City Council - Regular Meeting

Anybody approaching the podium? So we will close public comment. Legislative and administrative comments. Tonight we'll kick it off with the mayor.

Thank you, President Karlak, Vice President Mungile, council. I'll keep the comments extremely brief tonight because of the length of our meeting. Just want to thank everyone who came out for the Brooklyn's block party. It was an awesome success. Many of the folks you see in the crowd were directly responsible for that. Great turnout, great response from our residents down there and another indication of I think a really good citizen reaching program that has been really well received. Thank you to the council members that were there as well. With that, I will turn it back over with just the quick announcement that you don't often get to see all of these faces here. This is a big night for the team. All of them are here on their own free will, which is fantastic. But we as a city administration, this is the leadership of our larger team, and we appreciate the relationship that we have with city council. We appreciate the... The trust that you place in us as we present this budget, I think you'll see excellence and really a budget that has both delivered this last one and a budget that is both forward thinking and responsive moving forward. And these are the folks that really deserve the credit. They're the ideas that make it into it. The process is somewhat grueling at times, like I was just mentioning. to one of the council members. We probably have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours in it to date. Joe, perhaps more, and Deb and Denise, perhaps more than anyone, but it takes a long time to even get to this point to get it to be ready for all of you. And so we thank you in advance for this. We have, I think, a reputation as one of the best run cities, not just in the county, not just in the state, but in the country. And these are the reasons why. So look forward to the presentation tonight. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. I don't see any council comments, so we will move right along. First item, 2026-0344, Request for Acknowledgement of Receipt of the OPC, Older Persons Commission, Social and Activity Center, Fiscal Year 2027, Adopted Budget. Mr. Snyder.

Sure. Well, I'll just give it a little opening slide, and then we'll bring up OPC. So thank you, President Carlock, Vice President Mangioli, Member of City Council, and Mayor Barnett. Well, welcome to the 2027 to 2029 budget workshop. So tonight we're going to present the proposed 2027 and projected 2028 to 2029 three-year budgets for the Older Persons Commission, the OPC, Rochester Avon Recreation Authority, RARA, and then the City of Rochester Hills. So presenting first tonight will be Ms. Mandy Mullins and Renee Courtright from the OPC, and then followed by Dave Worden and Sam Lund from RARA. Both the OPC and the RARA boards held public hearings prior to adopting their respective budgets. Then following each of the RARA and OPC budgets presentations, City Council will have the opportunity to formally acknowledge their receipts. With that, we'll bring up Mandy and Renee, and I'll slide over so they can drive the show.

All right. Good evening. President Carlock, Mayor Barnett, council members, Mandy Mullins, deputy director, and I are here today to talk about some great highlights from the last year and of course our budget. I'd first like to recognize our OPC governing board representatives, Rochester Hills representatives that are on our board, which is Teresa Mangioli and Diana Menino, and also our senior representatives, Micheline Summers and Carol Moreland. So we're so appreciative to you for your support and your support of the mission and vision of the OPC. So at this time, we're going to talk about OPC and all the great things that have happened over this last year. So by the numbers, 59 participants and their families benefited from our adult daycare service. We had 55,631 rides covering 474, 844,000 miles, whatever, sorry. But what I wanna talk about is just the OPC continues to lead the way as the premier transit provider in Oakland County, proudly outpacing regional benchmarks and serving our communities with care. So OPC's rider satisfaction holds the top spot at 85.4%, well ahead of regional peers of WOTA, NODA, and SMART. And our maximum brand awareness is reached at 100% rating compared with SMART at 78% and NODA at 58%. So I think that's pretty notable and I'd love to shout that from the mountaintops because our transportation service is phenomenal. Meals on Wheels, 104,000 meals prepared, served, and delivered. Our supportive services, 5,500 units. 482 volunteers provided over 36,000 hours, equaling over a million dollars saved to our bottom line. In regards to our programs and arts, we can just say we had 43,833 times that someone came in and participated in our programs and arts. In regards to our fitness and aquatics, we have that one new yoga Pilates studio that was added this last year. And just a total of 168,679 times in fitness and aquatics events were offered. So in regards to our budget highlights, I'm going to turn this over to Mandy.

I can't work a microphone apparently. With our transportation fund being separate still, we're looking at revenues of 4.1 million for the 2027 fiscal year. Operating expenditures budgeted at 3.7 million and the capital expenditures at 350,000. Most of this is still funded by the county's transit millage, rider fees, grants, and donations. Our general fund revenues, we're looking at $5 million, with the total operating expenditure budgeted at $4.5 million, and capital expenditures in the building for $1.7 million, with a total budget of $9.1 million. We are looking at a 4% salary adjustment for staff across the board, and our operating revenues are projected to exceed our annual operating expenditures by $851,000. which will go towards those capital expenses. Some of the big capital improvement highlights that we're looking at for this year are we did move the elevator modernization into this next fiscal year because it's coming in at a higher cost than we were originally quoted at. It's a little bit of a bigger project. New UV sanitation replacement for the pool. We use UV along with our chlorine to keep the chlorine down and we can't get parts for that any longer. and a new dehumidification unit for the pool as well. That's as old as the building is and kind of our last big on the roof piece to get replaced. So with that, the OPC governing board is asking the city of Rochester Hills Council to receive their fiscal year 2027 to 29 budget. Thank you all.

Thank you very much. Those are impressive numbers. That's a lot of people helped, served, and provided with activities and things to do every day of the year. So thank you both for the work you do for that. We do have some council comments and questions. We'll start with Vice President Mangioli.

Thank you very much, President Karluk. Thank you both to Renee and Mandy for the work that you do for OPC. Given the fact that we can't have any debt within our budget, the fact that we have to do all of this within our operating money is pretty impressive. The catalog that comes out on a regular basis from OPC of all the different activities that you do and still keep them affordable for our residents and non-residents to be able to participate in those activities is amazing just to see what you do. I do get to serve, as you mentioned, on the board with Councilman Menino regarding to be able to ask those questions. So the two of us, as you know, ask you a bunch of questions, as the rest of the administration here knows that I do. So I want to thank you again for being able to help us be able to explain to the community. And while there are still some things that we have to work on to be able to clarify some of the questions that we're getting from the administration, budget-wise, we're doing a great job. So I want to thank you again for that. And President Carlock, I move the resolution in our packet.

Thank you very much. I have a motion by Vice President Mangioli, seconded by Mr. Blair. And Mr. Blair would like to make some comments.

Thank you, President Carlock. Renee, Mandy, we appreciate all that you do. I mean, I am pretty sure I'm still the youngest on council, but I'll tell you what. I can't wait to start using the OPC. It is admired for miles in every direction, for its wide variety of programming, for its amazing facilities, and you've done such an outstanding job. I'm really happy to see that you're on top of these capital projects. A lot of times things like elevators and pumps and HVAC and stuff like that. I know you just did the HVAC and you just did the roof. So, um, appreciate you being on top of that. My only question, what's the unit of care? Can you describe that for me?

Unit of care would be how many, um, individuals that come in and participate in the adult day service. So is that one person, one day, one person, um, that, that have, we've served throughout the year.

Okay, so that's basically a participant, basically. A participant, yes. Okay, gotcha. Thank you.

I don't see any further council comments or questions. I have a motion by Vice President Mongioli, seconded by Mr. Blair. Whereas, at its August 17, 2026 meeting, the Rochester Hill City Council acknowledged receipt of the fiscal year 2027 Older Persons Commission OPC Social and Activity Center budget, resolved that the Rochester Hill City Council hereby acknowledges receipt of the fiscal year 2027 Older Persons Commission OPC Social and Activity Center budget for the amounts of $8,311,550 in operating expenditures and $2,121,500 in one-time capital expenditures. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, item 2026-0343, request for acknowledgement of receipt of the Rochester Avon Recreation Authority RARA fiscal year 2027 adopted budget. Mr. Ward and Mr. Lund.

Good evening, Mayor Barnett, President Carlock, City Council. We're excited to present RARA's 2027 budget and share the progress we're making across our community. And that progress starts with a clear strategic plan. Our balanced operating budget for 2027 is just over $4 million, aligned directly with our five-year master plan, which we completed at in 2025, so this is our first year into it. Along with that master plan, we were able to put in a sweep fund going into our capital improvement plan, which we completed this year with the help of Teresa Mangioli and the rest of the RARA board. Benchmarking by the National Recreation and Park Association showed RARA runs seven times more efficiently than the national average, while offering 50% more programs. And our participation continues to grow. We're on track to reach nearly 12,000 registered participants by 2027. Kids under 14 make up nearly 75% of our patrons. Youth programming really is what drives family involvement for us, and that doesn't even count our community events. In 2026, we reached over 10,000 participants through two dozen local events plus another 1,300 people at Movies in the Park and Bites and Beats. Switching from rental vehicles to an owned fleet will make it simple to bring even more active play programs to the community in 2027. And speaking of activity, let's look at how busy the Recreation Center is. We're forecasting over 135,000 visits in 2027. Winter and spring are our busiest times, accounting for nearly 40% of our total visits, with peak Saturdays in March averaging nearly 700 guests a day. So how do we afford to fund all this? Grants, fundraising, and sponsorships bring in over $255,000 in taxpayer savings, covering a third of our adaptive programs and a quarter of our camp costs. The RARA millage covers about a quarter of our total budget and pays for the people who provide our great services. User fees cover the rest. We look for savings every chance we get so we can keep improving our services. In 2027, we're making a few upgrades by adding drop-down batting cages in the field house, replacing camp tents, and adding mobile assets. We're also auditing our HVAC units installed back in 2011 to plan for a future upkeep. Our major facility upgrades are moving along as scheduled. Our two main facility projects totaling over $250,000 to replace the parking lot and overhaul the field house turf, both projects are 100% cash funded with zero debt. Using forward thinking planning, we keep finding smart ways to invest in our future. We're investing over $125,000 in two vehicles in 2027, a box truck to the lift gate for our mobile rec gear and a 4x4 truck to tow our existing trailer. This mobile setup is projected to save money and avoid snowy delays. Best of all, our reserves stay safely above our required 20% minimum, which brings us to our final slide. Uh, we're truly grateful for our strong partnership with Rochester and Rochester Hills. We continue, we will continue our mission of strengthening our community through play. And I want to thank all of you for your time today. And Sam and I are ready for any questions you might have. Thank you very much.

It is, uh, it's one of those things that, um, I think everybody on council acknowledges is important for us to have in the city. And we appreciate everything you do for the residents and those that come from outside of the city to participate. So thank you. We do have some council comments. Vice President Mongioli.

Thank you, President Carlock. so i get to be the city council representative on the rara board and i just want to say thank you to david and sam for the work that you do in putting together our monthly metrics both on a budget perspective on what we spend as well as our participant level so that we can see trends over time and trends over years by month so that we know how well they're projecting and the programs that they have put in place meet the needs of our community Both David and Sam have been instrumental in changing a lot of the policies and procedures at RARA. In the six and a half years that I have served on the RARA board, the change in that organization is beyond belief as far as where we've gone. six and a half years ago to where we are today, to be financially stable, to be able to have a fund balance, to be able to do capital improvements in the facility, to have the programming levels that we have. Six years ago we lost dance, seven years ago, and now we've made it up and exceeded beyond what used to be the revenue and the participant level from the dance program. So I can't thank you enough for the work that you do for making RARA the preeminent recreation authority in our area, and I'm sure if you have a chance you'll go beyond even our immediate area to Because I believe we're, what, one of seven in the state that have two CPREs? Am I getting the acronym right? No.

I think we're the only recreation department in the country with two CPREs. And hopefully by the end of this year, our entire staff will be CPRP certified as well.

So it's just amazing to see the level of professionalism, the investment that we've made in staff development to get us to this point. And I believe, David, you're presenting at a national organization on how to help staff get certified, if I remember correctly. So again, they've gone above and beyond what they've done in the past. And I want to thank you. And with that, President Karlak, I move the resolution in our packet.

Thank you very much, Vice President Mongioli. I have a motion by Vice President Mongioli, seconded by Councilwoman Neubauer. We do have some additional council comments and questions. Ms. Menino.

Yes, thank you, President Kerlach, and thank you, David and Sam. I use RARA, my kids use RARA, my grandkids use RARA. So very well run, but I have a very specific question on your budget. Actually, I think I had brought this up back when we did the 2026 amendment too, and it's regarding the increase in the professional services cost. It looks like it's moving. I mean, at one time it was in the 30, 40, 50,000 range. It's up to almost 200,000 and then even going higher in the out years. And I've never really understood Exactly what is driving that in the professional services line to that level? Yeah, one of you, please let us know.

Yeah, the large mover there is basically just merchant fees from our credit card provider. So, I mean, fees have gone up a lot. I mean, when we first started with this contract, I think it was about 1.89% with like a quarter addition. But now fees on average are like 4%. And sometimes depending on the credit card, each one has additional fees on top of that. So really the biggest driver is there. Dave and I spent a lot of time negotiating different rates. It was going to be 5% or 6% with a lot of providers, and we renegotiated terms, got it down a little bit under 4% right now, but really the big driver is just merchant fees and credit card fees, and we've raised ours internally to capture a lot of that, but we obviously can't charge more than we're getting charged, so we're a little bit under what we internally charge from what the merchant provides, but really that's the main driver right there. It's just merchant fees, credit card fees, processing fees. It has gotten crazy over the past few years how much that's gone up.

Okay. So just to confirm, you are or are not passing that through?

We pass a lot of it through. Yep. Yep. We just can't pass through more than we're charged. So like if we're being charged 3.8%, we try to stay at 3.5%, a little bit under because it varies every month. So we do pass it through, but there's still a little bit of margin where it doesn't capture penny for penny.

Okay. And the big change there was in an amendment, we switched recreation softwares and we had to start charging those fees. Uh, that was something that was a pass through in the old company that we dealt with and we never had to put that in our budget. So now that hits our budget completely with those pass through fees. So we have two different accounts, a revenue account that we're collecting in and then it goes into the expense account of professional services.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the explanation.

Thank you very much. Councilwoman Neubauer.

Thank you, President Carlock. I just wanted to say thank you for everything you guys do for our community. I don't know of any kid I've ever come in contact with in the Rochester, Rochester Hills area that has not participated in a RARA program at some point. And, you know, the additional services that you guys have supported, like the bike groups that, you know, developed in the last couple of years, all those things, you know, that are not only RARA, but big community statewide programs. We really appreciate you guys supporting that and everything you do for our kids. So I just wanted to say that. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much, Councilwoman Neubauer. Mr. Mayor. Thank you, President Karlak. I just want to say, because I know I, Our friends from OPC and RARA don't always stay to the end of this meeting. We truly value the partnerships we have with both organizations. I mean, we are absolutely a blessed community and people in our community, oftentimes their greatest connection might not be with the city. It might be with RARA. In many cases, it's with the OPC. And you all are an extension of their experience here in our city. So I think you'll always find friends here at the dais and certainly in the mayor's office. We appreciate what you and your organizations do to make us currently the seventh best place to live in the country. So thank you.

Thank you very much. I don't see any further council comments or questions on this. I'll read the resolution here. I have a motion by Vice President Mangioli, seconded by Councilman Neubauer. Whereas at its August 17th, 2026 meeting, the Rochester Hill City Council acknowledged receipt of the fiscal year 2027 Rochester Avon Recreation Authority rah-rah budget. Resolved that the Rochester Hill City Council hereby acknowledges receipt of the fiscal year 2027 Rochester Avon Recreation Authority rah-rah budget in the amount of $4,050,179. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes. Thank you. You ready, Mr. Snyder? Proposed 2027 budget discussions. First item 2026-0341 general budget overview.

Okay, well, thank you again, President Carlock, Vice President Mongioli, City Council, and Mayor Barnett. First, I'd like to introduce you to, this is Denise McDaniels, she's our financial analyst, and over there, Deb Hoyle, who's blending into the American flag. She's our senior financial analyst. They basically represent our fiscal team. I just kinda hang out and, admire what they do. So this is, this is it. So without further ado, we will now walk through our proposed fiscal year 2027 to 2029 budget plan for the city of Rochester Hills. Well, as Ben Franklin noted, working a good plan and focusing on its execution is how great things are accomplished. And these four multifaceted planning pillars give us that blueprint. So first is our rolling three-year budget baseline. So we're building on our current 2026 to 2028 plan as our financial baseline. And then we also have our capital improvement plan. This is a rolling six year roadmap for citywide infrastructure improvements. We also have our seven year financial forecast and this is what I presented to city council in July and it provides our long range multi multi-year modeling to ensure every financial decision remains sustainable. Last but not least, City Council's strategic guidance, reflecting City Council's early leadership in establishing your fiscal year 2027 goals and objectives upfront, paired with our governmental fund balance policy parameters. So moving on to our budget overview, we are continuing our proven practice of presenting a rolling multi-year budget framework. And the core principles behind this plan are, well, they're quite simple. This marks the 17th consecutive year that the City of Rochester Hills has presented a three-year budget plan, a long-range planning record that few municipalities can match. This budget plan is based on our up-to-date forecast aligning seamlessly with our seven-year forecast that I presented in July with a couple little changes that happened since July. They're rooted in our conservative financial practices. We project our revenues that we know we can achieve and then some, and our expenditures that we know we can live within. What this conservative forecasting guarantees is it ensures that proposed service levels that are in this budget can be responsibly and reliably delivered without surprises. And as George Washington reminded us, taking timely prudent steps to prepare for the future is what present or prevents much greater hardship down the road. So turning to our top level year over year comparison, our 2026 baseline budget is currently set at $245.1 million. This 2027 proposed budget plan we'll be presenting tonight is proposed at $213 million, which represents a year over year budget variance of $31.2 million or a 12.8% reduction in our proposed budget.

So let's break down that $213 million proposed budget.

Well, 66% or nearly two-thirds of all the spending is concentrated in our three core operational pillars. First is public service at $61 million, and that is at 29%, and that powers all of our DPS operations, including roads, local street, water and sewer, stormwater, and fleet. Next is our capital outlay at 19 percent or $40 million, and that represents the direct physical investments in citywide infrastructure proposed for next year. Followed closely by public safety at another 19 percent or $40 million, and this provides the dedicated operational funding for the police and fire departments. Together, these three single pillars account for $142 million and fulfill City Council's goals number 1 and 3 of public safety and infrastructure, and directly addresses the trap priorities identified by residents in our recent survey. By fulfilling these priorities and living within our existing revenues, we uphold Thomas Jefferson's principle that is incumbent on every generation to pay its debts as it goes. To be clear on our debt status, the city itself has zero dollars in municipal debt. The small debt item that you see up there, that little tiny sliver, that represents the city's proportionate share of the Oakland County Water Resources Commission's debt, which the city has a participatory share, and that totals less than 1 percent or 0.6 percent of our overall budget. Moving on to capital outlay. We are proposing $40.3 million in capital for next year. The largest component of that is roads, streets, and pathways at 38% combined, or $15.1 million. And this is dedicated funding for our transportation networks of major roads, local streets, and pathways. Water and sewer comes in next at 31%, around $12.7 million. And this is investments for clean water delivery, reliability, and system capacity. We also have 18% or about 7.4 million for our city facilities and our parks. And this is critical facility maintenance projects along with park upgrades. And that's rounded out by other projects combined of 12% or $5 million. This is investments in our stormwater system, election tabulators, IT enhancements, and scheduled replacements for our city fleet, as well as our life-saving fire equipment. As Alexander Hamilton noted, making adequate provision for public resources and infrastructure is how a government preserves public confidence. And we believe this $40.3 million capital plan delivers on that promise. So let's take a geographical look around the city at where the $40.3 million is proposed for next year. Our big major road project proposed is the MDOT-led project, the Rochester Road Reconstruction, basically between M-59 and Tinkin, cutting out the city of Rochester. We have a $6 million local street rehabilitation program. We also have pathway projects that include our $1.6 million pathway rehabilitation program. And we have seven grant-funded pedestrian safety crossings, including at Tinkin and Medina Mid-Block Crossing, Tinkin and Falcon Mid-Block Crossing. We have a hawk signal. It's on Hamlin Road at Hamlin Elementary. We have a hawk signal on Hamlin at the Clinton River Trail. And we have three hawk signals along John R, one near Spencer Park, one near Holy Family School, and one near Borden Park. Our water and sewer infrastructure projects proposed include Spencer Park, a new sanitary lead, sanitary sewer rehabilitation on Rochester Road with the big MDOT project, and as well a water main replacement between Hamlin and Avon to align with the Rochester Road project. The replacement of PRV number 20, RCO1 improvements from the Great Lakes Water Authority, that's at South and Livernois, and an RCO2 improvements at Walton, where the GLWA mains come in. As well, improvements to booster station number one. Our facilities and park projects proposed include, at the DPS Garage, a new fuel island replacement, replacement of a fuel island. At Innovation Hills, some drainage improvements. A concept plan at the newly acquired Beekeeper property. Various improvements at Veterans Memorial Point. Two projects at City Hall, including the carpet and flooring replacement, as well as electrical and HVAC system replacements. At the basically city-wide parks, we have vehicle counter replacements, and at Bloomer Park, new playgrounds. Moving on to revenues, as George Washington acknowledged, no public revenues can be devised that aren't to some degree inconvenient. Our obligation though, is to manage every single dollar with maximum discipline. So the 2027 budget proposes $181.8 million in total revenues across four primary categories. Service charges, this includes fees for service activities like our water and sewer usage and building permits. City taxes. For the voter approved 0.5 mil increase to fire, we propose a total millage rate of 11.7753 mils. And this will maintain the city of Rochester Hills as the third lowest millage rate for any city over 5,000 residents in Oakland County. I believe there are 21 different cities. Also, intergovernmental revenue, and this combines state and federal funding. We have offsetting a state sales tax shift, and our Act 51 gas tax is increasing, and that directly powers our pathway expansion plan. And rounding things out, we have transfers in from other funds as well as investment earnings, which is still my favorite revenue source as it doesn't cost residents a dime. All right, so let's look at some of our big funds here, the big seven as I call them. So first we'll start with the general fund. It is proposed at $37 million for next year. Some of the significant items of note include the final year of our fund balance policy transition, And this upcoming year concludes our planned three-year transition from an 80% fund balance target reserve in the general fund down to a sustainable 35% reserve level or approximately $10 million in 2027 and moving beyond. In the general fund also, we have staffing for Nowiki Park. It is proposed to add one full-time park ranger and eight part-time seasonal staff for Nowiki Park's grand opening next year and as well as ongoing operations. And just a reminder, the general fund, it continues to serve as a big piece of our capital reinvestment engine. Any and all revenues realized above the fund balance target, the black line there with the little dashed, those dollars are transferred directly out to the capital improvement fund. And that funds future citywide capital improvement infrastructure. Moving on to the Capital Improvement Fund, the proposed 2027 budget sits at $6 million, and the big key for our Capital Improvement Fund is disciplined execution. Because Capital Improvement Fund candidates out of the CIP will always exceed available Capital Improvement Fund funding, if the funding isn't there, we defer the project. We only make investments within our own financial capacity. Now, we actually have a gauge of actual financial capacity due to the establishment of our saver reserve. And it was formally established by city council this year with $2.5 million set. And that reserve mitigates risk from construction market volatility, supply chain inflation, and unforeseen site conditions. And it's topped off annually using the prior year savings. Thus far in 2026, with the vast majority of our significant projects already awarded, we have drawn down $507,000 from the $2.5 million saver reserve, and that was for the construction of Nowiki Park, which means if there are no other draws this year, the first $507,000 from general fund savings will top off the saver reserve back to $2.5 million, and then all other general fund savings will be available for future capital projects. The use of the saver reserve is a kind of a target balance for our capital improvement fund and right now our strategy is to maintain a minimum capital improvement fund balance equal to two times the saver fund reserve. So we would like to keep a minimum of $5 million in reserve to allow some level of flexibility for the sewer for the city to pursue advantageous projects as they may come up throughout the years. I will move on to the major road fund. Our major road fund budget is proposed at $12 million for next year. And for 2027, the major projects include the MDOT led full reconstruction of Rochester road from M 59 through to Tinkin. and we are also pleased to announce a major pathway expansion initiative. With 74% voter approval renewal of the pathway millage, we have secured core pathway maintenance and operations funds for the city's 100 mile pathway network, along with approximately $400,000, which coincidentally covers approximately one mile of annual rehabilitation as a baseline. Well, with the increase in State Act 51 gasoline tax revenues, this will allow us to quadruple that program. In 2027, we're proposing to move from a $400,000 or one mile per year pathway rehabilitation program for a 100-year full network replacement cycle to a $1.6 million annual pathway rehabilitation program with the intent to rehabilitate four miles of pathway per year. And that will establish a sustainable 25-year full network replacement cycle for our pathways. Now we do have a draw proposed over the next several years for the major road fund. And these are due to back to back to back major road projects that are scheduled, including for next year, the MDOT led Rochester road project. In 2028, the reconstruction of Hampton Circle. In 2029, the rehabilitation or reconstruction of John R. Road, which we do have a grant secured for that. And in 2030, the reconstruction of Nawaqua and Drexel Gate. And then in 2031 and 2032, a little bit of a reprieve. We'll build up our fund balances again because we have out there, way out there, it's more of a placeholder at this point, eventually the reconstruction of Adams Road. It's way out there. We're not sure when it's going to happen, but at least it's on our financial radar. Turning to our local street fund, and this focuses squarely on our residential subdivision. The proposed budget is set at $12 million for next year, and the proposed 2027 budget features a $6 million annual local street rehabilitation program to repave our neighborhood roads. Now we are proposing a reserve glide path with an intentional multi-year reduction in local street fund balance to bring that fund in line with the city council's 25% target level by 2033. And keep in mind, we are proposing a very conservative upside. Our projected Act 51 revenues are very conservatively set to ensure that any positive upside above and beyond our conservative projections may allow us to expand paving beyond the $6 million baseline over time. As Ben Franklin noted, the well-maintained streets provide advantages that occur every day. And investing $6 million next year and annually into the future for our local street network delivers those smooth driving conditions every single day. Now shifting to public safety. Well, thank you to Rochester Hills voters for approving the 0.5 mil increase to the fire millage with a 71% approval rate. The 2027 fire operating budget is proposed at $19 million. The fiscal year 27 budget proposes a strategic public safety staffing shift of 12 additional full-time firefighter paramedics. And this will provide for additional fully-staffed ambulance and fire engine in the city 24-7 and generates an improved funding baseline for future fire capital replacements. And Chief Gary will detail more of this during his presentation tonight. Now, with the Fire Operating Fund, similar to the General Fund, any funding above Fire Operating Fund's 25% target balance is transferred out to the Fire Capital Fund for future fire capital replacements. And Ben Franklin, who organized America's first volunteer fire company, coined the phrase that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And proactively addressing our fire department safeguards both our first responders and our taxpayers well out into the future. So a huge thank you again to the city council and to the residents of Rochester Hills for your trust and support of the Rochester Hills Fire Department. Now we'll move right over to the fire capital fund. It is proposed at $1 million for next year. And some of our main capital priorities include scheduled heart monitor replacements and preliminary engineering for a fire station parking lot paving. and some fire apparatus are on our horizon. It includes three ambulances projected in 2028 with five additional ambulance projected way out there in 2033. While just a few months ago, back in July, this fund was projected to go negative by 2033 in our July forecast, it's very positive that we currently have the funding projected in fiscal year 2033. to replace the five ambulances that we have not yet ordered in our current 2026 budget. As you can see, long term for this fund, things are still very lean, and we will continue to focus on running efficiently, prioritizing equipment replacements, and we will leverage any and all grant opportunities that arise. Now turning to the other side of public safety, our police fund, the 2027 police fund budget is proposed at $16 million and our 2027 year marks the final year of our current 2025 to 2027 agreement with the Oakland County Sheriff's office agreement, which incorporates a scheduled 9% rate increase. Now our hope here is to for longterm millage rate stability. Our current police millage rate is projected to fully sustain this fund through the next contract cycle, which covers years 2028 to 2030. Assuming the approved Oakland County Sheriff's Office rate increases average 5.5% in that next contract. And the same millage rate maintains operations through 2032, where then the police fund balance will align with the council's 25% fund target balance. Now, this slide displays our remaining internal general fund cost centers and other dedicated funds under the mayor's office or the finance department. And these accounts represent a major section of our routine administrative backbone with really minimal line item changes to note tonight. But as Alexander Hamilton wrote, he's my OG, a good administration of its government will be a true test of good government. And while these administrative functions don't often make the headlines, their efficient day-to-day operations is precisely what allows our high visibility services like public safety and parks and roads to function seamlessly for our residents. So to summarize before opening up for questions tonight, here are seven key takeaways that define this overall budget plan. First and foremost, our strategy. Our revenues and expenditures are projected conservatively. We have a proven track record of exceeding our revenue budgets and living well within our expenditure budgets. And we propose a structural operating surplus. We live within our conservative revenue projections and set our expenditure levels to operate in the black with an $8 million structural operating surplus citywide. This surplus is redirected towards our capital reinvestment each year. We are maintaining our fund balances across all of our funds. Our reserves remain strong, healthy, and aligned with our council-approved fund balance policy. As well, tax rate stability. We are proposing the third lowest millage rate in Oakland County for all 21 cities over a 5,000 population. Now our proposal for the upcoming year includes enhanced staffing. We have 12 full-time firefighter paramedics proposed, which will provide for an additional ambulance and fire engine coverage in the city 24-7. And we are proposing to add one full-time park ranger and eight seasonal staff for Nowicki's operations. we are proposing $40 million in capital projects with investments in roads, streets, pathways, water and sewer systems, facilities, parks, and equipment replacements all proposed to be funded with cash on hand. And maybe most importantly, zero debt is proposed for our 2027 budget plan. As George Washington urged, we cherish public credit by using it sparingly and avoiding debt. And this $213 million budget plan honors that founding father's wisdom. So in closing, I would like to thank the City Council for your early leadership in establishing your fiscal year 2027 goals and objectives. Administration has refined this three-year plan to serve as an actionable blueprint for your vision. It's a point of tremendous professional pride to present this proposed 2027 budget, a plan that builds directly upon Rochester Hills' achievement of being completely debt-free. That milestone is the result of decades-long partnership rooted in disciplined financial management. And our message from the finance department, which includes fiscal, Deb and Denise, purchasing, accounting, and treasury is simple. We're on top of this. Our job is to equip you with transparent data so you can make the best decisions for our residents. And far beyond the numbers on the page, this budget provides for the City of Rochester Hills to continue to set the gold standard for municipal excellence. Thank you for your active engagement and thoughtful questions and answer submissions. All those Q&A submissions will be submitted today that have been fully answered and logged into the public Q&A legislative file which will be attached to this agenda. So tonight I asked for your formal support and approval of this proposed 2027 budget plan. And over the course of this evening, each of our department directors will present their operational plans in greater detail, but I will stop here and open the floor for any questions and or comments you have. Thank you much.

Thank you very much, Mr. Snyder. And thank you to the team for such a detailed report and It's important for us to know where the money is being spent, you know, for the residents, what it's going to do. The map with the stars was kind of eye-opening that we are able to do that much across the city with a relatively limited budget. So thank you. We do have some council comments and questions. Vice President Mongioli.

Thank you, President Karlic. You're always so nice when I'm the only one that's sitting over there with a question. So I'll put it into number 96 of the 95 that I've already asked over the last couple of days. My favorite quote is no taxation without representation. And as the elected representative here on City Council, it's important for me to understand where everything is being spent so that I can answer the questions of the residents who elected me into this role. So yes, 95, I guess I hit a record. I will say the 35 pages of answers does exceed the previous 28 pages and that included graphs and charts from the fire department. Thank you all for your responding to those questions. I appreciate it. It's also because the capital improvement plan is approved by planning, not by city council. Understanding, all those projects that are now part of this budget when we haven't had a chance to review them previously was also important for me to understand what you were doing, why you were doing it, and how it was going to be funded. So a couple of questions, and I think in past years, I've always like skipped over this part and then realized, oh, I should have asked Joe during this section, not under everybody else's area. So in a sense, for 2027, we are spending more than we are taking in.

Correct. That's primarily due to the capital program that is being proposed. Operationally, we're running in the black, but we are proposing $40 million worth of capital projects.

To be taken from savings, in a sense. Correct. Okay. As I look through this 200, 300 plus pages of budget information, when we start looking at the millages, the 2026 charter mills, just looking at charter mills alone, 2026 was 2.7416. And 27 is 2.7654. So the millage rate is going up even though we're spending less money than we're, we're spending more money than we're taking in. So we're increasing the millage rate, the charter millage rate for next year.

The charter millage rate is basically set to maintain the same bottom line millage. Now the millage rate that was proposed in this budget is 0.5 mils higher than last year. Last year we were 11.27, this year we're proposing 11.77, the same 0.5 mil that voters approved. That 0.5 mil will go directly to the fire department for the 12 firefighters. But yes, every year there's this thing called Hedley that rolls back millages that are at their Hedley cap. The general levy is actually far below its cap, as is the fire levy and as is police levy, but we have several other levies that are at their cap. By law, those roll back a little bit every year. What we've been doing probably, I think I've been here 26 years, and the goal has always been to maintain the same bottom line millage. That is why the general levy has just rolled up just a touch to maintain the same bottom line. Everything that rolls down, the general fund rolls up to maintain that same bottom line from year to year to year. In our long-term financial forecast that I presented to you back in July, we were holding the same bottom line millage all the way out to 2032 or 2033 as far as it goes out. That is ultimately the goal to keep the millage rate stable at the same level long-term.

So when I look at the forecast for the 2033, that charter mill, which you just explained, goes up a smidge to account for the other ones that are maxed out. But we're not projecting that to go up a smidge every year between now and 2033.

I don't know what Headlee is going to be from year to year. Some of that depends on inflation and all these other things. I wouldn't want to project that. What I would want to project more so is the bottom line, and that's what we're trying to maintain.

Okay. Then on the road piece, Adams Road, you said, it's off in the distance. It's not committed. And one of my questions was what was encumbered in our budget. So you came back and told me nothing. Nothing is encumbered.

Not until City Council approves the 2027 budget. If you remember, actually, it wasn't that long ago, the state of Michigan didn't approve their budget until the first week or two in October. They couldn't spend a dime. even though they had blankets and contracts and everything in place. If you don't have a budget in place, you can't spend a dime. And that's really why we're getting to you guys in August and September. Let's adopt that budget three months before we get to the end of the fiscal year.

So when I approve a contract at our regular council meetings for, let's just say SALT, it's for next year, or if I'm approving something else and it's extending the contract through 2028, to me, I think I'm encumbering the money because I've already said I'm gonna have a contract with that vendor through 2028. But you're telling me if I said, no to this 2027 budget or that line item, that contract would be null and void for the next year.

Correct. Yes, we could pay up until, like, say, December 31st and then That's all the services that we can pay for.

Okay. So that contract that we signed, all those wonderful things that Ms. Cummins puts together for us, even though it says it's extending a contract for multiple years, it's only good for this year because we have an approved budget, and the 2027 extension doesn't apply until we approve this budget in September.

That would be correct. That's why we want to get to you early.

Okay, cool. As you know, I have other questions. Of course. And I'll talk about Rochester Road under Madrid Roads when it comes time for Tracy to come up and talk. So thank you very much, President Carlock.

Thank you very much, Vice President Mongioli. We have some additional comments. Ms. Menino.

Thank you, President Carlock. And just a couple follow-up questions, Joe. When I was going through The capital plan, there's two columns, right? There's total project cost and then there's city cost. Correct. I don't understand the difference. I know it looks like we're carrying the full project cost in our capital forecast. Is that?

For probably the majority of projects, but an easy one to probably see is the Rochester Road project held by MDOT. That's probably going to be a $40, $50 million project, but the city's share of that is just 10%. So the only, when the contract comes before you, it'll just be for the city's share, the city's 10% share of that entire project, not the full 40, $50 million project. The other 90% will be paid for through MDOT.

So the, when we're looking, cause I was specifically trying to look at the MDOT for Rochester road. So the total project costs is in here though. That's not the full scope for the project itself from the MDOT perspective.

Well, I guess I'm not sure exactly where you're going with that, but, um, there are different components, uh, that the city we've known for over a decade that this is coming. That's when, you know, we've had discussions with MDOT and we've also incorporated, we realized we had a, um, water main right in that area that was like, Hey, you're ripping the road up. This would be a perfect time to do it. And we've got a sewer main. The sewer main is, this is a perfect time to do it. So we've gone to MDOT and said, hey, can you incorporate these in your bid documents? So while they're going through and doing the road, hey, might as well do the water main and the sewer and sort of dig once and get some of the economies of scale from that larger project.

Yes, I do recall that, but specifically my question is in the M59 one. So the total, there's one line here, total project cost is $2.5 million. The city cost is $310. So why aren't we including the city cost in our capital outlay versus the total project? Maybe I'm misinterpreting the definitions between the two. It seems like my point is we're overstating our capital spend. potentially if we're only going to incur the city cost number?

We'll only incur the city cost for the road. That's what we have a 10% share on. The water main and the sewer main, they'll do for us, but we've got to pay 100% of those two projects.

Yeah, but those are showing the same numbers for project cost and city cost. My point in here, it's like there's a lot of projects that are showing two different costs, and we appear to be pulling in the total project costs into our capital and not the city cost, and that's my question.

I don't know if I'm... Is there a page number that you're looking at?

One example of that is page, the one I'm on right now.

Are you in the plan book?

I'm sorry, 81, yeah, I couldn't see it. No, no, I'm sorry, 82. Yeah, look at 82. And there's multiple examples of that. There's a differential of like, it's quite a few million dollars between the two in totality of all the projects.

Perhaps we can look at that, Joe, and some of the other presenters are presenting. We'll get an answer before the end of the night.

I was confused a little bit about that.

I wasn't expecting that at all. But yeah, we can take a look at that.

I don't want to surprise you. I think I asked you one of my questions. No, you did.

That's OK. This is good. We got Joe stumped, which hasn't happened in a long time.

OK, then I'm not asking my second question because it's another one. All right. So that was one. And then I think you and I discussed the other issue that, and again, I'm just talking in total for the budget, as teresa had brought up the revenues are less than the expenses if you look at the numbers for 27 okay but if you do the adjustments for non-cash and you do the add back in the capital then we do run at a structural surplus i totally agree with that but the surplus number is less than our capital outlay for the year So in theory, I mean, we're running a surplus, we're gonna spend the money, but really we're gonna need to draw down. And I guess you're saying it's the balances we're drawing down, which I'm calling cash. Are they, is that the same thing?

That would be, yeah, that's a, that's fair. Yeah. Fund balance is cash in your, in your savings. Uh, well one of the areas was, you know, in the major road chart that I show, you could see that fund balance coming down a little bit cause we have a very significant road project coming in. Uh, one of the other places we're probably drawing down some of our cash balances and as our water and sewer capital fund. using some of our reserves to promote some of these big water and sewer projects that we also have going on. Not every fund is getting drawn down. Yes, correct. Many funds are growing like the fire operating fund is just on a nice steady track and things like that. That's one of the difficult things with capital projects because they ebb and flow over time. Essentially what we do is we save up, for a project and then we will, you know, draw our cash down for that particular project. Similar to a, you know, your household budget, you save up to do the roof for a couple of years and you draw it down and then you save up to do the next home improvement. We do that on a bigger scale here cause we have, you know, a whole city with roads and water and sewer and pathways and all sorts of different infrastructure.

Okay. So, but the, the target though is anywhere between, maintaining 25 to 35% or 30% for the balance?

Most of the funds, it's 25%. What's 25%? That's the equivalent of three months savings or three months operating.

Got it.

With the general fund, we like to carry a little bit higher level. Just because we have several funds that really rely on the general fund, and if any fund in the whole city got in trouble, the general fund could help them out. That's really the only fund that can help out any fund citywide. The major road fund cannot give money to fire, can't give money to police, it can't do this, it can only do its thing. General fund can give money to roads, water and sewer, pathways. What we've been dedicating the majority of the general fund surplus towards is parks, parks and facilities. That's where we've been putting those dollars. Most notably this year, we've been saving up for several years to do this big project called Nowiki Park that you might have heard something about, and that's the plan.

Okay, I'm good for now. Thank you, Joe, for answering those questions.

Thank you very much, Ms. Menino. I don't see any other council comments or questions at this time, so we will kick off the presentations. We'll start with 2026-0364, general fund for 2027 budget.

All right. So good evening, President Carlock, Vice President Mongioli, City Council Members, Mayor Burnett. We hold these truths to be self-evident. All are endowed with unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and a fair and equitable assessment. The assessing team of Rochester Hills labors to ensure our assessment roles conform to the decrees of the State Tax Commission. Step aside, John Hancock. Lori Taylor shall set her own bold hand and seal to this magnificent parchment, the assessment role. Our assembly of Rochester Hills assessing officers brings wisdom and ingenuity to our table. And all members are certified by the state of Michigan, a distinction most rare for any assessing department. Declare independence from the recession fears. Our past 13 years of cautious stewardship have yielded bountiful fruit. We projected a modest two and three quarter percent increase in taxable value for budget year 2027. The true bounty we have actually witnessed is 4.2%. This is most joyous news for it shall greatly replenish the coffers of all endeavors sustained by a millage. We continue our conservative approach as we look forward to the coming budget years. We project a further increase in taxable value, of two and three quarter percent for 2028 and two and a half for 2029.

As our residential properties comprise of 80% of the assessment role, let us focus on these properties. Our assessments set at 50% of market value reflect a thriving market and values are steadily increasing. The average sale of a single home has now surpassed over $500,000. As we track the ledger of our taxable versus assessed values, the gulf between these two figures continues to widen, placing our commonwealth in a most favored position. This financial spread has grown to a sum of over nearly $2 billion. In addition, The average 42% gulf between individual taxable and assessed values secures our fair city against a market downturn. This robust market margin affords us a bountiful cushion, maintaining a strong treasury capable of enduring market instability. In addition, we welcome our sister city, Rochester, to our assessing family, as we just took jurisdiction over the assessing responsibilities last month. Although we have just begun, we believe this joint venture will prove most beneficial for both communities.

Through the wise guidance of our council and our steadfast planning, a prosperous future awaits our city. we humbly petition your continued support and stand ready to answer your inquiries.

Well, that was something. That's good. It's good that we have that 42% buffer there is what makes it the ability, gives us the ability to absorb some of that downturn, if there should be one. If you're looking to move, right now is not the time. Because like you said, the home prices continue to increase. And 2.75, I'm sure Joe has said, be comfortable in that. And I think we're probably comfortable with it. We do have some council comments and questions. Mr. Blair.

CHRIS ROCKER. Thank you, President Carlock. You kind of stole my thunder. I wanted to just call attention back to that 42% figure and just how amazing that is and how many municipalities would love to have that kind of cushion from a downturn. Increase in property values, too, is great to hear. And people that want to live in Rochester Hills may not love that. But I'll tell you, anyone that owns property in this city is super happy to see that. So we appreciate all you do and just really, really respect those numbers you've shared with us. That's fantastic work.

Thank you, Mr. Blair. I don't see any further council comments or questions on this. So thank you very much.

Thank you.

As America celebrates its 250th birthday, the planning and economic development team is also taking time to reflect on a major milestone for the city, the 10 year anniversary of the new Brooklands. A decade of inspired ideas, creative placemaking, and relentless determination. These are the hallmarks of our daily work across the city. Let's go back to the beginning. Ten years ago, a team of forward-thinking innovators stumbled upon a peculiar area, home to a hodgepodge of buildings and uses with no apparent rhyme or reason. An area that had been studied and analyzed many times prior, but evolution never took hold. It was tired, unwelcoming and underutilized, but not for long.

And so we developed the boldest of plans general, but what will we call this new territory?

Maybe Brooklyn's maybe old town. Nobody knows, but really it's the Brooklands. They will feel it in their souls. But how will we undertake this monumental endeavor? We will take over the road. We shall give them safer access and paved alleys, who even provide parking even more than they had before. We must lay the foundation for economic success. And behold, the Gerald, a mixed-use creation where citizens live above and get their nails done below.

Will people ask, General, who is this Gerald we speak of?

They will ask, Lieutenant McCloud, and we shall look into the setting sun and we shall declare he is the spirit of the Brooklyn's rebirth.

General, people are asking what types of new businesses will come and what food will be served in this new district.

So many, Lieutenant, foods from all over the world, a melting pot of culinary delights, tacos and euros and espresso, all living in harmony, side by side, next to a fence company, of course. Now feast your eyes upon the expanded park, a state-of-the-art playscape, areas for thoughtful reflections and interactive water features.

I'm confused, General. Will the children wear swimsuits or street clothes?

Both at once, of course. They shall run through water jets, scale the playscape, and stare at murals in awe.

Murals, you say?

Ah, yes, Lieutenant, murals. Masterpieces on walls that do not require additional taxation for our people. and the streets will be adorned with medallions of vibrant colors. We shall cover the corridor in magnificent public art from local artisans.

So the Brooklyn's corridor will be a unique destination filled with the character of its people, General?

Yes, Lieutenant. There'll be art on the walls, in the park, on the streets even. For what is a corridor without art? Just a long piece of asphalt.

If it were only that simple.

So General Roediger, after 10 years, we have built a vibrant, walkable corridor full of art, housing, dining, and parks.

Indeed, Pamela. A glorious New Brooklands for Rochester Hills.

General, is this all we will do?

No, Christopher. We will deliver so much more. We will win prestigious awards and develop groundbreaking plans and websites.

prestigious awards general, which awards do you speak of for conveying important information to residents through our computers, obtaining input from residents on the use of land, or maybe the illustrious employee Christmas decorating award?

Yes, all of those. But we will not rest there. We must continue to do more. We must create an innovative blueprint for future generations to follow.

But what shall we call this innovative blueprint, General?

A blueprint for innovation, of course. But we will use the number four in the title. We will not spell out the word four. Lieutenant Valentik, tell me of your successes in your field.

We will create wildly successful programs to rise up our local businesses and their troops, and we have extended the plans to attract infrastructure and new businesses and jobs for our LDFA district. We will connect with hundreds of companies each year to ensure their satisfaction with our great city. every establishment except for seven percent will be filled with successful businesses and all of this will make for the foundation of our new economic development strategy that will be rolled out next year

Excellent, Lieutenant. I want people to shout across the land that Rochester Hills is the capital for young entrepreneurs, highly skilled workers, novel businesses from all over the world, and this new thing they call robots? It is rumored that we will become one of the best places to live for engineers. Even better than Sterling Heights and Auburn Hills? Yes, much better. Wow, our team still has a lot of opportunities ahead. Yes we do, but somehow we have managed to reduce our budget this year. How is this possible? We have a full army of six skilled and decorated soldiers who strategize with other regiments of great soldiers like Parks and Natural Resources, Building, and DPS that actually turn our ideas into beautiful assets.

And we need incredible leadership who see the vision and bring the right resources to make all these dreams happen.

Yes, Lieutenant. We have a group of seven great leaders and a mayor. A mayor who thrives on innovation. Innovation? How will he be innovative? Oh, in so many ways. But mostly because he doesn't spell his name with a stupid I, but with a bold Y. All right. Thank you, thank you. Yes, seriously, council, good evening. We really have pretty much a status quo budget request this year. We want to have a little fun with the 250 and the 10-year really celebration for us from when we started planning for the Brooklands. So, um, with that, we appreciate your partnership and thoughtful consideration for the items we bring forth in front of you. And we work every day to make sure that we keep Rochester Hills to be the permanent place to live, work and raise your family, not just for today, but for future generations. And so with that Pam and I are happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Oh, there are so many questions.

You should have seen the outtakes.

Oh, we'll see those later. Uh, that was interesting. Um, you didn't tell me I needed to bring a powdered wig or else I would have, um, no, that, that, that's good. I, I guess I didn't realize it had already been 10 years for the Brooklands. Um, you know, and, and that, that part of town continues to grow and we see new businesses coming in and, uh, you know, the, the Gerald and, and, uh, Juan Blanco's Juan Blanco's, which I eat at pretty regularly and can't remember the name. Um, it is the opposite of Johnny Black's. So one would think I would remember that. Um, but you know, you're, you're, you know, planning and, and uh, the economic development are doing a great job bringing, you know, attracting businesses to the city. And we really do appreciate that both as residents and as council. Uh, we do have some council comments and questions. Uh, Vice President Mangioli.

Thank you, President Carlock. Thank you so much. I really do want to see those outtakes because I'm just trying to figure out how you kept the wigs on your head. I really had no specific questions for you. It was more the media department, but I skipped over that part of the budget. So my question, and maybe it's more for council because the way the answer came back and said, this is a council decision, is to televise the planning commission meetings. City Council meetings are televised. Everybody can see it on YouTube. I would like to see us start televising the Planning Commission meetings, and by the answer in the questions, it doesn't sound like it's a huge amount for us to increase it. It's just a matter of balancing resources to be able to do that. So I guess, I don't know if it's for the planning team or for Mr. Snyder, how do I, put this as a straw poll, do I ask council here or how do we handle making this decision to make sure the budget is in the 2027 plan for us to televise the planning commission meetings?

I would say the straw poll would be a great first step. There'd probably be some work we'd need to do on the administrative side, redirecting resources around. What are the additional costs that might? I would hate to throw, I think we just threw a number out there. It would be this amount or under, which in the grand scheme of things isn't the biggest deal financially. But we'd like to refine that a little bit. But if we've got consensus on council, this is the way you want to go. then give us the direction and we can start working that way.

Okay. So, um, Deb, you taking the notes on a straw poll. So I will send a question off to clerk Scott to put it as a straw poll to ask about televising planning commission meetings and appropriating the, um, the, met the budget that equals that expense. The other question I had from a planning perspective, and this shouldn't be a new one for you Sarah, is I've been asking six and a half years, I want to extend the notice given out to residents from the 300 foot that is in there today to 600 feet in order to allow for more people to be aware of development that's going on in their community. And so, again, is this a straw poll that I have to do, Mr. Snyder, to ask to extend the notice piece, or is this?

That one, if I may come, we talked a little bit about this. Ultimately, it is a council decision. It's whatever way the council wants to go. That one you might want to pull and have a little more discussion, uh, perhaps with attorney Crist, um, and allow the, uh, administration to provide a little more data on that. It might seem like a simple thing, but there is probably some additional information that may assist the council in determining whether or not that makes the most sense. So, If that was a direction, we could probably provide that information along with input from Mr. Chris.

Because I actually went back and found an email that I have from 2023 from Mr. Steren regarding the 300 foot. That's how long I've been asking about this. And he cited the MCL that says, basically it says within 300 feet, but it doesn't say I can't add more. It just says at least, so within 300 feet.

I think there are two communities, Ann Arbor and Ferndale, that do 500. So there's a wide variety of choices. Why six? Why not five? Why not 1,200? There's perhaps a thoughtful discussion that should occur at the council level. This is clearly a council decision that may have some administrative input, but if there's direction to further research that we can provide additional information for council's consideration. Right.

So that becomes the next question is how does council have a discussion on that topic when we're at council meetings? Do I have to put it under any additional business and then let all the council members know, hey, at 10 o'clock on Monday night, we're going to talk about it because the rest of our meeting went that long. And I have asked for 600 feet because I just, give me something. 300 feet seems very small given that sometimes the neighboring properties may be commercial and it doesn't impact a resident for them. The residential next nearest resident may be, in cases it's been a rental home, a group home, And they didn't notify the other residents that surrounded them because we went to a house within 300 feet, not a number of houses within 300 feet. And so that's why I thought, let's go a little further. I do know there's budget implications because it does mean there's more postage and mailing that has to happen. But it doesn't say that we can't. do more than 300 feet in the MCL that's out there or the Michigan Zoning Act if that's the appropriate Michigan Zoning Enabling Act.

So I think just briefly the reason I think the administrative response is this is probably a sidebar discussion is that If you really dove into it you're right. I mean the state standard is 300 probably 90 percent of people use 300. It doesn't prevent you from going more. But there are some considerations that the council may want to thoughtfully consider. Not all of these notices are the same. Sometimes it's a notice for a five foot encroachment on a deck. You might not want to send that out in a quarter mile if the if the idea is that 600 is more is better than 300 then why isn't 900 better than 600 why isn't 1200 better than 900 you know there's some thoughtful discussion that probably should occur on that as opposed to just saying this is better because this number is bigger so the administration will do whatever council wants to do but i think the suggestion is it's probably not budgetary it's difficult to say what the budgetary impact is until council says this is what we'd like to do right because all those are different We're also finding to counsel that the better way that we're having more success reaching people isn't snail mail as much as it is electronic communication, social media and so forth. So again, a thoughtful conversation about this is probably better at the council table than more at a budget discussion. But we're certainly willing to assist council with whatever information we can provide to help make that decision.

Because that was trying to understand the budget implication to asking for an increase in the number of feet that the notice had to go out to. Also, the question was on how are we increasing the number of people that participate in our electronic communication. And I know that you noted during the water issue that we went up significantly in the number of residents that subscribe to the RH Connect. But not everyone is very, sorry, Mr. Blair, not everyone is very IT savvy or wants to have additional emails going to their inbox or even pay attention to them because it doesn't impact them. So I just want to make sure that there is some way, even if it's just, all right, so we put up the sign on the side of the road that says something is going to happen here. But to your point, I don't want to send it out on somebody increasing their deck. I do want it to go out when there is additional development, not improvements, but development. And that was why for the City Council's strategic objectives, we put the one in there that says, increasing communication out to the residents. But I will work with President Carlock to add this under any other business on one of our upcoming agendas, and I will let council know that I am going to add it there so you have an opportunity to think about it. But thank you very much for the conversation. Thank you very much. Great presentation. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Vice President Bongiulio. We do have some additional comments and questions. Councilwoman Neubauer.

Thank you, President Carlock. I feel so bad for Mr. McCloud. He looked so uncomfortable in that video. Like, for some reason, Mr. Roediger, Ms. Valentich, you guys looked very comfortable in your wigs and outfit. He just...

He's glad he's not here tonight.

I can tell. So, but good video. It's really, I didn't realize that 10 years had passed on the Brooklands either. And to see the changes that have happened in the Brooklands in the last 10 years, you know, even having the block party there and, you know, Obviously, what happened there, the tragedy that happened there and seeing it come back so strong and such positive feedback at the last block party president. Carlock was there and David Blair was there. I was there. I don't know who else, but it was just super cool. Okay, and Mr. Lindbergh was there too. Okay, and Diane. Okay, well, everybody was there. I'm really little. I get lost in the crowd. I guess you guys didn't see me. But I'm glad everybody was there. And that's a credit to the area and all of the changes that were made. I guess I would like to piggyback off of Vice President Mangioli's question. So if electronic mail is and this is actually an email I received from one of our residents who regularly emails me, but he was saying that, you know, would it be helpful or beneficial for the administration to post our AGAIN, NOT IMPROVEMENTS, BUT OUR DEVELOPMENTS AND OUR THINGS THAT ARE OF A MORE SIGNIFICANT FOOTPRINT JUST ON OUR SOCIAL MEDIA PAGE, SINCE A LOT OF PEOPLE DON'T KNOW HOW TO GET TO THIS WEBSITE AND GO INTO THE LEGISLATURE TO LOOK AT THE AGENDA. SO MAYBE IF THAT'S COST EFFECTIVE, WHICH I mean, I don't know these things. Facebook is free to me, so I don't know what it costs the city to post. But maybe if it was posted on the social media page instead of it going to people's emails through RH Connect, they could voluntarily go look at the Facebook page to say, hey, this development is coming up, or this is the update. with the data centers or whatever it is so that there's actual information that's given out so that when we're asked questions, it's not like they're not getting confused between, for example, the OU data center and our ordinance moratorium, since there's a drastic difference in what those two things are. So maybe if we could add that somehow in the notes to see if that's a good way to communicate planning and development and economic growth and whatever. You know, it's really cool that we had the block party on the social media, but I think it would be really cool if we had posted, you know, hey, it's the 10-year anniversary and these are the changes, like not you guys in the video, but the stuff that you highlighted in the video I think would be, great for the residents to know that in a short amount of time this was what was accomplished in the brooklyn so anyway i'm glad mr mcleod is not here so that he doesn't have to face himself in the video great job and thank you very much that's all i have thank you very much uh miss menino

Uh, yes, just a, a quick follow up by the, by the way, I love the video is very good. Um, back to my comment, I made, um, Sarah back at the last council meeting on consulting services, professional services related to the policy on the data center. Um, I just want to get that, I guess, comfort level that you've budgeted appropriately to get the best. Since we're so high profile on data centers and policies, I just want that. you to make some comments in a comfort level on that, that we're protected in the budget.

Yeah, I feel very comfortable. And we have a line item for professional services for the planning department, which this would cover. We've also spoken with ASTI. They're environmental consultants. We have a separate budget for them. And I actually spoke with OU this morning, and they're offering to have discussions about all the stuff that they've learned as part of the experiences that they're going through. So I appreciate it. I feel good that we have adequate.

Okay, good. Thank you. Appreciate that.

Thank you very much. Mr. Scalzi.

Thank you, President Carlock. Nice video. I think you set the bar for even the fire department to come up and try to do something like that. My question is this. That was the first time I'd ever gone to that, the Brooklyn's Black Party. It was impressive. I think the thing that got me was the amount of kids that are these entrepreneurs that had these great ideas. I couldn't even buy a chocolate chip cookie because we're gone. So rather disappointing. So my question is this. That area is, I mean, I've been living in the city for like 20, 24 years. And you'd go by that section when we first moved in. We're like, what is this? Is this even part of Rochester Hills? You know, the development is so impressive. I mean, I think it's obviously a game changer. The question is this. How do we track how many people are using this area? Is it possible to do somehow? Because you can do all the improvements, but you want to see that, wow, it's bringing the draw.

Um, so one of the things, um, thank you very much for your questions. Fantastic question. We're excited to kind of highlight, um, that it was 10 years ago. that we were before council asking for your support to even study this area and should we redevelop this corridor. But we have looked at a couple different tools that will let you track activity or population that may be visiting an area. One of the programs is PLACER AI. And I know that, not to put the parks department, but Ken and I have actually talked about being able to look at some of those tools that track visitors based on their cell phone activity and so forth like that. Um, when we looked at initially getting place or AI a couple of years ago, we saw a huge spike in, um, visitors coming to the area and with that you can identify where they've come from most recently, where their home area is, um, where they, where they go to after they leave the corridor and then also, where within the corridor do they visit? So when we looked at the software about a year or two ago, Johnny Black's was the number one place for visitors because it will track how long they spend in the area. So they kind of scrub out employees and so forth. But we're definitely looking at some tools that will help us to track some of that activity of people coming into the area.

Thank you very much. Vice President Mongioli.

Sorry, I thought I was, somebody else was, never mind. You said about using cell phones. I ask that we be very careful with that given the fact that we have a lot of residents starting to ask questions about flock cameras and if you're going to use my cell phone and even geofencing to figure out how many people are, maybe that, as long as you're not able to track that Theresa Mondoli is at Johnny Black's tonight kind of thing. But we need to find a way that's non-invasive and doesn't take anybody's privacy around or jeopardize that. And I'm sure there are ways technologically to do it, but I'd hate for anyone in our community to start thinking we are tracking when they're someplace in our community. And ask Johnny Black's to count how many heads come in the building as opposed to, using cell phones to track people anywhere. I know there's ways of doing it.

I just don't want that message. We don't collect that data. There's companies that scrub that and just give you general information about it.

I want to say they do the same thing with flock cameras and that's the issue because somebody else has the data, not us. So I just want to make sure that we're being very careful and sensitive to community concerns that are being expressed right now and maybe find alternatives that don't require any data collection of my phone or where my phone is. Or I'm gonna go get a burner phone and I'm gonna let the dog run around the neighborhood with it in it. Sorry, don't mean to make light of it. It's an important thing for metrics to understand. I'm very supportive of metrics. I'm just also very concerned about some of the comments that our communities had recently on data collection. Thank you, President Kralik.

Thank you very much. Mr. Mayor. Thank you, President Kralik. know where the conversation is going to go exactly. But for you, I did hear that they liked the presentation, so risk reward. Two things. One is, some of the comments earlier, I would just note that the city has actually won several awards for transparency about what already exists. So any development that's happening in the city, you can go on to the Development Projects Explorer and click on every single thing and see every single thing that any planning commissioner, any city employee has ever received. So literally everything is transparently on our website already. We always direct people that, and most people that are directed to it are really surprised at how easy it is to navigate and how much information they can find. That's one thing just to mention. The other thing just about the Brooklands, I would say, you know, exceptionally proud of that project. Related to that last conversation, Um, there's lots of ways you can get information. Um, I think the information you're referencing at one point came from some cog because some cog was, was gathering information that way. Uh, we know that the, the property value increases in the Brooklyn's area have risen faster on average than the rest of the city of Rochester Hills, which is a great win for the people down there. And they have been so wildly happy. about what's been going on down there. The comments have been really exceptional. In fact, one on social media that some of you may have seen that I can't verify is that it looks like Bozano's may have sold, which would be a wonderful thing for redeveloping a central part of that location. So we're really proud of that project. I think it ultimately goes back to the beginning, which is what is the role of a really good planning and economic development department You've seen it played out. You can talk a lot about what you hope to have, but you can all drive down the Brooklands tonight and see what this team, supported by the folks behind, have executed over the last decade, and I think we're exceptionally proud of that. So thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. I don't see any further council comments or questions, so we'll let General Roediger and Lieutenant Valentek go now.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Great presentation. Thank you. Next up is clerks.

Good evening, President Carlock, Vice President Mangioli, City Council and Mayor Barnett. As you know, I'm Leanne Scott, and I have the privilege of being your city clerk and leading our fantastic team, both here at City Hall and at the cemetery.

Good evening. I'm Sheila Brown. I have the privilege of being your deputy clerk. Sometimes I get to boss Leanne around a bit. Lots.

So as our nation celebrates its 250th anniversary, we have the opportunity not only to look back at where we've been, but also to think about the responsibility we have to carry that legacy forward. And in many ways, that's exactly what the clerk's office does every day. We preserve the past, we serve the present, and we help prepare our community for the future.

And some of that work happens quietly behind the scenes. Through records management and FOIA, we preserve the official history of our city while ensuring transparency and access to public information. Through birth and death records, we document some of the most important moments in the lives of our residents and preserve those records for generations. Through passports, notary services, and our support of boards and commissions, we provide services that residents and city government rely upon every day. Our office also provides complete support to city council, preparing agendas, maintaining the official record, documenting actions and decisions, and helping ensure that the business of our city government moves forward accurately and efficiently. And through our youth council, we have the opportunity to do something particularly fitting as we celebrate America 250, introduce the next generation to public service, civic engagement, leadership, and local government. For 250 years, our democracy has depended upon citizens having confidence that their voices will be heard and their votes will be counted accurately and securely. At the local level, that responsibility comes through the clerk's office. Running an election involves far more than what happens on election day. It requires months of preparation, testing, training, ballot administration, equipment management, early voting, election day operations, and ultimately ensuring that every eligible voter has the opportunity to participate in a process they can trust.

This budget begins an important investment in new voting equipment. Our voting equipment is the infrastructure through which our residents exercise one of their most fundamental rights. We need to continue to ensure the equipment supporting that democracy is dependable, secure and efficient. If elections represent our responsibility to democracy and future, our cemeteries represent our responsibility to history. Preserving them is about much more than maintaining property. It's about stewardship, history, families, and ensuring that these important places remain cared for for future generations. This year, we completed a cemetery master plan, giving us a clear roadmap for the future of our cemetery. The next step is moving that plan from paper into action. Here in Section 2, our initial focus includes a proposed columbarium, above ground individual cremation plots, and memorial benches. Moving into Section 9, we continue that development with additional above ground cremation spaces, cremation benches, and amenities for reflection and remembrance. Finally, Section 7 represents our largest expansion, featuring variations of above-ground cremation spaces, wall niches, benches, and a dedicated cenotaph wall. The funding included in this budget will allow us to begin implementing that vision thoughtfully and strategically, preserving what generations before us entrusted to our care while making sure our cemetery can continue serving families well into the future. As America celebrates 250 years, the work of the Clerk's Office is a reminder that government is ultimately built upon service. We preserve its records, we support its elected officials, we protect the election process, we engage its future leaders, and we preserve the history of those who came before us. And through the investments we are proposing in elections and our cemetery, We are making sure that these responsibilities are not only carried out today, but strengthened for tomorrow. And with that, we thank you for your support, Council, and we ask that you support our budget. And we are here for any questions you may have.

Thank you very much. You know, one of the things that comes up a lot is election safety and security. And, you know, the fact that you're able to

uh ensure that our elections are fair and safe for the residents is vitally important and you know we thank you for that for sure we do have some council comments and questions ms neubauer thank you president karolak i just want to say i don't think i've ever been here close to five or after five and not found somebody in the clerk's office still working and there's been times that we get out of meetings at nine or 10 o'clock and you guys are still here. I'm so thankful for that. Also, you take on something that a lot of other cities don't. I don't actually know of any local around here and that's the Youth Council. Investing in our kids and our future is just so amazing. I'm personally thanking you for giving me 17 new babies every year. I just love them and the investment that you pour into them. And it's disappointing that the state didn't continue the funding or the promised funding for the election equipment. But, you know, it's, as President Karloff said, the necessity for safe elections and the way that you all conduct yourselves, the integrity, the preciseness, the training, the months before the election days that you guys put into it is not unnoticed and we're thankful for it. So that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Vice President Mangioli.

Thank you, President Carlock. Thank you and thank you for all the answers to the questions that I sent. Election equipment is, of course, security and making sure residents feel comfortable in that when they put their ballot into the machine, it's going to be counted accurately and reported in a timely manner. So thank you for making sure that we have equipment that is a sound reputation and if the Secretary of State doesn't give you good suggestions that we push back on whoever that person may be at that time. So I want to make sure that we're not just taking their word for what's the best one. Also, the Cemetery Master Plan. Looking forward to seeing that, you said, in October. So the budget you're requesting is based on a Cemetery Master Plan that we haven't seen yet.

there is part of the budget. It's not for the whole master plan, but it is for a columbarium. It's the beginning. OK. Great.

I will look forward to hearing that in October. Thank you very much. And again, your team is phenomenal. Who does this? The pictures. I'm pointing to the screen. The pictures. Who did those?

A mixture of us and AI.

Okay. Just curious because I'm going to say their wigs look a lot better than the wigs that were on the planning team. But they were real people with wigs on as opposed to stationary pictures. Great job. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Vice President Mangioli. Mr. Scalzi.

Thank you, President Carlock. So if the state isn't going to purchase new voting machines, what's the game plan and where is our equipment at? we don't have to worry about replacing them. We need to think about replacing them or why we got to replace them.

We're all required to replace them. It's just, we have to fund it.

Okay.

And we've done our due diligence with, um, CFO Snyder to budget for that. We were just hopeful we would get some assistance.

Okay. Next question. Cemetery question. What is the oldest person or what's the oldest headstone in the cemetery? Do you guys know that?

We have two historic cemeteries and they are pretty old.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know offhand.

Okay.

Early 1800s, late 1700s.

Pat McKay, do you know the answer?

In 1825, the Revolutionary War soldier in Stone Creek named Michael Glenn Wagner. Bam, mic drop. There you go.

That's why I moved to Rochester Hills. There you go.

Thank you very much, Mr. Scalzi. I don't see any further council comments or questions on this. And by the way, Sheila, we call that managing up, just so you know. Thank you very much for the presentation.

Thank you. Thanks.

Next up, MIS.

OK. Good evening, President Kerlach, Vice President Mongioli, City Council members, and Mayor Barnett. I'm Rachelle Lyon, your MIS director. And with me tonight is our newest system administrator, Harrison Porter. Together, we're here to represent the MIS team. As our nation celebrates 250 years of American history, our city has its own living landmark taking part in that legacy, our historic bev oak tree, standing tall for over two centuries. But at City Hall, MIS is celebrating its own milestone of building Rochester Hills Digital Foundation. Just like our bevoke, modern IT infrastructure doesn't appear overnight. It grows layer by layer, ring by ring, into a resilient canopy. Tonight, I'd like to walk you through how our digital growth rings were built, how they protect our city today, and how they will shelter our community for decades to come. Every oak starts as a seedling and over 30 years ago, our digital seedling was planted. In the mid 1990s, IT was a small three person data processing division. We had an AS400 mainframe, two small servers, some standalone PCs, a small number of email addresses and internet access that consisted of a single computer on a rolling cart where staff had to sign up to use it. Over the last three decades, ring by ring, we methodically built out our core roots. We became the MIS department, navigated Y2K, deployed citywide financial systems, and digitized core municipal functions. We pioneered Google for Government, and eventually retired that AS400 to the IT Hall of Fame. That journey is what laid the deep, unbreakable root system for the mature digital canopy we manage today. Just as our historic oak nourishes every branch, our six-person team of Harrison, Margaret, Chris, Christy, Sarah, and myself support every single city department. Our digital canopy expands where our residents need us most. Take our city website, our active digital front door. We now average over 46,000 monthly website visitors, which is a 25% surge over last year. Residents are choosing digital-first services such as renting facilities, buying park passes, pulling permits, and getting real-time updates online. To help guide our community through this canopy, our AI chatbot acts as a 24-7 digital scout. In just the last six months, it analyzed over 2,500 citizen inquiries. Crucially, during major events like the May water main break, it absorbed massive spikes in emergency traffic, giving residents instant answers while keeping local phone lines open for critical calls. In nature, an oak's outer bark protects the tree from pests, storms, and fire. In our world, cybersecurity serves as those protective outer growth rings. What you're seeing here is a clip of a live cyber threat map, and it shows in real time network attacks that are happening right now. We work hard to keep this out of our environment and defend our canopy. we maintain a multi-layer compliance and protection framework to ensure your municipal data remains strictly private, never mind, and never sold. Put that protection into perspective, in just the last 30 days, our network securely routed 53 terabytes of data, which doesn't mean a lot to you, but that's the equivalent of 26 million printed books. At that same exact time, our security bark neutralized over 2,000 targeted cyber threats. That's the same as an intruder trying to force open 70 locked doors at City Hall every single day. Security isn't a single project. It's an operational layer that grows thicker and stronger with every passing year. As we look ahead to 2027 and beyond, the MIS team's focus is on adding new growth rings to our digital canopy. We're fine tuning our network following our recent core refresh, always fortifying our defenses against increasingly complex cyber threats, and striving to deliver reliable, frictionless support to every department across the city. Our digital canopy is healthy, our roots run deep, and this MIS team is fully equipped to protect our network and take this tree into the future. With that said, tonight marks a deeply personal milestone for me. My time leading this incredible team is coming to a close. Looking at my journey here, and that's what I've represented here is my journey. Everything we have accomplished as a team from our simple first network to our current complex network and security infrastructure, I'm incredibly proud and I'm incredibly grateful that I was a part of it. I've worked with an exceptional team of Harrison, Margaret, Chris, Christie, and Sarah, and they are the future of your MIS department. Thank you, Mayor Burnett, for believing in me and for granting me the honor of serving as your MIS director. Thank you, City Council, for your years of ongoing support. And thank you. I'm asking for your support of this budget. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you very much, Rochelle. While I've only been up here for a small portion of that time, your leadership has been crucial for the MIS department. And I think I speak for everybody up here when I say thank you for all the work that you've done for the residents, not necessarily for City Hall, but for the residents. Because the security of the website, where we go to pay our taxes, all of it, we expect that, and you've delivered. So thank you. Thank you. We do have some council comments and questions. We'll start with Vice President Mongioli.

Thank you, President Carlock. Rochelle, you are my first example that I can remember of someone from within our staff being promoted to a director level. Tracy is the second one that I remember. There may be others and I apologize if I'm not naming you correctly. Well, the fire department, the police department. But you have been phenomenal and to see your leadership grow over the years, being able to handle the questions that David Blair and I throw out to you because both of us deal with different aspects of the IT world and being able to keep us safe. That is so important for us to be a safe city from an IT perspective, as well as continue the advancements. I can remember doing some UAT testing on the new website, which is now the old website, which is going to be replaced in the future. So thank you for reaching out to residents in our community to test the new stuff and make sure it works the way they want it to and be able to take our input to move things around on the website because that click is more intuitive to me than it would be to a designer. You've just done a phenomenal job. The next person that comes in is going to have huge shoes to fill. So thank you very much. And thank you for setting us in a good direction going forward before you leave. So I have to ask, when are you gone by?

February 2nd. so we have six months all right we got you for a little while longer that's great so does that mean you get to do the conference room improvements and it'll probably be the next person that's doing that but i'm hoping to set up on the back end what we're going to do moving forward

okay and then all the because i i there were a ton of things in the budget from a an i.t perspective that you were hardware and software that you were bringing in we're good you're good um i have to tell you i am living it so i work at an automotive company that you may have known but they just announced they're switching from microsoft to google I may retire before they decide to finish that implementation.

These guys already did it in 2010 and they did it like pros.

That's good to know. Also, one thing that I have asked, I think most of the directors and as well as yourself about internal policies and procedures. We're finding at City Council that we had one that was 20 years old that we hadn't looked at or touched. And so that's why I've been asking each of the directors about last time you looked, touched, updated policies and procedures. And it looks like you're keeping up with everything that's out there.

Yes. At the breakneck speed of everything IT, we have to in order to maintain compliance, making sure we're crossing all the T's and dotting the I's. OK, well, thank you again.

Thank you for your service to the city. I'm glad we have you for a couple more months. Thank you. You are going to be missed. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, President Carlock.

Thank you very much. Mr. Blair.

Shocking, right? Rochelle, thank you for all your hard work. IT, a lot of times, is a thankless job. And I think, to be completely honest, I think this is a great time to get out of it.

I'm not going to lie, I agree with you.

I mean, I've been in this business for, jeez, I was talking to this, over 25 years now I've been doing IT. And I mean, I kind of long for the days when there was just a mainframe or a server in the corner and you weren't trying to get hacked by Eastern European countries and spearfished by non-native English speakers that have perfect grammar thanks to AI. and everything is a subscription. You don't own anything anymore. You can't buy software. You rent it. I don't like what the industry has become, but you have to stay on top of it. We don't have a choice. And you've done an outstanding job balancing all the different options that are available and making sure that the city is teed up for whatever the industry has to throw at us. So thank you for your service. We appreciate it. And thank you to the entire department. Welcome aboard. Harrison, we're happy to have you, and I hope that you stay after that. He will.

You guys are in great hands.

It is a pretty strong door to MIS. We could just lock her in, right? I'm getting a no from the fire chief. No, can't do that? Okay. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Blair. Mr. Lindbergh.

Thank you very much, President Carlock. First off, thank you very much for the great presentation. For the IT department, either you had the least amount of AI or the best AI to create that presentation. But I do have a serious question for you. So you touched on internet security and whatnot. And I know you've been granted tools in order to protect the city and all of our IT infrastructure. Are there any tools out there that you don't have? that you wish you had looking into the future?

Well, that's a great question. And it's something that we evaluate pretty much, you know, on a very consistent rolling basis because we have to, because what we can do today is going to be different from what somebody can do next week, what somebody can do next month. We have strong tools that we employ. They are layerable, so we can add additional layers to them as we need to. We have the ability to pivot if we need to. And I just wanna assure you that we look at that, we look at, it's not something that we look at once every three years. It's something that we look at quite often to make sure that we have the best that we can to protect our environment, to keep our city staff safe, to keep our residents safe and to keep our data safe. You know, so that, um, my goal is to never be in the headlines, to never put the mayor in the headlines, you know? Um, and so we do the very best we can. And if there were a need, you would see me back here asking you for something and explaining why I think we need it.

It's not ransom.

No.

Yes. Great. Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Mr. Lindberg. Councilperson Neubauer.

Thank you, President Kerouac. I just wanted to say thank you for everything you've done for the city. I called you, I think it was like two minutes before 5 on a Friday because of a not so pleasant email that a lot of us had gotten. And you took my call. You were patient with me. I'm not David Blair or Teresa. I don't understand 90% of what they're talking about when it comes to IT, but I just appreciate everything you've done. And I just wanted to say this for the record. A couple of years ago, you were tested pretty hard with what happened when we were in the headlines about something else. And we weren't even vulnerable because of you and your hard work and your team. And I don't think anybody really knew how um how high your walls are when you were protecting us and that's a huge credit to you and i'm super thankful for you and your department and everything you did during that time so thank you for the late phone calls thank you for your dedication i don't know if it's a good time for you to leave but if it is best wishes i just wish you weren't leaving us i hate change but um just best wishes on what you're doing so thank you so much thank you

And thank you for your support because it's your support that allows us to build those walls to keep us as safe as we can.

I don't see any further council comments or questions. So thank you very much for the presentation. And next up, HR.

I'm glad I checked that. Okay, perfect. Good evening, President Carlock, Vice President Mangioli, City Council, and Mayor Barnett. Tonight we present the 2027 Human Resources Budget, themed We the People. Just as the Constitution anchors our nation, our workforce anchors this city. Joining me tonight is our new HR Manager, Christina McCaskey, as we share how the budget supports, empowers, and equips our people to serve with excellence. Meet our HR cabinet. Behind every paycheck, benefit enrollment, and labor negotiation is this dedicated team. Together we build our internal culture, ensuring the state of our union across our city workforce remains strong, compliant, and forward-thinking.

We hold these truths to be self-evident that our city is only as strong as the people we hire. One of our primary functions is talent acquisition. Over the past year, our team has carefully reviewed 1,716 applications. Out of that wide pool of applicants, our rigorous screening process selected only the top 1%.

We aren't just filling seats.

We're finding the most qualified, dedicated patriots of public service to join our ranks. We are thrilled to officially welcome our newest settlers who have joined our city workforce across various departments. Council's ongoing support of a competitive pay philosophy directly enables us to attract top talent and remain an employer of choice. A strong Republic grows from within. This year, 11 rose through the ranks, Investing in internal growth retains institutional knowledge, guarantees operational continuity across all city departments.

As new careers begin, others are declaring independence into retirement. We honor four retirees representing 66 years of dedicated service. To protect this legacy, our budget strategy prioritizes robust succession planning, ensuring that our veterans set sail, their expertise remains firmly intact within the departments they leave behind. And in the spirit of the great compromise, effective labor relations rely on mutual trust and collaboration. Building on the successful ratification of AFSCME 1917 contract, our 2027 strategy includes entering contract negotiations with two of our largest employee union groups, GALC 1984 and IFF 3472, ensuring continued stability, fiscal responsibility, and fair working conditions across the city.

Out of many one at the heart of our success is our city culture, a community built on connection and shared goals from our team building events to celebrating our nation's 250th anniversary. We strive to ensure every employee feels valued and included.

This year's budget prioritized dis training, a targeted communication initiative, giving staff a shared framework to adapt styles, minimize conflict and collaborate effectively by placing clear communication at the heart of how our teams connect and appreciate each other. Complimented by a gratitude campaign that generated 197 letters, handwritten thank you cards. These low cost investment build trust and deliver a massive return on employee morale. At its core, the HR budget is a strategic reinvestment in the people who keep our city moving. On behalf of our entire workforce, we ask for your continued support for our most valuable asset, our people. We are happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Well, of course the question is how do we get fireworks like this next year?

You don't want to look at that slide?

Thank you very much. It's always interesting to see all the things that HR does, because those of us in corporate America only see HR as the hiring and firing arm. But HR touches a lot of different pieces of business and city business. So thank you for everything that you and the team do, Brooke. We do have some council comments and questions. Mr. Blair.

I'd laugh it off if I wasn't so sure that Brian had asked for fireworks like that. Um, you know, I, the first thing that really shocked me seven years ago, seven plus years ago when I, um, you know, began to get to know city council members and city staff and was ultimately elected to serve was just how high quality our team actually is. And, It's hard to put your finger on exactly what it is, but one of the things is follow through. You mentioned something to a team member, and they own it, and they make sure that it's dealt with. It's longevity. When we're at a Christmas party and those pins are handed out for 25, 30, 35 years, that's practically unheard of. And then just quality.

We've got 45 years sitting in the back. 45?

And we can't ever let Pat retire. That's kind of a, Pat McKay can never retire. I agree. That's just making sure that that's. But you do such a fantastic job with the culture because people not only are sticking around, they're not only doing high quality work, but they genuinely love the work that they do. And I get that sense from, every employee in every department with very rare exception, and it's challenging, I'm sure, to maintain that, but you've done an excellent job. So thank you for that, and we appreciate all that you do for us. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Blair. Next up, Vice President Mangioli.

Thank you, President Karlak. So I want to thank you for the questions, the answers to my questions that I sent. One I didn't include in here and I should have. When we start talking about keeping all those team members here and healthy, it's our health insurance policy. And one of the things that's talked about a lot is mental health. So I was just wondering, our insurance policy, how does it work as far as covering mental health? And the reason I ask is so many times people say, well, you get so many, if it's some other organ in your body, you keep going to the doctor until you're better. But when you talk about mental health, you get 12 visits to somebody, and then hopefully your head is cleared up. And I just want to make sure that when we start talking about the health of our staff, that the brain, your mental health, is equal to every other organ that you're dealing with, and that if I have a heart issue or I have cancer or there's something else that my mental health is equal in standing in that health insurance policy and that I don't have to, that I have to find out, you can only get 12 visits and then you better be better or you're done. So how do we handle mental health from our insurance?

I think there's three different I guess avenues that you could pursue depending on that individual's need. We have four health insurance plans. So ranging from two PPOs to two HMOs, depending on the need of that employee and their family needs. So they have various options. And if mental health is one that they are seeking, then they would explore a plan that would offer the most robust coverage for that. There's also the employee assistance program that we highlight on a regular basis and we promote it on a regular basis, especially within our fire department where you see a little bit more of mental health challenges. But mental health impacts everyone, right? It's not, it's, It's not only mental health, it's physical health, it's financial health, it's all the stressors of life. So you can seek care through health insurance, you can seek care through our employee assistance program, or we have short-term disability, which is a leave benefit that is available for all employees. So there's three different avenues that you can explore as an individual should you need to seek mental health assistance.

Is there any difference in the way you qualify to come back to work? If I have a cardiac issue, can I come back with a doctor's note? When I have a mental health issue, can I come back with the same doctor's note that I'm good to come back? Or is there a different policy procedure that we have relative to different types of health issues?

Contractually, there are different requirements with our various unions. But typically, if you're out on any leave, whether it's physical or mental, then you just require a doctor's note to return. But then contractually, there are some other layers depending on which union you are affiliated with.

Okay. And hopefully, our non-union staff have the same access. Absolutely, yes. Okay. I guess the one thing I would look at from a budget perspective is to make sure that we are providing top-notch healthcare to our staff and keep the cost, their share, at a reasonable, affordable level. I'm sitting here with a dealing with my husband who's home and not feeling well. So having that ability to be able to manage healthcare for our staff and making sure that the options that are available to us are the best that they can be at an affordable rate so that everybody can feel that those health issues, they don't show up and we plan for them. They usually hit us, and then we call our EMS team to take us to the hospital. So I just want to make sure that if we need to take a look at that from a budget perspective, that we do, and that as we go into the negotiating, not that I wouldn't negotiate in public, but that we consider that as well as far as the next union contracts that we have coming up.

health insurance is used usually one of the the top um discussion items in any negotiations so yes i can confidently say we offer a very competitive health insurance plan options and one of them specifically having a zero cost share to the employee and that is through the support of city council and i will be bringing forth in the fall as i do every year to opt out of PA 152, which allows us to keep that cost at an affordable rate for our employees. That will be great. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you, President Karloch.

Thank you very much. Ms. Menino.

Yes, thank you, President Karloch. Just a couple quick ones for you. These are things we've talked about. um, over the year. Um, I want to ensure in the plan you're covering for the, are you, I guess planning to do the, uh, wage and benefits study as we discussed through Mercer. I'm not sure who you're using, but is that covered in the budget?

That is in the budget for 2027. Yes. And we are currently evaluating, um, RFP proposals right now and we'll plan to bring forth in October. Uh, to city council, the selected vendor.

Okay, good. So, okay. So Mercer may or may not be one of the ones you're using. Okay, good. Um, second question, maybe this would be discussed later during the firefighter presentation, but the hiring of the new people, um, I'd like to understand the timing. Is that all taking place in 26? Are we moving into 27 with the 12? firefighters.

I can, I can take a shot at this.

That's fine. If we want to wait, chief gear, if he were, if you were going to discuss that, we can wait till his presentation. Okay. Okay.

Oh, you want me? Yes. Um, well, chief gear, I think we would all like the firefighters the day after we post, right? The position, but 12, that's a large, that's a large number. And we have, We have a strategy. We've been discussing the job description. Um, if you've probably noticed a lot of other communities, they kind of have a fancy flyer, right? We want something visually eye catching and everything, every benefit because there are some unique benefits to our firefighters and we want to be able to highlight and attract the best. Uh, so we are in process of having that, you know, teed up should that, you know, everything goes smoothly with the budget and be approved in September. Um, and then we will be able to post that. Ideally, um, he would like to hire them in phases, but we are ready to pivot with whatever qualified candidates come our way. If eight come our way, then we will interview eight and hire eight. If two come our way, we will interview and hire two. So we want to make sure strategy wise, um, that we can sustain the training, right? It's always better to do that in bulk, but it's a tough market for firefighters. It's tough to find quality firefighters into that volume. So until we find the best of the best, we will pivot as we need to, you know, through the recruitment process that Christina will help us lead.

Do we know, and again, this could be a discussion later, from the timing, is the 12th, is it, we have 12 on staff as of January 1st, 2027, or are they phased through 27?

January 1st of 2027. Okay, so it's a full year then.

Correct. Okay. All right, good. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Have you tried putting the mayor's face in a firework on our flyer? I feel like I mean, that that's that'll get you some, I think.

Yeah, Christine is good with AI.

Oh, that's good to know. I don't see any further councilor comments or questions. So at this time, we'll recess for half an hour. There's some food in the back room. We'll come back at whatever a half hour from now is, 17 after. So thank you.

Good evening, Patriots. Tonight you will hear about the triumphs of the building department and discover the strategic vision of our forward march. Mirroring the great victories of the collective, this department celebrates the monumental milestones achieved by our collaborative teamwork. Forward into the next phase of development.

George Washington laid the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol. He set the standard for American infrastructure, bold, functional, safe, and enduring. As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, our building department upholds that very same responsibility. Every permit we approve, every inspection we pass, and every code our patriots of safety enforce shapes the future of our community and ensures its security for generations to come. Your continued support allows us to bridge this historic commitment to safety with cutting-edge plan review and inspection technologies. This ensures we keep pace with modern construction innovations as seen in recently completed landmark projects like Sarah Ford and the Gerald. So far this year, we have completed 17,000 inspections, which is a 17% increase from previous years, 4,000 plan reviews, and we've closed 2,500 permits. Our plan review turnaround time has also improved by 10% this year, which equates to a 50% improvement over the past three years. Two and a half centuries ago, building a community meant logs and mud mortar. Today, it requires high efficiency HVAC systems, smart electrical grids, and complex structural engineering. With your support, we will continue to evolve alongside the developers who are building our future.

Now before anyone asks, yes, I'm the lone Canadian on the leadership team, so I figured I'd represent the other side. Back in 1776, your nation's founders were busy writing the rules for a brand new country. Today, our ordinance inspectors are responsible for a much less glamorous but equally important set of rules to keep our neighborhoods safe, clean, and welcoming. During the first half of 2026, our team hung over 1,200 door tags, completed 4,500 inspections, where 81% of those were proactive. That means we're identifying the issues before they become bigger challenges. Because at the end of the day, our goal isn't to write citations, we just want compliance for Pete's sake. You might say we're fighting the good fight just without the muskets. These next two slides highlight one of our success stories. This property had fallen into significant disrepair, but unlike the Revolutionary War, this was a battle won through communication, cooperation, and a shared goal of making our community stronger.

We, the ground forces of facilities, in order to form a more perfect city of Rochester Hills, have answered the call to service by completing over 3,300 service requests this year. As our nation honors 250 years of unity, progress, and shared history, our team is hard at work maintaining city properties for our next chapter. From the halls of Fire Station 1 to the shores of Spencer Park, from city border to shining border, our dedication to preserving this community is visible everywhere. We have successfully completed vital landmark projects, including the fire training tower, fire one locker rooms, and the Borden ball field light repair. As we march into 2027, we will stake our claim on the future with several bold endeavors, the carpeting replacement at City Hall, the replacement of the Veterans Memorial Point pathway, and the erection of new columbarium at Van Heusen Jones Cemetery. The spaces we build and preserve today form the heritage that future generations will look back on with pride. While the world may little note nor long remember what we say here, may those who come after us enjoy what we have created and protected here.

Patriots of the City Council, where does our march take us from here? the fields, the facilities team will execute the relentless stream of service directives while simultaneously overseeing the city's most robust capital campaigns currently underway. The ordinance division will continue to deepen its roots, fortifying our alliances and solidarity with the local people's association. Meanwhile, the permit tax, the vigilant gatekeepers of our administrative front, Police the ranks of incoming applications, ensuring absolute 100% precision before any permit is issued. Tonight you have heard the building department's triumphs, but a historical milestone has just been reached. The Rochester Hills Building Department has successfully secured the renewal of its IAS accreditation. With this victory, we remain the sole department in the state of Michigan to hold this elite distinction and one of mere 35 nationally. This monumental recognition is a testament of our collective teamwork, a triumph which would have been impossible without the unwavering revolutionary support of U City Council.

This is the best department to build the next 250 years.

City City Council. I am incredibly proud of our team and our outstanding achievements through hard work, great teamwork and commitment to excellence. Their dedication has driven the department to its most successful year yet. Because of these accomplishments, we will continue to be the number one building department that other communities look to as leaders. City Council. I want to thank you for your continued support, and we're here to answer any questions you may have.

I may use this as my profile picture moving forward on all social media. The building department ordinance, especially ordinance, your job is one of the more difficult ones, typically only getting involved if there is a problem. Hopefully people come and get a permit, and then they get an inspection, and we don't ever have to deal with it. But we all know that's not the case. So thank you all to all the different pieces of the puzzle that you contribute. to the community, ensuring that the residents have safe places to live, that are inspected, that we know are going to meet all of the guidelines and ordinances that city council has put forth. So thank you. We do have some council comments and questions. Mr. Blair.

Thank you, President Carlock. the building department obviously does outstanding work and we're incredibly proud to have you and Jody, thank you for taking all my calls and for being, you know, so positive about what is, you know, sometimes must feel like a losing battle sometimes when we're dealing with, you know, complaints and things like that. But the work that you do to maintain compliance is so important for quality of life and just the character of our city. So I deeply appreciate all the work that you put in and facilities. You know, we, our facilities need to feel inviting. They need to be comfortable. They need to appear well maintained because that kind of sets the scene for an interaction with the resident. And I'm always proud that our facilities are top tier. Um, as well as for our staff that work here on a daily basis, you know, city hall and the parks offices and the DPS garage, they need to be functional. They need to be reliable. Equipment needs to be dependable and we count on you guys to do that. So thank you very much. I do have one question. Um, in 2026 we were to redo the electric feeder for this building, which catastrophically failed a couple of years ago. Did that work get completed?

Actually, yes. Um, we just got confirmation from DTE on within the last 60 days that that line has been, um, was, was restored by them.

Excellent. That's great. Um, and then second question, um, one of the capital improvement items, I could not find it in the capital improvement plan. Uh, maybe I wasn't looking hard enough architectural improvements for city hall. I was hoping you could elaborate a little bit on that.

Sure. Um, you know, city hall one through a renovation 23 years ago. So it's, it's to kit get in front of some of the counters in the customer service areas are getting beat up and need to start getting replaced. And instead of coming through and, and I'm doing a massive overhaul and replacement, we're trying to, set, set, put monies in the budget now to do the one, the priority ones first and work through it. It's less impactful on the, on the budget. Um, and then we've got to redo some workspaces over in the engineering department.

When I, when I see architectural increase improvements, I think like facades and things like that. This sounds like wear and tear items more. Okay. So kind of along with like our carpeting and stuff like that, that's correct. Be freshening up. Okay, cool. That's all I've got. President. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Blair. Vice President Mangioli.

Thank you, President Clark.

Page 17. Page 17 of 35.

Yes. They talked about architectural improvements and what we're doing here in City Hall. No, because it was one of my questions. I also wanted to try and figure out what it was.

By the way, I forgot. How's Norwood's retirement working for the department? Is that making it easier or harder for you, Jeff?

Let's just say his replacement is doing very well.

It's different. It's John, right? John Kilburn. He inspected my furnace, did a great job. Sorry, Teresa.

No, no, it's okay. Thank you all. I was looking at the agenda and thinking, But these are the departments I really wanna ask questions about. If you thought the rest of you got questions before, just think about what I'm gonna ask the poor building department. And Jody, you deserve a star. You deserve your own little fireworks going off behind your head because when I see all the emails from residents that are talking about, Trader Joe's and the trucks behind Trader Joe's, and I don't know how many others, that you handle these so diplomatically with the residents. I'm hitting snooze at 6.30 in the morning, so the fact that you're able to get videos and talk to the truckers about you don't belong here is just thank you, thank you, thank you, and the team. My questions, yes, City Hall, you're going to put carpet down without moving cubicles? How do you do that?

Actually, depending on the type of carpet we go with, the cubicles can be raised up and they can get underneath them. A lot of the offices have carpet squares, so the removal of the old carpet isn't your traditional 12-foot rolls of product that go for 30 yards or something. So it's very feasible. It's something that's very common in the industry.

So are we just going to close City Hall for a day and say, oh, we're getting new carpet today and come back Monday?

Like Saturday or something. Yeah, OK. We've got to get ahead of it and get it started. And that's why we put that in the budget starting next year. We'll see what the best practice is and schedule a recording.

Okay. And I'll be interested in seeing how the countertops and the fogged windows look. I was at a doctor's office the other day and the glass they had at the counter was so crystal clear that some guy walked in and bashed his head right against the glass. So please make sure you put those little owls on the window so people don't walk into it.

Those prints were getting out of control.

Yes, exactly. My bigger thing is ordinances, enforceable ordinances, clout in the ordinances. I don't want residents to think I want to make this a police state that if they put their garbage cans in the driveway for too long, it's going to be an issue. But more a matter of, and I've talked about it at council meetings. We have some developers that may or may not be following some of the work and Jody's been sending me emails and I got Angelina's email and I'm grateful for it, but we need to make sure that there is something in the standards, the ordinances that give you teeth and the ability to not have to spend six months going from a green thing to a yellow thing to a red thing and then ticketing them and blah, blah, blah, especially when it's a major corporation that can say, okay, fine, I'll pay him a ticket, I don't care. How do we do that for you, and do you have the staff to be able to handle this?

Yeah, like I mentioned in the response, we have a process in place, and it goes for all the developments, and it could be residential developments as well as commercial. in part of that process is if there's special conditions for a site plan approval. Um, when the construction drawings hit my office, the first, one of the first things they do on review is they compare that submitted site plan with those to make sure it matches the site plan. But as the project nears completion and they're getting ready to try and get an occupancy, we can't issue an occupancy permit by ordinance until we have all the other departments signed off and approved. So if it's a, if it's an engineering requirement that's that they're deficient on, they have to fix that with the engineering and then engineering will give an approval for an occupancy. It even could be a temporary occupancy. And that same standard goes through with even planning. So whenever we have a request for a final inspection to occupy a building, we've, we've changed the workflow to notify the right departments that, Hey, we need an inspection out here. So then they go in and sign off, make sure the landscaping is, is installed. They could supposed to. Now, if it's the middle of January, you're not going to get landscaping. So they can ask grow that money through our ordinances that we have now. So, so, There are pro there are provisions we have in place that we feel that we are effective. So, um, but we, and when it comes to ordinances, we're always looking at the ordinances to see which ones need to be looked at, re updated, um, like we did when we did the property maintenance code and things of that nature.

Because it's not just the fees that I want. So in December, we get all the ordinances. And we're going to update the fee from $0.50 to $0.75 or $2 to $2.50. What about the words that go around it? Because I really want to make sure that you have the ability to say, I'm sorry, these findings that planning approves, that city council approves, they equal $1 million. And I'm sorry, you now need to put $1 million in an escrow account. Because the residents who watch a development being built and it's months between and weeks between, there's no trucks here, I'm not seeing anything. How do we let them know? and I know all of that takes budget and I just want to make sure that we are considering that as far as budget is concerned to make sure you have all the tools to hold a builder developer accountable for the things that we've given them permission because I don't know sitting up in City Council how many different ordinances or building requirements there are in order to justify finding number four of six. So I'm looking for you to help me understand what did I just do to you when I approved six findings on a development and I don't know what they mean. So if you need budget, even if it's just for training your staff to understand what that means, please let us know.

OK. We'll look into it. Right now, I think we've got a process in place that we've had success with. And even we have provisions in the construction codes that we actually can use as an enforcement mechanism, too, in the event they ignore us and say they move into their building. which we've had to use on occasion every now and then. So I think we've got a good enforcement mechanism currently in place.

So then what happens when we build a data center in our city? Do you have staff? current staff that knows what a data center looks like, can measure the sound, the heat, the water, all of those, or is this something else that as the city develops an ordinance that may or may not, you probably may with a set of strict guidelines for that data center, Do we need to have you look at the staff to say we need somebody that needs to either be trained in this or we need to bring somebody in or hire a consultant? Because if we're going to bring in data centers in some capacity, I'm looking to you to be able to say you can enforce that ordinance that council is going to work on with planning to say these things are okay. So please let us know because unintended consequences of our decisions need to be understood by us. If we put in any kind of development that suddenly you say, what in the world were they thinking? I'm going to ask you, why did you let us do that? So please make sure. OK. Door hangs. I want to triple, triple, quadruple the number of door hangs in our city because all those wonderful fiber companies, Easy Fiber and whoever knows what other. I am seeing so many complaints on social media between the one that went through a gas line, the ones that are digging up lawns. My house, I think I sent it to somebody on the team. I think it included the lawyer. By the way, I know I can't tell them no, but I want them to tell me when they're coming. Because six and a half years on city council, my husband comes in. Councilman Mongioli, what is that machine in my front yard and why are they here? We had no notice, no hang tag. There was Miss Diggs flags in my backyard, but the equipment was in the front yard and I didn't do Miss Diggs, so I'm figuring they did. But I'm hearing depending on what part of the, even my own subdivision, you have back of yard, easement areas, and then the front of yard right away, and the vendor gets to choose whether they're doing the backyard or the front yard. the neighbors didn't know that they, that it was even coming. So these, these fun folks that are coming with fiber that I can't say no to, but please again, let us know what can we do from a requirement standpoint to say the next time you approve somebody, please make sure you've approved these, this ordinance or these requirements so that they have to tell the residents by hang tags or some other method that they are coming in there and when. Because I think even Lindsay Wood has a new contraption in her front yard because they dug a hole and put the wires and she now has a service plate in her front yard that she didn't have three months ago. And I will turn it back to the president right now, and I'll go through the rest of my questions. But you guys do a fabulous job. You really do. The entire team. I can't tell you how many times I am talking to residents and praising what you do for us. I just want to make sure that we are not making your job more difficult in the long run and that we're giving you the resources that you need to do your job even better than what you're doing today. Thank you very much for all you do for us in the city. Thank you, President Carlock.

Thank you very much. Mr. Blair.

Thank you. I forgot to talk about inspections. I knew there's one more thing I wanted to bring up. We have roughly like 10-ish FTEs when it comes to inspectors. Does that sound about right, Mike?

Actually, we have eight full-time inspectors. CHRIS RODGERS. Eight full-time and then four part-time? MIKE BOYLE. We've got a list of part-time on-call that we use.

CHRIS RODGERS. So I notice we're hitting that 98%, 99% inspections completed within 24 hours. I was curious how much we're calling on our neighboring communities. I know we've got, we still share employees with inspection departments in neighboring cities.

Yeah, we actually have an interlocal inspection agreements with, um, uh, West Bloomfield, Shelby township. Um, and I believe we have Sterling as we do use West Bloomfield and Shelby township on occasion. Um, maybe once, twice at the most, and then we also reciprocating cover for them when they're, when they're shortstop.

I just want to make sure that that's remaining balanced, right? These are really high numbers and I want to make sure that we're not keeping those numbers at the expense of, you know, pulling other inspectors from other cities and we might not have to cause that's really high bar to keep.

Yeah, because you know, every now and then somebody wants to take a day off, maybe a vacation. I don't know why, but, You know, I think, you know, the interlocal agreements are effective. They're a great way to do business and keep customer service.

And while I was on that same page, I was just my jaw dropped at the first plan review. I'm just going to read this real slowly. So it sinks into everybody. Twenty twenty two. First full plan review completed within 15 days. Seventy six percent. Now, we had put in electronic plan review since then. June 2026, 97%. That's phenomenal.

Thank you.

That's phenomenal. And to be able to give that kind of customer service to developers who are bringing value to our city is outstanding. So keep up the good work. Thank you.

Well, it's great work by the team. It's just we come up with the ideas, we create the vision, and they do the work. So the team's really stepped up on that.

Is that electronic plan review? cause that huge jumper? Is there, are there other factors?

Actually, we added one extra step to the process at the very beginning that it contributed to that number jumping that high. And it just, uh, it's a two day turnaround on just a review of all the submitted documents and make sure everything's there before it would go through a 15 day review process to realize something's missing. Maybe half the stuff's missing and then it starts all over again. So that's great. That one extra step. was a big contributor to that improved time. CHRIS JERRAM, JR.: Very good. President Carlin, thank you.

CHRIS JERRAM, JR.: Thank you very much. Councilwoman Neubauer.

Thank you, President Kerlach. You guys don't have to answer now. But I have a question about, is there a way that we can kind of work together in the next couple months to figure out something about the e-bikes issue and an ordinance for the e-bikes? And I know that planning is working on that a little bit. I know the city of Rochester has done something. But in the last couple of weeks, there's been an uptick, at least on social media posts, about kids in our area that have gotten hurt. And I think one was recently hospitalized last week. and we see them everywhere and I don't want to delay too much and it would be helpful from the ordinance department to kind of tell us or at least planning or whoever, like how, How can we regulate little kids? Because it's not like we can pull over a six-year-old and be like, we're giving you a citation for $1,000. You know what I mean? So how would we do that to ensure the safety of our kids? And just to be clear, again, Vice President Mongioli mentioned data centers. Right now we're in a moratorium. We don't have any applications. We're working on ordinances. So any input would be helpful, but there's nothing that we know of that's coming. So I just want to make sure we put that out there. And that's why we passed the moratorium, so we can make sure we draft an appropriate, restrictive, and protective ordinance for our city. Also, Jody, I know you're probably sick of me. I send you on weird stuff being like this guy's property looks like poop. Can you go and check it or do this or whatever it is. I appreciate you always taking care of that and making sure that our city keeps looking great. Also for all the stuff you guys do with zoning, Board of Appeals and coming to the meetings and explaining stuff to us. There's a whole bunch of things that you do that

um i don't know if you're recognized for properly recognized for but we we see it it's not unnoticed and thank you very much so thank you thank you very much well that's all of the council comments and questions so again thank you all for everything you do so thank you thank you very much next up parks

Good evening, President Carlock, Vice President Mongioli, City Council, Mayor Barnett. I have with me today on my left, Dennis Andrews, who's our department deputy. And on my right, our parks manager, Kelly McBride. I have the old guard behind us now officially with Aaron Dobbs as our grounds manager. and Matt Einhauser, Natural Resources Manager, and Pat McKay, of course, as a Museum Manager, who also knows the oldest person in our cemeteries. So I'd like to get started in honor of America's 250th. We are going back to our roots, way back. We know the continent's history goes much farther, and the outdoors have played a crucial part since the beginning of time. Mastodons once roamed our lands, and we have proof at our museum, originally found right here in Rochester Hills near the Clinton River Trail. Taking a step forward in time, this area was originally inhabited by the Council of Three Fires, the Ojibwe, Ottawa, and Potawatomi. They utilize the local waterways such as the Clinton River and Paint Creek for fishing, traveling, and farming. What does this have to do with the budget? Our modes of transportation today are more wheel-based, so we are requesting to move forward with a rebuilt and expanded parking lot at the museum with design requested next year and construction in 2028. Rivers are still crucial to our society, we just don't think about them much. They provide the backbone that feeds our lakes, where our drinking water often comes from. Next year, we are requesting a coordinated river plan to actively prioritize restoration projects. The Eagles Landing project shown here was a reactive project done to protect Livernois and an electric pole. The project moved the river, adjusted flows, and hardened the banks with natural materials. As rivers move and create new paths, so do communities. Avon Township was established in 1835 with a township population of 1,630. Shown here is the Ferrymore Seed Farm from 1940, covering the area we now know as the Hampton Village Plaza, or Target Center, off Rochester and Auburn. Moving to present day, our city has grown and prospered, now at 78,000 population, showing the same Hampton Plaza location 85 years later. Our park system has expanded to keep up with the changing recreation needs, starting with the early days of park use in the Bloomer in the 1930s, to basketball, which has its origins at the YMCA in 1891, to the ever-growing new sport of pickleball. We now host over 1.7 million visits to our perk system every year. Our rail trails also have their origins in history with the Paint Creek Trail originally established as a Detroit and Bay City Railway in 1872. It eventually became Michigan's first rail trail with the formation of the Paint Creek Trail Commission in 1981. The old photo above is thought to have been from the Dutton Road area on the Paint Creek Trail. The original Michigan Airline Railway, built in 1880, eventually became the Clinton River Trail through the effort of several communities along the trail, shown here in full greenery. Budget-wise, this fall, DPS is coordinating repairs that will extend the useful life of bridges on the trails, and we will be looking at resurfacing options in the upcoming years. Industrialization brought other challenges and ways to deal with them. Today's playgrounds have their origins in these challenges. Children could work over 12 hours a day, and playgrounds were one of the few respites in a safe area that kept them from playing in the streets. The idea originally came forward in Germany in the 1850s called sand gardens to provide safe outdoor spaces for children to play and socialize. A Boston playground shown here in 1898 eventually evolved into the standard four S's, swings, seesaws, sandboxes, and slides. While safety standards have certainly changed, the core purpose is still there. Shown in the corner is the planned playground at Avondale Park being built as we speak. I think it literally started today. So thank you for that. The city prides itself on providing varied and creative play opportunities. As the city winds through replacing a series of old playgrounds, Bloomer is next up. While well maintained past their useful life, playground surfaces are peeling, and these four playgrounds are now difficult to find replacement parts. We look to replace all of Bloomer's playgrounds in 2027. Fishing hasn't changed much over time, but ease of access has. Thanks to Council's support, we developed a larger renovated fishing pier at Spencer Park. In the beginning, humankind played with fire. This year, we play with 21st Century Fire, our first-ever drone show celebrating America's 250th followed by fireworks. This family event, combined with our board and park activity, is the system's busiest at 480,000 visits last year. We've seen all throughout this presentation that society changes and grows over time. We are proud of our outdoor heritage, and we are moving into the future with Nowiki Park. Our 2027 request puts park operations plan in place with its active dog park, intense playground use, rentals in our new community room and pavilion, as well as our trail system. We are requesting one full time ranger and associated seasonal team to cover park operation. We're excited to get this park open with your support and provide for outdoor recreation needs a long time into the future. Our team, through the support of City Council, has been an integral part of building our nation by making community connections throughout our history, and we thank you for every grain of dirt. We are asking for your support tonight as we take a step into the outdoor future. And with that, we're available for any questions.

Thank you very much, Mr. Elward. You know, that's one of the things that... kind of drew us to the area was the parks. I'm probably the newest member of council that has moved to the city back in 2013. But lots of new parks since then as well, and improvements. And sitting up here, it is exciting to see all of the things that are coming as well. and the number of people that use these parks is impressive. And not just our residents, but residents from local communities as well. So thank you for all the work you and the entire team do with the parks. We do have some questions. Vice President Mangioli.

Thank you, President Carlock. So first, I want to thank Ken and Dennis for spending time with me on Friday to go through questions that I had on the Blueprint for Innovation and the direction of the Parks Department. So I'll ask you less questions today, but not by much. The Bloomer contract that we had with Oakland County. Yes. What happened with that? I thought we were all set and it was in our contract and they were paying us and we were covering staff and now they've changed their mind.

It was never a long-term plan. I think at some point they have, um, you know, they've expressed interest that they want boots on the ground as you know, it is a longterm leased park, um, for them and they're in transition and figuring that out. So that'll be, you know, a year to year type of discussion that we have with them. We have monthly meetings on the status of their property and our property and ways to jointly communicate. And so, you know, the, the, The first long-term lease, of course, was the big deal, and that is set, but it was always at some point they will want to essentially, quote, run it themselves, but I think they're going back and forth at this point on what they want to do.

That was pretty fast for them to be able to, within a year, decide. We can do it ourselves.

Since they've told us that in the next meeting, they've said, well, we'll get back to you. We're still going back and forth. We're negotiating a little bit. They're doing a lot of things with Oakland County Parks all around the region and they're really trying to figure out where they can put resources first, staff-wise.

You know how I feel about Oakland County and they're changing dynamics in our contracts. Maybe I can't put an ordinance with an escrow account for the county, but I'd love to make sure we have some teeth in it that if you decide to back out, you're still paying us. um, for things. So I don't, I know they paid us.

Yeah, I'm sorry. They paid us a substantial amount for the 50 year lease. And you know, we have the ability to, to back out of that, um, based on a bunch of different criteria. Um, but, but we had never signed nor really was the intent to sign a longterm, um, maintenance agreement with them to do that area.

I just don't want to find out suddenly we have neon signs across from Yates Cider Mill with Clinton River Park, Clinton River Park, park here kind of thing as opposed to dealing with the aesthetics that we have for our parks here in Rochester Hills. I know they have to come back to us for permission according to our contract. But they change their mind with contracts. So I just keep that because that is another one of the city council's strategic objectives is to monitor our relationship with other partners to make sure. And we talked about that more for the sheriff's contract. But you've got a contract with them, too. And I don't want to find out that we're suddenly got neon signs at the corner by Yates Cider Mill.

And we're right there. So even if we're not doing the maintenance services, we're going to be reviewing the properties and inspecting and holding them to their part of the contract. And there is a, there is a 90 day out if we, if we disagree. Okay. So,

Yeah, but I think we have to give him a chunk of money back, so prorated? Oh, no, it wasn't. We didn't have to give him money back. All right, cool. Beekeeper property. Is there a design, because that was another one of my questions, the beekeeper property. It's not green space. It is a park. Are we doing something with beekeeper anytime soon?

In the budget, we have a request to put together a concept plan to look at that long-term and for council to consider in future CIP budget type of issues. That's what's in the budget for next year is to look at that park specifically. Again, there were some ideas for that when we purchased the property and submitted for the grant that paid for about half of it. The main purpose is a trailhead essentially with some low access use.

We're just going to get an idea and then state it on a shelf until we have room in the budget to do anything with it?

We'll get an idea and a rough eyeball estimate price, probably not a full engineer's estimate at that point, but that will give us enough of a target to be able to come back to council and fit it in as we look at our five-year master plan and other things too.

How do you feel having so much less in the budget for the parks this year compared to Nowiki? I mean, I know you're approved Nowiki and you're going to spend all that money, but there's no other huge chunk of money going to parks. It's maintenance now. It's parking lots. It's bathrooms. It's none of the glory things. It's day-to-day stuff.

How do I feel? It's nice to have a break from large projects for a year or so on that. We're excited to get the park up and running too. The mayor just nodded his head, so maybe not. It's going to be a big focus to get that park up and running too. That's really what we're looking forward to. It's a much different park than any of our other parks. Kelly here has been already diving into the weeds on that. Um, park ranger will be helping with that. Assume that's approved in the budget here, um, starting next year. So it'll be a different challenge because that park brings some different challenges than any place else.

So we've got a park ranger in there, but the process for admission to the dog parks, and I know you said no parking fee for Nowiki Park, but that process for getting access to the dog parks, will you come back to Council with that proposal so that we know what it is before the park opens?

There will be some elements. I believe in essentially the connection, the FOB system to the dog park. Mr. Andrews here knows the details of that. I expect some of it will come back to council on that.

Yes, especially later in the year when we look at fees and what we're proposing to be charged, we'll be bringing that forward to council.

So December, when we do all the fees piece of it. Okay. Because it would be nice to, you know, be able to recoup some of the cost. I mean, never enough of that cost, but at least maintain the dog park area through the fees of using the dog park. Last one I had, the Van Heusen Museum, the parking lot. Yes, Pat, I want you to pave the parking lot. I know everybody looks at it like, what do you mean I have to park on the grass as opposed to on the asphalt? So what do we have to do for the Van Heusen Museum parking lot to say it's okay to do that?

We're looking at design next year, assuming it's approved in the budget, with essentially construction in 2028. There are some challenges, as you pointed out, with that site. It's in some ways in a flood plain. Where to put any expanded parking is another question on that, and it is also in the city of Rochester, so that involves a little bit of other... other processes as well. Um, but you know, it, it'll take a good six months to design and look at different options for what we do, but we do want some additional parking over there and just not sure where is best yet.

I would invite you to come to this sister city meeting where we have three of the Rochester city council members on it to talk to them about the options before it gets to their council. So, Thank you. I'm looking, as you know, I live across the street from Nowiki. I am really looking forward to that being opened next year. I know the mayor has said April, right? So April and early April. Early April. Early April. And I know Clerk Scott is looking to use the community building for November. So you've got a busy year ahead of you at Nowiki Park. So thank you and thank the team. And I know Mr. Einhauser, we're going to have to talk more about deer at some point because We're getting more complaints about somebody's hostas being eaten. So we'll have to deal with our wild animals in our city as well. So again, thank you very much. Thank you, President Carlock.

Thank you very much. Next up, Mr. Blair.

Thank you. Can we get the naming standing committee to work on the name beekeeper property? I feel like that project is gaining enough traction that we should stop calling it that. Um, next questions regarding, um, our park passes. Um, I had sent a question about, uh, you know, perhaps trying to sell those, you know, at large gatherings, festival, the hills, things like that. Um, because that's a great revenue stream, it's convenient for the residents so they don't have to come to city hall. when we start talking about the dog park, like, does that interact somehow with the parks pass? Like, do we have a parks pass that's, you know, also a dog pass and like shaped like a bone or something? Like, is that, I'm serious. Like, is that an add on?

It's a short answer. We're, we're looking at options now. Um, it makes sense to have an add on perhaps to the, to the annual pass process and, but we don't have any of those locked in and you'll see those recommendations come in the fall. But that's certainly something we're looking at now.

I know we've got a full time ranger. Are they typically at that building? Like could somebody buy a dog park license like site on scene at the park or does that have to be a city hall or is it kind of a mix of both?

Um, yes. So the first part there, you know, they're an onsite ranger, so they're, they're meant to be at the park. Um, most of the time that they're working there are covered with, with other seasonal staff as we do our other parks that have staff. Um, the, the question of selling like a daily pass is the more challenging one and that this staff request does not include staff because then you're talking about having to have staff there.

I don't mean a daily pass. I just mean to like, if you want to buy your annual password or can you just do it at the park?

As of now, we're not planning on that. Um, the staffing request does not include that. Um, so if, you know, if some, if city council is, is seriously wants to consider that we could, we could look at the options.

We sold the parking passes at innovation Hills for a couple of few weeks after the fees were implemented. And I think, you know, as the word of that dog park spreads, It would be very convenient for residents. I can tell you I've knocked all the doors in District 2. Everybody's got a dog. Everybody's got a dog in District 2. And we've been getting a lot. I'm sure Vice President Mangioli has been getting a lot of questions. We're pestering you guys for answers to this dog park stuff because we're getting peppered with questions. So the more information we have, the better. And it would be, I think, very, this is going to be a tremendous amount of interest. I think it's going to be more than, it's going to be like Innovation Hills foot traffic. It's just going to be paw traffic. And anything we can do to make it less work for the staff and easier for the residents, I want to make sure we've explored that.

There are some challenges with that that are much different than annual passes. And so we need to make sure, number one, that the environment is safe and that individuals are controlling their dogs. They need to sign a waiver. They need to have a dog license. They need to have their correct vaccinations. All that's a little bit more complicated than taking an annual pass. I'm not saying we couldn't do it on site, but right now the operations plan is that we're not looking at that.

Well, that just leaves me with my favorite performance metric in the entire budget book. Are we on track with only 65 stumps ground so far in 2026? You think we're going to hit that 100 projected? What happens if we don't? Matt, what are we going to do? Yeah. Keep up the great work, guys. We appreciate it. Thank you very much. Back to you, President.

Thank you very much, Mr. Blair. Mr. Scalzi.

Thank you, President Carlock. First of all, I want to commend your park staff. My company works with them. They're really outstanding. They're friendly, they're helpful, the parks look great. My question is, how has it been working out with the parking? credit card kiosk that you put in Bloomer because the signs that you had up, even though they were there and helpful, a lot of my customers had a hard time navigating the QR code. So I was glad to see that those kiosks were up because I went over there, I'm like, it's pretty straightforward. Know your license, put in your credit card, and you're good to go. So I just want to know if you guys have been getting feedback on that.

Yeah, they've only been in a few weeks. Kelly has probably more details.

Lots of details, but no, they're working out great. It's not like we're getting like a ton of use out of them. I would say like 10 to 15 transactions per day at each of those kiosks on the weekends or a lot more at Innovation Hills, but it's really providing an accessible option. And that was one of the biggest reasons we pursued that is because we had quite a few community members who don't have cell phones or it just found it difficult, like you mentioned. So we are getting a lot of positive feedback and it helps our park staff as well when,

people are upset about having to pay to park sometimes and we can be like well it's a lot easier if you go to this kiosk so it's helping us move over some of those relations as well thank you very much mr scousey uh mr mayor yeah thank you president carlock and uh mr scousey thank you uh for those comments as well i i echo them our parks team is the front door to the city for a lot of people probably parks fire dps are are the folks most likely to interact with residents and guests and we get very regular compliments about the parks team and and i just would say this i think the council certainly knows this parks is is really one of the great differentiating factors between our city and everyone else around us we really i think have long invested in our parks network to make it the best. And I can tell you how many times I'm in conversations with people and they'll say, particularly, Mayor, our family went to Innovation Hills and they'll tell a great story. Our family was in town for the holidays and we took them to, and we had an incredible time. And it becomes something that we're really widely known for, for excellence in park delivery. And I want to be clear, although I joked about it being ready in April, it is a, late summer fall opening actually for- Very much. I appreciate that. Somebody's writing this down and I'll say they said April, but they didn't deliver it, so it is a little bit later than that. But really, really proud of our team. Then just to make one comment about great comments from Council Member Mongioli about Bloomer. That has been a really great relationship. Anything they give us truly is gravy because We're there. So the longer, every month that they pay us is sort of like a bonus. We got our $4 million at the beginning, which they can't claw back. And we're really dealing with Oakland County Parks, which is a slightly different organization than the other parts of the county that we've worked with in the past. And it's been a really good relationship, and they have resources that they can plunk in. when we don't. So I'm really proud of our parks team, really proud of and appreciate, I should say, the council's support for parks because we've created a really legendary vision for what we think parks can be, sort of redefining it for what a city our size can do, and we've executed it brilliantly. And in every little Detroiter mamas around Michigan, every single organization that's out there, we are the gold standard for parks. No one does it better than us. So thanks.

Thank you very much. That's all the council comments and questions. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up, almost as exciting, DPS.

By the way, just before we start, let me take this opportunity to formally introduce you to the newest director in the city, It is an honor to introduce you to someone you know well, Tracy Ballant, who is now the first female DPS director in the history of the city, one of only a few in the state, and has the confidence of her team, myself, and excited to welcome her officially to the ranks of directorship. So welcome, Tracy.

Thank you. Good evening, President Carlock, Vice President Monjoli, City Council, and Mayor Barnett. Joining me tonight are some members of our leadership team, Angie Heisinger, Lori Hamilton, Leon Ludeman, Nick Watterson, and Chris Shepherd. We are here tonight to share our proposed budget presentation. As our nation celebrates its 250th anniversary this year, we are reminded that the American dream was physically built from the ground up. The pioneers came to this area in Michigan, cleared land, and built a future, understanding that public infrastructure, even in the form of dirt trails and hand dug wells, is the essential foundation a community needs to thrive. Although not quite 250 years old, the city of Rochester Hills has evolved from those dirt trails to an advanced road pathway network. Here's a look at John R. Road in the early 1920s compared to the roundabouts we have now. Additionally, wells have been replaced by an expansive water system that feeds the majority of our city. While the demands of keeping a community functioning have dramatically evolved, the core mission of our department remains the same, supporting the health, safety, and heart of our community.

True infrastructure isn't just about the roads we build, it's about the path that guides us forward. Since the construction of our first dirt roads in the 1820s, we have evolved into a modern network of engineered corridors and multi-use pathways that bridge neighborhoods, improve accessibility, and support alternative transit. Continuing our commitment to a more resilient city, we will also install several hawk signals and rapid flashing beacons in 2027, ensuring our community moves forward safely for generations to come. Our routine maintenance programs form the foundation of our infrastructure strategy by targeting worn out slabs and aging asphalt. We extend the lifespan of our local streets, prevent costly emergency repairs and keep the daily commute seamless by paving Childress Avenue. This year we have delivered a well designed upgrade that ensures reliable access for residents and emergency services alike. Next year we will continue to improve our roads and pathways, ensuring pedestrian safety and securing a smoother ride for thousands of drivers.

Our underground infrastructure is just as vital to this community as the roads we drive on every day. We have come a long way from the era of private wells and wooden pipes. Today, our community is backed by a robust water system which distributes water from the Great Lakes Water Authority. To ensure our residents receive the superior water quality they deserve, we dedicate millions of budget dollars towards replacing our infrastructure every year. Along with several other projects going on this year, the city is updating the water main that serves some of the most critical customers in our community, including the Henry Ford Hospital, Avon Towers, and Rochester High School. In 2027, we will see even more major improvements to our water and sewer infrastructure. city has made a large effort towards modernization through upgrading our water meters using advanced reading technologies we have replaced outdated manual tracking with more precise data this evolution eliminated the guest work for families provided absolute billing transparency and continues to strengthen community confidence that we've proudly built over the decades Our environmental stewardship doesn't just stop at infrastructure. Our dedicated water resources team invest significant effort into managing floodplains, mitigating stormwater runoff, and preserving natural features like the beautiful ponds right here in front of City Hall.

We have transformed our GIS asset management and SCADA programs from basic tools into an interconnected framework that improves efficiency in our daily work. With improved tracking and infrastructure visibility, we can proactively manage the life cycle of our critical assets. This tech-driven approach ensures strict regulatory compliance, strengthens system security, and maximizes the lifespan of our infrastructure. To match our growing community, our fleet division has transitioned from basic upkeep to managing a complex modern fleet. Through advanced technical training and proactive maintenance, they keep our essential vehicles running, ensuring our frontline teams can safely serve our city without interruption.

As we celebrate America's 250th birthday, we have a unique opportunity opportunity to reflect on our progress. The spirit of American innovation has always relied on a foundation of strong infrastructure. Over decades, the Rochester Hills Department of Public Services has evolved, but our core mission remains unchanged to protect the health, safety and welfare of our community. The budget we are presenting today is more than a maintenance plan. It is an investment in continuing the 250-year American legacy of building a better, safer, and more prosperous city for the next generation. Behind our infrastructure is a dedicated team of over 70 men and women who serve our community every day to ensure Rochester Hills remains a premier destination to live, work, and raise a family. To celebrate America's milestone, our team lined up alongside our red, white, and blue sewer trucks, embracing the smell and spirit of our commitment to serving this city day in and day out. On behalf of the entire Department of Public Services, we thank you for your continued support. Happy birthday, America. And we are happy to answer any questions you may have.

CHRIS RODGERS, Thank you very much. Behind ordinance, I think DPS is the second most contacted department by me. As a user of the roads, it's very obvious when things are going wrong. And the department is very visible as far as the services that you provide. And residents are thankful when projects are completed. They're frustrated when projects are going on. But at the end of it, we have nice new roads. In my neighborhood, we're having an entire road replaced right now that was in dire need. But it's short-term. Crooks intersection. Three weeks. I didn't believe the mayor when he told me three weeks at all. And three weeks to the day, you got it done. And it was... A big project. I rode my bike down there just to kind of see in the middle of it. And I was shocked at how much work was completed. But it's not just roads. It's water. I use water every day. I like to flush my toilet occasionally. And you know, occasionally. So all of these things that DPS does that are not sexy are vital to the community in keeping the community running. So we thank you all for all of the work that you do to make sure the residents have the services we need. We do have some council comments and questions. We'll start with Vice President Mangioli.

Thank you, President Carlock. Again, thank you. Congratulations. During our break, I was corrected. It turns out all but two of our directors have been hired from within the staff here. Tracy, you're not as unique as I thought you were, but you are the latest one. Congratulations. Thank you. Working at a company that they have recently been not hiring from within, but hiring from without. it's very encouraging to staff to be able to see that you can work your way through the levels of leadership and development within our within our city and eventually get to where you are so thank you for being that example to our staff so what percentage of the budget is dps mr snyder i'm going to say it's it's a huge chunk by the time you do water and sewer and and roads and it's like

I think it was almost like 20% of the budget, but then there's also the capital side too. So it's probably 20% of our operating budget. And then I believe, Oh, I would say you're well over half of the capital plan. So probably, Probably getting pretty close to 40% of the budget is just DPS.

Is this team here. So as you can imagine. So thank you, because there were pages of questions that I had in here for DPS. I will only highlight a couple of them. First, I know you said the dirt barn wasn't necessary to do it right away. but I am worried about the safety of our staff. So if there are things that need to be done to protect the safety of our staff, please make sure we're prioritizing those appropriately because if they can't work efficiently and effectively or get hurt, then it impacts the rest of the services that we're able to offer the community. So anything like that, please make sure you come back to us and let us know because staff is the number one safety person group in my mind here.

Absolutely.

The water meters. I know we talked about replacing the water meters. It may be a while before you do the water meters, but just like the other discussions we've had about technology and stuff, there were people years ago who, when we said we were going to do the radio frequency water meters, that they were just like, nope, I'm going to put aluminum foil around it and you can't read my meter. So I just want to make sure if there's an option for us to give those folks who don't want electronic waves in their house that we give them an option.

So, so, and actually how we're reading the meters. Now we are reading, reading them digitally. The only difference is we're driving through the neighborhoods and the car is picking up the communication from the, um, from the homes, from the MXU on the outside of the home. So with an AMI, it's actually pulling that information from the same meter, from the same MXU, but it's bringing it directly to City Hall where we have more real-time data available.

Okay. We need to be able to explain this to residents when it's time. Of course. So good old Gliwa, yay. As somebody who lived in the area that had the two boil water alerts, so we couldn't flush our toilets, at least for one of them. I just wanna make sure, how do we, so accountability seems to be a theme for some of my things. how do we hold Gliwa accountable for not providing continuous service to our community, even if it's only for two days or a week? There has to be some way in which they can put systems in place so that when there's a voltage surge that we don't have to have boiled water for two days. What can we do with Gliwa?

sure as you know they're a separate water system it's a also very large water system but we do have very good communication with gliwa and they are always inviting different communities different member partners to be part of like their cip development we just had a meeting today with members of gliwa about one of their stations and we're ever since May, I think our communication has improved significantly with them and we are trying to communicate back to them how it's impacting us because I think being a larger system, they're not always aware of how it's affecting Rochester Hills. So I think that communication has definitely helped and just to keep communicating to them about the issues that we're having.

Okay, so just like I'm willing to call out developers who are not following up on the things that we've said them. So thank you, Angela. I wanna make sure that we're, I'll call out Gliwa every city council meeting too, if they're not finding ways to make sure that we are getting consistent quality water in our community. I think, was it Novi, Walled Lake area two years ago had a huge water main break and now suddenly they're getting a $14 million project going on in their community. I mean, a massive investment from GLIWA. why aren't they doing that for us? How, how much do I have to stop my feet and call them out in order to, for us to get something?

Yeah. And they're definitely looking into improvements and obviously the situation in may really opened up their wise eyes of how critical the infrastructure and that specific line to our communities is. So I know they're looking into it. There's, they're putting plans, um, doing inspections, different kinds of things to hopefully that'll move along quicker now.

Hopefully. Quickness was also a theme from some of my other questions about, I know we have segments of pipe being replaced throughout the city. And I'd asked you about, well, why don't we just do, you know, do a corner, do a quadrant, do a whole area. And you've done Brewster and old perch and, and, parts of Avon. I just a lot of our city is 35 to 50 plus years old. We're going to have a lot of pipes that are going to start having maintenance issues if age is the criteria for that challenge. So I just want to make sure that we are budgeting appropriately, not just this year, but future years to enable us to be proactive instead of reactive and subdivisions that need to be updated because of aging pipes. And I want to thank clerk Scott subdivisions older than mine. And we're in the same general area. Um, So how do, how do we be more proactive in replacement of water pipes?

Sure. Uh, it's a good question. So probably 10, 15 years ago, we just, we started doing that. So we were annually replacing, um, see in 2021, we replaced about four miles. It was two subdivisions. 2024 was five and a half miles. Um, it was two subdivisions. So as Joe knows, I think we're usually between maybe, five and a half million to $8 million a year in the water main replacement project. So that goes back several years that we, um, with your approval, obviously that we have been doing that and we're continuing that this year we are focusing a little bit more on improvements on, um, the PRVs and the, uh, booster station. But we have this, we kind of have a 10 year outlook. that we keep adding to this spreadsheet. And it is adding, looking at the subdivisions, age, material, pressure, all of that is taken into consideration and we're putting in multiple subdivisions each year to replace the water main.

So I'm going to have to set up some time with you to go see a PRV and the booster station by Adams High School that's there. That's great. Just to tour. A couple of years ago, I went with Mr. Elwert, went around and looked at all the parks and understood why we needed new parks. Now it's time to understand the water system within our city. I would love that. And which brings me to my last question, President Karlic. The fleet. We are investing a lot in the fleet this year. Thank you very much for doing that. When Councilman Morita was here, she would ask, hey, can we get pictures? So when you get those new trucks or vehicles or whatever is an appropriate way of describing them, can you like send us a picture and say, look, we got a walk behind Broome Inn and this is what it is. Next we'll take pictures. Okay, great. That would be great because this picture here of the red, white, and blue trucks is wonderful and I love seeing all our trucks at tons of trucks every year. That's great. So just seeing those pictures and when you came in and told us about the street sweepers, there were questions out on social media about street sweepers and people were asking, I didn't know we had this and I could say, well, we just bought two more and we do it twice a year and it's to keep your streets clean and get those chemicals out of there. So your information is very timely and it gets shared by many of us on council to the community. So we can just offset concerns that are out there on why are we doing this and why are and what's the money being spent on. So thank you very much. Thank you to the team for the great job that you do. And I will contact you, Tracy, about going to see some PRVs and the booster stations. Sounds great. Thank you very much. Thank you, President Carlock.

Sounds exciting.

You can join us. You're invited. Pass. Mr. Blair.

Just a whole variety of things. Didn't realize we had a street called Rochester Water Works Road. So I just totally randomly stumbled upon that looking at Google Maps while we were talking about water infrastructure. So I guess we got a pumping station on Water Works Road, which is pretty cool. The Dirt Barn. Pretty sure I ate lunch when I was coming back from Traverse City at a place called the Dirt Barn. Passive system. If I'm not mistaken, the water meters, they're interrogated by electronics in the car. They don't emanate radio frequency at all times. They don't have batteries. They don't plug in. When we read the meter, we zap them with a radio wave. And then as quick as that happens, we're onto the next house. Correct? Correct. New system will operate that same way. Yeah. So they're the same.

A lot of the meters are older and they're currently being updated, but it's the same meters and MXU.

Now, I've got the box that's on the outside of my house with a cable that goes inside the meter. Are we replacing just that box, or do we have to send a meter tech into each home

It's part of this upgrade just through routine maintenance. The meters, some of these meters need to be upgraded. So it's, that's what we're, we might start aggressively doing it quicker if possible. Um, but it's a, it's just an upgrade of the meters, but it's, um, a lot of the meters and the MX use it are already in. We'll work with the AMA AMI system.

Okay, so I've got a question. So one of the issues I've got with, I've got a separate meter for my irrigation, and ever since I moved in, it rattles just a little bit. It rattles just a little bit when my irrigation system is running. If DPS comes out to replace that meter, I can assume I'm getting new technology and they're going to replace both of my meters. Is that how you guys would do it?

They'll look at it. They do take that into consideration when they're scheduling your appointment to see if you need to replace your, um, both meters. I know that they do look at that.

Okay. Last question. Um, it's been about a year with our new SCADA system and I'm curious how that's been performing. That was a huge investment is over $3 million.

Is that meeting all of our needs and then some, so actually I would say just within the last month, couple of weeks, it's 100% active, right? So it started, we started a year, year and a half ago to implement it, and so now it's 100% functioning, the new system, and it is amazing. Immediately, I noted they have just information right at their hands. It's accurate information. We're able to monitor flows a lot quicker than we had before, but it's excellent, and we thank you very much.

And I'm sure that we're doing everything possible MIS wise to make sure that we don't have a colonial pipeline type incident here. We're tightly controlling access and changes to the way the infrastructure operates. There's layers to do those types of things. There is excellent. Happy to hear that back to you, president. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Um, Can we schedule a meeting for us to come to the garage and see all of the equipment we've bought over the last decade? I like giving tours.

I just saw that last week.

Show us the new fuel island that we're going to get, all that stuff. I'll reach out to you and get something scheduled. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you very much for everything you and the team does. Congratulations again, Tracy.

Thank you. Thank you, everyone.

I can bore you with some DPS details here real quick. I have a chance to crunch some numbers. So DPS operations, the people, the maintenance and everything else that goes on a daily basis, right around $60 million. That equates to just roughly 30% of the budget. and all the capital projects proposed for 2027 total $30 million between all of DPS, which is really 75% of our capital request. Um, that comes up to right around 14% of the budget. So he had those all up together right around 44% of the city budget is DPS. And now we come to the other part of the budget, public safety, which represents, Where were we at here? Right about 20% of the budget between police and fire. So we saved the big guns for last. Nice pun.

We good? You want more? Good evening, City Council, President Carlock, City Council members, Mayor Barnett, and residents of Rochester Hills. I'm Captain Paul Workman. I'm here to discuss our 2027 budget proposal for the Sheriff's Department. Our staffing numbers remained unchanged this year. Law enforcement, as you know, is a proud tradition and the cornerstone of every safe, thriving community. Pictured on this slide is a local command staff. However, the credit of maintaining our American tradition belongs to the 61 row patrol deputies and staff members that I have that do the hard work every day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. While calls for service declined by approximately 6% in 2025, overall demand remained consistent with our 10-year average. That reflects something very American at its core, and that is that we have a community that continues to trust and rely on its law enforcement professionals. We want to keep that going well into the future. Group A crimes increased slightly in 2025 but are still below our 10 year average. While any increase deserves our attention, the broader trend remains encouraging. As we mark our 250 years, we continue to live in one of the safest communities in the entire country. We understand that public safety is never a finished product. It requires vigilance, commitment, and strong partnerships with the people that we serve. I'm very proud to share that Group B crime statistics continue to decline this year and are now at one of the lowest levels we've seen in the past 10 years. The American alarm system has come a long way from a porch light and a good neighbor. Modern alarm systems continue to generate about 3% of our total call volume. However, I would like to highlight that in 2025 our response to accidental or false alarm calls are at its lowest point ever recorded. One of the two capital investments we're making this year include upgrading our current parking structure from the assembly line to the modern patrol fleet. American progress has always been driven by practical improvements. This redesign replaces an outdated layout with one built for the vehicles that we use today. This change will allow for our current vehicles to park in the carport, uh, backwards in reverse so that we can back out without having accidental property damage and we can respond to calls quicker, and safer. This is consistent with best practices in law enforcement. Our second capital improvement project includes replacing two 20 year old mountain bikes with modern E bikes from horseback patrols to today's technology. American law enforcement is always adapted to the community it serves. These E bikes will improve deputy's access to paths and parkways or parks and pathways while helping address growing E bike safety concerns. Lastly, safe homes, strong neighborhoods, and trusted public servants have always been a part of our American promise. In Rochester Hills, that promise remains strong today. These numbers are not just statistics. They reflect families who feel safe in their homes, neighbors who trust their community, and deputies who work every day to keep it that way. America was built by people willing to pull in the same direction. That same spirit of service and partnership continues here in the city of Rochester Hills. I want to thank you again for standing with the Oakland County Sheriff's Office in supporting the work that keeps our community safe. I'm asking you to approve this year's budget, and although I know there won't be any, I'm here for questions.

I think you're wrong. You might want to open your notebook back up. I'll get the pen out. Yeah, no, thank you for everything you and all the deputies and detectives do for keeping the city safe. As the numbers say, everybody I talk to in the city feels safe in their homes. They feel safe out and about. And that's not by coincidence. that's planned. You know, every day you have a plan for your team, and that includes ensuring that we, the residents, are safe. And even though, you know, speedy, speedy Mac Neubauer over here.

She's only stopped three times last month, so we're making progress.

That's not true. Only once.

Yeah. No, but we do appreciate everything you and the team are doing. Thank you. And we do have some council comments and questions, if you are surprised, Vice President Mongioli.

I'm not the only one, though. So at least I'm not the only one. And of 35 pages of questions, you only have a page and a quarter. So you got away easy, except on that whole contract thing. We're good. They're not increasing, Mr. Snyder. The county's not increasing. We're not going to see any more fees, at least for the month of August.

There is a contractual increase starting in 2027.

But nothing more than what was already planned, at least according to this month's discussion.

I will not attempt to speak for Oakland County proper. I will say that I have heard of no increases or no surprise increases at all.

Your team is worth the investment, which is why last year the city council made the agreement to increase our contribution to make sure that we had the staff that we needed and to keep our city as safe as it is. So it's good to see the numbers going down. I really appreciate that. I wanna thank Mr. Blair because he puts up regular announcements about scams. And a lot of times those scams are IT ones, but we've been having recently on social media, there's been people saying about folks coming door knocking. One came to my house today saying, I'm with the energy department and I'm here to inspect your attic to see if you qualify for additional insulation to bring you up to today's building standards. I have him on recording with my video doorbell. I went out there and I looked at his badge and I said, thank you very much. I'm on city council. No, I don't need you. But it's important for us to let the residents know that when somebody comes to their door saying, hey, let me inspect your attic. Don't let them. I think of the family that was in the subdivision north of me in Bridgewood Farms last year that had the jewelers. It's bad. Don't let people you don't know into your house. Sharing that message in a positive way, would be very important in our community because there's been a number of people around the city going and knocking doors, whether legitimate or not, don't let them in your house. So how do we get that message out to the residents?

Yeah, I think we do a pretty decent job of doing that. Now we have a, one of our, the deputies that are signed, there's a community liaison deputy. So he does a lot of meetings and educational events around the city. We get the information out. We've done things with the mayor at OPC with relation to scams. Education is right. The first key, this is not new. Some of the scams are getting a little bit more complex with, you know, AI and things like that. But I think education is where it starts. And I think we do a good job of getting that out as best as possible through social media, through our community liaison deputy, and we're willing to go any place that will have us to talk about it.

Okay. So we just let the HOAs know. You'll come and talk to them, any community group that's out there.

Our community liaison deputy does it almost daily.

OK, great. That is good to know. And I know we've talked to a variety of people about our whole e-bikes, scooters. Hey, let's, yeah. I want the ordinance group to tell us how do we put an ordinance together relative to e-bikes and scooters to make sure we're not They're not using them safely when they're driving, pulling out of driveways into a street, driving in the middle of the street without helmets, no lights. I worry so much about their safety in our community. So if there's anything you can do to help us get an ordinance quickly before the kids get back to school, before parents start buying these items for the holidays, that we can tell them, if you're going to buy a scooter, please buy the helmet that goes with it and make sure they're over 12 years old and so on and so on, because that is truly the next safety concern that I would have in this community.

Yeah. And like with, uh, scams, I think education is a large piece to that. Some of the, um, parents, I don't even think are aware that they may be doing something wrong. So I think education balanced with enforcement is the way to go. And I know the mayor's taken the lead on some of this stuff and he's set up a group of us that get together to talk about how we can educate and get that information out. So, um, again, we're, we're trying to get the information out. We'll meet with, whoever we need to, and as far as the ordinances go, we'll work with you to get the best ordinance we can.

My concern is there are other neighboring communities that are coming out with ordinances or restrictions faster than we are, and therefore we'll be trailing as opposed to leading in this effort, and there might be inconsistencies. So if you're in Rochester, it's one thing, but if you're Hills, another, and it's the school districts, a third one, and heaven forbid you go into Shelby or Auburn Hills and it's, You've got different variations. So trying to get something that's consistent, regardless of where you're using this motorized vehicle, it would be important to get that out there sooner than later. Fair enough. Thank you and your team for keeping us safe. I really appreciate it. Thank you, President Carlock.

Thank you very much. Speedy McNubauer.

Thank you, President Carlock, for that. And just in case you're checking your records, I got pulled over once this month. So this month, yeah. Yes. First of all, thank you for everything you guys are doing. Regarding the case that Vice President Mangioli brought up about the jewelers and there was a recent conviction for the wife on the conspiracy charge. Thank you for being strategic on how you guys brought the charges. You know, that's that's good work to make sure that was after the convictions of the primary. And I do follow the dockets, the criminal dockets in the district in Oakland County District Court and at Circuit Court. And it's good to see that the things that are going through there, a lot of them are not from Rochester Hills because we are such a safe community and that's because of you guys. I just want to say that fire brought us a treat.

We don't have the budget.

Very nice. Oh, is that what it is? Well, you can talk to Oakland County for that.

You control their budget and the county sets up our contracts.

Yeah. Well, you can thank Oakland County for that. I think we paid our part.

I think that you're probably more giving than the county is with the Sheriff's Department.

Well, next time I'll give you a loan, but I'm just saying fire did bring us. um something nice and special so fair enough yeah just saying all right thank you thank you for everything for everybody next time all right or at least a better sticker i mean your sticker doesn't even fit in our lanyard and it says junior i don't want to be a junior everywhere i go i took my pen out so i'll write down

Stuff for board.

But thank you so much for everything you guys do. You have our support. I've talked to you before about trying to get the resource officer back into our schools, a consequence of the budget cuts from Oakland County. Anything that we could do to support the police department as you guys support us, we would really, really appreciate. Let us know and we'll do our part, anything that you guys need. Thank you so much. Thank you for also providing us the education that we need so we can provide it to the community. I did send you some questions. Hopefully, once I get them answered, I can share that with everybody.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. I'm going to write down some notes with my sweet Oakland County Sheriff's pen right now.

Just so you know.

There you go. I got it at the block party. Next up, Mr. Scalzi.

Thank you, President Kerouac. I guess my biggest concern is our older residents being scammed. That happened to my parents. My father lost $5,000. He was embarrassed after the fact that he got taken. What does Oakland County do to safeguard against that? Do you see that as a trend that's going up, a trend that's going down, or it's just staying where it's at?

Uh, I don't know that I can answer to the trend. I'd have to look at the data. I don't think that we're getting any more right now than we haven't in the past, but I don't want to give you a positive answer on that. Um, I will say, look, my, my mother-in-law was scammed as well. So, um, it's hit home for, for us as well. So, um, education again is the biggest piece. We try to get out and do it. Um, but we do have detectives assigned, uh, in that are 90% of the job that they do is following up and trying to get people's money back and prosecute those. Unfortunately, with Bitcoin and all these things, it's very hard to do that. But yeah, we have a dedicated staff that goes after criminals whenever we can and tries to recover some of that money for people.

When you say just for the elderly or just for anybody? Everybody in general, yeah. Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Scalzi. Mr. Blair.

Well, they scammed a sheriff's department captain's mother-in-law. How'd that work out for him? It was in a different county. Oh, geez. I noticed in the organizational chart for your department, we've got a full-time waymaster. Is that correct? It's part of our traffic. We have traffic guys. Is that their sole purpose?

No. They're assigned to a traffic position. So they're doing Waymaster and...

So they're not just checking trucks all day, every day. That is something that they do, but they're also responding and doing other stuff. Yes. Also, Brian, you're paddling backwards. Back to you, President.

Thank you very much. Mr. Mayor.

Thank you for pointing that out. I think he's staring. I don't know that he's maybe he's nothing to do with that, but I noticed that he has me going in reverse. Thank you captain. Uh, just a couple of comments. Obviously great, great, um, uh, respect for what the sheriff's department does. And I think you see you have accounts that recognizes the value despite some of the challenges. Uh, I would just say, you know, certainly we've heard council, uh, tonight and we have been looking at the e-bike thing. It's complicated and it does run through a lot of different departments. I would say one example, someone who rushed out to lead on this was Dearborn Heights and they charged every person with an e-bike, I think it was $250 to register and they about imploded because if you go to Rochester High School as I did last week, happened to be there for something else, I watched the young men arrive for football practice and about 70% of them arrive on e-bikes. instead of having mom and dad drive them to practice twice a day. So I think this is one where we want to thoughtfully consider how we're not charging every parent $500 as this new mode of transportation is there, while also respecting current users of the trails. And certainly we had a safety incident last week. So I think we are thoughtfully approaching this ordinance. A lot of parks, a lot of sheriff's department, all involved. We put a team together. and began evaluating what other communities are doing to try to see what is working and what isn't working. Because you could come down with a hammer, you know, you could, what is it, the, I don't want to give an analogy. I mean, there's a lot of ways you could approach this. And I think some of the communities that raced to lead on this are realizing that there are a lot of intricacies to it, where some people are using this. I think even, Sarah, your kids go to practice on e-bikes now because it saves money. a busy mom or dad from running all over. So we're certainly looking at it. We recognize it's not really a budget conversation, but certainly something that we're involved in and meeting with a lot of other communities to try to put something in place, and we'll bring something to council soon.

Thank you very much, Mr. Ray. That's it for all the questions. Thank you. Cookies. I wrote down cookies. Yep. Next up, fire.

Good evening, President Carlock, Vice President Mongioli, Council, Mayor Barnett. For tonight's presentation, I'm joined by Deputy Chief Cook and Assistant Chief Echols. As our nation marks its historic American 250 milestone, we are reminded that the fire department represents one of the country's oldest and most enduring traditions of community service. It is a legacy of neighbors protecting neighbors, and today that same team spirit drives the Rochester Hills Fire Department. While the public usually sees our team in moments of crisis, our response capacity is forged every day behind the scenes. It requires continuous training, preparation, and strategic investment. Tonight's budget proposal outlines the critical resources, staffing, and equipment required to ensure we are always ready when our community needs us.

Let's start with the backbone of our organization, our firefighter paramedics. They set the daily tempo for the department. Last year was a record-breaking year for our team. We answered over 9,000 calls, responding to more than 25 incidents every single day. While 84% of our volume is medical emergencies, our duty to provide comprehensive fire protection remains vital. The photos on the screen show our crews battling fires right here in our community over the past year. Incidents like these demand an immediate, highly coordinated response. We can't predict when the next fire will break out, which is why adequate staffing is a single most important factor in saving lives and protecting property. Our team's commitment saves lives and we have the numbers to prove it. Not only do we maintain an average priority response time of five minutes and 15 seconds, which is well below national averages, but for the third consecutive year, we earned the prestigious American Heart Association Gold Award for rapid heart attack and stroke care. With fewer than a dozen agencies across Michigan earning gold status in a given year, Receiving this award three years running puts our department in rare companies statewide. To keep performing at this level, 2027 will be a strategic building year. We're focused on streamlining our operations and planning for the future. This budget funds critical EMS equipment replacements like outdated heart monitors and automated chest compression devices, ensuring our members always have the most reliable tools in their hands for the next call.

Another vital unit whose mission is preventing emergencies is our Community Risk Reduction Division. Looking back 250 years to early America, a lack of fire prevention codes and public safety awareness led to the catastrophic urban tragedies such as the Great Chicago Fire. Today, our CRR Division serves as the ultimate defensive line. Last year, our team conducted 2,251 commercial inspections covering over 11.7 million square feet of business space. Simultaneously, they delivered 291 programs to the public, interacting directly with over 11,000 residents. While this work isn't tied directly to the budget, it remains an invaluable pillar of our team's investment in our community's safety. Executing a great playbook also requires world-class training grounds. Earlier this year, we completed our new four-story training tower, allowing personnel to simulate high stakes fire and rescue scenarios in a controlled environment. This facility is a game changer for a roster that logged an incredible 16,659 hours of training last year, averaging roughly 245 hours for every member of the department. That's nearly five hours of training every single week per person, keeping our team well above the national ISO standards and ready for any call. To keep our crews ready, we must also protect our home turf. In this budget cycle, we will begin exterior enhancements to preserve the longevity of Fire Station 1. Additionally, for budget year 2027, we will begin the planning and engineering portion for a redesign of Station 5's parking lot. These updates ensure our facilities remain safe, efficient, and ready for the next call.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge and thank our dedicated team, a highly committed group of individuals who show up every day putting their lives on the line to ensure the safety of Rochester Hills. Now, I know we have time constraints on our presentations here, but we really need to take a victory lap. So as you know, our millage increase passed, and it didn't just pass, it passed with a huge 71% majority. And when you look at surrounding communities, we saw several public safety millages fail. Voters are being extremely cautious with their tax dollars right now, which makes our community's decisive vote of confidence in our department nothing short of remarkable. Our entire department is excited and we're energized by this support. Because our residents chose to invest in our department, we can move forward with hiring 12 additional firefighters while reinforcing our capital fund for long-term sustainability. This is a massive step moving forward as we continue to provide the service our residents deserve. In the spirit of American 250, our residents have proven that Rochester Hills and this fire department operate as one unbeatable team. On behalf of myself, the command staff, and all the members of the Rochester Hills Fire Department, a huge thank you to our residents, city council, Mayor Barnett, CFO Schneider, and the city leadership. We are deeply grateful, fired up, and ready to put these resources to work for you. Thank you. And obviously, we'll answer any questions. Fired up.

Well, I think thinking city council is we're just the voice of the residents. And the residents spoke pretty loudly that they support what the fire department does for them. As you said, Chief Gary, several communities didn't get theirs passed, and ours passed handily. We, the residents, trust the fire department. We rely on the fire department. And we expect you to be there when we need you. And in order to do that, we're willing to pay for it, because nothing is free. When it comes to the budget, the one question I have is, With all of the e-bikes and tablets and cell phones and batteries and everything, in your budget, do you have everything you need for a battery device fire that may not go to a full structure? And I don't know if there's new things out that I know they used to have blankets for cars and whatever. Do we have everything we need? I mean, I see the number of electric cars is increasing as well.

Yeah, we currently have one of those blankets that's designed for the car fires. We have different packing material and drums to put batteries and things like that in. So I think at this point, we pretty much got the newest technology that's come out for those. And I think we have what we need to handle those.

OK, excellent, excellent. Well, we do have some comments and questions from council. We'll start with Vice President Mongioli.

And again, I'm not the only one. So don't put the pen and pad away. Thank you. Thank you for being such a great team that our residents trust you enough to say we want to spend more money to make sure you're here for us and we are here for you. So thank you for all that you do to keep our community one of the safest ones in the country. So thank you. Um With all of this, there was something I think maybe a year ago, the insurance rating, there was something with some response rate, blah, blah, blah, impacted insurance.

Yes, our ISO rating.

Yes. Are we any closer to getting that improved, better, good?

Well, the additional people obviously will help. Again, that rating is, rates a variety of different things from water supply to equipment to personnel things like that um we're kind of at the mercy of iso they will come out and do an inspection when they get around to it so we kind of have to wait for the next one which could be any time in the next few years we are doing the things that we can control as far as making sure everybody has the required trainings and things of that nature We're working a little bit better with our surrounding departments to try and get automatic aid on the larger fires so we have more personnel on the scene. So we're taking steps to improve that back to where it was before.

Okay. Good to hear that. So, um, I know I'd asked the question about the 12 people and I know when Brooke was here earlier was like, all right, we're going to start hiring, but we also know that other neighboring communities also are challenged by the available fire staff that they can hire or their short staff right now. How, what, what makes Rochester Hills stand out for any recruit that we're going after?

We've got a variety of different things. You know, based on our last contract, our pay is now competitive with other departments. I think we have a lot to offer people. We have new equipment. We have some, you know, good equipment, the high tech. You know, we try and stay up on technology. We offer a lot more training than a lot of departments do, different things like that. So I think we'll do all right. We've got a lot of, we're kind of actively recruiting people from the community college. We have agreements with some of the community colleges where their paramedic students do their internship at our department, and we try and recruit them and try and get them to come with us. So I think we'll do all right.

Okay. Health insurance-wise, we're good with our health insurance for the fire department. You're...

Yeah, as far as I know, I mean, I haven't heard any complaints from anybody.

So okay, I'm looking for things that are budget that we want to make sure that you have the best because we want the best in our community. And as we look at what this millage affords us as far as 12 more people and all the turnout gear and then the other than the vehicles that we need as a result, that you have what you need to fill that gear. You know, we need bodies in the turnout gear. So how do we, what can we do to help you in that respect? Is there, you know, social media that we put out there to talk about, yay, look at our fire department. It's great. Come work here or. Yeah.

And we've been, As Brooke indicated earlier, we've been working with HR. We're putting together a flyer. Our union is putting information on their Facebook page about some of the benefits and working here and things like that. And they're talking to individuals that they know. One of the things that we started doing a while ago was what we call lateral hires. So if somebody has three years experience, full-time experience in another fire department, When they come in to our department, they don't have to start at low pay. They can start at top pay. So that helps us draw some experienced people. And that's worked out real well, too.

OK. So I readily admit I'm a Facebook troll. And when the millage came up, I started following other fire departments. Yes, I'm even that kind of troll, following the fire departments. It's amazing what we have today compared to what other departments have. I would think just the fact that we can give every firefighter the best equipment that they can, the newest equipment that's available, that that alone might attract people here. If we can send a message, we've got new fire trucks. Look at how pretty this truck is. Wouldn't you want to see you on it? Yeah, it's pretty. I don't know. They're pretty. I love going through the community. And when I see the ambulance, I'm like, pray for the person that's in it. But then I look at the way you've got it wrapped with America 250 on it. And I do say I pray for every one of our teams when they're out there. It's my guys. And I pray for you every time you're on a run. And I hear the sirens going. So you are the best team. And I want to make sure you have the best so we can continue to support you and our community. going forward. So thank you very much.

Thank you. We appreciate that.

Thank you very much. Councilwoman Neubauer.

Thank you, President Carlock. I just wanted to say that you made it easy for us to advocate for the millage because of the department that you are, because of the transparency, because of the data and the facts you provided for us. I particularly am thankful for the communication that you and I had about having this go on to the August ballot rather than the November ballot. It was a very quick pivot that we did that night. Um, but it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for the communication that we had. So you're open, transparent communication with us is something that we appreciate. And we passed that along to the residents. And I think that's one of the main reasons that it passed and that we are, you know, I don't want to talk about our neighboring our neighbors because we love our neighbors. But you made it very easy for us to advocate for you and support you and because of the way that you respond to the community. And I understand that the continued development that we have of the elder care facilities and Um, things like that are, um, a pressure on the fire department and hopefully we can try to make some density changes or whatever it is so that that's not an ongoing issue because we want to make sure all of our residents are safe and that, um, you know, we don't have, in a disproportionate amount of calls, um, to certain places. So, um, but thank you. Thank you for everything. Thank you for making it easy for us to, I mean, there's a lot of us, we do not support increases in taxes and this one was a no brainer. And also thank you for our cookies. Thank you.

Yes, they are very pretty, aren't they? Yes, they are.

Thank you so much for everything. And we are praying for you guys constantly. Every time we hear sirens go by, we, We're thankful for what we have and we pray for our first responders and whoever they're responding to. Thank you so much. We appreciate that.

Thank you very much. Mr. Scalzi.

Thank you, President Carlock. I'm trying to get the math right. I'm not a math guy, so if I got it wrong. You said there's 9,000 calls a year? I divided that by 365. That comes out to 24 calls a day.

Well, I believe technically it was 9,212.

Very good. The amount of stress that the men and women in your department is incredible. My question is, I want to know what's being done and is enough being done for the mental health of your profession, which it's crazy. To have to try to do that much, life-saving, because that's your business, and process it. So do you think you're getting enough services that way? Is there more that we need to do? Well, it's an interesting question.

We provide critical incident stress debriefing after these calls, and we provide the different services after the fact. As far as the stress of continually running calls and things like that, we don't really have a lot. We try to give our guys downtime. We let them relax, things like that. Station 3 runs multiple calls a day while Station 5 runs only a couple, and they sleep most nights. So there's a lot of variations from the different stations and the things that people want to do. I will say a lot of departments, uh, not a lot. There's a handful, um, mostly down in Florida and things like that that have gone to four shifts instead of three, which gives people an additional day off. So it's a little bit different schedule, but unfortunately you have to hire an entire another shift. So you'd have to hire another 23 people, but it gives people more downtime where they basically work a day and then they have three days off and they work a day and they have three days off. So it's a different type schedule. And that's like I said, becoming popular, uh, in the south, uh, as a way to deal with mental health, to give people more of a break and more time off. So there's pros and cons to that system, but that's something that's being done in the industry.

Uh, do you guys rotate your station? So let's say station three gets more calls, but station four doesn't like do rotate it. So, Hey, we can give these guys a break and we, we have shared the pain.

We have shift bids every two years. So based on seniority, people pick their shifts. So we don't rotate on a regular basis and we don't make those determinations. But that is something that's been discussed in the industry as well, is you take the people and make them spend some time at the slower stations to kind of recuperate. So that's something that we've talked about. That's something that has to be dealt with contractually because they, based on seniority, get their preference of what station they want to be at. So that's something that would have to be dealt with in union negotiations.

Thank you very much. Mr. Blair.

Thank you, President Carlock. I'll echo my council colleagues. We appreciate what you do. We love what you bring to the community. My concerns are regarding your big assets, your engines, your ladders. I don't see any of that apparatus in the next five years of your capital improvement plan.

Correct.

So my question is, I know Pierce refurbishes the fire engines and the ladders to get more life out of them. Are we doing any of that, or are we going to come to a point in 2032 where we've got $10 million worth of apparatus we need to buy?

Unfortunately, I don't have the apparatus replacement schedule with me, but most of our apparatus has been replaced in the last 10 or 12 years. We're typically going to get 20 years out of an aerial apparatus and 15 out of a fire engine. So we have sold some of our apparatus to try and reduce the fleet to make it a little bit different or to make it a little bit cheaper because we don't need all this apparatus because we don't have the firefighters to staff them there will be a point in the future but they should be spaced out enough where we're not buying multiple apparatus in a year we also some of the apparatus that doesn't get is used as much we can extend the life a little bit so there will be increased demands for apparatus in the future but it's yeah i don't

I don't know exactly when that's going to be Joe in our seven year forecast where we were seeing, you know, problems with the capital fund. Is that related to this issue or is that on top of this issue? Because you know, at some point it sounds like we're going to, I know that stuff lasts 20 years, but we haven't bought any for about four years or three years or so. Last thing we bought was like a Pierce pumper I think like three years ago maybe.

Yeah, we just took delivery earlier this year. So this stuff is going to start to compound.

Are we on top of that?

As much as we work together annually to update the capital roster, probably the biggest thing that's impacting the fire capital is the ambulances. Um, Chief Gary, we were on a five year cycle that was probably unsustainable long term financially, but very creatively. Hey, you know, whereas the firefighters have to stay in a station for so long, the apparatus can move all around and you know, we can get seven years out of those apparatus. So and I think as I mentioned in my presentation, you know, we've got the money in 2033. to buy the replace the ambulances we haven't even replaced yet this year.

Now let's say we do have to buy a, you know, a ladder, which in 2032 is probably going to cost $2 million. How long is that going to take us to get?

Well, we've got a little bit of time to figure it out. So that's the beauty. We've got some time.

I just want to make sure that this isn't going to catch us off guard because obviously the equipment's not going to get any cheaper. Obviously lead times are not going to decrease. Oh, no. And since I don't see it in anything past 2031, I'm going to trust you guys are on top of it.

I think they're probably out in the 2035s and 2040s where a lot of this stuff might be needed. Thank you much. I might be retired by then.

Thank you, President Carlock.

Thank you very much. I don't see any other council comments, Mr. Mayor.

Joe, you'll still be around. First question, Joe, what is the plural of apparatus? I'm just curious. Apparati. That's what I thought. You know, the issue, it's a good question, Councilman Blair. It's a national issue because we're talking about the U.S. Conference of Mayors. There's only like really three places that make apparati, apparatus. and the lead time is a national issue and so there's a lot of people looking at how we can try to address that from a national perspective. I just want to make one comment because obviously Um, we had prepped for two different budget presentations today. We got to give the much better budget presentation with fire. Um, and uh, you know, obviously, uh, incredibly grateful for the residents historically strong support and the credit goes to, uh, you know, the fire department for creating a reputation of strong service delivery. But I don't want it lost on this council because I think it's also recognition of your leadership and the way the city has been run. Because if you look at those communities that didn't support, and there were a lot, communities that don't look that much different than us, Independence, Orion, Waterford, some smaller townships, no one was critical about the fire departments in those places. They were critical about the administration spending money in different places, the council or commission vote about something different that they didn't like. It was as much a vote of confidence or lack of confidence about the financial management or mismanagement from whoever's perspective we were taking about the city and municipality township as well. So I think certainly the strong reputation of excellence and service from our fire department was a critical part in seeing our millage had the highest support of any public safety, millage, police or fire in the county. So historically strong across the county. And it's also a recognition, I think, of what we've talked about all night. Smart, conservative fiscal management. Not everybody loves every decision a city makes, but when they're willing to spend more of their money and say, yeah, this is important to us and we trust that if we give it to the seven of you, you're gonna do the right thing with it, is also a really strong compliment to the partnership between the council and the administration in implementing and allowing them to execute the game plan. And that isn't lost on me because I've been in a part of a lot of conversations with a lot of other elected officials who didn't have a good night Tuesday a few weeks ago and are scrambling to try to figure out the next place. And our residents said, we trust them and we trust you. And I think that's a really strong partnership.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Chief Gary and Chief Cook, Chief Eccles, you know. All right. Well, that brings us back to Mr. Snyder.

Thank you very much, counsel. We've gone through a lot of information this evening. Just a couple of things to kind of cover here. So first and foremost, just want to tell you a little bit about the issue Council Member Menino discovered and we diagnosed the issue that was going on. This is one of those good things where we're both right. Council Person Menino is correct that in the budget plan book itself where the capital improvement tables are, the technical term is something got messed up a little bit with our budget software with the columns of the project cost versus the city cost. So, um, Deb, our, I call her affectionately our, our, uh, gravity budget software guru. We'll get in touch with the gravity folks and we'll get all that sort of figured out. But here's what the really good news is, even though that was a little snafu there and between those two columns, the good news is the correct budget information flowed into the technical appendices, the line item detail, and all the information that we've presented tonight is the correct number. If you don't believe me, check with Diana Menino because we went down and we balanced to the dollar. So we're all good there. So happy about that, and we will get that discrepancy covered up for the final plan book. Okay, as Mayor kind of alluded, the budget is essentially in your hands now, council, and we have one straw poll currently on the table, basically two televised planning commission meetings. What we will do, administration here, probably over the course of this week, We'll get together with our media division and try to come up with, okay, what is this? Are there going to be any costs? What will those costs be? What administratively will that be for basically this proposal? What we'll do is kind of come up with an administrative couple of lines. This is what the impact of yes versus no is. And then we will bring that forth as a straw poll for the city councils to opine yay or nay on. Besides that item, this is the administrative budget proposal. The budget is essentially in your hand. Is there anything additional at this time we would like to add to the list? We'll just put it to you guys and then let us know.

At this point, I don't have anything else, Joe. It's as usual, very thorough, comprehensive. budget process. At least from where I sit, I hope my fellow council members also agree that we really appreciate the time that the staff put into putting this together to make it as clear as it could possibly be for us. So thank you, and thanks to all the directors and all the staff that contributed to this budget process. At this time, I don't see any questions.

the thing I'm going to talk to you about putting it on other business. Yeah, that might be a, yeah, the, the, the zoning planning that that might be just a city council item, not really anything related to the budget at this point.

So yeah, Okay.

Well, if we're good there, then great. We can go to the next item. One of the last items I have. So the next steps, um, uh, at the city council meeting on September 14th, um, we will have a public hearing on the budget. This will provide an additional opportunity for, um, any members of the public to come and opine yay, nay, what they like or don't like on the budget. Um, And we will also, by the September 14th meeting, we will have all of the results of the straw poll and we will let you know the final tallies there. Clerk Scott will help. She's really good at elections. I think she can handle a yay or nay from the seven council people without too much of an issue. However, so I did mention the public hearing is at the September 14th City Council meeting. Unfortunately, I have a little bit of a schedule issue on that day. I am a member of the Michigan Government Finance Officers Association, or MGFOA. The MGFOA fall conference is being held from September 13th to the 16th at the Grand Traverse Resort up in Ada, Michigan. I am the current vice president of the MGFOA. And on Tuesday, the 15th, I will move to the role of president. So I kind of have to be at this conference. However, I'm going to move to the role of president on Tuesday. I don't have to be there on Monday. I can come back. You know, I got to attend at least the first, you know, half of this conference. I can be back here for the public hearing on Monday night. Yes. Want me to come back for the public hearing? No, we don't know.

Can't somebody cover for you?

Ms. Hoyle has said she would cover the public hearing.

So go, El Presidente. OK.

Thank you very much. You saved about seven hours of driving back and forth.

So OK. And congratulations. Pretty well deserved, too.

Make it a straw poll. Come on. Yeah, straw poll. Make it a straw poll question. Come back for the straw poll, whether I have to be there or not. OK, well, that basically covers everything I have. I will turn it over to Mayor Barnett, maybe for some closing comments.

Yeah, thank you. I just want to thank as we roll into nearly five hours of presentations tonight. I want to thank Mr. Snyder and the rest of the finance team for As always, an exceptional job in getting us to this point. I want to thank the directors and the other team members that are here. Some of them who this might be the only council meeting that they come to a year. And you seven are friendly, yet sometimes intimidating people. And to get a chance to interact with all of you and present, whether you think you are or not, sometimes you are. You sit behind a big desk. Our team really appreciates the 365 days of support that you give us and the freedom that you do to allow us to present. fun and creative ways and to do this a little bit differently. Don't mistake any of that for the eminent pride and seriousness in which we take this part of our job. Managing the residents money is outside of the public safety. The most important thing we do and in getting it to this point where now it is officially in your hands is a lot of blood, sweat and tears from the people over my shoulder and what's presented today to the the two folks that are here from the public, and to hopefully more that we'll watch. We are incredibly proud of a budget that is $30 million less than it was last year, yet still is investing in what City Council's number one priorities are, a budget that maintains an operating surplus, a structural surplus that maintains exceptional fund balances. As you saw today, a situation that finds us protected in the worst case scenario in historic ways with some of the best professionals in the business continuing to deliver excellence. A budget that continues to have Rochester Hills as the third lowest taxed city in Oakland County and continues to keep us as really the only debt-free city in Michigan, all while continuing to deliver incredible parks, historic investments in roads, and really, although my kids went to Michigan State, I'm going to hesitate in giving a Michigan quote. At the end of the day, it's sort of a Jim Harbaugh, who's got it better than us? We really are blessed. And he's the coach of UM's football team when they won the national championship a few years ago. Who's got it better than us? We are exceptionally blessed. And a lot of that starts with a strong financial house, which requires strong financial leadership. And you see it in front of you. I'm privileged to be a part of this team, and it's after a night like this when hopefully our two residents go, man, we're proud to live here too, and understand why we're recognized as one of the best places to live in the country. It starts here. We give this budget to you. We appreciate your hard work and support, and I want to thank you on behalf of the entire team for the incredible partnership we have year-round. It's a pleasure to do this with you guys, and the budget process continues, so thanks.

Yeah, thank you very much. Well, with no additional business before the Rochester Hill City Council tonight, our next meeting date will be next Monday, August 24, 2026, 7 p.m. right here in the Rochester Hill City Hall Auditorium. I do have about four motions to adjourn. So I have some firsts and seconds. Vice President Mangioletti and Mr. Blair, first and second. All in favor? Aye. Rochester Hill City Council is adjourned.