Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

testing. Testing. Good evening. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. Did you turn it off? Good evening. I'm going to go ahead and get this uh working session started. I apologize for being a few minutes late. I managed to break a mug in the in the back room there. And so, thank you to the staff for helping me with that uh with that problem. Sir, if we can with the role please. Commissioner Bean

present. Commissioner Hodgej here. Commissioner Lebar here. Commissioner Light. Commissioner Machi. Commissioner Robbie here. Commissioner Sanders. Commissioner Scott here.

Commissioner Somerville. Thank you. Move then to a public participation. At the working session, you have one minute for public comment. A reminder before our full board meeting directly following this, you have three minutes for public comment. Is there anyone who wishes to give public comment in person at this time? Okay. Ashley, do we have anyone on via internet? Great. Um I will move then to item three which is the report from the county administrator. No report chair. Right.

Moving on to item four. Any uh report from our director of board operations.

Great. Um well Ashley said not right now. So we'll we'll we'll we'll get to that. Okay. We'll move on to our discussion item tonight. Um, I want to thank everybody for being here. We have, I think, a a substantive sub substantive presentation and I want to invite I believe Andrew, you and Cristiana Wickham up from HR and a advisor to tell us just a little bit more. Um, one quick note, it's a relatively uh substantive presentation and so I believe the plan is we'll have periodic breaks during it for Q&A. Is that right? Great. Come on up.

Yeah. Uh, thank you, Cher. And just maybe a brief introduction, Andrew Doo, deputy county administrator. Uh so just to remind the board of your past actions on this, uh a few years ago you adopted a resolution asking for a report on options in terms of how the county could get more involved in affordable housing. Um I've been working with Tony Kaumi, Nathan Boat, and Tara Cohen, all from OCD. Uh and about a year ago, we selected HRA following an RFP process. Uh and so Cristiana is part of the team that's been working on this report. Uh they're partway through the process. uh and we are expecting a final report from them that will integrate some of the discussion that that you're expected to have this evening. Uh but we're really pleased and and hope that this will be helpful to all of you in terms of continuing to think about how how the county can address this important need. Uh so Cristiana Wickcom uh is your presenter this evening and we look forward to hearing the discussion. Thank you.

Thanks Andrew.

There. Thank you for having me. Um my name is Cristiana Wickcom. I'm a principal at HRNA Advisors. I'm just going to pull up our slides. Great. Great. So, um, the agenda for today, apologies in advance for a somewhat dense presentation. And um we're sort of trying to do a lot today, which is to go through some of the analysis that we've done about what the housing needs are that we see in the county right now and then walk through sort of an overview of the options of how the county could increase its involvement in affordable housing production. Um I've I've got some discussion questions at the end. Um, but please just um, you know, whatever questions you have or what you would like to discuss, please feel free to bring that in and I'll tell you a little bit about where we are in the process of our study. Um, just some brief background, HRNA Advisors is a real estate economic development and public policy consulting firm. Um, we're based out of New York, DC, LA, Dallas, um, Raleigh, North Carolina. We work all over the country. Um specifically our affordable housing practice works um across the housing ecosystem at sort of three mutually reinforcing levels. So we work at the highest level on strategies and plans where we understand what the needs are in a housing market. Um what the role of the public sector is in promoting access to affordable housing and we develop strategies around that. Um any sort of policy recommendation that comes out of a strategy we also design and implement. So um whether that's an inclusionary zoning policy, a housing trust fund, a down payment assistance program, we will implement those. Um and then we also underwrite individual transactions in designed housing funds. So our approach to the housing ecosystem, I think allows us to

understand sort of the broader macro picture as well as the site level realities of trying to get affordable housing built and that's how we try to approach all of our work. Um so just what challenge are we hoping to address here? I I think you know you all commissioned this study but but we've been asked to develop a clear picture of the housing needs and the current housing ecosystem in Washington County. So who are the players? What are they doing? Where is funding coming from? What typ types of homes are being produced? Um and then to evaluate the landscape of potential options for the h how the county could increase its involvement. Um which we will talk about today. Just a quick timeline here. We um we're probably twothirds of the way through the project. We've done a lot of data analysis. We've been gathering information about the ecosystem and existing programs, what some of the current barriers are, and we've developed sort of an overview of the different options. We will ultimately develop a final report that incorporates feedback from you all um and from our client team um about um sort of final thoughts on on what the pathways could be for county involvement. So that will be what we'll be working on um for the next couple of months after this meeting. So, at the highest level, I I'm not going to spend a ton of time on the data analysis, and I I want to point you to a resource that we've developed, which is a digital report um that I think Andrew has has shared with you all that has a lot of data and information about what's going on with the housing market in the area. At the highest level, we're we're sort of seeing four major trends. The first is that, you know, there is a an a rental shortage of deeply affordable rental homes. We see a shortage of about 8,000 homes affordable to households earning up to to $50,000 per year. That gap has been getting bigger um as rents have been growing faster than incomes in the past five years in particular. Um we see that low and moderate income

households are significantly costbururdened. That's 66% of county households um earning less than 75,000 per year are costburdened. We also see that the gap between what people can afford to buy and what they make is growing. So, uh, right now, um, the gap between the typical home price and what the median renter can afford, so who we would think of as a first-time home buyer, is about 4.5 times higher than it was in 2010. So, that gap is growing. We also see that homelessness um is rising. we've seen an increase um in 0 and10 counts um by about 20% um meaning you know the most vulnerable residents are are struggling to find homes which is exacerbated by the the rental shortage that I mentioned first. I'll just quickly walk through some data. This this um chart here compares the supply of homes affordable by income level in dark blue um to the demand for homes by income level in gold. And you can see that for households making less than 50k there's a mismatch. Um so it you know at around 75k that's where we see um you know the market is generally meeting the needs for households at those income levels now. And so when you get below that, that's when you start to see the mismatch which is shown in the chart below. And this is typ, you know, this is not unique to this area. This is pretty typical of what's going on in housing markets across the country right now with variation in terms of where that sort of line really hits. Um, in the top chart here, we see that 41,000 households that earn less than $75,000 a year are cost burdened. Um so that dark blue and light blue um category in that bar chart at the top shows um costburdened households and severely costburdened households in the dark blue. So that's really the biggest

issue for very lowincome households um who tend to need sort of highly subsidized uh rental housing and you know the main cause of this increasing cost burden is that rents are growing faster than incomes and again this is true pretty much everywhere in the country. Um, so it's not unique to Washington County, but it is exacerbating challenges that were already there. So while incomes have grown um by about 20% in the past six yearsish, rents have grown by about 25%. So that gap is getting bigger and that's the main driver of the affordability challenge. So, one of the results of this is that the share of homes that are actually available to occupy has dropped to a very low level about 1.7%. Um, that's on the lower end of what we're seeing in markets across the country, although again this is an issue in many places. We tend to think of a healthy vacancy rate of being more like 5 to 7%. So, the issue here is that there literally just are not many homes to occupy. And one of the reasons for that is that fewer people are moving because um because the housing market is a bit frozen. Interest rates are high. People are not selling their homes. People are not buying homes, which means that renters are not moving into home ownership. Um and so there's there's um just overall it can be very challenging to find a home, let alone afford it. Um and that that effect of interest rates you can see on this chart on the bottom. This shows the max supportable home price for renters in dark blue. Um the max supportable home price for renters in gold for all households in gold. And the green line is is the actual median home price. And you can see around 2020 that that sharp decline in what's affordable to both owners and renters due to rising interest rates. And so obviously that's not a factor that you all have control over, but it is making the environment more challenging.

And this is this shows the point in time counts from 2020 to 2024. Um you can see there was sort of a a a slow decline towards 2022 and then back up to about 317 in 2024. Um about 95% of counted individuals are sheltered, but the overall growth in um in point in time counts suggests that just the affordable rental shortage is really trickling down to people at the very lowest and no income levels. So these are challenging issues. They're not unique to county and they're not all issues that you have control over or really the ability to impact, but there are, you know, there are things that um the county can do. And so, you know, one of the things that we want to bring up today is just prioritizing between some of these issues. what are the issues that the county is interested in prioritizing amongst several challenging issues because there are limited there's limited capacity and funding resources to address them and so sort of sort of deciding on what that is in the near term um can help to inform what the right strategy is for county involvement because they require different funding structures, different capacity, different resources to address. Before I move on to sort of an overview of the options um is there any are there any questions about the data analysis like I realize that was very high level um and that I didn't go into a lot of detail and I'm happy to

Commissioner Scott is it your hand up? Yeah. Go to Commissioner Scott. Thanks. Thank you. Um I'm sorry I might have a lot of geeky questions for you as we go. Um I I'm wondering when you with this analysis and this data, how recent is the data and what kind of lags should we be aware of with that? Yeah, so it's mixed. So um the um a lot of the data that we rely on is we've been waiting for the federal government to update it. Um so should have been updated in December. Um and

oh, it wasn't. we we are uh it should be in the next couple of so my hope is that we can give you and the digital report will be updated as soon as that data is available um so you will have access to that I don't expect that it's going to significantly change any of the findings but we will update the charts so there is there is a lag right now in the data but that applies more to population change um when we look at the affordable housing inventory building permits things like that that's more up to date through you know mid 2025ish What I can tell you is that broadly speaking like these trends are not getting better in the past six months,

right? Do you make assumptions in the data about um about population growth or household formation or market behavior? So we're looking at we are looking at the population change, household change um from the American Community Survey. Okay. Um, we do have projections that look at, you know, future population growth, which is not in which is not in the data here, but um, we're relying on the American Community Survey for population estimates and household estimates.

Okay. Um, I have one more question because I'm sure I'm going to have a lot more. Um, when you looked at that data to begin with, did you look at housing shortages and do an analysis of how they're distributed across the county or if they're So, so we can um and we can we so we can break it down by municipality if that would be of interest. Okay. Um, and um this particular chart that you saw that that shows the 8,000 unit shortage is looking at the whole county. I will say that the smaller the geography level you go sort of the less accurate it is but but you can get a general picture of how that shortage is distributed.

Okay, I might have more questions as we're going. Clearly I'm really enjoying this. Thank you. Yeah.

Any other questions at this time? Please proceed. Great. Okay. So, my my goal here is to walk through the different pieces that come together to create a housing strategy for the county across sort of organizational capacity, governance, funding, financing. Um, there are many different paths and combinations of these different pieces. And so what I do is talk about sort of the different pieces and then some potential options and paths of how those could come together. And it depends very much in part on on what the goals are in terms of ownership of homes, funding of homes, the degree of county control over what gets built um and and who lives there. Um and so you know this is a lot of content. Please stop me. Um but I'll try to get through it and and then post some questions at the end. But if anything's unclear, please raise your hand. So broadly speaking, most affordable housing interventions have three major components. There's the funding source, so where is the source of dollars coming from that will subsidize development. There's the financing tools, which is the mechanism to actually structure and deliver capital to housing projects. And then there's the roles. So that's who oversees, who owns, who's lending, who's borrowing within the housing model. Um, this can include selecting or establishing an institutional vehicle that's responsible for steward stewarding funds and assets. Um, I'm going to focus more on the rules. We'll talk a bit about funding and financing. Um, but I'm I'm going to talk about this from the perspective of the county. So, what could the role of the county be? There are many players in the housing ecosystem, and I'm not going to talk about all of them. Um, but they all have different roles to play, but I'm going to focus on um the role of the county. So, one, you know, there one of the main

questions to ask is will the county invest additional local funds? And part of the reason for that is because that actually kind of determines some of the pathways that are available to the county. Um, you know, with without dedicating additional funding, there are things that the county can do to increase its involvement in housing production. It's going to be more limited in scale and impact. Um, so that's one of the first questions. Then, how would the funding be deployed? um there is already funding being deployed through RFP processes and then who's receiving those funds and who's developing and owning the housing. Um so there are common funding structures for investment in affordable housing. These are not all of them but some of them are you know requests for proposals which is sort of the status quo. Um housing trust funds, public private mission funds, private mission funds. Um the first three that I mentioned can very much involve uh local funds in the county. Um private mission funds tend to not involve um the public sector but can be really really important vehicles for delivering affordable housing. And then there are the actual development entities um who are developing the housing and in some cases owning and operating. There are housing authorities and commissions. Um you know there there are two commissions in Washington County. They're locally based nonprofits which include community land trusts and choosers um development affiliates of housing commissions, national nonprofit developers. Um so these are sort of the main ones that that tend to develop um and operate in unhousing within the ecosystem. Um I'm not going to go through these definitions in detail but just want to point out that they're here for you but I will just talk about sort of the some of the main differences here um across staffing funding and governance. So um with RFPs which is is what's um generally happening now um government staff issues RFPs RFPs and reviews

proposals um right now they're mostly using federal funds sometimes local funds. Um the governance tends to be um a board of commissioners based on staff recommendations, a housing trust fund, which is an extremely popular way to scale local funding in affordable housing because um it's not relying on federal funds. And so it um offers a lot more local say in what gets built. Um also tends to be staffed by government staff, not always. Um usually it uses mostly local funds. um and tends to be governed by a board or an advisory committee. Um it can be informed by staff recommendations. It can be appointed. There's there are different ways to structure the governance. Then there's public private mission funds um which tend to be stopped by a CDFI or another sort of partner fund administrator tends to have a seed investment from a public entity with private funding. Um and then generally not a lot of public influence or control over what actually gets built. And then private mission funds um tend to not have public funds are tend to have sort of the largest leverage over other over other funding sources and without public control. So least amount of control um but can be a really important um source of of funding for affordable housing. So, on the development and ownership structure side, um I I what I did here was sort of point out the the superpowers of each of these as a way to help think about um what could be um appealing. And on the commissions and housing authorities side, you know, the major superpower is just ownership and influence over affordable housing, what's what's uh built, how it's operated, the affordability over the long term. Um the access to federal funding. Um on for housing commission development affiliates, um they tend to have a little bit more flexibility around

federal requirements. um locally based nonprofits. You know, one of the superpowers is just the commitment to the community, the willingness and the ability to take on the most difficult projects. They tend to take on the most difficult projects. Um there's no public ownership, but um but there can be really strong partnerships with these organizations. Um then there's national nonprofit developers who tend to have, you know, high development capacity, can leverage their scale and access to capital, um not always as present and invested in the community and aware of what the specific local community needs are. Um and then for-profit developers, you know, can achieve lower cost of development, um have access to private capital, again, have probably the least um you know, in some cases uh ne commitment to, you know, local partnerships. That's not always true, but um broadly speaking, um so how do these different pieces that I talked about actually come together to create a county intervention in affordable housing? Um so there's different evaluation criteria that we want to sort of offer up as you're thinking about the county's role on the requirement side. You know, some of these pathways require startup funding. Um there there's funding that's needed to establish a process, the mech mechanisms to actually implement the strategy and sort of seed funding. Then in some cases there's recur recurring local funding that's needed and that can be the hardest to achieve because the funding has to come from somewhere and that's usually taking away from something else. So um you know dedicating recurring local funding can be a challenge but has you know the largest impact in the long run. There's capacity. Some of these avenues require increased staff capacity or really strong partnerships um with strong players in the ecosystem.

And then there's the implementation um are there major barriers to getting this done? Whether that's political, economic or funding. And we think about impact. How fast will this be? How many homes will actually be produced through this strategy? Um how much additional capital can you leverage? Um so the ability to access additional capital is um is it varies a lot across these strategies and then impacts on the broader ecosystem and what I mean by this is that you know the extent to which the county is involved and developing and dedicating funding impacts the ability of nonprofit partners and other partners in the ecosystem to scale up and plan for um affordable housing production. Um and that includes hiring, capacity building, things like that. And so there can be uh trickle down effects across the ecosystem that actually build capacity based on the actions of the public sector. So what are some of the options? Um I mentioned that one of the the kind of the main first question is is there an ability or an interest in dedicating additional funding? Um if not then really what we're talking about is tactical adjustments to the existing system. So this is essentially um maintaining the RFP process but getting really specific about the types of projects um that you want to see delivered um doesn't require additional startup funding um would require continue to require federal and opportunities for one-time funding that come up um high implementation feasibility because this is already happening. um tends to have, you know, sort of scattered and lower production impacts over time. So, as opportunities arise, there can be impact, but it's not going to be as consistent and the scale isn't going to be as large. If the county were to increase funding levels, there are sort of two major ways to do that. One would be to expand the RFP

process um and essentially scale up capacity a bit but have more consistent uh funding opportunities with more clear um um goals for development um which would help build some capacity in the ecosystem um and leverage a bit of additional capital um and you know see a bit of an increase in production. And then there's the option of establishing a housing trust fund uh which has um a higher production impact, higher access to additional capital um and but requires recurring local funding to be sustainable. We've seen many housing trust funds start with seed funding and not identify a recurring funding source which um can be really challenging because it doesn't it doesn't sustain the impact over time. Um so I won't go through these in detail but um I do just want to point out that those those feasibility sort of uh criteria that I talked about at the beginning the ways you can evaluate these different options we've detailed here um so that you can take a look at that um you know making tactical adjustments to the existing system to really target specific needs and specific populations um is is the lowest just hanging fruit. Um, increasing funding levels to the RFP process, as I mentioned, could have moderate impacts, could help to build some capacity in the ecosystem, could help access additional capital, um, and, you know, is potentially more politically achievable than a housing trust fund, but does still require additional public funding. And so there's that there's that hurdle. Um, so the RFP implementation, um, in a simplified way, you know, the county

staff drafts an RFP, developers and service providers respond, the staff reviews and makes recommendations, and the county commission approves awards. So, there's opportunity in there to um in the RFP drafting to um to make changes about what types of homes um the county would like to see delivered. We've included some case studies. This is the Fairfax um county housing blueprint fund um which is a competitive pool of lowcost financing that's offered by Fairfax County for affordable housing construction and preservation. Um they offered about $42 million in funds in 2025. Um lowcost financing is on the preservation side in particular is a a really helpful way to preserve af preserve you know sometimes Noah or naturally occurring affordable housing. um um because it can replace you know existing capital that has higher return requirements um and um they're able to um have a revolving loan fund. So establishing a housing trust fund the the main thing about a housing trust fund is that it requires seed funding and it requires recurring funding to be truly effective. Minimum we like to say is about 3 to 5 million annually. Um, this funding commitment helps create a pipeline of projects. Um, as I mentioned, it allows, you know, other players in the ecosystem to actually plan for this and staff up and, you know, pursue sites. Um, it can also help to attract private and philanthropic capital. Um, and and so, you know, it's likely to have a higher production impact and a higher ecosystem impact. um a simplified way of implementing a housing trust fund. Um a housing trust fund tends to have an advisory board that sets priorities every year. Um and then the staff can still be the ones that you know weigh in on that and draft the RFP. Developers and service

providers respond. The staff still reviews and makes recommendations and then the board or the advisory committee reviews and recommends projects based on their priorities set annually. And then the county commission would approve awards. So the committee would make recommendations to the commission based on the goals that have been established every year. Um and then the county commission would have sort of the final say over awards. This is a simplified process, but this is how how that would work. Cristiano, forgive me for interrupting here, but just quick question while you got the screen up. Yeah. Who would by either customer law make the appointments to the uh to the Htf advisory board and board?

So it can vary. There's a lot of different ways to do it. Um, some in some places the mayor appoints people to a housing trust fund board. It can be appointed by staff. It can be appointed by a council or a commission. Um, it it depends on how the bylaws are written. And so there there are different ways that you can structure that. And I would say that the advisory boards, it's extremely important early on in the design of a housing trust fund to be really clear on what the role of the advisory board is compared to the staff and the commission because having really clear responsibilities and delineation is helpful. We've seen many trust funds that have been set up where that wasn't very clear and then they've had challenges in implementation and where we had to go back and help them help them write bylaws. So, um, but there there's a lot of there's flexibility and it depends on the state, too.

Thanks.

And again, the one of the, you know, the main, uh, benefit of a housing trust fund is is local control. You're not as constrained by federal funding requirements in terms of populations served, um, the types of homes that are built, timelines, things like that. So that is that's why um you know many uh municipalities, counties pursue a housing trust fund. Um I'll point you to the housing opportunity fund in Pittsburgh um which is a very successful um trust fund. They dedicate 10 million annually. Um and it's actually administered by the urban redevelopment authority has a board of adviserss. Um and um they they are you know one of the trust funds that had to go back and sort of reestablish what the different roles were for the staff and for the um for the advisory board, but they've been able to you know really successfully get some big projects off the ground.

Got a question here from Commissioner Scott. I mean, I have a few questions, but let me just start on this one. Did they create the authority to run the fund through the the urban redevelopment authority already existed? It pre-existed. So, they were, if I remember correctly, they were administering RFPs and they basically um they staffed the trust fund from the redevelopment authority. So they had staff that had the capacity to administer the fund and run the advisory committee. But then the advisory committee was appointed by the authority.

The advisory committee I believe was um appointed by either the mayor or the city council, but I can't remember. Okay. Can I ask a question about the Fairfax project, too? Sure. Sorry. It's okay. Uh I should have just asked it. Where did they get $42 million in blueprint funds? I mean, I was like, "Yeah, 42 million." Yeah, I can follow up with the source of funds. I don't know off the top of my head. That's a lot of money. Yeah. Okay.

I mean, so there are many different there are many different potential sources of funds for a housing trust fund. At the end of the day, it all comes from some sort of tax or reallocation. was the Fairfax County one though was um a housing authority, not a housing trust fund. So um so it's not a housing trust fund, it's a revolving loan fund and it's the it's administered by the redevelopment and housing authority. Okay. Um and so because it's a part of it is that it is a revolving loan fund. So that's it's it's yes

um so this is not a housing trust fund but on the housing trust fund side um there there are a lot of different sources for housing trust funds generally it's coming from either a re reallocation of an existing tax um or it's coming from some sort of new um fee that could be some sort of development fee. It could be um a a percentage of tax revenue. It could be, you know, there's there many different Some people have used um new gambling taxes, cannabis taxes, new sources of revenue um for housing trust funds. Um some use um inloo fees from inclusionary requirements to to fund a housing trust fund on a recurring basis.

Okay, great. Thank you. Sorry, I'm asking all sorts of things. Oh, it's great. And we can in our in our report, we can give more information about potential um sources of funding. Great. Thank you.

Okay. So the the last topic is sort of how could um how could funding actually be deployed? Um so I had mentioned these different entities, you know, private and nonprofit development partners, public private mission funds, a land bank, and then dedicated funding for publicly owned housing, which is And you know what many refer to as social housing is the highest involvement because it includes public ownership over over the homes. Um you can funding so funding private and nonprofit development partners is again sort of what's happening now. Um establishing a fund would of course require some sort of startup investment. Land bank can be variable. dedicated funding for publicly owned housing is the highest obviously the highest startup funding requirement. Um recurring local funding um you know a land bank and dedicated you know publicly owned housing have the highest um recurring funding requirements. A public private mission fund can be revolving um and then on um funding private and nonprofit development partners. just sort of depends on how much to the the extent to which the county would be interested in scaling up funding. Um so just you know broadly these are sort of low to high in terms of these valuation criteria and also in terms of production impacts and access to additional capital. Um, so I'll just I I won't pause on the funding private and nonprofit development partners because I think you all sort of understand how that works. Now, um, in terms of establishing a public private mission fund, this would require partnering likely with the CDFI, community development financial institution. Um and it would be a public you know a public private mission funds

that would combine public capital um with other impact capital. So that's mission motivated capital can be from a variety of different sources um and below market financing. Um generally this is leveraging the capacity of partners. Um so it doesn't require necessarily additional uh county capacity. Um and you know one of the benefits is high access to additional capital and leveraging local dollars. Um so how that would work is you know the the county would select a CDFI or a similar partner. They would sort of set help set parameters for fund priorities. There would be a seed investment. Then the CDFI would go and raise impact capital and then they would source underwrite and close the loans. Um so the the county would have less say in specific projects but input on the overall goals. Um and then there would be you know public reporting um and oversight over um over that. So an example of this is the housing loan fund in in Durham, North Carolina. Um they launched a fund both for sale and for rent. um and they partnered with the CDFI and impact investors um that leverage both public funds and private investment. Um and we're happy to include addition additional case studies if this is something that you all are interested in. Um so you know another option that would require additional investment would be establishing a revenue stream to support um an entity that acquires land and properties for future affordable housing development. Um it's sort of variable in terms of startup funding. Um but does require some recurring local funding to make sure that the entity can you know

acquire properties over time depending on what the model is of the land bank. Um does require um some additional capacity and staff. Um and you know because it's the establishment of a new entity there is just that challenge in terms of implementation feasibility. And then again the the sort of the other end of the spectrum dedicating funding for publicly owned housing. Um this could be dedicated revenue to existing housing commission commissions in Ann Arbor and Italy or a new public entity that would expand the supply of affordable housing. Um this has the highest startup costs and and the highest recurring local funding requirements. Also the highest capacity requirements. Um the production impacts are high can allow for faster development um and especially outside of areas that are um currently prioritized for federal investments in housing. Um high access to additional capital um and you know does likely require development partnerships um but the government would retain an ownership stake. So again, there these are not the only pathways. There are many different ways that this can come together. There are many different case studies. If there are options that you're interested in, we're happy to provide some additional case studies of those. Um there are almost endless iterations, but this is broadly speaking how these different pieces can come together um um to increase county involvement in affordable housing production. Um there's also, you know, many ways to um support housing without necessarily producing new homes. You know, through uh services, um through um you know, funding for preservation of homes, um um you know, shelters,

permanent supportive housing, um there, you know, there are many different priorities. Not all of it necessarily requires building new homes. Um and you know, the extent Each of those relies in part on, you know, how much capacity is there, how much funding is there available to scale up um the impact. Um you know, we we had some questions for you all, but I you know, I think we're interested in understanding more about what would be most helpful. Um are there additional models that you would like us to look at? Are there additional case studies you would like us to provide? Is there anything that's not clear? Um, are there parts of the housing ecosystem that you're interested in seeing sort of grow in capacity?

So, I'm going to take that to open it up for a Q&A session. Um, I've got Commissioner Somerville, then Light, and I think I saw some other hands. Haj, we'll go from there. And then Robbie. Uh, Commissioner Somerville, you're going to pass. We'll come back to you. Commissioner Light,

thank you for um presenting to us on this snowy afternoon. Um so the last slide with the publicly owned housing um that is uh more of an interest for me. We have been discussing um and continuing in the county, throughout the state, nationally about um a housing crisis. However, slide after slide, I've wanted to puke because I continue to keep seeing apartment living and I just cannot understand um why we are not uh trying to make sure that we are getting single family homes, condos or town homes because for me um apartments aren't need say sustainability. um we need for individuals to be able to for myself I believe that home ownership um is so beneficial and that there are more opportunities but I just did not see like I said throughout the slides there were all these high-rise apartments. I have two children um my occupation I I'm a caterer so and I cater from my home um as well as in a in a facility. However, when I'm at home, I can send my children out in my backyard and I can make sure that they can play outside. I can open my window and I can make sure that nothing is going on. If I live in a high-rise apartment, I'm not sending my kids outside um to the park to play. I don't care where the neighborhood is. The trafficking is real. Um I I just it's not okay. And I just feel like we continue to want to to build apartments and shelters instead of building homes for home ownership. Um, individuals are able to take the equity out of their home to help them in other areas of

their home and to um it it's just more beneficial. So for me, my ask is um to find more case studies where uh we are developing where they're developing single family home and condos and town homes. Um, and I think the revenue um within taxes would benefit our county. So, this is great. Yes, I want more housing. Uh, we need it, but apartment living is not going to be the answer because we're going to just you'll never own it. Um, and then over time, especially if it's income based, it's going to turn into a lot of the apartment homes that we are having issues and problems with right now. And so I just would like if we can to for you to be able to um identify more home ownership opportunities.

Yeah, thank you for that feedback. Um so um some of these models that I talked about are somewhat agnostic to the actual home type. I think we probably should have chosen maybe some different pictures of our of our case studies. um for example land banks and and so some of these are delivery of funding not necessarily specific to the type of home that's produced. I will say that um you know depending on the program that you're relying on for funding that does impact the type of home that is built. So you know the a lot of federal funding sources for affordable housing and for permanent supportive housing um are really targeted towards multif family rentals. But that doesn't mean that necessarily these are all targeted towards multif family rentals. I think one of the challenges right now for sector involvement in housing is that home ownership subsidy for home ownership in the public sector goes much less far for households. Um because the cost to own is so high right now because of financing costs. Um and because just you know developing single family is just more expensive because one you know unit on one lot can't leverage the economies of scale and so public dollars you know are not going very far right now on things like down payment assistance and um um land banks and things like that because the cost to buy the cost to own is so high. So that's one thing we just always want to um balance is it's sort of a question of what are the goals. You know maybe home ownership is the goal and that means that maybe fewer households are served and those are the types of tradeoffs that we can kind of better tease out. Um also along with I have many I wear

many hats. Um I am a new developer uh and I um and doing the manufacturing and modular um route. So with that um it's easier to be financed. Um it's uh easier um to locate land and to have the home and it looks like a traditional home. Um but you can with the same amount like you said per household to house individuals. Um that same uh money can can house um individuals in a manufactured or modular home. And then that is where we can get our skill trades and our union workers in to do um to lay those foundations to it. It's I think it's just a lot of deep diving and a lot of work and research. Um but the opportunity for home ownership um and just housing, they kind of just level out. I mean, we're right now the economy, we're just at an all-time high. So I think the amount that it costs to build all of the apartments and to house the individuals um would be almost equivalent to utilizing our manufactured and modular homes and purchasing land and provide and being able to provide individuals the opportunity. So, I think just a lot of deep diving and research on how um there are different routes than just your regular stick built um and utilizing our skills trades and unions. Um, if we collaborate that way, I believe that the same efforts that we use to just build all of the apartments and to just make sure people the income based housing because you could have um where you're going to develop and you have town homes that are incomebased housing. If you're using

like brownfield funding, you have to have the 15% of housing that's going to allow you to home to house individuals. Um, so that's income based, but then you have where there's home ownership, so that multi- um multi-ousing. So I think just a lot of research and a lot of work it can be done and um whether whatever route we go with funding and goals on trying to house individuals it could be done with whatever however we and whatever funding we receive. So if you all could just do the research um and find various opportunities for us to um to look into that that would be awesome. move then to uh Commissioner Hodgej.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the presentation. Very thorough. This is the kind of stuff that I'd love for us to see here. Uh would you be able to talk a little bit about what you would recommend for us to do based on the specific examples that you gave us like you gave us a lot of good information for us to make a decision, but based on what you've seen uh in other places too. And as part of that, one of my questions is why um the case studies that you selected? What was it about the specific places that you picked that made it seem like this is an appropriate case study to be comparable to Washington County?

Yeah. So, it's less about whether or not it's like a comparable market and more about finding that combination of funding, ownership, and sort of governance that I was trying to describe. So, like I said, there's many ways that those things come together and there's ton of different trust funds, a ton of different public, private mission funds. there's tons of, you know, places that are just are are doing sort of the more traditional RFP process. They don't have dedicated funding, but they've got opportunities coming up. And sort of the um what we're trying to do is find opportunities that represent sort of like each of those specific sequence of sort of decisions that I that I laid out for you. So there there are many more and and we're happy to include more on any of them. So please, if if there's anything in particular that you want to see more of, just let us know. Um and we can show some different options. Um, in terms of the the first part, I mean, I I think there I think that in terms of the sort of overall climate that we're in, there's a lot of challenges right now and a lot of uncertainty around the availability of federal funding um going forward, especially when you start talking about funding for permanent supportive housing, homelessness services. Um, and there's I think a lot of local government and state government is interested in increasing their own resources to have more direct control over the issue. Um, and so, you know, I I won't make any specific recommendations now because we're not there yet in the in the process, but I think, you know, in talking to people throughout the ecosystem in Washington County and sort of looking at the the flow of funding, you know, having a dedicated revenue source through housing trust fund would have a lot of benefits um in terms of just being able to more consistently scale um what's happening and and offer more certainty for all the development partners. um and give give the county a you know more direct input

on what priorities you're actually addressing and you know be able to bring in additional capital from um philanthropies from private sector additional public funds the other thing I would say is that there are state programs that you know the county could leverage especially if there were some local funds to bring to the table and that's not even always necessary, but just having a a specific like, okay, these are the this is the population we really want to serve in the next two years or in the next five years or these are the two populations we really want to focus on just you know you know for example low-income families who make less than 50% of area median income as an example then you know that can say to Mishta at the state you know we're serious about addressing this what can we do with you what programs do you have that we can take advantage of to bring state dollars into county? So, that is one thing I would focus on. Um um but I think the question is really around is there funding available and if not um how can the RFP process now just become more targeted to really serve the populations that you want to serve. So, the housing trust fund seems like something that would be pretty reasonable for us to do and we're doing some element of that with um our millage related services for older adults specifically for them. One thing I'd be interested in if there's a case study of a place that's governed similarly to us where they made use or local governments wanted to participate and contribute to the housing trust fund too. Yeah, that's definitely um that is definitely a model and sometimes like sometimes you know local government brings some amount of funding to the table and then it's sort of distributed back out. It can be distributed back out based in part on how much funding is being contributed. So, you know, where projects are prioritized. Um but it doesn't have to be. Um, but that can be a great model

especially for a place like county where you have like a lot of individual communities that have local control who and with not a lot of ability to sort of coordinate regionally. Um, the the implementation on that can be challenging and just the the staff time and resources to coordinate that um can can be challenging but um it could be a good solution. Yeah. And we can include some case studies on that. Yeah. Thank you. appreciate your time. Go to uh Commissioner Robbie, then on to Scott and Bean.

Thank you, Chair. Appreciate that. I just um I have a few thoughts on all of this. Thank you for your presentation today. Appreciate your time and effort in rolling this out to us. I want to go back to some stuff that um Commissioner Light said. Um and her very first comment about um you know, being more focused on public ownership. I want to 100% underscore that uh and say that is 100% what's driving me in this conversation today is more publicly owned affordable housing. And uh there's a few reasons for that public ownership being important for me. One is uh that the minute you include the private sector in these discussions, the profit motive becomes a player. Um and what we're seeing is when prophets become involved in housing, housing which is a human right, it becomes a little bit more difficult um to make sure that you know tenants stay housed um and that uh housing is provided at an affordable rate when it's publicly owned. Uh we can make sure that uh it's held up to a better standard that people are able to stay in their homes. Uh and ultimately we can do more creative things is my opinion. And I just want to go back to what Commissioner Light was saying because I I think um you know I I hear what you're saying about, you know, there's some economies of scale with apartments and stuff like that. I agree. U but I do think that, you know, if you look at some, you know, statistics locally, uh there's an affordable housing complex that's going in downtown Ann Arbor. Each unit's about $660,000 to build. Um, there's a home that's being built behind me in my neighborhood in Ann Arbor, and the developer told me that their cost to build the home was $450. So, it's $200,000 difference for a single family home versus an apartment building. Now, I'm not necessarily advocating for us to just build more single family homes, but I'm just saying there are a plethora of opportunities that are cost-effective that I think we should be looking at. um you know duplexes, quadplexes, all of that should be in the picture. But with the underpinning um uh of wanting to make sure that we are providing just housing

to people that is allowing folks to build equity in in their housing stake. So I think rental is should be part of the equation. We should be considering that. But we should also be considering uh what we can do in partnership with creating cooperatives. One of the things that I've seen time and time again, we have a model in our community for co-ops. Federal government invested money to build co-ops. 40 years later, many of those co-ops got to vote, this was about 10 years ago now, to stay co-ops or to go private sector. If we maintain public land ownership and public involvement, then we can make sure that that is not a 40-year horizon for affordable housing. The public ownership piece is important to me because it maintains the permanence of that affordability and it maintains the stake that those residents have. uh with their elected officials and making sure that those properties are properly maintained and that they're able to stay in their homes. I do think another piece of this that we should be considering is part, you know, um building community land trusts again with the underpinning of using public land and maybe building some of these home ownership opportunities like Commissioner Light's talking about where the land is owned by the public in perpetuity, but the housing itself can be sold with some covenants and restrictions to ensure that the housing continues to be affordable. But that does build equity for the person buying the house. So I think that there's a lot of uh potential options and I think the focus should be on to me the focus should be on public ownership. I really do um you know appreciate the breadth with which you've approached this but I I will say that I would not support any you know obviously putting public dollars through private investment um or even the public private partnerships. You know those I know Commissioner Light was getting nauseous earlier. those make me nauseous. Uh and I think that there's good reason, there's good precedent uh for nausea around that issue. I think public ownership um is ultimately uh what you know what will ensure that this community has in 10, 50, 100 years

maintains a stake in that property and maintains um a stake in the belief that housing is a human right and that those people deserve to have a home and doesn't feed into the speculative market. And I just want to say too something that Commissioner Light was talking about that I totally agree with is you do often get that speculative uh piece when people start to be seen as sort of a commodity. You're just a rent payer and you know a lot of times these are just investment firms that come into our community, build these apartments, the money goes to Wall Street. day doesn't stay here locally and they're just seeing people as a commodity as a widget to mine and not necessarily as you know seeing it as the humanitarian purpose of housing somebody. Um so this is I'll get so that's my those are my thoughts for your um you know piece and I I guess I would just ask you know I get a little bit of history on this too like the genesis of this conversation came from this board table talking about creating a public housing commission. Um and I didn't see that really discussed too much in here. I mean, there was a few options that you put in there, but um creating a public housing commission, one of the other benefits that wasn't in your slideshow is that uh we, you know, public county does not need to follow local planning and zoning. We can build um our own stuff without having to go through the typical planning and zoning processes. We typically ask local planning and zoning for involvement, but we don't have to. And so it allows us to build more build different um build in places that does you know maybe don't have access to affordable housing because local authorities haven't wanted that but we can sort of push the envelope on those things as long as we maintain that public ownership. So that's really what I'm looking for I think and I will say when you're talking about funding you know that's the thing everybody's always like well it's going to cost more money. I want to remind this board that when I served and Andy uh Commissioner Lebar served, we were on the verge of bonding for almost $300

million to cover our um you know uh our viva and wor debt. So we have bonding capacity. We can build housing with our bonding capacity. And I want to remind folks too that like rent and whether we do the you know type of setup that Commissioner Light was talking about. you you you know you sell the home whether it's you know there's all these different setups co-ops and each of those generates revenue back to the county that could be used to pay these bonds back um above and beyond uh you know that and the beauty of it being government and not private sector is private sector usually seeks returns on a pretty short scale. public sector, you know, the bonding periods can be longer on the order of decades um to seek that, you know, repayment over that longer period of time and smoothing the arc so that we're not cost burdening, you know, the people living in our facilities in the immediate term. So, I I think we should think creatively with this stuff and really like to me there's a there is a dedication to public ownership um and I think we should, you know, look at all the tools that are available to us to accomplish that higher standard of public ownership. um using county resources.

Just a a few thoughts on that. I um the housing commission piece I think you know there's sort of two pathways that we mentioned in our presentation. One is increasing funding to the existing housing commissions and the second would be establishing um another housing commission and that you know that was in the section about the development entities and and who would actually carry out the work of developing and in some cases owning and operating the housing. I think on that point I mean there's there's degrees of public ownership. You know, there are plenty there are plenty of examples of uh cities and counties that invest significantly in affordable housing production and maintain an ownership stake or don't necessarily maintain ownership but um you know have you know legal agreements in place or um you know strong oversight over the affordability and there there are good reasons for that as well. So, um, the last thing I would just say, I just wanted to point out there is a bit of a tension between the idea of maintaining public ownership of land and building equity and home ownership. Um, one of the main things we see with community land trusts and other models like that is that it's the homeowners are not actually getting the benefit of the land value appreciation that everyone else has benefited from in the home ownership market. It's not necessarily the same thing as building equity in the way that home ownership is now and and maintaining public ownership of the land. Um, that's a tension. It's a real tension. It's not to say that it's good or bad, but it is not the silver bullet for equity building that it can sometimes be described as.

I think it's an important option to consider. And I guess I would just disagree in the sense that I think it can be an important equity building. And and equity building, the question is how much equity are you building? Doesn't have to be that you're making millions of dollars off of your property. It can be that you're walk at least walking away with something more than you walked in with. And yeah, you might not be making the same returns on your property as somebody who owns the land outright, but you also couldn't get into owning land outright with the resources that you have. So, we want to present an intermediary step for people to step into some type of equity building. Doesn't mean that they're going to stay in that house forever, but at least when they leave, they don't just get their money back. They get their money back plus something else. Even if it's just 3%. Even if it's just 2% 3% 4%, that's that's still better than nothing. And it's, you know, might not be as good as the 10% a year that, you know, somebody who owns property in Ann Arbor get, you know, whatever the numbers are, uh, depending on the year, but, um, but at least it's something that you get at the end at the end of it.

Great. Move to uh, Commissioner Scott. Thank you, Chair. Um, so I just want to, you can tell me if it's wrong, but looking at your report, this isn't this isn't talking about housing. just when we're talking about lowincome housing like or lowincome people, we're talking about the creep into middle income as well. Yeah. So, we're in our housing needs assessment piece, we're looking at the whole housing market. And so, the data you'll see in our digital report, which has much more than what I showed you, looks at the whole market. So, across the income spectrum, what's happening on the renter and home ownership side

and and yes, what we're seeing is that gap is moving up the income spectrum. Um, so it used to be, you know, more limited to, um, maybe up to 40 50% AMI. Now you're seeing sort of closer to 75% of area median income being impacted. Again, that is true pretty much everywhere that we work. Um, there's a lot of reasons for that. Um, the main reason being just under supply of homes for a very long time. Um, and and a lot of increased demand over the past five years due in part to the pandemic. um but it's moving up the income spectrum. But when we talk about um you know where the role of the county is there there are definitely options for county involvement in supporting more moderate income housing. Um I think that's not where the biggest need is right now. Um but it it does in terms of public dollars, you know, you can serve more households that way. So as you go up and down the income spectrum, it's always a question of how many households are you going to serve versus the resources available um and where where is the greatest need and what is the priority to address because there are different you know different types of needs. Um you know more moderate income options really do rely on those private sector partnerships because it usually involves maybe you know a tax baitment or um some sort of requirement to include you know 20% of units as affordable. Um and that's really being um that cost is really being borne by the private sector.

I mean that's I mean what I heard you saying too I mean also that what I hear from this and looking at the report is that like without intentional action here from say the county board of commissioners in this instance like without intentional action the market's going to underserve people who are essential to our community. Yeah. Yeah. And it is is underserving. Um and it is. Yeah. Thanks. Absolutely. [laughter] Again, this is not just going Yeah. the present tense. Um,

so I a question I have for you then is like what types of unit types are least likely to be built under current market conditions. And then I'm also just thinking too about how we think about housing in this country. Like I I look at those apartments and I don't think that doesn't mean that there's not ownership. My I have a really good friend who lives in Denmark. She lives in what we would call an apartment building. She owns her apartment. Yes. Uh I lived in Ireland. I lived in a a long row of houses that were attached. We owned our house, but it was attached to all the different houses. So there was some of that economy of scale that doesn't preclude people from thinking about ownership. So

yeah, and I I just want to clarify, I'm not making any statements in my presentation about the form of the house. There are many different forms, right? And that's really not the focus of this at all. There's a lot of

creativity and interesting ways that you can do this. And uh there are condos, there are co-ops, there this is not at all speaking to single versus multif family rental versus there's a lot of different options there. This is about really funding and financing and the the governance, you know, development and funding role of the county. So the physical form of the structure is there's there's sort of endless options there except for the point that I made about federal funding sources and other for funding sources that are targeting specific types of development. Um so that's just wanted to clarify that. Um and sorry the first question.

What which um what type unit types are least likely to so there there are two there are sort of three major ways that the public sector can intervene. There's tenants rights which helps keep people in their homes.

Um there's regulatory change so land use zoning building codes and then there's subsidy. And all three of those things are important. Generally, when we do a comprehensive housing plan, we're working across all three of those buckets. And when we talk about different income levels served, moderate income households, you're most likely to make impact there by changing the regulatory environment, which tends have to be done by local government through zoning code change um to allow for more homes to be built. You know, the markets should be delivering homes for moderate income households um and will if it's not extremely constrained by regulation, which it is almost everywhere. Um so we we talk about that as the way that the public sector can help um um encourage the market to build more homes at moderate income levels. The market is not the private sector is not going to build homes for low-income households. They cannot be built at that price point with the return requirements the private sector has. It costs too much to build. Um and people don't make enough. um many many people in our economy do not make enough to afford just the baseline of what it costs to build homes regardless of the construction technology that you're using. And so when we focus on subsidy, we really focus on where is the market just not going to deliver homes no matter what. Even if you change the zoning to allow for more flexible home types, for higher density, things like that, that tends to be like 60% AMI and below. Um, in some markets it's much higher than that in really really constrained markets, but tends to be around 60% AMI and below. It also tends to be larger units for families,

lower income families who need, you know, two, three, four bedrooms. Um, so much need. Yeah. And there's a lot of need there and that's not that's not going to be built um without some sort of um subsidy. And so that's where we tend to try to focus that piece. But the the comprehensive approach is important.

Okay, that's helpful. I mean, I had a question that's a much larger question that I think we can continue about recommendations requiring county funding versus regulatory or versus policy change, but that's a much bigger question. Um, and I think Commissioner Robbie addressed a little bit about some parts of this analysis and how it aligns or conflicts with municipal or comprehensive plans and you also just touched on that and how if the county has some of that how you know obviously we want to work in partnership but the exemptions we have and and things like that. I will say one thing that the county so in terms of the role of the county versus local government like the county can also help set priorities and try to get everyone rowing in the same direction.

We can try. So, it's that's easier said than done, but there is something to be said about having a clear direction and and sending the message like this this is um this is what we want to see happen and um if there are barriers to that, you know, let's talk about it. Um there are some technical assistance programs that can work well for helping local government change their zoning requirements uh to help them assess their need, all sorts of things, grants. um and then you know offering you know funding es and potentially even if it's matched with local funding or there's a local contribution. So there are ways that the county can lead in set direction and be potentially be a funer although not necessarily um that can be beneficial for local government because this is a regional problem and everyone's acting individually and that's very hard to overcome. Yeah, I have other questions about where people go when they leave here, etc., etc., but I'm going to stop asking so many questions, but I mean, I will note that a a few months ago, Chris, Commissioner Light told me about some apartment building that was for sale, and I was like, uh, like I said, I wish we had a real estate fund in a sense where we could snap up those things to think about how we could do it. And I think what you're talking about in this plan allows for ideas like that to be part of this. Um, We call that a preservation fund.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because one of the first things to you got to that that I was like that I was making a note on, I was like I noted this conversation is only looking toward production and the only solutions like that went away from preservation or stabilized or tenant protections, but then you got to that. So I appreciate the comprehensive plan. I'll stop asking questions. I will tell you I also love your presentation style. You're very calm and knowledgeable and so thank you. Thanks. Appreciate that. going to go to uh Peman then Somerville I've got a little input and then anybody remaining please let me know.

Thank you chair and thank you so much for this presentation just or a little bit of background. I used to work for a real estate mogul so this is very very prevalent for me. Um and I've been asking for a very long time for what I call a portfolio review of what we have within the community available. Thank you so much for bringing all of that forward low to high. That's deeply appreciated. Um, one piece when we're looking and you leaned into this a little bit as these federal funding trends, I had been very eager for some USDA funds that were available to rural parts, those are going away or limited, I should say. Don't have the correct terminology. not as uh prevalent I'll say I'll say as they used to be. Um and what we're seeing having a real estate mogul as our president is the funds are going to these private partnerships. We're seeing the funds going to developers. At least what I've been tracking um as I've been trying to keep my finger in this pot. uh that seems to be the space where many are headed. Do you a see that in your work? And I don't mean to put you on the spot here, but I'll follow up with that. B are you seeing those being beneficial? because there's obviously two sides to the coin as as um Commissioner Robbie was saying having that private investment and gives up certain controls, certain ownership, all all different types of things that need to be thought of through the process if you were to create that type of a partnership. But just, you know, curious about that because there are true impacts like there I was looking at

an old study um that shows 100 affordable rental um creates 1.11.7 million in local income, 2.2 million in taxes and other revenue, 161 jobs during construction. So there is in as we invest investment comes back to the community. Um but just again really curious is to see that public private partnership side.

Yeah. Um so on the federal funding question I think we don't really know yet. Um I think what we do know is that there's definitely there have been changes in the requirements for funding for homeless services and permanent supportive housing in particular. And that's where I think the biggest risk is. Um the low-inccome housing tax credit um has been the largest producer of affordable homes across the country by far and is fortunately pretty has pretty bipartisan support in Congress and um you know there are changes that can happen there but actually the changes that have happened have have been somewhat beneficial so far in terms of the amount of funding that developers can use. So we don't really know yet. I would say for the lowest incomes and for permanent supportive housing there's definitely you know that funding is is not very secure I would say um you know home funds are important CDBG funds are important um I also will say that there is there is a I would say national growing recognition of the housing crisis and the need for funding and also the need for regulatory change and Um, so that's that's positive in the sense that I think there's like awareness amongst elected officials that that that we probably shouldn't scale significantly back our investments. But um, but local funding is has been important for a long time and is will continue to be important. Um, and there there benefits to all types of development. I don't, you know, I I tend to try to steer away from pitting like renter versus owner and and things like that because, you know, there are different benefits and different needs for different housing types. I think you need a lot of different types of housings to support people at different life phases. You know, all these buildings, unless they have a tax treatment, generate tax revenue. It's not just homeowners that generate tax revenue. Building owner,

multif family building owners pay property taxes oftentimes. So, uh, it's not that these buildings are coming in and just using resources and then not giving back to the community. Um, so I just want to clarify that. Can I just follow? Sorry, I had one part of the question. Um, in terms of any have you seen any case studies recently of those public private partnerships that were successful or is

funds? Yeah. Okay. I mean the other thing I would just say is like in terms of missiondriven funds like not all the private sector is profit motivated. There are you know many nonprofits that are involved and also mission driven funds that have very low patient return requirements over time. Um I'll point to one the Amazon Housing Equity Fund that we is our client. Um, so I won't go into detail, but they have very low return requirements, patient capital, and have spurred the production of over 20,000 affordable units in the past couple of years. Um, so those funding sources can be important, too. Go to uh, Commissioner Somerville.

Thank you. Um, yeah, I think a few of my colleagues have brought up just their desire around seeing more pathways to home ownership. And I think I'm definitely of the like it can be a lot of different types of housing. Um, even like a traditional like eightstory what would be viewed as an apartment complex, but actually like make those condos so you can own them. Um, I personally never want a yard. Um, so and I think there's a lot of people who don't really need that or want that. And so I think keeping um an open mind to different styles of housing that we can build at affordable levels for home ownership. Um in my district prior to my time on the board, the board of commissioners supported investments in Dorsia estates, which is it is a public private partnership, but it's really allowed unique pathways to home ownership for people who are very low income. And so um folks be are able to use their um vouchers towards their mortgages. And so like that for like it's incredible that that was even possible, but I know that it was um it was a challenge to pull that off. Um I think if we want to be able to do more of that, which I really hope we do because there's different parts of the county um where there are people who are low income, but they're like the opportunities for them to purchase homes that they can afford are just like not like existent at this point. And so the only way to be able to provide people options to either downsize into something more affordable is to do something more like I mean when I think of and I don't know if you've looked into Dorsy Estates and you know the research that you've done yet but to me it's kind of like a land trust. The the property was owned by the city of Absilani. Um, and because of all the the incentives, um, and the way that the funding formula works, like people will be able to grow on the affordable side of it, people

will be able to gain some equity, but we actually I was on city council at the time and we did deed restrict those um to keep them permanently affordable. And so the the units that were set aside at like 40 60 and 80% AMI like 20 years down the road if that person wants to sell it'll be the difference between what that amount is like I guess in 20 whatever that was 2022 versus say 2042 which is weird to think about. Um, but we we got some push back from colleagues when we did that. But it to me, like kind of how I talked myself into why it was good was because like the person will still be able to gain some equity, but it'll guarantee that like this public like these public dollars that we're putting into it would still long-term protect the affordability aspect. And I think it depends on how you look at it. Um, I'm more of the like let's socialize housing with public resources, not help a bunch of developers get rich. I know that they have to be part of it in some cases, right? Like a lot of the cool um and increase in affordable housing that we've seen unfortunately has come from that. And I don't love that, but it's also one of those like realities that we're working with right now. So, I would like to see more um like I would like to see the county, if possible, to be able to do some of these creative things that are more socialized housing flavor. Um, I also wanted to just highlight and I don't know if this has been discussed yet in some of the research that you've been gathering, but when we approved the framework for the older person's millage, we set aside money for housing trust because one of the issues that we see across the country is that as people are aging because the cost of housing and the way that state taxes work in Michigan, it's just like it's more affordable for them to stay in their huge house than actually downsize into something that might be better for them, more safe um

and free up housing for other people who that house, you know. So, we're trying to think of ways that we can help um facilitate better housing options for people at that age in Washington County. Um and so that's just I just wanted to put that out there. Um I can't remember the exact amount. It was somewhere around like three was it a percentage? I can't remember, but it was significant enough where over a number of years it'll build up if we are very like structured around like what we want to do with it. Um, and then the other point that I want to make, and I don't know if this has been something you've considered, but I hope it will be something that maybe makes it into like a final product. One of the biggest frustrations I have and and especially in my district, we had a lot of old housing stock, a lot of like projects that probably were pilots um at one point. So they got a huge tax incentive and then as soon as it wasn't um in that time like the 2015 20 year um they go back like either go to market rate in one in particular I mean there's an area in my district where there over hundred apartments that have been condemned and those folks are all displaced and that's like honestly like there's multiple in my district in in just my district alone and something similar has recently happened in Commissioner Bean's district and so Um, I don't know like if there's a way to adequately assess like what the cost and how government could get more involved in like making sure we can either like sustain or take over. Like if the like if we could build up a fund to be able to take over some of these properties that private companies and private equity firms are buying and just not doing any upkeep on. Um, for for a unit to get condemned, it has to be really bad. And so for multiple like hundreds of units in one site to get condemned, I mean it's pretty awful. And over the last year, I've tried having faith in like, okay, this is going to work its way through the court process.

But now at the end of this month, like dozens of people in my district are being forced out of their units because even after a year of fighting it in court, the property owners, like the laws just don't protect the actual people. And so um in these private situations where there's private um ownership of these multi-unit apartment complex. So anyways, that's a lot. Um, but we have a lot of really bad property owners in this country and in particular county and it sucks and I don't know what the right answer is, but if there's a way for us to like take a hold like and and work with all of our local partners like some of this gets out of control because it's my opinion based on what I know that like local units of government do not have the capacity um to fully stay on top of all of these multi-unit apartment buildings. And so once they finally do, it is so bad and egregious. And so there's got to be a way for us to get ahead and hold these people more accountable and if they don't um there are mechanisms in state law where we could we could make them accountable through the tax process and then it would you know then the county could actually take control of it and either flip it to like a nonprofit partner for redevelopment or not. But I would like to see us do more of that because my fear is that these private equity firms continue to get away with really like illegal housing practices. So, thank you. Uh, a few quick comments. I'll try to make them quick. Uh, 20 years ago as a congressional staffer and we worked for nearly 10 years on the old Park View, now Hamilton crossing uh in Ipsellani. It took two acts of Congress and two presidential administrations to get funding to rehabilitate that um you know that site. Um I served in 2011 and 2012 on the Ann Housing Commission. The only thing of substance I did there was to help hire Jen Hall, who I I think has

done a fantastic job there. But my point in saying these things is I'm really nervous about anything that requires long-term large trusts to be placed in the federal government. And so I'm open to lots of different solutions here. And I do think the aspirational view that folks like Commissioner Robbie and Light and others have talked about, what Commissioner Somerville just mentioned in terms of socializing housing, I do think you have to treat it with that scope and that grandeur in terms of how long you're thinking about it. Um, but I'm I'm really nervous about relying at all on on the feds. And so I'd be interested in any bold ideas you have about other options to acrue and manage large amounts of money. um that that might be necessary or needed. Um I really appreciate the work you've you've you've done on this. It's it's quite thoughtful and helpful. Thank you. Um this is a good time just to remind folks um this is a good long-term uh issue that we're trying to address and that we need to address. Unfortunately, we have uh a an immediate crisis and homelessness uh that we're also going to have to grapple with in a few weeks here at at work session. And so um reentering on that I I think is is helpful. And towards that end, it would be really helpful to get some way or some suggestion terms of how we can garner input from the people in this community that want to stay in and of the community in terms of what they would like. My my hunch is that they would say work on that lowest rung in terms of um economic capacity and build up and out from there. But you know maybe that runs contrary to what you've seen in other parts of the country or um you know your your uh experience around the country. Uh but I'd love to get that

input because I think um a commonality around this table is we want to do the right things to ensure that more people can be here, live here, prosper here, and afford to do it. And so I I I suspect that most of us would want to start on that um that most ground level and build up. So um I I've got Thank you, by the way, for listening to me. Um, I've got Thank you, Justin. Um, I've got Commissioner Robbie, then Somerville.

Thank you, Chair. [clears throat] Uh, just a few things I wanted to say, you know, based on some of the comments that were made. Just want to put my thoughts out there, you know, for your consideration on full display. Um, I know that, um, some of the things that were mentioned, I just want to say like I I I truly believe that the sort of like neoliberal deregulation approach to housing is not working. Um, that's something that's been tried and it's in my opinion failing. Uh, it is causing the price of housing to actually go up. Regulations are actually many times important. I'm not saying always, but many times regulations are important. EPA is a whole bunch of regulations. Those are important. Those protect us and and they protect our environment from corporate actors. So sometimes regulations are good and the approach to just say let's cut all the red tape and let the developers do whatever they want. That doesn't work for me. So I just wanted to make sure I say that out loud. The other thing I wanted to say is um I I don't know if your client is actually affiliated with Amazon. It kind of sounded like they were, but uh I just I know that Amazon has a housing uh fund as well. And I I just I just want to say I hear what you're saying on like some corporate, you know, some corporate actors or you know, private um sector aren't looking to generate as much revenue. Man, it why doesn't Amazon use this money to pay their their workers the enough money to actually afford the housing that they're living? Like I mean to me it's like they can take their charity and shove it up their ass as far as I'm concerned because really what what I'm talking about with the public housing piece is is not this isn't charity. This is solidarity with our community to build the housing that people can live in. I don't want Jeff Bezos to dump a bunch of money on our I'm not saying that you're proposing that but I'm just saying you know that's why I sort of bristle when we're talking about these public private partnerships and we're talking about private sector there is a profit motive involved they are trying to wash their hands of the public image that they have of abusing their workers which is a very true image and instead of just actually paying their workers enough money to afford this housing they're you know spreading

the money around so I just want to make sure that you know I'm very clear and I think you've gotten this from me now I believe in social housing I believe in public ownership ship of housing. That's what we need to be investing in. We will save ourselves. We the community will save ourselves from the grassroots up. And it's not going to come from Wall Street. It's not going to come from Jeff Bezos certainly or Elon Musk. It's going to come from the community. Yeah. Just to clarify, I'm not I'm not suggesting that you ask corporations to invest in your housing stock. Just to clarify. Uh Commissioner Somerville,

thank you. Um, one thing that I meant to say just in the context of like the bigger picture, um, we have talked and and been working through some of the gaps in our short-term and rapid rehousing and emergency shelter system. Um, one of the things that I think is hard to navigate because not everybody either wants to accept or understand why people are choosing or maybe I would choosing is hard to say. I think there are reasons why there are people in our community that are choose that that are not accessing I don't want to say not choosing that are not accessing um the congregate spaces that we have and there are a lot of reasons and I feel like they make sense to me because there are many people that are homeless who are very vulnerable for yeah various reasons and what the settings that they benefit the most in are places that they feel safe by themselves not in a congregate setting So, I also think that as we work through the bigger picture and housing in the county, we should figure out alternatives to just thinking congregate shelter for short-term shelter. Other countries have way better shelter systems than we do in America. And I I feel like in Washington County, we could actually do something way better than what we ever have where we have micro apartments for people in the short-term homelessness space. And it would actually in my I just think it would stabilize them just more long term once they're if we build you know if we're part of building more affordable housing well somebody who's coming out of a major crisis and getting back on their feet and somebody who may not be able to um there are a lot of people who have limitations and if you are receiving like benefits um for like disability it doesn't cover the cost of what even affordable housing is in this county

because the average AMI is super high because of the wealth inequality that uh the way that people's income in Ann Arbor represents kind of like plays out across the county. And so some of the AMI amounts that you see for Ipsilani are really like thrown off. So anyways, I'm just throwing that into the picture because there is a huge population of people who um need like more short-term crisis response for their housing situation and a congregate space is in many ways traumatizing them more. And so I just think that that should be part of it. I would love to see us do something where we have um a shelter system with micro units like other countries do.

Sure. Um, we're a little over on time, but we got just a few more questions. Uh, I'm going to go to, uh, Commissioner Light at this time.

I just also wanted to add, um, for us to remember, it seems like we're always just counting on Ipsellani and Ann Arbor. Washington County is huge. Uh, and we focus on Ann Arbor and Ipsellani um, all of the time. Uh I am in the northeast portion of the county. Uh and we need to introduce um individuals and it may help a lot of individuals that are homeless and who have been through crisis and substance abuse to be out in a space um where they can have um the goodness and the the the beautifulness of more rural light um to to sustain them. So I just always hear Ann Arbor Iani and we have to think beyond just the the borders of Ann Arbor Iani and I think we failed to do that in a lot of research that we do when we think about housing um just in general. Um, so let's make sure um that we look over into our rural districts um because Manchester and all of the all of the areas we're out there and they're left alone and there are um ways that we can keep the agriculture and keep um our farming and ranching as it is, but we can grow those communities and that could be um wealth in itself. So please just make sure um that we are looking past just Ann Arbor and Ipsellani.

Um Kisher Mashi or Sanders uh want to afford you an opportunity now. If not uh we'll we'll wrap up. I appreciate the presentation. I I I I think I'll just say that I've been saying since the first term, I I'm really sick of us kicking this can down the road. I think it's time to bleep or get off the pot. Mr. Mash, she ask you if you could explain what bleep means. What is

Thank you, Chair. Um, I will just echo what Commissioner Light said that there are a lot of challenges across the entire county when it comes to housing. I appreciate the all of the in-depth information that you've been working on. I look forward to the final report as well. Um, you know, certainly in Dexter and in Chelsea and South Township, we have issues of people that work in our community that can't afford to to live there. Um, period. uh and as we move forward towards hopefully some action and solutions in the near future um those issues um can be addressed so that people that are part of our community can actually live there. So thank you for your time this evening Wickham. Thank you for your your time, your presentation. We appreciate it and we'll uh look forward to hearing from you and Andrew more on this in the in the future. Thank you.

Okay. So, we'll move now uh to item six, which is items for current future discussion. Okay, a few quick things. I do want to note the next working session. Technically, it's listed as the fourth on here, but remember we are having it uh next week as well, the 28th. We've got the community priorities fund and then on the 4th, we'll have the HUD uh uh the HUD cuts plan. So, just just to flag, I know working session is a is a popular uh topic here in the community. Any other uh uh items for current or future discussion? Okay, before we do, two quick things. One, it's a it's a full house out there in the lobby, so just be aware. And two, chair, what what time do you want to recongregate here to begin the full board meeting, which I suspect some of these folks may uh be here for? 720. Okay. Could I uh get a motion to adjourn? Support. Great. All those in favor? We are journ. We'll see you at 7:20.

No, it's not. It's technology. It's not me. Trust me. Are we okay? Can I keep going? Okay. Um, I will tell you, I think a lot of you are here to talk about that ICE resolution. I think we we've got copies of it that we've handed. I can't speak entirely confidently ever till there's a vote, but I do not anticipate a problem with this passing this board of commissioners this evening. Um yeah. [laughter]

Um I uh and so I'm grateful to a community that comes out to support that too because there is something about um passing resolutions like this when we see what's happening in Minnesota. So thank you for being here everyone. Um, with that, uh, I will start, uh, commissioner, uh, or public participation. Also, just if you're, if it's your first time here, you might make like really lovely points that we all agree with. We we don't respond to the end of public comment. So, all the public comment happens first and then there's a commissioner response. It's not that we are like, meh, we probably think you're fantastic. We just can't respond to the end. Um, okay. Public participation, three minutes. Please state your name and the city or township from which you come.

Uh unmute on your microphone. Ashley's going to help you. There you go. Okay, we got you. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening. My name is Richard Staler Schul. I'm a 28-year resident of Washington County and professor emeritus at EMU. And I'm here tonight as an advocate with Mera, the movement for immigrant uh rights action to support the resolution against the violent, abusive, and illegal tactics of federal immigration agents in our county. Uh last year, 32 people died in ICE custody nationally, a pattern that continues with the brutal murder of unarmed observer Renee Good two weeks ago in Minneapolis. And in that same city, ICE just broke into the home of a US citizen and arrested him, dragging him out in handcuffs, in his underwear, in the freezing cold. Nobody is safe from these roving bands of armed federal thugs who cover their faces to evade accountability, break into our homes and cars, endanger children, and abduct people without obtaining judicial warrants. The 11th Airborne Division is revving attentions right now, waiting for the president's declaration of martial law. Right here in our county where one in eight people are immigrants, ICE kidnaps our neighbors from our streets every week. They have disappeared over 2,300 people in Michigan in the last year. Many whis off to black holes such as the North Lake Detention Center in Baldwin, Michigan, a private prison owned by the Geo Group with a long history of abuse. Our elected officials have a duty to protect the people. Mirror supports a county resolution and policy opposing the use of face masks by the secret police and refusing to cooperate with ICE or allow them access to county buildings or facilities without a valent warrant signed by a federal judge. Resistance to authoritarianism starts locally. Some will say the feds we can't stop the feds and that we don't want to call attention to ourselves, but we're all in their gun sites already and tyranny can't be stopped through appeasement. Chicago and other local governments have already stood up and passed measures against complicity with ICE while the lawyers work on a policy that reflects

the legalities. We urge the commissioners to pass a strong resolution based on morality. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. whose birthday in spirit we just celebrated urged us not to be that person who is quote more devoted to order than to justice who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice. who constantly says, "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action." The time to act is now. We appreciate the support of the commissioners and the community. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Maryanne Peron, longtime resident of Ann Arbor and uh a member of Meera in Washington Congregational Sanctuary. I'm here tonight to thank the board for putting on your agenda what we call ice free zones resolution that says we oppose the use of county buildings and face coverings by ICE and Border Patrol and anybody else uh in their domain when they are in our county. Please pass the resolution tonight. Passing this resolution tonight means standing up for immigrants, for people of color, and for the allies in Washington County, all of whom are resisting the cruel and unusual ICE enforcement here and throughout our country. Passing the resolution is a moral act in a time of rampant immorality on the part of the federal government. I have a lot to say, but I'm going to bring some other voices here tonight. So, two posts by people in county this week that caught my attention. Here's the first. Hello, I'm a brown person. I'm here legally, but the current situation scared me so much I'm having panic attacks, not sleeping well, and shaking all day long. What scared me is what happens in the middle. Let's say ICE sees me. What are they going to do in the time it takes them to see I'm legal? I have seen that they don't ask questions. They are aggressive and I get nervous easily and don't respond the best. I don't know what to expect from this post really. I'm just so scared for my family and me. It feels like it's okay to be racist and even prized. The second one, as an American white woman, I am also scared. I don't want my friends, neighbors, or family being

harassed, attacked, or disappeared, or killed. Or myself just for defending someone's legal rights against the tyranny that's growing more and more every day. It's terrifying that people are now at risk of being attacked for wanting others to be fe treated fairly, kindly, and legally. Again, these voices come from county residents. That's how many people are feeling. Neither of these people are undocumented immigrants. One is a person of color, the other identifies as white. ISIS actions are affecting anyone and everyone in our county, making all of us vulnerable to random enforcement, often cruel and illegal, sometimes fatal, and always fearinducing. We need to take a stand now, a courageous and bold stand. It's bad enough. And if we think it won't get much worse here, we only have to look to Minneapolis St. Paul. across the nation. We have to say no to cooperating with ICE in any way. Let us as county take a stand now, go on the record, say that we will do all we can to create and maintain safe spaces for everyone in our county, especially the most vulnerable among us.

Please vote yes on the resolution to establish ice free zones in Washington County buildings, properties, and program areas. Thank you.

Thank you. Laura Sanders, Dexter Township. Commissioner Masajuski, um, as you know, my spouse Romero and I live in your district. Last Thursday, the Dexter Township Hall filled with residents to discuss the devastating public health effects of immigration enforcement on everyone. 43 people showed up for this conversation. I can assure you that the majority of township residents would like to see you support the ICE-Free Zone resolution being proposed tonight. We personally ask you for your support. Commissioner Hajj, I own a small home in Ipsellani Township and my daughter is living in it in your district. You are also my colleague at the University of Michigan School of Social Work, a fellow instructor. And as a social worker and advocate, I know you understand the dire need to be proactive in the face of social injustice. I personally ask for your support of the ice-free zone resolution. Commissioner Scott, I have emailed you several times about this resolution, and I trust that you are a champion of immigrant rights and justice for all county residents, as you demonstrated in your strong resolve not to share county ID data with ICE in response to their threatening subpoena. We ask that you again take a brave stance on behalf of the ICE-free zone resolution. Commissioners Labar and Light, I remember you visited our farm in the summer of 2023 to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Interfaith Coalition for immigrant rights. We knew you we knew then that you were both strong

supporters of immigrant of our immigrant community. We ask that you please courageously vote yes um to establish county as an ice-free zone. Commissioner Somerville, I remember when you played This Land Is Your Land um at the rousing meeting where you all pledged your resolve to protect our immigrant community by opposing turning over Washington ID records to ICE. We ask that you further your support by ensuring the county that county is truly safe and a supportive land for all. Commissioner Beaman, I don't know you as well, but I know you are looking out for our rural residents in Washington County, as am I in Dexter Township. And you know that when one group is the target of cruelty, we can all and have all become targets, as evidenced by the murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis. We ask that you please support the people's ice free zone resolution. Commissioner Sanders, I wish I knew you better and we share a last name. Uh, leaving me very curious. You don't know me, but I have heard you speak several times and I am sure your commitment Oh, dear.

Oh, dear. Sorry, Commissioner Sanders. I'm sure your commitment to our immigrant community is solid. Please vote yes to support the icefree zone policy. Thank you, Laura. That's time. Commissioner Robbie, last Commissioner Robbie, but that's time,

please. Last last moment. Um, I know you I've known you for many years since you were young and went to Quaker meeting, and you are a powerful leader. I would like to personally thank you for your listening, hearing, and stepping up to take courageous action to help us craft the ICE-Free Zone resolution. Your unwavering support for immigrant rights and the rights of all marginalized people is a magnificent asset to our county and we hope to see a unanimous vote tonight. The time is now. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm really honored to f to follow my longtime friend Laura Sanders and I yield my time to her. I won't take three minutes. So, um I'm I read the resolution and I'm confident that almost everybody in this in this room, especially around this table, supports it. However, I don't think it goes far enough. uh Miss Good who was shot in the face and murdered for witnessing. That could have been me and I think that's coming. We have potentially three more years of this terror and I've been watching what they're doing. ICE is staging in parking lots, parks, and so on, not just buildings. The resolution, I believe, just says Washna County buildings. Can you please extend that to all Washington County properties including our parks, our parking lots and so on because as a longtime community activist and supporter here working for a lot of causes, I don't want to be murdered while protesting. Previously, I supported a lot of other protesting efforts. I don't think our people of color, black people should have been harassed while driving. I don't want to be murdered while protesting and speaking my mind. So, please expand it if you can possibly legally include all county facilities. Thank you. Hello, my name is Elise Napier. I live in Ann Arbor and I've been a nurse innoc county for 15 years. I'm here to urge passage of the resolution that opposes requiring documentary proof of

citizenship each time one registers to vote. Outofate interests are circulating petitions that warn of invented voter fraud, but really seek to disenfranchise voters. I took my husband's last name in marriage, and it never occurred to me that I would have to dig out my birth certificate and marriage license every time I move and need to register. Nearly 700,000 Bishaganders can't access these documents, which can cost more than $100 if you need to replace them. Requiring documentary proof each time someone registers would make it more difficult for married women, overseas, and military voters, student, rural voters, and voters with disabilities, and lowincome voters to participate in our elections. Let's protect free and fair elections, and keep these outofstate scaremongers out of Michigan's ballots box. Hello, my name is Don Keech. I live on West Cross Street in Ipsellani. It's been over two weeks since we had a law enforcement operation take over our neighborhood, leaving much of our um much of us shocked, saddened, and disturbed by the escalation of tactics that tortured a human and destroyed a home. First, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the board of commissioners for the leadership that you have shown in asking for charges against Ruben Peeler to be dropped. Before law enforcement arrived that day, Ruben had not committed a crime. By the time they left, he had committed eight felonies. When law enforcement creates a scenario where a crime is inevitable, I find it morally questionable to then punish that person for doing exactly what the scenario made unavoidable. I understand that this operation is still under investigation. However, I am frustrated by some of the answers I've

heard combined with the lack of answers provided. Some of these questions are standard chain of command questions. For instance, when Metro SWAT is engaged, who has jurisdiction over the scene? I searched through the WCSO procedures and the only thing I was able to confirm is that Metro SWAT is led by a WCSO lieutenant. The generally published engagement plan indicated when a high-risisk situation arises, local agencies request the Metro SWAT team for coordinated response, specific tactical decisions are made by the SWAT team leadership during the operation. These teams fall under the broader public services division of the sheriff's office, ultimately overseen by the sheriff and the under sheriff. If that is inaccurate, the WCSO policies governing Metro SWAT should be updated. But currently, this is what I understand to be true. Comments from the WCSO to the public have subject have suggested that once SWAT is called in, there are limited opportunities to influence their approach. I find this answer lacks leadership, lacks accountability, and conflicts with the information published on the WCSO's own website. The remaining questions I have are directed to all of the law enforcement agencies that descended on my street those two days. Are you proud of how this turned out? Do you look at the house you destroyed and the lives you have ended and think, "We did a good job. We protected the community." Who actually benefited from your actions? So far, the only human response I've heard has been from YPD Chief Anderson. It was unprompted and sincere, apologizing for the impact and striving to repair any of the pieces that are broken on his end. I was personally grateful to hear that over the circular spin I've otherwise heard. I would argue that everyone who was impacted by the events is worse off now than they were before law enforcement showed up. And this includes the law enforcement agencies themselves who alienated a

group of citizens who would now think twice before calling them for help. My ask remains the same. Our community deserves clear answers, real accountability, and meaningful reform. What happened on January 4th and 5th must be examined honestly and the outcome must not be normalized or excused because if this level of force destruction and human harm can be explained away as procedure then the problem is not a single operation it is the system that allowed it.

Thank you. Hello, commissioners. My name is Samantha Danick. Um, I'm here with my husband, Brian Danick. We are residents of Webster Township and the owners of the home on West Cross Street that was subjected to a 30-hour militarized response to a mental health crisis, the torture of our friend Ruben, and the destruction of the home that I purchased for my mother. You have seen the headlines and watched the videos. You've heard the advocacy. I hope you have. Now, I need you to see us. Not a property owner, not a story, a person. My family, my mom moved here from Texas and called Michigan home. They were migrant workers and they traveled across Michigan calling they traveled across Michigan ultimately calling Ipsani home. As the oldest, I taking care of my family was never a question. It was just what I did. I put myself through college because I knew it was the only way to give myself a fighting chance to change the narrative for my family. I wanted to provide my four children with opportunities we never had. My brothers and I are close in a way that only hardships can make you. And I have a husband that supports me unconditionally that knows I have to support my family. We've weathered a lot together. My mom is disabled and she has always needed more support than the measly government assistance that she has been provided. So, my brothers and I became that support. We will always take care of each other. This is who we are. Three years ago, we bought a house for my my mom in a home in Normal Park where she could be safe and settled. It was the best day of my life. Ruben, our

upstairs tenant, had lived there for over seven years. We had no plans to have a tenant, but he came became quickly a part of our family. He looked after my mom. He handed out Halloween candy with my kids, and they drew pictures for him that remain on his walls today. When Reuben started struggling, we sported him financially for months, as long as we could, hoping things would change. I found services that he qualified for, but he had no interest whatsoever. He was very skeptical of the system. It was heartbreaking. My mom never gave up on him. Even when he stopped talking to us, she cooked him meals and left him at his door. She urged him to seek services and to keep trying. That's who my mother is. She gives everything she had. When things escalated that night, I told my mom to leave. She refused. She stayed because she wanted to tell the officers what was happening. that Ruben was speaking incoherently, that he was trying to break into her apartment. She was scared and but she stayed anyways because she wanted them to know who he was so he didn't get hurt. And now she has nothing. Her renters's insurance was denied. My mother is sleeping at my grandmother's couch. The water damage and the excessive chemicals used. Everything is a total loss. The structural damage is oh, obscene. We don't even know if our house will collapse. Our kids who spend so much time with her who would gladly leave our house and live with their grandma, too. They are hurting. She is just that special. She has been lost in this story. She did the right thing. She lost everything. As a daughter, watching her blame herself is heartbreaking. I am angry. I worked my entire life to build something saved for years so I could give my mom a safe place to live. I did what a family is supposed to do. I took care of them and in 30 hours it was

taken from me. Is I am not asking you to feel sorry for us. I'm asking you to see me to see us to understand that your decisions have real consequences for real families. And we are counting on you to do better. Thank you. Thank you, commissioners. Brian Danick, obviously I have a wonderful wife, property owner of West Cross as well, resident Webster Township in in Dexter. This was a horrific event with nobody won. Everybody lost out. Everybody. I'm going to paint a picture for you. I was back and forth at the scene. It's a surreal scene. Wanting to vomit all the tactics that are taking place. We got responsibilities. Got to take care of kids. We still got to go back and forth. Get to call 11:30. You can come to the house now. Well, this was a a tactical war zone in my opinion. Get there. One police officer pitch black handed a manila folder. Here's the chemicals that we're using in your house. You can go board it up now. Unacceptable. Completely unacceptable. Go in the house. I have to borrow the officer's flashlight. Obviously, there's no power, no heat, water everywhere. Have to get oxygen and medication for Sam's mom. Enter the room with my brother-in-laws. Both of us, both of them, and myself. grabbed the oxygen, grabbed the medication. The plaster wall, the ceiling collapsed as soon as we left the room. Completely unacceptable. No

support. Go do it yourself. Oh, you you can't board it up. We'll call Belffor you and we'll we'll bill you. Thank you. This is complete darkness. Oh, but I have the chemicals to list. Tear gas. Can't breathe and still taste them to this moment. This was horrific and I'm upset. It impacted something we were very proud of. We're not, you know, we're not real estate agents and trying to get rich of on rental properties. We bought a house for my mother-in-law, Sam's mom. Met a wonderful gentleman, Ruben, that we did have a a a good relationship with. I'm saddened. I'm hurt. Do not leave us in the dark here. I keep hearing over and over about government immunity, qualified immunity. Every lawyer is going to tell you to hide behind that. Don't. Please don't. Do not leave us in the dark. We have already been through that and I can still taste the tear gas. So, thank you for your time. Thank you for your consideration. Have a good evening. My name is Jessica Przinski. I'm an Ann Arbor resident and member of Workers Strike Back and I'm here to speak in support of denying ICE access to resources in any municipal building or any place in Washington County tonight. It's the bare minimum of what is needed right now. We have to go beyond non-ooperation to outright defiance against the taking of our neighbors by ICE. The failure of this commission to hold the line several months ago on turning over the county's employment records to DHS was shameful. I don't care what your

lawyer said. ICE is murdering citizens and non-citizens alike with the support of the federal government. We have to demand much more of political leaders. An elected position should be used first and foremost as a platform to call for defiance and mass action to raise the level of struggle. At this point, putting our energy into trying to remake the Democratic Party into this is a failed project. We need a national strategy to get on the path to being able to pull off mass strikes, which is something that would actually have the power to win the demand of abolishing ICE. Solidarity with Minneapolis, who's striking this Friday. In worker strike back, we are trying to get Kushama Saw elected to the US House of Representatives, who would be the first ever revolutionary socialist elected to Congress. Having a national platform like that where we could call for coordinated mass struggle and mass strikes would be a gamecher. While on city council in Seattle, for example, Kashama called for the Seattle Police Department to actually defend residents from ICE. Those are the kind of political leaders we need. If this sounds like the right take to you, find us on the way out. U members of Worker Strike Back. Um, our next event is going to be February 1st. We're doing a rent control town hall and I invite you to join us if this sounds like the right thing. Thank you. Good evening. I open my statement with a reminder to all here. No one is illegal on stolen land. The rightful stewards of this

place we call county are the Ajiua, Ottawa, Padawatami, and Wandot peoples who were displaced so white settlers could claim ownership of what already existed. Ice must be banned from all municipal buildings, facilities, and programs in county. Our demand does not merely ask the wait, sorry. Our demand does not ask the board to openly defy ICE. We are merely asking that our city not politely host them. We are not compelled to allow ICE into these buildings any more than a citizen must allow an officer inside their home without probable cause. Unlike the subpoena the city received for employment records, there is no risk of anyone being held in contempt of federal court by borrowing ICE from our facilities. These buildings are paid for and maintained by we the people. And we are not content to be complicit in this. To anyone unwilling to support this resolution, we are not the only ones you must answer to. Future Ipsalantians and Ann Arborites who may now be attending Pittsfield or Estherbrook elementaryaries will soon look back at us in this moment and ask why when our community was in danger did county choose not to act. On what side of history did our cities stand? I am so proud of how the citizens of Ann Arbor and Ipsellante have resisted ICE. In my eight years as a resident, I have shown time and again this community is fearless. loving and does not back down. I implore you now to share the courage, compassion, and determination that your residents have in our fight against ICE. Your power comes from the people. Now is the time to step up and protect us. Soon, it will be too late. I now address all present board members and citizens.

Republicans are given free reign to boldly violate the rights of our people. Instead of rising to the moment, many Democrats have enabled abhorrent overreach out of fear for their personal careers. When they go low, we've been holding the door for them. If you are sick and tired of pretending that you support any representative that does not do all in their power to keep our communities safe. If you are sick and tired of negotiating with people who insulated by privilege refuse to address the urgency of this political moment. If you are sick and tired of rallying behind the lesser of two evils, come talk to your local chapter of Worker Strikeback. We are building a movement of the 99% with the power to make real change. A better future is possible for those bold enough to demand it. Thank you. D excuse [clears throat] me, I'm getting over flute. Uh Davyy, Salem Township, and I'm addressing item F on the agenda. uh the resolution to oppose a proposal. The Washington County Board of Commissioners does not have legal authority to ban, restrict, or impede the collection of citizen petition signatures or a Michigan constitutional amendment through a resolution or otherwise. Any such action could expose members of this board or the county to legal sanctions. The process for proposing constitutional amendments via citizens initiative is established directly in the Michigan Constitution which reserves the power to the

registered electors of the state. Counties do not have authority that extend to regulating or obstructing the statewide constitutional amendment petition process. The initiative right is a fundamental reserved power of the people at the state level and local governments cannot impose additional burdens or restrictions that interfere with it. Signature collection is a protected activity under the state constitution. I now address the seven points in the resolution. And I won't read the resolution. Item one. Secretary of State Benson admitted that 16 illeg illegals voted in the 2024 election. That is not secure or fair. The petition reinforces that only US citizens are qualified to vote while preserving core voting rights and adds verification to enhance security without restricting eligible citizens. Two and three proposal does not repeal or restrict reforms of 2018 2022. It maintains existing access mechanisms while adding citizen verification safeguards. Four, the petition establishes proactive s systematic verification using federal state data sources to ensure and conform and confirm compliance. Five, the petition is sponsored by Americans for Citizens Voting, a Michigan address in St. Clair Shores,

and lists multiple flexible proof options for identification, and requires state funded hardship program to assist with obtaining documents at no cost. Six, I reiterate, that's

your time. Thank you. Uh, good evening. Uh, uh, my name is Chris Boyade. I am from Ann Arbor and I'm just going to make a few quick comments. I don't think I'm going to use my three minutes. I hope. Um, the first is to put a human face on some of the things that are happening in our district. Um, I got to see the emergency response of ai middle school responding to a mother being stolen. The mother went to support her son in Detroit at a hearing and ICE decided they would just take her, too.

She was not there in an official capacity. She went to support her teenage son and they stole him and they took her for good measure. It was the wits of a school bus driver dropping off two little girls knowing that that mother was kidnapped because she always picked them up. That school bus driver took them back to the school because she knew they were going to be in danger. Ice stole a mother and didn't give a rat's two cents about what happened to the children of that mother. That fell upon Ipsellani public schools to manage the crisis and figure out how to save those children. The mother's only phone call was to a principal begging him to hide her children from ICE. That is the horror that we experience and we only see it occasionally. But 2,300 people are gone. That family is broken. That principal had to assume all of the burden, all of the cost, all of the time to solve the crisis that ICE created and left on the street. Second, I support the friendly amendment. We must be proactive. No access to any property that's owned by the county. None. Third, our elected leadership must show the proper authority to organize us in anticipation of what will come. Minneapolis will come to us. We need to

prepare now. I urge you to work with our business community and have them also publicly say in signs like in Minneapolis. The president of the city council is organizing across the city to have businesses refuse entry to ICE. That is exactly where you guys can fit in and to organize that and begin this campaign to deny public and private property from ICE. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Bridget Herman. I'm a resident of Seline and I also serve as the executive liaison for county on behalf of United Way for Southeastern Michigan. And I want to begin by saying on behalf of United Way, thank you. Thank you for introducing this resolution to set the record straight on the proposed documentary proof of citizenship mandate. Over the past decade, United Way has advocated for pro- voter changes that were overwhelmingly supported by voters in the state of Michigan. And as you all know, in 2022, we successfully passed as a state same day registration, no excuse absentee voting, and in-person early voting, allowing more citizens across our state and in Washington County to make their voices heard. Our state's investments in pro voter policies earned us an A+ grade from the Institute for Responsive Government in 2023 and 2024. The proposed documentary proof of citizen citizenship mandate is a step in the wrong direction. I think we can all agree instead of allowing voters to register using a driver's license, this ballot proposal would require voters to show sensitive and often costly documents such as birth certificates and passports. In Washington County, 38% of our households struggle to meet their basic needs. We call them Alice. They are asset limited, income constrained, and importantly, they're employed. That's almost two out of five families. Families who regularly choose between food and heating bills often can't pull together the $150 cost of a passport or to take time off of work to update their documents. The documentary proof of citizenship mandate would not just home harm voters with low incomes. Older Americans, people with disabilities who are more likely to face challenges obtaining an ID could also lose their freedom to vote. This is not a partisan issue. the people harmed by documentary

proof of citizenship mandates cut across race, background, and political persuasion. It's the active military member who wants to vote absentee, but feels uncomfortable sending their social security number in the mail. It's the rural voter who can't find the gas money to drive to the Secretary of State and show their ID. It's the elderly voter born at a rural hospital who doesn't have access to their birth certificate. At United Way for Southeastern Michigan, we work every day to help families move from crisis to to stability and stability to prosperity. Voting is an important way that every citizen can raise their voice and make that pathway towards stability possible. Documentary proof of citizenship mandates make it even more difficult for our neighbors to work towards the systematic changes we need for everybody to prosper. And so, on behalf of United Way, I want to thank you for your leadership on this topic. this resolution opposing documentary proof of citizenship and for standing with our community tonight. Thank you very much for your time.

Hello, my name is Katie Palmer and I am a resident of Ipsani. I am here to urge you to keep county and ICE-free zone and pass the resolution and to prohibit ICE from operating in our public spaces and county facilities. This isn't about party politics. This is about community safety, trust, and the values we claim to stand for as a county. Our public spaces, libraries, courts, schools, health clinics, county buildings exist to serve everyone who lives here. When federal immigration enforcement operates in these spaces, people stop showing up. avoid schools, victims avoid reporting crimes, workers avoid health care, and these entire communities are pushed into the sea the shadows. This kind of disenfranchisement makes people desperate, and desperate people dangerously have nothing to lose. Local law enforcement leaders across the country have been clear. When ICE operates locally, trust erodess. People become afraid to cooperate with police, to serve as witness, to seek help when they need it. Public safety depends on trust, not fear. So when communities choose to allow ICE, they're choosing to make the lives of our local safety officers harder in both the short term and long term. This is also a matter of the Constitution. Due process, equal protection, and protection from unreasonable detention. These are core American principles. Local governments are not required and should not be pressured to participate in federal immigration enforcement that bypasses judicial warrants or places county employees in legally and morally questionable positions. County has a legal authority and obligation to decide how its resources, buildings, and personnel are used. Choosing not to allow ICE enforcement in county spaces is a matter of local governance. It is a clear statement that our county will not use its limited resources to assist in actions that harm our community. No matter how we vote, we want safe neighborhoods, children who

can attend schools without fear, and residents who can seek medical care without the commun and be out in the community without worrying that they'll be tamed or disappeared from their families. Keeping county and ICE-free zone sends a powerful message that we value safety over fear. We value the constitutional rights over imit intimidation. and that we believe strong communities are built through inclusion, not enforcement tactics tactics that tear families apart. I urge you to stand firm, protect our public spaces, and affirm county's co commitment to being a place where everyone can live, work, and seek help without fear. And may I close by reminding you ICE is not accountable to our residents. You are. Thank you for your time. Hello, my name is Sheila Picowski and I live on North Territorial Road in Webster Township, Ann Arbor. And I remember I remember the 500 trees that the county road commission cut on my street. Yes, I'm here today to talk about the road commission. I'm not sure if any of you watched the live Zoom meeting yesterday. January 20th had a real good turnout of folks. A lot of people spoke and it was recorded and posted on the Road Commission YouTube page. I encourage all of you to watch it. Please watch the January January 20th meeting. Trigger warning, it might make you cry. It shows a lot of dysfunction and some serious problems within our road commission. Not just residents were there to complain, but also the road commission union leader had some very serious complaints at the end of the meeting about management. So please, please watch this meeting and

learn what's going on because maybe it's time to step in and help them. Residents are angry angry again over our tax dollars paying to cut down 250 year old trees along the side of the road and eliminating our tree canopies over our country roads because they say the trees are dangerous. But we know this is not untrue. Stati statistics show it's not true. Trees are not dangerous. The road commission currently has numerous numerous forestry work happening right now and they're cutting huge old trees on Wagner Road. Dexter, Chelsea Road, Island Lake Road, Zeb Road, and now there is talk of every single tree on a mile and a half section of Workner Road. Please go drive this mile and a half section of Workner between Sibi and the M52 roundabout in Chelsea and see how special it is. It is worth saving. And have you read or signed the Workner tree petition? It's online and it has over 1300 signatures today. I'll spell the road. We k neer workner road tree petition. I s I propose we establish a tree council on the road commission staff. Someone that is involved with the projects, goes out on the roads and protects our old trees. We should have an arborist on the board to explain to them why old why an old tree is worth saving. I'm upset with them saying that they only cut down dead trees. That is not true. Please watch the road commission meeting. Please help us save the old trees on our county roads. Please save the old oaks. They are the most important tree in America. Please help us stop the Workner Road tree slaughter. Thank you for listening.

Hi Aaron Semens um from Scio Township. I am a homeowner and a property owner and a small business owner, parent of two and the wife of an immigrant. And so, while I'm not here to talk about this proposal, I do also urge you to please make Washington County an ICE-free zone. Do not support these taxpayer taxpayer funded terrorists that are currently terrorizing our communities. I'm here though to also ask you to vote to oppose the Americans for Citizens voting ballot petition. while it's focused on Michigan on Michigan constit a Michigan based constitutional amendment it's actually a well-funded national effort and it is um a fact I think somebody else mentioned it earlier that there were only 16 non-citizens that voted in Michigan out of 5.7 million voters a00028% error rate that was somebody who was actually in favor of that proposal. That error rate is more than acceptable. So the question is why are people fighting to do it? And I think it's important that we follow the money. One of the major donors to this national effort while it's focused in Michigan, it's something being done nationally is the Restoration of America Foundation. That is a that is a dark money nonprofit that has put $3.5 million into this effort. And Richard Uline is a key figure. And I want to tell you a little bit about Richard Uline. He and his wife have a net worth of $5.8 billion. And Richard is the heir to the Schlitz the Schlitz brewing company Fortune and the founder of a multi-billion dollar shipping company called Uline, which I'm sure you've all heard of. According to

Open Secrets, in September 2023, Uline gave collectively more than $250 million to federal candidates and political groups um since the two 2016 election cycle. And over the first six months of 2024, they gave more than $20 million to federal elections. More importantly, though, they've given an additional $83.8 $8 million to state and local candidates since the start of the 2022 election cycle. Richard was also one of the biggest financial backers to Trump's campaign, giving 59 billion 59 million to his 2024 presidential campaign. They also support groups that are anti-trans, pro-white Christian nationalist, etc., etc. So why are they wanting to do this? That is because this will suppress 700,000 voters in Michigan disproportionately women, people of color, and college students who all vote against those kinds of things that they support. Think about how much money they'll be able to save if we can amend our constitution to actually suppress those voters instead of them having to buy all those votes. I urge you to vote against this resolution. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Any more public comment in the room? Members of the uh board, my name is Steve Frmp from Salem Township, Michigan, and I'm here to speak in opposition to the resolution to uh speak against the citizens only vote. The vote, the right to vote is a very precious gift and it's not to be lightly taken. In April of 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in April of 1968. My parents and I stood in front of the church on 11 Mile and Woodward Avenue to protest that assassination and to call for unity in our nation. I once again am calling for unity in our nation. I was a frightened 10-year-old boy together with my parents standing on the sidewalk and was arrested for standing there peacefully protesting. They took us to the police station. They said, "Men over here, women over there." It was the first time I got to stand up as a man together with my father. It is in that vein that I stand up for the civil rights of the citizens of Michigan in opposition to the dilution of their vote. I thank you very much for your time. Good evening. My name is Lauren Steele. I want to thank you commissioners for um offering up this proposal to oppose ballot initiatives that would restrict voting and impose extra requirements on on voting. I'm speaking on behalf of my

husband tonight that both of us were born in Michigan and have had Michigan driver's licenses and have voted in Northfield Township since 2009. He will be more affected by this proposal if it were to pass, the ballot initiative were to pass than I would because I actually had occasion to get a passport last year. When we got married here in Michigan, we both changed our names. I took his last name and he took my maiden name as his middle name. We got our driver's licenses with those new names, but our birth certificates don't have those names. So the fact that I spent $165 130 to the feds and 135 to the local post office and waited six weeks was a inconvenience I was willing to take for my international trip. He was born here and hasn't traveled internationally and has voted here all his life and now he has to get a passport to and spend $165 and wait six weeks before he can register to vote again if that absurd thing were to pass. Thank you. Hi, my name is Marjorie Zefort. I live on the old west side in the same house for the past 43 years. I like everyone else here is terrified by what is happening in our country, in our state, and in our county. We are watching as our neighbors live in fear of leaving their homes, of sending their children to school, of going to work, and of going to the grocery store. As a World War II baby, my childhood was infused with tales of the Holocaust. And as the horrors were revealed and the questions of how did this happen became central for me and it haunted me since my

adolescence actually as I watched what is happening now. I hold the same question only this time it is not Nazis in Germany but Americans in the United States indiscriminately beating and disappearing our neighbors. Watching the hateful and ultimately destructive rhetoric about non-white non-Christians, I have finally gotten the answer to the question of how this can happen. What I concluded about the Nazis and again about now is that this can only happen when good people do nothing. Here we are. It is in our hands. Are we going to be good people who do nothing? I won't be. and my neighbors who are here won't be. And what about you? What will you do? I ask with great concern. As the good people leading our county, you have the obligation to do something. As county officials, you have the responsibility to keep our community safe. As human beings, you have the moral obligation to reject tyranny. You can be a part of making it a little easier by making our county facilities and businesses ice free zones. This demonstrates to our most impacted neighbors that we care about their safety. It also allows them to conduct business and enjoy community activities in safe spaces. Please make our county an icefree zone. Please don't be good people who do nothing. We already know the outcome of that. Good evening. My name is Jeff Jarvey. I

am from Salem Township and I'm here to speak about the um the um resolution against citizens only vote. The petition requires the state to fund hardship program for free documents and IDs for election purposes and the secretary must report annually on efforts to use federal and state data sources efficiently reducing individual costs. It also leverages existing data from agencies like DHS and SSA to automate verifications. So when people say it's too ownorous or poor to collect documents, this petition requires the state to help pay for that. So it's a lie when they say it's too expensive. The actual proposal allows a range of documents to prove proof citizenship, not just the passport. As we just heard, these include Real ID compliant driver's licenses, which many Michiganers already have, military ID, or even governmentissued photo ID showing US birthplace, not just birth certificates or passports. It also includes a state-f funded hardship program for to help anyone obtain these docs for free if needed and that directly addresses the cost concerns. In reality, Michigan birth certificates cost as little as $10 to $34. The last time I had to pull one from my county, it cost me $10. And a lot of people have their birth

certificate for everyday um business. Uh not everyday business, but everyday life like getting a job or a driver's license. When you can go into the Secretary of State's office and check a box that says, "Register me to vote. I'm a US citizen." That is not protecting citizens. Any illegal that gets to vote by checking a box at the Secretary of State's office is stealing a vote from a citizen. If you believe that voting is a if you believe voting is a sacred right of citizens, then you you should be for this proposition and not for this uh this uh what do you call it uh resolution. Thank you. Thank you. Come on, Derek.

Come on, Derek. Come on.

It's good to see you again, Jeff. I haven't seen you since I quit Ford. If there was additional work that we need to do in order to secure the elections, we've got a Secretary of State, county clerks, local clerks, and poll workers that should be burdened with that. It shouldn't be the 10 million people in Michigan. If you really want to fix something, go into those systems, tighten them up. We can't depend on millions and millions of people to take action. Particularly when we pay people in government to manage that. You shouldn't have to prove that you're a citizen over and over again every time you move or if you change your name or it's ridiculous. Prove it once and you're done. This petition is going to move into the Constitution rules that are already laws. If you're worried about those things, work a poll like I do. If you're worried about election integrity, the legal in voters is sitting in the back. Go to the public accuracy test like they do. Go to the county canvas, get involved, and actually learn how secure the elections are. It's I I think it's a a false narrative that we've got widespread voter, but even the Republicans in the state legislature don't believe these stories. What's they're really after, I think, is splitting the voter list between federal elections and local elections, state elections. And that is going to be a disaster if that happens. More importantly though, you know, I came in because of that resolution. This stuff with ICE, Minneapolis was digging out of a hole with police violence for years and they've been set back like generations. If we're going to have out of shape, illiterate, unmarked men shooting citizens in the face, it's going to hurt our deputies. It's going to smear you with a bad reputation that you didn't earn. You know, I was in the room when the fire chief for Mipsellani thanked you guys for pulling people out of a burning building. That's the image I want people to carry away. I don't want them to think that you're an unmarked, ununiformed, unfit, and illiterate man

shooting a woman in the sha face four times through the passenger window as the car goes by. You're That man was in no danger. That was a bad shoot. Anybody that actually watches it with an open mind is going to see that. Mistakes get made. We just have to say it. You have to face it. I don't want that in Washington County. Please do the right thing and vote your values.

Good evening. I am Ben Gardner and I'm a Wayne County resident, but I'm here tonight in my capacity as Michigan senior campaign manager for All Voting is Local. All Voting is Local is a voting rights organization that uh lives by a simple motto which is all power to all voters. We work to remove barriers to voting. Um and that's something that we've done quite a good job of here in Michigan. Um I want to call attention to the letter. Um, everyone should have an electronic copy of it, but I would encourage you to take a little bit of time and look at the organizations, all 28 so far that have signed on to this letter. It reflects a very wide and diverse coalition, um, that I would argue truly represents every voter in some way or another in the state of Michigan. So, um, I'll try and keep my remarks brief here. Um, I just want to thank you for taking this action tonight and and just considering this issue at all. I think it's very important that leaders speak out in this moment. Um, as trusted leaders in your community, you have an opportunity to show leadership by declaring not only that Michigan elections must remain free and accessible, but also that red tape proposals that disenfranchise eligible voters and hamstring our hardworking election officials have no place in Michigan. During an era in which some of our country's loudest voices are promoting lies, disinformation, and conspiracy theories about our elections, Michiganers have come together in overwhelming numbers to improve our elections and modernize our elections. Michigan's election officials have worked with grit, grace, and expertise to implement new reforms while continuing the daily work of administering and protecting our elections. The pro- voter reforms that Michiganers voted for in 2018 and 2022 along with those enacted by the Michigan legislators have elevated our state as a model for free and accessible elections. And yet the attacks and disinformation continue. out of state special interests

fueled by an organization with ties to an Illinois billionaire and one of the largest financial backers of the January 6, 2021 insurrection are aiming to subvert our elections by placing a show your papers ballot measure on Michigan's ballot this coming November. Here's the truth. All Michiganers are required to prove their citizenship when registering to vote. This is a solution in search of a problem that will only add administrative burdens and costs for local election officials. But most importantly, it will cause chaos, confusion, and in some cases, insurmountable regulations for eligible voters. Simply put, if passed, it will prevent eligible voters from participating in our elections. So, in the weeks and months ahead, I strongly encourage the leaders in this room and leaders throughout the state to speak up, use your platforms, and affirm our strong election processes, support our election workers, and speak out about cynical red tape proposals that will weaken our elections and disenfranchise voters. Thank you so much.

Thank you. All right. Hi, my name is Jennifer Schlit. I'm a resident of Ipsellani. I'm here to speak on three items and I will be speaking fast. Apologies in advance and thank you for your time. On item F, opposing the ballot proposals that would impose documentary proof of citizenship, not we didn't do that when we registered to vote. Um requirements and create barriers from voting in Michigan. I'm on staff at Clean Water Action, which has signed the joint letter that Ben just mentioned prior and we support this proposal. Nearly 700,000 Michiganers can't access these documents easily, which can cause a significant amount of time and most importantly time and also money to obtain. Many years ago, I had my ID stolen actually on election day after I had done nonpartisan election assistance, which was fun. Um, I didn't have a car and I had limited funds and it took me months, literally months to find the money, take a day off work and have a day off work where I was able to take the multibus journey to the secretary of state and it is not easy. This proposal will make it more difficult also for married people who change last names which you've also heard today students, rural voters, voters with disabilities, counting myself among that, low-income voters, elderly voters, rural voters, and more to participate in our constitutional right to vote. This is a blatant tempet suppression. And the speaker earlier said it wasn't too expensive. I can say from firsthand experience, it absolutely is. Saying that this fee doesn't count. That's not the only money involved here at all. I could have got I could have borrowed mine to get my ID. It still took me months. Additionally, signature gatherers for these voter suppression petitions have been misinforming voters. I personally heard someone say at the Kroger on Whitaker that the Secretary of State supported their proposal. When challenged, they did not back down. That was a very fun argument. Um I've heard countless other lies since. It is not difficult to honestly gather petition signatures, but I have yet to see anyone gathering signatures for this particular initiative. Tell the full truth. I guess they figure that's the only way they can get petition signatures in Washington County. And you know what? On that one, they're probably right. Um, we're asking

the county board of commissioners pass resolution setting this record straight. Voters deserve to know the truth. State and federal law already prohibit non-citizens from voting. This is not regulating or obstructing the process. Anyone can sign if they so choose, but they should do so knowing exactly what it is they're signing. Next, as an insanity resident, more needs to be done to find justice and healing for our community. Asking you all to commit to continuous support, freedom, care, and support for Ruben Peeler, accountability for all responsible fans handling this important situation, um, and the demilitarization of our streets. And finally, 50 seconds on item H, I support the resolution opposing county, use county buildings for ICE, CBP, and other contractors in this county. We have seen Americanborn citizens targeted by ICE, and honestly, any human being targeted by the cruelty right now matters. It doesn't matter if you're citizen or not, to be honest. Um, and right now it's also targeting rally settled refugees who have come here completely legally. Many of whom live in county and many of whom I'm lucky enough to know. Um, and many of whom are children. Just today I saw a photo of a child on his way home from school in Minnesota questioned by CBP for not having documentation. A student on his way home from school not having documentation. He said, "Can I get just go home?" And was told no. There are already children in our county who are scared to walk on the streets. The time to take a stand right now and stand strong is now. Words are not enough from y'all. We need your leadership. They're already stealing our neighbors. They're murdering murdering murdering people and non and citizens and non-citizens alike with a shot in the face, medical neglect and everything in between. Right now, we need your leadership and we need to be prepared because we have no more time. It will not be easy, but my god is it necessary. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Zena and I am a college student here in county. Um I serve I served as chair of Secretary Benson's nonpartisan college student advisory task force to the Department of State from 2023 to 2025. I've helped register dozens of students to vote over the course of my college career and I've had many conversation with students about their experiences and concerns regarding voting in local and federal elections. I'm here to share some of that experience to support the board in opposing the resolution opposing voter ID under the voter ID law. This would limit the acceptable documents to register to vote to only a birth certificate or a passport. And that would make it harder for students to register to vote. Most students rely on their student ID to verify who they are. And if this student uh this voter ID law passes, even a state ID or enhanced ID wouldn't be enough. On top of that, college students are constantly moving between dorms, apartments, and different cities for internships. And keeping voter registration in updated is already a challenge. But making students go in person to register using documents they may not have easy access to adds an unnecessary and unfair barrier. We already know that voter fraud is extremely rare and anyone who commits it should be held accountable. But laws like this don't make our elections more secure. They block eligible voters from casting their ballots. We've seen it happen in other states. Arizona's voter ID law stopped 47,000 eligible Americans from voting. In Kansas, 31,000 eligible citizens were disenfranchised. County has almost 80,000 college students. And our voices matter. Laws like this don't strengthen elections, they silence us. This is why I encourage the board to pass the resolution opposing voter ID. Thank you. That is a hard person to follow. Um, I just want to My name is Rita Turner

Sharon and I live in Ann Arbor and Annie Lubar is my uh representative. Um, I come here to re just to reiterate what has been said before about the uh proof of citizenship. You have heard a lot of uh good testimony. Um, I do follow Durk Mayhew's comment that this will be extremely uh hard for the citizen. The burden of proof of citizenship should be resting in the Secretary of State. It took u the United States citizens. We still don't have everybody with a real ID so they can fly. And that started in like 2001 2005. There is no way that every eligible voter in this state of Michigan can make it to get all the reg regular uh paperwork, the required paperwork to vote, guess what in the 2028 election. This is intentional. So I I support you. I thank you for your support to this resolution. I would like to pivot to the resolution concerning regarding conditions at the Women's Hiron Valley uh correctional facility. I I understand that online uh Price Duckworth will be speaking, but I wanted to make sure that I raise awareness to anyone in the community that cares about women's health that this that there are women and there were former formerly men who were in that prison before that will tell you how toxic it was way back in the day. You don't need to go into the prison to talk to people who have come out of there. And we'll we'll freely tell you what it was like back then. Now it's an older building. I believe that it's uh from all the the judges uh orders and things, it's clear that this woman is sick. There are probably many other women that are sick. I ask that you do uh uh adopt the resolution. Do go

and visit. I understand they're very controlling on who gets to go inside, but this woman and others are in harm's way. And I ask every citizen in the in this county and in this state to confront our delegation in Lancing all the way up to the governor and the MDOC and say that this is inhumane. If this were another country, we would be saying the UN should be investigating. This is how bad this is. I have a family member who is now deceased but spent years in a school building that made her very sick. Not all show the symptoms but all are affected. Thank you for your time. Uh Jeremy Haley Township. Uh just a few couple different things. Did you know I can go to Meyers on Carpenter Road and Arbling Road and Ze and Jackson roads and get multiple different prices for the same item. And what they're calling that is is called white pricing. The more affluent areas they price the things higher. Guess where I get the lowest prices at? Carpenter Road Meyers. Where do I get the highest prices? Z Jackson Roadmer Meyers. Putting it out there. Something wrong with that. Um the people need to have a voice in the data centers from all the politicians in the state speaking of is how we can manage it. The people need to start a petition to have our voice heard on the 2026 ballot. To have our voice heard on the reolishing of the 2023 law that gave

the tax credit to the data centers was that vote that inflamed the hemorrhoid of data centers we have right now coming to county, Livingston County, and Wayne County. The people need to start a ballot petition to get that on the ballot so we have our voice. The politicians aren't hearing us at all. They just want to do everything to manage it with prep uh preparation H. So um on to other another quick thing. I feel that people who do do not have college degrees are judged differently than people who have who do do have have not. The reason why I can say this is throughout history, there's multiple times, Sigman Freud's seduction theory, he went to his superiors and said what he found basically that children were being abused by their parents, sexually molested, all that good stuff that they do. And his peers didn't like it. He changed his theory to basically say ask the children what are you doing to bring it upon yourself. Modern-day gaslighting 1910 early progressives the elites then Harvard elites and Stanford all them got together and said hey black and brown people are not as intelligent this and that because we're so much more intelligent based off other things. um opioid crisis we have. Where's all the damn medical and farmades who could have spoke up and said, "Hey, the chemical structure to what you have now is similar and derive analog of morphine." Okay, that it might share the same physical chemical properties. Where are all our medical people? The THC

psychosis, they're not talking about that. They genetically alter the plant where it takes out the CBDs, but the CBD is actually The thing that c helps not cause the psych psychosis. Doctors and people are not the elites are failing us people. Thank you. Hello. I'm a resident of Ann Arbor and I wanted to voice my support for the resolution of keeping ice out of county facilities and properties. Um, and I guess I also really wanted to highlight um that something that's been on my mind, which is enforcability. Uh, if and when ICE breaks any of these laws we are proposing or other laws like you must have a warrant, what are we going to do about it or otherwise we're just saying things that aren't going to get enforced. So, I hope that's already on everyone's minds here and I just want to highlight that. So, thank you. Hello, my name is Christopher Fischer. I live in Ann Arbor. I, like many that have come before me, have come to encourage you to support the adoption of this resolution opposing our use of county buildings uh by ICE and discourage them from using face coverings. Uh I don't, truth be told, believe that this resolution will not pass. That's not what I fear. What I fear is that this resolution will not stop migrants from being killed by ICE and this wouldn't have stopped the murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis. Like many that have come before me, I don't believe this resolution goes far enough. I want a resolution that opposes the use of all county property by ICE. one that directs county enforcement to oppose the presence of ICE from operating on all county property and directs county enforcement to prosecute

ICE officers that violate this resolution. We need to direct county enforcement officers to actually fight back against ICE. A piece of paper will not protect migrants and would not have protected Renee Good and will not protect us when ICE comes for us. I would also encourage all a resolution that encourages all other government entities within county to adopt this expanded resolution. The current resolution in its form is just a piece of paper. Thank you. Hello, my name is Evelyn and I'm a resident of Dexter. I'm here to urge you to pass the ice free zone in Washington County. I have family that live in Minneapolis. An aunt and uncle who are both seniors who have been at home hunkered down for almost three weeks because they are afraid to leave their home. My aunt and uncle moved to this country legally nearly 30 years ago. Since moving here, my aunt has been a loyal and honor honorable employee of McDonald's. Even at her current age, she still works in their kitchen and has never called in sick, but hasn't been able to go to work since Renee Good was murdered. Yesterday, I had groceries delivered to their home because they are afraid to go outside and live their lives. Just like many immigrants, my aunt and uncles aren't criminals. All they've done is help sustain this country, take jobs that nobody else wants with honorable jobs, and they don't deserve to be living in fear. This is just one example on how ICE is negatively impacting our country. Please pass this proposition and help lay the groundwork for other counties across the country to follow suit.

Good evening. My name is Kevin Butler. I'm a resident of the city of Chelsea. Grew up in Dexter and have called Washington County home my entire life. I'm here for a different reason than most tonight, but support everything these guys are saying. I'm also the natural area stewardship supervisor for the county parks NNAP crew, proud member of local 3052, and a union steward for ABSME. I've been on the county payroll in one form or another since 2007. Back then, 17-year-old Kevin would be very surprised if he knew I was standing here addressing you all. Working for the county parks in this county is not always sunshine and pretty flowers. We fight the rain, heat, tick, lime disease, and sometimes the thorns that labor relations sticks in our sides. I understand my local president, Nancy Highness, sent a letter to all of you members of the BOC that outlines some major issues our unionized workforce has faced in in recent times. I ask you to read through that letter and ask the muchneeded questions that go along with that. Why are we continuing to miss time frames on contract negotiations? Why the secrecy on hiring new labor relations directors? who will do the right thing and advocate for labor group representatives to be a part of the selection committee and hiring process. You're losing trust of county employees with a lack of transparency or fairness in selection for this vital role after sitting vacant for about a year. Kudos to Mr. Greg Dill, though. Your weekly organization update you you consistently send out has helped build some trust from me and others, and I look forward to it every week. Back to labor relations. Has anyone tallied up the amount of legal fees and staff hours the county has spent in grievance processes, arbitrations, and unfair labor practices? I'll say that last one again. Unfair labor practices. This includes backing out of good faith agreements at the last minute, losing the arbitration court date, and delaying problem solving by many more months. Is this acceptable? Time and time again, union grievances over 20 in local 352 for 2025, many of which have been filed, settled, or won in the favor of union members because some of us take time to read our contracts. If the response from commissioners is you don't get involved in labor relations, then why are you entering a close session to disc to

discuss labor negotiation strategy tonight? Is that not a a major part of labor relations? Please insist that labor groups have a seat at the table that is going to set the tone for your workforce of public servants. It is my understanding that labor relations reports to corporation counsel who then reports to the BOC. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Lastly, I want to mention the East Side Rec Center. While most staff will smile and say all is good and park staff support this effort, myself included, I also feel and see the strain and lack of support on other county park operations. I asked this BOC and those involved in this project to take into account other initiatives this county has committed to, including the non-motorized trails and natural areas, millages, and quickly aging infrastructure in our parks. Please don't just move on to the next big project again, leaving park staff scrambling to keep up and maintain the beautiful spaces that we all use and love. Thank you. Hi, my name is Katherine Murrell from Ann Arbor and I'm here um speaking on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Washington County regarding the anti- voter suppression resolution on tonight's agenda. Since 1920, the League of Women Voters has been an activist grassroots organization whose leaders believe that people should play a critical role in democracy. Our organization was founded six months before the 19th amendment to the US Constitution was ratified, giving women the right to vote, a vote that was hard fought, and we would like to keep that vote. Our mission is empowering voters and defending democracy. And we envision a pluralistic, multi-racial democracy where every person has the desire, the right, the knowledge, and the confidence to participate. Now, here in our state of Michigan, ballot proposals are being circulated that would impose documentary proof of citizenship requirements on voters,

creating red tape and injecting confusion into the voter registration process. These initiatives would walk back the incredible strides our state has taken in making elections accessible. These proposals go against the founding purpose and Michigan mission of the League of Women Voters. As such, I ask you to vote yes on your resolution to oppose ballot proposals or legislative efforts to create unnecessary barriers to voter registration and participation. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Chuck Kefir. I'm a 50-year resident of Ann Arbor and a proud son of an immigrant family. We find ourselves here this evening facing a horrifying reality in a most disturbing moment of time. We find ourselves as a community tragically needing to take extraordinary measures to protect ourselves, our families, our co-workers, our schoolmates, our neighbors, and our friends from active assault by our own federal government. As recent events across the nation incontrovertibly establish, all of us are now vulnerable and at risk, not just immigrants or undocumented residents, but us all and especially persons of color. We are here then tonight to demand that the board of commissioners act with urgency to establish, implement, and enforce countywide policy and practice that forbids IC ICE and DHS access to all county buildings, facilities, spaces, and programs. We've all watched with horror what's occurring in Minneapolis as lawless gangs of federally funded clansmen in camo are terrorizing an entire city. We watch a ghast at ICE brutality in cities across the country eerily reminiscent to Bern in the 1930s. And as many dozens in our own community can directly attest, some in this very room, we are not at all immune to such acts of illegal ICE violence here in Washington County. Such cruel and brutal abuses are in fact happening with increasing frequency in our restaurants, our construction sites, our shopping centers, in our neighborhoods, outside our schools, and on our streets. Virtually daily, residents of our community without criminal history are being apprehended without judicial warrant and are disappeared into the carceral black hole

created by ICE. Denied access to due process, denied access to legal support and even to familial communications. With that intolerable reality as a background, we are here to assert that all county facilities and programs should be and must be protected as safe spaces for all. Any Washington or resident should be able to enter a county admin building or services center to pay taxes or take out permits or apply for jobs or pursue publicly provided health and social services without having to worry about confronting masked and armed DHS thugs that might kidnap and sweep them away. And so we're here this evening to implore you use the power and responsibility that you as our board of commissioners uniquely and fundamentally have to keep all county residents safe. Please let's make all of our county's public facilities and spaces and programs icefree zones. Thank you. Good evening. Justin Perkins, Chelsea, Michigan. I'm here to speak on the Workner Road project, but just very quickly, I support the resolution to keep Washna County an ice free zone. I'm so proud to be surrounded by so many people here who came to express the same thought. So, thank you to everybody who's in the room here and everybody out in the hall for coming out to express this. Um, I'm here to speak about this work in a road project. For those who don't know, the roads commission is planning to repave. They're going to cut down a bunch of trees. They have not disclosed how many trees they're going to cut down. None of us are able to understand the purpose of the shoulder widening portion of this road. We cannot make sense of it. The roads commission is unable and unwilling to explain it to us. The stated purpose on the project

website is safety. That makes no sense to any of us. This stretch of road has the best safety record of any surrounding corridor by every statistic. six crashes in the last five years. Five of those six were deer. One was an illegal U-turn. Every crash was the lowest possible severity rating. It's unclear what the safety problem is that the roads commission is trying to resolve. In the very best case, widening the road keeps the road flat. Keeps the safety of the road flat. In the worst case, it makes it less safe. Widening it might reduce runoff road incidents. There's no record of that in the safety history at all. But it will increase speeds. It will invite new traffic modes. It will add pedestrian foot traffic that's not there today. And it will increase the severity of all types of crashes. So there's just it does not make sense that this project is a safety related project. None of us can understand it. If the goal is safety, there are many simpler and far more prudent options that have not been contemplated and are not in the plan for some reason that is undisclosed to us. For example, traffic calming features like rumble strips are not in the plan. Adding deer crossing signs. Five of the six crashes are deer collisions. There's no plan to add deer crossing signs. Dynamic feedback signs to give you feedback about how fast you're driving. Not in the plan. A stop sign at the intersection of Workner and Ivy. Not in the plan. Dedicated turn lanes at the end of each worker road. None of these things are in the plan. They don't widen the road. They're more prudent. They're less expensive. They're less environmentally disruptive. None of those things have been contemplated to our knowledge. It makes no sense how this is a safety project. That's what the roads commission is saying. It doesn't make any sense to us. Also, the environmental impact contemplation does not exist. And the roads commission engineering team words with me verbally were we have not done an environmental impact assessment and we don't need to. That is an absolute disgrace to the environment. It's a disgrace and shows

complete disregard for the the duty of the roads commission, to the community, to the people that live on Workner Road, to the environment, to the state of Michigan, and to the law. The benefit justification does not make any sense. The roads commission has no plan to complete an environmental impact assessment. How is this legal? They can't justify the benefit and they're not willing to quantify the impact. It It makes absolutely no sense. We we need some oversight on this project. It does not make logical sense. Yeah. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Sarah Maran James. I'm a resident of Dexter Township and have been a resident of Washington County my entire life. Um, I support an ice-free zone in county and I just want to bring some public awareness to some other ways that um, things are sneaking in our back door while we're focusing on other things. President Trump's proposal to repurpose the US plutonium stockpile to fuel nuclear reactors resulted in a May 23rd, 2025 executive order directing the Department of Energy to revisit disposal plans and consider processing and redirecting some of the plutonium to nuclear energy, including for powering AI data centers. Executive Order 14299. There are several plans for AI data centers across the state of Michigan. University of Michigan is partnered with Los Alamos, which is a federal entity going by the acronym of Ln L. Augusta Township has a proposal with Thor Equities. Thor equity CEO was quoted as referring to President Trump as a king, not a president. So, I think we need to be really aware of all the ways our county is being infiltrated and the environmental effects it's going to have on people's health. Um, and these AI data centers are not as they're proposing them to be. I thank you for your time. Hello, commissioners. Some of you have met uh some I haven't. It's nice to meet you. My name is Dave Seager and I am a

uh resident of Salem Township, Washington County. Um, I also am the general manager of the Arbor Hills landfill and I'm just here tonight uh to ask that at some point I'd like to talk to you folks longer. Uh, there's some misunderstandings about the landfill. One of them is Pas. I'd like to explain that that there was a 2016 fire at the material recycling facility on the site which was owned by Great Lakes uh recycling. Uh there was 10 fire departments, millions of gallons uh used to put that fire out and also there was the uh firefighting foam which contains uh PAS uh and that's what was in use at the time that had infil infiltrated the storm water the storm ponds. Um GFL took over in 2020 uh October. I I came to the site in September. Um we've cleaned up two ponds. the the uh POS is coming from adjacent property and it's a misunderstanding that's coming from the landfill which it is not. We have one more set of it's a wetland. We're voluntarily working with the state to remediate that and that'll take care of the firefighting foam and the POS that is on site but the landfill does not produce PAS and it is not coming from the landfall's adjacent property. Um, also we we supply good union jobs there. Um, I do live on the landfill property in the northeast corner of the property uh by choice. My son's an employee there. We provide very good union jobs there. And uh this is becoming a state-of-the-art uh uh best in the country landfill. And uh at some point, again, I'd like to speak to you a little bit longer on this. I supplied you some electronic copies of some information of some audits that were done um from the neighboring township. Uh hired a third party consultant to come in and u review

our compliance and uh it's it's very good reading. Uh it's very unbiased. Again, they were hired by the opposite township. Um and there's also some other tidbits in there and some information that's factual information. Uh there's there's a pamphlet in there. there's some kind of information to show you uh stuff that's kind of m misunderstood, but I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Anyone else in the room for public comment?

My name is Barry Ostber. I'm a retired Lutheran minister. um been a re uh resident of Michigan since 1987. Uh resident of Washington County uh since 2016 and live in Manchester. Uh good to see you, Commissioner Shannon. I had the privilege of being pastor at congregations that were active in refugee settlement and we had families from uh Laos um Vietnam uh two fellas from Poland and uh also uh wonderful people from uh Bosnia Herzagginina and they have been some of the most enduring endearing people that were grateful for the opportunity to partner with us and to get settled in a place that was welcoming to them and able to provide a start for them. That seems like a hundred years ago.

Yeah. In the last year, uh, those faithful, faith-based organizations have been cut off at the knees by this organization, by this administration, and it's gotten worse yet because of the attacks on on the uh people that have tried to come into this country. At our Martin Luther King observance on Monday at our church, I was given the task of reading at a part of our vigil the names of those who had died in detention during this last year. Now, it was 37 people that had died in during ICE detention. That doesn't sound like a lot of people when you're when you're hearing that they're attacking and wanting to arrest 3,000 a day, but 37 is the highest it's ever been. and December there were seven deaths. That was the highest of any month. And there's already been six deaths in January. So you see where this is going. People that are being attacked by ICE are not just fearful for being deported. They're fearful for their very lives. And if you read some of the medical uh histories of some of the people who have died, it's heart ailments, it's med medically related because they didn't have the right kind of uh meds at the time and just outright fearful times in their lives. And whatever we can do to stop that and prevent that happy, I hope you vote for this uh going forward. Thank you. Anyone else in the room or building I should say building for public comment?

Uh, okay. We're going to move to online. Um, Ashley, I'm going to assume I have people online. Yes, chair, you do. Thank you. Go ahead. First, we have Trish Duckworth. Welcome, Trish.

Uh, good evening, chair, vice chair, and to the honorable members of this county board of commissioners. First, I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak today. Um, thank you for bringing forward this resolution expressing concern about the condition at Women's Heron Valley Correctional Facility. Also, thank you to Ashley for working so hard to thoughtfully craft this resolution. We want to begin by acknowledging the importance of this moment, publicly naming concerns matter. It sends a message to the women inside that they are not forgotten and it signals to the broader community that their suffering is being taken seriously and for that we are truly grateful. Today, we are not here in opposition, but in partnership and with a gentle ask to continue building on this important step. The conditions at Women's Heron Valley are deeply troubling and they are impacting real people with real families, many of whom are from county. These are not distant issues. They are close to home and they call for our collective care and attention. One of those women who we all know and have been advocating for is Crystal Clark. Crystal Clark is experiencing severe and ongoing health challenges. Her condition has actually worsened. She just saw an eye doctor who confirmed that the condition in her eyes is related to the mold and now they have ordered a CAT scan to see if the mold has spread to her brain. She is doing her best to advocate for herself even while navigating significant physical suffering and extreme retaliation. With humility and respect, Crystal is asking to be seen. She is requesting a visit from Commissioner Caroline Sanders

and from any commissioner who is willing to come and see her in person to understand firsthand what she and other women are experiencing. This request is not made lightly. It comes from a place of hope that wis witnessing her condition directly might help deepen and deepen understanding and strengthen advocacy. We recognize the limits of the county authority and we also recognize the power of moral leadership. When elected officials take the time to show up, to listen and to bear witness, it can move systems in ways that reports alone cannot. This resolution is a very meaningful beginning. We kindly encourage this board to continue this work and to deepen it through presence, inquiry, and sustained advocacy. Thank you for your acknowledgement, your willingness to engage, and the care for the lives of th those impacted by these conditions. We look forward to continuing this conversation with you. We also want to uplift the voting resolution. We believe that making voting harder um is going to impact a lot of citizens in all county. So, we appreciate this as well as the ICE resolution and our hearts are go out to the family um whose home was destroyed in Ipsellani on January the 6th. Thank you all.

Thank you,

Ashley. Uh chair, next you have Diana Gonzalez. Go ahead, Diana. Welcome.

Um, thank you. I'm Diana Gonzalez, a resident and homeowner of uh in Ipsellante, the city of Epsilante. And um I um came uh uh for multiple reasons. Uh the first two uh uh in support of your statement uh behind uh Reuben and the demilitarization of uh law enforcement in our county um and um to uplift Trisha Duckworth's work and the resolution and uh that you're showing concern for what's happening at the Women's Hiron Valley uh center and for Crystal Clark and I really hope everyone uh with power uh and every elected official uh goes and visits her um and uses every creative force uh to support Reuben and to support Crystal and other people um and the family of whoever the anonymous uh man who was uh killed murdered uh an armed man who was murdered uh hours after Reuben's siege. Uh I but I'm also in support of the I3 zone uh in county buildings. um and also against the voting resolution making it more difficult. Um I've uh grew up in uh New York City. Um and I didn't have I didn't drive and I didn't have a state ID uh until I think late into my 20s or maybe early 30s when I had the resources to order a birth certificate. and um and uh I I've had all the paperwork actually ready before I remember moving to Michigan having all the correct paperwork and still being sent away um and then coming back with extra paperwork because that ended up being more arbitrary than it needed to be. Um, and I understand that a lot of these resolutions or statements might not come with uh actual political authority like

Trisha Duckworth uh said and uh like Ipsy ipsy uh council uh cowardly um uses an excuse that nothing they any resolution they made right now would be toothless anyway. But um I think people's humanity is important. So standing up for it, uh just telling someone when they're very vulnerable, I just what's happening to Crystal and Reuben and what's happening to migrant families right now and that poor family who's uh the mother who lost her home. These are real human beings and I I hope that you use every creative um uh power that you have just as a human being to stand behind them um and just do more and I appreciate everybody who who has spoken on all these people's behalf. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you Ashley. Uh there is no one else online chair. Oh okay. Uh going one more time for in the room. Um I have uh a commissioner. Oh, I have a hand in the back. Somebody else coming to comment. Just make it brief. Of course. Of course. Um I just want to add one more voice strongly in favor of Can you just tell us your name and where township or city you live in? Yes. Um my name is Emily Rule. I'm from Ann Arbor.

Great. Thank you, Emily. Um, and I just want to add another voice in support of the ICE free zone. I think that in the insanity that we are experiencing and the lawlessness and the kidnapping without consequence, it's an effort to redefine what is normal and what is reasonable and what is expected and what is tolerated. And every single way that we can say no, this is not normal. No, this is not what this no that is fascist. know that this secret police is not something that we tolerate is is vital and we need we need that to be coming from people on the ground. We need that to be coming from um the council. Any any position of power needs to also be seeing that in every way that they can.

Thank you.

We have another online. Uh yes, chair. Um, I believe the name is Oli G. Okay, welcome to the meeting. Sometimes takes a minute. They're no longer online. No longer there. Okay. All right. Okay. Now I think we've They're back. They're back. Okay. Try one more time. Okay. So let's try one more time. Technology is a boon and something else in our lives. Okay.

Okay. Um Olyig G. Okay. Oi G.

Hi. Yes. Sorry that that's my username is Olge. My name is Olivia. I've worked in Ann Arbor for several years. And I also wanted to speak that I am in favor of pushing forward for the ice free zone. Um, I don't think anyone deserves to experience the fear or the horror that the these people have gone through um at the hands of the violent and unconstitutional antics of these uh enforcers. And I think that especially our public facilities deserve to be spaces that are respected and should be safe for anyone, citizens and non-citizens alike. So that that is my public comment. I'm keeping it short and sweet.

Thanks, Olivia.

That's it. No, there's more. There's more. Okay. Yes. Uh, next we have KJ. KJ, welcome.

Hi. Can you hear me? We can hear you.

Great. Thank you. Um, the first thing I want to say is I appreciate your support of dropping the charges for Ruben Peeler. Your joint statement was very impactful and I appreciate that leadership. Um, I would like to see that accountability continue. Um, my personal uh desire is that we take a thorough inventory of our militarized policing equipment within the county and see what we can diminish to the uh least possible necessary levels. Um, the more that we have these things, the more that we are going to reach for them and the more that we reach for them, the more we are going to misuse them. Um clearly if we need a higher degree of resources uh Michigan State Police is willing and ready to come in and provide extra assistance. And within our county I would like us to make a strong stance that we invest in uh technologies of care and social service instead of in uh high-tech military weaponry. Um, I would like to say that I uh am concerned about conversation regarding uh the budget impacting lockdowns within the jail system. Uh when we say defund the police system, that is not what we mean. It should not be impacting humans who are already impacted by the carceral system. We need to take a look at our investments in policing and that starts with our militarized technology. Um, I would also like to say that investing in shelter is again a primary uh social service and a primary need to create social safety in this community and create options when all else fails. Um, I I'm sorry, baby. Um, I've [clears throat] got my kids in the car.

I've got a migraine. I'm sorry. I wish I were in better form tonight. Um, but I hope that you will continue to take action to create meaningful safety and meaningful investments in our community. Thank you so much. Thank you, Ashley. Yes, chair. Next, we have Rose. Rose, welcome. Hi. Can you hear me? We can hear you.

Great. No, no, no. Okay. I am a Hispanic American. My mother was here from Mexico and I feel especially proud that my mother came here legally and um she learned English. She got her citizenship. She was very proud. We were all very proud and and I believe as all immigrants they should do it and they should place their hand over their heart and pledge allegiance to the United States of America. to be here is a gift. Unfortunately, many of the im immigrants that come here come illegally and do not want to assimilate. My issue with the people here with the signs to protest ICE, do they not realize that a majority are here because prisons were emptied from several countries, rapist, murderers? ICE is here to remove these animals from our communities. Also, if you're afraid of being harmed by ICE, behave as a good law-abiding citizen. Also, as far as voting, it's funny how so many people can easily find ID for liquor, driving, [snorts] cigarettes, hotels, government assistance. There's nothing to fear unless you do not follow what the police ask like Renee Good did. That was the wrong thing. She did the wrong thing and she absolutely hurt that police officer. And that's just my opinion. That's how I feel about this. I don't understand a lot of what's going on, but I wish a lot of you would just calm down and and just be law-abiding citizens. That's mine, my opinion. Thank you,

Ashley. Who else is online for public comment? That is it. Chair.

Wow. Okay, thus ends public comment. Um, I have some commissioners who've asked to speak already, but um, I'm just going to say something first. Um, one, referring to anybody as illegals or aliens or animals is is I can't tell you what to say in this room, but I sure you wish you wouldn't say it here. These are people There are human beings who have families and children and parents who love them the same way you were loved. Or maybe you weren't and maybe that's why you talk that way.

Also, let me speak plainly as somebody who's never had the luxury of silence. I'm a member of the LGBTQ community. I'm an outspoken woman and I am not somebody who sits down when power tells me to be quiet and I'm certainly not going to do it now. What we are seeing here is fear deliberately deployed. It's people taken without warning. It's families torn apart. It's communities taught that safety comes from ini invisibility. And I I know what that message sounds like and I know what it feels like because people like me have heard it before. Just stay quiet and stay small and don't draw attention and maybe you'll be left alone. And that's not public safety. That is terror is governance and it is not okay. I

I want to tell you too that I reject the idea that this is federal and not our concern. When people are afraid to call 911, when people are afraid to seek medical care, when they're too afraid to send their kids to school, that harm is local. That's not federal. That's here. That's local in our neighborhood. And pretending otherwise is a choice and it is not a neutral one. This resolution does not obstruct the law. It draws a moral boundary. What we are being asked to do in this country right now is to normalize cruelty and to accept that disappearing people is just the cost of doing business. It's to confuse authority with legitimacy. And I have spent my whole life refusing that logic. And I will not start now. Silence is not neutrality. Silence is consent. And I do not consent. Not as a commissioner, not as a member of this community, and not as somebody who understands deeply what happens when governments decide that some people are expendable. I believe that tonight what we will see at this table is county not lending its credibility to fear-based enforcement. We're not going to trade human dignity for political convenience. We're not going to ask our neighbors to live in terror so that others can feel powerful because every person here deserves safety without fear. Every family deserves to stay whole. And that's why I will support this resolution tonight. And that is why I will continue to speak clearly, publicly, and without apology on this issue.

Um I have some more to say about other things that were commented on tonight, but I'm going to move to commissioners. Uh, in the queue right now, I have Commissioner Labar, Hajj, Robbie, and then Sanders, and then Bean, and then Light.

Thanks, Chair. Um, I will try and keep my comments uh brief because I know we have other commissioners that will have them as well. Um, I just wanted to thank the folks at Mera and in the advocate community more broadly for their work on this. Um there is a line we are trying to always be cognizant of in terms of um standing up for our values and exercising the rights we have as a county government under our system of federalism. And uh I think this uh resolution goes to that limit in appropriate ways. And I am hopeful that it's one of many that sort of sprout up across this state and across this country. Um I I am old enough to remember uh when my friends on the other side of the ideological spectrum assured me that boy there was a peoplepowered movement in things like the Tea Party or um all sorts of uh uh you know past uh civic actions that that they have taken. And I would suggest that what they're seeing now and what we're seeing now is a real organic movement of people in this country saying this is not okay. And more than that, this is uh morally reprehensible. And so what do we do? We we take to the rights given to us as Americans in this democracy and exercise them and say we don't stand for this and we push back against it with every legal recourse we have. Um, I would note that the two issues we're voting on via resolution tonight are tied together. The same folks that are empowering ICE to take these actions are the same folks that want to limit who can vote and how they can vote. Um, so let me wrap up and just say I'm proud to do my part as one commissioner and

I'm really grateful as a human being again that in this community the folks are coming out not to uh not to yell and to uh instill more fear, but rather to implore us to be bold and to be righteous and to do what we should as Americans and human beings. to push back against this. So, thank you so much.

Thank you, Sher. Thank you to everybody that came to give public comment. Uh, you know, it makes the meeting go along a lot longer, but it's really important for us to be able to hear from everyone. I think between the showing that we've had in the space and in the building, um, even for the people that didn't speak, look, we're here with the signs. It's really clear uh in your support of us and opposing ICE and your support support of voting rights that along with the 100 plus uh written public comments that we got to which were largely in support of the voting um against the voter suppression uh ballot initiative bigotry has no place in county and all of you coming here to speak to us uh about the ICE issues and that ballot initiative that goes on to demonstrate it. I know there were some people that expressed differing views and that's their right to express those differing views, but I'm really glad that the the building is filled with people that share our views. Um, so I'm excited to vote yes on these resolutions. I think Ben is still there. Uh, Ben, we've had emails uh over a number of months. It's nice to see you in person. Hopefully I can come out and shake your hand if I can get off the dis at some point. Um, so thank you for your work on helping us get this onto the agenda. Uh, Bridget, too, Bridget's advocacy was uh really important uh about the the voting uh suppression resolution. So, I'm glad we have that on there to the comments. Oh, there's another set of comments I want to make too. Um, thank you to Ashley and the team for getting the resolution about uh the women's here on Valley Correctional Facility on the agenda. Uh, thank you to Tray and the other advocates too who have not let this go by without people paying attention. I want to just I want to draw attention to one of the clauses in our resolution. It's towards the end. It's one of the it's the last whereas clause. Uh just to point out that the board has attempted to take a tour of the facility and on December 12th it was denied. So the board is

taking steps uh within our authority to try to do that, but we're receiving significant push back. And I hope that passing this resolution uh moves us forward and then hopefully gets us into a position where we can go in and and see for oursel what's going on. Of course, I believe the accounts, but I think that they don't want us to go. So, they they don't want us to see how bad it is with our own eyes. So, hopefully this moves us closer to being able to do that. Um to the family that owns the property that Reuben uh was renting, uh you shared that the incident was horrific, and I agree it was horrific. That should not have happened. I'm deeply disturbed by the escalation of force that occurred over those 30 hours to tear gas to to damage the property in the way they did with the water cannon, the bulldozer, uh the other the force, the ridiculous amount of force that was used. Uh I'm sorry for what you've experienced. I'm sorry for the damage that your home uh has sustained and that your mother and mother-in-law can no longer have that home. Uh, and I'm sorry for Reuben and all of us want more information and we want accountability and I believe the board is committed to that as well. So, thank you for being here too. This is not something that we're going to forget about

and I'll stop my comments on applause. Thank you. Seems like a good place to stop. Thank you, Commissioner Hodgej. Commissioner Robbie.

Uh, yeah. Thank you, Chair. appreciate [clears throat] you uh and your leadership and helping us to go through all this public comment. Uh and I want to thank everybody for coming out today. It's really empowering to see so many community members here. Um and even if you didn't speak today, I want to say that your presence here matters. Uh and I appreciate you being a face in the room, a voice in the room, somebody who's willing to show up on a Wednesday night at 9:30 and stick around. Um this is the most important part of our meeting right here. um the the comment that the comments that happen here our community and I'm glad and proud to be part of a a government body that doesn't limit the number of public members of the public that I think it's uh very unfortunate and does a disservice to our democracy when those limits are put in place. Um there are several things I want to say uh because there was a lot that was commented on, but I'm going to start with uh the ice free zones because that's what's making my heart pound right now. Um, I I want to start by saying uh a heartfelt thank you to the folks at Meera. U many of whom are in the room. I see Richard. I see Maryanne. I think uh Laura Laura S. Laura Sanders was here earlier. I don't know if she's still here. You're still here. There she is. Okay. Uh I want that the three of them in particular and Emmy as well uh were instrumental in helping to draft this resolution and we worked closely together. Um I know you guys were able to review it, provide your feedback. I want to say to the members of the public who wanted the resolution to be stronger, they made it stronger. Uh they added language to it that that made this resolution stronger. I want to say to folks that, you know, wanted to make sure that property was included in the resolution. The amendments that they offered actually did add property to the resolution. So this resolution as it stands includes all county properties, not just the buildings. uh all county properties are included and it does have that resolved clause which was in it before uh instructing the this resol resolution be sent to surrounding

cities, townships and villages. So those things are in here. Um and I want to speak more to the resolution in a second, but I want to talk about why this is so um personal for me. Um I I'm the son of an immigrant. Um my father came to this country um and as I see what's happening across our nation today uh I I think of the first days that he spent in America. Uh he came from Algeria country in North Africa. That's where uh his family is. Um and I think of how vulnerable he was. And I think of the immigrants all across our country like my dad um who just came to America to to seek a better life. And um nobody deserves to be treated this way.

No human deserves to be treated this way. And what we are seeing in this country with the rise of authoritarianism and fascism in our federal government is something that we need to take very seriously as local elected officials. The community is saying that and I believe me, I've been saying this now for for years. This resolution, as great as it is, is not enough. This is a piece of paper and some words on it, and hopefully it does some good implementing it for county buildings. But when the Nazis come to Ann Arbor, we are going to have to stand as a community to face them. And that means all of us that means all of us in this room. And that means that to to be honest with you, this and maybe our attorney will smack me over the head with a newspaper afterwards, but it it doesn't mean just non-ooperation. It has to mean actively working against what ICE is doing. It has to mean that our law enforcement agencies in this county treat them like a terrorist organization, like it's gang coming into our community.

I mean, what would we do if a group of armed gang members came into our community and started systematically dragging people out of their homes and out of their cars? We certainly wouldn't sit on our hands. our police officers wouldn't sit on their hands and all this militarized equipment that we apparently have to knock homes down. The only reason we should have it is to make sure that ICE is held at bay to be honest with you. And that's the only reason.

Again, the attorney is probably going to slap me over the head for saying that, but that's how I feel again as the son of an immigrant. I'm I am an American citizen, but again, somebody said it at the podium. Citizenship status apparently doesn't matter anymore. That's not what they're here about. They're here to take black and brown people into vehicles. They're here to drag people out of their homes for no reason. That's why they're here. They're here to terrorize America into submission. That's what they are here for. It's not about immigration enforcement anymore. It is about terrorism of the American people and we can't allow that to continue. Not innoc. So, this resolution is a great step in the right direction. I would have loved to see this resolution go even stronger. There were some changes made to make sure that everybody around this table was comfortable with it. I would have liked to see it go further. This is a step forward. Um, and what I hope to see from here, what we will see from here, because it's been added to the resolution thanks to some of the work that Commissioner Lebar and Commissioner Scott did on this, uh, is that we're going to be coming back, the attorney is going to be coming back to the board with a policy on how this is actually going to be implemented at the county, which I actually think makes this resolution stronger. So, I do want to thank my colleagues for coming together on this, for working together on this resolution. Uh, this is a communitydriven resolution, and it's one that the colleagues around this table uh all work together on to make sure that it got to the form that it is. We have so much work to do as a community to come together and and make this uh a reality. Um because they are coming for all of us and we all have to stand strong. we are going to have to put ourselves in very precarious positions for our neighbors, for our loved ones, um for people like my dad, which freaks me the hell out to talk about it. Um and he is a a citizen now, but again, it doesn't matter. Um, and so you know I the person that told the

story about their um the the mom getting the taken by ICE and the two daughters getting left on the bus. I mean I just think about my own childhood and me and my brother and it's like we can't allow this to happen folks. This is our country. We have to stand for this country. We have to stand for something. We have to stand for our neighbors and that's what you all are doing by being here today. And it's going to take so much more than showing up to a meeting, than passing a resolution. We have to be unified as a community. We have to know our rights. Our law enforcement officers should know what is and isn't legal. When the federal government is instructing them, you have to do this, you have to do that. They should know what's within their rights to do and not do. Right to stand up to

ICE and say no. We have to draw a firm line of demarcation in the sand that protects our residents. I know that again I'm going to say one more thing on this. I know that there's been some attempts to make sure that this resolution stays within the legal bounds of what we are allowed to do, but I want to remind my colleagues and members of the community that what they are doing is illegal. They are they are violating the law themselves. And so to hold ourselves to the standard of, oh, we have to follow certain laws and regulations. that. At a certain point, they're violating the law and we need to stand up to make sure that our community is safe. At the end of the day, we have to push the envelope, folks. We have to be bold. We have to be brave and we have to do what's right. So, I want to thank you all for being out here today to support this resolution. We have to get this passed. We will get it passed. I know that uh my colleagues are hopefully all going to vote for this, but thank you all for being out here uh today to support this. I want to talk about um a few other things. Ice free zones. We also should have data center free zones to be honest with you.

I want to thank the residents that came out today to speak about data centers. This is we have an allout assault on our environment happening right now in our county. the data center issue and also the landfill issue. With all respect to the gentleman that spoke, I completely oppose the expansion of the landfill. We don't need more trash in our community. I know it's not in my district, but when when my wife was getting giving birth to my son, uh I remember being at the hospital and looking out the view at the wind of the window and you can see that damn landfill from the hospital, the big mountain of trash in our community. Uh much of which comes from Canada. Uh I don't support the expansion. I've been firm on that. I've gotten a lot of emails on it. I don't support it. Crystal Clark, what's happening to her is a complete uh violation of her human rights. We need to stand strong as a community on that. And I uh I don't know if Trish is still watching, but I would like to join that meeting uh with Commissioner Sanders uh as well. I want to be there. I want to meet her. I want to support her. Uh and I want to support all the people in the Hiron Valley. Uh I don't even want to call it a correctional facility. I feel like that's doing it too much justice. uh but it in the prison that they're being held in in inhumane conditions. I want them to know that people are thinking about them, that we're fighting for them. I want to thank Commissioner Lebar, I believe it was Commissioner Lebar, Commissioner Haj for what they said about the this voting rights uh uh um ballot measure being directly tied to the issue of ICE, being directly tied to the issue of uh intimidating our communities. This is about making voting less accessible and uh and we need to pass this resolution. Thank you to those that uh that pushed for that. To the family that came to speak about their home, uh I had a personal conversation with them. Uh we need to do something to help support them. This is absolutely unacceptable for them to be just left with a completely uh borderline demolishable home uh that's already been partially demolished. Uh and to just say, "Oh, that's it. You got to hold the

bag now." That's completely unacceptable. And uh we need to do better as a community. And actually, I would say that we need to think beyond just this instance on all the other instances of this happening across the county as well to understand how this uh how this how this can happen. We shouldn't be leaving uh folks, you know, completely uh out like that. Um, so I 100% support what they're saying and I want to be helpful to them in that uh in that cause and I just over the course of the last few weeks I've heard from so many members of the community that that live uh in Commissioner Somerville's district on you know the impact that that had on them. And I just want to say uh I you know it is not it is not okay that this happened in your neighborhood that it happened in any neighborhood and again the only reason why we should have this militarized equipment is for situations like ICE and that's pretty much it. So I think that there is um we are at an inflection point in our country. We're an inflection point in our community and it is meetings like this and gatherings where you're all coming out that give me some hope for the future that not all is lost because if the community can show up like this when ICE comes to town and if the community can show up even more that gives me hope that the future isn't lost and thank you all for being here today.

Right on. I just want to say the more you talk to us about what you need, the more we can support you, too.

Thank you. Um, Commissioner Sanders, I got six bullets here. Um so the first I want to address because it is uh the facility is in my district. Um I attempted to go as I said at a previous meeting with my uh Pittsville Township electeds to tour what they will show you at the Heron Valley uh women's facility because you don't get to tell them what you'd like to see. they decide what they want to show you. Um, and I was I I wasn't able to go I didn't get my credentials to them in time and they said they needed so many days notice. I sent it but it didn't it was not within that time frame and I just assumed that they weren't going to be able to turn it around on a dime. They turned it around but they didn't tell me they turned it around. So, the group was waiting for me and I was not going because they didn't say I could go.

Um, and I mentioned that at one of our last board meetings. Um, and Chair Scott mentioned that she would be interested in going as well. And I literally just found out moments ago that um, the Michigan Department of Corrections denied our request. So, it is not uh for lack of effort um that I am trying to honor the request to go and see that facility. So, as uh Commissioner Robbie has said, uh we'll try this again and uh hopefully we'll be able to go um and tour that facility. Um, I did assist the treasurer for Pittsfield Township with um some wordage on the resolution that they passed because uh Pittsfield Fire is a first responder to that prison if there is a fire. Policewise, it is the state police and any other agencies would then show up as support. But the resolution was written not only in support of the of uh Miss Clark, but also the other inmates and the staff that work there. It's it's not like whatever is happening in that building in terms of healthwise is skipping over everybody and just going to Miss Clark. So the resolution was written in such a way that we wanted to make sure that we were also letting our families of the first responders know that we would not purposely or knowingly try and send them into a place where they may be harmed or

walk away with some lingering harm. Um so that's my response on that. We we will follow up again with that. I will tell you it's a little scary to fill out that application and see that you can't take phones or anything. So, I'm not trying to be funny, but I don't want to disappear either. Um, but I will we will follow up and be able to let you know what's going on with that. So, that's bullet one. Uh the next bullet which is I'm putting it over the other issues that were brought um to the podium because it is so near and dear to me. It is not that the other issues are important and I'm going to address them. But I hope I can try and put this to rest. the east side community and recreational facility. Let's be clear, this has been a 30y year effort. 30 years of the east side of the county and one of the areas that has historically had some of the most crime incidents since I've lived here going on 40 years now. I actually served landlord tenant papers out in those housing communities and I have been a staunch supporter since I got on this board for that community to have their own recreational facility. I give credit where credit is due and I steal this phrase from from Melvin Parsons. It will be a soil changer. You need a place for children, for single mothers, for elderly to be able

to go and be safe and have the majority of their needs met in one facility, not assuming that they have a car or that they can get on a bus line or that they're physically able to go someplace further. And I don't want to turn this into a racial issue, but I need to call the elephant out in the room. It's suspicious to me that we support every millillage that comes before us. That the parks and wrecks has been approved. Their millage has passed. And all of a sudden there's this constant push back about whether or not we can make this facility happen. If we made Mary Lou happen, dog on it, we can make the east side happen. And they pay same taxes as everybody else. And I'm sick of hearing that narrative because it's a way to sort of underline, oh well, you know, we've committed to this. Yes, we have. And the county continues to commit to the border to border everything that is asked for our voters. I don't I can't remember a time we've said no to something.

So, I want to raise this issue and I hope it puts it to bed. Stop spinning this narrative. And all due respect to the employee, but I need him to think about something, too. When you have another facility, what is that? It looks like job security to me. And even though we don't agree on everything, this is a fully democratic board. And when I raised the issue of not wanting to subcontract services for that center, I had support from Commissioner Robbie that basically said, "Listen, if our other facilities are ask me, so should this one be.

It shouldn't be subcar." But I'm going to tell you all since you're here, they're we're having to talk about things like fundraising. Why did we have to fund raise for Mary Lou? I don't think we did. So to fund raise so that we can make it affordable for people who can't pay their union due I mean their membership dues, right? Commissioner Light and I have committed to trying to do that because I am determined to remove every excuse that people come up with for why that center cannot happen. And the money that we were gifted is timelmited. They can take it back any time. We need to get it started and get it built. And I just wanted to respond to that gentleman with all due respect to him. This is an opportunity for additional jobs. So, not only have we committed to the millillage for the parks and had some fabulous legislators in Lancing deliver $30 million to us. Did you hear me? $30 million in less than a year. So, I want people to stop whining about that center. if you want to come to me and talk to me about it. Okay, get your vest ready and come talk to me. So, I'm going to stop on that one. Ice. I've said this before. The majority of the African-Americans that I know in this county, in this

state, in this country, we were we are descendants of slaves. We were kidnapped. And I'm saying this out loud to the people that are running for public office right now. If one more politician lumps me into the immigrant category, I'm gonna upchuck because I need them to know there's a difference. I'm not minimizing immigrants at all, but don't lump people who were literally kidnapped, brought AC across oceans, treated in the most horrendous ways, and built this damn country. And still I have to worry about whether or not my hairstyle is going to trigger somebody when I walk into a place to buy something when I'm just driving in my car. And on top of that to be a public official that people just don't like cuz they had a bad day. So, I support these resolutions because I know people who are fearful, who have worked for me in the past, and don't want to go to Home Depot. No, they can't go there. In case you don't know that, ICE has been hanging out at Home Depot and Lowe's and picking people up. There was a suggestion that we as electeds should reach out to our business owners and ask them not to uh be so cordial or inviting of the ICE agents. I want to say to you all as

consumers, you have more power than we do. And when you let it be known that you won't eat at an establishment if they're serving ice, you won't buy clothes, you won't stay in a hotel, they pay attention to that because they live with you. They don't live with ice. Ice is temporary in our presence. Behold,

so I just want to say I I can't imagine what that's like. I know when I was doing my PhD work, we traveled down to Detroit and we visited schools um where we literally were being told that children would be dropped off at school and would never see their parents And as an only child and single mother, I just don't know what that would look like if I took my daughter to school and she never saw me or my grandson. I don't understand how you can be so inhumane and I'm sorry I don't normally cry unless I'm ready to fight you. You're ready to fight it. But the narratives that are being told and the resident called in I am beyond offended that she called them animals. So am I animal. I just lucked up to be in this seat. I don't have life experience. I didn't earn this. How dare she? So they're animals until you need them to do something cuz you think you're too good to do it yourself.

I want people to wake up. I want those people that feel like their vote didn't matter and didn't vote. I want them to wake up. Okay? because the people that are in DC are coming for all of us that don't agree with them.

Right on. So, I am not okay with ICE being in our community, but I do need the residents to know that this board, without you having to come to the podium, has been fighting and we will continue to fight. But we also need you to understand that there are some legal restrictions. We have taken every effort that we can to fight and we're still doing that. So, we're not saying we don't want to hear from you. It's just some stuff you can just check off and this is one of them

where we don't always agree. So, Commissioner Robbie So, I have visited GFL twice. Um, the first time I went out there, I said this earlier, I had a major attitude. I don't really like landfields. I went out there, you know, not wanting to understand, you know, kind of like I was beyond impressed with the information they shared. And I don't think that it was, you know, sugarcoated. They were quite honest with us. What I do know is that people shape narratives to fit what they want to happen. GFL is relatively new to the management of that facility. And I am being told because I, you know, I'm I ask around so that I'm not the only quote unquote think I know everything. GFL has a reputation for being one of the best managed companies when it comes to landfills. About the 50th email that I got from Northville residents, and trust me, I think I'm at about 150 at this point, I finally stopped saying, "Thank you for your communication." And I responded back and asked, "Well, where is your trash taken? their trash is taken to I275, that is a toxic land. So although I respect their interest and need to communicate with us and let us know that they that they don't want it expanded, um one of them responded back to me and said, "Well, you know, Washington claims to be, you know, um

interested in sustainability and they support that." And my response back was, "This is true, but that doesn't mean we stop producing trash. Where is this supposed to go?" So, I am the type of person that when you are complaining to me, I need you to come with some solutions. They may not work, but I can't stand a whiner that doesn't have a solution. And at the end of the day, this facility is in our county. It benefits my colleagues residents. There's property tax that they don't pay because GFL pays. And I want to just put this out there and if I disappear, you know what happens? Who on earth builds a million dollar home with a landfill in your backyard? Who does that? And then you want to stop us from having a place to put our trash. I I'm confused. Now, if someone can bring us more tangible information that is current, I'm not talking about 10 or 20 years ago. And as they said, if you can prove that they are the ones, I mean, when they put the fire out, what were the fire people supposed to do? not put it out because there's peop in the phone. We have to come up with more solutions. You can't just say we're not gonna do this. That's like saying I'm not going to feed my grandson anymore because he might get fat off of his food. But if I don't have an alternative, what am I going to do? Starve it? So I I need more information than just that. And it's interesting that I don't I do not have an email that I can see from a county resident. It's all Northfield.

So I'm done on that cuz this is her area. And I appreciate Mr. Seagar from and um and his boss for coming out. When we did visit them, I said to him, "You got to your own horn. If you're doing good work, how do the people know if you're not telling? So, I'm done on that. Um, Cross Street, I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Danic last night. Um, I'm appreciative that he and his wife came out. I actually received a video of what the inside of that house looked like after the damage was done. Um, and you might have saw the tears tonight because I I want you all to help me understand what would you do if you had a home and a mortgage. You bought another home that has a mortgage so that your loved one had a place to live and you rented out the other half of it. And through no fault of your own, there was a situation where they did everything but raise the building and insurance will not cover hotel placement for that family member. They won't cover lost food for that family member. They cover zero. [clears throat] So who's still paying a mortgage? And I would expect, and I'm going to say this with a caveat, I was married almost 10 years to a police officer and some of his fellow officers are still near and dear to my heart. So, I do look at police situations a little bit different because I have a little

more insight into how they think and and the way that they do things, but you still got to have people that are qualified and know what they're doing. I'm not sure that the response that occurred was necessary. I I am sure it wasn't necessary. It's a mental health issue. We've got a whole millillage for that. And so we got to figure out something. I I willingly signed on to the resolution. I don't even know how we would dare say that we should charge this man. Why are Why are we Why are certain offices that are lenient on folks? I'm about to go there. I'm sorry, but I'm about to go. So, we have certain offices that are they they're lenient when they want to be and when it's convenient, but then they're not lenient in the cases that are the most empathetic. I have someone right now that has been like professionally stalking me that was not handled when they were in the criminal justice system, walking around free as bird talking big crap and trying to incite people to do harm to me. Something's not right and it needs to be fixed. But that gentleman should not be charged. He needs help. And the family needs some form of relief. Um, and I'm sorry for the family. I'm sorry for Mr. Rubin. I am sorry for the cross street neighbors. And I'm sorry for the seniors that didn't get fed

because wheels on wheels could not service them because of that situation. And lastly, I'm going to say I've been complaining about this and nobody has gotten me an answer. I have been signed up for Everbridge, the texting system for the sheriff's department and the state police forever. I just went through my phone because I didn't get any text messages about that situation and the other situation in Commissioner Light's district about eight months ago. The last text that I have is August 12th, 2021. I didn't change my phone number. I don't know how I just dropped off of the list. I want to know who to who told the babies that were going to school four blocks away from that situation not to walk home this way. I'm I'm just confused. And most law officials, even if it's something wrong, they at least at first acknowledge the harm and the concern that they have for people that were involved. I'm not seeing that. I didn't see it at the the killing in Northfield. I'm I'm I don't know. So, we didn't have anything to do with that. It's been clear that we don't run the other officially elected offices. So, we hear what you're saying. Uh, but they have offices and you are welcome to go and occupy their space. Let them know as well.

Lastly, and I'm done. um voting. You can't tell I'm African-American. The year that I was born was the year that the Voting Rights Act took effect and it is still not permanent. We have six years before it either will be get renewed or not renewed. So, this resolution is a it's a no-brainer for me, right? I'm 60 years old. I've missed one primary in my lifetime. And I was sick about it. It's not an option to vote. My daughter will tell you that. And she's grown. She will not come back in my house without a I voted sticker.

[laughter]

And people have the right to do that. And the Secretary of State does their own form of vetting when you go to get ID. So why do we have to do more of it? We don't. I need people to pay attention to the administration that we have in DC. If you haven't watched The Handmaid's Tale, you need to watch it. I couldn't get past like the fourth episode because it was just too real to me. But it is real and people need to stop burying their head in the sand and saying it's going to be okay. We are in dangerous times right now. So I'm done. I apologize. Share. I've lost my voice. I needed to get that out. I appreciate you allowing me to do that. I appreciate you all for listening. Um, and as much as I sometimes complain, I still respect your right to come and fill this space and tell us what you want us to know. Thank you.

Charge. Okay. All right. All right. Uh, Commissioner Beman. Thank you, Chair. Going to be hard to follow that one. Um, [laughter]

but I want to thank everyone for coming out and um raising your voice whether you feel that you're heard at this table or not. Um, you have the right to come and and share your thoughts with us. So, I always appreciate everyone from every walk of life coming forward and speaking to us. Um, that's that is your right. Um, a couple people talked about not knowing me. So, I'm going to tell a tiny little story. I promise it won't be that long. Um, but I ran for office because of something that I could not unsee that I witnessed in 2017. Back in 2017, I was driving my country roads out in district three. Beautiful pastures. On the side of the road in front of a farm were three migrant workers zip tied by ice. These are people who showed up every day for work, people who trusted their employer, people who spoke broken English. It was their second language. But they believed in this country as much as anyone here in this room. In that moment, they were not treated as neighbors or workers. They were treated as criminals. That scene sticks with me because it shattered any illusion that injustice only happens somewhere else to someone else. was happening here in the pastures of Washington County in plain sight. Daily drive. I say this because what we're seeing today did not happen overnight. Long before the headlines that we're seeing today, this administration has

been attacking attacking immigrants, migrant workers, people being reduced to quotas and stripped of all of their dignity. No due process. Illegal deportation is not just a failure of policy. It's a moral failure. It erodess the rule of law, tears families apart. And it weaponizes fear against the very people who feed us, who build our communities, and keep our economy moving. As an elected official, I believe that the government has the responsibility to protect all human rights, not violate them. We must never accept a reality where people are zip tied on the side of the road as if they do not matter. I ran for office because silence is compliance. When I drove by that day, I didn't know what to do. I didn't hold an office. I didn't have someone to call. These were federal agents arresting people working in my community. I serve because every person, regardless of your language, of your birthright, of your paperwork, deserves dignity, due process, and justice here in America. It's in our Constitution and it's being lost. I'm also going to pivot a little bit here and talk about the ballot initiative um harming voters. Yes, I had the choice. I changed my name when I got married. This ballot would impact me as it would many people who decide to get married and take on the name of their partner. Yes, I also choose to live in rural Washington County. It's over a 30-minute drive here every day for me.

That means it's a 30-minute drive to go get my marriage license. whether it's free or not as this ballot is saying. Are they going to mail it to me for free? Do I want that sacred document in my mail where who knows can see it, open it, etc. How do they know I got it? Am I signing for it? I don't I don't understand all of these pieces. I was also very poor at one time living in rural county and I understand what a $10 fee means. I understand what a tank of gas means. I understand all of these barriers and the burden that they place on people who are just trying to vote. These are not abstract inconveniences. They are real barriers that members of our community face. It falls to the hardest working people, our rural residents, our seniors, people with disabilities, families. Whenever we add layers of voting restrictions, we're not strengthening our democracy. We're narrowing it. Voting is a right, as was stated tonight, not a privilege reserved for those with time and money and documents and all the proper things in alignment. It's here for us as Americans. When we are excluded, when we are discouraged, the whole system fails. There are already robust checks and balances in place to protect the integrity of our elections. I find this harmful for our electoral workers. Do we not trust them? Do we not have people in line to do their jobs? They're elected to townships and villages and cities. [sighs]

Our clerks, they verify the identity. They maintain the voter roles. They safeguard the ballots through all these different processes that are put in place, legal process. Adding a proof of citizenship, it doesn't make anything more secure. It just increases mistrust, disenfranchisement of the entire system. So I just again I want to thank everyone for coming out and speaking on these many different issues. I do want to quickly touch on the women valley correctional facility. Um I appreciate all of the work that my fellow commissioners have done for this and for putting forward this resolution. I recently saw a positive Facebook post from the Michigan Department of Corrections about a training program at this facility and I was shocked knowing what I know. So I bring this forward just to say we have to keep up the pressure. We have to I have background in communications. I know PR when I see it and that was a spin for certain for some things that are coming out right now. So just thank you for coming and keeping the pressure on us and we will continue to keep the pressure on them.

Thank you Commissioner Bean. Commissioner Light.

Good evening. It is night time. [laughter] 15 minutes to my bedtime. Um, so I just want to start off um on behalf of District 2, I want to apologize, um, on our behalf for the the all of the drama from like Salem Township came with some today. And I just want to apologize and I know it was probably not uh, one of the 14,566 people who voted for me that came comments about how we vote trying to take our rights away. I I'm It's not okay. You You don't obviously want to have a chalk on the ground person sitting in this seat, and you don't want to allow people that look like me, people that look like my chair, people that look like many individuals that are sitting out here to have the right to vote. My ID is valid. I've had it a very long time. I did decide to change my name when I got married. And even if I had not, I don't need anybody going checking for me talking about I'm not legal. As Commissioner Sanders said, when we go to the Secretary of State, they best. So, just to keep in mind, don't come for me in my ID and trying to verify me. When I go to vote, I come with a valid ID. I know where my precinct is. I know what I'm supposed to do. So, with that being said, you can back off with that. And since we are still since we're in the realm of voting and rights, ICE can go to hell. I'm sick of it. And I know the resolution may not seem as it's a start. But the only thing

I can do to say what the actions can be behind this resolution is you got to fight for your life. If you are addressed or approached, I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to fight. I'm going to encourage all to get a CPL. I'm going to encourage all to take some some lessons on maybe you you might want to take some karate lessons. You want to do something. You want to learn how to protect yourself so that you can help others to protect themselves. Do not go out of this place without a fight. So we have set forth the resolution. I'm going to have to put some woman power behind the resolution. So, if you're not want to know what this is my individual action, I I can't say what my brothers and sisters on the board will do. But what I'm going to do is I'm going to make sure that I'm not leaving this world. I'm not going to prison or hell. So, you know that ICE agent, I'm just going to tell him that make your choice. Make your choice. I'm not leaving this earth. I'm not leaving my county. I'm going to raise my children. So, how do you want how do you want to do this? Because I only have one way I'm doing it. So, we're going to stand behind this. I need you all to be strong and not be discouraged about what all is going on. We have to step up. So, that's that on the ice. We I am going to vote that we are a ice free zone. This county is ice free. They cannot come in our buildings, on our property. And I'm going to encourage all of our our store owners, our vendors, anything that's going on, we're not buying it. Don't come here. I wish we could have county border control. Do not step foot. You're not allowed. Back off. So,

[clears throat] but we'll work on that next. We'll work on that next. Um, the next thing that I wanted to speak about since I was speaking of um Salem Township is about the expansion of the landfill. I too was able to go and visit. Um, and honestly very impressed. I went and I was like, "Dang, I got to take off my sandals." I had just got a fresh pedicure. I'm like, "This is some bull." So, I get there and I'm like, "Wait, okay, it doesn't stink." So, I still put on my gym shoes and then I I go and I'm like, "Man," and we go and we're on the landfield. I'm on the very very top and I'm like, man, okay. So, it's not as dirty as I thought it was going to be. It doesn't smell like I thought it would. And I received like boatloads of information that I'm still processing. I just want to encourage the Washington County Salem residents um that benefit from GFL. Let's have a conversation. Let's have a town hall. I want you to tell me what it is you want, how you feel about it, because I have a lot of folks over from across the line on Wayne County in Northville with a V opposing the expansion, but it's not about them. It's not about what they want. It's about what my constituents want. So, I need for you to tell me what you want, how you feel, what you think, so I can advocate on your behalf because I can't do anything for them. But what I can do is speak on Salem Township's behalf on what they want with the landfield. So I'm not saying yay or nay, but what I am saying is I want to hear from Salem Township residents because you are the ones that matter. You decided where you wanted to live and

reside. And I don't need for our neighbors over in Wayne County coming and mixing up and messing up what we got going on as far as our our property taxes and other benefits that we may have. So, they need to mind their business for a minute and let us think about what we want to do and how we want to move forward. So, that's where I'll keep that. I'm looking forward to a town hall with my Salem Township residents and the neighbors in Washington. Um, next I want to go to our women's here on Valley Corrections facility. Uh, it's it's funny that we've been denied access um to visit and that's fine. You want to deny us. Uh, we we have information, evidence of what the facilities are like, how our inmates um are being treated as far as the living conditions. Miss Clark has presented us with that information. Um, we've seen it and so the facility can continue to deny us access, but what you can't do is deny us from making sure and speaking and continuing to advocate on the behalf of the individuals that are incarcerated. Um, so I just want to make sure um that Heron Valley knows that you can deny us all you want, but you can't shut us up. You're in Washington County and we don't play. We don't play. So, I'm going to need for our state facility, the only women's correction facility to step it up. Clean it up. do what you need to do because I don't want this to continue coming to our board table and you them trying to cover up and hide

whatever it may be is not okay and I don't stop. I don't stop. I don't give up. I don't stop. I won't stop. I'm like my seven-year-old daughter when I tell her no, she always comes up with another way to say it. She won't give up. She doesn't stop ever. Never. And so that's what I want to tell here on Valley. I don't stop. She gets it from me. I keep going. Like the song, this is a song that doesn't. I keep going. So that that's that piece. Um I want to get to our Cross Street residents. I arrived uh on Cross Street uh after various texts and communications from our administrator, which I am so grateful for because he continues to make sure that we receive communications that we we don't get um about things that are going on in our district. And so I'm very grateful for that. But after I got to a point in the day, it was around 2:00, my son attends school at one of the schools, the four education facilities, and I'm like, "Okay, we release school starts, school release starts at 2:30 for one school, 2:40. Um, and then it's a a daycare, so timing is, you know, throughout the day. And then you have the last elementary school that releases at 4:20. So at 2 o'clock, I'm getting agitated and I'm asking questions. Okay, what is the plan of action for the release of these children? I don't want them to come and see all of this and see everything that's going on. I don't want them to endure all of the tear gas that I had to go back to my truck, get a mask because I began to cough every time they

let off tear gas. And so I was very upset because there was no plan of action and communication to the children to the for for the the release of the children to walk home. There are several walkers several walkers. And I was upset because we don't have a plan in place. What's going to happen? So my thoughts were, okay, I'mma call the police on the police because why are I don't play about kids. I don't play about my kids or anybody else. So why are these kids and sure enough here they come. And I said, "Oh, you can't come this way." Well, what's going on? They want to know cuz I know I would have wanted to know if I would have been walk. You can't come this way. You got to go another way. Kids were coming. They didn't need to see it. They didn't need to know what was going on. This should have been handled a a totally different way. Totally different way. totally mishandled accountability. None for anybody. Everybody want to pass. Oh, it's this person, this person, this person. No. But every board, every other board meeting, individuals come and chastise us about, oh, you guys hate the sheriffs. You don't no hold your sheriff accountable because there's no reason that there shouldn't have been a plan of action for my child to be dismissed because he was going to walk home with his friend that day. Thank God he changed his mind and he had to stay after. No plan of action. None. Our sheriff is a social worker. This is the best plan that you had to get someone who had a sword to come out. My dad taught me how to use a machete when I was eight. What's going on? So, I'm asking for

individuals to have some to to push the accountability to where it needs to go. Y'all want answers? Ask your sheriff. Let her tell you cuz I'm mad at her right now. And if and we can go further. We want to talk about charges. They want to charge Mr. Rubin when he needed help. He needed help. He was in a mental health crisis. something that could have been avoided, it could have took one hour versus 30. Heck, had I known, if I would have gotten a notification that we had a crisis, I would have said, "Brother Ruben, listen, please. Come on now." But no, we got to go all army and throwing in all kind of things. It didn't even take all of that. So with that being said, because it didn't take all of that, there was no plan in place. There is no accountability there. So now we have to pick up the pieces and we got to make sure that our homeowners, our homeowners that we we assist them, that we help them. It is not fair that Miss Mary has been dis displaced. It is not fair that those homeowners purchased this home with their hard-earned money just so they could make sure that their mother has somewhere to live. It's not okay. I am pissed off and we need to be able to help. I need for the charges to be dropped to Mr. Rubin and he can continue his care. So, that's another thing since I'm since I'm going there. our prosecutor, if he wants to charge Ruben, I think we better start questioning who we're electing. Okay, we we need to question that because if you're going to charge and

prosecute an individual that needs help, I think I'm going to think about h maybe you need help. Better yet, maybe I don't need to support and endorse an individual who can't see that an individual needs help and that's in a crisis versus charging them and wanting to send them to a facility that they may end up like Miss Clark. So, I just want you all to take this in and just to evaluate the electeds that we have. That's myself. That's everyone on this board. That's everyone whom you voted for and who sits in the office. Hold them accountable. me included. But we got to do something. We cannot continue to let these things occur. We have to have plans in action. We have to make sure that we continue if we can't even protect our children. How are we going to protect our immigrants? How are we going to protect our seniors? Like we what are we doing? So we we we as a whole, as a people, we got to come up with a plan because I just don't feel comfortable with the person that's supposed to protect me. I don't feel like they have a plan. So thank you all for coming out. Thank you all for speaking. Continue to speak, continue to advocate for your rights, our rights. I appreciate you. Thank you. And good night because it's late. [laughter] Commissioner Machiasi.

Thank you, Chair. [clears throat] Tempted just to sign on to a lot of the comments from earlier. I would not complain. Yeah. Um I do have a few points though. Um I won't belabor them. Um, I will attest back I was with on the tour with Commissioner Sanders, Commissioner Light at Landfill and Commissioner Sanders did or Commissioner Light did have Sandals with her. We'll confirm that.

Um, I will say that so I'm the board's representative to the materials management planning committee that is going eventually to be considering this issue with a recommendation. Um, I will say we haven't even gotten to this yet in that process because we're this plan that we're working through um is really focused on increasing recycling, increasing composting, in increasing uh organic recycling, reducing things that are going to the landfill. It is going to be one of the most innovative material management plans I think that's ever been created. And that's because the voices at the table are focused on doing that. So trying to reduce what's actually going into landfills. Um I I will say that um I've only been to the landfill once the one time I was with my my colleagues, but uh we have an open invitation to show up whenever we want um unannounced um at the landfill to see what's going on. And I've driven by it because I, you know, you you hear a lot about odors coming from landfill and I've um part of my job is I'm in western Wayne a lot so I I've driven by and I smell odors um coming out of there at this point. Um so I hope that we take a realistic and factbased look at that when it comes to us later this year. um and encourage anybody that hasn't been out there to go out there and see the operation and see what they do that other landfills don't do. Um and make an objective experience-based consideration of that. Um second, I want to note all the comments that came in in writing in addition to what was given verbally today. Um many of those comments came from people in Chelsea and Dexter and Scio Township and I greatly appreciate that. And there were comments. There's

one lady here who's from Dexter Township that you noted. I just want to note um Commissioner Light does have precinct uh three in Dexter Township. So if you live up by Portage Lake area, that's actually Commissioner Light. Um just want to share the credit uh there for the Dexter Township residents. But um appreciate all those comments and I'm going to come back to the focus on those comments in a minute. But I want to quickly note I support resolution FG and H on our agenda tonight and I won't believe it because I'm not going to be as eloquent as many of my colleagues have been about it, but I support it and I look forward to getting to the point we're going to vote on tonight and getting those through. Um, my next point is I'm going to pick up something that again my colleagues had noted. We are in a period of systematic cruelty designed to instill fear on the American people. You cannot appease a bully. And for everybody that's that sits back and says this will pass. We need a bipartisan solution. This is just a moment. The moment is stand up to the bully now. That's the moment we're in. And I thank everybody that's come out tonight. and it might be 10:30, but your voices are really important and you're demonstrating what we need to do as a collective community of Americans. So, I thank you for doing that tonight. This is not the moment to sit down and hope it goes away. It's the moment to stand up. That's the only way we will turn this around. The last thing I want to talk about is the work and road project. At this point, believe it or not, I get more emails about this than anything. And uh I know there were a couple people that came and talked about it tonight.

If you've ever driven on this stretch of road, which I recently went back and did about a week ago, this road needs to be repaired. And nobody's disputing that. This road needs to be fixed. Not one person has said to me it needs to be widened other than people with connected to the road commission. You heard the evidence tonight about the accidents that actually have occurred on this road are deer crashes, right? And a U-turn accident. Um, I've heard no justification why we need 12 foot shoulders here and experiencing this discussion in the emails that have come through and Mr. Roman was here a couple last meeting I think talking about this as well. This takes me back to 2019 and 2020 when I first got on the commission and we were talking about their trimming practices and things that were going on and the unresponsiveness to the residents of our county about things that the road commission was doing. And it just seems that anytime everything comes up to the road commission, it's always about safety, right? But yet when I bring up to them all the branches that are hanging over Dexter Ann Arbor Road or Dexter Chelsea Road or North Territorial and about how these things are going to fall on the road like it did to a lady over a decade ago and killed her. They don't do anything about those. But now this project oh it's about see right. But yet they don't do anything about all those creatures that are just waiting to fall onto these roads. So, I'm taken back to that that period of time where we were considering some things and I'm I'm really struck by the fact that you got 1300 people who sign a petition about a rural road. They show

up at road commission meetings and they get no resolution. It's almost like they're not heard. It's unbelievable to me while the White Road Commission is forcing this project when it doesn't need to be done. The public hearings on May are fe May February 9th and February 11th. And if you're interested in this project, I one of them is virtual, one of them's in person. I encourage June 10th. Um, I just it's amazing that we're another six, seven years down the road, but yet we're still doing the same things when it comes to overwhelming public comment about a project. So, manager, that's all the time I'm going to take from there. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. Um, Commissioner Somerville, thank you. I'm going to try to be brief. Um, I think I want to start because nobody covered this and I feel very like strongly that the record needs to reflect how inappropriate it was to use the death of Martin Luther King as like an excuse to bring the country together in the name of voter suppression. Uh,

shameful actually. Um, so I just wanted to start out by saying that given that we just celebrated his birthday and I, you know, I'm a history nerd, I have a a pretty good authority that he would not be supportive of any of the efforts in recent times to suppress the vote and would be proud of the things that the citizens of the state of Michigan have done actually to make it more accessible to vote for people like me who um work two jobs. I can vote early for no reason now. Um that couldn't have happened 10 years ago. So um yeah, really shameful. Uh and just wanted to start out there. Um thank you Trish for your advocacy around um living conditions for everyone at Women Heron Valley, but also your advocacy around Crystal Clark. Um and thank you for um your patience. I know that we had a long gap in between our last meeting in December and when we had um agenda items in uh in January. So, um thank you and thank you for being here tonight. And for the folks from League of Women Voters, thank you for also encouraging the support of that resolution as well and not just the issue that you are working on. I think it's really important when community um organizers work together even when it's not um necessarily like your main focus. It makes um all the issues that we work on collectively together, I think, better. Um especially right now. Um I wasn't going to swear, but Yousef did a few times, so I'm just going to say uh ICE. Um respectfully, um not respectfully. Yeah. Um and I I think like it's really scary. Um, I think a lot of people I'm seeing are talking about what's happening in

Minneapolis as like it's not happening here. It is happening here. The amount of people that I'm hearing from in in Ipsellani, like it's happening a lot in Ipsellani. I'm getting calls and texts from people who are not super political um who, you know, they're like Democrats and but they're just not very active. Not everybody's on the same level of activity as the rest of us. Um, but like earlier, you know, a couple months ago watched people who bought homes in their neighborhood get kidnapped by ICE. Um, so it is happening here. I think there's a lot more attention and media coverage. Um, and I I I I'm saying that because we need to be prepared and step up in ways that we're not thinking. Like I'm thinking about people who are skipping picking up medication or not going to doctor's appointments. How can we get people in the medical field to do traveling check-ins with people who might need to access care? Like, there's a lot of different things that we could do. And I think this resolution is great, but I'm also thinking of like how can we use all of our networks to provide care and support for people right now who are afraid to leave their homes in our community. Um, especially after seeing some of the live footage from from other areas of the country. Um, I think this is a good step. Uh, I think, you know, we're never going to, I think, do all of the things that people think or want, like think that we can do even when we don't have authority. But I do want to say like I feel like both in this room and behind the scenes, we're all nine of us are trying to figure out ways to help support um the community that the people in the community that are most impacted by this. Um, and sometimes, you know, like it's it's finding out things like I think at our last board meeting we had people comment on the fact that like flights are leaving Willow Run and so how are we going to apply pressure to the people who are allowing that? Um, it makes me qu you know like

if if people that want support, especially from like local units of government are going to do things like that, we have a right to know and and we have a right to be able to make the decision on if we want to support them in the future. And so, um, I appreciate the people who continue to bring up some of these issues that are not being highlighted, but when you look at the data from the flights leaving, it's it's it's wild to me that it's happening in a site that was like, you know, when you think about like the meaning and and what like we once stood for in this country, which was like I thought anti-fascism. Um, it's really sad to know that um that might be happening at Willow Run. So, um, thank you for everybody who came out to support the, um, ICE-free zones and to support our, um, criticism of voter suppression. Um, it is within our authority to make sure that the public is informed, that there are tactics being used to convince people to sign a petition. If your petition is good, you shouldn't have to lie to get people to sign it. Um, I appreciate what Commissioner Sanders said about the Eastside Rec Center at Wreck and Community Center. Um, and just like broad picture across county services. And I'll speak to another issue later. Just it seems like there's a constant fame of pitting things and people and services against each other when really like and I've thought this since my time on the board that we can do a better job at actually going through our budget and and taking a finer tune look at everything that we're spending money on so that we're not pitting west um parks and recck services against new east parks and recck services. we we don't need to. Um and uh also suspicious of just cutting a bunch of old historic trees. That doesn't seem like a good idea. So I appreciate um what some of my other colleagues have

said about that. Um what else? Um, oh, I want to thank there was not public comment about this in particular, and I don't think folks are here anymore who do work with the the Washington camp outreach space, but I want to make sure that we did have comment earlier about the need for more shelter support. And I do agree. Um, we, you know, we've opened a family shelter, but we still have more work to do to make sure that everybody's needs are met. Um, so I want to thank not only the folks that work directly with Washington Camp Outreach, but also county staff. Um, our county administrator, um, Greg Dill and Terren and Ashley have been, um, really on top of preparing for the next few days of really, really, really cold weather. Um, I think that every year that I've been on the board, we've built better relationships with people who run mutual aid networks in the community. And I think it's a good thing for us to continue to build partnerships with people who are on the ground not attached to government because there's a lot of mistrust and I totally understand it. Going into my next point, what happened in my district with somebody who was experiencing a crisis and when people who were close to him knew that they tried getting help and they did not get help. Um, and I haven't blamed anyone. I have a lot of questions though and I I want everybody who's paying attention to this to take a step back and and if the goal here is to make sure it never happens again and that accountability happens, we have to know how to make sure that a water hose is not used on a human being inside of a home ever again. And we have to make sure that a building's not half demolished while a human being's in there ever again. And I'm going to keep asking questions and asking for

the people who were on the scene to be more accountable for how things played out because honestly like when I was I was there at one point towards the end because I got so many calls from constituents and I couldn't believe what they were saying. Um, we can't say that one uh illegal group of people who want to be police officers is wrong and then also not criticize the fact that this just happened in our backyard with a law enforcement agency slash agencies that we all like I am directly responsible for the money that goes towards Metro SWAT and I feel like I sure as heck haven't done my due diligence to understand what type of equip they have and can use without good reason. Um, but the response that we get is that we need to stay in our lane. We're just commissioners. We're not law enforcement. And I actually I disagree. We have a right to better understand why certain tactics were used and we have a right to demand that they never get used again. Um, and then as an aside, another human being is now homeless because of this incident and the family that owns the home is also impacted. So, you have three different pieces of this that have left people in complete shambles. And, um, you know, I think that we've gotten good criticism about board relations with the sheriff. I I take that feedback and I've reflected a lot on it. But right now, my goal is to center the family impacted that own the house, the person who's now been displaced and the person who has eight charges that they're facing for a situation where they didn't commit a crime. Um, and so I I can take accountability where accountability is due for me. I

can absolutely improve my relationship with the Washington County Sheriff's Office, but that does not discount the fact that there needs to be accountability for part of our county that is in the sheriff's office purview. And I appreciate um the efforts of local law enforcement and the sheriff to work together to get more information out because that is what all of my constituents are asking for. They want more information because while nobody is suggesting that it's any one person's fault for what happened, I think everybody agrees that we want to make sure it doesn't happen again. And the only way to do that is to actually get into the details of why it happened, who made the call, if we didn't know who was in charge, how do we make sure that never happens again? because that's not okay when you have military level equipment in a neighborhood and people in the community continued throughout that 30-hour period to be told that there was no no direct harm to them except for they were breathing in the fumes, you know, and and the and the person involved in the incident did not go unharmed. So, um, again, I I really think that accountability in many different areas in the function of county government needs to be had. Um, but I think right now one of the things that is most relevant to my role and my district is making sure that we take a really serious look at how everything happened and have a fully independent review of all of the law enforcement agencies involved, including the sheriff's office, including YPD, which the Y like YPD chief has already said that absolutely we should have a third party review of what happened. Um, and I think, you know, it's it's good to have an outside look because when you have people who you know, folks on the scene, it can slant their view. So, we need to have a full thorough review from

somebody who's not biased, who can tell us where the breakdown happened and how we can prevent it in the future. Um, so I will end there. Thank you. Commissioner Robbie assures me it'll be short. It'll be short. It'll be short. He has a short edition.

I I didn't talk about the trees. I want to talk about the trees. Fully support I got to talk about the trees. I got to talk about trees. Fully support everything my colleague said. It's ridiculous that the road commission wants to cut these down. Uh you know, we we you can't replace these trees. You can't just plant a bunch of small trees. It's not the same thing. Uh that happens all the time. They're like, "Oh, we'll replace them." That doesn't matter. If you cut down the the old trees, um you are uh it it has carbon impact. It has an impact on our community. It has an impact on our shade. All kinds of different things. We should not be doing that. This is ridiculous. Um and I and I do uh uh I will be signing the petition. One more thing I want to say about ICE, and this is the main reason I wanted to be uh called on. Um and I'm sorry if this offends some of my colleagues, but it needs to be said. Uh I remember uh when 911 happened uh as a person uh who has uh a foreign sounding name who is uh you know North African of North African descent like I said my dad um I lived in fear of the terrorism of our state. Um that was terrorizing people who looked like me. Uh, and I lived in fear as a kid in this community watching um, neighbors who looked like me get abducted by the federal government at the time. Um, and I wanted to connect that to this because I want to remind us all that ICE is an agency that was created as a result of 911. And it was created in 2002 by one of the worst presidents our country's ever had, George W. Bush. Uh, and unfortunately was continued during both Republican and Democratic administrations. It was funded during both Republican and Democratic administrations. It was used during both Republican and Democratic administrations. Unfortunately, this is not a partisan problem. Uh but I hope that we can find the solution. And I I think I say this because I think it's important in this moment to be discerning as we look to the upcoming uh you know 2026 if we actually have an

election. Uh I hope I hope that we are discerning and we hold our candidates to account that their position needs to be the abolition of ICE uh and nothing less than that. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. Um I I'm just going to I know I said something about ICE at the beginning of commissioner comments and I did say I just a little bit more and I really do have a little bit more. um just a little uh my grandma was an immigrant to this country and um like Commissioner Sanders like emphasized to me the importance of voting. I mean she was like you go to every election and vote. She did tell me to go into the this gives you an idea of how old I am too. She did tell me to go into the B voting booth and pull that handle straight ticket Republican every time. I did not follow her advice on that one. Um although I have no doubt that my grandmother would not be saying that right now because this is not a party that she would have recognized in any way, shape or form or would she have thought was acceptable. Um, she taught me that that right to vote was foundational and that if you decrease that right to that that decrease access to that right, if you narrow that right um through intimidation, through barriers, through deliberate confusion, it's not abstract. It's like an actual direct threat to democratic participation and public trust. Um, and we've seen how voter suppression doesn't always announce itself really loudly. We've seen where it has in this country, but often it it operates by making things more complex than are necessary. And the people that are impacted by that most of the time are those who already face disproportionate barriers to voter participation. And so that's what this is about doing. This is not necessarily about making it harder for for me to vote. This is making it harder for people who don't look like me to vote. Like, make no bones about that. That's

what this is about. Um, we do have the authority, as my colleagues have said, to speak plainly about that. Um, protecting access to the ballot is not partisan. It is pro-democracy. Um, and so I am excited to support this resolution. I mean, I came home from college my freshman year to register to vote. It also marks me as a dork. I understand, but that's like how important that has been to me and how much it's been emphasized to me in my life. I'm not about to try to see that be eroded for anybody. Um, and I will talk a little bit about the trees. I think we need to figure out what we can do about that. My family goes to a place in South Carolina every year. We drive down this road and there are these giant um what are they? The oaks in South Carolina. Anybody? Live oaks. Thank you. Thank you, fellow South Carolina fan. Um there are these giant live oaks at the side of the tree like at the road right there. It's beautiful. And whenever I take anybody there, the first thing they do is talk about the absolute gorgeousness of this road. And it's not just about the beauty. It's like I'm going to be a little dorky again to you, but like do you ever stand next to one of these old trees? Like you can feel it like and so we need to do what we can to protect that because it's such a essential integral part of the beauty of this county. Finally, on Cross Street, I'll just say um I think it's important to be clear that the community response we've witnessed and what we heard here from those homeowners, it reflects a deep concern about the scale and nature of the response that we had about how situations involving mental health crises are handled in this county and in this country. Um, I I feel like I watched the the

escalation of what was happening there along with watching the escalation of what's happening in Minneapolis. And I think that we need to expect and deserve and prioritize uh responses in our community that that emphasize deescalation, that emphasize proportionality and care. And when a response generates not only fear and trauma for the people the response is to, but for the neighbors and bystanders, it's appropriate for those of us at this table to ask hard questions and insist on accountability and reflection. We have been asked at this table to take a hard stance, a a public stance on what ICE means in this community. If we can do that about federal agencies in this community, we can do it about our own people living right here in the community with us, serving in this government with us. That is appropriate for us to ask those kinds of questions. And they're questions um just to be clear about what we're asking about what happened at Cross Street and what we're asking about what happened with the man that was um shot the next day and killed. It's not about assigning blame in the moment. I think we're trying to to talk about learning and about transparency and about doing better about thinking about process-wise what can happen better in the future so this doesn't happen again. Um because public safety whether it is in the instance of what we're talking about with ICE or whe whether it's talking about what happened at Cross Street or with the shooting it depends not only on this authority but it depends on trust and I think I am concerned about the trust that people have now in that public safety and so I think we have to take those concerns seriously. Um, and I know that there's some question about how we have an independent investigation. I I know that for us as a

board, our oversight really is fiscal. I I will be interested to get an accounting of the fiscal nature of what that of the cost of that to the county. Um, and regardless of the cost to the county, I do think we need to talk about how to make things right for this family. Um because it is it was heartbreaking to hear that family tonight talk about what happened in that house. Um so I think that nine people at this table are nodding their head at me. So I I imagine we'll have some some movement on that to try to help make that right. Um okay that's it. That's all I'm going to say. Um obviously we're a bunch of opinionated people up at this table. Uh, liaison reports, friends, any liaison reports? Commissioner Hod.

Hey, thank you. I will be quick on this one. Um, I just wanted to share something at the meeting since it's been a while since we've done a leazison report. Uh, it's actually a really interesting one. So, there uh we had an airport zoning board meeting some time ago. Uh, and they're going to be making some changes to the you know the parking lots where you can go like they call them the cell phone lots. They're going to be getting rid of those over time and replacing them with businesses um like fast food restaurants and other places for people to go. Their hope is that that's going to reduce the amount of traffic in the airport like people going around or just waiting there. So, they're hoping that's going to generate revenue for the airport and uh relieve some of the congestion. So, seems interesting. If you are a person that is at the airport, you will see some new stuff sometime soon. There's also going to be some uh road work done on the highway near the airport which will take years apparently and will be terrible for uh traffic. So

words [laughter] the terrible part is my assessment but I think it's going to make traffic it's going to be challenging. It's going to make um your drives to the airport a little longer because of the upcoming um road construction, but those lots are going to be gone and replaced with something else over time. Okay, that's it for now. I got some other stuff, but it's already 11 o'clock and we're just now stopping responding to public comments. So, that's maybe I'll send you some in writing.

That would be awesome. Any other liaison reports? Thank you. I see none and I'm not looking that hard. Um, I think that there are a number of commissioners who desperately have to use the bathroom. Um, I just want to recess the meeting literally for five minutes. so we can um take care of business and then we'll be back. I I will never say bio breakak again. I hate that term. We're using the bathroom. Thank you.

Calling the meeting back to order. I have a quorum. Uh the next item on the agenda is report from the county administrator. Uh there's no movement on that, but thank you. Thank you for that very much. Um thank you, chair. Administrator Dill.

Hello. Hello. Thank you, Chair. Uh couple of things. Uh earlier this evening, I reported that the uh staff, the team at the Maryl Murray Center was dealing with a pipe that burst inside of the building. As a result, we were thinking that we might have to close that facility tomorrow. Uh I'm pleased to report I got an update from uh the director Megan Bonfilio this evening that Bonfigio forgive me and she has indicated that there might be a way for the building to open midday tomorrow and we're working to that end. So I wanted to give the board that little bit of an update. My second item is is an item that I am uh pleased to report. We have our director of aging services here this evening, uh, Shannon Eler. Shannon, if you want to come up. And I I wanted her to have an opportunity to to address the board, but I just want to say really quick if the last two weeks are any indicator, I will say that she is going to be an incredible hire. So, I want to say thank you.

Well, thank you for that. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Um, so I just wanted to give a brief overview of what I've been focused on um, in the short time that I've been here. But first, want to give a huge thank you to the warm welcome from everybody and anybody here at the county level, but also out in the community. So, my family and I are really settling in um, and have appreciated getting connected to the community. Um, so I've been on board for just over a week and I've been really focused on relationship building and comprehensively understanding the full network of aging services in the county. Um, I've met with a few senior centers already, gone out and done site visits with them um, to learn how the 2025 dispersement of the senior center um, millage funds is being used and how they're planning on continuing to use it. also reviewing the reports that they've submitted um to the county and then also looking forward to 2026 and how are they going to plan to use the funds then. So helping them brainstorm um and talk through different ideas with that. Um, I understand the great need for a senior nutrition strategic plan and I'm in the process of fully understanding how the program has been historically and is currently being operated so we can make an informed strategic plan moving forward. Um, and working of course um, in close collaboration with the current county's nutrition team. Um, older adult transportation I know is top of mind for a lot of us. Um, so in addition to developing the process out for dispersing the funds after March, which is when the current contracts will expire at the end of March, um, we also need to stand up a transportation stakeholder group. Um, and I will say generally speaking, again, in the very short time I've been here out in the community talking with folks, I've received a lot of positive feedback about the use of the from of the

transportation providers. So that's great. That is great news. Um, I'm in the process of scheduling meetings with various county departments to focus on how we strengthen the county's current infrastructure that's already positively impacting older adults. How do we enhance that with the use of these millage funds? Um, also focused on developing out an equity plan and making sure that these funds are equitably used across the county for all folks. The aging resource center. So, that is another charge of the office. Um we currently have a phone number and we have an email address so folks um older adults, care partners, providers can reach out um with questions and also we want to hear feedback about how are these millage funds being used, any complaints but of course also want to hear the positive feedback from folks. Um the email address is agingervices.org. Um the office will release an RFP in 2026 for funding of programs and services that impact um older adults and care in care partners positively. Um those proposals will need to be reviewed by an older person's millillage review committee. So we need to establish that committee um and make sure that we are prepared to review those appropriately. Um so we need an office of staff to execute these initiatives, right? Um, so I'm currently developing a proposed organizational chart for the office that I will submit to you all for review um, and feedback and input on that. So there's a lot more that needs to be tackled and addressed. I know that the housing trust came up earlier. So this is in no way, shape or form outlining everything that the office of aging services will um, address and be in charge of. But I just wanted to give you a snippet of what I have been really focused on um in the week that I've been

here. So lastly, I look forward to meeting with each of you one-on-one and hearing more from you about what's top of mind. Um and I was able to meet with Sher Scott this morning and have a few others lined up. So eager to have all those scheduled out. Um and I do want to take a moment to thank the county admin team. They have been wonderful. specifically Brady Peek has been awesome with my onboarding. So, just wanted to give him kudos. So, I am very happy to be here um and serve the county in this role and I really look forward to all the great work we accomplished together.

Thank you, Shannon. Last, I think I shared with most of the board that we have made the decision to close county operations on Friday due to the weather. We are expecting wind chills of minus 25. Uh and I've had a chance to talk to the courts and all of our department heads and we think that is a prudent thing to do to ensure safety for county staff. So we will continue to provide you guys with an update and if uh you have any questions uh that will conclude my report. There are some questions. Uh, Commissioner Somerville, Labar Robbie, can you clarify that Hawk is open? Thank you. [laughter]

And yes, Hawk is open and we updated a communication that went out to our community partners, including our local municipalities, and we let them know that we were closed, but Hawk would be open. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Sorry, Commissioner Labar. Okay. Commissioner Robbie, please say question. It's not same question. I was just going to say I'm very glad Administrator Dill that you are uh being cautious about snow and ice on uh Friday the 23rd. Thank you. Anything else, Administrator Dill? If you know, you know. Yeah, that will conclude my report.

When I got it took me a second there. I'm I'm not awake enough for for puns. Um, listen, this is exploding tree weather. So, it's true. Trees, yes, trees do explode when it's this cold. Um, high moisture trees will explode in extreme cold conditions. So, thank you. So will exterior light bulbs. Really?

Okay. Wow. Um, leave your sinks a dripping. Um, and I just want to say, um, welcome to Shannon also. I had a delightful meeting with you this morning and I'm really excited for all the things that we're going to do at the county. So, thank you. Um, next uh is Ashley Hall with a report. Um, this is my report from the board of commissioners and Ashley's going to give you a little bit of report because do you know what this year is everyone? Centennial. Um, so let's talk about a little party. It's 200. My god.

Okay, commissioners. Um, I will go through this quickly, but if you have questions or you want me to slow down, please just let me know. Um, it has been kind of a long night. Sorry, I forgot my notes over here. Okay, so uh, last year around summertime, you know, I I talked to the chair about next year's our bsentennial. Um, as you as you're probably aware, like the city of Ann Arbor recently celebrated their bsentennial, the city of Epsenni, the city of Dexter as well. Um, so this is just such a unique opportunity for the county to really celebrate its history, highlight the progress we've made, but one of the things that, um, the working group really wanted to focus on was also acknowledging the county's past as well. So, I think there's like the celebratory piece, but there's also the acknowledgement piece. Um so just getting into this really quickly uh just going to go over three quick items. Uh the working group, the brand work that we've been doing on the bsentennial and also an overview of the events. So first and foremost, I just wanted to make sure you all saw the names of everyone who's been working on this. Um our goal was to have every someone from every county department. We did not we we have not achieved that goal. Uh we're still missing someone from children's services and the district court. Throwing it out there. anyone's listening and is interested. One name that I really want to point out here is Irene Mora. Um so Irene is actually our bicesentennial fellow. So we worked with the University of Michigan Rackom Graduate School to identify a fellow a PhD student um who is who can actually do the historical research for us. So Irene started on January 7th. She is a PhD in history and women and gender studies. She was going to come tonight but it you know it's it's a little late for for students. So, um, so really what Irene's going to be charged with is doing that historical research. She has done a lot of work, um, on Native American and Latinx, uh, women's history in Washna County. She's from Washna County. So, we're really

excited to have her on board. She's spending a lot of time in what's the library at University of M. The Bentley. Spending a lot of time at the Bentley. Um, so really excited to have her on board. I also just want to say uh, the admin team has been really carrying a lot of the load as well. So, thank you to Terrence, uh, Tabitha, Cammy, and Brady. Okay, so we have partnered with Destination Ann Arbor on this. Destination Ann Arbor has been just want to sing their praises. They've been an excellent partner. Uh, started with a conversation with Sarah Miller. Destination Arbor has provided support to the city of Epsilani and the city of Ann Arbor as well on both of their bsentennials. This is something that they are providing to us without charge. Um, so it's part of the our our work with them. Um, so we we essentially worked with them to develop what a logo would look like. Um, that really took place over the course of like four or five creative sessions with a graphic designer. Um, her name was Julie. She's fabulous. And we went through a large creative process. One of the things that we zeroed in on was a theme for for next for for this year actually, the bsentennial. And that was part of the working group really worked on that. And what we've zeroed in on was past, present, possible. Um, that was one of the few choices. The other the second choice was we are washed and all. So I I personally was uh I personally like pressible myself. Um, but that really kind of led the work of what this logo was going to look like. So everyone ready to see the logo?

Yes. Okay. Drum roll, please. I really hope you like it. Okay.

It is beautiful. Okay, so this is our county bysentennial logo. Um, I'm going to walk you through it. Um, I think you probably see right off the bat there's a 200, but it also is it also spells out county. Um, so one of the things that we really liked about this was it really it really fits with the theme of past, present, possible. Um, the sans Sarah font. Julie wish she could be here, but Julie cannot be here. So I'm trying to graphic design this for you guys there. So the sansa font that she used for county is a very modern font and um I like to call the bsentennial font George Washington font. Um it looks very uh historical. Um also [laughter] the um we wanted to make sure that we did some placemaking in terms of the state. So we wanted to make sure that the mitten was included. Um in terms of color, blue is a very important color for county. It's part of our brand. But also uh we wanted to we talked about how important our our water was to us. So the Hiron River as well as the our trees. So the green and the blue and the gradient of the 200 that's really represented there. Um so this was one of many options but I think this is really what everyone in the working group decided on was their favorite. Um I also want to say that Julie actually created an entire brand toolkit for us. So these are other treatments. Uh we have a white logo, we have a black and white logo, and then we have a logo without a gradient as well. Um so these are just different ways to use this on different branding items. And another thing she created for us is called a lockup. Um I I learned that term. So this is a way for departments to actually integrate their department name with the bicesentennial logo. So if a department wanted to do something with a bsentennial, they would be able to utilize this brand toolkit in order to

um create a logo for themselves. Actually had a meeting today with Megan and um an uh with Destination Arbor and they were very excited to to be using this logo. So any questions before I move on to the next step? Yeah. Um the upper peninsula. Oh boy. Where's Gray? it is. [laughter] So, uh, yes, Administrator Dill um did point out that the upper peninsula is missing. Um, it is something we can add if if we if we feel very strongly about the upper peninsula. Yes. Okay.

It it's 11:22. I I I didn't mean to pile on, but as long as that's been acknowledged, that'd be great. Thank you. I will get back to you on the upper peninsula inclusion. I will I promise you I'll get back to you on that one. Anyone else? I mean, I I think it I I think it's really unique. I think it's um I I think it fits the theme really well, and I think it's just it's like something I haven't seen before, which is why I really liked it. Cool. Okay. So, um last thing I'm going to talk to you guys about are events. So, this work really started with a very big brainstorm um of the working group and what what we really um kind of pulled out from that was seasonal events. Um so, starting with a state of the county address, uh we have finalized the date for that. That's going to be on Monday, April 13th. It's going to be at Morris Lawrence. Um we're we've been uh having really great conversations with Washnau Community College. Uh President Balanca is offering the space to us uh in kind. So we're very excited and thankful for that opportunity. Um and so Irene is really going to be helping us build this with the past piece. So really at that event we hope to showcase the past, showcase the present on what the good work that the county is doing. Departments have already submitted items that they would really like highlighted at this event. Um and also looking to that to the to the future of the county as well. Um the next item is what I spoke about earlier uh with Megan. Uh so we've been working with parks to we really want to highlight all of the art that is in county and our parks. So we're working with Destination Arbor to actually create a map, an interactive

map of the art that exists along all of the county parks. This is a good way to bring the entire county together. Um, so we'll we'll make sure we're representing Westside, East Side, and Central um, Ann Arbor. That is still in creation, but we're excited about it. The other thing we're excited about with this is um we're going to be attempting to do a call out to artists to actually create um a sculpture uh a new piece of art that would that would live in one of our county parks um for the rest of the year, potentially forever. Um but it depends on what the art work actually looks like at the end of the day. The other piece I want to include there is we've been in we've been having conversations with the African-American cultural and history museum um to actually do an art exhibit at their new museum space uh in Pittsfield Township. So those conversations have been going well. We're very excited to work with them. Um art was something that came up a lot in that brainstorming session. So we wanted to make sure that we highlighted that in the bsentennial. Uh the third event um we've been we're in talks with MSU extension to partner with them on the 4 youth fair. Uh we thought it was really important to highlight the agricultural past of county. Um MSU extension has been fabulous. A part of this conversation um has also been driven by commissioner light. She feels very she is very excited about and feels strongly about doing a youth rodeo. Um it is something that the 4 youth fair has been wanting to incorporated into that event for quite some time. Uh so we've talked with them. They're excited about it. They're also excited about the opportunity to actually um provide transportation for people from all over the county to actually attend this event because it is at the farm council grounds, but ensuring that um people from all over the county are actually able to get there is something that's really important. Um and last but not least, we we also really zeroed in on the uh East Side Wreck as a as a legacy project for the bsentennial work. Um clearly

it's an incredibly important capital project that the countyy's working on. Um the idea around this is to essentially raise money that would go towards those endowments. So providing those free memberships for individuals who live in the community who aren't actually, you know, who might who may not be able to actually afford memberships. So we we have talked to Megan about that as well. They are establishing a 501c3 that we could actually use to raise money for that endowment. Um, the other pieces I just want to I I feel like there's so many other things I want to say, but the only other thing that I will add here is the other conversation we've been having with African-American Cultural and History Museum um to do more of the um uh Underground Railroad tours that we did earlier this year. So, that is something we want to provide to people, community members. Um, so we're working on doing multiple events that would be walking tours um in Water Hill, Kerry Town area, but also across the county. Um, so, you know, lastly, I just want to say this is it's it's a lot of um it's a lot of logistics. I would say the partners we've been working with are amazing and they're making it all really doable for us. Um, but I also want to thank you like this was clearly a priority for you. you did allocate up up to $200,000 for this event. And one of the ways we've talked about using those dollars is to ensure that this is an inclusive and equitable event. We do not want anyone to have to pay for any of these events unless they are donating money to the legacy project. So come our way for that one. But otherwise, we really want this to be uh an equitable event over the course of the year. So, I will I will end there and I'll be happy to answer the questions that I can answer.

Okay. I have a quick question. I had the state of the county on March 12th. Yes. We Yep. We So, we we pushed it back a little bit just to ensure that we could do it correctly. So, we're working with an AV team, Russell Video. They're a local team. They're going to be creating some actual like video content for us. And in order to do that, we just needed to make sure that there was enough time to get all of that video recording in. All of you will be asked to uh sit in front of sit in their studio. So for that scheduling ask, I I will work on that. I had a scheduling ask for March 12th, but not for April. Yes. [laughter] Yes.

Uh so I'll do what I can do. Um thank you. Um, and I also was going to note that I uh uh some maybe things about also I really want to highlight when I read the book about the history of county, there was a lot of feature about the Underground Railroad in Commissioner Beman's district 2. Yes. Featured super prominently. So, I just want to make sure like if we're having a talk about that, we recognize that. Absolutely. I will say uh Derek Jackson, our racial equity officer, has been involved in these conversations and it's something that he has he has brought up a few times. We want to make sure we're getting out to Manchester because there is a deep history in Manchester.

Super deep and really interesting with like the mill out there and Henry Ford and a whole bunch of stuff I never knew. Commissioner Sanders [clears throat] curious as to whether or not we're um soliciting corporate support. That is an excellent question. So yes, I mean the the short answer is yes. The longer answer is I think it depends on how strongly you all feel about that. So in my opinion I I believe that we should be soliciting corporate sponsorship. Believe we have to be spending other people's money. Absolutely. I that benefit in our county.

I I will also say that is the precedent for events like state of the county. They are often sponsored um like Oakland County, Wayne County, they are often sponsored by corporations. So that would actually help us free up more of that budget to to ensure that we are either giving it, you know, to East Side W or we're able to spend more on making those events equitable and inclusive. Let me know if you need help. Oh, I will. Commissioner Hodgej,

thank you, Sher. Uh thank you Ashley for the presentation. Not a question. Just I want to thank you for your leadership on this. This is a huge undertaking and we only get one shot at it. So I appreciate uh how thoughtful you've been in leading us uh on this and moving the date out uh so we can make sure we do it right. That was the idea. Thank you, Commissioner Machias. Just wanted to note I hope you're going to include Gordon Hall as well in the Underground Railroad. Yeah. Um stuff in Dexter. Yep. And as well I I think maybe the I fully support adding the UP to the logo. Okay.

Right. But I think that the creator of the logo was thinking more on the 1826 side because the Toledo War wasn't actually until 1835. So the UP wasn't really part of Michigan until 1836. This is a really good reasoning. Um but I fully support including the UP. I just want to say you're jogging my memory. She did say that during the during the conversation. Wow. I com I I I blanked on that one. No, she did. She Look, she was incred she was very good at what she does. Let me just put it that way. She's very thoughtful. Okay, Commissioner RPY, in that case, I want to make sure that the state of Michigan outline includes the Toledo Strip. [laughter]

I think I'd rather include the Upper Peninsula. Okay. Yeah, [laughter] let's include both. Let's be bold. Yeah. Uh I think the quick thing I just want to say, this is sort of a tangent. I appreciate all the work that you're doing. My issue with uh you know soliciting corporate contributions, I do have an issue with that uh because mostly because I don't want to like do advertising work for them. I don't like going you know I don't want uh the East Side Rec Center sponsored by BT Energy. That sure that does not ring true to me. So I but so a conversation for another time but thank you for your work on this. Of course.

Any other questions or comments? Commissioner Labar. Yeah, Ashley. Uh, the peninsula se question aside, I really appreciate the work you've done on this. Quite obvious that you guys have put a lot into it. So, thanks so much for that. Thank you, Commissioner. I'm really excited about it and I was really excited for this presentation this evening. So, thank you. Of course. Oh, sorry, Commissioner Somerville. It's okay. Thank you. It was so shy in Demir.

Um, you know how I feel about a bsentennial. Love it. Um, is it possible to request that like one or two members of the youth commission actually has a speaking role at the state of the county? Wow. You guys have So, administrator D, we had this conversation. Um, yeah. He thought that it was very important to include a member of our youth and to highlight a member of our youth. And so we the way we were thinking about that was I mean that's really the possible version of this, right? Like our our children are our future for lack of a better term. Um and and ensuring that we highlight the youth of our community was really important to him. So right on target. Yeah.

Any other questions, comments or concerns? Mer just want to talk about that offline so we can you know navigate that. Identify the right individual. Yes. Sure. Absolutely. Yep. Okay, fantastic. Commissioner Robbie, one more quick thing which is uh we were talking about Underground Railroad. I also think it's important to highlight our history in the Civil War and the role that in Arbor and Washna County and Ipsilani played in that. Okay. Um I Irene does have a pretty good list going. Um I and I'm sure that's on it, but I will make sure that that's on it. Of course. Okay. Thanks, Ashley. Thank you all. I really appreciate your

thanks for doing a presentation for us at 11:30 at night. Okay. Um that is the end of the report from the chair. Uh there is no special order of business. Would somebody like to move the appointments? Great. Any discussion? Great. That's a roll call. Brendan. Commissioner Beaman. Yes. Commissioner Hodgej. Yes. Commissioner Labar. Yes. Commissioner Light. Yes. Commissioner Machets. Yes. [clears throat] Commissioner Robbie. Commissioner Sanders. Yes. Commissioner Scott. Yes. Commissioner Somerville. Yes.

Motion carries. Fantastic. Thank you everyone. Next item is the consent agenda. So move support. Um any discussion? Uh, all those in favor, please say I. I. Any oppose? Thank you. That item passes. Uh, there are no first readings. There's no final readings. Everything is a single reading. Would somebody like to move the single readings? Commissioner Lavar.

Sure. Under single readings 3A, a resolution ratifying the signature of the county administrator on the uh attorney general uh sexual assault kit initiative grant. B. A resolution authorizing the 2026 remmonumentation grant from water resources. C. A resolution approving the bylaws of the public safety millillage advisory committee. D. A resolution amending the 2026 board calendar. E. A resolution in support of Michigan House Bills 5152 and 5153. F. A resolution opposing ballot proposals that would impose documentary proof of citizenship requirements to create barriers to voting in Michigan. G resolution uh on women's Heron Valley Correctional Facility. H under the supplemental the resolution in opposition to ICE and would move approval of claims under item four.

All right. Any discussion on any item here? Commissioner Labar. Uh, just a quick thank you to Corporation Council and everybody for their work on on all these resolutions. Thanks so much, Commissioner Robbie. I just want to quickly make sure for the clerk's purposes and for all of our purposes that the version that was moved is the one with the two red items on the middle pages. you and I just wanted to thank all of my colleagues who worked on this for their diligence in getting this done and to corporation council. That was it. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks. Uh, all right. We'll do a roll call vote. Commissioner Hatch, yes. Commissioner Labar, yes. Commissioner Light. Commissioner Macheski, yes. Commissioner Robbie. Uh, I am a yes on everything except item C, the bylaws for the public safety millage advisory committee. Commissioner Sanders. Yes. Commissioner Scott. Yes.

Commissioner Somerville. I'm a yes on everything except for item D. Commissioner Bean. Yes. Motions carry. Thank you very much. Um, next item on our agenda is a close session. Commissioner Hodgej. Thank you, Chair. I move that we go into close session to discuss the labor negotiation strategy.

All right. Uh boy. Uh roll call. Roll call. Commissioner Labar. Yes. Commissioner Light. No. Commissioner Macheski. Yes. Commissioner Robbie. Yes. Commissioner Sanders. I didn't know we could say no. [laughter] Yes. Commissioner Scott. Yes. Commissioner Somerville. No. Commissioner Bean. Yes. Commissioner Hut. Yes. Motion carries. All right. Let's go. See you back.

I have a personal

There was a point in the meeting

um changed character a lot menopause but at one point um my friend used to call me a lot. So quite as lovely as it was. I'm sure the farm was it was always going to be. It's always going to be. Hope no trees live on us.

Can I call order? Going to call I'm going to call the meeting back to order. Um next item on the agenda. Any other items for current and future discussion? I don't see any. Uh, no, there are no pending items. Uh, do I have a motion to adjurnn? All those in favor? All right, everyone. See you next week.