Board - Regular Meeting

cuz you feel like you're going to fall. I still get sometimes going to go to the western wing. Okay. Yeah, cuz you can't. Are they on? Yeah. I just can't. testing in the future. I I will but I I've got not working bills and I'm behind on the taxes. Yeah, because I don't I don't hear anything. Can you hear me? Tax bills tonight and there'll go but you can't can people hear the speakers because I don't hear anything [laughter] next.

We'll speak loudly. So, apparently we're having an issue or help you out. [snorts] Jim. Jim. So, he's picking it up for the audio the video. Is he good for him? Lot of He takes a lot of work. He said he lives close by. things to do. [sighs and gasps] [clears throat]

So, he's okay. We should wait. You should wait then. Well, we're going to see just for one second. He's trying to see if he can just tell us when you're ready. See if he's going to he can reboot it, maybe. Can you reboot it maybe? No. Yeah. What is this? The recording. The recording or broadcast? Everything's working. Just that these these speakers are not working. Yeah. Yeah. When those guys were in here, everything we've had a little bit of trouble as far as he came from your church, didn't he? So, he's broadcasting. They can he can hear us in there. Is your husband? They just We just have to talk loud here. Okay. So, that I know. Yeah.

All right. Well, then we need to get that fixed. Yeah. [clears throat] Uh we need to get the guy back here or something. Okay. Okay.

Call to order. Charter Township of Plymouth Board of Trustees regular meeting Thursday, November 13, 2025, 6:32 p.m. Roll call. Trusty Buckley here. Trusty Clinton here. Treasure Kermy here. Not Treasure, sorry. Supervisor Treasure Dorsch I was getting ahead of me here. Trustee Growth here. Trusty Stewart here. Clerk Vorba here. We have a quorum.

Okay. Pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So, approval of the agenda. Do we have a motion? Mr. Supervisor, I move for the approval of the agenda for Tuesday, November 13, 2025. Second. Second by Clinton. All in favor? I. Motion carries. Approval of the consent agenda.

Mr. Supervisor, I move for the approval of the consent agenda for Thursday, November 13, 2025. There's no um uh issues on there that require a roll call vote, so it just be by voice. All those in favor? Wait a second. You got a second. I I have um I have a few questions about bills. Do I do that now or Yes. Okay. Um let's turn to the bills page. Okay. I I noticed that there's um we keep talking about the itemization with LIV golf. We keep talking about the fact that they're paying everything and we're getting reimbursed. I would just like to see because I noticed on this list of bills there's a lot to Carl's Golf Land

which was for staff. I would like to see some kind of an itemization of what we build and and what we've received. You can see the invoice. You can come in and get that from Carol Rashan will have the invoice. The budget amendment. Yeah, she's going to talk about the budget amendment details tonight. And most of them are live golf budget amendments where we have revenue in and expenses paid. I saw that. But I know that there was more than just this. I mean there was sal there was wages that type of thing. It was much bigger than that. No, it's everything is in here to in the budget amendments by line. There's not more to it than what's in the budget amendment.

Um, didn't they pay for overtime and reimbursement of wages? That's part of this budget amendment. Yes. All of it? Yes. Okay. I didn't see that. I'm sorry. That's okay. We'll talk about it then. But anyway, that's what those live golf carland where we bought pants and shirts and shoes for police officers. Yeah, that was reimbursed by uh live golf. I just those those itemiz they're itemized and she'll go through the the accounts that she put it in where there's an expense and a revenue. We talk about it. I just want to be sure

it's all being done as it should. And then I wanted to ask why there are two payments to risen Christ. Did we forget a month? The $150 appears that way. Yeah. Okay. Well, we've had some some personnel changes and obviously Yeah. So, thank you. It was it was ketchup.

Okay. And then um the fire chief um there was uh one for Tristar fire protection for the install sprinkler for 42,550. Does anybody know what that's about? That's a progress payment for a total of the total bill is 120,000 that we're spending to put a new sprinkler system in and repair the because they have to take the tile out, the ceiling tile, remove and [snorts] replace the ceiling tile, new sprinkler system in, and new pipes because the pipes are corroded. At which station? Uh three Beck Road. Okay. So, it's uh it's the fire suppression sprinkles inside the building. Okay.

Thank you. We've been operating without it for at least a year um because of the corrosion of the pipes. Okay. And so, they leak. So, the sh system has been shut down. So, there'll be an alarm system and a sprinkler system with piping and replace the uh damage the tile that is a suspended ceiling. Okay. Thank you very much. We have to pay for the materials up front. And then we have progress payments. Apparently, we don't like the progress payments. The chief says he wish he hadn't done it, but that was a contract we signed this progress payments. As they meet a milestone, they get paid. Okay.

And they're in the attic now. It has been delayed for months because the summer was too hot to work inside the attic. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, I made the uh and I will second your motion. Thank you. So, thank you very much. by all in favor say I.

I oppose. No. Motion carries. All right. Uh so we're at public comments, right? So public comments. Got three minutes on non-aggenda items. So if we're going to talk about an agenda item, don't come up here and talk about it now. Talk about it when we're at that item because it'll be more productive. anyone? No. [snorts] Okay, we'll go on to new business, which is F1. It's uh the budget amendments that we briefly just spoke about with Carol [snorts] Roshan, our finance director. Most of the amendments are related to the income and expense of live golf, which happened August 22nd.

Um the whole budget amendment this time, I kept them together. The whole thing is for live golf. We Yeah, it's okay. Just Just speak loudly so we everyone else can hear you, but you're being recorded.

Okay. So, the live golf was in um August and then uh during the next 30 days, we build them for our services. They had agreed upon um hourly rates that we paid them um which when you put all of the rates together would encompass all of our expenditures also. So starting with um expenditures for the general fund um first would be police and there was some officers that worked um just at the regular full-time rate. So that was uh $3,300. Additional overtime wages $44,800. The social security to cover those wages $9,700. And then of course when there's um the defined contribution would also be a percentage of that, an additional $4,400. The various supplies and tools they purchased uh $5,300. Um additional clothing $5,700.

In that clothing is where the shoes and shirts are.

Yes. Um dispatch also participated in live golf. There's an additional $2,000 of overtime. Social Security, $200 for that defined contribution, an additional $300. All of FIRE's wages were overtime, $13,300. Social Security and Medicare on that 1,000, the defined contribution $1,500. They had additional supplies of $500 and gas of a hundred. So for the general fund, that would have been a total of $86,100 of additional expenditures that we're now going to amend the budget to cover.

Carol, the defined benefit portion the DC the the 15%. Yeah, but what about the defined benefit portion? That's a flat rate amount every month. It's a flat rate every month. So this was live golf was not affected by that.

That does not fluctuate. Yes. So, for water and sewer, their additional expenditures, um, there was $1,200 of [snorts] street time that instead of working on our stuff, they worked at live golf, so we charged them for that. Overtime of $3,300. The social security and Medicare that goes with that, $3,000 defined contribution, $700. So that was a total of $5,500 for water and sewer, which would come to a total appropriations between the two funds of $91,600, I think. So in turn, we also received a check back from Live Golf. Uh the program revenue for the police hours of service was $93,000. program revenues for fire was 24,000 and [snorts] the portion that we charged them for DPW was 17,400. So we did receive a check for $134,400. So at the end of the day, the general fund had an additional $3,900 that we made. The water and sewer fund had $11,900 of revenue over and above expenditures. So, in total, the township received an additional $42,800 in revenue. We had more revenue than we had expenditures for Live Golf. [snorts]

Okay. Was that expected? Uh, surprise. Um, [clears throat] remember in here we had especially the police chief spent a lot of hours for the 6 months before I even spent time and other management people that was totally uncompensated. So, washed it.

This kind of washes out when you because it diverted our attention. So, this is some compensation for diverting our attention. Uh especially being the first golf outing. Maybe maybe it'll be the last uh that we'd ever done. So, it took a lot of upfront planning from police, fire, DPW, and me. And we had a negotiated hourly rate up front, didn't we? Yeah. So, we lumped it. We didn't want they didn't want to make it overly complex. Yeah. So, they did a lumping thing and uh we got paid. Believe me, I was uh tightened up about getting paid. I

wasn't ex because a third party was the person who received the invoice, not live go out. So, it was outlier. Yeah. Outlier. Exactly. Carol, you are doing an excellent job and we appreciate all of the effort that you put into making this correct. Thanks. I will move that the Plymouth Township Board of Trustees hereby adopt resolution 2025-11-13-89 authorizing various fiscal year 2025 budget amendments as outlined and attached. Second. We need a roll call. Clerk Borba. Yes. Supervisor Kermy. Yes.

Trusty Buckley. Yes. Uh Trusty Growth. Yes. Treasure Dor Chevitz. Yes. Trusty Stewart. Yes. Trusty Clinton. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Moving to a planning item which is uh to approve the Plymouth Flex planned unit development which is a unique um industrial condominium right west of Virginia Tile off of Hag on Hagerty Road between Virginia Tile and the [snorts] Seek Temple.

Right. Uh we are going to withdraw the uh one of the documents which is the master deed. We won't be voting on that tonight because there is still some language to be uh agreed to between the applicant and our approved by our attorney. But go ahead Kevin.

Okay. Uh the engineering consultant has requested um because these se these separate these buildings have separate offices in them and they're if they're fed by one uh water line and one electrical line, it could create problems if there's a vacant unit within a building with respect to uh electricity going out and pipes freezing. So they requested that I add some language to the master deed. that language is included in article 5 section C3 of the master deed. Once that uh language is inserted into the master deed, everything should be ready to go and that'll be at a a future meeting, right? Yes.

So, do we need to change the motion or the resolution? I don't think you need to change anything because um it prop the proposed motion provides subject to final authorization by the township attorney. Just wanted to make sure. Thank you. So it it will come back to the board again. The master deed you can approve it tonight subject to final approval by the township attorney. So we don't need to bring it back.

If they make this change, I will approve it. All right. Uh so um now u planning uh Liz Hart, you can tell us a little bit about it. I will also want the applicant to give a little uh marketing and summary of what they're doing. Um, since this is somewhat unique, we've never had anything quite like this uh in Plymouth Township. [snorts]

Thank you, Supervisor Kermy. Good evening, board. Uh, Liz Hart with McKenna. Um, again, this is a PUD agreement or contract with for Plymouth Flex Condominiums. Uh, it is on a vacant parcel off of Schoolcraft Road just east of Hagerty Hagerty Road. Um they are proposing four multi-unit personal warehouses and/flex buildings which are also being referred as flex spaces. Uh back in March of 2024 the planning commission did unanimously uh approve the PUD option and then in November of 2024 the board app also approved the PUD option. So that moved them on to the next step which was securing approval of a development plan which was approved in July of 2025. And now we are on to uh the final draft of the PUD contract which is before you today for approval. Um as Mr. Kermy said this is unique. The flex offices do provide the opportunity with the PUD to have like multiple different uses within this. Um, and those can be found on page in the contract on page starting on page 78 to 79. They list out permitted uses as well as number 17 says all uses of the O which is the office research zoning district. um the as the applicant is here to answer any of your questions and I'm also happy to answer any planning questions. Thank you. [snorts]

All right. So, one of you, none of you are employees or owners. You're all consultants, correct? I'm an owner. Oh, you are an owner. All right. So, you guys pick who gets up there and tells us, give us your elevator pitch for uh what you're doing, why you think it's a good idea, and why we should approve it. And please speak up because our speakers are not working. Understood. And uh can you hear me? Okay. Yes. Speak loudly. Sure. Yeah. Keep it close to your face. How's that? Okay.

Uh apologies in advance. I wasn't planning on speaking tonight, so I don't have a I don't have a a written elevator speech that I can give you, but um I'm Mark Roberts. I'm one of the owners of the property uh and one of the developers um that's going to be building. I've got with me our consulting civil engineer, Al Puss, and our general contractor with Brevar um is Craig Stalker. Um what we're proposing is 60,000 square feet of a uh mini flex sort of a um miniflex warehouse sort of you know multi-use condominiums. They're 41 units. They're all for sale. We do offer them up to rent, but even the units that are for rent, we then offer them to sell uh we offer to sell them to investors looking for uh return on investment, what you might call a triple net investment. Um the allowable uses are broad. Um it's just about any commercial use you can think of under the sun. [sighs and gasps] That's probably a bit of an exaggeration. There are some things we don't allow. um marijuana growing and selling. Um we're not looking for a bar or, you know, something of the like. Uh but we do permit retail use. Um uh you know, industrial uh light manufacturing, uh even food prep. Uh some examples of of uh semi-reent buyers that we've had at other projects are gyms. Um, when I say gyms, I'm referring to mostly like a personal training type gym. So, not one that's got a hundred people in it, but it's owned by somebody who's a personal trainer and they've got their equipment, their their balls and their dumbbells and things like that.

Um, we uh, interestingly, one of our I think maybe our most recent sale, this is at a a similar project in Colorado is a couple that runs a reptile rescue business. Um we don't expect that here but it just sort of shows the the the breadth of the buyers that we have. Uh one guy in Colorado um uh put a um uh a car an autodetailing business. Another one is a uh sells um astroturf. They don't manufacture it there but they store their manufacturers. At other projects, we have a lot of plumbers, painters, um, uh, electricians where, um, we have a 20 foot ceiling, so you can stack your plumbing equipment all the way to the ceiling. Um, a lot of the units they'll install a mezzanine. So, they'll have an office sort of an office space upstairs where they do their bookkeeping and their sales and they might have a small forklift zipping around downstairs moving their um condensers around if uh if they're a plumber, for example. Um, we um we don't allow people to stay there. Uh, so it's it's strictly not for residential use. Um and um um so hopefully I'm starting to paint a picture for you that um it it's it's an active place where a lot of businesses you can buy it for your car collection as well. We get we get those or people get them to to have a place to work on their motorcycle. So it's it's going to be an active place. a lot of people coming and going, but not I'm not picturing we've never had like a lot of uh open signs where people are just driving by and they're and they go, "Oh, I think I'll stop in and shop in that store for a for clothing or something like that." Um, so it's a little bit more geared for um uh in as a very light

industrial use than those types of things. How [clears throat] do you intend to manage security since it's a isolated area? There's a lot of valuable equipment there and we have a very small police department that doesn't like to spend a lot of its time handling breakins uh that or false alarms. Exactly.

Yeah, understood. So, it's it's um we decided against a uh a fence. Um, so to your point, they are going to be accessible to the public 24/7. Um, we've got steel doors, steel, uh, and that includes the the overhead door. Um, they do have windows to allow light through, but they're up high, so they can be, you know, grayed out or blacked out if somebody wants. Um, and getting in is not going to be easy. I mean, it's um we've got brick masonry um up to a certain height. If somebody were going to get in or attempt to get in, they would need to go through a door, but that's not going to be real easy. I mean, it's it's a steel door. Um they're not really going to go through the masonry. Um it hasn't been a problem. Um, and we've we've developed in in very nice areas and very not so nice areas. Um, and it hasn't it hasn't been a problem. Um,

how many do you have operating? Uh, so the partnership h it's sort of a mixed partnership right now. I've personally only been involved in one other and that one's in Colorado. One of my partners who's listening on YouTube right now is um gosh, he's been involved in over a dozen, maybe a dozen and a half. Um and they're in Colorado, Texas, um Wisconsin, um

Georgia. Thank you. Um I think one other state that I'm forgetting, but they're all over the place. So Bob, with personal property, um, this type of development, tracking personal property, does it make it harder or is it something you're going to do or or easily done? Uh, I don't think it makes it any harder. The assessor, you know, need to knock on every door, right?

Um, so I don't think it makes it any harder. If anything, it makes it easier because one of the problems is sussing runs into is that when a tenant leaves, the landlord doesn't take the sign down. So, they don't know that the that the place is unoccupied. Um, but I I don't anticipate that being an issue.

So, what we need is to have people actively report to us who's there, who's the operator, how do we get in contact with them? Because some of the other places that have multiples, you know, someone leaves and then we don't find out. So either someone has to be responsible, i.e. the owner of the entire complex needs to be active in letting us know who's there because when there is a problem and we try to contact someone, uh, we find out, oh, they left two years ago and there's somebody different there now. Sure. That's actually very easy. Um the all of their developments are professionally managed. Um and and so they're they're condos, so they have an association.

Okay. And the association is professionally managed. And they need to know um if there's going to be a unit that might be cold or might uh could potentially have um you know, a pipe burst in the winter. Um the the the manager has access to all of the units. Will you as a developer be running the HOA or you'll contract somebody out to be the HOA manager?

That's a great question. I will not personally. However, the my partner that I mentioned earlier, he's listening in on YouTube. He's in Georgia right now. Uh he does the professional management. So, he will be managing it. So this will be a little different than well a lot different than some of these industrial buildings that with multiple tenants that essentially carine out of control. Oh very much so. Like a revolving door uh and the landlord is absent or uninvolved or uncooperative. Very much. That's usually the case. They're uncooperative.

Yeah. This is I mean I haven't been to all of the um developments that he's done, but the ones that I've gone to, they look and feel very much like a well-managed, professionally managed property. Um I mean, uh scheduled painting when it's done. Um we have rules on what color your door is. Um, and and we do inspections and I mean it's, you know, so that means that some prospective buyers are going to say, "This is not for me. I'm not looking for somebody to be telling me I can't paint paint my door orange because that's my company color." Well, that's sorry. That's what we're going to do. Um, it it's that's what we're looking for. We want it to feel like a a well-managed, welltaken care of property.

I [clears throat] I like what uh Clerk Vorva said because even with the fire and police department, being able to to contact someone to notify someone in an emergency is really important. Um, but I thought you said in the beginning I I thought that alcohol was basically excluded as uh potential use, but that's not what this says. So, I'm just What is the intent when it comes to So, let's see. I guess um did I misunderstand you? Well, he said bars. He didn't say necessarily alcohol. Not bars. Okay. Right. We're not serving alcohol. Okay. So, but um well, number 16 says you probably could.

Yeah, you probably could. 16 kind of alludes to the fact that you can. So, I'm just trying to understand. Yeah. Um I I guess I'm not off the top of my head. I'm not sure if I know that we've never done that. Yeah. Number 15 and 16 say you can do it,

right? And yeah, 16 spells out um alcoholic beverage retail sales and production including but not limited to a liquor store, micro brewery, distillery, andor winery. So I think I think my recollection talking to my partners about this was not an open like a a bar with a neon light and and hey just come in and drink. I think the idea is the distillery like you would distill the whiskey there using whiskey as an example and somebody can come in to buy a bottle and there might be like a tasting here you have a taste of this um meaning not like a whole shot but just to you know get your tongue wet

but they would still need a liquor license for that so they would have to come to us. Yeah, that's what I'm And it wouldn't have like tables, you know. I I it's you might say you could, but I'd urge you not to do that because we're not interested in that. That's one of the risk of PUDS. You get this and we'll [snorts] uh so we do have to be careful because we're not looking for a bar district there. That's certainly not the intent. And even if you're doing tast requires a liquor license. I'm sorry, Bob. What did you say? They could have 41 restaurants and bars. Can Can [clears throat] that be excluded from the um from this plan?

Permitted uses. Yes. Why wouldn't Well, what would distillery have u Kevin? If someone's distilling, do they need a LCC license that would come to us? I don't know that off top of my head. If they want to serve on premises, I know they would need to see liquor license, right? Production may be a different thing. Yes. And I know there's a couple places that already do that in our township. Production. Yeah.

And if [clears throat] the board wants to exclude on premises consumption, that can be specified in the PUD. [clears throat] Let me repeat those words. If the board wants to exclude on premise consumption of alcoholic beverages in this PUD, they can do that as well as gambling. Gentlemen, Plymouth Township is well known to the Michigan Liquor Control Commission and the Michigan Gaming Control Board. And I'm not going to disclose my sources, but I have the we're well known. So 50 We're real well known

for gambling for what concern because you're talking and I talk to him once a week. If we approve at least then we're basically giving you a green light to do whatever you want and you don't have to come back to us for approval. So I kind of feel that we need to actively exclude or limit things like gambling on-site consumption. Gambling is not legal. It's not legal. Yeah.

By state law. But you're what you're saying is number 15. You would like to [clears throat] strike everything, but you want to be able to have a brewery, but you don't want to be able to see how it says restaurant, cafe, brewery, and other places serving light food and beverage to be consumed on and off site. Uh, you know, it's possible somebody could have a catering business in there, right? Well, that's what he they'd want to they'd want to sell food out for uh production or production workers or uh construction sites that where people consume food? Uh

do any of the uh other facilities have restaurants or anything of this nature? It seems like an it would be an odd fit in this location. None that I've been to has anything like that. No. Yeah, it doesn't. It also it becomes a parking issue as well. Um it's that hasn't been the type of But see, if they have liquor, they got to come back to us because there's only limited licensing and they'd have to come back to us for approval, right? Which we could reject. Not necessarily, right? Well, no. I mean, but we could complain about it. No, the state in the end makes a decision on a liquor license, not us. We have more of a consultancy role, right?

Didn't we approve the picnic basket one? That's different. That's what we did. Yeah. But again, that that is just more advisory kind of. Oh, that was for outdoor outdoor serving of liquor. Well, no, they have like a little cafe inside of the grocery store that you can Oh, testing. Tasting tasting. Yeah. Yeah. And I know you have to have a license, a liquor license for that.

I I would just like us to exclude that simply because our ability to say yay or nay later on is really not there. Um, is there a way to carve out I guess when you say consumption? If I'm looking at if I'm, you know, tasting a, you know, touching a whiskey to my tongue and, you know, when at what point is that consumption as opposed to just like trying something or retail sale?

Well, liqu it says liquor stores are allowed. Yeah. But but yeah, but but I mean retail sale for, you know, uh for consumption. You mean consumption on site? On site. Of course. I think it does say on site here. Well, if you have a restaurant, unless it's uh uh another coffee shop, um you're going to have, you know, some Irish coffee, food and drink likely. Number 15 allows on and offsite eating and drinking. And number 16, I don't quite understand the difference between 16. It's on the screen. Oh, it's a little hard to read.

It It just spells out that the alcoholic beverage retail sales is is a possibility. I want to minimize restrictions, but still not end up with a restaurant rule. Well, I'm not hearing why we want to put a a barrier on their ability to have those options. Like, it's just a personal preference that you don't want alcohol. What's the reasoning? [clears throat] Who you talking to?

Yeah. Well, S Sandy brought it up. I was curious what the reasoning was. It would be easier to get on board. You know, got to sell it. I don't know what you're referring to. I just well for one thing we're talking about traffic with people coming and going and the more type thing you have like that the more in-n-outs you're going to have and I'm not comfortable with as Jerry said you know the liquor license is an issue but the way I read this agreement we really are whatever we say now is what we're going to be bound to because we're not going to have any input in the future That's that's what I'm just I'm not comfortable with that. I just think that um because that means that they can do whatever they want and it um even goes as far as um anything that would be allowed in the O zoning district separate or in combination. Um, and I think as a board generally when we approve PUDS, we we should have some some knowledge [clears throat] and and input into what's going

Yeah. to go. I'm just not comfortable with the mixed the the flex the total openness and uh ability to choose and do as they choose without us having any input into it. 16 looks different than it does.

16 looks [laughter] go ahead. It's more distillery. If I if I may, number 15, number 15 says uh specifically light food and beverage and number 16 says alcoholic beverage. I think there is a difference there. My concern as well is would be the brewery side on number 15. Maybe that would be what we eliminate cuz a cafe would be able to do beverages or a restaurant. And then specifically 16 is for alcoholic beverage, which doesn't say consumption onsite or offsite. The I think it's a good spot if you have a brewery for production. Yeah, that's what I think too.

But I'm not concerned about production, which I believe six 16 says micro brewery, but that includes the production. So I I think that is covered under number 16. 16. Okay.

Yes. If you have uh in these facilities uh what's an example um some of the retail business um light manufacturing is that going to generate um a lot of truck traffic in and out? Um, so if you had a distillery, you'd hopefully if you had a successful one, you'd be shipping liquor out of that distillery and there'd be trucks coming and going all the time. I I'm trying to jog my memory what this what these look like. Do it's such an isolated area.

It's an industrial area that has trucks coming and going now with manufacturing. Virginia Tile is going to be getting a lot of deliveries and trucks going out since their distribution is right next door. So, where do they get their deliveries? Uh the um the drive lane goes in a circle. So, they'll kind of stop in front. I mean, I think keep in mind our average unit size is about 1,400 square ft. So, is there a there's a metal overhead door and then on the other side you would have you could potentially have something that look like a retail, you know, glass door kind of thing. Correct. Uh

glass storefront maybe, right? Storefront look. No, it's you can't modify the exterior of the building. So, you're not going to have a storefront look for any of these businesses. Mhm. It's a solid wall. It's a solid wall with a steel door. It's a solid wall. Yeah. It's a And a rollup door in addition to a man door. A man door and a rollup door. Yeah. It's a 14t high rollup door. So, you could you could back a decentiz truck into it. But the a you know, again, the the average unit size is 1,400 square ft. So, you can't do enough manufacturing in a space that size

to load up truck after truck after truck. Um it's just it's not that that volume of of truck that that's going to impact neighbors in any way. And Trusty Buckley, you asked the question I at the beginning when um when Mr. Roberts started speaking, he kind of excluded alcohol and then I look at this and I see that that's not an exclusion. So I didn't hear that. I heard bar. Yeah, that's that was the intent. And certainly manufacturing alcohol is is something that we would want to allow. Um yeah, I agree. Production, the production. Yeah, it's the on-site, it's the consumption that to me is an issue.

Yeah. Um so number I think we decided that number 15 isn't intended to address alcoholic beverages, right? But number 16 is. And there it says liquor store, micro brew, distillery, and winery. C could I buy a lottery ticket? A liquor store. Yeah, I suppose it's it's legal. You'd have to be licensed for that, of course. So So So now we're into gambling. Well, legal. Yeah, legal gambling. Yeah,

sure. Um, I mean, in 16, I see nothing that would allow me to serve alcohol in there. And I would I would be comfortable not excluding that. You mean 16 or 15? 16. You'd be comfortable. You want to leave 16 is what you're saying. No, he's really I guess what I'm saying is doesn't say

if I were a different guy, let's say I buy a unit and then I stand in front of you and say number 16 allows me to run a bar. I think you would say, "Well, hang on. No, no, it doesn't. It allows you to to it specifically says retail sales and production." So, I can sell you my whiskey that I manufacture there, but I can't get you good and drunk and and on the road. There's no poker. And I think in order to sell those items, one has to taste them. And so, I don't I don't think we need to regulate that because it's not a bar. It's not to go and hang out and get drunk. And it's none of our business.

Well, the the state will regulate it if it's a tasting operation. They regulate it through the liquor control commission. Is there a distinction with the state between fully drinking and just tasting a Yes. something you're considering buying a tasting thing is different. True. If you go to a I live near Total Wine in Ann Arbor and I can walk in there and have a little taste of something, but if I tried to sit there for four hours and get drunk, that's not [snorts] what they're like that's not what they're licensed to do. You can just keep going around the [laughter] So, how do we resolve this? We do nothing, leave it as is, or do we make a modification at all on the fly here?

Well, I make a suggestion, please. I I I see nothing here that's going to make it a bar or consuming on premise. And I don't want to be too restrictive because I mean, this is an interesting concept. It's in an isolated area, very isolated. It's packed in between two freeways. Well, really Yeah. M14 and 275. Yeah. And so it's industrial area. You're not going to have people going by there looking for a restaurant, you know, just Although there is a truck, a food truck lot. Yeah. Within a quarter of a mile. Yeah. Um alcohol.

Across the street for decades was a couple of scrapyards and junkyards. Um they're not there anymore across on the north side south side of the road. Yeah. Um and it's not a it's not a recommend you might find a bar uh a bar. Yeah. Or a restaurant even. Yeah. So the im the image of a of it being a strip mall is not accurate. Um, no, you're gonna have some businesses that you, you know, you're not, people won't know what that is, even what that is.

Yeah, it it's with the developments that I've been to, they're very quiet at night. Um, if somebody put up a neon sign, we'd shut that down fast. Not allowed anyway. We don't allow neon. Yeah. Um, so it's if if you heard that there was a bar there that you could go to, you wouldn't even know where to go. You know, it's Wait, your architect needs to be aware that we now have a dark sky lighting ordinance. So it will it'll they're aware. Okay, very aware. Um, can Kevin make his recommendation? He he meant he was going to make a recommendation.

It's up to the board here to decide hopefully in an efficient logical way what you want to do next. So I I you have some Go ahead. I was going to make a suggestion with num with 15 you could change beverage to non-alcoholic beverage and with 16 add a add a clause that says um not for consumption on premises except for lawful use as a tasting room as contemplated by the Michigan Liquor Control Code. Well, on 15 though it says brewery. By definition, that's usually breweries have alcohol,

but not if they're just brewing and and distributing because you could you could go you said non-alcoholic beverage there. But is that in conflict with the word where it says cafe, brewery? It would permit brewing but not consumption. But that was in number 16, the brewing. So to me, two places as the owner and developer, I would be comfortable uh with Mr. Bennett's suggestions as well as removing brewery from number 15. So if somebody wants to put a brewery in there, can they do it? Which I think is a good use. Yeah, that would be approved under under number 16. That could be under 16, right? Yeah. So remove it from 15,

right? And make it non-alcoholic. Correct. Okay. The selling price of these are what? 3 to 400,000. Yeah. Um they average uh 28 let me think two 280 something a foot. So yeah $280 a square foot. That's correct. So if they average 1400 ft you can spend anywhere from 300 to 500. Uh so 1400 is the average. The small unit is 1,200, but they go up to 2,000. Yeah. So, you're easily at that price, you're at 400,000 a unit, an average unit.

That's correct. But without the ability to have signage and um a storefront, I can't imagine anyone doing anything, anybody doing opening a liquor store in there that, you know, just has a steel door. Looks like a speak easy. Yeah. Um I I don't intend to say that that there's no signage. Um you can put like like vinyl on your door, you know what I mean? But not like a flashing neon or something like that, but you would typically see. All right. What is the word you're considering? Maybe we don't want to make any changes. So, I'm okay with it. We're saying I'm fine the way it is. Okay.

So am I. So am I. as am I. No, it's a good discussion, but I think I think

well, you're getting the message in the sense there has to be some reasonable honor system. Although you might not be here in 10 years, you'd be sold off and went to the Bahamas or something, but um we're not looking for uh what I would call bottom feeding businesses that create trouble. Nor are we. Um, I I plan on being on the management team. Of course, you know, that's not something I've done in the past, but um I'm the local representation here and and um I plan on being proud of this development. I just don't see that location being a problem for this. Yeah. What

traffic anything in there? It's a four-lane road, divided highway. Um it's very clo Leavonia it neighbors Leavonia which has is heavily industrialized that way and even the far eastern part of Plymouth Township at Eckles Road being the border. Yeah. Um and then where the old the site of the old spring and bumper site is all liquor distribution and Amazon right fulfillment warehouses. Um, all right. So, whatever blows your hair back. You want to do a motion or you want to make a change? Sounds like the consensus is we're ready for a motion.

Mr. Supervisor, I move to adopt resolution 2025-11-13-90 authorizing the adoption of the Plymouth Flex Planned Unit development PUD and contract as recommended by the planning commission and subject to the final authorization of the township attorney. Second. May I have a second? Again, Jen. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't hear you, Jen. Okay. Um, Supervisor Kermy, yes. Treasure Dorchevitz, yes. Clerk Vorva, yes. Trusty Buckley, yes. Trusty Clinton, yes. Uh, Trusty Growth, no. Trusty Stewart, no.

Motion carries. Thank you very much. So, before you go away, let um what is the date that you're planning to break ground? Uh, beginning of February. Oh, that's quick. [clears throat] All right. And remember we had some confusion over trees bribar when we had a tree cut down that we didn't want cut down. We don't know that this there's some confusion. Tree number 403 is planned to be saved

and put that in the minutes. I think on the original documents, it was planned to be cut and removed, but we need to we need a com a closed loop communication because we lost a good tree in the summer. Um, and it might have been because of confusion, although some people say we'd had to cut it anyway because of the excavation for the sewer. So, we need to keep an eye on that. Who's managing the project? Is that you? Yes, sir. All right. Um, so let's just tag up on trees and make sure we got every box checked because once they're cut, it's too late. Yeah, indeed.

And some of the trees that are there are uh red oaks and they're susceptible to oak wilt. So, you got to be careful when you do trimming or uh you got to do it now or you got to do it in the winter time. time because uh once the weather warms up beyond April 15th, then there's a risk that they'll get oak wilt and [clears throat] they'll die anyway in 30 days. Is is 403 is that the one that's got the caution tape all around? Yes. Okay. I noticed that. [laughter]

So I intervene to hug the tree and then we put the tape on there. and the planning department. You're going to watch that also, please. Building's not here, but we'll The February document said the tree would be cut and that was the document that was used for 402 because it said be removed when it got removed. All right. So much for tree hugging. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good luck.

Appreciate it. Okay. Um F3.

So now item three, which is a presentation from hydro on um commercial. They're probably not going to do a presentation on uh commercial, but they're going to we're going to renew the contract. And then the next item, number four, they'll give us a little talk on what they're doing with residential, which is the source of some controversy in certain neighborhoods um because it means people have to spend money to certify their uh sprinkler system for backflow protection. Go ahead, Patrick Felra.

Hello. Good evening. Um, our current contract with HydroCorp for non-residential commercial cross connection control services expires uh pretty soon in January of 2015. Uh, so what you have before you tonight is a um a request for approval for a three-year uh extension of a of a contract with them for three more years. Um, if you recall what a cross connection control program is, it's mandated by the state of Michigan to keep us in compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act. It protects the public water supply. A cross connection is any um any connection between a non-portable and a portable source. So those have to be either controlled or they have to be uh prevented. And so this program again mandated by the state um requires us to uh periodically inspect all our non-commercial our non-residential uh water accounts. Um, as Supervisor Kermy mentioned, we do have representatives of for uh from Hy HydroCorp here tonight and they can um give you an overview, I think, of uh the services they provide to the township, both residential and commercial. A little bit more emphasis on residential because it tends to be more controversial. It's a newer program if you recall. Uh but Hydrocorp has been around for a long time. They have been uh our service provider since 2010 when Wayne County stopped performing these services on behalf of the communities and um they are the the primary service provider for cross connection control still in southeast Michigan. They do all our [clears throat] neighbors, Canton Township, city of Plymouth, Northfield

Township. Um and they may even do more of our neighbors, Leavonia probably. But um so maybe this is a good segue. I mean the the contract the agreement is pretty straightforward. It's it's providing the same services as before. Um it's a three-year contract with a 4% uh annual increase. Um and and it's it's more this is a the commercial is a pass through type agreement. The commercial accounts pay for this service. They have a line item on their water bill. while they pay an annual fee for cross connection control. Okay. Um so with your permission I think

yeah right explain what backflow protection is that it in a layman's terms and what the risk we're trying to prevent or the state of Michigan is trying to prevent with this legislation. Well certainly I presume that's part of your presentation right? Yes we did prepare some slides too. I don't know how easy it is to use it. It's It's easy if you have um your laptop with you. We did bring the laptop just in case, but I don't know if he needs to go to the back room or where we No, no. Just bring it up here. I'll connect it and uh we should be good to go. [clears throat] I'll be right back. You want to pause?

No. No question. I don't think you did. Got you hooked up here. I got to sit you a second. Sorry. [snorts] Jerry, you want me just to hit that button? It should be the east. Oh yeah.

[snorts]

The one time when this really was important for backflow protection was in August of 2023 when we had a blackout for several days with no water available, no water pressure. That's typically when you get this problem, when there's no pressure in the line. You mean in 2003? 2003 I forgot when did I say 2020 2003 it was 50 million people had no electricity almost while we get this uh connected we lead time I'll do introduction so I am get close to the mic need to be near the mic because the people who are watching on YouTube won't hear you

crazy if you want to take this to the sideway see if it can get it connected worst case we don't have the slides

uh so good evening everybody I am Cody with HydroCorp. I am the director of operations for our cross connection division. Um so I was going to go over the importance of a cross connection program where it stems from and why it so [clears throat and cough] as Patrick mentioned the cross connection programs they stem really from the safe water drinking act originally at the state level. It states that every municipality must have a program in place not only for commercial but residential as well. Language in the Safewater Drinking Act simply just states all premises must have all cross connections either eliminated or protected. Residential makes up the majority of any water system. Typically, it's going to be 80 plus% of your users on any water system, although they might not be your highest consumers. Um, we want to ensure that any possible cross connection that could exist is protected whether it is commercially or residentially. um as mentioned. So a cross connection is simply could be something as simple as a garden hose. A garden hose on a residential spot uh put into a bucket of car wash soap. They're filling up the bucket to wash their car. If that garden hose has no protection on it and backflow occurs, it could then siphon that soap back into your drinking water. Not just the house, not just the neighbor's house, but back to the distribution. Most commonly how that occurs is due to loss of pressure on the system. So it could be something as far as a main break. Uh it could be the flushing of fire hydrants in the area or another good example is a fire in the area with multiple hydrants being used. It creates enough pressure loss that it then creates a vacuum on the water system. So your garden hose ideally when pressurized water comes out right but you get that pressure drop. It now gets siphoned back into the home uh back to the distribution. Commercial was always the biggest aspect of any community, right? Because that you got your industrial users, you got chemicals

being mixed with the water, you got anifreezes, things of that nature. But with residential, uh, a lot of case studies have shown that, uh, irrigation systems have polluted whole neighborhoods, uh, causing e.coli breakouts, um, things of that nature, and essentially making many people sick. So the services we pri uh provide currently right now for Plymouth Township is both commercial and residential with the residential consisting of exterior inspections looking at all exterior connections such as garden hose garden hose connections uh lawn irrigation systems pool fills pond fills essentially any water connection that would be on the exterior of the home at this time. Commercially we do a full internal and external uh inspection of those. So any connection within a commercial facility or on the outside we do ensure that backflow protection exists for any cross connections or cross connections are eliminated. This is done by either installing uh different backflow devices assemblies or utilizing methods to prevent any type of backflow from ever occurring on the water system. Uh also for the services we do uh mandate all testing of backflow assemblies. Uh so backflow assemblies are required by the state to be tested on a frequency uh generally annually unless it is irrigation residentially. Uh that does fall under a different specified frequency and ensuring that those backflow assemblies stay uh maintenance essentially and repaired to ensure that they are working properly. Um on average if you have a backflow assembly it's not uncommon that once every 5 years it does need repair. uh they have common parts inside of them that are made of rubber, plastic, and anything else and they wear down. So that's why these programs are very important to have in place to stay in place. Not only because they're mandated by the state, but even if they weren't, it is extremely good practice to ensure

that the water system is protected at all levels. So, one one suggestion I have is there's been a lot of resistance from some homeowners thinking that this is some money maker for Plymouth Township. It's not. And it's unnecessary. And it's true. We've lived for a hundred years of public water system. And I've never known of anybody other than on a farm where they haven't. I know somebody on on a farm that polluted their well when they were filling up the tank sprayer. It siphoned into the well pesticide. U and industrial uses where I see them filling up uh [clears throat] tanks for spraying lawns. That is a risk because the tank is up high and it can siphon back if they had an issue. Anyway, I recommend that homeowners associations investigate getting the inspection done by one company, negotiate a price per house, and that way everybody knows the price, they know the supplier, they don't have to panic. So, that's something that homeowners associations ought to be doing for their residents, organizing the cross connect uh the excuse me, the backflow pretor inspection, which costs, you know, $60 to $120 reasonably, but other people have overpaid much more than that. So,

well, they don't doesn't hydrocorp maintain a list of certified inspectors? That is correct. Uh in the notification that gets sent out for testing, it does contain a website that any water customer can go to to find a list of certified testers within the area. Yeah. And to Chuck's point, I've heard people say pricing is all over the map. Whatever they think they can get from you is what they're charging.

Yeah. When it comes to any testers, we can't uh it's not we don't really have a base on their pricing for any testing of that sort. It's just simply they more so state that they do testing in the area. Could you uh how many uh approximately how many firms are on that list? I don't have that answer at this time, but from the previous list I've peaked at recently, normally it's 20 plus testers on any given list for any community.

Would it be possible to put a price on there with the along with the contact information? contact uh price of a basic basic inspection.

So, we would want to [sighs] stray from including any price on that testing uh simply because it more so is being biased on our part. I know it's uh we don't dictate their prices, things of that nature, but I don't want to say company A charges 300, company B charges 100, and then company A is now coming at, you know, towards Hydro Corp saying, well, now nobody calls me. Um, I do understand that yes, it is in the benefit to have a prize and call them and have it on there cuz that that would help that would be really helpful for our community cuz we I do get uh a lot of complaints directed at and my direct directed in in my office that they charged me $120 and my neighbor only paid 75.

Yes, we do. If any water customers call in, we always suggest calling at least three of the testers on the list to obtain quotes uh to get the different types of price ranges. Um other things that are very helpful is utilizing like your neighborhood apps uh things like uh Next Door and things of that sort. A lot of them actually do talk about testing, especially residentially, and they'll mention testers and their prices on there. um I can always look in to possibly including a price on that Teslas, but at the same time it's very difficult due to price fluctuation as well. So, one of the risks is that you have an unscrupulous inspector who tells you that it is defective in an effort to get a $500 repair fix.

Yeah,

I don't know how you police against that. That's where if the HOA that has 200 houses uh negotiates a price with a reputable inspector and then a separate company to do the repairs so you don't have that built-in conflict. Yes, it is hard to guard [gasps] against any type of testers taking advantage in that sense. We do take any complaints serious from any water customers or the township themselves that you receive uh in regards to any testers that may seem like they're price gouging or not truly conducting the work uh efficiently saying you need to replace your backflow pre when truly it might be working fine. We do our best to then safeguard against those attempts but only from once we're notified at that point.

What do you have an average of how many do have to get repaired? I don't have an average on hand how many get repaired, but depending on the how often they are tested, uh, for example, if they're tested every 5 years, it's safe to say four out of 10 are going to fail just because the parts do wear down. Big number. Yeah. 40%. I know we were I would say at least 40% on average for a 5year testing cycle. I was like, what?

Well, we know cuz we're residents and we we've experienced this. decided to have mine replaced and me and my neighbors all texted each other, "Who'd you go with? What' you pay?" You know, so we're coming from experience. But thank you guys. Thank you. All right. Uh we're going to vote on these separate. Right. Right. We have item three, which is [cough] the commercial side, which is resolution 91. [snorts] So, do we have any qu Well, do we have any questions from the board? And then after that, we'll do questions from the audience.

Not on the board. Any from the audience? No. Okay. [snorts] Mr. Supervisor, I move to adopt resolution 202511-13-91 [snorts] authorizing [clears throat] the professional service agreement between the township and hydrocorp for the implementation of the nonresidential cross connection control program and authorizing the supervisor s clerk to [clears throat] sign the agreement contingent upon review and approval by the township attorney. Second. Second by Dorchevitz. I have a question. It doesn't uh [snorts] Well, I guess where does it say the duration? Is that in the resol? Yeah. Three years. Yeah. Okay, we got that covered.

All right. Supervisor Kermy, yes. U Trusty Clinton, yes. Clerk Forb, yes. Trusty Buckley, yes. Trusty Grove, yes. Trusty Stewart, yes. Um, Treasure Dorsch, yes. A motion carries. Thank you very much for that part. Now, so item number four, which is the residential cross connect that most of us are more familiar with. Go ahead, Patrick.

Yes. So, for the uh residential contract, uh we have an existing contract in place with HydroCorp and built into that uh contract there is a one-year automatic renewal. Um that is an option that we that we like to put before you tonight for approval. And the uh one-year renewal um is at a uh price increase equal to the CPI which is 3%. [snorts] So, this would be a one-year renewal and then uh next [clears throat and cough] year we will come before you again with a um another longer term agreement much like the commercial.

I think we need to define the CPI. What date are you going to take it on and what publication are you going to use? Wall Street Journal or last year it's done by the done by the state and the state treasury department and last year it was 3.1. This year this coming year it's going to be 2.7. So why don't we use the same one that the assessing department uses that's on the what what do you call that on your notice of assessment for for taxes for taxable right for [snorts] which is a CPI I think that is that regional it's done by the state

the state does it but I think it's based on regional but you got to define something with where you going to get the CPI calculation I guess I should have brought this up earlier and we would have been better prepared but yeah The uh the renewal clause just indicates any increase in pricing for each of the renewal periods will be equal to the consumer price index at the time of renewal. So this is the time of renewal I guess or um I mean this contract expires soon. Um I think I have the expiration date here December 5th. 5th. Yeah.

So, you can really um do we wait till December 5th or do we just take what the CPI is today? Well, the upward with the government shutdown having been for 40 days. Well, this No, this is this is the state. The state has already has already said that it's going to be 2.7. They've announced it. That's from the assessing assessing said it was going to be 2.7. Remember I sent that out, right? So we need to define it. Yeah, that's their best guess.

So we want to add into the motion if if Hydro Corporation will accept it that we would use the um [clears throat] is that the state tax tribunal that puts that out or is it Yeah. Um not sure. That comes from state treasury. Okay. um state treasury for uh uh tax assessment. Yeah. Notices. Yes. If we want to add that in there, this is the time to do it. Can we just say as specified by the um state treasury because then that means you got to check that every year, whatever the rate is.

Let's let's take a little pause here and see. He's Are you looking something up? Yeah.

Yeah. [clears throat] Of course, they've got to agree to it. You probably don't have the authority to do it, but we can do this tonight. And my judgment is when you take it back to your bosses, they will understand and they will agree be but it's less than 3%. Um, and if they don't like it, then we can do you can come back again. But uh I think that they will it's a studied number by the state treasury and it's used statewide as the factor for uh taxable value increases for the upcoming year. So we just complicated it. But uh when you're [clears throat] talking about CPI, you got to define where you're getting it.

And I apologize. I should have thought about. Yeah, I'm sorry. I just assumed it was the federal CPI that was issued on the 24th of last month. And why is why is this a one-year versus a three-year agreement? It Well, the agreement is a three-year agreement. Um, but they had a uh a one-year automatic renewal um at this. So, we're approving the one-year Yeah. automatic renewal. Correct. What we're trying to do is get a name. You figured it's the best interest of the CPI.

When you go [clears throat] back in the morning tomorrow, they'll say, "What the hell did you do?" Uh, the US Bureau Bureau of Labor Statistics um is probably the that's the basket of goods. uh approach

then we have to go do we have to make an adjustment to it versus just grabbing the one that the state does. See, Michigan, specifically the Detroit, the official source for the CPI is the US Bureau of Labor Statistics for the Detroit War and Dearborn Metropolitan Area in Michigan. That's even more sophisticated than the state one because that's tailored to the region, right? Yeah. So, that's why you got to define it

right here. [clears throat] So if we use the consumer price index for the US Bureau of Labor Statistics for the month of you're going to pick December 2025. They haven't they haven't done it for a couple of months because of the government shutdown. They haven't calculated it. Can we just say 3% or the the CPI as designated by whichever is less?

Yeah, you can do that. But how do we Kevin? Is there something that we can make this so that it's clean and we don't have to come back and do this again? We know the document or we know the source. The US Department of US Bureau of Labor Statistics, right? Yes. Yeah, but there's also the uh in Michigan there's uh this is what I was looking for. Uh the uh Michigan Center for Data and Analytics.

Okay, more specific to the to to the area in this bra this goes into detail as to different categories. Oh my god. Well, you want to leave it at 3% or you want to say where you're going to get it from? Say the consumer price index, US Bureau of Labor Statistics as as of the end of the calendar year. I mean December 2026 2024, isn't it? I mean 2025. Yeah,

it runs February to February. should also specify if uh you want to use the u all items or all items less food and energy which I believe different. See you're having to remember all that stuff you learned in college that you thought you'd never have to know again in economics. Here you are using it. Oh yeah. Never say never. [laughter] Yeah. This was the uh February 24 to 25 CPI Michigan in the US. What was it? It was Oh, it's not shown on the screen. Oh, cuz I got it on the Well,

if it's Michigan, it's probably greater than the average in the US or something like that. So, uh All right, let's do that. But whichever is less.

Yeah. Just to uh clarify, the contract says, as I mentioned, equal to the consumer price index at the [clears throat] time of renewal or 5% whichever is less. Well, it's going to be less than 5%. Yeah, it's it's [clears throat] it's three some. very close to three, maybe slightly lower. Well, we just approved a 4% for the commercial. 3% was is 1%. Let's do this. Let's make it 3%. Let's make it 3%. But for the future, we have to have this defined. Yeah. You're going to come back here. Is it next year? Yes, that is correct. Okay. So, your assignment is to get it defined.

You know, you know, tell your boss you had a close call. We need to be more sharp. uh and he needs to get his salesperson or his attorney or whoever writes his contracts to sharpen up on this and we will too. Absolutely. Sounds good. We'll do. [clears throat] So, do we want to take the strike the word current CPI out of there? Yeah, we're going to strike current CPI and just call it 3%. Okay. Yeah, it's it technically it's less than that right now, but uh it's so close.

I move to approve resolution 2025-11-13-92 authorizing the renewal of the professional services agreement between the township and Hydro Corp for the implementation of the cross connection control residential program for a period of one year at a 3% price increase as set forth in section 4.2 two of the existing contract. Second. [snorts] [clears throat] Treasure Dors Chevz, yes. Trusty Stewart, yes. Trusty Growth, yes. Trusty Buckley, yes. Clerk Forra, yes. Trusty Clinton, yes. Supervisor Kermy, yes. Motion carries. Thank you very much.

So, next year it's got to be sharpened up because we're not going to agree to just a number. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all.

All right. F5. Uh this is the tracks trash collection fee increase. So we last signed a contract in 2022 at$,575 a month. started in January of 2023. Uh the contract has a 2.5% annual increase. I don't know why, but we haven't increased it since 2022. Uh so I'm recommending that we increase it by 50 cents a round number to 16.25 cents per month effective in January. Uh our objective is to keep this fund whole. Uh we're anticipating that when this contract expires in September of 2027 uh that we will see an increase again. So I'm recommending that we implement this increase now in January. And so that will go until um September of 2027 unless otherwise.

We'll have to watch because for the they still have potentially two more increases that they can implement on us at 2.5%. So we got to see how the fund is doing doing. Uh we can't let it get dangerously low. Um, but we we want it to be well balanced with a little safety stock uh for surprises or let's say we have an emergency thing where we have to do some special pickups because of a storm or something. We want to have a little money there. So that's my recommendation. Do we have a motion or Well, hold on. Do we have any questions? [clears throat] Any questions from the board?

Straightforward. Any questions from the audience? Is this is this for a 2.5% or a 3%. It's really three because we've gone we've gone 20 three 24 now we're to 25. We've had three increases that we haven't that we've absorbed. Well, this will be the third one. We didn't absorb the first two. We absorbed the first two [clears throat] which were 2.5.

I'll kick in the 50 cents a month. Uh I move to approve resolution number 2025 111-11-13-93 adjusting the trash collection fee from $15.75 to $16.25 per month effective with the January 2026 water billing cycle. Second. Second by Clinton. [clears throat] Trusty Buckley, yes. Trusty Clinton, yes. Supervisor Kermy, yes. Treasure Dorschitz, yes. Trusty Growth, yes. Trusty Stewart, yes. Clerk Vorba, yes. Motion carries.

Six, which is our uh regular agenda uh approving meetings for next year. There are no study sessions scheduled. We'll do those as required. Uh we we will have had one this year which is going to be December 2nd the joint meeting with planning which is kind of a work session although we're not going to be making any decisions of course. Uh what we've done here is uh we sent this out to all of us. Um I don't recall getting any feedback.

Um and we've gone to uh April July, August, November, and December with one meeting. Okay. I think we have one extra month in 2026 versus 2025 with an extra meeting. Yeah. So, any comments, any changes you want? uh some big events coming up in your life or whatever, we can make a modification if we had to. [snorts]

Mr. Supervisor, I move to approve and publish the 2026 meeting schedule for the Char Township of Plymouth Board of Trustees. Second. Second. Okay. By Buckley. Supervisor [clears throat] Kermy. Yes. Trusty Clinton. Yes. Clerk Forba. Yes. Trusty Buckley. Yes. Yes. Trusty Growth. Yes. Trusty Stewart. Yes. Treasure Dorchevitz. Yes. Motion carries.

All right. F7, which is the zoning board of appeals uh meeting schedule for 2026. And the reason we're doing this is there was no meeting because there were no applications for zoning appeals for the past couple months for November and December. And by law, we have to have a meeting schedule before the end of the year. Um, so we are proposing these. Jerry, these you're on the ZBA, correct? Yeah. And these are we usually do it is this in that first Thursday of the month [snorts] and then uh the the like January was the exception.

Yeah. And so uh because of the because of the holiday but u if we don't have u by the first Thursday of um of uh December if we don't have any issues then we don't have the meeting in January. So it's always the a month ahead of time. So for people's uh background, most ZBA, zoning board of appeals is for setbacks if you have an addition or building a porch or something. Used to be fences, but now that we have 6T fences allowed, we don't have very many fence um appeals that show up. So Mr. Supervisor, I move to approve and publish the 2026 meeting for the Charter Township of Plymouth Zoning Board of Appeals, ZBA.

Second. Second by Growth. Treasure Dorchez, yes. Trusty Stewart, yes. Trusty Growth, yes. Trusty Buckley, yes. Clerk Forbetta, yes. Trusty Clinton, yes. Supervisor Kermy, yes. Motion carries.

Okay. Item F8, [clears throat] which uh I'm asking uh your permission to prepare uh requests for proposal for general counsel services. That's the things that Kevin Bennett does. Kevin Bennett is fully aware of this and is fully cooperating with this. We have had since 1993 the current contract. I was even here for that contract. It's amazing. Um, and before that, I think Kevin, we had firms that were related. They were predecessors to your firm, I think, going back maybe 40 plus years.

Um, now this is not for pro prosecutions, which my intention would be to keep Kevin doing prosecutions, and it's not for labor. uh labor, we have a separate attorney, um John Clark, currently. So, what I'm asking for before we spend the time and money and effort to do an RFP, I want to get your endorsement that we should proceed with this so we can have some discussion. We can hear what anybody has to say. Uh Mr. Supervisor, hold on a minute. Please try not to interrupt. No, I wasn't interrupting. Excuse me. I wasn't interrupting.

Okay, John. John, I spoke before you said anything. Yeah, he did. Just let's go ahead, John. What is it? John, what is it you want to say? We're not going to make a motion yet. He's going to with He's going to My comment is I have worked for the township with the township attorney Kevin Bennett for decades. I find him of the highest degree of intellectual honesty. Let me finish. I have talked with many clerks including [snorts] Eileen Pulker from Oakland County and many township attorneys across Michigan and it's a source of politization. [snorts] What's a source?

Picking a township attorney. You have proven to me that you have had an intellectual honesty. You have you, Mr. Supervisor Kerming have proven to me that you will look at that as far as the professionalism of Kevin Bennett. It's inherent in this motion that we don't just sit here with someone and deny his existence. So, I will support the motion, but I I do want to give credit to someone who I have had a lot of experience with the last three dec well last 41 years.

Yeah, you were on the board in 1988.

Yep. But I'm just saying from a statewide perspective, this is a source of politization [sighs] and Sandy Growth trustee has has raised the issue of politization. Uh I don't think she raised it strong enough, but that's my positive viewpoint. So I'm I'm hoping we can proceed with a intellectually honest uh working practical uh experience of an attorney who who appears to have uh worked well with you, Mr. Supervisor. Exactly. This is nothing to do with

Okay. [clears throat] I move to authorized township. Oh, you have other comments? Yeah. Yeah. I I don't the criticisms. I don't think this is necessary. Uh I don't think there's polit politic politicization that word uh whatever that word was politization.

Kevin has served across multiple uh administrations effectively. He's he's very uh astute at knowing when to uh interject himself and when to not interject himself. Uh, I don't think we have a problem that we need to fix here. He's got institutional knowledge. If we bring in a new new attorney, they're going to start from nothing and they're going to know nothing about the history of some of these projects that have gone on for years and years. Um, I don't know what problem we're trying to fix here. And I'm certainly I certain he is certainly not political. Um,

so you're supportive of the resolution? No. No. Oh, you're not. No, I respect that. Nothing. No, Bob. I I I said the exact same thing. I mean, it's if you get a request for proposal, be careful what you wanted, right? You want to make sure if you don't have to accept these quotes. Well, then then same thing. Why do it? I mean it it means meaningless if you don't actually do if you don't redo a cresser proposal and you get a different price. We could be in trouble. I I would Oh, you're going to get a different price. I'm sure. Yeah. I would I would vote for No.

I my my metaphorical pre-trial brief discussion with councelor Bennett. He did not have a problem with supporting this resolution. um he he doesn't decide right the I agree with both Clinton and Dorchevitz that this is seeking to solve a problem that doesn't exist uh as um as the treasurer has said there's great institutional knowledge here when you look at all of the um resolutions that we've done all the policies that we've done all all everything that touches and concerns all the interactions of uh of this local government. Kevin has had a hand in that. He's he's written many of our ordinances. And so the institutional knowledge is so valuable. And when you put on top of that that he is giving a a price that's probably half of what his hourly rate is um on the street. And so I think this is although [snorts] I it's always a good idea to go out and get bids on stuff, this is something trying to to solve a problem that really doesn't exist. And um I'm I'm going to be opposing the uh the motion if if it's put forward.

So how about if we don't make a motion? [clears throat] We can do that. We can choose to always have that option. Yeah, you have that option. Um, typically you have a desire to make sure you have some succession planning um within your organization. So, uh, I'm anticipating that eventually Kevin will be slowing down his business and that the township needs will be greater than he'll want to provide. we can address it at that time and then you'll have to stay on and train whoever the new people are

of councel unless we do an RFP and he submits one with higher rates and he's the winning bidder [laughter] then I've just screwed him and because right now the contract gives a [snorts] 30-day out for either either party and then there's a there's a maximum amount that can be um levied against the township in total I think it's 000. So, and I think we've never crossed that threshold. No. To Trusty Gross's point, if it's not necessary, then it's necessary not to do this motion. Right.

If that's your pleasure, I'm not I'd rather go forward with it and be prepared for the future, but the board makes the final decision. Thank you for that, Chuck. So, uh, we're going to have to do some we're probably going to have to make some changes because our responses, uh, we have a lot of people interacting with the attorney and we don't we need to control who's doing that and how much it's costing us and what projects are being done. uh we're [clears throat] going to have to come up with some way to better control our legal interaction and tracking uh our uh requests.

But but at this time, if I may may say, Mr. Supervisor, because we do it all by email now. I mean, it's just everybody's doing an email, but I I really think we need to have a tracking matrix. But I've been I've been against the the fact that anybody can just call up the township attorney and say, "Tell me your opinion." and and and and you're on the bill of the township. I I've been against that. Well, that's what's going on. But anyway, go ahead. Uh

okay, Jerry. The the at present uh the bill has never been um uh so gross that there's a problem. And so, uh, when people have a legal concern, especially in my department, when you have foyer stuff that is very, uh, uh, uh, very serious in nature, uh, and that you have to address, you you get a legal opinion on it so that you don't get sued. And so, um, whenever I'm inquiring stuff, it has to do with contracts and and FOYA information. uh when someone is seeking to like the Metro Act, he reviews he reviews those and makes sure that they're that they're correct and that they're administratively correct and that's an appropriate function for that. So contracts, he reviews the contracts, but the the nine years that we've been here that I've been here, I've never seen a bill so gross that it's really a problem. Uh and anything that's out of line when you consider that he's billing us at probably half of what his market value is.

Okay. I think all requests for legal opinions through the township attorney ought to go through the supervisor. Well, that's not necessaril No. No, I need we need to we need to come up with a way to tighten up the system and we need to improve the turnaround time from Kevin's firm and we need to know where exactly where a particular request is at any particular time. Well, typically that's software or you could use a spreadsheet, but uh I don't know how to do that. Um but I know that we can work on that. Um but one of the motivators is timing and control because Kevin does everything him. He's alone.

Right. Right. He's on vacation or he's not he's Demopoulos takes Greg Demopoulos is in that office. It's my it's been my 40-year experience that I'm and I'm hoping you're you you've had the same experience that it in 24 hours and I I mean that literally in 24 hours Kevin Bennett returns his phone calls. Yeah. But you can't rely on one man. So I that's what I'm trying to do is to try to bolster our backup. We we don't have um I [clears throat] would say I'm trying to improve the depth to have a bigger firm, but I would that'd be if Kevin it'll be more expensive. I know that

if Kevin wins the lottery uh is what you're saying. Well, gets a hole in one. Well, when it comes to price, I understand what you're saying that we're getting a very good value for the money, but we cannot use that as the only guide. We've got to make sure that we all it takes is one late or one mistake and it could cost you hundreds or millions. So, it's up to Sounds like a fire issue. Pardon? That's what we've been saying about fire. Well, fire doesn't cost the township money.

No, but we're one mistake away. I would suggest that you, Supervisor Kermy, come up with um a recommendation that you can present to us in in regards to the policy as to who has the authority to because I'm sure it's difficult for Kevin too, not knowing is is this approved? Is it okay for me to talk to these people and do this work? We all had the right to legal counsel. Yeah. So you need to come up with you. Well, we have to be careful about about managing that. You cannot have I an attorney on call. I know you've done this sometime since I've been here. You've called him up on some of the things that I've done. Um and

that's appropriate. We need to man well we need to manage it. Not I feel like this conversation is very vague because I don't know what the specifics are. I think I the specific is time of turn and control of legal requests and depth in the law firm. But you said in the beginning that someone is doing something a lot and it's just very vague. I don't I'm trying to follow the the smell here and I No, this is all about

is it the clerk's department and the foyer request? No, no. This is about depth of the firm, having more people as backup or with other skills in a in a larger firm. It costs more money if you do that, of course. But my concern is we're getting a lot of complex things that maybe we need more help. And so that's that's what I'm doing here. Uh well I know this is uncomfortable for Kevin but Kevin and I have talked about this at length for months and it's not a surprise to him that this is feel that something's broken but

yeah you know the code the code of ethics broken it's called constant improvement and anticipation of the future and succession. The code of ethics would require the attorney to let us know if he couldn't handle something. And so, is that not true? Um, Kevin, that's true. Okay. Well, there [clears throat] there there's use of of counsel. I don't even know who the of council is for Bennett and Democrat. He has a wide network. I've never used them, so I don't know. Um, all right.

As do I. And I would make the recommendation that we not move forward with this issue. All right. So there's no uh so no one is going to make a motion. Is that correct? Or and we're not going to have a second. All right. So then we're going to work on improving our current processes. Which need to be improved. Um, [clears throat] and that'll be partly my job, but also partly the rest of the full-timers so that we um manage and not have a situation where we are left without legal counsel in an urgent manner. We're we'll figure that out. Kevin and I will work on that. [snorts]

Kevin has always been willing to work with me and uh we want to u uh do the right thing. So [clears throat] we're this is the way the process works. You're talking about policy. The board has to approve the RFP before you go out and seek uh alternative sources for professional uh legal services. So if the board doesn't approve it, we're not going to expend the effort to develop it. Okay. I just have one question because you made a statement way to handle that. I think you were directing it towards me. What directing about using the attorney? No. On issues. Okay. No,

because as board members, it's not just full-time people, but we as elected should have the ability to talk with the attorney when we have issues that need to be addressed. But we should have we've got to have some control over that and and that's fine. That's why I suggest you come up with some suggestions. Yeah. Yeah. It's very difficult because a lot of things come up and I know you want to it's good. It's a judgment thing. If you have a rigid cookbook just about the time you have that you have an exception and something

what discretion would there be? Let's say I had an issue with you and I wanted to talk with Kevin Bennett but I have to get your approval. No, that's where we need to have a offramp. Uh so [snorts] that's exactly the right uh example of where we need to have an off-ramp because this happened to me back in 2014 and 15th was I was effectively shut out from anything uh the legal council and and he and he was used it was politicized at that time and they tried to use him as a weapon against other on the board and uh it wasn't it wasn't successful. So to answer the question I totally agree that we need a policy or we need a we need to know the practice because if we're going to if you have a question uh you should be able to ask it but if it you can use Chuck as a gatekeeper if it is not something that uh

is routine. Yeah. Where it involves, you know, hey, [clears throat] I need to talk to the attorney because I think the supervisor is stealing. Um, you know, you don't have to go through them for for that example. Sorry to use you as a example.

So, all right. So, this has been a little uncomfortable, I'm sure, for Kevin, but I'm think it'll be instructional for what Kevin and I need to do and the rest of us to uh uh improve the process and u um make some changes uh so that we can but managing by email is not an efficient way to do things. Um so, that's [clears throat] my concern. So, and I'm so over busy that I don't want to have to write, you know, emails and worry about when did that email come? Uh, [clears throat]

put them on staff as a full-time attorney. Uh, $1,000 less than supervisor. Take a look at what's going on around the state of Michigan. They're they're appalled that the department heads aren't in your office, your supervisor's office, working handin glove with you. What are you talking about? I'm sorry. What I just said, I'll repeat it again. I have talked to other township off of starting with Oakland County. Yeah. And retired clerk Eileen Pulker. Yeah. Pulk and former head of the Michigan Clerks Association. And they're appalled that the department heads are working handinand glove with you inside your office. What's wrong with that?

They should be coming and working. I'm I'm saying something positive to you. I would like to have a dime for every time I have told a citizen in Plymouth Township, "Go talk to Chuck Kermy quietly on a Friday morning at 10:00 a.m." He's very approachable, even more knowledgeable. You know, I mean, the the inner township, I have nothing more to say.

Yeah, I agree. We're we'll heighten the communication and yes there is an open door but it does put more stress on me to do that but it's in long run it's more effective when you have a conversation I have had several department heads said I don't like conversation I want you to send me an email and that is a little unusual but also not their place but but that's what they want they said they don't like conversation yeah they want an So anyway, um so all right, we're going to do nothing on this. Correct.

Okay. Um so any comments from let's see where are we? Where comments from the public? Public on anything. You can say anything you want here. You got three minutes. Okay, we got nothing. Then we got board comments. Let's start with Jerry Vorva.

Oh, thank you very much. U Mr. Supervisor, um I wanted to speak about something that uh uh some of you know about is that I I I received an award uh for keeping good clean voter roles and and that wasn't just me. I mean, they put my name on it and it was very it's very pretty thing, but it it wasn't just me. It was uh my staff and and volunteers and and and the public. And I think it's important to note that um I don't think there's anything that government does, whether it's the police department, fire department, you name the department, there isn't anything that government does that can be done well without the cooperation and good work of its employees, without the cooperation, good work of volunteers, and without the the the good work and and cooperation of the public. You you hear the police say, "If you see something, say something." Uh they say, "Gee, I see this suspicious person." Well, the police wouldn't wouldn't have known about that without that. A neighbor sees uh smoke coming from their neighbor's attic. They call the fire department and it goes through every department. Um and so you can't really effectively do anything well without that kind of cooperation. Well, in and and then the reason I'm talking about this is because I saw on Facebook some bantering back and forth about this this award and and I just wanted to clear the air. The um this year was a um non-election year. And so what my staff did was to take all of our voter roles, that is the hard copy files, and go through them from A through Z. They would pull a card up, bring it up on the computer, compare the signatures. So, if it's been a long time, maybe we send the person a notice, hey, can you come in and give us a new

signature so that you don't have a problem when it comes election time? And and and and there's been several um elections where we had 500 of those situations where we had to call people in and sometimes people's vote doesn't get counted because the signature doesn't doesn't match. So they check that. They check to see whether or not the person has voted in a in a long time. If they haven't voted in a long time, then we can send them a notice saying is you is or is you ain't still there. And so we send out hundreds of these notices and we get them back. Although the notice says you don't have to contact us. I don't know why it says that, but it does. It's it's statutory. But then we're able to determine whether or not that person is still there or not. And then if we don't get an answer and they haven't voted in a long time, we can put them in a verified status that we can challenge them so that if all of a sudden that person shows up to vote and they haven't voted in a dozen years, we can ascertain, are you really still there? Are you still that person? and then can you prove that you are are registered at that address still a resident of Plymouth Township and some of them we can then cancel because uh you give the the the appropriate notice is a process that you go through. So during this past year, we've removed some people. We've put them in challenge status. We put them in verify. And so we've we've gone from A through Z in that because it was a non-election year. And it would have been nice to have more staff that done it more effectively, but but we we we were doing that and we were able to uh send out hundreds of these notices in order to to verify whether someone's a duplicate. I mean, sometimes, you know, we would we would not only run the name, but we'd run the address. And so, you

would see that that person was there, but there's other people at that address. So, maybe maybe they've moved and never registered somewhere else. So, you send the notice out. Sometimes when you do that, you say, "Wait a minute. Uh, this is Mary Anne Smith and this is Mary Mary S. Jones. same date of birth but two different people. Well, they've even changed their name. They got married but they're a duplicate in the system. And so then we would merge them. But first we'd send them saying, are you that same person? Yes, I am. You know, no, I'm not. And then if they're the same person, we merge them. So you get rid of the duplicate. And so throughout the year, we've been doing that process. On top of that, we had a couple of citizens who on their own valition brought in affidavits that I'm not sure where they got them from, but saying that we think this person doesn't live there anymore. And one of those persons was Bill uh Ikey's

Iikes. And and so he he brought a hundred of these uh affidavites in and we ran them through the system. We did that same process where we checked to see if the person was there. Had they voted in a while? uh run the address. Is there someone different there? Is it something that need to be merged? And so when not only did he do that, he came back and checked on it. So he went through the effort of checking on these places and then went through the effort of coming back and checking to see the status. Uh I've never had anybody do that. So I thought it was appropriate to mention that to the board that one we received this the award which is very nice and uh and I wanted to mention the effort that again this was a citizen who did this again I saw something I said something so it's true no matter what we do we rely on citizens efforts and I just wanted to make sure that um uh that the public knew and that the board knew that Bill had taken this not only the step but an extraordinary step in doing that. And so I want to purposefully again commend him for that and also commend my staff for sending out hundreds of these notices because we went from A through Z through our card file to ascertain whether people were really there. So again, thanks to Bill, [applause] thanks to my staff, thanks to all the volunteers we have, and and thank you guys for supporting us in our efforts to to to have good voter roles.

When can we have a a document that shows how many bills submitted and how many were taken off the roll? It was about a hundred and well, there was just a few taken off the rolls, but then we sent out notices. A few like fewer than 10 of them. Yeah, fewer than 10. And some of them well they were only taken off the rolls because it wasn't the two election cycle.

Yeah. Some sometimes. So some of them were already removed. I mean the system already removed them. But we removed some that he found and then there was probably another four. And I didn't keep tally. I didn't keep a a scorec card. We just went about our business. The the goal was to say, "Oh, look. We did 500." I didn't we didn't think about doing that. We just kind of went by our process and did it. And so I know there were a good 30 or 40 or so that we because of what Bill gave us, we sent out those notices and then we challenged those people. So they can't that person can't go and vote without proving that they really are a resident. So I mean that's helpful. I mean that's that's 30 or 40 people and now 10 of them were Unicava, you know. So and that's military. Yeah,

they were military people. So even like someone could I I could be living at at my my house for 10 years and all of a sudden somebody else is registered at my house 10 years before that. Well, that person was in the military is stationed overseas. They get to vote at the last place they were they were registered even though they haven't lived there. And I'd go, "Wait a minute. This person doesn't live here." Well, by law that's where they're registered to vote. Sometimes people will be uh uh like a doctor. He's going doing his internship someplace else, but he lives his last resident was here. He could even rent his house out. It could be taken off homestead. And you go, "Well, the guy doesn't live there." No, he's in Texas doing his internship, but he still wants to vote here because he still owns that property even though he's renting it out and working in Texas and uh getting a Texas driver's license so that he can pay no taxes because they have no taxes on on income. So, there's all kinds of scenarios where someone could not live there and the person think, well, no one's been there for a long time, but they're someplace else. Same thing with people students going overseas or or students being someplace else. It can happen for years, but they get to be registered at the last place that they were as long as they're not registered somewhere else. So, because of the effort of our staff and and the assistance of people like Bill who did that, I just wanted to mention him because he came back and checked. Hey, how's that going? Can you can you tell me anything? So, I I thought it was appropriate when people do those kind of things to to mention him. So, thanks to Bill, thanks to my staff, thanks to all of you guys for supporting our our good uh election process here. Thank you, Mr. Supervisor. Uh Sandy,

um I I just learned that our longtime payables person, Maryanne Trudell, retired and um I I'm curious to know what is being done to replace her. I mean, what where are you statuswise with finding another person to do that job? We're searching. Uh a clerk's employee has volunteered to do one day a week, right, Jerry? Help out. and we're we're searching for a replacement and we do have accounts payable. We do have an interview next week.

Okay. I I would like to first off publicly thank Maryanne Trudel for her years of service to the township. She's been here for quite some time. I appreciate her um her diligence, her work ethic, and her um attention to detail because she did an excellent job. And I would also like to ask that, and I'm not trying to put more on you, Chuck, but it'd be nice to know when an employee leaves. Um, I worked with a lot of those people, but it's nice for the board to know first off that there's a vacancy and because people ask, well, is the township hiring? I don't know. I have people telling me that the township is hiring. So, um I would just like that to be more communicated. And um then I want to ask uh I've been getting Oh, did we hire a a new firefighter to replace?

Not yet. You're being interviewed. You're doing interviews. I'm not part of it at all. It's very a little bit of communication with the fire chief. He's working on it is what he said. And we're having soaring overtime. Replace what? You didn't finish the uh we had we had a a battalion chief retire. So, um they promoted someone else to that that position, but we need to hire a new firefighter entry level to so that they we keep the numbers the same. Um and also I have been getting these strange emails one drive online documents

that's a fraud voicemail. Well I but I'm I'm mentioning it because I have sent a couple of emails to our IT person Bob Jensen and no one has responded to me. So click on the fishing thing in the upper right hand corner when when and it'll be sent automatically to him in a [cough] screening system. It's called fishing. Well, I I I just wanted to know the answer to what this is because I'm not opening it. But good. I I It's fishing. It's trying to And does the same apply to the SharePoint C-Pilot notifications. So, it's all stuff that we need to just delete. Delete.

Okay. Just wanted to know. Yeah. If you get a docu If you get something with a document that uh says open this and you're not expecting it, don't open it. Okay. That's kind of what I thought, but I just wanted to be sure. Yeah. All the stuff even about voicemails. It says I have voicemails. Yeah. No, the stuff from George Chevas I just deleted automatically. It's junk. That's what it is. But what about from all those other strange people? Thank you, Bob. Do you have anything to say?

Uh, just pulling my hair out, getting taxes ready and um we're they'll be in the mail to be to arrive uh uh on November 30th or December 1st. So, just the usual basket of in issues. Merry Christmas dealing with. Yeah. Um people are paying uh off their sidewalks. We probably had about a hundred that have paid uh in full. [clears throat] Um that's it.

Um personal property tax [clears throat] uh progress on collecting the rears.

Uh we've made some uh Carrie makes is tracking companies down and making calls and uh they're they're paying. Um, we've [clears throat] had some that's kind of my big project for when I get start getting some downtime is clearing off that back docket because there's so many. I gave a list to assessing and I asked them when they went out to do their canvas this year to make sure those businesses are there and they came back with a lot of them that were no longer there. Um, there might be a business that says, you know, Dr. Smith's office on the door, but Dr. Smith moved out 5 years ago and the landlord never took the name off the door. And assessing knocks, nobody opened. So, they just say, "Well, they must have $5,000 worth of equipment there." And they move on to the next one. And

we [clears throat] need to change that. Because the biggest uh problem I deal with is you mean change assessing's process? Yeah, they we need to change their diligence in following up to ensure that businesses that they're taxing really have uh that personal property on site and if they have to make multiple visits, they have to make multiple visits. So, what do we need to do? Organize a meeting with assessing bosses? ever because I don't want that. If they're creating work by randomly guessing, that is not a good idea. I've had the conversation and they've done a lot better this fall.

Well, they're doing that uh they do it in December. They walk do their walkounds, right? They they started um uh I think in October and they uh it [clears throat] tax day is December 31st but they started canvasing in October. Uh so I'm not sure how what order they do it in. Well, assessing typically is not a place where a lot of paradigm shifts happen quickly. So I think we need to talk to them. Yeah. Okay.

Cuz they're used to a cookbook kind of thing and we need to change the cookbook here because of us generating a lot of inaccurate information. That is no good. I just I must get 20 to 25 calls a year saying, you know, either we're no longer there or uh I don't have any personal property. Um and that's sometimes their fault for not filing the proper forms. But uh I I get a lot of calls uh when I when I send the send the bills.

So urging small businesses small businesses tend to be these entrepreneurs that say I can do whatever I want and they throw that thing in the trash. It would be better for them if they uh reply because otherwise it's assumed they have personal property that's taxable and then it starts a process and then they get upset when they get a bill that cannot be changed.

Yeah. And I think it's more of a case of they're entrepreneurs so they're doing everything and they don't understand that. uh if they have an accountant uh a lot of times the accountants don't understand that but the state has a firm fixed date of February 20th and if you miss that date too bad for you [clears throat] yeah it's not like negotiating with somebody to buy a new lawn mower right not they're not going to change it for you so uh I know I know some small business people that say oh ignore that I don't have to put up with government, but then it ends up at a problem. Yeah, that's

And they could make it go away by filling out the boxes that says, "I have less than $80,000." And I think the what is the other one? 180. If they have less than 80, they only have to fill out the form once. If it's between 80 and 180, they have to fill it out every year. But they used to teach you in school, follow direction. [sighs and gasps] All right. Uh, John,

I'll read my comments. Number one, uh, 100% vote in support of confidence in Township Attorney Kevin Bennett. Number two, and perhaps the most important, it is a great privilege, and I can't thank you enough for the opportunity to serve all the citizens of Plymouth Township and to vote in their best interest. Number three, we are less than 48 hours away from firearms hunting season, November 15th. It's a huge day in Michigan. Uh please be safe. 58,000 deer car crashes last year. 20 ended up in fatalities. If firefighter Tacoma brings back a deer, I want to hear about it. or any other member of the police department. And speaking of the police department, Lake Point homeowners had a meeting attended by over 65 residents, all-time high. The supervisor was there and my wife was just overwhelmingly impressed with his cander and brevity. She also greatly appreciated the presence of the presence of Chief Jim Nitel. And to end my comments, I have been trying for years for the employees to have a physical fitness program. I know that Trustee Buckley is strongly supportive of physical fitness, but Chief Nitel walked in with police officer Christensen. And um I know that Sandy Growth and my wife would uh like to see Officer

Christensen and firefighter Drew Lden lead a program commencing in January of 2026 of physical fitness for the people of Plymouth Township. That's all. John, thank you very much and good night. John, I'm bringing somebody in to to take to evaluate our gym and there's been somebody appointed from the police department and the fire department. We're going to do that next week and see what equipment we would keep, what equipment we might add. Uh, and I can make a few recommendations. Uh, so uh,

anyway, we're we're working on physical fitness. The we've gotten the room cleaned up. Amazingly, it wasn't being cleaned by the janitor service for ye decades. Talking about the one right upstairs right up there. Yeah. Yeah. It smelled like sweat. Wonder. So, it's being cleaned now. [clears throat] So, anyway, we're we're thinking about physical fitness and we're going to do something. Good. Let's re let's fix up that room. Yep. I could use it, Jen.

Yeah. So on that note, um our Veterans Commission uh meeting for December is cancelled due to lack of agenda items. However, come the new year, speaking of physical fitness, John, um I encourage you to come out to the Armed Forces 5K Rock March, which we did in 2024, um we had to sideline it last year, but it'll be back in 2026. It's a great opportunity for the community to come together. um patriotic neighbors um in support of our first responders and veterans um and do something that's you know hard and difficult and solidarity for all the the the tough stuff you guys go through on a daily basis. Um that's the premise of the of the march. Um and then I just was curious um where are we at with the fire study?

I'm going to talk about that. I figured it's been a it's been a hot second. Um, and then I saw on the bills that we paid for an advertisement for an assistant finance director. Is that different from the pay the payroll? Yes. Yes. Okay. So, have we had two people? Yes, we did. It was Carol Rashan. And she was promoted to finance director. Okay. Got it. And then the payroll person is a part-time person. Okay. They left on October 29th. It's a payables person, not a payroll person. Not payroll. Payables. Exactly. Duh.

Payroll is also part-time, but that person is still on board. So, accounting is a one-man show, onewoman show right now. Trusty Buckley, you've had a chance to talk with a lot of the firefighters from what I hear. And Jim Harold's retirement is this Saturday, and he's been a model as far as a professional firefighter. Two o'clock elks. Oh, thank you. I didn't know that. Appreciate it. An odd day. They picked opening day of deer season. Anyway, not everyone's paying attention to that. I'm all I'm good. You're all set?

Yeah. Uh [clears throat] December 2nd, we're going to have a joint planning commission and township board meeting. Um which of you are not going to be attending on that? Tuesday, December 2nd. You're a maybe. I'm a maybe. All right. I'm anniversary. Okay. You're you're out. Um we hope to have some productive thinking. There's been a lot of uh confusion and um dissatisfaction with certain things that go on in planning. So maybe we can work some of this out and maybe we'll make some changes in the future. Um it's Mr. Supervisor, I apologize. Yeah. We had one of these meetings a few years ago with the previous supervisor

and everybody got upset because we're up here and it was looked down there and we were the optics were bad. Is there anywhere going to be down there conference? Everybody's going to be down there. Yeah, we'll set up the tables. I quit after. Thank you. Yeah, we'll set that is high. That's respect. Okay. Everybody will be down there. It'll be a working meeting so people can stand up like I like to stand up and walk around and stuff like that. We might do some of that. Um burpees, push-ups.

Yeah, exactly. Um USA Hockey is going to have a special um Plymouth Township uh 10-year anniversary that they've been here on November 21st. Uh don't know all the details yet, but they're going to have something there. Drop the puck or whatever. I haven't talked to anybody yet. Oh, can I make a plug real quick for that? That's our event. So on November 22nd, the Veterans Commission will be doing a fundraiser for Chucka Puck or not four, but for our commission to for our um That's on a Saturday.

Yes, that's on a Saturday and they literally all the proceeds go to the Veterans Commission and someone gets to chuck a puck into the arena. I won't be there. We'll have um two of our other commissioners there. Um oh, and I didn't mention that uh John Lockwood stepped down. So we have a we have an opening another opening. So two to fill. We have two two to fill. Y

um ESCI which is the fire uh consulting company. That contract has been signed and [snorts] the next step is for fire chief Conley to upload data which will take some work. It is a they have a a website where the data is uploaded electronically and he will be working on that beginning this November 17th. He is ill today. That's why he's not here. Um, so we're beginning that process and we're going to be I'm even going to ask that they interview Harold as part of the study since he been here a long time. He may have some insights that um uh could be useful. So that's uh what I have for now.

Anything else? Motion to adjurnn. Mr. Supervisor second. All in favor? I I We'rejourned. So, happy Thanksgiving. Right. Yes.