City Council - Regular Meeting

dollars a year and we could have done some projects where's uh are somebody absent today everybody's doing it i know except for us

Good evening. This regular city council meeting of the Oak Park City Council is called to order July 6th, 2026 at 7.03 p.m. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. 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. City Clerk Norris, would you call the roll?

Mayor McClellan?

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Edgar?

Here.

Council Member Radner?

Here.

Council Member Crawford?

Here.

Council Member Berman?

Okay, that was a prearranged vacation, correct? Yes. Yes, thank you. We have a quorum. Next is a motion to approve the agenda.

So moved. Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carried. Next, we have the consent agenda. These are routine items presented without discussion as a single item. Any member of council can have an item considered separately. A, regular council meeting minutes for June 15th, 2026. B, Payment of invoices from OHM advisors for engineering services in the amount of $6,638. C, approval of participation in the 27 to 29 Oakland County Urban County Community Development Block Grant Program. D, approval for the payment of the invoice number four from Desiree Kelly Art for the mural included in the 11 mile road alleys and parking lot reconfiguration project in the amount of $25,000. E, request to approve payment application number three for the 2026 landscape maintenance contract to Brightview Landscape of Pontiac, Michigan in the amount of $5,794. F, request to approve payment application number three for the 26 lawn maintenance contract to Parrot Landscaping of Clinton Township in the amount of $16,436. G, request to waive permit fees for the 26th CIA landscape installation project. The city doesn't charge itself fees. H, approval of pay application number two to Eminent Contracting LLC of Detroit, Michigan for the Capitol Avenue Rehabilitation Project M786 in the amount of $502,694.81. new and renewal licenses for July 6th 2026 we need a motion to approve the consent agenda all those in favor aye any opposed motion carries we don't have any visiting elected officials that puts us up to presentations of the new city website And Brittany Toff, our communications director, will show this off tonight. Is this on?

Is the mic on?

That's ironic, isn't it? Good evening, city manager, mayor, and council. You can hear me now? Okay, so we are going to briefly run through the city's new branding and web update. It's our pleasure to kind of roll this out and take you through it and answer a few questions that have come up along the way as we work to roll this out here in the City of Oak Park. So... So a few key points that I wanted to address. Context avoids confusion. So that is on me. We rolled out the new monogram via Facebook last week without enough context because we were just working a little too quickly after a long, busy week. And it led to a lot of questions from some of our residents online, which we've since gone back and given them a little more explanation in detail about our thought process, where we were going, what the intention was. this presentation is recapping some of that just to add a little extra detail in case any questions remain and just provide some additional clarity so number one we just want to highlight that the new branding is not uh removing anything from oak park's current visual assets we're just adding to it So a lot of the things that we'll be working with, some of it is communications jargon, and we realize that whether it's a monogram, a seal, a logo. At the end of the day, the important part is the city seal that we know and love, the logo that we've been using with the leaf and what we can see directly behind our mayor and Mayor Pro Tem will be stained. That's a permanent fixture. um we're just going to be using it in a lot more of our permanent assets and in our ordinances and charters and things of that nature which um you probably recall we discussed when we originally went through you know this as an idea the new logo will be used primarily online and in digital applications and then we have the monogram as well which is the op really playing off the nine mile op and the momentum we've already seen there And that's primarily used for applications that are too small to fit anything else. So you'll mostly just see that on our Instagram or Facebook icon area, places where it's already well established that you're on a City of Oak Park site, but there's not a lot of room for a full Oak Park, our regular new logo. We'll also talk a little bit about the history of community engagement and connection that led us to this new brand and the best practice applicability and accessibility and how we've seen this done not only locally but across the nation and how it really helps us to achieve some of the new ADA guidelines that we have to come into compliance with. So like I said, the logo that we've been using for 12 plus years now is a permanent fixture here in Oak Park. And it will be continuing to be utilized and seen like we're looking at right now, as well as on our 696 overpass, on anything regulatory. If you look at your council agenda today, you'll see it in a one color application there. So it's here to stay. It's just more of our historic and more formal application of the city's brand. And then we'll have our updated digital logo. The main logo will be the Oak Park in the bold block font that we saw during State of the City and that we see on the new website. But we do also have the ability to apply it in a vertical application like you can see on the mocked up phone case. Or you'll see the monogram or the little icon version in this mocked up Instagram on someone's iPhone. And all of that, again, is just really playing to that look and feel from the nine OP assets that we already have along that corridor. The bold block font that marks our trailhead and the OP utilized in our pocket parks. So how do we get here? We just want to take a walk down memory lane for any of the residents who may have questions and weren't able to join us for any of those special city council meetings that we had back in 2025 to go over some of these things in more detail. So just to recap, we started with sort of a review of our neighbors, looking at our regional branding and what are they doing, what's working. And what should we glean from that? And what we found was that neighboring communities were doing something very similar. They're using a combination of a modern logo and a traditional seal, kind of going for a similar thing that we were just talking about. Being able to modernize your digital presence while also really kind of paying homage to your more traditional seal as well. We also went through why now and discussed this with council. And many of those reasons had to do with our web redesign, which we're here to talk about today as well. So it was very clear when I came on board just about two years ago, just had my anniversary, that the city website was a longstanding priority, that we needed to update the city website and see it through to the finish line, that every group we have, city council, city administration, and our residents wanted a new website. They wanted it yesterday. And I quickly found out why, because it was messy and there were so many documents in there and there were all sorts of ghost links and issues and it was confusing. And so we took that head on and tried to come up with an approach to the website. In doing so, we realized now would be a good time to figure out if we need to redo the brand. Because having been someone who bought a house that was a short sale, you definitely want to patch the drywall before you put the paint or the wallpaper on. So that's kind of what we set out to do. And that's why we asked city management and city council, what do we think? And we also started to see in some other areas throughout the city that they were picking up on our momentum. And they were starting to make decisions for us without our strategy or our guidance. And so we really wanted to kind of see, hey, look what's going on here. Let's be a good steward of the taxpayer dollar. Let's make this decision intentionally instead of reactionary. and decide if we want to look into editing some of our branding. So like I said, we took a look at what we were hearing and seeing and some of the momentum that was taking place. And we saw that just one example that came about was our architecture plan. They were putting together a proposal for signage, and they were very clearly picking up on the momentum that was taking place along Nine Mile. You'll see in the bottom left-hand corner here, that was one of the proposal mock-ups, and they were grabbing the bold Oak Park font in the yellow colors from the trailhead. and utilizing a lot of the yellows in those flowers, and a lot of the purples, and things of that nature. And so our idea was, let's decide if we want to play to our strengths. And so we started trying it out in 2025, in approximately the last year. And as you can see, our 2025 State of the City was kind of playing with that bold Oak Park font, and very similar to what you see in the 9OP Sherman. And then we noticed that people enjoyed the mural that was added to the library in similar colors, a crimson red, a bold yellow. We just tweaked the very front cover of the magazine, which already had that font, but we made it yellow. And it all worked, and people seemed to receive it very well. And so lastly, I just wanted to add for context that this palette wasn't selected based on design alone. Each color was chosen because it exists within Oak Park's environment, landmarks, and community spaces. So rather than creating a new identity from scratch, we intentionally built upon visual themes that residents could hopefully recognize and associate with here in Oak Park. We have our signature sunflower yellow, which hopefully everyone's pretty familiar with. Train Engine Black, we're calling it, which was literally taken from the front of the locomotive on the mural at the library. And then we're calling it Crimson Red, which is just a fun fall color. And Vibrant Orange, similar. Transformative Teal, that one's a little bit of a stretch, but it is teal. And the Iris Purple, which is very similar to what you saw in some of the renderings that were from the landscape proposal. So that's just a little bit about a walk down memory lane and how we came to where we are today in terms of the branding. And if there aren't any questions on that, I'll be happy to take any questions on the branding. Otherwise, I'd like to invite Tim Dewar from my team to walk us through the website functionality.

City Manager Tunge.

Director Toth, thank you so much for that, taking us back down memory lane there. So as a lay person, let me ask you a couple of questions about that. So is it safe to say, and I know I've been saying this about it, but is it safe to say this is another arrow in our quiver? in terms of another piece of branding that we have now to utilize for our resources and city activities? Okay.

Yeah, so we just have, instead of one visual identity, we now have three. So if it's a really small place, we now have that big, bold OP that we can use and scale to a really small size without breaking the new compliance rules in terms of scalability for ADA compliance.

Okay, I have two more questions. Can you talk just a little bit about your experience with branding, personal and professional experience with branding?

Sure. you know, a note from your State of the City speech, I started working when I was 12. So I had 20 years experience in public relations and communications, and I've been part of organizations that either created a brand or I was part of a rebrand from a nonprofit to a HUD-funded federal initiative where we did national award-winning community outreach. I was able to do the focus groups and rebranding of that.

well as the rebranding of the Tropicana Hotel and Casino so I've been part of branding and rebranding initiatives throughout my career okay and I know when I hired you you had corporate branding experience government branding experience very versed in this okay and then do you just maybe a question that you can't answer but for the future do you see us needing more branding opportunities that we can use it and have at our disposal for the future or is this kind of getting us where we need to be at this juncture

our hope is that you know the shelf life of a of a redesign is usually about 10 years you know so what we saw in the regional recap is everyone kind of had something very similar and they all um look to update it right around that same two to three year window so we're hoping that this look will see us through um you know for the foreseeable future but So I'd hope that we don't have to do a rebrand per se, but I do think there are a lot of opportunities for us to utilize this new brand, this new arrow in our quiver, as you would say. We have people asking us, you know, for T-shirts. So we are seeing a lot of fun and momentum there. So I don't know if that's something, you know, different avenues we can look into in terms of tactics and rollout.

Thank you.

Thank you. And are you guys ready for Tim?

Ready for Tim? Yes.

Okay. Thank you.

And anyone ever really be ready for Tim? Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the council, city manager. So.

There we go.

So we are now a few days into the era of Oak Park's new website. What we have now is a complete overhaul of the look, functionality, and end user focus. The site features clean menus designed to take users where they want to go within two or three clicks. They don't fill the screen when you look at it. The introductory video space here showcases the many facets of the community. It's visually appealing and interesting. And we can change that out as the Event Hub gets rolling and we have other events taking place. We can keep this updated and fresh as well. analytic based action buttons provide instant access to the site's most highly trafficked pages. And again, we'll track that and change these. If we find that we need to direct people or people that are going to other pages, we can make it easier for them here.

City News read across the top there. We can't we can't read that of the buttons under the buttons.

Under the buttons? Yep. We have court, pay bills online, library, recreation, public safety, leaves, snow, and refuge, licenses and permits, and form services and information. Thank you. So we intentionally put pages like licenses and permits but especially the form services and information page where anything, every form, budgets, information that people want, it's all right there in one spot. The city news section allows us to better tell the Oak Park story in a way that is easily digestible and constantly updated. The I want to box gives users a central location from which to jump to almost every important page, service, or form on the site. So you can view information about the event hub or minutes and agendas. These are the services that we offer. If you want to report an abandoned vehicle, that kind of thing. you can apply for a business license, a board and commission position, a plumbing permit.

So that third heading, can you read the headings across the top?

Oh, view, services, report, apply for, and pay for? Yep. OK. So clicking on each one of those will bring up a different menu that you have options underneath. So it's an easier way to find what you're looking for without being overwhelmed by a dropdown endless list of possibilities. The calendar allows users to easily find the events in which they're interested. We have a citywide calendar which lists all of the important events, but you can also break that out if you're interested in the Corridor Improvement Authority or the City Council or boards and commission meetings, recreation events, you can break those all out into their own little calendar so you're not weeding through every single thing. List comes up along the side that has a little bit longer list of options here, or you can go by the month over here.

And then it seems user friendly.

The whole site is designed with user friendliness in mind. We moved away from the department kind of silo of you have to know what department you want and then you go there and find it from there. We really wanted this to be super easy, super simple and fast. Now, one of my favorite parts of the whole website is right here, the city council box. We got it right there on the front page and my personal favorite. But we also have the automated YouTube section that's updated every time we post a new a new video and. We are now fully ADA compliant about a year and a half ahead of the deadline. By clicking the Accessibility button, also, our readers can customize this site in a way that works best for them. If you have problem reading small text, increase the size right here. You want ADHD. ADHD-friendly design, this will help get it there as well. So not only are the forms, we're not putting text over images anymore so that web readers can access easily the information. Everything is to ADA standards ahead of time. So I'm going to jump just very, wow, I guess I'm going to, OK. So as part of the redesign, I rebuilt every public facing form the city uses on a brand new branding template. This was another opportunity that we had to update the outdated forms. So in addition to the PDF versions that are online, some of the forms have also been created as a web form.

So PDF versions are the kind you print out and fill out like on paper?

Fill out by hand and either mail in or bring in in person.

But now we have some, how can you tell which one is which?

In the description, when you're looking at the information about the form, it will tell you there's a little icon symbol after the PDF version that says it's a PDF, or if we very clearly identify it as an online application, if you're going for the web version. So I just clicked on it.

So now for the first time, you can type in the information for an application. Yes. And send it in on your computer.

Yes, absolutely. So it's convenient for a resident. It reduces city printing costs and staffing time spent at the counter. And I'm happy to report that the municipal services department has already started receiving forms. So Hopefully this will be something that the public responds to as well. So the site is fully responsive, which means no matter what size device you're looking at it, it will scale down. We built this website with that in mind so that it's pleasing to look at whether you're on your phone or on a desktop or a tablet. The only feature that some people might realize is that on your phone, the home page video doesn't show just to keep from overloading the download process and to be able to view the site.

Makes it faster.

So I just want to take a second to remind everyone that the web address is still www.oakparkmi.gov. But for anyone who bookmarked pages on the old site, delete them. They won't work anymore. The interior page addresses have changed, so it might seem like something's wrong with the website, but it's just that old bookmark isn't pointing anywhere anymore. We welcome people to go in and explore the new site and come up with a bunch of new bookmarks that will work into the future. So this is a quick trip through the new website. I know I've spoken to some of you and I know that you've had a second to take a look, but I'm happy to answer any questions at this point if anyone has any.

Council questions. Mayor Pro Tem Julie Edgar. This is more this is more comment than question.

Thank you so much for adding that page back that enables us to look at tax and assessment information. I like the platform and the old website. The new website's great. I it's just I can't say enough about it. It's it's wonderful. And you did a great job. So thank you.

Thank you. As a minor point, the page never left. It was just in a different spot. And we added another page to make it a little more convenient based on on the information that you sent in. So it was there. It's just easier to find now. And that's what we're going for. So we love that kind of feedback.

Excellent. Thank you. Yes. Go ahead. I'll go.

I am council member Stephanie Crawford.

I had a chance to play with it. And for a lot of us who aren't very techie, It is so visually appealing from the video to the water tower coming up to pictures of our resident. And I just love the five headings up there. my property, my community, my business services, and my government. You just click on it and go right to whatever department you need. So if you have not had a chance, just take a look at the website. It's very user-friendly, it's very visually appealing, and thank you. It was much needed because I had to navigate through the old website to find simple things. And this is so much easier.

Wonderful. Thank you.

Intuitive sort of the way you look at it makes sense. But what you're looking for, you're just in English.

My wife would disagree that I have that ability to be intuitive and do that kind of stuff.

So I appreciate you saying that very much Tim I also just I wanted to say a couple of things but before I do I want to just say what a Fantastic job you've done with us and explaining this because I'm also not very tech savvy believe it or not. I I think the way that I've come to understand this, council members, is that it's with the user in mind versus the old website, which really became a repository for all of the information of the city. Yeah. Believe it or not, in my time here, we thought that was a great website when we did that one from the old one. You should have seen the one before that, even. So, but I think this, and there's gonna, I think the last thing I wanna say is, could you speak a little bit to, there's gonna be bumps in the road, of course, as you roll something like this out. People who have, Mayor Pro Tem actually had a great point about the property search earlier. As people see things like that, what are we asking them to do?

On the very top of the home page, there's an icon right above the search bar with an envelope on there. Click on that and fill out the email form, and it will come to me. And I will do whatever I can to either help them figure out where they're going or incorporate their ideas.

Because this has been- So the white envelope in the upper right-hand corner?

upper right hand corner, very, very top. How to get to you. Comes right to me. You bet. And this has been a team effort. I mean, people from every department had input and helped with looking at the information and telling me what what they needed and what they what they wanted and what their what their clients needed as well. So it has been an effort and it was a lot of people in the city working together to make it happen. So it was a pleasure, truthfully, it really was. Awesome. Thank you so much.

It's a presentation of the website 8 public hearing to receive public comments regarding the request by anchor Bay Brewing Company LLC 14441 West 11 mile road for the issuance of a microbrewery license and related permits. The public hearing is open, but this be a good time to hear from the owners. Can you give us your name?

Yes. Good evening, Madam Mayor and members of council. I am Ryan Balicki from Anchor Bay Brewing Company. We currently own a brewery in St. Clair Shores. First, I just want to say I own a house in St. Clair Shores, a brewery, and I sit on the DDA, and our website is horrible. So congratulations, because that looked amazing. So I might be telling them to copy your website. But yes, so thank you for having us here tonight. We're excited to answer any questions. anybody might have in regards to our requests.

OK, tell us what your what your plan is.

So I believe there was some concerns from from some other people about the fact that we were requesting a microbrewer's license because there are two breweries right next to us. It is unfortunately just a something we have to do because we are a current brewery. who has a brewer's license, a distiller's license, a winemaker's license. We're not your normal like Class C liquor license where we can just buy Coors Light and put it for sale. In order for us to offer beer there, we have to actually brew our own beer. It can be brewed offsite at our current location, which is what we plan on doing, and transferred in bond over. But we do not plan on having more than like two or three beers on tap. We are not trying to be a brewery. That is done very well currently by the two breweries that are there. If anything, we would probably try to collab with them and maybe get some of their beers, collaboration beers on tap. But we should do no more than 5% of our sales should be beer. It should be less than that because what we're really, if you've ever been to a speakeasy, which is what we're doing, the real thing there is craft cocktails. And very well done handmade craft cocktails that utilize natural ingredients, fresh ingredients from the local markets, things of that nature.

So pina colada with real pineapple. Yes, exactly. Yes.

Mai Tai with some real fruits that are sourced from Eastern Market. Nice. Yeah.

Very nice. Okay. Can we take questions for the owner? From the council? So Solomon Radner, council member, council member Stephanie Crawford.

Are you eventually looking at, is it just going to be cocktails? Are you looking at food as well in the future?

Yeah, so the original plan was the building is being split into two. There'll be a front of the building and a back. We will accompany the back of the building. The front, our goal is to lease that out to somebody that's doing food that can also supply food to our speakeasy. Originally, we had somebody that we currently work with at our other brewery, but due to health concerns, he had to back out. But that is the goal, is to put a nice, not necessarily a restaurant because the spaces are small once they're divided, only about 2,000 square feet each, but a nice either pizza place or coffee shop or something that will add to the community as well. So you would be leasing that out to us? We would be subleasing that front space out, correct. Okay. Yeah, we know we know alcohol. We do not know food that well. And we didn't really want to try to get into it. So.

Any other questions for the owner? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem.

I have a couple of questions. Yes. One, I'm not sure I understand what a microbrewery license is. So are you still going to be able to distill liquor? with this type of license?

Yes, because I believe all we we applied for all three licenses. So it was a micro brewers license, distillers license and small winemakers license. So the state will give assuming you guys approve those, the state will give those to us because we already have them. So this is what's called an off site tasting room for us. So the distilling and everything will still happen at our main location in St. Clair Shores, and then we'll transfer and bond the items over to our second location.

And when you say speakeasy, what if that concept just doesn't work? I mean, I'm not sure that anybody actually knows a speakeasy. I think about the prohibition era. So what is a speakeasy, and how are you going to do this? And what if the idea doesn't catch on, then what?

yeah i mean um i mean with any new business there's the option that it doesn't work um you know if that happened obviously we would have to either pivot into something else um you know probably not liquor related because if that doesn't work it's probably nothing's gonna really work in that position um but they're they're kind of um you know, if you do them properly, they're very unique right now. There are a few in the area that you can go to. There's one in Royal Oak. There's a couple downtown. And that's kind of the goal is that, you know, people don't really know about them. And it's so we're going to be doing a very grassroots like honestly, even like even like talking in here is like more than we want the word speakeasy to kind of get out because we want to do a real grassroots. We're going to have matchboxes that have a QR code. We're going to give those out to people to give out to people. That's how you're going to get your reservation. You're not going to be able to just walk in our door. You'll have to know the code. You'll have to be able to know how to get into the room. Things like that will make it so that it's going to be reservation only. And our goal, And a lot of the speakeas that are doing a similar thing, you can't get in. If you wanted to get in there on Thursday, you can't. You have to book three Thursdays out. Like, that's our goal is to be reservation only and really to be at a point where people are dying to get in there. Yeah. And it's I mean, it's we're friends with probably three other speakeasies, one in Macomb, one downtown, Weiss in Claussen, if you've ever been there. And that's how it is there. It's hard to get into them. And that's what we want. We want that exclusivity. Like, you know, our goal is if you go there, you want to tell people about it because you want to be like, hey, I know of this place that you probably don't know about. So let's go. You know, and that's that's kind of where how speakeasies evolve. We will do no branding. We will do no marketing. Everything will be grassroots and word of mouth.

so i know and and i i'm concerned about just the number and you you alluded to this the number of breweries that will be in a very small district yes there are places that have brewery districts but this is not a brewery district it's a social district that is intended for everybody yeah so i'm a little bit um leery about letting in another brewery especially since it seems like we're concentrating all of our licenses in one part of town. And I get, you know, and I'm happy that you're thinking about Oak Park. That's great. But won't this result in less business for everybody? We just don't have, we don't have the swell of populations. This is not a tourist destination. The same people tend to patronize these businesses.

Yeah. So I think the way that I would kind of hope you to help you understand that a little bit, is that when you have a space like this, it's not, you know, like, let's just say dog and pony or unexpected. They probably have people that go in there every day, like have a couple beers or every other day. Speakeasies aren't that. You're not, you don't want to spend $15, $16 a drink, you know, to go out. It's typically going to be something you do maybe once in a while. It's also going to be a draw. And that's our goal. This is going to be the closest speakeasy to five different cities basically, that are really their demographic wants something like this. So our goal is to bring people in to that area. You're gonna have a 90 minute reservation. As of right now, we don't offer food. Our goal is you come there, you might go to Dog and Pony Show for a beer beforehand, because you get there early, you have your reservation, you leave, maybe you go to Unexpected Craft for a beer afterwards. Our goal is to bring people into that area and not cut the pie into smaller pieces, but grow the pie.

And I did pass the building. What have you done so far?

I just cleaned it out pretty much. Yeah, we haven't really done anything because we were waiting on building permits and everything like that. We just got our approval site plan approval two weeks ago, so.

And the speakeasy part, you said, will be in the back?

Correct.

And the food will be in the front? Correct. How big is the building?

It's 4,000 square feet, approximately, just under.

So it's a small-ish speakeasy.

Yeah. And that's the other thing. Our speakeasy is only going to hold about 45 people. You're not going to be able to have 100 people in there for an event or something like that. It's very small, very quaint. Move people in and out on a 90-minute reservation. Let them go somewhere else within that area and spend their money.

Well, of all people who is about to ask this question, I don't know that I should be asking it because I'm the one that's going to be signing your application. I should probably know the answer to this. This is a unique situation. And my question actually might be to our city attorney or to Kim, but maybe you. So I'm going to ask it now. So I just want to make sure we're not doing three licenses. We're doing one license, correct?

Yes and no. It's technically you're approving our liquor license, I believe, because the city doesn't have it set up as like three separate licenses. But the licensing that we're that we're applying for is a micro brewers license. a small distiller's license, and a small winemaker's license.

And are those three distinct separate licenses? They're separate licenses with the state of Michigan, yes. So Kim, maybe that's a question for you. Does that count? So when we allowed alcohol to be consumed on premises here in this community, we were allowed a certain amount of licenses.

I had that same question when Dog and Pony Show recently got their distilling license on top of their brewing license. And according to the MLCC, it does not count against our quarter licenses.

Is it because it's one location? Is that how they consider it?

I don't know how they have the rationale, but yeah, they said it does not count. Yeah, it's very unique. It's three different.

Yeah. Okay, and then just for clarification for the audience and for council members, you're only asking for the distinct ones because you do plan on brewing some beer on site.

Yeah, legally we have to brew at least one, like a percentage of beer on site. So, you know, like I know that I think some of the concern was like, well, what if it doesn't work and you guys want to just turn it into a full-fledged brewery? That can never happen. We would not have the space, 1,800 square feet. That's the size of just our brew area at our place right now. We would not be able to produce enough beer to supply to that location. The space just wouldn't allow it, basically.

So then my question is, why not just go for a Class C? Why are you in bother?

We're not allowed. By law, because Michigan's a three-tiered system, we are technically right now a manufacturer. of spirits even though you're bringing it off-site correct premise because yeah as owners we already own a business that manufactures spirits yeah we can never own a Class C license because then that's a resale license and we're not allowed to we can only sell what we make basically So that's why I know like the concern was like, oh, well, it's a micro brewers license. It's a formality for us just so that we can have some beer on tap.

So I just want to just to clarify. So bear with me. This is a new one to us. Yeah. Okay. So because it's being brewed off site and being brought on premise is why you're required to have the micro brewing license. Correct.

Yes. Correct. Thank you. Yeah.

Thank you. So you're not brewing.

No. So we have to have one fermenter. Like if you've ever been into Dog and Pony, they have like 20 fermenters. We have to have one on site where we can finish a product, finish our beer there for one of the beers that we have. And that's all we'll ever have. We'll have no more than three beers on tap there ever. And again, if we would have just applied for a Class C liquor license, it would have made our lives easier too. We tried. We tried to see if there was a loophole where we could just do that because then we can offer higher end bourbons and it makes it easier and cheaper for us as well. But unfortunately, because we own a manufacturing facility already, we're not allowed to own a Class C license.

This is a totally good learning experience for me. I know that. You have to have the equipment on site, even though you're bringing it from off site on site. Just for the beer. Just for the beer. Just for the beer. Yeah. Not for the other ones. I don't know why the one.

The reason they did it years ago, they made that change because you had companies like shorts and founders and they were trying to just open up satellite locations without brewing there. And the distributors kind of got mad because they were starting to. poach different areas and they didn't have to brew there. They could transfer beer. So that law was changed, I think it's back in 2019 to make it so that you had to at least have the ability to brew beer there.

So thank you.

Yep. Any further questions?

So I know that you said that you'd have to have a reservation. It's not like, you know, hey, you guys, let's go over to. So how is that the only determination for being able to go to the establishment? Are you going to have a certain clientele who maybe have some kind of VIP and can come anytime they want or is it just going to be by reservation only?

Yeah, it's just going to be by reservation only. It's really it's just going to be, you know, like I have actually a card in my pocket right now. It's for the speakeasy in Macomb and it's just a phone number and you just you text it and you pretend like you want to book airline that's what it is they call themselves the travel agency so you book you pretend like you're going to book and then so i'm not supposed to say this because this is speak easy but you know that's that that's their stick but that's the way they do it too it's only it's reservation only you'll when you have the matchbook you'll scan the qr code it'll get you into the website you'll be able to make a reservation on the website we won't care who who it is really it's just whoever wants to make it can make it even if you don't you know somebody took a screenshot of the the book and sent it to you so you can make it you can make it yourself so okay yeah so this is you can't make a reservation online you have to text or use a qr code you'll you'll do for ours it'll be online but you'll have to know how to get into the website like the website is not going to be searchable it's going to be there's going to be no footprint for it you'll have to kind of have the qr code or know the web address in order to get to the website but then once you get there the matchbook when you open it'll have a qr code here and on the under when you peel the matches back there'll be a four digit code or five digit code you'll have to have that code to get into the website so

yeah it's pretty yeah it's a lot of work right yeah a lot of work so it'll be worth it it'll be worth it i promise special occasion an anniversary or a birthday or something you know ahead of time you want to do it and you make a reservation correct yep and it's this the secrecy is part of the fun yes exactly exactly So knock three times and ask for Joe. It was a secret until tonight. Now the car is blown.

I have a question, Madam Mayor. Yes, Council Member Solomon Redd. How many people is the minimum? Can I just make a reservation for myself?

One, yeah. Yeah, no, you can make a reservation for one. You can make a reservation for eight.

I don't think I'm going to.

But yeah, no, I mean, the cool part is, too, is the way we set it up is that there'll be a bar, there'll be some booths, live music we're going to have. We don't know how many nights currently, but we're building a stage for that as well. Think like Sade, just something real nice, easy listening while you're sitting there drinking. But in the back, there'll be what we're going to call the Velvet Room. It's going to be just this beautiful room where If you come early for your reservation and your table is not available, you can go sit in there and have a drink before your table becomes available. If your time is up and you still have some drink left, we would ask you to relocate to the Velvet Room and finish your cocktail in there so that we can reseat your table. So we do have a spot where we can kind of rotate people in and out as well. I mean, realistically, we love the Social District. We have one in St. Clair Shores, too, that we're a part of. But unfortunately, we won't be able to utilize it as much as some of the other places, because our goal is that you finish your drink there and you go and you go somewhere in the district to enjoy another drink. So.

What was your line? We're trying to grow the pie, not.

Yeah, we don't want to we don't want to cut the pie into smaller pieces. We want to make a bigger pie.

I like that one. Thank you.

So I have another question. As you may or may not know, our mayor is a notorious drinker. If she trades you a key to the city for a key to the club, would you be open for something like that?

We'll have to talk off the book for that one.

Watch out for granny, I'm telling you. Trying to see how you get on the VIP list.

The Velvet Room is going to be the McClellan Room soon. Nobody's going to know why.

But check out that key to the city.

It's beautiful. Might be worth it.

We play with it, yes. Any other questions?

Not any serious ones.

Oh, serious. Any other serious questions? Thank you. It sounds like it's going to be great fun. It sounds like it is going to grow the district, attract new people in who will then use the other facilities. Would you keep in touch and let us know what the food thing is in the front? Yes, for sure. Because I think what Mother

to be an option. We probably wouldn't want to get too, um, too into it, but it's something we've talked about offering as well, because we are, if it's pre-packaged already, we can offer that without having to deal with like fruit food prep or anything like that. So we also are looking into kosher beer. So just so you know, so. It's a process, but we're looking into it. After you're done with the mayor's key, we can talk about it.

Sounds good.

Lovely. Thank you for joining the Oak Park community.

Yes, thank you.

Thanks for having us. We're thrilled to have you. And show them the website, honey. We got it going on.

I will for sure. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

Now, let's see, is there anyone in the audience here to talk about the microbrewery license? Yes, please come up and identify yourself.

Good evening, Mr. Manager, Ms. Mayor, Attorney, City Clerk, and members of the Council. Marty Weinberg, Quality Car Wash, right next door to Ryan and Jeremy. I did have a concern regarding parking. It does get pretty well parked up in the lot and everything. parking cars on my property and walking across because people generally are lazy and it's convenient and Ryan and Jeremy basically said they will take care of any issues that may come up they didn't expect any and I have complete confidence in them for that I did have another question regarding the difference in height from their existing parking lot to the city parking lot which is about three three and a half feet and i said are you going to put any type of steps where people can walk up and again they addressed that they said we're planning on putting a disability compliant door right in the back so it's level so that took care of that my question for that was because the easiest thing would be for people to walk through my car wash bays towards 11 mile where it's pretty much level because the ground does slope quite a bit and there's a liability issue to me And again, you know, Ryan and Jeremy addressed that with a back door where it's ground level. And at this point, I guess I just have to wish both of them the best of luck. And unlike their proposal where you have to scan a code and get a reservation, all of you are free to come to my car wash anytime and wash your car. No reservation needed. Exactly. Yes, ma'am. You still have the Ford Fusion. I'm waiting for you.

Thank you.

Anyone else here, please come up. Give us your name and address. Thank you for coming and participating.

Good evening, Council, Mayor.

My name is Melanie Barnes. I live at 21811 Kenosha. I heard all this and it sounds very good. My one thought is what will the city of Oak, I've been a resident of Oak Park for 36 years and I would like to know what will we benefit from this establishment coming into our community. I heard some of the things that I want to hear from you guys a little bit more about what, how is this going to enhance our community?

Please come and talk to the microphone. Otherwise, the people at home can't hear you.

Yeah, I think, you know, to your concern, your question, for the residents, I think it would be a very nice social meeting place for people to go to. And obviously, we give back to our community. Like I said, in St. Clair Shores, where we currently live, we do love to get involved in our community that we come into. That's what I wanted to say. Yeah, perfect. Thank you. Thank you.

Great question. Thank you. Anyone else?

Good evening, everyone. First, I would like to say I give recognition and thank you.

Oh, oh, oh, oh. This is about the public hearing. Oh, got it. Got it. Come back. Come back in a quick minute. Oh, I'm out of time. I'm sorry. Come back. We want to hear you. Yep. There we go. Okay. We can, if no one else. I think we have one more. Yeah. And this is about the brewery, the brewery license. Okay.

Good evening, City Manager. Good evening, Mayor. My name is Tanisha Johnson. My address is 15241 Park Street right here in Oak Park, Michigan. I initially came for public comment, but now I do have a question for you. I'm excited to see a new business entering our social district. And one of the questions after hearing your speech tonight, one of the questions that I had was, How would your business, it sounds like it's a very niche business. It's a niche business. Exclusivity, you know, you got to have the QR code in order to get in. And what we're building in that 11 mile stretch is an area that is inclusive. We want families, we want bars, we want social activities, we want games, we want people to feel welcome and invited. How would this business encourage diversity?

If we already have two existing businesses that are breweries that are selling alcohol,

Now we have a third. So just give me, what are your plans and what's your business model? How does that include diversity and how are you bringing in a different type of business to this district?

To your question, I think everybody, as far as diversity, like I said, we're trying to involve everybody in there. We're looking into kosher. We're looking into how we can get the community involved. Everybody drinks, I think, so everybody would be more than welcome. We are not kid-friendly. It'll be 21 and up there. I know the breweries are, which ours is in St. Clair Shores as well. But this is meant to be kind of for the adults, for the adult night out away from kids. Because if you've gone to a brewery full of kids, you're kind of like, I kind of sometimes wish there wasn't so many kids in here. So ours is going to be more for the adults, not so much family inclusive. But we do have two great businesses right next to us that are where people can go to. So, yeah. So, I mean, I think... You know, when when we say exclusive, it's not it's just more of like the gamification of trying to get into to the stash books to all the groups. Yeah. Yeah. And that's I mean, that's something where, you know, when we when we get them printed and everything, we'll be handing them out to local businesses. We'll be handing them out to to you guys to hand out to people. It will be something where that's that's part of the fun in it. When you come in, if you were to come in, we'll give you two to bring home to give to people like that's part of the whole process. So and that's kind of how it grows within different communities and cultures, because people can just grab them, take them home, give them to their friends, give them to their families. And now they're coming in as well. So.

So then you're the ad for your family and friends. You're our neighbors. This is cute. Come and try this. Hopefully you're their PR then after you've been there. Exactly. And then everybody's brought in.

Yep. Thank you. Thank you for your question.

Thank you for the question.

Yes.

Hello, everybody. I'm Xavier Tavala. I wasn't actually planning to speak at all because I don't even drink. But I'm kind of curious because wherever the I'm just curious, wherever I was a bartender for 10 years, that's why I don't drink anymore. But where there's alcohol inhibitions drop and given this sort of secret society type of ambience, which is okay. I'm curious like what type of security or protection measures do you plan to have in place, if at all any, in terms of like protection of the environment, like a parking attendant or maybe a bouncer inside or no one knows what's going on inside if no one can see. So I'm just curious about those type of security measures.

As of right now, when you go to these speakeasy type places, you don't really see a need for bouncers or anything like that. If we ever did feel that we needed that, we would definitely address it. But currently, even at our brewery, we don't have a bouncer. Because it's a 90-minute reservation, you're probably not going to go in there and get hammered or be too drunk. It's probably going to be two drinks atop. So moving it out like that isn't going to be like when you have regulars kind of sitting at the bar for six, seven hours and then you got to worry about how you deal with that person. um we are all tip certified too that's a state regulation all my staff myself as well and that teaches us how to handle those situations as well thank you thank you anyone else

No further public comments I will close public hearing masking for resolution approving the issuance of a microbrewery license and or related permits to anchor Bay Brewing Company LLC located at 14 for 41 West 11 mile road. Second thank you discussion or questions. Ready for a roll call. Thank you for very complete answers.

Council Member Crawford. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Edgar. Yes. Mayor McClellan.

Yes.

Council Member Radner.

Yes. Welcome to Oak Park. Motion carried. Thank you.

When are you guys opening? Oh, that's a really hard question.

October is hopeful, so probably December.

My birthday is in October. I mean, we renewed that probably within those three months.

That's very cool.

All right. Looking forward to it. Thank you. Let's see, city attorney. Are there PFAS settlement update for you?

Yes, very briefly, Madam Mayor, members of council.

Courtney Krause, thank you.

Many of you are already familiar with the nationwide class action involving 3M and DuPont, which totaled more than $14 billion for PFAS contamination associated with firefighting flame retardant foam. This portion of the class action that Oak Park is actually participating in is representing amounts that Great Lakes water has already advanced to mitigate PFAS contamination. Oak Park was tested for PFAS. We did not have any defectible PFAS in the Oak Park water system. But this portion of the class action would allow Oak Park to recover some of the funds that were already paid to Great Lakes Water that Great Lakes Water expended to mitigate the PFAS. So the purpose of this update to council is just to bring this matter to your attention. At the present time, we do not know if Oak Park is going to see any recovery whatsoever. But if there is a recovery, for the estimate of 32,000 residents, we're looking at a range between 450,000 and 1.9 million. based upon the class action settlement proceeds. And unlike the opiate settlement that we did recover from, these funds are not required to be specifically allocated. So those could be put back into the water system at council's discretion. And also, as part of the settlement, Oak Park is not responsible for any costs or testing associated with participation. The settlement is actually being managed by a national law firm, so they would have their fees taken out of any recovery, but Oak Park is not required to advance any fees for testing or attorney fees at this point. again this is just a projection we do not know at this point whether oak park will be part of any recovery but we are participating to see if there is something available fingers crossed um any freedom of information act appeals i do not have any appeals this evening glory b uh city manager eric tongue

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Before we go into the city manager report, I do want to provide a brief verbal update on the DTE power outage, as I know that has affected our community tremendously. I'm looking at my app right now, and I would just recommend residents, if you don't have the app, Please get the app. The outage map is updated regularly. I've been monitoring it all day. I did speak with Liz Vogel, and she is our community resource liaison from DTE. I spoke to her right before this meeting. Just a couple of things I wanted to mention. The hardest hit areas, there was about 400,000 people in the whole DTE market. that were without power after this latest storm. But the hardest hit areas were Monroe County, Downriver, Detroit, and Western Wayne. Southeast Oakland was hit hard, but not as hard as those areas. The reason, and I asked her why it was such a devastating impact, and the reason that they've had such a hard time responding, and I don't work for DTE and I'm not defending them, but I'm simply giving you their reasoning. was that there were lots of trees down and wires were down and poles were down. And there's two separate groups of teams that go out and handle those different things depending on the situation. And when they typically would rely on other states to provide assistance, in this case, they couldn't because crews from those other states were dealing with the storm as it moved through going east through upstate New York and beyond. If you see or have questions, if you see an issue or have questions, the 800 number is 800-477-4747. Or you could look at the app.

Could you repeat that number, 800- 800-477-4747.

And we're going to be putting out some social media right after this meeting here as well.

And that number is for what again?

If you have any questions remaining or issues, outages, whatever, that would be the number where you could get information if you're not looking at the app. And I was informed because one of my concerns obviously was that our residents, some of our residents have been without power since Friday. And having been down this road myself, I can tell you, not a fun situation. DTE, and again, I'm not defending this. This is simply the information that was provided. DTE will be providing a restoration credit of $42 per day. And those are for people who have had their power out for more than 16 hours. As far as other community resources, I know they've been providing those to other communities. Of course, I'm asking for those for Oak Park. But I would ask at this time to again remind you to download the app, follow the instructions. And I do want to just say one of the areas that I've been monitoring all day was an area just to our south here, right across Oak Park Boulevard by the high school. When we started our council meeting tonight, there was a few hundred people without power in that area. There are now, as of an hour ago, there are now only 22 people out. So I asked them, I asked the rep before I came into this meeting, When do you expect to have the vast, vast majority of Oak Parkers back on? And DTE expects to have Oak Park done by 1130 tonight. And that's not a guarantee, but that's the response that they gave me. And rest assured, we're going to do everything we can to make sure that they're going to be held accountable. And certainly, residents and business owners, I would ask anybody who has concerns to call DTE, go to the app, or work through the Public Service Commission appointed by the state of Michigan who oversees this stuff.

One comment, just when I spoke to her, she said she asked people who had worked for DTE for 15 or 20 years, and this was the most number of outages that they had ever seen, 400,000 from one storm.

We started with 400,000 as of Friday in their entire area. I'm looking at the map right now. There are now 44,236 in their entire area. They have restored power to 98.06% of their area. That certainly doesn't justify those who are still waiting, but they're getting close here.

And they are providing restitution for anybody who's been out of power for over 16 hours.

for over 16 hours and it's $42 per day if you have lost your power for 16 hours or more.

Okay.

Okay.

Good to know.

Okay, moving on. For 10A1, I would like to actually call upon our city attorney who has been working with staff on the amendment to this agreement with the Berkeley School District for the Tyler Park project.

Madam Mayor, members of council, what you have before you is the proposed first amendment to the cooperative agreement with Berkeley Schools for the Tyler Park improvements. Council approved a change order back in the spring for $24,430.89. Many of you may remember that that was to improve the stormwater connections and also reconcile an issue with the location of the water main. The agreement that you have before you is a cost-sharing and maintenance agreement that provides that Oak Park and Berkeley will each maintain the drainage systems on their respective parcels that comprise of Tyler Park. And they will cover the costs that are incurred with respect to each of their parcels. So we're asking for a resolution approving the city manager to sign the First Amendment to the Cooperative Agreement with the Berkeley School District.

Is there a second? Second. Discussion or questions?

I do.

Yes, Mayor Pro Tem.

So I know that this is, the property is not quite evenly divided but we own part of it the district school district owns the other part so this um this agreement we the city would be responsible for restroom cleaning pathway snow removal and the path runs through both it runs through the entire park right okay and grass cutting and designated areas okay So I came across something about the diamond, you know, the ball diamond. So we are not responsible for any of the ball diamond maintenance, anything around the diamonds. And there are two diamonds. I know there's a practice one as well that's planned. What is the extent of our responsibility for that, for Tyler Park and for the Berkeley School District property?

That was already determined in the first agreement that was approved by council, so any portion of the property that's located on the school district-owned property is the responsibility of the school district, and any portion of Tyler Park that's on the city property is the responsible of the city.

So the bathroom will be on our property? No. Well, no.

Actually, I mean, let me just kind of speak to that real quick, Madam Mayor. So one of the things, the bathroom will actually be on, is it on our property or the school's property? I'm not positive, regardless though, the pathway we are going to be maintaining and salting and doing and mowing all those, we would be doing all of that anyway, by the way, almost all of that anyway. Part of that was in our initial contract as the city attorney stated, we negotiated terms where they would pay for the cost to build those things if we maintained those things. And I thought that was a fair compromise, considering the capital cost required to build the bathrooms and all of the various parts that go with that. So that was why you see it that way. But again, that was already approved. That part is not part of the amendment we're asking for here.

Thank you.

The amendment that's before council is specific to the storm drainage system that was added to address the flooding concerns in the park. And if you look in your council packets, there is a diagram that's attached as exhibit one to the agreement that delineates where the drainage line runs and where it crosses the parcel. So the school district would maintain the drainage system on its parcel and the city would maintain the system on the city on parcel.

Mayor Pro Tem, I don't think I answered your question about the ball diamond. I'm sorry. The ball diamond. So the ball diamond where Berkeley schools will play their varsity softball games, I believe, will be maintained by Berkeley schools as that will require a higher level of maintenance, of course. But the practice one will be on us as it is now. Yeah, and again, part of this was in exchange for them paying the capital costs required to build some of these new assets on the property. So we'll still mow the practice diamond and the areas around that, but not the actual varsity softball facility.

I notice that they've put up lights, like serious baseball or softball diamond lights. And are they gonna have a scoreboard, do you know?

I believe that is part of their plan. I know they don't currently have a great location for their varsity softball game, so I believe that is part of their plan. They want to really amp it up. As you know, they've obviously done a ton of work on their other campus properties to upgrade their athletic facilities, so they'll be doing the same here.

OK. Are we ready to vote then? Roll call, please.

Mayor Pro Tem Edgar. Yes. Mayor McClellan. Yes. Council Member Radner. Yes. Council Member Crawford.

Yes. Motion carried. Thank you.

Okay, and then before we get to, so stay right there, Kim. Before we get to Director Moroney for 10B1, I know the city clerk, I would like him to give an update on the absentee voting, which has now gone out.

Thank you. Some of you might be wondering about you've already turned in your absentee ballot and have a candidate that you voted for who's not a part of it anymore. I'd like you to know that you can actually Spoil that ballot and get a new ballot up until the 24th of July at 5 p.m. Now, to do this, you do need to request that in writing. I have to have your signature so we know to give you a new ballot. So the easiest way to do that is to come into our office and do that. We'll be glad to give you another ballot and you can change your vote. Those of you who would want to or maybe not are close with your absentee ballot, you may do that by requesting that in writing. So I have to have your signature. So those are really the two ways to do that. So I just want to make sure that people know that you can spoil your ballot up until July 24th at 5 p.m. Of course, on that day, you would have to come in to the office to be able to get the new ballot.

So then if you turned in your absentee ballot and you voted for Mallory McMurrow and she is no longer a candidate, come into City Hall, come to the clerk's office, they'll switch out the ballot and you can vote again, correct?

That's correct.

Do you need ID?

We do need to know who you are, yes.

And if someone does not come in and they did vote for that candidate who dropped out, the rest of their voting would not be spoiled. Oh, absolutely. Their ballot is fine. Your ballot will be fine. It's just that in that portion. OK.

Thank you.

Thank you. Let's see.

So if If there's a request to spoil a ballot, I think that's the proper way of phrasing it, you would have to get a new ballot, correct?

That is correct.

Okay. So you have to fill out the entire ballot again because it's like you're starting afresh. Got it.

Okay. Okay. Thank you, Mr. City Clerk. Okay, 10B1 Director Kimberly Maroney is here.

Good evening, City Manager Tungate, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and Council Members. We have in front of you a request from Mattioli Cement Company of Fenton, Michigan. We have a current contract with them for our miscellaneous concrete program. And within our bidding process, we always ask for us to be allowed to do a one-year extension. They have actually reached out to us and are willing to guarantee the same prices for next year's miscellaneous concrete program. So we are coming to you tonight to ask you to approve the contract extension with Manioli Cement for an additional year. Okay. Is there a motion?

So moved. Second. Okay. Discussion or questions? Roll call, please.

Mayor McClellan? Yes. Council Member Radner? Yes. Council Member Crawford? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Edgar? Yes.

Motion carried. Thank you.

Okay. And 10B2, Director Maroney, this is my all-time favorite project of entire history of my time here in Oak Park. So 10B2, please.

Yes, thank you. So as I'm sure all of you have noticed on Coolidge, we have a lot of activity going on with tearing out the concrete median islands in front of the businesses along Coolidge between 10 and 11 mile and the north of 10 mile. I'm sorry, south of 10 mile. This is for a pay application number one for that work in the amount of $33,506.35, and then the second half is a change order to add additional landscaping to this project. We only initially awarded the Coolidge Islands south of Ten Mile, so at Tenon Coolidge near the expressway. In speaking with City Manager Tungate, we asked if they could give us a quote to do the additional three islands since we are doing the parking lot project on Coolidge to replace the parking lots in front of the businesses. It makes more sense to do it now as part of that project. And that would require us to do a change order in the amount of $301,065.16. It does include irrigating all of those islands as well, all four islands.

So we need a motion to approve. Second. Thank you. There were pictures in our packet of what it looks like now and what it was going to look like. You don't happen to have those. I do not have those. Because that was very compelling. Yeah.

So it's extensive landscaping with trees, flowers, some papers for when you get out of the car, lighted bollard lighting, and then again, the irrigation.

I met a marriage, I do know. I was talking to Kim earlier today about this, but I did see on the quarter improvement authority web page that they did put a before and after. Yeah, very helpful page that before and after of this is going to be incredible. If City Council approves this.

So right now, it's like cement and bricks. And soon it's going to be like gardens, trees, shade. We're classing this up.

I would add to that in our discussions with the business and property owners and all of the stretch that we're doing on Coolidge, they're all very excited about the project and a lot of them are now looking to plan improvements to their buildings.

Nice. nice because it went from blah to amazing yes when you see the pictures you will be amazed the before and after of like the parking lots on Coolidge when you go into Lincoln drugs say right right now it's broken pavement and some bricks it's very sterile America I just say something to that

it is amazing um and i i can't stress this enough it is amazing the impact that improvements to the built environment will make on people's psyche as they travel through our community and even for our residents and business owners and that's what this is going to do more i was i was telling kim the high visibility of these areas because of so many vehicles traveling through these corridors more people are going to see these projects than they're going to see our event hub or other stuff that we've done believe it or not it's just it's going to be amazing

That's I'm thrilled. Are there comments, questions? Yes, Mayor Pro Tem.

So I'm glad to hear that the business owners are going to spruce up the facades. I know the Corridor Improvement Authority has offered the option since we do have the money. Absolutely. Facade Improvement Grant. So that's really good to hear because it is one of the I don't know. It's a bit tired. It's tired. And so this landscape is going to be like, wow, I already love what the city did on Lincoln. As you turn west from Coolidge, you've got a median that it completely changes the flavor of the neighborhood. I really like it. It looks great. I don't know what it would take, but the alleyway behind That plaza needs to be, it's in bad shape. I mean, the dumpster should be enclosed. There's just a lot. And there are people who live, like, right there, you know, 10 feet away. But I digress. I'm happy about this project. Very excited.

Thrilled. Thrilled that we can do it while we're in the neighborhood. Yes. You just feel different when you're walking down a sidewalk and there are trees and flowers and it looks like someone cares and it upgrades the neighborhood. Past thrilled. Are we ready to vote?

Councilmember Radner.

Yes.

Councilmember Crawford. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Edgar. Yes.

Mayor McClellan.

Yes. Motion carried. Thank you.

Madam Mayor, members of council that completes a city manager report for this evening. Thank you.

Thank you. City Manager Tungate. Call to the audience. Now it's time for that one.

Yes.

And Melanie Barnes. Yeah.

Thank you. Thanks for your patience.

Melanie Barnes, 21811 Kenosha. I'm here introducing myself to the team here, to the council, to the mayor, to the pro tem mayor, and to the community. I am running for school board candidate in the November election.

Give us your name again. Melanie Barnes.

Melanie Burns. Yes. Barnes, B-A-R-N-E-S. B-A-R-N-E-S.

That was my maiden name. We might be cousins.

That was my married name. Distant cousins.

Distant cousins. By marriage.

All right.

Related through your cousins. Yeah. Right.

Sylvia? Anyone else?

Did you want to say what was on your list?

We're going to move right to her.

You know smart. 1, 5, 0, 5, 5, you know, but I just want to address the com or excuse me to the council. Yeah, yeah, for 10. I was the lady. On Wednesday, I think it was. I just happened. I didn't know about the ribbon cutting by and I'm independent. So I drove myself home and I was going to lay down, but then I called the library and learned about the ribbon cutting. So I decided to get up and try it down here. I'm glad I did. Oak Park is a community that is very receptive to people with disabilities and family. and even the sidewalks, et cetera, they're in pretty good shape. But oh my God, when I got here and saw the event hub and the ribbon cutting mirror, you told me you're gonna appreciate this. I did. The job, well done. The website, well done. What I would say to this is, The fact that I could get around easily. What most impressed me, because I drive myself, I'm independent, so there's no one with me. The parking has always been issues everywhere I go. But when I parked across from the library and got out, I said, it's amazing how much space I have to get off my ramp onto the street and go wherever I want to go. I was very impressed, even with the parade. I think you got the extra as far as the handicap parking, because that's all signs that were lying along the sidewalk. I said, wow, look what OPOC has done. And I'm excited about the future of the community center. I love to swim, but yeah, it's coming. And what, four years is coming? Okay, I could wait four years.

I think it'll be sooner than that. A little sooner. Sooner than four years.

I would like to say this, because being an advocate for people with disabilities, but I'm independent alone. I went on a cruise two years ago to the Bahamas alone. What was so impressive, I know they probably have much more money than we do, was the bathrooms. Of course you push the button to go in, but they had an additional button on the inside that I could push and get out without trying to call for help, trying to pull the door. Could that be possible here? That we could have a button on the inside of the bathroom for people to get out that don't have anyone with them? We have a response.

Well, can I just say that we had a great conversation the night of the State of the City, and I really appreciate your feedback. It means a ton that you approve of what we've done over there. But as far as ADA accessibility, I know the other night we had talked about the pool. I mean, the plan, obviously, is to make it as fine-tuned and available and accessible to people with disabilities. But as far as the bathrooms in the Event Hub, that's something I'm going to be addressing right as soon as we leave here in terms of what can be done on the inside. It's a great recommendation, and I very much appreciate your input.

The inside. And again, OPAP, way to go. Even the website. That's good. And the idea that we can email our questions or whatever, that's good because sometimes you have people with different disabilities that dealt with different needs. But to be A1 on that would go a long way for all parts people with disabilities, they tend to look for places that are accessible. And if there was a few things on that website, that would be impressive and that would bring in more people. Some people have had accidents and lawsuits and they would like to go to places that are welcoming for them. And that would be a, that will be a big Plus to them. Also having someone on the committee when you plan, then maybe it will see what you don't see before the building is started. That would be a good idea to have. I don't know if we have a committee for that or not. but that would be a good idea so they can see what you don't see before you spend the money thank you thank you so much that is excellent feedback by the way very much appreciated um and again you know we're going to do everything in our power

um to not just make sure it has to be ad accessible of course but i think to your point you know having somebody consulting with us prior to um and we'll certainly consider that as we get closer to starting construction on our community center it may save a lot of money too definitely thank you let's see tanisha johnson

We don't have.

Good evening again city manager mayor and city council members, my name is Tanisha Johnson. Do I need to repeat my address again. 15241 Park Street, right here in the city of Oak Park. I am a proud alumni of Oak Park High School, class of 2001. And I came tonight because it's important to stay engaged and involved and informed in our city, the leadership that's representing us and just being a part of the future of Oak Park. I appreciate your leadership and your service, and I look forward to learning more about the city and from you and your leadership in just making Oak Park a wonderful place to live, as it always has been. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, anyone else for call to the audience?

I have a card from Crystal Bailey. Or, or, or Silva. Who wants to go first?

Well, took a long time coming. Good evening to the mayor and councilman and guests. My name is Sylva Haywood and I am the president of the Concerned Citizen of Black Club Committee. First of all, I would like to I would like to give recognition and thanks to all the dignitary who participated in the river cutting of the Oak Park Hut. Did I pronounce it right?

Oh.

Don't do that.

It's the Event Hub, not HUD.

Yeah, Event Hub. Okay. It was really nice, and so it was very impressive. So I really appreciate everybody who participated. Good job. Okay. On the behalf of the summer block club party and backpack drive that that concerns citizen has is sponsoring this year. And it's going to take place on August the 23rd. That's on a Sunday. August 23rd. What time? August 23rd. It's from 3 to 6. 3 to 6. And what's the location? And the location is Nine Miles and Pearson and Church. It's going to be blocked off from Garden to Church on Pearson. Okay. So... And I would like everybody to attend and participate. And I definitely will appreciate your donations. It could be monetary gifts. It can be backpacks. The mission is I anticipate to Well, first I said 100 backpacks I want to donate. Because as we all know, the children, they are the future of tomorrow. And kids is one of my compassion. Elderly and children is really my compassion. And some of the things that we are planning to have is... We plan to have a, it's gonna be a food truck. We're gonna have face painting for the kids. And plan to have games and different things like that for the children. So, I would like to, you know, if you can, okay, this is the,

This is the flyer.

You get one, yes, flyer.

As you can see, it has a QR code on it, and that means that you can donate money to go straight into the account.

Yeah, right, right, exactly.

So... So that's my mission. And I would like for there is some flyers on the back on the table back there. So I would like for all of you to get one if you if you don't mind and donate. I appreciate all whatever you donate is be very appreciative.

OK, thank you for all I have to say.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Crystal.

Good evening, city manager, mayor, and city council. My name is Crystal Bailey. I am a resident since 1998 and a 2001 graduate from Oak Park High School, like my girlfriend over there. Yes, Ms. Johnson. And then I'm here for two reasons. The website. Very nice website, a little more easier to navigate. However, I went to the city council meeting so that I could watch the meeting. But the website takes you to there's a link that takes you to Facebook. I know you all like Facebook, the city of Oak Park loves Facebook, I know, but everyone doesn't have Facebook. We would like that route to, that to be routed to a reasonable source where we can watch the live so we can watch city the city meetings here. Right now it's just directing me currently to Facebook. And that's I don't I don't like to operate that way, especially a government entity here. Please route us to somewhere that's where we can watch live stream, maybe YouTube much better than Facebook. Also, Hence, my hair. My power has been out for four days. I can't iron my clothes. I can't do my hair. I mean, what is the city of Oak Park doing? What can be done? Because we have these rate increases from DTE. We're paying more, but we're in my hair. My hair. I'm campaigning, talking to residents door to door, and we all have these same issues. And another thing, the millages. I'm knocking doors, talking to residents, and they're talking about the millages. And they don't understand that we can vote no, and our millage will decrease. just because it's gonna renew and it doesn't increase, but they still need to know that if they vote no on the millages, it will decrease, because I'm knocking doors, residents are not understanding that. But again, I'm Crystal Bailey. Thank you for listening to me.

You should say that.

Okay, thank you. Call to council. Let's see, Benny, do you have that survey slide? Aha. Please take the resident survey. Don't just go to Oak Park Forum and complain. We do read your comments. We take them into advisement. That's how we make our decisions. Have your voice heard and take this survey. You can make a difference. If you're not happy with something, come to a council meeting. A brave member can speak up for the group. Take the survey and put your wishes into it. We are reading your comments. We are taking them to heart. um we had an event hub ribbon cutting if you weren't there the dia sponsored an artist and there is a gorgeous mural on the back side of the new event hub with flower it's a floral it is just beautiful if you didn't see it We had a ribbon cutting for the mural. We had a ribbon cutting for the event hub and one for the wonderful new concert shell. This is the artist who did the mural for us. And it's just a beautiful thing. It's on the back of the event hub. So when you come for a concert, you can see that mural. You can't see it from the street. But it is wonderful. And at the Event Hub event, we had these two amazing dogs. who were eating popsicles. And at the pancake breakfast, the rest of us were eating pancakes with syrup and toppings and coffee and juice, and it was wonderful. We just need more people to come out next year because it was a wonderful, wonderful event. Let's see. Farmer's Market. We had the Farmer's Market. People got free Oak Park t-shirts. They are available until they run out. There's a few left here at City Hall. Is that right, Tim? Yes. So the farmers market, a guy came, he was selling ladybugs that you could buy. He was selling praying mantis for your garden. He had 10 different kinds of mushrooms that were grown hyperponically, I think, so there's no dirt on them. And he sharpens knives. I brought every knife in my kitchen and all my garden tools, and he sharpens them. So he's coming back next Thursday. Every Thursday is the farmer's market from 9 in the morning until 2. Come and buy stuff. Bring your knives to get sharpened. We had a wonderful concert. We had a wonderful parade. Council member Solomon Radner came in a red, white, and blue suit with a starred tie. He wanted to make a quiet statement. Don't forget the motorcycle. And on a motorcycle. Right. Who's to say we don't have a lively council?

Yeah, no motorcycle driver would call that a motorcycle.

It was it was a wonderful day. Events in the park, concert. It was wonderful to have everybody come on out and be with their friends and neighbors. Thank you for coming and thank you for staying for a long meeting. Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, everyone, for coming. And I wanted to commend Silva for the work that you're doing. This is important work, and you're taking it on as a neighborhood group. That's wonderful. I just wanted to remind everybody that Thursday we are doing sort of another ribbon cutting at the Watertower Social District on 11 Mile. It is called a par-tee right here. So businesses are laying out some greens and people will compete to see how many balls they can sink. There are good prizes, I can attest to that. Yes, a lot of neighboring businesses donated. It's just going to be wonderful. There's going to be live music by Stereo Babe, face painting for the kids, food trucks, et cetera. It's going to be really fun. And again, I can't believe what's happening in this city in the last two weeks. We had the ribbon cuttings. The Event Hub is... fabulous it's it's even beyond my wildest dreams fabulous and um the fourth of july parade and i know it was very hot it kept people home but a lot of people did come out and it was very fun and successful so um crystal i think you look beautiful so even though and so many people in the city um have struggled with the loss of power

you're doing fine anyway good night uh that's like mini golf holes is that yes yes okay come on out on thursday from three to eight play some golf uh are there going to be food trucks there will be food trucks it's four to eight four uh to eight three o'clock is the ribbon cutting then is that do you do ribbon cutting at three okay that was starting at four okay Solomon Radner.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you all for coming out. Silva, I do want to speak to you afterwards about possible sponsorships for this event. The one that particularly speaks to me is the backpack giveaway for children. Obviously, there's nothing more important than children having a good education and having the what they need to be able to get that education. So that's really, really great, really great work. Keep it up. And I'd like to speak to you afterwards. As far as DTE and power being out, it's affecting a lot of people. As we know, we heard from Eric earlier this evening that he was actually speaking to DTE about getting Oak Park back up and running. And I believe you said that they assured you that everybody would have their electricity by 1130 tonight. Can I turn it to Eric for a second? If that's okay?

Yeah, they did say that. And if I could use this opportunity, I'm constantly looking at the outage map. And just as we've been talking now, so many of our residents have come back online here. So it looks like they're going to comply with that 1130 time estimate.

Thank you. And then also, just so that everybody is aware, and I know that I get calls about this every time people's power goes out, we have absolutely no control over DTE. We have no control over the rates. There's nothing that the city of Oak Park can do about it. Now, obviously, with our platform and with what comes with that, we're able to reach out to them, and that's what Eric's been doing. He's been on the phone with them trying to get updates and trying to get power turned on for everybody so that everybody can have power and and take a shower. That's got to be awful. I'm so sorry. The last thing I just wanted to point out is, and I see that at the top right corner of our website, there is a Facebook link. But there's also, right next to it, there's Instagram, YouTube, X, and email. And these are just the five links at the top right corner for everybody that they can click and get taken directly to Oak Park's Facebook page, Instagram page, youtube where you can watch city council meetings live x formally twitter and email so it's all right there i understand that not everybody has facebook and not everybody has instagram myself included but the youtube link is right there also in the top right corner so i just wanted to make sure that everybody's aware of that and with that madam mayor i don't have anything else thank you all have a great night thank you so much for clarifying council member stephanie crawford

And I just want to say good, uh, good job on all the events we've had from the parade to the event hub, to the we're all still resting because it was a lot, but it was so beautiful. Um, and we have a lot of upcoming things, a couple of things that wasn't mentioned next week. We have a summer concert on Wednesday, the 15th in our new event hub, uh, from seven to eight 30. So. come on out and listen to some great music. Also, the Beautification Commission right now are having, they're doing it a little differently this year, they're having nominations for the Beautification Awards. So you can go to the City of Oak Park website, you can nominate a home that you feel is worthy of the Beautification Award. You need to include the address and in the subject line you need to put BAC Award. The new website and you can nominate a home uh for the beautification award um they are a business right is there a business section this is just for the homes for the vac yeah just for the homes for the bac awards um and the deadline is july 27th so make sure there's some beautiful homes some people who are really taking pride if you see someone nominate their home for the BAC award this year. Also, I was, outages I know is just terrible. Don't forget to go on Forgotten Harvest, because a lot of them were concerned because they had to get rid of all of their food. And for anyone who may experience some food insecurities, It's hard. Groceries are very expensive. But you can go on the Forgotten Harvest website or Facebook page and they will tell you where they are every day. And you may need to go there and, you know, to get some food for your family. That resource is out there. It's just Forgotten Harvest. And they every day are at a different location. So for anyone that needs that resource, please pass it on. And lastly, I want to say one of my favorite events are coming up. I just love the dog day afternoon, July 19th. And a little bit of trivia. If you go to the services tab and you click on animal control, that little Yorkie that comes up with mine from last year, Frankie, he's kissing a bulldog. And I was like, is that my dog? But it is July 19th and the address 21950 Scotia Road. The Oak Park, is it Oak Park and Bark Julie? Oak Park and Bark Dog Park. It's a mouthful. It's from 12 to three. It is a great day. I went last year, my dog had a ball, I had a ball and so many great vendors. everyone make sure you attend that if you're a dog lover even if not it's just a fun day um so i know that it's hot i know everyone's frustrated um i'm glad all of the the uh electricity is finally coming on so uh everyone just try to stay cool if you need anything you can always reach out to council be kind to one another and have a great evening thank you for coming out

Thank you for staying. This was a long one there being no further business to come before the council. This meeting is finally adjourned.