Township Board - Regular Meeting

Oh to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all individ public comment.

No, none. How about online? Anybody else? Uh, village resident. Village resident online. Do you have any public comment?

Take that to know. Okay. Going, going, gone. Approval of the agenda. I'd like to add PLA on to put it under new. No, it should probably be under committee reports because they'd like it to be a semi-regular offering. Oh, okay. That's fine. We'll just put it under reports of under zoning administrator. All right. Would you would you mind doing it first just because the person reporting needs to be to another meeting? Oh, sure. That'd be great. We'll put it in front of uh I don't care in front of treasures report. Anybody else amend the agenda?

No. None. Okay. Minutes approval. Anybody uh approval of the minutes of regular township board meeting which January 21st, 2026. We move for approval as presented. Okay. Is there a second? That's second. Any discussion? None being heard. All in favor? I oppose. This carried. How about the approval of the minutes for the special board meeting minutes of January 26? Members, please look, you have an updated draft of those minutes, right? And the difference is, okay,

on your original draft, I neglected to seell out members present, members absent. So that's the that's the only change. Okay. I would make a motion to approve the special meeting that's for January 26, 2026. Second. Any discussion? Being heard. All in favor say I. Opposed? That's carried. Approval of the minutes special township board meeting minutes of February 6th, 2026. I would work for approval of those minutes as presented. Is there a second? Second.

Second by Ed. Okay. Any discussion? None being heard. All in favor say I. I. Post. That's carried. Approval of the minutes of special board meeting of February 11th, 2026. I'll make that motion to approve the minutes from the February 11th special board meeting 2026. Okay. Second. Second. Thank you. Uh any discussion? None being heard. All in favor say I. I. Oppose. That's carried. Okay. Thank you. We'll move on to lake management report.

Well, thank you. Um just a little bit of background. All of you may remember that last year, actually I think it was right about this time, we entered into a contract with Heiser and Associates and that followed several years of having um PLM M lake management company as both our lake manager and our applicator and the invasive species committee hearing feedback from the community but also internally just felt that last year it was time to explore segregating those duties. So we entered into an RF can process the board approved subsequently chose um Kaiser and Associates and before giving the report I would like to say we as a board or a committee had a discussion last meeting about how blown away we've been with their service this year and how pleased we are. So tonight we have with us um the principal Mark Kaiser and then the project manager that we work with probably more dayto day Natalie Chrome.

Okay. Thank you. Welcome. Who speaks first? Okay. Why not? Do you want us to move? No, we we've got it. There was a request for a larger screen. So I'm teasing. a week ago. Jumbotron,

we get you to sponsor that, Danny. We'll put your name on it. Making my donations at the window. Feel the same way. Yeah. It's twice a year. Watch sleep on. Um, the other thing I'll say while or are you ready to go now? I think we're ready. Okay. I was just gonna say something if we needed something. Go ahead.

Well, good afternoon everybody. Thank you. It was a pleasure to be presenting to the board today. We uh we've really enjoyed this year working with the invasive species committee. Uh great feedback all along. I think one of the things that was really beneficial through this process is the ability for us to interact on almost a monthly basis in a formal uh committee meeting interact at that committee meeting just with updates new information that's uh become available that's made available to us and then an exchange of information what we're seeing uh with the committee uh as well. So it's uh is I think it's that's an important aspect of what we're doing is because we could step in as the third party consultant and everything would be could become a black box and then people start to ask questions. You start to have different conversations going on back and forth. So really that frequent communication is important for us to be able to relay what we're seeing and and that information then go out to to the lake community. So, what Natalie and I will kind of co-present today. We'll tag team a little bit here. We've got 33 slides this morning, but we're going to try to go through those quickly. Now, some of these slides are uh might be a little bit hard to see for the folks in the back, but certainly for you folks up here, we'll we'll do a lot of fingerpointing to the screen of of what we're seeing here. I'll start out with uh some of the backdrop of the types of things that we've done on the lake this year and then as we get into the data Natalie will talk about that. Natalie spent a fair amount of time on the lake today as as well as a couple of our other staff. Um you know it's the startup year so we were catching up on just some of the geography but I think picking up quickly what had been done in the past or what hadn't been done in the past what had been seen or had not been looked at in

the past. and we'll try to relay that uh with what we talked about today. But the information here is reflected in our annual report and I think you've all received electronic copies of that report. Uh a lot more detailed information in that report uh than what you'll see here today, but we're trying to hit the highlights. Now, one of the important things that we'll we'll say up front uh that we always do because it's important to document what we've seen and what we've done and that includes any of the sampling uh that we've any water quality samples we've collected, the laboratory data. It's important to keep that available because as we look back in history of the work that's been done, uh we see some gaps u in and some of the previous reporting, we don't see the lab report. So, as we have questions about maybe how some of those data were generated or what they represent or how they were calculated, it that becomes the black box. And we'll have a few illustrations of that today. And not to uh speak poorly about what was done in the past, but just to bring forth that idea of if we have good information as we go, it's easier then to be able to say here's what it was, here's how it's changed, here's what we should be looking at and potentially here's what should be done. And I think when we have gaps there, we have to sometimes fill those in and we may have to skip a step or that bumps out a little bit further. So, uh, for the most part, uh, we now have completed all of our services that we had in our original scope for the lake. There will still be interactions. Uh, there's ongoing discussions about uh, bidding for a new applicator potentially and then talking about some of the changes for 2026 that we've seen from our 2025 work. Um, so we originally started out

uh doing kind of a background review of what had been done previously that pointed to some potential gaps that we saw this year uh that we wanted to try to fill in. We had one round of storm drain sampling there. So storm drains just around this corner of the wake. Uh that's meant to be a wet weather event. Uh that was done in early May. Our pre-season survey was when uh Natalie and uh Dr. Debut Pullman were out on the boat with representatives uh from the board from the the committee on a big pontoon boat and really looking over the lake all together everybody's got the same view during those discussions of the preseason survey. The idea there is is that what we see then kind of translates to what needs to be done for the summer. And if everybody's looking at the same conditions and we're having the discussions about what's going to be done and then Natalie's great about saying, "All right, we're going to map out on, you know, on our iPads exactly where we said we think treatment needs to happen." That information gets translated to the applicator and then it just makes it easier that everybody's in agreement. Now, the idea of that preseason survey is is that this is not just what's going to happen in the near term, but it's the forecast of what should happen in the early summer. Now, our surveys, the followup of actually where the treatment uh watching the treatment take place, coming back about 30 days later to see if that treatment was effective is in between. We have these uh surveys. We call it the early season, the late season surveys. This is where we spend a a a long day on the lake and we really do a comprehensive survey of all the vegetation we're observing and Natalie will talk about that in a little bit. So, this it was a two-day event just before the 4th of July for the early season that was kind of just getting us, you know, making

sure our stations were where we needed them to be and then kind of getting all of the information the first time. With that in place, we did the late season survey then in early September. Uh and then at the same time, we had in lake and tributary sampling with both of those events. So, we're here, we're doing the vegetation survey in the lake, but we're also into the tributaries uh and collecting water quality samples, flow samples, and then we're on the lake also collecting water quality information as well. Um and then we also had treatment oversight on two different events. Uh this was uh well treatment oversight of actually watching them on the lake uh watching them in the lake and then there was uh separate trips come out about 30 days later to say all right we'll go back to those exact areas that we uh saw that were treated they were mapped during the treatment and we'll see was it effective and that's really important for saying is it working is it not working what does that portend for the next year so this is this kind of summarizes the scope that we had of our lake activities. And uh I'm going to turn this over to Natalie at this point. But there's a little dot with each number here on the lake. These dots correspond to it's almost a grid pattern. Wherever there's vegetation found in the lake, we assign a sampling location and a number and every time we come out of the lake, we can go back to the same spot. It's all georreerenced. uh they work with iPads. I can't even turn an iPad on or turn one off, let alone what these guys can do with iPads in the boat. So, as they collect data in the boat, it's literally going into the database and it's cloud database and that information is entered. They'll bring it back. They'll quality check it to make sure it's there. But we get information from all of these different areas and that kind of sets us up. We're

saying, "All right, what's what does it look like in the lake in terms of plan conditions?" So Natalie, I may have steal a little bit of your thunder there. If I can interject one real quick, and I did send it to the board for anybody um listening or seeing it and for the audience, their entire report, which I think ended up being 63 pages, we will have posted on the invasive species um web page. So although we may not be able to see all of this clearly tonight, um it'll be on the web page hopefully in the next 24 hours if I do it right.

Yeah. So each of these sites as Mark was saying we visit during our vegetation surveys. We call these aquatic resource observation sites or A-Zes and these correlate exactly with the AVAS surveys that PLM was doing historically. So AVAS aquatic vegetation assessment site very similar. Um at each of these spots we record every species that we see for density, distribution and height in the water column and from that we can make mapping uh of the distribution and density of these species. Um so we also build different ecological metrics from our collected data. So the five main metrics that we look at in our reporting are species richness which is the number of species present, chain of biodiversity index which is all the plant diversity in the lake, chain of morphology index which is the structure of that plant community. The floristic quality index which in general terms is the ratio of our high quality native species to our lower quality invasive species on the lake. So higher numbers in those metrics meaning that there's a more favorable ratio there. And then recreational nuisance presence which is more of a professional metric that we kind of assess when we're out there of are these plants causing a nuisance to recreational conditions on the lake. So not only are they invasive, but maybe some of our native species are growing really densely in an area and that could impede boating or swimming. And so we make note of those areas, too. And so what we saw this year from those metrics was really favorable ecological metrics on the lake. Um we saw an increase in species richness throughout the summer. Uh we saw really stable or increasing trend lines throughout all of our other metrics. The only thing that we saw that kind of got a little worse in the growing season was the recreational nuisance presence. But that's not out of

the ordinary cuz as we progress in our growing season, those native plants are growing up to the surface and flowering. Um, and I'm sure anybody who does any recreation in that eastern shallow end of the lake where that tall wild celery is flowering in the late summer kind of knows what I'm talking about there. And so again, like really favorable ecological metrics. And when we compared these metrics to some of our other lakes that we do surveys on, we saw that that it compares pretty favorably to our other lakes. But we also saw a relatively high Shannon biodiversity index compared to other lakes that we survey on. So that just shows that there's a lot of native species diversity in the lake.

And and as Natalie continues on with the slides, one of the one of the reasons why we use these metrics is there's a tendency and plant management to say, let's go survey the lake and what do we need to kill? You know, what's a nuisance or what's invasive? That's what we focus on. That's what we kill. The idea of getting a little bit more comp comprehensive or a lot more comprehensive is you're looking at the whole plant community. So as one thing is impacted by a treatment, other plants were going to respond. And so the idea of the metrics is saying, well, what is that response look like in the overall quality of the the plant habitat versus just saying, yep, that bill foil is gone. But saying, all right, what came back in its place and is it improving the condition the habitat conditions of the lake? Uh, and that's that's the point of the metrics. Yes,

just a question. So going back to the slide before where you got from species richness, you want the range to be 5 to 30, but you got NA for a goal. Is that be because we just want to be somewhere in that range? There's not a bad place.

Yeah. So something that the measure doesn't really pick up on when you're looking at species richness is we just look at all the species present. But unlike the floristic quality index which kind of ranks them like in invasive versus native, that is just a measure of all species. So not all species are necessarily favorable in a lake. So in this 23 species includes your Eurasian waterm and your star stone or and species that maybe are a little less favorable for lake conditions. So we don't have a management goal for that. But I would say around you know less than 16 is likely we're seeing not a lot of biodiversity and you'll start seeing these other metrics kind of tank. And then anything higher than 20 is where you really start to see a a good lift in those biodiversity and morphology indexes.

One of the things with that number, the species richness number is, and we've seen this before, is and it kind of comes back to the idea of kind of the the independent look at the lake is we're we're very thorough in terms of what we look at. We've seen comparisons literally within a day of when we've surveyed by the applicators and that we'll say there were 23 species we observed and they'll say there were they saw 13. And so that that idea is is where's the balance and is the next slide is really kind of interesting and Natalie will point out of not just the the good, the bad, and the ugly, but focusing on the really good and why it's important to know that it's there in the lake is if they're overlapping with an invasive that you're treating, you have to be thinking about that. Are we hurting a valuable species in the lake?

Yeah. So here we have broken out between our early and late season surveys. Um all of the species that we saw on the lake here highlighted in red are our invasives that we saw. So we have Eurasian waterm oil star leaf pondweed and fragmitees. Um so you can see that the native plant community before we even start to see Eurasian waterm oil is the makes up the majority of coverage on the lake. And I've highlighted here in green two species that of interest that we saw. Um these are highlighted in green because another metric that we look at that's included in the final reporting is um the Core the C value which is the coefficient of conservation in which we have all of these species in Michigan are assigned a value 0 through 10. Our invasive species are given a zero because they are not indicative of high quality habitats and they can be found almost anywhere. Whereas our rarer species or our species that are of higher conservation value are given higher scores. And so wild celery and white stem pondweed that are highlighted on here which had higher coverages on the lake have some of the higher C scores that we saw. I believe that they were seven and eight for wild celery and waste and pond respectively. And again that's out of 10. Um we also saw our nitella had a high C score but we just saw a little bit of coverage of that. And you can see here that the majority of the coverage that we saw was from our native cara. So that's a macro algae species. Sometimes it's called the lawn of the lake. So that's kind of the plant that's hanging out down there. It's like a little bit grassy. It's nonrooted. Um and we saw a healthy increase of that throughout the growing season too. And you want to see spikes in that and not spikes in this guy star stonewart which can grow up to the surface. And we don't see cara exhibiting that same behavior. And and interesting that the the car and sorry stoneward are very close. They're

both algae. They're called macro algae because they they're large scale. Um and they're both calccarious. So that's why they're crunchy as you walk on them. And what's interesting about these two algae, we call them, we lump them in as plants, is they actually pull phosphorus out of the water column. they don't have root systems like the other plants that you know are on that list that are deriving the nutrients from the the sediment. They'll actually it's it's got kind of a cleansing effect. So we look at it as is there there's always a balance in terms of what you want to maintain what you want to remove. And what happens with star stoneward? It looks similar to carrot, but it'll grow up in the same patches. Makes it tough to treat because you want to treat a single stock. That's virtually impossible when you're just putting a, you know, kind of a broad application away. So, in some of those cases, we'll just say we we won't treat it there because car is a big bed of car depending on how you want to pronounce it, which is very very valuable and you don't want to lose that. We've seen where people said, "Well, I don't like to walk on the crunch."

They've targeted the removal, the treatment of of car as an algae. The next year, it went from about 40% coverage in that lake to less than 1% coverage and mil foil went from 1% up to 40% the original mil foil. So, it's always a caution on what you remove something that's going to take its place. So, having the broader base of of plan information is really important in making those decisions. Um, so from our vegetation mapping, we can create these density and distribution maps. Um, so this is a 3D density map that we have. I know it might be hard for people in the back to see, but these are color-coded dots that we have at each of our A-ROSS locations um that indicate the amount of 3D density that we saw. And that metric is the coverage distribution and then height in the water column of that species. um so that it captures, you know, the full scale of how those species are growing. Um and we've seen the most throughout our surveys. We saw the most vegetation growth in this eastern bay of the lake and then up here in this north central co densely vegetated areas throughout both surveys. So this is all of the vegetation that we saw in June and then this is all the vegetation that we saw in during our September survey event. So again, same thing, denser over here in the um northern central bay of the lake. And so what we can do is we can also tease out specific species of interest too. So this is probably even harder for people to see in the back, but Eurasian water mil foil is one of the species of concern on the lake, invasive species. And so we can tease that out and look at just the coverage and distribution of that species. And what we've seen is kind of in June we saw it in this eastern side of the lake and then it had a little bit more distribution especially around the boat launch that was one of our hot spots for invasive

species this year. And then again it's picking up a little bit of coverage here in the eastern side of lake and a little bit along the drop off. So creating maps like this is really pertinent for us to be able to track how it's moving over time and then also how we can assess the efficacy of any treatments that occurred on the lake. Um and we'll get into the treatment mapping and what we saw from there. Question is that is that hot spot because of boat washing or lack thereof?

Yeah, I would say of lack thereof. So, we saw um I have starry stormer on the next slide, too. Here at the bow launch is definitely a hot spot for those invasive species. And the the thought is is that they're coming off of the boats there. And then there's just a lot of disturbance in that area as well.

And both of those plants will fragment and disperse. So, like if you know if they coming out of boat suddenly they take root or take hold, you can the next boat comes along the boat prop will chop them up. Well, all of those fragments can then disperse with the wind and where they can settle out, they can reve, they can regrow basically. It's just, you know, you're taking the clipping, you're planting it somewhere else. So, that's the challenge with those plants, especially in high traffic boat areas.

So, here's our star again in June. It's kind of around that blow at launch area. And then we saw it in September pretty densely in some of these um kind of in that emergent wetland area in the eastern part of the lake like we were seeing it in some of those boat lanes. Again, highly disturbed areas with a lot of boat traffic where potentially it's stirring those up and and cutting the species. Um we did receive a question from the invasive species committee when we presented these figures earlier on why has the star kind of moved. And if you recall back in that species coverage graph, we saw that uptick in carara. So the thought is is that in some of these locations, as the growing season progressing, cara is becoming more competitive in those areas, which is again what we hope to see because star stonework provides nuisance conditions often in especially in shallower waters whereas we don't see that with our native carer. And so this is our tracking from over time. So the the 2021 through 2024 data is what we pulled off of historic PLM reports and we have 2025 data here and as you can see mil foil which is this blue line and curly pond this orange line have exhibited declining trends over time and that kind of makes sense. It was in 2021 I believe or 2022 where there was a big 50 acre treatment on the eastern end of the lake for um Eurasian watermill oil. And so you see that decline and then here in recent year years there's been a little bit of an increase. Um so tracking these trends is important to not only see what's happening over time but then catch if there's anything different. So here these past few years there's been a little bit less treatment area. Um and then we've seen maybe a little increase of that particular species. So that's something that we're definitely interested in continuing to track. And then we're seeing an uptick in sorry stonewware coverage over time although

we did see a little less of it this year than what was seen in the previous year. Um and fragmmites which is this brown line is maintaining a relatively consistent trend over time. And the main management strategy for that has been to do periodic spot treatments on where we're seeing that species. And then there's also been a European frog discovery. Um and I believe last year there was a large hand pulling effort. We didn't see it in any of our surveys this year. However, at separate observations in September and October, we were able to go into the wetland area in October. We like physically walked in and we did see the species in there. Um, so that's an invasive species that we want to watch out for. um that's not necessarily captured in these graphics, but in future surveys, we will include walking into those A- ROS locations um getting out of the boat and surveying for these species so that we can accurately track that over time.

I I think one of the the the key treatment aspects that's been added in the last couple years, it's really important is the fragmitees. um it it it spreads like wildfire. And so if you can if you can treat it late in the years when it's most susceptible to herbicide treatments if you treat it when you have small patches, it's way more effective to keep it under control than it is to kind of let it go wild than try to cut it back. Ches Bay is a great example of this. Uh 15 years ago was not there. After about 10 years, it covered almost 50% of the wetlands in the Chesapeake Bay. And their goal was not to eradicated. Their goals was saying, "Well, let's try to keep it at 40% coverage." So, if we can keep it down to less than one or two% coverage in these local wetlands, and it may be a recurrent year after year where it pops up, it's a way better game plan than just letting it go and then trying to fight it after it's too late. So, here is the treatment map provided by PLM in their aquatic nuisance control permit uh for the treatment that occurred on June 10th. And so, there's three treatment areas. It totaled around uh five acres, I believe, probably I think even less than that. And that was in this kind of cove area here, the marina here, and the Easy Street Canal. And so as part of our scope, we attended each of those um treatment areas on this treatment date and we witnessed the application and then we followed up um during our early season survey to observe the treatment effect. And during our early season survey in July, we saw high treatment efficacy and we saw none of the noted treated invasive species in either of these three areas during the July survey. So that showed good

treatment efficacy. We did however see the return of curly leaf pondweed in the easy street canal in the late season and then again some mil foil kind of hanging out in that area. So again that's something that we want to keep track of of if maybe larger scale treatments are warranted in the future or if other site investigations could be done in this area to assess why invasive species communities seem to be so persistent in this zone of the lake. So that was the only um township approved in lake treatments that occurred this year. There were two other private treatments that occurred at this cove um later in the year. I don't have maps for them at this presentation but they are included in the final report. Uh the the other treatment that occurred was a terrestrial fragmitees treatment and again we attended that treatment and then followed up three weeks post treatment. Um and that was in these blue areas. is I believe there were about seven spots that we had identified in total and then they additionally found another spot while we were investigating the European frog bit and we treated that as well. Um again we saw good treatment efficacy um 3 weeks post. It's kind of a little bit difficult to see because at that point it was late October and that's kind of the natural decline of species. So we will continue to track that in our upcoming surveys this summer um to see the full treatment impact. And again, this has kind of been like the historic treatment for the species is kind of targeting where they're popping up on the land. So, our last vegetation monitoring figure here is just a comparison of what we saw between our early and late season surveys, which are the July and September surveys. And as I mentioned earlier, it is common for us to see an increase in species throughout the growing season because it's later in the summer. The species haven't had more time to take root. So we did see that increase in Eurasian water mil foil and

star stonewart but again we didn't see the Eurasian water mil foil in any of those treatment areas. So that indicated pretty favorable treatment outcomes. There was no direct management action on the star stone this year. So again that you know point4% increase is kind of to be expected. Curly leaf pondweed again we did see it return to the easy street canal area but it declined throughout the summer but that's pretty typical of the species and then fragmitees remained the same but before the fragmite stream occurred after our surveys this year so that makes sense so no direct management action on the fragmitees or the star storm is captured in these metrics we see a decline in the leaf pondweed and we do see a slight uptick in urasian water milo but not in the areas that were treated and So now we're going to leap frog again and Mark will kind of describe some of our water quality sampling.

So one of the things we'll try to do here through in the the rest of the slides we'll try to weave in kind of the bigger picture story with what we're seeing with some of the monitoring. And phosphorus is really kind of one of the critical targets uh when we sample water quality for it's we say nutrients there's nitrogen there's phosphorus freshwater systems it's really almost always about phosphorus

and we'll talk about why that's that's becoming important here so this these were the storm drains that we sampled in May of this year there was about a quarter inch of rain before we start sampling during that period of sampling was another quarter inch so about a half inch of rain fell So, they're storm drains. So, there's water flow and there's runoff and we're trying to pick up water that's representative of actual wet weather flows. Uh these uh four red dots are the locations that have been established previously. Uh these are right around the corner here. Obviously, um we try to get as close to the lake as we could, so we're capturing as much of the adjacent drainage as we can. Uh some of these it's a little bit tough to get in. uh at the site seven there's a pretty big wetland complex and the creek just kind of vanishes amongst the cattail so we couldn't get right down to the lake there so where we sampled we think was representative and then uh at SD6 there's a small storm water detention basin there wasn't enough flow at the time that that basin was was dumping into that ditch so kind of a busy figure but this again is going back to 2013 13. And here we're focused on total phosphorus. I think one of the things we're going to emphasize next year is we want to look at soluble phosphorus. Total phosphorus is everything. It's dirt, it's silt, it's soluble, and it's it's a generally an overall good characterization of the nutrient condition of the lake. But soluble phosphorus is really becoming so much more important because that's what's driving driving elbow growth, especially blue green algae. and we'll we'll talk about that in a minute. So, this this was our sampling period here. Uh the number doesn't necessarily reflect that we went back 3 days, but that number is a little bit more. It's

it was a real tight just at the time. So, it shows zero, but the little dots here are about how much rainfall. This is inches of precipitation here. So, in general, as we look back, you can see some of these higher flows have higher concentrations of phosphorus. That makes sense. Uh, you have more wash off on the pavement, but it's it's hard to predict because it could go weeks and weeks to weeks without rain. And a small rain picks up all the debris uh that had been on the pavement. But if you have rainstorms over several days, if you're sampling at the end of that period, everything's already washed off. And so that's they kind of call that the first flush. And so you can have no rain for weeks. That first hour of rainfall is going to flush 90% of all the pollutants off the surface. And this it can keep rain in front of the three days and that's only 10% of those pollutants around the surface and come out. So it's it's not a perfect sampling system, but it does give us an indication that in some of the periods where we have wetter conditions, we do have higher phosphorous concentrations. But again we were if we were in this area of rainfall uh we saw a fair amount of phosphorus coming in. Now these levels if we go across here these are about 30 to 50 parts per billion or micrograms per liter. That's not unusual uh for storm drains. In fact those are probably fairly low. We can see in large urbanized areas those things going up uh to 100 times uh even 100 times higher than that depending where you're at. agriculture, you get big runoff, big numbers. This is a fairly small drainage area for these drains. So, we're not seeing high numbers. Not a whole lot of concern uh for these. And if they've consistent consistently been low over the years, we would suggest that maybe

we don't need to keep sampling this every year or all of them. This is just kind of a summary table of of what we looked at here. We had the total phosphorus that we just saw in the graph. We looked at nitrate. We measure flow. This is an important parameter. How much water is actually moving through it and how much mass of pollutant is in that volume of water that's moving through is critical to come up with what we call a load a mass loading of pollutant which is pounds per day. And that could be for phosphorus and nitrate. So what we see is that seventh street or the site number seven the first street drain is this is about in wet weather about 2.3 lbs of phosphorus per day washing the lake figure 60 wet days a year you know the math says it's 120 pounds a year we'd have to go back and look at what does that mean from the last watershed management plan the mass balance of phosphorus is that just a blip Where is that something important? Of all of these, I think looking at this strain, if there was a focus on something, that number seven would be the the site where we we'd keep coming back to. So, we also, I mentioned before, sampled the tributaries twice. Once in the early season survey, once in the late season survey. Um, in July, there was a little bit of pre precipitation. uh just before July 2nd, there was no rainfall before September 3 sampling. So, same thing with storm drains. When water washes off the landscape into a a creek, it picks up materials. Uh in agricultural settings, it can be a lot of sediment, a lot of nutrients. In urban settings, it's often more sediments than it is nutrients. But uh we had we looked at uh a number of creeks or a number of tributaries uh in

both of these samplings and let me get to some of the data and we can talk about what we were seeing. So again, we go back in time. This we go back five years based on information that PLM had reported and we look at the different creeks that we had sampled and there's a few that are beginning to stand out. Cormic Creek again, we're looking at total phosphorus in this case, but Cormick Creek stands out. Nuck Creek stands out. If we look at what's happening over time, this is a trend line. It's not the perfect fit. It's not you're not following the peaks. What it's saying is over time we're trending to start seeing we're seeing a little more phosphorus in the tributaries. Now that's going to come with development with expansion um you know home practices around the tributaries. But again this is something that we want to look at. Our our suggestion this year will be we may take a closer look at a couple of these larger tributaries. And the reason why we do that is the same thing is we want to look at the mass loading.

Did you have a question? I just trying to in my mind where's McCormack? Oh yeah. Do you want to go back to Is that in your report that little legend where the different creeks are? Yes. Yeah. So we have McCormack Creek up here. Let me see. There's So this is the boat launch here and this that's the beach creek coming out um to the west of that.

And and what brings it into perspective then is not just concentration but again coming back to this notion of mass loads uh how much you know mass of phosphorus are we putting the lake by tributary. We get that from measured flows times concentration the correction factor. What's interesting in years past, the flows that have been reported aren't really flows. Flows are cubic feet per second. They were reported as feet per second. We're not sure how those were calculated, but it goes back all the way in the report. So, we don't actually know what historical flows were uh in the previous report. So, we're kind of starting a little bit fresh. Uh but these are cubic feet per second. So, think of a a cube of water that's moving past that spot every second. That gives you a sense of when it's the creek's wider, you get bigger flows. Um, Shimi Creek has the largest flow of of all the trips. And that's from what we can tell in past data, that's pretty consistent. When you put it with concentrations, it's not necessarily the worst in terms of how many pounds of phosphorus are coming to the lake per day. Uh we see that Shipki Creek uh in late summer uh is a little bit higher, but a Neka Creek is also fairly high. We'll come back and we'll talk about it might be worthwhile just to do either a walk from, you know, the the where the creek comes in the lake all the way up to the headarters or a potential paddle and just looking at wait, where's that pipe coming from? It's just identifying what are the potential contributors for that creek. Is there something that can and should be corrected? Now, we'll see this a little bit more when Natalie talks about bacteria and there are some real bacteria is one of those it's like, whoa, where's that coming from? Bacteria, these are gut track bacteria.

It's either coming from humans or animals. It could be geese, it could be beavers, it could be cows. Um, but either way, that ecoli numbers that are tested by the county are kind of indicative of that. So we use this particular calculation to come back and say which are the ones that may be making a difference here in the lake that we might want to look at a little deeper. These are not huge numbers uh but they certainly of the tributaries we can start to flag uh which ones of these are making potentially making a difference. So in the lake uh there were three established there were two established deep basins and then three established shoreline stations. Those the the pink dots that we see here that we sampled for uh temperature dissolved oxygen conductivity water clarity out in the lake and then chlorophy samples. Now, one of the other things that we also did in our July sampling, this is the early season survey, is we also collected plankton samples. That's to look at, all right, what's the makeup of the the phytolanton, the plants there, the microscopic plants that are floating in the water column. And we'll talk about that in just a second.

So, th this is a kind of a gnarly looking graph. These are all the data points that have come for uh have been collected over the years going back to 2013 on portage lake. This is a trophic state index. So lakes that are really clean like Lake Superior liotrophic there's very little plant growth very little plankton growth and there's misotropic that's in the middle you get more aquatic production than utrophic which is it's the lake gets green and then hyperutrphic that's the lakes that are just a mess continuously with algae and blue green algae so the categories here are kind of colorcoded the blue is a liotrophic and again all of these numbers are representative of portage lake it's either for water clarity that's the sec reading total phosphorus that's the water quality or chlorophyle a that's the indication of how much plant material is like so these these current these other colors are what we saw in 2025 it's a pretty wide band for the most part lake is is usually in this band of igotrophic to misotropic just means it's a higher quality lake we would expect that we're northern Michigan lake if you We're always up here higher. We say we've got problems and we need to look. And we'll talk about this in just a second. Uh briefly, this is the water clarity. This is the SEI disc. This is that black and white disc that's lowered over the side of the boat. You just lower it down. You watch to see where you can't. When you don't see it anymore, you just measure how much rope is above that disc. And that's the second depth. That usually corresponds to about the 1% light limit. In other words, that's how far the uh photosynthetic needs go for algae in terms of depth in the water column.

So, it's fairly stable. Uh this year, we had this year and last year, fairly average. In 2024, actually, we saw some pretty good clarity on the lake. This is a somewhat of a suspect measure if you have waves, if you're on the shady side of the boat. So, there's some noise in the system, but when you see real sharp trends, that's when you start to think we've got to be looking elsewhere and and why we're seeing those sharp trends. So, this is chlorophyle. This is the measure of plant pigments, phytolanton plant pigments, uh in the water column, and we see periodic spikes going back to 2015. The last couple years have all been low. This is somewhat of a downward trend. Something happened around 2021 besides COVID that that gave us a little bit of spike in the chlorophyle. But these numbers would be probably considered misotropic to utrophic back in that classification scheme. These numbers would suggest the liotrophic the most clean or unproductive lakes. So now we get into to total phosphorus which um one of the challenges that we've seen in the past data set is if you look at these they're all at eight. It's impossible to get eight parts per billion year after year after year. What it is is that's the laboratory detection limit. It's not stated that but that's normally when you get a laboratory detection limit of eight you don't you put a cave on it caveat and say well somewhere less than eight it could be zero it could be 7.99 we don't know

which is good

yeah total phosphorus yeah that low it's not bad it's not a bad thing but what we do see is periodically we are seeing some spikes and this year we've we've got a we have a much lower detection limit the lab we use is out of Trevor city and they're research lab and they get down to two parts per billion versus eight. Now that's important when we start talking about phosphorus. So we did see and this is what has us a little concerned a little questioning this huge spike in July of phosphorus. These are pretty these are very high numbers for porch like 50. We looked at quality assurance quality control was there an issue there and the story gets interesting. We don't feel that there was a sampling uh quality issue. Uh oh, that important. That's surface water. So that's about 3 ft below the surface. This is bottom water. This is about 3 ft. The sample comes about 3 ft off the bottom. The reason why bottom water sampling is important for phosphorus is if the sediments after centuries and centuries of having plants live and die and rain down, those plants still have phosphorus in them. Over time, as oxygen leaves the water column in these deep areas because it doesn't circulate, you you set up a condition where phosphorus accumulated in the sediments now starts burping, starts releasing back in the water column just south of us here. 80 miles 100 miles is uh Mona Lake in North Shores over by Moskegan. These numbers in the bottom are at right around 40. They were at 400 and that was just for soluble phosphorus. So lake, similar to you guys, when Lake Michigan winds come in or Lake Michigan water comes in, you know, it stirs up the thermocline there. would stir up all that high phosphorus levels from the bottom and they have blue green algolooms continuously. So the treatment

there was suppress the phosphorus. So they went from 400 down to less than four after treatment. That largely solved the blue green algo problems they had. So this is an indicator again this is the total phosphorus but an indicator that we saw some phosphorus the bottom but dead in September wasn't there. Here's one of our prevailing theories. Uh we're doing a lot of work on lakes with blue green algae. And before I get to that that discussion slide, let's just note that there are good things that are happening there. Some of the total kill nitrogen, it's a form of couple different forms of nitrogen coming together in one parameter. Ammonia, these values have been consistent. We don't show the graph. I think it's in the report,

but the idea here is there's not a lot of badness happening in other parameters. uh dissolved oxygen profiles, which is really great for the lake, is even some of the the northernmost lakes here in Michigan in the bottom waters when they you get the temperature stratification about halfway through the water column, there's no mixing. So, oxygen just gets chewed up. Not great for fish when it's less than 3 milligrams per liter. State standard is five. But when it goes to zero, that means that you're not going to have any, you know, fish in that bottom of the lake. We don't show the profile here. It's in the report, but for Portage Lake, it usually stays above three all the way down to the bottom. That's huge. That's a great That's a huge deal because that means that's suitable fish habitat throughout the water column. How lake Michigan influences that? Maybe a little, but for the most part, that's good news, but you don't have oxygen depletion. the types where you saw those those high phosphorus concentrations.

Was there DL samples taken in in Yeah. And there was and there was plenty of oxygen. There was what?

There was plenty of oxygen at the time. So here here's where we're going with this. So one of the one of the last things we'll talk about here in terms of this lake sampling was for what are the what's the phytolankton in the lake? You know, is it green algae? Is it blue green algae? I said brown algae, green algae, and anything but blue green algae is usually pretty good for a lake e ecosystem. When you get a lot of blue greens, that's when you have the chance for you start to see these surface mats forming in a calm day. And that's the that's those are the blooms you see. Some of these blue greens produce tox toxins uh and you could produce in a harmful algal bloom event they could produce toxins that are dangerous for pets or swimmers. It's a big deal. What's interesting here about and I'll just show you some fun pictures is uh these these are yep these are datoms. These are silic siliconebased beautiful. I mean these are microscopic but these are really cool plankton. They're very good. The These are bad. These are the blue green algae. They're typically in long change uh chains. They are very competitive against green algae. Green algae are really preferred by all your zop plankton. Um and these can form uh these mats at the surface and cause problems. Then you've got the pyrighter. These are dinoflagulates. These are actually plants, microscopic, but they're just that's why I love these phytolanin because you got all these cool things. These are also good. So, keep that in mind. And then you've got all these other ones that are kind of lumped in. And this is one of them, which is a chrysophy. It's called denobrium. It looks like a little plant, but these are all microscopic. Very good. So, what we did is we took the sample from July. We kind of broke it

down into these major categories here. So the datoms are are very small slice here. There's about 16% the cyanopytes. There are two primary ones is one called microcystus the other one called the lakosperm. And both of these form toxins

but that's over 60% of that mass of plankton out there. That's that's alarming to us. you you've got smaller fractions. So that was in basin one in July. This is basin 2 in July. And now we're seeing an even larger percentage of blue green algae uh out there in the water column. And what we do is we take a net, we lower it down about 2/ird of the way in the water column, and you just literally pull the net up and it just it's it's a mesh and it just filters out the water and the phytolaner concentrated in a little jar. to capt. So we still see this this large predominance uh in the other basin as well in midsummer. This is the time where we had high phosphorus. The crazy thing about these blue greens is is they can they have what's called luxury uptake of phosphorus. It's like when I sit down at night in front of the TV, I could eat a bowl of popcorn and I get a bag of popcorn and usually it's the bag. So that's what these guys do with phosphorus. They'll uptake phosphorus and concentrate it in the cells. They don't use it immediately, but they concentrate it. We've seen crazy numbers in one of our lakes up north, Black Lake, sampling this ooze that's on the surface, a thousand times phosphorous concentration in that ooze than what's in the water. These plants just taken up absorbent. So the question that we would have is were the if these were that prevalent out there in the water column, were these actually holding phosphorus and that was potentially representative of what we were seeing? It's a theory. It's not a complete uh and absolute but uh it's something that we're thinking about because we don't see any tributary flows that were saying wow look at that there's a huge flood from the egg fields rushed in the lake you see dark plume we didn't have that so what we wanted to do is go back and Natalie set this up looking at some of the PLM data now we

don't have any of the lab reports that you know you get the finite percentages that we've just showed but it was kind of a general observational narrative commentary that they had. Unfortunately, the last five years of that period in the top line, it was the same thing repeated year after year. Same narrative, same sentence, same we don't know. But what we're seeing in the time that we sampled was is you had in some of those early years, you had a lot of the blue greens and then you had some domination by the the datoms, a good thing. Um, but that's wasn't the case this year. We we went to end of the year. It was always the cyanopites, the blue greens that seem to be popular in the lake. Most of plankton won't eat blue green algae. They'll pass it through their system. Uh, the zebra muscles, dresnid muscles do the same thing. Those muscles that sit in the rocks filter water. They want the green algae. they actually let the blue greens pass through them. It's a great competitive advantage for the blue greens. Uh and they typically you'll see them bloom and late in the year. So there has been for the last decade an indication that there's a lot of blue green in the lake. You haven't seen the surface blooms and that's a good thing. But it's something that um in the last 10 years, especially in northern Michigan, you've seen the prevalence of blue green algaal blooms picking up. Even at Lake Superior that never had blooms before, the shorelines are starting to see blooms. Uh and they're they're saying warmer water, longer growing season. Uh those are all competitive uh for the blue green algae and phosphorus is usually the stimulant. So we'll come back and we'll we'll talk about some of the other issues that we want to look at for phosphorus. One of our lakes

se old old septic systems 800 homes even on a 10,000 acre lake sampling says tributaries are great. It's all septic systems. So those are questions that we want to bring up because once these cycles of blue green algo bloom start, they're hard to break and so managing now what could be stimulating those is important. Natalie, I'll let you kind of wrap up the last two slides here.

Yeah. So another thing that we looked at this year was our E.coli monitoring and we looked at the data that was collected by the Manacey District Health Department. So they collected on six different days throughout the summer at 11 different stations. Uh we saw really low values in lake. So that's good. Um as Mark touched on earlier, E.coli is that guttracked bacteria. Um and it can cause some human health concerns. And so low in lake values, the lowest values were at the portage point resort. And then we saw levels in general were highest in June and then they declined throughout the remaining of those dates. The two notable things that we saw in the health department ecoli monitoring were that all samples from the easy street influx exceeded water quality standards and those are 300 most probable number um for total body contact and a thousand for partial body contact. So this is that easy street canal area. There's that pipe that's in that area. And so when the Manacey District Health Department sampled that, all samples throughout the summer from that area exceeded water quality standards for their total or partial body contact. And then we saw similar in Shimi Creek in June, July and June and July. So those are two areas that we are seeing as kind of hot spots for that E.coli loading. I think the leading um our leading theory for the Shimi Creek might be the grounds that are really close by. And honestly, for the easy street influx, it's kind of more of an unknown and we'd like to do some more investigation in that area, but we're theorizing that maybe septic system loading could be at play there. Yes.

Just want to note when uh those samples from a few years back from district health department number 10 were analyzed by Ferris University. They found the E.coli to be of animal at that time, but you know, it's still a concern. Do you have access to that QPCR to No, that that's that's part of the challenge. So, well, as you're describing it is if they the results are from Fair State, they'll come in lab reports, they'll be QAQC. Having that information is really valuable versus what we were showing us kind of the narrative health department we really trust when they're doing the sampling all the time and it's been a great data set.

Yeah. So this particular data didn't have the source of it but that is something that um could be looked into if we can sampling that has been done using artificial sweetener as a tracer on any of this for septic system vision for septic system involvement.

Yeah that's one of the things that uh has been used over the years. It's not entirely reliable. What we typically see is if we sample for soluble phosphorus it can go really high and then if we also see bacteria ecoli or totalcolifform that's a good indication at that point we come back and like fair state did we'll do a PCR analysis as they call it to look at the DNA is it from cow is it from a human that's that's kind of how things have been processing the the the sweeteners are still used in some cases but that's that's another analysis And so

you have to have a GCMS to be able and it's fairly expensive to do it. But based on research that's been done in Canada and other places of the United States, it's been listed as a fairly conservative sub substance. We don't we don't take it. We don't um we ingest it. It passes through our system. So it's right it if you find artificial sweetener in the water column the only place it can come from is the septic system right even even in very low

concentration. What we what we often do is we we do the leadin of ecoli and if we're seeing high ecoli that's when we'll usually do the DNA testing we've got a lake where really high ecoli and we think it's beavers. Yeah. But but the database for DNA on beavers is pretty limited. And so we're like, all right, well, who could tell us that this is out of the backside of a beaver or out of our backside of a septic system? So there are some questions that come up that we we typically don't use that, but it it is has been used in the past certainly

with success. So just to summarize everything that we have said so far is that in general we saw favorable ecological conditions. If you recall that table that we had of those metrics that we look for in our lake stand. Uh we saw favorable outcome of current management actions. So in those treatment areas we didn't see the um invasive species um during our follow-up visit after treatment. We did see in those coverage graphs some invasive species increasing that is pretty directly correlated to a decline in the acreage of treatment. So it's kind of that give and take you know more treatment area potentially less invasive species coverage. Um and we saw that storm number seven was the leading contributor of TPA nitrate and that onca and shimi creeks were the leading contributors of phosphorus. Um, we saw that allegotrophic to misotrophic levels of lake productivity. And then again, we saw those kind of concerningly high TP values in July, but we also saw that dominance of blue green algae that could also influence those high levels that we were seeing. And then that easy street canal and chimi creek locations as ecoli sources. So these are are kind of our hit list of like the main things that we try to highlight today and the main things that we saw that were a problem um for our in our final reporting and based off of what we saw there we had recommended the following five things in our final reporting. So we have been in discussion a lot with the invasive species committee about alternative management for star storm work getting away from those copper based algicides and potentially doing some diver manual removal. Um so we're exploring different pathways there um as potential ways to keep monitoring that increase in coverage. Uh and then we'll

continue to assess um assess the smaller scale treatments on your region water mil foil because again bigger treatments less less coverage of the species. Um as we continue to do smaller treatments maybe it's more um effective as terms of you know the cost but if we start to see those increasing maybe we'll do larger scale ones or recommend larger scale ones. Uh we also saw maybe u the need for some late season management options. We did see that uptake in invasive species throughout the growing season and we saw the return of a fairly fondweed in a treatment area. So potentially there might be some need to hit those areas again. Uh we also have a lot of interest in investigating the easy street canal um just as a vector for nutrient loading again like where is that ecoli coming from? you know, at Shimi Creek, maybe it can be chocked up to animals there at the fairgrounds, but at the Easy Street Canal, that's a little bit less of a correlation that we have there. So, we're really interested in exploring that in 2026. And then we based on what we saw, we are very interested in altering some of our sampling strategy to target specific areas and parameters of concern. Um, so that kind of correlates to the stuff that you didn't see today. So, we dropped off a lot of our figures that are included in the final reporting on ammonia and TKN and um other things that we didn't really see high loading in. And so, for in future monitoring, we're interested in exploring more of those phosphorus levels rather than our levels that are consistently low. Okay. And that is what we have. So, there any questions that anybody has? I know there was a lot of information. all at once. There's even more in the report if anybody is up to reading it.

Question. Thank you. Yeah. When you looked at the plants all around the lake, pretty much nearshore. Any indication of total amount of biomass, plant biomass in terms of this lake compared to other lakes of similar size? You know, if you indicate we're we're pretty close to legotropic. So, but it seems to be especially at the end of the year, there's a lot of plant mass out there.

So, we saw um not necessarily in biomass, but we saw coverage increase from around 40% of coverage to 60% between our two surveys. Um so, again, that's that late season um growth of species that we see. Um and then so we yeah so a little bit of that species increase and then um yeah the there's a lot of those native species growth in that eastern portion of the lake but the 3D density also picks up the height of the plant. So the coverage maybe just describe coverage.

Yeah. So at each of our locations we're looking at the coverage and distribution of those species. So, how common is it and how dense is it? So, if they're like in really tight pockets but only in one spot, that is picked up in the metric. And then the height in the water column as well. So, um and then the other thing that I wanted to touch on and that's why my brain was working. I knew that there's another part of your question. We did compare Portage Lake to other lakes that we performed surveys on. Um, and we didn't necessarily, we did compare like species richness, which could kind of give you an estimate of the amount of species in Forge Lake compared to other lakes. Um, but we did see higher biodiversity metrics, which does kind of indicate the higher coverage of invasive species. Um, I don't think we didn't look at total coverage, but that is something that we can tease out in our databases. Um, but I would say in comparison to the lakes that we compared Port Lake to, it was very similarly vegetated. So you have those kind of sandbar areas in the lake that are very minimally vegetated and then you have some shallow coes and bays that are pretty densely.

I was just going to ask because you touched on this. So how does lake level correlate with all these other variables that you've talked about because I mean the big picture the lake levels change four or five feet in the last several years. Yeah. Well, I think in terms of what's interesting about the way we survey is it's always a very consistent assessment of the area that's has water and has plants. Um, now physiologically if the lake level drops and now you start to get exposed shorelines where you've got some vegetative mass,

you'll usually it'll dry up. It'll it'll desiccate depending on how long the levels down. um something will eventually grow back when lake levels come up and we know Michigan cycles. You can see it's part of the natural cycling. Uh lakes are highly manipulated in terms of inflows and outflows. They can have much more dramatic changes in the plant community probably than what you'd see here. Um we were just discussing is hey when water levels down is there anything that could be done should be done. I think in areas where you have a lot of vegetation you could certainly got a leaves that leaves tend to and debris tend to get held by plant plants when there's enough water just raking that out and

let us let us rake now. Yeah it pulling some of that debris out is is never a bad thing.

Okay. The the reason that uh ecoli is it's not an issue in the lake, but if you're living near any of those tributaries where it's coming in, ecoli, we used to think that hey, sunlight was a disinfectant, it would kill it. Ecoli has this uh nature that it can actually survive as long as there's continued organic uh material uh organic matter. some cases septic systems um it it can live and thrive in sediments. So especially those loose ones, they can actually live and thrive in attached algae like cladopher on rocks in the splash. It's a craziest thing. So it used to be like, hey, it's not a big deal. It's sunlight exposed, but it tends to hang around a lot. So if you're that's why looking at it in some of those tree material areas is important then for considering probably homes that are near that and you know is it residing in the sediments. We've done testing in sediments where you can stir them up and suddenly the water column is just filled with eco

because they reside in the sediment. Very good question. You mentioned um first flush phenomena and how when you were doing your sampling, do you have any indication how close you were to getting first place? Well, flush could be very dramatic in terms

Oh, you're just ridiculous dramatic and and it could be happening literally 15 minutes and a half hour kind. So the the hydrograph is usually fairly during a big storm where you got a lot of pavement, you know, the water blow goes up quickly and then it may tail off for a long time as it continues to wash. But the pollutants, if you map them as the pollutants are slightly delayed at the peak and they'll just boom and then even though the flows are still flowing, it'll drop down. The concentrations drop down to almost nothing. So it's a really narrow window. I I I had one time in my 40 plus years where I stood over a a manhole and I got first flush and it was horrifying. It was E.coli was off the charts and an hour later you couldn't detect it. So it is it's a hit and miss but it's important.

I've caught it several times. I mean Grand Rapids on Sony, you know. Yeah, it's it's disturbing the wave. you can just see the wave coming down from from nothing and then with a lot of impermeable area all of a sudden it's a wave that's coming down and you grab samples from that and and shortly thereafter it's like the loading is in problem.

So you're you're fortunate here that there's only small drainage. There's not a lot of impervious hard surface here for those drains. Uh you can look up some of them and they're not pretty right now this time of the year, but it's such a small drainage that we look at the pollutant mass loaded which really is telling that it's there but in comparison to other sources it may not be that important. Things are always could be done but is that a priority question? Right. Um during any of your sample did hypoatic minimum number go to zero this year that you that you witness I'm sorry I'm sorry didn't hear

did the hypnotic minimum go to zero this year in any of the sampling no no when we sampled you you were still above 3 milligrams per liter in September only like in in the sediments like when Yeah. But to have that much oxygen in the bottom waters is reality. Well, I think that past um sampling that was done by there were times.

Yeah, it very well could. And that's that's the value of the data set because if you're having phosphorus and you you got the deal with it, you can plot that. But there was some fairly interesting ways that they had plotted it. What we typically do is say at the time of the event, what's the phosphorus concentration or what's the DO concentration? Um, and that's a trigger. So, often times everybody samples total phosphorus, but it's really soluble phosphorus that's critical. If you have high soluble phosphorus, that's sugar water. That's what the phytolank of the blue green algae love. They don't like sticks and leaves that are particulate phosphorus. They they want the raw sugar juice to get them going. That's why we sample SRP often.

Very thank you. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. I know we also brought some copies of a of a handout. We try to summarize as much as what we said today. So, we can leave that here and people can grab it. This is going to be hope everybody's good at this. And if you do rake all your stuff up, dry it, put it on the shoreline. Please don't light it on fire on a Sunday when it's windy. What if I want the hel What if I want what if I want the helicopter to come? A once every five year event that never happened never.

That was a day. That was a day. Thank you guys. Thank you all. I guess um Mr. D was a thing to be president. Balance sheet, revenue and expense report, monthly invoices, financial reports. Yeah, that's an ad. How about u skip since ad's gone for a second? Well, this is not near as exciting as all the color graphs. No matter.

So, the PLA last year did a strategic plan kind of reorganized and help refocus what the PLA does. I I'll paraphrase what I got from one community member was the PLA seems to be want to be more than platoon and fireworks. and we see that PLA could play a leading role in in the community. So, we developed a project uh under Cindy's guidance called community collaboration and I provided you all with a print out of it and I think Jennifer did a PDF of it. Anybody who would like to understand what this is about, if you send me an email, uh, or I won't say an end date Jennifer, but you can always send me an email js eagle e a g- l e at mag and I'll share this with you. But we looked at where are the gaps in leadership that the PLA could play a role in. Um, and I won't go into all the detail, but we identified that the PLA had a lack of a relationship with local businesses. And now we're trying to find out how can we help local businesses. Uh, what role can we play in helping them do more advertising and drawing uh to the community? We're tying this together with work that we're doing under this with the tourism authority and the chamber of commerce to try and look at how to revitalize the the business community. I'm also working with trying to attract new businesses to come into the area like a tasting room for uh beer and wine and distilled products. and uh we're looking at a bike shop in in that conjunction, but try to look at things that we can bring here

that might even be able to be open uh more than just seasonally in in in the area. We've talked with the El Neckma Community Schools, really looking at the school as becoming a community center for the village. There's a lot that can be done there. uh you're going to get new pickle ball courts, but up in that area, they're also creating a huge walking path that will include around the football stadium that will be open to the public. There's going to be a huge community room off the east side of the uh school that's going to be open for use by the community. It's really unique. It's about three times size of this room. Um it has its own bathroom. The neat thing is while it it is attached to the school, the doors will be locked down during school hours. So, it will allow the community room to be used by the community during school hours even. And Dan Messi has really got a lot of good things going on there. We looked at a lack of relationship that PLA has with the township board and the village council. Hence, we're going to try and be on the agenda monthly just to see how can we work more closely with not only the township board but the village council and what's going on. Uh we looked at the PLA had a diminished relationship with the Lions Club. We're working on that. Uh trying to look at cooperation among local churches. And if y'all are most of you look my age. Uh

wait a minute. much much younger.

Um, the congregational church, Mary Fair Grieves with Near and Far Friends and Pastor Allison Young up there created a really great series on helping look at aging in the community. There's a meeting coming up a week from this Friday. Uh, Dr. King is coming in from Crystal Clinic to talk about health concerns and how you can get help and everything. So, it's something that we're trying to do in that area. We looked at there's an absence of a downtown development authority and working the village would be the ones to do that, but uh the advantages to having a DDA and we're talking with what was done up in Frankfurt to see if we could replicate something down this way. looked at improving our relationship with the chamber of commerce and the tourism authority that ties into the local business development. Uh we're also looking at how can we develop better relationships with the PLA being the conduit to have better relationships with other local communities Arcadia Caliba so that we kind of work more as a community group in that. So, I wanted to just let the board know this is where we're headed with this. Um, be welcome to uh take any information from the board at any time and on a monthly basis either I'll show up or another member of the PLA or Cindy will fill in since she's already here every month. So, um, just wanted you to be aware of what the PLA is trying to do and be a little more, uh, take a little bit more of a leadership role in creating a unified community. So, any questions?

Okay. Well, thank you, J. Thanks. Back to you, treasur.

So, the treasur here in the packet, um, tax collections are wrapping up. need payment by March 2nd or they turn them over county. So they're funding fairly well. Um I don't know if anybody has any questions on the reports that were in the packet and it's fairly self I guess about your 2027 budget discussion. I thought we'd do that last since we have other people here. It's up to you guys how you want to handle that.

We can do that. That's fine. Clerk's report.

So, there'll be an election in May. That will be for West Shore Community College will be on the ballot in May. I anticipate ballots being available towards the end of March to make that 40 45day deadline before the election cycle. Um, again, the Bureau of Elections is anticipating roughly $15,000 per precinct for new equipment. Um, although there is a push to try to get all or some of that offset in the state budget, but state budget fat lady has not signed yet, so we don't know that'll be that's it. Fire department.

Um, Chief Johnson was not able Yep. to be here. He sent uh a written report earlier in the day which you have printed in front of you. And they have uh switched over the equipment. A new truck is in service. Correct. The old the old one is kind of mothball or mouth ready for sale. I talked to is it Josh? Mhm.

When he called me this afternoon and the entity that's going to express the interest in buying the truck is on a special meeting at 7:00. So he told me he get get over me in the morning with the results, but they schedule a special meeting in the cake. I assume to follow through on purchase. It sounds like they already worked on the truck and got the pieces off they need to get.

We are ready to go. Everything's stripped out of the truck. I think there needs to be uh harbor commission for it. Uh Fiser issued a preliminary drawing on the paving of the DNR ramp or area the last couple weeks ago and from last week DNR gave their comments and Spicer's got a new drawing out that addressed all those. So, we found out last week that it's going to take up to two months for the DNR to approve anything. So, really

we are putting off probably the project until September. Takes them two months to approve parking lot. Yeah. I I even called afterwards and she reaffirmed it so she can't do anything about them. I guess Dann's process has changed and it now has to go through Lara and I mean there's more steps than there used to be. Um are they putting any money in this? No. Um I think but they control everything. Yeah, you know, I think as Jim, I mean, I haven't been attending the meetings because I just wrote the grant. I mean, I'm right,

you know, haven't done it, but when I um got a hold of um Shane from Spicer probably about a month ago and I said, "Hey, we've got grant deadlines coming up. You know, what's going on?" And that's when he told me that there was concern about the scope, which I think I reported last month. So I went to the meeting about a week 10 days ago and you know was trying I would say to kind of push it along and then that's when we found out the time frame. So I do have a meeting with um Laura and foundation team tomorrow to explain this to them to make sure that we're able to be positioned differently. But as Jim said it it's going to be September at best. And the reason what they can't put someone to look at this or they can't have any oversight that faster than that.

Well, what'll happen? Yeah. DNR will not sign off until it goes through the state process. And it sounds like there's two steps outside of their office that have to happen. Um, you know where my disappointment comes is from November till now. Why they say so? I can't answer that question because then there no obligation to share information with other government agencies like that. So So I mean Jim's just making you aware that the reality is it's not going to be done for this season. Are there still big chuck holes out there? We won't know until I mean did anyone ever level it? Yeah, they did last year. Okay.

Okay. Well, just so at least it's passable. It was pretty good last year. Okay. Anything else? No, that's it. Um, are you you have to wait till the end because the only thing that I have to talk about are the budget items. Okay. Well, you know what? I'll move Katie up because she's sitting there this whole time. We'll move her up. I got a handful of things for you guys, though, so I don't mind. Okay. Okay. Um there you want to start with I know that Jody had um let me know that there may be some discussion on uh for CBA if that's you wanted to start with that with the CBA for

O'Neal for O'Neals they got their variance then the state building inspector has now come in and said that doesn't meet his standards of what they gave. So they have to go through the whole they they moved it back. They got approved for a one foot setback and it's got to be more like a twoft setback. But the way that the zoning works with the zoning board of appeals approval, it's like the ZBA approved what they approved. So even though it's a um lesser it's an improve it's an improvement on

lesser setback it we can't as the zoning administrator lessen that setback because we don't have the authority like the ZBA. So, it does have to go back through the process the zoning board of appeals to remake that request um and move it a foot or whatever not that was the request before you guys was to wave the fee for them to then go through the process wasn't their fault. I mean I this has never happened as far as I know the entire time I've been here doing anything with probably never had a request like this before. No, they've had people encroach on. I've just never they have a new building inspector.

Yeah, it is a it is a close setback, but I am not familiar with this having come up previously. I know. Um yeah, I mean it's pretty unique, but I've never heard of this state building code setback because I even think about like in the city, you know, downtown there's zero foot setbacks. A lot of ordinances have zero setbacks and it's never appeared to be an issue. Did he be terrified that there's language in the state building code that addresses that? Jody spent quite a bit of time with him on the phone and I believe he sent the code and this was something that came from the O'Neals once they were ready to move forward with um

yeah they went to get their state and then this guy came and said no. Anyways, if someone make a motion, I'd appreciate that. I'll make a motion that they O'Neal's go through a second ZBA process with no fee. Is there a second? I would say that. Thank you. Any other discussion? None being heard. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. The list carries. Okay. Off the list. That probably won't be for another while that I don't know if anyone on the board is here now. Yeah. Well, I'll let Jody know right away and she can get with um the ZBA to schedule that as soon as possible. It will need to be, you know, realistically at least.

I shouldn't say just left. that you can install and uh but we'll look to get it scheduled properly. Okay. Thank you. Yes. And then I don't know if there's any questions on the I think you guys just have the zoning administrator as a standing and you put like the um logs in your packet, but I'm happy to answer any questions I can or bring those back to the office if you have questions on the zoning administrator. I don't think we have we still have those few but a couple violations but they never tore the house down on road yet but that's guy so I don't know what's going on.

Yeah and um that is something I think that township could look to pursue since your zoning ordinance does require like approved building permits prior to occupancy. So Jody and I were thinking that we could start with a letter to notify them of this and see if that lights a fire. Um, unfortunately in my experience, I don't, and I could be wrong on this, so it should come from the state building inspector, but it's my understanding that the state isn't really going to like litigate with property owners. You know, they'll redtag a building. They won't give certificates of occupancy, but I don't believe that they're going to actually like take someone to court if they're occupying a structure that's deemed unoccupiable. Um, so that could be

So they won't do that, but they'll come in and say you got to move a building back and forth off a property line. Sounds good. Sounds about right. No, it sounds completely asinine. I'm sorry, but Okay. But yeah, we'll start with a letter and then um see where that gets us. Okay, let's do that because the guy said he wasn't going to take care of it. The homeowner said they were gonna tear it down, but then right after that then they had the fire going right in in the house and it's never it's got no building. Nothing I don't think is the code. But but clearly it's a zoning violation. We can force them to take it out. Right. Yeah. Because your zoning ordinance requires any like occupied any dwelling structure to have a certificate of occupancy for

Why don't we start with that and we'll send Joey. That sounds good. Okay. Any other questions on that or should we move to countywide OV ordinance? ORV ordinance.

Um, so the county is looking to implement a OV ordinance. Uh, you guys would have previously received certified mailing for that. Um, although after that went out and it went to county board, it was realized there was some minor revisions to the ordinance before it became effective. So, you will receive that notification. And once again, I'm going to put it back through the 45day notice for a public hearing with the county board. Um, but with that, the time frame prescribed from the ordinance for yearly map updates will since have lapsed. So, I've been wanting to get with the local units that I had maybe some questions on what you have in your current local ordinance and make sure that that is what you'd like included in the countywide ordinance. Um, I had spoken to David about the only road closed in Onakma Township is Portage Point Drive from M22 to Second Street. So, essentially the entirety of Portage Point Drive, but you do have the side streets open. So, like down on the peninsula, like down Bay View is all open. And then that one you could almost kind of like get around on your OV, but you're not technically allowed to go out on Portage Point Drive. And then it's like the side streets between Lake Michigan and Portage Lake. So, um,

we need to think, do we do we do we want to keep it closed? The only reason that was done to begin with was because you couldn't get under 22, right? And you guys do have her open. Um, well, that's the problem. There's a lot of RV traffic that exists now whether or not. So, does it make any sense to even have it closed? No one pays attention. as I say cuz it's not if it's truly closed then there should be some enforcement mechanism over there isn't and there's a ton of order

so and that thank you for that because that is the purpose of this countywide OV ordinance we have the sheriff's office on board that they are going to be willing and able to enforce like one countywide ordinance and this was a really a big push that came from the the dirt birds group if you're familiar with the kind of newly established OB group um I believe it's like a benzene manasty county um group. They're about hundred strong now and they're really trying to like educate ORB users and make Manasty safe and friendly and up to the laws with OB riding. Um the president of that group has relayed to me that there is kind of that um narrative that there are no one there is no one enforcing OV laws in Manaste County. So that's where the sheriff's office has been involved in these conversations and said if we could get a countywide OV ordinance and with this one leaving we're leaving control of roads that are open and closed to the local units that they would be um yeah willing and able to enforce that because right now it's like a mosaic of ordinances that are all really trying to accomplish the same thing but might have some slight differences and then you have municipal boundaries for ticketing and whatnot. So, um that is the idea with this to make enforcement proper and at the sheriff's office doing that. Um cuz yeah, I I know that historically it's like even if people call it's something that they've kind of stayed away from.

Do you know which I don't know are golf carts or are they considered? So golf carts are not explicitly called out in this ordinance. They are regulated by like slow moving vehicle code I think and like the villages can have their own golf cart ordinances. So the intent of this ordinance is not to enforce on golf, right? Um not requiring golf carts to have OV stickers, but but they are going to require like a side by side to have it.

Yes, a sidebyside would have to have it and be only allowed on open roads. And with the definition of OVs, um, we're using the definition from the statute. And it could be in some scenarios kind of a judgment call of the officer. Like if you have a souped-up OV that's clear or a souped-up golf cart that's clearly designed and like being utilized in a way that it's more of an OV um, thing, then that could be something that's subject to OV laws. Let's say, you know, someone's cruising on their golf cart out on big four going 40 m an hour. Um, and it has an OBV sticker. That could be something that they could look to enforce on because there are the speed limits and like how you're supposed to operate.

We have that here. We have But we do have a lot of OVs to me and we have those golf carts. Several access on Porsche Point Road. Golf cars by Yach Club with the kids that went to the multiple. So I don't know what but the intent is not to enforce on golf carts leaving that to villages and there is like stupid cuz that's the majority of the traffic is golf here. Yeah, I think yeah, Jim, isn't 40 point drag open now for for me? It is not. Not according to our ordinance. That's why I wanted legally no practically yes. Say that again. Legally no. Practically yes.

Practically yes. Because no one enforces it. So you might as well take it off for putting that in. So we Well, you might as well take it off. You're not We're not going to enforce it or no one's going to enforce it. To me, I would that's my opinion. It's it's Katie, I have a question for you. Um, what is defined as a road in the new ordinance? So, a road is any county primary or local road. Okay. So, unimproved county roads would not qualify. Correct. Approved township paper roads would not qualify. Correct. Correct. So if there was a somebody with a motorcycle riding around on paper roads and tearing it up, they could enforce on that.

Yeah, that wouldn't be um that would not be the motorcycle is not okay. Maybe a go-kart, whatever that might be. Or a three-wheeler. Yeah, I I think that would be enforceable. I mean, they're not even identified on this map as closed roads because we only have We there there's there are some county roads that are on the map that aren't improved necessarily. There's a few of those. I'm just wondering how those are treated. Yeah. Um I would say that if that is like a public rightway and someone is utilizing it regardless of it being identified on this map, that would be something that could be enforced on because it's like a public local road at that. Well, that is a good question. The road isn't developed. So you're looking at it. Sure.

Well, that's what I'm asking. Yeah, I would think that they would enforce on on that because I would look at it from the sense like you're not operating on a public open road. So that could be but what how is you give the or just carries how it's defined. It says any county. Would you say any county? Um, it means a county primary road or county local road as described in section five of 1951 PA 51 like the it's a statute for So they have the official act 51 map. Yes. But not all of those roads are improved. Right. And that's why I'm thinking like

I think there needs to be language in that talks about improved roads. Oh, just so you don't have somebody, right? Potentially. Potentially. I'll take that back and think about that. Yes. Thank you. Okay. So, you can't operate off-road vehicles where there isn't the actual road. It's kind of I understand what you're saying. How about an undeveloped paper road? Well, I'd be I'd be Yeah, I mean, I'd be curious because I think that could be a concern for some. I mean, if there's there's a road that is not improved, but it's on the map and people might unless it's surveyed, you won't know where it's at.

Yeah. You don't know where it's at. There's not a there's not a road. There's not Well, and I will say unimproved paper roads are not on this map. Right. Because they're not a county local or friend of Right. Right. Okay. So, with that, I would just like to confirm if you guys would like Portage Point Drive opened or closed. Like I said, you will get this correspondence in the coming weeks um for a public hearing. And really for this ordinance, all I need is official action by the board of what roads you want open and and closed. And when I send out that notification, um you know, once once we get through the public hearing and then the board approves it, what we have will be final.

So, right now, if there was a complaint about an OV on Portage Point Drive and you call the sheriff, would they do anything about it? I don't know that the sheriff's office essentially has been has not had the capacity to enforce local OB ordinances. So I can't answer that definitively, but it's my understanding that they haven't really had the capacity to like but they're going to suddenly have the capacity to enforce a countywide ordinance. That is my understanding that that is what is going to make it feasible for them to do better with enfor. They're going to go there. They do the Lake Michigan enforcement for trespassing on the beach. Oh,

so they'll put that right after that. I think it's a step in the right direction. Well, we've got at least two people in this room that live on Portage Point Drive, and I know how Matt feels about it. How do you feel about it? I feel we should be able to. You're okay with that? Yeah. Well, how would I access the roads that I can ride on? You can't. You can't. It's there. You can't move. That's why I said it's just it doesn't go by your house. You can trailer it down and then that across Joseph Road through my property. Yeah, just do that. Tell for the deer. Well, I I feel like we should probably put it on the bus that's being used anyway.

Yeah, that's so if we're going to write amend or change or even resend the ordinance, then we have to follow our procedures first. We can't just do it with a motion or anything. So, you can for the countywide ordinance, and it doesn't um you actually don't have to rescend your local ordinance. I know it feels a little bit silly, but the local ordinance can stay in place. This is what will be enforced by the sheriff's office. Then, why would you have an ordinance on the books that's essentially null and void and isn't going to be enforced, right? And you could do that, but for the purpose of this ordinance, all I need is a formal motion to update this map in this ordinance. So your countywide ordinance trumps the

it doesn't necessarily it can run parallel and it won't I think I think we should approve what she's asking for then we should review the two of them side by side and if ours doesn't hike since we want to make that motion feel we should I'll move we add Portage Point Drive to the county ov ordinance as an approved approval. Okay. Is there a second? You're not second there. Second, Cindy. I'll second it. Okay. Discussion. You have something you want to add? No. Okay. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. Carried.

Move to have it or not? Not not approved. No. Approved. You can use it. People are using it now every day. It happens every day and keeping it. It's not going to change. There's I mean it's it's a constant up and down every never been enforced. So

the last item I had for you guys um was the zoning service contract, the zoning and enforcement contact we have with you guys. Um, we still have several months until it's due to expire, but I've wanted to get before the local units we have under contract with ample time for any discussion um or changes or whatnot that you guys might want to see to that. Um if you guys are wanting to sign back on um it would be another three-year contract and not proposing any um increases other than continuing with the 3% inflation and postage has gone up quite a bit in the past three years. So increasing mailing for mass mailings. Uh that's for like the ZBA requests like whenever we have to do the 300 foot mailings. We don't charge for envelopes for just the day-to-day zoning administration, but raising that from $1 an envelope to 125 to account for the increase in postage. Um,

and with that, I would take any questions tonight or if you guys wanted to think about it and have me back again, I'm happy to come back. Like I said, this doesn't expire until September 30. So, just wanted to have a discussion link. Yeah. So, we could do that. I have a question. So the flood just the flood plane thing, how often does that come in does that come into play on everybody that's building they come in to build a house and they're in the flood plane? Um, honestly it doesn't come up all that frequently and we do get more detailed questions from from time to time. Um, there are some like online resources, but I would say quite honestly it doesn't come out that all that frequently.

Could we do that ourselves or not? Um the only thing that would probably be like the LAR GIS data having that available. Um but FEMA does have their maps online as well. Um I'm just trying to find a way we can save a little bit of money and I wonder if that is something we wouldn't have to continue. I mean you could contract with like an engineering firm on a as needed basis without charge. Do you do it for the whole You don't do it for every unit in the county, do you? Or do you do it for everybody but the city?

I mean, we will answer like general questions. This would kind of require us to go in more detail when those questions come up. Um, but I think, you know, generally we still want to be helpful to people and like point them to the FEMA maps and and let them know that those resources are available. Is that something that the And this maybe sound bad, but is it something the township supposed to provide?

Um, I mean, not not necessarily in my opinion because the building code is really what enforces um like what you can build within a flood plane. I think it's more of like a anformational piece should it come up. Um, but it comes up look into it. Okay. Yeah. And I I will say honestly like it's not like we're getting a bunch of requests for like LAR maps and data. Um what FEMA can provide is pretty pretty useful. It'll be okay now till the water comes back up.

I think some of that has to deal with if it's insurable too. Well, they have to go buy flood insurance. Yeah. So if you build something and it's in a flood zone, that information is going to be specific. I've had insurance over that. Yeah. Right. Yeah, that's understandable. Okay. Questions? Anybody want to ask questions here or we're going to have this talk? Katie and I had lunch the other day and I talked to her about a number of questions, concerns, comments. Do you have that list? You want to run through what we talked about? I think that'd be

helpful. Yeah. Um yes. So Ed and I had a really nice discussion on the contract and just like he said um things that have come up or that he would like to make sure are continued um that we're continuing to address. So we I feel like we've really ramped up on site visits for um permitting and it's been very helpful having a full-time code enforcement officer who's actually at MSU Extension zoning administrator certification um over the next two days. So, that's been really helpful to have him be able to be in the field more. And we had more recently been doing um like we put across the permits that you must contact the zoning administrator prior to um construction beginning, which has always been on the permits, but what Ed and I talked about is not even issuing a permit until we do that initial site visit with everything staked out. So we have um already been implementing that since our conversation and that's something that we can very simply make sure is across the board just you know we're we're doing a site inspection with everything marked prior to the when they even get their permit. Um

requiring a survey in all of the residential districts. Um I think you know that is something where the lots just get small. I think there could be very very very few instances like if somebody has an overacre parcel that they're building right in the middle of in the residential but generally in the platted subdivisions that's not the case. So requiring a survey regardless. Um sometimes people will show us that they have a survey and it's not necessarily like a new site plan on a brand new survey. So that's where I've talked to Jod and Mike. um we have to see that they've had a survey. And if it's not like a brand new Spicer survey with everything flagged out, then they also need to show us where their their corner markers are on their property to kind of um verify that survey. And that even though you might have this survey from 1995, um we need to know that you actually know where your corner stakes are as well. Um

I don't know why anybody would build without a survey. That's not even Yeah. point. So, we talk about leaving the language on the ordinance as is, but just making sure that we are Yeah. that it's the understanding that we're requiring surveys more often than not. Um,

making sure that we're conducting at a minimum three site visits, but more like um a minimum of five. And, you know, doing that initial several in process, a site visit before like foundations are p are poured. um making sure permits are posted because I will say that's something that we tend to be lax on, but I think it's a very easy thing for homeowners to do, posting their permits. Um and then some of the other stuff we talked about is like adding forms to the Google Drive. Uh we did update all the forms to have the Onima Township logo instead of the county logo. That's been completed. I don't know that they've been uploaded yet, but we will. That was done this week. So, we'll get these out to you guys. And then we talked a little bit about how we could better support the zoning board of appeals um and creating like a certified decision document which I will get together to send to Tom for review. So he is on board with that um and providing some resources for the zoning board of appeals which I still need to get to. The MML does a pretty good like zoning board of appeals handbook and I can look for a couple other things or create something for the CBA. Um, and then a couple other small things like putting planning commission ZBA like meeting agenda packets onto the Google Drive that we share with you guys over just the action log and the permits. That's another easy fix. Um, and then something that is a project we could definitely work on that might be like an hourly rate thing, but I can't imagine it take more than a couple hours is getting the ordinance into a format like uh the cities for example, like hyperlinking the um sections and create creating that to be a more online user friendly document for people to look through.

Glossery it will be more than two hours but it's worth every penny to get in a format that's more usable. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, we'll definitely um get on that. And then we did I don't know if you wanted to touch on the potential of like further staffing the planning commission. So I mean we don't do level three services in here. Um I I'll I'll go back on townships don't do a lot of things but the things that they do they have to do well. They have to do elections. They have to you know if you have the fire department you have to be competent. You know you have to collect taxes. And we have we have a strong parks committee and then we do land use issues and land use issue land use issues are the number one issue that I think this township board deal month over month year over year and it's partially a product of the way the flats were laid out. It's partially a product of you have, you know, a very affluent community and people have the money to for to challenge things and push the envelope if they if they feel like they don't want to necessarily comply. Um, I just think

what's that? Lawyers.

They have Yeah, they have lawyers. So, I just think that that's something that is um it would be useful perhaps and I think it might be worth the money or maybe have some kind of a hybrid level three services where we have the professional staff actually go to the meetings. And I'll fall back on the city at our planning commission meetings. We have staff at every meeting to help shape the conversation, help keep things moving along, answer questions. It just makes the meetings a lot more efficient and effective. And I think we can accomplish more things. we can we can be more proactive in amending the zoning ordinance that it needs if we come up with areas. I know um Katie and and uh Jody had a whole list of things that they'd like to see explored and I think we do need to explore that, but I just I feel like that would be money well spent if that was something that um you know we could work out,

but I know we haven't had that level three services before. So, it's I think it's worth the discussion. Sure. Mhm. And we could be your minute taker and put together the agenda packets. Um, and yeah, have have whoever is the zoning administrator and and even myself if um attending every planning staffing every planning commission meeting and making sure that it's properly noticed and um

and I think having you or Joe the monthly meeting or every other month is super useful. I think a lot of this stuff can be addressed at the meeting. you know, it doesn't have to linger for for for a time being. Um, I do know Dave, I remember when I was on the planning commission way back when when Dave Smelter was the chair and we had real Cheryl Wenhagen as our zoning administrator. That was that was 30 years ago. I know. But she but she went she went to

she went to every planning commission meeting. She was super helpful. She she served as the professional staff to the township's ZBA planning commission and I think it was very very effective. And I know we've had a number of zoning administrators since then and it's probably levels of service have that varied. But you know the thing that that's nice about the county is that it's stable. They're not going anywhere. They can provide that service and and have start to develop some institutional knowledge which we have frankly lost because we've had so many zoning administrators. Um so I I think I would be willing if we can address the issues that we talked about or if there's any other concerns

within the confines of what we're doing. I would be willing to entertain looking at some level of level three services if it's what they have or some, you know, variation of I think would be helpful for us. Okay.

And I'm always open to um yes, maybe it's like a 2.5 or it's like a modification of the level three. Um, I'm more than happy if if you guys wanted to review like the level of service that's there and create a new level or certain aspects of that appendix that we can revisit that conversation and talk about what that could look like um for you guys and what the compensation could look like to have staff attending every planning commission meeting. And with some of the issues that you brought up, we would probably want to somewhat include in the new contract just to kind of Yes. Make sure that's clear. Make sure it's still open.

But I I I appreciated meeting with you, Katie. I think it was super helpful. And I think to me getting that I guess I think the theme of the meeting was we need more of a presence here in the township from our from our zoning folks. And I think I think that can happen. I think that'll be helpful. Okay. question. So I guess what are what's the path forward on that as far as we need to discuss this when we're doing our budget anyways. So we can do that not today necessarily but the next

Yeah. And I'm happy to come back. Um obviously I wasn't looking for like any decisions or anything tonight. Just really wanted to get before you guys like I said with ample time to have these discussions before the contract expires on September 30th. Sure. Okay. Yeah. We got plenty of time for Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Get out of here. See you guys soon. Nice. Thanks. It's nice to leave at six o'clock and not have it be dark, too. Yeah. Right. Well, and I I honestly really didn't mind sitting through. It was really cool to see like the report on the lake. That was very interesting. Was interesting. Thanks, Kaylee.

All right. Thank you guys. Rails team update. Uh which I I wish I had more to report, but we're still I mean we're um we haven't got your volume back. Yeah.

No. Uh they and part of it is, you know, that they had that whole survey throughout surveyed all this and we found a lot of things that you know, one was the utilities and easements and stuff that were not not going to change. Well, you could change it if you had let's say a spare like $1.2 million, which is not happening. So they had to kind of go back to the drawing board because it's not I mean it's not feasible and so they had to reschedule some of the survey people or the survey people were already on another job. Um so it's taken more time than what we would have wanted but nonetheless we're waiting for that information to come back with hopefully something that is agreeable and fundable. Um, in the meantime, we're going to try to move on like it's going to happen because if it does, if we do get the green light to do this work, um, we'll have to we'll be playing back up, uh, if we don't do that. So, we're, you know, there's some documents that I'm sure that we're going to have to have the attorney look at. One would be an intergovernmental agreement with the village and then eventually applying for uh, the grant. So, and we would need a resolution for that. Um, I'm hopeful that we hear something in the next week to 10 days um of what can happen. Um, so I they're they're working on it. They're we we bug them, you know, they have other projects and there's just a lot of we have issues with space. We have issues with um environmental. We have issues with utility. And utility is not just a pole. It's even the smaller boxes and things. I if

my memory is correct, I'm going to say it was exceeded 100 utility points that would have to be relocated if everything was done at the ashtto standard with the widths and stuff. And that's just, you know, they're they're talking somewhere in the neighborhood between 10 to 12,000 per kind of average to move one of those pill points. So it's just, you know, times how many

exceeds 100 coming around, you know, all the way around. So between poles and boxes and different utility structures, I'll call them. Um, so that is a real issue. You know, that that's a that's a cost issue that we there's not a ability to bear that cost. You know, like they'll tell you, we can build anything. We can do anything, but you got to have the money to do it. And you know, we're largely completely relying on a grant funding for project. So, but really nothing can be Well, I got a copy of the uh intergovernmental agreement. Yep. And that's something I I believe that the attorney is gonna have to look at.

We sent it to Tom just to look at. I called Wayne yesterday. Okay. To find out the village. The village isn't going to act on it today either. Right. So I I obviously I want something to come back from the attorney telling me. Yeah. Right. So we don't have any of that. Correct. That got sent to him yesterday. So

yeah. And I and I I'm I mean I'm hopeful maybe like I said in a week week to 10 days we'll hear because our engineers is FNV and and they have been in communication with um MDOT and they're trying to to to come up with something that will work and is has to be and I mean the other huge percentage has to one has to work two it has to be fundable and and not just fundable, but the whole grant process is competitive. So, you can present something, but but if it's but if it's it's the bottom 10% of competitiveness of what they look at,

we're not really No. So, we're we're getting close and you know, there's I hate to just say, you know, we're going to put everything on hold. We're going to try to continue to move certain things forward like intergovernmental agreements. Any in areas that we can go forward, let's do it, hopeful optimism. But I I wish I had a more definitive answer, but it's it's going to largely depend on what they can massage with um M do M dot and is is what the end product is that a fundable solution?

Right. Does it make sense? Joe, do you want to write on one? Well, a couple points on the resolution. Um, one is, and it relates to the whole trail project. It keeps getting referred to, and I'd hate to see it end up in legal documents as a non-motorized trail. Over twothirds of the trail is motorized. The entire route that's planned through the village is motorized. You're riding bikes with just a lane. It's not a nonmotorized trail. Uh because you're riding alongside a bike is not considered motorized. What?

The bicycle is not considered motorized. No. No. The the bike is traveling on a motorized trail. Oh, I see what you're saying.

Okay. the the road M22 through the village is motorized. You have just white lines. It doesn't have a a separation, a green area or anything. You you are on a motorized path all the way out M22. If all they do is extend the shoulders, all of that is motorized trail. The only reason I bring this up is and especially given light of a lot of the discussion like Katie says what is the terminology if you label if this gets developed and it's labeled as a non-motorized trail labeling the state of Michigan it's against public act to ride the vehicle on a designated

what were we called non-motorized it's about four names so far And and that's and well with with some degree of professionalism that we grant toward our engineers, they are the ones that will determine that. They have to determine that language and also MDOT who licenses these things and approves them. They will be the ones that come up with the exact legal terminology for it. We would. It's just like, you know, at the beginning of this, people are running around with their yard sticks trying to measure stuff without the use of a professional survey crew. It's like, okay. And they keep asking me about it. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to survey. I don't know. So, back to your point, the point of the intergovernmental agreement calls it that specific thing.

Yes. Okay. Well, we got Tom I have Tom looking at the language just to do that, but we'll get an answer back from him. We can change the name of it. I just wanted to make sure it made sense as what we're doing with the village which we have another I think we have one or two intergovernmental agreements with the village you do yeah I don't well it's just a field yeah I mean I don't in I understand what Joe is saying and I understand the concern but when I read this I don't look at this as referring to it as non-motorized it talks about we appreciate non-motorized principles and that kind of We'll let him weigh in and then like I said, the village hasn't even looked at it yet, right? I don't think the village will look at their work session on March 9th.

Yeah. And when you have Tom look at it, the research I did on on the inter intergovernmental cooperation resolution as its term. There's no such animal that exists at MDOT. There are res there is a resolution that has to occur intergovernmental

intergovernmental resolution that has to occur between the village and the township on this and then it goes to an agreement. But in the resolution in all the MDOT information it says while not always explicitly termed an intergovernmental cooperation resolution in the guides the required resolution there is a resolution required showing cooperation must include specific commitments that frequently necessitate intergovernmental cooperation. There were four key points. Support and authorization, which this does. Jurisdictional cooperation, which this does. The two things that are missing is there's a requirement for financial and maintenance commitment. The resolution must certify that the matching funds of at least 20% are in place but do not have to be committed in the resolution and that the agency where the act 51 agency is commits to operating and maintaining the project in perpetuity. It's in other words, there's got to be a maintenance clause there that you have an agreement to maintain this project in perpetuity and it has to designate an authorized agent. The resolution must identify the person authorized to sign the contractual agreement with MDOT if the funding is awarded. So you might I'm sure Tom will probably look at that but those were key things that are missing in it. And the other thing is it's kind of and I'll share this in discussions we've had is it defines that

everybody's agreeing to a project and I gave Jennifer an example. I said, "If you and I agree to build a home on that table and I ask you to sign a letter of cooperation that you'll cooperate to build this and we'll call it the project, what will be your questions?" And without any prompting, Jennifer said, "What does the house look like and what does it cost?" And that's the piece that we're missing. We're all going to agree to cooperate on the project. We don't know what the project is. No, that's why I sent it to Tom. I I'm not I'm saying that the village is going to have to be the agent.

PA1, the 51 agent. Yeah. Villages and the village is going to ask, you know, what is the project? Because in a resolution then the village as the agency is committed to any overrun cost. I mean list goes on a lot longer uh of what's required in there and that's why I can tell you the village is going to look for definition. Matt, when is the tab? What's the deadline? We're looking more towards uh May and submitted by June. Is it a rolling deadline? It's a quarterly one. There's different windows, but the half grants quarter

quarterly. So, we've already pushed it back quarter. It feels to me like, as much as I hate to say this, I think this whole we can apply for the tap grant once we work out the details, right? But until they have a plan, we've had all the public engagement, we have better cost estimates, I think it's premature to file a TAP grant. And I also think it's premature, very premature to file any kind of a trust fund or community foundation grant. It feels like a year from now we'll be ready for that. That's what it feels like.

Well, it part of it is that it would feel like that, but part of it is their funding stream is so so far out. We're already looking into the 28 29 year. Yeah, even even if it was to be awarded now, the next two application deadlines are June 17th and October 30, right? But there's April one for the trust fund, right? There's no way you can have a competitive trust on Grand April one without that. Yeah. And that's why we're very hopeful that we're going to hear and and there's a lot of

there's a couple of hinge pins again. Is this something that's gonna, you know, they're going to come up with something? And is it something number one, is the MD dot engineers and the people from Traverse City and the people from Lancing going to agree hopefully and the people from and the people Yeah. Right. And that's important. Yeah. Right. If it's if it's something that looks acceptable to the community and they agree, then the very the next step is that thing that we have, is that a fundable is that something that the the granting agencies will look at favorably? I don't know. So, we're still waiting on some of the

So, is is there an intention to try to apply for our trust fund grant for April one? Because I It showed Yeah. What's that? That's I would vote no on that because I don't think you can have a complete application. I'd have to say it. I mean that doesn't that timing doesn't make sense to me. It's it's aggressive. Not right. Just the fact it's factual. You can't unless you get unless you Unless we had the thing tomorrow. Exactly. Haven't had the public input or Unless you had the thing tomorrow to present to the public. I mean we don't That's what I'm saying. We're hopeful maybe within a week to 10 days we'll have something but it may not be a week to 10 days. It could be longer. I don't know. Well, but but the good

Yeah, that's actually probably a good thing because if you have it because this grant, as I understood it, was supposed to get it to the point where you could apply for a tap grant. Correct. Okay. Well, let's say that doesn't happen till June. 30% engineering. Yeah. Let's say it doesn't happen till June. You've got all that stuff. You've had the public input. You've got um the cost estimates. You've got a competitive tap grant application. You've addressed the village issues. You've done all that.

Right. then and you know that yeah with the right pieces together we can fund this right if it's not fundable then but if it is but then that gives you time to say okay look we've applied for this TAM grant you know we've talked with community foundation here here trust fund is a thing but the trust fund also requires that you have your financing sources lined up and locked in true there's I don't think there's any way you can do it in April it just doesn't it's not until we get the thing we can't go anywhere anyways can I offer a potentially opposing viewoint point. Sure.

Um I and I one of the things that I want to talk about with respect to budget is uh that same April 1 deadline uh with respect to a Glen Park um trust fund grant. Um but um in talking to Sheremy um about these two grants um uh she and I had the same discussion that Matt and Rick and I had. you just brought up that the timing is very aggressive for the trails for the trails team.

Um, but she's not opposed to it being submitted at this point with the full recognition that all these other things have to happen in the meantime and in the event that it would all align and that you could get commitments for all of the other funding which you must show them on October 1st, right? then at least it would be in for them to consider. Right? If you don't, it won't be in for them to consider. Again, I think it's highly unlikely that the trail seem ready, but that's just my opinion. I'm not on the team. Maybe it gets lucky. And if it's applied for,

then you're there. And that's the thing. They're not telling us no, don't do it. Um, so I mean, we're trying, but I mean it's it's not my it's not my decision to make. I mean it's but how strong is the application going to be? Well, and part of that is what the end result we you know on our application what we're we're hoping to have in the next week or 10 days that might determine this that well and that might it will determine the strength of the application. So um their funds are they weigh certain things higher. Sure. They got a whole

Right. And so as you stray from those higher standards or things that they'd like to see and they're funding those on a larger basis, as you stray farther and farther, you're you're you go farther to the bottom of the pile. And I and I it's I don't know. I mean I can't say but I some of the some of the things that we're going to be forced to accept just based on our environment our utilities the road you know how how it's going to form around the lake and the constrictions some of those are forcing us to to vary away from those which they recognize and they'll say okay you know but to what extent I don't know yet and so I I'm very hopeful we'll hear something and then we would have you know, could have a trail team meeting and talked about it. But really, you know, I I said it in a couple meetings. I think I was quoted in the paper um not too long ago, and I my my thing that I keep saying is, hey, this this the speed we got to get this right. The speed in which we accomplish it is second. So, we I mean, it's it's been going on for two years.

So, So, is Rick quit in the grant? We think uh we're working on it and uh FNB is helping us on the tap man. Yeah. Okay. What who who is intended to write the trust fun brick? That that's what I was talking about. That's got an earlier deadline. Yeah. Yeah. One more time. So the resolution is not going to get acted until March. Yeah. From correct. Okay. which you need for the TAP grant or excuse me, you need for the trust fund grant. No, correct. That resolution is for

Well, right here there's two resolutions, an intergovernmental and a trust fun. Trust one is separate from the inter. I understand. But on what we have tonight is those two resolutions and those discussion on them, not a plan of action. That's my point, right? So there either has to be a special meeting or it's not going to get approved till March. And if it doesn't get approved till March, it's going to be March 18th. And so that's where my question was going. some of the questions that like Ed's posing, you're saying you're going to have answers to, right? You would have them potentially

by March 18th for us to approve it, but then I'm sitting that's going to give you 13 days to get the grant. That's why I was curious who was writing it. Yeah, you can have a special. Well, that was the question I would pose is is can you begin writing the grant without asking that?

That's why I said writing a right. So, so you can with respect to the Glenn thing, I was going to ask for some direction tonight because I intend to begin doing that knowing that you can act on it tonight or you can act on it next month. You don't need to act on either of them until next month. Yeah. But I think that depending upon your inclination to support either or both, if you support the Glenn, then I'm going to move forward on working on the application. But you got you you got two things that the trail better. One, you have a grant writer, right, who's done these and knows and two, you've got all the plans that we had done before. Well, it's been it's done. Yeah,

it's just updating. It's much much simpler than what they have to go through. Absolutely. Yeah,

one comment uh because I've got ahead for a budget meeting. Um on the TAP grant application, the ASHTTO standards are not flexible cuz if on the first page of the TAP grant guide, it states if the proposed project is a competitive concept, the documentations needs to be submitted to demonstrate the proposed project can be designed and constructed in accordance with current ASHTTO and M do guidelines and parameters with no expectation of design exceptions or waiverss you know and and that's been confusing because in the trail team on one hand we heard from the engineer you were at it and he said over an hour stating you have to adhere to the ASHTO standards

but now everything we're working on is totally different based on what MDOT said but in the tap brand application I don't Well, I understand that, but okay, we'll see, right, if that fall falls through. And that's and those are the discussions from there's a group in Traverse City and then there's some in Lancing and though they both have to kind of agree on what they have to agree on the project. Yeah. And they they have to one agree. Okay. and then give us some semblance of where we fall in that pile that that come in every year. Are we too up from the bottom or closer to the top? Yeah. Are we at the bottom?

Yeah. So, there's it's it's a flux and it and it's there's a couple like I say there's a couple things that are very I mean it's it's it's the lynch pin of the project. There's a couple things and hopefully in another week

it will. So our thought is to like Vic was saying continue moving forward. Um because everything you know I tell people we're moving at the speed of government because just because you get a resolution and you're looking at oh okay boilerplate language we got it from FNB. They've done I don't know close to 50 projects. These are some of the things they've used in the past. However, just because it's used in the past doesn't mean we're not going to run it by our attorney. Nobody's going to run it by their attorney. So all these things are just steps and cogs in the wheel that as if we continue to move forward. If we wait then it's definitely too late. But if we can try to continue and write and get pieces of the grant submit it even um Shere has told you and like submit it. We're not telling you no and potentially if if you meet all these things you might get the grant. So there's but again there's some very specific things that we don't have an

I got Vick do you do you want a commendment from the board is that what you're looking for when you ask well we have um two things one is the March 1st deadline for Massie Community Foundation and that is the one that we brought up at the special meeting a couple of weeks ago uh finishing the U the walkway uh the ADA walkway at Langland and my current estimate is that's going to cost about $66,000. We would put in 20 and MCCF would put in the rest. Um I'm in the process of putting that application in right now and I'm at the spot where they need um a resolution I think or a motion.

Yeah. And and thanks Joe. Yep. Uh, I think Denver made the point though, if you make a motion and I get the minutes, then the minutes really aren't the minutes until they're approved next month, which is after the deadline. So, um, but I've never been I've never been told that by MCC Foundation. Okay. So, as long as there's a motion tonight to move forward with it, someone that just for the benefit of the public, what is the project? Do you can you pull it up? Uh, it was on that spreadsheet that I sent you. Can't you just say for dance? Oh, no. We might have some other people.

Well, people might watch the video like next. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You got to be able to share my screen. So, you have to be able to see where you you have to know where Glen Park is. I know. So, click on uh click on I don't know where all those creeks are, but Yeah. Well, I have all their names. Langley ADA walkway top left. Yeah, just one minute. They got a I think it's like obviously here. But that McCormack Creek, that's the one that flows to that little tiny park down here. Right down there. Yeah. With the rock at it. I can't believe the It's full of My guess is there's somebody's washing machine was firing right into it.

Okay. which uh top left partner projects ADA Langland ADA walkway. The first two pictures are pictures of what is actually there right now. A rigid walkway with a a bench for um a wheelchair prior to the descent down to the beach. You can see No, you can see on the right and then if you scroll all the way right u you'll see what it looks like from um the uh from the water. Now scroll back left and then down. I wasn't able the best I can do is estimate using uh Onyx Hunt exactly how much more feet that we need. And my guess at this point is that we're going to need 411 more feet at 157 um uh dollars a foot or $64,000. Um the benches are $420. We'll put four more. So, we will now have a walkway that goes from the concrete slab on the north entrance down to the bottom and connects uh to the south leg. Because this isn't exactly perpendicular, they're not 90° angles. So, the two corner pieces have to be specially machined to do that. And right now, my best guess is $66,000. Again, I'm using Onyx Hunt. And because of the way the conditions are out there right now with the mountains and everything, I really can't use one of those wheelers.

We can measure on an area. Well, that's what I've done here. Can I ask if I can? So, in Manaste, we have the ability to go out and level the beaches every spring, right? We don't have that ability here. We don't level the beach, but we open our walkways back. I'm talking about the part that goes parallel to Lake Michigan. No, no. We these are intended to get all the way to the flat spot. That's why I'm using this outer one. This is obviously an old picture, but the way we figured how how much we've bought so far and how far that's gotten us, that's giving us that this is the estimate that we're going to need to use. Surely not going to install it right along the water's edge.

No, no, no. But right now, the water's edge is probably out here. I mean, okay. So, you're confident you can find a flat spot within the the stuff we're buying? We will find a flat spot and right now our estimate is it's going to cost take this many feet to get down there. We're down if you go up. We're down there now, but who knows what's going to happen in the spring. So you may there may be years you don't use all of it. There may be a point where you can't connect it

there. This is a crapshoot and and that's why my dollar figure is a crapshoot. When I walked it last year, you know, I three six9 I came up with $88,000. So now I'm coming up with 66. I'm a little bit worried about that. But this is the tool that I used. And if we are only able to get, you know, halfway connected, well, we did our best. Did you measure it on a onyx hunt? Did you walk it or measure it? No, I This is called the line tool in Onyx Hunt. So it will give you the measurements. Each one of those red lines has a measure. That's fairly accurate. Yeah, it's pretty Well, I mean, yeah, they use whatever the counting G GIS stuff. When we measure stuff like for assessing on the on the aerials GIS

y it's accurate within I think in I think it's pretty close. The issue is how far does the does the hill go down before it changes the flat and right now you can see on the top picture how far you go the top right picture. Uh hopefully it's going to be about that much too because remember we're trying to keep it below a 10% grade for ADA as well. So there's a lot of variables here, but you know, can can I ride my golf cart out there on? Yeah. No, but if you have an O. Yeah. Get a sticker for your golf cart.

So anyway, so that's the project one that if the board is to support the last three years I've asked for two years I've asked for $20,000. You've granted me that. We've gotten, you know, 100 ft. why not ask for the same 20 and get the whole thing done using MCCF and they seem to like the project. So maybe we can get that funded and have that ready and water access was the top thing in the survey. So you think 20 is enough of a match to make that compelling for the community fun.

I I presented this to the to the foundation. They never make any kind of commitments, but they accepted the project. So we'll take a look. So, you need a motion committing $20,000 towards this project, which will be in the fiscal year 28 budget for us or 27 budget, excuse me. Yeah. And that's actually budget and to authorize him writing a green because the minutes have to say that since Vic or whoever's writing it is not the township. Okay. Correct. I'll make a Excuse me. I'd like that to be my motion. I've already Thank you. No motions. smooth it out a little bit, but I got it.

Okay, go ahead. So, I would make a motion that we um authorize the parks and recck committee to submit uh an application to the Manasty County Community Foundation as well as the Michigan. Well, that's a separate one.

Separate one. Okay. So, uh, to complete the ADA walkway loop, uh, at Langland Park joining the north and south entrances and to add beaches along that section, um, the overall cost of the project is estimated to be $66,000 with a $46,000 coming from the Manaste County Community Manasty County Community Foundation and a township match of $20,000. Um, we'll throw some fluff in there about authorizing the supervisor and or his appointed designate to doesn't even have to sign it. You're doing it electronically. Yeah.

Okay. Second. This discussion being heard, all in favor say I. I oppose. That's carried. We maybe think about was it Manasty that did the you can get your name on one of the benches um and get donations. We we can do that. We have a for $500 you can you can do that. And I thought we were going to get a lot of other people after we made that announcement, but we haven't so far. We have one Yeah, we have I think there would be a good like a campaign almost to to once this is installed and people say, "Wow."

Yeah. I think that will be a a trigger to get the benches. The benches are are they wood or paint material. Okay. Can you carve your name into the bench without We do a plaque. Just wondering the jack knife. Just wonder if that's I'm going to carve your name in. If we start seeing Dan on every bench, we'll know everybody's here. We we do the same type of program and we ran out of spots with benches. So we start that's why I'm saying it was very successful. Started doing aderondac chairs. Yeah. Oh. So more food for thought. Okay. Y

we can put we can put it on our new pure park. Oh. Oh.

Um okay. We can still put them there. Second um second question for the board is um with the April 1st deadline uh for the DNR trust fund grant um we would like to submit or resubmit an updated um um grant request for the ADA walkway that's pictured uh up on the screen there. um that gets an ADA up to the springs, refurbishes the springs, the bridges, etc. And uh the the complete project um I I've got the details on but that gives you some idea. Um the this bid was done in 2020. uh the work that was done by the then chairman senior moment uh

Leinsky

Leinsky he did an incredible amount of work. Um Jennifer and I uh gave access to a gentleman that um is a grant writer uh from up in Trevor City and um he took a look at it and agreed that uh well within the hours that I have in the budget for um professional services he can completely redo this and have it submitted by that time. Uh we wondered whether there was any hope we could get um the passport grant. Uh have anything's changed? And the one thing that we know has changed is they use something now called Alice as a method of determining uh the community's wealth. Uh and that's different than it was back then. And we might be able to pick up some points there. But the problem is is that the passport grant has a limit of $150,000 and that project at that point was 265 and using just inflation that came from AI we're now up to 389 I believe it is. So that passport grant is going to leave a big gap. And uh in talking to Sheremy, she said in this case as well, submit both. Do the passport uh or do the uh trust fund grant which can get you up to $400,000. Uh do the u trust fund 400,000 passport 150. Um you'll know in September whether uh the passport is going to be approved, at which point you need to make the decision. Do you take it or do you roll the dice on getting the trust fund? Um but but do them both.

But worst case, even if you the passport would allow a certain portion of that project to be completed if that was a Well, I'm not sure that you can do a portion of the project if they you know, you you have to do the project as defined. Okay. You couldn't say it's a phase one or No, I don't think so. You have to you you're prop making a proposal of this project and you're going in knowing their cap is 150. If they give you 150, you can't say, "Well, I'll do a little bit less now." If you got the passport grant, didn't get the trust fund, you'd be on the hook for 70 more. So, it' be like a 230 240 commitment

fund. Yeah. If you can go to there's another just go up to the top and click uh that right on the right. Yeah. Fiveyear No, go up right there. The fiveyear in the center. That one right there. Five-year budget proposal. Um on the top left, I believe is the Langland one. Top right is Glenn. Right now I've got at 388 with trust fund at 250, manasty at 64 and us at 75. 75 is what we did last time. Manasty put in 40. When I talked to um the MCCF about this, they said that we don't want to talk about that right now. Please get your March 1st submission in. When the March 1st submission is, let's meet again and we'll talk about this one. So, I think we're sort of up in the air on what their match could be. Um, I know that they've had some discussions with these guys about a potential match. So, maybe I can get something from them. I'm I'm trying to figure out exactly what I would I will do both.

Well, what would you ask for in the tr the trust fund grant? When's the passport grant due? Both are due the same day. Okay. So, so this is the passport funding window, right? Uh, this one. No, it's I'm assuming trust fund on this one. So, so when you write the passport grant and they can only give you 150, how you filling the extra 100? I haven't figured that out yet. Okay.

I'm going to I'm going to figure that out after I get the MCCF one done and then sit down and talk about this. But I guess the question I have with the board is if you guys feel favorable about moving forward on Glenn, then as soon as I'm done with MCCF, I'm going to get MCCF Langland. I'm going to get with them and say what what's our options on trust fund and and the other and see if I can't get a feel for it. And as I recall from our conversation that we had with Sher, did she not basically say, "Yeah, you submit them both and at some point we'll sort of gently ask you which grant you would like to discontinue, which is your on the path to the one that they likely

or she said, we'll give you the award and then you need to decide, are you going to roll the dice or you going to take the 150?" Okay. And she said, "Up to this point, most everybody takes the 150, but you know, that's just what people have done to this point. You have to make that decision." And that was part of my like my question before. Um I guess it wouldn't maybe it's a phase, but I know um the Madison Community Foundation just in with dealing with the trails project them knowing that like if it could if it potentially could be a multi-year project.

Mhm. Then if it's a multi-year project, they could make, you know, a match in, you know, whatever, pick a year and then the following year do another match. Then you have a certain amount of time to spend the trust fund dollar. So you might be able to make that work,

right? That's why I'm saying even if they say, "Hey, here's your, you know, the passport grant." You're like, "What do we do?" I think that would be a great time to have a good solid conversation with the community foundation. their feelings about a multi, you know, if if that could be spread out into a couple years, you know, you're talking, you know, if they're matched, let's say, was 40,000, maybe you get 40 and 40 and that is a that's a difference maker in that application. Yeah. You could blow that up a whole lot, I think. But but really just at the bottom right, use that blow up. The other thing that this is is I was including

um the trails project grant in here as well. Yeah. And what if we won both of those and they came to us and said it's October 1st. Show us the money. We have to show them the money for the Glenn project, which is not small. I mean, at this point, I'm asking $75,000. But holy cow, if we got involved, then is the township really ready to stand up to, you know, $375,000 or whatever. At which point to decide, well, we'll do this one, we'll do that one. And and then what Shere said is if you don't have the funding or whichever one you don't have the funding, we push it back to the next year. That's not an indication you didn't like it. And that's not an indication,

we'll pass it. Is there a downside? No, I think we should apply for all the stuff for Dark and then see where There's no doub There's no downside. Well, I will say this. So, the city got awarded the grant for renovate the North River Veterans Park area and that was like our third attempt at the trust fund. We we we applied like three times and and Cindy can attest to this. What made the difference on both the man-made lake grant and for this one the third time around is we actually went down the group went down to Lancing and presented and showed the passion they put a face to the name and you know I actually think

this last one that we got we might not even have scored but they always have a few discretionary dollars and the city got it. Yeah. So it's good to be there and present if you can. Well it was manmade we were invited to present. I mean I don't Were you allowed to just present if you wanted? Yeah, you can come down and call.

Well, Sheremy has been sensationally supportive and I I really feel like developing that relationship is a good thing. And then in the event we had an opportunity, boy, if I could get Brian Allen, get Tyler that, you know, the people that really know that park and really can talk it up or a historical person about, you know, we we could I we could sell that. I'm putting the cart way ahead of the horse assuming we get the grant and we build out this new beautiful Glen Park. I want to make darn sure this board is committing to maintaining the assets. We have to maintain our assets. That's at some point they end their useful life and you have to replace them. But we have to and we've been pretty good with that recently.

I would say with the exception of Glenn. Yeah. I mean Glenn has been I mean neglected. It was always too much money. It was too much. Right. We I mean we we take the trees that fall over the edge, but I mean I have a 35-year-old son who's ambulatory, but you know, he he's not am like we are. I didn't see any part of Glen Park as I was watching where he's walking for fear of he he's going to fall. So I I've never been back with my family. Um I really think that's a a great park. Also, it's not yet invested in the native species. I mean, there's a lot of good about that park. I think the gem of all the park. So anyway, so somebody want to make a motion?

Yeah. And honestly, I'm not 100% sure of exactly what has to happen. As soon as we're done here, if you guys are supportive of me moving forward, I'm going to get on the phone with our grant writer and say, "Go for it." And you tell me what you need. We can do that in March, right? I'm sorry. We could do that in March or at a special meeting. I think there's some kind of a Isn't there a standard resolution form for a trust fund submit? I think I think there is. Well, tomorrow I'm going to call him. Am I going to say get started and you tell me what I need from the board and do it sooner rather than later. Okay. So, do you want a motion or just Yes. Go ahead. Well, I mean, whatever you guys think. I I I a motion would make it a little bit more formal. We'll probably still have to do a resolution. Yeah. Ed, what would you like that motion?

I thought that Madam Clerk would have one prepared. I took one. I'm offering you one here. I'll make a motion that uh we we have Bic work with as grant writer to um start preparing a trust fund grant for the Glen Park renovation is laid out here and that we um potentially commit up to 75,000 as part of the next budget and through the formal resolution. You need them. Okay. Second. I just have a question. No, second. Oh, sorry. Second. Second. Thank you. Not a discussion. Go ahead.

Um, the other trust fund grant, the trails project, would that grant writer be someone we could lean on for help? What the tr with that trust fund grant? Oh, I don't know how many hours he's got left, but I mean, I'll ask him. The problem is the problem is is that this grant is essentially done. It was just he just got to update it. It's not going to be as right. What's that? I I would absolutely encourage the trails team to engage with the grant writer rather than having all that burden on the team to write the grant. We need somebody who has done this before be successful. I think we use them like as a as a like a consult.

I have I have an idea. What about the gentleman that is at Manaste County who has who helped us with the uh grant last year at um North Point and who works for them and said I'm here to help and he gave us that what is his name? Bill Kennis. Bill Kenny, he's their grand writer and u they have never the county has never committed to let us using him for free. Although he did help us for free last time, but we can pay him. I mean, we have budget for him. So maybe it's worth reaching out to him and say, "What would you charge to do a trust fund grant?"

Aren't we paying your grant writer? We are. So we can put money in the 27 budget for the grant for the trails team and use whoever at that point. I mean if your guy is effective and you have a relationship with them but bills might be really good too. I don't Right. No, I'm only talking about who's got the bandwidth to get it done between now and April 1st and our guy said I can do yours because I'm essentially just doing a redo. I I didn't think April one was on the table for that grant. But if it is that might be a problem. Oh well. Okay. So that's a question to you. Are you still want cuz that resolution had nothing to do with the trails grant. Are you still wanting to move forward with the trails grant on the April 1st cuz that's something the boards need to decide. We got to vote on this other things.

No things on the table here. I just the light bulb just went on and shut it off. Okay. All those in favor. Did you vote? No. Oh, thank you. I I No. No. Now, do you need a motion for the other reply for the other one? Well, I again I'm on trails. That's passport. Oh, it probably wouldn't hurt. Probably wouldn't hurt. Well, I'll make that same motion, but for the passport grant. However, there's still going to be $100,000 that's unaccounted for, but at least you can apply. I don't know how you're going to fill that gap. You have to show the complete sources and uses.

I'll I'll come back to the board. Well, I have a question. I have a question after this discussion about begin the application process. Is there a second? Well, submit the application because he won't have time to get back in front of us. Okay. Is there a second? Okay. Second. Discussion. Do you have anything else? No. I mean, if that application requires a a balanced sources and uses, somebody's going to have to I mean, you can't put the township on the hook for 175 unless I make that in the motion. So, I don't know what we want to do there. Yeah. I mean, can we say something like um not to exceed? No. Remember,

what didn't we have some verbiage on the Pierport Park verbiage uh about committing this much from township resources and other sources guaranteeing funding from non Yeah. When we had somebody who was willing to step in and do that, we don't have that here. Well, where are you? You left. But at this point, we, you know, we're hoping to get more from MCCF. Um, how can we state it that, you know, we're seeking, uh, but limiting our exposure to a certain dollar?

Well, well, I mean, maybe if the board is amanable, we would, if we got the passport grant, we'd eat half and MCCF could eat half. Maybe. I don't I don't know. I don't know if MCCF would fund that much. But then I would have to rem, you know, we'd have to amend my second motion to say 125,000 and you'd have to show 114,000 from MCC at that point for other funding sources, other grants. I mean, I don't I don't know what they want in that application though. I don't either. Is it worthwhile to give a little bit more information than call special meeting if they do this? So my that was my question. Remember March 1st? I No, no, no. MCC April 1st is this is April 1st. Oh, I'm not going to go out passport. That's April one, too. Correct. Yes.

Oh, okay. So, all those grants are April Fool's Day. Yes. So, so we can make some sort of MO motion that allows me to move forward with it and then I'll get with him tomorrow, tell them tell me what I need the board to do and then I'll either have a special meeting or um we'll we'll deal with it on the next one. If he's agreeable that he'll still have time to submit. That works. What big side? We'll work on that. We still have a motion. You have a motion. Was seconded. Yeah. Cindy seconded. Okay. The discussion. I didn't hear you.

Yeah, she did. It was a nonverbal. It was a verbal. I'm kidding. You want to read it back? Nope. Uh I think it's okay. He's going to apply for the passport grant, correct? Using the numbers we've had here and then come back if we need to tweak the number. Yeah, that's a healthy. Maybe you didn't second that. Didn't hear it. We're done discussing. I don't have a We can we Thank you. This is what goes to court, ma'am. Can't defend. I asked times. She gave me the war but oh that'll that'll

she can interpret that to me. You know judge sometimes when a woman won't give me earlier in the meeting what she wants. So this is on. Is anybody online yet? Doesn't matter. It's all on the internet now. I hope they are they can hear all the stuff we're doing. Wondering what we're here doing so late. Okay. Any other discussion? None being heard. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. That's carried. Are you done? I'm done. Thank you. Planning Commission meeting. ZBA. We've had no planning commission meetings. Assessor board review. March board review is Someone took my calendar down. Yeah. Someone said they didn't need it. Nobody looks at it. So, your organizational meeting is March 3rd. Yes.

And then no appeals are heard at that time. And then you have a meeting on March 11th from 3 to 9. No. 900 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and then March 12th from 3:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. No dinner or lunch breaks have been scheduled. Whoa. No, you you eat on the go here. Eat on the go. Um written um outside. Written uh appeals can be received at the clerk's office either by mail or in hand in person by March 9th.

Does it say that she put Okay. So, we've always accepted up to if you Okay. So, on the bottom of your tax notices and your and the assessments is where I got that date from was March 9th. That's also been on the website. may have never turned anyone down if it comes in and they got at least before they journey. So that's fine. It's all right to have the date, but okay. And everyone's happy, I guess. Well, here's what I can tell you. I We have had Who for sure is coming. We have had we've looked at the minutes, the previous minutes. It seems like he shows up at every zoning board of appeals

board review. Board of review, sorry. Board of review. Correct. Won't comment on that. And u I won't comment and u very few calls for people. Yeah. Questioning their assess assessments. Now, don't get me wrong, the ones that have called, some of them are a little I don't know. I ra I've been asked a couple times if I was crazy. Well, I just say, "Yeah, why? What's wrong with your sales?" There's no adjectives before the word crazy, right? No. Okay,

I'll tell you another story. I mean, you're leaving after me. Something happened today. Okay. Zoning administrator done. Moving on. Board review done. Done. Done. Uh, countywide OB ones. Done. MTA principles of governance. Is that an something we have to sign and do? Yeah. So, resolution. You left it on my desk. It's It's You apparently have signed them regularly because there's one hanging in the hallway and it just says, "We agree to be good stewards of the taxpayer of the money and you follow rules of regul." Do we need a motion? Did I sign it? We need to read it. No. There's no such reading TLC. Do you want to present your budget that or you got to go?

Uh well um I'm I'm happy to talk about No, I don't have to go. I'm happy to talk about that. That I mean that's not my budget that this is just cap Cath capital strategy because you have Okay. So you're not ready to talk about your the rest of the budget then. Um I I have two more details to nail down be now and Wednesday or Tuesday of next week. I don't remember saying that. I don't remember it saying well I didn't you know

this says our principles of governance that we the undersigned agree to maintain the highest standards and traditions of Michigan townships that we embrace these principles to guide our stewardship deliberations and constituent service as we commit to safeguard our community's health safety and general welfare and then we pledge to many things on the highest standards of ethical conduct uh bring credit honor and dignity to our public offices through collegial board deliberations and diligent appropriate responses. What does she say? Collegial. That's what it says. Is that what it says?

Yes. Actively pursue education and knowledge and embrace best practices. Treat all persons with dignity, respect, and impartiality without prejudice or discrimination. Practice openness and transparency in our decisions and actions. Cooperate in reasonable ways with other governmental entities. and consider the impact of our decisions. Communicate to the public. Communicate to the public township issues, challenges, and successes. Welcome active involvement. Strive for compliance with all state and federal statutory requirements. refuse to participate in any decisions or activities for personal gain at the expense of the best interest of the township and further the understanding of obligations and responsibilities of American citizenship, democratic government and freedom. This is what you're signing if you agree to sign it.

Will you make the motion? Sure. Was there a second? Second. I will say thank you. Okay. All those in favor say I. I. Oppos. Carried. I feel better already. I feel like we've just other government state federal. I was going to say I I don't believe there's other. They don't sign that. Well, okay. I just was wondering. Well, they sign it, but

there's an aster several of them by each word. Do I need to sign it with a blue pen? You should our FP herbicide application. We just need to have a motion made. What did I do wrong? No. So, it was in your packet. I can explain it if you'd like me to.

Okay. It's the same thing they have to fill out every year. Well, no. This is well we had um we had PLM under a three-year contract and then last year is when we segregated the duties and then because of timing of hiring advisor we didn't have time to send an RFP out for applicator services because we would have lost time for submit for payments. This year we haven't done it. So, oh, you're sending it out now early to come. Okay.

And this is for applicator. Now, the only thing with it, I really wanted to send it out tomorrow, but because the way the RFP was done, it also creates the contract itself. Tom Greer's looking at it. So, maybe if we could, if you agree with it, have approval subject to him. That's fine. Approving it. So, I didn't ask today when this guy was here and I didn't want I would have asked, but we have no problem if the same applicator gets the job again this year, right? They did a fine job. And actually, a couple members on the committee felt like we didn't even have to do an RFP. Let's just do it. But, okay.

Everybody then said, "No, let's do an RFP. Make sure." Okay, that's fine. Motion. You making that motion? Yeah. I'll make it. What's your motion? Motion. being second by flag to approve that subject to Tom Greer's review and to approve because the bylaws say that invasive species bylaws say that the township board has to also approve the process of the RFP which I wrote in the memo to you. So it also includes proving the RFP and the process invasive species is using.

Yeah. Okay. Is there and you already second that, right? Even though you hadn't heard it, that was pretty good. All those in favor say I. I for Thank you for all your hard work. Well, you mentioned multiple times about how the applicator was very Did you make that efficacy and was being done completely right? Thank you for all your hard work. That's actually very impressive. He is literally I could feel him tingling. He was so excited about that sprint. Thursday the big difference is scientific project and it has significantly changed the approach. I was like this this guy what I did like he's a scientist.

He made a reference but he didn't he didn't bury the old people. He didn't bury the old group. Right. Right. But he referred to it he was kind of really like okay but he did in a gentle way. He did in a gentle way. Yeah. He didn't stomp on Yeah. that was sat back here in that second row. Water scientist. Oh, he lives on Bay View. Lives halfway on Bay View down there. I'm trying to think about what road end. Um, it's a nice guy. He worked in he that's his field. I just didn't

when he was talking about how he was chasing down these leaks in Grand Rapids and different railro he worked in there. That's a lot of He was a great He had can he had cancer last year. He is actually in the sew project. I talked to him quite a bit because that was his field and he was all for the sewer and then he got sick and then I it's I think he's feeling better but it's hard to tell. It looks like he's still I would like to I'll get I just I'm drawing a blank because um Alexis hasn't been coming to our meetings and so I'm not sure what her status is but if we needed somebody Oh, he'd probably like that. Yeah. Okay. Are you at your full regiment of members or you

I know I think that's minimum. No maximum. Yeah. No maximum, right? Good point. Yeah. So, for sure find out. I'm moving on. Noise ordinance. I'd like you want to talk about, but I would think we should have them all be the same time and be the whatever it is. time. Well, I don't think people I think the whole issue was they didn't like the 1:00 a.m. Right. I don't think I think the other one is 11. 11 and the shortterm. You can't be down on the beach having a bonfire. You just don't have to be yelling and drowning stuff.

Yeah. Just gives I think to me that makes more sense. But how do we go about changing that? Well, we have if we're going to amend the ordinance, then there's still you have to do 15 days notice and it has to be before the board and blah blah blah and you have to publish it in the newspaper, etc. So, we can do that. And then the question becomes if you're going to match it to 11 and I do not have the noise ordinance committed to memory yet. Um, were there carveout days for like ONECA days and Fourth of July where it can go a little later? Why don't we why don't we research it a little bit more for next month? Yeah. April is fine. Well, just as long as it's before summer. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be great. Everyone kind of favor.

I would I would I would suggest I don't know when the last time that's been looked at by an attorney, but often noise ordinances when they were written way back in the day are uninforceable. So, if we're going to go through the effort to look at the ordinance and make changes, we ought to have Tom review it. And fortunately, Mandy and I attended a little seminar. There you go. Down state. One of the topics was noise ordinances. We can get the destiny township supervisor a decel meter and he can go around and Oh, he'd like that. Yes, he would. Well, judging by some of the language that was in the ordinance about the booting and Yeah, it needs to be and hollering. I'm guessing that was from So, do you want to 80 years ago? Okay. So, we're in favor of doing that. Okay. Let's just put it on. Okay. Right.

We now we have this big thing of budget discussion. You wanted to do the regular and customary bills to be paid since that was passed. I move we pay the regular and I second it. All those in favor say I correspondence. Now we're back to budget discussion. Okay. Um so I sent out some items last. It's been probably a month. Yes, a lot.

False. I you know I haven't gotten anything from the fire department. I haven't gotten input from anybody. So we just need to make sure I mean I I there's a couple little changes that I saw that probably need to be made. I talked to Jennifer about just some coding issues on where they want to actually budget for things and make sure the invoices line up with that. But um if people have had a chance to look at that, look at the footnotes and you know I I have like two or three things that I you know obviously we need to talk through the parks budget because he's going to have some stuff when that's presented. But we've talked about a storage building that's not addressed in here. Um we've talked about um can I ask do we know what fund balance we have right now? Yeah, it's

I mean you're talking about a trails project, you talk about gun part. Those two items alone could cost or be as much as how much roughly? Pull up my spreadsheet. 550,000. No. No. No. Cuz there's three some Yeah. I I I mean Well, you're count if you get What if you only get the one grand? Well, okay. And then only gives you if you're talking about trails, you understand right now you've asked for 200 m, but there's still 200 unfunded. So, they're trying to find that somewhere else. Right now. Right now you're looking 400. Better budget for four.

You're looking for four cuz they don't have the other 200. Okay. So I'm saying four and a buck and a half of passport. You still owe 200. That's actually six less MCF. Yeah. Uh but I'm going to have a really good idea for you after I talk to um MCCF after. I know. I know. I'm just saying as a as a So where where are we? So, well, this this shows that we're this shows that we're at a million, but remember, we all of our revenue hasn't come in yet. So, you know, it it'll be north of a million. Okay. I think probably closer to um six a million one,

I would say. Closer 1.2, you know, and also remember the firefighters got to pay back that $250,000. So, if they sell the truck, we get a buck and a half. We're down to a hundred for them. And they'll pay that back over time. Over time. And then they want to buy the other thing of so we're going to be up to another that's 50 grand. And we, you know, I can I can have some more detailed information for that in our next meeting if we want it. But I just I'm not sure. You know, our our operation is pretty simple. Things really don't change much from year to year. Um,

but I think I think the building is something. I think the parks capital projects are obviously important. I just heard they're putting in a pickle ball court, so we probably don't need to worry about that if that's going to be open. There'll be two. Yeah, that's why it came completely came off our radar. Yeah, I think that's great. I mean, that's Who's putting those in the school? School with tennis courts. No, girls softball diamond on the corner there. And so far we rode we've had some semblance of No, they're not getting moved. They're getting the restroom. Well, but remember the gym, the workout room was supposed to be free and open to the community and now you got to pay 100 which still frosts me because they sold the stupid bond issue. That was a big piece of that. It's 100 bucks. Yeah.

Yeah. I think originally started it was free but then it was like 30 bucks or 36 for a hard thing to get in. I can understand. I didn't get a card. The health connection thing is free but it must be because I'm over whatever age. You might have silver speakers or whatever it's called now. Huh? at your house. You might have silver sneakers or whatever they call it with insurance is where you get that stuff free. Oh. Oh, did not know that. That isn't silver sneakers like a Blue Cross thing or is it general term for Yeah, I think it's a priority health except for priority health is used for the active geriatrics. A lot of a lot of the Medicare medic not Medicaid but the

Medicare. Yeah. What's the other one that C's have them? After my first day there, I found there's a lot of muscles I didn't know I had. Yeah, I found it, but this morning they showed up on the pickle ball here pretty soon. And I know that showed it in his, but I think last month I talked about the mashing grant for the DNR launch, right? Brian. Oh, yeah. That that was 10 and 10. That's too bad that they're that they're all just a pain. There's only 10,000 for that. Like it's a little bit over a 10%. And how much is the Foundation likely to put in?

Um well, I'm going to say up to 90 just because Well, that's where I said I don't know if asphalt cost went up and that's where Dave said he didn't think so. So, it might not be that high. Scott Brown said I can't get it bid because I don't have a drawing that had we know how many square feet. We're assuming it's around $100,000 project. That's what I have in my spreadsheet. I included that in my spreadsheet. The project was less than that when Jim first started talking about it, but I just it was like 65 70 grand. I want to say it was 70 or 80 or maybe 70, but I'm just adding like another 10 in my head. That's fine. I have a question.

Yeah. Have we ever done something like taking a look at our like our capex for um parks and what is that as a percentage of our yearly inflow? What is that as a percentage of our net cash? We essentially we've got cash and savings and some small the liabilities per year. So there's a net cash per year. No, no. Well, what is our net cash figure and what's our spending? You want to know what we take in from expectantly? What do we take in each? You want to know what we take in from taxes only? No, no. For the last year, we've taken in 60 grand in interest income, too.

Well, Beck, I I mean, yes, we look at all of that, but here's the takeaway. Normally, you need like a say a 30% fund balance of your typical operating expenses. We're so far in excess of that right now. we're way out of whack. If we're not using these assets or setting them aside for restricted funds for things, then we're not doing Why do we have the money sitting around? So, I we're not to the point where I I think we need to be obsessing about that. We have plenty of fund balance to fund some of these high priority capital projects if the board agrees on it. When we start to draw that down a little more, then I think yeah, we need to maybe move

then it gets then it gets tight. So that's that's the reason my question because when I put that 5-year plan in front of me, number one, there's three years in a row that we get trust fund grants. Well, that ain't going to happen, right? But but we have a lot out there and I'm just looking for some sort of boundary. That's a lot of money for me to put out there. But yet again, I mean, Glen Park something we should we have to put it out there so we can plan and think about it. And if the board decides, you know what, there's a project out there three years that we think is really good, we can restrict the dollars today. Yeah. And say we're going to set these aside until this project becomes what is our our millillage 220. We get just millillage for the township operator. Are we a mill and a half or we two or mill?

No, we're hang operating a mill and a half or 1.47926 or whatever it is. So we've got So I used 1.4982, 4982 is but I don't know if we'll have a headley roll back. probably will but so that that's pretty close right so it's basically one and a half one and one and our taxable is probably this taxable value is going to be uh two something 2 million 233,100,000 so 233,000 plus half 300 almost $350,000 in revenue that revenue for the general

not counting plus we get some other revenue state off the speaker Oh, we're up there. Oh, okay. No, we're um Was that the road commission meeting? 300. And that's not total revenue, don't get me wrong, but that's how much I'm trying to answer. What does the township take in in mill in millag money? It's like

but so so we have we get um $349,000 in in tax revenue plus delinquent. So call it 360, but I've got a $657,000 revenue budget. So we get almost 100,000 in revenue sharing. We get um property tax administration fees of almost 95,000. you know, we we have fees for permits. We have 30 grand in interest income. We have, you know, some things like that. So, it's

Well, the reason I asked the question is because I generally am trying to be as stingy as I possibly can, especially on the operating budget. Uh, but you brought up building and building is something like we're storing all that rigid walkway back there. Well, if we get this next grant, we've got three times as much of that. The other question is is I'm having a hard time getting a bid for the weekly cleaning of the sand because the vendor has to go out and buy equipment to do that. We could buy the equipment and do that, but the current employees that I have are not capable of handling that equipment. So, I mean, there's a lot of discussions that we go forward on, but getting a building would be we kind of take us in a different direction. Number one, for storage of that. Number two, we could maybe not go to a vendor to do that and use our own equipment that's going to cost us $2 $3,000 plus, you know, different kind of employee.

Yeah. Again, I think I think at some point we crossed a threshold where we're a little township that doesn't have employee and and higher maintenance needs. And at some point it makes sense to hire a capable employee to do some of this stuff. I don't know if we're there yet. I'm just saying. Now that we don't like an actual the recycling the recycling location is kind of taken care of that's going to go in theory and we don't have you know we're not looking to find a place to put a building with a pickle ball court because they're going to have them. Do we have room at our cemetery to put up a storage building? No, we can't do that. No, I don't want a storage building at the cemetery. You could have it on the other property next to the cemetery. Yeah.

The 10 acres that we just had surveyed or a different chunk by the cemetery. I don't know what's in reserve and what's not. But let me So I would not be happy to see a storage building at Burlesen. I have some ideas which I don't know if they can come to fruition. Uh but I don't want to see that there. And I do understand we have that property on the west side adjacent to the village cemetery too. Correct. Speaker I'm that's the piece I'm talking about. Yeah that's what I'm talking they're thinking about that piece adding the that could be as a disc golf the disc golf or something or

right I'm just saying it's you know we don't have to put anything in the budget. We can talk about if we want to amend the budget later we can but we don't have a plan. It's not been fleshed out. I think we need to at some point decide whether we need to do something or you need to have a building. That's that is and you know the other thing that we've got going on is this whole fire district which hasn't happened yet but it's definitely got a lot of momentum and you know that will probably be a voted millillage at some point and I'm thinking you weren't at the last meeting day but I was you yeah it'll probably you know they're they're looking at working backwards from a probably a November maybe even having that on the ballot this November potentially. I'm working through the detailed budgets and they're going to put this plan together and they're going to start coming around to all the groups. All

we're gonna we're gonna do we're gonna do the tour. All of the townships have committed to the five grand. So, it's it's definitely still having traction. that that doesn't change what we're talking about here for a storage building, but it it adds another dynamic because now you've got full-time people potentially here and you know, we're we're becoming a more sophisticated township and we have different needs and I know there's a lot of unmet cemetery needs, but we had a staff person that was competent and a good handyman, they could be doing a lot of that stuff. If we had two full-time rescue guys or firemen when they're not doing that, hell, we'll just put them to work in the park. Give them ranks. That's not going to work. Feel like that's not going to work. No, it's not going to happen. I'm teasing.

So, so you bring up the fact that maybe there would be a millage for that fire district, but our fire millage is up this year. We have to be on the ballot either in August or uh or November. So, if it passes, but do you need to institute it if the other one passes? Yeah, that part I'd have to you have to have a work session and sort through them all. Well, besides that, you'd still run them both. Here's why. It's going to be over and above the other millage. So, you have to pass your first one, right? Even if we Yeah, you're not going to ask you're not asking for the to you're asking for an additional millage,

right? So, you go in May in August rather if it didn't pass in August currently once the legislature Oh, yeah. passes legislation which could change that. You could have another bite at the apple in November, but then you would have two competing fire millages on Well, no, because the other ones would be an additional mill over and above. What if people go, "That's great. Let's have a fire district." No on fire department because we want to join the fire district. That one fails. We got to sort out all those. I'm just I bring that up because it's just another dynamic. It really doesn't impact the budget. I didn't think it was that close to being on the ballot. Oh, it's I thought that would be like a 27 ball with the fire district.

Well, it could be. You could put it in May and still levy it in December. You can't probably do it in August since they'll get it on the on the on the winter taxes very easily, maybe. Or November, you certainly couldn't do it. You if there was an August one, we still need to do the dog and pony show, right? And that's what that 20 grand is going to help go for. So anyway, um, so we're going to get Bick's detailed budget and that's going to What's that? Tuesday. Yeah. And then I'll incorporate that in here. I've sent you all the sheets. I've sent you all the notes. I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything or, you know, like I say, I haven't heard from the fire department. I need to bump Rob on that. You know, he know, but the deadline hasn't come come yet. So,

and the reason this is important is on the um the budget calendar is I have the request due February 24th, which is a week from now, but then I have to put those all together and have it available for review by March 2nd, which is fine. this kind of hard to do, but I need to know if there's things that you guys want changed or we need to I think we should look at the the proposed wages again just so we can get some consensus on that. And then um then I can tidy this up and make some tweaks and work with Jennifer because she's I I think we should put 50 grand at least aside and save building some for some a building that much.

Oh yeah. Got a couple Amish sheds. Couple Amish sheds out here. Amish. We get half a Quanza hut. We got one for sale and we're not going. Guys are terrible. Those are actually pretty functional buildings. Coal. You can put steel storage. It's cheaper than a It's probably cheaper than a stick built pole or I would guess a steel frame. I mean, I don't know. I don't know how big. And it depends how big how I mean you don't want to overbuild this either but we need well we'll have to figure that out. You need to figure you know what you got back there. You can measure what you got back there and add three times that just for the rich and then two years from now when we have a handyman with a truck and there's equipment and Yep.

you know darn well that you build a barn. Well, you always build it too small, right? I'd say you got like 1500 square feet. No god, no 50 by 30. No god, that's not big. Well, maybe we should put together a subcommittee. That's not even No, maybe maybe 40 by 60 at a minimum. Okay, guys. I'm getting slap happy. We'll get some We'll get some township representative we get from her, Dave. Yeah. Yeah. Want a tour of the buildings. All right. So, so if you look at the calendar here, it's up on the screen. So, you know, I need to That's why we scheduled this so we can get input because I'm not going to be able to come back after doing that there be enough,

right? So, we kind of need to decide tonight if there's other things that aren't in there that we want to have in there. I know we need 30,000 for collection equipment. Yeah. At least how much? 30. 30. We should budget 30, right? And the state's reimburseing us for that. At the moment, they are not. There are efforts a foot to see that it gets in the budget and gets through. I'm not holding my breath. Right. I'd rather plan for it and not need it. They scam. The state has said 15 officially now. Heather sent me something. It has a little I sent you something before. This was a different thing. That was the thing they just sent you. But I sent you my direct communication with the Bureau of Elections where I have it right from them. You did. Thank you.

That's pretty shocking that they demand that. Oh, road road budget. How much do we have in there? So, um, and where does budgeting for stuff here at the hall come under? Okay. You're talking about township hall maintenance under township hall. Let's let's uh let's do one thing at a time. So road budget, Dave, and this is why I needed and I had to get with you. Um I need to know how much the chip seal stuff's going to cost. I couldn't find the sign contract thing. 3

3 something 3 3 349. Well, does that include the Langland? No, cuz we got Langland was we were going to add Langland on, but he never got me a bid from the company. So, I need to get a hold of the company next. We paid Langland part. No, the chip sealing. Oh, and and Stripe and Stripe hold up on the stripe because they were going to chip seal last fall. I just Brad never I'll call tomorrow and ask Jess. She I need that number whatever it is so I can I don't have that built in. Okay. So how much is there in there right now? Right now we got about 830,000. Okay. So 3 something. I'm going to say it's 350.

I think I penciled something in. So but I need to know what the real Yeah, they have the real figure. So at the meeting today, so I didn't give that report because Rose isn't on there anymore. Anyways, we took it off. roads should stay on.

Should stay on. I attended Cassini. I told her I would go. So, they reaffirmed they were going to actually redo a motion. They added it on as additional items from the board and redo the motion to hire the guy and have a roll call vote. And when they said it, I went, while I was at the meeting, there was three guys that made a motion and they voted. I So then Jerry Peterson when he said something said, I don't know what you're talking about. you guys voted the guy in at the last meeting. I don't then they went, "Oh, okay." So then Jerry said something about how the pro he just said, "I want to make sure you guys and then he said this process how you did this and is wrong and I'll tell you why. You should have had a set of questions that everybody answered correct

and then graded them on their answers and and have a comparison. You didn't do that." And then he said, "And then you hired a guy outside of the meeting." And then they said, "And then I wasn't going to say anything." And I said, "Well, I don't say it." I said, "Look at I'm not saying that the guy you hired. I talked to the guy said a great guy. I'm not even saying you did anything wrong in the hiring process, but you hired the guy on the phone after the meeting and offered him the job and then he turned it down. And then you he called you back and said he'd take it and then you posted it and then you already hired him and then you made a motion at a meeting to hire him legitimately. And then they said, "Well, then they read me the minutes from that special meeting that I have a copy of except there's two more lines added that says uh the job was offered to da da da da." Yeah. And that was not on the other minutes. I did not get into that, but the papers already called me out twice tonight because they were there. Oops. I don't know how much I'm gonna say. I think it's just better. We have to work with these guys. I don't want any issues.

Well, it's their issue. You know, it's their issue and I told them you guys that's just I almost said in the cloak of darkness, but I didn't. I can't remember. Well, it's it's a procedural thing that you can get like open, right? When you have a when you have a hiring committee, you have to have the same questions. I mean, Right. Been through it a million times. Yeah. And you everybody, you know, let's say there's five people. Everybody has the sheet of paper. Usually you circle the questions you ask because each person asks the same question. You know, you might have 10 questions. I'm the number two guy. You might be number three guys. So, and you rotate around and so that way it's an equal playing field for each one of the candidates.

So, they didn't they didn't do that. I I only said that and I two I think board members got ticked at me, but that's okay. Okay. Ed, I'm sorry. I digress, but that's the road. That's the road report. So that they're going to do Oh, they're short on money. The state supposedly now, I don't know how, but Peterson says, "You guys are short on money." They had $6 million come in. How many years ago? Four a year or five a half million. They're not making a building payment of $350,000 now. That's gone away. They're done. Building's paid for. They only have $3 million. I don't know. My my road funds in the city are going up by 30% of the fair. So, I don't know what the value

something is goofy and I didn't want to get into it till the new guys there because I don't know if they could answer. You know what I mean? The manager wasn't there and it doesn't make sense. But they're committed to our project. We paid up. No, we didn't. We We got credit. We have a signed contract. Yeah. They said they're doing it including Yeah. Not that change order. That'll be a change order. Just want to make sure you get it in there. Actually, we'll probably end up paying the contractor ourselves because they don't pay anything of that. Oh, we can do that, too. That's not a cost share deal.

So, Jennifer, you said you wanted to know where city hall stuff is budgeted. That's at 265. I've got it right. Is there something we need to add to that that you're aware of? Hopefully, they don't get sued. I don't Jared can't say they came back. I mean, you could sue them for violating the opening act. What do you mean any of the candidates? Let's say there's three or four candidates 2500 in supplies. One of the candidates could contract phone system. Okay. Licenses civic plus website fire protection. post of it laser printer pit postage

they just say action WDI it's that's 500 look at that I would say they need to review their policy hiring before they do it any more no I was thinking about things like okay so we do have perfect um thinking about things like you think Chicago need to be repainted we wanted to repaint these two sides of the building need to be freshened up. Um on that the steps that go out the back side five grand here for building. If that needs to be higher we can adjust that. Needs to be higher.

You hear Jennifer from Joe. Do we have five grand then for build? Well, we have building steel. I already have you get to keep that building steel and repaint. That's zero right now. So under building we have 5,000. So that's fine. But no, she wants she thinks it's going to be I think it's too low to paint the inside. The out not the outside. It is too low to paint the outside. Read that document on. It is too low to paint the outside. We're replacing this door which is in nobody's budget. We just decided it had to be done this year. Well, that's a repair man. How much of the building has to be painted now? Is just this. So

this side and that side. And then it's an extra charge to paint the faint brick because that brick is not it's some sort of weird foamy thing that requires a different application that's going to be like another I don't know three or $4,000 to paint that. No. I tried to get Bob to do it and he said nope off if you're going to paint it for three grand. I bet it wouldn't cost that much to replace. Give me a placeholder for repainting a building and I'll add it in. Six grand, seven grand, but 10 grand. Yeah. Cuz I like I You think it's time to repaint the walls here? That one's probably done. You think

that one's scuffed up a little? I don't know. We knew what color was it. Just paint the same color. That's Bob. He's the interior. Oh, no. That'd be a Shelly deal. I think Mr. Blackmore is insistent that he coming very close to the end of his term of engagement as an employee. Is he insistent? You leave us tomorrow. Uh, maybe we'll play. Yes, I got to go. I gota go down state tomorrow. Oh, we're maybe play pickle ball. So, never mind. Yeah, we're next week. We're in a five stand tournament Friday morning. So, a what? Five standing place. Oh, I'm sorry. I the terminology I don't know. Thank you. Tuesday. I'll have it for you. Thanks. Thank you guys. Appreciate your efforts back. Okay. Take care.

Bye. Oh, and we discussed um either quite a few months ago. We mentioned something about replacing laptops. Was that in there? We're good because they're all Windows 11 now. So, I think we we can go a cycle unless you need one. We can look at you. No, it don't work. No, it's fine. I just looking at new ones didn't take very Your laptop's fixed now. It's not giving any issues, right? I still got No, it's fine. They got like six grand off.

Yeah. What's 57 grand on a truck? He's looking at a new truck. He says 57. That's cheap. Not terrible. Well, I'm going to keep the one I got. Let's get a map right there. Under 20 grand. Practically a farmer. I'm just going to keep the one I got. It's fine. I do have a farm. You ridden one of them? No. You ever ridden in a love truck back in the day? Oh, yeah. I remember those. Yeah, that's what the that's what that Matt eyeball one Matt when Willie gets a Sierra on the road he'll sell you as Dakota right it sings to you when it goes down I know when he's coming from like four miles away can hear it it's got some weird every time he hits the gas it goes here

you hear him I hear him from I don't know miles what else building you got you got uh maintenance on this what about money we're going to spend on the recycling center itself, which is going to be about 20 grand. I think fence and gravel. Boy, is it convenient right there, though. Here's the killer. You want to hear? So, the guy who bought the house come in to see me the other day. Yeah. He's a He's a vet from Vietnam. Oh, wow.

And uh he come in to file his thing for a veterans exemption. Anyways, he tells me where he lives and I said, "Oh, hey." I said, "I'm sorry." I said, "Do you have any issues with the No. Why?" He said, he said, he said, "Oh, yeah. Once in a while, and then there's a lot of people there. It's a little noisy." Yeah. So, what? What? The new owner of the house. The new owner of the house. It's gone. Oh, they sold the house. Yeah. Oh, she did? Oh, yeah. She's She sent me another nasty another bill. how we haven't paid. Oh, so Dave, I've got 30 grand in for the recycling property, fence gravel or whatever, anything like that.

So, this might be a dumb So, I know we keep talking about Mr. Dvau and putting a fence up and all of that. And I know it would if we had to do that, it would end up being on his tax ro of paying us back, but we would still need the money to put those fences up. Two grand. Oh, I thought it was a higher number. No, we're going to have like one of the quotes was excessively Oh, it was more than two grand. I'm sorry. What did he find? Turn his bill in. Is it the guy that's going to do the recycling? Yeah. Yeah. I just didn't know if we could add that in the budget. I'll add it right here. By uh or should I put that under planning and zoning for compliance? That's okay.

Township board. No, not township board. That should be compliance for Is it an ordinance? I guess it is township or add a little one. I'll I'll add it. I'm not going to do it on but I'll add in what? Five grand per three grand. Make it nice and tall. We're going to get reimburse though. Well, then just call me taxes that year probably, right? Oh, no. We could let you in the winter time, which will be um Oh, do they have what? Three years to pay. No. No. Goes on the taxes you build. If he doesn't do it, you just put on the tax. He placed a lean and then if he still doesn't pay that then

that's what happened to Mr. Shimky down there the quanset the village when there's no chance that property would come back to the township why where I'm asking who's Mr. Shim keys quonet come back to where the village maybe township. Could he donate it to the township? Sure. If he nice storage shed area close if he pays the 20 if he pays the $20,000 the back. Well, that would be a great spot for a storage building, but nobody can find anything else about it. What do you want to know? Why? About what? I think the school may have an arrangement with Mr. Shimpy. They have right of first refusal. That's why they're listed on all the bills. Oh, it's just a right of first.

I guess they recorded it and then then they had a right of first refusal. He owes and there's I could tell 15 or 18,000 on taxes. And it isn't taxes so much. It's the lean the village placed on him for hauling his boat and trailer away and filing fees in court and attorney's fees and something else. So, the bill that was probably 2500 bucks turned into 75 plus three years of interest plus his back taxes.

Okay. And this is kind of dragging on. You guys have all the stuff. If you got something that's in there that's weird, let me know. We still I mean I'll put it in. We have We still have to talk about it that a public may need to be able to publish something. Okay. So, I've got up on the screen and I think I sent these to you before the This is me only just throwing out propos. Well, we could do that. You could double the size of that. It would help, right? No, you don't think so. They're not much money. Anyway, I I penciled in like around 3%. I was kind of trying to make it even numbers. We don't have to. We can just make it 3%. um movie night.

Some are a little more, some are a little less, you know, for like these stipens. Um I'd like to give our deputies a little more. Both the What do they treasurer? But now they make 21 an hour. They give a 4% raise. No, that was in 26. Or did they get a raise? They did. They did. come to the board. I'd like to do at least a buck for each of them. What did they make last year? They're right now they're making $21 a month right now. Not a raise. They got a raise%

24 to 26 last year. Well, they should raise them. So, I had penciled in a 3% just for discussion. We should do four to me. Oh, I see what you're doing because the rate of inflation was supposedly just under three, right? Correct. Four.

Perfect. That's what I like. 22. Okay.

The deputy treasurer has to put up with a lot. No. Everyone's so nice to her. Uh, sometimes we hear things about her boss. Sometimes people are not nice. She uses words that are not used in mixed company. We never hear that from her. Um, the other thing we need to look at is the schedule of fees. I The only issue I have with the schedule is I think we charge too much for signs. It's really expensive to get a sign permit. I think how much is a I didn't virtual business or Well, I think I think the permit fee for houses is too much, but

Well, why don't I do this? Did you send the fees? I don't think I did. I don't think I saw that. No, it's the same as last year. So, let me get up here. I didn't I know why we did it. We did the fee schedule and we raised the fees so it wasn't costing us money out of pocket to have the zoning administrator who was administrating all the land use permits. And I think that's why but some of that stuff is really out of hand. Like a building is 500 bucks. So, here's the schedule of fees right now. See residence 1,600 of living space within. I don't think that's okay because those are a pain in the butt. They're bigger. Well, why should an accessory be accessory building be the same amount as a residence? I think that's ridiculous.

I think it's ridiculous, too. I don't think it should be. I think that should be half that signs. Uh well then if you come down to

oh go back up where it says cemetery sex that we we will have to change that. Okay. So I'm going to send this around and I just need feedback on this and we can talk about it more. But where I thought there was a sign permit here. It's got to be up on the top end. Well, presence flood plane solar wind energy permit. It's tagged on them right here. Simple permits. Uh oh, yeah. Less than it's 35 bucks, right? That's less than 50 square feet. Accessory building signs larger than 50 square feet are 250 bucks. Really? Okay. So, what I would do is eliminate the 50 square foot of that's uncovered. I would just

take the sign thing right out of there and make the signs 35 bucks or make it 50 bucks. Okay, that's fine. Or any sign, but accessory building should be a little bit higher. The 250 part, just take the sign thing out of that and cover it under the first line. All signs, I don't care how big they are, should be whatever price. That's what I'm ask $50. $50. No, no, not I don't I think 50. I just think 250 for a big sign is but that also covers accessory buildings. So watch we'd have to separate it out, right? Separate it out. That's what I'm saying. But I'll send this I'll send this around. I mean I So like for a business people putting signs on stuff. No, not because they got to pay 250 bucks to get a permit.

It's crazy some of the stuff. The house thing I guess. Do we have to charge people to put up a sign? No, we don't have to charge them anything. They have to get it reviewed and they have to get a permit. I need a permit because that way I make sure they put it what they're supposed to follow. I don't think it's unreasonable to charge for that. I just don't think $250 because the sign is bigger and we have limits on signs of square footage, but it's not here. You know, we've had issues where this after the fact permit I think is double, right? Correct. I may I may move this charging people double for nothing. You know what I mean, right? When I talk to be some sort of penalty for So after the fact permit is twice the original fee.

Yeah, that makes sense. Well, that way if you're into rears, I don't know if the subdivision section needs to get revised because of the law change. So everybody could just take a look at this and we can amend it, but I need I need to get that back. Well, you don't I don't have to publish it necessarily. We can do that later, but um I think we're reducing costs. I know we'll be heavy. Is that really happen? I mean, are we going to stick with $9,000 for Brown Township? That feels low to me.

Well, here's what it depends. So, if in fact this district then goes through, we have those people in Bear Lake to cover. Our fire district runs into Bear Lake. Okay. So, the millage vote essentially I'm working on that. I don't know how we do that. So, I believe Rob said essentially you're not getting compensated for the portion of Bear Lake that we're that our fire department is covering. Their millage is staying with their fire department. So, we have we shouldn't be I don't think that's a legal expenditure of public funds unless everything is operating under the automatic mutual aid and that and then you don't have to agree to free automatic mutual aid if you're it's all one-sided,

right? And so that's a Rob question. Well, no, no. Right now I agree that's we we cover that and they cover part of you know I mean every the fire districts are different. If you have a voted millillage to provide that different service I don't know how we do that over there because we cover we add it up. Oh you're saying if there's the district because they're not planning on we have to form a new district and I think we can charge them. I think if we I think if the way it stands right now 9,000 probably isn't covering our costs. No, you're talking about Brown. Brown. Okay. I'm hoping.

Okay. If we go to a fire district, it certainly isn't going to come. And the question is, is the five member board of the fire district going to want to provide service to Brown Township if they're not paying the same per capita or whatever the same formula? They would need to though if they Well, maybe. And Brown isn't going to be able to afford that. So, that become that's an issue that's got to get sorted. And then with if we're not charging Bur Lake anything, that needs to change. Yeah. And we talked about that in the meeting already and said we can't do that because we for one thing if they realize we're doing that for free they'll they just won't show up for some stuff which they don't now. Mhm. Barely. Do we have a mutual aid agreement with Barley Town? Yes. Okay. So much like the city we have automatic mutual aid agreements.

Automatic mutual aid. And you know we're the first responder for Manasty and Fer. You cover most of the I I give it and I I don't know how they can do that. So that is part of what has prompted this fire district discussion. If that if the fire district was like a hard no from everybody, then those mutual aid agreements would probably become something like, okay, it's going to be a paid mutual aid. Oh, because we're we're done subsidizing the townships, right? So that was where that was headed. So, I don't see why, you know, if not this budget, it's if you go to a fire district or down the road, it's going to have to get addressed because if we're only responding to stuff in Bear Lake Township and they're like, "Oh, this is great. I can sit back and it's going to cover me." Nope. No. Not doing

because we cover eight or 10 square miles of Bear Lake right now. They should be paying us most like Brown. That would be a reason people would vote. Why is Brown paying us in Bear Lake? Not. Does Brown have any fire department? So, they can't respond. No, they have no fire department. Okay. That's probably part of the difference. They have one. In theory, they're responding, but they don't. But essentially, for years, we're But I do not know. I don't know this. Do those pe Do we ever get a check from Do those people that are in Bear Lake Township pay our millillage? I've never asked that question. No. Then why in the hell are we cover? Because it's a it's an automatic mutual aid agreement.

No. No. Mutual aid. But I mean, but we cover them as first call. We're not mutual aided. We're called out immediately. It's our district. Is there an agreement that I'm not aware of? There must be. Well, we should look that up. But anyway, I'm just bringing that up as I think that's an issue that drastic. Well, I would see that as something people would look at it and say, "Well, why am I voting to cover that to increase my taxes in a millillage to subsidize somebody that's not paying anything?" That would be a item of contention that potentially could bomb the whole thing. Absolutely. Let me see. made up that I guess I'll bring that up because we've talked about it but never never no one has ever said how we could build them for that. So I guess

you know it gets a little bit technical because you've got the whole med control thing and then I think but but clearly if we're only making runs into Bear Lake and they're really not responding any of our calls are very slow or or that's not worth a lot. Well, not if we have this full-time thing and you're and you leave here and you're over there in four minutes, right? Ambulance here in the building. Right. So, the one thing with the with the fire district is that that is all in place and we have an ambulance here is we, you know, we get a bill for that sort of thing, too. So, there'll be revenue coming in for that which will help to offset costs as well, right?

Um, but all right. What What else does PE do people need to be able to give me some feedback? Um, more I'll send this out. Are we okay with the rest of the wage stuff? We want to do no increase because it's tough times and well, inflation not tough times.

Okay. So, I'll I'll go with that. We'll go with these things I have here. I can recirculate the stuff and feedback and then I mainly I need to get it published March 2nd and then we the budget calendar if you look at it we've got um so there's a draft budget available to review I've got to publish an ad in the newspaper and then March 18th is when we have a regular meeting and a public hearing and then we have a special meeting on the 25th to adopt that. So, we've got section the process that we have to follow. Cool. Anybody else? You're going to get me some self?

Sure. Oh, public comment. Is anyone online? No. Okay. No public comment being heard. Time of the journ.