City Council - Regular Meeting

to a republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Roll call, please, Madam Clerk.

Mayor Beagle.

Present.

Deputy Mayor Gottschall. Here. Council Member Behrman.

Present.

Council Member Grunland-Fox. Here. Council Member Kennedy.

Here.

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

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

Mayor, I have no changes or additions.

Assistant City Manager Benson. I have none, sir. Any from the dais? All right. Seeing none, that moves us to the next item of business tonight, and that's the presentation, and that's the reaffirmation of an oath for Deputy Chief Dean Caldwell and Sergeant Greg Evans, an introduction to City Council. Chief?

Good evening. Good evening. Thank you for letting us take up a little bit of your time. This is a big night for Wixom PD. Tonight we get the opportunity to recognize two of our very recent promotions. They're going to set us up for the future for the retirements that we have coming. These folks are going to make sure that our service and our function here in the police department continue without any problems. slow down at all. We're just gonna keep rolling forward and these two people are gonna be pivotal in our efforts to keep serving the citizens of Wixom to the best of our abilities. So, first off, I'd like to introduce you to the first one, Sergeant Greg Evans. Greg? So a little bit about Greg for you folks. Greg graduated from Riverview High School down in Florida. When I first heard Riverview, I thought it was downriver, but no, it's from down in Florida. After he graduated from high school, he went on to Embry-Riddle University where he obtained a bachelor's degree in Homeland Security. Once he got done in college and got his bachelor's degree, he decided to enlist in the Navy, and he spent four years in the Navy after that. So in 2015, he came here to Wixom. We hired him as a police service aide. Both of these people are testaments to the great service aid program we have because both of them started there. In 15, Greg started with us as a service aid. And in 2019, he was promoted to cadet and sponsored through the police academy. He's been a patrolman with us since then. In that time, Greg has really done a lot of stuff for us. He's an FTO, a field training officer, one of our defensive tactics instructors, a pepper spray instructor. He's a bike officer, and he's our most recent traffic officer. He's the last officer that we had assigned permanently to that position. Greg has excelled in every position that he's been given. He is a leader in our department, and through his work, he's really, really earned this opportunity to be a supervisor. And I'm very, very proud to see him grow into this supervisory role. Greg, can you introduce your family to us? So folks, Greg's badge is going to be pinned on him by his wife, Jimena, and his mother, Cheryl. Cheryl's a 40-year veteran from... I'm sorry? Hillsborough County down in Florida. So she's going to get to pin her son's badge on him, which I think is a very nice thing. Mayor, if you would.

I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America, the Constitution of the state of Michigan, and the charter and ordinances of the city of Wixom, Oakland County, Michigan, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties and responsibilities of police sergeant to the best of my ability.

Thank you. We don't have Tim to take pictures anymore. Yeah, you're not wrong.

The next one for us is Deputy Chief Dean Caldwell. Most of you know Dean, he's been here for a number of years. But let me fill you in a little bit on his history. Dean's a graduate of Milford High School, grew up in this area. From 2003 to 2006, he joined the Army and was deployed to Iraq. While in the Army, he was promoted to sergeant and then ultimately a squad leader while he was in Iraq. In 2007, after his service, he came over here to Wixom PD again as a police service aide. Relatively quickly, just a year later, he was promoted to cadet, and then again sponsored through the police academy, and once he graduated that in December of 2008, he became as a patrol officer for us. Most of the things I talk about with Dean are short times because he excels in these roles so much. Two years as a patrol officer and then he's assigned to the Special Investigations Unit to do undercover work and investigate crime. Just a few years later then he is assigned to the DEA Task Force where he then worked down in Detroit with the DEA people that were there. He left there to come back here and be promoted to sergeant in 17. And in 19 he was assigned as the detective sergeant and he's been in that role ever since. While all of this is happening in his life, the one thing that most people don't talk about when they talk about Dean is the fact that during all of this, he's his daughter's travel lacrosse team coach traveling all over the country, coached their high school lacrosse team as the head coach. Very, very busy man. All those people and a huge family on top of it, if you can tell. For his educational thing, he's a graduate of Eastern Michigan School of Staff and Command. He's attended the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police New Chiefs School. He recently obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Cleary University, and he just returned from the FBI National Academy. Dean's an 18-year veteran with Wixom. He's had increasing levels of responsibility throughout his career. He's a leader that is ready for the next step. and he's prepared to take that step. I'm very, very proud to promote Dean to Deputy Chief and have the opportunity to introduce him to you. Dean, can you introduce your family?

Absolutely. So I do like Jamie, my son Caden, my daughter Chloe, and then a huge contingency of Colville clan back there. We're a rather large family, one of seven kids, so you can imagine how it grows rather quickly. But I'm thankful to have all of them here today. So thank you to all.

Dean's father, Dave, will pin his badge on him.

I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America, the Constitution of the State of Michigan, and the Charter and Ordinances of the City of Wrexham, Oakland County, Michigan, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties and responsibilities of Deputy Chief of the U.S. Department of Education. I will.

Well folks, while I'm very proud of these two, I'm proud of all the people, men and women that are back there tonight that came in here to see this. This is the future of our department. They're all standing back there and these two are going to lead the way. Thank you for your time. We do appreciate it.

Thank you. And with that, we'll take a brief 10 minute reception.

portion of the meeting tonight.

The next up is the approval of minutes. We've got one set of minutes to approve tonight, and that's from the regular city council meeting of July 14th, 2026. Do I have a motion?

Move to approve.

Support. Any discussion? Seeing none, I got a motion and a second to approve the regular city council meeting minutes of July 14th, 2026. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Correspondence, we've got four items of correspondence tonight. The first one is a mayoral proclamation for Tom Menzies for his dedicated service to the city of Wixom. Potential regulation of wake boats slash related activities on Loon Lake. DTE electric company notice of hearing case number U-22011 and DTE electric company notice of hearing case U-22027. Next item up is the call to the public. I'll read those rules. They are as follows. The public shall address the council during call to the public, which shall be included on the agenda immediately after correspondence, and again immediately after new business. The first call to the public immediately after correspondence shall be limited to agenda items only. A person shall not address the council in excess of five minutes unless the time is extended by a majority vote of the council present. Persons wishing to address council shall identify themselves in their place of residence and shall state their reasoning for addressing the council and all comments by the public shall be made directly to the council. Do we have anybody for the first call to the public? Seeing none, I'll close that first call to the public and move on to city manager's report. Departmental reports June 2026. Any questions? Council Member Simmons.

Thank you. This question is for Assistant City Manager. In your report, just about the signs, the gateway signs. Trying to, I guess, understand what is going on with that, with the nine weeks. Why do we get our permits, or why do our permits get declined? Do you have more information on that?

Yeah. So the road commission permits for our right-of-way signs for the Wayfinding Gateway. Ultimately, they had just a variety of relatively small questions. Some were about location, so they indicated to us when they found conflicts with their existing road signage, so things like no parking or left turns or those kind of things. So it appeared, and I will admit, it's surprising it took them nine weeks to come to this conclusion, but they ultimately just wanted to meet with us and go literally sign by sign through the whole thing, which we did. We do believe we'll be able to clarify later all of their locational issues. There are a couple design issues, specifically for the gateways, the vertical gateway signs. They have some concerns with how tall they are and how that would relate to certain power lines in certain locations. They also are seeking additional clarification on how breakaway, how well the vertical signs breakaway. All of the wayfinding and secondary gateway signs are clearly designed to be breakaway and they haven't had any issues with those. But we may need to make some further adjustments, potentially even coming back to city council with a change order for the vertical gateways. As a whole, what I believe will happen, and we're trying to basically expedite getting All of the signs that we know design-wise and location-wise can be approved. We're trying to get those done. And then we may end up with a small cohort of five, six, seven signs that may just have to be on a different timeline than the rest of them.

Does the company that does the signs, how does that work? Do they cross-check with the commission before? How do we get to a spot where something's not approved because it's too tall?

Yeah, so if I can step in there because I'm keenly interested in this. Yeah. I want that sign. Yeah. So the way I understand it was there's a little bit of dispute on how close the wires are and whether that's really an issue. So the sign company didn't see it as an issue, and hopefully that's the way it ultimately will land. But there was some question about it from the Road Commission.

Sure. And then the other piece to that is, so the company that is fabricating and installing the signs for us, Johnson Sign, they're handling all of the permitting, and they're very familiar with the road commission for Oakland County. Guide Studio, who originally did the designs for us alongside the branding, they're familiar with general road requirements, but they're not as familiar. So we didn't run all of these signs by the road commission when we designed them two years ago. Really the first time Oakland County Road Commission was aware that we were working on this, but they didn't actually formally review the sets of plans until we submitted for permits. And again, we knew the general outlines of what they would want and what they would need. We did not anticipate they would have the locational questions or I guess want to scrutinize the specific spots to the degree that they did. So that was one of the big pieces.

So are their signs made and ready to go when we have to adjust them, or the signs have not been made?

The signs have not been fabricated.

Got it. Okay. Thank you.

Council Member Behrman.

Thank you. I actually had questions on the sign too. Some of them were covered, but specifically like the gateway sign on Maple Road, why is that old green sign still up? Why haven't we put something there?

So that sign specifically could be installed. It is not in a right-of-way. The key reason that we have not is because if we end up having to do a change order to change the base of the vertical gateway signs, we would end up having to use a different material that would look different. uh, than the, the traditional sandstone that we originally went with. What our concern was that if we did the horizontal gateway sign in the sandstone, but then did the verticals in a different, they would look different.

So you're waiting to see what you're going to have. Okay. That makes some sense. Um, and then having that conversation with Oakland County, um, Have we gotten anywhere with Oakland County on fixing all these bus stops they put in and filling in on the sidewalks and fixing the landscaping they messed up?

There's typically a process for that, and I tried to follow up with them to try to get that moving along, and I haven't had any luck on that. I'll follow up for the second time and see what we can get done.

It's been several months now. I agree. I mean, that's more of a safety issue than these signs are going to be.

And there's restoration issues, too. There's trip hazards that would be limited with restoration. That all has to be taken care of. I'll put another call to SMART on that.

Okay. And then lastly, I saw in your report that you – The sidewalk was possibly coming back on Wixom Road? The sidewalk.

Oh, you're talking about with the bridge?

Yeah.

Yes, potentially. I don't think that was my monthly report.

Or maybe that was in our Mattel's report. I saw something about it coming back in August.

Yeah, I think that was... I think that was in the DPW monthly report, I do believe, and Steve, correct me if I'm wrong, but the North Wixom Road sidewalk is intended to be bid out again because it needed to be.

It was just on our schedule with our HRC meeting, I think, so yes, that's correct.

Okay, so it hasn't been bid out yet.

Thank you.

Correct. And have we changed specifications trying to get something cheaper, or is it going to be the same thing as last time?

I believe it is intended to be the same thing as last time. As far as I know, again, that was, I can get better answers than this. I just don't know right off the cuff. Okay.

Thank you. I just saw it in one of the reports as I was going through and I figured I'd ask. Thank you.

All set. Any further discussion? Seeing none, move on to the consent agenda. All items listed under the consent agenda are considered routine by the city council and will be enacted by one motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless the council member so requests, in which event the items will be removed from the consent agenda and added to the regular agenda at the end of unfinished or new business. Do I have a motion?

Move to approve. Support.

I got a motion and a support to approve the consent agenda as presented tonight. All those in favor please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We have no unfinished business tonight, so that moves us on to the first item under new business, and that's a recommendation to approve sponsoring one applicant through the Police Academy with $34,661 charged as follows. $17,359 to desk aides account number 101-301-703.377. $8,152 to cadet fringe benefits allowance. Account number 101-301-711.100. $3,000 to uniform account number 101-301-956.372. And $6,150 to training. That's $6,150 to training. Police account number 101-301-955.200. Do I have a motion? So moved. Support. Very good. Chief Langmar. Thank you.

The item you have before us is our request to send an officer through the police academy. We budgeted for one to go through this year and then we're asking for the ability to sponsor somebody to go through the next academy cycle that starts. Oakland's Police Academy starts on Monday, so it's not gonna be at Oakland. They'll be up at the Law Enforcement Regional Training Center in Fenton. That's still a state of Michigan academy, so it's the same curriculum, just taught somewhere else. They had an opening, and we are in the process of going through a promotional process for our PSAs to select somebody to go to the academy. That's just about completed and should be completed here relatively quickly. This officer will be, right now we're down two officers on the road. This will be filling one of those ranks. Won't graduate until December, won't be out of FTO program until May. So it's pretty imperative that we get somebody through the academy or started here in the academy in August. Now one of the things that we've talked about in the police department about doing is trying to find some certified officers that are out there that we can bring on board for some experience. We started that process. We advertised for six weeks. We had four applicants. Only one of them is still viable. Everybody else has either backed out or failed part of the process, so we're down to one option for two openings. This would be one. I don't have a lot of confidence in the one that's left. We'll see. We'll finish the process and see where it falls. I don't have a ton of confidence right now with that one. The one good thing that came out of that process was we had a local young man, 21 years old, lives here in Wickham, grew up here in Wickham, still lives here in Wickham, putting himself through Oakland's Police Academy. That starts on Monday. So we are taking a look at him to see if maybe we can get lucky and have somebody come to us that we didn't anticipate that's happened before. We'll see. And if that happens, we'll come back to you folks and see what you think about him once that time comes. So here we're just asking to send the one academy, one PSA to the academy. Obviously you saw our two promotions. 95% of our department came from our PSA ranks. It's a great program. With the funds that we budgeted for this year. Any questions?

Wow. All right. Thanks, Chief. I got a motion and a second to approve the recommendation to approve sponsoring one applicant through the Police Academy with $34,661 charged as follows. $70,359 to Desk Aids account number 101-301-703.377. $8,152 to Cadet Fringe Benefits account number 101-301-711.100. $3,000 to uniform account number 101-301-956.372 and $6,150 to training police account number 101-301-955.200. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.

Thank you.

Moving on to new... Thank you, Chief. We should put Dean to work tonight. Make him earn those big bucks now. All right, next up, new business item number two is a recommendation to authorize the retention of Plant Moran PLLC of Detroit, Michigan as the city auditors for a one-year period covering the regular adult of fiscal year 2025-2026 at a cost not to exceed $78,622. Do I have a motion? So moved. Support. Very good. Financial Director Robb?

uh yes um we're coming before council tonight to ask to renew uh plant moran's contract for one year for the 2526 audit um the amount on the agenda is not correct it should be a cost not to exceed eighty thousand nine hundred thirty four dollars um The first part of that fee is $77,080, and that's for actual audit services. And that is the same audit fee as was charged for fiscal year 24-25. Actually, I think the amount on the And the agenda is correct, I have the wrong memo. So, 77,080 is for audit services, and then there is a 2% fee for technology, such as software, that Plant and Moran has to purchase. So that is the new fee, and that would be 2% of the 77,080. There are various accounts listed on here. That we split out the audit fees between Most of them are general fund We split our audit fee also to the DDA the land acquisition fund the LDFA The cemetery the retiree insurance fund and the DDA bonds, and then finally to the water and sewer funds. And the water and sewer fund portion of the fee is paid actually by F&V who handle the water and sewer day to day operations for us. So we are asking that council approve this agreement for one year and then the city manager can sign the engagement letter and we can send that back to plant.

Very good. So just make it clear, the subject item, the 78,622, is the correct number? Or is it the 80,934? Hold on one second. I apologize for this.

It is the 78 6 22. Okay.

Thank you.

Yep.

Uh, questions. Council member Berman.

Thank you. Um, I memory serves me right. I know you weren't here last year, but I do remember last year council asking that this contract this year be a bit out. Um, is there a reason why we didn't consider doing that?

Uh, I, did hear that, however, since I'm new here, I decided to wait. I didn't get here until November, and I had been, November of last year, and had been training quite a bit and did not feel I had time to do an adequate job on an RFP. and to evaluate all the firms that are going to probably submit information. So I plan on taking it out to bid after this audit is done. Okay.

I appreciate the candidness there, and I can respect that. If we could possibly look at that next year, I would respect that.

Sure.

Council Member O'Day.

Thank you. I'll just kind of echo that sentiment that I would love to see it put out to bid. Frankly, I'm no fan of Plant. And I think their prices are a little exorbitant, especially what is this fee for their software? Yes. Does that have anything to do with the BSA? cloud or just?

No, I believe they have to purchase special software for at least two or three of the new pronouncements from the Gatsby. One of them is lease, lease debt. And then there's a software software license Gatsby that is similar to that lease Gatsby so there's a software they use for that as well so I think they're passing that back to the client now which I mean they have a whole division for municipalities I would consider that a cost of doing business I mean it's not a ton of money but it's therein lies my point with them so I would just

really appreciate a bid. Sure.

Good. It's on the timeline.

I know. And that's not anything at you. I'm just saying, you know, just with your timing and everything, but once we get this done, I would love to see that happen.

Council member Gremlin Fox.

thank you yes I had the same I have the same basic concerns and questions I do understand I talked to city manager Brown because you're new completely understand that but next year I would expect that that would be bid out and it's just just because for one reason whatever you think about plant I've had experiences with them in the past, but the fact that it hasn't been bid out in over 20 years, it's definitely overdue. So thank you.

Any more discussion?

All right, seeing none, I got a motion and a second to approve the recommendation to authorize the retention of Plant Moran PLLC of Detroit, Michigan as the city auditors for a one-year period covering the regular audit of the fiscal year 2025-2026 at a cost not to exceed $78,622. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Most carries. Thank you. New business number three is a recommendation to approve the interim director of public works agreement with Double Hall Solutions LLC of Brighton, Michigan for the not to exceed amount of $75,000, authorize the required budget amendment and also authorize the city manager and city clerk to sign the agreement. Do I have a motion?

So moved. Support.

You got move and support.

Okay. Very good. City Manager Brown.

Thank you, Your Honor. So as you are aware, our longtime DPW director, Tim Sikma, provided notice to us recently. His last day on the job was last week. And as a result, we're going to have a vacancy in that position for some period of time, regardless of how we take action tonight. And I just wanted to bring this report to council because as soon as it happened, basically, I immediately started reaching out to people that I thought would be relevant to helping us deal with that vacancy in the long run. Talked with a company named Double Hall Solutions, who's well-known in the business, well-known to me personally, well-known to people across the state by virtue of many different engagements they've had. started by a former city manager, and he has a variety of services that they provide through Double Hall Solutions, including things like finance director, interim directors, DPW interim directors. They used to perform recruitment solicitations, which they no longer do. They've done operational assessments. They've done a variety of different things with communities across the state. I have a couple of them listed in our report here. The city of Grosse Pointe had the same type of need that we are looking to fill with this company, which is an interim public works director. Had the opportunity to speak with the city manager there, who was very pleased with the engagement, very pleased with the personnel that filled that vacancy for them and in fact the individual that worked in gross point is going to be the individual that double hall would bring to the city of wixom uh effective tomorrow if we get approval uh this evening um so we would basically reduce our our vacancy down to a matter of a few days uh heavy has been the burden for me over the last four days as the acting dpw director so I think it was Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. I think it's four days. And I say that facetiously because fortunately nothing broke loose. But we really do need somebody in that position. As you well know, there's a lot of work that gets performed in the DPW, and there's a lot of span of control that's involved there. And Irv Suda is the gentleman that was performing the work in Grosse Pointe and would be performing the work in the city of Wixom if we get approval tonight. Um, other work that they've done, city manager searches, uh, interim city management, uh, Ludington Traverse City that worked across the state. Uh, so the company's well known and well respected. Uh, the city manager was very pleased with the, the personnel that we would have the opportunity to put to work on our behalf in the city of Wixom if we get approval tonight. And, um, we had meetings with, with all of them and had the opportunity to talk with them, uh, get to know them a little bit. Um, lots of conversations since that time where we've worked through how to put agreement before the council tonight. And, uh, I think it's going to be a very good opportunity for us in a lot of ways. Number one, we do need somebody in that position that's going to be able to have the experience level that this gentleman is going to bring to the table. He's got 30-plus years in the business, a variety of levels, superintendent of DPW, director of DPW, served as the city manager for a period of time as well. So he's well-experienced and is well-respected by the people that he's worked with in different communities as well as in the – same exact opportunity that we're going to have here in the city of Wixom. So, uh, that's the general, uh, background on that. One other thing that I would point out, uh, as part of this engagement, um, they're going to provide what's going to be termed an operational assessment of our function, uh, in the DPW, just how, how the reporting structures work, um, what things are working well, what things could work better. Uh, a variety of things like that. We'll get a full formal report at the end of, uh, certain period of time I think I'm going to get an interim report early on which is part of what I discussed in the report where they're suggesting that perhaps we hold off on the recruitment which is the next step that we're going to perform to fill the position for a period of time so that they can have some feedback to provide to us that would hopefully help us guide our solicitation efforts whether it's done internally or externally to try to put it together in such a way that we find somebody that can capitalize on our strengths and address any weaknesses that might get found in this operational assessment. So that's the general background on it and what's going to be provided to us. As I mentioned, the individual's available to start tomorrow if we do get approval, which is very exciting to me and I think would be very exciting for the city in general from the standpoint of having that position filled that quickly. The cost is not to exceed a figure of $75,000, which is a big number. I had conversations with people where I knew that this was going to be a large number, and if you take a look at that, Obviously, with Tim Sickma's retirement, we had a payroll expense and benefits expenses that would go along with it that offset that expense and reduces the net expense to us. It is in excess of what we would have been paying for Tim Sickma's time, which is pretty typical in these kind of engagements because it's a... outside company that has a need for monies beyond the actual cost, and then on top of that, it's a bit of an emergency need for us, and because of that, there's a cost associated with it that goes up beyond your typical expense. So I was prepared for that, and hopefully you had some understanding of that as well. The net cost in a two-week period is under $2,000, which is still a substantial cost, and I'm not minimizing that, but I do believe... It's going to be in our best interest to have that position filled and I think that this engagement with Double Hall Solutions and having Pervin Suda fill the position is the best approach for us and that's why the recommendations before you tonight to proceed with that. One other thing I'll say on the the report aspect of things. There's a financial summary in there just like Tim Sickma's personnel costs are spread to different line items because of the different work that DPW has oversight in. They're gonna be spread the same way and that first box shows that expense being spread over those different line items across the budget. The second one talked about a budget amendment that would be required. As you'll see, there's a couple of lines that didn't require budget amendments, but there are three that do require that to cover this expense. The expense that's reflected on there is basically the full cost. It may be less than that, but because we don't know what that's going to be, we're asking for the full cost of that budget amendment that would be required to cover the difference in costs. And that's covering the full up to $75,000 number. And I should have mentioned the up to $75,000 is for a pretty lengthy period of time, and there is some flexibility there to not have the position filled for that period of time. The 30 days might be something we do, we might not do 30 days, it might be a couple weeks. I did ask for the potential to have some overlap at the end of the engagement for the double hall solutions rep to train and pass on what he learned during his time with the city to a new candidate that might come in and take our responsibility for a permanent position. So that's all some kind of high end. The number's going to be high end. That's why I asked for a not to exceed. I don't expect to spend the full $75,000, but I did put that in there as a not to exceed figure. And that budget amendment doesn't speak to where the money's coming from. That's going to come from fund balance, but I also don't think that the numbers are going to be anywhere near near the full amount that's reflected here. Because again, we're not reflecting any savings from Tim Sikma's pay or benefits. I've reflected it in the report, but that's not reflected in the budget amendment request. So that's much of a worst case scenario. It will not be that high either in the long run.

Council Member Kennedy.

Thank you. I understand overall the need to get someone in here really quick and keep things running, and that we're going to spend a little more to do that, but I have some problems with the sample vendor agreement. As an example, compensation, we're going to pay them the set amount biweekly, plus any additional fees for services set forth and such, but then right after that, They shall be based on delivering an average of 64 hours and will be in the office three to four days a week most weeks. This gets very vague, very quick. Are they gonna be okay with paying an average of that amount if they don't hit the average and we can go up and down some weeks? They wouldn't. So I'd like that to say minimum of 64 hours.

There are things that I need to address in the agreement that you might well touch on some of them when you go through what you have here, but yes.

Things like three to four days per week and most weeks, I don't like vague language as agreements. I'd like to see that changed.

You're okay with a minimum of 64 hours on average, so if it's 72 hours one week and 50 hours another week because of scheduling issues or vacations or anything like that?

I would just like it to say minimum 64.

Okay, you want minimum 64.

Someone else might disagree with me, but to me, that's a good minimum. I had some small issue with the termination of the contract. It didn't make any sense given that they only give you 30 days out or pay the rest of it, but the rest of it was through the end of the contract anyway. I think I would just waste time trying to dig into that. The rest of it, I didn't have much to say about. It's just that first part being so vague with the payment and the hours worked really kind of got to me. That was everything. Okay.

Council Member Granville-Fox? Thank you.

Thank you for bringing those comments up.

I do appreciate you jumping on this because I know it's going to be a difficult recruitment. the dpw aspect in and of itself is is going to be difficult i think and then when you add the whole water component that's what elevates it for me the um the person that's going to be assigned to this um herb suda do they have the water experience as well that wastewater For the water treatment?

I do believe that the city of Howell, where he spent much of his career, did have their own wastewater treatment facility and water distribution. So it may not be apples to apples, but at a minimum he does have some experience.

Because I think that would be an important piece of this, that if they do have someone that has that experience, that we get that expertise here.

Yeah, it's under the how it's the first bullet point of a document that I have talks about water, wastewater treatment.

Great, okay, good. Because I know that that piece will be difficult. And then in the memo, or in the motion sheet, excuse me, it says solicitation 16 weeks, but then the last sentence says 18 weeks.

That's with that two-week overlap period that I talked about.

Oh, okay. Okay, I understand.

Potentially.

Okay.

And interestingly, Grosse Pointe has had a multiple-month overlap, which I think that's interesting. Multiple? Multiple months. Not at a full four days a week, but multiple months with multiple days per week.

hopefully we'll get someone i mean i think we have to get someone that has experience yeah i don't know that that would i think it's more just just passing on the knowledge of the wixom operations not not so much knowledge in general right okay um and then my other question or maybe concern I understand why they want to delay the recruitment, because they want to do that analysis, but I think we have to be careful not to delay it too much, because if we start getting into the fall and the winter, then we might as well wait until January, because people typically don't change jobs in November, December. So I think there's that sweet spot. So those would be my concerns and suggestions.

I'm already looking to shorten that up, and that's just even more reason to do so.

Great, thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Deputy Mayor Gottschall?

Thank you. Relating to the period of performance section, which was number four, it has an asterisk note for the, they'll begin the operational assessment during this period, but there's no other section that has like the asterisk for where that note is for, and it's then under when someone will be out of the office for three weeks? Just wondering, they're not planning to do the assessment until October?

No, they would be starting it pretty much immediately. They have other personnel that they're going to bring to bear on the operational assessment, the principal as well as one of the other staff members that are full-time staff that work with Double Hall Solutions. And then Irv Suda will be involved at the front end of it and also throughout. But the principal work up front early on is going to be with those other principals of the Double Hall Solutions.

Okay. Maybe if we can get it spelled out exactly when the assessment will begin and how long it will be. Right. Because that just kind of reads as there's blank dates in there, and then the only thing with a date and what it's right under is an out-of-office notice for months from now, so it's a little confusing.

Yeah, I understand.

Then the other thing to Council Member Kennedy's point about the termination, it says we'll do our best basically to provide 30 days notice. If we terminate the agreement before the initial or the end of the initial period of performance of December 4th, the city shall pay the vendor through that date. You had mentioned we have some flexibility. The way this is worded says we pay through December no matter what.

Yeah, that's something that is a question that I think needs to be addressed. Number one, we don't have December 4th in the date earlier in the document like you referenced, so that's another tightening up of the agreement that's gonna have to take place.

Okay, yeah, if we can just do pay through termination, then even if we have to give a specific amount of termination, not a flexible the way it's written, but yeah, financially we shouldn't be on the hook for something if we promote internally or however it comes out to be. We don't know the timeline yet.

We had some attorney review of this and a couple of these issues have come up and we're going to have to tighten down on a couple of things. I just didn't have a chance to get it down before this meeting.

All right. Thank you. Council Member Behrman.

Thank you. First and foremost, the cover letter for Irv Suda seems, I mean, sounds like he'd be a great person to be in there for the temporary role. And I think we'd be fine with him. My concern actually was the other people that, you know, don't really have any city manager experience. And then the contract also really going on to indicate, I mean, they're more like strategic business experience. But then that three-week gap where Irv's going to be out of the office, so who's going to be running DPW during those three weeks? Are we still paying the consultant during those three weeks? That's the things that I didn't understand and it wasn't really spelled out.

Yeah, so the principal, Nate Geinser, would be filling in in that gap. That is, there's no, you know, that's more administrative background for him. I get it. But you're not going to find anybody that's going to have two different DPW guys available to cover that. So that's kind of just part of that because of something prearranged that he had. I'm amazed that we got him as early as we did.

So we'll still have somebody in the building those two weeks? Correct, yeah. Okay. And that will be? potentially the person that's there early on to do the exactly analysis so that staff will know who this person is fixing now also assist obviously the outcome of the operational assessment aspect of the way he's actually in the position of seeing things more intense intensely in a more intense fashion okay well obviously i think that uh... given the experience of her suit i think we would be fine with him But I agree with the earlier analysis that the sooner we can get this job posted, the better. Who knows if there's someone out there right now that, you know, it would be nice to get an analysis done of the department, but at the same note, if there's a great candidate out there, I'd hate for us to miss that opportunity. So, I mean, I would argue the sooner we get it posted, it's still going to take several weeks to find somebody, identify, interview, even if we extend the job, give them – the proper notice to whoever they're currently working. So, I mean, they're still going to have time to do the assessment. There is a minimum, what, two-month process to find someone with this talent, right, Tia? Oh, yeah, absolutely. So if that's the case, the job posting should be out there this week, and they can start the analysis, and then the termination clause needs to be rewritten. That's just very, very sloppy, so. we should not be paying through December 4th, and that's what it says.

Council Member Grillafax?

Thank you. One thing I forgot to bring up. A suggestion when you have your interviews, when you do, when we get hopefully multiple candidates, that maybe you have a panel and get some DPW water people from, I mean, maybe someone even from F&B to sit in on that and have those questions. Just a suggestion.

An appreciative one. Thank you. Makes perfect sense.

Thank you, Mayor.

Deputy Mayor Gottschall?

Thank you. So the way the recommendation is written right now and the way the motion is just says that we're approving the interim agreement given that we've given feedback and you've said that things need to get cleaned up. Should this turn into like a planning commission thing where it's subject to, or should the motion be amended to include termination pay through, like, how should this be handled? Because clearly it doesn't sound like we'd like it as is.

I would ask you just to provide the flexibility for me to address the items that you brought up, and if I can't get them addressed, I won't proceed. But assuming I can get them corrected, I'd provide a copy of the actual agreement to council if you have any feedback on it. I'm comfortable with Double Hall Solutions' commitment to wanting to have an engagement that's positive on both sides. If there's something that needs to be addressed further, we can address it. But I do believe we'll be able to work through the things that were mentioned here. And then I would provide the document afterwards. Short of that, then we're going to have a two-week period where we don't have somebody, unless we get some kind of creativity subject to this, that, or the other.

Yeah, just approval with suggestions or subject to an attempt to correct or clarify, would you be comfortable with that?

That's fine. In line with the corrections requested by council, something akin to that. Okay. Language corrections requested by council, that would be fine.

okay so I'd make a motion to amend the recommendation to make the city manager and city clerk signature subject to attempts to clarify and correct the agreement based on City Council feedback tonight I Correcting clarify the agreement based on city council feedback You're making Termination falls being the biggest thing termination Yeah City has all that information so, you know

Any further discussion?

I'm sorry. Isn't the mayor supposed to be signing these contracts, not the city manager?

I made it that way because it was already drafted with my signature on it and I didn't want to slow down the contract preparation process further. If you want to change it to mayor, I'm fine with it and we'll get it corrected since we have other corrections to make.

I just feel like we should be following our charter.

That's fine. We've done it on occasion here and there where city managers have done it, and that's why it was done this time.

Wouldn't that follow under the subject of clarifying correct?

Yeah.

Sure. So we won't have to make another motion.

That's another piece of feedback we can do accordingly.

Very good.

Yeah.

All right.

Any further discussion?

All right, seeing none, I got a motion and a second to approve the recommendation to approve the Interim Director of Public Works Agreement with Double Hall Solutions LLC of Brighton, Michigan for the not to exceed amount of $75,000 and authorized required budget amendment and authorized the city manager and city clerk to sign the agreement subject to clarify and correct the agreement based on city council comments. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. And that concludes the new business portion of tonight's meeting. Move on to the second call to the public. It's been a while since I'll read those rules again. The public shall address the council during a call to the public which shall be included on the agenda immediately after correspondence and again immediately after new business. The first call to the public immediately after correspondence shall be limited to agenda items only. A person shall not address the council in excess of five minutes unless the time is extended by a majority vote of the council present. Persons wishing to address the council shall identify themselves in their place of residence and shall state their reason for addressing the council and all comments by the public shall be made directly to the council. Do we have any for the second call to the public tonight? Seeing none, I'll close it and we'll move on. City Manager comments. City Manager Brown.

Thank you, Your Honor. The only thing I had on the city manager update were the work anniversaries that we're celebrating tonight. Carrie Yonker, our senior coordinator, has been on the job, will be on the job one year in August. Our librarian, Andrea Dixon, 24 years. A couple other notable people. Oh, the clerk.

Oh, great.

13 years. So congratulations to everybody celebrating an anniversary, including our city clerk, Crystal Falco, on 13 years. It's a lucky year, I think. That's what I think about 13 years. So there you go. That's all I had, Your Honor.

All right. Assistant City Manager Benson.

Yeah, just a couple quick things. First, I just wanted to give City Council a heads up. We are actively working on incorporating all of the adjustments that were recommended to the data center draft ordinance amendments. We had hoped to be able to turn them around for this meeting. but we are trying to do as much due diligence and research on every suggested adjustment so that you all have as much information as possible for your next first reading. We are intending to have that on your August 11th meeting, and we'll obviously communicate that out to the public so that folks are aware of how that process is moving forward. Second thing, I wanted to give a shout out to Laura Cloutier, our DDA director, the DDA, and our folks at HRC. Just amazing how fast the West End Commons is coming along. I happened to have driven by that earlier. By all accounts, DA contracting is doing a really nice job and moving pretty quickly. So that's been exciting, just in case any of you haven't seen that. And I think that's all I have for you.

All right, very good. Council comments. Council Member Kennedy.

Congratulations for our promotions in the police department. Also to Crystal for 13 years. Thank you. I don't have much else to say about anything else tonight.

All right. Very good. Council Member Summons.

OK, thank you. I guess first, congratulations to Crystal and to Andrea for their work adversaries. Obviously, I was on the library board for a long amount of time, six years, but Andrea does a great job. And you too, Crystal. ALSO, I GOT AN OPPORTUNITY TO ATTEND THE WIXOM HISTORICAL SOCIETY EVENT AT THE GIPSON HOUSE LAST WEEKEND, WHICH WAS SUCH A DELIGHT, AND ENCOURAGING ALL OF US AND ALL OF OUR RESIDENTS TO JUST GET MORE ENGAGED WITH SOME OF OUR HISTORY. IT'S KIND OF COOL. SO THANK YOU TO LAURA DORCHECK?

DORCHECK? DORCHECK.

DORCHECK. YEP, DID I SAY IT RIGHT? DORCHECK FOR THE INVITATION THERE. And she had also mentioned to me just about getting, um, I guess from a city, uh, uh, staff perspective about getting some of their events more, uh, public, um, that I said I would pass along. So here I am.

Okay.

That's all.

All right. Very good. Council member Berman.

Thank you. Uh, congratulations again to, uh, the new deputy chief and new Sergeant. Um, you've done a great job. I'm glad to see that you're leaving the department in good hands when you do leave. Second, we talked about the park downtown that's coming along. Mack Park does look nice, much as I gave Deanna a hard time for about a year to plant some grass. and she finally planted some grass, and then they came and they ripped it all out and planted landscaping. I guess maybe we should have just done the landscaping from the beginning, but it does look nice now when you're coming into downtown. Now we could just get the DPW trucks to stop driving on the lawn next to it and destroying it every time the grass keeps growing. But it looks good coming downtown, so that's a good entryway to our city, and I appreciate that.

Council Member O'Day.

Thank you. Congratulating the officers, obviously. That's a great boon for the city and to have such continuity of leadership. Also for the work anniversaries in particular, Crystal, who's here and I'm shouting her out in particular because she has a big election coming up next Tuesday. We have the primary here in Michigan. So, um, I know she's going to be very busy with that and just to encourage all of our citizens to come out and vote.

Thank you. Council member, grandma Fox.

Thank you chief for making sure that, um, that everything is where it's supposed to be and moving forward. Appreciate your hard work. Um, thank you to a deputy chief Caldwell and Sergeant Evans and congratulations to them. Um, just to shout out and a thank you to, uh, Tom Menzies for his service. Also a thank you to all those celebrating work anniversaries. Crystal, congratulations. And then I, I had, um, a comment about the wake board, the wake board. No, not board wake boat. Thank you. It is now a good time to bring it up. Okay. So thank you for the correspondence. and some of what is in here talks about what city council wishes to do and I just wanted to put my thoughts on the record. So I know that it's a kind of a tricky situation and that we probably don't have a lot to say ABOUT AT LEAST A LOT OF AUTHORITY OVER THAT. SO I WOULD JUST SAY ONE OF THE BULLETS WAS TO PURSUE THROUGH THE MDNR. SO I WOULD LIKE US TO DO THAT. I DON'T WANT TO SPEND A LOT OF MONEY, AND I KNOW A LOT OF STAFF TIME, BUT IF WE CAN SEE OR GO THROUGH THEM AND SEE WHAT THEY CAN DO ABOUT THAT, AS WELL AS ADVOCATE FOR THE SENATE BILL uh 812. i would like if we can do that that would be great and that's all i have thank you you're good deputy mayor got you

Thank you. I also wanted to thank the Deputy Chief and Sergeant Evans for their service to our residents and congratulate them on their promotions. Also wanted to congratulate our fire department staff that planned, recruited, and hosted a successful Camp Ignite Women on Fire camp last week. And share thanks to all of the staff from outside departments that came to help educate and share their stories. I heard from the fire chief that it was a very successful event and camp, and I think for a first go at it, it sounded like we had a better turnout than some of the other camps that have been going on for a while, so that's especially exciting. I also wanted to share my thanks to Mr. Menzies for his long service to the city, helping put on events in the Parks and Recreation Department, Commission, sorry, and make Wixom a fun place to live. I also did appreciate the right up we probably didn't need everything on wake boats that was in there the i think our packet was 435 pages and that was like a third of it but uh i i agree that i mean a resolution doesn't really get things done but it'd be nice to do that but if we can pursue through the state um something a little bit easier showing them that 500 feet is um more than the middle of Loon Lake, so if they can give us a pass, just ban it. Then we get into enforcement issues, but at least we've started to address the issue that our residents brought forward. Thank you.

You're welcome. Yeah, and I want to thank the fire department too, the staff for Camp Ignite. It was pretty cool. I stopped by one day and to see these young ladies, I don't think they realized what they were getting into when they were putting on 50 pounds of gear and rolling hoses out and doing the things that firefighters do. So that was pretty cool, and I want to congratulate them for doing that. And also, congratulations to everybody who's celebrating a workiversary. Seems like just yesterday. Right, Crystal?

Just like yesterday. Okay.

Right answer. And then I would like to congratulate Deputy Chief Caldwell and Sergeant Evans on their promotions. And unfortunately, we're going to lose our police chief, but I know that the police department, he's groomed us and we're in good hands when he does retire. And if you want us to resend that letter, we will. It's not that big a deal. We've just got to cross a date off and put another one in there. I just want to, the fire chief asked me to invite all council members and city people to the Camp 911 graduation this Friday. It's at 11 o'clock, and that's another great camp that the fire department does, and it's fun. And my daughter's 28 now, and she'll still tell me how to put out a kitchen fire. So it's pretty good, and these kids learn a lot, and it sticks with them, and it's great information. And with that, can I have a motion to adjourn?

Support.

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