City Commission - Regular Meeting

prayers to those in our community that need our support.

And now please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And when you're ready, can we get roll call, please? Mr. Bryson, here. Mr. Hendrick, here. Mr. Cla here. Mr. May, Mr. O'Brien. Commissioner here. Mayor Vandage here. City Manager Reeves here. Can I have a motion to excuse Commissioners May and O'Brien?

So move support. Any discussion? All in favor? I opposed. Carries. Under four, approval of the agenda. Can I have a motion to approve the agenda as presented? Some moved support. Any discussion? All in favor?

I opposed. On to five for public comment. This is a time for public comment. Any member of the public may address the city commission on any topic. Please state to the podium, state your name for the record and be heard. No commissioner, department head or city staff will respond. City manager will follow up on public comments as necessary. Please limit your comments to 5 minutes and please direct all comments to me as the meeting chairperson. Please refrain from the use of profanity and please do not direct any comments to any other members of the public. And is there anybody who'd like to speak tonight? Okay. Hearing and seeing none, we will move on to approval of the minutes. Under 6A, the city commission meeting minutes of March 5th, 2026. I have a motion to approve the city commission meeting minutes of March 5th, 2026.

So moved support. Any discussion? All in favor? I

opposed. Under the consent agenda item seven, we have 7 A, the Marine City Area Fire Authority run report. We have B, the departmental monthly activity reports. We have C the business license application for Stuff and Things LLC doing business as Riverside Gypsy. D the business license application for MadHatter Treat Company and Madhatter Coffee. E the business license application for Nita's Place. F the business license application for Orange Spike LLC. G the business license application for Hungry Howies. And H the special event permit application for Marine City High School Box City 2026. Can I have a motion to approve consent agenda items A through H as presented? Make a motion to approve the consent agenda letters A through H.

Support. Okay. Can we have roll call, please? Commissioner Bryson, yes. Commissioner Hendri, yes. Commissioner Clawson, yes. Commissioner, yes. Mayor Vandenbos, yes. Carrie. Hey, under eight items removed from the consent agenda, there are none. Under nine, financial business, 9A, expenditures, including payroll of $220,8824. I have a motion to approve those expenditures including payroll in that amount of $220,8824. Make a motion to approve expenditures including payroll for $220,8824. Support. Any discussion? Roll call, please. Mr. Hendrick,

yes. Mr. Clson, yes. Mr. Warick, yes. Mayor Vandenbos, yes. Mr. Bryson, yes. Carrie. Okay. Under B for the plinary financial statements. Can I have a motion to receive and file those plenary financial statements for the period ending February 28th, 2026? So move support. Any discussion? All in favor? I

opposed carries. Under 10A for new business election commission appointment. So we have three commissioners that are available for this appointment. Commissioner O'Brien had been on that position, but due to um his candidacy for reelection this year, we do have to appoint one of the commissioners that are up for election as Commissioner Hendrick, Commissioner May or Commissioner Clawson. You have any nominations? I'll make a motion to appoint Commissioner May. Support. All right. The motion for Commissioner May and the support. Any discussion? All in favor? I oppose.

Under B for the escrow fee policy. I have a motion to approve the escrow fee policy as presented. So move support. Any discussion?

I do want to um offer just a couple uh words about that policy. So I think everybody understands the process of trying to collect that up front. We're doing a lot of development stuff. We've been talking about that in workshops. As we move forward, we expect that to pick up. Um, it's much ra it's much easier to have the money up front and work off an escro that they provided than versus trying to chase down the party to collect funds after the fact, especially if something ends up being denied or or a variance dies or something of that nature. and the amount of um time that we're investing in terms of uh uh bodies here whether it be the building official, the special project administrator or myself or others needs to be accounted for in that practice. We're very business uh uh pro business active and we're willing to donate our time but for some projects uh some people become very needy and instead of one, two or three meetings, we're into the dozen of meetings on the same issue and basically showing them multiple times how to get through the process. If it's on their own dime that tends to clear up that uh that type of use pretty quick. U it is a draft. uh we'll probably come back to you if you prove it in form. Uh we want to run it through our does it work? Did we cover everything? Is there anything that doesn't work within terms of our system, how we do things, that type of thing. Um but if if there's any changes out, we bring it back to you as a revision.

Um I have a little question about on the second page on the um paragraph accounting of costs and maintenance of balance. Seems like the last two sentences in that paragraph say the same thing almost and maybe they can be put together or um um can you give it to me again? Accounting of costs and maintenance of balance. If an esco account is exhausted and then if an esco account is exhausted we could combine those maybe combine them. So if it's exhausted there's two things that happen. We can combine those. That seems like a little more. Yeah, this is not an uncommon policy um in many communities.

No, it's seems like a good idea. Great. That was the only thing I had. And and look, we're not we're not saying, you know, somebody wants to build a deck, we're going to form an escrow pol, you know, an escrow agreement with them. This is for the larger developments in your community where there's going to be multiple permits, multiple inspections, multiple meetings. Um we're not we're not really this isn't targeting um regular permit permits. Is there some kind of um amount that we're looking at based on the project or

now we deliberately left we have we have a little bit of a schedule but it's going to be project dependent. Um we need to look at the project and kind of figure out well how many electricals are they going to need? How many of this are we going how many you know and we estimate how many meetings it's going to take and then we set them up. Mark it'll probably be you know in $2,500 range.

So I'll give you a basic review right now. Initial deposit 1,500 expanded review 2500 specialized review $5,000 replenishment at $1,000 uh a tier special meeting fee $500. And all this does is call cover our minimum cost $2 per individual mailing piece legal notice publication whatever the cost of the notification is professional plan review actual cost of the services. So a lot of it's a pass through that we get charged just collecting some of it up front. Yeah something to draw on. Yeah that makes sense. Any other discussion? A roll call please. Mr. Clson. Yes. Mr. Roy. Yes. Mayor Vanenbos. Yes.

Commissioner Bryson. Yes. Commissioner Hendrick. Yes. Carrie. Okay. Under C, we have the East China School District lease agreement. So, we did we do that out loud? So,

sorry. So, this has been um an exercise, an exhaustive process. We are extremely close. But as we close in to the finish line, sometimes the line tries to move. So what we have is a pretty much of a draft agreement. We have one section under section five where there may be some minimal wording changes, but the the integrity of the section is intact. Yes, we're trying to um make sure that people understand what our intent was and they're not reading something into it that doesn't exist. Hence the the wording changes. The basis of this agreement uh all really resides around section five and making sure that you take preventative maintenance actions or other actions so as to not allow flooding or allow drainage to overcome a city roadway. Would that be fair in a nutshell what we're trying to accomplish?

Yeah, this uh you guys have been extremely patient in this process. We started with we don't need an agreement. We started with you don't own the property. We had to go through title work. We had to prove we own the property. We did a draft. They did a draft. We did a draft. They did a draft. We had a meeting where we said, "Look, we we we can't keep going back and forth. Mike and I were there. They brought the superintendent, a board member, and their lawyer from Lancing. We all sat down. We figured it out. We drafted it. The lawyer contacted Mike said, "Sign the thing. We're ready to go. put some blue ink on it and get it over to me. The next day, I got a call from the lawyer saying, you know, we're having a little buyer's remorse here, blah blah blah. We're not. And we said, look, we're taking it to our board. We're getting it approved as is. We can work on the language after that, but we're going to our board and getting it approved. I I've never really experienced that kind of a backtrack. Um, I mean, when you brought the superintendent, you brought your chief board member, you brought your lawyer, we came to a good faith. We did, we did the revisions that they wanted and then they backtracked on us. It was a little frustrating, but here we are. We're in good shape.

Okay. It's frustrating. It was frustrating. Better knock on wood on that. I'd ask you to look at it in terms in draft form and there's any minimal changes, I'll bring you back for a final. But if you review it, if you don't have any problems that approve it in terms of form and we'll bring the final back. Yeah, I would I would very much appreciate that you approve this this evening so we can say we approved the draft that everybody agreed to. Our board understands we might make a few changes, but we approved it. And they don't seem to realize the consequence if they don't have an agreement. Uh I think uh I think that's why we have an agreement.

We expressed what the consequence will be. It was in the old contract. I mean no I told them what your next step was. Yeah. We take the property. Yeah. We we conveyed that pretty loudly. So be hard to do it without their parking lot. I mean Yeah. Okay. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. Commissioner. Yes. Was there a motion? Yeah. Do we have a motion? No. I'll make a motion to approve the East China School District lease agreement. Support. Thank you. All right. No further discussion, then the roll call, please. Mr. Rory, yes. Mayor Vandenbos, yes. Mr. Bryson, yes. Mr. Hendri, yes. Mr. Clawson, yes.

Car. Thank you.

Under D for the personnel policies and procedures revision. So what you have is is basically again another cut sheet or segment of our personnel policies and minimally what's trying to be accomplished is designate explain what our designated work week is and what the designated work day is practic the way the personnel policy has read it kind of ran a typical Monday through Friday operation the vast majority of the city workforce doesn't work a Monday through Friday operation. So it would become problematic in terms of um how a work period is structured and then let's say a holiday fell in there and some somebody worked overtime and did they get credit if you over what's the work week? You'd go back to look at the personnel policies and I'm talking about people that aren't covered under a collective bargaining agreement. Um so we want to just align what do we do? We work Thursday through Wednesday. That's the pay period. You get paid twice a month. We're just aligning what the designated work week is and what the designated workday is um with some uh explanation that uh covers that and explains if you're covered under collective bargaining agreement that always uh maintains superior control and then under overtime we explain that process. We we pushed this up and down. We pushed it up to the our drafting stage. We pushed it down and let the folks look at it. We pushed it back up. We pushed it back down. Um, we got as much input as we could on this one, but it it it does accomplish what we want.

Okay. See, why we'll do then the motion to approve it tonight? Yes. Okay. I'll make a motion to approve the revisions to the personnel policies and procedures. Support. Motion to support. We do need a roll call. Yes. Roll call, please. Commissioner Bryson, yes. Commissioner Hendri, yes. Mr. Clawson, yes. Mr. Rory, yes. Mayor Vanos, yes. Okay. On to 11 for administrative reports. We have 11A, the city attorney report. I'm good this evening. Thank you. Right. Thank you. City manager report.

Yes. I'll try to keep it brief. Uh couple things on the um the water project. Uh uh everybody should be aware um that the wad project construction phase has restarted approximately a week and a half ago. It is dependent upon weather at times as we experience 60 in one day and minus 20 the next day. Uh that makes it difficult. We are seeing a number of issues that uh citizens are reporting with uh sediment in their water, discolored water. As we've explained uh several times, please follow the guidance on our website as well as our social media things. We have a whole process on that. Bottom line, um flush your water. I cannot tell you that it'll be clear in 10 minutes. I cannot tell you it'll be clear in a half hour. And sometimes the house where we do a private service line change has no issue. Two houses down has an issue. Anytime we start pushing water through new systems, it clears out the rust and and calcium and other deposits in there and it takes a while for that to flush out naturally. Um, we do flush at the point where we're making the repairs or the new lines, but again, it's a loop system, so this stuff settles and congregates in other areas and as the water pushes through. Um, I don't want people to think uh in terms of there's an 8 inch feeder line and and you've got your one out one uh inch line off your house after 40 or 60 years in the ground. That 8 in feeder line is now about maybe 2 in. And sometimes the water line to your house basically is the size of a pencil. So when we're opening up new lines that the force of that is going to push some of that stuff

off the the pipes. So, I again um I appreciate the fact that everybody wants to compare the sediment on Facebook or social media with what color their water is or this or that. And we're aware of it. It's not unusual. It's not a problem with the water quality. The water quality is tested four times a day. We must report that to the state of Michigan. There's water quality reports are on the state website. They're on our website. You can check that daily if you'd like. Um, the only time we would enact a boil water alert is if we lost total pressure. There's guidelines in a tree and how we do that.

So, I just want people to be aware of that. Problems with potholes with the construction. A lot of the streets have been milled or grind. So, we're basically traveling on um ashvalt millings, if you will. Sometimes those ashalt millings are better than the roads we had before we ground them. We understand that. But it does lead to it does lead to problems in terms of potholes when the weather changes and that the contractor's been asked to regrade the roads and and to try to keep up on those, but that's a never- ending battle. Um, just as an update for the project, um, they'll continue to install water means on Westminster to Mary Street. Then they'll start installing uh um uh from Westminster on Pleasant Street. Then we'll begin testing water manes in this area. Water shutdowns will be needed in the next couple weeks to make sure these areas are ready for shutdown. These are loop systems, so we'll be doing it block by block. In order to achieve that, we have to turn off certain sets of valves. We have to locate them first. Then we have to make sure that they'll actually work. Then we can shut down the area. There will be intermittent water shut offs. We'll try to make sure that everybody's aware of those before we do them. They'll continue to install water main in Westminster Maine and then move to Mary Street then towards M M29 then north to Holland and where they'll start installing water man on Holland Street. While this is ongoing they'll continue uh LSR water services on the east side of Bell River. So that's replacement of your water service line. They'll finish on Pearl Street, then North Williams, North Elizabeth Holland and North Main Street. All this information will be posted on the city's website and as well uh social media. Um with that, I also want to make the

board aware that um we have been working diligently to try to um finish up and complete the saw work, the emergency saw work that was done. In regards to the information that we have now, I brought back to you that we had to uh had a punch list, if you will. It had to go back because we had critical issues in a number of additional areas. We're beyond 40 different locations now that they've deemed critical or um that require some type of uh work either with collapse, a fracture, broken lines, storm system. I'll tell you the vast majority appear to be storm system related. There are some sanitary but most are storm system related. That work will be commencing in that same area at the same time as this other ongoing work folks. So it's going to get busy up there because they're going to be doing the repairs on the sanitary and storm system in the same part of the streets that they're doing the water main project. Uh my first quote for one block worth of um Westminster including eight different locations within that area uh just as a rough estimate is approximately $43,000 just for those first nine. They are holding the unit prices. I got them to hold the unit prices from last year's agreement. Um the the the ability to bid this out. Unfortunately, because of all the issues that we had in obtaining the saw and getting the work done, weather related, the contractor started the work. At this point, uh it's my intention to award that to the

contractor as he's in that area right now. If I have to bring him back to the area or award it out, um there'll be mobilization. there'll be additional fees and they may not stick with the unit price. So, just as you know, I'll be bringing that back to you for ratification purposes, but after I review it and go over a couple more things, it's my intention to go forward with that part of the repairs and then I'll do it section by section in terms of streets and locations and cross streets as we work through that north end section uh and the repairs there. I expect the repairs in this end of the area to be probably the heaviest that we've seen. Um, so enough on the water project. I just also want to let you folks know and our residents know that we're I've already started our budget preparation project for the fiscal year 2627. Um, we started it actually several weeks ago. The department heads have turned in their budget. Um, this encompasses all the city departments and all the city funds. Uh, some of them are enterprise funds, water and sewer. Some are are restricted funds in terms of local roads, major roads, things of that nature you folks are aware of. I'll be getting a hold of you, each of you, to talk to you about the budget. I will tell you, I'm going to prepare you and prepare our residents. It's a um it's a difficult process just like uh everybody in their own home budget. Uh revenues sometimes stay stagnant and they can't keep up with the cost of business. We see that in construction. We see that in trying to buy piping for supplies and things of that nature. Um, we'll continue to look for savings and results and and other processes that may offer us relief, whether it shared services of some type or any other thing that I can find that help reduce uh our footprint in terms of budget need. But as we move forward, I want to prepare you as we go

into that process. I encourage citizens to stay engaged, ask questions, come to meeting, call my office. I'll be happy to update them as we go along the process. It's my hope as we get into here that I I hope to be able to at least besides the public meetings that we have, uh, hold one town hall at a minimum in terms of the budget process and understanding the budget process and and understanding. Yes, you pay a tax bill, but you know what piece of it actually comes to the city and what piece of it the county and the state and the schools and 911 and the drug task force and the college and everything else. So people can actually see um what part of their funds go towards city use. Any questions you might have

in doing the the saw work? Have you found any cross connects between san and storm sewers so far? Um I believe so we may have one or two of those issues. We're still trying to do that's part of the additional saw work to determine um if that's true or if it's a a private lead versus a uh uh combined.

There may be um the possibility of somebody uh tapping into a storm with a sanitary disposal lead. Uh we have to investigate more. So that's part of that additional saw work. you everybody understands if we do find any combined systems, we're required by law to separate those. We did have that in phase one and two where we did complete them separations on our meters. Have we cleaned that all up or we're still working on the meters? Um the meters um the water meters per se. Yes.

Um no, we haven't cleaned that up at all. Pretty much all our meters are end of life. At times we're seeing battery failures or system failures five and six a week. Um we literally now have a collection of multiple decades in use. I did write a grant uh to the state for $1.2 million asking for uh coverance to uh purchase and install brand new water meters across the entire system. that probably should have been budgeted and done perhaps 7 to 10 years ago. That's how old we are. If we don't get that eventually, that'll have to be looked at because what we're told, some of our meters are operating perhaps at 70 75% accuracy. They don't, just so people understand, they don't measure more water. Just like me, as you get older, you slow down and do less. You don't do more. If I can answer any at least that's the way it's supposed to be. If I can answer any other questions, please let me know.

Okay. Good. Thank you. All right. Thank you. All right. On to reports from department hats. We have fire chief Langster. Oh, I'm disappointed. I already covered it. Oh, okay. Okay. Um Carol, anything from the clerk's office? Um, shred day, April, Saturday, April 18th, here at the city offices, uh, 10:00 a.m. to 100 p.m. We'll have more information on the website and social media, too. All right. Thank you.

Okay. Now to commissioner privilege and leaison reports and we have commissioner Clawson. Well, the planning commission is uh going ahead some projects that as the city manager has said that they were working with them and they're readjusting their stuff and then they'll bring it back to the planning commission. So, we got some stuff in the works, but we there's no buying that's ready to go. So, okay. Thank you, Commissioner Bryson. I have nothing tonight. Okay, Commissioner R.

I don't have anything tonight. Um, I just like to give my condolences to Denny Daniels family. I mean, Denny was such a fixture in this community. Um, hardest working guy I've ever seen around here. Um, I know it's impacted a lot of people. Um, and it was a shock to everybody. Uh, he was the a great guy and hopefully um hopefully we can do something about that. We've had people asking so we'll it's going to be looked into. So that's it.

Um, just a couple things real quick. Again, um, just like Commissioner Hendrickk just said, my condolences to Daniel's family um, and Denny's passing. Um, Denny did a lot for the community and he did a lot with the um, the Veterans Memorial Park there. He he will truly be missed for that. Um, and I'd also like to give my congratulations to Jesse and Misty Babson. um prior to the meeting here tonight um I was able to uh perform the ceremony marriage ceremony for them and congratulations to them on that. And with that um then we'll move to 13 for close session. We have close session to consider material exempt from discussion or disclosure by state or federal statute under MCL15.628H city attorney opinion. The commission will enter close session to consider the material exempt from discussion or disclosure by that MCL. We ask everyone leave the building. You'll be able to return once close session has completed. There may or may not be any action taken upon returning to close sess or return to open session. Now, I need a motion to go into close session. I'll

make a motion to go into close session. Support. Hey, roll call, please. Commissioner Hendri, yes. Mr. Clawson, yes. Mr. Ward, yes. Van, yes. Mr. Bryson, yes. Good night. Good night.