City Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Oh, my God.

Hello everyone, it is hard

beautiful beautiful days here in kalamazoo beautiful weekend and it is so nice to see all my colleagues here and uh... all those who joined us here in the chambers so let's get started i'm gonna call to order the kalamazoo city commission meeting for monday june first twenty twenty six and our first order of business is Roll call. Clerk Borley.

Commissioner Hess.

Present.

Commissioner Hoffman.

Present.

Commissioner Pradel. Present. Commissioner Slaby.

Present.

Commissioner Wilson. Present. Vice Mayor Duncan. Here. Mayor Anderson. Here. Thank you, Clerk Borley.

Well, for our opening ceremony this evening, we are blessed to have here for our invocation, Chaplain Regina Mays, a member of the missional chaplains. And thank you so much for being here. As she comes forward, I'm gonna ask everyone here in the chambers to stand for the invocation and then remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. Chaplain.

Good evening to everyone. Thank you, Mayor and Vice Mayor and city commissioners for this opportunity to come and open in prayer again. So I would like to open up with, Father God, I thank you for this day that you have made, providing us another opportunity to come together in spirit, truth, peace, and unity. And I ask, invite, and welcome your presence amongst us here today in this meeting. And I pray that the heart of Mayor Anderson, Assistant Mayor Duncan, and all the city commissioners present that they have come with open hearts, ears, with love for you first, and for care of the community and surrounding areas, and that they will share their understanding, their wisdom, clarity, and directions for this agenda. And for all who are here to speak, share, and discuss their problems, concerns, disagreements about things that matter to them, I ask that they listen attentively, that they will be polite, courteous, considerate, and respectful, as we are all here to express concerns and find agreement and unity in bringing our community to unity together in the love of God that has been commanded of us. So Father, I pray even for the families of the both the mayor and assistant mayor and each commissioner that you will continue to bless them, provide for them, help their families and guide them and love them as I hope that they will do the same for the families of our communities. I ask that as they've been given all authority to be good stewards, Father, that they remember this. in you that you have given them this authority and that they do it with a good heart and good directions. And I ask and pray these things in Jesus' name and that, Father, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In Jesus' name, amen.

of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you again, Chaplain Mazur. I appreciate it. A rarity this evening, we don't have any proclamations. I don't even know what that means, but this is an evening where I think just the work we're doing stands as a proclamation in and of itself. This is the way that we're supposed to self-govern here at the local level, and I appreciate that all of us are getting to participate in that. Are there any items on G, the Consent Agenda, that you would like to move to H, the Regular Agenda? All right, seeing none, the agenda stands. Communications, Manager Hankins? None at this time, Mayor. Thank you, Manager Hankins. Now is the opportunity for public comments. You may comment on any item that you want to make sure we hear here at the Commission Chambers. You will have four minutes. Please state your name and whether you live in the city.

Hello, I'm Jody Dozman. I live in the city of Kalamazoo, Lodge House. Hopefully I'll get a house of my own someday. But I'm here concerned about the spaceship. Here we go. I love God for all he's done for me. Win love and I'll be free from drugs. Take me to the limit, need be repercussions. Give me peace and the heavens will reign. Give me hate and woe to the other lover. Be at peace with me and give me time for it is still early for a party. Midsmester should be fair to win love. Rain follows. Give me peace and I will be free to talk of the crimes follows the best of repercussions. New ideas to gift a setting what follows will be surprising. Give me love and I will give you the world. Follow Jesus in this adventure and I will be with you in my heart. Give me grace, I'll topple over nothing to stop at their death. Bring peace to Israel for a pregnant lady awaits the arrival. Give the lady peace, I'll watch it grow amazing features. Bring me to love a body deserves and the time spaceship will arrive in time to play amazing games of love. Petite pretend fantasies give grace to God. The spaceship awaits. Peace for now. Later we party the amazing spaceship story of meet love firsthand. Give grace time, we'll stop to meet the others who wait, the coming of Christ. Give love, it subsides in a language we all know, Hebrews for the Jews. Come to peace and win a party of love, the spaceship babies. God be with you, everlasting love. I'm in it like you guys are. It's amazing, the phenomenal things going on. And the way a baby develops, if I were to write the stories of what I've been going through, I believe we'd understand the development of a baby in the womb. It's amazing. God's grace is amazing. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, please.

Hello, Commissioners.

City Manager.

My name's Matt Mazark, city resident. Just wanted to speak today in favor of the two-way conversion and all the contracts associated. Also thank the hard work of many a city staff present and past, and also elected officials present and past. I know this is a decade-long project that, you know, a lot of hot opinions around town around it. I think it's right for the future, and I'm glad to see this finally kicking off. uh and on a few different notes happy pride month uh thank you for all you do in general and uh looking forward someday to coming back to speak in favor of municipal trash and save all of our residents real money since now we pay the most in trash in all of our surrounding communities as they've all you know gone to single provider And I also believe there's a housing event next week on the 11th. I apologize I don't have the details, but my former place of employment, KNHS, has got some projects on the north side, Ada and Simpson, five single-family homes and several full-house rehabs all up there with, I believe, eight new homeowners will be going into those blocks when all is said and done. So hopefully they'll have some information come out soon, and hopefully I'll see some of you there. Thank you. Thank you.

Next, please.

She is back. Hello, everyone. It's nice to see you again.

Push that microphone up a little bit.

My name is Emma Beatty. I reside at the Edison neighborhood. I was here last month. And I'm here again. So where are we at with the speed bumps? The reason why I'm persistent with that, I lost my husband and I, our only child, our only daughter. She was taken from us December 2nd. We now are raising her three-year-old son, our grandson. My time is valuable, just like you guys. The last thing I want to see is a child get hit. I'm not just up here wanting to waste my time. This is time I can't get back. This is time that I could be spending with Julian. He asks about her every single day. He looks for her every single day. He looks at her picture and say, I miss you, mommy. And me, Julie and mommy is in heaven. I'm begging you, please. We need those three speed bumps, I swear to you. My baby wants to play outside with the other kids when he gets older. Should he play in the street? Nope, not gonna, not gonna let him. But what if that car jumps the curb? What if the car loses control? I'm speaking to you all on behalf of my three-year-old grandson. I don't know what else to tell you. Think about your own. Would you want someone to just speed by? The officer did reach out to me. There's one traffic officer. I don't know if he's for the whole Kalamazoo or if it's just for that area. I'm not sure. But he can't do it by himself. He shouldn't have to sit there. And wait, we can't give him a timeframe of when this white car with the black stripe is going to speed down there. What he did do, after I spoke with you all and they stopped him a couple of times, oh, he did this. Middle finger at you. Came down Sunday, speeding again. They don't care. But if you put those speed bumps in, it would deter them for real. I'm just asking you. I'm begging you. I'm going to keep coming here as long as there is, and you need some Kleenex up here for such an occasion, but as long as there's breath in my body and my grandson is on the face of this earth and he calls me grandma, I'm going to keep asking you about those three speed bumps. Come see me. I can tell you where they need to be. Thank you. I didn't mean to go over you guys. I'm sorry. Thank you for your time. Please consider that. But again, my time is valuable. Okay. I appreciate you.

Thank you. Please make sure that our public services director, James Baker, who's sitting close to the back row, knows the addresses that you're talking about. Thank you. Next, please. Seeing no one else that wants to take advantage of public comments.

Hello, I'm Kay. So I had somebody ask me to come speak on the black mold at Loy Norags in the boys' locker room. I'm going to go to the school board as well. But I would like, I'm going to email you all after this, see which one of you could look into that. I don't have a lot of information. That's all they said was, can you please speak up on the black mold? at Loy Norris in the boys' locker room. So I attended the housing forum that was given. I think I gathered a lot of good information. Clearly there is very knowledgeable people on this commission. There's just a few things about housing efforts that I see are missing. It's like disconnected from what people are experiencing in real time when they are searching for housing, when they speak up. about the conditions of housing, and that is retaliation. We did have a fair housing ordinance passed. The Civil Rights Board is working on language and education, and I commend those efforts. I've been a small part of those efforts as well. But the truth is that without addressing the retaliation when people speak up, the connection between the landlords And the inspectors, I'm not sure what's going on there, but there's a lot of, you know, I'm not sure what to call that. Corruption or just ties to when homes or dwellings get inspected, the expectations are not always there. A lot of times, You know, there's so much wrong with the house. Like say the heater doesn't work or one of the doors doesn't close. There's a door missing to one of the rooms or something vital like that. And like it could just be simply a fine for like painting your porch. or doing something cosmetic as well as that is used to retaliate against people because the landlord will say, well I'm gonna fix the issues and all they do is paint and do some cosmetic things and those people are out. There's not really eviction protections when it comes to the way that housing is weaponized because housing is a vital resource. It's a very strange resource. And a lot of the housing needs updating and when tenants speak up, it's just impossible to be able to say that folks have rights when they're not being fairly listened to, when they do speak up and the process is against them. Like one good example is Fox Ridge, right? That's been a big conversation, especially when all that flooding happened about the conditions of housing, the conditions of housing in interfaith homes, which is, supposedly ran by the city, I don't know, nonprofits kind of work. So really addressing this, I think that in a systemic way, I do agree there's a lot of housing initiatives and all this housing, but it's really not affordable for the people who really need it, right? A lot of the renters who are struggling, Paycheck to paycheck need more of immediate assistance with housing. These resources take so long. They're so strange. And a lot of these nonprofits measure their success through how much resources they get and how many people they help with those resources versus actually realizing what the systemic implications are of not going further, not seeing a systemic implication of we need to not just do the bare minimum and say, this is good. This is all I can do. But go beyond that and actually create some advocacy for people who are struggling with housing, for people who are struggling with slumlords to be listened to. And I don't really have a solution for that because it's complex.

I'm just bringing it up. Thank you.

Thank you. Next please.

Hi, my name is Shona Espinosa. Sorry, I've been not here for a while, but that's a good thing. Housing is important. If our city manager can't even find housing on his income, how do you expect anybody else to find housing? How do you think our own house can afford housing? That should be a big eye-opener to y'all. What is the deal? Housing is a human right. Housing is expensive. I mean, I wish we all could find a job that makes a lot of money. But even then, there are so many obstacles. I'm an educator. And I can't even afford some of these bills because they're too damn expensive. We have so many people out on the street that get Social Security. We have vets out there. We have those that are disabled. We have children, single parents. Housing is too damn expensive. When are we going to get that through and understand that we need help with housing? We need programs that actually work and serve those that actually need it. Not putting money into streets to make them into two or one ways. Not putting money into that arena and things that are not necessary right now. What's important is that people have a home. When people have a home, that cuts out a lot of different things. There probably won't be as much crime. There probably won't be so many kids out here just doing whatever. This is important. Housing is a human right. Everybody should have a house to live in, no matter what. Every job is important. Not one job is more important than the other. Because if you think about it, if you're making over $200,000 and you want to go to McDonald's, There's somebody working there because that's what you want. So it shouldn't matter if you're working at McDonald's or you're sitting on the city board. Everybody should be able to afford housing. Everybody should be able to afford food, health care. We are children in our future, so they should be in homes, not out on the street. There are so many babies out here on the street every single day, winter, summer. When is enough going to be enough? The fence up at Arcadia. Y'all can bring it down for these festivals, but y'all can't bring it down for our own house to continue to have a place where they always be. They're being pushed out no matter where they go because you guys don't want them here. They're part of our society. They're part of who we are. They're part of Kalamazoo. Nobody in this community is better than the rest of us. Realize, wake up, hold each other accountable. We need to do better by this community. We need to do better and make sure those that live here are supported, feel like they are wanted, and their needs are being met. I don't care if you sit on this board, you sit on higher boards, y'all all are human beings. We all live and die. There is no difference. We all bleed the same. Don't think you're better than anybody else because you sit on these boards or you have money in your pocket. That is wrong with society. That is wrong with this administration. That is what's wrong with people that have power. They think they better than us. But in reality, you're just as human as we are. Do better.

Thank you. Next, please.

Hi everyone, it's me again. My name is Tina and I live in Kalamazoo. I have lived my whole life in Kalamazoo. I've owned my home for 37 years. I live in that lovely flood plain area, the south side of town. See, I live in that neighborhood when it rains one or two inches of rain, it makes the whole city, makes the city of Kalamazoo's storm drains flood out our streets. And then the flooding backs up the storm sewers. All I keep asking for is dry streets, just like the rest of the neighborhoods have. Working storm drains, just like the rest of the neighborhoods have. To be able to come home when it rains, or if I'm home, to be able to get out of my neighborhood, just like the other neighborhoods do. I have stood at this podium for eight years asking, begging you to do something and fix the flooding once and for all. Not asking for a Band-Aid, as that's normally what the city does, but for this problem, it needs to be fixed. We all want to do is be able to enjoy the rain and not have to worry about what damage it's gonna do to our home. But all we get is it costs too much money. But yet you come up with $2 million, $2 million to redo downtown Kalamazoo streets again. Now to make them two-way again like they were in the 60s. Wasted money. Didn't work then and it's not gonna work now. You'll be changing them back again. It's the rich man's playground. That's the whole issue. Downtown is nothing but the rich man's playground. You don't care about it. It's more important than your residents homes because you keep building in flooding areas, but you can't come up with $3 million. You said it would fix the flooding, but you don't have the 3 million, but you do have 2 million to put more money in the rich man's playground. Stop destroying natural spaces. Stop building in floodplain areas. Tear down these dangerous, burn-up homes. Build little homes. Build small apartments. Somewhere people can live. The one on Cedar and Westnitch, the whole roof is caving in. Big brick building. What if a child goes in their place? Take a wander in there, it's all open. It's dangerous. Tear down these buildings, quit wasting money and use it for good stuff. Bring back public call-ins. Public call-ins. Every resident in Kalamazoo could have a voice. You took them away because it made the meetings last too long. Or you just didn't like what people were saying. Or you didn't want to hear all the comments. Bring back public call-ins. You have seniors that have issues too. They can't get here. They don't have a phone. They don't have a computer. They might can't get here. Bring back a couple of public call-ins at the city commission meetings so everybody can have a voice in Kalamazoo. And your rent? Your rent is too high. You've got seniors living on fixed incomes. They can't afford to live on that fixed income because the rent's too damn high. The water bill's too damn high. The consumer's bill is too damn high. Gas is ridiculous. Can't afford food. It's way too expensive. Kalamazoo, I mean, you've got homeless people all over the place because they can't afford to live in Kalamazoo because your landlords have made rents so high. And all these cheap apartment buildings you're building, it's falling apart. Look at the one on West Main. Look at the one they were just talking about on the news today. It's flooding. People are living there.

Thank you. Next, please.

Good evening, Jeff Messer, city resident. The public can read and respond to tonight's remarks on my blog at messer.substack.com or scan the QR code on your screen. Tonight's topic is selective enforcement of ordinances by Kalamazoo police. Three years ago, in June 2023, the city of Kalamazoo declared war on unhoused people. They didn't declare war on homelessness. They declared war upon people who were experiencing homelessness. One of their favorite weapons in this war is Ordinance Section 3324P, which states, no person shall use an electrical outlet found within a park unless such use is expressly authorized by the city. Over the past three years, Kalamazoo police have actively patrolled parks and public spaces downtown and likely written over 100 misdemeanor criminal citations to unhoused people who were allegedly charging their cellular telephones. This particular activity is so inoffensive that USB charging facilities are provided outdoors at parks in the City of Portage as well as all locations of the Kalamazoo Public Library District, the new Kalamazoo County Courthouse, Ministry with Community, and many other public places. Meanwhile, the police knowingly ignore violations of this ordinance that are in line with the intent of the ordinance when committed by people who do not appear to be unhoused. For example, this past Saturday evening at 5 o'clock in Bronson Park, There were two people on rotary stage with their electric guitars, microphone, and amplifiers plugged into two power outlets. They were playing music and singing, which one park visitor described as, quote, very horrible. One person visited the park because they could hear the noise all the way from their home in the Vine neighborhood, 1,695 feet away. A female KDPS officer just happened to be parked on the Academy Street side of Bronson Park. She was asked to question the performers about whether or not they had permission from the city to be using the power outlets. She falsely claimed that the Parks Department does not inform KDPS about which groups have park reservations which would permit them to use the power outlets. In fact, KDPS is on the email group for all special events approvals in Bronson Park and there were no reservations for Bronson Park on Saturday, May 30. The officer claimed to be busy sitting inside the vehicle and was unwilling to address a clear and known violation of City Ordinance Section 3324P. A night shift officer came on duty at 7 p.m. and drove around Bronson Park, briefly parking on the Academy Street side to observe the horrible music and singing still in progress over two hours later. He remained inside the vehicle the entire time and did not approach the performers about the lack of permission from the city to be using the power outlets. The performers were still at it past 7.30 p.m. This is certainly not the first case of the police knowing about unauthorized power outlet use in parks by musical performers and being unwilling to do anything about it. Other examples include their neighbor Glow Hall at 246 North Kalamazoo Mall, Recovery Revival at Arcadia Creek Festival Place, and the Charlie Kirk Memorial in Bronson Park. The evidence is abundant that the police selectively enforce Ordinance Section 3324P only against people who appear to be unhoused as a means to harass and intimidate this vulnerable population. The police are predators and they naturally prey on the weakest members of the flock. I am asking City Manager Hankins to please put a stop to the selective enforcement of Ordinance Section 3324P. Either order KDPS to stop enforcing this ordinance against unhoused people or order them to start issuing citations to musicians and other groups that are using the power outlets without permission. Thank you. Thank you.

Is there anyone else in the chambers that wants to take advantage of public comments this evening? All right, seeing no one, thank you so much for everyone that did take the time, made the effort to come down here, take advantage of the public comment period for the city commission meeting. Next is our consent agenda. Manager Hankins.

Thank you, Mayor. The following items are submitted for approval. Item G1, approval of a purchase of the SIDCO on-prem calling solution to support the city's phone system for Trace 3 through the MyDeal Cooperative Purchasing Program in the amount of $125,064. Item G2, approval of a professional services agreement with Peerless Midwest Inc. for 2026 well rehabilitation work in the amount of $167,630. G3, approval of a contract extension with Santiago Services for trash and debris handling in the amount of $453,000. Approval of a sole source purchase with pure air for carbon media replacement in the carbon filtration unit at the wastewater treatment plant in the amount of $487,828. Item G5, adoption of a resolution approving changes in the street lighting contract with Consumers Energy for the removal of a street light at K College. Item G6, approval of an amendment to a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for the Reed Court floodplain project construction to increase the grant by $588,062, extend the period of performance, and approval of a budget amendment in the amount of $588,062. Item G7, approval of the following reappointments to the Water System Advisory Council. The appointment of Thomas Wheat for a term expiring on December 31st, 2027. The reappointment of Lucas Poles for a term expiring on December 31st, 2027. The reappointment of Michael Evans for a term expiring on December 31st, 2028. The reappointment of Terrell Cole for a term expiring on December 31st, 2028. Item G8, approval of a utility easement agreement with Newton Equity LLC for the upcoming construction of public sewer main at 802 Wheaton Avenue as part of the contract 77A Newton Court Fellows Avenue and John Street Utilities Improvement Project. G9, approval of a utility easement agreement with Newton Equity LLC for the upcoming construction public sewer main at 1005 Newton Court as part of the contract 77A Newton Court Fellows Avenue and John Street Utilities Improvement Project. And item G10, approval of utility easement agreement with Newton Equity LLC for the upcoming construction of public sewer main at 1009 Newton Court as part of the contract 77A Newton Court Fellows Avenue and John Street Utilities Improvement Project. G11, approval of the minutes from the City Commission meetings on May 18th, 2026.

Thank you, Manager Hankins. Commissioners, the requested action is a motion to approve items 1 through 11 and authorize the City Manager to sign all related documents on behalf of the City. Is there a motion?

Motion.

Motion made by Commissioner Slaby, supported by Vice Mayor Duncan. Clerk Borling, please call the roll. Commissioner Hoffman.

Yes. Commissioner Pradel. Yes. Commissioner Slaby.

Yes.

Commissioner Wilson. Yes. Vice Mayor Duncan. Yes. Mayor Anderson. Yes. Commissioner Hess.

Yes.

Thank you, Commissioners. Items on the consent agenda are approved. We're now down to H, the regular agenda. Agenda item one, Manager Hankins.

Thank you, Mayor. Item H1, approval of a contract with Ferguson Water Works for the annual purchase of miscellaneous water inventory in amount of $1,088,129.42. Thank you, Manager Hankins. Is there a staff report on this item? No, Mayor, there is not, but we are available for questions if you have. Questions, Commissioners?

I've seen no questions. Now is the opportunity for anyone in the chambers to comment on this item. It is regular agenda item H1. If someone would like to comment on item H1, you can come forward to the podium and comment on each one if you would like to.

I just wanted to know what does it mean by miscellaneous water inventory?

Thank you for your question. Dr. Baker, would you be willing to provide us a little bit of further explanation about what miscellaneous water inventory is? Welcome.

Good evening. Thank you, your honor. And certainly would be happy to address the city commission on this question. So the water department, if you will, that's a division within public services. We have over 800 miles of water main that we operate, maintain. throughout the year. So this material is bit out every year and provides the parts and pieces that are needed for us to operate, maintain that water system from the water distribution perspective. So that's all the water mains in the ground. The second purpose of this contract is to provide parts and materials inventory so that we can make new service connections when we have new customers that enter into this system. So these parts and materials are things like hardware, connections, things like that, a lot of brass, or excuse me, copper pipe, that sort of thing, and everything from like fire hydrants and repair clamps and sleeves. It's just all the materials that we use in our routine operation and maintenance of the water distribution system. These contracts are bid out annually. And so this recommendation and these results are the results of a public bid. These material prices then also go into our rate structure. So effective in the upcoming year, this will go into an appendix and these appendix items then are charged out to new customers when they come into the system. So that's all based on a customer system when you sign up for a new service. I'll pause there.

If there's any further questions, I'd be happy to address them. Thank you, Director Baker. Questions? Commissioners? Commissioner Hess.

Sure. Thank you, Director Baker. I don't really have a question, but I think most of us didn't have questions. It was in our packet, all the information that you had clearly laid out for us for this agenda item. And perhaps a note to self, when something as large as this is on the agenda, you're always prepared to speak, and I appreciate that. And I'll plan on supporting it because we need this hardware to do our job. Thank you.

Other comments or questions, commissioners? Vice Mayor Dungan? Ma'am, does that answer your questions? Yes, it does. Thank you so much. That'll be all, Mayor. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you again, Director Baker. So, seeing that there's no other questions here, the recommended action, commissioners, is a motion to approve and authorize the city manager to sign all related documents. Is there a motion?

Motion.

Support. Okay, motion made by Commissioner Slabey, supported by Vice Mayor Duncan. Any further discussion, Commissioners? Seeing none, Clerk Borling, please call the roll.

Commissioner Pradel. Yes. Commissioner Slaby.

Yes.

Commissioner Wilson. Yes. Vice Mayor Duncan. Yes. Mayor Anderson. Yes. Commissioner Hess.

Yes.

Commissioner Hoffman.

Yes.

Thank you very much, Commissioners. The motion passes. Next on the agenda is item H2, City Manager Hankins.

Thank you, Mayor. Approval of a three-year contract with Wayne County Appraisals LLC doing business as WCA assessing. for assessing an assessor of record services in the amount of $1,855,321.92. Thank you, Manager Hankins. Is there a staff report on this item?

There is not, and again, we do have staff available if there are questions. Okay, thank you so much. Questions, Commissioners, on this particular item, H2?

Mr. Mayor, I think it'd be helpful, personally, if we could ask some questions about this item.

I see our Chief Financial Officer, Steve Vicenze, is on his way down. Do you want to start, Commissioner Bradle?

Sure, Steve. I was just hoping you could just give some background about how our assessor relationship works with. It's listed as one of our appointee positions. This is a relationship we have with a contracted entity that is on here tonight, but I think it'd be helpful to get some background about how that works and how it's worked in the past.

Sure. So let me try to prepare my thoughts here for a second. SO THE CITY ASSESSOR POSITION SO THE CITY ASSESSOR POSITION SO THE CITY ASSESSOR POSITION IS AN APPOINTEE. IS AN APPOINTEE. IS AN APPOINTEE. THE CITY COMMISSION APPOINTS IT THE CITY COMMISSION APPOINTS IT THE CITY COMMISSION APPOINTS IT AS FAR AS THE CONTRACT AS FAR AS THE CONTRACT AS FAR AS THE CONTRACT WITH THIS GOES. WITH THIS GOES. WITH THIS GOES. AT ONE POINT IN TIME, WE NEED AT ONE POINT IN TIME, WE NEED AT ONE POINT IN TIME, WE NEED A MICHIGAN MASTER ASSESSOR, A MICHIGAN MASTER ASSESSOR, A MICHIGAN MASTER ASSESSOR, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS A LEVEL OTHERWISE KNOWN AS A LEVEL OTHERWISE KNOWN AS A LE And so that kind of bore into a sharing between units to utilize a level four that could service multiple units. Also, this provides a cost savings to the city that can be quite significant when we compare to hiring a full-time level four assessor ourselves. All that's detailed on the packet. I estimate the level four position just by itself to save between 53 and 192,000 over the course of this three-year term, because comparing to like Grand Rapids who posted a position not that long ago for 121,000 up to 152,000, I believe it was, plus fringes, benefits, training, other equipment that needs to be had on hand, certifications that we would otherwise be paying for. The cost savings that I kind of talk about is probably the bare minimum of what that cost savings would likely become compared to having in-house. I'll say having this contract in place has allowed us to not have to worry about or deal with issues of turnover. WCA has a great regional presence. They service Battle Creek, Galesburg, Portage, all in our area. So if they ever have an employee leave, they're able to move employees around to guarantee full coverage. If we had a small staff here and we had an employer to leave, it could be a struggle to service all of the working hours that we have.

You mentioned in the packet, mentioned that prior to 2012 we had six full-time, I think one part-time employee. So I presume that transition to contracted services for this work occurred around that period. From your perspective, you've been here a fairly long time, do you notice any differentials in service delivery or anything that the public should be concerned about in terms of our ability to provide these services?

No. And in fact, kind of as I mentioned, just due to their ability to backfill with the regional presence, it's likely better service than what we could potentially provide on our own. You know, six and a half positions back to 2011-12. If I had to look at the full service delivery that we have to do, it might be seven or eight positions today, which would be even further increased cost. I've had no issues or concerns with WCA. They've met state standards. They get audited by the state every few years. The last audit scored a perfect score, which...

you know an auditor's job is to find an issue so when they don't find an issue you know things are extremely well organized and in place just to clarify for the public as well in the packet they'll see this as well but it's a three-year contract which would be from today june for today's june 1st june 1st 2026 through may 31st 2029 correct correct and then uh just just was hoping to maybe you could give just like a little snapshot or um maybe somebody from WCA could also share, but just everything from building permits, personal property canvassing, entry and analysis. This is something I didn't realize about the rule about how 10% of all properties have to be assessed, I think is every seven to 10 years. Could you just kind of speak to just the volume and the types of things that they support, even if it's just kind of from memory, it doesn't have to be everything listed.

I'd actually like to call up, we do have Aaron Powers here tonight. He can probably talk more to that than I could. Thank you, Mr. Powers. Welcome, Mr. Powers.

Good evening. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Commissioners. My name is Aaron Powers. I'm one of the managing directors of WCA, and I've been appointed by the City Commission since 2012 to be the assessor record here for the City of Kalamazoo. A little bit of history about our company. We've been in business since 1982, providing cost-effective solutions to local governments. We employ almost 60 individuals, and we service in excess of 50 municipalities throughout the state of Michigan, primarily in the suburbs. South 94 corridor area. We provide the entire assessing function for the city of Kalamazoo, which would be the annual assessment of all real and personal property for that city. So every single year we have to determine the annual valuation of every single property, both residential, commercial, personal property. In addition to that, we also administer every single one of the exemptions that are in existence by the State Tax Commission. So whether it be principal residence exemption, an exemption for a church, government, college, state, federal, all of those items in addition to that. And we're also very integral in regards to the establishment of the actual millage rates and tax roll for tax collection, for general property tax, which often makes up in excess of 50% of the revenues for the vast majority of the municipalities that we service.

Let's say, hypothetically speaking, you know, I think, so you're Wayne County. I can't remember what the A stands for. So I think, you know, first instinct when you're looking at that, you know, it's a firm that's, you know, in Wayne County. But, you know, one of the questions I would think if the public was thinking about this is, like, can you just kind of speak about, like, say if a resident or somebody has something that they need assistance for or have a question for, how do you guarantee that kind of presence here locally to meet those needs and do it in a visible way? EXPEDITIOUS WAY I GUESS.

AND WE WERE CALLED WAYNE COUNTY APPRAISAL AND THE COMPANY HAS BEEN IN EXISTENCE FOR SINCE 1982 SO 40 SOMETHING PLUS YEARS. AS WE'VE GROWN OBVIOUSLY WE SERVICE A NUMBER OF JURISDICTIONS OUTSIDE OF WAYNE COUNTY AND SINCE THE NAME CHANGE IN WCA ASSESSING. When we first took over in 2012, it was very interesting because at that point, the administration at that time wanted us to be able to service the city of Kalamazoo as the vast majority of jurisdictions in the area, especially large jurisdictions, have determined to... essentially contract out with assessing. It's very difficult in the state of Michigan to find certified competent assessing personnel. I think all municipalities struggle for that. Out of the Michigan Master Assessors, I think there's only less than 300 in the state. And when you look at the the lack thereof of those positions to be filled, I think that contractual assessing has certainly become more popular as has been indicated with Portage, Battle Creek, all the rest. Back in 2012, it was quite interesting because at that point, literally when you called the City of Kalamazoo Assessor's Office, it rang to our office in Westland. And that was something back at that point that got us through that point in that period. But since then, I think my regional assessment manager, Andrew Falkenberg is here. I think we actually started our staffing prior to 2020. So around that time, from 2012 to 2016, around that time, we had that hybrid version. But we've been staffing full-time the city of Kalamazoo since around 2016. So any of the staff members in the assessor's office downstairs are our employees, and we've been staffing the needs for the city full-time in person here at City Hall.

Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Pareto. Yes, Commissioner Wilson. Thanks, Mayor.

I just had a question. What level of oversight do we have either as a city or as a city commission in this contractual setup versus a traditional full-time hire?

It's very similar because their employees are on site here every day. As part of the contract, we provide office space to them. I see them about five times a week minimum because I walk by all the time. They have the typical HR oversight of their own employees. There is a contractual relationship there. However, You know, I've gotten to be on a first-name basis with every single one of their employees. I see the work they do. You know, if I have an issue, I work either through Andrew or through Aaron directly, and then they can address any issues that do come up.

Thank you. I guess to expand on that, I guess, you know, in a situation where a citizen has a complaint on an assessment, I guess what power do we have over the process? If there's something in the process that gets called out that needs to be addressed, I would assume that that would be something for them to handle in-house. But I'm wondering what kind of authority do we have over that or influence?

So it's still our process, you know, per, I believe it's in charter, if I have it correctly. The city assessor reports to myself as the finance director. So I have, you know, that working relationship, that general authority over him. I mean, virtually everything with assessing comes down to a standard practice, a state protocol. You know, there isn't typically a lot of leeway with how these things run just because they have to be standardized to be fair at all.

Thank you. Other questions? Commissioners? Commissioner Slaby.

Maybe this is a question for Attorney Leal. I guess I just don't understand it. What you just said was they report to you, but they are our appointee. So to me, for us, you don't directly report to us. It is the city manager and then you report to the city manager's office. So how is it structured this way where this third party contract reports to you, but per our charter to stay in compliance, they must be our appointee in which they would report to us. So I'm struggling to understand the chain of command here and how we've structured it and if it truly is in compliance with our charter.

Attorney Leal. The charter provides that this commission gets to appoint several of the appointees which assessor is typically I didn't see it on tonight's agenda but we usually have a separate resolution that actually designates AARON POWERS FROM WCA ASSESSING AS THE ACTUAL ASSESSOR FOR THE CITY. IT'S NOT UNCOMMON FOR CITIES TO ACTUALLY HAVE ONE OF THEIR APPOINTEES BE AN ACTUAL CONTRACTED PROFESSIONAL SERVICE. CITY ATTORNEYS ARE VERY COMMON. CITY OF PORTAGE DOESN'T HAVE THEIR OWN IN-HOUSE LEGAL COUNCIL. AS FAR AS THE REPORTING STRUCTURE, I KNOW THAT THEY DO UNDER THE CONTRACT REPORT TO STEVE OR TO THE CFO However, I was just double-checking the charter when you asked your question whether it was written in the charter that way. I don't recall it being that way, but I hadn't gotten to there yet. But I can look that up and get back to you in a few minutes if that's okay.

Other questions? Commissioners? Nothing. Okay. Thank you so much. Appreciate it, Steve.

seeing no questions from commissioners at this time is there anyone in the audience who would like to comment on this item is h2 attorney leo i just wanted to get back to answer the question okay that's um section 51 subsection d of the city charter provides that the assessor shall perform such other duties as may be prescribed in this charter or by the director of finance so it's actually in the charter that is correct

Thank you, Attorney Leal. Is there anyone in the chambers that would like to comment on this item, this item H2? Seeing no one, commissioners, the recommended action is a motion to approve and authorize the city manager to sign all related documents. Is there a motion? So moved. Motion made by Commissioner Hoffman. Support. Supported by Commissioner Slabey. Further discussion, commissioners? Commissioner Slabey.

So I just wanted to say that I will be supporting this contract because having assessment services in place is essential to the functioning of the city. You know, we cannot afford a gap in this work and I appreciate the effort to ensure continuity. As of yesterday, our contract did end with them. And so if we were not to move forward with this today, then we wouldn't have an assessor in place. And I think that, you know, as part of our fiduciary responsibility, we have to ensure that we have someone in that space, and particularly due to our, to remain in compliance with our charter. I will say, though, that this was on the agenda previously at our previous meeting, and I had requested that it get pulled because of my frustration with recent customer experience directly by this company that we are contracting with. It was unfortunate because the customer service experience did not improve until I mentioned I was a city commissioner. For me, this gives me great pause due to the fact that all of our residents, no matter what their title is, if they have a question, they should be able to be treated with dignity, and quality customer service, and I was not. And so it makes me wonder how others may have been treated in the past. Even if we don't have anything documented, a lot of people often don't report it because they don't understand who to report it to, or they just feel like, hey, this is just... the city's reputation, I'm going to chalk it up to that. And if we are going to continue to try to improve our relationship with the community and restore that public trust is imperative that especially with the people that we contract out, they are representative of the city. People don't think about it as WCA. They think about it as the city of Kalamazoo, especially because it's one of our appointees as a commission. So it's within our power to ensure the people that we are appointing or the third party contracts that we are entering in ensure that they represent us well. And this is gonna be a three year contract, okay? And so once again, based on timing, I do wanna ensure that we don't have a gap. And that to me is more important than addressing some of these customer service issues that could be addressed. And I think that city manager Hankins has done a great job with quickly responding to my concerns that I shared with him. At the same time, I want to be clear that I see this as a practical necessity, not necessarily the long-term vision we should be working toward. We often discuss outsourcing through the lens of cost savings, but cost should not be the only factor in this conversation. If saving money alone is the standard, we can make the argument to contract out many city functions. Why don't we just go ahead and contract out everybody, police officers, public service workers. We don't because we understand the value in having these positions in house. Most of us will reject that approach because we understand that public service is about more than dollars. There's a value in having professionals who are accountable to our organization, accessible to residents, invested in our community, not just all across the state and present in the day-to-day life of the city. So those relationships matter, institutional knowledge is important, and that public accountability to me is critical in terms of restoring our public trust with our residents and other stakeholders. So as we move forward, I would encourage us to be bold enough with our 10-year master plan to ask whether bringing assessment services back in-house should be part of our long-term strategy. Even if that is not feasible today, I believe it is a conversation worth having rather than assuming contracting is the only option available to us. Similar to what we just did with the People's Food Co-op, where they have been operating our farmers market since the beginning. And after 13 years, we just up and said, hey, let's do an RFP process. What I'm being told is after three years and since 2012, since it's been a struggle to find someone that's certified based on state requirements, we're just going to move forward with contracting always. I think if we're talking about Education City here, wouldn't it be awesome to talk with Kalamazoo Promise and the schools to figure out how we could create a pipeline that incentivizes people to go into appraisal and assessment? you know lines of employment and bring somebody back home here to serve for the city of kalamazoo that to me is the type of bold vision that i want us to take on as a commission as a city and through this i am just encouraging us to think about that not for today before the next 10 years i think we are we have the ability as an organization to get that done And I believe it is a conversation worth having rather than assuming contracting is the only way to go. So again, I'm supportive of this contract today, so we don't have a gap, but I really do urge us to have this conversation continue and make sure that we can think that there's more than just one possibility.

Thank you, Commissioner Slaby. Other discussion, Commissioners? Vice Mayor Duncan.

I want to echo Commissioner Slaby, but also to my understanding, the language that's in the contract, we do have the opportunity to review in 18 months. Am I correct in that?

I can respond to that. Vice Mayor, we do have an opportunity to, to one of Commissioner Slavy's points, take a look at other opportunities for other consultants if we wanted to do that at 18 months, not as a determination of continuing the contract, but we plan to as the administration to actually go out and make sure that we've evaluated all options when we come back to it. So we also have expectations in the contract for performance, for customer service delivery, and the intent is to have any contractor meet our customer service expectations. Even if we advance and change those customer expectations along the way, there's an understanding that there will be an expectation of compliance.

So how often are those expectations monitored?

I can, meaning the customer service expectations. I think based on what we've arrived at in this conversation, we'll have to set up some standard timelines for that. But at this point, I believe Steve, if you want to come back to the podium, he can address the current process for evaluating performance under the contract that we've been using.

So you want me to address the customer service portion or the overall contract?

No, just if you could just give us a sense of how you maintain assurances that our standards of customer service delivery are met just in general sense.

Yeah, you know, it's really no different than with any of our employees. You know, I, you know, monitor, you know, I'm in the area every day. You know, we monitor them just like every other employee. You know, unfortunately, nobody bats 1,000. You know, issues happen, complaints get filed. You know, we do respond to those. We do, you know, additional training when that comes up, reiterating that, yes, you know, it is WCA, but they are representing the city as well. So, and as you may point to, Commissioner, People don't know the difference and they call the phone line. So we just follow that just like we would with if there's a complaint in the front area with our treasury or any other area of service that we provide. We address those complaints. We use them as learning experiences and we do our best to be better in the future.

Thank you.

Commissioner Prado.

Sure, I was just thinking about this and your point about our appointees, if you will, and I'm just like thinking through like our other appointee relationships, even though section 51, subsection D basically delegates that authority to our finance director. I WAS WONDERING IF IT WOULD BE WORTH, EVEN IF IT'S ON AN ANNUAL BASIS, MAYBE SETTING UP SOME SORT OF AN OPPORTUNITY WHERE EVEN IF IT WAS JUST TO GET TOGETHER FOR A HALF AN HOUR OR AN HOUR WITH A COUPLE PEOPLE FROM THE COMMISSION WITH THE FINANCE DIRECTOR JUST TO KIND OF HAVE A CONVERSATION TO JUST GAUGE IF YOU'VE NOTICED ANY CHANGES OR IRREGULARITIES IN SERVICE OR just get your take on how performance delivery has been during the last year or whatnot, just to check in with each other, and if that would be possible, or if you think it'd be worthwhile doing something like that. Certainly, I think just the fact that it's delegated in the charter says that we fully trust the finance director to execute this work, make sure that we're holding things to a high standard, but just to make sure that there's that... just because of the kind of different nature of that one appointee position, it might be a valuable opportunity to have that continuity between the two of us. I just want to get thoughts about something like that.

Sure. Commissioner Prado, through the mayor, vice mayor, I think it's very feasible for us to create a schedule to come back and present an update to you on how we feel this work is being performed. And we can formalize that and get something out so that you know what that looks like.

I also second thought was just that I know you think about public safety. They have software that they're using now for I mean basically every single officer interaction just to see if there's any irregularities. I know public services is very stringent about customer service and follow up. I just was curious as well in terms of like for WCA, is there any kind of feedback or survey type thing for feedback that is collected for each service request currently that could just be aggregated over a period of time or is that something that you all do?

I don't know if I could really address those specific concerns. The 311 system that almost all of our questions and concerns come through is normally the same process that's been established by the city of Kalamazoo. So if a constituent or a taxpayer has a concern, it's oftentimes their first point of contact is 311. 311 will try to whittle down what their specific departmental need is and then it gets focused towards us. SO THAT'S THE GENERAL PROCESS THAT WE WORK THROUGH. SO I GUESS THAT MECHANISM IS ALREADY IN PLACE TO BE ABLE TO SEE THE INTERACTION THAT WE'RE HAVING WITH CONSTITUENTS IS PRIMARILY THROUGH THAT 311 PROCESS. I DON'T KNOW IF THERE'S ANY SPECIFIC ABILITY TO WAY OR JUDGE A I'm certainly more than happy to provide any feedback to the commission as would be requested or necessary and would be certainly happy to work with in any particular fashion that you'd like to be put forth, but that's the process that currently exists now.

And if I can, if I may, Commissioner, if it's not there, it's not the kind of thing that we can't look at. And it wouldn't just be for this group. We could do that in a broad sense because we are working on our customer experience. That's one of the priorities of this work group. And so this is one of the things we would actually work with you on to help to ensure that everything is captured.

Yeah, and I think for Mr. Powers, just so you know, I mean like the references for that is that coming out of our retreat, it seemed like one of the leading elevated factors in terms of just like citywide. What we want to accomplish is just. excellence, you know, and just making sure that they're exemplary service and responsive government just in every level. And it sounds like you have a very responsive team, which is great and whatnot, but I just think that making sure that we have some way to gauge that is going to be important. So, thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Prado. Commissioner Slaby.

I just would like to add that one of the reasons why I feel comfortable supporting this, acknowledging that we don't want a gap in services, is because of the quick responsiveness of our city manager's office. City Manager Hankins and COO Lamb responded and provided multiple follow-ups. And I think through that, not to go deep into the weeds, but just we identified that it In addition to customer service quality, there was breakdowns in processes and parts of that missing, which led to me having to talk to the assessors versus just talking with 311 because there was no script in place for the question. So I think that our city manager did a really good job in identifying that and trying to already get the conversation going around figuring out those solutions. So I do believe that moving forward, even with this contract, that they're going to do their due diligence in reviewing what's there, what's missing, and getting that addressed. So I'm excited to see that happen.

Thanks, Commissioner Slippy. Any other discussion, commissioners? Seeing none, quick poll, let me please call the roll. Commissioner Slaby.

YES.

COMMISSIONER WILSON. YES. VICE MAYOR DUNCAN. YES. MAYOR ANDERSON. YES. COMMISSIONER HESS.

YES.

COMMISSIONER HOFFMAN. YES.

COMMISSIONER PRADLE. YES. THANK YOU, COMMISSIONERS. THE MOTION PASSES. NEXT ON THE AGENDA IS ITEM H3, CITY MANAGER HANKINS.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. APPROVAL OF A CONTRACT WITH WHITEMAN AND ASSOCIATES INC. FOR CONSTRUCTION ENGINEERING SERVICES FOR THE KALAMAZOO AVENUE CONSTRUCTION PROJECT IN THE AMOUNT OF $2,139,900. Thank you, Manager Hankins. And is there a staff report on this item? Yes, Mayor, there is. We actually have two items that are related back to back on this agenda. And so the presentation will cover both aspects in one, but the other item, of course, will come up. This reflects more than a decade of planning and community engagement, beginning with early corridor studies with MDOT and continue through the city's strategic vision, downtown street design work, and more recent engagement and design completed in July 2025. So, Director Baker, if you will. Thank you.

Thank you, Manager Hankinson. Welcome back, Director Baker.

Thank you very much, Your Honor, and thank you, Manager Hankins, for the introduction, certainly on the project and our work to date. Again, thank you, Mayor, for the opportunity to present to the City Commission on this wonderful opportunity that's been over decades in the making here. There we go. It's a little slow. I apologize. So we've got two items on the agenda, two recommendations on the agenda tonight. One of those is item H3. That's an approval for a construction engineering contract. And then we have item H4, and that's an approval with an MDOT contract for a contractor, a local contractor, to perform the actual construction work. So there's kind of two pieces to this that are separate agenda items, and we're going to cover both of those in the presentation. I just want to go back and kind of talk through some overall timelines of this work. Kind of going all the way back in time, Kalamazoo Avenue was originally a two-way street. That was converted to a one-way street by the highway department. that we know today as MDOT. That was in the early 1960s. There's been, if you look through the historic archives, there's all kinds of discussions that have been occurring over the years. The most recent was in 2013 through 2018 time period when we engaged in a planning and environmental linkage study with MDOT. That work was beyond just Kalamazoo City. That also included Kalamazoo Township and a lot of other community partners. That work ultimately led to specific action within our IK 2025 Imagine Kalamazoo plan at that time for our long range vision and strategic master plan. Really in those early years, we were really looking to make substantial major changes to impact traffic safety in and around Kalamazoo Ave, Michigan Ave, Douglas, and West Main Street in areas that are predominantly one-way streets. A lot of that work was not in line with a lot of what MDOT goals and priorities were at that time period. And we had some real revolutionary thinking in the city to come out with a jurisdictional transfer, whereas ownership of the streets would be reverted from MDOT back to the city of Kalamazoo. And so that was, again, a bit of a process. It took a few years for that all to occur. And then that finally put ownership of these streets back in the hands of the city of Kalamazoo. That then opened the door for us to apply for several rounds of funding. We were successful in those funding iterations and that funding paid for the design. That design then we came back out to the community, engaged in design in 2022 and 2023 when that first started up. opening back up and then that design, those design iterations with our community for Kalamazoo Ave were completed in July of 2025. So the section we're talking about today is Kalamazoo Ave. getting into the details of that. Specifically, Kalamazoo Ave, and we'll get into the duration of when that construction is going to occur, but it's probably occurring over the next three years. We've got two contracts here in front of you tonight. That first one with Whiteman & Associates for just over $2 million. That really focuses on the oversight of the project itself, kind of the boots on the ground, a lot of day-to-day work with quality control, materials testing, inspections, owner rep. roles and responsibilities and a lot of coordination with our local businesses. This is kind of the door to door where the shovel meets the earth interaction with the community members and also interaction with the contractors to make sure that the project and the work that's happening out there in that construction project is occurring in accordance with the specifications on the project, in accordance with the regulations with respect to EGLE. And then also meeting the expectations and needs of our community, supporting those local businesses and making sure that they're able to continue to operate and they know what's happening with the project on a day in and day out basis. The other item is the acceptance of the MDOT construction agreement. You'll see that that agreement is written for $16.8 million. I want to go into some details specific to what does that mean over the duration of that project? So this agreement was written with MDOT based on the engineer's estimate. That's how we write agreements with MDOT. That's standard for all of our MDOT agreements. As that project gets built out over the series of that project, the actual amount are billed back to the city. And those actual amounts that are billed back to the city are based on the material cost, the unit cost of the actual bid. So between the bid opening and engineer's estimate, we did have some time that evolved between those two events. And so we have our bid in front of us and the sum of all the line items in the bid is about $19.6 million. Now, under our MDOT contract, this project would be continuing to move forward and build out over time in accordance with the actual work performed. no change needed at this time. We're still recommending that $16 million contract that's in your packet. This is pretty normal stuff for MDOT agreements with us. And you'll see that this will be billed out over the next three years as we're doing the work on the project. Now those prices won't change. Those unit prices are held by that bid. But what changes in real time is how many tons of material are going down, how many tons of gravel goes in the ground. how many feet of water main, how many connections, that sort of thing. So that $19.6 million cost number is likely to float around a little bit over the next three years. And as we go through milestones or significant changes in that, again, we still follow City of Kalamazoo purchasing policy. So there will be opportunities when we come forward to the City Commission for change orders in accordance with city policy on those items. Talking now on the details of that cost, so that $19 million as we see it today, about a third of that or a little over $6 million is utility costs. So that's funded by water department, wastewater department. This is things for like new water main infrastructure, underground work that's happening to really kind of renew these utilities for the next 100 years. I was looking in the records today to kind of get an idea anticipation for how old some of this infrastructure is under Kalamazoo Ave. And some of our first water main dating back to the 1890s is there. There's a section of water main from early 1900s. And then there's also a section of water main from the 1930s. So with this project, we're looking to renew all that infrastructure. Storm sewer is going to be renewed in that area as well. Above ground work, we've got about $13 million of work above ground. Majority of that's grant funded. About $8 million of this project is specifically federally grant funded. And that's going to pay for really kind of everything above ground. So there's going to be new sidewalks, new curb and gutter. Of course, the street cross section, that's all going to be new. And then one thing we probably haven't thought about on Kalamazoo Ave for a while is traffic lights. And you may say, well, Director Baker, there's traffic lights out there already. Why can't we use those? Well, we need ones that point the other way, too, because the road is going to be two-way now going forward. We're going to spend some time talking through the sequencing of the project and what elements of work are going to occur when. And just kind of from a high level, we're starting off with Kalamazoo Avenue. That's the contract that you have in front of you today. And we're going to work on that over the next three years. As we span into the future, we're also going to bring in other elements of other streets. forward. And then in 2028, we're going to start into that Michigan Ave portion of that. Now, as this work progresses and this work is constructing two-way streets, this work will also kind of open up doors for new transportation movements and also create new traffic patterns to support folks getting around a whole lot better. So as the work progresses, the impacts of the construction actually continues to be less and less. Looking zoomed in now specifically on Kalamazoo Ave, we've got kind of a broad window of work that we're looking to do. We're still detailing out schedule with the contractor. We do plan to come back on June 15th to go into some additional details specific to schedule. We want to kind of put some notice out there on west main we still are planning to get this bid out and awarded this year and that could also include some start to construction although a lot of that west main work would likely occur in 2027. What is it all going to look like? We spent a lot of time with the community engaging on this project. This design has really kind of spanned from our work that started in 2022 and we just completed in July 2025, so about a year ago, about a three-year overall process on that design, working with a lot of stakeholders, working with community members, working with neighborhoods. We've got kind of two different views of what Kalamazoo Ave will look like. We've got areas from like Westnage going back to the east, all the way back to Edwards Street. That's gonna be two lanes, or sorry, two-way. And that's gonna have movements westbound and eastbound. That's also gonna have on-street parking. You'll have center left turn lane, that sort of thing. As we continue to move west, west of Westnage into that Stewart neighborhood, you're gonna see a little bit of a change in street pattern. A lot of your heavier traffic movements are gonna be going on to Michical and then a very new concept for most of us, unless you were born prior to 1949 and drove in Kalamazoo, will be driving west on West Main from Michical, which has not happened in a long, long time. So there's going to be new traffic movements opening up. It's going to be a whole lot easier to move in and around our neighborhoods and move to where you want to drive around in terms of trip destination. Just kind of wrapping back up, we do plan to come back to the City Commission on June 15th to really kind of get into some more details on that specific construction schedule on Kalamazoo Ave. We'll have some meetings with the contractor if everything is approved here tonight and that we'll set up some additional presentations on that construction communication construction communication plans, some of the work we've been doing on alternate routes and traffic calming, and get into some detail on some of this other work that we've been putting together. That's it for my slide deck. I'll turn it back over to you, Your Honor. Happy to answer any questions or talk through any items that commissioners may have.

Thank you so much, Director Baker. As always, an excellent presentation. Nice visuals here to accommodate that, so thank you so much for that. Commissioner's questions? Okay.

Commissioner Bradel. So a couple questions, if you don't mind. So just looking at this, this is broken into three segments. So there's the 2026, 2027, 2028 segment. Can you just speak to the evolution and the decision making to break that into three sections?

Sure. So there's coordination aspects of that. There's some significant projects that are happening right now on Kalamazoo Ave. Different major developments between the county. Certainly there's a private development that we're aware of too that we're coordinating. There's significant utility work. So there's going to be all new underground gas infrastructure. There's also going to be what is currently overhead electric lines that are going to go in the ground as well so we're kind of coordinating between these major utilities these other construction projects and then the street project in a way that minimizes impacts to the motorists or the motoring public and also kind of works together to get that work done so there's going to be work kind of happening all throughout kalamazoo ave over the next three years and then the the different work elements are going to be moving around to accommodate that. The second major aspect of that coordination is how do we tie in those movements on West Main and Douglas and that intersection with Michical and Westridge so that we can bring those traffic movements around there, too. So there's been a lot of work by the engineering team and community members and, you know, kind of reaching out across the aisle on many different fronts to truly understand what's the least impactful way to put this all together so that as we're doing that work, we can kind of build out pathways or alternative routes as that work goes on. So that's how this is all kind of keyed in together to really kind of take advantage of, you know, getting this work done on that eastern portion, coordinating with our partners, CONSTRUCTING THEN SOME STUFF ON THE WEST AND THEN KIND OF TYING IT ALL TOGETHER AND THEN COMING BACK AND DOING THAT PIECE THROUGH STEWART NEIGHBORHOOD.

AND JUST TO PRECURSE THIS, I DON'T WANT TO GIVE THE IMPRESSION, I'M NOT SUPPORTIVE OF ALL THESE, BUT SOME OF THE QUESTIONS THAT I'M ASKING, I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT WE HAVE COMFORT IN KNOWING WHAT'S COMING NEXT AND WHATNOT. SO LOOKING AT THE TIMELINE, The segment of Kalamazoo Avenue, we would put in that picture to like Westridge segment. It's going to a conversion. It's listed in 2027 as it's marked yellow, which means that be completed. So I would imagine at that point it would involve more just kind of finishing touches and that sort of thing because there's a giant arena that's coming online in 2027. My question for you is the arena is set to come online fall 2027, and this is going to be a forever game changer in that corridor in terms of just traffic, pedestrians, all of the above. And I know that when you talk to a lot of residents, one of the things that you hear that's heartburn is like, well, how are all these arteries gonna absorb and neighborhoods and everything gonna absorb all this traffic, all these people, all this activity that's happening because of that project? And so if the construction is like right in the midst of that segment or that sector, or even those streets that people might be leaving into, how do we give people reassurance that we're gonna figure out how to make sure to mitigate AND MANAGE THAT ADDED CONGESTION WHILE YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE CONSTRICTED LANES, CHANGES ALL HAPPENING, YOU KNOW, WHILE THE OPENING IS HAPPENING AND INTO REALLY THE FIRST YEAR THE ARENA IS GOING TO EXIST. DOES THAT MAKE SENSE?

Certainly. I think I've found the questions and I want to kind of talk first on the big overall design from a future state to put us out in say 2030 when everything's done. We've got Michigan Ave completed. We've got Kalamazoo Ave completed. We've got MichiCal, Douglas, West Main, everything's functioning. From that perspective, that entire transportation system was designed around the impacts of the arena and the peak hour flows of traffic that are coming to it and all those variables all together. And so that was... planned and that design accommodates all those uses. Stepping back now to where we are present day and even kind of this the challenges we have with construction and timing and all these projects going forward is that the arena is scheduled to open in the fall of 2027 and you can look even outside of Kalamazoo Avenue, we still can see from the timeline that we're not going to be done with Michigan Ave yet. We still have portions of West Main and Douglas and some other areas that are under construction. So you can see from this detail that we are going to be in a point in time where the arena is open and we are also under construction. And so that is certainly something that we are going to have to deal with through this project. That is something that we've been meeting with the arena developers on. I know that we're talking about ways to bring in some traffic control and help to ease that during those events. But I think it's certainly something that we... need to be prepared for that we are going to be under construction downtown when the arena is open. And that's something we are working on. We are also understanding that what impacts that may have to our surrounding neighborhoods. And so we are working on, you know, in the neighborhoods, things like looking at stop signs, adding more stop signs, looking at speed bumps, adding more speed bumps. We have a list of speed bumps that we're going to be deploying this year in Stewart and in Northside to get ahead and address those issues. We also spent considerable design and planning and construction efforts years ago when we've kind of re-imagined North Street. We did a lot of paving and improvement on North Street, including the Norse Gull Harrison roundabout, understanding that we're gonna be routing people around through that area as an alternate street. There's a major project in revitalization of the Ransom Street corridor. And Ransom is a new, great, wonderful street to be on. We'll soon hope to have more small businesses on Ransom Street that's going to help move that traffic around. And so I think certainly there's been a lot of work are ready to anticipate all this coming together. But certainly that remains, that is going to remain something that's going to be top of mind for us to continue to work through with construction and an arena kind of in the same space together.

I give you credit too. I was really nervous about the interruptions with that Southwestage segment that was closed down for a decent number of months this summer or whenever that was last track of time. But I thought you did a really, you and your team did a really great job of like mitigating ALTERNATIVE ROUTE AND SIGNAGE AND THAT SORT OF THING. IT WENT A LOT SMOOTHER THAN I WOULD HAVE GUESSED WHEN THAT PROCESS WAS GOING. SO MY NEXT QUESTION FOR YOU IS ABOUT SUPPLEMENTAL AND CHANGE ORDERS. I'M GOING TO GIVE YOU AND STEVE GREAT CREDIT AND PROPS FOR BEING PROACTIVE. I REMEMBER BACK IN, I THINK IT WAS 2020 OR 2021, YOU PROACTIVELY WENT OUT AND BOUGHT cast iron in bulk, I think, or because you were seeing that there were like 300% increases in cost price. And, you know, here we're talking about, you know, initially the estimates were at 16.8 million. We're now looking at 19.6, almost $3 million different estimate of what the costs will be actually versus what we were estimating when we started this whole process. so my question for you is and i know you're going to do this but but have you have you and your team put much thought into thinking of like similar kind of proactive approaches to try to like solidify uh prices for things right now because the one thing that i've learned through that whole process of living through and governing through 2020 2021 is it was like supplementals and change orders up the wazoo and It's scary to think about, especially looking at tariff impacts that we haven't fully realized, potentially inflationary pressures because of fuel and things are going on in Iran. Potentially in a year, that could have impact on costs beyond the nearly $3 million differential. And so I was just kind of curious if there's anything that could be proactively done to kind of mitigate those costs or try to avoid a massive overrun on this project.

Certainly, those are great questions with respect to those costs and those unit costs. I want to make sure that we're clear in that those unit costs in that bid, those costs are going to be held through the entire project. So that is great news. Certainly, there was a price change between when the engineer's estimate was written and when those bids came in. And I'll speak to that. Specifically, there was... phasing completed in this project, work that we learned from our 2024 construction season when we had Westonage closed from nearly Cork Street all the way up to ALL THE WAY UP TO VINE STREET. AND THAT WAS EXTREMELY IMPACTFUL FOR THE COMMUNITY, IT WAS EXTREMELY IMPACTFUL FOR OUR BUSINESS COMMUNITY, AND IT WAS EXTREMELY IMPACTFUL FOR TRAFFIC. AND SO FOR THAT PROJECT, made sense from a cost standpoint. It was much cheaper to install all that water main in one long section and we learned from that. So one of the things that was very intentional in our design was to break the construction, the underground work into very small block by block segments. So that was actually wrote into the contract that the contractor had to work within a set limit. We call it construction phasing and get that done, get that completed. And so that work from a contractor standpoint is going to take longer. You got to do every intersection four times instead of just doing it once because we're going to prioritize keeping the roads open and prioritize moving traffic and prioritize being able to support local businesses. And it's going to cost us more money. How much more? Our engineers didn't quite get that right from the engineer estimate versus what the actual bid tab was. In addition to that, there was also some pipe material price increases due a lot to some changes that we're seeing in the global economy and that we're going through right now. The good news is all those changes are now pen on paper. They're done. As we look forward on this contract over the next three years, most of the changes that we'll be bringing forward and certainly are going to be anything outside of that $19 million is going to be we put more gravel in the ground or less gravel in the ground. We got more concrete on sidewalks or less concrete on sidewalks. We found something particularly interesting underground and so our solution to fix it is going to be maybe we're going to put in more quantities of storm sewer maybe we're going to find a sanitary manhole that we thought we would just rebuild we're going to replace it now so those type of construction changes are going to be the major driving factor behind future change orders on this beyond the 19 million dollars

Can I just ask one more question? So the other question is, I know for West Michigan Avenue, the timeline's been kind of pushed back for that work as well. And I mean, if you've walked in the parade on West Michigan Avenue, it is an experience. And I think your team and you have done an amazing job job trying to maintain what is. And I'd imagine it's very challenging to try to figure out how much to invest in maintaining when you know so soon you're going to just do a whole, dig up the guts, do everything, right? But I'm just wondering in your mind and your team's mind how you're you're thinking that through. How do you balance that? The maintenance, making sure it's safe, making sure you can see the lines because of all the patching and everything like that, but also recognizing we don't want to waste an inordinate amount of money when we know we're going to work on that, but it's been delayed a little bit. And I was wondering if you could speak a little bit about that as well.

Sure, that's a great point. I think we've all walked down Michigan Avenue or driven down Michigan Avenue, and we can all agree that it's probably not the newest of streets. And that's everything from sidewalks to things like potholes and lines. And so I think we're certainly having some conversations about that as we look at things. We're talking community members. There are minimum safety standards that we've got to make sure that we're being proactive. So if there's something that needs to be addressed, we're going to address it. A lot of that is probably going to be in the patch department and less on complete You're probably not going to see us come out on Michigan Avenue and construct a block of brand new sidewalk or brand new curb. But if there are potholes or gaps or things that are breaking and falling apart, we're still going to come out and address those. And there have been some challenges. We're going to continue to work through those on Michigan Avenue and some of these other streets as well.

Thank you, Commissioner Pareto. Vice Mayor Duncan? Nothing? All right. Anyone else? Questions? Commissioner Hess.

Sure. He took a few of my questions, but we are also doing water infrastructure along Michigan Avenue as well. Great.

The specifics on Michigan Avenue don't go as far as Kalamazoo Avenue, so there is some new water infrastructure on Michigan Avenue that we don't have to completely redo all of it, but there are portions of water infrastructure on Michigan Avenue. It won't be as extensive as Kalamazoo. It won't be as extensive.

Oh, good to know. So this overage, this $3 million, are there any plans to find more money to apply for more grants to be able to cover those costs? Are we covering those internally?

We're covering those. Our teams, our engineers and budget teams are already making sure that those budgets align on those $19 million of costs that we have in front of us today. Majority of that is specific to water infrastructure dollars. So that's, those are... enterprise funds, dollars that are specific for that use. So those are getting lined out themselves already. I just want to again caution my statement on Michigan Ave. There's substantial storm sewer construction and sanitary sewer construction on Michigan Ave. I should probably clarify that question. Although the water isn't as extensive, there is going to be significant construction impacts on Michigan Ave. When we get to that, that we're going to we're continuing to plan and work through what that would look like. So I don't want to downplay impacts of Michigan Ave.

Right. Yeah. Well, thank you for that. So in terms of this whole process, I think there's a bit of trepidation among the people about streets being torn up again and memories of West Ridge and all that. What plan is in place to communicate with the public to make sure that everybody knows which way to go and we better take another route farther north of town or south of town to be able to get around? Is there a team and is there a plan in place to communicate with the public during this time?

yes there certainly is and we plan to come back on june 15th to go really in a deep dive on a lot of this stuff i can attempt to talk through some of it but there's there's a whole new presentation just on our construction outreach we're actually working with a marketing company we're talking about Putting a lot of dollars investment into advertising and marketing and everything's from billboard to social media spots, that sort of thing. Working with business owners, having contact for the business owners to contact, to talk to through issues. We're also looking at, again back to that project schedule, is we're really trying to minimize specific closures and detours. Not to say that that isn't going to have to happen, but we're really looking to limit either the duration of how long you've got to be on a detour and then limit the fact that having to take a detour at all and really trying to keep traffic flowing even if it's just one lane at a time.

So you mentioned using Ransom Street and it being a very wonderful corridor. I will tell you, some of the detours I've been taking are up and down Ransom. And it's beautiful. Thank you.

It really is a nice street. And I really got to, you know, and really give thanks to all the work that the Northside Cultural Business District did with that project. Engineers are really good at designing pipe. That's really my claim to fame. And anything that looks nice probably wasn't designed by me. And there's certainly community input that went into that.

Thank you. I appreciate you and your work on this project.

Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Hess. Other questions for staff, colleagues? All right, seeing none. Thank you once again, Director Baker. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you on your feet answering questions. You obviously know these projects inside and out, so appreciate you and that work. Is there anyone in the chambers that would like to comment on this item? This is item H3 in specific, although I suppose you could comment on H4 because we wrapped them both together. But H3 is the contract with Whiteman and Associates for Construction Engineering Services.

Good evening. Jeff Messer, city resident. Every time the city opens up, say, Bronson Park to relocate the war memorials, or the city opens up Ransom Street for a complete rebuild of the roadway, like is being done on Kalamazoo Avenue, or AVB tears down some old houses to build some new apartments, metal detector guys are going to show up. They're looking for maybe silver dollars from 1896 or whatever. They don't care about the fences. They don't care about the no trespassing signs. I hope that our police and our city manager will be just as brutal to the metal detector guys trespassing in those areas as they are to the unhoused population. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments on this item?

I have a question regarding the semis. I think Ransom is gorgeous. Put it into the microphone. There you go. Thank you. Ransom is gorgeous. But my concern is the semis. Will they have a different route or will they take the same route?

Okay. Thank you so much. Do you want to add any comments about the commercial truck traffic, Director Baker?

I can speak a little bit to the truck traffic. These projects overall are really transportation system projects that tie in well with other transportation projects. So MDOT just completed a pretty significant project just north of Kalamazoo on the US 131. highway and the U.S. 131 business loop. And so truck traffic and all traffic with destinations, industrial destinations in and around Kalamazoo can really get to where they're going much better using I-94, 131 and then being able to interchange with the I-94 or U.S. 131 Business Loop interchange, coming down the Business Loop corridor to the Douglas exit, and then exiting there, going onto Mazel, and then from Mazel can go direct to Riverview, the truck, or where they need to go. 94, another good route for trucks. That all being said, we do have businesses here in Kalamazoo that need trucks to deliver items to their front door on a day to day basis. And so even as we continue to reroute trucks and we advertise the routes that trucks need to be on on those highways, we still have a need to have trucks in our community. And so We are looking at that. We are working with the trucking community to try to make sure we've got good spots for them. That all being said, Kalamazoo Ave, Michigan Ave will continue to support truck traffic. They are certified major streets. And by law, a major street, we cannot prohibit trucks from major streets. So trucks will be on these streets. This conversation about trucks, trucks in neighborhoods, certainly this is something that we want to continue to be responsive to the community on. Trucks are not designed to be on our local streets. And you may notice some of our local streets are actually signed, no trucks. And so this is something that is enforceable. We can work with public safety on that. kind of a work in progress as we continue to educate the trucking community on the best routes for them. Thank you.

Thank you, Director Baker. Anyone else in the chambers who would like to comment on this item? I'll say these items, H3 and H4. So seeing no one, Once again, commissioners, the recommended action is a motion to approve and authorize the city manager to sign all related documents. Is there a motion?

Motion.

Motion made by Commissioner Slaby. Support. Supported by Commissioner Hess. Any further discussion, commissioners? Commissioner Slaby.

I just wanted to applaud city staff. I mean, this is a huge transition for our downtown and it's been really a tireless effort for staff to secure funding. And I know that we always bring these grants up in opposition to all the other things that we need to address. But these federal and state grants are only focused on these type of projects. And the fact that we compete with all these other communities and get these is pretty amazing. So for us to have a two, three person grant team to cover all the grants going on in the organization, for us to be able to be competitive and secure all this money over the last seven to 10 years and being able to partner with MDOT to be able to get that jurisdiction transferred back over takes a lot of work. So I know that our city planning team with Rebecca Kick and Christina Anderson and Laura Lamb really led that effort and made sure that this could happen for us. So I'm excited. I think, you know, this always seems to be a pattern for us is that communication is key. And I echo my other commissioners in bringing up that people just have this anxiety around what's going to happen with the volume of traffic and all these projects, not even really during construction but after. And so I think it would go a long way for us to really be intentional in this resident education. It's more than just a mailer every three weeks. It's really about What are people saying? What are people either interpreting differently or not hearing from us? And how do we deeply connect with these communities to help people build up their capacity around these changes? I just had a great walk through the neighborhood yesterday, just connecting with neighbors outside, seeing what's going on in their neighborhood and how they're doing. And it was some great conversations, but the number one thing that came up was downtown and the changes. And they just kept bringing up these concerns about value. What about all the cars? And I'm like, Really, it will be fine. We can do this. But I think that it really needs to come from the city in ways that people understand it. And I think that we often get so focused on these things. We know this is the right thing to do. So we kind of just brush it off like they'll see. But I think, again, it goes back to restoring that trust with the public. and making sure that the community feels like a genuine partner with us and that we're giving them the dignity to have these conversations and talking with them to meet them where they're at and make sure that they understand what we're trying to do here more than just saying, hey, we're trying to bring business back downtown or we're trying to make it more walkable, but really connecting with them on the issues that they're bringing up and ensuring that we are breaking it down in a way that they can understand. So I think that investment needs to be prioritized over these next coming years.

Thank you, Commissioner Slaby. Other discussion, Commissioner? Commissioner Hess.

Sure. Thank you. Thank you for that, Commissioner Slaby. Also, so in 1965, when we made freeways go through our downtown east and west, it just increased traffic through downtown and not to downtown. And it's not just for businesses. It is now we're having so many more residences downtown, so many more people living downtown. It has to be a residential focused, a pedestrian focused, a yes, bicycle friendly town. And I'm just really grateful again to city staff for having done this. One of my first engagements with like when I was starting to look at serving the city was listening to then Mayor Bobby Hopewell give a State of the City address where he disparaged the freeways cutting through the heart of our downtown. And we are finally now being able to do something about this. It's millions of dollars, but it's going to be worth it for the greater good of our city, for the living room of our city, for the place where people gather, for all the people of all of our neighborhoods where they all come together in downtown. And it is going to take patience. It is going to take work on everyone's part. It is going to take a lot of communication, a lot of understanding, and a lot of grace. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Prado.

Thank you, Mayor. I was just going to just notate, echo some of my colleagues' comments, but just to take a pause and think this through, that in the next month, so July 2026, we're just about to undertake the physical element of one of the most massive undertakings that we've taken as a city, maybe ever, but certainly in decades. And the whole process of being here on commission, you know, this has been a seven to 10 year process. This predates our time on commission being here for six and a half years. But I was just trying to, I think there were maybe 15 or 16 commissioners that have been a part of voting on some element or other, whether it be the trunk line commission handover from MDOT to the city of Kalamazoo to this phase. So I just think about that 15, 16 people have been a part of making the decisions to bring us to that point. So that's how long that process has gone. I like to look at photos of what people have done around the world and the country. And when you look at examples of like monumental changes, when it's looking at making people centered communities versus vehicle centric communities, when you see the before photos of it just being a congested smog filled space, and then you look at the transformation where you see people gathered and people walking and people sitting at tables, it will be transformational for this community. And so just recognition to the team and the persistence and the resilience to keep this going from the start, I can't imagine from a city staff perspective or from a commissioner perspective, Mayor, you were there, But I mean, just voting on the trunk line handoff. I mean, there were so many steps that had to come after that step that could have totally derailed this possibility. And here we are today. So it's an example of a 10 year vision that the community and the leaders and the staff stuck with. I would also share as well, just thinking through this, this is a great example also of our grant team, just the creative use of trying to find financing. I was trying to do just the calculations, just to say $20 million that we would spend on a project like this, and you have 78,000 residents. That'd be $256 per resident, like every adult and child in the city of Kalamazoo that would cost us if we were paying for it when the federal government provided us with a grant to make this possible. So I mean, that's... a huge deal and that's something that we as a city could probably never take on ourselves. I asked some questions about the cost overruns concerns about this project given just that sometimes time is not on our side when it comes to cost. But I have seen over and over again where Director Baker, Steve Vicenzi and the finance department have found immeasurably creative solutions that don't undercut the quality of what we produce but are also very thoughtful of taxpayers and making sure that we're doing our best to try to keep costs down. And I'm going to agree with my colleagues and just echo the fact that the key to this and the success of this is going to just boil down to inordinate amounts of education and communication and making sure that people can continue to see the vision and see what positive picture this paints for the community and all of the community in the future. And lastly, I'll just share this as well. You saw on one of the slides as well that one third of the costs are just on utilities alone. And I cannot think of how many examples of urban core communities in the state of Michigan alone, but around the country that are not investing in their infrastructure. And, you know, so much of all of our infrastructure running to our our wastewater plant and throughout run through downtown Kalamazoo. And how much of a competitive edge that we are setting ourselves up and our kids and our grandkids for the decades ahead that we have thoughtfully prepared and laid the groundwork to having The best infrastructure for the future that is that is huge And so this is also making a huge step in that regard beyond what we've already done as well So I will be voting yes for this and I want to really thank everybody Involved for all their work and effort to bring us to this point.

So, thank you Thank You Commissioner other discussion commissioners vice mayor Duncan

I appreciate the staff taking the time to meet with me, talking about you, Ms. Lamb. I had a lot of concerns about the bike lanes. I had a lot of concerns about the two-way conversion coming from a city that has made these changes. I will not tell the public how to feel about something they have not experienced yet. But what I can tell you is that the staff has taken the time to worry about safety. I know that we have a young lady in the crowd today talking about speed bumps. That was one of my main concerns. If we slow down traffic in these main corridors, people are going to spill out into the neighborhoods and speed down streets where babies are playing. And so there was a guarantee from our staff that I'm very happy about. There was a sense of urgency and due diligence around creating traffic plans and traffic calming and enforcement in these areas while these changes happen so that we can ensure safety for all of our residents. And that's big to me. The other thing that I'm really excited about is if you looked at the renderings, the bike lanes are out of the street. So I think that that will help with some of the anxiety that people have about coming downtown and sharing the roads. While I do think we should be aiming to be, you know, a less vehicle centric city. Until that time, we've got to find a balance between safety and mobility with our residents. And so, again, just kudos to the staff in stepping up and explaining to us and making the necessary changes so that we can ensure safety while these changes happen. Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Any other discussion, Commissioners?

All right, seeing none, Clerk Borling, please call the roll. Commissioner Wilson? Yes. Vice Mayor Duncan? Yes. Mayor Anderson? Yes. Commissioner Hess? Yes. Commissioner Hoffman?

Yes.

Commissioner Pradel? Yes. Commissioner Slaby?

Yes.

Thank you. Commissioners, the motion passes. Next on the agenda is Item H4, City Manager Hankins. Thank you, Mayor.

Adoption of a resolution approving a Michigan Department of Transportation subrecipient agreement for the two-way conversion of Kalamazoo Avenue in the amount of $16,808,308.

Thank you very much, Manager Hankins. So the presentation incorporated item H3 and H4. So I don't think we need to see that again. We definitely went over that. Are there any questions particular to this item that anyone up here would like staff to address? All right, thank you so much, everyone. So seeing that, is there anyone here in the chambers that wants to comment on this item? It's item H4, related to approving the Michigan Department of Transportation subrecipient agreement. See no one then commissioners the recommended action is a motion to adopt the resolution. Is there a motion so moved motion made by Commissioner Hoffman support supported by Commissioner Slavey discussion any more discussion commissioners All right, so just a reminder for anyone that's watching, these items, I think a lot of discussion entailed both of these items when we were talking about it before. So it's not like item H3 entailed a lot of discussion, HM4, nothing. We were talking about this whole project together, and both of these things actually are part and parcel of the same function.

So seeing that, Clerk Boyling, please call the roll. Thank you. Vice Mayor Duncan. Yes. Mayor Anderson. Yes. Commissioner Hess. Yes. Commissioner Hoffman. Yes. Commissioner Pradel. Yes. Commissioner Slaby.

Yes.

Commissioner Wilson. Yes.

Thank you, Commissioners. The motion passes. Next, reports in legislation. City Manager Hankins, do you have a report?

Thank you, Mayor. Just a brief one first to acknowledge two of our employees who are going on and transitioning to different roles. I don't believe Director Antonio Mitchell is in the chamber, but I want to recognize his years. years of service here with the city. I believe two stints with us or two terms with us and the community planning and economic development department and so want to recognize the work that he's done over his time. So thank you for that work. I also want to acknowledge Rebecca Kick who you may have read in the paper is making a transition to a new role with her alma mater at what university is that again? It's Notre Dame, so we've heard it tonight. Rebecca has been a tremendous asset to the city, and we thank her for the time that she's given us, and we will miss the work that both she and Antonio brought to us.

Thank you.

Yes, any other items I've written in the report, and so I'll defer at this point.

So just as a reminder, we get a very, very nice detailed report from our city manager. It is in the agenda packet. It's available online in advance of the meeting, as well as obviously after the meeting's over. So a lot of great items on your report. Manager Hankins, I really appreciate that. Recognizing staff, other things that are going on, and... I think it's very helpful for anyone who wants to take the time, pull this up, a lot of other details that we don't necessarily get to here on the dais. We are now down to Commissioner comments. Is there any? Commissioner Slaby.

As of yesterday, May 31st, UAW workers did go on strike at American Axle, which is located in Three Rivers. So I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the workers that are currently there out on the picket line. While the facility is outside of Kalamazoo, many of the workers on that picket line are our neighbors and residents of this city. These are families who are standing up for what they believe is fair and a strike can place a real financial strain on these households as we know. But they are making sure that this is a fair contract and they are compensated fairly. I had the opportunity to visit the picket line this morning. and saw firsthand the solidarity and determination and community among the workers. You know, whatever your perspective are on the negotiation themselves, these are members of our community and I was happy to bring them, buy some snacks and water. They are picketing 24-7 every day until they get a fair contract. Last strike they had, I think was in 2008, went on for about 89, close to 90 days. So residents who would like to help can certainly donate practical items such as bottled water, sport drinks, wrapped snacks, make sure they're union made. And then different items like sunscreen, bug spray, hand warmers are all things that would be helpful to keep their spirits high and just keep these workers there on the picket line ready to go. So I encourage anyone who's able to support, check them out. You know, this is UAW Local 2093. Look up, learn more about it. And I was happy to be there in solidarity with the workers. Union strong.

Thank you, Commissioner Slimby. Other comments, commissioners? Vice Mayor Duncan.

First, happy Pride Month to those that are celebrating. Second, as we acknowledge Pride Month this month, we have seen a uptick in violence against trans folks. And so for those of you who will be celebrating this month, please do it with the understanding that there is no LGB without the T. There's so much history wrapped into why people celebrate this, and it's not just to put glitter on and dance at the park. This started with Stonewall. This started with draconian laws, like you must have three articles of gender, you know, appropriate clothing on. This was used to target trans folks. And we as a community just must acknowledge the real history of what is happening in June. This is not some cheap target parlor trick that you can put a rainbow flag on a t-shirt and say that you celebrate it. There is real history rooted in this month that directly correlates with the civil rights movement. And so if you notice what is happening in this country, we are dialing back civil rights all over. So if you care about the rights of yourself and your neighbors, it starts with protecting every single person that is in this community. And that includes trans folks. So I just want to be on the record about that. Again, I want to lift up myself. Isaac and El Concilio will be holding Borders Against Violence and Voter Suppression, July 1st from 6 to 8 at the Douglas. This will be an event highlighting some of the things that are happening in our community, but particularly what is happening nationally and internationally around gun violence. So we will be flying people in from out of the country to come speak who are experts and survivors of gun violence. Lastly, again, I just want to thank the staff for all the hard work on the two-way streets, taking the time to meet with myself and other commissioners to answer our questions. And then one thing I know I say lastly, but thank you for the fast response on the changes to the parking downtown. I know that nobody mentioned that, but as a person who gets their coffee downtown a lot, I hear from the businesses and they are elated at the idea that the city, we're working on this sense of customer service to the people that we serve. So thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Other comments, Commissioners? Commissioner Wilson?

Thanks, Mayor. In addition to Pride Month, in honor of Men's Health Month being in June, Urban Alliance is partnering with Bronson, the Fatherhood Network and WMU School of Medicine for a community conversation focused on wellness for mind, body and community. The event takes place this Saturday, June 6th, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Urban Alliance, with breakfast being served beginning at 10.30 a.m. Again, this is a great opportunity for men to connect, learn, and prioritize their health in a supportive environment and destigmatize old beliefs. I hope to see you all there. Secondly, I'd like to lift up an event I attended a couple of weeks ago. I attended the NACD monthly board meeting where our emergency manager, Sergeant Justin Wilbrink, and our public services director, James Baker, gave presentations regarding the city's response to the recent Northside flooding events. Some of the key takeaways that I've learned from that presentation and also listening to some of the responses from the community. The Northside residents have been experiencing flooding events for years after pretty much any significant rain event. As a result, many residents have had to cover excessive property damage and structural damage expenses. Some residents are even facing condemnation and losing their homes as a result. Director Baker walked us through potential backyard drain solutions that will do a great job at preventing our future flooding events, which we're hoping to implement as soon as possible while we still are working through those solutions. And for residents struggling to cover property damage due to the flooding, we are still exploring solutions to provide assistance. I wanted to thank our city teams for such a thoughtful response. Another example of our residents voicing their concerns and our city listening. I'm hoping that we can prioritize debt-free solutions, especially with some of the philanthropic vehicles designed for these situations in particular. Once solutions have been vetted and finalized, I think it would be awesome to see these plans presented in an upcoming Cal meeting. Again, I know that we're still working through these different solutions, and it's going to take some time, but once they're all vetted, it would be nice, and I think the community would benefit from that presentation as well.

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Commissioner Wilson. Commissioner Hess.

Sure. Yes, happy Pride Month. Thank you for uplifting that. This weekend is Jump Start Weekend here in Kalamazoo with the art fair, the KIA art fair in the park and beyond, arts up and down the mall, art on the mall, and the Pride Festival at the Arcadia Festival site. So it's, oh, and the doodah parade. So it's a lot of people downtown come and find a parking space. And because they are here, we have three parking ramps that can hold your car. And just looking forward to the good energy that's coming downtown. Okay. I believe Wednesday night begins Beats on Bates at Bates Alley for a whole summer's worth of Wednesday night fun and frivolity there. Last meeting, we did a proclamation for gun violence awareness on June 5th. So I just want to remind us on Friday, June 5th, that we're wearing orange, an awareness of gun violence, reducing gun violence awareness. Hey, school's out on Friday. Watch for kids. There's going to be kids running around and there are babies in the streets. Please watch out for them.

Thank you.

Yep, we got them too. And then... June 11th is next Thursday at 5.30 at the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership on Kalamazoo College's campus. There will be a documentary shown called Nothing to See Here, What? It was made by a Kalamazoo College alum who lives in LA and who made a documentary about Watts. And through that work has decreased gun violence exponentially. And our public safety office took notice of that and they found it and they're spreading the word about that within their gun violence communities. And Kalamazoo College with social justice are there. And so it should be a good gathering with a talk back of the filmmaker. So June 11th at 5.30 at Arcus. That's going to be a wonderful jumpstart into the summer of reducing gun violence in Kalamazoo. And then lastly, just gratitude, Antonio, if you're listening. Thank you, Antonio, for your service to the city and Godspeed in your retirement.

Thank you, Commissioner Hess. Commissioner Prado.

Thank you, Mayor. Commissioner Hess just talked about jumpstart weekend and that includes like, you know, Pride and the art fair that's going on downtown. And I remember some years ago, Jane Ghosh from Discover Kalamazoo was providing a presentation about just kind of like a heat map of the days and the events that have the highest attendance or like the most people coming to visit Kalamazoo from outside. And by and large, like this weekend with Pride and the art fair, It's like not even close what comes number two. And I think like the closest next thing is like WMU sports, like football or like CommU and those kind of days. So this is huge for our community and it is so special and so neat to see it come alive. I think sometimes when you live here, you take for granted because it's just a once a year thing, but it is truly impressive to see how we stand tall as a community for this weekend. Last year, a local organization was bringing a delegation of Ukrainian mayors to the city of Kalamazoo. And it just so happened that the days that they were here staying downtown was during this weekend. And it was so special and so neat to walk around with them and just have them just be so awestruck. And I think they thought this is how Kalamazoo is every day. And I was fine with that. Yeah, Kalamazoo is alive. But I just really want to thank everybody who put so much into making this weekend possible and special. And so thank you. I also wanted to provide the commission just kind of an update as well on the home share program. I've been trying to do my best to stay in touch with what city staff has been doing and what's been happening out there with that. We allocated funding for just getting an assessment of what interests there would be, just getting input from people who would be potential housing partners or people who had expertise in housing. So there was a consultant that was hired to do that work. There was a tremendous number of months put in towards listening to housing partners and asking for their input. Everybody who had worked in disability... network to thinking about just like housing discrimination issues and those kind of things all gave input. But then there were also some input sessions with people who might be interested or perspective people that would do home share work as well. And so they offered those as well. But something that was really neat that I learned recently is that right now in the state of Michigan, there's actually two areas or communities that are doing home share. And so there was one in Washtenaw County that happened until 2020, but then the pandemic kind of caused that to unravel because of pretty obvious reasons. And so Washtenaw County in August 2025 relaunched their home share program. So they just relaunched what we're looking into. And they as an area have a particular expertise. Second area which literally just even just finished their logo in doing this work is up at Grand Traverse County. And so they learned from Washtenaw County. So Washtenaw County shared all their information on how to do it for their county. So they're just getting up and started as well. But there was a session at a housing conference in Lansing two weeks ago that I drove to just because I wanted to hear from these two communities and they were presenting on the home share. It was really cool because there were people in the audience who spoke to their experiences. There was one gentleman who got up and spoke about how he went through a very messy divorce and had nowhere to live for 18 months and it was a great transitional housing opportunity for him during their divorce. There was somebody who spoke to like domestic violence type situation that they were getting out to that provide transitional housing during that period as well. So both of those communities, I have all their contact information. I will share them with city staff as well, but they are more than willing to share whatever resources they have and what they've learned and what they're doing with our community should we decide to pursue something like that similarly in the city of Kalamazoo. So I did want to provide an update on that and just let you know that there's two communities that are doing the same thing that we're looking at doing.

Thank you, Commissioner Prado. One thing that's very special about this time of year is that it's graduation time. And it's a proud and happy time for families and young people. And I just want to recognize the fact that we've had graduation ceremonies for Kalamazoo Central and Loyola Oryx and Phoenix High School, all young people who've made the effort themselves to make sure they finish high school, so important, and all the team that's helped them accomplish that. So I just want to say to everyone, this part of helping young people aspire, taking this step, graduating not only from high schools, but from universities and colleges here in town, how deeply important that is. Relative to that, I do have a grandson who's graduating who lives in the state of Washington, and I will be going out for his high school graduation here. His name is David. I don't know where they got that name, but anyway. I will not be in town for pride I know that the rest of my colleagues here will be visiting and participating in that and supporting I know there was a request for volunteers I'm not sure if that was a completely fulfilled or not that came out from the sponsor organization so more opportunities there so unfortunately I won't be in town this weekend but I will be celebrating a happily a happy family event I wanted to talk about something else that happened on Friday, but something happened today at 545, which is related to that also. And that is that... there is money that comes to the city of kalamazoo which is part of the mckinney vento act spent around for several decades it doesn' t come to the city of kalamazoo it comes through an entity called the continuum of care here in kalamazoo that' s the fiduciary entity that mckinney vento act funds come to the kalamazoo area and that funding is specifically to address homelessness the needs of people who do not have permanent housing And even though in the grand scheme of things it' s a wildly insufficient amount it' s still very important that we are successful in making sure we can get as much of that funding here in the kalamazoo area. Continuum of care spends a great deal of time patrice griffin and her staff working to try to set the stage for that. Our own laura lamb here sits on the continuum of care board year round does that work and sets the stage for it. There was a notice of funding opportunity called a NOFO, which came out presumably for this fiscal year from HUD. It represents a very big change in how this money is going to be allocated and spent, a dramatic change, I would say. It is what it is. I'm not going to say that the new allocation is not addressing an area of need, but it's a huge adjustment here for the way that housing assistance has been being provided. That NOFO was originally issued back in November. There were some legal challenges with it. It was once again issued December, once again legal challenges. it has now been reissued again as of the due date was today June 1st and that NOFO was issued 45 minutes after the close of business today here nationally 545 is when that announcement came out. So that means that once again the organizations that are involved in actually doing the work We'll be looking at that new NOFO, determining how we can apply for it here. Hopefully we'll have a great deal of community support around that application. But one of the things that we just did here, and I want to give a bunch of kudos to my team that does street outreach every single day in Kalamazoo, that they led another point in time count here, which happened just this past Friday, last week, and has continued on. And I do want to recognize that our own walking encyclopedia here on all things city ordinance, Jeff Messer participated in that, served on one of those teams. Thank you, Jeff, you've done that before. HUD requires that a point in time count occur in January. I would say one of the worst months to do a point in time for unsheltered homeless count. Who knows why that was ever picked. It's been that way for a long time. Our own manager Hankins participated in the January point in time count. Thank you for that. So the one that we just completed in the process of pulling those numbers together is not the official HUD point and time count, but it was done intentionally for us to have more awareness in terms of what's going on in Kalamazoo County, not just in the city of Kalamazoo. So I want to thank the COC, my own team that led that effort. It is certainly the case that the numbers are very much different now than they were in January and so up and and so unfortunately I mean no surprise I guess it's it's warmer weather and we did have you know the city helped fund additional shelter spaces during the winter and so there were a lot of people that you might have otherwise counted outside that were staying over ministry where they do not normally do overnight shelter so I you know that that's going to be the numbers there so it's just something to watch of the up applications from the community are not do now until august and will be awarded by the end of this year. So that ongoing effort is continuing and I think that will interact with the city zone planning related to what we can do to participate in the overall effort to address those concerns that aren' t going away. Thank you, team. Colleagues, it' s a pleasure to serve with you. I love you, kalamazoo. We' re adjourned.