Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

to give that participation, that comment at this meeting, but you have three minutes at the meeting directly following our full board meeting. Is there anyone who wishes to give public comment in person at this time? Okay. Seeing none, Ashley, I'd ask if there's anybody online. Great. We'll move then back to Ashley for a report from the Director of Board Operations.

No report tonight, Chair.

Great. Move then to item five, our first discussion item. I just want to say a quick thank you to Planned Parenthood of Michigan and Paul Thornton Greer for being here with us tonight on relatively short notice. We very much appreciate it. We are unfortunately anxious to hear uh the the news of the challenge we face uh to learn more about what we can do to be helpful uh and to sort of know what we need to know uh mr grier if you want to come on up to the podium um and i know you have some folks with you that i'll let you introduce but um we are happy to let you present and then get into q a or do q a as you go along whichever your your preference is

Thank you so much. I truly appreciate it. If we could present and then we'll be ready for Q&A.

Absolutely.

Alrighty, thank you. Good evening, everyone. Thank you again. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here at the working session. I'm Paula Thornton-Greer, pronouns she, her. I am the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Michigan. I'm here with our CFO Max Winnegan. We're here to talk to you about this moment that we are in and what it means for Washtenaw County residents and what it means for the patients that we serve across this great state. As I learned how to advance the slide, which button do I push? I think it's this one. Woo, look at us, okay. So Planned Parenthood of Michigan has been part of the fabric of healthcare in this state for decades. We serve patients across our health centers through our virtual health center and through education programming in communities. Hundreds of thousands of Michiganders have walked through our doors over the years for care that For many of them, they could not get elsewhere. This is not a new organization showing up in a moment of crisis. We are a known, trusted provider with a long track record in Michigan and right here in Washtenaw County. The Power Family Health Center on Professional Drive is your county's Planned Parenthood. It's a full service health center, birth control, STI testing and treatment, HIV services, gender affirming care, prenatal and postpartum care, wellness and preventative visits, vaccines, and abortion care. the full range of sexual and reproductive healthcare under one roof. And it's not just Washtenaw County residents who count on this site. Patients travel here from surrounding counties because Power Family is the closest place that they can access this scope of care. For thousands of patients across this region, Power Family is not one option among many, it is the option. We'd like to share with you and take a moment to ground this in what it actually means for patients. This is Mallory, a Washtenaw County resident of Michigan patient. When we talk about access tonight, we're talking about Mallory and we're talking about thousands of your constituents who count on this health center to be open and to be there when they need it.

This person in a yellow vest came up and she said, hey, I'm a volunteer with Planned Parenthood. You don't have to talk to them. You can come in with me. I can walk you to your appointment. And that was the first time that I relaxed. Since I received my diagnosis of miscarriage, I finally felt for the first time like I was getting the care that I needed and like people were looking out for me and what I wanted and that I would receive respect and empathy and all those things that I deserved when I was deep in my grief. I was really grateful to be able to experience my abortion in a way that felt right to me. Being able to have that choice was really the only thing that made me feel like I had a sense of power.

This board has been here before. In 2019, this board acted because Planned Parenthood of Michigan had been forced out of Title 10. Tens of thousands of Michiganders with low incomes stood to lose access to birth control, to cancer screenings, STI testing, and basic preventative care overnight. Washtenaw did not wait. This board answered the call with a unanimous $100,000 bridge appropriation that protected care for thousands of your residents and the residents of surrounding counties who rely on Power Family. And it told every other county in this state that Washtenaw leads on reproductive healthcare and other counties follow. And we are grateful for that. I share that history tonight because it speaks to the partnership this board and Planned Parenthood of Michigan have. And because the leadership was now showed in 2019 is part of why we are still standing. We're still here. We're still here in 2026, navigating what comes next.

Great. Thank you, Paula. So like Paula has said, in 2019, this board acted because Planned Parenthood of Michigan had been forced out of Title X and the impacts on patients was immediate. What we are facing now in 2026 is that same fight on Title X with our annual allocation cut from FY25 to FY26 where we are now. And on top of it, Medicaid defunding took effect in September of 2025. Medicaid is the majority of how our patients pay for care, and they can no longer use their coverage with us. Two federal actions in eight months hitting the two largest sources of funding that keep our doors open. These are losses we are absorbing right now. Before the Trump administration came after this organization, Planned Parenthood of Michigan was financially sound. We have disciplined operations, strong leadership, and a sustainable business model built over decades. What we are dealing with now is the direct result of deliberate federal policy designed to defund Planned Parenthood, and it is hitting every affiliate in this country. There is a possibility, hopefully, that Medicaid coverage at Planned Parenthood is restored in July, and we sincerely hope that happens. But Planned Parenthood of Michigan cannot operate on hope. And even in the scenario where Medicaid does come back, it does not undo what has already happened to us during this period. That revenue loss in September is gone. The closures we have already been forced to make and the positions we have already been forced to cut were made on the funding reality in front of us that we're experiencing right now. Patients who lost access during the gap do not automatically come back and rebuilding takes time and investment we do not currently have. And none of that even touches the Title 10 cut, which is a separate hole. So what this means for Washtenaw County residents, the Power Family Health Center here sees approximately 7,000 patient visits a year. 24% of those patients are at or below the federal poverty line, which means roughly one in four patients at this site is living below the poverty line. 38% of Power Family patients are on commercial insurance and the remaining 62% are self-pay. Power Family is the only freestanding outpatient abortion clinic in this county offering this full range of sexual and reproductive health services. And patients travel here from surrounding counties because there is nowhere else within reach that provides this scope of care. What is happening at Power Family is happening across our network. Planned Parenthood of Michigan operates health centers across Michigan and the federal cuts to Medicaid and Title 10 are hitting every one of our sites and every one of our patients. The Washtenaw story is one chapter, a very important one of a statewide story. In communities across the state, Planned Parenthood is the only or the primary provider of this care and the patients who depend on us in those communities are facing the same access risk that Washtenaw residents are facing here. The dollar figure on Title X alone does not tell the story. Title X is what allows us to see patients regardless of their ability to pay. It is how we serve the uninsured, the underinsured, young people who cannot use their parents' insurance for confidential care, immigrants who do not qualify for Medicaid, and working people who fall into the gap between Medicaid eligibility and employer coverage. 62% of power family patients are self-pay, and self-pay at Planned Parenthood is sliding scale, which means it often does not come close to covering the cost of care. Title X is what makes the math work. When Title X contracts, those self-pay patients are the patients who lose access first, and the downstream impact lands on emergency departments, public health systems, and on residents in every county in Michigan. Okay.

Planned Parenthood of Michigan is an employer, a proud employer in this county. Our staff live here, they raise their families here, they spend their paychecks here at local businesses, and may I just say at really fantastic restaurants, because there's some good food in Washtenaw County. So we're part of the economic fabric of this community. The same is true in every Michigan community where we operate a health center. So PPMI is a public health asset. The preventative care we deliver keeps people out of more expensive parts of the healthcare system. Guttmacher Institute research has consistently shown that publicly funded family planning generates significant taxpayer savings and downstream public costs. It's one of the highest return public health investments available. And it is care that does not get delivered anywhere else at this scale or at this cost. Last August, I believe this board sat through a briefing from your public health officer and your Washtenaw Health Project executive and finance staff on the impacts of HR1. The public health officer asked this board to think about how to mitigate the harm and build resilience in the community. County leaders across Michigan are having the same conversation because the federal cuts, they are reshaping this landscape in every county across the state. Power Family and other Michigan health centers provide preventative care, contraception, all the services that I mentioned before. And when that care, when access to that care contracts, demand on emergency departments and safety nets, well, that goes up. PPMI has taken significant cost discipline across this organization. In 2025, we were forced to close three health centers in Jackson, Petoskey, and Marquette. We also closed our Ann Arbor West Health Center, but consolidated those services right on into the Power Family Health Center. We reduced our workforce by about 30 positions and expanded telehealth to seven days a week, growing that capacity about 40%. And those were hard, hard decisions. And PPMI made them before asking anybody else to step in. PPMI is working four tracks at once to navigate this moment. At the state level, we are engaged with the governor's office, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, and our legislative champions on a stabilization approach. On philanthropy, we are expanding major donor engagement and foundation support. Through Planned Parenthood Federation of America, we are accessing every resource available to affiliates facing the same federal cuts. And at the county level, we are in conversation with counties across Michigan, where we're part of the local healthcare landscape and where there's a track record of partnership. No single one of these tracks can solve the problem alone. It is too big. The federal cuts are too large for any one source to absorb. What gets PPMI to stability is the combination, and that is the work we are doing across the state right now. The healthcare landscape is shifting for every provider in this state. And PPMI has been making decisions about how to operate in that landscape for some time. What the federal cuts have done is something different. They've created a funding crisis that no operational decision-making would have produced on its own. Health centers across our network are at risk of closing. And I don't say that lightly, and I don't say it for effect. It is the math of what has been taken from us and what we cannot replace fast enough. PPMI is working through which sites, which services, which hours, and which staffing models can be sustained. And the answer to all those questions are gonna reshape access to reproductive healthcare in Michigan for Mallory, and for all the people in Washtenaw County and that come to this county for care. We have done what we can to soften the blow. We expanded, as I said, telehealth. Telehealth is a tool and it is keeping care available for patients who can use it. It does not, however, replace a procedural abortion, a colposcopy, an IUD insertion, prenatal care, or any of the in-person services that brick and mortar health centers exist to provide. When a health center closes, a patient loses access to that care. The patient who lives an hour away from the closed site doesn't become a patient who drives two hours to the next one. Patients go without care. The Power Family Health Center is the largest in our network and the procedural abortion site for this region. We consolidated the two Ann Arbor West into Power Family last year because Power Family is where PPMI is investing in Washtenaw's future. But Power Family does not sit in isolation from the rest of the network. When sites close in other parts of the state, patients travel further to get to the sites that remain open and Power Family is one of those sites that they travel to. That change changes the capacity, the experience of care for the patients who already depend on that health center, and so much more. And that is why the conversations we are having across the state with the governor, with the legislature, with philanthropy, with our federation, with the counties where we have longstanding partnerships cannot wait. The window to shape what access to care looks like in Michigan over the next several years is closing. And Washtenaw County, you've been an important partner in that conversation before. And as I close, Washtenaw County led in 2019. And what this board did then is part of the reason that PPMI is still standing. We're navigating what is in front of us. What leadership looks like now is broader than what it looked like then because the situation is broader. It is not the same. It is voice, it is partnership, and it is the willingness of counties like this one to stay in conversation with us, and we so appreciate it as we work together through the decisions ahead. You've been that kind of partner before. We wanted to be here to acknowledge that and say thank you. So thank you for your time, for listening, and we're happy to answer any questions.

Well, thank you so much. I know we will have some open it up for Commissioner questions at this time. Start with Commissioner Somerville, then Hodge.

Thank you. And thanks for the background. I was familiar with the past allocation that happened during the first period of time that we were impacted by the feds. And I actually read a memo because I work in the state legislature. So I read in pretty detail before coming here today, some of the other issues. And so hopefully there's other counties. I hope that we can find a way to step in and It's, you know, when I was in my 20s from 2013 to 2019, the only medical care I got was actually at Planned Parenthood in Ann Arbor. Wow. So, yeah. Yeah, it was weird when I finally got a job in the state legislature and got health insurance. The following year, I still went to Planned Parenthood because I felt so weird leaving the doctor there. And so I was always really greeted with kindness. And I really appreciate all the work that you and your team do and all the staff that work at the clinics throughout the state. And the people who volunteer to walk people from their cars to the door. Because even when you're just going to pick up your birth control, people harass you and it's really scary, especially when you're like 22 years old and you're just like, I'm just trying to pick up my birth control. And so I really just want to uplift all of the really incredible work that you all do for people who really have no other resource. So thank you. And you know, I'm one person, but I hope that there's a way that we can make sure that we protect this critical care for Washington County residents at the very least. We obviously can't make up the whole gap. but there are so many of our own constituents who right now, the only care they're getting is at the Planned Parenthood Clinic right down the street from us. So I really appreciate you all. Thank you.

Thank you. And thank you for sharing your story.

Move to Commissioner Hodges and Sanders. Thank you, Chair. I just want to thank you. I don't have a question, but I wanted to thank you for coming out so quickly too. It was just last week that we had a conversation with you about this. So I appreciate you making time to come and be able to present on this publicly. And thank you to everyone in the audience that's here to support as well. The information that you presented is fantastic. And I appreciate that you highlighted that this is not an operational issue on your end, that this is the result of decisions made by the federal government. That's critical for people to understand. So I'm glad that that's highlighted in there. And I thank you for your work and persevering through extremely challenging times.

Thank you so much.

Move to Commissioner Sanders.

So I would like to thank you for coming out to share with us and make sure that we're aware of what's going on, even more so than we may already be. I also wanted to just lift up the fact so that our listeners don't feel as though maybe they're the only ones. My mom sent me to Planned Parenthood, I'm not going to tell how long ago, but premenstrual. so that I could get education about sexually transmitted diseases and how do you handle your cycle when it comes and preventing pregnancies. And I don't know if you're still doing that education, but I felt that it was invaluable, a little bit embarrassed as a teenager, but it was very important. And then fast forward, as a single mom divorced, there was a period of time I didn't have health care. My daughter did through the state, but I did not have health care. And Planned Parenthood is where I went when I needed to have my female examinations and just care in general. And I will say that it was a scary time. Because it's nobody's business what I'm going into a medical office to have done. But the assumption, the negative assumption is that you have to only be going in there to terminate a pregnancy. And so I think now what we see, and women across this nation are now saying, that's not something to take for granted because whether it's by choice or medical necessity, Right? Sometimes pregnancies need to be terminated. And people should be able to go and be safe. I have family members still living today that remember the back door, the back alley, pregnancy terminations that put women at risk and killed many. And so I just want to say thank you, first of all, for sharing and just being available because I needed you more than once in my life. And I appreciate that. And unfortunately, I'm going to just add this piece. If my current medical provider keeps playing tip or tat with the major medical provider here in this county, I might be coming back to you again.

Come on back. We'll be here for you. Thank you so much. And thank you for sharing your story.

Mr. Scott.

Thank you. Thanks for being here. I'm hopeful that what we're going to be able to do is find a way to come through in a pinch again. And I think that what you're talking about fits into the goals that we set out and the priorities is the board of commissioners. We talked about healthcare access specifically and healthcare access for women is still not equal by any stretch of the imagination. And this is one of the things that happens to try to make sure that we have that access and we can get to a place where I talk about reproductive justice and Planned Parenthood is the linchpin in that. It is no mistake that if people who want to end access of healthcare for women, And that's more than just about providing abortion services. Like that is one small piece of it. And trying to take the funding away does very specifically what they want to do when they can't do it through other avenues. And we are surrounded in Michigan by states who have restrictive abortion laws. There are women who travel probably here to this county from Indiana who have very restrictive abortion laws. Yes. Pennsylvania has restrictive abortion laws. Ohio is, you know, so-so, who knows, but they could be coming here too. So it's not like we're in this like area where women can get the care they need at home. They count on us. And as Washtenaw County, we're really one of the most accessible places for a woman to come. I don't only want to be able to continue being able to provide these services for people in the county, but also I really do want to respect that we are a respite for people coming from outside of this state as well. And I want that to continue to happen. I want somebody who's feeling desperate in Bloomington, Indiana to be like, I'm going to go stay with my friends in Ann Arbor and I'm going to get this figured out. I don't want to have that taken away. It's too important. So I'm glad that you're here to talk to us about it. I am hopeful that we will pick this up and figure out a way that we can be pinch hitters again. And I'll look forward to talking to my colleagues about that and to finance and seeing what we can do because this is too important to not act now.

Thank you so very much.

Thanks. I have comments, so does Commissioner Robby, Crystal Light. Commissioner Beeman, do you have your hand up? Commissioner Maciejewski. We'll start at the far end of the podium and work backwards. Commissioner Light.

Thank you all for coming to present. I myself have utilized services back 20 years ago. And, you know, some thereafter. But I recall, you know, I cheered and danced and I had some friends like, hey, if you don't want to have to be dealing with the period while we got competition, we're going to go to Planned Parenthood. They're going to help. And so it saved my whole cheer and dance career. It made it all better. I even left out with a scholarship. Yeah. very important role in my life. And we are going to make sure that we can continue with all of the, the Rick and Moreau going on federally. It's not going to stop what we need to do here locally. And so we just appreciate you and we will continue to press towards the market, make sure that we can do what we need. to make sure the services are still going because there are still those that utilize the services. And it is a safety net for younger girls who are not comfortable when they go to their pediatrician to have to explain what that need is. I don't know what it is in us that makes us feel like that. But when we go to Planned Parenthood, we feel as if It's that safety net and we can be free and say what it is that we need. I know I did. I felt it myself. So we appreciate you. I appreciate you deeply. So thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for sharing that story. And you know what it is? It's because we provide nonjudgmental care. So thank you.

Move to Commissioner Maciejewski.

Thank you, Chair. I simply want to say thank you for being here tonight and for the health care services that you provide, not only in our county, but to others as well. I very much appreciate your work and the impact that you have in our community. So thank you for being here. We look forward to supporting your work going forward.

Thank you. We truly appreciate it.

Go to Commissioner Beeman.

Thank you, Chair. Also wanna thank you for being here. As a woman who has given birth and also lost babies, I can attest to how much care is needed. And those at this table know the story. Some people online do too. But when I was, I live in a very rural area. When I was pregnant with my daughter, drove to our rural hospital where I was told They couldn't help me. There was no obstetrician there in the ER and that I would have to be transferred to another hospital if anything was actually wrong. And being a young first time, you know, wanting this baby so badly, it was terrifying. And so taking away a trusted partner, making a woman in a point in her life where she is vulnerable, scared, trying to make whatever decision is right for her body, for her family, for her future is beyond deplorable. And so I'm really sorry that we're here again. I was on the board in 2019 when we had to step in that first time. And as my colleagues have said, we want to be able to help as well. So appreciate all that you do for our community and for those who need your support.

Thank you, and thank you so much for sharing your story.

Move to Commissioner Robby.

Thank you, Chair. I want to start by thanking both of you for the great presentation and to everybody who attended today and wore your Planned Parenthood pink in solidarity. It's awesome to see all of you here supporting such an awesome organization. I'm sure that there's also folks tuning in or that will watch this meeting later as well that are supportive of your work. efforts in your testimony here today. I want to kind of zoom out a little bit. Obviously your organization has been longtime advocates, you know, in not just our community, but our state for your patients and for women and family health generally. But in my experience, Planned Parenthood has also been, you know, such an important organization because of your championing of issues statewide and at the federal level around protecting access to abortion and other life-saving care and treatment. And your advocacy as an organization towards that end has been absolutely recognized and invaluable to me. And I just, for my own... you know, family. I don't necessarily want to go into specifics or details here, but access to abortion is critical. And making sure that that is something that is not impeded based on somebody's income is a matter of life and death for many families. And again, from, you know, I was obviously a strong advocate for Planned Parenthood in the legislature and as a county commissioner, but now that I actually have a kid and me and my wife went through the process of, um, you know, having, having a child and the many complications that can occur as a result of that, having access to, um, medicated abortion and, you know, mechanical abortion is absolutely, uh, critical and lifesaving and, um, i'll just say i don't i don't know that we would have uh the beautiful baby that we do now if we didn't have access to those services so it is absolutely critical i wanted to say too um when i started as a county commissioner 2011 i was 22 years old, I didn't really know what to expect. And when I first popped open my email, one of the first things that I remember was an absolute deluge of hate mail of people saying that I was, a murderer and all kinds of different terrible things. And I didn't really understand where this was coming from until I started digging a little bit. And it turns out that in the early 2010s, when I started on the commission, Washtenaw County had a annual allocation to Planned Parenthood. And so every year in our budget, as part of our budget process, we allocated money to Planned Parenthood to support the work that Planned Parenthood does in our community and to support health care for our community members. I believe the year that I started, we were allocating somewhere in the range of $50,000 to $75,000 a year. And I remember every time the budget came up, 2011, 2012, 2013, we allocated dollars to Planned Parenthood throughout that period of time. And at our board meetings, People showed up to, we didn't have very many people from Planned Parenthood show up, but we had a lot of people not from Planned Parenthood show up with a lot of very terrible things to say and terrible comments to make afterwards. Our inboxes were flooded with letters for people that wanted us to defund Planned Parenthood here locally. I think the atmosphere has changed a little bit in the last 16 to 20 years, but in Washtenaw County. But I also think that in many ways it hasn't changed. And I think that we as a community are still facing many of those same headwinds. But I just remember that experience because it is something that Washtenaw County used to do. And it's something that showed me sort of the firsthand account of what opposition you guys are up against. and I'm proud to have voted for and supported funding for Planned Parenthood every year that it was up in our budget. And I was just asking the administrator, you know, when we stopped doing the annual allocation, I didn't actually realize that it had stopped. It must've happened sometime after I left the board. I know that, like you said, there was that $100,000 one time, but I know that the County used to give annually in the budget. I believe that at one point it was transferred to coordinated funding. It was done directly from the County budget to Planned Parenthood and then we transferred it to coordinated funding and you guys got funded through coordinated funding. And then when coordinated funding fell apart, maybe your funding fell apart, I don't know. But I really think that we need to come back to this, not just a one-time allocation, but coming back to a structural allocation for Planned Parenthood so that it is built into our budget every year that we are allocating money. Maybe it's not $100,000, maybe it is, but something just on an annual basis to make sure that I know, you know, it's like when you're out in the community knocking doors, asking for donations, you ask people to give monthly rather than give one time because there's, you can plan for that, you know? And so building in some sustainability into the budget so that we do have a more frequent allocation for you, I think would be a good idea. And I've just chatted with the administrator. Hopefully, you know, there can be a movement towards that end here at this table, because again, I don't know why we moved away from it, but. I think we should move back to it. Now is the time to be doing that. So I will definitely be supporting and encouraging that. Obviously, during my time in the legislature, I worked with all of you and we went through some very interesting times with full Republican trifecta control and some of the many terrible bills that they put forward, not just trying to limit access to abortion, but also sensationalizing abortion care and putting forward legislation that may seem good to the average person, but was sort of cloaked in this guise of their pro-life talking points. and really, you know, bill after bill after bill that we had to deal with. And you guys just being on the front lines and the trenches of explaining to legislators, even some Democrats, unfortunately, that I served with, that needed to get convinced, basically, that a lot of these bills weren't great. Your organization has always stood firm on those issues, even when the going has been tough, and you've been in these types of dire straits before. You've experienced these types of attacks from the federal, the state, and even from the local community. And my point of saying all this is that you are a resilient organization. You're a resilient organization because of your mass of volunteers and supporters and donors out there. And because you have communities like ours that hopefully will have your back and help to get you through this terrible time. And like you said, we can't run an organization on hope, but we can run an organization hopefully on solidarity and allyship and working together to make sure that you're not alone and that we're all working together as a community to make sure that we can not only get you through this terrible time, this dark time, but even on the other end, we make sure that your organization isn't just surviving, but thriving to serve our community.

Absolutely. Thank you so much.

you know, want to add to the course there. I appreciate that Commissioner Robby mentioned the past annual allocation. That would also be a useful thing just in terms of organizing part of the value of having it as an annual item is that you get a chance to highlight that we support it. You get a chance to highlight the importance. I just wanted to thank you for two quick things. One, Planned Parenthood has consistently warned this country about what happens when you don't protect rights that you've earned and that everybody should have access to. And I know you don't feel good about being right about that in hindsight, but I wish we had listened. I wish more folks had listened. And I'd say the states in the South in particular, federalism is a hell of a drug. And if you don't have... rights at the federal level to support you, it'll kill you just as quickly at the state level. Second, you have up on your website actively promoting that you take people regardless of immigration status. And I wanna say how much that means right now, that safety net in all sorts of funding, in all sorts of services is under attack and duress, but perhaps no more than our immigrant community. And you guys are an absolute, salvation there in terms of those services. And so I think you've probably noted majority support, perhaps unanimous support here in terms of trying to do something, but I would just lean into saying Planned Parenthood is also a key component in our healthcare system in terms of holistic community needs, And that should not be forgotten because you do not forget to have the backs of people wherever they may be in this community. And that's a really valuable service and sadly something that is much more needed right now. So I did see, so you have my support and I'm hoping we can either fill it in a pinch or recalibrate the annual support. I saw Commissioner Scott's hand go back up. Wanted to go back to her.

I was gonna, thank you, Chair. I was gonna say when Commissioner Robbie was talking about getting the mail, when we approved the one-time tranche, I think it started, I was asking Commissioner Beeman, I think we started with 100,000, moved to 300,000. I happened to be the Ways and Means. We used to have a Ways and Means committee then. And I was the Ways and Means chair. And that story got picked up by some pro-life groups across. We had some very interesting comments in the room also. And then that story got picked up by a pro-life newsletter that went across the country and man did i get some fun mail because i was the only one quoted because i was the ways and means chair um i even got a letter once that was like magazine letters like no yes um and once i got a tract on how like a tracked on how an American can get to heaven. Not any person, but an American. And key to it was don't support places that provide abortions to women. Listen, bring it. Send me all the mail you want. I don't really care because I know that providing health care for women or for anyone who comes to Planned Parenthood is what I want to do. Like, I can't be more passionate about this. I didn't have the experience of getting health care Planned Parenthood right before the pandemic. I trained as an escort.

Did you? Oh, my gosh.

Thank you. Thank you. I feel like now I need to come back and like retrain and do it again. Yeah. And then there was a fundraiser that I was going to go to. They got shut down, but we like drove through the circle to get our prizes. And in the bag, I still have, there were two plastic cups and they say, don't, F with Planned Parenthood. Don't F with us and don't F without us. My child was with me in the car and it, it spelled out the word F by the way. My child was in the car and he was so excited to be looking in the goodie bag. And then he, he looked at that and like, and then his response was what the F? So And I feel like I have to hide those glasses now because he wants like these things now because this is also how he has been raised to recognize the importance of this for children. So one way or another, we're going to try to figure out how to do this and get there because it's too important not to.

Thank you so much. Thank you all so much.

Yeah. Last comments from commissioners. Great. Thank you for being with us tonight for your information. And we will be back in touch with next steps for how we go forward.

Thank you very much. Have a good evening.

Move then to item B under number five, which is our broadband update. Chris share with the Washtenaw County broadband project. is here. Mr. Chair, thank you for being with us. Thank you for accommodating our schedule and turn it over to you to go through the presentation. And I guess if you'd prefer, we can hold questions till the end or as you go, whichever your preference is.

Well, if you have a question, I... Don't be afraid to interrupt. I like doing things interactively. I've only got a few slides, a few points to make, but by all means, think of something, let me know. Okay. It was about 15 months ago I stood here, and I put this map up on the wall. This is where we were at the time. You can see in that map, I don't, hopefully you guys can see better on the screen than that, the lighting is not real good. I brought this just to see if I could point anything out. It does work a little bit, but not very well. Yeah, that one's red, isn't it? Is there one that actually works like a mouse on the screen?

No, no, no.

Yeah.

The red one.

Right. The red works less well than the green one. But anyway, so we'll just talk about it. I'll describe it a little bit. You can see on this map here and on your screens all of the hatched areas. You got yellow hatch. You got red hatch. You got purple hatch. You got blue hatch up at the top there. That's where we were. This is where we're at today. Notice all that is solid. The goal for this project was to make every one of those parcels a solid color. That means they have access to broadband internet, high speed, most of it's fiber. In addition to that map, I kind of set the goals that we had for the ARPA fund, which is the funding that the county provided for the work that we were doing. We had about 2,700 homes we were trying to get to. We had another fund called RDOF, the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, which was already awarded, had about 4,600 homes on it with a whole lot of gaps. I mean, the two work together amazingly because the way RDOF was set up through the FCC, They did one block, the next block they left off. They did another block, they'd leave a house off of that one. It was just, it was really kind of strange. So the ARPA plan was to go in, and that's why we call it the Gap Filling Project, because there were thousands of gaps. CMIC is Connecting Michigan Communities. That was an earlier program that was still being worked on, mostly by Comcast. So we had a total of 7,720 locations that we were trying to get to. Today, we're at 7,152, which means we've got 568 remaining. Now, we're really a lot further along than that sounds, but here's the reason we're still looking at 568 to go, and that's mercury broadband. I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with mercury broadband, but they are one of the early RDOF... Yes, Shannon. They're one of the early RDOF recipients, and they got a lot of money in the state of Michigan, and they were a very little company. In fact, at one point, they were claiming through their wireless technologies they could serve over 600,000 homes in the state of Michigan, and they only had 10,000 paying subscribers. I mean, that math just never worked well. They moved along. They tried to make things work. And you can see, basically, we've got Bridgewater Township at the bottom. We got York Township at the bottom and Dexter Township, all with that purple hatch in it. They finally ended up defaulting on their RDOF commitment toward the end of 2024. So we actually knew that the last time I stood up here, but things were still getting sorted out. Today, That default, we had to find ways to start to address all of it in York Township and Dexter Township. They did not default in Bridgewater. They wanted to continue to build Bridgewater. And so I'm going to hit each one of these individually. This is what it looks like today. And for the folks back here, you can't really see part of Dexter Township and part of York Township has been completed. If we found other ways, we got creative with what we were doing with the ARPA program. Bridgewater still hasn't been touched. It has not progressed any at all. So I'm going to show each one individually. Dexter Township, we had about 118 locations that they defaulted on, mostly in the center and down in the southwest corner. Today, that's what it looks like. That's all that's left in Dexter Township. That's 20 locations. because we had things going on and amazingly, Commissioner Moshefsky, the Waterloo thing aided this. We had charter building, charter communications building in that area. MEC was also building in that area. And the way these programs worked in some of these areas, they set up one fund on one side of the road and another fund on the other side of the road. when the way cable and fiber works, if you're going down the road, you can get both sides of the road. So we had funded people on one side of the road, and they were simply just able to cross the road where these other companies defaulted. So we took care of 98 locations, just more or less by default. Head down to York Township, not quite as... good a story, but we got 188 locations that defaulted. And today we've managed to get 42 others completed pretty much the same way. And in this case, it was Comcast. They were working in the areas and we were able to get them to extend where it made sense for them without actually spending any more money. Take this route instead of that route and pick up these people along the way. And they worked with us and did it. So That's where we're at with that. This is Bridgewater Township, and this is the biggest source spot that we've got in the county still. They have completed 246 locations. Those were completed before I was here the last time. Then they stopped working. There's still 416 locations in Bridgewater Township that is pending. That number was larger, but MEC has been able to pick up stuff down in the lower left corner there. You see some yellow inside the Bridgewater boundary. MEC, again, is one of those road crossing things. They were on the other side of the road. They went ahead and filled it in. So we got that down a little bit. So that's the biggest share of our pending locations. 582 locations are left. If we add that back in, you can see now that the total should be 7,734 locations. knowing that we still have a commitment of funding, a commitment with mercury broadband to finish up what they're supposed to do. When I looked at this number, I noticed that's 14 more than what our target was. And I got to thinking about it just before I left for this, I said, that didn't seem right because I know we've even added more to it. We've done some, reallocating of some of the funding. When we had some issues with washing off fiber properties, we were able to pick up even more homes. Dave and Renee flew back. And I went back and looked at it. And guess what? This one doesn't have it on it. That's the problem with giving the PDF. There's one more line item there. There's another 67 we've added to it. So in total, we've added about 80 locations to what our original budget was just by careful management, doing a little creativity. And there are 67 RDOF locations committed to by MEC that are going to be built in Augusta Township this summer. In fact, they're getting ready to start building in the next week or two. So we've done really well. We've added about 80 locations to the overall project and everything that as far as ARPA goes and ARPA for Comcast, Charter and MEC has been completed. We're just working on reconciling it back to the drawings, making sure that we did make sure everybody got connected. We've got a couple of stragglers out there that we're trying to work through easement issues, trying to get right of ways to get to them. Comcast has 10 locations that they're trying to wrap up, that they're trying to get agreement letters for folks that live kind of far off the road. They need permission to build a cable up into the property, like an easement or a right of way. And Some people are being a little reluctant. They're not really sure that they even want it, but we do have it at the road. So down in the future, if they do decide to change their mind, they can work directly with Comcast and have it brought up into their yard, the four or 500 feet or whatever it is that it takes. Which leaves us with the next big funding program. I don't know how many people are familiar with B, that's broadband equity and access deployment. This is the $1.5 billion program that Michigan is supposed to be receiving to make sure everything left in the state is done. Washtenaw shouldn't have to use too much of that, if any at all, because we started this because of the foresight of the board, the foresight of some community members, Barb Fuller is the driving force. Commissioner Moshevsky, Commissioner Beeman, they were part of the whole thing. Getting all this set up early on, getting ahead of the curve and getting all this done. We are 500 and some locations from being the first county in the state of Michigan to be able to say we are 100%. That is a huge achievement. There's not another county in the state that can say that. Even Wayne or Oakland County cannot say that yet. So anyway, beat is coming. This map here, you see a lot of red circles, a lot of green circles. You'll notice down the eastern side of the county, Superior Township, Salem Township, Ypsilanti Township, over into Pittsfield Township, you see a lot of green circles. Those are locations that my high office, the FCC, the NTIA have said still need service. I don't know that that's accurate or not because they haven't done a real good job of identifying any place else. If you look around all the red circles, this is where they've also said that there's still service requirements there. There are not. That's why they're red. I've been going back out and double checking and triple checking areas. None of that area needs to be funded. None of those red circles need to be funded. But at this point, the tentative fund still has it awarded to a few different ISPs. I don't know when it's finally going to get awarded. It's now been delayed six times. The new administration doesn't just pick on Planned Parenthood. They pick on broadband programs too. They decided that they wanted to redo it, and they stopped the program last April. And it's just been up in the air ever since. Any day it could launch, it could be delayed again. We're not sure. It could even be canceled. But at this point, I monitor it constantly. This particular map, you'll see just a couple of anomalies I'll point out. Up in Webster Township, which is the township in the center of the top row, the blue that's got all the red circles in it, we've gone through that three times to make sure that they've got everything. It's very rural, a lot of, wooded area, a lot of curvy roads, people way back in the woods. Charter has had that serviced almost completely for over 30 years. But they have not been able to get those maps straight. We've got them straight. We know where it's at. But all of that red there, if B does end up getting awarded to the company that's currently got the tentative award, They're going to go in and have to rebuild that entire township, and there's going to be a competing service in there. Charter doesn't like it, but Charter can't seem to do anything about it either. So some of this, we'll just let it go and let them go ahead and do it. AT&T, interestingly, has some 400 locations inside the city limits of Ann Arbor that they claim are unserved. The neighborhood across the street from Schembechler Hall, where all the tennis shoes are hanging on the wires, also have no broadband, according to the My High Office and NTIA. So AT&T's got funding to go in and build broadband. There's an apartment complex up in the northern part of the city that's supposed to be entirely unserviced. I went by there Saturday, last Saturday, and just talked to the management. I said, how's your broadband? Oh, it's great. We've got Xfinity. Everybody, you know, they do self-installs and all that. But it's still on the list to potentially get served. So when you hear that Bede wants to award to 1,566 locations in this county, that's probably 90% wrong. So just so you know, we're going to continue to work through it. I'm going to continue to go out and make sure that we've got all our T's crossed, our I's dotted. And we will use bead for some of those stragglers that are way back in the woods. Bead is also what's been allocated to take care of any of the defaulted areas by mercury. You'll see a lot of... the green circles in Newark Township and even some left up in Dexter Township. Within the next few months, if we can get the bead funding awarded, if they can finally get those contracts signed, we'll know in a few months exactly where every single house that is left is located and what we need to do, if anything, to get it done. Hopefully, because there is so much bead money allocated for the county, I'm hoping to be able to sit down with my high office once we know it, saying, we don't need you to spend money up there, but these guys are down here. Move it over there and give it to the same ISP. I've gotten a tentative nod that, yeah, we might be able to do that. It's not within their rules right now, but I've never been one to follow rules too much when it comes to this. We're out there to get it done, and we're going to get it done any way we can. Nobody interrupted with questions.

We'll go to Commissioner Sanders. Thank you.

I'm open for questions now. So you're kind of after the fact in terms of not... I don't think you were there originally when we were going through the broadband creation. But my question is, so what happens to a company that defaults? Did we not have any... anything built in to contracts with them? Yes.

This particular one, and by the way, I've been working on broadband issues in Washtenaw County since about 2001. Okay. I've been here for the whole thing. Okay. Some of it in the back office.

But yeah, I just want to know, I want the residents to know, like, what happens when a company defaults? We've contracted with you. You didn't do what you were supposed to do.

The FCC is the agency that handled the defaults. Ardoff, it was a reverse auction that they did. What they did was they said, we got these areas, how much do you want from us and how much will you contribute? And Mercury got really aggressive and they literally said, we can do it for 10 cents on the dollar. We're gonna do all this. They got a lot of venture capital and they got a lot of backing When they defaulted, they had already spent over $250 million on what they were trying to build in Michigan and three other states. When they defaulted, they had already collected a lot of money through the FCC because it was a monthly payment that was given to them for these areas that were allocated. The FCC has since, after it was defaulted, they had to go through and review it and they assess fines. The fines have been determined by the FCC, but they're still in litigation. Long story short, this could get drawn out still for a few more years. Mercury should be paying fines. If they can get that out of the way, they can continue to operate as an ISP, although they were not allowed to pursue any of the BEAD funding, which at one point it was thought that they were going to be able to do that after they defaulted on all of the RDOC funding.

So, okay, so they defaulted. They could literally file bankruptcy and finish screwing the rest of the taxpayers.

Perhaps, yes. It's... I don't know what their thinking is. I do. I do.

The venture capitalists got their money.

Well, they didn't. They took over the company. It's a Canadian firm that was backing them up. The management that some of us met with years ago because they were coming into the county wanting to talk about wireless systems, especially down around Manchester and Bridgewater. Shannon, you may remember when they were in. Those guys are all gone. It's now being run by a venture capital company and they're sounding like they're still trying to give it a go. But if you ask me, I think Bridgewater still may end up being defaulted on before they're done because they haven't touched it in almost two years.

And what would that cost look like? So in order for Bridgewater to be made, brought up in equity to all of the other areas that have received it, what would that look like? So if they defaulted in that section of our county, what would that look like?

Bridgewater has about 400 locations not built. We would probably take $2 to $3 million to get an ISP to go in and build it. Thank you about $5,000 give or take a per home past is what the the rates seem to be going right now and that's what the beat funding is averaging as far as what they're planning on funding companies for. Thank you.

Go to commissioner beam.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chris. I so appreciate this update. I so appreciate all the work that you've done. We are only here because of what you have done. I know you have driven every road in this county, and you can point to where the broadband's running.

I can give the UPS driver directions.

You really can. You can. You have been to homes. You have supported so many people. And we would not be here without you. We are so thankful for you. The one piece that I want to lift up on the RDOF is that it's a federal grant. So this was not the Washtenaw County ARPA patchwork that we were putting in. This was a federal grant that was awarded first. Our Congresswoman, Debbie Dingell, has been like a dog on a bone with this, trying to get them through. Um, the company actually refused to return her call. Um, we will see how that proceeds. Um, but what I also want to layer on top of this is I know how frustrated my constituents are in Bridgewater County, excuse me, Bridgewater Township, Washtenaw County. Um, The reason we're in this place that's stuck is that we cannot get dollars on top of dollars. We have a grant for that area that is to cover that entire area, basically corner to corner of Bridgewater. Until the company defaults, we cannot seek other funding. So we are stuck. We are stuck with a company that's not moving forward. We're stuck that we can't seek additional dollars because dollars are there. So, um, I'm just so thankful for Chris and all the work that you've done and pushing and, and, and moving as much as you can. And, you know, like you said, I mean, he's telling people go across the street, you know, you're running the cable here, just giving it up this driveway over there. And it's amazing. And I just, I want to thank you. And I know that you're going to continue to do the work and we, we will get there. We will be the first county.

Yeah. I won't stop until it's done.

Okay.

Any other questions? Commissioner Maciejewski. Thank you, chair. Chris, thank you again for the update. Um, it's, it's pretty amazing to see this completed, uh, nearly completed. And at the, really the areas that aren't completed at this point are really not our fault. They're, they're outside of our control, right? So, um, the Dexter township situation is its own unique thing. Um, and hopefully that will be done in the very near future. Um, but thank you for all the work again. Marshall Road, all the little roads, the one-offs.

Marshall Road's on.

Yeah, Marshall Road.

Marshall Road. I think every person has come up to this lectern and said, where's my broadband? They've all been taken care of.

Yeah.

Shouldn't expect anybody else.

It's quite an amazing accomplishment. And to think back, when we started this process and built off the work of that original broadband committee now, I think back to all those stories that I was hearing from people in my district, that those kids can now take the accelerated classes online. They can do their homework at home. People can do video visits for their healthcare. People can apply for jobs online. People can get the benefits that they are entitled to online. things that so many of us just take for granted that thousands of people in our county did not even have access to. It's quite an achievement. And I thank you again for all the work that you put in and the miles that you've logged in Washtenaw County doing this one house here, one house there, places that I didn't even know existed. So thank you again very much and look forward to getting down to zero, hopefully in the very near future.

Yes.

Thank you, chair.

Move back to a commissioner.

Apologies. Just one more. Um, I, I forgot to mention this energy of what's in the room right now. So we have broadband access and one of the biggest pieces for me for broadband access is what commissioner Macheski lifted up, which is opportunity and access. We just heard from planned parenthood, how many online sessions there are right now in Bridgewater township. That's not possible. And that sounds really sad to be 30 minutes from downtown Ann Arbor and not be able to access healthcare online, college online, job opportunities online, Zoom interviews, whatever it happens to be. So again, thank you so much. I'm so excited for the day when it's done and I know it will be not soon enough, but soon. So thank you.

Any other questions or comments at this time? Mr. Chair, thank you so much. We appreciate your time.

If I may, just two other points real quick. One, we have reached out through social media asking all residents if there's anybody that they know or somebody that thinks that they're still not being served outside of Bridgewater to please reach out to me and let me know. And I guess that was the most important one because I forgot the second point, but thank you so much.

Sure. Thank you. Moving now to number six, any items for current or future discussion? Before we adjourn, Chair, we'll plan, start right at seven then? All right. I'd entertain a motion to adjourn. Is there support? Okay, moved and supported. All those in favor, say aye. We are adjourned.

Welcome to the May 20, Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners meeting. The first thing we do at this meeting is rise from the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Brendan, could you call the roll for us, please?

Commissioner Beeman.

Present.

Commissioner Hodge. Here. Commissioner LaBar. Here. Commissioner Light. Commissioner Maciejewski. Here. Commissioner Robby. Commissioner Sanders.

Present.

Commissioner Scott.

Here.

Commissioner Somerville.

Here. Great. Thank you very much. At this point in the meeting is a time for public participation. So we'd invite you to come forward if you want to participate to make comments at the podium. You'll have three minutes. There's a series of lights that gives you clues about where you are. Green means go. Yellow means wrap it up. Red means I will stop you. And I do it in order to be fair. Please, when I tell you your time is up, to respect that would be fantastic. When you come, tell us your name and the city or township in which you reside. You don't have to give us a number address. Just a city or township is great. And welcome to the meeting.

Good evening.

My name is Joanne McCollum. I live in Ypsilanti Township, and I am a Washtenaw County Road Commission board member. This year makes my sixth year that I've been on the board. I'm coming to you today to request the raise of stipend for the Washtenaw County Road Commission board. The last raise the board received was in 2003. That's 23 years ago. Our present stipend is $10,500 a year. For over two decades, these last two decades, the scope, legal landscape, and community expectations of this body have grown significantly. Yet the compensation structure has remained stagnant. The stipend 23 years ago of 10,500 is equivalent to roughly 20,000 today when adjusted for modern economic realities. The structural achievements that we have made are critical policy modernization to successful constituent crisis management, demonstrate a highly active, responsive and effective board, Acknowledging these realities with a modernized compensation adjustment is an essential step toward restoring financial equity and reflecting the true value delivered to our constituents. With that in mind, the supporting commissioners are formally requesting that the stipend be adjusted to a range between $10,500 and $20,000 per commissioner. These funds come from the Michigan Transportation Fund. And lastly, I like to suggest that there is a routine protocol put in place for review of increased stipends for the Washtenaw County Road Commission Board, which would prevent another 23-year lapse of increase in stipends. Thank you for listening.

Thank you.

Hey there. My name is Jen Blaharski. I am a resident of Northville Township and a property owner and taxpayer in Salem Township, Washtenaw County. We put an offer to purchase the property across the street in mid-November, and we didn't close on that property until the end of March. A major reason that it took us over four months to purchase an uninhabitable house was because by crossing the street, we entered Washtenaw County. and we had to go through the county's time of sale program, which requires the residential onsite well and septic systems be inspected by a county certified inspector before the home can be sold. Our inspectors, unsurprisingly, found issues with both the well and septic systems. So we, along with the seller, we had some options. One, we could provide a detailed corrective action plan, which included dates and permits. Two, we could fix the issues and then get the systems reinspected. Or three, we could create an escrow account that covered one and a half times the cost of the repairs for those systems. We chose to fix the issues. And it was annoying to have to undergo that extra effort to remedy these systems before we could close on the property. And after learning more about the TOS program, it makes sense, right? The county had identified that nearly half the septic systems in the county have reached their service life expectancy and studies were showing that drinking water quality and availability was decreasing within the county as well. So ultimately this program was put in place to protect the health of the communities. What was more distressing to me about this process is knowing that I had to go through all of these steps to make sure that one house was safe. And that house needs so much other work that it's unlikely to even be lived in for at least the next year. Meanwhile, Arbor Hills landfill continues to be a significant source of PFAS contamination into Johnson's Creek, which feeds the Rouge River and impacts all of Southeast Michigan. Their response when we bring up the PFAS issue is that it was a result of a fire before they owned it, so therefore they can't be blamed for it. If I had to know what I was buying and have concrete, actionable, and funded plans before I could buy that property, then why are the same standards not being applied for a corporation that made an estimated $1.2 billion in the first quarter of this year alone? And what's perhaps most disheartening for me is listening to members of this board dismiss the inaction of GFL by saying things like they're trying their best. Five and a half years of ownership with only continued contamination, multiple lawsuits, and even more environmental violations should not be anyone's standard for the best. So if GFL wants to expand, then I ask you to make them prove that they're operating a facility that is safe. And if they aren't, which the data shows they aren't, then at minimum, make them fix the issues before they get to move across the street just like I did. Thanks for the time.

Hello. My name is Lina Abu-Dohad. I'm an early childhood educator with MSU Extension. Since the termination of SNAP-Ed funding last year, I've been working with a small team to make nutrition and physical activity resources more widely accessible to support the sustainability of past efforts and the development of new initiatives. My work has focused on two main projects that impact Washtenaw County. The first is the development of the Community Change Hub, which is a self-guided standalone virtual tool designed to support change champions in a variety of change settings. with a framework and extensive resources to implement and sustain systems level change. This is just being launched as of today. So hopefully more to come on that. The second project actually began in Washtenaw County in partnership with the Great Start to Quality Southeast Resource Center. The resource center has a lending library of teaching, professional development, and parenting resources that caretakers of any type can check out whether or not they're a great start to quality. MSU Extension designed 10 kits, 5 for nutrition, 5 for physical activity, based on evidence-based best practices for children between the ages 2 and 5. Each kit includes hands-on materials and resource binders that cover month-long lesson guidance for teachers, weekly communication for families, and guidance on how providers can take their efforts to the next level with other types of health-related best practices. After the pilot in Washtenaw County for these, the partnership has expanded, and MSU Extension is now working with five out of the 10 resource centers across Michigan, which now covers approximately half the counties. Not only that, but the resource centers have mentioned wanting to expand the model that MSU Extension developed these kits to improve their other kits on topics such as literacy, social-emotional health, safety, and more. Now, these are all in the beginning stages, and I was thinking that I would not be able to share a personal impact story. However, I was giving a presentation to a group of Head Start providers and parents. And at the end of the session, a family actually shared a resource that they had found very beneficial, not only for their toddler, but also for their middle school-aged child. And I was incredibly pleased to recognize that resource, all five versions of it, and that it had come from one of the kits that had been checked out by a provider during the pilot stages and shared with the family. So from this, you can already see the impact at the individual child level, the family level, community agencies, and hopefully growing across the whole state, with Washtenaw County having pioneered these efforts. So I wanted to thank the Board of Commissioners for their continued support. This work is meaningful, and it will continue to be meaningful. So thank you.

Thank you.

Hello. I'm Cortland Travis Bursey, your neighbor right here in Ann Arbor. And I am also known as the real Pickle Rick. Call me what you want. Crazy I'm not and guilty I'm not. Knock when you want to subject me to your gaslighting. Is that a hammer and a sickle I see on that road sign next to your building? Oh, so you really are communist because, well, fascists don't knock. And I guess the local police around here, like the Ann Arbor Police Department, I guess they must be communists since they did not, like must enforce community standards. But what does this have to do with Washington County administration? How about we talk about the Washington County Community Mental Health Association, what you call the CMH. I got plenty of names for it. Here's a fun one. Completely mendacious headquarters. that word too big for you yankees certainly is so i'm going to bring you up to a little incident which i can only describe as well i was going to call it absurd but bizarre is better since i'm dealing with communists and yes i'm in bizarre world so real quick may 8th once upon a time after complaining to the ann arbor housing commission about how i was treated on bow tower what do i find to ann arbor police now i'll get to the point where the county is involved So I went out there. I trolled them because freedom of speech is the law. And if I don't troll the police, they won't vote for me. It worked for our great president. Why not me? But for some reason, they took this as a reason to, well, use a PCO on me, protective custody order. Why? Two days ago, I threatened a crisis team member at the annex, but they were PCOing me on the 8th. That's strange I wasn't threatening the day before on the 7th when I filed for records because I'm real suspicious about how I'm a guilty criminal per what definition of character? Per legal triage? in the name of mental health. You know who else had a hard time getting health care because of the imposition of mental health treatment? This might surprise you, but they're called women. And that's why we have the word hysteria, people. That is definitely a lecture I gave to Officer Whitford in our police department on the 6th in front of the Dunbar building with another police officer and another crisis team member. Oh, is that when I was threatening? Hmm, I'm not sure you Yankees know how words work. There's a difference between the words threatening and informing. This is how I had to educate a certain House Representative Ben Klein, one of the infamous 147 to J6. There's a difference between threatening and insult, and quite frankly, if I threatened that S-U-S-O-B, he would have voted for me. Winning court argument. But while we're on the subject of court, you do realize your little communist medical hegemony violates the Michigan banner, the Star Spangled Banner. Oh, it even violates the Black Lives Matter banner. Why? Excited delirium. And that's why the Ypsilanti police almost disappeared me December 16, 2025. I was excited and delirious to them.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Jeff Mourning. I'm from Ypsilanti Township. I'm here tonight to speak of support for approving the Brown Field Plan for Ann Arbor South project. I'm a representative of, a business representative of IBEW, which is International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. We represent over a thousand people in Washtenaw and Jackson County. The IBEW Local 252 strongly supports this plan and the project. That project generates hundreds and thousands of man hours for working people in this area. It would be a big boost to our local. We're very invested in our workers. We have fair wages, we have employee paid healthcare, employee paid retirement. This job would mean a lot for our local. It's a redevelopment of that side of town. It would be great to be a part of in this area. So thank you for your support and thank you for your service. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Nicole Edelman. I'm the executive director of the Shelter Association of Washtenaw County and a resident of Ann Arbor. I'm here tonight to express my support for the 200 units of affordable housing that will be created as a result of the Ann Arbor South development in partnership with the Ann Arbor Housing Commission. If you think you've already made up your mind against this development, please don't stop listening. There is a wait list of 100 unhoused individual adults waiting for emergency shelter, but the Delano Center is full. There are 80 individual adults sleeping at the Delano Center every night. The average length of stay is more than three months, and for many, it is longer. The best way to decrease the length of stay in shelter is to have access to affordable housing. Our mission is to end homelessness one person at a time. This means to hopefully successfully exit those in shelter to affordable housing, but it has to be available. Now, these are just numbers to represent the concept of what this development alone could do. It's not how the process works. But the 200 units could, in theory, empty the Delano Center two times over. It could delete the waitlist two times over. But the flow of people needing housing will continue to grow, and it's about to increase significantly. The Delano Center is at capacity, especially in the winter. The only way to decrease people sleeping in storefronts, in tents, in their cars, and to get them out of shelter faster is to have more affordable housing. One of my favorite things are the emails I get from our case managers with the subject line housed. The success story of a client recently housed followed by me getting to sign a check for a security deposit. Most recently in the new Dunbar Towers and affordable housing development in downtown Ann Arbor, blocks from the Delano Center and blocks from my home. Yes, in my backyard. As Bob Gunzel taught me many years ago, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Not everyone loves everything about this development, but 200 units of affordable housing in partnership with the Ann Arbor Housing Commission are enough to make this development a must. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Kate Arbor, and I am a lifelong resident of Washtenaw County in good old Dexter, Michigan, and I proudly run not one, but three businesses located here in Ann Arbor, one on the west side, one on the south side, and one in downtown Ann Arbor. For me, I'm here to show the support for the Arbor South project. I have two reasons. One is a business reason. The more people who are living and working in the South side, the more likely my business is to continue to grow as are the businesses around me. Work opportunities for everyone who's living there because there will be additional businesses. The second reason, and this one is much more important to me, frankly, is on a personal level, how lucky are we to have citizens and lifelong members of this community who have grown up here, raised their children here, own businesses here, started business here, who want and have the enthusiasm and vision to improve a long-neglected and discarded area of our community. The South Side is Ann Arbor. I know people fear that it's going to be a new downtown, but how lucky would we be to be able to say all parts of Ann Arbor are successful and profitable and exciting places to be? Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Barbara Neesmay and I'm the CEO and president of Ypsilanti Meals on Wheels. First of all, I'd like to thank you all for your strong dedication and commitment to supporting older adults in the county and especially to the East side of 23. I want to put on the record that the majority of you have gone on ride alongs with me and have seen what the dollars are doing. Even somebody might have repeated an Irish verse in a very nice little accent one day, wearing her boots up to her knees and her down coat and a hat, but we're not naming names. But anyway, but seriously, for you to make the time to really understand what's happening on the front lines makes a difference. And today I'm just here to speak in support of the resolutions that are in front of you related to transportation, senior nutrition, and May being the older person's awareness month. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners.

My name is Glenda Wilkes. I serve as Vice President for the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education. I am joined by my colleague, Trustee Leslie Wilkins, and we are here to read a letter on behalf of the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education. The Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education submits this letter as a formal objection to certain aspects of the proposed Brownfield redevelopment plan for the Arbor South development. We ask that this letter be entered into the official record of tonight's proceedings and treat it as formal objection by a directly affected taxing jurisdiction. And I might add that you now have a copy of that letter. So feel free to look at it. And this is a condensed version because I only have three minutes. We are not here to oppose the development of this site. Responsible redevelopment of underutilized property is a legitimate public goal, and AAPS recognizes the value of new housing, affordable housing, commercial space, and economic activity in our community. Our objection is narrower and specific. The plan as currently structured would impose an estimated $38 million or more in direct uncompensated losses on the district and on students with disabilities throughout Washtenaw County without sufficient protections for the district. The plan's total projected school-related capture is approximately $161 million. We recognize that AAPS is operating mills and the state education tax are largely reimbursed to districts through state aid formulas, partially offsetting those losses at the district level. However, the AAPS voted sinking fund millage approximately $12.3 million and the WISD special education millage approximately 26.3 million are not reimbursed through any state aid mechanism. Together, these represent approximately 38.6 million in direct uncompensated revenue losses. Losses with no statutory remedy and no offsetting benefit to the district or to students with disabilities. These uncompensated losses are at the core of this objection. The district raises the following concerns about the plan. One, uncompensated loss of sinking fund revenue. Two, diversion of WISD special education revenue. The district formally objects to the plan as proposed and respectfully requests that the board condition any approval on the following protections. Exclusion of the sinking fund millage from capture, significant limitations on WISD special education millage capture, reduction of the capture period, a direct mitigation payment or community benefits agreement, preservation of MEDC MSF objection rights. In conclusion, the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education respectfully but firmly objects to certain aspects of the plan as currently proposed. Again, we are not here to oppose the development of the site. I'm sorry. AAPS recognizes the value of affordable housing for all. Thank you. Respectfully submitted, the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Mohammed Khalil. I'm a resident of Northville Township and I am a local business owner near the proposed Arbor South site. I'm here tonight to speak in support of the project. From my perspective, this is exactly the kind of redevelopment Ann Arbor should be encouraging. It takes 17 acres of surface parking and turns it into a real neighborhood with housing, local retail, public space, instead of land that is largely underused. I also want to highlight the affordable housing component. The project includes more than 200 permanently affordable apartments that will be owned and managed by the Ann Arbor Housing Commission. This is important because it creates long-term reliable housing for working households, not just short-term affordable targets. As a local business owner, one of my constant challenges is attracting and retaining good employees. Talented people want to work here, but housing costs and long commute are a real barrier for us. When employees can find an attainable housing near where they work in walkable mixed use areas, it improves quality of life and makes it more likely they will stay. Projects like this directly support local employers and the local workforce. On the financing side, I understand this project uses the tax increment financing. My understanding is that this does not raise existing property taxes and does not take money away from the current city services. It uses the new tax value created by the project itself to help support the infrastructure needed to make it happen. That seems like a reasonable performance-based approach. At a bigger picture level, I would much rather see housing, shops, and public spaces than make more parking lots. This project moves Ann Arbor in that direction. I encourage you to support this brownfield plan for Ann Arbor, for Arbor South, and I also thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Nick Sueno. I live in Pittsfield Township. I grew up here in Ann Arbor in the 1960s in the neighborhood they called Water Hill now. When I was a kid, they just called it home. When I was seven or eight, it was normal and safe for me and my friends to walk downtown completely on our own. We'd buy soda at Lucky Drugs, model rockets at Riders Hobby Shop, The walkability wasn't just a convenience, it shaped how we related to our city and to one another. For me and my friends, growing up near downtown Ann Arbor was a gift. Fast forward, I've run businesses here since 2006. My martial arts dojo, the Japanese Martial Arts Center, sits right across Boardwalk from the proposed Arbor South site. I'm deeply invested in this area and its people, both professionally and personally. Right now, the area around the Briarwood Mall and the 777 building is almost completely car-based. That works for a lot of activities, but it's not walkable. Not really. It's not easy to live where you work, to walk to dinner, to go for a stroll in the park, or to feel part of a neighborhood the way you used to in downtown Ann Arbor and on the Old West Side. Arbor South's a chance to change that. The project would transform, as you know, 17 acres of parking lot into a modern neighborhood, around a thousand homes, shops, restaurants, and public spaces where people can walk where they want to walk and have easy access to highways when they want to drive. This is exactly the kind of infill that we say we want. Dense, walkable, and built not on agricultural or forest land, but where infrastructure already exists. Housing mix should excite you as well. 200 affordable apartments, heating and cooling with geothermal, 800 fully electrified market-rate homes. That's sustainability and affordability working together. This project helps to solve a real problem, as the gentleman who came up here before me mentioned. People who work in Ann Arbor often can't afford to live here. ArborSouth will help teachers. service workers, healthcare workers, and young professionals thrive in the city that they serve while reducing sprawl and long commutes. So I think the real choice is simple. Do we keep a bunch of drastically underutilized parking lots or do we create a walkable, sustainable neighborhood that reflects Ann Arbor's most humane values? Arbor South is exactly the kind of development we should support. I urge you to say yes. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Eileen Peck. I'm a resident of Ypsilanti Township, and I'm also a Washtenaw Community College trustee. I urge you to vote no on the South Arbor Brownfield Redevelopment Plan. Washtenaw Community College is one of Washtenaw County's most reliable economic engine. For every $1 we receive in revenue, we return approximately $5 in economic value to Washtenaw County. Based on our 2026 budget, WCC will generate more than $700 million in economic value for Washtenaw County this year. Every dollar diverted from WCC is not simply a dollar lost. It is $5 of economic value that WCC can never return to Washtenaw County. The South Arbor Brownfield Redevelopment Plan would take away meaningful educational and economic benefits from every resident in the county. Tax captures come with painful trade-offs. This plan will extinguish nearly $100 million in economic value that WCC would otherwise have been able to generate. WCC is also a critical part of Washtenaw County's safety net. During economic downturns, enrollments surge as recent high school graduates, newly unemployed workers, and underemployed residents flood into our classrooms seeking education, retraining, and greater economic security. In the event of a recession, WCC would likely need to increase its instructional spending by $10 million or more per year to meet the needs of the community. A tax capture significantly limits our ability to respond when Washtenaw County residents need us most. Before voting, please ask yourself, will all residents of Washington County benefit from this project? Is it truly in the public interest to take 30 years of tax dollars away from a highly effective, highly affordable countywide educational institution to benefit a private developer? Can the South Arbor Brownfield Redevelopment Plan return the same or better economic value to every single resident of Washtenaw County like WCC does today? Please vote no on the South Arbor Brownfield Redevelopment Plan.

Hi, everyone. My name is Dave Zeglin, and I'm a resident in Ward 4 in Ann Arbor. I actually live just down the street from Arbor South, so it's very close by. And I'm also running for city council in Ann Arbor for Ward 4. And one of the reasons why I'm running for city council in Ward 4 is to oppose the exact kind of deal that Arbor South is. Just to be clear on what this deal is, this is a massive $350 million public bailout of a private company. Oxford really needs this deal to happen. It is over leveraged. It's in financial distress. Their office buildings and properties have not recovered from COVID. And they need this to happen very badly to increase the value of their own properties in the nearby area. If they can't make this deal happen without public funds, with public funds covering over 50% of the project costs, then I guess they can't build it. Somebody else can come in and build it, and they don't need a public bailout to do so. That's the game of capitalism that they signed up for. And in fact, Oxford knows very well this game because this is what they did to Red Hawk downtown. Oxford... Oxford did not offer financial leniency to Red Hawk, a beloved small business downtown that many of my students have worked at. They get paid a much higher than minimum wage rate there. It's an excellent place. And instead, Oxford took them to court for that payment. So Oxford helped kill a local business downtown, and now they want a government handout to build a new downtown. As for the affordable housing, $350 million for 200 units is pretty darn expensive. Why not $350 million for a co-op? I agree, we do need more density and we do need more public housing in this city. And this is not the way to go about it. And you all are acting like, you know, they can just build them. There's no promise that they're going to build them. They can pay $20 million to not build them in the first place. And my money is that they're going to realize that they don't have to do that. And they can recoup much more profit by not building in the first place. So do the math, 350 million out, 20 back. That's still an excellent deal for Oxford. So with the developer CEO and his wife donating thousands of dollars to city council members, you have to ask the question, qui bono, who is actually benefiting from this? Yeah, the phrase I keep hearing is that this public subsidy is necessary to make this work for developers. That's what I keep hearing. This is a benefit for developers, for developers. This is not for the public. So please, I'm asking you to not vote on this bailout. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Sheila Polkowski and I am from Webster Township and I am here today to talk about lake herbicides. I grew up on Independence Lake across from Independence Lake County Park and today they sprayed the lake with herbicide chemicals. My dad got a treatment notice that 14 chemicals were going to be sprayed in the lake. We didn't know which ones, but I looked up the safety data sheets on the chemicals, and it's quite disturbing when you read what they're putting in the lake. I contacted the president of a lake association, Tracy Danloff, and she is in charge of the chemicals, not the park. For 20 years, they've been putting the chemicals in the lake. And I am concerned that it is going to start contaminating our groundwater if it hasn't already. My dad's well is 20 feet away from the seawall. And most of the houses are old cabins that have very shallow wells. Now we have eagles hunting our lakes. We have all kinds of aquatic life. And when you read the safety data sheets, these are some of the bad things that it says. Hazardous waste if discarded. Avoid release into the environment. Toxic to all aquatic life with long lasting effects. Environmentally hazardous substance. Causes cancer. Toxic to birds, bees, fish, ducks, Some of these are actually listed as a pesticide. Today, my dad got a thing in the grass of the five chemicals that they use today, and this is only the first treatment of the summer, right before a holiday weekend. I can only imagine how many children will be swimming at the park this weekend. Now, I don't know why the people have got so lazy in the weeds, because I grew up on the lake since 1980. And we used to have a weed pulling party. And us kids would even be out there raking and pulling, because we didn't like to swim in the weeds. But now, everyone's too busy or too lazy, and they think chemicals are the answer. But chemicals are not the answer, because not only are they going to contaminate our groundwater, they're giving us cancer. And the cancer rate on the lake is ridiculous. Both my parents got cancer the same year a few years ago and my mom did not survive. Right now my dad has four neighbors that have cancer out of 10 neighbors. Multiple other people have died of cancer of our neighbors. Another problem with the lake chemicals is that the chemicals create the plants to break down, and years of decomposing plants cause a muck problem, and a muck problem then suffocates the lake and suffocates the fish.

Sheila, I'm sorry. I'll be back. I hope so. Thank you.

Thanks for listening.

Good evening, distinguished board. My name is Oscar Nutz. I live in the city of Ann Arbor, right down in Eisenhower, nearby Arbor South. I'm here tonight to express my strong support for the Arbor South development. As envisioned, this project brings together critical resources to address the city housing, affordable housing, and transportation challenges. Specifically, Ann Arbor South would deliver the removal of widespread surface parking lots replaced with dense, vibrant mixed use, which is work, leave, play, walking around the neighborhoods, enjoying the parks and what have you. Significant economic activity that supports job retention and creation. Utilize a TIF to capture new tax revenue generated by the development, not raising taxes within the community and mitigating financial risk to the city. Bringing approximately 1,000 much needed housing units during a time where the city is critically in a shortage. More than 200 housing units at 60% AMI operated by Ann Arbor Housing Commission. Improved walkability, a new bicycle infrastructure in the city that currently lacks sidewalks and ways to move around and walk around. Enhanced bus stops along South State Street and Eisenhower will be very needed. Publicly accessible parks and gathering spaces available, not only to South residents, but to the broader community. with all the projects come challenges. And we all understand that the benefit of Arbor South are clearly solution oriented, would meaningfully enhance the city of Ann Arbor. For these very reasons, I strongly encourage the board to vote in favor of Arbor South brownfield plan development. Thank you very much. Good evening.

good evening my name is dave divardi i'm a lifelong resident of ann arbor former city council member and a former 18-year member of the downtown development authority so i have hands-on experience with tax increment financing captures most of the people here that have spoken in favor of arbor south I agree with them on one point. It's not a bad project in and of itself. I'm here to speak against it because I want to speak against a $350 million public tax dollar subsidy to a private for-profit developer. In addition to that huge amount, totally outstripping all the other tax increment finance brownfields that the county has ever done, In addition to that huge total amount, I ask you to look critically at the disproportionate 60% share of the total project that the developer is asking from the public. Boy, I wish I was an investor in that project when the public is basically guaranteeing me a great rate of return. As an elected member of the community college board, I especially want to highlight the capture of $17 million from the community college. This loss of revenue compromises our ability to provide facilities and programs that benefit residents from every corner of the county, even the most economically distressed parts of the county. Among benefits that WCC provides are very low tuition rates for County residents, held at $99 a credit for the last five years. This year we're reducing the tuition rate to $99 for online classes for in County residents. Not a lot of places can say they're out there reducing costs to people. We're doing that. We need the resources to do it. We provide emeritus tuition for county residents throughout the county, residents over age 65, allowing them to take classes for zero tuition. We provide community education classes offered at community centers throughout the county, not just in Ann Arbor. I specifically want to highlight targeted support that we provide for Eastern Washtenaw County. Okay, got to speed it up. Currently we budget $330,000 a year for personnel and programs support at Park Ridge Center and Ellsworth Center, supplemented by additional partnerships that increase the, financial impact of those programs. As I look at the proposed Eastern Washtenaw County Community Center, I want us to expand programming there. We need the resources to do it. Don't cut us off.

Dave. Oh, thanks. Thank you.

And I just want to pass this around to the commissioners. Thank you. It's what we do at Park Ridge Center and Ellsworth Center.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Brian Kung. I was born and raised in Ann Arbor and grew up in Saline. I currently reside in Ipsy. I would like to start by thanking the seven members who voted to approve the Arbor South development last time we were here about a month ago. Last time I was here was with my mom. And we had to rush out of here right after I spoke because my dad was in the ICU. I only bring that up just because I just wanted to share how important this project is to myself and my family. We're back here again today in support of the project. This project will add much needed housing and generate tax revenue on land that is underutilized and undervalued. Ann Arbor faces a cascade of problems, all partially or directly stemming from a lack of housing, whether affordable or expensive, that this project will help resolve. There's excessive homelessness because housing is too expensive. So there's just simply not enough living space. University of Michigan, which I love as an institution, is buying up a lot of properties and building pretty much whatever they want, generating zero tax revenue for the city. I see a lot of high rises being built around downtown as well, mostly developers located outside of the state much of the money generated by the residents being moved outside of the state. voters and celine rejected a construction of a data Center that is somehow still being built me moving forward with development. it's well documented that these data centers use up a lot of our energy and destroy ecosystems. I'm just wondering why that's allowed while this project has hit so many hurdles. I just want to thank you for your time and your consideration tonight and hope you guys vote to approve the project. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, thank you for allowing me up here. Good to see you all. Good evening. My name is Leslie McGraw and I wrote some thoughts so I could stay in my time. I have two different issues. Can I put them both in the same time? Okay, good. One is around the ongoing concerns with the Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility. I know that the folks at this table do not have direct oversight there, but something's gotta give. We know last two, women, Kyra Howard and Becky Falkler, I think is how you say your last name. And then to understand at least one other woman is in the hospital struggling for a life too. This is unacceptable. And we know Crystal Clark has been uplifting the issues at the prison along with other women for several years now. And I know that this is political season. So a lot of folks are in and out of Lansing, in and out of democratic conventions, whatever the case may be. So as you see the folks that do have the power, the Jews or whatever, please encourage them to remember that these women are all of our problems because this is representing our whole state. And it's a really bad mark on the state. Attorneys like Ben Crump are starting to publish posts about how we're so liberal and we allow this kind of stuff to go on. So this is a black mark on all of us. So then this other piece is around a lot of people that I love, including myself, I love myself too, are dealing with different illnesses right now. And we are seeing a lot of folks with housing instability, environmental stress, chronic illness, mental health, all these healthcare issues. And I was Washington Health Plan millage proposal was shared with a group I'm a part of. And it seemed very feasible to tax like $40 on a $400,000 home. is equivalent and that would help about 10,000 people receive healthcare insurance. And why that's so important is because in October, we know our refugees and our asylum seekers are gonna be put out of Medicaid throughout the state. And then in January, there'll be other pushes out. So I like to know more about why there's pushback. And then two, If it's not feasible, what is? What are the solutions that this board is looking toward for this healthcare crisis?

That's fine. Thank you. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Dan Rubenstein. I'm a resident of Ann Arbor. I'm here to speak about Arbor South. I had prepared remarks, but as usual, with all the things that are said here, I feel compelled to say some things that are a little different. The premise of Arbor South, there's really two premises and we've seen them today. One is that if this massive tax subsidy is not given, this won't get built or nothing comparable will get built. This developer, Oxford, actually has proposed a very similar development, 920 beds, parking structures, common space, mixed use, et cetera, just north of I-94, east of State Street, not that far from where this is. To my knowledge, they are not asking for any subsidy for that. So clearly it's economically viable. You've got the development that just went up in Briarwood. That's obviously economically viable. What's the difference? Well, that comes to the second issue. The second issue is, well, but this has affordable housing. Okay, that's fine. And I support that. And as a lot of other people have said, I don't object to this project at all. All the benefits it will bring to that area, I actually agree with. And it's fantastic. The question is, how do you pay for it? And should the public be subsidizing it and subsidizing it to this degree? in their own proposal, they say that the cleanup, which, by the way, we don't even know if it's necessary yet because you don't have independent current testing to validate that. That's the first thing, if I were sitting on county commission, I would simply require. That's very easy and responsible. And now I've lost my train of thought because I don't have prepared remarks. But the size of this, they say for their cleanup, if it's necessary, it's $2 to $3 million. So a tax capture of 30 years of over $300 million to do a cleanup that might cost two to $3 million. Is there any sense in that? And that probably explains exactly why the amount they're asking for is about three times the combined amount of all other brownfields since the program was begun in Washtenaw County, about 127 million, 36 projects. Are you kidding me? So these premises that this won't be done but for this huge giveaway, and that this is necessary for affordable housing, Even if you allow $20 million for cleanup and other costs, $30 million, that still comes out to $1.5 million per affordable housing unit. Let something similar get built, take the tax money, and use it for affordable housing. You can actually do more for the Housing Commission. You can do more for Washtenaw County. So I kind of blew off my remarks, but... This just makes no sense. And at minimum, you should be asking for validation of the contamination and validation of the obsolete status of the structures.

Commissioners, good evening.

Commissioners, I'm Gloria Yamas. I live in Pittsfield Township. Thank you. I'm requesting a no vote or at least more investigation into the Arbor South Brownfield TIF plan based on four factual policy and infrastructure violations. One, policy funding violation. The joint Brownfield policy review criteria mandates developers reimburse TIF shall not exceed 20%. The overall project investment. This violation is requiring public taxpayers to cover 31% of the private cost. infrastructure and market stream. City engineering reports prove that the residential density will consume nearly 100% of the remaining capacity in local receiving sanitary sewer trunk line. The plan also includes 150 room hotel, despite local data showing area hotel occupancy is stagnant. at a break even 60%. This unstudied commercial addition risk creating long-term vacancies and monopolizing the public sewer capacity. Shifting affordable housing, the developer reduced the affordable housing commitment from 200 to 151, forcing the city of Ann Arbor Housing Commission to shoulder the remaining 50 units. deficiency of transparency. The developer is hiding the business plan from the city and from the commissioners, although they are not required to do OMA, they are hiding it from the entire council. The only proof provided to justify breaking our 20% funding cap, is a private financial pro forma shielded from public view. We are being asked to hand over 375 million based on self-reported unverified cost projections. Review boards recommended this project based on 30 year economic theories and unverified financial models. But the taxpayers in this county live in economic reality. Washtenaw County is one of the highest structures, tax structures, and it has the highest tax structures in the state. Every senior citizen on fixed incomes, working class family absorb the new millages for roads, parks, schools, housing, approving the TIF locks up 329 million to 375 million tax growth for the next 30 years, diverting money away from the public needs to shield a wealthy corporation from the basic cost of doing business. We cannot fund a real world infrastructure on corporate theories while our policies are rewritten to justify corporate giveaways. Don't turn your back on the citizens who found this company. I know that the appointed Brownfield authority approved this plan. They do not have the legislative power to approve the actual project.

That's time.

Thank you. I have nine seconds. Or spend county tax dollars. Final financial authority stops with you.

Once it blinks red, it's time.

Well, thank you. Thank you. I'll provide the specs to you if you need us.

Tom Weider, what you have tonight is not to decide whether this is a good project or not. The city council and applying its zoning and site plan, they get to do that. You're not here for that. Because you are here for one thing, to decide whether this project gets a whole lot of public dollars and whether it qualifies to get all those dollars. That's all your task is. Now, it might be a great project, but that's not the point. That's not what you get to decide. You are here to help implement the state law on brownfields. That's all you're here to do. So you have to follow the rules on that. And that includes finding a project that's eligible. Nobody in the world knows what's in the soil of that because no one's looked for 17 years. And everyone's going, oh, well, that's taken care of. It's obsolete because the property values have gone down. No, you get a hired opinion by the developer, get somebody come in who comes and says, oh, it looks like the property values have gone down 50%. In a previous iteration, I showed you some numbers from the city assessor. He provided a more thorough report, which I gave to the chair today, which went through this and that property has gone from a little under $7 million in the last nine years to over $8 million. Does that sound like a distressed property that's obsolete? Of course not. So you need to follow what the rules are. If you'd like a project, but it doesn't fit the rules, it should be denied. If you don't like a project, but it did fit the rules, it should be granted because all you're supposed to do is apply the rules. Now, everyone's talking about, oh, this is underutilized property. Maybe that's because this developer has been sitting on it for years. They've been assembling this property, and they've done nothing with it. And now they want you to finance doing something with it. And that doesn't seem to make much sense. But the main thing is the big lie behind all this. People call this a great project, and they've been sold this thing that it's free. Oh, we're not taking any money from anything because it's just generating money that wouldn't be generated anyway. That's ridiculous. You have 20 acres of prime and upper property all over the area. Developers are gobbling up property and building housing, and they're not asking for subsidies for it. So this telling people, oh, you're not losing anything. Yes, you are. All units of government service. My God, it even takes money from the affordable housing millage. Yes, everything will be paying for this so that developers can get a huge subsidy. That's what you should be thinking about. Not whether it's a good project, but whether you should be taking this much money from all these other things and fatten the pocket of the developer. That's what's at issue. Thank you.

Thank you.

Jeremy Haley, Ipsy Township. Just want to give a shout out to WMU. They have good news and good music. Last Tuesday, I was at the Van Buren Township Planning Commission meeting. I live in part of Ipsy Township where Van Buren's my neighbor. And they were voting on getting permission for the Google AI Data Center, one gig that's going right across from 700 Homes, Hagerty Sub. and right next to Wayne County Community College. And what I get from these projects and how these projects get approved, one of the planning commissioners had said, in the first statement of their mission of how they supposed to approve things is the project is not supposed to do any harm to the community that it lies within. And that's what he mentioned to the other commissioners. One other actually voted with them a no on it, the others voted yes for it, so it passed. And well, all I see from all these projects that they get passed, they have this piece of paper then go, oh, checks that box, checks that box, checks that box, but they're not reading the very top of the page as if this project does any harm to the community or not. And this project here, oh, by the way, last night, the township board for Van Buren, voted for full tax abstention for that Google AI project. So that community is getting no benefit from that one. And not only that, their PCUs, they tell you, oh, they're self-contained. They won't contaminate things. And they ask them, what do they do when they burn? Well, they spew gas out. So they're not self-contained. So they lie to you. Every which way. But my point is back to Arbor South. After this, you guys are hurting us, going to hurt schools, going to hurt the college, going to be hurting benefits given to other people if you go through this millage. And I think on the way back from the bank tomorrow, I'll stop by the Ypsilanti School Board and let them know personally that what's happening, that they're going to be affected and how that's going to affect their budget. and I might take the time to call every other school board in the district and anybody else has time, they might want to do that too and have call all you, that have schools near all your districts, contact all of you and say what you're gonna be taking away from the kids. Because that's actually, you're giving housing over kids. I'd rather see the kids that we have get better education and the services that people we have get services they need. Like you're giving money to, you're diverting cash to the developers so they can secure financing. That's what all this is about. And you should all rethink this. Thank you.

Anyone else in the room for public comment? Ashley, it looks like we might have some people online. Yes, Chair.

First, we have Marley. Marley. I'm sorry, Chair. One second. Marley, you should have access to speak now.

Okay. Hi, I'm Marley, a lifelong Ypsilanti resident. This isn't on your agenda, but as I hope you know, in Ypsilanti on January 6th of this year, Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office shot and killed an unarmed man. They released a heavily edited video of it a couple weeks later, and kind of then just stonewalled the public about any goings-on that the Michigan State Police were investigating it, and That investigation ended last month, so I guess I'm asking you, like, as the executive power for Washtenaw County to, like, release, like, more information about what happened. Like, there's... like hours upon hours of video of it, they released maybe seven minutes. So like there's, this is the issue of like police homicide. It's of the public concern and we don't even know what happened. So I'm just asking, like, can you please let the public know what happened and then we can actually try to take steps to prevent things like this in the future. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we have Damon. Thanks. Go ahead, Damon.

Hi, my name is Jenny Schuchare. I'm calling in in regards to supporting the Arbor South project. I just want to thank the commissioners for your hard work and I wanted to talk about this because my husband Bilal and myself are owners of Shawarma Shop and Bakery inside the 777 building at State and Eisenhower, right where the Arbor South project will be. This area for the past five years and our family and small team have worked tirelessly to keep our business going. We believe the Arbor South project will benefit everyone, small business owners like us, as well as everyday workers who deserve access to new affordable housing that allows them to live and work right here in Ann Arbor. Arbor South will transform 17 acres of empty parking lot into a vibrant tree line community space. that is pedestrian friendly with a thousand residential units, creating jobs and offering families a place that they can proudly call home. My husband and myself are, very grateful to have the opportunity to have our business in Ann Arbor. We're just a small business, but we believe that this would be a great opportunity for small businesses like us and our community to enjoy Ann Arbor. We hope you support the ArborSouth project. Thank you.

Next, we have Tom.

Tom. Welcome to the meeting. Go ahead.

Thank you. Hi, my name is Tom Stahlberg. I live in Ann Arbor in the first ward in the area we call Lower Town. I'm calling because I'm pro-development, but I am not pro-development interest giveaways. Arbor South is just that, the latter, a giveaway. There's been many good points raised. I'd like to raise one about the affordable housing, and I've been a strong affordable housing advocate. In terms of the zoning of this project, had this project been zoned as a planned unit development, known as a PUD, they would have been required to provide 15% of the units as affordable housing. So for 1,000 units of residential, that's 150 units. I'm not sure how the formula works for the other buildings, like a hotel and other non-residential units. So it could be more than that. But let's just say 150 units of affordable housing without a TIF, without the tax break. The developer's got to pay for that. TUDs are a natural for this kind of site, a site where there's a mix of different uses. Brett KenCairn, Alright, so the city has decided that that's not the route we want to go we'd rather get about the same amount of affordable housing by subsidizing this developer. Brett KenCairn, Well, when we subsidize this developer, what are we really doing is this site really functionally obsolescence as another speaker said the assessor doesn't think so, and if the developer. Oxford thinks it's functionally obsolescent. Why haven't they asked the city to reduce the taxes? Why haven't they gone to the state tax tribunal to ask that the property taxes be reduced? We know that the principal of Oxford companies spoke to a group of investors in other properties that he has around this area as well under LLCs called Bluebird and Blackbird and some other ones. They're financially in trouble in some of their projects, or I'll say challenged rather than in trouble. The office market hasn't rebounded from COVID well. How much are those investors looking to put in? Well, Jeff Houghton said he's had to put his own money in, remortgage his own house and put money in. And he said to those investors, you're likely going to have to reinvest in our projects. He needs a shot in the arm. Oxford needs this project at Arbor South to support and buoy his challenged properties around there. So what are we doing with this subsidy? Are we really getting affordable housing? Are we getting a private developer who has a portfolio of properties in the area? Are we really giving him the shot in the arm that he desperately needs? And we could have an affordable housing without a TIF. That was doable. Now, we don't know who his investors are. They're LLC shareholders. I don't think we have a right to know, but they don't have a right to the tax dollars that could be going to Washtenaw County Community College, to all the other people who spoke. That's time. Thank you. Thank you much. Thank you.

Next, we have Jennifer. Hi, Jennifer. Welcome to the meeting.

Hello, my name is Jennifer Hall, and I work for the Ann Arbor Housing Commission. I hope to answer some questions that have been raised by the public about the affordable housing component at Arbor South. The Housing Commission has negotiated a 49-page development agreement with the developer, which has been approved by our attorney and our board. We have not executed the agreement yet because we're waiting for the city attorney's office to review it first. But I can tell you what is in the agreement. It spells out parties. We are co-developing the property just like we do all of our affordable housing properties. The agreement states that there will be a minimum of 156 affordable housing units to be built by the developer as required by the city's brownfield policy with a goal of building 209 apartments because I asked the developer to increase the number of units because it's less expensive for us to add stories It is to try to find another site to build on that we do not have any control over. The developer will need to secure all the financing to build the property. And they're also adding $10.5 million in land and cash. This is actually not typical for a developer of either affordable housing or market rate housing. The majority of funding for any kind of housing development is usually in the form of a loan. that's paid back through rents. People probably don't realize that private for-profit developers are the largest source of affordable housing that is built in the United States. And the biggest source of funding for affordable housing is an IRS program called Low Income Housing Tax Credits, which allows investors to provide cash for affordable housing in exchange for a tax write-off. Affordable housing cannot be built without public subsidy, whether that is land, tax breaks, or some other kind of funding. This developer will also be providing free parking as it's required by our funders. They have also agreed to provide 100 parking passes for five years. The Housing Commission, our nonprofit, will actually be the owner of the property and we will be the property manager. The rents will be set at a maximum of 60% of the area median income, but the lowest income could be zero. Because the rents are low enough that anyone with a voucher can live here. Because our goal is to screen people in, not to screen people out. We have thousands of people. people on our closed wait lists and we have to turn down thousands of people away every year because we do not have enough affordable housing and our wait lists are closed. Some people have asked why our building is off on the corner of Broadway. Due to the type of funding we were securing, we needed to make sure we were as far away from busy roadways on State Street and Eisenhower because we must have a noise assessment conducted when we use federal funds and also some state funds. So we want to make sure the project is in an eligible location. The Housing Commission owns 626 apartments, and this will be increasing our capacity by over 30%. We need housing for all types of households and a variety of incomes. Our mission is to serve our lowest income laborers. Thank you for your time.

Uh, chair next, we have a, uh, a caller from a phone number ending in four, four, six, four, four, four, six, four.

Go ahead. Hi. Yeah. Can you hear me? I'm always nervous. You can't hear me.

We can hear you.

Okay. Thank you. Uh, my name is Linda Borrower. I live in ward five in Ann Arbor. Katie Scott is my representative on the commission. I was recalled in last time, two weeks ago. to ask you not to vote for the Arbor South tax subsidy, the Brownfield TIF. And I appreciate that you did postpone it until this meeting. I had asked, I had suggested maybe many of you did not do your due diligence on, you know, the nuts and bolts of the agreement. And I asked you to postpone it to make sure you did your due diligence. So thank you for that. As far as tonight, I don't have prepared comments, but I want to comment on some of the comments that I heard tonight because some of the comments in support of this project, actually, I found very heartbreaking because I heard a sincere, passionate desire for this vision of a kind of new hub area in Ann Arbor that would transform this really underused parking lot into a vibrant dense mixed youth community. And I share that vision. What was heartbreaking to me was, and I hope I don't sound condescending to the supporters, but to me, it sounded like most of them didn't understand that you are not voting on the vision of this vibrant dense mixed youth community. What you are voting on is a tax subsidy. to the developer. In fact, one of the supporters even said this property once developed, if according to the current Brownfield TIF agreement would generate needed taxes. It will not, it will not generate any taxes for 30 years. Okay. Those taxes will be going right back to the developer to support his expenses for the project. So I think it's very important that everybody understand that this is essentially a vote on corporate welfare. To what, to a developer who's happens to be in a financial bind right now with that particular property. So I don't think it's appropriate to use public funds for a corporate bailout. I really don't. Um, I encourage you. to listen to the people who seem to have done their due diligence, including the Ann Arbor public schools. The Washington community college trustees, these people understand what they're going to lose. Um, the attorney, other community members who've actually studied the details of the proposal, please listen to their, what they're trying to tell you. Um, and I, I know you've heard tonight that about the affordable housing. I actually, as you heard tonight, the development agreement about the affordable housing with the Housing Commission is not yet executed. It remains just a promise.

Thank you.

Next chair is Rima Mohamed.

I'm sorry, what was that, Ashley?

Next is Rima Mohamed.

Rima Mohamed, welcome.

Hi, can you hear me? We can hear you.

Yeah, so my name is Rima Muhammad. I'm a trustee of the Ann Arbor Public Schools. First of all, I know that fellow trustees talked earlier and made their statements. And I know that you did receive a letter from the Ann Arbor Public School Board of Education about the Arbor South project. But I wanted to start by saying clearly that I definitely support housing. And I know especially affordable housing and how valuable this project would be. And I understand that we need more housing options in our community. And I believe we should continue working on solutions that help families afford to live here. But I do want to speak as a trustee of the Ann Arbor Public School Board. I also have to be responsible to speak up when there are serious impacts to our public schools that were not fully considered. We recently received information about the Arbor South project that could lead to an estimated 12.3 million loss from our sinking fund and approximately 28.3 million lost in special education funding over the next 30 years. So that's nearly about a 1.3 million every year loss. And that funding can directly support students, families or educators, so those dollars do matter. They could help us provide races for the teachers and staff, expand student services, improve school buildings, and better support our children with special needs. So I just wanted to make sure that the public and that you are aware of that and that the public schools cannot be left out of these serious conversations until after major decisions are being made. So it's important for us to be involved. So again, it's not about being against housing, it's making sure that growth happens responsibly and that our schools are not forced to absorb massive financial losses without a plan. Our community does deserve strong public schools and thoughtful housing development, and we should not have to sacrifice one over the other. So I do hope moving forward that there's greater transparency, collaboration, accountability, so we can really protect the long-term future of our students while, again, supporting the growth of our community. So please, you know, what I'm asking is that there is some pause so we can talk about the impacts of our schools. Thank you. Thank you.

There's no one else online, Chair.

Okay. Commissioners, it's time for follow-up. Commissioner Hodge?

Thank you, Chair. Thank you to everybody that came to give a public comment today. I wanted to address Joanne first. Hey, Joanne, thanks for coming out. I was really interested in what you had to share, and I want to explore what that could look like. I especially like the piece, the request around building something in so that there is a regular assessment of what the compensation looks like, so it is fair. And I want to explore further the element that you mentioned around it being funded by the state. So stay tuned and look into it. And Jeremy, hey, good to see you. I also am a fan of WEMU, and we have a WEMU reporter here. You may have seen him, Kevin Murchard. Kevin, are you here? Why don't you come and meet Jeremy? If you're still here, Kevin. If not, he's probably out there, Jeremy. So tell him WEMU is doing a good job. And that's it for now, because I'll talk about ArborSouth when we get to ArborSouth and the agenda. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Commissioner Hodge. Anyone else for response to public comment? Commissioner Sanders?

So I am one of the representatives that, well, I'm the representative that sits on the Washtenaw County Road Commission. And I want to be transparent and be clear that I am the one that inquired last year about their level of compensation and found out that they had not received a raise in over 22 years, which I thought was an absolute embarrassment. considering the fact that we have done our best to bring our own staff up to some market respectability. I'll choose my words as best I can. I was a staunch supporter of increasing the stipend that the commissioners receive, and we are still grossly underpaid when you compare us to our surrounding counties. And I support being fair and equitable to the folks that serve our residents, give up their time. And more specifically, I wanna address this. When you're talking about public office and what you do or do not provide in terms of compensation for residents' time to participate, either running for office or working on appointed boards, I need you to recognize that often the scales of compensation have some history that is not rooted in equity. So when you pay people a pittance to do public work, what you are saying to the folks that are not well resourced is that you're not welcome at the table because you're gonna have to give up something in order to be able to serve. And that's not how we should do it. Our boards, our representation, our electeds should be a representation of the people that we serve in this community. And when you say to a board, for 23 years, we don't think what you delivered to us is valuable. then who's gonna volunteer? And I wanna add this part. When you have meetings that are in the middle of the day, the road commission meets at 9 a.m. normally for two hours, and then they meet again at 1 p.m. So if you have a job, you are having to take off twice a month in order to serve as a road commissioner. I'm not even gonna address, I know that we have people upset about certain developments that have occurred with the Road Commission. That aside, it does not take away, it does not have an impact, in my opinion, on the service that these people are providing. And when you do not compensate people appropriately, what you get is boards that are filled with people that are well-to-do and have the ability to control other people who are not as equally resourced. So I am owning that I had this conversation last year. I was asked to wait until after their contracts were negotiated and settled, and I've done that, and now it's time to look at reimbursing the people that serve on the Royal Commission for the time that they spend And it has increased dramatically from what it was 23 years ago. And I won't talk about the level of beat upness that they have to experience in doing their jobs. So everybody else should not be receiving market rate increases and bonuses and all of that. And we're asking them not to receive an increase or making them think that they should do this volunteer, that is crazy. They are due an increase. It is not gonna make or break the budget of the Royal Commission, I've already asked. And so I just wanna support the Royal Commissioners. I said I would, I am the one that is bringing this, asking them to bring this forward. They cannot vote on a raise for themselves, but we can as the commissioners. And so I want to make that clear. I've got a lot that I'm done with the road commission piece. I have written comments that I'm going to share when we get to the Brownfield TIF that will be a response. You know what, Chair, what would you like? Would you like for me to respond to the public comment now related to the Brownfield TIF? Or would you like for me to wait?

I would say that's totally up to you. I have no skin in the game either way.

OK. So I'm going to move forward. OK. And I might still have something to add. OK. So I made notes so I can try and be on time. And unfortunately for you all, my stuff is not timed. So first of all, I'm a senior. I'm a single income household. I am a mother. I am a grandmother. I am a former union member. I'm a taxpayer. I'm a 37-year resident. of Washtenaw County, and I have concerns about this Brownfield tip. If any of you know me, you know what my thoughts are because I share them. I've had conversations with Oxford and some of their executives, and my concerns really have not changed. I have had conversations or sought information from WISD, from my own Pittsfield Township Board, from the Ann Arbor Public Schools, from Washtenaw County Trustees. I have not spoken with Triple TA. I have spoken with Ann Arbor Library, and I've had at least three conversations with Oxford. I've asked my colleagues directly who has received financial support from this company. I've gotten eight nos, one no response, and one answer that was not an answer because they said they didn't fully understand who I was speaking about. And I did that on purpose. because when you're talking about an amount of money this large, call me a cynic, I have to ask whose skids are being greased. And I also made a promise to my district and equally to the county that I would vote in their best interest, I would ask questions, I would explain to my constituents why I voted a certain way if they wanted to know, and also why I did not vote a certain way or why I was not able to be successful in lobbying for something that they asked for. I think this is only the second time during my term in office, which is now three terms, that I feel like I need to explain or let you know why I feel the way that I do. I've had thoughtful conversations. I've also had quite a bit of subtle and not so subtle bullying and threats about which way I should be voting. And nobody knows me well enough, but I'm an only child and I was picked on. I don't handle bullies well, and I will fight you just because. we have received information, I have received information, that indicates that if we don't say yes on this, Ann Arbor will pull out of the brownfield TIF. I've checked with legal. We don't know for certain, but we think that if they pull out and form their own authority, they would still have the ability to tax the entire county or to withhold taxes from the entire county, just as an Ann Arbor brownfield. I don't know if that sits well with anybody else, but I'm trying to figure out how one municipality can tell an entire county what they have to give up. I'm not sure how that works. It's a privately held entity. I have raised the concern about what their financial status was related to COVID and people working from home. I've been given information, but this is the thing. When it's private, I can tell you whatever I want. And how does the general public prove what is being told to them is truthful? And we're not asking yet whether or not the supporters have some skin in the game themselves. I will say I have never received a penny from Oxford. I've paid for my own campaigns with the exception of some donations from labor and some constituents, but I don't owe anybody anything. It's not simple. And if it were simple, the public would have been included in input. I'm not talking about a couple of minutes at a board meeting where it's open for public comment. I'm talking about various community meetings where people have the opportunity to learn, ask questions and understand these types of documents. And I don't know that that has happened. I've talked to several entities that said they didn't know anything about it until recently. How do you pass something that's this large? It's astronomical. If you wanna use Google, just Google what are the 15 largest brownfield TIFs in Washtenaw County. in the last couple of years. When I just perused through them, it looks like the majority are housing related, but they are specifically housing related. There's no other stuff going on there. There are no hotels, there are no shops, and this doesn't have, I'm not attacking small businesses. So please don't get upset about it.

But what I am doing is I'm looking at,

This burden is being asked to be carried by every resident in this county. But when you listen to the people talk, what they kept saying was Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor. I'm not opposed to Ann Arbor. I'm not opposed to the residents. But what I am saying is there are other areas of our county that are struggling. And we're being asked to figure out how to handle that. When I came on board, I asked one of my fellow commissioners, why do we keep kicking this homeless housing issue down the road? And we never picked the can up. We have the ability if we want to, to do something about it. And using, and I think Jennifer Hall, I've said this publicly, she does a phenomenal job. But to say that we are supposed to kowtow for the purposes of private development, 370, I think it's $76 million for 200 units that are gonna be in Ann Arbor? What about Ipsy Township? What about Pittsfield? What about Superior Township? What about All Points West? They need housing too. We're not addressing that. I'm not sure how this is going to be helpful. But as the grandmother of a child that is in Ann Arbor public schools, who by the way, are still working without a contract, I'm just trying to figure out how we vote for this in good conscience. And we still have all of these other areas that need help. We're being asked to do a millage for the Washtenaw County Health Project. We are being asked to build or upstand a homeless shelter on the east side. Planned Parenthood has just come to us basically with, they didn't ask, but they're saying they need help. We don't have a contract for Ann Arbor Public Schools. Those teachers, I need someone to help me make it make sense and to explain it in a very uncomplicated way. But more importantly, I need for this explanation to be provided to all of our residents. Because if I'm going down in flames, I want it to be by people who were informed when they lit a match to my house. Right now, I don't see that happening. I see a whole lot of lobbying going on. I see a whole lot of attaboy stuff going on. I've asked staff to print out some documents to share with you, and I'm going to just say one other thing, and then I will cede this to the chair. And one of the documents we received yesterday, shouldn't have to take my glasses off to read, but I'm showing my age. It says, if approved, Brown Plan proceeds to Act 381, Work Plan Supplemental, EGLE slash MEDC. Tax capture supports eligible activities. County retains city participation and regional brownfield revenue stream. If declined, It is unlikely that the project would move forward as proposed. However, it is possible the project could move forward if the city exited the County Brownfield Authority and formed its own authority, in which case the same taxes would still be captured for Arbor South. If this occurred, the County Brownfield Program would lose its largest revenue source and regional reinvestment capacity. That may not sound like a threat to you all, but that's what it sounds like to me. But now let's be clear. If they do that, if they are able to stand up their own brownfield authority, if their residents tell them to do that, they are still saying that they can capture taxes from all county residents to still make this project happen. I don't know how that works. So I tell you I don't want to pay for something and you're going to make me do it anyway? And then threaten us by pulling out? I just want people to do the math and do the research. Google and find out where the majority of the brownfield tips occurring. So I'm done. I'm a little excited about it because I don't like being bullied. And no one has reached out to us in a timely fashion to try and explain this to us. We probably wouldn't even be having this conversation if there had just been some decent common courtesy conversations amongst the people that have to make the decisions. So now the county commissioners, regardless of which way we vote, we're being seen as the bad guys, but we were not treated as partners. It's like being in a marriage. Your husband builds the whole house, designs the kitchen, and then brings you into it and says, isn't this great? I've been sleeping with you every day, and you haven't said anything about this that you're building over here? I'm missing something. So I like being a commissioner, but there are a few things that I think are worth fighting for, and this for me is it. So I'm done.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Somerville.

Oh, thank you. I'll keep my comments really short because I'll save the Arbor South comments for later. Barbara, Barbara's still here. Thank you for coming and supporting the extension of the nutrition and transportation dollars and for all that you do for Ipsy Meals on Wheels. And Sheila, thank you for coming and just raising awareness about chemicals that cause cancer. I do think that we live in a society where we are very quick to put chemicals out into the air and want like the air we breathe and the water that we

either swimming or ends up getting into our waterways and so thank you also cool t-shirt that's all thank you commissioner beeman thank you chair i'm also going to save my arbor south for when we get to that piece um i wanted to lift up the huron correctional facility here on valley correctional facility thank you um for coming and bringing that forward unfortunately we did oh yay is my mic working Sorry. Just lifting up Huron Valley Correctional Facility. We lost both Ms. Howard and Ms. Fackler. I do want to speak to that State Representative Reggie Miller is going through a mortality review, which includes an investigation. So that is something that is important to her. And I wanted to lift up that work that's happening at the state level. I know Senator Irwin was also involved in this as well. So thank you for bringing that forward. Also echoing commissioner Somerville on the water pollution. Not only do we not need additional chemicals, we're rolling back PFAS at the federal level, which is ridiculous, but I'll save that for another day. Also did, I'll kind of touch on Arbor South just a tiny little bit because there was reference to the Saline Data Center, which was in my district. This body did not approve any data center. We do not have that authority. That does not come and lie with us. There would be many different conversations if it did. So it does not that lies within the township and the state that is the governance over that. So I did just want to kind of uplift that we're looking at two different bodies with different approval processes when we're thinking data center versus Brownfield. So just wanted to kind of clear that up before we get into the actual meat of the Arbor South later as it's adjacent, but not related. So thank you everyone for coming and speaking. We really appreciate your passion and your enthusiasm and coming forward to take the time to be with us.

Thank you. Commissioner Light.

Thank you to everyone who came out to speak during public comment. I just wanted to make sure that I make myself available to the property purchaser for a home in Salem Township. that we together can have conversations with GFL as they are available. I am more than willing to have those conversations so that you can get all the information and up-to-date and accurate information that you need, and so that we can try to resolve any issues or move forward with making sure that your endeavors are done successfully.

Thank you. Any other Commissioner follow-up? Commissioner Robby.

Thank you, Chair. I want to first take an opportunity to thank everybody that came and spoke today. A lot of powerful public commentary. I want to start talking about the Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility and the conditions that exist there. I am somebody who does not believe in the death penalty. I am somebody who likes to remind people that Michigan In Michigan, the death penalty is not only banned, it's unconstitutional, it's in our state constitution. And yet, when women are sentenced to serve in the Huron Valley facility, they are unfortunately being sentenced to death, as we have seen. And it is unacceptable for the state of Michigan to continue the practice of housing inmates at a facility that is not suitable for humans to survive in. And the state must immediately shut that facility down and stop housing people there, stop sentencing people to that facility. It needs to be torn down and should no longer be used in its current form. And I know that there are folks out there right now at a protest. It might be wrapping up by now, but I know folks were gathering to protest at that facility and I stand with them wholeheartedly. What they're doing is advocating for the women at that facility to have better living conditions uh they are not only uh being killed by the state of michigan by all of us in this room we are all part of this we're all complicit if the state of michigan is killing people we are all the state of michigan and we are all complicit in that and we need to be advocates for those women and for those not just that are dying but that are suffering uh uh egregious health violations and health conditions it's completely unacceptable and the governor needs to shut that place down and frankly heidi washington the director of the department of corrections needs to go and probably be incarcerated uh uh they'll probably come after me for saying that yeah uh i want to talk about herbicides and pesticides totally agree thank you for being here for speaking about the chemicals that are being sprayed in the lake. I 100% agree that it is a lazy way of doing it. There are actually mechanical methods of removing weeds from lakes that the county has even employed before. So I totally agree with you and I thank you for your ongoing advocacy in that regard. I want to comment on the brownfield. I'm going to save some of my comments for later, but

There's a few things I want to mention with regard to that.

The first thing I want to mention is I live near the Brownfield, near Arbor South, near the project. And I spend a lot of time in that area. And honestly, I'm very excited that I'm very excited at the prospect that that area could be developed. I think that's wonderful. I think it should be. That is a prime area for development. It is a beautiful A spot that is, you know, surface parking that is the least the least good use of land possible. It is a terrible use of space and it should be developed with dense and mixed use housing, you know, with commercial space. All of that should be part of the development. I absolutely support the concept of developing in that area. I think it should be big buildings, tall buildings, probably even taller than the buildings that are proposed. Again, I live in that area and I'm proud to say that I would welcome that development moving forward. Absolutely would celebrate it. Even if I could spot the tops of the buildings from my backyard, I'm okay with that. What I'm not okay with is the taxpayers of this county working over $350 million to support a private for-profit developer. I'm going to share a few numbers with you guys that are not numbers that I created, but numbers that were given to us at our last board meeting about this project. I'm a big supporter of affordable housing. I believe that everybody deserves a place to live and that we need to build more affordable housing in our community. The amount of dollars from this brownfield in this plan, which I have in front of me, the brownfield plan, the amount of money that's being used to actually build units of affordable housing in the brownfield is zero. Zero dollars are being used to actually build housing in this project. I'm going to share another number with you. Of the 350 million, $185 million are being used to build Parking decks, parking decks for cars, $185 million for parking decks. I thought we were trying to move away from carbon-based ways of getting around. The city's even approving projects that have zero parking downtown. They approved the project on the corner of State and Packard, zero parking. That's the direction that the city is supposed to be going in. We have goals to reduce traffic on our roads, but we're spending $185 million of public money to build three parking decks, which by the way, who's gonna own those parking decks? The developer will own those parking decks. Who will set the fees on how much people have to pay to park in those parking decks? The developer will set that rate. Not us who are paying for it, the developer. The developer can also sell those parking decks at any time. We're creating an asset for a developer using public money. Again, that's all in the brownfield. I'm not making those numbers up. It is what was submitted to us and Those are the numbers, $185 million. Of the affordable housing that is being built, 156 of the units are required to be built by the developer. It's not charity, required to be built by the developer. So how do we get to 209 units of affordable housing? Well, and I asked this last time, 53 of the units are being purchased by us, the taxpayers. We're buying those units. which I'm all about. Let's buy them. That's great. But that is not the developer that is giving those units to us. That is us that is buying those units. I am buying those units. We are buying those units as Ann Arbor taxpayers through the affordable housing millage, which I voted for. That's how we're achieving affordable housing here. It's not some grand charitable move by the developer. It is we're either paying for it or it's required of the developer. throw another number out there if we assume that this is worth the tax giveaway for the parking decks and all these other different things for the developer let's assume that it's all worth it to get that affordable housing ultimately what we are paying for on a per unit basis for the units that the developer is required to build is per unit 2.2 million dollars per unit of affordable housing, $2.2 million per unit. As a contrast, the development that we just all voted on to approve downtown on Fifth Avenue, which I supported, the cost per unit is $665,000 a unit. So why is this more than triple the cost per unit If that's what we're all focused on is the affordable housing. This is more than triple that cost per unit. I would love to see us build more affordable housing. And the city actually had a plan initially, instead of $350 million of Brownfield, they were going to bond $350 million. That was the initial plan was a bond for $350 million. Why don't we bond $350 million and build affordable housing? We could build a lot more units of affordable housing and it wouldn't be $2.2 million a unit for the taxpayers, be a lot less. Got another number for you, $5 million. That is the loss from the affordable housing millage. That is the money that would have been paid to the affordable housing millage if we didn't approve this brownfield. That is the loss to the affordable housing millage. People care about buses, transit. The loss to AATA, $24 million. The loss to our streets, $10 million. Garbage, $11 million. Schools, as you heard in the memo that we got, over $12 million just in the sinking fund. Then there's the county millages. We lose $38 million as Washtenaw County. These are all losses that we now have to program for. People are coming to us asking for money for all kinds of different things. And now we're not going to have the resources to provide for those programs. And you may say, well, we're not losing anything because we keep the taxable value from the current project. That's what everybody's saying. But the reality is, if you believe that in the next 30 years there will be no improvements whatsoever on this site, I've got a bill to sell you. If you believe that no developer, including the current one, is ever going to build anything new on that prime land right near the highway in the city of Ann Arbor, I've got a building to sell you. The other thing that you're not considering perhaps is that, or maybe folks don't know this, but the way that it works is not only do you cap the taxable value at a dollar amount, but you cap it at a point in time. So that means, as those of you that paid taxes are aware, Every year your tax bill goes up. Even if you do nothing to your property, your tax bill goes up because your property value goes up. So when your property value goes up, you pay a little bit more the next year, you pay a little bit more the next year. Under Michigan law, you can pay up to 5% more every year. It's capped at 5%. So it's 5% or the rate of inflation, whichever is less. So you're this property tax, the property taxes on this site could go up as much as 5% every year. In the Brownfield plan that we were given, they're assuming a 2% increase per year. The current taxable value of the site, the base taxable value, $7.658 million. That's the amount that will continue to be assessed year after year that we'll continue to collect. But what we're ignoring is that even if nothing happens for the next 30 years on this site, the value of the site goes up. The value of the site goes up in 2027, in 2028, in 2029, and all the way up to 2057. Now, I just did the quick back of the napkin math. And the value of the site, if nothing happens over the next 30 years, the value of the site will more than double over that 30-year period of time. So when you say we're not losing anything, that's actually flat out lying. We are losing. We are losing the increase in property taxes that would have occurred on that site, regardless of whether the development goes on or not. Next year, property taxes will go up according to the estimates that the developer provided by $153,000. The year after that, $309,000, 468, 631, all the way up to an increase of $7.9 million over the base taxable value. But if the brownfield passes, it will be capped at that same rate that it was in 2026. So in 2057, when I'm 70 years old, they will still be paying taxes on the value of the land in 2026 when I was 37 years old. That's a massive, even if the developer didn't get any of these other tax breaks, can you imagine that? If you're a homeowner and this city comes in and says, it's your lucky day. You don't have to pay taxes, any increase in taxes for the next 30 years. You're going to be capped. No increase in taxes for the next 30 years. Wow. What a giveaway. And the last number I want to share, and then I will have more thoughts later, The developer shared with us last time that they were going to be very austere and not max out the amount of profits that they could possibly max out on the site. And the number that we were given was a profit, a humble profit margin of 7.4% on the total value of the project, 7.4%. So humble of them. Thank you for your charity and generosity. If you do the math on the $350 million that we're giving out, $26 million is for the profits of the developer. Do you believe sincerely that giving away affordable housing money to a developer's profits is a good use of taxpayer money? I certainly don't. And I will definitely be voting no on this project.

Any other commissioner response to public comment? Commissioner Somerville.

Yeah, I just wanted to, I meant to mention, to follow up to Leslie's comments regarding Women's Huron Valley, and I just want to say that I appreciate your, oh, she's so good. Okay, I appreciate your comments and advocacy. I did start to get some communication and I think there's like a flyer that's asking the board of commissioners obviously to continue advocating, but I do want to clear up some confusion. I think people think that we have information like files about people who are here in Valley and as commissioners, we don't have any access. to that information, but what we can continue to do, I know we passed a resolution back in January. I'm interested personally and maybe other board members are in passing another resolution maybe at our next meeting that can more amplify the immediate health risks to help elevate some of the commentary that our state legislators that not only represent Washtenaw County, but we have folks that represent Wayne County all across Michigan who are also calling on additional oversight and independent investigations into the most recent deaths um and i think we can continue to talk to our own um delegation but i did want to not forget to thank leslie for coming out and also i know that there's a lot of advocacy going on um but i don't want there to be like an assumption that somehow we have information that we're not sharing with the public we actually unless other people around the table do, we don't have information about specific folks who are currently housed at Women's here on Valley. And I think even if we tried getting that information, it wouldn't be given to us because we're not members of the state legislature and we don't have any direct oversight. That does not mean that we can't continue advocating and uplifting some of the work that's being done to raise this issue. But I just wanted to clear that up because I think it's really important And I don't want folks to have a misunderstanding on what we can do as commissioners. Thanks.

Thank you. Any other commissioners? I'm going just to be very brief and say thank you to everybody who came to talk to us. It is never easy, I think, to address a public board. Even if you're super passionate about what you're talking to, there's always a moment of standing up in public and advocating for you want. what you want or what you need or you think people need to hear that can be disconcerting. And I believe it gets even harder in this political climate. So thank you for coming and advocating for things that you believe in. Um, to that end, I just want to say that I have taken everybody's comments about Arbor South. Um, I have thought very, um, I've tried to think about everybody's points very clearly and look at all sides of things. And I just wanted to say that I would never denigrate your position from the opinion that you got at the end. And I look for that same respect back for people on this board when they may come to a different conclusion than you. We, should go to liaison reports right now. But I'm going to ask that we take a quick 10 minute break so we can all use the bathroom. So we'll pause the meeting till 910. And then we'll come back and try to get through our business. What did I say last time? With business and brevity, business and brevity. Thank you. Okay, 910. We'll see you back. get the meeting back to going. I'll wait till I have a Oh, and I have a quorum at the table. So I'll begin. Are there any liaison reports? Okay, I don't see any liaison reports report from the county administrator. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. Good evening, commissioners. I'll be brief this evening. I wanted to take just a few moments to give you an update on the Eastern Washtenaw Community and Rec Center. I'm joined by Megan Bonfilio. She's in the back, back there, in case there are specific questions. But I wanted to begin with just saying to this body, I just want to thank you for really leaning in and approving the last phase of the funding to construct the building. The $18 million bonding initiative means a lot to that community, and it makes good on a promise, a commitment that we made almost 20 years ago. History will show that this board, this configuration of the board, made that a reality. So I just want to say personally, as a 44-year resident of the eastern part of the county, thank you for moving that forward. So we will begin our next phase of things related to financing by looking at how we lift up and develop a foundation tool to support operations and putting together the standard operating model. Megan and I have begun some discussions around that piece of that component of things. And we'll have an update for you guys later in the summer. A couple of points. And again, I'll be quick. There is an updated website that has information related to the schedule. There's an FAQ, I believe, Megan, and some project documents. I think that Ashley and Tabitha are working on a link that will connect to your individual webpages So that information is in the queue. Site signage will go up fairly shortly here, and that includes fencing late June and or July. It may bleed into the July timeline, but there will be activity on the site that we can point to. And then lastly, the design details have been, I've seen just a brief preview of those design details, and I am excited. about what we are seeing and what we have put together. The bid package is being finalized as we speak, so we will be able to share that with you at future meetings. And then the last thing that I want to bring up is there's been a lot of conversation in community relative to meeting space, the community component of things. And the drawings that I saw today have 4,400 square feet of flexible meeting space included within the project. So I think the narrative that we won't have enough space for that to occur, that is false. And I really appreciate the time and energy that went into that. So I will stop there. I do want to just say again, thank you, thank you, thank you for moving the funding forward that ensures that we have the resources to build the Eastside Rec Center. Megan, I don't know if I missed anything. You're here. I don't know if commissioners have any questions. If not, that will conclude my report.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Administrator Dill. Next item on the agenda is report from the Chair of the Board of Commissioners. I will have no report this evening. The next item is a special order of business, a public hearing on the 2026 millage rate. I call the hearing open. Is there anybody here to comment on the 2026 millage rate?

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I mean, you're talking about raising your operating millage and this thought about approving a brownfield, which will take a piece of your operating millage to put in the hands of a developer. Now, it's interesting because your agenda item today talks about the project will capture $22 million in county operating taxes. Well, it's also gonna capture 17 million for all your other funds. And it's gonna capture a total 375 million across all the agencies in the county.

I'm just going to have a point of order. This is on the 2026 millage rate. So you need to limit your comments to the 2026 millage rate. I am conferring with corporation council. So if you could please, I'm conferring with our corporation council. Your comments must be on the 2026 millage rate, not on the Brownfield authority decision.

By the way, you're using up my time. Can I get this wound back?

If you, yes, go ahead, wind it back. But these are related.

You're asking for more operating taxes. And at the same time, considering taking a knock to your operating and all your other things. So I think it's legitimate to say, if you're going to go to the public with a higher millage rate, maybe you want to think about that in the context of maybe going to give away some of that money. It's all related. It's all county money. And your own agenda says you're taking county operating for the brownfield, and you're talking about raising the operating. They do relate. They very much do relate. And some of the things, some of the stuff in here, like the answers to these questions is that, well, these people didn't prove that the site is clean. No, no, nobody's supposed to prove that the site is clean. The people who want the brownfield are supposed to demonstrate.

I'm getting, again, you have to stay on 2026 millage rate.

I'm not going to be edited here, Chair. Excuse me.

This is a hearing on the 2026 millage rate.

And I'm relating it to that. You're talking about your taxes, and you're talking about needing more money, so you want to raise the taxes. That relates to giving away money.

You are moving to materials on the Brownfield Authority.

They relate. Excuse me, Chair. They do relate. You can't say these are completely separate. You're talking about county money, and you want more county money here, and at the same time, well, maybe you wouldn't need to raise the operating millage going forward if you could count on getting revenue that you will get if you don't give it away to a developer. They do relate. I mean, and I would like to, as they say it, recapture some of my time because I have been spending it. If you want to interject, then you do it on your time, not my three minutes.

This meeting is my time.

No, this is my time. This three minutes is mine, not yours, Chair. Pardon me? I am to order, but I'm not going to stand here and have you talk over my time for these constant interruptions because you don't think these are related enough.

Thank you.

That's time. I'm sorry. I did not have my three minutes, and I want them.

It's time, thank you.

No, I'm sorry. You do not get to talk over me during my three minutes and exhaust that time.

You're out of order. What does that mean? That means you are out of order. What does that mean? You, sir, are an attorney and you know what it means. Please, you are out of time.

You are out of order. Well, I want the time you've taken, which you have, have the common courtesy to let a citizen talk. And if you want to interrupt.

The meeting is in recess for the next five minutes.

I'll be here.

In a minute, maybe. Thank you. All right, I am calling the meeting back to order. We are still in the public hearing on the 2026 millage rate. At this time, under my discretion, I can offer Mr. Reeder two more minutes for you. It is entirely my discretion. I am the chair of this meeting. You are out of order. You disrespected this meeting and me. And I don't know if it's a matter of me, that I'm a woman, or what's going on. But I will be respected in this meeting. I will be respected in this meeting. You will be out of order if you move away from the 2026 millage rate. And to clarify, so you know, when you started talking about the cleanliness of the Arbor South brownfield is when you went out of order. So two minutes, stay on topic on the 2026 millage rate, and you will be in order. If you are called out of order again, you will be removed from the meeting. Two minutes starts now. Thank you.

It is difficult to separate these two because you're talking about county revenue. Now you want to raise the operating millage because I think you need more revenue. Now you can't just separate that from other actions which will take county revenue. And what I'm saying is, and what we've been talking about all along, is you're talking about a project that will take County. It's in your agenda that you lose $22 million in a tax capture of your operating revenue. And that's what you're talking about, is your operating revenue. They were late, and that's the problem. I don't think it's seen that... there's money that you're not going to get. And maybe if you were getting that money going forward, you wouldn't need to raise the operating. Maybe you could reduce it at some point if the revenues were good. Maybe the revenues from a big project like that would bring in enough as your share of that taxes that you wouldn't need to raise the operating. These are not separate things. It's dollars, it's fungible. And you can't just look at this pot and that pot. Actually, it's the same pot. It's county operating. So it's a little strange that you're dealing with both of those things in two different ways tonight. You want more operating, but you're ignoring the fact you're going to lose operating. I don't know how you reconcile those two things when you're dealing with this taxpayer money and here in two different directions with the same dollars. And I think about that because that's what's happening here. You can't just ignore the fact that this is revenue either way, either stuff you're not going to get or stuff we don't get more from the tax. And unfortunately, it looks like it's both ways. You're going to raise the taxes and not collect the taxes you could be collecting if this project didn't go forward. They really do relate quite closely. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else here to comment on the public hearing on the 2026 millage rate?

Dave DeVardy, Ann Arbor resident and lifelong resident and here to speak about the millage rate that you're setting. Last night I was at our Board of Community College Trustees meeting and we had a very similar resolution which we passed. I understand the needs of all our taxing entities and your needs to raise these rates to the maximum you're able to because the competing needs for these tax dollars are great and we're not able to meet all of those needs. And that's why I want to additionally say that when we make these votes, we have to in good conscious recognize that it affects the way the voters look at every millage that goes before them. And I speak as somebody who's supporting the community college millage renewal that's coming up this August, but I'm also the supporter of many of the millages that the county has passed. Veterans, public safety and mental health, county senior millage, conservation, city millages like the affordable housing millage, parks acquisition, refuse collection. When voters go to vote on those millages that I support, I want them to vote yes. on those millages. And they're voting to authorize the use of that millage tax money for the purposes stated, not to be siphoned off to a private developer. That's all I have to say. I support you passing this millage.

Thank you.

here really nipsey township. What is the maximum amount of number of mills that can be probably in the county? I know you can't answer you can answer later. Because that would be interesting to find out I've been would like to know the amount of level as you know, WCC just raised their met capture their maximum capture on their millage. You're raising yours. And I just like to know what's the total and how is that all going to play in? And how is that also, if you're going to do the brownfields and capture, how does that play equal out with the two if you're going to take from one but give to another? It doesn't exactly, the math's not mathing exactly. It's... It's not squaring with me how you can do that because once you get to the maximum level of the millage that you can capture, at what point or where do we go from there at that point? That's my question. Because if everybody's raising their millages to the max and you're raising yours, at what point do we hit the point of can't do nothing else, we're stuck and you're in stagflation people who work their counties not getting raises no more because no more money is coming in, you're getting more money out, stuff like that. You all have to take that in consideration because it will hit that point of stagflation if you're doing such things. And once you hit that point of you can't get no more in, you got to figure out where do you get it. And that's my question. Thank you.

Any other comments for the public hearing? I'm just going to make a note before I close the public hearing that we aren't actually raising the amount of property taxes. It is actually a reduction because of Hadley. And this is not an increase to the millage rate because we cannot do that without voter approval. So just clarifying, we are not actually raising the amount of property taxes here. With that, I'll call the hearing closed. And next item on the agenda are the appointments. Would anybody like to move the appointment?

Second.

Okay, moved by Labar, seconded by Hodge. Any discussion on this appointment? Okay, that's a roll call. Thank you.

Commissioner Beeman.

Yes.

Commissioner Hodge. Yes. Commissioner Labar. Yes. Commissioner Light. Commissioner Maciejewski. Yes. Commissioner Robby. Commissioner Sanders? Commissioner Scott?

Yes.

Commissioner Somerville?

Yes.

Commissioner Lake, did you want to vote yes? Motion carries.

Fantastic.

The consent agenda, would anybody like to move the consent agenda?

So moved. Support.

Moved by LaVar, supported by Hodge. Rather than just move straight to the voice on the consent agenda, I think we first have a presentation on the Washtenaw County audit results. Nathan, come on up. Yes? No? Okay. Come on down. All right. Nathan Balderman, CPA principal from Raymond, here to present to us. Thanks for coming.

Yep. Good evening. Thank you for your time this evening. I will be brief with my presentation. This year, Once again, as we present the audit, I always like to thank the finance team for all they work. So Tina, Tom, and the rest of the team, all they work put in and the rest of the county as well. It's an effort at a county like this, a lot of departments and a lot of people go into getting this done. So for the financial statements, the report that we issue is on this very large 250 page document. Our part of that technically is a very small part of it. The opinion that's included in that is a couple of pages. What was issued was an unmodified opinion on those financial statements. But this report, there's a lot of information in it. Always like to point out the fact that the county continues to go above and beyond what's required by state law. They follow the guidelines that the GFOA has for excellence in financial reporting, continue to get that award, got that for last year's report, fully expect to continue to get that with this report as well. So what's in here? We issue an unmodified, clean opinion that the financial statements are fairly presented in all material respects. Um, as a part of our audit, uh, we also, uh, have to conduct a federal awards audit and issue a single, the single audit act compliance report, which is a much thinner report, um, and even thinner this year than it was last year. Um, because this year there were, uh, no findings, uh, included in that report. So much, no material weaknesses, no significant deficiencies. Um, and within that report, We also issued unmodified opinions on compliance for each of the major programs that were tested. This year, you had actually six different programs that were tested. Those are listed in that report, but it was a clean report. Also included in that report is there were findings last year, so there's a summary of prior year findings that summarizes. We have to look at those items. And it indicates that those were fully resolved this year and not need to be repeated. And that is the case. So it's very clean. Finally, the third thing that's from a county-wide basis that we look at is the independent auditors communication with those charged with governance. That letter outlines just significant communications that were required to make to you under auditing standards. They're just standard things. If there were anything significant that would come up, disagreements with management throughout the audit or difficulties encountered during the audit, uh those would be reported in that letter but but there's nothing to report on that end so um again there's a lot that goes into it this is a very high level summary but i'm happy to take any questions that you might have anybody have any questions

No questions. Thank you very much. Thank you. What?

I want to ask a question.

Oh, you did? I didn't see your hand.

Sorry, I was moving the water bottle.

Commissioner Hodge has a question for you.

Thank you. I just wanted to ask you a question since you're here and you gave us the great giant report. Is there anything that you want us thinking about for next year? Anything we could be doing better?

There's always, we always have comments. There are certain things that we end up going with management each year that we talk to them about throughout the audit process, improvements that we can make. We have several of those items. We also have new standards that are coming up. Those are also highlighted in this letter. There's gonna be new things that you have to implement. There's a new standard that's gonna reorganize some of the information that's in the report. what's included in your management's discussion analysis. Some of your enterprise fund reporting is going to change a little bit. They're not huge. They're not going to change your bottom line. There's not going to be your statements related to it, but there is going to be a reorganization this year that, you know, moving forward, you know, we're ready to help management make sure that that gets implemented and the reports are all updated in accordance with standards.

Great. Well, we want to keep winning the awards, so we will do it. Thank you. You're welcome.

Any other questions? Great. Thank you very much. It's a huge amount of work. And I appreciate the attention and keeping us on target. Thanks.

All right. Thank you. Have a good night.

We don't have any other reports as a part of that consent agenda. So I'll look for all of those in favor of approving the consent agenda. Aye. Any opposed? That item passes. Is somebody interested in moving the first reading resolutions, Mr. LaVar?

under first reading A, resolution approving the 26-27 annual action plan for HUD, for Urban County. And, boy, forgive me. I believe that's it for first reading. Support.

Okay, so I have moved by LaBar, seconded by Hodge. Any discussion on this item? Okay, seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Opposed? That item passes. Would somebody like to move the final reading and the single readings, please? Commissioner LaVar?

2A, a final reading, a resolution to approve the negotiation and execution of a purchase agreement for residential properties for CMH. B, a resolution setting the 26 Washington County millage rate. C, a resolution to authorize the midpoint hiring of Thomas Klee as a business application analyst from IT. D, a resolution to ratify the tentative agreement with the Prosecutors Association. And then forgive me, Chair, do you want me to read single reading while we're at it?

Yeah, single reading would be great.

3A, a resolution to authorize older persons' military transportation contracts through December 31st, 2026. B, a resolution authorizing contracts for older persons village for expanded nutrition support through September 30th, 2026. C, a resolution proclaiming May 2026 as older Americans month in Washington County. D, resolution in support of coordinating the donation of surplus food from county events to pathways for human consumption. E, A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE ACCEPTANCE OF CORPORATE SPONSORSHIPS AND THE SALE OF COMMEMORATIVE ITEMS IN SUPPORT OF THE WASHINGTON COUNTY BICENTENNIAL. AND I WOULD MOVE CLAIMS AS WELL.

SUPPORT.

ITEMS UNDER SINGLE READING A, B, AND E. It's the older person's mileage transportation contracts. Thank you. OK, questions, comments, or concerns? Mr. Rowley?

Yeah, I guess I was hoping for more context about why this is a single reading item. I know last time there was sort of like an emergency before your time where we had to get it all done quickly. And so that's why it was single reading. But I think the hope was that in the future, it would be a normal two-week process. Wondering what's going on here, why we're doing single reading.

Shannon, I'll have you come back. I see you.

Sure, and I believe Brady stepped out as well, but he could probably provide more context on this. But the reason we are moving forward where the aim is to have an RFP in late 2026. So that is our goal. The funding was for a very short duration of time, which wasn't really enough to see any true successes and challenges of the program. So the objective right now is to try and extend RFP the contracts funding at a similar allocation to give us more time to stand up the transportation stakeholder group continue providing this service and do full analysis so i don't know brady if you want to speak to specifically why it's a single reading item i don't have anything to add really i think shannon is hit that we have contracts that we need to extend

But we knew that these were coming, right? I mean, why is it an emergency that we do it now, I guess? We knew that these contracts would end, right, in advance?

Yes, we did.

We did. And we were looking at doing all this administratively. Through a comprehensive review, we felt that the older person's millage policy has some ambiguities whether we could have done it administratively or not. By the time we had had those internal discussions, the contracts had lapsed and we had to come back before the board to get that authorization. That all of our I's cross our T's. So that's why we're coming back at this time for the board authorization for the short time so that we can get those ducks in a row with an RFP and get those stakeholder groups stood up.

I guess that still doesn't really answer the question.

Go ahead, Frank.

Chair, may I? I think that's Brady's kind way of saying that I asked for this item to come before you. Again, there was some vagueness in the resolution. And initially, we felt that we could do this administratively under my authority. But after a healthy debate amongst the team, we decided that we will err on the side of bringing this back to you all and doing it in this manner. So if there's concern about how we got here, that all should default to me because I've made the decision to bring this back before the board and I've made the decision to ask it to be a single read item.

Well, I guess the issue isn't whether it should come before the board. I think it's fairly evident that it needs to come before the board. So that was the right decision. What I'm concerned about is just the fast tracking of it doesn't seem appropriate in the context of there isn't a pressing need that we didn't already anticipate and know about. So I'm trying to understand why this was not put on two readings. What I'm hearing and what I understand from the cover memo is that the contracts lapsed at the end of March. So we've been a month and a half basically without contracts. So what's been operationally happening? Have the providers been continuing to provide services?

Yes.

Without getting paid?

The first invoice for April would have been in early May. So yes, they have not been paid for that yet.

So they haven't been paid for providing. So why did they continue providing service? Why would they bill us if the period went through March 31st? Why would we still get a bill if we haven't approved that they should be paid? Anybody have an answer there? Cause I mean, we approved this through March 31st. And so that's all they get. That's all the period of the contract was through March 31st, right?

Commissioner, I don't have a answer and I'm happy to, to bring you back a more detailed response. I just don't have it today.

I mean, I don't, are we really going to vote on this then if we, I mean, something seems weird about this. Is it just me? Yeah. Thumbs me is worried about this. Also, I guess, irrespective of that, so we're just continuing with the same 1 third, 1 third, 1 third allocation that we did before, which was the result of a rigorous RFP process where we had scoring criteria that was then changed at the last minute. Did we, and I know last time we had like said, we're going to do a million dollars. That's the limit. So now we're doing over 50, you know, 50% more million and a half dollars is right. 500,000 per. Yeah. So we're doing even more money than we did before to extend the contracts.

It's a longer duration of time.

Okay. But there wasn't really any, there wasn't a new RFP done or anything like that. It's just. So why don't we do a new RFP? I mean, we had plenty of time to do that. Wasn't that the intention? This was just a temporary thing that we were doing to stop gap measure, and then we were supposed to do another RFP, weren't we?

So I can speak to the piece. I joined the team on January 12th. At that time, I noted that the transportation contracts were set to expire March 31st, so in roughly six weeks. I presented to board leadership on February 10th my proposal so the contracts were still active at that time, the proposal to extend them, and then also fund them at an additional allocation. At that time, my understanding was board leadership was in full of support of that. I was then advised that I could move forward with that. We actually did initiate contracts with the providers to extend the contracts. Then at that time, our finance department and purchasing flagged that this was not allowed without coming before the BOC. So that is the reason that we're here now with a single reading is to try to prevent and inability to pay their invoices.

Okay. Well, I just then, I mean, a lot of things that you said are very problematic. Not, it's not on you. I'm not, this is not directed towards you, but our board leadership is not the board of commissioners. So if they're making decisions behind our back, that is a serious violation of the trust that this body has placed in our leadership. That's what she just said. I know you're kind of sidebarring here and whispering, but that is my understanding of what you just said is that you've got approval at some point.

I was advised by the admin department that we had administrative authority to move forward with these.

Is an administrative authority cap? What's the cap on administrative? I mean, what's the cap on administrative?

$100,000.

You know it. Yeah. Thank you. So not sure what happened along the way here, but it is abundantly clear to me that this is something that should have always come to the board of commissioners. And there is no reason why anybody along the way should have expected this to not come before the board of commissioners. I don't think it's appropriate to vote for this on single reading. I'd be happy to vote for it on single on a first reading today, but it is not appropriate to vote on single reading at this time without further information of how we achieved the numbers that are before us and without a better understanding of how we, the process that was gone through to get us to where we are. And I probably will have more comments, but I'll pause for now. May I respond to him?

Administrator Dill.

I would ask the board to consider voting it through first read tonight and we will get the answers to whatever questions the board has before the final read.

Commissioner Sanders. Comments are not related to Director Effler, but I guess I want to I wanna say that there was concern when we approved this the first time. And if I remember correctly, we were reassured that this is only a six month contract. And now we are being asked to extend this now that it has expired. And if I go back in history, I had concerns. because two of the three providers did not comply with their requirements related to the RFP. And I personally was accused of being anti-Semitic, which I don't know where that came from, but I have an issue with this. I'm not going to stand in the way of transportation for our seniors because I support them, but I'm not okay approving this in a single reading. And quite frankly, I'm frustrated that I'll speak for myself. I received assurances that board leadership was going to be better and more transparent than previous void leaderships. That's not happening. Not your fault. I'm just putting it out there on the record that I am really kind of sick and tired of this last minute. We're gonna just, we just won't give them any notice. We're just gonna put it on the agenda. And then we're looking crazy because we're asking questions and you should have communicated with us before. I'm really sick of it. It's not okay. and board leadership is not the voice of the board. They have been selected to try and act on our behalf, not to decide for us and then tell us to rubber stamp it later. So I'm putting it out there. I don't care if I'm making anybody mad or not. You've not kept your promises. It's not okay. to keep forcing us to make decisions about stuff that you've already decided and haven't had the courtesy. It doesn't take but a minute to give us an update about what's going on. And this is not the first time I've said this, and I'm sick of saying it. Not directed at you, but this just can't keep being repeated. It's sloppy. And I'm not going to be silenced about not saying that this is just some raggedy stuff. And stop it. You were, I'm not even going to say selected. Some selected themselves to be in leadership. And so we need you to lead, not tell us what to do. Lead. That means communicate, educate, share, let us talk and have some back and forth about this. I'm not okay with voting for it with this just being a single reading. I will support it if it comes back to us for a second and final reading. Thanks.

Administrator Dill.

Commissioner Sanders, to be clear, while we did brief the leadership team on this item, the decision to bring this back in the manner that it's before you today rests with me and no one else. I ultimately had the final say, and I felt that it was our opportunity to get those resources out in a timely manner. It has always been my motto that we should not be the taxpayers' piggy banks, and if they have authorized us to push resources out that we should do it as quickly as we can. Now, in this instance, after hearing from you all, I am absolutely clear with your desire to have this come back with another read. And we will get all of the answers that you all have asked for today by the time, well, actually, candidly, we will have them all by the close of business on Friday.

Well, Greg, I got to make a point of order on that because you can't just change it at this point. A commissioner could make a motion to make it two readings if somebody wanted to do that, but we can't just change it to two readings like that.

You're correct. I assume that that was the next action step for this body.

I'm going to move to Commissioner Beeman and then Somerville. Thank you, Chair.

I'm going to be on the opposite side of this and say that I want a single reading. Shannon knows. I want our dollars out to our seniors. We've been sitting, we've been the piggy bank for too long. There was an article in MLive where I said this a year ago. It came back. 12 months. We need these dollars in the community. I am absolutely fine. You're looking for data. I'm a data girl. I love data. Let's look at a longer period of time on these contracts. Look at the success. Look at the gaps. What could we change? What could we do better? It's math. It's a resource. It's out there. It's for our seniors. We need to be supporting our seniors with the senior millage dollars. So for me, single reading is fine. Is this a perfect solution? No. Is everything that comes across this board table a perfect solution? No. We're gathering data, we're getting insights, and we're serving the community. That's what we're here to do. So thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Somerville? Yeah, thank you. First, Shannon, thank you so much for all the work that you've been doing. It was nice to get the date timeline. I like how you just know that because you did just start. And I just want to say as the person who serves as the liaison for the Commission on Aging, we are very lucky to have Shannon. The amount of work that she's been doing and engagement in the community and effort to really do the best that we can with the millage is incredible. I would add... encourage everybody to catch up with her to get some updates on some of the things that she's finding in conversation. She's visited so many sites across the county that provide services to seniors. And I'm not sure that everybody who may have gotten this job would have been able to come in and do exactly what you're doing. And so I'm really grateful to see the work that you're doing. Um, I, for the record, I would like the record to reflect, I am never going to be upset about a single read. I'm pushing money out to help vulnerable people in our community, whether it's senior millage or public safety and mental health millage dollars. The reason why people in our community don't think that government works is because there's a lot of red tape. And there's a lot of just back and forth, sometimes in rooms like this, but all across the country in spaces where people make the decision on what dollars go out and when. And I think that's part of the problem. We are sitting on a lot of money. It's really frustrating for me as somebody who advocated really hard for the senior military and worked really hard on making sure we had a solid framework to start, that we're still, it's May again, and we had a lot of really long meetings about a year ago around this time, that we're still sitting on so much money and we could be helping so many more people. One of the things that I'm really concerned about right now is that we're about to be totally out of funding for SCIP. And just so everybody around the table understands, we've prevented so many people above the age of 60 from becoming homeless. And the cost associated with how much more money it costs us and partners throughout the community to rehouse somebody once they're homeless is incredibly more expensive than just preventing it in the first place. And so, I mean, I'll just say, like, anytime we have the ability to push money out on a single read... i'm going to be supportive of it if it means that we're actually helping vulnerable people and in this case that is exactly what we're doing these are vetted partners that we know are doing this work in the community and um the details about how this transpired you know i'm not going to get hung up on because i think that the most important thing we can do is make sure that we're continuing the service and i look forward to all the other work that you're doing to be very thoughtful and strategic about how we can really maximize the money that we have because $11 million-ish a year is not really that much money to provide services for older adults, especially as we know the population is growing. Washtenaw County, like the amount of older adults too that will be coming to Michigan and our region because of the climate crisis is also significant. And so I think that all of that is really important. I'm super comfortable with a single read. I would like that to be reflected. I can understand why others may not, and I respect their opinions and their reasons behind that. I just want to say that because sometimes these differences get heated. I totally respect my colleagues that don't want to do this on single reading, but respectfully, I would like to do this on single reading. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments or concerns? Jason, Commissioner Maciejewski.

Thank you, Chair. I will... a couple of different ways I wanna go on this, I guess. First, I do think process is important. I am comfortable with a single reading to get these millage dollars out, and it's consistent with what we have previously done in terms of the dollar amounts. However, I want to add that I would at least like to see some data on what has happened in the last six months. with the transportation rides that had been provided. And let's talk about the next item, I guess, but on that item as well. I also want to encourage administration to properly resource Shannon Effler's office. She's doing a whole lot of work because we've given her a whole lot of work. And if she needs a program specialist or something like that to help her get this work done, which is really important, I think we need to take those steps to do that. I will join with many of my colleagues making positive comments about the work that you've done. I hear that from the senior center directors in my district. I hear from other senior center directors in this county and other people that are involved in the aging space and they appreciate how you're in the community engaging with them. But I do think that maybe we need to think about how we are administering what we've given her to do. We have some very aggressive things, things that I'm interested in, such as a strategic plan for the nutrition program. That is a massive project, right? Evaluating transportation funding, evaluating how we're supporting our senior centers and focal points. There's a lot of work here, and we just encourage us to take a look at how we are resourcing that work. There is no doubt about the impact despite the lack of data at this point, but the impact that this is having, because I am hearing from people about the work that WAVE is doing in Western Washtenaw County and the enormous number of rides that are happening and the types of appointments that people are now able to get to, um, because of the service that we're funding with the millage. Um, but I do want to go back to process is important here, right? So, um, I'm going to go ahead and support this, but I look forward to the RFP coming out. Hopefully very, very soon. You said later in the year. And so we can get the vast bulk of the money that's paid to this county and put forward for this work out and having impact. Thank you, Chair.

I appreciate it. May I respond? Yeah, please. I do have a presentation that includes some data and updates. I didn't know newbie problems, right? I didn't know how this was going to proceed, but I'm happy to walk through that presentation now with you. Okay.

I mean, I think you were preparing to do that presentation at our next meeting. Is that right? No, I was prepared to provide it today as context. Oh, okay. Let me go to Administrator Dill and then we'll...

So Shannon just leaned into one part of your ask, Commissioner Maciejewski. We have been gathering data. We do have some data to report. To your other ask to expedite the hiring of a program administrator for her office, we have been working with HR to expedite that process. We want to get somebody hired as quickly as we can. That is a priority.

I can commissioner Sanders. I see that commissioner Hodge hasn't actually addressed the item, just a point of order. So I'll let Hodge go. Anybody else who hasn't spoken on the item yet, and then come back to second round.

Thank you. Thank you, Shannon. I want to echo some of the remarks made by my colleagues. You have been very accessible. I have a number of residents in my district that have wanted to meet with you and you have done so. And I appreciate that, especially as you've been transitioning on here. I, I'll be clear that I support doing it in a single read. The transportation issue is significant. I have a lot of neighbors. They utilize the transportation services that we are funding through the millage. And I just want to be clear that I support it. And I support the work that you're doing. Well, thank you. And if we're going to watch the presentation, I look forward to seeing what it looks like.

I think we should. Commissioner Sanders.

Just for a point of clarity. Yeah. I sat on Shannon's hiring committee. So I think we picked an excellent person and my comments don't have anything to do with her work. I do want to know though, are we saying if we don't vote for this tonight, that the providers are gonna stop service? When is the last time they've been paid?

So they were paid for March. So through their contract of March 31st, if they invoiced us. Right? And then so April, we've received some invoices in early May. I don't know that we've received all three. So I do not believe they're going to stop service. That is, I've communicated with each of them. I've told them that this was a resolution item. I explained the chain of events that have led us here. And they are, I have not received that sentiment that they will stop service. But yes, it will make it challenging for them.

Okay, I wanted clarity on that. Because I was one of the ones that was upset about the fact that it took us seven months to disperse the money to them last year. So just to be clear, this isn't about you, Director. But thank you for answering those questions.

Shannon, why don't you go ahead and show us your presentation? Okay, thank you. Thanks.

Sorry, maybe we should have just started there. My apologies.

Okay.

Okay, so this is going to address all three resolutions that are on tonight's agenda. So we'll start first with a senior nutrition strategic planning. So this kicked off in early May. We acquired a consultant, Lily Fink Shapiro. She's a food systems consultant that's local to the area, formerly with University of Michigan and now an independent consultant. She'll be conducting individual one-on-one interviews with each of our Senior Nutrition Program partners and also looking at data directly from older adults themselves who are using the Senior Nutrition Program. The timeline for that is May through September of 2026. This will align with an October 1st start date of our next, hopefully, round of funding from Ageways for the Senior Nutrition Program. The outcomes of this strategic planning process will be include standardized reimbursement rates, streamline data reporting from our partners, and then identifying a shared vision for senior nutrition in Washtenaw County. I would view this as the first phase of strategic planning. Strategic planning needs to be an ongoing process, but this is really to get us to those three outcomes. So some results thus far of the investment that we have made on what I call the supplemental senior nutrition dollars. So there's been a 35% increase of meals served. We went from 106,468 for the time period, a similar time period before the kickoff this to now 143,166 meals. That's really where you see the return on the investment is that we now have a higher quality of food. We are able to provide alternate meals, culturally appropriate meals and nutritional supplements. There was a very limited increase of only 2% of older adults served. So we went from 928 to 950. The resolution, the request is to continue funding through September 30th. The dollar amount per month equates roughly to the previous allocation. The rationale for this is it allows time and capacity for the strategic plan to be executed and also for the senior nutrition team, which is currently housed in OCED to transition to the Office of Aging Services. And that will again be by, if not before October 1st. And then we will continue to address senior nutrition in our County using millage funds. The next steps for senior nutrition at large continue the strategic planning. Myself and Marty will be attending the National Meals on Wheels Conference to continue to learn on a national perspective best practices to be able to bring those and make sure those are incorporated in Washtenaw County. We plan to launch the new strategic plan on October 1st. And then again, the senior nutrition team will transition to the Office of Aging Services. Okay, so that was senior nutrition. Now for transportation. Friendly reminder, we have three providers currently. This is their geographic service area. And then JFS is our one provider that provides door-through-door transportation, meaning that they will physically go in to a resident's home and help them get into the vehicle. And then when they reach the destination, out of the vehicle and into their destination. This is our total rides and unique riders. So there were a total of 15,166 total one-way rides and then a total of 2,351 unique riders. You can see in this chart that there was a steady climb and increase as the word continues to get out that this is a free service and we would expect it to continue to grow. The trip purpose, I thought this would be helpful for you to see what are people using the transportation service for. The number one reason is for medical appointments. The second is what we categorize as other. This could include transportation to senior centers, to the laundromat, assistance with their pet, general wellness. It could mean a variety of different things. And then third, in third place, there is a tie. So grocery shopping and government or social support services are tied. And then I wanted you to see where are people coming from who are using this service. So these are the top 10 trip location origins. Number one is Chelsea, number two is Ann Arbor, and number three is Ipsy, four is Sioux Township, Dexter, Whitmore Lake, Sylvan, Manchester, Lima, and Dexter Township. So we do have a nice representation across the county. The resolution before you continues funding through December 31st. Again, the dollar amount roughly equates to previous allocation. The rationale for this is it allows time and capacity to develop the transportation stakeholder group to identify gaps. I would like to do a full mapping of service areas because free transportation, accessible transportation for older adults, yes, it's the three providers we're funding, but there are more. out there doing this in Washtenaw County. And we wanna make sure that we have that mapped appropriately, thus we can inform older adults of what is available to them. It will also allow us to do a full analysis of a year of data. I have a lot of competing priorities that I'm sure that you all can imagine. So it also provides capacity to address those. One of those being launching what I call the general RFP of the millage. to address other service needs in our community. And then it will allow us to continue to provide free transportations using millage funds. The next steps for transportation, launching the stakeholder group, analysis of data, the review of transportation models, what do we want the model to look like here in Washtenaw County, and then the RFP specific to transportation would be in late 2026 for funding starting in 2027. Okay, I guess I can stop there. I was going to also talk about the Older Americans Month resolution on a positive note, but I could stop there.

No, talk about the positive note too.

Thank you. So there is a resolution before you to proclaim May as Older Americans Month. I would encourage you to adopt this. I would like to share, this is a snippet from it, but in a nutshell, what the resolution conveys is that older adults are a vibrant, population of our community. They deserve to be part of every conversation and policy decision that we are making. There is a, I will call it my colleague Bruce, who's on the Commission on Aging. He often says, no policy without aging policy. And what that means is every decision that we are making should accommodate the voice of older adults at the table. What we're trying to build now with the resolutions before you, but also with the larger vision of the Office of Aging Services is building a community that will serve older adults for generations to come. So the kids who are now five years old, when they are 85 years old, will be served well in our county. And I want to thank the Commission on Aging for partnering with me on this resolution. And that is it. So thank you. I hope that helps. And again, apologies that I didn't start there.

Thank you. Questions, comments and concerns after the presentation? Commissioner Robbie.

On the door through door aspect. I have spoken with seniors that have used the services that we're funding, who have reported to me that the door through door service was not offered to them. Have we And how are we ensuring that our providers are providing the services that they're telling us they're providing?

The expectation, if they were to call one of the providers that do not offer door-through-door and the resident conveyed, I need door-through-door, the expectation of the provider would be to provide a warm handoff to JFS who is doing door-through-door. So that's the expectation. If they're calling JFS and they're not being offered door through door, that's another story.

I think it was somebody who was being served by JFS. And in fact, I know it was. So is there a process that they could go through to talk to somebody about

Yes. So we are receiving complaints. We're also receiving success stories regarding transportation. So I'm happy to reach out to them if you provide me their contact information to get more context. And then I'll reach out to JFS to address it.

So it's basically all coming to you? Yes. All right. And have the other complaints been addressed already by JFS? And other providers? I assume it's... Are you are you receiving complaints and success stories from all three?

Yeah, so that was an expectation with the contract. It was an addition to the contracts that were to start on April 1st is that the providers themselves submit to me any complaints that they're receiving from consumers and then also identifying the steps they took to resolve those complaints so I can see what they're receiving. And then my office also receives them directly. I'm collecting those and then I work with the provider to resolve the issue.

Okay.

So as far as all of the complaints I received thus far, they've been resolved.

Can you give me a sense of like volume over the last, over the three month period?

It hasn't been many, you know, and that's coming from my background of Indiana Medicaid non-emergent medical transportation, where there were complaints constantly. So I've actually been pleasantly surprised that there haven't been more. And I think that is a testament to the quality of the providers are providing to our residents. So I would say, I don't know, Brady and Kimmy are my de facto aging services partners. I would say maybe 10 total. Yeah, 10 complaints total.

Wow.

I think we'll start to see more now that I'm expecting them to submit to me. I want to know a clear picture of what complaints they're receiving.

Because those are the ones that you receive, not ones that they're receiving. You don't know which ones they're receiving.

Not yet. Not yet. Yes. Okay.

Any other questions, comments, or concerns on item A under the single reading? Okay, we'll do a roll. Commissioner Robbie.

I don't know what the proper motion is. But I'd like to move for this to be two readings.

I think that's probably the proper motion. Do you have a support? Move. Robbie has a motion for having this be two readings.

Support. Supported by Sanders.

Any discussion on that particular item? Okay, we'll do a roll call for this. This is, to be clear, this is on the motion to make this single reading item a two reading item. A roll call, please, Brenda.

Commissioner Hodge. Nope. Commissioner LaBar. No. Commissioner Light. Commissioner Maciejewski. No. Commissioner Robby. Commissioner Sanders.

Yes.

Commissioner Scott.

No.

Commissioner Somerville? No. Commissioner Beaman?

No.

Motion fails.

Okay. Now is the vote on the resolution to authorize the older person's millage transportation contracts through December 31st through 2026. Commissioner Robby?

Thank you, Chair. I want to be clear with the team. Obviously, I think I've been pretty clear here, but The fact that this is single reading is not appropriate. And I hope that in the future, this does not happen again. This is the exact same thing that happened last time. And I thought that we had committed ourselves to not having this experience again. So I hope that you all feel that in the future, this won't be an issue again that we're facing. I think that this is a lot of money. This is $1.5 million of the public's money that we're making a decision on in one night without an RFP of any kind. It's just an extension of existing contracts And I think that there is we owe it to the taxpayers of this community to have a process through which we develop these things. And clearly, that process has not happened. This is sort of like just buying us time to do the process that I think you want to do. I'm just it's not good government to do things like this. And I really am concerned that by that, I guess what I'll say is in the future, I hope this doesn't happen again.

Commissioner Beeman. Thank you, Chair. I want to see more single readings around senior items. I have a different stance. I want these dollars in the community. I said it last year sitting at this table. I'm saying it this year, and this is not you, Shannon. So please do not take my tone towards you. This is just a frustration of ensuring that our seniors are not homeless or hungry or unable to get medical care or are being scammed by people and need legal assistance. All of the wonderful things that we outlined when we put this millage together. So please bring things forward. Please let us be expeditious. Thank you.

Commissioner Light.

I would just like to thank you, of course, for the wonderful job you're doing. I didn't say that earlier. But I just would like to emphasize on what Commissioner Robby stated is stop putting our backs against the wall. I have my seniors, my mom and my uncles and my aunt. And I do not want to be negligent on their behalf, but quit pushing us to the end. And Commissioner Sanders and I had to go through hell and high water with the whole transportation escapade last year. It's uncomfortable, and it's all good until it's y'all. So stop doing it. I am definitely going to vote. Yes, because I have my own seniors that I assist all the time. But when it comes to our process, get it together. Like I said, it's all good until it's y'all. And it's not okay. And quit pushing us or quit pushing me because y'all going to quit putting me on the edge because when I jump off, it's not going to be so good. And that's directed towards every person in this room on this board.

Commissioner Hodge.

Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to take an opportunity to remind the board that we start summer session next month so that everything is going to be single read for three months.

Commissioner Maciejewski.

Thank you, Chair. I want to just recognize the three vendors that we been engaged with for six months uh and they're ramping up of the work in this county they have seen what i would consider a pretty incredible increase in demand for their service um and uh i would like to just recognize um jfs people's express and wave especially the people that are doing the driving and are out there in the middle of winter and then in the summer and helping people get in and out of vehicles and in and out of their homes. So I just wanted to recognize them and for the work that they are doing in partnership with us and Honor Millage. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you. Commissioner Robby, Commissioner Sanders.

I just, I don't have a major issue with what Commissioner Maciejewski just said. The only thing I want to be nitpicky on is these are not their services. These are our services. The taxpayers are paying for these services. And this has been a longstanding issue of mine that you have other entities providing county services under their branding. And I want to make sure that the seniors that are getting served understand that this is county money through a millage that they voted on that's being used to serve them. These are our services, not the provider's services.

Commissioner Sanders.

Chair, I just wanted to address a concern. So there was just a statement that because we're going into summer session, I hope that what was said doesn't mean that leadership is going to be making us make these single reading decisions just because we're in summer session. I just want to be clear about that because I don't want that to slide through. Like you all have the ability to force us into a single reading boat just because we're in the summer session. That does not, we should, that shouldn't be happening. I just want to be clear that shouldn't be happening. And if the timing is wrong, it's wrong.

I will just say I've been on the board since 2019. And in the summer session, we've always had single readings it we've never done double readings through the summer session, you could probably go back and look at our agendas to see that that was the case. I don't think it's a matter of anybody wanting to push anything through. It's just the way it's it happened.

Okay, but it doesn't mean it has to be in it.

Yeah.

You have any more? I just want it on the record, right? Just because we've done something before doesn't mean we have to keep doing it that way.

That's fine. I just want to clarify, it wouldn't be leadership pushing something through. It would be following the tradition of the way we've done something. Commissioner Robby?

And I just want to say that when I first served on the board, we didn't used to have single readings even over the summer. So just want to flag that just because y'all did it while I wasn't here doesn't mean that that's how it's always been done.

Commissioner Somerville. Yeah, thank you. I just want to say once again, I really appreciate everybody who serves on this board, even when we disagree. I think it's really healthy. And I was over here, you know, Crystal said, don't push me over the edge. Me and Justin started singing a song that's kind of similar in lyrics. And then someone said single readings. And I was like, oh, kind of like all the single ladies song, all the single readings. You know, we can all have fun. We don't have to all be like, it's like unclench your jaw, take a deep breath. We're here to serve the people. It's a good time. We have great staff. We have a cool audience out there. We have repeat attendees. Jeremy comes to every meeting. So I think that's something to celebrate. Thank you.

Any other comments on single reading A? Brendan, could you please call the roll?

Commissioner LaBar. Yes. Commissioner Light.

Yes.

Commissioner Maciejewski. Yes. Commissioner Robby.

Yes.

Commissioner Sanders.

Yes.

Commissioner Scott.

Yes.

Commissioner Somerville.

Yes.

Commissioner Beeman.

Yes.

Commissioner Hodge. Yes. Motion carries.

Fantastic. Before we move to single reading item B, I think the administrator has a point of personal privilege he would like to just bring up very quickly.

Thank you for just a few quick minutes. Tom. I is here and his team in finances company him they are have really done you almost work around the audit as they do every year and this is their time to take about time if you wouldn't mind introducing your team to the board.

Hi, I'm Tom Sweeney the accounting director I've been well for this is the 8th year now and with the county 10 years in October and There are two members of my staff. I want to call attention to them first, because they're actually unable to be here. One is El Soros. She joined us in the middle of the year. Right to join us right for audit. She did a fantastic job. I handled most of the pension work. packet that you all got for the audit. They're for the four separate pension reports for RHS, Aviva, ERS, and WCDC. A lot of the work was done by either her or myself for those. And she's a senior accounting analyst and also call attention to Vicki Smith. She's a senior finance accountant. And she did a lot of the work on the in the single audit where that nate talked about earlier this evening related to prosecuting attorney friend of the court and the child care fund accounting And when we're coming up with the popular annual financial report, which that is another one that is completed, you received the 280 page report today. That one is the 12 page report with a lot of pictures. So that's the more enjoyable one to read. That one will be submitted to the GFOA, the accounting, our National Accounting Standards Board. at the end of June. So you'll receive that one. And then I want to continue on with my staff that was able to attend tonight.

So first, my name is Angela comes I have been with the county 20 years this year. So yeah, I also want to say thank you for the medical care because I'm taking full use of it with a broken knee and a broken foot.

Keith Shoemaker, 10 years with the county and just a week or so now. So yeah, senior county analyst doing a lot of the capital assets and various other things. Thank you.

My name is Anthony Zahm. I'm just second year here with the county and I'm responsible for payroll and the in and out transfers within the funds.

Thank you very much. I see Commissioner Dill stepped out of the room for a second, but I want to thank him very much. We're accountants. We don't tend to like to draw attention to ourselves. So when Commissioner Scott proceeded on, we didn't want to interrupt the proceedings. I do like the opportunity to really shine a light on my team that I feel they did a fantastic job this audit. Nate, that was here earlier today, they echoed it every step of the way that when they did that single audit report that they provided you, they chose six major programs, which is really out of the ordinary. That's a lot of work. And they said, he told you there was no findings in anything we had for that.

It's pretty incredible. We just, we've been interviewing for the CFO and some of the candidates have said, when we've talked about reports, like audits, they're like, well, of course there's a finding. And like when we've done audits before, and I was like, of course, because not, here and I think that's a testimony to the work that you do every day I mean you know think about how much people hate to do their like taxes which is essentially an audit of their like year and you are doing it on this monumental scale with all of these rules and strings and weaves that go through it and I can't even imagine how you even begin so I want to thank you so much for doing the work and doing it

in a very excellent manner thank you very much and i do uh they're also uh attending via uh they're watching it online great tina and catherine i wanted to thank them for allowing our team the um the ability to do what we need to do to get this complete the support that we need because it is something where it's us six and we're working with all of the departments. So if anybody that's in this room working in a department, we probably reached out to you at some point during the audit. So thank you all very much. Thanks for the opportunity to promote my team.

Thank you.

Okay, so we'll move on with the next item that we pulled for single reading. That was be a resolution to authorize contracts for older persons village support for extended senior nutrition programs. Any questions, comments or concerns on this item being pulled? Commissioner Robbie?

Yeah, I had a couple questions on this. Did we lose Shannon, though?

I think we did lose Shannon.

Okay. Who's the right person to answer the questions in her absence? Oh,

No, I think we probably lost her. Did we lose Shannon? Okay.

All right, who's the right person to answer some questions then?

Okay.

Oh, poor Shannon. Well, I guess the two questions that I have

Well, I'm back.

How fast were you running?

Not too fast. Not too fast.

Just a couple of questions on this. What is the $135,000 for caterers to increase food quality? What are the caterers?

It's JFS. So it's the county's contracted caterer.

So JFS prepares the food?

Yes.

And then distributes it to the deliverers, which is Meals on Wheels?

Some of them. So some of them use their own caterer. So this is why we're doing a strategic plan. This is very complicated. And there's a lot of perhaps unnecessary contracts happening, right? So we have a contractor that some of our partners use, and then some of our partners who are doing Meals on Wheels or senior cafes, and then some of our partners use their own caterer.

Okay. What are we doing to make sure that the folks we're serving understand that this is county millage money that's paying for these meals?

I believe Marty has left. She was here to address that. Again, this program is still in the Office of Community and Economic Development. So my role has been to really try to spearhead the strategic planning process. I have been out to sites and I have seen, I wouldn't call them signs, but a piece of paper propped up that says that this is funded by Washtenaw County.

So all of the contracts that are generated out of the Office of Community and Economic Development that are dispersing county funds have the language related to marketing acknowledgement of Washtenaw County for the funding of that program and or service, including the contracts that we were doing on behalf of the Office of Aging Services.

Okay, and it sounds but it sounds like maybe the the signage and labeling is not all that extensive if it's just a piece of paper at the service site.

So on their websites, it's acknowledged that there are contributions from the county for the various providers that are doing the services. They also sometimes have signages, each of them do it differently. The language is not explicit, detailing every point or item that they need to do, but it does talk about the acknowledgements and various nonprofit agencies do the recognition in different ways.

Okay. I am tired and I'm a father, so I'm not going to belabor this point. But I just want to say one more time, you guys know how I feel about this. That doesn't seem sufficient to me, but I want people to understand that these are services that are being paid for, taxpayer money. I know that these nonprofits, they're operating under their own logo, under their own stuff i just believe that people deserve to know that taxpayers are paying for these services so that when there's a millage renewal up in six seven years they know what their services have paid for so that seems like What you've described doesn't seem like enough in terms of what they're doing. Personally, I'd like to push you guys to ask them for more so that it's not just a box they're checking, but something that they're incorporating into their operations.

So as the Office of Aging Services, you know, creates their own templates for their contracts related to millage dollars, it can have different languages in it. We were creating from scratch through OCED trying to create millage documents of which.

What you have done is a vast improvement over the nothing that we had before. So I appreciate that very much that you've done that. And I'm going to keep pushing you to do more and both of you to do more. Okay. I'm not going to belabor that point. The last question I have is about just another, sorry to open this can of worms, but just another rationale of why this is single readings.

You'd like additional information about why it's a single reading?

This one in particular. Is it the same reason as the last one?

It's the same reason. So again, when I came on board, I quickly noted that the contracts are going to expire March 31st. And the goal was to extend them before they expired. That did not happen.

Okay. So same thing as the other one. All right. That's what I was wondering. Thank you.

Commissioner Maciejewski.

If I could just add on to that. the county is contracted with Ageways for the same timeframe that this is for, and those vendors have been selected. It's not like you're gonna pick a vendor in the middle of the Ageways contract that we have. Correct, yeah. To change. Plus, it's really hard to start like that. So for consistency purposes, there really is no alternative. Right.

Thanks for the clarification. Any other comments, questions, or concerns on this item? Okay, Brendan, could you call a roll call, please?

Commissioner Light. Commissioner Maciejewski. Yes. Commissioner Robby. Commissioner Sanders.

Yes.

Commissioner Scott.

Yes.

Commissioner Somerville. Yes. Commissioner Beeman.

Yes.

Commissioner Hodge. Yes. Commissioner LaBar. Yes. Motion carries.

Thanks. The next item that was pulled for separate consideration is E, a resolution authorizing the acceptance of corporate sponsorships. Questions, comments, or concerns on this item? Commissioner Robby.

Thank you, Chair. Who is the proper staff person to answer questions on this?

That would be me, Commissioner Robby. Okay.

All right. Thank you. I guess the first question is, so when I looked online for this, I noted that the cover memo and resolution were just a bunch of question marks.

Yes. So that, that was a mistake. We, we try not to upload blank cover letters and resolutions, but it's a kind of a quirk of our system. So I do apologize that those were left in there. The full resolution is attached to the item, but there is no cover letter. That is correct.

So there's no, there isn't a cover memo that there's not a cover memo. No. I think it would have been helpful probably to have a cover memo on something like this. I mean, this I know it's just for the bicentennial, but yeah, Obviously, this is, it's opening up a can of worms for me, definitely. The policy behind taking corporate sponsorships is something that I think we need to be very thoughtful about. And so I think understanding more of the context and the PB, Harmon Zuckerman, rationale for why we need this is like really important for this decision. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, So I guess it's too bad that there isn't a cover memo but also, why does this need to be single reading sorry i'm asking this of all of these but.

noted on the cover memo. So I think what's important here is the narrowness of it. So this was a, I did work on this with our illustrious finance team who are at a conference, Tina and Catherine. One of the things that we wanted to ensure that this was specifically for the bicentennial, the county does allow for for-profit sponsorships up to $2,500 at this point, but that is specifically, I believe, for a program that's in the sheriff's office. And that is an incredibly narrow, another narrow policy. We wanted to make this also narrow. I think the important part of this is to allow for more accessibility and opportunity and equity for our bicentennial programs. One of the things that we've wanted to ensure is that no one who participates will have to pay anything. So we wanted to ensure that everyone in our community can access these events. And the corporate sponsorships will allow for us to make that happen. Of course, there is a current budget that was allocated thanks to the board. This will make the events even more accessible and also allow for us to sell the commemorative items.

Will corporate sponsorships logos or recognition be included in anything?

Is there a policy for that? Yes. But it will be on an event-by-event basis, depending on different tiers of sponsorships. However, I think what I wanted to do with this is cap that at the $10,000 mark. Number one, anything over $1,000, you are going to be notified of. Anything over $10,000, the board has to approve. I felt like that kind of $9,999 mark was an appropriate amount. And I also think that that is aligned with our single reading policy. Anything under a certain amount, we can bring through single reading. I'm not exactly sure what it is off the top of my head, but I believe that that is under the single reading threshold, the $9,999.

I didn't know we had a single readings policy.

We do, but again, I don't know off the top of my head, and I probably should, but I do.

Could you send that to me when you get a chance? Absolutely. When we're less tired. Yep. That'd be helpful. Thank you. So I guess, so the goal here is to fundraise, essentially, for bicentennial events.

Correct.

And to display corporate logos and

That would be a part of it. That would be a part of it, depending on the amount of money that these corporations give. Yes. Yeah.

Well, I am absolutely going to be a no on this, as you might have expected. I think this is not appropriate at all. I think that we are not a NASCAR driver, where the government should not be putting logos on government buildings or on government events or on government parks, anything like that. We're an organization run for and by the people. And giving any type of show to any corporation of any kind I think is a real violation of the trust that the taxpayers have put in us to be an entity that is not playing favorites, that is not giving any promotion or anything like that to any profit making entity. And I think that is a consistent feeling that I have across the board as that pertains to other items this evening that we're voting on. But this in particular has always been a problem for me. I pushed for a policy at parks to make sure that parks weren't getting named after corporations. After I saw that DTE had bought naming rights to a park, a state park, I would imagine that DTE is probably gonna give money for this. And I frankly, if corporations are gonna be sponsoring bicentennial events, I will not be attending those events. okay if there's if there's the dte bicentennial gala i will not be there um that's not going to happen uh if there's anything sponsored by a corporation i'm just telling you right now i'm not attending i think it's inappropriate vastly inappropriate to have it feels orwellian almost it feels like some alternative universe where you know these big companies are buying their way, buying access into what should be a public space. And it's just really uncomfortable and unacceptable. So I don't, I don't agree with that whatsoever. And I'm going to vote no on this.

Commissioner Light. Commissioner Robbie.

I already know we disagree on this.

No, but you're good. I, you know, so I just feel like we're not giving money away, but So my thoughts were, we need the Eastern Washtenaw County Community and Rec Center. And the bicentennial is a great way to get corporate dollars, private dollars, all of the dollars that I've been already asking for. So y'all can, anybody can be mad. And I did not know that there were limitations because I'm not asking for pennies. I'm asking for money. And I have asked. And I'm utilizing the bicentennial to allow, for the sponsorships so that we can get this community and recreation center up in the bicentennial is a way for us to receive those funds. And I always, Do the, there's no strings attached. You will not, this is not tip for tat. Don't expect anything from me. You won't get my vote. You are investing into the community that you service or that you utilize. And so my ask is always a clear cut. Are you going to give us the money or not? I'm not here to say, well, we'll do X, Y, and Z. I'm not making promises to anyone, but we're going to utilize the funds the correct way. And so I'm just going to be upfront to everybody. I'm asking for money. And if they would like to donate to our bicentennial, which is going to allow us to put money towards our community and recreation center, please send all of your millions of dollars. And that is for anybody who is here tonight. You can invest however you want, but you get nothing in return but a thank you. So I'm sorry, y'all, but that's what's been going on. And so I want all the dollars.

Thank you, Commissioner Light. Commissioner Sanders.

I think I got to support my colleague sitting next to me because she and I have volunteered to try and do some fundraising for the Eastside Community Rec Center. I am of the mindset that this is an anniversary for the county. There are a number of entities that have benefited mightily by being here in that county, and I don't think it's asking too much. for them to make donations and to show to the residents who have been keeping them in business that they appreciate those residents. So I don't have a problem either. And I will echo the fact that I'm okay to ask you for a donation and no, you don't get to lock up my home. It's not a tit for tat. It's you repaying the residents that have made you comfortable and helped your company profit. It's just the cost of doing business. But more importantly, I'd like to see the commemorative items before they are solidified. So that's what I hear about. I'm done.

Thank you. Go ahead, Ashley. I just wanted to put in clarification to what Commissioner Light said. There's not actually a limit. If it is over $10,000, the board has to approve it. So that is the way it is written. So there's not an actual limit. Although I think we could probably come up with one if we wanted to. But I just wanted to make sure you understood that part.

Any other discussion? Commissioner Somerville?

Thank you. I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank Ashley Hall for all of her hard work to help us commemorate Bicentennial and to try to get... There are a lot of asks, I think, by commissioners to get things incorporated into Bicentennial, and that's hard to do, but you're doing your best to pull it off, and so I do really appreciate that. With that being said, I do appreciate Commissioner Robbie's thoughts and concerns about but I also would have to co-sign what Commissioner Light said, that Eastside Rec Center is an opportunity for us to ask stakeholders and corporate partners in the community who do benefit off of being here in Washtenaw County to invest back in the community. And I think it's important and by publicly disclosing, I think that takes away any mistrust or conspiracy theories that people could come up with. And like, that's why I think it's, and I think it's good that it's coming back before the board to approve. And so we're not hiding anything from the public on who may become a future county partner, but for something like the East side rec center, I think it's a huge part of how we may close some gaps and not have to pay, like really could close some of the gaps on the bond because I'm going to be honest, like I, like, it makes me nervous. Like how much, for a year. So if we can pay that off sooner, that would be great. I would really like that. And so I think it's really awesome how thoughtful you've been to tie the Eastside rec into bicentennial. It's in my district, but it's going to benefit every district in the county because we're going to have a whole generation of people who have a better life because of it. And so if we're making our 200 year celebration about the next 200 years, but really like a whole generation of kids that are going to have a different path in Washington County. So I really appreciate you. Thanks.

Commissioner Robby.

I just want to be clear. I'm not talking about any conflicts of interest. I just think it's wildly inappropriate to have government events be sponsored by corporations. And I think it's unfortunately very telling of where we are at 200 years as a community and as a country. And we're even considering this, you know, I mean, the fact that what we can't, we can't do things because unless we get sponsored by corporations to do them, I mean, I just feel like, where do we draw the line? Are we going to name the Eastside Rec Center after company? Are we going to welcome to the Comcast Xfinity boardroom? What are we doing here? I said that for a certain commissioner. I knew it. But the point is, where do we stop? I don't want commemorative trinkets that have the DTE logo on them. You know, because usually the companies that can give money are companies that have a lot of money because they are exploitative. Oil companies, fossil fuel companies like DTE that make a lot of money. Like these are the types of entities that will give money for this kind of thing, also because they need to clean their image. And so we are aiding them in image cleaning. potentially, are there, like, this policy is not very long. And so my question is, like, are there limitations on what kinds of companies we want to take money from? Like, is it just a carte blanche? We'll take money from anybody? Or are there criteria?

Yep. That's an excellent question, Commissioner. So there was a discussion originally about including like, apologies, I'm trying to stop saying like, about including language around aligning the sponsorships we took with our community values. Instead, we decided to add that $10,000 limit because that puts it back on the board to decide what sponsorships they want to accept and which they don't. So that was the ultimate decision. And that was a way that we were able to bring it back to the board to decide what is aligned with the values and what is not.

But ExxonMobil could still donate $9,000, right?

Theoretically, yes. Just, I mean, I want you to know, like, as someone who works for the county, I would, like, that is not something that I feel is aligned with the county values, and I would not solicit ExxonMobil for a donation to the Bicentennial.

Right. But then I guess it becomes... sort of subjective to your decision-making as a staff member. And that seems kind of unfair to you to put you in that position to have to discern between what you believe may or may not be along the lines of the community values. I do feel like having some type of guardrails that this board can vote on would help to ensure that you're not put in the position of having to make those types of decisions. Because, I mean, I would hate a scenario where you say yes, and then suddenly we have, you know, a sponsorship of an event, and some commissioners are like, why did you allow them to sponsor the event? You know, it's under $9,000. Ashley made the call. But it's on you. It's on your shoulders, you know? I mean, that's...

I certainly wish I had that much power, Commissioner. Who makes the call, then? Well, so there is a bicentennial working group. So we do do this work as a committee. But I think also, I mean, I'm certainly open to creating a policy around what kind of corporations we could accept donations from. However, I do think that number one, if it's over a thousand dollars, the board is notified of it. And also the $10,000 mark is when you could actually accept or decline.

The way it's worded, it's not like a seven day review. It's just, we're notified. Correct.

Of something of anything over a thousand dollars.

And we can't like call it like seven day review as like, Hey, we object, bring it to a board meeting.

language, language could certainly be added in that regard. Absolutely.

Okay. Commissioner. Yes, I lost my place on my page.

And then like, okay, Justin, my name's not on the screen. So it's harder to remember.

Maybe next. No, no, it's okay.

That's not your fault. Sorry. Sorry.

Technical difficulties.

I boy, It's getting late. I just want to say thank you, Ashley, for the work that went into this. I know a lot of time and effort went into it with you and then the working group. I respect Commissioner Robby's passion on this issue. I just want to also make it clear that you're not a corporation. You're not ExxonMobil. And like you just said, you wouldn't be the sole decision-making person on it. So I'm also interested in what the trinkets will be. But yeah, we probably don't want like a DTE logo trinket. Maybe, I don't think that's what the team is thinking of. Is that, are you going to respond?

There is no plan to put logos on any of the commemorative items. It would be exclusively at the county bicentennial logo. So there, there's no plan to put corporate logos on any of the, of the swag that we would, that we would sell.

So it's bicentennial specific swag is what I'm hearing.

Okay.

With the nice blue and green font. Okay. Yeah. I just want to thank you for the work.

Commissioner.

Yes.

Commissioner light. I can promise my colleagues that while I'm asking for money that I'm going to do that, this will not be a, um, you get to put your name all over. I'm sorry, Michelle, I'm making you. She can leave high while asking for donations to sponsor it is gonna be no shame attached. You don't get your name all over us. You don't get to say, well, because I've done X, Y, and Z, I'm not giving timeshare presentations. I'm asking for a donation. If you would like to participate on your own free will and do our county and community some good, that is absolutely fine, but you don't get to utilize us. for your own personal good, you get, I'm sure can write it off as a tax write-off, however, but you don't get to slander your company name all over us, but you do get to invest into a county that does the work for the people. And so, Commissioner Robbie, I promise that you won't have to worry about that. I know you can't stand this kind of thing, but I feel like companies and private companies and corporations, This is how they can, what's in progress? The recording? But I feel like, you know, they kind of owe this to our communities because they utilize our county and our taxpayers invest in them. So it's great that they can do that back for us. But there is no strings attached. You do not get to utilize this for your own good. But what you can do is invest and donate and want to make Washtenaw County continue the great things that we do. So I promise. It's good. I know you can't stand it. But I promise. And I take full responsibility. Ashley going to have to, you know, it's me. It's not Ashley. Ashley is not making a call. She's just going to be like, no, that's all Commissioner likes. So, and it really is.

I'll say one thing. I'm happy to, I'm I'm unable to talk. It's 11 o'clock at night. I also want to thank you for the hard work that you've done on this. I also think that I am thrilled about thinking about how we can do this to try to further the support for the Eastside Rec Center and make sure everybody who wants to be at an event like this can be at that event. There's no way we can do that on our own. Two weeks ago at this board table, we voted unanimously to take $10,000 from DTE to help support barrier busters. I'm unsure entirely what the difference is. That was a unanimous vote to take that money from DTE. We are also trying to do something good with this money too. I will be voting yes as well. Any other comments, questions, or concerns on this item? Okay. Brendan, could you call the roll?

Commissioner Maciejewski. Yes. Commissioner Robby.

No.

Commissioner Sanders.

Yes.

Commissioner Scott.

Yes.

Commissioner Somerville.

Yes.

Commissioner Beeman.

Yes.

Commissioner Hodge. Yes. Commissioner LaBar. Yes. Commissioner Light.

Money.

Yes. Motion carries.

Okay. Um, any discussion questions or concerns on any of the other items on final reading and single reading commissioner Hodge?

Thank you, chair. I wanted to draw people's attention to the item from the food policy councils, the resolution support of coordinating the donation of surplus food from county events to pathways for human consumption. Uh, take a moment if you can to read through the resolution. I wanted to share from the food policy council that they're interested in helping to operationalize this. and that this isn't a mandate that we do what's in the resolution. It's an encouragement that if there is leftover food, and we've made this a practice within events that are hosted by administration, that if there is leftover food, we donate that to other organizations that are serving people experiencing food insecurity or housing homelessness challenges. What this talks about is them encouraging other departments to do the same. And they've talked about wanting to develop a one pager to be able to distribute to departments so that they can hang that up in the event that they have larger events where there is gonna be surplus food. They would like to do a stronger policy at some point. I'm gonna continue to talk to them about that and what that might entail. But I appreciate the work that they've put into this. They put a significant amount of time and effort into this resolution.

I'm glad you called that out because I was going to do that myself, but it was entirely appropriate that as a member of Food Policy Council, you did that.

Thank you. Thank you.

Any other discussion on the items for first reading and single reading? Machiaski.

Really quickly, just on 3C, the Old Americans Act Month resolution. I want to thank Commissioner Somerville and Senator Irwin for coming down to Older Michiganians Day, which was at the Capitol last Wednesday, State Capitol. They both came down the lawn and spent some time with the aging stakeholders that were out there advocating for older adults. So I appreciate Commissioner Somerville for coming down and Senator Irwin for speaking, talking about the importance of the direct care workforce and many things aging related. So I just wanted to shout out.

I have a question. It's older Michiganians then?

So the name of the act in Michigan is the Older Michiganians Act. So we have the older Michiganian day. Governor Weber came down a few years ago. He kind of got on our case. How about you be older Michiganders day? We had to explain that until we change the act, it's only Michiganders.

I have always been on the Michiganian side because I think if we're Michiganders, we sound like a bunch of ducks. So I appreciate that somewhere in the world, somebody is still a Michiganian. Commissioner Robby?

You know the history of that, right?

Yeah.

which maybe Annie can correct me, but it was supposed to be derogatory.

Yes.

It was, uh, Abraham Lincoln was debating Cass, um, during the presidential election and called her, called him, um, Michigander as a derogatory term. So it was, uh, so Cass being, of course, uh, famously terrible, uh, and Abraham Lincoln being famously awesome. Um, you know, I think it was, uh, Oh, go ahead. Annie's got her hand up too.

I'm just going to say, yes. And one of your state senators from Ann Arbor, Senator Jeff Irwin, has a TikTok video that explains this history. Inside the state capitol, he was doing cool videos during the beginning of the pandemic when they were stuck there and everything else was shut down. And there's a video that explains this because we are a strictly Michiganian office. Okay.

Oh, God, I love that. Okay. Any other questions, comments, or that's why I was making the surprise. Any other questions, comments, or concerns on the agenda? We have strayed from business and brevity. Okay. Partially my fault. Sorry. Brendan, could you call the roll on the remainder of these items?

Commissioner Robbins. Commissioner Sanders. Commissioner Sanders. Commissioner Scott.

Yes.

Commissioner Somerville.

Yes.

Commissioner Beeman.

Yes.

Commissioner Hodge. Yes. Commissioner LaBar. Yes. Commissioner Light.

Yes.

Commissioner Maciejewski. Yes. Motions carry.

Thank you. I have gotten several frantic SOSs from some of my colleagues that maybe we need to have another five minute bathroom break before we move to the pending item. So let's like really make it five minutes or less. So that means we're coming back at 1113. Do your business and do it fast. Would somebody like to move the pending? No, we don't have to move it again. Sorry, we just pick it back up. I'm going to ask Nathan and Joe. Is it just Nathan or? Joe's coming too. Sorry, Joe. You looked like you thought you were going to get this down in a minute. There were some questions the last time that came up with this. I'm gonna have Joe and Nathan talk to us a little bit about those questions before we get started, thanks.

You wanted me to present on the audit, right? I think you all know Joe Giant, economic development director for the city. You all know me, OCD, Brownfield program staff. We put together this FAQ for you. It was a collaborative effort to try to pull together the most salient information to address some of the concerns that were raised what we wanted to do is not read it or even but more like bullet point run through it and so that's what we wanted to do right now um starting out just with the i know you all know that regional authority we operate and local units joined including the city in 2002 we've had a very successful program ann arbor has been our most important partner up to 90 of our revenue administrative fees and also LBRF has come from in our projects. We've had a great partnership. We have a mutually beneficial partnership. I think they rely on our expertise as well and our relationships that we've formed. And then we can take a regional approach to brownfield redevelopment, which is really useful for the region. The process always starts at the local level. This has been to the city in February, and then it comes up through the process. If it's not approved locally, it doesn't go anywhere. So the locals, I always say they're in the driver's seat. The plan itself is a plan. I know people look at TIF table, they look at numbers, they get kind of fixated. This is a projection, it's a plan, it's not an ordinance. I want to emphasize that. So the TIF table, we noted that the CTE millage that was passed in December was not in the TIF tables. The plan is meant to live and breathe over time, over 30 years, even over five years is meant to live and breathe. New millages come on, they will get captured if they're not dead. Old millages drop away. That's the nature of the plan. In this case, we didn't want to amend the plan midstream while it was being reviewed by the city. It was kind of already set in final draft. So that was not a change. We didn't add that millage into the TIF tables. I know that led to some confusion. Our authority always forms a subcommittee, which we did this time again to help review at the local level of the plan, and that's what we did. In terms of eligibility, the site is eligible as a facility and functionally obsolete and adjacent and contiguous. We confirmed the facility status with EGLE as well, which is an extra step that we've never done. I think I mentioned in the FAQ last minute addition was this 2016 observer article where the previous owner talked about cleaning up the site. I had SME go back through the files There's no evidence that anything was cleaned up or that it wasn't at least cleaned up to residential standards. You can clean up the site or pull some soil out when tanks come out and only get it up to commercial standards, a gas station standard, which is not residential, hence the restrictive covenant that is still on the site. Today, the developer will have to deal with that. The affidavit of functional obsolescence. It's been submitted by the level four assessor. It meets the statute. The city accepted it. The city, many cities don't want, many city assessors will not put themselves in a position of providing such an affidavit on behalf of a private developer. I think in Ann Arbor's case, they're conservative and they were not willing to do that in this case. The site is eligible under Act 3.1. There's no question about it. Moving on to the restrictive covenant, I mentioned it. It's in place. The developer will have to deal with that. That is a law and an issue that the developer will be between the developer and EGLE. It will have to be addressed. And we are not part of that process. It's not part of the brownfield plan process. The UST underground storage tank registration, I think, was brought up. The developer and their consultant recently told me that they filed what they needed to file with Laura. I think this issue again was raised. They're doing what they need to do in terms of Laura and underground storage tank regulation. School funding. The plan projects many millions, obviously we've been discussing and have been brought up in school operating, SCT, WISD. The school operating millages are captured. I report them every year on all my projects to the state of Michigan. The state of Michigan then replenishes to the dollar the school taxes that were captured by my projects, all the projects across the state. The WISD I learned this morning on a call with all the authorities around the state that we have monthly calls. And I kind of brought up the issue of school funding and WISD. And they said, oh, WISDs are made whole as well. I did not know this. So I apologize. I led some of you astray in conversations we've been having. It's in Act 381. We found the section. We got copies of it here if you want to see it. But WISD will be made whole as well in the same way that schools are made whole. I have to report WISD to the dollar to the state by August 31st every year. The state then replenishes or repays or reimburses in some way WISD for other millages, including the new CTE millage that will kick in this year. affordable housing units, we touched on in the FAQ in terms of a pilot being likely. And, you know, any new students that would be living in these units or any units in the development would increase per pupil funding for the school district. We touched on private investment, why the 406 and 588, same thing with the CTE millage, we're midstream. We've got a final draft of the plan that everybody's been reviewing to try to start changing numbers at that point is just not something we like to do. And the same thing with the private investment, we just didn't wanna change numbers. It doesn't really mean anything. The actual private investment, the developers will report to the city and to me. I have to report that to the MEDC every year, just like I do all the millages that are captured. And that will be an actual number that we will see as the project builds out. I want to turn it over to Joe for the financial review that the city did.

I had to cover two items. Nice to see you all. Thank you for having us up here. So there was a question about the pro forma. So we, the city, does the financial review of these, not the county. So back in early 2024, so two years ago, we engaged PFM to run the numbers on this project. A lot of times it's something we can do in-house, but due to the complex nature of this, we wanted to have somebody who had more expertise to do it. PFM is not somebody we just, you know, issued an RFP to get a bid for. It's our municipal financial advisor. They're who we work with on bonds. I mean, that we... trust them explicitly to do this. So they did several iterations of the developer's pro forma. They worked with them to make sure that any incentive or reimbursements that we were giving were warranted. The question came up about the public nature of the pro forma, or I guess the lack of that. Why aren't those made public? Pro formas include very sensitive business information like anticipated costs and returns and financial assumptions. For example, it lists the project costs. So let's just say that there was like a million dollars set aside for electrical. The performer becomes public. Everybody who's bidding on that particular item says, OK, the developer's tolerance for electrical is this. We aren't going to be competitive. We know that they have a tolerance for this up to this. That makes the project more expensive just because there's like, we know the developer can tolerate this much rather than them trying to be competitive. Now, extrapolate that to every single item on the pro forma. all the bank terms, all the relationships with people who are like equity investors. And you can see like that would be a poison pill for a project. Like they'd be unable to get competitive bids, it would drive costs way up. Financing would be more difficult. I understand like the, kind of the proclivity to want to make that public but i i also kind of get why it would make these projects incredibly difficult to finance and to get reasonable costs on so that's why that is kind of set up the way that it is um there was a comment a question about um the city um leaving the um county's brownfield authority unequivocally, we value this partnership. We value it so much. We value their technical expertise, availability. I talk to Nathan as much as I talk to my wife.

Period. Stop.

No, we lean on them. We ask a lot of them. We rely on the Brownfield Authority. I believe the two members of the subcommittee have 50 years of combined experience doing this. 80, yeah.

80 years of combined experience?

That's something that you cannot replicate. That is something that gives us so much certainty and security that when we're taking these plans through, that they comply with state law. I mean, there are obviously policy decisions onto the projects themselves, but we feel so confident in their ability to administer the Brownfield statute. It is something that we do not take lightly, OK? I just want to make sure that that is clear. I want to point out that we have been talking about this project for two years. I understand that the commission is voting on it, hopefully tonight, and we had a first reading, and there's a lot to learn about this project. And so we were very fluent in discussing it. I don't want that to come across that we take your vote for granted. We certainly don't. I think that reaching out beforehand is something that we could probably do a better job of in the future. Um, I know that, like, we've had multiple briefings with our own city council members. I know that they reach out to members that they trust that are not on city staff members. Like, like in housing and just some of the other affected organizations to make sure that when they vote on it, their votes are informed. I'm sure that you all are doing that too. Um, but I just want to say with no reservation that we, we value the relationship we've been working with the subcommittee and the authority for. like I said, about 18 months now. So bringing you all into the process in that capacity early on was very important to us. So I believe that's all the items that were in the document that you were provided. But the one other thing I would want to note is you all saw that the city administration does support this project. You all saw the enclosed letter from Mr. Dahoney, our city administrator. So just if there was any question about city support for this, we are behind it. So thank you guys for your time. Appreciate it. Happy to answer any questions.

Okay, thank you.

So I'm gonna go ahead, Nathan, just want to add in terms of, I know, Commissioner Sanders brought up the city approving a plan versus the county. The city would have the same authority that we do to approve the same plan, capturing the same taxes, even if some of the taxes are county taxes that benefit countywide. So it's the same be the same plan, same authority, if it were to happen at the city.