City Council - Regular Meeting

Oh, my microphone's still on.

Sport motion in a second. All in favor say I. I. And we need a motion to adjourn the special meeting. Motion to adjourn the special session. It's the reverse. And uh all in favor say I. I. And we'll close the meeting. Thank you so much.

and call the city council meeting to order. Clerk, please call the role. Council person her here. Here Stringham excused. Felder excused. Mayor Clark here. I'd ask we all please rise for the invocation. remain standing for the pledge of allegiance. Guide our working together. Give us wisdom to make the right decisions, your understanding to listen to each other, and your compassion to promote the peace and welfare of this community.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Clerk, next item, please. The next item is the approval of the regular agenda. Manager Robinson, any adjustments to the agenda? The administration has no adjustments to the agenda. Any comments from the council regarding the agenda? If not, a motion would be in order. I'll make a motion we approve the regular agenda. Motion by Councilwoman Germaine, supported by Councilman Hater to approve the U regular agenda. Clerk, please call the role. Counc her, yes.

Stelgrave, yes. Yes. Geriney, yes. Mayor Clark, yes. Next item, please. The next item is the consent agenda and for approval of payments, the amount should read 2,98,95361. 2098953.61. 61.

Thank you. Are there any items on the consent agenda that council wishes to have pulled for further discussion? Any items on the consent agenda? Seeing none, are there any items on the consent agenda those present here this evening wish to have pulled for further discussion? Any items on the consent agenda to be pulled for further discussion? Seeing none, a motion is in order to approve the consent agenda. Councilwoman Stalgrave. Uh make a motion that all items on the consent agenda be accepted, placed on file, recommendations carried out, and resolutions be adopted.

Motion by Councilman Stgel, supported by Councilman Germaine that all items on the consent agenda be accepted, placed on file, recommendations carry out, and resolutions adopted. Cler, please call the role. Council person, yes. Still, yes. Vining, yes. Mr. remaining. Yes. Mayor Clark. Yes. Next item, please. The next item is under presentations, communications, and public hearings. Item 5667, the opportunity center at ALCC 2025, fourth quarterly report. Thank you, man Robinson. This is a communication, correct? Uh just to be

That is correct. Uh that is correct. It's per their contract. This is their quarterly uh report that they uh provide to the city uh regarding their performance and and their budgetary you know and all their program updates. Yes. Any questions from council for manager Robinson regarding this communication? Seeing none I will move on to the next item. Cloy. The next item is 5650 River Raza and National Battlefield Park Foundation quarterly event center operations report. Again, Madam Robinson, this is a communication, correct? From their correct simply a communication.

There's a lot of information here uh and I'm sure as councils look through this um and I know that I think we're going to have more discussion on this as we move forward. As we know, we the the Huntton report is coming to us which will review that. will fall into some of what we have here from year past and where we may go in the future. So, it's only my comments on this communication. Again, this is a communication we simply uh accept at this time and if there's questions though uh any any questions from council regarding the report? Seeing none. So, uh it'll be accepted. But, uh I look forward to as we have that discussion on the uh um the not just the education center, but the opportunities for the remaining part of that that we bring this with us as well. Just some things to reflect on. Next item, clerk.

The next item is item 5670, presentation from Fishbach on sanitary sewer capacity and usage. Thank you, manager Robinson.

Yes, your honor. Um, as as we all know, there's been it's part of the um it's public knowledge of the plans for a data center in uh Frenchtown Township. And [snorts] although Frenchtown Township has not relayed any information to us, the developers did reach out to our city asking about if we would have the capacity to serve their their uh their uh wastewater capacity. Um what that brought to light is is it sometimes and and there has been communications that I've sent out to both Frenchtownship and Monroe Township that these items also be some should be something because we do have a partnership and a wastewater control board. And as these things come up, we should have information for the the group membership of what is planned, what is our capacity uh issues, etc. Um, and especially with things that are either high highly public v uh publicly visible or could be items that the public asks whether it happens to be council members or board members of the wastewater control board. And so what we did is we asked uh Sarah of Fishbach who does a lot of the consulting firm for our wastewater specifically regarding the site that that's there to be able to talk a little bit about the the system capacity as we move forward with projects even though they're not our own city projects but they are uh projects that do impact some of the services that we provide here. So that would be Sarah from Fishbat.

Okay. Sarah Raowski uh steps forward. She's a a senior engineer with fish fishback. We see her uh uh every time we have our wastewater control board it seems like because there's always things that we're talking about. Uh just for those as she prepares uh the wastewater control authority is a partnership with the city of Minro Frenchtown Charter Township and Minro Charter Township. Manager Robinson and I serve on that board as one of the assignments. It was one that was on our appointment tonight. And Councilwoman Germaine is the alternate if uh I'm not able to attend, but she still has attended meetings as well. And I'm sure some of this she may have heard.

I appreciate uh that we have this on the agenda just for some background. There's I could tell you there could be probably 50 more pages to see all that we've done and as we talk about that and I see Mr. Loy is here along with Mr. Lewis. uh and just make give us some background and as we get uh review this we the the information received plus um Sarah's presentation if you think there's more that you'd like to learn about this uh from uh the the whole wastewater uh area that we service um we definitely can provide more information I manag talked about it looks like Sarah you're ready okay all right welcome

good evening council members thank you for the introduction So, um I'm glad this is working. All right. So, I see you had paper copies as well, but um I'll just get started. So, uh thanks for having me here. So, I'm going to give an overview of the wastewater system capacity. So, when we talk about the wastewater system, it's the sewer system and the wastewater treatment plant and it's servicing the city, Frenchtown Township, and Monroe Township. So, um the need for this presentation came up. there's been some um recent development requests within Frenchtown um that we have to consider development everywhere when we're looking at the system as a whole. So this first slide here now that you all have a print out kind of gives some background here. So I'm just going to be giving a little bit of information about the two development requests that have come in over the last year. So the first one is the Insight development. This is on North Telegraph Road here um in Grafton. And then the second one is the proposed data center. Um that would be at the former Prometica River Raisin Golf Club site. Um just an overview here. So the majority of the Frenchtown portion of the wastewater system is all pumped to the wastewater treatment plant through the Sunset pump station. Um so this presentation is just going to go through um some of the capacity issues within that area of the system. So, an overview here. I I like some good maps, so I hope this can help illustrate um the collection system a little bit. You can see down at the bottom here, this is Sunset Pump Station, and this is the pumped main that goes from the pump station to the wastewater treatment plant that's off the page. Um there's a 60-in large diameter interceptor. This is the main sewer that services Frenchtown that brings all of the flow into a Sunset Pump Station. Um there's also the resort community, the beach

area to the east. Um that's pumped into the interceptor by the Detroit Beach pump station. So Sunset Pump Station has historically been a bottleneck for the system. Um we did a study about gosh, this was in 2019. This is part of the corrective action plan where we put meters throughout the sanitary sewer system. We collected data for a year and um used that to develop a hydraulic model of the system. Uh this really helped us to understand what areas have capacity, what areas have some excess, we call it inflow and infiltration. It's uh groundwater, rainwater, other sources of flow that are getting into the system that shouldn't be in the system. Um we identified that Sunset Pump Station was still a bottleneck to the system back in 2019. So with a lot of planning with the city staff, we worked on putting together a corrective action plan. This was mandated by the state um under the operating permit for the wastewater treatment plant. Um what we did under the cap is we laid out a 10-year work plan to do some of the necessary system improvements to free up capacity within the system. So the goal of the CAP we're trying to remove excess wet weather flow but we also knew at the time that there was a need for some additional development. So we were trying to free up enough capacity to meet the state's requirements but also free up enough capacity so developers could come in and use some of that as well. At the time um we were actually anticipating the Prometica hospital to come in at that site and they had a much more significant wastewater demand. It was about 500,000 gallons per day. So.5 million gallons per day. So that's what we had in mind. That was our goal. Target removal, create enough capacity for the hospital and meet the state requirement.

So, I just want to talk through some of the projects we've done so far. So, under the corrective action plan, it's a 10-year plan. We're about halfway through, but we really emphasized um doing some of the projects within Frenchtown's portion of the system first, just with the hospital projecting to tie in in about 2022, 2023. Now, those plans have fallen through, but we've done a lot of work in this area of the system to free up capacity for the Sunset Pump Station. Um, so we we started our work over at Stony Point. We did a couple phases of sanitary sewer rehabilitation through there and we're actually currently working on a project um in the State Park neighborhood over on um the far left side of the screen. We've done multiple phases of sanitary sewer rehab um in that portion of the system, mainline lining and lateral lining. And um we've [snorts] been very fortunate to receive some ARPA funding, Monroe County ARPA funding that um been able to get us into the Woodland Beach area and do um a significant amount of sewer lining through that area of the system and um some overflow into the Detroit Beach area with some additional funding. So uh we have several phases of work ongoing right now. They're all expected to wrap up this spring. Um we did do some interim review of the system about two years ago just to see how the first couple phases of work were coming along and what kind of improvements we're seeing. Um it showed a pretty good um reduction in the flows in the system. So the results were very promising so far. Our plan would be as soon [snorts] as these projects are finished up in the spring, we're going to put meters back in the ground and see what kind of improvement we got from all of the projects. So this is the first development I just want to go through briefly. This is the

proposed data center site. Um I took some clips out of the developers presentation. So this is their map here, but you can kind of see where that is. Um with respect to the city, um I think I've gone through most of this already, so I'll just flip to the next slide here. Um with the data center, we were we were lucky to hear that the data center usage is not expected to be significant in terms of what they want to contribute to the wastewater system. Some of these data centers um there's cooling loops to cool all the equipment in the data centers and it's more of an industrial usage where they pass that through and then that would outlet into the wastewater system. um they are projecting only domestic usage only. So their discharge at this time is estimated to be about 30,000 gallons per day. Um 30,000 gallons per day is if you weren't in wastewater, it's tough to um conceptualize like how much waste water flow is that. So that's roughly equivalent to about a 100 homes. So it's a small residential development. Um it's well beneath what we were expecting from the hospital site when they were going to tie in. The second development here, this is the insight development. So, um this is on North Telegraph. Uh this site is proposed to be more warehouse distribution center and um coincidentally they also had a similar wastewater discharge request of also about 30,000 gallons per day. um kind of the site map here. They are in process with this development now. There have been um several meetings with the developer looking at site plan permitting issues. I think they are looking to break ground sometime in the spring. [snorts] And then on the last slide here, um I

realize this is a very quick overview of the wastewater system, but um in summary, it it's two smaller developments. We're looking at probably 60,000 gallons per day of flow compared to about half a million gallons per day from what we're expecting in the hospital. With all the development requests that come in, we take a look at our hydraulic model. We drop that in and we compare what's the system doing under existing conditions. what would it do with this projected flow coming in? And right now the the increase in um water levels throughout the system is pretty negligible considering these two developments. Um I did want to point out we're doing our updated capacity review this spring with some of the metering. So we'll have a really good idea on where we stand in terms of capacity, but um overall with these two developments, it's a very small amount of flow coming in compared to what's already moving through the system. So that is all I have. I realize that's a lot to share in a few slides. So I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

Thanks Sarah. It's very uh high level just quick review of really some uh terminology but also since requests are coming in but any questions from city council for Sarah any counciloman Germaine? Since the sunset pump station is the problem pump station. Do you anticipate any problems with the data center being right there and the pump station having more wear and tear on it and causing problems down the road? It it would be related to the amount of flow they're sending in if like pumps are running more frequently. But no, the the amount of flow coming in from the data center would be such a small amount. I'm not anticipating any more wear and tear in the station because of the data center. Okay,

sir. That's also the investment that the waist uh the authority did with the bonding to put the uh um corrective action plan and regarding the uh sunset pump station. Correct. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Actually uh downstream of the sunset pump station um we're doing some improvements at the wastewater treatment plant to potentially expand capacity there in the future. Yes. Yes. [laughter] Um any other questions or comments um before you leave? Uh, manager Robinson, any other uh comments from yourself, administration? I have no other comments, sir.

So, I as manager Robinson and I and uh Mr. Roy and Mr. Lewis were talking about this, we're getting all these no not all getting several calls have come in even [clears throat] outside which would be the wastewater authorities uh area and it might have been from a water questions. I think council knows as we've talked about it internally of how those uh calls have come in. So, we thought it was an opportunity to not only share with council just kind of this high overview comparison to what could have been to what is going to be if those come to fruition and the idea that uh in the residents that cuz they you know we hear a lot of u a lot of comments you know both sides of whether uh regarding data centers but when you think about the hospital the volume would have been significantly more we'd probably have a different conversation u but I want to make sure that um council's aware of the system. Uh you know there's there was in there in one of the pages and uh I ini which you'll hear a lot about which is inflow and infiltration that's the items where additional water seeps into the pipes which then causes um challenges and that's one of the corrective action plans and priorities in which the authority and the water uh our water plan is um making sure that's all the lining projects that we do. It was on tonight's tonight's agenda. In fact, that was passed through our consent agenda. Significant another lining. We have and if you saw as you read it, I should say there were three others that are in the works right now. And and you can see them on the invoices in the buildings, the same companies. And Fishbach was the uh was the item that was on tonight's agenda actually. So, and we're trying to um do this quickly with the funds that we have uh the bonding funds as well as other funds from the wastewater. So, if you ever have an interest, you're welcome to attend the uh wastewater control authority meeting. Uh it's um at at the

wastewater um administration office, but there's things to to kind of um learn from that and um just the projects and of course capital improvements will go there for that approval. Things that we've already looked at through our planning commission and ourselves in our packets as we get to move along here. But actually we approved when the next public hearing is for that on our capital improvements that was in the consent agenda this evening is that's um it's just items that we have to keep track of and I think if council has interest please uh let us know and you're welcome to come to the meeting. Sarah I want to say thank you. Is there any other comments?

That's all I have. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Um, okay. Moving on. Uh, uh, clerk. Next item, please. Next item is under council action, item 5648, resolution to descertify a portion of Spalding Road. Manel Robinson.

Yes, your honor. and and council, we have been uh I think this is a regular process that we deal with the state on when it talks with the Michigan Department of Transportation is they look at certain roads that are underutilized or not utilized and because we get funding for those roads and if they're not being used as roads, they make movements or make they they request that we uh descertify those portions of the road And this happens to be one. And if anyone liked the specifics on this road in particular, as there was a map and everything in there, Director Lewis would be more than happy to come up and say exactly why this section of uh Spalding Road is is he's recommending or asking that we descertify.

Any questions from council on this uh agenda item? And I think Spaldn Road came up um a couple few years ago on conversation when there was somebody that wanted us to to to open it and pave it for a item which of course is barely a road if if we want to call it that. I want I just want to say uh thanks administration and and Mr. Lewis for adding the map. that I think is very helpful to understand where that's at and where it connects to or was planned to connect to, but it's not something we, as you read through the fact sheet, something that is um feasible to do at this time. Doesn't mean something in the future doesn't change, but right now we're looking the mo the item is to a resolution to descertify the portion of Spalding Road. There's no other questions. Uh this is an action item for council's consideration. Councilwoman Germaine.

I will move that the city council adopt the resolution descertifying the above section of Spalding Road as a public roadway and authorize the director of engineering and public services to submit the resolution and required form 28B to MDOT as a part of the city's annual act 51 certification report. Motion by Councilwoman Germaine, supported by Councilwoman Stilgrave on item 5648. the resolution to descertify a portion of Spalding Road. Clerk, please call the RO. Counc her? Yes. Still grave? Yes. Bining? Yes. Germainey? Yes. Mayor Clark? Yes. Next item, please.

I have no further items this evening, your honor. No further items. And it is still January. Councilman hat her comments this evening? Um, I just want to let everybody know that the Monroe Lenway AFL CIO will be conducting their second uh, no cost home renovations. And if you know anybody that's in need, whether they're elderly or disabled, um, could use some home renovations, they can go on the Monroe Lenway AFL CIO Central Labor Council Facebook page, uh, scan the QR code and put in your application. Application deadline is February 28th. And that's all I have, your honor. Uh, Councilwoman Stelgrave.

Thank you, Honor. Um, since the weather is really cold, [laughter] really cold, um, there's on the city website, the city Facebook page, my Facebook page as well, there's a list of the warming shelters that you can go to during the day. So, it's really important that you utilize those if you have nowhere else to go. That's all I have your honor. Thank you. Uh, Councilwoman Vining,

your honor, I only wanted to uh give some honor to Mr. Elliott in the audience this evening for his achievement, but I know you're going to go off into that. So, I'll leave it for you. Thank you, Councilwoman Germaine.

Thank you. Thursday night is movie night at the Battlefield Visitor Center, I believe, in the theater from 5 to 8:00 PM. You can pre-register on the website. It is free, I believe. And crafts and goodies for the kids. And the movie is Horton. What? Horton Here's a Whoa. I say gives a Who? Horton. Here's a Who, which will be a lot of fun for the kiddies. And it's cold. And in addition to the warming centers, um, Lake Erie Transits waiting areas are also available for people if they need to sit in there and wait to stay warm. That's all. Thank you.

Well, thank you. So, I do have a few comments this evening. I'll start with uh on our uh agenda there was boards and commissions. I want to thank uh council for uh supporting the recommendations. Uh there were several reappoints, but there were new appointments as well. And uh I continue to receive applications since we've last um talked about this and uh and you can expect more coming through and then of course June is when the other boards and commissions have a timeline. It's usually uh when there's more appointments. So I want to thank the I want to uh I'll say thank those at the River National Battlefield Park for the commemoration over the LA past weekend. the visitors that were there, the National Park Service, some great work that they did, the staff and the and the Battlefield Foundation. It was a a great event. It was interesting because as cold as it was and as much snow we have, they have uh tactical demonstrations. They don't call them reenactments, tactical demonstrations, kind of give you a flavor. And somebody said, "Could I have done something with the weather?" I said, "Yes, I know there should have been more snow to be more realistic." But um that aside, there were almost 90 um um reenactors that were there for the tactical demonstration, which I thought was a a great turnout and and the um and also then the presentations were were great as well. I'm going to give a shout out to the United Way of Monroe and Lenway County. Uh their 100th anniversary is this year. They've already did a little kickoff at the museum here last uh um Thursday and it was um well attended but also I know there'll be many activities and very many events uh that will um uh come throughout the year with as they talk about this. So keep your uh look at your messages uh or hear about the 100th anniversary for the United Way. Last but absolutely not least is I was so great

to be able to attend at Monroe High School the athletic hall of fame uh uh inductions that were here uh a week plus ago and I really want to congratulate Mr. Elliot James Jr. for his induction into the Monroe High School Hall of Fame. And no, and while they had uh other people that were also being inducted, it was a great evening for the for the school, for those presents, for families, and of course the inductees. Uh and as it come up and um Mr. uh Mr. James Rather took the uh stage, uh he didn't say anything. And I'm thinking he comes here and says everything, but so I'm I'm going to make sure he hopefully he comes up and says something today,

but I'm not going to do it without reading something here because I think those that weren't there, you can probably read it and go find it. But Elliot James Jr., football, basketball, track, class of I'll say it, 1965. Elliot James Jr. was a standout three sport athlete for Monroe High School from 1962 to 1965. in football. He was the team MVP and leading scorer during his senior season, earning him a spot in the Detroit Free Press honorable mention all state list. His 292 rushing yards in a single game. 292 is the most in school history. I can't imagine that changing. That was in the 1964 season. He also scored a 100yard kickoff return, the longest in school history. In basketball, he was a three-year member of the varsity squad. Monroe High School captured the district championship in two of those three seasons. In track, he did not lose a single race during his junior or senior season. That's phenomenal. Earning him MVP and all BC uh L honors both years. He was able to long jump over 20 ft, which is still great if anybody can do that today. and high jump over six feet. His contributions helped Monroe High School earn its fourth and final Border Cities League sweep stakes title for the 1963-64 school year. This title was awarded annually to the BCL school with the best combined record in all varsity supports. So, I wanted to get a picture of this and get it put on a big fat head and hold it up and wave it to you, but I wasn't able to do that. I wish I could have got the original. Mr. James Elliot, it's just a it's a great and of course I'm going to hold this up though. This was the program that was uh provided which of course shows your picture on here as well. And as I I went through

this, there's many many names of inductees and I I think I'll hang on to it if anybody would like to see it cuz I think you're going to see some friends, maybe family that are in there. But tonight, I just want to say congratulations to Elliot James Jr. for his being the inducted [clears throat] in the 16th class for the Monroe High School. CONGRATULATIONS [applause] and I'm hoping he'll say something tonight because I saw him start to raise his hand. We were talking about wastewater. So, we'll see what he wants to talk about today when it's not time for the public comment. Thank you so much for being here. You come on up right now. James 633. What I wanted to say about the wastewater was it already been decided that they're going to put the uh the system in out there and it's already been decided. Well, at the last meeting, uh it it there was deficiencies whether it was going to be uh you know, Prometica going there or any other development and as as some of the um uh the mapping that showed all those red lines is where the reigning is going to go, which helps the flow in the in the sunset pump station, that's what you're referring to, was deficient. It it it could handle, but any any wet weather or other challenges, it caused problems. So, it's going to make the whole system work better uh with or without the hospital being there and it'll probably be other developments that we're hearing, but it was needing need had to be done. So, um just as we're doing uh lining of of the sewer lines and here in the city and on and the townships, but yeah, it that's been decided, but um but there's probably going to be more in the future. I'm I'm thinking back. We already we had the first glance at the capital

improvements. I know there's some uh work in that as as well with some equipment, but also there was that lining project that was on tonight's agenda also. Yes. Well, the other thing that I was going to say is that for the young people out there right now, uh I also uh done 36 years uh with the Red Cross. Yeah.

Uh I also have been with the NAACP for 40 years. [snorts] I want to let people know that you're supposed to volunteer. you're supposed to help your community. U [sighs] the way [laughter] the wife told me sit down and up a long time ago. But that's what I'm going to do now. But I'm but I have to say that if you're going to do something, do it right. Volunteer. Get involved. And [sighs]

That's all I'm going to say before I get hurt. All right. Well, thank you. And and uh uh M Mr. James also serves on a board and commission for the city as does Katherine. And uh maybe we'll have to do uh do a podcast or something together, get people recruiting there for that. I'd like to do that with you someday. That'd be wonderful to hear that, Deb. So, okay. So, those are my comments for this evening. Uh, clerk treasure Lavoy.

Um, I just wanted to add to the congratulations and um, to your point, my daughter, who was a little embarrassed that I was fanirling so much when you came out cuz I was just amazed by everything. Um, but she said, "Well, who is he?" And I said, "He is an amazing election inspector. He and his wife both are volunteers for that position. And he I said, he's just involved in the community in a lot of different ways." And I said, he's more he's that list was incredible, but he's so much more than that list. And his um his best days um are definitely not behind him. And I wouldn't even say they're in front of you. What I would say is every day is your best day because I've seen you and I know how you go out there and just embrace everything and try try. So congratulations.

That's all I have. Thanks. You know, as said here is a standout three sport athlete, but he's a standout person. So, so we're we should be uh very thankful for your contributions and support here with the city. I appreciate that. City Manager Robinson comments this evening.

Well, I was just tipped off that uh Horton and the Who is actually on on Friday. [laughter] So, I was told it was on Friday, not Thursday. So, if you want to see Horton and the Who, go on Friday. Um and also congratulations. uh you know pretty impressed with the things that you did and you should be you should be proud of yourself as we're proud of you to have you in our community and involved in our at least weekly daily lives here the way that you volunteer and thank you for your words that you said there because I hope the youth that are listening take heed to that and realize that's what community is about. So thank you. That's all I have this evening.

Thank you. At this time, uh, citizens comments. If there's anybody here wishes to make comments, uh, please come forward, state your name, jurisdiction or residence, and 3 minutes. [clears throat] Come on, still time. Okay. Any uh comments from those present here this evening? Well, thank you all for being here and for those that are uh at home watching and uh and if nothing else, you've learned a lot about Mr. James and his great service and also his time as an athlete. So, with that, u motion to adjurnn. I'll make a motion to adjurnn. Your honor, second

motion from Councilman Hater, supported by Councilman Stelgrave to adjurnn. Clerk, please call the role. Council person her? Yes. Stelgrave? Yes. Vining? Yes. Geriney, yes. Mayor Clark, yes. And thank you again.