Remarks by Mark Meadows
98 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 4
“We created our own presentations with regard to it. The city manager attended meeting after meeting within the neighborhoods.”
“That's our job. So I think at some point, and sooner rather than later, it would be good to have like a report on what we have received since the income tax was approved and who's paying that income tax because as we know about a third of that comes from non-residents within this community and I think that was valuable in the sales pitch that we made before. but also as to what we've been able to accomplish with regard to what I would consider to be a large, unfunded liability related to our pensions, which are constitutionally mandated. With regard to the OPEB that you have mentioned, that's…”
“In terms of community engagement, people need to remember, it lost the first time it was on the ballot. It got a big no. And there were things learned with regard to that. And there was more information that was provided to the community with regard to it. Because some people even told me when we were going door to door on the second try... that they now understood exactly what this meant in terms of their own resources. And we probably didn't do as good a job the first time through in making sure that everybody knew that. And so the community engagement part at the beginning that…”
“My memory is Detroit actually has a surcharge that they receive. So this happened. Sometimes there are laws that say only cities over 750,000 can do X, Y, and Z. But I think taking a leadership role on this as a community that gets other university communities within the state to ask their lobbyists also, we're likely to have a transition in authority in the State House this year. And maybe this is a great opportunity to get that prohibition removed through legislation. Because it's, you know, we've got a couple of family members that work at the university raising money. And the amount of…”
“For the longest time, we had a user, an organization that was here for a lengthy period of time. During the conversations at the financial health team, I think it was looking towards can we run that type of program ourselves and utilize the auditorium as a local talent development, but also... to present shows based on that and utilize as a revenue source of some kind. So I think that was the nature of the conversations more than just trying to think of something to do with the auditorium.”
“If you look at the second bullet, you know, the use of fund for specific purposes listed presented with proposed budget, this does go backwards. I don't think I've seen that. I didn't see that in 2015 to 2019, for instance, but that was the Ted Staten approach. There was always a list of options that were associated with using, you know, staff might like to do X. If council agrees this is how much it costs, but we're going to have to use fund balance to do that, then it's on us because it's on us anyway, but it's a lot more information than sometimes we've received in the past. And it's…”
“But isn't there an issue right now about that count? And maybe you should bring that up so the public's aware of that, too.”
“I would also say that we should ask the city attorney to weigh in on this. It requires the count of all, quote, free persons, meaning persons, not persons who are not actual citizens of the United States or anything else. It's everybody. And so the proposed rule is a violation of the Constitution. It hasn't stopped this administration any time anyway. But I think we should ask for an opinion of the city attorney on it.”
“Well, I'm supportive of both these proposals, 22 and 24. And I'll just say that I think that we do have boards and commissions that meet on a periodic basis or as an unneeded basis. And I would look at that organization or that group in a similar manner, but maybe a quarterly, to get an update on where we are with the budget and see if there's any changes that they would like to make in terms of recommendations to us. Again, we have a group that's already been trained. I think we all, meaning the group members anyway, thought that maybe it should be a little larger group than, what were we,…”
“And I think it's a little bit different than, you know, as I saw the technology task force, it was like where are we at and where should we be, you know, at some point in the future. And I think that's basically what the report sort of talked about. You know, I think this is a different deal. This is, you know, for one thing, our finances, we can predict whatever we want, but there's no question that every budget is guesswork. You know, it can't be anything but that because we can't really predict the future and what's going to happen, and that's why when you talked about... We thought we…”
“But that can be handled with a recommendation from the CFO as to how she sees this actually functioning and how it should function. So I think that's worthwhile.”
“A person can't serve on more than one under our ordinance, but in terms of an ad hoc committee, there's nothing that prevents a person who's serving on the DDA from also participating and serving on something like that.”
“Well, I'm a big supporter of this. I will say that anecdotally, you know, my neighbors and others within the community have indicated that they're seeing more deer. And the fact that you're here tonight as opposed to what happened last year where the city manager forgot to bring this to us until January or whatever and we weren't able to run a program is probably the reason that they're seeing more deer. But Meridian Township has a program, correct? Yes. And what about Lansing? Do they have a program? Yes. All right, so that part of the region makes sense. But I'll just note that we're also…”
“A COUPLE OF THINGS. I DO WANT TO ADDRESS THE IDEA, JUST BRIEFLY, OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION LOSING THEIR RIGHT TO INVESTIGATE. BECAUSE THAT'S BEEN REPEATEDLY STATED IN A NUMBER OF COMMENTS THAT WE'VE SEEN. AND I WANT TO POINT OUT THAT THE ORDINANCE HAS CHANGED, HAS THIS LANGUAGE IN IT. The Human Rights Commission shall establish and implement complaint procedures to receive and review complaints alleging violations of Chapter 22, Article 2 of this Code, the Civil Rights Ordinance, hold hearings on such complaints, and make determinations on referring such complaints for mediation or to…”
“Yes, I'd like item 4.9 moved to the business agenda, which is the parking agreement with HBMBM East Lansing.”
“Yeah, I wonder if Brad would talk a little bit about sort of the two things that seem to need some adjustment in the agreement. Why don't I start out? Okay. The provision of 5B, the parking permit fee, access card fee and payment, Here's how it reads. The monthly rate set forth above shall be effective upon the issuance of a certificate of occupancy for the project the effective date. I don't think there's any issue regarding that. The monthly rate shall be subject to adjustment beginning one year after the first day of the calendar month after the effective date and annually thereafter Each…”
“I'm not really saying they're conflicting. I mean we could readjust every year and still add five bucks after every five years. I mean if that's what's intended.”
“Well, I'm not really keen on us negotiating this at a council meeting. So I think my question really is, is there a way for us to put this off a week? I mean, can we use our discussion-only meeting night to also take action on this particular contract after you've had an opportunity to sit down and develop appropriate language that would reach that result?”
“Mostly a comment. This is substantially different than the last agreement that we reached with the same developers, as I think I mentioned to at least some people. That in our prior agreement with them, there was an annual adjustment of 1.5% or the CPI, whichever was less. And one thing that happens when we do, you know, five bucks every five years, although I do think that needs to be changed from may to shall so that we have five bucks every five years. if we're going to go forward with that number, that we aren't going to keep up with the rate of inflation that's based on the three and…”
“So the $5 would meet essentially what we did. CPI has been low. So, okay. Got it. Well, I feel more comfortable with the $5 then. You know, I didn't have any background from our earlier conversation with regard to that. So I appreciate that.”
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
“I think I was absent for this discussion. But this is an increase in the capability of the city manager to sign a contract without it coming to us. Correct. Can you just quickly go over how we came to the 50 grand?”
“Yeah, I just can confess, as I listened to Councilmember Singh's comments, I'm concerned about the $50,000 I guess, floor on the prevailing wage in the community after our hearing that this is really going to only apply then to a very small number of contracts out there. One of the things that I think we've stuck with over a long period of time is our insistence that our agreements have prevailing wage associated with it. So I'm wondering whether we can separate this question, this motion, to have a separate vote on the prevailing wage policy from the other policies. I think there's a bunch…”
“Okay, I'll move an amendment to remove the words over $50,000 in the prevailing wage policy explanation as part of that policy.”