City Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening and I'd like to call to order the August 31st 2026 meeting of the market city commission here in the city chambers commission chambers please rise for the pledge of allegiance.

Thank you city clerk roll call please commissioner Davis here mission got leave your commissioner Hanley here. Commissioner Larson here. Commissioner mayor here mayor part time Ottaway here and mayor Schlegel here.

You're all present it's good to see today. Commissioners we have an agenda in front of us. Yes.

the agenda as presented with the exception of taking item 4G from the consent agenda and moving it to new business.

Second, Pro Tem Ottaway?

Second.

All in favor, please say yes. Yes. Opposed? No. We will label that as new business seven, correct?

Okay, sounds good.

Yes. thank you for that. I don't have any other major announcements for this evening so that'll bring us to our boards and committees tonight we have 2 appointments. Commissioners zero motion please. Mr Davis.

I move we appoint Jessica Pfizer to the market housing Commission as the housing tenant representative for an unexpired term ending one 2530 and that grew into the downtown development authority for an unexpired term ending one one 27 and the subsequent term ending one one 31.

Thank you second please. We forgot the second discussion.

I'm just going to say thank you to Jessica because I know that we haven't had a tenant representative for a while, and it's really nice that she's stepping forward to serve in that capacity.

Thank you. Mr. Guttlieb?

Yeah, I'd also like to thank Matt Gougeon for doing this. He's not a resident of the city, although he works here at the co-op, and it's wonderful to have outside representation on Downtown Development Authority.

Agreed. Thank you.

Anybody else?

Seeing none, all in favor please say yes. Yes.

Opposed, no. Motion passes seven to zero.

Okay, that brings us to our first public comment of the evening. Comments may not exceed more than three minutes per person. Please come up to the podium, state your name and physical address when making your comments. Anyone for public comment?

um hi i'm matt lutenberger 1406 garfield ave city of marquette um i was actually gonna do this in the reverse order. When I was driving in here, I planned the speech and did all that, but seeing that there's a whole group of people here that might have something to say about this. I was recently asked about the cultural trail in Marquette, and it's great. Don't get me wrong, this is a phenomenal idea. I love it. I'd like to promote more of it, if any way possible, talk about it as much as you can in commercials. I do want to point out, though, that Lakeview Arena is not on here. And right now, the Parks and Rec Department and the Arts and Culture Department both rent or both have space at Lakeview Arena. And I'm just wondering if it's an oversight or if there's something that you, the city, don't want to promote Lakeview Arena and everything that goes on. We're just starting our ice time. So by all means, there's hockey games, there's some event happening every weekend or every night at that arena. And a lot of people come into town for the old arena feel. Almost every other seat in modern hockey arena places are all benches, cold metal benches. We have wooden fold down seats. So I'm trying to explain that I would like to see more of Lakeview Arena in the cultural department if possible. That being said, that was going to be my last closing, but please folks, take that in mind. If you can, put Lakeview Arena on the cultural trail. Use it as a trailhead. It's got a parking lot. It's got the Y. It's got an easy access to the bike trail. By the way, Lakeview Road looks great. Thanks for blacktopping it, smoothing it over. It's a phenomenal ride. It's a great Sunday drive. Heard a lot of compliments on it so far. this kind of leads into what my last part is gonna be about but I was up here last month about the old hospital and you guys pointed out some facts that it was about 16 million dollars to tear the thing down and to give us a big open lot and There has not been any development or any discussion of development on those lots, and I'm wondering why is the road still closed? The road itself is in bad shape, don't get me wrong, but it's not any worse than what Lakeshore was, and we were driving on it. My point is, safety-wise, Magnetic is not as wide as College. College actually has a dividing line. It has enough room for cars parked on both sides and cars traveling on both sides on the same road. It's also a direct route into the high school from across town. Please open it up. intersection at the end of college and 4th Street, Presque Isle, is very safe. The one at Magnetic is very dangerous. Please consider all that. I'll be back. Thanks. Thank you.

Anyone else for public comment? Anyone else for public comment? Seeing none, public comment is closed. That's going to bring us to our presentations for this evening. We've got two of them. Prepare yourselves to be entertained. The first one is the City of Marquette Staff Academy Government Affairs Coordinator, Annie McElhugga.

You got it. Yeah. McElhugga.

Thank you.

Hi, everybody. I'm Anne McElhug. I'm the city's government affairs coordinator. You might recognize me from doing these presentations. I've done three so far about our Citizens Academy, which is a program I started when I was a fellowship student here. And now I'm full time and I started a similar program to give our staff some professional development opportunities called the Staff Academy. So I started this, we started this program last year, checking in with all the department heads and Um, making sure they were all good with it. We sent out applications across the city, received those applications, got approval from supervisors and our 1st session was the end of September of 2025. we had started with 12, ended with 11 because someone retired, but we had 12 participants, 12 eager staff members to learn about their peers and coworkers and to help build a culture of interest and curiosity, approaching each department with that interest and curiosity and maintaining pride for the place that we work. I think one thing that surprised me about the program and pleased me was how much the culture built as we continued the programs. It can feel isolating sometimes working in city government. It can feel isolating being alone in an office or being in a separate building. And once a month gathering together mingling learning together and getting to understand what each of us does on a day-to-day basis was a really incredible opportunity for myself and I hope for everyone who participated. So our participants went through nine total sessions of the departments, so all of the same departments as the Citizens Academy except for the library, which we're considering adding for the next cohort. And that was across 12 months. So we did one session a month at 8 o'clock on the last Thursday of the month. um initially the program mirrored the citizens academy because that was what i had to work with i did reach out to some other municipalities that ran similar programs um and it ended up molding into its own program itself um like i said that culture and communication was a really big part and we ended up incorporating more activities more discussion based um rather than lecture-based sessions, including the tours. And I think that it's really grown into its own and I'm really excited to see what it does moving forward. I want to thank everyone who participated. I'm so grateful that you guys took a chance to eat muffins with me once a month and get really cool sweatshirts, by the way. I think one of the things that really stuck out to me, I sent a survey out to everyone after our last session, and there were so many people that talked about having pride in what you do and the organization you work for. And I think anything we can do to encourage that across our staff and across the culture of this organization is not only good for the organization, but it's good for the community to make sure that our staff work together well and really love where they work. So with that, I'd like to invite Mayor Schlegel up to recognize our Staff Academy participants.

There's a good spot. You want me to name your names too? No, that's fine. Amelia Pruitt. Thank you.

Christopher Aldrich. I'm not in your way, am I?

Elizabeth Papour.

Janelle Bridges. Justyna Hodomecki. Kurt Vogler.

Tristina Loma. Tristan.

There's one name you should know. Wendy Larson.

Awesome. You know, just from the perspective of the outside looking in and what you guys went through, I just want to thank Annie for putting this together, but I would really think, I'd love to be able to hear the stories of what, you know, one little thing that came from this for you, and if anybody wants to stand up, feel free, but you don't have to. The point is that I love the concept of what this stands for as far as getting everybody from all these different groups mixed into one big bowl of what Mark has made of and what our system really is. I just think it's really a great program. So compliments to you and more importantly, the first class to go through it. Thanks for sticking out and putting your foot into the ring and doing it. So congratulations, thank you. Go get him, Sean. That is really cool. Next, we've got the Market Housing Commission, and the presentation tonight is going to be given by the Executive Director, Sharon Mackey. Welcome, Sharon.

Leave me stranded here, guys.

Do you know any good jokes?

No, I don't.

Come on, Paul's got some. I know he's got a couple on his sleeve.

I wish.

Oh, there was one that we just put on our paycheck, and now I can't remember it, but it was kind of cute. Oh, why does a miller go to a church to get married? Because it can't cantaloupe. Oh, oh. I can't, because it can't. Anyway, blew the joke. Pressure, high pressure. So, it worked.

It was a good dad joke.

So, first of all, I'd like to thank you for welcoming us to do our presentation this evening. Done it a couple times, so some of you may have heard this. I need to get a little bit more original next year, I think. Also, please consider the Housing Commission, as well as the library, for the academy. I think that would be a very fun thing for us to do. a quasi entity of the city. So it would be nice if they knew a little bit more about us. I would love to have city people come, employees come and take a look at our different housing opportunities that we have in Marquette. And also, thank you, thank you, thank you for appointing our newest commissioner. Looking forward to having her at our next meeting. As you said, it has been a while since we have had a tenant commissioner. So it would be nice to have that perspective. And she has also been to a couple of our meetings already. And it has been very nice to have her perspective. She's going to be an incredible asset to the Housing Commission. We have a new mission statement. Our mission statement is to create thriving communities by enriching lives with housing support and opportunities. As you know, we do have a five board member of commissioners. Currently we now have four. You'll see there's an open commissioner participant that has now been filled, so I'm excited to have that. With me here is Paul Schumacher. He is our current president of our board. I also have Martha Fitzpatrick sitting in Fitzgerald.

I always want to call you Fitzpatrick.

I just call her Fitz, it's easier. and she's here to support me we do have a staff of 12 people on that staff has changed a little bit over the course of time but we do have a youth and family center who's had a larger staff when we were doing a big program unfortunately that program is cutting back so we are cutting back a little bit of our staff One of our primary things is our housing choice voucher. Our housing choice voucher has been in existence for quite a while. We love the voucher program. It gives people the opportunity to do housing of their choice. We help to pay their rent. They pay a portion of it. A landlord offers an apartment within the community throughout Marquette County. For the tenant, they can live in that unit as long as they continue to pay their rent. There is no time frame for the housing choice voucher program. We currently have 35 families that are in the voucher program, and we do have six project based vouchers at Black Rock Crossing. I'm hoping to increase the number of project-based vouchers we have over the course of time. We do have 53 vouchers that we could lease. Unfortunately, the government only gives us enough money to lease about 35 or 36 of them. We cannot project-base more than 20% of them, so we'll never be able to project-base more than 11. So I'm hoping we'll get three or four more within the next few years. That's pretty much how that works. The advantage of tenant-based vouchers versus the project-based. As I said, we have the project-based in Black Rock Crossing, which means they can only go to Black Rock Crossing with that voucher. They can't go anyplace else. If you have a tenant-based voucher, you can go anywhere in... The county of Marquette, ultimately anywhere in the United States, vouchers are portable. So what that means is you as the person hold a voucher. You find an apartment, get a landlord to agree with it. You pay 30% of your adjusted gross income. The program pays the remainder. This is portable. So if you decide that you want to live in Green Bay or you get a better job and you need to be transferred to Green Bay or you need to be transferred to Texas, Hawaii, wherever, these vouchers are portable and you can move across the country or any place else with them. The Lake Superior Village Youth and Family Center is something that I had mentioned real quickly. We do have this program happening at the Youth and Family Center. We had a $600,000 grant, which was incredible, that helped us provide programming five days a week, usually six, seven hours a day, depending on what the schedule is looking like for school. Unfortunately, that program has wrapped up, but we are still providing services over at the Youth and Family Center. We do have before school, which is basically kids can come in. We all live in the UP. We all, well, a lot of us know what it was like when we were waiting for the bus at eight o'clock, seven o'clock, six o'clock in the morning, how cold it would be. If you are catching a bus at Lake Superior Village, You can go into the village where it's nice and warm, there will be a snack there and something for you to drink and you can wait for your bus in there. So that's kind of morphed into a little bit more than just a snack, but the kids are welcome and of course the parents are also welcome to come and wait. And then we have an after-school program, and that after-school program includes a dinner, an actual full dinner for the kids if they would like, or they can just take a snack. It also includes tutoring and constructive activities. Some of the activities they do are incredibly fun. They had something on the property, couple weeks ago they had a fair and carnival where they had it was like a gumdrop road for Candyland Lane and you go to different places and play different games and you could win gifts and presents and the kids had a great time. Us adults had some fun too. There's a bouncy house and some other stuff. And during the summer, the USDA does provide nutritionally balanced meals. They provide the funding for it. We obviously provide it. And I don't know if you've also heard the advertisement for the United Way, how they have the snack bag lunches. We also do that for our tenants over the course of the summer. Excuse me. We also provide property management. We do property management at both Pine Ridge, which is 140 degree, 140 units, sorry about that, and Lake Superior Village, which is 117 units. We have had those since Market Housing Commission became Market Housing Commission. Pine Ridge is one and two bedrooms. Lake Superior Village is two, three, and four bedroom townhouses. Most of you know Pine Ridge is the tall building over by the landmark Lake Superior Village. A lot of people think is part of the university. It is not. It is our housing. We also own two houses or two properties. We own the Mather Street House, which is two units. It's a big house, has a efficiency apartment and a two-bedroom. Sorry, I did that wrong. Yeah, the Fisher Street is two one-bedroom homes. They're cute little homes. Like little mother-in-law, mother-in-law suites, their houses, they're adorable. We are looking at selling that, however. But the Mather Street House, we are looking at keeping that for an undetermined length of time. New for 2026, again, we're planning on selling the Fisher Street Houses. We did the six project-based vouchers at Black Rock. We are currently working with two developers to provide additional housing in Marquette County. One is in Ishpeming, well they both are in Ishpeming, but we are looking at hopefully doing something here in the city of Marquette. As you know, developers most often are looking for low-income housing tax credits, so any of the work we do with them will be contingent upon whether or not they get the tax credits. And we are also looking at a collaboration with a non-profit. As I mentioned before, the Youth and Family Center, the funding is been used. That was COVID money. We all know COVID money comes and we use it and then it's gone, never to come back again. So we're working with a collaboration with a nonprofit. The nonprofit is out of Texas, actually, but they do have some places here in Michigan. And hopefully if we can get a grant under them, that will help us fund 100 days of programming during the school year and 50 days of programming during the summer. It's obviously not 200 and some days like we do now but it is a starter and we are looking at doing some other grants also so hopefully we can keep the youth and family center going for a while some goals moving forward to increase affordable and workforce housing as i said are looking at hopefully doing some development here in the city of Marquette. We'd also like to increase the HCV voucher utilization within the city of Marquette. Again, a difficult thing to do. A one-bedroom apartment in Marquette tends to go for $1,200. The voucher program will only pay 11 with all utilities included, so that's a little bit more difficult. There's also HCV vouchers that are out there. um that are for youth um aging out of foster care that's something else i'm kind of dabbling in at this point right now i think it'd be really nice to have some foster care kids be able to get a voucher here in the city of marquette where this this resources are more available i do realize there's kids Aging Out and Ishpeming and Negaunee and all over the county. But the reality is the resources are here in Marquette. And if we could get Aging Out youth to be here in Marquette where they can walk to their job, where they can walk to Northern, that would be an incredible option for them. So that's something I'm kind of looking at doing. We would also like to manage private and subsidized properties, so all these properties that you see here that have KMG and other management agents, we would like to do that. Strengthen our community partnerships. Also strengthen some of our in-city partnerships if we could look at doing the program that we were just being presented with. And we need to increase our revenue, of course, and that is done through doing more housing, more rental, and also doing some private business such as managing rental properties. And we would like to obtain a full board. And then once we get a full board, maintain it. Just a little push to talk to you city folk about one of our biggest struggles is maintaining the board. The reason we have a difficult time maintaining the board is because of term limits. And having to have people that live within the city of Marquette. They may work in the city of Marquette, but they don't necessarily live. So if you guys ever think about it, extending out or eliminating term limits, housing commissions in general do not have term limited people. So the other housing commissions that I work with have people that are on that board for 10 to 15 years because there's no city term limits. So if you ever think about that, that'd be awesome. Think about us. So that is it, I think. Steps moving forward. We need to find a secure funding for the affordable housing. As I said, we'd like to do that. Do project-based ACV vouchers in existing buildings. Educate the public about our assets and our goals. The one thing that public housing typically has is the reputation of being the housing of last opportunity, and that is not what we are. I think we're pretty good housing. I think Lake Superior Village has come a very long way. I don't want us to be the housing of last choice. Please, if you know people, you can make 40, 50, 60, 70,000, $80,000 and live at Lake Superior Village. If you know people that are struggling with families, please send them our way. Three bedroom apartments are something that we always are looking for people to get on our waiting list for that. Become a recognized property manager and learn one of the kind of gaps that we can fill within the city of Marquette. Challenges, limited property. We all know Marquette doesn't have a lot of property. High construction costs. Contractors experiencing employee shortages. We are experiencing employee shortages. I think we just filled our maintenance guy position. The cost of available rental units continued to raise. I was surprised when I looked, and we are truly all at $1,200 for one bedroom in the city of Marquette. Finding new landlords who accept vouchers. The HCV program does also not have a good reputation, so some landlords are a little iffy about renting out to my HCV clients. And decreased funding for the vouchers. Again, we don't get $1,200 for a one-bedroom, but that's what's charged. And the disproportionate number of LIHTC, low-income housing tax credit grants, that are awarded to the Upper Peninsula. I've been told that MSHDA, which is the one that awards the grants, is looking at doing some more in the UP. like designating certain amounts of properties in the UP that will be funded in 2027. So hopefully, keep your fingers crossed, that will happen. We'll be able to get some more housing here in Marquette, which of course then means that you guys are going to be asking for pilots. So that's all that I have. Do we have any questions?

Thank you, Sharon. Yeah, Commissioner Henley.

I have two things. My first is a comment. We tried to get rid of term limits for you. Thank you. It got put on the ballot, but I think people got confused and thought we were trying to get rid of term limits for us and not our standing committees. And so it got promptly turned down by the voters. So I promise you, we already tried that.

The next time you have it... Let me know. I'll be at every city commission meeting and I'll speak at every city commission meeting.

I'll be here. I think you got to go elsewhere because we talked about it at our meetings a lot and that didn't get the word across. But the other question I have is with your portable vouchers. So say someone does move to Green Bay. Does that money still come out of your pot when they're living in Green Bay?

Unfortunately, it does. Okay. However, HUD is really pushing on forcing people to absorb. So there's two different things you can do. You can bill or absorb. So if somebody moves to Marquette, if I absorb them, that means my pot starts to pay for them. instead of Green Bay's pot, and I would absorb them and get rid of Green Bay. So we always take a chance when somebody moves someplace. The first question we ask them is, are you absorbing? Because if they're absorbing, we keep the money. If they're not, it goes to their community. But federally, they're supposed to absorb them after some period of time.

Which is not designated. It makes sense. And I like that it's there for people to give them the opportunity to move and grow. And it doesn't lock them into, I have to stay here because this is where I have housing. I'm not opposed to it. I just have the question about it.

Yeah. It's a sticking point for every housing commission. I believe that.

Thank you.

Commissioners, any other comments? Commissioner Davis.

Thank you, Sharon. Just a real quick question. You mentioned selling the Fisher Street house, but you didn't mention why. And I'm just curious about the reasoning behind that and what will happen to the tenants there. You want to take the why question?

Sure. We're looking at, we got to look at our cash flow. We have to look at what we have in the bank. So if we want to look at developing another property or purchasing another property, having another bunch of cash in hand, would be very advantageous to do that. Pretty simple answer, really.

The tenants, they will be locked into that lease that they're currently in. They just signed new leases. So they will... the new owner will hold that lease for that period of time. And one of the things that one of our board members is a realtor. One of the things he's thinking may happen, it may be owned rented. Being two small houses, a individual person could afford to buy a house, live in the house, and rent out the other way. So that's a way for affordability to happen.

Thank you.

Just out of curiosity, what does your waiting list numbers look like?

We just purged our waiting list at Lake Superior, or at, I'm sorry, Pine Ridge. So our waiting list is down to about 30 or 40 there. And our waiting list, we have separate waiting lists for the two, three, and four bedroom. The two bedroom is extremely long, which is, you know, like 10, 20 people. However, when there's only turn in the two-bedroom once every three or four years, that makes it really long. The three-bedroom is short. You could potentially, if you got all of your paperwork in and did everything you needed, you could get it in six months in the three-bedroom. And the four-bedroom is the same as the two-bedroom. It's going to be a wait.

That's good. Well, thank you guys. I've got a couple things, I guess. What's the age range for your programs for the kids?

The youth programs are from 6 to 17, this new program that we're looking at. They'd prefer kids to age out at 15, but we will continue to provide programming up to 17.

That's really great. And approximately how many people utilize that on a daily basis?

We are hoping to shoot for 25. Right now it's anywhere between 15 and 20. We're hoping to grow it by having additional schools and additional kids from additional areas within the city of Marquette, not just the village participating in it.

Okay, so that's available to outside kids as well. That's great. Okay. And maybe the, I was a big fan of the before and after school programs back in the day when I was that age, but pretty well attended. I mean, are they taking advantage of that?

Yes, especially during the summer. Well, they really love the fact during the summer they can come and have lunch. Sure. So, you know, kids love to come and eat. But yeah, we are pretty well attended. It's one of those things, though, it's that at this time of the year and like a couple weeks ago, things start to get a little old and stale. So kids are like done and it's time to get back into school and get a little bit more regimented. Just like parents, right? Just like parents. Ready to be done. Anybody else have anything else?

Great. Thank you guys for your presentation.

So one other thing, if any of you would like to come and see any of our properties, you are more than welcome. Please give me a call. I'd love to give you a tour. One of the best views in Marquette is from my ninth floor at Pine Ridge.

Thank you. Thank you so much. That brings us to our consent agenda, commissioners.

Is there a motion, please?

Pro Tem, out of the way.

I move to approve the consent agenda as presented.

Thank you. Second? Commissioner Hanley?

I second.

Discussion? Zero. Good to go. Anybody else? Okay, thanks. All in favor, please say yes.

Yes.

Opposed? No. Motion passes 7-0. Now we're getting into the mix here with our old business. I'm going to send it down to the city clerk for some background, please.

Thank you, Mayor. At a recent city commission meeting, several commissioners expressed interest in exploring a local lodging assessment as a mechanism for overnight visitors to help support the infrastructure and public services they utilize during their stay. In response, city staff presented a resolution supporting the continued research and evaluation of fiscal policy options to address tourism-related impacts and promote a sustainable tourism economy. Following presentation of the initial draft, the city commission provided feedback and recommended revisions to more clearly reflect its intent to explore a local lodging assessment while maintaining consistency with the broader sustainable tourism management plan process. Fiscal effect, none by this action. Recommendation, approve the resolution and authorize the mayor to sign. Alternatives as determined by the commission.

Thank you. And I guess for helping me out, we have a motion Already on this because of our from our last meeting that's carried through.

So there was a motion that I guess it probably should be addressed. There was a motion to approve last meetings with Commissioner Larson's changes, I believe, your draft, essentially. So with that on the floor, I would say, assuming that this draft is different in some substantive way from what that motion was for, I would... at bare minimum vote to or take a vote to amend that motion to reflect this resolution or whatever resolution you're hoping to adopt tonight, if that makes sense. You do have a motion on the floor to adopt a resolution that is not in front of you right now.

Would it be easy for us to vote this current one that we had from last meeting down and then just start over with a new motion? That works as well. Okay. You guys okay with that? So is there any discussion in regards to that?

Is everybody clear, or any other question?

Yeah, sure. The vote you want to take is to vote down Commissioner Larson's motion from last meeting. You want to have a vote on that resolution?

Yes, because I I think the cleanest way to do it. There is a motion some changes in here Commissioner Larson seconded by Commissioner Hanley to Adopt the resolution with the substitution of your revised language from last meeting So if you vote that standing motion if you pick that back up and vote it down at this point You could then take a motion on something emotion.

Okay clear. Yeah Yes, sir, mr. Mayor

What I would suggest, Your Honor, is that this could simply be a friendly amendment as it would have in a way kind of been the previous time. Ideally, even if you could make the amendment, I think it's probably the cleanest way to do that without us voting down your other.

Sure. All right.

And that's fine. So I just want to make sure that we're going to follow it appropriately.

I don't like it. No, I don't like that.

Just so you are aware, the resolution that is presented is the with the amendments that were presented.

Yes, it's exactly. Exactly. Right. I look correct. Yes.

That's what I need to hear this again. Slowly. I don't think we need to do anything.

If it is the exact same, I mean, I didn't want to speak for the content of the document. If it is the exact same that the motion was made for at the last meeting by Commissioner Larson, if this document is the same, then yes, you are voting on it.

Is it the exact same document? It is the exact same. Yes. Barring the date.

Barring the date. So there you go. Now it's different.

So then it's a clear. So I think that we can just go ahead if it if it was if the motion was made like we're saying with Michaels Verbiage changes I think you could just ask for discussion at this point then As if first and second motion have been made yeah, okay, then we'll go to discussion Anybody?

Okay.

Thank you. So unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend the last meeting to be a part of the discussion because I was on city business with the AI discussion that was happening elsewhere at the same time. I did have a chance to reflect and watch the meeting and kind of see all that happened and you know I first and foremost I just want to say I appreciate the discussion you all had at that time. I think it was Very good. I think it was you know a very meaningful discussion and I'm happy to be here to vote on this today but I think something that struck my eye as someone watching from the outside was the amount that went into this that I I want to make sure that the city staff and anyone that was involved in the tourism plan fully understands that you know we appreciate all the work that was done with that it was an extreme amount of work that's been done and you know by us changing the wording here in the verbiage. It shouldn't reflect poorly on anyone that was involved in actually bringing that to us up front and you know that was something I felt like needed to be acknowledged because I watched it from the outside and it came off a little bit poorly. I felt during the discussion and not that anyone was negative connotation. It just wasn't mentioned as much as we typically do, so the conversation kind of went elsewhere. So I wanted to make sure staff understood that we very much appreciate the work that was put in. Thank you.

Thank you. So we can go to about. Okay, it's a roll call vote city clerk.

Commissioner Davis, yes, commissioner got the yes, commissioner Hanley, yes, commissioner Larson, yes, commissioner, mayor, yes, mayor pro tem Ottaway, yes, mayor Schlegel, yes.

Thank you motion passes 7, 0. Thank you for working with me on that to get through it and you get that get confusing there. Moves us to new business. We're going to go to the city clerk once again for some more background, please.

Thank you, Mayor. This is an item that had a very brief background I'd mentioned before the meeting. If you're fine with it, I'll just read the resolution as well. So the background is, in February, the Marquette County Board of Commissioners voted to enter discussions and ultimately develop contract language with Motorola Solutions to handle Marquette County's computer-aided dispatch operations. This decision stands to directly impact city Marquette residents and public safety operations, would be in opposition to the preferences of local law enforcement professionals, and would place Marquette County on a different CAD platform than the one utilized by the state police and the other 14 counties of the Upper Peninsula. The recommendation is to adopt the proposed resolution and direct the clerk to transmit a certified copy to the County Board, Central Dispatch Advisory Board, the UP911 Authority, and the North Cat Group Consortium. And now I'll read the resolution. Whereas the City of Marquette places the highest priority on protecting the health, safety, and welfare of its residents, visitors, businesses, and public safety personnel, And whereas Marquette County Central Dispatch serves as the critical communications hub for public safety agencies throughout Marquette County, including the City of Marquette's police and fire departments, and is responsible for ensuring timely coordination and dispatch of emergency response resources. And whereas the City of Marquette recognizes the need to replace the current aging computer-aided dispatch system with a modern, resilient, and interoperable system capable of supporting current and future public safety demands, to ensure essential support for law enforcement, fire, medical, and emergency management operations throughout the county. And whereas the Marquette County Central Dispatch Advisory Board includes representatives of the police, fire, emergency medical, and public safety agencies, including Marquette City Police Chief and Marquette City Fire Chief, that rely daily upon the CAD system to protect lives and property throughout Marquette County and who have recognized that implementing a different system or less capable dispatch environment could increase operational risk, reduce interoperability opportunities and negatively impact emergency response effectiveness during critical incidents. And whereas the Marquette County Central Dispatch, a member of the UP 911 Authority, worked with the NorthCAD group and thoroughly evaluated available options and identified the Tyler Technologies CAD platform as the preferred solution for county emergency communication infrastructure. And whereas 14 of 15 counties in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, as well as the Michigan State Police, are transitioning to the Tyler Technologies CAD platform, which has been supported by the NorthCAD group and all other member agencies of the UP 911 Authority. And whereas the Marquette County Board of Commissioners voted in February to pursue negotiations with Motorola for the new CAD system. And whereas the failure to join the NorthCAD group in transition to Tyler Technologies risks unnecessarily isolating Marquette County from the regional public safety technology framework being implemented by neighboring counties, potentially reducing access to coordinated backup resources, regional operational support, and the full benefits of interoperable emergency communications envisioned by the UP 911 authority, the NorthCAD group, and participating public safety agencies. Now, therefore, be it hereby resolved that the City Commission of the City of Marquette strongly supports Marquette County joining the Northcad group in implementing the Tyler Technologies computer-aided dispatch system in order to make a significant investment in public safety, regional collaboration, operational resilience, interoperability, and long-term service effectiveness for the residents of Marquette County. be it further resolved that any decision contrary to the recommendations of the North Cad Group Consortium, the UP911 Authority member agencies, and the Marquette City Chiefs of Police and Fire would place greater weight on non-operational considerations than on the informed recommendations of the law enforcement, fire, EMS, and emergency communications professionals that are most informed on public safety needs, responder effectiveness, system reliability, cybersecurity, continuity of operations, regional communication, and are responsible for public safety throughout Marquette County. Be it further resolved that the City Commission respectfully urges the Marquette County Board of Commissioners to give substantial weight to the recommendations of these public safety stakeholders and subject matter experts and to work collaboratively toward a timely and successful implementation that enhances emergency communication capabilities across the region by approving Marquette County's participation in the North CAD group and transition to the Tyler Technologies CAD platform. Be it finally resolved that the city clerk is directed to transmit a certified copy of this resolution to the market county board of commissioners. Market county central dispatch advisory board the up nine one one authority and the north cat group. Dated today signed paul schlegel mayor of the city market.

Thank you mister is our motion mr mayor.

Thank you, Your Honor. I move to adopt the proposed resolution and direct the city clerk to transmit a certified copy of this resolution to the Marquette County Board of Commissioners, the Marquette County Central Dispatch Advisory Board, the UP 911 Authority, and the North Cad Group Consortium.

Thank you. Second, Commissioner Hanley?

I second.

Discussion, please.

Thank you. Yeah, I'll be honest. A couple weeks ago, maybe a month ago, I had frankly no idea what a CAD system was. After meeting with lots of different law enforcement agencies and trying to understand this topic, it was really eye-opening for me just all the behind-the-scenes logistics that can kind of go into some of these things that make our emergency services function. You know, realistically, the how we got here part is not really where I want to focus at all or what I'm worried about. I think it's more so at this point, we have a situation where All of the other UP communities and the Michigan State Police have all moved forward and signed contracts with the same provider. And there's a real scenario here where if we continue to go on our own on this, we lose backup. And what I mean by backup is, let's say we have three dispatchers. If you have a high traffic incident, let's say like a business downtown is on fire or something, and you have 100 people calling, but someone in North Marquette is having a heart attack, someone might not answer the phone when you call 911 because we only have three dispatchers with no backup dispatch to answer the phone. This service, I mean, it's kind of that behind the scenes component where you call 911, it's who's answering, it's how they can pull up and find where you're at and what's going on, and then dispatch the appropriate, correct emergency responders. And we have a real possibility here where, We're putting people's lives in jeopardy by not joining the rest of the UP communities and with the Michigan State Police. And I also want to make a note of this. We have several tribal nations, two of which are very active in Marquette County, and have tribal police in Marquette County who fall under and use the state police's dispatch system. They also have cross-deputized police in Marquette County. So we have a scenario where now tribal police will be operating under different dispatches depending on which agency they're associated with, and they can't communicate with each other through dispatches. So this just sounds like a logistical nightmare at this point. And for all those reasons, I'm very happy to support our police and fire in supporting this. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Hanley?

Thank you. I was a member of the Marquette County Central Dispatch Policy Board for a few years at the beginning of serving as a city commissioner here. And I think the biggest part that stood out to me of the choice that they are trying to make to switch to this non-thing is that they did not look for or would not allow the Marquette County Central Dispatch Policy Board to give them the recommendation of what they would believe would be the best situation for them. It seemed outrageous to me that you wouldn't look to your board that is specialized in that exact thing for a recommendation on a CAD system. The other thing is it cannot be stressed how, in an emergency situation, seconds count. It's not minutes, it's not hours, it's seconds. And the quicker you can get help to the person you love, or the backup from the police department that needs to be there, or someone there, it could be the difference between them living and them dying, or a situation getting out of control that could have been quelled. It is impossible to believe that, and these numbers don't quote me, I believe I heard that they would say $500,000 by using this other system in a, I believe is what I saw written down, over 10 years. So $50,000 a year over, and I'm not by any means saying that $500,000 isn't that, but that's not counting in the different amounts of monies that are going to come into effect for having to find ways to communicate with those departments. for paying someone to be able to say, oh, we have enough to talk to this department, we have to do this manually, we're gonna end up losing money in this scenario, and we're gonna end up losing lives, and I don't think that it's appropriate, and so I cannot firmly enough state that I hope that the county board will reconsider this contract and sign on with the other 15 counties so we are not the only island in the Upper Peninsula that cannot do all of the communication that is necessary to protect our residents.

Thank you. Commissioners, anything else? Commissioner Pro Tem Ottaway?

I do have some questions for staff, if I can so kindly. So, this was a a conundrum for me ever since I heard about this and I'm sure it is similar for everyone here because this is basically the city of Marquette drafting something that is saying we don't agree with the county on this. So first and foremost, if you're sitting in this room and you're looking around wondering what's going on, this isn't necessarily our decision to make. It affects us. That's why we have an opinion on it and I think that's very important to state. And with that, staff, if we If the county decides to just do their own thing, how does this affect our dispatch? What options do we have?

Do you want to handle that one, Chief, or would you like me to? So we utilize Marquette County central dispatch as our dispatching center other municipalities have you know Downstate specifically, you know have the ability to have their own dispatch center It's not always, you know the best option in some smaller communities, but that is who we are utilizing right now we are We also have another dispatch center in Marquette County, and that is the Nagani Regional Communication Center, that is MSP, and they run a dispatch center. I'm not entirely sure if there are options that we could be looking at, and I'm sure we could look into some of those things, but this was an early on issue that was brought on at this point, and we're still looking into what our options could be. But it is incredibly, I wouldn't say dire, but it is incredibly important to get this one right at this point. But Chief, I'm going to let you kind of speak on this.

What I feel the biggest problem here is the interoperability between the different agencies. So right now, you mentioned if there's three dispatchers and we have a major incident, whether it's a fire, police, EMS type call, mass casualty event, they're going to be overwhelmed. And right now, all of our calls, if they don't get answered at our PSAP or answering point, it goes to Chippewa County or another neighboring agency that utilizes the same system. we've all been on the same system since 2011 and it's worked seamlessly and i've talked to dispatchers that work prior to that and when that happened it was almost like a light came on like this is how good things can be if we take this step backwards we're getting back to the old days of kind of being on an island as one of you mentioned earlier we can't have that for the safety of our community our officers our firefighters our emts thank you um you know i'm trying to tread water here because i'm not trying to ask questions that the county should be answering but i will ask

The county did hire a consultant to try to figure this out, right? Do you guys, are you aware if they're following the direction of the consultant?

They're not following the direction of the consultant. consulting firm worked along with a group that, the North Cad, and they vetted out systems over the past three years, and they came to the conclusion that Tyler was the best to meet our needs in our community. And Marquette County right now is gonna be the only county out of the 15 that's not going to be aligned with that.

And if I am understanding it right, it sounds like the option that they chose was the third option on the list, possibly? Yeah, it wasn't the winner. I do have another question about infrastructure, though. When it comes to the county stating the opinion that they're looking to save $500,000, which is a lot of money, they're not referencing how much they are going to spend in infrastructure costs with the other system. And not only hardware and software that would be needed, but infrastructure. My take on, just from the limited research I've had, changing a system could cost a lot in infrastructure, especially to city taxpayers, right? Because we're maybe having to switch systems also. Any idea on that? Is it something that, am I crazy for thinking that?

No, I mean, the costs are going to be, I've never seen the actual numbers where the $500,000 saving is. I don't know what that looks like. I will say I went up there even today, along with I know some other commissioners I've been up to, central dispatch, and I was able to see at regional the comparison between the Motorola and the TylerCAD system, along with talking with several dispatchers. And it really, in my opinion, is night and day difference. The functionality was much easier. It was a lot more intuitive than what I saw with Motorola. Okay. Thanks, Ryan. Thanks, Gary.

Thank you question is anybody else commissioner, I'm sorry, let's go down here to get the first place.

Thank you, I guess I am asking the city to channel the county for me, I don't understand why they might make this decision do you have any insight. I think that's important for me to hear.

I think that question, honestly, is one to be directed at the county to ask. But I think that when it was discussed at a public meeting, it was in February. And at that point, I don't believe that there was any information that was shared on the agenda. So we don't know, but what we do know, let's work with that information, is the information and the recommendation that did come from the NorthCAD group, which I have shared with all of you, explaining that system with Tyler Technologies and why that was chosen, and address some of the concerns that were brought up by the county, including cost and litigation against the company, in a different instance, not with Marquette County. So I don't think it's appropriate. We can't speak on behalf of the county, but I do like to believe that they look at all the information and make a decision based off of the information that they have at that time.

Mayor, do you know what the other entities in Marquette County are thinking? Do we know what Negaunee and Ishpeming, for instance, are thinking about this?

Do you feel comfortable talking about that?

Chief Davis and I have talked to a lot of other leaders in different law enforcement, fire, EMS divisions. And we're all in agreement that we're the professionals in the field. Our officers are utilizing the systems. They want what's best for them. I guess I'm speaking for the chiefs that I've talked to. We're all in favor of going with the Tyler and staying consistent with everybody else in the UP. We need their help. We're kind of an area that doesn't have the number of resources that lower Michigan has or anywhere else has. And we have to work together and it's this interoperability is what we've had. I mentioned since 2011, we are going backwards if we don't do this.

I just want to say, I appreciate your willingness to say that. Thank you. Greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

We do intend to reach out to our other municipal leaders in the cities and townships to let them know about this if this resolution is going forward and looking for a letter of support as well.

Good. Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Your Honor. A couple of things some of my colleagues have said that I remembered off the top of my head, I didn't get through the first time, was currently Michigan State Police use Motorola, which they're deciding to go to Tyler over. And the rest of the UP communities are on what's called Center Squared, which is something that is being sunsetted. We're basically some of the only people left on it. They're waiting to shut the program down for us to transition off of it. uh, Those systems are not, they do not have an interconnected capability. So originally when MSP built that station over in Nagani, they built their dispatch center large enough to fit all of Marquette County central dispatchers in there so that they could still communicate and it could be a central hub. If the argument was about saving money, we probably shouldn't have spent $2 million building our own county central dispatch setup and use the one that the state already made for us. I also have a really hard time stomaching the idea that $50,000 a year is worth someone potentially losing their life over this. I can't even imagine the concept of calling 911 and someone not answering the phone. I know that there are plenty of folks alive today that know what it was like prior to 911 being a thing. But that's just such a crazy concept to me at this point. But those systems currently can't communicate. And I remember asking how if state police are a backup for Marquette County for a call, how they communicate that over to our dispatch. They have to print out a paper dispatch and fax it. That is insane. Just... If we're all in the same exact system, it would be fantastic. And as far as comparing them side by side, one looks like a doodle drawing compared to ArcGIS. So they're not even comparable softwares. Thank you.

Anyone else? I think you kind of nailed it there, Commissioner Mayer. You're comparing apples to cannonballs with these two different programs. And we'd be foolish not to send this recommendation forward and to do what's right for not just our own community here, but if another community needs us to back them up, you know darn well we're going to be there for them. And that's the crux of it for me.

um anything else we're good okay it's a roll call vote um city clerk commissioner davis yes commissioner gottlieb yes commissioner hanley yes commissioner larson yes commissioner mayor yes mayor pro tem ottaway yes mayor schlegel yes motion passes seven zero

Thank you for the discussion commissioners I'm going to move on to item number seven which was taken from our consent agenda in regards to the marina we have some background please.

Thank you, Mayor. The City Commission approved the submission of a waterways grant application for the replacement of the Cinder Pond Marina docks at the March 30th, 2026 meeting and approved the grant agreement at the July 13th, 2026 meeting. Staff advertised a request for proposals and on August 10th, 2026 received the following proposals. One, Coleman Engineering Company, $98,500. And two, Edgewater Resources, for it not to exceed $388,000, or 10% of the project costs. Staff found both proposals to be substantially complete and evaluated them based on the following criteria. relative experience of personnel, experience in design and oversight of harbors and piers, project management experience, cost, references, and office location. Coleman Engineering Company was the highest scoring proposal and staff worked with Coleman and the city attorney to develop a standard professional services contract. Fiscal effect, contracted costs will not exceed $98,500 of which 50% is eligible for reimbursement through the waterways grant. Project expenditures will be funded through the Cinder Pond Marina Fund and capitalized as part of the project and the fiscal year 26 budget may be amended if necessary to reflect expenditures incurred during the fiscal year. Costs not reimbursed through the grant may be eligible for reimbursement through future project financing. Recommendation, award the bid for design services and construction oversight of the Cinder Pond Marina Docks to Coleman Engineering Company and authorize the mayor and clerk to sign the contract. Alternatives as determined by the commission. Thank you, City Clerk.

I'm going to ask for a motion here, but I think this is really just to be up front. It's just a little bit of... editing that we're going to do here tonight and it's very simple it's just needed to be some different verbiage otherwise everything else was spot on so I look for motion. Commissioner Larson.

I move that we award the bid for design services and construction oversight of the Cinder Pond Marina docks to Coleman Engineering Company and authorize the mayor and clerk to sign the contract and for staff to clarify the attached contract to reflect Cinder Pond Marina.

Thank you. Is there a second, please? Commissioner Hanley?

I second.

Discussion?

Only that it looks like there was just a little oversight with Presque Isle Marina and Cinder Pond Marina, so I just want to make sure that we were on the up and up with it.

Appreciate that, thank you. Anything else? Great. All in favor of this motion, please say yes. Yes.

Opposed, no.

Motion passes 7-0. That brings us to our second public comment. Comments may not exceed three minutes per minute, or three minutes per person, excuse me. Please state your name and physical address while making your comments if you have not already done so.

Matt Ludenberger, 1406 Garfield Ave, City of Marquette. I want to say thanks for giving me the numbers that it costs $8 million to tear down the old hospital and it costs $8 million to transfer it into Viridia Group. I'm curious how much we getting as a city for taxes because until that building was torn down in fact while part of the building was being torn down it was a fully functional place of business we we had a parking garage we had people working in offices they all got displaced they all got pushed out somewhere else how many Are we going to wait until we get taxes from that place again? I mean we had taxes on that place and then we just kind of wiped it out by saying it was decrepit building but it was being used and There was fully functional plumbing in those buildings. There's fully functional electrical things in those buildings Sure, some of it was probably needing upgrades but it's a 50 year old building and we tore it down and so my question is if the housing department needs places to build homes why can't we offer them the empty parking lots secondly is viridia group waiting for and Please, Mr. Mayor, I don't want you to get offended by this, but you were a mayor when some of these things were decided. And a former mayor is also running for county seats. Is Viridia Group waiting to influx of county money into this program and into this building structure or empty lot that we don't know what's going to go there? My question is, what can you as a city tell us as residents when College Ave is gonna be back up and running so that we can use it to get cross town traffic. Two, when are we expecting those empty parking lots to actually have construction done on them? I'm not talking about the main center. And three, it's all listed as mixed use on the board outside. So what are we waiting for? What can we, what can you as a city commissioners, do to encourage Viridia Group to, one, come with us with a plan, two, I'm really curious, how long does Viridia Group have a hold on that land and when do they expect to pay taxes on that land that isn't being used? Can we treat it like a, you know, like... An empty store. How much money are we getting from this empty land that we sold for $16 million when in 2010 it was available for $25 million? $25 million back then would have paid for a lot of taxes. Thank you. Anyone else for public comment?

Hey, everybody. Great to see you better rested. Bailey, I'm staying at 910 Lincoln Avenue right now. We all know I've been talking about the rental market in Marquette and kind of imploring you guys to put in some good infrastructure to protect tenants after we were fraudulently rented a home and subsequently slandered and harassed by Schramm Superior Properties. And Everyone I've talked to has asked, you know, why are you doing this? And you're so motivated. And I have realized how many folks don't know about the really special employment we have here. So I'm here to switch hats. And I put on my teacher hat today to teach you guys about the residency. Because a lot of folks don't know we have a really rare group of docs that come here. So in the whole country. We have 163,000 resident physicians. We are fresh grads out of school. We go to residency to earn our board certification. And Marquette is home to a family medicine residency. There are 18 of us. This residency has been here since 1982. They graduated their first class. It is a critical pipeline for docs to come up here and practice. And you're probably asking now, what does that have to do with housing? Because medical residents are real broke. We're real broke. We graduate with an average of $216,000 in medical debt. Our average salary, this is nationwide data, is between $65,000 to $75,000. We work 70, 80 hours a week. So most medical residents are making $17 to $27 an hour. This hospital is even more special because we have a rural campus for medical students. Now these guys are here, they're working in this hospital alongside us, some of the best of the best, man. Not only are they not being paid, they are paying to come and work here. These guys pay, if they're in state, they pay $33,000 a year in tuition. If they're out of state, they spend $61,000 a year in tuition. And they choose to come here, paying that much to live in Marquette and help these people. um this residency has additional certifications in osteopathic manipulative medicine of the 816 family med residencies in the whole country only 106 offer that credential only oh i'm sorry 185 offer that credential only 106 offer the integrated medical curriculum that is offered at this residency I know we all know we live in a special town and I show up to these meetings because I love this town. I moved here in the dead of winter to join these ranks of folks to help them and to work and serve these people. And I mean that with every fiber of my being. So I am going to keep showing up to these meetings to talk about housing, to talk about the groups of very vulnerable people that live here and would so benefit from stringent safe, not stringent, safe housing. And I just am here speaking as myself, as a citizen who wants to educate this fine group of folks about the phenomenal docs and future docs. Thank you all.

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

Hello, my name is Amelia Pruitt, 930 West Bilski Lake lane, because I am a Gwin resident, but I am a city employee and I have thoughts and I wanted to get them clear. So I did write them out for you all. Um, I want to thank you all for the opportunity to participate in the staff academy because it was really wonderful. And I urge you to support future cohorts, but Anne spoke to the role of pride in our organization. And I really sincerely feel that that program did a lot to foster that in not only myself, but I heard that from a lot of other cohort members and also created that sense of camaraderie across, as Anne was saying, we work all the way around the city, which is great, but also we don't see each other that often. And it's a beautiful ecosystem that was really fascinating to learn about what you all do even. And that... This opportunity to learn about other departments empowers us to work more collaboratively with each other with that shared goal that we are working for a city for our taxpayers. It's not a for-profit entity. We have this shared goal in mind and how can we better aid one another across those departments? I work in the arts and culture office and I'm really thrilled that our work is more directly supporting city projects and city initiatives. It's a treat to work for a place that really enhances our sense of place in our staff, but also our residents. and building that pride and that ownership for the people that we serve here, all the taxpayers. I'm excited that the cultural trail has the potential to tell all of our stories, including Lakeview Arena, and that we can take that collaborative energy and share that across other departments think of creative solutions to create better connect people that are interested in affordable housing with the boards that need people interested in housing um that partnership is rooted in people and i want to thank you all for being wonderful people yourselves i recognize a lot of people in this room which is a cool thing to work in a smaller community um Thank you for creating a place that we're all proud to work, to live, to play. Again, that staff academy really did put faces to names. Thank you, Annie, for helping facilitate that process. Thank you, commissioners. Thank you, staff. Thank you, community. Have a great night.

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

Tom Argersinger, Marquette Drive. I want to talk a couple, last city commission meeting, there was a lady talking about down on the bike path uh by the homeless shelter and stuff excuse me when i was working at northern i was part of the team that worked the city to develop the bike path from holly street all the way to the end and so when i walked when i drove by there i rode my bike there are some bushes for some safety concerns and stuff that you may want to take a look at but It's not going to be cheap to do it because you're going to have to rip out all the roots of the bushes and stuff. And then when you do that, you're going to expose the neighbors on the other side of the fences to not so much privacy because those bushes are protecting them from privacy, looking from their property onto the bike path. So it's not gonna be cheap if you take it out, but there's also that safety concern of how many, I don't know how many accidents or close calls there are, but that would just be a thing to do, to look at it, but it's not gonna be cheap If you don't get a ratio between if there's any instance versus the cost, which I would say it's going to be over $100,000. You start ripping out bushes along those miles, but that's just a estimate. I could be wrong, but. For public safety or concerned safety, that's why I want to bring it up. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else for public comment? Anyone else? Final call. With that, public comment is closed. Let's go to comments from the commission. We're going to start with Pro Tem Ottaway tonight.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I was lucky enough to go to the Citizens Academy for the next upcoming meet. My good friend, Mayor Schlegel, was out of town, so I had the opportunity the privilege of being there in his honor. And I will tell you that I am so impressed by Annie, and I think we can't do enough to recognize all of the hard work she has done with the Citizens Academy, and obviously with the Staff Academy. And I will just say, you know, my entire working life of about 20 years post-college, I've only worked for large organizations. I would certainly call the City of Marquette a large organization. I will tell you, engagement is hard. It is very difficult. It's a difficult thing get everyone together it's a difficult thing to keep people as happy as you possibly can and it means a lot when people try you know so to say to we want to recognize you in some way um you know and tell people that you work with that we want to be close it goes a long way so keep doing it and annie props to you cheers everything you should be very proud of that and i hope you are um Shifting to another comment from tonight, a lot of questions obviously with our first item of new business with ultimately opposing what the county may plan to do. I want to thank some people in this room that have kind of come forward and brought that to light. First off, our staff, Chief Grimm, Chief Davis, who are on you know, a very important board that should have been listened to in the first place. As a city commissioner and an elected official in Marquette County, I will tell you, it bothers me that important boards that are representing the county don't seem to be listened to for matters that should be listened to. I plan on writing my county commissioner because of it, and I urge everyone to do the same because With my limited research, I don't understand how county dollars are spent on utilizing consulting groups and then you don't take the answer that the consulting group gives you or really even explain why you're not planning to utilize the consulting group's plan. So, ask questions. Even if it's questions to me as a commissioner, I expect you to ask them. But ultimately, we all need to do more to hold people accountable, city commission included. Don't be afraid to ask us questions that hold us accountable. That's why we're here. That's why we were elected. I've said enough and I'm cutting into other people's time, but thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Larson.

I think great discussion tonight. You know, certainly some important issues that we've had to talk about. But, you know, I just want to, you know, thank the, you know, everybody here for asking the questions and really taking the time to understand the issues that are out there. Certainly important to do so. No further comment.

Thank you, Commissioner Mayer.

Thank you, Your Honor. Yeah, I just want to start off and mention I think it's absolutely awesome that we're doing the Staff Academy, and I'm so glad it went so well. And, you know, kudos, again, to staff for not only volunteering but, you know, making it happen. It's fantastic. You know, the concept of pride, when I heard that, it's amazing. I don't know if any of you have worked at a place where if someone asks you where you work, you don't want to answer it. It's hard to want to stay with an employer when you feel like that. But when you feel actual pride with where you work, that's where people want to stay. And the work ethic they put in is a lot different, too, in that regard. But also, it's really easy for an organization like our size to get siloed via departments. And having some of that crossover experience, I think, is just really awesome. On the CAD thing, there was one more thing I wanted to mention on this, and that was that I personally don't see this any different than the other agenda item we had, which was going to our UP delegation for Lansing. At the end of the day, it's a resolution that we are asking another government to understand and hear our opinion on something. I don't think it's something anyone needs to be defensive of. I think we've made our point and our case about it really, really clear because I don't think any of us quite understand the current direction that the county is heading with it. But I think it's the same exact conversation. We as a municipality have the right to go and advocate to our county government just the same way we can go and talk to our state reps. Last thing, Mr. Lundenberger. So I'm going to phrase it like this, because sometimes we find out things in real time. As far as I'm aware of, the county has nothing going on with the old Marquette General Hospital development. If something changes on that front, I would also be reading about it in the news. i i believe mayor smith you mentioned uh was technically the mayor at the time uh and myself and i believe commissioner davis and former mayor smith were all on the advisory group that went through part of that process but at some point in that process the city kind of separated from that whole thing so who i would love to not just kind of low-key thrown under the bus. I'm looking over at him. But if at some point, whether it's the city manager or the deputy city manager could maybe give an update on this, I think that'd be great. I haven't heard much about this topic in a bit. So thank you.

thank you commissioner davis yes i first want to thank commissioner larson for taking the initiative and the leadership and recommending new language or additional language to our resolution that we accepted tonight i think that it's something that we all were looking forward to and have agreed on the academy yes great idea to bring that to the employees so that as commissioner mayor said reducing some of those silos and getting that communication between departments so i'm not surprised that it was a cultural experience and i think it will really help with with the culture of our our employees um Mr. Luttenberger, I think you brought up a question that is at the minds of a lot of community members now There are some misconceptions you have but it's a really good question because we have not heard a lot about that and so yes, I would be looking forward to some information from the city manager if what she can provide because as was mentioned we're not totally in that loop. But I think we're all as a community looking forward to something happening with that property. And then finally I'm sorry that Dr. Quinn left because we often don't think of medical students and residents as having housing problems. We often focus on the service providers and the low income people and maybe even those people who have a full time job but are not making a lot of money. And there's someone sitting right next to me who knows more of what it's like to be a medical resident and a medical student. But I'm well aware of that program. I spent 27 years working for Marquette General Health System before Duke LifePoint was here. That is a really wonderful program that we in our community really need to acknowledge and treasure. Because without that regional medical center, we would not be Marquette, we would not have a lot of the amenities that we have and the people that it brings in and the services that we have are very important to our community. With that, I'll pass it on to that person who knows more about that stuff.

Okay.

That was uncalled for. I was going to say, I wasn't going to pass tonight, and now I'm really regretting that you said that. Yeah, I did do it 35, 40 years ago. I do remember it quite well. But I wish Dr. Quinn was still here. I would love to talk to her about it. But she's gone, so I don't have to say anymore. Mr. Hanley?

Thank you. I want to first touch on the Staff Academy. I had the honor of being the mayor when they did our portion of it, so I got to speak to the Staff Academy, and I was quite surprised at how happy they all were at 8 a.m. to be listening to me blabber on about what we did on the commission. I'm very happy it went so far and I'm even more happy that you, Amelia, felt so strongly about it that you stayed through the entire meeting when you are not working technically right now to stand and tell us your story from it. And I really appreciate that. So thank you so much. It's great to know that it's doing exactly what Annie had hoped it would do for the city staff members to not only learn about the other departments, but to really feel connected to them, to where if you have an issue, you know who to send it to them to and know who to call. And I appreciate that a lot. So thank you for staying for that. The other thing I wanted to talk about was I know we've gotten a couple of people that want to hear more about the plans of every radio, but maybe I am crazy. I feel like we did this a month ago when we talked about it and went over it and the fact that it is a private development. owned by private developer city really doesn't get to actually have we don't really get to have a saying that we know a little bit about it because of the brownfield change that they tried to make for parking but other than that we're not privy to necessarily all of their plans for it which is the way private sale of private land to private developers works so I if the city knows more update from a month ago when we talked about it um i do know that when we did the brownfield with them i believe it was a 15-year brownfield so that is when i believe the taxes is 15 to 20 years so i do know that that would be when it would come back on the tax rolls but other than that i don't think that i know much more than anyone else does so thank you thank you and they are certainly paying taxes on that property when when when the time comes for not right now because it got sold to a non-profit first

I'll let you handle it. Thank you. Okay. Yeah, thank you, Amelia, for your kind words. I hope that kind of echoes what I was trying to get across at the end of our presentation there. I look forward, I hope I'm able to be a part of one of those at some point. I would still like to go through the citizens Academy at some point in time myself just because one thing that I've learned serving in the various positions that I have throughout 22 to 25 some odd years of public service to market is that There is so much work being done in areas that you just don't understand. That's part of why I like to find out how the sausage is made and be a part of that process, because it makes you appreciate what you have. And especially, it really... It allows me, like my dad always told me growing up, because if you want to have skin in the game, if you want to be able to make changes or maybe even complain or praise, you've got to be part of the process. And that's something that I'm proud to be a part of and I'm honored to be a part of. So I really appreciate your sentiment tonight. So thank you for that. It is holiday weekend coming up. There's, I'm sure, some stuff going on in town. There's going to be a lot of traffic. Please watch out for everything that's going on. The kids are going to be going a little bit crazy because this is their last of the, some of them are still off of school. So watch out for that and enjoy the later part of our summer weather that we're supposed to be experiencing here. So with that, I'll pass it on to City Manager.

You know, I did provide an update on the former hospital site, but I'm going to kick it over to Deputy City Manager, who may have some of that information that perhaps I didn't touch on, but there are some things we'll probably have to follow up with the commission on, specifically when we talk about the conditions of College Ave and why it's remaining closed. So if Deputy City Manager can speak on the tax part and development and remind us all about that big win that we did have. Sure.

Just to kind of clear a couple things up, because I know Mr. Lutenberger had a couple comments. We do not nor have we ever owned the hospital property, any portion of it. We never took possession of it. Therefore, we have no control over what the owners decide to do with that property. We can't compel someone to do something with their private property unless it is posing some kind of a nuisance, which at this point, we removed the nuisance, which was the blighted building, and it's just a field. And that building was blighted. It was functionally obsolete. Significant portions of it were well over 50 and even up to 100 years old. It had no reuse. It had no functional reuse at all. The way it was constructed, it was this Frankenstein of different decades that couldn't have had any kind of meaningful reuse. And it was retired for a reason, right? They built a brand new hospital for a reason. because it wasn't a functional service anymore. They did have a couple of offices and I think a clinic or something and a blood link running still. But my understanding is the hospital kind of wanted to get them moving anyways. And that really wasn't the best use of the property at that point. With the taxes that are, there are taxes being paid. The property transferred from the hospital system to the NMU Foundation to Viridia, some portions were still being used for commercial activity. This is a little above my head on that portion of tax law, but we are capturing taxes from that property. It's not a whole lot, it is vacant raw land, but we also don't capture a whole lot from functionally obsolete buildings either. So we haven't seen a dramatic shift there. But we are capturing taxes underneath the Brownfield plan and the amended Brownfield plan that was approved by the commission. There is a key component of that in that the state tax capture has not been approved yet. There's a lot of onus on Viridia to build their financial stack for a development like this and present it to the state so that they can get that tax capture approved. And it has to align with the priorities in the MEDC and the Michigan Strategic Fund. And that's been a long and complicated process that I think we all wish was over. But it's really the only part of the process that we're involved in at the moment is reminding the NBDC that we're here to advocate for this project. The commission has fully endorsed a local brownfield plan, which is the buy-in that the NBDC typically looks for for projects like this. So we're all in on getting this property developed right now. But it's kind of a MBDC Veridia discussion right now that we just provide support to. And I'll say the money was exclusive for demolition was exclusively from outside sources and was only for demolition purposes. So there wasn't any extra money that could have been used for anything else. That was just to get the hospital down. We facilitated a part of that because community development block grant funding has to come through the municipal entity in cases like this. But we were only a funding pass-through. The state identified those funds and said, hey, would you like to make this project happen? you know, the money will go through you, but everything else is coordinated by the private developer and owner, which at that point was the NMU Foundation. But just overall, large development like this takes time. Viridia has been in this room. They've presented preliminary plans. They have site plans approved for some of the perimeter properties. But they're looking at an investment in the city of Marquette, anywhere from $200 to $250 million. And that kind of development in an area like this takes time. That might be an everyday development in Chicago or New York city or something like that, where you have a lot of investors and you have a lot of funding available and you have almost guaranteed revenue. Um, but we don't have a lot of developers who can, uh, put up that kind of funding who can dream as big as Verde has been dreaming for some of their properties. Um, there's just not a whole lot around and there's not as many investors to work with. So these things take time and they're complicated and we can just work on our side of things to. keep moving this process forward. But the win for us was always getting those buildings down. It was always removing that hospital from the city of Marquette and not letting it become a decayed, falling apart structure that eventually we would have been on the hook to get down one way or another, because it would have been a community expectation that a building with broken glass, with crumbling concrete, and that was, you know, obsolete and vacant, would have been removed and repurposed into something, you know, the land would have been repurposed into something more useful. So we've already passed our wind condition, in my view. We facilitated getting that building out of Marquette. And now whatever happens here is kind of just gravy. You know, we either get a large-scale development for Imbridia or maybe something else in the future. But we all know that, you know, available non-blighted land in the city of Marquette will be built on eventually. There's not a speck of it left in this city, I'm pretty sure. It will be built on eventually, and we're just going to have to keep working through those processes, which we are.

excellent uh explanation on that i could not have done any better on that one but i think the important thing i do want to stress is the city staff is is in constant communication with radio when it's appropriate so we do receive some updates until we have one that we can share at this point that's continuing to be looked at.

I do have one addition, actually. College Avenue was mentioned a couple times. Yes. Sorry to interrupt. Please. But my understanding is the state of College Avenue is not really functional. It wasn't really all that functional before any kind of demolition work started. And when we go back to the work session we had at 4 p.m. today and talking about projects on the RCIP list and trying to identify outside sources of funding to get those done so they don't impact our bonding in the same level, um college avenue is a prime example of that because that is our public infrastructure and our brownfield plan um and we want to leverage those state tax dollars to help us rebuild that piece of infrastructure thankfully magnetic is still there and has that same connecting purpose that college did but we are planning on leveraging that funding so we're not spending money just to have a road run over by a bunch of trucks and destroy it again we're trying to make this all you know really make a lot of sense at the end of the day.

Awesome. Thank you. I wanted to mention here as we shift gears, I wanted to mention that the QR code for the sustainable tourism survey was up prior to the meeting. We'll probably put it up there and maybe for a short period of time, but you know, at the conclusion of here, but that link can also be found on our homepage of the website and I believe on our Facebook page and in other communications that have been shared. So please take that survey. We've had Oh gosh, we're over 1500 respondents so far. Four days in, we were at 1,400 responses to that survey, which is pretty significant. So thank you, keep it coming, and we'll have some open house for the public and some commission time as well in the coming weeks, and that will be out in information, so please keep an eye on that. I wanted to just touch on the CAD system topic because I think it's really important for our public safety departments, both police and fire, and our partnerships with EMS and other surrounding townships. But this is a very complicated topic, not my expertise. However, I'm hoping I made a former mayor in another town previous to this, Michael Armitage, proud. He is a director for a dispatch center downstate and authority downstate. And so learning this and learning the different layers was rather challenging. It was not on the top of my list at first until it was made on the top of my list by our chief, both chiefs. And the one thing I really wanted to highlight was the UP911 authority is, I believe, is still considered probably one of the largest consortiums of multi-county jurisdictions. I think in the country, and there's a lot that can be accomplished, and that authority has accomplished a lot in the past, and working with other agencies such as the state, including the office of the Michigan Public Safety Communication System, there's a lot to be done and a lot of coordination that happens, and I have a lot of confidence that we can get to that point and make sure that we are continuing with that progress and not taking a step back, and this certainly helps. Tough topic to bring up. I think that had we been aware of it You know going for a decision at the the county board level. We probably would have brought that up sooner To the to the the City Commission had we known it was going in a different direction So I I know it was a tough conversation there's a lot of respect to other elected officials in our area and this one is really meant to be a sign of support and And a sign of some teamwork here that we can continue to accomplish major, major progress in key life saving actions. So thank you for your assistance on that. And then lastly, I do just want to again, I know we've had a lot of attention to Annie over there, but. Staff Academy and Citizens Academy is probably one of the coolest things that we have been able to accomplish here in this. And again, you're looking at Commissioner Davis over there, who really took a first step in this as well. And Annie, who really put in all that hard work and really built this program and has made an impact on our staff. And those staff members make an impact on our organization. it's beautiful just to see it all come around so thank you to everybody who's been involved in that that's all thank you thank you with that we are adjourned at 7 39.