Hunt present. Council member Ford Grave present. All present and accounted for. Uh next I'm looking for a motion and support to adopt the agenda. So move support.

It's been moved and supported. Any comments, questions, concerns, deletions, additions? Seeing or hearing none, the clerk will tally and display the vote. Madam clerk will proceed with roll call. Council member Robinson. Yes. Council Vice Mayor Dansancy. Yes. Council member Gun. Yes. Council member Wood. Yes. Council member Hunt. Yes. Council member for Gray. Yes. Mayor Mahoney.

Yes. Okay, we have an agenda and the next item on the agenda is presentations and proclamations. And we have a presentation by the collaborative community assessment from uh Sherry Butters and the Jackson Collaborative Network.

Thank you. All right. Thank you for having me. Uh Sherry Butters. I'm the manager with the Jackson Collaborative Network and I am honored to be here this evening to share you share with you our collaborative community assessment data from our most recent assessment. Uh many of you might have been at excuse me many of you might have been with us in December when we launched our report at our community summit and um so this might be a repeat for some of you but we did take a pass at it and um drill down a little bit more to bring you some more city specific data so some of it may be new. Um so I am going to be talking a little bit about some of the disparities that are present here within the city and um highlighting a few of the things that um we as we as a city can be focused on. And it's important to me not only as the manager of the Jackson Collaborative Network but also as a city of Jackson resident. So I live over on the east side of the city and have been for about east side yes for about 30 years. And um so this this matters to me as a resident, as a as a parent of uh City of Jackson kids. So um anyway, I'm going to get started. You said down, right?

Up. All right. Up it is. Okay. All right. So tell you a little bit about the Jackson Collaborative Network. Um we are a collective impact network. So we're not an organization, we're not an initiative, we are a distributed network. So that means we are a group of folks from throughout the community, organizations, groups, um, individuals that come together around a shared vision. Uh, we are working together to make systems change happen. So the outcomes that you're going to see tonight are a result of systems that are in place are that are producing outcomes that are indicators of things not working, right? So things are broken and when things are broken, we stop we stop the line and we fix them, right? So we don't keep producing more of a broken product. We we stop things and we fix those things and then we restart things. So that's what our network is trying to do. Uh together we are working on a safe, healthy, thriving community and I know that's what we're all here for or you would not be serving on this council. So um I'm excited to share the data with you. Um the network does employ a small team of staff. I'm one of them. Um we have a data and information specialist who has prepared much of the presentation this evening and then we also have a coach uh that works alongside me with uh many of our organiz organizations and we work to build capacity for systems change. So that is what our network is all about. But we are focused on addressing root causes because the data you see tonight we're not going to program and service our way out of this. We have been trying to do that for years and we haven't seen a shift in the data. All of you have been around long enough to see the trends. The trends are not there are no trends. The trends are not changing. The data is not changing. So, we need to do something different. I've got to remember which way is up. There we go. All right. So, these are our values as a network. These are the things that glue us together as a group

of organizations, people, and um institutions that work together. So, we are focused on equity and anti-racism first and always. Um we are focused on authentic engagement. So, as a community coming together to focus on those lift experiences, those experiencing the issues that we're about to talk about are the experts. They know what they need and we need to listen to them. We need to believe them when they tell us what they need and do those things, try them, see what happens, learn from those experiences, and then apply those solutions and keep doing so until we see the change that we need to see. Um, and then the very bottom under under everything is that systemic problems require root cause focused solutions. There's a reason why we're not seeing a shift in these problems that we've we've they're persistent. they have been here for as long as I've been doing collaborative work in Jackson and it's been a minute. Um, so we have traditionally we keep throwing programs and services and more money and more more things at these problems and many of us have been there trying new things, trying new programs, but we're not tackling the right root causes. So we're not seeing the changes we need to see. All right, so this is a lot on a slide. It's tiny words. I even tried to make them bigger for you. Didn't work very well. Um, so this is our shared measurement system. This is our community agenda for change as well. So this defines in a in a small slide uh what our agenda for changes. So we are trying to achieve a safe, healthy, thriving community. So all of the data you see tonight is about helping. It's it's all contained within that triangle, but everything we are working for in the community is about improving outcomes and you will see everything contained in

that triangle. But this vision helps organize our work. It helps um create a kind of a pathway. So if you think about like where are we headed as a community, this is our framework. This helps keep us on track, helps us kind of organize folks in the direction we're headed, but it also creates accountability for results. So, I would encourage you to take a deeper look at that on another day, but I don't have much time, so I'm going to keep going. We usually spend about an hour orienting folks to the framework. We won't be doing that this evening. All right. This is an important slide because this is all about the the kind of community we want to build. This is a slide from the Robert Ward Johnson Foundation. Um, it's a really important slide when we think about the kind of built communities we need to be thinking about. So on the left is a so it's kind of like the um if you think about the curbcut effect, many of us have seen that article and um oh goodness. So on the left hand side is a solution that really only works for one person, right? kind of mainstream solution and everyone else is not really able to navigate that community, right? It's not going to work. Um, it only takes one person's abilities and needs into account. Everyone else has to either develop their own solution or they can't navigate, right? They can't their needs are not met. So, there's either going to be harm caused or they have to not get their needs met. um on the right hand side that has been designed with everyone's needs in in mind. Everyone can navigate in that situation and no one is harmed, right? Everyone's needs are met. When you design around the needs of everyone, everyone can benefit. So that's really what I guess the gist of when we think

about equity, that is what we're talking about is we need to take into account the needs of everyone and design with those needs in mind. Everyone has unique needs. When we give everybody the same thing, we waste a lot of resources. Okay? Most of our programs and services are designed to give everyone the same thing, right? Because most of us were raised, right, in schools and in systems that were designed to give everyone the same thing because that's what we were taught was fair, right? But fair is not equal. What is fair is giving everyone what they need, how they need it, when they need it, and it also makes better use of resources. All right, I'm going to jump right in. That was the best primer I could give you in a short amount of time. So, now we're going to dive in. So, our collaborative community assessment is a formal assessment. We do this every three years. So, if you haven't heard about it before today, we haven't been doing a very good job promoting it, but we do this every three years. The network has done it uh three times now in the past uh 10 years and this is the first year that we have um probably the most comprehensive report we've done. So this is the best set of data that we've presented so far. We're pretty proud of it. Um but we have done um let's see this assessment the survey component of it was done through March of let's see September of 24 through March of 25 we had about 2200 residents in Jackson not just city residents but Jackson County residents completed the survey and let's see 35% of those were city of Jackson residents. So we'll talk about their results a little bit more. And then we did also we did an extensive review of data from other sources. So we pulled together like census and kids count and

my school data and all sorts of data from other available sources. Lots of that is in there. And then we partnered with some community uh folks to do some listening sessions, focus groups, interviews. Um so residents and action helped us out. We had some interviews and things out county with KK Kane Consulting. Uh so Katina Kane helped us out with those efforts. So there's a lot of different things that went into the data that's in our our report this year. So it's very robust. Um we've done more this year to build that out. So all right, let's jump in. Before we get started, I wanted to just bring you a little picture of Jackson. you of anyone in our community, you should not be surprised because this is these are the folks you serve. So, this is just basic demographics. This is not about our assessment. This is just who who the city of Jackson is. Um, so these are just general demographics. I will not read to you, but wanted to just ground us in that. So when we get into the findings of the assessment itself, um we're going to talk about just the key challenges. So I did not bring you everything. I brought you just high level key challenges that felt actionable that felt like things over the next, you know, two, three, five years that are things we could work on together as a community, as leaders, as decision makers that felt actionable based on the momentum that's in the community, decisions city council has made recently, um, things that are already happening. So these felt actionable. They felt um yeah. So I'm going to move into these things. All right. So um as we look at at the things we're going to talk about today, um city

residents are experiencing worse outcomes in almost every indicator across all of our assessment um components. Almost every single indicator we look at, our city residents are doing worse. Um, and I know that, um, I've had the benefit of seeing, um, I don't see John today, but I've had the benefit of watching, um, John Willis's presentation on disinvestment and the history of disinvestment here in Jackson, in the city, and how it's affected the the racial segregation and the the policies and things. And we see that on that in our data through our assessment year after year after year. And so that is present in the outcomes that we'll see. Um so those racial disparities, those um consistent outcomes across you know poverty and um the housing cost burdens, uh transportation challenges, all of those continue to be persistent and these will not be surprising to you. So let's start with income. So this is household income. So you will see that our city of Jackson residents tend to make less than their outcount peers. Um so folks within the city of Jackson tend to earn a lower income than their outcount peers. And um so you can see median income and just to clarify that is not average income. So it is not the average of a median is just to clarify the exact middle. So, um, if my data specialist was here, and I know she's listening, so I will clarify. Um, if we were to line everybody in Jackson up, we just pick the exact middle, and that is what median income is. Um, so you can see there's a significant difference between, um, the county and the city. So, um, people in the city are just not making as much as those outside of the city. So that that is a that is a point

of difference that impacts all of the other outcomes we will see. All right. And household poverty of course follows income. Um so we see that household poverty we have city of Jackson residents. Um and household is defined by you know obviously household. So whether that's a household of four or whatever whoever makes up that household. And this is from the the census. Um so this um this is actually a topic that um when we went out and talked with residents so in residents in action talked with city of Jackson residents and um Cina went out and talked with folks throughout the county. There was talk about jobs, lack of living wage jobs, um barriers like uh let's see, criminal history, um challenges and barriers as far as being able to access services and things and risking jobs while like if you need to access services like accessing food supports, those things are only available when you're at your job. And so being able to do those things during working hours puts your job at risk and things like that. Um, so challenges like that get in the way of getting and keeping living wage jobs. I'm going to keep moving quickly. Um, so then we move on to Alice households. And I'm not sure if everyone is aware of Alice, but Alice stands for asset limited, income constrained, and employed. So this is um to be uh really just simply simplified, this is like your working poor. Okay, these are the folks who are working full-time, they're working uh, you know, they're working a job, they are making an income, they are not making enough to make ends meet. Um, and this is

going to have to check my numbers. So, the Alice threshold for a family of four is just over 65,000. Okay, so that is what a survival budget looks like. So, that is being able to just cover the basics. um and two adults. So, this is kind of I had to I had to double check it because I was like, "Oo, this this seems like very little, but two adults um just to make it two adults working full-time would need to make at least$1589 an hour working full-time year round just to make barely make ends meet." Um so, so that's that's what a survival budget might look like. And those kind of jobs are hard to find without without a you know advanced degree or a cert certification of some kind. Um so you can see that city of Jackson folks higher level of those those struggles related to income. Um in the shaded area towards the right I did put in a little extra data households that takes into account everyone that's in the household. The shaded area on the right hand side takes into account individuals. So individual residents you can see the number significantly um goes up. So you know a multiple adults in a household then when you think about that. So 64% of residents in the city are in that Alice population. And so those are your folks you know that's one flat tire away from from being able to to make it through the week um for from being able to make it through the month. So that that's a very fragile population that that needs those supports. All right. Um, and now we look at uh, poverty. These are adults in poverty. Um, comparing just Jackson County with city of Jackson. So again, you see the the difference here. We looked at households before. This is looking at

individuals. Okay. So you can see the number is a little bit higher. Um you can see when we look at adults in poverty city much higher than um out county excuse me and again when we did the listening sessions with individuals there was again the calling out of living wage jobs and you'll see in a little bit the lack of transportation impacts that ability for folks within the city to get those living wage jobs because within the city if you don't have transportation most of our good living wage paying jobs for folks who may not have an advanced degree or may not have a certification aren't going to be within the city limits. So, a lot of folks if they need to get to a job that is going to get them a a job they're going to be able to advance and move up, they're not going to be able to get that within the city limits. And so, especially, you know, they have transportation, maybe that transportation falls through, that is going to affect their ability to keep that job. So, there's all sorts of things that could go wrong quickly when you're in that um that fragile Alice population. Okay, it did move. I was like, wait, it looks the same. Okay, so this is one um we cannot get the disagregated data on um breaking down by race, but I did want to actually I need to go back one because I did want to call out. So we we are able to get the disagregated data on um looking at our black population and white population in the city and the county. And so that's an important thing to look at because we need to understand that the majority of not the majority, I'm sorry, and I didn't cover it at the front. I should have. Um 50% of all of our black African-American individuals in the county live within the city.

And that is interesting. It's interesting if you didn't understand or you haven't seen John's presentation, right? And so when John Willis talks about redlinining and he talks about those historical decisions that have been made, the impact racial segregation and policy and practice that have have resulted in those decisions that have kept kept those decisions in place and influenced how people have been organized throughout the community. um those decisions are still influencing outcomes like this. And so poverty is still showing up. It's still affecting whole populations in our community. And those are systemic issues. Okay? These are not individual behaviors that are resulting in these decision or in these outcomes. These are systemic issues that have to be addressed. Um so I'm going to move ahead. Um, we cannot get this same data at a at a um race and ethnicity or race level, racial disagregated by race, my sorry, long day. um for children in poverty at the city level. But if you were to look back on the previous slide, you can probably assume that city level would be likely a higher level of um disparity. So our children are not doing well in the city. Um our children are not doing well in the county. Um and we need to be really we need to be focused on that. This is work we need to be doing. Um,

all right. Gonna go forward. Um, looking at housing. So, this is an area I know the city has been focused on a lot, which is amazing and I think a lot of continued focus. We will start to see some impact in this area. Um, something I think we need to continue to focus on is the fact that housing costs are high, right? Our City of Jackson residents are paying, let's see, I wrote I had to write it down. Um, let's see. Average rent in the city of Jackson, and this felt really low to me based on what residents are sharing, but um, between $900 and $1,100 is what kind of average rent feels like, but I'm hearing folks are sharing like between 12 and $1,400 is what sh folks are sharing. That's like 60% of people's income in the city of Jackson, right? Um so 59% of people are paying 30% or more of their income. Um some folks, if you looked at our beginning side of household income, there is a lot of folks who make less than $30,000 a year. That's a lot to be paying on rent. That is a lot to be paying on rent. um city of Jackson residents are less likely to own their home. And so when you think about what is going to help a family build generational wealth and help their kids build some kind of um build some kind of path forward that's going to help them in the future. Um your home is an asset that you build equity in, right? So, when I'm long gone, I hope to be able to leave my home behind, right, for my for my kids, right? Someday I'm going to pay off my house. Um, if you're renting your house, you're not building that equity. You don't you

don't have that to pass on to your kids. You're not going to have that asset. So, we're not going to see that generational wealth building, right? Um, so that's something to think about as well. So, community voice folks highlighted the fact that rent continues to be too high. Um, and that within the city, we heard this specifically, high rent is frequently accompanied by substandard conditions. Um, many many folks shared astronomical monthly rent amounts and deplorable conditions, okay? Like not even livable conditions. And um so that's something that I feel like that that's actionable. Those are things that are that are able to be worked on. Those feel like actionable things. Um barriers such as background checks, credit checks, things that just are are they keep people from getting the housing they need. Housing feels like a right. People need shelter. Um and then folks are folks are doubling up living with family. They're they're spending um they're finding ways to solve their housing problems that aren't ideal that aren't ideal for their families. They're not ideal for their kids. Um but they're finding ways to make it work and um yeah, we we can do better and I know we want to do better. All right, next we're going to talk about transportation. Um, so this one, as long as I've worked in Jackson doing collaborative work, transportation has come up as an issue as something we all want to work on. Um, within the city, we are lucky. It's it's not frequent that I've or it's not I

guess it's not um I haven't often lived in a city this size that has had a public transit system, right? So that that was unusual when I moved to Jackson. Um, and we have it and if we have it, it should probably work well, right? And that's kind of what residents are are expecting, right? If we have it, it should meet their needs. Um, so you can see in the community voice, folks are feeling that our public transit system is not sufficient. It doesn't meet their needs. It's not reliable. Okay. So, so those are some of the feedback pieces that were shared. um and that there just weren't many alternatives. Okay. Um many of our city of Jackson residents, not many, 15% have no vehicles available. And this isn't necessarily just folks don't own a car. This included they don't have a neighbor that could drive them. They may not have a friend who could get them somewhere. This was really just don't have any way of getting somewhere. Um interesting piece this year we were able to tease out the the uh disparities specific to veterans and folks who um identified it as having an a disability. So that was within our community assessment data, our community survey. So we were able to identify some uh disparities there around transportation needs. That's new data. We haven't been able to see that before. Um, so, interestingly enough, we have we have some some work to do around our veteran population and um data to share with folks who work with those populations and um potentially some work to do in those situations. Um, I think so each one of these things builds on the other. So, if we think about, you know, we've got we've got

income gaps. Um, income can only be solved by work, right? And so income is solved by work, which is limited by transportation. And so there's all these things that kind of work together. And so we have to find a way to help these things all work together better. Um, all right. So food stress. Um, this is something um the percentage is not as high as I thought it would be, which is which is great, but 23% of our folks countywide um are stressed about um about affording nutritious meals. Okay, so this is community survey data. When we asked people how they um if they felt worried or stressed about having enough money to buy nutritious meals, 23% countywide, 28% of City of Jackson residents responded that they felt um always are usually worried or stressed. Um and this was actually before the the SNAP crisis. So this was before the food benefits were frozen. This was before all of that. Um but high cost of food. Um this was also before some administration changes had happened. So um who knows if there would be different feedback right now. But um some of the feedback on this might be um might be interesting to look into as from a policy perspective with many of our community partners. Food pantries are available. They may not be available at the times or places that folks need them to be. um they may not have the resources or the the types of food either culturally or the food needs like dietary preferences and needs and those types of things. Um transportation impacts food availability or food access. Um grocery stores and I know this is something that the the city is working on with the MLK project. Um so

that is something that um data is clearly supporting the the need for that grocery store. And so I think finding ways to help help support that to be moving fast, you know, fast and keeping that in the news of of helping residents understand that things are moving forward, I think will go a long way to helping them feel that their needs are being met. This one I do not have a breakdown on. I do not have the racial um breakdown on this. This is only at the county level. So we do not have the city level on this. But you can see there is a bit of a racial uh disparity when we think about food stress. So I would assume based on our our previous data that there is probably a disparity at the city level as well. I would assume and again high cost of food, lack of access, those types of things. All right, this is perception of safety. So this is again community survey data. So we asked our community uh community residents how they felt and this is specific to city of Jackson. So these are city of Jackson residents were asked how safe do you feel um in your neighborhood during the day. Okay. So during the day how safe do you feel? And 83% of people felt completely or fairly safe in their neighborhood during the day. That feels pretty good. And then you look at what happens after dark, that number goes significantly down. And so in the county, I just wanted folks to see um I didn't put it on the slide, but I did I put it in my notes so I could mention it. Um so in the in the county um outside of the city, 90% of

folks feel um completely or fairly safe outside of the city during the day. So, I think we're doing we're doing pretty good in the city during the day. I think there's a lot we could do after dark, but I think we have to talk with folks to understand what that's all about. I think we know some of the things, but the solutions are what we have to talk with our with our residents about. All right. So, moving into health equity. So this is probably a slide that we have shown at many many of our events. Um this is about infant mortality. So we have significant uh racial disparities in our community over many many years specific to um our black babies. Our black babies are dying at a rate that is unacceptable. Um they have been for many many years. Our community has done a significant amount of work over the years and you can see the impact of that. Um, this is a a a rolling average. Um, so this is not a, you know, it's not a point in time. So you can see this is a three-year rolling average over time. So um, but you can see the green line is our black infants and um, for those I'll read it out loud for anyone in the audience, but the white infants is the blue line, the light blue, and Jackson County um, all infants is the dark line in the middle. So while you can see the the green line which is the black infants has has dropped that gap or the that has come down that gap is sorry that gap has stayed um rather consistent. it it narrowed but it has stayed consistent since and um any baby's dying is unacceptable but the fact that we still have that gap and have not closed that gap that is work

that needs to be done and I do want to commend the city I think one of the biggest steps we have taken as a community is to um fund RX kids I think that is going to do a significant amount of um that's going to take a big chunk out of this. Um, it's going to address a lot of the underlying factors that impact this outcome or that contribute to this outcome. And I look forward to seeing the the results um of that investment on these outcomes. All right. And then this is kind of like if we were to sum up all of the things, all of those systemic things that are happening, all of those outcomes we've looked at, this is at a Jackson County level, but this is kind of like the sum of our resident experience

shows up at the end of life, right? So, our Jackson County residents enjoy almost 76 years of life. white residents are doing a bit better. Okay. Our black residents are not experiencing the full life that they could. So, um, health outcomes, all of these outcomes we've talked about are negatively impacting our black and African-American residents. Okay. So, we have work to do there to address like poverty, all of those housing uh how housing outcomes we talked about, all of those social determinants of health impact these outcomes. All right, this one might seem somewhat out of place, but youth outcomes feed up into all of these. So when we build strong young people, they turn into strong, productive adults and youth resilience is very very important because resilience is all about being able to adapt and handle those challenging um situations, bounce back, be able to um you know it's a def definition of resilience. Um so we can see that um this is actually from the MIFI which is the Michigan profile for healthy youth. It's a survey that folks, not folks, young people, middle school and high school students take while they're in school. But it's one of the ways that um it's youth protective factors, but it's one of the ways that social emotional health is kind of assessed. Um it's one of the ways that we um that we measure youth resil youth resilience. It's also aligned with ACES. So, um I'm sure everyone has heard of ACES, but um anyway, adverse child experiences,

which also influence health outcomes. Um but having a adult in your neighborhood that they could talk to about something important is actually a protective factor. So having a caring adult ha a child having a caring adult in their life actually is something that contributes to that that child growing to be a resil you know it's a resilient factor right and that that adult being someone other than a parent in their household or a loved one that's important so you can see middle school students that have A's or B's are more likely to have that caring adult. Um, and then you see when they get to high school, they're a little less likely to have that caring adult in their life. Um, says a little bit something about our neighborhoods. It has a little says a little something about our um the way our neighborhoods are built these days, how our social interactions happen. Um, this is not city specific. We don't collect the data in that way. We don't get the data in that way. Um, but that's something to be thinking about. This is specific to the city of Jackson. And as I was pulling the data, this was almost the most important slide for me, especially as a city of Jackson resident because to me, this is probably the most important foundation of the work we can do together. because I feel like when we have that sense of belonging, that sense of being able to do good work together, anything is possible. So, these are actually results from our community survey. So, we actually asked people um that first one, we asked people if they felt like when how often they felt like they got the social and emotional support they needed. City of Jackson residents said, "Oh, so

53% of City of Jackson residents said always or usually." That number is pretty low. 46% of folks strongly agreed or agreed with the statement that they felt a sense of belonging and acceptance in the community. Less than half that bottom one. So, I manage the Jackson Collaborative Network. That bottom one, that was startling because my job is all about bringing people together to figure out how to solve community problems. And and that right there, we've got uphill battle to do. So, 28% of folks in our community think we can come together strongly agree or agreed that we can come together when if there were a serious problem, we could come together and solve it. Only 28% of city residents feel that way. So that felt h I felt that in my heart and it it anyway. So that's about trust. That's about trust relationships. That's about like repairing that. Um so I feel like that's work we can do together. Um, all right. So, just to close because I'm sure I'm at time maybe. Um, so here's what I'll leave you with. So, clearly the data makes some clear some things clear. Um, our systems aren't working. None of this data was was a surprise to any of us because we have looked at this before. Um it provides us with a lot of opportunities to make different decisions in different ways. Um we have

an opportunity to work differently together. Um city council is uniquely positioned because you make decisions that impact policies. You make decisions that impact resources and the way dollars get spent in our community. Um, so my call to action, if I get to be so bold, is um, use your policies, use your budget decisions and oversight authority to identify those systemic barriers, identify those things that are impacting things at the root cause and involve residents whenever you can to root out those systemic barriers. and and redesign those things that you can um and be transparent. So, some of the feedback that we got from residents in in that trust space, right? Like the the feeling that they're really not involved in in the the ability to make decisions, the ability to impact how things are done, that transparency piece is a big deal. Um and so being open and and listening and making decisions based on their feedback. Um that kind of thing is consistent feedback we get. Um, but I think having having city council as city leaders take a lead on addressing root causes similar to how you've taken decision- making or decision-m lead on things like RX kids, things like the MLK Authority Project, things like um 100 homes. Like those are big bold decisions that don't make a lot of people happy, don't make everybody happy, but they are the right thing to do for specific populations in our community. And I do encourage you to continue making the unpopular decision when they're the right thing for

specific populations that have are experiencing disparities. Um because those targeted solutions are the ones that are going to address those root causes. They won't be the solution for everybody. So, thank you for that. And um any questions for me? Thank you so much, Sherry. Uh council, what questions do you guys have? I have a question, Sherry. So, in the demographic data that you shared there, there's no Spanish speaking, Latino included. Is there a reason for that?

So, the demographics at at the high level Uh are you talking about the disagregated data? I'm talking about the city of Jackson demographics of who just the population. There's nothing in there about that. Yeah. So this particular slide because it's the number gets really small. Yeah. Okay. Yes. Yes. So we do have um race and ethnicity data. So when we drill down to that level, we do. Okay. Um we didn't I didn't bring it tonight. It is in the full report though. Okay. So I actually have I do have one more slide. My apologies. I turned it off. I have one more slide and it does have a link to the full

Oh, wrong way. There you go. So, um the full report does have all of the demographics in it. Okay. Um and it shows all of those breakdowns because we did collect that data. Okay. And it does show the the specific breakdown of all of that. Yes. And then so then the survey that data that was collected was Spanish speaking. The survey was be able to reach Spanish speaking. The survey itself was not put out that way, but we did provide resources should someone need that. So we would be respondent if folks needed that resource. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. Hey Sher. Yes.

How many years have you guys been doing the community survey? I'm I'm assuming you do it annually. So we actually do the survey component every three years. Okay. Um the health system actually started it well so health systems are required to do it as an IRS um requirement. So they've done it for a very long time but our our collaborative network took it on about 10 years ago and we've been doing it.

Yeah, we've done three of them. Um at that point when we took it over it started to be more focused on social determinants of health. So things like housing and food and uh employment and things like that. Prior to that it was very um health focused. Are they available on your website by any chance? I'm just curious about trends too past. Absolutely. They go back until the ones on the website go back to 2008. Yep. council, what other questions do you guys have? Um, I had

I do have a question. Um, thank you Sherry for this information. Very detailed for the areas of youth resilience, food stress, and children living in pover poverty. You said you didn't have that disagregated data for this at the city level. What are the barriers for obtaining that information? So, the food stress one we can um we can provide. Um I did not have access to it to get it for tonight. Um the food stress, we definitely can get that one. Um the the city I'm going to pull it up here. The one that I talked about for the Oh, no, wrong way.

Yeah, the children living in poverty one. that one we are not able to get. Um that is just data that we don't collect. It's from a national source. Um and that's just not available to us at a city level. Um I had our data specialist check on that and it's just not it's just not available at that level. It comes from the census. Um and we've we've looked into it. It's just not available. Um we could potentially explore other sources, but I I don't think it's available. Um

oh the youth resilience that is myi data that's only available at the county level. Yeah. Yep. And that's something we get through my school data. Um I think the only um Yeah. I think that's only available to us at the county level. Yeah. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you. Sherry on the perception of safety um slide um you gave a statistic for out county um who said uh I think you said 90% of people outside the county said they feel safe. Um what was the percentage of people who said they feel safe at night outside the county? Oh, and I believe that particular stat I did not bring to be honest with you. I do not have that with me. That's okay. I'm going to follow up on that. I'll send it to you. Okay. Thank you.

Yes, I will. I should have that with me. It's not in my notes, council. Any other questions? Well, thank you very much. I just had one more question. I'm sorry. So, I re I appreciate you highlighting like some of the actionable items that we've taken. So, um

when you talk about collaborating with the city council, can you give me examples of like what is the what would the Jackson Collaborative Network do as part of that? So, I think one of the things that we would really appreciate being able to do um some of that cross- sector collaboration because I do believe that some of our some of our issues we have in Jackson are that honestly we as the people get in the way of some of the solutions. So, our systems are very siloed. And when we think about solving issues like our housing issues, our food um access and affordability issues, um a lot of those issues are those problems are held in place because we as system leaders are not working really well together. So I think from a city council perspective, the the power that you hold as a as a as a leader in the community, as someone who can convene, um someone who who holds a um you have the ability to bring people together because of the the policy role you play, the dollars that you hold, the you know the role you play as a a leader in the community. I think that convening piece bringing bringing the folks together who do the work I think helping in that space to um I don't want to say force that's not the right thing but I think I think helping to bridge those gaps because I I feel like we need to we need to be able to bring bring people together to redesign rethink how we deliver services and how we support people that don't look like what we're doing now because this is what we get when we do what we're do we do now. Um, and we'll keep getting more of this if

we keep doing more of what we're doing now. I don't know if that's very clear, but the that cross- sector collaboration and finding ways to potentially leverage the decisions that this the city council makes that helps drive that cross- sector collaboration. So, I don't know if that's funding decisions, policy decisions, um things like that that potentially make those things intersect maybe. Yeah. One final question, Sherry, on for me. Um, are there any youth involved in collecting this data?

Funny you should ask. Um, currently no. Um, partly because we only because of the community assessment and how we use the data, all of our data reflects 18 and older except for that that MiFi data that we utilize. And that was rather new when we took on the assessment piece. Um, so we don't do any primary data collection like directly interacting with students. We only do that primary data collection with folks that are 18 and older. And that was a decision that we made um when we took on the project. Doesn't mean we won't move in that space. Um, we have had some conversations with some folks leading some youth work here in the community um about potentially doing some listening sessions and and um focus groups and things like that similar to what we did with our work this year. So, that potentially could be a way of testing it out. Um there are different concerns when we work with youth as far as you know there's just different things to think about um when we work with youth and it is not something we've done before and we'd want to be careful about that because it's not our wheelhouse. It's not our area of expertise. So we'd we'd have some learning to do.

Yeah. But it's not outside of the role. We do have our youth council. What's that? We do have our youth council and they are extension but that is who we talk to of this body. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I didn't want to put them on on blast, but that is who we talked with. Um, so yes. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Thank you. Thank you, Sherry. We appreciate you very much.

Thank you. Appreciate you. Okay, council, if you will refresh your screens uh so that your voting apparatuses is working correctly, we will proceed in the agenda. Are we good to go, madam clerk? Okay. Um Okay, we have no public hearings today. Uh that brings us down to citizen comment portion of the meeting. I will start every meeting or every um citizen comment portion the exact same with reading the rules for speaking before the city council. Number one, each speaker will state their name and address prior to addressing council. Number two, each speaker is limited to up to three minutes during the uh during the citizen comment portion of the meeting. Council members will not debate or answer questions at this time. Number three, each speaker should be polite and courteous to the council and the members of the public in attendance. While any speaker is free to express his or her opinion on any subject, no speaker may direct personal attacks at any member of the staff or council unrelated to the manner in which they perform their duties. Use obscene language while addressing the city council or engage in disruptive or disorderly behavior during a council meeting. Number four, should any speaker cause a breach of the peace through their conduct, the mayor may declare the speaker out of order. Number five, if a speaker is declared out of order by the mayor and refuses to cease and desist from disruptive or disorderly conduct, the mayor may order the person removed from the meeting. Number six, each speaker may speak once under public comment and may not yield their time to others. Beth Kipley Good evening. Thank you, Mayor. Um, city staff, uh, city council, and

all those that are listening. I'm Beth Kyper, DDA director, and I'd like to talk about a new event that we have come up with, a new program called Tuesday Tens. This is a $10 lunch program. It's once per month. It is the first Tuesday of the month and it kicks off this coming Tuesday, March 3rd, from 11 to 2. We have 18 different restaurants that are participating. Like I said, $10 lunches. Can't beat that. Very excited. Our menus are just done and you can check those out either on our Facebook page under the events, but we also have these handy dandy postcards. And then we also have posters located throughout the downtown if you want to check those out. We've got homecooked meals from GRB. We've got um we've got hamburgers and fries and then we've got healthier options from places like Healthies 101. So, I'm encouraging everyone to check it out. Um I am Lancing based and I heard on the radio up in Lancing that they were talking about it up there. So, it's already becoming a statewide initiative. Um and then another fun fact, too, is that we've got an eating competition coming in. Kyle can eat is going to try to eat all the food in two different sittings. So, he's going to do nine meals on March 3rd and then he's going to do the remaining nine meals as well in April. So, we're really excited about that to have um an influencer come to Jackson for that. Also, on Friday morning, we will be giving away one free lunch and you can take somebody of your choice. So, two free lunches. We'll do that um at 7:00 a.m. on K105.3. What you have to do to enter is just jump on Facebook, look at the event, and say that you're going, and you're entered to win. Um, the other thing that the DDA has going on, of course, there's a lot, but we had just wrapped up our impact report for 2025, which is our annual report. Very exciting stuff. We had worked with Leadership Jackson in

the past, and this year we're showcasing once again what we did very well in 25 and looking forward to 26. Please look for that. And lastly, we have back to March 3, we have a community meeting at the theater from 5:30 to 7 pm. Community is invited. This is really geared towards the small businesses. We're going to discuss everything that's coming up like the Shakui boardwalk that we'll see on May 14th, Thursday, from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. And then, of course, our cruising and concerts, which will be bigger and better again this year. So, thank you everyone for this time to to speak uh to the public. and feel free to reach out um Facebook, email, phone call. I'm always available. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Terry Dermire. Okay. Thank you, Jerry McGomery.

My name is Gerald McGomery. I live at 341 Hill Street, Jackson, Michigan. I'm concerned about the shootings and the homicides in the city of Jackson. We've had one a week ever since the first year in Newly. End of the eighth week of the year and we've already had eight of them. Somebody's got to do something with the order. I hear some more cops or something. Somebody's got to get rid of these gangs. They're all over out on the road. You listen to somebody on a CB and they call this Little Detroit on account of the deaths. And these motorbikes that I got in our area, which is northeast side, they're running all hours of night up and down the streets, breaking into cars on these motorcycles, moinbikes that don't even have a license on them. And when are we going to take care of that building that was burnt down on North Street three and a half years ago? Still got the fence down there blocking the sidewalk off, but all the windows are knocked out and the gates wide open. People going in there like like it's Michigan Avenue and whatever happened to the oldfashioned neighborhood watch, nobody wants anything to do with it. Nobody wants to hold a meeting for her to have one because nobody listens. Thank you, James Minn.

Good morning, councelor. Good afternoon. Good evening, council. Um, James Minnik. Uh, I have a couple of issues to address. It's kind of fitting because I didn't plan on doing this, but I got all of my taxes uh in the last couple of weeks and I feel that there's been a disruption in the financial food chain where collaborating networks, department heads, bureaucrats believe that they're internal think tanks. They meet with finance earers, developers, state agencies, regulators, outside consultants to come up with recommendations that impact and change social programs, settled agreements, department budgets, or increases to private contractors. I did not elect them yet. I pay for the I pay for their consulting behind closed doors. Furthermore, these secret or omitted discussions are often never given the proper parliamentary process of review. Um, the report we just seen wasn't on there this morning on the website. Um, furthermore, these secrets are these secret or omitted decisions are often never given the proper parliamentary process for review. released on a Friday and passed on a Tuesday. As a taxpayer that puts his money where his mouth is, I am taking a position in the in that fin I am taking my position at the head of that financial food chain, which is the top dog head honcho as my dad my father would say. He used to say that. He said, "I'm the top dog head honcho." This is my stake in Michigan. I own three properties. uh in three different counties in

Michigan and I own uh three in county in Jackson County townships and four cities or four parcels in the city. Um I pay all of your salaries and I support all the staff's families. Yet I feel dehumanized and abandoned by my elected officials. You have seated your power and I am stage I am staging a parlay or a mutiny sooner or later. I have a property in Summit. I got property in Spring Arbor, property in Parma, property in Berian Township, four parcels in Duego Township, four parcels in the city. I have a stake. I belong. Um, also to the Republican party, I'm coming for you. I'm reclaiming my title. This county is mine. I ain't got time. But this is probably going to be the first black governor. John James. He's going to He's a Republican. Um I guess I was showing everybody that because I've been around a lot longer than you have.

Thank you, James.

Nicholas Thirstston. Um, good evening. My name is Nicholas Thirstston. I live Jackson, Michigan, 410 Bamb Street, apartment B, W 5. Um, I've heard most of this report. Um, this is garbage. Most of the stuff that the nonprofit organizations in Jackson do is garbage. And, uh, it's reports like this that just confirm what I already knew to be true. Right. So, most of these people suck at their job. They do little to no actual work. They tell a lot of stories about how they're going to save the world and they're the superman and just they just need more funding. We just need more funding. Isn't that what they always say? And that's what they're here for. They want money. But it sounds like they're already failing. I mean, 10 years into it, they got the whole city and all the uh nonprofits, all the funding sources wrapped around their finger. Why can't they pull it together? Cuz they're not the solution to our problems. never have been. Um I think that in a country where we've spent $ 38 trillion in the last hundred years to be where we are to hear the types of stories that make certain neighborhoods sound like third world countries um just reaffirms what I already knew to be true and what I see the Donald Trump administration doing is they're tackling the double standards. Affirmative action programs don't do what they say they're going to do. The people that get hired for them don't do what they say they're going to do. A lot of them never follow through. They get big paychecks. They get their pictures taken. They're on the news. They shake hands with everybody. But do they act do any meaningful work? No. They're a bunch of political activists that are self- serving. All they care is about their own pay paychecks and uh reputation. But uh a lot of the stuff reality just simply doesn't match the stories that are told and all the promises that are made. And um you know I I'm not a homeowner in Jackson. have thought about

it, but really you guys are a liability. And your home is not an asset. Your home is a liability. If you live in a city where the government is out to get you, they're always investing your money on stupid ideas that make drug dealing a lower priority than parking tickets downtown, that's a liability. Your house is a liability. The taxes you pay to the people that come up here and they waste your money on things that go directly against the survival of your own family, things that put your life at risk. This is a reflection. These statistics are a reflection of the things that you guys believe are good. And as much as you don't like me, we're on complete total polar opposite sides of the spectrum. So I think that means I'm right because there's a million reports like this that say how much Democrat cities suck and how wrong you guys are, how much how terrible all the schools and colleges are and how much people are struggling to survive. And I don't agree with any of it. And um I'm unapologetic about it. And I hope John James does win. He would be an excellent leader for our state. Um, he works in international supply chain. He is married. He's a family man. He's a military veteran. He's a smart guy. Very smart guy. Super talented. Very strong. He knows what he's talking about. He says what he means and he follows through on stuff. Thanks for your time. Bye.

Good job,

John C. King. John King 203rd Street here in the city. I didn't have any intention of coming here. I was eating. It was 6 6:30 and then I heard the you know that our uh either prayer or obser uh observing or whatever was dedicated to Jesse Jackson. And I thought, "Holy cow." uh this you know about a guy who was very anti-semitic and I sent you all a link you can look it up um and then you know there was his counseling President Clinton on adultery uh you know the Monica Lewinsky deal and he uses that to go to Washington DC and get a woman knocked up wasn't his wife you know the, you know, suggestion that Jesse Jackson was worthy of some great admiration is just wrong. Speaking of uh like a born out of wedlock uh child as you know with that case Jesse Jackson um that's sort of a really big issue. Monica Moser kind of blew it off, suggested, you know, she did say, "Oh, it's tough raising a child." Well, for two parents it is, and it's even harder to a child born out of wedlock. Um, so with Sherry Butter's thing, I started watching that and a lot of Tasha Carter in there, you know, some of the jargon

she likes to use and other social justice warriors that um, you know, she mentions, oh, uh, certain categories, uh, like poverty, it's worse in the city than out in, you know, outside the city. And it's like, no stuff, Sherlock. Um, you know, we kn we know all those things. And you know, one place Sherry Butters was right. She mentioned something about money having been thrown at problems. Yeah. And it it and it really didn't work. Maybe it almost uh made things worse. You know, that's the uh RX Kids thing. Let's throw some money at the problem. Uh and finally uh I there last few days there was some polls that had like uh President Trump being minus 27 on in his handling of inflation. Inflation's gone down from 3.0 to 2.4 in his time. So people in the media lives are just wrong.

Thank you, Mr. King.

That concludes our citizen comment portion of the meeting and brings us down to item number eight, our consent calendar. At this time, I'd be looking for a motion and support on the consent calendar. All right, it's been moved and supported. Any comments, questions, concerns, deletions, additions? Seeing hear none, the clerk will tally and display the vote.

Brother Wood. It said you not joined. It jumped you out. Got you jump back in now.

Second time is a charm. Third time. We don't need a third time. There we go. Okay. Consent calendar is passed. Um um no other business. Uh no new business. Um council member comments. Anybody want to volunteer to go first? I'll go first. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. No comment.

Okay. Okay. Council member Robinson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, I just want to thank the residents that came out last Tuesday. Um and the staff that came out Tuesday for my uh ward meeting as we are one of the pilot uh wards um received very well um had a couple calls afterwards. So um so I thought it went very well. I also want to thank Sherry for her presentation today and um I guess that's it. All right. Thank you,

Council Member Gun. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, yes, thank you to the Jackson Collaborative Network for their presentation tonight and I've seen previous reports and um, appreciate all the hard work in putting that data together and um, and that's it. I really don't have any other comments tonight. Thank you. Okay. Uh, Council Member Wood. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, city staff. Thank you, members of the public. Thank you to the collaborative network. Uh, I wonder if our city manager could refresh us on the status of the burnedout building on North Street in his comment. Thank you so much, Council Member Hunt.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Sherry, for your presentation tonight. And um, as a elected official, I think it's important that we um, continue the conversation with how what that looks, the collaboration, that cross- sector um, collaboration to see the change that our city so desperately needs. And thank you all that came to the meeting tonight. We appreciate your comments always. Um, yes, there is some concern with our violence occurring so frequently in our city. We hear you and I want to see us do something new and different. We have a responsibility to change our communities. Thank you,

Council Member for Grave. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Um, I would like to thank uh the Jackson Collaborative Network and Sherry as well for coming out tonight and giving uh their presentation. Um, I was reminded tonight and I'm really reminded at every meeting. Um, that it's easy to say everything sucks and it's easy to say I was right all along and it's much harder to try. So, thank you all for trying. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Forraven. And I agree 100%. Um, I wanted to do this at the beginning of the meeting. Um, but, uh, during the invocation, Connor Wood already did it. Um, but I want to extend this opportunity for a moment of silence to not just the Reverend Jesse Jackson, but also to um, the multiple community members that we've lost here. Um, we've lost some young people in some uh tragic car accidents. Um, and uh, we also lost someone who I was um, who is just like a superstar to a lot of people in Jackson, Cara Braxton, um, who is a 10se season professional woman's basketball player, um, who just recently passed. And so I just want to ask for just a a a quick moment of of silence. Um, please my heart goes out to all the families right now who are are grieving. the the

biggest thing that I think I've noticed which I mean I have dealt with a lot of death um coming from such a large family um so I'm not a stranger to death but uh having someone young and so very close to my heart losing them um every time anyone uh passes away I mean uh anytime someone loses somebody it makes you hyper sensitive um to other people losing family members. And so my heart truly goes out to to all of the families who are are grieving right now. Um and again, I just ask for people to be gentle uh and be cautious when dealing with other individuals. You don't know what they may be dealing with in their personal lives. Um especially individuals who are sitting behind this desk. Um yeah, we have a job to do and we signed up for that job, but a lot of times we have to show up. no matter what. Um, and again, I just say give give people some grace and that that should extend on both sides. Uh, that's not just me saying that our public should extend grace to the elected officials. We also have to extend that same grace back to our public. um in times when they come and this may be the only opportunity for them to share what they're feeling, what they're going through, what their experiences are um in our community, we also have to extend them grace. Uh whether we agree or disagree, this may be the only moment that they get where they feel like someone has to listen to me at this time. Um, I'm not going to belabor anymore, but I do, in the honor of uh, Black History Month, have one last thing to say. I am black. I'm beautiful.

Black is beautiful.

I am proud. I must be respected. I must be protected. I am somebody. Those are the words of the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Uh, and despite how you may feel about him personally, um, I think his record stands for itself. Mr. City Manager. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, very timely question from a member of the public today. Just last week on Wednesday the 18th, the Jackson County Land Bank awarded Salon Bean Trucking and Excavating a contract in the amount of about $1.2 million to perform subsurface demolition. So the footings, the foundations that are still um on the site um that were a part of the fire damage building uh have those uh removed. Um, let me switch over to another piece of information. It's going to include about 20,000 cubic feet of materials removed from the site. Includes concrete and then also contaminated soil. um 4,000 they're estimating 4,000 cubic feet of the soil can be retained and regraded on site, but they'll have to bring in 11,000 cubic feet of clean soil for the property. This is the second contract that the county land bank has considered for this project after receiving a $3 million grant from the state land bank. So, what we'll see with this one is the structures that are still up right now will remain up until this is done and then the land bank will evaluate what is permissible and possible um with the leftover money whether they

can be used to tear down the rest of it or not. We're navigating some channels with Eagle and the EPA. And so, this is what we're permitted to do right now under the grant, but we're in constant communication with those two groups because they're advising us on on all of this. So, that's what I have for you tonight. That's all. Okay. All right. I got one more thing. I'm ready. I'm slipping. Uh, Wednesday, March 4th. Oh, right.

At 6:00 p.m., uh, state of the city address, um, if you don't come to hear me talk, which I don't plan to talk a whole lot, I promise you. um at least come to help recognize those individuals who we plan to give the key to the city to. Um and so again, that'll be right at the city center uh next week, March 4th, 6 p.m. Looking for a motion to adjourn. We are journ