City Council - Regular Meeting

And welcome to the September 14th, 2026 regular meeting of the Rochester Hills City Council. Call the meeting to order. Ms. Bowen, will you take roll?

President Carlock.

Here.

Vice President Mangioli. Here. Mr. Blair.

Here.

Mr. Lindberg.

Here.

Ms. Menino. Here. Ms. Neubauer.

With notice.

Mr. Scalzi.

Here.

President Carlock, we have a quorum.

Thank you very much. And if everyone will rise, the Youth Council will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

and indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Approval of agenda. I have not been made aware of any changes to the agenda. I have a motion by Ms. Menino, seconded by Mr. Blair to approve the agenda. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. We have an agenda for tonight. Council and Youth Committee reports. We will kick it off with our Youth Committee representative, Ms. Wang.

Good evening, President Carlock, Vice President Mongioli, Mayor Barnett, council members, and citizens of Rochester Hills. My name is Christina Wang, and I am an 11th grader at Rochester Adams High School. I am in my third year of serving on the Rochester Hills Government Youth Council, and I serve on the Public Safety and Infrastructure Technical Review Committee. I'm looking forward to learning more about how the city government plays a large role in making the community I reside in safe and sustainable in my time as a Youth Council representative. This past month, Youth Council has volunteered at the Brooklyn's Block Party where we helped with the tie-dye station, soaring new members at the swearing-in ceremony, and held their 2026-2027 orientation. This month we recently had our first regular meeting of the term and had elections and we're looking forward to participating in the state of the city address where we will be helping out with various tasks. Our next meeting will be October 7th. Thank you so much for your time and have a great evening.

Thank you very much. Yeah, the Youth Council has been up to a lot lately. Next up, Mr. Blair.

Thank you, President Carlock. A lot's been happening in the city with power and with broadband lately and in anticipation of the state of the city on Thursday.

Emma, would you share my screen please?

I wanted to take a minute and share the state of broadband in Rochester Hills. Now, buckle in, this might take about 10 minutes, but I think it's important information. I want to talk about the options that are available to our residents, what's coming to serve our residents in the near future, and what happens when the power fails like it did a couple weeks ago after the storm. So just a quick refresher on how we get connected in the city. If you grew up in the 90s like me on dial-up, that cord is certainly no stranger. That's a phone cord. And the subsequent DSL and XDSL that we got from the phone company ran on that cabling. Then that gave way to cable broadband, which comes from Comcast or WOW. You probably recognize that connector that you screw in. And the new service, the stuff that's getting deployed in our communities now, is fiber optic based. And it has a totally different look to it. And it occurred to me that not a lot of people ever get to see fiber. So I'm going to pass it down. I actually brought a sample with me. It's a strand of glass. Instead of electrical energy, it carries optical energy. So when you hear the term fiber, it's a totally different ball game. When we talk about speeds, this is what doesn't get advertised when cable companies and phone companies are selling those older services. And that's the upload speed versus the download speed. a cable modem and a DSL that use those copper cabling, you can only send data at a very small fraction of the speed that you can download it. But that limit doesn't occur with fiber optic cable. And that's what makes these services so appealing. When you work at home and you have video calls and you back up large files, you have a lot more capacity to send data. So this is the key difference when we talk about the speed of fiber optic versus cable. So what does it cost, and what should you look out for? Now, the federal government actually did something worthwhile, if you can believe it. Several years ago, they passed the Broadband Facts Law, which requires, at the time of sale, any internet service provider produce of report card so to speak about their service it looks a lot like a nutrition label and it tells you how much the service is going to cost among other things is there a fee for the equipment how long is the contract where do you go for tech support so look at this for any information on service you're thinking of purchasing i'm not going to go into all of the various options here I will include this PowerPoint in the packet for today's meeting, but if you have any questions, feel free to email me. My information will be on the last slide. Key takeaways here, though, pay attention to that upload number, especially if you work from home, and also watch out for contracts that are needed to lock in lower pricing. As you can see, there's competition heating up in the city, and by and large, that's a good thing for our residents. Now, when we talk about fiber, there are really two companies in play here in Rochester Hills. AT&T has been building out their fiber network since about 2019 at a snail's pace, neighborhood by neighborhood, and despite asking, I've not gotten a timeline about when their service, the fiber service, is going to be rolled out citywide. However, another player, Easy Fiber, has started rapidly building out infrastructure in the city. And Councilwoman Vice President Mangioli mentioned about the flags that are starting to appear in front yards. They are moving quickly and I expect their service to be available throughout the city probably by the end of the year. Important distinction though between the two carriers. AT&T doesn't rely on powered equipment in the field. Easy fiber does. Remember that. Here's what it looks like when fiber optic gets installed in your community. You'll see the flags. I love plants, by the way. That was really great. Little plants sprout in your yard. The color-coded flags allude to the utility that's buried directly beneath. You'll see a rig like this show up in your front yard or your neighbor's front yard, which is a directional drilling machine. Fascinating technology. If you have the five or ten minutes to watch it work, it's quite fascinating. These drill bits go horizontally and are tracked using a machine like this that actually allows it to be steered underground. So there's no disruption to the surface except where the fiber needs to actually come up to serve a subscriber or where it needs to splice with other fibers. You can see in this picture here from a project that we recently did, the drilling rig is out of camera almost and it's gone underground all the way to here. So when we talk about damage to your front lawn, it's really going to be minimal damage except for the areas where they install these hand holes. Now this one is a larger one, but you can expect something similar to a sprinkler valve box to appear roughly every other home on both sides of your street. This work will occur either underground in front of your city or if you're in an older subdivision and you've got electric lines and overhead telecommunications in your backyard, that's the utility easement. They might be doing work back there. There won't be much impact, as I mentioned. However, things that you have yourself underground that aren't being marked by these flags, things like the dog fence or your irrigation system, might be damaged. And it is the responsibility of the contractor installing that infrastructure to repair that. So check your equipment. Make sure to report those issues quickly. Here's what I run at my house. I've actually got two internet service providers at my house. I work from home enough to value the redundancy that comes with a couple providers. I use WOW as my primary and a service from Comcast called Xfinity Now, which is similar to a prepaid cell phone that gives me a backup connection, and both of those cost me $85 a month. I use a firewall to switch between them automatically in case one fails. And this all looks and sounds complicated. Trust me, it's not. You don't really need an IT professional to set up something like this with YouTube tutorials and AI chat bots and things. Getting up and running with a backup internet connection is not a huge technical hurdle and you can see it's also not much money as well. So that's what I rock at my house. Which brings me to the storm. which caused a widespread power outage and revealed a lot about who stays connected and who does not in the city. So I wanted to touch briefly on what failed, why it failed and what brought it back. Now that storm hit early on third or late Thursday morning. And immediately the winds damaged electrical infrastructure and caused a blackout throughout a good chunk of the city. You can see the damage here in front of Adams High School, which thankfully was repaired just in time for Monday classes, which my kids were thrilled about. Like a lot of residents, I use a backup generator to power my house during the utility outage. So as soon as that was fired up, I was able to carry on as usual, but immediately we began noticing problems with the cellular networks in the city. Why? Because as soon as your home Wi-Fi goes off, your cell phone or any other device that uses Wi-Fi as its primary connection but also has a cellular radio is going to fail over to the cellular network. So tens of thousands of devices hit the cell towers and you could tell dropped calls, messages not going through, the system was struggling to handle the demand. Now about five hours after the storm is where things got a little bit interesting and what really prompted me to assemble this presentation. The power is still out, generators were humming along, the cellular networks were now completely unusable, and our internet providers were starting to fail one after another. Your cellular service is provided by big towers like those at Adams High School that have the big tall tower generators underneath them. Those were hanging on, but the smaller ones that serve communities, neighborhoods, those batteries were failing leaving individuals with no service. Your cell phone couldn't make calls. You might be able to get an SOS call out to a satellite if your phone has that capability, but for the most part, Cell service was down because those larger towers were completely overwhelmed. At the same time, internet hookups, which had been hanging on due to battery backup equipment in the field, started to fail as those batteries died. You can see at my house, WOW dropped off about six hours after the storm and Comcast a little bit thereafter. So let's talk about the day after. Power is still out and we start to see utility companies placing generators in the field to power this kind of stuff. You may have seen these big boxes on phone poles near your neighborhood. This is where the utilities place electrical equipment that's used to actually distribute your service. Whether you have fiber, DSL, or cable, you probably are going through a piece of equipment like this. Now, Comcast was first to the game with their backup power, and my service from Comcast came back online at 11 a.m. the following day, 24 hours after it went down. DTE was able to get power back to my neighborhood anyway about 3 p.m. the following day. And then September 6th is when I finally got my WOW service back, which tells me they either never put the generator out there to begin with, or maybe they had other problems with their infrastructure. But you can see the red's not great. And by the way, when Comcast came back online to 10,000 people that had been offline, you can see they struggled. That's what the yellow means. Comcast was kind of struggling after the power came back. So what does that mean? Well, what stays up? If you've got cable or DSL or even Easy Fiber, the newcomer, you may not have service after the power goes out or at least after a period of time. I got some very detailed technical information back from Easy Fiber. I appreciate all that they sent me. It sounds like they might be able to operate about a day or so on battery backup, which is longer than the cable companies, but still. They run on battery. The AT&T fiber is the only thing that's going to stay up the entire time because every fiber goes directly to the AT&T office. Most Rochester Hills residents are served out of their facility on West Tinkin. So the question really isn't cable or fiber or DSL. It's what needs power in between and how long is it going to last when it doesn't have that power. So I wanted to provide some recommendations to our residents to stay online, to stay powered. We were very fortunate obviously that we weren't dealing with sub-zero temperatures or 100 plus degree temperatures. That was a pretty mild weather for an outage, but I rely on a couple pieces of equipment. I've got a power bank, which is a 500 watt hour power bank. If you're interested in the kind that I use, I'll be happy to send you the links. This is about the size of a small cooler. It'll run some lights and your internet modem and charge your phones. It'll even brew a cup of coffee for about six or eight hours. And I've also got an inverter generator, which runs on propane or gasoline. It's important because propane doesn't get old when you store it, so if you've got propane, that doesn't go bad when you need it. These inverter generators, which have a more boxy shape like this, it's not the tubing, and you can see the motor and the generator inside, it's all self-contained, that's an inverter, and it's healthy for electronics. Your LED lights don't flash. Your equipment doesn't reject the unclean power. So if you've got a lot of electronics, you want one of these inverter generators. They're about $1,700. I'm glad Mike Visenko's in the audience. If you use a generator, it's important you do it safely. Aptly called suicide cords, these male-to-male extension cords are for sale right now on Amazon, and they can be deadly for the lineman working to restore your service if you don't properly isolate your panel. There is a right way and a wrong way to run your house off of a generator. You can contact our building department or call up a licensed electrician who can show you how to do it properly. And of course, don't run a generator indoors. I recommend you have flashlights, radio, and batteries. Find the old stuff that takes good old-fashioned batteries. A USB-C charging flashlight doesn't do you much good when you need it for two days. And lastly, check on your neighbors. If you've got elderly or maybe someone who's not physically able to get their garage door open, maybe to get their vehicle out, maybe they're on insulin, offer to store their meds for them, but check in with your neighbors. And that brings me to conclusion. Really just three, which is clearly four on the page now that I proofread this. Four things to take away. Only fiber gives you symmetrical speed. Construction in the right of way is temporary, but note of any damage because that's the installer's obligation to fix. Not every service survives a power outage. And be sure to ask those kind of questions before you sign up. And then be prepared and be safe. Have a plan, test your equipment, help your neighbors, and maybe that next outage will go just a little bit easier for you and your family. Back to you, Prez. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Blair. Lots of good information there for sure. Vice President Mongioli.

Thank you, President Karlak. Mr. Blair, thank you so much. That was an amazing presentation. I really appreciate it because I have now two fiber lines going through my neighborhood and it'll be a question at some point for Mr. Veisenko and Ms. Balint on how many of those boxes can end up in our street because just down the road from me, Mrs. Woods has two in her yard for the two different companies that have come through. All your pictures of those wires hanging from the poles, I want to make sure I'm not going to end up with all of those wires underground and multiple different plaques in my right-of-way telling me, Well, this is Easy Fiber, this is AT&T, this is XYZ, this is how many of those can we end up getting? And I know we can't say no to them, but can't we make them share a box?

Well, one thing that you'll, if you were a broadband provider and you encounter a city like Rochester Hills that is very built out, two fiber providers, two broadband coax providers, that's not a market that I would want to put a lot of investment into because the competition is going to be fierce. I would expect that in the next 15, 20 years, we're going to see a lot more competition Non-wireline carriers like Starlink and cellular connections start to be that fifth and sixth option for homeowners. So I don't think we're going to see a lot more underground, especially after there's two fiber carriers in a neighborhood. You don't have much to worry about.

I was in Tractor Supply.

You were in Tractor Supply?

I was in Tractor Supply, yeah. Good for you. But they had Starlink. modems for sale, boxes, you could buy them right there in tractor supply. And your point on getting your lawn repaired, I will say I had them, they dug the hole, you know, it's a big hole, big to me anyway, big enough for me to twist my ankle if I fell in it. They didn't do a great job repairing it. It still was, after the rain, the grass sunk back down. I did reach out to the support team at Easy Fiber. I did copy our city on it because it went to Ms. Bailent and Mr. Vazanko just to make sure they knew that the VENDORS WERE NOT DOING A GREAT JOB. I WILL SAY IT CAME FROM MY CITY COUNCIL E-MAIL AND IT WAS FIXED WITHIN 24 HOURS. SO I WOULD ENCOURAGE THE RESIDENTS TO TAKE PICTURES AND KEEP THE CARDS THAT COME IN THE MAIL OR THE DOOR HANGERS BECAUSE IT HAS THE CONTACT NUMBER for the vendors to make sure that they come back and fix those spots in your yard. Please send me a copy of your presentation. It was fabulous. Appreciate it. Thank you much. One thing I will add to your note on checking on neighbors is the batteries. Making sure you have a battery backup. Because I found my list of all the things to do in my house And it's the different size batteries because different flashlights take different sized batteries. We invested during COVID, invested in a whole house generator. So I had power the entire time, no Wi-Fi, nothing. No internet, no cable. I still do have TVs with aerials, so we were able to get old TV stations in. But we ran a cord across the street to my neighbor to make sure that the freezer and the refrigerator stayed current. But she was also a recently widowed neighbor, and it was her husband that had taken care of the batteries and all those emergency supplies, and this was the first time She'd had a power outage. So making sure you're checking on the neighbors, but also if you have neighbors that maybe the spouse used to do all that emergency work for you, it's another thing to think of because Kathy was good. She could get in and out of her garage, but she didn't know where Ken put all the supplies in the house. So just something else to think of. Also, going into those wonderful Adams Road, the Adams High School, the poles leaning, we became the detour for all of that. So I want to thank the staff from our city as well as from the utility companies to make sure that they got out there with detour signs right away to let people know to not go underneath those poles in case they fell. Thank you for everyone in the staff that was able to make sure we were okay during the detour. I will say it was back to my old days when Medina was the cut-through street where we parked cars on opposite side of the road because we were running that cable across the street and needed to make sure somebody didn't get it stuck on their vehicle as they went by. So we ended up parking the cars out there. It did slow down the detour traffic, which was a good thing because people don't always realize it may be 40 out on Tinkin, but it's 25 in your subdivision. So we had a great team that helped us get through everything. Love the slides. Thank you very much. Back to you, President Carlock.

Thank you very much. I don't see any further council committee reports. I will move on. Presentations. Item 2026-0397. Legislative update by State Senator Michael Weber.

All right. Thank you. Thank you so much, President Carlock, Vice President Mungioli, Mayor Barnett, members of council, Michael Weber, honored to serve as the state senator for the ninth district, which includes Rochester Hills, Greater Rochester area, Troy, Sterling Heights, Shelby Township, and Utica. Back to give a fall legislative update now that we do have our budget done. There has not been a ton of legislative work since that time, but we did get our budget done. around that July 1st timeframe that we were trying to get it done. I think it was technically the morning of July 3rd that we got the bills passed. And so it ended up being a balanced bipartisan budget, lives within our means, makes critical investments, strengthen Michigan families and communities. I just want to highlight a couple things within the Rochester area. I know obviously Rochester Community House is in the city of Rochester. and we just had a groundbreaking there recently, but I know a lot of our service groups use the facility for their meetings. Altogether, that was about a $3.2 million project. It was a couple different grants that we were able to get, Rep. Tisdale and myself, over the last few years. And so the construction is going to start on that. It's going to be about a 10-month project, and we just did a groundbreaking last week on that. Also, $405,000 to continue the Common Ground Victim Assistance Program, which provides crisis intervention and long-term support to victims of crime in Oakland County. As you know, the program has filled critical gaps in public safety and health. They do a great job for our community. Lastly, just kind of down the road from us, Oakland University, their science complex renovation project had gotten the go-ahead and the way they do the capital outlay projects at the state level is you get it in the budget and then you also need down the road the construction authorization as it as it gets planned out a little bit better. And so we were able to get that construction authorization and that's critical obviously for Oakland moving forward and we'll just continue to enhance the campus and in our area here. In terms of revenue sharing arose, obviously we've talked about this a little bit about a decrease in the constitutional revenue sharing because of taking the sales tax off the gasoline. But ultimately, we expect Rochester Hills will receive $452,000 in statutory revenue sharing this year, and obviously then also the increased road funding dollars that we've talked about in past years. I want to give you a quick update. I know I've talked about this in some of the past, but we have had some movement on it now, the revenue sharing trust fund piece. I was happy to help reintroduce that in the Senate. And the bill package did pass the Senate unanimously. And so again, that's just going to offer, you know, stability for local governments to kind of understand what their, what their revenue is going to look like. Sometimes it may be down a little bit, sometimes it's going to be up, but it's going to be one of those where it's not something that the, it's just going to be at the subject to the whim of the legislature to, to grab and, and take if, if, if times are tough and they feel like they need it for, for state things. And so I think, It's something that Michigan Municipal League has been working on now for several years. Both Rep Tisdale and I have been part of it. Last session, if you remember, the House passed it nearly unanimously and the Senate didn't do anything with it. This year now, or this session, the Senate passed it unanimously, and so that's a lot of work from a lot of the municipal leaders in those various Senate districts to get a unanimous support. And so I'm hoping in... you know, after the election, when the house is looking at different bills that we can send to the governor, that that will be one that will rise to the top. Um, as we get that in place for hopefully the future governor or future legislature there in 2027, um, you know, nothing tremendously new to report on the housing package. Obviously you guys have been following it and we talked about it during the last meeting in the, in the spring. I will say, um, And I think it was just at one of the press availabilities the governor did bring it up as something she'd still like to work on over the next four months. I know it's also still a priority for speaker hall. Um, so it's something where we're not quite out of the woods yet, but I think, you know, so many folks have heard from folks like yourself on the local preemption on the zoning, local zoning laws. And you know that I'm not a supporter of that. But, um, if there are some things that we can do that gets, you know, broad bipartisan support, my, my guess is it's going to be too heavy of a lift. Um, you know, following the election with maybe just maybe nine, 10 session days left in the year at that point. But it's something to just, you know, continue to kind of stay in touch with your, um, your folks that, that follow that at Michigan municipal league. Obviously you can always talk to Rep Tisdale and myself on that as well. And I know Rep Tisdale has got the competing package that, is kind of more of the carrot versus the stick approach on that. And, um, um, so, so we'll see where that goes, but that's still out there and still being discussed pretty actively among some of the, the lead people in our, in our state government. Um, and then lastly, I know what I've been following the debate a little bit, um, at our city council level on the data centers and the moratorium, Um, you know, we're hearing the same thing, uh, concerns on data centers, uh, you know, potentially causing higher utility rates, increased noise pollution, lack of transparency when seeking zoning approvals. Uh, those are all common themes we hear. Um, there are different bill packages that are pending the legislature, um, offer certain guard rails, uh, make sure that local units, you know, have the tools that they need. the information that they need to help them with informed decisions, particularly as it amounts to the quote-unquote large-scale data centers. Certainly increasing transparency around these projects is critical when companies want to build data centers. So I think the approach that you guys are taking obviously is the right one to try to take a step back, try to put an ordinance together, look at if you're going to entertain it, how you would do it, and On not quite that scale, but when I was on city council, we would do a similar thing with the six-month moratoriums as it related to marijuana facilities, especially when we just had the 2008 proposal in terms of marijuana. It actually took, not until when I was in the House my freshman year, we finally got three-fourths of a vote to kind of put some regulations around marijuana, and that was obviously before the 2018 ballot proposal then went into effect. So I understand exactly where you guys are at on that. Lastly, for residents here at home, for more information or to sign up for our monthly e-news, please visit SenatorMichaelWeber.com, or always you can call our office at 517-373-0994. And that's the update.

Thank you very much, Mike. That's, uh, it's good to hear that, you know, that you're hearing some of the same things about data centers and hopefully that at the state level, they're looking at, you know, what, what are some of the guard rails, you know, we're not going to be able to, to stop them anywhere, but what we know, what kind of guard rails can we put on them to ensure that when they don't impact the local residents, wherever they're built,

For sure. I know, and I should get, and I actually was talking with Councilman Lindberg about this recently. The governor, I think in conjunction with Detroit Chamber and some of the other ones, they did put out kind of a 10-point thing. And so I'm going to try to find that article and try to get it through there. But I think it does talk about a lot of the stuff that people have concerns about in terms of paying their freight on the utility stuff, obviously the water with the closed loop system and some of that other stuff. So it's definitely something that even at the highest levels of our state government, people are looking at and trying to come up with some solutions.

Got it. Got it. Cool. Thank you very much. I don't see any council comments or questions for you. Very good.

We'll have a great meeting.

Thank you very much. Next up, consent agenda. All matters under consent agenda are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion without discussion. If any council member or citizen requests discussion of an item, it will be removed from consent agenda for separate discussions. I have a motion by Councilman Menino, seconded by Councilman Lindberg. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Consent agenda passes. Next up, public hearings item 2026-0341, public hearing for the City of Rochester Hills fiscal year 2027 proposed and 2028-2029 projected budget plan and the proposed 2026 millage rates.

Good evening, everyone. Good evening, President Carlock, Vice President Mangioli, City Council members, Mayor Barnett, and Mrs. Wang. Thank you for having me tonight. Joe was at a conference today, so he could not be with us. Just going back through the budget timeline on August 10th, the proposed budget, the 2027 to 2029 proposed budget was submitted to city council on the first meeting in August as per city charter. Then on August 17th, we held a budget workshop which was open to the public where each department presented their upcoming year's budget plans and city staff was available to answer any questions. one item that was brought forward at the budget workshop as a straw poll question for the city council members to consider, um, was should the city brought, um, should the city start broadcasting planning commission meetings? So the administrative answer to that is the city, the Rochester Hills media team is equipped to start streaming planning commission meetings at the start of 2027 if the city council so chooses. This request should have no initial budget impact. However, the city is continuing to prepare for an ADA compliance mandate taking effect in April 27. This mandate requires synchronized captions and audio descriptions on videos for both city council and the planning commission. And we do not know yet the cost of the software that we may need at that time. It also should be noted that using the media team to record additional planning commission meetings will reduce the hours they are available for photography, videography and social media as they will be flexing their hours to accommodate the additional night of work. This was the only remaining outstanding item stemming from the budget workshop. And that brings us to tonight. Um, tonight is our public hearing portion of the annual budget process and additional, uh, opportunity for public comments. The public hearing tonight covers two separate items, the city of Rochester Hills, 2027 to 29 proposed budget plan and the winter 2026 millage rates. Besides the update on the one straw poll question, we have received no further questions or comments on the city's proposed budget plan since the workshop from City Council nor the general public. And with that, I would request that President Carlock open a public hearing on the proposed 2027 budget plan and the winter 26 millage rates.

Thank you very much, Ms. Hoyle. So at this time, I will open a public hearing for the 2027 to 2029 budget. proposed budget and the proposed 2026 millage rates. I do not have any public comment cards and I don't see anybody approaching the podium or any public in the meeting hall here. So I will close the public hearing at this point and bring it back to the dais. We do have some council comments and questions. Vice President Mangioli.

Thank you, President Carlock. Thank you, Ms. Hoyle, for the summary and the discussion. As you know, the straw poll question was mine. And I understood that it was just going to be part of the budget, that there weren't any other caveats to being able to broadcast the planning commission meetings. I'm going to guess that whether we did it or not, that ADA compliance and being able to subtitle city council meetings was going to be a cost the city was going to have to incur anyway. And, and that is not built into the current budget.

It is not built in for the exact, uh, software that we're going to buy. I mean, there's a general budget for it. Obviously it could come in higher or lower. Um, just wanted everybody to be prepared that that will be coming forward at a different time.

So there is a placeholder for putting in the subtitling to be ADA compliant for city council meetings. Correct. Planning commission meetings being televised would just get to benefit from that because we're not going to split the cost. The mayor's office is going to have to pay for that anyway, correct? Correct.

Okay.

I just want to make sure that I'm being very clear on the cost associated with this request. I know I've had a number of residents ask me since then about when it was going to start. And so I've been glad to be able to tell them that the mayor has committed to having this be part of his budget starting in January. So I greatly appreciate that, Mr. Mayor, for you adding that into the budget consideration. So there is no budget change as a result of the Planning Commission meeting being televised. Just, I know I'm asking the same question multiple different ways, just verifying come that first meeting, we're good. Okay, great. For the millage rates, just to, you know, just, We have, and I left my stack of budget stuff at home, including those 38 pages of questions and answers. I just want to be sure, from a millage rate perspective, Hedley. I mean, Hedley's been around for 20 plus years, and Hedley says, you ask for a millage rate, you tell us how much you're going to ask initially, but when it gets to the end or a year later, inflation or some other factor, now instead of charging one mil, I'm going to charge 0.98 mils because that one mil equaled $1,000. Because the value of your home went up, the millage rate goes down and therefore the .98 mills now equals that $1,000. So which one of our mills, our millages got impacted by Hedley and are maxed out at what they're allowed to levy?

Bear with me one moment.

Sure, and I apologize for not sending the question in ahead of time.

Um, the new library millage that was passed voter approved in 2024, that is at its highest, um, of Headley.

And that's just a pass through for us because it goes right to them.

Yes, actually. So many of them, the parks, the, um, local street, those ones are at their max for Headley.

Okay.

Um, Fire, obviously, we know still has a little room.

Yeah, and police has a little. Okay, so what I'll do is I'll follow up with Mr. Snyder after just to get a nice little table. Add page 39 to my level of questions. And I do want the staff to realize, I know I heard a lot of... CONVERSATION AFTER THE BUDGET HEARING THAT I HAD ASKED SO MANY QUESTIONS. THE IMPORTANCE FOR ME AS AN ELECTED OFFICIAL IS I HAVE TO BE ACCOUNTABLE TO THE RESIDENTS. WHEN THEY START ASKING ME QUESTIONS ABOUT $200-PLUS MILLION IN TAX REVENUE AND OUR WATER AND SEWER BILLS, I HAVE TO BE ABLE TO ANSWER THEIR QUESTIONS. I have to tell you the 95 questions I asked are a lot shorter than the number of questions I get asked by residents on a regular basis. So it's great for me to be able to point to the budget workshop minutes and be able to say go look at those because I've asked your questions. Today I was in the store and I had somebody come up to me and say, you were on school board, weren't you? I'm like, yes, and I'm on city council. And she said, thank you, because I know that's a lot of work that you do, all of us do, to be able to read through all of that budget information. But I want staff, not just the ones here in the room, but the staff that are out in the, in the building and out in the field to understand why it's important for me as your elected official, because many of you live here in Rochester Hills, why it's important for me to be able to explain all of the information. And so I appreciate the time and dedication that went into giving those answers. I do have some follow-up ones that I won't put into that 39 pages of answers, especially on the administrative and operations items, because those are still things that have a line item in the budget somewhere. And I need to be able to follow up on some of those. But thank you very much again for all of the work that your team has done. President Carlock, we don't have to do a resolution tonight. So we're not approving this tonight. It'll be two weeks from now on the 28th that we are voting on the actual budget itself. So again, thank you very much. And thank you for filling in for Joe tonight.

Oh, no problem.

Thank you very much, Vice President Mangioli. Ms. Menino.

Yes, thank you, President Kerouac. I think I've got one of my questions already answered. So there's a second meeting right before the final is approved for public hearing, correct?

So the public hearing is tonight. Yes. And then it will be on our agenda on the 28th for us to approve. Okay, got it. And then it will be approved two weeks after that after public hearing. Yeah, two weeks after that, right?

No, September 28th.

Okay, so then it's approved then.

Yeah, okay. So that's the cadence of the actual final approval. That was my first question. My second question was, so just to confirm, the budget that we reviewed in August at the workshop, there were no changes to that.

Correct.

Okay, so if we go back to the book, that's what we're voting on. Correct. And the millage rates included in that package have not changed? They have not. Okay, so everything is just as is?

Yes.

Because I know, again, I don't know what the protocol is for public hearing, but my expectation would be we'd see something, one or two slides, but okay, I guess not, okay. So I will go back to the budget package to review for the final. Okay. There'll be a quiz on what's on page 36 of the questions that I asked. Got it. All right. Thank you. That was all my questions.

Thank you very much, Ms. Menino. And thank you, Ms. Hoyle. We don't have anything to move tonight, so thank you for presenting.

Thank you, and we will see you on the 28th.

Great. Thank you. Next up, public comments for items not on the agenda. Public comment is an opportunity for the public to address city council for three minutes. We do have one public comment tonight, Ms. Itabashi Campbell.

Good evening, Rochester Hills City Council, Mayor, and as always, thank you for your dedication and services. My name is Rachel Itabashi Campbell, a longtime resident of Rochester Hills District 3. I came here tonight regarding the email that I sent to the entire council, the city council, regarding the city's contract with priority waste. I sent that email just over a week ago, and I did not receive any response feedback except from one member, so I decided to come here in person and reiterate my concerns. To recap, my husband and I are planning to relocate to another state in a few months, primarily due to caregiving issues. My initial plan was to vacate the house, then stop the trash collection services permanently. My realtor would then proceed with the listing, where unfortunately, as I learned recently, I'm obligated to continue paying priority using until closing, whether or not I am using the services. If I don't pay, the title company will deduct the unpaid balance from the sale, and if I overpay, there will be no refund. So the only relief I might be able to get, as I understand it, is so-called snowboard credit which is just $30 for the entire year. The reason this contract structure is problematic for us is because I have zero chance of being able to sell the house prior to our departure. I can't market the house as long as we live there. My husband is disabled and he's not fully ambulatory. His health is fragile. I can't take him in and out of the house for showing. That will exhaust him. The city staff told me that this contract design is necessary to get better rates overall. Now to me, I'm sorry to say, but paying for services that I don't need or don't even get, it just makes no sense. And I don't think our case is that unique. Transitioning from home to assisted care, often following medical emergencies, is not uncommon for older adults. And in fact, isn't this what the new fire millage was about? You informed us that the city population is aging So it's creating more demand for EMS, and so the property tax had to be raised. So in closing, I do request that you take into consideration what I have said tonight. The next time you negotiate a trash haulers contract, perhaps, maybe perhaps, a provision that more broadly accommodates homeowners in absentia, not just vacationers, is warranted. Retirees in general want to minimize unnecessary expenses, especially in times of transition. Last but not least, I know Councilwoman Neubauer is absent, but I would like to thank her for being one who always responds and sincerely tries to do something for your constituents. God bless you all, and thank you for listening.

Thank you very much, Ms. Itabashi. I will let... Vice President Mangioli, make some comments on this.

Thank you, President Karluk. Ms. Dabashi-Campbell, I just was going through my emails and I don't have one from you recently. Probably the most recent one was 2024. If you could forward it again, I would appreciate it. We've been fortunate that we do have a great relationship with priority waste and we can check and see if there's other exceptions that they can make on a one-time deal, but we have to be very careful with our contract that we have. So please make sure, because again, I don't have your request to be able to answer your question and then be able to work with Mr. Vysenko and his team because they're the ones that help manage our priority waste contracts. So please let us know and we'll see what we can do for you. Thank you very much for bringing it to our attention.

Thank you very much. Same, Ms. Itabashi-Campbell. I checked my email as well, and I do not have one from you since 2024 as well. So, yeah, check your sent folder and see if they got stuck in there. And I think the mayor would like to make some comments on this. Thank you.

Also, I know this isn't the point. I also checked to see if I had one, and I didn't as well. I know that's not the point. First of all, thank you for making those comments. appreciate the kindness in which you made those and understand the situation. We have had a few challenges. And we have about 27,000 subscription accounts. And there are a lot of situations. I wouldn't say a lot, but there certainly are some, as you mentioned, that have happened. I don't think anybody, I know no one on this council was here when we started this program, but one of the things that we did is try to make it as easy as possible for all sides, both at the time, GFL, and certainly for the city as well. And what we did, what the city council did was create an ordinance which required every single family home to have weekly pickup. Because what was described to us as what can happen is certainly there are a few of those situations that exist like that, but then others, you know, there might be, if there is a home on the lot, that lot has to have, that address has to have a weekly pickup by ordinance of city council. So that's the challenge of the situation is, It's not like the mayor has the ability or the garbage company has the ability to not enforce an ordinance. The reason that's done is because there are situations like that where you start to have, you can imagine, it's easy to say what I just said. What's hard to say is those situations that the resident just described can proliferate. I don't use enough trash. I take my trash to my office at work. We share trash with our neighbor. We are two senior citizens without a lot of trash, so we collected it. And what they said was when we did this 15 years ago was that it's best to have a universal process to dealing with this. What that doesn't account for, as you indicated, and I'm sorry, Ms. Itachi Campbell, if that's close, is the situation like you explained. And that's why we try to have some small caveats about the Snowbird credit, which gives you about a month or so, of credit, maybe a month and a half, six weeks or so. But there really isn't a one-time exceptions or accounting challenges for this because it is a ordinance set by the city council. So much like other ordinances, you know, you don't kind of like a water bill. I don't have the ability to make some changes or round down or forgive it for a month if you're going through something. So certainly understand the challenge, maybe providing a little bit of the 10,000 foot level as to how you apply it across 27,000 users, all with very unique situations. That's why we have a lot of people that say, well, I go to Florida in the winter. I don't get the service. Why am I paying for it? It's somewhat like the OPC or the schools or anything else that is similarly priced out. It's not the perfect answer, certainly not one that answers your question, but it is the way we've operated because the approach that we took was, one, to be fair to everyone, and not have to try to get into the judicial matter of understanding, you know, okay, well, understand that situation, wonder if that situation is three months, wonder if it's six months. And again, all the different situations that we were shared with or that was shared with us that could happen when you sort of proliferate exceptions as opposed to a standard. And we went with the standard and have enforced that very fairly for the last 15 years. Long answer, and by the way, happy to, Mr. Vizanko, I was already going to mention when I found out you're the speaker with priority. If you can, before you leave, meet Mr. Vizanko. He's going to come back and share with you. We'll get your specific address. We'll advocate for you. The one thing you said about not getting a credit if you overpay, we can address that. We can make sure that that doesn't happen. But make sure you connect, and we'll help you as much as we can under the provisions that I shared with council this evening.

Perfect. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. THAT BRINGS US TO LEGISLATIVE AND ADMINISTRATIVE COMMENTS. I DON'T SEE ANY COUNCIL PEOPLE WHO HAVE ‑‑ OH.

SORRY.

YOU GAVE ME TOO MUCH OF A LEAWAY THERE. OKAY. VICE PRESIDENT MONJULIE.

IT'S JUST REAL QUICK. BEFORE OUR NEXT COUNCIL MEETING, THE ABSENTEE BALLOTS WILL DROP. I JUST WANTED TO REMIND RESIDENTS THAT SEPTEMBER 24TH IS WHEN 15,000 ‑‑ HOW MANY ‑‑ THERE'S A LOT. 15,000 absentee ballots will be mailed to the residents who are on the permanent absentee ballot list or requested it with an application that's already been received by the city by that time. This is, if you haven't been watching TV, it's the start of election season. Just make sure that... Just a tip, if you have an absentee ballot, fill it in, send it back, you'll get taken off everybody's list and you won't get bothered by emails, text messages, Facebook ads anymore. It's just a tip because candidates don't want to spend the money sending you stuff if you've already voted. There is those provisions that later on, before early voting starts, that if you realized, oh, I voted for the wrong person, you can come and see the clerk's office to spoil your absentee ballot the day before early voting starts, so October 23rd, 22nd, somewhere in there. But get those absentee ballots back in. It is your right and responsibility as a resident to vote. And we look forward to having a lot of them back here this year. So thank you very much. And thank you, Clerk Scott and your team, for all the work that we know you're going to be doing over the next two months. Yes. So, thank you. Thank you, President Carlick.

Thank you very much, Vice President Mongioli. I don't see any further council comments, so I'll pass it over to the mayor for administrative remarks.

Yes, thank you, President Carlick. Good evening, council and residents. I'm happy to provide a little bit of a brief report just to piggyback on Vice President Mongioli's comments about the election. If you're interested in this stuff, I think everybody on this side of the dais is. Our election turnout was... 40% for the August election, four zero 40% of that 40%, about 60% voted absentee, about 35% voted the day of and about 7% voted in our early voting over at the library. So that is higher than the last similarly positioned election in 2022 by about 10%. So see a little more voter interest in this election than we did in the similar election four years ago, but still have six out of 10 people not voting in the city, which of course we always encourage people to get out and vote. Want to start by quickly mentioning the storm that Mr. Blair mentioned. By the way, Mr. Blair, I appreciate you comparing your presentation to a state of the city. I have a DJ at mine, and I think you know that, so. It's you. Obviously, thank the residents for their patience. We're blessed in this region of the world to not have a lot of the natural disasters that at least a lot of my colleagues in mayordom do with floods and hurricanes and fires and so forth. But we get summer storms, and we had a pretty bad one last week or a week and a half or so ago. Appreciate the patience of the residents as we get back on our feet Certainly appreciate the leadership of the team next to me and those, particularly those first responders. I think you saw in a Facebook post I had that we had like, you know, a hundred calls for service in the 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. time slot. And, you know, a lot of those were pretty challenging with wires down and, you know, traffic situations. And so, you know, the fire department particularly was all in and a very busy 48 hours Sheriff's Department, along with our Department of Public Services. Certainly right after that, our Parks Department with the forestry team. So it takes everything you're planning to do and completely throws it on end and you plan three days or two days completely differently. In fact, I know our forestry team is still out. So thanks for your patience on that. We're still working through it. Obviously, we work closely with our utilities like DTE and others to try to advocate as much as we can. But it happened. We always learn through those things. We actually had a pretty interesting thing. We had a what's the word, huddle in place? Shelter in place for like 45 minutes, almost twice during the storm here. And for a lot of the team members, that's in the women's bathroom and in the men's bathroom, which is a great place to visit for about two to four minutes, but not for 45. So we're debriefing and trying to figure that out on our side as well. But thanks for everyone's for their patience and the first responders and so forth and other team members for their hard work. a great lead in to, uh, so you lost a tree. How about a free tree? Um, city's free tree program, uh, led by Ken and his team, uh, is, uh, is out. And, uh, we sell this out every year, even though it's free, meaning, you know, we have an allotment that we put out there. It goes. Uh, so if you're looking for one, obviously this is a tree that would be planted on city property by a city team. Um, but if you've got a great spot for one, uh, contact our office and we'll connect you up to see if that location qualifies. Um, but we certainly have an opportunity to get some trees back in the ground, for some of those ones that we lost last week. Hey, you saw this guy's face here last week when he kind of shot from the back of the room and answered to the question that no one necessarily knew. I just wanted to mention that we had a great recognition for Pat McKay as winning the Lifetime Achievement Award for the Michigan Historic Preservation Network. I'm actually sort of surprised he hasn't won it already, but we'll be celebrating him, and I know Ken and his team are proud of Pat, and certainly I know all the council is as well. Another, speaking of the museum, we were out at the museum for the Rise Cup kickoff. This is a really great event that Sarah, Pam, and her team, their team have come up with. We had, how many people do we have? 150 out there? Two and over? 200 folks, business members, all from different community groups and businesses in the community. And you can tell they're different teams by their different color shirts. As they kicked off this competition, there'll be a, a series of events happening. There's a euchre night, I think a trivia night. I don't think there's bowling this year, but a bunch of things. And of course, at the end, there's a trivia, excuse me, a community challenge. Last year, recall, we raised like 13,000 pounds of food for the neighborhood house. So a really great event, and we're really proud of all the team members that have helped make this possible and the connections we see in our business community because We're really the only community anywhere around here that does anything even close to this, and we have a lot of communities coming to talk to us about how they can replicate this so we know it's successful. I want to thank the council members who attended the 9-11 service last week, and certainly thank the first responders. President Karlak gave some wonderful remarks. as did several other speakers. Mr. Webb was here as well. And just thank you. I think it's an incredibly well done event, very professionally done. It's appropriate in its recognition of the somberness of the event, but also in its gratitude for those folks that are continuing to serve. I think it's nice if you weren't there to know that we had the In our crowd, we had a bus of senior citizens from a Pomeroy Assisted Living Center sitting next to a bus of elementary school students from Deerfield Elementary. And the conversations that you hear from folks who have lived it and from folks who have only read about it is pretty interesting. It's kind of one of the unique roles that a city can play. And so I always appreciate this event and thank the Rochester Old Safari Department for their leadership in putting it on. If there's one slide you pay attention to in this presentation, it would be this one. We survived the bridge closure last weekend of, actually it opened up this morning, of Livernois, excuse me, of Avon Road. This is just around the corner here. It was not the end of Art and Apples as was prognosticated. Art and Apples actually had their best weekend of all time. So maybe we'll close the bridge every year. Just kidding. This weekend, Friday at sometime after the rush hour, we will close Livernois. This will be a bigger impact since a lot of north and south traffic heads there and there's not a really convenient turnaround. But please note that this will be closed Friday evening. Saturday, we're allowing them to work on Sunday and it'll be open again just like this one was on Monday morning at 6 a.m. So you see, I guess it's right there, 6 p.m. it closes on this Friday. So please note that. The barricades are already out, the cones are already out, but we want to have hopefully as informed motoring public as possible, and that will be a big change this weekend. Couple last events that you might want to join. If you just love coming to City Hall on Mondays, you can come again next week. The 21st, we are having our open house for the Blueprint for Innovation. It's some fantastic survey results. This is a drop-in any time between 6 and 8. It'll be on the second floor upstairs. This is kind of all four of our plans, the Parks and Recreation, Transportation, the Safe Streets Plan, and then our Community Stewardship Plan, which we're kind of innovatively all pushing into one to kind of glean some efficiencies on. Another opportunity for the public to participate next Monday from 6 until 8. Totally opposite of that, if you hate talking to people about the future of your community and you just want to fish, well, this one's for you. Bass fishing tournament. although for me it's more of a bluegill tournament. Spencer Park, 27th of September, four to six. It's a lot of fun. Ken and his team do a great job getting people out. You see in the corner our brand new ADA accessible dock down there. This is about four times the size of the old one. A lot more people to enjoy this particular event. I hope a lot of people will come out. And just a few other things to mention. Of course, October is our big month for the museum with the Stonewall Pumpkin Festival, but we do have an event coming up at the end of this month. The Scarecrows in the City Scarecrow Building Workshop. Contact my office for more information, an organization, a neighborhood group, an individual, a business. Anyone can adopt a scarecrow and put it out, and they'll end up here at the museum or downtown. A lot of fun things to do. And then finally, as was mentioned, the State of the City is this Thursday. Theme is sort of the Super Bowl. I'm so glad the Lions won. Otherwise, it would have been a little bit of a downer. Although I do realize now that they're playing on Thursday night. But they're playing after the State of the City will be over. So there we go. You can still come to the State of the City, watch the game afterwards. It'll be a lot of fun. It's always a great event. Great opportunity to come and find out what's happening in your community. And a lot of the team members over here behind me have a lot invested in this. Youth Council, of course, is a great part of it. And we look forward to a really wonderful event this Thursday. President Karlic, that's all for me tonight. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. I don't see any further council comments. The next step, attorney's report. Ms. Christ.

I have nothing this evening.

Thank you very much. Brings us to new business item 2026-0144. Request for purchase authorization parks increased to the blanket purchase order contract for construction engineering services for the construction and development of Nowicki Park in the amount of $16,500 for a new not to exceed amount of $1,156,680, Nowick and Frouse Engineers, Pontiac, Michigan. Mr. Elwork, Ms. Ballant.

Good evening, President Karlak, Vice President Mangioli, City Council, Mayor Barnett. Yeah, we're here briefly tonight to request an additional $16,500 for Nowak and Frouse. Now that we have purchased the property north of of new wiki that essentially new wiki north of five acres additionally there um to build a path continuing pathway in in that section and i'm no no i can frouse had worked on the engineering for the rest of the pathway that went right in front of it so we're we're actually fortunate that they're right there on the ground and we anticipate um a request coming later from Riewoldt and Sons on the already approved bid pricing to potentially save us mobilization costs or what have you since they are literally right there. This will become a DPS project because the Nowicki Park project is this contract is parks. I'm bringing it here. We work together all the time anyway. That's essentially what we're asking tonight is the engineering to expand this path on that five acres recently purchased as authorized by council on that and get a little bit closer to completing it. So with that, any questions?

Perfect. Thank you very much, Mr. Elwert. Vice President Mangioli.

Thank you very much, President Karlak. Only question, right now, there is the end of the pathway sign that's just before the acreage we just purchased, and there's a sign down at Powderhorn Ridge that warns people, hey, the pathway is closed up ahead, cross here, because we put in the new crosswalk at Powderhorn Ridge to the west side of Adams Road. I just want to make sure that that signage is going to remain in place until such time as we fill the gap between the park The pathway that's in front of premier academy Yeah, I would assume that that would I will make sure that that sign stays as appropriate I mean it's the asphalt is going to end right they're still going to be again There should be a sign that says end of pathway absolutely, but my concern was hey You're you're going a half mile down the road to find out the pathway closed and I don't want you crossing across Adams Road until that hawk signal comes in at Rain Tree, or not at Rain Tree, across from my subdivision. Bel Air? Yeah. You're putting out the hawk signal. It's not going in at Palm Air. It's going in at Rolling Green. Bel Air? Across from the parking lot. You're right. It'll be just north of the parking lot I just until such time as there is a safer place for someone to cross between Powderhorn and Tinkin I just want to make sure we're letting walkers know that there's a

Absolutely. Assuming that council approves on these projects, we anticipate the asphalt work in that area all occurring at the same time. That will be next summer essentially. That'll be one of the last things that goes in. That sign probably won't need to be there.

We won't need to move for a while.

Forever because the hawk signal will be in also at the same time. But yes, that will definitely be on our list.

Yes. All right. So understanding all that, thank you very much. President Karlik, I move the resolution in our packet.

Thank you very much. I have a motion by Vice President Emanjioli, seconded by Mr. Blair. Let me read this resolution. Oh, I do see Ms. Menino, you have some questions.

Yes, I just have a quick follow-up. So this purchase order here is the authorization for the additional scope change or engineering work to lay out the extended pathway, and then there'll be another purchase request to come in for the additional material. I take it in labor.

Right, yeah. We anticipate a price from Riewoldt & Sons that is already on there and as long as that's kept to the already approved line item bids that council has approved pricing-wise, that it won't necessarily go out to bid, but it will still be of a dollar volume that it'll need to come back to council for final approval.

Okay, for the labor material for it. This is only the engineering work.

Yeah, this is only engineering and there'll be another construction project that'll come back later, yes.

Okay, and then there's only one hawk signal in this, and it's, where's it going in at? I'm looking at the map right here.

It is, oh, from this map, it is just north of Knot Palm Air. What is it? You can't see it on this map, it's south.

I was saying Bell Air, but Bay Point.

That's Bay Point, okay. So Knot Palm, okay, got it. Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much. Okay, I don't see further council comments. I have a motion by Vice President Mangioli, seconded by Mr. Blair. I'll read the resolution. Resolved that the Rochester Hills City Council hereby authorizes an increase to the blanket purchase order contract for construction engineering services for construction and development of Nowicki Park to Nowack and Frouse Engineers, Pontiac, Michigan, in the amount of $16,500 for a new not to exceed amount of $1,156,680 and further authorizes the mayor to execute an agreement on behalf of the city. It's further resolved that the city's acceptance of the proposal and approval of the award of a contract shall be contingent and conditioned upon the party's entry into an execution of a written agreement acceptable to the city. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? That motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. Brings us to any other business. Any other business before the Rochester Hills City Council tonight? I see none. Next meeting will be a regular meeting of the Rochester Hills City Council, Monday, September 28, 2026, 7 p.m. right here in the auditorium. I have a motion by Vice President Vangeli, seconded by Mr. Lindberg to adjourn. All those in favor? Aye. Meeting adjourned.