City Council - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call the Saline City Council meeting to order.

If you'd please rise and join my colleagues and I for the Pledge of Allegiance. I 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. Thank you very much. Members present this evening are council members Del Arco, Dylan Gearbaugh, Halsh Harmount, Mayor Pro Tem Rice, and Mayor Morrow. From city staff, we have the city manager, city clerk, DPS director, wastewater treatment superintendent, and community development director, For those of you in the audience, we welcome you here this evening. There are copies of the agenda on the back table, along with a sign-in sheet and listening devices if you require them. And I will note, for those of you who attend council meetings on a regular basis, the agenda format style has changed somewhat. We're working with a new software system, so do bear with us this evening. This is our first time using this particular tool at a specific council meeting. So at this time, the chair would entertain a motion to approve the agenda as submitted and the last are amendments. Some move to approve a submitted move by rice to approve as submitted. Is there a 2nd, 2nd, 2nd advice that Del Arco? Thank you, sir. All those in favor of bringing the agenda as submitted signify by saying, aye, aye, aye. I was having the motion carries unanimously. There are no absences this evening. So we'll proceed to the 1st of 2 public comment periods. Under the Open Meetings Act, any person may come forward now and make a comment or ask a question. Comments will be limited to three minutes per person. Those wishing to speak are requested, but not required to state their name and address for the record. Please note, City Council will not answer questions during this initial public comment period. You may come forward to the microphone as soon as you're ready and you'll have three minutes. Please be mindful we do have a few items up there that will be utilized in just a moment for one or both of our special presentations.

Good evening, you are 1, Jim Pierce, 509 Springbrook.

The damn, I'm sorry, can you hear me now? Well, the microphone close to make sure the green light is eliminated at the base last meeting we had here.

We had some letters read and a speaker who used some talking points like to address some of those talking points tonight. 1 is we all know how to Sanford and Midland kind of rewrote how we view our dams here in Michigan, but it's not apples to apples. Let me explain. The Sanford dam is 1125 acres. Our mill pond is 24 acres 24. The Sanford Dam is 40 feet deep in places. Our ponds were 11 feet deep in one spot. The rest is three or four feet deeper, even more shallow. The Sanford Dam had a large hydroelectric dam associated with us. We have a small spillway dam. Also, Sanford Dam has city blue at midland. Blue water dam is nothing but farm fields and floodplain. It took three dams to break the Sanford Dam. The Seacorps, the Smallwood, and the Edenville dams all failed instead of torn the water down and broke up. The Sanford dam, we have nothing like that here. There's nothing upstream of our damn except farms. So, it's not apples to apples and I might add the people have rebuilt all 4 of those dams and refill all 4 of those reservoirs. So they want their dams and we're trying to take ourselves. It doesn't make any sense. Nothing was mentioned, but free flowing river, how that would improve recreation. We have free flowing river. Now they have what they want. We have free flowing river right across the street. 50 feet in Curtis Park. I've lived in town 38 years. I've never seen a kayak on Kerr's Park. Has anybody else seen one? I've never seen a kayak or canoe on Kerr's Park. So they have what they want. Nobody uses it. Also, something they mentioned, migrating fish. We don't have those species. Our river is warm water, low oxygen. It won't support salmon, saugers, or walleyes. If you took this dam out tomorrow, those fish still wouldn't be here. They won't live in that kind of water. So taking dam out will not increase migrating fish opportunities. I think one of the problems we have, a big problem, is this is a big money project. And when that happens, sometimes things go sideways. And I think we've got a problem here. You know, I'm just at the end. Just a lot of money involved.

And we'll thank you for listening. Thank you, Jim. Appreciate your comments. There are additional citizen comments this evening.

Yes. Hi. Good evening. My name is Tahita Mateen. I'm a public affairs specialist with the U.S. Small Business Administration. And a part of our job is to make sure that we're attending, you know, city meetings to make sure that people understand and know that there is still help available from the April storms. Our federal agency is here working with FEMA. We still encourage residents and business owners who were affected by the April storms to submit their application and to register. Our agency provides support not only to business owners in times of disasters, but homeowners, renters. nonprofit and private organizations. And then one thing also is that the physical deadline is approaching. So the deadline is August 31st, and that's the date that people can apply for their physical damages if they had any during the April storms. Our agency also help businesses with working capital. So if they had any stop in revenue or anything like that, they can apply as well. So just keep that in mind. Sometimes businesses have damages that you may not be able to see, which is in their pockets and their financial damages. Even though the storms happened in April, we still can help residents with reimbursements if they already paid money out of their pockets. We do, of course, tell people apply with FEMA and SBA at the same time. Our support is in the low-interest disaster loan. We are the largest source of federal funding during disasters. And the way to start that, for those of you in the audience or listening, is to go to sba.gov slash disaster and to get the application process started. With that being said, thank you so much for allowing me to speak. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate your comments and your time this evening. Other additional citizen comments? You'll have three minutes once you begin.

Hello, I'm Wendy Weller. I own Weller's, the historic Henry Ford mill down the street. And it was noted in a last city council meeting. I believe that you were thinking of studying to make the historic district out of the Curtis mansion. Is that true? Is the project right?

Wendy, we don't generally answer questions during the public comment period questions.

Okay. But so some of you may know, because of its name, the Skylar Mills historic district. Was created in 1996 for the same protection and includes the Celine dam, the jam inlet, the Ford mill and the Ford mill tail race, which are all under siege by the city for 3 years now. And in fact, it is the cities in the city's 10 year plan that I read online. However, in previous interactions with cities, certain city officials, it was stated that the city can work around this historic thing. It would require some work, but it can be done, which is stating exactly the opposite of the statement. From the city council that the historic district, this was in the last minutes of the meetings from here, historic districts ensure preservation of its character and features. So, I'm a little confused. I'm asking the mayor in the city council to please explain why the Davenport historic district would be protected and the Skylar Mills historic district, including the saline down the dam and let the mill and the mill tail race are not protected. And this is all can be documented online that these are included in that is the Skylar mills historic district that's on the national historic register. It's also on Wikipedia. It's on many, many sites online. And it's pretty historic. So, so I believe this hypocrisy should be addressed by the city. And the obvious question is why 1 historic district would be protected and another would not be. Thank you.

Thank you appreciate your comments. Any additional comments this evening. Yep. Why don't you sign in, Mary? I'll defer to the city clerk first. Do we receive any written comments in advance of tonight's meeting in which the individual wanted their remarks right at this time?

Yes, sir.

Easy enough. Mary, would you like to comment?

Yes.

You also have an opportunity at the end of the meeting, so.

I did bring some documents.

If you want to hand them to the city clerk, we would be delighted to pass them out.

Sorry. I WAS PRINTING THEM ALL. THEY'RE IN STACKS. AND THIS ONE GOES TO. THEY SHOULD ALL BE THERE.

You may begin when you're ready, Mary. So, um, make sure you pull that microphone close to you.

I was looking for the agenda item.

I think the 1 per conversation on Friday that you want to refer to is the last item under the discussion portion of the agenda, which is on the back page subsection 8 data center wastewater permit.

Yes. So. I just wanted to bring to everyone's attention mainly because I had friends and close friends in Flint when they had their water crisis and chemical burns are no joke nor is getting pneumonia and all sorts of different issues that caused was caused by the contamination of their drinking water that went into the system. AND IT WAS LEACHING LEAD INTO THE SYSTEM. THEY STILL HAVE A LEAD REGISTRY TO THIS DAY THAT THEY'RE RUNNING. AND YOU CAN SEE THE EFFECTS THAT IT'S HAD ON THE ELDERLY AND CHILDREN. SO I JUST WANTED TO SAY THAT THE PACKAGE I GAVE EVERYONE HOPEFULLY HAS ALL PARTS IN IT. IT HAS SO THE PROPOSED WATER TREATMENT PLANT WILL NOT REMOVE Uh, forever chemicals, and if they decide to put data center runoff, which they have come out and said that they won't however. I would kind of want the city to challenge them on that to actually put it in legal terms that they won't because once that gets into the water systems and the groundwater. It is extremely hard to remove right now. Wyoming has a data center where 1 of the meta data centers actually did close loop. Flushing of their new system, and it got bacteria into the water system and now they are carting everything else off site. But the damage has been done. So. I also kind of want to bring up that they, in their analysis of how to keep from degrading the water. Not once did they mention putting in a commercial size septic tank, which actually would be cheaper. However, if you put anything like data center runoff into it, it will not work and it'll be qualified as a different system entirely, which is why they might have not done it. So my question is, why can't this be in writing under the public notice that you let out? And the other thing is that the things that they're testing the water for to make sure they're in compliance. is not checking for data center runoff chemicals. It's only checking for that sanitary waste levels. So I would also, I did look through the Michigan regulations. We don't have anything in concrete form at state or local level that has any regulations just for data centers. It's considered, they're trying to put it in industrial, but even then, you know, legally, YOU WANT TO HAVE A CATEGORY AND HAVE THEM BE COMPLIANT WITH IT. TRYING TO LOOSELY FIT IT INTO ALL THE OTHER INDUSTRIAL THINGS, THERE'S GOING TO BE LOOPHOLES. SO I JUST HOPE THAT IT'S POSSIBLE THAT WE COULD agreement and hopefully get some of those things in writing so it protects the residents.

Very good. Thank you, Mary. Appreciate the comment. Appreciate the material that you distributed via the city clerk. One last opportunity. Are there any citizen comments during this initial public comment period? Again, you'll have another opportunity at the end of the meeting as well. Very good. Then we're going to transition to the first of two presentations. First up is presentation number 4.1, which is DTE Proclamation. And I would ask Diana Mourning, who is the chair of the Arts and Culture Committee, to join me up front at the podium. And actually, Ben, can I venture such impertinence and ask that you bring that cordless mic up front? Again, I'm going to introduce Diana Mornick, who is not only the chair of our Arts and Culture Committee, but also the event chair for Jazz in the Park, which if you didn't attend in 2026, you most definitely need to attend in 2027. It is a fabulous, phenomenal community event. Do you want to use that microphone? I'll use this. Okay. It's all you.

So DTE was instrumental in making this happen because they wired the mansion so that we could have sound. And I initially talked to Steven Vineyard, who's the VP of marketing for DTE and he without hesitation said, yes, we can do it. He found the $15,000 so that the city did not have to pay. And then we have Derek here and Derek was in charge of getting everything done. So we have plaques for them because we want to recognize them and thank them. So this says it's presented to. It says the same thing for you, Derek. Did you have your own? To Steven Binyard and Derek Sanborn presented to Steven Binyard of DTE with sincere appreciation for wiring the mansion grounds for our concert series. Your contribution powers unforgettable experiences. We have one for you. and one for Derek. And we just wanted to publicly thank them because they didn't have to do this.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Let's give them a round of applause. And then gentlemen, I'm not going to read these proclamations or resolutions in their totality, but in addition to the plaques you've received from our city's arts and culture committee, my office in conjunction with the city clerk's office prepared some proclamations for each of you to recognize you for your contributions as well. As Diana indicated or inferred, this event was a success because of innumerable contributions, but most specifically because of the support that you provide. So thank you again. Want to get a picture? Let me give you these as well. Throw these in. Gentlemen, because you came this evening, is there anything that you would like to say for the public record this evening?

Again, you can use that microphone or whatever you prefer. I really want to thank you for allowing DT into Celine to help with the mansion. I'm a Celine resident and it was. And we're definitely here for in the future to do anything you may need to make sure that we continue the mission and continue to grow Saline and be a part of the community because that's what DTE is all about. So thank you, Mayor. Very good. Thank you. You don't have to.

That was fantastic.

Gentlemen, thank you. And I didn't want to miss or forego an opportunity to also recognize Diana because this event has really been a labor of love for her. You are the initial chair. You continue to chair the event and it's a burgeoning community initiative. It seems to improve year by year. So I wanted to recognize her for her contributions on behalf of my council colleagues and myself. Gentlemen, Diana, I don't know. Got some boxes. Do they want the boxes for their plaques? Get them? Okay. All right. Proceeding on with our agenda this evening, we come to the second presentation, which is 4.2, a Davenport Curtis House Working Group presentation. It's a nice transition. We will turn it over to our Working Group Chair, Mrs. Rebecca Schneider. And I would also note for the record that in addition to Council Members Gierbaugh and Del Orco, who serve on the task force, we also have Brett Pollington, Sue Kelch, Mary Detling, and Molly Lumpercoy as well. Rebecca, the floor is yours. Thank you for your time this evening.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Am I close enough?

Yep, you're good. Okay, good.

I'm glad you recognized all of my colleagues here in the audience who participate. I wanted to thank all of them for their continued energy and enthusiasm for this project. Tonight, I also want to call out Mary Dettling because she organized the beautiful slides for this presentation. If I had done it myself, it would not be nearly as lovely, so.

All right, so how do I advance this?

Sorry, I may have done damage to it, Rebecca, because I tripped on 1 of those chords there. I'm not.

This is why she didn't want to do slides. You're not wrong.

There we go.

Thank you so much. So when the mayor created this working group, he asked us to preserve, activate, and plan for the long-term sustainability of the mansion. And I'm going to tonight organize this presentation that way. The things that we've done, I want to show that we've worked towards those goals. The first goal is Well, actually, this slide talks about that specifically, that we want to provide a clear path. That's the purpose of our group, a clear path towards keeping the mansion and doing all of the things set forth in our mission. Under activation, we have three main activities that we've worked on. We opened the grounds for a brief period of time for prom photos on May 16th. And as you just highlighted, we partnered with the arts and culture committee to host jazz at the mansion. It was a very successful event. I know you were all there and saw it. It was how lovely it was to have people on the lawn. It went really well. We stepped information booth where we took a lot of questions about when can I get in the house? Can we do this again next year? All these someone wanted to know if it rained if we could have the event inside the house. It was a fun day and we, it was, it was wonderful to host an event that we didn't have to create as our 1st event. And we have some great pictures from the event that demonstrate all the fun that we had that day. Also under activation, we have our upcoming Labor Day barbecue. We have been planning for about 100 to 200 guests. We have live entertainment, historic impersonators, children's activities, games, bounce house, barbecue. It will be catered by Salt Springs. With bar service, we've got contests, corn hall. Molly has thought of everything that you'd ever want to have in an event. And we're getting ready to really kick up the fundraising end of this opportunity and the marketing end. Also under activation, I included our Our communications activities, because I think that's where they tie in. We've developed a logo for the mansion. We have a web page on the city's website, and we are continuously adding content to that. We've produced 7 mansion minute videos. We have highlighted architectural features, historic artifacts. We've talked about what's coming up next. Sue Kelch has written two articles for the Saline FYI, and we have developed a comprehensive Labor Day barbecue communication plan. We did a Lucy and Lance last week. We did chamber chat last week. We're getting out there and talking about it as much as we can. Under preservation, the first and most important step was taken by you guys. I put it at the top because it is the most important step, which was creating the Historic District Study Commission. In other preservation activities, we hosted an archival seminar at the house where the EMU students in the Historic Preservation Program took everything out of the two outbuildings, brought it on the main floor, went through it, cataloged it. We have a long list of everything they cataloged, and we now have 31 boxes in the basement of the house that are kept off the ground so they won't get wet, and we know what's in all the boxes. During that process, we found the drawings of The house that was considered to be built when they were thinking about preservation or moving on with the new house. And it's interesting to see the colonial house that would have been there. And it really makes you feel grateful that it's not there because it would not be nearly as special. We've also consulted with the Henry Ford's head of facilities. He came out, visited the site for a second time and talked about lift locations and how we could do that in an acceptable way. And we have reviewed the deed provisions from the historic Ford school property. In addition, we have addressed a lot of property needs. It's kind of interesting because you and I were handed a key to this house and told to take care of it, and it's been a very new activity for both of us, and I think we're still trying to hit our stride on that. Things need to happen at the house sometimes quickly, and we're working out a way to do that. Somebody needs to wake up every day and think about what's going on at the house. And I think I do that most days. But it takes a village, and I'm really grateful for the people that we have on this committee who have stepped up. You know, Terry replaced the window upstairs. She knows how to pop out glass and old windows and took it out and got it fixed. We've tuned the piano. We weeded and deemed to brought his saw. We took all kinds of stuff out. Pest control has begun, and we're working on getting someone in there to clean it regularly. There's a lot of... Little things that can go wrong and cause big problems, and we're trying very hard to mitigate all of that. And DPW has been extremely cooperative. We want to give a shout out to them. They did a great job for jazz at the mansion. In addition, we are planning for the long-term stewardship of the future. So that process is really governed by our strategic planning initiative. We engaged with Diana Wong, and we held a strategic planning retreat where we developed a mission and vision I want to reiterate that those are drafts. We hope to sort of shop those around when we do our focus groups in the fall. And when we asked Diana, aren't we putting the cart before the horse here? She said, and it does make sense, that people respond better to editing a draft than they do creating a mission or vision from scratch. So we have created these drafts. Our mission is to responsibly preserve and activate the historic mansion and property for the enjoyment of the community. And our vision is the Davenport Curtis Mansion is an iconic gateway destination that celebrates Saline history and inspires enduring community engagement, enriching our sense of place in Saline. So we'll be shopping those with various groups, gathering input. Maybe we're on the right track, maybe we're not, and we'll find that out. In addition, we are currently in the phase of our strategic planning process where we are doing an environmental scan. We have 15 municipally owned historic properties we're visiting. We're asking them, what's your operating plan? How do you rent this place out? What policies do you have? Where does your money come from? How do you get grant funding? All of those questions are things that we're trying to gather information on for our 2nd retreat with Diana, which will be this fall. In addition, we have 8 subcommittees now are. Working group is growing and we're adding members from the, we'd like to add 2 or 3 citizen members teach subcommittee. And as you all know, passing somebody in bushes who says, hey, I really want to be on your subcommittee is a lot different than actually getting that returned application in your hand. So we hope to have all of our new members approved at the September 14th. Council meeting, and in addition to that, if you know anybody. Who wants to serve please send them my way, get them to fill out that form. We also work to recommend an appropriate level of city funding so that we can continue our works. We are going to need to bring in some experts. We don't have anybody who knows what all the stuff inside the house is worth. So that will be an expert. We need to engage with among many others. We are also exploring long term financial arrangements. We have. Had talks with the area community foundation about funding and endowment opportunities, and we are hosting them later this month for a tour of Celine, because that is also the organization. The mayor has explained that we'll receive the funding for the rec center. Additionally, we are meeting with the president of Eastern Michigan University. In his past job, he worked on preserving historic mansions, so I think he might have some insights for us on that as well as fundraising for it. EMU also has a nonprofit graduate school program, and we would like to get some expertise from that program specifically to help us figure out if we want to do our own nonprofit, how to get that rolling. And we do very much want to continue with their historic preservation program. So those are all of the things that we're doing to continue to build this work group to create the clear path that we hope to provide at the end of this three-year engagement.

Excellent presentation. Thank you for your leadership chairperson Schneider. I want to emphasize. I think it was the previous slide about subcommittees. That was the focus of our most recent a recent mansion minute. And it's true. We do want private citizens and community stakeholders to volunteer and serve on those subcommittees. And as the chairperson indicated. I think it's our goal to make those appointments at our first meeting in September, which is September 14th. So if you have a passion or an expertise in historic preservation, in marketing, in promotions, in community engagement, please look at our roster of subcommittees and apply or make sure you share the information with people who would be interested. You just need to fill out our board commission committee and task force application and send it to the clerk. Again, it is subject to a background check and evaluation. but it is our goal to get those appointments made at our first regular meeting in September. So again, if you're interested, we would love to have you be a part of this initiative. Let me defer first to the council reps to the Davenport Curtis Working Group. Mr. Gierbaugh, let me start with you. Any comments you would like to add to Chairperson Schneider's presentation this evening?

I just appreciate all the dedication the members of the committee have worked, and especially Rebecca, who's given a great leadership on moving this forward, and to Molly, who's provided us with expertise and Getting towards some funding for the support, I think, looking forward now is really addressing the issue of getting the protections on it and dealing with the HTC. And as earlier had somebody had mentioned the city's moving forward with this as a property owner to move it into a historic district. Unlike other properties, which are not a historic district that's recognized by the city. This 1, if put into that type of thing will be underneath governmental review and expertise that will. Require it to be held and maintained in the perform in the way It currently is hopefully and and in the future can be protected from any kind of destruction Thank you councilmember DeLauroco anything you'd like to add?

Just that I want to thank Rebecca for her comments I think she did a wonderful job showcasing and highlighting the key initiatives that have been executed thus far There's still a lot of work yet to be done The formation of these subcommittees will be instrumental in accomplishing some of the goals specifically I'M SHARING THE PRESERVATIONS AND PROTECTION SUBCOMMITTEE, AND I'M EAGER, AS MR. GERBAUT POINTED OUT, THAT WE REALLY DO NEED TO GET THOSE DEED RESTRICTIONS IN PLACE, AND THAT WAS A PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE TO ME AS WE MOVE FORWARD WITH THE PURCHASE OF THIS PROPERTY. I'M ALSO EXCITED TO SEE WHAT COMES BACK FROM THE ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN. I THINK IT'S GOING TO BE INSTRUCTIVE AND INFORMATIVE TO LEARN HOW OTHER COMMUNITIES HAVE LEVERAGED THEIR PROPERTIES AND THEIR ASSETS THERE AND MADE IT ACCESSIBLE TO THE COMMUNITY. OF COURSE, THAT'S THE GOAL. WE WANT EVERYONE TO BE ABLE TO enjoy the mansion if we can convert this into a sustainable business model. And that is where we're investing all our time and energy. And I also want to thank everybody that serves on the Dem Board Curtis Working Group. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of time. And in my experience thus far, everyone is leaning in and giving it their all. And we couldn't do it without you.

Very good. Let me begin this evening with questions to my left and to my right. So I'll start with Council Member Harmont and end with Council Member Halsh. Council Member Harmont, any questions for Chairperson Schneider or members of the working group?

I really appreciated the logic behind your talk, talking about the benchmarking, what you're going to be doing next. It makes a lot of sense, and I appreciate you explaining that. Um, are we, how are we doing with our budget, um, with relation to how we anticipated the, the cost of ownership to be versus what we are currently experiencing?

Anybody go ahead.

So, where our budget we just established as part of the fiscal year, 27 budget, obviously, uh, resources for maintenance of the property, uh, as well as, uh, you know, looking at, uh, potential. Future land use looking at that. So we're, we're on budget and there's available funds to continue. Certainly no major capital was included in any of that. So, when it comes to other recommendations, we'll monitor that. Thank you for Tim rice.

Just a comment about all of the communication you all have done so far and the work that has gone into that. One of my hesitations when we purchased this very large purchase was, what are we going to do with it over the next three years while we try to figure out what we're going to do with it over the next three centuries? But I think the type of information The type of media you've been using, the type of activities you've been doing are absolutely spot on. So I don't know who, I know Sue Kelch is the chair of that, but I don't know who else has provided input, but everybody that's part of that, I know Sue and Brett are a big part of that. has relieved my duties as a council member because i can say to my constituency here look at this cool thing and this will answer your questions and it's so helpful from this side of the desk so thank you very much for that very good councilmember gear by anything else

Not at this time. Okay. Council member Dylan.

Thank you. Thank you for the update. And thank you for your diligent work on this. We know we've given you quite quite abbreviated timeline to do everything, but I'd like to stick on the word timeline and sort of understand. Do you have. Whether it's actually written a mental note of where your benchmarks are, like, with your tours. Okay. We're going to visit these 15. we expect to have a written report by this date. So, are you tracking that? So that because 1 of the big things I know that we had talked about was making sure that we left enough time for that off ramp. On the back side of it, and so understanding. If you work backwards from that, okay, where do we expect to be? So, is that something that maybe at the next meeting or in between meetings presentations you can share with council or that we can sort of put out to the public? So they sort of understand where we are in process.

Didn't have a 1 pager that Diana Wong put together for us that lays out the whole strategic planning process for the 1st year that it, you know, they were moving along and. Once we decide what we're going to do, then we have to create another timeline for how long we're going to take to do it at this point, since we don't know what we're going to do. I can't. Determine how long that's going to take. Okay.

And I think for us, priorities are setting in terms of the HTC getting that in place. Those things are a little more set up. I think these visits are part of the whole oversight in the next three to four months to determine what are other properties and things doing. And so we've got a spreadsheet that has identified those properties, individuals identified. They'll bring in notes, and so hopefully that'll be occurring in the next two to three months.

And I would add, too, I think our goal presently is to finish up most of those visits within the next month. And then, as I'll discuss, because I had a conversation with Diana, Professor Wong, last week, she provided me some dates in late September for us to regroup and revisit our strategic plan.

And then once we do that, then we're on to the focus groups, which take another couple months together. So...

No, I appreciate that. And then the other piece that I assume that you're doing is sort of got a 2 track going. 1 is sort of the actual, the mansion, the property, the house itself versus the exterior property and how to utilize those in different ways separately. Um, because I'm trying to figure out, I mean, I see that you've you're activating the outside right now in the property and you're looking at ways in which you can do that. Um, and so are you also looking at activating the, the house itself at this point?

If we can yes, if we can make the house compliant. We would be able to activate the house, at least the ground floor in some ways to engage with the public. Okay, some limited tours. I mean, we have a 1Billion ideas, but.

No, I understand. I guess I'm just trying to understand because we hadn't heard anything really about the house part of it. And then all of a sudden there was well, we're going to put an ramp and access point and it was like, well, what are you doing? With the house that would require you to have people in there to have an compliant. and understanding I mean I keep hearing things the one thing I want to make sure is that if we do bring people in this House that there's things I mean are people taking the shoes off for putting covers are they wearing gloves are we are is there somebody there to ensure that are they taking books off of the bookshelves I mean I'm hearing statements about people others, you know there's this book in the library and it makes me nervous that like our people touching things Is it a touching experience or is it just a... Republican?

No, I think it's going to be more like when you go to Greenfield Village. You will follow a restricted pathway through, probably going in the back door and going out the front.

Well, I want to know and I want to understand that because, I mean, there's... With stanchions and a rug and people are not going to...

Currently, we're trying to limit who would actually go into the house from specific either professionals or individuals that will help us assess and develop this. I mean, in some cases, I know the mayor has brought in individuals that potentially could be donors or potentially supporting this operation, which we kind of want to do that because that's part of our, our goal. Um, but. I agree, we put in security and things of that nature that are identified to protect and track who's going in and out of the facility. So I think at that point we have it, but we do not plan at this turn turn time to open to the general public. We just can't because of not only the issues, but. We have concerns with this collection itself and making sure it's all tracked and cataloged. We haven't had those raised so we know what has to be.

That's what I want to kind of understand because, like I said, when there were conversations about making the home ADA, it sort of sounded like you were fast-tracking getting people into the house. And sort of I just wanted to understand because I do feel like there are still some security issues. There's some cataloging things that still need to be done. And so I'm glad that that's sort of in the forefront of the group.

It's not going to be anywhere near soon enough to satisfy people, but I do think. For the city to this property has never been open to the public and for the city, even if we sold it in 3 years to own it during that time and not let. Anyone else in, I think would be really disappointing for a lot of citizens of Celine. So, I'm mindful of that as well.

Thank you.

Councilmember Del Arco, anything you'd like to add? I do not. Councilmember Halsh, any questions or comments? Just one.

I remember before the purchase, I think a young lady came and spoke about one of the best ways of preserving is to have someone live there. Is that something that's being considered as I hear you kind of, you're kind of the caretaker in a sense of thinking about the day-to-day and sort of upkeep?

I think that We're the working group, so we make recommendations, so don't be surprised when I recommend that we need to have a caretaker for the property. I don't know if they need to live there or not, but I do think it would be a wise investment for the city to have someone whose job it is to wake up every day and take care of that house.

That was my only question. Thank you.

Chairwoman Schneider, anything else you'd like to add before we wrap up and proceed with the consent portion of tonight's agenda?

No, I just want to thank everybody for their time and their interest in this project.

Very good. Thank you. And as a reminder to council, a more comprehensive report will be issued from the working group in the first quarter of 2027, which will, of course, be here before you know it. So we look forward to that. And maybe there'll be, I think at that time, there'll be some more substantive responses to the questions and concerns that were raised this evening and in the preceding weeks. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you to the members of the working group for their attendance as well. Look forward to seeing you at our bi-monthly meeting on Wednesday. We're going to proceed to the consent agenda. The following consent agenda will normally be adopted without discussion. However, at the request of any citizen or council member, any item may be removed from the consent agenda for discussion. Uh, hold that motion go ahead. Was that customer Dylan?

Yeah, I just wanted to make mention. I think when we transitioned, there's 2 sets of minutes listed and 1 has already been approved.

What is the date of the approved minutes? 15.

The July 15th minutes have already been approved, so they've kind of seem like they've carried over as a document, even though they're not mentioned in the meeting.

So I think you're correct. So we will strike them from consideration, noting that 1 modification. Mayor, are you still amenable to making a motion to approve the consent agenda now as amended?

Thank you. Good. Okay. Yes. The other thing is that there are not documentation for resignations.

Are those they would just.

I would just in the future just include those emails.

I just, I didn't know what was personal in some of those.

If somebody sends, if somebody sends the mayor an email indicating a resignation from a board committee or committee or task force, that's not private or privilege that can be forwarded on to the entire council and be made part of the packet. You're right in both cases. I think there were 1 sentence emails that say that for personal reasons. I need to resign. Okay. So it was rice who moved to approve the consent agenda as amended note, noting that 1 subtraction. Is there a 2nd. Seconded by Dillon. All those in favor of approving the Consent Agenda as amended, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. Ayes have it. The motion carries unanimously. We move on to Unfinished Business, Item 6.1, 26-54, Mill Race. To acknowledge receipt and to approve or not to approve the O'Neill Construction Mill Race Repair Proposal in an amount not to exceed $64,132. To acknowledge... Moved by GearBoss simply to acknowledge. Is there a second? Seconded by Del Orco. City Manager Schwaller, would you like to begin?

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Yes, as you're aware, back in March, we had brought forward a proposal from Fisher Contracting originally based on failure of some of the stop logs at the mill race at the Sling River Dam. So at that time, the recommendation was to install a coffer dam to close off this area as well as Unfortunately, the cost of that was between $500,000 and $600,000. So council had asked us to review this, take a look at Spicer Group, our engineer, to see if there are more cost-effective ways to accomplish this. So we back out, solicited proposals from four different contractors, in addition, obviously, to the original proposal from Fisher, so a total of five contractors. We did receive a proposal back from O'Neill Construction. As we talked about that in May and June, as far as what that proposal would look like. With that, we've been working with them to modify that and update it. They've been working with Spicer Group to reach a consensus that it is a safe and appropriate way to complete the work. And so what the proposal consists of is establishing a concrete weir behind or downstream from the current stop logs. We have been able to block off that area with some steel plates so it would be a dry environment. IN WHICH THEY CAN WORK TEMPORARILY, BUT LOWING THAT CONCRETE WEIR DOWN INTO The existing opening, and then basically attaching it to the sides of the existing mill race. So, with that, that is a more cost effective proposal. You see included in here the quote for 64,132 dollars. There were a couple of alternates. You may have noted in the proposal, looking at different things that O'Neill could do with this time potentially re, establishing the existing stop log channel and stop logs. Some advantages that would have been you know if you ever have to do work in the future There's a secondary stop log channel that you could utilize I believe you know that can be also reestablished at a later date and time so with that the recommendation is just to go with the base proposal for the for a new construction And then obviously we'll talk a little bit more about the next gen item the spicer group overview and and managing of that of that of that proposal

Very good. Thank you. City manager swallow council member gearbox the mover of the motion simply to acknowledge. Did you want to begin with questions?

Mine had to do with more of the total cost of all of it together. So we're selecting 64,000 dollars with this 30,000 dollars with spicer. But isn't there another potentially alert tail end to spicer? Is there another tail end to spicer if we do not meet the minimum for eagle or session permits?

There's 2 components of the space proposal. WHICH IS ESTIMATED AT $10,000, AND THAT INCLUDES SOME ADDITIONAL WORK, YOU KNOW, TWO REVISIONS AT LEAST TO INFERMIT, TWO EGLE. BECAUSE THIS IS A FAIRLY STRAIGHTFORWARD PROJECT, I DON'T ANTICIPATE THAT, YOU KNOW, GOING BEYOND THAT. AND THEN $20,000 FOR ABOUT 90 HOURS OF WORK FOR SPICER TO DO CONSTRUCTION OVERSIGHT, WHILE THE CONSTRUCTION IS ONGOING, AS WELL AS BUILD DRAWINGS, AS WELL AS, YOU KNOW, SOME REVIEW OF

I read something. I thought about a concern if if this isn't approved or some type of a project, is there any issue with this currently that we feel that Eagle will not support this approach?

We've had ongoing communications with them throughout the process and actually they've agreed to try and expedite the permit just because sometimes they're. If the stop logs ultimately failed, we put some emergency measures in place with the steel plates to cut off the flow, but it could become a problem with the lower in the pond. So they're, they're wanting to try and work with us and get the permit expedited.

And from your perspective, both yours and Mr McNeil, our DPS director feel that this is a adequate and safe approach to move forward.

And we've been working with Spicer Group, obviously the challenge being that right now those steel plates are holding back the flow, but we need to be careful as they modify that. There's some things that O'Neill Construction is going to do to help support the structure, the trash rack, things that are remaining in place during construction. So with those additional efforts, yes, Spicer Group has been And how quickly can we see this happen? Ideally, we would like to complete this work this fall. A little bit depends on EGLE permitting, but O'Neill Construction is planning to complete it this fall.

Well, hopefully as fast as they are trying to move the one for the data center, they can move ours, which is really truly a safety concern. So, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Gearbaugh. Council Member DeLarico, questions or comments?

Just that the last time this came back before Council, there was some concern that the bid didn't include everything that was necessary to deal with silt debris removal. Does this revised bid now accommodate and account for everything that needs to be done with respect to clearing out the area and the mill rates before the concrete weir goes in?

So they modified their design. So previously they had proposed to put the concrete weir upstream of the existing stop logs where a lot of that debris has accumulated. So with looking at it, they're able to basically move or remove a portion of the trash rack and put it downstream of existing stop logs.

Where the current trash rack is.

Correct. Yeah. Right. So then they do not have to remove the debris. They did provide an alternate if we again wanted to reestablish that original stop log channel and then place additional stop logs in that existing channel that that debris would have to be cleaned out this time. We're not recommending that. I'm not sure exactly, um, but, you know, what modified or what the either rule or repair of the damn exactly what will become of the.

Yeah, I think that's a good thing because as much as the debris may be a nuisance in this case, it's our friend because it's serving a major function of holding some of that water back. So, uh, I'm, I'm really excited to hear that this revised bid now accommodates the, um, moving on the other side of the stop log and, um, under the trash rack. O'Neill Construction was the company that rehabilitated the dam in the 70s when the embankment failed. So I'm confident this contractor will be able to do this safely and get this work done for us.

Thank you Councilmember DeLargo. Additional questions from the dais? Councilmember Dillon?

Thank you. I apologize because this was the document that we weren't able to access. So it may say it somewhere in the document, but I wasn't able to see it. And so I guess what I want to understand is, has O'Neill done something? Is this process exist or is this accustomed to like a one of a kind type of repair?

This is fairly customized obviously concrete weirs are standard thing, but this is custom because they're having to place it in existing mill race. So this is unique to our deal.

Just like that there's a comfort level that they have enough expertise to to successfully do this.

We've been going back and forth quite a bit with spicer kind of evaluating. Obviously, they've changed your design somewhat based on that evaluation based on that review. So there is a comfort level at this point that it can be done safely.

Spicer is comfortable that this process it's. Is okay, that's my big thing right now is that I don't want to save a dollar to do a project that is going to potentially cause a failure.

Um, or something like that, it just, it is a unique and custom fit. So I, there could be some things in the field that, you know, don't go quite as expected because it is a custom proposal. But with that, you know, there's no risk of failure and will there still be water that.

Goes through to the tail race, or are we blocking that completely?

No, there will be in the drawing. So there's basically a U shaped channel, if you will, or channel at the top of the concrete where that allow water to pass over. And then actually, there will be some stop logs in that new concrete at the top of the new concrete. We're to help control the water level up and down. Not as much as we can with the current logs, but we'll be able to still control water level.

And is there any opportunity while they're in there working on that and have equipment on site? Is there anything else related to the dam that should be looked at at the same time? And what I'm going to specifically mention is where we put the rock and I don't remember what it's called.

The correct kind of underneath that we did all the work just last time.

I don't know whether is that something that we would want to have inspections on or anything while people are on site.

So this proposal was obviously specifically focused on the race and getting those stop logs repaired. We will have another inspection of the dam overall by Spicer group and then obviously based on councils and or vote decision as to if there's going to be rehabilitation, that'd be more design and or removal. There'd be significantly more design at that point in time. Okay. Thank you.

Additional questions. Go ahead. Councilman harm. I'll jump back to Mr.

Um, I was approached, I just wanted to make sure it was really, um, resolved, uh, that the, there was a previous question raised about the mill race ownership and the water rights questions about, uh, and has that been.

Conclusively resolved, so the city is the owner of the structure, the mill race structure as well as as it goes under the 12 and obviously, They own the tail race, if you will, for the property. So with that, we did have, as you're aware, legal review of the of the water rights. Basically, at this point, the attorney believes that the city has the right to control and manage the dam itself as the owner of that.

Okay, thank you for answering that. Um, and as was asked by pretty much everybody on the diocese that we do not see, I guess the main question is that our exposure to the cost is not going to exceed 104,000, which it sounds like you feel pretty confident about that.

And then you're saying the obviously the O'Neill's proposal plus Spicer group plus the 10,000. Yeah. Well, plus the 30, so it'd be 94132. yeah. 94 plus. Yeah.

on top of it. But that is the cap on that. We don't foresee that exceeding.

Don't foresee it. Obviously, there's been a lot of work on this over the last few months. Again, this is a little bit of a unique application. But at this point, O'Neill is confident they can do it for the quoted price. And obviously, the Spicer Group, it's an amount not to exceed. So they have built in some

With a contractor on design, and there's no, like, further guarantees that we could get from the O'Neill group.

Obviously, we can award a contract if they don't fulfill the contract. I mean, that's something we have to deal with them on that, but there's been a fair amount of design works fair amount of review. They visit the site several times. So they're, they're confident in the price.

Thank you. Council Member Greenwood, did you have a follow-up question?

Yeah, actually, to help Council Member Harmon. It looks like we had four alternatives, though, potentially, so we could have an additional somewhere between $2,000 and $5,000, depending on the alternative, or if we stack them.

That would be if we selected for O'Neill to implement the alternatives in that proposal, then I was surprised you could put up additional review time.

Got it. No, my question was, one of the things we kept, and this has been for the last three years, was actually the expectation to understand either EPA or the state of Michigan that 2026 was going to provide us with the new requirements of what we're expected of a dam. Have we heard anything to that effect at this point in time?

So there were some additional standards that are being implemented by EGLE in terms of the amount of water or the volume that can pass through your particular dam structure, but it is somewhat unique based on the watershed and based on the dam itself. My suspicion is once we have to actually every three years we have triennial inspections that we have to submit to EGLE that they'll start to review that and apply those standards and really that would come into effect if we modify the dam in any way or we do a major rehabilitation project.

So, at this point, we're at our 3 year review, right? I believe and so, but we have not heard anything specifically as to. Okay. We're throughout Michigan. We're going to be requiring these issues for dams or any of that nature that we will move to a 500 or 1000 year floodplain approach. I'm concerned. I mean, the mayor's not in his head, but I would like to hear from you. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Go ahead customer. Um, kind of going, uh. Continuing kind of the train of thought that council member harm out brought up. I know that you mentioned that wording of the contract because this is fairly custom Will there be any sort of language or almost a warranty of should this solution not work within X amount of time that they, O'Neal comes out and fixes it or does repairs or anything like that.

There's that currently warranty included as part of the proposal with that though. Obviously Spicer group will be on site inspecting the installation and making sure that it meets engineering standards. So we're confident that it will be a secure structure, but there's not a warranty included at this point.

Is that possible? What if 3, 5 years down the line we realize like, oh, this didn't work.

It is fairly straightforward. I mean, basically placing a piece of concrete in a channel and bolting it to bolting it to the existing structure. So we don't anticipate there's going to be a lot of failure points. But obviously, I suspect if they're going to warranty or guarantee something that the cost could be increased from that point.

Any additional questions or discussions? Simply on a motion to acknowledge receipt. It's been moved by Gierbaugh, seconded by Del Arco. Then we'll proceed to vote on the motion to acknowledge receipt. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. Aye to approve. Okay. Excuse me. Ayes have it. The motion is approved. And now Mr. Gierbaugh would like to make a motion to simply approve the O'Neill Construction mill raised repair proposal in an amount not to exceed $64,132. Is there a second to that motion? Yes. Seconded again by Del Arco. Is there any additional discussion? I would just add, per the comment that was made earlier, that I'm glad to hear that Eagle says they would work to expedite this permit. I'm not being rude, but they generally move at a glacial pace. So if they're going to move... move more quickly to get the turnaround needed for us to expedite this work. That's positive. I would just ask our DPS director that if they're sluggish in their response, please notify my office. I'd be happy to make contact with our state senator or state representative to see if they can help move state regulators along in issuing the permit so we can begin work. I'll be voting in favor of both of the motions here, 26-54 and 26-55, and I appreciate staff's work on both of these matters. Any additional discussion? We have a motion on the floor. Moved by Gearbaugh, seconded by Del Arco to approve. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. Ayes have the motion, carries unanimously. Subsequent motion, 26-55, Mill Race CE service with Spicer. Motion to acknowledge receipt and to approve or not to approve the Spicer Mill Race CE services in an amount not to exceed $30,000.

Move to acknowledge and approve.

Move by Gearbot to acknowledge and to approve. Is there a second? Second. Ooh, I'll give it to Rice on this one. I'll get you on the next one, Councilmember DeLarco. Any obligatory comments for the record, Mr. Swallow?

No, again, hopefully to move this special groups are aware of saving and reviewing the plan.

So they plan to submit to ego as good. Appreciate that. Any questions for the city manager staff?

Any discussion on the motion may have put in the comment that I appreciate the spicer group stepping in and really, like, working to try to figure out who would be best for this, how it would be best to work. And then having oversight, I think, is key to this. And so they've kind of been around since the beginning. So I appreciate them.

Good any additional discussion? It's been properly moved by gear boss seconded by rice to acknowledge and to approve all those in favor say aye Both say nay eyes haven't motion carries seven to zero we move on a new business agenda. I didn't excuse me 26 dash 143 Virtu near I pronounced that correctly Verditeer. Verditeer. Verditeer Contracting Incorporated Raw Water Line Construction. This will be a motion to acknowledge receipt and to approve or not to approve the Verditeer Contracting Incorporated to perform install of a new raw water line in an amount not to exceed $321,726.95. Move to acknowledge and approve. Move by Gearbot to acknowledge and to approve. Is there a second? 2nd, 2nd, and again by council member rice city manager swallow. Would you like to begin?

Thank you. I'm Eric counsel. This is something that was discovered during the, uh, basically the review site plan review for rich water developments. the attached units there, a new housing project. And basically, as we were looking at the existing infrastructure, it was discovered that the water main between wells five and six and the water plant, so it's raw water from the wells to the plant, was installed, we believe, in 1916. So obviously, well beyond its anticipated useful life. So the recommendation from the city engineer at that time was that we proceed with replacement before a new road that would be underneath basically the road that would service the Ridgewater development. So recommendation was to replace that. So we went into design and obviously bidding now. We did have a favorable response. We're recommending a contract with Grand Pair Contracting to install the new water line.

Very good. Mr. McNeil, do you care to make any comment? I think he summarized it very well. Very good. Questions from the dance. Start with Mr. Gierbaugh, then Dillon, then Halsh.

Um, just to help me and remind me of this, so this will be the piece that goes up to North Ann Arbor street correctly and the portion in North Ann Arbor street.

Right.

So, how much about North Ann Arbor street is still the 1916 or is that more towards I thought some of that was replaced back in the early 2000s or.

Yeah, some was replaced up into the intersection, let's say, of where the new asphalt road is going in North Ann Arbor Road. It's about right there where that piece ended. And so this is taking it from that piece where it's basically been used up to the early 2000-ish and then going from there all the way up to the water plant.

Okay, so then really the only thing that we have left really that's old is the component that's on North and urban street between Bennett and McKay. That's around 1913.

Yes.

Okay, great. Um, the only other question on this 1 I had was, um, we talked about this before, but we weren't planning on it once they do this. Are we going to extend? And I know if this was probably going to be the question. The paved road all the way to the water plan. So we dig this all up, we put this new line in there. I was hoping we were going to complete the road all the way down to the plant. Is that still not in the plans at this time?

Um, I believe the plan is only to what the developer plans to asphalt. We don't plan to asphalt the rest of the way, but we will be digging everything up all the way down to plant.

Does this pipe run underneath the, I guess the gravel road that's right there. Now the access. Okay. I just feel that at times I've seen where that road is flooded and beneficial to have that completely asphalt down there. But, um. It feels like we would benefit to do it at this time instead of waiting for another year or 2.

I know that was reviewed during, you know, site plan review. Um, and I know we had some discussion and don't want to pick on the superintendent breaks, but in the office that they really only use that access during any construction projects. It's not used for regular access. Um, obviously, so they did not feel it was necessary to have a paved road, but at this time, we'll kind of put it back to it.

At least a decent gravel road. They'll either have limestone or something in there that makes it. I truthfully, when I've gone down there and driven it, we've used to get access there. It was a mud puddle going through there. So I want to make sure that whatever's in there, the road is appropriate to be used in all weather. This is the two track grassy portion just south of waterworks. Yeah. Okay. So there'll be a small section now that won't be paved. Right.

No plan.

So we're going to do that. I, whatever it goes to restore it, I hopefully we're restoring it to a better grade than what it's currently just gravel. I think. Very good customer Dylan.

Thank you. That was definitely 1 of my questions was that we, that was a big point of contention when we, when this project began, you know, it's a very small portion of the roadway. And why would we just not asphalt it to just have a complete full roadway there? I know that's limited use, but it is used at times and it just seems like having it as a complete. Roadway seems if we're at this point, if we're digging the whole thing up and just doing it. So I wish there would be more consideration to that. Um, the 1 thing I'm trying to understand is, and this is. It says a budget amendment is required. How much. Do we have anything of this 325,321,000. Budgeted or where is this money coming from?

Obviously, in the water fund, I already budgeted and I thought you back me on the exact amount of the shortfall.

Okay, so it's, it's all coming out of the water fund.

Yes.

And so with that, we will not have to delay another project. You can that budget can that that line item can accommodate for capital budget that was establishing water fund.

Obviously, this is. I guess when you say delay, and there's, there's a long series of water projects that we'd like to do in the future right into that budget, so to speak.

Yeah, I guess what I'm trying to figure out is was 321,000 dollars allocated to another project this year. That is not going to happen as a result of this.

No, I do know of one fund that we'll be, more than likely Sierra will be pulling some funds from is our service line replacement fund or our investigation line item where we have dukes out there hydro excavating curb stops. We added $250,000 to this budget for that service to take place since we have the TMF grant. And we are close to the end. We will not have to utilize any of those funds for any extra exploration. And we only anticipate hopefully using... About 100,000 of that money in order to replace service lines that qualify sometime in the spring is our hopes. So that frees up about 150,000 dollars. And as Dan said, there's other items in there that we believe she'll be able to use in order to take care of this.

Thank you very much. I'm kind of completely different track is. Where are we or do we have capabilities within GIS to sort of be able to track kind of across the city other lines and like the state of those lines?

It's only as good as the information that we have. So we really rely on having the old utility set plans for those constructions. And so as long as we have access to them, they are uploaded to GIS, and that's where we can have shortcuts built in right into GIS to see exactly the age of the infrastructure. But we have to make maintain those over the years.

We're still in the information gathering. That was my question.

Yeah, actually, as far as actually having the plans, everything that we have is actually in GIS now. So it's just if it was misplaced over the years or we didn't obtain it from the engineer that was helping us with it, then We don't have it, but as far as everything that we've had on hand, it isn't now as far as as builds for water main sewers and stuff like that.

And do you think that having that information? And being able to to utilize that we may enjoy cost savings sort of in the future when we come to.

Yeah, it certainly helps. It lowers the amount of time for review time for engineers to help with engineering details and plans. It lowers the time for in-house personnel like myself to review what was done in the past to help better plan for the future when we think of different developments or different upgrades that we want to make to the city. To have these at the fingertips and not having to go to a file cabinet that's usually unorganized and scan and search for all these documents is... Um, so everybody's going this way. It's it's a must in order to be organized and reduce cost. Awesome. Thank you.

Additional questions.

I just want to say that these are the kinds of catches that as a council member, I fully support because to catch something like this and have to maybe kind of think about project planning a little bit more because we're spending over 300,000 dollars on this rather than, you know, 2 years down the line or 3 years down the line, something happened and we say, didn't we just build that road and, you know. be upset with that decision that we made. So I appreciate the work.

And to Councilmember Housh's point, one assumes that in the planning stages of this, that's how you realized that these were directly underneath that road, was that we had the... Yeah, previous city engineer and current deputy DPW director, when reviewing the Ridgewater site plan, they seen that this asphalt road was gonna go over the two track and realized that that's where the raw water line was. looked at the information of the age and realized that this was a must project in order to, again, just long-term sustainability, replace something that's really old and make sure that we have access to well five and six for the, as long as we need it for. That's good.

I think that's a good use of the investment into our GIS and all those types of services. So appreciate it.

Additional questions? Any comments on the motion? We do have a motion on the floor, moved by Gierbaugh, seconded by Rice, to both acknowledge and to approve. If there's nothing further, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. Ayes have it. The motion carries unanimously. We move on to new business item 26-144, OHM Raw Water Line Construction Observation Services. This will be a motion to acknowledge receipt and to approve or not to approve the OHM Raw Water Line CE Services in an amount not to exceed $36,820.

To acknowledge and approve.

Moved by Mayor Patent Rice to acknowledge and to approve. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Gearbaugh. City Manager Swallow, do you care to make any comment?

Just a quick overview of the previous project. We have OSM that will provide their construction engineering services overseen. They did the design, so they'll oversee the installation, monitor the contractor on site, make sure that it's installed properly. and certainly used to update GIS and other things.

So this proposal, I recommend the approval. Very good. DPS Director McNeil, anything you'd like to add?

Nope. Just if there's any additional questions, we do have Jennifer with OHM here with us. If you do require any questions that we can't answer ourselves, nothing more to add.

Jennifer, we appreciate your patience this evening. Hang tight in the event that there are questions. If there are, if you wouldn't mind coming to the podium and speaking into the mic, we would appreciate that. Are there questions or comments for staff or our guests from OHM? Mr.

I just, I guess I have one considering the age of it. Do we have any concerns that during this construction we could run into a problem?

The design engineers have assured me. No, but it is very old. So, you know, as we've talked about with other things. Um, you know, we, we can't guarantee that, but, um, you know, they, they feel pretty confident in the line replacing.

Are we making it larger or is it just a replacement size? Okay.

Thank you. Jane tight there at the podium in the event that there are additional questions that you can best address. Let's go doing again to and then back to rice.

Thank you. Just for clarification. Are we have do we have to take those wells offline?

I would assume we would. Yes. Yeah. Those are the ones that we've just put back online, but now we do have well, 7 that's up and running. That's sufficient to carry the, the water capacity load that the city needs. So, although it will be a brief time, we do through testing feel that we are adequate with well, 7.

Right and what has been a verification. Okay. And so when will this project take place?

We are trying to get this done as soon as possible. So in the event, well, it was already passed. So we've already had conversations with Marcus and Jennifer to hold a pre-construction meeting as soon as possible.

And we do not need like, we have to coordinate with the developer also.

Correct. And we have that. Yeah. So we'll let them know exactly the date and time that we're going to take care of it. There's a few things on that to track right now that need to be removed. And then we'll go ahead and do the work that needs to take place. And then once we're done, the developer will build an asphalt road.

Okay. And we don't have a concern about water use.

Thank you very much. I guess my comment is I know we've had a number of like contracts come from OHM this year as far as I know there was one that was like general services and then I know there was one for GIS. It looks like raw water, like this observation services. So I guess it would be helpful for me if there was some sort of master document that kind of delineated like what each of those kind of contracts entails. Because it seems like, wait, didn't we, isn't that kind of what we were paying for in the general? But now it's like, no, we actually have to have a project specific contract. So I guess just for my edification, I would love to see kind of that breakdown for both OHM and for Spicer.

Definitely have it for a week. Jim actually had that conversation with the marks McNamara, the lead, and there's a master project list shows where we're at what the purchase order number is in terms of budgets from the city side. So we can share that with council.

Thank you. Yeah, I do have that ready to go for the asset management meeting. So. What I can do is I can just pull those documents and just maybe send them out to the council as a whole.

Yeah, sounds good. I think let the asset management team review them first, make sure there's no gaps or deficiencies, but if they feel the documentation is sufficient, then they can be forwarded to the entire group. Okay. Anything else, Council Member Halsh? No. Mayor Patem Rice?

Road traffic flow. School's starting very soon. Will we be able to stay one lane? Well, we have to close the entire road.

I don't think they'll have to close. They'll be working on them. Basically the media or the edge of North Ann Arbor.

So it doesn't cross doesn't cross the other side. Doesn't go to the middle. Okay.

Perfect. So we'll just probably have like a digging up on the West shoulder. Hopefully right in that area of North Ann Arbor. Okay. Perfect. Thank you.

Just last 1, we've talked about renovating, doing some work on 5 and 6. I don't know if that's completed or will we be doing it down during this downtime?

Right now we do have that as an agenda item at the towards the end and I'm not sure of the timeline bill here with our superintendent for the water and wastewater building. Maybe I'll provide a better timeline during that agenda item. Okay. Thank you.

Any additional questions. Any subsequent discussion? Thank you again for your time this evening. We appreciate it. We have a motion on the floor then moved by Mayor Pro Tem Rice, seconded by Council Member Gearbaugh to acknowledge and to approve. All those in favor say aye. Opposed say nay. Ayes have it. Motion carries unanimously 7-0. We move on to new business item 26-145, amended downtown social district. This will be a motion to acknowledge receipt and to adopt resolution number 2026-145, approving an amendment to the South Ann Arbor Street social district to expand the common area to include the designated areas. to both the north and south sides of Michigan Avenue, US 12, amend the management maintenance plan and social district map, authorize Dan's Downtown Tavern as a qualified licensee within the social district, and authorize the city clerk and city manager to submit the amended social district designation and all required documents to the Michigan Liquor Control Commission.

Move to acknowledge.

Move by Dillon simply to acknowledge, seconded by Gierbaugh. City Manager Swallow, would you like to begin?

Thank you very counsel when the South Ann Arbor social district was established back in 2024 was the city's understanding that the liquor control commission would not allow basically the common areas to cross a state highway. This is based on the separate law that does not. does not allow or basically prohibits consumption of alcohol on a state highway. Since that time, the Liquor Control Commission has modified its guidance and some of the rules that they have provided for social districts. They do allow social districts to cross state highways. However, there's still that prohibition exists that you cannot consume alcohol within the state highway. So with that, we have proposed an expansion of social districts showing that excluding basically the area of US Trump. Put in your packet that shows the not only the north side North Ann Arbor Street But also along Michigan Avenue the storefronts as well as one of the other proposals as part of this expansion is to allow for Use of our downtown parking lots based on special event applications to be part of the social district. So with that weather requirements for the expansion would counsel to adopt resolution approving the proposed expansion area the showing the extent of the commons area, as well as updating the management and maintenance plan that goes along with that. That will all be submitted to the Michigan Liquor Control Commission for their review and hopefully approval.

Very good. Questions from the day. That's Council Member Hermount, and then I'll jump to Halsh and recognize Council Members subsequent to that if there are still additional questions.

So, Dan, I'm sorry, you might have mentioned this, but for July 20th, we had some follow up items and a couple of them were 1 was the signage. There was a discrepancy with the signage hours versus what was in the plan in the document that we received this evening.

So, the signage, so there's a, there will be additional signage required. Previously the. Sling main street has provided that that signage and I've spoken with them and they are going to continue to provide signage to mark the outer boundaries in terms of the time. Basically, there it's a time listed in the management maintenance plan include for the general hours of Monday through Thursday, 3 to 10 PM and then Friday, Sunday, 9 to 10 PM. There's also provisions for opening up the West Henry street parking lot during the farmers market and during summer concert series. So those times are listed separately. And then finally, special events would be basically the discretion council, but no, no later than 10.

I just wanted to make sure that that discrepancy was addressed. I think I remember we brought that up. I thought we brought that up last time, but those changes can be made without objection. Yep. And then there was some discussion over max alley area. The consideration of that area in the social gathering space, how they're some of it was excluded. We're going to look at that map to make sure that it was not because are you going to get.

From there to the social space, I think there was a right. So, based on the Michigan liquor control commission rules, the social district cannot overlap other areas that are already permitted by a licensee. So, Max does have. That area is part of their license as a, as a sidewalk cafe. And so unfortunately, I cannot overlap that. So they didn't have to go around the building.

Okay, and then and then we did address also confirmation of the individual businesses being able to refuse social district beverages.

Correct individuals can either go verbally or post or however they want to basically prohibit people from entering their building.

Thank you. Um, I think I brought it up last time is the new signage going to include any sort of enforcement of the role of not being able to cross.

Well, the rules are, yeah, you would not be able to actually carry a full drink across Michigan Avenue.

And so my concern those corners. Is that going to be communicated clearly? Um, and then who does or where does enforcement for that fall? Does it fall on the individual businesses or.

So, basically, we have to provide the information to provide the signage that it's prohibited. It's up to, I mean, if the, if the individual violates that, then it would be out now for.

Anything else customer Halsh? No customer Dylan.

So, I guess I'm just trying to understand again. We are adding. A business to the north, so is that now separate? Like, can they. Can I get a drink at Dan's and bring it to the summer music series? Can I cross Michigan Avenue with that drink?

I understand that not with full beverage. No. I thought the word was consuming, so I guess you can't drink it while you're on.

Yes. My understanding is you can, you can take it. You can't be drinking it in the crosswalk of US 12.

That's my understanding Tony's or attorney chubbs memo stated something about it. As long as it said in the signage, you can't consume it because.

It doesn't show Michigan Avenue across as a common area.

We don't consume the beverage in the commons area, so that's the areas where the beverage can be consumed.

And that's kind of the same with the Max walkway, because clearly there's only one in and out of Max. You can get a drink from Max. You just can't drink it in that walkway, but you can take it with you, correct, to go to Summer Music?

Correct.

Yeah, or elsewhere.

Yeah. So you can't stay in there and socialize and drink it. Right?

No, you can't have it. I mean, that the max alleyways is is a weird thing that I really need to kind of understand if you can't get into the max entrance. Because it's they're in a gray spot that they've considered. It's a no social district. How are you getting a drink at max?

So walk out the front door, go around to lot 4 from the can't overlap the social district where it's permitted to consume the beverage and to utilize that cannot overlap with an already permitted area.

So you should be able to drink Max's if you bought a drink at Max's, you should be able to drink it there and take it from there into the social district. What you can't do is take Dan's drink into that social district into that gray area is what I believe into the crosswalk of US 12 correct?

Well stated.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. So...

But, like, Mack's Sidewalk Cafe and Brecken's Sidewalk Cafe is not the entire sidewalk. You still walk behind them, so that can't... The area that you walk through can't be part of the social district? I think it's just the tables. Yes, that's what I'm saying. So, like, the permit for their sidewalk cafes isn't the whole sidewalk. It's just their permanent part. So they're technically should be a little blue lines like I feel like there needs to be something that delineate Like how Henry has a little blue line all the way down.

Can I bring Main Street director Dettling would you mind coming to the podium? Could I trouble you for a couple questions? I don't know if you have any insights on the concerns, questions that have been raised by my colleagues, but I also think it would be valuable for the public record. You're kind of on the front line of this issue and have obviously been intimately involved for the past two years. If there are concerns or concerns Issues that have been brought to your attention. I think it'd be valuable for council to be aware of it. I'm not aware that there have been any problems with the social district since its inception back in 2024, but I may be wrong.

So from everything that I've heard, it has gone very well and our businesses really like it. They were afraid in the beginning that they weren't going to make revenue enough to even cover their their social district licensing. And I think most of them have. Well, exceeded that, especially during some of the outdoor events, the question regards to the, to the, to what we were just talking about. Yes, you can't take a drink from Bracken's into that gray area between Max and what how far across that area he has licensed is. I think that it might you might not be able to walk through it with a drink from. Brecken or Drop Top or Dan's or Salt. However, from Max, you can go either direction. So if there's a special event that has been approved within the social district lines in the East Henry parking lot, the parking lot back there, you can then take from Max and go there. You can also go from Salt around through the driveway area next to Cobblestone. As well, but you would not be able to take a drink from Brecken's.

So here's my example. I go to Dan's and I buy a zombie killer. I want to take it over to the music series. How am I getting from Dan's when I can't go on the Brecken or the Mack sidewalk?

I think that that's where the difference between consumption and carrying it come through. Um, because you can, um, in, in, in all of the, um, districts that I've been in and all of the people I've talked to, they have no problem crossing the street. Um, and I know that, um, when it comes to certain stores and whatnot, um, if a store does not want somebody in there and they decide to be belligerent, that is always about enforcement. So that is something, so that would be another thing that would be like, if you're in the and you're being stupid, then we need to call the police on them regardless of where they got their beverages and why they're there. And yeah, and then if they just walk across, it's fine.

I guess I just want to be very clear that everyone understands what you can and cannot do. And so then...

That those business owners are okay with people traversing through their Cafe seating with a drink from someplace else Yes, they have to be able to walk by it So like if you were going if you saw a friend at Brecken and you were carrying a drink from drop top for example And they were sitting in the outdoor cafe area. You could not sit down with that drink You would be asked to leave with that drink or put that drink aside or give it to you know your other adult partner or friend or whatever, and then you could sit down. So that is where, when it comes to that, we are trying very much to educate the public on that. That was included in our most recent video about it, and we can definitely put out more information about that as well. Because education is key and communication.

No, absolutely. And that's the piece. I want to make sure that people don't feel like I'm coming across Michigan Avenue. Now, I have to go all the way down, like, by Benny's to come back around to, like, you know, circumvent something. And, you know, even with the gray area of, like, the max sidewalk getting into lot 2. Yes.

We need to modify the map to show that, you know, to your point, a thin blue line, right?

So that you can actually building. They don't own the side of the cafe seating for clearance.

Yeah, I think make that modification would be would be appropriate.

Right? The other thing I wanted to ask about a little bit is lot too, because right now this encompasses. Mr kinley's property, so this is the 1st time. That are we using non city property? As part of the social district. Because the other parking lots, the city owns even the. The merchant park access point we have a lease on, but right now we don't have it. I'm not comfortable including that piece right now because the city doesn't have control of it.

That makes sense to me, but at the same time, I think it was in preparation for that space to be managed and run by the city and by the city. So, I think that that was going that idea and it is only for a special events that also has to be approved by city council in order to have that open in the back there. So that's that's 1 thing and I think it was just a step towards the future instead of instead of having to revisit this again.

Right? I guess my thing right now, what I wouldn't want to see is you can't use lot 2 because it's all 1 continuous piece. Because we don't know when Mr Kenley space is going to be activated. So, right now, all of lot 2 is sort of a piece to that. Is there a way to carve off his property as a future like add on or something like that?

Obviously, we can come back and visit it as a separate agenda item, or obviously where it's designed right now that the area and our operators up. The area that will be utilized as well as the hours of operation shall be basically defined an application by council. And so, until until we have, you know, obviously that area, if you will, under control, it would have to be approved separately by council.

Seems appropriate.

Yeah, it's self governing. Basically, the current rules basically says the specific portion of the extended commons areas that will be utilized and the hours operation shall be defined in the application and shall be approved by city council.

But we have it as 1 continuous area. I guess I just want to make sure that we have the ability to carve off of non city property.

The way it's basically is that it has to be the area that they'll utilize has to be defined in the application. It has to be approved by council. So it's not the entirety of lot 2, because there may be many special events where we're not closing the entire parking lot.

Right and I guess that's what I'm trying to understand is like, because yes, and that's a great example of the reverse of it is if you activated that green space area, would we want the spillover into the parking lot?

They'd have to define it and then if not, the entire is not being utilized, they'd have to provide a barrier.

I don't think it's an all or none. Right?

I just want to understand that that that's the case.

Yep. Okay.

All the parts they may be able to use the portion of them and should again should like the merchant park area, the city not maintain control of that. At some point, and not have a lease on that property. Then we would be able to cut it off. And say, this is no longer, even though it's shown on this map.

Basically, that would have to be approved as a special event if they're going to utilize any of that area or not. Obviously, we know I have no longer have control over it. They have to be excluded.

Any further questions comes from no, I just want to, like I said, I want to do this and I want to make sure we do it right so that we can make sure that we're, but I don't want to put the car before the horse.

Council member just for helping me this weekend with summerfest everything and understanding, you know, for common area and special events when we don't allow social district and whatever. Because I swear, I saw high tops on South Ann Arbor street. And we also had beer and stuff being served in the parking lot. Isn't there a situation, do we still have both running at the same time?

No, there was a discrepancy that Mary and Paul Heineck contacted me about. So what had happened in 2024 and 2025 is in advance of, we discussed this at the transition team meeting this morning. What was what was made clear to my office was in previous years, a direct communicate a letter went to all of the affected business owners are participants in the social district. Excuse me, notifying them that per council resolution. The social district was was nullified or not in effect during these community events. And so, while that remained true, a direct communicate did not go out. So we address that. Council member Dylan and I discussed that with the city manager and community development director this morning, and we'll make sure that a direct communicate is provided to all the participating businesses in advance of our next event, which would be October fest in mid to late September.

That's fine. I just wanted to understand that because. I'm just looking at it. It's like when you have that event and you have South and Arbor Street closed, I know it's confusing as anything. And so however we can address that in the future, if we need to fix that, I'm looking at it from this perspective. But as long as we're enforcing whatever we have in place, that's fine. It was just, I can totally see how confusing that can be because going into South and Arbor Street seems just a normal thing to do. But okay, thank you.

There's no additional questions. We'll vote on the motion to acknowledge receipt and then consider a motion to adopt or adopt with amendments, or, of course, not to adopt. That's the pleasure of counsel. There's a motion on the floor. Moved by Dillon, seconded by Gearbaugh to acknowledge. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. Ayes have the motion, carries unanimously. Is there a motion to adopt, not to adopt, or adopt with amendments?

Move to adopt.

Moved by Mayor Pro Tem Rice to adopt. Is there a second? Second. Second.

About the amendment. I don't know. Do we need an amendment just to draw the little blue lines?

No, I think they can be made to the map without objection.

Yeah, this whole thing just needs to be edited. Edit the map.

And then the ruling from the Michigan Liquor Control Commission. And legal and legal judgments should be also included before we should should the, um, the Michigan liquor commission control, um, and the, um, legal judgment also be included for our for us to be able to vote on this.

So this will be submitted to Michigan liquor control commission for their final review and approval. They may have some minor edits as long as it's nothing significant, then it'll be approved. Um. If there are more significant edits they want to see, then we'll come back to that.

Sorry, folks. I've got to jump back to the motion. My apologies. I didn't catch the second. It was Rice who moved to adopt. Was there a second to that motion? Seconded by Del Arco. Okay. I need to make sure I've got a motion on the floor with the appropriate second. Okay. Were there any additional questions or comments? Mr. Gearbaugh.

I just want to say that I'm glad we got this straightened out. Our biggest concern was that issue about Michigan Avenue, and even though I think we had the same attorney give us the opinion three years ago, now that they've reversed that, I think this is fine to move forward. I just happened to look, and I was amazed that Ann Arbor has a similar type of social district. They have restaurants up and down Main Street, and people are walking up and down with that. So they've figured out how to do it. I think we can do it, too. So I appreciate your accommodating for this and moving it forward. And I'm looking forward to this, including both sides of the street. Very good.

So just to understand, so this draft management maintenance plan, you're going to update the times in it. We also need to update where it. We just, we kind of go back and forth between calling things, exhibits and attachments. We should be consistent in doing that. But just understanding that aspect of it. I'm looking forward to it. I mean, I always felt it was unfair that Dan wasn't able to participate. But we based that decision on the opinion of legal counsel. If we're getting a different opinion now, then I don't see a reason not to move forward with this. I mean, I'm pretty excited to take my zombie killer to go. So... I hope that we can get this done and that everybody follows the rules.

I think this is a well thought out proposal. I've been a proponent of including Dan's and hopefully including future enterprises that pop up on the north side of Ann Arbor Street in the future. I think it's only fair and equitable. And I want to jump back to a comment that I made and that our Main Street Director, Ms. Detling, confirmed, which is Um, the social district has now been in effect for, um, this is the third season, um, and salinians, as you would expect, have been conscientious and responsible and have acted appropriately. So I have no reason to believe that with the inclusion of of the opposite side of of Ann Arbor Street and dance more specifically that that that will change. I think this is a good modification. I appreciate staff's work on this and council's flexibility in making a modification for the betterment of our downtown. Specifically the, the social district may have put them right before we vote.

We all know how I feel about this. I'm excited. But 1 of the other reasons I'm excited is we have the majority of our retail. I mean, we have a couple of retail spaces that are open in the evenings down to the South. But, you know, many times I've been a white pine. I've been at the 109. I've got a drink at Brecken first. How wonderful is it going to be to be able to do that with fine print with Miss mercantile with clay and code go into a class there. So this really isn't just about the bar owners. This benefits our entire downtown district and future ventures and we can sell some. open spaces and say, hey, if you're the type of business that wants to host something with a cocktail, you can now do it if you so choose. But with that, I would encourage Main Street to make sure you work with the business owners and anyone who's not comfortable with it. You know, let's make sure as a community we don't shame those retail owners because, you know, Maybe the art frame store doesn't want cocktails spilled on their art. You never know. I wouldn't shame them for that. Or maybe they just don't want it in their business. That's totally fine. So I think we should just be cognizant of those who also don't want the alcohol in their business. I think they're fine right as well.

Very good. Thank you. Motion on the floor. Moved by Rice, seconded by Del Orco to adopt Resolution No. 2026-145. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. Aye. So having the motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. We move on to Agenda Item 26-146, Spicer Engineering MS4 NPDES Compliance Services. This will be a motion to acknowledge receipt and to approve or not to approve the Spicer Engineering MS4. M-S-4-N-P-D-E-S, as needed. Assistant services in an amount not to exceed, there's an extra dollar sign there that can be removed, $28,550. Move to acknowledge move by your boss simply to acknowledge is there a 2nd, 2nd, and by doing you could make some brief comments. Mr. swallow and then you can turn over to the DPS directory if necessary.

Yes, thank you. Mary council. This is a requirement through the state of Michigan. Anybody that operates a separate stormwater sewer system. So that's where the comes from municipal separate store system. Basically, it is required to have a permit to basically discharge stormwater to those systems and through those systems. So with that, it's been some time since our permit has been updated. Basically, our last one looks like it was approved back in 2003. So we were contacted by Eagle. indicating that we have a number of amendments and updates that they would like to see to our permit and that we will need to resubmit that. We have engaged Spicer Group to assist in that update as well as a developing plan for our implementation monitoring of that. So with that, this is a basic proposal for Spicer Group Engineering to complete those compliance services.

Very good. Director McNeil, any comments you'd like to make?

No, that was a good summary. I just want to introduce Erica with Spicer. She's been helping us along this permitting process for quite some time. And just to let you know, she is here if you guys have any more specific questions.

Erica, thank you for your patience this evening. And similar to the comments I made earlier, if there are questions that arise that you are capable of addressing, please come to the podium. Make sure you speak into the microphone and make sure the green light is illuminated at the base. Are there questions for staff or our guests from Spicer? Mr. Gearbaugh.

Just quick tell me how we selected Spicer for this. I mean, we didn't necessarily do a bid out for it, but is that because of their expertise in this area or, you know, we have and this 1, I'm just curious.

I currently actually don't have an answer for that. Spicer was hired before my tenure and I wasn't a specific question. I asked the city engineer at the time. You can make any comment to that point.

Mr 12. this question does have a specific expertise in this area. Obviously, we utilize them already for other services within the city. So, in addressing this, and I believe they did some of the original work back in 2003 as well.

Additional questions Mr. let me jump Dylan halls and then back to rice and harm out.

Thank you. Did Eagle give us a timeline when we have to have this completed?

Oh, am I close enough? Okay, so for the. Part to get the permit that is Eagles reviewing that the permit has not been issued at this point. We've addressed all the correction requests and send those back to Eagle in July. They haven't gotten us any further comments on that. So hopefully we'll be seeing the issued permit, which then we'll go into a detailed list of all the compliance items needed for the implementation of the permit, which is what this is for. So. There are a lot of schedules associated with this permit on annually once every 5 years, which is the length of the permit. So we have a good idea of what's going to be included in that permit as far as timeline. We don't have it in writing from Eagle at this point. We're waiting on that permit issuance.

So, and then I saw in here the 3rd spicer will train staff. Well, we need additional staff to do this.

At this time, we don't believe so. But with the growing responsibilities, it could be a possibility in the future. And one of the items, it's reaching 33% of catch basin cleaning. This year, I have a report out, I think we got 16% done. So... I feel like when I first got here, we spent two months doing catch basin cleaning and not all in a row. They had different items that came up where we couldn't stay in the tractor truck the whole time. So this could require A future higher or 2 if we had enough other work that were made sense to bring out some more hires, but at this time with contracting some of this out with spicer specifically the dry weather of all. Inspections that we have, we do feel confident at this time. We can manage this in house with some of the items that we have to do, but most of them we're having space or help this proposal to have space or help out with those.

Okay. Just trying to understand whether or not it's cost effective from a timing standpoint to just hire it out or hire a crew that's dedicated to utilize. Do we still have the 2nd factor truck or have we sent that to market?

We still have it. However, we, we do plan to sell it and the workload that we're, we're looking at here. Again, for the cost of what Spicer's proposing, it doesn't make sense at this time to hire another employee with their full benefit package. The only concern we have is going down the road if more work is brought to the DPS. What it really conflicts with is our catch basin cleaning. How much time do we have in order to make this effort happen where we get 33% done so we stay in compliance? If we get close to that where we're we're constricted and we're running out of time to meet that threshold because of the other activities we must do, then that would be something at that time. I would get with the city manager and have that discussion and see if it was something we wanted to do. But I feel confident right now. The things that we're going to take on in house and things that we're proposing to have Spicer take care of that. We're going to be fine.

And there's there's no impact on residents. doing while you're doing this

Um, there should be no impact on residents unless we have to track down some illicit discharges. Um, and those would be things that we'd look into and speak individually with that resident. Um, but for most of it, this is going to be, um, taken on city right of ways, looking at catch basins, looking at sewer outfalls, um, and detention ponds and good housekeeping measures, which are looking at our property at the DPS city hall, the rec center, um, Um, that we must do and comply with, um, for this permit. Um, so a lot of it is going to be out of the out of the way of the residents.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Council member hall. She had some questions. Yeah, I guess what I'm trying to understand is, I know last meeting we. Signed a contract for Spicer to kind of step in as the interim engineer. So I guess why was this. Cost not that was the way there was something we just signed with Spicer that maybe I'm forgetting doing the damn pathway at the park. Okay. Maybe it was, but again, I think it just goes kind of back to, like, I would really love to understand, like. What we contract out and who is contracted out to, because it's a little hard to keep track.

Yeah, absolutely. I'll make sure that if I can't get by next weekly communication, I can, I can work internally and try to get something where it comes is not just, but Spicer and wait room for project updates and what we're contracted with them.

What is the next asset management team meeting this Friday? This Friday. Okay, perfect. So you can get something turned around by next week. I would assume.

I hope so.

Yes. Good customer rice and then harm out.

Was there an expiration on these permits?

There was, uh, they're, they're good for 5 years. Like I mentioned, um, so that would have been put the 2003 permit to 2008. there was, uh, some issues with Eagle repealing the 2008 submittals. There were some legal issues. So in 2015, you guys had resubmitted your permit and it sat in EGLE's review for over 10 years until that EGLE staff member retired. It was a paper copy at that point. They've all switched to digital. So in discussions with EGLE for getting this permit, Issued and get it up to date. We figured it was the best approach to essentially go through all the documents and rehaul everything since it had been looked at in 10 years. So that's what we've been dealing with on the permit issuance side of things. So the eagle has assured us that they will be sticking to that 5 year schedule moving forward. And we've been seeing that as the semester 4 program has continued to progress across the state that they're. Doing that in a more timely fashion.

Okay.

And then so yeah, that's just standard operating procedure for equal. So, to our director, then, you know, obviously add this into some sort of a continual every 5 years. We know this is going to come due since we haven't really had to pay attention to it. Apparently for 20 years. But again, these are the types of things that, you know, the state of Michigan comes down and says, you have to do this thing. They don't follow up on it. They don't give you any money to go towards it, funding, things like that. So, you know, this $20-something thousand dollars, you know, though we have skirted by for like a, you know, this is $1,000 a year, essentially, for the last 20-something years that we've had this open permit situation, or $28,000. These are the types of things that as residents talk to your representatives and make sure that we have proper funding from Eagle when things like this come down, especially as it relates to stormwater. And I'm just going to continue to make that plug.

Yeah, so when your time is done with the consulting, is there part of this proposal? Regardless of what we're going to take it in house or we're going to is part of that proposal. You're off ramping of knowledge for to whoever is going to be inheriting that.

Yes, so we'll be working in contingent with Spicer. They will be offering us training on a few topics. So again, our hope is to take over dry weather sampling in the future. We are going to get trained on wet weather sampling, which has to be done within a specific amount of time of a wet weather event. So that's time critical. We can't really rely on Spicer for that. It's too hard to get them out here in time. We're also coordinating with Spicer OHM to create a GIS platform where all documents of inspection results, pictures, anything like that will be stored. Hopefully we're going to be working with the Saline Schools in partnership to help pay for that as well, but also they'll be able to utilize it for their record keeping. And then myself and other DPS staff will learn some of the record keeping that we need for administrative purposes and working with Spicer to actually do the end of the year 5 year. Permit update, or maybe it's an answer. It's an annual report that we have to provide to Eagle. So we'll also be. Working with Spicer to learn how to do that. Probably the annual report so will be something that we'll want to keep with a professional engineer. That's. Well, trained in this in this portion, so we don't we don't mess anything up. Um, and so, but we'll always stay in continued partnership with them on items that we need to and then the ones that we can take over. We'll, we'll gradually take over. Okay.

So all that training is included in their proposal then, right? Okay. So just 1 other really super minor thing. The memo says 28,550, but the spicer proposal states 29,550. So, which, which is a.

And can we 8,550 the reason why it was a 1000 out of less is personnel that thought it was best for us to handle the public education portion in house.

Okay. So the 28 that we're voting on is correct.

Okay. Thank you.

Did you have an initial question?

Yeah, just 2 things and you mentioned what weather assessment or whatever we've been doing and counting on these rain events and things. Is any of that information going to be incorporated into this? Or is this just completely redoing it?

This is completely separate from those wet weather events. That's to calculate the water usage. Not water usage the, the, yeah, the eye and eye in the West belt specifically. This is looking for illicit discharges and the storm sewer.

So that's what's going into it, not what's flowing. Because, I mean, we've had this big issue on the west side and everything concerns where we are.

That's the sanitary and this is storm. So we do have separate systems. So this is looking specifically at our stormwater system. And what do we see coming out of it during dry weather events? If we see anything shouldn't be there. So we got tracked down to see what it may be. Maybe it is I and I that's also get into the storm or maybe it's an illicit discharge coming from a resident or business when it shouldn't be. Same thing with the wet weather events. When it rains, we got collect samples and check it for bacteria and track that down and see where that's coming from. So it's a separate thing that we have to comply with.

And then the other one you mentioned here about we're nesting this with the saline area schools and the permit. Is there any cost that they should be reimbursing us for?

Yes, and they are. So with the original permit being issued with help of Spicer, they're paying their portion. And then I'm getting a separate proposal from OHM for the GIS. If that's something that they want to move forward with as well, then they'll be paying their share a formal agreement for that reimbursement.

Are they going to be charged directly?

Is it right now? We're having the invoice separately from for this particular project, but we had a former agreement with them that we can revisit and update, particularly if we look at their plenty flush with cash. So we should get reimbursed.

So thank you.

Yeah, this yeah, this, this proposal is for. Services from Spicer is separate. So anything going forward, I ask that it would be separate so we don't have to worry about who's paying for what and what's been invoiced to who. Excellent.

Thank you. Additional question before I vote on the motion to acknowledge receipt. There appear to be no questions. We have a motion on the floor moved by Gearbaugh, seconded by Dillon to acknowledge. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. Ayes have it. The motion carries unanimously. Is there a motion now to approve or not to approve? Move to approve. Moved by Gearbaugh to approve. Is there a second? Seconded by Hermount. Is there any additional discussion this evening on this particular matter? Appears to be none. We'll proceed to vote. All those in favor of the motion to approve, say aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. Ayes have it. The motion carries unanimously. Thank you again for your time this evening. Appreciate you being here. Last enumerated action item is 26-147, well house number 5, piping upgrade. This will be a motion to acknowledge receipt and to approve or not to approve the Midwest Power to complete the upgrade of piping meter and occurments in well number 5 at a cost of $44,325. Moved by Gerbaugh to acknowledge and approve. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Del Arco. Again, City Manager Swallow, do you care to begin?

Yes, thank you, Mayor and Council. Then I'll turn it over to Superintendent Briggs. But as we're looking at increasing production for the water plant to meet our future demands, one of the things we looked at is well, five and six and how they were constructed and interconnected to provide that raw water to the water plant. So upon that investigation, it was noted that by increasing the pipe diameter connected to these pump houses, making some other piping changes, that we should be able to increase our water flow to the water plant. So with that, Superintendent Briggs sought a proposal for improving this, to improve the water flow, and we have a 40-year proposal from Midwest Power.

Superintendent Briggs, pretty straightforward, but if you're going to make some additional comments for council and the public's benefit, we'd appreciate that.

FYI, the valve that we're replacing was broken, so it was ineffective. So that's one of the things we're accomplishing with this also. But the main thing is to improve the number of options we have when it comes to using wells. And we did a A test that with both wells running at 1,000 gallons a minute, we did not have a very large cone of depression in the aquifer. So we're pretty confident that we can run both these wells together if we need to. We very rarely will need that much water, but they both have VFDs, so they will be able to ramp up and down together as needed for the water plant.

Very good other questions for the city manager or the wastewater treatment superintendent customer gearbox.

Can you remind me? What will this allow for capacity?

What kind of an increase do you believe it will in our capacity production capacity? It probably won't increase production capacity all that much because it's limited by the arrows. Itself, and we already do use them to their capacity pretty much. That's 1 of the reasons we're looking into that 3rd, 1 other issues of the water plan to try to increase to get to our firm capacity. Thank you additional questions.

Council member Dylan just so is this being done in conjunction with the main replacements that we've approved earlier? The line replacement?

Ideally? Yes. Initially, I heard that they were going to be doing that around September that water line, but and I talked to Midwest and they said that they could match that timeline. So anything if it has to be delayed. To line up with the water line, I don't see any reason why they couldn't do that.

Any additional questions. Bill, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Any subsequent discussion on the motion. Motion on the floor, moved by Gearbaugh, seconded by Del Arco, to both acknowledge and to approve. I'll call for a vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. Ayes to have it. The motion carries seven to zero. We come to the discussion portion of our agenda. I'll start again to my left and then to my right. Councilmember Harmont, any council reports, including updates from boards, committees, commissions, or task forces? I do not. Mayor Pro Tem Rice.

First the fun one Parks Commission held the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the mill pond Trails the Saline River Valley trail this weekend. It was really well attended all of the folks who worked on the project the folks who funded the project and our entire Parks Commission as well as many of our community members, and I think that my council colleagues who were there as well Boy, it was a beautiful morning It was a little muggy, but it was really cool to get out there and take advantage of that path and to see the excitement of the community. And I've gotten nothing but praise about that path from the community, just saying how wonderful it is, especially those folks in my neighborhood who can now run that path and come all the way back to their homes. And it's just really cool. I was shocked to learn, and if the community didn't know this, 250,000 native plants were We're planted along that path and then some in Brecken Park as well, but 250,000 native plants. That's amazing. We're going to continue our work to, we're soliciting a survey right now to the community about their usage of the ROMP structure. That's going to coincide with a conversation with the Leathers company who originally built that and then did an assessment of it so that we know. You know, as we're looking at the parts and pieces, you know, maybe something is worn out, but the kids aren't really into it and using it anyway. Maybe we can replace it with something else. So, so lots of investigative work being done there. And again, thanks to the park commission for all their, their diligent work on that. The 2nd, 1 is our policy committee met. today, and we should have by our September 14th meeting something for council related to boards and commissions by bylaws and background check policy. So we just have a couple more T's to cross and I's to dot there, but I think we made Council Member Housh, Council Member Dillon, and city staff Including the HR director, I think we made some really good headway on that and working together with that. So, um, more to come on that next month.

Very good. Uh, just a couple of things. Um, fire board met twice this month. We actually had a regular meeting and discussed and approved insurance and fire chiefs evaluations for things. We had a special meeting tonight at 530 to accept the donation of land and clean township. related to the battery storage facility that's being done. The intent is for that property then to basically provide for a training facility and storage and potentially maybe if in the future another substation of some nature that was unanimous. Wednesday we'll be meeting for planning to discuss lot 20A and extension of the site plan. They're looking to try and develop the property even further. They acquired additional land from bank supplies that's located along Bemis Road and they're looking forward to and if our city manager wants to comment on it, I'm looking forward to trying to address and bring forward a better proposal that would provide additional housing for the community, which I think that's great. And then we're also going to talk about the ordinance related to signs, and I can't remember the other one, but we're looking forward to that. And then just for a public announcement, I want to thank our community. We had our annual yard sale at the Rensselaer Farm. We had well over a thousand this year. It was down a little bit. I think maybe it wasn't promoted as well overall. There's so many yard sales going on from 127 to US 12. But again, it was a great promotion. And of course, Summerfest was this weekend and I attended that on Friday night. Good turnout for that and I appreciate all that's being done for the volunteers that pull that together and work hard to make it a great event.

Very good. Matt, our next council meeting on the 17th will be recognizing Cheryl Heft, who earlier this evening we accepted her resignation from the Planning Commission. If my math is correct, she is the longest-serving board commission committee member in the city of Saline, having served continuously on the Planning Commission since the mid-1990s when she was appointed by Mayor Pat Little. So that means, of course, that there's a vacancy on Planning Commission. We posted something on the city's Facebook page and on the website earlier this week regarding board commission and committee vacancies. We just have a few planning, as Mr. Gierbaugh would, I'm sure, agree is vitally important. So if you have a competency or an interest, please apply. We hope to fill that vacancy within the next month. Council Member Dillon, can I defer to you for an update on the transition team? Maybe you can actually start with a brief update on the hiring committee for an interim city manager and then the transition team, and I think we'll have a motion off the floor. Yeah, yeah.

I've got a couple of things, but I want to just start by saying that as a West side resident, there was a lot of there's a lot of excitement about the new path at park and it's really got people excited. Anticipating the sidewalk on the West side, because that's going to be a huge game changer having a safe passage from the West side. Into town, but also accessing mill pond park without having a very roundabout way of having to get there. So I've heard a lot of positive things about that. Yes, as far as committees, so I'll start with the transition team, the mayor and I, and Mr swallow have been meeting weekly for the last few weeks in preparation for his departure. There was a document that was shared with all of council. It's sort of a working document of. Like status of open items, um. We're working through that those have all been delegated out. So there is an owner of each of those tasks right now. Um, so we will just keep monitoring that and I'm sure things will add in at today's transition meeting. Uh, we were able to include Mr ad can who will talk about in a bit. Uh, so that he is starting to come up to speed on that also. Um, and then do you want me to move the motion now? So, as so, what we are going to do is in conjunction with so not to put the, we've got the transition team and we also have a hiring committee. And so let me kind of go through that. The hiring committee met today. We have been soliciting, um. Resumes applications for the interim city manager position. Currently we've had a great response and we filtered through those today and we've picked sort of the top of our list and we are going to start doing some initial interviews. Uh, the posting is staying open until the position is actually filled. So, if you see it up, that's just why we are still accepting resumes even while we are actively interviewing. So we're pretty excited about that aspect of moving that forward. But in a timing situation with. Mr swallows departure and the hiring of an interim. We need somebody as a stop gap and Mr ad can. Wasn't able to look at issues fast enough and so he's so he is going to step in as our acting sitting manager pending approval by this body. And so I'm going to bring forward a motion. at this time so that we can sort of formalize that process and so the motion that i have we can work from the floor but it was just something to start the conversation so the motion right now is that i would be moving that city council appoint celine community development director chris atkin to serve as acting city manager commencing on friday august 14th at 5 p.m For an initial term of 30 days through September 13th, 2026, the acting city manager shall serve pursuant to the terms and conditions established by the city council and the parties. The initial term may be extended by mutual agreement of the parties. And then upon approval by city council, the mayor's authorized. To execute any necessary agreement or documents on behalf of the city to effectuate the appointment, we would definitely want to have legal review in there. So understanding. Where we want to put that in so right now, that's the draft motion.

If I may, Council Member Dillon, I will second that with a friendly amendment if you'll accept. So towards the tail end, you mentioned something about the mayor. Upon approval by City Council, the mayor is authorized to execute any necessary agreement and documents on behalf of City Council to effectuate the appointment. I would just change mayor to the transition team.

Okay.

If you would accept that, because that would include an additional council member to review the material, and then legal, who is also appointed to serve in that capacity.

That would be fine. Terry, I have a copy for you. Her eyes lit up.

Okay, so that motion was moved by Dylan with a small modification made by Morrow, which is accepted by the mover. Would counsel like me to reread the motion?

I'd like to suggest an amendment to it. Okay, go ahead. Subject to review by legal counsel.

Well, legal counsel is included in the transition table.

I normally when we've done these resolutions in the past, we've always had that in there.

Do you want to enumerate it further? That's fine. But I mean, attorney Clark was appointed as a member of the transition team. So, upon review and approval by city council, the transition team and legal counsel, right?

With a final copy of the document returned to council.

You want that enumerated in the motion? Yep. Okay. So. Hang tight. Go ahead. No, no, no. So the modified language would be upon approval by city council, the transition team and legal council is authorized to execute any necessary agreement or documents on behalf of the city to effectuate this appointment and that corresponding documentation will be provided to city council. Correct. Okay. Did you get that last bit, City Clerk Royal? Corresponding documents will be provided to city council.

Everyone clear on that motion may put them right 1 brief question that may need to get it to the motion or may not. Um, should we also enumerate in this motion?

Um, any sort of incentives that we would be giving Mr. Atkins that would that would likely be addressed by that final clause per contract. But yes, standard practice is usually a between 5 and 10% bump in salary.

Okay.

That sounds good. All right, you comfortable with Mr gearbox language. Okay. So that would be the modified language will be accepted without objection by both the mover and 2nd, which is Dylan and moral. Is there any discussion pertain to that motion? Mr.

I just like to support at least a 10% administrative differential. This is enough. Mr has to do all his work plus. Whatever this addition is, and that seems reasonable at this time.

Fair enough. We can certainly incorporate that into a finite employment contract.

I agree with my Council colleague, Mr. Garibaldi, but I also believe that this is. Thank you Mr. Adkin for stepping in. I think that this is a good place to put this, but I do also want to encourage Mr. Atkins to bring any issues. You may have to counsel. Should this become something that you are that you would like to step away from with? No. Bad taste on our end, you know what I mean? If something comes up, just let us know and we will not, you will not be penalized in your current job because of that.

And we will, of course, filter any concerns we hear through the transition team mistress as council member Dylan indicated Mr. I can participate in the transition team meeting today and he will participate in all subsequent transition team meetings as the acting city manager.

Perfect.

Go ahead.

And just, I want to make sure to say, you know, aside from my tongue and cheek comment earlier, I do really appreciate that. Mr. Atkins stepped up and we quickly realized the timing was not going to align. We sort of had this initial image that we were going to have some initial overlap and through quick process. We realized that it wasn't going to be a quick process. So we're very grateful that Mr. Atkins has offered his services to assist us. as this stopgap.

Very good. Is there any additional discussion on the motion? Okay, then I'm going to call for a vote. It's been properly moved by Dillon, seconded by Morrow, with some amended language submitted as a friendly amendment via Councilmember Gearbaugh. And again, Clerk Roy, you're clear on the language? Okay. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. Motion carries unanimously. Councilmember Dillon, any additional information pertaining to transition team or hiring committee?

I don't think I do, but I want to reach out cable commission will be we've kind of gone off of our cycle due to summer schedules and making sure we had core. But I wanted to make sure that I let everybody know to push out to your committees, the city, and the schools have purchased through the cable commission. We have a portable microphone and speaker and probably in the very near future a portable even podium. That if you're having events, those are available, they're, they're housed here at city hall miss Massey. Mr. Sean have complete access to them. They can show you. They're basically a plug and play, but those are available to any of the committees to use at events. So please keep that in mind that they are always here. This is aside from the big set that we have that we use, like, at the cemetery. This is definitely a portable small event. Thing, but those are available to all the committee because it's taken down to no point.

Yes.

And that's what made me think of it. And I was like, ooh, I wish we would have talked about that. And so with that, I think I'm good.

The other thing I want to jump back to real quick is Ms. Dillon's update on the hiring committee. I appreciate their work. I hope that this body will remain flexible, and if in late August, early September, they have a recommended candidate, I'm hoping that we can convene perhaps a special meeting to consider an employment contract in advance of our first meeting in September. Because I would note Labor Day falls late this year, and our first council meeting is even later, which is on the 14th. So again, we'd like to get an interim in place as quickly as possible. So we will let the hiring committee proceed. But if they have a recommendation, I'd like to maybe have a special meeting, maybe first a meet and greet to interface with the candidate and then a formal meeting to approve a contract, maybe even that week after Labor Day. So maybe the 8th, 9th or 10th of September. And the other thing I wanted to add is it's appearing that our agenda for next Monday is going to be very light with enumerated action items. Clerk Royal, you and I spoke probably about 2.30, 3 o'clock this afternoon. Has anything changed since we spoke? No. Okay, so, um, noting that, um, and noting that some concerns that were raised about about diligent and wanting to do a thorough training and make sure that this is integrated properly into our system. I was curious if council members could all meet a little after 6 to do a group training together on the on the new platform. Would people be available next next Monday? 6, 615. Let me start to my left council for harm out.

Believe I am.

Yes. Okay.

Yes. And I've been working through using it during this meeting. So I'll also have kind of the council view of it.

Good customer gear box.

Yeah.

Okay. Um, customer Dylan. Yes. Yes. Council member. Yeah. Okay. So work meeting 6 PM on Monday specific to, uh, to, to diligent, um, council member, any reports, announcements, updates from boards, commissions, committees or task forces.

My boards on me later this week, so I'll have an update next council meeting. Very good counselor.

Um, no updates or reports, but I did have a question going back to council member races with the path. I know that we had talked about potentially putting, like, some kind of signage or barriers to keep cars off.

It's happened. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, I witnessed an elderly woman in a wheelchair have to leave the path because a SUV decided to use it. So I just hope that that is something that we can, like, I don't know, rush or just kind of get some sort of solution.

We've discussed it. I don't know if it has left Parks Commission yet, but we've discussed it. And I believe I discussed it with... Project manager Marian as well, some sort of a ball or something just right in the middle of that beginning part of the path because people are jumping the curve off of Michigan app. I don't know if Google maps has scanned it or something since it's a 10 foot wide path, but people are legitimately turning down that path.

Cool. Yeah. Yeah. So, unfortunately, what it is, is it's sort of almost in line with the driveway to Curtis park. So it looks like you could go either way to go into parts. And so I want to be mindful that the whole part of that, the way that path was built was so that we could drive on it for work. So understanding whether or not for emergency use, if they needed to get an ambulance or DPW equipment there, that it was an easy access thing. So just any kind of, you know, and I'll go back to what I've always asked for for Curtis Park, which is just a visual experience. You know, gate that could be even a swing arm that just as long as it's reflective so that it can be open and I don't know that we want to get we've discussed a ballard so that you can get around it easily on a bicycle things like that.

Yep.

It's all sleep around the lock on it so that you can't just remove it. But obviously the city would have a key to open that up.

Why don't we do this? I think this would be best addressed by the Parks Commission, which meets next Tuesday. So if you can make sure, Council Member Rice, as a liaison to Parks, that this is an enumerated discussion item, and perhaps they'll be in a position to make a recommendation to us subsequent to Tuesday's meeting that we can consider in September.

Yeah, it may already be out there. I may just not know.

Very good. Anything else, Council Member Halsh? Let's transition then to truck signs on South Ann Arbor Street. Any update, gentlemen, on when these signs will be received?

So, I know that, uh, so they, they have been ordered. Um, we've talked about, you know, obviously we've had some delivery issues with our contractor here or there. Uh, but, uh, that's something that, you know, yes, is reminded of weekly.

Yes. Yeah. Talked with, uh, deputy director many times to ask for updates. Um, I know that we've had these on order for over 2 months now. Um, and.

Unfortunately, you know, they're still in the process of being delivered to us either being made or being delivered to us So I can personally call and see if I can get any more information on it and provide an update I would personally call tomorrow morning and provide an update to council within the next 48 hours if you could I went through my files this past weekend resume reminded that we experienced a similar issue when we updated the rules and restriction on vehicular speed and traffic on along Woodland Drive at the behest of the schools and the HOA of Wildwood back in 2021, 2022. It also took forever to receive signs. So two questions that I would have, and you may not have answers tonight, and that's fine. I think some follow-up would be appropriate. One is, are there other vendors that we could use That would would would expedite requests when appropriate. And we certainly have these conversations before director McNeil. They predate your tenure. But is there a possibility? It would be advantageous for us to get some equipment in house so that we could be producing our own signs as opposing to have to subcontract or outsource to external vendors. So, I don't expect answers to those tonight, but you may, you may wish to follow up, but we look forward to your direct contact with the vendor and maybe an update within the next 2 business days. Mr. did you have any comment or question again?

Thank you. Mr. McNeil for taking care of this. Of course, I am disappointed. It hasn't taken this long. We also have a speed sign or speed limit sign that hasn't been replaced either in Ann Arbor. That's been almost 2 years. Whatever we can do, I believe there's other vendors and. I feel that this is one of those things that I know you're working your diligence on to try and improve this kind of response time, but these are the kind of things that I think once council makes direction for it, that the items should be acted upon fairly quickly. This was one of the items that I felt that has fallen through the cracks, and unfortunately, safety is our major concern in this community, hopefully will be that concern, and continue to be that when I'm not on council, but this is one of those items that Um, we need to get on top of it, so I appreciate what you're doing.

Yeah, it did to that point. I mean, just maybe I'm missing something. It shouldn't take 3 months to get get assigned in my judgment. Go ahead.

Thank you. Just while we're talking about signs, I happen to notice that there is a sign that was installed on North Ann Arbor street at Bennett that has a trash bag over it service. Is that a sign that we are just not activating or do we know what that is?

I think it's related to the construction that's going on.

No, this is a permanent sign that we put up.

It's not a post in there. It's like, we think it might be a right-hand turn sign.

I think it might be a no-turn on red. And I don't know if we're waiting for a traffic control order, because that was...

Directly at Bennett and Ann Arbor?

Yes.

Yeah, right on the southeast corner. Can someone take a picture?

I thought it was a construction sign. It's not? No.

It looks like just a garbage bag was put over it.

Yeah, it's a garbage bag that's put over it. I know that we've talked about for a long time because of the opposite corner has sort of a blind spot that maybe there shouldn't be a right on read because you don't have a good line of sight. So I'm wondering if. That took it. I don't know, but I will get an update.

Yeah. And that way again, not made aware of garbage bags.

I'll look for that tonight and the street lights on the East side from evangelical home down to Bennett street are still out as of last night.

Yes. Yes. Okay, last item, I don't necessarily want to wordsmith this tonight, but there was broad consensus via an email exchange that we should as a community submit comments and concerns pertaining to a pending permit that's being considered by EGLE for wastewater discharge at the Saline Township Data Center. There was some good information provided to us. by Ms. Widener this evening. City Manager Swallow, in conjunction with Mr. Adkin, you've received some of the messages from City Council. Is it possible to get a draft letter that we can consider at our next council meeting on the 17th? Because we do need to turn this around rather quickly because I believe the deadline to submit comments is August the 24th.

That's correct, and so what I've done is gone through, and then the public is able to access as well. If you follow the public notice to the my environment portal, it's a state's portal for permitting, reviewed the details there at this point. Just I don't. because there's been different information out there the way it is written up and that is subject to Eagles review to confirm this. But with that, it is for domestic water only. So basically the bathrooms rest, the restrooms, the break rooms, those types of things would be what's being serviced by this small basically what they call package plan or small wastewater treatment plant similar somewhat to an Elena farms. Plant that you see from us 12. So that's what we'll be servicing the project one of the concerns I did have a discussion with superintendent Briggs is that in review of our permits will this impact that at all in the future? Because obviously Eagle could take a look at the loading to the Saline River as a total as overall and so that's something that we plan on commenting on specifically that this should not impact the city's ability to Obviously through our wastewater plant to provide service to our residents. So That's something specific we're looking at. Also taking a close look at the pollutants that are potentially involved in this. It is all related to, based on what they provided and their application, is related to that domestic use. There's not an industrial type.

So this particular permit does not pertain to the treatment or discharge of effluent related to a closed-loop cooling system?

By definition, right that the closing cooling system is that that's not supposed to discharge at all that recirculated in the facility. They're not using water directly for cooling as well as they're not discharging it. So, based on all the information provided in the application documents, and it's subject to Eagles review and approval.

Maybe we can get confirmation on that between now and next Monday. If we were to email our state senator or state representative's office, they could reach out to the office of legislative liaison at EGLE to confirm the specifics of this particular permit.

A lot of detail is provided on the MyEnvironment portal, so you can see almost all of the information there, and nothing was related to running metals or anything like that that were included in the data.

Okay. All right. Well, then we'll leave it to your office in conjunction with staff, particularly the acting city manager and wastewater treatment superintendent, to maybe draft up a letter with specific bullet points so that council can review and approve our next meeting to be submitted in advance of August the 24th.

Okay.

All right, if there's nothing further, we're going to come now to the second and last public comment period. Under the Open Meetings Act, any person may come forward and make comment or ask question. Comments will be limited to three minutes per person. Those wishing to speak are requested but not required to state their name and address for the record. Please note, City Council will not answer questions during this public comment period. Are there any citizen comments? And you will have three minutes exactly once you begin.

Hi, I just wanted to say thank you for, I know you guys have a lot of important issues at hand right now, and approving the social district for downtown really benefits the downtown businesses, and I think that that is a wonderful thing. So thank you for that, and I appreciate your diligence in this, and yeah, I hope to see you downtown.

Thank you, Mary. Thank you for your attendance tonight. Thank you for your ongoing leadership and service to the community. Are there any additional citizen comments?

Make sure he's being the mic, Mary, I was kind of out of breath before. Um, so I just wanted to clarify some of the things that I had mentioned. Um, I looked at Michigan's regulations for industrial waste, which is mentioned on page 11 of the public notice that they put out. Um, it is a draft, so I don't know if they plan on clarifying anything further once it's official, but they had mentioned. ONLY ON THAT PAGE THAT IT SHOULD NOT BE INDUSTRIAL WASTE. HOWEVER, INDUSTRIAL WASTE IS ONLY COVERING CHLORINE AND Bromine it doesn't there I according to the regulations I couldn't find phosphates copper to sink and occasionally lead which are also byproducts so technically if at a further point because data centers don't have regulations like normal industrial zones do They could possibly put that in and the closed-loop centers do have Periodic flushing of the system, if it gets contaminated with mold or bacteria, they flush it. And that was what they encountered with meta data center in Wyoming. I also wanted to bring up that the way our regulations are code is written for Celine. we do have some say if anything affects our groundwater. So the reason I was saying push back on it and maybe see if they could look at a commercial septic tank, which would be a better solution and cheaper than building a water treatment plant, is mainly because I think that that would protect us in the future. I did include a Gelman Sciences plume map So, because we're not downstream, it might not affect us immediately. But the way any forever chemicals work, they're not static. They're more dynamic in their movement. So it would eventually affect us because it would contaminate all the water systems. And I just wanted to say that. 1 thing that they argue in their, their document, which is why they should. be able to degrade the water somewhat is that it brings economic and societal change, and that is what they're basing it on. They say 450 people would be using the facility, but they have a twice the size data center in Texas already, Oracle and OpenAI. And fully staffed, it's only about 60 people routinely, and some are remote. So I'm kind of questioning Well, are they overestimating how many people are going to be using it just so they can get those flushing amounts in there occasionally? I don't know. And really, the only thing we have to go off of is their word. I really would like to see it in writing that they're committing to watching and making sure they're not going to put anything out into the water systems.

Thank you, Mary. Appreciate your comments and the material you provided this evening. Any additional citizen comments? Deferring to the city clerk, any written comments provided in advance of tonight's meeting in which the individual earned their remarks were at this time. Two things before we convene into closed session. It may be Councilmember Harmont, who's the liaison to the HTC, or Chris Adkin can confirm. Ms. Weller is no longer here, but there was a comment made about Weller's being included in a historic district. They are not included in a city of Saline historic district. I can't speak to state or federal distinctions that are placed on that property, but they're not part of a city of Saline historic district. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay, very good. And then lastly, I do want to acknowledge, because this is his last meeting, City Manager Swallow, we appreciate your dedicated service and leadership this past year. We wish you and your family the very best in your future endeavors. Thank you very much. At this time, the Chair would be delighted to entertain a motion to go into closed session pursuant to MCL 15.268C for strategy and negotiation session connected to a collective bargaining unit agreement. So moved. Moved by Gearbaugh, seconded by Dillon to convene at 931. The Clerk will please call the roll.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes, where we convene into closed session at 931.

I want to button this up.

Is there a motion to reconvene at a regular session at 953 moved by your buzzer? 2nd, 2nd by harm of the clerk. Please call the roll.

Yes, yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. We are reconvening in regular session at 9.53. Is there any additional business to come before Saline City Council this evening? If not, the chair would entertain a motion to adjourn this regular meeting at 9.53. So moved. Moved by Dillon. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Del Orco. All those in favor of adjourning, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. Ayes have it. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you all.