City Council - Regular Meeting

City Council meeting September 8th, 2026 at 7 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.

Clerk Norris, would you call the roll?

Here.

Here.

Here.

Council Member Crawford? Here. Council Member Berman?

Here. Okay, we have... Next, we have approval of the agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda?

So moved. Second.

Thank you. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? motion carried item five on the agenda is consent agenda these are routine items presented without discussion as a single item any member can have any of these items considered separately A, regular city council meeting minutes for August 17th, 2026. B, special council meeting minutes for the same date. C, payment request from Newman Smith Architecture for architectural services on the community center project for the total amount of $255,597.26. D, payment of invoices from OHM advisors for engineering services in the amount of $626.50. E, approval of pay application number two to Great Lakes Landscaping Design of Oak Park, Michigan, for the 2026 Corridor Improvement Authority Landscape Insulation Project M799 in the amount of $67,330.55. And aside, I think that's the beautiful trees and plantings that are on Coolidge Highway and look fabulous. f recycling commission meeting minutes for may 21st and june 18th g request to approve the 2027 council meeting dates h request to approve calendar year 2027 free garage sale dates i request to approve arts and cultural diversity commission recent vote to change regular meeting time from 7 pm to 6 pm j beautification advisory commission resolution and recommendation for nominees for the 2026 beautification awards It's a long one today. K, payment of invoices from the Road Commission of Oakland County for the 2026 Greenfield Road resurfacing project from north of Lincoln to 12 Mile Road for the total amount of $15,296. We are very happy that that road is looking better. L, approval of payment application number one to Eminent Excavating Local. LLC of Dearborn, Michigan for the 2026 water main replacement project M 785 in the amount of seven hundred forty seven thousand seven hundred thirty one dollars thirty nine cents M Request to approve payment application number five for the 2026 lawn maintenance contract to parrot landscaping of Clinton Township Michigan in the amount of twelve thousand four hundred eighty nine dollars and Request to approve payment application number five for the 2026 landscape maintenance contract to bright view landscape of Pontiac in the amount of five thousand seven hundred ninety four dollars Oh approval of payment number six to McCarthy Smith incorporated for construction services for Tyler Park in the amount of twenty seven thousand seven hundred twenty six dollars P, new and renewal licenses for September 8, 2026. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved.

Second.

Thank you. all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed motion carried item six is recognition of elected officials seeing none item seven special recognition and press presentations we have a constitution week proclamation And here to receive it is Ginny Abramson from the Ezra Parker chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. And the proclamation is as follows. Whereas the United States is commemorating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026, celebrating the founding principles of liberty, equality, representative government, and the inherent rights of all people, and Whereas the Constitution remains the supreme law of the land, defining the powers and responsibilities of government while protecting the rights and freedoms of the American people. And whereas the Constitution has provided stability, opportunity, democratic governance for generations of Americans, and continues to serve as a model for constitutional government throughout the world. And whereas Constitution Week was established to emphasize the responsibilities and privileges of American citizenship, encourage the study of the Constitution, and foster informed civic participation, and whereas Public Law 85915, enacted by Congress, signed by President Dwight T. Eisenhower in 1956, designates September 17th through the 23rd of each year as Constitution Week, Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Marian McClellan, Mayor of the City of Oak Park, Michigan, on behalf of the Oak Park City Council, do hereby proclaim September 17th to 23rd as Constitution Week. and encourage all residents to commemorate this observation through renewed appreciation for the Constitution and the enduring principles that have guided our nation from its founding through the celebration of America's 250th anniversary and beyond. In testimony whereof, I have signed my name officially and caused the seal of the City of Oak Park, Michigan, to be affixed this 8th day of September, 2026. We would like to invite Ginny Abramson from the Ezra Parker Chapter to come on up for a photo opportunity and to say a few words first. Mm-hmm.

Good evening and thank you, Mayor McClellan and city council members. I am Ginny Abramson, the Regent of Ezra Parker Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. On behalf of the chapter, we thank you and the city for bringing attention to Constitution Week. On September 17th, our chapter will join bells across America to celebrate the beginning of Constitution Week. We invite everyone to join us in Royal Oak Centennial Commons, where we will ring bells beginning at 4 p.m. More than a million women have joined DAR since its founding in 1890. Today, nearly 200,000 members advance our missions of historic preservation, education, and patriotism. Last year, members around the world gave 7 million volunteer hours in service to our communities. Right now, there may be a woman watching this meeting who knows that her ancestors supported the cause for independence. We encourage her to visit DAR.org to learn how she may join us. Thank you very much.

If the council will come on down for a picture.

You're not going to tell us what all those pins are? What's that? You're not going to tell us what each of those pins are?

It has these pins. It has my ancestor that was in the American Revolution, Disney, and you don't have an ancestor that was fought. They could just have participated. So my pins, this is very common for DAR members, they all have them. And they represent, it's a little bit like your biography, a little bit about your own history and what's important to you. So there's a chap, and one of my pins is my ancestor's name. Isaac Cushman, he fought in the American Revolution, supported our freedom. And there's an America 250 pin. There's a State of Michigan pin. I've got a veteran's pin. I'm not a veteran, but I support the veterans. I'm a 37-year DAR member. So I, well, I joined when I was 21 years old, so you can do the math. And yeah, I just... it kind of just signifies things that are important to me and this bottom one is our insignia our dar insignia so dar members wear our pins very proud and yeah we love patriotism we're um we're non-partisan, political, and we just like doing really good things for the community. So we'd love to support Oak Park more. We're based in Royal Oak, that's where we were founded, but we support all the communities, Ferndale, Oak Park, all the way up to Troy. So if there's community events, things we can get involved with and support, we would love to. So Please reach out got my contact information and we'd love to support and truly It's unbelievable how many people are actually eligible to join the DAR You think you just need to have like a soldier that fought in the revolution. It's more than just that so we've got a wide variety of its female that have joined the organization based upon i mean their ancestor could have been a farmer supporting the revolution or a seamstress or any anything really I'm sorry?

Who was Ezra Parker?

Oh, Ezra Parker was a patriot. He actually, he was in the military for fighting for our freedom. And he moved to Royal Oak. So his name truly is Ezra Parker. He moved to Royal Oak after the revolution obviously ended and everybody was migrating west. And so he migrated to Royal Oak and he settled at 13 and Woodward where Corwell, Beaumont Corwell is today. That's where he settled with his family and he's buried in the Royal Oak Historical Cemetery. So yeah, so our namesake is after him since he actually came and lived here in Royal Oak. Yeah, that is a good question. oh oh thank you for being so interested and supportive and we would love to give back to oak park so truly there's things that we can do to support let us know ways that you support absolutely i will get in contact with mr norris

Thank you. This is so nice of you. Thank you so much.

All right, this is good.

Here we go. Good smiles.

All right.

Thank you so much. You never know though.

Sometimes you think people didn't arrive until later and then you all of a sudden have somebody working on your genealogy and they find that you had somebody earlier. But you never know. Otherwise, we're just happy to support in any way. Thank you.

Thank you. Community center.

Who is doing the community center? Yes, please. City Manager Tunge.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of council. I would like to take this opportunity to introduce our esteemed colleague, Deputy City Manager David T. DeCoster, who will be handling the introductions of our wonderful vendors for this tremendously important community center project. David.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, City Council, City Manager Tungate. As Eric stated, we have a brief update overview on the community center project. This team last came to you about three months ago after we finished our schematic design. We brought back the initial design of the community center, a rough layout. The community, through our open house and the City Council, had some input that the architect has incorporated into the project, which they'll show you, and the City Council had some input that the architect has incorporated into the project, which they'll show you tonight. So I just want to give a quick synopsis. We're now finishing. We finished the design development stage. We're working on construction documents. As you know, we're shooting to put this project out for bid early this winter, late this year. And the start of construction on the new community center is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2027. So. tonight we have Newman Smith architect as well as a representative from Barton Mallow a construction manager Phil's gonna go through the couple slides with you just kind of give you updated on the project if you have any questions we'll be happy to answer them for you Thank You Dave

Madam Mayor, council members, thanks for the opportunity to give you an update on the community center. It's an exciting project and just the energy we've seen through the event hub project and now moving on to the community center. We appreciate the opportunity to be just the next step in the advancement of your city. So Dave already hit on a couple of the main points when we're going out for bid and the phase of the project that we are in, but like he said, we are in construction documents. We have a couple slides that we'll share with you. Some renderings, they'll look very similar to what you saw at the ribbon cutting, so that's a good sign. That means things didn't get cut out and we're on budget and things are staying, so we'll do that right now.

We'll share the screen with you.

and we'll talk about some of the updates here. So I'll zoom in so you guys can see some more.

So right here you're looking on the west side of the rec center.

You're seeing our yellow Oak Park yellow slide that continues to be within budget. Here you'll also see that from the feedback of the community, we've also included three garage doors that open up the pool to an exterior patio area on this area. So that was feedback that we heard directly from the community. With us demoing the existing outdoor pool, this gives you a connection of you also have the year-round pool now within the building, but you still have that connection to the outside when it's acceptable weather to do so. So we've worked with our engineers, with IMEG engineers, our mechanical, electrical, and plumbing, who is going to give us the outline of how we should use that space best to be efficient with your mechanical system. So we are proposing that any time over 70 degrees, you're more than welcome to open those garage doors. We do not recommend anything below that. So that'll give you a good portion of the year that you can have those doors open and work efficiently with your mechanical system. Here we wanted to show this view where you're seeing a pedestrian pathway coming from the current event hub. So this will connect the event hub, your outdoor band shell, to the community center. So if you have patrons that are enjoying the time outside and connecting to the community center, you're gonna see that path connecting the two entrances to the building. Here, you're focused more on the new entry and canopy. You're also seeing a vehicular drop off in front of the building, so patrons to the building can be dropped off, your Ubers or other members of your family that don't want to be walking from the parking lot, so you're going to have a safe drop off right there at the entryway. Also with bike storage in that area. You can also see branding of the Oak Park Community Center on the pool. So the pool is in the front of the building there with our auditorium that we're working with our partners with water technologies, which is our pool expert on the project. And then here you're seeing just the south elevation of the community center, which you're gonna see from leaving the library. To the right hand side, you're seeing the green path with trees. We also have a pedestrian pathway that will show on the site plan. And the next slide connecting the library to the community center. So you're getting that pedestrian sidewalk connection from the event hub and the library to the community center. So here is our overall site plan. So I might be able to zoom out a little bit better for you to see some of these items that I already highlighted.

But you're seeing here on the right-hand side, if you can see the cursor.

We have a question on the previous.

Phil, if I could, just to go back to the previous slide. Oh, sure. I wanted to just take you back a couple things. For the members of our community who don't know this this project did receive Site plan approval at our Planning Commission meeting just prior to this meeting that is correct. Congratulations to everyone involved our staff and you guys of course I do want to just have you go back though and explain the the change that was made from And you talked about it a little bit but the change on the patio doors from the pool area and so that was a big part of you know, again, you guys listening to the feedback from the community. My question is, so could you go back and explain that just briefly? And then also, was there changes to the project cost as a result of that? I know the answer to that, but I want you to explain that if you could.

Oh, yes. To incorporate items like this where you have the cost of garage doors, the mechanical systems related to it, some of you might be familiar with wind curtains or if you walk into a vestibule and you get that gust of wind from a device, we're gonna have those incorporated onto those garage doors as well. The project did reduce some square footage of the Recreating Center to then prioritize the slide and these garage doors into the pool area. So we shrunk down some of the admin areas and just did an overall tightening up of corridor spaces, public spaces to make up those differences in the cost and to bring the project back on budget.

So didn't add to the overall cost. Fantastic. Correct. And just last thing on the patio doors, that... Adding that area, correct me if I'm wrong, would allow for residents or whomever to rent that space and have access to the outdoors as well as the indoors simultaneously.

Correct, yes. You guys allow that for a group to rent out, let's say, the pool space or even the exterior space on its own. You'd be able to close the doors to separate it from the public, and then that'll be a fenced-in area to control access into the building, and then also shaded by landscaping, arborvitaes, things

i see a lot of community pool parties in the future one more question if you could go to the slide with the walkway into the event hub area okay so not that one the next one to the bottom right i believe is what you showed that you can kind of see it on the bottom right of that slide right there but if you could just elaborate a little bit more on that because i think you know that's something we kind of added as which i think is a critical connection um there you go

Yeah, you might be able to see it a little bit more in plan for bird's eye view of that. So cursor down here, this space right here represents the event hub and your bandshell right here in the corner. So that's the backside of your bandshell open seating area. um but then you can see here um we don't necessarily have the plan but you do have a sidewalk you have your ada handicap parking along this side here but then we are adding that sidewalk to go across the driveway of the fenced in parking of your public safety and connecting yourself to the community center itself

OK, so there's pedestrian connectivity using some of the existing island and the current parking lot there. Correct. OK, last question. So a lot of members of our community like to walk around the campus. And so for them, once this is done, what will their route be? A lot of them would go around the back of the ice arena. Of course, that's now changed. So what does that look like once this is completed? Oh yeah, let's say you do a lap, let's say around the event hub first.

You do a lap around the event hub, but then your pedestrian connects you to the front for south elevation and then gets you onto the west side of the building where you do have a looped and possible future expansion of your campus area in this area where you can see here the existing basketball courts remain west off the site. But you also have this pathway that I mentioned would be a fire truck access around the building will be done in a way where it'll look like a pedestrian pathway. It won't look like a street. It won't have heavy curbs or anything like that, but it would be able to hold the weight of a fire truck, heaven forbid, if needed. But you'll see here the path then extends north into connecting to Shepherd's Park So there will be a connection from Shepherd Park then to the community center to to continue yourself They won't go behind the building though, correct? Correct. Yep. Yeah, we're going to keep this kind of back of house where the dumpster pickup will be here on the north side of the site. But you will have the connection along the west side and then continuing here north on the site.

Okay, so just a couple of things for the members of our public. So part of the reason for that is that is a water reservoir. That's correct. Yep. Here in the north area regulatory standards we have to maintain with that being a water source for our community. But also just the format of the new project doesn't really add to people lingering behind the building on a trailway. Correct. Yeah. So none of the fluidity of our pedestrian pathways will change. Actually, they'll be improved dramatically is what I'm. driving at yes yep yeah and i think it'll be obvious with landscaping and uh just the the design of the building that you'll you'll realize you're on the back of house or the back side of a building okay i lied one more question then that if you go to the space the vacant space that'll be left just to the west right there correct and so if you could talk just a little bit about that is council members that is really more of as you know that's more of a future project that correct you know as as of course we continue our capital improvements

And that could be a number of things Correct, including including possibly a future splash pad for the community there And that was strategically putting the pool on the west side of the building to have that direct access and connections to water plumbing and the pool Mechanical system that could then fund the splash pad We also see that having opportunities for picnic gatherings, shelters that could be rented out to the public, you know, canopies, other play structures in that area, but with that defining splash pad being the highlight there.

Thank you. Another, yeah, and before we get to that one, go back one slide, the lower right. If you're walking from the event hub to the community center, and I'm thinking about global warming, and I'm always lobbying for more landscaping, a row of trees, the lower bottom one, lower right,

there yeah instead of just a couple trees like trees all the way back to the rec center to provide shade as you're walking back definitely that's a possibility for sure yeah we're working with uh you know your team too to meet all the the landscape requirements for your ordinances and um identifying the trees that have been removed from the ice arena and then replacing them as needed Yep. So this image, I just want to emphasize that this is the center island that would be the pedestrian path from the library itself. So you see this arching connection through here. And then that other image is that pathway here. So yeah, I could see an opportunity definitely.

So there's really two sidewalk access points coming from the east side of the property, from the event hub side and the library side, really.

Yep, you have the one from the Event Hub and then, yes, directly from the north side of the library. Yep.

And then Mayor Pro Tem?

Hi, thank you. No problem. I like the renderings. How big is it going to be and how many square feet did we lose because of the the mechanical works that were necessary? Yeah.

Yeah. Right now we're just shy of 50,000 square feet building to get within budget through the SD and DD. We were looking at a loss of probably about 20, 2800 square feet. but that's putting priority on the slide itself for the pool, and then also that indoor-outdoor opportunity for the sun patio.

Will it cut into, I mean, is it gonna cut into locker room space? That 2,800 square feet would have been used for what?

Well, we took an opportunity to kind of go to every usage or program space and kind of pull a percentage from each one. So, you know, the reduction of the locker just based on the overall square footage, that proportion, that ratio, the multi-purpose, the fitness areas, and the admin office, we did focus a lot on the admin office so we reduced some office space and a conference room that was in that so now they're sharing a community conference room and then we kind of did a more let's say multi-purpose conference room within that admin office space so I'd say the biggest hit was probably the admin office area which we can, we have some slides here of the plan itself. Oh yeah, we did not touch the pool or the gym in that reduction just because of the size and the amount of people that we wanted to handle within this project. So that's a great point.

Thank you.

Yeah, there was also the priority to of keeping that walking track on the second floor as well. So, you know, with the community input, we did have that list of priorities where we could tweak and, and move the scale to keep us within budget. Yeah, so this plan, you know, gives you the first floor. So you see the most of the program spaces here with the pool to the southwest side. Then in the middle there, you have your canopy covered entryway from the drop off area where we have a vestibule where you enter the building. Then you have a community lounge space with soft seating, booth seating, other furniture, charging station.

Yep. The part that you're talking about. Yep.

Yeah, so you have your lounging area coming in off of the, under the canopy. Then you have your check-in desk. That's your front desk. That's your security point. So you can see that's very centrally located. So you have people coming into the building, but then also access to view the gymnasium and down the corridors to your multi-purpose spaces into your locker room. So that gives them you know a point obviously using that along with security cameras and other forms of viewing and observation of the building as we move here in the blue office you have your admin offices so there's a good connection from that entry desk area into a open work station so those could be part-time employees summer interns those areas so that's kind of a more rotating hoteling station area within the office then we have four private office and a director's office so five private offices storage for the admin office area a single-use toilet room for that office admin area and then you have your kitchen conference room workspace copy area multi-functioning space within the admin so um we definitely in the reduction of square footage kind of reduced lost a couple offices there and then made that more efficient for the use of your recreation staff we have public toilets um adjacent here you have your multi-purpose rooms that can be divided into two individual rooms or opened up into one larger room we see these spaces meant for public presentations, lectures, any events that you have here. You'll have AV technologies of a projection screen, audio, audio visual, and tons of storage. So you can have your game nights, your art classes, all those kinds of things occurring in this multi-purpose. And we also see this being a rentable space for your community as well. Across the hallway from these multi-purpose, you'll have a kitchenette space. So there's millwork, a sink, you'll have refrigerator, freezer, microwaves, and a ton of outlets for crockpots and soups and everything that you have plugged in there. So plenty of things for someone that's having maybe a baby shower or an event or in this space that can use that kitchen adjacent to those rooms. And plenty of storage for your aerobic chairs and any of the events and other things that you have within those spaces, tables that can be rolled in and out for you to be very flexible within those spaces. And you'll also notice there is an exterior patio off of these rooms as well that allows this community that rents those spaces can also use that outdoor space. Then you have the gymnasium, the large space here, which allows you to divide the gym. So you'll have a full court gym east and west, but then you can divide the gym into two smaller, shorter court, shorter full size courts. You also have volleyball courts, pickleball courts, and then storage adjacent to those spaces to store all those items, nets, balls, everything that you have within there. You'll have visual connections here for spectators and you also have bleachers here to the south for those pickup games or also recreation games that you might have within the space. You also have scoreboards connected to there and all the equipment necessary to host gymnasiums, tournaments, things like that. Then the less pretty parts of the building, you have your back of house and your locker rooms, but those are necessary for a building of this type. So you have your men's, women's, and also family locker rooms. We're calling these little cabana changing areas. So this allows a family to go in there together. If you have small children and don't want to be mixed into, let's say, the men's or women's locker rooms, you have an opportunity to be part of those family locker rooms where you have individual changing rooms. if needed, so those are open to all occupants. Any questions on the first floor?

Are there any dedicated spaces for, for example, seniors, teens, or are we just gonna use the multi-purpose rooms for that purpose?

Well, I'm glad that you brought up seniors and teens because we've asked you to been calling that lounge up to the front as our senior and teen lounge in the front there. So there will be a TV connection, charging stations, the opportunity to play cards, board games and have that connection in the front in that area there, right off of the entryway. But I think with good scheduling of your team, those multi-purpose rooms are also meant for game nights and things like that if you wanted to schedule certain time frames.

And of course, this is ADA compliant.

100%, yep. Yep, inclusive design throughout the whole building.

Sorry, I had a question. Can you go more into detail about the inclusive design of the area?

Oh yeah, definitely. So obviously, the first thing people think about is ADA accessibility, obviously being able to wheelchair accessibility. But you also need to consider visually impaired occupants as well. You know, you have your Braille signage and then Braille on the sidewalks, especially if you're wanting people to walk from the library or the community center. So we work with our civil engineers to provide those on ramps and the sidewalks, so cane detection all the way into the building itself. Also too, you need to consider this is a very colorful building. Some people think people might be overstimulated by some of the murals or colorings in those areas, so we do have the gymnasium where one accent wall might be more vibrant or colored, but we consider there's other sides of the room, so you don't want to be overstimulating for some of the people in the building itself. Multi-purpose, we're considering that as more of a calming space, so someone that can use that isn't overpowered by bright colors, murals, opportunities of different furniture selections, so soft seatings, different types of chairs, just so that other occupants aren't overstimulated just by the textures, or the surfaces within some of the spaces so those are all kind of incorporated so you can find that right space for you you know conference rooms are quieter spaces so there's an opportunity where the gymnasium is loud but like a mother let's say an overstimulated child you have a wellness room within the building so you can take a moment to get away from the over activity have a calming quiet space in our wellness room so that's just outside of our locker rooms

I don't know if I can zoom in here.

But there's soft seating. There's usually sometimes we encourage sound machines and also a refrigerator in there if a nursing mother has the opportunity to do that in that room as well. So you have these opportunities to get away from an overstimulated space to a calming area before you reenter the public.

Those are pretty common features nowadays, right?

Definitely, definitely. Yeah, we see a lot of that in higher ed and our school projects as well. And then if we make our way up to the second floor, we also have our elevated walking track. Popped out of the presentation. And then also here, you're going to find your fitness room. So that's similar to the multipurpose. So that can be divided. into two individual rooms for smaller classes, or it can be opened up for a larger class. We see these rooms being used for dance, yoga, those more active. It has a specialty athletic floor in there, so it's a little bit bouncier than, let's say, an LVT or a carpeted room. just outside of that you have your cardio and weight area so your treadmills your ellipticals your weightlifting equipment just outside of those fitness rooms and then you have your elevated track here where you'll also see some of that equipment tucked away into the corner. So you could be doing a lap around the walking court, but then also jump off and do a machine, excuse me, if available. So you have the main stairway coming here. That's also at the bottom of the welcome desk on the first floor. So you actually have that secure constant observation of the stair of those going upstairs. And then also you have an elevator available to go to the second floor.

Can you expand the amenities on the second floor? Sure can. There you go.

Yeah, so the second floor is probably about the third square footage of the first floor. So you'll be able to see over the rooftop and then the pool space is obviously a two story volume for to incorporate the slide and then also just the typical use of the the acoustics of a pool as well.

How many times around is a mile?

Ooh, that's a good question. I think when we were looking at it, I think it was just a little over six. So a high school track, I think you were typically four, a quarter of a mile. So this one's smaller than that. But don't hold me to it unless that's the number you want it to be. So get your... This slide was just showing a little bit closer into the pool and some of the elements of the pool here. You continue to have four lap lanes that are 25 yards long.

Well, yards. I think it is yards, but I know a lot of people like to measure in meters for sure.

So on the north side of the page, you have your entrance from the locker rooms. Then you have a zero entry pool. So that's our kiddie area with amenities for play there with water dumping slides. water splashing daisies elements like that so that's zero entry so that also assists in your ADA accessibility into the pool so you can see here let me zoom in we have the designated ADA so this allows you access the pool and doesn't require a wheelchair lift like you might see at some pools so You can roll right into here and then continue into the leisure pool. So this area has a step access, also your ADA ramp. And this is kind of for open swim, leisure swim that we're calling it. And then below that or south of that, we have our lazy river, which would have a little bit of a jet current through. We're going to have controllability to be able to turn off those jets, turn off those sprinklers, all the other items, just depending on the use of your pool. And then your water aerobics will occur in the lap lanes during classes.

Where does the slide come into the pool?

okay the slide does not go into the pool so the benefit of that it's a separate identity it has water that goes through the system and comes out but instead of projecting the riders into the pool you come out onto this exit lane that allows you to that allows the pool to be run by only one lifeguard if you opened into the pool One, you would take away some of the square footages over the usage of the pool, but also you would have to staff that with additional lifeguards. So here, this pool would be run by one lifeguard at the top of the stair. They'll be able to see the riders exit the slide and then they can release the next rider. And then here you show our access to our sun deck through our garage doors on the west side. And then these we were just showing from our site plan approval to highlight our roof shading of the mechanical equipment. So this got us through ordinances as well, and also you don't have to look at ugly equipment on the roof. I know that was a lot, but any additional questions?

Yes The concert season and I just wanted to commend you on The event hub it was and obviously it's in use today, but It's really beautiful. I I don't know whether in the original site plan the the amphitheater the bandsaw, excuse me was It's supposed to be sited right where it is because it's really tough in the summer to sit there because the sun is just beating down on the lawn. In the evening, yeah. Was there any talk about moving it a couple degrees or moving it closer to us, to City Hall? Because it's rough. Oh, on the other side. People are out clamoring for the shade. Okay.

Yeah, so there's a number of underground utilities in the area. The area to the east of where it is now has our geothermal wells for this building. So strategically, we looked at everything. That was about the only place it would fit. There's just so many utilities in that area, whether it be water main, fiber optics, geothermal, sanitary sewer. That's about the only area it would fit. And it kind of squeaks in there now. So once the trees mature a little bit, that'll help. But yeah, it's quite sunny.

Maybe we could consider some sort of shade canvas to just come on the west side and cover it a little bit so that it's not so brutal because it's brutal.

We can certainly look at it.

Anyway, it's beautiful.

Well, I appreciate it. Yeah, I loved seeing the social media and all the posts and the performances. And then even today, seeing the group of kids while they're with the inflatables. So I'm glad it brings a good energy to this campus. And we continue to add to it.

Just an aside, a fellow who came to sharpen knives at the farmer's market said in a previous life he had been in construction of buildings like this, large buildings, and he was amazed at the quality of the construction.

Mm-hmm.

so it's kind of an attaboy.

I appreciate that.

From an expert.

Yeah, that was from Frank Riewald and Sons, but that's a challenge to Barton Mallow to even make the community center even better than that, so for the next one.

And I'm sure it will be.

Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for everyone's time.

That was very complete, and we know who to call with questions.

Definitely, yes.

Thank you. Yep.

Yeah, and we just want to say too, we appreciate the community's feedback to those events that you guys held the feedback we got the surveys that you guys had. It's good to see such a large number of the community that actually cares about projects like that, that they see. So we appreciate that. So thank you.

Just kind of just kind of wrap up. um we're finishing up this construction document design uh phase here over the next say two months uh we can come back to city council at that point with another further update but at that point we'll be going up for bids uh we'll be verifying some bids and interviewing some counters and things but we are on track to start this project in the spring so things are going okay madam mayor can i just add to that so we yes i want to just make sure people also understand we are ahead of our original schedule where we when we first rolled this out

Right. So we're starting construction. We're planning to start construction in the spring, which is a little bit earlier than we initially had planned when we first started talking about this a few years ago.

So we're ahead of schedule.

Yeah. Good news.

Thank you.

We're very excited. City of 30,000 is going to get its indoor pool and indoor basketball court. And we can't wait. So all we're going to do is say attaboy and faster. Let's see, what have we here? Accounting reports is number eight. This is approval for payment of an invoice submitted by Schiffman Fournier for legal services retainer for October 1st to December 31st in the total amount of $20,000. Is there a motion to approve payment?

So moved. Second.

Any discussion? Roll call, please.

Councilmember Berman.

Yes.

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

Yes.

Councilmember Radner. Yes. Motion carried.

Thank you. Item 9, City Attorney. Is there anything to report? Any Freedom of Information Act appeals?

madam mayor there are no appeals for this evening thank you city manager eric tongue thank you madam mayor members of council uh i would like to ask our esteemed colleague kimberly director kimberly maroney to go through 10a for me please

Thank you city manager tongue gay good evening, mayor mayor pro tem and city council members. We have the approval of pay application number 5 and change or number 3 for the 2526 miscellaneous concrete project. It is 100% complete and the change order is to balance out the project and the negative of 14,000 $254.83.

Good news. Is there a motion to approve this payment application and change order? So moved. Thank you.

Second.

Thank you. Discussion or questions? Yes.

Director Maroney, so just to illustrate how much and how extensive this program has become, you've been here, you've worked here now over 10, 12 years. 12 years. 12 years. Yeah. What was the total amount, if you can remember, way back now?

I want to say we only used to do 250,000. I think that might have. But I'll look today. Is that right? Okay.

So. We're pouring concrete all over the city, 500,000 more than we were back then.

Doing as much repair as possible.

We're trying to get to every pothole, every issue out there. So thank you.

Yes. We are fixing the doggone rope. Roll call vote on that.

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

Yes. Motion carried. Thank you. Item two.

Okay. 10A2, I would like to call our supervisor of all authorities ever in the universe, Michelle Bishop, please.

Mayor of New York City Council. Before you, we have two facade grants requested from the CIA. One is for a brand new business called Grammy Pants. It is gonna be located at 8100 West 9 Mile. It's going to be an vintage clothing resale store. The business owner is planning on using the grants to paint the outside of the building, purchase a new sign, purchase new windows, and a new door. The building is getting a complete overhaul inside and out. She is asking for $5,000, so we're asking the city council to approve the matching grant in the amount not to exceed $5,000, and it's currently budgeted in the CIA.

Great news. It's going to be a fun new store. Is there a motion and a second? So moved. Second. Thank you. Discussion or questions? We had, I think, a vintage clothing store resale that I bought all my mayor stuff from, so I can't wait for this one to open. Any questions or discussion? That was a comment. Roll call, please.

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

Motion carried. Thank you. Okay.

10A3. Michelle. So we also have a second facade brand request. Another brand new business called the Daily Blend.

They'll be located 264045 Coolidge Highway. Okay.

Michelle, can you hit your button there?

Sorry. So this is second facade grant request for another business. It's a brand new business on Coolidge at 26045 The Daily Blend, it's going to be a smoothie shop. The business owner is planning on using the grant for a brand new illuminated sign on the front of the building. They've met all the requirements for the grant, and we're asking City Council to approve the matching grant in the amount not to exceed $5,000, and it's budgeted in the CIA funds.

First motion to approve the facade grant so moved. So thank you. Then can you tell me what kind of thing they're going to be selling they're going to a smoothie shop.

The win-win for you today and I just say something confusing name.

The daily blend, I know you think coffee.

They want you in there every day getting your blend. But can I just say, when we, council members, years ago, and Director Maroney will speak to this too if need be, but we added parking to the north side of this building. That's municipal parking that we added as part of our miscellaneous concrete project, hoping to get a business like this one. So here we are, Michelle. Great job. And I like to think it's probably because of that brand new landscaping

They love it, by the way. I bet.

Yeah, right.

Thank you. Any other questions, comments? Roll call, please.

Mayor McClellan.

Yes.

Council Member Radner.

Yes.

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

Motion carried. Thank you.

Okay, 10A, I'm sorry, 10B1. We have our Director of Public Safety, Director Steve Cooper. There he is. How are you, sir?

I'm doing well, City Manager Tongate. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, City Council. Excuse me, I may seem a little bit out of breath. I'm not really that out of shape, but I had some high school young men that participated in a program that we were sponsoring with ILPAC. I was over there talking with them, giving a little pep talk, and officer Arvindowski called me over so I was sprinting through the hallways and my old high school football day so I digress I'm sorry council I come before you with the council agenda item title public safety answer and point agreement and as the county updates its call handling system it's necessary to update the existing interlocal agreements to reflect our current terminology and technology The proposed updates are primarily administrative in nature and are intended to ensure that the agreement accurately reflects the county's current call handling technology and terminology. The revised agreement has been reviewed and vetted by legal. And because the interlocal agreement requires council's approval, I'm presenting it before you today. So I'm asking that city council to approve the updated interlocal agreement to allow the county and the city of Oak Park to proceed with the call handling agreement as presented.

There we go. So we need a motion to approve this agreement.

So moved. Second.

Thank you. Any questions or discussion? Is this anything that the residents will notice?

No, it's all our 911 stuff. Like I said, it's some real minor terminology that's been tweaked in the agreement as well as, like I said, with some different equipment that came in. So we had to make sure that all of that stuff meshed and meted up. But the nuts and bolts are the same. It's seamless and pretty much is one of those systems that you can't do without. It's our 911 system. So you got to take the good with the bad and There's really no bad in there. It's just a little financial cost that we've already talked about in our previous council meeting. So we're all set.

We're ready for a vote.

Council Member Radner.

Yes.

Council Member Berman.

Yes.

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

Yes. Motion carried. Thank you. Thank you.

okay and we have 10 c1 we have we don't often see you out here we see you back there but here you are our director of communications britney toth

Okay, good evening. Tonight I am before you on item 10C1. We're seeking approval of an agreement with Civic Plus for a new mass notification and emergency communication platform. This will replace our existing text messaging campaign and mass calling campaign that we use currently during mainly just snow emergencies. This is budgeted within the communications budget and was discussed in the last budget cycle and due to some negotiation with Civic Plus on other agreements that the city is taking a look at, we were able to secure a price which was well under what we had anticipated and talked about during the budget cycle. So we are seeking approval tonight and I'm here for any questions.

Yes. I'm sorry.

Brittany, could you just, some council members, you may know that the vendor that we were using, some of the, we were missing some of our residents, let's say, for whatever reason. So could you talk just a little bit about some of the new functionality that's with this one and also, as I think you mentioned, going with Civic Plus for this resource means that we're basically with them for everything at this point, including FOIA.

many of our our main website is not hosted by civic plus but many of the additional platforms are i know that our clerk's office is almost exclusively with civic plus we're also having to update things like gov qa which i think we're exploring options with civic plus so a lot of those add-on services where you can utilize civic plus we are going with them and so we were able to secure cost savings by letting them know we have multiple contracts at this time And then just to hop back to your previous question, city manager. Yes, this we have. They weren't receiving the messages or that they used to receive the messages and they weren't getting them consistently, as well as some questions in terms of his ability to provide reporting. And so then after looking into several different options and price points, Civic Plus had a really robust offering, which I said was kind of the medium offering that we decided on during the budget process. And we were able to get significantly lower than that. in what's before you tonight in your packet. But it will also provide us unlimited emergency notifications, which we've never had before. We've only had sort of pay for play. So every time we had a snow emergency, we had to pay for it a certain set price per emergency. Whereas this time around, anything that qualifies as an emergency, whether it's we need to open a cooling center, we have power outages like we've recently experienced, snow emergencies, anything in between, we'll be able to use this system for the one blanket price. It also just has a lot of additional features that we've never had before in terms of different languages, increased accessibility, geo-targeting. It's really going to be a substantial upgrade for the city.

Yeah, and this just means that this greatly expands our ability to communicate emergencies because again, as Brittany said, there's no limitation on how many of those we can send. We just had one of these with our tornado situation.

Exactly.

I have a question. Let's get a motion first to approve this agreement with Civic Plus. So that second great now all questions or comments. Councilmember Stephanie Crawford.

Well, the transition be seen this or will residents have to opt into this because it's a different system correct.

It is a different system. What we're being told is that they should not really have to opt in. The new Civic Plus will be able to obtain the same list that the previous vendor was able to access, as well as the list that we currently have through our signing up. We'll be able to download and provide to them. So it shouldn't be a problem.

Mayor Pro Tem. How much under budget were we with this?

We originally anticipated it would be around $13,000 a year, and the initial year is under 7,000, and then the maintenance cost is around 9,000 and change for the second year onward. So not only is the first year nearly, it's almost half of the anticipated price, but the second year is still substantially under what we thought it would cost. You know the budget cycle is is June to June or July 1 to July 1 type of thing and so we had rough estimates that we did with them with the vendors for that process and so we thought 13,000 was a safe estimate to include The setup and then the year two costs and then with the cost savings We were able to negotiate well under so thank you to deputy city manager Adam was ours I was gonna say Adam it turns out Adam is a master negotiator so

We were able to resolve some of those issues.

I got to be a good cop.

So why did the company that we've been using miss people in the community? What happened?

He didn't really have a, well, you know, he didn't have a great answer for that question. We sort of, at least I inherited him as sort of our vendor and by the time it was time for an emergency, it was already an emergency, so we would just sort of use him and he was in place and he already had our list. But it was really when we started having a lot of issues where we looked into it a little further and asked him for some actual reporting and some data, and then it became apparent that he didn't really have a lot of data to provide and that we continued to have the same issues even when he tried to remedy them.

Can I also just add to that? I hired this guy years ago. The city was doing no mass communication prior to that, by the way. He there's two things one is he is more geared towards political campaigns Number one, but number two he was very much reliant on statutory guidelines or at least what he thought were statutory guidelines for tapping into publicly available information for cell numbers and email addresses and things like this and and We did. We just missed a tremendous amount of people. And it didn't make sense from a cost standpoint either. And again, with unlimited, we don't really see it now because we haven't had it in place yet. But this really does change the game for how we are able to communicate with our residents and give them information. And not to be reckless with that. I mean, obviously, we don't want to inundate our residents. But we want them to have information, email, text, whatever it may be that

you know we just had a situation where we really didn't have the flexibility to go to our current vendor and say hey get this out before three o'clock we just it's you know it's like we have to send a list i have to call i have you know yeah and they have um an app for similar to i assume like how we function with the meta app where the communications team is able to make updates from our phone um so i think it will be similar once we're up and running and we have the training In times of emergency, the city manager, our team, whoever needs to be part of that will have capabilities of doing that from your phone.

Madam Mayor, I have a question. Yes. I find a lot of text messages go to spam. Do they have a way to prevent that so we know residents are getting the messages we send?

That's a great question that we can bring up in greater detail. I'm assuming they have an answer for that, but I would want to check and get back to you.

That's Council Member Berman. Thank you.

but they will come to landlines, cell phones, these alerts, so.

Yes, they, in our research it became apparent that there's different rules for each, and that was one of the main issues with our previous vendor, ATC Communications out of New Jersey, I believe. And so whoever is allowed to get them via cell phone, there are some rules about getting texts versus getting the recorded line calls. But I think we're going to get a much better, clearer answer through this vendor. And they have standardized reporting, graphs, numbers, downloadable spreadsheets, open rates, similar to what we get now for our e-blast. So I think it'll be a whole different thing. ballgame and in terms of being able to see who we're reaching and why we're not reaching someone if we're having a problem bring back the pony express

I've offered that many times over the years. I'm not kidding.

You mentioned something about GovQA. Is this part of this system, or is it something separate?

Madam Mayor, can I have Adam come to the podium to speak? We are switching our CR, what do we call it, our CRE. So can you talk a little bit about when that occurs?

Yes. Good evening. No, this is totally separate from GovQA. We won't be currently have we're switching over as council approved about a month or so back see click fix We're still scheduled for in October one rollouts I will be coming back to council to kind of give kind of a presentation of what that will look like We are currently working on Essentially the marketing campaign side of it as as we speak This is separate from that the thing see click fix is more so a You report a pothole, your neighbor has long grass. Um, there's abandoned vehicles, the code enforcement issues, stuff like that. Uh, that's what C click fix will do. Whereas Brittany's is more so strictly city communication. So C click fixes residents communicating to us or mass notifications, us communicating with them is kind of the difference between the two.

So any questions? Yes.

Well, just a comment. I'm just really, I'm excited that we're changing because in times of emergency, communication is a key thing to get to our residents to get the information we need to have for them. I did see that we had the language translator that also includes the, what is it, the TV for deaf. Oh, ASL? What is it?

Is it TTY? TTY, yeah.

Does that also, will they be able to communicate with someone with a hearing disability as far as hearing aids?

I'm gonna have to ask about that given that it's an audio recording for the landlines and so I will have to ask about that yeah I just want to just clarify again that you know this system does not mean that we're not gonna still do all the other things you know Brittany's don't doing e-blasts and you know website and so we're still doing all of that our approach as everyone knows especially as people were here during COVID when we would use this on a three times a week basis. Our methodology has always been to use all of our channels and all of our tools to communicate because we know people get information differently in different ways.

Thank you. That was my question. Are we ready to vote then? Roll call.

Council Member Berman.

Yes.

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

Yes. Motion carried. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Last but not least.

Last but certainly not least, our finance director, who's been very patient with us tonight, Director Sandra Crawford, with our resolution to authorize budget amendment 2027-1, 10D1, please.

Thank you. Good evening, Madam Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, City Council Members, City Manager Tungate. Before you is the proposed amendments incorporated expenditures from the fiscal year of twenty five twenty six that were not completed at year end and are required to be rolled over as their actual expenses will incur this fiscal year twenty six twenty seven. for the general fund amendment it's primarily to reflect the rollover of capital expenditures that were budgeted last year that were not expended for the city's master plan the zoning GIS software the public safety police vehicle that was approved just by council on August 3rd meeting to replace the total vehicle and then unspent public safety training grant funds For the special revenue funds, a major street fund is rolling over capital outlay that was budgeted for the Nine Mile Road and Greenfield to Clover Lawn Project, the Oakland County Transit Grant Program, the Prentiss Tree Truck, the Foreman Pickup Truck, and the Capitol Avenue Rehab Project. the local streets fund is rolling over capital outlay budgeted for the tree inventory contract the apprentice tree truck as well as miscellaneous concrete annual services the parks and recreation is rolling over funds to wrap up the map parks master plan The Rubbish Fund is rolling over funds for the purchase of three vehicles slash equipment, the apprentice tree truck, a crew cab truck, and a trash pet or improvement authority is rolling over funds for landscaping and facade improvements. The Capital Projects Fund, the Hub Construction Fund is rolling over for the balance of the remaining invoices for the construction project. The Community Center Construction Fund is rolling over the balance of the bond proceeds, which will be spent when construction begins in the spring of the 2027. Park and Recreation Improvement Fund is rolling over the remaining Tyler Park improvements. The Enterprise Fund, the Water and Sewer Fund amendment is to roll over expenditures budgeted from last year on several construction projects and vehicle replacements. The Internal Service Fund, the Motor Pool Fund, is the amendment that reflects the council-approved use of fund balance for the new police vehicle to replace the one that was in an accident. In addition, the amendment includes rollovers for fitting, upfitting for vehicles that were purchased in the 25-26 fiscal year. So the overall impact will keep the fund balance at approximately 19% of annual expenditures and all other amendments to funds keep the balance targeted at the ranges and are prepared in compliance with the state of Michigan requirements and guidelines. So I ask that you approve the resolution to authorize budget amendment 2027 one as presented.

A motion to approve resolution to authorize budget amendment.

So moved.

Discussion or questions?

This is a little bit off of this specific topic, but council members, because I, you know, Sandra is laying out the changes to the general fund balance. I thought this would be an opportune time to talk about it, but we did meet as it relates as the fund balance relates to our credit rating. We did just meet last week with our. bond underwriters for the community center. And we are going to be inviting in Standard & Poor's, it sounds like, to do a tour of the city in an attempt to get our bond rating up to double A minus from A plus stable. And of course, the general fund balance number you see here, as Sandra has laid out, will play a huge role in how we get to that point.

Can you just explain in real numbers the difference between A plus and AA minus? And not to a decimal, but just give us an idea of what that means, practically speaking.

So let me give you two things that really, I think, outline it well. And Sandra, please feel free to jump in. One is communities of our size nationwide, as Standard & Poor's, which Standard & Poor's has always been the friendliest rating agency to our community. We don't use the Moody's rating because, you know. But communities of our size around the nation typically have a 30 or so percent general fund balance. Ours ranges between 18 and 20% give or take. So we're a little bit lower than that national average. So that's the first thing they're looking at. And then as it relates to the difference between an A plus stable and a AA minus, for our taxpayers, the difference is not negligible. It's huge. It could be hundreds of dollars in cost that they will have to directly debt service with the bond payment that goes directly on their property taxes. So the reason that we're asking the rating agency to come all the way in from New York or Chicago or wherever to tour our city And we got to do everything we can to address them. Because our residents, if the difference between, I'm just picking a random number, between a 4% interest rate and a 3.5% rate is huge. It's millions of dollars in savings to our taxpayers that, again, because it's a bond that's directly reflected on the property tax bill, they have to pay directly. So the more money we're able to save by having a better bond rating with lower financing costs is a direct savings to your household in this community to every single one of our residents. So that's why we're doing.

Thank you.

Yes.

Where are we now? Are we ready for a vote?

Mm-hmm. Council Member Crawford.

That was very helpful.

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

Yes.

And Council Member Berman.

Yes.

Motion carried. Thank you. Thank you.

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

next we're going to call to the audience this is the time when residents or anybody for that matter is welcome to come up and comment ask questions whatever you have a three minute time limit please do not stump for a candidate or use vulgarities we appreciate that and Please keep your your comments to issues that are germane to the business of the city.

Thank you. I have a card from Tunisia Turner.

good evening uh mayor mclennan uh members of city council manager tungate mayor pro tem and the rest of the city council my name is tanisha turner and i'm a proud resident of beverly street first i want to thank the city council for recognizing my son for the second year for the juneteenth award and i want to thank uh council member crawford specifically she said very kind words about my son he would be here tonight but he plays competitive soccer and he had a game so that's max he couldn't make it that is max that is correct that's right um i'm here because i'm sorry did he win he did win he went for the second time yes he did so thank you and i heard that uh we were out of town we were at the obama center when you called us yes and uh let's talk about what's important did he win that yeah he's pretty serious about his soccer he plays competitive soccer so My name is Taneja Turner and I'm a proud resident of Beverly Street. I want to say thank you again. And I'm here because I care deeply about the city of Oak Park. I want every part of the city to reflect the pride that we share. And I want to talk about the West Nine Mile Corridor from Coolidge to Greenfield and from Eight Mile to Ten Mile on Greenfield as well. We continue to struggle with litter, neglected commercial properties, heavy traffic, and public safety concerns. My family and I regularly collect multiple bags of trash from our neighborhood and specifically from the commercial district, nearby businesses, but within days the litter returns. Because of the Providence Hospital, I've witnessed people experiencing homelessness in the area, as well as people walking from the hospital wearing robes and gowns. I would like to understand what procedures and partnerships the city has in place to respond compassionately and safely to these situations that occur. Our neighborhood also borders the shopping plaza near Nine Mile and Greenfield, where there's often significant amounts of litter and debris. I'd like to know if the Southfield City knows that this is happening and if Oak Park can partner with the city. I've called them as well. I've made a call to the council and the mayor of Southfield to talk about some of the blight and homelessness as well. I've also witnessed loitering and what appeared to be drug activity at the gas station near Nine Mile and Greenfield. I reported it to the police, and I sincerely appreciate their response because I've not observed that activity recently. I also want to acknowledge the improvements we've seen in other parts of Oak Park. We've been encouraged by the investment in beautification. I personally want to live at the new hub. It's absolutely beautiful. I want to build a house right there. And I want to say thank you for that. These improvements demonstrate what's possible when the vision is planning and consistent and there is attention. But we're simply asking of the same level of care and investment on the west side of Oak Park on the Nine Mile Corridor. We'd like to understand what are the city plans for the west Nine Mile Corridor and is there a strategic long-term plan for its beautification and development? Is there a consistent plan for litter removal, property maintenance, traffic enforcement, and public safety? We'd also like to know how the commercial property owners are held accountable for maintaining the area surrounding their businesses. What's the city's process when a property repeatedly has littered debris or visibly neglected conditions? I'm willing to participate and help organize residents and be a part of the solution. My hope is simple. When people cross over in Oak Park from Southfield, they should immediately see and feel a clean, safe, beautiful, and welcoming community because every neighborhood and every corridor in Oak Park deserves it.

Amen. Beautifully said.

City Manager Tungate would like to... Ms. Turner, I don't normally get to comment, to public comment, but I had asked special permission from the mayor to do so. I would like to videotape your comments and just showcase this as this is exactly the way you should talk to the city. This is perfect. So I want to also take this opportunity to thank you for all of your hard effort out there in keeping that corridor clean and maintained. We certainly appreciate it. As it relates to public safety matters, I think you know some of our public safety staff. They are always accessible. Director Cooper is always accessible. Yeah, he's tremendous. Steve is always accessible. Certainly for public safety issues, if it's an emergency, obviously call 911. And if not, there's the non-emergency line. We are working with Southfield for future plans for that corridor. Regarding West Nine Mile, specifically from Coolidge to Greenfield in our own community, we had a meeting last week and i can't disclose the details of that but i think you're going to be pretty happy with what we are going to be publicly unveiling very soon and i can just tell you that it it matches a lot of what was done uh on the other on the east side of nine mount terms of the linear park area not a linear park necessarily but the trail way and Sure. Some other features that will really, I think, help with the beautification. And of course, you know, we've done the fences throughout to try to beautify and clean up some of those corridors. I had a pretty good impact. I think you would agree.

I agree.

So I just wanted to say that. So thank you again and more to come on West 9 Mile.

I appreciate that. And I'm vying for a pocket park and aren't on our street if possible. I know. I know I've said that before. I want to say it publicly again. But no, I want to thank you again. And again, I will definitely, if I can help with efforts and pulling some of the community together, I'm willing to do that as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Black Club. Wow.

Yeah, she's awesome. Yes. Love residents like that.

Clotilde, we are going to clone your daughter.

Ken Sherman.

Good evening, Ken Sherman, 23840 Jerome Street Mill Park. Based on tonight's presentation on the recreation center and what's proposed, it got me thinking about when they mentioned the lifeguards and I'm trying to think of the big picture and have the city be proactive. The last couple years that the pool was open, it was closed for a number of days due to staffing issues involving lifeguards. so my question is since the water activities at the recreation center are going to be there and open for hours how are you planning to have enough lifeguards staffing the pools on an ongoing basis are they going to be city employees contract employees so those are my questions and concerns and i wondered if this has been thought about and you know what are some of the answers

Thank you. Always very thoughtful questions. Oh, can you talk to Adam Ozarchuk? Yes. Ken? Great. Anyone else? Anyone else inspired? Thank you. I would like to read a letter, a short letter that I got and have you think about solutions for this problem that we're having. This is from Marlene Bruch. I am a longtime resident of the city of Oak Park. I am presently on the chore program. That's where the city helps with grass cutting, leaf breaking, that snow removal. I heard Oak Park is considering discontinuing the chore program. We're not discontinuing it, but the federal government has given us less money to put into it. I am 73 years old, she writes. I can't afford to pay someone to cut my grass and shovel my snow, and I am physically unable to do this myself. Our taxes have gone up, but my income has not. There must be somewhere you can find some funds to continue this program for those of us in need who depend upon it. Sincerely, Marlene Bruch. And I started asking about other opportunities, like are there grants to use this kind of thing? The staff is not aware of this at this point. Can we use tax dollars? You can only use tax dollars if you're using it for everybody, not for just a certain group of people. Does the Area Agency on Aging have anything? And our Mayor Pro Tem is in that age-wise renamed organization, and there aren't, that isn't a choice either. We talked about having some kind of volunteer program organized, which, oh. is another thought. So put your heads together with us on what we can do to help these people who qualify, but there aren't funds. You can't use road funds for grass cutting. You can't use the bond money for the community center for grass cutting. All these are special use piles of money that can only be used for certain things. The road money can only go to roads. Help us come up with a solution For Marlene and others that she is representing.

Thank you Mayor Pro Tem Julie Edgar Good evening, and thank you for coming Just to continue a little bit about what the mayor's comments our agency which is an area agency on aging 1b we cover a

six counties in southeast Michigan.

We don't have that kind of program anymore. Macomb County does, which doesn't do us any good. However, Oak Park is a city of volunteers, and people are engaged. Tanisha, you're one of them. You pick up trash. I do the same. I feel like, well, uh who knows why there's so much litter but there is and so let's get down to it so um i know that other communities have formed a volunteer core course to to do this kind of thing to help residents with snow shoveling grass cutting it's an effort but i think it's worthwhile until we can get more funds because the county has really cut back on these kinds of programs they're more interested in project based projects rather than sort of assistance anyway So, to move on, I wanted to remind everybody that on Saturday, from noon to 4, we have our Fun Fest along Nine Mile, and I'm just getting the details right now. It's a great event, and it runs along Nine Mile, where the linear park is, and we've got vendors, we've got lots of games for kids. family family friendly free pardon me free it's also free so there's gonna be puppet shows there's a touch a truck with a park public safety um there will be pet adoptions which are successful in our city we just did this at dog day afternoon chalk artist face painting crafting stations treats um lots of businesses are giving away um giving away things goodies so um again this is saturday from um actually one to four and it goes along the linear park from scotia to highland so please come out um so we got the fun fest and um I wanted to also just ask people to keep our Human Resources Director, Carla Allen, in your thoughts. She is not well. She'll come back, we hope. But for now, please keep her in your thoughts. And I also want to wish our Jewish families a very Happy New Year. Rosh Hashanah starts on Friday night. and it is the start of the year 5787 fyi thank you and good night council member solomon radner everybody should have a great night and a happy new year council member crawford

Couple of reminders to our residents. Tuesday, September 15th, you know, it's hard out here, but there is, if you need a property tax deferment, that application is due no later than Tuesday, September 15th, that's for 2026 property tax deferments. So contact the Treasury Division. 248-691-7545. Also, during the recent storms, I know, and I've been talking to residents and people, a lot of people went, just went grocery shopping, their electricity went out, they lost a lot of food. There are resources out here. Check with Forgotten Harvest. You can check on the Facebook page or you can go to their website and get different, they have mobile pantries and they have different establishments that they'll be at. Because we know that a lot of people got cleaned out. A lot of people may not be able to stock the refrigerator as they should. Check those websites. You can go to ForgottenHarvest.org and they'll be able to give you that information should you need to replenish some food. Lastly, I did want to say that my family had a little family reunion on September 5th, and we went to David Shepard Park, which is the choo-choo train park, exactly. And I just wanted to give a shout out to Director Stasiak and the park rangers it was beautiful we were supposed to go to Kensington and my family decided that's a little far was about 50 of us and I I told him to come out to let's try our new park and they're like an Oak Park you know but now they loved it so much the kids were like it was fantastic short walk to the bathrooms they were clean so This is a plug, next time you're doing a family reunion or an outing, that's the place to be, it was great. So to the park rangers, Director Stasiak and Oakland County, it was a beautiful day and very memorable, thank you. And everyone, I know it's been rough with the storms, outages, keep checking on each other. Check on your neighbors. make sure they're okay and be kind to one another. Have a good evening. Thank you. Council Member Rebecca Berman.

Happy New Year and good night.

Thank you. This is a little ahead of time, but at the end of this month, September 24th, is the first day that you can vote in person with an absentee ballot at your city or township clerk's office. I'll be sending there's some question about like is it okay to mail them anymore and somebody suggested putting Like a stamp on it, even though it says free because then they'll have to deliver it I would rather you just bring your ballot right up here drive it right up and put it in the slot and Someone from the clerk's office collects those every day. They are safe as can be if you're not sure about that There's going to be early voting where you come in and put your ballot right in yourself With all the hanky-panky going on. I think we need to be very careful about voting this year come out and vote and Do it here

What's hanky panky? Is that it? What's hanky panky?

Definitions provided later. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Thank you for caring. We appreciate your presence.