City Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome everyone to a special workshop uh meeting of the Birmingham City Commission. We're at 151 Martin Street in our historic city hall. Uh we are here tonight uh no formal action will be taken but we're here tonight to discuss a uh capital improvement or infrastructure master plan. Uh there is uh plenty to discuss on this topic. Uh and we could be here all night. Uh but right now um and for tonight I think what we need to focus on is uh the notion of a master plan and and uh I see a hand raised from the city manager. So I will uh

call to order. I did call to order. Right. Roll call. Oh, we need a roll call. Sorry. Mayor Balor here. Mayor Prom Log here. Commissioner Hey is absent. Commissioner Hopes here. Commissioner Cole here. Commissioner Tazowski here. Commissioner here. Oh, was that what you wanted? No. Oh, so you missed it, too. I missed it, too. I was just going to give a brief intro. Yeah. Well, I by all means, uh, okay, yield the floor to the city manager.

Yeah, I was just going to give a brief uh intro on the topic. We've talked about capital improvements a lot, right? Um, we have an existing capital improvement plan which you'll hear more about in a minute and it's mainly you can find it throughout the budget but you know over the years people have said it's not easy to find because it's buried within a 300page budget document. That's true. So we have prepared just this year a new capital improvement plan that's a standalone document which you you saw parts of it at the long range planning meeting. So it'll make it a little easier to find. But I guess what I want to say is that you you keep hearing on a regular basis capital improvement needs going up. You hear about people I don't like the potholes in my street. You've probably noticed we've had more water main breaks this year than we've had in any uh period in the last 20 years, I think. Um and and the funding issue keeps coming up, right? How do we pay for it? Whether it's special assessments, whether it's the general fund, whether whatever. So this is not a simple issue. It's a very complicated issue. It's very involved and it's but it's very significant and I think the public needs to understand too that it is a big problem. It costs a lot of money and we can't solve all of our problems at once because we are an old community. We have aging infrastructure. A lot of our water and sewer lines are are coming up on a hundred years old. I think Melissa will have some facts for you on that. Um, we're also a builtout community, so we have to rip everything up that's already there to get underneath. And also, we have limited resources. You know, we have a budget every year, and it's a nice sizable budget for a community our size, but it's not enough to tackle every single road and every single water, sewer, and pavement issue in the city. It's just not. So, we have to look at what we're going to do. Funding is our biggest issue. Our needs are great. We have competing priorities. Do we do city hall? Do we do a new police station? Do we do roads, water, sewer, all of that?

And we have a constrained budget. We just do. We It is what it is. And the only way that we can do more is to either a look at other funding alternatives or b look at our existing budget and make different priority decisions, make cuts elsewhere and and put them into the road. So I guess basically our hope for this workshop is that it'll start the conversation that you've all we've all heard pieces of to draw attention to all of the issues to kind of define our priorities um to talk to educate the public to talk a little bit about sustainability long term because you know once we do an improved road we then assume the obligation of maintaining it ever after and that has financial ramifications as well. So all of those things I think and we need to talk about considering alternate funding sources. So all of that I say to to give Melissa the floor to talk about do we need to do a capital improvement master plan? Do we need to have somebody that can come in and evaluate our situation which is completely similar to many other communities across the state and country and look at what we want to do to address it. Do we want to move faster? if we do, where do we get the money and all of that. So, it's it's a complex issue. So, I'm turning it over to Melissa. She'll go through in a little bit more detail and we're keeping it brief because the whole point is to have conversation at the commission level so that all of you can talk about this. And I know there's no easy answer tonight, but at least we want to hear from you as you hear what our plans are for the coming year.

Melissa,

thank you. Um so just a quick overview quickly go over this presentation. Um the current capital improvement program the master plans um we did pull some example capital improvement master plans from other nearby communities um to see how they present the information uh to the public and questions and discussion. And before I kick it off um I just want to just high level mention some of the information about our current capital improvement program. Um, for our existing water man, we have about a 100 miles of water mane within the city itself. About 38 miles of it or 38% were either built in 1929 or earlier. So, what we're looking at at least from the water system standpoint, 38% of your water man is going to be reaching approximately 100 years old uh coming up here in the next few years. Um, so that's something we do look at for our current for our capital improvement program. Um for the sewers it's right about the same percentage about 38% type of a deal. Sewer is a little bit more hard I say it's more difficult to justif justify but to be able to calculate the year because you may have a sewer that was installed in the 1920s or 1930s and we have since lined the sewer. And so with that, that extends the uh life of the sewer. And part of that would be something that we would review if we do go out next year for an RFP for a consultant to be able to look at is to examinate our sewer system just because we do have um a good amount of sections in the city that are line sewer from sewers that were either built in the 1920s or 30s. Um for the roads, a little bit of good news. Um we use the Paser rating to be able to determine our road um categories. One means poor and 10 means the best. that just got constructed. Back in 2021, our average PASER rating for the whole entire city road system, including local and major streets, was 4.28. Um, end of last year, we got our PASER ratings done, and our current score is 5.266. So, we have increased our roads for our PAS rating. Usually, a community size

wants to be around a six um for your typical PASER rating itself. And as far as our current funding, um this fiscal year, our current capital improvement program is around $17.7 million. Um with that, we have a $2.5 million grant for South Eaton um project. So city's out of pocket cost is 15.2 million. Um next year for what we bring forward in the next couple months for fiscal year 2627, we're proposing $19.3 million in the capital improvement program. And then years uh fiscal year 2728 that does go up higher to 21.9 million but that year includes a 2.87 million grant for Derby Bridge. So the city's cost would be uh approximately 19.1 million itself. So that's what we're kind of looking at for this year's capital improvement program of what we're spending and the future two fiscal years. And that includes um our sidewalk, uh major roads, local roads, water and sewer funds with those amounts.

And that is approximately 15 to 18% of our total budget,

give or take. Yes, absolutely. So for anybody that hears all the time, we don't put money into our roads, water, and sewer lines. That's not true. We do put a lot, a substantial portion, and it's been increasing every year. There's a lot more to do because we are an an older community. Um so with this aside uh shows kind of an existing um what a public would see with our current capital improvement program. So it's located within our budget uh budget project. It's towards the back of the budget uh packet itself. And with this it's got a capital improvement uh plan list that shows for the streets water and sewer capital program. And then each project itself has an individual sheet that has some of the information about the project. And then down here would be essentially what's going to be funding those streets itself. Um so that's currently how our uh capital improvement program is shown within the uh annual budget. And then so um at long range planning earlier on this year commission discussed hiring a consultant to create a new capital improvement master plan and then to be able to also review the city's funding model and selection project uh prog process for the projects. Um the engineering department is requesting $200,000 in next year's budget for this. Um so with this for tonight's meeting we did bring up examples from other communities uh nearby uh Farmington Hills um has this is as their example took one section out of it. It's a PDF of it and this is showing the water system. So it'll have a summary of the information for um what type of projects they are and then the following sheet would be essentially a summary sheet of where the location is of that. And I do have this pulled up on the screen here for them. It's um a a settalone plan but it also includes other major departments um so public facilities, police, technology, parks and rock equipment etc. So for them their capital improvement program for infrastructure is embedded for everything that they do capital improvement pro capital improvements for the city itself.

Um the next example we had is the city of nobies. Um so they use what we call as a GIS GIS dashboard. Um so with this you're able to click on a fiscal year's funding sources categories on the side and then it'll update this information here. So here's a kind of an example of theirs here for their dashboard. So this will show all their fiscal years for the next 5 years. Once you click here, it'll update the funding amounts itself and the streets for a location for it to be able to show how it's done. And then here's kind of a summary of that year of or sorry the summary of that project itself. Um with this one thing we kind of did notice is they have this these blocks over here that are some of their projects and some of it is just like a citywide project. So this one's city uh sidewalks. This one is the water system. So we did notice they essentially have year 2526 AC water main replacement with this. It doesn't necessarily show on the map where it's located at. So, you would have to pull up the project map for this one and then at the end it showed the breakdown of this. So, one thing we did notice about that one, say hypothetically you lived at 123 Main Street, went to go click on that on the GIS dashboard, it may not show up that you have a water mane improvement, you would need to go to the individual maps of that. So, that's one thing we did notice about that. If you're grouping projects together to either make sure you have those streets labeled in GIS so you can click on it um to be able to make sure that the public is aware that there's an upcoming project on a certain road if you click on the GIS map. And then the last one we did pull was the city of Ann Arbor. Um with this one that has its own actually has its own department um their capital planning department that has a whole entire web page of it. So this is a summary of

their web page of what it looks like. It's got a breakdown of uh what type of projects etc. And they also have a GIS dashboard um that you can be able to click on off of the website. So here's kind of a summary of their um information. It divides it by um types of projects itself and um information about that including the funding for it. And then once you click on their interactive mapping tool, it will open up this one here. So they do have a similar thing of like if you're doing a citywide project um like local street resurfacing, it'll just list it here type of a deal. Um, but for like their water manes and everything else, they do have each individual uh essentially street labeled with it. So once you click on that one, you can then see that it's going to be a 60-inch water man upgrade type of a deal. Um, so this one does have city of no or sorry, city of Ann Arbor did break down their projects a little bit more. So if you did click on the map, you would get a better idea of the projects itself. And then so um some of the discussion that city staff was having is um what parts of the infrastructure scoring currently works well? What changes would you like to see made with the process? Um how should the capital um um CIP plan be presented? Did you prefer a dashboard that's in GIS that's more interactive if someone click clicks on their location or and or report? And then also to something to be able to discuss is uh how should this be revisit in the future? How many years uh should the plan include? how often does it need to get update? Um and then also to the essentially the ongoing maintenance of it too. And then um also too since we've had that we've had a few other discussion uh questions that came in today. Um and this is a new slide here with additional questions. Um can we improve how we plan and it plan and manage infrastructure upgrades? Um should we hire a consultant

to help us expand upon our existing capital improvement plans? Um what elements of infrastructure beyond uh streets, sewer, water man should be included? And then do we want the consultant to be able to help us understand the magnitude that we face? Um evaluate how we currently pay for maintenance and improvements and suggest alternative funding. Um develop financial uh modeling. Um help us enhance our system for priority improvements and address the process to facilitate uh better resident engagement. And with that um any questions about the presentation I can answer at any time. Thank you. Thank you. You had your hand.

Yeah. Just wanted to add one thing and that is you you saw that Melissa put in there that there is a budget request for 200,000. That is uh an estimate of what we think it could cost and that's of course subject to the city commission's approval. It's in the draft budget which you'll be hearing about on April 25th. And so, you know, we certainly open to any comments at this time, but certainly it's subject to your approval before it gets finalized.

Okay. Uh I'm I'd like to open it up with a quick question and then um on the if you could go back to the slide that showed Ann Arbor's dashboard. Yeah. 46. No no for that's one. So the you know keeping it at a high level they have 461 projects for 1.6 billion. What is that like? What is what is do you know what that is that everything they plan to do in the next 5 years, 10 years, 20 years? Yeah, let me go. What what is that?

So, yes. So, their total of the 461 projects shown right here and approximately the $1.6 billion here is these subcategories right here. So, they've got active transportation, um, airport because they do have a city airport, uh, city- owned buildings, um, other infrastructure, uh, parking facilities, uh, parks and recreation, their sanitary sewer system. South looks like everything. Storm water, streets and bridges, and their water main system. So, it looks like everything. And it's not just it's five years, though. Five years. It says fiscal year 2026 to 2031 is what it says on the website. And so the city of N is this aspirational or they do they

actually have the funding to do $1.6 billion in improvements in the next 5 years that that I don't expect anybody to know.

No, I think it's aspirational because they do their budgeting similar to how we do where we do a multi-year budget but the only one you're really approving is the following year and they would apply for grants every year as well. So, so when we talk about getting a grasp of the magnitude of what we face, that looks like what they've done there, right? They they've identified at whatever point they did this project, this this plan, 461 different projects that are going to cost 1.6 billion. Whether they actually do them or not, we don't know. How they prioritize them, we don't necessarily know. That would be something for us, but Okay. Thank you. You could go back to that last slide if you'd like. And uh Commissioner Host, you've been waiting a long time for this uh

years. Thank you. Um Melissa, you started out by saying we have 100 miles of water uh lines. Uh and you I believe you said sewer lines were about 100 miles. Sewer we have about 116 miles. So a little bit more because of the uh separated storm. The similarity was in the percentage that is at or over a 100 years old. 38%

38%. And and then you mentioned the liners. Um I'm told that the liners are guaranteed for 50 years. Are is that quite a cost reduction from uh actual new lines being put down in the ground?

Yeah. Yeah. So when you line a sewer, you are going in between two man holes for the equipment and lining the sewer itself. Um with that, it does extend the life about approximately 50 years when the liner gets installed. Um with that, it's uh you're not tearing up the road beforehand. So there does reduce the cost of removing replacing the road up above if you were doing an open cut excavation for it. Um what you do have to look for lining sewers though is make sure the sewer is in um acceptable condition to accept the liner. Um so a lot of times if we see uh a joint offset. So if a pipe's coming here and it's offset um extremely bad or a lot of cracking, it may not be a good candidate for a liner and it may be recommend to be able to remove and replace and open cut the sewer for uh replacement.

Okay. So out of the 38% or maybe 50% what would your guess be could accommodate a liner to your knowledge or not? So with this we've got a we know the percentage of what got installed. What we need to study more is how many of the liners have been installed and what age was the original sewer. We don't necessarily have that studied um type of a deal. So I would have to bring that information forward. That's only, you know, those are my questions only for Melissa.

Okay. Do you want to address any of the questions that are on the slide?

Uh, sure. Uh, let me start right out of the shoot saying I'm not sure we need a consultant. We have the matrix. uh we should just extend them out 10 years. Uh and of course that would be subject to water mane breaks or um other issues. But uh uh Melissa, h have you thought about uh having multiple contracts with the same contractor so that we keep them in an area longer as well as gain more efficiencies.

So usually we bid out a project for that construction season. Um, the problem you run into if we hypothetically, I'm just throwing out something. If we went to about a project for a phase two for next year, sometimes the contractors might not be willing to extend their pricing that much um for the following year because they may not know what they're going to be charged by their subcontractors for um increase of cost of supplies. Um, they may not know what gas prices are going to be next year, so how much it's going to cost to run their equipment. Um, so the problem we're into is doing a multi-year contract award is contractors may not know what their supplies or potentially equipment costs are going to be for next year if we went to go bid at this time. Um, usually if you bid in the fall for the following year or winter for the following year, you're good. But if we wanted to say bid something to be constructed in 2027, it might be hard for contractors to be able to narrow down their pricing for that time. Well, on the statewide uh mitten, um aren't most of the contracts for two years?

It depends on what the project is for. Um sometimes for crack sealing, they might extend it for 2 years. Um usually what you're running into is for if you're doing underground utilities, most people is just for that project area that's going to be constructed that year. I'm okay for now. Okay. Yes. Come.

So, I I view the issues as follow as follows. We have a a way of grading the road right now um as far as which ones we're pulling forward to do and which ones we're doing later. First of all, is that sufficient? Does that need to be looked at again? Do we need to do we need to um devise a better plan or is that PL plan sound enough for us to move forward? That's number one. Number two is we have lots of miles of roadway that we need to we need to do and how are we going to pay for it. Are we going to do it the way we've been doing it for 30 40 years? Um or are we going to uh bring about a change whether it's a bond or some other way to to raise that money? Even when we get past the money issue. The third issue is going about doing that process. Obviously, if we magically had a billion dollars to do tomorrow, we wouldn't be able to do it all at once. The city would come to a grinding halt. You wouldn't be able to have uh, you know, contractors that would even be able to be available to do that. And then the final issue is costs. Is there a way for us to work with a contractor or a group of contractors where they will hold the line as to cost from year to year? maybe we can get a two-year or a three-year guarantee from them. As we saw on the last two roads uh roads that we did, it was a vastly different cost for Arlington and Shirley than it was for Wimbledon. Um and part of that is just contractors not being willing to take the risk that they're going to go out of business if they bid something and then they find that the costs are astronomically higher. Um and so we're dealing we're dealing with that issue as well. Um, we were pleasantly surprised in Arlington and Shirley that we gave quotes that came in somewhere around 40 to 50% less than what we had what we had thought. Maybe it was 30%, but it was significant. And I was pleasantly

surprised as were as were the residents that their $30,000 bill was 15 or their $40,000 bill was 20 or something along those lines. And then we went to Wimbledon and it went the completely the other direction where it was more expensive than what we what we had anticipated. And that's all driven by the fact that we put it on Mitten the contractor's bid and we try and take the lowest bid uh for somebody that we know that's going to do a good job. Um and so that's the variable from and we've just experienced that from one year to another and it was completely different uh sides of the book ends as far as cost. So those are the issues that I view that we need to deal with. um the the the how we pay for it. Um you know, we're elected to represent all 21,000 residents and we have residents that fall into a couple different buckets, right? We have residents that have already paid for their streets and, you know, paid their fair share that we represent and then we have other residents who have haven't yet but are going to be that are that are facing significantly higher costs than say somebody that paid 10 years ago or even five years ago. Um, depending on which bucket you fall into, you as a resident, you may have a different opinion about how the city goes about doing this, whether it's keeping it the way we have been doing it or doing a bond because the people who have already paid for it are going to pay twice. They're going to pay, they paid for their own street and then they're going to pay for somebody, you know, somebody else's street. Again, it spreads it out. Um, which which, uh, is good. And again, that resident complaining that they paid five, ten years ago for their street and why should they have to pay on a bond for for somebody else's street paid significantly less, I would hazard to guess just because the costs are are are increasing. Um, we we've seen that from

year to year. Um, so how do we serve all 21,000 residents and their best interests when they are in v vastly different situations depending on um where they live and and when their streets have been done.

It's a workshop. I think that um I think that the paser ratings are fine. I think that there that's a fairly objective measurement and that we're we're doing it on a regular basis and we've got good historical data. Um but that paser rating is not the only thing we take into account when we figure out what street to do. We're spending um or I'm asking we're waiting um sewer and water condition probably equally or more so I mean it's supposed to be thirds right if you look at our chart it's 100 points for paser 100 for sewer and 100 for water some streets don't have sewer under them so they would never perhaps rise to the 300 score that's the worst you can you know get um or the 30 score you 10 or 100 depending on how you're counting But um um I think where there is um subjectivity or less than objectivity is you if you're looking at sewer and water rate ratings you can't or the engineering department is not making the decision just based on age or worseness. They also have to, as Melissa said many times, take into account where that segment is in the whole sewer system, what drain district it's in, and what the segments are above and below it. Um, and this is perhaps I don't know whether engineering has a great grasp on that or a consultant would be more helpful in helping us look at that. But you can't just say this street's got the worst paser rating and the sewer is also oh old so I'm going to just do this segment because you could

be causing problems upstream or downstream. So it seems to me that when the projects that we're getting lately or the reason that we picked Wimbledon and then we're going to Abby is Melissa gave very succinct explanation of how the sewers worked in that area and which segments they need to do in what order. And the segments we need to do in what order is not in the rubric that we're using right now. rubric just has the scores and then they add that layer onto it which is what segment should we do in what order because they affect other work or other flows and that is perhaps where it's less clear to the general public how we're making these decisions because that's not in a printed rubric. I don't know if you want to weigh in about that Melissa.

Yeah. So that's the infrastructure is one of scores is one of the tools that we do use and as like you mentioned to be able to improve something on Abby and further north there it drains towards Wimbledon. So Wimbledon and it drains towards the west. So that area had to be the first phase to get improvements done to it to be able to accept the upgrades further to the north and to the east of it itself. And some of that information is drainage maps that we have, but that's not necessarily factored in the infrastructure scoring to to have the general public be aware of that. So somebody could say, "My sewers are old and my street's terrible, but I'm not on the plan. We hear this for five more years and that's ridiculous. Why?" And if there was a place you could go look and say this segment, then this segment, then this segment, it might be easier for people to understand.

Uh I'm going to weigh in on that.

Sure. And that uh I I I do think that there's some room room for improvement that the scoring system we have now is a good start, but that we're not that there are certain things we're not taking into account and there are sort of anomalies that pop up. So I'll give you uh a few examples. Number one is uh we don't take into account necessarily whether it's an whether it's a major street or a local street. We don't uh take into account traffic uh counts how much traffic a certain street gets. If all else being equal and one street has this much traffic and the other has this much traffic, there's nothing in our scoring that uh uh uh takes that into account. We have streets uh we have streets that don't have sewers. Uh so they can't get the benefit of the 100 points for sewers. So if your sewer's in the backyard and it was lined in the last 10 years, then your street, which could be any one of the streets in the Corton Lake Estates, uh isn't going to make the cut. Uh but a sis but a more s a slightly more sophisticated system allows the engineer control allows the engineer even has a a a category or whatever you want to call it where the the engineer can say this this streak requires uh needs to be done before that streak. This this is urgent. There are things that could trigger you know this goes right to the top. Uh but that that would be up to her. So, I would be in favor of looking into a much uh to a to a a slightly maybe a little bit more than slightly more robust uh system for scoring roads that goes beyond just the three ratings

and and that may to add to that. Sorry. No, go ahead. That's where maybe a consultant could be considered to help with that process. So we take what is 1 through 10 right now and maybe it's 1 1 A 1B or you know we're sliding in roads and maybe that's a living breathing document that can change absolutely over over time that a street pops up because of of of you know but I think a a consultant there could be helpful

and if it was online every uh every resident could look at it and see where their street falls and how it's rated and why it was rated the way it was rated. Um, as many of you know, I I I put some time into this and uh, as part of that, you know, the computer, the Google came up with a with an Excel spreadsheet. It's very sophisticated. I didn't screw around with it, but it had the weightings. You could you it had all these categories. It had all the different waitings. You could change the waitings if you wanted. You it all it needed was the data. Input the data. Now, a a consultant could validate that. the city engineer could validate it at this point. You know, chat GPT came up with it and it looks it looks darn close to to what we might want. Uh but would need that heavy validation and even heavier input of data to to make it actually workable.

Commissioner Kasowski.

Yes. So, um I I think all that stuff is is a good idea. Um, do we need a consultant to do some of it? Maybe, maybe not. Like you said, Chat GPD spit out something pretty good in 10 seconds, right? So, I don't know if we need to spend 200 grand on a consultant, but um, but I am I am mostly concerned with one of the the bullets up here, which is about understanding the magnitude of what we face. And we we kind of got it, you know, and and this is an overly dramatic way to put it, but we don't want to be rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic here, right? If we adjust our rating system, we have it absolutely perfect, but we're only spending money half as fast as we need to, it's over, right? Like it's not going to work no matter how good our prioritization is. So, in terms of understanding the magnitude of what we face, we kind of got uh some indication of it. You know, I think doing a sort of 30,000 ft very very high level analysis is worth it. And we heard, you know, we have a 100 miles of water manes. 38% are 100 years old. From from the projects we've done recently, it looks like it costs something like $10 million per mile to dig up a street, replace all the pipes, and put the street back in. So 38 miles times $10 million a mile is $380 million, right? How long is it going to take us to spend $380 million replacing roads? Because these things are going to be hundred years old in like what, three years, right? And some of them probably already are. So there's no hope that we're going to spend $380 million in 3 years. So the question is how fast are we? Because right now I don't even think we're doing a mile a year. We're probably doing half a mile, 3/4 of a mile. Uh so it's like even if we did a mile a year, it would take us 38 years to do this. at which point some of these pipes are going to be 140 years old right so that when we talk about understanding

the magnitude I feel like that's right very rough very high level but I think it gives us some sense that yeah there's some urgency here and one of the big questions is how are we going to get the money to do two miles a year instead of one and I feel like that you know and and I don't think that a consultant you know they can give us some ideas I guess But but really that's going to come down to us to some degree and to decide what is uh both plausible and fair to citizens. So that's probably and you know that brings up to to Mayor Pro's Long's point about our existing funding structures. Do we do bonds? When do we do special assessments? I think we should probably revisit our sort of philosophy on special assessments and directionally where do we want to go? I know that um the I believe the recommendation of the ad hoc unimproved street committee was well we should just improve every street in the city. Okay. Well, then there's no more special assessments because we do everything. But obviously that means our maintenance liabilities for roads is a third higher than it was with presumably basically no commensurate increase in tax revenue. Right? Improving the streets does not increase the tax base. So where does that money come from? Right? So all of these things, you know, it feels to me like a lot of this just boils down to we need a lot more money. uh and we kind of need it yesterday but you know best best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago second best time is right now right so I feel like that is really the number one priority question is sort of how do we get and I understand that with water it's even trickier because we can't just get general fund money and and put it in there it's got to come out of the water funds um maybe we can do a bond or something for it so we need to explore those possibilities but I feel like that

question uh jumps out to me as being as being the highest priority thing is how much do we need to spend to stay on top of this stuff and then to some degree what happens if we don't like the city manager said about having water main breaks this year are we going to have twice that many in 5 years you know that seems like a big problem so those are the things that I'm concerned about

and just to respond uh quickly to the question of the magnitude that's important for all of us to understand especially us as policy makers but If if we're going to go ask for money, the the people we're asking better be educated about what we face. They've got to know that we've got a problem because right now all they know is they drive on bumpy streets. They don't know that a four or five inch water man is now only 2 in. And they don't know that half the bumps are caused by double the number of water mane breaks this winter because we had to dig up the road to fix the water mane break. Right.

Right. I just want to when we look at capital, we're looking at the same pool of capital to do everything. roads and sewers and water may be the most important priority right now, but that includes software, includes improvements to the city buildings, includes the includes the police department, includes parks, parks, all that stuff. So I don't think I think while this may be the most pressing and urgent issue to address and probably the biggest single financial requirement, we can't look at that in the absence of everything else because if you spend it all there, then we're going to be in the hole here and then it's just a game of ping pong and you never catch up.

That's what the appeal of the Ann Arbor plan that has everything in it together. I it'd be very interesting to know what they're doing like how they're I mean there still might be rearranging debt chairs or move whatever you said about when they decide what to do. It's still a challenge. Well, I all I can tell you is they're not spending $320 million every year for the next 5 years. That's what 1.6 is divided. So they're not spending $320 million unless they've got some way of doing their tax base and collecting money better than than we know how to do. So unless the university is funding a big part of it. It could be. Maybe they are.

Mr. Mayor on track with this. Uh Melissa, do you think we could do a 10-year plan that uh would be similar to what uh Ann Arbor has done? and if not, who did the Ann Arbor plan?

So, with a 10-year capital improvement program, it could be done. Um concern that probably um a few departments may have would be years 5 to 10, stuff can get moved around and shift. That's the only concern is knowing that it's a working document after a certain time frame because what may come up is department of public services might have five water man breaks in two years on a segment of water man that was going to be year nine and gets moved up to year hypothetically six or five type of a deal cuz that has brought up the processing part. Um, we could program out to 10 years, but knowing it's the caveat that things may get shifted, adjusted, move around of conditions that occur year by year by year that may affect um, moving something up or down. And also part of that too is is that stuff does shift around in general when we apply for grants. That's what happened with Derby Bridge is we were planning on doing it in year 27, but now we're doing it in 28 since we did got we did get a grant from the state that causes us to shift projects around. Um so it would be a communication standpoint of understanding that this would be kind of our goal for 10 years but some of it may shift around due to um stuff that occurs and also funding situations too. Um hypothetically if something happens and we have to reduce funding for our water sewer and street funds then that's also going to be a factor too. So to to hold on

uh you know part of that question was uh do do you think uh Ann Arbor Engineering did that and if so um don't you think you you have the wherewithal in within your department?

So City of Ann Arbor their capital department is 11 full-time people. So they've got multiple people working on that. um looking at their uh budget and looking at their staffing. A couple of it's from engineering uh department from a few of it's from department of public services part some of it's part of building maintenance itself. So with Ann Arbor they have about 11 full-time people that handles all of that work shown on their GIS dashboard. Um with this right now for water and sewers and streets and roads that's just the engineering department um here at the city of Birmingham. Um, so with that, we could do some of the coordination, but a lot of the detail done with that we would need help on with the engineering department with our current staffing.

You were. Yeah, I was I was just going to say just to reframe Commissioner Ho's question slightly differently. Instead of a 10-year plan, what about just an inventory? Well, that's what I'm not sure. You said somewhere in there it said that that was Ann Arbor's five-year plan, but there's clearly I doubt there's any way they're going to come up with that much money to do that within five years. And that's what that is then. It's an inventory. It's a wish list of the top priority, right? Pretty much. Right. Pretty much which is, you know, and that

which is we have on a three to five year basis, but it's not as easy to follow for the general public. Well, and it also doesn't include adjustments to the rubric that the mayor was talking about, right? You know, um nor does it include, you know, people are going to stand up and say, "Why are you spending this money over there when you should have spent it over here?" We might even do that tonight. Right. Right. and and so without taking into account all that stuff and having it all in front of you when you make a decision to spend a half a million or a million or $3 million on this everybody can look at it and say right there.

Yeah. And and again and the other thing is I don't think first of all I don't think the engineering department has the bandwidth to do this. They are stretched way thin already just getting projects designed, bid, implemented, inspected. Um they don't have the huge administrative back staff that just stays in the office to work on this kind of thing. They don't. Um, but I'm al I also think that we have to have a robust discussion about how we as a city pay for these things because we've we've heard for the last several years that the amount of money in the sewer and water funds, which is not a lot, is rate limiting for how much work we can accomplish. as we moved away from supporting sewer and water improvements with the general taxes which we and every other communities had to do because we all got sued. Um and it is based on user fees. This is not a large com largesized community with a lot of rateayers that are going to generate the user fees that are going to pay for the scale of improvements that need to be made. I mean, the city of Detroit spends a hund00 million a year replacing sewer and water pipes. We don't have that kind of capacity. We could triple the sewer and water rates to get to where we needed to generate the income to make these improvements. So, I think somebody to help us look at what the scale of the cost is versus I mean, Treasury can certainly help, but that is a huge question. What would it take to even to move to two two miles a year? How much more money would we have to have in the sewer and water fund for rate payers to s to pay for those costs? And what would

it do to the sewer and water rates because it would greatly burden many, you know, seniors and so forth in this community who couldn't afford to pay those rates. So, are there other ways that we can pay for the sewer and water improvements? Those are more problematic from a cash flow point of view than the road surface is cuz the road surface has some taxpayer contribution. We can argue about how much or whether we should do it, but at this point it does. There's more money available for the surface than there is for the infrastructure underground. And we're already asking people to pay for their own laterals for sewer and water. So, we're just talking about there is not enough money in the sewer and water fund to do what we need to do at the scale that we need to do it or the speed that we need to do it. And so that is a fundamental question that we need to address. And it may be that a consultant could help us look at that along with the other things. I mean it's not just the consultant can you make this this nice website for us to look at it's the fundamental underpinnings that we need to look at and we have not as they said talked about we don't have it and parks in there we don't have buildings in there and those are hard to say you could say well we need a police new police station let's put it in the plan what number do you put on that is that a renovation is that a new building someplace else. I mean, we have to be really careful because it's, you know, garbage in, garbage out. So, how you're assigning costs to some of these things are whole other deep dive conversations about how we would weight them and how we would budget for them and what our goal is for that. And we don't have some of those decisions already to say we can

put the police department in there or we can put city hall in there, you know, uh, Are are we let me ask this question. Are we modeling uh tax uh tax revenue out based on what we've done? I think we do. Yes. Yeah. Are we including like projects like anticipated on the southeast corner of two close to 200 units of of new housing in one ninestory building across from

only for those that are already in the planning process. So we don't say, "Oh, that's a vacant piece of land. We expect in 7.3 years it'll be developed." But if we know that something's in the queue, we will include it in our in our we forecast.

We do know that the triangle master plan never really worked out. We didn't for whatever reason, let's say we didn't, you know, it was because we didn't build public parking or or the the uh parcels were too small or whatever. It just didn't happen. And it's still not happening to any great extent. But if it had happened, where would we be today? You know, how many more millions of dollars in tax revenue would be coming in had that master plan worked out?

And I think in the coming years, you'll see that that plan came into effect in ' 07 and nothing happened as you know with the downturn for the first few years. And it's only in recent years we're starting to see some development. So we will start to see some tax. We've been talking a lot about uh what it's going to cost us, but we haven't been talking about how we can generate new revenue. And I think the way you generate re new revenue is trying to get to the extent that we have the power. We don't have we're not developers, but but we could maybe make it easier for developer if if it's already hard. I I don't I think some developers come in and they fight us and we know who what I'm talking about. others come in, they seem to like do what they need to do and things work out. So, uh, that was off of a conversation I I have to credit Commissioner Klowski with that. If you'd like to say more.

Sure. I mean, I I absolutely agree that I feel like the the triangle district uh is potentially a huge revenue unlock for us if we can make something happen there. But obviously as you mentioned uh there's issues with parking, there's issues with parcel size and difficulty combining things there. But um but yeah, having multiple vacant lots both like in and near the triangle district um which could be you know buildings generating you know half a million in revenue for the city uh you know is heartbreaking when you think about this stuff. But but I think that that Commissioner Long's point is also extremely important here, which is if if one of our main concerns here is with water infrastructure, then I think, and this might be a question for the the city attorney, not to put you on the spot, but my understanding of the lawsuit was that the issue was not so much that tax money could not be used to fund water infrastructure, but that there had been no vote to approve the use of tax revenue for water infrastructure.

Does that seem plausible? I can't because I think that would that would be important for us because if we are considering well we're considering putting a millillage to to voters for roads. Well, could we put one for water? And if they explicitly approve a millillage for replacing water infrastructure, does that pass the the legal test? Like was the issue that we were doing this without voter approval in the past and that's why we got sued or is there some overarching law that says no you can never use property tax revenue for for sewer and water infrastructure? I thought the whole issue was about tying sewage costs to water.

I believe that that's more than they wanted to split it and there was a single attorney who was going around. He hit every community. He hit everybody. But it was because we were charging sewage rates as directly proportional to water. It was how the rates structure was structured. And that's when we split it off. All of a sudden we had two different rates because we have two different drainages, right? Some sewage goes east, some goes west. But I think the the opinion may be important because there may be dicta in the opinion that's answering those questions. Yeah. That's what I'm trying to pull that out and read the entire opinion.

Um, which is challenging because most of the communities including Birmingham entered a consent agreement and a consent judgment. There were communities that did go all the way through and and most failed. So, it would be uh important to read an opinion from one of the judges as to why. And I'll pull that out and and make a report. And as a policy matter, we've decided to uh fund it from sewage sewer and water rates so that that that money isn't necessarily uh count doesn't count against our Headley limit. Right. The more we can shift to rates, the wider the gap.

Sure. I I but my my thought was, well, if we're going to go to voters anyway, right? Because we're we're allowed to theoretically go up to 20 ms, right, with voter approval. Is that does that sound correct to the city manager? Lower than that because of because of the Headley rate. Well, Headley, but you can I mean, isn't a Headley override where you go to the voters and you say, "Okay, well, yeah, we've been Yeah. So, that's kind of what I'm saying is if we're going to ask voters to go above the Headley maximum anyway,

can we do it for water is kind of my question. We seem pretty confident that we could do it to fund roads and my question is can we do it for pipes or is that somehow prohibited by by this by the ruling on this lawsuit? So let me say this that one all these questions that we're asking are questions that will come up in the master planning process. I think

do you agree? and and and it's it's we got we got time tonight, but we don't have that much time. And that is kind of the idea that once we have a consultant on board, we they they come to us with policy choices, we go to them and say this is what we want to do or we don't want to do. They come to us and say this is what you can or you can't do or these are your options. Yes. Yeah, mayor pro.

I'm I'm not advocating or in favor of spending $200,000 on a consultant or or what have you. Um I'd rather spend that on on on a roadway. Um but I am in favor of uh because I think it's something that can be done fairly inexpensively with a consultant. Chat GPT can give them, you know, 70% there and they can go from there. sounds like uh but I am in favor of having a consultant um look at this not only to help because we don't have the bandwidth uh within our engineering department to do that but it also gives an an outside eye an opinion on somebody that does this on a regular basis that can also help um you know the citizens of Birmingham feel confident that we are doing this as transparent as possible and as as economical as possible um and as logical as possible and not just doing that from within where everybody's going to question why you're doing what you're doing. So there is some value there. Um, but I think that we have to take a look at what that cost is going to be and have a gut check of whether we're whether that that's worthwhile to do from a costbenefit analysis. But I do think that we would benefit from getting consultant to help us. And the last thing I'll put is we've got to do something substantial because if we don't, as as um Commissioner Kazowski pointed out, we're going to be right, we're going to be going right back to the roads that we've done already, you know, if we got 38 years. Let's say we do we go to 2 miles a year. Now we're at 20, you know, 20 year. We do it in 20 years. In 20 years, we're going to have uh whatever systems we have now 20 years older and they're 80 or 75, they're going to be approaching

100. It's just going to be a circle. We're and we are never, let's all be very clear, we are never going to catch up unless we win the lottery. We're never going to catch up um unless we have an significant increase in tax base. But what we need to do is take giant bites out of it so that we get as close as possible. Um and and and and and do so in whatever way we can to pay for it. Whether that's a bond, whether that's continuing the way we're doing things. Um you know, th those are all good questions and I'm in favor of considering any and all of them.

Okay. I see at least four members of the public here. If you uh are you guys intending to comment? I want to give you plenty of time to comment. If all four of you going to comment, maybe we should take public comment. Is that Sure. Fair enough. Yep. If you want to comment, come on up. And uh we know your name, but for the record.

Hi, David Blue. I, Mr. Mayor, I have several comments and questions. Would you like me to take them one at a time or would you like me to just get them all out there? Uh, I think you can do one at a time. I mean, we have we have I mean, let's see what

One of the things that that I did not hear tonight was a discussion about improved roads and unimproved roads. And we have sewers that the city owns under everything, but we have improved and unimproved. And then I think you specifically talked about Court and Lake, which is, as far as I know, still all or mostly unimproved. So unimproved roads, the residents are responsible for the Cape Seal and fixing those. And I think there's even something in the packet in your next meeting for that tonight if I recall. And I I know it's counterintuitive and the city has gone during co of a policy of trying to improve more roads. As the city, first of all, as the city improves more roads or more roads get improved, those roads then go on the payroll, go go on the city's books for maintenance, which increases our costs.

Mhm. So, if we're looking at trying to keep our cost down, and this is counterintuitive, maybe we don't want to improve all of those roads. That still leaves the sewer issue. Okay. Um, but one thing I think would be helpful in making the matrices that you're talking about for tracking things is to have two columns, one for improved road and one one in unimproved road and look at what's needed for the sewers for the unimproved versus the improved. And I think that might help guide what happens and how it happens. Um, in terms of bonds, there was a discussion tonight about if the city issues bonds and everybody pays for it and then some people that already have or most people an improved road are paying twice for the person that doesn't have an approved road. I don't know the legality of this. Bond councils probably do, but there is something called a revenue bond. And the question is, can the city issue a revenue bond in for streets that are

I'll just stop you right there. Revenue bonds are based are paid out through revenue. We don't have any revenue. Well, revenue could be taxes. In other words, like an assess like an assessed that would just be a bond. Possibly you could tie a revenue bond to sewer and water rates to tolls.

To tolls to tolls. But we're not going to do tolls. But could it it might be tied to sewer and water rates? I don't know. But we would we uh we would the goal would be to have some uh expert assistance in considering all of our options for funding. But a if you did a bond for unimproved roads, just for unimproved roads, and be able to tie that to the properties on that road, then those those would be the ones that are paying off the bond and assessed where the people that are on improved roads that have already paid wouldn't have to pay.

That's essentially what we're doing now except we're funding it. Well, the diff the difference is this and the when the city does something and then provides an assessment and paying over 10 years based on what I saw in the past, the city's interest rate is kind of high. And if you're using a bond and it's a municipal bond, you have access to a lower interest rate. And everybody wants that lives here that lives in the city wants and desires to have somebody else pay for their stuff. And one of the things I learned from Mr. Marcus was when we were dealing with the citizen sewer committee is if you can lower the cost enough for everybody, it becomes less of an issue. And so if you can have access to municipal bonds at a lower interest rate, the the the residents are going to be paying less. And then we're getting the cost down and we're helping everybody out. And that's where I think it's worth exploring to reduce the cost. Um, and then I think we ought to have a map on the again improved and unimproved. Just going back to what I said before and kind of decide whether our policy of pushing for improving those roads without the residents asking for it and paying for it is something that we want to do. I think that should be revisited. And I also

find agreement on

and I also think that trying if it's possible and I don't know the legalities of doing this to have to have a a ballot issue for issuing bonds and then the city can go out hopefully and send out bids and then use and then if those bids are accepted, the city could issue the bonds or part part of the bonds for that and that would lower the cost. And the other question I have is because it was discussed in terms of going out for longer term than one year for costs, maybe it's possible to issue RFPs with flexible costs or the contractor says they're going to provide 5% or quote four 3% for their fees and then if they're using subcontract and materials, there's some flexibility allowed in that. And I don't know I don't know if that's possible or not, but maybe that would allow you to get quotes that could that could last longer than one year.

Are you suggesting like a cost plus or Yes. You might hire a contractor time and materials. Do we is there such a thing in municipal uh in the world of municipalities? Well, I think it's probably fair to say that that's what kind of contractors kind of build into the price in the first place. Right. Well, but what he's saying is if you went over time next year, she said they don't do they're not going to do it two years. They don't like to do it, but they'll build it in. If they wanted to do it, they if they think the increase is going to be 5%, they might build in 10%. Just to make sure they're not wrong.

Yeah. But if you're talking about time and materials, so they make a finite amount, you're going to be you're going to be competing with other uh neighboring communities that aren't doing that and they're going to rather do the work for the other communities than they are for our community on a on a on a time and right. So, you're going to handicap yourself with that even if it's legal to do that, which I'm not sure if it is under under but it's a it's a good thought, but I'm not sure whether that would uh attract we we we need to have what I've seen is we've had two or three biders, not eight or nine or 10 and we want to encourage eight or nine or 10 so that we can get the best competitive pricing.

Competitive pricing. you have two or three and they're all pretty much close together, you know, that's not helping anything. Is there a benefit inviting multiple contractors to a meeting like this and trying to get their input on things that we could do differently in order to try and get more coverage or lower costs and try and pick their brains like what would they like from us in an RFP that would make it easier for them to provide better and more service to us.

Is there are there uh I would think that uh engineering municipal engineer conference would be a place where something like that would occur. Is is it what interaction between uh the pe you hire and

Yeah. So for I'm just I'm just thinking up here that I know previously where previously where I worked at I did work in city of Southfield. They have what they call pre-qualified contractors. So they have contractors qualify every 3 years and get on their bidding list. So that's something to be able to discuss legally wise because um with that they only send projects to I'm just throwing this out. Say if there's eight underground contractors that are pre-qualified, the project only goes to those eight contractors because the bidding process for them to get qualified continues annually type of a deal. That's something we could look into. I do know unfortunately that does take time just managing it because you have to essentially issue an RFP every year, make sure the contractors are up to date, when does their um you know three-year term expire, etc. type of a deal. So I do know I do know City of Southfield does do that. Um the other thing you run into is Mary but if at any possible me discussing bidding process with contractors is an issue for a public bidding process.

Absolutely. So I have to run into that fine line of I can't necessarily ask a contractor hey what increase are you looking at for you know working or for gas type of a deal compared to last year's contract. I can't necessarily ask that because everything needs to be a public bid process um with it. So that's the fine line we sometimes run into. kind of why I thought maybe a trade association or a tra trade conference.

So, some of the consultants that that we would look to to help us define a master plan with all of the parameters, what what should go in there, what shouldn't, and how some of these things can happen is right in their wheelhouse. And they're also used to working with contractors and how to negotiate to get a longer term contract with with the kinds of things that you're talking about. So a a consultant who specializes in this would be able to help us navigate the best way to get value engineering both in time and scope of projects. Thank you.

Good. Okay. Anybody else? Patrick. No.

Hi. It sounds to me Could you just

Yeah, this is Paul Reagan. I live here in town. It's not a planning problem. It's a financial problem. We just don't have money. You know, we can list out all the things we could do, but we still can't afford them. It's that house in Malibu that I want to live in, but I just can't afford it. We need roads. What we don't want to do is create in the in the public's mind an expectation of uh like Ann Arbor has in the aspirational plan all kinds of things. We can't do that. You know, we're also living in a uh time of the general mood of the public. We can't run tariffs in this town. Magic money. We're very, very limited in what we can do. Now, if we go to a bond, that's not going to be met. Well, that's a tax increase and people are just not in the mood for it right now. What can we do, I guess, is the question we're asking. We don't have to swing for the fences. We just got to get a little bit better. Just a little bit better. So maybe it is multi-year contracting where uh the contract isn't uh 5 million, maybe it's 15 million and there are those uh extensions or those leeways that David Bloom was talking about. Yeah, we can get better at contracting and maybe we do need some people to assist us in how to do that. If we don't know how to do that, then maybe we do we hire some people to help us with that. You know, there's some pretty amazing people that can show us. They can show us how to do that. Maybe it's a trade association, but I would rather not say to the public, here are all these

things that we might do creating expectations that we just simply cannot meet. Thanks, Okay. Have you heard?

We can't make decisions. We can't call votes. Uh well, first of all, there's nobody online. There's no So, just to make sure that for the public knows, there's nobody online that's raising their hand that wants to make a public comment online, right? If you're online and you would like to make a comment, please use the raise your hand function. Kay Barrett, I don't think she's on. Okay. All right. Oh, she is on. She is. Yeah. Sir, um what is the commission's appetite for considering a uh a consultant and doing an RFP for one and seeing what that cost would be or you know,

well, I think it's important what the RFP says. There are certain things that we can do ourselves and there are certain things we can only do if we have like an enormous amount of extra time and there's some things we just flat out can't do. I think right

she's probably best at determining what we can can and can't do and and uh what that RFP needs to say. Now she could come back to us. we could say, "How about you come back to us uh with just an outline? You don't have to do the whole thing. You just an outline of of what are the what are the sorts of things that we really really need help on." So, one of one of one thing we didn't talk about at all tonight was uh resident engagement and even even uh commission engagement in some of these projects. So, uh and and the timelines that we work on with these projects which which I would say are not necessarily realistic and and the and the communication that that results is chaotic and nobody feels good about it. So we we the it's very compressed the design we last week we were or two weeks ago uh we were asked to approve a design for the North old Woodward and as soon as I'm sure you went back to your desk on Tuesday morning and and and sent out the bid and that was it. Luckily no residents showed up to complain and there wasn't a special assessment involved. Right. But when especially when there's a special assessment involved and and and we're we're designing at the table here and and we're like on a deadline because geez it's it's July or it's it's it's May and we got to start working. We should have started working last month. We need to like we need to figure that out now. Is that something we can do ourselves? Maybe. Right. Maybe. Should the engineering department be doing functions that maybe

are better suited to the communications department? Um, maybe we can do that without a consultant. Other things like detailed financial modeling about how an improvement of an unimproved street is going to affect our bottom line 10 years down the road that we might need help with. So, and tweaking the rubric.

Tweaking the rubric. Maybe we can do that in house. Maybe not. Let's take a look at what Chad GPT came up with. And it might it it looked darn credible to me as as long as you get the data in there. And then collecting the data. Is that something we can do? You know, can we do traffic studies on every street? Um we really do, I think, need to look at almost every street individually. There are streets in this town that are unimproved and the residents who live on them do not want them improved. They like them just the way they are. And why would we ever consider improving those streets? We're not right now. Although I don't know. It's you know we could we could be creating a I don't even want to get into it. You know, but we if we go and say, "Well, we're going to do Tottenham." You know, you're going to get every person who lives on Tottenham coming to us and saying, "We don't want curbs. We don't want cutters. Just make our street the way it is now."

So, uh, so you come back to us with bullet points or whatever of what you think this RFP ought to cover, what we really need help with. Do we need a draft scope of work? Yes. Right. Right. Does that sound right? But but also include in there what you're what the city is going to do. Right. Right. And then there we have limited resources.

Right. So I was going to say that I know that this commission specific commissioners especially uh push back enormously every time there's requests for more FTEEs. But you know it may be that the engineering department needs more support. um especially if we want more elongated timelines and lead times um which I know you talk about frequently that um that projects ought to be planned out much farther in advance. You have expressed several times the desire to see things before they are designed to be able to give input before they are designed and that is not the rhythm that they have now and part of that is based on capacity. So consultant, yes, maybe maybe another internal person could do a a uh not an engineer but a engineer who's a business process person like you would find in a giant company or maybe we contract with you know we already contract out for inspections. Um I think that city staff should come back to us with an idea. You know what we want. How would you approach it? That was well said because I think there are a lot of other factors and capacity is definitely one of them and to your point the this is the only rhythm that we can do with the time and the money that we and the people that we have. Could we come up with a draft scope of work? Yes. Could we come up with needs uh and changes that are needed? Yes. You're going to be seeing some of those in the next couple of months. Okay. Good. Well, we have 15 minutes. Is there any other comment comment from the public? Comment from any others on the

commission? Melissa, you good? Yes, I'm good. Okay. Well, let's uh adjourn this and we'll come back in 14 minutes. 12 minutes. Oh, 12 minutes.

Uh recording is being recorded. Yes. Uh welcome everyone to uh the regular meeting of the Birmingham City Commission on Monday, March 9th, 2026 at 700 p.m. We are in historic city hall at 151 Martin Street. Please join me in uh standing and saying the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Mr. Mayor here. Mayor Tim Long

here. Mr. H is absent. Commissioner Ho here. Mr. Cold here. Commissioner Kazowski here. Commissioner T here.

Thank you. We move to item three, proclamations, congratulatory resolutions, awards, appointments, resignations, and confirmations, administration of oaths, the introduction of guests, and announcements. We have an announcement that we're going to be making uh regularly for a while. Uh the city welcomes members of the public to use our new public portal to view and work with the commission agendas and meeting packet materials. makes it much easier to navigate through and isolate items of interest. Uh just go to bhamgov.org/commission on your web browser. You can use even use your smartphone. You can even do it right here in the commission room. Scroll down to agendas and minutes portal. Click on the meeting you want to look at and you can navigate around through there and look at the meeting files. Uh, one tech tip, use two fingers to zoom in and out of documents if you're using a touchscreen device. Uh, we have appointments uh to first to the parks and recreation board and we have two regular members uh who will serve terms all three uh appointments will serve terms through March 13, 2029. Two are to be appointed regular members and one is to be appointed an alternate. Then we have three applicants. Uh the first is uh Joe Roel. Is that Did I pronounce that right? Roel Roel. Mr. Roel, are you here? This is a reappoint.

He's not able. Does anybody know if I pronounce his name right? Yes, it's Robo. Okay. Uh we have Narlo Castellano. Narlo, come on up. Or down. Come on down. Hi. Hello. Tell us about yourself and why you want to be appointed or reappointed to the

Okay. To the board. I am Narlu Castellano. I am I live at 1553 East Lincoln Street. I've been a Birmingham resident for the last 10 years. I'm a mother of a six-year-old daughter, a heavy user of our parks and our beautiful city grounds. And I've been a member of the board, but not a permanent member for the last almost a year. I've enjoyed every single meeting that I've attended and I've contributed to reviewing the parks, the plans that we have, um, interviewing vendors and I've really enjoyed my contribution and the fact that I can be part of my community in a very meaningful way. So, I would like to extend now my participation to make it a more temporary a more permanent role um that I don't have to cover for somebody but actually have a voice every single meeting.

Okay. So, you're applying for a a a regular member, correct? Okay. And I have two two or three questions for you. Sure. Are you done? I am. Okay. What is your daughter's favorite park? Um, we really like the new West Lincoln Park because it's new and it has this swing that that she doesn't need to be pushed. Um, some of these are for kids with disabilities. So, she's been learning about, oh, what about a child that uses a wheelchair and his mom has to lift him up? So growing that sensitivity, but that's her favorite. We went yesterday and there were three kids jumping on that. So I was my second question was going to be what's your favorite park? Uh but you said that was both you both like that.

That is I can tell you what's my least favorite. But no, I'll go with I like Canon Park because it's the closest to my house and I think it's the one with the most shade. So, as a mom when she was younger, I think it has the most things for younger kids and it actually provides the most shade so I can use it longer periods of time without being too concerned about applying and reapplying um sunscreen. Anyone have any questions for Miss Castellano? No. Okay. Thank you. Uh Sarah Cupchick. Cupchick. Sarah, are you here online? No. Uh, now Sarah was she's a new applicant, correct?

No, she's not. No, she's a current regular member who's reapplying. Oh, okay. All right. What? So, all three are current members of two alternates and one. And if I may note that, so Mr. Roel is an alternate who also applied for an al to be an alternate again. So, I think it's we have a relatively easy decision in front of us. Okay, I'll take uh nominations then. So, I I'll nominate Mr. Roble to uh uh be an alternate member of the parks and recreation board for a term to expire March 13, 2029. Okay. Do we want to vote on that and then take the next one or do we take all three and then vote on all three?

You can take them in order answer the question. All those in favor I I opposed none 60. Next uh uh nomination host. I'd like to uh have Nairo Castellano as a regular member to the parks and recck board to serve a three-year term to expire March 13, 2029. Excellent. All those in favor? Opposed? Good. Uh one more please. Sure. Anyone? Go ahead. Okay. Uh, I would like to uh move to appoint Sarah Cupchick as a regular member to the Parks and Recreation Board to serve a three-year term to expire March 13th, 2029. Uh, all those in favor?

I I opposed. None. 60. Congratulations. Hang loose. We'll we'll uh we'll swear you in in a moment. Uh, we have the Board of Zoning Appeals and we have uh one applicant. I'm not even going to try. Victoria Policio Policio. Yeah. Is that it? It's very close.

Good evening. I'm Victoria Policio. I live at 236 Pleasant Street. Um I've been an attorney for over 20 years and I'm applying as an alternate member for the board of zoning appeals which you know coincidentally I was just actually in front of them asking for a variance. It was very interesting. I have a lot of background um in the building business. My father's a builder who's built a lot here in Birmingham. I worked for him for several years. Currently, I'm in-house counsel for construction company as well. We build manufactured modular housing. As far as um why I'm applying, I have volunteered off and on for the city of Birmingham since I wrote it down. I can't remember that. I'm I'm old now. Uh since 2013 I was um committee member of the principal shopping district maintenance committee and then in 22 I served two years at the multimmoal transportation board. Currently um I'm on a board for a labor and employment group for Alpha International and I was appointed recently by the governor um to the Michigan manufactured housing commission but it's still very important to me to volunteer for the city of Birmingham. I was looking for a an opportunity where it wouldn't take too much time because I do travel a lot for work now as the only litigation manager for my company. Um, so I'm always looking to give back and I thought that with my legal background and my construction background would be very relevant to the board.

Thank you. Any questions? No questions. Oh yeah, I'm doing well. How are you? Good. We know each other. But I just wanted to put out there that um if any of these companies that you're familiar with and you you've worked for that you'll have to disclose and um uh not partake in any decisions. Of course, just some people aren't aware of that when they come forward. So we just like to cover that. Thank you. I figured she was aware of that being an we got to put it on. This is we write it up. We got to say all the things. I'll make a nomination. Sure. Uh, Miss Polo Chichio Chio

Chikio and I served on the multimotal board together. So, um, I would be honored to um, uh, make a motion to appoint uh, Victoria Poicio. Policio. Poicio. Yes. To an alternate as an alternative member of the board of zoning appeals to serve the remainder of a three-year term to expire on February 18th, 2029. All those in favor? I opposed. None. Good. Thank you. Congratulations. And finally, the Martha Baldwin Park Board. Uh we have a regular member to serve the remainder of a four-year term ending May 1st, 2028, David Curvan. Mr. Kan. Hi there. Good evening.

Uh Dave Cand. I've been a Birmingham resident for a little bit over 30 years. Uh Papan Park for the last 27 except for a couple of expat assignments uh in Italy and Japan. Um, I just want to give back and thought this was a good way to start my uh journey of kind of giving back to the community. So, okay. Martha Baldwin Park meets once every I was told three years. So, every three years. It's not very often. Your commitment here is admirable. I'm dipping my toe. How bad? And he hung up the clock. He did hang up the clock. That was

I think that's more than what the last board member did. Nominate nomination. Uh I'll nominate uh Mr. David Krudon to uh serve as a regular member of the mouth Martha Baldwin Park Board for the remainder of a 4-year term to expire May 1st, 2028. All those in favor? Opposed? None. Okay. Congratulations to everyone. Uh, our city clerk. What? We got to tell him to hold on so we'll swear you in.

You're going to raise your right hand and you'll say I do after. I do soundly sore affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of this state and endeavor to secure and maintain an honest and efficient administration of the affairs of Firmingham free for partisan distinction or control to perform the duties of the office of Board of Zonal Appeals. Uh the Martha Baldwin Park Board and the Parks and Recreation Board according to the best. I do. I do. And then I have to sign and then Victoria and then David right there.

I'll do the rest. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Congratulations. We really appreciate your service. Uh if you could remain seated for the next two and a half hours. No, you can go home. Uh we're going to move on to open to the public for matters not on the agenda. We do welcome comment. If you're here, uh come up to the microphone uh and make your comment. You can have up to three minutes. Uh if the item is not on the agenda, the item is not on the agenda. Yeah. Thank you.

I'm read. Uh yeah, just tell us uh your name and your city of residence. Michelle, uh Birmingham, Michigan. Okay.

And uh I understand we're we're here on Cape Seal. You're coming back to Cape Seal, but there are significant safety issues on Oak Street. You really can't address the speed, but the number of trucks that come through Oak along with all the other traffic poses a real safety hazard because of the destruction that it continues to do and will continue to do on the new Cape Seal. I see trucks trying to avoid Maple Road. They avoid Big Beaver. They come straight down and use Oak Avenue as a thoroughfare. I've got a picture of a fruit truck, a food truck coming down. There is no reason. We don't have any food businesses directly on Oak. So, they're using it as a thoroughfare. But the other thing is the weight limit of the trucks that travel on Oak. I don't know if there is an enfor I was told there's no enforcement of weight limits, but those trucks are doing devastating damage which makes it very dangerous to drive because everybody's trying to avoid the potholes and that cape seal is not going to withstand the excessive weight. So, just hoping that you eventually put it on the agenda. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Um, is there anything there to address right now or Okay. Uh, thank you. Any other comment online? Ray, use the raise your hand function. Um, if you're in the room, come up to the microphone. Happy to hear you. Sure. Yes, sir.

Please do. Uh, good evening, Mayor Baller and uh, ladies and gentlemen of the council. Thank you. My name is Nathan Miller, Nate Miller, and I'm just announcing that Troy has been amazing to us. I'm from Troy. I just moved down there from Lepier after 27 years in the Marine Corps and an aviator, and we're trying to establish a flight school at the Troy airport. So, the mission is to make a change through aviation, through our community, and make people better, businesses better, and impact the economy appropriately. So, if you know someone who wants to fly airplanes or little kids who are excited to do it, uh we also have summer camps that are STEM based that are right here at the airport. And uh we got professional locations, really nice, not your traditional flight school. I like to refer to it as a flight academy, blending my 27 years of flying F-18s and my buddies 20 plus years of flying in the aviation, general aviation world and making a really cool product so that people can either enjoy it as adults or have a completely separate career that they might not know otherwise exists as young people. So, if you have any questions, I'll stay through the end of the meeting. I'm back in the corner, but thank you for the time.

Do you have anything to hand uh any flyers in here? Yes, sir. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. Come on up. Thank you. Thank you. You may not want to stay till the end of

Hi, I'm John Clanchch, uh 450 Oak resident, and uh Oak again would be the topic. uh understand that the cape seal is the next thing to happen to solidify the pavement. However, I guarantee you within a year or two it's going to crumple like a cookie. And um I think the next step after that would be what do we do on a permanent basis? So, a couple suggestions would be curbs, asphalt, and uh that would go a long way to improving the condition from uh the cemetery to old woodwork. Uh if you look at where the cemetery is, pretty nice job has been done putting in curbs. And if you look at the edges, it all is sustained. It stays stable. But the minute you get off of that and get closer to Old Woodward, it's a disaster. And the potholes, I mean, I drive it every day. And uh it is just a challenge because your car is all over the road with suspension issues. You try to avoid the potholes. You got other cars coming at you and sometimes they're avoiding potholes and it's it's dangerous. So thought would be after the Cape Seal, after a year or two, a more permanent solution. um since it's I thought I saw a statistic there's like 4,000 cars that travel down that route on a continual basis and um it just it's really not a good image for the town and I think it would be great to have something more permanent and uh something that wouldn't be a hazard. Um, the other thing is maybe the trucks go a different route and uh have them find an alternative. Um, maybe Quarton is a better

alternative. Um, so I mean there's there's several things that can perhaps be considered. So appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Anyone else? Last call online in the room. Okay. None. We'll move on to the consent agenda. Uh all items on the consent agenda are routine and will be enacted by one motion and approved by a roll call vote. No separate discussion of the items unless a commissioner or a citizen. Uh so request in the event the item will be removed from the general order of business and considered separately. So does anyone on the commission have any items on the consent agenda that they would like to see removed? Wow. None. Anyone online or in the room? Any members of the public would like to see an item removed from the consent agenda?

None. Wow. Make a motion. Please do. Like to make a motion to move the consent agenda agenda uh in the packet tonight, including items A through G. Second. Uh roll call vote, please. Mayor Long. Oh, sorry. Prom, I was going to have you move. Yes. Um, Commissioner Holmes, yes. Commissioner Theres Long, yes. Commissioner Cole, yes. Mayor Balor, uh, yes. Commissioner Kowski, yes.

Okay. Uh, we have, uh, normally we would have we do not have a city manager's report tonight. Correct. Uh, we have no unfinished business. So, we move to new business, uh, which is a public hearing. The first item of new business is a public hearing for the outstanding liquor licenses, uh, in our 2025 review period. Uh, we're going to be going back over 220 and sidecar, slice, and shift. So, I'm going to now open the public hearing at 7:19 p.m. and hear first, I believe, from staff. Yes. Staff. No. Staff on No.

Hello. Hi. Hi. Uh, Captain Mike Simpson, uh, investigations captain with the police department. Just filling in for Chief Guru.

Okay. Uh we have had positive uh meetings as the updated report stated with both business owners. Uh we feel like that uh the minor and I say very minor issues that we had uh have been resolved and both business owners stated to me that we're working on the same we're trying to work on the same team. Um we've got updated contact information. Um and we've been um as far as the police department goes, we're happy with the meetings that we had with uh both Mr. Elliot and Mr. Simon going forward. Okay. Thank you. Uh petitioners now.

Thank you. Good evening. My name is Zade Allayia. I'm the owner of 220 Mel. I appreciate uh your consideration tonight. Um, after the last meeting, I spoke with or emailed Jana and she immediately referred me to uh the police department. Um, Captain Senson was kind enough to reach out to me. Um, spoke with me of what the various few things they'd like to see. Of course, our job is to implement those things and make sure we stay consistent throughout the year. Um, communication is always key and sometimes that breaks down in the in the chain of command, literally. Um, I've spoke to my team at Nauseium. I always speak with them. Sometimes things go out of whack. My job is to make sure they don't. Um, my goal is to make sure that they have the correct contact information, whether it's our director of security, the second command, the manager, or myself, which can also always be contacted, and our goal is to make changes immediately. It's not my job to sit here one year later and hope to fix it. My goal is to always fix it in real time. Safety is obviously to the benefit of the general welfare, but most importantly, our customers and our team. Um and and we're very strict on those certain items. So our goal is to always implement things that make our community safer, our staff safer, and certainly our guests safer. Thank you. Is Mr. Simon or anyone here representing? Come on up. Stephen Simon from Sackar Slice and Shift. Um, again, just to kind of echo on what Zade had said, uh, I reached out to the police department, Chief Simpson, and, um, our biggest thing was a communication breakdown for us. So, we had updated, uh, contact information. I told them that, you know, I was the direct line, um, if there was ever any issues moving forward that we don't want to have um, to give me a call or text and updated some management uh, information that was in the system. Um we want to do our part to make sure that our community, our restaurant, our

guests are all safe and um we've implemented some changes with some management and um went over some protocol that we want to follow um especially later on in the evening when we're open. So I think we've met um with all the team and they understand the importance of communication um not only with other team members but with with the police department as well. So, uh, we look forward to hopefully continuing to serve and make sure that all our guests and, um, and the police officers, uh, we help them out and communicate, a lot better than what we have, and we look forward to doing that.

Thank you. Uh, anybody in the public have any comments? Come approach, uh, the microphone. Uh, give us your name and city of residence. And

I'm Stuart Rider. I live at 111 Willlet Street, unit 202. I'm on the 50ard line. I'm right above Sidecar's restaurant. So, I wanted to keep that in mind. Um, I moved into the Willlets building in 2018 when the space below was occupied by Cameron Steakhouse and Mitchell's Fish Market. During that time, I did not experience the level of noise or disturbances that I have since. and 220 sidec car and the related uh concept shift kitchen and cocktail and slice pizza moved into the space below. Since that time, the situation has changed signific significantly. Since 2020, I estimated that I estimate that I have involved the Birmingham Police Department close to 50 times due to excessive noise and disturbances, vibrations in my floor coming from the business and its patrons. I do want to sidebar that the police have been phenomenal. Even when the complaint is taken care of, they're kind enough to come up to my condo and explain it. So, um that part is perfect. I recently requested uh from the police department, but uh I'm sorry. Since 2020, I estimated I called 50 50 times. I recently requested records from the police department, but their records only go back to January 1st, 2024. Even with that time limit that limited time frame, police were requested to respond 21 times plus Saturday. Uh due to excessive noise and disturbance from the establishments before contacting the police, I always attempted to resolve the issue directly with the restaurant. I would either call the restaurant or go downstairs in person to ask the noise or disruptions to be reduced. Only when those efforts were unsuccessful did I contact the police. I also met personally with the owner, Steve Simon, who kindly provided me with his cell phone and number so that I could contact him directly when

problems arose. For a short time, uh, this seemed to help, but unfortunately after that, I was ghosted. The disturbances soon returned. Another concern I would like the council to be aware of is that I have approached staff members to address the situation before I call the police. The response has sometimes been dismissive and discourteous. As someone who lives directly above the establishment, I would hope for more cooper more cooperative relationships. I fully understand and appreciate the Birmingham that Birmingham has a vibrant restaurant and nightlife scene. However, businesses operating directly below residential units also have a reasonability to ensure that the residents can enjoy a reasonable quality of life in their home. Given the pattern of of disturbances and the number of police responses, I respectfully ask the council to take these issues into careful consideration as you evaluate the renewal of Sidecar's liquor license. Thank you. Is there any questions anybody has?

Stand by. Don't move. Are we allowed to engage with him right now? Yes, it is a time for public hearing, but I also think it's important, mayor, for you to point out that the city commission does not technically give out liquor licenses, right? the city commission and the city only has the opportunity to tell the Michigan Liquor Control Commission that you would like them to take action. So you um have an advisory role, not a police power role. Well, I would like you to be my conduit over the license. I I just want to ask you a couple questions. I can engage with them. Okay. Uh number one, do you live directly above? Right above when the base number two, when you talk about disturbance and noise, what are you talking about? music

music or the sound of people? No, people outside on the cafe in the summer and then they have music outside in the summer and so the m what bothers you the most or what are the two or three what are the things that are most I had a guest sleeping in my guest room and when I woke up in the morning she was sleeping in the den because the vibrations through the ceiling from the bass were so loud and it is the noise of the music. It is the noise of the music. So, it's make sure that because I' I've been in, you know, late. You can come by. It's not that loud.

It's not that loud when you're in it, but I can imagine that there's some dynamic going on with wherever the speakers are placed that and the band that they have band. They have a band. Um, when the city I asked I talked to um is it Steve Zaki? Did I have that right from the city? Jeff Zi maybe. Jeff. Yeah. So, he came out and he looked and and was very kind. Um uh I didn't think anybody, you know, there's I I don't know and I'm learning that you have less control of this, more advisory of this, but um we have the abil. We're all in a room right now talking. This is the best time that we're going to have to to to out.

Yeah. to try to try to resolve the loudness of the music, the bass vibrating through my condo. Okay. And um Jeff called me afterwards and said, "You you said you heard noise from bands. They don't have bands on their website. They have bands. I can go get the picture of the band on my phone that I brought." You know who has a band? Is it the on weekends or special occasions? Yeah, but I'm looking at you, Mr. Simon. I'm sorry. Do you have bands? We have solo musicians inside Shift. Shift. Um, were you above Shift or are you right between them? Okay. Okay. Thank you. Would you like to respond? Sure.

And let me ask you a question. Have you Have you ever invited him up to hear what it sounds like in your apartment? No, but I have a 100 texts. Okay. Well, that that's not the same as

having him experience what you experience. I've I'm a small business owner. I want every business to be successful. The night at the two o'clock parking lot events I do not hold them responsible for even though they're coming from their place. So when I bought my condo, it was a comfortable quiet street. It no Willlets is no longer a comfortable quiet street on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. It just isn't. Um but I just wanted to be I just want to live in peace. I Let's hear from Mr. Simon if you don't mind. Would you like me to sit down or do you want me to sit? Yeah, you can sit unless Yeah, whatever you want. Are you familiar with his concerns?

Stuart, I gave him my personal cell phone to let him know anytime there was an issue. Um, sometimes the text messages come in late if he said the word ghosted. There was sometimes when I was asleep and and wasn't able to respond, but I would always talk to the staff um the next day to let them know. I haven't personally heard it,

you know, from his experience like he said. Um, you know, there obviously before when it was Cameron's and Mitchells, there was not a lot of activity after 10:00. Um, but we want to be cognizant of of any condo association member, anybody living above us. I haven't heard from anybody besides Stuart to, you know, kind of um enhance, you know, that there was an issue. Um, anytime I was contacted, you know, by him, regardless if I thought it was loud or, you know, or anything, we we turned it down immediately. Um, and I always try to communicate to the management staff, you know, I we want anybody that's within living distance of us to feel comfortable and it's not just, you know,

he doesn't he doesn't. Correct. So, I wonder, and we're not going to solve this here tonight, but I wonder if you two could work together possibly. Definitely. I I I suspect there might be some things you could do in terms of where the speakers are located and there may be some cost involved in moving those, but the bass, you know, he's saying it's the base. So, he may not hear the treble part, but the bass part's a problem. So, potentially, one thing I've noticed, and I haven't talked to Stuart about that, but there's been a lot of construction next door at the restaurant next to us.

Mhm. As much as they want to say that our buildings aren't connected, there's you can hear construction when that's going on. So, it seems like there's, you know, maybe without the ceiling, you know, the drop ceiling being in over there that it's contributing to the sound echoing a little bit more than it had, you know, in years past. But it's definitely my goal to make sure that he doesn't have to get the police involved in something like that. Um, okay. So, so I think I I think we would like you to do that. Yeah. Couple questions if I may. Sure. Um, you have a oneman or one woman band that plays, correct? Typically, do they bring their own speakers? Their own set? Uh, no, we have our own speakers.

You have your own speakers? Yes. Um, and, uh, at what time does that individual start and what time does that individual stop? And I think those are typically 7 to 10, uh, 3 hour uh, 2 to three hours. And that's what days of the week? Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at the moment. So, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 7 to 10, but at 10 o'clock it it stops. Correct.

Okay. Um I've been in your establishment many time. You have great food. Thank Um, uh, I don't know if you still do this, but when you're in the restaurant sitting at the bar eating, there's a certain point in time where you guys, I don't know if you still do it, clear out the bar, clear out clear out the tables and make it more of a dance place or a or a standing uh, rather than a sitting sit down restaurant when with the bands playing on certain nights. Is that still happening? Uh, no. And there's and you're talking about shift. I'm talking about shift. Yes. Correct. I was just making sure. Yeah. Uh there was a time when the bar stools were being moved so that people, you know, it would be more standing cocktailing type of thing, but we don't do that anymore.

You don't do that anymore. Correct. Okay. All right. Um so the is is it May I ask the other gentleman a question? Yeah. Is it on these the Thursday, Friday, Saturday from 7 to 10? I first have never made a complaint before 10. I believe there's a time that they're allowed to do whatever they want, but when I go to sleep, I I want to be able to go to sleep. As it is right now, I now have a sound machine in my bedroom. So, it's it's diminished some of the noise. I really don't want to live that way, but I have to. I don't want to sound like an angry man. I just would like peace and quiet. There's a little disconnect that I'm trying to understand. So, I'm asking the question, if they stop at 10, it's the music from the speakers. So, that the the one the one man or one woman band stops at 10, but you still play music

still after. Got it. Now I understand. Okay. They do have they did have bands. I'll go get my phone and I'll show you the picture of the band that they had in there. So there are bands. So this is a rocket.

As the mayor suggested, maybe maybe you could invite him up to your place to listen what it sounds like for him and maybe between the two of you, you can make an adjustment in the volume so that it is manageable. Um, I think anybody here that would be in this gentleman's position would would would reasonably ask for that. Um, uh, and I have been in in in your establishment and it is loud. Um, it could probably turn to be stand to be turned down a little bit. Not and the music's, you know, they great bands and or one man bands or one woman bands, but I think between the two of you if you do that, that would hopefully solve the issue.

Sure. And I have no problem starting at a level and communicating with Steuart. Say and it was that comfortable where we're at. So we kind of get on the same playing field, right? You know, if Perfect. It's just like anything else. There's a volume reader. You know, if it's at 70 and Stuart's like no way, you know, then you're at 50, you know, you're at 60, you know, and we're comfortable, then yeah, that's good. That's all we want working together. Thank you. That would be great. Motion. No. Okay. Um Mr. Mr. Sim, can I ask Mr. Simon a question? Um, actually, no. We're still in the public hearing.

Yeah. Let's just make sure. Anyone else in the public, either online or in the room, want to make a comment on this last call. We're going to close the public hearing. It is 7:36 p.m. Now we can bring it back to the commission. Commissioner host, I'm sorry. Um, your question. What are your uh what's your closing time each night? 2 am. That would be Tuesday through Sunday or every day. Monday through Sunday. Okay. So, every day, 7 days a week, 2:00 a.m. Not all three. It's not all three or just the one.

It closes earlier during the week, but Sidecar is open till 2 every night. The kitchen closes at 1:00 um to try to wrap things up so that we're not in there after 2 at the old establishment on um Merryill. We would keep the kitchen open to two and that kind of created Let's just address this question. Let's done. Do you have another question? No, other than to say I would I I'd get Carrie out there and I was talking to the hostess on a Tuesday evening at 700 p.m. and I said, "God, you guys are dead here. I'm so sorry." and she says, "Wait till midnight. This is one of our busiest nights of the year cuz that's whenever everybody closes."

Right. Uh any other questions, comments from the commission. Happy to take a motion.

Um I'll make the suggested commission action. I'd like to note um that I think this process worked exactly the way it should work. um that we uh had that the police and the two business owners had the opportunity to uh connect and um establish a good working relationship. And that's exactly the purpose of this procedure. So with that, I will make a motion adopting a resolution to approve the renewal of liquor licenses for the 2026 licensing period for the following restaurants which hold a class C liquor license and are in compliance with chapter 10 alcoholic liquors of the city code 220 restaurant and sidecar slice shift.

Second.

Roll call, please. Uh comment comment. Any comment from the commission? Just one one one quick comment if I may on the motion. Um the reason why you both were brought back was because the police suggested that there was a lack of cooperation. There are other establishments that maybe had a couple more violations. We understand that you do your best. Um but the key is full cooperation with the police department. That's what we expect. And uh we had another restaurant that had issues that worked with the police over the last year and they have solved their problems and the police were very uh glowing of their efforts. Um and so we hope that both of you also will um have that reputation next time around.

Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments from the public? Anybody online want to make a comment on the motion? Nobody. Roll call, please. Commissioner Host, yes. Mayor Prom, yes. Commissioner Cole, yes. Commissioner Theres Long, yes. Commissioner Kazowski, yes. Mayor, yes. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Uh we're going to go on to the uh public uh public hearing for confirmation of the role of the 2026 Cape Seal program. Uh All right.

Good evening, Mayor Baller and commissioners. I'm Ryan Katz, deputy treasurer for the city of Birmingham. Before you is special assessment district role number 917, 2026 Cape Seal program. Uh it was discovered that 10 parcels on 450 Oak Avenue were miscalculated based on the footage of each unit. That has been corrected in your packet. uh to allocate that same total cost for 450 Oak Avenue equally among the 10. Uh tonight we recommend the adoption of the resolution confirming special Wait, uh could could you be more clear? Uh wait, this is not a public hearing, is it? Yes, it is. It is a public hearing confirmation.

I'm going to open the public hearing at uh 7:40 p.m. Does he need to repeat what he just said? No, it's fine. Okay. with regard to the error. Are we going to call it an error or whatever? It was a miscalculation and that was in our original packet that was distributed to the public on Thursday. And at what point did we discover the error

this morning? It's regarding 10 parcels at 450 Oak. They're condos. So the the individual units, the total amount of the assessment is the same, but the way that it was calculated and split between the units was done by a third. We h we hired somebody to do this calculation. They did it based on square footage and that's not how we normally do it. We do it divided by the number of units. So for instance um the changes are unit 100 went from 127.95 assessment to 23520. Okay. My question is when was when were the corrected numbers released to the public.

Do you have a time Alex? Um it's on the agenda in a footnote. This afternoon. It was this afternoon. 3:35 p.m. So, it wasn't until 3:35 p.m. today that we corrected these numbers. So, there may be people out there in the world or in here in the room who were not clear on this change that occurred. Okay. Now, is everything legal? No. Okay. So, even though the total is the same, the total to each person is not the same.

No, the grand total is the same, but the total to each person. So the the whole purpose of the confirmation of the role uh which has to be noticed as a public hearing. So it has to have at least 10 days notice before the actual hearing. And in the confirmation, the important part and the only parts that you're determining, excuse me, in the confirmation of the role is that it's the correct address, correct parcel number, the correct calculation, and how much each person is going to be assessed known to us at the time. So if what the notice went out and what was published was this one amount and now the amount changes even if it's to the benefit of the party I am concerned now about notice.

Okay. So what do we do? Let's just make this quick. Do we continue it?

I think that there should be and and this is being very very uh you know I tend not to gamble right? You know I tend to be very conservative. Um, so because these special assessments are so important and we've had so many people who came to protest, I think it's very important that we don't take any chances and therefore I think there should be a mo a motion to postpone to a date certain which will continue the notice opportunity. Um, I think that for clarity, the amounts should be resent to the property owners so that they are all aware of what their amounts are going to be and that we postpone this to the date certain we then redo the agenda, redo the agenda packet and have them come back.

Fire away. Is it possible to confirm the role except for these 10 units or do we have to do the over all at once? I would do them o all at at once. Okay. And I'm just going to note that the changes are, you know, the largest change is like $90. Most of them are in the range of 20 or so dollars. And to the benefit of the property owner, I think many of them are in many cases. Yes. But not all. So, nonetheless, um, we're I got you. Okay. So, hold on. We're still in a public hearing. Do I have to gabble the public hearing closed? Nope. Make sure that the you've heard from everyone in the public because this is their opportunity. Yay or nay? Even though we're going to continue. Correct.

Okay. So, is there anybody in the public who would like to speak? First of all, I What's your name? And Michelle Arita, 450 Oak. Okay. Unit 2011.

We never got any notice in the mail about what the assessment was going to be. I don't know if it was supposed to come. The only way I got an initial notice was I came to the meeting on what was it February 12th with the engineer and they sat down with anybody that asked and the number I was given and please appreciate the fact that I'm not here because I think the number is too high. But you know that I want the city to pay for everything. But despite that, at that time I got the amount of $23520 based on an 8515 split because that's what we were told was the traditional charge number. Can I finish?

Sure. Okay. At the last city council meeting, there was a motion to charge the residents of Oak Avenue of 5050 split with the city of Birmingham. I do notice that a lot of people had everything split. The two condominiums overall our numbers never changed. I was told that everybody in my condominium unit was going to be charged the same that 23520 when I was with the engineer on the 12th.

That's correct. Then last meetings it was supposed to be 50/50 which I assume that number would be reduced because 8515 versus 5050. Now as I look at these new sheets, everybody in 450 and everybody at 85 North uh Old Woodward which is across the street from us. Overall our numbers don't change. Okay. Do you Hold on. Do you have a qu Do you have a question?

Yeah, I'd like to know why the numbers don't change if we go from 8515 to 50/50. I'll try to explain it in a way that makes sense. Um, basically because the the motion was if you have basically the 50/50 applied only to the short side. So if you have a parcel that's on a long there's a long section on one street and a short section on another street, the 50/50 applied to the short section. In their case for 450 oak, the long frontage didn't change and that was the part that was still 8515. So their number didn't change just because of the way the ordinance is written. Probably didn't. And so to to clarify the people who lived on Oak who were being charged 85% for their frontage

for their which happened to be the shorter of the two right their 85% got changed to 50% but if you had only been assessed the 15% the 25 or 25% excuse me that that did not change. We only changed the 8515 ratio for the expensive length. So, are you telling me that if the city decides to pay Oak Avenue that the people in those condominiums are only going to be paying 25% of the cost? Cuz that's what it sounds like from this. Otherwise, none of it makes sense.

Well, we I think we'd have to cross that bridge when we got to it. Hypothetically, if we applied the same logic that we're applying now, that would probably be true. Correct. However, right now, it sounds like you're getting a better deal. Like, if you want 50/50, we can raise it because we're not going to do that. 25% of the overall project or 25 I 25% of the $40 short linear frontage of your property divided by 10 units.

Okay, let me raise another issue. The long side, which I assume you're talking is Woodward, is an improved road. So, no, I think I think the short side of the of the 450 complex is on North Old Woodward. So, if North Old Woodward was unimproved, that would be the side that you would pay 85% on, but it's improved. So, you never pay for that. Your long side is on Oak, so you pay 25% on that and the city pays 75. And the city pays 75. Like, if you if you total up, right, it's like 10 units at 235 a pop. Right.

Right. So, it's 2,300 for the whole thing. And you can see how much frontage the the condo complex has. It's a lot more than any of the individual the homeowners. And the individual homeowners were getting assessed at like over 2,000,000. I'm glad that they got the reduction. Okay. Good. Um I'm just saying that's I'm I'm fairly confident and I wish my computer was a little faster so I could confirm it that um that that is what's going on here is is 450 and the North Old Woodward. Um I don't remember the address. 885 North Old Woodward are both paying 25% of the $40 of the of the $40 multiplied by their Longfoot frontage. Okay?

And that is how these numbers are. And that's why they didn't change is because they weren't 50% would be higher. We lowered the 85 people percent people down to 50. We didn't change the 25%. Is there any way when notices get sent out that there's actually an explanation? We've been here, this is the third meeting, and today we find out that we're paying 25%, we're not paying 85%. Because when we sat here with the engineer, we were told we were paying 85%. Last Well, the motion taking information probably maybe from

because there wasn't there was information provided and it was in the motion that you all approved at the public hearing of necessity. Is it complicated and confusing? Yes, it Well, we're not stupid. If you just say long, short, explain what that means, then we will understand it. It is in this week's package. Okay, hold on. Okay. Are you satisfied at this point? I'm I understand what being I'm being told. Let me see that. Am I satisfied? No, no, no. This I want to make sure you're satisfied. I understand. Okay, then I'll move up to the next thing.

So, the next thing is did we have proper notice? She made an assertion that she did not receive a notice. Meanwhile, you certified that notice had been no given. Correct? No. There was a public notice given when the date of the hearing when the hearing was going to be held. There was no dollar amount on that notice. Okay. And there was also a letter sent to say come in and talk to the engineering department on February 12th or whatever the date was. And at that time they were given the number of $23520. Okay, the right number. But the notice doesn't include the exact number. The notice that Mary's talking about is what's published in the agenda for tonight.

Next step. Dollar amounts are not required in the individual notices to individual residences. Just that the notice of the confirmation of the role will be published and the hearing will be heard. Okay. What next step right now? What's the next step? Is there any other questions or comments from the public? And if not, close the public hearing.

Any other questions or comments from the public right now online? Use raise your hand function. In the room, seeing none, closing the public hearing at 7:52. So, in compliance with the ordinance uh chapter 94 um at 949 subsection E the commission um would have the chance of correcting errors which I don't suggest you do now sitting here we need to even though they went out this afternoon I think that's insufficient so um uh pursuant to section three the commission may by resolution enol the assessment role and directed a new role be prepared following the same procedures applicable to the making of the original role which is the role that was in the agenda packet. So make a resolution to analy assessment role direct the manager that a new role be prepared and set for a date certain tonight.

And what date certain would the city manager prefer? I will have to pull out the calendar because we could do it within at the next meeting. Correct. Because 10 days we could do it within 10 days. Yes. and postponing to the date certain does not require the newspaper requirement. Correct. So the next meeting would be March 23rd.

Can you make that motion? Uh, I would like to make a motion to uh nullify the SAD roll 917 for the 2026 Cape Seal program to direct the city manager to uh create and confirm a new SAD roll 917 for the 2026 Cape Seal program using the same process and procedures as previously and to append this matter to March 23rd, 202. 26 postpone to the date certain of March 23rd, 2026. I don't care. It doesn't matter. Go ahead, Brad. Doesn't matter.

Seconded by Commissioner Host. Any comment on the motion? Any comment from the public? Any comment online? Roll call, please. Commissioner Trese Long, yes. Mayor Balor, yes. Commissioner Kazowski, yes. Commissioner Cole, yes. Mr. Hols. Yes. Mayor Pro. Yes. Uh, thank you. Do we want to move ahead with item C? Well, it seems like we could, couldn't we? We could because the number isn't changing, right? So,

okay. So, uh, item C, uh, Miss Cota, is the, uh, resolution to award the 2026 Cape Seal program. Floor is yours. Yes, we just talked about proceeding because the number isn't changing. Got it.

Yep. So, bring forward tonight is the award for the 2026 Cape program to uh, highway maintenance. Um for this we had two uh we bid on publicly through Mitten and we had to receive two bids on this project. Um Highway Maintenance has done the city's uh Cape Seal program several years in the past and we brought forward uh recommendations uh to award the contract to highway maintenance and also for part of this bidding process uh to help um be more efficient in the engineering department. We also bid the 27 capill program so that way they could do the work in July, starting July of this year. That's not part of the award tonight. It's only the 26 program that's part of the award. Uh engineering department will bring forward later in the day with the special assessments and the contract award for the 27 portion around June time frame.

Okay. Motion. I'll make a motion. Fire

like to make a motion adopting a resolution to award the 2026 Capesil program number 5-26 PN P Npn to Highway Maintenance and Construction Company in the amount of $417,727.25 and a 10% construction contingency for a total amount of $459,499.98. In addition to authorize the mayor and the city clerk to sign the agreement on behalf of the city contingent upon execution of the agreement. Sorry, hold on. Execution of the agreement and meeting of all insurance and bond requirements by highway maintenance and construction company. Funding for this project has been budgeted for the following accounts. fund account, uh, fund ID number, project award, and 10% contingencies, and total amount is set forth in section 8C on page 213 of today's packet. And to install the advanced intersection signage at the southeast corner of Oak and Lakeside for Lake View as shown in the fields and Vanden brick report. Did I Did I say that? Fleece. Fleece.

Flice and Vanden. Flice and Brandon Vanden. You guys got to start selecting people who have easier names to pronounce. Second motion in second. Any comment on the motion from the commission? Any comment on the motion from the public? Any comment online? Nobody online. Nobody in the room. Roll call, please. Commissioner Trese Long. Yes. Mayor Ballard, yes. Mayor Proml, yes. Commissioner Kazowski, yes. Commissioner Cole, yes. Commissioner Ps, yes.

Another public hearing. We have a public hearing. This is item D on the agenda. Public hearing of necessity for water and sewer lateral special assessment district bird phase 1B project. Open the public hearing at 7:58. Miss Cota. Oh, there you are.

So, the engineering department has a a presentation for this. Do you want to know the page number, Melissa? Yes, please. 418. There we go. Um so yes so this is a a presentation for bird phase 1B um here in necessity for the water and sewer lateral spe special assessment district. Um quick overview of the presentation and the project itself uh limits our bird avenue from Grant Street to Street. The project includes new water man uh sewer improvements and new concrete pavement. Um the special assessment district for uh sewer water laterals to be paid u by the property owner at 100% of the cost. Um, so with this uh part of the project, the existing water man out here is 4-in cast iron that was installed in 1921. Uh, the proposed size is going to be an 8 in watermade ductal iron for replacement. Um, with this, there's concerns with the water man. It's over 100 years old. The existing size is 4in water mane. Um, and with this, the minimum size that we replace going forward is 8 8 in water man. And also this section has experienced um water mane breaks. Um, with this um, we've updated the picture from this year. This is from bird phase 1A just to the west of here. Um with this this is the existing 4-in water man. This was installed in 1931 so slightly newer than 1921. And um with this what you do see over time is the 4-in water man the inside diameter is actually smaller just because of buildup

that happens within a pressurized system itself. And then so for the sewer on um bird from granted communes the existing sewer size is um 8 in to 15 in. Um some of it was installed around 1916 1970 itself. Um so with this we proposed a 15-inch storm sewer on this road and then also to some of the sewers to be uh lined. Um some of those uh sections of sewer are needed for open cut replacement due to the condition of the pipe not be able to be a candidate for the line and also to the existing are uh catch basins are in poor condition and need replacement itself. And then also to the proposed stormster improvements, we'll create a separated storm on these on these streets itself to be able to collect the catch basin runoff. And so with this, it's hard to tell um the videos. These are part of our sewer videos itself. You can see in this location right here, there's actually a void in the sewer system itself. And in this location right here, you can it's hard to see with the this being a view a video and try to do a still shot of it. There's actually a crack right before the joint at all. this location right here that goes around the sewer system. And then on the next sheet, what you also see, you see multiple cracks essentially in this location right through here in the upper right hand corner. And this location right here, it's hard to view, but once it turns to the side, there's actually a void underneath this uh water and or this person's uh sewer lead uh to the sewer system. And so with this uh the city's policy for uh is to be able to protect the public investment in capital improvement projects and public roadways. Um with this if a water sewer lateral is uh older than 60 years of age, less than 1 in in diameter or constructed on unsuitable material. Um it would require replacement and with this it would be um installed with a 1-in diameter service or match existing if larger than 1 in in diameter service. Uh for the sewer laterals, replace all sewer laterals that are 50 years of age or older or

less than 6 in in size and diameter or constructive unsuitable materials. Um with this, the sewer laterals will be replaced with 6-in PVC pipe. And so with this to kind of uh explain this a little bit more in detail. So located right here would be the property line. And with this as part of the special assessment, we would be replacing all of this portion right here of someone's sewer lead if it meeted those requirements as mentioned in the previous slide. As for the water service, located right here is of the uh property line or the rightway line. And with this, we'll be replacing the water service for the water man all the way to the property line and with a new a new curve box uh stop at the property line. And so with this, the water and sewer laterals will be but 100% of the cost to the property owner and then the property owner has an option of paying in full or over a 5-year period. Um the interest rate will be confirmed at the confirmation of the role. Um so with this, we received uh bids on the project on February 12th, 2026. Uh with this for the water service, it was $53 per foot for a 1 in of water service and for the sewer was $112 per linear foot for a 6-in uh sewer service. And here's the location map of this. Um, so with this, if it just has a blue uh shade, that means it's just only getting the water lateral replace. And with that, there is just one house that's just got the water lateral replace. Um, the green is that they're just getting a sewer lateral replace. And then the yellow means they're both getting the water and sewer lateral replace. And then here's a list of the properties in the sidwell numbers that go along with the properties that are included in the water and sewer lateral special assessment district. And in summary, the engineering department recommends that the city commission declare a necessity improve the special assessment district for bird phase 1b project for the sewer and water

laterals. And should commission approve the special assessment district uh public hearing loop for confirmation the role will be held on March 23rd, 2026. I'm available to answer any questions.

Great. Okay. As this is a public hearing, if there's anyone in the public who would like to make comment or has a question, please approach. If you're online, use the raise your hand function. I don't see anyone. Last call. Closing the public hearing. City commission. Questions, comments? Motion. I have a question real quick, please. Really quick. If they're getting a water line and a sewer line, is it the same hole? They dig the same trench or is it sometimes different?

It's sometimes different. It depends on where their original lead got built when the house got built. Um, so some locations it might be closer and other locations it might be further away. We might need two separate trenches. Does the guy who only has one trench get a better deal? Um well the they're just paying for the water and the sewer coming the material for that. Since it's an improved road there's no special assessment for the roadway on top. So with this a lot of times what they're seeing is a reduction of cost of re because they don't have to put the pavement back if they had to do the repair themselves.

No they're he's talking about if you have one trench it's going to cost less because you're going to dig it up fix the two lines and fill it in as opposed to two trenches for the laterals across their lawn. Um, no. Because essentially the cost per foot just assumes everything for the the sewer system itself and the water system being installed per linear foot of the lead itself. That's how it Okay. Other questions, comments, motion? I'll make the motion if you

Thank you. Whereas notice was given pursuant to section 94-7 of the city code to each owner or party and interest of property and lots to be assessed by firstass mail and publication and a newspaper generally circulated in the city. And whereas the city commission has conducted a public hearing. has determined it is necessary to proceed with the project replacing sewer services 50 years of age or older constructed of material that is not acceptable for city standards and replacing water services that are 60 years or older or less than 1 in in diameter on Bird Street from Grant Street to Cummings Avenue. And whereas the city has previously established a policy of requiring replacement of city of sewer services 50 years of age or older or constructed materials that are not acceptable for city standards and water services less than 1 in in diameter and the city street is open for repairs or reconstruction. And whereas the city commission after public hearing has determined that bird phase 1B project has determined that the bird phase 1B project the replacement of sewer services that are 50 years of age or older or of material that is not acceptable for city standards. The replacement of water services that are 60 years or older or less than 1 in in diameter is a necessity and in the best interest of the city. And whereas this whereas the commission has approved the detailed plans and estimates of the cost prepared by the city engineer. And whereas formal bids have been received and the actual cost of sewer service and water service replacement has been determined. And whereas the city engineer has determined the boundaries of the sewer service lateral and water service laterals located within the limits of the following streets shall be installed as part of the bird 1B project contract number uh number 7-26 PN W and PN Bird Avenue hyphen Grant Street to Cumins Avenue. Whereas the formula used in making the assessment is 100% of the contractor's charge for replacing the lateral service that is 50 years of age or older or constructed of materials that are not acceptable and water

service that is 60 years of age or older or less than 1 in in diameter within the public rightway between the utility and the property line calculated at the rate of $112 per foot of 6in diameter sewer service pipe and $53 per foot of 1in water service pipe. Therefore, let it be resolved that the city commission has determined that the scope of the public improvement as described is in the best interest of the city and will benefit the properties listed in the assessment role and is a necessity. And the city commission directs the manager to prepare a special assessment role and to present the same to city commission for confirmation and further set a public hearing of confirmation on March 23rd, 2026 and give notice of same notice of same. And this applies to the um sewer and water laterals under SIDW number, street address, and estimated sewer sad costs and estimated water sad costs that are located in section 8D of tonight's packet on pages 378, 379, and 380. Second

motion and second comment in the room at the commission table online in the ether. I don't see anybody. Nobody. Okay. Miss Bingham. Commissioner Host. Yes. Commissioner Chong. Yes. Commissioner Pavowski. Yes. Commissioner Cole. Yes. Mayor Promlong. Yes. Commissioner Bell.

Yes. Moving right along, we have item B, a resolution to approve the playground layout design for Pemro Park and purchase equipment through landcape structures amount of $222,554.94 plus installation $443,381555 for a total purchase price of $665,93649. Second,

Mr. Zalinsky. I mean, I'm good with that if you guys are. Keep this. We have a full report. Yep. Keep this night moving along. Lots of pictures. Um, yes. Kids playing. Exactly. So, puppies. As we've had for you guys, only on Alicia.

Yeah. As we've had for you guys multiple times, uh Pura has been designing these for us and we've been bringing them to the parks board, getting soliciting input from the public, including uh survey responses like the ones that are included in your packet. Um really just wanted to keep this brief and answer questions if there were any with it. Um the reality is is the park that got designed this time its biggest highlighting feature and uniqueness is the zipline feature that's being included in this one. Uh it has the capability for um uh people with disability to get on at that midpoint. you. It might be a little hard to see, but that like slightly gray compared to the tan area is where we have uh port in place material to create that accessible feature for uh the residents. And you might ask, why is it in the middle? Uh they found that's the easiest place to load people at. And it also limits the amount of surfacing we need to get them on. And then they can be pushed to to the end and then sent to the other end back and forth. and they're allowed to be basically alongside of their fully able counterparts um on a regular zipline which is on the bottom of that picture. Um, the other cool features that we have in there is the Vololo uh structure which has uh flex netting like in some of our other features that we've had previously to make that a uh a fully accessible structure so kids can work crawl their way up from the bottom. That's why that area is also in that port and place material. Uh we additionally have on the left side of the screen there some uh bucket seat for infants but also one of these uh the swings for the handicap accessible to use. It's where a whole

person can lay down in it. An adult can lay down in it. We've actually gotten really good reviews on that exact swing over at our Lincoln Pump House site. Um, and then we have stuff for, you know, the younger kids, which is that playhouse that's over on the right side. One of the other features that we got asked about here was to provide more shade. So, the little uh well, it looks like the little umbrella on the top there is over the sandbox. That's a modification of an existing sandbox, and we're just providing that because there aren't exactly trees in that area to provide shade over that sandbox. But then at the edge of the right side of the screen there is a larger structural um hardcape uh I think I have a copy of it in here in a different color structure so that they are you know regardless of the weather. The discussion that came up at the parks board was we wanted to ensure regardless of the weather that like if it all a sudden a popup thunderstorm comes through people had a spot that they could get under and they would be fully protected from the rain. Uh there are cheaper versions of this that are more of a cloth feature that go over the top, but they're not 100% like weather resistant. And so that's why the encouragement from the public that attended our meetings and from our parks board was to go with a solid roof structure such as this. That's the cliffnotes version. If there's specific questions, cuz you guys have been through this a lot of times. Lance is actually on the line. if you have specific questions about any of the equipment that's out there. Um, just was keeping it higher level to help move things along since you've been through this a few times.

Thank you very much. Uh, Commissioner Long.

Um, I want to say that I watched both meetings, read the survey, and uh, and I think that, uh, you and Carrie and the parks parks and rec board did a great job of, uh, synthesizing sometimes conflicting feedback and, um, um, incorporating um, you know, best practices and playground design with, uh, concerns of the residents. Um, you didn't mention, but you had your consultant, Lance, survey all the existing playground equipment to see what could be maintained. you're keeping uh two existing swings and both of the beloved sandboxes and uh and there was great discussion about the placement uh performance and cost benefit ratio of the various surfacing materials, the placement of the sidewalk in relation to parking and the existing sidewalks which are only on two sides of that park. You had some future planning. I thought all in all it was a really thorough, really comprehensive job and I fully support the project.

Thank you. Any other comments? I I've read the comments on the uh survey and called our resident parks and wreck expert to ask her if those had been addressed and she assured me they were and it appears they were and that's all I care about. Well, if there's no other comment, I would be delighted for old time sake,

because this is being paid for primarily, if I just may toot, with the parks and recck bond that we all advocated for and which the residents of Birmingham um we are grateful passed with, I believe, 70% uh in favor and and the parks and recond is doing what it was intended to do besides a couple really large projects. they are marching through uh the smaller neighborhood parks and bringing improvements to everybody so that for safety's sake, old playground equipment um is being replaced with stuff that's newer and safer and more fun. So, um, I would like to make a motion to approve the playground layout design for Penrook Park and the purchase of equipment through landscape structures incorporated with Sourcewell cooperative purchase pricing in the amount of 222,554 and the installation of playground equipment slate structures and site amenities by Pentura LLC in the amount of 443,381.55 for a total purchase price of 665,936.49. In addition to appropriate and amend the 2526 budget as follows, park system construction fund revenues drawn from fund balance of um fund 408.0 um hyphen 0000.0000y 400.0000 0000 for $35,93649 and expenditures from the land improvements fund 408.2-91.751-9790000 for $35,93649.

Second was a photo finish. Give it to cold by 1/100th of a second. All good. Uh any uh comment from the public? Any comment uh from the commission? Any comment online? Seeing none, let's do a roll call on this one. Mayor Balor, yes. Commissioner Host, yes. Mayor Prom, yes. Commissioner Cole, yes. Commissioner Kazowski, yes. Commissioner Theres Long, yes. Item F, the wall. Go forth and play. Yeah, thank you.

Item F is the wall. Um so tonight in front of you for the city commission um agenda packet was um the last city commission meeting mentioned to um bring forward the retaining wall to see if there was a necessity to to uh to replace the retaining wall itself. um with us since the last city commission meeting. We provided some different additional information as part of this city commission memo. Um the subdivision was plotted in 1914.

May I interrupt you? I'm sorry. My fault. I should have been more explicit. Anybody watching this needs to know what we're talking about. We're talking about an a retaining wall on Brookside Ravine and Park Streets. That's part of our 2025 and 2026 asphalt resurfacing program. So, at the last meeting, we asked you to come back. We had questions about the retaining wall plan to put in. And so, that I'm sorry that that is what we're talking about. Sorry about that. No, my fault. I should have.

And so, uh, with this, we um still looked into our files and couldn't find the original plans from when the wall was installed in 1920 around 1920s, 1930s. Um we do have plans for the utilities um for the area right right now but they don't show the retaining wall itself. Um but we reviewed some of the additional information and with this we think the existing walls appear to be built um in the 1920s. Um with that it was essentially a two tier retaining wall and some of the section was modified in 1950s and then with this in 1991 there was a project that was done by the engineering department to replace certain sections of the wall and also rehab certain sections of the wall itself. Um and then so with information um September 16th of 2022 engine department reviewed the existing walls and photographs were provided um in there with that we had our uh structural engineer AEW review the existing retaining wall and they provide information about the retaining wall. Um no emergency repairs were at that time but it was recommended to replace the walls as part of a future capital improvement program. Um so with that the engineer part engineering department started budgeting it during the winter spring of the 202 uh3 time frame to be able to include it in fiscal years. It was shown up in the fiscal years of the budget in 2324 under the ashvault resurfacing wall repairs and then also quantly in fiscal years 2425 and 2526. Um, so with this, we also did have a uh resident meeting um earlier on this year to be able to discuss replacement of the wall. And we did receive bids for this project on January 20th. Um, the lowest responsive bidder unit cost for the retaining wall was approximately $681,900. That's without the staircase itself. Um, with this we the uh we think that uh the total construction cost of the ashvault

resurfacing program as a whole is about $2.1 million. Um, and so with this um the bids are good for 60 days and the lowest responsive bidder has agreed to hold their pricing if awarded the entire contract. And um with this I'm able to go through some of the information that was in the attachments of the memo. Um so this is some of the information but we're talking about the subdivision plots themselves of the subdivisions. So, the concerns with areas of the locations I've got that have existing walls out um on Ravine, it's from the alley to Park Street and then Ravine once it turns into Brookside and then north along Brookside here and then the wall continues um once it turns into Park Street if you head east past the alley and then continues onto Park Street and ends approximately right around this location here south where it converts back to Park north of an existing alley. There's also some existing retaining walls on Parks, I'm sorry, on Brookside, north of Park Street on the eastand side. So, here's an area from 1940. Not the best quality of it type of a deal. You see the the the essentially the streets themselves type of a deal. Um, and with this in 1960, this is a better aerial. You can see some of the existing sidewalk that's already there in this location through this area here. And then also in this location here where the retaining wall is at. And so this right here is actually photos from 1990 1991 before repairs were done to the wall in the 1991 uh wall repair project. Um so this is Park Street here and this location is the alley here. So in this section that you see in this slide right here, all of this wall was replaced in 1991 itself. And then that's an anger looking towards the east on Park Street. This right here is located on Brookside right before it starts to curve when then Park Street meets to the north. It's hard to see at this angle, but there was actually a two-tiered wall.

So, here's the existing wall that you see to date right here. And then here's the other wall behind it. And that's actually the sidewalk that was located right through here. Could you be explicit about what here represents current conditions and what is no longer existent? This wall right here is current conditions. Okay. Everything else behind it is not there any longer. Okay. But are these all old pictures from 1991 that you're showing us right now? Yes. Yeah. Okay. And of limited relevance, correct? If they are relevant, please be clear on what the relevance is of a 1991 photograph.

Yep. So, this location right here, this this uh second tiered wall in front of 564 is no longer there and the sidewalk is here. So this existing wall got re remains as is and was never had any repairs done to as part of the 91 project. Okay. So here's the location. This is Brookside. Brookside continues north right here. And Park Streets over here. This section of wall was actually replaced in 1991 as part of that project itself entirely. And you can see the limits coming around through here. This was all replaced.

Did they level out the sidewalk on that previous picture? They replaced portion of this sidewalk here as part of the plans itself, but in this location right here, this sidewalk was not removed and replaced at all. Um, this right here is the intersection of the staircase to kind of show existing conditions in there. This is coming back along park. This got replaced as part of it. And this location right here, this is just showing existing conditions. Park Street or sorry, Brookside is located right here. Park Street's here, Brookside here. So this would be the sidewalk crossing through here. And this location right here, this is where there's boards currently up there that this there's no staircase here anymore.

So that's not an existing condition. That's not an existing condition.

And if I could just add a few comments, you're asking what are the relevance of this, right? The 1991 pictures. I think in and I apologize I wasn't at the last meeting but my understanding is there was a lot of questions from the commission as to why are we doing this wall why are we paying should it be special assessed what happened is you know when was this last done so she's giving you the background to say when it was put in when it was done when it was redone in sections in 1991 it was not special assessed the city took on that responsibility at the time because the sidewalk was there one thing I think is Very important to note that I did not see in the minutes at least from the last meeting that not only is this retaining wall failing in causing some dirt to shift potentially, but it's also causing problems with the sidewalk. So, the sidewalk is not currently meeting ADA requirements with regard to cross slope because of the and and Melissa, you can jump in. Um, so it's c the cross slope is too much. So, we need to straighten the sidewalk and build up that land and and strengthen the retaining wall to keep the sidewalk in place. Okay. So, if we don't do anything with regard to the wall, then we have an issue with the sidewalk because we know that it doesn't meet ADA and we have to fix it or stop using it.

Okay. And I didn't see that anywhere in the last meeting. Good point. Thank you. And so with this uh photos from September 6th of 2022, um this location is Brookside. It's part of the curve and you can kind of see where the sidewalk has settled along the back of the retaining wall that was replaced. But are these old photos again? These are from a few years ago. Okay. Why don't you show them the couple of pictures from today, like current times? Okay, here we go. 2022 is about as current as we're going to get.

Well, no, they have more since because it's it's very clear from these pictures what maybe wasn't clear at the last meeting that the sidewalk is sloping and the land is failing underneath the sidewalk in certain places. You know, I was just in Egypt and this reminds me of some of the places that I walked through with big boulders falling on their side.

So, this very first one, you can see the the the sidewalk, there's like a a space underneath it because the land's fallen away because the wall is shifted. So this in the first sheet passed it out, you can see a void that's happening along the sidewalk itself because the essentially the sediment or essentially the soil underneath is eroding uh behind it. You can kind of see it. It would be in this location right here along Brookside itself. Uh the next sheet shows a location that is probably in these photos here. Why don't we go through the pictures that you just gave us? Okay.

One by one so it's very clear what you're trying to illustrate with each of these photos. So the first photo it appears you're trying to show us the void below the sidewalk. In other words, dirt somehow has come out shifting land shifting dirt. Okay. But has anybody gone there and said, "Well, let's just put some dirt under there. Put the dirt back where it belongs." Yeah. But you you can see that the slope is and also also did the review of this today. Took photos for me because I was working on other things for today's city commission meeting. But in this location right here, the slope of the sidewalk is about 8% cross cross sidewalk and it and it has to be what to meet ADA? 2%. Okay.

Yeah. To clarify, even if we were to try to leave this as existing conditions, you the best way to approach that would be to shoot grout under there. Um, but you still run the risks of everything washing away because as you can see that void's coming because the sand and stuff is slowly getting washed eroded away because honestly in my opinion that was graded too extreme between that sidewalk and the top of the wall to begin with. And unless you have like your vegetation fully going strong, you don't hold erosion from failing on walls and that are like that of for plant material, soils, etc. You'll also see in a lot of these photos that there's random stakes that are like in the middle of the grass and stuff. Oh, you're pulling them off. Perfect.

Uh those are if the wall were to fail, the minimum first failure line. It's a 45° angle. It's an assumption of if we're failing under a catastrophic event, how far back the first failure would be. I cannot predict how far back the second failure would be. The second failure would come from the all a sudden having that weight change and distribution and security, the wall being there. Okay, hold on one sec. Go to page three cuz I can see they're not following you. We are. I got it. Oh, you are? Yeah. Okay. Page three, you'll see there's met there's wooden stakes in the grade. What he's saying is where those stakes are is where the first failure would

occur. That would all slough off into the roadway and cause a big mess that I have to clean up. The secondary items that could fail is the rest of the way up the hill. And I can't predict that because once Earth becomes unstable, it can act in really crazy ways and actually fail more than the genuine angle of like when you pile sand and it ends up with a specific angle. Catastrophic failures tend to have secondary. A lot of times this would be caused by water eroding things and it failing. Um, and when you get water in the soil, it doesn't act like it's supposed to. I can tell you from seeing trench collapses and stuff that they don't always go at the angle you expect. So my our biggest concern is letting this go to failure could result in issues that go up the hill towards the residential property

to foundation kind of stuff. We don't know how far it would go but we don't want to be the ones who sat idly by and not to mention large trees. Right. But at this time, our biggest worry is that structurally the sidewalk doesn't meet ADA compliance because of the structure of the wall. And therefore, we're on notice and we've we've been okay because we had a plan to fix it, but we need to fix it. Otherwise, we can't use the sidewalk. And so, I think what they're that's the immediate problem. And then what they're saying is it could get worse obviously for the properties because, you know, all of the properties go up for the most part. So, I don't think it was abundantly clear that it that it was related to the sidewalk issue at the last meeting.

And this is that area that she showed that was two tiers before they added a handrail in 91 when they did this. And like here, if you have that same type of failure because this wall is leaning out also, if that wall gives way, it goes like the the failure points to the middle of the sidewalk. Can I guarantee the side? Are you talking about the rock wall? Yeah. Okay.

This and so like this area would the sidewalk would tip in and then you would lose those boulders and stuff that are now board up on probably the private property. So like there's extenduating things that would follow should this fail. Hence why we want do it proactively instead of reactively because the cost changes are completely different when you have a reaction to emergency. Could a failure in one place trigger a left versus just vertical? Could it trigger a horizontal? So, one part of the wall goes and then to the right goes versus going up the hill.

It would it would depend on the what caused the failure. If it's like just simply a section falls down, you don't have like rain water introduced, it might stay to just that area. But there tends to there can be that cascade effect, but it would be I can't predict the exact distances. No, fair enough. Yeah. Okay, let's let's get back. Are you have more, right? Are are you you're not done with your presentation, are you? Or are you?

So, with this there's a few more additional photos that Scott and Department of Public Services took. Um, this location right here is at Brookside and Park and Scott, correct me if I'm wrong. In this location right here, we're seeing that the wall has moved further out of plum and then essentially we're starting to see erosion concerns along this seam right here.

And we don't know when there. So that next little chunk is a slab of concrete that looks like it was slid in to fill a void. It doesn't look like it was part of any of the initial placements of concrete. So this is something that has been continually slowly getting worse. You what you also might be able to see. Can you zoom in hard on that hole? There's irrigation behind this wall that continues to put water there even when we don't have storm conditions. When you have water traveling through an area of soils, it pulls the soils through. And that's why if you go to the one where we were looking down that edge, we're seeing Yeah. There you see those different like almost looks like step lines in there. That's the material slowly sloughing down. And we had a picture from the other corner where you kind of see it's all working towards those stair steps, which is also part of the reason why that stair step wall leans kind of in towards the steps is everything's kind of working its way towards that corner slowly. I erosion's fun how it moves at different paces at different times. is is that

and then also too what we're knowing this is further east on Park Street in some of the staircases as Scott was talking about. We're starting to see erosion along the staircases itself type of a deal. So in this area there's an open staircase in this location right here and you're seeing the wall is not plum anymore. So there's concern that if it fails that we might actually start seeing also stuff behind here failing itself potentially when it fails in the future. Um so we are seeing erosion concerns back behind sections of the wall itself. And this is another view of it where we're starting to see it back through here. You're not seeing essentially back filled anymore back behind the top of the wall. And so with this um and these are photos back from in the agenda packet from 2022. Some of the cross will appear on the existing sidewalk varies from 8 to 10%. And the ADA requirement is 2% or less. So the problem we run into in certain locations with the cross slope itself, we can't just lift up the sidewalk because the area that's supporting the sidewalk is essentially moving or moving because of the wall movement and then it can't be supported anymore. So there's a double concern of the walls are starting to shift out of plum as shown on this back from 2022. But then also to if this starts shifting down to here, but we're noticing a certain location it's tipping this sidewalk up on the top greater than ADA requirements and that is also being replaced as part of this project. And we can't necessarily put the sidewalk back at 2%. Because we need this wall taller to make sure you've got the support of the soil to support the sidewalk up on top of it.

Done. Yes. Oh, good. Okay. Well, then do we have questions from the city commission? Yes. Commissioner Cole. So, out of curiosity, I know it's unpredictable, but once we start construction,

could we end up finding a whole bunch of remediation that we have to do like back filling? I mean, some of that's going to naturally come with it when you put up you're going to like shore and brace as you take sections. This is how I believe it'll be done is they would take it in sections to ensure you don't have like catastrophic failure by removing the entire wall at once. Typically, it's like if you're fixing foundations on a house, you take it in segments to keep it under control. There's gonna be some back fill that goes with this because like she's saying, we're gonna raise that wall a bit more so that we can get a more less less angle on that basically what's grass in these photos on the soils beneath so that when you put a load on like a sidewalk doesn't marshmallow out, push out to the side and come off. So there's yes material extra material is going to go in, but I you know that depends on the exact design of the wall. Okay. Uh I'm going to ask if there's anyone in the room or online who lives in this neighborhood who wants to comment or has a question. Nobody. Okay. Commissioner Long.

So I have uh a couple of questions. The first one is that in the report um or the memo from from uh the city engineer, it says it was recommended to replace the walls as part of a future capital improvement project and it references AEW's March 2023 report. But when you read the March 2023 report, it doesn't recommend fully replacing the wall. It says where the retaining walls are not leaning significantly and not affecting the cross slope and the adjacent sidewalk such as locations three and four, we recommend repairing the joints and spalls and just making it a routine maintenance program. It then talks about where the wall leaning is significant in the elevated sidewalk has tilted where the cross slope is unacceptable. 25 and six we recommend replacing the retaining walls and sidewalk. that talks about the needs for railing, but it also talks about an alternative in uh that section where the where the railing is to move the relocate the sidewalk down to street level and for it said easier maintenance, not needing a ra a railing um you know just future issues assuming that you can't cut down the large tree. Um, so I want to know why are we recommending replacing the entire thing when that's not what the AEW report calls for and whether we ever seriously considered uh relocating that sidewalk so it's not high up in the air. So the first portion of that the hard part you're going to run into if we replace sections of the walls like they did in 1991 someone will be back here 20 years maybe even earlier to repair other sections of the wall. Um that's a concern from a maintenance standpoint from engineering department also department of public services that if we don't replace the wall at one time frame it's going to be keep coming back every 10 15 20 years that it needs replacement for it type of a deal. Also too what you run into is tying a new wall into the

old wall since we don't have the drawings we don't know how the original wall was built. So to be able to tie back to existing would be difficult probably a lot of time and material to be able to make that completed in the field itself. Um as for the location to lower the sidewalk down to the wall. Um no did the design of the engine of the retaining wall itself. They did look at that location, but the problem you ran into, you had to go further back on private property to get an easement to be able to build the wall to be able to build the wall back behind the sidewalk itself. Um, also too, what you run into is the current sidewalk width measured today only, is it 40 in. Yeah. Where

where the railings at between the sidewalk. So with that, you also run to the concern of making sure any brand new sidewalk has 5T wide width in that location. And the proposed retaining wall design does have that.

And why we wouldn't put the sidewalk down on the road edge is kind of the same reason. It's in some of those spots as that. Although it's not as extreme, the wall is starting to lean. So you'd be putting the sidewalk right next to a leaning wall. And we're not huge fans from a, you know, pedestrian safety of doing what's called a carriageway, which is where you put a sidewalk immediately adjacent to a road edge. In this case, you even you'd have to build in a curb. So, it's a it's a lot more invasive to put it in. And I don't believe the width in the area where they were kind of recommending that of the road really would allow for two-way traffic once that's done. So, that would then change. We'd have to have, you know, signage changed for traffic control measures, that sort of thing.

So, Noah and Fra did look at that design. Yes. Okay. And it's not their opinion that that's not the best practice.

Correct. I have a further concern about the design of the new wall. Um, based on the reference that was in the report that it's going to look like what's at reading in Old Salem Court, that is a splitface black wall with a stone cap, like a a landscape wall. And um, that is not in keeping with the aesthetic in the area. We we call this a historic area. I don't think it was formally a historic district, but it is a historic section of town. And when a homeowner wants to make an improvement on a historic property, we make them match materials uh and appearance for what is there already. So, I I'm not sure that the neighbors know what it's going to look like because there's not pictures in here. We have to go to Google Maps and look at Reading in Old Salem Court. And it is, you know, new and modern. It's black. Like I said, it is it's it looks like a it's a three layer landscape wall. I don't I don't see how that's going to look really tall. And I want to know whether I mean, I'm not sure I think that that's an appropriate design to replace these walls in this area. It's going to change change the character and feel of the neighborhood. So I had discussions with Nick Depri the planning department with this with he went from historical information on it. He's not necessarily considering a historical wall because there's already been rehabilitation done on it and sections removed and replaced of it. Usually for stuff like this he mentioned we probably look something in similar in color for to match existing conditions. And so with that the proposed coloring does look like concrete itself. The problem we run into and department of public services is probably going to run into if there's a water man break behind

the wall right now. If a water man breaks or a water service lead needs replacement between the roadway where the water man's located at and someone service leads they have to cut through the through the wall. The goal for using what is near reading for the essentially the splitface wall is that someone could potentially remove and replace sections of it and not damage other portions of the wall itself. So a lot of it is also looking at utility and and essentially if something needs to get removed and replaced in the future department of public services is not saw cutting a concrete wall and then having to try to figure a way to be able to repair it in the future to be able to make blocks to be able to get removed and replaced for it. Well, there's still going to be concrete behind the wall that you're still going to have to cut through. It's just not going to be visible because according to the plans, there's three different sections. And the tall sections are concrete reinforced in the back, right? So, there's certain locations where you've got a little bit of the concrete in the back, but that's in the locations kind of around this curve in this location where you have the side sidewalk on top of the of the area that's integral with almost the wall. not necessarily in the areas with the green belt where we've got in some in these locations some utility leans servicing the houses.

Quick question. Sure. Um last meeting we were told this was $1 million y and this meeting we're being told it's not. What's the what what's going on there with the cost? So with that um the cost that was given before was someone else in the engineering department. That cost also includes some of the pavement that's being done here. So it doesn't include just the new cost of the over a little over $600,000 is just the wall construction itself. Okay. Okay. Uh, Commissioner Klowski, thank

you. Um, so first off, I wanted to say uh this is some superlative detective work uh tracking down all these documents. Um, they were really fascinating reading through them and um, one of the things that jumped out to me was how often uh, the documents discussed specially assessing for the maintenance and replacement of these walls. So, I wanted to know if that had been considered or discussed or or what was going on there. So go ahead.

I think we did look into that based on your question and in 1991 it was not specially assessed. Um so based on the documents it appeared they considered it. They did not do it. Can I speak to what their reasoning was at the time? Not really. Our assumption is that the sidewalk was already there. It wasn't new sidewalk being added. So they're fixing what was existing condition. Okay. Doesn't really give you a solid answer.

No. It also had something probably to do with the fact that it was only 52 grand. Um, through the magic of I don't even know what. Um, boy. Okay. So, my next question is, so, so you kind of explained this already, but it is frustrating to hear that they did spend a bunch of money to replace a big chunk of the wall in the '90s, and now we're basically saying, well, too bad. Now we've just right the rest of the wall has lasted 100 years but we're going to scrap this in like 35. And we're saying well we kind of have to because their decision to do part of the wall in the '90s was probably illconceived. You want to be able to match it all. I'm just trying to unwrap my head around well why did they think in the '90s it's cool to just replace a chunk. It's cool to just reinforce part of it and now we're saying no if you're going to do this you got to do the whole thing. standards have changed.

I was going to say ADA stands the ADA standards is probably the largest portion of this. Um because like a lot of those existing conditions to your point have been there for a while. I also note that like there's portions of this wall where there's asphalt patch holding together a portion where we've had stuff coming through a hole that forms in the wall where it's crumbling. Uh there's so many spots around this where it's like you can tell they did minor patchwork. It's like a a quilt out there. It's not

uh one solid decisive decision. So they've been I would assume over time addressing the worst of the worst and not handling it uniformly to ensure that it's taken care of completely the right way for hopefully another hundred years. Yeah. So no. Um, and then another question was did did we do some kind of like paser rating for the road? What cuz I was also trying to to figure out cuz we're doing the road too, right? That's

and I understand the the concept that well if we're going to do one we should do the other and I was sort of wondering if one of these if the wall was sort of driving the decision to do the road or vice versa. So with this, the wall is kind of leading the way of it because we reviewed this in 2022 because of the sidewalks itself and we're seeing that the wall being not plum and movement in the area. With this, the paser ratings are a three to a four time frame. So this is the time that you would want to do a mill and overlay for this. Also too, any wall construction is going to probably you run into the potential of any type of construction that you're going to be damaging the surface of the roadway itself, scruffing it, etc. type of a deal. So with this, I wouldn't bring forward to you guys that we would mill and overlay this roadway and keep the wall later because essentially if this fails five a year to 5 years from now, the pavement's also going to get damaged to itself.

And can can you confirm the pacer rating of the road is a three or four, which is poor poor condition. Yeah. It's also very low traffic. It's very low traffic. It's low traffic and we're doing the whole neighborhood, right? We're not just doing the retaining wall stuff now. Maybe the construction trucks would mess it up. Anyway, apologies. Are you done? I can be done for now. You don't have to be, but yeah. I'm I'm just How many people actually use the sidewalk? It's like Well, can I ask another question that's related to that?

Are are you telling us that something here must be done? That we are we are obligated to do something about something? I think it's fair to say because we're on notice what exactly are we obligated to do? What is the minimum that absolutely must be done here? And I'm not talking about, you know, the potential for catastrophic damage to a wall. I'm talking about cuz that's not the sidewalk is not safe. It doesn't meet ADA standards. Now, we're on notice since 22 that that's the case. Okay. So, how much of the sidewalk? We're not talking about the whole neighborhood. Do you know how much? What exactly? It's quite a It's quite a bit.

Yeah, I think it's about It's the portion of Brookside that goes north and you've got Yeah. You've got the area on park sidewalk. Yeah. West of the alley. We're seeing erosion and that part's tipping. So, I would say from the alley from the park north, you're running into issues along Brookside and around the curve that they replaced in 1991 to this location right here. Those are probably the ones that you've you're seeing issues where the side essentially the sidewalk is cross is more than 2%. So we so we would either have to fix the sidewalk or remove the sidewalk. Right. To her point, does anybody actually walk on these sidewalks? We don't have pet counts,

but we're talking about

spending a lot of money on a project. So I just want to because I haven't made up my mind here. I want to understand what we have to do. We talked earlier about setting priorities and whether this is an $800,000 project or what it is. I don't see that road as being so terrible. I read the report. It said, you know, when you get around to it, fix it. It didn't say everything needed to be done. Very concerned about the design. I think if we approved this tonight and you went in and pulled out that wall and put in the new wall, the neighbors would be freaking out asking, you know, that I don't think anybody there's not a picture in this of what it's going to look like. All we were told is go look at reading and I'm Are you telling us it's the same color as reading or you're going to do a different color than what Reading has?

It's a slightly different color because the color on Reading they discontinued. Okay. to be a beautiful even if we were inclined to do this. There is this, you know, there there's no question there's pictures show this thing crumbling in certain places that that probably things absolutely need to be done. But there's a certain charm to this also that you're going to like wipe out and you're going to put in something that looks like

a landscape wall. I have two additional questions. So in this picture um is there are we um expecting that any damage will be done to the trees that are that close to that wall. So part of that department of public services, the forestry is re is reviewing the areas of areas that might need that trees might need removal. And this location looking at this probably these locations of these trees right here will need removal. And then there's going to be review in the field of these two completed type of a deal on Brookside north of Park Street on the eastand side. There's going to be two trees removed as part of the project. And do the neighbors know this? Do the residents know this? because stuff is going to rain down on us if they don't.

So with this, we had the resident meeting. The one resident on Brookside, she was at that meeting itself for this this location right here. I would have to check to see if that resident was at the meeting or not. I did talk to the resident on Brookside at the resident meeting. I'm not sure. And this location on the resident meeting was for residents who had stairways. Correct. No, resident meeting was for the whole entire 2526 ashalt resurfacing program. So, was anyone located at How many residents showed up at Pier Street? I would say probably about 15 to 20 15 people or 15 to 20 15 to 20 properties properties. And did you show them pictures of what it was going to look like? Yes,

you did. You showed them, but you didn't show us. Nope. cuz I seriously was here late almost every single night this past week trying to get things ready for for tonight's meeting. Wait, you're telling us you're you're up there testifying that you showed the residents pictures of what the new wall would look like? Yes, I brought it up during Google Street View as the resident meeting as including it as part of this memo package tonight with having four topics including the workshop on tonight's meeting. I personally did not have time to copy and paste everything over from the resident meeting. That's okay. And there was no objections. There was no objections for the people who attended that meeting

and the notice went out to everybody in the area. I have one further question. Yes, sir. So, in this picture, just as an example, there's several places where there's an upper wall along the sidewalk. What are we doing, if anything, about the upper wall? Are are the upper walls or the upper stones being replaced?

So, the upper wall is not being replaced because that's on currently on private property. With that, we do not have how that resident built the wall itself. So, we made notes of it for the construction project to be able to remove the slab before we replace the wall in front to see how that retinol on private properties being held up. But there's a possibility that it we would have to replace it or it would get damaged or it would slide down when the sidewalk's gone. I mean, there is a potential anytime you're dealing with a structural wall, there's always a potential that something could happen along the back side of it itself. With this, we did have a post uh bid meeting with the two lowest responsive biders itself and with the one that we want to bring forward to award for the contract, they have phased the whole entire project to make sure to try to protect as much of the private property as possible.

But if it's a special treatment and and and it belongs to the property owner, right? Is it and it's clo either on public property or close to it's on private property the upper wall. Okay. But okay. So this location this wall back here is on private property. So we don't have details of how this got installed back I think this house was approximately 10 to 15 years ago.

Mhm. I I mean, if I may, it seems to me that they're going to have to shore that up just like they everywhere else when they take the sidewalk out and replace it and flatten it and replace it. They're going to have to shore that up. And, you know, I guess the question that is out there is is that taken into account in in what the estimate is for this project or is there a possibility you're going to come back to us and say, "We got to shore that wall. It's going to cost more than we thought it thought it has. We had we we hadn't looked into that for the private wall. The private wall that they're stack it's stacked large stone, right? But it's it's obviously sitting

on or next to the sidewalk, right? So, you remove the sidewalk and and and build another sidewalk. You're going to have to shore it up during that during that process. Once the new sidewalks back in there and the new walls in there, it it will it'll it'll it'll shore it up and and but that sidewalk is not flat. that that's part of the phasing that she's talking about. Yeah. And typically with this type of thing, you'd put in the lower wall first so you can establish your grade more. Then you'd finish removing the sidewalk. That sidewalk's four to six inches thick, right?

They probably would not need to shore that up at that time. They'd be able that because that's minimal amount of ground being removed in that portion. But that again is part of what they're quoting when they say they're phasing it is how exactly they're going to approach that to ensure that that's staying as is. That brings out one more question if I may. So the vegetation that's there that's going to is that going to become grass or something more stable as part of the project? I mean if you if you don't Yes. It'll go back as grass. It'll go back as grass and quick follow up on that. Sure.

Is and I apologize. I'm sure this is in there. Um, are we going to make the walls taller? Cuz like right now, right, we have this issue with the erosion in between the sidewalk and the wall. And it seems to me, well, if the wall was just as tall as a sidewalk, you just wouldn't have that problem. It wouldn't matter what you planted there. Is our are we is there are we going to try to make the walls basically as tall as the sidewalks or Yes. So, like in this location right here, if the existing walls located right here, it's going to get raised up into this location right approximately this location right here and then the sidewalk report back behind it itself. So that way, as Scott was mentioning earlier, you do not have a steep slope in between what's currently happening out here um and causing the issue with the sidewalk.

And then there'd be a grassy median between the sidewalk and the wall. Yes. Okay. Commissioner Host, anything. Uh I'm going to ask you, uh you live in this neighborhood or Yes. Um, understanding that it's all anecdotal, have you heard any feedback from your neighbors about their desire or lack of desire? Yes. Do this and what?

Yeah. And uh from I would say I haven't had one complaint, you know. Uh Melissa said she had 15. And I probably talked to at least another 25 and uh no uh they're very thankful. Number one, it doesn't cost them any money, but the premise to this is safety. And we we have 100 years that we've been lucky enough to get through without the ADA coming down on us. And uh yes, it it needs to be taken care of from a safety viewpoint. you know, the roads aren't that wide. It's not like we can walk in the street and as such, we rely on those sidewalks. And no, I haven't had one complaint.

I wouldn't expect you to have a complaint of concerns, but well concern. Uh though I will say it's nice that in a sense that we're looking into the minutia but we are a policy board and I don't think we should be secondguessing our engineering or our DPS. Uh this is what we pay them for. The uh the only direct report we have is the city manager. Okay. So can I hold you to that? Sure. Okay. For any future topic? Yeah.

Any other questions or comments? Any questions or comments from the public? Okay. Uh me. Uh what? Go ahead. No, go ahead. No, I mean I'm just uh this is what we do. We sit up here and second guess all day all night long. I don't think we have enough information and I on please what information do you think we need

because I think the aesthetics thing about this community I think um Commissioner Long you're 100% right it gives it its own neighborhood feel and I think that's the one of the wonderful things about the various neighborhoods in Birmingham and you take that away and you put some sprayed white concrete or even the stacked concrete it's going to take away that kind of quaint old neighborhood. Um, so I'd like to see what it actually does look like. If if the residents have seen it and we haven't, I don't know how we can make the decision without seeing what it's going to look like.

Is that something you have if we table if we table this? And I say just could you go get it and provide it to them?

Yes. I mean, we're at the point now where crazy stuff can be done with AI and and and that that we can't get renderings of of what this would look like. Um I and I understand that our staff I wouldn't know how to do it necessarily, but it can be done and it can be done pretty easily. You see some of the crazy stuff that people come up with, you know, in five minutes prompting AI. If we can't take some of these pictures of existing condition and say change it, add this, make it look like this, somebody's got to be able to do that, right? And then and then we'd be like, oh yeah, or no, that's No, you kidding me?

I mean, we had what, 15 great pictures of the playground and the playground equipment in the site where it's going to be placed. And I think yeah, those are done by consultants that we paid a lot of money, right? So yeah, it's not that complicated. It really isn't. Sure. I I just I feel like if they showed the residents pictures of the reading wall and they're like, "Cool."

Yeah. I mean, zero people out of out of 15 households seem to have any problem with it. That's a pretty good sign that they're probably cool with it. I'm I'm more concerned about whether or not the city should be paying for the whole thing. Um there's a lot of back and forth. You know, tonight we we didn't end up voting on it, but we are on the cusp of charging a lot of residents a lot of money uh to fix their streets. 85% 50% for streets that we know mostly get traffic from other places. And this is a retaining wall that as far as I can tell is almost to the exclusive benefit of eight or 10 homes, but we're going to we're going to foot the entire bill for that. Like I I just don't see how we can justify that

to any of the residents that we level levy special assessments against.

Can I can I take exception to uh something that Commissioner Klowski just said? Uh it actually isn't eight or 10. Uh I'm I'm doing this in my head. It's probably 47. I'm picking a number on the wall that are uh on on the wall. Yeah. 47 homes. That includes includes the 10 on Brook side. You know, there's two sides to the street. There's two sides. Somebody give us a reasonable count of the number of homes. Hey, when I said 47, I am going both sides of the street. But the wall doesn't on both sides.

Make it make it 40 then. Well, no, I don't think it's 40. And let's not just throw out numbers. Uh, we ought to know. It's a question. To your point, we don't have all the information. And and he, you know, you're both I'm not sure what your point was other than to question the number. It it it benefits the north half of my neighborhood. That that was what I was thinking. You know, there's 95 homes, so 45 plus. Yeah, there you go. No, you just had it. Go back to what you just had. The GIS tab.

The GIS tab. You had the number of parcels there. Just count the number of parcels. Number four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. I count 11. Okay. In that circle. And then cuz the the Brookside wall doesn't go the entire length of Brookside, right north of Park. It's just like a couple of homes. It's about approximately about these three home about these three properties right through here. I may Okay. Curtail on this this last one here potentially. Yeah. In that location, I'd say approximately three or three or four, you know, and you know, meanwhile,

that's like 15.

Yeah. Meanwhile, like we pointed out, Oak gets 5,000 cars a day. Like, but we're still charging them 50%. You know, I just don't like it. It seems pretty clear to me and I'm not saying, you know, I'm not saying anything about the split, but what I am saying is that, and this is what I mentioned during the workshop, that we should have some kind of consistent philosophy about special assessments because it seems to me that the benefit of this project is going to acrue almost entirely to the people who are adjacent to it. And yet we are we are not asking them to contribute a dime. um outside of their their normal property taxes.

Well, let's let's discuss for one second or have someone everybody's free to opine on what the benefit of this wall is? What is what good is the wall? Is it make room for the street? Is it good for the street by pushing the dirt to the side? Without it, we couldn't have a street. or is it good for the property owners because it holds their property in? The answer to that is both. Uh because if but what if the wall wasn't there? So what if we didn't have a wall? You'd have to go way back in time and you'd hope the hill got graded differently. Um but

no, right now if you took out the wall and you said property owners, sorry, no more wall, unless you want it, in which case we'll put it in for you. I probably have a bunch of sediment in the river that we're having to explain to um Eagle as to why we let a landslide occur. So there so because it would likely go across down the hill into the river. Not to mention the road might not be because you'd create a slope that was too steep and you couldn't landscape it sufficiently. Yeah, you couldn't I mean I've seen pretty steep.

Well, I mean under current condition I don't I don't know the exact soil types in that area. That's why I I use the frame of 45 degrees is because that is a safe average of different types of soil that are there on what would fail. Those boulders that exist on the hill in theory would roll down. If we didn't have anything there, they wouldn't have left them where they're at because if you didn't have the wall, you wouldn't have the sidewalk. You just have a straight hill there. Um, in general, the way I view this is, and I I've joked with Melissa about this, is it's a giant curb. It is an improved road. And then most in pretty much every single improved road we have, you have a curb on the edge of it that helps keep the asphalt in place. It helps control drainage. So right now you just have a three to four foot tall curb that is also holding soils back in addition to keeping the road edge where it is so that you know water flows where it's supposed to so the road remains passable. So if you look at from the the aesthetics of we take on responsibilities for the road once people have paid for it to be improved. It's part of what makes the road what it is. And so it would justify paying for any maintenance and upkeep of that wall because it's part of the improved road.

Okay. Did he change your mind?

I don't know when the road was improved, but the wall I mean by from from my reading of the documents that are in this packet. wall was constructed in 1926 and under in the village of Birmingham and under the village of Birmingham charter there was no provision that said improvements constructed by special assessment would never have special assessments levied on them again for maintenance or construction. Right? This is what the a letter that the the city attorney wrote in 1949. There was a special assessment in 1926 for the construction of the wall. And then there was this back and forth between the city manager and the city attorney in 49 asking, "Hey, can we specially assess for this thing?" And the city attorney said, "Yeah, because the policy that went into place when the city charter was adopted does not act retroactively on projects that were constructed prior to the adoption of the city charter."

Yep. So, it's on the table is what I'm saying. and and we agree that most of this wall was not constructed uh or has not been uh renowed since 1926, right? It has not been replaced. Maybe we did some patchwork on it. The stuff that has been replaced was done in the '90s,

which actually the the city charter that said we're going to maintain everything in perpetuity uh was like section one of chapter 10 of the original city charter said if you we levy a special assessment to improve something, we'll maintain it forever. They got rid of that in 1983. So the stuff that was built in 1990, even if we specially assessed for it, which we didn't, um would in theory still be open to a subsequent special assessment. So I don't I don't it's not clear, and I'm not a lawyer, right? But it's not it's not clear to me like it seems clear to me that that we could levy one here. And the question is, is it really appropriate to levy none at all? Right? I'm not saying, right, like I said about the split, I'm I am sympathetic to the idea, it's a big curb. We need it for the roads, but we charge people for roads and the road is a road, right? Um the city should cover some part of it, you know, because there's there's other problems. Yeah, maybe they should have graded the hill differently, you know, 120 years ago. That would have been swell, but they didn't. So, yeah, we have a responsibility to keep the dirt out of the river, to keep the road operating, but these people also have a benefit of of this wall. you know, they were specially assessed for its original construction and it is essential for keeping their property values intact. So, it was I'm I'm surprised that it it was not discussed is I guess the thing what the split should be

discussed when now here tonight or in the ever, right? It seemed presumed at the outset of this project that and because the project in the '90s was covered 100% by the city, right? That well, I guess that's just how we're going to do it. Could you special assess? You could, I think, but that hasn't been how we treated it the last time. Okay. So, time out. You said this ex I forget what the word was, but almost exclusively benefits the property owners. I said, well, maybe it benefits the city because it's holding. So, maybe there's some percentage where

Sure. where we each feel like well you know there's there is a certain amount of benefit significant to the property owner versus just to the city. Keep in mind, special assessments are always on public property benefiting the homeowner, right? That's this is on public property and it's benefiting his he thinks a lot. What I'm saying is you don't attribute a percentage. Huh? You don't have to attribute percentage. No, but as we a proportion value to the as we consider the notion of special assessing for this we naturally have to you know

right consider that. So without this project we cannot have the public sidewalks right unless you do them on the street which they don't want to do carriage sidewalks right. Um, how and how many pro how many properties did you say were part of this? 15. 15. And the cost is like $600,000 of the wall. 14 all in, right? With the staircases. So do the math. I don't Somebody do the math. How much is that per per home? 15. 800 divide by 15. 52,000. Yeah. I mean, there's benefit to the

53. I'm kidding.

There's benefit to the homeowners in the circle because it prevents their houses from sliding down the hill. Um, there's benefit to the city to the degree that it allows us to maintain a public sidewalk. there's benefit to the city to the degree that we consider that little San Francisco is a unique feature and character of the of the city. And you know, if I liked the design of the wall, which I don't, I would say that there's benefit to the city to maintaining that unique architectural feature in the city and maintaining the character of Little San Francisco is one of the things that makes Birmingham interesting and livable. I mean, it's a topographic feature that needs to be maintained. Um, but I, you know, I just really struggling with the split face block and, uh, also struggling with how you justify to the next, uh, you know, street person who comes up here why there's no assessment on this project. I mean, even if it is a giant curb, um, none it, you know, is anybody there from 1929 who paid for that improvement? I mean, it wasn't the city then. And the letter clearly stated in 1949 when they decided that it could be assessed again that moving from the village to the city charter did the city residents when they voted did not intend to assume financial responsibility that for every improvement that had been made in the village beforehand I think was the sentence that was in the letter. So,

may I uh Yeah. Uh even on improved roadway, if uh say my house is an improved roadway, but I have certain parts of my sidewalk that are broken up or what have you, during our sidewalk repair, I can still be assessed for the replacement of those slabs even though I live on an improve an improved road. You can. Yeah. Yes. So, we obviously have that here. Okay. We have sections of sidewalk that are broken, what have you. So there is precedent right there for a for a certain percentage charge to the homeowners for repairing those repairing and replacing the sidewalks where they need to be replaced where they're not even where they're cracked or what have you. It

it's more the precedent is ordinance. Well, I understand. Yes. So there is room here for a shared cost. what that shared cost should be I think needs further looking into. Um uh I am I am not convinced that with regard to that area that you could just remove that you could just remove the wall and grade it okay from exhibit A. Like that's not happening there guys. It's not happening. Not there.

Not there. Well, but so there are portions where you might be able to do it and there's portions where you're not. Um, so I think that we need more consideration on this and looking into costs for sidewalk versus costs for um the wall. I think you I think we should probably send something out to the homeowners and say, "Look, these this wall needs need uh, you know, may need to be fixed either in whole or in part. Um the sidewalks are going to need to be repaired. Uh it makes sense to do it all at once. Um this is what we're looking to do for the wall uh for to address the concern over aesthetics, but there is going to be an assessment at the very minimum for sidewalk and all that flows from replacing those sidewalks. If there's if it's, you know, if we need to not only take the slab out like it would be in front of my house where it's flat, you take the slab out, you're also going to need to grade it. you're going to need to flatten it. You're going to make it ADA compliant. Um, so I think that we need to look into this further uh as far as a shared cost and what that percentage should be if we're going to go forward with it. The alternative is we fix the portions that really need to be fixed and leave the rest alone.

Can I have a quick follow-up question to to that point? Are you done? I'm done. Sure. Um, so the other the thing that concerns me though and you know I opened this can of worms so I apologize. So we have bids and we have a price right? Suppose we say we want to consider we want to reconsider how we finance this project. What does our timeline look like? Because the last thing I want to do is is have to shop this out again. And then it turns out well we have to pay it the cost has gone up and we still have to pay 814 and we're doing a special assessment. So like what kind of timeline do we have with these prices

and how long is the price good for that we have exact Yeah, that's that's more or less what I'm asking. So the bids from our public bidding process contractors hold their bids for 60 days. That's it. And this was the end of January.

This got bid in January. So talking to the most responsive low bidder, he would extend his pricing if the wall continues to go forward. The issue we have discussed internally both Scott and myself. If for some reason you remove the wall, that's a that's 600700,000 out of a $2.1 million contract. We're pro we're going to have to go out to rebid the whole entire project. So with that, if we have to go out to rebids, we have to get the plans and specifications updated. That could take up to two to three weeks, two to four weeks from the consultant, public bid for 3 weeks. And then usually it takes about a month after that once we get the bids back to have them execute the contract book and bring it forward to a city commission meeting. So you're looking about a two or three month delay if we had to go out to rebids. But but if we're saying

all the streets in the resurfacing program or just this it would be all the streets in the resurfacing program. So but if if we're saying no, we're happy with this project. We're just not sure how we're going to pay for it. Is that is there some way to like get the ball rolling and deal with the the money problem later? So, do you mean to approve the improvements and hire them to do the work and then do a special assessment potentially at a later date to kind of question some of the money

more or less? Yeah. If we're concerned about, and I am concerned about costs going up and up and up and up, um I would rather lock in a price and then quibble about where those dollars come from rather than risk, as I said. Um kicking the can 3 months down the line turns into 6 months somehow and then oh, what do you know? The prices have gone up 20%. And now we have to do a special assessment just to get back to where we were. Um that would be just the worst possible combination. So, I'm hoping to avoid that. Well, if you want to avoid that, what you do is is you you charge them for the replacement of the sidewalk and that's the part that we're going to get reimbursed and we're going to move forward. That's and we say that's really important.

We basically say the ordinance says that we charge people for replacing sidewalks and we're replacing your sidewalks that we're going to charge you. And then that's sort of no special assessment necessary. This is just or at least no like public hearings and stuff. This is just what we always do. Mhm. Sidewalks are like $40 a square or something. Well, that's when it's flat, right? Not when it's tilted and needs, right? That's that's that's cut it out. They they put, you know, a wood frame in and they pour it again. Not when it's like this on the side of Right. Right. You You left out this part about wrecking your lawn. Yes. And wrecking your lawn. Yeah,

the manager and I were talking about whether or not um you could do the special assessment later and there is some fine points as to what has to be presented regarding the cost and those things and I don't want to answer that on the fly because there's some you know devil in the details in our ordinance but as far as the bid the bids that are open there was two biders correct there were three biders total

three biders We could go to each bidder. You would go to each bidder at the same time so they're aware of all of that. Um that each person is going to be asked the same question. And that would be will you hold open your numbers for longer than 60 days? Tell them a date certain because we are questioning how to finance this project. As long as all three are asked at the same time, then we would be in line with the competitive bidding process. and then Mary could do her research to determine if we could in fact approve this and do the special assessment next or if you'd have to get that ball rolling. And so you would need to determine pretty quickly like by the next meeting if that's what you want to do.

Alternatively, could we take the entire little San Francisco piece out of the project, the overall project in the bid change and say let's do this? Yeah. Well, yeah. I I don't know. That's the question. Yeah, if I may ask questions. So, when you did the the uh the bidding, that was for the entire city's asphalt reservicing program. Yes. And you listed each and every street and what that would what would entail.

We lumped together the anywhere that would have mill and overlays for it. So, there's certain divisions on the project. Um, one division includes one of the golf Springdale Duck Golf Course to be removed or to be have a milling overlay done to it. Um, one of the other divisions includes Cold Street to have a milling overlay done to it. Um, so it just depends on the divisions of what got bid. But in the RFP and the RFP was for every Yes. was for every single street. How many responses did you get? Three biders. Same three that want to do the wall that want to do that are bidding on the whole thing. bidding on the whole project, including the wall. Including the wall. The wall. I think what you're getting at is did they itemize, right? Yes.

Was this part of the project sufficiently itemized that it's can be isolated? That it can be isolated and maybe removed, but that may change their overall bid or overall interest to begin with. Exactly. And so then you kind of have to go back and rebid the whole And you got three. So because of the fact that this retaining wall is somewhat unique, this isn't just regular road responses, the responders took into consideration whether or not that they would want to do this wall business, which is different than regular and you might have had some people that didn't bid because they didn't want to do the wall. Right. Exactly. So you you kind of have to rebid it.

You'd have to rebid the entire thing, which would lose the whole season. No. So I think the better question is whether or not they would hold open their prices. Ask them all three of them if they would hold the prices while we determine how financing will occur for this one project only. And you would have to ask all three that question at once. And then by within by the next meeting, we'll have all of this laid out as to when and how a special assessment could be done after the fact of the bids being awarded and the project started or not.

So, and then you'll have to decide if you want to do this special assessment on this area or not by the next meeting then. So, was this included in the Cape Seal contract we just awarded that we just voted on? No. No. Okay. Got it. Because this is asphalt resurfacing, right? Right. Yes. Okay. Um, two questions on on the on that order. Sure.

Um, if we were to wait until next meeting um, uh, andor potentially the delay could be two weeks or it could be four. Is that going to push the these other projects back for this season? It affects my golf course. We were hoping to have that be the first project that got done so it doesn't impact play and use of the parking lot as we start the season. Okay. Um or mayor, how about we take a 15-minute break and let me let me read the ordinance and see what guidance I can give you on the fly.

Can we just adjourn this and move on to other stuff? There are people waiting and we have other things. So, what's the proper procedure for setting this aside momentarily and getting some motions to meet in close session and communications and other stuff? Uh, a motion to temporarily table. Okay. Motion temporarily table. Second. No. Somebody give me the motion. Like to make a motion to temporarily table this item. Second. Uh, all those in favor?

I. Okay, let's move on to uh resol uh G item G and H cons. Uh Commissioner Kazowski, could you give me a motion on item G, please? Yes. Uh I would like to move to uh meet resolve to meet in close session pursuant to MCL 15.268 section 81E of the Open Meetings Act to discuss pending litigation entitled the city of Birmingham v. The Community House Association, Birmingham, Michigan, Oakland County Circuit, business court case number 2025-219218 CB. Honorable Michael Warren,

second Alex. Commissioner Long. Yes. Commissioner Host, yes. Mayor Balor, yes. Commissioner Cole, yes. Commissioner Kazowski, yes. Mayor Promwell, yes. Mr. Cole, could you give me a motion on item H, please? I'd like to make a motion to meet in close session pursuant to MCL5.268 section 81D of the open meetings act to consider the purchase or lease of real property up to the time an option to purchase or lease that real property is obtained. Second.

Second, Alex. Mayor Valor. Yes, Commissioner Cole. Yes, Commissioner Kazowski. Yes, Mayor Prom Wong. Yes, Commissioner Long. Yes, Mr. H. Yes. Okay. Item I, Commission items for future discussion. Uh, motion's required to bring up the item for future discussion. Next reasonable agenda. No discussion on the topic will occur. Uh, Commissioner,

since I can't talk about it, I'd like to make a motion that we put on the agenda short-term rentals. Okay, that's a motion. Second motion and second. Uh, discuss. Do we have We're not going to discuss short-term rentals. I'll discuss uh the motion. The motion is three words, short-term rentals. To me, that isn't sufficient for something for me to feel comfortable voting. Yeah, but we're not we're not allowed to talk about it. I mean,

well, we're allowed to construct our motions uh in a manner that allows other commissioners to understand what it is that you want to talk about. But the motion right now that has been seconded is short-term rentals. That's the motion. Commissioner Long,

I'm going to say that I'm not going to support because we have had a thorough discussion with the city attorney on this topic previously. I believe we are all well aware of what the city legally can and cannot do under current law and we have been assured that this issue is been addressed under our current rental ordinances. Okay. Anybody other comments? I I would say that I'm I'm open to discussing something, but I would need the motion to be more specific. I don't know what exactly we're trying to talk about here. Yeah. And I I would I would not support the motion based on Can I amend the motion? You'd have to get the guy who seconded it to withdraw his second.

I'll trust you amend. Uh let me amend it to say uh short-term residential rentals in our neighborhoods still. I'm sorry. You know what is that? What what do you want us to discuss? You want us to have a discussion of short-term rentals of properties in our neighborhoods just to talk about it

and and to uh discuss the fact that it's demeaning to uh the neighborhood. It's degragating to the property values and uh it causes all kinds of problems that uh the neighborhood doesn't need to have. Okay. for example, LLC's buying residential property as an investment and turning it around as a short-term rental. May May I

That's a That's a motion. I do you have a motion? Do you have that as a motion? I have some of the stuff roughly written down, but we've got very messy with the amendment and then

All right, Commissioner Host, I'm gonna make a suggestion for you also. If you if you believe there's an issue and that it has gone beyond that something new has come up like what you just said. You made an assertion that there are LLC's out there and there are people acquiring properties for the sole purpose of renting them. You must be basing that on something. Why not get that information together? Why not give us each a call and say, "Hey, look. I think there's a problem going on here." I have never received a phone call from you. I understand you don't want to talk to me, but I don't know if you've called Commissioner Klowski or Commissioner or Commissioner Cole and said, "Hey, this is something we need to talk about. It's a problem. Can we get it on? I'd like your support in getting it on the agenda. And at that point, given the evidence, given whatever information you have, you might persuade us. This is the political process. It's how and forgive me if I'm lecturing, but clearly like from your original motion that was only three words, short-term rentals, and then we had to prompt what exactly you meant out of that. Wouldn't it make more sense to do a little bit of work behind the scenes before you bring it to us? Uh, I don't appreciate your tone. Are you okay?

I'm perfectly okay. I'm going to oppose the motion based on what both of these guys said. So, may Yes. But we don't even have a second. What? No, we Okay. Do Do you want to do Before we No, I think we need a second. Okay. Go ahead. If you want a second first and then I can comment if if we get one. Good comment. We need a second to the motion, which the clerk said is sort of vague, but she thinks she's got it. I can look at the recording and do the best I can. Okay. So, there's a motion on the floor. I'll second it because I have spoken to Commissioner Host. Okay. So, now we have a motion and a second. Maker of the motion. Do you want to say anything more?

No. Okay. Do you want to say anything more? No. Okay. We've been down this path before. We've been down this path. This has been uh brought by Commissioner Host before. Um we've we've vetted it. We've talked about it. We've talked legal about it. Um and uh and and we decided that we were not going to go forward. Uh I know the commission has changed in its makeup by two uh commissioners leaving and and two going. So maybe that's the reason why Commissioner Hos is bringing it up again. I will not be in support of it because we've already gone down this road before and we've already discussed it.

Thank you. Any other comments? Okay. If there was anything new, if there was anything new here, I'm all ears. We just went through an excellent deliberation on this wall thing. This is like polar opposite. Is there anything new? Not that I'm aware of. We haven't received I have not been notified of any complaints. The last time we talked about it was because there was one property where we received multiple complaints. We have not received any complaints. Okay. That I know and I won't be supporting the motion. Uh all those in favor I

opposed. Motion fails. Sorry. Any other uh commission items for future discussion? Okay. Okay, we have commission. Do we want to go? Wait, I think these people have been waiting all night. Uh, commission discussion on items from a prior meeting. We have the discussion on Department of Homeland Security actions. We have several memos. Um, that was something I brought up. The memos uh say it well. I don't need to say anything more. Uh, and we're at step two. Okay. where all I have to do all we have to do is uh suggest what we want the city to do or I I guess since I brought it up I would like a report from the city on what the heck a uh 287g agreement is cuz uh that even if I knew that would need to be uh uh explained in public and uh and and so that's what I I would like the discussion of it. So, uh yes.

Um are you talking about the uh homeland security? Yes, sir. Okay. Yeah. So, uh I I don't I have another motion after that. Okay. On commission items from a prior uh meeting. Oh, okay. Right. I understand. So, do you need a motion? Do we need to vote again that we want to do this to make it a full agenda item? Yeah. So, my motion would be to make this a full agenda item. Correct. Do I need any Do I need to say anything more? Just a second. No, just a second. Yeah. Second. Okay. Uh, do we have any comment from anyone in the We're going to go to the public.

Please. Yes. You poor you poor thing. I hope you've been amused and entertained all night.

Wonderful. I really I'm like if I more time I would come more often, but they are very interesting. Um I'm Danielle Min. I live live at 811 Tottenham Road. I'm the one who sent the email to you all the um reached out to the mayor um or had some followup with the mayor about this issue. So yeah, I'm thrilled that um you guys are moving forward with it. Um it's not just the the 287 agreement. I know I I understand the need to do the research on that, but that is specifically the police. I'm also hoping that the city um moves to it. It's I know they're very imshed, right? Because I'm asking that ICE is not allowed in city buildings without a judicial warrant, which is just the rule of law. I'm just asking the city to follow the rule of law. Um so, thank you for your time. Um, do you have any questions for me? Um,

only a suggestion that is that if you can be as explicit as possible in a follow-up memo to the city manager. Okay. Or the commission and or the commission uh about what you're seeking. Okay. I thought I was in my first Well, you may have been and if that's it, great. Okay. Yeah, that those are But uh the part about city buildings Yes.

is I I saw that in the recent memos. That was a little I wasn't sure. I know I know the concerns people have about ICE uh acting on so-called administrative warrants and not judicial warrants on private property. the part about coming into city buildings. Uh I'm not sure I understand but so if there's well like in Oakland County the county at the county level they're trying we're we are there's people who are trying to keep ice out of county buildings like for example county ice not allowed in county buildings. Why would they want why would ICE want to go into Birmingham City Hall?

Take people to I mean if someone is paying their taxes on the first floor just please be as explicit as possible if you believe you have not already been. Okay. So we have a motion and a second. Is that are you I'm fine. Did you want you're happy? I I am happy. I mean I can state my No, you have to come up and address us. So we have a motion. you should speak on the motion. The motion is to have this city do a report.

Okay. Um well, my name is Stacy Shriber. I live at 1091 Oxford in Birmingham. Um and I am here to support this motion that the city take a proactive stance about ICE um and the 287 agreement uh which would be between ICE and the police off police department which we don't want to have. Um, I have a question if that's okay. Well, you can ask it. I can't guarantee we'll answer because I don't This is all new to me. I don't know if everything works, but So, I do hope that some people that couldn't make it here tonight did send emails. Is that a good way for citizens also to

Sure. Okay. We got a We got a few, right? And they're in communications. We got one from uh Jennifer Bailey, one from Andy Shriber. That's you. And Shel and Shel. I know her. Hopefully there'll be an influx of more, which is what we're trying to do. So, thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Any other comment online? Raise your hand. Okay. All those in favor? Um make one comment.

Oh, yeah. Um, just for the benefit of those who don't know, um, a 287 agreement is an agreement between ICE and local police that the local police will assist them during their normal policing activities to identify, um, individuals who could be potential candidates to be deported. That's what a 287 um, G agreement is. And um, that would be up to the the police department to agree or not agree to enter into such an agreement. Okay. And I think we had a statement in there somewhere that said, "No, we we we don't have one of those." And Chief Guru is online if you have any questions for him.

Well, we're only on step two, right? Correct. But he's monitoring. Thank you, Chief Gruy. Chief Guey, hope you're doing well. We really and I would like to note that I believe the city of Ferndale just passed a resolution similarly and perhaps we could look at that as part of the research for the next step. And I believe Mary has found one from Oakland County from the Oakland County Commissioners that I printed out for the manager to take a look at. They're on it. Great. All those in favor? I. Those opposed? Unanimous. 60. Okay. Now,

hopefully it was worth the wait. Sorry about that. Definitely. Thank you so much.

You know, we um we did talk about this once before and that was in 2022 maybe. uh and that is the Birmingham Country Club wants to get a dramatic set of variances to take their uh paddle ball courts and move turn them into pickle ball. Uh they want a 100 plus foot variance toward Norfolk and the neighbors of the city of Birmingham as well as uh they want a setback on uh a reduced setback on Saxons so that the uh pickle ball courts will be close to the village of Beverly Hills residents. Now, I gave everybody a copy of Tom Marcus's letter uh from around that time and um all I can say is that uh I followed this very closely over the years and they finally have come to the planning department of the township to ask for these variances and I would suggest to you all that they're self-imposed uh problems. homes. Uh they have 165 acres and yet they want to put noisy activity with variances close to the neighbors of the village as well as the city of Birmingham. So, I'd like to make a motion that we direct the city manager to draft and pass a resolution to Bloomfield Township's supervisor as well as Bloomfield Township's planning director stating that the Birmingham Country Club variances will disrupt the peace and quiet of the residential neighbors or something to that effect.

Do you mean a letter? A letter. Okay. Okay. So that's similar to the one that was written. So my only question is uh is it procedurally is it okay that he made this motion and we can Yes. And that this what happened last time when I but it wasn't noticed and you know I mean but we already so everybody's okay with that. Do I have a second? I'll second it. Okay. Although uh any comment? Well, uh, I'm I'm going to go to the meeting a week from Monday, and I will handel the letter if it hasn't been received by the township beforehand. Well, I'm not sure that's appropriate, but we'll make sure the letter gets where it needs to go, right? Yes.

Okay. Uh, any other comment on the motion? Any comment online? Uh, seeing none, all those in favor? I opposed. None. Good. Okay. Now, I believe we can go with all that great stuff done. We can go back to the wall. How do I do I have to do anything? It wasn't a public hearing. It was just It was just tables and now you're bringing it back. Okay. I'm bringing it back. Okay. Bringing back the wall.

All right. So the original question posed was can we do the special assessment later and the answer is no. There were two parts of the ordinance that were triggering my memory that I wanted to verify and they clearly say that clearly if I can find it again before the commission shall decide on making any public improvements and then it goes on to talk about the rest of the uh behaviors and uh process that would have to be followed for a special assessment. So before the commission decides on the special assessment before you make decisions.

Got it. More importantly at the end uh regarding the confirmation of of the role it says that no construction contract or expenditure except for preparing the necessary plans shall be made before the confirmation of the special assessment role for the improvement. Say that again. No, you can't you can't approve the contract and then go back and do the special assessment. Well, we just did that tonight. You'd have to have you have to do the confirmation of the role and then approve the contract. We approved the contract for the cape ceiling tonight. It's not the same thing. I know, but we approved it. But we still didn't do that. We do the confirmation of the role. Remember, we screwed it up. We got to go back and redo it.

Yeah. But we said, let's go ahead and approve the contract. Yeah. Because the amount was the same. and we said, "But but you're not making the expenditure yet." Okay. As long as that's what you're not making the expendure or I cannot sign the contract tonight. We can go back and take a look. Let's be focused on this problem. Okay. Okay. So,

here's what you have in front of you and everything that you need to consider. You can't go backwards on this and and do the special assessment after. So, you now need to make the determination if you're going to move forward with the way that this has been presented tonight. Keeping in mind a few things that a resident's meeting has already occurred that ba based upon past practice of this area from 1991 and the work that was done then there has not been special assessments in this area. It's been determined that this was going to be paid for by the city and that is what was con determined by staff not

that was that's what was conveyed to the residents at the residents meeting. So now to put a pause and bring it back to the special assessment process. You will now have neighbors who were told one thing and now another thing will occur. And is that something you have an appetite for? And by you, I'm pointing to U6. Do you have an appetite to do that? Also, it's clear that the sidewalk is not ADA compliant. It is on a slant of 8% compared to the 2%. We are made aware of a known defect. And now that we know, we must take steps to remedy that defect or we run the risk of liability. during the time that we identify it and we're making plans to improve it, we're in pretty good shape. But if we know about the defect and we ignore the defect and something occurs that and I always hate to talk about liability publicly, but I have no choice. You are exposing the city to liability as long as there's an 8% as opposed to a 2%. The difference now of also of what's been put in the RFP includes the wall which comes to about $800,000. You cannot pull that out because then it will disrupt the entire RFP and bidding process which will if you pull that back you will have to start fresh and now you have disrupted the entire 2526

um road or cape not caping help me ashalt resurfacing resurfacing projects. So,

all of that said, um, if we were to try to hold the prices, you run the risk that these three biders will say, "No, we're not holding anything. We need to know what our future holds. We need to plan our projects and not hold their prices." Uh, so then you run the risk if you have to go back out, the prices now go back up. that it's probably hypothetically possible that given what has currently happened to the price of oil and crude that all the prices are going to go up. Yes, I would not want to rebid this. You can guarantee.

Yeah. So, I'm I'm just This is an excellent example of everything we talked about under the workshop that that we didn't we don't see anything until it's already designed and it's a four alarm fire because it has to be approved tonight, you know. Um, and that is the we don't we don't get to fulfill our deliberative role. we don't get to do the due diligence and and raise and have addressed issues when it has to be approved tonight and we didn't see it till the Thursday prior you know um and so that is exactly why you know capacity to spread this process out would be a good thing because now this is like you know a Solomon's decision Um,

the counterpoint to, which I don't disagree with you, the counterpoint to that is is that you bundle everything together and you take it out for bid and you get you get bids back again. You take this alone and you bid it out, right? And you might not have anybody interested in doing it or if they are going to do it, they're going to do it at a fair a double cost because they got to bring their trucks out. They got to I'm just saying that's not a counterpoint to what she said. Well, it is a counterpoint because the counterpoint would be no, they should be able to go ahead and do all this work and make all these plans and bring it to us and say do it or don't. You know, the I'm just saying the reason why it was it was packaged all together. Um,

sure, package it. But they could have brought it to us a long time ago and talked about the wall, talked about who's paying for it. They deliberated. Somebody decided that 1991 was a precedent and we weren't gonna we weren't going to charge them. And then we went to the residents. We they had their meetings with the residents.

Yeah. Also, so in in the in city staff's defense, because I did some I did some poking around, as you probably can tell at this point, um there's not a ton that talks about the wall, but last year's January 2025, um and maybe even 24, the long range planning meeting does mention that the asphalt resurfacing program will include this neighborhood and wall the but the word wall does not appear, as far as I could tell, in either of the budget. It's not broken out. There's no cost item. There's certainly no discussion of whether it should be specially assessed. So, I think that that we all need to work together to figure out a new path forward to to prevent this kind of situation because yeah, it does feel like, oh, we're here to make a decision and then it turns out, whoops, well, there's actually almost no decision to be made. Um, all the dominoes are lined up and now all we can do is is knock the first one over. Um, so that's that's kind of how how I feel about it. It's not going, you know, and I and as I said, I really appreciate engineering putting all the resources together, um, doing all this research, doing all the designs, and and I felt like they had good answers to all of our questions. Um, I am not concerned really about the engineering elements of this project, and and I'm not as concerned about the aesthetic elements. if the residents if a bunch of residents got to see the what it's going to look like more or less and they were like, "Yeah, cool." Um, I think we can I think we can live with that. Um, and we kind of have to. So, um, so that's where I'm at. I think it would be, you know, just going forward when there are resident meetings and presentations made to residents. I think the commission should see them and and we usually do include them in the packet,

right? Um I think we should see them when the resident I don't want to get it on the Thursday before. I just don't I' I'd like to get as much advanced warning as the residents get, you know, at least.

Well, I'm not making a comparison. I am.

I'm happy to. I'd like to make a motion adopting a resolution to proceed with the replacement of the existing retaining walls along Brookside Avenue, Ravine Road, and Park Street as part of the 2025 and 2026 asphalt resurfacing program. And to also make a motion adopting a resolution to set the public hearing date of necessity for the replacement of staircases in the retaining wall meeting the requirements of assessment for all properties when the project area within the project area on Park Street, Brookside, and Ravine Road AP on April 13, 2026 at 700 p.m. And if necessity is determined on April 13th to meet on Monday, April 27th, 2026 at 7:00 p.m. for the purpose of conducting the public hearing to confirm the assessment role for the replacement of staircases meeting the requirement requirements for the assessments for all properties with the project area within the project area, Park Street, Brook, Brookside Avenue, and Ravine Road. second

comment on the motion. Um, I think number one, we're never going to be able to legislate aesthetics and uh, I do appreciate Commissioner Long's attempt to say that this is an old area and uh, I think the people have accepted it and what's motivating all of this is ADA compliance. We are known to be out of compliance and we have told the authorities we will take care of it. the authorities. Okay. Any other comments? Any comments from the public? Uh, if you're online and you want to make a comment, raise your hand. Nobody. Uh, roll call, please.

Commissioner Cole, yes. Commissioner Kowski, yes. Commissioner Theres Long, yes. Mayor Pro10 Long. Yes. Commissioner Hopes. Yes. Commissioner Bot. No. Okay. And if I may, Mr. Mayor. Yes. Now that we got that settled, um even though the uh ordinance says concerning concerning the uh Capesill project, um it says no contract or expenditure, but let's let's read it very literally. And please do not sign that contract until we confirm the role in two weeks. I already gave it back to

Perfect. Thank you for finding that and bringing that up. Okay. All right. Uh we have communications regarding ice, communications regarding the Cape Seal program, communications regarding trees, uh communications regarding street conditions and maintenance. Under reports, commissioner reports, we have a notice of intention to appoint to the housing board of appeals. Uh any other commissioner reports or commissioner comments? Let's just roll them all into one. I have a comment. Okay.

Um for what it's worth, um I have become increasingly disappointed with our post office. I have held my mail. I was out on vacation, as you everybody knows, out of the country on my honeymoon for two weeks. I I I filed the appropriate paperwork. I have the confirmation email that says that my mail will be held and it wasn't held. 10 days into my vacation, I had 10 days of mail on my front doorstep. There's nobody that you can talk to. There's nobody that you can call. You have to email. So, when I was on my vacation, I did an email and I got finally got a call and it was the most rude un unacceptable call. Um, and even after I I said, "Just please do your job and hold my mail like you said you would in the confirmation, they still didn't hold my mail for the rest of the time." This isn't just the first time this has happened. It's the second time it's happened. I have zero confidence in our post office and um I'm not the first one that I have heard from of our residents that have been very disappointed lately over our post office. I know there's not much that we can do other than to bring awareness to it which is why I'm bringing it up tonight. Um I have been here for 31 years and our post office used to be absolutely gradea a you know first class amazing service and it is it is completely the opposite right now and I just want to raise it to bring awareness and to do whatever we can do to put pressure on whoever's in charge of running that office. I know it's somebody in the government that this is unacceptable and and you know they may as well just put a burning red flag on my front doorstep saying nobody's home for the last two weeks because that's what they did by having my mail delivered even after I complained and talked to somebody about it. It's very disappointing.

Miss Kacharak, is there anything we can do? I mean I know legally there we have no power. Is it could we write a letter to the postmaster general of the United States? Whoever that is. We we can write a letter to the Birmingham postmaster. We could we could. Do we even know that who that person is? Do we have any Do they have to listen? Not necessarily, but we can send it. How about we try honey instead of vinegar? I know Postmaster Blackshere. He's most responsive when it's election mail related and that's about it. Yeah, there's numerous buy them a cup of coffee.

There's numerous citizen complaints on next door about lack of mail delivery altogether. I haven't had mail in 5 days, you know. Maybe it's something we address offline. Yeah. But maybe it's somebody in the city who knows somebody who can be nice and say, "Hey, what's going So, sorry to waste your time from the fact that we can't change something, but I do want to bring awareness to it because It has become just an incredibly disappointing experience. Right. Okay. Any other commissioner comments or reports? We have nothing else. Uh we have two two standing motions though. Two stands, right? We need to go into Okay.

Yeah, we already did those. So, we just need to uh adjourn to close session. So, we're going to go into close session.

This meeting is being recorded. I We're back in session and I need a motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. Second. All those in favor? Hi.