Council - Regular Meeting

So this makes a lot of sex. Yeah. Hello. Yeah. We're on the same project. I'm going to call the city council meeting for April 6 to order at 7:00 p.m. Council member William

Reed here. Stewart here. Ros Davis

here. Branch and Mayor Sander. So u de man members of council since both the mayor and the prom absent the procedure is the clerk presides over the meeting uh specifically for the purpose of electing a temporary prom or a chair for the meeting. And so one of the members of council should make a motion to appoint one of the five of you be the chair for this meeting. And assuming that it passes, that individual will be the the proton of this meeting and then the rest of the meeting will proceed as set forth on the agenda.

Motion to appoint. Motion to appoint Davis. I'll second that. support

unless you have discussion on it, but otherwise you can vote. Okay. Council member Williams, yes. Reed, yes. Store, yes. Ross, yes. And I'm sorry. Yes. Well,

lonely over here, right? Okay, good evening. I expected to sit and go over my readings for today. We will proceed with uh the agenda. where we did the pledge and then Okay, we were we're a little bit out of order, but we're going to go back up to a moment of silence. Thank you. Will you please stand for the flag of 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 to

Thank you.

Now we will go to approval of the agenda.

Motion to approve the agenda. Okay. And we got a second. It has been moved and seconded to approve the agenda as presented. Is there discussion? All in favor, please say I.

Oppose. Pass. We have a couple of presentations and one is the proclamation recognizing April as sexual assault awareness month and child abuse prevention month. Do we have someone? Hello.

So, we have some folders of information for each member. Great. So, hello. My name is Amber Point Goodlock. I am the system manager for Bronson Sexual Assault Services. We are a comprehensive sexual assault program that provides um a range of services free of charge to survivors of sexual abuse and child sexual abuse in this county. Um, so my name is Amber and Do you want to

Can we get you guys to change the mic? I'm a presenting to us. Oh, Chewy. And Chewy is our facility dog um who uh also works for sexual assault services. So he um works with the children that are at our child access center providing comfort. He's also trained in the go to the courouses. So he goes everywhere. Um so do you want to introduce? Hi, I'm Ann Flynn. I'm from the ISD and I'm on the board for SAS. Um I work with Help Me Grow and together we're part of uh Children Trust Michigan. So our joint effort is to prevent childhood abuse and prevents.

We have um we have a proclamation here and I can read the proclamation and thank you for coming. Whereas Bronson sexual assault services provides essential traumainformed services to survivors of sexual violence and child abuse in Calhoun County. All services are provided free of charge to survivors and to the community. And whereas our agency offers advocacy and support for survivors and those impacted by sexual assault or abuse, raises awareness about sexual violence, and engraves the community in efforts to hold offenders accountable and work toward a future free of sexual violence. And whereas all comprehensive services includes counseling and therapy, brutum act advocacy and supportive services, emergency shelter hoteling, public awareness and systems change efforts, child advocacy center, sexual assault nursing examiners services and prevention education. And whereas in 2025, we provided free services for 1,145 survivors and delivered prevention education for 4,411 youth prek through high school in collaboration with Safe Place Prevention Program under the Youth Violence Prevention Program, SAS, and Safe Place and provided prevention

education to 2,95 youth. And whereas SAS volunteer victim advocacy advocates ha who provided 247 uh uh crisis response at local hospitals and police departments contributed to a total of 3,565 hours of on call crisis victim advocacy. And whereas SASS SAN uh provided specialized emergency forensic medical services to 476 victims in Calhoun, Kalamazoo and Van Bur counties. Whereas counselors provided trauma in informed and evidence supported counseling services to 283 survivors and their family members. And whereas 182 children and 179 caregivers receive specialized services from the child advocacy center. And whereas every April, individuals and organizations across United States participate in sexual assault awareness month and child de uh abuse prevention month to raise uh awareness and education and educate communities with prevention. In recognition of this critical effort, we respectfully receive request a city proclamation declaring April as sexual assault awareness month and child abuse prevention month. And whereas additionally on April 16th, 2026, we

will host our annual sexual assault services benefit dinner at Double Tree. uh recognizing 30 years of providing comprehensive sexual assault services in this community. This is our primary fundraising event held in collaboration with Ronson Health Foundation. The event features a keynote speaker of Rachel Denhollander and uh and honors our dedicated volunteer victim advocates. We also recognize community partners including law enforcement, child protection workers, prosecutors, educators, and other professionals who go above and beyond to support and protect survivors. And now therefore, we proclaim I, Victoria Garcia Snider, mayor of the city of Albian, along with members of the Albian City Council, for proclaiming April 2026 as sexual assault awareness month and child abuse prevention month in the city of Albian. And here uh in witness thereof, I here unto such my hand and cause to a fix this official seal of Albian, Michigan on the sixth day of April in the year 2026. We would like to say congratulations to you and thank you for your service. And I think I'm supposed to Okay.

Thanks, guys. Thank you. And you're welcome to say if you would like. Okay. Uh next we have a overview of amended brownfield plane for 20 uh 215 217 South Street 304 South Superior and 105 West Quarter Street.

Well, good evening madam chair and city council members. Um just for the public's information, my name is Debbie Kelly. I'm the president and CEO for the Albian Economic Development Corporation and also for our city of Albian's brownfield redevelopment authority. Um, and on behalf of the city's BRA, I would like to ask city council to establish a public hearing this evening for April 20th at 700 p.m. regarding the two amended brownfield plans for ACE investment properties. Um, Joe Bbecki apologizes. He's not able to be in attendance this evening as he's recovering from a medical procedure. Um the AEDC and the city VR board has approved funding for a not to exceed amount of $95,000 to conduct a phase 2 subsurface investigation for both of the amended brownfield plans. um the phase two uh report, pre-rennovation hazardous materials assessment, combination lead inspections, risk assessments, two brownfield plans, which you're seeing this evening, and two act 381 work plans um for four different parcels in the downtown area for LBM. Um in addition to the public hearing on April 20th, the city bar will be seeking your consideration of approval for the two amended brownfield plans before you. Um, but now I'd like to introduce you to Dave Vanherin. He's with Trier. Um, he's going to walk you through the presentations and show you the plans that Ace Investment Properties has for their rental rehab projects. Dave, thank you for your attendance.

Good evening.

Hi. How you doing? Good to see some familiar faces. Um, um, yes, I'm here on behalf of both projects. These are uh two projects that were proposed in 2019 and in February of 2020. The city did adopt brow fuel plans for each of these sites. They're um the developer is um now ready to move forward and is getting financing in place both know private financing and then also incentives with the state of Michigan. And then we're taking the opportunity right now also to amend the brownfield plans to realign the cost, realign the project to what the project looks like today. So that's what I'm here today is just give you an overview of each um brownfield plan and ultimately what's being proposed. So again, both of these are amendments and what I'll do is I'll go through the first project is 105 West Porter and 300 South Superior Street and kind of give you an overview of that. Um go ahead and advance the next two slides. The next slide is just kind of a introduction or um just a demark that we're talking about 105 and 300 South Superior. I don't know if you're able to advance those yet or and and you do have handouts as well. Um so the first one is 105 West Porter 300 South Superior. Um these are two parcels and the developer for both of these projects is ACE investment properties which is Bill DS Joe Bbecki are the developers. Um the properties are eligible for brownfield incentives uh due to them being um first the city assessor in 2019 or 2020

um designated both properties as functionally obsolete. Let me just try to give it a second for the But I believe you have handouts also. Um so we just yeah I'm on the eligible property map page right now. Um they are considered to be functionally obsolete. In addition, um we've conducted phase two site investigations in the last 30 days and uh determined that both properties are facility as well, meaning they have environmental contamination. And uh using the new rules, the amended rules for brownfield tax increment financing, they are also designated a housing property because he's proposing, you know, the developer proposing uh housing um apartments to be built out and they're going to be at the missing middle uh income levels, which is less than 120% AMI. Um I don't want to jump ahead, but I do want to make a point. They're they're applying for both of these sites. Um, community development block grants with Michigan State Housing Development Authority, which is going to require that 51% of the units are at moderate to low income levels for 5 years. So, that'll be 80% or below area median income for 5 years on um six of the 10 overall proposed housing units. So the for Porter and Superior Street, it is um a two-story building um that is going to have 10 um I'm sorry, five apartments in that building totally totaling 3,157 ft. The total investment is 1.278 million. So almost 1.3 million in total investment. Again, um these properties

are functionally obsolete. Uh we did um in March we did pretty extensive asbestous surveys at each of the buildings and lead paint lead risk surveys and we did find um asbestous containing materials and lead paint in addition to some underground contamination and um if you now we're getting this screens up here if you can go backwards about three or four slides double Couple more. Right. Here's the proposed amendment. Um advance one more. Right there. There you go. Um this gives you kind of a quick snapshot of the original brownfield plan adopted in February 2020. In the amendment today, uh there has been a decrease in total capital investment pools on the project. The prior plan did include, you know, build out and reconstruction of the main level. Right now, due to the funding that's available, it's just the the investments limited to the apartments on the second floor. So, that's the 1.2 million. Um, the eligible cost for Brownfield reimbursement is 459,000 and the duration of that plan is is of the brownfield plan is 28 years. Um the next slide gives a summary more of a detailed summary of the eligible activities that are proposed on the project. Again um a lot of the costs are associated with the environmental assessment that's been conducted, the asbestous surveys, asbesus abatement and demolition in addition to um infrastructure improvements at the site and then cost to uh to develop the brownfield plan. The total uh what I have on on the next slide is a breakdown between the

developers cost and their reimbursement versus um what the brownfield authority as Debbie indicated brownfield authority use portion of its revolving loan fund to support the project and support um in some of the eligible activities. So the brownfield authority and ultimately the city is going to be subject to some of that reimbursement as well. Um the next slide will show a graph representation of the taxes that are going to be generated from the property. So on blue are the base taxes that are already paid every year. Right now you're not going to see, you know, those taxes are going to stay in place. The city is not giving up any of the base taxes that are already generated off of the property. After the investment, you see the value of the property. The taxes go up. um in green denotes the reimbursement back to the city for your costs uh over the first three and a half years and then in red is the developer reimbursement and then what I do is it's a 28-year plan. So you see years 29 and 30 that's when the taxes are fully recognized by the city and all the new taxes can be captured by the city. Um the next slide shows more of a breakdown of all of the taxes that'll be generated off the property over the next 28 years and kind of what that breakdown looks like. It shows that when it says reimbursement to developer, that's reimbursement to developer and the city for their cost. Um there's a portion of the state education tax that gets captured from the new taxes that goes into a state fund that's required under the brownfield, you know, act 381. Um and then 5% of the local taxes that are generated off the property each year are going to be captured by the brownfield authority to administer the plan, you know, manage the brownfield plan and then put into its revolving loan fund. This is the very fund that you use to support environmental assessment here. there's gonna be taxes captured off that

to support the next project. So it's estimated to be 17,000 over the next 28 years and then you've got your ba base taxes that are not going to be captured under the broad plan. So that's just kind of shows you all of the taxes generated off the site over the next 28 years. Um the next portion of this presentation is the same setup, the same thing. It's just the other site. It's 215 217 South Superior Street. um same developer Ace Ace Investment Properties or two parcels. Um both of those parcels are also functionally obsolete. They're also um facility, meaning they're contaminated in their housing development properties as well. Um the total uh is it'll be another five apartments at 215 217 South Superior and um the um but they were good. Yeah, I just noticed another little tight roll on it. 215-27. So I thought that might be the older version, but I didn't get that page. Um so this will be five apartments at that that address as well. and um totaling about almost 4,300 square feet. Um all the apartments are going to be a mix of onebedroom and two-bedroom apartments. The total investment is 1.7 million. The next slide just kind of shows the brownfield conditions that are there. Uh speestus containing materials, lead based paint. Um the bottom kind of um picture there is our when we do a phase two. It shows on the on the east end of that property where we did a couple soil borings and it shows the analyticals that we ran. It's basically like heavy metals that we found. We found old fill material and that was an old mill raceway that was in there that was back filled with um fill material, sand and stuff that's just from an unknown source

and had high levels of metals in it. So that's what we found. Um the next slide is again another kind of depiction of between the original brownfield plan and the new plan. Uh the total capital investment dropped significantly on this one as did the total cost of eligible activities and a lot of that was you know we're limited to uh doing the abatement and all the lead abatement on the residential portion and um also um the pricing we got on the asbesus abatement and lead abatement. We went directly to one of an abatement contractor that we're very comfortable working with. I think before the estimates that were provided were from a construction company that really did drill into what was it was really unknown until we did the survey which we just conducted what is exactly there. So we're pretty confident with that with the total cost here being 519,000 in eligible costs which are now shown on the on the next slide is the breakdown in all the eligible costs between asbesus and lead abatement and uh some infrastructure improvements. Um the next slide shows the same kind of the over the 28 years uh it'll be three years to reimburse the city three and just a little bit of a balance on year four and then develop a reimbursement after that. Um and then the next slide will show again kind of the breakdown of all the new taxes is similar but somewhat different but same proportionality as far as developer and city reimbursement versus what goes into the various funds that are going to be um serviced as part of this brownfield plan and then your base taxes that are not captured. Um and then the next slide provides um one more slide provides kind of a snapshot of both

brownfield plans. Um the total duration of the plan is 35 years because there's been five years where there hasn't been any capture almost six years now. And then next year is when the brownfield plan will start capturing taxes and it'll be a 28 period 28-year period of tax capture which the cap would be 30 years under the brownfield loss. So we're still within that time frame and again it's local taxes and state taxes and the state is participating in this this brownfield plan and um I'm just here to answer any questions you might have as part of this amendment. Yes.

Thank you. Um when are we expecting the the units to go online? Go online. Oh um I think he's going to they're going to start um instruction. It that is not in here. Um, I believe it's going to be yet this year, but towards the end of, you know, probably this fall is when they're going to start construction. And I think it's like up to a 12-month construction

question. And I just wanted to um reaffirm based on the previous information that six of the 10 apartment units will be 80% um AMI for at least five years. Yeah. Yep. It's going to be 80% or lower um for the next five years on six of the apartments, which would be the 51% or more. A one-bedroom apartment, that'd be $1,230 a month including utilities.

Uh is that the beginning? Because I saw 800. Um, does it start at 800 or will all of them be 800? 800 dollars a month in terms of a base or Yeah, it'll be um I can get you the rental rates. Um, yeah, Joe has those. Um, I know that um because he did send me his financial performer um and I'll have to look at that again. Um, but I know that um they're going to be, you know, that 8,900 a month plus utilities for 5 years. Oh, okay. So, that's where you came with 1,000.

Yes. Overall. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you. And thank you.

The public So, April 20th, that's our next meeting. Uh public comments. Persons addressing the city council shall limit their comments to agenda items only and to not more than 30 minutes. Proper reform is required. Public comments aren't 700 East Michigan Avenue. Tree removal agenda item. This is a story of two moments in a small town. On Earth Day 1970, the town embraced America's great environmental awakening. Its college students, professors, and towns people cleaned up the river, planted trees, and held an environmental teaching. Remarkably, CBS News selected this village to exemplify Earth Day. A reporter filmed the town's activities and flew the film to New York City for Walder Kronhite's Earth Day Spatial Broadcast. The town was deservedly proud of the most famous event in its history. Its citizens had answered the call to take environmental action and a spirit was born. Fast forward to that small town in the 21st century, now designated a Tree City USA, linking it to its Earth Day past. But in 2026, the town became known as Red X Tree Apocalypse City, USA. Trees along its boulevards were

condemned with red X's in Victory Park. More trees were red X. Two magn magnificent old growth trees were in the path of progress. Giant trees that had survived fires, storms, insects, and more were cut down to make way for cement and a metal roof shed. One town official described these trees as widowmakers that had to be removed. There was a a buyer for the centuries old logs, a pittance for the loss of something priceless. This was the age of mass deportation and in this town mass deforestation for trees planted the wrong species. Curious about this behavior in the wake of global warming, CBS News returned to film the Red X Tree Apocalypse Town. Its reporter asked, "Did this all this have to happen? Were there any mistakes made in painting the red X's? Were the citizens consulted?" In this moment, a sadness was born. Two moments in time for each one might ask, "Was this the best they could do?" easier to answer for 1970 than 2026. The town's embrace of birthday was very American. The town's embrace of red X tree apocalypse is also very American. Cutting down trees is American as apple pie. This town story is American story in its environmental glory and its mass deforestation. Will the town become known for cutting down its trees and getting rid of those widow makers? Or can that town imagine going forward by embracing a renewed reverence for nature? When CBS broadcast Red X Tree Apocalypse City, a child holding her Oxbook asked, "Did anyone speak for the trees?" Thank you.

Hi, Dale Kennedy, 1133 Riverbend Drive. Um, I am a certified Michigan naturalist and a retired faculty member from Albian College. So, I just want to say um I'm not as eloquent as Wes. I just have a couple factors that I would like people to consider. Um, not saying don't cut down the trees, but I'm concerned about the timing of tree removal. Uh, Calhoun County on their website specifically says tree operations can only take place between October 1 and April 14 each year, right? So, that's next week. Um and then uh second point I want to make is that a number of trees that are coming down are oak trees and oaks are probably the most important trees for wildlife. Um and Michigan gov site on invasive species is especially concerned about oak wilt which is an invasive fungus which um kills many oaks. And so they say that no pruning or damaging of oaks may take place between April 15th and July 15th. All right. And the cutting down goes to Calhoun. Um so Doug Talamy who is one of the most renowned um writers on this topic um actually considers oaks to be um our most essential native trees. So I would strongly encourage when possible to put back some oaks. For example, in Victory Park where several came down. And the third point I would just like to say is please, please, please only native trees. They support the native pollinators which support in turn the birds and all some of you know I'm a

bird person but anyway all the other organisms. Um, it's estimated that white oaks, for example, a single white oak can support over 200 species of insects and other things. So, um, thank you. Thank you.

Hello, honorable council members. My name is Celeste Conamacher, 1212 Jackson Street. I am speaking for the trees as well. I understand when you have problems, it's easy to have somebody say, "No, no, no." But I want to offer some possible solutions with the caveat that I am not a civil engineer. So, with a little bit of Googling, this is what I've come up with. Um, council member Davis was the first one to start off and I I contacted her and she said, "Let me get in touch with Jason Kern." So on 25th of March, he said, "These are the reasons we have marked the trees. They are dead in some spots. They've been butchered by consumers. They've begun to or have uh already heaved the sidewalks or they're heaving the roadways." And then he added on a little bit about the sewers that the clay pipes are being broken apart. So, I have a couple of comments, questions, and suggestions with regard to the dead spots. Did an arborist come in? Did anybody qualify to diagnose the health of a tree actually assess the trees that have the red X's? About those sidewalks that are heaved. Maybe 10, 15 years ago, the city replaced all the sidewalks on my street. And I have the big uh route that comes down at the edge of the sidewalk, and the gentleman simply cut it out, moved it up back in there. They kept on going. He just rerouted the sidewalk. Um, if you curve around the root zone, that solves the problem. And you still have your tree. It's low cost. It's low labor. There's no root cutting. It adds visual interest to the street and it makes it more pedestrian friendly. I think another idea, install permeable pavers or rubber sidewalk tiles. They're

flexible enough to adapt to root growth. They're easy to lift and reset if problems occur. They're Americans with disabilities uh compliant, ADA compliant, and the cost can be less than using full concrete removal and reporting. There are also things like elevating or ramping sidewalks. That's just a small section that you can do and it rises and falls over that root area. Or narrow the sidewalks ever so slightly. In low traffic zones, shaving a foot or two off the sidewalk width while still meeting accessibility standards can allow the path to steer clear of major roots. Um, with regard to the sewers, if you already have identified that you've got bad sewers, you're going to replace them anyway. You're going to fix them. Why are the trees being cut? I don't understand that logic. Um, there's something called root barriers. You install root barriers for existing large trees. These are solid panels made of plastic or metal that are placed underground to create a physical wall between tree roots. We have everyone else in the audience who would like to sleep. Thank you. Thank you. I took notes and we are uh listening to what you're saying. Okay. Um we're moving on with the agenda in terms of consent calendar. And we have a motion to approve the consent calendar.

Okay, it has moved and supported to approve the consent calendar. Is there discussion? All in favor, please say I.

I oppose. Motion passes to approve consent. Items for individual discussion. The first item is approved second written of adoptment ordinance number 202603 and ordinance to amend chapter 86 article 2 to amend section 861 collection and payment of water and sew service rates. I'm council and second motion.

Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, move for move for pass this uh 202603. Yes, that's what we're moving to. Okay, it has been moved and support support uh to pass the second reading of the 263. Is there discussion? All in favor discussion.

I would just like to mention that this is the second reading and adoption of the ordinance that would essentially change our billing system from quarterly for the water bills to um monthly. And we do have um director here to um address any questions that you may have. Hello everybody.

So we're changing from quarterly to monthly. This will help our cash flow. Um as you as most of you know, we are doing a meter project for about 60% through uh with the project. We hope to have it completely done here in about three or four months. And so instead of sending bills out quarterly, we're going to go to a monthly. We think this will be better for our citizens to come in monthly and pay the bill versus trying to come up with the quarterly billing. And so I believe that this is what we're trying to get approved. It was raised at a prior meeting that um um by going to monthly are we actually increasing our mailing costs? And then there was some discussion on ability to electronically pay. We have that sorted yet. Um I believe we're working on that right u now. We are going to have a meeting here in the next week or two to get a game plan of when we're going to convert over to the monthly billing and how that process is going to work. But we are going to try to allow our citizens to pay online. Yes. To which will cut down hopefully the mailing cost.

Oh, it's electronic delivery, right? Um Yes. And then also we're going to try to get the bill out electronically through email um for anybody who signs up for that. Question. Has anyone asked uh if there's an option uh that matters to someone? I haven't found a use case that no one said this to me, but uh there was a use case that someone needed to stay on quarterly for some reason. Is there a potential for that or not really?

Um I don't think we have discussed that, but I'm sure that we can bring that up when we have the meeting and see if that's an opportunity that we want to present or that we should present. just looking for ways to uh mitigate barriers. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.

Okay. Are there other questions? Okay, hearing none. We are going to have a roll call for the adoption of section of 2603. Council member Williams. Yes. Stewart. Yes. Ross. Yes.

Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, next we have approval of section 3 policy 09B section 3 policy document. We need a motion. We need a motion support has been moved by council member Williams and supported by

Ross. Ross Ross. Council member Ross. Thank you. Uh is there discussion? Mayor and council. This is essentially a policy that is required by the um housing and urban development relative to um adopting an economic opportunity policy and just reflective language that is required by that agency. Are there questions regarding Wisconsin? No further discussion. We have a roll call. Okay. A roll call, please.

Council member Rey, yes. Steuart, yes. Ross, yes. Davis, yes. Council member, sorry. Motion passes. Next we have approve resolution 32615 a resolution to authorize emergency expenditure up to 121,000. So move to

okay it has been moved and second. Is there further discussion? Thank you, Mayor Fen. And I'll ask director um per to come forward as well. But as we were talking about the tree, the big issues identification of the tree are the roots that really love our clay pots. So, um, what we had these past few weeks is several, um, emergency repairs that we have on the streets on Iona, North Monroe, Call Street, Fitch, and West. And the cost of those repairs was estimated at approximately 821,000.

Director Kings.

Good evening, council. Good evening. Would you like me to kind of walk through each location? So, let's start with West Center Street. We actually found that manhole that was not on any blueprints that we had when the mill was going across the street and picked up the lid that was 4 in below the ashall, broke parts of it, and then shot it over towards the hotel. When we opened up the rest of the way, we found that this uh manhole is actually live and we have no idea why someone ashvalted 4 in over top of it. So, with that, um we're able to we think we can build the stack back up and then have a um an epoxy style liner sprayed on the inside once they've coated with cement. And then that will keep it for about 16,000 PSI for structural sound instead of trying to pull that whole manhole out. We think it's going to be about 802 to or I'm sorry about 10 10,000 102 somewhere around there to do this compared to up to 20,000 to put a new manhole in it. So having both the engineers been keeping their look at it and also um the excavators they both decided this would be the best route to go. If we go to the 900 block of North uh North Ionia Street, we called up there for sewer backups in a couple residences. When we started going through the pipe, we're able to vacuum uh the manhole out and shoot a jet down through it to clean it. We found that the pipe actually had started to belly down from being pushed on from above. And then right as it enters into the manhole, we've never seen this before and neither

is an engineering firm. our forefathers decided to split the pipe in half and have it come into two separate like a Y and go into the same exact hole on top of each other. Um so we took pictures because that was kind of show and tell. Um we were able to get the line repaired. They were able to dig down and repair the and save the manhole itself and just replace the the one side of it. So that uh particular street is back up and running. We still have to pave it and so forth. That one did not have a lot of root intrusion in it. We then go over to North Monroe Street, the next block over. We had three separate incidences within about a 4-week period of sewer backups to multiple residences. When we were able to start finally jetting and cleaning out the pipe, when they brought the jet back, it brought a ton of sand with it. When we were able to get the camera down through it in about a 250 foot stretch between the 800 and 900 block, there was multiple root intrusions that actually had broken the clay pipe and had just kind of started to take up residency inside that. So, that actually ended up being probably the most expensive fix. That one is coming in roughly at about um I think 34,000 because it of the how many places and sections of pipe they had to be replaced. And then um we're able to save some of the manhole, but then there's also sidewalks on the side that are heaved up. And there's actually a tree that has pushed the curve line down and that's where it created the brakes that we had that were leaking raw sewage into the ground. So

we had to do an emergency repair on that because as soon as we learned that one we had three backups, three separate call outs for multiple residences with raw sewage backup. Then when we put the camera down through and found that it was actually the entire street was draining into that and then going into the surrounding ground instead of going downstream. That's when we had to make the the call to make the repairs. If you go over to Hall Street, the thousand block of Hall Street, same thing. Within a four-week period, we had four different houses or four different streets that had multiple calls for sewage backups. Same thing happened with Hall Street. We sent the camera down through it after we jetted it. Uh, a bunch of sand came out. You could actually see where the road had dipped down by there was a big tree. The road had caved in and came back up. And right in that area, there was a large section of pipe missing. The whole bottom was completely gone. And then about a good inch to two inches of soil all around the bottom was also gone. that handled all of at least Broadwell Street and then the rest of the thousand block hall all comes down to the interceptor at that manhole just before that break uh at North and Hall Street. So I went up there again with this the city engineer and he suggested closing that roadway off because we're at fear of collapse if a heavy truck would have gone over it because there was nothing supporting it after that point on top of again raw sewage going into the ground. They when they pulled that apart, there was a manhole that had been broken on the side and they had literally squeezed the water line and the storm sewer line and use the manhole as a spacer and it was all brick. And how they were able to do that without the

state uh telling them you can't do that was amazing. Uh because you cannot have water and sewer lines in the same area. They have to be a 10ft section, a 10 foot width apart. We put a new cement structure in uh and ran all new pipe from one end of about the 1035 Hall Street down to the interceptor at Hall and North. There was also a big belly in that area too where we couldn't even get the camera through it and it just had dropped down so much that it went underwater. So, we had to come from the other way. That one is coming in. I still haven't got the bill for it just yet, but we're looking at believe that one's going to be about up to $30,000. I'm hoping more towards 20, but we'll have to see how what it comes in as far as all the materials that were used. 5 to 600 block of Fit Street. We got a call for sewer backups in that area. When our personnel went and popped some of the manhole lids, there was raw sewage all the way up to the bottom of the lids. Um, and it was started from uphill because Fit Street's on a hill. And so it had backed up so much that the top of the hill was getting full of sewage, but yet there was nothing at the bottom of the hill on Sydney Street. When we were able to finally get the jet up there and start vacuuming it out, a bunch of sand came out and then of course the whole we were able to start draining everything. The manhole directly between in front of 604 Fit Street had filled up all the way to the brim raw sewage. The one just to the north of that was also backed up. When the contractor opened this up, there were so many tree ruts around it that it was actually

encasing two sections of pipe that he had to take a cement saw to cut that sections out just to lay the new plastic pipe in. And if you go down Fit Street, there are, if you look just on the same side of the road, east side of the road, there are whoop-dedoos from the trees all in the row that have just damaged the sidewalks and then also damaged the driveway apron of the resident uh that are in the rightway that had multiple cuts in that roadway. Uh we were able to get that back up and running. So about within a week to week and a half period, we were able to get all four streets done and back up and running. And our personnel had to every other day make sure that there was sewage flowing until we could get the repairs so we weren't facing any more backups. Um that's pretty much it with that this stuff. A lot of these pipes were found in the saw grant back in 2015, 2016 to be in bad shape. It was in 2018 when they recommended that they be fixed. And these don't get better over time and nothing was done with them.

Yes, sir. Thank you, Director Hearn. What might have been done to prevent this? Was this something that could have been prevented? Absolutely. All right.

Uh, one of the things could have been uh we could have sent a rot cutter down through at that point when the pipes were still intact and we could have monitor monitor a lot better than we have. The other thing too, one of the things that we're doing is we're applying for a sewer lining pipe grant because it's cheaper to line the pipes with a with a lack of a better term, a sock that would go down through and would go inside the pipes. Even if they're cracked, we can still clear it out, clear the tree ruts out, put the sewer liner through it, and then expand the sewer liner and keep everything and not have to tear up the roadway and so forth. But that's a $24 million grant that we're applying for that. It won't be until 2027 if we were to get it. Um, some of this kind of segus into the tree issue.

Um, so I don't know if I should Well, before we get into trees, I do have a few other questions if you don't mind. Yes. We we have a section. Okay.

Thank you. Thank Yes. Um, so you mentioned our our forefathers. Uh, so since since we are the forefathers of today for tomorrow, right? Um, what are some things that your institut work and some of the the planning for the future of this new infrastructure we're putting in so that future Alb will be thankful to you and what you do. So what are some of the things that you're doing to preventative maintenance? trying to get as rid as as of much clay as we possibly can. Uh that's the start and then identify go back through the saw and identify the area. We have about 1,900 ft that was identified by the engineering firm that should have been taken care of within a year or two about the report of 2018 and that has not happened at all. And so we're trying to go back through, camera those areas to see just how bad it is, see if we can save it by just going through with a rope cutter and then uh have those for lining as well. Wherever we can, we're replacing it with plastic pipe. Um plastic or concrete, reinforced concrete pipe. Other than that, I'm kind of in the infancy stage of trying to figure out how to come up with this. And so I'm working with both the engineering firm and the excavators to see what's worked in other communities.

Okay. Um you mentioned that this was kind of a perfect storm of of events here in the last several weeks that this has happened. Uh to me uh that sounds like that kind of we're getting to this critical point in time where we guess overall systems are starting to kind of fail in this whole stuff. My question is where is it going to happen next? Don't know.

Are you I I we are we had a lot this year was colder than most and we had a lot of frost in the ground and it went deep. I think a lot of this broke with between it was a culmination of things like I said before the perfect storm and it all happened all at once when the thaw was starting to come and we while we still had water manes breaking it wasn't as much as normal and so we're like wow this is going to be kind of an easy easy spring well then it started taking out the the sanitary means so I don't know where it's going to happen next we have to take and sit down and kind of go over the map, go over the areas. There's five pages in this saw grant that's just nothing but solid red in number six font and it's just an Excel spreadsheet over and over and we have 1900 ft that we know for a fact that is bad and that would be the first place to start.

Thank you, Council Member Stewart.

Um, so I've appreciated some of the things you've done with equipment. uh as far as maintenance programs and that sort of thing. And I think you said some things along the way, not today about uh doing a rotation between the um the different components year over year where we're going to go through and maintain. Um, I would like to see some sort of a a planned program where we go through and and go through our infrastructure um proactively to understand the status on our own without waiting for a break. And I I get that there's a lot going on right now, but I'd like to see us get to the point and I I imagine you're going there anyways just because I've seen your work in other places, but I'd like to see us get to the place where we're doing we're doing preventative maintenance and get trying to get out in front of it.

I absolutely with all of this and I please don't think that I'm trying to be um disrespectful in any way, but it it we're coming to the point where it it is what it is. We've been through six city managers since she got that document in 2018 and I'm your sixth DPW director in that same time period. There has been no consistency, no following through with any of this stuff. And these were told to us in a report in a,000page report in 2018. You need to deal with this then and 1900 ft of it was in one to two years and nothing has been done. We have 44,000 ft almost 45,000 ft of sewer line that should should have been dealt with already. And that's where we're getting to. I need to interrupt, but we're getting a little bit beyond the scope of the agenda. The agenda with just the approval the expenditures for these specific students that we need to

your your information was and we we answered because I had some of the same questions regarding and this is regarding the Yes, I one specific question. Um the So this is an aspen ignorance, but I know we're asking for an appropriation. Where is this money coming from?

Okay. So this money will come from our sewer fund. It's sewer related. It has to come from the sewer fund. Now, as we've been discussing for quite some time, we have been encountering a lot of sewer problems and the sewer fund can only handle so much. We're at our pretty much at our end. I will be able to handle this through the sewer fund, but going forward, we're going to have to come up with a different plan. Um, I've been talking with a couple of banks that lend money for in infrastructure. It's called direct lending. And I've been talking with a gentleman that um where banks um give like what's called a credit or a credit line. Um, and so I'm just in the starting stage of that. But that's something that I think I'm going to present to the council here shortly or soon once I get all the ducks in line. But we're going to have to find other funding, not through grants, not through bonds, but like a credit limit just like you would for your personal finances to be able to use it when we run into these situations. These are loans that can be paid back over 20 to 30 years. and the interest rates are competitive to uh other types of lending through bonds and such like that. So, this one we'll be able to handle barely through the sewer fund, but we are going to have to come up with a plan to take care of these sewer problems as they happen. These are problems that we don't have funding in place for and we keep running

into these problems because our system is so old and our system wasn't properly taken care of like Jason's been discussing with the people that were here before us. And that's pretty much the way it is. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you everyone. That's pretty grim, but I guess it's reality. Can we help please? Council member Stewart, yes. Ross, yes. Williams, yes. Reed,

yes. And therefore, yes. So, we have voted in the affirmative to um use emergency expenditures up to 121,000 to support maintenance and and sanitary lines um on the streets that we discussed. Okay. Item number D, approved waving uh park reservation fee for full park on June 26 and 27, 2026 for Art Under the Tower. Can we have a motion, please? Support.

Okay, it has been moved and second to support moving the fee for art under the power on those things. Is there further discussion?

Mayor and council, um, we have established the practice that when the fees are being requested, you wait for events that they come to before you for your approval. In this situation, it's the Albian Arts Commission and they're asking for a waiver for the um, community event, the AR under the tower on April 26 in police. Council member Frost, yes. Williams, yes. Reed, yes. Stewart, yes. And Mayor Fland Davis,

yes. Okay. Now, we're going to get to discussion of tree removal, uh, the plan. And at this point I would ask director to come up on why did you look at the bill over the city infrastructure offic This is the vision. I would like to do and it's all out to you also send everyone electronic copies as well but I only have few so I share a little bit

while he's doing that I would like to mention that I did take a tour um with correct time today to look at the tree if there are any question both those with the red X and those with the um the dots that are actually identified by consumers coming up with consumers something Yes. Well, on states,

first of all, thank you everybody for coming on. Uh, seriously, thank you for your intro. I want you to know that we're not trying to make it look like a barren parking lot would be truly honored. Um, when I said I need help in my email response, I do need help and I'm going to need all your help. I did meet with U. Bob Wright and Missy Brooks, the nature center. We kind of went over some of the different things and we're going to talk about this on Wednesday at 4:30 down at the nature center. Um, I kind of want to give everybody a little bit of a background real quick of how bad it is with the trees and the sewer lines because this is what's going to end up costing us money that we just don't have. We're going to have to figure something out together. We have over 267,000 ft of sewer line. You could go from downtown Elbian to downtown Battle Creek, turn around and go back to downtown Elbian with the amount of sewer line that's just under a roadway. With that, you have 220 over 229,000 that we've all played. the worst thing we could ever ask for. Of that, 27,000 ft of that was laid in 1910 and it's been in the ground ever since along these streets. And so in my email, I said that every time you flush, you actually are watering the trees. And we've been doing a great job of doing that. So the other thing too I kind of put in here, this is stuff from the sovereign to where you kind of see where we have enough pipe going from downtown Elvie to downtown Homer that was just in the high risk that should have been taken care of by them. That doesn't include the stuff

that's a year or two old that should have been done in a year or two. I included some photos on page four. This is from Monroe Street of what we encountered. I know some of you saw the email chain. Some of the council members did not. The one thing I want to talk about too, if you go to page seven is our insurance carrier. In 2025 in February, we met with our insurance carrier and they asked me, "What what do you have for trees? and what's the condition of your sidewalks and you know how bad your sidewalks are and we have nothing at all. And so they said to me in 2025, you need to get on and you need to figure this out. We need to get a tree inventory. need to figure out what trees are good, what trees are bad, what trees need pruning. Because if something falls on somebody and you don't take care of it, you may not if you don't get a handle on your sidewalks and you know the sidewalks are bad and you don't do anything and you don't come up with some sort of a plan, you could be in trouble. And that was from risk management. So then I did my best to try to do this. We had someone dedicated uh that was actually an Albian College student that was hired as a seasonal. She came in and she actually was trying to do both a number of the fire hydrants because we had no idea what fire hydrants worked and what don't didn't work. And we find it out. I found out in 2024 and 25 when I went to a fire and because of being a plus-siz model, I had enough weight to finally break the thing open and get it to flow water before that. I had to drag the hose to

the next fire because it wouldn't work and we had no clue. So, we were finally able to get that taken care of at least for our fire rate for everybody's home or owners and get them numbered and get come up with a plan to fix that. Getting back to this, they specifically said risk management said if you have sidewalks that have heat over an inch and a half, you have to deal do with them homeowner or youth. So this February, they said, "How's your job going?" Uh, I got the fire hikes taken care of, but I have no clue about sidewalks just yet. And they made it very clear, you better get on it this year. So, I have a gentleman, a veteran employee who's coming back uh from being off of work, and that is going to be his sole purpose in life is just to GPS locate every single tree, GPS locate every sidewalk that's got an issue, photograph it, and upload it into our GIS or EZRI system, and then also do street sign because I have to come up with a plan, and that's just sideways that I have to deal with. When it comes to the roads, like on page eight, you're absolutely right. There are certain times I can only do certain things. And so when it comes to ER Street, I'm not planning on coming through and just buzz cutting everything. It's going to have to be in phases. One, we can't afford it. I I can't go into the the finance director's office one more time for more money. I've got to do it in phases, but I've also got to plan, too. Barryian Street. There's no trees. We took them all out because it was so bad through there. We had no choice. But I know I've got to go

back to the plant. We all have. We know this. And I've got to use native species and I've got to come up with something that's not going to cause the same problems 10, 15, 20 years down the road. When we talk about the tree plan for Eerie Street, I would ask that we go look at these trees. Not every tree is marked on here. But if you look at the ones that are marked, they've got serious issues. And it goes back to, and I'll say this, too. When a tree gets damaged, it should have been trimmed. It should have been trimmed correctly, and it should have been sealed at the tent. That has never happened. The tree just gets hit by lightning, breaks a branch, falls down, we pick it up, and that was it. And the city really did have struggle. I've been here 28 years. You go back to 2008, 2009 into 10. Public safety went from 34 officers when I got hired in, we got 19. And so the city took a huge hit during that time period. There was no money to do anything. And so now that we're starting to get a little catch for our breath, we're also starting to get a hit with the check is coming due on all these things that we should have been doing years ago. And so I absolutely agree that we need to replant. There are some trees that are leaning towards the house that are dead. The stock is dead. It's rotted on the inside. And I asked the arborist too and he he told me those trees got to go. They are bad. They're going to cause issues and we've got to get rid of them. But we also need to replant like you have said. We can't just have parking lot. And so the one thing you need to keep in mind, and I never realized this, with an oak tree in our rightway

on page nine, I have a diagram of how wide those roots go and it is amazing. I never would have thought that they'd be double the size of the top of the tree. While these are beautiful trees, we literally have everything in there that shouldn't have been in there. silver maples, walnuts, uh, oak trees. It's it's every tree that was like so bad. That's why you look at Ann Arbor's been taking all of theirs up too in their tree city, but replanting at the same time. So, what I'm going to do is the very last page shows you a map. It's page 11 of all the pipe. All the red is all the types that were laid in 1910. So it gives you an idea about this how much we have to figure out and work on. But what I'm looking to do and I think what my staff's looking to do, we're going to apply for grants because there's a lot of grants I was just told about with DNR for replanting working with an arborist. We want to do this right. And so that is our biggest thing and their biggest message here. We have to do something because our insurance companies told us that. I give you an example. I want you to go down to the three trees that are on North Mingo Street. Go north of Porter on the west side of the road next to the parking lot. I want you to look at the roadway and you'll see go with this like this by each tree and there'll be a dry spot on the pavement right now. I show it to the city manager. It's dry and then it's wet where it dips down. It's dry and it's only going to be a matter of time. And we do not have the money to keep fixing

the roads. You truly don't. I give you an example how much it costs just to fix North Clark Street between Michigan and Erie. The cheapest quote I got just to mill it out. Fix a couple of the structures is 145,000. That's just to mill it out. Those sections right there were 30 40,000 a piece of the 100 block of center and uh quarter. And that's without fixing the curve. And so I'm kind of stuck. I'm looking for some direction. I'm looking for help because I want to plant trees when we take them out. I got to fix the roads the best we can. And we all know how bad our roads are. But some of our infrastructure is just as bad as the top of our roads. And I know I'm sound like I'm raising ringing the bell. I kind of am. Uh and we've got proof of it because we are giving it to us in a in a a thousand page,34 page document. a saw grain that nobody's ever cracked open. And that was back in 2015, 2016 when the data was gathered. So, I'll be going through with that. Like I said, I'll be working with the arborist. I'm working with G Farms. We're going to try to replant. I was told by the arborist, too, some of them more we need to take more trees out of Victory Park because they're that they're dying through the center and they're we but we need to replace them. Now, those you can have oak trees, black walnuts, silver maples, all those. They can grow as big as they want to grow. And that's the plan. Councilwoman Davis is going to be doing an arbor day uh on the 11th planting six to 10 trees is what we're getting. And those will be the oak trees, silver maple to replace the ones that we put out. And so, in the end, I want I I am open to

talking with anybody. We're going to be meeting on Wednesday at 4:30 at the nature center. Uh the arborist will be there too so we can talk back and forth. Bob Wright and I'm looking forward to sitting down with any of you. But please do not hesitate to contact me. You got questions, want to scream and yell at me, thank me, whatever, I'm off. So 4:30 4:30. Yes. Okay. Want some numbers in your house.

Well, thank you, Mr. Karen. I know that was a hot issue and um hopefully you gave some information that um was very needed you know in terms of clarifications and things like that. Before we close out host and datas if I might um I just want to mention that we all care very deeply about the trees in our community. We understand, you know, they're an asset and we need to do what we can to protect and preserve them, but we also need to protect it with broader environment as well. So, we have to approach it in a very systematic and thoughtful way and that's what we plan to do. Um, and we are also looking for grants for opportunities where we can um purchase and plant more trees. Um, we in fact people here have identified some of those grants. I've been in touch with consumers and they've identified another source for us. So, um we would appreciate everyone's help in identifying those sources, doing letters of support when we are applying for those funds. And um you know, storytelling is such a big part of getting a grant approved. So, um stories um and history that um Dr. Dick has in particular might be helpful as we try to apply for those funds. And as you call the red X3 apocalypse, I just want to mention that I saw the AI doc this weekend and I'm going to coin a phrase from them. So we rebrand it the optimist a optimist trees that we will find a way to um remain a beautiful tree city moving forward and being thoughtful in how we um approach tree planting and preservation. Now, thank you sessions.

Just want to say thank you to Jason for all his work because he has really been working hard on this. And I know my sister, she had a tree in front of her house that limbs have fell off. Great big limbs have fell off. You could see that the tree was rotted inside and never she could she get it done until now. So Jason came to the rescue. Well,

well, thank you. And I also think I've been in contact with communication with a couple of people. Thank you for the uh the heads up on uh grants, you know, and things like that like uh madam city manager said, you know, every I mean, we have to work together in this one because this is a little larger than one person. So is uh it's going to take the entire city coming together and working collectively and coming up with some plans and some solutions. So thank you for your indulgence and thank you for your insight and patience as well as wisdom and knowledge. All of that is needed. Okay, we're we're down to help uh approval resolution 2616 to approve 2027 congressional spending request by Senator Alyssa Luke Swan for proposed project. Uh this is a project for the uh West Eerie Street project.

So moved. It has been moved and second. Is there a further discussion?

Thank you. Um, mayor and council, um, this is in regards to a an application that we submitted to Congress for funding for the construction and improvement of the West Eye Street to replace the Asian infrastructure. Um the proposed project will consist of crushing and shaping approximately 26 times the feet of existing roadway and approaches at cross streets between the intersection of South Al Street and West Erie Street and the intersection of South Street and 99 and West Street. Um project will focus on pulverizing the current asphalt surface and gravel base and replacing it with a new object asphalt HMA surface. Additionally, five ramps will be upgraded to meet current ADA accessibility standards, improving accessibility for pedestrians and individuals with disabilities. So, those were submitted and we need officially approval for for the grant application for the um funding application. The amount is the same for both um Senator Stockkins and Senator Peters. The difference is that one is for a 20% match and the other is for 25%. So for your consideration is the first one which is item. Well, that um request to senator life discussion.

Council member Williams. Yes. Re yes. Stewart. Yes. Ross. Yes. And mayor Davis. Yes. Okay. The next one is um the one that uh madame city manager mentioned and it's the appro um resolution 26 uh 202617 to approve 2027 congressional spending request to Senator Gary Peters for proposal project for West Street. Can I have a motion please?

Support. Okay. It has been moved and second to support uh resolution 202617. Is it a further discussion? It's the same funding request for the 2.7 million and this is for the 20%.

Yes. Stewart. Yes. Ross. Yes. Williams. Yes. and Morando. Yes. Thank you. We're down to future agenda items. Um, does anyone have Oh, yes. Councilman Paul, I'd like to hear more uh options or considerations for the sewer fund financing. Are there other items to be added?

Okay, we will put that on the agenda. Okay, public comments. Persons addressing city council shall run their comments to no more than three minutes. Proper form is required. So you can talk about other things now Kder 1211 Edward Street. I just want to draw your attention to the Elian Arts submission in partnership with Jolly Green Junction and Salem uh United Church in Christ about our creation justice Elbian's part. This is going to be held at the new arts center which you just cross the bridge on East Cass and look to your left and right there it is because people don't know where it is so you have to come and check it out. Uh we will it'll be from 10 until 3. There will be giveaways and uh kids corners and vendors and we'll be talking about taking care of our earth trees, beautifying Albian, picking up litter, many other things. It's there's something for everybody there. Bring your kids and everybody like we said work together to make this a better place for everybody. Um there will be speakers giveaways and also at the same time there's a lunchon at Salem Church between 11 and two and Mr. Jason already brought out our planters. I said wow so early but um yeah we're looking forward to spring to beautifying Albian and to keeping it clean and looking nice.

What day is that? Oh I'm sorry. April 18th between 10 and 4 and it's free. Cool.

And also April this this Saturday coming up starting at 10 o'clock citizens to beautify Albian is going to be doing cleaning up our main gardens Weatherford Garden Moulder Panas um up on Austin Avenue. There's a wall that we painted blue last year and cleaned up all that mess and all that brush and everything. And I'm getting we're getting wood chips. So we need people to show up and help us spread the mosh. Lot of fun. Everybody welcome starting at 10 Saturday. It's going to be beautiful.

Thank you. Anyone else? Good evening, Mayor Pro Tim Davis,

fellow council members. Absolutely. City manager Tiro. Congratulations. Welcome. And city clerk Domingo, the folks in the gallery this evening and those watching. Good evening, Gary Tomkins, your county commissioner. Great to be with you folks as always. Uh, a couple of things I want to talk to you about just real quickly, just real briefly. Those of you that'll be potentially vis uh venturing south on 25 and a half mile road that would be the road that goes into Homer if you will memory gardens in the back. We do have a bridge that was officially down was uh taken down on Monday March 6th. It's the 25 and a half mile bridge. That bridge will be down for approximately 3 months. Uh it was near critical status and needed to be replaced and subsequently we have a closure. So if you're headed that way, there's going to be a lot of detours that you'll have to certainly make out around that. So again, a lot of a lot of activity going on. You know, I certainly Mr. Kern, roads are an issue. You know, certainly I've talked about that for a number of years, certainly at the county as well. And with that being said, you'll see about 16 crews starting to come out here pretty quickly around our side of the uh the county. Uh as we begin our pothole patching, uh those will be 16 different crews of contractors uh that we've contracted out our service. Number of them have already done this for several years. So again, you'll see a lot of that activity as well. So again, the road as the asphalt plants open up and whatnot. Uh, a couple things real quickly. Upcoming county recycling events in April and May, April. In April, on April 27th, there'll be a household hazardous waste, appliance, electronics, and scrap metal collection at Bailey Park in Battle Creek from 12 to 5:30. Not able to make that one, you can certainly go to the one on Monday, May 18th, which is the same one. and it'll be right here in Albian at Catch and Field. Um, a great opportunity to get rid of a lot of those things, whether it be refrigerators, appliances, scrap metal, etc. Uh, and I think it's going to be a great opportunity that we

able to supply that and have you be able to do that. Uh, also too, one of the things I want to talk real quickly about is highspeed internet downtown. As many of you know, we've been working towards that over a period of uh, a couple of years. I've been on a committee uh, to do that. uh in my newsletter this month, as a matter of fact, I actually put out a a map that you can see all the different uh contractors. We actually got a have about 12,700 different uh residential areas in Cal County, being a lot of them on the Southern District that will be able to actually get highspeed internet uh directly to their uh to their doorstep, which is a great thing. Something we'll be working on. It'll be happening over the next four years from 2026 to 2030. So, again, good news to actually have some positive. We were actually one of the largest uh benefactors of the federal grant. As a matter of fact, in the state of Michigan. So, we're very happy that we were in K County. Uh real quickly too, as I finish up, Cal County has launched a new emerging needs fund to quickly address the urgent opioid related challenges with an initial $200,000 uh from settlement funds that we get on an annual basis. Applications will be accepting on a rolling basis from eligible local governments, tribal governments, and nonprofit organizations that serve county. And this funding will support opioid prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery initiatives that address the emergency service gaps in the line. So what we found is there are a lot of needs that are much more urgent than our normal funding pro cycles would go through. And what this allows us to do is to be able to uh initiate quick funds to those that may need that quickly. And I do I get an extra 30 seconds.

All right. Mayor Tim, sorry I know I was going on the roll there. My apologies. Um, and let me just finish up with and I just want to be real close over the last week and a half is if anybody has tried to contact me by telephone, etc. I have been notified that I have been losing calls and not being receiving a lot of the voicemails I got. So, if anybody has tried to contact me and I have not returned your call, my apologies. So, I've got the situation fixed. It's done. So again, I just want to make sure that too as well because I have people will contact me go, "Hey, why did you call me? Why didn't you call me back?" So anyway, my newsletter, if you don't get it, it's a great resource to know what's going on in around the seventh district. Um, well, all the information I talked about this evening is right there. So again, if you get an opportunity, contact me directly and I can get you on the list. So with that being said, it's always a pleasure being folks. Have a good evening. Thank you. Sorry about that.

You do have a history of returning your calls. Yes, I do. I know. And then when somebody tells me I go, "Oh my gosh, what am I doing?" Right? Because you have it fixed because that's the only Okay. Thank you. Any other um public comments? Okay. We don't have a close session like that. Nope. Yes. Okay. Additional action items, council members, that the close session. Yeah, that's related to the close session.

Oh, now we're down to our new city managers. It is extensive. She has been working hard. Yes, she has.

I've heard there games. So, I promise not to read the entire report, but she's going to teach me how to post things on the website, so it might be there soon. All right. But, um, as we had mentioned, the emergency sewer repairs. Um, we we did bring that to council today and thank you for supporting that effort and, um, we will be talking about sewer fund and financing going forward. is definitely an issue because we don't have a funding to do what's needed in this immediate um time frame. Um related to that, um Lightning is applying for a state clean water revolving fund um application for us and we will have a public hearing on that that's scheduled for a meeting on April 20th. Um be proud to say that our team here has installed over half the water meters. So that's moving um right along. As mentioned, we will have the May 18th county household hazardous waste day um here at Ketchum Field from 12 to 5:30 p.m. I do want to mention that no items that contain free will be accepted. So if you do bring a refrigerator, it should be drained of the freon by a professional one. But our website also has details on what you can and can't do in regards to the passenger bus like waste day. So please visit the website for more detailed information. May 2nd is the spring cleanup. Um we're working with rangers. I'll have three trucks um here and two other parks in the city to look for the details in regards to that for cleanup as well. So that's for non recycling and non leaf items um that they'll be gathering. And also I worked with the clerk and the finance director. We now have um past year's budgets at all the reports um

caught up on the website and now you can find those. And we welcome a new um staff person, Maria Mara Williams um to the finance department. So if you see her at the front desk, you can say hello to her. The um public safety department has promoted two individuals. We now have Detective Sergeant Bill Lazarus and Sergeant Zack Hipp. So, congratulations to the new members. And as I mentioned, I reached out to consumers and um just last week they had a um a meeting with community leaders on the 2026 I hope 26 reliability action plan and that includes um their request to the Michigan public service commission customerf funed project. In other words, jury like so. Um, but the funding will go toward trimming trees away from power lines and falling poles to withstand um stronger winds and storms, adding technology that instantly um responds to interruptions and enhancing protection against physical and cyber threats. And I shared um the information with the council members. They had to call us in that particular meeting. They're anticipating that for the average college pole, the electric bill increase will be approximately $89 per month or roughly 7%. And then also on the website, you may have noticed we have um construction updates. So both for the streets and for our water sewer system, there's information and updates um that you can find right there on the website. Not going to read all of them because there's a lot going on. And so we've been working with white men to get a weekly update for us updated regularly so you um can easily identify which projects are going to impact your area.

Thank you. Okay. Um something to no other comments or anything like that. Do we have a motion to excuse council member French and um mayor uh council member pound council member mayor and council member yes sir

quickly um I thought it was worth noting that um the pivotal um proposal that we approved last week um we are post They vote on their submission. We believe till that was good topic last time. The second thing is along with fun. So, some of you know that I um am involved in the low leaf soccer program and I just wanted to let everyone know that we are starting our games this Saturday and we play every Saturday up at the opportunity school in the morning on Saturday mornings. And if you want to you want some free entertainment, come at 11:00 because my almost 40 um three and a half to five year olds is great entertainment. They're just uh we have we have 200 kids playing this spring and probably 35 coaches and about the same number of refereeing youth and adult and a lot of uh a lot of community engagement and the the soccer community is a little bit broader community. It runs we have a great core from Albian. We have great representation from Marshall, great representation from Springfort, great representation from Homer, and then we have a few from Carl, Spring Arbor, Concord, Battle Creek, Lichfield, Pagansa, and Jackson. So we have we have kids coming from all over ages three and a half up to 18th between now and the uh I believe it's the 17th of uh May of six Saturdays in a row. So again, come at come at 9:00 or come at 11:00 Western Avenue 11 news and then um we areo hosting again this

spring uh a tournament where um clubs from around the area will be coming into Alan now. We had I forget how many. We had a ton of people last fall and they're doing the same thing. Okay. Okay. Makes me almost want to thank someone to a soccer.

Okay. I have just two things that I would like to mention. One is on the 14th, which is next Monday. I'm having um my fifth precinct meeting uh uh at the high school at 6:00 and we have updates from um city manager uh Dr. Terry. We have um the director of transportation uh Mallalerie Avis is coming to give us an update on the transportation system the public transportation uh t ride Calhoun it's called and one of the main things that I'm interested in of course is I know that there's a van here every day but now we I really want to know what the fairs are and we need to get the fair structure out to the community so people will know how much. And we also have a representative from the uh street department to come if there are any updates regarding what is happening u with our roadways and and streets and trees and things like that. Even though um Mr. Kurran can't be there, he has a substitute. Uh Lesie

Lindsay

Lindsay Lindsay uh will be there to talk about the streets. So that's next Monday at 6 o'clock at LB Marshall Opportunity School on Yodson Street. we can get all of the updates that we need. And AAL, those of you who are in a cyclist, AAL is sponsoring um Larry Bell is going to be there to talk about cycling as well as his adventures with uh the brewery because I think a lot of people know about this brewery in Kamazoo and all around. So he is going to be there and that program is at 10:00

at Wesley at Wesley

on Thursday the 9th of April at 10:00. I think that's all that I have. Um, I would just like to take the time out to say thank you to Audra and Nath and their um friends, family, loved ones, and volunteers that hosted the egg extravagancely dedicated their time to providing a uh event for the community. So, just wanted to say thank you. And Miss Miss Reed volunteered this year. So, just want to say thank you to all of them. Approximately how many students were there, you think? There was a lot.

There were a lot. There were a lot. 20. Yeah. Really?

It was in the rain and they were there. And and the people were there to get the eggs and things out. And I tell you, those kids when they ran out and started picking up those eggs, I did not see one egg left in the grass. 320 students. 3 That's a lot. That's enough for a new school. So, okay. Is there uh anything else? Any other comments? Okay. Hearing none, a motion to Okay. Yes. With your permission. I forgot two items. Um first um Director Kern will be hosting a seminar on liquid deicing on April 8th um at the um EPS office street department at 1298027 mile road. Um we we're very excited to share what we've learned and the um cost savings associated with this approach and we we're expecting municipalities to have representatives from across the state to come and hear how wonderful we are doing with this. Thank you Jason for all that you're doing to dance us. And the other this is the flyer that you have at your desk. And the other one, I forgot I neglected to say thank you to the arts commission, to council member William, all of the council members, um, Mary Slater and Nancy Doyle and the entire community who came out to welcome me um with the reception at the wonderful, um, art center. It's a great spot. There's lots of creativity going on there. I'm looking forward to learning my own new crafts and um, just the excitement around that um, that space. It's just wonderful. and I I receive so many cuts. I think we're the cut capital of the world. So, thank you everyone for the

very warm welcome and I do appreciate it. We're working with everyone. Thank you. Welcome home. Yes, sir. Thank you. Just quickly, I want to say thank you to everyone here in the audience. We came out to speak for the trees and other concerns. It's a huge part of your civic engagement and making this community what you want it to be, what you want to live in, raise your families in, uh, and see as part of your future. If, uh, if we aren't engaged in civics, then civics will engage without us, and that's a dangerous thing. So, thank you for taking the time to be here.

Now, this is the third time I've tried to do this. Okay. Do we have a motion to excuse our absent council members?

Okay, it has been moved and a second to excuse council member French who has above already fire and he didn't want to share it with us as well as city uh as well as the mayor Snider. So is there discussion? All in favor please say I. I. opposes. Motion passes. So having no further business, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you. motion.

All in favor? All in favor?