City Council - Regular Meeting

recording and we're live. So yes, we got one minute formal. It's getting close. Oh, you're getting feedback. I know. I got it. It was on YouTube. Hello. Okay. Okay, we're ready. You guys ready?

I call the order for the city of Patasi City Council for November 17, 2025. ask that you rise with me for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

City clerk Beck, would you please call roll? Deore, present. Shields present. Dock here. Walker here. Yes. Present. We have a quorum. Next to the public hearing which is the receipt of comments concerning a proposed special assessment role that would spread cost of the downtown area programs and services during 2026 as requested by the downtown management board. Is there anyone that wishes to speak to council at this time? the public hearing or

this the public this is for the public hearing for the downtown. You you'll have an opportunity in a in a minute if you have comments there being none that I call this public hearing uh closed. Now we'll go to the consent agenda and it's the adoption of closed resolution that would approval of the following items. November 6, 2025 regular session city council meeting minutes as well as acknowledge and receipt of certain transactions administratively that have occurred since November 6, 2025 as well as in front of you here have the October 2025 revenue and expenditures report. Do you have any questions for the city manager or finance? Then I entertain a possible motion. Uh so moved with I just would make one note here that for C as well we're simply acknowledging receipt of those materials as we are B on page three.

I have a second support have a second a motion from Mr. De Moore second from Mr. Knobra. I go to Sarah Beck our clerk for roll. Moore I Nocttra I Shields I Walker I motion passes 5.

Now it's public comment. If there's something on the agenda that you can wait for I ask you to do that. If there is some other subject or item that you'd like to speak to council, please step forward and I ask that you address councel rather than the audience. Anybody wish to speak? Sir, come on down. Um, there are two things. One is on the chicken ordinance, but I I can wait for that. Um, but I understand there's some concern still about trying to find a a lower cost way of of of repairing the the wheelway. Um, and my feeling on that is that you've already tried that. Um, you did a study a number of years ago, you came up with options that were still very costly. Um, they weren't terribly safe and nobody liked them. So I would encourage you to not spend any more time, effort, and money pursuing that. You have a pretty good plan in place. There's some moment some momentum to continue with that plan. Um I agree that the city should not bear the the full burden of that cost, but you've provided good leadership in getting to this point. I think you can continue to to provide good leadership to gather the partners and find some way to figure out how to pay to get the job done right. So thank you.

Thank you. Do we get his name? Larry Dyer. Larry, Larry Dyer. I think it's we had that. Uh, can I ask? I believe we don't ask address. We just ask for name only. Thank you, Larry. Anyone else wish to speak to council at this time, sir? Is this on?

Good evening, council. My name is uh Brian Tang and I am a part of Paskki Youth Varsity Council and I am a resident of Paskki. On Monday, November 10th, the Paski Youth Advisory Council met at Sky's the Limit Flower Shop to make flower arrangements uh for the veterans. We made astounding over 300 plus arrangements and then we delivered them to a location of the veterans breakfast the night the following day. The morning of November 11th uh many members of Paskki youth advisor council were gifting the arrangements to over 400 plus attendees and the leftovers arrangements went to veterans at nursing homes and the American Legion. Thank you.

Thank you. That was [clears throat] I I know council and and staff are very appreciative of your efforts stepping forward, coming up with something that really matters to the people involved, the veterans. So, our hats off. Please pass our thank you back to all of the members that participated. Would you? Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak at from public comments at this time? There being none, I'm now going to turn it over to city manager Horn for his city manager updates.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, just very brief uh report this evening. You're going to hear me uh at Nauseium here in a few minutes. Um but just a few updates. Uh overall, one final week of uh leaf pickup is scheduled this week. Uh so Tuesday and Wednesday this week um is our kind of our last round in all four wards. So we'll be making the circuit all around the city tomorrow as well as all in all four wards Wednesday. We will kind of evaluate where we are at as a community and make um decisions on, you know, potential dates moving forward. But I as I looked at the community over the weekend, I think we're in pretty good shape and should be in pretty good shape after this week. But we'll we'll see how it goes. The snow and the cooler weather have certainly dropped. uh those last remain stubborn leaves. So, we will be doing that this week. Um a few additional public meetings uh this week. Downtown management board meets tomorrow night um in the community room on their agenda as discussion and recommendation on sign ordinance regulations. Uh the planning commission asked them to review uh halo signs and illuminated signs as far as timing goes uh in in downtown. So the DMB will be reviewing that tomorrow as well as setting their meeting schedule for 26 and then going through their strategic plan with another review and discussion uh of their strategic plan. Uh again that's scheduled for tomorrow at 6. Planning Commission meets uh Wednesday uh November 19th in the community room at six o'clock. They they will uh be considering or will be having a public hearing. This is for the proposed outdoor lighting ordinance, uh, dark sky ordinance. Um, the block at Paskki has um petitioned for a PUB

amendment. This would be for the construction of carports and garages. Um, as as I've talked to Great Lakes Capital and their team, they have uh a significant interest in adding some carports/gages to the development. So that will be on for a discussion um and potentially setting a public hearing um uh for that in the future. Uh so it'll be again on the planning commission agenda Wednesday. They will be also setting their meeting schedule for 2026 and then discussing the community character survey results as well. As we're getting into the holiday season, a lot of things happening downtown that I wanted to bring to your attention. Um, ladies night out, um, it's is, uh, that's not this week. That's that's November 21st. That's Friday, uh, 400 pm to 8:00 p.m. A lot of specials downtown going on. A lot of retailers are putting um, specials and sales out. So we encourage people to take a look at the website to get more details for that. Holiday open house is scheduled for Friday, December 5. Uh this is from 6:00 to 900 pm. Always a highlight of the year and following week is the holiday parade. Uh this is December 13th starting at 10:00 a.m. Uh going through obviously our our wonderful downtown. A lot of things on the agenda um as the holiday season kind of gears up. Uh we we spent last week putting um bringing lights and garland and wreaths downtown. So um the town is looking uh very festive. So we are looking forward to to our holiday season. Um any questions for me as far as my report goes? Any questions?

Public questions.

Very good. Thank you, city manager horn, for your report. No, I'm bringing forward an appointment of consideration for the downtown management board. It's for Adam Kazmowski. He is a co-owners of uh Gypsy Vodka. He states that he would like to work on fostering uh more collaboration between business, residents, and city leadership. Um feels he brings experience to the board. He's been in the city of Pataski, lives in the city over on believe state. Um so he brings in he wants to work on that. He uh believes parking is real important. And I did sit down as I do with anybody that applies for a board do a a time interview with him. And uh he's very positive about what's going on downtown and says, "Let's just continue to do a great job." He also commented in his thing. He liked he loved what April is doing with the parking. So apparently he really is positive. Yes,

mayor. I'd be happy to make a motion to um have Adam Kasinowski serve on the parking and events committee. I second a motion. I have a motion from Lindsay Walker and a second from Mr. Shields. Any other discussion? Councel, I go to Miss Beck for roll. Walker. I [clears throat] laugh. Hi Murphy. Yes. Hi, Pat. Congratulations, Adam. And if you're not out there listening, uh, congratulations. I know you have a board meeting, I believe, tomorrow night.

And I did let him know that it would be good for him to start attending immediately. Next is the uh old business and it adoption of resolution that would confirm the proposed special assessment role. I'll turn that over to see the horn.

Yep. Um so this is essentially setting our special assessment role. You can see in your packet the role is uh been compiled um based on the activity tonight if council wishes to proceed with this assessment. Um the resolution would confirm council's approval of the role and direct us as staff to certify the role and and distribute the special assessments accordingly and invoice property owners within the next 30 days. So that's on for your consideration. This is I believe our fourth discussion on this topic. So the rates have remained the same from from what we talked about uh uh a few meetings back. So, um, 22 cents per square foot of first floor space, um, 6 cents per square foot for floors other than first floors, and then 6 cents per square foot of area on vacant buildable lots. So, those are the the rates that have been um,

what is what is the cost for vacant? um 0066 cents

per square foot. And I would just I would just um I know this has come up in the past uh here a few meetings back. If you really want to dive into any of these rates, I think the time to do that would be really any time, you know, over the summer before we start getting into kind of having these discussions. If you want to have us as staff look at any of these rates, make some recommendations uh to the downtown management board. I know there was some discussion about vacant land and and what that rate was set at, but certainly we can have those discussions as we move forward into 26.

Council comments, questions, discussions? if not mostly [clears throat] a comment. You know, I I've looked at it before and when you look at the individual parcels, it seemed pretty fair to me and and even there's not much vacant land and it's vacant land is calculated based on area of the of the of the land as opposed to the square footage of of the buildings. So, it's a little little bit not comparing apples to apples between the square foot and the square foot of the area. And I'd be happy to make a motion to adopt it as as presented here. I'll second the motion. Mayor,

have a motion from Mr. Knobro and a second from Miss Walker. Any other discussion? Council, just for the sense of clarity because I just wanted to be clear in addition to what Mr. NRA had shared that um vacant land means vacant land. It doesn't mean vacant buildings. vacant buildings are are at the square footage of if they're on the first, second or third floor or ground floor just for clarity. Clarify should any other discussion? This coun does the public wish to weigh in on this at this time. [clears throat] That's nothing. I go to Miss Beck for roll. Knocktra.

I Walker. I Moore I Shields I Murphy I motion passes 5 Z for the assessment. Now we go to new business. It's a presentation of the city's recommended 2026 annual budget and adoption of the resolutions that will schedule a December 1st, 2025 public hearing. Receive comments concerning the proposed B budget and tax property tax and millage rates that have been recommended for fiscal year 2026. I turn over our city manager report.

Thank you, mayor. Um, I guess before we get started officially, I just want to thank Audrey and Bridget and the finance department. This is a

Sarah and my office, really all the department heads that that assisted in compiling their respective departmental budgets. This is a for a small workforce, this is a big undertaking um that I don't uh I don't consider lightly. This is obviously a very important role of city council. Um which which obviously we're going to spend as much time as you want on this. This is obviously our first discussion. Um, I'll go through the schedule here in a second, but I understand the importance of this document and this is your budget and this is just proposed at this point. So, we'll take your feedback, incorporate your feedback um, accordingly. Uh, we want you to um, be proud of this document at the end uh, and make sure that it incorporates uh, all of uh, the city of Paskky's needs in your mind. So that's what we've tried to tried to do in this document. Um looking at you know all potential uses of these taxpayer resources and and kind of um be good stewards of that. So just to give you an overview of the budget schedule itself. So today is our first reading of the budget, if you will, um publishing a notice of of the public hearing. Um after this meeting, potentially um setting that public hearing for December 1st uh for second reading um and having the public hearing and a potential adoption of the budget at that time. Obviously, we will continue to go at your pace. If you if you would like to uh prolong that to another meeting, we can certainly do that based on your guidance and input. Uh this budget has been placed on our city website since Tuesday, November 14. Um with a website that folks can chime in and give feedback to um and to date, as I sit here today, we haven't received

any feedback, but we're still early in that process. But um hopefully this document addresses many of the the action plan priorities of city council that are listed here. Parks and public spaces, infrastructure, economic development, downtown development, uh stability or sustainability, affordable workforce, housing, and community engagement. These were the 2023 2025 action plan priorities. Uh my recommendation to city council as we flip the calendar to 26 and we have a a new board in place um would be to um kind of cast a vision for the next two years on uh the 2026 to 2028 uh action plan priorities. As I looked at this document um I think we've accomplished quite a bit uh on these action plan priorities and have really tried to drill down on some of these things. Certainly, we haven't addressed everything uh that's been listed here, but I think we've made significant progress on these action plan priorities. So, I look forward to our discussion on how we how we want to proceed, you know, over the next couple years um uh in refining this document and and maybe even replacing it completely. So, some general overview of the budget itself. Um the 2025 the current budget was just over $40 million 40,438,000. The 2026 um operating and capital budget is just under 40,000 at 39,968700. Um a big reason for that the big reason for the drop in the overall budget is 2025 was a very heavy year on grants. Um just for instance in 2025 our budget for grants grant revenue was 2,156,700

and that was broken down by the maple block flats that was a million dollar grant that we administered uh the the slope restoration design engineering that was $800,000 the Mr. Chill grant was 500,000. Um we had two rounds of uh EMTT County ARPA allocations um at 50,000 each. Um the Park Avenue project was uh grant funds as well. And then the housing readiness uh grant that we received for the zoning work um was in 2025. Some of that will carry over to 2026, but we'll see a significant drop off in grant um admin revenue coming forward, just under a million dollars. That includes uh a small allocation for Jaws of Life. Uh we have a small allocation for public safety training that the state uh conveys. Uh the Mr. Chill grant will still be with us. We did uh get an extension on that uh to May of 2026. So, we've gone through a lot of the administrative burden, if you will, to get that uh out the door. So, we're working um with a number of of folks to get funds allocated, and I'll be giving a a overview of that hopefully at the next meeting on where that all stands. But, so a lot of that, a big chunk of that will still remain in 2026 that we'll facilitate. the Eagle Brownfield grant. This is the former AMOS station. Um that was a $315,000 uh Eagle Brownfield grant to clean up that site uh for potential development. Uh we will be facilitating that. uh looking at an eagle land and water um grant for the marina uh project and then uh we received a small allocation from HIA women's giving circle for the Pakask

Paskki youth advisory uh council as well in 2026 and I would just say feel free to stop me at any point you don't need to wait till I'm done if you see something that you have initial questions or feedback on that's that's why we're here Audrey's here. We are we are more than interested to take your questions. And I will also say this is a lot of information. Uh my recommendation to any or each of you would be let's schedule some one-on-one time with Audrey and myself in the next week or 10 days. Go through your questions at at uh in any depth you would like and so you have a a a good comfort level on where you're at with the budget itself. So, I would encourage you to reach out, schedule some time uh to have more maybe some one-on-one um discussions.

So, Mr. Shield, thanks. Thanks, Mr. Horn. I I had a question with the Oops. Thank you. Yep. Question with the housing readiness grant that was a 2025. It was back in 2024. I believe in February 2024, we signed the we agreed on the ordinance for that grant. And my understanding is that it was expiring expiring by January of 2026. Uh but I I also know that we have not at council have seen any of those zoning changes than some of those grant requirements. So do you know or what is the plan for that? Is that exting that going into 2026 as well?

Yeah, that's correct. Correct. The grant went uh through January of 26. Um I did um we did get an email from them asking status and if there was any desire to extend that further uh they they were interested in potentially extending that opportunity to us. So we had filed a for an extension of that in in conversations with our planner. Um so we are extended through the end of April actually. You know, when we talked uh this afternoon, Council Member Shields, I thought it was March, but I looked again and it's through the end of April is is our extension of this grant opportunity. So, that's where it stands currently.

And how how much has been expended of We're about 75% expended on that grant currently.

Thank you. Continuing the overview of the budget from a personnel standpoint. Obviously, that's a significant cost um in our budget. Um we are proposing a 3% cost of living allowance uh for our our non-UN staff members. Um, as you know, we we use the uh medical plan hard caps uh in the city uh based on uh individual um needs, whether it's a single person individual plus one or family coverage. So, we use the the state caps that are provided by the state tax uh treasury. Um we did receive a 2.9% increase in these caps. Um which is significantly better than we received last year which was under one wasn't it?

Two10. Yeah.

So that is the current total. Um we have three health care plan options for staff to choose from. We the city pays the premiums up to that state cap amount. Um the employee would be responsible for premiums above that uh cap limit. plans include dental and uh basic dental. Uh employees can choose to opt up on that and pay um pay for that uh premium dental package. Uh there's also vision coverage. This is a high deductible um health plan with a health savings account. Um so if premiums fall below the state cap, um the city does contribute that difference into the employees HSA which they manage. um payments have been historically made each year to employees HSA accounts as premiums have been under the state cap. We are getting very close and it's getting tight on those. So, we don't quite know what that's going to look like yet in 26, but it's going to be it's going to be um a little tighter. Um I would say we did transition from um Blue Cross to priority last year. We'd been a Blue Cross member for I don't know 8 10 years maybe prior to that.

Right. I think I think for the like the history of the city minus 2018 we moved to priority health for one year.

Yeah. So we we were we were going to see a significant bump from Blue Cross. We reached out and as we do every year, we we our um Cortes does a uh our admin does a um a bid and looks at at what uh other agencies can provide and priority came back much more reasonably priced than Blue Cross and then we were able to lock in the rate for a second year. So we are locked in for 2026 at a rate of 9.9% um increase um which again is um I think was a good move. It was a smart move uh then um obviously that's this will be our last year um having a locked in rate. So we're um we'll kind of see what 27 looks like but we are we are locked in with priority health for 26 at a 9.9% increase. Um, this budget does include um and and um

Mayor, Miss Walker, thank you. Um, can I ask a question? Have you uh since going from Blue Cross Blue Shield to priority, have you heard any feedback from staff about being able to find providers in network or any difficulties there? I'm just wondering, curious from another governmental perspective. Um, we have had very um most comments and responses and feedback from staff have been very positive, especially within the prescriptions have been um much cheaper than they were with Blue Cross. Um, one issue with a provider and it was a um counselor, okay,

that a certain counselor wasn't covered and they had to jump through hoops in order to get that specific counselor for a dependent. Okay. But other than that, I um did not hear any issues with um those not in network. Excellent. Thank you for the feedback. Appreciate it. I have just quick I got a little conflict in what you said and versus what I understood in as as an employee that is that are non-union. Do we pay 100% of any of these categories if whatever they happen to be or is it just the single? No, it's 100% union and non-union.

Okay. So is it but it so if if I'm if I'm working as a an employee and I want a family coverage I I get paid 100% of the family coverage. Yes you do. So it's regardless of it's not a maximum of single and you pay everything above that? No. Okay. Pretty good. have a question.

One of the things I get asked quite often in my office is for any type of internship possibilities and and I would say that there's no shortage of of of work that would assist me, would assist Sarah in my office. So, I have added um a part-time paid internship opportunity in my budget. Um, this would be um I don't even know what we would have probably I would say like $16 an hour type of thing. Um, but there has been a few folks that have expressed interest from from the college in town. Um, I would certainly like the opportunity to be able to pay forward kind of what we do here every day and kind of pour into somebody. Not just that, but we could certainly use the the added um assistance as well. So, there is I do have funds in the budget for that. It's obviously your decision if you'd like to pull that back out, but um I think it would be a nice opportunity to provide um a young person early in in their career. Um

can I wanted a big comment on that one? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. May I? Yes.

Okay. Thank you. Um, so Shane, I've always uh thought about or envisioned um a potential intern through the Catalyst Communities through actually Michigan Municipal League facilitates the Catalyst Communities for um for Eagle and they assign interns usually um throughout the year there's usually uh by the by the quarter I believe maybe it's quarterly they have different kinds of folks that can work in local government around sustainability issues. And so I was wondering if maybe part of an intern in the office of the administrator could be like the volunteer renewable energy program and kind of inserting some life into that in terms of um doing some specific outreach to get more businesses and residents signed up for the volunteer renewable energy program is a way to kind of gauge our public's interest in 100% renewable and getting us there by 2035. So, I was hopeful maybe that could be com combined with that because I know that it usually requires a match as well for that local representation of government to have a catalyst community intern. So, I was hoping that maybe there could be a um dual partnership there if you've already allotted some money to the budget for 2026.

Yeah, I don't know if that's the same program. I did apply for a I don't know if it was that that program or not, but I did apply two years ago for um for a program similar to that and we weren't obviously selected, but I can certainly look into that again and see what options are out there,

but I'm very supportive of an idea of an intern in in the administrative role. I just like the idea of potentially [snorts] keeping it local with, you know, someone here that is going to North Central, someone that's invested in our community already. Um, and then but but certainly if it's someone that we can specialize in, you know, and address some of our sustainability initiatives or assist us with that effort, that's certainly uh an option as well.

Thank you. I think it's important to kind of um kind of put out there what this budget, in my opinion, does not address or or or lacks in in addressing. um in in discussions with Director Carr, he believes that he could use one additional U public safety officer, especially as we've we'll be bringing on um significant number of housing units um here by July um between the the block and lofts and um uh Del Rey um and a few other uh projects the the uh uh Victory Square uh as as well. Um, so we have a number of of uh additional housing units that'll be coming on board. Um, Director Carr mentioned that we're we're spending a significant amount of overtime now making sure we have shift coverages. Um, he believes he could um, stand to use one. We have a couple of retirements that are around the corner here. Um, I did not place any money in the budget for this added position. This is a this this particular budget is fairly tight. Um, and so I didn't add that number or didn't add that position in the budget. Um, I still believe, uh, with a community of our size or staff of our size, about 76 full-time, we don't have a full-time dedicated human resource professional, we do a great job with what we do. Um, and we have great staff that, uh, it's part of their responsibilities. Um, but I think there's some some ways that we could um, you know, continue that effort with a with a with a full-time um, human resource professional uh, as well as a community or economic development uh, individual. We currently um, I I believe that's a a gap as well. Um,

keep going here. I think we need to address the public safety officer need. I think what we need to do from now on when we have a development such as have gone into town here, I think we need to ensure that we have increased tax collection that will come back to the city to help cover those areas. right now. Um, your microphone. Right now with the block with lofts, um, I don't believe we're getting any real taxes other than what was initially gotten from those properties. For how many years for the for block? It's a 22year

22 years. We're going to get no city taxes from that project. We'll get taxes.

We'll get taxes, but the same amount of what we had been getting. I I believe what we need to do is write into contracts like that that [clears throat] we will We will collect some taxes on that on a yearly basis in order to cover fire, police, inspections, people coming and going with a meter co charging up, getting collected uh new meters for their their apartments and stuff. I think we need to look forward ahead to start making sure that people that come to town with these large developments are supporting the infrastructure that we need for the city. One of those areas is public safety and fire. So, that was all I wanted to add for the future.

Good point, Mayor. Thank you.

Just wanted to and I I put a brief uh note in the introduction. I this was too big of a event to not not from a historical standpoint. I didn't want somebody reading this document 25 years from now and not understand what we went through in March of 2025. So obviously we don't need to rehash it, but it was a significant uh undertaking. This this is current expenses. So FEMA has two different categories um that we're tracking a debris cleanup. So that's everything that that fell as a result of the storm. all the the clearing, all the chipping, um that you can see that adds up just under a million dollars in total cleanup of this event. And then they also have what's called a category B, which is emergency protective measures. This would be um our out of [snorts] our out of town um crews that came up to assist us. um this would be helping to cover our cost and bringing them up uh for that as well as some other items. We weren't sure initially if this was going to be um u included um in in discussions with FEMA. They just said put it in um well, it's still I guess to be determined if we're going to see uh category B um reimbursed, but the total amount is just under 1.2 million. If if we project out we're anticipating just over 800 about $825,000 in reimbursement at 75% is which is what FEMA's reimbursement rate is. So just wanted to update you on that.

Mr. Moore, we have any projections on the degree of likelihood of reimbursement and failing reimbursement. Is this built into the budget or would that be coming out of fund balance? Thank you. Yeah, the the likelihood of reimbursement for A is 100%. We're going to get that. Um we just don't know if we're going to get all of category B reimbursed at that 75. So on the second part of your question, Audrey, I don't know if you understand

it is it is not the um reimbursement is not built into the budget because it wasn't it wasn't tied up enough. Uh Jason Fade recently had confirmation, you know, from the state that looks positive, but no, it is not included in any grant revenue for next year. So that would come from fund balance. Well, this has already all been expended this 1.168, right? So it was okay. Where did that come from? Our budget or fund balance? Cash. Yeah, cash. Cash. several different accounts. Um,

yes, funds, almost every fund was affected in some way or another. Some it's more um it stands out more in the general fund under the um solid waste section under DPW. You'll see, you know, that is really higher than it should be this year. So, that one will be a budget amendment this year. um streets departments because the project on um Howard Howard was not completed and part of it is pushed until 2026. That budget does not really reflect um the expense of the storm as it would is if that project was completed.

So if this reimbursement comes through, it'd be reallocated to those funds as it was drawn out. Correct. Correct. It would be a percentage hitting different funds but and I based on the category those are amounts of money that have last year's budget 2025's budget there is a some of those budget funds were were not lines were not completely p utilized. So there's money left over for for those lines. Right. Well, some lines a million dollars. Some lines were over, but it's over, you know, the six six funds.

So, so just to be clear that the the million1 168 is already in the expenses for the year reflected in all your commentary throughout the budget on on 2025. So, if we get this 825, that will be come in as income in 26. Yeah. we get the A25 and 26. Yes. That'll be a somewhat of I'm going to call it a a little bit of a windfall for us unex in our budget in our 26 budget. Correct. And so will that a when will we actually know because it would seem to me part of that ought to be comfortable that we ought to be thinking about that in the 26 budget. I just don't know when we would receive it. Mhm. Because it's FEMA

know something. It's FEMA. You said the 8 956 is guaranteed 75% of the 956 but has been mentally can't we mentally think that at least 75% of the 956 is going to be I have been income but it's not in here it's not in your budget have been it's not in your budget it is not reflected in here okay all right I didn't want I did not want to assume okay when you know what happens I know so it could ultimately if that came through would go into general fund. No, after the year's out. Some of it would go in very little in general in streets and utility funds. Okay,

Miss Walker. Thank you. I have another question. Um, do we know how the money will be dispersed? Will it be direct to municipality or will there be a county responsible for dispersement of funds for category A directly? direct reimbursement and then is will it be the same thing hopefully for category B as well direct reimbursement I think so I believe so thank you continue to work

so a few things uh from our capital improvement plan uh that was approved um based on the direction that this budget was going um and you'll you'll see here in a minute when when I present the general fund in more detail, but I had some concerns where um the general fund was at. So, I I felt like we may need to consider some um some uh changes to the CIP as it pertains to the the general fund. You may recall there was 50,000 in the budget for city hall key fob security systems. Uh this was to kind of continue out what we did with the um EMTT County ARPA funds that we matched. Um I think there's enough in that uh plan or in that budget that we can address most of our critical doors and infrastructure with that remaining with those remaining funds. So I don't think we're going to need to dive into that anymore. I would say building that system out is still a priority for me. Um but we may have to take a little bit of a pause in 26. So I have removed that 50,000 for from uh the building and grounds uh budget. Um in parks and special facilities um the slope restoration the bypass that we talked about has been reduced from 100,000 to 50,000. But I'll just leave it at that and you all can direct me if you want that 50 removed out of the budget as well. Uh, I know we had some discussions about it, um, but I I'll kind of leave it there. But for now, it's been reduced to 50,000. We have a pretty significant need with this dry weather we've experienced uh, over the last few years um, of doing a dredging project in the marina. We had a number of complaints um, from Boers in

the marina about their bottoming out um, if you will. So, a lot of a lot of silt obviously, as you can imagine, comes down the Bear River and when when it when it comes to the mouth, it kind of widens out obviously and it drops the silt in place. And so, we have had a buildup of of of silt uh over the course of several years to a point where we think we need to do some dredging work in the marina. So, we would like to transition our marina pier electrical upgrade project, which was scheduled for 300,26. transition that those funds into a marina dredging project at the same amount. Um and we were also likely will receive a land and water um grant associated with that as well that will pair with that. Um public art was $60,000. We did increase that to 90,000 only because we have about 30,000 remaining that'll carry forward into 2026 that we weren't able to um spend in 2025 just based on the the time that it takes to to build this type of structure. So, we've we paid for half of it in 25, we'll have half remaining in 26. So, we're just carrying that remaining 30,000 over into 2026. So that budget will increase to 90,000 with that carry forward. I have for now um removed the sub area plan for Ward 4. This was 55,000. Um I'm hopeful that we can maybe get some pre um pre-development funds um from RRC that may be able to bring that back forward. Um the thought my thought process was we'll we'll be completely built out at the block in July. We'll kind of know

after that give it some time to see how things are are are flowing from a traffic standpoint and see how just how the project there how the project at the lofts is is moving forward. Um and then we can potentially address it um either in 27 or late in late in 26 if we can get RRC uh supporting funds for that project. So for now we have pulled that out of the CIP. Where's Mr. Knob?

I I have a process question as we're going through here. We're having a lot of ads and deducts and and comments like public safety or interns and what trying to understand how do we actually get through the decision making on these? Do we all just I mean how do you decide if what we're going to do would we this is staff this is all or nothing when No, not not at all. It you can redline any and all of it. But who the we have to vote on that three? We need three supports in order to keep it there in whichever way it is or support to eliminate it. Got it. And and at what point do we do that?

I would think at the next meeting be the next one, but you can, you know, give me feedback at any point. Um and we'll obviously get we got to get rid of this. We don't want to buy a circus elephant this year with our money. Oh man. And you have three people say no. [laughter] He will take it. He'll scratch it off the list. How's that? The elephant, by the way. So if it's on here, we'll leave it. Okay. Next, Miss Walker.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I had a question about Marina PRB upgrades. Can you remind me, Shane? Were we gonna do something to Marina Pureb that had to do with the electrical upgrades but was only necessary because of high water and now we're doing the Maria dredging project because of low water. I'm not sure if it was because of high water that that was predates me so I'm not sure. Um I I know what I'm remembering is on Pier A, I believe they had to put like conduit in because the electrical was like

was in danger of like being submerged because the water was so high at the time. I'm just trying to remember and I I believe in a trade-off. Obviously, if one was done with the intention of like high water times that makes sense, but now we're in a different situation where and that was based on feedback from Boers. I read that in the notes for the budget. I guess I was just wondering if my understanding was that that electrical was all completed on all of those peers. Okay. To make them totally safe so you're not going to get nobody's going to get shocked. Is that correct?

We do spend a lot of time on Pier B with um and the same thing happens in Magnus Park with you know folks have higherend campers. they have higherend boats that are pulling more um demand for electricity than maybe they were doing in the in the 80s and 90s. So, the equipment is just is getting bigger, which requires more puts more of a strain on infrastructure. So, we're we're getting called out in the evening and the in the weekends when it's busy out here because power went out and so we're flipping breakers. We're we're trying to get people connected in other ways. So, it's it is an issue that we need to address at some point, but um but it's not a safety issue.

No. No. And then my second question, mayor, if I may, sorry, please.

Um so, then the other one, the sub area plan for Ward 4, was that like a traffic study? Because what I remember is that's now designated as a neighborhood enterprise zone. Um and I don't know if there was discussion about assessing the type of businesses that are on Standish Avenue, if that's what it was about, or was it about a a traffic study? traffic was a small portion of the study, but mostly it was just like a corridor plan looking at what the uses are currently, what that [clears throat] corridor could, you know, re be re-imagined um as in the future um and try to lay out a a kind of a mini master plan for that stretch. And wouldn't that pegy back or couldn't that with the neighborhood enterprise zone uh dedication of that area or um being under the opice of an NEZ?

Um yeah, I don't that really correlates necessarily, but um certainly this is just uh let's wait and see um we don't need to necessarily do it. If if there's desire to to pull it push it back or put put it back in, we can certainly do that. But I would just looking at any and all opportunities to make this more of a kind of a balanced document. Thank you. I think it'd be good to wait until we see what is the traffic

flow. Is there an issue? Do we need to start looking at a stop light? Do we need to start looking at what do we need to look at? And I don't know if we can determine that until we start seeing what what is the traffic pattern. Are they all going up Sheran? Are they all coming up Emma? Mr. shields.

Thanks, Mayor. I I that makes sense, but I also think there's a need to be proactive in these situations. we we know the numbers that are coming in and uh I think well as someone who celebrates and applauds this this uh gentle density that we're we're having here I I think that it needs to be corresponded with helping the flow of traffic and that will is overall well-being is something that traffic will have a key impact on whether there's receptive to continuing this type of gentle density. So I'd be more proactive this and my question for manager Horn is is this this type of sub area plan we have a set specific budget for for like a consultant but if we had a full-time planner would this be something that that person could take on during their part of their job?

No, I still I still think it would be something we would reach out to a consultant to assist with um whether we had a in-house planner in or not. I think it's more of a specialized area.

Yep. Thank you, Mr. Moore. Hey, hopefully this question's not too in the weeds, but when I was reading the budget, um, under the general fund, it talks about state waterways commission funding, and you mentioned a land water grant, and I don't know if that's the same thing, but it said in there that in exchange for half of the marina slips being designated as transient wells, that the state waterways commission agreed to consider funding up to 50% of future marina capital improvements. So, I don't know if either the electricity of the dredging might be considered that, but I just was wondering if anybody had had an eye toward that.

Yeah, we'll we'll we certainly believe that we would qualify for grant funds for the dragene project and the and the uh marina pureb upgrade. So, I don't think that's going to be u necessarily difficult to achieve at this point, but is it it's in the budget. We're banking on that $150,000. So, it's in the budget. Is that the same as the land water grant though? Is that the same source? Um, it's land and water management. So, I don't know. I think it comes through as Department of Natural Resources when we've received the grants for the marina in the past. Our but it come it comes from the state.

Our portion of it comes from the tiff. No, not not for the marina. Mhm. It's a 5050. Okay. Questions and move on. Move on.

So again, continuing overview. Um we do um just for the sake of um maybe council member Nocttra. Um we do provide and have provided a a a merge. This is MS's uh municipal employee retirement system. So this is a pension uh program. In the years it's in in the years past it's been a defined benefit um which has been um in Paskki has not um alone in this. In many cases pensions became um got underwater u from an acred liability standpoint. So many communities were transitioning from a defined benefit to a defined contribution plan which we did um as well uh several years ago. Um we still invest obviously in our in our benefit to make sure it remains viable over the last eight years. We've invested um we've obviously made our our normal payments and then went above and beyond investing just over 6.6 6 million over the last eight years in additional contributions to make sure that we're keeping our um unfunded acred liability under control, if you will. Um the two 2026 budget does consider an additional above and beyond payment of $400,000 to keep that again that um acred liability um in check if you will.

Um it's you want to know what it is? Uh, no. I thought um I thought I read in here was 175,000. Am I talking something else? I thought in the in the right up here it was going to be lowered to 175,000 this year. Um, no, it's a total of 400,000. That's divided up. It's coming from different funds. Yeah. Oh, okay. But maybe 175 is coming from Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We are funded around 90ome percent. It's 90% currently and you'll see that I have a slide on that here in a second. No, you're good.

Um, so contributions for that additional payment will come from the general fund, the general street fund and the enterprise funds um as well.

So the current budget 2025 budget has a millage rate of 12.809 mills. Um, this is proposed to be rolled back to 12.519 mills in 2026. Um the Headley amendment, we all know the history of that. If taxable value for the year exceeds the rate of inflation, tax levies must be rolled back to the rate of inflation or 5% whichever is less. So we we as as a Michigan municipality um get to to deal with that um and in the issues resolving around that. For 2026, the taxable value is estimated to rise about 5%. Um, just over $779 million in taxable value. Really, we still have a very strong real estate market. Um, currently the state of Michigan inflation rate multiplier is 2.7% for 2026, which will require us to roll back our millage as I mentioned previously based on um the headley calculations that Audrey performs. Um, any any taxable value from new construction, however, is excluded from that roll back um as well. So, that's what we're looking forward to,

Mr. Moore. So I have a few MS questions. So first of all, it was my understanding when I read this that we were reducing our payment amount this year. Is that right? Not I think it was 400 this year. 400 last year. It was 400 this year. 400 this year. Okay. Then my Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah. In the past it was we did a million dollars for four years in a row, I think. Then we decreased it to 600,000 and now 400,000 the last couple years. I think that's that's the timing of it.

So that sort of follows to my next question. So do these actuarial assumptions continue to fluctuate impacting how our annual payments impact the MS percentage funded because when you look at 23 to 24 we went from 92% to 90%. Is that a function of those actuarial assumptions?

That is correct. Um based on their investments, service fees, cost of administrating the plant, how many people have retired, how many remain, how many people have passed away and no longer receive it. Okay. And then my third question or statement. So the 2021 action plan goal was to achieve 90% MRS funding

in [clears throat] all divisions. That's been met. Given that I'm curious why we haven't considered updating our funding goal to achieve a higher percentage of MR's funding. So that's kind of maybe a question for anybody. Yeah, that could be certainly a action priority update for the 26 to 28 uh action plan update that we just talked about. If if council wants to go to a higher u tier, we can certainly um consider that.

Is that for yet this year for 26 budget? Are we talking about are you talking about possibly for the 2026 budget adding higher amounts into this? that it's built into the 26 budget a an above and beyond contribution of 400,000. Yeah. Are you speaking of wanting more money or We're at about I think it's 3.9 right now, isn't it? 3.9 3.9 million. Yes. The unfunded unfunded or unfunded. Yeah. 3.8 3.9 million. We were 9.4 million or 8 8.9 million at

in 2016 years ago. and we've paid it off to get it down. So, we pay the amount that is due and we've been paying on top of that and we started out four years with a million million million because we were at 67% funded. It's kind of like your federal debt. It's your city debt on retirement for these individuals. City manager. Next slide. questions.

So again, the estimated taxable value for 26 is uh right around just under $780 million. That that's about a 5% increase from 25. So this this um chart is in your in your budget binder as well. But um just for uh review purposes, the cleanup uh millage um is solid waste, um rubbish, leaves, brush, recycling program, um the ride ofway, our public improvements within street rideway, sidewalks, etc. Um typically, as in years past, city council formally uh sets the rates in June. Um we're our recommendation is to stay the rates to stay the same as um as 2025. Um I think it's interesting to run the scenario of how he headly impacts you know our budget and not saying that we're doing anything going to do anything about it but the charter uh cap for our general fund is 10 mills. Um we're down to 6.8650 8650 mills currently, which is a 3 mil difference. Uh what's the impact of a 3 mil change? It's about $2.5 million. Um so it's it's not in incon insignificant. It's a significant amount of money that we are not able to um to bring and and provide services to our residents. for the act 425 agreement as you know is our interlocal intergovernmental agreement with Resort Township um uh that transferred Bay Harbor development into the city. The city returns annual revenues to Resort Township in the amount equivalent to 2 and a half mills. So for 26 that's about $940,000

that goes back to Resort Township as part of that agreement. questions on the page.

Just getting uh um specifically to the general fund highlights of the budget. Um so you can see the 2025 budget anticipated a a revenue over expenditures to the tune of about $550,000. Um we're estimating that to be um a little less than that. Um our revenues were slightly higher. Um our re revenue estimates are slightly higher. Uh our expenditures are slightly higher. Um which is going to result in a a use or a uh deposit into fund balance to the tune of almost $440,000. still um uh still a very hefty amount um proposed for 26 based on again our grant revenue reduction. Um our revenues are going to be down in 26 um to just over $12 million. Um our expenditures will be down from 2025 uh from 127 to 122. Um that does between those revenues and expenditure numbers it does result in a planned use of fund balance to the tune of 252,300. Um as we all know this is a budget um this this hopefully when we get to this point next year we will not be having this conversation where we're pulling down fund balance but it is there. That's the way it's set up currently. Um the grant revenue reduction from 25 was significant. Um I I will just make a commentary on state revenue sharing is is again flat for um kind of the second year in a row. Um so we're about 729,000 that comes in

from state shared revenue. It's about a $4,500 actual decrease um from 2025. So it be it would be just my commentary. Um it would be nice if the state u kind of uh supported local units a little bit more effectively than they have in in years past. I know this has been a a a worn out tune, if you will, on local units of government um kind of getting uh the short straw. We all know that uh there was some reallocation of road dollars um with with uh uh sales tax. Unfortunately, that impacted state revenue sharing. So, we were one of the agencies that that felt the brunt of some of that um uh change of this the state sales tax as far as gasoline and and road dollars go. Um so, that's that commentary. I guess in other communities, I would just say like in Tennessee, they gave options to communities that communities could um it was called a local option sales tax. So if you wanted to add um a certain percent of sales tax that stayed in your community, you could go to the voters and and do that and that that revenue stayed in your community to do things in your community. Unfortunately, in the in in the state of Michigan, we don't have that option to to do that. Um but that's what a lot of states have that and it's very attractive um to be able to address some things within your community. If to me if you're buying goods and services in your community that money should stay in your community. Um so that it's just been a little bit of a challenging um sequence of events with state shared revenue. It sometimes feels like um the state uses that as a way to balance their budget on the on the backs of local units and that's I think unfortunate.

Mr. Moore,

so kind of following up on that that area right there. So I understand constitutional revenue sharings decreased, statutory revenues remain static, but in at the legislature they sort of did this thing where the public safety revenue sharing grants and the road funding. So, I'm curious, do we yet know the impact in Pataski of the 2026 public safety revenue sharing grant allocations um that are linked to violent crime data, which is not great for us. And then the impact of road funding, those supplementals, the extent to which any of that balances out that state um revenue sharing decrease.

From a public safety standpoint, I think we're about 16,000 15,000.

Yeah, I estimated 15,000 um base and the state year is October through September. So we always have to estimate the last quarter of our calendar year but they gave uh some estimates. They provided some estimates. So um yeah 15 15 or 16,000 public safety and then within the streets fund ma major and local streets they they gave some estimates but they're going to give um more tour estimates as state taxes start rolling in. So we're expecting that in the spring for them to give more estimates on the street funds. Mr. Naptop,

just to keep my head straight, how much of the ice storm 1,168 is currently booked in the general fund? Oh, come on. I didn't study that today. Roughly. Oh, jeez. I mean, half of it, none of it, most of it, very little.

20%. We got hit hard in the electric fund. The reason why I asked that is that the the the sur quote surplus 25 estimate of 439 is eating any of the monies that we ate for the ice storm in that number that we expect to get back 75% of. So it 25 probably looks it it is really better than we think it is if you really look look at it.

Yes. And also there's just a lot of guesstimating with the timing of the grants when we're expending them because they just run through the city. They're not our costs, you know, maple block and everything. So we're we're just kind of guesstimate how much we expect to be expended fourth quarter and we will receive those monies also. And that's what happened in 2024 when I estimated per the budget thinking this much would come fourth quarter, you know, because we're sitting here in October trying to figure this out. So, a lot is just in the timing of that, but as far as the grants go, but to your question,

the we were hit hardest on in the general fund in the um solid waste line item there. So, we had budgeted 279,000. This is within the in the general fund. We have budgeted 280,000 and my estimate right now is 538,000. Okay. Um some smaller marks amounts in parks um mostly in labor for cleanup. Um but that's the largest part of the general fund would be it would seem to me that I we shouldn't feel too bad about if we go over into 26 a little bit

because it it doesn't I mean I feel pretty good about 25. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Because you know being a posit. Yeah. Positive 439 at the end of this year for the estimates we have right now and a negative though it's it's a Thank you. It's a positive 200. Continue on your

So just from a property tax revenue just a few charts. Um you can see in the orange the progression of um our total uh taxes. This is all all taxes and then the blue is uh general fund. So on the on the general fund side the blue you know 2017 um we brought in um 3.8 million in revenue. Um today or in 26 we're projecting 4.8 eight. So about a million dollars uh more in revenue. Um total overall in orange uh almost 6.3 million in 20 in 2017 to 8.2 million in 2026. So you can see the progression there uh graphically. So just overall revenue-wise uh in the um general fund, you can see our our main source of revenue in the general fund as you all know are property taxes um for a $12 million um revenue projection. 5 million of that almost 44% of that comes from property taxes. Um we do have um uh a number of transfers that happen. This is a result of um of uh intergovernmental um rents for city hall from the um enterprise funds. Um enterprise funds pay um essentially pilots. This is based on the value of the utilities net assets multiplied by the city property tax rate. So we do get transfers from the enterprise funds that support our general fund overall. You can see what that number is. Parks and Wreck um uh brings in um some revenue as well. State

shared revenue. You see where our grants are just under a million dollars. Um and then we we have seen, you know, one of the positive things is we've seen some some better in oops some better interest income over the last few years. Um we're projecting that to be just over $140,000 uh dollars in revenue from interest income. on the expenditure side,

it's always a it's always a little bit of a battle on who gets the the award for uh you know using the the general fund. So it's between public safety and public parks and wreck. They have a little arm wrestling match uh every year. Um and uh and parks and recck went out just uh just by a little bit this year. Um so they're one and two uh typically um right around 30 35% each. Um and then then just general admin, finance department um and then general admin and public works bring up the rest of the expenditures in general fund. [clears throat] our fund balance. This is a a a good slide to show as well. Um if you rewind back to 2012 2013, we were 3.1 million in general fund fund balance. We'll we'll be right around 7 million, just over 7 million at the end of 2025. So, we're we're very healthy um with our fund balance, which again is is is kudos to PRA past city councils, past administrators, um department heads who have uh efficiently managed their their resources. Um we do have the unrestricted uh general fund fund balance again for 2013 was 2.3, it's 4.7 projected for the end of 2025. And the restricted um uh fund balance is for the marina and the refuge collection. The marina is about uh $2.1 million for 26. This is for bond debt obligations and and overall maintenance. And then for refuge collection, we have a restricted fund balance of $261,000

um for a total of 2.3 million which is restricted. Um, so the rest is um is available to be allocated based on city council. So looking at the um uh getting back to we've kind of talked about this a little bit, but this is the merge graphics uh over the course of several years where where we've been from an unfunded acred liability standpoint. So you can see the es and flows of this um as as as things have progressed um you know from 2020 we were at 5 point 5.4 million um we're down to 3.9 million in uh the end of 24. Uh so from if you you go back even further in 2015 before which it was the reason why we made a lot of these pension changes we were 73% funded. We're 90% now. So I think we've we've made some of the hard choices uh to to get uh our our uh our benefit under control if you will. So that's kind of where things are at currently. And then again, we're projecting another above and beyond $400 $400,000 additional payment is proposed for 2026

questions. Taxable value can see how that's been progressing as well. Um, as we all know in in 2009 2010ish time period, we had a significant decline in taxable value. Um, it's taken us a bit of time to recover, but we have recovered from that. Um, and and really recovered in a pretty significant way. We're we're still um trending in the right direction. Um, again, forecasting a 5.1% increase uh in 2026. Um and you can kind of see where that puts us um with where we've been. So just hitting some highlights again. You've we've seen some of this stuff already. This is kind of highlighting our general fund capital projects um that were proposed to um um that there are in the budget currently. So in buildings and grounds um uh we have some improvements at public safety east which is the station next door. um some facility improvements and then um we have some really some mandated um safety improvements for our elevator that we really have no other choice but to do. Um so that comes in at about 125,000. We just did get some quotes on that and it's going to be right in that ballpark it appears. Um so we're we'll be fairly close to that number. parks and special facilities. Um we we talked about in in our CIP discussion the river riverbend park the skateboard park equipment. Um we did talk about a a phased phased approach. It appeared like council wanted to just try to do it all at one time. So that full amount is in the budget currently uh to to replace all of our our skateboard park equipment. Um I mentioned the marina

dredging project. This would be again the switch for the Marina B project. Uh bypass engineering is there. Um the resurfacing, this is an annual number that we put in the budget to resurface a small uh stretch of the wheelway. Uh it's one of those things where you just got to keep keep going, keep doing it. And um you when you're once we're done, we kind of start over again and keep going. Um there is money as well for the dog park. We are we did start that project in 25. Um it's obviously on hold now until the spring, but we did do some grading work. We did some seating work. Um uh some irrigation work. So we'll pick that up in the spring with fencing. So we're anticipating that project to be ready for the public uh around June of next year. And then the Bayfront East Arboritum phase 2 project is scheduled. This is a TIFFA project. um or next year as well uh at the tune of 250,000.

Miss,

so this isn't a question, but it was interesting reading the budget and you others may have seen this as well, but I mentioned it in connection with considering the Little Traverse Wheelway project. Magnus Park has an annual gross income of just shy of a half million uh with a net after expenses of about $281,000 that covers all their operating and maintenance costs and generates additional funds to support other park operations. So given that that's being considered as a staging area, I think that's just an important consideration for everybody to have on their radar. Thank you.

I take it what you're saying is and you're reiterating that the park would be shut down if the project were to be going through Magnus Park, right? And it's sort of a cost that I guess doesn't isn't fully reflected in the number that we were provided for the project.

Streets and drainage. Um so Howard Street, uh we're kind of finishing that up. This would be from um East Mitchell to Michigan Street. Um the um we have miss mi miscellaneous street preservation funds in there. Typically we kind of wait to see how the winter went as far as our our roads go and then make some determination of where we need to allocate resources uh accordingly. Um we will have to go back and finish um Howard Street um that last stretch of Howard Street. Um, so we'll be bidding that stretch out um, uh, over the winter and getting that accomplished as well.

That will not be coming out of this budget, however, will it? The Howard Street completion. Yes. Yeah. Mhm. There was funds enough to do it in the 2025 budget. Yep. Is that surplus of not being spent because it was not completed? that will be going into the 20 this budget. Yes, it's it's included in the 2026 budget. So, it's it reflects in there. So, next year as the funds are being expended, it'll line up. But since it didn't, you know, we've got a surplus of more than we thought we would

in those streets funds due to that not being completed. And that'll just roll over to 2026.

Okay. We will have the park guarding lot. Uh this is for from the street side. It's for storm work. Um as related to that upgrades to the park garden lot um downtown again downtown parking fund that will be the the park garden lot upgrades to that site and then as well as some bike infrastructure costs. Um so that's the capital for downtown parking. electric fund. Um, one of the things you're going to see here in the next uh, probably several budgets is an emphasis on advanced metering infrastructure. So, this is the electric and water. Um, so a lot of our metering infrastructure is fairly antiquated and has exceeded their useful life. So, this would be a a kind of a phased approach looking at how do we upgrade that infrastructure to kind of modern-day uh technology. Uh many many communities have gone through this already. We're a little bit behind in this effort. So, this would be a again a concerted effort on both the electric fund and the water fund to upgrade meters um with um uh advanced metering infrastructure which is called AMI. So there'll be um radio reads essentially uh that will be added and replacing more of traditional um technology that's currently in place.

More, can you remind me um what percentage we're at for undergrounding lines in the city? Roughly I think we're 77 78% or so. I say 77. Okay. Pretty cool. Yeah. Res is it splits? I thought at one time I heard there was a split between residential and u more is there is there a number are we better off residential than we are with the rest of the town sure

yeah I I don't know how that breaks out um there is projects in here that as a result of I think council member Deore asked the question how what did we learn from the ice storm um one of them was we need to really take care of our critical overhead lines. And we have a few of these that are in this budget along the river valley. If if you've walked along the Bear River Valley, you'll see some pretty significant electrical lines that traverse through there. Um that potentially could be a significant point of failure. So we want to we've had conduit in the ground ready to do it. The big cost with that is the cable.

Um that's where that's where the cost of the project is. So that would be undergrounding those stretches through the river valley and getting that accomplished. And then we have a number of residential conversions in the Morgan Prebby Hillrest Curtis um area to continue our undergrounding there. Um as well water sewer. Um this kind of correlates with our with our street work on Howard Street. Um as well as again advanced metering infrastructure. So same thing on the water side. We we have to put some effort into upgrading that technology as well. Um we have a significant amount going to upgrades to our lime kilm well. Um as well doing some control improvements. Um so we're we're anxious to to get that project uh going. We have we obviously want to make sure we're taking care of our critical infrastructure as well. And then just the ongoing lead and copper rule inventory work. Um that's uh that's ongoing getting that inventory done. um of of uh we have a number of um what is it a $600,000 grant that we're we're going through this process of uh making sure that we can identified where potentially our lead um services are and get those identified and inventoried and then then the challenge becomes you know how do we how do we pay to u make these um uh investments in and removing. Um, so that's that's the ongoing challenge,

Mr. Moore. So when does that challenge when do we embark upon that? [clears throat] And I'm assuming we have no updates and funding. No funding updates yet, but we have to kind of complete this process, which will be completed in 26. Um, I don't know for sure how long they're going to give us to start scratching these off of our list, but the hope is that they're starting with more distressed communities with funding. Um, but the hope is that we'll eventually see some of those funds come up here, but I know there's a lot of communities that are asking for the same thing. So, um, we'll see how that funnels forward. It's mandated, isn't it? Yeah. Yep. It's an unfunded That's an unfunded mandate.

Yeah.

Which we know all about those um motorpool. The big thing in the motor pool, which you know, I'm I'm really excited about as a former utility guy. um are we've never had one of these. We've always used a contractor um to uh and this is just a a jet vehicle, a hydraulic jeter um help will help us to clean our sewers on a regular schedule instead of being maybe more reactive to issues proactively uh cleaning um sections of our sewer and having a piece of equipment that'll allow us to do that. Um and then that's on the sewer side. On the water side, it will certainly assist us with water mane breaks, uh, keeping up with the the flow of water that's escaping the the the main, if you will, assisting our crews to make the repairs safely. So, I'm I'm looking forward to this vehicle. I think it's going to be a nice ad to our um to our motor pool. I know it's going to be something that'll be well utilized. We did rent um a piece of equipment very similar to what we're proposing to get and our crews were just over the moon about it. They loved it. They were fighting over who got to run it for the day. Um so Jason had a lot of nice things to say about it. So I know they're looking forward to it.

We we also transitioned the modular vehicle barrier system forward as as was the directed by city council. So, we place that into 26 uh budget as well to start that process of accumulating these barriers so we can safely uh close off streets um appropriately. And then we do have one patrol vehicle that's due for um replacement. How much does that barrier system how many how many crossings does that cover? Do you know? I don't remember that first initial one. I think I think total it was I don't know. Um, director Carr, wasn't the total was it? How many? Thought it was 20 on that? 20.

20 street crossings. No. Um, I thought it was 20 barriers. I'm not sure. How many for a a crossing? Mean two. So, we'd have 10 possibly possibly 10 street crossings like almost the entire That's just But almost the entire parade route, I take it. Yes. Right. The golden. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll we'll keep adding on to it as we go forward. So, I think this is a good start. Um, fantastic addressing our most, you know, pressing intersections, obviously.

Can can I just ask um what percentage of recommended need is this for these barriers? In other words, is this 10% of what we need? Is it 20%? That's my

I went through all the roads with Jason um when we presented this and I want to say because you need their 8T coverage and we were Jason had to go and figure out on each road how what the width was because some might be more some might be less of the barriers. So I would say this could get us a third of the way there maybe more. Um that's where you're talking for a parade route. We got to go Mitchell and then you have to also ask people street as well. So then there's the Indian community other areas that this will get us a great start.

Thank you for the estimate. The other thing that um at this point I guess it's somewhat of an unfunded mandate, but hopefully we can get some grant funds. Um but we do have to upgrade our voting equipment. Um they've kind of reached their useful life and we're at a point where we need to essentially we have seven pieces of voting equipment which is a tabulator for each ward and two um voting assist terminals uh that need to be replaced per state requirements. We're obviously hoping, like many communities, that there'll be some grant resources to assist us with this effort, but for now, we felt like we needed to put the full amount in uh just in case um we don't get grants, but um so one of the things I found out recently that our number doesn't include this, so this will be a little bit of a modification uh for the next uh uh discussion we have. We'll have to put this number in the budget. So that number that I just shared about our 252, we're a little bit worse off. Um because that the 75,000 isn't in there, but um but it will be. Um

no, the 70 it it's in there. I thought you said it wasn't in there. It's just not on that summary page. I just missed the formula because we've never had a capital expense. So on the on the overview sheet, it's not on there. Okay. Gotcha.

Mr. Drop. Um, yeah, from my I don't know if anybody else would this would be useful for, but my baseline is our cap act or CIP budget that we approved a couple months ago basically said what we were going to do in 26, we added the barriers and we added some things. Is there without I don't really feel like being an auditor. Is there any way to to take this list here that we got in the 26 budget, match it with what we approved and just say where the changes are like the electric is ch electric and the marine has changed or is everything in here that we put in what we put in our budget? Yeah, I've kind of done I did that with a previous slide the changes that um so that that's in your packet.

So it's in it's in a previous slide here. Yeah, the first Yeah, I forgot which one it is but um that's our improved and Oh. Oh, that was it. That's it. Yeah. Um, okay. Apple capital improvement plan update. So, the thing you you Okay. Yeah. So, the thing you added was a dredging. Yeah. You removed the other stuff and that that's it. Yes. Wash. That's good. Thank you. And then obviously based on on your input, we'll continue to adjust going forward. But, Miss Walker, thank you. So, the task before us is to find out how we can get down another $252,000.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Well, we started the capital budget with a planned use of fund balance. Um, so we kind of knew it was going to be a little heavier year for um general fund fund balance. So, one of the things I've heard from council over the over the months was they the consensus was that we have a fairly significant fund balance. Let's activate some of those funds with projects. So, this could be a way that we activate some of those funds with projects that, you know, folks will be able to see with doing more capital improvement uh projects. So, obviously we've got some other discussions we're going to need to have with Winter Sports Park um and how that will be funded. This budget doesn't really get into that quite yet because that's an entirely different discussion which we'll have at the next meeting. Um but that could be obviously part of that part of that rationale would be keeping fund balance for some of that as well. So that's [snorts] that was the plan that we were going to have a little heavier year from a from a capital standpoint on the general fund side. So using using or activating some of that fund balance for for that was was part of the discussion.

Okay, Miss Walker. Thank you. I have another question then. I mean it's kind of a fun activity to figure out how to tighten the belt, but that's fine. No, I'm I'm I'm I don't like to present a budget that's not it was tighten

that's zeroed out. That's that's always the goal. Um but I think we're in a position where the fund balance is fairly healthy that um as council member Nocttra mentioned, we we're going to end 25 on a positive note for with you know $400,000 to the good. Um, if you balance out potentially a little bit of a $200,000 use of fund balance, I mean, it it es and flows. Um, I think that it'd be one thing, I guess, if there was a significant track record where we were diving into fund balance year after year after year. That would be a little bit of a red flag for sure. Um, I I don't think we've made a um habit of doing this. I think Audrey has some data on that.

I was interested in this I went back to 2004 and looked at you know how many years that council has committed um committed [clears throat] to use fund balance and it was 14 out of the last 22 years [clears throat] I thought that was really interesting that 64%

um that we have used fund balance you know because during the year you know like interest income you surprised that you know the interest rate stayed so high for a couple of years because I underestimated um interest revenue the past two years just I'm overly cautious sometimes but yes so you end up at a more positive um end of year than you expect so I can see why they have used it 14 out of 22 years well that could be a wash of not even util we well that's per budget that it was committed per budget

and some years It was a positive number of $300, I think, just trying to make it break even. In 2009, so yeah. Okay, Miss Walker.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, Shane, so just I just want to entertain an idea real quick. We would be having a very different budgetary conversation had we chosen to move forward with a millage potentially for an election year um or an a millillage for our parks and recreation. So, if we were to entertain that idea again in 2026 for the 2027 budgetary year, um like what would that look like? At what time would we start to plan budgetarily for a millillage?

I think we have to have that discussion in January really to determine is this something that you all want us to continue to work on? Um because my thought would be to put it on for August if there's a desire with city council. That would be the time I would like to see it potentially go on next. Um so to do that, if you back up, we we would need to have a pretty good plan in place, you know, in the spring. Um that's a that's a lot of uh um presentations around the community making sure that we're telling our story, but before we can even do that, we need to have um consensus among city council to even ask the voters the question. So, um, so that would be the request that we have the discussion early part of 26, um, to at least try to allow us to engage the residents of Paskki with the question and we'll they're going to let us know um, one way or another if we've done our our job or not ultimately in telling our story and making the case for it. Um, and then we respond accordingly at that point. But that would be that would be my desire.

Thank you.

The last slide I I put forward is just kind of a fun little exercise that we had um put together. Um because I get a lot of times when people come in and pay their tax bill, they think all of it's coming to the city. Um and that would be great if that hap if that was the case, but it's really not reality. Um, so essentially on on a just using a dollar, 30% of that dollar, so 30 33 cents of that dollar is is the city of Paskki. The rest of it is many other taxing jurisdictions that that also uh benefit by those tax resources. And I just kind of played that out a little bit on what that looks like. Um, I use my tax bill, so obviously I'm 100% homestead. So there'd be a different story if I'm paying that 18 mills. Um that this would look significantly different. Um obviously I'm I'm not paying that. So um so the schools would would be would show a little bit uh a lot different um from that standpoint if I was paying that that operating um for that. So I just think it's a neat exercise to go through.

Uh obviously the county I combined the county's uh portion. This would be the medical care facility at 2386 mills, the senior citizen millillage at 4845 mills, the ambulance and EMS um millage, and then the operating millage uh for the county as well. That's so that's that's what the county's portion is. So that works out to um about 18 cents of that dollar um goes to the county. Um, so I just think it's an interesting exercise that, you know, when when somebody pays their tax bill, it's not it's not we're we're um facilitating that, we're dividing that or and sending that back out to all these taxing jurisdictions um um and collecting that and then redistributing that back out um accordingly. So, I know that's that's a somewhat of a heavier lift for the finance department at that time of year, but this is a a neat uh way to I think show that um that it's not all your all your tax uh uh bill it does not come to the city of Paskki.

I had the opportunity of sitting in uh somebody called me with two commercial properties complain about the taxes for the city. They [clears throat] I asked them to call Shane. They requested that I sit in with Shane with Shane to hear their story. Uh, and it was amazing because they felt that all this tax dollars on this yellow piece of tax thing was going to the city and why are you charging so much. It wasn't until we said, "Well, start looking down the sheet." And before long, he said, "I should go talk to the schools." And we said, "Go for it." But, uh, I think this is really I think this is really a great piece that you guys put together of all of your budget stuff. This is one that really speaks to the citizens of ASI where your money goes. Shane, I want to say thank you for what you guys have done. Audrey, Sarah, you guys have put together a heck of a budget. We may have some questions now, I think, on some of it, but uh, I I think this really flows well nicely. It's gotten much better. Mr. Moore,

I just want to make sure that one message doesn't get lost in all of this, and that is that it's projected that tax millage rates for our taxpayers will remain the same in 2026 as they were in 2025. Correct. Thank you. I'm I'm sorry. Can you can you repeat that? The millage rates, the millage rates are likely to um be rolled back dependent upon um additions. Yeah, that's that's out of our control. We're not we're not adding any millages to this budget. Okay. Okay. I'm sorry. I was I was like, wait a second from the taxpayers point of view. Yes, Miss Walker.

And then can you can you repeat again? So this dollar bill um graphic that you showed would be for a typical taxpayer that lives here year round, not for like a second. Do you know what it looks like for a second a third homeowner? Do you know what percentage of people are actually those and as opposed to like the year around? I can get that information to you, but the equalization department and the county gives us that detail, but I don't have that in front of me right now. 5050, isn't it? I think it's not even that. I think it's 60. I think it's more 6040 and it's on their um annual equalization report that they So 60 being like people that live here year round

come out with heavier on versus them. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Shields.

Thanks, Mayor. Manager Horn, thanks for the report. Um, I have a I I want to first say appreciate you recognizing that there are um items that this budget doesn't address and that we we we are not funding and um on one hand and yes, we can't all get what we want. Um and there are lots of lots of desires and needs out there. And just to uh say it out publicly, there's some things that I've, you know, in the past five years I've been wanting to see that aren't in this budget. And not all these I'm going to advocate for right now, but I think it's important to recognize. There's still 800 acres that we do not have a forest management plan for that the city owns. And we're dropping the ball on our stewardship of those that forest and that resources out there. uh the deer management deer issue. Um we just don't have a funding for any sort of uh control of deer. Uh the unhoused the the discussion we had great discussions great motivation or um momentum for for addressing that but currently we're not allocating money towards that. Um uh the uh accessory dwelling units and uh and housing issue there. I've mentioned in the past about a potential revolving loan fund and seeding that. Uh you mentioned the the economic development professional, human resource professional. That's that's a that's a new one that I think is important. Um and then I I want to bring up also the the lack of a full-time city planner as as something else that is not that we are not funding in this in this um budget. With that, uh, manager Horn, I want to ask, thinking about a planner and and the value of a full-time planner to our our community

currently, our our contract planner, Mr. Eko Angelie, um, do you know approximately how many hours a week does he build uh, the city of Pitaski? So, that could be roughly how how often is he working for the city of Paskki? I don't know. Do we have an average? I do not have an average. He bills out monthly, but I I would have to look at the invoices to get an an hourly average. So, it's variable. Some weeks could be a couple hours or um or generally it's 20 hours a week. It's how variable is it? I really haven't looked at the dates if it's by week because he bills by month. Okay.

Does he bill on per hour or does he bill by project? Per hour. What are what are we anticipating from a budget standpoint for those services? Isn't it 60ish? Um it's total 60 in contracted services I think for planning zoning department for next year because there's not much more than him in there. You know, news review and a couple other small things. Lisa she she's an employee. Um he's he's under he's under contracted services.

Mhm. In the in the past I've allotted amount the last two years I have an aotted amount you know kind of maybe assuming maybe um hiring a city planner you know so I put a little less in wages or a little more but I did not this year just because it was a tighter year. I didn't have anything to buffer. So, but you know, always as council, we can change the budget at any time if you would see a need to increase that throughout the year. I

mean, I I would say I I I value having staff in in the building as well. John's been a a great resource, lot a lot of experience obviously. Um we are saving saving money using this method. Um, I would say if you want to go out and have me hire somebody with salary and benefits, you're probably looking at um 70 120ish. Um, so 120 is it? I'm thinking salary with healthcare. Um, I don't know. Am I low over there? Yeah. Yeah.

Everybody's shaking their head. Well, considering what we spend for other department heads, I think, holy cow, that's low. What am I? I think we should healthare is $22,000, right? I think we should probably be looking at 150 or 60,000. Agreed. If we want to get somebody good, I mean, I don't want to lowball it and get somebody that just got out of school and is looking for their first job and I think we deserve somebody with experience, somebody with with a history.

Yeah. it. I I guess is there a determination of what I get the feeling that you're thinking we need more time in that this is a more time than John spends and and is there is there a feeling amongst all of us that there's more time needed if we had a person available or is it a money issue because it seems to me city planning is pretty dagon important and if we if we have a part-time person and we really need a full-time person then we ought to be talking about that money issue. What would the a full-time person give us that a part-time person? That's precisely what I was trying to ask.

What What is the We know what we get. What is the extra amount of money going to bring to us? Do you can you mean it's customer service, right? I mean, we'd have somebody in the office when we'd have a walk-in or whatever. We'd have a staff member available. um with the services of expertise of bringing forth more to the table when when it comes to discussions at the planning commission or through city council. Would there be an increase in in that?

It just depends on who who we bring forward because we just you just don't know. Um you know, Audrey mentioned the last couple years we've had funds kind of set aside for this transition and we we haven't done that. Um, this year we just decided to to pull it back out. Um, we we obviously need to get through the zoning work. That's critical. Um, we're we're almost to that point, but we're not quite there. Um, I would just be I guess I would be concerned with who we' be able to the pool was fairly shallow last time we we went out. Um, but we can certainly try it again if that's a desire of city council. There's another thing is I guess I look at it as the current planner has walked through with planning commission to look at all the reszoning now which is going to be coming to city council late January probably February. Do we want to start looking at changing ship now? Um, I would like to I think it would behoove us to stay the course until we get through that piece of it just because of the consistency of of transfer of information and stuff. Mr. Shields, thanks. I I agree with that. I think that that that ship is sailing in that direction to to jump ship on that right now would would not be beneficial. Uh, but I do to Mr. No, I I I think there are planning is very important and there are a lot of more than just customer service and and I respectfully um think that something like the sub area plan and something planning for things ideas that you know uh uh Mr. David Troutman, you know, some of the ideas he thinks about how we plan our our streetscape and just how plan our city, those are ideas, but general developing ideas for our our planning of our our community is is lacking because

we don't have a full-time developer. And I I would include saying that, you know, taking two years to do the resoning. You know, if we had a full-time person, we could be doing that in a more efficient way, effective way. I understand there's not a full agreement. I speak for myself on that one. So I I think I think personally that we are we are missing some opportunities uh by not having full-time planner. I would say, yeah, don't do it now, but potentially after this

process is and I I look at it this way. It's like when we did the call for uh presenters or opportunities for the city attorney, we uh included uh the company, the firm that we were you utilizing at the time, I think being broadcast out to anybody and everybody including who is serving us now. But I I think it's uh at some point I think it's good for the city to occasionally go out and look at what else is out there and if we find that what there's nothing and we stay with who we have Miss Walker.

Thank you. Thank you mayor. And I think in addition to that Joe I tend to agree with what Dererick is saying. I feel like the chill grant and like the housing readiness grant would have been completed and done in house by now had we possibly had one person in that position. I also think that um you know there um what were one of them the um between those two pieces there was another thought I had. I'm sorry it just totally escaped me but I I really do believe that oh I know what it was. We've had a difficult time tracing billable hours from this firm and like what what was allotted from the firm dur during the month at certain times whether it was a parks and wreck project under Tim under the engineer or if it was housing or I'm sorry planning and zoning related under under John underneath the same firm. So that on a month-to-month budgetary item, it's kind of like I'm always kind of like guesstimating or trying to figure out or having to circle back around and ask like which one was for this parks and w project under under Tim versus under John and and housing and zoning. So um I think that would be another reason to for the 2027 budget. I agree staying the course right now doesn't make any sense to and plus we don't have it budgeted for that reason. But but

the budgeting the budgeting piece is is immaterial when it comes to the operations of the city. We can find the money. We can find movement of funds to make something happen if we found that we wanted to or needed to. Okay. But getting back to I city manager Horn, I have a question. Do you feel I I'm I disagree with this piece that you stated. I believe the chill grant and those other grants would have been Am I correct? Would they have moved any faster?

I I I Oops. I really don't think so. This has been I mean I I would have liked to have potentially, you know, more support with staff potentially that we could assist with this, but this is this was a very difficult undertaking. I'll just be flat honest with you. There's a lot of requirements that I had no um I had no idea that we even had to go through this administrative process. So, uh, if this process comes before me again, I'm I'm going to have to have a hard look in the mirror to determine is this is this worth it. I mean, it the issue is to me there's need out there and to me that that's what facilitates moving in that direction. So, it's very unfortunate that we have to have all this red tape. people really need these resources and and we're out here doing all these extra, in my opinion, nonsense um stuff to check boxes when there's people out here that that need a new roof, need new windows, and want to get this done before winter. And so that's been very frustrating. Um but I know if if we don't follow every letter of the law, we're responsible as the city. So if something happened and we distributed $40,000 to a property owner and come to find out they didn't qualify from an income standpoint, we're on it's the city. So I take that very seriously. So, it's a very slow, methodic process, but the the um I just lost where I was going to go, but

I think we should really think, you know, I know I know they basically those grants are you basically if you hire out, you're paying at 18 to 20% for somebody to run those grants. Administration, we did the administration in house. Maybe next time we don't get caught with that. The trouble is you're one fifth of every dollar, one of every five dollars you're turning over to somebody to run the show. And that money, Shane wanted that money to go to people.

Yeah, I do appreciate Habitat stepping forward. They've been a great assist for me um with this administrating this grant. So, it's taken us a while to kind of get through a lot of the admin u mumbo jumbo, if you will. So, we're through a lot of that. So, you're going to see some some good progress going forward. So, I'm I'm excited about that. So, thanks for taking it on and thanks for Thank you.

Y bringing it forward to us to begin with. That half million dollars is a lot of money. Uh council, do you have other questions on this budget or do you wish to bring them forward at the next meeting when we start talking nuts and bolts and dollars and cents more? I I intend to try to set up a meeting one-on-one because I have a lot of some of it is education, but some of it is just flatly ideas and suggestions. I think it's great, but I think at some point I think it's good for the group to hear some of it because I want to know, geez, did I miss something? And you bring something up and I go, boy, that was a great idea. We'll support I I want to support that change all the way through it. But so I guess

I guess meet with Shane Audrey and I don't know if you can somehow as we go maybe I can I can summarize some of the uh requests that may be coming so you all can kind of have that ahead of the next meeting. Um I think that would be good

and we can have two of you at once without violating OMA. So, if if if it assists, then it certainly would help us as staff to try to double up if we can. Um, I know I've heard from a few of you on times already, so I'll reach back out to you and set those up. So, um, yeah, this is a lot of information. I I certainly appreciate, you know, the amount of questions that have come forward already. I know as you dive in a little deeper, you'll probably have many more questions, which which is what it should be. Um, so I appreciate your your guidance on that, Mr. Shields.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, manager Horn. I do some high level um items that I am not interested in seeing in the uh capital or into the budget or or at least discussing as you go and do your more homework. Um, one of those is I I mentioned uh in the capital improvement plan not wanting to support the uh slope restoration 50 now it's $50,000. Um, and also I I'm going to add in there I am interested in willing to strike out this year doing the resurfacing of the the WA and saying hey what if you know we don't do that for a year. What what what does it look like? We have some more cracks that we have to go through. Um, but can we use that? then that's 20 or that'd be $200,000 that we can go to either the key fob thing or the sub area plan or a planner or um what I want to propose and I I mentioned this briefly at the last meeting is this idea of a a fund development officer or a director of philanthropy that would raise money through uh raise private money for projects that are uh are community projects that this body has said yes these are things that the community wants and then they go and um and supplement uh uh public dollars with private private philanthropy um so things like raising money for the wheel away repair and maintenance the housing the unhoused uh the less than 80% AMI type of projects that are not going to happen without uh significant subsidies and significant philanthropy um as well as the public the parks enhancements, you know, potentially uh that uh millillage doesn't have to come because there can be some philanthropy. I I know this is uh something that generally larger uh municipalities have. They have um community development

officers, directors of philanthropies. So, as a smaller uh community, you I can understand say, "Hey, that's a little bit of um that that's a pretty radical thing to do. Why why would we do that?" But I I think looking at our community uh it actually makes sense. There's a lot of people who want to see projects go through and and there isn't that mechanism for for doing that easily. Um you know a grant a uh a grant or fund development officer can cultivate individual donors. It can also help with grant administration and and I know our our develop department heads do a great job of bringing in grants but puts one person to help coordinate some of that could also help us become more efficient. So you know that that could be uh something where we fund by um making some more room in the budget.

Anyone else switch? [clears throat] So, you'll set a time up. You can meet with uh Shane either double up. Mhm. I'd be game for doubling up. I don't know. Do you guys I don't um Yeah. Well, we'll send something out to you. How's that? Yeah. How's that? I know. Uh council member Deore threw out Thursday and Friday this week. So, if I'm pretty good those two days. So if if one of those is Wednesday or tomorrow possible. Mhm. Like Wednesday sometime in the morning or

I like your attitude of wanting to get it going. What time of day? um like literally anytime or like like 10:30 10 o'clock. We have another person come on on city council, Mr. uh Wilmont. I think I know uh there's discussion of him. Kane and I have already talked about you've already talked. We'll compare calendars at the end. Y okay. I thought there's another double up with some I'm free in the morning. That works for me. Beautiful. Wednesday at 10. 10. Okay.

Anybody joining you Wednesday at 10? I can't join Wednesday at 10, but I'm open Thursday and Friday if somebody wants to join with me at a time that works for them. Charlie and I could do it together on Friday. Yep. Friday's good for me. I'm here. Actually, it's not city council. So, if another point of view wanted to go in at that time, it is we wouldn't do that. No. Okay. [laughter]

Oh, because you have not been sworn in yet. So, you are technically not on Friday. Time did we say any any I you have a time preference. Friday either late morning. Either one of those is fine for me. One o'clock. So, I'll see if I can make Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. work then. I'll get it on your one, right? One on th on Friday. Excuse me. One o'clock Friday. Got it. I'm giving up work. I'll do it faithfully. And it it doesn't we don't have to double up, Lindsay, if it works over lunch period or whatever.

There's no such thing as lunch. I said I could be done if you want. Don't adjust it for me. I'm going to make Wednesday at 10 a.m. work. Okay. You already done that. We'll be in the Kilborn room downstairs. The one with the view get early and have a view of the bay except you have your back to the door. Never have your back to the door. Don't ever sit like that. Okay, moving along. Adoption of the proposed resolution. Uh public hearing. Yeah, we need to we need a motion for the resolution of

public hearing. We need to schedule a public hearing for December 1st. Do I have a motion for that? Mayor, I'd be happy to propose uh make a motion to schedule our budget hearing for December the 1st. Do I have a second? Support. Any other discussion? We go to Miss Beck for roll. Walker. I knock I Murphy

I motion passes 5-0. adoption of a proposed resolution approving inter local agreement with little Trevor's Bay uh of Ottawa Indians for crossutation and mutual law enforcement assistance. Uh public safety director Carr, welcome.

Good evening. Um, first off, circling back to the barriers, I was able to go back through my emails while I was sitting back here listening to everything obviously, but uh um it looks like it'll close seven streets right now and we need 19 total. So, my rough estimate was pretty close. So, thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome. the interlocal agreement uh that we're discussing here. I had worked with the tribal chief Terry McDonald trying to find a way for us to break down some barriers of response times and as we discussed or you discussed a little bit earlier the need for um possibly another law enforcement officer. This is we're kind of at the bend but don't break with personnel and this would help with response times because they're traveling throughout the city from time to time. Also, you know, we pass their properties quite a bit as well. And if we have a medical emergency or any type of emergency at these properties, then we can respond without asking for jurisdiction, which just another step

that delays our response to assist one another. So, that's basically what this is. We have the same type of agreement with the county as well where just saves a step. We can ask for jurisdiction and they can uh an officer has to respond and say yes, you can make a traffic stop or some things like that outside our jurisdiction. We've made agreements such as this um where we're cross- deputized with the county as well. Now, this would allow us to do that with the uh with the tribe as well. So, we've had instances where we've had to respond um to assist and we have to wait for them to allow us to

because of sovereign land and this just kind of is uh it's a good thing for both for both parties. Can I ask how many pieces of property roughly they have the type within the city limits? I want to say it is closer to eight maybe. That's all eight. Yeah, they and they have some apartments. They have uh their local businesses. They have uh uh I'm sorry, they're there's one on EMTT Street. There's one on Paskki Street, Spring Street. Um uh the they have property that used to have a house on it by um [sighs and gasps]

Monroe. Monroe. Yes. Thank you. So yeah, roughly roughly six, seven, somewhere in there. So do you have any questions or a possible motion? Mr. Knobro has a question.

Just from a background, uh would you say that the the spirit of cooperation on this is high on both sides and that we've had conflicts with them and and anything that they do differently than we do and that that you could see there could be any kind of a problem with anything on this agreement? I don't and I've supplied them with all of our policies as well. So they're as it's written in this agreement, they have to abide by all of our policies and really it's just a hey hold things down till we get there and that's the agreement on both sides. We're not trying to make traffic stops on pro on tribal land or we're not trying to to have we're just trying to assist one one another in these situations or if they see a vehicle that we're looking for, they can make a traffic stop and hold it down till we can get there and and handle the situation.

Thank you, Mr. Moore. So, I fully support this. I think it's great these cooperative efforts just like the previous fire

agreement that we entered into. But my question is really for Shane and it's just relative to liability. Uh is it our intention to apprise the city's insurance carrier of this interlocal mutual agreement and for that matter the fire agreement that we've already entered into or any other agreements like this where there's a potential for liability and there's hold harmless clauses that sort of thing. Thank you. Yeah, we did reach out Audrey reached out to our insurance provider. Um they mentioned as um as long as there's hold harmless language uh attached to the agreements that they are they are comfortable in that area. Just make sure that we're we're covered with with that language. This has been reviewed by our city attorney. Um, as well there is one little typo that I need to bring to your attention on 16 um under hold harmless on page 71 of your packet. Um, just a little bit of a um a word missing. So the third sentence or the third line there after each it should be other added to that um that for whatever reason got was missed um in the update. Um, so that just needs to be amended with adding the word other um at that location.

Thank you. Yep. Miss Walker. Um, can you tell me does um other uh jurisdictions, so other municipalities, the only other one would be City of Harbor Springs and then the county, do they have similar agreements with LTBV? Do you know? I do not know if they have with I know Let me see. I know Meno City has an agreement with um with the tribe for their property there, but I don't believe I I don't know if Harbor Springs does. Thank you. Or Em County?

I have a motion possibility, Mr. Moore. Happy to make the motion with the amendment on page 71, paragraph 16A, the addition line three of the word other. So it re reads claims against each other. Second the motion. I have a motion for Miss De Moore, second for Mr. Shields. Any other discussion? Councel, does the public wish to speak on this? There being none, so I go to Miss Beck for roll. Demora I. Shields. Hi. Walker. I knock I Murphy

I motion passes 5 Z. Last on the agenda review and discuss on domestic fowl uh namely chickens and bills fel defer to council member Shields um to start the discussion I guess.

Sure. Thanks Horn. I was contacted by a city resident asking if if eating chickens was allowed and I did not know the answer and talked to Andrew Horn. Um it is not permitted. So, I've thought about bringing I would propose bringing uh a ordinance to this body suggesting that we make it so residents can keep hens and ducks with uh with best management practices, guidances um that I pulled for some some examples that I pulled from uh Michigan State Extension University and other communities in the area including Traverse City who uh permit um this this type of fowl, this type of these these pets. Um and and I and I, you know, I don't have strong feelings for it other than I I I I do not see it. Um I think a lot of the potential concerns can be mitigated through the ordinance. And um you know, I we had I had one resident compare the no potential noise to dogs, and we all know that there are dogs that bark in our neighborhoods. um and we deal with that as a community. So given that people who [clears throat] want to have uh hens and ducks as well the opportunity to do so in a limited capacity, I'm supportive of that. But uh just bringing that before the body was Mr. N.

I have actually had a couple people ask the same question since I've been here my short period. [clears throat]

But in in reading all the background and when I went into this before when I read the background I'm I'm I'm trying to understand why this council at the end of the day when they had the ordinance then the then the petition to have it be brought up to the vote and then council just decided to cancel it. Is there any history on why council decided to not let it come up to the vote? to start with. There was 10% of the population signed a petition to bring it to city council which then made city council make two choices. You either put it on the agenda or you support it. So I I you know there there must have been a reason. There wasn't a lot of write up on why they refused it. However, I look at it this way. we pass it and then we end up getting 330 people signing a petition and it's going to be right back in our laps. So, I guess if you want to do chickens, I'm in favor of putting it on the ballot and let the people decide because I don't think we're not going to win either way on this. For some reason, there were 331 people signed the petition in 2011 and you know, I'm I'm not saying good or bad. I'm just saying that's the facts of where how we got here in the past in 2011 from the research that we've I've done.

So I I guess from my own personal objective I don't you know I've had a couple people ask about it. I don't see a big reason not to and if there's an objection to it as you say Mr. Mayor then if it's a big controversy like let the voters vote if that's if that's it. Yeah. So, I I don't have a I don't see why we wouldn't allow it. Well, with all the conditions that we had in the other ordinance and what what what uh what Derek is saying, not just wild, but I'm just with conditions.

I know. I thought one thing that was missing there I think and I'm not sure if I could I know in some of these there are not depending on what what where climate location environment you're at but the need for uh constant for uh liquid water is a requirement. I don't think it was in some of these. It was uh not in there. Uh there's some things that would need to be addressed that are not in that this this this ordinance. Uh uh I also, you know, I did some research on it and it stated that from the University of Minnesota Extension uh stated that uh chickens do occasionally start cocking like a rooster because as they get older they they do have a change over to acting like a male. I did read that Um, I'm just throwing some stuff out there of what I read. Uh, you can check the history on the, you know, Minnesota extension office, uh, on their reports on this, but uh, I I think we should be, you know, chicken. I I mayor I think that you know since 2011 we've have now have a a master plan called livable paskki and part you know I would argue that allowing chickens and ducks is aligns with our sustainability goals and this idea of self-reliance and livability and celebrating that we are a a year-round community and that u you know with with guidelines and boundaries um you know and I also think that there's a noise ordinance that can be included in there. So if if a hen uh starts, you know, acting like a rooster, well then then

there's there is a way to uh respond to that. But I don't but the the noise ordinance is not going to address chicken noise. I think the ordinance for noise is totally different than the noise that would come out of an animal. I I I'm pretty sure that from looking looking at the noise ordinance um

I know you're you're right, Mayor. That's why I suggested in the in the noise ordinance adding there's a you know there a comment about animal barking, howling or makes other noises continuously for more than 10 minutes or intermittently for more than 30 minutes within a 1 hour period. Um again uh the noise is auto beyond property line. So

I see you also the word was nuisance and I I could not find a on on the ordinance uh some definitions of words such as nuisance. What is a nuisance? And I thought that definitions needed to be included in as well. What is a nuisance? What is a nuisance that a chicken would cause? I don't know. But I want to know what is it that people feel are nuisances involving chickens. I know odor is getting getting loose and having to corral them in the street. We have that happen occasionally. Um we have had it here. Yes. With chickens that people do have chickens. Have had chickens. Yes.

I asked public safety director, have you had to uh address that at all, sir? Yes. Okay. Well, and it's normally noise or order that we have. And sometimes they do get those um noise or order. Okay. As do, cats. Well, then then then if you're throwing dogs, cats, and chickens into that, we should allow just about any kind of animals into this group of what people can have then. I mean,

no. We're we're we're we're I not the slippery slope kind of argument. You could say though, no, we've set the boundaries. There aren't goats. So, I think we can make that call as this body say no chicks chickens and ducks are okay, but goats are not. Why not? Why not? Because this body said so. Well, no. But I mean, if you want to throw it all out there and say chicken, why aren't goats?

Well, we're trying to represent the the needs and desires of our community. So if we do hear a lot of requests for goats, let's discuss that. There might I think I haven't done research probably other implications of goats needing larger areas than than for hens or ducks. But um that this is this is responding to desires of the community uh desires of northern Michigan living and you know I would also say you know people are it's unclear and so people are clearly having I had ducks two years ago. I had no idea. I don't have ducks currently. Um uh so like people are having those. So there's let's just let's try to make it more clear. I was I would recommend make it more clear and that and let's allow it.

Miss De Moore.

So just to follow up on needs and wants of the community because I think that's really important for my part. I haven't received any constituent interest or input on backyard chickens and ducks generally or on this initiative specifically. Now, I am aware of the email we received today and apparently one other constituent and perhaps this gentleman in the audience as well, but overall I'm just not aware of any community ground swell on this topic. And as the city history that's included in the packet material demonstrates, this is a controversial issue. Some people think it's a great idea. Some people don't think it's a good idea at all. So applying a risk benefit analysis respectfully, I don't support this body moving this matter forward. I would agree that if you want to put it on a ballot and let the community vote, I think that would be a viable approach. we'd have a better sense of this as opposed to it being anecdotal. I'm not getting any, you know, comments. You apparently have had one or two on so three or four then al together. So, um, that's my perspective on I mean it most respectfully. Um, but I just at this juncture don't support this body moving it forward. And as an adjunct to as an old debate coach, I can't help myself. So I go and research things and there's a lot missing here. Like many um communities that have adopted this also adopt what's called the generally accepted agricultural and man management practices. And those are extremely detailed. They include things like prohibiting the outdoor slaughtering of animals. Uh the

generally accepted agricultural practices for coupe setbacks of 50 ft and it goes on and on. Um so thank you. Respectfully submitted. Well, I thank you and I respectfully disagree and I would love for this body to actually vote on whether we want to move forward on on just by discussing it and or if if there are different options and put it on the ballot. I think just because um there are there isn't a lot of people knocking a door asking it doesn't mean it's it's not something the committee wants. by putting it on the agenda next week saying, "Hey, the council's going to vote on it." You'll get more people speaking up on both sides. And we should not as a body um not do something because it's contentious. We should we should embrace that and have that open dialogue as a community. And I I I would I would say, "Hey, let's let's this body should vote on it." And I I I'm requesting that we actually say that versus just letting it um a couple of strong opinions here. Um, which what is what does this body want to do?

Well, there's there's options. Um, like I say, the last time that city council addressed it was because of 331 signatures that said no. I would like to see 331 signatures come forward that say

yes. and then I could feel good about putting it on the ballot without because of the cost of elections and the cost of all the process. I feel that that would be fair otherwise you know if you want to move this forward I guess two motions on what do you want you could make a motion if you'll get a second you can have a discussion on it or or an action but otherwise this will die a quiet death. Exactly. So that's why I'm pushing it right now. Um, thank you, mayor. Um, Miss Walker, can I hear if you have any thoughts or opinions on this?

Oh, I' I'd totally support you if you wanted to talk about it, if you wanted to us to decide. I believe in homesteading and I I think that No,

I'm not at all prepared to say yes to your thing. uh but I am very interested in at least pursuing it with all the health and safety constraints around it and set the rules up. I like the sustainability of it, although I'm not a big fan of all the sustainability things we do, but I I it seems like this makes some sense if we can keep it under control. I would not want it to be like Key West, although Key West the the the chickens and and roosters going around is pretty nice. they they seem to do it well, but that isn't what we need. So, I would love to to at least pursue it enough. And it's I don't think we need 300 people to come in here to say yes. We probably didn't have 300 people initially when they said somewhere along the way, this council said they wanted to do it and they passed an ordinance on it. So,

but is this allowed? Would this if this went through, this would be allowed in the harbor? Well, no, it would not. It would not be but I'm okay with that. But but you I I represent I represent as you reminded me other than Bay Harbor. Yeah, you do. Yeah. You you say that all the time to me anytime I talk about Bay Harbor, you say I represent others. Now it's the other way around. So I'm just saying given my opinion, Mr. Mayor, okay, that it seems reasonable, okay, to pursue this,

okay? And I have an issue with when I go back to the noise to the to the odor. And if we've got police contacted about this, then it's an issue. And I don't know if I want public safety having to be monitoring and taking care of that when they've got, I think, more important issues to take care of than checking on chickens and and roosters and ducks and blah blah blah. But grass in front of I leave it up to city council. I've you know speak if you wish to speak

mayor. So if so options I I can make a a motion. I'm not doing that just yet of asking us to put it on the agenda next week and and vote on it. Um the option for having it be something that it it comes on the on the ballot is a question of manager horn. Is that something like how what would that look like? What would be the process? I I'm open to that as option as well. Would that be a in August? Uh I wouldn't want a special election just for this. So it's just too too premature of a time to to ask for that.

You know, maybe a consideration would be to have our city attorney put together an ordinance that's best practices. Uh, I'm sure they have clients that have gone through this process for council's consideration. Um maybe you direct me to to move in that direction with a draft ordinance that has been fully uh vetted by our city attorney and um see I mean obviously there's going to be some expenditure of funds to do that. But the I don't I'm not sure what we would be approving without having a draft ordinance that's gone through the legal review process. Um, so that's an option. Thank you.

I think what Derek, one of the I thought you were going to what's the process if you do put it on the ballot? Is this something that this body could say we don't want to vote on it, but we are we want to put it on a ballot. Is that an option? And if it is, I'd have to look at the charter language again. Um, like initiated typically typically it's initiated by um a resident, a citizen. Um, public. Yeah, the public. 10% of uh 10% of the voting is that the last presidential election. That's how you get it on there. Mr. Shields.

Thanks, Mayor. I'm going to make a motion that asks manager Horn to connect with legal counsel to draft a a resolution or ordinance for allowing backyard chickens and ducks with best practices and uh a a full vetting from their perspective of what uh a responsible backyard chicken and duck ordinance could entail for this body to discuss at an upcoming meeting. Mr. Moore, can I have a point of clarification or should I wait for a second?

Go ahead. Want to go? Um, point of clarification. Is the purpose of this ordinance for something this body would pass or I'm kind of confused now. or are you looking for something from the city attorney that would advise how this would be on a ballot which are to my understanding two different things. Thanks for the point of clarification and I'll say I'm asking for something an ordinance that this body would pass.

Thank you. I prefer to put it on a ballot and find out from city attorney how that could be put on a ballot. I believe this is controversial. We're going to have as many people saying no as many people saying yes. I say let it the people decide because they're the ones that are living in the houses. They're the ones in the resident. I hear, you know, there's there's a lot of this ordinance. Somebody said 50 feet. That was you mentioned 50 feet. Other things say 20 feet was 25 ft or something.

25 ft. There's other things that I read were multiple sources which there were 40 feet, there were 50 feet from a primary residence. I I think you know if for me to vote at all, I would want to know what am I what do we we haven't even had that discussion on how far, what, where. Um, that's what you're that's that's

I understand. But what is she going to come back with? Is it she's going to come back with what? How many feet they should be away from a primary residence? The side residence. How far are they from the back from the sides? Uh, one of them said auxiliary had to be so many feet away from a any building on a piece of property. Mhm. There was also those that said those that are actually resident residential uh habitatted houses, you know, there's there's all of these every one of these things seem to have,

you know, across the board a lot of different ones. And I I guess I I think it it's probably I'm sure the city attorney is going to say it's legal, but it's what is legal. We don't know what the city attorney is going to say. Mr. De Moore, you're saying something. Well, here goes another point of clarification. My understanding is that the motion on the table, which has not yet been seconded, is to assign public dollars to our city attorney to develop an ordinance that would include all that the mayor and others have discussed. There would be things that are setbacks. Am I understanding your motion correctly?

Correct. I I'm ask would the ask would be for legal counsel to provide us a document to then have this discussion on all the facets that should go into an ordinance regulating backyard chickens and ducks have a discussion on all the things or have the attorney include that all in the document well included document is that's the starting point how any ordinance then comes to this body and if if if you miss Deor says no that uh restriction is not doesn't settle well of me I think it need to be 50 ft. Well, then that's how that discussion happens. Would you want an intact ordinance to be drafted that could be voted on by this body? Yes, please. Yes. Thank you.

Do I have a second? I'll second the motion, Mayor. Okay. I have a motion from Mr. Shield, second from Miss Walker. Council discussion, Mr. knob trough. Yes. So again, part of this is my own ignorance. If we ask if if I'm understanding what the motion is, we're going to ask our our outside firm to prepare a draft ordinance

and which would it would include all the best practices that Michigan that she can find that Michigan has. I mean, is that kind of where it's going? because I I got a little bit of an indication what you said, Mr. Mayor, is there's a lot of var variability of what best practices is. Yes, there are.

So, you know, I'm not an expert of this, although I have some family members that are very much into this and they they it's a it's a great thing for them. Um, but I but I don't know anything about it. So, I I somehow do get educated as a as a council on this and so what is good best practices? Mayor, can I can I um mod modify the the my mind's going modify the motion to to give more clarification that uh the motion would be asking our legal council to develop an ordinance to bring forth this board to vote on that would include uh a all the regulations for backyard chickens based on other communities in Northern Michigan's ordinances that permit it and best practices as as provided through Michigan State Extension Agency. Uh period. That's the motion. So, how is she going to separate or sort out all of the other local cities? One has 40, one has 25, one has 20. How is she going to sort that out?

It's legal council's responsibility. when you're doing research that so that is asking I'm so I I would also suggest they start with my my draft here but um this is this is just like any ordinance that comes to us from legal counsel I I I appreciate all your your intention to want to have the details many times you don't ask for these details so I I appreciate that um I I I that's the motion I If I've made the motion, I'll leave it there. I'll second the revised motion with the further description that Derek proposed.

Any other discussion? I go to public for any comment they wish to make.

Anybody wish to speak? I'm Larry Dyer. I'm a resident of Paskki. Um I am strongly in favor of moving forward with a with a proposed amendment to allow backyard poultry. Um there is a extension Bolton, Michigan State University Extension put out a Bolton in 2010 that gives some pretty good guidelines, two-page little little bulletin that gives pretty good guidelines on on what would be reasonable for backyard poultry. it it doesn't necessarily follow the gamps which is designed more for commercial scale agriculture. So you so it it has things that are more scaled for for backyard poultry. I think the recommendation is um I think 20 ft up to 20 ft from the nearest residence that that sort of thing. Um they recommend you know four to six hens um which is a pretty reasonable number. No no roosters because they can be a nuisance. Um, and so there there are guidelines and that actually would make a fairly simple and straightforward ordinance. Um, I think poultry is a good way for people to gain a little bit of of self-reliance and a little bit of food security. I think it's a it is something that a lot of people want. If we've got, you know, three or four residents that have asked for it, there's probably dozens more that that haven't. If there are problems that that uh public safety has had to address, it may because there are people that are already doing it that aren't following any established guidelines. And so some of the problems with noise and with odors, I think could be addressed pretty readily by by some fairly simple guidelines that people would have to follow. And then if they become a nuisance because they're not following those guidelines, then you have the recourse to to shut them down.

But I think it's a reasonable thing to to to pursue. Um I'm recalling the discussion in 2011 as well. I thought there was a lot of really really poorly informed discussion. A lot of a lot of it was frankly silly references to Green Acres and they're going to ruin our little pristine little resort town. And just I think a little more reasonable discussion about what this would actually look like. You know, we're not talking about hen houses with 150 chickens. We're talking about four hens, four to six hens. So, I think I I would strongly support moving forward with it. Draft a resolution, start with this MSU extension bulletin and give a call to Traverse City and see what their experience has been and put something on the table that that can be discussed. Thank you. Charlie Wilmont, resident of Paskki. I have some serious concerns about backyard poultry. Uh not so much for what's been discussed here tonight, but for the chickens and the ducks and abuses that may occur. I also have concerns, as the mayor brought up, with regard to the responsibility that public safety would inherit. Unless you're planning on educating Tony as the code enforcer to go out and check and make sure that the ducks and the geese and and the uh chickens are well taken care of. This will add a burden of responsibility to the city that the city can't walk away from. And we have to decide if this is an area that is important enough to the populace that the city council should just override the populace and decide for itself. And I don't think that's the right direction. Thank you.

What I don't even know what are the consequences to violations. Can you write a ticket for for those a civil infraction? Yes. Well, we've basically they're not allowed to have them right now. So most of them don't have them anymore. We're aware of if we have any in the city, but orders. But what about orders and orders, right? Well, we would and we built into the orders. You're not supposed to have them. You're not supposed to have them. But we've had people say, "Well, we're going to address the odors and then ultimately have gotten rid of their chickens." Mhm.

So it in other words, if there is if there is an ordinance that allows it and there's a citizen complaint about the about the ducks and the chickens, it falls into the basically the same category as if there's a complaint about a dog, right? And if there's a complaint about a dog, then public safety us to us,

then I'm sorry, then public safety gets called. the officer has to go out and write a report and then it gets shuttled over to the county who does nothing. So it it needs to be thought through. We also have a problem with they have to be registered and the places have to be inspected. So are we going to burden city council or city staff here with registering them and then they have to be yearly inspected? I I don't think so, mayor. I would I would That's the ordinance talking. No, it's not. Your ordinance isn't, but the other one stated it. Yeah, I would. That's an option. It says optional in that document, actually.

Well, I the the three or two or three that I looked at, including Minnesota, which I figure is in a cold area, as us, uh, you know, they do they do inspect. you have to register and have to have it inspected. And I I I believe, you know, that should be a part of it if that's what we're going to do. You need to register. Maybe there's a fee for for a permit. Uh because we're going to have to pay for the inspection. We charge for inspections on short-term rentals. you have to pay every year for a short-term rental inspection of your place for for it. I think we're going to have to set up a inspection, a registration, and a fee to pay for the for

that. That's up to this body to decide and I don't think that's necessary. That's overregulation of something that we should just be allowing our our members to do with the regulations that are already there in place. And just like um okay, just like dogs, you know, yeah, we not everybody is treating their their pets ethically. This is this is an extension of pets that we currently don't allow people to have. And we're open that up. Mr. Moore,

I was just going to reiterate that for my part, I have not seen a community ground swell for this. I think this is a matter for a community initiative. If this is something the community really wants, they can come forward. It can be on a ballot and the community can decide. I don't think at this juncture with half dozen, four, three, four that this is initiative that the council should move forward and expend funds for our city attorney because it's going to take some time to dig into this material and really draft something that's covers all the bases. So for that matter, I just think it's better a community initiative and um that's it. Thank you.

I couldn't agree more, Mr. Knaprop. Yeah, I I I tend to understand what you're saying in that what there it is clearly controversial and I'm feeling like it's even controversial here and I and I'm I'm I don't feel good about that. Um, having said that, I I'm I'm still okay with looking into it

and and I would also I would love to understand can we as a council put something on the ballot and let the people vote or does it have to come through a petition? That seemed to be a little confusion here when when we were asking about it before. Is it possible to actually what is the exact rules for us putting things on a ballot if at all? Yeah, I wouldn't want to speak uh without looking at the charter language uh appropriately, but I can certainly research that. I think that would be really helpful.

I I do think there's value as council member De Moore mentioned that this is driven by the community. Um, I I think that's typically how a petition is initiated and how we've done it in the past and I think that's typically how it how it functions. But I I will look at the alternative to that. as an elected official, I am I am representing the community and I am definitely willing to hear from the community members and and and then my successor will, you know, inherit that as well. But I'd like to hear answers first on the initiatives and and the process before making a a decision on this. As a council person, I'd like to know some of the questions that were just asked of the city manager and this be put on the ballots because if it could, I would rather go that way than city council making the decision.

Yes, agree. Any other discussion? Just that we have a motion on the table. Yes, we do. Any other discussion?

I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time on this too and I think interesting. I'll go to Miss Beck for role. So, first I'm going to clarify Derek's modified motion that you motioned to ask have the city manager ask legal counsel to develop an ordinance to bring before council to vote on to include regulations on on backyard chickens based on Northern Michigan communities and MSU extension best practices. and Lindsay seconded. Chickens and ducks. Yes.

Okay. So, roll call is Shields I. Hold on one second. Uh Shields I Walker I. Natrab I. De Moore. No. And Murphy.

No. Motion passes 32. We'll be talking about it at the next one. City council comments ward two, Mr. Shields. Thank you, Mayor. The proposal for the duck and water or foul change came from section 401 of uh of A to the Paskki code of ordinances. Also in that code in section 401 is the ADU ordinances, the attached dwelling units. And I I think I want to encourage this body as as uh they look forward to looking at zoning changes coming before them next year to when we think about ADUs and I know that we have not had a lot of of requests for ADUs um permits. I I think we should see that our perspective should be see that as a problem with the ordinance and how can we make it uh more favorable uh I and I and I say that both hands open saying yes the I've talked I've spoken with some residents who want to do ADUs and the costs are a huge barrier maybe the barrier but we should also look at um redoing the the zoning ordinance for ADUs and if I had to go back and redo one ordinance it would be this on and some of the points that I think should we should should be changed are that a ADU uh the the dwelling the occupancy of an ADU. I don't think a property owner should have to be uh dwelling in one of the units. I I feel like rental uh properties can also should also be allowed to have ADUs that will help create more ADUs. and we have uh the fear of them being short-term rentals. That is taking care of the short-term

rental unit. ADU shall change 600 square feet and and bump that up to a higher uh number of square feet allowed and then the the height of the principal structure. Uh the ADU should should be the language should say it cannot exceed the height of the principal structure and cross out the one and a half stories and 16 feet. [snorts] I will be sharing my recommendations publicly um with the community through social media, various means. Uh this is there are several other changes I I recommend that we do and and so Pasi community will be hearing more from me about my recommended changes uh especially from over there uh coming next year.

W three Mr. or not. No comments. Word four. No comments. Thank you. Word two. Two. One. That would be one. I'm sorry. That's okay.

Um I just want to do a shout out. Thank you to Dave Troutman. He sends us packages with all kinds of creative efforts um to share his ideas. This is a a very cool one. It's about putting the logo on Paskki signage. Um, so I'll share that with the city manager, but just a shout out to him to say thank you. And then I don't know, do you have the pictures from We've got some uh I know that already Brian shared with you Brian Tang earlier, one of the young people are on the Paskki Youth Advisory Council. Um, city manager asked me for some pictures from the events. So, we'll see if those come up. Um, in the meantime too, I just do a a brief shout out here. I've been I looked at the lofts at Lumber Square, and this is not to single them out, but it kind of is. Um, on their website for rentals, they have some criteria that I think is really excellent that will help with local housing challenges. And those are the following. Applicants cannot currently own a home unless a sale is pending with a signed purchase agreement. Two, the apartment must be their full-time primary residence for a minimum of 10 months per year. Three, applicants who currently live in Eme County or work at a business located in Eme County receive a priority point placing them higher on the weight list. So, I just want to do a shout out for those criteria that I think are really helpful. And unfortunately, the kids aren't here, but this was the Bedum that is making 300 arrangements. And then I don't know if we got any other ones to share or not. See what

these This is the delivery team of the night uh before veterans the veterans breakfast where they were delivering all the flowers. They're all wrapped up because of the snow. What else have you got, Sarah? This is the guys unloading everything at the venue that night before after they made 300 arrangements. Uh that's a sampling of what the 300 arrangements look like unloaded. And then this is the team that was there the morning 6:30 a.m. including Tina. Want that noted for the record [laughter] delivering the arrangements directly to the veterans. And then I think there's one more. Uh Fred Harrington is the host of this breakfast. Uh member of the tribal council LTBB kind of sharing with the young people the history of the event and uh welcoming them. So thanking them for their efforts. Thank you.

May all black uh residents have I believe moved in this week. Um, I [clears throat] talked to several happened to talked to several that were excited about moving in. Uh, we had a ribbon cutting at Maple Block last Wednesday. Uh, well attended u as well as victories uh had their ribbon cutting as well. We are uh arts commission had a meeting and are looking at uh narrowing it down from 75 uh proposals to 25 or 23 uh for Sunset Park. So certainly that we'll be back I'll be back with you bringing you what they've looking at. No further business come for this council. I