City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, welcome to the Madisonite City Council regular meeting of May 26th.

It is now 6.30 p.m. Call the meeting to order. Clark, can you please call the roll?

Councilwoman Aaron?

Here.

Councilman Fleming?

Here.

Councilor Gerrards?

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Meir? Here. Councilor Rohrbach? Here. Councilor Wright?

Here. And Mayor Haynes? I am here. For a sort of business, can I get a motion for the appointment of our acting city clerk this evening?

Your honor. So moved.

Great. I have a motion. Do we have a second?

Yeah.

Yes.

Second.

Great. A motion in support. Any discussion? Yes. Oh, I'm sorry.

Um, I didn't have, I had a question, but okay.

All right. All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries. All right. The invocation in the bunch of allegiance tonight. We'll be led by Mayor Pro Tem Muir, who's running here from Little Baseball.

Present and accounted for, Your Honor.

All right, if everybody would please stand.

Let us take a moment. to pause and reflect with gratitude for the community we are entrusted to serve. As we gather this month of May, we're reminded that this month is a month of renewal. The longer days, the return of green spaces, the energy of spring invite us to look ahead with optimism. May this spirit of renewal guide our work tonight, encourage us to approach challenges with fresh perspective, patience and a commitment to the common good. We are grateful for the residents, volunteers, city and staff whose efforts keep Madison Heights moving forward. Their dedication reminds us that good governance is a shared responsibility built through collaboration, respect and steady effort. As we begin this meeting, may we be thoughtful in our words, fair in our decisions, and united in our purpose. Let our discussions be shaped by wisdom, humility, and a general desire to strengthen the community that we all call home.

All right, moving to the next item on the agenda. Do we have any additions or deletions to tonight's agenda?

Your Honor.

Yes.

I'd like to make a motion to approve the agenda with the addition to reports as item 6A, the tentative agreement effective July 1st, 2026 for the Police Officers Association and item 6B, a tentative agreement effective July 1st, 2026 for the Municipal Employees Association.

Okay, we have a motion. Is there support? Yes. All right, we have a motion and support. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries. We have no presentations this evening. Next item on the agenda is public hearings from the city planner. The street right-of-way vacation request, PEE. Hashtag 26-01-GWK-WRC, Unimproved Rights of Way. Can we have our planner?

The Community and Economic Development Department has received a request to vacate a number of unimproved street right-of-ways located within the Red Oaks Golf Course on the east side of John R., north of Dartmouth Street. Red Oaks Golf Course is operated and maintained by Oakland County Parks. but the underlying property is owned by the GWK District and Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner. Portions of the following unimproved rights-of-way are proposed to be vacated, the Red Run Boulevard, Girard Avenue, Osmond Avenue, Delton Avenue, Woodside Avenue, and Parkdale Avenue. Following a public hearing, staff recommends that the Streets Rights-of-Way Vacation Request PEE-2601 for GWK WRC be approved. And we also ask that the city council authorizes the city manager, mayor and city clerk to sign the authorization of such easements on behalf of the city if it's approved.

Okay. Thank you. Manager Marsh. I guess we can open without any other comments. We'll open the public hearing. Public hearing is open. If there's anybody here in the audience that wants to speak specific to this public hearing.

Well then we do have representatives from Sacra and WRC or Oakland County here today.

Did you guys want to make any statements or say anything?

It's open.

You have to go to the microphone. Thank you.

Good evening. I'm general manager, Eric Griffin of Sacra. I'm happy to be here with you guys tonight. This is really just cleaning up some historical platted roads. Um, it's been, it's still part of the record, but it was, the rows were never, um, built. They were, so they just needs to be done to move the, um, parcels forward for any potential improvement in the, in the future, which is what soccer would like to do with that particular piece of property.

Okay. Thank you very much. Anyone else have any public comment? If not, we'll close the public hearing. What is the wish of city council?

Your Honor.

Yes.

Motion to recommend that the City Council approve the requested street right-of-way vacations subject to the following condition. Utility easements for the purposes of assessing, maintaining, repairing, and improving existing underground and overhead utilities shall be retained where necessary with confirmation by DPS, WRC, and applicable utilities and final approval through the City Council.

Would you amend your motion to add the authorized to the City Council?

May manager mayor and city clerk to sign and authorize such easements on behalf of the city so moved Thank You councilwoman Aaron is there support yes all right we have a motion in support any discussion stop by and

JUST A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS. SO I GUESS ONE, I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE I UNDERSTAND WHAT IS VACATING THIS MEAN TO THE CITY AND WHAT PLANS WOULD SACRA AND THE DURANE FOLKS HAVE TO DO WITH THIS PROPERTY?

PLANNER MATT, THANK YOU.

I'll turn and look at Matt then. Good evening, everybody. Matt Loner setter city planner, um, is in terms of impacts to the city. There really wouldn't be any. These are old platted, uh, street rights of way that were planted back in the 1920s. Originally, I'm assuming intended to be a residential subdivision. Never happened. Not sure why. Uh, essentially they're just streets on paper. At this point they would never improve. There's no pavement over any of them. There are utilities within that cross over a couple of them, including, and then the red run drain, which runs through run Boulevard. So in terms of the city's impact, as long as we retain the easements over it, those areas where there are utilities and we have the ability to maintain them, access them, nothing changes. All it does is allows for a potential future development, which I can't speak on behalf of, but I do know that the soccer folks, the WRC would like to consolidate some of these parcels to clean them up a little bit, potentially making them more palatable to a developer, and that can't be done until the rights of ways are vacated.

Any other discussion, comments?

I just have one, and I just want to say thank you. you guys for bringing this forward it's language that's obviously been needed to be cleaned up for a long time to get rid of those unnecessary items and I'm all for making improvements and so that soccer and the drain commission can eventually move forward with hopefully a new project that will fill that area instead of what we have there right now so other than that all those in favor signify by saying aye opposed say no motion carries All right, next up, the meeting open to the public. Just a reminder, you need to come to the podium. You'll have three minutes, and please direct your comments towards me.

Good evening, counsel, Mayor Haynes.

Good evening.

My name is Doug McLean. I live at 27432 Park Court, Madison Heights. First off, I'd like to thank Lori Gerald's job well done for... the event that took place over at the city park. Also, I'm here tonight to talk to the public, not too much of a council at this time, about the upcoming tax for road tax, which will be expiring very soon. And this was made law here in Madison Heights back in 1996, after I retired from the police department, It also covered on the vehicle billage, which took care of the public trucks down at the DPS, police department cars, and new fire trucks. The fire trucks at that time were in such bad state of affairs that we had about six of them out of order, out of existence at that time. And we initiated to put this plan into place. It would be used as a special tax for strictly for roads and another one was strictly for vehicles and a couple years later after I was retired a different council came in and They put everything back into the general fund which could be used for anything So I'm asking the public please to go back and renew this public tax, which is just a renewal. It's nothing to be upgraded for a higher tax at all. And I appreciate if they would do that. I'll try and come back again before this thing takes place on August the 4th, and hopefully it will go through and get renewed again. Because if it doesn't, roads won't be taken care of. That's been been told me already. Thanks very much.

Thank you, sir. Anybody else like to make a public comment?

All right. Oh yes.

We do have one from the city clerk. Sorry. Almost missed it again.

Thank you, mayor. For the record, I would like to note that the clerk's office received an email from Mr. Kevin Tribucci regarding John R construction. A copy of this communication has been provided to the city council and and will be made part of the official meeting record. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. All right, seeing no others, public comment is now closed. Moving on to the agenda, to the consent agenda. On here we have four items. We have a resolution supporting National Public Works Monument in Michigan, Library Director and LSTA Public Library Services grant, And then we have the City Council special meeting minutes of May 11th, 2026, and the City Council regular meeting minutes of May 11th, 2026. What is the wish of City Council?

Your Honor? Yes. Motion to approve the consent agenda as presented.

Okay, we have a motion to approve. Is there a second?

Your Honor.

Yes.

Motion to second.

Okay, we have a motion in support. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed say no. Motion carries. Up next is the addition to the agenda, item 6A, which is the tentative agreement between the Police Officer Association and the City of Madison Heights. What is the wish of City Council?

Your honor.

Yes.

Um, I make a motion to approve the tentative agreement effective July 1st, 2026 between the police officers association and the city of Madison Hines.

Okay. Is there support? Support. All right. We have motion support. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed say no. The motion carries. Up next is item six B, which is a motion asking for a motion to approve the tentative agreement effective July 1st, 2026, between the Municipal Employees Association and the City of Madison Heights. Is there a motion?

Your Honor. Yes. I make a motion to approve the tentative agreement, effective July 1st, 2026, between the Municipal Employees Association and the City of Madison Heights.

Okay, thank you. Is there support? Your Honor. Yes. All right, we have a motion in support. Any discussion? All right, hearing none. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. Motion carries. Next item on the agenda under Bid Awards and Purchases, Finance Director, BSNA Cloud Migration Service Agreement. City Manager?

The BSNA modules are the predominant software programs used by municipalities in the state of Michigan. Madison Heights has used BSNA models for more than 20 years in coordination with Oakland County. The software is now in the process of migrating customers to a cloud-based system, which is expected to deliver workflow efficiencies through shared workspaces, quicker processing, AI enhancements as well as provide secure and encrypted web-based systems, cyber security, and disaster recovery with two-factor authentication. BSNA has stopped selling the current .NET version, which is the version that we're on, two years ago, and has not added any enhancements since that time. We're anticipating an end-of-life announcement in the next few years. The city currently utilizes 15 BSNA modules. Upon city council approval for this purchase, the finance department will begin working with BSNA to coordinate with all city departments on a migration plan, training, and implementation likely to occur in April of 2027. The $354,115 cost of the BSNA migration cloud platform is included in the fiscal year 2027 budget for the subscriptions of the BSNA modules. This also includes the professional services to set up these platforms, migrate our current information over, do training, and go live assistance. The city will only be charged for the professional services that we actually use. Therefore, staff recommends city council approve the purchase service agreement with BS&A not to exceed $354,115 pending legal review of the contract.

All right. Thank you, Manager Marsh. What is the wish of city council?

All right.

Yes.

Motion that we approve the purchase of the service agreement with BS&A not to exceed $354,115 pending legal review, or do we have legal?

We have it, but I think there's a few outstanding items, so just go ahead and put it in there. Toss it in for good measure.

Pending legal review by legal. Okay, thank you. Is there support? Yes.

Support.

All right, we have a motion in support. Any discussion?

Yes.

Yes.

Like we talked about during our budget meeting, the software is essential to running the city here. And looking forward to migrating to that cloud where there can be more collaboration going on amongst city departments. And I think that will really help get us into the 90s. Now that it's the 2000s, I got to change that. It will help us get into 2010 now that we're in the 2020s. And it's kind of the way that the world is going today with cloud software. So I look forward to making that move and, like I said, getting more collaboration with the city department.

Okay. Thank you. Any other discussion? All right. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed say no. The motion carries.

All right.

That is it for tonight's agenda. So we'll open our closing comments. We'll start with Councilman Sean Fleming.

Okay. So I just have one comment today. You know, I'm hoping that our city council here will be able to be voting on the near future. An ordinance that I think would be really great to protect our children here is a, uh, ordinance like Sterling Heights has, uh, against, uh, the cells and sales of Kratom, which is a, um, I would call it like a drug of sorts that, and I'm not an expert here of any, any means, but it's sold, sold, um, India stations and such where children are, or teens can get the, get the, uh, get them and buy them in different teas or gummies and energy drinks and stuff like that. And it could potentially become addicting and actually have some adverse effects on growing young adults. So I want our attorneys and our staff to kind of look at the Sterling Heights ordinance and see if it's something that is favorable to our council. our youth in our city. That's it.

Thank you, Sean. Just to mention, I did forward Surly Heights ordinance to the city manager and it is being reviewed now by the city attorney for that very thing and I also added in there some issues with laughing gas or nitrous oxide that is also being sold at many of these tobacco shops, party stores for people to basically huff and get high off of that. So that has been forwarded to the city attorney for review.

What's the

Oh, along with synthetic marijuana too. That was the third edition. All right. All right. Counselor Geralds.

I have a few things. I'm making it for last time when I didn't have any comments at the end. So I stopped by the ECC plant sale on Sunday, which was fabulous. Very well attended. Congratulations. And what a great fundraiser. I assume the money is used to help fund the grants that you give out as well. Yep. Excellent. Coming up on Saturday, June 20th is our sixth annual Juneteenth celebration by Madison Heights Citizens United. Great event, lots of vendors, lots of food trucks, lots of kid activities. It's really a wonderful thing. I'd like to thank anybody who came out for the concert and everybody who was a part of putting the concert together. on Thursday for the Memorial Day Remembrance Concert. It was really wonderful, especially thank you to Tony Austin who was instrumental in bringing the vision and the whole atmosphere for it. It was great. The Arts Board will be starting their summer events on June 10th. It's their first concert with Dr. Smith. Then every other week, except I think the week of 4th of July, there is either a concert or, um, another type of event, which could be a family game night or yoga or different things like that. So you can find out more about those on the city site and on the arts board site. And then, uh, the last thing is that I was quite excited to see that, um, even though it's a problem right now, John are between gardenia and 12 mile is being paid this week. on the outside lanes, and that's very exciting. And this is the one section, I believe, that had to be dug down further. I'm assuming that's to take care of that. So, lots of people will be happy about that. So, thank you. Okay, thank you. Councillor Rohrabach.

Yeah, I just wanted to say, first, thank you, Councillor Geralds, for your work on the memorial, the concert, and everybody who put in work to make that happen. I was so sad that I couldn't make it that day, and but I've heard nothing but good things. Then the native plant sale was this weekend. It was a great turnout. It was a little chilly that day. It was on Sunday. It was a little chilly, but the rain held off, and we sold a lot of plants. The way it works is about half of the sale, like the sale of half of each of the items, goes to the Environmental Citizens Committee, and that committee uses those funds to do a number of things, One of which this year was they developed a packet of Madison Mix wild flower seeds that's specifically designed for this region in southeast Michigan of native wild flowers that you can toss and see grow. We did those, but one of the things it also does is funds the garden grants that the Environmental Citizens Committee does. I've talked about those before, but individuals and organizations in Madison Heights can apply for a native garden grant to help them fund creating a native garden on their own properties. And each year we've been able to do about $3,000 of garden grants to residents and schools here in our city. So I'm really proud of that work, and this plant sale is the main funder of that, or pretty much the only funder of that program and everything that the ECC does. So thank you to everybody who came out and helped with that and came out and purchased plants. Like Councilor Gerald said, there's something going on all the time this summer, so I'm not going to talk about all of them, but please come out to the Paradise Eve Lantern Festival hosted by the HREC on May 30th, the Arts and Pride Festival on June 7th, the Bike Rodeo on June 13th or Juneteenth, Festival on June 20th those it's just gonna be one thing after another in the next few weeks and all of the Concerts in the park as well. So please come out and join our community because that's what we are.

Thank you Thank You city clerk just one thing tonight absentee voter applications were sent out last week for the gubernatorial elections on August 4th is the primary November 3rd is the general election Voters may request for an application through the clerk's office or they can go on to the state of Michigan website If you have any questions, feel free to give us a call our phone number is 2 4 8 5 8 3 0 8 2 6. Thank you mayor. Okay.

Thank you City attorney Larry Sherman nothing this evening. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, so we're right Thank you your honor.

I too want to just give a big kudos everybody who put on the Memorial Day concert ceremony Um, I, uh, think that it, it was something new. So, you know, there's always like a, uh, a feeling of not liking change and, you know, some, you know, concern about it being different. But I think the production, the entire event had the right tone and it was just fantastic. And I just want to give a kudos to Lori, to the women's club, to everyone who put it on because, um, it felt like it had the right energy is the best way for me to say it. So kudos to everyone involved. And I was very happy I was able to attend that. I also want to give a special thank you. We know him as Tony Austin. But Tony Austin, his company is One Vision Media. And on top of being a veteran himself, that is his business of what he does for a profession. And it showed. And so I want to give One Vision Media kudos along with Tony and also thank him not only for his service to our country, but for our community on our school board, Joanie just shows up and his company, One Vision Media. So thank you to Tony and to his company for volunteering and helping out and everyone involved with the Memorial Day service. The other two things I wanted to highlight, I just wanted to echo the sentiment of what Councilor Rohrbach had mentioned. This Saturday from 5 to 9 is the Paradise Eve Lantern Festival. There will be lantern painting for children. There will be performers at the band shell. There will be 23 vendors, food vendors, vendors from the Madison Heights Chamber and abroad, cultural vendors. It is for everyone, anyone. Come on out. Come experience some culture. Come also to Arts and Pride. They're fantastic events. I hope to see you guys at Juneteenth as well, as well as Festival in the Park. One of Kevin Wright, who is the founder, board member of Madison Heights Citizens United, one of his favorite quotes he says every year, I think it was on his shirt last year, is that Juneteenth doesn't compete with the 4th of July, it completes it. And I know some people don't, that doesn't make sense, but, you know, there's some baggage that we don't like to acknowledge in the hall that's there. And if we don't acknowledge it and celebrate each other, then, you know, we're not celebrating anyone. So, come on out, celebrate that, see you at Festival in the Park, see you at all the events, and just START OUT WITH THE 30th IF YOU DIDN'T MAKE IT TO MEMORIAL DAY. COME TO THAT NEXT YEAR AND COME TO PARADISE EVE AND BE KIND. THANK YOU. MAYOR PROTEM. MAYOR. THANK YOU, YOUR HONOR.

SO THE OTHER DAY AT THE MADISON HEIGHTS COMMUNITY COALITION MEETING, WE DISCUSSED CRATUM. I GUESS I'M NOT SURE HOW TO SAY IT. AND I'D NEVER HEARD OF IT. SO I GOOGLED IT AND I'M READING ABOUT IT. Kim Heisler is talking about it and mentioned something that it's being sold all through Madison Heights. And I'm reading about it on Google saying, how in the world can it be legal to sell this stuff? It's an opioid. How can we do this? So I am all for looking into how do we stop that in this city? We've got way too many tobacco shops. We've got Bunch of marijuana shops. We don't need opioids being sold in the city. That's my soapbox for that. Love to see the library grant tonight. Love the library still doing wonderful things. We've talked about all these wonderful events going on. I love this city. There's always something going on. So please don't answer the surveys that there's not enough going on. If you answer that on the survey, you didn't look. Because, like we've talked about already, almost every night. And if they're not, you can come out and watch Little League. Little League opening day was fantastic. Thank you, Councilwoman Aaron and Councillor Wright for showing up. Mayor Haynes got us off to a start with the first pitch, which was right down the middle. unlike some of the other throws. But that's okay. That's okay. I'm happy to say there was no videotaping of any of the other throws. And I'm also happy to say that no one was injured. So we had also our representative Mike McFaul was there, and our commissioner Ann Erickson-Gault was there. So that little rainy start, but great day for the 150-some kids playing Little League baseball. As I mentioned, lots of fun activity. As I mentioned in my opening, May is a month of renewal and optimism. I'm very optimistic that the weather's going to keep getting better. The flowers that I purchased at the native plant sale, or should I say my wife purchased? No, I shouldn't have given her that $100 bill. But anyway, we got those all planted yesterday in the heat, and I'm very optimistic that those are going to flourish and flourish. And please check in on your loved ones and make sure they're okay. Thank you.

Thank you. I thought that jab by Mayor Pro Temp. Yes, I threw a pitch out and yes, it hit the top of the... I didn't mention any names. But thank you, Mayor, for holding the umbrella because I had just left from getting my hair done. Such vain... However, I just want to just say, if you do not say there's anything going on in Madison Heights this summer, as everyone has said, you did not look. Beginning next week, we have an event almost every week here in Madison Heights, starting from concerts to festivals to fun activity events for families. There is so much. We're going to have food trucks. We're going to have a lot of things to do in Madison Heights. So if you're bored, you're looking for something to do, please check the resources. Look on the Facebook pages, whatever you have to do. But we have something special planned for everyone in the city of Madison Heights beginning next week. I also want to say congratulations to the class of 2026, especially those students from Lanphier High School. I was unable to attend the memorial event because that was the same night as our senior all-nighter, which I was not aware that I had signed up for to stay up all night. And I had to go to work the next morning because I'm thinking, okay, this is a Friday night, I can do this. But I had to work Friday, so... Trust me, I went to work off of two hours of sleep and no makeup or eyelashes. I was done for the night, the day. And I think I slept all day Saturday and really all weekend. But I heard, counselor, that it was an excellent event. So congratulations again to the Women's Club for your putting it on. As we know that this is Mental Health Awareness Month, if you guys were not there, you missed the awesome speaker on last Wednesday. She talked about self-care and how it affects your mental health. And the notes will be on the library page if you'd like to just Google them and take a look at it. But it was an excellent speech from that speaker. But another thing that I did not, well, I knew about, but I want to say May is also Lupus Awareness Month. And many do not know that my mom has been a lupus survivor for 31 years now. When my mother was diagnosed with lupus 31 years ago, we had just lost my aunt a few months prior. So my mother was scared to tell us that she had lupus because, of course, the first thing we thought that we all knew of that she was going to not be here. But my mother, if any of you have ever met my mom, My mom is the most active 70 plus year old woman I have ever met in my life. She eats well. She exercises. She Zumba's. She volunteers. She's always doing something that has prolonged her health and she has really done a very good job of taking care of her body. So when you hear lupus, it is not an end all. I'm telling you my mom is a survival and Sometimes I get afraid to say it because I feel like, you know, but I thank God for my mom and for all that she has done over the last 31 years in caring for her health and being able to watch her first grandson graduate from high school. That's all I have tonight.

Okay, thank you. I will not repeat everything, but I agree with everything that's been mentioned here tonight. I mean, some fantastic things going on, and we certainly have some very, um, busy weeks ahead of us, busy weekends, lots of things to do, lots of things going on in the Heights. So I hope everybody can join us for those. One thing that I wanted to mention is we have four high school students from Lamphere that they will, within the next couple of weeks, they'll be receiving their Eagle Scout Award, which is the highest award in scouting. Those are Henry Morales-Kramer, James Morales-Kramer, Charles Bellis, and Tanner Langdon. So a huge congratulations to all four of them for attaining this right here in Madison Heights. So just amazing. A little bit more on the Kratom sales. Like I had said earlier, we did forward that to the city attorney and the city manager for review. So hopefully we'll be hearing something back on that very soon. And exactly what Mayor Pro Tem Bill Muir said, it's basically a The kratom takes the same neurotransmitters in the brain that opioids do, and it's highly addictive. And we're trying to keep this stuff away from our kids. And the synthetic marijuana, along with the nitrous oxide, which, like I said earlier, everybody knows is laughing gas, but it's just hard to believe that you see these tobacco stores and these party shops, and they're selling all of this stuff, including glass pipes, and everything that we know is not meant for the smoking, generally speaking of tobacco, but for other product that we just don't want in our kids' hands. So I'm glad that we're taking some movement on that. As far as for Mirror Pro Tem Mirror, that was probably the first strike I've ever thrown in my life. So at the moment, it was right. It worked perfectly. Rain, shine. And I did enjoy holding the umbrella because it kept me dry as well. She's cutting that part out of it, but thank goodness someone had an umbrella because at moments it was really downpouring. So, but what a great opening to, uh, to little league. Um, and lastly, I did receive an email today from the Macomb County road commission that within the next few weeks, they will start redoing the Quinder from 13 mile to 14 mile. And that's something that we've all been working towards. We've all been trying to get Macomb County cause it's under their jurisdiction to get something done. Um, and they are going to be doing some pavement replacing, and hopefully get those terrible spots out of Dequindre, because it's as bad, if not worse, than John R. was. And I know we don't all like construction, but that's the only way we can get things done so we can get better roads. All right, with that, I will adjourn the meeting at 7.06.