City Council - Regular Meeting

Mayor Mlen, Mayor Prom Whitehead, Council Member Edgar, Council Member Radner, Council Member Crawford here. Uh, everyone's here. Uh, is there a motion? Oh, first we need to add item 10A to the agenda awarding a bid. 10A. Um, is there a motion to approve the agenda as amended? So, move. Second. All those in favor?

I any any opposed? Motion carry. Uh, the consent agenda are routine items presented for approval without discussion as a single agenda item. Any council member can ask to have one item considered separately. A regular city council meeting minutes for November 3rd, 2025. B payment request from Newman Smith Architecture for architectural services on the event hub project for the total amount of $4,122. C. Request to wave permit fees for the community center and Tyler Park projects. D. First quarter fiscal year 2526 investment report. E budget to actual report for period ending 93025. F. Approval of payment application number three to Albalm Masonry Stone and Tile Incorporated of Waterford, Michigan for the EventHub Masonary Work in the amount of $13,270.31. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

So move. Second. Thank you. Um all those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carried. Thank you. Um we don't have any elected officials, so we are down to item seven in our agenda, special recognition presentations. Um, first an update on the controversial 696 project.

Good evening, mayor, mayor Vortm, city council, and city manager Tongate. Um, the city manager asked me to put a presentation on tonight's agenda and invite members from MDOT to attend tonight to explain basically the second phase of the M uh the MDOT uh 696 project. As you know, uh things were uh changes were made last weekend. Some of the exits were shut down. So, we have Al Bacon and Jason Early here. Um Al is the assistant construction engineer for the job. Al's going to have a little slideshow here. He'll take you through a couple things and he's happy to answer any questions you may have.

Okay. All right. Uh thank you for the introduction, Dave. I greatly appreciate it. So, uh, this is just a quick rundown of our traffic switch that happened this weekend. Uh, took a lot of manh hours to get that together, but now we have officially uh, westbound traffic on the finished eastbound pavement lanes.

So, this weekend, what exactly happened? So this weekend uh we completed uh striping on all our crossovers and we were able to take the westbound traffic that was originally on westbound lanes and uh transfer that onto the completed eastbound pavement. So you'll see as you come in um from let's say either southbound 75 or coming um you know westward into uh pass 75, you'll come into a crossover and that will get you basically going into the opposite direction on the finished eastbound pavement lanes and I'll go through this presentation and I'll basically be able to tell you, you know, what ramps are closed and what ramps are still accessible to get back onto um the north side of the service drive. Okay.

Okay. So, a quick introduction here of the overall project. Uh, this project runs from uh 2025 to 2027. So, this year was primarily uh reconstructing the eastbound pavement. Um so as of right now this weekend that is completed and traffic westbound traffic is now shifted over. Uh 2026 is going to be and starting also uh this winter right now is the reconstruction of westbound pavement lanes. And then 2027 um that is simply a patching job from 75 to Dquender. So very minimal uh impact to cities. So essentially for the public the majority of the work will end uh in late fall of 2026.

So in a year. Yes. And this is a quick example of, you know, our eastbound road work ripping up all the pavement and drainage and electrical and replacing it in kind. And then here's just a quick uh section of essentially what the roadway looks like of, you know, we've picked up uh cars off westbound, put them on the eastbound lanes, and separated them by either temporary uh concrete barrier wall or the finished uh medium barrier wall.

What are those red ovals and pink circles? Uh the red ovals there are where we have crossovers. So I've got uh slides of each individual crossover I can go through quickly, but essentially you have uh access to uh loss or off-ramp is open to you. South field uh westbound ramps on and off are available to you. Um Woodward uh on and off ramps uh to westbound are available. Um and then uh 75 coming southbound on 75 to westbound is available to you.

Isn't Southfield open? Yes, in Southfield on andoff ramps are available. So, the the primary ramps uh Oak Park will use will primarily be, you know, the warboard on and off ramps uh to and from westbound uh and then also the southfield. And this will be for a year. Yes. to see that's kind of a stretching out of uh basically this shows in the uh red dotted line here where your crossover uh for westbound traffic.

We can't see that. Oh yeah, it's pretty

it's pretty light. Yeah, we've I've got a lot more closeups of this. Essentially, it just shows the the path of going westbound off 696 and how you transfer over to the eastbound lanes going the opposite direction, but we've got enough signage, reflectors, uh, positive protection. It really shouldn't feel like you're on the opposite side of the road. So here is uh your primary detour if you were going eastbound. So eastbound is still that direction is still detourred uh for the for next all of next year. So this your normal uh detour that you were taking before going eastbound is still getting on M10 and then getting on to or telegraph. So that will remain exactly the same. That's still hard to see. Yeah, a little bit. Basically, this just describes um all the bridges we've completed. So, the you know, there are several crossover bridges uh essentially from uh we can estimate uh Lasser to Southfield. A majority of these crossover bridges that everyone uses to go to and from your neighborhoods to the service drives, those have been completed. And then basically and then Southfield to Woodward again about half those bridges are completed. And

what about Church Street? Church Street. Uh let me get that.

Yep. I've got a little bit closeup for that. Here we go. So uh this is Church Street or uh Victoria Park. Um we are now in the uh reconstruction phase. We completed the demo phase of taking down this plaza bridge uh entirely in this year. And now we've moved in over to uh getting ready to reconstruct the westbound side of this bridge by uh installing beams later this winter. And you'll see this be reconstructed uh throughout uh 2026. And again, this should open up uh late fall 2026. And that will have the road portion to the left that you can see and the uh new park. And again, the same uh pedestrian detour is is going to remain the same all throughout next year. So, nothing will change there.

You said the park, the new park would be finished by 26. late 26, we should have a majority of that park finished with 2027 as a uh first couple months of 2027 as a possible uh time to finish every piece of the park if needed. And this is what it would a rendering of what it would look like. So, looks yeah, fairly similar. I like the uh pergolas myself. Gives you guys more shade. when you're watching the grandkids. So,

u yeah, this is just a quick uh shots of, you know, the new beams coming in. It's a brand new design. No more icicle leaking that's possible at all. It's a completely new design. Basically, it um it forces all water into giant collections of under drain and shoots it off to the service drives. So, I've got a lot of different slides after this of individual crossovers and bridges and things if you guys have any specific questions, but this is our uh contact. You can email us anytime or give us Can you uh read that out loud?

Uh yeah. Uh the phone number is 248 93077. Now, is this the ombbudsman or what? Yes, this would go to our ombbudsman. And what's his name? Brian Moley. Spell his last name, please. M O R L E Y. Okay.

And he uh is for our consultant, Great Lakes Engineering, and he immediately uh transferred these calls and emails over to our project. goes to me personally and the uh construction engineer with MDOT, my boss, Brian Travis, and same day we get emails back, phone calls back, you know, we want to know if uh you know, the public sees something that uh doesn't seem right or has just a general question on, hey, when is this bridge going to be completed? Mostly all these bridges are supposed to be completed within anywhere from uh 30 to 60 days. Um, so if you have a question on when a bridge is going to be completed or um maybe a a sidewalk, when is that going to be opened up that you might use to, you know, get your bike around the city? Uh, we can answer that the same day that you contact us. So,

can you read just what's on that slide out loud? Um, yes. Uh I read off the uh project phone number that 248-9301777. Yep.

The project website is www.drivingocland.com. Uh it's has a tab that says restore the Ruther Phase 2. It's the third giant tab. Uh lane closures, we keep those very up to date. You can go to michigan.gov/drive. GVDRive. That's the Myrive site. Uh we work really hard to keep that as uptodate as possible. Uh Twitter uh m_met and then the project email is m dot- metro-i696man.gov. Um

city manager Eric Tung. He has a question.

Gentlemen, I want to thank both of you for taking the time to be here this evening. very much appreciate it. I do have a couple of questions. Um first, this, as you can imagine, um is incredibly disruptive to our community. Um you know, we are one of the reasons we wanted to have this presentation tonight is that we want to make sure that we're sharing information as clearly and concisely and upto-date as we possibly can. My question is beyond us sharing the information you are providing us is there anything else that we can do because so many especially now that the change has happened over you know

so many of our residents are now you know completely unaware of what's happening. Um so uh your question is what can the the state is there something more we can do than we're already doing um to get the word out um maybe other resources that you have or provide or know of?

Uh I can provide this presentation which provides a lot of uh picture slides of individual bridges their detours how these crossovers work. Um, and that can provide basically you can uh go by individual crossover ramps to target your communities or neighborhoods uh to give them a little bit more information. Um, I can email the city uh approximate bridge closures. We'll we'll keep you guys up to date. Um, but that'll give you a a better view on monthtomonth. you know, this bridge will be closed, you know, roughly from, you know, May to June or May to mid June. We can give you uh that schedule.

That'd be fantastic. Okay. Thank you. My second question is this. Um and this is a little bit of a selfish question because I live about four miles away and it takes me about 20 to 30 minutes to get here and back every day um without using the freeways. Um, [snorts] is there any chance, maybe you can't answer this, but is there any chance this gets done ahead of schedule and we're not sitting here at this time next year still talking about this for these schedules are very already very accelerated for the amount of work that has to be done in the time frame we have. Um and we are on schedule and we uh check these schedules versus actuals weekly of you know what what operation has been done checking with foremen and our inspectors to make sure that those actual completion dates match the schedule and that's done weekly. Uh to accelerate is uh exorbitantly expensive.

Are they incentivized to accelerate though contracts? they are in extremely penalized if they are if they go over their schedule timeline. So every day that uh the construction company Toby uh does not complete the uh open a traffic date um they are fined $100,000. So it's a very um steep That's after the contract date though, right? They're penalized after that date, not correct. And there aren't any incentives built into the contract to have them get it done quicker.

There's only incentives to uh basically have the most amount of highest quality of work. There's several incentives there. Schedule-wise, there is not a uh acceleration incentive on this project. It's a stick, not a carrot situation, unfortunately. Yep. Um, city council members, are there questions? This is council member Julie Edgar. Hi, thank you for coming in. Thank you. Two questions. Mhm.

When is the ramp, the eastbound ramp off of Telegraph going to open? Eastbound ramp off of Telegraph. So south the the interchange where you go off west and east from telegraph if you're heading south from 12 miles. Um I just have to look that one up. Uh pretty confident to go eastbound you're saying? Yes. That would be next uh late November of next year to go eastbound uh 696 from Telegraph. That's a bummer.

Yeah, it's Yeah, that we M not recognizes as extremely painful project for the communities, the cities. We understand that's why we are one trying to uh get the most value out of uh the state of Michigan tax dollars by doing an overlay giving the communities a 30-year lifespan on this highway so we don't have to come back here and do this painful work for another 30 years. So hopefully everyone's, you know, retired and doesn't have to deal with this. Um, so yes, we understand these are very painful projects and we are very receptive to phone calls, emails, trying to reach out to cities to get you guys the most upto-date on, you know, what bridges are closed, when things are going to open. Um and then you know uh in responding to individuals on you know even h how do they get out of their neighborhood you know any question we are going to try and answer to the best ability and work with you know the citizens uh and cities to make sure this is at least uh a little bit less painful. It is uh painful for our businesses um because both of the city ramps are closed at the same time.

Madam mayor, just one more question. This is also um mainly an aesthetic a question about aesthetics. So I noticed on the um service drive, the 10mi service drive, they're redoing some of the brick work on the barrier wall. Mhm. So, we have a barrier wall here that extends uh west of Church Street, and there have been missing bricks for a very long time. I understand that the city has contacted MDOT about replacing these bricks, but it really is unsightly. And we have a that's a park, a park. What do you Are you going to fix that while you're doing the rest of the work?

Yep. So, um, yeah, those sound walls, uh, with the brick work that's, um, you know, damaged and it's got, uh, limestone caps that are damaged or sometimes even missing. Uh, those have been packaged into, uh, this project to take on quite a few of those. I think there's six areas of those sound walls to be repaired, you know, bricks put back in place that match color as close as we can. Um and then the limestone caps being uh replaced where they're damaged. So that is included in the project and that will be worked on primarily in late 2026 and into 2027.

Thank you. Welcome. Are there further questions from council members? No. Thank you for um uh coming and uh facing the heat. No problem, guys. And uh I'm sure that when this is all finished, we will be happy with a nice fresh expressway and fixed bricks and all of that. And in the meantime, um we will uh pray for patience. Thank you. Thank you. It's good to see somebody fixing the damn roads. We're trying.

Uh thank you again for these guys for showing up today. Like you said, it's it's tough to tough to give bad news. I will give one quick shameless plug. On our website, we have our current project portal and our dashboard. We also provide updates on that essentially weekly. We link back to MDOT's pages. So, you can see a localized closure list on our website as well that's updated. Again, we link back to all the MOT websites that do the same thing. But, and how do we find that on our website? I believe it's on the home page. Yeah, it's on the homepage about home page. Quarter of the way down it says current projects on the right of the homepage. Yeah. And then we can talk to Britney about putting putting on Facebook as well. Verify it's on the right.

Continue to continue to share on social media. But the key is 696 is open westbound only and the exits again will be closed. Oak Park exits will be closed throughout 2026. So, and people asked me are we do we have to get off the expressway at Woodward and get on it at Southfield? No, you can drive through. you just can't get off and on. Correct. So even that people are unaware of and um the the illustrations probably make a lot of sense to engineers, but to the average bear it's sort of um I'll see if I can pluck some of those images off the presentation. Maybe we can shrink them down for a more sizable super

social media post. Super good. Thank you so much. It's like going to the dentist. Thank you for the question.

All right. Uh B uh director Kim Moroni is going to talk about the nine mile coolage and intersection study um which is uh very positive uh future developments for Oak Park um that will cheer us up after we got depressed. Good evening mayor, mayor prom and city council members. So tonight I have a representative from OM, Eric Dryer, here who's going to go through the presentation. We've been working with OM over the last probably six or so months and establishing how the intersection at Nine and Coolage could look like so we can continue that bike path that we started on the east end of town and connected all the way through to Southfield being part of the Nel line which Oakland County helped us um and all the other southern Oakland County communities establish a route all the way through. So um I think Eric is right here. Great. Thanks. All right. Thanks for having me today. Uh, as Kim mentioned, Eric Dryer with OM Adviserss. I'm a transportation planner and principal and lead our planning and landscape architecture group. So, I have the, uh, the fun job of giving you some pretty pictures to look at and getting everybody excited about Nine Mile and Coolage.

Um, I think I've got some slides here. Yeah, there we go. So, as Kim mentioned, uh, this kind of came about through the nine line study a couple years ago. We work with Oakland County, Oak Park, and a number of other communities to essentially de develop a route for a trail that goes from I75 and initially stopped at I275 and now has continued all the way to the Oakland County border in and South Lion. So, all of the South Oakland County communities are on board with this. And a key part of this was how do we extend the current trail through the intersection of 9 and Koolage, which is pretty constrained right now. there's not a lot of extra space to be able to to push that through. And then we started thinking as we started talking about this, can that trail be an economic development driver? What is the future development look like? If it is an economic development driver, what does the future of of nine and coolers look like? So, uh, we worked with with Kim and Eric and and Dave and a couple others to take a look at what this this area could look like. So, so we're kind of focused right there in the center of Oak Park, nine in Coolage. Um, you've been there before. It's it's fairly autoor oriented. There's lots of parking. Um, there's some traffic spikes in the AM and PM. Um, and and generally it's not a place that people really want to go and walk and bike and have that kind of that urban urban feel. Um, you know, you look just a couple blocks down to the east and and it's walkable and there's the great linear park and there's lots of local businesses, but you sort of lose that as you get closer to the intersection. So we started with uh very technical analysis uh looking at all the existing conditions including a traffic analysis and and the the traffic study was really to understand what could we do here? Can we narrow the roadway and and still have a functional roadway?

Um and so we used we used data from spring of 2025. This includes uh some of the the traffic constraints that have happened since the closure of 696. So even with that that increased kind of divergent traffic demand um we found with with a couple of small alterations of having a road diet if you want to go down that road um wouldn't significantly impact operations. We'd have to do a little I have just a question. The traffic study was conducted while 696 is closed for repairs um putting more traffic on our mile roads. Does that skew the results at all? It skews it. um towards I guess it there's more traffic currently.

Yeah. Um and and that was something that we did take into account,

but but we still did the the the [snorts] analysis with those numbers from from the spring of 2025 and it's still it's right on the edge. It's knowing that those those numbers are going to go back down in two years. Um you can you can we think you can you can make a road diet work if you really wanted to. Um, the only thing that we would have to do is keep right turn lanes from Nine Mile onto Coolage. That that is the the movement. So, if you're coming eastbound, turning north, coming west, sorry, going coming going westbound, turning north, coming eastbound, turning south, um, those were needed. Those are the the big movements that that people are taking. They're going usually going north up to 696 or other places in northern northern Oakland County. So, we got went through a pretty detailed process here and ultimately came up with something that you're probably not going to be able to see because of the the tiny tiny screen. But, um,

can I ask what the green dots are? Those are trees. Isn't that lovely? Yeah. Oh my goodness.

So, uh, we we I will send this Kim's Kim and Eric have a copy of this. Um, and what we ultimately came up with was essentially a three-lane cross-section through through um through the intersection. It it it keeps the same kind of profile as what you see to the east of the intersection. Um, and it and all most importantly, it gives us enough space to add a 12-oot shared use pathway on the north side of the street. So, it would continue the where the the trail head is through the intersection. Um and and on the next slide I'll show you where it terminates and then would you know you could you could have a a similar treatment to what's on 9 mile east of the of the area with the with the cycle track on the south side. Um, we we looked at the Gran Amazon, ML Mlullen, and Dante streets and sort of formalizing those as real roads rather than there's one that's that's kind of a real road, but the other two are sort of alleyways or parking lots um as as backup release valves that help help uh take some of the traffic off of the intersection. Um,

so they would be like turned back into real roads. Yeah. Yeah. And and we'll I'll show more of that in a second here. Um, and then again, additional space for landscaping and greening the street up and making more space for people to feel comfortable walking, biking. And what's even more exciting is when you tie that with some of the development ideas. So, a little bit further further view out of what the study area looks like. And so, um, there's connections to a future bike lane, connections to, uh, the existing cycle track, and then

the two red circles, what are they? that that kind of shows the transition period from um the the one on the the right side there, that's the existing bike lane, existing cycle track that you already have. Um and then we thought, well, you might you can continue that same kind of pathway or that same kind of roadway treatment on the west side as you get out of this really constrained area. Um, and you can see there on the on the screen there's some formalization of that those roads there that uh that kind of go around the development. And so after we had come up with a concept for the roadway, the the idea was to think about how do those those those three quadrants there, the the northwest, the northeast, and the southeast start to be reimagined into something that's a little bit, you know, more modern and and exciting. So this is a a plan view shot, overhead shot of what this could look like. Um really we wanted to go at this with kind of a mix of uses. So the purple buildings you see there are mixed use. They have a mix of uh res uh residential some office potentially um and then commercial space both res uh retail and restaurant.

So this is the first floor restaurants and businesses and second floor residents. Yes. and and these are are really targeted towards the the busier parts of the intersection where there's lots of lots more potential for foot traffic and and and and views. Is there parking for those people? Those parking there's parking in the uh inside the buildings themselves and those gray boxes there are parking decks.

Um the brownish orang-ish color, those are just multif family units. Those are just apartment buildings. Those also have parking inside of them on as the first floor. And then the yellow buildings are town houses. Um and so what we've done is tried to balance this. Everything that you see here is uh to the zoning code. It um meets the parking requirements that is that are established in this area. So we started with parking and said we know we need to hold vehicles. We don't want it to be the the driving force of this area, but it's part of the it's part of the the deal. we got to have some places to park cars. Um, and really what we're showing here is the highest intensity use that you could do uh based on the code, based on on what's uh what you can do legally. Um, this this includes sevenstory buildings at the intersection. That's not necessarily what you necessarily need to go with, but it does prove the concept that this can work. And u as you start to talk with developers, it it may or may not make economic sense. Four four to seven stories is kind of, you know, where you want to be. Um, and so ultimately that adds 730 residential units mostly based in in residential flats. So your your standard apartments, but 70 town houses spread throughout there that help kind of transition these higher intensity uses into the neighborhoods that are on either side. Um, and then importantly, you know, over 2900 parking spaces to to serve all of those and and those are split between those three decks there. Uh, all the town houses park themselves. There's garages underneath. Um, and then and same with the the the multif family buildings. And I guess I didn't mention the internal roadway network. You can kind of see that there's some neighborhood streets within there that um allow for more connectivity. Um, allow the neighbors, you you go and walk your dog and and you see your neighbors out there walking their dog. Um, there's

a park space in here. There's a couple plaza spaces. And I guess I will caveat this with this is not set in stone in any sort of way. It's it's a proof of concept. This this can work. It's it's based in reality. And if we take another look at this from back one uh were those what were the blue squares? The blue So the red is uh is retail um commercial or or u or restaurant. The blue could is is a flexible space. It could be office if there's the demand for office, but it could easily just just as well be residential or park. Oh, on the on the building or on on this those turquoise blue. Oh, those are pools. Ah, for the residents.

I see. Yeah. Um, so the blue on this on this image here is

uh potentially office space. If if there is the demand for office, the floor plate of these buildings is is the same as a residential building. Um, and we've seen some developers kind of dipping their toe into that kind of small office space where, you know, you may have a law firm or an accounting firm or somebody that has, you know, not a ton of need for space, but, you know, they want to they want to take up the corner of of a building like this, but if there's no demand for it, it could it could very easily just be apartments. Um, so it's very flexible what we're showing here. Really, this is to kind of get developers and property owners excited. And what we see as kind of the next steps are to to start down this road if you like the the idea of a road diet or or some sort of improvements to nine mile studying this further and coming up with a detailed design. This is you know fairly conceptual. It's based in fact. It's based on what we what we studied but um there were there was there was one engineer on the team and you know this is a little bit more creative than you know what you would you would see from a from a detailed drawing.

Um city manager Tong Eric thank you so much for being here. Absolutely. And for working with us. You guys are wonderful to work with. You're much taller in person. I get that a lot. You know, Zoom hides it. It's um council members, in your I believe in your packet, you have the full report. Yes. Um but I wanted to bring your attention to page 83, which is the beginning of I don't know if I'm skipping you ahead here by doing this, but No, go for it. It's the beginning of the implementation section of the report. And so quickly, could you So In other words, he is it 83? Page 83 of the report. Yeah.

Might be page 58, too. It's 83 of the I'm sorry, page 58 of the report. Right there. There you go. Implementation. And so it it gives us some guideposts to look at in terms of the next steps to take to sort of bring this to reality. And and part of that is there's properties, you know, like the Walgreens property sitting vacant. there are some prime opportunities for us to go out and seek development that would meet some of the the new requirements, let's call it, but could you briefly speak to the steps um in this implementation?

Yeah. Um because this is kind of a it's a multi-pronged approach. We've got a streetscape and an infrastructure project with the nine mile improvements and then we've got private development that could follow maybe comes at the same time. What we've seen really successful in other communities is using an infrastructure project, streetscape project to to spur on uh private development. We've done that on Nine Mile Road. You've done it. Yes, exactly. We've awardwinning Nine Mile Road redo. Yeah. From a very tired um street to uh one that's bringing development. Exactly.

Attracting. One developer told us if we hadn't done all of that work, he would have put his development elsewhere. Right. So, you've got examples of it in your own community. We've seen it in other communities in the region. Uh developers are looking for sort of a commitment from from cities to say, "Okay, they're investing in here. I'm going to invest in here, too." Um and so the implementation plan lays out a kind of series of events both on the infrastructure side and kind of the things that you can control and then the development side which you have some control over but ultimately it's up to investors and developers and property owners to to put the money in to to help realize the vision.

Right. And I want to just clarify, some of the implementation recommendations include some zoning ordinance changes, correct? To allow for some of these higher uses. Yep. And and generally talking, having meetings, working with these these existing property owners to show them the vision, get them excited, and say, "Hey, let's reimagine what your property could be, could be this, or could sit vacant."

Um, and so what we tried to do is is kind of lay that out step by step. start with a couple of um what we're calling proof of concept or or um projects that that kind of get the get the vision off the ground and and so we've identified a phase one the Walgreens site as as you mentioned um already been a little bit of conversation there but that that's a prime piece of of property that's that's could take the first step in helping realize the vision and then hoping that it snowballs with with some of the

the city manager Tong So to on another on another note, so council members, we you know, our community is 99.9% built out, I believe. So there's not a tremendous amount of opportunities for us to build new housing. So in my opinion, as you see here in the recommendations, unless we're looking at these kinds of development opportunities, I mean, this one adds somewhere around 700 between 7 800 new residential units into our community. Is this this is how we go from this point forward being that we are built out?

Exactly. Yep. We need to start reali rethinking the the way that we use space in in communities like this where you have have a a prime location. It's in the center of town. There's lots of uh of parking and lots of pavement that could be used for a higher a higher and better use. And in that in this case it's housing people and density improving density.

Exactly. And I think we've seen in in communities, you know, around around the state and around the country take this approach and and have have success from both finding places for people to live and building those places and and also um essentially building the city that they want to see and and attracting new people to their community and and and doing so in a way that is uh I guess realizing the the characteristics and and unique unique aspects of of Oak Park in this case. Um somewhere around um on nine milei west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west west of coolage on the south side

um there was parking that had been um that you want to change to parallel yeah from angle parking and that means you've got less parking spaces right and that was what an area that you defined as um a lot of parking being used every day and a need for parking and here this is going to lower the number of parking spaces. Can you speak to that?

Yeah, it's um it's it is a reduction in parking. Um it's not a huge reduction. I think what we what we saw from the parking study was I don't remember the exact figures. you guys have the the report in front of you in front of you maybe you know 70 or 80% full um on any on any given time and and really what this this adjustment of space does is changes one one side from angled parking to parallel and it it allows for a larger sidewalk space. So the hope is that um you know we can deal with you know 15 or 20 less parking spaces with the exchange for space for these businesses to have a have a patio, have a space to spill out on the sidewalk, have a comfortable place for folks to walk um either from their house or from a farther away parking spot and and knowing that again parking is still part of the equation. We we can't get rid of it because that still help people get around. Um but rebalancing that a little bit more to make more space for people.

And there would be on the other three corners um parking garages. Yes. Exactly. So if you didn't mind walking across the street. Yes. Yep. Exactly. There's there's going to be um enough parking to to support all of the the businesses within that. Yeah. We're sort of spoiled in this area expecting a parking lot parking space right in front of the building. friends came from New York and said, "I got the best parking space. It was only three blocks away." [laughter]

Yeah. Um and and I guess part of the the reason why we want to re reimagine what nine mile looks like is if you do have to park across the street, it's not a it's not a bad walk. You're not, you know, going across and thinking you're going to get hit by a car. Cars are driving at a normal speed. They're they're they're slowing down. It's It's only a short couple of steps across the across the street. And I noticed you're u uniting three bus stops into one.

Yes. Um that's more of a a potential option to consolidate operations from a from a a transit side. Um I ride the bus every once in a while and it gets kind of annoying when you're like, "Okay, there's a stop here and then a block away there's another stop." M um what we would like to do is have two really nice stops, like invest a little bit more into those two main stops at the corner. Larger shelter, maybe some real-time arrival signage, uh bike racks, things like that that make it an inviting place to stay. Um and then it speeds up travel time a little bit more and it makes the overall experience better for for riders.

And you're putting in islands for crossing midblock. Yes. Um those would have to be those are one of the things that we'd have to study a little bit more in detail with um with some roadway designers. But again, knowing that this is going to be, you know, intended to be a walkable area, a walkable district, it was we don't want Nine Mile to be a barrier. We want it to be just another street that you're crossing. And so those those midblock crossings are are helpful to to sort of facilitating that that movement. Nice. And uh everyone complains about it's slowing traffic, but we're slowing traffic on purpose.

Yes. Slowing traffic for safety sake. Uh what we what we noticed, we did a crash analysis as well, and the area east of Coolage um on the north side of the street where there's, you know, driveways every 20 feet that had the highest concentration of rear end and and turning collisions. And so what we found is that it's likely because there's so many driveways there and people aren't paying attention and they're, you know, just running into people in the back. Too many curb cuts.

Too many curb cuts. Exactly. Um and so we've taken the the view that yeah, it's going to slow slow vehicles down a bit. It's not going to negatively impact traffic all that much, you know, couple seconds. Um, but it's ultimately going to result in a in a safer and more um inviting place for people to walk and drive. Nice.

Next use zoning. And we have in the past been very open to changing zoning to help development and um opportunities just so what is our next Yep.

Next step, um I think our next step is to think a little bit more concretely about NMI and how we might go about um continuing that design through the intersection. Um part of what we've been helping communities with is finding grant money to do that kind of work. Um, so we can uh and then and then we've talked with with Kim and and some others at the in the planning group about [snorts] having those conversations with the with property owners and and showing this to them and saying, do you want to help you do you want to be part of this vision? And um I think that's that's kind of the those two steps kind of need to work concurrently with each other and and and try to start the momentum up. maybe um promote this idea.

How do we promote it to the businesses and the public? Um I think we can we can point to other communities. You know, Ferndale has done a very good job of forcing a downtown with there's tons of traffic in in uh in downtown Ferndale, but people still go there. People actively seek out to go there. And you know, traffic traffic isn't a in this case is not a bad thing. We want people to see this and say, you know, I'm going to dinner in Oak Park tonight. I I'm I'm renting my next apartment in Oak Park, right?

And u and start to build that excitement about what this what this could be because, you know, we we've got this, you know, this regional spine with the nine line and then this is this could be a major hub along that. Um, and so getting property owners excited about the, you know, essentially the return that they're gonna that they could see from this. Um, and then also considering the the kind of impact to the city from a from a unique character building perspective. Absolutely. Very exciting. Start. Yeah. Any questions from council members? Council member uh Crawford.

Um, quick question. [clears throat] And looking at the pre-development concept, you had 2900 parking spaces. Is that an overestimate or do you think That's actually an underestimate. I'm sorry. It's a little bit of an underestimate. Really? It's about 30 30 spots less than what is required by the code, but we're trying to push it a little bit. Trying to be as as progressive as we can. That includes the three lots. There's the or the three decks, I'm sorry. a couple of parking lots,

um on street parking throughout on the streets, and then each of those town houses has a two-car garage built under what assumes a twocar garage underneath it. So, um really the the big drivers of those of that parking is are the decks. But um yeah, we tried to balance it as much as we can and try to be as as progressive as we could with again we can't limit we can't ignore all parking or people aren't going to want to live there or go there but we don't want to we don't want an overburden with parking either. Good question.

Any further questions? Thank you so much for being the bearer of glad tidings. I'm happy to do it. Thank you. Thank you.

So that puts us to number eight, public hearing for the allocation of CDPG funds. Dan Fearless is here. Dan Fearless. Thank you.

Thank you, mayor, council members, city manager. Uh this item before you tonight is a request for a public hearing for program year 2026 CDBG funds. And uh the amount before you, we're actually using last year's uh uh funds that we received of $122,359. Uh that's due to we don't actually know what amount we're going to receive until sometime in January. So to have a basis, we use last year's amount. And again, we are proposing to use the funds for uh code enforcement activities as well as senior yard services. And we are on our second year with program year 2025 uh being limited to 15% of our total allocation to be used for uh the senior yard services. And with that I can answer any questions you may have

and the amount for code and the amount for yard services. So if uh with the total of 122359 um projected or hopeful that would be $14,51.15 for code enforcement and $18,35385 for uh senior yard services

and what was the past I thought in the past we oh we we gave more for yard services yes we we used to allocate 30% of our total allotted amount or the amount uh given to us for yard services and now we're capped at 15% and who capped it the county or CDBG regulations got it federal capped it two years ago

thank you. Okay. Um so, uh would we open the uh we can open the public hearing if anybody here is here to talk about the use of CDBG funds. Uh please come up. Um, seeing no one, we will close the public hearing. Um, we need a resolution approving the 2026 community development block grant allocations as discussed. So, second.

Thank you. Discussion. No, I'm just roll call vote, please. Council member Crawford, yes. [clears throat] Council member Edgar, yes. Mayor Mlen, yes. Council member Radner, yes. Mayor Prom Whitehead, yes.

Motion carried. Thank you. That puts us on um item C, public hearing on the establishment of an obsolete property rehabilitation district at 21800 Greenfield Road, parcel ID 522531 1553. Uh and uh director uh Kim is here to discuss this.

Yes. Good evening again. So tonight in front of city council uh BM Ventures 2 is planning to uh take the old forgotten harvest building on Greenfield Road at 21800 21800 and they're going to turn it into an ice manufacturing facility. Um the facility um will be investing $12 million in the city of Oak Park and create 73 full-time equivalent positions with an average pay of $36.97 per hour. How many positions again? 73

73. They are going to um put a preference on um residents in the city of Oak Park and we've already discussed with them working with uh Michigan Works to do a job fair for them when they are ready to hire for those positions. Wonderful.

What's in front of you this evening is the first phase of a tax incentive so they can make this project a reality. Without it, they would not be able to get the funding they need to move forward um with the project. So, this is to establish an actual obsolete property rehabilitation district, which is just that one parcel that they've acquired. And then at the next meeting on December 1st, we can consider an application for the incentive where you can grant up to 12 years of freezing their taxes at the current level. um currently or I should say previously the property was with a nonprofit entity so they were paying no taxes on the property. However, you cannot um do a tax incentive on a property with no taxes. So a baseline was established based on the current value of the property. So they will be paying um property taxes moving forward. um it'll just be frozen at that level when we set the actual exemption, but that will be at the next meeting. Tonight is just to establish the district.

Very good. So, public hearing first. Yep. So, uh the public hearing is open if you have an opinion on establishing this obsolete property rehabilitation district at 21800 Greenfield Road. Don't see anyone rushing to uh comment. So, we will close the public hearing. Uh we need a resolution to establish an obsolete property rehabilitation district at 21800 Greenfield Road. Second. Thank you. Um any discussion or questions? Madame Mayor.

Yes. [clears throat] Why should we establish a district? Why not? Why don't why doesn't the company just ask for a tax break? Why do why do it this way? It's a requirement per state statute in order to set up the district prior prior to considering an application. So, we have to do it this way per state law. We have to set up a district for this one property. Correct. Is this a new law? No, we've done this on previous tax incentives. We did it for Kroger. Um we did it for the loop and we did it for the um Pioneer Healthcare. So we have done it previously.

When we when it says obsolete, what does that mean? I mean the building is not it needs to be raised or or what?

No. So there's different um levels that a property can um receive that status. We work with the city assessor. Only the city assessor can deem a building obsolete. So some of the factors could be it could be a blighted building. Um in this instance that particular building is 30,000 square feet which is a large footprint store and as you know big box stores currently they really don't exist anymore. They've gone away. So to repurpose this building it has to be for another use and um that will require a substantial investment from anybody who purchases it. You said this is an ice manufacturer, correct? They are actually um they're in the audience. Brian Lucia is one of the owners um Value Wholesale um who has been in our city since 1995. They are making this an another investment in our community um in purchasing the building and making that investment.

Do we know what the approximate investment is going to be? $12 million. $12 million 73 very good paying jobs and um my favorite is that the Oak Park residents get preference and hiring. So this will directly help our residents and how I manufacture ice. I just put water outside in the winter. [laughter] I don't know if you guys do the same thing. Thank you. Yes, they they appreciate your technical [laughter] input. Good to know.

Always have to help. Um, so let me see. We have uh we have a motion and we have a second. Any further discussion? Roll call, please. Council member Edgar, no. Uh, Mayor Mlen, yes. Council member Rner, yes. Mayor Prom Whitehead. Yes. Council member Crawford. Yes. Okay. Motion carried. Thank you. Uh welcome. We're we're glad you're uh investing again in our uh city. And is there anything you wanted to say while you're here?

If you come up so that the people at home can hear you. just that we're, you know, honored to be able to do business in the city and continue to do more business in the city that has been so good to us. Um, we [clears throat] do take it very seriously to have the jobs given to community members. We always try to do it today and we will continue to do so. Wonderful. Wonderful. Glad to have you. Glad you're investing. Thank you. As always, in our city again. Thank you. Let's see. Did we vote?

Oh, we did. Yeah, we can vote again if you want. Oh, that was fun. Accounting reports. Approval for payment of invoices submitted by Garen Luca Miller PC for legal services in the amount of $15,272.86. I will make that motion. Thank you. Second. Any lawyers looking out for each other? The lawyers are looking out for each other. That's it. Cute. Uh, any discussion? Roll call, please. Mayor Mlullen? Yes. Council member Rner? Yes. Mayor Prom Whitehead? Yes. Council member Crawford? Yes. Council member Edgar? Yes.

Motion carried. Uh, item 9B, approval for payment of an invoice submitted by Dick Faber Kaplan for legal services in the total amount of $6,500. This is our prosecuting attorney. So second. Any discussion? Roll call. Council member Radner. Yes. Mayor Proen Whitehead. Yes. Council member Crawford. Yes. Council member Edgar. Yes. Mayor Mlen? Yes. Motion carried unanimously. Thank you.

Uh item 10 is bids. This was added to the agenda. request to award the bid for consulting services to update the city's master plan to GIFs Webster for the total amount of $69,885. Is there a motion and a second?

Second. Thank you. Um, city manager Eric Tungate, are you going to speak to this? Sure, Madam Mayor, members of council, I would like to turn it over to Director Um, but I would like to say that the city uh for for the update that is required by state law by the way received seven proposals and evaluated those proposals and the committee made their decision and this is their recommendation. I do believe you have some slides you're going to share. Nope, didn't have any slides I was sharing. Okay, they're in the packet though at least.

They're in the packet. Um, and then I can speak to it a little bit. So, we had um seven great proposals. We brought in four of the finalists to interview them. Um and again, a hard decision. We've had some very good um proposals recently. Um but we did um whittle it down and make a decision to um recommend to city council to go with Gibbles Webster uh based on their approach and um they we think that they will do a great job in helping us to update our new our city master plan. One of the new requirements uh per planning um is that we include a housing portion. So that is going to be an addition that we need to include in our new master plan and this process should take approximately one year to complete.

And are they going to take this nine mile intersection study? Yes. Yes, that is one of the plans that we put in our RFP that we were working on it. So that is one of the items that they will pull into it. uh Salam was able to um help us acquire grant funding through um the redevelopment ready program where we get uh dollars every year for projects like this and they uh do a 75% um portion of the total cost and then we are only required to match it up to 25%. Uh, is that we pay 79? Oh, 25% of 69,000.

Correct. Oh, okay. Madam Mayor, can I just Yes. So, so Kim, clarify, the original budgeted amount was 75,000. So, it came in under budget regardless. So, our budget, what we put in our city budget was 25,000. Oh, $25,000. Okay. And my my other question would be, what is the state requirement? Is it every five years? Every five years is to update your plan. and we are at that fiveyear mark. Um we also um need to amend it with all of the new facilities we're going to be building here as well. Is there something happening here? I wasn't just a few things happening. [laughter] [gasps]

Yeah, we need to include the housing portion which was not a requirement previously. So that is a big addition for us. Okay. Madame Mayor, may I ask a question? Yes. Um Mayor Prom Sean Whitehead 70,000 sounds like a lot of money. Is that is that about what it cost 5 years ago? I know things cost more now, but

So, I will tell you um we wrote the master plan, the first one back in 2016 17, 16 or 17. We did the amendment in-house. We just don't have enough time on our hands these days to do this. I can tell you the price we have in this quote is lower than what most other communities have paid because we're still doing a lot of the work on our own. AI does a lot of this stuff though, you know, now. So, [snorts] yeah. So, we we're assisting them with this and that's why we're getting the price we're getting. So, this is a lot lower. If you look at just the recreation plan, I believe we paid 150,000 for that. We did. Yes. Yeah. I was going to say, and that was just recreation.

I' I've done master plans and other communities and things and and I was thinking this would come in more than 125,000. And I I would definitely agree with Kim. I think this is much better. Yeah. And that's because we're doing a lot of the work in-house. They're not doing the entire thing. We're helping. Wonderful. Great planning and great followup. Do they need to vote to receive and approve it? Yep. Okay. Um, now I'm lost. We have a We have We have a motion and a second. Okay. Any discussion or questions? Nope. Roll call, please.

Mayor Potam Whitehead, yes. And Council Member Crawford, yes. Council member Edgar, yes. Mayor Mlullen, yes. Council member Radner, yes. Motion carried. Thank you. Okay, to the city manager report. Okay. 11 A1. Director Moroni, stay right there and go through this one for us, please.

Um, yes. Uh in front of you is the final approval and pay application number nine as well as the change order. And this is to final out our 2024 water main replacement project M764. Um this is just to uh balance out the project and to refund the um retainage that we had for $15,000. Okay. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Uh discussion. Roll call, please. Council member Crawford, yes. Council member Edgar, yes. Mayor Mlullen, yes. Council member Radner, yes. Mayor Prom Whitehead,

yes. Motion carried. Thank you. Okay. And we have 11. Thanks, Kim. 11B1, Finance and Assessing, a resolution to authorize budget amendment 2026-1. Director Sandre Crawford is here.

Good evening, Madame Mayor. Mayor Pro Tim Whitehead, City Council members, City Manager Tongate. Before you is an approval for a resolution to authorize budget number 2026-1. The proposed amendments incorporate expenditures from the fiscal year 2425 that were not completed at year end and were required to be rolled over as the actual expense will be incurred in this fiscal year 2526 along with other adjustments as identified. The general fund amendments are is primarily to reflect the balance of several small federal grants not originally budgeted along with the rollover of capital expenditure budget expenditures budgeted from 2425 that were not expended for the municipal services department move along with the 2024 camera replacement project for the special revenue funds. The library and parks and wreck funds are rolling over contributions of revenue received in the prior year that will be expended in this fiscal year 2526. The local street fund is rolling over capital outlay budgeted for the M770 Northfield Road construction project and is increasing revenue for additional act 51 revenue based on prior year's collections. CDPG is increasing revenue from fiscal year 2425 that was required to be deferred due to the timing of when reimbursements were received. The debt service fund, a proposed budget for the community center debt service fund includes the required bond debt service on the debt issued in June of 2025 along with the new property tax revenue collected to repay the annual required principal and interest. the capital project funds. The city-owned property fund is being amended to

transfer the remaining fund balance to the hub construction fund to offset construction costs. The hub construction fund is creating a budget to match the overall construction budget, including all expenditures and various funding sources. The parks and wreck improvement fund is being amended to remove the amounts originally budgeted for the hub construction as they are now budgeted in that new fund. The special assessment district fund is being amended to adjust the original budgets to the current overall projected budget. The enterprise fund, the water and sewer fund amendments is to roll over expenditures budgeted remaining from fiscal year 2425 on two construction projects. The proposed budget amendment has an impact on the fund balance of general fund while keeping the estimated fund balance at approximately 17% of annual expenditures. The amendments to all other funds keep the fund balance at targeted ranges and are prepared in compliance with the state of Michigan requirements and guidelines. The recommended action is approval of resolution to authorize budget amendment 20 2026-1.

Is there a motion yet? We have um Are you making a motion? I'll make a motion. Good. Second. Thank you. Um uh just discussion or questions. Uh it seemed like in 2000 we were getting $5 million from the state state shared revenue. And did I read it right? 4590 now. So almost up to 2000 level. Is that correct? Sandre, do you want to answer that? I can take a shot at if you want. We're slowly getting back to where we were. Yes. Slowly. So,

well, things were going great for a while. Let's just say that. And now in as of the last budget agreement the state came up with to end their budget um short issue um we are set to lose about I think it's 90,000 in or is it a little more than that? It's about that about that in state shared revenue. Yeah. Um, but mayor, if you went back to the year 2000, and I've done this, so I can tell you, and you looked at in accumulative value, how much we have lost from what we were getting in the year 2000 versus all the years to now, the number is somewhere in the range of 24 to$25 million that was taken from us by the state.

Yes, we should have some tariffs. We should bet. We should enact some tariffs. Yes. True. Thank you so much. Um we uh we have a motion to and a second. Second. Thank you. Um roll call vote to accept the budget amendment. Uh council member Edgar. Yes. Mayor Mlullen. Yes. Council member Radner. Yes. Mayor Prom Whitehead. Yes. And council member Crawford. Yes. Motion carried. Thank you. Thank you, Director Crawford. And now we have 11C1. We have our friend David Doer is back at the podium. Hi Dave.

Hello. Good evening again. Before you tonight is pay application five and change order three for the event hub project. The construction manager, architect, and city administration have approved this payment. The change orders for for construction and field changes associated with this project. Our construction manager, Frank Rewald and Suns, will disperse these funds to the various contracts on behalf of the city. This payment is for a period ending October 31st, 2025. Uh, currently we're about 35% complete with the project and it is recommended the EventHub pay application number five and change order number three for the amounts of $720,50 and0 be approved. Funding is available in the event hub fund. Happy to answer any questions you may have. We need a motion and a second.

So moved. Second. Thank you. Uh questions about uh the payment for the event hub? I do. Madame Mayor, Council Member Edgar, how far along are we in in paying this off? So price-wise, we're about 35% complete. Um it varies a little bit with what trades are out there and what they're at, but I would say 35 to 40% complete. And is it it's it stayed within budget? Uh yes, we are on we are on budget on time and on budget right now. So the weather has been good to us. Yes. How long do you think they'll they'll continue to work?

They will work all winter. So uh we'll get to it with the city manager elevate update, but they're going to work all winter inside that building. Great. Any further questions? Roll call, please. Mayor Mlen, yes. Council member Radner, yes. Mayor Prom Whitehead, yes. Council member Crawford, yes. Council member Edgar, yes. Motion carried. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Dave. And I I'm going to ask you to stay right there for the Elevator Park update, council members. So, council members, at your seats, I've included um a packet. I've asked Benny to put it up on the screen if he can. There we go. So, this is going to be the new format for the event hub and bandshell construction progress report updates that I'm going to be giving to you at the second meeting of every month. I'm not going to read this in its entirety. Um, we've talked about the event hub a lot tonight. Um, I do want to point you to page two, um, which is really the summary of where things are as of October, November. Um, as Dave mentioned, um, the financial summary at the bottom there, we are about 40% build. Um and and the project is about 35 to 40% completed. Um I think just a couple of quick um things I wanted to point out. Um you may have noticed that we are also adding a a drive over at our library where we're going to I think it's being poured to today was it?

Um which will allow patrons to come in and out of the library parking lot much easier. I also wanted to mention that the floor for the event hub space itself has now been poured inside. Um, and I think they're going to pour the band shell floor this week. Um, and then you know the internal work obviously they've got the buildings partitioned off now. The internal work will begin in earnest now over the course of the winter. I have no reason to believe this project isn't going to be built um every bit on time and of course under budget or within budget. Um any things you want to add?

Uh I did so mayor [clears throat] and council your packet there does have some pictures. Those pictures are about two weeks old because they're end of the month. I did provide Benny with some updated pictures from today and this week. Can you go back to the one with the You go back one to the city manager's comment. The floor is now poured in the event hub area.

Uh you can see the carpenters have visced off and uh plastic off the big garage door openings. Uh that wood there is an opening for the construction crews to enter and exit because the building will be heated throughout the winter. Um this is a kitchen. The far end is the commercial kitchen. As you get closer, some of those plumbing fixtures coming out of the ground, the pipes is the restrooms. So all the underground mechanicals are now installed. Uh just a piping for it. So, electrical, mechanical, plumbing. Again, this is the event hub area. Uh, I think there's a couple other ones on here as well. So, this is the exterior. They're working on the air barrier and the masonry work. You'll see uh the sophets are getting built underneath the canopy. I believe the next picture is the far corner of the um commercial kitchen where the block is now up. So, all those all those areas.

I'm curious what's the blue color and the other color. just it's a it's a vapor barrier between the block and the veneer block. So, they put a insulation in there and it's like a vapor uh water barrier. So, it's not it's not insulation like paper. It's paint. No, it's designed that way. The bottom proofing the bottom black is waterproofing. All those areas there with the plastic are garage doors that will open up for events and things that we have. And I think the last picture is some of the block that's being installed uh on the commercial kitchen. Yeah, there's there's some of the the split face block that's being and that's the final facade brick block of is the final facade.

That looks great. And I also gave so I I also and I don't know if city manager wants to set this up. I provided some pictures for Oak Park Woods as well. Oh, good. I can go over those if you'd like, please.

Okay, so this is the warming kitchen and storage room on the now west side of the shelter. Uh you'll see a little window there and there's a small countertop. Inside that first room is a new and improved uh warming kitchen. We'll have some light amenities and it will allow people that rent the pavilion to warm up their food and things like that. The whole back area is storage uh which is about I don't know 15 times bigger than it was before. Uh this is under the pavilion. You'll see we have some new wood um framing there that they're going to be installing. The concrete has been poured under the existing pavilion. Uh so that will that work will be continuing. Uh this area is the main part where the play structures are. There are couple million dollars of the play structures are going to be installed in this area. This will for the most part all be a poured in place uh safe accessible surface that kids will be able to play on. You can see some of the hills in there, especially on the left and right side. There are elevation changes that kids can roll up and down some hills and there's some rope climbs and things. Uh this is some of the area they're paving. As you come from shelter 2, you can kind of see the forms. This is some of the new concrete sidewalk they're getting ready to pour. It may be poured. This picture was last week. It may be poured by now, but that all that whole area is all a sidewalk uh as it comes together near the shelter and where it wraps around the park. I think the last So that's the new bathroom. Uh originally they were going to go pre-cast bathroom like we did a couple years ago, but uh lead times were extended, so they decided to stick build it. So, it's a traditional wood construction. Uh, and then the last picture, DT, we finally got our street lights.

It's nice to have the bathroom and the kitchen separated. So, the street lights, uh, there's three new decorative street lights in the park. Those were delivered and installed last week. So, you can see some of the landscape blocks there and our new uh, street lighting. That street lighting is the same as on Nine Mile and it's same as the nine lights we have at the event hub. So very stylish and effective. Awesome. That might Yeah, that's it. Thank you, C.

Council members, I won't um give any other updates on that. We've talked about the community center already a little bit this evening. Dave, great job on all the projects that you work on for us. Um I'm so excited about where we're going here as a city. So, I'll take any questions. And if not, that completes the city manager report for this evening. Any questions for the city manager? No. Uh, call to the audience. Do you want to read them?

Call to the audience. Each speaker's remarks are a matter of public record. The speaker alone is responsible for his or her comments, and the city of Oak Park does not, by permitting such remarks, support, endorse, or accept the content thereof as being true or accurate. Any person while being heard at a city council meeting may be called to order by the chair or any council member for failure to be gerain to the business of the city vulgarity or personal attacks on persons or institutions. There is a threeinut time limit per speaker.

Thank you madame mayor. I have four cards. Um, first up, Elizabeth Fritz Codle. [snorts] Hi, good after or good evening, council. Uh, apologies for the hat. It was a work from home day. Um so um yes I wanted to come today um to I'm sure you may you may not be aware there was um a quite a lot of police activity uh between Oak Park public safety and what Border Patrol, the US Border Patrol at Rowan Oak and Woodside Drive. Today I live on Woodside Drive. Um, when I observed that, I decided to walk down um with my phone to um just see what's going on in this heightened environment, my community. I want to make sure that everything uh is that I'm involved as much as um civily possible. Um, and I wanted to let you know that as I was approaching I I did have my phone out and the video rolling. Uh, the police officer with Oak Park Public Safety, there were several. One of them asked me, well, told me that I needed to go back inside because it was a active crime scene. Um, and they needed to bring the dogs out into the middle of the street or a dog out in the middle of the street to um to track. Um, and so when I um asked wh why uh another police officer came up to me and said, you know, you need to step back. You need to step back. You're obstructing, you know, you're you could be obstructing justice. Um and you're in the or in the process

of obstructing justice. Um and I did comply. I was polite and did so. Um nothing happened after that. So that was that was kind of the framework I just wanted to bring to your attention that that was kind of what started out my thinking around this. Um I feel that Oak Park public safety which I think is um evaluated at 5050 55% of our general fund. Right? So 55 cents of every dollar that I pay in a tax to city of Oak Park is going to the public safety department. Um the and I have the video and I'm not Um the way that I was spoken to and addressed was a manner that I feel was unnecessarily unc unnecessarily confrontational for an individual who was complying and was um following you know kind of the the first amendment rights that I have to record and to observe um and not obstruct. Um, I just think it would behoove public safety to remind those public servants who are working there that the residents are entitled to observe and record um during the course of their duties as long as we are not obstructing. Um and that uh the community residents particularly now in this heightened environment um do feel that a good deal of us if you look at Facebook and all these places that due process is is worth recording and watching. Um and that um and I think that was my time. Um so I apologize for running over. Um thank you very much for

Thank you so much for coming. Yeah. Don't be a stranger. Come again. Thank you,

Julia Wessonberg. Good evening everybody. Um, my name is Julia and I'm a resident here in Oak Park. I'm a nurse, a mom, and I'm 47 years old and this is the first time I've ever felt so moved to attend a city council meeting. Um, I'm here tonight because I witnessed a video taken tonight that took place down on Rowan Oak Street, just down the street from my own home. Um, and it was very violent and unacceptable. A Border Patrol agent threw a woman to the ground, tased her, and dragged her into a truck. I really recommend you go watch the video when you get home if you have not seen that. And that was just down the street from my own house where me and my little girl live. I don't know the details of this altercation, but nonetheless, it leaves me with so many questions. The main concern being that witnesses did not see an EMS called to the scene. When a law enforcement tases someone, the standard of care should be medical evaluation. Okay. Um, this isn't happening in a vacuum. Michigan has seen a nearly 150% increase in ICE arrests and many ICE leadership positions are being filled by the current or former Border Patrol agents. To me, that really blurs the line between Border Patrol and ICE these days. Additionally, federal agents are now operating aggressively in cities just like ours with almost no local oversight. I'm asking this council to seek answers and accountability. Why are federal immigrant agents using this level of force in our city? What is the role here? What is the relationship between our own taxpayer funded police

department and these federal agents? I just feel like we really deserve transparency. We deserve safety and we deserve to know that the people enforcing laws in our city aren't harming the people who live here. And that's all I have to say. So, thank you so much for your time tonight. Thank you for coming in. It takes courage to come in and talk and bravo.

Uh, next up, Kenneth Sherman. [snorts] Uh, good evening, Ken Sherman, Drum Street, No Park. The gentleman who presented the uh slideshow on the uh development of Naima wrote, "To me as a resident, what was not discussed nor were uh questions raised by city council in my estimation had to do with um how is all this going to be addressed by public safety in terms of providing services by public safety which has a less than full um you know department of uh public safety. We don't have enough staffing as it is. So, if you're going to do all this increase in housing and you know what was described in the slideshow, where does public safety get the additional staffing to provide services to the residents and businesses that are coming in? And also what was not discussed was how is the need for additional municipal services besides public safety going to be addressed? Where is that staffing going to come from to provide services to new businesses, new housing, new residents? Thank you.

Thank you.

Don Jones, last person to speak. you're going to make a mistake. Anyway, um I just want to um associate myself with your remarks. We knew that was coming. We need a policy. We need to know what is local law enforcement going to do when the federalization of our police is occurring. It's a problem. I don't know how much of the 55% that goes to public safety comes from federal and state funds, but it's a lot. And when they come knocking on the door and say, "We're going to take your funds unless you work with ICE, I [snorts] don't know what I'd do. So, we better think about it because it's rolling this way." But anyway, on another to go back to a positive thing, I love living in Oak Park. I'm excited about Oak Park. I tell everybody to move to Oak Park. I think it's great that we're going to have an event hub. Uh whereas in the past the recreation department has had Labor Day off that leaves the event of open for me. [laughter] So we're only 10 months out so it's not too early to start planning the people that are planners. I need your help and um thank you very much. It's great job. Appreciate all you do. All staff does. I appreciate the people in the audience and the people at home and the people that'll watch this on the um

Thank you. video. Thanks. Thank you. Anything further? Um uh now it's called to the council. Um uh Benny, do you have a couple pictures in there for me?

One minute. The Oak Park Youth Assistance always does something special at the holidays for our residents who are in financial straits. And now with all the new happenings, we have more of us having financial problems. If you are at all able, please buy um a holiday gift card and take it into the library. It will be donated anonymously to one of our needy families. We can use your help. Um if you'd rather, I put this on my Facebook page also, and it's on the city Facebook page. Um there's a QR code. Uh if you don't want to go and purchase the gift card and bring it in, you can donate directly through that QR code. And um let's take care of our each other during this holiday time. Thank you so much for that one. Next slide. Benny. Nope. Any more? Nope. Okay, we will you can imagine the pictures. Then um there was a climate um summit yesterday uh put on by Amida Amida Detroit and uh it was stewarding the earth summit and I thought we all actually have climate anxiety. We're worried about what's happening to the climate and the in the world and the environment and it's time

to turn our anxiety into some positive action. Um the the class I attended was about getting your teens involved. The Detroit Zoo has a program for high school kids during their vacation times. Um there's a green fest in April. Uh they do recycling of electronics and other things. The the zoo's uh famous zoo poop compost buy is always available um and popular, but the teens can can help with this. Uh during their school breaks, uh there is a there is another um group called repair the world. It's a national service organization and their focus is on the environment. uh planting food gardens, getting youth and family engaged, repair the world. Um another one um uh right [clears throat] across 11 mile in Berkeley is Yad Ezra um which has a garden and uh place to give food and uh they're they're looking for help especially in the spring. So, um, that was a worthwhile thing. Then Emily at the library used to run a vintage store. So, when she puts on her free teas in the library, every second Tuesday at 2:00, the tables are set with vintage um, tablecloths, uh, which is kind of fun. and it gets a bunch of people who don't know each other together to be a community and more of that is needed. So, thank you

Emily in the library. Um, Mayor Prom Sean Whitehead. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Have a good night everybody. We've had a productive council session tonight. Uh, lots of big things in the way in the upcoming years and we're super excited. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Solomon Rner. I just want to speak for a moment about the issue that the two ladies raised about uh the law enforcement and and the border patrol. And just to give you an idea of where this is coming from from my perspective, there's two things that I do as a lawyer. I'm a civil rights lawyer and in that capacity, I have sued law enforcement in probably two dozen states. I also have a policy in my office that if you're law enforcement or military, I'll work for you for free. So, I'm not anti- police at all. I'm very pro police so long as they're doing their jobs. But the that 1% really creates a problem. With that in mind, I've watched certainly hundreds of videos of law enforcement interacting with the public and people's cell phone videos, dash cam videos, body cam videos, and so on. And it's very easy to get caught up in whatever it is that's being shared. Obviously, we have to know the full extent of what happened. And if the border patrol agent in that video did something wrong, it's certainly documented. And I'll hope that he's going to be held accountable. I don't know because I saw the clip going around. It's short. We don't really know what led up to it and it certainly seems questionable, but I can think of a number of ways in which it certainly there's mitigating factors as far as what our law enforcement officers did or what you say they did. Um, so long as it's recorded, you can certainly show our police chief. We have one of the very best police chiefs that I've ever dealt with or worked with. Um, and he calls balls and strikes the way they are. So, if you show him something that somebody did that's wrong, he'll take action. Um, but at the same time, when you're on a crime scene, certainly, especially if you don't know what's going on or why people are being arrested or what the police activity is all about, I tell my clients this all the time, just do what they say. You're not going to win an argument with the police on the street. If they say back up, back up. They're allowed to do that. They're allowed to tell you, "You can record, but you got to back up." They're not allowed to tell you that you're not allowed to record and they're not

allowed to. There's all kinds of restrictions of what they're allowed to do. But if you're getting close to a crime scene and they tell you to back up, it's just best to back up. You can keep your recording on, but back up. You definitely don't want to interfere. Um, and again, if you see something that you think is problematic, bring it to the police chief's attention. Chief Cooper, Director Cooper is one of the best out there. Okay. But thank you both for coming in and voicing your concern. Thank you. Yeah. after after the meeting. Um, Council Member Julie Edgar.

Um, I I concur with um, Councilman Radner that our public safety department is a a very good department and um, they respect people's rights. However, I'm with you on this one. I think we are in the middle of a a moral crisis in this country and I don't know who these agents are that we're cooperating with because they're masked and they don't have identification. This is a problem. Um there's lots of unconstitutional activity going on. Thank you for taping that. I don't think it's going to go anywhere. We know it's not going to go anywhere because everybody's doing this now, right? So, um I have talked to our city manager about um perhaps uh creating some sort of ordinance that prohibits our public safety department from working with these federal agents, whoever they are. Um, and I think there's a a sense of trepidation because if we don't, we stand to lose and it draws attention to Oak Park and we don't want to get ourselves into any sort of bind. On the other hand, I think sometimes you need to take a stand and get in that bind because we're not going to see an end to this if people um comply with these agents, masked agents. So anyway, it's all distressing and once again I'm angry about what's happening in this country. So thank you for coming in.

Council member uh Stephanie Crawford. On a lighter note, um I'd like to remind all of our residents um about our holiday pantry giveaway. Um, it's sponsored by our the city of Oak Park, our public safety forgotten harvest, and the Calaldian American Chamber of Commerce. It's on Wednesday, November 19th from 2 to 4:00 p.m. Anyone, it's uh we they will be passing out baskets um to the first 250 vehicles. So, if you know someone who is struggling um this year uh have food insecurities, please invite them. Uh with the holiday coming up, shop local. We got some uh I know Councilman uh Councilwoman Edgar always promotes our local shops and we got some wonderful shops here in Oak Park. And um for anyone celebrating the holiday, I just want to say um have a good um have a a wonderful holiday. Stay safe, stay warm, and again, always be kind to one another. And good night.

Where where is this pantry giveaway? November 19th, the pantry giveaway is at the uh Our Mother of Perpetual Health, the Old Fatima Church. Mhm. The address is 13500 Oak Park Boulevard. Bring your mittens. Bring your mittens. It's going to be cold. Yes. Okay. I'll be there. Thank you for coming and participating. There being no further business to come before this council, this meeting is adjourned. And I need the little girl to come up here and help me with the gavvel. I don't know that we've ever done [snorts] as much business