City Commission - Regular Meeting

system. You have no idea.

So, it is so nice to hear all the friendly chatter and I do not want to interrupt that. However, the time has come for our business meeting to begin and is so nice to see everybody here in the chambers on this cold Michigan evening and see my colleagues again. We uh not so long ago finished up our 5:00 committee of the whole meeting which uh I just want to make sure everyone knows is on water and wastewater rates. Fabulously interesting. I would suggest go look at the recording of our 5:00 meeting. You will leave that feeling like you are a more educated person in the world. So here we go. Uh, I want to call to order the Kaloo City Commission business meeting for Monday, December 1st, 2025. And our first order of business is roll call. Clerk Borley.

Commissioner Hess, present. Commissioner Hoffman, present. Commissioner Pradle, present. Commissioner Slay, present. Commissioner Wilson, present. Vice Mayor Duncan, present. Mayor Anderson, here. Thank you, Clerk Borley. So, we are blessed this evening to have Rabbi Shelley Goldman here to provide an invocation. She's from the Congregation of Moses. And as she comes forward to provide that invocation, I will ask everyone to stand and then remain standing for the pledge of allegiance. Rabbi Golden.

Thank you. On this snowy night at the beginning of December, I've been thinking about gratitude and our responsibilities to one another. I've also been thinking about joy and the secret to Jewish survival over the generations. Part of that secret is joy. Joy in serving others. And through serving others, we serve the blessed holy one. Our psalms proudly proclaim eve duet hashem. We worship or serve in gladness and in joy. And how do we serve? The Talmud teaches that we are to imitate the virtues of the Holy One. Just as Hashem clothed Adam and Eve when they left the garden, so too are we to clothe the naked. Just as God visited Abraham while he was recovering, so too are we to visit the sick. Just as God buried Moses in the valley, so too are we to bury the dead. It is in these everyday acts of service that we press on, creating comfort and hopefully sometimes joy as we walk on our way. And on a grand scale, one of the greatest Jewish thinkers of the 20th century, Rabbi Morai Kaplan said, "The secret of the survival of Judaism in the face of successive challenges is the fact that we in all ethics, the Jewish religion invested in the rituals of the Jewish people such universal, ethical and spiritual significance that the issue involved was felt to be not only the saving of the Jewish people but the saving of all that made life worth

living for all of us. Blessings on you who serve the needs of the community. Blessed are you, God, who makes us holy by inspiring us to work on behalf of the needs of the community. Amen. [clears throat]

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you again, Rabbi Goldman. I appreciate your presence here. One of the great things that we get to do at the beginning of our business meeting from time to time is recognitions and proclamations. And we are uh blessed this evening to have an esteemed group of individuals here with us in the chambers uh for a proclamation this evening. And this proclamation is the 50th anniversary of Alpha Fi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated, the Kappa Sai Lambda chapter here in Kalazoo. Uh we have a proclamation to read. Commissioner Wilson will be reading it. I'll ask the members who are here in the chambers to please come forward and I will come down with the proclamation. Thanks, Mayor. I just wanted to say while um folks are making their way up to the podium, how appropriate that on this very frigid day, we're recognizing the distinguished ice cold brothers of Alpha Fi Alpha. [laughter] Um celebrating their 50th anniversary, Capital Sai Lambda chapter. Uh let's making their way up here. Let them know who you're with. Um all right. Whereas Alpha Fi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated was founded on December 4th, 1906 at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York as the first intercolgate Greek letter fraternity established for African-American men. Dedicated to the principles of scholarship, fellowship, good character, and the uplifting of humanity. And whereas Alphafi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated has for more than a century cultivated leaders,

promoted academic excellence and champion justice and equality in communities across the nation and the world. And whereas the capital Sai Lambda chapter of Alpha Fraternity Incorporated was chartered on February 22nd, 1975 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, serving Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, and the greater Southwest Michigan region. [snorts] And whereas for 50 years, the men of Kaplas Silanda chapter have exemplified the fraternity's aims of manly deeds, scholarship, and love for all mankind through programs that empower youth, support education, strengthen families, and promote civic engagement. And whereas the chapter's legacy includes decades of service through mentorship initiatives, scholarship awards, voter education and registration drives, health and wellness programs, and community partnerships that have improved the quality of life for countless residents. And whereas the capital chapter continues to honor the fraternity's rich history while preparing the next generation of leaders to carry forward its mission of brotherhood, leadership, and service. And whereas on December 13th, 2025, the Kappa Sai Lambda chapter will commemorate its 50th anniversary, celebrating half a century of leadership, service, and brotherhood in the city of Kalamazoo and beyond. Now, therefore, on behalf of the 56th city commission, um, and our mayor, David F. Anderson. Um, I here Dubai proclaim December 13th, 2025 as Alpha F Alpha Fraternity Incorporated Kappa Sai Lamba Chapter 50th anniversary day in the city of Kalamazoo and urge all citizens to join in recognizing the distinguished contributions and enduring legacy of the brothers of Kapasai Lamba chapter. [applause]

Thank you very much for this uh distinguished honor. Uh my name is brother Dean Burch. I am the current president of Capsi Lambda chapter of Alpha Alpha Fraternity Incorporated. So thank you again to the uh mayor and city commissioners for uh this proclamation. As we gather in this season of celebration, we honor not only 50 years of service by the men of Alpha Fala Fraternity Incorporated, Kappasai Lambda chapter, but the unbroken chain of commitment that connects generations past, present, and yet to come. Let this proclamation remind us that greatness is not entitled to praise, but in the quiet acts of service that lift others in steadfast hands that build bridges and in the hearts that love with purpose. Today we acknowledge those who have carried the torch. Men who through faith, brotherhood, and unrelenting courage has shaped lives and strengthened the souls of Kalamazoo and Southwest Michigan and beyond. This legacy reminds us that our calling is not only to lead, but to uplift, not only to dream, but to do. And so with gratitude and renewed resolve, we pledge to continue this noble work, to mentor the youth, to serve the community, to speak with compassion, and to live the words that defined our bond. manly deeds, scholarship, and love for all mankind. We stand on the shoulders of our founders. 1906, we are celebrating 119 years of our fraternity's existence and half of our 50 years in existence as a chapter. We have our charter member, uh, Brother Ted Ducket here with us who actually founded the chapter 50 years ago. And we just like to say thank you again for this proclamation and this honor.

[applause] we got to just turn around this way. [clears throat] Who are you looking? Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. Once again, I want to thank the members of the Kalpasai Lambda chapter here of Alpha Fi Alpha for being present with us this evening and just remind everybody that They uh do have an event that's scheduled for December 13th here in Kalazoo. Now we are down to C, the adoption of the formal agenda. Commissioners, are there any items on the consent agenda G that you would like to move to the regular agenda H? Commissioner Sny. Mayor Anderson, I would like to move item G23, approval of a request from Kazoo Country Club for a permit to publicly display fireworks at 1609 Whites Road on Wednesday, December 31st to be moved to the regular agenda.

We'll do any other requests to move items off the consent agenda commission. All right. Well, then the the agenda uh vice 22, please. And also G22 will now be moved to H, the regular agenda. With the two changes, the agenda now stands. Next, communications. Manager Moore. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, we're pleased to transmit the proposed 2026 budget. Just want to let individuals know that the formal work session is scheduled for for a week from today on December 8th. Individuals will have an opportunity to have comments on that budget. It is available on our website. The public hearing will be on December 15th and we will be looking to adopt the budget on January 5th. So there are opportunities for your input into that process. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much, manager Moore. Now is the opportunity for public comments here at our business meeting. Uh for public comments, you'll have four minutes. Just a reminder, this is not a dialogue, but this is an opportunity for you to present your thoughts on any item of your choosing here to the commission in this business meeting format. Uh if anyone would like to take advantage of that, please come forward. One other thing I want to note uh just to for clarifying uh for people is that uh that that we do have an item that some people may be here to comment item on which is uh now item on our regular agenda H4 and that we're not having a full presentation. This is just our opportunity to set the hearing date when there will be a full-blown presentation. And then obviously that will be the the uh most appropriate time for additional comments related to this action and that'll be on January 26 is when we're setting that date. So that said, anyone who's here, please come forward, state your name and whether you live in the city.

Hello, my name is Steve Ludy. I live at Lauderdale Drive in Kalamazoo Township and I um again appreciate to be in front of you. Having served as a public official at my last in my past, I know all the hard work you all do. So I appreciate you very much. Um also I wanted to comment on two different topics. one being uh the item uh that the mayor had just mentioned, but I'm not I understand that you are your task tonight is just to schedule a hearing for that and you're not really having a presentation or receiving comment about that in particular, but I stood for over two hours on November 6th for the planning commission meeting. Uh and I gave up at that time and I needed my my my um my bedtime. Uh and it went for two more hours after that and it was a wonderful event. Staff and uh and public and the planning commissioners were were stellar in uh exercising example of democracy. So that was wonderful and I that at that time the planning commission voted to uh recommend that the commission not approve of event this application that you'll be considering later of to re to reszone of 4301 Stadium Drive from its current residential multi-dwelling and residential single dwelling to commercial uh community commercial district. And I agree with what the planning commission uh their analysis and I urge the city commission to also honor the analysis of the of the folks that they asked to do that work. Uh one one of the things that I there's two points that really stood out to me after listening to that meeting is that uh staff had a very street centric view. They they looked at the problem from the stadium drive and uh and the public had a very uh preserve ccentric view and both were looking at what they thought were compatible uses but they were

looking at them from different angles and so that was interesting to observe. Uh, one of the things that that's particularly noteworthy that staff that the public stressed was that the zoning map buffers outside of them lake preserve with commercial uh from commercial uses that are associated with stadium drive currently. So the there are multifamily uh multi-dwelling areas such as stadium drive apartments and witch away that act as a buffer for the uh separate that from separate separate the preserve from Asylum Lake. excuse me, separate the preserve from Stadium Drive like that. And so those are existing uh uses and patterns that uh and I hope the city staff would recognize that. I think they overlook that and then they could see rationale for for not uh having a special unique commercial zoning uh adjacent to the preserve. There's also um I'll just skip to another point I want to make totally switching gears is non-motorized. a great advocate of non-motorized pedestrian bicycle use and I applaud the city's efforts to think outside the box to develop new ways of of of featuring those those properties. But uh as you look at two-way streets and have other opportunities to look at non-motorized improvements, I would hope that we consider air pollution from uh for example, especially on East Michigan Avenue, all the idle vehicles waiting for uh a bicycle green light to change when most of the time there's never a a bicycle there. So when we get two-way traffic that I think we'll be able to solve some of those problems where bicycles and traffic will flow together and there won't be this idle time which which is the greatest source 10% of air pollution is from idle cars and also be able to consider uh things like speed humps on on Sage and Stone Brook Manor. There's speed humps and I literally saw someone in a wheelchair who had no

sidewalk available on those streets and when the speed bumps were installed they had no way to get over the hump either. So, thank you very much. Thank you. Next, please.

Um, Clifton Freley Brigette, Kazoo Central High School, but I um I'm here I'm also a city resident 1220 Highgate. Uh I'm just coming uh we decided to bring you some good news and say that there's a model UN conference coming this week to Kamazoo uh which brings in roughly 500 plus students to the Rison. um downtown and you'll notice it starts Wednesday and it ends Saturday. So you'll see a bunch of kids in suits and whatnot. Um participating in the model United Nations conference that we hold there. Um but I have also brought a few of my students here u my leadership team from Kazoo Central High School, some of my seniors um to speak to uh the benefits of this conference.

Hi.

Hi. My name is Ava Ballot. I'm a senior at Kamazu Central High School and I'm also the vice president of our model United Nations Club. And thank you this evening for taking time to hear about the upcoming Glimman Conference. Um this conference is going to take place from this Wednesday, December 3rd to this Saturday, December 6th. And during this time, hundreds of delegates across the Midwest will be debating, writing, and passing resolutions to problems that their committee will be tasked with. Me specifically, I'll be representing the United Kingdom and the United Nations Security Council and we'll be tasked with the situation in Mali and the situation in Ukraine. Um, this will be my fourth year attending Glimman. I'm very excited to see what it entails. One of my favorite parts is the independence that comes with it. It's nice to experience that type of freedom before you go to college. I'll be passing over to my friend. Hello, my name is Castrida. I'm a senior at Kalamazoo Central High School and the president of Model UN. During my four years of high school, I participated in Model UN. With that, it's given me a lot of unique experiences. Lemon was probably the first big conference I attended, and I had no idea what to expect. Each committee having a different topic and overall goal to strive for over the course of the conference, whether it was solving sustainability crisis, global hunger, and much more. These conferences teach you how to collaborate with your peers on real world issues. not only collaborate but to compromise with other nations in the room. My favorite part about Glimman is how they have a unique spin on the typical conference. On the third day, the committees get together get together to present their ideas and what they came up with. It's a good way to see how we are all able to integrate the core values of each of our countries together and make a cohesive paper. Thank you. Hello, my name is Sophia Maui and I'm also a senior at Council Central High School and I'm the social media manager of our model United Nations Club. And as

my previous members said before, during this time, hundreds of delegates will be in various committees debating, writing, and passing resolutions about all kinds of global topics and issues. Glimmerman has helped me practice and expand on my model UN skills such as public speaking, cooperation, compromising, and writing resolutions. This conference has been a good basis conference for the future conferences that are a bit larger with more people and representing the country of Mexico. This is going to be my second year attending Glimman. And although it's only my second year, it still taught me a lot. And it's been one of my favorite conferences I have attended during my model UN um journey, I guess. And my favorite part of Glenn is meeting people from all over the Midwest and hearing like all the different states that people come to come from to come to the city like I live in for a model conference. And I've always thought that was pretty cool. Thank you.

I just wanted to say that I'm also super proud of my own students being the adviser. We started this club in uh 2012. Um and it's been going and we've been attending this conference here in Kazoo ever since. So um just a big deal for the city of Kazoo to get shown off in this this way. And also these kids are um spending money here. So that's always a good thing as well. Um but we also we do other things. We travel to U of M. We travel to Michigan State. We go to Northwestern. U we've even gone to Indiana University. We we like to travel around with the model UN. But as you can hear from my students, they they've they've garnished a whole bunch of new skills um through this program. So we just wanted to highlight that this evening. So thank you for your time. Thank you very much.

[clears throat]

Next, please. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Doc Tail Stevens. I live at 213 Elm Street in Kalamazoo. I wanted to thank you for scheduling the hearing about the Asylum Lake zoning issue for January 26th. I appreciate that because I know the holiday season's very busy and many of the people who are concerned might be distracted by the holidays and unable to attend. I would ask however that you consider holding it at a larger venue. Um I myself am actually disabled. I'm not supposed to stand for more than 10 minutes. And that evening, uh, I had to ask Bobby Derky's help of how I could get to the microphone without standing in that long line. Thankfully, he was able to help me, but I know that there were other citizens who weren't as patient or weren't as persistent in asking for help. It's not something I like to do either. Um, so I would ask that you you have some method of accommodating people with disabilities at that hearing January 26th so they could participate. And to the other speaker's point, many of us have to get up early in the morning for work. So if there is a way to hold it on a weekend um at a larger venue, uh, I'd really appreciate that. I have to get up at 4:15 to go to work every morning. Now, my part in the Asylum Lake part was pretty small, actually, but back in 1993, um, I put together the book, Haven, a treatise on Asylum Lake. But I didn't write this book by myself. This book was written by the community at the time. Now, I only had 30 days to get this book together, and I spent about 25 of those days soliciting input from other community members. And I want to give each of you a copy of this book today so

you have a chance to read it over the holidays and before the January 26th hearing. Um, there's poetry, there's essays, there's a scientific study by one of Western's biology professors, there's a list of the endangered and threatened species that we're trying to protect at the preserve. And so, you know, when I published the book in 1993, we were fighting a different threat. We were we were fighting Western Michigan University trying to put a research business park on that land. But I feel like we're facing the same kind of threat today because if we have that zoning changed at the corner of Stadium and Drake, it's going to affect the lake and the ecosystem there. I'm not going to waste your time tonight about, you know, I know we're going to talk about it January 26th, but I would ask that you at least take a few moments between now and then to just page through this book and see what some of the community members said back then because I have a feeling you're going to hear a lot of the same words coming from the community members on January 26. The sentiment hasn't changed and people love Asylum Lake and they want to protect it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, please. I'm sorry I'm going to interrupt here just a second. This is a little unusual. But I just want to thank the young people who from Ku Central who came down here and and provide us with that amazing story about the work you're doing and the fact it's right here in Kazoo. had an opportunity to attend these events sometimes in the past. And I would say this idea of uh collaboration and compromise. Perhaps we should have some adults come into the room and view how you accomplish that. Sometimes I feel like uh we're not doing a great job of that these days. So thank you for for being here and announcing that event. Sorry.

That's fine. Hello everyone. My name is Tina. I live on Lake Street. I live in the flood plane area of Kalazoo. The known flood plane area. The area that you keep wanting to build in. The area that I've been trying to save our last natural green space. Lake to Stockbridgeidge to John. Now you're doing something at 150 cross town. Sure would be nice if you involve the residents and what's going on in their neighborhood instead of just doing something and you hear about it from one of these meetings. Um, lack of communication does not happen up here. I'm sorry, but it doesn't. You know, there's a lot of things going on in Kazoo. And one of my main concerns is your storm drains and your storm sewers. They should not be taking the water and pushing it out of the storm drain. The water should be going down the storm drain like it does in every other neighborhood in Kalamazoo but mine. Another thing I heard that from a friend of mine who happens to rent a business downtown that you are raising the rent. Yeah. No one knows this. You're raising the rent to the tenants downtown, the shops that have been struggling through all this construction and everything else you have did downtown from $1,200 a month to $3,000 a month. This is what I've heard. Now, this is from a a store tenant. That's ridiculous. And then you say you're going to help people with water bills. That's not true. You should help everybody. I work two crappy jobs. And I make too much money to get help with anything. And your water is terrible. You can't drink it. Mine smells like bleach, you know. And then there's another

thing, your parking lot. It's terrible. I hope I didn't mess up underneath my car having to run over a half foot snow bankank that's all along the parking lot where you have to pull in at because it hasn't been plowed. I'm sorry, but it has not. We have to get out and shovel our sidewalks every time it snows. That was a lot of heavy snow to lift. shoveled mine, but yet then the plows pushed it all the way in my driveway behind my car, over my fence, and into my front yard. So now I have to reshuffle my sidewalk. I know that's something that just happens with bad weather. But if you're going to make us shovel our sidewalks, don't make it any harder. You have a lot of seniors out there that have the shovel and you need to bring back public callins at every single meeting. I know you took them away because of the fact you were tired of people bashing you. I know that's why they went away. I've been to every meeting. Matter of fact, December 18th of this year will be eight years that I've been to every city commission meeting asking for you to fix the flooding issues, asking for you to fix the issues in Kazoo. You know, I'm shocked you opened up shelters for people because last year you didn't. That's why that poor lady froze to death in an abandoned car. And you let it happen and it's been happening. This is the first year you ever did anything. I I have to applaud you for that one. But it's about time. You know, Kel Mazoo used to be a beautiful place for families to live. Now it's just for the rich playground. It's all about what the billionaires want. It's not what the residents want. the residents aren't heard. The residents aren't listened to. You can't even call in anymore because you don't

want to hear what we have to say. It's been 8 years and it's time to fix the problem in my neighborhood instead of making it worse. Thank you. Thank you. Next, please.

Hi, I'm Kay. Um, I live in the township and I do a lot of work in the community here in Kalamazoo. Um, so the situation nationally, um, is very dire. I feel like we've lost control of the government if we're going to be real about it. Um, Trump is unhinged. Um, he's attacked every comm the trans community, immigrant communities, black communities. He's attacked organizations like Black Lives Matter um and any other black or organization that exist and um so we've seen how other cities have handled um other mayors are um vocal about denouncing um what is going on and it's very concerningly quiet in Kalamazoo especially the city of Kalamazoo because it's such a progressive city and there's a lot of immigrant communities. There's a black community who was struggling through an environmental crisis, right? And um you know, graphic packaging is, you know, trying to renew their do some changes there. And like the the question is like with with what the city is doing is just not it doesn't it doesn't like give the people like the safety or trust, right? It's like the city's quiet and based on how like we're going to get an arena we don't want and based on the environmental crisis and the housing disparities and everything like we need y'all to be vocal. We need y'all to be vocal about denouncing the 287g agreements which some cities have denounced and um the communities have got um pressured them to to get rid of these um agreements. Right. Uh we really need this city and this commission to be intentional and loud about making sure that the community feels safe, right? We

had an incident where um there was an uh an ICE vehicle that was spotted and it caused such an uproar in the community and there was so many conversations and people like well let's not create fear but fear is here. the communities are afraid. Like this is already happening, right? We're seeing it in real time where it's the communities who have to step up and in very little like in some like real good cases like Chicago where the mayor's like fis and we're we're going to like stand stand on business, right? Like it the time is now. The time is now to act. The time is now to make sure the community feels safe that there's transparency when it comes to what KDPS is doing. um what police agencies are doing um if they're doing trainings like we cannot say that oh oh it's okay everything's fine because black and brown communities do not trust police agencies and that's the reality right and sometimes yes we can hear stakeholders that are black brown Latinos who have some kind of privilege or sense of safety in this community because they're plugged in but that's not the reality for for the community and that's not the reality for this nation anymore we are in hot water we it is fascism at our more and we need to make sure that y'all are being vocal and loud and denouncing what Trump is doing because it's going to trickle down to the communities here sooner. It's not about if it's now when when is this going to happen in the city of counties and what is this commission what safety net does this commission have or the mayor have to say I'm going to stand on denouncing this and I'm going to stand on protecting the community. That's what we need to be vocal about because not every community is standing. Yes, we see the notable examples of like in LA and just in New York where they're like the community standing up against ICE but that is not happening in every community like the silent communities where they have 27G agreements where they have already bounty hunters looking for people where businesses are letting them

come and attack you know pick up people like this is where we're at. I cannot stress the importance of being vocal and creating a safety network for the communities. Thank you. Thank you. Next, please.

Good evening, commissioners. Uh, my name is Josh Kaiser. I'm a city resident, 1523 Lake Boulevard. I am, uh, also here to briefly, very briefly speak about, um, uh, item H4, uh, on your agenda this evening. Uh, I'm the, uh, co-pres co-president of the Asylum Lake Preservation Association. Um and uh our mission is to help protect the Asylum Lake preserve from uh land use change uh within the preserve and from around the preserve. Now I've been part of extensive uh studies and I've been privileged to be part of a local environmental group that um has extensively studied the impacts of um commercial developments on this very sensitive environmental area. and um uh frankly the most important next step now there the Asylum Lake Preserve Management Council and the state of Michigan have stepped up in the last 5 years okay based on those studies for an emergency intervention at Asylum Lake uh which is a storm water system uh it's like uh like a open heart surgery at the bottom of Asylum Lake Hill that's capturing uh very very polluted storm water runoff that's happening happening uh as a result of the commercialization of the upper wershed. Now, it's a very small contributing area contributes to Asylum Lake and um this corner at the southeast corner of Stadium and Drake is absolutely incremental to the mission of protecting Asylum Lake right now in the short term from polluted uh storm water and from pollution of the air and land as well. But um this is kind of a critical key and and so I just want to let you all know that the Asylum Lake Preservation Association is here. Um I hope that uh you all will spend some time uh with the uh public uh statement

and the testimony before uh the January 26th public hearing. Um that is the statements from the last planning commission. Many uh important points were made. Um, and I just want to lastly thank you uh, as my colleague did for moving that public hearing to January um, to give everybody uh, an opportunity to reset. Um, Alba is here. We're ready uh, to respond to this crisis. Uh, we want to work with the city uh, however we can. Uh, and uh, so I just want to reiterate that and uh, um, and again, thank you all for being here and thank you for your time. Thank you. Next, please.

Hello, my name is Vera Macintosh. Um, I'm here on behalf of Crime Victim Services. Um, according to to my understanding, um, I guess the first quarterly funding, um, it was told to us that we will not be granted funding for the crime victims through the YW.CA, which typically supports housing, shelter, legal services, and more. Um, additionally, what I wanted to add was maybe uh considering extended hours for warming shelters. We're embarking on the winter season. Um, a lot of the shelters are pretty much they provide services, but that is by way of a certain obligation or andor various requirements. A lot of individuals don't meet these requirements which subsequently result into them sleeping outside in the cold. Um what my viewpoint is is possibly pitching an idea where with warming shelters that are currently existing providing more of extended hours that would provide more of a warming environment for one 24 hours a day as opposed to just up until well according to the public library until 9:00. After 9:00 many of the homeless don't have access to toilets. Many of the homeless don't have access to warm or safe safe places to be. Um, also I wanted to address the violent enforcement by law enforcement relating to trespass. Um, right now what law enforcement is doing if an individual is for example staying at sitting at the hospital trying to keep warm um the law enforcement officer is under the influence that they can approach that individual and forcefully drag them out of the hospital. meaning

they can grab them, they can throw them on the ground, they can drag them by their coats or by the collar of their shirts and drag them outside. This has occurred continuously, multiple times by law enforcement and um it would be great that these uh events would be deemed as police brutality. Um currently per the community many of these acts are considered as just mild acts that is um allowed by law enforcement. What accumulatively what I'm noticing is it's creating a a racial environment meaning they're attacking primarily the black community. They're attacking primarily the homeless community. Additionally, um the cosmetic funding for law enforcement, yet again, we're seeing more cosmetic funding to the sums of $80,000 to put up a fence. We constantly buying new cars and body cam, etc., etc. To me, that is uh to me, it's more or less promoting law enforcement's behavior. They're very aggressive. They're very rude, especially to the homeless community. And with all of these gifts, these awards, what it does is it just enhances the behavior all over again. So with the homeless community, we're getting countless amounts of medical issues, broken arms, eyes, glasses, clothes, personal items just completely being taken away. In addition to that, before I close, the consideration of the crimes victim's laws. This is something that is being omitted when being encountered by law enforcement. This information is being being omitted when interacting with the courthouse with judges with lawyers. Um I am currently on a case right now where I have a victim and this

information can't even be presented to the courts. Um I've asked for various amount of due processes which will allow the victim to be heard in court. Um, according to Charles Craft building, there isn't an opportunity for an individual to even prison the laws for the crimes being held against them or being done towards them in the life of so that is something that I want to wanted to make of and especially those. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Next, please. Good evening. Uh Jeff Messer, uh city resident. Well, it's the second meeting of a new city commission. We have two new commissioners, and in January, we will have a new city manager. So, this is an appropriate time for the commission to consider its standard operating procedures. Uh so, I have four suggestions uh for you. The first of them uh relate uh to the commission's 25 advisory boards. um on your regular meeting agenda, regular business meetings, uh under communications or the city manager report or the city clerk's report, if there are any vacancies on any of the city's uh uh 25 advisory boards, it would be nice if those would be mentioned during the meeting. Uh now now Chris uh thought they should be in the agenda, but uh many people I've heard uh that they either uh that they put the city commission meetings on uh their computer or whatever and kind of listen to them uh while they're doing housework. So uh having uh that mentioned would be uh a lot easier for them. That would add no more than uh 30 seconds to your meeting or some meetings that would add zero. Uh suggestion two. Um, now Mayor Anderson, uh, Manager Moore and Clerk Borling will remember that when I started attending city commission meetings on October 1, 2012, that the city manager would read the entire schedule of advisory board meetings occurring from that meeting up until the next regular meeting, which would be two or three weeks worth of meetings. Um, fortunately when Jim Ritzma took over that was ended, but it was replaced uh here in the city commission chambers on these video monitors that we have here and over here and there's one in front. Uh, the schedule of the meetings for the next two. Uh, right now when we come to the

meetings and we're sitting here, we just see a static image up there and it's just kind of going to waste. So, it' be nice uh if that schedule um chron chronologically ordered of the advisory boards was to go up back on those uh video monitors uh before the meeting. Uh suggestion three is I wish the commission uh would make better use of its 25 advisory boards. This includes the environmental concerns commission, uh the parks and recreation advisory board, historic preservation commission and so on. Um when there are items on the agenda that are relevant to a particular existing advisory board, uh say uh parks ordinance, it would be nice if the city attorney or other staff would send those through the relevant advisory board first before they come to the commission and get uh that uh board's review. I've seen a number of amendments uh to parks ordinances over the past decade and never once have I ever seen that any of those have ever gone through the parks and recreation advisory board. Um unless there's some urgency to passing those and usually there's not. It would be nice if they could go from staff to the parks and recreation board to the commission and then and then that would be in there. Um, fourth and final suggestion. Um, if I can remember what it is, um, up until about January 2019, I believe, um, there was a written city manager report and the agenda packet that included a list of all of the administratively approved uh, budget items below $100,000. Everything $100,000 or more appears at least on the consent agenda. sometimes a regular agenda. U but things below that down to I don't know $50,000 would be uh listed

in um that city manager's uh report as administratively approved. And for example um when the when the city gave the mission $97,000 last January that was not on the agenda. Mission claims they don't get tax dollars. Thank you. Good night. Thank you. Is there anyone else here in the chambers would like to make a comment during this public comment period?

Hi, my name is Shauna Espinosa and I live in the city. Um, is there I think that we want to know or have a request or whatever for those funds that have been given to organizations or in individuals. Um, so we know that the money is being used in the right way for those that haven't given money to help those in the community like our unhoused. Um, I think making sure those funds have been used in the right way would be a good thing. Um because our unhoused, they deserve the best. And what I have seen out here is there's some organizations or certain people that aren't treating our unhoused in the most kindly way. And that's not fair. They're people just like you and I am. And if they're giving money to do certain things, they shouldn't treat them in a bad way because that's not how I think people should be treated. Um, but thank you guys. Whoever's helped with this overnight shelter, this is something that should have rolled out years ago. Um, and I'm hoping it's going to be something that's continued because we don't want nobody out here freezing. We have babies out here. We have vets out here. We have seniors out here. We have disabled. And they need to be sheltered. It's cold outside. And I didn't even want to come here. I came here only because this is something that's dear to my heart. and our house is they're they're a big part of our community and I want people to start taking them seriously. We shouldn't allow anybody to mistreat them. I don't care if you are the KDPS, you're the sheriff, you're the commission, you're the governor. They're people just like us. Just because they're not housed in a way that we are, doesn't make them less than human beings. They're people that

can thrive and be functional in our community if given the right tools and not have so many barriers that are in place to keep them from getting what they need. Cuz even myself, I struggle with mental health, but I've been able to overcome it because I know where I need to go and get those services. But can you just imagine being out on the street, not having a safe place, not having a meal, not being warm, and having to worry about your safety being outside? That's the first thing is you don't have a place to call homes. So things that me and you think are normal, thinking about our mental health, that's not the first thing on their mind. The first thing on their mind is survival and making sure that they're okay. So, us as a city and us as a community, we need to make sure that they're taken care of because it's not only grown people out here on the streets. There's children, there's babies, there's infants. There's our vets. They shouldn't even be out on the street no matter what because they serve this country. They should always have a place to go. Our seniors are out here. Can you imagine being a 70 plus year old man and having health issues and you're out on the street and you can barely take care of yourself when you're housed? Can you imagine when that big beautiful bill rolled out rolled out? How many people are going to be struggling are struggling with health care? If you're on Medicaid and you're an adult, they give you a certain amount that you have to hit by monthly and mine is $1,260. So, I don't have no insurance until I hit that deductible monthly. So, I hit it and the first of the month it starts all over and I don't have no coverage. So, that means everything comes out my pocket until I hit $1,260 monthly. Think about that. And I'm a

single parent. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, please. Um, hi there. Uh, my name is Tom House. I'm returning to uh returning to uh raise an issue that I've brought up before um that's about um the public participation policy, city's public participation policy and specifically staff reports uh that require their acknowledgement or staff reports that require projects that take use of the of the policy. Um, after reviewing the November 6, 2025 PC staff report, the the one that everybody's probably familiar with regarding the Asylum Lake uh adjacent property, um, again, there are following points that seem clear in terms of how the city um composes staff reports and takes thinks about these issues as they're thinking of recommendations. uh and this is related to a host of ju just about any other uh project or initiative that the city is uh considering. Um in that report there was no summary or analysis of public participation resulting from city or applicant part public participation efforts. Uh the PC staff report provided only one way uh reporting mailer sent meetings held with no evidence that the public input was gathered, synthesized or integrated at any kind of uh level expected of this project. Um that has you know ramifications in terms of how the any commission interprets public sentiment. Um um number two, public participation played no role in the final staff recommendation. Several pages in the staff report were devoted to the applicant's rationale, contextual framing, and how it aligned with city plans. Meanwhile, public participation

perspectives um were not represented at all. Um and that policy states the city action should align with public participation to the greatest extent possible. I have to say public participation a lot here. [laughter] Um, one region reason for this large gap in the in the policy and its reflection in staff reporting is that the 49page uh policy public participation policy dedicates almost its entirety how and why public participation happens. And in those 49 pages, only four sentences are dedicated describing what happens after policy uh public actually participates. Um, correct me if I'm wrong on that. Um, but those four sentences are communicating results. It's essential that public uh participants are briefed on how their input shape the decision-making process. This is an important time to thank participants and create excitement around a completed project. This [snorts] promotes transparency and community ownership over a given project and also provides valuable information for residents who may not have had a chance to participate in the process. Um, so, uh, it's clear that those four sentences to do do very little to quote, um, promote transparency and community ownership over a project. And, um, it feels like more of a a well-intended goal than a meaningful policy. So, um I really um hope that the city takes a closer look at this as kind of a um in a more serious way and how we actually compose staff reports because they do have consequences uh on on a on any on any project. Um, specifically maybe this means, you know, taking a second look at the public participation and policy and

really dedicating a lot more than four sentences to how that input is actually integrated into our staff reporting. Um, and um, I don't have any more time, but I'd love to talk more about this. I'm available. Thanks.

Thank you. Is there anyone else in the chambers who'd like to take advantage of the public comment period? Well, I'll close the public comment period. I want to thank everyone that came and took the time, made the effort uh to express their feelings on a variety of topics here at our business meeting. Next is the consent agenda G. Andrew Moore.

Thank you, Mayor. We have in front of us 23 items on the consent agenda this evening. First one being approval of a contract supplemental and change order with Justice Fence for temporary and permanent fencing on the 150 East Cross Town facility renovation project in the amount of $78,136. Number two, [clears throat] approval of a contract with Republic Services for transportation and disposal of plant screenings in the amount of $100,800. Approval of a one-year contract renewal with Plant Moran Real Point for Real Estate Underwriting Consulting Services in the amount of $15,000. Approval of a contract supplemental and change order with Mall City Mechanical for Fire Protection on the 150 East Cross Town facility renovation project in the amount of $112,963. Approval of a contract with Analin Corporation for the South Street pedestrian bridge repair in the amount of $118,919.86. Approval of a change order with Ram Construction Services for parking ramp concrete repairs at the Epic and Calamazoo Mall parking ramps in the amount of $227,93. Approval of a professional service agreement with Jones and Henry Engineers for professional construction engineering services for the ML Avenue and 35th Street transmission water main project in the amount of $289,500. Approval of a professional services agreement with Jones and Hendry

Engineers Limited for construction administration and engineering consulting services in support of the Newton Met Fellows Avenue and John Street Improvement Project in the amount of $295,500. approval of the purchase of Cisco switches, controllers, and wireless access points as part of the hardware life cycle replacement from trace 3 in the amount of $349,69.70. [snorts] approval of a contract with Wildlands Constructions LLC for the Mil Park Portage Creek stream restoration project project in the amount of $356,34726. [clears throat] Approval of a sole source purchase of order control chemicals D3W industries for bioolids processing in the amount of $529,155. Approval of a three-year soul source agreement with Zane Financial LLC for investment consulting services in the amount of $558,000. Approval of a contract supplemental and change order with Carrier and Gable for traffic signal maintenance supplies in the amount of $600,000. Approval of the purchase of a Vector 2100I from McQueen Equipment through the Mia corper cooperative purchasing program in the amount of $610,500. Approval of a contract supplemental and change order with USP technologies for 2026 Prich Oda Control Services in the amount of $627,000.

Adoption of a resolution approving an amendment to the Brownfield plan for the 700 block of North Berg Street. Adoption of resolutions approving changes in the street lighting contract with Consumers Energy for 335 Kalamazoo Avenue. Adoption of a resolution recommending approval of a social district permit for HB Social Ventures LLC DBA Alicat located at 266 East Michigan Avenue Sweet B Kalamazoo Michigan 49007. Adoption of a resolution approving the schedule of regular city commission meetings for the 2026 calendar year. Adoption of a resolution approving an amended and restated water leak adjustments policy, city commission policy 60.2 as provided for in chapter 38 of the Kalamazoo city code. acceptance of a distribution from the mayor's riverfront park endowment fund for 2025 operational support in the amount of $63,975 and approval of a budget amendment of 48,975. Number 24, approval of the appointments to boards, commissions, and committees. The appointment of Richard Emming to the building board of appeals for a term expiring on March 31st, 2027. The appointment of Sarah Josie to the water system advisory council for a term expiring on December 31st, 2026 and approval of the minutes from the 700 p.m. city commission business meeting on

November 17, 2025. That is the consent agenda. Quite a list. Thank you very much. There's more. I appreciate that. Commissioners, the requested action is a motion to approve consent agenda items 1 through 21 and 24 and 25 and authorize the city manager to sign all related documents of behalf of the city. Is there a motion? So moved. Motion made by Commissioner Hoffman. Support supported by Commissioner Hess. Koran, please call the role. Commissioner Hoffman, yes. Commissioner Bradle, yes. Commissioner Sllayy, yes.

Commissioner Wilson, yes. Vice Mayor Duncan, yes. Mayor Anderson, yes. Thank you, commissioners. The items on the consent agenda are approved. Next is H, regular agenda. City Manager Warren, I'm sorry. Commissioner Eler. I vote yes. Commissioner H. Did you miss somebody? I did. Okay. I thought I got it. Commissioner H. Okay. Thank you team team sport. Now with the regular agenda, manager Mark,

on the regular agenda, we will have um consent agenda item number 22, approval of an economic development corporation economic initiative fund loan to Winston's LLC in the amount of $35,000.

Uh thank you so much. So, just as a reminder for everyone here is that uh this was item G2 and is now item H1 on the regular agenda. Uh vice mayor. Uh yeah. Do we have anybody? Oh, it looks like we got somebody to speak to it. I just had I just wanted to hear, you know, what the funding is going for uh before we we sent that out the door.

All right. Okay. Well, perfect. So, yes, my name is Bobby Boyd. I'm the economic development supervisor here with the city of Kazoo. Um, me and my team oversee the economic initiative fund. So, this fund will be used as uh gap financing for businesses in the community that will be as adding economic de opportunity here in the city. So, it's not funding for a project. It's just gap financing for uh wherever they may have a gap in um putting the the complete construction uh together. hotel with this particular development. It's at Winston's LLC at 224 East Michigan Avenue. Um they're building a bar in that area. Um they did have some um unbeknownst construction costs as you know with a lot of construction projects moving some stair from the middle of the floor to the side. So they needed a little additional funds to make that happen and complete the project. Um, one of the questions we do ask with this fund is make sure what kind of e economic opportunities it will offer to the city if we do help them move forward with the project. Um, I do want to share that this project will be adding 10 full-time jobs in the Kalamazoo area, including five part-time jobs in the Kalamazoo area as well. So, um, it it will have an economic impact if we make sure that they bring this uh this development to fruition. So, we are awarding them $35,000 um for a project that in total cost is $400,000 to u move forward.

Other questions, Vice Mayor Duncan? No, that's all. Thank you so much. All right. Any other questions? Commissioners, Commissioner Sy, could you confirm whether the city has a policy in place right now uh with regards to paying back the loans? So, are they able what I understand is if they they cannot receive another loan like this from the city until they pay this one back. Is that correct? Director Mitchell.

Yes. There is stipulations if there's um a default or or they're late in payments or even if they have other commitments that they have not um follow through with the city um with taxes and things like that that could put them in the fall for receiving any additional funding. But they can get additional funding if they have multiple projects. That's not abnormal for them to have multiple loans for multiple projects under the same um development companies. So they can have multiple loans if it's a development company for certain development projects. Yes, we we can assist with multiple development projects um throughout the city.

So we don't have a policy in place where if they don't pay back the the first loan, they can't receive another one. Correct. Your statement second portion of that question is a little bit different. The answer is no. They would not be able to get a another loan if they default on the first loan. Well, we do simultaneously provide people with multiple loans. Yes, we have in the past. Okay. And what is the criteria in which we we take a look and evaluate a business on on whether we provide them this gap financing? I probably have to get back with you more information in writing on what that criteria would be.

Okay. And how do we currently promote that to businesses that this is an a opportunity that they can participate in? Pretty much we promote it through our website mostly. We don't do any advertisement like we did in the past. In the past we used to do do a lot of advertisement with the g the common gazette. That's not a tool we utilize anymore. So we mostly promote it um through our boards and through the uh website our city website underneath economic development. And would you be able to speak to the source of how this uh company uh found out about this? Was was the referral source through the website or

uh let me see. Yes. So it was through the website, but we also talk with the developers as well just letting them know that um a lot of developers come to us asking if there's any opportunities to help them move forward with projects and any type of programs or funding that we have available. So we do show them um uh our list of funding sources and help that we can provide and this is one of the opportunities that we have available. So if it fits the criteria and adds to economic growth within a city, this is an opportunity they can take advantage of as well. Thank you.

Other questions, commissioners? All right. Thank you so much, gentlemen. Appreciate it. Uh since this is a regular and agenda item, now is the opportunity for anyone who's here in the chambers to comment on this item. If you're interested, please come forward. Remember, this is just on what was item G22. Good evening. Uh Jeff Master, city resident. Uh since the commissioners uh were asking about uh who uses these loans uh and where and all that. Um the commission approved uh one of these loans like four meeting meetings ago. It was for roof repair, partial uh roof repair um of the former Dairy Queen Taco Bobs on Southwest NEP Pioneer for the Kazoo Cream uh cookie business. Uh my friend Christy Pototts. Uh so uh that that's another example uh of that. Um by the way, she's going to be open on Christmas Day. If you're looking uh to uh buy some food Christmas day, she's going to be open Christmas Day until noon. Uh that's Kazuk Cream uh cookies southwestage at Pioneer uh just before Cross Town. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else in the chambers that would like to comment on this item specifically? I'm not exactly familiar with the process. So with this item, the commission meaning you all will be granting them the funding. Is that how that goes or is that how it goes? Is this an opportunity? This is not a time for dialogue, but it's an opportunity for you to express any interest or concern you have in this particular topic.

Okay. Well, um I do see all of the potential funding kind of floating through all of the items, specifically that one. Um so I guess what I wanted to retro back to is maybe potentially looking back at the services that I were um were referencing to um because those services also well what I'm noticing is we're not getting the funding. the funding is granted to these items and items similar to it for construction, new businesses, small ones that typically only employs two or more people. So, with the services that I'm in for referring to, we're losing employees, meaning the victim services, we didn't get our funding. So, we're losing services, we're losing our shelters, we're losing housing. Um, so I was just maybe saying, you know, as far as maybe considering reintroducing funding for our victim services, for warming shelters for homeless shelters and other entities to help the unhoused and the crime victims industry with all of their their various necessities. But yes, essentially [laughter] they're cutting our funding. I'm looking at all of this funding literally about to get approved to close to the sum of several million dollars or to the sum of a million dollars, two or three. And we're still not tending to for one the victims that are being assaulted out here. In addition to that, the services that are be that are already in place is literally about to get wiped out. They're literally taking their jobs away. I literally have people from the YW.CA CA that says their jobs is coming to an end as of today because of funding and there are victims out here that need that help. As I mentioned

before, even being able to present a victim or a a assault case before the court is completely denied. There isn't even a streamlined service that allows us to even stand before a judge and say, "These were the crimes done against us. We understand what law enforcement can administer to us in regards to trespass and all these various other things. Um, but we don't have an opportunity to speak. They literally have continuous streamline barriers that says we can't even talk. We can't even say law enforcement slammed me on my on the ground and broke my shoulder and I hadn't been able to return to work and lived 50 pounds or more. We can't say that. So essentially that is as opposed to providing close to $2 million to businesses that are only

Thank you. Is there anyone else would like to comment on this item at this time? See no more comments. Uh commissioners, the recommended action is a motion to approve. Is there a motion? So move. Motion made by Vice Mayor Duncan. Support. Supported by Commissioner Hoffman. Any discussion? Commissioners. All right. Seeing none, clerk Boring, please call the role. Commissioner Sllayy, yes. Commissioner Wilson, yes. Vice Mayor Duncan, yes. Mayor Anderson, yes. Commissioner Hess, yes. Commissioner Hoffman, yes. Commissioner Pradle,

yes. We got everybody that time, right? All right. Thank you, Commissioners. The motion passes. Next on the agenda is item H2, which was formerly G23. Manager Moore. Thank you, Mayor. Approval of requ of a request from the Calamazoo Country Club for a permit to publicly display fireworks at 1609 Whites Road on Wednesday, December 31st. Thank you, Commissioner Sy.

Can I just make my comments? Okay. Um, so listen, this sounds great. Um, and uh, I think it's awesome to celebrate New Year's. I think that's a a day in which most people expect fireworks. Um, so this is not a random event. Uh, my focus and uh, what I'd like to encourage my fellow commissioners, vice mayor and mayor and city manager Moore um, to think about and reflect on is uh, what's noted in the report under engagement. Uh it notes that the public will be made aware of the project. Um just from someone that has done engagement and marketing and in just overall organizing um you know often general outreach doesn't always reach the most impacted. Uh I'm very familiar with many of our residents concerns related to noise pollution uh being a common complaint whether it's uh about Kazoo College Games or the cannon from Western Michigan or traffic down West Maine. Uh fireworks uh also are no different. And when we think about it, um people often with PTSD um are impacted by it. Um or other people, um you know, it's just not something that they care for. And so I think about what does it look like for us to be good stewards in this work and encourage our partners like Kazoo uh Country Club uh to think about how they're reaching the most immediate neighbors around the country club to inform them. Right? Not everyone's going to be looking out for a flyer from Gallons of Country Club to see what they're doing. So, they may not know that that is happening. And I think about our public participation policy, which someone brought up earlier today, uh, in which, you know, it's it's really our opportunity to work with our

partners, with our neighbors, and other stakeholders, um, to continue to build trust and open communication. One thing that I I um saw really go a long way is when residents would bring up concerns about noise pollution uh to Western or K College during neighborhood association meetings. Western started um reaching out to the neighborhood associations directly the week of a game letting them know, hey, we have a home game. Canon might, you know, go off because we might win. So, please let your neighbors know. And it really went a long way because now people can plan. maybe they won't be in town or maybe they know like um just to expect it, right? And so I think it's an opportunity to think about again how to be good neighbors. And so I would love to see what the city is doing consistently to have a practice in place to be able to en encourage this type of communication to the residents. And what I'm talking about is targeted outreach, right? So for zoning public hearings or other things, what we look at is within a 300 ft, you know, radius, these are the people that get informed of the public hearing because we deem that they are the most impacted. You know, is there something that we could share as suggestions to um to someone like Camel Country Club or someone looking at at doing something like this uh so that they're aware, oh, this might be a nice thing. So instead of getting complaints from people not knowing that this was going to happen, um that they can at least know that they've informed people that will be most impacted uh ahead of it. So I don't mean to make this a big deal cuz I love fireworks and happy new years everyone. Um, but I thought that I would take this as an opportunity to talk about public participation policy and and say that I don't think we have a consistent system in place to be able to continue to encourage our stakeholders and partners to utilize our public participation policy effectively. And this is just an example in which I think we missed the mark on our ability to encourage them to do the proper outreach that is needed even for something as

simple as letting people know that there's going to be fireworks happening uh near where they live and they can do whatever they need to do to anticipate that. Thank you. Any other comments or questions commissioners at this time? Commissioner, I was just curious if anyone knows I I should probably know the answer to this, but um is there or plans this year to have fireworks as usual downtown?

Um yes, actually their application I received it last week. We'll be bringing that forward at the next commission meeting. Thank you.

Thank you, ClickBank. See no other questions from commission. Now is the opportunity for anyone who's here in the chambers to comment on this item. If you would like, you have three minutes. Please come forward, state your name and whether you live in a city, unless you've already done that three times. Uh good evening. Uh Jeff Messer, city resident. Uh adding to what Commissioner Slay said regarding uh fireworks being a problem with people who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Uh fireworks are also a problem for many pets. Uh some people say that dogs think they're dying when they hear fireworks. I'm not so sure about these country club fireworks being a problem, but definitely uh mid June through mid August. Commissioner Sllayy lives in the Vine neighborhood. She probably sees all the lost pet signs that go up that time of year. Uh so it would be nice if um public safety was a little more responsive on enforcing uh the fireworks ordinances uh during that time of year. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else that wants to comment on this item? Hi, Tom House. Um 2716 Mockingbird. I didn't think I'd be commenting on fireworks tonight. Uh but I similarly I don't want to I like fireworks too, but I do feel that the city does have a pretty substantial fireworks show. I do question whether or not I mean from this from this line item here what what's the extent of the fireworks display I mean is it going to be uh an hourong u event is it open to the is this a private event it's a private club um so there look I mean just even at first glance I've only looked at this for 5 minutes there seem to be a lot of questions that don't have

answers or questions that haven't even been asked yet Um, and echoing previous comments, uh, in addition to the city's, um, beautiful fireworks displays, we do have, I mean, Kelzoo has no shortage of, uh, private residents, uh, blasting pretty extreme fireworks uh, a week before and a week after. So, um I wouldn't particularly support a um a private country club getting a special uh permit to do so or you know. So, thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else here in the chambers like to comment on this item? See no one commissioners the recommended action is a motion to approve. Is there a motion? So move. Motion made by Commissioner Wilson. Support. Supported by Commissioner Slayby. Discussion. Commissioners. Yes. Commissioner Hes.

Um I I think this is an annual thing that we've approved. However, I we you bring a valid point up that people need to know that that's an evening and a night to be aware that there will be fireworks going everywhere. Um they're they're legal. There's by state uh by state law they're legal. Memorial Day, Labor Day, Junth. Yeah. Fourth of July. The mic just

Yeah. So anyway, they are legal um for citizens to put off. So, if you do suffer from PTSD, if you do have a pet, if you do um have a hard time with fireworks, please know that uh that fireworks in general, not just the fireworks here downtown or at the country club, uh will be going off. Um people are celebrating on on New Year's. So, just an awareness. Commissioner Prader,

Commissioner Slaybe, I appreciate you bringing this up because I think um I don't know if anyone else heard the fireworks, but um we approved the fireworks at the CMU uh Western game. I think it was in the end of October. I've kind of lost track of time, but the thing was really bizarre about it. It was uh basically across the whole city uh people were hearing noises that they couldn't figure out what the noise was. And I don't know what it was about that particular fireworks show, but it really carried um no leaves. What? Say no leaves.

Uh yeah, I think different theories people were saying because the leaves were gone or older, you know, I I don't know whatever the theories were, but it it carried throughout the whole city. And in fact, my my wife whose office is over off of Portage Road over by 94 heard the fireworks all the way over there and was like calling me saying, "Hey, do you have any idea what that loud noise is?" I think the hard part about that particular situation is the practicality. How do you know whether it's going to carry or how far it's going to carry? Because in most instances, fireworks are going to be heard way beyond 300 ft. And so I think it brings up a good point of like uh you know that maybe it could be examined, but just questioning how effectively that would work. Most WU fireworks situations, I don't think the sound carried like it did that night. Um, I also do kind of wonder about depending on how the extent of how large of a fireworks display it is, whether it necessitates having two competing fireworks displays going on in the city at the same night. But either way, I just think this is something that's come up every year. Uh, and I'm I'm going to support it in this particular case, but I do think it's worth uh exploring further.

Thank you, Commissioner Priddle. Commissioner Slavey. Yeah, I just wanted to reiterate my main focus is thinking about how we operationalize our public participation policy effectively. It's not about the fireworks. Um, again, I'll I'm going to support the fireworks here for the country club. Um, I think that a really good practice, as I mentioned earlier, um, that went a long way and it was so simple and free, right, was Western noted government relations. Shout out to Lisa Garcia. Um, you know, they said, "Wow, this upsets you." And all they had to do was send an email out to the neighborhood association, which covers more than 300 ft right in West Main Hill, the week leading up to it saying, "Hey, a reminder, we're going to have a home game. Canon might be come might come out." And they did that and a lot of people appreciated that. And so that's a simple thing that um, you know, it sounds like our fire marshal is the one that over overviews this permit. It could be put in as part of the letter of the approval letter to say, "Hey, we would encourage you um as part of, you know, being a good neighbor is to just uh reach out to the Oakwood Neighborhood Association, Oakland Drive and Windshill Neighborhood Association or depending on, you know, how this impacts, but in this specific case, it's those two neighborhoods and to let them know, you know, reach out to them so that they can inform their neighbors. They have newsletters, they have meetings, they have other ways to share. And again, this is a small thing, but it adds up to the larger way that we consistently apply our public participation policy. And this is, I think, a good example to reflect on it and understand what systems in place do city staff use to consistently apply this, not just within CPED, where this originated, our community planning, economic development department, but how this is being applied across our department. because this is a question that is asked in all of our staff reports that are required to be submitted for each of our items. And I want to make sure people as city

staff understand how to use them and to actually genuinely think about this participation policy and how that might apply to each of these items that they put forth before us. So, thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Slayby. Other comments on this item? I see none. Clerk, please call the role. Commissioner Wilson, yes. Vice Mayor Duncan, abstain. Mayor Anderson, yes. Commissioner Hess, yes. Commissioner Hoffman, yes. Commissioner Prao, yes. Commissioner Slayy, yes.

Thank you very much, commissioners. The motion passes. Now, next on agenda is what was item H1 and is now our third regular agenda item. Manager Moore approval of a contract with Hurley and Stewart for the design of Arcadia Creek phases one Kalamazoo Avenue to West Main phase two West Main to Levelvel and phase three level to Oliver in the amount of $2,500,000 funded through a protect grant. Thank you. Manager Morris is there staff report on this item? There is not there is no staff

no staff report but uh staff available for questions if necessary. Questions commissioners on item H1. Commissioner Slaybe,

I know a lot of residents um that have brought up um items that are related to the arena uh like to point to this type of work um and reference this as something in which the city is contributing funding to the arena project as part of this. And so I was wondering if city staff could maybe touch on that and and discuss how this while benefiting that area is a separate project and isn't necessarily for the arena but for the city or they can you know say otherwise. Um but I would love to maybe have them speak on that point because it's something that's been brought up by the community.

Thank you Commissioner Sbe. I see Director Baker coming forward. Uh thank you mayor. Thank you your honor. The uh this this project is a protect grant project that's uh been referred to in multiple phases. Uh this project seeks to u provide uh flood relief within a specific flood plane area along Arcadia Creek. Um, Arcadia Creek has been um modernized um in the area from Wessonage east to its outfall in in the Kazoo River in the early 90s. That work was completed in around 1992 um and includes the Arcadia Creek Festival site. Um that was part of a bigger project plan to um continue that modernization and um proper sizing of that um conduit or culvert section um all the way west um into um where that current project limits are now. But that work was um kind of stopped due to funding constraints at that time. Um we have long sought to continue that work west. Um that work was estimated at uh around $15 million when we started to build um the the project sizing for FFE. Although that project was never, you know, brought to fruition in its current state. um that uh cross-section of channel that lies under the um Allen Plat neighborhood is approximately 12 times too small. So, it cannot convey the kind of flows we need during uh flood flow events and things like um Western Michigan University's Waldo Stadium getting flooded out um during rain events as something that has

occurred. Um, commissioners may be aware of an event that occurred in 2017 that uh put the stadium underwater. Um, and though that also impacts our uh neighborhood in around the West Main area um and traffic uh as well. So staff applied for a federal uh program uh under the uh transportation department uh to provide for uh flood flood relief and then also connect um transportation resources from non-motorized from the campus of Western Michigan University um into downtown. Um that project was ultimately awarded uh and successful. We then took where we were at with that project and combined uh resources with the arena project and we were able to complete approximately $15 million of work on uh phase zero. that's connecting where that uh east terminus is of that work that was done in 1992 along the uh western corridor then moving the channel to the north where it's going to intercept its new route along Michigan. So that phase zero work was funded in part um by the arena project um but the city itself is not funding the arena project. So, it was actually the opposite in that the arena uh provided um approximately $7 million of funding towards our phase zero uh for this project itself and allowed us to kind of get started on the on the project. So, some of the challenge with um you know, building a new culvert for a creek when we have an existing creek that's live is

that we can't just build the new culvert in place. We've got to build the new one and then when we're ready, transfer the flow of the old one. So, the old one has to keep running the whole time. And so, we were able to kind of coordinate those resources with um the arena development and their work that they're doing right now in that uh in that footprint. So hopefully that answers everything. It's a bit of a long- winded answer, but I had to kind of bring you forward from where we left off in 1992. Thank you, Director Baker. Further questions? Commissioner Sean?

Thank you. Um, as someone who helped put together the Steuart Neighborhood Association uh plan, uh, one of the top concerns was mitigating flooding. And so it sounds like through this work, uh, we'll actually be able to, um, directly impact the Stewart residents that live right there positively. Um because as we know if you're in a flood plane you have to carry flood insurance which is quite costly. So I don't know how I don't know if that necessarily gets rid of that for the residents do this work. Um but I think we're uh in uh taking a step in the right direction. Um my my last question related to um this is does this help us reopen Academy Street or is that a separate culvert that needs to be reconstructed? So great questions. Uh I'll start with the first one. Um this project will eliminate the entire flood plane area along Arcadia Creek from uh Westidge Avenue and then running west uh to Oliver. Uh so that's going to come in a few different stages. is there's a lot of regulatory aspects behind that, but that was the design intent is to be able to convey all flows including flood flows um within that new channel conveying system. Um this work will also include um crossings at West Main. So there'll be a new culvert at West Main. Uh there'll be a new culvert at Academy and this will reopen Academy um as well. Um, if you've been looking at the new Mishel Street and wondering what the space to the south is, that looks a little bit like a unfinished canvas, that's going to be the future home of Arcadia Creek. So, that uh was kind of built into that space there. Um, and you can kind of see the um space that we're kind of setting aside for that channel.

Commissioner Slobby, any other questions for Director Baker on this topic? Okay. Thank you, Director Baker. I appreciate it. Is there in the audience who would like to comment on this item? This is a regular agenda item H1. Please come to the podium. Just a reminder, you'll have three minutes for your comments.

Yes. Um, good evening again, commissioners. My name is Doc Tail Stevens. I'm a homeowner at 213 Elm Street in the Stewart neighborhood. I just wanted to voice my support for this project. It floods in front of my house on Elm Street every time we have a major uh downpour. Um, it also results in traffic patterns changing at the last minute, which puts pedestrians in jeopardy. Um, where people are swerving to try to get out of the deeper water. Um, I've actually reviewed this plan pretty thoroughly and I was impressed with the um the attention to creating it uh more of a natural ecosystem and getting rid of some of the concrete that comes right up to the creek. I also remember the free the creek mo uh movement from the 1990s. So, I guess I just wanted to say I really appreciate your endorsement of this project today.

Thank you. Next, please.

Hello. Um, well, I can see the good things about this project. Um, I think it becomes a question of what came first, the chicken or the egg, right? Because, um, we're talking about expan an expansion that was caused by the arena, but the city is not directly putting money into it, but the arena did a good thing. But the arena should shouldn't be a thing, and we shouldn't be doing this because we need capacity for the arena, right? I feel like that's the thing that we're kind of like circling around is that this is hap this expans expansion is happening because the arena needs the capacity and while good things are happening from this project I commend it absolutely whenever mitigation of flooding happens it's great but the it still stands that the city is still investing $2 million over $2 million in a pro project like that is is not viable for the city in the long run. It's not viable. The congestion hasn't been figured out how we're going to do the traffic. It's not still not paying livable wages for people. Um what kind of gentrification is going to happen from these projects, right? We could talk about flood mitigation. We could talk about the improvements in it since 1982, but and the fail everything like I'm just saying like there's it's multifaceted and we can't like lose the lose the plot lose the plat that this arena is not a good thing for this community. I want people to make sure that when we get small strides from the city work, we need to see what bigger sacrifices the communities are making, especially the black community in North Side who's already going through an environmental crisis and y'all still haven't figured out how to mitigate the congestion that this arena is going to bring and the fact that it's not going to pay a liveable wage and the fact that like we like we should be having a green space. What about like a Central Park in Kalamazoo, right? It's turning into a

heat island. So the bigger implications of this cannot be lost by the strides that that are being made because it still stands true that the city is still investing money in the infrastructure for this arena. It still stands true that there's not really a plan for how this is going to support the community that it is impacting. Okay. And it might help some communities. I commend that 100%. I'm not trying to minimize that, but I'm trying to put this into perspective for people. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to comment on this item? Um, well, my concern with the redevelopment, like many of them, um, is the waste. Um, I'm going to revert back to my original statement, the unhoused, the homeless. I'm not exactly sure you all are familiar with the capacity on how a person ends up outside and walking outside 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. uh resources aren't available. When an individual is exposed to the elements outside, they're also exposed to the redevelopment, which includes the turning up of soil. Huge. When they turn up soil, they turn up brick, they turn up the sewer, they turn up electric. One of the key things that I want to uh take to want this panel to consider, excuse me, is the hazardous waste. You're now looking at the sewer being turned up. Now you got the unhoused being outside that causes health issues, vomiting, um other various health issues. We got epilepsy, fainting, etc., etc., as a result of the electricity panels always being disrupted. Most importantly, which really disturbs me the most is the electrical chemical components that comes with all this instruction construction. So when they turn up the soil and they redo all of the electrical panels out here, it disrupts the electricity which raises our electricity bill and it causes which is a voice activating effect which basically means our electric uh our electric um outlets began to talk. We start to hear the construction workers talking through the electricity because they literally rerouted the phone lines for the whole

city. They'll reroute the electricity so that our homes is paying 70% of the electric cost for the adjacent business. When with our in with the the the energy services that we sustain on an individual basis in our home, it doesn't even come to the sum of $20. $20. Our refrigerators, our stoves doesn't even produce $20 worth of a bill. But if it is wired to the adjacent business across the street, our bills is looking at $200 plus dollars. So we're looking at $200 to $300 a month in electricity because we're paying for the adjacent business and our outlets is talking to us and high voltage electricity is seeping through. So now you got health concerns with epilepsy, paralysis, vomiting because waste and hazardous waste is being exposed. It's the awareness that I think would be considered should be taken into consideration notifying the public like these are the health issues that you will endure during this time. Take safety measures. I think the city has um failed to produce that. I think the city has failed to produce a panel of individuals that can compile documentation to put out to the public so they are aware of what to expect next.

Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to comment on this item? H1. Seeing no one else, the recommended action, commissioners, is a motion to approve. Is there a motion? So moved. Motion made by Commissioner Hes.

Supported by Commissioner Wilson. Discussion. Commissioners. Commissioner Slay. Yeah, I just wanted to maybe clarify some things. Um, so from my understanding, this 2.5 million is not coming from the city. It's coming from a grant we received to do this specific work. Correct. Okay. Okay. Uh, through the protect grant, which is a federal grant, Director Baker? Yes. Yes. Okay. Um and I appreciate the comment the public comments around this subject. Uh which is why I asked the question at the be you know initially because I wanted to better understand you know this project's relationship to the private arena work that's that's going on based on director Baker's um information he shared tonight. My understanding is, and Director Baker, please correct me if I'm wrong, or I don't know if city staff can come up, but um this is a project we've been trying to get off the ground since honestly we did the reopening of the creek, the daylighting of the creek, you know, decades ago. Um but we've just not have had the funding to to complete to get that project moving. Something always comes up, we have to put it on the back burner. And one of the issues is that culvert um collapsing at academy which has closed that street for a couple years now. Um and so this is a separate project that we've been trying to do for several years now. We just haven't had all the funding. The arena, which is a private development, has figured out how to get their their project off the ground. And there's been conversations with the arena on, hey, we're doing this

other project over here that does benefit the arena, but it's something we've been trying to do and and the developers in the arena or who'sever, you know, supporting the funding through that company uh agreed to support that project we've been trying to do for several years. Is that what I'm understanding?

Yes, that's yes, that's correct. That's very well summarized. Um, this the project need has been in place since 1974 um when the section running through St. Augustine's Cathedral collapsed. Um the this improvement has been in a plan since the early 90s. Um and we've just now been able to be successful in identifying a funding source that federal source. Um this work would be funded under storm water which at present storm water is not a utility. Um storm water is essentially a resource uh within the streets dollars and funded through act act 51. Um the only relationship with the arena is that um we have partnered with the arena project and received uh over $7 million of funding from the arena project to make um this flood mitigation project a really a reality um in our current terms. Um speaking about the capacity issues um this project is not needed for the arena. The arena is downstream. Uh so the arena exists in an area of creek that was improved in 1992. Um and so the arena project could move forward without these upstream improvements happening. Um the only the only time that they come together is in phase zero in that work in West Avenue. Uh which the arena development has partnered with the city to perform this work kind of um coinciding with the work that they were completing. So, it's been a great partnership um and certainly uh a great opportunity for the city to to mitigate some flood issues that have been um that [snorts] we've been dealing with for a long long time.

So, and maybe I'm just repeating exactly what you just said. The arena project, the private development is is moving forward with or without this work that we're deciding to do through the protect grant. However, if we did not receive that 7 million, which is, you know, okay, fine, right? Maybe we don't accept it. Um, [snorts] it would continue to be on pause until we find funding elsewhere. Correct. Had Yeah, but the arena continues. Correct. The the arena can move forward with or without this project. Okay.

Thank you, Director Baker. Any other discussion, Commissioners? Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Clerk Broom, please call the RO. Vice Mayor Duncan, yes. Mayor Anderson, yes. Commissioner Hus, yes. Commissioner Hoffman, yes. Commissioner Bradle, yes. Commissioner Sley, yes. Commissioner Wilson, yes. Thank you, commissioners. The motion passes. Next on the agenda is item formerly item H2. Now we're down. It's I guess the fourth item, isn't it? See, man.

Approval of a purchase agreement for the sale of 459 North Rose Street to Kalamazoo County for the sale price of $200,000. Thank you so much. I presume there's not necessarily a staff report on this item. Is that correct? No staff report. The staff is questions, commissioners, on this item for staff. Commissioner Hess,

just a comment or a question perhaps for Attorney Leo. Um, the current contract under this item includes manager Richmond's signature line for the contract. Uh, do we before we vote on this, do we need to ask the clerk to change that signature line? Just how do we make that official? And you can just point it out that that this if the contract is approved then it would be subject to uh a change in the signature line to reflect uh interim city manager Paty Moore's signature. Can we do that? Thank you.

Any questions for staff then? So uh now is the opportunity uh for anyone who's in the audience like to comment on this item. This item now H4 come to go podium. Give us your name and you'll have three minutes. Seeing no comments, the recommended action is a motion to approve. Commissioners, is there a motion? So moved. Motion made by Vice Mayor Duncan. Support. Supported by Commissioner Slayby. Uh further discussion, commissioners. Seeing clerk Berlin, please call the RO. Mayor Anderson, yes. Commissioner Hess, yes. Commissioner Hoffman, yes.

Commissioner Pradle, yes. Commissioner Slay, yes. Commissioner Wilson, yes. Vice Mayor Duncan, yes. Thank you, Commissioners. The motion passes. Next on the agenda on the agenda is item H5. Manager Moore. First reading of an ordinance to amend certain sections of chapter 38 of the Kalamazoo City Code to change the rates charge for drinking water effective January 1st, 2026. Uh thank you so much, manager Moore. I see Director Baker coming forward here. I just uh there is a brief for staff report.

Yes. So would you like to make a a presentation here, director Baker, or

I'm I'm available. I can go over anything the commission wants to go over. We had a indepth presentation at the committee of the whole meeting, so I don't need to go into full depth and detail, but I'm available if commissioners have any questions. Just as a reminder for anyone who may have missed it, a very detailed and helpful explanation about this entire item did uh was on our committee the whole agenda that is all available for viewing. Uh it's recorded and out there. Not sure how how quickly they post it. Uh but right away almost corner clerk bowling any particular questions for director Baker at this time of commission. Also just a reminder that we're setting a hearing on this tonight. We're not voting uh in affirmative on the action itself. I think we're all set. Director Baker, thank you. Is there any in the audience like to comment on this item? This item now H5. Seeing no one, uh, the recommended action is a motion to approve. Is there a motion?

So moved. Motion made by Commissioner Huffman. Support. Support by. Okay. Commissioner PR. Thank you so much. Discussion Commission. All right. seen none. Just a reminder about this action here is that uh we are uh this is uh offering the ordinance for first reading and we will be acting on this on at our December 15th meeting. Is that correct? That is correct. That is correct. Okay. Thank you so much. Clerk Boring, please call the role. Commissioner House, yes. Commissioner Hoffman, yes. Commissioner Pradle, yes. Commissioner Slay, yes.

Commissioner Wilson, yes. Vice Mayor Duncan, yes. Mayor Anderson, yes. Thank you, Commissioners. The motion passes. Manager Moore.

Regular agenda item number six, first reading of an ordinance to reszone the property at 4301 Stadium Drive from residential multi-dwelling and residential single dwelling to community commercial. Thank you so much. We're having a little technical difficulties up here. So, watch your Are we all set? So, I see that Bobby Derky is here with us. So, uh do you have a report for us, sir? Uh I do. It's I'm guessing Clerk Boring is working on pulling it up now. A brief report. All right. Um, thank you, U, mayor, commissioners, new commissioners, and interim commissioner Moore. Um, I'm the assistant city planner for the city, and similar to the item you just read, this is the first reading of an ordinance, but the second one will be in January. Um, so I'll just give some brief highlights on the property itself and the process.

You able to change it? Scott is not moving for me. Thank you, Scott, if that was you. Um, so here's an aerial photograph of the property. Uh, you can see the line down the center there is Drake Road, which is also the western border of the city. And the blue outline there, it's a 18 18 acre wooded parcel on Stadium Drive. And zooming in closer, uh, the request itself is to reszone the property. And this is a current zoning of the map. The property itself has two zone districts on it. You can see the call it like a a line of RM15 which is a residential multif family zone district and then the the bulk of it is RS5 residential single family. Um and by the zoning code the majority of a zone is what you treat it as. So it's treated as a RS5 property. So very high level the the process to reszone a property is uh any reasonzoning request first goes to the planning commission. Um this request was at the November 6th planning commission where the planning commission um 70 did not provide a favorable recommendation to the city commission. Um and then the request is to you guys at the commission and there is the first reading to set it on to the record and then a following second meeting um where this one is out on January 26, 2026 is the um date and then at the public hearing uh there's discussion, public comment and uh obviously the deliberation of the commission. Um the the difference is uh the planning commission had the hearing the the substance of the staff analysis and to the zoning ordinance was uh performed by the planning commission and uh where the ordinance to be adopted or proposed I should say. Um the request of staff report public comment all of that um would happen for the city commission

at the 26 as well. And uh for people watching or listening, um ways to continue to submit public comments, um staff is collecting comments received since the planning commission meeting. Um they can submit those comments, concerns by phone or uh email the 311. Um those will still make it to me. Um then or you could email me directly. Uh my email is derky rcalamaz.org. That is dur krc calamazoo city.org. The r is for router. Um I only say that because some people send stuff to jerky be. That is uh the high level and I'm uh any questions you guys have? I'd be glad to answer them. Any particular questions for assistant planner at this time. All right. Thank you, Commissioner. I think we're all set. Thank you. Now is the opportunity for anybody who's here in the chambers to comment on this item. Remember, this item is just the setting of the hearing uh for the 26. Uh if you're interested, please come forward, state your name, whether you live in the city, and you'll have three minutes. Uh hi, my name is Tom How again. Um can you confirm that's that's the meeting where you vote uh on the proposal? Yes or no? Just as a point of clarity. Okay. Thank you. Um so um I had sent this um uh a few years back when this issue was going to be um held and then um anyway I sent this to the city commission um and this involves relocating um a meeting of this that's going to be this popular or uh to a venue large enough to support

public participation. Um and those reasons include um In 2020, we had standing room only in this building. All of the rooms had uh overflow rooms were completely filled at capacity. We had people standing in the hallways um blocking uh uh uh exits. So, I thought that was a just a a public safety concern. Um it would be better for equal opportunity for uh the public to attend in person. Um, I watched many people unable to stand for many hours outside in the halls and just left. So, I think that's a huge accessibility issue and one that is um telling people that if you aren't physically able, you're that you're not welcome here. Um, uh, so yeah. Um, and I have researched a a pretty long list a few years ago when this I when I presented this to city planning and public safety of other cities specifically in Michigan and in the Midwest that have have uh relocated um city meetings like this to larger venues when they're anticipating a large public turnout, which we definitely will again. Um, so, uh, I have a minute left, so I I'd like to go back to my pet project with the public participation policy, which I hope can somehow be influenced in maybe a revision of the staff report if a new one is going to be actually made for the meeting on the 26th. And I hope that staff report can add categories like summary of public input and key themes, quality and depth of engagement with the public participation and influence of community input on staff analysis and recommendations. Uh staff, city staff, planning staff should identify the ways in which public

participation informed the final recommendation. So, I hope to see that a staff report has an amendment or revision um that actually reflects the public participation on this matter. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to comment on this item? See no one in commission. Uh the recommended action is a motion to offer the ordinance for first reading and schedule a public hearing for January 26th, 2026. Is there a motion? So moved. Motion made by Vice Mayor Duncan. Support

supported by Commissioner Cradle. Discussion. Commissioners. Commissioner Slady.

Thank you, Mayor. So, um, again, I appreciate the public comments today, uh, because this makes me think about, you know, this item that we're discussing is is the scheduling of this hearing. Um, since it was moved to January 26, the the recommendation, um, we do have flexibility uh, in the requirement that we have for notification. I think it's uh 10 days 2 weeks uh that we have to um ensure that people know are aware of the meeting. So if desired uh we could potentially decide to host it at a different venue. My thought though is to think about this in a broader sense in that we always will have different meetings where there's going to be a full room that spills over not just for this topic but other topics as I'm sure my fellow commissioners have experienced in the past and so possibly having a consistent practice that the commission does to say hey it's met this threshold and so therefore we will move to a venue. So, it's not this is not a one-time thing or a unique thing to this one that may be confusing to people. Um, and then potentially we have an opportunity to say, "Hey, this is going to be our go-to venue each time." Um, so it's not a scramble for staff to then figure it out within the next couple weeks if we want to move forward with this or for any future items that people from the public request us to consider moving to a different venue. And on that same topic, I think about uh the ADA accessibility, not just the the physical location of the space. Um, but I know that through the planning commission, uh, we extend the opportunity for people to phone in to provide their comments. I know that that was used uh that was utilized at at this November 6 planning commission for this item. And uh you know I I wonder

with the new year coming um if this is an opportunity for the commission uh and not here at this moment but potentially at our December 15th meeting to entertain reinstating uh the phone call in opportunity during city commission. Uh I think it's important to consider all people and in our community and their opportunity to be able to uh provide their comments uh whether they're able to actually come to this physical space or not. Um we do this for our other boards and advisories and we used to do this for the city commission as you all know. Um and so again going into the new year this is opportunity to reset with a new city manager uh a newer reconfiguration a newer configuration of the city commission. And I think this is important in terms of being able to be responsive to what the public is asking us to consider. Um, with that being said, um, you know, I do understand that public comments can be long. Um, and it's not about us not wanting to sit up here for hours and and listen to people's public comments, but I think in terms of just being able to um structure the meeting and and have, you know, it keep it in order and make sure everyone feels like they're being heard. Um, potentially the compromise here is, you know, we provide four minutes, which often a lot of people don't use the full four minutes. um if they do need to continue, the strategy has been they have somebody follow up after them with their additional minutes to continue. Um and so it could look like where we drop it down to two minutes. So it's two minutes in person and two minutes on the phone to be able to cut down the time um as a compromise. Um, but for me, when we're thinking about scheduling this hearing, I think those considerations are important in this uh opportunity to rethink how we're being responsive to the community in their opportunity to participate and engage in this dialogue with us.

Thank you. Other comments, commissioners? I got it. Vice Mayor Duncan.

Uh, so I want to touch on the topic Commissioner Slavey said about the the callins. I don't think that we need to be discussing a trigger to go to venues. I think that we need to be politically courageous and open up these meetings back to the people uh at home that can't make it here. Uh so many of my colleagues I you know uh upon winning the election I had a conversation with you all about uh my desire uh and many of the people's in in the public's desire to um move back to the uh call-in portion of of our of our meetings. So I I will be putting full support uh behind that and I think that alleviates this problem of us only having standing room only in here um for any of these issues particularly you know the asylum lake. Now to the asylum lake issue um couple things we have heard tonight over and over about uh public participation. Uh I am sorely disappointed in um how this has been presented to the public. uh how quickly this has moved. Uh the lack of transparency or the perception of that and perception is reality to the people that we serve. And the perception is we have been the city in general which we are a part of has been kind of ramming this you know through uh and kind of pushing this through the public without you know proper input. And so, you know, I'm a bit frustrated because when when we had our executive session, I asked for this meeting to be moved to January and I received push back on that. All for the decision to be made without the commission present that this would be moved back to January. So I, you know, I want to be clear on the record that uh there was a wish from this commission to move this issue to January and and uh we

were advised that the petitioner would be upset or or would feel slighted um you know if we moved it. And I think that we can show respect and due diligence to people who are wanting to do business with the city and also pay respects to the public who want to participate in that in that portion of discussion on what's going to happen in their city. That's all.

Uh thank you vice mayor. So at this point, so there's other topics that have been brought up which aren't not necessarily, you know, totally germanine just to this action. So valid topics. So I guess I just want to bring us back at this point just to this action of uh of setting this hearing date for the 26th and making sure we can act on that. Commissioner Slavyy,

I guess I think about uh this is why I thought it was related to what we're thinking about today because if we wanted to consider a new venue, I want to make sure staff has time to do that and want to ensure that January 26 would be a date that would work. I don't know if this is the platform in which we discuss a new venue or city staff coming back to think about that later and let us know. Um but that's that's why I brought those things up. Um just to understand if that would impact notific you know public notification and and then impact the date. That's that's all. Yeah, fair enough. I get that. Commissioner Per.

Sure. I think um I I tend to agree with the venue uh choice and there's plenty of precedence in other communities. I think one consideration though in terms of like community accessibility and participation is the ability to effectively live stream uh and make sure that people can can watch you know or listen. Um and so in terms of just thinking that through I really want to be thoughtful to make sure that that that tech technology can exist and we can do that effectively in a large venue. Um, I think that's it's really critical even just for capturing it for people who can't participate that day but want to go back and watch and listen to it because I do encounter a number of residents who who, you know, don't participate by coming to the meeting or even just watching it live but sometimes want to go back and watch it and I do that all the time for a lot of the boards and commission meetings. So, I'd really like to be thoughtful about that component as well. Um, I think in terms of the call-in, um, I would really love to learn more about what other communities are doing, um, to effectively manage that in terms of just looking at what time frame people are are allowing for that. Um, you know, just what parameters that they set for that. Um, um, so I would be curious to learn more about what other people are doing with that um, as well. But yeah,

Commissioner Sy, did you want to follow up on that or

Well, I so I wonder Is this something that we table until December 15th to schedule for staff to then explore um what another venue looks like and then let us know that hey we could do another venue and it's a because if we go to another venue we don't even know if it's available on January I mean there's a lot of factors and so um or do we just set it on January 26 and are we when we're voting to set it on January January 26th. Does that also include the location as part of that decision or can we change that that location after we set the date today?

So, those are all good questions. So, just a variety of things. I guess I'll just chime in here on this. We have had meetings in other places. I participated in those in public neighborhood settings over at the library, the van doozen room we were looking. So, that is something the commission has done before. Uh then there's the logistics component to it. You know, is it accessible? Can we adequately live stream it and film it? All those other kinds of logistical things would need to happen. Uh but it's certainly something we've done in the past. So that wouldn't be a brand new thing for the commission as far as relocating. Just other things to think about for that particular evening. That is the a very very special evening as you all are aware. That is when we do our MLK awards. And so there was be an ex extensive part of that meeting which we have already scheduled which we had uh tenatively talked about the idea of possibly doing that at 6:00 earlier than the 7:00 meeting for those uh for all the families and all the members that will be coming in you know for that event. And that is a very very important and uh really uh kind of a profound and meaningful event. And so you know that's another logistical piece here to discuss with administration because that is something that already happens. We have this awkward situation now where uh we used to postpone our regular Monday meeting that fell on MLK day to the next day Tuesday which had been our scheduling and then now Tuesday is also a special day with certain things that happen on it so that we now don't have it on Tuesday which as we've now pushed it back to the fourth Monday. So there's that scheduling. So there's a whole variety of what other things are

happening. How is the scheduling working? Is there another place we'd like to do it? Was that place meet all our requirements? So that's one set of discussion I think on the facility itself. It's it's not setting precedent. We have done that before in the past. It's a logistics thing. Uh and then another piece of that is just uh related to an idea about either regular or meeting specific opportunity for call-in as well. So that's another thing that we can talk about uh which has some logistics to it also. I was around actually for the entire call-in period that we had here and that basically was driven at that time by co. So within a couple months of me being elected mayor the first time, you know, we went to callin mode and some of that was actually Zoom meeting mode and then back here in call-in. So we've done it before. Uh I'm not sure how it works with boards and commissions. We went through some bumps when we started callin. Uh, and I'm not sure how that's avoided now, but those bumps were people who would call in specifically to do a uh a spoof call in call in and then uh move into uh some sort of a profane uh suggestion that is then public for everyone, young people and old people. And so we have to manage that call-in piece. And there's logistics around that also. So anyway, there's kind of a lot of topics to discuss here. And I suppose you're right, Commissioner Slayby, that you know, I guess there's no absolute reason. Manager Moore, let me know that it must be on the 26th. I don't know if there's a reason for that necessarily. U you know, do we have some more elbow room around that? I don't know the answer to that, but uh maybe staff.

Yes, I would like to defer to staff about the timing. I don't know that the ordinance states it, but I would have an understanding that after the planning commission decision, probably through the enabling act, there's a reasonable time frame to have it heard by the legislative body. And I I don't know if attorney Le could maybe not right here, but that's the item. That's probably what should be asked, like is there I don't I'm very confident there's not a must buy date. Um, but [clears throat] probably should set the date. I don't know how long it could go out.

Good question. I'm sure Attorney Lee Allen is that something you'd need to research.

I in going with with a reasonable time frame. It doesn't necessarily have to be the next week or two weeks or beyond the notification period. You know, the different factors come into play because reasonableness is subjective. So, since we have holidays coming up and we also have a a city budget that's also being worked on and who knows what the developers personal issues might be that, you know, the 26 could be a very reasonable date and that's it's my understanding that that's a date that was acceptable to the developer, the 26. Nothing prevents us from going back to the developer and asking if they can delay even further if, you know, if they would like to do that. Um but at some point you know we have to settle on that date you know and the we we can proceed on the 26th is this is just scheduling the 26th the notification won't go out to sometime in January if for some reason uh staff and the developer are able to find a different date maybe a later date where we could find a facility that could accommodate and all the needs that would be required assuming that if that is where the commission wants to go then we would come back and amend this and schedule it for a different public hearing date. I mean, it it's not there's many ways to go about it and it's the point. Just because you said it on the 26th won't be set in stone if for some reason we need to change it again.

And that is correct. The applicant um was okay with the they're aware of the January 26th date and that worked for them.

Well, I'll tell you my gut inclination is not to set and change it. So even though that would certainly be an option, uh, Vice Mayor Duncan caught question slaving. So I mean, so I'm just trying to work through, you know, what are things that we could do related to this. I would say that the the time frame would spill. So I'm just brainstorming some ideas. Uh it seems to me that it would be it would be not too late to set a hearing date on the 26th if we so desire that at our meeting on December 15th. Is that accurate? That is correct.

So there's no reason we have to set the date tonight. Uh, I'll tell you what, you know, my gut response when I realized that our MLK recognition was on that same evening was [snorts] I mean, I'm not I'm not saying that people turning out, you know, is not a great positive thing, but the tenor tends to be uh not celebratory, I would say. And I really really appreciate the celebratory uh nature of that event for young people. And so the idea that it was going to be possibly occurring on C evening was not something that was appealing to me which is why we talked about maybe trying to separate it. So uh I mean that is very important to me that that has to happen in January and that should happen at Armenia in January when I'm referencing uh the MLK recognitions. Um, so if it's possible and you you just have to let us know what what the steps would be either to table it or withdraw our emotions, that sort of thing. If it's possible, could we just have a little time to think about this from the staff perspective? Uh, then we could bring it back at December 15th and we wouldn't actually act on it this evening. That's just what I'm proposing.

Commissioner H. Mayor, could we still offer it for a first reading and not have a schedule of the date until December 15th? That's attorney Leal question. Yes, you can. So, it's just uh an amorphous. We're offering this for first reading. You don't have to set a date. Yes, that is. Okay. Well, Commissioner P,

I do think it's gerine to have that conversation about venue, though. And I will say like having been here back in 2019 or 2020 when it happened and also this last time last month, it is it is almost inhumane for u many individuals to you know effectively when there's hundreds of people who want to speak trying to stand for that long. I think the other thing that's really complicated and awkward or oh is if you're in the overflow room but you want to make a comment. It's exceptionally hard to figure out how you fit into that. Um, and so I, you know, I just think especially in these extremely rare instances where we have something like this event where we anticipate a really large presence, I would I I think it's a great idea to try to find an alternative venue. And I it doesn't sound like it's going to impact the vote tonight, but I I do hope that we can do that.

Thank you, Commissioner P. So, I'm sorry to ask this. We've lost track of this. Was there a motion made on this clip? Correct. In Okay, I'm thinking we're in discussion. So there must have been a motion made and the motion was first reading and to schedule the hearing on the 26th. So that's the location. So I withdraw the motion. Commissioner S. Uh I make a motion to amend to remove uh the language schedule public hearing for January 26 for the motion to read to offer the ordinance for first reading. Support. So then we would need to mo vote on the amendment first. Is there discussion on the amendment?

Yes. Any input attorney? It it is a superior motion. So you would be voting on the motion to amend and there is discussion available when it's been motioned and seconded. So we're set at this point. There's been a motion to amend. Correct. Yes. Okay. So now is there anyone in the chambers who would like to comment on the motion to amend?

Um that is not the motion to amend is not technically an action item which is the underlying motion which is the motion to approve this to going forward which allows the public to speak. This is the motion that's for the actual underlying motion and that that is why we have an attorney in the house. Public comment has already been had. So, thank you no one for coming forward. I didn't have to tell you to go back to your seats. Uh, then any further discussion on the motion to amend? Then clerk Berling, will you please call the role on that? Okay. On the motion to amend, Commissioner Pradle, yes. Commissioner Slay, 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. Now we're back to the original motion, right? The underline original motion which is motion to offer the ordinance for the first reading. Uh period. Thank you so much. And [snorts] for that motion, had I asked for comments already from individuals here in the chambers? Yes. Yes. [clears throat] Yes. Thank you, Courtley. All right, commissioners. Any discussion on that motion? [snorts] Clerk Born, please call the role. Commissioner Hoffman, yes. Commissioner Pradle, yes.

Commissioner Slay, yes. Commissioner Wilson, yes. Vice Mayor Duncan, yes. Mayor Anderson, yes. Commissioner Hess, yes.

Thank you so much, Commissioners. The motion passes. Relative to that, I'm sure that there will be more discussion with your team, manager Moore, and we'll figure out some of those logistic issues and we can presumably actually have a date certain that we can set at our meeting in December on December 15th. Hopefully, I presume so. All right. Thank you. Commissioners, reports and legislation. Do you have anything for us, Minister Risma? I mean, manager, [laughter] thank you.

Just a couple things. Um, Mayor, certainly want to um be thankful for all of the city employees that worked so hard to make this long Thanksgiving weekend and enjoyable and peaceful weekend, including those who worked for the wonderful tree lighting ceremony, our public safety officer, our parks and w staff. uh certainly our public services crews to dealing with the snow issue. So we are grateful that they were on their jobs. Also I wanted to make note that this coming Thursday um public safety will once again have the shop with the senior event that is this Thursday. That is a very u wonderful event that's happening this Thursday as well as this weekend our winter market will open on December 6th. So there's those are a few things that will be coming up within the week.

Thank you, man. Now is the opportunity for commissioner comments. Are there any commissioners that would like to offer comments this evening? Commissioner B.

I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed being in the parade. Um, I think Maple Hill Pavilion did a great job to support that work. And so it was exciting to uh see the community out there. It was packed. Everyone uh somehow found a way to park and and walk to where they needed to get to. Um, but we will continue to work on parking downtown for all the other days in Kazoo. Um, and then um I also appreciate the tree lighting ceremony. I went uh to it, you know, as a resident last year. It was great to actually participate it participate in it um this weekend. So that was wonderful. Um one thing I did want to make sure that the public knew uh since uh we were sworn in just a couple weeks ago, uh me and Vice Mayor Duncan both don't have our emails active. So if anyone has been trying to reach out to us, just know we are not ignoring you. We uh staff is working diligently to get it all set up for us. Um but I just wanted to ensure that the public knew that we currently cannot receive any messages that someone might be sharing with us. Um and so I look forward to once we get that stuff active and ready to go so we can hit the ground running and be able to communicate with all of you moving forward.

Thank you, Commissioner Slayby. Other comments, Commissioners? Commissioner H. Sure. Um, Mayor and I were pleased this morning to visit the Zeus Scoop uh ice cream shop. It's uh and and do their grand opening. Uh it's a local ice cream shop that's uh right between the Secretary of State and um

Armed Forces Recruiting. the armed force is recruiting like right there by Shapers Flowers in that plaza on Stadium Drive. Uh local family, locally owned and uh really just a wonderful warm spot to get your ice cream. Uh so we that's one of the really the perks of of sitting here that we get to be participate and know about those things here in our in our community. What I wanted to say tonight was um Julie Mack uh Mive writer wrote a wonderful article last week about the impact of philanthropy on the city of Kalamazoo. And when you read all of the things that philanthropy has done here in Kalamazoo, it's incredible and uh makes me very grateful to live here. And uh [sighs] while I'm not a billionaire uh and I can't give back at the level that uh the the richest among us have done uh it made me consider what can I do? How can I give back uh besides serving here? What can I do? How can I serve? Uh how can I help the mission make dinners? How can I show up in in different ways through my faith community or um uh in in other clubs that I belong to? How can I serve? And I hope that we can all ask ourselves that question. How can I serve this community? Because so many have served it in um before me. Uh it was it was wonderful the the alpha fi alpha kappa lambda uh chapter what they talk about in terms of service in terms of education and mentorship. Our schools are crying for mentors and volunteers. Communities and schools needs mentors and volunteers. Um there are so many people or many entity entities that are

working with our youth and working with our unhoused that need volunteers. So, um, what can I do? What can we do? And what can you do? Thank you, Commissioner. H, other commissioners, Commissioner Wilson. Commissioner Duncan.

Uh, first I'd like to acknowledge uh two of my colleagues, uh, Commissioner Hes and Commissioner Wilson. Um, many of you won't know, but before the holidays, um, these two people took time away from their families, um, away from things that they could have been doing for themselves to, uh, serve, figure out ways that they could serve this community. So, um I am humbled and honored to serve alongside people [clears throat] who see this city as uh worthy to serve. Um so, thank you. Uh and Commissioner Wilson, especially thank you to you cuz we did it in the code on Wednesday. Um and shout out to United for the Unsheltered. um that group has been going on Thursdays in in feeding our neighbors every Thursday and um while they they could not you know make the Thanksgiving Thursday, they made sure that our most vulnerable in this community had a warm meal and smiling faces and warm hugs uh and encouragement to uh ingest on Wednesday. So, thank you so much uh for what you all do every single week. Uh but particularly uh in one of the harshest days, harshest weeks that we've had this this uh this year, uh I want to shout out uh our elected women who put on the um Thanksgiving Day drive or before that. So again, another shout out to uh Commissioner Hes uh who again, you know, served in in that spot and delivered uh meals to uh our our most vulnerable families in Kalamazoo. Um and also there was a a topic the rents

downtown. Uh we don't control the rents downtown. I I I forget what which citizen brought that to the mic, but we uh don't hold private property as a a city commission, so we don't control the rents downtown. Um that's all. Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. No. All said, everyone. All right. Thank you so much. So, I I just want to say just as as we're uh December is a month we think a lot about holidays. We got a lot of meetings this month and we got a budget to look at. We have a meeting in a week uh about our budget. So, that will be another uh good chance to get a nice overview from the team. And just a reminder, our budget is out on our website [snorts]

uh right now. And I don't I I'm sort of catching by surprise uh manager Moore, but how easy is it to find that on our website? Do you have a sense of that? Um, I think it's uh I think it is fairly easy. Um, it's on kalamazoo.org. I think I had a note here. Um, budgets budget. Thank you so much. That should be easy enough. So, I appreciate that.

Thank you. calm city.org. There you go. All right. So, so that's great. And uh thank you uh Vice Mayor Duncan for uh bringing up a couple groups that often aren't recognized that are doing great work every day. And I can tell you from from these seats and actually from from my seat in particular getting invited to so many things I over and over and over again I'm reminded of all the caring people that are in Kalamazoo and doing the work that makes this community be uh have the fabric of caring that it does. And often these are there's probably too many people and too many things going on to recognize everyone all the time obviously but I but I appreciate you stepping and doing that. And just along those lines just a reminder since it did come up tonight uh as of today there the city has contributed along with the county and uh United Way to a process that was a request for proposal process that was put out there managed by the United Way through the COC. uh looking for groups that would step forward and provide additional warming shelter beds between m now and the end of March and there were some local groups and I want to give props to those groups that stepped forward turned in applications and are filling a real real need. So that started today as of today there are over 90 beds available for warming shelter beds here in the city of Kazoo that did not exist basically 24 hours ago. So, I know there's a lot of people working on that and that's also entirely driven by the caring community that we are blessed to live in. So, I appreciate all those efforts that going on. I'm sure there will, as with everything, there will might be a couple bumps, but

uh uh Vice Mayor Duncan uh appropriately brought up a question when we were talking about it. you know, how will we ensure that the the money we're contributing will, you know, be spent effectively and and efficiently and to the end and in in the way that we care about and there was an assurance given that that monitoring will occur. So, I'm sure we will hear about that as time goes on. But I I appreciate that as well. That all said, I'm going to switch gears here just a little bit and I just want to mention something that is printed on pink paper and people may have gotten that. That is the tax notices that just went out to all property owners that I'm sure everyone saw in their mailbox. Hard to miss. You don't get much that is printed on pink and that's how the winter tax bill comes. So, anyone that owns real estate in Kazoo would have gotten one of those notices which says it's from the city of Kazoo and it's your winter tax bill which is due on February 16th I think is at the the date this year. So, fair warning, you got over a couple months. If you have a a mortgage on a property, probably the bank is taking care of that in the escrow account and they may adjust your escro escrow up uh if it's not sufficient to cover that. Just a fair warning. One thing I wanted to remind people because I hear this often, oh my goodness, my city taxes just went up. So, I would suggest that just for everyone's edification, just take a moment and look at that pink piece of paper. And as you may note, if you're a homeowner, you will be paying 22.42 mills on the value of your property. But as you go through and look to see where

that tax money is going, it's going to the county, to kesa, to the library, to school debt, and to school supplemental. And that is no city taxes in this winter tax bill. Nothing that is being charged by the city for the city. we happen to be uh the folks who print it and send it out and collect that and then distribute it appropriately. But that is actually not a city tax. Another reminder about that is that for people who uh businesses who pay taxes or rental property, the tax bill is really over 40 mills. And that is because there's additional 18 mills that's charged to nonhomestead properties which goes to fund school operating fund. If you look on your tax bill and you see school operating and you are a home owner, you will notice that there is nothing in that line. It's zero. But on the non-homes deadline, that's where you see those additional 18 mills that go to school operating. So just uh I guess a little boring discussion about taxes, but taxes ultimately aren't boring, I don't think. And it's just good for us to remind ourselves what uh you know, what are the things that drive our tax bill. And one thing I will say and this is an amazing thing about the city of Kumoo is that over and over again residents in Kumoo vote for the schools to borrow money to build new schools and rehab schools. Hence we have debt and because of borrowing money and because individuals get to vote on that we are voting a tax

on ourselves. And I'm not suggesting any way, shape, or form that we reconsider that. Sometimes it's a little shock when it comes on our tax bills, but this is a community that supports the public school system. And the consequence of that is we do have new schools. We do have facilities that are being kept up. And we do have debt to pay. And this is how we pay it when we get these bills. I love you, Kazoo. We're journed. And it was going so