City Council - Regular Meeting

on Christmas day. The January 20th city council meeting is now called to order. Everyone, please stand for prayer. Miss Priscilla Crawford, could you lead us in prayer tonight? Good evening, council mayor. Good evening,

city of Inkster. Father God, we thank you for blessing us to be right here this appointed time. You kept us safe. You kept us warm. And we thank you for your continued promises. As we flow into the second session of our meeting, Father, we thank you that our leaders have the citizens heart right on their posture, Father God. And we thank you that we will make decisions for the good of your people. And as we adjourn tonight, we are safe back in our homes in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Continue standing. 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. Roll call. Mayor Nolan, present. Mayor Proimchism, present. Councilwoman Rage, present. Councilman Bishop, present. Councilwoman Scott, present. Councilwoman Howard here and Councilwoman Richardson excused. Mayor, you do have a quorum. Okay, great. Everybody have chance look at the agenda. I think we we added a presentation

uh for item B under new business is uh Concord Infrastructure Partners. They're going to do a presentation under presentation and we have to add also one more item close session matter, right? Yes. Okay. All right. So, we'll make that item E. Yes. Okay. Were we splitting? Uh, yes. Yeah. A and B, but we'll just still keep it A. All right. Okay. So, we have two sections of item A. Two separate things we need to vote on. All right. Okay. Have a motion to approve the agenda. Second. Been properly moved in supported. Any discussion? All those in favor say I.

Oppos say nay. It passes. Presentation. Concord infrastructure. So, take it away.

You guys, when you finish your presentation, council may have some questions and people in the audience may have questions. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Wherever you like to flip around and you're queued in, just hit play whenever you're ready for the video. All right. I'm going to get started.

Okay. Let's talk about something huge. We're gonna break down a plan that could literally reshape an entire city. It's called Project Concord and it might just be a total game changer for Instster Michigan. And the story behind it is well, it's pretty wild. It really all comes down to this one central question. How on earth does a city win a project worth almost $650 million seemingly overnight? I mean, really, how does that happen? Let's get into it. So, this is basically a tale of two cities. You have Detroit, a much larger neighbor, apparently getting bogged down in bureaucratic delays and they even missed a key federal mandate. But then you got Inkster. They moved at what the plan calls the speed of business. And that right there, that agility made all the difference. It put Instagocated ass. All right, so that brings us to our first big section here. Insters unlikely opportunity. And I love the subtitle. How capital follows integrity. It really cuts to the heart of the matter. You know, this is the story of how this massive national security asset found its home in the city that was simply ready to act. No hesitation. And the scale of this, I mean, it's just staggering. We're talking about a $285 million private investment, which then unlocks a federal value of $648 million. The vision here is massive. To take Inkster from a city that's been in recovery and turn it into a national leader in security. Okay, so the whole project is built on three main pillars. Let's start with the first one, the economic engine. And it goal, it's huge. We're talking about stabilizing the city's general fund for an entire generation. And here's the number you need to see, 8.6 million. That's the new annual financial lift to Inst. I mean, that is an absolute game changer for any city, but especially for a city the size of Inst. So, you're probably wondering, where does that 8.6 million

come from? Well, let's break it down. You got 3.2 million in new tax revenue, another 450,000 in fees. But look at this. The biggest chunk by far is $5 million in avoided costs. Think about it. By getting rid of blight and handling its own heating, the project saves the city an absolute fortune. It's a financial boost coming from all sides. But this economic engine, it's not just about balancing the city's books, right? The plan frames this way more personal. They call it a middle class rebirth. And that's because this is all about the direct impact on local families, on the workers right there in the community. So just how big of an impact are we talking about? How about this? A whopping $45 million. That's in direct union wages going straight into the pockets of local IBW local 58 families. And this is the really cool part, how they've structured this. The plan calls it the union shield. And it's not handing out paychecks? Nope. It also creates something called the Concord Academy to train and certify local residents as digital riving first look for people who actually live in zip codes. This is about building a workforce from the community. Okay, so that was the economic pillar. Now for pillar number two, which is all about the community. We call it the community canopy and it's all about physically changing the city's environment. Moving Like the subtitle says, from light. Now, before we get to the solution, you really have to understand the problem they're tackling. We're talking about 5,000 hazardous lands. You know, persistent problems, trash, rats, and all of that is a huge financial drain on the city. It's a major liability. So, what's the solution? Well, it's pretty ambitious. The plan is to immediately clear all those parcels and install what they're calling a safety mesh. Now, that is a network of 247

lighting combined with advanced LAR safety sensors. If you're not familiar, you can think of LAR as kind of like radar but with light. It's super helped. It's not just about free mesh Wi-Fi for all the residents in the bridge divide, especially for students. And this part is crucial. It's all designed to happen at zero cost to the taxpayers. Okay, now this next part is one of the most innovative things I've seen in a plan like this. It introduces this concept of food sovereignty. Here's the idea. You take all that waste coming off the tech campus servers and you use it to power green houses all year round. That means you can grow fresh produce right there in the community, even in the middle of a Michigan. It's a direct solution for local food deserts. How cool is that? All right, that brings us to the third and final pillar. And this one sounds intense. the sovereign fortress. This is all about self-sufficiency. It's about having, like the subtitle says, power and water without permission. So, there's a key term you need to know here behind the mirror. What does that mean? It just means the project right there on the grid. Now, why is that such a big deal? It lets them completely yes almost immediately when we say onsite generation we're not talking about a few solar panels on the roofs we're talking 440 megat battery system power plant all self-contained on property And it's not just about power. Alongside the power fortress, you have the hydraulic fortress. This is a 100% closed loop cooling system. And it is

truly revolutionary. Why? Because it makes it water by literally pulling moisture right out of the air. The result is surprisingly simple when you think about it. You have these special units that just harvest water from the atmosphere. That water gets the facility needs and it just keeps repeating a continust They built in what they call a transparency protocol. Let's walk through it. First, a sovereign immunity waiver. That's a fancy legal term, but it basically means they're agreeing to be held fully accountable. No excuses. Second, they're going to have independent federally standard forensic sponsor pays for it. And finally, everything and I mean everything is on the public record. This is all designed for maximum transparency plan we're talking about. This is happening like right now. So after all that take the plan with this really powerful statement. It frames this whole as a local but as a moment of true national significance. The quote is the arsenal of democracy 2.0 starts tonight in Wow, that's a bold bold vision for a city that seems ready to step up and lead.

Okay. Okay, Mayor Nolan, council members, thank you for meeting with us. Uh, we spent Friday afternoon in Detroit. Uh, we offered them the $285 million private investment. We offered to clear out 5,000 blighted lots and the $45 million in union payroll. Detroit hesitated and they were afraid of a headline and they were afraid of the future. While they were reviewing papers, the president of the United States issued a national mandate for energy independence. He told the tech world that they have to pay their own way. Detroit missed the boat and I'm here tonight because I believe that Ingster is a city with the grit to catch it. And we are here to make Ingster the national pilot for the new federal power standard.

Can you do me a favor? Make sure you introduce yourself so everybody knows who's talking. My name is Robert Gray. My name is Michael Bardwell and we are infrastructure partners.

Les um yeah, so I spoke with uh James Susk at Local 58 over the weekend. He was heartbroken that Detroit bureaucrats let the $45 million walk across the border and he wants members working here. We're bringing the Concord Academy to Inkster. We're going to certify your residents as digital riveters, the elite technicians of the AI age. And we're building a facility where we're bu rebuilding the middle class right here in this city. You've heard the noise about saline and the water theft, but that we're here today to let you know that ends here. This pipe

Yeah. This pipe that we have represents the hydraulic fortress. We take zero gallons of water from from the Inster system. We harvest our water from the air using atmospheric water generation. Although the blue node, we're doing something that Detroit was too blind to see. We are donating thermal heat to preheat Inkingsters municipal loops. We're going to lower the energy bills for your housing projects, your city buildings at no cost to the taxpayers. This is called energy reciprocity. Detroit blinked at this because they wanted the right to change the rules later. And I'm asking Inkster to be able to sign our immunity waiver and our memor memorandum of understanding. I know it sounds like a legal term, but it's really just a badge of integrity. Signing this is telling the world that Inkingster keeps his word and you're aligning the city with the White House and national security. you are making Inkingster the most capital friendly soil in the state of Michigan.

The site award is tonight and uh I have the governors of Texas and Virginia that we're speaking with as well. They want this 100 megawatt node because they know that is auction exempt. But I want to be able to build the arsenal of democracy right here in Instster. So with that said, you know, we're here tonight to be able to sign theou and by Wednesday morning to let the world know that Inkster outmaneuvered Detroit.

Thank you.

Why don't you guys just real briefly give give uh the council and the audience your background? Just briefly, educational background, business background. Um, so my name is Robert Gray. I was educated at the University of Detroit Mercy where I achieved a bachelor's of science and information systems and then I did my post-graduate education at MIT where I studied applied data sciences. Um, I work I've been working in tech for the last 13 years now with the last four of which are on machine learning um AI analyt or AI development and um AI operations and governance. And I'm also from here from Detroit. Went to Wayne State. Uh studied computers as well. Worked in tech for maybe like the last 15 years, specifically AI recently. And that's why we got the inspiration to do this to do it the right way.

All right. Um council, you have any questions? Um yeah, several. But um I would like to ask where are you proposing to put this uh data center? Um as of right now we don't know the exact spaces because what we're looking to see is like what you have available, right? But before we able to figure out what you have available, we need to know that we have a city that's interested in the project. Okay. Um and your facility claims um a closed loop cooling system, right? Um, does the cooling system use water? Yes. So,

uh, the best way I can explain it is with this. This is our system. You can see once water goes in, it doesn't come out. It's kind of like a car radiator. So, how how that works is uh, regularly data centers will use water. That water vaporizes and it's released at Okay. how um that water is used for cooling, vaporizes and is released into the atmosphere. Our closed loop system captures that vaporized water, recondenses it, and recycles it. It's no different than a car radiator on a grander scale. So, we use zero water from the from the city. And where does the water come from?

We gather it through a technology uh machine called an AWG, which is atmospheric water generation. So, prior to us building it, we truck our own water in and then from there we top it off with water um gathered directly from the from the air. Very similar. Very similar. Yep.

Any other questions? Yeah. Is that it? Are you done? Yes. for my own. Um, this is for my own. So, are you guys associated with the Concord uh infrastructure out of Texas? No. No. No. Okay. Um, I have a lot. So, you're telling me like there is no water waste and the water waste that you do have, you guys recycle it? We recycle. Then how do you And then you treat it through what you just said, the machine specifically. Yes. Okay. I just want to make sure. Triple triple check.

Okay. Um, I don't mean I'm against it, so it's hard for me to even ask questions for it. Um, I'll let someone else go. Let me I have a lot of questions and I don't want to even waste time. So, you go ahead. You can ask. Kim, do you have any? No, I don't have any. Stephen, you have anything?

Okay. Uh, good evening. So, as far as this project, um, would you all be requesting tax abatements or tax incentives from the city of Engster? We're we're not looking for tax payments. What we're looking for is a city that's if we're able to build this hund00 million worth of infrastructure for the city as a gift, we want to make sure that it's in partnership with the city and the city's not going to in turn try to uh raise taxes or something in a way that materially hurts the project. Gotcha. Uh and you all have you done this project in a different state or anything like that or this this is a pilot program right now?

A pilot program. That's You didn't use that keyword. I'm sorry. So, my other question, I used to be a technician for AT&T and then even just with stuff I do on a day-to-day basis and we're just going to use Brownstown Township for instance. Going through that subdivision, there are high transmission lines for power, right? Um, and and in some areas they are, but they're in the residential backyard. So, you could literally stand in the backyard and hear the power and the arcing and stuff like that, which means it's emitting electromagnetic interference. We don't really have any underground infrastructure as far as power goes out here. might be some, but to the extent of the amount of power that you would need and what DTE would need to do to get that power there, how would you mitigate electromag magnetic interference from impacting any of our residents?

So, uh, if you can just refer back to this, we're not using any electricity whatsoever. It generates its own power 100%. It's using the solar panels. It actually has a gigantic battery system underneath it that's running. Basically, it's battery power and the solar panels are just there to keep the batteries topped off. So it never touches the grid whatsoever. Never touches the grid. Never touches the grid.

Okay. Um and then so since it never touches the grid, that answer that question. Um when it comes to you tapping in because you need some type of source to get your information in and out. Where do you tap in at for technology? whether it's a fiber source, copper, where does that go as far as your internet service provider and all that good stuff? It's an interesting question. So, I think that we would use the the infrastructure that's already there, but I think that we're not going to be doing this in a way that um

I'm sorry. Yes, we're not doing this in a in a traditional way. So, we're not going to be using the the infrastructure that's already there. We're going to be building a lot of this stuff from the ground up. So, a lot of the stuff as you're as you said might not be there at current location, but we would be bringing it.

Okay. And I was just curious because I know when we switched over as a municipality to fiber at one point in time, uh there were issues that came up and it was stuff that had to happen with the Michigan Railroad Association and things like that to get board under under the tracks test and tune and all that. uh that's always on the forefront of my mind especially depending on where the location is and then the agreements and additional acceptance you have to get from the city and then those entities blame the city for delaying whatever process. So that's why I was just curious. Yeah, I think in the uh Brownsfields in the Michigan AB corridor are specifically they have the five rocker cables because they're next to the trains. So I think that that's an area that the city already has that infrastructure ready.

Okay. Thank you. And that's all I have for now. Anybody else? Um I also would like to ask um who else uses this type of technology um that you have. Um no one is using it in the way that we're stacking it together. I think people are doing it piece by piece in different places but nobody's putting it all together in the way that we're doing.

Okay. And how do you know uh this will be efficient? Uh so over in Europe, they're actually doing the thermal donation, but they're just doing it basically just to how to heat housing units and stuff in the winter time. Uh other people are using atmospheric water generation for other things. People are using solar panels to try to help lower costs and things. People using batteries, but nobody's using them all together. So the technology profile is proven individually. I'm sorry. The technology profile is proven individually. Um, and the proof of work and proof of stake has already materialized. So really now it's just stacking them together to allow them to work in tandem to build something new.

Okay, now let's just say that doesn't work. What would you do? Bankrupt. Well, batteries, we know batteries work. Okay. Um, again, the solar panels work. We're using that already right now for our cars. It's the same lithium batteries in the Teslas. Okay. atmospheric water generation is also approvening. So, um I don't know the if if it doesn't work then to the mayor's point bankrupt. Yeah. And we're not asking for any money from the city or anything. So, it's totally on us. Of course. Uh question.

Where's your funding coming from to do this project? Uh so our capital stack the way we have is coming from a lot of like uh government incentives because over the weekend since I talked with Mayor Nolan uh the president has mandated that like the old way of building data centers is dead like he killed every data center project in the United States like saline's dead everything they're scrambling trying to figure out what they're going to do. We're actually two to three years ahead of the market. They're they're going to come they're coming today because it was Martin Luther King Day yesterday. So they're coming back to the office today to try to figure out how they can produce their own power, which I think the solution in Ohio, Zuckerberg is doing a nuclearpowered data center,

right? So if the solution is to do nuclear instead, I don't think a lot of people are going to want a nuclear center in their backyard. So I think this being the cleanest and the fastest to production is going to be uh what's makes us stand apart. but also the funding. The go because we're building critical infrastructure, the government is contractually mandated to give us back 50% of our uh development costs. So, we have like $70 million that the government is already guaranteed to give us back once we get started.

Where's the other half of that funding? We have industry partners um and other investment firms that are interested, but they need to um essentially to ensure that we have a a city that's willing or at least has an appetite for it to build. Uh but we do have funding tied in escrow essentially um until we are able to show proof that we have a city that's interested in housing the project. So majority of is based on it's going to be contingent on you guys finding finding a city to go along with this plan.

Correct. Um when I looked up land option, so essentially are we giving this land away like for free? So I looked up land a land option. Usually there's like a fee associated. So if like let's say you guys do this um discovery and you don't find anything but you are holding our land for at least I think in the thing it said 180 days. Um like what's the plan for that as well? Like are you guys open to that?

Uh yeah. So what we're what we're doing right now with the memorandum understanding the option is basically to we need an address to be able to fill out the research and studies that we need to do. So that's all we need. That's all the only reason we're having that so we can have something to be able to fill out our MISO application or any other applications we need to to fulfill the government's obligation for us. And um I don't know if you've like driven through Ingster, but we don't even have the land for the size of like building that you're trying to build infrastructure. So what I guess what's your plan to like downsize it if Yes.

So this was the old rendering before the president changed everything and uh what we have now to accommodate smaller cities is a distributed mesh network. So basically we have like we would have a central unit and then it would be connected to other lots in the area and we would use that to make up the uh the coverage instead of having like the hund continuous lots.

Um you did talk about like full-time jobs and potentially with the unions but that's still like a short-term like job right until it's filled. So what's your projection for longterm full-time permanent positions for our city of Ingster residents and what's like the minimal education requirement the median income of the workers that will be in or so uh a center like this would require demand between 140 to 200 full-time employees uh and because these are high-tech roles uh that salary range is from 70,000 to $140,000 per here uh and those with who come through the sovereign academy have first access to jobs in these facil in a facility like this but they also even if they don't get placement here they also retain the training so because critical infrastructure is a growing industry that allows them to land roles elsewhere like say Ford uh or other areas in the surrounding or other companies in the surrounding area uh so for this center specifically for the high-tech roles between 180 to 200 jobs full-time in a consistent basis just to run the facility into perpetuity.

Um I guess last because it is a pilot program. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. I was just going to say you I I forgot you asked about what is the uh educational requirements just a high school GED. Okay. Or high school diploma or GED. Okay, cool. Um I just thought Dang it. Um what we talking about? Felicia, I think mentioned it. It's okay. It's fine. We'll just we'll scratch that. It's okay. It's fine. Um that's it for me. If it comes back to you, just let us know. Okay. Sounds good. Um

earlier we have orientation at six o'clock where the audience is allowed to ask questions, make statements, comment. Um because you guys weren't here at 6, we probably should have told you to be here at six. I told the audience I allow them to ask questions also so they can understand the project. So, if anybody did we have anybody have any questions in the audience and please come please come on up to the mic, you know, try not to hit them with an elbow or something.

So, um we've talked a lot about water and power. Other uh words that I haven't necessarily heard are impacts to noise, generators, traffic, and lighting. So, I want to talk about that. And then I also want to understand why you would need a sovereign immunity agreement because in my basic understanding that means you're trying to protect yourself from certain risks. So what risks are you trying to protect yourself from in which the city wouldn't be able to appropriately address that through lawsuits or other things like that? Okay, I'll start there. Yeah.

Uh so yeah, we're actually going to sign a waiver of our like inability to not take ownership, right? So, we're actually trying to do this in tandem with the city, open, full transparency. Um, you asked about sound. We have a Concord baffle. So, basically, we're creating a like a sound perimeter around it because we know that data centers can be loud, but because we're doing the liquid cooling, it's going to be a lot less loud than a traditional one. But also, like we're going to put like a like a soundproofing around there so it doesn't uh disturb the residents nearby the lights. Um we have a thing called blight to light. Basically, we're trying to take the blight of the city and we're trying to put the solar garden there, but also we're going to give uh solar power street lights basically and those lights are going to act as a distributed network for free Wi-Fi for the residents that are near the solar panels. Um traffic

traffic I don't I can't I don't know how to answer about traffic. I think that it is going to be some traffic with construction. We try to keep it to a minimum. Luckily uh with our model we can be up in 120 days. So it's a lot less time than any other project. So that's maybe the best I can say at this moment. I wanted to add the baffle will also serve as an art installation and have climbing vine so that it doesn't look like an eyesore. It will be a um an art piece as well. So we hear because we're recording. I want to I want people watching at home to be able to hear your question.

Uh you mentioned Detroit didn't want to lose control. What did you mean by that? They they voted against it because they felt they didn't they couldn't control. What were you talking about? Okay. Um it's not so much that they voted it down because they didn't. What they did was they were just too slow to move at the speed that we have to move. um they were more concerned about the fear of the optics of a data center right now uh irregardless of the federal mandate that just happened. You said something about

No, no. I think it was in the presentation, wasn't it? They said something about Detroit bureaucracy didn't didn't want to do it. What I refer to is that we gave them the deadline to be able to pick up the option and they wanted to delay and they and we don't have time to delay based on our capital stack. So we have to move at the speed of integrity. One more time. So what's what's the rush? So why do you need a decision today?

Um because uh opportunity zones. So, what allows this to be able to be funded in the way it does to answer uh Freddy's question is the BR the Browns fields allow and things like that allow us to be able to tap into opportunity zones. Opportunity zones are the last the way it works. I'm sorry, just to recap for people who don't know, opportunity zones allow people to invest into opportunities in communities and if an investor holds that investment for over 10 years, they no longer have to pay capital gains tax. So that is an incentive to get our investors behind this project. So we have to move and this is the last year for opportunity zones. It ends in December. So, if we do not move in the next couple weeks, the project is done in Michigan. We're have to take it out outside the state.

Anybody else in the audience have come on up, Mr. Johnson? How y'all doing? How everybody doing? I got a question. So, are you guys the sole proprietors and owners? So, how about this? Is there any way that the city of Inkster can be a third and we all just profit share? I'm glad of that 200 million. I'm glad you asked that. So, so this gentleman actually just brought up uh a very important part of uh what we're trying to do

which is uh we want to offer 2% of the topline revenue and put it into a community trust that we use to fund all the community initiatives to give back to the community to make them a partner in the project. So they're they would also benefit from us benefiting. Not only would the cit the residents benefit from like uh initiatives that we put in place, we will have opportunities to do things like watts credits to be able to give credits for people to have on their electricity bills to lower those costs. They can use credits at the facility to be able to get food at the uh thermal garden as well as be able to go to the uh academy.

We also supply housing. We got a Got to talk from Got to talk from the mic. Well, yeah, we definitely can't do housing right now, but definitely uh cut the city in.

Okay. Thank you for your presentation. This is foreign to everyone and if that's if it is accepted, what do you have in place to keep the city of Inkster residents informed as you go step by step? What do you have documentation? Do you have another presentation? If you're in phase one, what does phase one look like? as um you didn't give a not an accurate answer to one of the questions. I want to see how you are well informed on what's coming down the future and what hiccups do you foresee and how are you going to manage that as you I assume have done your research with the city of Ingster. I know that's a loaded question, but I want to see how prepared you are with your information as again this is very very new and if because you you want to keep the people in the know.

Yeah, great question. So, uh we mentioned it briefly in the video that we plan on doing everything transparent out in the open. Plan on doing federal audits every quarter to keep everybody in line with what's going on. public meetings with everybody just like something today. So, we're not going to be doing anything in the dark. Uh, as far as like any hiccups that we might run into in the future, I mean, like, you know, we have to just be flexible with what we could run into, but uh, we definitely plan on doing things transparently and nothing in the dark. Any other questions?

Sure. Come on up. What is a data center in layman terms and why did you pick Inkingster? And what other cities in Michigan where the people have rant and raved and walked the streets to shut this down because it's not good.

With a smile history. Um, so, uh, last week we came here, uh, specifically and we talked with, uh, Mayor Nolan and we're talking about why we chose Inkster, uh, specifically for the pilot. Uh, we chose this because of the history of Rosie the Riveter. Rosie Riveter, as you all might know, uh, lived here. She was a member of this community here in Inkster. She worked at the Willow Run plant. uh her and her cohort basically went to work to go build the B-24 bombers that saved democracy. And what we're trying to do is tap the granddaughters of Will of Rosie the Riveter to go and win the AI race of today because it's just as important. And to answer the second portion of your question, the ranting and raving against data centers um has been due to well first you said what is a data center? A data center is really just a data repository and a comput a compute facility. Does anyone use Google or chat GPT or Facebook,

right?

That too, right? They all of those services are provided to you by server farms. Those server farms are housed at off-site locations where they can uh source that information for you. What this data center is designed to do or what the reason data centers are picking up in the media is because with the new demand of AI not just for people's usage but for global security. We need more efficient and more powerful centers. It's a matter of national security, which is why Trump and Facebook and Meta has been so involved with with it. The reason people have issues with it is because these data centers are very um resource prohibitive. Usually they pull a lot of water from the community which impacts residents. They pull a lot of power from the community which impacts residents and they pull and they release a lot of heat into the atmosphere which again impacts the residents. They can also be very noisy. Uh what our what what our facility is designed to do is to not use any water and to recycle it so that it's efficient to use all clean energy which is solar right we love our sunny days um to set up the concord uh bash or baffle which will mitigate the noise and then also um um and then we don't pull power right we use our own battery system which is powered solely by our solar. Um so does that kind of explain it? Do you understand?

They will the your your electricity water will not go up whatsoever. And because of the 2% community share um or the 2% revenue share I'm sorry. Well, with the community share, with the community share, it will actually uh provide a um uh a credit back to you so that you can use that to pay for your utilities or from purchasing your food cost uh with the on-site farming location.

Well, you got to come to the microphone because we're recording this. So Detroit shut it down, right? Said no. No, they didn't say no. Seline said no. No, but it's not happening in Seline. Right. Because of the name. Is this your program that's in Seline? No. It's someone else's program. Yes. Okay. And why did you pick Inkingster? For the history that Easter has. The history. Okay. Okay. All right.

Detroit didn't say no. Detroit was bogged down with bureaucracy, right? So, uh to Michael's point earlier, uh we have a very short deadline to access opportunity zones in the state. Um and we can't really afford to wait because Detroit wanted to, you know, him and Ha. Um, so what? Yeah.

Craig Kilk, I live here. I'm not against data centers at all, but come in here with this. Councilwoman asked if there was room in the city for it. You said, "No, we're going to do a downsized version and spread it out into different areas. Okay. So, what you're telling us is every one of those are going to be independently run, have their own power and their own water, and you're not going to have to use any of our infrastructure for the other ones, right? So, the solar push won't require water. No, I know that. Okay. So, in essence, you've invented perpetual motion.

You're totally self-sufficient. Okay. You're never going to have to rely on outside backup to our power or electricity.

Even though you don't know where you're putting it in the city. You're going to split this down to a lower level and spread it out. Is there a Concord school already? Okay. So, that's another talk. Now, the only thing I don't like about your presentation is your light to light to blight inferring that we have so many areas in this city that you're going to go and clean up whole sections of our city. And I think that's an insult because our city's not like that. question.

You're saying this is going to be battery powered? What type of battery? Because this is going underground. So, we already have a lead problem so to say somewhat. So, adding other things to our soil, damaging our soil, that's going to be another problem for us. So, if it's alkaline or something like that, we need to know before y'all put that stuff down because we don't have an infrastructure in a lot of places. So, we need to know exactly who owns this company that you're presenting to us and what type of batteries.

Um, it'll be the lithium batteries. So, the technology is called best so bees. Uh, it's called a battery battery energy storage system. Um, and it's designed for um high volume power storage. Um, it is safe to put in the ground. It is insulated. It doesn't leak. Um, it's a lithium battery, so there's no lead or toxicity associated with it. And it's uh cooled by the water, so there's no toxic coolant or anything. So outside of that, there would only be water and the battery itself in the ground. Come on up.

Um, state rep for city of Inker, District 26. Um, Dylan Wagal is the name. Uh, couple things. First, I have a couple. I'll just list them and let you take them. Um, one, I'm not understanding what Trump did overnight to to change things over the weekend. My understanding is like across the state, we still have data centers coming. And Seline, uh, I think it'd be a pretty big headline if Seline was was dead. So, I'm going to just challenge you on that. Um, in areas that have had data centers, the truth is electric rates and water rates have gone up. Um, so with the wastewater system, my question is this. um your claim is your claim that there's no waste water at all because usually my understanding with data centers at some point there's a use life of the water. So at some point you're going to have to get rid of that water. Where does that go? Do you have treatment facilities on site to clean that water? Because if not then we're going to have high levels of PAS in our our water system here which is a concern I brought up earlier. And then lastly, I had questions about transparency because from what I could figure out, the LLC that you came here with was formed less than two weeks ago. So, would you be willing to share those articles of incorporation with the council and with the public? I just think that that's really important to figure out like where the LLC is coming from and so forth. So starting with the water piece, um there will be water treatment on site and again it does use atmospheric water generation. So in the event that that water does need to be topped off once it condenses and vaporizes, we will be able to pull water directly from the air. Um so think of it in a way of like a dehumidifier. Uh whereas we're pulling water from the air. there isn't a threat to uh imposing foreign substances into the water supply because it's never connected to the water supply. So in the

event, you know, god forbid that our water does become contaminated for whatever reason, which it won't, um it will never reach the municipal water supplies. Where do we take the water? It's all stored on site.

Contaminated water. Is that what you're saying? No, it in the event that the water is contam, we we have the treatment. So the AUG does treat that water. Um so the AWG, my apologies, does treat that water. Um but in the event that we do need to release it or that it does condense, which we may go through um uh loss over time, uh then we would use the atmospheric water generation to pull that water from the air. Uh that's what that technology is designed for. So it would never hit the municipal supply.

Yep. Uh yeah, we we wouldn't be against sharing anything like that if the city decides they want to go on with this. Uh to answer your other question, uh you should look up the uh federal energy auction mandate that just happened over the weekend. Uh basically how it went is Trump the administration came out and said that uh big tech companies are no longer able to use the grid anymore and they're not able to tax American residents to get their energy. And he said that if you can't generate your own power, you're not allowed to build anymore in the United States flat out. That happened on Friday. So that's why I'm saying that like the whole world has changed since we first came to talk about this. It's moving very fast. Oh,

you gota come up to the microphone. You guys are surveying for the land. What if the res don't want that around their property? Right. Um definitely in our zoning ordinance now whenever you do a special land use project, the residents within a certain radius have to be notified. You are allowed to come to a public hearing and express what you want to do or what you want to have happen or not. Usually at the planning commission level, sometimes at the city council level also. Depends on how big something like this vote involved. I mean, do we have any kind of say?

Well, we we represent you. So, if all you come up and say we don't want it, it's probably not going to go well as far as a vote. But the city council will vote, but you definitely have a say in it. Um because we have we have to have public hearings in order to get input from the community as to what they want. Well, actually would be two votes. The planning commission would vote and then city council. Yeah. Thank you for votes to recommend because that's like my question as well. So what we're voting on today is to give you all 180 days to survey all of Inkster. So we have to put our land, any land sales, anything on hold for at least 180 days. So you all can decide where you want to put your data centers essentially

in in short basically asking for permission to go come back again. Okay. And once we have all the actual factuals then we're going to do another presentation more hard data. Okay James.

All right. Uh man, I got a lot a lot. But I just want to first uh applaud you brothers for coming with this innovation uh with inside of data centers um and being innovative in the approach uh to create a net zero um grid with your data center. Um I have a couple of questions uh for you all. Um I will start off with one. You you you uh led to city council of Detroit or you spoke with the city of Detroit. I really want to know what department that you spoke with because they just got back, everybody just got back in session uh for the new year with the new administration and being sworn in. Uh a lot of us, some people in here work for the city of Detroit and it has been discussion that we haven't heard about you all. Uh the community trust as well agreement. I appreciate that as well as we're big components. We need to be more components of CBA's community benefit agreements. Uh but you yet have showed community trust as well already. uh our state representative actually asked you about your LLC and you diverted to even answer that as I even looked up the state of Michigan which is public record your your your organization uh the website is based in Delaware which is a shell company and I applaud you for shelling your wealth and trying to create you know uh that that that leverage uh with with your uh infrastructure concord infrastructure but if you are trying to get transparency with a a smaller community even just the community overall all uh you say you are the owners. We don't know if you are the owners. You are two young black polished uh young men coming into a black community, a predominantly black community um with some innovation. And that's why I'm applauding you with this innovation. But you're saying that you this is your idea. I would actually say patent this if everybody is behind now. Okay. And and and and sell the patent or or not sell it but you know leverage the patent to all these other data centers. uh since everyone else now is behind the eightball. Uh but I'm

talking to my constituents and my our city council. Uh we can't afford to take an initiative or or or do something like this right now when we are just scraping and getting off our knuckles uh within the side of the city of Inkingster. Um at this time um and but I do want y'all to answer those questions in regards to who did you speak to at the city of Detroit because we are well connected just because we are a small community. Wayne County is very well connected so we can better understand that and also is your LLC registered to operate in the state of Michigan and actually who can you provide transparency around that uh if you're talking about community trust agreements and all those different things and also pay uh uh do a little bit more time in community and build community trust rather than talk about community trust agreements. Uh so yes, I can answer the question about uh who we spoke to in Detroit. We actually spoke to the leadership at the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation who is responsible for bringing economic developments to the city of Detroit. We spoke with Kevin uh Kevin Johnson who's the head of that. Uh and these that's who we spoke with at the city of Detroit.

So that's not the city of Detroit. City of Detroit. That's a separate entity outside of the city of Detroit. That's just like you come in as a partner or a liaison to say um and they're contracted with the city of Detroit to give better judgment. They're advising LLC. Oh yeah. I mean like we're not we're not dodging the LLC question. Like I said, we set it up like that because of tax purposes to do something this large. That's kind of what's necessary. So, we're not hiding it. I mean, if you guys want to see that, we don't have an issue with sharing our articles in corporation.

Um,

please when you do presentations, uh, try to be more efficient with your presentation because your notebook LM that's all AI generated. I'm very familiar with it, you know, and you you you was trying to you y'all was the the noise canc stuff, all that stuff was transpiring. I get it, but it was transpiring with the presentation. Uh but it was it it was a radical approach and you didn't know your audience. One of the constituents also came up here and talked about blight. Detroit has more blight than the city of Ingster. Our that's that's not our message. So even though you had a presentation that was thorough, that was good, that was revolutionary, that was insightful, but you didn't alter your presentation for your target audience. You brought something that was utilized for something else. And this is not the same as the city of Detroit. So just I'm just giving you some some key things just to think about.

Hi. Uh my name is Andy Geris. I work for Congresswoman Rashidita Chalib. And I just wanted to clarify something uh because I think you are misleading people about what Trump uh announced what and you can just Google this CNN article. Uh the Trump administration and a consortion of governors from northeastern states are asking the country's largest electrical grid operator to hold an emergency power auction. Uh but they can't mandate it and it's not shutting down any data centers that are currently in operation. And so I think you owe people uh a more honest assessment of what the Trump administration has announced and what they haven't announced. Our office is working towards uh legislative options for an AI data center moratorum. We follow this closely. It is inaccurate to say that what Trump announced on Friday is shutting down every other project except yours. And I think you should be more for that. All right. Does I'm sorry. You want to say something? No, no, no. Come on up.

Good evening. Um, my question is, um, as far as community engagement, is this your first meeting? Yes. Okay. So, but you want to sign anou today?

Okay. Because my question was going to be as we have all of our council people, they should be allowed that you have to go to their district and present what you want to do in our city. For you to want to come into the city today and get anou signed today. That's like saying we're stuck on stupid dang little dumb and riding on That's not fair.

Can't say So, I'm just saying how can we not seriously that is to be fair. There's no community benefits ordinance agreement, whatever. That's not fair to just come in here and think that we're just going to take it. And I truly hope that you guys sit down and you don't vote to sign anou today. Hi, good evening. Ebony Elmore. I'm the environment and climate justice sheriff of our western Hawaiian NAACP. I am here to offer an opportunity to come to us. We have national guidelines for this to support and support the city council but also to support the community in educating ourselves and making sure that we have the proper knowledge before you come in and make a decision for communities like this and particularly about your energy idea um on having this like a hybrid micro grid. I wanted to ask more questions. cuz I wanted more clarity about it because right now our utility company has an anti- islanding agreement where none of this is going to pass in our community. So, how do you see this and as being a realistic um choice for a community like this right now?

I I would argue that that that's exactly what theou is for so that we can go and try to get answers to those questions. get those answers first. All right.

Not necessarily a question. Um, just a statement. Um, I'm from I'm actually on the planning commission and I'm taking the lead in updating our ordinance. And so I just wanted to say to the community and city council, we are in the process of updating not only our zoning and and requirements around things like data centers. And so I would just, you know, pause for the cause because we've actually talked about a lot of hypotheticals today. Um nothing, we don't have utility assessments. Um how this, you know, uh case studies about similar or neighboring um cities who have actually taken on something like this to compare it to. Um we mentioned community benefit agreements like what do we get specifically out of a project like this? And so before I I don't even think it makes sense at this time to even assess and look what type of land we have available because it's going to change, right? And so if that's the case, perhaps this is something that could be tabled for later. And if they're interested in still coming and come before us with a full plan with all the requirements for us to consider, but at this time to vote on, you know, going to survey the land or create anou to get the project started. in my opinion um like I said from the planning commission and someone who's taking the lead on updating the ordinance just doesn't make sense at this time.

All right, one more question if we have it. All right. I came in behind you all. How you doing? Um so I'mma cheat because I have several questions within mine. You can cheat

as well. Um so my first question is why did you forgo the traditional route for acquiring land to then develop a data center? You went through an executive directive is what we have listed in the agenda. And so my con there's a lot of concern that's been voiced about transparency. And we know that with data centers come also a threat to democracy in that they forego things like planning processes and going through a commission and going to economic development. There's a lot of I don't know if you've heard data center cries and rallies out here, but we have uh no secret deals as a cry and call to action within our data center protest. However, this feels very secretive. Uh, so my first question while loaded was still, why didn't you choose to go the traditional route? And I know y'all want to start building on Monday, which is what the presentation said, but yeah, that's still very important. Uh, and my second question, sorry, or do you want to answer that because I do got some follow-ups.

Okay. And then my second question is you all mentioned relying on the federal government to use their audits or their systems for testing and analysis, but you're want you want to develop a data center in a predominantly black city. And we know that our federal government has eliminated DEI and has eliminated the economic justice department and the EPA, for example. And so the environmental protections that are needed for a community such as this, that our federal government isn't overseeing that anymore. There will be no if there are issues that are civil rights issues or environmental justice issues, they won't be addressed by our federal government as it stands or to infinity and beyond at this point because we don't know how this federal government is working. Uh and so uh my follow-up question is what other assessments can you or will you plan to utilize and put in your proposal? I imagine because you're taking notes uh to make sure that a predominantly black city is protected not just environmentally but also economically because there was mention of economic development but no mention of housing protections, no mention of there were a lot of promises also but no actual evidence of that within the proposal that is seemingly AI generated based on what is provided in the agenda. So, a number of questions as you can hear I have based on just a lot of the comments today, but those are the main ones. Assessments, real protections for the community, and why foregoing a traditional process and ultimately engaging in a secret dealing seemingly process. Thank you. Also, I'm I'm Bashan Maxwell with NAACP Western County.

Yeah. So, so we're here today uh not here to do it in secret. That's why we came here today to talk to everybody and hear from the community. We're not trying to push this through for secrecy or anything like that. We have to move at the speed that our capital requirement demands of us. It's not our fault that the opportunity zones end this year. So, we have to move very aggressively with this. We plan to keep the city involved every step of the way. More meetings like this, meetings in the community, talking with people. So, we're just here for the first step to see like is the city interested in this. That's basically what we're here to do with the MOU is just is there interest at all so that we can come back to you guys with those data points that you're asking for.

And just real quickly, just for I think two people spoke to about a secret deal. There's no secret deal with the city of Ingster. I just want to let you know. Um we're doing everything open and transparent. That's why they're here in front of you. U we don't do backdoor deals in this administration. But I tell you what, I ain't say that. I think it was some great questions here tonight. I really appreciate the the uh residents coming out uh stakeholders in the community. These were excellent questions. I learned a lot because my ears are wide open. Um so that will end the presentation. We're going to move on to agenda so we can go home at some point tonight. Thank you.

All right. Consent agenda. Okay. Consent agenda. So move. Second. Been probably moved to second. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Oppose say nay. That passes. All right. Boards and commissions. U. I'd like to appoint William Morris to the parks and reccks commission. Second. District five. District five. Second. We properly move to second. Uh discussion. All those in favor say I. I. Oppose say nay. It passes. Any other appointments? Okay. There was appointing a William Morris. Yes. Morris to the parks and reccks commission.

William Parks and Rex. Okay. Ordinance. We have no first or second reading of ordinances. New business. Item A. Item A number one. Consider approval to adopt notice of intent resolution to authorize publication of city's intent to issue revenue bonds related to a drinking water revolving fund loan. Some move. Second. Been properly moved to second. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Oppose say nay. Okay. Passes. Part two to item A. Consider approval to adopt bond authorization ordinance to authorize the issuance of junior lean revenue bonds related to a drinking water revolving fund loan. So move

support been properly move to support it. Discussion. All those in favor say I. I oppose say nay. It passes. Item B. Consider exclusive negotiation period with Concord infrastructure partners for a proposed data center in the city of Ingster. Do we have a motion? Okay. Item B dies for no motion. Item C, consider request to purchase city own two face Ghost billboards and lease an easement on Franklin Drive.

Do we have a motion? No motion. Dies on item C. Item D. Consider approval of the 2026 holiday schedule for the city of Ingster website. Support. Y'all got a motion for this one. It's been moved and supported. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. Oppose say nay. It passes. Item E that was added. Consider approval of Raheem Al Jalawi settlement. So move second. Robin moved a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. I.

Oppose say nay. Passes. All the participation. Miss Martha Moore, come on up.

Grab that mic. Get it close to you. Thank you. Good evening. How are you? I'm fine, thank you. Great. Floor is yours. Oh, thank you. My concern um was my water bill and it's a big concern because my water bill has never been as high as it is. It has never went over $200 unless I was late paying. So, deliberately last month, I paid it off in totality. Okay? And I listened to what the ladies said. They said, "Come out to a council meeting and discuss it." Well, I'm here to discuss it because I got a bill the other day

and it was $644 and you guys are behind, right? I don't understand you guys going back October and November. I'm hearing I'm in 2026. If everybody is working every day, why are we so far behind? Why is my bill so high? And I was also told because I have four people in my house, it seems like $200 is what it should be a month. No, not exactly cuz water goes on usage, not on how many people are accommodating your home. So that is my concern. Okay. I'm glad you came tonight and we were expecting you and a whole bunch of folks to come to talk about that.

The reason why we got behind just want to explain we uh migrated to a new system. So we took out all the old water meters. We had the old system completed, the software system, the computers, everything. And we bought a new system for $6 million. So in the migration from the old system information to the new system, there's some problems um with the decimal point. So some of the bills were not accurate. So we had to stop sending out our monthly water bills. We have a very small water department and start one account, one account at a time. We had to go in and fix the migration issues one account at a time. We have 9,000 accounts. So, all 9,000 weren't a problem, but there were several hundred and it took it maxed our staff out. So, we couldn't send the bill out every 30 days like we typically do. So, for the last couple bills, they've been two months. So, they're out they're double what people are normally paying. Some people still have issues in addition to that. Well, like what you're saying, $600 and some dollars is more than what a two-month bill would be normally for you. So, what we're doing is we're taking and I'm glad you're here tonight. treasur is here tonight. We've taken your account number, your contact information. We go and we analyze your account. We look at your usage. These new meters can measure every drop of water you use. So, there could be several different problems. Some people may have had a leak for several years that they don't know about. Um because the old meters could not track the water usage. The new ones can. I'm not saying you have a leak. I'm just saying that we will look at your account tonight if you have time. Try to figure out what's going on. And if we there's any problem I am, we'll try to adjust it or resolve whatever the issue is. So, I'm glad you came here tonight. Darren Carrington is the treasurer. Don't leave without talking to him. And if we have time, like I said, we can pull up your account and look at it right tonight.

And I do and I surely appreciate it because $644 and I'm a widow. I don't have that help and I don't understand it. And going forth, it would be nice as a homeowner in Insta. I've only been buying this house now 5 years. It would be nice if we run into a problem that me as a homeowner that I know. The communication was not the best from our end. It wasn't. Was not. Well, I'm sorry, but I apologize for that, but we we're definitely going to try to resolve the issue. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you.

Dylan Gayla, brief want to get out of here. Just short legislative updates. Couple things we're working on. Um, in the next couple weeks, we'll be introducing two bills. Uh, one of those bills would prevent the state of Michigan from uh selling its property to ICE. Uh, as well as putting deed restrictions on any property that it does sell so they cannot be sold to private prison operators. Um, I think really relevant. We need everyone to be fighting back what we see happening federally. And I'm trying to to do my part to at least show what the state could do if we had the votes. But as everyone knows, Republicans have the House and Democrats have the Senate. So, um we we'll see what's able to happen. I I would be surprised if Republicans would break from uh the president, but um you know, maybe may maybe in some miracle world. Secondarily, people probably have seen um DTE is beginning to charge uh credit card users for fees. Um we will be introducing a bill in the next couple weeks to ban them from doing that. Um, again, if you know Lancing, um, DT donates more to Lancing than any other corporation in the state. So, um, it's going to be an uphill battle, but the point is, uh, I I don't believe residents should be charged for having, um, paying with credit cards. Um, uh, another thing that this is ever evolving, so I don't want to get too into this and confusing. As I think the council knows and and residents probably know, uh, last month, Republicans used a rarelyus um, uh, section of state law to cancel $645 million in ongoing work projects. One of those in Ingster was the rec center money secured in the budget a couple years ago, uh, the rec center roof money. Uh, Dana Nestle had ruled that unconstitutional and then Republicans sued uh, uh, to get a freeze on it. And the the current understanding is that unencumbered um any any

unencumbered monies will um is frozen and the rest is not. However, neither I nor anyone in the Democratic caucus can get a list of what those work projects is at the moment. So um looking to keep pushing these departments to have better communication with their cities so that we can all understand exactly what the heck is going on. And um just to kind of clarify how undemocratic this move was by House Republicans is it takes 56 votes in the House to pass a budget. Uh 20 in the Senate and then the governor to sign it. They were able to cancel $640 million with uh just the Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee. So that meant no Senate Democrats or Republicans got a vote. I got no vote. Um uh only I think it only took about 11 votes to cancel the funds. uh this is a huge loophole that we need to change and there is legislation um that is that is out there trying to do that. Um so I I hope to be able to come give an update on that once we actually are given the information from the department. Um but those are the the short things that are on my mind as I come up here. Um always uh at at everyone's disposal. Please reach out. We've been connecting people um to unemployment to getting their Medicaid re re um reconnected. We've helped people and Bosma's back in the the room somewhere. Um she's in my office. If you call, you get her. Um we've returned people tax money that they never thought they'd see again. So if you have any issues, please reach out to us. Um and uh I wish I had my the office number memorized top of my head. Um I'll just read it for people real quick. You can reach out to us at Dylan Wagelhouse.gov gov and you can call the office at 5173733818 and I I'd say probably a quarter of this room has my personal number so if you if you need to get a hold of me find somebody let me know scared me

thank thank you just let everybody know the city of lost $900,000 in that court ruling uh couple I guess last week now um so we have to 500,000 was to place our ro roof at at the rec center which we have to replace because we have to put new HVAC system on it. So I'm going to need somebody with a big hat to pass that hat. We need to raise 500,000 the roof. So but we going to have to figure that out. But it has to it has to happen. So we got to move forward with the roof replacement. So we all we all lost in that. A lot of communities lost.

Yeah. Can I speak to that just for a second? Um yeah. So other things that were in there was I think $18 million for RX for kids. Um, and this just shows the the state of politics right now. So, the Republicans were willing to cancel that. They were willing to cancel money going to a nonprofit to give children wigs who had cancer. Um, there was a whole list of things that were cut from this. And um I I hope that voters don't forget that when they vote in uh November. Hope so. Thank you. Thank you. Okay,

Bill Neil. Oh, Dale. I'm sorry. Dale like the computer. Okay. Dale. Oh. Oh, here comes Dale. Maybe not. Nope. Not. She don't look like Dale. James Eberhart.

Yeah, I'm Junior.

What up, dog? Uh just uh uh first off, I I I want to I want to congratulate the constituents coming out tonight. Uh this room looks beautiful. Uh I'm trying my best and doing my due diligence as well to come to more city council meetings. So first, if we could also do our due diligence as a collective, as a community instead of the sense of urgencies and projects that comes out to kind of mobilize our community to come here and actually shape and move our city to where we desire and deserve our community to be. So, I want to just give a shout out to you all for coming out tonight. Uh, the second thing, city council and mayor, I just want to uh talk about the urgency of the lead water that's within with the lead with inside of our water. Uh, it is is this doesn't fall on our current or any of our administration locally. Uh, this is a state and national issue uh with lead in our in our water. I I I did attend the coffee hour with our state rep earlier and just spoke about uh some issues and concerns. Um but we need a lot more uh investigation. Uh so you know I talked with our state rep. So if you can work with our state rep and our senate as well to get with uh human health and services to figure out uh the statistics of uh uh increment of lead that our residents are having just have some case studies some so we can get some results and put out a call to action or some public information. not particularly of private confidential like who those houses or that area but just some percentages of lead infected uh uh statistics uh for residents so we can take the precaution and go get tested if they aren't some people are afraid to go to the doctor right and so if if if we get that information I think we can take some precaution um right now um and then also can we get a little bit more transparency in the process of the lead testing uh are the are there lead testing kits that we can come pick up to test our own our own home. Are those

provided by the city? Is there a initiative or organization that's doing that? And then how do we communicate that if we do find lead in our home back to the administration as well?

All right. Well, thank you. That's a lot. But um we are having a water town hall meeting on Thursday to get some of that information out. But just let me speak to the lead real quick because that's a serious issue. Uh when people hear that they have lead their water, they panic. Um we don't have lead in our water. Our water comes from GLEA along with all the other communities in southeastern Michigan. There's no lead in the water. What we do have is old some of the older homes, lead pipes when as they start to deteriorate, lead will get in your water and that's ser that's dangerous. Um just to give you statistics on what we tested, the reason why we're in this panic, you know, Eagle makes us test the water annually. We tested 30 homes that either had lead lines or we are we don't know what type of lines are in. They're unknown. Four of them came up positive. Out of 30. That's still a big deal. Now, don't get me wrong. We have 9,000 water accounts. So, why right now we're replacing all the lead lines. You know what we get? It's 1.6 million. We just got a grant. Um we're going to try to do what? 400 this year.

We just got 1.1 and what we approved tonight and we get another 1.2 from Hood. Okay. And then we're trying to do 500 this year with the HUD money just to test to see if they have lead.

If you don't know, call us. If your house was built before 1950 and you're not sure what your lines are, call us. We'll come out, take a look at it. Um, and we can also test your water. If you if you have lead lines, we need to test your water. You to make sure you're okay. If you do uh have lead lines um and we test your water and it's not okay, then obviously you need to filter your water because you got to be careful drinking it. I double filter my water anyway. Um, and my house was built in 1954. But just just for peace of mind, I double filter my water. So, I recommend people doing that. But let us know if you know anybody has a lead line, let us know if we don't already know so we can get out there and put eyeballs on it and make sure that they're drinking safe water. But if you want to come to the water the water town hall on Thursday, we'll have more information slides, uh, whatever we have. We don't have test kits that we hand out, but we can have the water your water tested. You know,

the the lead the lead line funding is that is that that is the service line from from the main street to the house that we have funding to replace or is that the the main the main pipes? Oh, no. That's the the lead line hook up to your house. Normally that's the homeowner's responsibility, but because this is such a serious problem, we've been mandated by the state to replace everybody's lead lines at the city's expense. You know, the water say it's from the stop box to up to the water meter. Beyond the water meter is on the res.

Oh, it's from the stop box to 18 in into your house, which is up to the water meter. What happened? Good afternoon. Da Johnson needs to house the resident council.

Um, I was told to ask because we were built in the 1920s and we do know we have those lines. When will you come and test them? We do have a lot of seniors in the lowrise in Dimi and in um Le Moine and in Parkside. So, they were concerned about when they were going to get tested. So we're in the process of planning certain areas to be tested along with the funding we get and once that plan is developed I will come out publicly with it and let you know

and and you will be at the top of the list just because the number of people and when when it was built so we will be okay. Milton Hunter.

Good evening. Good evening,

council officials and members of the community. I did not come here to embarrass anyone, but I also cannot sit in silence while history is being embarrassed in front of us. We all know that the home of 4336 William is connected to one of the most significant black figures in American history. Whether you believe Malcolm lived there for two days or for two years is not the issue. The issue is what the property represents and what we have allowed to happen to it. Malcolm X once said, "The best is yet for PPP." You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has freedom. Well, today our history is not free. It is held hostage by neglect, by silence, by bureaucracy. Over half a million dollars have been allocated in the name of preservation. But preservation means more than press release and promises. Pres preservation means maintenance, transparency, and progress. For 14 days straight, I have documented what's taking place, or rather what's not taking place. No security, no mitigation, no climate control, windows missing, water intrusion, mold risk, building materials exposed to weather. If this property belong to any other historical figure or set in any other neighborhood, it would be not waiting for mercy from rain and snow. Malcolm also said, "Of all our studies, history is the best qualified reward for research." But what reward do we get when we let history deteriorate until research become demolition? It's not just about Malcolm. It's about black history. is is entreated in black neighborhoods because of if we cannot protect our own legacy, who are we expecting to protect it for us. We cannot preach black history in February and abandon in March. We cannot champagne our ancestor in posters and then fill their legacy in practice. This council may not own that house, but you do have a voice, right? Mhm.

A platform and a responsibility to protect community's interest. The hood, the city, the nonprofit, and the community are all stakeholders. And right now, none of them are communicating. Not a soul, not a person. You feel me? Not a person. That's where I came from. Been up here before, you feel me? So, y'all ain't seen me, but I'm back. So, I'm not here asking for money. I'm not asking for accountability or paperwork. for clarity and oversight. If the funds were allocated, show the plan, show the schedule, show the permit, show the timeline, show the results. Because when there is no accountability, there is always exploitation. Malcolm said the future belongs to those who prepare for it today. Right now, the future of that property looks uh commendation like not not celebration. You feel me? The project is truly about the community, then evolve the community. If it's about preservation, the preserve more than the talking points. I came to inform, not attack, expose the truth, not create chaos, to demand respect for history, not attention for myself. If we claim Malcolm's legacy, let's honor it by any means necessary. Thank you.

Thank you. I kind of explained a little bit on social media. I think Milton, you made a post and I tried to People ask, did we have the records? And no, because we didn't allocate any money to them. So the state did I think a small portion for the windows. I'm sure that there's a receipt for the work done on the windows, but uh state rep is right there. He may have that information. The other money I believe came from a foundation. I think help Wayne State helped get the money. I'm not sure what their requirements are. Uh and I don't know if they're a public entity where you can get those records under FOYA or some other way. Pretty much it's is residence is is really nothing none of these people can do.

Right. I'm I'm going to let you know this. There's nothing none of them can do. You can't even They promise a vocational center is not there. You feel me? That's broken promises. It's like false false hope when our insta schools is gone. It's like the people just try to come in here. Yo, y'all we all want to build a school, right? But y'all said something about local 58 though.

In order for us make this right. We have to make right. Ain't nobody do it for us. They can't do it for us because they don't own the house. They they can't do nothing. We can't We can call the code enforceers with the fire department gone. I did I did job shadow with the fire department as well. So I know what supposed to get the code. I've been through the city. Y'all don't see me. I don't have to be uh seen help people either. So a lot of people help without All right. Thank you,

Patricia Crawford. Good afternoon or good evening. Good afternoon. Good evening. I'm here to speak about the water bill specifically. Um my normal water bill was $77 and some change. Um, to my surprise, I hadn't seen a water bill until recently. And then when I got that that bill, it showed my water bill was over $3,000. 3,000?

Yes. And I'm the type of person I do not drink the water in the house cuz I'm not comfortable drinking it. Um, my family and I every month or I should say every two weeks, we go out and we buy gallons of water. So, we don't we never drink the water in the home at all. Um, we wash our clothes outside of the house. So, I I barely use the water. Okay. So, for to have a bill that high, I'm like, I can't understand why I have it. So, I said, well, maybe I had a leak or something. Um, because that's the answers I've been hearing on the internet and um, Facebook and so on that if you have a large water bill, it could be the result of you having a leak.

So, I've checked. I don't have any leaks whatsoever. So, I shouldn't have a bill that size. I'm thinking that maybe it's possible because you said something about um changing from one system to the other system. That might be where that gap came in and pushed me over to that high number. Um but I don't have any proof one way or another. But all I know is that's not a number that I'm used to seeing on my bill and I know that's a number I can't afford to pay. Well, that's way high. I'm a senior citizen um as well as a lot of other people in here. We're on fixed income and for me to pay something like that would basically put me under. Have you talked to anybody or met with anybody on our staff to analyze your your account and see what happened?

No, I haven't. But what I did is I looked at some things on the internet to find out about the new meter that was put in because I'm hearing so many wonderful things about it. But I also am hearing that it does have room for error. So it's not like it's not the tit, you know, it's like the Titanic have room for error. So, um, when I looked it up, it said it could be, um, the transmission or transmitter has a weak signal. Um, it could be a failure to send out complete data. Mhm. Um, it said um can lead well said could lead to incorrect or missing readings.

Um, also it says that is faithful to transmit um the number. So, whatever number it sees, it will transmit it. but it's not it does not validate it. So that could be the difference in there as well. Um if I have extreme or any of us have extreme moisture in our basement or um extremely cold that it could affect the data that's being sent out as well. So I know when they put my meter in my meter is in a room that's very cold. It has no heat in it um at all and the meter is close to the floor concrete floor. So, I'm still trying to figure out why why I have this and I'm thinking that maybe it could have something to do with that as well.

Could be. What? Let's jump on that. Can you see Darren? He can pull your account up. We can try to figure We can't figure it out tonight. For sure. Yeah, we we just need to get the information, but she did touch on a couple uh points I think are important. Uh it's it's important especially with the cold temperatures to um make sure that the meter does not and because the meter will let you know when it gets too cold because that can lead to some freezing pipes. Um but we'll need to get your information so we can take a look at your specific account and your specific need. Okay. I do have that information tonight. Okay. Um there was one more thing I wanted to say. Um, when I had the meter changed,

I didn't have a problem getting it done and it got done quickly. I later on I received something in the mail, which I think everybody got the same letter that if you didn't complete if you didn't have your meter changed to get it changed. So, I contacted the number that was on there. Um, and I told them I had my meter changed. They didn't know I had my meter changed. And I thought that was strange. Yeah, it is because you're sending people into my house to change my meter, to change that meter. So, you should know what's going on and who you're sending to my home.

So, I told them it was changed. They said, "Well, when was it changed?" Well, at that time, I was notating everything on a calendar. So, I'm like, "It was changed such and such a date at such and such a time. This is the person that did it." So, I was thinking too, I said, "Well, maybe this is an I don't know if it's actual estimate or what." Um, but I I will get that information over to you. But I just thought it was strange. They didn't know who, you know, that it had been changed already. It was we hired Hydrocore as a subcontractor. Um, and maybe somebody just didn't report. They changed it and didn't put it in their system that they changed it, you know, because they should have known has already been changed. Okay. All right. Thank you. Well, thank you. I appreciate you coming. All right. That's it for public participation. I I have two public comments.

Oh, okay. Um, one from Mr. Charles Blackwell that will be noted in the meeting minutes from tonight and it was disseminated to mayor and councel and the other one was from Mabel Strowman, Connie Mitchell and Ivon Moore. The same they will be put into the meeting minutes for tonight. Okay. Um Madame Clerk, anything else? Uh no, just continuing to process the business license renewals. Okay, Mr. Treasury,

thank you, Mayor. Um just wanted to uh He mentioned it earlier, but there will be a a town hall u specifically on the issue of of water bills, water meters, lead water, any any issues that our uh our residents and and citizens have concerning our our water system. Um we do want to, as the mayor indicated, we want to really make sure we're getting uh facts and information to the residents as best as we possibly can. We we we know that's not an area that we have uh excelled in recently. So, we're doing everything we can to get the information out there. So, we're going to uh be there on Thursday. It's going to be at the uh DOA Recreation Center at 6 o'clock. Again, uh the town hall is this Thursday. Um that is January 22nd at 6 o'clock at the recreation center. So, we're going to have um myself and you're gonna be there, right? Uh, but we're we're going to have have all the team there so we can can do our best to answer questions on site and we expect there's going to need to be a lot of followup, but we just want to make sure everyone understands we are, you know, trying to be transparent and and provide as much information as we can. We we know that this is a um can be a trying process for for uh certain individuals depending upon the information that we get. We're doing everything we can to get all the information out timely, the bills and everything. It's it's taken some effort as we expected, but we we are committed and we know we're going to get through this. We want to work with you all. You all are working with us. Um but we again want to just make sure everybody understands that we're not trying to uh avoid any of these issues. We want to hear from you. We want to be able to respond and we want to try and and address these directly. So, uh, you know, that's part of the process. We're going to be there Thursday and, uh, if there is anyone who can't make it,

please feel free to come up to city hall. We soon will be announcing we're going to start having some evening hours once a week for the next few weeks after the um, uh, town hall. So, if there's times when individuals can't get to city hall during our regular business hours, we're going to provide some extended hours so we can make sure we make ourselves available as much as possible. So, um

Oh, yeah. Thank you. And also, there is uh on the city's website, you have the opportunity to submit questions that you may have. We want to get all those questions ahead of time as much as possible so we can come prepared. And you also have the opportunity to um submit specific uh details about your particular account. If there's some individual questions that you have about your account, you can go on to the city's website. We have a survey that's there, a document where you can submit your information and we'll we'll be uh getting that in preparation for Thursday's meeting. So, um I think that's pretty much it. As we uh uh mentioned, there are a couple people that we will be following up with. We also I know council we've been in communication. Uh please continue to share uh the you know the information questions that you get from your residents. Uh share that with us and we we'll respond as as best as we can.

Um I did have one question. I had a resident contact me and said that she had a $20,000 uh water bill placed on her taxes. Um 20,000 20,000. I said well we know that's not right. I I need to get I need to get get that information from situation. Okay, we're on mayor and council communication. Um, Councilwoman How? Nothing at this time yet. Councilwoman Re? Nothing. Mayor, um although I would like to thank um the presentation for today. Thank you for coming out. Thank you for packing your patience. Appreciate it. Councilman Bishop,

I just Councilwoman Scott. Um, I do want to thank, um, kind of piggybacking off of what Skril said, um, our community to come out and really like share your voices. For the gentlemen up front, it takes a lot of nerve to come in front of a city and present on things like this. So, kudos to you. Um, but I do want to encourage our citizens to come out on events other than, you know, when there's these big catastrophes, right, within the city, right? Our job is to represent you. Um, we do see what you know, Facebook, we encourage you all to email us, even DM us on Facebook. Um, we see it, but we also all, and I can speak for everyone up here, work be like day and night to resolve issues within the city because we understand the job and we understand what you all elected us to do. So, I just kind of wanted to throw that out there. I know we've been getting a lot of heat on social media recently um and we tend to not address it, but um I do want to reassure you all that we do hear and we do see um your comments and we do take everything serious. So yeah,

thank you Mayor. Right. That's fair. Mayor Promp,

thank you. Um, just to pick it back on what Councilwoman Scott was saying, um, I know a lot of us have reverted to social media for contacting or factf finding within many municipalities, not just Inkster. Um, however, with the city of Inkster social media page, there's been a lot of speculation. There's been a lot of facts versus false narratives. and be cautious if some accounts that speak on the city's behalf is not a city council person or a department head um or employee because the information may not be factual. One of the groups actually has some type of AI generated questions and responses that comes up daily. That's not even a human that's talking to anybody. Um I think I documented about 17 different Facebook pages alone that are operated by outside administrators. We have absolutely no control over those. In some way, shape or form, they bear the city of Insters's name. And I've we've have been monitoring as best we can the questions and concerns that you all have. But with 17 different accounts, and there's not one person that is assigned to do all of this. And because of the way the algorithms are set up, nothing's chronological anymore. So sometimes, one second. Sometimes when I'm looking at something that was posted three days ago, which was a false meme or something made of myself or the mayor or whomever,

I know you laugh. The bad part that comes with this is when the people that you know are texting you and ask you if this image is true

and it's not and you're sitting there trying to combat it the best way that you can because it's funny to others and it's something for others to run to the media about and try to expose whatever, but it's false. And so I just wanted to bring that up because we do have our own official social media pages that are ran by in-house employees. That way when your pertinent questions get brought up because I'm looking at some of these are very important questions you all are asking and then what happens other people are engaging with you and you never get a solidified answer. And then when you come before the the do u the city council here and you're posing those questions and of course you're upset because you're like, "Hey, I've been waiting. and I've been reaching out to you guys and we're all looking at like who you who have you reached out to but those questions in those particular social media pages are not being answered by us. If your stuff is getting flagged or filtered, we're not the ones controlling it. That is those administrators and that is Facebook. We have absolutely no control over that. Um so please navigate maybe to the city of Inkers's website, our official pages, the links for them are on there. You can reach out to any one of us and we'll get you in contact with our media director or whoever to get you those official ones. So when you do post questions that you see on social media or the stuff we post and then there's a comment that is under there, it can be answered efficiently and factually. Um so that's it. I just wanted to aware everyone of that cuz sometimes this stuff can lead to scamming or just false information that you all don't deserve. You deserve correct answers and in an efficient manner. That's all I ask.

All right. Great. Um, just want to reiterate water town hall meeting. If you know someone who has an issue with their water bill, uh, make sure they're there. If they can't be there, go to the website. They can put their information in. We'll analyze the account, follow back up with them. Um, so if they can't make it, we will still get their information and we can do what we need to do. Also, just to piggy back off what Councilwoman Scott and C and man may promp said, a lot of times we don't realize some of the nonsense that we put out on social media, how it affects folks. Um, when you put out lies or memes or fake pictures of people counting money at their desk, which is not their desk, you know, and it's not their fingers or their body, but it's their face, you know, it's it's it is kind of funny. I do chuckle at first, but then the other side people don't

people see people don't see the other side when you get the death threats when people are threatening to come to my house asking for my address.

They ran me over. Look, it is funny until if somebody pop up, it's not gonna be funny, you know? So, that's the kind of stuff we don't see. I'm not gonna publicize that, but it happens. I'm just gonna say that. And also, when people post stuff on social media, if they have a real question or issue, I try to respond if I see it, but a lot of it is just nonsense. You know, it's just so I'm not going to respond to nonsense. It doesn't mean it's true. I'm just not going to respond because I don't have a half an hour to go back and forth with somebody who, you know, had never been in the city hall, never came to the council meeting, but they have a whole bunch to say. Um, so that that's how we all have to deal with all that stuff. It it happens all the time. I might have heard that once or twice.

But, uh, it was a great meeting tonight. First time we had something juicy that we could talk about. I appreciate everybody coming out. And, you know, we want to know what you think. We want to hear from you. So, this is a positive thing. The fact that we were able to talk and get it out there and these young brothers, I do appreciate them coming and I hope they succeed. Let me be clear. Um, whether it's in Ingster or somewhere else, I hope they succeed. All right. Well, that's all I got. Do we have a motion to adjurnn? Second. Probably moved and second discussion. All those in favor say I. I. Oppose say nay. I know you ain't going to touch it no more. Daniel, you ain't fill out no form. You just came up and talked.