City Council - Regular Meeting

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, Madam Clerk. Can you call the role, please? Mayor Beagle is excused. Deputy Mayor Resnick, present. Council member Berman, present. Council member Gotchell. Council member Gwin Fox here. Council member OD here. Council member Sharp present. We have Cora. All right. Um, any changes or additions to the agenda? City Manager Brown. Deputy Mayor. I have not. Thank you, sir. Assistant city manager Benson. I have no sir.

Any from the DS? All right. We have no correspond. Sorry, we have the minutes. Um, we have no no minutes. Oh, yeah. This is going to be interesting. No correspondence either. First call of the public. I will read quickly the rules for call of the public. Public shall address council during the call of the public which is included on the agenda immediately after correspondence and again immediately after new business. First call to the public immediately after correspondence is limited to agenda items only. Persons shall not address council in excess of 5 minutes unless the time is extended by majority vote of the council's present. Persons wishing to address council shall identify themselves, place of residence and state their reason and all comments made by the public shall be made to the council. Do we have anybody for the call of the public? Just call the public. Seeing none, close the first call of the public. Next on the agenda, we have the city manager reports, the departmental report from October 2025. Any questions, discussions? Councilman Barman. Uh for Tim I believe uh just reading through I saw that the DPW staff had to go through and clean up after the new janitorial contract.

Yes. Um is that getting better or that that has been I don't even want to say yes it has been getting better. We uh met with them and um we did build them for that work that we did over time. So um just notice like up here it is looking like it's been vacuumed for a while. I think there's stuff on the floor. I might be

Yep. We will uh we will get get them to do that as well. Um it's it's been we have uh a couple of clipboards throughout the city that uh they're they're now looking at and retraining a little bit. Uh it's a little different than the last company, but it's still it's still a change that um we're trying to work through. Thank you. Thank you. Um, I have another question on the overtime this sick month. I noticed that we already have 493.5 uh fiscal year to date and then last the last three-year average was only 398. Where is the majority of that overtime coming from?

Yeah, the mo most of that uh is coming from uh what we do at the parks and wreck and uh we do have some work there that we do on a weekly basis uh picking up trash and and whatnot. Um the major one this last month was for the the fall festival or the pan called the panther hunt. Uh that was 160 hours just just with the panther hunt. And then we we do the the barbecue blues. There were a couple guys at that one. And uh you know the Thursday night um the movie night, we had we had a couple folks at that one as well. So, um it does it does seem uh a little high from the 270 that we had in the past. Um and we've been asked by parks to uh to increase our our work over with them. So, yeah, that's where most of that would

maybe uh for next budget season, we need to think about how can we reduce the overtime but yet still get the and still get that work done. Yeah. Yeah. We'll work with parks and rec to to see what um what we can do there. Councilman, thank you. Um same line. It looked like uh I believe it was DDA line item was accounting for quite a bit of the increase on that because that caught my eye as well. Um is everything that we're doing for DDA per our agreement with them for reimbursement is that being logged as overtime hours or

it is not. um if it's if it's during the week, but we do weekend we do weekend trash pickup along uh Wixom Road that all gets logged in. So that that would be one one area that we do each each week during the uh summer months as well. So that's that's another another area that that we have increased just for just for the the account and that is actually built to the DDA.

Okay. because I know um it was a handful of years ago we were voting on I think Mayor might have been Mayor Ziggler at that point. We're voting on increasing like the leaf collection capacity, buying a new truck instead of whatever trailer we were using. Yes. And there was a promise that the overtime would go down because that would be more efficient. We've never gone down. We have not gone. And now we're going way up. So, um, to the deputy mayor's point, I'd like to see some form of structure to start trying to rein that in as well.

Certainly, uh, the, uh, the LEAF program, we have not we have not done any overtime this this year on on that. And, uh, we had we had the two crews out um, for probably three weeks now. And we feel that yeah, that's been much better on on that end. But now we've Yeah, there's other changes that have occurred that we've been asked to do. So, [clears throat] thank you. Yep. Any other comments, questions? All right. Thank you, Tim. Thank you.

Move on. Consent agenda. All items listed under the consent agenda are considered routine by the city council, 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 the unfinished and new visit. Do I have a motion to move support? All right, we have a motion to support. All those in favor signify by saying I.

I. All those opposed. Moves on to unfinished business which we have none this week. And on to new business. New business item number one. There's a recommendation to approve a professional services agreement with Safeuilt Michigan LLC to extend the term of the agreement for building department services for a three-year period to expire December 31st, 2028 and authorize the mayor to sign the agreement. I have a motion. So move. We have a motion to support. All right, Mr. Vincent.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Uh good evening, members of city council. uh before you tonight is a uh is a recommendation to consider a professional services agreement um extension with Safe Build. Um they provide building department services for the city including uh the provision of a building official, building inspector, there's mechanical inspectors, electrical inspectors, um and plumbing. Um so this agreement uh before you tonight is pretty much the same. It's almost exactly the same from a fee structure as what the city has been operating on since we began this agreement in 2014. Um there was actually one point that it went down from 65% to the current 63.5% of permit fees that are reimbursed to them um you know for for their services. Um and that's the majority of of really how this particular contract works. They get a portion of the permits and the work [clears throat] that they do. Um there are some hourly pieces for things like um one-off code enforcement um you know, you know, potentially court appearances. We've been using hourly fees even less lately now that we have a part-time code enforcement officer. I mean we we still there are still some cases but it's uh much less. So, uh, in general, administration has been a satisfied with Safe Built. Um, we think that over the course of of, you know, their time with Wixom and specifically, I know with my time here with the city, um, they're responsive. They provide us a high a high level of service and we're very fortunate that they actually base their south southwestern Oakland County operations out of our office. So, they provide service to South Lion, Milford, um, I'm sure there I think there are a couple others that Mr. Pike could reference. Um, but they spend a lot of time here, so they're available, they're present. Um, and that's something that is not necessarily required. Um, and something we're appreciative of. Um, I know many of you are familiar with this agreement. I'm happy to go through kind

of any of the nuance of it. Um, if if uh you have questions, but what you're seeing tonight is a new contract from the perspective of being rewritten. Historically, we've just done amendments on top of the old underlying agreement. it was starting to get a little unwieldy. So, um, they suggested a new kind of base agreement. Um, most of the provisions are the same. There were a couple minor things that changed. Um, those are outlined in the agenda item. So, if there are any questions, I'm happy to answer. And Mr. Pike is here as well if there's any questions for Safe Build. All right. Councilman Bar

just like to understand the background of why they felt a non-compete agreement was now necessary after we've been contracting with them for as long as we have.

You're talking about the provision of uh the non-solicitation uh clause. Uh I I can't necessarily speak on their behalf. Um my understanding is that's somewhat of a standard clause they use now. It's probably related to um there, you know, over time they've they've lost communities or they've left communities. Um perhaps that's an issue. Uh you know, but we felt we actually did negotiate on that. Uh it's currently written as um if we were to hire a Safe Built employee who serviced the city within one year of exiting our contract with them, we would owe them 50% uh of the the salary as a penalty. um that actually started off at 100% in their original draft and we did negotiate that down. Um I would say it's probably based on experience in other communities.

I guess my I mean assuming the contractual relationship continues to work the way it has been working, I don't see it being an issue. But let's say the contraction of the company was to fall apart and you know Mr. Pike was out of a job. So, we would have to make the financial decision at that point in time whether or not we wanted to basically pay them a 50% penalty to hire him. I just it seems I guess

it seems like something bizarre for them to be asking now that they haven't had for over a decade. I couldn't speak to again the the exact background. Um my impression has been that like hey this is kind of the format we've been using. This is what we propose. Um, I would also say that it's hard to speculate on specific scenarios, right? There's a million ways that that particular clause could come into play. Uh, I'm just I don't have a solid answer for you on that. That's just what they proposed. Um, and kind of what we collectively settled on is um, you know, what we felt was a reasonable middle point on their request.

Any feedback? No. I just not a fan of those clauses in contract period.

I'm Ken Pike. I am the building official for the city of Wixon currently with Safeville. Um what we've experienced is exactly the reason why that's in the contract. Um whether it's cities soliciting our employees or our employees soliciting the cities. Um it just needs to we have problems with people leaving and people are hard to find. just it's they're hard to find quality people and this is how we try I I believe this is added into our contract to try to mitigate that if you would so that doesn't happen as often it it's not it's not happened here but it has happened in other communities but because it's a generic contract if you would it's just language that's put into the contract of all our contracts Um some of the the language has been removed even from this contract as Drew said it was negotiated down. It is normally at 100%.

For one year um and then you know if if safe built fell apart who's there to pay if if somebody would there be there to collect collect the I don't know if it fell apart completely it wouldn't who would you pay? Okay. Um, yeah. I mean, I'm fine with the terms of the contract. Besides that, um, also think we probably should fit in budget uh a new coat for Mr. Pike, the new logo. Mr. Pike had to buy his own coat, please. [laughter] Yeah, we didn't extend to him the uh the opportunity to purchase through the store like we did with others. Probably our fault.

Friendly amendment to the contract. Get him a code. Appreciate it. But I found in the last 10 years of my career, non-solicit non-solicitation clauses became standard for contract services, including janitorial services. That just very standard language nowadays. So, uh, Councilman,

thank you. Um, just if I could um through the deputy mayor to respond to to Council Member Bman's, um, question. I I can say that it is standard. I know I see it in contracts that we have as well. And one of the problems is, as Mr. Pike had um talked about, was there's so many municipalities that don't outsource the the um inspection services that don't have inspectors. We can't find inspectors. Novi is one of them. And I have heard of we haven't done it, but in in Nova, I should say, but there's been other communities that I know of that have tried to steal employees away from not just Safe Built, but other agencies that do inspection services. So, I I don't like it either, but I understand why it's there. So, um but then I did have a question um for either Mr. Benson or Mr. Brown. the um the $530,000 is that our are those our our fees or is that what we've paid Safe Build?

That is what we've paid Safe Built on average. Okay. Right. So, we kept 37 6.5% of of fees or rest of it is what's been paid to save that 530,000. Okay. Yeah. I mean, there are years that it's been as low as uh 290,000 and years that it's been as high as I think the highest I have in front of me is 673,000. Um, so it's entirely dependent on volume, which is one of the benefits of this arrangement, right? If we had that experience when we had staff, we're not going to get rid of a inspector because we don't have work for them to do when the work's down. You're going to absorb the loss. And in this case, we don't have to do that. It goes up, it goes down, and our expenses go up and down accordingly. And we wouldn't be able to find anyone anyway.

Correct. I mean, I didn't say we wouldn't, but chances are we wouldn't. Um, and then my other question is, um, oh, do you know how many how much work they've done on the code compliance side of things since we've hired someone?

I do not have that number directly in front of me. Um, I could do a little bit of digging. I would venture to say I mean historically we were doing approximately $7,000 a year in annual charges on that front. That is probably down to less than three. It's probably less than two. Um there are specific cases um is an example of code enforcement issues of um that might be a building code issue um where there might if if there's a building code issue and there's a permit attached to it. Generally, it's just handled like, hey, there's going to be a building permit or a trade permit associated with it. Um, sometimes there's not. I mean, they're kind of unique specific scenarios, but in those cases, that's where that hourly piece comes from. Um, but I would say it's probably less than 2,000.

Okay. Yeah, I would I would hope that that would keep going down, but Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Councilman Shar. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Uh, Mr. Mr. Pike, how uh the $530,000 I I understand moves around year to year, but about approximately how many people are would you say full-time on staff here at Justin Wix at two and a half or

I have um including myself, I have three full-time staff members, two part-time staff members. Uh one of the part- timerrs, I'm working on trying to move that person into a full-time position. I feel a responsibility to employees. And do you uh manage like the volume drops? How do you manage that? Do you send employees part-time to other municipalities who might have a higher volume? Is that safe bill has a lot of local municipalities that they can move people back and forth as needed to manage the demands of the business?

Correct. Uh, so my inspectors come here, they go to South Lion, some a couple of them go up to the village of Milford and do inspections. I've done inspections in the village of Milford. There was a transition period there where I covered as a building official. Well, they hired one. Okay.

Um, and that was the agreement we had come with them. But, um, I do move around. We all move around. Um, I do spend, like as um, Mr. Benson said, I do spend most of my day here. It's just convenient. I like the atmosphere. It's It's a nice place. But um yeah, so we do uh manage that. Um clients come, clients go. Um it's not about sending people out the door. We We want to be here. We want to stay here. Um we want all our clients that way.

If I may just expand and uh one thing that and I think this is kind of what you're getting at. I know uh Safe Build and I know this cuz Ken talks to me about it when he does it. Even as far away as AASO, Tuscola County, um I think you guys down were down at East Point a couple weeks ago. Yeah, I was in E course a week ago. You pitch in wherever I mean need arises and a municipality safe boat covers they'll might ask for extra help. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Um nothing for you, just questions for uh the assistant city manager. The looking at the two additional clauses here. Um with the solicitation hiring of consultants employees, one thing um that isn't specified, it says uh municipality shall pay to consult in a placement fee equal to 50% of the employees annual salary, including bonus and training certification. doesn't say if that's the salary we're paying them or the salary they used to pay them. So I think that should be clarified. Um because if we wanted to offer someone uh a $1 salary and pay safe bill 50 cents for a minute and then uh bring them fully on board. That should be addressed. Um the other thing that probably should be um or at least I would like included in here if we can is the first part of that section also doesn't clarify um says we shall not solicit recruit or hire or attempt to solicit recruit or hire any employer former employee of the consultant. Doesn't make an exception for someone that they terminate on their own. And I think that I mean I understand their list of reason like keeping staff who don't have convictions like obviously we wouldn't want to hire someone that's that way but if safe bill changes their business structure and they have to terminate someone. I don't believe we should be on the hook for um then hiring that person if we decided to. So, I would prefer having those two changes made at some point. Thank you.

Um, one question I had, uh, Assistant City Manager Benson, performance-wise, I know you said administration is very, very pleased with their performance. Are there any performance metrics sent out to the companies? because we attend a lot of ribbon cutings and one of the questions I always ask how did we do and we is a reflection of how safe build performed during the build process all the way from the site plan approval all up through final inspection right do we send any type of performance metrics out to those companies

we do not have any routine performance metrics um we and we kind of kicked it around as part of the RC process um of you know what would be the best way to do that. Uh one of the problems is that that surveys in general are difficult to get people to fill out. So as an example um previous community I worked in we put a survey link on your permit and you could fill it out and we encourage you to put it in big bold letters tell us how we did and um you know that that was a larger community and even that was a little tough. I I'd like to get better at that. But I know Safe Build has some degree of of uh although is that mainly for us as your clients that you're seeking feedback?

Uh the feedback that we seek, we have a basically a postcard type um card out on the table that I I try to keep on the the counter there that encourage contractors to respond back. And it's a it goes back to safe and they kind of monitor how things are, how the contractors are, uh how they they perceive the service. um you know whether it's a timely plan review to you know inspections you know there's some contractors understand we're going to give them red tags at time to time and there's some contractors that do not like to see a red tag and they don't believe they should get them. So it it's kind of a a double-edged sword at that point too.

Do you get any response from Yes, we do. Yep. I I really encourage people that are happy that [laughter] hey, please fill this out. But numbers, um I know the numbers are there. I really don't pay attention to the numbers. Might be something to consider. Sure. That is something we could look into a little bit more. All right. Very good. So if there's no further questions, we have a recommendation to approve a professional. Oh, if just as a as a question, are we able to have those things amended after the fact or should we?

Yeah, I think I think what we can do and I'll defer to city manager Brown here as well. Um, but what I would think is I I I don't think if city council is comfortable with it, if you all were to approve this tonight, I think we could get some minor tweaks to that particular section for additional clarity. Um, and have that be the final version. You know, we could have the the mayor be given the redline version. Um, I don't anticipate wholesale changes. It's really just, you know, a couple words. So, if you guys are comfortable with that, then I think that's something we can do. Thank you. All right. I'll read the regular motion.

Okay. Okay, we have a recommendation and a second to approve a professional services agreement with Safeuilt Michigan LLC to extend the term of the agreement for building apartment services for a three-year period to expire December 31st, 2028 and authorize the mayor to sign the agreement. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. All those opposed. Motion passes. Which brings us to the second call of the public. Since nobody else knew popped in, I won't read the rules to the call the public, but if anybody wants to come up, they're so welcome to do so. Seeing nobody, I'll close the second call of the public and move on to the city manager's comments. City manager Brown.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Uh we have a couple of things in the CMU that uh city manager update that um I provided for your information. We've got the work anniversaries ranging from 24 years in the DPW with Jim Bird to uh uh new employee Nolan Clark with two years. Uh also commented upon the uh collaboration with Oakland County through county commissioner Rob Smiley uh and our success in [clears throat] securing a partial grant from the county for a holiday lighting enhancement program. Uh the first dividends on that are being paid. We've got a new uh joy light uh attraction, if you will. that's in Sibly Square Park. Um hasn't been lit yet. It will be lit uh with the tree lighting. Um but that's the first thing that's been uh installed there under that grant. Uh there's additional things that are listed there with uh two uh candles, three spiral snow snowflakes, four forked snowflakes, and three snow people that will also be added as part of that. Um the county provide provided $10,000 out of a $20,000 cost that we project for those uh new gliding attractions. Uh so that was the only uh two items that we had in CMU and other than that we have some dates to remember including uh tree lighting coming up on December 5th that I remind you about on one of our biggest events and most popular events. So looking forward to that and uh that's all I had for the city manager update.

Very good. Assistant city manager Benson.

Uh just one I guess little quick thing on the downtown front. Most of you are aware of a couple of our new businesses, but for the benefit of anyone who might be in the audience, uh, uh, one new business downtown, Let's Brunch just officially opened on Monday. Um, we also have a new business, um, Mia Mila Delicatesscent, taking over the former dough uh, bakery space downtown and then a pocket coffee taking over the former Trails Edge space. those the last two I just mentioned are not open yet, but we anticipating them being open either uh in December or at worst early January. So, um exciting things to see and we're happy to see those vacancies getting picked up pretty quickly. That's all I have.

Very good. Positive. Super. With uh that I'll move on to council comments. We'll start down here. Uh the only thing I'd add is uh had the opportunity to go and have uh breakfast this morning at Let's Brunch. Uh the service was phenomenal and the food was awesome. So I would uh also uh recommend uh others taking the opportunity to go there. Very very good staff.

Thank you. Uh not much. I know I wished everyone a happy Thanksgiving last Tuesday, forgetting we had this meeting this week. So [laughter] can't be grateful enough. So, uh, just putting that out there for everyone, uh, in the great city of Witsaw. Thank you, Councilman Shard.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Uh, first of all, I mentioned to Director Sigma about the safety path on North Wixom Road. Went from a pile of gravel to gravel spread, forms in place, and we're almost there on that one path. You're going to pull the path end sign down, too. I hope [laughter] when when the concrete gets poured. So, another success in our safety path program. Thank you. Uh looking forward to the Christmas lighting, uh Christmas tree lighting. I know there's always good band. Hope to see everybody there. And last but not least, without the mayor being here today, I had I did communicate with them and our bet is still on for tie wearing for the Ohio State Michigan game this weekend. And all I can say is go Bucks. Thank you.

[laughter] Thank you, Councilman Gren Fox. How How can I How can I follow that? I'd like to uh to thank to thank and congratulate all those that all those employees that are celebrating work anniversaries and um yes, happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, I feel like when we swear our oath for taking office, there's something about like promoting and upholding the Constitution of Michigan, not like overtly rooting for the worst state in right below us or something. So, that's uh I don't I don't know. Ohio State time for you, too. [laughter] um want to wish everyone a um safe and happy Thanksgiving and a fun time at the uh tree lighting next Friday. Thank you.

Very good. Um all right. I also want to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving. Um had an opportunity today, my wife and I, to volunteer at hospitality house and very humbling um you know with uh all that had been going on with government uh programs and all. It's amazing to see how many people are in need in our community, but also the overwhelming support from cities like ours and churches and school groups for supporting hospitality house. I never moved so much food in my entire life in 4 hours. So, but very good uh experience. Um, also for those residents who have never experienced it, our tree lighting is a is a real highlight of December here in the city and uh it's always a great time. food trucks and live bands and then beer tents and Santa Claus and activities for the kids. Everything else also uh is noteworthy is the windows to Christmas um over at the Gibson House starting December 1st. They do a good job. It's like the oldfashioned walk around and see windows decorated in old-fashioned themes like you used to see at Hudson's back in my day. But uh the um and they also have a wasel um over there at uh on the 13th as well. Um I think that's about all I have for today. Do I have a motion to adjurnn?

Salute. Support. All right. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Meeting adjourned.