City Council - Regular Meeting

public comment cards in the back there and hand it to Miss Wispin here so that we can make sure that we recognize you at the appropriate time. As always, public comment is limited to three minutes. Miss Wispin, if you could please take the role. Good evening. President Deal here. Vice President Carlock here. Mr. Blair here. Miss Morland here. Miss Mongioli here. Miss Newower here. Mr. Walker here. President Deal, we have a quorum. Thank you very much. Now, if everyone will please rise, our youth council representative will lead us in the pledge of allegiance.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Approval of agenda. I have not been made aware of any uh request to modify or alter the agenda. We have a motion by Mrs. Newower, seconded by M. Vice President Carlock. Uh all those in favor of approval of the agenda, please signify by saying I. I. Are there any opposed? Hearing none. That motion passes unanimously. And it moves us to council and youth committee reports. And as always, we will kick off with our youth council representative.

All right. Thank you. Good evening, President Deal. Mayor Barnett, council members, and citizens of Rochester Hills. My name is Jack Deal, and I am a junior at Stony Creek High School. This is my third year serving on youth council. At our most recent meeting on October 1st, the the Rochester Hills human resources department spoke with the youth council about the interviewing process. We also had to reschedule our 2026 August meeting from the 5th to the 12th due to the election. Lastly, we started brainstorming new ideas for winter events that the youth council could implement. The youth council will be participating in the Rochester Hills Fire Department Fire Department open house on October 8th. We will also be attending the Rochester Community Foundation tailgate on October 9th. We will finally be attending the Rochester Hills Museum Stonewall Pumpkin Festival on October 11th at the Van Husen Farm. Our next meeting will be on November 12th at the Rochester Hills Resiliency Center. Thank you and have a wonderful rest of your evening.

Thank you so much for that report this evening. Uh let's see. We do have some council members with some committee uh comments. Let's start with Mr. Walker.

Thank you, President Deal. Miss Whisp, you would share my screen, please. So, mark your calendars. Join us for the OPC's annual 50 plus expo this Wednesday, October 8th, from 9:00 a.m. until 1 p.m. Explore over 90 local service providers offering valuable resources on retirement living, caregiving, finances, wellness, technology, and more. Highlights include free admission and parking, flu shots on site, raffle prizes, and vendor giveaways, and overflow parking shuttle service from St. Paul's United Methodist Church. Thank you to our sponsors, Blue Cross Blue Shield, NextStep for Seniors, Pixley Funeral Home, and Pomeoy Living with all along with all the supporting sponsors who make this event possible. Don't miss this opportunity to discover information and resources for better living all in one place this Wednesday, 9 until 1. Great event. Thank you.

Thank you very much for that update. Next up, we have Mrs. Newower.

Thank you, President Deal. Um, first I want to say that October is breast cancer awareness month. Um, I'm wearing my pink blazer because I want this to be somewhat memorable. Um, I know it's difficult and not a fun appointment to do, but I'm urging all of the ladies here to go and do their mammogram. And also for the men because it affects 5% of men as well, breast cancer. A lot of people don't know that, but please get yourselves checked. Um, routinely check yourself. And if you don't know how to do that, talk to your provider about how to do that. Um, also, can you share my screen, please? So, this last week at Bloomer Park, we had the MSA race with um, which is pretty significant that they chose Bloomer Park to be one of the parks where they do this race because um, there's only five or six of them throughout the state and to be selected to have one of the better trails to do the race is pretty significant. Um, and Owen Barker from Rochester Hills for the second time got first place, which is kind of amazing. So, we want to congratulate Owen and his family and his coaches for all of their hard work and also for our amazing parks team for once again having a park where they are selected from all over the state in order to do these races. So, that's all I have. Thank you so much.

Thank you for that. Next up, Mr. Blair.

Thank you, President Deal. Christine, would you share my screen, please? I've got the latest in uh we'll call it scam watch. I think that's a good uh a good phrase. Uh we continue to receive the majors report from our sheriff's department and uh residents in our community are getting hit with scams every day. So, every couple weeks, I'm sharing just a little tidbit to uh keep you on your toes. If you know someone who might be particularly vulnerable to scams, share this information with them. There's a theme for today's um it is SMS or smishing which is an attack via text message. There's something in common between all of these. Can you catch what it is? It's that blue underlined link. That's called a shortened URL and it's what hackers use to obfiscate or keep you from seeing where that link actually goes. So before you click that, you got to stop and think, is that a legitimate message? So, here's what to look for. If it's suspicious, obviously off the bat, don't click on it to verify that. Just delete the text message. Also, don't reply. A lot of these messages say reply stop to in these messages, but that just tells the attacker that your number is active and you'll actually get more spam. And watch out for those signs of urgency, right? a package that's going to get returned to the sender or three days before you're arrested unless you send money to the court. Those senses of urgency are designed to make you act without thinking, right? And verify the sender independently. Are you actually expecting a package? Go into Amazon and look and see if any of your shipments are held up before you click that message. So hopefully you can uh use that information to keep yourself safe. And back to you, President Deal. Thank you so much for that public service announcement. Next up, we have

Mr. Mongioli. Thank you, President De. Nothing to display tonight. Um, but I do want to uh remind folks that Rochester Area Recreation Authority um is in the process of working on their master plan. And oh my goodness, we're all making that noise tonight. I just made sure my speakers were off. Um, so David and I There we go. Very good. So, RAHRA is working on its master plan.

Um, much like many of the other organizations in our community, including our own city doing working on the master plan. So hopefully if they receive a link uh, Councilman Blair that says, "Hey, do help uh, give us input on our master plan." They are clicking on don't delete it. but hover over it so that you can see where it goes. Sometimes it's a lot harder on your cell phone, but I know in my emails I can hover over a link and you can see where the the full URL, read through it to see if it comes from a trusted organization like RAR, like the city of Rochester Hills, so that you as a resident can give your input into these important documents that will help guide the organizations for years to come. and we do value resident input into the overall process. We're going to hear a lot about resident input in our upcoming meeting um presentation. So, thank you very much. Be safe. If you can talk to my husband about not clicking those links, I would really appreciate it. Councilman Blair,

thank you. Thank you so much. Next up, Mrs. Morland.

Thank you, President Dal. I thought that noise was um everyone reacting to David Scamler. I thought maybe it was all the scammers. While it does not feel like fall today, it will tomorrow. And with fall comes amazing fall events. And if you could share my screen, please. Couple of them that are coming up that I'm very excited about. Two of my favorites is the Stonewall Pumpkin Festival, which was mentioned by our youth representative tonight. Saturday, October 11, 10 to 4 and 7 to nine for the pumpkin lighting. That's like a reveal. It's so exciting. And it's $8 for for museum members, 12 for non-members. And that includes a pumpkin for every person. And that pumpkin you get to carve and put on the stone wall, which is way cool. All kinds of activities, food, cider, donuts, and just a whole lot of fun. Pumpkin bowling. I mean, how many times do you get to go pumpkin bowling? It's just an event that you don't want to miss. And if you can see those two little cute kids down there. I mean, obviously Rochester Hills has the cutest kids ever. They are so cute down there. The other item is the Halloween masquerade ball at the museum, which is really, really fun. You can come wear a mask, you know, like one of those masks, and um dress in your finery or you can dress in vintage clothing. It's It's great fun and it's at the museum Saturday, October 25th, 7 to 11:00 p.m. Live band, win a night at the Royal Park, all kinds of fun things, cash bar, appetizers, photo booth. So, I encourage you all to come out for both of these. Lots of fun in the fall. Thanks, President Deal.

Thank you so much. Fantastic. So many nice things going on in the city this this fall. Um, seeing no further uh committee reports, we'll move on to presentations. Uh, start kick things off with 2025-0416 presentation of the deer management advisory committee 2025 report. Good evening, uh, President Deal, Vice President Carlock, uh, city council members, Mayor Barnett. I'm here with Deb Barno, the chair of our deer management advisory committee, and she is here to, uh, give our annual update and recommendations from DMAC. So, take it away.

Good evening, council. Mayor Barnett and our youth committee member. Um it's a pleasure to be here with you again this evening um to give the annual report. Um the first thing we always start out with is we look at our deer, we call them their DVCs if anybody sees it abbreviated DVC. It stands for deer vehicle collisions which we always monitor um by reports that we get every spring um that indicate um how we're looking from the powerfall. This year, as you can see the graphic for 2024, we registered, and this is a reported uh collisions, 109 collisions this year. Now, historically, the numbers aren't here, but I can tell you that historically, last year, our collisions for the year 2023, we're looking at 123. The year prior to that was 102. Um, if you go back to 2021, we were looking at 120. And then 2020, we had a high of 153. So you can see 153 and then we dropped down which is really reflective of the EHD breakout that we had here um in the city. Um so um it's good our you know our DBCs have gone down slightly which is always a good sign. So hopefully we will have another successful fall um again this year. The next thing we look at um the next graph is no surprise. Um of those 109 deer uh deer vehicle collisions, we can look at 47 of those occurred in the high months of October to December. We know these are the high DVC months. We know that deer are in their rut, their mating season, and so they're are all over the place. and not um surprisingly October, November and December, particularly October um and November are very high months for DVC's. Um if you look at the next graph um we're still showing primarily no injuries. Um we did have a few this year um that there was a

suspected minor injury and that's actually just up one from last year because we had two that were suspected minor injuries. So, we've we've stayed pretty constant in that respect as well. Um, the map of our DVCs, um, it's no surprise to anybody who lives in the city or the council or people that drive, um, we know where our hot spots are, our DVCs. Um, Rochester Road, Avon Road, Adams Road, Tinken Road, Jean Rar, uh, Liberoi. Those are our hot spots. And so we'll probably, if you haven't already seen them, you will start seeing the deer crash signs because the parks and natural resources department displays puts those signs out and rotates them in our high DBC spots. So um, you know, not a surprise that and those are pretty constant. We're not seeing any new um, hotspots, but we certainly have plenty of them in the city. Um, and so those signs are deployed um, as you may know from October 1 through December 31st. Um when we look at the next graph, we look at our aerial survey which is traditionally conducted every winter uh depending on weather conditions. So normally the parks and natural resources staff goes up uh helicopter and physically counts deer um and and I think it's like 10 is it 10 areas? 10 areas that have remained fairly constant over the last number of years, last 10 years. um and just they physically count them. And so we saw that 2023 we weren't able to give a count because the weather conditions were not conducive. Last year we had 152 and we were starting to trend upward a little. They um saw a deer count another 30 deer uh in 2025. So again, one of our recommendations um for this year is to again conduct that aerial count um this winter, weather permitting, and we'll see what um our

counts look like this year. So starting to creep up. So something to watch. Um our next graph just gives an idea um of where we have complaints. Um you know, as you can see the first graph, it's feeding deer still fairly low. Um and hopefully a lot of people are cognizant of our ordinance that prohibits the feeding of deer. Um we have nuisance wild animal um that is remained fairly constant. Uh roadkill um that was slightly up a little um and I know the city people can contact the parks and natural resources department. Matt can further elaborate on the program um if a resident calls to say they've got a deer um either on the road or perhaps in their backyard. Um so um but those have stayed uh fairly constant. The road the road deer for uh road commission of Ben County slightly up um this past year, but Matt can further elaborate on how we handle that. So our recommendations this year are fairly constant and consistent with what they've been in the past year. Um we are going to continue our outreach again this fall. Uh we have designated um October 2025 as deer awareness month. If any of you have gotten the notes notes from nature that um were issued by the parks and natural resources, it's got a whole really nice um I was very pleased. Did a beautiful job on that. Um very pleased because the whole thing is really about deer and what to look out for and bringing to residents awareness that this is deer awareness month. And I think that, you know, we've talked about before, sometimes we'll see deer counts going up, but we'll see the DVCs kind of going lower, staying constant. And I'm hoping I'm hoping that that really is a result of our outreach efforts and really bringing um that information to residents, reminding them every fall to

with our signs, whether we put literature out or we put um newspaper articles or the you know internet things like the notes through nature that we're bringing that awareness um to residents to be aware of uh it's the deer. Um, also another recommendation for next year is we're going to once again circulate um the deer brochures um that um the committee put together a few years ago with the water bill. We didn't do it this past year. Committee's recommendation is that we do it every other year and so consistent with that we recommend that they go out once again in the spring um water bills for next year. Little bit different approach to the gardening with deer seminar. We've done it consistently for the last several years. it's always um pretty successful. Um we this past year, the last couple of years actually, we have seen kind of attendance dwindling and this past year was one of our lowest attended events ever. It was I think we had 20 maybe 25 people. Um, and so what the committee recommended is that we forego doing that this spring. And there are a lot of resources online, uh, video prior video, uh, presentations, um, and just a lot of other literature and and great resources online. So to refer residents to that and then we'll pick it up again hopefully in 2027. And with that seminar, you know, we're I think that we're competing a lot with Bourdines. Even though Bourdines is our partner and putting on that seminar, um they do their own um deer seminar. They do it in the spring and they also do one in the fall. So um we're kind of saturating the area. So we'll pass on this this coming year the 2026 and we'll hopefully bring it bring it back in 2027. Um, as always, we recommend the continuation of the six changeable message boards in the high DVC areas again from October 1 through January 1,

which um those are already uh being deployed. Um, another recommendation is that we continue our outreach to um student new student drivers to the high schools and typically we've been doing that by putting a note in some of the literature that the school sends out. um that is the best uh route that they said to get that information um to parents as well as to students. And lastly to continue our aerial dare count in January 2026 or as weather permits this winter. So with that that is the report um essentially um pretty much the same with a couple tweaks this year. Um I just want to thank the committee um always appreciate the time and effort that everyone puts into the committee. Um, I want to thank Ken, um, always, director of parks and and natural resources. I want to thank Matt especially and his staff, Lauren Oxade, Tara Merhof, because they are the ones that are instrumental in putting putting everything together, everything that they recommend, everything that we recommend. They're the ones that are instrumental in making sure that everybody everything comes to fruition. So, thank you very much to Matt as well as his staff. And with that, we'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much and thank you to to to you for this presentation this evening and for and to the committee for everything that they do. I did have some uh some questions. I was because I was looking at the numbers and one of the things that and I think you mentioned it was that you know the the the collisions seem rather consistent and constant given some of the radical fluctuations in deer population. For example, if you look at like 2019 where we did see an uptick in the collisions, but look at the population. The population was almost four times

what we had like in it in 2022 and in and you know almost a little more than twice what we had in 2025. But the but the crashes you don't see you know the increases commensurate with that deer population. So I mean that seems like it's a good that seems like it's a good thing. Um and so you know it it's very possible that you know the signs are working. One of the things I just I also wanted to commend the committee for and to thank the committee for rather selfishly as a parent of new drivers reaching out to the high schools and informing them them of these things. This is really really important for you know the par for you know parents and especially for younger drivers who are not you know you know they're already building their skills and they have this extra hazard. So I really do appreciate it. Um and oh one my last question I promise. Um so I heard on WWJ is there another disease impacting deer right now? Yeah. So, u throughout the state there's uh what's called chronic wasting disease which is in other states and it's found um throughout the state in many counties. And so that's a disease that it's been around for a while but um it's starting to show up more and more in Michigan. And so it's it's um a little bit different than the way EHD works. Um but it's it's it's another example of a disease and you tend to see it when you have high populations. Are we finding it impacting the population here in the city or do we just not have the numbers yet?

So, as far as I know, there's there's been no reported chronic wasting disease in Rochester Hills. Okay. So, very good. Thank you so much. Um, we do have some questions from other council members. We'll start with Mrs. Mongioli.

Thank you, President Dill. And actually, it's more a thank you to the committee. I get to serve on this with u Councilman Walker. And so, I want to thank, as Matt has indicated, thank Miss Barno for leading this committee. You've done it for a number of years and Rochester Hills gets to be a leader in this, Mr. Mayor, because we have found other communities that are dealing with this situation, are trying to take some more radical efforts in their culling their deer herds. Thankfully here, we don't have that situation. I do also want to thank Mr. Braun, Mr. Donovan, Mr. Galloway, uh Mr. Hunter, Mr. Kubacina, and Mr. Nochman for their service on the committee as well as Eliza Pazuti who's our youth council representative. It was through youth council that they made the suggestion that we go out to the young drivers and make sure we let them know what they should be watching for. I saw the first sign as I was coming in here tonight. So, thank you very much for all of that. Um, so I'm looking forward to us having this again next year and with the recommendations that the committee has. I know President Deal there's no resolution for us to approve but again want to thank you and the committee for all the work that they have done and having Rochester Hills lead the way in this situ in this issue. So thank you very much.

Next up, Mr. Blair. Thank you very much, Deb. Appreciate your efforts. Always pleasure to hear your updates. I see we've changed the wording on those light boards. It now says deer crash area instead of deer crossing. The deer would never cross at those signs, so maybe this will be more effective. Um, more seriously though, I'm curious in part of your research, do you communicate with nearby communities, Auburn Hills, Oakland Township, and if so, how do how does our deer situation stack up to our neighbors?

I think that I mean, no doubt that we are leading the way. we're communities and Matt will talk a minute about the resources or the the regional committees that um they have that um the parks and natural resources department is aware of and participates in. But there's no doubt that we are leading the way. We we took this on over 10 years ago with a lot of great consternation. I I watched it from the beginning. I know Mera Barnett watched it from the beginning and um and it's really evolved and you know through a lot of leadership like Jim Kubacina you know who was the chair in those early days and you know really struggling to um bring together and put metrics together which we still have on the committee but we really are leading the way. I mean, you look at the other communities, Southfield, Farmington Hills, you know, they have um decided to move forward this winter with calls, but you know, even some of the things that we talked about in our committee, that is not the sole answer. It's maybe a part of the problem and maybe a temporary solution to reduce some populations, but it is not the total answer and it's never going to be a comprehensive program if you really do want to try and make some efforts to control the deer. So, we have been on the leading edge of that and I will turn it over to Matt. He can talk about some of the regional um committees that um are are available and that we participate in.

Yeah. So, just briefly, there is a regional deer coalition that um Farmington Hills kind of started with the DNR and um it's made up of a bunch of southeastern communities because this this um deer in an urban setting that's it's it's very common in in southeast Michigan and throughout the the country. I've gotten calls from people in Colorado dealing with this same issue. And so, we do attend uh those regional deer committee meetings. Um, and early on it was it was it was pretty apparent that a lot of those communities are in this place we were 10 years ago and exploring their options and seeing what they can do. So, we are part of that communication. Yeah.

In terms of the crash data and the deer population just in total, are we above in line or below our neighbors?

Yeah. So, um, this year specifically, I'm I'm not 100% sure. In the past, we've been on the higher side for, uh, DVC's. Um, the aerial counts, that's just a snapshot for us to see trends. So, that doesn't tell us anything about our population necessarily. Um, so it's hard to say on that, but I I know uh in recent years some of those other communities, their DVC numbers have started to creep up and exceed ours, and I think that's why they've gotten to the point where they're exploring some other options. Great, Matt. Deb, thanks again. Well, looks like that's all the questions the council has for, but once again, thank you for that report and thank you to the committee for all the work you do all year long. We appreciate it.

Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you. Next up, item number 2025-0417, Greenspace Advisory Board 2025 Status Report. Good evening again, uh, President Deal, Vice President Carlock, uh, Mayor Barnett, city council members. Uh I'm now here uh joined by Jason Graves uh chair of the green space advisory board and he and I will now be presenting on our annual green space update. So with that I'll pass it to Jason.

Thank you Matt. In the past years we have discussed the background of the green space advisory board and reiterated all of the benefits that green spaces provide to the health and well-being of our citizens. By this point, I think we're all aware of the benefits and the importance of our green spaces. So, let's just get right to it. The city has acquired eight green spaces totaling 142 acres of permanently preserved natural areas. This includes Clear Creek in the northwest portion of the city, Rivercrest, Harding, Cloverport, and Childris in the center of our city along the Clinton River corridor. our largest at Innovation Hills green space, Ruby Green Space, which was recently expanded at the end of 2023 to include another 4 acres with the purchase of the parcel along Liveroi and our newest acquired a couple years ago, Auburn Greenspace are in the southern part of our city. The green space advisory board makes a point to keep an eye on all the green spaces and as one of our current goals with each member each member adopts one of the green spaces um to to check on the condition. Thank you. M in addition to designating green space green spaces there are several other natural areas within the city that the green space advisory board continues to have a hand in. This includes the B property. Yeah, this includes the B property that the city acquired recently through the DNR trust fund grant process. It is contiguous to the Cloverport and Childress green spaces. The 10 acres is high quality priority one natural area and will be a great asset to the city and nice public area trail head to access our green

spaces. The other honorable mention is a Avon natural area, nature area right back behind uh city hall. The this roughly 100 acre park is our only designated conservation area in our parks. It's a very similar to our green spaces in terms of rules and ordinances. The city and green space advisory board continue to look at this area and put resources towards stewardship on the property. As you know, the green space advisory board is passionate about our outreach and getting people connected to our green spaces. This is another one of our major goals when we aren't evaluating properties. This spring in May, we once again held our annual volunteer garlic mustard pull. This event not only utilize volunteers to help control invasive garlic mustard, but also acts as an educational tool to residents and gets residents connected and invested in our natural resources. We had 10 plus residents and volunteers who came out to help. We filled the back of a park's pickup truck with the amount of garlic mustard pulled and volunteers of all ages uh were of all ages and everyone got their hands dirty. We also partnered with the Clinton River Wershed Council to have a volunteer cleanup along the Clinton River Trail, Rochester University, and the Harden Greenspace. Our natural resources division continues to provide a monthly e newswsletter notes from nature that cover all things natural resources and highlights green space efforts, green spaces and other important information about all things natural. Our natural resources division continues to provide

sorry new in 2025 the green space advisory board members worked with staff to develop a GISbased obs observation data collection app that members could use to monitor and submit observations to staff while we were out enjoying our green spaces spaces. We also took the group out uh to Innovation Hills green space and kind of demoed it and it was pretty cool except I think Matt was not happy about having extra work. No, I'm just kidding. It was great. It worked out great. We had nice pictures and everything. So, uh now Matt will talk about some of the recent cleanup efforts, stewardship and monitoring efforts. So before I touch on uh the stewardship that we've done on these green spaces that are tied to more of the natural aspects of the of the properties, I wanted to to hit on some of the the efforts that we've done out there that maybe is not so natural. So, um, as you know, Auburn Road and Ruby Greenspace, we had some smaller areas that, uh, were identified for some soil remediation early on when we did our due diligence and our phase one and phase twos when we acquired the properties. And, um, thanks to uh, that Eagle Cleanup and soil remediation grant, we were able to get both of those sites cleaned up and restored. Um, in addition, at both uh Ruby and at the B property, there was homes. And I'm happy to say that both of those houses have been demolished and the sites restored. Um, and we actually just went out there to verify that last week with facilities that everything was good. And then we're right in the process at the B property. There was another portion um where there was historically some household goods dumped back there, jars and things like that that um we are cleaning up and and working to uh restore that. But talking about more of the

stewardship and natural um restorations and uh work we're doing out there. Um it's a lot of the same things you've you've heard in the past um where we're working with our contractor every year to um really address the invasive species that are out there and to restore the native natural habitats. And that's done through a whole toolkit of different techniques that we use. Whether it's prescribed burning um you can see in that uh those pictures on the left um that is a prescribed burn we did this spring at the Ruby green space and um the picture towards the bottom is immediately after and then a couple months later it's already bouncing back and and greened up and now doesn't have the invasive species that we we saw before. Um, we also did some of uh the same type of stewardship on uh Avon Nature Area, the 10 acres off of Tinken Road. We did some woody and woody invasives work there as well. As as Jason mentioned, we we we try to apply the same things we're doing on our green spaces to our other natural areas. Um, the pictures on the right show a bioail. Uh, we actually did both sides of the road there by the museum as it approaches uh the Stony Creek, which is really important. The other thing I wanted to highlight was this year we um started to uh use funding that we were awarded through the sustain our great lakes grant. Um so uh with your guys' support and the green space advisory board, we applied for that grant last year. And so we can use up to $100,000 every year for the next three years to help supplement our stewardship activities and make our green space uh monies go f further and so we can take on more projects. And um the most effective approach to management is adaptive management because we don't know how these spaces are going to react when we do treatment, how how well that treatment is going to

take, what's going to come in place when we get remove one invasive species. And so monitoring is is part of our our approach um so we can see what's out there afterwards and and kind of adapt our management from there. So uh we look to do that every two to three years. Um, so we're in the process right now with our contractor of doing comprehensive monitoring out there. And this was a slide um that we we shared last year just kind of showing some of uh the different floristic qualities which is tied to the the native plants out there um for each of the spaces and we we hope to share more of this type information in the future when we can compare uh years of monitoring. And lastly, I wanted to uh touch on some of the other stewardship um that we're doing within the community. And this is along our Clinton River and the Clinton River corridor. So when we originally put together our master plan of stewardship with Nice Wanderer uh way back when, um we also looked at the Clinton River corridor and identified spots along the river where there was severe erosion and and and future projects that we can undertake. And so you'll see me back here in just a little bit um uh in regards to both Eagles Landing and the Innovation Hills uh stream bank stabilization projects which uh really look to both stabilize um the stream bank there using natural channel design approaches um natural materials but it also protects the river and the river that's a really valuable asset to our to our uh community. So, it's it's protecting the the land and the river at the same time. So, those two projects are are coming up as well. Thank you, Matt. Uh, in conclusion, I want to thank the council, the mayor for your support for the green space

advisory board. I'd like to thank Matt and Ken and Lauren for their support to the board. I'd also like to thank my board members for their dedication. Um and with that I have a there are a few members here as well and if there's any questions now would be the time. Thank you. Very good. Thank you for that presentation. We do have some questions from council. We'll start with uh vice president Carlock.

Thank you President Deal. Thanks Jason. Thanks Matt. Um I have the honor of sitting on green space and green space is one that I'm actually quite passionate about. Uh, one of the biggest concerns I hear from citizens is overdevelopment. And our green space initiative is one of the ways the city is addressing this. We're taking these larger, more natural parcels of land and uh essentially ensuring for perpetuity that these will remain natural. um these areas will remain uh you know through Matt Matt's efforts with the uh the city having the natural floristic and and uh you know greenery that we would have had here before the invasive species came. um you know the dedication that the count the uh citizen representatives the youth representatives Sasha and Yuna show uh it it's fantastic you know I wish everybody in the city uh had the enthusiasm for the green spaces that you all have and I really do thank you all.

Thank you President Deal. Thank you so much. Next up we have Mrs. Newower. Thank you President Deal. I just wanted to say thank you for all your hard work. You're I think you're like on every committee cuz I serve with you on zoning. Only three.

Well, that's a lot. So, thank you for your service to the community and thank you to everybody else that's on this board. I just wanted to mention that um I just came from a event meet the candidates and one of the things that was brought up is about the green and space. Um how much we have and what we're trying to do to preserve it. And one of the questions that was asked was how much do we have in Rochester Hills? and you very kindly gave me the cheat sheet um to provide 142 acres and eight parcels, which is pretty remarkable. So, I just wanted to say that the mayor, the city council, the the staff, everybody in Rochester Hills that's here to serve um is excited about green space, works very hard to preserve the green spa space. Um this council is very supportive, I believe. I mean, you can ask the parks and recreation department, but I don't think they disagree. We're very supportive of those initiatives. Um, and um, being on planning, being on the planning commission and zoning, just like what pres Vice President Carl said about the overdevelopment is a huge concern. Um, making sure that what we can preserve we do is a priority of this council. And, um, I just wanted to bring that up since it was brought up just two hours ago at the meet the candidates event. So, um, I also think it's really important that you guys do have these presentations cuz some people don't know what green space actually is. Sometimes they think just a vacant parcel of land is green space and we have the ability to tell somebody what to do about that. So, it's really good. I like that you guys are always educating the city and um the residents and thank you for your service on this board and your other two boards and all the other boards that you do. So, thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Next up, Mr. Blair. Thank you, President Deal. You know, uh, in the six years that I've been on council, I believe we've added what, at least four, Brian, maybe maybe five, uh, properties. And, uh, not to bring up another pun, but, uh, we're on fire, right? Um, I want to bookmark this YouTube video for tonight's meeting because, um, Marvy nailed it. Green space is misunderstood in the city. Um, it is not vacant land. It's a totally different animal and I don't think I've ever seen it laid out just so clearly how much work and attention we put into protecting and preserving those spaces. So, thank you for laying that out. I've got your presentation. I'm going to save it and uh I really appreciate the work that you do. So, keep up the great work. Jason, Matt, appreciate it. President Deal.

Thank you very much. Next up, Mayor Barnett.

Yeah, thank you, President Deal. Good evening, council. Yeah, just I I guess in summation of both committees that have um presented tonight, we see you once a year, hear from you quite a bit more, but I I think it's important to pause uh and and sort of see what what's happening. Uh I mean, this is kind of government at its best, right? Uh citizen voices um leading uh telling the the leadership what they feel, what they think, uh experts alongside them supporting them. And um you know I I want to echo the comments of the many council members thanking the leadership of of both these committees and the members that are on the committees for doing this. Uh we know you don't do it for the money. Um because there isn't any. Um we know it's for a shared passion about what our community should look like and and would look like and and specifically with green space. Uh the council members who've commented on this I think are are exactly on point. It's often a high level criticism you know that the city is developing everything. Of course, much of that is private sector and the city's involvement is is nil. Um, but to the extent that we're probably the only community around here that had a a dedicated millillage to purchase green space from 06 to 16 and now we are almost 10 years later still have a a healthy balance in which to manage stewardship. We purchased 140 acres. Councilman Walker would probably tell you in his professional life in the right part of our town 140 acres would go for over a million an acre. could potentially be $150 million of property that we've gotten for nickels on the dollar because of leveraged relationships and grants and and timing and so forth. And I think we've really uh taken a methodical long-term view uh to to extend the resources as long as we've had to be in a position where we're still able to move if we need to and support things like the beekeeper property that you know became a an opportunity in the last uh you know seven or eight months and and that is really a a great position for a city to

be in. And so the council has been strong supporters uh tremendous advocates. Our team over here, I think, has uh led with incredible vision and the the real winners are the residents, whether they realize it or not, how much has been done uh in this community to take developable land off the books uh and preserve it long term. And so, Jason, to you and your team, thank you, Matt. Obviously, thank you for your leadership as well. And this is what's right about local government, what you're seeing tonight.

Thank you very much, Mayor Barnett. Yeah, and once again, just to not not to echo too much everybody's comments, um, but really and truly, just like the mayor said, this is one of the special things that we do in Rochester Hills. We are, you know, approximately 95 over 95%, you know, developed as a city. So, you know, and land is one of those things that's valuable because it's one thing that they're not making any more of. And that's really why it's so important that we preserve it into perpetuity. not only that we preserve it, but also that we're good stewards of it by by removing the invasive species, by removing any of the, you know, uh, waste and things like that that we find on these properties. And it's what's what's so kind of remarkable about the about the properties that we have recently acquired is one of those properties is on Rochester Road. I mean I it's hund and something thousand cars a day that traverse that that would probably be very valuable real estate to a developer. Um but now we have this area that not only not only it's an area of high highly valued green space not just because it's on Rochester Road and it would probably be a strip mall. Let's just or bank uh if if we didn't step in. Um but it also connects to other our other green space and connects to the trails and pathways in our city. So it's it's a strategic choice as well. Um once again I'm very this is one as the mayor said this is one of the things that Ro one of the many things that Rochester Hills does right. I'm very very proud of what we've done here. I'm very very proud of our green spaces and I'm very very proud and it's because of citizens and residents like you and everyone else on the committee who step forward and help make these things happen. So, thank you so much for this. We appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next up, public comment for items not on the agenda. This is an opportunity for members of the public to make comment on any item that does not appear on our agenda. We did receive one blue public comment card and it is from a Carlen Griffa. Hopefully I got your name. Did I get your name correct? Thank you.

Can you hear me? Did I turn this on? Good. As you know, it's first time here. Hello everybody. My name is Carllin Griffa and I want to take this time to talk about fireworks in this city. What's the policy and how is it enforced? On September 20th, I called 911 to report large fireworks going off. I was told by the operator that there is a firework display at Auburn and Fairrove. I said that's close to my neighborhood. I asked, "Is there a time when the fireworks can go off? Is there a noise ordinance?" They didn't know. They didn't know. They couldn't answer anything. Nothing was done. I emailed the mayor's office. They referred me to Oakland County. I emailed them. They told me to contact the local police. I then explained to them that they are my local police. Their reply was very insufficient, not helpful at all. I then emailed district number three city council rep, Mr. Carlock. I didn't hear from you. So, you just get a runaround. So, I said, I'm going to come to city council, see how that goes. So, I'm here today to get clarification of the policy and how does it get enforced? I just want a safer neighborhood. I want a city that's good. You know, folks suffer PTSD. People are trying to get to sleep. They got to work in the morning. excuse me, need water and uh animals of course. And I just want to say we just talked about deer in the green space. Imagine what fireworks can do to that. Um so I just if a permit was issued for the fireworks display on September 20th, there needs to be an investigation and accountability is needed. That was

unacceptable. The last one was launched at 11:50 p.m. 11:50. I did the research of fireworks. It seems that there's certain dates, there's certain times that's designated for this, but how does it get enforced? Can this be changed? If so, what's the next step? Um, I can tell you September 20th was not a, you know, a premier day to live in Rochester Hills. As much as I love Rochester Hills, please don't misunderstand, that was not a good day on September 20th. So I just want to thank you for your time. I see my clock is going out and just understand what is the next step and what can I help with. I join a board task force whatever is needed because it needs to be addressed. I thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. Um I don't see any other I don't have any other blue public comment cards. I don't see anybody looking to approach the podium. So I'll go ahead and close public comment for items not on the agenda and move on to the consent agenda. All matters under the consent agenda are considered to be routine and will be enacted with one motion without discussion. If any council member or citizen requests discussion of an item, it is removed from the consent agenda for separate discussion. I haven't been made aware of any requests from the public or from any council members to remove any items from the consent agenda. Motion by Mr. Blair, seconded by Mrs. Newower. Um all those in favor of approval of the consent agenda as it appears in your packet, signify by saying I. I.

Any opposed? hearing none. The the consent agenda is uh adopted and that moves us on to legislative and administrative comments. Um I did want to address I know we had the uh Miss Griffa here Griffa here that you know with respect to the um fireworks policy. I think I was on the council when we passed our fireworks policy which basically mirrors that of the state of Michigan. So, the state of Michigan has a policy where consumer grade fireworks can be done from 11:00 a.m. to 11:45 p.m. from June 29th to July 5th, but also New Year's Eve um to New Year's Day and specified during specified weekends around Memorial Day and the Labor Days. Under state statute, local ordinances cannot be more restrictive than what the state statute allows. uh that's specifically provided in the state statute. As I seem to recall, our statute, our ordinance mirrors the states. Um now, if there was some uh so, oh, I should also indicate that the enforcement is through um is through the local sheriff's department. So, that is our enforcement body. That's the body that that you know, we we contract with Oakland County Sheriff to do our enforcement issues. So, if you contacted the the Oakland County Sheriff's Department, the substation, you did the appropriate thing. Um, in terms of of anything else, like I said, I don't know if someone had a permit. We could probably check. I'll defer to administration to see if somebody had a permit during that time period. I'm not aware of anything, but then again, I wouldn't be. Um, but uh yeah, I you know, I understand, you know, people's quiet enjoyment of their property is one of the most important things that you can have. So I feel bad that that that happened for you and hopefully you know like say we can find out get to the bottom of where that disconnect was with

respect to that that particular night. Um but we do have some other uh uh council legislative comments. Uh Mrs. Mongioli.

Thank you President Deal. Mr. Could you share my screen please? So on your comment or question about joining a committee, there is a section on the city's website under government. There's this boards uh committees, boards, and commissions and there is a form to fill out. There's a whole list of the different committees that we have. Public safety and infrastructure is one of those that you might be interested in. But as we had um two committees here uh presenting to us tonight, I did want to bring this into the attention of the entire community because the first meeting in December is when the city council reappoints a lot of our residents to those different city committees that are out there. It's a great time for you to get involved. You never know when a committee member might say, you know, I've done enough. It's time to let someone else. Um as Mr. Grace mentioned he's on three different committees. Maybe he decides to cut it back to two and there's an opening for council to have to consider. So, it's very important for our residents to please go out to this page um select under government the committees, boards and commissions. There's the whole list of the different committees that are available on this page and then there is a form for a candidate questionnaire. So we would love to have uh candidate or many residents engaged since I got involved with city council six years ago. This has been a passion point for me is increasing the number of citizens participating in this. You may not get appointed the first year along but then there may be times during the year when residents decide to move or resign from a committee and then suddenly we're looking at a list saying gee I don't know any of these people and why would we put them on a committee? So, please fill in an application, turn it into the clerk's office, and be added to the list of people considering um being on a

committee, board, and commission. Um so, that's for that, but I also wanted to make confirm with clerk Scott, we are in absentee voting time. Yay. So, ballots have were mailed out September 25th. So, if you are someone who has signed up to have your absentee ballot sent to your house, your ballot has already been received. You can still sign up with the clerk's office to have an absentee ballot sent to your home. I know I have two applications sitting on my counter at home, just haven't mailed them back in yet to get them. Uh my husband and I always debate whether we're doing absentee voting or poll voting, but then this year early voting starts October 25th. Yes. Um, what location are we at for for early voting?

We're at the Rochester Hills Public Library. Back at the library. So, get online October 25th. Be one of those to vote for our city council members. We have do have three positions up for election this year as both uh council president Deal and Councilman Walker are term limited and council member Morland chose not to run again. So, we have three spots open for election this year. Would love to see you out there voting for the rep the people who've decided to stand for election. So, um and keep the clerk's office busy with those application requests. Thank you very much, President Deal.

Thank you so much. I don't see any other uh council legislative comments. Mr. Mayor, do you have anything for us this evening?

Yes. Thank you, uh President Deal. A couple comments before I get into my remarks. Number one, first of all, we are at the uh library for early voting. If anyone in the audience happens to be a part of any aspect of the library, we do appreciate them letting us use that forever and ever and ever. Uh also share with Councilman Blair who made some really nice comments at the beginning about um scams. Of course, a lot of times they are focused towards seniors. Uh it's uh mostly because they uh they probably wouldn't do so well targeting at least my kids. uh they don't have anything to take. So they do know that seniors have resources certainly in our community and uh we had a really good discussion with Captain Workman at the OPC today and it is heartbreaking truthfully when you read those um situations of people losing 10 15 sometimes $100,000 um because they thought they were helping their grandson or helping a a church or a person in need. And so we we do want people to be vigilant. And unfortunately because of the success uh or perceived success of of our community, we end up on a lot of uh lists, lists we don't want to end up on. Uh that being uh easy targets for folks with bad intentions. Uh Miss Griffa, thank you for for being here. I think I said that right. I apologize if I didn't. I was looking at the email thread when you sent it. Uh it did uh uh bounce around quite a bit. I checked with our attorney uh to make sure we had uh the state laws accurate. President Deal's comments were uh were were spot on. Um there is a process uh that the state law is not just those holidays. I believe it's all federal holidays the day before and the day after. So things like Junth and Thanksgiving uh although they tend to be around the more predictable holidays of of New Year's and uh Fourth of July, sometimes Labor Day and Memorial Day, but they are allowed by state law uh on about 50 days a year, maybe 60 days a year because the day before and after 14 federally

observed holidays. He did mention the times. So uh I don't have those in front of me, but that's not far off from the the time. You mentioned a date that isn't near one of those times. And so a permit would have been required. The council is the group that authorizes those. The reason a permit is required is because we do send the fire department out uh to make sure that the spacing that the the location the it's not willy-nilly. Um but that always assumes that they get a permit and in many instances folks don't get a permit. are celebrating a a birthday or a wedding or something and people just, you know, can get offtheshelf um fireworks. In that case, what she did was was accurate and appropriate. The the challenge with this, and I often equate this to sort of like a barking dog complaint. uh the complaint will come in. Uh it registers where you know I mean I don't know what night it was but assuming it was probably a weekend night, a Friday or Saturday. Um you know a call of fireworks comes in and is not immediately prioritized as the top on a Saturday night in the city. Uh and so when they get to it and they get out there a lot of times the complaint is over. Uh it's sort of like a barking dog. Uh when we get the complaint it is prioritized. We head out there. A lot of times we can't find the dog. A lot of times we can't find the fireworks. I don't know. I'm not aware of what was happening on Fair Grove in Auburn. I nothing um nothing strikes me. I can't think of, you know, we we have fireworks at the Village of Rochester Hills for Light the Village. Um that's at about uh 7:30 in the evening. That's a prescribed Friday night. We're there. The fire department's there. Um, I'm not sure what that one was, but unfortunately what you're left with is to do what you did, which is to call the city, uh, and to, uh, our, you know, Oakland County Sheriff's Department will certainly go out, make sure that they have a permit, that they're following the rules of the permit. Uh, if they don't, there's a citation, uh, that is, uh, can be expected. Um, and sometimes it's just sharing with them, hey, you know, this can't be done at this hour. This can't be done tonight. You have to go through a permit process. So, you did everything

right. Unfortunately, there probably isn't a committee that would change anything um because this is all prescribed by state law uh and we follow state law. So, happy to chat with you uh further or more or if you know more information about that particular event, we might be able to to track it down. But um uh that is is is probably the best case scenario for uh for fireworks in the city. It's been a frustration um for locals because that's you know it's one of those things where they make a decision uh on high in lancing and then we have to sort of deal with the results. They don't give us a lot of tools in which to deal with the results and Dan and his predecessor and I have talked about this a lot. It does create some challenges but at least that's the uh perhaps more comprehensive answer to your question. Uh Miss Whisper if you could show uh my screen please um talk about a few things. Try and divide this up between things that have happened and things that are happening. And if you're bored in the city of Rochester in the next 10 days, it's because you're choosing to be bored. Uh as was mentioned by Jack, there is a ton of things coming up. Uh in terms of things to do here in the community, many of them pretty exciting. But going backwards for just a minute, uh I do want to recognize uh the fire department had their annual awards ceremony. It recognized a number of outstanding individuals including firefighter of the year, EMS provider of the year, Medal of Honor, and many other unit citations. I saw their names on the marquee as I drove in today. We're trying to do our best to recognize them and thank the uh men and women of the Rochester Fire Department for their work, especially those that were recognized a week or two ago. Uh you see Chief uh Gary there as part of the recognitions, Chief Cook, Chief Eckles as well. Um this is big news. Uh if you're um between 6 and 9, uh after a lengthy summer of the slide being uh inoperable, we finally got with our folks. Our parks team ran point on this and got this fixed under warranty even though it's a couple years old. We were really unhappy with our manufacturer for this. It was a long time coming, but uh I've I've made several videos for kids uh who had emailed who had you whose parents had

emailed me or videoed me uh about wanting to get this open. So this was opened about a week ago. Dennis, who's I thought was here earlier, was here earlier, uh really ran point on this, Ken and his team, so we thank them. The the tree slide is back open, the weather's cooperated, and so hopefully folks will get back out there. Uh we had a really nice uh HOA showcase um this last week. Uh several of the council members were there. We appreciate that. Uh this what you see in the bottom corner is a a discussion about uh drainage and retention. As you know, this comes up a lot. We've had a lot of issues on this. the team did something nice and held a very specific seminar on this and format on this to try to get the the leaders of the organizations in these neighborhoods here to answer questions and help disseminate the information. So, uh really pleased with our team, good turnout and thank the leaderships of these homeowners associations for coming out and uh Jody Welch for leading this and uh really making this a valuable experience. Uh podcast came out yesterday, the new president of Rochester Christian University, Reggie Zwenika. Um really interesting story. Uh comes from Africa, was ran away from home, was homeless for a while. Really interesting man. Uh and uh will be sworn in as Rochester Christian University's next president a little bit later this month. I know several of the council members will be there, but the podcast to learn a little bit more about him uh dropped yesterday and can be found on the city's website. Here's something you haven't seen yet. Uh this is Innovation Forest. Looking at council members reactions to see what they think. Um this is a product of uh uh our really uh talented uh planning and economic development department. Uh an extension of the rise cup. Um the different community uh members, the different businesses uh all adopted one of these trees and painted them and they are along if you think where we just opened up that hawk light along towards Masttodon Point on the Clinton River Trail in our LDFA. This is a project of the LDFA. uh the the the recognition was what does Rochester Hills uh and innovative by nature mean to you? And we've got some really creative uh uh submissions and so there's about uh 20

of these calling them innovation forest that are dotting the uh it's a gateway drug to murals guys just be ready. Uh uh um so uh these are are started to be put in today and I think you'll really appreciate those. You can check those on online at rochester.org/inovation. org/inovationforest. So, really cool uh new addition to our community. You see some of the uh groups and community members, all the businesses did them on their own and uh put them out there for us tomorrow. Okay, here's if you're super bored, you don't care about the Lions, you don't care about the Tigers, you're just like, "What can I do for the city?" H I've got some stuff. Uh tomorrow, October 7th, from 5:00 to 7:00, we'll have our master plan uh community openhouse right here in city hall. Um, this is a great opportunity to take a peek at uh some of the plans the city has and and and your input on those. Uh, you can scan the QR code to get more information, but this is really where we're listening to our residents and saying, you know, here's what we're thinking, where we want to go, what are we missing, what do we have uh, figured out. Well, what what what are your comments on this? And so, really a chance to to share those things. It's an ongoing conversation. And the next opportunity for the community to participate is tomorrow from 5:00 to 7:00. Uh, go home, rest, wake up the next day, come out for the fire department open house. This is at station one. Obviously, we try to do everything in October with Cider and Donuts. Um, if you've never been to this, this is a really cool thing to come. Obviously, a lot of people bring kids and grandkids to it, but just coming to see the different demonstrations. Uh, obviously Sparky will be there. Uh, lots of activities and events, learning. The fire department members are really, really proud of this event and take a lot of pride in putting this on. So, 4 to 7 on Wednesday. They'd love to see you all come out to station one on Liveroy. Uh go to bed, wake up a few days later. Uh and as was mentioned by some of the um members of the city council, this is probably one of the coolest events the city does. Really, nobody does anything like this around us. Uh and the Stonewall Pumpkin Festival, as uh council member Morland put or commented, is one of those events that make you

really love the community. It is so communityoriented through and through. Kind of two aspects of this. There's the morning part, kind of the 10 to 4 where you come on out. You see professional pumpkin carvers, there's music, there's live music, there's all sorts of events. You par carve a pumpkin with your kids, family, whoever. And then go home, come on back later on at night. We have volunteers that come out and light these. We're trying to get a thousand pumpkins. One year we got to like 960. I think that's the closest we've ever got. Thousand pumpkins on this old historic wall. Uh you drive by uh and it really is a beautiful, beautiful setting and I'm assume we'll have good fall weather. Uh a lot of fun. Stonewall Pumpkin Festival. We'll have a couple thousand people out at the museum this sun this Saturday. And hopefully you'll be uh one of those folks. Either 10 to 10 to 4 to carve them or a little bit later 7 o'clock post when it gets dusk to uh uh to check them out. And then a new event this year October 16th a few days later. Something new we're doing at Innovation Hill called the Trail of Treats. Um and we're going to set up a bunch of stations around the pond uh with all sorts of interactive things. Obviously, treats will be a driving factor uh of this trail of treats, but uh a really cool opportunity. It's free. Uh come around as long as supplies last, which at Innovation Hills is not always that long. Um but we expect a really nice turnout for a new way to celebrate uh one of our community's favorite parks this uh kind of holiday season. Uh and the next uh couple days after that is another new event called Hootin Howl. It's a hayride over at Bloomer Park. Um, it's David Blair approved I see over there. So, that's positive to know. Again, just another fun thing to do if you're looking for something to do unique with your family. Um, this is another cool option. Two nights, 17th and 18th, next weekend. Um, and uh, just get out. It's local. You are not more than three miles from any of these events, no matter where you live in the city. So, uh, you've got no excuse not to check these out. And really, really proud of our team for putting on such a robust agenda as uh, we enter this very, very busy season. So, lots of things happening here in the city. All of them

really positive. President Deal, back to you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Looks like there's a lot of things going on this fall. Um, that concludes our legislative and administrative comments. So, we'll next up we'll go over to the attorney's report. Mr. Chris,

thank you, President Deal. council. Uh with respect to the fireworks comments earlier, uh just to confirm, the city does follow the Michigan Fireworks Safety Act with respect to uh the regulation and permission of ignition of fireworks. Uh it does not extend to all federal holidays. uh that the statute, Michigan statute does identify specifically uh which days uh are permitted under uh state statute and and those are the dates that the city uh code of ordinances uh follow. Uh no additional legal report. Thank you very much. And what is the do you know the fine or the citation under the city ordinance for that?

Uh through the chair that has a heightened uh civil fine I believe is $1,000. things provided for under the statute. Thank you very much.

Um, and that concludes the attorney's report and then we'll turn to new business. Item number 2025-0420. Request for purchase authorization. Fire. Purchase authorization for four LifePack 35 cardiac monitors with accessories and a 4-year preventative maintenance program for each unit and two Lucas chest compression devices in the amount of $339,663.94. Striker Portage, Michigan. Mr. Matt or Captain Matt.

Good evening. Uh, good evening. President Deal, Vice President Carlac, city council members, Mayor Barnett. Uh, tonight the fire department is requesting authorization to purchase new emergency medical equipment with a total of 339,6 uh $663.94 for four new LifePack 35 cardiac monitors and two Lucas chest compression devices along with their accessories. This purchase includes a 4-year preventive maintenance uh program for each one of the cardiac monitors. Our current equipment is over 10 years old and due for replacement. These new devices are crucial for maintaining equipment standardization across our entire fleet. This standardization is critical safety and efficiency measure that reduces risk of operational error and allows our paramedics to provide the most effective care possible. The new LifePack 35 cardiac monitors have advanced technology that allows our paramedics to transmit critical cardiac diagnostic readings directly to the hospital staff at our local hospitals that have cardiac cath labs while our crews are in route. This enables hospitals prepare for our patients arrival which leads to a more efficient faster care and improves results for the patient. The new cardiac excuse me the new Lucas chest compression devices provide automated chest compression for adult patients in cardiac arrest. These ensure the patients receive uninterrupted high-quality compressions which is a key factor in increasing uh patient chances of survival. Uh and the use of this device is it significantly reduces the possibility of rescuer fatigue as well as rescuer safety in a moving ambulance. We don't have to stand up and compress the patient's chest. The machine does it for us.

And for all of us who've been on Fire Ops, we know exactly what that's like. The total purchase price is 339,663.94. However, with trading credits totaling $18,000 uh for our older equipment, the net cost is two uh 321,663.94. Funding for this purchase uh was included in our FYI 2025 adopted budget. Uh we recommend authorization of this purchase and I'm here to answer any of your questions.

Thank you very much, Captain Matson. As I mentioned all of the the interesting thing is because I think every single member on this dis has been through fire ops so we all know what these devices are and how important they are for you guys doing your job. Um Mrs. Dubauer

thank you president deal um based on our previous reports that we received with the up the increase that you all have had in responding to medical emergencies versus fire emergencies. This is obviously a tremendous need um already being previously approved and public safety and the safety of our residents being a top priority for the city of Rochester Hills. I have no problem with this and u move this for approval. And with respect to fire ops, when I did do it, um they were racing around while we were doing the chest compressions. And I think your firefighter took great joy on knocking me off my box every single time he could while I was trying to do the chest compressions. So, um, it's good. The safety is important and anything that we can do to help the residents in route until they get to the hospital is obviously a need, not a want. So, I have no problem with that.

We have a motion by Mrs. Newower, seconded by Mr. Blair. Um, I don't see any further discussion on this item. resolved that the Rochester Hills City Council hereby authorizes the purchase of four LifePack 35 cardiac monitors with accessories and a 4-year preventive maintenance program for each unit and a and two Lucas chest compression devices to Striker Portage Michigan in the amount of $339,663.94. It is further resolved that the city's acceptance of the proposal and the 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 say I. I.

Are there any opposed? Hearing none. That motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Captain Mats. Thank you very much and have a good evening. You too. Next up, 2025-0395 request for purchase authorization natural resources contract blanket purchase order for the Clinton River stream bank stabilization project at Innovation Hills and Eagles Landing in the amount of $756,400 with a 10% project contingency in the amount of $75,640 for a total not to exceed project amount of $832,40. Uh L. D. Augustini and Sons, Inc. Mcome, Michigan. Mr. Einhauser, we got a little preview of this just a little early earlier on this evening.

Yes, I was warming you guys up for this one. Um so, uh good evening, President Deal, Vice President Carlock, City Council members, Mayor Barnett. Um, I'm here to request uh city council to authorize a contract and blake a purchase order for the Clinton River stream bank stabilization project at Innovation Hills and Eagles Landing uh to D. Augustinian Suns Mcome, Michigan, who was identified as being the lowest responsive and responsible bidder uh for these two projects. And so this includes both projects um at Innovation Hills and Eagles Landing. And as I kind of mentioned in the green space uh presentation, both these sites are um areas that are have um examples of erosion along the Clinton River and we need to stabilize those uh locations because they're adjacent to city properties, utilities, trails, um and different amenities. And um we also need to protect the river and and that asset as well. So that's what we're trying to do here. And um with that, any questions you might have, I'd be happy to answer.

Thank you very much. And this is a budgeted item and you said the magic words lowest responsible bidder. Correct. It was budgeted and it was in the CIP. Thank you very much, Mrs. Mongioli. Thank you, President Deal. Thank you, Mr. Einhauser, for answering my questions earlier today about this particular item. And um President Deal, is it okay if we add the pictures that he sent that were earlier in the green spaces into the record for this meeting? Absolutely.

Because it's very important for our residents to recognize the what's happening to our our river banks and the reason why we're spending almost a million dollars on fixing those. Um I have underlined on my note not to exceed because my concern for um in my questions was about the scope of this project so easily for us to go and say sure we're going to fix the riverbank but then when we fix the riverbank how far back or how long do we have to go in order to be able to do that and you have said it's with the design that that shouldn't be an issue. So I will be watching to make sure that the not to exceed doesn't come back because we've expanded the scope of this work as a result of the natural curves that happen in the river in the places where this is um because it I'd rather I say spend more now and just be done with it than to say I'm going to come back in January. I'm going to come back in March. So, I I really want to make sure that we are holding to the not to exceed pro um project budget if we can knowing it's mother nature and she has her own thoughts on things which is why the pictures are so important to include in this packet. Um but thank you very much for the information and with that president deal I move the resolution in our packet.

We have a motion by Mrs. Moli seconded by Mrs. Newower. Uh, I don't see any further discussion or public comment on this item. Resolved that the Rochester City Council hereby authorizes a blanket or a contract blanket purchase order for the Clinton River stream bake stabilization project at Innovation Hills and Eagles Landing to El Dagustinian and Suns Mcome, Michigan in the amount of $756,400 with a 10% project contingency in the amount of $75,640 for a total not to exceed project amount of $832,040 and further authorizes the procurement government manager to execute an agreement on behalf of the city. It is 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 say I.

I. Are there any opposed? Hearing none. That passes unanimously. And next up, like right on the same topic, 2025-0396 request for purchase authorization natural resources contract blanket purchase order for professional engineering services for the Clinton River stream bank stabilization at Innovation Hills and Eagles Landing uh in the amount not to exceed $99,600. Hubble Roth and Clark, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. I suppose if we're going to do the project, we have to engineer the project. Correct.

Correct. Yeah. So th this is uh asking uh for you guys to authorize a contract blanket purchase order for the professional engineering to Hubble Roth and Clark. Uh they actually already have done the pre-esigns. The designs are permitted by the state. So we know those designs aren't going to change going back to your concerns. Um we know what is uh needed there and the materials and um the bid was specific to that. So um this is for them to continue that engineering support.

Very good. We have a motion by Mrs. Mioli, seconded by uh Mrs. Morland. Um resolved that the I don't see any further discussion or public comment on this item. Resolve that the Rochester Hills City Council hereby authorizes a contract blanket purchase order for professional engineering services for the Clinton River stream bank stabilization at Innovation Hills and Eagles Landing to Hubble Roth and Clark, Inc. in the amount not to exceed $99,600. It is further resolved that the city's acceptance of the proposal and the 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 say I. I.

Are there any opposed? Hearing none. That motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Mr. Einhauser. All right, we've reached that time in the agenda where there being no further business before the Rochester Hills City Council. We have a motion by Mrs. Newower, seconded by Mrs. Mioli to adjourn. All those in favor say I. I. Are there any opposed? Hearing none, we are adjourned. Have a wonderful week everyone and go Tigers.