City Council - Regular Meeting

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Roll call, please, Madam Clerk.

Mayor Beagle.

Present.

Deputy Mayor Gottschall. Here. Council Member Behrman.

Present.

Council Member Gronlund-Fox? Here. Council Member Kennedy?

Here.

Council Member O'Day? Here. Council Member Simmons? Here. We have quorum.

Thank you. Changes or additions to the agenda as presented tonight? City Manager Brown.

Mayor, I do have one request for change. I would like to add another item to the agenda that we circulated in the late afternoon, I believe early afternoon. It would be requested to be a consent agenda item, perhaps as number three, which is a waiving of the bid process for a replacement of a handrail at the fire department.

Thank you. Any others? Any others? Assistant City Manager Benson? I have none, sir. Any from the dais? Thank you. We've got two sets of minutes to approve tonight. The first is the special council meeting minutes of August 11, 2026. Do I have a motion?

Move to approve. Support.

Do we have any discussion? Seeing none, I've got a motion and a second to approve the special city council meeting minutes of August 11, 2026. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Carries. The second set of minutes tonight is from the regular city council meeting of August 11, 2026. Do I have a motion? So moved.

Support.

Any discussion? Seeing none, I've got a motion and a second to approve the regular city council meeting minutes of August 11, 2026. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Correspondence, we have some correspondence tonight, and that's from residents regarding the data center. I will not read them in, but we do have them here. And that leads us to the first call to the public. I'll read the rules. They are as follow. The public shall address the council during the call to the public which shall be included on the agenda immediately after correspondence and again immediately after new business. The first call to the public immediately after correspondence shall be limited to agenda items only. A person shall not address the council in excess of five minutes unless the time is extended by a majority vote of the council present. Persons wishing to address the council shall identify themselves and their place of residence and shall state their reason for addressing the council and all comments by the public shall be made directly to the council. First call to the public.

Come on up.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Tom Resnick, 1636 Wayhill Drive. And first of all, regarding unfinished business item number one, I want to thank Council, Planning Commission staff, and our city attorneys for all the work that you've been putting into this. I know that A lot of time and effort and a lot of meetings and a lot of input from the public. I'm glad that you're taking this issue very, very seriously. And you can tell by the public turnout in our meetings that this is a very important, if not the most important issue facing Wixom in years. You know, when data processing and data computing were put into our ordinances sometime in the early 80s, I don't think anyone back then could envision, fast forward 50 years, what data processing would look like with all AI, with cryptocurrency processing and all these other things. When I was working at that time, we had data centers, but they were 15 by 10 rooms with 19-inch racks of computers and memory storage and fans blowing from below and maybe a split AC system in the room. I still say that data center as defined today, 50 years later, is a much different beast and it's a beast of a different color. So I think we do need to differentiate it from any discussions we've had in the past about data processing and data centers. And that's why I still feel an overlay zone along the freeway in our M1 and M2 zone M2 would be a much better solution by creating a separate zoning overlay district. But that being what it is, and we can't do that, I still hope that council works diligently if this ordinance amendments do get passed to actually uphold and support these. One thing, traveling around the nation, it's not just here. We just came back from a five week trip across the country. And this topic is active in every small community, large community in the US. And one very interesting quote that came to light was from our late great president, Theodore Roosevelt. And you can substitute the word city for country here. Here is your country. Cherish the natural resources. Cherish the history and romance of a sacred heritage for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches, or its romance. So please keep the diligence up. And when an ordinance does get passed, the first applicant comes forward, let's not be too willy-nilly and too eager to give out special treatment or variances. Let's keep to our guns and stay diligent. Thank you, Council.

Thank you.

Can I just say ditto? I agree with you completely. That was beautiful. Hi, Philip Mann, 146 Valor Way, just across the block here. Moved here eight years ago from Rockford. And I'm not anti-tech at all. You know, the future's coming at us. We better be ready for it. But I have some issues that bother me about the data centers. Coming from Rockford, I was right between Belmont and Rockford when the PFAS issue came up and the water went from it's okay to drink until it's not. Now if they want to have data centers, I hear they have to have fresh water that they can't use recycled. Everything I've read on it says that it's done to save them money. That's not a good reason to do that. We'll start with that one. Ambient noise. I heard someone recorded it and played it for you last time. That's a real issue. It affects property values. I think what I read is overblown. I don't see where it's going to affect it by 30%. But if this is going to bring the property values down by 30%, that's not a good thing as well as for taxes. That's going to affect your pocketbook, and it's going to affect mine. Pardon me here. We don't have the power supply here to actually run that bugger yet. I've been here eight years. Last two and a half years, I've had a generator. I've had to run my generator 30 hours out of the last two and a half years just because we have regular power fluctuations on and off. If we put that in here, it's going to have quite the draw. We don't have the infrastructure for this. We just simply don't have it yet. That's true. And the latest one I ran into two days ago. They generate an awful lot of heat. Coming out of their stacked plumes is between 14 and 25 degrees continually, nonstop. But this has been, now they have actually had some people running around with thermometers, and as much as a mile, two mile and a half down the road, it's raised the background temperature in the background by four degrees. Not a good thing. Truthfully, I don't think it is. Because one 169 megawatt generator or system, which is about we're looking at here, will generate as much heat as 200,000 individual homes. This is going to have an ecological impact as well. Like I say, I'm not against modern technology. I really believe kicking it down the road a little bit will find answers to all these because that's my only objections to these are the little problems we should be able to fix given time. And I thank you all for your time and giving me a moment of your attention. Thank you. Thank you.

Hi. Can you hear me okay?

Yes, we can.

I'm Gwen Springer. I live in the Leisure Cooperative Community for the Seniors. My address is 50114 Helfer Boulevard in Wixom. We're way over that way. I would just like to address some things in regard to the data center that's being proposed. The first I would like to address is the problem with the infrastructure of electrical power. I read up on that before I came this afternoon, and even though Detroit Edison is committed to advancing the grid and making the necessary updates, will that be sufficient for the draw? Oh, by the way, I agree with him and him. Will that be sufficient to handle the draw that this beast is going to require? I don't like the fact that as the crow flies, it's about one mile from the brand new elementary school on Maple Road. I'm not sure that we've considered the amount of construction traffic on our recently fixed Wixom Road. I don't know if you've ever tried to go from town to Grand River between 3 and 6.30 at night, but it's not pleasant. to say the least. And it's a recently redone road and we know what all those gravel trains and et cetera are going to do to that. Let's see. Oh, going back to Detroit Edison. With the grid expansion, should they approve the necessary requirements for this data center, Will the data center pay that, or will DTE pass that on to the rest of us through yet another rate hike? So I thank you for your consideration. I forgot to address you, Mr. Mayor, council people, the helpers, Madam Clerk, my friends in the audience. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Aaron Rusnick, owner of Drafting Table Brewing Company, 49438 Pontiac Trail. First off, I really want to thank our council. You guys were thrown into this and I can't imagine how much sleep you guys have lost and time with your families working through all this, an impossible situation you guys were thrown into. So yeah, thank you. Secondly, this is for the staff. We actually just had a mention about schools. I noticed in the presentation today that schools, churches, and parks were taken out of the consideration for the setback. This is a great concern of mine. We've had a lot of talk about it. I've been to every public meeting so far. And to be quite frank, this seems like a backdoor negotiation, especially considering October email correspondence with with the assistant city manager and the developer. I hope there's transparency as to why this decision was made. Thank you.

Christopher Flake, 1559 Grimersy Court in Wixom. So I want to start, as everyone else is, by saying thank you to everybody. Again, doing what was just said about the amount of time that you guys have spent on this. I really appreciate it. I know that you guys have taken extensive notes when everyone's talked. Not everyone's seen it because usually it's brought up towards the end after the public comment, but I know that you guys have been taking notes and then the suggestions that you guys have tried to make have been in line with what the residents have asked for. So thanks for all that. Again, thanks for the city council or the city employees for all the work that you guys have done on this. SO THE LAST CITY COUNCIL MEETING, I SPOKE AT THE VERY END TO SHOW MY SUPPORT FOR YOUR DECISION TO PASS THE FIRST READING AND THEN TO MOVE TO THE SECOND READING. I'M HERE AGAIN TO SHOW MY SUPPORT. IT'S NOT AN EASY DECISION. I THINK I SAID THAT LAST TIME. IT'S OBVIOUSLY SPLIT VOTE, FOUR TO THREE. IT'D BE NICE TO SAY, LET'S JUST NOT HAVE ANY DATA CENTERS AT ALL, BUT PER MICHIGAN STATE LAW, THAT ISN'T LEGAL. SO THE NEXT BEST THING WE CAN DO IS REGULATE THEM, let's see, to use additional regulations on sound and setback to restrict how loud and how impactful data centers are to the city. I also, I would have loved the half mile setback. It was fantastic. There was like almost no space in the city, except that also wouldn't have been legal or at the very least it would have been challenged in court and likely would have lost. So while the thousand foot might not be what we want it's probably the best thing that we can do given state law And then the next point was the noise restrictions. I want to note that the current zoning regs for industrial, I believe, are 70 decibels, which is significantly higher than the, I think, 55 and 45 decibel restrictions that are proposed. So I think the main way that we're going to regulate data centers is not via a setback, but via the noise restrictions that we place on them, because their noise is much more disruptive than a standard industrial environment. I think I've just covered about everything, but I hope that you all vote to approve these regulations so that we can close out the moratorium quickly so that we can show that the city's acting in good faith. Ultimately, it's not what we all want, but it's the best thing that we can do given state law. It's the responsible thing to do. And then in terms of the additional new business item about the soundscape proposal of measuring more sound or doing a sound study, I think doing that is a great next step. We don't have to, just because we passed some data regulations doesn't mean that we can't expand those and make them better as we go forward. So I hope that you approve that. I don't know if 30,000 is enough, but I'll leave you guys to figure out the exact amount. But thank you for your time.

good evening council catherine phillips two four one five winona drive with some i'm here to speak on the passing or the second reading of the ordinance and tonight we could be on the precipice of ending with some as we know it i implore each of you to not just act to get something on the books and i do realize an ordnance is needed but to really dig deep and look at how a thousand-foot setback will destroy the downtown area on which you have been working to improve for years. I was stunned at the last meeting that not only did you toss out the one-half-mile setback you put in place in late July, but you also threw out the 1,500-foot setback that the planning commission had been working on months to get before you. And now I'm very, very distressed to hear you've removed churches, schools, parks, et cetera, from that setback. That is not acceptable. The sound of a data center carries from one to three miles minimum. do what is best for the city not what is the easiest i read the city charter at the last meeting and a data center within one half mile of downtown does not align with that so you should also consider that the fifteen hundred foot setback should be the bearer minimum but as i said that still not adequate I don't think that we should govern in fear of being sued by a developer. Is that what we're here for? No. We also should be, as you stated last meeting, contacting our state representatives because the Michigan the EMSA or whatever it's called, the Zoning Enforcement Act is antiquated. No city, no municipality should be required to put in a business that they do not feel aligns with their city values and charters. Thank you.

Good evening, Council. My name is Bill Campbell, 3225 Potter Road, Wixom, Michigan. I've attended two of the meetings, and she actually stole some of my talking points, which is a little shorter for me. Starting off with a joke, we can not allow a Sheetz gas station, but yet we can allow...

You can allow a data center.

And during the last meeting, there was some residents that came up that were actually, they have businesses around that area. A guy was going to do a flooring shop. As a small business owner myself, I can't imagine having this Borg cube next to a business, let alone all the other businesses, let alone the city hall and the park. And I know you all had your decision. I was a little surprised at the vote. But the 2,640 feet, I wish we could make a motion tonight to bring that back on the table and vote on it again. And lastly, new business, I just noticed, and I haven't had time to even do a lot of this research, the temporary moratorium. I feel there's still a lot of learning. I feel we're setting an example for other communities. And I'd also like to ask the city attorney if we could all get together on what we can do as residents and start our own class action lawsuit against this bugger. Thank you.

Good evening, Council and Mayor. Roy Thorsell, 3207 Potter Road. So pretty much all the talking points have already been said. I think everybody's on the same page. I think my question is, I don't really care what the state law is because the state law was written. It can be unwritten. I think Bill stole some of my thunder about starting a class action lawsuit. At the end of the day, we don't have any power. But we have to make so much noise that we make so much bad PR for these people that they have to address us and they have to answer it. So I think peaceful resistance is what you have to do. The lawyers, the law, none of that's going to help us because we don't have all that money. That's the only way we can fight this. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

Hi City Council, hi Mayor. My name is Helen Consiglio and I live at 30910 Stone Ridge Drive. I've been a Wixom resident for four years and I'm here to talk about the data center. Data center deals historically don't have a lot of transparency in them and that worries me as a resident who lives a mile from the proposed data center site. what is going to happen to the electrical infrastructure from experience that our power goes out regularly and it fluctuates. How is a large data center going to help our grid and how are we not going to have our rates raised exponentially? Year over year, my DTE bill for where I live and I'm a single income household has gone up $70 from last July to this July. How much more will that go up with the data center? The next thing I worry about is the water. There is a data center in Wyoming that had contaminated groundwater because the wastewater from the closed loop cooling system went back into the city water. How are we going to be protected from that should a data center come through? It also really worries me that a developer is suing our city over not waiving our moratorium. If we don't band together and speak up about everything and make our voices heard, I know that we can't really do a lot because we're not tech billionaires, but we can speak. And that's a start. I worry that Wixom will become Saline Township 2.0 and that is something that no one wants. Additionally, the proposed data center in Wixom is about six miles from the proposed data center in Lyon Township. That sounds like our grid is going to be overworked to the highest degree and it's going to be more than just the city of Wixom at risk and falling victim to big tech. Who would be the end user, anthropic or open AI? Both of those companies are known for being, in my opinion, problematic. I appreciate your transparency and thank you for your time.

Mayor, council, thank you for hearing us tonight. My name is Travis Jones. I live at 3395 Theodore East. I purchased a home in Wixom three years ago. I love living here. I have found what I consider to be the most beautiful piece of property in Wixom, and I live there. Norton Creek, which runs north to south, runs right through my backyard. I have a gazebo lower, looks at, it's beautiful. When I heard that a new data center was being put in 2,700 feet from my house, I became concerned. I have major concerns about groundwater usage. The current... The ordinance doesn't have anything that requires disclosure of wells, anything that are put in to pull groundwater. It only has information regarding potable water. We talk in section 2D of the ordinance about allowable water cooling systems. I'm glad to hear that you guys recommend a closed loop system. However, you've given them an out in the ordinance which says that they only need to provide sufficient data that non-closed loop systems or hybrid systems needed. Who makes the decision on that then? The data center, the city council? I would recommend that we amend this to show, to make the applicant for the property pay a third party of the city's choosing to review the data and confirm that a closed loop system cannot be used. The ordinance also goes on to say that if alternate systems are proposed, they shall be designed to minimize potable water use, not groundwater use. I have equal concerns about water pollution. The current amendment does not provide sufficient protection to the local watershed, as it only concerns cooling water discharge to the wastewater treatment plant. As we know, these data centers use many diesel generators for backup or supplementary power. I'm concerned that even minor spills of diesel over time will contaminate the groundwater, pollute Norton Creek, which is part of the Huron River watershed. But that's not my only concern. The discharge of any water used by this site cannot go into the local groundwater, cannot go into the watershed. Not Norton Creek, and any discharges of water or diesel spillage should be immediately reported to the EGLE and the City of Wixom. Additionally, being so close to my home, I'm very concerned about the noise that this is going to create in our city. The ambient baseline in Section 1, Table 2 should remain as the noise metric. It was removed in later supervision without any justification. The new language allows for an increase in industrial noise. The citizens of this city should not have to deal with increased industrial noise, especially from an industry which offers no benefit to humanity. Subsection 1E also states that all noise from generator usage is subject to the ordinance limits, including temporary or emergency power. However, Wixom's noise ordinance 8.36.030 is subjective, vague, and difficult to enforce because it has no decibel limit. It has no decibel limit whatsoever. It just says for stationary engines, you've got to have a muffler on it. That's not quiet enough. Because there is no other industry that can generate the amount of noise or use the amount of power that a data center can. It requires specific regulation in use case, regardless of what state law says. I mean, are you really going to want to grab a pint at the drafting table while breathing diesel fumes or go to this lovely new West End Commons and not be able to hear of the clanking of diesel engines? I hope that it is abundantly clear to you that the citizens of Wixom do not want a data center in their town. Now it's your job to make it prohibitively expensive so that no one can cut through the red tape to put one here. Don't let them do it.

Hi, everyone. Mayor, members of city council, Kathy Oronsky, 2448 Headingham, 30-year-plus Wixom resident. Also, I'm an executive in the tech sector at a very large data processing company. I have nothing against data centers. What I do have a problem with is the fact that we are not protecting with mandatory protections and safeguarding our own city. I'm not against data centers, but they have to be smartly developed. Unlike standard industrial operations that shut down in the evening, everything runs 24 hours, seven days a week. Continuous low frequency acoustic environment. This is really undocumented with what the impact it could have on growing children that are in a new school within a pretty close radius. And standards zoning laws don't address this. So it's up on you and us to protect our neighborhoods, our local schools, such as the new elementary, and I respectfully request that you really have strict provisions in the final ordinance text, such as mandate C-weighted noise caps, like a few folks mentioned. Lock-in... the buffer you had before you changed it. The council with no basis in science chose to take the setback and move it closer to residential zones and really just people where they live. You really have no basis in science, but what do we know? And Duisiac, the class action lawsuit that's there, it's homes within a one mile radius. That's 5,280 feet. We were thinking 2,640 was, you know, not enough. So you moved it in, right? Or it was too far. You moved it in. So we have to go back to that or even more because if not, we are going to open the city up to a class action lawsuit because the lawyers in Duisniac will become knocking on our doors next. So... Restrict placement and make sure that the heavy industry like this, which really what it is, is more not next to office workers, right? I work in an office, go to an office. I don't want to hear that all day. And you have office folks over there. You need to use explicit mandatory language. No shall. I mean, you have to have shall. Not may, it may do this. You have to have shall. We can't enforce anything unless we have strong language. And I also agree with several of the residents about the noxious fumes and the water filtration. Those have to be shall items. It shall have that. It should have filtration. It should have noxious fume filtration. So... The moratorium really gave us a rare window to get this right, and it supported smart growth. So other communities are really pushing back and aggressively tightening their borders against data centers. We have to lead by example. We're small, but it doesn't mean we can't set the example. So please prioritize the well-being of your constituents, our children, over industrial convenience. Thank you.

Jessica Buck, 3014 Madison Street. I'm understanding why you need to pass the ordinance tonight, but we still need a lot of work of amendments to the ordinance before we allow any data center to start building. Do not end the moratorium early. Extend it. A moratorium in Michigan is solid for one year. Yours was only six months and now asking to end it after five months. There are several factors to consider for a moratorium to stay in place. Adoption of an ordinance is one of those, but we still have many issues with the ordinance. And I think the ordinance can be passed, but certain amendments can continue to be worked on for the moratorium to stay in place. Is the data center, does the data center have substantial negative impacts on the environment, public health, safety and welfare? This has never been answered with this ordinance. Is the data center interfering with other land uses? This has not been answered with the ordinance. Do we have a proper way to test the sound levels? I keep saying this on the agenda to find the right sound engineering. We still need time in this moratorium to make sure that we have the proper enforcement of the ordinance with the proper sound engineer. Do we have the right setback distance? Your ordinance, when reducing the setback to 1,000 feet, also struck the line within the distance of any school, park, or place of worship's property line. Why in the world was that part stricken? There's a daycare center right there where young children play outside every day. How are they protected? Where is the evidence that those children will be safe? What about the West End Commons, a new park? How is that park going to be protected? How does the ordinance that you took out that line about the 1,000-foot setback from this park, how does that ordinance protect the park? The moratorium states that the city is legitimately invested in ensuring that data centers do not interfere with other land uses. How in the world have you done that? There have been legitimate concerns from neighboring businesses. If sound levels get to a certain decimal, the business must supply equipment for their employees per OSHA regulations. What's the solution for them? Have you put that you're gonna supply that equipment for those employees? How is the ordinance protecting those local businesses? You need an amendment to address the businesses that are right next door to this data center. Legitimate concerns from the veterinarian I heard at a meeting about the impact on animals with the certain sound levels. If we're driving crazy from this noise, what about the poor animals? What was the solution for the animals? I haven't seen anything about the animals. How are they protected with the ordinance you're voting to adopt? They're not. You need an amendment to address that. Those are the legitimate concerns with the wildlife and the Wixom habitat being so close. How are they protected with the ordinance you are voting to adopt? You need to add an amendment about that. Your moratorium also states that the city is legitimately invested in ensuring that data centers do not have substantial negative impacts on the environment, public health, safety, and welfare. How have you done that? Where are the studies or documentation that this data center will not have negative impacts on the environment, public health, safety, and welfare? Has there been any evidence presented that data centers are safe?

The answer is no.

The community has expressed legitimate concerns of extensive water use issues. And we were told that while the city manager and the city staff are the ones that determine if there's a water shortage, who gets the water? All right, where's the assurance that we get the water? We already have a lawsuit that names that the city staff has said that the data center can build here. So maybe you're going to choose the data center over the residents. I want something in there that if there's a water shortage, you're going to give the water to us and not the data center. If our electrical grid, is it going to be able to handle the structure? The answer is also no. I live in downtown. I've lost power so many times. I know that hotel by Culver's because I've had to stay there so many times. I've had to buy a generator, pay an electrician to power my home because I have small children. Is my electricity bill going to go up? Absolutely. Am I going to lose more power often? Absolutely. When there's a decision of who gets the electricity, who's deciding that? DTE? Who's deciding that? The data center's going to get it. I mean, in Gary, Indiana, they're all without power. Guess who still has power? The data centers, not the people. How have the concerns over public health been addressed? Data centers are being sued left and right over causing serious health problems, cancer, miscarriages, heart attacks. How can we assure those health problems won't occur? There's a data center in Texas that a rancher has stated there's been no live birth since the data center went in. How is the ordinance protecting us from that? Where's the evidence it's safe? Where's the evidence that EMF's not going to go into the air, that our air won't be polluted, that the vibrations won't disrupt our sleep? Once Wixom Industrial places one brick and starts building, we're done and we're screwed. The community does not want a data center. One minute. Every politician that I see running in the election in November is bringing up data centers. They're running on the item that they will halt new data centers from being built. If you don't extend this moratorium, they're going to start building before those politicians take office, and then we're really screwed because it's not a new data center anymore. We all demand answers to our legitimate concerns before they start building, not after. Once they start to build, it is no longer a new data center. And when our newly elected officials help other communities, we will be left in the dust.

really tough act to follow, I have to say. Mark Durr, 3225 Potter Road. I know everyone's thanked you, but I have to say I'm really disappointed in the council. I was at the meeting prior to the last one where we had the half mile instituted. I didn't think I needed to come back to express my opinion of what needed to be happened. I KNOW I NEED TO ADDRESS YOU, HOWEVER, IF I ASKED THE AUDIENCE TO RAISE THEIR HAND, HOW MANY OF THEM WOULD SAY A THOUSAND FOOT IS ENOUGH CLEARANCE FROM HOMES? I GUARANTEE YOU 90% OF THEM WOULD BE RAISING THEIR HANDS THAT'S NOT ENOUGH SPACE. I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DIDN'T APPROVE OF SHEETS, BUT YOU FEEL THIS IS AN ACCEPTABLE USE OF PROPERTY IN OUR COMMUNITY. I know a lot of you've ran unopposed. I promise you if you go ahead and pass that, that won't be something that happens in the future. With that being said, I hope you reconsider the ordinances and really think about what you're doing because you're going to destroy this community as it is set currently. Thank you.

Hi. I've been so focused on the saline data.

Name and address, please.

Oh, my name is Sydney Finney. My address is 554 Merritt Lane. I'm a District 11 resident, and apparently now we have this happening. It's everywhere. I've been born and raised in this area my whole life. I don't live down the street from the data center being built, but I live, you know, 10 minutes down the road, 20 minutes down the road. I can't believe this is what's happening. Is this what the meetings always look like with all these people here? Are you the mayor? You're the mayor? I have two kids. I'm sorry. I just feel like no one's really focusing on what we're doing. You guys all seem a little bit older, and that's great. But it seems a little entitled to take all of our water And they're turning those puppies on Q1 2027. We're taking 20,000 gallons just from the wastewater and saline. That's a pool every day. Would we want a swimming pool filled and dumped every day? It might be on a closed loop for the data center, but the The other thing is still an enormous amount of water and polluting the river. And that's the precedence we've set with that one. That was yesterday that the paperwork had to be sent in. And today it's like, oh, wait, what? Like, this is the new deadline? And then Copper Mountain, like... What's going on, you guys? Can we just take a beat? This is too fast. Does anyone know? Did anyone get an LOI? Who's this coming? Who's at the boardroom meeting above this? Because this is just going too fast. And I just ask you just pump the brakes a little bit, look into things, and just look into it. Jocelyn Benson's husband owns Related Digital. That's crazy to me. She's going to be governor. No one's talking about that. This is real life. This is real life. He was the VP of... It's on his LinkedIn. It's on his LinkedIn page. Come on. They own the water treatment facility. Just focus for a second. We have kids. Please. That's all I have to say. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Good evening, Council, Mayor. Travis Fedelak, 1649 Winding Way Drive. So I have a little bit of a different speech, I guess. I don't have the data. I don't have the numbers. I'm a brand new resident in Wixom, which I take a lot of pride in moving here. Two weeks ago, my wife and I moved into this beautiful city at some point. A few years ago, my wife lived down the street in the apartments here. We fell in love with the downtown. We fell in love with the community. We fell in love with everything about what Wixom had. And now we're back. That speaks a lot for what we had going here or what we do have going here that you can attract younger couples like myself and my wife to live here and then want to settle to grow into here. But I am very disappointed to find out that I am having a data center in my downtown area where we are working so hard to build this up and have a hangout spot and just invite our community downtown to spend our time. We have concerts in the park. What are we going to do when you can't hear the music with the data centers running? What are we going to do when we have the fumes from the diesel and everything else that's in the air when we're trying to have concert in the park? All that's going to disappear with nobody who's going to want to show up. I also had some other points that I wanted to talk about. We have the raising of the bills with electricity and water bills, which other people have talked about. Where's the concern with, as someone just mentioned, if the data center does take the electricity bill, what happens to us? I haven't experienced a spike on our grid yet, thankfully, but what are we going to do when that happens? Are we just going to be told we're out of luck? Go buy a generator at Menards down the street? Is that what I'm going to be told to do? What about my water bills? What if my water isn't healthy for us anymore? What about when I have to drink water or any of the residents here have to drink water? What are we going to do with that? It's just ridiculous that it has come down to this just moving in and I have to come here and I have to argue with a bunch of other residents who have lived here for most of their lives, which I take pride in as well because it shows that it's a community that sticks together and stays together. There's also a reduction of property value and a loss of tax revenue, therefore, with the loss of property value if this data center comes in. Nobody wants to live by a data center. We just heard it with everybody here. Nobody wants to live with the data center. We have houses across the street. We have houses up Wixom Road. We have apartments down here.

Nobody's going to want to move in.

He has the floor. And I guess there's a new residential area coming across the street. Mike, there's also another point that I have a problem with, and it's job creation. There is no job creation when it comes to these AI data centers. In return, AI is taking away jobs. I have friends and family who have lost jobs this year due to their companies taking on AI and promoting AI. I have other news of... people that are working on projects to also use AI to reduce people's jobs. So we might add a few jobs here to watch over our data center. We're taking away thousands of other jobs elsewhere in our community and throughout the world. There's the barn, which is the saline data center down the street or down the road. has gotten approved and they're unfortunately starting the construction there, but which other residents have brought up, what are we doing to protect ourselves when they put in a permit or something else? Once we grant them to start digging into the ground, the Saline Data Center wants to use the Saline River as a discharge. What is going to happen to our water and our area when that happens? You let them settle in, they're gonna start suing us even more what they're trying to do when we don't let them do specific things. So how are we going to protect ourselves from future lawsuits? I haven't been in any of the city council meetings previously. I appreciate the concern and how we've been working together to try to find a happy ground. But my concern is I believe, I feel like we're throwing the towel in and they're just, and while we're throwing the towel in, we're just trying to make the people happy. I don't want to be, I want to be coming here for the rest of my life. I want to hear 40 year resident, 50 year resident, 60 year resident. I want to be that myself.

One minute.

We might not be able to block the data center, but we can definitely make it tough where they have to jump through 100 loops and hurdles to get through this, and maybe they just don't stick around. Thank you for your time.

Hi, I'm Marianne Harper. I live on 1614 Brentwood Drive. I've been a 36-year resident of Wixom. I wasn't going to come today because I kind of felt that I was defeated. I don't know if you guys received my, I'm sure you did, or had a chance to read it because I sent it off at midnight last night. And one of the councilmen, thank you very much for reading that and responding back to me this morning. I understand that we do have to have ordinances and everything, but that doesn't mean we need to pass what we have now in the fear of being sued by them. All these other cities are not accepting that fear and they are moving forward to extend them, to do more research, to make more stringent ordinances. And I agree with the lady who had the wonderful speech, once you start to let them build, it's too late. Well, what are they building over there by those warehouse buildings? I believe that is the proposed data center that has been submitted. They've already knocked down all of the land there, the trees, the dirt, and everything. So they are very confident that something is going to get passed. And I do understand, just because there's an ordinance, that we're trying to put in place, and no data center has been approved yet, but once we put something out there in the fear that we are going to be sued, we're done for. And I don't think these citizens care if they are going to sue us. I know you do, because I know it costs money, but that's not fair. And one other thing, in the letter, that I got back. There was a statement from the lawyers that was supposed to be passed down to the citizens if they inquire. And one of them said to send something to your Congress people, your state, your representatives. So I started doing that. I sent one to Rumsfeld. I sent one to Rogers. I even sent a letter to Governor Whitmer telling her how disappointed I really have been that she's put Michigan in a place like this. It's not going to matter. I feel that no matter what we do, it's not going to matter. It's just going to allow us to vent. But I feel there's no longer we the people anymore. And I'd like to thank you because I know you guys are working very hard. I understand it. But I just feel that the city of Wixom is just the fear of being sued, and they just don't want that to be the burden. Thank you very much.

Just for clarification, there has been no work, no ground broke so far with the data center. The property that you're talking about is an existing Wixom company who has buildings in three other communities, and they are combining all their businesses and building there. So the data center has not, their plans have not even been submitted yet, so...

Council, staff, my name is Mike Leslie. I'm a 41-year resident of the City of Wixom. My address is 2040 Hopkins Drive. Everything that has been said at this meeting, the meeting before this, and all the previous meetings to that, I only leave you with one thought. Open up your hearts, open up your conscience, And do what the city residents have asked you to do. Carry out the wishes of your constituents. Thank you.

Greetings, Council. My name is Corey Giprich. I'm a resident of 3920 Child's Lake. I moved in about six months ago. Did not expect to be fighting this fight that quickly. Been busy with normal move-in stuff, but here we are. I really appreciate everyone bringing this up. All of your concerns are super valid and we need to all band together to fight this because I did not move here to live down the street from the data center stealing the water from my well. The one thing that nobody has brought up tonight is what a fire hazard that data centers can be. I went to the meeting in Lyon Township over the winter time and The presenter there had a big fancy PowerPoint about all the things that were going to be correct about the various data center that was going in there. And the fire chief there said that they underwent a brief training seminar about how to fight a lithium ion fire. Without a substantial boost of the budget, hiring new firefighters, getting new equipment, the things that that would require. So that's my biggest concern. Other than everything else that anyone else has brought up tonight, data centers use giant, unbelievably large lithium ion battery banks to store data and energy. It's similar to what's in your phone and like your battery tools. When lithium ion batteries burn, they require no oxygen to keep on burning. Unlike a standard building fire that's made of wood and other normal things, it cannot be smothered or put out with standard chemical agents. A process known as thermal runaway keeps a fire burning with zero oxygen requirement, fuels its own heat through continuous chemical reactions, and shields itself from standard extinguishing agents. It is self-sustaining and unbelievably hard to put out. The local fire department is certainly not ready for a disaster of this magnitude, and it's very telling how this seeming reluctance to continue the moratorium comes on the heels of removing proximity concerns from schools and churches. And that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Hello, Heather Parush, 1658 Brookside Court. Thank you guys again for coming and letting us all speak. I had a chance to look over the second amendments, and there were just a couple things that I wanted to bring up that I did not see that I know were discussed at, I believe it was, the July meeting. One of the things that we had talked about that I don't see anywhere, I know that there was some back and forth about how far things were set back, and it looks like that did get decreased. Another one that is not mentioned, and I would ask if we don't put something specific, at least have some kind of clause so that if additional studies and information comes to light, it can be looked at, and that's the EMF radiation. You are within one and a half miles of three schools, multiple daycare centers, and if you expanded that to a five mile radius, it would include probably about at least a third of the schools, at least elementary schools in the district. So I would look at putting in limits, safe limits of the EMF radiation, just like we're doing with noise and things like that within property lines and how far it travels, so I don't know exactly what those are, but I think even if we don't include something like that, I think we should. We should put something in there about as more are built and studies come to light, we have the opportunity to evaluate those and see if there's any concerns that may arise. One other thing that I just wanted to bring up, someone mentioned about these state officials. And I know, again, I appreciate everything you guys are doing with trying to put these things in place. I think that's been recognized throughout this. But I do think that... we have kind of a unique situation where we live. Even though these things are industrial, we have a small city footprint where industrial is very, very close to our residential. It's where cities are to where schools are. And I think a lot of the places that they're building are a little bit more rural, where you have some houses around, but there's not as much so close to it. So I don't know from lawyers for the city or what different rules are, but I think that if there's anything we can look at I know this state said we can't say we can't do this, but if there's any type of loopholes or things for consideration as a city, we can say, hey, here's our exception. Here's why this is different. Can we get something to either delay it, to look into it, or put some further stipulations on? Specifically, I'm looking at, and I didn't even realize this the first time, 600,000 square feet of buildings because of the three buildings is what they're looking at right now. because how close we are to everything and the size of the parcel of land, is there some kind of size restriction or square footage that makes sense for the use? So those are a few of my things. The biggest reason I came here was for the schools with the EMF, and I know some people don't believe in that. I know we have routers in our houses, but I think there's a lot we don't know about this right now. So I think that measure of what it's giving off, any additional power lines that have to go in, is worth adding to the... for the amendments. So thank you guys very much.

Hello again. Cecil George, Lyon Township. So I don't feel like my address really matters. A few of you guys have been to the data center and the YGAC and you experienced the sound. So understand that they're going to build not just one building, they're going to be a multiple. But what I wanted to say is, even though I lost my race, I'm here to support you guys. When I was here at the last meeting, July 14th, when the guy who was here for the data center said that he was trying to be a good neighbor of sort. Yeah. And they went and filed a lawsuit rather than just going with the moratorium. I say you keep your moratorium in place still for another six months, even with the ordinances, regardless of what's going on for the studies to be done. I have a stepmother who works for a data center for Meta in Ohio, and she's talking to me about all the things that they do that's terrible, how they're already abandoning some of these data centers. So why do we want to be another community that abandoned our data centers? They're going to do that to us because it'll be our data center, not anyone else's. What happens in this community affects everyone. So if they were good neighbors like he was trying to say he was going to be, they wouldn't be trying to sue the city of Wixom. They wouldn't go after the people that they want to be good neighbors to. And like the lady before me just said, where are the state officials? You are local government. You affect us more than anyone else. Well, the state officials who's supposed to be putting things into place to stop this, they're not showing up to these things. They're not showing up to city council meetings. They're not trying to connect with the people to see what's going on in these communities. I do not feel like they really care about you guys, and I don't feel like they really care about these people. But I feel like you guys do. I've always said since the first meeting where I met you, Mayor Beagle, that you guys are amazing and you fight for your city. And I do want to see you continuously do that. Regardless of what party you're with, you're doing what you're supposed to do for the people. And I want to congratulate you on that. And because of everyone who's here to support you guys, We're going to stand behind you through the lawsuit. So keep fighting, and we're going to fight with you. And as long as the people behind us continue to show up, it's going to continue to gain more attention. And the more attention it gains, they're going to back away. So we have to keep fighting. So that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Hello, George and Sarah here, resident of 2028 Hopkins Drive. I am a four year resident, moved here in July 1st, 2022. So all this talk about a lawsuit, some very baseline questions. One, how did it get to this point? Who allowed this to happen? Who's benefiting off of this data center? It certainly isn't us. I don't know a single person, not just from this municipality, from literally not one citizen is like, oh yeah, we should ought to have this. No, never once. So I think the public ought to have some legitimate answers, and if you guys are benefiting off this somehow, then that ought to be publicly disclosed, out of all fairness, because that would not be acceptable. So if one lawsuit isn't bad enough, what if more lawsuits come into play? The city will be in turmoil, and things will not be harmonious as everyone here wants it to be harmonious. I think the integrity of this board needs to be poked, prodded questions heavily. Because quite frankly, it's unacceptable. We're supposed to bear the burden on our water bill. We've got to take care of the things that they're supposed to be on top of that. All the talk of toxic this, irradiation that. Where's the benefit? How are we benefiting off of any of this at all? It doesn't make any sense. So it's pretty common sense. And I'm not going to spend much more time here. I'm just going to end on this note. Listen to the people who live in this town because we're the ones paying the taxes. We're the ones keeping you guys where you're supposed to be or where you think you're supposed to be. And it's got to end. There's got to be a resolution. And like I said, if any of you are benefiting off of this, then you're going to have to publicly disclose that because that's going to cause a pandemonium throughout this entire town. Thank you.

Again, for clarification, nobody on this council has signed the NDA, and nobody is benefiting from the data center.

Yes, good evening. Frank Cooney, 4206 Warrington Drive.

I'm a 24-year Wixom resident.

I kind of want to take a little different tact here. Having some knowledge of how some of these other large projects have been either put off or defeated in Michigan, in particular the Goshen battery plants, and just for those that are here that are maybe unaware of how those plants were actually stopped, it was all through litigation and through ordinance. I think trying to set ordinances that will prohibit them from building these data centers is probably going to be not very fruitful. It's the opposition, the cost that generates, and the time that it takes for them to to wade through all that is what actually wins the day. I think that these data centers are being placed everywhere. It's a shotgun approach, and other people have mentioned it, but it's basically bandwidth. They're gonna build them until they have what they need, and then where they've had resistance and they've not gotten to where they need to be, they're gonna walk away. So I think we need to be in a position where we put up as much of a barrier as possible and for as long as possible so that other people who are not successful with putting them off or stopping them end up being the places where the centers get built, they get the capacity they need, they get the bandwidth they need, and then everything else that's still on the table is basically not viable anymore. The second thing I'd like to say is I think you're all aware of the fact that you have a taxing authority, you have a special assessment authority, And I think if you're not moving to start to engage at that level to prepare for this type of activity, then I would say you're irresponsible in your positions. It's one thing to sit and listen to the public. It's one thing to sit and write ordinances. But if we all know that our tact is going to be to put up legal resistance, you have the ability to generate the funds to do that. You can present it to the people, have them understand what the taxing is going to be focused on, and put it before the people, let them vote on it. So if we have the money, We've got time. If we don't have the money, then you're sitting there. Your fiduciary responsibilities are well understood. You've got to make decisions that basically might forsake the will of the people because in your own minds, maybe you're saying, hey, I'm making the decision because it's the right thing to do financially for the city. We can remedy that, or you can remedy that. So I'm asking you to please consider that. Take some action in that regard because if you don't, I think myself and other people looking at these other organizations that fought Goshen and other large companies realize that's where the battle's gonna take place. Thank you very much.

Hello, my name is Danielle Mosier. I live at 2996 Madison Street in Wixom. I think that we just need to take a step back and breathe. This all feels extremely rushed. I'm sure it feels extra rushed to you guys. A lawsuit can be a scary thing, especially when you're named in it or there's specific things in there. that it's just scary, right? We're a smaller city. We're up against some big guns. And I think that's what they want us to feel, right? They want us to feel scared and buckle. I recognize our attorney is in a difficult spot, right, in advising how to go about this and how we should reel back some of the ordinance to be a little bit easier and not be so restrictive. But At the same time, if we're doing that, we're just admitting defeat before we're even getting started in the fight. If we can extend the moratorium and just take a couple breaths and really just look at this and see how we can dissect things a little bit further and be a little bit more restrictive within reason, right? But not just completely buckle at the instant that we have a lawsuit. I mean, there's some hard things that are going to be in the lawsuit, but I can tell you that if we don't just buckle, all of these people in this city are willing to fight with you. RIGHT? LIKE, WE DON'T, WE WANT TO BE FAIR, AND I UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS A REALLY DIFFICULT THING THAT NOT A LOT OF CITIES HAVE WON OR TACKLED, AND MAYBE WE ARE GOING TO LOSE. BUT GUESS WHAT? WE'RE GOING TO GO DOWN TRYING. THAT'S WHY ALL OF US ARE HERE. WE DON'T WANT TO JUST TRUMBLE. So a lot of people have said some amazing things about what we should be putting in the ordinance and how we should be going about that. But I just ask that even if our attorney is saying one thing, this is on all of you and your votes. And we really, really want you to just take some more time, extend the moratorium, give us all a little bit more time to just look at things before we rush into something and just admit defeat before we're even there. Please stay strong. That's all I ask.

My name is Ryan Kregner. I live at 2040 Bogey. I used to live in... Bloomfield Township is where I used to work, and I moved out to Wall Lake, and I lived in Wixom for about 40 years. And I moved out to Wixom because I wanted to get away from all this crap. And now I'm out here because I didn't want to live with all this that's going on And I was kind of hoping that we wouldn't have to put up with this kind of stuff anymore. And here we go again. And I don't know what all this is about. And I can't believe that this is coming out here to Wixom now. And what I'm kind of hoping that Wixom has got the guts, just like Vietnam, We put up with this stuff in Vietnam, and here we are again. As you can see on my hat. And I'll fight it again. I will. But if that's what it takes, let's do it. Let's just fight it. Let's get them out of here. We don't need this stuff here. We came out here to a nice, quiet community, and, you know, let's fight it. Come on. Wixom is a nice, quiet community. And what these people have all got up here and said, we don't need this. We don't need this stuff out here. We're talking about the Huron River. It's going to be polluted. We're talking about all this stuff that's going to be coming out here. We're talking about screwing up our schools. We're talking about it messing up the river. We're talking about it. Sure, they bought up some of our property down here, but we don't have to let them build on it and do whatever they want. No. We don't have to let them rezone it. There's no way. So I don't think we should let them do whatever they want out here. We've got the right, you've got the right to say no. No. It's a simple two-letter word. No. No.

Hi, Keith Crowder, 2906 Blue Heron, Wixom resident for 26 years. I wasn't planning on talking, but I think I need to say one thing that nobody said. City Council has made it clear they're not benefiting from the proposed data center. There's been no NDA sign. I applaud this. However, the folks sitting to the right of us, other than the city clerk, who is an elected official, I believe they're the ones advising you on the changes and what should be done. My question is, where are their loyalties? They're unelected, so they advise these things. You think, okay, we probably should do this. You make the changes, but... is that really the right thing to do? So my question is, have anybody sitting at that table signed an NDA? I don't know, but something worth thinking about. That's all I got to say. Thank you.

Is there anybody else for the first call to the public? Seeing none, I'll close the first call to the public, and we're going to take a brief five-minute recess before we get on to the business portion of the meeting. Thanks.

Agenda.

All items listed under the consent agenda are considered routine by the City Council and will be enacted by one motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a council member so requests. In which event, the items will be removed from the consent agenda and added to the regular agenda at the end of unfinished or new business. Do I have a motion?

Move to approve.

Support. I got a motion and a support to approve the consent agenda as presented tonight. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Carries. All right. Moves us on to unfinished business. Unfinished business number one is a second reading and adoption of an ordinance to amend the Wixom Code of Ordinances, title 18, amend section 18.09, industrial districts, section 18.09.020, schedule of uses to address the permissibility of data centers in the M1 and M2 zoning districts. Amend section 18.09.040 standards applicable to specific uses and to provide specific standards for data center uses in the M1 and M2 zoning districts. And amend section 18.24.030 to provide definitions for data centers as revised on August 11, 2026. Do I have a motion? So moved.

Support.

I got a motion and a support. Assistant City Manager Benson?

I'll actually lead off, Your Honor. Before we get into the presentation, just in case it makes anybody in the audience feel better, there was some discussion and question about the people in the bullpen, as I refer to us over here, having any kind of an issue in terms of having financial ties, an NDA, anything of that sort. I polled all my colleagues, and we all affirmatively report that we have not signed any NDA and have no financial ties to anybody involved with any data center developments in the city of Wixom. I don't have any ties to anybody doing any kind of developments in the city of Wixom, let alone data centers. So just to begin with that, I wanted to get that clear in case it made anybody feel better from the audience. And beyond that, we have a discussion that we're going to walk through here as a presentation to discuss this. And I'll get out of the way and let Drew Benson start that off.

Thanks, Steve. So for the benefit of City Council as well as members of the audience, a lot of this is going to look similar. There are new members in the audience tonight. We never quite know what the crowd's going to look like. So some of this may feel repetitive, but we're trying to be as clear and as transparent about both the process as well as what is proposed to give City Council the best opportunity to be able to make a decision here. So I know some of this is going to be small, and we will do our best to not read this word for word, because we do not want to take up more time than necessary. But we will try to address any questions that we can. So just giving the local context, we talk about this in the very first discussion that city council had on this item. And some members of the public have mentioned this. Wixom is a relatively heavy commercial industrial community. About 53% of our tax base is commercial or industrial. We do not have many large vacant industrially zoned properties. In fact, we don't have many large acreage properties left in general. However, we do have a couple industrially zoned properties over 25 acres. purchase its water through the Great Lakes Water Authority, so we are not on a community well system. We contract with Goliwa to purchase our water, and we have contractual limits with them that are reviewed every four years based on our prior usage and kind of setting what that system looks like. We also operate our own wastewater treatment facility, so we are able to set the standards for what wastewater we are or aren't willing to accept, as well as set the limits of really what the capacity of our wastewater system is. In addition, we are served by DTE Energy for Electricity, who maintains an existing substation near West Road, and we do have existing relatively large transmission lines that run through the city. We cannot speak from a staff perspective on what DTE's exact available capacity is. We do note that they have publicly stated that they have excess capacity. I can't verify whether that's true or not. let alone whether they have the capacity to serve any individual use. And we do have an ordinance standard that kind of talks about their necessary participation in anything related to a data center. So while there are many different types and sizes of data centers, there have been some references to existing data center uses that have been around for years. They tend to be smaller, 10,000 to 50,000 square feet. Modern ones that we're seeing that are hyperscale data centers of over two million square feet. Given that we have relatively more substantial industrially zoned property as well as existing utility setups, it does appear that Wixom has infrastructure that would attract potential data centers. But because this technology is so new, We are not certain on any individual given application given we don't have the materials. We don't know if our systems can or can't support it. And it really will depend on any application if and when we receive one and it is moved forward for processing. In terms of the history of this, the city first started actively discussing this topic following direction from the Wixom City Council at its November 18th meeting, where you made a motion to direct us and the Planning Commission to begin reviewing our zoning ordinance definitions and regulations related to large-scale data centers. On March 24th, City Council opted to approve a resolution imposing a temporary moratorium for a period of six months on the establishing or anything related to data centers for the purpose of studying and giving ourselves the time to be able to draft and adopt regulations to that effect. On June 29th, the Planning Commission held its second public hearing related to the data center ordinance amendments and approved a draft ordinance or set of amendments to come forward to City Council. City Council held its first reading or introduction and first reading of that draft at your July 14th meeting. At that meeting, you ultimately opted as a body to make a variety of changes that were uh... later incorporated in based on the direction of city council where we're reasonable and that was obviously a big part of our last conversation uh... at the august eleventh meeting uh... at that meeting city council introduced it essentially had a second introduction first reading of the draft ordinance amendments because of the relatively significant changes at that time stiff staff provided a recommendation of making a couple specific changes. One, we did recommend the removal of table two in section 2N1D. And that specifically referenced an additional table that would have provided for the use of an ambient plus one sound standard. And that recommendation from us ultimately came down to our concerns about its ability to be enforced as well as basically the easily challengeable nature of that in our opinion. So we made that recommendation. We also recommended that the minimum setback for residential uses which had been amended at the at the July 14th meeting, up to 2,640 feet or half a mile. We recommended moving that back down to 1,000 feet. And we did recommend the removal of the reference to setbacks from schools, parks, and places of worship. For what it is worth... That language was added as a part of the amendments suggested by city council on the 14th. Pretty much every school park and place of worship is already zoned residential or allows for residential uses and therefore would be covered by the existing setback. However, one of the primary concerns is that there are park plans and potentially other uses in industrially zoned areas that would create essentially an unintendedly exclusionary set of circumstances. And that was our concern and therefore the reason for our recommendation. And then there were just a variety of grammatical tweaks. A copy of the red line ordinance based on the discussion from your August 11th meeting is included in your agenda packet and was posted on the city's website alongside a clean copy of those ordinance amendment. So after discussion on August 11th, you all moved to make those series of recommendations and then move this forward for a second reading and adoption. So here we are tonight. Before we get into the meat and potatoes of the draft ordinance and what it says, we did want to put together some kind of key points to consider. And these are discussion topics that both the Planning Commission have had, we've had to some extent with City Council as well, and many members of the audience who have been at these meetings over the last few months may be aware of these. HOWEVER, AGAIN, FOR THE SAKE OF CONSISTENCY, FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT BEEN A PART OF THIS PROCESS OVER THE COURSE OF TIME, WE FELT THAT IT WOULD BE, YOU KNOW, IMPORTANT TO KIND OF PUT THESE OUT HERE. ULTIMATELY, AND BEFORE I GET INTO THESE, ULTIMATELY THESE ARE POLICY DECISIONS WHEN IT COMES TO ADOPTING ORDINANCES AND SIMILAR THINGS LIKE THAT. SO WE GIVE YOU THE BEST ADVICE THAT WE CAN. And I think it's important to remember how much time has been spent on this over the last nine months. I believe we've had, now we're up to nine or 10 individual public meetings on this, let alone the time spent on research into it. So while I don't think, I can't say for certain that every single possible outcome has been fully insured to prevent in the ordinance itself, The important thing is that we believe that we've given you guys the tools that if you do get an application, that you'll have the ability to scrutinize that application and have the tools to be able to ask the right questions, get the right information from an applicant, and not be forced into making decisions that you don't have the correct information to do so with. Another thing that's very important to remember is that moratoriums inherently have to be temporary. The Michigan Zoning Enabling Act does not provide the city the level of protection that we would prefer when looking at moratoriums and considering the length of them or any of those. Ultimately, moratoriums are challengeable. It is well known that our moratorium is being challenged. us as well as the city of Gibraltar, and there are other communities. There have been other communities that have been challenged on these in the past for other uses. Ultimately, the point of a moratorium is related to your legislative process of putting together an ordinance to regulate whatever that given use is at that time. So with all of those things, we are trying to make our best recommendation to you all, answer as many questions as we can for both the public and for city council, and helping you guys feel like you're prepared to be able to make the policy decisions you feel are correct. Referring back to the Zoning Enabling Act, a lot of people talked about it tonight, so I don't feel necessarily that I need to read it verbatim, but it is pointed out the Michigan Zoning Enabling Act clearly states that we cannot totally prohibit a lawful land use where there's a demonstrated need. I mentioned in the next point, demonstrated need is a legal and factual question evaluated in the context of a particular land use, ultimately decided by, in a court of law, It is not a determination that can be made by any single individual, any single individual body. And it is a complicated standard to try to argue against. And in addition to all of that, There can be consequences of when you're putting together your ordinance language to govern any particular use throughout an entire city. There has to be a responsibility that regulations protect the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens and property owners. AND ALSO MUST BE SUPPORTABLE BY THE RECORD DEVELOPED THROUGHOUT THE CITY'S PROCESS OF DEVELOPING THAT AND BASED ON THE INFORMATION THAT YOU AND WE ALL HAVE BEEN ABLE TO PUT TOGETHER WHEN MAKING THE ORDINANCE REGULATIONS THAT ULTIMATELY GET ADOPTED. Any regulation can be challenged and adverse legal outcomes can eliminate the city's ability to enforce the regulations it adopts. It can also result in financial damages being due from the city and its taxpayers. There are examples of that in different contexts all throughout the state and all throughout the country. That is not to say that you do not have the ability to adopt strong regulations. It is just to say that it has to be thoughtful and it has to be backed in a way that you all and we all and collectively we can defend when it comes time to implement and enforce the ordinance itself. The proposed ordinance amendment establishes pretty substantial requirements that must be satisfied before a project can move forward. So again, this is just to reiterate that the discussion topic tonight is not about whether to approve any individual data center or to say any individual parcel is or isn't acceptable or any specific context. WHAT YOU ARE DOING TONIGHT AND WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN DOING IS WORKING ON A SET OF STANDARDS THAT SETS THE TABLE FOR HOW, IF SOMEONE WANTS TO DO A PARTICULAR USE, HOW THEY HAVE TO GO ABOUT APPLYING FOR IT AND WHAT STANDARDS THEY HAVE TO BE ABLE TO MEET AND BE ABLE TO VERIFY IN ORDER FOR THEM TO BE APPROVED. OTHERWISE, YOU HAVE THE DISCRETION AND YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO DENY THEM. Throughout this entire process we have been fortunate that the community has participated at every meeting. It really is something to see and I appreciate everyone taking the time out of your days to come be a part of these conversations and be a part of informing what your concerns are, what things we need to look at, and what kind of standards need to be in place. And as mentioned previously, any assistance that we can get from the state of Michigan as it relates to this topic, ultimately they set the rules and the standards that local municipalities operate under. And I know we have had, Steve, you may be able to speak to this as well, we have had conversations, our state representatives, both State Senator Runstad as well as State Representative Ann Polin, They are familiar with this topic. We have had conversations with them. Even if they may not be in attendance tonight, I do know we talked to both. Oh, Ann, you're here?

Oh, hi, Ann.

You did make it.

Thank you. By the way, Senator Runstad is out of the area on a travel trip right now, so I wanted to make mention of that as well.

So, from this point on, I will kick it over to Mr. Pasolaco with Carlisle Wartman Associates, who's been a key part of this process to kind of give a broad overview of the amendments. I will tell everybody, we did not do this verbatim again. I know it was kind of a lot in past cases. So, we will be giving a broad overview. If there are questions... Once we kind of finish the broad overview, we do have the full text available via slides, so we can go to them if at any point anyone wants to discuss any specific section.

Thank you. Mateo Paslaqua, Carlisle-Wartman Associates. We are the planning consultants for the city. So as Mr. Benson had indicated, I'm going to go through the ordinance again. As he had stated, my slides are, well, I will read them verbatim, are more generalized in describing the types of studies that are required and the types of requirements that are in the ordinance itself. And again, after the presentation, we'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have. So again, an important step is defining data centers to differentiate them from other terms in our ordinance, and so to that we have them defined as a facility or group of buildings whose primary function is the housing, operation, and maintenance of computer servers, data storage systems, telecommunications equipment, and associated infrastructure used for the processing, storage, or transmission of digital information. Such facilities may include backup power generation, cooling systems, fuel storage, and security infrastructure. This term does not include server rooms or data processing facilities that are accessory or incidental to a primary permitted use. Data centers are newly defined. As newly defined would be special land uses in the M1 and M2 zoning districts. Special land use approval is only granted when applicable standards cited in Chapter 1818. Special land uses, review requirements, procedures, and specific standards in Section 1809.040 are met and require a public hearing be scheduled with mail notification to all property owners within 300 feet. The special land use designation is an important one. It is a tool in which municipalities can apply some level of a subjective nature to what they're reviewing and request specific types of information or requirements that may not be specifically outlined in the ordinance itself, but so long as they are tied to a demonstrated issue with the use, it does allow you a little wiggle room to make your decision should you be considering approval or denial. So that is an important wiggle room aspect of the ordinance that we have written. Data centers would by default be prohibited in all other zoning districts. So IRO, OS, any of your residentials, your B3s, all that would be, data centers would be prohibited from being proposed in those areas. The text amendments to section 1809040 would be the specific standards applied to data centers and this section provides those specific standards. Those standards would reference minimum distances from residentially zoned or used properties, required noise studies, noise regulations, cooling system design, anticipated utility usage and capacity verification, traffic analysis, security measures, and decommissioning plans. In kind of a general overview of that section, required application materials would be verification of electric water and wastewater capacity, detailed electrical demand and resiliency information, cooling and water use plans, noise impact studies, backup power and fuel storage plans traffic and delivery analysis security and emergency access plans and decommissioning plans there would be multiple levels of verification that are included in those studies a 48-hour baseline sound measurement before construction Site-specific 3D predictive noise modeling, detailed equipment noise data for manufacturers, detailed equipment noise data from manufacturers of the equipment they would be proposing to use. Independent acoustic consultant peer review, post-construction testing before certificates of occupancy are issued. That also includes temporary certificates of occupancy. Ongoing monitoring may be required if necessary. Again, as we've discussed, noise is one of the top concerns as it relates to data centers per their operations. Data centers must comply with specific daytime and nighttime sound limits at receiving property lines. Standards apply to properties in Wixom and adjacent municipalities. We do have separate DBA and DBC limits addressed in the overall sound, for overall sound and low frequency noise concerns. There is a 10 decibel penalty that applies to either the DBA or the DBC limits if it's determined that the data center is creating tonal noise, most typically associated with humming, droning, or screeching. Data centers may not produce perceptible ground-borne vibrations at the property lines. For location and setbacks, the data centers cannot be located adjacent to residentially used or zoned properties. Principal buildings and mechanical equipment, including generators, must be at least 1,000 feet from residentially zoned or used properties. Additional separations required where necessary to meet the applicable noise and vibration standards. So there is language that while we have applied a setback, there's also a standard that if If the data center cannot meet our noise and vibration standards, even if it's outside of the buffer, so they meet the buffer standard, but they're still not meeting noise and vibration, they don't meet the standard, and you would be in a position to deny them based on that? Screening and site design requirements include mechanical equipment being fully screened from public view and adjacent properties. Those requirements to apply to HVAC equipment, generators, fuel storage, transformers, cooling towers, sound barriers are subject to height, appearance, and durability standards in the ordinance. As it relates to water and infrastructure, air cooled hybrid or closed loop cooling systems are required unless an alternative method is justified. Water usage capped based on available city utility capacities. Non-potable reclaimed water may be required where feasible. Applicant is responsible for necessary infrastructure and utility improvements resulting from the development. Backup power and fuel, only tier four or the most efficient generators are permitted to be specified for the project. There is required Eagle air quality permits that must be obtained. Routine generator testing is limited to between nine and five on weekdays, excluding holidays. So again, these centers typically have several a wide array of backup generation that must be tested typically on a weekly or monthly basis. So we do outline when those can take place. Regardless of the fact that they're only being tested, generator noise must still meet all of the noise limits in the ordinance as it relates to both testing and power outages. As it relates to ongoing compliance, the city can require continuous noise monitoring at the applicant's expense. Independent third party audits may be required. Violations can result in citations, fees, permit revocation, or other available penalties. Special land use enforcement, the planning commission can revoke a special land use permit if approved requirements or conditions have not been met by the applicant. Revocation requires a public hearing and opportunity for the applicant to respond. Conditions of approval, the Planning Commission and City Council can impose reasonable conditions to ensure compliance with the ordinance, mitigate impacts on surrounding properties, address impacts on public services, conditions that would be documented through a development agreement recorded against the property. And again, just for clarification, the process for data center review is special land use hearing at Planning Commission where they would then make a recommendation to City Council where then you would consider the special land use and site plan at another public hearing. So as it relates to the map, all properties, this is as it relates to the conversation about the buffers and the setbacks, all properties within orange outlines are industrially, Are industrially zoned parcels that are adjacent to residentially zoned used or properties and therefore completely ineligible for data center proposals? All the areas with the green buffer are areas within 1,000 feet of residentially zoned zones or uses and therefore ineligible for data center structures or equipment to be located if the parcel is eligible at all. Again, as we've discussed, if you are adjacent to residential, it's completely prohibited. However, if you're not adjacent but any portion of your parcel is shaded by the buffer, that area would not be permitted for any kind of data center structures, associated mechanical equipment, transformers, things of that nature. The ordinance does state, and my apologies, this is kind of a hashback to the other slide, but no data center, principal structure, or mechanical equipment, including generators, shall be located within the distance of residential VCA school, place of worship, park, habitat, recreation, overnight hospitality zone, district, property line, where the noise or vibration standards indicated in this chapter cannot be met. So I know we've talked about the buffer. As it relates to the setbacks, there's been conversation about the distance from residentially zoned or used properties. We've had a little bit of the clarification that some of the other uses that were removed from that reference are actually zoned residential in your community. So they are protected by that buffer and by that standard. However, we still, in the noise table, call out places of worship, parks, and things of that nature. So those noise standards do still apply to those uses. And if they can meet the setback, but they can't meet the noise standard at a church's receiving place of worship's property line or a park's property line, then there is grounds for denial based on that. With that, we also wanted to, we discussed this a little bit at the last meeting, but your zoning ordinance has additional performance standards and your general ordinance has some standards in it that would relate to data centers as well. section eighteen twelve one three oh is your performance center performance uh... standard portion of your zoning ordinance all uses anything from you know and mcdonald's to a data center has to comply with all the standards and they deal with things such as smoke dust dirt fly ash glare radioactive materials fire explosive hazards noise Vibration, odors, wastes, referring to wastewater. You also have the water emergency regulations, which, again, in reading it, if for any reason the available water supply is insufficient or threatens to be insufficient to supply the total demand of the water distribution system, the city manager and or the director of public services may regulate, limit, or prohibit the use of water for any purpose. Such regulation shall not restrict less essential water uses to the extent deemed necessary to ensure an adequate supply for essential domestic and commercial needs for firefighting. Within 24 hours of such determination, the city shall cause the regulations to be posted at the city offices and publicly announced by means of broadcast or telecast by the stations with a normal operating range covering the city. It may cause such announcement to be further declared in newspapers of general circulation when feasible. The regulation shall become effective immediately after posting at the city offices. So again, that was the more general overview of the things that we've been discussing at the last couple of meetings. And again, after the presentation, we're happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

So in terms of next steps, in our opinion, you essentially have three. One, you can approve the second reading and adoption of the zoning ordinance amendments as presented. You could modify the draft zoning ordinance amendments and then approve adoption of the revised ordinance amendments. You could postpone the consideration of the draft ordinance amendments and direct staff to research other requested information based on city council's preference. It is still staff and legal counsel's opinion that it is in the city's best interest and provides the city the greatest level of protection to adopt regulatory ordinances as opposed to relying on the moratorium. And again, as we've previously talked about, that does not preclude you from the ability to continue studying or continue looking at other things. other forms of regulation or other modifications to what is proposed for adoption. However, it's a significantly greater level of protection that that offers to the city compared to a moratorium. The one other thing I'll add is as a part of your discussions, I can get up, I have a couple different, in your packet we've provided buffer maps of various examples similar that you've seen before. We do have some examples that we can kind of go through so if you guys have discussion points or things you want to look at, I'm happy to kind of get up and navigate what we have. With that in mind, I'll push the floor back to you all.

Thank you. Council Member Kennedy.

Thank you. This might be out of turn, but I want to see what Council feels about this. If we're going to be talking about accepting this or amending it, making it more strict and then accepting it. We're also talking about the possibility of getting sued going through litigation. What is the possibility that we can push this back two weeks to have a closed session with the person that would be defending us in the case we actually do get sued?

We've already been sued.

For the restrictions of an ordinance.

That's already part of this lawsuit.

We haven't passed any ordinances.

It's already part of the lawsuit. Okay.

Then in that case, can we push this back two weeks so we can have a closed-door session with how that's going to look like?

That's your decision if you want to.

I'd like to see how anyone feels about to have a discussion about that.

Council Member Grell and Fox?

I have a quick question.

So you're asking to push this back? Can you speak into the microphone?

Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah.

You're asking to push this back to find out what the process would be for what, the lawsuit?

To see what we'd be looking at with possible damages. There's a lot of people out here that seem ready to go through the process with the possibility that we lose. I want to know what kind of damage that could be for us before I start talking about any more restrictive currently proposed anything.

Okay, thank you for the clarification.

If I may, just to clarify something that Council Member Kennedy just inquired about, you were talking about putting it off for two weeks. You can put it off for a shorter period of time and schedule a closed session at any point in time. You can schedule one next week. If you wanted to act more quickly, that would be at your prerogative as well if you wanted to pursue that line of action.

Okay. I will say I don't know how specific we could get in answering that question just because we simply don't know at this point, right? And again, it's not advisable, I guess, necessarily to talk. We need to talk publicly about the fact that we are getting sued. but the specific terms and the specific kind of deals of that, ultimately anything that gets said in this meeting by any of you or any of us can and will be and has been used against us. So understood on your point as it relates to closed session, I just want to point out, I'm not sure that we'll be able to give you the specific answer at this point. There's just a lot of variables. We don't know.

I want to see what other people have to say. If that's okay.

Council Member Berman.

Thank you. Do you want me to just address his question first?

Yeah, just address his question.

For his question only, I would be fine with us having a closed session, but what I would like the closed session to be focused on would be... the ordinance that we're going to adopt and whether or not that ordinance can be defended in the lawsuit that we've been sued on. Because I think that's what to me matters more. I want an ordinance that's going to protect the city in the best way possible, but that means nothing to me or all of you if the first time it goes in front of the judge, the judge throws it out as being unreasonable, right? If we say we want 2,600 feet and as soon as it gets in front of the judge, the judge says, that's not gonna fly, that's not reasonable. Now we just passed an ordinance that has no teeth because they're gonna be able to put the data center wherever they want. So what I need to know is what we can pass that's going to be reasonable and defensible.

So if you want to schedule a closed session, we can schedule a closed session. I would say it's not advisable to discuss the issue of the lawsuit in open session at this point.

Understood. Your comment about Jason? No. Okay.

I will comment on it as well. Go ahead. Just to add, I'm also in favor of a closed session. I think there's a lot of questions that we still... need to have answered. I mean, I think it's a good point. In relationship, can I transfer into other stuff or you want me to just stay there?

Yeah, just stay there for now and then we'll come back.

I'm in favor of closed session early. I don't think we should wait two weeks. I think we should do it next week.

Deputy Mayor Gatcho?

Thank you. I don't know that we're at a point for a closed session with an attorney. I feel like they will tell us when they need our direction, so I don't know that we need to be calling something to that point.

Thank you. Much agreed. Are we good? Do you have anything else?

Would I say something like, do I just ask separately for a closed session or something we vote on?

you would ask for a motion

Well, if I may, I think it may be best to kind of work through this whole conversation because I think your decision there, I guess, also does impact what do you do with this ordinance here tonight. So I guess, yes, you would make a motion to direct staff to schedule, coordinate a special meeting to have a closed session, but I'm just, I think figuring out all of the pieces collectively and then making those motions kind of together may be your best course of action.

Okay, I'll hold off on making a motion for district right now.

Okay, very good. Council Member O'Day?

Thank you. Just a few questions, some notes I've made here. One being, because it did seem to elicit a response from the crowd with regard to language of demonstrated need. And I know that you indicated that can be very loosely interpreted. Like, could you give some example? Is it possible, like, for instance, like a fire department is a need, right? Or a fire station. So demonstrated need for both myself and, again, I'm thinking perhaps the audience would perhaps like... some examples of that, or if one's not possible to, you know.

So, I mean, I don't want to go too far again because, again, this is an issue of the lawsuit that's pending. But it's not just a local need, it's a regional and state need. And it also, you know, it's any legal use. So it's trying, I mean, you can prohibit uses that are clearly not legal. but so it's a demonstrated need regionally statewide it's not just something that's you know purely local to the city um how that's demonstrated are our data centers needed i mean that that's going to be argued by the applicant that they are i mean we could make arguments against that but again that's going to be an argument that's going to go in front of a court at this point right no and i appreciate that and that's

a good clarification point just, you know, because there were snickers about demonstrated need. And I think it's important to recognize because I don't know. Um, and again, a lot of this is just a contingent on the judge you draw. Right.

And a lot, a lot is depending on what the arguments are made and what, what, you know, cases both sides are able to cite. So I, I just, I can't go more into it. Right.

No, I get that. I get that. Um, In that same vein, though, with that being said, and I know we can't speak to this particular case, are you familiar or aware of any other types of lawsuits of this nature? Is there case law?

There's really nothing on data centers in Michigan right now.

Okay. And then lastly... Not on ordinance amendments. Right. And then lastly, is it possible for a developer or somebody wanting to build a data center in a community not only in their lawsuit to... For the point of the lawsuit to be obviously to build, but are they able to tack damages on to something like that as well?

Part of a lawsuit, they would be requesting damages, that's correct.

Okay, and what in, I don't want to say in your experience, but maybe in reading or different, you know, around the water cooler, I don't know. What could that kind of dollar amount look like? Are we talking like tens right now?

Yeah, I don't want to suggest because their lawsuit is pending and they haven't suggested what their amount of damage is yet. So that would be me trying to guess what they're going to argue their property is worth or whatever it is that they're going to argue in that. I don't have...

It could be high. Could it bankrupt the city?

It could. There's been other... You know, other communities have been sued in the area. In the early 2000s, there was a $25 million judgment against the city of Novi by a developer. It could be up... I mean, there's judgments upwards of that on record.

So it wouldn't necessarily just be about... An increase to your property taxes. It could be catastrophic to it.

It could be catastrophic to the city depending on the judge and Thank you No Council member grandma Fox So I'm not sure I don't remember who exactly I think staff had mentioned that if we were to vote to accept that the ordinance as it's written tonight or even if there were changes but we adapted this evening we can always keep researching and and you can keep researching and we can make amendments as we go is that right we could do that at every single meeting here on out if you wanted something to change by the next meeting you could you know we could keep working through it

Okay, thank you. We could keep researching any aspect of it.

I do think, just fundamentally, when we talk about process and we talk about lawsuits and we talk about where this goes, fundamentally from a due process perspective, anyone has the ability to ask for permission to do what their use is. Your ability to zone and set zoning regulations sets the rules for how that works. and then they go through the process to demonstrate that they can meet the standards that you met. And so I think that's one of the fundamental things. And something we've heard a lot tonight is that there are questions about one particular data center use that may or may not be suing us, let alone any other that may suggest to come into the city. AND ULTIMATELY, THOSE PROCESSES ARE THE INTENTIONAL OPPORTUNITIES, THOSE PUBLIC HEARINGS, THE SPECIAL LAND USE AND SITE PLAN REQUIREMENTS. THOSE ARE THE OPPORTUNITIES TO REALLY BE ABLE TO SCRUTINIZE AND JUDGE ANY INDIVIDUAL APPLICATION, REALLY BE ABLE TO JUDGE IT ON THE MERITS OF WHAT IT IS. AND THAT IS WHY THESE PROCESSES ARE DESIGNED THE WAY THAT THEY ARE. NOT JUST HERE, BUT I'M SAYING THE ZONING ENABLING ACT THAT SETS UP HOW THESE PROCESSES WORK AND GIVE US THE ABILITY TO DO THEM. SO... You know, I think that's ultimately kind of where this leads is, yes, having the standards that you guys feel comfortable, give you the tools to be able to scrutinize the data center is important. But, you know, that's really the venue where the decision on any given data center is made is in response to the application for it and the materials that they provide and whether they can demonstrate they can meet the standards you set.

Thank you.

Council Member Simmons?

Okay, so, I mean, I was a no vote last time, and I'm a no vote still today based off of some of the adjustments that we made. No!

We're conducting business here.

The question that I have, or I guess what I'm trying to figure out, we're talking about noise pollution, water, electrical, and a lot of things that we still don't have answers to. I am not... I'm on board with us trying to get something together and understanding the need for that. I mean, I was under the impression that we needed to get something done four or six weeks ago at a meeting that then I was told that wasn't important. I'm told each time it's important, it's important. So now I'm like, okay, let's just do it right. I want to make sure that some things that I think we need to consider, obviously the setback adjustment, I think, we can't. We need to reconsider that and get that back higher. I'd like to consider from a city administration aspect, I would like to get the sound study completed and I'd like to understand from an IT aspect, I think we need some counsel from an IT aspect on just what data centers are about the same way we have a sound study. I think we need IT consulting on what real expectations we should expect. I mean, we had somebody speak up tonight, and I've spoken to some different people, but I think we should have an actual report from that. If there's no case law, then let's try to figure it out and set one ourselves. We need to figure it out. So I'm still a no.

Deputy Mayor Gottschall.

Thank you. I, as written, also do not support things and I'll offer amendments and we'll see where those land. But the first is stating, I guess the difficulty that I'm having is not understanding how we don't have the sound study proposal back with us tonight to vote on. I mean, the question last meeting was to... re or spread out reconsider where the sensors would be and to me that isn't a two-week event um and i believe the table that's in here um showing the daytime nighttime levels of 55 dba 70 dbc 45 nighttime 60 Those are probably going to be considerably higher than what we have in the city. There are apps that were developed by the government to go read the decibel level. Any one of you can go outside right now and measure what that is for a few minutes and tell everybody else around you. It's probably not going to be 55. I've done it around downtown on a Friday night with music coming from near the drafting table or from the drafting table, standing out at where West End Commons is being built, and it was 50 with semis going by. So I don't fully understand how that's not back to us tonight. That's a very important step. I do think that either these levels need to come down or we need to reintroduce the ambient-based levels in a way that... can be workable. Getting back to my comments last meeting, we need to start thinking of new ways to do things, not new ways to shut everything down. The Another thing that I do want to bring up is we have a lot of talk up here about defensibility and exclusionary, which none of this is. The state law gives every municipality the state-granted right to protect our welfare, health, and interests. That's what we're doing up here. That's the entire discussion. Doesn't have anything to do with any property, any lawsuit. We're doing what's in the best interest as granted to us by state law. So what kind of strikes me, and hopefully it can be addressed at the state level rather quickly, is we're being told because Wixom is nine square miles, We get different rights because we're a narrow city. We get different rights on our setbacks than the city of Detroit at 143 square miles, where they could afford to have a half a mile setback because they've got the geographic difference. Apply that down to Hamtramck, who's two square miles. They have to plan to have a data center if somebody buys up enough land and residential parcels. What's that setback going to be? Three inches? Every municipality should have the same rights. And we're being told, because we live in a small city, screw you. You don't get the same rights. So when we get into the talk of what is reasonable and unreasonable, what is unreasonable is basing any of our setbacks based on other uses in our ordinance language. That's unreasonable. What is completely reasonable is to look at the impacts that data centers are having on communities. And the improper setbacks that were put in in those areas in Virginia and California, where now they have class action lawsuits. What would be reasonable is to look at what other areas are doing. And we say like, oh, half a mile is too much. There's a bill. Granted, it's just a bill, not a law. But in the Pennsylvania state legislature calling for a statewide 2,500 minimum setback for data centers. And municipalities can be more restrictive if they please. Davidson County, where Nashville is located, passed a ban on data centers above 500,000 square feet across the entire county. They are requiring a minimum half-mile setback from schools, homes, parks, and other designated areas. And while doing that, they left their moratorium in place to continue to make adjustments, which we're being told, don't do that. Other places are. We're all a part of the same country. Why is that different? I don't understand it. So I'm really tired of hearing from... staff, council members that what we're doing is unreasonable. What we're doing is state granted reasonable protection of our interests. Period. Stop talking like it isn't. It's really annoying. That's what we're up here to do. Protect our city. So the first motion I'm going to make to a point that has been brought up On page two, the cooling and water use plan, which is subsection C, I would like to add the language, in the event that on-site wells drawing groundwater are proposed, the maximum expected daily and annual use of well-drawn water shall be supplied in the application, along with an impact statement from EGLE detailing that no adverse resource impact shall exist at the proposed expected uses, And I would like that regardless of whether the draw is classified as a large quantity withdrawal industrial use, which per EGLE is 100,000 gallons or more. So if you're going to use a well, you need to provide an adverse resource impact statement as part of your application. That's my first motion.

Can I repeat where it is?

Page two, subsection C. I have a motion on the floor. Do I have a second? Second. Support. Discussion? Council Member Behrman?

We just say a well isn't permitted. If they're going to use water, it has to be city water, so that's not even an issue before it becomes an issue. You could do that as well? I mean... They're going to be here in the city. They should use our city water. They shouldn't be affecting people's groundwater and wells around. So I would rather you see you withdraw that motion and just add a simple line. Any water use must be provided through our municipal water source.

Okay. I'll withdraw my motion. You can make yours.

I'll withdraw my support. Okay. You want to make the motion?

I don't have it worded as nicely as you do, but if we could just add a provision to that that any water use must be provided through our city infrastructure. No well water shall be permitted.

Second. I've got a motion and a second on the floor. Any discussion? Seeing none, I have a motion to approve a Any water use must come from the city infrastructure and not a well. Is that good enough?

Yeah.

All right. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.

Thank you. The next motion that I wanted to make was to reconsider the setback distance and to increase that back to a half a mile based on information I already shared and the reasonableness of treating Wixom like larger metropolitan areas since we're all municipalities within the state of Michigan.

Motion. Do I have a second?

Support.

Got motion and Second. Any discussion? Council Member Berman?

I'd be comfortable going back to the 1,500 feet that was proposed. I saw Milford, their parent ordinance is 1,500 feet. I know a prior meeting I went through and cited a few dozen municipalities throughout the country that are doing 1,500 feet. I think we as a city would have better legs to stand on using a number that other people have used. And that's not saying that I wouldn't like to see a half mile. I just think it's going to be an uphill battle. And I'd rather have a number that we can stand behind and not risk losing and having no setback. Does that make sense without saying it?

Yep. I agree with you 100% on that. I'd like to see the $1,500 come back.

So, I mean, I would be fine with if you wanted to amend your motion to $1,500 fee, and I would support that. I just don't know if $2,600 is a number that I could support without more information.

Any further discussion? Council Member O'Day? Okay.

Again, I agree with you. While I would like the half mile, I think $1,500 is going to be more, I don't want to say reasonable either, because I would like the larger, longer, if you will. Because I think some of the other factors we are looking at here, the setback... while very important, is somewhat secondary. The water, the electricity, the sound emissions, those things are going to, you know, the polluted water is going to be whether it's 1500 or 2600. The strain on the electric grid, same thing, 1500 or 2600. So if the 1500, just makes more sense from the ordinance standpoint. If it makes more sense from the ordinance standpoint, I think that would be our best bet.

What's the data say?

This isn't the time for public comment. That'll be at the end of the business meeting. Deputy Mayor Gottschall.

Thank you. We're in the same federal district court as Nashville and Davidson County in Tennessee, where they've set it a half mile. So I don't understand the difference. There's people in our own district who are doing it, so we're no different. I guess more to the point, the concern is not just noise. That's what the decibel levels are for. Kind of touch on at the last meeting my comments. I'm concerned about pollution from the diesel generators. It's great that we have in there that the used tier four generators, but we don't currently have anything. And this was a conversation I had with the assistant city manager as to future thoughts for adjusting. But there are certain areas that define pollution exactly what an emergency is that they can switch over to that form of backup power, and then how many hours they're allowed to run annually on that power. So it's not a constant thing. So we talk about work in progress. That's something on my list of what I would like to discuss in the future. But pollution, property values, the half mile also seems to be an issue, and that was something that residents brought up tonight. And that's my field of work. That is everybody or most everybody's largest investment in their life. Why do we want to torch that? Because we picked a different number other than what the studies say. And the studies are saying a half a mile. So that's where mine is. I feel like everything else is just picking a number to say a number.

Any more discussion? Council Member Simmons?

Yeah, I'm going to be in support of the 2640. For me, if we can change and make it smaller later, we can do that. If we're talking about making things editable, we can edit ourselves backwards, but I think we need to be coming out as restrictive as possible or as restrictive as possible.

Council Member Kennedy.

Just going to say first, I think it is important that we get something on the books, no matter which way it goes, just so we have it. But to Deputy Mayor Keenan and Council Member Simmons, I'm in support of the 2640. Even if that's something that makes it kind of rough for us, I think it's better to start at a place that is more restrictive and walk it back.

Any further discussion? Council Member Barron?

The difference between us and maybe another state would be the federal judge is interpreting the law of that state. And in Michigan, we have the Michigan Zoning Enabling Act, which the federal judge is interpreting. So you can't necessarily compare us to another state. And going at 2640, correct me if I'm wrong... that map didn't really leave anything. And if we get to a point where the judge isn't going to look at, from any developer down the road, the judge isn't going to look at the ordinance and say, well, it really should have been 1,500 feet and changed the law to 1,500 feet. The judge is just going to strike that provision, and then they're going to be able to go forward with their development like that provision's not even there. So I would rather take a better look at it and pick a number now that I feel is reasonable. It may not be the number we want. Clearly we want no data center. But if it can be a number that we can all stomach, if it can work, and we're not going to lose and it's not going to get thrown out, then I think that is a stronger number for us to get behind than a number that potentially isn't worth anything if it's not going to be upheld. I think $1,500 leaves a lot of land in our city far away from residential and downtown valuable if somebody really wanted to do it and follow all of our other strong requirements that we've put into the ordinance. I would rather get a number on the books today that we can live with than one that could come back to bite us. So I can't support 2640, but I will gladly support 1500 if we would like to increase it back to the number we started at.

Deputy Mayor Gottschall? Thank you. I guess as a point of clarification, I believe the reference map for half mile at the last meeting also included the setbacks from parks, schools, so that isn't the most accurate map to use. It would just be add a half a mile leaving out those things. If that fails, then that will be my next motion, is to add that stuff back in. But that reference map doesn't accurately portray what I'm motioning right now, if that makes sense. The half a mile map from last meeting does not, that also had a half mile setback from parks. So it's not the most, you can't look at that if you've got it and say that's what we're voting on right now. It would look a little bit different.

It would look like this.

Okay. You've come prepared.

I have. I believe so, yeah.

All right, do we have any further discussion?

Just for reference, because I'm already standing here now, we did also, and I'm not sure why I thought they were included in your packet, if we end up having a conversation as it relates to parks, schools, places of worship, whatever, we also have various buffer maps as it relates to that conversation, just to give you the heads up.

clarification can we also see the 1500 yes can we do a split screen and then

Unpixelate it and zoom in on the license plate? No.

That'll be our next issue, flat cameras.

Sorry, I'm trying to make them the same scale. Enhance that. Enhance it again.

does that work for what you're looking to do thank you and just each one reflects what now just to be the teal one is with a half mile setback minimum residential buffer the blue is 1500 feet I do not have $2,000.

Somewhere in the middle.

Any further discussion on the motion? I've got a motion and a second to adjust the setback to 2640. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? No. Aye.

Mayor Beagle?

No.

Deputy Mayor Gottschall?

Yes.

Council Member Behrman?

No.

Council Member Grundlin-Fox? No. Council Member Kennedy?

Yes.

Council Member O'Day? No. Council Member Simmons?

Yes.

Okay. Three no, four yes. Wait, four no, three whatever. You know, you guys are getting me all over this. You did the same thing last week.

Four no, three yes. Motion is denied.

I'm a clerk.

I don't do math. Floor is still yours, Deputy Mayor.

Yes, you got it. I'm good for now.

Thank you.

Council Member Behrman?

Can I make a motion that we extend it to 1,500 feet?

Do I have a second?

Second.

All right. Any discussion?

I think taking a look at what other municipalities have been doing, the fact that our neighbor Milford Township is doing 1,500 feet, I think that's a reasonable number that makes sense that can be upheld, and that's what I'm comfortable with.

Any other further discussion? Go ahead, Deputy Mayor Gaccio.

Can we amend a proposed amendment? Or should I wait?

You want to amend my amendment? Yep. Now you're just making Crystal's head explode. I'll wait then for however that turns out.

All right. Any further discussion?

You want clarification on it? Basically your amendment, but 1,500 feet.

Well, why don't we just do it all at once rather than play games? I mean, this is important subject matter.

The amendment would be to add back in setback from parks, schools, houses of worship. I guess as a part of discussions from the past, schools clarifying early education through 12th grade. not getting into trade schools, anything like that. Just early education through 12th grade, what we expect as the normal school system, both public and private, though, since we do have some private elementary schools in the city.

Does early education include daycare?

Whatever would qualify. I know they have to have a state license, so I don't know what that would fall under necessarily.

Well, we should probably find that out.

I guess I got a clarification. Yep. Do we have any of those aforementioned in our current industrial zoning? And that's the problem is how do we know that? I'm more and more worried about enforceability. And more importantly, let's just say we were to go down that path and then somebody was to take the Wixom Motors location and and asked to put a church in there, now does that exclude a bunch of the... I feel like we're making ourselves a hole that we don't need. Because all of our current schools, parks, and educational facilities are already in residential or downtown areas, and they're already going to be at least 1,500 feet away from it.

All right. Deputy Mayor Gatchel? Thank you. To clarify, it would be, I guess the correct phrasing to amend it would be to include that it's pre-existing at the time of application. So if someone applies for development, it would be whatever exists. We wouldn't say, to your point, that someone would buy another parcel, put a church in there, and then we'd say to the data center, oh, you've got to shut down. So it would be pre-existing at the time of application. Granted, I was against the rezoning for Wixom Motors, and it was rezoned to allow churches, to your point. But the... To me, a big factor is Lion Oaks, and that's a very large natural habitat area. I think we also have to consider the possibility that we're not all here, and properties can be rezoned at any time in the future by future planning commissions and councils. So I think it's important to maintain a setback from all of those to build in a buffer against any future rezoning that might happen.

Assistant City Manager Benson?

Just as it relates to the questions of do we have any of those types of uses in industrial areas, I do know of at least one, maybe two, churches that were allowed by variance in the Beck Business Center, which is zoned M1 light industrial. We do have an Easter Seals facility in a building that is zoned light industrial over off of... I forget the exact court on the west side, south of Pontiac Trail. I could not tell you comprehensively every use we have in every specific situation, but we do have them. There's not many non-industrial uses on industrial zone parcels, but we do have cases of it. And again, Lion Oaks, as you already pointed out, is probably the greatest example. But...

I guess... So given that I guess we need more research on the houses of worship situation, I would be comfortable for the purpose of the amendment leaving it at pre-existing parks and schools, early education through 12. I'm fine with that.

Yep.

Do you have that map? I'll second that amendment.

Yeah, on the left side of the screen is the 1,500-foot map, so in the blue, with parks, yes. And I apologize. I sincerely thought that we'd prepared this out of time. I had a feeling we might talk about this. So if you didn't have this out of time, I'm sorry.

Council Member Grella-Fox?

Thank you. For our city attorney, through the mayor, yes. With adding that back in, I know we took it out, that verbiage, adding that back in, does that create any issues for us?

I mean, I think it's just reiterating that most of those uses are already in residential and that really the only outlier is, like Drew said, a park that's zoned industrial and maybe some other sporadic things that were put in zoning districts where they were not originally zoned to be. So I don't really think it's a huge change because your schools and your churches are zoned residential and the setback is already from residential. Okay, thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

Any more discussion? Council Member Behrman, do you want to amend your motion?

AMEND MY MOTION TO INCLUDE PARKS AND SCHOOLS.

OKAY, WHO SECONDED THAT?

I WILL. TIA. DID I? OKAY, TIA.

DO YOU AMEND YOUR SECOND?

YES, I AMEND THE SECOND.

ALL RIGHT, ANY FURTHER DISCUSSION?

So thank you to clarify the entire vote right now is on the 1500 setback from residential plus schools plus parks pre-existing. Yeah.

The left mat.

Right. With some changes, right?

No, that includes the park.

That was, yes. All right. All right.

You got that? Do you have that motion?

Yes.

All right. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed?

No. Deputy Mayor Gottschall.

No.

Council Member Behrman.

Yes.

Council Member Gremlin-Fox. Yes. Council Member Kennedy.

Yes.

Council Member O'Day. Yes. Council Member Simmons.

Yes.

Mayor Beagle. Yes. Okay. Six yes, one no.

All right. More still yours?

That's everything I have at this time. Thank you.

All right. Well, that was actually mine. I had one more.

Hmm. Council Member Barron?

Under the sound study, table one BI, I believe, said 48 hours. But it wasn't clear on what 48 hours. So, like, IF THEY WERE TO DO A SOUND STUDY ON A SATURDAY AND A SUNDAY, I FEEL LIKE THAT'S GOING TO BE DIFFERENT THAN A SOUND STUDY MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY. SO I THINK SOME CLARIFICATION THERE TO HAVE THE SOUND STUDY OF 48 HOURS MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY WOULD BE BENEFICIAL.

IS THAT A MOTION?

I CAN MAKE THAT MOTION.

I'VE GOT A MOTION AND A SECOND. ANY DISCUSSION? Deputy Mayor Gottschall?

Just to say that I support that change, and that's a good clarification, because that's kind of the same discussion we have all the time with traffic studies being done when everyone's gone for the Labor Day holiday, and then they say there's no impact because there's no traffic. So I think that's an important addition. Thank you.

All right. Any other further discussion? I'm not going to read the motion. I'm just going to say all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Any further discussion? Council Member Kennedy?

I had one more thing. Not a motion.

I think you figured it out by now, but obviously tonight we're discussing our

zoning regulation, not the elephant in the room. But if you haven't at all had the opportunity to read this ordinance, it requires any applicant in the future to come before us via special land use. And that special land use will require a public hearing AT THE PLANNING COMMISSION LEVEL AND AT THE CITY COUNCIL LEVEL. SO IF THOSE PUBLIC HEARINGS ARE PUBLISHED, YOU HAVE MORE THAN AN OPPORTUNITY TO COME OUT AND MAKE SURE THAT WHATEVER'S BEING PROPOSED IN THE CITY IS BEING PROPOSED TO THE HIGHEST LEVEL AS REQUIRED BY OUR ORDINANCE, BY OUR SOUND REQUIREMENTS, OUR WATER REQUIREMENTS, OUR ELECTRICAL REQUIREMENTS, ET CETERA. I just wanted to make sure you guys all understood that. So nothing we're doing tonight is approving or disproving any project going forward.

Very good. Any further discussion on unfinished business? Council Member Kennedy. That's right. Council Member Kennedy. Apologize.

You're good. I just wanted to bring up, I would really, really like to see, and we got told a bunch of reasons why it wouldn't work. The ambient sound study and then the average of that plus some decibels. I don't think one would work. I would like to see that done with something like average plus a little more cause one, something, if something new goes in, there's going to be more sound. Um, I guess, I guess I'll do it the proper way. I would make a motion to reinstate the second table instead of using the first one.

I've got a motion on the floor. Do I have a second?

I'll second for voting purposes.

All right. I've got a motion and a second. Discussion?

Just for clarity, is the intent of your motion to strike table one and replace it only with the previous table two, or are you, in the previous version, you had seen you had table one and table two, and you had to meet both?

Both of them, because it was if we had the baseline noise levels are below that first table, then they can't exceed that in that area. But if the baseline noise is over the first table, then it's just the first table.

Yeah. Okay, so you just want to go back to... Okay. All right.

I just wanted to clarify that. The way you said it, I wasn't clear. If I may, Mayor. Certainly. For clarification purposes, either I missed something or something's missing. You said that you're looking to reinstate Table 2, but you weren't comfortable with the plus one. You wanted something else. Did you define the something else?

No, I did not.

So we need to define the something else. Unless there's something you want to do there.

Okay.

Again, if you want, no, I would just leave it at plus one. Just, just, just as it was written previously. Okay. All right.

Any discussion? Deputy Mayor Gatchel.

Thank you. I do support this being added back since it was something I wanted to begin with. I do believe that it might be able to be filed under things to adjust later, but I think it's something that we can at least hopefully agree to add in tonight and then we get the sound study and that might inform A lot of our decisions, whether we do ambient or if we find that through our sound study our levels are much lower, as I believe will probably be the case, that we can just come down across the board, not just in this ordinance, but in all sound ordinances in our city right now to... more accurately reflect where we're at with our current daytime and nighttime noises. So I do support this coming back in, even if we need to correct it and maybe tighten it up in the future working with the sound engineer.

Thank you. Any further discussion? Any more discussion? All right, I got a motion and a second to reinstate table two.

with the ambient sound studies plus decibels of one, correct?

Correct. Just go back to the old language.

Go back to the old language.

Because there was an additional language.

Assistant City Manager Benson? Yeah, and it has all the other language of it. If it's tonal, you still subtract it. Just as it was, put back in.

I was just going to say, just to clarify, for the sake of this motion and for the record's purposes, I would suggest you say as was presented on August 11th or in the August 11th draft.

It says August 17th draft on the paper.

That's the version you're currently looking at, but you need to reference what you had at your August 11th meeting. Okay.

when it comes to the sound tables.

Yeah, so I would want the table two as written in the August 11th draft added back in to our current one with supporting language as written exactly.

All right.

Council Member Simmons.

So how do we support that without the sound study? What's the suggestion, I guess?

we would need the sound study first before anything can be.

Go ahead.

This was developed with the fact that they would be doing a pre-construction sound study. This wasn't reliant on our sound study. Table one and all of our other, again, throughout all of our code of ordinances, that's what our sound study would be for, but this language had called for them to provide a 48-hour sound study and then it be based off of that.

You good? Thank you. Council Member Behrman?

Although I agree that we've made a lot of positive changes this evening, and perhaps this one will be one we can do. I would be more comfortable doing this in the future once we have spent the time on the sound studies. I'm comfortable with the chart we have now. I'm comfortable with the reasoning why we removed it the last meeting, and I don't think I'm comfortable adding this one back in on the fly as making some of the other changes I was fine with.

Council Member Kennedy?

I didn't think about this on the fly. I thought about it where If it goes in, if we pass something that isn't in here and a data center goes in and then we add this later, they're already there. They're already contributing to the ambient noise however much higher. But if we put it in now, we're still gonna get a sound study. And if the sound study comes back and this is not a tenable action, then we can take it back out. We can amend it later. But having it in there up front at least makes it so we can try to keep our quiet areas quiet.

Thank you for your explanation.

Any further discussion? All right, I got a motion and a second to approve the motion by Council Member Kennedy. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed?

No.

No. You guys are making me work for my money. Okay. Council Member Behrman?

No.

Council Member Gremlin-Fox? Yes. Council Member Kennedy? Yes. Council Member O'Day? No. Council Member Simmons? No. Mayor Beagle? Yes. Deputy Mayor Gottschall? Yes. Okay. Four yes, three no.

Any further discussion on unfinished business number one? All right, seeing none, I have a motion and a second to approve the second reading and adoption of an ordinance to amend the Wixom Code of Ordinances, title 18, amend section 18.09, industrial district section 18.09.020, schedule of uses to address the permissibility of data centers in the M1 and M2 zoning districts. Amend section 18.09.040 standards applicable to specific uses to provide specific standards for data center uses in the M1 and M2 zoning districts and amend sections 18.24.030 to provide definitions for data centers as revised on August 11th, 2026 with the amendments voted on tonight. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed?

If I could just real quick, slight change the language. Instead of saying tonight, just say August 25th.

Okay. We'll put that in there.

Anybody change their mind on that?

Council Member Behrman.

Yes.

Council Member Garland-Fox. Yes. Council Member Kennedy.

Yes.

Council Member O'Day. Yes. Council Member Simmons.

Yes.

Mayor Beagle.

Yes.

Deputy Mayor Gottschall. No. Six yes, one no.

Thank you. All right, we'll move on to new business. New business number one is a recommendation to adopt the proposed resolution 2026-47 to revise the terms of termination for resolution 2026-06, imposing a temporary moratorium for a period of six months on the establishing, permitting, consideration, approval, location, construction, and or installation of any data centers in the city by settling the date of termination of this moratorium to concede with the enactment and enforceable effect of ordinance number 26-01 that will establish a zoning ordinance definition and regulations for data center uses in a city. Do I have a motion? So moved.

Support.

Sister Senior Manager Benson.

Thank you, Mayor. This agenda item is basically just intended to ensure that there is no potential gaps in the termination of the moratorium that you previously established. So the specific language in your March 24th resolution establishing the moratorium said that it shall terminate and be of no further effect six months from the effective date of this moratorium unless the City Council adopts a resolution extending the moratorium or terminating the moratorium, or until the city has enacted a regulatory ordinance setting forth the regulations for the establishment and use of data centers within the city. Therefore, it did imply that the moratorium ends when you adopt the ordinance. However, to be abundantly clear, for the benefit of both you, the city, and in general, WE FELT THAT IT WOULD BE APPROPRIATE TO RECOMMEND THAT CITY COUNCIL ADOPT A RESOLUTION THAT JUST FURTHER CLARIFIES THE END OF THE ENFORCEABLE EFFECT. SO THE PROPOSED RESOLUTION, AND I WON'T READ THE ENTIRE THING, BUT BASICALLY IT SAYS shall be terminated effective immediately following the enactment and enforceable effect of ordinance number 2026-01 on September 6th or seven days after the adopted ordinance is published in a newspaper of record pursuant to the requirements of the Michigan Zoning Enabling Act, whichever is sooner. Basically, just guaranteeing that there is no misinterpretation of when the moratorium expires based on your previous action.

Discussion? All right, seeing none, I've got a motion and a second to approve the recommendation to adopt the proposed resolution 2026-47 to revise the terms of termination for the resolution 2026-06, imposing a temporary moratorium for a period of six months on the establishing, permitting, consideration, approval, location, construction, and or installation of any data centers in the city by settling the date of termination of this moratorium to coincide with the enactment and enforceable effective ordinance number 2026-01 that will establish a zoning ordinance definition and regulation for data center uses in the city. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries, thank you. Move on to new business number two, and that's a recommendation to authorize the continued use of Soundscape Consulting LLC of Plymouth, Michigan for sound engineering consultation services for an amount not to exceed $30,000, inclusive of all previous billings for a period not to exceed one year to be paid from planning special studies account number 101-721-956.481. Do I have a motion?

Move to approve. Support.

Assistant City Manager Benson.

Thanks, Mayor. This item, we discussed it at your last meeting. Ultimately, I mean, I won't rehash everything, but this item comes down to one key factor. Based on some of the requirements included in the data center ordinance amendments, as well as just general discussions that you guys have been having, the city needs to have sound engineering consultative services to be available when we need them in the same way that we do for engineering, same way we do for planning, legal, et cetera. At our previous meeting, there was some expressed concerns about what other options are out there or some concerns expressed about Soundscape, specifically related to their presentations and some of those past things. To answer Councilmember Gottschall's question as it relates to why we did not bring back a revised scope of work for the citywide ambient noise study, I will admit it was not abundantly clear. There seemed to be support for using Soundscape for that part, but potentially somebody else for the as needed services. I felt and we felt that if you're gonna use somebody else for the as needed services, it may be council's preference, I guess we weren't clear, of bidding those out together or seeking out those services in a package. uh... so we thought that specially given you know with the adoption of the ordinance coming up here shortly the this short-term single most important things that we have a consultant uh... lined up to be able to do the reviews that uh... were requesting applicants submit plans for we need we need somebody certified to be able to provide advice reviewing those too uh... we need somebody who is qualified to be able to provide site uh... advice and sound measurement services on an as needed basis so who can be able to go out and do enforcement activities, to be able to go out and have their efforts be most defensible if and when we need them, and also providing advice as it relates to ordinance updating processes. As a part of bringing this revised information back to you, we did provide copies of all three of the consulting firms that we solicited proposals from back in the spring so that you could see their qualifications, their rate schedules. We provided in the agenda packet basically an overview of our reasoning and it comes down to we feel that Soundscape has the greatest level of municipal experience specifically. There are other firms who are qualified but they do not have the same level of experience specifically supporting communities which we felt has been important. And we also talked to other communities who have recently gone out for bids and they basically have received proposals from the same firms that we have already discussed. Now, again, that doesn't mean that we wouldn't receive something different if City Council's direction was to either A, bring in or negotiate or do something with one of the other firms that we gave you tonight. We certainly can. If your direction was to bid it out, we certainly can. However, in our opinion, we need to have certainty on who our service provider will be, especially if we are in a position where we end up having to review plans soon in the next couple months. With that, happy to answer any additional questions you may have.

Any discussion? All right. Seeing none, I got a motion and a second to approve the recommendation to authorize the continued use of Soundscape Consulting LLC of Plymouth, Michigan for sound engineering consulting services for an amount not to exceed $30,000 inclusive of all previous billings for a period of not to exceed one year to be paid from planning special studies account number 101-721-956.481. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. And that concludes the business portion of the meeting tonight. We'll move on to the second call to the public. I'll read those rules again. They are as follows. The public shall address the council during call to the public or it shall be included on the agenda immediately after correspondence and again immediately after new business. The first call to the public immediately after correspondence. It shall be limited to agenda items only. A person shall not address the council in excess of five minutes unless the time is extended by a majority vote of the council present. Persons wishing to address the council shall identify themselves in their place of residence and shall state their reason for addressing the council and all comments by the public shall be made directly to the council. Step up.

Sydney Finney. Thank you. 554 Merritt Lane. I think that you should argue and look into the safety studies of the lithium ion batteries and how they can explode and what the proximity is to that and safety studies in that regard and treat it the same as the sound studies because I think that could hold up in court and it should be way further away than 1500. because that is nothing. And I think you should start at a mile and then walk it back because it really should be three miles. And thank you so much. And I'm going to leave, but have a great day.

Thank you.

John Palmer, 277 Wright Street in Wixom. When we were at 1500 a little bit ago, a few weeks ago, then we came to 1,000 based on recommendations from our legal team. And then I find out that other communities are at 1,500, and yet we went back to 1,000. And I question why we were so liberal. We're not aggressive enough. Three miles is, I mean, I get it. We don't want it. We want five miles. I get it. But we need to be defensible. I get that. But we walked it back to 1,000 awfully fast. And that's a concern to me. Is our legal team the legal team that we need to fight this fight? There's been no litigation in the state of Michigan. What about nationally? Is there a legal team out there that we can at least consult with? Not to say our legal team is not good, but they're not experienced in this. Because no one in Michigan is. Nationally, is there someone else that we should be reaching out to instead of staying in our cocoon? Because we went back to 1,000 feet, almost like we were too conciliatory, way too darn fast. And then when, I'm not going to get this man's name right, the Greek name.

You have to try it. I know. Papadakalos?

Jack. Jack, yeah, there you go. When that was being read with the ordinance, there was still some wiggle words in there. There was a couple of mays here and there. I think it was about non-potable water or recyclable water, if it's going to be used, if feasible. If feasible. Feasible to who? If it's feasible to us, great. If it's feasible to the facility, I've done a lot of labor language where I can make anything feasible. So we gotta be careful, I think, on some of those wiggle words. But again, without a lot of disrespect, are we legally prepared with the staff that we have, or do we need to go outside our walls and see if there's someone out there that can consult for us? Thank you. Thank you.

Hello, Samantha Moore, 2061 Maple North Trail. I apologize for not bringing this up prior to you speaking on the changes to the ordinances, but I discovered it afterwards. There's been a new rule proposed by our current administration to kill public notification for data center air pollution. So I would love to see something in the ordinances that would qualify them to report that to the city. And one other thing, Deputy Mayor, I really hope to see your name on the ballot for mayor next term.

All right, Cecil George, Ryan Township. There was a few things. One, y'all said you want the water to come from the Great Lakes Water Authority, which is probably the worst place to get the water for the data centers where all the domains are going to break. And who knows where would they draw their water if a main breaks close to them? It is studies showing that the data centers will secretly hook up water to wherever they can get it from. So I feel like there needs to be oversight. With the well water, it's not about them drawing from well water, it's about the carcinogens that are poisoning the well waters. And that is what they will have to deal with. What else? Acre space. Data centers don't need millions of acreage for it. They just need square footage. There is no data center, hyperscale data center laws in Michigan. So they can build as many facilities so that noise is just going to increase, like Kennedy said, and it's just going to build every time they build a new building. Picking small towns because it's cheap, because the land is cheap. I will be in Big Rapids on the 8th speaking because Mecosta County is the poorest county in Michigan. And now data centers are trying to move into there. So we need more people standing up for these small towns. One data center can power three big cities. The city of Detroit is 1.4 gigawatts. One data center could power three of those. So the energy grid is something that we have to worry about. A lot of these laws that are passed, like the zoning act that bans us from pushing data centers out of our communities that was passed 20 years ago. A lot of our laws are outdated. So I feel like us as a people need to be pushing for that. Um, Easter seals, what is the DBA on Easter seals? Cause I heard that brought up to adoring all of this Easter seal doesn't have a loud decibel level going into the communities. Um,

Let's see. Sorry, I think that was just in, not to take your time, that was in reference to like houses of worship, charities.

Yeah, I understood. Yeah, I understood. But I'm just saying it was a poor reference. I do understand that you guys are doing your best. And like I said, I appreciate it. The other thing is Wigsum is bigger than Saline. Saline is the only city that's been sued by a data center that has billions of dollars behind it. They have 2,000 people. You guys have 17,000. What is behind us and what you get to stare at this audience is called a resistance. I know it has filtered out since the beginning, but the more that this comes about, the more they're going to show up. And I will tell them to come in droves to pack these town halls so that it brings more national attention to Wixom. If you are going to fight this lawsuit, it's going to come with this resistance. This is your army. You are the leaders. So with them behind you, you should fight like hell. Because I've heard in the audience someone talking about you guys aren't challenged during your elections. And like I said, Mayor, I really appreciate you. I appreciate Kennedy and every last one of you. Berman, you went to the data center in Duragiac. So I... One minute. Okay. So I appreciate you guys. And, but they're questioning it now. And while they're questioning it, you should too. So that's all I really have to say.

Thank you.

Travis Jones, 3395 Theodore. It's 10 o'clock. I'll be brief. You guys want to get home. I'm sure you do. It's beautiful to see representative democracy in progress. I'm glad that you heard a lot of the comments about wells and water regarding that. I'm still very concerned about discharge of wastewater and understanding where that's going to go, how that's going to impact Norton Creek, various areas in the watershed. I mean, we all know what happened with Tribar. We need to make sure that nothing like that ever happens again. I also think that we need to do further studies on air pollution. I work in the auto industry and stationary generators have a very different emissions profile from a normal running gasoline or diesel engine. They have different emission standards. We should understand what that impact is if we're going to allow that In our community, additionally, fire hazard for lithium-ion batteries. They can spontaneously combust with no warning. They deform dendrites inside the cells. Also, from the EV of the auto industry, that's an issue. That's why you occasionally see Teslas catching on fire whenever they're charging. We're not equipped to handle those types of fires in Wixom, so that's something that we should keep in mind. And then also fuel storage. They're going to have to have a lot of diesel fuel and making sure that we have proper ordinances in place to ensure that that is... safe. And then finally, whenever it comes to the sound study, I live right by the soap factory, and it's a very different noise that I get during summer and winter when there's leaves on the trees and when there aren't. So we may want to look at a sound study that's done in winter and in summer to understand what the difference is of the natural foliage, everything else that's in the area to do that. So thank you very, very much for hearing us tonight.

Hello, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Councilpersons. My name is Michael Moore. I live at 2061 Maple North Trail. I wanted to bring up a couple of points, and I've had a little bit of time and a couple of other voices to jog some of those thoughts as well. So the first one is we're talking about what I understood was 600,000 square feet for three buildings, if that's what I heard was correct. That seems like a very, it's a very hard concept to grasp as far as space. And to give you an idea, if any of you have been to the Detroit Masonic Temple downtown to witness a concert or that sort of thing, if you look at that auditorium and that entire building, that's 550,000 square feet. So just think about that as far as the space it takes up for square footage. I don't know the dimensions of these buildings, but that's about the space it would take if you were to stack it up like Tetris. So take that into consideration. The second thing, I am appreciative that you guys decided to tie the, if there is a data center, their hands as far as where they get their water from. I appreciate that that's not the groundwater. Thank you. That said, that takes away from some groundwater if they were to use that, but now let's say they're on the city tap. The other side to that is I would want to make sure that there was specifications in any laws that were written, any ordinances, that whatever water they use, eventually they are going to want to flush their system. That water doesn't just go nowhere. You don't want that to overwhelm these cities' water treatment plant and you don't want them to have the option to just open up a valve and let it run off because it overwhelms our city's treatment plant that becomes a problem because where does that go groundwater and to give you an idea of that some of us own pools not me but some people own pools and when you draw so much water from the the tap and the water company or the sewage immediately tags on a, hey, you're going to use X amount of water. We're going to charge you for this sewage. Well, if you're, say, a data center and you want to fudge the numbers, all you have to do is say, yeah, well, we dumped it. We'll still pay that charge. You want to make sure that there is accountability and people actually witness that that water is going to the right place and It is being cleaned appropriately. They have to abide by the rules as far as how that water is treated and what happens when it goes back into our system because eventually that water is going to go back into you or your children. Just looking at history, you drink a glass of water and there's a good chance that you have at least one molecule that went through your kidneys as Einstein, Galileo, name a guy. We're in a closed system ourselves. You're talking about a closed loop system as far as how the water is maintained, taken care of in that data center. We are also in a closed system. And we are lucky to be surrounded by the Great Lakes. We have a lot of water. You already have states and municipalities that want to draw a lot of that water to the West Coast. They want to have a little bit of what we have because they're throwing it away. They have no problem spray, uh, spraying water for golf courses in the middle of, uh, Arizona. So what makes you think that they're just going to not care that, uh, the water that we have, uh, in our local taps and our, our wells is clean or not right there across the country. They care less what's happening under your roofs as long as their roof isn't leaking. Um, Finally, as I'm listening tonight, I agree with most people that have spoken. I agree with some of the things that our deputy mayor has put forth. I appreciate you standing on your principles. Keep that up. And also, when we're having a meeting, guys, I get that you are also taken by the desire to be heard, but because of the way this meeting is run, the more you raise a ruckus, the less progress they have in their meeting. And I hate to be that guy, but I also know what it's like to try to run a meeting and constantly have interruptions. And we don't have a system where the population can just interrupt and raise amendments. We're at a situation where we're literally just witnessing a meeting that's happening and we have written in our city bylaws that we have the privilege of being able to speak at the beginning and at the end of the business meeting. So let's try to at least keep it civil. I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello again, Travis Fedelak, 1649 Winding Way Drive. First off, I just want to say thank you to the council, mayor, and deputy mayor for bringing up your questions and challenging each other on some points. It was really nice to hear, but some challenging, and sometimes maybe without the voice. It was kind of disappointing, but getting to my point is... One of the proposed areas on the map that we had with the 1500 distance had a water. And I'm not exactly 100% sure on the map if that's where the proposed center is, but how are we going to protect that body of water that was at least on there? These data centers want the water. That's why they're here. They're going to be pumping through the Great Lakes company that we have, so they're going to be tapping into our Great Lakes and our water source. My concern is, is how are we as Wixom going to protect our water? Other residents have mentioned it. And I think it's a big concern that, well, what are they gonna do on their property lines? Yeah, we'll monitor them, but how hard are we gonna monitor them? My bigger concern, though, is I felt like there was a lot of fear with the lawsuit that's pending. And my concern with the lawsuit is, have we really considered lawsuits from other avenues? Like, okay, we're getting sued by the developer here, but what about the lawsuit from other neighboring areas? We have Lion Oaks that obviously we have some distance on, but that's not... if I knew her here, so correct me if I'm wrong, that's not technically our park, and we also have Walled Lake. What are we doing to prevent ourselves if this data center stuff spirals out of control, pollutes, stuff like that? Are we opening ourselves up to get sued by our neighbors and our surrounding cities? That's something to think about. What about local businesses, apartments, residents, and the people? We're impacting and damaging our property value, business owners, our downtown, People who live within the area. That's all quality of life. We talked about it. That could also impact us. Is the city prepared if we're going after the data center? What if the people come after the council, or not the council, but the city in general? There's another lawsuit that we could have money on us. We are saying to fight for us. We have your backs. A lot of people here said we will fight for you or we will fight with you. I just want to make sure that we're prepared. I understand we're making protections for ourselves, but I want to make sure that we're not going to just bend as soon as we get challenged in court. That's my concern. We've got to bend. We can't break. And as I mentioned earlier today, it seems like we're concerned about the money. And being a newer, younger couple here, there's a lot of people in my age group that don't want these data centers around or want very controlled. And there's a concern. You get the assessment on the property values. People aren't moving in or property values are going to go down. Well, there's less money that we're getting or the C is going to get right there with the assessment values. So if we're really concerned about money with a lawsuit, shouldn't we be concerned more about our people and more about our property values? You're going to have people moving in, properties going up in value, but what does it matter if they're going down in value or people aren't moving in? We just have to take care of everyone here, no matter who they are. And as I mentioned with the property value, I think it's just important to look at the city as a whole. We have one lawsuit, but we could be opening up avenues of other financial losses. Novi, someone mentioned up in front about Novi being sued early in the 2000s. Novi seems like they're doing pretty okay after that lawsuit. I see no problem how Wixom can't be the same way. Thank you.

Hello, this is Danielle Mosier, again, at 2996 Madison Street in Wixom. I know everyone's tired. I'm tired. My husband and kids are at least home sleeping, hopefully. So I'll be brief. But I do feel like there's a little bit of an elephant in the room that hasn't really been discussed. I think some people kind of brought it up. But I think the reason that this lawsuit has some teeth to it IS AN EMAIL THAT WAS SENT BY STAFF TO THE DEVELOPER STATING THAT, YES, THEY CAN BUILD, BASED OFF OF THE CURRENT ORDINANCE OR HOWEVER IT'S ZONED CURRENTLY, A DATA CENTER IN THE ZONE PROPOSED. AND I THINK THAT THAT HOLDS A LOT OF WEIGHT TO SOME OF THE RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE STAFF TONIGHT, AND I THINK THAT THAT'S PUT US IN A REALLY DIFFICULT SPOT. i as a working mom it you know i understand he silly you know responding to emails are phone calls are you know doing things quickly but i do ask that all the staff in the city council take a step back before we're committing to things and looking at things in the future uh... And additionally too, if you don't live in the city of Wixom and you're representing it, please move here. Please be in touch with the residents that you're representing and listen to what they have to say and get in touch with the city and everything that's so great that it has to offer and why we're all living here. I think a lot of people do live here, but if you don't, I really would request that you live here and very much get in touch with the residents that you're representing. That's all.

All right, Roy Thorsell again, 3207 Potter Road. I'm the last guy, all right. I appreciate all the homework you guys have done. I could tell that you did a lot of research, so I really appreciate that. Some of the compromises, of course, don't make me happy, but I understand. Mr. Bergman's concerned that it can't head up in court. So I guess to that point, I would like to know the details of the lawsuit and how the people can support. When are the court dates? How can we support that? Because the same people that came here tonight, we need to get those same people in the courtroom. I don't even know where it is or when it is. So I'd like to see if the city can publish those details so the people can continue to support. That's all. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Council. I'm Wayne Dresner, 2045 Hazel Avenue, and I wish to thank you for all the hard work you've done, as well as the administration. I want to thank all these people for showing up and saying that, hey, we've got the enemies around us. The other thing I want to talk about is I want to take you in a little different direction, and I call it what we unintended consequences. Please excuse my verbiage because I'm having damage. I would like to know if our fire department is prepared to handle any other situations that are unintended consequences of these data centers catching on fire or blowing up. Now I know that internally they have systems of shutdown the whole system. But nevertheless, when you're backed up with batteries, they melt. These facilities literally can melt down. And when they melt down, all kinds of chemicals are spewed off and going into the air. Okay? Now, if we have a situation, another situation where we have chemicals coming from over there, coming into the city, How are we as a city going to evacuate the city if those chemicals are dangerous to the health and well-being of this community? The other thing I wanted to know is many years ago we were told that we would have many many trains coming through the city and carrying chemicals and we had spills. At that time We did an exercise where we got civil defense involved. And we did an exercise where we said, okay, we have a spill. We want to evacuate the city. How do we do that? We haven't talked about this. We haven't talked about civil defense. We haven't talked about the ability for the firemen. Do they have the equipment? Do they have time? Do they have the training? to fight these situations. That's really my concern. And from this one little thing here, it says, data centers use and release dangerous chemicals to cooling systems, hardware manufacturing, backup power generation, and water treatment. Cooling gases, OK? Semiconductors, cables, and pipes or disconnect equipment can catch and release toxins into the land. So I would like to have the administration I'm requesting counsel. I'd like to hear from our fire chief. I would like to report back to read the people on what is necessary to make sure that if this kind of a unintended situation and consequence happens, that we are prepared to do what we need to do. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Anybody else for the second call to the public? Seeing none, I'm going to close the second call to the public. Move on. City Manager comments. City Manager Brown.

Thank you, Mayor. We've got employee work anniversaries ranging from two years up to 20 years that are reflected in the City Manager update. And then two main updates that were provided from the DPW. And this is in relation to our new interim Department of Public Works Director, Irvin Suda. He provided an update relating to some complaints that we were receiving from residents about water hammer and homes if you hear noises in your pipes Banging in the walls basically is it related to these this water hammer? Type of situation happening in at home. That was something that was coming about I was determined that was related to the taking down of the water tower We had to take down the water tower in order to paint the water tower was required maintenance and that had to be performed. And when you do that particular maintenance, you have to drain the water tower. And because of that, we had this water hammer issue that was arising in some of the homes. The DPW staff took basically two steps to address that. They adjusted valves at the booster station and then also installed pressure reducing valves at the hydrants to help control these pressure surges. This seems to have eliminated the situation as we have not had complaints since we've made those changes. However, we are going to continue to monitor and track that, including locations of any new complaints to see if there's a pattern and whether we need to take additional steps in the future. But a good story about something where staff came up with a solution to a problem that people were experiencing in their home. The second thing is about the City Hall fountain. As most of you likely are aware, the upper part of the fountain between the two main buildings on the City Hall campus here, right outside of City Hall, The upper pond was out of service for a period of time. DPW again took action to restore it back to service, so that is back to working order currently. It is a temporary fix that we are going to pursue a more permanent fix for, and we're working with a pool company, pool or fountain company, to address issues. a variety of things in the fountain. One of the things that we experience with the fountain is a great deal of time on task for Department of Public Works employees to handle maintenance, changing of filters, dealing with problems on basically the floor of the fountain. We're asking this company to take a look at it and provide us basically a laundry list of solutions ranging from just bringing it back into service permanently right up to adding functionality that will allow the DPW not to have a hand in it on a day-to-day basis and allow us to have DPW doing other work as opposed to dealing with that because it's literally pretty much a day-in, day-out kind of effort for the DPW absent those additional measures. One of the other things that we've talked about is a potential new fountain water feature in the upper pond. And then I showed you some pictures earlier about some aesthetic improvements that we were potentially going to look at there as well. So there's going to be a list of low-range to high-range kind of solutions that will be provided to city administration and will likely take action on that in the future by bringing it to council for approval of a certain course of action that we'll recommend. But in the meanwhile, I wanted you to know that the fountain was back into service, so we're pleased about that. Dates to remember are listed in the rest of the report with a variety of things still happening through the various things that are happening through the city, city council meetings, holidays, blood drives, things of that nature. And I'll let that speak for itself. And that's all that I was going to cover. If there's anything else in your mind that I need to address, please let me know and we'll get back to you as needed. Other than that, I'm set, Your Honor.

Thank you. Assistant City Manager Benson.

My only comment is pursuant to your actions tonight, we'll work with the city clerk, get this ordinance officially posted and everything in place, and we will do everything. I fully expect that we'll be able to have a revised scope of work related to the ambient noise study at your April 15th, or I'm sorry, it's not April. Yeah, it'll be in April. No, your September 15th meeting. We'll do everything we can to do that. That's all I have. Thank you.

Council comments. Council Member Kennedy.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to see about 15 articles tomorrow about how we voted to end the moratorium early, even though it was just clarifying language. Glad to see everyone come out. It's always good to hear a bunch of comments. It's good that we had some back and forth up on council. I think we came to a pretty solid conclusion. Looking forward to getting more information going forward and amending things as we need to. That's everything.

Thank you. Council Member Granville-Fox.

Yes, I'd also like to thank all of the residents, possibly business owners, for coming out this evening. And also thank and congratulate all of our employees for their work anniversaries. That's all I have for you.

Thank you. Council Member O'Day.

Thank you. Thank you to all of you who stuck it out here to the bitter end and have really given us thoughtful feedback, things to discuss and think on. a very we're taking into consideration something here that not only obviously affects everyone right now but years ahead so understand that the importance of that is not lost on anyone on council nor in the administration and i use that to segue into something uh mayor beagle touched upon a few meetings ago and I don't see the gentleman still here who asked how we got this far and again called into question the integrity. But I can assure you that this group is of the utmost concern here is the good of Wixom and its residents and the ongoing sustainability of that. And to insinuate otherwise is actually quite insulting. And lest we forget some of the happy things around the community, I would like to congratulate Parks and Rec on another great summer series of concerts and family fun nights. It's great when we all come together for something positive and fun, and we see that that can happen in droves. So it's important to keep our eye on that as well. Thank you.

Council Member Simmons.

Okay, thank you. Thanks for all the residents for coming out. Apparently, I think I wrote down Travis, like three or four. Travis is the name to live in Wixom. You got to be named Travis. I wrote down Travis a lot tonight. So if you're having a baby, name him Travis. uh... want to our kids are going back to school tomorrow so uh... looking forward to you'll see buses on the road please be safe and all the things armor starting back up so as parents are grateful uh... and then uh... just to continue review you know my expectation is that we will continue TO REVIEW THE THINGS THAT WE DID TONIGHT ON THIS ORDINANCE AND CONTINUE TO MAKE CHANGES AS THINGS COME ABOUT. I ANTICIPATE FOR THERE TO BE CHANGES AS THINGS MOVE FORWARD. SO I'M EXCITED, THOUGH, THAT WE WERE ABLE TO GET SOMETHING DONE. AND THAT'S ALL I GOT. THANK YOU.

YOU'RE WELCOME. COUNCILMEMBER BEARMAN.

FOR THE RECORD, I GOT THE SAME TRAVIS THAT CAME UP BOTH TIMES. THERE WERE THREE! THERE WERE TWO TRAVISES THAT CAME UP TWO TIMES EACH. SO THAT'S IMPRESSIVE. But that being said, thank you for all of the conversations, the emails, the attending of these meetings. The overwhelming number of, I mean, yeah, there's people out here that insinuate things. It is what it is. But overwhelming public has been nothing but positive encouragement for us to do what's best for the city. And that's what all of us up here are trying to do. This is not a big paying job, and clearly I don't think we've made minimum wage the last couple of months working on this data center. And that's okay because none of us are doing this for the money. We're doing this because we live in Wixom, we care about Wixom, and we want this to be the best place possible. I think someone earlier said we all look old up here.

They weren't talking about me.

You guys did awesome for me because my wife is out home trying to get five kids in bed for the first day of school tomorrow, so somehow I missed that. So that was a positive for me. I'll have to, of course, do the first day pictures tomorrow, but, you know. So thank you really to all the residents for being engaged, staying engaged, and please continue to stay engaged. For reference, one of the most contentious things we've ever voted on in the past was how many cop cars to buy each year. And that passed this evening without any discussion, so put that in perspective. POSITIVE THINGS IN THE CITY AS WELL. I WAS ABLE TO ATTEND THE LAST TWO CONCERTS. THE COUNTRY CONCERT WAS PHENOMENAL. MY KIDS HAD A GREAT TIME. AND THE LAST CONCERT WAS ALSO REALLY WELL ATTENDED. I drove by and took a good look at the water tower the other day. It's not rusty anymore and no longer has a name of a company that doesn't exist on it anymore. So it looks a whole lot better having Wixom on it and looking brand new again. And then lastly, the fire department... They recently made a move. They had a giant piece of steel inside the building from the Twin Towers. It's been in the building, I don't know how long they had it, since before I've been around here. And they made a nice place out front, and maybe the chief would like to at least explain what's happening with that now, going forward?

Is he awake?

Sorry for putting you on your foot. But we don't have a meeting between now and then.

Yes, we have a piece of steel from the towers from the tragic events of 9-11. That piece of steel has been moved to its final resting place out in front of the fire station. We are hoping to have a reveal event possibly on the morning of September 11th. We're still waiting to have all the details finalized for that before you see an official invite. But that project is in the works. We've had the steel in our possession for Just over 20 years. It's always sat in the lobby on display, but the Firefighters Foundation, it's technically was obtained through their foundation, and they're, along with a lot of contributing groups, have been able to make this project possible, and they're working on getting that wrapped up, like we said, hopefully by September 11th.

They literally had a tow truck come and put their boom into the fire station to get the piece of steel out and mount it out front, and it looks really good out front.

We utilized headleaf towing to come out and help move the piece of steel and suspend that while the iron workers from the local here in town training center actually secured it and welded it into place.

So even if September 11th isn't your day to come on by, I would stop by. It's in the front of the fire station. I'd stop by and take a look at it. It's on display.

Yep, it's out front right now. Obviously, the project's not completed. However, yeah, you can walk by at any point in time. And that was the idea of putting it in front of the building is that at any point in time, you'll be able to come by, take a look at it, kind of get a better understanding and remembrance of what that day was like for all of us.

Thank you. Sorry for putting you on the spot. Not a problem. Thank you. And that's all I had.

All right. Deputy Mayor Gaccio.

Thank you. I saved all my comments for right now. No. I did want to reiterate Council Member Simmons with school restarting tomorrow and being extra cautious and aware of... all of our schools for student pick-up, drop-off, and all of our walkers crossing the streets. But also, hopefully, with traffic backups, sudden stops, people trying to cut out, people parked in the left turn lane on Loon Lake Road, or backing up charms to get into banks, hopefully. It seemed like last year we started to work with the district to get a good handle on that. Hopefully we can not fall back to... the old habits.

They do have a new ingress and egress at banks this year, so we'll see how that goes.

So hopefully we'll start the year strong and keep it that way. But please keep an eye out for all of our little walkers. And then the fountain diagrams that were up here ask for feedback. And consistent with all the other logo stuff, I would not be in favor of adding that to the fountain. And I would ask, please, for the love of God, quit trying to put the logo on everything that we have in the city, including the ambiance of the fountain. Thank you.

Thank you. I want to thank everybody for being here tonight, too. I know that this is a tough decision. This is my 17 years up here. I've never had to deal with anything like this before. I don't think any of us up here are really pleased, but our hands are tied, and I hope you guys understand that, and all we can do is make it the strongest ordinance that we can that will stick up in the court. And with that, I want to thank everybody, congratulate them for their workiversaries. Deputy Chief Caldwell, are you still awake? All right, 19 years, thank you. And I, too, want to thank the Parks and Rec for a great summer concert series and family fun night. I think it was the, between the bands, the family fun and everything that we had down there, I think it was the best season ever for those concerts. And I'm looking forward for them this year. And don't forget, we have the Wixom Block Party coming up. We've got three great bands, tons of food trucks, tons of things to do down there. September 19th, correct? From 3 to 10? So hope to see you all out there. And with that, do I have a motion to adjourn?

Yeah. Support.

All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed?

Thank you.