City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the July 13th, 2026 regular meeting of the Rochester Hills City Council. Ms. Bowen, will you take roll?

President Carlock.

Here.

Vice President Mangioli. Here. Mr. Blair. Mr. Lindberg?

Here.

Ms. Menino? Here. Ms. Neubauer? Here. Mr. Scalzi?

Here.

President Carlock, we have a quorum.

Thank you very much. And if everyone will stand, we'll be led in the Pledge of Allegiance by our Youth Council.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Approval of agenda, I have been asked by administration to move item 2026-0315 from new business to under planning and economic development because those two are directly related. I have a motion by Vice President Mangioli, seconded by Councilwoman Neubauer to accept the agenda with the one change. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We have an agenda for tonight. Next up, council and youth committee reports. We will kick it off with our youth council representative, Ms. Hayes.

Good evening, President Carlock, Vice President Mangioli, council members, and citizens of Rochester Hills. My name is Janelle Hayes, and I'm going into my freshman year of college at MSU. I'm in the fourth and final year of serving on the Rochester Hills Government Youth Council, and I serve on the RARA committee. This past month, a select panel of students, our adult liaison and our city council liaison, Councilman Neubauer, interviewed about 30 plus candidates to fill six spots for outgoing seniors. As well, we participated in Festival of the Hills and gave out animal feed and sold socks for the bounce houses. This month, we are finalizing our new members and our adult liaison, Erin McKay, will make her recommendations to the council. Our next meeting will be August 19th and thank you so much for your time and have a great evening.

Thank you very much, Ms. Hayes. I don't see any council reports today. Oh, I do. Really slow with that button today, Ms. Neubauer.

I was thinking about it, President Kerlach. I just wanted to say really quickly, our kids were at the Festival of the Hills. They were such troopers. They were so amazing. They got poured on and rained on. And when the tent collapsed water all over them and they were soaking wet, they still continued to work hard for our residents. So I want to congratulate them on a job well done on that. It's always so amazing to see how our youth is A lot of times people say, oh my gosh, what are we going to do? Look at our youth and they're this and that. Our youth in Rochester Hills is just so amazing and I'm just really proud of them. I'm super heartbroken that our seniors are leaving. I'm sure I'll be bawling at our last meeting, but I'll bring tissues. But they did a really, really good job and I'm really, really proud of them. And we had amazing interviews for the new youth council and I can't wait to work with the new kids. So that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ms. Neubauer. I don't see any further council comments or reports, so we will move on to presentations. Item 2026-0300, Presentation of Seven-Year Financial Forecast, Fiscal Years 2027 to 2033. Mr. Snyder, CFO.

Thank you, President Carlock, Vice President Mangioli, City Council. Ms. Cedrovich and Ms. Hayes. Well, we are going to go through the city's seven-year financial forecast. This time we are covering fiscal years 2027 to 2033. And Ms. Bowen, if you could, oh, you're already on it. Very good. All right, let's dive in here. So let's start first. Why do we present this long-term forecast? Well, ultimately it comes down to better decision-making. We always, always, always have and always will make better decisions when we plan ahead and we are prepared. And we do like to present this long-term seven-year view of the city finances at this time of the year, as we will soon be moving into the more near-term three-year budget process starting in August. Now just some disclaimers here. This forecast is not intended to be a budget or a policy recommendation and good news. No official action on this presentation is requested tonight so you can sit back and relax. Rather, we want to present to city council a financial projection based on our updated and conservative financial assessment or assumptions with the ultimate goal to provide you the ultimate decision makers with the information you need in order to make informed and educated decisions regarding the financial future and direction of the city. In the forecast tonight, we'll go through the city's governmental fund balance policy and all of the dollars presented as part of this forecast are included in the proposed 2026 second quarter budget amendment and project out the city's upcoming 2027 to 2029 budget plan. So a little sneak peek there. And I will go over the 2026 second quarter budget amendment and a little later on in this meeting to go through that. Let's jump into the assumptions. We're going to start with the revenue assumptions. This is what we use to project forward future revenues. Our goal when we estimate revenues is first and foremost to estimate conservatively. We are very confident that we will attain this level of revenue at minimum to avoid any funding shortfalls. First, we'll start off with taxable value. Good news here, still going in the right direction. Last year when I presented this forecast, we were projecting a 2.75 percent increase for fiscal year 2027 and very happy to announce that the city will experience a 4.19 percent increase in taxable value for next year. That additional taxable value growth positively impacts our forecast not only for next year, 2027, but also ripples out forward into the future in 2028 and beyond. I have been working with our city assessor, Lori Taylor, and we conservatively anticipate now a 2.75% increase for fiscal year 2028, then moving forward at 2.5% annual increases over the long term. And that is largely based on anticipated CPI trends moving forward. Next, we get to state shared revenue, and this is where we have some changes here to note you guys on. State shared revenue, this comes from the collection of the State of Michigan's 6% sales tax, and a portion of that is constitutionally redistributed to cities, villages and townships and counties throughout the state. We have amended the fiscal year 2026 current budget for an anticipated 9.3% reduction in this revenue source and this is received into the general fund. What this amount amounts to in dollar wise is around $800,000 less per year in state shared revenue moving forward. Now, this reduction is based upon changes made by the state of Michigan legislature per the state's recent 2026 budget, which was approved in October of last year. And the changes comprise that the state is no longer allocating the state sales tax on gasoline sales. So that is the reason for the decrease in state shared revenue. Now the projections that we have here for 2026 to 2027, they come straight from the state of Michigan and their semi-annual consensus revenue estimating conference, or the CREC, and that's held in May of each year. Now, working hand in hand with that reduction in state shared revenue is the Act 51 revenue, and these are revenues for our major roads and our local streets, and that also comes from the state of Michigan through gasoline tax. Now, I mentioned previously on state shared revenue that the gasoline, the sales tax on gasoline has been withdrawn from the state, but it was replaced by an equal and offsetting increase in the gasoline tax. So these legislative changes are beginning this year, 2026, and are anticipated to be more fully implemented near the fourth quarter of this year. And then looking forward into fiscal year 2027, a full 12 months is projected for 2027 and beyond. These changes equate to a very conservatively projected $2 million increase in Act 51 dollars moving forward. Initially projections for the city of Rochester Hills was a $3 million increase in act 51 on an annual basis. Um, I will believe it when I see it. Um, I'm just looking at these numbers come in on a monthly basis and I am going to try to under promise and over deliver on those projections. Next up, my favorite revenue source, investment income. And why is it my favorite? Because it doesn't cost our residents a dime. It is me doing my job as a chief investment officer for the city and making sure our idle city funds are working as hard as the men and women that serve our city. So last year, I conservatively projected a very conservative 3% return and happy to report as of the end of the second quarter, we're currently earning 3.9% on our idle funds. And also very helpful here is in December of 2022, City Council approved amending the city's investment policy to allow for investments in U.S. Treasury and agency securities, the safest investments out there, from two years to five years. So I have been locking up some higher or longer-term treasuries to lock in those higher rates for a longer duration. And with that longer duration, I feel confident that we can increase the next three-year projected investment returns to 3% at minimum. Again, these are just a projection and I hope to outperform those conservative projections. Next, let's move on to some assumptions on expenditures. We have met with each department multiple times and we're wrapping up our upcoming 2027 to 2029 three-year budget, which will be presented to City Council in really just a few weeks once we get into August. So first off staffing in our forecast is the addition of one additional full time employee and that would be a new park ranger at the well will be completed next year in the wiki park as well. There are some seasonal part time park assistance to help out at the park. Um, we'll get more into these proposed staffing positions when we go through next year's proposed budget at the budget workshop in August. Now, salaries and wages are projected out and consistent with our union contracts covering fiscal years 26 to 27 at 2.75%. And we're attempting to maintain our salary increases in line with our taxable value increases from the revenue assumptions, increasing at 2.75% for 2028 and then 2.5% moving onward. Moving on to health care, another big cost we have. And this is in discussions with our health care benefit consultants. And based on health care market trends, we are projecting now a 7% increase in annual health care costs. Inflation, still out there, very stubborn, still a big topic, especially with tariffs and international conflicts, and we are definitely not immune from the impacts of inflation here at the city. Some products and service areas, inflation has seemed to ease and level out, get a little bit more back to normal, but in other areas we are still seeing and projecting increased costs. We're kind of considered the higher prices the best as we could as we've developed both our 2026 budget as well as our 2027-29 budget plan. we've increased our various operating budgets as well as capital budgets for any material material or supply increases particularly any various metals we're still seeing a lot of stubborn inflation on metals including aluminum copper steel etc so we're projecting anywhere between a two and a half to five percent increase for most items and really even metal we're even bumping up by more than that maybe even close to a ten percent increase and all of our capital projects have that are included in our CIP or capital improvement plan. And they have been reviewed and updated for the most current and conservative project cost estimates. And finally on our Oakland County Sheriff's Office contract, it is in place through, uh, 2027. So we still have another year plus and we're trying to be very conservative and very realistic regarding the next 2028 2030, uh, Oakland County Sheriff's Office contract. Oakland County has essentially eliminated any subsidy for providing this service with their 2025 to 2027 contract increases. and we're trying to be as realistic and conservative as possible with the future Oakland County contract rates moving forward. Next up, let's talk about the bottom line millage rate. And so as you can see, the total bottom line millage rate is anticipated to be held consistent throughout this forecast. At the current level, 11.2753. Now we do have a couple items that are highlighted in orange there. So those are when millages come due. This is the last year for our pathway millage, but as council's already approved. And we do have this on the August primary ballot for a renewal. We are projecting a straight renewal of the pathway millage. Also on the August primary ballot is a 0.5 mil increase for the fire millage. And if approved, as we've discussed, these additional funds would be used to hire an additional 12 firefighters and provide approximately a half a million dollars per year, which can be transferred to the fire capital fund for future fire asset replacements, including ambulances, fire engines, et cetera. But with that being said, we are not including the fire millage increase in this long-term forecast. Rather, a just status quo fire millage is projected. Besides those two items, after that, we have until fiscal year 2030 when the city's local street millage and OPC, operating millage, will be expiring. And we're just projecting straight renewals for those. And then in 2031, the city's park infrastructure millage will be expiring. So we've got that on our radar as well. Um, you may notice a slight increase once you get all the way out to 2033 and that is due to potential increases, which, you know, we do not know yet for the Oakland County Sheriff's office contract by 2033 and it's still very early on and we'll have a much better handle on this as time progresses. But you can see the intent is to maintain the same bottom line millage rate longterm and to live within our means for the next several years. All right, so with those assumptions and projections on revenues, expenditures, millage rates, et cetera in mind, let's take a look at some of the city's most significant funds projected out over the next seven years, otherwise known as I like to call them the big seven. So we'll start out with probably the biggest of the big seven, the general fund. Well, as you can see there, the revenues are fairly well balanced between property taxes, state shared revenue, and all other sources includes building permits, park field rentals, investment income, et cetera. And as I recall, we'll probably say another eight times throughout the presentation tonight, we're trying to be very conservative with our revenue estimates moving forward. The decrease in general fund revenue from 2025 to 2026, that is due to the reduction in the state shared revenue this year. And we are projecting slow and consistent growth in general fund revenue for 2027 and beyond. Moving on to general fund expenses, just about half of general fund expenses are for personnel, about a quarter for other expenses, including professional services, internal service allocations, supplies, equipment, et cetera. Personnel and other expenses are fairly consistent from year to year, and this does include the one new position for a new park ranger at Nowiki Park, along with the part-time assistance. And the reason for the bump in personnel and other expense trends from 2024 to 2025 to 2026 and beyond is due to the fact that we traditionally come in under budget on both salary and operating expenses each year. Part of that's due to consistent budgeting. The transfer out, the green bar on top, that represents the remaining piece of general fund expenditures to help balance out some other funds, namely the Water Resources Fund for stormwater, as well as to maintain the general fund and its target balance throughout by contributions to the Capital Improvement Fund. Now, beginning in 2025, the new fund balance policy went into effect, setting the general fund at 35% of annual operating expenditures. Previously, we were at 80%. So the taller green bars in 2025 to 2027 represent that drawdown of general fund fund balance by transferring those funds to the capital improvement fund. Moving forward in 2028 and beyond, we still forecast a nice flow of right around $2 million per year, which can be directed to the capital improvement fund for capital improvements citywide. And here it is graphed out. And so we'll go through a little bit on this one. The black bars on the bottom represents the fund balance level. The green line up on top, that is the revenue. The red line is the expenditures. So you can see revenue or expenditures exceeding revenues for the next few years as we draw that fund balance down and transfer those funds to the capital improvement fund. The yellow line is the target balance. So you can see how we're stepping down from 80% to 35% over the course of the next three years, and then we're able to maintain that target balance long term. So long term, we're gonna keep it right around $10 million into the general fund fund balance. And how we maintain that level is by transferring funds out to the capital improvement fund, somewhat of our internal financing plumbing system. But long-term, general fund appears in good solid shape. Now move on to the capital improvement fund and you can see the, uh, some of the capital projects that we have planned and the draw from there. Um, so we have several projects that we've completed over the past several years, um, including the big drop in this year for 2026 is the construction of no wiki park as well as the paving of Childress and the repair and replacement of pedestrian bridges throughout the city. In 2027, a couple of projects that we have, I'll give you a little heads up coming up in the budget process. In 2027, we're planning on the replacement of the playground equipment at Bloomer Park, as well as election equipment needs to be replaced next year. In 2028, the museum will be getting a new parking lot, as well as playground placement at Spencer Park. Then in 2029, the Oakland County Sheriff's Office will be getting a new parking lot, and we will start plans for the redevelopment of Bloomer Park in 2029. So there has always been and there always will be more dollars of projects than there are dollars available of funding. The big key for the capital improvement fund is to utilize the funds available in the best way possible. And so it's very helpful that we have a capital improvement plan with a rating system for our projects. and we can plug in projects as funds are available you'll also notice that dotted yellow line along the bottom that is our saver reserve so for when the first time now we actually have a somewhat of a fund balance policy for our capital improvement fund which we have never had before so the goal is to keep the black bars the actual monies that we have in fund balance at a level at or above that saver reserve that we want to keep in the capital improvement fund of $2.5 million. Now let's move on to roads, starting with major roads. Well, Act 51, that typically provides for the majority of major road revenues. We do have grants and other funding sources that come in to help support our projects throughout the years. And in 2029, we've received a federal aid committee grant for the rehabilitation of John R in 2029. Now our major road expenditures are really, they're largely determined by the level of major road capital projects scheduled each and every year. Future capital outlay costs include major road projects as included in the CIP. So for this year, we have the traffic signal upgrade at Auburn and Technology, the Adams Road enhancements near Nowiki Park, and as a lot of us are aware of, Hamlin Road at Crooks is currently under reconstruction due to the failing concrete. What do we have on tap for the next few years for major roads? In 2027, a very large project, Rochester Road, basically from M59 all the way up to Tinkin. It's a big MDOT, Michigan Department of Transportation project, where the city will have a participatory share. It will be one of our major projects coming up in 2027. In 2028, we have the reconstruction of Hampton Circle. In 2029, the rehabilitation of John R. between Avon and Auburn. And then in 2030, we have Drexlegate from Livernois to Dancer and Nahuacua from Rochester to Joshua on the list. And then that's the biggest capital improvement projects we have until we get to 2033. You notice the big bump in the green line. That would be the potential widening of Adams Road from Hamlin to Walton. It is on our radar, and we just want to make sure we have the funding available when and if that project eventually gets here. Looking at the major road fund balances, all the major road construction projects in 2027 to 30, they do reduce the major road fund balance to approximately a little over $4 million by the end of 2030, but there is still solid funding there. And similar to the capital improvement fund, we're reserving funding for our highest priority road projects. We have the ability to plug in lesser priority projects when there are economies of scale or there is funding available. But long term, the major road is in very good shape, and we have the ability to schedule our city capital projects as funding is available. And if there is additional funding needed, we can always tap on the capital improvement fund. Moving over to the local streets, and you can see the diversified revenue source between taxes, Act 51, and transfers in from the major road fund. call it our three-legged stool, and slow consistent growth is projected there. Our local street expenditures are split fairly evenly between operating and capital each year. And we do typically come in under budget on both operating and capital by year end, and that explains the bump in operating expenditures from 2024 to 2025 to 2026 budgets. And the increase in capital outlay for 2026 is due to the paving of Childress, which is happening this year. The annual capital outlay program includes the annual local street rehabilitation program. And we have been increasing that program to a level of $6 million per year. And the good news here is we look to be able to support a $6 million annual local street program into the future. Looking at the major local street chart here in 2024 to 2025, the local street fund balance target was in an excess of its 25% annual expenditures target balance. That's the yellow line. The local street fund balance is projected to decrease into 2026 to 2033, and that is an effort to set the local street fund balance at 25% of its annual operating expenditures. To accomplish this, we can adjust the level of capital outlay each year. But long-term, Local Street Fund looks to be in great shape and able to support a $6 million per year capital program, and that is even with our very conservative Act 51 revenue estimates. Okay, now let's move to FIRE. All right, so the primary source of fire operating revenue is taxes, bringing in nearly 80% of fire's revenue. And as I mentioned previously, the fire millage level is forecast to be held steady at the existing levy of 2.7 mil, the same levy as we've had since 2015 throughout this forecast model. So this is a status quo long-term projection. And this long-term forecast does not include any change to fire millage, nor does it include any change to staffing levels. Other fire revenue is primarily EMS charges for service. And I think the key here is the overall level of fire funding is very consistent from year to year. Now fire expenditures, the bulk of fire operating expenditures right around 75% or so are for personnel. And the green bar on top, this represents the transfer out from the fire operating fund to the fire capital fund. And you will notice there is not a green bar starting in 2027. That would be the transfer out. So that would be any funding above fires operating target balance. So basically Friar is running with a very slight structural operating surplus, revenues and expenditures as is are very tight, very close together. So there's really not any additional funds that can go to support fire capital fund or replacements basically for fire apparatus. And this next slide will help to illustrate that a bit. So this is the FIRE chart looking out. Black bars is their fund balance. You can see the red line, expenditures, the green line, the revenues very tightly together, almost a break even each year. But we're starting to, looking out over the next several years, starting to fall off of the high end, 25% target range, where we may end up a little bit closer to the low end, the 20% target range. Now I am confident that we can keep probably pretty close to at the 25% level. Remember we budget very conservatively, so we're hoping to maintain there, but I don't think there's going to be a lot of juice left to squeeze out of the fire operating that can get pushed over to fire capital. Now let's look at the fire capital fund. Well, all major fire apparatus and equipment replacements over the next 78 years per the CIP are included. And in 2026, we do still have the replacement of five ambulances in this year's budget. In 2028, we have the replacement of three ambulances that were actually received last year. So you may ask, well, why are you replacing an ambulance when you just replaced one three or four years ago? Well, because it takes three years to get an ambulance in once it's ordered. So you want to get that thing ordered three years prior to when it'll eventually stop working. So we do have our ambulances now on a seven year replacement cycle. And this was certainly a challenge that we noticed or note noted to council and administration last year at this time. And chief Gary has been working very difficult or very hard on reviewing that replacement schedule. particularly with the ambulances, and his plan is he has an idea that we can rotate the ambulances through from some of the stations where we get the most calls to stations that don't get as many calls, rotate them around, and we believe that we can get seven years out of an ambulance by using this. That kind of stretches out the replacement cycle, which also helps to stretch out the dollars. So believe it or not, this long-term fire capital forecast, which does show possibly going negative in 2033, this actually looks a lot better than what it looks like last year at this time. And kudos to Chief Geary and to the fire administration and leadership staff that have really helped to tighten down just about everything in the fire department. So the big thing here is we really need to make some smart decisions moving forward so we can keep this forecast improving as we go. The last of our big seven here we'll talk about is police. The biggest part of police revenue here is taxes. Some of the other revenues that comes in are for things like mini contracts when police help out at various events. You will notice an uptick in the yellow bar, that's the tax line from 2025 to 2026. That is due to the fact we needed to increase the police millage in 2026 to account for the 36 percent increase in Oakland County Sheriff's Office costs approved by the Oakland County Board of Commissioners. There may be another increase needed in 2023 or 2033, but at this point, it's just a forecast and we still have many years to go, so time will tell. But if the Oakland County Sheriff's Office annual contractual increases outpace the rate of taxable value increase, we may need to either increase the police millage again, cut officers, or make that decision when we come to it. So I just want to put that out there. So on the expenditure side, the vast, vast, vast majority of police expenditures are for our Oakland County Sheriff's Office contract. And as we operate on a contractual arrangements, our police expenditures are very, very predictable from year to year that we know what the contract is. This forecast does include glue contractual increases in the Oakland County Sheriff's Office contract for 2028 2030. Um, and the amount we've got in there is a 5.4% annual contractual increase is what we're budgeting, projecting that what the next increase that might come down from Oakland County. looking at the police fund balance. As we mentioned, the increase in 2026 in that green bar, that was to bump up the police millage. We increased it from 2.4 mills in 2025 to 2.8 mills in 2026. right around a four-tenth of a mil increase. What this new police levy represents is in 2026, we'll have a net surplus. Then from 2027 through 2029, basically flat or break even where revenues equal expenditures. If we keep with the same level starting in 2030, there will be a structural operating deficit. By 2033, we are projecting the operating deficit and hitting our 25 percent fund balance target. We'll be very close for 2026-27 with these projections. 2028-2030, the next County Sheriff's Office contract, we're trying to project as conservatively as we can and realistically with 5.4 percent increases. And if the kind of the rates come in lower from Oakland County, then we can probably maintain that same millage rate longer. And if the increases are higher than that, we may need to look at, you know, increasing the police millage or doing something else sooner. So short to midterm, the police fund is in good shape, but longterm we're going to just have to revisit this every time the Oakland County Sheriff's contract comes forth every three years. All right, mercifully, we're almost done here. That was a lot of information, a lot of charts presented to you in hopefully a short amount of time. By going through this, hopefully you can see how the city's fund balance policy helps to determine the amount of reserves held in these key city operating funds and how those fund balances are maintained and how those fund balance levels ultimately help to determine how much funding we have in our city capital funds. This model has proven to work very well as anticipated to help set the financial parameters that help guide our decision-making into the future. Our major operating funds look good to very good into the foreseeable future. They can all be maintained at the levels prescribed in the fund balance policy long term. They all operate with a structural surplus to provide a funding source for the city's capital funds, although we do have some concerns with the fire operating fund long term. Our capital funds, including our major road and capital improvement fund, continue to look good and be able to tackle capital projects that we have in our CAP and as proposed. However, we do have concerns with the fire capital fund long term. Keep in mind the revenue and expenditure assumptions using this forecast are both very conservative. And as new data comes forward, we'll be adjusting our forecast accordingly. You know, we're really never more than a quarter away from amending our budget. It is very much a living document. So some final takeaways from the long-term forecast. Financial position, currently the city of Rochester Hill sits in a very strong financial position. Our fund balances are strong. We have no debt. We use conservative projections, both on our revenue and expenditure side, and we still operate with a structural surplus, even though fire is very close to break even. And maintaining that structural surpluses of paramount importance shared by the fiscal division as well as the mayor's office and as well, I'm sure, city council. And we're consistently and constantly looking at our long-term projections after each city council meeting's agenda, the items approved, and every month then close, and with each quarterly budget amendment. Our long-term capital plans in the past few years, we've accomplished an incredible amount of transformative projects, helped to improve the quality of life in the city for our residents and our guests. By taking this long-term view, we're able to take a strategic approach to our budget and our financial plan regarding the projects which we will pursue. With that being said, the reductions in state shared revenue and the increases in our public safety costs are a financial challenge. But these are challenges to the financial resiliency the city has sown over the past decades of prudent financial management, both by administration and city council. The financial resiliency was created by our long-term focus, concerned not only about the current and upcoming fiscal year, but how the decisions we make today can impact the city seven years from now. We are in an enviable position today based on our sound financial decisions we have made over the course of the past decade. But we need to continue to make sound financial decisions to ensure the city of Rochester Hills remains the preeminent place to live, work, and raise a family, as well as into the future for the next generations. Hopefully this presentation will give you a sense of where we are financially looking over the long term, over the next seven years, as we next will transition to the more short-term three-year budget process starting in August. In my opinion, the city is still in a very, very strong position, and we look to be able to maintain that and even grow that financial strength into the foreseeable future in the majority of the city's funds. As pointed out, financially, the fire department, operations and capital, as well as the police fund, will be the main focus of the city administration for the next few years. So that concludes my presentation of the city's seven-year financial forecast covering fiscal years 2027 to 2033. I thank you for your attention this evening and I'm available for any questions or comments you may have.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Snyder. And as you can imagine, we do have some questions and comments. Yes. First off, you had mentioned the increase in metal costs. It's going up. It's not going to come down. Not directly related to metal, but the local roads and the $6 million, and this may be something we have to ask Ms. Ballant to weigh in on, If we keep that at $6 million a year for that road funding, does the linear feet of road we can work on each year decrease?

The linear, well, I guess a little bit just with inflation. Six million dollars doesn't go as far this year as it did last year into the future. For many years we had a, maybe even a decade or more, we had a five million dollar per year local street program. And what we found, hey, we're not getting as many miles as we thought we initially were 10, 15 years when we started with the 5 million. So over the course of four years, I believe we even started maybe 2022, 23, 24, 25, we added another quarter of a million dollars each year to go from 5 million to the 6 million dollars we're at today. So that's a good number. We're able to get a lot of work done. But as time goes on, inflation, oil prices, et cetera, eventually we might have to relook and maybe that number does need to be a little bit higher moving forward. The caveat with that is, well, let's see what this Act 51 revenue really comes in at. And if we can come in You know, if they're coming closer to the projection $3 million versus the $2 million I'm presenting today, then that will allow, you know, a little bit more flexibility with that. Got it.

Got it. Okay. Thank you very much. Council comments and questions. Ms. Neubauer.

Thank you, President Karlox. As usual, amazing presentation. I'm so thankful for you and how your mind works. I'm thankful that you help us get to a debt-free city. That's a badge of honor that not many people can wear. So thank you for that. I do have a couple questions and comments, and I'm not sure if I'm going to... if this question makes sense. But I thought that the decrease in gas revenue that we're getting was going to be substituted by the tax they added to the marijuana sales.

That's part of it. So there was actually, yeah, they took the sales tax off, which that mainly impacts the general fund. And then they replaced the kind of the dollar amount or of the loss of sales tax with an increase in the gas tax. So that went up. There are other pieces that go into that formulating puzzle. Yes, the marijuana tax was a piece of it. And that is the main reason why we're not seeing the big increases January 1st. It's going to be phased in as these new taxes come in as they are collected and they are redistributed. So, but I have been hearing the, I think it was $420 million they thought from the pot for potholes. They're saying the revenue growth there isn't as strong as what they thought. That's another reason why I'm hedging it down a little bit from the $3 million they initially said last year. Well, let's plan on two. If it comes in at two, five, two, seven, five, even close to the three. Great.

Well, hopefully Lansing is listening to this and can do a little bit of regulation when it comes to the cash that comes out of the pot sales that's not reported and all those kind of things so that we do get the tax dollars that we deserve. So that was my question with that. So I always take your presentations as kind of like a studying for a final exam. So it's always good to review for a final exam. And so I'd like to review a couple of things that have happened that put us in this position that we're here. And everyone can take a deep breath for a second. But we are in the position we are with the police millage because of the Oakland County commissioners. I won't be here in seven years. I mean, I'll be on the planet, God willing, but not on council. And I want to make sure that everybody hears this. You kindly, generously, and in the loving way that you do, phrased their 36% increase to our millage, when in fact it was actually the Oakland County Commissioners that defunded our police by the 36%. after they'd already budgeted to give us that amount. That was done as a consequence and retaliatory, I believe, as a result of an election. And then two weeks later, after defunding our police department, they gave themselves, I believe, a 24% pay raise. So when they said there was no money available, there was no money available for our police. And we are now put in a position, which we are, of either we handle the police ourselves and pay for it ourselves, which is what we've done. We've lost a school resource officer, which is something we were promised was not going to happen. People come to Rochester Hills because of safety. Our schools, which we have amazing teachers and parents that deal with our schools, and they come for... there's a lot of people, reasons they come to Rochester Hills, but safety is one of them. And, um, they put us in an awful position and our very own Rochester Hills, um, representative commissioner voted for that increase or defunding or whatever you want to call it. So your vote matters. And I'm asking you guys to vote responsibly when it comes to the police department. Um, That's that. I'm going to stop talking about that because I'm getting agitated. The next thing comes to the fire. Our fire millage has not increased since 2015, but we have an aging in place population. We have several unanswered calls that have happened last year. That's not the fault of our police department. It's because we're short-staffed. We placed it on the August ballot. We voted collectively to place it on the August ballot, which was very risky because there's two other millage continuation issues going on that ballot. We do not want those other millages to impact our fire department. It is very important that we keep those things separately. separate. Our fire department needs 12 more staff in order to sufficiently support our residents, which is those that are aging in place. We've also had an increased number of EMS calls to our school district and our schools and our buildings. They are working on a very tight budget, but it's too much of a risk to the public safety that we don't handle this millage appropriately. I would ask people to reach out to your city council representatives, to the administration, to the fire department, whoever it is that you want to get the information from, but I'm asking that you get the information before you vote.

There's also a lot of information on the city website as well. We have a webpage devoted to both fire and the pathway millage renewal.

Yes. And the, by the way, the pathway millage is just a continuation. It's not an increase. So, you know, this whole vote no on everything is not a good way to handle this situation. You need to be educated about each individual vote that you make. Fire is a public safety issue. We need our firefighters too. I always joke about this, but we did one day of fire ops. It was torture. It was so hard. They put on 70 pound outfits, not outfits, uniforms, equipment, gear, whatever. It's not an outfit. It didn't feel like an outfit. So they go into burning buildings. They can't see. They need night vision goggles to just be able to see a foot in front of them. And they need ladders and replacement equipment. They need equipment to shock people back to life. We've had two babies born in the last two years in our ambulances. And I think we had over 220 calls that were left unanswered last year because we did not have the staff. We need to support our first responders. It's super important, and the budget is a really good time to talk about it. Chief Gary is amazing. He works on a very tight budget, but he shouldn't have to keep tightening his belt when it comes to the expense of the public safety and on our firefighters. And also they're going into dangerous situations when we don't support them, their actual lives are at stake. And I believe that they said that the average increase of this millage will be $50 a year per resident. That's, And under, that's not too much. $50 a year to make sure that 220 more calls that are called in are actually answered. My parents are 82 and 78. I don't want one of their calls to be unanswered. Anyway, thank you so much. The sermon is over. I appreciate you. It's a good time to review for our test.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Neubauer. Next up, Ms. Menino.

Yes, thank you, President Kerlach, and thank you, Mr. Snyder, for the presentation and the numbers. Very good, very easy to follow. I thought it was very well put together. Just a couple of questions, and I'll take mine out of order just to follow up on what Councilwoman Newborough, staying with the firefighters. So the numbers that, just to confirm, what we were looking at in this seven-year forecast is baseline, which is what we have today, not hiring 12 people and not getting a millage.

Correct.

Okay.

Baseline status quo.

That's what I meant. So it's baseline status quo, which shows potentially we're in trouble a little bit later in the out years, right? Mm-hmm. So if we, I guess the question is if we move forward, the millage passes clearly, then that should bring the fund in line. Or I guess it's a question for you. Does it bring the longterm capital firefighter capital fund in line? Also, assuming that we're going to hire the 12 people, I guess that's the question.

The way we came up with the 0.5 mill that's on the ballot for voters to decide, that would cover 12 firefighters, their salaries and the turnout gear and everything that goes along with them, plus an additional approximately $500,000 per year that can go into the fire capital fund on an annual basis. So over the course of the next seven years, if it, if it is approved, that would be an additional $3.5 million, you know, 500 times seven. And that would change that chart from going down negative to, you know, not nothing growing out of control, but there would be funding in there on an annual basis for, um, apparatus.

Exactly. Which is, you know, I would say a base, what we need for a healthy baseline minimum for the firefighters.

Yes.

So that's based on approval of the millage though.

We're not projecting that yet. We've, we've shown that projection. I believe when we did the, the fire millage discussion, this is what it would look like. And yes, it looks a lot rosier, um, you know, with, with the millage passing, but at least for this presentation, not included status quo.

Okay. Okay. So, That was question number one. Question number two goes back to the revenue discussion. So we're taking a reduction in the state shared revenue. Sounds like based on a change in the allocation method in Lansing.

Yes.

But to be replaced and supplemented by this Act 51.

Correct.

Which is...

Which goes to roads.

Which goes to roads. OK. The question is, the basis of Act 51, and I'm not that familiar with how it works, but that's a gasoline tax.

Correct.

Correct. So it's based on gas prices.

Actually, it's a fixed amount which is based on more so on gas per gallon purchased.

Oh, so usage. Yes. So gallons used with the flat.

With the increase we've been seeing in the last several months with gas prices, that has no impact on it because it's a set dollar per gallon flat fixed fee. So it's more impact on the number of gallons, pumped versus whatever the price is.

Yeah.

Now, you know, when the price is higher, people are cutting back on their gas use as much as they can, including myself.

Okay. So, so the, the increase then is based on usage of gasoline in the state of Michigan that we're getting more by question where I'm going with this. Is there a risk? Because it sounds like it's anywhere going to be, um, increase of 2 million to 3 million. And I'm wondering what's driving that usage? I guess you can't forecast that, but for me that's a risk. Like why all of a sudden are we getting an extra two or three million? Are we all driving more or what are we doing?

No, they took the sales tax off. and they replaced the sales tax with an increase to the gas tax. So the gas tax, I don't know what the dollar amount is, but he went from this amount, the gas tax is now at a higher amount. So it's almost the same number of gallons with a higher gas tax that will bring in the extra two to $3 million. Okay. That answers at the cost of a reduction in the state share revenue of approximately 800,000 to the general fund per year.

Right. Okay, good. Thank you. Um, and then back to the police. So, Uh, the contracts, the current contract is up in 2027. Correct. Um, when do the negotiations start with Oakland County or how's that going to work?

Uh, well, the, one of the big factors that goes into that are the biggest portion of the cost is the officers themselves and the current Oakland County. This is the contract with Oakland County to the deputies. that contract goes through September 30th of this year. So October 1st they will enter in cause the county has a, an October 1st year end. So those negotiations are happening. I'm not in any of those negotiations to find out what the status of that is, but that's probably the largest single piece that has to be settled and then they can start working on what the 2028 to 2030 contract will be.

Okay. And then, yeah, maybe this is a discussion we can have later in the budget process about what type of detail will be requiring as we go through and understanding and, you know, So we don't let happen what happened in the last review.

Correct. Yeah. Mayor Barnett and myself met with, uh, the Oakland County, um, chief financial officer, Mr. Leffler and one of the County commissioners, Ms. Markham and let them know we were displeased with how to say it nicely at how things went the last time they completely understood and they vowed that will not happen again. be more transparent, work with the communities. I really hope that happens. We even offered if you guys, if the county is interested, you know, and since this is such a pressing matter to so many different cities, villages, townships that utilize Oakland County Sheriff's office, we would love to maybe create a small subcommittee of, you know, member communities to help review and, and help out with that whole process. So I've offered up my services, be more than happy to work with Oakland County on the next contract and getting that done the right way.

Okay. Very good. That's all for me. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ms. Menino. Next up, Vice President Mangioli.

Thank you very much, President Karloff. Thank you, Mr. Snyder. Yes, studying for my final exam. Sometimes I think I need to take remedial budget. I'm going to ask a number of questions, but they're more for the education of our community because they're my study buddies at this point. Because of the tax millage, the fire millage that's out there, there have been questions and maybe clarifications that we need to provide to the residents that are easier for us to say, go look at minute 755 in the city council agenda and you'll find out why there's a difference between taxable value and taxable rate. Because a lot of people will say, you say my taxes aren't going up, but my taxes go up every year. Can you give us an explanation on taxable value versus tax rate?

Okay, well we really try, the past, As long as I've been here, I think the city has only increased the millage rate two times, increased the rate. The first time was I believe back in 2014 or 2015 when we went from a paid on-call firefighter system to the 24-7 full-time, and that's when I believe we were at 1.9 mil or so for the fire levy, and then we went up to the 2.7, and we've been at that same rate since 2015. The other time, the second time, the only other time was last year with the police millage increase. So that's the only time the rates have changed. Taxable value, that is, and this is all per state statute, it sits in there multiple times through there. The way that is set is, or the way it changes is basically based on CPI. who, yes, your taxes will go up a little bit every year based on the CPI or inflation each year. So that's why the taxes always seem to be going up at a consistent rate that kind of mirrors inflation.

so when our our assessment tax assessment bill comes and it tells you okay that house that you invested in has now gone up in value fifty thousand dollars this year but because of you know taxable value versus state assessed value you only get half of that and that's what we get taxed on it's your tax bill goes up because the value of your home went up even though the tax rate remains the same? Almost.

Almost. Very, very close. I'll use percentages versus dollar amounts. The market value of your home could go up 5%, 8%, 10%. Especially as we just came out of COVID, there were big increases in the market value of your home, which we all applaud. We all want a little bit more money for our house when we go to sell it. However, the market can go up and down. However, the increase in your taxable value, that can only go up by the rate of inflation or 5%, whichever is less. And I think we only have 5% once a couple of years ago coming out of COVID. So the market value is the market value, but your taxable value, what's actually on your tax bill can only increase by the rate of inflation. Roughly, it might be in the two and a half to 3% rate. So the value of your home, your market value could go up 10%. but that's not gonna make your taxes go up. It's gonna be inflation, which is making your taxes go up.

So when we say for our budget, we were forecasting 2.75% increase in the taxable value of our community, but it actually went up 4.1%. It means the taxable value of our homes increased, or all property in this, not just homes, but commercial property as well.

Yeah, but keep in mind, so for you and I that lived in our house for a number of years, our taxes next year will not go up by just keeping the same rate the same by 4.1%. It's actually going to be lower than that. I think the CPI number was around 2.6-ish percent. So that's why. How do you get from the 2.6% baseline CPI inflation to the 4.1%? That would be new development, redevelopment, home sales, and things like that. That's what makes up that difference. We love having development, redevelopment go on throughout the city because it's a little bit more. increases that level of inflation up a little bit more.

So there's a lot of factors that go into the fact that I am now going to be paying the city more in my property taxes, and it's not just the fact that the millage rate is going to increase or for the pathway, millage rate's gonna stay the same. But the value of my house went up some percentage and when I times that millage rate that stayed the same to that new taxable value of my house, that's why my taxes, the check I have to write to the city goes up.

Yes, basically due to inflation. The CPI factor.

Inflation, yes. That's the Hedley Amendment from like 20-some years ago.

Yeah, I think 1984.

Okay, so more than 20 years ago. Okay. Then some of the questions that my study buddies have been asking me on the millage, the fire millage, is, well, you've got funds. Why can't we've got... In the presentation, you have the list of all of the millages that we have, the charter operating, local street, fire, police, pathway, and the park infrastructure. So six different components to that overall 11.2753 millage rate. Correct. When I start looking at those and there's dedicated ones, can I use the money from those dedicated funds to supplement the other fund?

No.

Okay.

Road money must stay in roads. Pathway money must be for pathways. Parks infrastructure must be for parks infrastructure. You cannot take it out of one pot and put it in the other. The only fund or the only millage that does have some flexibility that can essentially go to Any purpose throughout the city is the general levy.

So that charter operating millage.

Keep in mind that also supports just about roughly half of city staff, as well as roughly about $2 million left over that can go to support capital projects, primarily park projects moving forward.

So that is staffing. It's this building. It's the fact that we need to keep the lights on. The HVAC systems have to work. The parking lots have to be safe for us to traverse. It also means... just basic city operations or the charter operating. Now, for those monies that I transfer from the charter operating to capital improvement, could I say, I don't wanna do capital improvement. I'm not going to improve the parking lots or the playgrounds or one of the other items that are listed in our capital improvement plan. Can I do that and say, I'm going to use that to supplement fire instead of the fire millage going up? You could. Yes.

Yes. Just keep in mind though, uh, if you were, you could do it as a one time in just this next year, we'll put some money in, but typically with something like that as a longterm commitment.

Okay, so it is possible. It is possible. It is lawful. It also means that the city that we've all come to value as far as our safety and the parks and all the things that we enjoy as a community would also be impacted in order to supplement one of these other funds.

Correct. The pie is only so big and most of the pieces are, kind of sliced out, you can't move those too much, but yeah, the general levy is the amount that can supplement other funds.

Okay.

And major roads, that was one of your seven funds that you talked about, but there isn't a major funds millage rate. Where does that come from?

Major Roads does not have a millage rate. It gets all of its funds through the Act 51 gasoline tax. So we do not have a major road millage. We do have a local streets millage, which kind of helps to supplement the amount from Act 51. But no, no, there is no major road millage. The sole, basically the sole place for major road funding is through Act 51.

Act 51, which we've already heard is... Or grants or other things.

You know, we were very good at getting grants for projects we were going to do anyways. Right.

So for the community, we've started sharing information about the improvements to Rochester Road that are coming in two years. And that's going to be major roads, Rochester Road.

Oh, yes.

So if you want to know what Rochester Road is going to be like, go to one of the two public hearings that are going to happen over the next couple of weeks to have your input in on what's going to happen to Rochester Road, which we don't own. That's a state road.

It's owned by Michigan Department of Transportation. Michigan Department of Transportation will be doing the construction work, but since it goes through the city, we'll have a participatory share with that.

And one other question on the fire piece. The fund balance that's there. We're saying we are saving 20, 25% in the fund balance and that is because we do need new ambulances, we need new fire trucks, we need new equipment for those trucks. Is there any way that we could just use that fund balance to pay down any equipment If the millage doesn't pass, we could use the fund balance to offset staffing costs and still do the 12, or would we say we have a commitment to ambulances and fire trucks and other equipment that we've ordered, it just hasn't arrived yet. We can't use that fund balance to offset staff.

You could. I would not recommend it because once you spend those fund balance dollars, they're gone. So you can only do that for so long. And within this example, you say, well, just, you know, hire the 12 new firefighters and just take it from fund balance. Well, that'll work for about two years and then there is no money left. and there's no more balance to take. So we really try to tie our ongoing operating expenditures with the ongoing operating revenue. And in that case, we always want our operating revenue to be a little bit higher than the expenditures going forward. So you could, I wouldn't recommend it. Because once that balance is gone, it's gone. Once you deplete your savings, unless you're replenishing it somehow, it's gone.

It's a one-time shop. Yes, for my study buddies out there, if you have money in your savings account and you use it to cover household expenses instead of when you need a new roof, you're not going to have the money saved to put a new roof and then you have to go into debt in order to put a new roof on your house correct yeah that's a that's a great analogy okay and then um i made a note our budget workshop we get to spend five o'clock until i i've joked till i stop asking questions but i'm hoping i have other council members doing the same um august 17th Correct. Here in this auditorium, 5.30, somewhere? I think we start right at 5 o'clock.

5 o'clock. We'll start off with Older Persons Commission and RARA. We'll come in and then, yeah, city action should start probably around 5.30. Okay.

That is after the millage election.

Correct.

Will we have an idea at that point, yes or no, a pro and con of that millage on what the impact would be if it passes or if it fails, and what that will do for the three-year budget that we're looking at. Sure.

Well, at least with the fire millage increase question, you basically have seen already what it'll look like, because we will still continue at that 2.7 mil, just status quo. And we're going to have to go back to the drawing board and start to figure something out. If it does pass, then we are prepared to, within probably a few hours, the morning of Wednesday, we will be updating the entire budget. So the package that you'll be getting, your first meeting in August, I believe that's the 10th, will have the updated numbers from the election. So we're ready to rock and roll and we can spin it around pretty quick.

My understanding also with our millage, because it's a charter millage, it's not just a mill that gets renewed. It's a charter mill, which means we never come back to you again for this unless we absolutely positively need it. So charter mill. If it fails, we can't come back and with the same request for two years?

I believe, is that correct Ms. Scott?

Two years, two years, unless there was a, major change? And so I've been asked, what is a major change? Is it, oh, we'll just ask for 0.4 mils. Is that a major change? Is a major change one mil? I mean, what is the scale of majorness in order for us to come back with a different request? I'm going to look at legal counsel here. Yeah.

I'm not sure if there's been this.

Get closer to microphone.

If there's been decisions regarding that, I can follow up and see if there has been a clarification as to what constitutes major.

That would be great, just in case where you need to be prepared for this question. Because again, while I have study buddies out there, I'm also a troll on a lot of our social media sites, and I see the questions that are out there. So I'm hoping I can send people to tonight's discussion to talk about our seven year forecast to get answers on these pieces. Um, because that budget workshop on August 17th is after the election happens and our first meeting on August 10th is after the election happens. So we have basically one other city council meeting between now and election day for us to provide clarity from the dais, um, without us doing it individually. on social media or face-to-face contacts with the residents. So I just want to make sure we get that message out to our residents for clarity on how we would be able to fund the fire department going forward, yes or no. Thank you very much, Mr. Snyder, for this. Also, I know that Deputy Chief Echols is back there and we have an agenda topic on Clemmas later. You heard us talk about our trust level with the county. Just know that when you're up here, that's going to come up again. I appreciate you being here and thank you to the folks from Clemmas that are with us as well. Thank you very much, President Carlock.

Thank you very much, Vice President Mongioli. I think that's all the questions and comments we have, Mr. Snyder. Thank you very much.

If you have any questions between now and August, let me know, and we'll see you later on the agenda.

I'm certain we'll have questions between now and August. All righty. I see that was presentations. Next up, consent agenda. All matters under consent agenda are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion without discussion. If any council member or citizen request discussion of an item, it will be removed from consent agenda for separate discussion. I have a motion by Vice President Mongioli, seconded by Councilwoman Neubauer. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Consent agenda passes. brings us to public hearings. Item 2026-0296, fiscal year 2026, second quarter budget amendment. Mr. Snyder. You needed a few extra steps, I guess.

Thank you for that. Okay, so let's change gears here slightly, no presentation. Again, thank you, President Carlock, Vice President Mangioli, good evening, City Council, Ms. Cedrovich, and Ms. Hayes. Presented in your packet tonight is the City of Rochester's 2026 second quarter budget amendments. In total, the second quarter budget amendments presented before you tonight propose to increase total revenues by 1.9 million, increase total expenditures by 1.5 million, and this will have a net impact on citywide fund balances of a positive $400,000. So first we'll start off on the revenue side, an increase of $1 million. And this is for a variety of increased revenue projections, including we had the Act 51 that we discussed earlier, amending to actual tax collections since that is done for the year, as well as I believe at the prior meeting from our insurance carrier, MMRMA, had a renewal refund that was issued. And as well, that's offset by a decrease in state shared revenue down to the current levels that I presented. As well, there is an increase in transfers in of $890,000. Regarding the $1.5 million in increase in total expenditures, well, the first $890,000 is the corresponding transfers out, which has that offsetting revenue source. In part, this is to comply with the city's fund balance policy. Of this amount, $1 million is an increase of funding from the general fund to the capital improvement fund, and that will set the general fund balance at 50 percent in 2026. We'll be moving to 35 percent next year. $500,000 from the fire operating fund to the fire capital fund. And this will set fire operating at 25% fund balance for this year. an increase of $775,000 from the capital improvement fund to facilities. And this is for the purchase of property located at eight eight four North Adams road. And as well, $2.5 million increase in funding from capital improvement fund to facilities for new wiki park. Now this does include $507,000 from the saver reserve. So this will be the first time that we're actually enacting the saver reserve for um, you know, increases, inflationary increases for Noaki park. Now offsetting that is a $2.5 million decrease in transfers. And this is a decrease from capital improvement fund to the water and sewer capital fund due to basically projects coming in under budget, including the DPS garage HVAC and the Brooklyn's Plaza. And we had a, MEDC grant that was received and a reduction of $1.3 million from the sanitary sewer division to the water and sewer capital fund. And that is per our new water and sewer rate setting methodology. There is a decrease of $57,000 citywide in net operating expenditures and a net increase of $725,000 in capital projects, primarily due to $775,000 for the property purchase at 884 North Adams Road, $2.5 million more for Nowiki Park, then offset by $1.6 million less in reduced capital for water and sewer capital due to projects coming in under budget, and roughly $880,000 less in the fleet fund for capital due to replacements coming in under budgets or projects being deferred so all of the proposed amendments were included in the seven-year financial forecast presented just a few moments ago and with that that include concludes my remarks on the 2026 second quarter budget amendment i will now ask for president carlock to open a public hearing on the 2026 second quarter budget amendment and i'm available for any questions that you may have thank you

Thank you very much, Mr. Snyder. So at this time, I will open a public hearing for the 2026 second quarter budget amendment. I do not have any comment cards for this item. I don't see anybody approaching the podium. So we will close the public hearing at this time, bring the discussion back to the dais. I don't see any council comments. I have a motion by Vice President Mangioli, seconded by Mr. Lindberg. Yeah, no council comment, so I will read the resolution.

Let's see.

All right. Is this it? All right, whereas in accordance with provisions of Public Act II of 1968, the Uniform Budgeting and Accounting Act and the Charter for the City of Rochester Hills, Chapter 3, Section 3.7, the City Council may amend the budget during the fiscal year, either on its own initiative or upon recommendation of the mayor, and whereas the public hearing for the proposed fiscal year 2026 second quarter budget amendment was noticed on June 25th, 2026. And whereas the proposed fiscal year, 2026 second quarter budget amendments were available for public viewing beginning on July 2nd, 2026. And whereas at its July 13th, 2026 meeting city council held a public hearing on the proposed fiscal year, fiscal year 2026 second quarter budget amendments. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Rochester Hills City Council hereby approves the following fiscal year 2026 fund totals as amendment in the resolution. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes.

Thank you, City Council.

Thank you, Mr. Snyder. Next up, planning and economic development item 2026-0277, request for conditional use approval for alcoholic beverage sales for onsite consumption that is ancillary to an otherwise permissible use pub restaurant for Perks Pub located at 3204 Walton Boulevard within the University Square Shopping Center on the north side of Walton, west of Adams, zoned CB Community Business with the FB Flex Business overlay Mr. Overlay, Leonard, Perky, Perks Pub, LLC applicant. Good.

Mr. McCloud. Good evening, President Carlock, city council members, members from the mayor's office. Thank you for that. Before you tonight, well, first I want to commend Mr. Snyder on his choice of ties. I don't know if anyone noticed our selection of ties are very similar, but Besides that, uh, before you tonight is that request for a conditional use, um, for alcohol sales, uh, ancillary to a restaurant use. Um, and we'll get into that promptly. Um, the subject site, 3204 Walton Boulevard, with an university square shopping center. Uh, that's obviously on the north side of Walton, just west of Adams. Um, again, that applicant or the applicant has requested that conditional use. You'll be taking up the liquor license, uh, subsequent to this particular decision on this particular application. Uh, the recommendation from the planning commission did come from their last meeting in June, uh, was a unanimous decision of the seven zero vote. We did have two members absent. But all those present did unanimously recommend approval of the conditional use. So in terms of overall context here, you can see to the north of the shopping center in the front that faces Walton immediately is where the tenant space is. It's more towards the eastern side of the tenant space, formerly a burgers restaurant was in that particular space. They're simply taking it over. the rest of the university square shopping center to the north, uh, bank, uh, drugstore, other bank, uh, to the far east of this, uh, to the south Oakland university and the, and the tree course to the west as Walton would. Um, but again, obviously there's quite a bit of separation between the proposed juice. Uh, there is no outdoor seating, uh, with this application. So there shouldn't be any outdoor impacts, uh, in regards to the overall use of the property itself. Here you can see the zoning configuration, the overall shopping center spaces approximate to this tenant space highlighted in purple here, but it is zoned community business, does have the flex business overlay. To the west is special purpose, which houses Walton Wood. It's also regulated by a consent judgment. Neighborhood business to the east and to the south is, again, OU, so that's special purpose as well. So here you kinda see the overall layout of the tenant space itself. Right now they're proposing 56 seats within the front portion of the tenant space, obviously back house to the top portion of the floor plan as you see it here. The operating hours, which is probably pertinent to most of your conversations, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, so the bulk of the hours will fall under, or bulk of the days will fall under those hours of operation. Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 12 a.m. Again, in terms of the overall tenant space, about 1,900 square feet, I went through this, 56 persons is currently being provided. Obviously, that'll have to go through building review to make sure those numbers all pan out based off of building code and fire code. Of note, the question was asked, what was the previous occupancy for the burgers? What we saw in our system was about 50, 49 persons, so very similar in terms of seating capacity. And again, no outdoor seating was noted. That was also asked as part of the Planning Commission presentation and response about almost a month ago now. Experience, most of you probably know the applicants here before you. Half Day Cafe is right next door, well, not right next door, but almost right next door to this particular tenant space. And then they also own and operate Bread and Yolk in Orient Township. And I believe there's one other restaurant as well that they own. But in terms of operation, they've had, obviously, very good success with the places that they have. so I'll skip over this cause this is exactly the same, but it was with all conditional uses. Um, the planning commission again found, uh, in favor of, of all these conditions and all these, uh, reviews that are review conditions, um, as part of the zoning ordinance has to promote the intent and purpose of the ordinance has to be designed and constructed and operated so it's compatible and harmonious. It has to be served adequately by essential public services. It won't be detrimental or hazardous or disturbing to any existing or future land uses, and it would not create additional requirements at public cost for public facilities or service to actually provide service to the use itself. So with that, I'll be more than glad to answer any questions that the council may have.

Thank you very much, Mr. McLeod. We do have some council comments and questions. Ms. Neubauer.

Thank you, President Carlock. Well, welcome back. It's good to see you again.

Thank you. Nice seeing you.

I just wanted to say this went very well in planning. It was very well received. You have a wonderful reputation, not only in Rochester Hills, but otherwise. You also had the landowner present. She gave you... you know, quite a bit of support and spoke on your behalf. We don't always get that. And so that's good that we know that there's a good working relationship between you two. The only thing that we had asked during planning is to make sure you followed all the rest of the conditions. One of them was the liquor license. You've already met with liquor license, as I understand it, and gotten their approval. So that condition's now been satisfied as well. You're not asking for a liquor license from us. You're purchasing one on your own. So highly recommended. We have no problem with this. It meets all the criteria. Um, so with that, I'd like to make the motion to approve.

Thank you very much, Ms. Newberry. If a motion by Ms. Newberry, seconded by vice president Mangioli. We do have some questions from Vice President Monjuli.

Thank you, President Karlak. Thank you very much for investing again in Rochester Hills. I can walk to your location, so I'm looking forward to having a new restaurant in the area because I live in Brookdale Woods, so it's the subdivision right behind. Mr. McLeod answered all of my questions that I had that weren't already covered in the Planning Commission and they did such a very thorough job in what they detailed for the questions that they asked you there. So thank you again for investing in our community and reinvesting in the same area. I'll just have to tell my neighbors they'll have to come walk down and visit you.

Thank you. We love Rochester Hills. We live here and we've been here for about 28 years. We love it.

It's great. The one question I had asked was, okay, so where is the drink menu? I saw the food menu. Where's the drink menu? I did say I could walk home from there, right? Make it whatever you want. Okay. We'll call it the Teresa special. Yeah. You know what? If the mayor has Barnett bites at one restaurant, I will be more than happy to have the Manjoli martini at the new restaurant. Thank you very much. Thank you. Look forward to having a ribbon cutting when you're ready to. Appreciate it. I think I saw comments about permits taking some time.

Right now, plumbing is downwards waiting for the permits to come in. We already have our permits, so we're working on it right now. We're thinking end of September.

That you'll be able to do a ribbon cutting?

I hope so.

Did you meet Mr. Vysenko in the back? His team's the one that does all the permitting and the inspections. Make sure you talk to him before you leave. Again, thank you and welcome for staying in our city.

Thank you very much. We have a motion by Ms. Neubauer, seconded by Vice President Mangioli. I don't see further council comments on this item, so I'll read the resolution here. Resolved that the Rochester Hill City Council hereby approves the conditional use to allow sales for on-premise alcoholic beverage consumption associated with the restaurant use for a Perks Pub located at 3204 Walton Boulevard within the University Square Shopping Center based on the documents received by the planning department on September 18th, 2025 with the following six findings and one condition. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes. Congratulations.

Thank you so much. Yeah. Good evening. Yeah.

Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't don't go anywhere. Right. Right. So we'll follow that up with item 2026 dash 0 3 1 5 request for Michigan liquor control commission approval of an application for transfer of a classy liquor license submitted by perks pub LLC. Scott.

Yep. Thank you. President Carla, vice president Manjula city council. Um, As you know, the city's ordinance requires applicants seeking a transfer of a Class C license obtain council approval. As such, the Liquor License Technical Review Committee met on June 30th along with the applicants and their landlord and are recommending that council also recommend approval of the application for approval of the transfer by the MLCC. So that was a unanimous vote. Again, it was,

Thank you very much. Yeah, I can speak for that meeting. So we strongly recommended that the liquor license recommendation be made to the state on behalf of the applicant. So I have a motion by Ms. Neubauer, seconded by Vice President Mongioli. I don't see any council comments on this, so I'll read the resolution. Resolved that the Rochester Hill City Council recommends that the application for a transfer of a Class C liquor license submitted by Perks Pub LLC to be located at 3204 Walton Boulevard, be considered for approval by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That passes. Congratulations. Looking forward to it, thank you. Yes, so are we. All right, that brings us to public comments for items not on the agenda. This is an opportunity for members of the public to make comments for items not on the agenda As a reminder, public comments are limited to three minutes. We do have quite a few public comments for tonight, so I'll read them in the order they were received. First up, Sean Suddy. You can just approach the podium here.

Hello, members of the council. As he said, my name is Sean Suddy. I'm here with my wife, Savannah Suddy, and we never attended one of your council meetings before. So apologies in advance for any breaches of conduct or anything like that. Uh, thankfully you guys put the clock right in front of me. So I figure as long as I stick to that, I should be good. Uh, the reason I'm here is to make a comment on an issue that we had and my wife plans to comment as well. Um, at the festival, the Hills, I just want to start by saying that we had a great experience overall. Um, I always have a great experience there. I grew up here in Rochester Hills. She didn't, so she's only been there twice. But she's had great experiences so far. But I have very fond memories going all the way back to being a little kid. We live at Rochester Road and Hamlin Road, so we can walk right there. And we've got memories of going there as a little kid, being pulled in a wagon by my parents, and being able to finally experience that with my . We got there, and we set up our blanket. We sat down on the hill, and we got ready for the fireworks. We just got talking and kind of came to a realization that the environment isn't exactly something that I think that we could share with our children upon listening to the music that was playing. And so the issue that I had is just a lot of the music that was played seemed just not consonant with a family-friendly environment, not something that's welcoming to children. I understand that this is a place for everyone to come and to have fun and everyone's got their own taste of music, but I don't think this comes down to just merely taste. I think a lot of the music that was in Logic to say that the kind of music that glorifies something is going to attract the type of person who engages in that kind of stuff. And my wife plans to speak more on that, but I just wanted to speak specifically on my experience growing up here having so many great memories and then just kind of come into the realization that I don't know if I'll be able to use it at the event. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I suspect that it was the DJ who was responsible. We did go last year and we sat like far away from the stage and so I literally just didn't even hear the music last year, but this year we sat closer to the stage and, uh, I think it was, was the DJ. Um, you know, I, I grew up going to this and always just heard like country music and like a little bit of Katy Perry maybe, but this year I, maybe it's been going on a few years, but it just seemed completely different.

Okay. Thank you. Uh, so next up, uh, Savannah study.

Thank you, City Council. I'm Savannah ,, and I just want to expound more on my husband's comment. And I wanted to also say that I appreciate the city and all the hard work that goes into putting an event together like this that brings our community together. I grew up in Westland and moved here this year when we got married, and I anticipated the Festival of the Hills to be a family-oriented event, but when I heard the music playing, I was very shocked. Some of the songs included, I'll say it a couple of times so you can write it down, look up the lyrics. Our Mo Bamba, that's M-O-B-A-M-B-A, Skee, S-K-E-E-Y-E-E, and Sickle Mode. There are several others. And yeah, I'm pretty sure it was the DJ that was playing them. While the explicit language may have been censored, many of these songs still contain themes of violence, drug use, and explicit sexual content that are not simply removed by just muting profanity out of them. So at one point also, we noticed a young child was pulled up onto the stage and he was dancing to all these bad songs that were playing and we were just kind of shocked by this and it made us question whether it reflected the family friendly atmosphere that this event is intended to provide. We really enjoyed the petting zoo and all the other things that were going on there so it was just kind of confusing and it wasn't really parallel to all the other things. I believe our words and what we choose to promote matter. Proverbs 18, 21 says, death and life are in the power of the tongue. I'm not suggesting that playing certain songs automatically causes violence or that anyone here is responsible for future misconduct. However, I do believe the environment we create influences the tone of an event. I'm reminded of going to the Westland Carnival as a child, and over time that event developed an increasingly unruly atmosphere, and after several incidents involving gunfire, it was ultimately discontinued. It would be a shame if this festival had a similar outcome. Going forward, I encourage the city to choose an environment that better reflects the vision of this event as a family oriented community celebration. Selecting music that is age appropriate would help create a more welcoming atmosphere for families and reinforce the values that many residents hope that these will represent. If that means choosing a DJ that is going to align with these views, then that would probably be the best option. Thank you for your time and considering my comments.

Thank you very much. Next up, Sheila Cook.

Hi there. My name is Sheila cook and I live on bluebird drive in sugar Creek condominiums. I am here to talk about the nonresident OPC issue. I have been going to the OPC board meetings for over a year. There are members that have been going there for almost two years for this issue. I also met with the OPC director recently. My question to you, is why is a taxpaying resident having to compete with a non-taxpaying nonresident in enrolling in classes? The LPC director says setting policy is the board's job and that there's nothing she can do to make the enrollment application treat the nonresident differently than the resident. The board wants to review quarterly data And we'll really visit this issue next year, June, 2027. This is just too little too late. Other communities are able to accommodate the residents using the same tool. We want to phase out the non-resident membership, no more renewals. immediately make changes to the enrollment application so residents can sign up first and non-residents can sign up a week later. In closing, every tax paying resident should be catered to and given the highest priority. I say, let's make the resident number one again.

Thank you very much. Next up, Jennifer Sikora.

Good evening. I'm also here to share my concerns about the OPC. Back in 1983, residents passed a $14 million bond to build the OPC, and it was created for 60-year-olds and for residents in Rochester, Rochester and Oakland Township. But over the time, the OPC board changed what voters approved, and they dropped the age to 50, and they offered to non-residents. The OPC opened in 2004, and the membership was around 600 people. Today, we have 7,000 residents and 900 non-residents, and there is no cap on membership. I joined in 2005. My first class, there were four people in it. Now classes fill within five minutes the time registration opens. And it's very difficult for seniors to get into as non-residents and younger people get in. There are between 20 and 25 classes closed every month. I met with the director also and she said she couldn't help me. I've been to the board meetings for the last year, uh, talking about frustrations, getting into class, registering and even parking. Uh, at the last board meeting I brought in Bloomfield townships, a policy because Bloomfield townships did the same thing we did. They built their own center. and I'd like to share the differences. OPC's policy, per board, all members have full membership privileges regardless of residency. Bloomfield Township's policy, taxpayers have priority, allowing residents to register two weeks earlier than non-residents. Non-residents can join classes, travel, and events, but residents always come first. Membership for OPC non-residents pay $200. When I was at Bloomfield Township, non-residents pay an additional $10 per class, which is really much more costly there. At the OPC, we have a flex class, which non-residents can pay $80 and they can take as many classes as they want. And Bloomfield drop-in activities are for residents only. I felt Bloomfield's policy is reasonable and it protects the residents OPC. There are no perks for us taxpayers over the past year while residents repeatedly votes voiced their concerns about overcrowding, The OPC continued to recruit new members. The board took no meaningful action to slow membership growth or protect residents. I was at a meeting where the director got up and invited non-residents or 80 people there to join the OPC. The OPC was built for residents by residents. We really would like to use it and I hope you would make a commitment to the residents.

Thank you very much. Next up, and I'm going to apologize now, the last name is a little difficult, Denise.

Yes, that's okay. Denise Deshane-Zuch. I go by all the names. Anyhow, I'm Denise Deshane-Zuch, and I've been a Rochester River resident for the past 30 years, since 1996. And I'm also coming up here to talk about regarding the OPC, which I've been a member for several years. I go to several classes and activities. and my taxes pay for to support the OPC. And what I'm wondering is do the citizens of Rochester Hills understand that a large percentage of the OPCs ongoing budget comes from the, from the residents. Um, although there's not benefits or any priorities for Rochester Hill residents, there's no registration fee for non, uh, residents, although other municipalities, um, you can, if they out lives outside of Rochester, uh, Rochester Hills and Oakland township, 225 per member for a year or three 50 for a couple. And I don't know about you, but that's a breakfast out $14 a month or $19 a month. Non-residents and residents have the same benefits. And if you look at your recent magazine that just came out, it talks about, um, members of Rochester Hills, city of Rochester and Oakland township are automatically members at, at the LPC. So anyhow, I just wanted to talk to you, you know, a peasant, a person could become a member at age 50, which is, um, which was approved by the board many years ago. If you live in Shelby township, they advertise all the time about coming to the OPC. They've got it on their website. They've got it on their chat room. They've got it on Facebook because it's a good deal. Um, or you, if you live in Addison township, they'll pay half of your OPC dues. Um, I also go to ally fitness, which is at Rochester road and Tinkin and it's about $400 a month to be there. My friends that I've met at that gym are saying, Hey, we're going to OPC now. It's a lot cheaper. Um, They were 50, 53 and 56 years old. And I also know with ageways, they talk about ageways or it used to be area aging that helps support the OPC as well. Their standards are 60 or 62, as far as being part of ageways. All we're really asking is some type of priority or some kind of preferred status of the OPC. I can't register for classes. I, uh, five minutes after registration opens, it's closed. But meanwhile, my class has about a third in it that are non-members that somehow get into the class. So the recommendation for the OPC board was, is they were going to look at data for about the next year until June of 2027. I don't really know how they can get reliable data because if someone like me cannot get into the class, it's not recorded. It's just, you can't get into the class. So on a class for three classes for the course of the week, I might be able to get in one and that would be closed about five minutes after the registration. has opened. So we've been, we spoke to the major mayor's office. We've also met, um, the mayor of Barnett when he was at our OPC meetings, all we're really asking for is just some priority based on our residency of, of Rochester Hills. And that we're able to have a little bit of a benefit from compared to those people. They do not live in, in, in pay taxes. So thank you. I'm done.

Thank you. Uh, next up Edith Grashek.

OK, don't anybody run out, because I'm going to do some math here, OK? Please, guys, don't jump out the window. My name's Edith Grashek, and I live at 1633 Glen Meadow Court. Two years ago, I started asking the OPC board to come and rectify what I thought was wrong. And I didn't do this to be confrontational or make a big deal about it. I just wanted the fact that I was not allowed to get in the class. And like Denise said, there were five people who were non-residents who were like, yeah, ma'am, we're here. You guys take a walk. So OK. Now, as I said in 2005, Walker testified that they were going to provide dates to determine what you were going to do with the overcrowding. Okay. Then I got an email and from a person on the board who said they are currently ongoing discussions about what to do. with the registration. Okay, this was supposed to be, can we register before a non-resident? Now, I want you to understand that this has now been ongoing since 2004, and you say they're gonna give me an answer in 2027. I don't believe it. And I'll show you mathematically. Here's a board. And this little thing shows you how many people are residents eligible to go. This is from the 2020-2000 census, and this is what they figure in 2025, they figured out. You go up to 20, 30, and the number is, for Rochester Hills, if you have.

Can you stand behind your microphone so we can pick up your minutes?

I didn't know you wanted it. I could yell louder than this microphone. Trust me. OK. If, if you have six, you go to 60 years old, which would, this was intended for in this city alone, you're going to add an extra 16,000 people eligible, not saying they're all going to go, but they're going to be eligible. 50 is going to give you 35,000 extra eligible residents.

So please, tell me, what do I do next?

Because I wanted to make this. I'm sorry, your time's up. Thank you. We have no further comment cards, so we'll close public comment and move on to legislative and administrative comments. First up, Vice President Mangioli.

Thank you, President Carlock. So I get to see these wonderful women at the OPC board meetings. They have been coming for the last couple of months, and I understand your frustration. I'm new to the OPC board, so I don't have the history of two years' worth of asks. But I know that we have asked, and it's not just that we're going to wait till next June for data, but at our September board meeting, Renee Cartwright will be able to provide us with the first quarter of information because we asked for the data to be provided to us quarterly. The staff here will tell you, I ask a lot of questions and I need to have data to make decisions. When it comes to changing the policies, I need to see those numbers in front. It's because I want residents to have that priority. I'm a resident of Rochester Hills. I understand your concern in being able to get into all of the classes first before a nonresident does. I understand your frustration in having neighboring communities subsidize their residents being able to get into the OPC ahead of a resident in there. And as someone who works on IT projects every day, God help me, I understand the challenges that come with software that does or does not do what we need it to do at the time in which it needs to perform. We have been asking those questions and I am waiting for those answers to come to me so I can see that data. In order to have, I know, and data, you need two points give you a straight line, three points give you a trend. So I need to be able to see that trend. And I understand there is a survey that was done previously that we can ask to see that so we can start to see the trend over time. Removing non-residents also may have a financial impact to the OPC because there is a number of them that not only attend the classes at a higher rate, but they also are a part of our volunteer base. And so what we've asked for in the data that we've asked them to collect is the volunteers that are resident versus non-resident. Because if we turn away our non-residents, and they are the ones that also are at Top Chef and the Summer Soiree and a number of the other activities as well as the day-to-day operations of the organization. We have a financial impact that will hit the OPC and we'll have to, as board members, like city council, as board members, have to adjust our finances in order to accommodate them. If we have to hire staff, because we have to replace volunteers, that money's gonna have to come from somewhere. These are all pieces that I'm trying to understand. Just got on the board this year. I don't have all of your history, but I can ask for the history, ask for the data, and hopefully we can get you an answer much faster than June of next year because we wanna be, I would wanna be able to do it before January with the new year and the new budget. I will ask all of you who have been here tonight to come to our meeting. The City Council will have the OPC, Renee and Mandy will be here to present their budget as part of our budget workshop on August 17th. They with Rara are the first two that present that day and would be more than happy to hear some additional conversation regarding budget. But when you start looking at all of the numbers, I don't want to make a decision that is short-sighted because I now have to make up cost. And suddenly those classes that you have that cost $6 today might end up having to cost much more if I have to hire staff as a result. For city council's purposes, OPC hosted an event I want to say it was back in June, the Detroit News did an exceptional series on aging in our community, and not just Rochester Hills, Rochester, but all of the tri-county area, and talked about the number of seniors that are going to be out there and eligible, Unfortunately, someday, Janelle, there's going to be more people that are 50 and over, 60 and over, than there will be 18 and over. And we're going to have to deal with that repercussions or the impacts of that in the OPC and what that means to the capacity of the building as well as the parking lots. We can't fix the parking lot. It is bound by the curbs. There is no extra place for parking in that facility. But what we can do is look at the usage of the facility as well as the resident versus non-resident process. But we have to understand the budget because as you heard us talk today for almost 40 minutes about our seven year forecast for the city, we have to do our same due diligence with the OPC budget to make sure we're using your tax dollars wisely. And I'm sorry. Yeah, no, fortunately for me, unfortunately for you, I don't get a cutoff on the three minutes. However, as I've told you at OPC board meetings, you are very welcome to call me, email me. I am more than happy to have those conversations with you, not just here or at the OPC board meetings, but privately as well. So please feel free to reach out to me, and I'm looking forward to getting that first quarter data in September that we have asked for.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, this is not a discourse. I recommend reaching out to Vice President Mungioli either by email or through her city cell phone. Next up, Ms. Neubauer.

Couple things. We did have, on behalf of Youth Council, we did have an amazing event at Festival of the Hills. They did a really good job, like I mentioned earlier. They did sell food for the feeding, to feed the animals that were there for the petting zoo. They did the socks for the bounce house. Like I said, the kids were, soaking wet they worked super hard but they did an amazing job at festival of the hills i'll talk about this in a minute but we also did the youth council interviews um this month this last month and um that went really well as well and um today is miss mangioli's birthday Oh, was it? Yeah. Okay, we suck. So last week was her birthday. Today's Vince's birthday. But we want to wish you a happy birthday. We want to say how amazing you are and how thankful we are. And we appreciate your questions because it takes a lot of the burden off of us to ask questions. Well, maybe not me, but a lot of other people to take the questions. So happy birthday, happy belated birthday to you. Happy birthday to Vince. God bless you. Give you many, many more. And that's from all of council.

Yes. Thank you very much. Ms Neubauer clerk Scott.

Thank you. President Carlock. I just wanted to remind everybody, I know it's been said a couple of times up on the dais tonight that we do have a primary election and that election day is August 4th. Um, we also have early voting. Early voting starts on Saturday, July 25th and goes through Sunday, August 2nd. The hours for early voting are eight 30 to four 30 with the exception being Thursday is noon to eight o'clock and then your precincts are open on election day from 7am until 8pm. Now we did do some consolidating of precincts and there are some locations that have been moved based on school construction. So please check our website. You can also go to michigan.gov and plug in your address and find out where to vote. So anyone interested in working the election can contact the clerk's office. We're always looking for election workers and I hope to see you all out in voting.

So Clerk Scott, along the lines for elections, because this is a party primary, it means residents can't, they have to stay within a party line and not cross over. So is there an impact, especially for the absentee voters that may have already voted and realized, oh, my uncle is over here and my cousin is over here and I want to vote for both of them. If they realize now, I'm sorry, that ballot is spoiled, can they come back in and get their absentee ballot back?

Before early voting starts before early voting starts. So you do want to get in before that. Um, that is for the partisan section only the nonpartisan section. Obviously that does not apply to.

So by July 25th, they would need. Before July 25th. Before July 25th, they would need to come to the clerk's office and then they can request to have their existing absentee ballot that they've submitted brought back.

They have to fill out a spoiled form, request it to be spoiled, we will spoil that ballot and issue you a new one.

And this would also apply if their candidate of choice has decided to suspend their campaign and they realized it wasn't.

Yes, it applies for any reason. Okay, great. Thank you very much, Clerk Scott.

Thank you both very much. Very important election information. Seeing no further council comments here, I will pass it over to the administration. Ms. Sudrovich.

Thank you. Emma, can you share my screen? Good evening, President Carlock, Vice President Mangioli, council members, Ms. Hayes. Thank you so much. I am here on behalf of Mayor Barnett to provide some administrative comments. And let's start with some exciting news once my presentation keeps moving. Hold on. Let's try that again. There we go. All right. Exciting news. Crooks and Hamlin open today as planned. Woo-hoo. It's always exciting when summer road construction gets completed here in Michigan. So we're happy about that. And we certainly appreciate the Oakland County Road Commission and their partnership on this much needed project. Look at that sunshine shining on that beautiful new roadway. Other fun, exciting things we're gonna catch up from the end of June here. We hosted a great Festival of the Hills. Despite rain early on, the crowd came out as the skies cleared. We saw a lot of kids enjoying dodgeball, foam parties, petting zoo inflatables, et cetera. The live entertainment on stage kept the crowds engaged until dusk when we were able to launch our surprise America 250 themed drone show, which preceded the fireworks this year. We thought that was a fun addition. We got a lot of great comments about that. And of course, the morning after, this is one of my favorite experiences. We had a large group of volunteers from the city participate in cleanup as well as from MOLEX and the Rochester Community Schools. We certainly appreciate everybody's participation. This picture actually only features about half the group because our DPS crew was still out on one of the fields fixing everything up there and cleaning up. So we're grateful to all the participating groups and of course, our amazing parks and DPS teams for all their work. We certainly appreciate the Oakland County Sheriff's Office and our own Rochester Hills Fire Department for all they do to keep the event running smoothly. We are excited here at the city to keep the America 250 celebrations going. We encouraged employees to wear red, white, and blue. We lined the drive up to City Hall with American flags and we enjoyed things like rocket pops and barbecue lunch buffet to commemorate the occasion and connect with each other. We have a great culture here at the city and that's part of what makes that happen. We're certainly grateful to our many city event sponsors for helping to make these types of activities possible. We also launched a very cool new project to connect the America 250 excitement with our own celebrations of history right here in Rochester Hills. With the help of our friends and colleagues with the Rochester Hills Museum and the Historic Districts Commission, we selected about a dozen historical photos to be placed around the city to highlight that history happens here and push folks to our museum for additional learning opportunities. Some of the banners feature QR codes that if you click on those, you will be taken to a webpage that shows all of the banners and their locations and brings a little bit more background information on those. Definitely wanted to say thank you to our team members, Chris McCloud from planning and Pat McKay from the museum for helping to bring this project to life. Speaking of Pat, he and Kathy Fitzpatrick were featured on the June edition of Mayor's Right Down the Street podcast to talk about, you guessed it, America 250, as well as our local stories and history that we celebrate every day through the amazing work being done at the Rochester Hills Museum. So please give that podcast a listen when you have a moment. A few communications updates that I have here to close out this report. Firstly, although the May water crisis was no fun for anyone, we were happy to see the number of RH Connect subscribers skyrocket as a result. This is a great way for residents to keep informed about what is happening in the city and certainly we want to encourage residents if you're interested in signing up, you can get messages either texted to you or emailed to you. It's a really simple process. You can get started on that online at rochesterhills.org. Many of you are already aware, but there's going to be two millages on that August primary election ballot. There's a proposed Rochester Hills fire millage, which you can learn more about online at rochesterhills.org slash fire millage. Also, there is a pathway millage renewal on the August ballot. You can learn more about that one online at rochesterhills.org slash pathway millage. We talked about this already, but as a reminder, Election Day is August 4th. Information on registering to vote, finding your precinct, ballot language, and much more is available on our website. And lastly, our July edition of the Hills Herald has hit homes with lots of great information, not only about the election, but also about the Brooklands neighborhood, Nowicki Park, the Rochester Hills Fire Department, and much more. Please be sure to check it out. And that concludes my presentation. Thank you so much, President Garlock.

Thank you very much, Ms. Sudrovich. I don't see any other council comments. Attorney's report.

Thank you, President Carlock. No legal report tonight.

Thank you very much, Mr. Christ.

Sorry. So, Mr. Christ, I had sent you an email earlier, probably was today, relative to the MCL that has to do with cities and the government bodies using tax money to inform the community about a millage. And I just wanted to get clarification for the residents who are watching about what that MCL allows the city or does not allow the city to do and have you on the record. Sure.

Thank you, Vice President Mangioli. The question was what Factual information can be provided by a municipality with respect to a millage question, and as I indicated to you earlier today, under the Michigan Campaign Finance Act, specifically Section 57-1B, it allows for the production or dissemination of factual information concerning issues relevant to the function of the public body that is permitted. So factual information is allowed. Advocacy of a particular position regarding a question would not be permitted.

So factual only, but I can't say vote yes or vote no, but I can say we have 220 times where the ambulances, where we had to use a community, neighboring community to help. We need to be able to hire 12 firefighters. These are all factual.

That, the uh the demand uh that was present the actual factual demand that was present and what the uh millage would allow for the city to do if if passed so it can't be phrased as we want to do x uh but it could say what it would allow for the city to do in order to make the meet their demand of the 220. so again just it needs to be factual and cannot be uh deviating from factual to a position of advocacy regarding the position.

So my fund data requests all the time for information. That works. We're good for those. Correct. Okay, cool. Thank you very much, Mr. Christ. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you. Ms. Neubauer, you have a question?

Okay. Counsel, now I have a follow-up question. That's for the use of city funds to do that kind of thing. Are we in our personal capacity allowed to advocate?

uh, It's a different section of the Campaign Finance Act, but yes, individually you are allowed to take a position with respect to that. Not collectively for counsel at the dais.

But individually on a Facebook page that, hypothetically, that I started myself and I don't use any money for, I can say whatever I want, correct? Well, mostly.

Yes.

Like free speech kind of thing. And advocacy. Yes.

What was the last part?

The advocacy and free speech stuff I'm covered by because I'm not using any city funds. That's right. But we can't just all be in a room together and say whatever we want to say. That's basically it?

Correct.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Christ. Next up, nominations and appointments. Item 2026-0303, appointment of the 2026-2027 Rochester Hills Government Youth Council. Ms. Neubauer.

Okay. So back in 2005, the Rochester Hills Youth Council was established to engage the youth in government activities, city activities. They help us and we help them. We love our kids. Most of our neighboring cities are super jealous of us and they wanna implement this program too, but we did it first and that's why we're amazing. And these kids are amazing. So this year we had nine graduating seniors and we have to fill those positions so we can never replace those kids. In order to fill those positions, a public notice was put out, and we had 52 kids apply for youth council positions, which is amazing since we are having difficulty having people run for public office. Our kids are willing to step up. Another reason why I love them and Gold Star. So they had to fill out an application, do the essays that were, they had to answer essay questions and they had to provide letters of recommendation, at least two. We had some of our applicants turn in 10 plus letters of recommendation, which was amazing. The youth were interviewed by the adult advisor, Aaron Mims, me and several of our youth council current representatives and one of our graduating ones. So 41 of the applicants chose to participate in the interview process and we were very pleased to be able to make an offer to nine of those kids. We wish we could have taken more. Unfortunately, we can't. But they did an amazing job. Very proud of all the kids who came and interviewed. They're very impressive. It's not just an academic thing. They were polished and answered the interview questions well. They were well prepared. Some of them came in with resumes. We learned about additional talents that they had. We had a balloon maker come and make us little balloon animals and tulips and show us their talents. And we were just really proud of them. Do you want me to read the names off? Okay. So, therefore, City Council is requested to appoint the following students to a one-year term on the Rochester Hills Government Youth Council. Forgive me for mispronouncing names, but we will have Roselle Archon, Oliver Blakely, Sachi Danicar, Brendan Deal, Brennan Deal, Jackson Deal, Kishio Geary, Sacha, Sasha Josie, Annika Cannondale, Joao Kim, Sasha Patnik, Carson Pavlov, Noura Khadi, Dev Shah, Divya Seth, Sophia Thomas, and Christina Wang. Those are students from Stony Rochester Adams, the International Academy, Marion, So we have several schools being represented. All the districts are being represented. And these kids, if approved, will be invited and sworn in on August 10th to the swearing-in ceremony.

Thank you very much, Ms. Neubauer. So we have the list here. I have a motion by Vice President Mangioli, seconded by Mr. Limburg. I don't see any council comments, so I'll read the resolution. Resolved that the Rochester Hills City Council hereby concurs with the recommendation of the Rochester Hills Government Youth Council interview team and appoints the following students to the 2026-2027 term beginning September 1st, 2026 and ending August 31st, 2027 as read by Councilwoman Neubauer. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes. Congratulations to all of the new members of the Rochester Hills Government Youth Council.

And they're coming what day?

August 10th. August 10th. Sounds good. All right, next up, new business. Item 2026-0294, request for approval of submission of a special license application to the State of Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs Liquor Control Commission for Cornhole Classic and Cookout at the museum fundraising event at the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Heusen Farm on Saturday, September 26, 2026.

Mr. Andrews. Hello, good evening. President Carlock, Vice President Mangioli, City Council, ARNS. We're requesting approval to submit a special license application for Rochester Hills Museum fundraising event called the Cornhole Classic and Cookout. The event will take place on September 26 from 2 to 8. It'll include a cornhole tournament, raffle prizes, tabletop games, live music, and food. The event will obviously help the museum as far as raising the funds there. And as in years past, we'll be utilizing Crank's Catering for our alcohol services. We'll be taking the necessary precautions to ensure that it's a safe event. And with that, I'll open it up for questions.

Thank you very much, Mr. Andrews. I don't see any council comments or questions. I have a motion by Vice President Mongioli, seconded by Mr. Limburg. I don't see. Resolved that the Rochester Hills City Council hereby approves the submission of a special license application to the State of Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs Liquor Control Commission for Cornhole Classic and Cookout at the Museum fundraising event at the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Heusen Farm on September 26, 2026, and authorizes the mayor to execute the application on behalf of the city. Further resolved that the Rochester Hills City Council hereby concurs that the application for a special license to serve alcohol on September 26, 2026 to be located at 1005 Van Heusen Road, Rochester Hills, Michigan, 48306 to be recommended for issuance. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, item 2026-0286, request for approval of the interlocal and participation agreement between the City of Rochester Hills and the Clemmis Authority. Deputy Chief Echols.

Good evening, President Carlock, Vice President Mongioli, Council, and Chief of Staff Aaron. I'm here tonight to request your approval of the agreement between the City of Rochester Hills and the newly established CLEMIS Authority. CLEMIS stands for the Courts and Law Enforcement Management Information System. It is a vital regional data sharing and public safety network that interconnects nearly 260 public safety agencies across nine counties. They previously operated locally under the government of Oakland County, and they are officially, as of October of last year, transitioned to an independent authority. Approval of this agreement is essential to ensure the continuity of critical services to the fire department. Specifically, it supports mobile data terminals in our apparatus. Those are the computers that give us all our information for dispatch. And it gives us critical information such as incident timestamps, and they connect with our dispatching software, our medical reporting systems, and heart monitors. So I have Leanne and Lisa here with the Clemmons Authority, and we're happy to answer any questions that you have.

Thank you very much, Ms. Eccles. We do have some council comments. Vice President Mangioli.

Oh, you knew these were coming. First, I want to say to Assistant Chief Echols, thank you very much for answering my questions. I was doing this yesterday, and then I got your away message. I'm like, all right, so Ann's not here, so I'm going to go after Bill and ask Bill. And then Bill was on vacation, too. So then I turned to Clerk Scott and said, OK, who else can answer my question? He said, oh, I'll just text Ann while she's on vacation to see about getting answers. So thank you very much. I had a long laundry list of questions. So President Carlock, is it okay if we put the responses into the minutes? Thank you very much, because there's quite a bit there, starting off with the fact that we're not so happy with Oakland County sometimes. They don't decide to change things on us without a lot of warning. which is some of my questions had to do with the fee increases that we should expect. And being that Clemis as an outside organization is brand new, there isn't a way for us to track the, hey, for the last 10 years, it's only been a 1% increase. But now when I pull out that one piece that's now part of Clemis as a separate organization, I don't know if it's 1% or 10% over that time period. So as I said before to the OPC people, two people give me a straight line, three points give me a trend. I only have one point and that's starting today. So how do we know where my trend is going to be for next year as far as fees for the Clemis services that you're asking for?

Good question.

Okay.

So as you know, October 1st, Clemmons was separated from Oakland County. So now we are a private, independent governmental entity. And I think what's really important to know about that is it is governed by the members, the 260 members. They're the ones that have the voice. They're the ones that provide direction to the executive committee. So we're excited about that. I personally have been with Clemens for 30 years. We started 60 years ago, as your chief said. So right now, before Clemens, there was a 5% increase last year. So we kept our pricing the same. We didn't change any of our products pricing. We left it the same, but we did apply a 5% increase across the board. What will happen the following year has not been determined, but the executive committee comprised of several chiefs, including the fire chief from West Bloomfield, thank you, is on that board along with some police chiefs, someone from SEMCOG, from the county. Together they will help determine where the pricing will be headed. So I don't have an answer for where we'll be in 2027, 28. Okay.

So I want to say that Chief Eccles sent me the link to the Clemmis site and I poked all around.

Yeah.

And I didn't find the names of the board members. So where do I find your board members? So advocacy or lobbying, whichever word I wanna use between now and next year at this time, I know who to contact so that I can talk to them about that fee structure. So how do we find your board members?

Yeah, you know what, that's a good point. So we did, I think we sent you the list of members.

It's in the emails? Yeah, I believe it was an attachment to one of your, if not, I can forward it.

Yeah, there's nine members on the board.

I'm sorry. So I'm going to say clerk Scott, if we can make sure that the, all right, I see it. Hillary chambers, uh, sheriff Beaver, Beavier, Laura Dodd, chief Flynn, chief Gallagher, commissioner Hawkins, chief Keller, mayor LaRusso and Dave Woodward are the names that are in here.

Correct. And I like your idea.

That's included. I like your idea.

I'll go back to our administration and make a recommendation. Put it on the website. Put it on the website. Yeah.

Yes, because I had asked other questions about Open Meetings Act and if we could know when your meetings are. And I did find all of that on the website so that I could be able to have residents or myself decide to start watching your meetings to understand months in advance if there's going to be any impact to our community for the cost of Clemis. I understand from all the answers that I got, there really aren't any other options for us because all of our data right now resides within Clemis. And for us to go and find a third party to come in there would be a significant tear up of information. I'm guessing if something we would want to do at all.

Yeah, right now our best path forward is to do this one-year contract for sure. There are other options, but we would still rely on the Columbus Authority for that data connection. So our CAD services coming from dispatch, that information, we have several, they call them, they're just imports or like connections. So our heart monitors, our dispatch information, our mobile data terminals, they all have a connection point to our dispatch center. And if we aren't a member and if we don't become part of the Columbus Authority, we would still have to pay for those services. And it is astronomical. Right now, we get free integrations and free connections with our membership in this program. But the cost could double or triple if we don't participate.

So for right now, we definitely want to... Until we find out if there's something that's cheaper if they raise their rates next year.

Yeah, and I don't know if that's gonna be the case just because we're using Oakland County as our dispatch center, so we're very much still tied to them. Still tied to them.

We take a lot of pride in making sure our rates are significantly less than the private software companies out there. We wanna be affordable to the small city township village as well as the large ones.

So the impact last year on the sheriff's contract, Pontiac and Rochester Hills were the two cities. For Rochester Hills, we were fortunate with the millage rate that we could absorb that increase. The townships and villages, many of them could not. And because it happened after the election, they didn't have a chance to ask for a millage increase. So they suddenly were in a hard place. Then when they started complaining, the county also decided to increase the cost of their assessing departments, which then drove them into finding other places to get assessing from. Rochester Hills is now doing Rochester's assessing. We don't want to find out that there's another place that we're going to have a challenge with Oakland County, especially when the safety of our residents, which is our number one priority as a city, could be jeopardized because of the connection of our dispatch to Clemmons. I hope you take it to heart. This is not meant to pick on you because you're brand new, but the organization that you've come from, two strikes. All right, so three strikes. They'll be out if I have a choice because it is very frustrating to see that they're doing this to not just us, but to our other communities in the area. Now here's a third place. where we could find out we are disadvantaged and don't have a lot of negotiating space.

The participation agreement that you're considering tonight gives you a voice. If you read the agreement, it means you can participate, whether it be someone from the council that wants to participate or your chief wants to participate. We have very, very strong support for the police and fire chiefs to separate from the county, which was done in October.

Okay, and as I look at the board, there's Lenawee County is on your board and Warren, which are not in Oakland County. So I'm hoping that if this is an Oakland County Clemmons, that we would have Oakland County representatives on that board as well. So when you have a chance to replace, because that was another one of my questions is how were they appointed? And there was a one, two, three or four year cycle that they were going to be on. So it would be great to see other people from Oakland County on here versus our neighboring counties or up in the, up in the. Hit the microphone button, sorry.

Push, sorry. One of the departments that did help start the authority was White Lake, which is in the county.

Yes, I see that they're on here, and that is great. It is just those other communities that are not from Oakland County. That when the time comes that you need new board members, that Oakland County, just like our OPC residents, want to have residents first. For Clemmas, I would want to make sure it's Oakland County residents first. So I appreciate you coming tonight, listening to all the conversation, taking back our concerns to heart with this. I'll keep up with Chief Echols on what we're doing as far as making sure Clemmas stays financially stable. prudent as a decision for us to make sure that next year when we have to do a one-year renewal that we can say, yes, Chief Snyder back there can tell us, our CFO Snyder can tell us, yes, we only have to do a 2.75 increase. We're good as opposed to, all right, you're now on our bad list. So thank you very much. With that, President Carlock, I move the resolution in our packet. And thank you for all of your time, for answering all of my questions today.

Thank you very much, Vice President Mongioli. I have a motion by Vice President Mongioli, seconded by Councilwoman Neubauer. We do have some additional comments. Ms. Menino.

Yes, thank you, President Carlock. I have a general question. So just to level set, you were part of Oakland County. Now you're not. That's a question for Clemmons, right? You were spun off into a separate legal entity now that's your private company for profit? No. What is Clemmons now?

We are an independent governmental authority and we are not for profit.

Not for profit, independent, which can include now your scope goes beyond Oakland County. Now, are you going to be soliciting McComb, Washtenaw? Is the plan to grow the business?

Yes. We are currently in nine counties.

The plan, again, under this new legal entity is to expand and grow in Michigan for all counties. We're really focused right now about Oakland, but ultimately, this organization will be much bigger than Oakland County.

The reason for growth is because of the data. The police departments, Um, I think you had mentioned we have 260 departments, courts, prosecutor, fire, police, your district court as a member, um, circuit courts, a member, the values in the data when police contribute data, fire doesn't share data yet. Maybe they will. Maybe they won't. We kind of got some ideas.

I think we're at the federal level sharing now.

But sharing data is across law enforcement because as we all know, crime crosses jurisdictional boundaries. So by gathering more data, it makes all of our communities safer. So yes.

Okay. So really this is a whole different vision then for this, this group or this non profit private government organization than just spinning off Oakland County and doing it separately.

It's a whole Clemens has always had their focus. Yeah. Eve, 60 years ago, the reason Clemis was formed was to share data. There were like four communities where crime was crossing jurisdictions, and that was the whole concept behind the development of Clemis. So we've been growing and sharing data for 60 years. Okay. Yeah.

okay that it that level sets it spins it a little bit differently than i think it was coming across okay everybody what the scope of this new organization is fire makes up probably very little or a smaller amount than law enforcement correct yeah yeah okay all right thank you that's that was my question thank you very much councilman menino uh councilman neubauer

Thank you, President Kerlach. I just want to say I'm in the legal field, so I understand the benefit of the sharing. When Genesee County has somebody that violated parole and we can't do anything about it in Oakland County because we don't know about the parole violation here, and then by the time it gets to prosecution, bond's already been posted, the person's gone, and whatever. So I don't think there's an issue with the value of what you provide and what we're doing here, I don't think that's the issue at all. I just think we have a bad taste in our mouth from your parents. So like, you know, where you came from doesn't do you a, it does you a disservice. And we just want, we, I think, You know, you've seen, and I think this council has acted in good faith. You know, in everything that we've, every agenda item, this council acts in good faith. You know, we always put the residents first. And that's why, you know, Vice President Mangioli was saying what she was saying. Again, we support our fire. We support our police, our law enforcement, the court. Everybody needs the data. It's just we want you guys to give us what we give you, which is good faith negotiations. We don't want to enter into a contract and then four months later you decide, oh, you know what? they get a lot of tax money. And Mr. Snyder said, we're not in debt. So let's just hike up the price and see how much we can do it. That's not going to fly. Because even if we don't have options now, one of the things that I think the police contract issue taught us is that we will never be put in that position again where we don't have options. And even if it's a hurt in the beginning, long-term, it'll be better for us. So it's not against you, councilwoman Mangioli. It's not you. We love you. We love everybody at first, but we just want to make sure that whatever we give you, you give us back. That's all.

Because we're governed by a board and many of them are very strong fire and police.

But some of them are not.

Okay. Okay.

OK? And the names were mentioned, so I know. So I mean, and it hurts my feelings a little bit when you guys say we have a voice, and then we have voiced our opinions in the past, and we were muted. So like I said, the only thing we're asking for is good faith. You know, we'll give you what you need so that our fire and our police and our law enforcement and our courts and our prosecutors can do what they need to do. But just be fair to us. I think that's all we're trying to say.

So that's fair. Yep. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I have a motion by Vice President Mangioli, seconded by Councilwoman Neubauer. I don't see any further comments on this, so I'll put my reading glasses on here. Whereas the City of Rochester Hills, the public agency, is a public agency, as that term is defined under Section 2E of the Urban Cooperation Act of 1967, 1967 excess PA seven as amended MCL 124.502 E. And whereas under section 28 of article seven of the Michigan constitution of 1963 and the urban cooperation act of 1967, 1967 excess PA seven as amended MCL 124.501 to 124.512 quote act seven. public agency may exercise jointly with any other public agency any power privilege or authority that the public agencies share in common and that each might exercise separately and whereas the city of Rochester Hills possesses the powers privileges and authorities to perform various activities relating to courts and law enforcement management information systems and whereas The city of Rochester Hills wants to exercise powers, privileges, and authorities jointly with Oakland County, the charter township of Bloomfield, the charter township of White Lake, and other participating public agencies under an interlocal agreement creating the Courts and Law Enforcement Management Information System, Clemmis Authority, the Clemmis interlocal agreement, and become a participating public agency under and party to the Clemmis interlocal agreement, and whereas the public agency also wants to use the services of Clemmis system operated by the courts and law enforcement management information system, Clemmis Authority, the authority, by entering into a services agreement with the authority. Now, therefore, be it resolved, that the City Council of the City of Rochester Hills hereby determines and directs as follows. That the interlocal agreement between Oakland County, the Charter Township of Bloomfield, the Charter Township of White Lake, and other participating public agencies creating the Clements interlocal agreement is hereby approved. That the City of Rochester Hills is hereby authorized to enter into a participation agreement with the authority to enter into and become a party to the Clements interlocal agreement. That the City of Rochester Hills is hereby authorized to enter into the Clemmas Main Services Agreement, the Clemmas MSA, between the public agency and the authority. That the Rochester Hills City Council hereby authorizes payment at the annual invoiced amount for continued participation each year as required per the agreement, unless otherwise terminated, subject to annual appropriation of funds, that the Mayor of the City of Rochester Hills is hereby authorized and directed to transmit a copy of this resolution to the authority and execute the participation agreement for the Clemmas Interlocal Agreement and the Clemmas MSA on behalf of the City of Rochester Hills, and that the City Clerk of the City of Rochester Hills is hereby authorized and directed to file a copy of the participation agreement for the Clemmas Interlocal Agreement, including the Clemmas Interlocal Agreement on behalf of the city of Rochester Hills with the clerk of each county in which the public agency is located. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes.

That was longer than your email.

That was a good one. That was a good one. Thank you, Assistant Chief Echols. Thank you so much. Yes, thank you. Thank you very, very much. Thank you for staying. Yes.

No problem. Thank you for having us.

All right, next up, item 2026-0297, much more boring. A request for purchase authorization facilities, authorization for the purchase and delivery and setup of replacement employee desk chairs for City Hall and all five fire stations in the amount of $337,532.67, NBS Commercial Interiors, Troy, Michigan, Mr. Vizanko.

Wow. Good evening. Uh, president Carlock, vice president Manjula, happy birthday, by the way, city council and Mrs. The item for before you tonight needs to be mocked is going to, I'm requesting a model slate modification. Um, It was brought to my attention in an email this morning that I read from Vice President Mangioli questioning the three different brands of chairs that we are actually originally moving forward with and purchasing. We have a standardized practice in the city of Rochester Hills that we work with Steelcase because it it makes it more sense for working on workspaces, ordering parts for chairs, things of that. So we create a new standardized practice. But in my research, one of the chairs is not a steel case chair and it's the replacement chairs that all of you are sitting in. Um, and include, and also including the mayor's office. Um, so I'm going to request that I, I pull out the third line of chairs and bring that back, bring that forward at another date. Um, so I've got to ask, I've got, I did some math and I, there is, you should have a revised agenda item in your, your packet here. Um, the original cost of $337,352 and 67 cents. Um, the amount we were asked of that is for the chairs that I'm looking to bring back in another day, excuse me, is $43,000 and 40 $43,049. Um, so a new total I'm looking for, um, with our contingencies, uh, 294,000, uh, $483 and 67 cents. Um, and then once I get some clarification on the chairs that are not steel case, why did the, why did we go that route? Um, there was a committee formed in the organization which, had participants from all departments. Um, and, um, one of the gentlemen in, um, in facilities was the lead on that committee and he's, we put the order together. Well, I can't extract any data on it because he's on vacation this week. So instead of holding up the 400, plus other chairs that we can get ordered. I want to move forward with those and can come back for the remaining 50 chairs. Um, that will ultimately replace the dais, um, in the mayor's office, mayor's conference room, things of that. So, um, so I'm here to answer any questions and I do apologize for the last minute change. Um, it was a, it was just a mistake on an oversight on our part. So, um, and we may, I may be coming back for the exact same share. We don't know yet, but there's a reason why that was picked. I just don't know what that, that factoid is at this time. So, so I'm here to answer any questions.

Thank you very much, Mr. We do have some council comments. Uh, vice president Mungioli.

Thank you, President Karlic. Thank you very much, Mr. Visanko, for looking into this and finding out and then finding out that the person you need to talk to is on vacation. Who knew? So that we can get that information for potentially our next meeting or at least in August to be able to finish up with that last group of chairs. And so, President Karlic, I move the resolution on our packet with the amended amount of $294,483.67 as presented before.

All right, I have a motion by Vice President Mangioli with the amended amount, seconded by Councilwoman Neubauer. I don't see any further council comments on this, so I'll read the resolution here. Resolved that the Rochester Hills City Council hereby authorizes the purchase, delivery, and setup of replacement employee desk chairs for City Hall and all five fire stations to NBS Commercial Interiors, Troy, Michigan in the amount of $294,483.67. Further resolve that the city's acceptance of the proposal and approval of the award of a contract shall be contingent and conditioned upon the party's entry into and execution of a written agreement acceptable to the city. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, item 2026-0313, request for acceptance of agreement, DPS engineering cost participation agreement approval between the Board of Commissioners Board for the County of Oakland and the City of Rochester Hills for the Local Road Improvement Matching Fund pilot program in the amount of $264,422, County of Oakland, Waterford, Michigan, Ms. Ballant.

Good evening, City Council President Karlak, Vice President Monjoli, City Council, and Mrs. Cedrovich. Does anyone get that right? No. The Department of Public Services is seeking approval for a cost participation agreement with the Oakland County Board of Commissioners to secure matching funds for previously approved 2026 Concrete Road Replacement Construction Program. This program, we have been participating in it, I think since 2016. Rather than expanding the current scope of the concrete replacement project, the county's $132,211 matching contribution will directly offset existing costs and replenish the city's local road fund. Again, I believe it's been since 2016. They finally took the word pilot out of the program. If you have any questions, please let me know.

Thank you very much. I don't see any council comments or questions on this. I have a motion by Vice President Mangioli, seconded by Councilwoman Neubauer. I'll read the resolution. Resolved that the Rochester Hills City Council hereby approves the cost participation agreement between the City of Rochester Hills and the Board of Commissioners Board for the County of Oakland for the Local Road Improvement Matching Fund Pilot Program in the amount of $264,422 and further authorizes the Mayor to execute the agreement on behalf of the City. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, item 2026-0312, Request for Purchase Authorization, DPS Engineering, and parks contract blanket purchase order for the 2025 pedestrian structures rehabilitation program in the amount of $1,432,662.50 with a 10% project contingency in the amount of $143,266.25 for a total not to exceed project amount of $1,575,928.75. Z Contractors Inc, Shelby Township, Michigan. Ms. Ballant and Mr. Andrews.

Thank you. City Council's requested to approve a contract with Z Contractors Inc for the Pedestrian Bridge Rehabilitation Project, which encompasses necessary repairs to all city jurisdiction pedestrian bridges under the DPS and Parks and Natural Resources departments. The project will target a completion date of October 31st, 2026 with trail closures phase to minimize public impact also supported by advanced signage and coordinated communication with local trail commissions. So with that, if you have any questions, please let us know.

Thank you very much. We do have some comments and questions. Vice President Mangioli.

Thank you very much, President Carlock. And again, Ms. Balin, thank you. First, congratulations on getting Crooks and Hamlin done. I've seen so many positive comments on Facebook. I was out there at 7 making sure those signs were getting removed. People were very happy to see that. It's exciting. So thank you. And thank you for answering my questions. And again, President Karlic, if I could ask to have her questions and answers put into the minutes, that would be great. It'll save me some time now. The only question I had from all of yours, because it was a lot what you've just covered, but it was the material that's going to be used on the bridges. And this may be more for Mr. Andrews. The Pankreek trail commission. I want to say, I was thinking about it four years ago, they redid one of the bridges and the material they used on the bridge was so slippery that the commission then had to go back and figure out how to take it off and put a new surface down. I just want to make sure that we are not going to find out that these bridges are getting the same type of slippery material

coating on it that would be a problem for us yeah absolutely it's something that we're going to take into account when we have our pre-construction meeting with the contractor just to make sure that that's not going to be the case.

If they put it down, then we need to make sure that they take it off at their expense, not ours. Um, because we're, we're checking on it right now to make sure we'll check out what that spec is and make sure we do the opposite. Yes. I appreciate it. You know, the pink Creek trail commission, small budget. When you have something like that, it comes along. It was a significant impact for them and that's why it's stuck in my memory. So I appreciate you doing the due diligence to make sure we don't have that happen for our bridges. Appreciate you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. And with that, President Carlock, I move the resolution in our packet.

Thank you very much, Vice President Monjulia. The second by Councilwoman Neubauer. Ms. Menino.

Yes. Just a quick clarification. So I'm checking the map out. So we've got, uh, several pedestrian bridges, but this specific request is for five, correct? So three on the paint Creek trail and two, why don't we went on Clinton river or two on Clinton river trail? I'm asking about this specific request is covering off how many bridges? 11. Oh, it is doing all 11. It is 11. Oh, it's not how the it's written in the, uh, the summary in the packet.

It just spells out the parks and natural resources, specific ones and part B, but part a has the, okay.

So it is covering all 11.

Yep. The DPS bridges are six and then the, um, park central resources are five actually on the map there. It shows six and six, but it's actually five for parks. and six for DPS.

Okay, good. That makes me feel a little better on the cost side. All right, it is all 11. Thank you. That was all.

Thank you very much. I don't see further council comments or questions. I have a motion by Vice President Mangioli, seconded by Councilman Neubauer, resolved that the Rochester Hills City Council hereby authorizes a contract blanket purchase order for the 2025 Pedestrian Structures Rehabilitation Program to Z Contractors Inc. Shelby Township, Michigan in the amount of $1,432,662.50 with a 10% project contingency in the amount of $143,266.25 for a total not to exceed project amount of $1,575,928.75 and further authorizes the mayor to execute an agreement on behalf of the city. Further resolve that the city's acceptance of the proposal and approval of the award of a contract shall be contingent and conditioned upon the party's entry into an execution of a written agreement acceptable to the city. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next up items 2026-0319-0320-0321-0322-0323. So I'll read all of these first and then we'll go through them. We have to vote separately. Right. So I'll read them. I'll read all these first. We can talk about them all and then do individual votes. Okay, Ms. Insani. Yes, absolutely. All right. Item 2026-0319, recommendation for department directors, variable performance, the discretionary pay for 2027. Item 2026-0320, compensation recommendation for boards and commissions for 2027. Item 2026-0321, salary recommendations for city council. for 2027. Item 2026-0322, Salary Recommendations for 2027, General Adjustment for Department Directors. Item 2026-0323, Recommendation for 2027, Department Directors' Equity Adjustments. Item 2026-0324, Salary Recommendation for 2027, General Adjustment for Mayor. Ms. Insania.

Good evening. So good evening, President Carlock, Vice President Mangioli, members of Council, and Ms. Cedrovich. I've got the honor of the marathon at the tail end of the night, so I will try to be brief. But I am here tonight to request your approval of the Human Resources Technical Review Committees. recommendation for the various items, starting with the mayor's discretionary performance pay budget for directors for fiscal year 2027. The HRTRC met on June 23rd of 2026 and reached a consensus to recommend continuing the authorized discretionary performance pay pool at its approved level of $20,000. to maintain the effectiveness of the program. So we ask that city council authorize this $20,000 for the mayor's 2027 discretionary performance pay budget for directors. And I'm happy to answer any questions.

I don't see any questions. These are longer than I expected, whereas pursuant to Article three, Section five of the City Council policy for salaries of department directors and mayor and per diem fees for city boards and commissions and authorized by Resolution number twenty twenty seventeen dash zero two seven nine. The Human Resources Technical Review Committee met to discuss recommendations for concerning variable performance. Discretionary pay for government's pay budget was authorized to recognize director performance in twenty twenty seven. resolve that the Rochester Hill City Council hereby concurs with the recommendation of the Human Resources Technical Review Committee to maintain $20,000 in the budget for variable performance pay for department directors in 2027. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes.

Thank you. Next on the agenda, I am requesting approval of the HRTRC recommendation for members of board and commissions for fiscal year 2027 at the HRTRC meeting on June 23rd of 2026. The meeting, the committee concurred with the recommendation to maintain the current per diem compensation, keeping the current structure as is, but I am happy to answer any questions that you may have regarding this.

Thank you very much. We do have some comments. Ms. Neubauer.

Thank you, President Karloff. So I did send you some emails about this, and we had some discussion so that I could get a better understanding. I just wanted to put it on the record that the boards and commissions in 10 years have not received an increase. And like I stated in the email, nobody does it for the money. I think they get, what, like $70 a meeting or something? I don't even know what it is.

It's $90 and $100, yes, minimal.

I mean, the gas money and the contributions and all that stuff later, it ends up costing them probably more, especially with their time and the amount of time that it takes for them to review materials, do the vote, talk to residents, all of that kind of stuff. So I was disappointed that they hadn't had an increase or even a review of their stipend since 2016. That's of no fault of your own. You weren't here. You did... advise me that they would be reviewed next year and that you would be gathering data from other cities to make sure that it was a fair review. But I just wanted to say the fact that there's not an increase for them is not a reflection of their value or what we think about them or the work that they're putting in. They should have an increase. It's just we're it's a failure on our part and we're behind on that. So I just wanted to make sure that the people who serve on zoning, planning, historic, all of those commissions boards know that they are valued and this is not a reflection on them. It was somehow overlooked for the last 10 years, but will be resolved by next year, hopefully. Correct. Yeah.

And I absolutely echo that sentiment. It is a thankless job. No one is in it for the money right there in it to contribute to the community in which they reside. But that should be recognized. And we are conducting what you will hear also kind of throughout on these several items. We will be conducting a comprehensive compensation study next year or to conclude in 2027. We're currently in the RFP process for our full-time staff and we will be conducting an internal salary survey for the boards and commissions as well. Okay, thank you so much.

I move to approve.

Thank you. I have a motion by Councilwoman Neubauer, seconded by Mr. Lindberg for item 2026-0320. I don't see any further council comments or questions, so I'll read this. Whereas, pursuant to Article 6 of the City Council policy for salaries of department directors and mayor and per diem fees for city boards and commissions as amended and authorized by resolution 2017-0279, the Human Resources Technical Review Committee met to discuss recommendations concerning the per diem compensation for members of boards and commissions in fiscal year 2027. Resolved that the Rochester Hills City Council hereby concurs with the recommendations of the Human Resource Technical Review Committee to maintain the current per diem compensation of $100 for chairpersons and $90 for citizen members of boards and commissions per meeting attended in fiscal year 2027 for the following boards and commissions. Construction Fire Prevention Code Board of Appeals, Historic District Commission, Planning Commission, Zoning Board of Appeals, Sign Board of Appeals, Board of Review. Further resolved at the 2027 per diem for Board of Review will also remain unchanged at $100 for members. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes.

Thank you. Regarding salary recommendations for City Council, I am here to request your approval for the HRTRC Committee's recommendation for a 2.75 general adjustment to the salary schedule for City Council positions for 2027. Following review and discussion at its meeting on June 23rd, 2026, the committee reached a consensus to recommend this adjustment to ensure alignment with city employee increases. Therefore, this 2.75% increase is consistent with the collective bargaining agreement increases with our unionized groups. And I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you very much. I don't see any council questions or comments. I have a motion by...

Mr. Lindberg. Okay. Can I make a comment really quick? Okay, before we go on to that, I just want to say that it's super weird and uncomfortable to vote for your own raise. But I do want to say that we'll be getting a whopping $205. And our base salary is 7456.21, which I didn't even know what it was. So it's again, a public service that we're doing here, no one's in it for the money. And it's super weird to have to do this, but I will second the motion.

So I have a motion by Mr. Lindbergh, seconded by Councilwoman Neubauer. I do have some comments from Ms. Mangioli.

Thank you, President Carlock. So I've been on the HRTRC for a couple of years. Actually, I think every year since I got on council. And it was, I want to say, three or four years ago that we decided to tie council's pay with the rest of the contract so that if, Staff got a raise of 2.75. City Council got a pay of 2.75. And this way, to your point, Council Member Neubauer, that trying to approve your own raise, we tried to make sure everybody was same, same, same across the board, and that we weren't getting more than anyone else. And then from a perspective of, OK, it's just under $7,500, that we get as a base salary. That doesn't include the other policy that we found out about that comes to remuneration for attending meetings, which will be another conversation for the HRTRC or city council at some point. So it's just trying to point out that We get something for the hours, days that we spend doing all of this. Our counterparts in Rochester, I don't think they get much of anything as far as compensation for being on their city council, whereas other councils in other communities do a lot more. So that's why it'll be interesting for us to see the compensation study. to make sure that we are being consistent with other communities and that we're not paying us more than what others get. At that point I don't know if I would want to if we could get more. I don't think I would want to raise it. So next year HR TRC might be an interesting committee to be on. So I appreciate all the work that all of our council members do as far as going to meetings prepping for today. the hours that we put into asking questions in advance, the community activities that we go to, the ones that President Carlock has to approve for all the meetings that we go to. So it doesn't seem like a lot of money, but also at the same time, much like any other elected official, it's hard to be the one to approve getting compensation for work that we're doing. Not that any of us went into this for the thought of making money, and I'll just add another point. I end up donating back to every one of the boards that I'm on, buying tickets, giving donations, straight out donations, attending their activities. So for me, this is not a profit piece. This is my way of being able to give back to not only the boards that I serve on, but the other boards and community organizations that make our city the great city that it is. With that, thank you very much for the moving and seconding, and I don't have to. Thank you, President Clark.

Thank you very much, Vice President Mangiuli. So I do have a motion by Mr. Lindbergh, seconded by Councilwoman Neubauer. I don't see further comments or questions, so I'll read the resolution. Whereas, pursuant to Article 5 of the City Council Policies for Salaries of Department Yep, this is the right one. Whereas pursuant to Article 5 of the City Council policy for salaries of department directors and mayor and per diem fees for city boards and commissions, as amended and authorized by Resolution Number 2017-0279, the Human Resources Technical Review Committee met to discuss recommendations concerning the compensation for members of City Council in fiscal year 2027. Resolved that the Rochester Hills City Council concurs with the committee's recommendation to increase the base pay by 2.75%, consistent with the unified salary schedule for council president at $9,726.47 per year and base pay for council members at $7,661.25 per year. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes.

Thank you. Similar to the previous recommendation, I am requesting approval of the HR TRC's recommendation for a 2.75 general adjustment to the salary schedule for department director positions for 2027. The HR TRC committee met on June 23rd of 2026 to discuss the 2027 compensation recommendations. I briefed the committee on the city's unified salary schedule, emphasizing our commitment to an above market average pay philosophy. and maintaining internal pay equity between the employee groups. A 2.75 general adjustment for 2027 was proposed, aligning with both the seven-year forecast budget and the previously ratified GELC 1984, IFF 3472, and AFSCME 1917 collective bargaining agreements. The HRTRC reached consensus to recommend this 2.75 adjustment to the 2027 base salary budgets for directors. In addition, step increases for their respective positions. This adjustment amounts to $37,894 for a base salary budget of $1,416,031. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you very much. I don't see any council comments. I have a motion by Councilman Neubauer, seconded by Ms. Menino. Again, I don't see any other council comments. So for item 2026-0322, whereas pursuant to article two of the city council policies for salaries of department directors and mayor and per diem fees for city boards and commissions and authorized by resolution number 2017-0279, the HR Technical Review Committee has met to discuss recommendations concerning general base pay adjustments for department directors in 2027, and whereas the unified salary schedule that was implemented for city employee groups in 2017 includes department directors, and whereas a 2.75 general adjustment to the salary schedule for 2027 is consistent with the recommendation for the mayor and the ratified labor agreements, including the 2025 to 2027 GELC local 1984 contract, the 2025 to 2027 IAFF local 3472 contract, and the 2026 to 2028 AFSCME local 1917 contract resolved that 2.75% and the amount of $37,894 shall be added to the 2027 base salary budget for department directors bringing the total 2027 base salary budget to $1,416,031. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes.

Thank you. The next one, as I previously mentioned, we are in the RFP process for a compensation study currently. Presented before you is following the HRTRC's recommendation that no additional market equity adjustments for department directors are budgeted for 2027. Now, as Vice President Mongioli indicated, next HRTRC meeting will be probably a little more lengthy than typical after that compensation study is concluded, but that's not scheduled until 2027. So at this time, there is no equity adjustments recommended for the department director positions as agreed upon through the HRTRC committee. So happy to answer any questions, but that one is pretty straightforward.

Thank you very much. I don't see any comments or questions. Do I have a motion? Motion by Mr. Lindberg, seconded by Vice President Mangioli for item 2026-0323. Whereas pursuant to Article 3, Section 5 of the City Council policy for salaries of department directors and mayor, and per diem fees for city boards and commissions, and authorized by Resolution 2017-0279, the Human Resources Technical Review Committee met to discuss recommendations concerning individual salary equity adjustments for department directors in fiscal year 2027, and whereas a market survey of comparable communities is budgeted for completion in 2027 as part of a comprehensive compensation study, which will include department director positions. resolved that the Rochester Hill City Council hereby concurs with the recommendations to authorize no individual market equity adjustments for department director positions in 2027. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes.

Okay, thank you. Finally, I would like to request your approval for the HRTRC's recommendation for a 2.75 general adjustment to the salary schedule for the position of mayor in 2027. The committee met in June of 2026 and accepted this 2.75 recommendation to ensure the unified salary schedule remains competitive with the market and maintains internal integrity. This adjustment aligns with the forecast budget, city labor agreements, and the proposed salary increase for directors. The adjustment amounts to $5,029, resulting in a total base salary for 2027 of $187,896. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you very much. I don't see any council comments or questions. Do I have a motion? Motion by Councilwoman Neubauer, seconded by Mr. Lindberg. item 2026-0324, whereas pursuant to article four of the city council policy for salaries of department directors and mayor and per diem fees for city boards and commissions and authorized by resolution number 2017-0279, the HR technical review committee has met to discuss recommendations concerning the mayor's salary for 2027. And whereas the position of mayor is included in a unified salary schedule authorized by city council in 2017, and whereas a 2.75% general adjustment to the salary schedule for 2027 is consistent with the recommendation for directors and the ratified labor agreements, including the 2025 to 2027 GELC local 1984 contract, the 2025 to 2027 IFF local 3472 contract, and the 2026 to 2028 AFSCME local 1917 contract resolved, that 2.75% in the amount of $5,029 shall be added to the 2027 salary budget for the position of mayor for an annual base salary of $187,896. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. That brings us to any other business. I don't see any other business before the Rochester Hills City Council. Next meeting date is Monday, July 27th, 2026, 7 p.m. right here in the auditorium. I have a motion by Ms. Menino, seconded by Vice President Mangioli to adjourn. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All righty. That'll wrap it up.