City Council - Regular Meeting

welcome to this regular city council meeting august 17th 2026 7 p.m please stand for the pledge of allegiance

City clerk Norris, please call the roll mayor McClellan here mayor pro Tem Edgar here councilmember Radnor councilmember Crawford councilmember Berman Okay, three out of five is a quorum.

We will continue with the meeting is their motion to approve the agenda so moved I Second all those in favor. I any opposed motion carried item 5. This is the consent agenda the routine items presented for approval without discussion any member can ask to have any an item considered separately a regular City Council meeting minutes for August 3rd 2026. b request to approve payment application number four for the 2026 landscape maintenance contract to bright view landscapes of pontiac in the amount of eighteen thousand nine hundred twenty dollars forty five cents c request to approve payment application number four for the 2026 lawn maintenance contract to parrot landscaping of clinton township michigan in the amount of twenty four thousand six hundred fifty four dollars D, request to approve invoice number three for the 2025-26 tree survey project to Davey Resource Group in the amount of $4,500. E, approval of payment application number four, the final for the 2024-25 miscellaneous concrete project M773 to Mattioli Cement Company of Fenton, Michigan in the amount of $10,000. F, approval of pay application number three to Great Lake Landscaping Design of Oak Park, Michigan. For the 2026 Corridor Improvement Authority Landscaping Installation Project M799 in the amount of $81,618.44. And an aside, if you haven't seen the new trees and flowers on Coolidge, you've got to drive by. It really gives life and warmth to the intersection. G, public safety activity summary report for July 2026. H, new and renewal licenses August 17th, 2026. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

So moved.

Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carried. We have no visiting elected officials. Do we? brings us to item 7 special licenses item 7 a request for special event license submitted by Motor City ice 21 800 Greenfield suite 700 for an open house event October 23rd from 11 to 6 is there a motion to approve this request so moved second Okay, this is not a non-for-profit so that they pay their application fee. All those in favor, please say yes. those in favor yes hi yes thank you any opposed motion carry b request for a special event license and waiver of application fees submitted by oak park corridor of improvement authority for a tower tailgate event to be held in the water tower social district september 17th from 7 to 11. is there a motion to approve this application So moved. Second. All those in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Motion carried. The last event was phenomenal. The cruise and groove, if you didn't get to it, you got to get to it next year. It was really well done and fun. Music and fun cars from all over. C, request for special event license, waiver of application fee, submitted for the annual Radcliffe Place Block Party, September 6th from 11 to 4. Is there a motion to approve the event license? So moved. Second. All those in any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carried. D, special event license waiver of application fee submitted by Hope Care and Beyond for a shop small event at 20820 Greenfield Road, September 26th from 12 to 4. Do we have a motion? No. Okay. Need a motion and a second. So moved. Second. Thank you. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye.

Mayor, I do have a question. Yes. What is Hope, Care, and Beyond?

Hope, Care, and Beyond. For a shop. A non-profit.

It is a non-profit. They're having an event on Greenfield, I believe.

Yep. for an event on Grayfield. It is a non-profit. Did you want more than that? I just wonder what they did.

It looks like in the application, they did state that they are, they support small businesses and entrepreneurs and raise money to support new Americans gaining employment skills.

Okay. Yeah. All right. Do we have a vote on this one? We both. We did okay. Number 8. Counting reports approval for payment of invoices submitted by Karen local Miller for legal services in the amount of $17,319.96. Sir motion to approve payment. Discussion. All those in roll call, please.

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

Yes. Motion carried. Thank you. 8B, approval for payment of invoices submitted by District Kaplan for legal services in the amount of $6,500. So moved. Second. Thank you. Discussion or questions? Roll call, please.

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

Yes. Motion carried. Thank you. Our City Attorney, Courtney Krause, is there any Freedom of Information Act appeals?

We do not have any appeals pending for tonight.

Thank you. City Manager, Eric Tungate?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Members of Council, 10-A-1, I would like to ask our Director of Municipal Services, Kimberly Maroney, to join me at the podium, please.

Thank you, City Manager Tunge, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and Council Member. I have in front of you tonight the approval of Pay Application 5 and Change Order No. 1 for our 2025 Sewer and Catch Basin Cleaning and TV Inspection Project. It is now 100% complete, and this finals out and balances out the project where it came in under budget.

Woo!

All right.

Okay, we need a motion to approve this payment application So moved second, thank you discussion or questions Roll call, please Councilmember Crawford.

Yes. They're pro Tim Edgar.

Yes. Mayor McClellan.

Yes motion carried Okay, director Moroni 10 a to place I

yes so in light of recent activities in the community we discovered that we have a lot of airbnbs and short-term rentals within the community so we are requesting a six-month moratorium on issuing any new rental licenses for people renting homes for periods of less than 30 days We want to take this time in order to do some research, investigation. There was a state law that was upheld last year that was in your packet, and that gives us the authority to regulate the short-term rentals. We think that they need to be regulated a little bit different than how we have been with our current ordinance, so currently, if they had a short-term rental they would have to get registered inspected every two years or every change of tenant which on a short-term rental is not the most feasible so we want to explore what regulations we put into place for this type of rental and regulate it differently than we currently have been in the past okay

First, we need a motion to approve the moratorium for six months.

So moved.

Need a second second. Thank you. Discussion and questions. I don't see that short term rentals benefit the city at all.

I'm sorry, repeat the question?

I don't see that the short-term rentals benefit the city at all. If you're an investor, you can make a lot more money on a short-term rental than a long-term rental. But as a city, we want long-term residents who are part of our community and not just people wandering in and out, having parties and such.

Yeah. So these are all things that we're going to explore in the moratorium period. We're going to solicit feedback from the residents, property owners, businesses, elected officials to provide their feedback in order for us to craft an ordinance that works best for the community.

Everyone is entitled to my opinion. Thank you. Any questions? Yes.

Council member Crawford. Director Maroney, how many? I know you said we had quite a few.

Do you have a. I believe there are around 30 that we found doing a deep dive that were being advertised and none were registered or should say most that we were able to.

How did you find them if they weren't registered?

we have it in our system rental registrations for properties by address the problem is when you see it online on like an Airbnb site it doesn't always give you an address so it takes a little bit more work in determining what the actual address is to know if they are a registered rental I did a search of Airbnb in Oak Park Michigan very few came up and I think even 30 is a low number

I'm just wondering, you know, what do we hope to accomplish? I mean, if we already go into rental properties twice a year and we do the inspections.

Every two years, I think.

Right. Every two years. What do we hope to do here? Do we want to charge more because it's a commercial use?

The rental program as it sits today, it's an inspection every two years or change of tenant. So if they rented out last weekend and again this weekend, we would have to do an inspection in the middle of that. They cannot be re-rented until it's re-inspected. So that would be overburdensome for somebody to have it inspected that often. So we want to put in rules. And again, I don't know what they're going to look like. It could be that we inspect once a year on short-term rentals. Could be we still just stick to every two years.

And you will look into what other cities have done. I know that some have not allowed any short term rentals in residential areas.

So we're in the beginning process of looking at what other communities have done for the past several years. They were trying to push state legislation to take the control out of the local hands. So we were sticking with our current rental program in the interim. But with that new court case that came up, it gives us a little bit more teeth in order to let us actually pass a new ordinance.

Excellent. Any further questions? Thank you. Yep. So we have a motion to approve a six-month moratorium. We have a second. Can we have a roll call, please?

Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Edgar. Yes. Mayor McClellan? Yes. Council Member Crawford? Yes. Motion carried. Thank you.

Okay. 10B1, we have our Deputy City Manager of Municipal Services in the Department of Public Works, David T. DeCoster. Hi, Dave.

Good evening, Mayor Wurtz, I'm City Council and City Manager Tungate. Before you tonight is Pay Application 14 and Change Order 12 for the Event Hub project. The construction manager, architect, and city administration have all approved this payment. The change order is for construction and field-related changes associated with the project. Our construction manager, Frank Rehwald, will disperse these funds to the various contractors on our behalf as the project is beginning to close out. This payment is for a period ending July 31st, and the project is now complete and open. However, we're still gaining final paperwork, release of surety, bonds, and things like that, warranty information. So we will see... One, maybe two more of these payments while those contractors close out their contracts. So before you tonight, it's recommended that pay application 14 and change order 12 for the Event Hub projects be approved in the amounts of $173,182.87 and $0 respectively. Funding is available in the Event Hub fund, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Bless you.

Okay. Is there a motion to that effect? Do we have a motion?

So moved.

Second. Thank you. Discussion or questions? Roll call, please.

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

Yes. Motion carried. Thank you.

10B2, please, Dave.

Thank you can at the June 16 2016 City Council meeting the extension award for the 2026 black pruning project was awarded to limb Walker students know since that time when Walker's limb Walker's has rescinded their extension request and have indicated they cannot continue the project with the current bid prices. Before you tonight is a recommendation that City Council reject the extension award to limb Walker's tree and snow for the 2026 block printing project and fruit and it is further recommended to allow the DPW department to Re-advertise the 2026 block printing project.

Okay. Do we have a motion to reject this extension? some of second questions discussion councilmember Stephanie Crawford

What was approximately the difference in what we awarded and what they wanted to? Because did they resubmit?

No. So we award this. They were a new contract in 2025. Right. We have two extensions in the contract if it's mutually agreed upon. They originally indicated that they could redo it for the same pricing. After sending them some addresses and asking for insurance a couple times, they indicated that they could no longer do it at that price. I did not ask them to come back with a price.

Okay.

Typically for an extension. We don't raise pricing. We would open it back out to the public which is what we intend to do They may will invite them to bid on it again However, we'll go with the lowest qualified vendor. So I did not ask them to for a new person.

Okay Any other questions I

Do we need a roll call for this? Mayor Pro Tem Edgar.

Yes.

Mayor McClellan. Yes. Council Member Crawford. Yes. Motion carried.

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

Thank you, City Manager Tungate. Now it's time for a call to the audience. City Clerk, who do we have?

We have Ms. Bracey, Annie Bracey.

Did you want me to write this? Let me just sum it up. oh wait sum it up yep just we're not going to cut into your three minutes we just ask hi we just ask that you do not use profanity you don't use this as a campaign forum in case you're gonna run for you're running for office And please keep your remarks to three minutes.

Okay. Thank you. Hello. You may remember me. I'm the lady that had the tree, complained about the tree. Thank y'all for taking care of that. The tree is gone. But now my complaint is that they didn't replant the grass. And it's a mess. It look a mess, you know, with no grass. And they didn't level the ground off and plant the grass right properly.

Please talk to Director DeCoster, the first guy. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, thank you.

We also have Brenda Richard, would you like to speak?

Hello. I've been living in Oak Park for 15 years, and this is my first city council meeting, so I apologize that it has taken so long. However, and Kim Maroney kind of took my thunder, but I I came to City Council because I was just very very disturbed by the recent shooting at the Airbnb and I came to request that City Council consider Passing some type of ordinance or other regulation to you know to regulate what happens at the Airbnbs and I have not done a lot of research on it. I don't know what the current municipal code says. I did look at it, but I didn't see anything specific relating to that. But my thoughts are similar to what Mayor McClellan voiced, that the people who are renting these short-term rentals are not vested in our community. They don't care what happens in our community. It's a in and out kind of thing. It brings in bad elements and it ends sometimes the way that it ended two weeks ago. So I am so glad that that is on the table. And I'd like to see something done about it. I think that the city probably has the power, and I know some other cities have done it, to just ban short-term rentals completely. And that's kind of where my head is on it. So thank you for giving me the opportunity to air my complaint.

Thank you. You must be right. You agree with me. That's right.

Great minds think alike. Thank you.

Next, Sylvia Hayward, please.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity for me to be here today. I'm not really complaining. I am just making a statement and And first of all, I would like to say I appreciate, I think the last meeting, just to piggyback on what my neighbor just said about the guys, they came out and I think I was at the meeting, I think it was, if my mind serves me right, I think it was the 21st of July. Was it July it came out? I think it was June, 21st of June. 21st of June and I mentioned about the tree need to be cut down because it was causing a lot of problems and all that stuff and everything and I'm just so grateful that it was the 21st and if I'm not mistaken the 25th they was there to cut the tree down and which it was really nice. I gave them some water and all that good stuff. And so they really did a good job, but there is still other things need to be done. Like they need to replant the grass and stuff of that nature because right now it's there, but it's not, the grass is just like it's dead. So they need to rebuild it and till it. I don't know a lot about landscaping, but they need to really see about that, you know, and they can be given a crown. Okay. Okay, so much for that. Okay, all of you know me. My name is Sylvia Haywood and I am the president of the Concerned Citizen Block Club meeting. Okay, so on the, I gave you guys, everybody got a flyer. But anyway, on the 23rd of this month, which is coming up Sunday, we're having a community support and a sponsorship, Black Club Party Backpack. Backpack is going to be given away to the kids. And we're going to have face painting. We're going to have music like never before. games and all of that good stuff for the kids because the kids is the future of tomorrow when you agree so we get to help these kids it's not benefiting silver not at all it's benefit the kids so and and I am honored to take any kind of donation that you may have to present I will accept it and so I come out, enjoy, bring your kids, bring your grandkids, you know, probably all your kids are grown, but bring your grandkids, uh, puppies, your cats.

It's just a joke.

Okay. So that's all I have to say. I would appreciate. And if you would like to see me, I'd be here to the duration of the, uh, the meeting. Okay. Thank you very much.

Anybody else move to speak? Everybody's happy?

This is good.

This is very good. Does Benny have pictures from The adorable event. Oh, too cute. So this was Cruise and Groove. And for the longest time, Oak Park did not have anything to do with cruise because we're not directly on Woodward. But we thought it is time for us to party for that event also. So we had this lovely event, Cruise and Groove, in the parking lot behind Mother Handsome. The couple there just moved into Oak Park. She is originally from France. So we have a French resident in Oak Park, and they are delighted with all the new events that they have seen since they moved in. They were thrilled. And the little baby in that other picture, I think, was the youngest car aficionado that we saw. He was very satisfied with the cars. Didn't hear a peep. So it was a great event. If you didn't make it this time, come on out next year. And coming out to our next event, which is coming up, every time, we've got more events than you can shake a stick at. Delighted. Mayor Pro Tem, Julie Edgar.

Thank you, everybody, for coming out. And those of you who are watching on YouTube, I wanted to echo the mayor's sentiments. Cruise and Groove was a really successful event. It's getting bigger each year. The cars are really beautiful. There was a Thunderbird. It was like a red, like a cherry red Thunderbird from like 1966. It was really something to see. And I'm not even a car aficionado. And I still thought they were beautiful. I wanted to also thank everybody who came out to Dog Day Afternoon yesterday in our park, Oak Park and Bark. I especially want to thank the Parks and Recreation team for really setting up and making this happen. Brody LeBlanc, who is our recreation coordinator, really organized the whole event this year, the third year. And it was pouring at the beginning. Brody stood out there on the lure course. He was soaking wet. He was happy to be out there. Laurie Stasiak was out there. Becca and Grant, who are... interns they they worked the event we had so much fun and um yeah i just wanted and tim doerr who was on our communications team he was out there taking pictures he also got sopping wet and uh it was just a beautiful event i wanted to thank um besides the staff that made this happen I want to thank our vendors who also came out, even though thunderstorms were predicted. Premier Pet Supply was out, Jules Pet Cuisine, Canine Cardio, Make a Difference, Carrie's Canvas, Sweet Paws, and Happy Paws Haven. We adopted out 11 dogs yesterday, compared to nine last year. So we consider that a real big success. People leaving with dogs. we hope next year we get more rescues because a lot of people just come there for for just look at dogs these were really adorable puppies so thank you for making it a success good night thank you council member stephanie crawford

And I just wanted to say for anyone who has not been able to make it to any of our summer concert series, this Wednesday we have another concert, Smoke Jones Band, 7 to 8.30. Don't let the summer pass by without coming out with your lawn chair, enjoying some fellowship with your neighbors and listening to some good music. And to everyone who came out tonight, we're finishing a little early tonight. This is good. So thank you for coming. Enjoy your evening and be kind to one another.

Amen. There being no further business to come before this council, this meeting stands adjourned.