City Council - Regular Meeting

I mean they designed.

Check, check.

You go to a meeting with consumers. Okay.

Good evening, everybody. It is Tuesday, June 16th, 632 at this time. We'll call our city council meeting to order. We will start with Pledge of Allegiance and then invocation will be given by Fourth Ward Council Member Connor Wood.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame with conquering limbs astride from land to land, here at our sea-washed sunset gates shall stand a mighty woman with a torch whose flame is the imprisoned lightning and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon hand glows worldwide welcome. Her mild eyes command the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp, cries she with silent lips. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Madam Clerk, if you will proceed with a roll call, please.

Mayor Mahoney.

Present.

Council Member Robinson. Present. Vice Mayor Dancy.

Yes, sir.

Council Member Gunn. Council Member Wood.

Present.

Council Member Hunt. Present. Council Member Forgrave.

Present.

All right. Thank you very much. And next, we'll be looking for a motion in support to adopt the agenda.

So moved.

Supported. It's been moved and supported. Any questions, comments, concerns, additions, deletions? Seeing or hearing none, the clerk will tally and display the vote. Is somebody opening the agenda on the screen up there?

Hey, Judge, you talked a little over to, uh,

Okay, agenda. Okay, there we go. Agenda passes unanimously. And that brings us down to item number five, presentations and proclamations. And item A is a presentation from our friends at AARP. Rich, how you doing, sir? I am fantastic on this Tuesday evening.

Wonderful. Well, I really appreciate the opportunity. We, my colleague, appreciate the opportunity to speak with you this evening. Thank you, Vice Mayor Dempsey, for assisting us with this. As Mayor Mahoney knows, I am the Associate State Director for Outreach for AARP here in Michigan. And AARP, as I think you all know, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works for the benefit of all people to live and age the way that they would like to do so. My job is in the outreach area, whereas you'll hear from my colleague Jason, who's in the advocacy area. My job is to work with leaders like yourself and ask how you want AARP to engage in your community. And then I'm fortunate enough to have great volunteers that that helped me do that. One actually being in the chambers now in Cathy Moore. One of the things that is really popped up is. And we are getting many, many requests to give presentations to help protect our citizens. As is Chief Simpson and all of the law enforcement as well. One particular that's really, really difficult right now is the fraud that happens through cryptocurrency kiosks. that would kind of remind you of like an ATM. They're not an ATM. They're much more dangerous in the Jackson area. When we first started getting information from the FBI, there were approximately 40 cryptocurrency kiosks in the Jackson area. Jason is going to share with you a different number that is much more current and much more scary. What's happening is our older population is receiving phone calls among other kinds of communication. And they're, you know, it's all about creating that urgency. You have to do this right now so that you don't give your, in this case, your victim an opportunity to really think through that. They take cash. They even stay on the phone with the fraudster. And they walk them and say, you know, there's a cryptocurrency machine right down the street, right there in Meyer. Believe it or not, that's true. And they will talk them through putting cash into this cryptocurrency, which obviously then is lost, virtually impossible to to get back. And so we are here tonight to share with you that that warning of cryptocurrency kiosks. The FBI did do a, I guess, research and went back and looked at the transactions happening at the cryptocurrency ATMs and 93% of the transactions held some kind of, had some kind of fraudulent issue attached to them. And so nothing wrong with cryptocurrency. This is absolutely not about cryptocurrency. It's simply about this medium that exists that is causing a lot of pain. And we're about financial security, and the best way for our seniors to lose financial security or anybody is to be scammed like this. So we've asked my good friend and colleague Jason Lachowski to come in to share a little bit more of the numbers and some of the facts of this issue. So with that, I will.

I do have a presentation I sent forward. Okay. Council members, I want to thank you for the opportunity to present to this body concerning a growing threat to the financial security of all Michiganders, and that is cryptocurrency kiosk fraud. I'll start, though, as my colleague noted, AARP is a or I should say we are a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. In addition to our outreach work, we actively advocate on issues important to older adults at the national, state and local level. We advocate on a range of issues, including making it easier to save for retirement. supporting family caregivers through tax credits, which our bill in the Michigan legislature would do just that, just actually advance from committee today. We also advocate to improve access to healthcare, reduce the cost of prescription drugs, and expand affordable and accessible housing. One area that AARP has increasingly gotten involved in is to advocate for consumer protection policies to reduce and prevent scams and fraud. The types of frauds and scams have largely remained the same, but what has changed is how scammers utilize cryptocurrency kiosks as the getaway driver. Previously, scammers would have their victims put $100 bills between the pages of a magazine and then mail it to an intermediary. Then they moved on to gift cards, which victims would then provide the scammers the code on the back, resulting in the loss of funds. Now they use cryptocurrency kiosks. But what are they? Simply put, cryptocurrency kiosks is a physical device where people can go to engage in virtual currency transactions. They often resemble ATMs. But I want to be very clear, cryptocurrency kiosks are not ATMs. They do not have any types of the legal protections associated with ATMs. And for the most part, cryptocurrency kiosks are unregulated at the federal, state, and local level. These machines allow users to purchase virtual currency with cash or a credit or debit card. Some of the machines will allow you to withdraw, as in sell virtual currency for a fiat currency. such as cash, or exchange one type of virtual currency for another. I will note that most of the machines are deposit only. The machines charge a fee to conduct this transaction and generally fall between 5 and 35%, but we see often transaction fees in the low 20% range. Due to the decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies, these machines provide a fast and irreversible way to steal from Americans. The scam goes something like this. Scammers will identify a victim through a variety of means, whether it's an email that you will be charged for an unauthorized purchase, a text message that you didn't pay a toll and will be subject to fines, or by phone using AI to simulate a relative's voice to indicate that they are in trouble and need money now. Scammers utilize psychological tactics to put their victims into a heightened emotional state where they stop making rational decisions and instead rely on emotion. And while we often think of that emotion being fear, such as you've been hacked and your money's not safe, scammers also use other emotions as well. They use greed through investment-style scams and love and romance scams, to name a few. Once on the hook, scammers direct victims to withdraw large sums of money from their bank and then instruct them to take it to a cryptocurrency kiosk. Once deposited, the scammer will either get the wallet and key information from the victim and transfer the money out to their own account, or what we've seen more commonly is that criminals will send a QR code to the victim and they will scan that at the machine. So they are in essence depositing money directly into the scammer's account. As I mentioned, once the transaction occurs due to the decentralized nature of these currency, there's no way to reverse the transaction and the funds are gone. OK. And these machines are everywhere. You can see here on a map, this is the city of Jackson. And each one of these dots with a number, that represents the number of cryptocurrency kiosks in that small area. This is actually from a website called Coin ATM Radar. We've seen that these machines are just about everywhere and can be found all across the state. But due to a lack of regulations, we don't know exactly how many of them there truly are. Current estimates indicate that there are about 30,000 of them nationwide, and they're growing at a significant rate. This next side shows a screenshot from the FBI's Internet Crimes Complaint Center 2025 annual report, which was released earlier this year. The report tracks many types of fraudulent activity that local law enforcement report up to the FBI, and the report shows that in 2025 Americans lost $389 million through cryptocurrency kiosks, and that was a 58% increase in losses over 2024. Additionally, as you can see, of that 389 million, over 300 million of it, or 77%, was from those 50 and older, which as you can tell is why AARP is getting involved with this. So this type of fraud disproportionately impacts older adults. While those numbers are staggering and they are likely under representative of the actual impact, research has shown that victims of fraud often do not report to law enforcement for a variety of reasons, including feelings of guilt or shame, or they simply don't realize that they're a victim. So what can we do? AARP has identified a number of policies to protect residents. A number of investigations from state attorney generals have found that large percentage of transactions on these machines are related to fraud. As Rich noted earlier, an example being the Iowa attorney general found that between two of the largest kiosk operators in that state, 90% of the transactions that occurred there were related to fraud. Due to the significant amount of fraud, AARP supports outright prohibitions on these machines, and three states, Indiana, Tennessee, and Minnesota, all with vastly different political makeups of their own, have taken this route. 27 other states have enacted regulatory frameworks with proven policies to prevent and reduce the impact of fraud, including low daily transaction limits for all users, requiring receipts with necessary information to trace transactions, and requiring refunds in proven cases of fraud. At AARP, we have local model ordinances available to either ban the machines or provide a strong regulatory framework. AARP earlier this year worked with the city of Sterling Heights on their ordinance to regulate the kiosk within their city. There has been some work in the Michigan legislature on this issue. Currently, there are three separate packages of bills to ban the machines and a fourth that would regulate them, but that bill does not currently have the strong consumer protections we at AARP recommend. While the state has bills introduced, action at the state level is of course never guaranteed, and that's why we at AARP continue to advocate to local units of government that this is an issue and to act on it now because this fraud is currently happening. Because of that, I do want to give a quick plug to the AARP Fraud Watch Network hotline. The Fraud Watch Network is a division of AARP that monitors and tracks frauds and scams in our communities all across the country. They were actually the division of AARP that first noticed that scammers were utilizing these machines. What's great about the helpline is they can provide advice to those who think they are being scammed or already have been scammed. And the hotline is free and available to use for anyone, regardless of age or AARP membership status. So with that, I want to thank the Council again for the opportunity to present about this imminent issue. I have my contact information up and I'm happy to take questions.

Thank you so much, Jason Council. What questions do you guys have? If any?

Not so much questions. I'd just like to thank, I got a call and asked to attend a webinar or a video conference about this. I'M GLAD WE WAS ABLE TO GET THIS ON AGENDA AND HAVE THEM COME AND TALK. I KNOW THERE'S A LOT OF, WE KNOW THERE ARE A LOT OF FRAUD OUT THERE. AND I NEVER HEARD OF CRYPTOCURRENCY FRAUD. SO I THOUGHT THIS WOULD BE SOMETHING COUNCIL CAN HEAR ABOUT, LEARN ABOUT, AND IF THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE FUTURE WE WANT TO DO, WE CAN DO IT. BUT I JUST WANTED THE ARP HERE TO TALK ABOUT WHAT THEY SEE, WHAT'S GOING ON IN THE COMMUNITY.

Would you be so kind as to provide us the draft language for those ordinances, please?

Absolutely. I'd love to. For both the prohibition and the strong regulatory framework? Probably best to have both. Can do.

Council, any other questions? Okay. Seeing or hearing none, thank you guys so much. Thank you so much. We appreciate you very much for that very useful information. Okay. That brings us down to public hearings, which we have none. Next brings us down to item number seven, our citizen comment portion of the meeting. Uh, now we'll start as we usually do 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 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 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. Gerald Montgomery.

My name is Gerald Montgomery. Thank you, General. And I think you ought to vote on it tonight to get rid of the machine. Number one, I think The only one up here that I recognize and respect is Arlene Robinson. I see she does something for the city. The sale of this land that you're planning on selling for a dollar, I think that's a joke. That was bought for a ru- create a grocery store, not to sell to some jerk that wants to put in a little strip mall. with a dollar tree in it because they got milk and water. You know what I mean? And this number K on your system here for the land purchase, don't do it. That's crazy. Good luck and good luck to all of you. Come election day, you'll be gone.

John T. King.

Thank you miss mayor jenking 203 3rd street here in the city. Um, so the non profit community first ink, uh, uh, to develop the property. It's not on the south side. So, you know, that's what it was originally supposed to be their experiences in affordable housing, not developing businesses. Uh, essentially they're another king's community homes. Uh, they have the extension. It's going to total 3 years for them to do something with it. When I checked their website, it mentioned consumers and energies foundation. So there's sort of that connection. Um. So you get consumer synergy that drops that contaminated, uh, property off on taxpayers. And you know, Mindy Brad is shorted. It's all involved with this with John Willis. They'll probably be laughing all the way to the bank while the taxpayers are getting, uh, uh, you know, uh, screwed. Um, And speaking of consumers while they do that pushing everything the cost on this property cleanup and to the taxpayers, the announced they just want to do record high rate increase so. You know, I know you're gonna vote for it, but I would say, uh, vote against it. Um, the AARP is the norm of the Democrat Party. Uh, they wouldn't be here speaking if that wasn't the case. Um, now I abhor. uh fraud whether it's with crypto with regular bank account accounts or anything else that includes voter fraud the c-shank and the senate dams to vote it to enable more voter fraud uh you know a couple years ago 2024 a chinese resident was able to vote in ann arbor in the election um how many others uh so um And a major complaint right now is a lot of Dems are suggesting they would rather go up in a nuclear mushroom cloud than to have safety, you know, against Iran and what Iran might do. There's so much. You know, it's just crazy that I seen a poll Most Democrats, a big majority, aren't proud of the country. You get Michelle Obama, who wasn't proud of her country until her husband was elected. There's way too many people like that. There's an important date coming up in the next few Weeks to the country's history and it's not June 19th and it seems like there should be a resolution here recognizing the 250th birthday of this great country. Thank you.

Cindy Eby

Cindy Evie. On February 21st, 2023, Jackson City Council voted against direct democracy. They did it dishonestly. They have never said out loud the reason for their wish to change our from odd to even years. But make no mistake about it, their intent was to make it more difficult for citizens of Jackson to use the processes of initiative, referendum, and recall. In other words, they wanted to make it more difficult for we the people to govern ourselves. How do I know what their purpose was? If you read the minutes of the meeting, you will see that the discussion began with an idea to change the wording in the charter from the word mayor to the word governor. Our charter charter calls for signatures on an initiative to number 10% of the voters in the last mayoral election. They were thinking if they changed that to the race for governor, it would require more signatures. Then they realized that that made them look Trumpy. So they went for the less obvious, but just as devious change to even numbered years. Unfortunately, they were not paying attention to our constitution. Our city charter is the constitution of Jackson. Everyone, including city council must follow it. it says except as otherwise provided by this charter or ordinance state law shall apply to the procedures relating to the conduct and canvas of elect of city elections except as otherwise provided by this charter that's the phrase that makes the upcoming elections illegal Our charter takes precedence over state law as long as it is not in violation of the law. Even the chair of the Charter Review Committee, Daniel Greer, stated in his memo recommending the change to city council, only a majority vote of the people can amend this charter. It is very clear that voters must approve any changes to our charter and that city council must follow our charter. You city council members may not have been aware of this violation of our city's constitution before I brought it to your attention. However, I did bring it to your attention last month. Not a single one of you has done or said anything about it. Now let's say that you all sit on your hands and do nothing, the most likely scenario. And Dobie wins. Also, as much as I hate it, the most likely scenario, all of those who lose the election will have the ammunition to overturn their election. I'm sure it'll happen. So please do not waste taxpayer money by moving forward.

Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you. That concludes our citizen comment portion of the meeting. It brings us down to item number eight, our consent calendar. Do we have a motion to support on the consent calendar? So move approval as presented. It's been moved. Just looking for a second. It's been moved and supported. Any discussion? Going once, going twice. Going three times. No discussion, no comments, no questions. The clerk will tally and display the vote. Item passes. And that brings us down to item number nine. I am looking for a motion and support. TO APPROVE THE SECOND READING AND FINAL ADOPTION OF ORDINANCE NUMBER 520, REGULATING THE PAY FOR NON-UNION CITY OF JACKSON EMPLOYEES, INCREASING THEIR PAY BY 3%. SO MOVED. SUPPORT. IT'S BEEN MOVED AND SUPPORTED. ANY QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, OR CONCERNS? SEEING AND HEARING NONE, CLERK WILL TALLY AND DISPLAY THE VOTES. I don't pass as unanimous brings us to item 10 item a, I'm looking to get a motion in support to receive the actuary variations as of June 30th, 2025 for the act three 45 policemen's and firemen's retirement plan, the employees retirement system and the policemen's and firemen's retirement system and approve the actuary funding necessary for the fiscal year, 2026, 2027. Second. moved and supported. Any discussion on the matter? Seeing or hearing none, the clerk will tally and display the vote. Let me slow down some. Item passes unanimously, brings us down to item B. Looking for a motion in support for the approval of the resolution to amend the fiscal year 2025-2026 general fund budget.

So moved.

Support. Moved and supported. Any discussion? Seeing or hearing none, clerk will tally and display the vote. Item passes unanimously. Brings us down to item C. Looking for a motion and support to approve a resolution for the right-of-way permit fee scheduled to reduce from the fee for underground installations by utility service providers from $500 to $200. So moved. Moved and supported. Any discussion?

I have a couple questions.

Yes.

Can staff, what brought this discretionary issue to light? That's what I can't talk about.

Yeah, we earlier brought a resolution to you guys to set fees for right-of-way permits. And once we started administering it, we realized that we had $500 in there where we intended to have $200. So we're basically just asking you to re-approve this resolution to correct that error and make the fee $200. $200 is sufficient to cover our staff costs to review and administer the permits. so for clarification we're reducing fees by voting yes on this yes thank you no we didn't because we realized it was an error so um mostly this applies mostly to um the people who are putting in um like fibers and cables around town and um so so they haven't been charged for it now

OK, seeing or hearing no other questions, the clerk will tally and display the vote. Item passed is unanimous. That brings us down to item D. Looking for a motion to support to approve the 2026-27 proposal from the Michigan Municipal League liability.

Excuse me and property pool for the city of Jackson's annual insurance renewal Moved and supported in any discussion Were there any other quotes considered There wasn't councilman hunt just because we've been a member of the MML since well before my time and probably from my three predecessors back to the early 80s. The liability and property pool is one of the most easy to work with insurance pools. We've got great claims counseling, great claims adjusters that handle all of our insurance renewal. So it's my strong recommendation that we continue, like a variety of other municipalities near us, that we renew with the MML. And the premiums went up about, so council's aware, about $81,000 this year. We do have some new cyber insurance coverage that we included as part of this year's policy. I think the ARP's presentation was timely in light of the coverage we have for that with the amount of cyber scams that municipalities malware, things like that that we're often exposed to. We also have some additional vehicles, and like everything else, we make improvements. We had a pretty comprehensive audit about a year and a half ago for all of our infrastructure, water plants, parks and rec. So all of our infrastructure that's insured makes up the insurance increase. We do get, because we're part of the pool, we get a dividend refund, that amount. Let me quote it, $23,390 back to us. So our net premium that we'll pay for our annual renewal will be $766,968 with that credit. CHRISTIE WOOD. Thank you. CHAIRMAN BRYANT.

Any other questions, comments, concerns? Seeing or hearing none, the Clerk will tally and display the vote. Item passes unanimous. That brings us down to item E. I'm looking for a motion to support to approve Amendment 1 to the 26-002 Morrell Street engineering contract with Hubbell, Roth, and Clark Incorporated of Jackson, Michigan at a not to exceed cost of $149,141 and authorized city manager and the city engineer to sign the appropriate document. It's been moved and supported. Any questions? Troy?

Well, Mr. Mayor, Troy, can you help me understand the 149-141 number? I'm seeing in your memo an 87-540 number. Did I mess up again? I'm just trying to make sure that I'm understanding what we're looking at here. Sounds like it's the permit fees all over again.

I can't explain it to you right off the top of my head. 149. I got 149 throughout, so what number are you seeing that's differently?

So engineering applied for and was awarded a safety grant to implement safety enhancements along Ganson Street. I think this is just the wrong attachment, it looks like.

No, it's not. So let me explain what it is. We applied for a grant, a safety grant, along Ganson Street. We call it the Ganson Street corridor. Really, the grant we received, the biggest thing we'll do is allow us to replace the traffic signal at Ganson and Waterloo. It's one of our last old-fashioned, out-of-date, antiquated signals. We will be doing a few other improvements in terms of sidewalk ramps and some pavement striping, and that helps us to score more points to get the grant. So what we're asking you to do is approve this amendment to add the signal work for Gansden Street to the Morrell Street project. It's similar in nature to what's on Morrell Street. Morrell Street, we've got a couple signals. just seems natural if we're going to do add another signal to add it to that morale street so it just kind of um it's a little more work that's the same what they're already doing so the 149 is for the added work to do the ganza street safety project yeah so it's a great word it's a bundle we're bundling the design of the ganza street signal with the signals on morale

I guess that answers a question, but I'm not sure it answers my question, which is the difference. If the difference is we're on the hook for $87,500.

No, I think I probably gave more information and made more confusion. The $87,500 is what we're going to have to pay during construction. We got, right, the estimated construction cost is $370,000. $35,000. That's how much it's going to cost to do the construction. Of that $735,000, we're going to have to pay $87,000. It's a great deal for us. But part of the deal, too, is that we have to pay the engineering.

Right.

So the $149,000 is the engineering. The $87,000 is our portion of the construction costs. OK. Thank you. All right.

OK. Council, any other questions? Seeing or hearing none, the clerk will tally and display the vote. Item passed is unanimous. That brings us to item F. Looking for a motion to support to approve the second renewal of the 2024 pavement marking contract with PK Contracting Incorporated of Troy, Michigan. in the estimated amount of $127,964.70 and authorization for the mayor and the city clerk to execute the appropriate documents in accordance with the purchasing agent. It's been moved and supported. Any questions, comments or concerns?

Yes, I have a question for Troy. Troy, can you provide an update on the contractor's performance to date in regards to quality, timeliness, and performance?

It's pavement striping, so it's pretty straightforward. They do an acceptable job, and they get it done by the end of the, before the snow flies every year. This is just, we do it every year, and yeah, they're qualified, they do a good job, and they get it done. They meet all the specs. Does that answer your question? Okay.

Seeing or hearing all the questions, the clerk will tally and display the vote. Item passes unanimous. And that brings us down to item G looking for a motion and support for the approval of the five year contract with hydro Corp incorporated of Troy, Michigan, and the amount of $400,798 and 80 cents to be paid in yearly installments over 60 months to perform inspections and compliance with all applicable residential properties required. TO HAVE AN APPROVED CROSS CONNECTION CONTROL DEVICE. SO MOVED. MOVED AND SUPPORTED. COMMENTS, QUESTIONS, CONCERNS? I SEE SOMEBODY IN THE AUDIENCE MOVING TO COME ON DOWN.

GOOD EVENING, MAYOR AND COUNCIL MEMBERS. DO YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS FOR ME? Okay, so Jonathan is aware. Eagle, every time we have a sanitary survey or we talk to Eagle, they really want us to do this cross-connection program. We've kind of been dragging our feet. And recently, we got audited by the EPA, and they kind of put the foot down, said it's time for you to do it. So what this is, is HydroCorp already does our... You know, the commercial. So they already inspect any boilers in the city that are, you know, make sure they have a cross-connection program. But now we need to do residential. And that's what this is about.

Before you get going too much, can you explain what a cross-connection is and what it prevents?

Okay. So a cross-connection is any place where... anything could be introduced into our distribution system, which means, you know, you could have a problem in a house and that water could backflow if there's main break or low pressure conditions and come back into our system and then it can create a contaminant. So They want us to make sure the residential customers are covered also. And really, you know, what they'll do is they'll go through all the residential customers, they'll inspect each and every house, and really what they're looking for is, like, if you have a sprinkler system, you know, you could be adding chemicals, you could be, you know, doing all these things. So we're going to make sure their residential customers are following the laws. And that's pretty much what it is.

And Eagles are requiring that we do this over the course of 10 years?

This is a deal I think the Eagle will accept. They'd really like us to have it all done right now as soon as possible.

And this is over the course of five, yeah? Yeah. Okay. Okay. And will we have to do it every 10 years?

We don't know what they're going to expect in the future. I don't want to make promises because, you know, we get done. You know how it is. We get done with this portion. We don't know what they'll expect in the future. Okay. so uh this i guess i'm trying to understand it goes they go into residences residential homes or not inside this is just outside you know they're gonna like they're gonna look for uh do you have an irrigation system you know things like that you know any any place where there could be a cross connection or you should have a backflow device

You said that they are currently working with our commercial buildings.

Yeah, they've been doing that for a long time.

What's that? What's that contract with this run concurrent? Is this a five year contract commercial and then a five year contract? Yes. But is there one through commercial? Is that a five year contract? I'm just asking.

I don't know what that is right top of my head.

I wanted to know if there was a shorter contract that we could have considered. We'll check.

Well, I think we need the length of the contract to perform all of the work. It's going to take that long to do all the work. That's what I'm saying. But we can get you the information on the commercial side. That comes up every so often as well. What else can I get you for you?

No, just wondering if five years was the only option that we had. That's my question.

Well, it's an option that we felt Dom Eagle would accept.

yeah we we decided that we want to get this done okay have we did we explore the option and i know mike that your department's very busy uh but is this something we have to have a third party do it yeah we don't have the capacity well there you go it requires a lot of people yes

Any other questions, comments, or concerns? Thank you, Michael. The clerk will tally and dissuade a vote. Passes unanimous, brings us to item H. Looking for a motion in support to approve the award of the major street HMA patching contract to michigan paving and materials company of grand rapids michigan at a cost of two hundred and thirty four thousand and seventy six dollars and twenty cents and authorized the mayor and city clerk to execute the appropriate documents it's been moved and supported any comments questions or concerns Seeing or hearing none, the clerk will tally and display the vote. Item passed is unanimous. Brings us to item I. Looking for a motion and support to approve the award for M106 Cooper Street Maintenance Paving Contract to Michigan Paving and Materials Company. of Grand Rapids, Michigan at a cost of $136,411.50 and authorize the mayor and the city clerk to execute the appropriate documents.

So moved.

It's been moved and supported. Any questions, comments, concerns?

Who's here to give us some explanation about It's Troy again. It's Troy again.

Okay. I can do it. It's just repaving Cooper Street from North Street up to the city limits, so pretty much up to the expressway.

Okay. I wanted to know how far. Okay.

Just that little short bit.

Okay.

To be clear, though, it won't be the full pavement. It's just patching portions of it that are in bad shape. Yes. Sorry. That was an overstatement.

Any other questions? Seeing or hearing none, the clerk will tally and display the vote. Item passed is unanimous. That brings us to item J. I'm looking for a motion to support. To award contracts for the fiscal year 2026 2027 purchase of water and wastewater treatment chemicals. It's been moved and supported. Any discussion on the item? Seeing here, none clerk will tally and display the vote. Item passes unanimously. That brings us down to item K. I'm looking for a motion to support to approve the lot purchase agreement between the city of Jackson and Communities First Incorporated for the vacant commercial property located at Cooper and Biddle Streets and authorize the city manager to execute the agreement on behalf of the city.

So moved.

It's been moved and supported. comments, questions, concerns.

Why the purchase? Why the sale? Just can we have some updates on the status of this whole project where we're at currently?

Good evening, Council. Just to update you on where the MLK-CIA with the Cooper Middle Street project is now. As you know, we acquired the property from Consumers Energy some while ago. I think it was read in one of the citizens' comments with the intent of purchasing the project for a developer. As a standard practice is selling properties to a developer at a reduced rate so they can raise the funds and do the things they need to do for a financial stack. So Consumers Energy sold us the property, also gave us $150,000 to help mitigate the property. We have some grants in, some other things that we are working on for the property, but we have a developer at this time. Our developer is actually here with us tonight, Communities First, Mr. Glenn Wilson. Glenn, you want to step up? Yes, sir. I'm going to talk about what that process entails in just a moment. Yes, sir.

Thanks a lot for having me here today. Nice to meet you all here in the city of Jackson. Glenn Wilson, president, CEO, founder of Communities First here. And as Mr. Willis was talking about here earlier with this project, we actually get additional points on applications when we're applying for different funding sources. when the property is donated you get it donated or gave at a very reduced rate like a dollar you get additional points on applications to get additional dollars so it's very similar to projects we do across the state of Michigan And so we're happy to be here. And then also, we're a nonprofit community development organization as well. And so we do this work to just do catalytic projects across the state of Michigan in communities such as Jackson. So we've done work Lansing, Jackson, I mean, not Jackson, Lansing, Saginaw, Detroit, Flint. So we go around and try to find projects that are very important and meaningful to communities. We try to work with community partners as much as possible, like MLK Corridor, in engaging them in the process. These projects take a lot of time. These are not things that just pop up overnight. The reason why we put three years in there, some people say, oh, why don't you want to just take down the property immediately? Because what we want to do is make sure we do all our due diligence the way it should be done. uh and we don't want to take we don't want to take the property uh from the city if the project could not move forward for any reason uh so then you know the city would still have an opportunity uh you know if we if for some reason it can't happen we can say you still have your you know you still get your property that's why the timeline is in there uh just gives us time uh but these projects normally always take us anywhere from from concept to conceptual to getting in the ground two to three years. That's just how these projects work. And we're looking at doing a mixed use project there on that site. If you got any questions for me, and I brought two people on my team with me as well. Ryan, which is one of our development managers. So he'll be also one of the leads on the project. And then Anthony as well. he's our planning advocacy manager uh so you know he'll be working uh with some people here in the city as well uh and i'll be all around john and everybody knows i can contact me very easily so very accessible anybody any questions

I do have a follow-up question. You said this is a mixed-use development. In addition to the grocery store, what else do you anticipate?

Yeah, we're looking, like our projects, we always try to bring, you know, density to communities. So one thing about the store in that location, it would be great if we can do some housing mixed with a commercial tenant, with a large commercial tenant, if we do a grocery store there. So you have housing on the top, large retail at the bottom there.

Thank you. So if you all have ever been to the Lansing area, it's a kind of common thing right now. The capital city market is an example of what he's talking about on the mixed use projects, as well as the Bridge Street project in Grand Rapids, Beaumont Street project in Detroit. So there's several projects.

I'm sorry, Mr. Willis. Mr. Mayor, I wonder if we could remind the audience that it's distracting for members if there's conversations going on while we're trying to hear a report.

No problem, Councilmember. I do want to remind our audience that it is rather distracting when there's loud side conversations and we're trying to hear what's going on in the meeting. We appreciate your cooperation. Thank you.

So when this project started, the MLK CIA had a survey sent out to its residents on what was needed for the community. The number one need was the grocery store, fresh food access, which they haven't had for over 30 years. We worked diligently to find a developer with the capabilities and some experience to do what we needed to be done. And after several developers we had conversations with, we were excited about moving forward with Communities First. And we're looking to put that contract into their hands to get mitigation going. It also is something that needs to happen for us to qualify for the Eagle brand that we have in process.

Mr. Willis, what's the timeline in which we, the community, should expect a grocery store? We've been talking about this for quite some time.

I want to refer back to Mr. Wilson's statement. The average time for that project is two to three years, but that is the time frame that we're looking at at this time. When they complete their feasibility study and everything is complete, then we can come back and give you a more updated report and see what that time frame actually is for that to happen. But from where I've been in visiting grocery stores all across the state in Ohio and Indiana, that time frame that it gave is pretty accurate, two to three years to get these projects complete.

And this is on top of all of the time that we've already taken. I just want to put it out there. No question.

Keep in mind, we just secured the property, so we're moving pretty fast, honestly, because we secured the property, what, February? Yeah. And now we're looking to move to where we are.

And it also never happened if we don't do anything. Yeah. Is that true?

Yeah. I mean, a lot of, just speaking as, you know, vice chair at MLK Corridor, a lot of work has happened since the establishment of the mlk corridor and this grocery store project has been our number one goal and the point where we are if you saw or were involved in the work or attended any of the meetings and heard some of the updates that have been provided over the last three years of us working to get to this point, it would be very clear the amount of work that is taken to get us to the point where we are right now. And this is a major milestone in our goal of opening a grocery store on the south side, because that site is definitely still on the south side, contrary to some opinions. Um, and so I'm highly in support and look forward to voting. Yes. In support of moving forward with this. And also just want to say thank you to you, Mr. Willis to, um, communities first, um, and to Malik and, uh, our chair, Mr. Parker for, uh, not really our entire committee, uh, Arlene and everybody else who's on the committee, uh, for all the work and the diligence that is taken for us to actually get to this point. of having a developer that we are looking to have an agreement signed with. It's taken a lot of work to get to this point.

Mr. Mayor. Mr. Willis, thank you. And I'm sure that there's been a ton of due diligence that has gone into this, but it's other side of town from my constituents, so I have not witnessed that due diligence. So I'm going to ask a couple of questions just to make sure that I feel comfortable with it. You mentioned a couple other similar projects that Communities First has been successful in. What were those?

Well, one of the ones that you can see easily is I think it's Coolidge Park. Is that the name of the Coolidge Park project? Coolidge Park is one of those projects you can take a look at. See, that's a revitalization project that they've done. Glenn, you want to name another project that they should take a look at to see? You've got several to name.

Yeah, feel free to come up.

Yes, sir. Yeah, I mean...

Yeah, I mean, we do a lot of large sites redevelopment. One recently we just did here was in a city, Flint. We bought the bigger college, which was 42 acres, 600,000 square feet. Took us about three years. We're about 90% occupied there. So we moved into Genesee Health Systems, Enid Center for Children, IBEW for job training. I'm forgetting another tenant, Odyssey House, which is a, facility for substance abuse. Substance abuse has a 24 hour clinic there as well. You know Coolidge Park School were rehabbing the Masonic Temple in downtown Flint. Right now we're about to build a new project right at the entry of Bell Island, Detroit. which is a new mixed use project right across from the new Pistons performance, the new women's stadium that they're building, the community center in Detroit. So we're about to start construction on that in the next several months here. Yeah, I mean, so we've been in construction for, we started 16 years ago. We've been in construction for the last 13 years. So there hasn't been a year we haven't been in construction in the last 13 years. so you've done similar projects on similar sized parcels oh yeah absolutely uh you know environmental stuff is a nightmare uh we're doing one right now uh downtown flint's uh five acre site uh we're doing the first phase right now of a redevelopment of a historical uh building which is seven stories uh and then we're looking at adding on another additional 90 units had a three dry cream three dry cleaners on the site uh so we had to remove uh i think oh 10 feet of soil or something like that so so you're confident i guess i'm sorry to interrupt you're confident in your ability to assuming that all the due diligence stuff goes well over the next couple years to actually make sure this is successful yeah i mean our goal with any project is to try to see what we can do to bring it to fruition to bring what the community's needs are that's why our name is communities first is to try to do that Um, if it ever gets to a point where we feel like we cannot do that, uh, we would be on it. We were totally honest with people like these are barriers. These are the things that's happening. These are things, reason why it can't get done. If it, the thing is a deal is not dealing to the closest. So, um, I will always rather under promise and over deliver than sit up here and tell you in your face, it's a hundred percent unequivocally going to happen. Uh, what, what we will do is that we have a very talented team, our organization that does great work. Our team is excited about it. We think there are some opportunities to do some unique stuff here. We, you know, we talked to, you know, some different political offices as well to try to see if we can help bring in some additional resources into the city that they haven't tapped into before. So I think there's, you know, from there's could be federal state support, other support that can be very beneficial and helpful to the community. They can help bring something like this depart to I mean to pass. But the thing is, this is step without site control for us. Like we said with John, you know, we've already spent some time just on some preliminary stuff with our team. But now it really gets down to actually spending some money and doing something. And we can't just even as a nonprofit or even a for profit company. You can't go forward unless you have site control. Yeah, of course. On the site. And so this allows us to get rolling on that and starting that due diligence and letting Ryan start to work his magic with the rest of the team and Anthony and Mike and see what we can come up with that would be beneficial. But, you know, we're always used to it. I mean, Anthony would probably come back and give you guys some updates, you know, over time, give them to Mr. Willis. We're all about community engagement and being here and You know, like I say, we're not one of these, you know, oh, my God, we can't find a company that's not around like this, not us.

And it's also not like we're selling you something for a dollar and it's kind of your first time going around the block on it. Absolutely not, yeah.

Okay. Actually, it's a... I always tell people when somebody says they hear a dollar, it's like they heard a dollar, but they didn't hear it. Like, this might have almost a million dollars in site remediation.

Yeah, no, that part I understand. I just, I, yeah, you don't need the backstory. Yeah, yeah. No, I appreciate you answering my questions. Thank you. No problem.

Currently, do we have an estimate of my about amount for the site remediation?

Is there any numbers that that's that's what we're working on what you go with right now? So we can't move into that that next phase until we get the site control. So once this document gets signed, then you can go and finish some of their their assessments. And then once they finish the rest of the assessments, then we'll know what we need to do for remediation.

So we have none of that information currently.

I don't believe we have all that right now, do we? It's some of it. It's some of it.

It's just an estimate from EGLE on the site of mediation. And the grant amount that they prepared for us would match that. But that's based on us getting the developer, getting the application into them as soon as September for us to move forward with that.

What are those numbers?

Between $750,000 and $1.2 million. $750,000, $1.2 million. The grant would be for $1.2 million. And no matter who we select, we'll move forward. Same process. That's part of the process. Remember, some of the things I think that get people mixed up, our first 18 months, we spent working on a site that we're not using now. You know, our first 18 months we spent on the prospect site. When we figured out that wouldn't work for grocers, didn't attract grocers, didn't have enough space for grocers, we moved to the next site. So the site that we're at now, with the mitigation, the subsidy from consumers, the potential grant from Eagle, we feel great about moving forward with it.

Council, any other questions, comments, concerns?

I'm looking at Vice Mayor Dancy. This would be in your ward. You're supportive of this? Not to put you on the spot too much, but OK. I'm just checking. I'm just checking. All right. Thank you.

All right.

Any other questions?

Seeing or hearing no further questions, comments, concerns, the clerk will tally and display the vote. Thank you guys both for answering those questions for us as well. Item passes unanimously. That brings us down to item L. Looking for a motion to support to approve the Jackson Downtown Development Authority budget for the fiscal year 2026-2027. So moved. It's been moved and supported. Any questions, comments, concerns? Seeing or hearing none, clerk will tally and display the vote. Item passed unanimously. Next, I'll be looking for a motion to support to move us into a closed session pursuant MCL 15.268D to consider the purchase of real property.

So moved.

It's been moved and supported. All in favor say aye. Aye. Oh, wait. No. The clerk will tally and display the vote. The clerk stopped me. She said. Gotta use our vote. OK, stay tuned folks. If this passes, we shall return.

Southside.

You calling me Mr Southside? Oh.

It's not.

He gotta claim South and East now. Thank you. I'll sign this stuff before I go back.

Mr. Southside.

I'd like to make a motion to take action on the real property acquisition and purchase offer as recommended by the Community Development Department It's been moved and supported Any comments questions concerns

Seeing or hearing none the clerk will tally and display the vote. All right, item pass is unanimous. That brings us down to council member comments. I will start with Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. It was a great evening. Thank you. It's finally getting movement, it seemed like, on the grocery store on the south side. And it's just great. It's great to hear what's going on. You know, development takes a long, long time. I learned this. When I first got on with the 200, with the Louisville loft, it just takes a while to get things moving, to get all the paperwork done and everything. So it's just great to see that finally get this brought in front of us so we can get this approved, so we can get things moving on. So that's a great thing. It's a wonderful thing for the city of Jackson, period, no matter where it's at. It's going to be wonderful. It's going to be great to have this structure once it's complete. I look forward to it. the ribbon cutting, the groundbreaking, whenever we start that. So it's wonderful. I just thank each and every one for coming out. Thank AARP for the presentation. hope we bring in something to council. They sent us some information on some ordinance, what some other communities have done. I think once you look at those, you'll see, I think it's a great thing to me in person. I like to see just Bantam and the city of Jackson all together. But that's something we can talk about later. And just thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Oh, oh, oh, yeah. Oh, I forgot. We got to do this, man. We have a birthday guy today. A birthday? A birthday. We have a birthday guy. Whose birthday? Whose birthday is it? Oh, it's Mr. Willard's? Oh, Mr. Willard's birthday. We have to sing happy birthday to you. A one, and a two, and a three. Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to you. happy birthday happy birthday to you all right all right councilwoman arlene robinson

Thank you, mr. Mayor I want to thank everyone for coming out staff for all that you do To help support our residents I too Excited about the grocery store. I know it seems like a long time Coming and no it is not and what? The boundary, say, is Ward 1, but it is Southside. And we've gone 30 plus years with no food. So to have food that close would be a plus. That's the way I look at it. I want to announced and i think i might be forgetting something but ward one is having a board meeting a week from today june 23rd at 6 p.m at um martin luther king center at six i think i already said that but we're gonna bring some information um to the residents and i'm really hopeful for residents to come out and share some information with the city on like the master plan i i really would like for us to get involved and engaged in that and ward one and say what what it is you would like to see the city do It really is a time for you to get involved and a time for you to speak what you'd like to see. I can't say that we can meet everything, but we certainly will be willing to take that information back and consider what we can. All right. So a week from today, Tuesday, June 23rd at 6 p.m., MLK Center. Thank you.

Yes, ma'am. Council Member Forgray.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I'm actually, I want to piggyback off what Council Member Dancy mentioned. I was on the opposite side of Diaz when Council was doing the 200 project. A lot of the same comments were made from some of the same people about selling a property for a dollar after the city had spent hundreds of thousands to purchase two properties and then demolish them and how crazy we were and how it would never work. And I actually, I'm reminded I did the math, literally did the math two years ago, I think. And if you don't even count the income or the revenue from income taxes from the people who live in that property and just strictly look at property taxes that that property is paying into the city of Jackson for us to provide services, it has already paid for itself. Every year we are getting more and more money. REVENUE-WISE TO PROVIDE SERVICES TO RESIDENTS FROM THAT PROPERTY AND FROM DEVELOPMENTS LIKE IT, WHICH AGAIN DOESN'T EVEN SPEAK TO THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE THERE AND like the needs that met for the community, which I think is, frankly, a bigger thing that we should be discussing. But if you just want to talk dollars and some business, it's good business. It's smart. It helps the community for the long term. And I'm happy to see that we have the foresight to continue to do things like it. So I'm happy to support it. I'm happy to see that move forward. I'm excited to see it move forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Will. Councilwoman Hunt.

thank you mr mayor i want to thank everyone for being here appreciate you stan um publicly want to extend my condolences to you mr mayor thank you um and then what a what an awesome meeting i think um as a as a council we took we take the time to ask those questions to gain clarity and understanding and Yes, the South Side needs a grocery store. It's been long overdue. I remember Shop and Save and IGA and, you know, running to those stores after coming to church. And so to have that again in the community and to experience it during my lifetime would be, would warm my heart and just see the constituents reimagining what our community once was. I'm optimistic about the decision that we made today, and I hope that the community first will get in and execute expeditiously.

Council Member Wood.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, staff, members of the public, members of council. Pleased to say, and thank you, City Manager, that the structure on the corner of West and Wildwood is being demolished soon. So that's very exciting. I would like to see us work on an ordinance to ban those fraud kiosks. We could regulate it, but I think that's too complicated for us to undertake as a municipality. I think that's more of a state legislative thing. So I think we should just make it easy and ban them. I happen to think that both Juneteenth and the 250th anniversary of our country are both important and are both parts of our history we should be proud of. I am a Democrat. I love America. If that triggers you, F your feelings. I did learn something about our voting system tonight. which is that if the vote doesn't pop up on your screen, the little up in the top left corner next to the agenda button where it says e-vote, if you click that, it pops up.

So now we don't have to bug Clerk Murray so much about things not popping up for us.

I do appreciate everyone's patience with our questions on the grocery store parcel. I'll skip that and I will just say happy birthday to Mr. Willis. It is also my birthday. Mr. Willis and I share a birthday.

Isn't that sweet?

And the late Tupac Shakur. Three people with, I would say, equal importance to community and to society at large.

I would definitely agree.

That's it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

OK, I'm going to keep my comments as short as possible. Just want to start with saying thank you, everybody, for being here all of our uh, citizens for being here and their comments as well. Uh, I am extremely excited about the place that we are at with the grocery store project. It is, um, truly been a lot of work to get to this point. Um, and this is, you know, uh, when they say, uh, it's a slow turning ship, it is true. It is really a slow turning ship, but the ship is, Indeed turning. And so I'm happy where we are with this project and know that we need to continue to diligently work towards the goal. But I'm happy with where we are right now for sure. Thank you to the AARP for coming and bringing us a presentation tonight. Happy birthday to Mr. Willis. And then I just wanted to just share just a quick story. I had a conversation with a constituent the other day. Um, she kept calling it an argument. Uh, I don't think it's an argument when we have disagreeing points. It's only an argument when we try to over talk each other. Uh, it is okay for us to disagree. Uh, but the constituent called me with concerns about, uh, the horrible look and direction of our downtown, um, due to, The increasing population of homeless people in our downtown area. And I'll be honest, the the conversation really broke my heart. Multiple reasons I've shared multiple times that I've experienced being homeless. I know what that feels like. To be homeless and so I have deep. Compassion and empathy for individuals who are in that predicament. chronically homeless, I've not experienced homelessness as an adult, but I can tell you it is quite devastating to be a child and experience homelessness and know what that feels like. And then to have a mother who worked around the homeless population for another 15 years after that and is still indirectly working with that population of people. This constituent called me and their demand, uh, or request was for us to do something with them. And their comment was, I don't care what you do with them. Do you know if the library wants to have them in front of the library, did they need to put them in back of the library? Um, and, and then the conversation proceeded. And then they say, well, I don't care where you put them at. Why don't you put them in a dog park that doesn't ever get used? Um, and what, what I expressed to them, uh, that they said I was arguing with them about is how sad it makes my heart that the complaints about homelessness is not in reference to the wellbeing of the individuals experiencing homelessness, but the discomfort that these individuals who are complaining fields when they have to see these people being homeless. Uh, and I expressed that to him and I told him I'm at a point, um, in my tenure of doing this work and where I am right now, just in life in general, I'll be honest. They called me, uh, even through this tragedy, I continue to receive phone calls because people don't care about the emergency that you're going through as long as you are okay enough to deal with the emergency that they are going through. And so this was probably two days after me losing my brother and I'm having this conversation with this individual and I told them flat out, I'm very disappointed, um, that this is what your concern is. It's for how things look, because if we move them to the back of the library, Guess what? They still going to be homeless. And so if we are not willing to jump both feet in and actually try to address not, not the, not the consequences of them being homeless, the consequences of them being homeless is us seeing all the things that they have, that they have nowhere to put, seeing them, from in the morning to in the evening to back in the morning again. Um, those are the symptoms that we're seeing of the root cause of their issue. If we're not willing to try to address the root causes of their issues, then I think we should keep our mouth shut and thank God that we are blessed with a home to go home to. Um, and that we are not in that position ourselves. Um, Because as my mother said, in the blink of an eye, things can change in your world and you can end up in that situation. And so while I know we need to do something, I don't know what that something is because I don't profess to have all the answers to every situation that we face. I'm okay with us working to try to do something, but I am not okay with us hiding homelessness to make individuals who probably have the means to help those individuals more comfortable, because they don't want to see it. And I'm sorry to the person that they felt like I was arguing with them. I listened to them for probably 30 minutes before I said anything. And I even expressed to them, we're not arguing. We're having a conversation. I just disagree with what you're saying, and you're upset about that. And that's OK. But this is a very sensitive subject for me, and my heart goes out to those individuals who are homeless right now who have nowhere to put their belongings. And I, you know, I wish we could, you know, fix their issue permanently and give them housing somehow or give them somewhere to be, not just somewhere for their belongings, but, you know, to truly be able to help them. But I know that that is not necessarily what government city government, municipal government is designed to do. We're not fully capable of doing that completely. I think we should definitely, you know, still try to work to do something, but I wish we had some partners in our community who did that work on a day-to-day basis that stepped up to the city and said, Hey, here's a recommendation and how we can help with what's happening in downtown Jackson. That, that is something that I truly wish would happen. Um, on a lighter note, uh, speaking of downtown, uh, starting on Thursday, um, Juneteenth will start on Thursday at 10 AM. Uh, there's an employment fair that will happen at the city center. Uh, that starts at 10 o'clock AM to one o'clock PM Thursday evening. We will have a political panel discussion. Uh, at 5 PM, the doors will open at the King center. Uh, on Friday, we will have a private dinner for our scholarship recipients and the sponsors who sponsored those scholarships. And then on Saturday is our big Juneteenth celebration, which happens right downtown Jackson. It will be from 2 PM to 9 PM. There's a kids zone. There's vendors is entertainment. We've got. R&B singer Kevin Ross. We've got musician and national artist Tim Bowman. We've got the group Fire, which is our gospel group. We've got the group Persuasion. And we also have Jackson's own artist, Nefertiri, who will be performing on stage as well. It should be a ton of fun. And, man, lastly, I just want to just say thank you to everybody for reaching out in whatever capacity they did. If you text me or caught me and I haven't returned your text or call, um, just, uh, just, just forgive me for that. If you don't mind, that's been an unbelievable last two weeks. Unbelievable. Um, man, stay close to people you love. I'm grateful. It's crazy because like even with losing my brother, I have a, Peace that I think only God can provide about the entire situation about my relationship with my brother. The last words that we said to each other the last time I spoke to him earlier in that week before we lost him. The last thing that I said to him was I love you. And the last thing that he said to me was I love you. Me and my brother have never had a disagreement. Uh, and the 32 years that he lived, uh, except for one thing Simpson, one thing when he was in like third grade, he stole some change from me and I went all the way to his school. Uh, and I was not even upset at the money that was gone. Uh, I was upset because I wanted him to understand that he never had to take anything. that he could ask me for anything, and I would give it to him no matter what. And we never had that conversation again. We never had an issue, never had an argument. He was the most easygoing, most loving person, showed no signs of any issues that he was having. And so just be careful with people. Love people, forgive them quickly, and try to be there for them. I just, again, just want to say thank you, especially to John The rest of everybody else who really has loved on my family and just helped us out during this time in any capacity is very much appreciated. And that will be all for me tonight, Mr. City Manager.

CHRIS RODGERS. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I do have something important I want to talk to everyone about here tonight. And I hope by the time I'm done talking, we're all sitting up a little straighter and maybe with our health held a little higher. So just so you know, the city of Jackson's population as determined by the United States Census Bureau is 31,022 people. That's a pretty good number. what i want everyone here to know tonight is that according to an article uh posted on bridgemi.com it's a bridge michigan a supposed nonpartisan information source um reported that the the u.s census bureau sees the city's population at 31 022 people the remarkable thing is that in 2024 to 2025, the city of Jackson population grew by about 200 people. That's 0.7%. And those numbers might seem like small potatoes to people. 0.7%, 200 people. That's cool. That's cool. It's something to hang our hat on for sure. But the most important number, the more important number that you need to all be aware of is that growth, the city of Jackson growing in population was the first time in 70 years that the city grew in population. So yes, you clap for yourself. So congratulations to the city council. for making hard choices, for doing things that folks in our audience might seem counterintuitive. But this council gets to be the council that says you grew the city of Jackson population. That is utterly amazing. Our counterparts, some counterparts in the county lost population larger than what we grew. So it's cool, it's awesome that we, it's more than cool, it is in fact awesome in every sense of the word that we grew by over 200 people. But it's extraordinary that we stopped a 70 year slide of losing population. That is remarkable. That is a credit and testament to your leadership and your vision, Mr. Mayor, and the support of everyone here on council for leading in the way you lead, for being as committed as you all are to the community through your various ward meetings and all your constituent interactions, by listening and doing. And so, yes, it takes time for things to happen. I wish things happen faster all the time. You can ask staff. I'm very impatient when it comes to things. I want them done yesterday, but that's just not reality. But I think what this shows is evidence that head down, ignore the noise work. makes things happen so thank you to everyone on city council congratulations to the community for growing for the first time in damn near a century we are on the up and i want to keep that momentum going and make our gains even stronger so thank you for listening to me tonight and like i said walk a little taller city council because you did this

Matt Haggerty