City Council - Regular Meeting

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Good evening. Can you hear can you hear me okay. Perfect. Thanks.

You good, Tim? I know, but like, OK. Is this strong?

Yeah, I did. See? Yeah.

Call the order of this meeting of the Escanaba City Council, May 21st, 2026. Mr. DeMay, please call roll. Councilor Mort.

Here.

Councilor Bosho. Here. Councilor Dubois. Here. Councilor Floss.

Here.

Mayor Emmer. Here. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. At this time, excuse me, seeking approval and or corrections to the minutes of the regular meeting of May 7th, 2026.

Motion to second.

Discussion? All in favor? Aye. Thank you. At this time, seeking approval and or adjustments to the current agenda as written.

yes mr mayor looking to remove item number 13 approval for chip seal street uh remove that currently and then looking to add a couple items uh since that is being removed i'm now declaring uh new business number 16 uh classic car and bike night road closure uh changes or updates and then number 17 to add discussion in regards to alleys going to gravel and chip sealer

I will support those changes.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you. At this time, is there any conflict of interest needed to be declared by members of council pertaining to items on the agenda? Hearing none, we move on to brief public comment. If you wish to make comment pertaining to items on the agenda, please approach the podium, state your name, place of residence, and keep your comments to three minutes or less. Hearing none, move on to public hearings. We have one item scheduled, public hearing and adoption, fiscal year 2026-27 operating budget.

The council has conducted four public hearings and three budget work sessions to set a proposed fiscal year 2026-27 operating budget. This is the final hearing on the fiscal year 2026-27 city operating budget and will establish a city millage rate of 17.442 mills. Administration is recommending council approval of the fiscal year 2026-27 operating budget, capital improvement plan, and master fee schedule.

This time we'll open the public hearing. If you wish to comment on the city's fiscal operating budget for 26-27, this is the time to do it. Hearing none, we'll close the hearing.

Motion to approve the established city millage rate at 17.442 mills for the 2026-2027 budget year and to adopt the 2026-2027 city budget capital improvement plan and master fee schedule as published.

Support?

Support.

Discussion? Mr. Dominguez, please call roll.

Councilmember DeWolf? Yes. Councilmember Floff? Yes. Councilmember Moore? Yes. Councilmember Bosho? Yes.

Mayor Randall? Yes. We currently have no unfinished business on the dock. It's moving on to new business item number one, presentation, Delta Area Transit Authority ballot proposal.

John Stapleton, director of the Delta Area Transit Authority, will give a brief informational presentation on the August 4th millage and expanded service ballot proposal.

Good evening. I'm John Stapleton. I'm the director of Delta Area Transit Authority. I apologize to the people that heard this last night, so bear with me, or if you've heard it other places. So I wanted to give you a brief overview of what's happening with millage August 4th this year. There's been a lot of rumor about it. Maybe some have heard, maybe some haven't. And so I want to at least bring you up to date what this means for Escanaba residents primarily. If you don't live in the City of Escanaba, this won't, all of it won't apply to you, some of it will. So currently we have a staff of about 29 employees at Datta. We have one employee that goes back to day one from 1989, believe it or not. So for those that don't know, our shop is a union shop. They are Teamsters union members, so our full-time drivers, full-time mechanic are Teamsters members. We are nonprofit as well as a governmental authority. Reason why we're governmental authority is back in 89, the County Board started Delta Area Transit Authority. It didn't want to run a County run transit system because the fear was they may have to appropriate funds to it in the future. You can probably see where they're coming from in that, right? So about 1974, 75, Community Action Agency started the bus service in Delta County. They operated that until 1989 when data bus was formed. You have a representative on the data board, the city of Gladstone does. Delta County has a representative that seats currently open right now, and a township association has two seats on it. We cannot discriminate against riders depending on where they want to go, what they smell like, what they look like, how they talk, et cetera. We still have to take them. So if they want to go to a marijuana shop, we need to take them. If they want to go gambling, we need to take them. So that's a little bit different. The private sector has the ability to discriminate against who they would get or who they wouldn't get, maybe by how they tip or maybe by how nice they are. We have three ways for riders to book a ride. You can call, which is the most common. You can book by our app. So on the app, it allows you to book rides, cancel rides, see your rides, also see where the bus is. The other option that we have that's pretty new is by text message. So you can text a ride in, believe it or not. So a couple of things, a couple of facts I want to leave you with. The average senior outlives are driving by seven to 10 years. And the average adult generally in our country, one in four adults will have a disability in their lifetime. I'm gonna skip over a couple pages here, but there are some figures in there and some frequently asked questions. There's several counties in the UP that have millages. Most transit systems in the state of Michigan have a millage. If they don't have a millage, generally they are funded by an appropriation from their city or county. And so Alger County has a countywide millage. Schoolcraft County has a countywide millage. I am a director of Schoolcraft County Transit as well. I share both systems. We contract Delta contracts to them for director services. I was their director before I came over here in 2012. So Marquette County has countywide as well. So if you want to look at the other side of us, Menominee County, Dickinson County, Iron County, they do not have millages. because they don't have transit systems. You can't generally fund a transit system unless you come up with 50% local match. That's what the millage is generally for. Without an appropriation to cover that 50% match, a transit system just can't operate. So we have to come up with a 50% match first, not second. So you don't get state and federal funds and then you match it. You get reimbursed, if that makes sense. We are annually audited. There are other ways to fund a transit system. As I talked, appropriation would probably be the most common in Michigan, or a millage. Obviously there's donations, there are bake sales, golf outings, and those type of things. There are some transit systems that try to operate with just fundraising, similar to like you would do with YMCA. I did give you a chart in here that shows where road funding is. and you'll also see where transit funding's been just since 1997. It's one of the reasons why I'm here and one of the reasons why millages are important in Michigan is because Frankly, transit funding hasn't kept up with inflation. If you wanna look at, you know, we're legally able to get 50 to 60% funding from the state alone, not including federal, we're at a 34% currently. And so that's been dwindling every year since at least 1997. I can't tell you what it was before then. And obviously before that I was likely in high school, so. So let's talk a little bit about the proposal. So currently in the City of Escanaba, City of Gladstone, the current millage rate is 0.6 mills. Been that way since the early 2000s. We're proposing 0.689 mills for eight years. Why eight years? They uncapped authorities to be able to do longer term. Eight years lines up better with election cycles for us. We're definitely concerned in the future with elections having to be in November. We're concerned with having to do special elections in an off year and having $30,000 to $40,000 in special election costs. But also, it lines up very well for funding and vehicle lifespans. You know, as we purchase vehicles, some of those vehicles have anywhere from a four to a 12 year lifespan, depending on the type of vehicle. So what are we talking about doing? That's an expansion. It is higher than .689 is higher than the .6 mils. So we did three groups of surveys. We did one after J&N Taxi went out of business. We did a survey at the senior conference last year that was at the Highland. We did a survey with QPAD just recently that was commenced before we announced the millage. We put a good, better, best scenario out there for people and got their feedback on those surveys. Maybe you filled out some of those surveys. So what we're proposing based on the results we got back was the better scenario or the best scenario, depending on how you look at it, because we didn't include Sundays. So Monday through Friday, we're adding earlier morning hours, including dispatch and drivers, so we can get people to dialysis, we can get people to work, we can get students to school, et cetera. That's been an issue for quite some time that we needed to address. We added Saturday days. so that we can get people to dialysis as well. Saturdays were a day that we weren't servicing the dialysis center, but also if you look at when most of the events happen, they happen on the weekends, right? Whether it's during the day or during the evening. So we added Saturday days. We also added Friday, Saturday evenings. Friday, Saturday evenings is something that I took from Schoolcraft County and Elger County. Those are services that would be some of the last that they would cut in those two systems would be Friday, Saturday evening. The reason why that's important, that's when most of your events are happening. That's when people need safe rides home from events. But think about when your wedding receptions are and a lot of the other things. If you look at things like Marina Fest and Log Jam Festival, cruising, the car night downtown, a lot of the other things that are happening, those happen during the evening hours. It allows us to not only get those people home safely, get people to church on Saturday nights and a lot of other things. So we're proposing that. That's until 2 AM Friday, Saturday. The other thing we're doing with this that doesn't necessarily affect the city of Escanaba so much, but this is a county-wide millage. The last time it was tried for county-wide was 2002. That was 24 years ago. And that approach that was put in front of voters was for a five-day-a-week service Monday through Friday from 7 in the morning till 6 PM. That failed. It wasn't too long after that that they came back and were able to get a millage passed in the city of Escanaba Gladstone. Frankly, this system should have been called Escanaba Gladstone Transit System for many of the years or most of the years of operation because of that. And so this would expand into all of Delta County, including the furthest reaching areas to provide demand response service for people that need access to medical transportation, access to work, school, etc. 54 or 78 transit agencies in Michigan have millages. As I said, there are some that don't. City of Hancock, City of Houghton, they have appropriations from their city. City of Sault Ste. Marie has a senior millage they use to fund that with. So technically it's not transit millage, it's a senior millage for community action agency. I can tell you counties like Livingston County don't have a millage because they have an appropriation from their county. A lot of the funds we're talking about, the state and federal funds that are currently being paid by residents in Delta County, a lot of those are already being paid. We just don't have the match funds to be able to bring them back in. So when you renew your license plate tabs, when you have auto repairs done to your vehicle, and you purchase new tires or wipers or alternators or starters and things, those are auto-related sales taxes. Those taxes are being paid. They go into the CTF, which funds transit, but in order to capture that back and bring it into a county, you have to have the local match. So as I talk, some of the problems we had currently, obviously, is the lack of service in the evenings, lack of service in the early mornings, and then definitely lack of service on the weekends. And part of that problem is if you didn't drive, didn't have a license, needed transportation to work, to school, what have you, to be closed for two days a week doesn't work for people. It's just something that isn't feasible to do. And so we still have 8,300 residents roughly in seven townships that don't have service, including the largest of Wells Township that has close to 5,000 people live in it. I want to put that in perspective. The population in total of Alger County and Schoolcraft counties is less than the population of Delta County that doesn't have service today. So I did kind of show you the areas and populations on the next page where we are servicing and where we're not. and some of the population that we have there. Kind of wanted to remind you that when I turned 16 years old, first thing I did on my birthday was went and got my driver's license at the Secretary of State's office. I think probably a lot of people did at that time. The ratio of 18-year-olds that have licenses today in Michigan are currently around 60%. So that's definitely down. There's many reasons for that, but that's one of the issues that we see on a local level and statewide, by the way. I did give you a map, by the way. The blue and the red show the areas we have service and don't, and I think that's important because it puts it better in perspective than just naming them out. It is not very efficient for us to drive through townships to get to another township to serve one, and that's one of the reasons why we hadn't looked at expanding too far into the eastern side of Delta County so that if you can imagine, you know, the drive through Wells Township to get to other ones isn't very feasible. There isn't a week that goes by that we don't get requests from people in Wells Township for service. So how much does it cost? So I did look at the median household. 125,000 is the median house value in the City of Escanaba. That may be a little dated because that wasn't this year's figures. So on a $200,000 home, if you wanted to look at the upper end of that, on a $200,000 home, $100,000 taxable, you're talking about 86 cents a month. That's what the increase is on a $200,000 home. If you want to go down to a $150,000 home, it's about $0.65 a month, and a $100,000 home is $0.43 a month. That's what the increase would be. This millage will be listed as a new additional millage on the ballot. It's new and additional because we don't have a countywide millage, and we can't obviously claim the one that we have currently. We are not collecting on any other millages that we have if this passes. And also it's not a double dipping. So it's not two or three millages. It is one millage for everybody in Delta County at the same rate. It's not different rates. And so that's really what we're trying to do here is have a level playing field across all of Delta County. Everybody has service. It's the same rate and it makes it a little bit easier. If you're interested in what our fares cost to ride, they are on our website. Our website's on the bottom of this. That's probably the best way to look at it. But keep in mind, seniors, veterans, students, and disabled people are half rate. And then also, personal care aides ride for free. Children under five ride for free as well. Our fares are based on distance from point A to point B. So it's pretty difficult to give you an idea of what it costs from here to ride to another place. It's really hard to stay healthy if you can't get to the doctor. It's hard to keep a job if you can't get to work. It's hard to feed your family if you can't get to the grocery store. And so I just kind of want to remind people that those are some challenging things that we run into. That's what I have for you unless you have any questions that I can answer.

Certainly. Mr. Stapleton, what do you say to people that feel you're taking tax dollars to compete against private businesses?

There's absolutely a need for private businesses that do this transportation in Delta County. We're never gonna be able to get people 24 seven, seven days a week. And so they're definitely needed. We aren't here to compete with them. We're here to compliment them or work with them. But the fact is there's some things that probably should be known. The cost to get a ride from Escanaba, from OSF to Rapid River, if you left the ER and needed a ride home is $40 if you're going to ride in some ulterior modes. That's not affordable for the average family to pay. The one estimate I got from somebody to ride to the casino to get to work was $55. There's 800 employees that work out there. So I think that's a couple of things. Keep in mind, we're required to get people that are wearing wheelchairs, walkers, scooters. We can't discriminate against them. You won't see that happen all the time in the private sector because they don't have the equipment for it. And frankly, how are you going to get a wheelchair in one unless they can transfer? So that's a big portion of it. I can't pick and choose. We're just going to take the ones that pay well or just going to take the ones that make sense or easy to do. So that's a big portion of it.

Unless I heard you incorrectly earlier, you did say private business is allowed to discriminate. So you're referring to handicaps. So a cab, four-door cab that doesn't have a wheelchair lift, are you calling that discrimination?

um they're able to pick and choose who rides so there's winners and losers with that um and maybe somebody that you know is rude or maybe somebody that smells and maybe somebody that they just don't care for maybe they have different political beliefs and so that happens more often i think people know the other thing is Sometimes people get better service based on if they pay better or tip better than somebody else. And so there is a difference in there. If there was enough private sector to handle the needs of Delta County, we wouldn't need to be here. There's no doubt about that. But I don't know of anybody that's gonna pick up that transportation

As a nonprofit, I believe your funding is public information, is that correct? Absolutely. Could you or are you willing to tell us what your income is through tax dollars?

So our income through tax dollars, you know, so this millage would bring in 1.1 million. We're a little over 500,000 a millage we get now from the seven townships to two cities. is what we're bringing now. We're operating in just over a $2 million budget now at Delta Ray Transit Authority.

Per year? Per year. Can you tell us how many people ride?

Not off the top of my head, I can't.

That would be interesting to have.

I'm happy to get it to you.

All right. Last question, I guess. Are you also involved in any other transit authorities in the state or country?

So I am the director of Schoolcraft County Public Transit in Manistique. I'm the shared director between the two. We sell them director services. We share some other things with them. We share a regional route with them. We do share a mobility manager with them. We share a dispatch system. We share a phone system. Frankly, that's some of the things you need to do if you're gonna be efficient in today's day and age. I am the vice president of Michigan Public Transit Association of Michigan. That's the transit association that represents the transit systems across Michigan. And I'm the president of the Upper Peninsula Transit Providers in the UP.

I said that was my last question. One more came to mind, but I won't ask it at this point. Thank you.

How short are you on the local match? Like you talk about this local match. So how shy are you for a local match to start utilizing these other funds that we already pay taxes on?

So it's basically a dollar for dollar match basically is what you're looking at. We need to come up with 50%. So if we get a dollar local funds, I can match that with roughly a dollar in state and federal funds. So how short are we for this expansion? It's about 600,000 is about what we're short on it. The problem I have is the only best option besides a millage, and millage is obviously the most common way to fund ambulance services, fire, transit, roads, et cetera, in Michigan. The only other option that really comes to light is really coming to asking for appropriations from municipalities. And that's a really tough ask to come to everybody when budgets are strained and ask for 100,000, 200,000 here and there. $50,000 from a township is really tough to come up with.

So I'm just thinking I'm already paying taxes for transportation to the state of Michigan through all these items.

You are.

But it's not going to you.

Some of it does currently, but not all of it does because we can't capture it all. compared to Schoolcraft County, Alger County, Marquette County. They have a countywide millage. They're able to capture and bring in more dollars. Now Menominee, Dickinson, they're donators as well, right? Iron counties are donators as well because they don't have a transit system.

So I guess hypothetically, if the millage doesn't pass, is the county board willing to step up and help with any funding?

I haven't asked them. You know, there's seven years left in a jail millage. I think, I just don't see where they'd have the budget to assist in that. And nobody's offered that, I haven't had anybody offer up and say, geez, if you're not successful, we're willing to look at our budgets for you. But we have not requested, to be fair.

Okay, thank you.

Just out of curiosity, could you take a wild guess at, a ratio of disabled passengers versus able-bodied passengers?

I wouldn't want to take a stab at it, but what I can tell you is that the majority of our rides are provided, the majority of our trips are provided for working-age adults. I wouldn't want to guess at how many are disabled versus how many are able-bodied. It varies, and the reason I say that is, and I could have prepared for that a little better. I'm happy to come back to your next meeting and give you some of those figures if you'd like, but back in the early, I should say late 80s, early 90s and 2000s, we pretty much did mental health transportation in Delta County. We did a lot of transportation for pathways and lake states. That's the primary mode that we were doing for quite a while. And in that mental health transportation, a lot of that's really dried up. There just isn't much of it anymore. And so we really diversified and that's why you see us out a lot further and doing a lot of other things. But that's dried up all across Michigan as well. That isn't just in Delta County. So that ratio has changed because if you do four rides a day for one person that may fall into that category, that number goes up greatly versus they don't. We've lost the recycling center here. We used to take them several trips back and forth to those type of places. I don't know that number off the top of my head. They're very easy. I mean, I probably can pull them up and tell you some of that in public comment, but I didn't put it in the report, obviously.

That's perfectly all right. An email would suffice. I tend to see the data bus unloading and loading people that clearly are not going to be driving their own vehicles. So to me, it looks fairly essential when I see that.

Thank you. You're welcome.

For the questions? Thank you.

Thank you.

Moving on to new business, item number two, first reading of ordinance number 1320, the appropriations ordinance, including the millage rate of 17.442 mills and setting the date of Thursday, May 28th, 2026 for the second reading, public hearing and adoption.

Once the city council approves the budget, the council must approve a tax levy and authorize appropriations to implement the budget. Administration is recommending a special meeting of the council for Thursday, May 28th, 2026 at 9 a.m. to be scheduled for the second reading, public hearing, and adoption of appropriations ordinance number 1320.

It's already in my calendar. I'll move to approve.

I'll second it. Discussion? All in favor? Aye. Thank you. New business item number three. First reading of ordinance number 1321, the tax levy ordinance and setting the date of Thursday, May 28th, 2026 for the second reading, public hearing and adoption.

Section nine, chapter eight of the city charter requires the city by ordinance to levy taxes that may be necessary to meet the appropriations needs for the upcoming fiscal year budget. Administration is recommending a special meeting of the council for Thursday, May 28th, 2026 at 9 a.m. be scheduled for the second reading public hearing and adoption of tax levy ordinance number 1321.

Motion to approve. Support. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. NEW BUSINESS ITEM NUMBER 4, FIRST READING OF ORDINANCE NUMBER 1322, THE ELECTRIC RATE ORDINANCE, AND SETTING THE DATE OF MONDAY, JUNE 1, 2026, FOR SECOND READING, PUBLIC HEARING, AND ADOPTION.

ANNUALLY, THE CITY COUNCIL SETS ELECTRIC UTILITY RATES FOR THE NEXT FISCAL YEAR. COUNCIL IS ASKED TO CONSIDER THIS THE FIRST READING OF ORDINANCE NUMBER 1322, AND TO SCHEDULE THE SECOND READING AND PUBLIC HEARING FOR JUNE 1, 2026, AT 9 AM. NEW APPROVAL.

SUPPORT.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you. New business item number five, first reading of ordinance number 1323, the water rate ordinance, and setting the date of Monday, June 1st, 2026 for second reading, public hearing, and adoption.

Annually, the City Council sets water utility rates for the next fiscal year. Council is asked to consider this, the first reading of ordinance number 1323, and to schedule the second reading and public hearing for June 1st, 2026 at 9 a.m. Move approval.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you. New business item number six, first reading of ordinance number 1324, the wastewater rate ordinance and setting the date of Monday, June 1st, 2026 for the second reading, public hearing and adoption.

Annually, the city council sets wastewater utility rates for the next fiscal year. Council is asked to consider this the first reading of ordinance number 1324 and to schedule the second reading and public hearing for June 1st, 2026 at 9 a.m.

Move for approval.

Yes. I'll support, but Mr. Mayor, yes.

I noticed something in this one that council had discussed with the administration, I believe during the budget hearings. I don't recall if we actually asked that administration move forward with it, but the wastewater ordinance paragraph 1.015 would now allow residents to be penalized for sump pumps or rooftop drains going into the sewer system. And it would also allow, under paragraph 2.095, the city a right of entry. Is that what we really wanted.

I agree. I don't think we never just kicked it around.

But it's in here now.

Those have always been in there. Last year, at a rate of $5, we have always had a right of entry in the ordinance. So that's not new. All right. It was $5 last year, correct?

Correct.

And right of entry has always been written in here, the same as every other year.

I wouldn't say always, but OK, it must have been.

Well, in the last several years, it has been.

I must have missed it.

Further discussion on this item?

We aren't enforcing it, apparently.

I don't know that it's that.

Mr. Lampe, could you address that? With the recent storm, obviously we're not enforcing that.

I'm sorry, could you repeat that?

If this has been in here for several years, with the recent storm, the flooding, the new wastewater plant, the surge incoming, you were able to handle it, but we aren't obviously going door-to-door looking for sump pump connections, enforcing the monthly fee.

Well, we are going door-to-door to look for sump pumps. We're collecting data. We have been for five or six years. We have not actively started that. 30 years in the ordinance that has been prohibited that the discharge clean water to the sanitary because of the aco we're forced to begin taking action and remove that clean water from the sanitary so it's a matter of time we just have to do this we've had long talks about it and if we don't do anything the state's going to come back and say you're in violation of your aco

So that's the catch. You used an acronym. The state is forcing the issue now.

Correct. The consent order mandates that we remove it and get down below our threshold. You're correct. The plant, the new plant took the flow unbelievably well. We didn't pass any solids like we did in the other plant. Our problem was the south side of town. We were taking in close to 2 million gallons a day down there. Our lift station could not accept it. The whole south side surcharged, and we had to bypass to the storm sewer. Otherwise, we'd have been taking in seven and a half, eight million gallons a day at the wastewater plant just in clean water. We normally take in 1.2 million, and we were having seven and a half million gallon days that we were passing through the plant and fully treating. So our new plant performed marvelously. We have a huge problem with clean water infiltration. And we just have to take it and deal with it or else the state's gonna come back to us and say, you're in violation of the ACO and there'll be fines and penalties against us.

Yeah, I would say the consent order from EGLE, one of their main items on there is reducing I&I and the roof drains are a big, big source of that.

Thank you both.

Further discussion on this item? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Thank you. NEW BUSINESS ITEM NUMBER 7, FIRST READING OF ORDINANCE NUMBER 1325, THE SOLID WASTE ORDINANCE, AND SETTING THE DATE OF MONDAY, JUNE 1, 2026, FOR THE SECOND READING, PUBLIC HEARING, AND ADOPTION.

ANNUALLY, THE CITY COUNCIL SETS SOLID WASTE RATES FOR THE NEXT FISCAL YEAR. COUNCIL IS ASKED TO CONSIDER THIS, THE FIRST READING OF ORDINANCE 1325, AND TO SCHEDULE THE SECOND READING AND PUBLIC HEARING FOR JUNE 1, 2026, AT 9 AM.

So move approval. That's what I was waiting for.

You're the solid waste board guy. Phil, did you get the second?

I did not.

Oh, all right. Gotcha. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. New business item number eight, approval resolution number 26-07, drinking water state revolving fund. Water.

Administration is seeking city council approval of resolution number 26-07, a resolution adopting an updated project plan for water system improvements and designating an authorized project representative. Jeff Lampe is here to discuss that as well as Stacy from C2AE.

We've done this several times. Each time we go for SRF money, it requires a resolution of support. Your support today does not mean we are obligated to any debt. It puts us in line to get ranked and see if we qualify. On this particular round, we're looking at 49% forgiveness. If we don't get the 49% forgiveness, we'll probably pass, but this is a big opportunity for us. to take another deep dive into grant money. We still have several thousand service lines to do. We have many miles of water main. So this won't be the first time or the last time we talk about water improvements, but 49% forgiveness, we have to take a stab at this and see what we can do. If you don't have any questions, Stacy has a certain amount of things she has to say just to make the, Resolution legal.

Hi, everybody. I'm Stacy Eagle with C2AE. You guys are used to seeing Darren up here doing the spiel, but he's out of town today, so you get to deal with me. A little background on the projects. I think everybody's pretty familiar with them if you look out the window of your house or your business or your car while you're driving around or doing them. Over the last five, six years, there's been a lot of project plans that have come through. Resolutions passed. The state was giving unprecedented amounts of grant money for a while. We're talking tens of millions of dollars to get these infrastructure improvements done. Those are starting to dry up a little bit. The resolution that we're talking about today is referring to a project plan that the resolution passed in 2025. When you guys looked at the 2025 project plan, I don't expect you to keep them straight or remember what was in that project plan completely. We have a hard time keeping that straight. But this year, EGLE has another pocket of money available specific only to the lead service line replacement. So what we did was took the project plan from 2025 and reduced the scope and we're focusing on lead service line only. A little background on that, you've probably heard before, EGLE has mandated all lead service line or probable lead service lines in Michigan be taken care of by 2037. So now we're at the 10 year mark. Like Jeff said, we have a little over 2000 either known lead impacted or probable unknown galvanized. There is a little map in the handout you guys have that shows somewhat current water main that is in the age range that probably has lead impacted services on it. We have all the red colors are the probable lead or unknown, you know, probable galvanized that was affected by lead. Over the years with our projects here, I did some quick napkin math before I came in, but 2024, between the lead service line portions of those projects that we've been doing and when we replaced Water Main, the lead service lines get done too. So over the years 2024, we took care of 608. 2025, 674. 2026, this year we plan 900. and the reduced scope project plan that you're looking at here is for another approximately 420 services. So we have some math in there too for over the years, we've had a lot of instances or a lot of opportunities to review bids from multiple contractors over multiple years and we have a pretty good handle on what it's gonna cost on a per service basis The reduced scope here is for approximately $8 million. And the, we have a bond schedule in here assuming a 30-year bond. The proximate cost to users would be 431 is what we have here. This would be worse per month. This is worst case scenario if there was no principal forgiveness. We have it on good authority from Eagle that they have a lot of money right now to spend on lead service line projects. There's a good chance that Escanaba will qualify for the 49% forgiveness. Escanaba did not, uh, was not categorized as overburdened this year. Um, based on the medium median annual income threshold and the debt service. So, it was a little iffy, but this chunk of money, for lack of better words, is kind of a mid-year thing and they're not expecting as many applicants. So, we gave you worst case scenario numbers. Hopefully, if they accept and forgiveness is given, you'd be looking at about half that amount then, you know, between $20.30 and $2.30 and or $2.50 per month per user. The project plan, if you remember any of it, goes through, there's some things we have to talk about. ANALYSIS OF ALTERNATIVES. SO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO COMPARE DIFFERENT ALTERNATIVES. FOR THE LED SERVICE PORTION OF IT, THERE'S REALLY ONLY TWO ALTERNATIVES, DO NOTHING OR DO SOMETHING. AND THE OBVIOUS ANSWER HERE IS WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING. SO THE SOMETHING IS 420 SERVICES. The beauty of the lead service line replacement projects is it covers the whole town. So we've had a lot of, you know, compact areas that we've done water main replacement on. Lead service line, we can really take a look at, you know, main that's going to remain in the ground for a while. We try to be cognizant of not putting, there's no use putting a brand new water service on a main that's over 100 years old. So there's still going to be future water main projects needed too. I think I covered everything here unless anybody has any questions.

Motion to approve resolution number 26-07, Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.

Support. Discussion. Mr. May, I just want to clarify in here, in designating an authorized, do we need to have language in this motion to designate the authorized representative so that this goes through for you?

Do you know that, Jeff? Yes, we need the city manager identified as the authorizing agent.

Motion to approve resolution number 2607, Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, and also appointing the resolution of adopting a Authorized Project Representative, which at this point will be Melissa Baycott, City Manager Interim.

Further discussion on this item?

Mr. DeMate, please call the roll. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

NEW BUSINESS ITEM NUMBER 9, APPROVAL RESOLUTION NUMBER 26-08, WELLS TOWNSHIP WATER SYSTEM EXPANSION.

ADMINISTRATION IS SEEKING CITY COUNCIL APPROVAL OF RESOLUTION NUMBER 26-08, A RESOLUTION TO SUPPORT A FINAL PROJECT PLANNING DOCUMENT FOR WELLS TOWNSHIP WATER SYSTEM EXPANSION AND DESIGNATING AN AUTHORIZED PROJECT REPRESENTATIVE.

I CAN BE VERY BRIEF. THE WORK IN WELLS TOWNSHIP IS DISCUSSED a very long time. Wells Township developed a plan. They have applied for SRF funds to build a water and wastewater system, not only on this side of the river, but also across the river to the terrace. We are here to support their plan. And if there is a system involved, there'll be many discussions on rates and everything else before we make a connection. We are just here to support our neighbors, say we can facilitate water and wastewater services. And I don't know if Tom, do you have anything, are you here to speak for the township? Tom is one of the many residents that has poor water quality and is very hopeful that he can get city water in his area. So again, city staff is supportive. Many discussions will be had if this occurs and a rate system will be discussed. Mr. Beauchamp.

I my only thing was didn't we already have this? Discussion last year was two years ago.

We had this a couple years ago. The subject came up. Yeah, and that's why I was going to ask a question or the same question. Mr Lampy, can you look into one of the cameras in the room and say this will not cost Escanaba ratepayers a single penny?

This is a Wells Township SRF plan. We will not be paying for it. If we provide service, it will be at a cost of goods rate. I do not feel this is going to cost the city anything. We have to be very careful in our agreement that it doesn't give us long-term liability without a well-planned out rate structure.

You have, several years ago, when the lead service line replacement was mandated, I think the front page of the Daily Press said, City approves 30 years of raid hikes. I hope this isn't going to be somehow baked into that.

Well, I think that accusing us of some kind of... Not accusing, I'm just saying, you know how things... I think the press can play words on everything and make any kind of titles.

Oh, no, I'm not accusing them either. I'm more concerned that our rate payers will end up paying whatever, two cents per gallon because Wells needs fresh water.

you have a very good point and before we accept and connect to them there'll be long conversations and you have the possibility to deny service to wells township if the city chooses to do so we are here today just to support them and hope that they can get uh the services they're wishing for thank you yes isn't this basically in the future going to be

extra revenue for the city in the big picture?

Well, there's six ways to look at that. Melissa may have to weigh in on that anytime. You know, we're obviously more of a business, but we're also supposed to be a zero-sum business that just covers our costs. We're also supposed to be a good neighbor and join forces and work together. But I agree with you, we have to think long and hard go into a rate structure that's not going to put our community at more harm by helping our neighbor we want to be supportive we also want to look out for ourselves and i don't know if melissa can add anything to that i would just say that um any rate structure that is put in place is is not designed to be a money maker for the city it's really designed to cover our costs

And if there were ever any maintenance costs that we would be responsible for through the contract, it would be to set us up to pay for those costs as well. It's not designed to be a moneymaker for us in any sense.

And if we wanted to, we could just wholesale water and then sell it and let them market up and run their own system. We could just be a water provider at a wholesale metering system.

Well, I think this is fantastic that they're finally working on this because that's going to open up that whole key road for development. That's what's holding everything back now is adequate water and sewer systems. So I think this is a wonderful thing for them to explore and for us to be involved in as a good neighbor.

I'm assuming we would like Ms. Baycott to also be the authorized project representative for this item.

I do not think that we sign on this. We are just supporting, did I misunderstand?

I am just looking at the language here and it's to adopt the approval resolution and to designate an authorized project representative, which I assume would be our city manager.

I'm at a little bit of a disadvantage. Rebecca Bender wrote this. We can strike that from the language. I'm not sure if we can because, you know. I'm sure we can. We'll make the motion, Jeff. We can make the motion to say exactly what we want it to do. Okay. Trust me. We are not taking a loan. We are supporting our neighbors. So I don't know what should or shouldn't be done, but this is what the engineering firm gave us that did the Wells Township stuff. So I'm out of...

I think we are seeking a motion to approve a resolution to support. Yeah.

Can I just say that? I mean, I don't quite understand what you're talking about. Wells has been buying or getting water from Escanaba for how long already? This is just like an old addition.

Well, if I may, the way I read this is just authorizing the manager to sign this and then authorize it, but I'm, again, at a disadvantage to really know what I'm talking about. We've never supported a resolution that I can recall I can assure you, look in every camera in America, this will not cost us money today. All right, so we're seeing a motion.

So we're just looking for support. Just a resolution of support from council.

It does need a resolution to support a final project planning document, which we haven't seen, have we?

No.

At least that's what the agenda says. Yeah.

Let me ask a different question. Mr. Royer, was there a Wells Township meeting recently? Last night. And what was the outcome?

There isn't because we don't really know what's happening yet as far as.

Okay, so let me ask this then. Did the Wells Township make any kind of vote in support of pursuing this project and designing a plan?

I believe so.

So all we're looking for here is...

I can't say 100%, but I know they have talked.

So we're just looking for support. We're looking for a resolution of support. We can do that. I got you.

And there's no strings. But we're going to see the final plan? Or do you have anything yet?

I'm not going to. I do. I would like.

If I may.

Yes, please, Laura. Thank you.

Sure. In looking at the resolution, it says that the project planning document was presented at a public meeting held on May 21st, 2026, which, if I'm not mistaken, is today. But I shared the concern that I don't see what that planning document is in the packet. And so I guess my hesitation is what are we supporting the adoption of if the document itself has not been presented?

That is my concern as well. Correct.

And I'm not sure what it means for the city to support the formal adoption of a planning document.

okay here's what we're going to do we want to postpone this we're going to we're going to postpone this may i may i interject yes quickly um that project plan is in the clerk's office it's like project plans are very very thick i don't think we've ever given you a public a plan most of these plans take a drop box to email this has been at the clerk's office for anyone to review

Typically, we get at least an overview. Yeah, exactly.

We get a summary or overview of what's going to happen. Right. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to postpone this, and here's why. We've got questions. You don't have a solid answer. Mr. Royer doesn't have a solid answer. We do not have a solid report from the Wells Township meeting last night. Therefore, I don't think council is comfortable taking any kind of action on this. It does not mean that we will not come back to this the next meeting. and make a resolution of support. It's just gonna be a couple weeks. But we would like to have that result.

May I ask a question? Yes. This has to be submitted June 1st. Are you willing to have a special meeting if we're required to support Wells Township?

Certainly, we're meeting.

We can add it Thursday or Monday, provided we get the information, the results of that meeting. Is that fair?

On the 28th.

Thank you, Jeff.

Can I ask just one more question? So do we have to support this proposal or can't we just support the creation of this proposal because as a good neighbor, why can't we just do that? Saying that we would like to see this happen and that we're supporting them creating it instead of being so looking at it and then dissecting it, it's their proposal. We're just supporting it as a council, as a good neighbor. So I don't know if we have to be so You know, we have to dissect it.

We don't, we really don't. It's what I said in the beginning is we could, depending on the language of the motion, we can simply move to support Wells Township moving forward with their plan. We do not have to commit to anything in any sort of document form.

I would support doing that tonight so they can just.

But we can still wait until Thursday and get the results of the meeting too. And then we can do it then.

I'm going to make a motion to postpone this resolution until, do I do May 28th? Until the May 28th meeting at 9 a.m. Works for me.

I'll support.

Further discussion on this item?

Mr. Denae, please call roll. Mr. Dubois? Yes. Mr. Beauchamp? Yes. Mr. Moore? No. Mr. Flath? Yes. Mayor Emel?

Yes. New business item number 10, approval elevator maintenance wastewater.

Administration is requesting City Council approval to hire and retain the services of TKE of Grand Rapids, Michigan to do a Cat 3 load test and replace packing on the elevator at the wastewater treatment plant in an amount not to exceed $14,000. Money is available and budgeted for professional services.

I KNOW ELEVATOR MAINTENANCE IS VERY EXPENSIVE, ESPECIALLY HERE IN THE U.P. WHERE MOST OF THESE INSPECTORS OR MAINTENANCE PEOPLE TYPICALLY COME FROM OUT OF TOWN.

MOTION TO APPROVE NOT TO EXCEED 14,000.

Support.

Discussion?

Mr. Dominguez, please call roll. As for Dewart? Yes. As for Moore? Yes. As for Borshaw? Yes. As for Flath? Yes. Marriott? Yes. New business item number 10, approval landfill flow monitor, wastewater.

Administration is requesting City Council approval to procure a permanent flow monitor FL1500 from Pump Solutions Incorporated of Madison, Wisconsin in an amount not to exceed $40,000. Money is available in the upcoming fiscal year budget.

Yes, Mr. Beauchamp.

This is tied to the orders, right, at the landfill? Correct. You do know how I feel about that. In case you don't, I'll remind everyone. It's a county landfill. No public or private entity, to my knowledge. I believe, according state federal guidelines, are allowed to discharge anything into a publicly operated landfill. What do they call it? Waste treatment system that causes adverse effects. And yet you're asking the city to spend all this money on a county problem. Have you talked to them at all about that?

We have had conversations, we have not had in-depth conversations about the payment. Staff has had conversations about developing a rate structure that was gonna recoup all of our costs to treat this. If we don't treat it, we've got several people that are on a landfill road that are in, they can't, these are so obnoxious odors, they cannot, maintain occupancy in these buildings. We have a chance and an opportunity to treat this and make the odors diminish or go away or we have to tell the landfill we're going to cut them off and they have to truck their leaching someplace else.

I understand the odor problem out there and the business property owners out there, you have confirmed that the odor is coming from the landfill. It's not coming from some other city property out there.

To my knowledge, no. I deployed a cheap and feasible blower that is sucking fresh air through the sanitary sewer. That was... Very efficient once when we combined with the chemical injection and treatment I have not had any complaints at all, and we are only able to chemical feed during the summer when there's not freezing issues, and this is one step towards year round chemical treatment and fish back is also doing the study. on the landfill odors and biosolids.

Sure. It's my understanding that these types of odors are typically caused by bacteria, what have you, that whatever digests the waste and gives off gases and fumes and diluting Diluting the waste with water or chlorine or what have you typically takes care of it. But again, it's, in my opinion, a county problem.

but it won't, at the end, be a ratepayers thing. It'll be a fee that's charged at a leachate, and like any purchase, it will be depreciated and covered. I hope that Melissa could explain how that process would work, but our rate structure.

So you're saying this flow meter will monitor the outflow from the landfill, and they will be charged accordingly? Correct. We weren't given that information. We were just asked to pay for the flow meter.

I wrote a memo, and I apologize if you didn't see it, but it explained how we're going to use this as... a secondary backup to their self metering and self billing. This meter is very accurate. It will give us a means and opportunity to bill to the gallon nearly. Without that meter, we can't, we don't have any means of saying, we don't believe your billing is correct. We also need a meter to properly flow pace our chemical injection to solve the odor problem. So this meter, Even if the order problem wasn't there, I would still want this meter just for proper billing so that we can get a second look at it and have the leachate pay for what they're really sending us.

How long do you anticipate it'll take to recoup this? Was it $40,000, 50?

You're putting me in a bad spot because if I say what I want.

A ballpark, five years, 30 years?

I'm unsure. It could be four years. It could be four months. I don't know how far off their meters are. Okay, close enough. And when we properly get a rate, when we properly start charging the right rate for the leachate, their leachate fees are going to go up. We're far behind the times, and by the time FISHBEC comes back with a plan, We'll have a clearer idea of what a proper leachate fee will be. We'll also have a meter that's given us data that would be hard to dispute on the building. I feel it would be a very large return on investment on this meter.

All right. I appreciate that. I have a much better understanding now. Thank you.

Does the landfill know that we are going to be charging them?

We have not had detailed conversations, but I will use that meter for a billing discussion. And even if they do pretreatment, I feel that we need to have control of our own meter. Obviously people may dispute the readings, but there's means and mechanisms for calibrating meters too. Same type of scenario if we were to service Wells Township as a wholesaler, we could throw a meter at the river and wholesale kind of the same thing. I want to build for every gallon we get. I feel that we've been far too long without our own meter on the line.

So how quick would this be installed and when would we start charging them?

Good question. Because we can probably do something without my next proposal, but we need a year-round building to chemical feed. I'm trying to put a bid together and a place where we can build it, but I'd like to put a small building, an electrical service, a full-time blower. Right now I've got basically a portable blower that's sucking the air out of the sanitary sewer. My plan is to build a small garage, put the chemical in there, get a heater in there, get a water heater to temper the eyewash, secondary containment for the chemical um i'll probably be coming back for 60 to maybe 85 000 more to make that happen and it would all be part of a long-term billing solution for the leachate and also take care of any problems for the orders on landfill road so my question again when are we getting it installed and when are we going to start billing I think there's a six-week lead time on this, and I don't want to install it until we have plans. My hopes are that we would get the full building and everything approved by council and planned before winter. I hope we can get a September build would be my hopes.

You said the blowers that are on the line now are eliminating the order?

What I did was I went downstream of the last building, the landfill road. We took the manhole cover off. We put a grating on there. So we've got a place where fresh air can enter the system. Upstream, I bought a blower that I think is blowing 2,800 cubic feet per minute. And we're basically sucking all of that air out. We did a smoke test. I think it was is either eight minutes or 20 minutes of detention time from the time it entered to the time it came out of the landfill. Sucking those odors out downstream and discharging them at the landfill has taken care of probably 90% of the odor complaints down there. And I would intend to keep that, in our plans for mitigation of the odors, and then use the chemical feed as an alternate method to oxidize it and remove those odors.

So you're saying that chemical feed would be done on a daily basis?

What we would do is we'd have the ability to feed year round, a flow paste, flow paste in it extends our chemical. Right now we're blindly feeding to downstream smells. We go down there, we shake it up, we don't smell anything. The leachate is really dark black. Once when it's oxidized, it's clear and almost white. So the chemical treatment has changed it, it's altered it. Can't get into details, but it's an oxidation process. And with a flow monitor, every time their flow comes, we would have a flow paced 4 to 20 pump, and it would inject the proper amount of chemical to effectively dose and oxidize the leachate. So this could be a year-round tool if and when there's odors. And if there's no orders, we would either just run the blower or even save the electricity, not run the blower, but it'd be there all the time to combat the orders when the need arises. So one more, sorry.

That's fine.

So not blaming you, but it's the city and it's the county issue too. We have those businesses on that road that have been dealing with this for a long time, the odor.

I'll probably take a little blame on that. Five, six years ago, the issue first came up. We've been accepting leachate since the early 90s, a long time.

Correct.

That was the first time that it really came up. We hired TriMedia to do a study. Within months, it kind of went away and kind of dissolved. I associate it to the new cell. They built a new cell and these gases were there and they didn't have their flames that were burning the gases off. When those were installed in that summer, the problems went away. Circle back to today, another new cell was built. making assumptions. Those flames are not yet installed. There's not enough gas there for them to be effective. I feel as soon as those flames are installed and they're burning their gas, the complaints and the problems will diminish, but not completely go away. We have the opportunity to learn from our past and prevent the same thing from occurring tomorrow. And what I feel is a net zero sum to the rate payers because we intend to pass those charters onto the landfill and not have the city. Alternately.

So what I was gonna say, sorry.

Go ahead.

Was these businesses have been there for quite a bit of time and they pay property tax, they pay utility tax, they're paying for all utilities already. And then now we're saying, all right, let's use taxpayer money to get this and let's look at build a building. My opinion, shut her down. Shut that line down. You know what? If we continue to still fork out money and then charge them, right? The fear that you guys have is they're gonna raise the rates, right? They're still gonna raise them even if we charge them for our meter, okay? Are we really resolving anything? We're just keeping it. We're just keeping the odor down. We're still allowing the discharge. We're not resolving anything.

I think we are mitigating an extremely large landfill increase by accepting the leachate. If they have to truck this leachate away, it's not, we'll just use a number. It's not a million dollars a year for some odor control. It could cost a landfill an additional million and a half or three million a year to truck this leachate someplace if they can get someone to take it. If we don't do this and accept it, the city of Escanaba will have increased tipping fees as a result. We either work with them and combat this as a partnership and have them pay for our additional costs, or in the end, the entire city, which I believe a third of the city's landfill, third of the disposal is coming from the city is what I believe. the city will absorb a third of those costs to truck leachate. And again, I've asked for a long time, do you want us to cut them off or do you want me to deal with it? It's really in your hands. I feel I have a very good plan. I feel I have a very affordable plan. You know, I'm looking at $100,000 for mitigated odors and the landfill authority will bill these costs.

But in the end, like Mr. Bosho stated, they're not even allowed to do this, right, legally? Well, I've been allowing them far too long.

They're not supposed to, legally. By code and ordinance, they're not allowed the discharges. But we also have a fee. We're also charging them a fee to allow this, to accept it. The fee's not covering our costs, which is why we hired Fishbeck to figure out a proper rate. I'm really at odds. I really feel we have a really affordable solution, one that's not going to cost the city ratepayers anything. In fact, I feel it's going to cost them less because doing nothing is going to increase the tipping fees substantially if we don't trick this leachate today. I'm 100% correct.

I'm not sure I'm willing to go as far as Mr. Dubord is suggesting to just cap off their sewer line and let them deal with shipping their leachate off-site, but we've been talking about this for over a year, two years. and no one from the county has showed up to show any interest or offer a partnership? You talk partnerships, but where are they talking?

Well, Dave and Terry were here to support a conversation. Dave and Terry, our agreement, we do need to get the council and the authority together. I still have not gotten my data from Fishbeck. We have a plan that we're proposing for pre-treatment, whether anybody's gonna be ready for a two or three million dollar pre-treatment program. We're talking a lot of chaos with PFAS and solids and odors. I'm not prepared to speak on it. I believe I have a solution. This option today, think of it as nothing else, as a return of investment for metering. I really feel it's gonna give us a return for our money, and the rate structure that has to be improved is gonna cover all these costs in the future.

I understand that. what what are the chances uh how willing is the county to pick up this uh cost of the the flow meter which sets the stage for everything else i i'm not sure wouldn't that be a a good faith gesture on their part well i can't say they're going to pay but i can say that when we sit down with council and authority and establish a rate system

At that point, either they pay the rate that we need to sustain their service or at that time we cut them off because they're unwilling to pay the costs that are necessary.

Should we have that conversation ahead of time before we do this?

Yes, I'd also like to note, Jeff, I know you spent a lot of time up here and you're answering a lot of questions. I appreciate the work that you've put in and you're trying to find a cost-effective solution for rate payers and I do appreciate that. The issue I'm having at this point is the order of operations you've outlined because it's six weeks roughly for the meter, but then we're not gonna put the meter or the treatment into play until we've built a building. So I feel like we've got a horse and a cart and we just can't figure out which way we're going with it. If we need to have the building set up in order to use the flow meter, shouldn't we have this all in one package? We probably should. And if we do that and we get the numbers together, I think we use that as our negotiation tool. If we sit down with the county and go, look, this is what it's going to cost us to do this on this end. And perhaps we can, because I don't want to approve this today. And then two weeks from now, approve a building, which we clearly need to do this part of it and then go to the county and then go, all right, you guys said, no, we're going to shut you off. Now we've got toys that we don't need anymore.

If I may, my memo had some discussion, maybe not clearly. I can make this meter work as a standalone. We've done miracles on a shoestring with what we've got now. This meter is needed regardless what we do to return our investment on metering. We need a meter. That's why I'm here today. If I had ample spare time, I would have had this to you weeks ago months ago. For my, my plans for chemical feed. I am trying to take 1 step forward so that I'm not. further behind the eight ball in July or September when I get the bids put together for the full scale.

Would it work for you if we also postponed this to the May 28th meeting, at which point we would have time to read the memo that I guess we didn't get? I feel like perhaps we're a little underprepared for what you would like us to know. Maybe some of our questions would have been answered. But I think it would be nice for council to have all of the information you intended for us to have before we make a decision on it. I think that's more fair for both parties.

I'm fine with that, but I'd also like to see the county representative start showing up for these discussions.

Well, I'll be honest with you. I did not ask the county permission to meter our sewer line. I don't feel we need their opinion or approval. I feel very strongly a meter will have return on investment and a meter is extremely necessary to even know how to plan for pretreatment. We don't know if we're getting the 600,000 gallons a month that they're reporting or six million gallons a month. This meter for the money is not a very big item for the return I believe it's gonna give.

Here's what I can add. We currently bill the landfill for leachate on a monthly basis. The issue that I've had with this process for years is that the landfill self-reports their leachate numbers. So they're telling us how much to bill them. This meter takes that off the table.

So it's basically a negotiating tool.

Well, it's a tool to recoup every dollar that we're servicing. Without a meter, we're going to continue to go down the same road without knowing how much we're taking. Without a meter, it's going to be very difficult to properly plan a pretreatment program. Without a meter, I'm wasting money every day by feeding 13 and a half gallons of peroxide a day instead of perhaps three gallons a day when the pumps are on. This is a very small cost for a very big problem that could have a very big financial burden to us unless we cut the landfill off.

I think the meter is multi-purpose. It can help Jeff if we do move forward with a pre-treatment plan. But also, we certainly don't let any of our customers tell us what their power usage is or anything like that. And the fact that the landfill is able to tell us their usage, to me, is very problematic. At a minimum, it solves that problem.

So I believe the meter is warranted as well. So I'll make a motion that we approve the flow meter and not to exceed the cost of $40,000.

Support. Further discussion on this item?

No. Thank you, Melissa, for pointing that out. That is a game changer for me that they are self-reporting.

I did a poor job communicating that.

Makes a difference to me.

No, you said it several times. We just all had questions, and we were all looking at different angles. You said it multiple times. We just didn't want to hear that part. It's like being allowed to check your own work when you take a test. All right. Mr. May, please call roll. Council Member Flaa?

Yes. Council Member Moore? Yes. Council Member Beauchamp? Yes. Council Member Dubourg? Yes. Mayor Amel? Yes.

New business item number 12, still Jeff. Approval third party contractor distribution system work, water.

Administration is requesting city council approval to retain and hire a licensed, insured, and competent contractor to replace lead service lines, hydrants, main line valves, or repair of water main breaks at the specified rates which are deemed necessary by the water department. Money is available for this type of work in the budget.

Move approval.

Board. Just a question. Yes. Do you anticipate any new contractors jumping in that might? complicate things?

No. And yes, the wrong contractor, if we hire the wrong contractor, it's going to give us headaches. But at the same token, the two contractors that are interested in working for us, I would trust them without even inspecting their work. They're very competent and capable. If we get somebody that wants to do the work and they're available, I'll gladly hire them at this rate if they do a good job and they're capable. We've had contractors that do bad work, and I'm horribly strict on quality. I'm probably my worst own enemy creating conflict because I don't accept substandard work. So if we do hire somebody that doesn't do good work, we're not going to ask them back again.

I guess another question here looking at the agenda. Who decides if it's a half service or full service?

A half service is basically if the main is on their side of the road, we call that a half service or at the curb stop. If you're going across the road and the curb stops at the property line across it, curb stop in is generally a half service. And a lot of the times we're only talking three feet of copper. We generally pass that off as a half service, too. But technically, that would be a full service. And then there's details in here for longer runs, dewatering. There's a lot of different costs that the contractor wants to be paid for.

Thank you.

All right. Further discussion on this item? Mr. Dubord, we do have a motion to approve this. Mr. May, please call the roll.

I'll serve. Councilor Moore? Yes. Councilor Flath? Yes. Councilor Beauchamp? Yes. Councilor Newberg? Yes.

Mayor Emel? Yes. Thank you. All right, new business item number 13, approval of Washington Avenue paving, public works.

Public Works is seeking City Council approval to hire Payne and Dolan for the paving of Washington Avenue from 8th Avenue North to the Spring Point located between 13th Avenue and 14th Avenue North at a total cost of $135,600. This work is in conjunction with some of the project work and this will create full width paving down Washington.

Motion to approve the total cost of $135,600. Support.

Discussion on this item. Mr. Denae, please call roll. Mr. DeBoer. Yes. Mr. Moore. Yes. Mr. Beauchamp.

Yes.

Mr. Flath. Yes. Mariel.

Yes. New business item number 14, approval Royce Park Basketball and Tennis Court Paving, Public Works.

Public Works is seeking City Council approval to hire Payne and Dolan for $54,780 to pave Royce Park basketball and tennis courts. Public Works has removed the deteriorated asphalt and concrete from the site. The area is now prepped for paving. And pending approval, the work is expected to be completed on May 26th.

Motion to approve the amount of $54,780. Support. Discussion?

Mr. DeMay, please call roll. Council Member Duborg? Yes. Council Member Flath? Yes. Council Member Warren? Yes. Council Member Beauchamp? Yes. Mayor Emel?

Yes. New business item number 15. Approval 8th Avenue South from 10th Street to Lake Shore Drive paving. Public Works.

Public Works is seeking City Council approval to hire Payne and Dolan for $16,800 to pave 8th Avenue South from 10th Street to Lakeshore Drive. This particular area is in poor condition. Payne and Dolan is already in the area. I want to say, are they around like 10th Avenue or something doing some work? And so they're already mobilized and in the area, and it's an opportunity to save some money to get this road repaired.

No approval.

Discussion. So we're hoping this will be done soon? Do we have a rough time frame on when this will be completed? All right, just ask the water guy. Haven't you had enough yet, Jeff?

Talking with this morning, the basketball court and 8th Avenue, as long as the curb work is done on 8th Avenue in time, They're expecting that they could do paving June 9th and 10th of both of the basketball court and 8th Avenue while they're paving 10th Street, if the curb work is done in time.

Thank you.

Further discussion?

Mr. Domeni, please call roll.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. New business item number 16, approval city manager recruitment community profile and salary range, HR.

Do you want to come up and talk about this?

So I had emailed over the profile that the Walsh Municipal Services had created. So I don't know if you guys had an opportunity to take a peek at it, but the recommended salary range was 140 to 145. So I know we had some questions regarding the salary range. So I don't know if you guys had time to think about it. Frank said he would be available for questions too if we wanted to discuss it further with him.

You're looking at me like you're expecting me to comment. So, okay, here it goes.

It's been a long night of conditioning.

The document we received, I think, is about 11 pages long, and I looked at it. I'm looking at it again. To me, it seems like it's, what, eight pages of promoting Escanaba, all the opportunities, so on and so forth. And it doesn't really say a whole lot, maybe the last couple pages of what council is hoping for. Just my input. I mean, we could set a price or salary 180,000. And maybe we wouldn't have lost the manager we had. I complained about the, yeah, if we had raised our salary cap earlier, we may not have been in this situation in the first place. Anyway. If the recruiter thinks this will actually help them get us some viable candidates, I guess I'm not going to object.

I'm going to ask Council, are we comfortable with the salary range suggested? Yes.

Yes.

Okay. And I guess at that point, we did choose to go with this recruiter. At this point, we have to trust them, and this is their method. So, yes.

And addressing what he said, Yes, that paper is promoting the area, but we also filled out a survey, too, that asked lots of questions about what we expect it to. So even though it probably wasn't in that, at least it's going to be passed on to the candidates. I'm sure everything that we put in the survey is going to be passed on. So I would trust that this company, being the experts that they are, would present the whole package to perspective candidates. So I think we have to go along with what they're suggesting, too, for the salary range.

Melissa, do you need a motion for a salary range?

I think if you guys are just happy with what you've been presented, you could just approve the entire thing, not specifically necessarily the salary and just the overall package. And then it would be posted tomorrow if it's approved tonight.

Motion to approve the city manager recruitment community profile and salary range.

I'll support that.

I just want to note that I didn't actually say that. Say what? At the top. The city of Escanaba welcomes your interest in serving as our next city manager. The ideal candidate will find a city council and staff that work well together as a team. I would say that about us. Escanaba is known for an abundance of waterfront recreational opportunities and cultural amenities. It's a nice phrase. I did not say that. Further discussion on this item? Mr. May, please call the roll. Council Member DeWolf. Yes. Council Member Beauchamp. Yes. Council Member Moore.

Yes.

Council Member Flah. Yes. Mayor Allen. Yes. New business item number 17. We would like to make an adjustment to the approval of plans for Kathmandu's classic car and bike nights to include the newly agreed upon street closures that they worked with all our department heads for. because of the current work on Leadington Street. So they've needed to make an adjustment geographically. And we would just like to make sure that council adds that in to the resolution.

Yep. So it would now be the closure of being moved to First Avenue South between 12th and 14th Street. Is that correct?

Correct.

Okay. Motion to approve the update.

Support. Discussion? All in favor? Aye. Thank you. And... I believe last but not least, new business item number 18. We have a discussion about alley repair material and chip seal.

So, yes. I will start. So I received a couple phone calls today as well and emailed me a letter they received from the Public Works City of Escanaba in regards to their alley. that it stated that with construction going forward in alley that it will no longer be paved. It would now be gravel unless the neighborhood or neighbors would like to do a petition to now get it repaved or paved. I don't remember having a discussion on that or further information provided to council that we were going that route. And I thought we'd have a discussion about that on why we're doing that or what's the reasoning and who made the call and all that fun stuff.

You'll have to look at Kent because I don't even know what you're talking about. I haven't spoken to anybody, so.

So with all the work going on around town, we figured we'd add to the chaos. Picked out the six worst alleys, in my opinion, in town and sent letters out there just to get information out to the homeowners and if there's a lot of backlash, then we're not gonna move forward with any of it. But in my opinion, our garbage truck drivers take the biggest brunt of how horrible the alley conditions are. So speaking with my garbage truck drivers and then my evaluation and our guys on the engineering staff, These six hours we figured were in the worst condition. So our thoughts were if we were able to pulverize them and take advantage of Payne and Dolan being in town with the other city work going on, the square yardage is a very minimal number. And it's something that we wanted to get information out to the public, sit on it for about a month so everybody could digest it, and then bring it back to council and see if it's even realistic to happen this summer or not. And then Public Works would take on chloriding and keeping the alleys gravel going forward. And obviously, homeowners would have to re-petition to get them repaved. But the alleys are at a point where cold patch isn't working. Nothing's working. The alleys are in horrible condition. and we can't get homeowners to budge on these petitions. We pushed through one petition in the last two years and with everything increasing, I can see why it's getting harder and harder to get petitions across. So it was just our thought of hopefully being able to better maintain them because the asphalt's completely deteriorated and there's no way to patch the potholes and get them to stay in.

so i do want to read something from this letter which is interesting so due to funding limitations for both the city and residents a decision has been made to revert the alley surface to gravel rather than repeating it this approach will allow the city to more effectively maintain the alley going forward so you're telling me this actually says it's going to happen is that what i'm reading

You're reading that from the letter, that's not lying, but I mean, it'd have to come back to council approval. I just kind of figured getting the information out there to the public, hopefully it would get their complaints out and their positivity out and their negativity out, and if it's not reasonable, then we don't go forward with it. Obviously, we would need council's approval in order to go forward with it. I just kind of figured The more you can get people's kind of splash to catch their attention, the more information we can get out there and the more negative feedback we can hopefully get faster before something gets pushed across and people are complaining later down the road after it happens, like what the heck, why is my alley gravel now? Why wasn't I aware of this? So we figured we could sit on this for a month. Hopefully people could digest the information, and if it's a huge issue, then we'll keep living with the way the alleys are. But they're completely destroyed, and there's got to be a better answer going forward. And I don't know how to get petitions across better because people aren't willing to do them.

So I guess my biggest problem with this letter is it's a directive. It came across as a directive. It came across that it's already been decided. It didn't say we have options that we're looking at to potentially look at alleys down the road getting gravel. Instead, it came right across that that's what's going to happen to these residents. It didn't give them an option to say, hey, we're further discussing. If you have an opinion or we'd like to address this issue, come to council or contact Public Works. Right now, these residents are upset. I'm seriously, when this letter came out, people are calling me and stopping me and asking me, are all alleys going gravel? We got a letter. And I'm like, what letter? I have no idea what you're talking about. And so they sent me. so i i'm gonna be honest i'm not happy because it came off as this was already decided when we didn't decide that um and that's that's something i think we need to address and that was my two cents

It's been my understanding that when a property owner is assessed for curbing and asphalt, they pay whatever tax or cost there is, but after that it becomes the city's responsibility to maintain it. I would assume the same is true for an alley. If you have a paved alley and the city needs to dig it up completely like they did, I believe, between 5th and 6th Avenue, that will be restored to a paved alley at the city expense. Unless I'm mistaken, why are these people being told it would be gravel?

Yeah, I mean, I guess I'd have to look into that further because I guess I'm not on the same page there. I can touch base with these homeowners tomorrow. I don't know. Obviously, the letter should have came across in a different directive.

And that kind of ties into the chip seal conversation. I realize we pulled agenda item 13 off of there because there are some lead service lines in the areas mentioned there. But my position has been that the chip sealing is a quick, cheap fix. which doesn't cost the property owners a whole lot, but it costs the city a substantial amount because a street that would be paved would last perhaps 30 years, maybe some crack ceiling, whereas chip ceiling, you have potholes after whatever it was mentioned, five years, and the city has to deal with that. And then what, they get a fresh coat of chip ceiling, minimal cost to them again, and five years later, another coat, they get to avoid the taxation, the curb, the full asphalt layer that would last decades.

Yeah, and you're not wrong, but the streets that are chip sealed now, either we deal with it going forward every five to seven years, or we just let them disintegrate and everybody in the community pays the price. As they continue to deteriorate, the streets are only gonna get worse. So either we keep up with the maintenance on decisions that were made yesterday, or we pay the price tomorrow. Obviously it's up in the air. It's gonna get pushed back to next year with the amount of work that's being done around the city. But we kind of figured with what the price range is, it's a quarter of the cost of another company to come in. With the amount of roadway you're able to cover with what's chip sealed now that homeowners have already been petitioned for, I feel like it's a very minimal cost compared to the curb and pavement on a new street. to chip seal. Yeah, it's a five to seven year window, but there's nothing I can do about yesterday. All we can do is make tomorrow better. And that's why we try to bring as many agenda items throughout the year. And that's why we try to make so many things happen. I mean, it'd be easier to just sit on your hands and not make anything happen, but that's why there's so many areas and why so much stuff's going on throughout the city.

Understood, but I I do feel if people had a paved alley. To start with. Unless it was falling apart completely, they should get their paved alley back after whatever construction is done.

Can't could you?

I'm sorry, go ahead just for the sake of clarity so. If you're going to repair the alley and just make it then it's basically paid for by the city. But if the alley, if it's gonna be paved, then the residents have to pay for it. Is that what it boils down to?

Can you repeat that whole thing? My hearing aids are dead and I missed half of that.

Just for clarity. So the city wants to repair the alleys by making them gravel, leveling them out and making them gravel. But if the residents want paving, then that they have to pay for. But the city will pay for the gravel and fixing the alley. Is that true?

Yeah, that's true. I mean, that's what the city does right now with everything that's gravel. And that's what the city does right now with the alleys that have been dirt that we have utilities in that we've made gravel the last couple of years. We've tried to improve. two dirt alleys to gravel, two alleys a year the last two years. And that was my plan going forward, to make it easier for utilities to get in and out of these alleys from creating bigger issues. But it's a constant cost, just like the chip ceiling. That's an ongoing maintenance with chloride, with gravel, with equipment rental. It's a continuous cost. It's just kind of inevitable.

Kent, I have a question for you about the material in the alleys. Are you speaking of asphalt alleys or concrete alleys?

The ongoing costs on our end on the gravel alleys. I'm sorry? The ongoing costs on our end on the gravel alleys.

No, the ones you said there's six or eight that are deteriorated right now. Are these asphalt alleys or are they concrete? Correct. Yeah, they're asphalt. They're asphalt, okay. So that's considerably cheaper than concrete. But, and Melissa, if we were decided to be a wild council and go, we're just gonna pay all these, how far in the hole is that gonna put our city budget?

A lot. I don't know what it costs to pave them all.

I'd just like to ask the numbers person instead of swinging the guy trying to do the work.

We certainly don't have any money budgeted to pave them this year. And I guess alley paving is a general fund item. So we've presented a deficit budget as it is. It's something that we certainly could consider since the project is being pushed off a year anyway. It's something we could look at in the next budget cycle.

So we're pushing this off for a year regardless because we couldn't get the county to, because of our construction, right?

The, we're talking, I'm sorry, you're talking chips, I was talking chip seal, you're talking alleys.

Well, we, no, we mixed it all up. It's been a mess here. We've been back and forth.

Alleys are general fund. It's not in the budget. That doesn't change any of that.

Okay. So chip seal is pushing it off for a year. So we're done talking about that for right now.

I would think that if an alley is in really bad shape, especially with asphalt, I mean there's big holes, I would think that even making a gravel would be a lot easier to travel on as long as the gravel is, the dust is kept on.

True, but I believe the question is does it remain gravel or does the city have to repave it at the city's expense?

I think I might have some notes on that in a file in my office. So I'll look into that as well as to whether there's a reassessment or if it's just at the city's cost.

And then also, if they're doing construction in the alley of replacements, they'll only redo the patch, right? They don't do a full.

Right.

Correct. They're only doing the patch. So they're already looking at repaving the patch. So now we're converting that to gravel. I'm just trying to understand how we're doing this whole process.

Well, I don't know that any of the utility work that Jeff's projects could be wrong. I don't know that much of that is alley work. So I don't think that that's.

No, none of that construction in the alley work for those alleys? I don't know which alleys you're talking about. Okay. I'll let you two talk about that.

Yeah. Okay. The alleys that you have identified, are these also alleys that are scheduled to get lead service line work done this year?

Not that I'm aware of, no.

Okay. So now we're not mixing that up anymore. Okay. So we're not putting concrete down and then tearing it back up and putting gravel. It sounds like we're doing, we're either leaving deteriorated alleys deteriorated or we're tearing that surface up and putting gravel down which is not what we like but probably better than a deteriorated alley surface we can leave them the way they are and that's perfectly fine i thought the issue was the letter it was it's really the letters the issue and then the point is is i think we need to then

later have another discussion in regards is this what we want to do with these six alleys is moving forward are we going to pay for the paving or are we going to now not pay for gravel down that's going to be the next agenda that we need to talk about that's what i'm trying to say is that we jumped the gun a little and a little a lot and i need to say reel it back in and now it needs to come to us tell you what i think the letter is pretty effective because based on the attendance of all the public hearings we've held for the last three months versus the input you got from one letter pretty good technique

more input in three hours today than we've had in three months worth of public hearings begging people to come. So I don't know. So the end of the discussion is this is not a mandated thing. No one is losing their alley at this point. This was a well-intended, possibly not perfectly worded feeler gauge to find public feedback. We are getting public feedback. and we can come back and address this at another date. We do not have to put it, we don't have to table it, we do not have to postpone it. We can revisit it if and when we get the time or if Melissa buys a lottery ticket and the city wins and we can fix everything, that'd be great too. Otherwise, I think at this point we can close this discussion and move on. Thank you. Moving on to appointments. We don't have any. There was a flurry recently, which is great. So we're down to one vacancy on the Housing Commission and two alternate vacancies on the Zoning Board of Appeals. Board, Commission, and Committee reports. Let's start with Mr. Floss.

I don't have anything. What? I don't know.

After all that talk on the landfill, you've got nothing to say? Especially landfill. Oh boy. Mr. Beauchamp?

No, Planning Commission was canceled last week.

Mr. DeWard?

So I attended the library board on Monday and we had good discussion. So I was not there for the meeting prior in the month where the library board did decide to accept a piano donation that was accepted and the piano will be located in the library. So our discussion on Monday was more policy and rules looking to adopt in regards to the usage of the piano it was interesting and then we also went through and discussed coming up with a job description for our director of the library who is going to be leaving us in September so we're trying to make sure we got everything in line to look for a replacement okay thank you

I also have nothing. This time we'll hear general public comment. If you wish to make comment, please approach the podium, state your name, place of residence.

My name is Sally Bruce, and I live right in Escanaba by the golf course. I'm a taxpayer. I serve on the Executive Council for AARP, and Shirley Golak and I had a meeting with James McNeil and Brianna Eklund, and it was all about the Escanaba Joining Age-Friendly Network through AARP, and which they said they wanted to do this. Are you aware of that at all? Is anybody aware? So anyway, they went ahead and made the application, and it was in the paper. This is the press release, and this was in, July of 2025, and then AARP took out two big page articles, I'm gonna be brief too, about AARP celebrates Escanaba. We're the first ones in the UP that became age friendly. And with everything that's been going on here, nothing has been done so Shirley and I are here to bring this to your attention so when we get our new city manager and his assistant whoever that we can get going on this again because i'm getting asked about um from lansing our lansing office uh what's going on and i'm trying to explain it and so i thought they would be happy that i came to talk to you about it i do if you don't know what an age-friendly community is i do have a handout on it And there actually is a grant out right now. You get up to $10,000. And I think it has to be completed by the end of June, like June 25th. I actually shared it on my Facebook page. So anyway there are a lot of opportunities and there's how we worked with them and they want to actually having some people coming up we're doing a taste of AARP at the Boniface in July 23rd and they were going to actually do a big celebration about it and I told them there's nothing to celebrate because we haven't gotten going on anything. So I'm here, Shirley and I are here just to bring this to your attention. So I appreciate your, anybody would like one of these flyers on it?

Can I just pass one out?

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah, well, I'll take one notice, so I don't know. Yeah, thank you.

Further public comment at this time?

Kelly Van Ginghoven, Delta County Commissioner, District 4. Just two quick items. We are still currently accepting surveys for our Delta County Master Plan, and we are specifically looking for young people to hopefully fill out the survey for our Master Plan. You can go to Delta County MI.gov, and there will be a quick slide across bar on the bottom to take that survey. And we're looking for input from everybody in Delta County, but of course, the city of Escanaba residents are more than welcome to participate in that and being part of Delta County. Also, our opioid task force is currently accepting grant applications for the upcoming new fiscal year. You can also find that on our website. We have two grant possibilities, large grants that are up to $30,000 and small grants that are up to $3,000. So please, if you know any nonprofit or organization that helps deal with opioid addiction, that may be interested. We've had City of Escanaba Police Department apply. We've had our local Sheriff's Department. We've had Escanaba Public Schools. So we encourage anyone who might think that they would be able to utilize our grant funds to please apply for those. And then just lastly, because I HAVE TO SAY SOMETHING, BECAUSE I DO SIT ON OUR SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT AUTHORITY, THAT WHEN YOU REFER TO THE LANDFILL, PLEASE DON'T REFER TO IT TO COUNTY, BECAUSE THE DELTA SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT AUTHORITY IS AUTONOMOUS. THEY HAVE THEIR OWN BUDGET, AND THEY ARE NOT DIRECTLY AFFILIATED WITH THE COUNTY. IT IS MULTIPLE MUNICIPALITIES AND THE COUNTY. THANK YOU.

FOR THE PUBLIC COMMENT AT THIS TIME. Moving on to announcements.

Memorial Day weekend.

Yes.

City parade or fun run or what's it called now?

That's next week. Ludington Street Cruise is next Friday. So, spend time with family and be thankful we have all the things we have for the people who gave everything and please be safe when you celebrate and we'll see you next time. Seeking motion to adjourn.

So moved. Second.

Have a good night.