Remarks by Kerry Ebersole Singh
106 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 4 of 5
“Oh. Thank god, Brookover's not here. You crushed me. OK.”
“further questions. He had us all with fuel savings.”
“I am of the opinion that we will be investing in Hanna for a long term to keep this building useful. So that feels an easier investment in a boiler system. Now City Hall, there's a lot of questions. Now I recall some of the biggest questions. Yeah, we have lots of folks interested in buying that lot. I'm not sure if any of us would want to give up ownership of that lot. Two, we don't have the money to build a new city hall right now. Three, there were, I know our former city manager talked to MSUFCU downtown to see if there was enough capacity for the city staff there. The challenges with…”
“Yeah. So, anyway, just wanted to tease out a couple of those things, so...”
“One follow-up to your presentation and then an additional question. The numbers that you cited, I think there were six and two. Is that specifically within East Lansing?”
“Last year, we, within the City of East Lansing, were looking to help support our community, address a number of issues we were seeing unfold downtown. And happy to have your nonprofit engaged, recognizing the prior work. Are you still doing work within City of Lansing as well?”
“And I believe you got recently a state appropriations for $500,000. Congratulations on that. Thank you. That's important. And is that going to be focused within MidMichigan for the work that you're doing within communities?”
“And then remind me, because I think when we first heard a presentation from a dance piece, we may have reviewed this information, but recognizing the engagement, the relationship model, what do you build towards?”
“Well, thank you for that, for recapping that this goes long beyond just a night's activities or engagement. It is much offering supports for a life map, ultimately. So I appreciate that work, and thank you.”
“I'll pass for the seat well I one quick comment is we had just prior to this meeting had the University Student Commission's first meeting of the year so yes the students arrived back to town in August and we had our University Student Commission again their role is to help represent student organizations and the student community at large with our operational government as well as our community events at large. So I'm really excited for their ongoing participation supported by Elise Hodges who's been wonderful in the staff liaison role as we last updated our commission ordinance to reflect…”
“A couple questions. One, I just want to, again, ensure that I heard you. For the water and sewer work, we would increase races or rates to recapture?”
“Ron wants to jump in. Yeah, Ron did. He perked up. He's being called to the stage.”
“And they assume the public has a line of sight into that 10-year model?”
“My head's going in a couple of different ways. I do have a bond question as well in terms of, guess what? Bonds have been in the news a lot. US Treasuries have been in the bond news a lot. Will that impact or not impact our municipal bonds that we would be pursuing. I shouldn't assume anything, but that's a big question because that impacts what we will have to pay back and that also impacts what we may or may not be raising rates on our community members on. So this is all what's the dollar figure? So I don't know if you want to start with the bond question first.”
“Thank you. That's helpful. And I guess, especially as we're looking forward to September 22nd with a possible vote is from my perspective, I just want to ensure not only me who will be voting on this, but also our community has a good understanding of what the city will be on the hook for to pay back and, or. what the outlook looks like in our rates over the next 10 years, because there's a push and pull there. At the end of the day, I'm really concerned about people's pocketbook right now across the community, our state, and the world, frankly.”
“Again, you mentioned oil markets before. I think both the Wall Street Journal as well as the New York Times reported that they're predicting this war could go into beyond January of 2020. Nine. Um, so I just, again, as we all watch the news in terms of the middle East is erupting on top of what's happening in Russia and Ukraine. Um, even now we're supposed to have some sweetheart deal with Venezuela. Anyway, I say this all to say that the outlook's not great. I can't imagine the outlook is that good. If we're doing this in two bites, like even though the first bite may safeguard us to some…”
“just because just responding to what you offered and then also some of bond counsel this next step doesn't strap us anything so we would still have a runway to hear from community but we need the you know the final what it's going to cost and what the impacts on rates and all that to your point it's going to take some time so i would say i'm still open you know to supporting this next week if it's on the agenda i'm recognizing it doesn't hamstring us in any way i'm looking for the nods from the bond council as well i see yours okay would the interim city manager care to add anything to this…”
“questions councilmember Singh just on the and forgive me if I miss this but I know the EMT paramedic program and then prerequisites you're still down in terms of being able to fully staff the third no what we are we were”
“And I know when you've presented in the past, I mean, when you look at your total staff, non-paramedic or EMT, is there interest to pursue that? Or what would you say percentage that you've seen over the years that people want to pursue that?”
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
“Yeah, and I think that's, and again, I have a workforce background and have worked at the cross-section of kind of higher ed as well as Fortune 500 companies, but, and from that work, It's who wants to pursue leadership opportunities, not only special skill sets, but also kind of a core foundational community priority, and I think departmental priority as it relates to some of the I know we've spent a lot of time about use of force, de-escalation, the crisis intervention. What are those, almost like that core curriculum that is beyond the MCOL's requirement that if you want to work in East…”
“I'm a huge believer in that, and for all the reasons that you mentioned, and deeply appreciative you understand the investment that we've made, including increasing personnel, funded personnel as well as training. I guess that's what I'm asking for, a layer deeper to have an understand beyond MCOLs, recognizing you have additional hours that officers are participating in training, we've sat up here and said what we've heard from the community and have purposed additional dollars like on the Joe Schmarrow piece, right? And okay, but like what is the continuum? Okay, is it Joe Schmarrow? Is it…”
“And that's for DO, so it doesn't take two of us. Okay.”
“Yeah. We're only required to have four DOs a year, right?”
“I'm just working through all the numbers that in terms of and and we've already have I think at least in the August meeting three of us talked about bringing the policies before this this body so and we can do that at a separate meeting dedicated to that if that's what people want I'm just thinking in terms of the general periodic updates Yeah, no, well, this would be a vote. So we would need it on the business agenda. Correct.”