City Council - Regular Meeting

good evening garden city like to call to order a regular city council meeting for monday july 13th 2026 at 7 pm our first order of business is our opening ceremony which consists of the national anthem followed by the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence for those service members who have given their lives for our country if everyone please rise

Thank you. ¶¶

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Please be seated. Mr. Smith, take roll call, please.

Mayor Jacobs. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Dold. Here. Council Member Hughes. Here. Council Member Witt. Here. Council Member King. Here. Council Member Dold. Here. Council Member Karifotis.

Here.

You have a quorum of seven.

Thank you. Next item is the approval of the agenda.

Mayor. Council Member Witt. I'd like to make a motion to approve the Monday, July 13th council meeting agenda as presented. Support.

Support from Council Member Hughes. Discussion from the table? from the public all in favor aye opposed motion passes seven zero okay we have a couple recognitions we're gonna get two so the first one is for captain steve ray from fire department i'll call chief randy keen and captain steve ray so captain ray completed i'll let you hold that he uh completed a course a very difficult course so we needed to recognize them the city garden city extends our congratulations to captain steve ray on behalf of the city council the city of garden city michigan We proudly congratulate Captain Steve Ray of the Garden City Fire Department upon his successful completion of the Executive Fire Officer Program at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland. The Executive Fire Officer Program is recognized as the premier executive leadership program for fire service professionals in the United States. Since the program began nearly 40 years ago, only 4,800 fire service leaders have earned this distinguished designation. Captain Ray successfully completed the program's rigorous executive level curriculum focused on leadership, strategic planning, organizational excellence, and community risk reduction. Throughout his career with the Garden City Fire Department, Captain Ray has consistently demonstrated exceptional leadership, dedication, and a commitment to protecting the lives and property of the residents of Garden City. His successful completion of the Executive Fire Officer Program further exemplifies his desire to advance the fire service profession. The nationally recognized leadership training and expertise that Captain Ray has gained through the Executive Fire Officer Program will strengthen the Garden City Fire Department and enhance its ability to provide exceptional service to the community through innovation, strategic leadership, and organizational excellence. The City of Garden City congratulates Captain Steve Ray on joining the distinguished network of executive fire officers and commends his dedication to advancing the fire and emergency services profession. We thank him for his continued service to our community and wish him continued success as he leads with integrity, professionalism, and excellence. And I will say, I watched the ceremony where he walked and there were very few I think how many were there 25 25 out of the country and I believe two from Michigan one up north and you yeah so it's a very hard course I know he had explained how hard it was and well we look we want to congratulate you and thank you for your service thank you

We're going to get some of the family. Heather.

Dan and Theola, you want to come up? And then you can speak if you'd like. Okay, if you don't mind. Nope.

We'll take a picture.

I forgot to tell you guys would be pitchers.

Thank you, everybody. And I'm sorry, I don't want to turn my back on the council. The council was very active in the research project I had to do. I was fortunate enough to sit down and spend a half hour interviewing with them. It was a half hour, some of them were an hour, some of them were two hours, but I enjoyed the time I spent with them and I think the entire group of us came away feeling better because of it, understanding, and it's something I'm gonna continue to build on as I move forward. yeah you saw the people that came up here my wife my chief I couldn't have done this without them it was four trips to Emmitsburg Maryland and my wife takes care of everything while I'm gone it's not like I'm at the fire station I'm 500 miles away chief Keene thank you for supporting me through all this my crew they're the ones I do this stuff for you know it's we don't just call it a brotherhood it is a brotherhood and I love these guys that I work with so thank you council thank you mayor mayor pro tem city manager everybody thank you for for letting me fulfill this dream of mine

Thank you, congratulations again. I know it was a tough course. We also have another recognition, and that is to Officer Paige Winton, and I will call Chief Arnosky and Officer Paige Winton. We didn't get a plaque for them. Okay. So this is, we want to recognize Officer Paige Whitten. On behalf of the City Council of the City of Garden City, Michigan, we proudly congratulate Officer Paige Whitten of the Garden City Police Department for being named both 2025 Garden City Police Officer of the Year and 2026 Police Officers Association of Michigan Police Officer of the Year. Officer Witten has served the Garden City community with distinction for over three years as a police officer, after two years of service as a code enforcement officer. During her time serving in Garden City, Officer Witten has demonstrated a great commitment to the safety and well-being of our residents, and is admired for her work ethic, integrity, and compassion. Officer Whitten has demonstrated a consistent drive to make Garden City a better, safer, and more supportive place for all. She continually goes above and beyond the call of duty, and her empathy, professionalism, and steadfast character exemplifies the very best of modern policing. In addition to being named 2025 Garden City Police Officer of the Year, Officer Whitten was recognized as the 2026 Police Officer of the Year by the Police Officers Association of Michigan at their annual conference. Officer Whitten received the award for her decisive actions and courage during a dangerous incident on December 26, 2023. She responded to an accident and then later had a serious situation that she resolved and obviously made everything safer for residents and bystanders around there. The city of Garden City congratulates Officer Paige Witten on being named the 2025 Garden City Officer of the Year and 2026 Police Officers Association of Michigan Police Officer of the Year and wish her continued success as she makes the Garden City community a safer place to live. Thank you. Chief, do you want to say anything?

I'm good with this. Okay.

All right, we're good. I think we're good.

Yeah.

So I would like to say that, obviously, between the fire and the police department, we have a great community. We have a lot of great people that work for us, and they're getting recognition that is so well-deserved, and we appreciate all the work that they all do, and especially when we can congratulate them like that. So thank them. And we have one more... are you don't commissioner david can kinesic county commissioner is here to present a check to the friends of the garden city historical museum uh... who are the recipient of the wayne county community impact grant initiative and i would like to call commissioner kinesic uh... and from the historical museum president kim market Vice President Lisa Gibbons, Treasurer Sharon Haslett, and a few of the members that also came up to support him.

How's everybody doing?

Cool, cool, cool, cool. Hello, how are you? So while we get situated, just to give a little bit of background on this, about two years ago, a number of the Wayne County commissioners had gotten together and went to the administration and were pressing for additional dollars and resources that we could invest in the local community. And we had a set pot of money that was established in the budget that year My goal is folks know through whether it's this or on the parks money is to be able to share it across the three communities that I represent the Commission Dearborn Heights Garden City and Inkster and it was entirely at the Commissioners discretion as to where and when and how they would send that money out so when I thought about what I wanted to do for and with and in Garden City and One of the challenges is you've got so many great organizations and people to think about and to choose from. But I think part of this, at least for me, harkened back to years ago when I was in the legislature and had been working unsuccessfully to appropriate money to the museum and to Strait Farmhouse to take care of some money on the balance sheet. We weren't able to get that done. So for me, it just felt like a loose end that I had wanted to tie up. And I have to give credit, I don't know if anybody else knows or has familiarity, but when I first came into Garden City back in 2012, it was Mike Lawrence who had introduced me to the museum and brought me out and introduced me to the fantastic collection that they have there, the great programming that they do, the different events that they host. I also particularly like a bit of the paranormal activity that happens within the facility. So I picked up the phone and I just called Kim out of the blue and I said, how would you like $40,000? And she says, oh yeah, that would be great. That'd be great, we'll take it. And we were working on that final number, we're shifting things around and it turns out I had a little bit more so we called her back again and we say, how would you like 15,000 more? She says, oh yeah, I'll take that too, that's no problem. So the one thing that I'll say is, and folks know this, I'm not speaking out of school, sometimes the county can be a little slow to get things up and moving. And the paperwork and the onerous sort of steps that you have to go through can be a total pain. But Kim and this board and this organization have been total champs for the last year plus to make sure that all the paperwork was submitted, sometimes two or three times because people lost it on the back end. uh but the paperwork's in everything's good to go uh and i don't know if others want to talk about or can talk about what it's going to go towards but the purpose of me being here today is to do the routine the picture the big check and to make sure that we get this 55 000 out the door to you all so you can do what what is needed and necessary with it and again just my gratitude for the partnership along the way thank you yeah and the money has been well spent excellent

We can't thank David enough it's been a dream since we opened the museum to have a gazebo up there where our Community can come up and get photos taken because our community leaves our city to go get pictures taken elsewhere So we're gonna give them a place for those high school graduation pictures and homecoming. And this fall, it'll be all decorated. You'll be able to come up and get family photos and that. So the steps are coming, but the gazebo's there and we're working on the electrical and that piece by piece. And yeah, we were excited to be able to put this together. We went from a 16, foot gazebo to an 18-foot gazebo when we got the extra money in that so um yeah we're just thrilled and we hope everybody here will take the time to come over once the steps are on and climb up there and get your picture taken so thank you again david for all your hard work where do we want to do this mayor how do we want to do this right here i'll just grab the point kind of

Yeah, we can move it out. There she goes. At this time we're gonna take a short recess and for those that don't want to stick around for all the exciting stuff They can leave so we are in recess for a couple minutes. I okay we are now back in session uh i kind of skipped over item six which is comments from the state and county officials and since we have county commissioner david kinesic i will call him

thank you mayor uh just wanted to offer some some uh brief remarks here uh and i i feel myself getting emotional already so i'll try to dial it back uh folks might have seen a couple months ago i had gone through a selection process for a role at henry ford college and was successful with That process and so on July 1st just a couple couple days ago I started as the seventh president of Henry Ford College and so with that I feel like it really commands my full time my full attention to the campus community and folks around us And so I've made the decision to resign from the Wayne County Commission Thank you. That was good to hear better than clapping better than clapping better than clapping and So it's 30 months ahead of my term, but I think it's the right thing to do. And in many ways, I think it aligns with my belief that these jobs are not owed to us. They're not ours. We are placeholders. We're here for a time, and then you turn the reins over to somebody else. You all I know are in that same boat. And with that comes a lot of mixed emotions, obviously excitement about the next chapter and the work that I'm gonna be able to do, not the least of which is my hour and a half commute to Lansing is now a six minute drive down Heinz Drive, so that's a benefit. But of course, the type of things that I enjoyed so much about this job, being active and present and engaged in the community, being able to bring money home for organizations that deserve it, that's obviously not going to be a part of my life anymore. And so with that comes a tremendous deal of sadness as well. And I think back to 12 years ago, 14 14 years ago when i had first gotten elected every person on the dais up here was a different person we had a different police chief and a different fire chief so much has changed in the communities that i've represented over the last 14 years the thing that has not changed here in garden city and what i think makes it such a wonderful community is the people the goodness of the people, the heart of the people, the engagement and the support that we have for one another. Folks know, and I say this in Garden City, and I say it in Dearborn Heights, and I say it in Inkster, Garden City is my favorite community to represent. I'm not from here, I wasn't born here, but I feel like I've been adopted by this community because of the love and the support that you've shown me over the years. It's been six elections that I've gone through over the last 14 years, always one here in Garden City. Not everywhere else, but here in Garden City. And so it's that goodness of the people and how you work and how you interact with one another that makes this job so fulfilling and gratifying and a real pleasure to do. I've said that in other communities, you see that elected officials think that the way to get something done is to figure out who can I step on or who can I step over, whereas here in Garden City, the mentality has always been who can I lock arms with to move forward together? And so... So many different memories, so many different stories. If I started talking about all of them, we'd be here all night, and I would inevitably forget somebody and upset them. But for me, it truly started right here. I remember sitting in Mayor Walker's office for the first time, 25-year-old college student wanting to run for office. I remember doing my first interview on Garden City Community Chat in the Student Center at U of M Dearborn because, like I said, I was still a senior at the time. A lot has changed. And I just want to say to this group how... how grateful I am for that support, how grateful I am for that love, and what an honor, what an honor it has been to represent this community. I have so much love for you all in my heart. I'm still just a phone call away. If you want to go back to college, I know a great place to go. uh and i just want to say thank you i really it's been such a pleasure and such a privilege and and i'm grateful for the opportunity that this community has afforded to me so i'll stop there before i get more choked up thank you thank you thank you commissioner uh we appreciate all the work you've done for us

represented us very well and uh i think i can speak for all council and we were truly grateful and and proud to have said you've been our our representative you've you've represented us very very well appreciate it thank you all thank you good luck at college thank you very much president now do we call you president just david just david thank you thank you Okay, we have a community event. I'll call up Mr. Matt Miller, our Community Development Director, with Zephy.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the council. Yes, Zephy is here, Zephy the squirrel. My reminder for our Lucky Squirrel event coming this Saturday, July 18th, from 10 until 3. We have 150 vendors, some food trucks, uh to come and shop and enjoy uh to come i know it's going to be quite warm so uh bring water we'll be selling water uh we'll be prepared for the rain or shine event and again just come downtown and enjoy uh finding a treasure at our lucky squirrel event for july 18th from 10 until 3. thank you thank you thanks look forward to it

Okay, we have no petitions or communications. We do have a couple public hearings. We have our 2026 sidewalk program. This is a public hearing of necessity. Mr. Ullman, you wanna speak on it and then we'll open up the public hearing?

Good evening, Mayor and Council. The area for this year's program is Warren to Ford, Vannoy to Merriman. We have been addressing trip hazards greater than one inches. the buchelli group conducted a field evaluation inspection of all the properties in this area and they found over 400 properties which needed some type of sidewalk replacement they are here tonight also the cost to the residents for this year's program is 233 dollars and 25 cents for a four inch flag and 284 dollars for a six inch flag

okay thank you i know i have a couple of names up here that wanted to speak on this so i'll start with them and then open it up to the rest of the public uh miss carol douglas hello um

i just wanted to say that um about the sidewalks that they want to charge to replace two squares um is 500 and something dollars uh basically i don't have it but uh in in regards to that i live at the end of a dead end street And so nobody walks on my sidewalk. They just turn at the next street and don't come to the dead wall. You'd be walking to nothing. I'm at a dead end. And I was hoping that something could be done because it's two squares I believe you have marked. One isn't damaged at all. The other one has a non-tripping crack. I believe what the issue is, is the two corners are raised a little bit because of a massive tree that was there on the easement, the city property. And so even if you took out the good square, and put in a new square, that big root is still there on that corner. So I'm not sure you'd be gaining anything. And I sure as heck don't have the money to pay for it and nobody walks on it. And yes, they're willing to do something about that root. You're not gonna get that corner to lay down. And since the tree has been recently cut down, what will happen naturally is the root will eventually rot and lower. And so will the sidewalk. So it'll go back down. It's a little corner. It'll go back down where it's supposed to be. But if you go and put a new one in there, and the root does its natural rotting and dropping, then you're gonna want another new sidewalk square because it's lower instead of higher. So anyways, I just wanted to say my piece on it. I pay a fortune in taxes and literally, I don't live at the Taj Mahal, it's Garden City. I would hope that you'd be able to get that 500 out of the enormous taxes i pay or out of the grants you've gotten for sidewalks and so on and so forth don't need it don't want it can't afford thank you thank you we'll we'll have someone look at the root issue and the sidewalk the situation is you could put new cement there all day long but that giant root is still there and it's not going to go away and you know

history or saws.

Okay, thank you. Okay, I have Robert and Madeline.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, council members. I just want to say before I talk about the sidewalk, it was actually a blessing for me to see the service people of this community be awarded today. And it brought a verse to my mind and heart that uh in john chapter 15 it says greater love has no one than this that a person would lay down his life for a friend and made me that came to mind when i seen them and i just want to say you know that there's one that laid down his life for all of us his name's jesus and he came down on a rescue mission and my prayer is that everybody here knows him as lord because he did it for our eternity so i just wanted to share that and hope you don't mind and As far as the sidewalk, I got a picture of the slab that they want to replace and it's actually in perfect condition. It's just raised up on one side a bit. And I know that they've done it here before and they do it in other cities where they grind it down just to flatten it out. And I believe it would be a lot more cheaper to do it that way than to sit there and replace the whole square. And I just wanted to say that if that would be a possibility, ask if that would be a possibility.

Again, the same thing, we'll have somebody, if it can be done like that, well they'll let you know we'll have somebody come out and look at it again okay sir i appreciate it guys have a blessed evening thank you anybody else wishing this ma'am please state your name

hi my name is teresa bonecutter and i live on maplewood and i have two slabs that are right in front of my driveway approach and my issue is one of the slabs are already paid to have replaced and when they redid that part of maplewood they took out those two slabs and when they put them back on i can't remember how many was it four years ago they did maplewood five um that's why they cracked and i had already paid for the one slab years ago when garden city went through my side of town and the other one they took a chunk out of it when they replaced you know took them out when they did the road and they patched that but that one's marked also and i just you know there's probably you're probably just going to say tough luck but it you know but i feel as though i guess i should have said something back then when they did the road but it slowly the one that i already had replaced slowly over time is just crumbled and that was the newer section you know that i already paid for before so and then you know i guess so that was what i want to talk about okay uh brian can you make sure we get your address and somebody will

reach out to you okay thank you anybody else come on up sir any american council uh as far as the concrete i'm just the one slab that is in question kind of splits my and my neighbors uh property um and actually the purchase damage is on is on that side i'm just wondering how do they determine if it splits properly uh that i don't know but again fill out a form and we'll have uh somebody reach out to you and they can explain how they shows your how the property line was figured out yeah okay like someone to pay i just want to know the side that's damaged on the property that's all okay thank you uh let's see i got come on up man

Yeah, I have one slab that has number 26 written on it and I believe that's the one that's making up and it's like oh I live at 3, 1, 6, 2, 4, Mayport. And your name is? Kathleen Iwinski. And it's not even a quarter of an inch higher. It's not even, it's very minimal. If they could like shave it down like someone said, I could give you my address and have them come back out and look at it. It's only one piece.

can we yep we can have somebody look at that thank you fill out yep you get the form thank you uh carl and peggy young over here okay i was gonna stay where he's at that's fine that's fine i brought pictures so would you like them sure give them if you want to give them to the clerk so we're new in the area we've been here about three years

and um when i saw the gentleman marking sidewalks i asked him so i was already aware that this was happening so if you look at the pictures the sidewalk or the the square in question has a manhole right in the middle of it Now you can see that when it was put in, it was actually beveled. It was made to be, you know, it's risen in the middle.

There's a bow in it, just like this.

And it's hot. it was evidently put in high that is there's nothing wrong with it but i'm like why am are we being questioned or why are we being charged for something that was put in and has manhole in it we have though pardon me Okay, well that was my question because we've already put in a culvert in the front. We live on the corner of Block and Hubbard and we had a four foot deep you know culvert and because i couldn't my husband's handicapped i couldn't keep walking into it to clean it we put in a lot of money and the city you know didn't help us we put that in ourselves so when i saw this i'm like okay now i'm going to come and talk to you guys and i mean i don't mind i'm not going to be unreasonable but you know i paid for the culvert you know and i questioned this and i wish that maybe it helped me with the culvert but as far as being here the city's really nice we're from lapierre county so this is a big difference you know and when you're talking about sidewalks we never had any before but anyway uh nice meeting you all thank you very much thank you

Anybody else wishing.

My name is Abby the does though I live on Dover Street at 3, 1, 7, 1, 6, we also similar as our neighbors have mentioned got a notice that we have 2 slabs of our sidewalk that need to be replaced. We understand the importance of the public safety and the want greater than one inch that you know that's absolutely understandable however we had questions similar as our neighbors and so we wanted to ensure that there actually was an inch or so greater gap between the two levels that they want to replace and by our measurements nothing is greater than an inch and similar we have seen our neighbors where they have the the edges kind of shaved down and so again that's something that we might think might be more beneficial because the two sidewalks that are replacing they were right next to where our I think our water main was replaced many or before we moved in we moved in in 2024 and so on either side of that that's kind of sinking and so rather than replace the whole thing we think it would be feasible to just shave them but again if there's like an appeals process or someone can come out and look at that that would be very helpful too you turn that in and I will yes thank you

busy people this week anybody else last call anybody else wishing to speak at the public hearing okay i will call i will close that public hearing and we'll go on to item b public hearing the utility easement vacating and mr miller you want to briefly explain that one

Good evening again. This is a public hearing regarding a utility easement vacation at 3 to 300 Ford Road. In compliance with our ordinance, actually, we're required to hold a public hearing so that the council can gather any information regarding a utility easement vacation, and so that's why we're here this evening. This is actually in preparation for the new sheets being built at the corner of Hubbard and Ford Road. And currently on the legal description, an easement showed up for a gas line and a stormwater But when we looked at that further, the easement is in place along Hubbard, but then both of those utilities also have other easements crossing the property. So when they put those in, they put in two more easements and they never use the original easement that was in place. So that is the purpose of why they're requesting this vacation. And also the purpose for the public hearing is we're required to do so according to our ordinance.

so i'll be happy to answer any questions or you can take comments well we'll have the public hearing first okay okay at this time i will open up the uh public hearing for uh the utility easement vacation board road there anybody wishing to speak on that one more time anybody wishing to speak on that okay say no one i will close that public hearing

and public hearing number three is an ordinance amendment chapter 120 uh on massage parlors mr miller good evening again so this is actually uh ordinance amendment in our general law ordinance chapter 120 and this is the part where it's outside of zoning so it requires a public hearing at the council and not from the planning commission just to educate the public so that we know what we're doing tonight but anyways um kind of after an incident a fire incident on middle belt road we were looking at you know the land use that it occurred at and then what we could do to refine our ordinances to make sure of course one it never happens again if possible and secondly to really review the ordinances to refine kind of the use that was in place and that is at a massage facility that is there that was there um and so if you can recall our last council meeting we approved a zoning ordinance amendment that made changes to definitions and restrictions of of where this use could occur, but then we needed to also realign our general law ordinance, chapter 120. And so this new ordinance, chapter 120, aligns the definitions with her zoning ordinance, so they kind of match, which is a good thing, and also with the state, because the state is now doing all the regulations, and our former ordinance made reference to Wayne County. So we took that out, and then also it expanded definitions and made clear clear um points of what the use is and you know where where everything is at inside the building how many people can be in the building all those things are in place to make sure that we of course are regulating this more um and then also um it's not only the facility that we're going to be licensing it's also any of the employees there that will be doing any of the physical touching any of the massages anything like that they have to also be registered and we have to know that they're in the building and then the like I spoke before we kind of aligned it with the zoning ordinance so that we would make sure that everything matches in the ordinance which we're always looking at ordinances to make definition changes refinements to make sure that they align it's a constant job you know how you know how thick the book is all of you have our ordinance book but we're trying to make these refinements where it's possible so

you at this time I will open up the public hearing for the ordinance amendment to chapter 128 massage parlors anybody wishing to speak on that more time anybody from the public wishing to speak on the ordinance amendment seeing nobody i will close that public hearing and before i go on to our consent agenda i did miss a community event i will ask this jackie peridor to come up and from the garden city business alliance Sorry about that.

That's all right, I figured I'd wait till the end. Hello, I'm just here to remind everybody that before you go to Lucky Squirrel on Saturday, on Thursday you're coming to the park for Music in the Park. This time it's going to be Smith Factor. They do a little bit of R&B, a little bit of country, a little bit of rock. We also have our food trucks and our vendors and our games and our prizes and you gotta come. it's going to be a little warm but there's lots of trees at the park and also the humidity is only supposed to be around 50 so that should help so i hope to see everybody on thursday thank you thank you okay item 11 is our consent agenda

mayor council member witt i'd like to make a motion to approve consent agenda items a one through five including five a as presented support or for mayor pro tem dole discussion from table from the public all in favor aye opposed

motion passes seven zero okay on to our action items item one we just had a public hearing on is our 2026 sidewalk program councilmember hughes i'd like to make a motion to recommend an amendment to the 2025-26 fee schedule to include massage oh i'm sorry my papers are over

i'd like to make a motion to adopt the resolution to determine the necessity for and directing the preparation of special assessment role for the 2026 sidewalk program support support for mayor pro tem dole discussion from the table

from the public we already discussed it once uh now if this motion passes again if if we go out and adjust some of the houses you won't be charged so but as it stands for this is for just the program now uh all in favor opposed motion passes seven zero

hey item two we had a public hearing on that's the utility easement vacation at uh on ford road mayor councilmember witt like to make a motion to approve the utility easement vacation at three two three zero zero ford road parcel thirty five zero zero four nine nine zero zero two six seven zero zero as attached support support from council member king discussion from table

council member dole or careful sorry about that Well, I think this is the final, as far as I know, this is the final piece that we needed.

We're working, correct.

So we're working on, of course, all the layout.

I did want to introduce actually Derek Reba from Sheetz and then also just Britton, right? Yep. From the engineering company. So this is all part of the permitting process. And so we're getting there. I don't know the exact date, but this will help in the process to get permits going so that we can start to see some dirt being turned. Is that the hope? We can hope. All right, so that is the hope. All right, thank you.

Further comments from the table? From the public? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? motion pass seven zero thank you sir item three is ordinance amendment chapter 120 massage facilities so we also did the uh uh public hearing on mayor council uh mayor pro tem dole i motion to approve the amendment to chapter 120 massage faculties support support from council member kara fotis discussion from table

Mayor councilmember dole under Mister Miller can remind me. What's the zoning on this now.

I believe that it is see to their to that location specifically and that about Rowan I believe that seat.

Okay, so they won't be allowed in correct in seeing further into the DDA or act okay only see 3.

And it's a special land use and see 3.

further comments from the table from public all in favor aye opposed motion passes seven zero item four is our fee schedule uh amendment for massage facilities mayor mr miller hold on well mr miller you wanna

Well, of course, now that we're doing this licensing and regulation, it is only fair that we charge a fee, of course, to cover the cost of the staff time to do so. And so we needed to do an amendment to the fee schedule to permit that. Prior to this, they were only paying a regular business license fee. So this will be an additional fee to get the license regulation and everything in place.

Motion is in order now. Mayor.

Mayor. Council Member Witt. I'd like to make a motion to recommend an amendment to the 2025-2026 fee schedule to include massage facilities licenses at $500 per inspection.

Support. Support from Council Member King. Discussion from the table. From the public. all in favor aye opposed motion passes seven zero thank you mr miller okay item five is the bid award for lead service line replacement uh mr oman if you want to discuss this one uh yes mayor and council uh this is for our 2026 lead service line replacement program

which is being funded through a grant slash loan from the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. We did receive six bids for this program. All season underground construction was the lowest bidder. They have done projects for us in the past and have always did an excellent job. Tim Wilson from Hennessey Engineers is also here tonight to answer any questions you might have on this grant loan process.

Okay, we'll do a motion and then if anyone has a question for him. Mayor. Council Member Dole.

The motion to approve the contract for the 2026 lead service line replacement program with all seasons underground construction of Tipton, Michigan in the amount not to exceed $799,100. Support.

Support from Council Member Karifotis. Any questions or comments from table? I have one. Council Member Dold.

Who was the company that was doing this project? What was the former company that was doing this?

Is it all seasons? OK. OK, so both both companies will be working on the lead replacement.

Yes, OK, OK thanks.

mayor councilmember what uh remind me i think my mind might be shoddy on this this was the one where we were guaranteed at least half of the money back and we're waiting for the state to decide for the remainder of the money with the grant uh can you can you come up because nobody can hear you this this one was already awarded

So I would have to look back because I wasn't on the project at time of award for like the grand purpose because it happens a year in advance. The public hearing we had done not that long ago was for a future third. Okay. Yeah.

Chop them up over the years and you keep bringing more new ones and we're still working on the old ones.

is scheduled under this fall and this fall this one will pick up next year and then there will be another bid process next year once we get word back on the grant from the public hearing one all right thank you council member carafortis

Yes our service line inventory as of today we have 243 known lead lines and 352 that are unknown so We are in pretty good shape

compared to a lot of other communities.

People need to call and say, my house hasn't been checked. Can you come check and see if it has a lead pipe, correct?

Yeah, we can do that over the phone because I have the records. And if we have to do an in-house check, we will. Or if we have the pothole at the stop box to physically verify it, we can do that too.

Out of the whole city, we only have 350 unknowns. Yes. Mention 350 people, please call.

We want to find out.

Didn't the state at one point say that we were required to do about 7% a year or something like that?

Yeah, we are on track with that, yes. I thought we were way ahead of that schedule. Oh, yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Further questions or comments? Mayor Pro Tem. I just want to clarify to the residents that this is done at no cost to them.

No, no calls. Okay, thank you.

Questions, comments, further? From the public? Okay, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passed 7-0. Thank you, Mr. Ullman. Okay, item six is a resolution authorizing issuance of the 26 capital improvement bonds. I'll call up our treasurer, Ms. Shannon Shepherd.

evening mayor and council you may recall back in may council approved the publication of the notice of intent to issue bonds for this project that was the first step in the financing process this resolution is the next step to actually authorize the issuance of the bonds the the financing process is based on the total project cost not just the amount we plan to borrow um because of that bond council recommends that we issue an amount not to exceed that is sufficient enough to cover the entire project not just what we plan to borrow the total estimated project cost is 1.2 million that includes the construction costs admin engineering other project related costs and then you add in the bond issuance costs and contingencies and a little bit of wheel room and that's where you get to the 1.5 that the resolution is requesting And again, although the resolution asks for that amount or authorizes up to that amount, we're only expecting to borrow about $600,000. The rest of that will be funded through the grant and the principal forgiveness program through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. So this resolution is just giving the city the legal authority necessary to complete the financing process. At the end of the day, we're only going to issue and ultimately repay what we actually need, which at this point is around $600,000. I think I covered everything, but if you guys have any questions, I'm happy to answer.

Motion is in order, and then if we have questions, we'll ask it.

Mayor.

Councilmember Witt.

I'd like to make a motion to approve the attached resolution authorizing issuance of capital improvement bonds in an amount not to exceed $1.5 million to finance the cost of the city's DWSRF project.

Support. Support from Councilmember Hughes. Comments or questions from the table? Mayor. Councilmember Dold.

So this authorizes a million and a half. We expect to use 600,000.

Yes.

But if that expectation goes up, nobody has to come back before council because we can go up to 1.5, is that correct?

Yeah, that's the purpose of it. In case like the financing changes or the funding amount from the state changes, we don't have to come back and delay the project to do this all over again. This just essentially covers the entire project cost.

Would council be informed of that increased cost? Oh, of course, yeah. Okay.

Any other comments or questions from the public all in favor, aye opposed motion passed 7, 0, thank you, the shepherd. Okay item 7 is our police vehicle purchases. I'll call chief are nasty.

Good evening, Mayor, Council. I'm here tonight to get permission to purchase three police vehicles. It winds up being a total of $153,416 for all three vehicles. It would be two 2027 Ford Explorer police interceptors, all-wheel drive with a five-year extended warranty each one of those is five fifty one thousand six hundred five dollars and then we would also be looking to purchase a chevrolet silverado police pursuit vehicle which is fifty thousand two hundred and six dollars these vehicles would be used to replace some of our vehicles that have aged out of service we took two out of service of 2013 and the 2015 ford taurus this last fiscal year and when we get these in we'll be taking out a 2018 ford suv probably so that's what i'm here for thank you uh motion is in order mayor councilmember king

I moved to authorize the chief of police or his representative to execute the necessary agreements to purchase to 2027 for police interceptors all will drive with 5 year extended warranties from Longhammer Ford for the state bid price of 51,605 each and to purchase one Chevrolet Silverado PPV from Berger Chevrolet for the state bid price of 50,206.

Or from councilmember care photos.

from table don't remember care photos we're using federal forfeiture funds for it further questions or comments here this will take us back up to 13 vehicles or is it taking us back up to 11

As of today, it will be 13 with these counted into the fleet. That's all I can say is as of today.

Okay. I don't know, the two that just went out, maybe we should consider only buying General Motors products from now on.

They're pricey, I'm not opposed to it. It's a price factor.

Further questions or comments from the table? From the public. all in favor aye opposed motion passes seven zero thank you thank you chief hey we have no other business uh public comment for non-agenda items only uh you have three minutes not time to go back and forth if we have an answer for you we'll get back to you on it uh anybody wishing to speak uh miss peridor

You know, I always forget something.

Garden City Rotary is collecting for school supplies and they will be at Music in the Park. So cash, school supplies, they'll be there. If not, you can get a hold of them because the kids and the teachers need less stress. So give them some colored pencils and let them go. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. The sidewalk issue.

Please speak.

I'm the old school bus driver. I can yell behind me. The sidewalk issue brought up some thoughts looking around the city. You notice I have the ordinance book here and I've read it to make sure we follow everything. But my question is, okay, so we're looking, I know you talked about the sidewalks with the tripping, but we look in the book and we talk about the beautification, Garden City, people maintaining their homes, blah, blah, blah. My question is, because I've been walking around, why do some lots not have sidewalks at all? Why are there a lot of driveways that aren't paved below the sidewalk? I mean, some are gravel, but there are a lot that are just dirt. And that is not beautification, you know, in my eyes anyway. When you, you know, you're... We're talking about this, but why is this a mixed signal? And it's only because I've been walking around and then this other came up with the trip obstacles. But now I would like to know why there's a house on the other street behind us, four houses down. There must be at least 200 feet of non-sidewalk. Kitty Corner, there's another lot. There's no sidewalk. And then what'd we do? We came down Maplewood or a street away. I don't know all the names of these streets. And we counted a whole bunch of driveways that they're not paved. So why... i guess my question is why i mean if you you're talking about beautifying the city and you want property values to you know stay why are we not taking care of the rest of these things okay it's not time to go back and forth but we'll try and get you an answer before yes and thank you so much thank you further comments mr jones nothing tonight

right okay no further public comment we'll go on to city manager's report uh thank you mayor and council um just first to the last comment our community development wonderful uh story for you about what we're doing right now you don't have to come up matt but you could speak with them after but we're actually in the middle of a 2.5 million dollar grant to fix all the sidewalk gaps so where you see those gaps we're putting a significant amount of grant money we receive

but we're doing pretty good on those caps and we agree with you on that

i do have to say one thing and thanks to dj for confirming with me today uh actually we've done 357 houses uh sidewalks in front of them so far so we're working away but we're not in your quadrant yet but we're we're working on that okay all right thank you all right i just wanted to ask yes yes okay yes all right thank you um second uh just to uh commissioners to be president congratulations

and you're truly missed, but you fit in because you're one of us. You have that same It's been great. We're so appreciative of everything you've done for us. So good luck on your next adventure. Then congratulations to Captain Steve Ray. You know, public safety officers, firefighters, they spend a lot of time working. Their families are doing a lot of things that put them in harm's way. He's going the extra mile and traveling across the country. make himself better, bring that back to him. Thank you so much for the effort. And thank you to his family for tolerating his absence. I can imagine if I told him I would have disappeared for a few weeks. I know the looks I'd get. So, great job. And then last but not least, of course, is Officer Beasley. You know, I thought it was great. She had her daughter with us. It really shows. She's putting her life on the line. She stopped an active shooter the day after Christmas to save lives, to protect herself, to get her home to her daughters and give her an award and recognize her. But her having those daughters, it really is the impact of how brave that is and how wonderful that is. I don't know what that means. It should mean for all of us in this community. I'm very proud of her. I think she's amazing, a great officer, a great asset to this community, and demonstrates just the heroism each officer brings to this community.

They should be appreciated.

None of us are perfect, none of us ever will be, but they'll lay down your life for you and volunteer their time and their efforts and their energies, and their daughters have to let mom go to work and do that kind of stuff. I just think it's amazing.

So congratulations to her. I'm proud to have been in her chief of police for a long time.

thank you mr smith thank you mayor and council so i can't say it as eloquently as the city manager given said but um congratulations to fire captain ray and officer whitten thank you to commissioner kinesic i have two quick reminders on the election front um because absentee ballots are out and they've started to come back in so when you are filling out your absentee ballot and getting it back to us one make sure you sign the envelope make sure you sign your ballot because when it comes back to us we need that signature so we can verify and do the signature match on it also if you are putting your ballot in one of the drop boxes please make sure you are putting it into a drop box in your city i haven't heard any reports of garden city ones in other cities but we have had a couple that have come from westland we've had a couple from canton that came in today which is nice because that means we've got residents from other communities who are at the radcliffe center for our activities and things like that but just

if you put it in the wrong box we will get it to where it needs to be um but just it makes it a little bit easier if you turn it in um in your jurisdiction thank you uh mayor pro tem dole thank you mayor i just want to follow suit congratulations to captain ray police officer whitton david kinesic You like family to us congratulations. And I want to give a special thanks to everybody came out for the 3rd annual Christmas in July party currency Park Saturday was it was really nice to see all the volunteers people that donated can't thank you enough to make sure that no child goes without Christmas. That's all I have.

Councilmember Hughes. I know we sound like a broken record, but I am so grateful to the people who step up and put their lives on the line for all of us here in Garden City every single day. And to David Knizek, thank you for supporting Garden City. I know you thanked us for support, but it's been very meaningful to have you look at Garden City like family and watching out for us and supporting us. Thank you so much.

you council member whit thank you mayor uh first one uh fire captain ray i know i can't speak for the rest of the council i was probably the between the 30 and 45 minute interview that he had i was the only one that i don't think was able to see him in person so we were sitting on the phone and just chit-chatting the whole time through it and the amount of work he put in for the last what a little over a year year and a half i think it was Crazy to see somebody that dedicated in our city continuing to strive for the excellence that everyone does bring in their daily lives, but getting the awards for it is always great to see coming back to Garden City. Officer Whitten, I've known her for many years, back when she was a security officer for Secretary of State. BEFORE SHE STARTED WORKING FOR THE ORDINANCE DEPARTMENT. SO I'VE KNOWN PAIGE FOR A LONG TIME AND APPRECIATE THAT SHE DOES WHAT SHE DOES FOR THE CITY. AND SHE'S SMALL, BUT SHE CAN TAKE PEOPLE DOWN BECAUSE SHE TACKLED SOMEBODY IN MY NEIGHBOR'S DRIVEWAY. SO SHE'S DEFINITELY AROUND. SHE'S DEFINITELY DOING SOME GREAT STUFF FOR THE CITY. SO WE APPRECIATE HER AND ALL OF THE OFFICERS AND FIREFIGHTERS THAT WE DO HAVE IN THE CITY. DAVID. Thinking back to 2012, I was in middle school. It was the first time I was kind of interested in politics and looking at stuff and seeing you sparked my interest, hearing about it through. And that's why I am where I am today. So all the conversations over the years and everything, I appreciate everything.

Thank you. Council Member King.

Same as everybody else pretty much, but I also thank Captain Ray, Fire Captain Ray, and all the time and energy he put into completing the Academy Executive Fire Officer Program. I'd also like to thank, or congratulate Officer Witten on her awards in 2025 and 2026 awards. And Wayne County, Dave Kinney's definitely missed in the Wayne County Commission. I worked with a couple of projects on the senior appreciation events. I'm hoping your replacement will be able to carry that torch forward. I think that was a really great program we were doing with the seniors. Yeah, and congratulations on your new position with Henry Ford. Thank you.

Council Member Dole.

Just a couple of things. I think I actually did over an hour with the captain. It was not an easy interview either. So congratulations to him. I know how hard he worked for this, and we're very proud of him. Always very proud of all of our police officers and Officer Whitten for her accomplishments. I also want to congratulate the garden City Museum and state a straight farmhouse for receiving this money from Wayne County and the gazebo is really nice it's it's it's going to be a nice addition to the community. As far as our Wayne County commissioner kinesic I have to say that I think it's been an honor to call you my friend. You're going to be around. I know that. I've got your number. Believe me, I'll still call you when I need you. But it really has. It's been an honor to have known you all these years and to have been able to work with you on things. I know that Mayor Pro Tem thanked everybody for coming out Saturday to Christmas in July. He did mention No Child Without a Christmas, but he did not specifically say that it was a Garden City Goodfellows fundraiser. So to make sure that everybody understood that's what it was for. Um, moving on to just things in the community, I've noticed that some people have been asking what's going on next to Kentucky Fried Chicken. Dunkin' Donuts is finally getting built. And it's my understanding, though, that they're no longer called Dunkin' Donuts. They're just going to be Dunkin' now, which I'm assuming it's because they sell other things. I don't know, but maybe. And, um... I was asked to talk for a second. The Garden City Kiwanis Club is doing a Taste of Garden City community cookbook. So they are asking for our community residents to send in recipes and these will be posted different areas of the city but it looks like you can submit your recipe online at cookbookfundraiser.com and then it'll it'll take you through there you can also drop them off at the garden city library or the radcliffe center and the kiwanis is all wait a minute phone's not going to work They're also doing, Rotary is doing their collection this year for the students for school supplies. And Kiwanis has decided to try to do collections for care packages for the classrooms themselves. So they're looking for things like paper towels, Clorox wipes, Kleenex, hand sanitizer, those kind of things. And they will have a box at the Radcliffe Center, at Arden City Library, and also here at City Hall. the final thing i want to touch on really quick is our or uh... administrative hearing board or otherwise known as blight court there's been some talk and basically asking neighbors to kind of just rat out each other. That is not what this court was designed to do. It was designed to help expedite ordinance citations. That's it. And if you have an issue with a neighbor, if you can't resolve it any other way, please go ahead and call. Call the ordinance department, the police department. But the city has never asked our residents to call up and tell on each other because your grass is too high that is not what this was designed for and i hope that that talk stops that's all i got thank you thank you council member kara photos i have lots um the first thing i want to say and i'll just say this david music i'm going to miss you a lot so you might see me over there at henry ford college and i'm very sorry to see you go

I do appreciate our police and fire department. I love it when I am somewhere, especially in Oakland County, and someone says, well, why do you live in Garden City? And I say, because we have such great city services. And when I say that in front of Livonia people, they get so jealous. When I say that we have a great DPS, or our fire department comes in five seconds, or our police, you could just say, hey, I need help, and they're there. Oh, they're so jealous. So I really do appreciate our city services here. I did want to also want to thank the people that came today to talk about the sidewalk. That's a big issue for a lot of people. And I was glad to see so many people come and actually talk about it. We need to hear your voice. So if something's not going right or you just discussed something, come to a meeting. If you can't make a meeting, then call our city manager or call City Hall because those things can get done faster. So just make sure you contact us and we can get it done. I did see someone come up today and talk about the golden book which is really outdated so maybe we can do a new gold. I just want to bring up small business and is important to everybody in Garden City the garbage so everybody in this town is sick to death of we've given them a chance for ever so I would just Council people's opinion. I mean, are we going to ask to go out to bid? Are we going to keep giving them chances because everybody's just fed up? There's numerous people that are saying their garbage hasn't been picked up in two and three weeks. It's just ridiculous. So are we going out to bid or what are we doing about it?

We're currently in a five-year contract. However, we have contractual remedies and myself and the city attorney were supposed to, but we had to reschedule for later this week, a meeting with the city. contractual rights and to enforce a decision on that right now would be a little premature but it is not being tolerated we also have to make sure we have options to find delivery of our to find pickup of our trash at the same time so we have a contract we're going to enforce that contract to its fullest extent updating Council with that once I have that meeting and have some time to speak with our city. But I have them heavily involved and anticipate.

Maybe the next meeting would have some updates you have some updates.

I've discussed that with the city attorney about how we can. But what our best next step is given we have from you know significant size contract with. Rights on our side to enforce and we plan on enforcing them.

OK, regarding our new city attorney, how is it going with the ordinance for rental properties?

It's going. It's just, you know, we've prioritized some issues we've had with the fire department construction and this current crash issue right now, which is eating up a little bit of our time is in discussion with our city attorney and in progress and as well as getting the administrative hearing Bureau. struggling a lot, but it's definitely something are myself in the city attorney of this. Not our list.

I'm going to keep asking questions that residents are asking me understand one of us about the fiber that's been installed all over town. I know we've talked about it before it's not something that we came up with her approved its state mandated, but there's been a lot of complaints that the cleanup is not happening and so people are confused where should they call if there's issues with.

are not being put back to it how it's supposed to um you know in general just if you have a concern about something like that direct that to uh the city we have the information desk have remedies uh to get a better cleanup um there are uh avenues for us to but we just need to know about those places all over town so if our citizens want to let us know that they have an issue we'll definitely contact our information desk they'll write you the right way

Okay, also what Councilwoman dole brought up about the Blake court, constant constant complaints about what our downtown looks like and this weekend there was a lot of people in town from out of town, the Garden Club had a guard walk we had people visit our city from 26 different cities and all of our members were so worried that they were going to go to Middlemont Ford and see orange rulers and think that were the ghetto. so i know we started the blake court and we're doing things to change but are we thinking about you know changing the ordinance so that these com you know commercial property owners start complying with our requests because it seems like it's the same thing over and over and someone brought up on facebook i think it's been a year since oren's been boarded up so we don't have that in our ordinances like you can't keep a building boarded up for a year we need to change some things um you know those are certain

things we can look at the limits of what we can do to someone who's a commercial owner of our property um you know there are limits um what we can do and what we have done is enforced our rules against them so when we found windows that were unsecured they actually have been responsive to repairing those things um you know like uh our request to get sheets built faster and uh and we've been waiting for or beyond our control to make those things happen um and we will continuously you know we've got a vacant property registration that we didn't have before a lot more enforcement on those issues but there are certain rights within the commercial properties have that we just always look at every avenue to get them moving faster but you know project dependent upon a lot of financing you know what i like to have someone who came in and had their own fix it really quickly and do that but i couldn't we can't control who buys those properties but what we can do and we will continue to do is hold them accountable when it's substandard and will do so every mechanism we can.

Fast as we can I know we talked about it before. With them taking a long time to build things we try to explain to our residents that's not something that we are in control of we can't say to them all you bought this property have 2 years to build it the state decides those things we can't but I just feel like there's more that we could be doing like say you can't be boarded up for a year. We should be checking into those things because our downtown right now does not look good. to raise fees for these um property owners and commercial districts like kmart and everyone's complaining about that there has to be something that you can't keep a fence around a property for two years or you can't just forget about the weeds for five years or something so whatever we can come up with that we're allowed to do that the state lets us do we need to start doing so i really hope the blight court helps with that um i also want to mention that we really really need volunteers for our planning commission our last planning commission meeting had four people there and one of them didn't vote on something so we have things being decided in our city by three people i don't think that's appropriate i think we need more people so if you're interested in making decisions for our city and you have some kind of background in construction or development or as an engineer or something please come to city come to our city hall and apply we need volunteers for our planning commission and with that planning commission um we didn't bring up several times about our master plan and one thing with our master plan is that we need more housing it's been our master plan even though we haven't updated it since 2015 it still says that we still need to do that and i feel that we need to concentrate on that and keep residential properties residential instead of taking away from our residential properties and turn it into commercial we need more housing and we can't take any more residential property away because we're not going to get that housing or if we get it it's going to be all apartments and we're just going to be a rental community and our our residents don't want this to be a rental community so i think we really need all of us need to about that and decide what we want this community to be and then vote appropriately. And that was it.

Thank you. I have just a couple things. Obviously, congratulations again to everybody. To Commissioner slash President Knizek, I've had the pleasure of dealing with you, working with you since 2015 when I got to this table. And I appreciate everything you've done. It's been an honor and a pleasure to work with you and talk to you and discuss things. And you will be missed here in Garden City. So good luck in the future, and I'm sure I'll run into you somewhere for a pop or two. I want to thank our DPW. We had a storm, obviously, July 3rd, right before the holiday. Lost a lot of power, lost a lot of trees, limbs. all kinds of stuff uh happened and they were they were on the spot again they uh came out they cut the trees down that were in the street uh there's still cleanup going on but uh they got there as quick as they could opened up the roads made it safe for any kind of emergency vehicles that had to come through uh and your guys did a great job mr roman i want to thank you guys uh it was tremendous effort it was a lot of a lot of work i've seen some of it uh they were they were cutting some big trees down so thank thank the guys for us um and finally uh i know it's july and it's going to be 90 this week and it's hot but our garden city figure skating club has just kicked off their their season, July 1st. And they have an event coming up already, August 3rd through 8th. They have four competitors who qualified for nationals, and they're going to Colorado for a national showcase event. Their names are Alicia Sale, Carly Carter, Emily DeHaan, and Scarlett Roll. So they're going there to... It's hard talking about 90-something degree weather and doing ice skating, but they're very talented people along with the rest that are in the club. They also asked me to say they are helping to help cut costs. They are doing a... fundraiser at the venue this weekend and July 18th Saturday I believe from 12 to 9 so if you have time you want to stop in and help some of our youth that are going to compete and represent Garden City they will be there at the venue having said all that I've spoken enough this meeting is adjourned