City Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I'd like to call to order the Monday, June 29, 2026, Marquette City Commission meeting here at 6 p.m. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands,

Thank you. City Clerk, roll call, please.

Commissioner Davis?

Here.

Commissioner Gottlieb?

Here.

Commissioner Hanley?

Here.

Commissioner Larson? Here. Commissioner Mayer? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Ottaway?

Here.

And Mayor Schlegel? Here.

Commissioners, we have an agenda to approve. Is there a motion, please? Pro Tem Ottaway?

move to approve the agenda as presented second commissioner sport.

Thank you any discussion. Seeing none will vote on favor please say yes yes opposed no motion passes seven oh. I don't have any announcements that can't wait until commissioner comment. And then we're given to me so we'll go directly to. The first round of public comments. A public comment may not exceed more than three minutes per person. Please state your name and physical address up here at the podium when you prepare to make your comments.

Margaret Brum, 404, it says 202. Keep going. Okay, I'll be back.

It's mine first.

Margaret Brown, 404 East. I'm just going to keep talking, folks. Margaret Brown, 404 East Magnetic Street. I'm here tonight not to bury Caesar, but to praise him. The person I'm here to praise is Mark O'Neill, who is the retiring director of the Marquette Area Wastewater Plant. And I'm sure you will have a much more formal title for him, and I'm sure you will have much more better anecdotes than the ones that I have. I had the privilege of working with Mark during my time on the Wastewater Advisory Board, and since then I've had the privilege of working with him when I was working with Dr. Putman out at Northern to obtain necessary samples of different types of sludges, which sounds easy in theory and is not easy in practice unless, quote, you know the right guy, close quote. The reason we are here to honor Mark, you will say to the people, time his office, what he's done. I will tell you that during our terrible, terrible storm this past spring, when so much water was flowing through our plants and when wastewater plants all over the Upper Peninsula of Michigan were failing, and they simply had to open the valves and let the untreated sewage go into their discharge point, otherwise they'd have ruptured pipes. We did not have that situation because Director O'Neill and his team worked so that we did not have untreated sewage going into the wastewater plant. And if that's a vulgar thing that you'd rather not think about, I like the idea that we didn't have that problem because we have a extremely competent wastewater facility. And also for the last five years, Mark has come to just about every meeting you've had to support the amount of money this city has wisely invested in improving the wastewater plant, so that now it can process septage, now it has more storage, and now it has state-of-the-art for everything. And when you say, what does it matter if we have one bad storm and we do some minor discharge, it's called a violation of the permit and it has to be reported to Lansing, and it does matter. So in addition to all the things you will say about his career and all the things the city traditionally says, when you avoid having a problem, young lady, When you avoid having a problem, people don't pay that much attention. But when I saw that we didn't have that problem and a whole bunch of other wastewater plants did, I was pleased. In addition to being extremely competent at his work and extremely pleasant to work with, Mark came to my class and convinced my students, my skeptical business students, that yes, it did matter that the water coming into their building and the wastewater leaving their building was properly handled. In fact, he educated them that before we did wastewater treatment in the city of Marquette, there were pipes that dumped raw sewage into the lower harbor, and he's kind enough to bring a map to show them where those pipes were. And for once, I think they were truly impressed. So in conclusion, anything good you say about Mark O'Neill is not enough, and we wish him the best, and we're glad that we had him running the wastewater plant.

Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else for public comment?

Hi, my name is Jenna Smith. I live at 1721 Kildall Avenue here in the city of Marquette. I'm here today because I'm running for Marquette County Commission District 3, which includes Precinct 1 in the city of Marquette, also Marquette Township and part of Powell Township. I was born and raised in Marquette County. I moved away for 10 years and returned in 2014 with my husband Lou to start our family. We have two daughters, Olive and Clara. They're 9 and 6. And as many of you know, in this room, I had served on this Marquette City Commission for seven years. I was the mayor of Marquette for three years, and that concluded in 2024 due to term limits. In that role, alongside many of the wonderful leaders in this room, I worked on a wide range of issues, including budgets, housing, economic development, infrastructure, water rates for residents, broadband, utilities, garbage and recycling, and electric vehicle infrastructure, and more. Particularly poignant at this time, housing comes up all the time. I've been involved in housing efforts in Marquette County since 2015. I served on the Marquette Housing Commission for two years. And then in 2020, I made the first city of Marquette ad hoc housing committee when I was mayor at that time. And I currently serve on the Lake Superior Community Partnership Housing Now Leadership Council. I will continue my work on housing, whether or not I'm elected to the county board. It's really important to our community. I've been very engaged in regional partnerships, collaborating with local, state, and federal officials and departments, and I believe I have built a reputation for being accessible, practical, and solutions-oriented. I find that people often call on me when they need to find a solution to a problem to bring people together and move projects forward. Additionally, in my day job, I work in human resources, and I've done that for over a decade in the UP. In my current role, I work with every industry across the UP. I work with business partners and candidates to match needs, and I also have a good finger on the pulse as to the struggles that job seekers are seeing and the struggles that businesses are having day to day in Marquette County and across the UP. I have the willingness and the capacity to represent the public and serve as a Marquette County Commissioner. I'm 39 years old and I bring a lot of experience along with energy to continue doing this work for years to come. Like all of you, I understand how important strong partnerships are between elected officials and I welcome the opportunity to meet one-on-one with any of the commissioners here to talk about opportunities and challenges the City of Marquette has and how the Marquette County Commission could work together to support each other. Thank you for your time today, and thank you more for your leadership from the City of Marquette and beyond. Thanks.

Thank you. Anyone else for public comment?

Hello, everybody. My name is Steve Nystrom. I'm a lifelong resident in Marquette. I know many of you here. The reason I'm here this evening is because I'd like to apply to be on the Brownfield Redevelopment Authority here, the City Brownfield Redevelopment Authority here in Marquette. Since Being an army officer for six years and then an intelligence specialist with the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, I've deployed to a lot of heady places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Bogota, Columbia, all the places you don't want to go. But what that's done is prepared me, I think, to face unique challenges because when you're in the military and you have the types of jobs that I've had or in the intelligence community, you can't tell a commander, I don't know what's going on, I don't know what to do. It doesn't work that way. What you have to do is look at problems like housing, like we've talked about here, and say, okay, what are the practical things we can do as a city, and I know a lot of you are already doing it, to improve the housing situation here in Marquette because what we're seeing is happening is that housing is now such a bad problem, we're losing people, they can't stay in Marquette, they graduate from Northern, they can't stay in Marquette, they have to move away. We now have a situation where doctors, lawyers, university professors can't find affordable housing in this area. And they're what I call your upper middle class people. Then you have the workforce housing, which has only gotten worse and will continue to get worse. The good news is I think there's a lot of horsepower here in this room, and I know there's been a lot of people that have already done a great job. So what I'm here to ask you tonight is I have applied to be on the Brownfield Redevelopment Authority. I'd like to be on the commission. I'd like to try to help us solve some of the housing problems that we're facing, to be part of the solution, not just the person who sits back and complains all the time because we have a lot of those. And some of you may have seen this presentation or this presentation I put together.

Just address us, please.

Oh, this is what I put together. And this is what really got me interested in it. And one of the good things that's happening is I think now everybody is realizing this is a very serious problem. We're all trying to move out smartly in the same direction. And I want to be part of the solution. I don't want to be one of those people who complains but doesn't do anything. So I'd like you to please consider my application. And thanks again to everybody. I appreciate it. Thank you. Anyone else for public comment?

Hey, everybody. Bailey Quinn. I rent a house over at 1402 Altamont Street. And I am back today to talk to you folks as a person who lives here who really believes in the civic process. I really believe we have government to help protect us and to work with its citizens and keep us safe. So I want to talk about what my landlord company is trying to do and how that endangers every single renter in this town and the whole state of Michigan. Because SRAM Superior Properties, Laura and Jesse SRAM, are trying to evict us for damage caused to their property after they willingly and purposefully ignored us for months. I know you folks have seen me here since March, so let me walk you through what happened. And I'll probably use both parts of the comments today to get through this whole story. Because a lot of folks in the town, when they hear this story, they can't believe what's going on. March, the house starts flooding. I start reaching out to local city officials. Karen's heard from me. Paul, the building inspectors have heard from me down in the county. The district clerks have heard from me. I can't get an answer on the building codes and safety standards of this rental market. I find this certificate in my house that says, This is not a compliance certificate. A compliance certificate will be issued after an inspection by city personnel and the structure is found to be in compliance with all codes and ordinances of the city of Marquette. This paper is dated 2018. It was never filled out. My house was bought by my landlords in about 2017. My hot water heater right now is plugged into a dangling safety strip. This passed a fire inspection here. I've got a wall to a bedroom built over a drain. I have an appliance sitting in nonstop water for the whole month of April. Our fire inspector declined to come out and look in this in April. I sent him a video and said my landlord keeps turning on my electric heat. They left these walls sitting in water. If they would have just called the state, I talked to the state toxicologist, his name is Jake. The state would have advised them, you shear the drywall, remove what is sitting in water. These companies are willingly and purposefully ignoring local laws. I reached out to this company and I said, hey guys, you have an obligation under Michigan law. Here's section MLC of Michigan law, what landlords are required to do. They ignored me. Their local attorney, Adrian Wolf, threatened me with defamation. The only offer they've given me is we'll let you stay if you sign away your rights to talk about this. You can't talk about us in public. These landlords are doing this on purpose. They're ignoring the laws and they know the city won't do anything. These houses are up to code and it's passing these inspections. We need to do something to help people, please.

Anyone else? Okay, public comment is closed. We will have another edition of that at the end of the meeting tonight. That moves us to our presentations. We are a little presentation heavy this evening. We've got three of them. All great presentations, I'm sure. Let's get into it with the first one with recognition of Mr. Mark O'Neill.

sure and they are all good presentations let me assure you so um i'm really pleased to be here um unfortunately though i'm i'm sad to see that mark is retiring but happy to celebrate his retirement so i just wanted to take a moment to recognize and celebrate mark o'neill as he retires with the city after more than 30 years of service to this community including the last i think about six years as a director of municipal utilities Mark's contributions to our community go far beyond the day-to-day operations of critical infrastructure. Of course, he excelled at the technical side of his work, and I think we heard some of those examples from a resident here. But that technical side of his work was really ensuring our wastewater treatment plant operated effectively, and I think we all know what that means. And our water filtration plant continued to provide safe, reliable water for our residents. these essential services are easy to take for granted and we only know when they're working when we don't have issues and mark played a vital role in making sure that there were no issues for us every single day and that everything worked as expected and even better with award-winning water tasting some really great facilities that even the director of eagle has toured and has complemented our community and mark's efforts on this so Really, really on the technical side, just stellar. But what really truly sets Mark apart was his commitment to engaging with the community. He was always willing to answer questions, give tours, He always recommended them in the winter, though, with the sewer plants a little bit. The wastewater treatment plants is not necessarily the funnest in the summer. But Mark took the time to really explain complex utility operations in a way that was understandable, interesting, and perhaps most importantly, not gross. So not too graphic. So he helped residents better understand the work behind the scenes and why the investments that this commission and the city made and why they mattered. That openness and willing to educate the public was key in maintaining the trust between the city and our residents. It also helped inform important community conversations, especially during budget. And those discussions really were talking about the utility infrastructure and the investments that we needed in order to main those critical systems to remain functioning now and in future generations. Mark was also a valued member of our management team. His expertise, professionalism, steady leadership, and good judgment made him someone we could always rely on. He has left a lasting impact on this organization and on the community that he served so well and for so long. So on behalf of the city of Marquette, we thank you, Mark. I think you're out there in the audience for your dedication, your service, and your many contributions over the past three decades. And thank you for letting me embarrass you tonight because I know you don't like the public spotlight, but I will make you get up there. And we really do wish you all the best in your well-earned retirement. and you will be greatly missed. So congratulations, Mark. And Mark, I will allow you, if you want to say anything and have a spotlight some more.

Well, thank you. I heard that staff had a few bets going whether I'd show up or not. I don't like this. Really, first of all, City Manager Kovacs, thank you for the kind words. I want you to know it's been a pleasure to work for you and be part of your management team. And then I'd like to thank the residents of the City of Marquette. I was just a kid born and raised that desperately wanted to stay here. And, you know, the City obviously provided me with that avenue to have a very rewarding career and to stay here and raise a family. I worked really hard at that. I graduated from Northern's water technology program way back in the late 80s. And then I started shortly after that as a part-timer at the water treatment plant in 1990. So it's been 36 years. It's been a wonderful 36 years, but like anything, it's time to pass the torch eventually. And Mr. Neil Trey is out here. Neil, throw out your arm. He's going to be taking over for me. I've worked with him for 20 plus years. He's been like me. He worked at the water plant. He worked at the wastewater plant. And he's been the supervisor of the water filtration plant for a number of years now. so he's going to do an outstanding job i'd also like to recognize the staff i couldn't do anything without the staff or the support of the commission and the residents and the infrastructure improvements that we've done over the years and then my wife is going to be retiring in september laura she's here tonight along with my youngest daughter And from Marquette Area Public Schools, and we're just looking forward to that next chapter. A lot of camping. If you're on Isle Royale in the next two months, I'm going to maybe run into you because I'm spending 19 nights out there between two trips. And we're going to be headed off to Thailand and Vietnam here later too. So I just want to thank you again. It's been great. Thank you to the City of Marquette. Thanks.

That is awesome. Do you want to go on with anything else?

Oh, we can go on for a very long time.

I was going to say we could all probably spend another 20 minutes talking about how impressed we are with what Mark's done for the city and knowing him for, I don't know, 20 plus years myself. I just, you know, it's just congratulations and good luck on this next chapter. Thank you. Our next presentation is from our fire chief, Ian Davis.

Can we have a chance for the commissioners to comment on that?

Do you want to go around?

I would like to.

Okay, sure.

Sorry. I mean, he did come all this way. I wanted to say in the years that I've been on, I've gotten to take the tour. I've gotten to go to the different stuff there and learn about things that I never thought I'd learn about. But I think one of the most telling things was meeting some of your staff, younger staff nonetheless, who could not praise you enough and talked about how great your leadership was. And I think that really shows in everything that you do over there. So I want to say thank you for all your years of service. And you will definitely be missed by not only us, but by your staff from what I can tell.

Thanks. Commissioner Davis?

There isn't a whole lot more I can add. Ms. Brum went to great extents to praise you, and so did our city manager, Karen Kovacs. And all I can say is I'm going to miss you in this position, and I just wish you the best in your retirement. Good.

Anybody out here? You guys good? All right. Thank you very much. Again, Mark, we'll see you around the other side. We're going to move on to the next presentation about life-saving efforts from our fire chief, Ian Davis. Take it away, chief.

Good evening. As the city's fire chief, it's my great pleasure to be presenting the Cardiac Life-Saving Award tonight to relief engineer Brandon Morey and firefighter Jake Phillips. You guys can come up if you want. Get up in front of everybody. Yep. And I'm also really grateful that Ms. Snyder could be with us here tonight. On October 19th of last year, Brandon and Jake responded to a medical call that initially came in as a fall. They demonstrated great situational awareness and initiative by upgrading their response to a priority code after identifying information that suggested it was a cardiac emergency. Upon arrival, they confirmed that the patient was in cardiac arrest and initiated advanced cardiac life support procedures in coordination with the UPHS ambulance crew. They played an integral role in defibrillation, airway management, vascular access, medication administration, and patient monitoring. Through these decisive actions, their clinical competence, and their composure under pressure, they were instrumental in Ms. Snyder achieving spontaneous circulation within minutes and eventually being discharged from the hospital with a positive outcome. Their efforts exemplify the highest standards of the Marquette City Fire Department. Congratulations to you both. Another battalion chief, Kirk Vogler, is pinning their medals.

Thank you, Chief. So thankful that you were able to come in and toot the horn of the heroes that are among us working in our fire departments. So thanks for all your efforts, gentlemen, everybody. There's a number of firefighters in the room tonight. Thank you all for everything you do for this community. First response to battling fires, to you name it. But you truly are what makes this community stronger every day. Our next presentation is from the Marquette Brownfield Redevelopment Authority, and it's gonna be presented by Cali New.

Hi.

Thank you for having me. I'm Callie New and I serve as chair on the Marquette Brownfield Redevelopment Authority. I'm a little bit relieved to have a somewhat less whole room. And that's a tough act to follow. So I'm going to talk about TIF and really exciting stuff. Yeah, feel free. Okay, so this is an annual kind of FYI update that happens every year just to fill the commission in on what is the Brownfield Redevelopment Authority. And I'm going to, this is a pretty dense presentation. There's 29 slides and a lot of words. So I'm gonna kind of talk through them more quickly, but if anyone has questions or would like to talk in further detail, Feel free to contact me and also Sherry, our executive director is here. Sherry Davey. And then we meet on the third way. third Wednesday of every month at 9 AM. And that's open to the public. So encourage all of the public to participate in any meeting. OK, so the Brownfield Redevelopment Authority was established in the city of Marquette in 1997. And the purpose was really to kind of help kickstart new development on previously contaminated, blighted, functionally obsolete, and historic properties. As a Rust Belt community or a city that has had a long history of industrial development, these kinds of tools are really important to help kind of turn over the land and see new types of development from previously kind of obsolete industries. So the primary tool used by the RDA is what's called tax increment financing. And I'll go into more detail about what that is, but it's used to reimburse Brownfield what we call eligible activities with that funding mechanism. And also important is that the Brownfield plans must be improved by both the MBRA, the Marquette Brownfield Redevelopment Authority, as well as the city commission. So it comes to you eventually for approval. We're just kind of the first step in the process. And then anything that gets state tax capture also must enable an Act 381 work plan that's then approved by the MBRA as well as the state. And the state component is an important piece of this because this tool allows us to capture state resources within the city. So that enables our tax dollars to go further. So tax increment financing, it reimburses brownfield eligible costs on eligible property through what's called tax increment financing. And there's a slide with a bar graph that I'll skip to that kind of lays this out. But what tax increment financing is, You take the property as is today and then assume the future value on the property. And that's called like the base of the tax capture. So that's what the developer starts paying on immediately. So they have this excess in funds that's then fed back into the property to pay for eligible properties. So it's kind of like a loan mechanism. I'm going to go back to the order. So eligible properties are those that are contaminated, blighted, functionally obsolete, historically designated, and now with a new law through the state, housing properties are eligible. And that's been about two years that that new allowance has been made. So eligible activities include environmental site assessments, due care activities. So if a developer is interested in a property but knows that there's a certain amount of risk, then it can take care of those due diligence activities in the beginning of the process. Actions to protect human health and the environment, demolition, relocation of public facilities, site preparation, infrastructure, et cetera. And then now, it also can help with these housing development activities, such as infrastructure. And then for properties that will be selling or renting for 120% of the area median income, it can pay for a whole host of activities, including a financing gap between development costs and revenue. So I went over this already. This slide lists all of the people on the board, and you'll note that there is one vacant position, and I think we have a candidate who's ready. And then Tara is our treasurer, and our staff liaison is Sean Hobbins, who we're very grateful for. Hey, Sean. Financial obligations. So the development agreement, which eventually gets signed by all parties, requires developers to comply with the laws, regulations, and ordinances with qualified firms, hold appropriate insurances, blah, blah, blah, and dignify the MBRA. So there's a very thorough kind of documentation that is done in order to assume that the developer is going to take on that financial obligation. And then the authority signs those obligations to review and approve actual expenses. So every month we approve different paybacks on certain projects. And then in the instance that there is a bond issue, that payment takes the top priority for captured taxes. So that would be paid off first before the taxes get fed back into the coffers. The next slides go through all of the many projects that have been done through the MBRE and the and through public private partnerships so the first one was cliff stow and this was a city acquired property where the city assumed all environmental responsibility and then two northern parcels have sold and that's where the bio life facilities are now and then there is an ongoing epa cleanup grant for just shy of a million dollars that is underway in um pays for monitoring activities, and then eventually, I think, kind of a plan for mitigation or continued mitigation. Um, the second is Founders Landing. And, um, so this is, there was an EGLE funding for cleanup and restoration, and then, um, there was state and federal funding for infrastructure. And then eventually, um, you know, the, this kind of kickstarted the development on the waterfront and what we know today as Matson Park and the beautiful public space and surrounding development. Including all of these founders landing developments, which are a mix of housing and hotels More housing and hotels with the Fairfield Inn and the Gaines Rock townhomes and and then an important part of the brownfield project is that it um it does uh kind of there's a nexus between public infrastructure or some sort of public improvement and so through these projects we've gotten the seawall and boardwalk that's out on lower harbor the barraga street extension the pier redevelopment i think total investment is that 6.3 million that's bulleted there And then important to note is that we have gotten a 45% tax capture on these projects. So again, kind of allowing local dollars to go further. The Liberty Way project is the hotel with a total investment of $50 million. Um, the nestled down bed and breakfast that, um, eligible activities have been fully reimbursed. So this project is no longer on the books. And then, um, the Marquette general replacement hospital. This was a very large, um, project that happened in 2019, 37 acre medical campus. Um, and then the, uh, 231 Washington street bakery, um, 3.1, 5 million. And that paid for, um, renovations to the DDA walkway, the customs house project. This is what helped fund the Baraga street extension and provided new housing units. Um, the Marquette branch, UP state bank, it demoed a vacant Burger King and then paid for environmental vapor mitigation. And then the former Marquette General Hospital redevelopment. This was a very large project that captured $16 million in CDBG and blight elimination grants. So those were dollars external to the state dollars that came into the community. This paid for abatement, demolition, site prep, and public infrastructure. And then the redevelopment plans, I think, are still making their way through the approval process, from what I understand. Then the vault Marquette is our latest project, which is the redevelopment of the former state savings bank And then hotel and commercial space For the trestle hotel and then eventually the savings bakery development And then the CHIP was our first housing project that we saw. And so it's 14 residential apartments. It's at the roundabout, just after the roundabout on 7th and US 41. So this will provide housing at 100% AMI and 120% AMI. And also, this project received a MSHDA grant through the Marquette County Land Bank Authority, which reduced the TIF capture time frame. So it was originally planned to be paid back in 22 years, and now it's 13 years, thanks to the Marquette County Land Bank Authority. It's just a great partnership. And then this is the Northern Hydroponics Store. So this is a great project where it was once a one-story building and now will be three stories with residential units and commercial space on the bottom. So a good mixed-use development right on Washington Street. I think really aligns with probably what is hoped for in the comprehensive plan. And then this slide outlines kind of the coordination between the DDA and the LDFA and outlines kind of the way that the different TIF districts interact with each other. So for projects, particularly on Washington Street, there is that overlap between the DDA and the MBRA. And so this kind of outlines the process in which the TIF is captured and how that all flows. So just kind of to recap on our key accomplishments for the over the past year, we collaborate with the city of Marquette on the cliff style cleanup grant we contributed from the LBRA fund for that project. We had the first housing TIF project and then the second housing TIF project in short order. We've seen the former hospital brownfield plan amendment to underground parking and take better use of that property to really maximize the space and available development. And then the vault marquette brownfield amendment and EGLE grant implementation to get construction underway. And looking forward, we anticipate continued activity with the Marquette Vault redevelopment and the former MGH, Marquette General Hospital redevelopment, and then potentially more TIF projects. That's a great tool, and we hope more developers will take advantage of it. There's Sherry's contact information, and I'll stick around if anyone has questions as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Kelly.

Commissioners, any questions or comments? Commissioner Davis?

That was a really nice review of the projects, and I counted 12, or are there 13? Because I didn't see the chip, or the ORDOC in the slide. But it was mentioned in one of the other ones. Anyway, it was a nice review for us, just to remind us how many brownfield projects we have. I am curious if you could tell me, and maybe Sherry can, which of the projects will be the next to be completed where the money will return to the, you know, the taxes return to the city. And when?

Do you happen to know?

No, no, I would say Liberty Way.

Liberty Way?

Yeah.

Do you have an idea of the year? The same as we presented the budget every can't remember 36 2036 it sounds right, okay I always find it interesting to know when the anticipated completion dates are and I think the community Often asked me those kinds of questions. So that would be good information to have but thank you so much for the review of the projects and

Yeah, absolutely. And we meet every, yeah, every third Wednesday, so we can definitely look into that and request for Tara to provide that information.

Okay, good. Okay, Callie, you've got a planning background, don't you? So I'm sure that's very helpful in this process.

It was my day job, yeah.

Yeah, so thank you for being there to be a part of this action. You guys have a great leader back there, and I know that we all look forward to a couple of these eventually coming through so that they can come to fruition for us. So thank you very much. Have a great night.

Thank you. I don't know if I need to do anything.

Okay, that brings us to our consent agenda. Commissioners, is there a motion? Pro Tem Ottaway?

I move to approve the consent agenda as presented.

Thank you. A second, please. Commissioner Larson?

I'll second that.

Great. Discussion?

None from me. Nope.

Anything down there? Okay, I'll bring that to a vote. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. Opposed, no. Motion passes 7-0. We have one item of new business to deal with here. And we will just kind of go to the city clerk for some background, please. Thank you, Mayor.

The City of Marquette is seeking designation as an AARP age-friendly community, joining a global network of communities committed to improving livability for residents of all ages, particularly older adults. Participation in the AARP network provides a structured framework for assessing community needs, engaging residents in developing strategies that support healthy aging, accessibility, housing, transportation, social participation, and community engagement. As part of the designation, the City commits to engaging older adults and community stakeholders in the planning process, conducting a community assessment to identify strengths, opportunities, and priorities through our senior center, developing and implementing an action plan based on assessment findings, monitoring progress and reporting outcomes to AARP, and sharing best practices and collaborating with other age-friendly communities. The designation does not create a regulatory requirement or a financial obligation. Instead, it provides access to planning resources, technical assistance, and a nationally recognized framework for continuous improvement. This initiative aligns with the City of Marquette's strategic goals of supporting resident quality of life and creating a community where individuals can age safely, actively, and independently. Fiscal effect, none with this action. Recommendation, approve the resolution of support for the City's AARP age-friendly communities application and authorize the Mayor and Clerk to sign it and the corresponding letter of support. Alternatives as determined by the Commission.

Thank you, City Clerk. Commissioners, is there a motion, please? Commissioner Davis?

I move we approve the resolution of support for the city's AARP age-friendly communities application and authorize the mayor and clerk to sign it and the corresponding letter of support.

Thank you.

A second?

Mr. Mayor? I'll second the motion, Your Honor. A discussion?

I'm really happy to support this recommendation, or this motion. You know, we have a stellar senior center at this time, and I think that we are already doing all of those things. I expect us to be able to accomplish this with flying colors, and I look forward to having that designation.

Thank you. Mr. Mayor?

Yeah, I think just adding to that, I'm also really happy that we're doing this. I think a lot of times when we're talking about things like housing or just topics in the community, we like to focus a lot more on, I think, the younger part of the community in those conversations. But I mean, at least a third of our community, I'd say, probably falls under this category. And it's a very important part of our community that I'm Excited to see us potentially be working more at and I think look going for the designations great And I think there's just more opportunity to improve in this area as well.

So Thank you anyone else Great well that takes a roll call vote. So we're gonna go back to the city clerk and do that Commissioner Davis. Yes

Commissioner Gottlieb?

Yes.

Commissioner Hanley?

Yes.

Commissioner Larson? Yes. Commissioner Mayer? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Ottaway? Yes. And Mayor Schlegel?

Yes. Motion passes 7-0. That's great. That brings us to our second public comment. Again, public comments may not exceed three minutes per person. Please come up to the podium, and if you have not already done so, state your name and address.

Clockset right market Brum 404 East Magnetic Street as many of you know for the past four and a half years I've been working with the superior watershed partnership the cigarette butt recycling programs for the city of Marquette the difference this year is we're expanding the work I'm expanding the work to the county of Marquette and Which is to say moving outside the Marquette city limits going as far as Forsyth Township Gwynn Nagani Ishpeming and the limitation right now is simply funding because I don't have the resources to fund it all myself. So I'm constantly looking for donations and so far a lot of people have said you're doing great work and we'll get back to you. So in the next 24 hours or so, you'll probably see a GoFundMe on a computer, no different than any other. What you can do to help is this, if you want to make a name for this community that has never been made before, and all due respect, we're a bicycle friendly community, we got trails, we got all sorts of attributes. But if you type in cigarette butt recycling into chat GPT, Marquette, Michigan, and my name comes up. And that indicates that right now we are one of the few communities that's actually doing this on a citywide level. And you can make it work better. I've got one minute 36. I don't know if you were gesturing at the clock. You can make it better by considering an ordinance asking businesses if they have more than 10 or 15 parking spots to have a recycling facility there. I can work it through. It doesn't cost anything to recycle. You simply have to gather up the butts, put them in a container, and you can get free shipping to TerraCycle. But the more that the businesses do it, I won't have to use the donated funds that I've been using to set up these cans. And this is where the issue is, is it such a big deal? I did over 10,000 cigarette butts in the month of May. and each one of them is toxic poison. And the only image I can give to you is if you had people lined up at Matson Park and each one of them had an eyedropper and dropped a drop of poison in the water and then handed the bottle to the next person and they did a drop, you would see for yourself that even though it's a tiny drop, If you have that many people throwing it into the water, it's going to be a problem. I see it every day, every week. I mean, I'm convinced. And to convince other people, I'm going to be continuing to make these speeches. But I want you to consider an ordinance for businesses. I also want you to consider an ordinance to protect fast food workers. I was in the drive-through at McDonald's today. There was a sign saying, please do not smoke in the drive-through. I thought that was an odd sign. So I asked the young lady behind the counter, I said, do people smoke? And she said, all the time. I inhale smoke 24-7 on my job. So there's ordinances that you can consider you've never considered before. And I'll be back to you with more on that at a later time. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else for public comment?

Hello again. So I just want to kind of elaborate more about why my landlord's attempt to evict us is such a point of concern, not just for the city of Marquette, but the whole state of Michigan. So now we have tenant protection laws because forcing someone from their house, that's a really big deal. I mean, in the month of June, I worked on average 80 hours a week. I have a very demanding career. We explicitly signed a long lease because we knew we didn't have the time, the money, the resources to move. Now, the state of Michigan says that everybody is entitled to a home that is in good, clean, habitable condition. And specifically, the law in Michigan says that the rooms need to be appropriate for their intended use. Now, what that means is you can't rent someone a closet and call it a bedroom. You can't rent someone a bathroom, throw a hot plate in there and call it a kitchen. And now where the landlords in Marquette specifically and my landlord, SRAM Superior Properties, is a great example of this. When they bought this house, it was renovated before their possession. I will give them that. They did not do the entire downstairs renovation. They knew it was done. They knew it used to be a garage. When it started flooding, they spent the whole month of March and April telling me this is normal. It's not normal for a bedroom to flood. It's not normal for the downstairs of a home that is carpeted to have soaking wet walls. There was water oozing out of the downstairs of our house for two months. When they built this, it was a garage on purpose. and now the loopholes here because there are landlords know no one's watching what they're doing they advertise this house with a wood burning stove that wood burning stove they replaced as the owners with this propane decorative fireplace when they were the owners this repair required a permit They did not obtain a permit because they know there's no one in the city checking to make sure they're doing these things properly. So now our fire inspector has no training in building codes, not Ben's fault. He's a lovely guy, but he's limited by his training and qualifications. So I've got a fireplace that was never installed with a permit by owners who know they needed a permit because that was the building code when they owned the house. I've got a hot water heater dangling off of a power strip. I've got an electrical outlet, a drain half built over walls. This room shouldn't have heat in it. It was built as a garage. If they evict me, it means they can own this house knowing there's all these problems, refuse to fix it for three months, then turn and say, oh, damage is too bad. The house is unlivable. Get out. That's their argument. We can't let it stand. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Anyone else for public comment? Anyone else for public comment? Seeing none, public comment is closed. That brings us to comments from the Commission. We're going to start on the end with Commissioner Davis tonight.

there was some really good news in our consent agenda today 321 000 over 321 000 within three grants and the one i want to highlight today is the one for the freedom monument from iris caters and i really appreciate what she has done for the community and i hope that people go to the harlow park and look at the two podiums that she has donated particularly it would be good to go the american legion ceremony on july 4th and watch them in use so thank you iris caters for that The other thing I want to tell you is that I just returned from Finland in a sister city visit. And Kayani, Finland, is very much like Marquette. It's about 36,000 people, which you think about Marquette plus the two townships were about the same. And their region, which equals our county, is about 70,000. So it was a really good time. to take a look at what their government was like. I learned a lot about their governance. Northern Michigan University was there and signed an agreement with their university, which I'm really excited about. We were there at midsummer festivities, and they were celebrating their 375th birthday. We also got to take a look at their military, which was very interesting. We've been in the sister city business for 47 years. And that started with Japan and more recently with Kayani Finland. And I just am really grateful that I had the opportunity to be part of that cultural exchange. Thanks.

Yeah, real briefly, I'd like to call out Margaret Brum for her praise of Mark O'Neill. I know Mr. O'Neill has left to start his retirement tonight. But what great praise. I'd be pleased if I got a tenth of that when I retire. Not that I'm retiring. Nobody here cares. Not retiring yet, but that was wonderful. Nice.

Mr. Hanley.

Thank you. I would like to take my time tonight to remember the life of Emily Barker. Emily was a former NMU student who tragically lost her life this weekend while fighting as a wilderness firefighter. She was part of the U.S. Forest Service Helitack crew and was one of three forest members who lost their life this past weekend. I was lucky enough to know her and the people that knew her best and she was a wonderful girl And I just I know that she left her job because last summer when she was here I learned more about wilderness firefighting than I ever thought I would know But I want to take the time to recognize her friends and family for their loss.

So, thank you very nice Thank you pro time out away Thank you

Real quick, the temps are going to be crazy, crazy warm over the next couple days. Keep an eye on your neighbors. Keep an eye on your loved ones, your kids. It's summertime. Make sure people are drinking water and getting out of the heat. It's very important that that's happening. Not everyone in Marquette has air conditioning also, so really keep an eye out for people. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Larson.

No comment tonight.

Thank you, Commissioner Mayer.

Nothing further.

Okay. Well, that brings it back to me, and as usual, I can't turn down a hot mic. We had a great week this past week. As I think was mentioned earlier, we did a groundbreaking for the Habitat for Humanity's first house that's going to be built off of McClellan. Very exciting to meet the family that's going to be there and to learn more about the process that is going along with that development and the other developments that will be going in along with that. Much needed housing. Just a great organization. Very informative afternoon. The other was I was fortunate enough to emcee the Peg Herveden new band show out at Presque Isle Park. I just want to say congratulations to the city band and for everybody that was involved in that process. To think that $2.3 million went into that amazing facility. It is truly magnificent, ADA compliant, top-notch, state-of-the-art, and it's going to be a piece of Marquette for, you know, hopefully at least another hundred years, as the old one was, you know, 90 years old. So that was the biggest crowd I've had to speak in front of in quite some time, and it was a beautiful night. The band sounded great. It sounded magnificent coming out of that band shell. I'd really like to, you know, not just thank the the city band but the hervin family foundation for spearheading that that fundraising cause so their generous contribution with that being said i'll pass it on to the city manager

Sure, thank you. I just want to piggyback off of that for the Banchel. You did a great job at them seeing that, but then also staff did a great job in putting that together, too, and coordinating all of those thank yous and recognition. There was a lot of people there that had contributed, so I'm impressed it only took a half hour to get through those. This was a really, really good example of the community coming together for something that the community really enjoys. And there's a lot to be said about that. But this is only the beginning of some of those projects, too. So we're seeing that with tonight's agenda as well on the cultural trailhead and the cultural center. And we see a lot of that work coming together again. So another great project to keep an eye on and hopefully You'll still be around here in this role doing some things to do that ribbon cutting too. So, thank you. Maybe not so fun here. Here's the real serious stuff. We are heading into the 4th of July holiday week and weekend. Lots of fun to be had. We're going to all be celebrating, I'm sure. So, just pay attention to the street closures. There will be many and there will be more than probably last year as well due to some of the other festivities that are happening for the 250th celebration. So, We've got a lot going on so pay attention to those PSAs will be issued and then also You know, we would love to see our firefighters around and our police departments around but they're gonna be busy doing things So, please follow the rules for fireworks as well. So you don't have a visit from any of them but if you do They probably won't be smiling. So please, follow the rules. And if you're not familiar with those, please check the city website or give us a call, and we'll gladly remind you of those before it's a problem. So thank you.

And with that, we are adjourned at 6.56.