City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the May fifth City of Taylor council meeting. I like to call the meeting to order at 06:30. Pledge allegiance, please. Can we get our council secretary, Roll call, please.

Mister Patz?

Here.

Mister Clark?

Here.

Mister Armstrong? Here. Mister Wallace? Here. Mister Thede?

Here.

Mister Thomas?

Here.

Mister Johnson?

Here.

Mayor Woolley?

Here. Missus

Bauer? Here. Mister Dragoni?

Here.

We have a quorum. Can I get a motion to approve the agenda? Chairman? Yes.

I'd like

to make a motion to approve the agenda with the following changes. Replace 6.9 with a new 6.9, add 6.1, and also add 6.11.

Support.

So, motion by mister Thomas. Support by mister Wallace. Any discussion? Anything from the audience?

What are they?

They're It's a motion to approve, the proposed ballot, proposed language with those three items.

And then we'll read those later on. Any other any other questions? Hearing none, all in favor say yes.

Yes. Yes.

All opposed? Yeses have it. Motion carried. 4.2, motion to approve the minutes meet the minutes of meeting held 04/21/2026 and dispense with oral oral reading. Motion. Support. Motion by mister, Clark. Supported by mister Wallace. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say yes.

Yes. All

opposed? Yeses have it. Motion carried. 4.3, motion to approve the minutes from the special meeting held 04/23/2026 and dispense with oral reading.

Motion to approve, mister chairman.

Support. Motion by mister Thomas. Supported by mister Armstrong. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say yes.

Yes.

All opposed? Yeses have it. Motion carried. 5.1, motion to appoint all mirrors communication. I'll let you read that.

Thank you, mister chairman. Item 5.1 is a motion to approve the new appointment of David Nestor to the Downtown Development Authority for a four year term to expire on 05/05/2030. I'll make that motion. Support.

Motion by mister, Thidi. Supported by mister Clark. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say yes.

Yes. Yes.

All opposed? Yeses have it. Motion carried.

Don't believe mister Nestor is here. Item 5.2 is a motion to approve the personal service contract for the special event coordinator at the Lakes of Taylor.

Motion. Support. Motion by mister Armstrong. Support by mister Wallace. Any discussion? Anything from the audience? Hearing none, all in favor say yes. Yes. Yes. All opposed? Yeses have it. Motion carried. We'll move on to the regular agenda. Motion to approve Lifeline Billings Systems LLC as a new debt collection agency on behalf of the fire department. Motion to approve. Motion by mister Thomas.

Supported.

Supported by mister Clark. Any discussion? Anything from the audience? Hearing none, all in favor say yes. Yes. All opposed? Yeses have it. Motion carried. Go to 6.2. Motion to amend CCR 6.22 dash 25 to increase the authority to a blanket purchase order for lending gas by 3,000 Funded through the general fund fire department ALS transport account. Motion. Support. Motion by mister Patz. Supported by mister Armstrong. Any discussion?

Through the chair? Just to point out, this isn't an increase in budget. It's moving money that's already been approved in this year's budget into a different purchasing category because of needing more gas, you know, like oxygen and things like that. Any

other discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say yes.

Yes.

All opposed? Yeses have it. Motion carried. Motion to approve Dow Dow more? Sports surface sole source for the purchase of self defense training mats in amount not to exceed $7,239 funded through the MCOL. MCOL CPE funds? Motion. Motion by mister Wallace. Support? Supported by mister Katz. Any discussion? Anything from the audience? Hearing none, all in favor say yes. Yes. Opposed?

Yeses have it. Motion carried. 6.4, motion to approve Black Professional Inc. To provide gen five armor course and MOSI instructor workshop to the Taylor police officers in an amount not to exceed 3,200 funded through Michael's CPE training fund. Motion. Support. Support, motion by mister Armstrong. Supported by mister Thomas. Any discussion? Anything from the audience? Hearing none, all in favor say yes.

Yes.

All opposed? Yeses have it. Motion carried. In 6.5, can I get a motion to approve Granicus Global LLC for providing Racy self defense training to Taylor office police officers in amount not to exceed 9,000 funded through the Michael's CPE training fund?

Motion. To approve.

Motion by.

I'll second it.

Mister Thiede. Supported by mister Thomas. That's right. It was a tie. Any discussion?

Through the chair, just wanna point out through the discussion last night that this and the previous one are actually not just training individually. They're to provide professional training to our in department trainers. And both of these are they're they allow a few people to go and come back and spread it to the rest of the police force, helping them be more professional and better prepared without sending a whole bunch of people. So, we have a very good internal training program.

Prepare for what?

Pardon? Nobody was recognized. Nobody was recognized. Thank you.

Any other discussion? We don't know who's saying what. You gotta come up and introduce yourself. Chief?

My name is Melody. I wanna know what they're prepared for.

We need your name, address, Melody from your address, please.

From Michigan. Prepared for what?

That's fine. Okay. Chief, could you answer that question for

me. Sure.

Good evening, mister chairman, council, mister mayor. Self defense training is standard throughout the entire nation. It prepares our officers for any type of incident, including de escalation. So all this is, is how to use your hands as a police officer and to avoid using lethal force on people, provided, using a firearm or an impact weapon or something like that. So that's all what defensive tactics are.

Thank you.

Do that. To

We'll get this over with, okay? We are doing absolutely nothing different than we've been doing with any federal agency since before I walked through the door over thirty five years ago. So we can continue to have this discussion, We can continue to be professional about it, and we can continue to have this engagement. This training is used in everyday police work, whether it's with ICE, Homeland Security, Detroit PD, Romulus PD, you name it. Nothing changes. Our tactics will not change. We will always support these agencies, whether they're state, local, or federal, as they support us.

Why when they're stealing our neighbors?

Mr. Chairman. Through the chair.

Our chief answered the question related to the Thank you.

I have a question. Would we support if they're stealing our neighbors?

We're not in open business at this time. Yeah.

Going that.

Able And do to Any other discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say yes.

Yes.

All opposed? Yeses have it. Motion carried. 6.6, motion to open public hearing for the purpose of receiving suggestions, proposals, and ideas from interested city citizens and parties concerning the proposed use of HUD community development block grant funds for the annual action plan of 2,026, 2027, and for 2026 through thirty five year counts colonization plan. Motion. Support. Motion by mister Katz. Supported by mister Thomas. Any discussion?

I'd like to have Chris explain this to us, please. From the start to the finish, how did we go about getting this started? I mean, it's continuous. I understand that. But how do we get it started so the citizens know what to do and what it cost them and how long it takes? Just your suggestions that you made last night for me. And also, is it does it include a sidewalk program for these people? Or I don't know what's provided for them.

Thank you. Through the chair, city council, mayor, elected officials, the public. I'll give a brief history of those community development block grant program. It's been around since about 1975. It's an entitlement formula grant given by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

And each year, the city of Taylor along with many other direct entitlements around the country get an allocated amount that's set by the formula. This year, the allocation for the city of Taylor is 476,251. That is a formula grant which cities who are direct entitlements must supply for every year. It's about a six month process. It has to include a public hearing, which we're doing tonight.

There's other federal requirements on how to obtain the grant. We must apply for the grant and get our action plan and application in by no later than August 16 every year. In general, that's why we prepare for that early in the year around this time. And then if the public hearings will go on and then council approval will be this year on June 16, I believe, the second meeting in June. Where we will come before the city council for the adoption of the action plan.

And this year, we're doing our five year consolidated plan, which covers a five year period from 2026 through 2030, which I can't believe I'm saying that 2030. This is my twenty eighth consecutive year doing an action plan for this program. So that is how we're preparing. We have the public hearings, public input, which will be the next thirty days will be an open public comment period that individuals and interested parties can submit emails, letters, whatever to the community development department for the next thirty days with ideas, comments, suggestions on projects, and, different activities that we can propose to do and under our grant program. We have the proposed budget, which is a draft tonight, which I'll go over briefly.

We have to do that every year. And the five year plan this year will include the 2026, 2027 action plan. We do an action plan every year during those five years. And the allocation amount, again, is formula that can change a little bit. In the last couple years, it's went up about 10,000 or $20,000 So, for city of Taylor, it's crept up a little bit. That's a brief history. Are there any other questions on the, block grant program itself? So we're in a we're we're opening right now. We're in open Public

hearing. Correct.

Open public hearing. Is there any comments from the audience or the council? Through the

chair, would it be appropriate to list some of the good things that have happened from this grant, let's say, in the last couple of years?

Yes. Through the chair. One of the main programs that we've kind of resurrected is the housing rehab program, which is a 0% interest deferred loan program for income eligible households, homeowner occupants. And we do emergency sewers, emergency roofs, energy efficiency, ADA, weatherization under that program. It is a loan program.

It's deferred, and homeowners will have to pay that back. And that is the program income that comes back into the program. As homeowners pay that off, it comes back into the program like a revolving fund. And we have we've been doing this in the city of Taylor since the 1980s, 1990s. So there's several loans out there.

And as those homeowners pay those off, when they normally when they sell their home or when there's a change like if they turn it into a rental property when they're no longer the homeowner occupant or when they pass away their estate would handle the lien on the property. And also, we've done road construction, resurfacing projects, about three of them West Point off of Telegraph Van Born, that subdivision, Emmett Murray, Forest Lane, and McGuire Street. So those those are ongoing projects, usually every year. But I'll briefly go over this year's budget and tell you what we're going to be proposing for this next upcoming year. We're do to to that.

Ir And we're

to And do do so, So No problem. Thank you. So can I we have a motion we're by mister Thomas? Mister Patz, ordered by mister Thomas to open the hearing. All in favor say yes.

Yes. Yes.

All opposed? Yes. It have. Motion carried. Oh, it's open to the public. Missus Patz?

Caroline Patz, 6860 Jackson. So some of the things that you had mentioned I wanted to ask about. Just not to dummy it down, but to let people know at home, if you are is it all low income? I'm looking at him, but through the chair. Low income people. So say I live on a street and I only make, like, you know, 25,000. I'm just gonna throw that out there. $25,000. Back in 1992, we were able to, at the time, is before we had our kids, have a had a block grant at that time also. When we were able to get a new roof, Our electric was upcoded to a 100 amp because it was a little screw in things, and then we also got new windows upstairs.

So that was a block grant. At the time, though, it was you if you lived in your home for at least five years, you didn't have to pay it back. There was a certain length of time before you didn't have to pay it. It wasn't a 0% loan where you have to pay it back now. But so I just I'm kinda curious on, is is it all low income? Or

So so my take on it is that anybody that qualifies and it's income based

Okay.

No matter where they live in Taylor Okay. They they qualify for it. Other parts of the program depends on the area of Taylor.

That was my question. Okay. So you can live money, but your low income has to con has to be considered in that. It doesn't mean I have to be in a HUD area

It's income based. Our income is like Right.

Okay. And the other thing is I know he mentioned something about sidewalk. So if I am one of those people that that. That. Able

do

going to

think, to we're And, And there's limited that. Clientele which would serve like the subrecipients that serve residents that are disabled, elderly, those are limited clientele which are assumed to be low income. Those are the three of the basic, low moderate, income based programs that you can do. And the other question was on the

Well, this other question, I just remember what I wanna say. How do I go about if if I'm a person at home and it's like, I think I qualify for this, what do I do?

You come to see Where

do I go come to city

community development.

Okay. Well, that was the I want everybody at home to know that's what you would would do.

Through the chair, we put this in the tailor today regularly. Yeah.

But sometimes people don't remember.

You know, unfortunately, we do put it out there. But

there might be somebody out there that is not into doing that. I just wanted to know. So. Thank you.

Yes. Anyone interested in the residential rehabilitation program, please contact the community development department. You can come in person, by email, telephone call. We will get a copy, hard copy of the application out to you via email, however, in person, and there's eligibility requirements. On the income eligibility for the residential rehab program, those are HUD income limits which are established by HUD every year And by chance or coincidence, they just took effect on May 1.

That's usually every year. We just got our new income limits. Those tend to creep up, so that benefits homeowners. But it's based on household income generally for all individuals in a household 18 up and over. We add all the income together based on income tax ten forty, adjusted gross income and other income qualification. And we explain all that. We have a meeting with every homeowner as they come in. We explain the whole program, go over all their documents, and determine their eligibility.

Through the chair, Chris, she asked a question about sidewalks. When it goes for, like, home improvement, stuff like that

Mhmm.

HUD has to determine on whether it's a light, you know, like, as far as heating and cooling, would a would a sidewalk qualify?

Well, there's local policy determines a lot of what we do under the program. The federal requirements are not are rather broad, but there's minimum standards. Currently, under our program, we are not doing cement or concrete work under our program because we have minimal dollar amounts that we get. We want to help as many people as we can with priority items. We're going

to to

able And

we're to that. Those are our main four categories. And Anything like detached structures, garages, sidewalks, fences are not within the program. And we don't do detached structures like anything on the garage or anything anyway. The sidewalk issue we are doing on a very limited case by case basis if it's a service walk.

Or a very limited area where there's a disability or a disabled person or a health and safety trip hazard, only in very minimal case by case basis, but not a general sidewalk program that could be considered based on available funding or what the if the city was thinking of doing a sidewalk program, we could consider maybe doing a, component of that with the block grant program. But that would be a proposed project that we could

consider. Okay. Any other comments from council?

And through the chair, if I could briefly go through our budget for this year because I wanted to hit on a few of the things that were, our draft proposal budget. We've already mentioned a couple housing rehabilitation, the three public service agencies, Fish and Loaves, the Guidance Center and Senior Alliance, which we funded for several years. And general administration and planning is built in. We are capped at 20% of the grant for administration and planning, and we're capped at 15% for public services, which is the senior services guidance center and the other public service agencies. Our main project this year that we're proposing is ADA door systems in all the public buildings, that would conclude, I believe, City Hall, Police Department, Recreation center and forgive me another another public building.

But that's revamping getting all updated ADA door systems in all the public buildings. And that's we're projecting 200,000 out of this year's budget to do that. But we got this is a draft proposed budget. Some of these could change based on, input, public comment, input from department heads, the mayor, other interested parties. This is our our first draft proposed budget. So that's why we're here tonight, and then for the next thirty days, we'll accept public comment. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other comments? Anything from the audience? Hearing none. Oh, yeah. Hearing none, motion to close public hearing for for the purpose of receiving suggestions, proposals, idea from interested citizens concerning the proposed use of HUD community block grant funds for the annual action plan year of twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven, and for 2026 through '2 thousand and thirty five year cows cows Consolidated. Consolidated plan.

Motion to support. Who who made

the motion? Mister Armstrong supported by mister Thomas. Any comments? Hearing none, all in favor say yes.

Yes. All

opposed? Yeses have it. Motion carried. Thank you. Motion to amend CCR 7.29 dash 25 per attached schedule increasing the amount by 83,000 funded through the TBA repair and maintenance account. Motion. Motion by mister Thomas. Board by mister Wallace. Any discussion? Anything from the audience? Hearing none. All in favor say yes. Yes. All opposed? Yeses have it.

Motion carried. We're gonna go a little bit different here because mister Thomas wants to read these, so I'm gonna pass him the gavel. Yeah. You get you I'm passing you the gavel.

6.9 is a motion to approve the ballot proposal set forth to amend section 15.2 of the city charter and the statement of purpose and direct the city clerk to submit the proposed amendment to the governor of Michigan and the Michigan attorney general for approval, and then submit the proposed amendment to the city's qualified electors on the November ballot.

I make that motion?

Support.

We have a motion by mister Johnson, supported by mister Wallace. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? Yes. Any opposed?

Motion passes. Item 6.1 is a motion to approve the ballot proposal set forth below to amend section 15.3 of the city charter and the statement of proposed I'm sorry. And the statement of purpose and direct the city clerk to submit the proposed amendment to the governor of Michigan and the Michigan attorney general for approval, and then submit the proposed amendment to the city's qualified electors on the November 2026 election ballot. Motion. Motion by mister Wallace. Support. Supported by mister Patz. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor vote yes.

Yes.

All those opposed? Motion passes. Item six eleven is a motion to approve the ballot proposal set forth below to amend section 15.4 of the city charter and the statement of purpose and direct the city clerk to submit the purpose the proposed amendment to the governor of Michigan and the Michigan attorney general for approval, and then submit the proposed amendment to the city's qualified electors on the November 2026 election ballot? Motion. Support. Motion by mister Wallace. Supported by mister Pats. Is there any discussion?

Caroline Pats, sixty eight sixty Jackson. I'm a little confused because I'm not understanding what this is. It's it's not giving you the you know, you're not giving us the correct you know, what you're doing. It's just

Well, I can read I'll I'll read

the I know we've already done the two, but I

just was gonna keep it. I'll go ahead and I'll read the purpose of each one of these. 6.9, the amendment one, should this Taylor City Charter be amended to increase the dollar threshold for which the city can purchase physical materials, tools, and equipment without competitive bidding from 2,000 to $5,000. This threshold has not been increased in twenty nine years. Any such per purchase would still be required to be within the approved city budget for a particular department would be pursuant to the city's purchasing policy.

Six ten is a motion I'm sorry. The purpose of amendment two, should the Taylor City Charter be amended to increase the dollar threshold for public improvement contracts from 2,000 to $5,000 before requiring city council approval. This threshold has not been increased in twenty nine years. Any such public improvement contract would still be required to be within the approved city budget for a particular department. It would not be pursuant to the city's purchasing it would be pursuant to the city's purchasing policy.

Amendment three, the purpose, should the Taylor city charter be amended to increase the dollar threshold for contracts for public improvement or for the purchase of any physical material, tools, equipment, or apparatus from $2,000 to $5,000 before requiring city council approval. This threshold has not been increased in twenty nine years. Any such public improvement contract would still be required to be within the approved city budget for a particular department. All such bids would still require a bid bond, and all such contracts would still require a performance bond.

So number three was for purchasing departments? What was number one and two? It sounded like it was the same thing. Yeah.

It basically basically is. Pardon? For the chair. I'm sorry. Yep. Basically, it is the same thing. We're just amending it to be able to to be able for instance, we had a incident where we needed something to compost. It was $2,036. Threshold was 2,000. So that would technically mean it needs to come to council. Well, because it was an emergency, we're able to do it under that particular time, but that's not the best way to do things. So 2,000 is pretty low.

Well, I understand the 2,000 to the 5,000. I understand that. But it just sounded like everyone was the same thing. So is it like one is about the department, one is about companies, or that's where I was looking

For the chair, you got to change one, you have to change two others.

Okay.

That's the confusing part about it.

Okay.

So that's what they're doing in that process.

Okay.

There's there's three things in the charter that have to be to change one, you have to change the other two.

Yeah. So that's Exactly. You're going from fifteen two to 153 and 154. It it's all the same.

It's just Okay. That's why I said little I'm confusing. Why are you repeating yourself? Thank you.

Mister chairman, are we still open to Yes. Okay. I just want to point out so I want to thank the council for for bringing this, you know, to fruition. I just wanna point out this wasn't through the administration. Council took this on and brought this forward.

So I do appreciate that. This is about, you know, moving things forward and and and making things streamline. You know, many communities around us even have a much higher threshold. Most of them are between 15 and $20,000 And and us being at $2,000 really binds up our our purchasing department. It slows the process in in everything.

When you talk about parts to a lot of our vehicles and stuff like that, especially in our DPW and our parts department, a lot of things are over $2,000 So, just pumping it up to $5,000 goes a long way. And it and it puts a lot less stress on our purchasing department because we have a lot of different departments in the city. So I I think this is a good thing. Hopefully, the residents will see that. This does not affect them and their taxes or anything like that. Every department head still has to stay within their budget. That is approved by the city council every year, which was just done. So, you know, I I appreciate you guys doing that.

Through the chair, one additional thing, the amount. It was last raised to $2,000 from 500 in 1997. If you do the consumer price adjustment, by the time this takes effect, it would be like 4,800 just so it's not an increase in authority as much as it is keeping up with consumer price index. Thanks.

Is there any further discussion? See, I lost track of who made the motion. Who supported?

Dan Wallace and William Patz. Alright.

So we have a motion by mister Wallace, supported by mister Patz on 06/11. All those in favor?

Yes. Yes. Any opposed?

That motion passes. Alright. So way to put a guy on the spot.

You're you're welcome. Now pass it back. I think it is pretty good. Yes. You did.

Take this gavel back before I go hog wild with him.

Yes. I'll take the gavel back. So now we're into open business. And I had switched up a while ago, and we're going to the audience first.

So Saturday, May 16, is going to be armed forces day out here at the Preview Manor area area. So everybody come on out. It's, 11:00, 12:00. And right after that, come on over to Heritage Park because our open house of our museum will be starting right after that. And we also have the Jared Sexton town hall. We'll be open. That is where our gift shop is. So come on by, and visit us if you haven't been there before. Know a lot of you came around Christmas time, but come back and see some of the new things that we have in our gift shop, and come and see our museum if you haven't been in a museum. We just finished our last well, we have two more classes.

Second grade classes from the Taylor Schools have come out to visit our one room schoolhouse. Today, we had two two whole classes come, so we kind of split them up in threes. They get to go to the Goodwill Garden. They visit the museum. They go to the one room schoolhouse. And this time around, we were able to use the the train station, which was really cool because we did a little presentation inside there for the kids because we had so many kids. But the kids are loving it, and we're hoping to increase that for next year. But come out on Saturday, the sixteenth, and come visit us.

Anything else from the audience?

Hi. My name is Rich Hilli. I live at 9622 Elm Street. So I believe that police have important jobs that are very dangerous and very difficult. Some decisions need to be made in a, you know, high stress situations with only a second to decide.

Right? But this is where in the past few years we had issues nationwide where, you know, police departments have appointed sorry, disappointed their local communities, and we had one such year in 2020 in Taylor as well. I believe policing is an important job where trust with the community can only help make the job easier, and having no trust makes the job more difficult. I believe that associating Taylor with police with ICE is going to erode that trust because ICE operates without IDs, hiding behind masks, and violating constitutional rights while using excessive force, illegal entry, illegal seizure, and without warrants. Right now is not a high stress situation where we only have a second to decide.

So, I ask that we take a minute, make the right decision that will build trust with the community and also relationships with the community. Thank you.

Melody, I'm here to talk about ICE and how the police department has agreed to

to that. And we're

able

in your community. Do you want

that. A reputation like that? Do And you want your reputation to be more than Taylor Tucky? Because we already have that reputation. So if we want to make sure that all citizens are safe or undocumented immigrants, which is just a civil infraction and not a criminal one, we should not be working with ICE.

We should not be allowing them to police the citizens and undocumented people of this country. The United States constitution, which has been violated all up and down by the current administration, should be upheld for every person who is residing in The United States. This is not strictly for citizens. It is for everybody who is here. Doesn't matter their immigration status.

It matters that they're here. People who are visa holders, who got their visa expired, are going to be targeted because there's not a good way to and a simple way and an easy way and an inexpensive way to become a citizen of this great nation. If you don't look like me, a white person, you're in danger. If you have olive skin, you're in danger. If you're a person of color, you're in danger.

Because you if you have an accent, you're in danger. They don't discriminate against that. If you don't look white, they get you. They have had taken citizens, citizens, and put them in their concentration camps. It should be shameful that your police department wants to even consider working with ICE. ICE is nothing more than a racist mob who is here to overtake and be a secret police for the fucking Cheeto, excuse my language, who is a pedophile in office. We should be angry that this is even happening. Go ahead. Tell me my time's up. That's fine.

I see you. But I want you to know that this is serious, and my words contain as much seriousness as they need because everybody is in danger when they enter your city limits. Do you understand how dangerous this in is, mister mayor? Do you understand how dangerous it is?

Ma'am, my city, their safety is my priority. And these men and women that are standing here, they put their lives on the line. I'm not talking about let me finish. You asked me a question. Let me finish. You asked me

a question

about But you're not answering my question.

I am asking.

You asked me a question.

About ICE.

You asked me a question about safety. About ICE. And danger. And I wanna make sure that my residents are safe every single day.

Then don't work with ICE.

That has nothing to do

with it.

It absolutely does. That's why I'm here.

We are gonna work with every organization. I'm not gonna debate on this stuff. You after the meeting.

Enough. You wanna answer my question, mister mayor. My question is Ma'am, you are out of order. I am talking.

Please. Though your time is up, your time is up. I know everything else. Ma'am, you are out of order. Ma'am,

you're out of order.

I wanna know what you're leave the podium.

I want my question answered. I'm allowed to get your question answered.

No. You're not.

Your time is up. Your time is up. Keep talking.

Mister mayor, why are you going to allow your your class to work with ICE? Come on. Come on. Are you going to allow them to work with ICE?

I'll talk to you afterwards.

Through the chair. Yes. So there are a lot of ways and a lot of us who have concerns about that were just brought up. I happen to be from Minnesota, and my cousins and sister and niece were part of what was going on there. So taking a different tack, I decided to run for office.

And part of the reason that I did this is so that I can be in close communication with our police department. One of the first things I did was spend several hours there learning about the various implementation that chief Blair and the people who work for him have put in place to make sure that we're protected as citizens. What happened in Minneapolis will not happen here. The police department in this city has already had things go on, and I had a reputation as being kind of anti police. But the truth is I'm anti bad police.

And I just wanted to tell you that those there are people on council here who are being very watchful to make sure. And as far as cooperating with ICE, the contract that was signed gets signed all the time. We get a tremendous amount of benefit in training, in materials, things that help us citizens. It was not an agreement to be a part of them. I hope this is appropriate, but you can do an investigation and find out how much this police department, since this happened, has even had any contact with with the group.

So sorry, but I just want you to know there are several ways to be an activist, and one of them is to pay your dues and get into government so you can be an activist from the inside. Thank you.

Real real quick. May I get to chief Dowling? I I wanna make a comment. One way to be an activist is not to make yourself look like a fool. Yeah. You know, I I mean, you could she could've talked five minutes, but no. It had to go into yelling and screaming and back and forth. We don't do back and forth. It goes through the chair. Now I have a lot of those same concerns that she has. I'm not a fan of ICE. Never have been, never will be. I see it. I know it, and I'm a white middle aged guy. So but when my chief that I've known for quite a few years tells me something, I believe him.

And until that time, I'm until he lies to me, I'm gonna believe him. And I don't think he will. So chief, could you tell me how much how many activities have we had with ICE? How many operations did we go and clear out apartments and schools in Taylor? Zero. Thank you. Zero. And and and how many incidents have you had where you had to turn somebody over because when you ran a search on them, you had to turn over? How many of that in in this last year?

This year so far, I believe we had four, and I spoke about the last one. The last one was an individual that traveled from over 1,300 miles, brought over 3,000 grams of fentanyl, nearly 29,000 pills that could kill two million of our citizens. And that person was arrested, charged in Wayne County with a twenty year felony. And, of course, when he was charged, ICE was contacted. So we are not going in schools.

I told the last council that. We're not going to businesses. If we run across someone in our normal police duties and we find out that there is a detainer, just as we would for any other police agency, if you're an American citizen for your entire life, let's say you're 60 years old and you have it worn out for your arrest and we run across you, we have a legal obligation, we contact that agency. Why should a person who's in the country illegally have more rights than that person? That's simply how we operate. I have said this, and I will continue to say this. We've done nothing different than what we've done before I walked through the door. Nothing. The the people that are upset just don't understand. I talked to many of council people.

What happened in Minneapolis is tragic and avoidable. I'll say that again, tragic and avoidable. If they were working with the low local police department, the consensus in law enforcement community is it never would have happened. Federal agents don't do traffic stops. They work behind desks, and they do more paperwork stuff. Police officers learn how to deal with people. They learn de escalation. They know how to handle these things. That's why it's important to protect our community and these other people for us to be involved. And there's many people that are afraid because of what you saw here, the intimidation that's out there.

Because it's it's I don't wanna use the word ignorant, but there is some ignorance to what our intentions are. Our intentions are to provide peace, safety to the communities as the mayor said. We're not kicking in doors. Everyone that tells you that is wrong, and I can prove they're wrong because as long as we've been involved in in assigning these agreements, we've never done that. And this isn't the first time we've signed agreement with ICE at all.

And I can tell you one final last story. We had a active shooter call come in from one of our schools, and thankfully it wasn't true. The first agency to show up was Homeland Security, Federal agencies. That's why we work with them. I've been on this podium and I've been on the media talking about our partnerships we have with many federal agencies and the great things they do to protect these citizens in this city at no cost to you. So I'm not gonna back down. We're doing nothing wrong. We're doing nothing illegal, immoral, unethical. And we're gonna continue to operate that way.

Thank you, chief. Thank you, So one of my responses is gonna be, you had homeland security. There's a lot to homeland security. There's ICE. There's this department. There's that department. And I believe with what is going on today, let's just put a pointer at the top of our head and invite them here. You know? I just, you know, scream, scream, scream. It's not happening. It's not happening here.

I I agree with you. And, you know, we've we've had many discussions about what people feel the federal government's doing with our surveillance cameras and what have you. Yet everyone in here is walking around with a cell phone in their pocket. We can obtain more information and track you a 100 times more with that cell phone you carry everywhere, despite the fact that you're willingly sharing your location on social media and everything else. So, frankly, we're gonna do things legally, morally, and ethically correct. We are not perfect. We do step on our toes occasionally. I'm fully in support of creating laws to hold officers responsible if they use these technologies inappropriately, fully in support of that. What I'm not in support of is allowing someone to come in this country illegally to have more rights than someone who was born and raised here. Period. Bottom line.

Thank you, chief.

Thank you, chief.

Thank you, chief. Thank you.

Any other discussion?

Chief, just wanted to ask you a question. You said that by the way, I'm a big supporter of the police, and I don't wanna lose my confidence in you because ICE is a different group. They're murderers. They're people who come to town and tear up a town and then leave. How much I know you're not going to do any of these lawless things, but how connected are you with ICE to allow them in any way to come into the town and do these lawless things? Oh, sure.

First, wanna say go green. I love that shirt, by the way. It was amazing. Spartan Spartan threw through oh, you ruined it. Look, no police department has any authority to tell ICE or any federal agency they cannot operate within their city. So, that's the answer for everybody. Anyone that tells you any different is mistaken. No one has an authority to tell any federal agency they cannot operate in our city. They can try to do that, but that's a federal violation. They would be violating the law. So, I'm not going to tell ICE. And and I'm very I'm sorry. Like some people thought law enforcement people are terrible, especially after the George Floyd case. Well, that's a small minority. We do know ICE people.

I know many ICE officers that are not monsters. And there are a lot of people they've taken out of this country that absolutely everyone here would agree that they don't belong in this country. Is there a better way of doing it? Absolutely. I'm not in charge of ICE, nor do I run their policies. So I want you to have confidence in this police department. I want you to have confidence in me. I want to always be professional. I'm very open and honest. You can talk to the media. They know when we screw up, I admit we screw up. And I'm not gonna change.

Yeah. So Just a question. If ICE comes into town and do doing the things that they do that disrupt the community, what authority do you have to say no? No. You can't murder people. You can't do these things. I mean, is there an authority there on your part? Or or do you have to just sit back and take it?

Yeah. Regardless of whether you're a police officer, federal, local, state, if you committed a crime in someone's community that you are responsible for for law enforcing, yes, you could you could have them brought forward on charges. That was that's not our choice to do that. I don't do that. The Wayne County Prosecutor's Office or a federal prosecutor would bring that in there. I don't make that decision in any case. Someone could kill someone in our city and I don't choose to charge them. That is up to the prosecutor. So but, no, I think that we have a great relationship with all of our federal partners. And I think if for some reason they were in the city of Terre, they would contact us and we would be that conduit between them and the community to avoid these type of crazy situations from happening.

And that's what I think, Council Malls, I think that's what you're pointing at. There needs to be checks and balances on everybody. And I think if we work with our partners, I think there is a much better solution. And anytime people that are not knowledgeable about weight of doing a certain thing, they're going to fail. They're going to step on their toes. And police work has dramatically improved. And I think if we assisted appropriately, we wouldn't have these instances.

Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Question for you. With a show of hands, how many of you on the board are into letting ICE just come into our town for the purposes that they've been doing in big cities and stuff like that? How many would agree with that? Just agree Real real quick.

I don't think anybody up here would want them to come into this town, do what they did in in Minnesota. You know, nobody would nobody would do That's an unfair question because No. That's that was terrible what they did.

No questions are unfair.

That's that's an unfair question because you know it was terrible. We know it was terrible. We've seen it.

Well, I wanna make sure of that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not being unfair. I'm I'm you know, I support the police. I think it's they're doing a good job. My name is Ron Lloyd, by the way. I live in this town, and I've lived here for eight years. And I'm very happy with this town. I just don't wanna see it disrupted where we would, have what we saw in the others' towns. And it could be because these people are out of control.

And and I don't disagree with you, sir. Thank you.

Sir, through the chair, no matter what people may say or think, none of us do.

Okay. Anything else? Any of come on up. Hi.

One second to catch my breath. I don't do well with yelling, and that one girl kinda threw me off. You know?

Yeah. I was Can you

state your name? State your name, please.

Yeah. My oh, yeah. Sorry. Like I said, she threw me off. Hi. My name is Cassie Gregory. I'm a resident of Taylor, Michigan. Do I have to say my address? Okay. I just have a little bit of a note here.

This is my first time coming to a city council meeting. It's nice meeting you all. I'm just here today to speak in opposition of Taylor Police's two eighty seven g agreement and the possible presence of ICE and Taylor. I understand this agreement between Taylor Police and ICE, the two eighty seven g agreement, is simply if the Taylor police look up an individual in their system and see that they don't have the proper legal status, that they like, then Taylor police will contact ICE and turn them in. I'm not concerned about the Taylor police.

I'm concerned about what will happen to the people when they're turned into ICE. For example, we've been talking about, you know, Minnesota. And sorry. I also had a second point, but and I'm concerned about people in Taylor losing trust in our police because they fear ICE, and they have disagreement with them. The fear of immigration consequences discourages people from calling the police even in emergencies.

And when local law enforcement agencies choose to collaborate with federal immigration authorities, those fears intensify, further distancing noncitizen communities from public safety because they don't wanna reach out because they're scared. I don't want a single person in Taylor, regardless of their legal status, to endure any of the fear or suffering other people in our country have had to endure because of ICE. I saw a video from a recent city council meeting mentioning the possibility of ICE's presence at this Taylor City at the Taylor Summer Festival and Taylor Cruise. I understand the likelihood of anyone being taken into ICE custody is not high, but I don't want people to feel afraid seeing them there. Isn't the Taylor Summer Festival a carnival?

I'm not sure exactly because I don't, like, I don't pay attention to the names of the events. But if it is a carnival and say that ICE was there, I just this would be an incredibly improper and inappropriate setting for ICE to be, being that this is a family event, and this is a safe space where they aren't going to find the hardened criminals that ICE claims to be looking for here. As I mentioned, if ICE were to be at the Taylor Summer Festival and Taylor Cruise, it would be improper and inappropriate. With ICE's current reputation more recently being completely untrustworthy and more recently dangerous, their presence in these community events would be intimidating to the vulnerable living in fear of them. So, you know, just people because they're brown, like, they will see them.

But even if they aren't having proper legal status, and they'll they'll be scared because that's what happens.

Could you wrap it up, please?

Yes. I I can. Sorry. I I'm just Yeah. Yeah. Breathing. Alright. This is the one thing I was gonna say. I understand proper documentation is important, but we don't know everyone's situation. And assuming, like like I said, I understand the agreement is simply if they look up someone's legal status and it's You

do wrap it up. Thank you. You're you're a minute you're half a minute over. Thank you. Okay. I didn't

I just didn't think it'd necessarily be a problem considering I had anxiety and

No. You've been talking the whole time. And we got

it. Five Thank you. Minutes. But Thank you, ma'am. Thank you.

It's three minutes. Hi.

My name's Helane Gaither, and I'm a Taylor resident also. I'd like to join and voice my opposition to the Taylor police agreement with ICE. I know they had agreement before, their current administration, and I believe ICE has changed so much that they have a goal of deporting a 100,000,000 rep people. And that doesn't mean that they're getting rid of the worst of the worst. That means they're actually just looking to deport, you know, brown people.

And and I believe that that hurts our city, and people are afraid. Our immigrant neighbors, even if they have legal status, if they're a victim of a crime or they see a crime, they're gonna be afraid to report it. And forty nine people have died in ICE detention this year. And ICE facility in Baldwin, people have gone on a hunger strike because they're not getting medical care, and it's it's really terrible. And I believe that Taylor Police, it's a dangerous job, and they wanna support their community.

They're they're doing this dangerous job because they care for their citizens, and I believe that this agreement with ICE taints that trust. And I hope they rethink it and don't join the agreement any longer. Thank you.

Thank you. Ma'am?

I tripped over a manhole cover in January. I have a titanium hip and the iron of the manhole cover and the bone. So which of these is softer? The bone. So I have this fracture. So this is how we move. But it's getting better. I promise. My name is Joan Pence. I'm the lead of Western Wayne Indivisible, one of several activist organizations that are here this evening.

We are here to talk to the council about the true costs and risks of the February g agreement the Taylor Police Department has entered into with the Department of Homeland Security and ICE. At a recent council meeting, a Taylor police officer reported that it is likely that there will be ICE officers present at the Taylor Summer Festival and car crews. During his comments, the officer mentioned the two ostensible advantages of this cooperation. One, that it will keep the city safer, and I quote, and two, that the safety would come at no cost to the city. However, all of what we have learned about the effects of the presence of ICE officers in our communities demonstrates that these assertions are not accurate.

First, the issue of safety. Despite the oft repeated, adage linking immigrants to crime, US census data going back a hundred and fifty years shows that immigrants are 60% less likely to commit crimes that result in incarceration compared to native born citizens. Arresting and removing immigrants doesn't make communities safer. It just rips holes in families and neighborhoods. On the issue of cost to the cities, what is not included in this calculation is the deterioration of public trust caused by the presence in our streets of armed officers who are not trained in local law enforcement and not accountable to the community they police.

Victims of crime become less likely to report what they know and to cooperate with investigations, thus creating a significant blind spot in enforcement and making everyone less safe. Furthermore, the costs of rebuilding that trust following ICE involvement turn out to be incalculably large and unlikely to turn up in any municipal budget. In summary, we encourage the council to reexamine the purported costs and risks of this agreement. They are not as reported. Thanks for your time. Thank you.

Any other open business?

Air call 955 Holland, Taylor, Michigan. As I'm sitting back here listening to all this stuff on ICE and how the Taylor Police is wrong for entering an agreement, I'm still confused on why Taylor Police is being thrown under a bus here when we don't have ICE and Taylor. I believe the chief came up and told him ICE ain't kicked no doors in Taylor. I was at the last meeting. I don't remember any Taylor police coming up here and saying they were gonna be at the Summerfest.

I don't remember any Taylor police saying they were gonna be at the telegraph cruise. If I have a warrant for my arrest, I served in the military. If I have a warrant for my arrest, they're still gonna call and find out if they want me. And guess what? If they want me, they're gonna detain me till they come get me. What gives anybody else any more rights than a US citizen? I don't understand why we're still beating this bush and nothing has happened in Taylor. We're not going into schools. We're not pulling kids away from their families. We're not we're not going into their house and pull them out of their house.

If you do something wrong, like 20,000,000, fentanyl tablets, yeah, we're we're gonna send you to ICE. I mean, it is what it is. If I'm an American, they're gonna send me right to jail too. Okay? So until the Taylor police do something wrong, maybe we should sit back and say, maybe this is a good agreement because if ICE comes into the city, they're gonna notify Taylor, and Taylor's gonna be there to control the situation.

Instead of having a bunch of hot head ICE agents out there by themselves, the Taylor police are gonna be out there to control the situation. What other cities don't have, let's look at a good thing instead of always pushing the bad thing because we want studio time. Thanks.

Mister chairman?

Yes. Just to address some of the things here that's been discussed. Like you, you know, kinda touched on earlier, nobody wants ice coming in here and causing chaos. Believe me. You know, some of the other things that, you know, I have an open door policy in the city. Anybody that works here knows that. I have the opportunity. I park I park in the back and I see officers on a regular basis. And I talked to these men and women that work in this department, and I asked them when we were going through this. What surprises me is everybody coming in here, chief,

what's it

been almost a year that we entered into this account, you know, and so everybody here acting like we just signed on to this. We've been in here in this contract for over a year and we've been following the same policy for thirty, forty years now. And so, you know, people are coming and talking almost like it's new, like we just did this. We've been in this over a year now. And there's been no issues whatsoever other than either sexual predators or somebody that's trafficking a whole lot of pills that can kill people.

So by all means, like, I don't have any problem handing those people over. And I don't think anybody should. You know? And again, getting back to having the relationship that I do, that I think that I have with all the employees, but talking to the officers in the back, I've asked them about this. Like, hey, what do you think about this? And not one of them have said, I'm uncomfortable with this. And I've talked to a lot of officers that have lateraled in from other departments. And the policy we have is if we remember, it's if they commit a crime. Because we've actually had undocumented that were victims of crimes that we didn't call ICE. So keep that in mind too.

So it's only if they commit a crime. And then so that's the only time we do that. And then I've talked to like I said, getting back, I talked to the officers that transferred in, and their policies at other departments was even stronger. They didn't call. They just took them right to the facilities. You know? So I'm glad I've been able to have those conversations with multiple officers. We have many different officers of different sexes, different colors, from different areas, some that weren't even born here in this country. And I've even had honest conversations with them. And they were okay with it.

I hope they were honest enough with me. I felt like they were. I'm usually pretty good at sense and BS. And we had good honest conversations about it. So, you know, yeah, it's tough. Nobody wants chaos here. I don't want I don't want a Minnesota situation here. But the great thing is is our chief has a good relationship. We have worked in many cases with other organizations in this city. I'm very proud of the fact and the council knows and many we've talked about it here many times.

We've had multiple sexual predator stings in this city, and we brought in a lot of sick human beings, and I'm very proud of that. And if people wanna curse me or anybody else, I'm happy about that. And if we turn a couple of those over to ICE, hey, man, say what you want. But that made me happy. And we're gonna continue to work with organizations, and I'm gonna I'm gonna have their back because I trust him. I trust him. And I trust him. I trust him back there and everybody over there. And if they do the wrong thing, they're gone. It's that simple. And he's done a great job at do making sure that happens. So that's all I have to say, mister chairman.

Real real quick. And I don't disagree with you on the on the stings. But like you said, maybe a couple of them have to be turned over to ICE. We gotta remember, the majority of the crimes committed in this country are committed by American citizens. Absolutely. The majority majority of the drugs that are brought in are brought in by American citizens.

Oh, and trust me. Not everyone We have all those

We have we have issues with immigrants. Absolutely.

But sexual predators are not

But if if we keep hooking the bear, I think I think it's it's an issue. We don't have an issue here now. With this chief, I don't think we will. I'm I'm gonna say I know we won't. You know? And people that know me know me. I ICE is ICE has been around a while. It's under Republicans and Democrats. Under this administration, it's not very good. And I'll tell you that, and I'll argue that with you all day long. But, I trust my police chief, our police chief.

I just had real quick. Last year, we hired a Mexican national as a police officer. So anyone think that we're gunning for people that weren't born in this country is mistaken. And the second thing is ICE has not, for one second, showed up at any of our city festivals or car cruises. I have a relationship with them. If they were coming to our city, they would notify me. Now Homeland Security Is different. Is completely different, and they have been operating in our festivals for north of fifteen years. Okay? Free law enforcement to back us up to protect our citizens.

And if someone has a problem with that, I'm sorry. I'm I'm not sure how how I can help you. They haven't caused problems in fifteen years. I don't

see what

the issue is with this at all. Nothing's changing.

Thank you. Through the chair Yes, sir. Do these Homeland Security people look like when they're helping us? Do they have their faces covered and no identification on them?

No. Not at all.

I didn't think

so. Tactical gear

Are they carrying ARs?

No. They're not carrying No. Okay. Actually, one of them happened to be used to be an auxiliary here in the city of Taylor. Yeah. He moved on and he's been a federal agent for a number of years. So, no, he he's a good man, and we have a lot of contact with him as well. No. They don't wear masks. Matter of fact, I found them to be very, very cordial, friendly people.

They're they're pushing law enforcement safety for everybody. Again, I cannot tell you how much it meant to me when we had that active shooter at the school where they were there first. And people need to sit back and push all the nonsense aside and realize what you're seeing is a tiny little craziness that should have never happened. It's not happening here, and it's not happening here because of our relationship with them. Period. I don't know how to say it anything else.

And and to add to yours, we have relationships with other departments. We have Wayne County sheriffs here during the festival.

Yes.

And what what a help. That's what you're supposed to do, help each other out. That's what neighbors do, you know. And like I said, we I trust you.

Well, I

appreciate it. Mean, again, last week in the building, I had FBI, I had HSI, and I had DEA. Talk to them all the time. That's my thing. Yeah. Okay? And they're not hunting they weren't here to talk about hunting down illegal immigrants. Criminals? Yes. Like, violent criminals, but no conversation whatsoever about illegal immigration or undocumented people or whatever term you wanna use.

Mister chair, one last thing, So the person that was

caught with drugs,

If they are charged and they're sentenced, when would they be turned over for possible deportation, chief?

After they serve their sentence.

Oh, so you didn't send them right off to some other country. They No. Have to serve their sentence in The United States first. Correct?

That is was the intention of of what the how laws

Thank you.

Is broken down. Yes. I mean, they I don't understand all the immigration laws. That's not our area of expertise, nor is it something we concern ourselves with. So we're in business about protecting people. And, unfortunately, that means arresting criminals sometime. I prefer that no one's criminal. People yell us for writing speeding tickets. Well, don't speed. I don't know what to tell you. It's hard. Don't wear red lights.

Thank you.

We're gonna do things legally, morally, ethically correct. That's what I tell every one of those officers you ask them. Legal, moral, ethical policing. We do make mistakes because we're human. So

Hi. My name is Donna Bozinc. I'm from Taylor originally and moved back here. I just had a question more for the police officer. Where did he go? There he is. If you pull somebody over for a traffic violation, Do you see that person's immigration status?

No. We don't. We can run them on our what's called a lean law enforcement information network computer as we would any individual, then that may pull up a detainer for us if they were a legal immigrant or warrant for arrest if they were American citizen for something. Okay.

But but you wouldn't unless they've actually committed a felony or a crime, you wouldn't call ICE?

Unless, again, unless there was a detainer something on a computer system. We're not questioning about their immigration status. If we run their name because they provide name, that's what everybody does, and it popped up on our computer system and it said there was a detainer or a warrant for their arrest, we would handle them like we would any other American citizen. Okay.

Alright. And I mostly agree with everybody that's talked about how things have changed under this national administration. And I hope I live long enough to see him out of office. Thank you. Yes.

Hi. My name is Shannon, and I just wanted to touch base on the fact, and you you mentioned part of it, that this ICE is not the ICE from thirty years ago. This ICE that we have now is not the ICE we had a year ago, saying that, you know, you've been having this two eighty seven g agreement, and it hasn't been a problem. We haven't had an ICE like this. We haven't had a president that said, ignore warrants, bust down doors, do what you want. We haven't had that before. We haven't had the rogue ICE agents shooting people in the streets. Minneapolis can happen here in a heartbeat. They're building a detention center in Romulus. They're sniffing around in Van Buren.

I've seen ICE traveling on these streets. I've seen them on telegraph. Just because they're not pulling people out in front of you or telling you guys what's going on doesn't mean it's not happening. Doesn't mean that they're not here. We can't rely on the fact that your your police department is decent.

Because that doesn't have anything to do with ICE. They have proven over and over again they don't give a shit. They're bragging. We see them all the time at the camp bragging to us, telling us what they're going to do when they get that camp. Just being in in an agreement with them, it's like it's it's mind boggling to just rely on the fact that, oh, yeah, thirty years ago, ICE was fine. No. That's bullshit. It's what we have now is dangerous, and it can only get worse. And just saying that they've been our friends, we've been working well, that's just turning a blind eye to this crap that can happen. I mean, you know, it's not the same that we've had.

These aren't the same agents. ICE agents in history never before shot mothers in their freaking car, shot nurses in the street. We don't need that here.

Eric Hall, 9555 Holland. I feel a lot more comfortable if a Taylor cop shows up to my house to get my refugee friend out of my house that I served in the military with, if Taylor shows up with ICE, because I feel comfortable it's gonna go the right way. I don't understand why this agreement is something bad. This agreement makes ICE call Taylor when they come into Taylor. Okay?

They communicate. The chief sends his officers out to be there to keep the residents safe. I don't understand why this agreement is a big thing. It's it's it's real confusing to me. Maybe after the meetings, someone can tell me what I'm missing. But if you're gonna come to my house to get one of the guys I served in the military with because he's from Mexico, I don't want ice kicking my door in, so I'd rather have the Taylor police come with him. It's a lot easier. I I I I it it can't always be a bad thing. It can't. Everybody wants to make it bad.

We have a good police department. We have a great chief. He's not going to let ICE come in and kick doors and then shoot residents if he can stop it. ICE doesn't need chief Blair's permission to come into the city. They come into the city if they want to, but at least they're gonna have the respect to call chief and say, hey. Listen. This is where we're going. If you wanna have your people there, please have them there. Okay? So let's let's use this as a positive until we become negative. Okay?

I would just like to add on. I think a lot of people are you know, supportive of Taylor police. It's ICE specifically that we have issues with because ICE, you know, they detain people. The majority of them have no history of crimes or the sort. A lot of them are here. A lot of people are detained have done nothing wrong. And this is where a lot of times we have people that are not, you know, known where they're at because their families can't get ahold of them. People are detained, potentially sent elsewhere. And the issue is, you know, mingling with ICE, and that's where I think things can get a little bit murky because it's very easy to associate the two together. So, my hope is, right, not that ICE sorry, not that the police here are doing anything wrong, but potentially associated with them is gonna erode that trust.

And then I do have someone sent me a clip briefly that sounds like they might be at summer festival from the last meeting. Is there any way I could potentially show someone here?

Chief? I'm

just saying via video.

Yeah. So there's a brief little clip.

Jury is not Homeowner security knowledge.

So no. This is a difference.

Distinct difference. So go ahead.

So the clip here is, you know, it's you know, you're saying that ICE might be at the summer festival.

I can't control if ICE showed up anywhere. There's no knowledge. We have no knowledge. I've had no contact for no reason to believe that ICE is coming to our fest. Poland Security would be the only ones that we know that have come in. I think of what you're.

So, yeah, I'm just just like just slightly concerned because again, I'm hoping that, you know, if if there's that working relationship, then, you know, that I ask, know, again, you know, that we work. You know, we get the police with the ICE department, you know, working together, which is if if it has to be, then it has to be. Right? I understand that they do have they have yeah. They do have jurisdiction rights over everyone. They can take over. But this is where I just ask that we try to avoid becoming too entangled with them because they do have a bad track record. And I think they will erode the police trust here in Taylor.

And I'm gonna make a comment. I don't believe they'll erode the trust of the police department in Taylor. I believe ICE is out of control. Absolutely. We don't have an issue. Well, keep keep bringing it up, keep saying it, and I believe we might have an issue. So let's invite them in now if you that's what you want. But ICE isn't, in my opinion, shouldn't be around. We have a police that we trust, and it won't erode to my trust, my families, or most of the people I know because it's not happening here. Thank you.

So from what I can tell, it sounds like ICE is not in Taylor. And yet, the police are saying that they don't have any control whether or not ICE comes to Taylor. People don't know what they're looking for. They don't know what ICE looks like because they're not marked. So there are ways that you can get educated about what an ICE agent looks like and drives to be more aware so that your community is safe.

And when you do see an ICE person in the community, it doesn't sound like the police are the ones to call because they're working with them. So instead, I have a number that you can call. It's (313) 635-3633. If you spot ice in the community and you're concerned about your neighbors, that's the number to call. (313) 635-3633.

Any other open business?

Hi. First time here. William Heimeler at 5911 Waddell. I'm a resident of Taylor. Just to be clear, if someone call sorry. Just to be clear, if someone calls emergency, whoever they illegal or legal, they are not are they screened for could they be screened for illegal status? Chief? Victim, not not perp.

Excuse me, Eric.

Yeah. I'm not sure how many times they answer this one. No. I mean, again, when we run across people and there's a reason to run them on a computer system, that's when we find things out. Period. We're not turning victims, people that report that they're a victim of crimes Yeah. Over to anyone. Now if I had a victim where I had to run their name because they got the pants beat off from and they were American citizen and they had a warrant for homicide, yes, we would turn them over just as we would with somebody else. But, no, we are not running victims and calling ICE on them.

So And there is

a difference between ICE and HSI? Mhmm.

Yeah. Just I guess this is the time to soapbox. They this whole thing is about cheap labor. Right? I I was with the migrants, the illegal migrants in Texas. They they were the ones building out the data centers, all of them, the Samsung factory. I was in the hotels with them. I saw their I saw, you know, the IDs that they were given. So just to Through the chair. Well, yeah. But the there's I'm here because I got an email from Cassie Gregory and O'Brien. Is there an O'Brien here? You

you

know Through the chair. O'Brien. O'Brien. Okay. So I'm more interested in the structure and why this is all formed. And We'd like to know. Yeah. The the well, to me, it's to me, the why did why were 11,000,000 illegals done? They were they were held in Mexico before then. That's the way it was done. It was fine. So to me, it's to me, it's kind of obvious. It's and I saw it firsthand in Texas at the Samsung. This is just one of the largest facilities. But that labor was apparently, that labor is needed.

And so that's how it's sold. That's how it's sold to the businessmen. I mean, I assume that we would not have we we would not have the agreement if there were business leaders here putting pressure on the city council to to have that cheap labor. But maybe we don't need it. Maybe there's no big construction being done here and things like that. But this is not the my my uncle ran for mayor of Detroit in the sixties. So he's a democrat. But the democratic party today is not the one that we see today. It's it would be totally foreign to him. So I think we're in the third the third phase.

The first phase was offshoring jobs. This is this is just me, so boxing. The second phase is onshoring jobs. Now, we're in the third phase where we get rid of

Sir, you got thirty seconds.

We I have thirty seconds left? Yeah. Okay. So but I I have a question for Cassie.

Through the chair, please.

Through the chair.

Yeah. But I

You gotta go through the chair.

I have a question for Cassie.

Through the chair. This is out of order.

What's that?

This is completely out of order.

You're you're out you're out of you got your three minutes. Three minutes Okay. Eleven seconds. Thank you. Any other open business?

Really? No. I'm waiting to say their magic words.

Any other open business? Okay. We're we're for the we're at the council. Open business now.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you to everyone that came out for the cemetery cleanups over the last few weeks. I really appreciate the help. And also, June 16 and July 7, we will be doing some HVAC work in this room. So our meetings will be held at Lakes Of Taylor. We'll keep reminding every meeting. One of us will mention this same time, 06:30, but they'll be at Lakes of Taylor because this room will be fully shut down. So getting new air conditioning. Also, one more thing, just real quick.

I just wanna wish my fellow clerks and everyone a happy Michigan Association municipal clerk's week, May 3 through May 9. The this was president Reagan, I think, the one that started this. So we way way back when. So just happy

happy

clerk week to all of you. This is going to be a very challenging year for all of my fellow clerks and I, and I just want them to know I'm thinking about them, and I appreciate all of them and what they do. Thank you.

Okay. Real real quick. We got this weekend, we have armed forces day right out here in the in the Memorial Gardens. It's to honor all the veterans in Taylor, and we read their names. So it starts at it's on May 16. It starts at 11PM. We have guest speakers. It's pretty nice. You get you know, we added a few names. Anybody that passed away that was in the military, their name is Red. And I hope to see you guys out there. And then is the chief here still?

Chairman. He stepped out.

Chairman. He stepped out?

Starts at 11AM.

AM. 11AM. I'm sorry. You got them?

I got them.

Hey, chief. Could you tell me what you got going on tonight at ten 09:00?

She's share over there again.

Yeah. You should. We'll get you one of those motorized ones. Mister

chairman, mister council. Yes. Tonight is our annual law enforcement candlelight vigil starting at 9PM. Due to the weather, I believe we're gonna be inside here. So, you guys wanna hang on, free hot dogs, snacks, and non alcoholic beverages will be provided.

Thank you.

So, yes. Thank you.

And then real quick, I wanna wish everybody a happy Mother's Day. Enjoy your weekend, mister chairman.

Just got two things to touch on real quick. Number one, I wanna thank Jim Taylor for doing the Heritage Park cleanup. He's been doing that for, I think he said this was eleventh year now. I really appreciate him doing it. It was a great turnout this weekend. And again, I wanna thank Cindy for doing her cemetery cleanups. She did, you know, two phases this year. Great job by her as well as the clerk's, you know, appreciation, you know. And also, as pastor Alvarez said, the National Day of Prayer is Thursday at noon, which will be out here in Priebi Priebi Plaza. Always tongue twist that one. And that's all I have.

Anything else? Can I get a motion?

I'd like to make a motion to adjourn the city council meeting.

Support. Motion by mister Wallace. Supported by mister Armstrong. All in favor?

Yes. Yes.

All opposed? Yeses have it. Motion carried. Eight zero one, we're adjourned.