City Council - Regular Meeting

for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Roll call, please. Madam clerk, Mayor Beagle, present. Council member Bearman, present. Council member Nigel, here. Council member Garland Fox, here. Council member Kennedy, here. Council member OD here. Council member Simmons, here. We have four. Thank you. uh changes or additions to the agenda as presented tonight. The city manager uh we have three walk-ons uh this evening, your honor. Two under consent agenda will be number four, number five under consent, and then one new business item number three. I can go over the particulars if you'd like to go through.

Uh we'll just go over new business number three and that's the uh request to convene and close uh session. All right. Um deputy or assistance, any manager Benson? Any?

I have none, sir. Any from the dis? Seeing none, uh we'll go move on. Um we'll go on to the public hearing. I'll read the rules to the public hearing. They are as follow. And um anyone wishing to address the council must first state their name and address for the record and speak directly into the microphone so that your comments may be properly recorded. Please note that the questions from the audience to the council are not permitted during the public hearing and members of council will not engage in dialogue with individuals addressing the council. Each person may address the council only once and will be limited to 5 minutes. And at this time, I'll turn it over to city manager Brown to provide an overview of the subject matter for tonight's public hearing.

Uh thank you, your honor. Um, so the crux of this issue that we're having a public hearing on tonight is is in relation to the uh construction of the plan construction of a new uh Wixom Elementary School, which would replace the existing Wixom Elementary School on Wixom Road. Uh, at the time the project's complete and the school's opened. Uh, the city normally has oversight over construction within city limits. uh that involves uh homeowner improvements, that involves construction of residential housing, that involves commercial industrial building improvements or construction of commercial and industrial buildings. Uh that's not the case with school construction, however, because under public act 451 of 1976, the state superintendent of public instruction is provided solely and exclusive jurisdiction over construction of schools like in this situation. Uh in spite of that, the W Lake Consolidated School District uh has uh been cooperative with the city in terms of showing us plans and having discussions with us over the past, I would say several months. It's probably four or five months at this point in time that we've been discussing this actively with the district. Um there are some issues that we brought up that have been addressed, but there are important issues that we brought up that we don't feel have been addressed. And that's why we're here tonight for this public hearing is because we want to uh point this situation out to to residents and give them an opportunity to to to learn that information and then to talk about the situation if they're inclined. Uh so there's a couple different things that I would talk about in this. There's a historical context for it and then there's the actual like site plan in relation to the new school construction that's that's before us. I'll start with the historical context and that's in relation to other school buildings that are in the district. uh Lon Lake Elementary, Sarah Banks Middle School, uh the existing Wixom Elementary, we we experience a lot of traffic problems in association with those school sites uh because of the situation where the roadway just isn't uh really built to handle the traffic that is that is impacted or caused uh by having a school in that area. Uh so that's the historical aspect of it. the current site plan that we've we've looked at uh and and provided feedback on uh doesn't

really address the the key concern for us from a traffic safety standpoint, a traffic impact standpoint. Uh so because of that, we've had this public hearing. Uh there's a couple things that we have brought up during the course of our discussions with the district. Um one of which is a sidewalk on the south side uh of West Maple. The school location is 3515 West Maple. Uh we're looking for a sidewalk that would run on the south side of West Maple. Uh that wasn't reflected in the plans. Uh and then there's things like uh basic public safety, fire department related stuff. For example, depending on the details of the building, how many people are what the occupancy load is uh that that helps to determine what the parking requirements are. Uh it might determine how many hydrants we might need. It might uh point to where those hydrants have to be. And some of that information has just not been been provided by the site plans or the school district to the city. So we can't really weigh in as to whether that's adequate, appropriate or sufficient. Right? So that's one of the concerns. Uh the other stuff is relation to just traffic oriented stuff and and the real solution from our perspective is to some roadway improvements on uh West Maple and we're looking at things like there's an existing uh flare at Hadingham and West Maple that is appropriate for a a T intersection which is what it is currently but under the plans that becomes a four-way intersection and there's no addressing of that. that flare, according to our traffic experts, should no longer be there because it creates an unsafe situation with sight lines and people trying to turn uh from one side or the other in and not being able to see people that might be in crossing that area. Um so there's concerns about that. Um we're looking at acceleration and deceleration lanes that we'd like to see put in place uh in relation to the school building that aren't addressed. Uh we'd like to see uh a left turn lane. We might like to see a traffic light. There's a variety of things that come into play that we'd like to see done as far as improvements to the roadway that would kind of ameliorate the problems that we're expecting to have on the traffic side of things. And and frankly,

we feel like this this location is probably going to be worse than these other locations where we already have very difficult traffic situations just because of the nature of the roadway. Uh so we think it's very critical to get those things accomplished. And because of that, we're looking to to have this public hearing so that we can point out to people a that the city isn't able to to oversee construction and require certain things in in compliance with our code of ordinance through our planning commission, our zoning board of appeals, the code of ordinances, city council oversight. None of those things are going to come into play because it's going to get handled at the state level. We understand that uh the state level jurisdiction, the superintendent's office has approved it. But we've asked for information in terms of what exactly was approve was approved, how was it approved because perhaps some of these things that we're concerned about have been addressed, but we haven't had that information and we really can't can't say that we know what exactly has been approved at this point. We just know that it has state level approval. So, we're just looking for people's feedback at this at this public hearing. Uh we're looking for information from people that might be residents of the area that are going to be impacted because of that. We would be looking for information from people that might have kids that are going to be in the school once it's once it's opened and established. Um we're looking for information from people that might be from surrounding areas that that they're by Lon Lake or by Sarah Banks that know what kind of traffic issues are in play. Uh so we're looking forward to what the public can can offer us in terms of feedback at this public hearing. And then uh the last thing I would say is uh depending on whether you're interested in this subject uh enough to appear at this public hearing or not, you could consider attending a school board meeting. And the next one is April 9th. Uh it's Thursday, 7:00 p.m. at the Education Service Center at 850 Lab Road in Paul Blake uh tonight. Um so that's basically just in a nutshell what we're looking to accomplish tonight, your honor. in there to you to begin the public hearing unless uh our assistant city manager has anything like that to add?

I do not. Uh any questions that come up from city council I'd be happy to to try to address. Nope. Nothing to add. Okay. Thank you for your time.

You're welcome. With that, I'll open the public comment uh portion of the um public hearing. And remember uh state your name, address, speak directly into the microphone, and uh you're limited to 5 minutes. Please be respectful. Do we have anybody for the call to the public? Hello friends and council members. My name is Ryan Fiser. I live at 2176 Hettingham Boulevard. Uh like like many uh people in here, I am a state government employee and a great motto that unfortunately a lot of my co-workers, not me, but my co-workers subscribe to is close enough for government work. Um and I implore you as a city council to not let Wald Lake Consolidated School District do this close enough for government work. Um the school that they are building sits on Maple Road and uh as um Manager Brown indicated that we're not going to see a sidewalk in front of the school. What school do you know that doesn't have a sidewalk in front of it? Where do kids walk? Who walk to school? If there's no sidewalk, where are they going to walk? Please let common sense prevail when you are working with Wald Lake Public Schools. Case in point, we have a beautiful new high school almost. The parking lot that the students have to use should be condemned. Uh it's rot with potholes, floods all the time. My daughter has to trapes through, you

know, puddles of water just to get her car in and out of this lot. Uh the gymnasium, there's no plans to fix the gymnasium that's over 50 years old and also should be condemned. These bleachers are just flatout dangerous and a liability, but there's no intention of fixing anything in the gymnasium. But the rest of it's really cool. We got a new weight room. You know, you know, common sense would say a good majority of the students drive to school. Maybe we should have a parking lot that's usable. So, I implore you, city council. I know you don't have a lot of teeth in this situation. Um, unfortunately, you know, school districts can have cart blanch to do whatever they want. There's no oversight required. I do think it's a good thing that they are sharing plans with you, the the school district, and sharing ideas. But whatever you can do to hold them accountable to basic common sense like deceleration lanes, acceleration lanes, maybe a crosswalk light, maybe a sidewalk where kids could actually walk to school. Whatever you can do, I implore you to do what's in your power to do that. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else for the call to the public?

My name is Mike Dornan and I and I reside at 2192 Headingham Boulevard in Wixon. Well, good evening everybody. I'm here tonight to comment on the public hearing and new business item one. I attended and commented at your meeting of February 24th concerning school district's new elementary school project and review. Again, I'm saddened, dismayed, and ashamed at the impass between the city and the schools relative to the school's site plan and lack of providing information to the city's review staff for a full review. And I copied online all the review reports from fire department, building department, engineers, and they're all outstanding as usual. Really, really know your business. After all, we're supposed to be a community. However, at this point, I'm so sick of hearing lip service from the schools about community and the family interchangeably. I could puke when I hear references because by their actions, they don't appear to mean it. But they are sure pleased when you vote for the operating millage. On November 11th, Veterans Day, they held a groundbreaking event when all schools, banks, cities were all closed. They gave the

city lessons notice, very very limited notice. On the 11th, within a half hour, six or less school people attended what turned out to be basically a photo shoot. It was evident that they were not interested in having their bumpin brothers and sisters to the west participate in the groundbre. On the other hand, I'm concerned that if it I'm I'm certain rather that it were a city project, for instance, a new municipal campus, city manager Browns through uh Benson, Diana McGee would all be involved and plan a communitywide celebration, inviting neighboring communities, county and state officials officials. Yes. And including school officials as well as hold pre-planning town hall meeting in the community center with all our consultants attending coffee stations to get public input, take minutes of town hearing and incorporate the public's comments into the plan. And don't forget about the refreshments and cookies that they building an elementary school is a big freaking deal. It holds memories of children, parents growing up in a community. The community needs to participate in

that planning and kickoff. But no, you don't exist. City manager Brown and company, you don't exist. Mayor and city council, I'm sorry, you don't exist either. All of us don't exist because Wall Lake School District are exempt. City Manager Brown outline from site plan review local site plan review and as such don't have to respond to locals concerns. New school reviews are reviewed and approved solely by the state school. this city manager outline

30 seconds. The district uh the district knows they don't have to comply with local codes and ordinances because they're approved in Lancing. But to me, it sounds like grading your own papers. And if that were the case, I'd have 4.0 grade point by submitting 10 and D and E quality work. But that's how the scheme works. Moving on, the city requires this on-site parking for all building users um in all land use classifications. Every one of our schools in Wixom has a severe parking problem because of the parking impact calculations were never done. Yet the site plans were approved by the state. Our roads are not parking lots. Theodore Street Wixl is parking lot due to poor plan. Lon Lake Roads parking lot over with uh Lon Lake Elementary. Charms parking lot. Sarah Banks for Plan. Maple Road at the new Maple Elementary will not become a parking lot. I hope.

Thank you. Moving Moving on. I got one more real quick. Okay, real quick. Wixom requires sidewalks to be installed from line to lot line on all new construction. The new Maple Elementary should be no different. Moving on. I'm almost done. New business one. This is for public hearing only. New business number one would be the first call of the public. Uh, okay. I'll see you again. All right. Very good. Thanks.

Anybody else for the call to the public for the public hearing? Thank you. We don't mind. They don't. That's okay.

Hi, my name is Kathy Brackchney. I live at 1902 Hopkins Drive and I have lived in Wixon since 1987 and I retired in 2010. So, I'm kind of talking from years of living here and the observations of traffic has changed over the years. Um, the traffic has gotten worse. As a retiree, I try not to drive between 7:00 and 9:00 a.m. 2 to 4:00 p.m. or 5 to 6:00 p.m. cuz that's when I can't get on my subdivision. The traffic has gotten worse, especially around the time when the schools let out. uh a traffic a left-hand turn light is desperately needed at Maple and Wixom Road to help ease the congestion because people run the light and it's very hazardous. Uh the roads can't support the traffic that's going on right now. It's been going on for a number of years, but with all the new building going on and more and more kids going to schools here, it's just going to get worse and the roads are not going to be able to support it. U and there's a lot of again stopping and the trains don't help either as far as how they stop and start and you never know how long they're going to sit there or anything. Um but so that leading into the school I'm I I don't understand. Guys middle school closed because of under enrollment. So I'm questioning why the school board didn't transfer just move the elementary school over to Guisner and then the board take over Wixom Elementary. That would ease up a lot of traffic. There is already a traffic light at Geyser and I don't see where a school board needs an entire

middle school to operate. I I can't believe there's that many people working for this for the Wald Lake schools. So that's I'm trying to think I'm trying to see I wrote things down. So, so I guess that's pretty much all I wanted to say is that I just don't understand why the school board is making these changes and they don't seem to make good choices as far as the building because who puts a fireplace in a in a high school? So, it seems like their their way they do things, if you have a perfectly good middle school already vacant and ready to go, how much renovation could it take to make it an elementary school? And then you're reusing a building that will have far less traffic flow um for people to get through during rush hour or school pickup because it is a nightmare when the parents are picking up all the kids both at Wixom and at Sarah Banks and at Lon Lake like the gentleman said. So that's kind of my perspective is that we need to do something about the traffic cuz it's getting worse and worse and with the building of the school. I imagine the residents down Maple Road are not going to it's going to be the same type of situation as it is on Theodore the road right by the school and even on Wixom Road. So I don't know if my five minutes are up but um that's pretty much all I wanted to say. I just I really hope that you're going to exert some influence on the school board to reconsider the buildings they have already. If they have low enrollment for a middle school, what's happening that they need to rebuild a new school and I

mean what's happening to them when they hit middle school? I mean, where are they going? So, why not reuse what we have and and ease the traffic for everybody? As I said, as a retiree, I've noticed the traffic patterns through the years, and it has gotten much, much worse. And the roads are not that good. And I mean, well, look what happened when we had that sinkhole. How that even messed up even Wixom Road. It doesn't take much to make Wixom Road pretty un undrivable. So, anyway, that's all I wanted to say.

Thank you. And well done. Um, anybody else for the Good evening. My name is Ken Anderson. I live on 2092 Milream Court. Um and in Milstream Estates and I've been a resident of Wixom for uh uh over 30 years. Um I am in favor of the new elementary school. Um I I think that it uh will add uh value to our properties. uh um new buyers like uh elementary schools, especially if they're uh planning to have a a new family. Um and uh as far as a sidewalk goes, um I do feel that uh elementary school kids should have a sidewalk on the side of the school that goes to uh uh Wixom Road. I don't think it needs to go to the opposite direction cuz there's not that many houses there. And also you have the the railroad tracks uh and the the crossing uh for the railroad tracks is uh on the other side of the road. But they do need to have a a cross crosswalk uh with a crossing guard to get them across the street to where there is the sidewalk on the north side of uh East Maple Road. And I yield my title.

Thank you. Michael McDonald Wixom. I got to tell you, I I was just thinking back. I think I built my I moved in my house in 1972 and I could drive from Wixom to St. Louis and never have to see a traffic light. I live just off Lon Lake Road uh for the last 53 years and I work over on Buuno Road. So every day if I go anywhere in this county in the morning I I hit traffic that's just unbelievable. I mean, and part of it is I I suggest we get the superintendent of schools and say, "Come on over to Charms Road at 7:30 in the morning and let's see what you think about traffic and then take them about 4:00 in the afternoon towards Lon Lake Road where they're parked in the middle. They're parked all over." And for the life of me, all these schools got large hunks of property that they could pave over and provide parking for the people that are their customers. Let's call them that. Okay. Um, and it it just boggles your mind because I don't know where they think Maple Road is going to go. I mean, I'm sure everybody in Hettingham might as well start a parking lot.

Charge you like a hundred bucks to park while you're going into the school and coming out. you make a couple of bucks. But this this is and and I I was here the last meeting when this was discussed and I say we get the state senator and the state rep in on in on this and say listen you can't let them they've already ruined two of our roads. I mean let's be honest and there there is a rumor that they're going to close Wall Lake and move the kids over to Wixom. So you know how much more traffic that would be? I don't know why we're running school buses. It doesn't seem like any of the parents want their kids in buses. So, buses get in the traffic just as bad as the rest of us. But it it's it's just a like I say, we we all sit back and say, "Well, we can't tell the schools what to do." The hell we can't.

I mean, let's make a point of saying, "Listen, you can't do this to our city any longer." They they they just decide what they're going to do and hell be gone with rules. And I and I do believe there's things we can do if we really sharpen our teeth and go down to it. But this is we already know what Charms Road is like and Lon Lake Road is. I don't think we need one more try it. And then as the people over there on Theodore Street will tell you, it's it's no fun. And and and if some something going to happen with uh Charms Road and nobody can get through, there's going to be a problem. That's our DPW yard. So if something happens over there, it's it's it's it's it behooves us to say safety demands something here and and go for it. Good evening. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Hello. I'm uh Joe Carly 2205 Hedigum right across the street from where this is going in. I think what I'm bringing here is just a perspective of grandparents. We have once Deb and I have one uh one of our grandchildren who go who goes to Lon Lake. So two days a week I when go to their home I take Mason with me and I drop them off at Lon Lake on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. So, I can tell you it's an interesting situation to deal with every single time we're over there. What scares me is the westbound Lun Lake traffic coming to the school, Luna Lake Elementary. Not sure if I mentioned that. Luna Lake Elementary coming westbound uh from the east. They have a left turn lane at least to get into as they want to make a left into the school. They have that, but it's completely consumed and they back up for a great distance, as far as I know, right into the subdivisions that are further east towards Benstein. We come from the west going east on Moon Lake. And I go early enough, you have to to get pull in and you make use of their loop situation. And if you're in the 25th car, you're in 26 and beyond, you're lining up going or lining up going backwards going westward. And again, as I pull out, once I've dropped them off, I have to make a left to go west. I have to hope there's a gap in the traffic in the left turn lane, waiting traffic to even make my left. and I sail past and see the entire stream of cars that are using the shoulder of the road on the south side of Lon Lake as they make their way into the loop. So, I guess I'm just here to say that's the perspective I have. It's a scary situation how we could work on Maple when there is no left turn lane. You put one in. I'm saying it's not good enough to have a left turn lane for Loom

Lake. It won't be any better. if they were to even add a left turn left turn lane here in front of the new Wix. All I wanted to pass along Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Derek Hullet. I reside at 477 Fletcher in the beautiful city of Wixom. I I guess tonight I'd like to point out that uh our administration is doing wonderful job not taking a backseat uh to addressing uh safety concerns about the new school. Um it would be very easy uh to just simply say it's the school's problem and they can do whatever they want because that's what the state says they can do. Uh but at the same time, nobody knows our city better than the people in this room, the council, the administration, and the citizens, the school district. I'm hopeful I see Dr. Lans in the audience. I hopeful that he will address council tonight uh with some answers to the questions of specifically regarding to safety. Um, but I also want to remind everybody, as dismissive as the district appears to be in regards to the city pointing out, severe flaws in regards to safety, the next time that we have a millage increase or a new bond proposal from the school district, remember, if they can't listen to us when we have concerns, why should we give them any more of our money? And I will leave it to the rest of the speakers to dive in deeper than that. But it really comes down to if you can't listen to us now, then we won't help you further your goals in the future. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Council. Tom Resnik, 1636 Wayhill Drive. Um, I'm also here to address deficiencies in the site plan items 13 through 17 in HRC report regarding circulation, turn lanes, and sidewalks. the um there's a new phenomena and I think it started during co where uh I guess today's parent is bad at math. They don't realize that their tax bill includes in their school taxes, transport to and from, but uh you see hundreds of cars lined up at these schools along Charms Road, Boon Lake Road, Round Theodore, and uh people sit there for an hour as as former mayor Mike McDonald mentioned, you anytime between 7 and 9, it's impossible to pass through Charms Road. the myself along with our police chief at the time we had presented school administration with alternate plans coming in the east entrance one way around the back of the school and coming out the west entrance. Right now you have total chaos. You have people turning left that are blocked by the cars turning into that west entrance that cause accidents. There had been several accidents right at that point. Um, parents also line up in uh the Hidden Creek subdivision up by the trail, blocking both sides of the road there. Um, god forbid we have some fire emergency during one of those times. You'd never get the rig down there. School buses can't even get through it. So I think the 14 the site plans need to include a drop off and pickup circulation plant clearly marked out and

enough to prevent um overflow onto Maple Road and to fix the lanes, address the left turn lane and sidewalks for safety for our children. The school district needs to keep this in mind. If parents driving to school is a new phenomena, the school district need to accommodate it at these new new sites. I mean, it's just it's reality. It hasn't changed since the pandemic and it's just getting worse. So, uh, please, uh, Dr. Lansen and the school board, take this into consideration, do the right thing on the site plan, and make it right for our citizens. Thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Mitch Canton. I live at 3524 West Maple Road, right across from the school. Thanks.

Good evening, honorable council members. Gerald Stepp 3481 Castlewood Court. Convenience is not an excuse for lack of safety, lack of planning. One of the things you got to think about guys in this situation is not only safety, which we should be first and foremost in all aspects of our community, our society, our school board, our children, right? One of the things that's missing here, the omniscient power of the school board is overlooking the liability. We fund, you know, we fund our militants and then yet we're going to blow all that on liability that we're sub submitting ourselves to for lack of planning. These traffic situations, these lack of sidewalks are going to create problems that will see us quickly. Now, watch. I don't I'm not I'm not I'm not a legal expert, but the lack of planning for safety puts all at risk. Keep that in mind, guys. Safety first. It protects our community, protects our children, it protects our value and our homes and our community. You're all set. Thanks for your time, guys. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else with the call of the public?

Hello. Good evening. I'm Kyle Monroe. I live at 516 Hampton Court, Wixom. Uh, you asked for comments tonight, so I decided to comment. So, um, sidewalks are going to be huge. And I was looking at the site plan. It looks like you have residences on east and west of those sidewalks. So, I get where someone might be planning might say the sidewalk might go nowhere, but sidewalks breed sidewalks. So, put the sidewalk in. We'll see what happens later. Um, the crossing for safety is what concerns me. Uh, make sure that the crossing is going to be at a traffic light. And if not, if we're going to use any kind of an alternate light, then make sure that it's a green, yellow, red light. um these hawk lights that have been used for the Michigan Airline Trail, they're good for the trail, but I don't think they're good for kids crossing the street. So, make sure that the kids can cross the street at a green, yellow, red light, red light. Um I live in a neighborhood, Peter. We're just west of the site. And if I'm loud, not loud enough, let me know. Um we've got 12 kids that ride the bus to school right now. Those 12 kids will probably walk to school at this new site cuz it's so close. So, there's a lot of kids that are going to be walking that way. So, let's just make sure that it's nice and safe for the kids going there across the street. They're going to be crossing the street to the school, too. So, sidewalks be huge. Good crossing. And then the intersection for traffic. Everybody wants good traffic flow. So, I think that could use some improvement from what it is now. Um, I think the biggest thing could be eastbound Maple Road, add a right turn lane instead of just having the two lanes because if you can't turn right, it'd be great to go straight and just avoid that traffic that builds up with the railroad tracks down in Pontiac Trail. Um, if you had that right lane, everything could go straight and it would alleviate a lot of traffic there. Just an idea I had. So, I'm no traffic expert though. Um, I think that's all I had. So, just thanks for the time.

Good evening. My name is Nicholas Spagnolo. I reside at 3066 Bennington Drive uh in the Headingham neighborhood north of where the school will be built. Uh I have two children who currently attend Wixom Elementary and my wife is currently an employee at Wixom Elementary. Um we're very excited about the new school being put in uh and looking forward to that. Unfortunately, my oldest son will be out of the school by the time it's built, but my youngest son will still get to enjoy it and hopefully my wife as well as a continued employee at Wixom Elementary. Um, certainly valid concerns that are are said tonight. Um, but I see from this plan, which is the first time I'm seeing it, a lot of improvements over the existing situation in terms of a drastic improvement in the amount of parking that's available there. Seems like much more than what we currently have at the school. Uh it looks like unique entrances and exits for the buses and the parents drop off and pickup which is unique to what we have currently which is what drives a lot of the traffic concerns uh that we have at the school. Uh and as well as uh the fact that the current situation is bad currently. It's not like we're going from a good situation to a potentially bad situation. Uh there's obviously tons of backup on Wixom Road that will hopefully be alleviated by moving the school traffic from there in the mornings. Obviously, we still have the concerns with the railroad and all the other transition uh travel that goes through that area, but removing the school related drop off trail up from Wixom Road, I think will help with a lot of the traffic concerns in our area. So, I'm happy to see that uh as a neighborhood or a citizen of the neighborhood above it. you know, I'm willing to uh, you know, take some of that traffic on if it means I can turn right off of Maple onto Wixom without getting stuck there or having to deal with all of the roads or the cars that are backed up there on uh, Theodore Road, which obviously is a terrible situation. And hopefully those citizens are going to be happy to have their road back and not have people backed up there all the time. Uh, it looks like we have a much bigger uh, loop lane here for the cars to come in for parents to do their

drop off. and hopefully in a situation where you're not uh turning against people who are trying to turn into the the parking lot. So, not that there aren't valid concerns. Certainly having a sidewalk on the south side of Maple Road, I think, is a very good ask to make. Uh I live on the north side, but having students who are trying to get to school have to cross Maple, walk over, and then cross Maple back again just to get to school seems untenable with the amount of traffic they're expecting there. Uh I do think that a uh protected left uh northbound Wixom onto Maple is something that we should be able to do as a city ourselves uh and wouldn't require any changes to the roads. Uh just require new traffic lights at that intersection and that should hopefully help with some of the traffic concerns that we have especially in the mornings. Um you know certainly want to ask for some sort of protected crosswalk. Uh it looks like there's one on the plan. I don't exactly know what that is indicating, but um if traffic is going to have to travel uh foot travel from North Maple to across the street, um there's currently no nothing there. Obviously, uh whether that means a light uh at that intersection out of our neighborhood um with protected walking crosswalks uh there. Uh something I think subject need to be done there. Um and hopefully the the school district is amendable to that. Um, but just wanted to say as a as a citizen who has a family heavily tied into the school, we're looking forward to having the new school. We think it'll be a positive thing for our neighborhood. Uh, we're already impacted by the traffic on Wixom Road. Um, with regards to the current school situation, um, but obviously due diligence needs to be done and whatever we can to make the situation better for our our town and for our students who will be going there. I certainly encourage the school uh, the city to to take that action on. Thank you. Thank you.

Hi, my name is John Baison. I live at 4037 Cameron Court. If you're not familiar, that's west of uh the school down Maple Road and you have to turn on the dirt in order to get to our portion. Um I had to live or we had to live through the Pontiac trail closure and things that we learned are uh people did not take the recommended detour. They came down Maple Road and went down the dirt roads to Child's Lake. Um people speed down the Maple Road um a lot and that one turn right there and this is just for safety. people go right around that really fast. And uh a lot of residents have to take that dirt road in order to get to the Michigan Airline Trail. So, I'm always I was always cognizant of that and just scared sometimes of people turning right making that curve from the concrete to the dirt. Um everybody had some great ideas. I think safety is the number one concern if you do anything because I know people and the school are going to say screw it. I'm going to go west down Maple Road and go um an alternate way to their house and just based on what happened at Pontiac Trail. Just put a stop sign in right there at the end and have them slow down in order to go around that curve. Um there's been accidents there before and also Oakland County does a terrible job of maintaining that. Um we had a car break an axle on Maple Road um yesterday or two days ago with the potholes. So um that's all I have to say and just I think safety is the number one issue on this. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening, Ron Nordstrom, 2477 Hettingham. Um, listening to the everybody's comments and um, all the concerns about safety and I I agree with them completely. Um, the city manager began by basically saying and kind of washing the city's hands of it's there's nothing we can do. We're gonna let you guys come here and voice your opinions, but there's nothing we can do. Well, that's really not quite correct. Um, the schools going in, they have the footings in it. It's the avalanche is moving and we're not going to stop it. So, we better start looking at ways to ease the pressure right now. Um, I sat in your spot uh 20 years ago and Landro Road, which was started comes off a Pontiac Trail and we we stopped it. We didn't finish it. It was Landro Road supposed to come straight through where the curve is that was mentioned where you make the 90° turn going from West Maple to from concrete to dirt. Um, you can run Rand Ro Land Ro right through there. It'll give trucks access to Pontiac Trail without coming down to the uh to the school. It'll give us as residents and another option. We don't have to take it all the way to Charles Lake. You could shoot the road right off Pontiac Trail. It'll relieve a lot of the pressure off of Pontia or off of me. So, as a city and as a council and as the planner, uh, you guys need to consider that, look at all of our options and what we can do

back to our kids. Thank you. Do we have anybody else for the call to the public for the public hearing? Seeing none, um, any comments from council. Go ahead, council member.

I just want to thank everyone for coming out and giving their opinion. Uh, you all echo a lot of the comments that we've had uh, two weeks ago here regarding the safety to the street and to the uh, the sidewalk issue. Um, and thank you to also bringing up the the the idea of land row. I know we've talked about that in the past on council as well. Um, it would be nice if we would hear from someone from the school, but I guess I'll leave that up to them whether they want to give any feedback this evening. paying attention.

Somebody from the school board would like to come up and address any of these issues or we just we're just here to listen to concerns, sir. Okay.

I guess the only thing I would add to my comment is I hope all of you plan on going to the next school board meeting and vocalizing your objections there because You all came out here to tell us and clearly you're hearing that they're not they're not willing to talk to us this evening. So go to them the next school board meeting and share your same concerns with them because they need to hear with what they're proposing right now. It's not safe for the residents. I'm extremely excited to have a new school. It it's great for the community, but we have to do it the right way and the safe way. Yeah,

I want to thank Superintendent Law and uh board member Smith for being here tonight. And hopefully you're listening very well, taking lots of notes, and um hopefully uh you can get together with us, me and myself, city manager Brown, Assistant City Manager Benson, and Police Chief Langmire, and um work out not only the details for the new uh Wixom Elementary on Mele Road, but you also heard how uh there's uh congestion and traffic problems on Lon Lake Road and Charms Road and in the Hidden Creek subdivision. and hopefully we can get together, meet and address all these issues and take care of it. So with that, I'll close. Mayor, go ahead.

Sorry to interrupt if I can. I think assistant city manager Benson is going to say something in a moment as well, but I wanted to pick up on something that uh council member Fairman just mentioned and it was a a regret that I had for my opening remarks. Um I I should have mentioned that if you are interested in attending the school board meeting, there's a process for participating in uh the public comment section of it unlike the way that we do it where you can just raise your hand and come up and participate. So there's a there's a process for that that you need to need to go through. So make sure if you are attending on school board meeting, you show up a little bit early uh so that you basically sign up for participating in the public comment section of things. That's something we do. So, if you're interested in sending, keep that in mind and show up early to take care of that.

The only other thing that I wanted to add, you know, and I I've been taking some notes alongside here, but the number one thing, um, I do want to thank Superintendent Lans um, for he's been, you know, been in communication with us. Um, you know, we've talked about some of the initial concerns in city council's letter. I'm sure we're additional conversations related to this. Um, but you know, it's important as a lot of residents mentioned here that, you know, these are city roads or county roads. Um, you know, we're going to have to partner with other groups and and you know, I'm optimistic for the opportunity for us all to work together. Um, to not put it on any individual group, whether that's entirely on the district, entirely on the city residents, entirely on the road commission, you know, to find, you know, the solution and the funding to these outcomes. But at a minimum, I just wanted to say that that um there has been some level of response. And I I fully expect that additional conversations will come from this. So, um and again, if there are any questions moving forward, we're happy to, you know, we try to address those. All right. Seeing none, I'm going to close the public hearing and move on to the uh rest of the agenda. Uh approval of minutes. We've got one set of minutes to approve tonight. That's from the regular city council meeting of February 24th, 2026. Do I have a motion to move?

Motion and the support. Do we have discussion discussion? Seeing none, I got a motion and a second to approve the minutes of the regular city council meeting of February 24th, 2026. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I carried. I do have one piece of course tonight that was left up here. It's um from elementary.

All right. So, that moves us to the uh first call to the public. I'll read those rules. The public shall address the council during call to the public which shall be included on the agenda immediately after correspondence and immediately after new business. The first call to the public immediately after correspondence shall be limited to agenda items only. A person shall not address the council in excess of 5 minutes unless the time is extended by a majority vote of the council present. Persons wishing to address the council shall identify themselves in their place of residence and state their reason for addressing the council. And all comments by the public shall be married directly to the uh council. Do we have anybody for the first call to the public?

Good evening, council. My name is Jessica Buck. I live at 3014 Madison Street and um I am also the chairperson of the downtown development authority of Wixom. I am by day an attorney for All State um insurance company where I handle the catastrophic claims for motor vehicle accidents. So, I see motor vehicle accidents in my day-to-day, but most importantly, I'm a mother of three children that live in downtown Wixom and um would like to address the unfinished business the recommendation to remove from the table and consider the motion to accept the SIMCOG Safe Streets Now grant. the I've been the DDA chair for the last three years, going on my third year, and our focus is safety. We just sat through a lot of people's concerns over traffic safety um in our city. You were handcuffed by this because of what the school is doing and you weren't able to really be able to address those concerns. However, the DDA has proposed to you a way to address the traffic safety concerns that you are not handcuffed. You have the power to be able to pass and put in these pedestrian refues. Um, we have brought this our meetings twice and it has been unanimously pushed and that we want to put these into our downtown. I sat through the meeting where it was tabled and there seemed to be two concerns as to why it was tabled. One of those concerns was, well, can we move this to another part of the city of Wixom? We've learned that you we can't because we were able to secure this SIMOG grant and it has to be used within our downtown. We had businesses concerned over the traffic concerns in our downtown. We've had residents

concerned over the the the concerns of the traffic in our downtown. And that's why we reached out and were able to secure this wonderful SIMCOG grant in order to pay for these pedestrian refugees in our downtown. Um, and we've obviously looked into this and it can't go anywhere else but our downtown. So, that answers the one reason and cause for concern. The second concern that um I remember hearing was the possible maintenance and how is this going to look because that we've seen other ones and other parks. um I think in Novi that don't look good. Well, one thing because one of our goal setting when we do in our DDA is downtown beautifification. We want our downtown to look nice. We want to have as many people in our downtown as possible, but we want it to look nice. So, one thing that we've done is we employ a full-time DPW employee that part of their time, not their fulltime of their concern, but part of their um time is to focus on the downtown maintenance and and so forth. So, that concern is already alleviated with that. And um if that's still a concern, that's something that maybe it's addressed that maybe we need another DPW employee because of the maintenance. But I want to assure you that the DDA is very concerned with our downtown looking nice and um not looking messy. And so by these pedestrian refugees being in our downtown, trust me, we we we are putting the money, you know, in order to make sure that our downtown um does not turn and sloppy. And so I feel that those were really the only two concerns that I saw addressed. But I just wanted to make sure that you were aware that the DDA has looked at this. We've looked for ways how can we make our downtown safer. How can we address that? We have had accidents in our downtown and the speed limit and we

are just going to be building more and more in our downtown. We have we're very excited to have two new businesses starting in our downtown very soon. And um we're having more housing being built and everything. So, we're just going to have more and more people in our downtown and we really need to address the safety concerns. We had brought two things to you guys. The Ballards were denied and the refugees were tabled. So, I beg you to do something with these refugees and not just deny this one as well because this is something that you are not handcuffed at. you can do something and we um I ask you and implore you as the DDA chair but also just a resident of our downtown to um take remove this from the table and allow us to take the SIM card grant and everything in the unfinish fun unfinished business number one. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Hi again everyone. My name is Mike Dornan. I reside at 2192 Addingham Boulevard. I um wanted to uh talk to you about uh new business item one, the Hillsboro um Milstream Road Improvement uh award bid. And I wanted to congratulate you guys on getting 12 bids. Uh the low bid, low qualifying bid, but 1.4 4 million if my memory serves me correctly and that leaves in the budget approximately 1 million $1.5 million and I I know that you're looking at um what with your engineering firm Hubble Rob and Clark you're looking at uh offsite improvements off-site improvements up and down Maple Road in anticipation of the uh school being built there. Uh you have to you'll have to do that and I know you're doing that because that's the kind of team we are. So everybody have a good evening and thanks for the opportunity. I think I'm done. Are you sure?

I am going home getting tanked off the recorder. Strike Yeah, strike that one. I'm not sure I can top that. I'm Russ Meredith, uh 378 Fletcher. Uh I am a member of the DDA board of directors. I'm here to second Jess's comments about uh pedestrian islands. But above and beyond making it easier for people to cross the street. And by the way, I do cross the street from the post office just without coming down the crosswalk. I do it all the time. Well, I did before me. Um, my wife and I were out here at Pontiac Trail and Center Boulevard this afternoon about 3:00 and there was a black Mustang in front of this GT. And when the light turned green, I was pretty sure I was at the Motor City drag wagon because this guy shot out like a rocket. Now, I was very impressed with the acceleration as a Camaro driver saying nice things about Mustangs. It's unusual, but he probably hit 50 before he hit the 35 zone. One of the reasons for installing these traffic pedestrian islands is to try and act as a traffic calming event. We've had several high-speed accidents here just since I've moved in, including the one that took out a good chunk of the front of country corners a few years back. Um, we need to slow these people down. Um, their their presumption is that 25 is suggestion, not the actual speed limit and traffic islands like this will serve as a traffic calming and another safety concern which will of help that you know if this as not as a member of the board of directors just as president of Wixom if Mr. Got and other members of the council wish to put another traffic um island further down. That's fine. I would support the idea. It makes it safer for people to cross at night. Uh bear in mind that's going to be in the 45 zone of traffic. So, uh it could make things a little interesting down there. But we need it here to try and get people to slow down as they're coming into the 25 zone because they wait too often think that's a suggestion, not the law. Thank you very much. So, I would

definitely request that you support and pass this Simkaga grant. Thank you. Thank you.

Hi, good evening. Vanessa Willlet, 1455 Cranberry Court, Wixom, Michigan. I am also on the DDA and the planning commission for the city. So, thank you for taking the time to listen to us on the Sun SMCOG grant funding. I think the majority of the the issue is we are trying to make a walkable downtown. We're trying to invite businesses. We want economic growth. We want property values to go up. And it's very difficult um with the traffic coming through. I have children that are that are 18 and 20. And again, sometimes I think it's the suggested 25. Um and I'm on them all the time because we are constantly walking. We've created the junction downtown to get traffic down here, bodies to help the retail that has really struggled in Wixom. Um, we're building new homes, new new town houses, new condos, and these folks need somewhere to go. Every restaurant that I frequent here, which I do often, they want more restaurants. They want more retail. And if we're going to support that, then it has to be walkable for all these families, all these uh young folks between, you know, 25 and 40, which is pretty much our demographic right now that have spendable income to support the downtown. It's a safety issue. we can dial it up, make it look pretty. I think the DDA has done a great job at really investing um and getting you you folks to invest in us, supporting the downtown, the flower baskets, the events, and I I I think that this is free money that we don't see very often for nice projects like this. And I think if we turn it down, we may not see it again. So, thank you.

Thank you. Hello. Uh, Nicholas Magnolo, resident of 3066 Pennington Drive in the Headingham neighborhood. Uh, I apologize I will not be able to stick around for new business number one, nor am I quite sure what exactly is going to be discussed there. As a resident of the Headingham uh neighborhood, um I would like to suggest per the previous conversation, whatever improvements are going to be made uh or changes are going to be made to the exit or entrance of our neighborhood um accounts for the stuff we're asking for for the school. uh whatever plan if it's uh accounting for possibility of adding a traffic signal at that intersection at the very least stop signs uh protected crosswalks any of those kind of things just keep those concerns in mind uh when you discuss uh what has to be done with that project. Uh a related concern um if there's going to be tear up of the the roads or anything like that in that area. Um, one of my concerns as a citizen of that neighborhood is that um, all of the fiber projects that we see going on through the city, uh, we just recently had T-Mobile doing all of that work. Uh, none of that uh, fiber internet comes to the Henningham neighborhood. Um, and so if there's anything that can be done from an infrastructure perspective, uh, while there's tariff in construction of our neighborhood, uh, to accommodate that, I'm not sure if it's just a business concern with not enough citizens of that neighborhood to make it worthwhile for the private companies or if there's an infrastructure piece of it from the city itself. Uh, I know that the school will need fiber internet to connect with the school district internet uh, system. And so if there's any coordination that could be done with the school district uh for infrastructure to get internet services out to that neighborhood again as part of ongoing construction that will be taking place in that area. I would also ask that the city council do whatever they can uh to help support those efforts. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have anybody else for the first call to the public? All right. Seeing none, I'll close the first call to the public and move on. City manager reports. We have two tonight. The first was the fire report for January uh 2026. Do we have any questions? Go ahead, Council Member Simmons. How you doing, Chief? Doing all right.

Good. Um I just had a question and I had I don't know um city manager if you got a chance to talk with him about that just yet. Um but I did speak with him very briefly about it yesterday, so maybe you didn't. Uh, I was curious about the hazardous um report at 9 versus 3 from January of 2025 to 2026. Could you give me some insight as far as what is hazardous?

Yes, hazardous uh can be anything from uh gas leaks to wires down things among those uh issues uh with the fiber uh installation uh that we've had. We've had multiple gas leaks. Um, so without looking at it specifically, off the top of my head, I'm going to say that that has a large uh amount to do with those numbers being increased at this point in time. Thank you. You're very welcome. Any other questions? Thanks, Chief. Absolutely. Any questions for Chief Langmire?

All right, seeing none, we'll move on to the consent agenda. All items listed under the consent agenda are considered routine by the city council and will be enacted by one motion. There'll be no separate discussion of these items unless a council member so requests in which you let the items will be removed from the consent agenda and added to the regular agenda at the end of unfinished or new business. Do I have a motion? Support. I got a motion and support to approve the consent agenda as presented tonight. All those in favor, please signify by saying I.

I opposed. Motion carries. Moves us on to unfinished business. We have one item of unfinished business tonight and that is a recommendation to remove from the table and consider the February 10th, 2026 motion to accept the Simco safe streets now grant for the Pontiac Trail pedestrian refuge project in the amount of $190,400 and authorize a design engineering proposal from Hubble Roth and Clark HRC Engineering for an amount not to exceed $41,950 from DDA special studies account number 248. 8-729-956.481 as recommended by the Wixom Downtown Development Authority. Do I have a motion?

Support. Thank you. Assistant City Manager Benson.

Good evening, Mayor, members of city council. Um, I won't rehash the entire uh, you know, agenda item. I know we covered it in pretty good depth uh at at the the last conversation on February 10th, but the short story is this is a proposal to install two pedestrian refues on Pontiac Trail at the western and eastern boundaries of downtown Wixom. Um SAMCOG uh has offered a a safe streets now grant based on an application that the the DDA recommended that we apply for for a project that they had previously budgeted for. Uh the the motion in front of you tonight is is in relationship to your last motion where this was tabled. Uh we did uh you know when bringing this back to you, we did do some outreach to SEMCOG to get specific information about what would be required to you know fundamentally change the the context of our application. I know that was previous discussion of could we move these you know use this same funding and just move these two to separate locations in the city. Uh the long story short is theoretically yes. um you know they they would be willing to allow us to modify our application. However, the the amount of information and background detail that would go into that and to be able to do so within the next 30 days as they request uh seems difficult and unlikely. Uh you know, but it's a conversation to have. That is what they opened up with. Um they did also indicate that there's flexibility in the context of the specific locations. You know, if you need to move them 10, 50 feet, those kind of things, that's not as ordinous to do. But um so we did provide a specific response from SEMCOG. We also provided a little bit more information on the background. Uh you know I think there were some questions about that. Uh and the key other thing is we provided you know some additional information about a separate city council authorization. There were certain council members who weren't uh you know on city council last year. um when the city authorized a transportation safety action plan and a back road safety audit um that would be a citywide version of

the downtown road safety audit. So, we thought that this was important to to bring back and kind of put on your radar specifically because that project will be gearing up. Um we'll be looking to assemble a steering committee um you know with city council members, planning commissioners and and the like. And so if there are any city council members who are interested in that project, um, you know, we wanted to kind of refresh everyone's memory and have that be a part of this. Um, you know, with all of that in mind, I happy to answer any questions that you may have. Good. Any questions? Council member Gotcho.

Thank you. um to address I guess the comments that were made during call the public. The question that I asked last week was more are we better served by this moving somewhere else. The practical standpoint of that is would Scog allow us. The question about whether they will allow us has been answered but the whether we're served best by these being somewhere else has not been answered. Um, we had a very pointed study done for these specific areas and part of the justification for this coming up again is that we studied this, we can't possibly do all of that work again quickly enough for SAMCOG. So, let's do this. It's not free money. It's build as an 8020 split, but in practice with our um uncovered costs, it's a 60/40 split. So, it's not free money. Um, and my one of my longest pet peeves when I've been up here is when people try to justify spending money by saying, "Oh, it's in the budget or we've done this work to get to this point." It does not mean we need to spend the money. I understand from a standpoint that we would like to slow down traffic in the downtown area. We pay a police force for that. That is their job to do. hoping and praying that installing signs in the median is not a plan to slow down traffic. And the people who speed and have caused enormous damage on Pontiac Trail, they weren't going to slow down when they saw a curb in the center turn link like they were doing their own thing. Um I I think there's better better areas for this where we currently see more people crossing the road. Um, as I expressed in the last meeting, I think that there's other ways to address the traffic safety concerns in the downtown area with our police and we're hiring more police. We're adding, I believe it's two traffic safety officers

is the game plan. Like, there are other ways to go about this. I don't like the this sense that we got brought in when it was time to vote yes and spend money to get money and that the DDA became kind of like the de facto city council of the downtown area and we we weren't a part of the planning or the thought process to get to that point. That is not the way I believe any of this should be going. Um, I understand the DDA is a great resource for the city, but I don't believe it should have full control of the downtown area and then whatever they want to do, unanimous or otherwise, it comes to us and we're expected to say yes without being a part of the process of asking TDA's focus on a small area of the city. We have to look at it from the whole. This doesn't fit with that. I don't agree with spending money just to get a little bit more of somebody else's money to get stuff that maybe hopefully will work. We have other things at our disposal right now that we pay for that can address it and we can give that a shot. See if meaningful patrols downtown will cut down on traffic issues. If not, then let's have this discussion. But we got to this point without our input and we're being told, look, you got to say yes because we want their money and we might not ever get their money again. I frankly, I couldn't care less about their money. If they if we need to fund these ourselves, I'm all for it if we need it. But we haven't gotten to that point, at least to my liking, on city council. Thank you,

Council Member Simmons. Um, as I guess just a couple of questions. Uh, I'm in support of this. Um, I uh respect everything um that council member is saying. Uh, I think from a downtown perspective, I think having clear markers as you're entering and leaving uh the city is important. Um, and uh the report was actually very helpful to kind of understand from a traffic perspective what the recom what the problems were and what the recommendations were. So, um I see that as a recommendation and for me um I'm in support of that. The question that I have is um related to something else that was brought up in the report for uh Wixom and Old Wixom, excuse me, Pineia Trail and Old Wixom, I believe in discussion of a roundabout. um and what that uh it says long-term horizon partial time to be implemented. So just trying to understand what that conversation was or what if there is intent or if this is one or the other or just where we are with that.

So from a process perspective u the recommendations provided by C2G uh as part of the the road safety audit there was a variety of things. Um I'll be candid. I don't know that that us or the DDA board or others have felt that all of them were practical. U so really what we've done with this is say hey DDA you know here here's what they came up with you know let's talk about what which of these recommendations you like which which you support and then that's been a part of their project prioritization and their budgeting process u and that's how we've gotten to this point. So I would say especially within the time horizon of our current DDA plan um you know something major like a roundabout um that's that's not really contemplated at this time. Very good. Thank you.

You're welcome. Council member O.

Thank you. Um I too would like to um state that I am in favor of utilizing these funds for the intended purpose. Um yes. um to what to the deputy mayor's point, maybe a collaborative conversation could have taken place beforehand, but in so much that it didn't, you know, we can't put the toothpaste back in the tube at this point and we've been awarded the funds. You know, I'm not going to draw a line in the sand, uh, you know, having my feathers ruffled or anything like that. Um, as somebody who uh is tasked with writing grants for uh my day job, um, frankly, I know how foolish will look at this point to not accept the funds. So while I can understand that there's an argument for spending money to get money, it's not necessarily accurate from my standing uh in this scenario because we are reaping a great benefit from it which will be uh the safety of our citizens of people crossing there. Uh we can't say definitively who would or wouldn't have slow down slowed down in the past um if that was there. Too bad it wasn't there, but we won't know. But now at least we would have it there and um can at least say we tried. And uh thank you.

Uh Council Member Kennedy,

I wanted to say I had time to think about this since our last council meeting and I agree a lot of with what Deputy Mayor Gota was saying. Um I've never seen one of these that I thought looked nice. I don't think it would improve how the downtown looks. Uh, and I want to give an example of you were mentioning put a police officer out there. I drive through Milford almost every day and there's a road that comes off 35 to 40 around a corner. People would go through 50 55 through every day. They put an officer out there for a week and now no one speeds through there cuz he pulled over so many people. It's cost us almost nothing to put someone there because we already have officers. It just seems like a better solution if we're looking for people to slow down and it would make what I would consider to be an eyesore in the street.

Thank you, Council Mar Fox. Thank you. I I too agree with uh Deputy Mayor Gacho. It would have been nice to have more time to digest this and have more of a conversation. I um I don't like to spend the money either just because so question the grant in the amount of 190,400. So our part of that is that the the split that that deputy mayor was talking about?

Yes. So there's two there's two components. This is an 8020 for the project costs. So we um we would have a matching cost on the the actual construction and then we're responsible for the engineering and because this is a federally funded uh grant opportunity. There are more extensive environmental assessment uh costs that come with this too. So there is a you know there's a route of this. This costs more to use the extra money. Um but and I I apologize I can pull up the exact breakdown. Um I had it in the the second agenda item. Um yeah, the local match for the construction is 47,600 and then we are estimating a total between design engineering and construction engineering of 84,000 and that's including the environmental assessment

of how much I'm sorry 84,000 between design and construction engineering. Construction engineering would be awarded um at the same time as the actual construction costs would be. So really what the authorization tonight is is to authorize uh you know hey we're gonna we're going to take the grant we're going to start doing design engineering and then at a later date it'll have to go through the DDA and city council to authorize a bid to actually do the work and at that time the the remaining 42,000 we estimate in uh construction engineering would come with it. So the grant amount is 160,000 190

I'm sorry 190,000. That's right. Um so that's um the grant dollar amount in and uh I don't uh make the argument that uh we need to spend money because we have some free money. I make the argument that we want to spend money because it's going to do something to improve um the concept of our downtown, the speed in our downtown and safety of downtown. So besides the speed, what is it going to improve?

I would think the number one thing is that it provides additional crossing points. One of the key problems in our downtown uh just generally speaking is the number of curb cuts that we have. So it makes signalized crossings or even striped crossings difficult to do because you have to accommodate basically a left-hand turn lane or turn turning radiuses for any, you know, in in-n-out area. So um that's part of how these locations came to be recognized. there were the locations where the speed transitions. They're also areas where we don't have um you know defined crossing areas and they're also areas where they can be done. Um that's kind of the three key pieces that got it to this point. So you know they're both useful I you know on a day-to-day basis with in the absence of east retail it feels like less so but um also when we have like downtown events you know concerts in the park and those kind of things um you know that's when I would anticipate that they would be the most useful. um you know, when we have more pedestrians down there.

Sure. Okay. I I would like to see more police presence in that area. I I do agree. I think we're all in agreement there. Um that would definitely be a deterrent. So, that would be a great thing to see when when we're fully staffed up to the where we're supposed to be with the traffic officers. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome, Council Member OD. Thank you. Uh, one other question I had, uh, just for curiosity's sake, uh, with regard to the DEA, uh, was it ever conveyed to them, um, that any grant applications had to be presented to council first, or were they given autonomy over that sort of situation?

As far as I know, other than the West End Commons, I think this is only the second grant that I'm aware of that's come through. So, from um, a practical standpoint, no, it has that has not been the case. um you know that's something we could certainly talk about going forward uh you know again in a scenario like this not to rely on it but you know the this was as a part of their budget so I think that was part of the logic um you know collectively is that you know at least there was some level of understanding that's probably a mistake on our part and we can certainly do a better job of communicating hey here's here's what's included in the budget here's the kind of things we're talking about or working on you know and maybe that even expanding on you know like monthly reports as opposed to is is a better ways to communicate those things.

So, no, no, no. Okay. Historically, no. Council member Bearman,

thank you. Um, I was not in support of uh these crossings really at the last meeting, mainly because of the I feel like after they get built, they just they're poorly maintained and they look horrible. um and they collect a bunch of uh road uh debris and they're never m maintained. Now, that being said, at the last meeting, we didn't have three representatives from the DDA here uh to tell us why they want these. Uh I'm not on the DDA board. I'm going to defer um what the DDA wants for the the one reason is for the safety the safety concerns. If you're committing that you're going to keep these things looking good and you're going to stay on the DPW to make sure they continue to look good. I do believe that they're going to help slow down traffic and they're going to make downtown slightly safer. Um, we already sat here for an hour this evening talking about safety on Maple Road and some of the other roads. Anything we can do to make our our community more safe safer, I can support. So, for that reason and that reason only, I will support this this evening.

Council member Simmons,

um, for clarification, because we are talking a lot about safety, um, we're talking a lot about traffic safety, I guess, from a from a council perspective and from a DDA perspective. Um I should should I also be assuming right we're talking about pedestrian safety as well um as far as just encouraging people to walk downtown. Um and so I I think that if our uh from a goal perspective if downtown was something that we're talking about wanting to improve on I think we want to encourage people to walk safely our kids to walk safely and for us to be able to walk safely. So, I think uh from a traffic perspective, yes, but also just here's a safe place to cross the road. Um we should be considering that as well.

Any other comments?

Okay. I'm fully I'm I'm fully supportive of this uh issue. We need every tool in the toolbox we can do to slow down traffic in the downtown area and make it safe for our pedestrians. Um, and in regards to Council Member Kennedy's statement about the speeding on the curve, that's fine for now, but in two weeks they're going to be going 50 again because they can't put a police officer out there 24/7. Um, we can't do that either. We can have intermittent uh police out there to do it, but we're also going to have this tool to help slow down traffic and uh help the people cross uh the the traffic there. Um it just we're talking about safety. We're talking about safety. You know, again, the ballards were were turned down um because they didn't feel that if a car hit them at a certain amount of speed, it would do anything. All the all the accidents that I know of downtown uh are speed related. We need to do everything we can do to slow down traffic and this is just one tool in the toolbox. So, I think we need to give it a chance and see how it works out. Any other comments? All right. Go ahead. Yeah. I just wanted to say just not about the pedestrian refugees or even this agenda item, but I did just want to reiterate for all of city council members the um you know the scope of work and and work plan included for the safe streets for all. We've owed you an update on that project regardless. But I do want to point key attention to that. And if that's something you're interested in, um, a, you know, it's our intent to make sure that we do a better job of having kind of all key players be a part of that conversation because it's citywide, but just in general. So, I just I want to put extra attention on that and if you have, uh, questions or you're interested in that, um, please do follow up with us. Um, you know, we're planning on gearing that up this year.

All right. All right. Seeing no more, I have a motion and a second to approve the recommendation to remove from the table and consider the February 10th, 2026 motion to accept the Simco safe streets now grant for the Pontiac Trail pedestrian refuge project in the amount of $190,400 and authorize a design engineering proposal from Hubble W and Clark HRC Engineering for an amount not to exceed $41,950 from DDA Special Studies Account 248- -729-956.481 as recommended by the Wixom Downtown Development Authority. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Opposed.

No. Council member Kennedy, no. Council member O'D. Yes. Council member Simmons. Yes. Mayor Beagle, yes. Council member Bman, yes. Deputy Mayor Gacho, no. Council member Grley Fox. Yes. Five yes, two no. Motion passes. Thank you.

And that concludes the um unfinished business portion of our meeting tonight. We'll move on to new business. New business number one is a recommendation to award the Hillsdale Hillsboro and Milstream subdivision road rehabilitation project to Allied Construction Company Incorporated of Clark, Michigan and amount not to exceed 1,425,760.80 and authorize the DPW directors to sign the agreements. Do a motion support Mr. Sig.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and uh thank you council for uh this recommendation. We are looking to have the roads um reconstructed to some extent and resurfaced in the hillsboro and the Milstream subdivisions. Some of that work is going to consist of drainage work in the catch basins repair and catch basins and uh multiple um shoulder work throughout the uh curb and gutter throughout the neighborhoods to make sure that uh it will last again for another 20 years. Um we're looking forward to this project. It is across the street from the the new school and I think it represent it will represent the city quite well after it is uh repaired. Um with that we have uh HRC the design engineers here tonight and we'd be open to questions if you have any.

I know that subject is well needed there. It's uh very bad with the potholes and everything and we've patched it as much as we can. So we got to do the next step. Council member Bman, I guess my only question is this also includes Castlewood, correct? It does. And uh what was does that need to be listed in the agenda item? It it is a portion of uh the C uh Hillsboro sub as it is. Um it it is part of the road project and that it is in the plans to go extend through to narrow out that culde-sac at Castle Wood. That was going to be my next question. Thank you for answering that. Thank you. I'm in support.

Council member O Day. Yeah, just a quick question. Obviously, uh both those subdivision Well, first off, I'm elated for the project. Um but in each of those subdivisions, there's just one way in, one way out. So, um any idea of how that's going to I'm assuming one side at a time, uh so that you know, one entrance can be utilized by everyone. But um

we have one of the one of the parts of this plan is that we do have to have uh a traffic control plan as part of this and u we work with the contractors to make sure that happens. So that's one of the first things we talk about and and if the contractor has suggestions on how to get people in and out of their homes each day back and forth, you know, to and from work and and what have you, um we work that out. Additionally, if there are any concerns with uh any of the residents, we are going to have an open house at some point in April uh just before the project starts to um for for the public to address any concerns that they have as well.

Okay, great. Because I know like Bennington is a connector between those two and I'd hate to see that become, you know, like a raceway. So, we we typ Yeah. And if if they do Well, no. Yes, we will get that. We'll straighten that out. Thank you.

Any other discussion? All right. Seeing none, I got a motion and a second to um approve the recommendation to award the Hillsboro and Milstream subdivision road rehabilitation project to Alli Construction Company of Clarkston, Michigan in amount not to exceed 1,425,760.80 and authorize the DPW director to sign the agreements. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I opposed. Motion carries. Don't go too far.

Thank you. Uh, new business number two is a recommendation to accept the bid from D'Angelo Brothers Incorporated of Farmington Hills, Michigan for the Water Main Extension, Gunner Matella Park for the amount not to exceed $391,842 with construction engineering being performed by Hubble Roth and Clark of West Bloomfield, Michigan for an amount not to exceed $33,900 and authorize the DPW to uh sign the agreement. Do I have a motion? Move to approve support before. Is it West Bloomfield or Bluefield Hills? It's um Bloomfield Hills. So, we should make that correction. Okay.

I Yes. I apologize for that. U Yes. So, uh this particular one was designed as part of our park improvements and also the interlooping of water manes throughout uh our region. This was one of um our master plan ones that we've wanted to do for a while. It it will supply better water, I think, to the the park as a whole. And um it'll also supply to the the nearest neighborhood there that is just going in um a better water quality in the future as well. We always like to have just like traffic, we like to have two two ends to a water mane so that if we have a problem with water, we limit the amount of customers that are out of service at at any given time. And this will establish that resiliency to to the system. Uh we were happy to get a number of contractors in this bid as well as the the one previous. Uh and uh we're also grateful to see that uh our our uh emergency uh contractor that typically does all of our emergency work here in Wixom actually got the low bid. So that just reaffirms our um you know previous uh acceptances of uh bids from them. And uh with that I'd be open to questions.

Will the pipe last longer than 50 years?

That is the intent Mr. Mayor. Um this we are looking at HDPE actually for this one. So it doesn't rust. Okay. And so we're uh we're happy to see that. Very good. Any discussion? All right. Seeing none, I got a motion and a second to approve the recommendation to accept the bid from D'Angelo Brother of Farmington Hills, Michigan for the water man extension Gunner Matella Park for the amount not to exceed $391,842 with construction engineering be being performed by Hubble Roth and Clark of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan for an amount not to exceed $33,900 and authorize the DPW to sign the agreement. All those in favor, please signify by saying I.

I opposed. Motion carries. Thanks, Tim. Thank you. All right. New business number three is a recommendation and request to convene in a close session for the city council of the city council in accordance with the open meeting act for the purpose of discussing the periodic personnel evaluations of the city clerk and the city manager pursuant to and authorized by MCL 15.268A. Do I have a motion? Council member OD. Yes. Council member Simmons. Yes. Mayor Beagle. Yes. Council member Berman. Yes. Deputy Mayor Gasho.

Yes. Council member Grenlin Fox. Yes. Council member Kennedy. Yes. Seven. Yes.

Very good. So that is approved. And that concludes the uh new business portion of the meeting tonight. We move on to the second call to the public. I'll read those rules again. The call to the public. The rules are as follows. The public shall address the council during call to the public which shall be included on any agenda immediately after correspondence and again immediately after new business. The first call to the public immediately after correspondence shall be limited to agenda items only. A person shall not address the council in excess of 5 minutes unless the time is extended by a majority vote of the council present. Persons wishing to address the council shall identify themselves in their place of residence and shall state their reason for addressing the council and all comments by the public shall be merged to the council. Do we have anybody for the second call to the public again? Vanessa Willlet, 1455 Cranberry Court, Wixon, Michigan. Uh, I'd just like to thank city council for all the comments and for helping with the uh uh approve the SMPA grant. Um, with respect to the DDA um feeling as they're the on their own island uh making decisions, we're an extension of you. We're we are all volunteers. We all live here or work here and all we want to do is make the city safe, make the city better. um bring in folks from out of town uh residents um and enjoy our city. So um we appreciate everything you do. We know how much work goes into being a city council member which is why we only volunteer for DDA um and we do appreciate you um approving this for us. Thank you.

Thank you. Mike McDonald Wixom. Uh, Mr. Gotchall, I want to commend you. uh a number of years ago I I for everybody's notice I sat out in this audience for 6 years and then I ran for council a long time ago and I was a mayor for 12 years and people would bring up we had a city manager that decided we needed a conservation grant $80,000 to build Gunnar Metalla Park and somebody had an idea our the council thought we were going to get $80,000. Well, it cost us $240,000 to build Gunner Metalla Park because the people that decided what the drainage was took 260,000 yards. Um, everybody was upset with all the trucks going up and down Maple Road. Uh cuz somebody gave us the dirt so we took it and I I I did a presentation because people start thinking things when we got Gunner Metallapart done the conservation grant people come in and says you have too many rocks in your soccer field. So people start going crazy. So as the mayor I says well how many are we allowed? So when you go into these things, be aware that that's all you're getting

from them, but you got to complete it in order to get their money. It ain't there there ain't there I tell everybody there's nothing free in this world but your mother's love. Um you were talking about the roads. I live on Lamela. It's It's gotten a lot better since they you had the uh Lon Lake Road paved and they started to catch the water because there used to be a lot of water that run down Lamela. And I want to I I pointed out to some people, but there's a water man that runs right down the middle of Lamela and outside of where the asphalt was redone, it's falling apart pretty badly right in the middle of the road. So any water that goes there goes right down to our water man. And I I don't think you want to have another water man project. So be a good idea to take a look at that as repairing it because it is it is deteriorating quite quite rapidly. I want to thank everybody tonight. I think we've really got to go right after the state on this silly thing with the schools because we've already lost two roads and there there's things the school can do to mediate this. They can they can start taking care of all the people that think they have to take their kid to school and pick them up. And uh if you if you see the traffic on Wom Road and a good idea would be a no right turn on red from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. on at Charms Road because what happens is all those people that come out of that school, they make the right turn on red and back up Wixom Road so nobody can go down Wixom Road. I mean, this is what happens when you let have have these kind of

operations going and now there's a lot more road lot more people that are coming down Charms Road from the north because they know they missed three traffic lights. So there's there's a lot of things that have to be thought out and I traffic engineers are amateurs and I want to encourage everybody cuz I'm old to speak into the microphone so we can hear you in the back of the room. Now your assistant city manager Drew does a great job but the rest of us needed tutoring every once in a while. Thank you and good night. Thank you.

Thanks mayor. Anybody else? Laura Clutier, executive director for the Downtown Development Authority. I just wanted to um say thank you for passing the SEMCA grant. Um we are excited about this project and my board is a working board. They do volunteer their time as um board member Willlet did say. So um you know, we need to be cognizant of that and they do work hard for the city. So thank you. You're welcome.

Good evening. Dave Veneggas, 1960 Downham Drive, Wixom, and I've been a Wixom resident for almost 26 years, and this is the first time I've been to a council meeting. And tonight I'm I'm asking about this sign that um is on Wixom Road. And it's it's very difficult to see Wixom. If you see it's it's going horizontal.

The new sign that's on Wixom Road. You can barely see or make out that it's Wixom. It should be if it's going to be horizontal, it should be straight up like the Western High School sign. Also, I'm a little confused that coming in. It says downtown Wixom. No more. Is that the downtown now? That is.

So, it's a little confusing to me. I just want to put on the record. I have a lot of people that come to visit here and I'm proud to live in Wixom. And I think it should say city of Wixom and be pronounced. And also, if you drive at night, I and I just saw it last night, you can't even see the Wixom. It just says downtown. So, very confusing, but thanks a lot for listening. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Hello again. Got to position my mic here for Mr. McDonald. Okay. So, uh again, Ryan Fischer, 2176 Higan Boulevard. Like yourselves, I am a uh government employee. I work for the state of Michigan, specifically the Michigan Liquor Control Commission. I'm an investigator for the Michigan Liquor Control Commission. Um, I see this SAMCOG grant and I was really hopeful uh hearing the details about this and I what my hope is is that we can put these refugees as close to the boundaries of this social district that we can. Um, I must tell you guys, you I love the job you're doing. You know, I love what's happening in Wixom, but whoever designed and approved and sent this social district to the liquor control commission, you need to know that it Wixom's kind of a example of what not to do when requesting a social district. When we have trainees, I tell the trainee, look, I live in a city where the social district runs through a four-lane intersection, and guess what? There's a railroad track that goes right through it. So, we're going to have a bunch of drunk people walking around with alcohol through a four-lane intersection and a railroad track. That is a perfect example of not setting up a social district correctly. So, I just hope that we can put these pedestrian refugees somewhere around there because what I was told in my training is the reason this got approved is because the commission uh pulled the ponchious

pilot. The commission's wiped their hands at this and say, "Oh, if you want this to be your social district, this liability is all on you, Wixom." And that's that's how that came to be. So, I hope that these uh $200,000 concrete circles uh are, you know, put somewhere by the social district to actually help people, especially potentially inebriated people st you know, stubbing around uh railroad tracks and four-lane intersections. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you.

Anybody else for the second call of the public? center. Good evening. Brenda Spratling, uh 578 Fletcher, Wixom, Michigan. I uh have been in Wixom for about 7 years. I'm a walker. walk all around our area and I just want to thank you for anything that you are doing to help with the safety of those of us who are avid walkers including the trail but also what you did with approving that grant this evening. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was nice.

Anybody else for the second call of the public? Seeing none, I'll close the second call of the public. Move on to city manager comments. City Manager Brown. As you'll note, the city manager's update is uh devoid of contact this this this month and I don't have anything that I was going to add to it. We have some events that are uh at the end of the uh report and that's all that I have for you this evening. Very good. So, this is city manager Benson.

Yeah, just uh just quick couple quick things. First, um thank you to members of city council for the goal setting conversation earlier. Um that that was helpful and I thought uh you know we got some useful information out of it. Um, couple things that I thought of in relationship to that and we have a couple planning commissioners in the audience. So, um, you know, looping them in. The planning commission, uh, did hold a public hearing on a proposed data center ordinance. They received some comments and, uh, tabled the item seeking additional updates. Um, they're scheduled to discuss that again at their March 16th meeting and then would potentially schedule another public hearing. So, and that's an ordinance, not a center, correct? Did I say center? No, I'm just making sure that it doesn't get confused.

Okay, you're right. Yeah, it's an ordinance to regulate, not a not to approve one. Um, so but I I again I just I'm trying to stay is keep you all in the loop on the timeline. So um if moved forward by the D or by planning commission in April, you would then uh see it for first reading. Um same goes for the master plan. Um they're they're pretty close uh making some final tweaks and we'll discuss it again. So, um, looking forward to presenting, you know, what they've they've come up with for your review prior to to, uh, you know, putting that out for official public comment. And that's all I have for the evening. We're good. Madam Clerk, got anything tonight? You sure? Yes.

Okay. Council comments. Council member Barman.

Thank you to all of the residents took the time to come out this evening. It's not often that we have u anyone who wants to talk during public comment. So, it was refreshing to have three three different opportunities and uh I thought Mr. Dornan was going to make his way up here for the third one, but maybe not. Uh that being said, um I I really do hope that the residents take it seriously and do attend the school board meeting. I went to the school board meeting um last week to do the public comment there and let them know specifically uh about this meeting this evening. And I am glad that superintendent and one of the school board members chose to come. Um all the school board members can't come or they would obviously be in violation of the opening meetings act. More than one could have come, but we'll leave that for you all to decide. Um, I do hope that uh the administration can reach back out to the administration for Wald Lake schools and if they weren't ready to comment or present anything this evening, which seems disappointing because they did have notice of the meeting, but regardless, and to invite them back because I do think it would be u fair for them to have the opportunity to come back and and present if they are going to change anything or if they're not going to change anything, we need to know that so we can start going down the path of doing whatever we need to do to make sure that Maple Road is as safe as it can for the residents there. So, admin, our administration needs to stay on this. I think they know that. And I hope the residents of Wixom stay on it as well. Attend this next school board meeting. Come back to our meetings every other week. We'd love to have you here. Our

viewership will go down then the YouTube. Yeah. Council member Simmons.

Okay. I've got a couple notes here. First, apologizing to deputy mayor. I refer to you only as council member, so no disrespect. All right. Um, uh, I was able to have a tour, um, as I mentioned in our goal setting, uh, a tour with Laura from the DDA Indiana. Um, so thank you for your time today and learning more about downtown and all the goals. Um, and I got some uh, downtown swag, so you guys will see that soon. Um, the signs around the new signs going up around the city look awesome. Um, so excited uh, for that. Um, color is always good. So, excited to see some color. Um, thanks for the public, uh, all the residents for coming out. Um, it's good to hear from the public and good to hear everybody's feedback as far as concerns. I definitely, um, had notes, but I took way more notes tonight um, from different input. So, thank you for that. Um, also, thank you to the superintendent for coming out. Um, I do think that needs to be acknowledged. um they didn't have to be here. So, it was good for I think them to hear a lot of the feedback directly. Um not surprised that they didn't have comment. Uh I think that I hope we hear something from them. Uh and I I would I guess like to understand or encourage our administration to continue uh with the state level of considering what is happening there. trying to get if we still don't have final plans trying to really understand what the final plans are and uh moving beyond the district to what we can do on a state level to help.

That's all. Very good. Council member OD. Thank you. Uh I as well am just really encouraged and think it's great to see so many faces that came out tonight. Um the ones who stuck around to the very end. Um, I'd like to say you get something for doing that, but just the um

Yeah. Yeah. Just, you know, just knowing that you did it will have to be reward enough for you tonight. Um, but it is great, especially, you know, a lot of faces that maybe we don't ordinarily see. Um, taking an interest in what's happening in the community and I would encourage everyone to do that. um even if you can't come out here to be watching for our um you know our our 10,000 people watching right now if not more. Um and then lastly, I guess I'll just say I agree uh with uh the first two commenters that I think it was nice to have the superintendent here. Hopefully those are uh he heard everything um that everyone had to say and takes it into consideration. uh call me an optimist, call me naive, but I would like to believe that uh folks who are in the business of educating children are also, you know, relatively concerned with their well-being and safety and will uh take every possible measure to ensure that not only the children are safe, but that the you know the the residents are safe as well. So, thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Garland Fox. Thank you. I too would like to thank everyone for coming out especially for the public hearing. It it's a very important issue. It's it's safety and the only way to uh to have change is to get people to come out and talk. And so thank you very much for that. Thank you.

Council member Kennedy mostly want to echo what's already been said and say thank you for everyone that came out and made comments. I hope they were heard and I hope we can have something come back. um where something has changed, made it more safe for the schools, traffic alleviated. I also want to say I specifically appreciate the time the DDA puts into things. I think the downtown looks great. Um and that anything if I ever have a disagreement or vote no on anything, it's not that I don't think you're doing a great job because I think you're doing an amazing job. Deputy Mayor Gotcho.

Thank you. I also want to uh thank everyone that came out tonight and spoke as well as everyone that came out and just sat and showed support um kind of power and numbers and also thank you to uh the school representatives coming out to to listen. Hopefully they can relay some of the comments back to the entire school board and make some adjustments. Uh hopefully it is not too late to change how the asphalt's going to look. It's not like the school's built yet. Um, so it'd be nice if they can do that. Um, I also want to speak about the comments for my comments are not targeting the the effort of the DDA. I think there's a disconnect in how we get handled and how you get handled and there's no there's no method that we come together unless we have a joint meeting like we've had and then we get way in the weeds or we get talked to instead of being allowed to talk. So when we when you guys are taken down this road of a a grant and planning and approving grant funding and no part of that comes to us at all until the very end. That's the issue. My issue is not with you. Please don't take it personally. I appreciate everything you're doing. It's how we do not work together. And that's not a you thing. It's not an us thing. it's city staff needing to bring everybody into the fold um before it's time to say yes to spending money. Um so I apologize if that came off that way. That um is not my intent at all. I appreciate every volunteer we have. Um, but it it's more of a process thing and it's similar to the Ballards like that that was my personal concern as well as the former deputy mayor and what we got was not even in the location that he and I had been discussing for years and it were it was flexible plastic ballards that get

run over by a car that idles through it, not even foot on the gas. So that wasn't a put down to any effort that you undertook. It was just a general misunderstanding on what was expected when we were discussing it versus how that got relayed to your efforts. And to me personally, it feels like a waste of your time and effort. And I take that personally that we can't get everybody on the same page around here and actually work on stuff that we all intend to work on. That's where my frustration comes from. Thank you.

You're welcome. And I want to thank everybody who came out tonight and uh for the public hearing and who spoke at the public hearing. And I want to thank the school uh superintendent and school board member for being here tonight. But unfortunately, we shouldn't have to go through uh measures like this to get them to listen to us. So hopefully they did listen to us and they hear that we have uh some issues not only again not only on the with the new school on Maple Road, but on Charms Road and Lon Lake Road. And truly, I hope that we we should reach out to them real soon and schedule a meeting and get things done and uh come up with a new plan at Sarah Banks. So, not only the cars are off of Charms Road, but the cars are off of Winding Way and Brentwood as well. And um with that, do I have a motion to take a fivem minute break and then uh go into close session?

All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I opposed. Thank you.